Doc McDougal, an elderly man, arrives and examines Addy while Spencer hides Pan in the doctor’s specially outfitted wagon. The doctor warns James that Thomas is dangerous and advises him to wait a week before leaving, which James privately resolves to ignore. Less than two hours later, the wagon returns with Doc collapsed from severe chest pains; he dies shortly after.

Spencer decides to transport Doc’s body to the doctor’s son while Pan remains hidden in the barn; he promises that he will have concocted a new plan by the time he returns. That night, during a fierce storm, James hears urgent knocking at his exterior door. Opening it with his pistol drawn, he finds Sukey, who rushes in and writes frantically that she has been discovered, that a trader told Thomas that James is part Black, and that Thomas has sent for Rankin. Sam bursts in, warning that patrollers are coming.

James flees with only the old jacket containing his grandmother’s jewels, leaving his gun behind. Pan runs from the barn, pleading not to be left alone. Though James tries to send him back, he gives up as Sukey urges haste. They follow Sukey to the Southwood quarters, where a man provides bear-grease-covered deerskin slippers to throw off tracking dogs. James is shocked when he realizes that Sukey is not only pregnant but close to term. Nevertheless, they cross a river on a hidden raft and, near dawn, reach a Quaker farm where a woman named Lillian hides them in a secret cellar beneath her parlor floor.

Patrollers arrive at the Quaker house, but a quilting party of women distracts them, and they leave empty-handed. That evening, a tall Quaker man leads them away and gives them directions before departing. Against Sukey’s objections, James decides to travel during daylight through open cotton fields. After resting in a cornfield, they oversleep and are nearly discovered by hunters chasing a wounded bear.

They finally reach the Great Dismal Swamp and push deep inside until they find a cave-like shelter beneath a downed tree. Sukey goes into labor. She frantically scratches into James’s palm that the baby is coming and that he must take it. Terrified by the prospect of delivering a child and fleeing with a newborn, James panics and runs from the cave, leaving Sukey and Pan behind.

Convinced that James abandoned her and Pan due to racism and knowing that she cannot travel alone with a newborn, Sukey resolves to kill the baby at birth. She stifles her cries during labor and sends Pan away when he offers to help.

When the baby is born, Sukey presses the infant against her chest to suffocate it, but her maternal instinct overwhelms her. She bites through the umbilical cord, puts the baby to her breast, and sees she has given birth to a girl. She weeps as Pan returns, promising to help her.

James’s perspective resumes. He recalls his panic-driven flight through the swamp, during which he encounters the wounded bear. The bear charges but collapses dead before reaching him. Overcome with shame, James resolves to return but gets lost. Using a tracking technique that Henry taught him, he finds his way back the next morning.

Pan is furious with him. Inside the cave, James finds Sukey alive with a newborn. Sukey is feverish and desperately asks for his water, which he brings in his leather slipper. When Pan announces plans to leave James for his father, James reveals that Henry died of illness. Pan reacts with grief and fury. James checks on Sukey, who is still bleeding. James and Pan wash the baby, whom Pan names Kitty, and James explains to Pan that he has spent his life running from his identity as part Black. They forage for huckleberries, grubs, and grasshoppers.

Over the next several days, Sukey’s condition worsens despite James’s efforts to care for her and the infant. On the sixth day, Sukey dies. Knowing Kitty needs milk urgently, James and Pan leave immediately, though Pan insists that James says a brief prayer invoking Sukey and Henry for help before they depart. After traveling for hours, a short Black man named Willie emerges from the trees carrying a long knife.

When James explains their situation, Willie leads them to a maroon settlement on an island in the swamp. An elderly woman named Peg immediately feeds Kitty warm goat milk. While eating stew, James is violently attacked by a large man named Pete, who holds a knife to his throat and demands to know why Willie let a white man into the settlement. Pan tries to defend James but is thrown aside. Pete then recognizes James from descriptions of a wanted man with one eye. James mentions Doc McDougal and Mr. Spencer, whom Pete knows, and pleads for help, but Pete remains noncommittal.

Over the next two weeks, Kitty and Pan grow stronger. Peg dislikes James but grows fond of Pan. At the end of the second week, Pete announces that arrangements for the trio to leave have been made. Despite her attachment to the animal, Peg agrees to give them her goat for Kitty’s milk. Pan promises to send her drawings, and James gives Peg his grandmother’s valuable brooch in gratitude.

Pete leads them through the swamp to the canal, where a barge operated by a man named Joe awaits. James and Pan are hidden in a narrow compartment beneath the deck as the barge pushes into the night.

Pan is no longer afraid, believing that his mother is watching over him. He reflects on how James’s panic during Sukey’s labor changed his perception of him from godlike to fallible, though James’s fear helps him understand his father’s bravery in coming to rescue him. He worries about who will help other freedom seekers now that Sukey is gone and wonders where he, James, and Kitty will live since James has explained that Philadelphia is no longer safe. He assumes that he and Kitty will live in the kitchen with Robert while James continues passing as white.

