Lily spots a massive tiger standing in the road that only she can see, with neither Mom nor Sam noticing it.

Halmoni tells Lily the tiger is real and is searching for something she once stole from it.

Halmoni reveals she stole dangerous star-stories from tigers, trapped them in a cave, and fled across the ocean.

Halmoni collapses and vomits on the drive home from the grocery store, and Mom rushes her to the hospital.

A tigress appears in the kitchen at night and offers Lily a deal to return the stories and heal Halmoni.

Mom tells Lily that Halmoni has brain cancer and may have only weeks or months to live.

Lily and Ricky stack Halmoni's boxes into a ring-shaped enclosure in the basement and secure it with a rope.

Lily trips on a box and breaks it open, revealing three small dark glass jars hidden in bubble wrap inside.

The trapped tigress steals Lily's mugwort and proposes a deal: she will tell the star stories aloud and Halmoni will feel better.

Lily opens the first star jar and the tigress tells the story of a half-tiger mother who abandons her baby to serve as sky god.

Lily opens the second star jar and hears the story of a tiger-girl with a white hair streak who flees across the ocean.

Halmoni insists the star jars are ordinary flea market finds with no magic; a devastated Lily smashes all three jars.

Halmoni collapses on the stairs at home and paramedics take her and Mom to the hospital by ambulance.

The tigress walks ahead of Sam's car in a rain-free circle, giving Sam a clear path to drive to the hospital.

Lily tells Halmoni a final story about sisters releasing star jars full of family stories; Halmoni asks to go to her mother and dies.

Lily and her family move to Sunbeam, Washington, to care for Halmoni, who is secretly ill and haunted by tigers seeking stories she once stole. After learning Halmoni has brain cancer, Lily takes matters into her own hands, trapping the tigress and agreeing to release three star stories in exchange for Halmoni's healing. The star stories reveal a lineage of tiger-women stretching back through Lily's family, but Halmoni's condition worsens rather than improves. When Halmoni reveals the star jars hold no magic at all, Lily's hope shatters along with the jars, and Halmoni collapses and is rushed to the hospital. With the tigress's unexpected help, the sisters reach Halmoni in time for Lily to tell one final story that brings peace to everyone in the room. Halmoni dies surrounded by her family, leaving Lily transformed into the family's new storyteller.

The core quest to save Halmoni from the tiger's bargain.

Mom and Sam argue during the drive to Halmoni's house while Lily stays silently invisible in the back seat.

The family finds Halmoni's house empty in the pouring rain, and Mom climbs through a window to let the girls in.

Halmoni deflects Mom's concern about the blocked basement door, declaring it a dangerous day for spirits.

Halmoni insists on preparing kosa, a ritual meal for spirits, and tells Lily the offering will keep the tigers away.

Lily sneaks to the basement door at night, finds it ajar, and discovers the carpet inside is completely dry.

Lily burns her tongue on tea she never wanted and decides to visit the library to research how to protect Halmoni.

Lily visits the library, meets librarian Joe and teen aide Jensen, and learns Joe baked cupcakes for patrons.

Halmoni is greeted warmly by many townsfolk at the grocery store, who thank her for her cures and remedies.

Lily overhears Ricky's father snap at him in the store, and Halmoni intervenes with a kind speech about helping one another.

Lily tells Sam about the tigers and her plan to save Halmoni, but Sam dismisses her and tells her to get it together.

Sam arrives at the library and meets Jensen, who invites her to help coordinate the upcoming library bake sale.

Sam braids Lily's hair into a warrior-princess updo, and the sisters realize they each remember their favorite tiger story differently.

Halmoni has a confused episode at Dragon Thyme restaurant and tries to take other diners' food to serve as kosa.

Sam confesses she has been secretly scattering protective rice around the house and neighborhood each night with Jensen.

The family's library bake sale becomes a community kosa honoring Halmoni, and Sam asks Lily to tell her a story.

Before Lily's secret quest takes shape, her family arrives at Halmoni's house fractured by grief and friction, navigating a new home full of old rituals and strange mysteries. Lily meets Ricky and Jensen at the library across the street, setting up alliances that will carry the family through Halmoni's final weeks. Halmoni's vibrant community life—her remedies, her neighbors, her instinctive kindness to strangers—reveals to Lily that there is far more to her grandmother's story than tiger myths alone. As Halmoni's illness grows more visible in public, Lily struggles to include Sam and protect their fragile sisterhood while keeping her plan hidden. Behind the scenes, Sam has been fighting for Halmoni in her own quiet way, scattering rice at night with Jensen in an act of love she never admits until crisis forces her hand. By the novel's end, the family channels their shared grief into a communal kosa that honors Halmoni's memory and finally unites the sisters on the other side of loss.

Family bonds, community ties, and the world surrounding the tiger bargain.

Lily recalls her favorite tiger story, in which Eggi and Unya flee a disguised tiger and bargain with a sky god for safety.

Lily discovers Halmoni vomiting in the bathroom late at night; Halmoni dismisses it as only a little bug.

Lily spots a tiger's tail vanishing between library shelves, chases it, and crashes into a boy named Ricky.

Lily refuses the tigress's kitchen deal out of mistrust, then immediately regrets it when the tigress vanishes before she can accept.

Lily asks Ricky about his great-grandfather's tiger-hunting methods, hoping for a clue to save Halmoni, but Ricky doesn't know.

Lily realizes the tiger-mother in the first star jar story must be Halmoni's own mother, because the abandoned baby received a pearl pendant.

Lily visits Ricky's house and the two bake imperfect rice cakes together, with Ricky talking her out of throwing the batch away.

Sam catches Lily sneaking out at night to meet the tigress, and the sisters agree to keep each other's secrets from Mom.

Mom surprises Lily by eating kimchi with her bare hands in the kitchen at night, breaking her own strict rules.

Ricky's friends casually call Halmoni a crazy witch, and Ricky describes her tiger fears as symptoms of illness without defending her.

Lily scoops mud into Ricky's pudding cup, feeds it to him, and then publicly announces what she did before running away.

Sam tells Lily she just wants Halmoni's dying to be over already, and Lily demands she take the words back.

Sam freezes on the rain-soaked road and confesses she has kept all memories of their late father secret to preserve them.

The tigress reveals she is the spirit of Halmoni's mother and tells Lily that healing and curing illness are not the same thing.

Sam reaches up, plucks a story from the air, and hands it to Lily, passing the family's storyteller role to her sister.

Throughout the novel, Lily moves from passive observer to fierce protector, making bold choices that repeatedly force her out of her comfortable invisibility. Key revelations—about Halmoni's past, the true meaning of the star stories, and the identity of the tigress herself—reframe everything Lily thought she understood about her family and her Korean heritage. Each turning point pushes Lily closer to a difficult truth: that stories cannot be safely contained, that grief takes many forms, and that she herself may carry tiger blood. Sam's painful confessions about their father's memory and her own inability to believe in magic bring the sisters back together at the novel's most critical moment. By the time Sam pulls a star from the sky and places it in Lily's hands, both sisters have been transformed by loss, love, and the courage to finally face their whole story.