Opening
In the final chapter, Caroline Parcewell steps into the British Library with life-changing news and a clear sense of purpose. Her investigation into the apothecary’s past collides with her own future, culminating in a discovery about Eliza that she chooses to guard—and a symbolic act that sets her free. The chapter closes the loop on her journey of Self-Discovery and Identity, merging history, choice, and courage.
What Happens
Caroline meets Gaynor in the reading room and shares two decisions: she has applied to a Master’s program in English Studies at Cambridge and intends to build her dissertation around the lost apothecary, taking an “academic, preservationist” angle. She reflects that bravery is a new word she finally claims for herself. After a tearful, affirming call with her friend Rose, she tells Gaynor she has initiated a formal separation from James Parcewell and will be fully honest with her parents about his Betrayal. The nine-month length of the program mirrors the pregnancy she once longed for, marking a poignant shift: a dream of scholarship replaces a dream of motherhood, without diminishing the loss that preceded it.
With Gaynor’s congratulations still ringing in her ears, Caroline slips into another reading room to answer the final question in her notebook: Who is Eliza Fanning? Diving into the digitized newspaper archive, she finds an 1802 article from The Brighton Press confirming that Eliza Fanning survives her 1791 plunge into the Thames. Eliza later marries Tom Pepper, inherits his “Magick Book Shoppe,” and has twins. In a brief interview, Eliza attributes her survival to a “magick blend” in a “little blue vial,” taken to save a “special friend”—Nella Clavinger. Her remark that the tincture’s heat makes “the frigid depths a welcome respite” reveals it is Eliza, not Nella, who leaps from the bridge, neatly explaining how Nella records a final entry in her register after the supposed suicide.
Caroline leaves the library flooded with a private, protective tenderness toward Eliza. She accepts that some threads—how often Eliza and Nella reconnect, what becomes of their friendship—are lost to time. Choosing intimacy over acclaim, she decides not to share Eliza’s survival with anyone, not even Gaynor. At the Thames—the river that began her search—she holds the small blue vial, recognizes it as a crossroads for them both, and returns it to the water. As she turns away, she glimpses two women walking upriver; when she looks back, they’re gone, as if Nella and Eliza remain—just out of sight, but enduring.
Character Development
Caroline completes her transformation from passive, grieving tourist to active historian and architect of her own life. She claims her intellect, redraws her relationships, and embraces uncertainty with conviction.
- Applies to Cambridge and reframes her future around purposeful study and preservation
- Initiates separation from James and commits to honesty with her family
- Replaces external validation with inner resolve, choosing what to protect rather than what to publicize
- Forges a quiet solidarity with Eliza, honoring women’s private histories
- Performs a symbolic release by returning the vial, trusting herself without talismans
Themes & Symbols
Caroline’s arc crystallizes Self-Discovery and Identity. She stops defining herself through marriage and infertility and instead claims a vocation rooted in curiosity, integrity, and care for the past. Her academic path is not escape but alignment.
The chapter also advances Female Solidarity and Empowerment. Strength flows from women supporting one another across time: Gaynor and Rose lift Caroline in the present, while Eliza’s story becomes a model of daring and survival. Caroline’s choice to safeguard Eliza’s secret is an empowered refusal to commodify women’s pain.
Finally, The Power of the Past and History operates as a living force. The archive offers facts, but the river holds memory; Caroline stands between them, deciding what belongs to public record and what remains a private legacy. History here is both research and relationship.
Symbols
- The Vial: A talisman of choice and courage. Eliza uses it to survive a literal plunge; Caroline releases it to affirm her metaphorical leap, proving she no longer needs proof to trust herself.
- The Thames: A keeper and giver of stories. It yields the vial when guidance is needed and accepts it back when the lesson is learned, underscoring history’s cycles of discovery and return.
- “Magick”: Less supernatural than spiritual resolve. It names the courage, preservation, and faith that carry women through danger and into new lives.
Key Quotes
“Magick blend”
This phrase reframes survival as skill and agency rather than luck. Eliza’s language grants dignity to her act and encodes a tradition of women’s knowledge that resists easy categorization.
“Little blue vial”
The concrete image anchors the novel’s mystery and Caroline’s transformation. It’s small, portable power—precisely the kind women have historically carried in secret.
“Special friend”
By refusing names, the article protects Nella while quietly asserting intimacy and loyalty. The euphemism hints at a network of care that operates beneath official histories.
“The frigid depths a welcome respite”
Eliza’s description confirms the jumper’s identity and conveys how preparation converts terror into passage. The line becomes a metaphor for Caroline’s own leap into an uncertain but chosen future.
Why This Matters and Section Significance
The chapter resolves the dual timelines and repositions the novel’s mystery: not whether Eliza lives, but how women’s stories live—what we record, what we keep, and why. Caroline chooses stewardship over spectacle, separating public scholarship from private inheritance.
By applying to Cambridge, ending her marriage, and returning the vial, she completes a cycle of loss, inquiry, and renewal. The fleeting sight of two women on the riverbank seals the book’s tone of quiet, luminous ambiguity, suggesting that Nella, Eliza, and Caroline are linked beyond time—through courage, care, and the histories they choose to hold.