In January of 1984, Marcia makes her first visit to the abandoned barn in a secluded spot in the country that houses Mitchell’s commune. The barn’s run-down and littered with junk. A group of people sprawl about. Mitchell tells Marcia that this is home—and wants her to consider it her home, too. He tells her to go join “the others” (136), which unnerves her slightly since she thought they were a couple, not part of a collective. However, she does long to belong. She looks back to see Mitchell slipping into a car to talk to the driver, who appears to be under the influence of something.

Marcia approaches another girl on the property, who slowly smiles and welcomes her to “the farm” (138). She then takes her on the official tour of the property. She explains how they cook over a campfire and sleep in the barn, although they take turns sleeping in Mitchell’s camper. The barn is both homey and off-putting. The girl wonders where “Mitch found [her]” (139), which makes Marcia feel like a collected item.

Marcia realizes the girl and Mitchell are in a relationship and asks how they met. She explains that Mitch found her dumpster-diving for food and then abruptly turns to introduce her to a girl (Annie) and a boy (Montana) lying on the grass. Then, she introduces herself as Lillian, but adds that everyone calls her Lily.

After reading the diary, Claire feels like she’s missing something and goes to the computer to reread the article about her sister’s case, which details the evidence found in Slater’s car and why this led to a murder charge. She’s interrupted by Liam and she heads off with him to pick the grapes.

Liam asks her why she went to New York to work. She says she needed to go somewhere different and can’t imagine living life in just one place. Liam reveals he’s never traveled outside of the state or even his town, and Claire feels bad, insisting that people should stay where they’re happy. Liam doesn’t seem to take offense.

Claire is about to ask him if he knew he always wanted to help on a farm when she is bitten by a copperhead. Mitchell offers to treat the snakebite with alternative medicine so Claire, who doesn’t have insurance, won’t get a hefty hospital bill. Wary but in pain, Claire agrees.

Claire is now in the main house with Liam. There’s no sign of Marcia. Mitchell chews broadleaf plantain leaves into a paste, explaining their medicinal properties as “nature’s antivenom” (149). He then gives Claire a mug of natural painkiller. She hesitates, but the pain makes her decide to drink. When she sleeps, she dreams about Natalie again but this time she leaves the bathroom, sneaks outside, and gets into the orange camper from Marcia’s diary. She looks at Claire from the rearview mirror.

Claire wakes up in the guesthouse, unsure of how she got there. Disturbed by her own grogginess, Claire remembers how Marcia was drinking tea the first night and how she herself fell asleep after drinking half a mug. She thinks back on Marcia meeting Mitchell and how she didn’t remember falling asleep in the camper. She starts to wonder if Mitchell is drugging people.

More of her memory comes back and she remembers Liam brought her to the guesthouse and put her into bed, fully clothed. She unwraps her bandage and the bite looks better and is no longer swollen. She wonders if she’s wrong about Mitchell. Although she wants to keep sleeping, she is determined to continue reading the diary.

In March 1984, Lily explains to Marcia that Mitchell named her after the plant, the lily of the valley. She explains that they are dainty, tough, and homey, much like she is.

A man in a car arrives and Marcia notices it’s the same man who was there on her first visit. Lily calls him a regular “client” of Mitchell’s. Lily wants Marcia to consider staying permanently at the farm. Marcia reflects on how she enjoys how the group works together as a unit, taking turns with chores. Montana drives into town for basic necessities but occasionally a treat or piece of décor appears which Lily uses to decorate the space. Marcia thinks about staying at home, but since college is off the table, she knows her parents will try to marry her off, which seems like a death sentence.

Marcia asks Lily about her family, but Lily doesn’t have one. She was raised in foster care and insists this is the only family she has or needs. Marcia asks about Annie and realizes she hasn’t seen the other girl in a while. Lily tells her that Annie won’t be coming back. She says Annie wasn’t committed enough to the “family,” which makes Marcia a bit anxious.

On the next page of the diary there’s some strange numbers and letters scribbled in silver ink on the corner of the page. Claire is trying to figure out what they mean when Liam arrives with coffee. She asks him about what Mitchell gave her the day before, asking him if Mitchell drugged her. Liam reminds her that Mitchell explained it was an herbal painkiller and points out that it worked. He privileges Mitchell’s use of it over “synthetic crap” (159). She apologizes, telling him that she was just overwhelmed by the incident, which he notes is understandable. He tells her she needs to rest and has the day off; he’ll be in the vineyard if she needs him.

As Claire stays in the guesthouse, she starts to think about how Marcia doesn’t leave the farm. She wonders if she’s being held captive by Mitchell and if the diary is a cry for help. While Marcia could get help with access to the internet, Claire believes that she’s being emotionally controlled. Her experience as a journalist who covers domestic violence and murder makes her wonder if Marcia is engaged in a kind of trauma bonding.

