Opening
Two storylines snap into focus as past and present collide. In 1939, Rill Foss (May Crandall) fights to keep her siblings safe inside the Tennessee Children’s Home Society, even as the system rips them away. In the present, Avery Stafford follows a trail of photographs and memories toward a revelation that rewrites her family’s history.
What Happens
Chapter 16: Our Secret
At the orphanage, hope briefly flickers when a gentle new worker, Miss Dodd, arrives. Rill looks for any word about Camellia Foss, but Danny Boy sneers that she’s dead, dumped in the swamp by Riggs. Rill shields her younger sister, Judy Stafford (Fern Foss), who’s wetting the bed from fear, by taking the blame. Miss Dodd quietly promises to clean up without telling Mrs. Pulnik, even enlisting Riggs—unaware of how dangerous he is. Later, Rill crumples in the yard under the weight of failure. When Danny Boy taunts a river boy named Stevie, Rill channels Camellia’s fire and attacks him, shocking everyone with her fury.
The day turns catastrophic. Rill discovers Lark is gone. Fern and Stevie stammer that a “lady” took her. Rill sneaks inside and overhears Georgia Tann and Mrs. Murphy arranging Lark’s adoption by a famous, wealthy couple. Dressed up and renamed “Bonnie,” Lark vanishes out the door. Miss Dodd stops Rill from lunging after the car. Desperate, Rill breaks their “secret” and tells Miss Dodd everything—the kidnapping off the Arcadia, the abuse, the threats. Miss Dodd, horrified, vows to help if Rill can stay strong and quiet. That night, Rill snaps at Fern in grief and terror, then reels at the cruelty spilling from her own mouth.
Morning brings punishment. Mrs. Murphy reveals she knows it all. Miss Dodd is fired, and the welfare office is “taking” the younger children. Rill is locked in a basement cell—starved, isolated, her copy of Huckleberry Finn confiscated. When she’s dragged before Miss Tann and Mrs. Murphy, they break her down until she agrees there was never a Camellia. Then the final blow: Fern has been adopted. Shattered, Rill hides outside and considers ending everything—until Silas appears at the fence, whispering that Miss Dodd found Rill’s family. They plan a midnight escape.
Chapter 17: The Workshop
On Edisto Island, Avery waits for Trent Turner. He arrives, and their guard drops as he talks about his son, Jonah, and the complicated circumstances of the boy’s birth and his mother’s death. Before they drive to his grandfather’s workshop, Trent hands Avery a printout: “Adoption Matron May Have Been Most Prolific Serial Killer.” The article lays out TCHS kidnappings, abuse, neglect, and hundreds of child deaths, as well as the judges, police, and politicians who protected Tann.
Avery’s stomach turns. If Tann’s web spans courts and cops, did her own prominent family look away? Trent has his own dread—his grandfather was adopted by a Memphis police sergeant, and he fears the child was a payoff for silence. In the workshop—a dusty time capsule—bulletin boards brim with black‑and‑white photos of children paired with color photos of the adults they became. Avery spots a beach photo: four women wearing identical dragonfly bracelets, one unmistakably her grandmother, Judy. As Trent lifts it down, a smaller photo flutters out—the same image of five river children that sat on May Crandall’s nightstand.
Chapter 18: The Getaway
Back in 1939, Rill slips out to meet Silas by the fence. She cannot leave yet; she must wait one more day for Fern to be returned and she refuses to abandon Stevie. Silas agrees to come back that night. Riding the rush of having snuck out and back in, Rill heads upstairs—and slams into Riggs emerging from the toddler room.
Riggs traps her, hand over mouth, hissing that they can be “best friends.” He pins her, and darkness creeps in at the edges of her vision—until a new night worker interrupts. Riggs lies about checking windows for a storm and leers at the woman, invoking “Cousin Ida” (Mrs. Murphy) to intimidate her. After he leaves, the worker checks beds. Rill lies rigid, feigning sleep and realizing how close she came to disaster.
At dawn, Mrs. Pulnik spots sandy footprints and lines up the children to expose the culprit. The phone rings—Miss Tann. Orders change. Mrs. Murphy scrubs Rill, stuffs her into a nice dress, and threatens Stevie if Rill misbehaves. They drive to a fancy hotel where Miss Tann waits. Rill is placed in a bedroom to await a man she doesn’t know, her fate terrifyingly unclear.
Chapter 19: The Whole Story
Avery and Trent go to the Aiken nursing home. May Crandall bristles—until she sees Trent and softens, noting his grandfather’s eyes. Avery shows her the workshop photos. May’s walls fall. She tells the truth: she is Rill. She remembers life on the Arcadia with her parents, Queenie Foss and Briny Foss, and her four siblings, and then the night they were stolen.
May confirms Trent’s grandfather was Stevie, the river boy she tried to protect. Trent Sr., she explains, devoted his life to reuniting TCHS families. The beach photo shows May (Rill) and her sisters Lark and Fern at a reunion on Edisto Island with Judy, who lent them her cottage and became a dear friend. May insists Judy’s only role was helping her write the story—abandoned halfway. When Avery presses about papers for Shad Arthur Foss, May claims exhaustion, asks them not to pry into families who already have so much to carry, and ends the visit.
