Oddball wakes Janina in the middle of the night to tell her that neighbor Big Foot has been found dead.

Janina and Oddball discover Big Foot choked on a poached deer bone and prepare his body for burial.

While searching Big Foot's belongings, Janina quietly pockets a disturbing photograph without revealing its contents.

Janina and Dizzy spot a strange light in the mountain pass and find the commandant's body near an abandoned well.

Janina tells Dizzy she is certain the local wildlife is taking revenge against the people who hunt them.

Police question Janina repeatedly as a witness and suspect in the commandant's murder.

Innerd, a wealthy businessman who runs a fox fur farm, vanishes after all his caged foxes are mysteriously released.

An entomologist named Boros arrives in the village to research an endangered beetle species.

Innerd's decomposed body is found deep in the forest, caught in an animal snare.

The president of the mushroom pickers' club is discovered dead and swarming with beetles.

Father Rustle delivers a sermon at the new Saint Hubert chapel, praising hunters as partners of God.

Janina shouts at Father Rustle and his congregation during the chapel dedication service and is forcibly removed.

The chapel presbytery burns down overnight and Father Rustle is found dead inside.

Confronted by her friends, Janina confesses to the murders and reveals the photograph of her dead dogs.

Janina flees across the Czech border and Boros spirits her away to a remote forest research station.

Janina's quiet life in a Polish mountain village is disrupted when neighbor Big Foot is found dead, choking on a poached deer bone. She and Dizzy soon discover the local police commandant murdered near an abandoned well, sparking Janina's conviction that animals are wreaking revenge on hunters. A wealthy fur farmer named Innerd vanishes before turning up dead in a forest snare, and the mushroom club president is found swarming with beetles. Tensions peak when Father Rustle delivers a sermon blessing hunters at a new chapel, provoking Janina into a public outburst before the priest dies in a fire. Confronted by her closest friends, Janina confesses to the murders and reveals a photograph of her two beloved dogs lying dead among hunters' trophies. She escapes across the Czech border and is spirited away by Boros to a remote forest where she can finally live in peace.

The killings that drive Janina's reign of revenge.

Oddball adopts Big Foot's neglected little dog following the neighbor's sudden death.

Men gather at Big Foot's house to pay respects and Janina leads the group in singing a church hymn.

Police arrive to investigate Big Foot's death and Oddball's son berates his father for disturbing the body.

Janina drives to a field where hunters are shooting pheasants, confronts them furiously, and swings at some of them.

Janina hosts Dizzy for their regular Friday dinner and translation session working on William Blake's poems.

The village postman gossips to Janina that the commandant was secretly accepting bribes from the wealthy Innerd.

Janina discovers the illegally poached carcass of a wild boar near the hunters' shooting pulpits.

Janina sends the police a letter claiming her astrology calculations prove that animals are responsible for the murders.

At the mushroom pickers' club planning meeting, Janina suggests that a mysterious creature called a chupacabra is the killer.

Janina finds a wolf costume at the resale shop and plans a Little Red Riding Hood outfit for Oddball.

Forest ranger Wolf Eye dismisses Janina's warnings about a logging operation threatening the endangered beetles' habitat.

The president's wife tells Janina a local folktale about the Night Archer, who flew at night punishing wicked people.

Police hold Janina in custody for 48 hours and search her home but find no incriminating evidence against her.

The school headmistress fires Janina from her teaching position because of her outburst at the Saint Hubert mass.

Dizzy and Good News move into Janina's former apartment in Wrocław and enroll as university students.

After Big Foot's death the village gathers to grieve while Oddball quietly adopts the neglected dog and the police open a clumsy investigation. Janina's antagonism toward local hunting culture escalates as she confronts hunters at their shooting pulpits, files repeated complaints about poaching, and discovers an illegally killed boar in the woods. Rumors circulate about bribery and corruption linking the commandant to the wealthy Innerd, while Janina's eccentric theories about astrology and chupacabras spread through village gatherings. As the body count rises, she prepares costumes for the mushroom ball and hears the legend of the Night Archer before finding herself under serious police scrutiny. Her outburst at the Saint Hubert chapel costs Janina her teaching job, completing her isolation from the mainstream community. In the aftermath, friends Dizzy and Good News carry on by beginning new lives together in the city, leaving the violence of the mountains behind.

The community rituals and investigations surrounding the murders.

Janina recalls visiting the police station to report Big Foot's poaching and being dismissed as a troublesome crank.

Janina sits at her kitchen table casting Big Foot's birth chart to test whether death can be read in horoscopes.

While helping Oddball repair a gutter, Janina shares her animal revenge theory and he urges her to stay silent.

Dizzy tells Janina that the commandant's body was found with a large bribe payment concealed in his waistband.

Janina rants at a policeman that animals are living beings whose bodies are callously turned into shoes and sausages.

An old man with a poodle tells Janina that Innerd's released white foxes have been spotted roaming the countryside.

Boros settles into Janina's home and explains that a logging operation is threatening the habitat of an endangered beetle.

Janina, Boros, and Oddball spend an evening singing under the full moon in the orchard and Janina and Boros become lovers.

Janina and Boros return to Innerd's crime scene under cover of darkness to search for overlooked evidence.

Janina writes the police a letter citing medieval court cases in which animals were formally put on trial by humans.

At the mushroom pickers' ball, Janina offers to drive the drunken president home so his exhausted wife can leave early.

After her release from police custody, Janina's health collapses and she is briefly admitted to hospital.

Janina spends autumn recovering at home, nursed back to health by Oddball, Dizzy, and Good News.

Dizzy leaves a marked passage from Blake's letters outside Janina's door, warning her that the police are coming.

Settled at the remote research station, Janina works on her own horoscope and declares she knows the date of her death.

From the earliest chapters Janina's obsessive worldview takes shape as she casts horoscopes of the dead and recalls being brushed off by the very commandant she will later murder. Her growing certainty is tested against Oddball's skepticism, Dizzy's inside knowledge of bribe money, and her own furious outbursts at police who refuse to treat animal suffering as a serious matter. The arrival of entomologist Boros brings a brief romantic interlude and a shared night investigation of Innerd's crime scene before he departs, deepening Janina's isolation. Her methodical construction of each murder — from the frozen bag of ice used on the commandant to the beetle pheromones stolen from Boros — is laid bare when she finally confesses to friends. After narrowly avoiding arrest, with Oddball misdirecting the police and Dizzy leaving a timely Blake-inscribed warning at her door, Janina slips across the border to safety. The novel closes with Janina quietly working on her own horoscope at the forest research station, at peace and certain she has many years still to live.