Benjamin Honey and his Irish wife Patience settle on an uninhabited island off the coast of Maine and begin building their first home.

A hurricane floods Apple Island and the Honey family survives by climbing the Penobscot pine, the tallest tree on the island.

A government committee of doctors and journalists arrives on Apple Island to study and document the islanders using eugenic methods.

Articles published on the mainland label the islanders degenerative and announce that some will be made wards of the state.

The state decides to evict all Apple Island residents, with seven committed to the State School for the Feebleminded.

Matthew Diamond convinces Eha and Esther to allow Ethan to leave Apple Island and train as a painter at Thomas Hale's estate.

The Apple Island community holds a farewell banquet for Ethan, with every islander contributing something special to mark the occasion.

Ethan arrives at Thomas Hale's Massachusetts estate and begins developing his painting under Hale's patronage.

Ethan and Bridget Carney, Hale's Irish maid, develop a romantic relationship while Ethan paints her portrait.

Bridget discovers photographs and drawings in Ethan's bag that reveal his racial heritage, and Hale subsequently evicts Ethan from the estate.

The governor of Maine visits Apple Island, and despite Matthew's plea to improve conditions, the committee confirms the eviction order.

Matthew tells Esther and Eha that Ethan has vanished from the Hale estate and that all islanders must vacate Apple Island.

Officers arrive to remove the Larks and Annie Parker; chaos erupts and an accidental billy club strike kills Rabbit Lark.

Eha dismantles the family cabin board by board and loads it onto a raft with his family and Bridget.

Mainland men burn the island's remaining structures and exhume its graves; a gravedigger sees Zachary crossing the channel with Patience Honey's flag raised high.

Benjamin Honey and his Irish wife Patience establish a small community on an island off the coast of Maine, surviving a devastating hurricane through remarkable resilience. Over a century later, their descendants live quietly on the island until a government committee arrives, motivated by eugenics, to assess the racially diverse and impoverished community. The state declares the islanders degenerate and plans their eviction, while Ethan Honey is sent to a Massachusetts estate to train as a painter because he can pass as white. Ethan falls in love with Bridget Carney on the estate before being expelled when their relationship is discovered, and back on Apple Island the eviction arrives in full force. Officers come to remove the Larks and Annie Parker, and the chaos results in the death of young Rabbit Lark. The surviving islanders load what they can onto rafts and leave, as the final structures are burned and the island's graves are dug up, with only Zachary remaining to carry Patience Honey's flag across the channel.

The founding, community life, and forced eviction of Apple Island

Benjamin Honey collects apple seeds and advice as payment for carpentry work on the mainland and successfully grows an orchard.

Esther Honey sits with her grandchildren on the first day of spring and recounts the story of the devastating hurricane that nearly wiped out the island.

Zachary Hand to God Proverbs carves scenes from the Bible into the interior of a hollow tree, making it his home and life's work.

After a eugenics congress gains public attention, the town of Foxden begins deliberating action against the Apple Island community.

Matthew Diamond delivers a sermon proposing that Noah's sons and their wives each belonged to different races of people.

Ethan receives paints and a book about art from the relief society and studies how artists depict different skin tones.

The general store in Foxden prints lewd postcards using the official photographs taken of the Apple Island islanders during the government visit.

Ethan draws four self-portraits the day after his farewell banquet and struggles to see himself as others must see him.

Bridget Carney shows Ethan to his quarters in the barn at the Hale estate, and he immediately falls into an exhausted sleep.

Bridget watches Ethan nearly faint from painting in the summer heat, leads him to the shade, and brings him lemonade.

A committee member hands Matthew a telegraph from Thomas Hale informing him of Ethan's removal and disappearance from the estate.

Timothy Whitcomb delivers eviction notices to the islanders; Iris McDermott slaps him, while Annie Parker quietly takes her papers without a word.

Zachary burns his eviction notice and shouts his rage against the mainland's condemnation of the islanders' way of life.

Bridget arrives at Apple Island carrying Ethan's wrapped painting and reveals to Esther that she is pregnant.

As Apple Island disappears behind the raft, Eha resolves to return and leave a secret trail of signs so Ethan can find his family.

Benjamin Honey establishes Apple Island by growing an orchard from seeds earned through mainland carpentry, and over a century later Esther passes down the island's founding stories to her grandchildren. The mainland's interest in eugenics soon turns toward the island community, and an official visit leads to dehumanizing documentation and hateful propaganda spread through newspapers and postcards. Ethan's gift for art is noticed and nurtured before he departs for the mainland, leaving behind a community that slowly receives the news of their fated eviction. Eviction notices are delivered with hostility, the Larks prepare to be institutionalized, and the island's final days are marked by grief and defiance. Bridget Carney eventually arrives on Apple Island searching for Ethan, carrying his painting and revealing she is pregnant. The islanders depart by boat and raft, leaving Zachary behind to burn his tree and confront the workers who come to erase all evidence of the community.

Island life, outside interference, and the community's unraveling

Benjamin Honey feels his mother's presence for the first time while working in his apple orchard and names the island Apple Island.

Patience Honey raises her handmade flag above the floodwaters as the hurricane surge reaches her head, and the water begins to recede.

Matthew Diamond is startled to discover that Esther Honey can read and occasionally engages her in discussions of the Bible and Shakespeare.

Maine passes an act granting the state authority to sterilize prisoners and patients under state control deemed unsuitable to procreate.

Matthew Diamond witnesses the government committee's visit to Apple Island and realizes how deeply dehumanizing the inspection is for the islanders.

Esther privately recalls being raped by her own father, her desperate attempt to drown herself and baby Eha, and Zachary pulling them both to safety.

Esther finds her father alone at the bluff where he goes to smoke and pushes him off the edge to his death.

Esther silently understands that Matthew chose Ethan to escape the coming eviction because, unlike the rest of the family, Ethan can appear white.

Esther delouses Ethan with kerosene on the night before his departure from Apple Island and tells him how much she loves him.

Ethan realizes for the first time on the mainland that strangers accept him as white, unlike people in Foxden who knew his family.

Ethan pricks his finger and Bridget's, mixes drops of their blood into red paint, and uses it to paint a strawberry in her portrait.

Zachary rages at the officers who killed Rabbit Lark, the lash scars on his back exposed, and collapses only when he sees Esther weeping.

Bridget shows Ethan's sisters the photograph she took from his bag, partly earning their trust as someone who truly knows their brother.

Esther asks Eha if their family can stay out on the water as they leave Apple Island, and his quiet answer brings her peace.

An envelope from Ethan, preserved unopened by the Hale family for decades, is finally opened at a commemorative exhibit and contains drawings of the Ardennes battlefields.

The founding of Apple Island is rooted in Benjamin Honey's grief and longing for his mother, while the hurricane that nearly destroys the community is survived through Patience Honey's act of raising her handmade flag. A century later, Esther Honey carries hidden trauma — the rape by her father, her attempt to drown herself and her son Eha, and her eventual murder of her father — all of which shape her fierce distrust of outside men and her fierce protection of her grandchildren. When Matthew Diamond arranges for Ethan to leave, Esther understands the true reason: Ethan can pass as white, and she will likely never see him again. On the Hale estate, Ethan discovers what it means to be accepted as white for the first time, falls in love with Bridget, and creates a portrait that binds them together with drops of their own blood. The violence of the eviction — particularly the killing of Rabbit Lark and the exposure of Zachary's lash scars — marks the community's final breaking point. As the family leaves by raft, Esther finds unexpected peace on the water, and a sealed envelope from Ethan, opened long after at a commemorative exhibit, suggests he eventually made his way to the battlefields of France.