52 pages • 1-hour read
A Sea of Unspoken Things
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Chapters 25-31Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 25 Summary
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of graphic violence, emotional abuse, and death.
James tells Micah that she feels responsible for Griffin’s death: She should have told Griffin earlier that she wasn’t interested in him romantically. Had she done so, the events leading up to Johnny pushing him might not have occurred. Micah explains that James was never at fault for Johnny’s behavior. The two talk about her choice to leave Six Rivers: Micah says it hurt to lose her although he knew that she belonged in San Francisco, and he did not. He asks if she would consider staying in Six Rivers now for good.
Chapter 26 Summary
Quinn shows up unexpectedly in town. He claims he is there to collect Johnny’s project notes, but James knows he is there for more. The two have coffee at Sadie’s diner and are subject to the cold stares of all of the customers. James is jittery, hoping that Micah won’t walk in. Quinn asks her to go out to dinner with him on an official date when they return to San Francisco. James thinks that he represents the life she has been building ever since she left Six Rivers. She wonders if she still wants it.
Chapter 27 Summary
James heads to the darkroom to gather the rest of Johnny’s things, reflecting on the way that Olivia has always been one of her few true friends in town. Olivia tells her where to find Johnny’s things but says that she has to rush off. James looks over the darkroom one last time and notices a series of prints she hadn’t seen before. She realizes they must be Olivia’s work. They are intricate images of frost. Something clicks in her mind: One of the Instagram accounts Autumn interacted with most was called @firstfrost. James realizes that this must be Olivia’s. Near the prints, she finds Olivia’s calendar. She sees that Olivia has marked a photoshoot with Autumn: It is for the morning after the party at which Autumn was last seen.
Olivia comes in, and James confronts her about this. Olivia’s eyes become glassy. She notes how lucky Autumn was, saying that she was similar to James. Olivia claims that Autumn’s death was an accident: She fell from the gorge rim while taking a tricky shot. James backs out of the room slowly and calls Amelia.
Chapter 28 Summary
Olivia is arrested for Autumn’s murder. James reflects on how Olivia must have felt as Autumn’s teacher—history was repeating itself and she was once again the art student whose work wasn’t good enough to make it out of Six Rivers. Autumn had reminded Johnny of James, but Olivia, too, saw the resemblance.
Later, James and Micah scatter Johnny’s ashes, not speaking about James’s impending departure. She has a show opening in San Francisco and will soon head back to the city.
Chapter 29 Summary
Sadie organizes a memorial for Johnny at the diner. The place is packed, but James finds Ben to tell him that if he’d still like to do a DNA test, she will gladly help him out. She and Micah talk to one of the old timers at the counter. He casually mentions a day that the diner was closed in November, and the wheels begin turning in both James and Micah’s heads: Sadie claims to never close the diner.
James scans the photographs on the wall of the diner, which are casual shots of people in town. She finds one that she remembers seeing: Sadie with an antique hunting gun—it is the exact kind of gun Amelia claimed was used in Johnny’s death. James realizes that Johnny must have gone to Sadie when he couldn’t get a hold of Autumn. He would have known about Autumn and Ben’s relationship and figured that Sadie would know where Autumn was. She also realizes that Sadie wouldn’t have been sure that Ben didn’t kill Autumn: He’d gone back to the party the night Autumn disappeared, so Sadie didn’t know where he was. James and Micah work out that Sadie killed Johnny to stop any investigation into Autumn’s death. Micah begins accusing her of all of this loudly, and the diner goes quiet. Sadie does not deny it. She tells Micah that surely, he of all people must understand what it is like to want to protect someone. Amelia leads her away in handcuffs.
Chapter 30 Summary
James attends her show in San Francisco, feeling numb and tired of her life in the city. She admits to herself that she has lost her interest in painting and that she thinks that San Francisco lacks the magic of the forest in Six Rivers. Quinn arrives and begins to mingle after talking to James. He is an important figure in the city, and many of the gallery’s attendees want to speak with him. James looks up, surprised, to see Micah. She asks him to take her home.
Chapter 31 Summary
James has moved in with Micah. She is pregnant and will give birth to their first child in six weeks. Quinn invites them both down to the city for a gala to honor the owl project, but they decline. They are happy where they are. A search is organized for Autumn’s body, but it is never found. James tries to honor the girl with whom she had so much in common but never met: She draws portraits of Autumn whenever she feels sadness about her death or about Johnny’s.
Chapters 25-31 Analysis
These chapters are plot-dense and action-packed. The Weight of Buried Secrets remains a key focal point as James and Micah finally solve the mystery behind both Johnny and Autumn’s deaths. The revelation that Olivia killed Autumn is one of the novel’s major plot twists: Olivia was presented as one of the few townspeople to accept James, and she seemed entirely content in her role as an art teacher. Yet, James’s discovery that Olivia has been harboring a grudge against James for the last two decades reframes Olivia’s character entirely. Her bitterness that she was passed over by the art world—while James found success—becomes Olivia’s defining character trait. When she realizes that Autumn is talented, like James, and that her talent will take her far, Olivia’s jealousy transfers onto Autumn, and she feels that history is repeating itself. James empathizes with Olivia, even after she finds out that Olivia killed an innocent girl: She understands the desperate need to escape the confines of small town life and Olivia’s despair when she was forced to abandon her dreams of leaving Six Rivers.
James is also able to empathize with Sadie, despite discovering that Sadie murdered James’s brother in cold blood. Sadie’s mistaken belief that Ben was involved in Autumn’s death and her fear that Johnny would uncover the truth lead her to kill him in order to protect her son. When Micah and James accuse Sadie of murder, she does not deny it; instead, she explains that she had Ben’s welfare at heart. At this moment, she reveals that she has an inkling that Micah and James knew more about Griffin’s death than they let on, and that Johnny had a role in in. Sadie tells them that they of all people should understand the desire to protect a loved one at all costs, reminding them that they, too, acted out of loyalty in covering up Johnny’s involvement in Griffin’s death. James, too, recognizes the parallels between her years of shielding Johnny from consequences and Sadie’s actions. This reinforces the theme of Fraught Family Relationships, revealing how love and family ties lead these characters to make morally compromising decisions.
James undergoes significant emotional growth during these final chapters. Initially, she tells Micah that she feels responsible for Griffin’s death since she failed to anticipate Johnny’s response to Griffin’s bad behavior. She thinks that if she altered her own behavior on that night, she could have prevented the killing. However, as she mulls over Griffin’s death and her relationship with Johnny in the years that followed, she comes to the conclusion that Johnny was a volatile and sometimes violent man. She stops idealizing him and begins to see him as someone who was capable of serious harm. She recognizes that her sense of responsibility for his actions is misplaced, and she is finally able to disentangle herself from his decisions. Finally, she is able to begin the process of healing and chooses to begin living for herself.
Her decision to move back to Six Rivers reflects her emotional transformation and also highlights The Impact of Place on Identity. James realizes that the city life that once represented personal and artistic freedom no longer fulfills her; similarly, despite the fact that Quinn is a good person and would make a supportive partner, she realizes that she no longer wants that relationship. In contrast, while she once saw Six Rivers as a place that symbolized trauma and secrets, she now feels the draw of her roots as she has overcome her personal struggles with her past. Her connections to the wilderness and to Micah reaffirm her sense of self. She returns to Six Flags, free from Johnny’s influence that kept James and Micah apart for decades. As the novel ends, James is pregnant with Micah’s child, symbolizing new beginnings and loving connections.
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