Chapter 8 Summary, Analysis, and Key Takeaways
⚠️ 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 8 opens on the evening after Teddy's disturbing drawings have unsettled Mallory. When Caroline invites Mallory to join the family for dinner, Mallory declines, claiming she needs to run errands. The moment the Maxwells' car pulls out of the driveway, she crosses the lawn to the neighboring house.
Mitzi's home is a small, run-down redbrick ranch—a stark contrast to the well-kept Maxwell property. Mallory knocks three times before Mitzi answers, peering through a chained door while clutching pepper spray. Once she recognizes Mallory, Mitzi welcomes her warmly, and Mallory presents a plate of gingersnaps she and Teddy baked.
Inside, the house is cluttered and musty, with plastic-covered furniture and a layer of grime. In the kitchen, Mallory notices a disassembled handgun spread across the table—spring, barrel, trigger, and other parts—which Mitzi casually explains she was cleaning. Mitzi brews strong Folgers coffee, and despite Mallory's hesitation about caffeine (she avoids mentioning her recovery), she accepts a cup.
Mitzi launches into a monologue of complaints about the Maxwells, Whole Foods, and modern culture, but Mallory steers the conversation toward her real purpose: asking about Annie Barrett. Mitzi is immediately suspicious of the specific question, and Mallory extracts a promise of secrecy before showing Teddy's drawings. She explains that Teddy claims an imaginary friend named Anya tells him to draw these images—a man dragging a woman through a forest, a man burying a body. Mallory shares her theory that Anya's spirit may be bound to the property and communicating through Teddy.
Mitzi takes the theory seriously. She explains that children are historically more receptive to spirits, and she agrees to tell Mallory everything she knows about Annie Barrett.
According to Mitzi, the original owner of the Maxwell house was George Barrett, a DuPont engineer. His cousin Annie came to live in the guest cottage in 1946, shortly after World War II. Annie was young, beautiful, and shy—she kept to herself, painted, and declined all the attention from returning GIs. The town turned on her, spreading rumors that she was an unwed mother who had given up a child, and eventually that she was a witch luring husbands into the woods.
One day, George Barrett found the cottage covered in blood—on the bed, the walls, up to the rafters—but no body and no sign of Annie. A full search of the forest turned up nothing. Annie vanished without a trace. George nearly demolished the cottage but instead converted it into a toolshed. When Mitzi was growing up in the 1950s and 60s, local children called it the Devil House.
After George died, his wife sold the property to Butch and Bobbie Hercik, who lived there for forty years with five children and no supernatural problems. Mitzi suggests that when the Maxwells renovated the guest cottage, they may have disturbed something—unlocked a hostile energy.
Mallory, feeling her heart race from the caffeine and the story, asks to use the bathroom. There, she opens Mitzi's medicine cabinet and finds a stocked pharmacy—including a bottle of oxycodone hidden behind other prescriptions. The bottle is empty, but the moment of temptation is visceral. Mallory is furious with herself, ashamed of backsliding after nineteen months of sobriety. She splashes cold water on her face and returns to the kitchen.
Mitzi has brought out a wooden Ouija board—not a flimsy toy but a thick slab of maple engraved with arcane symbols. She proposes a séance (she prefers the term