The Changeling: A Novel

Apollo does chores around the island, taking care of the children. He meets Gayl’s family. He reads Outside Over There to Gayl and helps her with her chores, and he begins to genuinely enjoy himself.

Gayl insists on staying up with Apollo past her bedtime. They go together to the library for the puppet show later that night. Gretta Wheeler arrives right before the show starts. Apollo tries to introduce himself to her, but Gretta is agitated that William has arrived at the island and Cal deflects her attention away from Apollo. Apollo wants to corroborate William’s story about his dead daughter, but this frustrates Gretta, who begins to lose control of her emotions and speaks loudly and angrily, scaring the children as she says that William killed their daughter, Agnes. She also says that even though she does her best to hide from him, he always finds her; he recently found her new address and sent her a book. He defaced the book by scrawling their dead daughter’s name, Agnes, on every page. William had also stolen all of Gretta’s money from her bank account: He had taken $70,000 in total.