Older Kipps grows distressed during a Christmas Eve ghost story session and resolves to write down his haunting past experience.

Mr. Bentley assigns young Kipps to travel to Crythin Gifford and settle the estate of the reclusive Mrs. Alice Drablow.

Kipps meets Mr. Samuel Daily on the train and learns the fog surrounding Crythin Gifford is worse than London's.

Kipps arrives in Crythin Gifford and discovers the entire town refuses to discuss Mrs. Drablow or Eel Marsh House.

Kipps attends Mrs. Drablow's nearly empty funeral alongside the local solicitor Mr. Jerome.

Kipps notices a gaunt, sickly woman dressed entirely in black standing at Mrs. Drablow's graveside during the funeral.

Mr. Keckwick transports Kipps by horse-drawn cart across the narrow Nine Lives Causeway to Eel Marsh House.

Kipps spots the woman in black near the estate's family graveyard and runs back inside the house in terror.

Dense fog engulfs Eel Marsh House and Kipps hears a horse cart sinking in the marsh and a child screaming.

Mr. Daily offers his dog Spider to Kipps as a companion and protector during the extended stay at Eel Marsh House.

Kipps forces open a locked door inside Eel Marsh House and discovers a child's nursery hidden within.

A mysterious whistle lures Spider into the marsh, and Kipps nearly drowns pulling the dog free from the mud.

Mr. Daily arrives unexpectedly at Eel Marsh House and persuades a shaken Kipps to pack up and leave.

Mr. Daily reveals that every sighting of the woman in black is followed by the sudden death of a local child.

The woman in black appears at a public fair and causes a horse cart crash that kills Kipps's wife and son.

Arthur Kipps, a young London solicitor, is sent to the remote town of Crythin Gifford to settle the estate of the deceased Mrs. Alice Drablow, only to discover that the entire community is terrified of her isolated home, Eel Marsh House. At Mrs. Drablow's funeral and then at the estate itself, Kipps encounters a gaunt, sickly woman dressed in black whose identity no one will explain. During his first visit to the house, dense fog traps him on the island and he hears the ghostly sounds of a horse cart sinking into the marsh along with a child screaming. Returning with a dog named Spider for company, Kipps uncovers a locked nursery inside the house and nearly drowns rescuing Spider from the marsh, where the woman in black watches from the nursery window. A local landowner named Mr. Daily finally reveals that every sighting of the woman in black precedes the sudden death of a local child. Years later, the curse follows Kipps back to London, where the woman in black causes a fatal horse cart crash that kills his wife and son.

The core events of Kipps's haunting at Eel Marsh House and its devastating consequence.

Older Kipps steps outside Monk's Piece on Christmas Eve and recalls how he first came to buy the house.

Kipps's stepchildren take turns telling ghost stories and urge him to share his own, prompting him to storm out in anger.

Mr. Bentley warns Kipps that reaching Eel Marsh House is complicated by the surrounding tidal marsh and causeway.

Kipps boards the train for Crythin Gifford, relieved to be escaping the thick, unpleasant fog of London.

The inn's landlord becomes evasive and uncomfortable when Kipps mentions he is attending Mrs. Drablow's funeral.

Kipps explores Crythin Gifford village on a bright morning before the funeral, finding it pleasant and hospitable.

Mr. Jerome refuses to accompany Kipps to Eel Marsh House and arranges for a local man, Mr. Keckwick, to drive him instead.

Mr. Keckwick collects Kipps in a horse-drawn cart rather than the motor car Kipps had expected.

Kipps wanders the interior of Eel Marsh House and wonders how Mrs. Drablow ever managed to live there alone.

Kipps returns to the inn after his first visit, has nightmares about the woman in black, but resolves to finish the assignment.

Kipps visits Mr. Jerome the next morning to request help sorting documents, but Jerome insists no one in town will assist.

Kipps borrows a bicycle and rides around the countryside, finding himself strangely drawn back toward the direction of the marsh.

