Chris Dollanganger Sr. dies in a car accident, shattering the family's comfortable Pennsylvania life.

Corrine confesses the family is broke and moves her four children to live with her wealthy parents in Virginia.

The four children are locked in a room in the north wing of Foxworth Hall by their severe grandmother.

Grandmother presents the children with 22 strict house rules emphasizing Bible study and separation of the sexes.

Corrine confesses that grandfather does not know the children exist and that her inheritance depends on his death.

Grandmother strips and flogs Corrine in front of the children to demonstrate the punishment for breaking the rules.

Chris and Cathy spy on Corrine's lavish Christmas reintroduction party and spot her on the arm of Bart Winslow.

Corrine announces she married Bart Winslow while the children were locked away and she was on her honeymoon.

Grandmother coats Cathy's hair with tar overnight as punishment for her vanity after catching Chris watching her.

Chris rapes Cathy in the attic after discovering she had kissed their sleeping stepfather Bart.

Cory begins vomiting repeatedly and deteriorates rapidly, and Cathy demands he be taken to a hospital.

Cory dies, reportedly from pneumonia, at a faraway hospital under a false name.

Chris returns from a stealing mission to find Corrine and Bart's room completely empty — they have fled.

Hiding behind a library sofa, Chris overhears servants reveal that grandfather has been dead for months and Corrine has inherited his fortune.

Chris, Cathy, and Carrie escape Foxworth Hall with stolen money and board a train heading south.

The story begins when the sudden death of the Dollanganger children's beloved father leaves the family penniless, forcing their mother Corrine to move them to her wealthy parents' Virginia estate. On arrival, the four children are locked away in secret by their fanatical grandmother, who enforces strict Biblical rules while Corrine attempts to win back her place in her father's will. As months and then years pass, Corrine's visits grow rarer while she reintegrates into high society, eventually secretly marrying a man named Bart Winslow without telling her children. The elder siblings Chris and Cathy, trapped in adolescence with no outlet, enter a destructive physical relationship while the younger twins visibly decline in health. When the youngest twin Cory dies under suspicious circumstances, Chris uncovers the truth: grandfather has long been dead, Corrine has stolen his fortune and fled, and she has been poisoning her own children to satisfy the terms of his will. The three survivors escape Foxworth Hall and board a train south, leaving their imprisonment behind.

The headline events that imprison and ultimately liberate the Dollanganger children.

Corrine reveals the family's true surname is Foxworth, not Dollanganger, before the family leaves Pennsylvania.

The family walks through the night to reach the mansion because grandfather must not discover the children exist.

The children explore the vast, dusty attic for the first time, finding broken toys, old costumes, and sad-eyed family portraits.

Corrine tells her children the story of how she and their father fell in love as half-niece and half-uncle and eloped.

The children decorate the attic with paper flowers and autumn leaves to mark the passage of seasons.

Cory nearly suffocates during a hide-and-seek game in the attic, alarming Christopher and Cathy about the dangers of confinement.

Corrine brings the children a television set, giving them their only vicarious window to the outside world.

Corrine arrives two hours late on Thanksgiving with leftover food while the hungry twins refuse to eat it.

Corrine gives the children her old dollhouse as a Christmas gift and reports that grandfather plans to reinstate her in his will.

Chris sneaks out after the Christmas party and discovers the mansion's trophy room filled with grandfather's hunting spoils.

Cathy gets her first period in the attic and declares she will never have children because she intends to be a dancer.

Cory rescues a mouse from a trap in the attic, names him Mickey, and keeps him as a pet.

Chris carves a duplicate key from wood and uses it to access Corrine's room and steal money for their escape.

Cathy tries on her mother's makeup and clothes during a stealing mission and reclines on the famed swan bed.

Before fleeing, Cathy writes a message on the attic chalkboard documenting the four children's existence in the house.

Before entering captivity, the children learn that their cheerful family name, Dollanganger, is an invention, and that their true identity ties them to the powerful and unforgiving Foxworth family. Once locked away in the north wing, the children find a measure of freedom in the vast attic, which they attempt to make their own with decorations and creativity to endure the passage of time. Corrine supplies them with gifts — a television set, a dollhouse — but each visit reveals more clearly how she is building a life for herself while her children stagnate. The older children secretly plan their escape, forging a duplicate key and stealing money from their mother's room, while Cathy grows bolder in her rivalry with her mother. The small details of daily confinement accumulate into a portrait of stolen childhood: a pet mouse adopted from a trap, a first menstruation, a Christmas gesture that insults rather than nourishes. Cathy's final act of writing the children's names on the attic chalkboard before their escape is a defiant assertion of their existence against a world designed to erase them.

The hidden details that reveal how the children lived, endured, and plotted their survival.

Corrine returns from a long absence looking tanned and healthy from sailing, while her children remain pale and confined.

Corrine casually mentions that both of her musically gifted brothers died in separate accidents, a coincidence Cathy finds deeply unsettling.

The twins develop a severe fever and Corrine refuses to call a doctor, revealing how little she values their lives.

Grandmother silently refuses the Christmas painting the children made for her, destroying their hope of winning her over.

Corrine slaps Chris and threatens permanent confinement for all four children after discovering his unauthorized exploration of the house.

Cathy climbs onto the attic roof and contemplates suicide after Corrine brings ill-fitting little-girl clothes that ignore her physical development.

Grandmother catches Chris watching Cathy's naked body in the mirror and threatens to cut Cathy's hair as punishment for their sinfulness.

Grandmother beats Chris with a willow switch and then beats Cathy when she cries out, and the siblings share a half-naked kiss afterward.

Chris and Cathy realize the twins are not growing properly, their heads too large for their frail, underdeveloped bodies.

Cathy secretly kisses the sleeping Bart Winslow during a solo stealing mission, driven by resentment of her mother's privileged life.

Chris overhears Bart telling Corrine about a dream of a young girl who kissed him and instantly knows it was Cathy.

After raping Cathy, Chris confesses that she is the only woman he will ever love for the rest of his life.

When Cory collapses, grandmother is the one who agrees to take him to the hospital while Corrine appears wracked with indecision.

Chris deduces that the powdered-sugar doughnuts were laced with arsenic and concludes that Corrine, not grandmother, was the most likely poisoner.

Cathy throws the arsenic-laced evidence into a trash bin and vows to build a successful life as her ultimate revenge on Corrine.

Beneath the surface of the children's confinement, a series of discoveries and confrontations steadily erode their faith in their mother and expose the full depth of her self-interest. Early warning signs accumulate — Corrine's tanned, carefree returns from the outside world, the twins' deteriorating health, and odd mentions of brothers who died in convenient accidents — building a portrait of a woman capable of sacrificing her children. Grandmother's violence, her contemptuous refusal of the children's peace offering, and her punishment of both older siblings set the stage for Chris and Cathy's forbidden physical relationship, which reaches a breaking point after Cathy kisses the sleeping Bart and Chris discovers it. The aftermath of Chris's assault on Cathy, followed by Cory's sudden decline and suspicious death, forces the children to confront just how far their captors are willing to go. The final revelation — that arsenic was baked into the powdered-sugar doughnuts and that Corrine was the most likely poisoner — confirms what Cathy's instincts had long warned. Rather than using the poisoned evidence to send her mother to prison, Cathy discards it and chooses survival and ambition as her ultimate act of defiance.

The emotional turning points and dark revelations that expose a mother's step-by-step betrayal.