Deep and Dark and Dangerous

Overnight, Emma develops a headache and significant fever, so Dulcie takes her to see a doctor. Ali stays behind with her copy of To Kill a Mockingbird, preferring the coziness of the warm cottage to the rain that continues to fall heavily outside. Sissy, still wearing Emma’s red sweatshirt, soon appears at the door and enters the cottage without waiting for an invitation. Despite Ali sending her away, she refuses to leave. Sissy says she retrieved the doll, Edith, from the lake and taunts Ali with it. Inciting Ali to “catch me if you can” (121), Sissy runs through the woods, taking the trail by the cliff. Ali follows her into the rain, convinced this time she will find where Sissy lives, speak to her parents, and put a stop to this menace in their lives.

In the distance, Ali struggles to keep track of Sissy and loses sight of her in an old graveyard. Ali panics at the sight of the tombstones and starts to run away until she sees the sweatshirt again. However, Sissy is no longer wearing it—instead it is hung on the hand of a stone angel with the inscription:

In Memory of Our Beloved Daughter and Sister

Teresa Abbott

March 11, 1967 to July 19, 1977