49 pages • 1-hour read
The Intruder
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Chapters 14-25Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of child abuse, bullying, substance use, physical abuse, and violence.
Chapter 14 Summary: “Before: Ella”
The narrative flashes back to Ella’s timeline. Ella works odd jobs cleaning homes for cash. She needs the money for food and laundry. One day, she stops at the neighbor Mrs. Fleming’s to do her chores. Mrs. Fleming accuses her of stealing from her and kicks her out. A devastated Ella trudges back to her filthy house. The space smells so bad that she starts bagging up trash. She wishes she could escape and imagines her mom’s death, but she also fears being put into foster care. Desiree returns home early and berates Ella for throwing out her valuables. She announces she’s going on a date. Ella panics, as she knows what this means.
Chapter 15 Summary
The narrative continues in Ella’s past timeline. Ella begs Desiree not to lock her in the closet like she used to when she went on dates. Desiree ignores her pleas and shoves her into the tiny cupboard, locking the door. In the dark alone, Ella is met with an overpowering odor. She realizes the closet is filled with rotten peaches Desiree bought on sale months ago. She screams and bangs on the door but no one answers.
Chapter 16 Summary: “Now: Casey”
Chapter 17 Summary
The narrative continues in Casey’s present timeline. Casey makes pasta for the girl, trying to maintain her composure. The girl scarfs down her food, clutching her knife all the while. Casey reminds herself she is just a child and must need help. She then notices that the girl’s knife is engraved with her name, Eleanor. When Casey addresses her, Eleanor says she doesn’t like being called by her full name but offers nothing more.
Chapter 18 Summary
The narrative continues in Casey’s present timeline. Casey feeds Eleanor cookies, which were a gift from Lee. Eleanor is curious about Lee and asks questions about their relationship. Casey feels embarrassed but admits that Lee is both attractive and kind. Meanwhile, she realizes she has to gain Eleanor’s trust if she hopes to help her. She offers to make her an infinity promise—or a promise she’s never allowed to break—not to tell anyone about her without her permission. Eleanor accepts.
Chapter 19 Summary: “Before: Ella”
The narrative flashes back to Ella’s timeline. Ella and Anton are assigned as partners on their science project. Anton insults Ella, insisting he doesn’t want to work with her and she should do the project herself.
Chapter 20 Summary
The narrative continues in Ella’s past timeline. After school, Ella wanders through the park, disinterested in returning home. She’s shocked when she notices her classmate Devin beating up Anton. When Devin pulls a knife on Anton, Ella hits Devin in the head with a rock. She and Anton momentarily think Devin is dead.
Chapter 21 Summary
The narrative continues in Ella’s past timeline. Ella and Anton notice Devin is breathing and flee the scene. Anton thanks Ella for her help and suggests they go to her house to clean up Anton’s wounds. An embarrassed Ella suggests otherwise, but Anton is reluctant to return home to his father, too. At Ella’s house, Anton wades through junk to get to the bathroom but doesn’t make fun of Ella. He even exclaims at her couch, which is in fact two mattresses pushed together. He sits down, lights one of Desiree’s cigarette butts, and asks when they should start their science project. Ella is relieved that Anton is unfazed by her house and surprised when he apologizes for being mean to her at school. Finally, they agree to work on their project at Anton’s apartment.
Chapter 22 Summary
The narrative continues in Ella’s past timeline. Desiree returns early from work and Ella makes Anton leave immediately because she isn’t allowed to have guests. Desiree gets angry when she notices the lit cigarette in the ashtray. Ella pretends it was hers. As punishment, Desiree burns Ella’s arm with the cigarette.
Chapter 23 Summary: “Now: Casey”
The narrative returns to Casey’s present timeline. Casey and Eleanor play cards. Casey tries to convince Eleanor to reveal her last name, but Eleanor refuses. Casey again promises she won’t hurt her.
Chapter 24 Summary: “Before: Ella”
The narrative flashes back to Ella’s timeline. Ella runs into Anton at school, fully expecting him to tease her about her house in front of everyone. Anton doesn’t do anything mean, which surprises and relieves Ella.
