Chapter 1 Summary

Mary Katherine Blackwood introduces herself as an eighteen year old girl who lives with her sister Constance. She says that it has been five months since the library books were put on the shelf in their kitchen. She wonders if she would have chosen different books if she'd known they would be the last books she would check out of the library.

Mary Katherine recalls the Friday in late April when she last went to the library. Her routine was to go into the village on Tuesdays and Fridays to go to the grocery store and the library. She also stopped in to Stella's coffee shop before her return home. Stella is polite to Mary Katherine, but it's clear that she's not comfortable around her.

Mary Katherine gives the reader a summary of the village. She explains that the Rochester house is the...