The Antidote recalls her friendship with an older girl who came to the Milford Home for Unwed Mothers after she did: 17-year-old Zinkála Nuni. A member of the Lakota tribe whose mother was killed at the Massacre of Wounded Knee, her given name was Lost Bird. She became famous for surviving the massacre as an infant, discovered alone but alive days later. She was stolen from the Lakota tribe by General Leonard Colby and raised by him and his wife. At the Home, she is assigned the name Marguerite E. Fox, but the other girls and women call her Zintka.

One night, Zintka, Toni, and two other girls sneak out to roller skate—Zintka having smuggled a pair of skates into the Home. A few days later, Zintka gives birth to a stillborn boy.

Dell is able to steer the van through the dust storm to the town of Red Willow; they check in to the Princess and the Pea motel, then walk to a diner for dinner. Dell pays for dinner with her earnings from helping the Antidote.

The next day is the tournament game against the Princesses. The Dangers win, scoring 44 points to the other team’s 10 and injuring their best player. That night, the team makes a bonfire outside of the motel, and the players drink moonshine. Elda reveals that she agreed to perform oral sex on the Baptist minister in exchange for use of the van. Dell sneaks off alone, feeling guilty upon learning this news. Valeria come after her, and they kiss, then remain alone together after the other girls go inside to bed. Dell tells Valeria of her mother.

Cleo Allfrey appears suddenly, asking to photograph Harp’s field. Harp worries, at first, that she somehow knows of the strange light he has seen, but he acquiesces. She asks to know his secret for irrigating the field, and Harp plays along, pretending that it is indeed a secret he is keeping from her.

Before she leaves, Cleo hints at wanting to find a space that she can use as a darkroom to develop her photos. The government requires her to send her negatives to them directly, but she wishes to see the photos she has taken immediately. Harp allows her to use his root cellar.

Cleo sets up a makeshift darkroom in Harp’s root cellar. She is frustrated when she develops the photos from the archaeological dig and none of the images appear—only a cloudy mess. She tries a second time, and this time, an entire Pawnee city appears.

The Antidote goes to Harp’s home in search of Dell. She plans to ask Dell to help her escape Uz, unwilling to comply with the sheriff’s orders that she aid him in covering up his crimes. When she arrives at the farm, however, she is met by Cleo, just coming out of the root cellar. Suddenly, the Antidote notices a portal.

Dell drives the team back to Uz. The previous storm has left dust so thick that they must wear masks inside the van. Back at Harp’s farm, she is surprised to find the Antidote and Cleo Allfrey sitting at the kitchen table, playing cards. The Antidote explains that she is quitting her work as a Vault and that she must hide from the sheriff. When Harp enters the room, he is happy to see Dell; Dell tells him that she has been apprenticing for the Antidote. Harp is not angry, but later he tells Dell that she should find another type of work.

Harp invites both women to stay at his farmhouse, and Dell gathers bedding while Cleo returns to the darkroom. As Dell and the Antidote make up Dell’s grandparents’ former bed, the Antidote tells Dell what the sheriff has revealed to her about Mink Petrusev.

This news compels Dell to search her bedroom (formerly Lada’s) for evidence of her mother. After some searching, Dell finds a box containing a deposit slip. Harp confirms that it belongs to his father and recalls his father taking him to make a deposit, then burning the slip. Harp never knew that his father made a deposit as well. The Antidote can tell by the routing number that the deposit was taken by a Vault called the Counselor in the town of Genoa. Harp rushes out to find her, refusing to take Dell with him.

Harp locates the Counselor, who has not, like many of the other Vaults, gone bankrupt. He asks her, per the Antidote’s request, if she knows where Cherry and Madame Quicksand might be. The Counselor does not, noting that many witches have been killed by angry clients when they were unable to withdraw their memories. Harp prepares to receive the story his father deposited.

Tomasz provides an account of his emigration out of German-controlled Poland to the United States. Along with his new wife, Anna, he travels west to Nebraska, where he has been told Poles may claim farmland for themselves. Upon arrival, he submits an application for land. Tomasz quickly sees that the area populated by Polish immigrants is surrounded by Pawnee reservations. He quickly identifies a parallel between the way the Germans abuse the Poles and the way the Whites of the United States abuse the Pawnees. He comes to sympathize with the Pawnees, even though they consider him to be one of the white men who oppress them.

Tomasz and Anna survive locusts and prairie wildfires as they become successful farmers. It is clear to Tomasz that the government aims to destroy the Pawnee people and other native tribes by pushing them off their land and starving them. Tomasz himself even joins his neighbors in cutting down trees from the Pawnee reservation to make lumber to build their own houses. Anna takes a job as a cook at the “Genoa US Indian Industrial School”—a boarding school meant to force Indigenous youth to “Americanize.” Anna hates working there because she is a witness to the abuse meted out to the children. She becomes pregnant after losing three previous pregnancies, and Tomasz insists she keep the job until the baby is born, stressing how much the salary is needed.

One day, Anna brings home an 11-year-old Indigenous girl suffering from tuberculosis. The school forces the Indigenous children to surrender their memories to a Vault named the Counselor, but this girl—called Ellen—refuses. Anna wants to help the girl to return to her parents, but Tomasz, knowing Anna would be fired if she were to do so, brings Ellen back to the school himself and collects a $5 reward.

After Anna loses the baby, she visits the Counselor, with whom she deposits the memories of what she has witnessed at the school. The Counselor assures her that, relieved of this burden, she will now be able to carry a child to term. She gifts Anna a small golden harp that she instructs her to give to her first child, whom the Counselor tells her will be a son. Harp’s birth does indeed follow, then those of his two sisters. Tomasz destroys Anna’s deposit slips so she may never withdraw her memories.

One day, Tomasz is drinking at a tavern with neighbors. One of the men notes that a group of Irish and African Americans plan to settle in Uz. As the night unfolds, Tomasz is convinced to sign a pact with the other men, promising to never rent or sell land to an African American. He goes further by proposing they devise a rumor that a Sioux tribe is planning to attack Uz, in order to deter would-be settlers. The plan works, but then local white men begin preemptively murdering Sioux men, certain that these men plan to attack them. Tomasz visits the Counselor, depositing the memory of starting the rumor. Later, he returns to deposit another memory: In a letter from his dying mother, Tomasz learns that his family is to be forced off their land by the Germans.

Upon learning the details of his father’s deposit, Harp regrets that he will now have to carry his father’s secret.