Chapters 8 and 9 Summary

TT. Marigold goes to Blue Water Beach and visits strict Aunt Stasia and three cousins - friendly Nancy, playful Teresa, and bullying Beulah. Blue Water Beach, narration reveals, is on the other side of the bay, close to what Marigold still dreams of as The Hidden World. Marigold is determined to behave better on this trip away from home than she did on the trip to Uncle Paul and Aunt Flora's, for which she is still teased.

After a lovely dinner, Marigold is shocked when Stasia and Teresa discover something wrong in her hair and send her upstairs without telling her what's wrong. Beulah laughs nastily as she goes ...

Marigold listens at an air vent that carries the conversation between Stasia and Teresa from the parlor below up to her. As the two women discuss, with quiet horror, what is to...