The House at the End of the World

Content Warning: The source material features references to child sexual abuse and murder.

Katie, a 36-year-old woman, has lived alone for over two years in a small, sturdy home on Jacob’s Ladder island, part of an archipelago in a lake. When she moved to Jacob’s Ladder, she struggled with fear and despair from a mysterious and painful past, but now she is peaceful and enduring. She has carefully arranged her life to protect her solitude, rarely going to the mainland and never speaking to other islanders. While receiving her delivery of groceries from the mainland, she notices helicopters surveying a nearby island, the imposing and isolated Ringrock.

Katie’s house on Jacob’s Island is a beautiful place handmade by Joe Smith, a World War II veteran looking to escape humanity after being one of the soldiers who liberated the Dachau concentration camp. The house has a three-inch oak door and steel bars in the window casings. While the previous owner of the house, Tanner Walsh, had a more mystical explanation for the window casings, Katie believes that they are simply to make the place more impregnable.