57 pages • 1 hour read
Mary Downing HahnDeep and Dark and Dangerous
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2007A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 16-18Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 16 Summary
Overnight, Emma develops a headache and significant fever, so Dulcie takes her to see a doctor. Ali stays behind with her copy of To Kill a Mockingbird, preferring the coziness of the warm cottage to the rain that continues to fall heavily outside. Sissy, still wearing Emma’s red sweatshirt, soon appears at the door and enters the cottage without waiting for an invitation. Despite Ali sending her away, she refuses to leave. Sissy says she retrieved the doll, Edith, from the lake and taunts Ali with it. Inciting Ali to “catch me if you can” (121), Sissy runs through the woods, taking the trail by the cliff. Ali follows her into the rain, convinced this time she will find where Sissy lives, speak to her parents, and put a stop to this menace in their lives.
In the distance, Ali struggles to keep track of Sissy and loses sight of her in an old graveyard. Ali panics at the sight of the tombstones and starts to run away until she sees the sweatshirt again. However, Sissy is no longer wearing it—instead it is hung on the hand of a stone angel with the inscription:
In Memory of Our Beloved Daughter and Sister
Teresa Abbott
March 11, 1967 to July 19, 1977
The shock of seeing Teresa’s name sets Ali off running wildly, and somehow she arrives at Ms. Trent’s house. She collapses, sobbing, into Ms. Trent’s arms. While Ms. Trent dries Ali’s wet clothes, as well as the red sweatshirt she was carrying, they sit by the fire and unpack the events leading up to Ali’s arrival. When Ali asks for a description of Teresa, Ms. Trent says she was “an ordinary kid, kind of plain” (72), with intensely blonde hair. She also asks about other details Sissy gave of her sister to see if they match Teresa’s sister Linda—and they do. Ali also learns that “Sissy” was a nickname Linda gave to Teresa. Crying and shivering with horror at her realization, Ali explains that she believes Sissy led her through the woods to show her that she is Teresa’s ghost. Ms. Trent tries in vain to comfort Ali, telling her ghosts are not real. Before Ms. Trent can take Ali home, Dulcie calls looking for Emma. She had been asleep in bed but is now missing, and Dulcie is furious. Ali runs out into the rain again to search for her cousin.
Chapter 17 Summary
Ali searches for Emma through the rain and eventually finds her with Sissy by the lake. With the knowledge that Sissy is a ghost, Ali is now extremely disturbed by the sight of her. Standing beside an old canoe, Sissy smiles coyly as she asks Ali if she found the sweatshirt, then tells Emma to get into the vessel. With the promise of holding Edith, Emma hops in and refuses to get out. Ali, afraid to let Emma go on the lake alone with Sissy, jumps into the canoe. Sissy then paddles them further and further into the water through very dense fog.
Ali and Emma beg to be taken home, but Sissy refuses, saying she is taking them to visit Teresa and “stay with her awhile” (130). Emma offers Edith to Sissy in exchange for her taking them home, but when Sissy takes the doll, she throws it into the water. Emma frantically reaches for Edith, causing the canoe to overturn, and they plunge into the cold water. Ali rescues a sinking Emma, and together they cling to the toppled canoe’s edge. As the tiring cousins struggle to stay above water, Sissy floats around them, threatening that she will not stop until Claire and Dulcie “tell the truth” (133). She was there that day, she says, and so were the sisters. She also tells Ali to share with Dulcie everything that happened with them, especially that the canoe they used belonged to Ali’s grandfather and was called The Spirit of the Lake.
As Sissy swims away with Edith, Emma shouts at her to come back, fearing her friend will drown. Sissy replies, “You can’t drown twice” (134). This makes Emma also realize who—and what—Sissy is. Shivering and aching in the cold water, Emma and Ali cling together and hope for rescue.
Chapter 18 Summary
Fading daylight brings stronger winds that blow off the thick fog, allowing Emma and Ali to catch sight of, and call to, a motorboat heading their way. The men on the boat are relieved to have found the girls, who were reported missing over the radio. When asked why they were out there, Ali lies and says she “thought it would be fun” to take the canoe out (136), but they got lost. Most of the town was waiting for them at the dock, including an emotional Dulcie. She greets Emma with a blanket, but Ali is left alone until a worried Ms. Trent sweeps her into a tight hug. At the police’s suggestion, Ali and Emma are taken to the emergency room to be examined. Except for slight hypothermia and Emma being ill, they are both ok.
Back at home, Dulcie grills Ali about why they were out in the canoe. Ali unloads everything that happened. When she mentions The Spirit of the Lake, Dulcie refuses to believe it could be the same canoe because her father disposed of it after they stopped going to the cottage. Dulcie continues listening until Ali talks about Sissy throwing the doll into the lake. At that point, she gets up and leaves without a word. She returns with another copy of the same torn photograph, but this one is undamaged, and she asks, “Is Teresa…the girl you call Sissy?” (139). Ali confirms she sees Sissy posing next to her mother and aunt. Struggling with the realization, Dulcie tells Ali the story of the worst thing she ever did—the story of the day Teresa went missing.
