The narrator opens The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox with a memory of two girls at a dance on New Year’s Eve, just before the stroke of midnight. The girls examine their dance cards as they watch other couples dance. The narrator hints that somehow, this happy scene ends with a girl named Esme staring out a window covered in metal bars. The narrator, Esme herself, stares through the bars, trying to focus on the distance. She examines the many layers of paint on the window, while behind her she hears the movements of other women. One woman makes tea for her dead husband, another waters long-dead flowers, and another smokes despite being warned otherwise. Esme wonders if she’s right about when it all began, and her memories take her back to her childhood in India.

The novel cuts to the past, as Esme remembers being four years old and playing in a garden. She gazes across the garden and sees her parents in the distance, who at first resemble only shapes and lines. As she approaches, her mother, Ishbel, is surprised to see her, as she’s supposed to be taking a nap. Esme asks for tea, and though her mother protests, her father says she can have some.