Weeks after her hands were amputated, Minnow recovers on Jude’s couch, consumed by thoughts of Constance’s impending marriage to the Prophet. Blinding pain and withdrawal confine her to the couch for the first few weeks. Eventually she can stand and move. Jude gives her his old clothes to wear and burns her blood-stained dress.

At Christmas, Minnow, Jude, and Waylon share a modest dinner. When Waylon asks about her traditions, Minnow describes the Community’s story of Chad and the Golden Bear. Waylon calls it ridiculous, sparking an argument. Jude explodes at Waylon, accusing him of making Jude violate a commandment when he was young. Waylon apologizes and tells the story of their first child, Jezebel, who died from an untreated condition because they could not afford a doctor. The Community shunned them for being unmarried and for the unbaptized death. Waylon leaves to drink.

Jude proposes he and Minnow become pioneers and build a new civilization in the woods. Minnow rejects the idea, comparing Jude to the Prophet in his need to control her. Jude reveals he no longer believes in God—when he killed his mother, he saw only gray matter, no soul. He plays guitar and sings Minnow a song about their future together. Minnow announces she must rescue Constance from the Prophet. Despite Jude’s protests, she insists on returning. He vows to accompany her and kill the Prophet if given the chance.

Following Dr. Wilson’s last visit, Minnow spends a week in bed. Benny delivers an opened envelope informing Minnow she is a finalist for the Bridge Program, contingent on her parole. Confused, Minnow insists she never applied—then realizes Angel submitted the application in Minnow’s handwriting. Angel admits she did it because Minnow deserved a chance to succeed.

Minnow asks why Angel will not reveal her sentence length. Angel recounts how a pastor visited her holding cell after she killed her uncle. She graphically described her uncle’s abuse to make him uncomfortable, then confessed that killing him felt good because she knew he would never touch her again. The pastor’s disgust was directed at her, not her uncle. Angel reveals her sentence is 40 years and begins crying, the first time Minnow has witnessed it.

Angel shouts profanity and Minnow echoes it. They scream together until Benny investigates, and they claim they are conducting group therapy on the doctor’s orders. After Benny leaves with a warning, they whisper profanity to each other and smile, sharing a moment of deep friendship in the understanding that some pain is too overwhelming for anything but shouting together.

A moth enters Minnow’s cell and batters itself against the ceiling light. Minnow asks Angel to capture and release it but observes the moth will only repeat the behavior elsewhere. Angel tells her she cannot prevent that—it was never her “job.” The words trigger Minnow’s memories of returning to the Community with Jude.

On a frozen night, they snuck into the maidenhood room and found Constance on a pallet. Minnow announced she had come to rescue her. Constance, confused, said she wanted to marry the Prophet—and Jude urgently drew Minnow’s attention to Constance’s lap, where two purple stumps sat where her hands should have been. Constance, flushed with fever, revealed that she requested the amputation to prove her devotion and worthiness to become the Prophet’s wife. She then called Minnow damned for fraternizing with a Rymanite and accused her of sinning. Enraged, Minnow struck Constance across the face. When Constance swung back with her stump, she crumpled in pain. Jude pulled Minnow away, but Minnow insisted they must take Constance with them by force, arguing that she had been brainwashed and couldn’t consent to remaining.

Days before her parole hearing, Dr. Wilson visits and mentions he may miss the hearing. They discuss Cosmos. Minnow teaches him that humans are made of particles from exploded stars and tells him she clings to the belief that Jude is alive and waiting for her. Wilson shares the theory of multiple universes to illustrate the value of searching without having all answers and encourages Minnow to determine her own beliefs rather than relying on others.

That night, Minnow asks herself if Charlie is there, concludes no, then considers that maybe something is. The next morning, Benny delivers notice that her parole hearing is in three days, on her 18th birthday. Minnow imagines the worst outcome and reflects that trapped people will sacrifice everything to escape.

Her thoughts return to the rescue attempt. Jude carried a screaming Constance downstairs, but Minnow’s father blocked the back door. At the front, the entire Community emerged from the Prophet Hall holding lanterns. The men dragged Jude to the courtyard and, after Constance told the Prophet that Minnow and Jude came to steal her away, the Prophet ordered his deacons to kill Jude. The deacons beat him savagely while Minnow was restrained, until eventually Samuel stopped them. Minnow ran to Jude, who sang the opening line of “Ain’t We Got Fun;” she continued it through her sobs as he struggled to breathe. The Prophet pronounced him dead. As her father pulled her away, Minnow spotted Waylon hiding in the woods and screamed at him to run.

On the morning of her parole hearing and 18th birthday, Minnow attends her last reading class with Miss Bailey. Benny interrupts to escort Minnow back to her cell, where Angel waits with birthday presents. The first is a personal copy of Cosmos from Angel. The second is a replica Spanish doubloon from Benny, representing compensation for lost limbs that pirates once received. The last is a shoebox from Dr. Wilson containing her severed hands, now coated in silver.

