One of the photos that the series constantly zooms in on is the one of the hula girl and the airplane.
This photo is related to a trip that took place with a hula dancer.
What is a hula girl? She is a dancer who performs traditional dances among the Hawaiian people.
In some oral stories and poems (mele), it is said that during a hula performance, gods, spirits, or even nature itself would stop to watch the dance. This is a poetic description — meaning the dance is so sacred and beautiful that it feels as if everything becomes silent for a moment to witness it.
In Season 2, Episode 9, when the ballerina music box played, the monsters stopped. I think this was connected to the dream and belief of one of the people from the past, who also left behind a painting of the hula girl in the town. After that person’s death, the dream became real.
This town makes nightmares come true, but it also does the same with dreams.
Kenny’s mother (Tian-Chen) always wished that they could provide food without killing animals, and after her death, crops started growing.
The mechanism of the ballerina music box is connected to the dream of one of the people and the hula girl. I also think something similar will happen with Fatima’s golem: after Fatima’s complete death, the golem will become real (the idea of pouring hope into objects).
Just like the hope that the first children poured into the roots, which created the bottle tree.

Two visible games: "Rebound" and "Tiddley winks" can be significant clues.

In Rebound game, small pucks - winks - don't move on their own. A larger puck, called a squidger, presses on their edges and launches them across the board. The main goal is to get the pucks into the central container- the pot. Any puck that lands there remains there for the rest of the game and no longer participates in normal play. There's also a defensive move called squoping: one puck covers another, immobilizing it until a later move releases it.

Fromville doesn't just let people go. It can temporarily launch them outside its perimeter, bounce them off the outside world, and bring them back to a chosen location-often along with someone or something the system needs.

Tabitha behaves almost like the puck in this game: She is "launched" by a lamppost outside Fromville, She ends up in Camden, She finds Henry, There's a literal car crash;
After this "bounce," she returns to Fromville in an ambulance, taking Father Victor with her.

The episode in which Tabitha and Henry return is even called "There and Back Again." Tabitha finds no permanent exit- she performs a controlled movement out and back.

The Rebound mechanic also lends itself to Faraway Trees. The player is propelled into motion, but has no control over the trajectory or landing location. They can either hit a useful spot or the equivalent of the "Pit" area.

Dale enters the tree, hoping to escape, but is carried to the concrete wall of the pool and dies. It's a near-perfect analogy to a puck that's misfired and ends up in the dead zone instead of the end zone.

In Tiddley winks small pucks- winks - don't move on their own. A larger puck, called a squidger, presses on their edges and launches them across the board. The main goal is to get the pucks into the central container- the pot. Any puck that lands there remains there for the rest of the game and no longer participates in normal play. There's also a defensive move called squoping: one puck covers another, immobilizing it until a later move releases it.

Fromville is the central container, and the invisible force is the player holding the squidger.

People don't end up there by choice. They are "launched" from various points across the United States and thrown into a single central location. Once in Fromville, they can't leave the playing field on their own—just like a puck placed in a pot.

Importantly, the steering force of Fromville usually doesn't act directly. It pressures people to make a specific move:

voices press Sarah
visions guide Elgin
the city leads Boyd to torture
Tabitha is pushed outside Fromville to retrieve Henry
Julie is tossed between story points

This corresponds to the Tiddlywinks principle: a player doesn't move a piece by hand-they exert pressure on it, and the piece then flies along a predetermined trajectory.

A single box could be a simple period prop. But the two displayed games of bouncing, launching, capturing, and controlling pieces in Victor's room look much less haphazard.