James struggles with panic in the cramped compartment. The barge docks overnight, and James overhears Joe passing Kitty off as his wife’s niece. A man warns Joe that patrollers and Rankin are actively searching for a light-skinned Black man with one eye. James is terrified upon hearing Rankin’s name.

The next day, after hours of travel, they dock at a hotel on the North Carolina-Virginia border. That evening, Joe frees first Pan and then James from the compartment; he hides James in a barn feed room behind stacked sacks, promising to reunite him with Pan later. After eating ravenously, James becomes violently ill. He contemplates his wretched state, comparing his stench to that of the enslaved men in the coffle in Norfolk, whom he judged with disgust. Later, Joe wakes him. James is shocked when he sees Robert standing with Joe.

Robert provides James with clean clothes and spectacles in place of his eye patch. He informs James that Pan is already in the waiting carriage and is surprised to learn of Kitty. James insists that they must also take the goat for milk. Robert leaves to pick up two women at the hotel. James helps Joe muzzle the goat and receives a knife from him.

As James returns for Kitty, he hears Rankin interrogating Robert in the feed room. Rankin grabs Kitty and threatens to kill her unless Robert reveals James’s whereabouts. James creeps forward with the knife. Rankin recognizes him and taunts him, revealing that he was present at James’s conception, holding down Belle for Marshall to rape; he later stole the infant James from Belle, whom he hated because she refused to have sex with him. While Rankin is distracted, Robert stabs him in the back with a pitchfork. James then stabs Rankin and hides the body in the feed-sack hiding spot.

They rush to the carriage and speed away. Inside, James discovers the two women passengers are Adelaide Spencer and Hester, who insisted on joining Robert’s rescue party. Robert explains that they are now in Virginia, where North Carolina patrollers have no jurisdiction. James tells Hester that Sukey died but promises that Kitty will be free. Robert warns that Meg and Elly want to adopt Caroline and that their school is failing due to their efforts to educate Black children.

The next morning, they stop at a tavern. Addy explains that she insisted on coming to act as James’s protector by posing as his student. She reveals that she brought her mother’s pistol for protection and expresses admiration for his willingness to risk his life for Pan. James is amused and touched by her fierce loyalty. They leave the goat at the tavern, taking bottles of fresh milk to feed Kitty for the rest of the journey to Williamsburg.

That evening, they arrive at the Madden home. James meets his sister, Elly, and her aunt, Meg. Eleanor notes that she sees no family resemblance. James is reunited with his daughter, Caroline, who cries at the sight of him. Unable to sleep that night, James is tormented by Rankin’s revelation about his mother’s rape. He reconsiders his harsh judgment of Belle, realizing how deep and selfless her love for him must have been, and wrestles with questions of identity and belonging.

At breakfast, James meets his great-aunt, Mrs. Madden, who is cold and disapproving. After the meal, Meg and Elly confirm that James would not be accepted in Williamsburg society and reveal their school’s financial troubles. James offers a donation. They accept, but they also ask to adopt Caroline and raise her with her never knowing her father. Stunned, James tells them that he needs time to think.

On a walk, James encourages Robert to seek employment elsewhere, given James’s uncertain future. He also reveals his plan to give Caroline to the Maddens, pay the wet nurse to raise Kitty in Philadelphia, and send Pan to boarding school. Robert is horrified and pleads with James not to abandon the children. Angry, James walks away, leaving Robert in tears.

At the bank, the manager gives James a letter from Mrs. Cardon dated three weeks prior. Mr. Cardon is dying and wishes to see his grandchild. She invites James to return to Philadelphia, promising her complete support and assuring him his secret was never revealed. Stunned, James establishes a yearly donation for the school and considers transferring his funds back to Philadelphia.

James rushes to Robert and shows him the letter. Robert pointedly asks if James plans to bring Pan and Kitty with him. James apologizes and agrees to take responsibility for all three children with Robert’s continued help. At supper, James informs Meg and Elly that he will return to Philadelphia with Caroline. He gives Meg a package containing the jacket with the remaining jewels and a letter, asking her to send both to Belle. The letter explains his new understanding, his changed views on race, and his decision to rename Caroline to Belle; it also invites his mother to visit or live with him.

The next morning, they depart. Addy catches up to them to say goodbye, making James promise they will meet again. Back in the carriage, Pan confesses that he is afraid of being kidnapped again. James asks to adopt him, giving him the legal protection of the Burton name. Pan accepts and asks if Kitty can have the name, too. James agrees to raise all three children as his own. Pan asks who will help other freedom seekers now that Sukey is gone. James, reflecting on all who helped him, promises to take up the cause by contacting Mr. Spencer and tells Pan that when he is grown, they can work on it together. James pulls Pan into an embrace, feeling that he is going home.