Claire begins to cry, thinking that she should have been more forthcoming about Natalie’s behavior. Her feeling that she might have saved her sister makes her identify Marcia with Natalie. She begins to formulate a plan to talk to her without Mitchell noticing.

After making sure Liam is busy, Claire goes to find the plant that Mitchell used on her leg. She uses her phone to identify it. The plant is really broadleaf plantain and is used for medicinal purposes to extract venom. She looks up lily of the valley, which she learns is a highly toxic flower. This reminds her of the dead fox in the marsh.

She sees Mitchell leave the house to deliver the harvest into town. She tells Liam she’s going to nap, but instead sneaks up to the main house. She knocks, but there’s no answer. Claire knows there’s only so much time before Mitchell comes back and decides to enter the house. She calls for Marcia but there is still no answer. She finds Marcia limp in a chair and thinks she may be dead before noticing her breath. She’s in a deep state of sleep. She notices the mug by her side.

She smells the residue in the mug, then checks Marcia’s pulse, which is steady. She takes the opportunity to snoop around the house. The layout of the house’s second floor is identical to her mother’s. She checks in two of the rooms to find neat guest rooms and then finds the primary bedroom, which she searches. The light from the windows illuminates an oddly colored floorboard, and Claire lifts it to discover a black duffel back just like the one that Natalie took from home.

Claire unzips the duffel and finds a Berkeley sweatshirt inside. She recalls this is the sweatshirt Marcia found in the camper. The initials KAP are written on the tag, but Claire can’t think of any place she’s encountered them before. She takes a picture of the sweatshirt and its tag, and the other items in the duffel which include a wallet, a towel, and a folder of papers which contains the farm’s deed.

When she opens the wallet, she finds Steven Montague’s driver’s license. The towel has something heavy wrapped inside it and Claire finds a gun. She hears a noise outside and finds that Mitchell’s arrived back home.

Claire knows she needs to get out of the house. She’s not sure how far Mitchell might go to protect himself. She takes the gun, returns everything else to the duffel, and resets the boards. Tiptoeing into the hallway, Claire hears Mitchell running water in the kitchen. She starts down the staircase, to see if she can exit. Mitchell comes out of the kitchen and passes the stairs but doesn’t see Claire as he goes to check on Marcia. As she works to conceal herself quietly on the stairwell, her phone rings. It’s Ryan. She shoves the phone into her pocket as Mitchell makes for the staircase.

As she freezes in fright, Liam comes to the porch to tell Mitchell there’s a storm coming and he needs help securing things against the wind. Mitchell asks where Claire is, and she reflects on how her opinion of him has rapidly shifted from believing he could solve any problem to becoming one. Liam tells him she’s sleeping and Mitchell seems relieved. The two men exit the house.

Claire races to the guesthouse in the rain after Liam and Mitchell go into the shed. Ryan calls again and lets Claire know he’s been trying to reach her all morning. He’s worried about her. She says she’s been busy but then remembers that Ryan has no idea she’s working at Galloway. Claire confesses that she’s not at home and tells Ryan everything that has happened since she left. She explains how she went into the main house and found the items in the bag: The sweatshirt, the deed, the wallet, the gun. Ryan comes up with potential reasons for all of these things being there, but Claire is adamant that things feel off.

Ryan gently suggests that Claire is conflating Natalie and Marcia and urges her to see that they aren’t the same people. Claire thinks Mitchell having the deed without his name is odd, and Ryan reminds her she doesn’t really know anything about them and she’s jumping to conclusions. Claire is frustrated and feels this line of reasoning is similar to people trying to explain what happened to Natalie. Ryan thinks that Claire feels responsible for Natalie’s death and tells her it isn’t her fault that Natalie died. Ryan is the first person to tell Claire this. Claire disagrees and begins to tell Ryan about what happened in 2002.

Claire confesses to Ryan that she knew that Natalie was sneaking out. Since she took pleasure in going into Natalie’s room and going through her things, she never told anyone. Isolated as a child, without a lot of friends, she used the time to pretend she was her pretty, popular older sister.

The night Natalie disappeared, Claire fell asleep in her sister’s room. Waking up in the early morning, she saw that Natalie had never come back. She went back to her own room to sleep even though she knew something was wrong.

Ryan again reminds her she was only a child. When the police found the blood-soaked shirt, Claire couldn’t help but think that if she hadn’t been selfish about the time she spent in Natalie’s room and confessed the truth to her mother, maybe Natalie would still be alive. Ryan pleads with her to come back to New York City, but she says that she has to stay and investigate the truth, and believes in her feeling that something is wrong. At that moment, the storm increases in force and the power goes out. She uses the last of her phone’s power to enable the flashlight so she can read the diary.