Zach, Poppy, and Alice play make-believe with action figures in Poppy's driveway, with Zach as the pirate William the Blade.

Zach's father admits to throwing out all of Zach's action figures to force him to grow up.

Zach tells Poppy and Alice he no longer wants to play, ending their games without explaining the real reason.

Alice and Poppy wake Zach at midnight and reveal that the Great Queen doll is haunted by a girl's ghost.

Poppy removes the Great Queen's head and pulls out a burlap bag labeled 'East Liverpool' containing what may be bones.

Zach agrees to travel by bus to East Liverpool to bury Eleanor's remains, on condition they never ask him to play.

The three friends board a bus to East Liverpool, where a disturbing man named Tinshoe Jones harasses them.

The friends escape the bus at a rest stop but flee the bus station when officers grow suspicious of them.

Stranded in East Rochester two stops from their destination, the trio decide to continue to East Liverpool on foot.

Zach steals a sailboat from a dock to carry the friends across a river blocking their path.

After the sailboat capsizes, Alice angrily throws the Great Queen doll into the river to end the quest.

Zach dives into the river to rescue the Great Queen doll before it sinks or floats away.

The trio miss their last bus home, and a heated argument breaks out with secrets revealed on all sides.

Alice sneaks into a closed library through a basement window so the friends can find a map to the cemetery.

The three friends bury the Great Queen at the Kerchner family grave and promise to keep telling stories together.

Three friends—Zach, Poppy, and Alice—spend their afternoons playing make-believe with action figures until Zach's father throws out his toys and forces him to quit. When Poppy begins receiving visits from a ghost named Eleanor Kerchner, the friends agree to carry Eleanor's remains by bus to her grave in East Liverpool, Ohio. Their journey is repeatedly derailed by a disturbing stranger, police suspicion, a stolen sailboat, and a capsized boat, yet the three press on together. After missing their bus home, they sneak into a library to find a map and make their way to Spring Grove Cemetery. Burying Eleanor at the Kerchner family plot finally sets the ghost to rest and heals the rift among the friends. With the quest complete, Zach, Poppy, and Alice promise to keep telling stories together even as they grow up.

The core quest from childhood games to Eleanor's burial.

Poppy plays a mermaid villain who demands a sacrifice from William and Lady Jaye before letting them pass.

Zach notices the Great Queen doll's eyes appear more open than usual as he leaves Poppy's house.

Poppy passes Zach a note at school with questions about their make-believe characters as part of their questions game.

Unable to concentrate after losing his toys, Zach skips basketball practice by pretending to be sick.

Leo, Alice, and Poppy walk home with Zach and spook themselves by discussing superstitions and the supernatural.

Poppy offers to secretly remove the Great Queen from the display cabinet to convince Zach to play one last time.

Alice passes Zach a note urging him to meet about the Queen; Zach tears it up and stays behind to shoot baskets.

Zach dreams about Eleanor's strict aunt, who forbids her niece from playing and hoards a collection of broken china.

The trio wake in their woodland camp to find their supplies mysteriously strewn and destroyed overnight.

A donut shop owner delivers a pink donut to the trio's invisible blond companion, confirming Eleanor haunts the doll.

The group reaches a river blocking their route, and Poppy blackmails Alice with a secret to force everyone to keep going.

The sailboat capsizes when Poppy demands they sail against the current to turn back toward East Liverpool.

While waiting in the library, the friends have a heart-to-heart about their fear of growing up and drifting apart.

Zach finds a display of Lukas Kerchner's pottery in the library basement and learns Eleanor's father was wrongly convicted of her murder.

At the cemetery, Zach finally confesses to his friends that his father threw out his action figures.

Beneath the main quest of Doll Bones lie the smaller moments that build its characters and atmosphere. Zach, Poppy, and Alice's friendship is tested by secrets, insecurities, and the creeping reality of Eleanor's ghost—first glimpsed in the Queen's eerily open eyes and later confirmed at a donut shop whose owner serves a meal to the invisible Eleanor. Poppy offers the forbidden doll to win Zach back, while Zach silently tears up Alice's notes rather than face the truth. A night camped in the woods turns frightening when their supplies are mysteriously destroyed, deepening Zach's belief in Eleanor's power. Library shelves and a potter's collection finally reveal the tragedy of Eleanor's father, and Zach's confession about his lost toys at the graveyard brings the emotional truth of the story to the surface. Together these moments give depth to the trio's struggle between childhood wonder and the pressure of growing up.

The hidden moments that reveal friendship, fear, and the supernatural.

Zach's father, recently returned home after years away, constantly pressures Zach to abandon his childhood hobbies and grow up.

Zach's pent-up grief over his lost toys makes him too aggressive on the basketball court, and his coach benches him.

After losing his action figures, Zach plays video games with classmate Alex Rios as a substitute for his old hobby.

Tinshoe Jones on the bus repeatedly refers to the trio's blond companion, hinting that Eleanor's ghost is visible to strangers.

Zach opens the burlap bag from inside the Great Queen and discovers what appears to be real ash and bone fragments.

Alice reluctantly gives in and agrees to continue the quest after Zach admits he genuinely wants to go on a real adventure.

Zach discovers the stolen sailboat is inscribed with the name 'Pearl,' eerily mirroring the Neptune's Pearl from their make-believe games.

Poppy blurts out to Zach that Alice has romantic feelings for him, breaking a secret she had promised to keep.

Alice reveals she is truly upset because her own deceased parents have never tried to contact her the way Eleanor contacted Poppy.

A diner waitress in East Liverpool asks for a table for four, proving Eleanor's ghost is visible to strangers.

Zach notices the Great Queen shifting to mirror Poppy's exact poses and movements during their meal at the diner.

The librarian Miss Katherine catches the children asleep in the library and locks them in a room to await their parents.

Zach's father answers the library phone and gives a genuine apology for destroying the action figures, accepting Zach's need to finish the quest.

Zach sees a cracked china face instead of his own reflection in a library mirror, then finds the Queen hidden in a bathroom.

Zach runs off alone in the cemetery and discovers the Kerchner family gravestone, which bears a carved willow tree.

Doll Bones is driven by a series of pivotal decisions and surprising revelations. It begins when Zach's recently returned father pressures him to abandon play, setting off a chain of hidden feelings and unspoken choices among the three friends. Eleanor's ghostly presence slowly becomes undeniable—through a stranger's mention of a blond companion on the bus, through bones found inside the doll, and finally through a diner waitress who counts an invisible fourth guest. Betrayed secrets and buried grief surface mid-journey: Poppy exposes Alice's crush on Zach, and Alice confesses that her own dead parents have never reached out to her. In the story's final act, a haunting china-faced reflection, a father's genuine phone apology, and a willow-engraved gravestone converge to set Eleanor free and give Zach the courage to claim his future on his own terms.