Kipps begins reading correspondence between Mrs. Drablow and a woman named Jennet Humfrye concerning a boy named Nathaniel.

Kipps falls ill with a fever and recovers at Mr. Daily's home for nearly two weeks until Stella arrives to take him home.

Kipps and Stella return to London together and are married six weeks after his departure from Crythin Gifford.

Before the haunting takes hold, a series of smaller events steadily close off Kipps's routes to safety and understanding. The framing story at Monk's Piece establishes that Kipps has been scarred for life, while his eager departure from London signals his ignorance of what awaits him in Crythin Gifford. Every figure he meets — the inn's landlord, Mr. Jerome, and even Mr. Keckwick — withholds information, leaving Kipps isolated and uninformed as he steps deeper into danger. His pleasant bicycle ride and persistent document sorting reveal a man too proud and determined to heed the warnings embedded in the silence around him. The letters he begins to read at Eel Marsh House hint at a buried tragedy involving a child named Nathaniel, pulling him toward the full revelation. By the time Stella arrives to collect him after his illness, the illusion of safety is set — the couple marry, apparently free, but the curse has already followed Kipps home.

The quieter but significant moments that build atmosphere and carry Kipps toward disaster.

Kipps reflects that he felt no sense of foreboding on the foggy London afternoon he received the Drablow assignment.

Kipps privately dismisses Mr. Bentley's account of the Drablow estate, joking that it sounds like a Victorian novel.

Mr. Daily notices the name Drablow on Kipps's envelope and becomes noticeably guarded and reluctant to say more.

Mr. Jerome stops dead and flatly refuses to discuss the woman in black when Kipps asks about her after the funeral.

Caught in thick fog on the causeway, Kipps becomes disoriented and turns back toward Eel Marsh House rather than risk the marsh.

Despite Mr. Daily's strong warnings, Kipps insists on returning to Eel Marsh House and refuses to leave the job unfinished.

After his first visit, Kipps decides to stay overnight at Eel Marsh House to work through the volume of documents.

Spider growls at a locked door in the night and Kipps hears a rocking chair moving inside the sealed room.

Kipps is woken before dawn by a child crying in the marsh and senses an unseen presence pass him in the hallway.

After pulling Spider from the marsh, Kipps sees the woman in black staring from the nursery window and collapses outside.

Kipps finishes reading the letters and learns that Jennet Humfrye is Mrs. Drablow's sister and Nathaniel's biological mother.

Kipps learns that Nathaniel drowned in the marsh during a cart accident as Jennet attempted to secretly take him away.

Kipps asks Mr. Daily whether any child has recently died following his sightings, and Daily confirms that none has.

Kipps and Stella have a son named Joseph, completing what appears to be a new and peaceful life after Crythin Gifford.

Stella dies from her injuries nearly a year after the horse cart crash, leaving Kipps alone with his grief.

Pool three traces the pivotal moments at which the story turns — the points where Kipps's rationalism cracks, where the truth about Jennet Humfrye surfaces, and where false hope is finally extinguished. From the very start, Kipps's proud refusal to take seriously the warnings around him — the evasiveness of Mr. Daily on the train, Mr. Jerome's paralysed silence after the funeral — drives him deeper into danger than necessary. His choice to stay overnight at Eel Marsh House, made against Mr. Daily's advice, exposes him to the locked nursery and the sounds of the drowning child, which cement his acceptance of the supernatural. Reading the final letters in full at Mr. Daily's house brings the complete revelation: Jennet Humfrye was Mrs. Drablow's sister, Nathaniel was her son taken from her against her will, and his drowning in the marsh fuelled the vengeful haunting. The false reassurance that no child has died after Kipps's sightings allows him to depart with hope — but Stella's death from her injuries proves the curse was never finished with him.

The key decisions, discoveries, and moments of dread that reveal the truth behind the curse.