Willie Lincoln falls ill with fever on the night of Mrs. Lincoln's White House reception.

Willie Lincoln dies of typhoid fever and is buried in a white stone tomb at the edge of the cemetery.

Willie wakes in the bardo and is taken under the wing of Hans, Roger, and Reverend Thomas.

Hans, Roger, and Reverend Thomas walk Willie to the iron fence, where the ghost of Elise Traynor is permanently trapped.

Abraham Lincoln arrives alone at the locked cemetery after hours and lets himself into his son's tomb.

Lincoln opens Willie's coffin and sobs while cradling his dead son's body.

Willie reenters his own corpse and, pressed against his father, hears Lincoln's private thoughts for the first time.

Lincoln promises to return to the tomb, closes the coffin, and leaves the cemetery.

The matterlightblooming phenomenon first descends on the bardo, taking several spirits including Mrs. Blass.

Demonic tendrils begin wrapping around Willie's legs, threatening to trap him in the bardo forever like Elise.

Hans and Roger re-enter Lincoln's mind and successfully steer him back toward Willie's tomb using the forgotten lock.

Lincoln returns to Willie's tomb a second time and opens the coffin to comb his son's hair.

Hundreds of assembled spirits crowd into Lincoln's body together in a desperate communal effort to make him stay.

Reverend Thomas grabs Willie and flees the demonic vines into the chapel, but the vines catch them and the Reverend disappears via matterlightblooming.

Willie enters Lincoln's body in the chapel and then announces to all gathered ghosts that they are dead.

This pool covers the central arc of the novel, from Willie Lincoln's illness to his liberation from the afterlife. Willie dies during his parents' White House party and awakens in the bardo, where Hans, Roger, and Reverend Thomas become his reluctant guides. Abraham Lincoln makes a stunning late-night visit to his son's tomb, and Willie briefly enters his father's body to hear his private thoughts. When demonic tendrils threaten to trap Willie forever like the ghost Elise, the spirits rally to bring Lincoln back to the cemetery a second time. Their desperate efforts culminate in a chapel encounter where Willie finally learns the truth of his own death. Armed with this knowledge, he liberates dozens of trapped souls by announcing to the bardo that they are all dead.

The essential story of Willie Lincoln's night in the bardo.

Hans Vollman tells the story of his marriage to a young wife and his death from a falling ceiling beam.

Mrs. Lincoln plans three large receptions instead of expensive state dinners to save money during wartime.

Guests at Mrs. Lincoln's party report feeling deeply disgusted by the grandeur of the event during wartime.

Roger Bevins III tells the story of his suicide after his lover Gilbert chose to end their secret relationship.

Willie asks whether his fate will be the same as Elise's, and the trio warns that it might.

The cemetery groundskeeper records President Lincoln's unusual nighttime entrance in the official logbook.

Spirits line up at Willie's white stone tomb to seek his help with their personal unfinished business.

Jane Ellis tells her story of a loveless marriage and desperate worry for the daughters she left behind.

The Three Bachelors announce they just passed a tall man they believe to be Willie's father in the cemetery.

Captain William Prince recites a farewell letter to his wife and then quickly departs via the matterlightblooming.

Hans and Roger locate Lincoln sitting alone at a grave and observe the president's innermost grief and thoughts.

Willie reveals to the assembled spirits that the tall man visiting the cemetery is the President of the United States.

Isabelle Perkins watches Lincoln leave the cemetery from her window and writes to her brother asking for his company.

Betsy Barron tells Eddie she loves him and that they are dead, and the couple disappears together via matterlightblooming.

Hans and Roger apologize to the permanently trapped Elise Traynor at the iron fence before departing via matterlightblooming.

This pool captures the supporting characters and secondary moments that fill out the novel's world. Hans and Roger's death stories establish the bardo's tragicomic logic before Willie even arrives, while the White House party is seen through the eyes of disgusted guests unaware a child is dying upstairs. The cemetery groundskeeper quietly logs Lincoln's forbidden visit, and a parade of ghosts reveals their unfinished business by lining up at Willie's tomb. The Three Bachelors and Captain Prince mark turning points in the cemetery's restless night, and Hans and Roger slip away to spy on Lincoln's grief firsthand. The pool closes with the smaller human moments that frame the night's resolution: Willie's stunning revelation about his father's identity, the Barrons' tender farewell, and Hans and Roger's long-overdue reckoning with Elise.

The ghosts, the party, and the smaller moments that shape the night.

Abraham Lincoln and Mrs. Lincoln repeatedly leave their party to check on Willie's rapidly worsening fever.

The longest list of Civil War casualties to date is published on the same day as Willie's burial.

Lincoln's thoughts reveal his anguish at realizing the Civil War inflicts on other fathers the same grief he now bears.

Hans proposes that Willie enter Lincoln's body to hear his father's thoughts and be freed from the bardo.

After sharing Lincoln's mind, Hans and Roger accidentally intertwine their own consciousnesses and experience each other's innermost desires.

Reverend Everly Thomas reveals he is fully aware he is dead and explains why he fled his own divine judgment.

Black ghosts arrive from the cemetery's outskirts and are immediately attacked and hurled with slurs by white spirits.

Elson Farwell describes dying alone on a roadside and vowing to remain in the bardo until he avenges his enslavers.

Thomas Havens describes the psychological torment of living as an enslaved man who glimpsed but could never truly possess freedom.

Litzie Wright's story of plantation abuse is translated by Mrs. Hodge, and Litzie regains her voice when spirits intertwine inside Lincoln.

The demonic tendrils gripping Willie are revealed to be the remnants of deeply sinful souls who confess their crimes to him.

Willie enters Lincoln's body in the chapel and hears his father's memory of watching him die helplessly of typhoid.

Willie witnesses a memory of Lincoln telling a friend with incredulity that his son is dead, confirming his own death.

Lincoln resolves in the chapel that universal suffering means he must continue the Civil War to end slavery's greater pain.

Thomas Havens enters Lincoln's body as the president leaves the cemetery, merging his hope for Black freedom with Lincoln's purpose.

This pool traces the key revelations and moral turning points that give the novel its emotional and philosophical weight. Lincoln's hidden anguish over the Civil War's mounting casualties — felt while he grieves for Willie — forms the moral core of his dark night of the soul. Hans devises the plan that will eventually save Willie, and his accidental intertwining with Roger deepens the novel's central themes of empathy and human connection. The dramatic arrival of Black ghosts forces the bardo's racial history into the open, and the stories of Elson Farwell, Thomas Havens, and Litzie Wright ground the supernatural narrative in the lived reality of slavery. Willie's experience inside his father's memories at last confirms his own death and unlocks his liberation. Lincoln's resulting resolve to win the Civil War at any cost, reinforced by Thomas Havens merging with him at the cemetery gate, transforms personal grief into world-historical purpose.