At a Manhattan boutique, Addie tries on new clothes. Because the store clerk forgets her the moment she walks into the dressing room, Addie steals a new outfit with ease.

In 1698, at the age of seven, Addie—known then as “Adeline”—travels with her father from their home in Villon-sur-Sarthe, France, to the city of Le Mans. There, her father will sell his woodworking wares. Addie’s favorite item made by her father is a wooden ring she wears around her neck. One hundred times bigger than Villon-sur-Sarthe, Le Mans enchants Addie with its bustle and size, igniting a desire to escape her sleepy village and explore the world.

Five years later, 12-year-old Addie struggles to embrace Catholicism. She favors the so-called “old gods” as described by her elderly neighbor, Estele. According to Estele, the most important rule to follow when praying to ancient deities is never to pray to gods who answer after sunset.

In 1707, 16-year-old Addie is now considered a great beauty by the townsfolk. Every time her mother tries to set her up with a suitor, Addie—a budding sketch artist—buries one of her drawings in the forest as an offering to the gods in the hope that they will help her avoid marriage.

Meanwhile, Addie devotes her romantic attentions to an imaginary man of her own design, a tall “stranger” with dark curly hair and green eyes who tells her stories of the world beyond Villon-sur-Sarthe. 

Back in New York in 2014, Addie steals a book from an outdoor vendor.

Addie is disappointed to see that the book she stole is a copy of Grimm’s Fairy Tales. Although she loved books like this as a child, stories of gods punishing foolish mortals are too painful for her to read now, given her own curse.

The year is 1714, and Addie is still unmarried at age 23. Her parents and the rest of the townsfolk pressure Addie to marry Roger, a recent widower with three small children. Addie refuses but to no avail: “[S]he had promised herself to the village, and the village had a need” (39).

For weeks following the forced betrothal, Addie frantically prays to the old gods to allow her to remain unwed, tossing virtually all her possessions into the river or burying them as offerings. On the afternoon of her wedding, deep in the woods, Addie buries her most prized possession: the wooden ring. As she begs the gods for assistance with her eyes closed, Addie doesn’t notice the sun dip below the horizon.

Upon hearing a low rumble, Addie opens her eyes to see that the sunlight is faded. A disembodied voice calls out her name. When she asks the presence to show itself, it transforms into the dark-haired, green-eyed man she invented in her mind, whom she calls “the stranger.” Recalling Estele’s warning, Addie knows he is a god of darkness, yet when the stranger asks why she summoned him, Addie does not waver. She explains: “I do not want to belong to anyone but myself. I want to be free. [...] I want more time” (46).

Addie offers the stranger her soul in return for eternal life, but he declines. Addie makes a counter-offer: eternal life, for as long as it suits her. When she is tired of living, the stranger will take her life and her soul. Intrigued, the stranger kisses her on the mouth and whispers, “Done.”

Addie wakes up hours later in a daze. Unsure if the spell worked, Addie returns home to her mother and father, who do not recognize her. When she tries to tells them who she is, she finds it is impossible to say her own name.

Shocked and horrified that she is a stranger to her own parents, Addie runs to Estele’s cottage, but the elderly woman does not recognize her either. After Estele slams the door on her, Addie knocks again. Estele answers the door and looks at Addie as if for the first time. Given a second opportunity, Addie says she is a stranger in need of help. Estele tells Addie to wait outside and shuts the door, forgetting Addie again as soon as she does so.  

In New York in 2014, Addie walks to a bar to watch Toby perform, as she’s done so many times before. Tonight, however, she cannot bring herself to go inside, concluding, “The rise isn’t worth the fall” (56). 

In search of a place to sleep, Addie walks to Upper Manhattan to an empty apartment belonging to an actor she knows is out of town.

Back in 1714, with nothing but her wedding dress, her slip, and a pair of stolen boots, Addie resolves to leave Villon-sur-Sarthe. Before she departs, Addie visits her father’s woodshop one last time. In the empty shop, she tries to write her father a letter but learns that the curse prevents her from doing so—the words fade as soon as she writes them. While examining one of her father’s woodcarvings of a bird, Addie drops it, breaking its wing. Within moments, the bird repairs itself. She decides to keep the bird carving as a memento of her father.

Having traveled to Le Mans many times with her father, Addie knows the way. Even though she has eternal life, her feet hurt as she walks in boots that are far too big for her. She is also desperately hungry. At a riverbank, she stops to wash her aching feet, which, having healed themselves, are free of welts and cuts.

In 2014, after spending the night in the actor’s apartment, a restless Addie walks to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. There, she finds a carving of five birds by an 18th-century French artist named Arlo Miret. According to Miret, he modeled the fifth bird, which has a broken wing, after a wooden figurine he found on the streets of Paris in 1715—the same year Addie lost her father’s wooden bird. Addie calls it “the first mark she left upon the world, long before she knew the truth, that ideas are so much wilder than memories, that they long and look for ways of taking root” (77).

When Addie arrives in Le Mans on July 31, 1714, the city is at once familiar and foreign. In search of money, food, and clothing, Addie sneaks into a stable and rifles through a riding satchel. Two stable hands see her and corner her. One of the stable hands draws a knife and tells her, “Thieves pay in flesh” (81). Addie takes out a boning knife and stabs the thigh of the other stable hand, who in his pain inadvertently throws Addie into his partner’s knife, which slices her shoulder. She runs around the corner and hides behind a barrel. With Addie out of sight, the two men forget about the theft. Moreover, the wound on the injured man’s thigh disappears. As Addie suffers in agony from the wound that will also soon disappear, she decides to go to Paris, the only other place she knows by name.

On March 12, 2014, Addie is excited to find a used bookstore she never noticed before called The Last Word. As Addie walks through the aisles, a young male bookseller, who somewhat resembles the stranger, asks if she needs any help. After the employee goes back to the cash register, Addie puts a copy of The Odyssey, written in the original Greek, under her arm and exits the store. To Addie’s surprise, the bookseller chases after her; the front door, she surmises, must have been left ajar, therefore failing to trigger the curse. When the bookseller realizes the book is a battered Greek paperback of little value, he decides to let Addie keep it. As she leaves, Addie hears a woman call out to the bookseller; his name is Henry.