On New Year’s Eve, Beth’s excitement about Plumfield makes Amy believe that her chance of attending the summer art program is lost. She’s bitter and resents Beth’s enjoyment of the party, so she picks a fight and tells Beth about her deal with Aunt March. As Laurie breaks up the fight, Amy’s last words to her sister are that she wishes Beth were dead.

Amy and Laurie drive to Plumfield to get a copy of Beth’s audition tape. When they watch it, they see Florence and Henry in the audience. Amy calls Florence, who says that she went to see how Beth did since it would affect her and Amy’s summer plans. Then Henry showed up to stop the audition, but Florence convinced him to go home. Beth never even knew he’d been there.

Amy gets a notification that Jo has started sharing her phone’s location and is near the cabin.

John is bringing Beth home from the New Year’s Eve party. Determined to make up with Amy, she tries to run back to Sallie’s house. She stumbles while cutting through the park, but John catches her. They talk about Amy and Plumfield, and John urges Beth to make her decision for herself, not for Amy or anyone else. Then, he drops her off at home.

Beth decides that she needs to lie on her back at the park and find answers in the stars. She encounters Henry when she gets there.

From Henry’s notes in Little Women, Jo observes that he hates the book but loves Beth. He has ripped out the chapter in which she dies. When Jo and Meg reach the cabin, their father’s car is there. All his things are inside, but he isn’t. Jo hears footsteps behind her.

At the park, Henry insists that he can’t lose Beth and then admits that he lied about his mother dying. He left her behind in Rhode Island to be with Beth, adding that Beth needed him to protect her and that he loved her even when everyone else saw her as insignificant. Beth realizes that Henry is talking about her character in the book. She tries to run, but Henry shoves her, and she tumbles down the hill, hitting her head on a boulder. Bleeding and in terrible pain, Beth urges Henry to get help. He panics, says, “[T]his can’t happen again” (358), and then takes his jacket off her and leaves.

Beth is unable to move or call out, even when she hears Laurie and Amy’s voices nearby. Amy says that she didn’t mean any of the terrible things she said to Beth and that she loves her. As Beth dies, she senses her sisters’ presence. She knows that she wants to live. She also knows that they love her. She holds their love deep in her heart as she departs.

Henry is at the cabin. Jo realizes that he followed her and Meg there and that he killed Beth. She tries to keep him calm, but her need for the truth presses her to question him. Henry admits that he followed their father to the cabin to confront him and ended up killing him. He holds a gun on them now and forces them to turn their phones off. Jo feels sure that he’ll kill them, too.

Amy and Laurie race toward the cabin. They’ve called the police, who are on the way, but Amy and Laurie arrive first. They see through the window that Henry has a gun aimed at Jo and Meg. Amy remembers sneaking into the attic with her sisters as children and devises a plan.

Jo tries to stall for time by telling Henry that if he kills her and Meg, their deaths will overshadow the public’s focus on Beth and everyone will forget about her. Amy and Laurie sneak in from the attic, rush at Henry, and wrestle the gun from him.

As police arrive and arrest Henry, Jo thinks about what a thrilling story this all would make.

Two months later, the remaining members of the March family gather at Walden Pond to scatter Rob and Beth’s ashes. Henry pled guilty in court and will be in prison for life. Amy wonders if Beth’s nature would make her sympathetic to Henry. She believes that Beth would forgive her for being selfish and not believing in Beth’s strength.

Jo has accepted Amy and Laurie as a couple. Sales of Little Women have skyrocketed with all the attention from the trial, and the royalties will bring the family a lot of money. Aunt March plans to take Amy on a tour of Europe’s art museums. It’s hard for Amy to imagine enjoying herself after so much loss, but she knows that Beth would rail against her giving up on her dreams and giving in to misery.

Police found Rob’s body buried in the woods, and although Meg now holds her father’s ashes, she can still imagine him camping in the Canadian Rockies, writing under the stars, and coming home someday. She and John are officially back together. Harvard put her on academic probation rather than expelling her. Sallie withdrew before they could expel her and is spending a gap year in Paris. Meg realizes now that her father wrote about his daughters because of his love and affection for them.

Jo, Meg, and Amy hold the box of Beth’s ashes and scatter them together into the wind. They say goodbyes and share their favorite memories. Later, Nan tells Jo that she loves her manuscript and intends to publish it. Jo didn’t write about Beth’s death but about her life.