Backpacking Through Bedlam

**Spoiler warning!**
Ahead are significant plot details from the InCryptid novel, **Backpacking Through Bedlam** (2023). Read at your own peril!

## Story Info

### Primary Setting

Other Worlds
Buckley Township, Michigan
Manhattan, New York City

## Continuity

### Novella

The Mysteries of the Stolen God and Where His Waffles Went

**Backpacking Through Bedlam** is the twelfth book in the InCryptid series by Seanan McGuire. It features Alice Price-Healy and follows her return to Earth with her husband Thomas Price.

## Synopsis

With the wonders of the cosmos open to them, Thomas and Alice Price have returned to the most exciting place they could think of: home.

But it's been a while, and they're out of step. What's more, trouble is brewing in New York, trouble that threatens both their family and the fragile peace they've been maintaining for generations. Time to get weird.

## Plot

**Prologue:** On Alice and Thomas’s first wedding anniversary, Alice gets lost in the swamp of the Galway Wood and is hunted by boo hags. She calls upon Mary to help her get home.

**Chapter 1:** Thomas, Alice, and Sally fight a giant mole-creature in one of the dimensions they are traveling through with the bottle world refugees. Alice feels jealous at Thomas and Sally’s closeness.

**Chapter 2:** Alice and Sally search for a good place to camp for the night.

**Chapter 3:** Alice talks with the mice and then picks a fight with Thomas. They are interrupted by giant bats attacking the camp. Alice puts herself in harm’s way to lure the creature before Thomas kills it with fire.

**Chapter 4:** They travel next to Pteracercus, the bug dimension once visited by Sarah, Artie, and Annie. They face giant spiders before meeting the sapient locals, who agree to take them to meet their Lilu-descended leader.

**Chapter 5:** They speak with Kenneth, leader of the sapient population, and realizes Sarah has been in this dimension. Alice, Thomas, and Sally also talk about where they will go once they return to Earth.

**Chapter 6:** They leave all the remaining refugees with Kenneth’s community. Thomas creates a portal to Ithaca but collapses upon arrival; Phoebe and Helen patch him up before helping the three take one final portal to Earth.

**Chapter 7:** They arrive at Alice and Thomas’s home in Buckley and get themselves situated inside. Thomas collapses on the couch. Alice introduces Sally to the Aeslin colony.

**Chapter 8:** Alice calls Cynthia for food delivery, then shares some of her family history with Sally regarding the Covenant and Thomas’s arrival in Buckley. Cynthia arrives and is pissed that Alice has brought Thomas, a man of interest to the Covenant, onto her doorstep. The Covenant has been encroaching on America since Alice was home last.

**Chapter 9:** Rose comes to visit, both to welcome Thomas home and because the Ocean Lady sent her. Their help is needed in New York City where the Covenant has formally declared war on the Price family.

**Chapter 10:** They convince Cynthia to take Sally clothes shopping, and Alice tells Thomas about the months after giving birth to Jane, which culminated a Covenant attack in which the Covenant was tricked into thinking Alice, Kevin, and Jane were all dead. In the end, Laura fled with the children while Alice finally managed to make contact with Naga.

**Chapter 11:** Mary joins them in the present and reunites with Thomas. She confirms that they are going to New York to help the family currently under Covenant siege.

In the morning, a routewitch is waiting to drive the three humans to New York. He catches them up on the latest Covenant activity since the burning of the Freakshow. He drops them off on a random corner of the Meatpacking District in Manhattan.

**Chapter 12:** Alice calls on Mary, who leads them into the dragon’s warehouse. They are greeted by Verity, Dominic, and their daughter Olivia.

**Chapter 13:** Verity catches them up on Covenant activity in New York. Then Alice catches Thomas and Sally up on family dynamics in the latest generations. Then Alice and Sally go on a pizza run, but Sally disapppears while Alice’s back is turned.

**Chapter 14:** Alice calls upon Mary, who sends her throught the subway and into Koreatown to find Sally. They find Sally being held captive by a group of yong. The yong know the European dragons have found a male of their species and want help locating their own males. Alice promises to speak to the Nestmother on their behalf, and they release Sally.

**Chapter 15:** They return to the warehouse, where the dragons are in an uproar. A van of their people, including several young male and female dragons, has gone missing and presumed captured by the Covenant. The dragons suspect Thomas has sold them out and must be convinced otherwise. After they calm down and leave, Alice acknowledges Sarah who is hiding in a corner.

**Chapter 16:** The humans all consult on where to look for the missing dragons. They split up into several strike teams with Alice, Thomas, Dominic, Sally, Ryan, and Istas taking on a Covenant group that contains Margaret Healy. They go to the Strand Bookstore.

**Chapter 17:** Margaret encounters Alice in the bookstore bathroom and Alice allows herself to be captured.

**Chapter 18:** Alice wakes up tied to a chair and overseen by Margaret. After Margaret leaves the room, Alice breaks herself out of the chair and room. She finds the young dragons and releases them as well.

**Chapter 19:** Alice finds and releases Cara next. Cara runs back to the children, and the Covenant operatives finally notice their escapees. Alice breaks one of the agent’s telepathy blockers, and soon Alice senses Sarah’s approach with backup. Thomas and the rest of the team arrive and subdue the three agents. They leave Sarah alone with the agents, and one of them begins to scream.

