Ma walks away from the family shack, leaving six-year-old Kya to wait for a return that never comes.

Kya's older siblings abandon the family one by one, with Jodie being the last to leave.

Tate Walker helps a lost Kya navigate her father's boat back to familiar marsh waters.

Pa abandons Kya permanently, leaving her to survive entirely on her own in the marsh.

Kya strikes a deal with Jumpin' to sell mussels in exchange for gas and supplies to survive.

Tate leaves rare feathers on a stump in a clearing and offers to teach Kya to read.

Tate and Kya share their first kiss in the marsh clearing and become a couple.

Tate goes away to college and fails to meet Kya on the Fourth of July as he promised.

Chase Andrews aggressively pursues Kya on the beach and convinces her to meet him for a picnic.

Kya gives Chase a handmade shell necklace at the fire tower after he apologizes for his earlier aggression.

Chase drives Kya to Asheville where they stay at a motel and have sex for the first time.

Kya finds an engagement announcement in the newspaper revealing Chase is to marry Pearl Stone.

Kya's first book is published and she uses the royalties to buy her family's land outright.

Chase corners Kya in Cypress Cove, attempts to rape her, and she fights back and escapes.

After Kya's murder trial ends in acquittal, Tate discovers her secret poems and the missing necklace and burns them.

Where the Crawdads Sing follows Kya Clark, who is abandoned by her entire family as a child and must survive alone in the North Carolina marshes. She finds brief companionship when Tate Walker teaches her to read and becomes her first love, only to abandon her when he leaves for college. Kya is then pursued and ultimately betrayed by the charming but manipulative Chase Andrews, whose violent assault on her sets the novel's dark final act in motion. When Chase turns up dead, the town's long-held prejudice against Kya as the outcast 'Marsh Girl' makes her the prime suspect. Her murder trial lays bare the town's classism and exclusion, but her alibi and her lawyer's closing argument lead the jury to acquit her. The novel ends with a quiet revelation that Kya was guilty all along, with Tate destroying the evidence to protect her memory.

Kya's survival, her two romances, and the murder trial that defines her life.

Kya treats her own infected foot wound alone using marsh mud and tidal water, with no adult help.

Pa teaches Kya to fish and gives her his old army knapsack, the only gift she ever receives from him.

The Methodist minister's wife humiliates Kya at the diner by snatching her daughter away from her.

Pa burns a letter from Ma and reverts to his mean, drunken self, ending the peaceful fishing period.

Kya attacks white boys throwing rocks at Jumpin' and shouting racial slurs at him.

Kya discovers the family Bible and reads the names and birth dates of relatives she had nearly forgotten.

Tate gives Kya paints and paper for her birthday, sparking her detailed scientific illustrations of marsh life.

Scupper Walker warns his son Tate about the serious risks of becoming too deeply involved with Kya.

Tate returns to observe Kya from a distance, concludes she cannot fit into his world, and leaves without saying goodbye.

Kya obtains a library card in Sea Oaks and begins studying the college-level biology textbooks Tate once recommended.

Tate visits Kya, recognizes her marsh drawings are publication quality, and takes samples to show a publisher.

Kya nearly capsizes alone in the ocean after riding into a riptide following her discovery of Chase's engagement.

Jodie returns home scarred from Vietnam, revealing that Ma died of leukemia in New Orleans after Pa's threats kept her away.

Jumpin' and Mabel defy the town's segregation by walking into the white section of the courtroom to support Kya.

Tate finds a rare night heron feather left by Kya and rows to her home where they finally declare their love.

This pool covers the significant secondary events that built Kya into the person she becomes. Her early years are defined by small acts of self-reliance and the few adults who showed her kindness, particularly Jumpin' and his wife Mabel, whose generosity helped her survive. Tate Walker's influence runs deeper than romance — he introduced Kya to books and art that transformed her from a marsh scavenger into a published naturalist. The betrayals and recognitions she experiences with both Tate and Chase force her to grow in unexpected ways, sharpening her understanding of human nature through the lens of biology. Her brother Jodie's return finally gives Kya the painful context behind her mother's abandonment. The pool closes with Kya and Tate reconciling their long, tangled history and finally choosing each other.

The supporting moments that shaped Kya's resilience, relationships, and identity.

Kya is mocked by her entire class on her first and only day of school and vows never to return.

Kya fully accepts that Ma will never come back and the marsh becomes her surrogate mother.

Kya realizes that Jumpin' and Mabel's seemingly fair trades have been acts of charity all along.

Town boys tag Kya's porch door with 'Marsh Girl' and taunt her sexually at night, leaving her feeling exposed.

Kya gets her first period with no guidance; an embarrassed Tate explains what he can, and Mabel later helps her.

Chase reveals his crude, grabbing nature at their first picnic when he forces himself on Kya and she runs.

Kya reads about deceptive male mating strategies in biology textbooks and begins applying the concept to Chase's behavior.

Two boys discover Chase Andrews's body lying beneath the abandoned fire tower in the marsh.

The sheriff and deputy examine the fire tower and note the crime scene has been wiped and the grate above the body left open.

Patti Love Andrews tells the sheriff that Chase's shell necklace is missing and names Kya as her prime suspect.

Tate shows Kya his microscope and quietly gives her his red cap after noticing the bruises on her face.

Kya travels to Greenville to meet her editor Robert Foster, unknowingly establishing an alibi for the night Chase dies.

Rodney Horn testifies in court that he witnessed Chase assault Kya and heard her threaten to kill him.

Tom Milton's closing argument names the town's lifelong prejudice against Kya as the true driver of the prosecution.

After Kya's death, Tate finds her secret poems written as Amanda Hamilton and the hidden shell necklace, confirming her guilt.

This pool traces the pivotal turning points in Kya's inner life and the investigation surrounding Chase's death. From her earliest years, a series of painful recognitions — that her mother is gone, that belonging is impossible, that men can be predatory — slowly shape the worldview that will ultimately lead her to kill. Her growing mastery of biology gives her a framework for understanding the manipulation she has suffered, and Chase's violent assault forces a final, fatal decision. The investigation chapters reveal how the town's ingrained prejudice against Kya drives sloppy police work and a circumstantial case full of holes. At trial, the prosecution's evidence is dismantled piece by piece, but the moral question of Kya's guilt lingers. The pool closes with the revelation that settles that question permanently, as Tate uncovers the truth hidden among Kya's poems.

The key discoveries, decisions, and emotional shifts that drive Kya toward her fate.