Irons

The irons involved in the love ritual are a symbol of the family's inappropriate and downright abusive relationships with one another. The ritual involves choosing an iron with a family member's name on it. When one chose an iron, the person's name on it represented who they were supposed to love that year. One iron was always blank, and the person who chose this iron, Lia in the ritual that takes place at the beginning of the novel, had "no specific love allocated to her this year" (11). Grace mentions that she believes King cheated during the ritual to ensure that he drew her name (because of their quasi-incestuous relationship). Thus it stands to reason that the ritual was rigged so that Lia would receive the blank iron in order to teach her some sort of lesson about her neediness.

Fainting sacks

The fainting sacks are a...