**Chapter 20:** They take the dragon children home via underground passages. Back at the warehouse, Verity shares plans to take out the other three Covenant teams in Manhattan and asks Alice and Thomas to join one of the strikes. Sally finally gets her pizza.

**Chapter 21:** With Sarah’s directional help, Thomas, Alice, and Sally find the uptown Covenant team in an apartment. A fight breaks out and although they win, Sally is seriously injured.

**Chapter 22:** They take Sally to St. Giles hospital, where she is healed by the Caladrius. Alice, Thomas, and Sally discuss returning to Buckley, picking up new IDs in Vegas, and then finally meeting up with the rest of the family in Portland. They are ready to go home.

## Characters

**Major**

* Alice Price-Healy
* Mary Dunlavy
* Thomas Price
* Sally Henderson Price - The Conscripted Priestess
* Sarah Zellaby
* Verity Price-De Luca
* Dominic Price

**Minor**

* Unnamed bottle world refugees, including Lilu-descended Murrays
* Kenneth and Ciferol, residents of Pteracercus
* Helen and Phoebe
* Cynthia
* Rose Marshall
* Laura Campbell (flashback)
* Veronica Bell (flashback)
* Kevin and Jane (flashback)
* Darius the routewitch
* Priscilla / Pris
* Olivia Price, nicknamed Olive
* Kitty the bogeyman
* Cara the dragon princess
* Kris, Liam, and the other dragon children
* Istas and Ryan
* Unnamed yong females
* Margaret Healy (“Peg” to a fellow agent)
* Agent Bell
* Various unnamed Covenant agents, including an umbramancer
* Dr. Morrow

**Mentioned**

* Enid Healy
* Alexander Healy
* Jonathan Healy
* Frances Healy
* Sunny the boo hag
* Earl the Loveland frogman
* Aldo, a friend who helps cull the swamp hag population (presumably Aldo Gucciard)
* Naga
* Evelyn, Ted, Elsie, Artie, Annie, Sam, James
* Big Al
* Gucciard family
* Bobby Cross
* Persephone, the Ocean Lady, and the anima mundi, Hades, the Old Atlantic Highway
* Apple
* Alex, Shelby, and Charlotte Price
* Angela Baker, Martin, and young cuckoo refugees
* William

## Field Guide

* Babysitter Ghost/ Nanny Ghost / Crossroads Ghost
* Swamp Hag
* Aeslin Mice
* Huldra
* Tailypo
* Lilu
* Various alien species
* Dragon
* Hitchhiker / Fury
* Umbramancer
* Routewitch
* Sorcerer
* Bogeyman
* Tanuki
* Waheela
* Caladrius
* Yong

**Mentioned**

* Swamp Bromeliad (species)
* Jackalope
* Boo hag
* Loveland frogman
* Jink
* Mara
* Fortuna
* Dire Boar
* Kumiho, a Korean/East Asian cryptid (Ch. 12)
* Titanoboa, the snake creature Verity fought on Dance or Die (Ch. 13)
* Long and Tatsu, other dragon-like species

## Locations

* Buckley Township, Michigan
	+ Galway Woods
	+ The Old Parrish Place/ Alice and Thomas’s home
	+ Red Angel
	+ Bronson’s Diner
	+ Abandoned farmhouse
* Various semi-hostile dimensions
	+ Unnamed dimension with giant moles and bats
	+ Pteracercus, the bug dimension
	+ Ithaca
* Manhattan, New York City
	+ Meatpacking District
	+ St. Giles Hospital
	+ Koreatown
	+ The Freakshow (mentioned, burned down)
	+ Times Square neighborhood
	+ Subway system

**Mentioned**

* Various Other Worlds
	+ Lemure
	+ Johrlar
	+ Empusa
		- University of K’larth
* Family compound in Portland, Oregon
* Las Vegas
* New Gravesend, Maine
* The Twilight
* Columbus, Ohio
* Penton Hall, England

## Continuity

### Past

* Naga was introduced to Alice when he was summoned by a snake cult.
* Alice exchanged letters back and forth with Naga in the two years between coming home from college and Jonathan’s death.
* Verity announced the family’s presence to the Covenant on live TV.
* Annie destroyed the Crossroads with James’s help.
* Everything went topsy-turvy in the Ghost World after Annie destroyed the Crossroads, and Rose become a Fury.
* The Covenant attack on the Buckley home, frequently referenced and finally fully recounted.
* Apple’s ascension as Queen of the Routewitches is part of the Ghost Roads series.
* Alice encountered Annie in the Red Angel after the Crossroads were destroyed.
* Alice and Thomas beat each other up to confirm one another’s identities.
* Reference to encountering Kevin in his kitchen.
* Margaret failed her first mission in New York.
* Sarah can teleport now, and her telepathy range extends to the entire tri-state area.
* Reference to how Alice dealt with her father’s grave.

## Trivia

* A misprint of the first edition depicts Alice and Thomas’s tattoos in a purple marker-like texture.

## Quotes

### Aeslin Rituals

**Main article: Aeslin Mice - Rites & Proverbs**

### Pop culture

* Tower of Babel
* Wizard of Oz
* Axe (brand)
* Odysseus and Penelope
* Leverage

## References

1. ↑ https://www.tumblr.com/seananmcguire/712341008194650112/hey-just-wanted-to-share-that-i-got-another-weird?source=share&fbclid=IwAR3PTzrRx3g10Yqcs189z1aCKVdpvWnPZPqbc6NLU4ET5doqf7DVdW1nA1s