Kit is a thirty-one-year-old home-health aide living in a coastal Maine town. Recently suspended after the tragic overdose of her terminally ill mother, Kit desires to reclaim her professional calling. Feeling isolated and closely scrutinized by the community, she approaches her new position at the notorious Hope's End estate with caution and a deep empathy for marginalized individuals.

Confined to a wheelchair following a series of strokes, the elderly patient at Hope's End is completely nonverbal and paralyzed except for her left arm. Shrouded in the infamy of a 1929 massacre that left her family dead, she lives a highly regimented life under strict supervision. Despite her physical limitations, she possesses a sharp intellect and uses a typewriter to communicate pieces of her hidden past.

The poised and elegant household manager of Hope's End has worked at the estate since 1928, originally serving as a governess. She maintains rigorous control over the daily operations of the mansion and the medical care of her charge. Her frosty, formal demeanor conceals a pragmatic nature, and she guards the family's legacy with an iron grip.

Kit's gruff, emotionally distant father lives with a heavy bitterness toward the wealthy. Following the death of his wife, Kathleen, he has erected a wall of silence between himself and his daughter. His resentment and harsh demeanor leave Kit feeling unsupported during her most vulnerable moments.

Kit's late mother suffered from aggressive terminal cancer. Her excruciating pain and subsequent fatal overdose cast a long shadow over the McDeere family, profoundly impacting her daughter's career and emotional state.

The patriarch of the Hope family was a new-money merchant obsessed with class status and social climbing. Controlling and deeply flawed, he funded the ostentatious construction of Hope's End but masked significant financial turmoil beneath an oppressive patriarchal rule over his household.

Originating from an elite Gilded Age family, Evangeline married down to Winston Hope under socially precarious circumstances. Her life at Hope's End is marked by depression, emotional absence, and a heavy dependence on laudanum prescribed to keep her compliant.

The longtime chef at Hope's End has been employed at the manor for nearly sixty years. He possesses a deep loyalty to the Hope family, carrying decades of institutional knowledge while maintaining a notably cold professional distance from the household manager.

The handsome, inquisitive young groundskeeper at Hope's End harbors a keen interest in the estate's dark history. A former bartender, he prefers the solitude of the caretaker's cottage and spends his time investigating the unsolved mysteries surrounding the property.

The house cleaner at Hope's End has a morbid fascination with the 1929 massacre and eagerly shares her theories about Black Tuesday and the family's financial ruin. She creates homemade audiobooks on cassette tapes to entertain the elderly patient she helps care for.

Kit's predecessor at Hope's End vanished without notice. Described as highly motivated to uncover the truth about the Hope murders, Mary actively engaged her patient in typing out memoirs before her sudden, unexplained disappearance.

A local law enforcement official and acquaintance of Patrick McDeere. He relentlessly pursued Kit as a suspect in her mother's death and approaches police work with a patronizing, frequently dismissive attitude toward women's testimonies.

The stern manager of the local home health agency. He leverages Kit's desperate professional situation to force her into accepting the highly undesirable assignment at the infamous Hope's End.

Kit's younger neighbor provides her with a convenient, casual relationship. He is somewhat immature and later proves willing to trespass on the Hope property to taunt the residents.

The former groundskeeper at Hope's End who worked at the estate during the summer of 1929. He vanished on the night of the murders, leaving behind a legacy of suspicion and rumors regarding his true involvement with the Hope family.

A bitter and opportunistic woman residing at the Ocean View retirement home. She harbors decades of resentment regarding her husband's activities at Hope's End and fiercely guards her own version of the events from the night of the massacre.

A medical professional who treated the Hope family. He freely prescribed highly addictive laudanum to the women of the household, enabling Winston's control by keeping his wife medically sedated.