Sissy's father buys her the Black Tiny Thumbelina doll she requested from the toy store, and she names it Ethel.

Lillian receives a call from her dying father Jack requesting a visit before his death and refuses to see him.

The family visits Grandma Cora on the reservation, and Lillian mourns ancestral lands now flooded by the Oahe Dam project.

On Thanksgiving, Sissy drops a bag of groceries, Lillian chases her up the apartment stairs, and Lillian falls dead at the bottom.

Jack drinks bad alcohol, becomes delirious, and threatens Blanche and Lillian with his shotgun until a family friend calms him down.

Lillian and Blanche arrive at their Catholic boarding school in Bismarck and befriend two Lakhóta brothers, Luther and Cornelius Holy Thunder.

Catholic mission ladies give Lillian a doll as a gift; Lillian hears the doll speak to her and names her Mae.

Lillian gives Mae to Ada, a little girl dying of tuberculosis; Ada dies days later and is buried with the doll.

After a priest condemns Sitting Bull, Blanche sings defiantly in Lakhóta; Sister Frances pours lye soap in her mouth, killing her.

Cora's father takes her to town, where they find a pile of bodies left from the shootout that killed Sitting Bull.

Carlisle administrators burn all students' belongings including Winona; Jack digs through the ashes and returns Winona's stone heart to Cora.

Jack slips away from Carlisle to perform the haŋbdéčheya ceremony and receives visions of a shared future with Cora.

After his sister dies, Jack runs away from Carlisle, accuses his father of murder, and is sentenced to a year in prison.

Jesse opens the trunk she packed when she left Chicago for college and hears Ethel's familiar voice for the first time in decades.

The spirits of Jesse's mother, grandmother, and wounded ancestor appear beside her during a moonlit cathartic episode and then quietly move on.

Pool 1 traces the headline events across three generations of Dakhóta women and the forces that shaped them. It begins with Sissy's Chicago childhood under the shadow of her mother Lillian's volatile temper, culminating in Lillian's fatal fall at the bottom of the apartment stairs. Moving back in time, it covers Lillian's boarding school years in the 1930s, including her beloved doll Mae, the death of her sister Blanche, and her introduction to Cornelius Holy Thunder. Further back still, it follows Cora's traumatic arrival at Carlisle Indian Industrial School, Jack's spiritual visions, and the breaking of his spirit after imprisonment. The pool closes with Jesse in adulthood, reconnecting with Ethel and, ultimately, with the spirits of her ancestors under the moonlight.

The three generations' most pivotal moments, from Lillian's abuse to the dolls' healing.

Young Sissy hears a newscast about a murderer's killing spree and learns to hide under the bed when Lillian is angry.

On Sissy's birthday, Lillian trips over jacks left on the floor and crushes Sissy's palm around them as punishment.

Sissy's father takes her to the natural history museum and explains how boarding school authorities whipped students for speaking their native language.

The family attends the wačhípi dance at the American Indian Center; Lillian dances with Cornelius to Sissy's delight.

Lillian and Blanche make a mud figure of their abusive father and ceremonially bury it to protect their mother.

Cora tells her children about Jack's remarkable carpentry skills and the tiny buffalo figurine he carved to comfort her in childhood.

Lillian, Blanche, Luther, and Cornelius sneak out at night and steal the tabernacle from the school chapel; the incident is quietly hushed up.

Lillian plays Tiny Tim in a community production of A Christmas Carol and is then asked to read aloud from A Tale of Two Cities.

Sister Frances locks Lillian in the punishment box; Mae's spirit escapes Ada's coffin and finds her way to Lillian's side.

Cora meets Jack on the train to Pennsylvania; he tells her he hates his white soldier father for mistreating his Dakhóta family.

Cora contracts pneumonia in the school infirmary and receives a vision of a wounded ancestor spirit covered in gunshot and knife wounds.

Cora spends the summer with the kind Quaker Greeves family while Jack endures mistreatment and exhaustion on a potato farm.

Jack runs away from the Taylor farm; police catch him in Pittsburgh and return him to Carlisle, where he is brutally whipped and confined.

Jesse finds a Shirley Temple doll and a replica of Cora's doll Winona tucked inside a bin of her mother's belongings.

Jesse's best friend Izzy visits and reveals she has been sensing Lillian's spirit hovering near Jesse for about a year.

Pool 2 focuses on the significant secondary moments that give depth and texture to each woman's story. In Chicago, Sissy's experiences of fear, cultural pride, and her father's quiet love are shown through scenes at the museum, the dance, and on her birthday. Lillian's childhood section reveals her complex home life, the dynamics between her parents, and her acts of defiance alongside friends at boarding school. Cora's section captures her first meeting with Jack on the train to Carlisle, her dangerous bout with pneumonia, the kindness of her summer placement, and the harsh punishment Jack endures after his first escape. The pool ends in Jesse's adulthood as she discovers her mother's dolls and learns from her friend Izzy that Lillian's spirit has been lingering close by.

Secondary moments that reveal character, culture, and connection across three lifetimes.

Lillian has an affair with neighbor Ben; Sissy witnesses it end violently when Lillian bites him for kissing her without permission.

Lillian tells Sissy a disturbing story about a local man who impregnated his daughter; Sissy later finds a sewing pin stuck in Ethel's head.

Lillian discovers Sissy's hidden candy wrappers and attacks the locked bathroom door with the heavy phone cradle in a rage.

After Lillian's fatal fall, Ethel tells Sissy she took care of the situation because somebody had to, implying she caused the death.

Lillian teaches herself to read by age four using a book on child labor left behind by a visiting Wobbly.

Sister Frances sends the girls home with a letter calling them incorrigible; Jack writes a defiant reply praising his daughters' spirit and independence.

Cornelius gives Lillian a handmade feather fan; Lillian chooses to love Luther instead because his more temporary feelings seem safer to her.

Cora shares a community elder's gift of meat with neighbors; Lillian visits dying Ada and resolves to give Mae to her.

Winona warns Cora on the train that Carlisle is designed to hold Indigenous children as leverage against their leaders' potential rebellion.

Jack leaves Cora a note saying he must do something important; he returns to Carlisle eight days later in manacles after performing the haŋbdéčheya ceremony.

Jack collapses in a convulsing episode, sensing his sister Alice's pain at a distance; Carlisle's founder telegraphs to check on the family.

Jack returns to Carlisle after a year in prison with his spirit visibly broken, barely acknowledging Cora despite her faithful letters.

Winona's doll tells Jesse her story of origin: she was made to comfort a Dakhóta woman inconsolable after her newborn died.

Ethel tells Jesse that she showed Lillian the poison in her own heart, causing Lillian to back away in fear and fall over the railing.

Lillian's spirit speaks through Ethel to tell Jesse she was never the weak one and to share Jesse's Dakhóta name with her.

Pool 3 highlights the moments of revelation and decision that fundamentally change each woman's path. Sissy's section focuses on the unsettling truths behind Lillian's cruelty, including a disturbing story Lillian tells and the doll Ethel's quiet implication in Lillian's death. In Lillian's childhood, the pool traces her early self-sufficiency, her school acts of defiance, and the bittersweet choices she makes about love and sacrifice. Cora's section follows Winona's dire warnings, Jack's haŋbdéčheya visions, his mysterious collapse sensing his sister's death, and the devastating emptiness that greets Cora when he finally returns from prison. In Jesse's adulthood, the dolls deliver the revelations Jesse has long needed: the true nature of her mother's fatal fall and a message from Lillian's spirit about Jesse's own worth and identity.