One day in the fall of 1978, Sally unexpectedly calls Meredith into her bedroom and asks for her help contacting spirits using a Ouija board, a popular board game in which a tool called a planchette is used to spell out answers to questions. Initially, Meredith is excited to be asked to help her mother. However, her excitement soon fades as she realizes that her mother is truly searching for answers. Sally asks whether she’ll find a new husband or boyfriend, and Meredith pushes the planchette to respond “yes” in order to escape her mother’s game. She manipulates the game so that her mother believes that her new boyfriend will be rich. Satisfied, Sally falls asleep, allowing Meredith to leave.

Meredith runs out of the house to join her grandfather, who is going to visit his hives in Big Sur. When they arrive at the apiary, Meredith notices a mass of dead bees on the ground. Grandpa explains that the hive is kicking out the drone bees, who do not work and take up resources. Meredith is disturbed by this violence. Grandpa discovers that many of his hives are infected with foulbrood, a bacterial disease that kills larvae and spreads quickly.