Later that day, Hannah takes a short nap and dreams of a red bridal gown. The next day, she tells Eva about her dream. Eva briefly ponders the dream's significance, but she is preoccupied thinking about Sula's odd behavior of late. Moving her wagon to the window, Eva sees Hannah bending to light a fire in the yard; moments later, Hannah is engulfed in flames. With difficulty, Eva hurls herself out of her wagon and through the second-floor bedroom window, hoping to smother the blaze that consumes her daughter. A neighbor who sees Hannah flailing wildly in flames calls an ambulance. When the ambulance arrives, Hannah and Eva are lifted inside it. Hannah dies on the way to the hospital.
Recuperating in the hospital from the injuries she sustained from jumping out of her window, Eva remembers seeing Sula merely standing on the boardinghouse's back porch, calmly watching her mother perish in the conflagration of flames.
