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

Chapter 4 opens with Francine reading tea leaves at her kitchen table, a practice she keeps private. Three cups of tea all show the same signs: a female visitor (which she takes to mean her sister Madeleine), clouds indicating trouble, and a comb—a symbol she has to look up in her mother's recipe book. The comb means an enemy, and the discovery unsettles her.

Her concentration is broken when Keefe O'Driscoll and Todd Constable arrive for breakfast. Keefe, a large young Irishman, is clumsy and talkative, while Todd is quieter and more observant. When Francine mentions that the clove incense burning in the kitchen is good for protection, Todd completes her sentence, revealing he knows about the protective properties of plants. This shocks Francine, who has never met anyone outside her mother who shared this knowledge. She feels caught out and becomes defensive, snapping at Todd when he calls her