Chapter 4 Summary and Analysis

⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.

Summary

This chapter is epistolary—a letter from Willow to Dominic, dated forty-five days before her disappearance. Willow explains she is writing because her email bounced back, she doesn't have Dominic's brother's number, and Dominic has blocked her phone. She apologizes for their recent fight, acknowledging she called him a liar but now understands they perceived the same events differently.

Willow recounts that the night before she found the words on Jacob's bedroom floor—Dominic's last night in their home—she had a nightmare she hadn't experienced in decades. The dream involved a toy chest and a presence approaching, the same nightmare from her childhood that Dominic interviewed her about when they first met. In the dream, she is in Jacob's room, alone, and shoves the toy chest against the door to block the approaching thing.

After waking, Willow moved Jacob's toy chest and found the words