Opening
A kidnapped girl fights her way out of a basement while, years later, a family searching for a fresh start moves into a Maine house haunted by grief, secrets, and a neighbor’s murder. The narratives collide through mounting dread, contested memories, and a woman from the past who insists the family’s marriage begins with a theft.
What Happens
Chapter 1–3: Delilah’s Escape
Delilah narrates from a lightless basement where she and a younger boy, Gus, live on a concrete floor in one set of clothes, eating mush from a dog bowl and sharing a toilet in the dark. Their captors—an unnamed “lady” who mocks and belittles, and a man Delilah calls Eddie—enforce obedience through deprivation and fear. Moments of counterfeit “kindness,” like a blanket or a candy bar, sharpen the cruelty of their captivity and erode Delilah’s sense of time and self.
Determined to protect Gus and get out, Delilah steals a metal spoon after a feeding and hides it. Against the rough underside of the toilet tank lid, she grinds the spoon into a blade over countless stolen moments. The lady taunts her with newspaper clippings about Delilah’s disappearance and insists no one is looking anymore—fuel for Delilah’s resolve to become an agent of her own survival.
When Eddie sneaks down alone with a candy bar after a starvation punishment, Delilah acts. As he leans in, whispering unsettling praise, she drives the sharpened spoon into his neck and side, again and again. Screaming and bleeding, he doesn’t fall; the struggle turns frantic. Delilah yells for Gus, they bolt upstairs, unlock a door, and burst into the night. In the woods, they split in the chaos; Delilah dives into a backyard shed as Eddie closes in. Hiding, she listens—until the lady’s voice confirms they’ve caught Gus. Delilah remains free but gutted, vowing to survive for him.
Chapter 4: Sadie’s New Beginning
The narration shifts to Sadie Foust in the present as she, her husband Will Foust, and their sons—fourteen-year-old Otto Foust and seven-year-old Tate—arrive at the cold, coastal house in Maine they inherit after Will’s sister, Alice, dies by suicide. They also assume guardianship of Alice’s sixteen-year-old daughter, Imogen, who answers their arrival with a hostile, “Stay the fuck away from me.” The move is supposed to be a clean slate after Will’s affair, but the house feels like an intrusion rather than refuge.
Seven weeks pass. Imogen’s hostility keeps the household on edge. One frosty morning, Sadie finds the word “Die” traced on her car window and immediately suspects Imogen. Will floats another possibility: a bully targeting Otto, a reminder of a Chicago incident they’d hoped to leave behind. They settle on quiet investigation—Will will talk to Imogen and the school—rather than calling the police, a choice that exposes stress fractures in their marriage and a family culture of containment.
At the clinic where she works, Sadie takes a breathless call from Will: the siren that woke them the previous night wasn’t for an elderly neighbor. Their neighbor up the hill, Morgan Baines, is dead—murdered. The domestic unease sharpens into danger.
Chapter 5: Camille’s Introduction
A flashback voice enters: Camille, seductive, bitter, and unreliable. On a gritty Chicago street, a handsome stranger—Will—hauls her out of a taxi’s path. Over coffee, she feels chemistry spark. She describes herself as the opposite of her roommate, Sadie: flashy where Sadie is plain, reckless where Sadie is careful. She steals Sadie’s clothes and swipes her credit card without guilt.
Infatuated, Camille invites Will to an engagement party that night for Sadie’s friends, planning to meet him there. She never makes it. Sadie does. Will and Sadie meet at the party instead. Camille closes the chapter with a razor line: “He was mine before he was hers.” The foundation of Will and Sadie’s marriage suddenly tilts, re-framed as a story of chance, grievance, and a woman who refuses to let go.
Character Development
These chapters establish a triad of narrators whose voices shape, distort, and drive the mystery forward.
- Delilah: From captive to strategist, she transforms into a survivor who weaponizes patience, grit, and a spoon. Gus becomes her purpose; his recapture hardens her resolve.
- Sadie Foust: Anxious, protective, and alert to threat. The car-window message and the neighbor’s murder amplify her mistrust—of the house, of Imogen, and of Will.
- Will Foust: Polished peacemaker. He minimizes conflict, deflects suspicion from Imogen, and clings to the promise of a “fresh start,” hinting at a history of concealment.
- Imogen: Raw grief calcifies into rage. She resists the Fousts’ authority and instantly emerges as a volatile force within the household.
- Camille: Calculating and possessive. Her version of the past centers her as the wronged party, positioning her as an active threat to Will and Sadie’s life together.
- Gus: Frightened and younger, he personifies the innocence Delilah fights to protect; his loss propels her into the unknown.
Themes & Symbols
The opening weaves a study of captivity, grief, and the stories people tell themselves to survive. Trauma and Its Lasting Effects saturates Delilah’s chapters, where deprivation blurs time, identity, and hope. In Maine, trauma echoes in quieter registers—Imogen’s rage after Alice’s death, Otto’s history of bullying, and the fracture left by Will’s affair in Sadie’s mind.
Multiple narrators force competing truths. Through clashing voices—Delilah’s stark immediacy, Sadie’s anxious vigilance, Camille’s seductive grievance—the book probes Unreliable Perception and Memory. Secrets become currency: Will’s smoothing-over contrasts with the menace of the “Die” message and the withheld truth about the siren, highlighting Deception and Manipulation as both a domestic habit and a community danger.
- The Basement: A concrete emblem of stolen childhood, invisibility, and dehumanization. Delilah’s sharpened spoon turns that space from tomb to battleground.
- The Inherited House: A supposed refuge that houses grief (Alice), hostility (Imogen), and threat (Morgan’s murder). It doesn’t cleanse the past; it concentrates it.
Key Quotes
“Stay the fuck away from me.”
Imogen’s first words set the temperature of the household. Her unfiltered hostility signals unresolved grief and a refusal to accept the Fousts’ authority, injecting conflict into every subsequent scene.
“Die.”
The single word etched in frost compresses menace into one syllable. It transforms everyday routine into threat and forces Sadie to question whether danger comes from inside the house or the town surrounding it.
“He was mine before he was hers.”
Camille reframes the origin of Will and Sadie’s marriage as theft rather than fate. The claim fuels jealousy, invites suspicion about her motives, and injects instability into the love story at the heart of the family.
The lady calls Delilah “Dipshit” and “Retard.”
The demeaning language reveals systematic dehumanization. It underscores Delilah’s isolation and makes her act of self-defense feel not only desperate but necessary.
Why This Matters and Section Significance
These chapters lock in the novel’s structure and stakes. Delilah’s visceral escape sequence delivers immediate danger and a past crime that demands resolution, while the Maine timeline threads dread into domestic life—marital fractures, a hostile teenager, and a neighbor’s murder. Camille’s flashback then destabilizes the couple’s origin story, planting doubt about every narrator and every “fact” the book presents.
Together, the strands set up intersecting mysteries—Who held Delilah? What happened to Gus? Who killed Morgan Baines? What does Camille want?—and establish a world where survival hinges on reading people correctly when everyone has a reason to lie.