School returns, and Anne returns “with fewer theories and considerably more experience” (147). Davy and Dora are in her classroom this year, and Davy finds school to be quite fun, but Dora comes home on the first night and cries because she is scared to go upstairs in the dark. Anne discovers that Dora’s seatmate, Mirabel Cotton, told Dora a scary story about her relatives who were seen walking around the house after they were dead and buried. She keeps Mirabel in the next day and gently encourages her not to tell such stories to her younger classmates.

The months go by, and in late October, Diana and Anne travel by foot to visit their friends, the Kimballs, for tea. Along the way, Anne “drink[s] the day’s loveliness in” (149), as she often does, and takes the wrong turn at a fork in the road. Before they know it, they are in Middle Grafton instead of East Grafton, and instead of continuing to get lost, they decide to approach the nearest house and ask for directions.

The lane to the house is shaded, with twists and turns that make Anne’s mind drift into images of an “enchanted forest” and a “spellbound princess” (150).