<P> The next day, his mother tells him she is starting a new job and a woman named Ursula Monkton is to look after him and his sister . The narrator takes an instant dislike to her and soon realises that she is actually the worm he had pulled out of his foot . She had used him as a way to travel out of the place he and Lettie had visited and is now inhabiting his house . Ursula quickly ingratiates herself with his family, winning over his sister and seducing his father, while the narrator is alienated from his family and is almost drowned in the bath by his father as Ursula watches . </P> <P> Most of the narrator's time is then spent locked up in his bedroom, avoiding Ursula . Frightened, he manages to escape one night . He barely makes it to the Hempstock farm, where the Hempstocks take care of him and remove the wormhole from his foot, which had been left behind by Ursula as an escape path . Lettie and the narrator confront Ursula, who refuses offers from the Hempstocks to leave peacefully for a world that is less dangerous for her . Unwilling to believe that there could be anything in the world that could harm her, Ursula is attacked and eliminated by "hunger birds," entities that serve a purpose similar to scavengers . These insist on eating the narrator's heart, as a piece of Ursula's wormhole still remains there . The Hempstocks bring him back to the safety of their property through the ocean by their house, which Lettie carries to him in a bucket . While in the ocean, the narrator understands the nature of all things, but the memory fades once he gets out . </P> <P> The Hempstocks promise to keep him safe, but the hunger birds begin to eat his world in order to force him off the property . This proves effective and the narrator attempts to sacrifice himself, only for Lettie to jump in between him and the hunger birds . Lettie's grandmother threatens the hunger birds, which she refers to as "varmints", with annihilation if they do not leave . They comply, but Lettie is near death as a result of their attack . The Hempstocks place Lettie's body in the ocean behind their house, where they say that she will rest until ready to return to this world . After these events, the narrator's memory of the incident fades . He has no recollection of Lettie's near - death, instead believing that she had gone to Australia . </P> <P> The book then returns to the present, where the narrator finishes his remembering and is shocked when the Hempstocks inform him that this is not his first time returning to the house--he had visited the house at least twice during his adult years and it is implied that he visited the farm at least once more before that to return a kitten that he had found during his initial travels with Lettie . It is suggested that the hunger birds did eat his heart after all, but Lettie's sacrifice revived him, and his heart has been slowly growing back ever since . His visits to the farm are the result of Lettie wanting to check up on him while she sleeps and heals . The narrator's concern over the unremembered visits soon fades as he begins to forget the past events once again, telling the Hempstock women to tell Lettie he said "hello" if she contacts them from Australia . </P>

Summary of the ocean at the end of the lane