Plain Bad Heroines

The novel interweaves two timelines: one set in the early 1900s at the Brookhants School for Girls in coastal Rhode Island, and another following three contemporary women making a horror film about the school's troubled history. An omniscient, self-aware narrator guides readers through both eras, addressing them directly.

In 1902, students Clara Broward and Florence "Flo" Hartshorn are devoted to each other and to The Story of Mary MacLane, a scandalous memoir by a nineteen-year-old who openly describes her desires and ambitions. The girls form the Plain Bad Heroine Society in MacLane's honor. After Clara's family demands she end her friendship with Flo, Clara returns to campus and heads into the woods to find her. She stumbles into a massive underground yellow jacket nest in the Tricky Thicket, a patch of dense growth sustained by a hot spring. Flo charges toward her, and both die of anaphylaxis, a severe allergic reaction, their bodies found twined together. An annotated copy of MacLane's book is found near them, then goes missing.

Eleanor Faderman, a quiet, light-fingered student, steals the book from a careless detective and hides it in The Orangerie, a glass conservatory on campus. Consumed by MacLane's words, she recites them as incantations. On December 7, 1902, Eleanor is found dead beside an angel's trumpet tree, having eaten its lethally poisonous flowers. Principal Libbie Brookhants retrieves the book from Eleanor's hand, concealing its connection to her.

Libbie's backstory emerges gradually. At Wellesley College, she fell in love with Alexandra "Alex" Trills. After they separated, Libbie became pregnant from a brief encounter at the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago. Harold Brookhants, an elderly, dying tycoon interested in the occult, proposed a transactional marriage: He would give Libbie his estate, fund a girls' school, and claim the child as his own. Madame Odette Verrett, Harold's personal Spiritualist, promised a binding ceremony in France. Alex was initially opposed but was worn down and wrote letters urging Libbie to accept. The child, Ava, was born in France and raised by the Verrett family, while Libbie and Alex settled at Brookhants as principal and teacher, keeping their relationship concealed.

The contemporary timeline introduces three women connected to the film adaptation. Audrey Wells is a twenty-three-year-old actress and daughter of Caroline Wells, a former horror-film star whose career was derailed by a car accident and dog attack that left her with facial scars. Harper Harper is an indie-film star turned celesbian, a celebrity whose highly public queer identity has built her a massive social media following. Raised in Montana by a mother who had an alcohol addiction, Harper lucked into her first role at a casting call she never planned to attend. Merritt Emmons is a prickly young writer who authored The Happenings at Brookhants, a nonfiction account of the school's curse, with mentorship from Elaine Brookhants, the eighty-year-old heiress who owns the estate and serves as the film's executive producer.

Audrey is initially cast in a minor role, but when the previous lead drops out, director Bo Dhillon brings the three women together for an audition that goes disastrously. Bo then reveals his secret plan to Audrey: The film will also function as a hidden docudrama capturing genuine reactions to staged scares at Brookhants. Bo frames Harper as an unwitting "leak" through social media and Merritt as equally unaware, telling Audrey she alone will know. He confides that he believes Brookhants is genuinely haunted. After watching a viral video of Harper and Merritt kissing during their first date, Audrey's competitive anger tips her toward accepting.

Harper and Merritt's relationship develops quickly. Their Los Angeles date spans a motorcycle ride, a piercing shop, and a midnight cemetery screening, but when Merritt discovers Harper withheld news of Audrey's casting as the lead, she quits the production. Elaine persuades Merritt to come to Brookhants by appealing to her stalled writing career. On set, strange events accumulate: dead orange trees inexplicably revive, papier-mâché figures connected to the curse appear in bags of soil, a landscaper is nearly killed by yellow jackets, and black fungus disables camera equipment. Harper posts everything online, fueling speculation about a genuine curse.

In the historical timeline, Alex grows increasingly paranoid. She collects dead yellow jackets and obsesses over stereo cards, 3D photographs used as bookmarks in the MacLane book. Adelaide Eckhart, the new maid, arrives feverish and singing the students' yellow jacket song. Alex becomes convinced Adelaide is a conduit for the curse. Libbie, meanwhile, secretly tutors Adelaide in Spite Tower, the estate's tower study. Alex destroys The Orangerie in a frenzy. She then discovers a torn-out page from the MacLane book bearing a flirtatious inscription from Libbie's friend Sara Dahlgren, proving the book had belonged to Libbie before she gave it to Flo and Clara. Enraged, Alex charges at Adelaide's mother-in-law, Hanna Eckhart, on the tower stairs. Hanna flattens herself against the wall, and Alex, her vision impaired, flies past and falls to her death. Libbie's public grief makes their romantic relationship undeniable, and Libbie is committed to an asylum.

The contemporary heroines' bond deepens through shared uncanny experiences. Harper's visiting friend Eric brews angel's trumpet tea, and all four drink it before hiking to the hot springs. On Audrey's phone, a live feed from Harper's camera shows a woman in a black Victorian dress on the opposite bank, invisible to the naked eye. Audrey flees, finding yellow jacket parts in her mouth and nest chambers inside her broken kitchen counter.

Their most transcendent moment comes in the Black Oxford apple orchard during magic hour. They eat apples, drink cider, recite literature, and share an intimate encounter as it impossibly begins to snow. The spell breaks when they return to campus and find Caroline has arrived, with an outdoor screening projecting her topless scene from House Mother 2. Audrey insists they leave campus for Providence, where Noel, Audrey's lifelong best friend, is performing with a band.

At the concert, their deceptions unravel. Audrey hallucinates an audience in period dress and vomits backstage. Merritt finds her and reveals she figured out Bo's dual-film scheme and was recruited separately. Harper admits she knew from the start and helped plan the concept as a producer, revealing it originated with Elaine. Merritt confesses she came to Brookhants partly to write a novel using them as material. Bo interrupts: Elaine has fallen down the Spite Tower stairs.

In 1904, Libbie returns from the asylum to find Ava raised by Adelaide. On the beach, as Libbie tries to burn the MacLane book, Adelaide reveals the curse's true origin: The Rash brothers murdered a woman named Simone, who lived on the land with her two mothers, one from the Verrett family. After Jonathan Rash assaulted Simone and she attempted to burn the tower he built to spite her, both brothers strangled her. Adelaide delivers a final revelation: "Simon Everett," the man Libbie believed fathered her child, was actually Simone Verrett. The pregnancy was engineered by the Verretts to produce a child they could claim. Adelaide paralyzes Libbie, and black seaweed drags her out to sea.

Elaine dies at eighty-one, her fall mirroring Alex's on the same staircase a century earlier. The production resumes to finish only the scripted scenes, but the heroines' connection fractures. At the Cannes Film Festival premiere, Merritt arrives unexpectedly, takes Audrey's hand, and walks toward Harper. The three embrace and refuse to separate. Merritt has moved to Los Angeles, let Audrey read her manuscript, and inherited the Brookhants property from Elaine. Each admits strange things have continued since leaving. As they climb the theater stairs, all three hear the buzzing. They hold hands, quoting Mary MacLane on bravery and the magnificent possibilities of life, and face the doors as a chain of three.