Harvest Season

On the morning of August 26, Sheriff Yates is inside Harper’s cottage, systematically removing all of Nolan’s belongings to erase any sign of him. He finds a note Nolan wrote to Harper containing the line “Time demands its toll” (314), and places it in the freezer to be discovered later. Yates reveals that he stole Arthur’s medication to force Harper, whom he refers to by her real name, Autumn, to go into town. He feeds and speaks to Morpheus, Harper’s pet raven, teaching the bird new words. As he sees a car arrive at the estate, he knows his plan is successfully underway.

The narrative moves back to the previous day, August 25, which is the anniversary of Harper’s escape from the serial killer Harvey Mead. Arthur Lancaster gives her a pair of custom monogrammed gardening gloves. Later, the annual gardening competition judging takes place, with Mayor Patel, Sheriff Yates, and other town officials in attendance. The event is interrupted by a distraught Mrs. Evanston, who demands the search for her missing husband be reopened. During the confrontation, a cognitively impaired Arthur makes an insensitive comment, referring to Mr. Evanston in the past tense. In the ensuing chaos, Mrs. Evanston’s dog digs up Bryce Mahoney’s surgically-repaired bone, which has been stolen from Harper’s freezer and deliberately planted in a flowerbed. Harper retrieves the bone and immediately realizes Nolan is the only person who knew of its existence. Believing he has betrayed her, she escorts the confused Arthur back into the manor as he calls her Poppy, his dead daughter’s name. Filled with rage, Harper retrieves a hidden gun and waits for Nolan to return to the cottage.

Nolan returns to the cottage and is confronted by a cold, furious Harper. She tosses Bryce Mahoney’s bone at him and accuses him of planting it to frame her and Arthur. When he denies it, she pulls a gun on him, convinced this is his ultimate revenge for the accident that killed his brother. Desperate to prove his love, Nolan gets on one knee and proposes with an engagement ring. At that moment, Morpheus the raven says the name “Autumn” in a man’s voice—which Nolan points to as proof of a third party. Harper dismisses his argument and, based on her prior conviction about the bone, forces him out of the house at gunpoint.

Devastated, Nolan checks into the Capeside Inn, where the receptionist, Irene, offers him miniature bottles of bourbon. In his room, Nolan realizes a third party must be manipulating them but cannot identify who it is. He resolves to break back into the cottage to search for hidden cameras or other clues. As he stands by his hotel room window, he is struck from behind and knocked unconscious.

Sheriff Yates enters the Lancaster Manor, revealing that he has 46 hidden cameras placed throughout the property. He confronts Arthur in the kitchen, and Arthur recognizes Yates as La Plume—his wife’s killer—after Yates reveals his interest in Charles Baudelaire’s poetry. Yates confirms his identity, explaining that he was so fascinated by Arthur’s deep grief—an emotion he’d never witnessed in the relatives of his other victims—that he decided to stay in Cape Carnage. Yates stabs Arthur, but Arthur fights back. In a final act of defiance, Arthur pulls the blade from his own body and uses it to fatally slit his own throat, telling Yates that Harper will ultimately be the one to kill him.

Convinced of Nolan’s betrayal, Harper throws Bryce Mahoney’s bone into the sea. She returns to the manor to find Arthur dead on the kitchen floor. On the wall, written in blood, is the phrase from Nolan’s note: “Time demands its toll” (359). This solidifies her belief that Nolan is the murderer, and she vows to kill him. Harper later discovers a shard of jade-green porcelain embedded in her palm—evidence of something broken at the scene, even though she doesn’t recall seeing any broken porcelain that matches it. 

In the days that follow, Sheriff Yates questions Harper about the murder, asking about figures including Tylor Knightsbridge and requesting again to borrow her woodchipper from the property—an ask Harper finds deeply unsettling. He subtly steers her suspicions toward the now-missing Nolan. Harper claims not to know where he is, wanting to kill him herself.

At Arthur’s funeral, the mayor offers Harper the trophy for winning the annual gardening competition. After, Yates intercepts Harper at the cemetery gate. As they speak, he has a tow truck drive past carrying Harper’s old van from the long-ago car crash, which has been dredged from the ocean. Yates says they received a tip of a submerged vehicle and intends to find out to whom it belongs.

Nolan awakens in a remote cabin, where he has been chained to a pillar for six days. His captor arrives and reveals himself to be Sheriff Yates, who also confirms he is the killer La Plume. Yates taunts Nolan by claiming Nolan killed Arthur, shifting the blame onto him. He tells Nolan that Harper Starling is dead, but that Autumn Bower is alive and well. Yates’s ultimate goal is her transformation; he seeks to transform her into a cold-hearted killer like himself to establish a “legacy.” He tells Nolan that the final step of her transformation will be to kill Nolan.