Paul D, a formerly enslaved man from Sweet Home, arrives at 124 and reunites with Sethe.

Paul D fights and drives the baby ghost out of 124 after it shakes the house violently.

Paul D convinces Sethe and Denver to attend a Colored Thursday carnival, bringing the family together.

The family returns from the carnival to find a young woman named Beloved waiting on their porch.

Paul D reveals that Halle witnessed Sethe's rape and suffered a mental breakdown, then disappeared.

Beloved finds Paul D in the shed and seduces him, compelling him to call her name during sex.

Unable to confess his affair, Paul D proposes to Sethe that they have a baby together instead.

Stamp Paid shows Paul D a newspaper clipping describing Sethe's arrest for murdering her own daughter.

Paul D confronts Sethe about killing her daughter; she insists she was saving her children from slavery.

Paul D tells Sethe she has two feet, not four, and leaves 124.

Beloved hums a private song only Sethe ever sang to her children, revealing her true identity.

After losing her job, Sethe stops caring for herself and surrenders entirely to Beloved's growing demands.

Denver leaves 124 alone for the first time in years to ask the community for help.

Sethe mistakes Mr. Bodwin for the schoolteacher and charges at him with an ice pick.

Paul D returns to 124 and finds Sethe in Baby Suggs's bed, promising to care for her.

When Paul D arrives at 124, he reignites Sethe's will to live and drives out the baby ghost that has long plagued the house. The three form a fragile family unit, but the arrival of the mysterious Beloved destabilizes everything Paul D has worked to build with Sethe. As Beloved's hold over the household grows, Paul D is seduced by her and cannot bring himself to confess his betrayal. The truth of Sethe's past is exposed when Stamp Paid shows Paul D the newspaper account of her arrest for murder, and Paul D leaves 124 in horror. Without him, Sethe surrenders herself entirely to Beloved until Denver takes action and appeals to the community for help. The novel resolves when Paul D returns to Sethe's side with a promise of healing and a shared future.

The central story of Sethe, Paul D, and the ghost that haunts 124.

Sethe's two sons, Howard and Buglar, flee 124 to escape the ghost and their family's traumatic history.

The ghost slams the family dog Here Boy against a wall, breaking his bones and dislocating his eye.

Sethe tells Paul D that the schoolteacher's nephews raped her and stole her breastmilk at Sweet Home.

Denver habitually retreats to her private refuge in a ring of boxwood bushes near the house.

Sethe, Paul D, and Denver take in the sickly Beloved and nurse her through what appears to be a fever.

Beloved asks Sethe about crystal earrings, prompting Sethe to recall Mrs. Garner's wedding gift to her.

Sethe recalls her mother revealing a branding scar beneath her breast before being hanged on the plantation.

After trying to kill his new enslaver Brandywine, Paul D is sentenced to a brutal prison farm in Georgia.

Hi Man yanks the chain signal and the entire prison chain gang escapes together through rising floodwaters.

Halle earns Baby Suggs's freedom through extra labor, and she settles at 124 after renaming herself.

Baby Suggs hosts feasts so lavish they stir jealousy and resentment among the Black townspeople.

The Black community, resentful of Baby Suggs's prosperity, fails to warn her that slave catchers are approaching.

Beloved pulls out one of her own teeth as she begins to physically disintegrate inside 124.

Stamp Paid visits Paul D at the church cellar and explains how he came to earn his new name.

Ella leads a group of Black townswomen to gather at the edge of 124 and pray for an exorcism.

Before Paul D arrives, 124 is already a broken home — its sons have fled, its dog has been maimed, and its residents are cut off from the community. As Beloved settles into the household, her presence triggers stories of Sweet Home's brutality, including Sethe's assault, her mother's death by hanging, and Paul D's long imprisonment in Georgia. Baby Suggs's backstory reveals how she built a life of freedom at 124, only to see it undone by the community's jealousy and their fatal failure to warn her about the approaching slave catchers. As Beloved's grip on the household tightens, small signs of her physical decay appear, while Stamp Paid and the townspeople slowly reckon with their long abandonment of Sethe's family. The novel closes with the women of the community taking collective action to confront the haunting at 124.

The supporting events that shaped 124's haunted world.

A malnourished white servant named Amy finds Sethe near death on the road and helps her recover.

Denver lies to Sethe to shield Beloved when Paul D tries to expose her supernatural strength.

Paul D tells Sethe about wearing an iron bit and envying the free-roaming rooster Mister at Sweet Home.

Denver confronts Beloved in her bedroom and learns she returned from the dead solely to see Sethe's face.

Amy helps deliver Sethe's baby inside a sinking boat on the river, as Denver later recounts to Beloved.

Beloved secretly chokes Sethe at the Clearing while Sethe believes it is Baby Suggs's comforting touch.

Paul D begins involuntarily sleeping farther from Sethe each night until Beloved finds him in the shed.

Sethe wraps her own shawl around Beloved on the porch rather than wearing it herself.

The schoolteacher finds Sethe in the shed with her dead and injured children and decides to leave without them.

Stamp Paid repeatedly approaches 124 to make amends but cannot bring himself to knock on the door.

Sethe recalls the schoolteacher banning Halle's outside labor, destroying his hope of buying his family's freedom.

Sethe's first-person monologue reveals she sent her children ahead during the escape but turned back to find Halle.

Sixo is burned alive during the Sweet Home escape attempt as Paul D is recaptured in a three-spoke collar.

Denver gradually earns the community's trust by returning borrowed dishes and learning new skills from neighbors.

Beloved vanishes permanently when townspeople tackle Sethe during her attack on Mr. Bodwin.

The story's most pivotal revelations unfold through flashbacks and confrontations that expose the truth buried beneath Sethe's long silence. Denver discovers Beloved's identity early but lies to protect her, while Paul D's confession about the iron bit and the rooster Mister lays bare the full horror of his enslavement. Beloved's act of choking Sethe at the Clearing marks the turning point where her presence shifts from mysterious comfort to active danger, and Paul D's involuntary displacement from Sethe's bed signals how completely Beloved has taken control. The schoolteacher's arrival at the shed is reconstructed as the defining moment explaining both Sethe's act of murder and the community's years of estrangement from 124. Denver's courageous reentry into the outside world and Beloved's final disappearance offer a hard-won resolution — not through answers, but through survival and the willingness to look toward tomorrow.