The Turn of The Key

After the girls go to bed, Rowan grabs her pajamas from her room and takes her duvet down to the media room. She falls asleep watching TV, only to wake up, she says, “with a sense of complete disorientation” (251) in the morning. Ellie and one of the dogs are on top of her. She uses her inhaler and wakes Ellie. As she lifts the duvet to get up, the doll’s head from the attic rolls onto the floor. She feels fear wash over her and faintly hears Ellie asking if she’s okay. She manages to respond and wonders how it got there and whether she could have somehow gone up to the attic herself—since the key is still in her pocket. When Ellie goes to pick up the head, Rowan frantically yells at her to stop, which scares Ellie and sends her running up the stairs crying. Rowan scolds herself for ruining a breakthrough with Ellie but also determines that she has to get rid of the head.

Rowan uses a plastic bag to pick up the head so as not to touch it directly. When she picks it up, it cuts her finger, and she realizes it’s made of painted glass.