Little Stranger

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of sexual violence, child abuse, and physical abuse.

From their early days as adopted siblings, Malachi likes to smell Olivia’s hair, which he frequently notes as smelling of strawberries due to her shampoo. Over the years, he becomes fixated on this shampoo and grows angry when Olivia tries to change her shampoo choice; when she does so, he intrusively replaces it with the strawberry shampoo he prefers.

Malachi’s fixation on Olivia’s shampoo and smelling it in her hair is a motif that draws a line from their comparatively innocent childhood interactions to their taboo adolescent and adult relations. While seeking sensory comfort from a new adoptive sibling as a child does not have clear sexual implications, Malachi continuing to smell Olivia’s hair after the advent of their sexual relationship supports his claim that he has felt an intense, possessive connection to Olivia from the moment they met. Though he does not explicitly state that this instantaneous connection was sexual when they were children, he implies that his sexual desire for her is an extension of this connection, which he presents as being so all-consuming that it transgresses the division of their sibling relationship.