Opening
Shaken by what she believes she hears across the street, Anna Fox drinks, dissociates, and doubles down on her fixation—then chooses the very path that will erode her credibility. As she reaches out online to help someone else, she finally turns inward, unlocking the first full flashback to the wound at the center of her life. These chapters pivot the book from a mystery about the neighbors to a mystery about Anna herself.
What Happens
Chapter 26: The Poison Tree
Reeling from screams at the Russell house, Anna staggers through her brownstone and into the shower, where her thoughts splinter: she sees Ethan Russell crying; remembers Dr. Fielding’s warnings and the hands of her physical therapist Bina; relives the confusing night Jane Russell visited; hears her estranged husband Ed Fox on the phone; recalls her tenant David Winters with a knife; and the raw pleas of Alistair Russell. The montage mirrors her destabilized mind.
She admits she abuses her meds despite Dr. Fielding’s cautions about “powerful psychotropics,” imagining something poisonous rooting inside her. Under the steam, she notices her fingers have been tracing a single name, over and over, into the fogged glass: Jane Russell. The obsession is involuntary—and it tightens its grip.
Chapter 27: Too Much Stimulation
After a twelve-hour blackout sleep, Anna wakes hungover and tries to talk herself down. She rebrands the screams as a “domestic dispute,” insists it’s “none of my business,” and diagnoses her fixation on the new neighbors as “too much stimulation.” She vows to disengage, framing withdrawal as self-care.
Dr. Fielding calls to confirm she filled her new prescription—the one Jane picked up. His gentle check-in turns firm: “These pills are not to be taken with alcohol.” The warning lands with clinical gravity, and the scene plants a clear fuse the story is about to light.
Chapter 28: Gaslight
Anna lights it immediately. In the kitchen, she swallows the new pills with merlot, mentally excusing herself with a flourish of George Bernard Shaw: alcohol is the anesthesia that makes life bearable. The choice underscores her self-sabotage and marks her narration as actively compromised.
She logs on to the Agora forum, glances across to the Russell windows—just Ethan and Alistair lit by their devices—and says, “Goodbye, Russells.” She turns to the TV and chooses a pointed title: the classic thriller Gaslight, in which a husband manipulates his wife’s sanity. The movie becomes a mirror for Anna’s mounting fear of her own mind and the novel’s growing fixation on Perception vs. Reality.
Chapter 29: A Victim of Circumstance
On Agora, Anna exchanges messages with “GrannyLizzie,” another agoraphobic user. Slipping into the professional cadence she once owned, Anna reassures her: “You are NOT a freak. You are a victim of circumstance.” She validates coping strategies, praises seeking help, and models empathy—proof she still knows how to heal others even as she fails herself. The forum becomes a lifeline and a mask, a digital echo of Isolation and Agoraphobia.
Lizzie replies with gratitude—“No wonder you’re a psychologist”—then asks, “Do you have a family of your own?” The question freezes Anna mid-sip. She pours more wine, opens a new message, and begins to type the story she never tells: why she and her family no longer live together. The novel tips into its first major flashback.
Chapter 30: The Girl Next Door
The flashback traces a December trip to a Vermont ski resort—ten days after Ed’s decision to separate. In the car, the air crackles with adult tension while their daughter, Olivia Fox, chatters, unaware. The road climbs, narrow and steep, and the fear that grips Anna and Olivia feels like an omen: a family edging toward a drop-off they can’t see.
At the Fisher Arms inn, the thaw never comes. While Anna scoops ice from a machine in the hall, Ed arrives with a verdict: he can’t maintain the “happy-family holiday” and wants to tell Olivia the truth now. Anna begs for time; Ed insists the “healing” should begin immediately. Ice scatters across the carpet, melting into the moment’s cold clarity.
Then the line that breaks everything: when Anna warns, “Don’t blame me when she’s upset,” Ed answers quietly, “I do blame you.” He adds that he once saw her as “the girl next door” and now can “barely look” at her. The admission exposes a core of blame and shame at the heart of Anna’s Grief and Trauma. Together, they turn toward Olivia’s room—and toward impact.
Character Development
Anna’s dual nature sharpens: lucid, insightful, and capable of caring for others online; reckless, avoidant, and compulsively fixated in private. The flashback finally anchors her current collapse in a specific marital wound.
- Anna Fox: Names her “poison tree,” then feeds it—mixing meds with alcohol, watching Gaslight, and spiraling into obsession even as she tries to disengage.
- Ed Fox: Appears not as a voice but as a man past patience—controlled, exhausted, and openly blaming Anna, a truth that reframes their separation.
- Olivia Fox: Bright, imaginative, and tender, she intensifies the tragedy of the parental rift by simply existing in its path.
Themes & Symbols
These chapters braid Anna’s unraveling to questions of what can be trusted—memory, perception, or even narrative. Gaslight operates as a meta-text, casting doubt over Anna’s senses while the story invites us to question what we’ve seen and heard alongside her. Online, Anna performs competence and compassion; offline, she sabotages herself—an emblem of isolation’s distortions and the gap between expertise and action.
Marital blame surfaces as the engine of her grief: not just loss, but the corrosive conviction that she caused it. Symbols press this mood into the physical world—the “poison tree” rooting inside Anna; the icy, treacherous mountain road; the malfunctioning ice machine and scattered cubes; the glow of the Russell windows; and the film itself, a frame-by-frame reminder that reality can be staged.
Key Quotes
“These pills are not to be taken with alcohol.” Dr. Fielding’s blunt directive sets a hard boundary Anna immediately crosses, foreshadowing both plot consequences and the erosion of her reliability. The warning becomes a test she fails on purpose.
“Alcohol is the anesthesia by which we endure the operation of life.” Quoting Shaw, Anna intellectualizes self-harm as philosophy. The line disguises compulsion as coping, revealing how she turns erudition into permission.
“Goodbye, Russells.” Her farewell reads as an oath to look away—but it’s performative. The obsession persists, and the line underlines the gap between what Anna declares and what she does.
“You are NOT a freak. You are a victim of circumstance.” Anna’s clinician voice surfaces intact: precise, warm, and persuasive. She grants to a stranger the compassion she withholds from herself, heightening the pathos of her decline.
“Do you have a family of your own?” This simple question punctures her defenses, triggering the novel’s first full flashback. It proves how fragile Anna’s composure is—and how close the past lurks.
“I do blame you.” / “I once saw you as the girl next door. Now I can barely look at you.” Ed’s quiet cruelty is devastating because it is calm. The shift from idealization to revulsion crystallizes the moral injury at the center of Anna’s trauma.
Why This Matters and Section Significance
The story slides from the external mystery of the Russells into the internal mystery of Anna’s collapse. By choosing to mix medication and wine, Anna contaminates her own testimony—raising the stakes for every future observation. The Gaslight motif primes readers to question perception itself, while the Vermont flashback finally gives shape to the grief driving Anna’s isolation. Together, these chapters deepen character, darken tone, and set the stage for consequences that will hinge on whether anyone—reader included—can trust what Anna thinks she sees.