For most of the story, Beckett is unsure who targets her and Delilah. The lack of certainty makes her keenly aware of various unexplained noises, which symbolize the unknown threat that she tries to stop. In the attic, Beckett hears a “sound from somewhere below. A creaking door. The thud of it latching shut” (188). She then hears footsteps, but she knows “by heart” how Delilah moves, and the person in the house doesn’t move like Delilah. Unable to identify the sounds, they become representative of her precarity. They symbolize the person or people bullying her and her daughter. As the enigmatic sounds freely enter and exit the home, the parents’ house isn’t a safe space.

Delilah, too, hears unknown noises that drive home this symbolism. Delilah tells Beckett what happened when she went to the quarry: “I heard someone else there. I called out to them for help, but they didn’t answer. They kept coming closer, but they wouldn’t say anything. I started backing away, but they were still coming. So I ran” (473). As the “someone” remains a mystery, Delilah can’t dismiss the sounds. They represent a risk, so she runs away. As the noises follow Delilah outside, the implication is that the entire area is unsafe for Delilah and Beckett.

The central noise is the dropped phone call from Delilah in Chapter 7. At first, Beckett labels the noise “static.” She then corrects herself, “No, not static—a whistle. I recognized it immediately—the wind funneling through the valley” (110). As Beckett identifies the howling wind, the sound isn’t an unknown threat; however, as the howling represents a menace, she has a reason to worry about Delilah’s safety.