Angel explains Wilson broke into an evidence locker to retrieve them, violating numerous laws, and claimed it was worth it because now they are even—Minnow has leverage over him. Minnow holds the silver hands between her stumps. She has a feeling of “rightness” inside her. She feels the hands are perfect this way, as though they were always meant to be silver rather than flesh.

After Jude’s body is covered with a sheet, the deacons tie rope around Minnow’s ankles and hoist her upside down against a giant pine. The Prophet leads the Community in dousing her with buckets of freezing pond water to cleanse her of sin, then leaves her hanging to freeze to death.

At first Minnow accepts her fate, but thoughts of the Prophet marrying Constance give her the will to survive. She swings her body, reaches the rope with her mouth, and chews the frozen knot until it loosens. She falls to the ground. Jude’s body has been removed, leaving only a blood-stained sheet.

Filled with deadly anger, Minnow enters the Prophet’s house. On the mantelpiece, she finds her severed finger bones wired together with gold and takes them. The Prophet wakes and, seeing her, begins having a severe asthma attack. He grabs an inhaler repeatedly, but it fails. Minnow kicks open a dresser drawer and finds five more inhalers, realizing the Prophet lied about God curing him. As he gasps for help, Minnow tells him she cannot reach the inhaler because she has no hands. She watches as his breathing worsens and his eyes slide shut.

Smelling smoke, Minnow struggles with the door handle and bursts outside to find nearly every house in the Community ablaze. In the center stands Waylon.

An hour before her parole hearing, Dr. Wilson visits. Minnow thanks him for returning her hands, calling them her “trophy” now just as they were once the Prophet’s. She then tells him the complete story of the Prophet’s death and the fire.

Waylon stood near the puddle of Jude’s blood, throwing lit bottles of moonshine onto roofs and sobbing. Minnow urged him to flee to make Jude’s death meaningful. Waylon nodded in response, gathered his moonshine, and disappeared into the woods.

From the tree line, Minnow watched Community members evacuate their burning homes. Her family emerged—her father, her mother holding the newest baby, and Constance. Constance screamed for the Prophet then ran toward his burning house. Despite her father’s screams, she ran inside. The house collapsed around her, killing her instantly.

Minnow screamed, and “the entire world screamed” with her (383). Hours later, descending the mountain, she watched the sun rise and snow begin to fall.

Dr. Wilson tells Minnow that Constance’s remains were found at the crime scene and assures her she is allowed to feel bad, that nothing was her fault. Minnow angrily insists Constance’s death is her fault. Wilson notes that in all their months together, she has never verbally acknowledged that her sister is dead.

Minnow lashes out, insisting Wilson could not understand her pain. She accurately recites details of his life, including a son named Jonah who likes Thomas Hardy. Wilson corrects her: he had a son named Jonah, and now he does not. He bought Jonah a car for his 16th birthday; that night, Jonah crashed and died.

Minnow asks how he copes. Wilson says he does not know, as time has done nothing for him. He compares grief to arriving in a foreign country and never quite “belonging,” then pulls out an old student photo from his time in Paris. He carries it to remember the feeling of being different, which has kept him close to his guilt and his son. But staying close to grief, he says, does not bring one closer to the dead. He drops the photo into the toilet and flushes it. Minnow watches it disappear and says aloud that “Constance is dead,” as Wilson replies with “that is that” (389).

Minnow asks what will happen to Waylon. Dr. Wilson says he has been a suspect for months and implies it would be acceptable if he were never found. Minnow then asks Wilson to promise that if Jude is ever located, he will help him and allow him to “choose the life he wants” (390). Minnow admits that she is still deciding whether to join Jude if she is paroled. Wilson mentions he knows about her acceptance to the Bridge Program, revealing he also speaks with Angel.

Rain begins. Minnow reflects on how quiet the storms are compared to the thunder in the Community. She tells Wilson about the Prophet’s prophecy of a coming war between believers and unbelievers, where God would be their “greatest weapon.” However, she acknowledges that God didn’t help protect anyone from a gunshot or hatchet. Wilson asks what she thinks about how God works. Minnow says she does not know, but she is “gonna find out” (392).

Minnow reflects on who is responsible for her incarceration—Jude, the Prophet, her father—and concludes it was fated or, as Miss Bailey would say, “in the stars” (393). Near the end of her time in juvenile detention, Benny brings her old court clothes and Jude’s blood-stained shirt. Minnow holds the shirt, then hands it back, saying she no longer needs to keep it.

Minnow imagines her future after release. She will sit in a Missoula park in springtime and feel like she has the “power” to finally understand who she is and decide for herself. She imagines craning her neck to the sky on an evening when both sunlight and stars are visible, fixing her gaze on one star until her soul rises and leaves her body behind. When she tears her eyes away, her soul will sail back through the atmosphere into her skull where it will make her feel much “sturdier” and “heavier than [she’d] ever imagined” (395).