The Kitchen House

Lavinia runs through the woods, terrified, with her daughter, Elly, tagging behind. They have been hiding out at a neighbor’s house, hoping to escape from Marshall, Lavinia’s abusive husband. They are running back home and soon reach a clearing, but to their horror they see a body hanging on the oak tree. Lavinia says, “I refused to look up again after I caught sight of the green headscarf and the handmade shoes that pointed down” (2). At this point, the reader doesn’t know any details, but the last few chapters circle back to this moment and resolve the mystery.

While the novel’s prologue takes place in 1810, when Lavinia is an adult, this first chapter flashes back to when Lavinia is seven years old. Her parents have died on James’s ship, and he takes her back to his plantation to work as an indentured servant. He hands her off to Belle, the young woman who runs the kitchen. When Lavinia first arrives, she has no memory of her former life, and she refuses to speak: “The dark haunted me, and with each passing night I sank further into