Summary

"Snow-Blind" is narrated in the third person, past tense. It takes place years before most of the events of this novel and covers the childhood and young adulthood of Annie Appleby, the actress that Shelly Small told Dottie about in the previous chapter. The chapter is narrated in a slightly different voice, mimicking the voice of young Annie. Its title has a double meaning: Annie is warned about being blinded by looking at the brightness of the sun reflecting off the snow, and the snowy wood also serves as a "blind," or hideaway, for her father and his male lover, hiding them from Annie.

The chapter begins "back then," on a dirt road about a mile from Route 4, but nowhere near the other towns of the story, as the reader learns that Annie was from a potato farm in Maine in the previous chapter...