Sani is another of the novel’s primary characters. He is Moth’s close friend and eventual love interest. They meet at the start of the novel when Sani moves to Virginia to live with his mother and stepfather. Sani is removed and distant from the other kids at school, but he feels an innate and immediate connection with Moth. He and Moth later remark on the seemingly mystical nature of their connection, insisting it feels like they have known each other for much longer than they actually have.

Sani is Diné, or a member of the Navajo tribe. His father is Diné, too, but Sani has had difficulty connecting with him since his parents’ divorce and his white mother’s move north. In the narrative present, Sani feels estranged from his ancestral and cultural origins and overcome by psychological unrest—in part due to his unspecified mental illness, and in part due to this disconnection from his Indigenous forebears. When he meets Moth, however, Sani begins to regain a more solid sense of himself. As much as Moth feels that Sani sees her, Sani feels that Moth sees, understands, and validates him.

In particular, Moth recognizes Sani’s marked musical talent and encourages him to rekindle his passion. He has stopped playing guitar and writing music since his mother and father’s divorce and his recent relocation to Virginia. Moth also recognizes the significant abuse Sani suffers at the hands of his violent stepfather, and that he has a mental illness he is struggling to address. Moth is always gentle, kind, and empathetic with Sani, even when she feels frustrated with him for failing to take care of himself. She is so concerned about his well-being that she agrees to take a cross-country road trip with him to reunite with his dad in New Mexico despite her fear of cars and driving. Over the course of this trip, Moth stays by Sani’s side as he reconnects with ancestral and historical landmarks alike, seeking to rediscover a connection with his own cultural inheritance.

Sani is also a round, dynamic character who transforms by the novel’s end as the result of his experiences and relationships. His relationship with Moth is crucial in this regard, underscoring Friendship and Love as Pathways to Healing. Moth reminds Sani both of who he is and of what matters. She recognizes Sani’s internal unrest while encouraging him not to lose sight of where he comes from, what he wants to accomplish, and who he wants to be. She is, for example, the reason Sani is able to audition for Juilliard and establish himself as a musician by the novel’s end. Effectively, Moth acts as his spirit guide.

Aunt Jack is a minor character. She is Moth’s maternal aunt. Although Moth lives with Aunt Jack in the narrative present, she remains a shadowy figure who lives only at the margins of Moth’s narrative and consciousness. Two years prior to the narrative present, Moth and her family were on a road trip from New York City to Northern Virginia to see Aunt Jack. They got into an accident along the way, and Aunt Jack reported to the hospital when she heard what happened: “Aunt Jack prayed & prayed & bit her nail beds ruddy / but […] / That day there was only enough prayer / & blood for one of us to walk out” (4).

Throughout the majority of the novel, it seems that Moth is the only survivor of the accident, but the narrative climax reveals that, in fact, “Only Aunt Jack walked out” (231) of the hospital. This revelation alters how the reader understands Aunt Jack’s character. At the start of the novel, Aunt Jack appears to be a distant, inept caretaker, resorting to heavy drinking instead of caring for her grieving, teenage niece. She goes so far as to leave Moth alone at her house for the summer after the end of the school year, too, rendering her an irresponsible guardian. 

However, after the narrative reveals that Moth is in fact a ghost (and died two years prior), Aunt Jack’s behaviors prove to be symptoms of her grief. Instead of confronting Moth directly, she “leans on the fireplace, screaming at the urns: “I can’t do this. I am leaving for the summer […] / I need to get away. I can’t live with your ghosts” (56). In narrative retrospect, this scene conveys Aunt Jack’s emotional agony. She is yelling at her sister’s, brother-in-law’s, nephew’s, and niece’s urns, and leaves home to escape Moth haunting her. Her character thus proves to be more sympathetic than she originally appears before the reader (and Moth) understands that she is dead.

Jim, Marcia, and Zachary are Moth’s family members. Jim and Marcia are her dad and mother, and Zachary is her brother. Throughout the majority of the novel, Moth refers to them most often when she is referring to the car accident that claimed their lives two years prior. At times, she remembers them fondly, recalling things they used to do together, like going on runs with her dad, going to dance studios with her mom, or writing annual songs with her brother. Most often, Moth struggles to think about her parents and brother outside the context of the accident. They are ghosts whose memories haunt her, as Moth blames herself for their deaths, convinced that they died because the universe was punishing her for her hunger for life. 

Near the end of the novel, Moth discovers (via Sani and his dad) that she also died that day in the car accident. When she crosses over at the novel’s end, she is leaving the corporeal world behind so she might join her loved ones in heaven.