Content Warning: This text features discussions of enslavement, sexual assault, suicide, self-harm, domestic abuse, racism, sexism, classism, anti-gay bias, alcohol abuse, and violence.

Opal, the protagonist and narrator, relates that she has always had dreams about the mysterious and supposedly haunted Starling House, a famous yet feared landmark in her town of Eden, Kentucky. As a child, she read a book called The Underland, which was written by the original owner of Starling House, Eleanor Starling. Although Opal also dreams of being a writer, she resolves to forget all of her dreams and focus instead on the task of providing for herself and her younger brother, Jasper, after the deaths of their parents.

(Throughout the chapter and the novel, an objective third-person narrator inserts explanatory footnotes into the narrative.)

Braving the cold, 26-year-old Opal walks home from her job at Tractor Supply after a particularly hard day. She worries that poverty will keep her and her brother, Jasper, stuck in Eden. Passing Starling House, she sees a light in the upstairs window and inexplicably wishes that she could go inside.