Carrie’s mother returns from her job at a laundry after a phone call from the school and confronts Carrie, who is desperate to know why her mother didn’t teach her about menstruation. Margaret physically abuses Carrie and bullies her into praying at their home altar, where “Momma [is] the minister, Carrie the congregation” (65). Carrie is cowed by her mother’s violence and intimidated by the religious imagery that surrounds her, but when she threatens to “make the stones come again” (69), Margaret locks Carrie inside a small closet. Here she encounters several images of the Devil, who, Carrie imagines, “[knows] all the secrets of woman-blood” (71). When Margaret lets Carrie out, she sits with her mother for a while, but as she is going to bed she uses her telekinetic power to move a sewing machine and feels satisfaction at the fear in her mother’s eyes.

The narrative then follows the community fallout from the locker-room assault. Miss Desjardin, asked by Principal Grayle to discipline the girls who assaulted Carrie, issues week-long detentions. While the rest of the girls accept their punishment, Chris Hargensen rebuffs Miss Desjardin; their interaction grows violent, concluding with Chris threatening to involve her lawyer father.