Mallory describes the Maxwells’ strict media rules and the way Teddy fixates on The Wizard of Oz, which leads them to reenact the story in the pool. After finishing their game, Teddy starts asking Mallory serious questions about death and whether any part of a person stays alive. Because the Maxwells forbid religion and superstition, Mallory suppresses her own beliefs about heaven and Beth and refuses to answer directly, which leaves Teddy dissatisfied.

The mood shifts when landscaper Adrian arrives to warn them about the mower. Teddy is thrilled by Adrian’s reckless, showy driving, but Mallory is alarmed when Adrian races the machine around the yard and stops near the pool fence. Teddy fetches a drawing he made for Adrian, and while they wait, Adrian assumes Mallory is a college student; instead of telling the truth, Mallory lies that she attends Penn State and runs cross-country. Adrian says he has seen her running at night, and after Teddy gives him the picture, Adrian leaves when his angry boss calls him away.

After swimming, neighbor Mitzi crosses into the yard and first gives Mallory a racist warning about being near the landscapers in a bathing suit. The conversation then turns stranger when Mitzi asks whether Mallory knows the history of the guest cottage. Mitzi says that decades earlier the building was known as the Devil House because Annie Barrett, a painter who used it as a studio, was murdered there or vanished and was never found, after which the cottage became a shed for many years.

When Caroline gets home, Mallory asks about Mitzi’s story. Caroline dismisses Mitzi as paranoid and unstable, says every old house has some dark tale, and warns Mallory to limit contact with her for the sake of Mallory’s sobriety. Sensing Mallory is rattled, Caroline kindly offers to move Mallory into a guest room in the main house, but Mallory declines because she values having her own space.

That night Mallory goes for a punishing run, showers, and settles into the cottage with dinner and a Hallmark movie. Once she opens the windows and lies in bed, ordinary nighttime noises begin to feel threatening, especially after Mitzi’s story and Adrian’s comment that he has seen her out after dark. When Mallory hears a high, mosquito-like hum and notices movement at the edge of her vision, she is reminded of the hallucination study she once imagined, and for the first time she feels as if someone may be watching her inside the cottage.