The novel opens with a description of Emily’s home, which is isolated from other people and the town of Maywood. Emily Byrd Starr lives here with her father, Douglas Starr, and their housekeeper, Ellen Greene. Though Ellen says it is lonely to be so far from town, Emily doesn’t feel lonely. She is very close to her father and has found friends in her cats, Mike and Saucy Sal, and in elements of nature that she has named the Wind Woman, Adam-and-Eve, and the Rooster Pine. She even talks to her own reflection in the mirror.

Recently, Emily’s father has been sick and unable to spend as much time with her. Emily is not close to Ellen, who grunts in disapproval and scolds Emily for her strange behavior. Emily’s father tells her not to worry about what Ellen thinks of her because she is a “fat, lazy old thing of no importance” (2).

Emily loves to wander outside by herself and is doing so at the opening of the chapter. While walking, she thinks of ways to describe what she sees. She is discovering that she wants to be a writer, and when she gets a burst of inspiration for how to describe something, she calls it “the flash” (7).