Outside, Leslie—Avery’s father’s press secretary—confronts them. An exposé on corporate nursing homes has just gone live, using a photo of Senator Stafford and Judy. The political firestorm Avery dreads has begun, and Leslie bristles at finding Avery with an unknown man.
Chapter 20: The Music Room
At the hotel, the “man” is Mr. Sevier, a wealthy composer. He and his fragile wife, Victoria, have already adopted Fern—renamed Beth—and take Rill—renamed May—because Fern won’t stop crying for her sister. The Sevier home is spacious and hushed, steeped in grief over miscarriages and stillbirths. Victoria clings to Fern’s brightness. Rill’s job becomes keeping Fern happy to keep the house stable. The housekeeper, Zuma, resents the upheaval. Rill discovers an oxbow lake that feeds into the Mississippi and quietly maps a path back to the river.
Breakfast reveals a brittle rhythm. Mr. Sevier rushes off to his music room to work on a new film score; Victoria announces she’s taking Fern to a doctor for a leg brace—Fern’s slight inward turn matches Queenie’s, a family trait Rill recognizes. Victoria insists Fern must go alone and attach to her “new mommy.” Panic gnaws at Rill: what if Fern forgets their real names, their real family?
Left behind, Rill wanders into the music room. The phonograph mesmerizes her, and she picks out the melody on the piano. Mr. Sevier finds her. Instead of scolding, he’s gentle, guiding her hands and saying, “I think you and I can be friends.” The words and closeness echo Riggs. Terror floods back. Rill screams and bolts, barricading herself in her closet.
Character Development
Rill stands on the edge of survival and selfhood. Violence, deprivation, and forced separation strip her of certainty, yet she still fights for Fern and Stevie, tells Miss Dodd the truth, and clings to the river’s promise of escape.
- Rill: From protective caretaker to fierce defender (attacking Danny Boy), to silenced prisoner in solitary, to a girl whose body remembers danger even in a gentler house.
- Avery: Curiosity becomes conviction. The investigation now risks her family’s reputation and career as she confronts a legacy that may involve silence or complicity.
- Trent: Empathetic and open, he gains a personal stake when Stevie emerges as his grandfather, aligning his family’s past with Rill’s.
- Georgia Tann and Mrs. Murphy: Their cruelty sharpens—weaponizing institutions, annihilating identities, and punishing anyone who tries to help (Miss Dodd).
Themes & Symbols
The chapters crystallize The Enduring Power of Family Bonds. Rill risks everything to stay near Fern, delays her own escape for her sister, and watches Lark renamed and removed. In the present, Avery follows bracelets and photographs because love for Judy demands truth, no matter the political cost.
They expose the machinery behind theft and rebranding of children—Corruption of Power and Exploitation of the Vulnerable. Tann’s network operates with official protection; Mrs. Murphy can erase a worker, trigger welfare action, and rewrite a child’s past with a pen stroke. Rill’s re‑naming to “May” and Lark’s to “Bonnie” show how identity gets overwritten for profit and prestige.
Both timelines hinge on The Search for Identity and Truth. Rill is coerced into denying Camellia ever existed, while Avery confronts whether her polished family history rests on kidnapped children and sealed records that hide the truth. The specter of Secrets and Their Consequences looms: secrets protect the powerful and imperil the powerless and their descendants.
Trauma and memory reverberate. Mr. Sevier’s benign guidance echoes Riggs’s predation in Rill’s nervous system; safety and danger blur. The dragonfly bracelet gathers power as a symbol—four women wear it in the beach photo, transforming a private keepsake into a quiet badge of sisterhood, survival, and remembrance.
Key Quotes
“Adoption Matron May Have Been Most Prolific Serial Killer.” This headline frames the institutional horror behind Rill’s story, naming Tann’s actions plainly and tying personal suffering to a systemic, protected enterprise.
“Be strong and quiet.” Miss Dodd’s plea recognizes the lethal surveillance of the home. Survival requires cunning and silence; compassion must move in the shadows.
“Bonnie.” Lark’s new name encapsulates the theft of identity. Renaming signals a final severing from her past and the speed with which the institution repackages children.
“Cousin Ida.” Riggs’s invocation of Mrs. Murphy’s nickname is a threat in code, a reminder that power protects predators and emboldens their abuse.
“I think you and I can be friends.” Mr. Sevier means kindness; Rill hears danger. The line shows how trauma rewires perception, turning ordinary gestures into alarms.
“There never was a Camellia.” Forced denial becomes a tool of control. Erasing Camellia on Rill’s tongue completes the institution’s assault on her memory and identity.
Why This Matters and Section Significance
These chapters deliver the novel’s fulcrum: a photograph in Trent’s workshop links Judy to three women who look like sisters, and May Crandall’s confession confirms it—she is Rill, and Judy is Fern. Avery’s quest turns inward, from investigating strangers to uncovering her own family’s origins and obligations.
In the past, the horror shifts from communal cruelty to a gilded captivity. Rill escapes the home only to land in a house where love and danger coexist inside her body, proving that exploitation doesn’t end when paperwork is signed. In the present, the political crisis explodes just as truth surfaces, forcing Avery to decide whether protecting a legacy outweighs honoring the people that legacy erased.