The Hazel Wood

This chapter is Finch’s telling of “The Door That Wasn’t There.” Anya and Lisbet are two sisters who live in the Hinterland. A year separates them in age. Their father is a merchant who travels on long journeys, and their mother is emotionally distant, locking herself into a room in their house often. Once, the mother locks herself away for three days; when they finally break through the door, she is gone; a puddle of blood and a dagger made of bone lie on the floor. After many months, the father returns with a new wife. When the father starts traveling again, the stepmother takes to locking the girls in the bloodstained room and going away for hours at a time. Eventually, she locks the girls in with the intention of never returning; after three days Anya sees through the window the servants leaving and knows that she and Lisbet will die locked in the room.

In the night, the bloodstain tells her to make the outline of a door in blood and say a spell. Anya, terrified to spill her own blood, says they must use Lisbet’s. She draws the door, casts the spell, and opens a door into the land of Death.