On a cool spring day, siblings Molly and Kip search the countryside for the Windsor Estate, where they hope to find work. With them, they bring a cart that holds their few meager belongings. Every person they ask tells them to avoid the place, calling it the Sourwoods but refusing to elaborate further. Finally, the siblings come across an older woman who introduces herself as a storyteller named Hester Kettle. Molly thinks that storytelling sounds like excellent work, but she’s suspicious of why Hester is by herself out in the farmland. Hester says that “new stories are rare in these parts” (19), adding that the story of two orphan children on a stolen cart is quite a story.

Kip rushes to Molly’s defense, explaining that she bought the cart from a fisherman who was joining the navy to fight giant squid. Molly agrees quietly, unwilling to tell Kip that she made up the fisherman’s tale. She is relieved when Hester drops the subject. Hester gives Molly and Kip directions to the Windsor Estate in exchange for their promise to tell her stories about the place, and the kids steer their cart down a rough path. Molly hopes that she will have happy stories to bring back for Hester.