Stella Revisits Her Childhood Home, Explained：a bad hat

What's really going on

Windward was Stella's family home, and walking through it as a guest, she is at once a visitor and the heir to its secrets. The dream she describes — a small flame snuffed out while she lies terrified — is less a ghost story than a child's memory of losing her mother, and nobody in the scene can explain who put the light out. The real subject surfaces in the studio, when she talks about the woman her father painted: "People get awfully hush-hush when I ask them." Her light aside, "I suspect Father was a bit of a bad hat," is how she keeps the question bearable — a joke standing in for everything she was never told about her parents.

Theme

このチャプターで学べること

• An old house is treated like a person with feelings.
• The family scandal is hinted at, never spelled out.
• Her dream of a snuffed flame foreshadows the plot.
• A playful confidence bonds the two strangers fast.
• The piano invitation ends the tour on a flirtatious note.

発音のポイント

• must be — The t in must disappears, so must be almost merges.
• put in a — Put in a runs together, almost like pu-ti-na.
• you and me — And weakens to n, so you and me blurs into one sound.
• about time you — About time you links smoothly with hardly a pause.