Chapter 25 Summary
The narrative continues in Ella’s past timeline. Ella runs to the bathroom before she and Anton leave school to work on their project. In the mirror, Ella studies her reflection. She reflects on her relationship with her mom and muses on her father’s mysterious identity. Back outside, she and Anton walk side by side. Ella tries not to let his smoking bother her.
Ella is surprised that Anton’s apartment is very nice. She doesn’t mind his little brother Brad either. While starting their project, Ella and Anton chat. Anton apologizes again for being mean to her and asks about the burn on her arm. Ella shuts down.
Chapters 14-25 Analysis
Throughout Chapters 14-25, the novel leans into genre tropes to intensify the narrative suspense, mystery, and stakes. One such trope is the mysterious visitor trope. Eleanor is an atypical “intruder” because she is a child, subverting genre expectations. Casey takes pity on her when she appears at her secluded cabin in the woods because she appears vulnerable and thus potentially harmless. She recognizes that Eleanor is a teenager in distress and decides to help instead of reject her. At the same time, Casey is relying on inference alone. From her observations of the blood on Eleanor’s clothes, Eleanor’s emaciated appearance, and Eleanor’s anxious response to external stimuli, she concludes that Eleanor has undergone serious trauma.
Casey’s deduction is presented as trustworthy because she is the first-person narrator and thus far appears reliable. At the same time, Eleanor’s peculiar behavior suggests that she could pose a threat to Casey, casting doubt on Casey’s point of view. Most notably, Eleanor is carrying a backpack containing something that “is leaking blood” (71), and she “wraps her fingers around [a switchblade] and holds it in her lap while continuing to eat” (73). The images of blood and knives are signifiers of danger. Because a child is the one associated with these images, Casey isn’t sure if she should trust or fear her.
These narrative elements intensify the foreboding atmosphere, complicate the novel’s central mysteries, and introduce the novel’s theme of The Relationship Between Fear and Trust. Casey is an inherently skeptical character. Her behaviors toward Lee and Rudy in the novel’s opening chapters background her interactions with Eleanor in Chapters 14 through 25. She likes Lee because he is kind but distrusts him on principle. She invites Rudy into her home because he is her landlord but responds aggressively to him when he makes advances or dismisses her requests.
Casey similarly straddles the boundaries between fear and trust in her interactions with Eleanor. The scene where the two eat cookies is emblematic of this dynamic. The cookies evoke notions of sweetness, comfort, domesticity, and childhood. However, they also conjure questions about Lee when Casey shares her dessert gift with Eleanor—rendering Casey anxious and suspicious. She doesn’t trust Eleanor but also wants Eleanor to trust her; she uses the cookies to barter this exchange, meanwhile reading into each of Eleanor’s questions and mannerisms. The questions of who Eleanor really is, the circumstances she has recently escaped, and what her intentions are with Casey are left unanswered.
Scenes from Casey’s life in the present and Ella’s life in the past develop the novel’s theme of The False Allure of Solitude. For Casey, the cabin in the woods was meant to extricate her from her past life, mistakes, and loss. However, Eleanor’s sudden appearance in the New Hampshire woods has made clear that there are mysterious elements of Casey’s life that she is trying to avoid, not process or heal. The continued allusions to her late father and her mistrust of Lee imply that Casey might be hiding as much as Eleanor. Meanwhile, Ella’s life in the narrative past is also defined by social isolation and rejection. For example, when Anton suggests going over to Ella’s house to clean up after his fight with Devin, Ella is reluctant to invite him into her home.
She is protective of her alienation because she believes hiding the truth of her home life is the best way to protect herself. She wants to change her life—and even imagines her mom slipping and falling down the stairs to her death—but gets “freaked out that I even thought that. I don’t really want my mom to get hurt or die. I love her. Also, she’s all I have, and I don’t want to be in one of those awful foster homes” (59). Her alienation offers her the illusion of safety but intensifies her loneliness and suffering. The images of Eleanor locked in the closet or wandering the park alone convey this dynamic. Solitude, the novel suggests, has benefits and drawbacks, depending on its context.
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