52 pages • 1 hour read
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Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section features discussions of death by suicide, self-harm, and animal cruelty.
At a party at Foxglove Manor, a wealthy socialite named Rima Farrow shows off her newborn daughter Signa. Baby Signa has the power to see the figure of Death as he looms within the manor, where the wine that the party guests have been drinking is all poisoned. Rima and her guests begin to collapse and Signa watches as Death plucks their souls from their bodies. As Death is about to take Signa, he is shocked that he can glimpse the baby’s future and decides it is not yet her time to die. Death leaves with Rima and the other spirits, leaving baby Signa alone in the manor.
A 19-year-old Signa reflects on her past interactions with Death and how she has seen him take the souls of many of her relatives while leaving her to live. Several times Signa has been close to dying, but Death always heals her and leaves her be. Wanting to draw Death out and test the limits of her invincibility, Signa makes tea made from the lethal belladonna flower. She is stopped from drinking it by her Aunt Magda, who believes Signa is practicing witchcraft and fears her powers.