The doll, Edith, was a birthday gift to Claire, but Teresa enjoyed teasing her with it—often to the point of tears. Dulcie allowed, even participated in, this teasing because she resented Claire for being better-liked than her. When the girls were home alone a few days after Claire’s birthday, Teresa came over, took the doll to tease Claire, and ran down to the lake. She and Dulcie got into the canoe, but Claire, scared of the water even then, refused to join them until Teresa threatened to keep Edith unless she came along, too. They tossed the doll back and forth away from a crying Claire’s reach until Dulcie got fed up and threw it into the water. Teresa jumped into the lake, and they lost sight of her in the fog. Assuming she made her way to shore, the sisters paddled for land. Teresa wasn’t there, or back at the cottage waiting for them. They knew she was dead and that it was their fault, so they said they were in the house all day to avoid consequences with the police. Crying, Dulcie tells Ali how deeply she regrets what they did. She tells Ali they will return to New York the next day, but Ali reminds her of Sissy’s warning “to tell the truth—or you’ll be sorry” (143). Dulcie argues the police would not be interested and the members of the Abbott family are either dead or impossible to find.
Up in her room, Ali reflects on her day and feels downbeat and isolated. She discovers Sissy waiting for her in the dark. Sissy, still angry and anguished, asks her if Dulcie will confess now that her secret has been revealed, but Ali tells her it was an accident and there is nothing to confess. Sissy notices Ali is treating her gently and interprets it as pity because no one truly likes her. Ali does not reply and instead wraps Sissy in a blanket and combs and dries her hair. Ali spends a strange night next to Sissy’s cold skin and lake scent after agreeing to let Sissy stay in her bed. She decides that Dulcie must tell the truth of what happened so she, Sissy, and Claire can all find peace.
Chapters 16-18 Analysis
In Chapter 16, Sissy uses the red sweatshirt Emma loaned to her days earlier to lead Ali to the most obvious clue yet about her identity—Teresa Abbott’s tombstone. On the surface, Ali’s decision to follow Sissy out into the rain is a confusing one. Considering the trouble leaving home without permission caused her and Emma before and Dulcie’s clear warning to stay away from Sissy, it is almost illogical to follow her. However, Hahn previously demonstrated that Ali’s curiosity and intuition guide her, and here again Ali relies on these instincts above all others.
The shock of realizing she has spent the summer in the company of a drowned girl’s ghost sends Ali into an emotional tailspin. She sets off running and, without intending to, arrives at Ms. Trent’s house. The comforting environment at Kathie’s home subconsciously drew Ali to it in a moment when she most needed consoling. Even though she intends to comfort Ali, Ms. Trent confirming the overlapping details of Sissy and Teresa’s life only makes Ali more distraught. Her own distress still comes second to her concern for Emma’s safety when she learns her cousin is missing. Further, Ali running out into the rain to search for Emma is the antithesis of the neglectful behavior her aunt has accused her of. She is willing to put emotions aside and put her comfort and safety on the line to care for her cousin even though Emma has made things difficult for her.
When Ali finds Sissy with Emma at the lake, Sissy is pleased by the impact her revelation has had on Ali. That Sissy was able to lure Emma from her sickbed to the lake, through heavy rain, is a sign that her manipulation of Emma has reached hypnotic levels. She spent weeks encouraging Emma’s disobedience, courting her codependency and her love for Edith, all for a devious plan to get Emma into the canoe and out on the lake. As Sissy paddles the three of them out, Ali realizes with horror that her nightmare has come to life. This scene is almost identical to the dream of three girls in a canoe paddling out onto the lake that has haunted Ali for months, thus revealing that Hahn has been subtly foreshadowing this event from the moment “T” is first mentioned in Chapter 1. Hahn uses other details, like Ali’s competitive-level swimming ability and Emma’s weak swimming skills, to foreshadow this inevitable moment—the moment Emma falls into the lake—when the ability to swim will be lifesaving.
The town quickly engages its search protocols to find the cousins. The speed and scale of the effort signal that the town is determined not to repeat the tragedy of 30 years prior. For the residents of the area gathered on the dock, seeing Ali and Emma successfully retrieved is likely cathartic because the cousins’ disappearance has the happy ending that Teresa Abbott’s did not. It is not a happy moment for Ali, however, because Dulcie mistreats her again. There is some consolation in the form of Ms. Trent, but being ignored by her aunt is a painful blow.
When Dulcie and Ali sit down together back at the cottage, Dulcie is forceful in her intent to press information out of Ali, but ironically, she is the one who ends up sharing her darkest secret. It is a raw moment of intimacy and candor from two characters who spent much of the preceding chapters at odds. This conversation is a key point of revelation in the story because Ali finally gets definitive answers to the mystery of the torn photograph, the erased name, and the reason for Claire and Dulcie’s secretiveness. It is also pivotal because Dulcie unburdens some of the weight of this terrible secret. Additionally, Dulcie’s describing what happened on the lake the day Teresa died reveals that the image from Ali’s dream was not only a premonition of her future but also an echo of the moment from the past when Claire, Dulcie, and Teresa paddled out together.
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