Summary

The second chapter introduces the audience to Irina, the twelve-year old daughter of the couple who bought the house in the previous chapter. It is told in third-person from her perspective. She, like her mother, is a writer, though her writings are amateurish where her mother is a professional. Irina is writing a novel about a lost fantastical borough of New York City.

As the audience becomes acquainted with Irina, they learn that the house her family bought is located in Broken River, a town in upstate New York. They learn that the family has moved there from Brooklyn because her father had an affair and that Irina has trouble connecting with her father.

She likes the new house, is charmed by is isolated location on the edge of a state-owned nature preserve. What she likes most about the house is the mystery of...