The Ocean at the End of the Lane

Lettie Hempstock believes that the pond behind her house is an ocean, but the narrator thinks this is silly. Lettie thinks the Hempstocks arrived at their current home from the “old country” by crossing this ocean; her mother says she remembers wrong, as the old country had sunk long ago. Lettie’s grandmother remembers an even older country, one that “had blown up” (1).

The narrator, dressed in a black suit and tie, gives a speech, then drives through the nearby Sussex countryside until he comes to the property where he grew up. The old house, torn down long ago, was replaced 30 years earlier, and the new house, recently enlarged, reminds him of his teenage years: “no good times, no bad times” (3).

The narrator drives along a road until it becomes a dirt lane, old and untamed, that ends at the brick farmhouse of the Hempstocks. He walks up to the house, wondering if they still reside there. The door, its latch broken, creaks inward, and he steps inside, calling out to know if anyone’s home. A thin, elderly woman appears. The narrator assumes it’s the aged mother of his childhood friend Lettie; the woman recognizes him.