Nearly a year into her weekly supply runs, Catharine’s father suggests that Linna join her on a trip. Catharine recalls how he had used early drives as moral instruction, pointing out strangers as evidence of the outside world’s depravity. He once pulled a lollipop from her mouth on the drive home as a lesson.

Eventually, Catharine’s reliability allows her to bring her ailing mother to ride along. The outings help with her headaches, and Catharine apologizes for her anger before. Lisa assures her that she understands, but Catharine still isn’t sure she does. However, she fights the urge to argue, instead hearing her father’s praise repeating in her head.

When her mother’s health deteriorates too much for her to leave at all, Catharine assumes the setback is temporary. Linna, recently moved into the main building and growing restless, is invited to take her place. On the morning of the trip, the girls share tea, and Linna can barely contain her excitement. Before heading out, Catharine brings her mother tea, finding her barely conscious and mumbling. She says that she’ll “be back soon” (152), shuts the door, and leaves.

Continuing her recorded conversation with Reese, Catharine spends an hour describing life on the farm, including the other residents, the fasting regimens, and the weigh-ins. She notices that every time she says Linna’s name, Reese looks away. When she brings up her quarrel with Linna over Kent, Reese grows visibly uncomfortable and redirects to her mother’s illness.

Privately, Catharine reflects on how she managed Linna’s absence for years by imagining her safe and content. Eventually, this became unbearable; she could only picture the teenager she remembered, not whoever her sister had grown into.

Eventually, she discovered Marion Earl. The writing felt familiar from the first page, but what cemented it was a detail in a signed copy: the exaggerated dot in the “i” in Earl’s signature—a quirk from Linna’s teenage handwriting that Catharine had forgotten until she spotted it while out with her friend Stella. By the time Reese appeared with his anonymous source, the certainty was settled. She reads the stories as evidence that Linna is lonely too and finds in them a fragile hope for reconciliation.

Catharine and Linna drive off on the supply run while their father watches from the barn. When Linna reaches for the radio dial, Catharine stops her—unwilling to leave evidence of too much fun. Linna is already tense: Before they left, their father warned her to be careful, and she read it as a deliberate taunt about her mother’s death.

The remark surfaces a layered history. When Linna and her mother first arrived at the farm, the girls were instantly inseparable. Their father later adopted Linna—which required him to divorce Catharine’s mother—and roughly a year after that, a drunk driver struck the car carrying Linna’s mother. Their father walked away unharmed, subsequently used the death to justify the farm’s existence, and refused to let Linna see the body. On the drive, Linna says it felt like he “stole” her mother from her, but Catharine defends him.

Linna also mentions hearing that their father has started weighing residents. Catharine feigns surprise, though she has quietly been using the scale herself—the one source of control that helps her cope. She knows Linna wouldn’t understand. A song lifts the mood, and the sisters share a rare, easy moment that ends the instant they spot their father waiting at the farm.

That evening, Catharine falls asleep in the treehouse and wakes after dark. Back in their room, she finds her mother apparently sleeping, but when she accidentally brushes her mother’s leg, the skin feels wrong. Lisa doesn’t respond.

As evening descends on the park, Catharine tells Reese about discovering her mother, admitting that she once blamed her aloud for being ill. Reese explains this pattern—internalizing failure while crediting the leader with every success—as a hallmark of “extremist” manipulation. Catharine inwardly chafes at being labeled a victim.

Reese then suggests that Catharine’s father may have actively poisoned her mother. Catharine is stunned and rejects it: He was negligent, she insists, but not a murderer. Reese redirects to Ben and Bertie. When Catharine says they died of old age, he produces photocopied birth certificates showing that they were only in their fifties when Catharine knew them. She can’t reconcile this with her memories of them as elderly grandparents.

Reese proposes they finish and reconvene later in the week. Catharine feigns reluctance before agreeing, appreciating the small shift in leverage. He offers to play his “source” the recording of their conversation, hoping their shared losses will build a bridge. Before ending the recording, he asks whether she knows her father harmed more people on the farm than just her mother. She answers “yes” immediately.

After an hour with her mother’s body, Catharine climbs to open the window for air. She finds something rigid sewn into the heavy curtain fabric. She cuts the stitching and extracts a plastic bag containing folded documents, a spare car key, and more cash than she has ever seen. She hides the bag under her hoodie and heads to find Linna.

At the treehouse, she hears Linna and Kent. From the ladder, she overhears Linna telling Kent that Catharine is “”naïve" for still romanticizing the farm and their father, though Linna insists that Catharine is smarter than she is. Kent dismisses it as willful ignorance. They kiss, and Kent talks about leaving together to build their own life.

The conversation makes Catharine realize that the bag she found was evidence that her mother was planning to leave, too. As Catharine climbs down, the bag slips and makes a noise. Linna peers down and sees her but doesn’t tell Kent. However, Catharine finds the cover patronizing rather than kind—another instance of Linna presuming to know what she needs. She grips the bag and walks toward her father’s cottage.

Two days later, Reese texts Catharine that his source is willing to meet, audio-recorded only. She agrees without hesitation. While preparing, she thinks about how her own drive in life comes from Linna’s absence. She imagines telling her how much she has meant to her over the years. Before leaving, she studies an old photograph of herself, Linna, Ben, and Bertie and now sees plainly that Ben and Bertie were nowhere near elderly.

Reese is waiting in the lobby—he appears formal, in glasses and a buttoned shirt. He leads her through the open office to a large, glass-walled conference room. A woman sits inside facing the windows. She has curly hair shot through with gray and is wearing a denim jacket covered in patches. When she hears them enter, she turns to face the door, and Catharine’s throat tightens as she realizes it’s Linna.

At around two o’clock in the morning, Catharine arrives at her father’s cottage. He answers the door fully awake, and when she tells him through sobs that her mother is gone, his expression shifts. He insists that she’s safe and invites her inside.

The cottage is unlike anything else on the farm—spotless floors, an immaculate living room, and a kitchen fitted with a large stainless-steel appliance covered in knobs and spouts. The strangeness of it briefly pierces through her grief.

He tells her that he will handle things and that she will stay in the cottage while he does so. It’s the first time she has ever been allowed inside. He says that he “trusts” her, and she affirms that she does, too; he tells her, “It’s just you and me now” (182).

A chill moves through her. She thinks of her mother’s body, the hidden bag, and the plans she overheard in the treehouse. Everything aligns with the conclusion that he’s right about them being alone now.