Chapters 1-5 Summary

Emerson Cole is a seventeen-year-old girl whose parents died in a shuttle bus crash while on a skiing trip, leaving her in the care of her older brother, Thomas, and his wife, Dru. Emerson began seeing what she believes is the dead just a few months before her parents' death, a fact that brought on a mental breakdown in the months after their deaths.

In Chapter 1, Emerson returns to the loft she shares with her brother, Thomas, and his wife, Dru, forced to walk through a woman dressed like Scarlett O'Hara as she approaches the front door. Emerson was on medication that caused the visions of the dead to stop, but she stopped taking it, a fact she has failed to tell Thomas or Dru. Thomas is at home and reminds Emerson of a party that night for the opening of...