Genevieve likes to thrift with her friends at The Garment District in Boston. She goes there every week to look for her grandmother’s faery handbag. Grandmother Zofia had told her it was a two-hundred-year-old family heirloom and that Genevieve was to look after it after she died, though Genevieve’s mother said Zofia was “the world’s best liar.” At Zofia’s funeral, Genevieve asks her where the handbag is, and what she is meant to do now, but gets no answer. Zofia used to babysit Genevieve when her parents were at work and was always a little eccentric, never really looking or acting like a grandmother. The two would play Scrabble together, and Zofia always won because she could use Baldeziwurleki words. She told her granddaughter that she was from Baldeziwurlekistan. There, they used boards for many things, including communicating with the people who lived under the hill, who knew the future. At 19, a shaman-priestess warned Zofia’s village that they were in trouble: a raiding party was coming and an earthquake would hit at the same time, breaking open the hill where they would normally hide. So, they had to kill a black dog to make a purse where the entire village would hide. The purse had two ways to open: one that gave access to the village (the right way), and one that opened to the guardian of the purse, the dog (the wrong way). Jake was too smart and rebellious, having trouble making friends as a kid. As a teenager, he would come home and play Scrabble with Genevieve and Zofia. He and Genevieve are in love. Zofia came out of the bag and became carrier of the bag and her village inside. Genevieve tells Jake about Zofia’s handbag, and he believes her. He jumps into the bag as Zofia is caught by surprise, and Zofia refuses to let her granddaughter go in after to bring him back. They go to the library where Zofia drops a book into her bag. A librarian accuses her of stealing it, grabbing her handbag which opens to the “wrong” side. Zofia tells Genevieve she needs to take care of the “damn dog” and ultimately dies. The handbag disappears as well, and so Genevieve’s quest to find it begins.