Back in the present, Saint stands in her yard and studies the empty hive. Moonlight and the edge of the woods trigger a memory from two years earlier, on the same evening she and Patch crossed that part of the land together.

In the memory, Patch leads Saint through the woods with a wooden cutlass and tells her he carved their initials into an oak near the graveyard because he wants something of them to last. Saint asks whether he will come to her birthday dinner. Patch momentarily stops to inspect wolf scat and has Saint aim the replica flintlock pistol she carries, turning the moment into one of his playful lessons before finally agreeing to come when he learns there will be cake. Saint privately remembers that she lied about the plain store-bought cake because she had actually spent days making him a pirate-themed one.

Saint recalls that Patch later arrived at the dinner with half a bottle of apricot schnapps and amused her grandmother by serving it as if it were fine wine. The memory then returns to the two of them pushing through thick nettles until they reach Dr. Tooms's land, a rough, pitted stretch under a storm-dark sky.

When rain begins, Saint wants to seek shelter, but Patch lies down in the grass and says the open sky gives a better chance of seeing heaven. Saint lies beside him. Their conversation turns teasing and intimate: Patch jokes about Saint getting older, then tells her she is smart and, in the right light, beautiful, comparing her to a pirate named Evelyn Cromer.

At the end of the memory, Saint asks why Patch's own name is what it is, and Patch instead asks about hers. Saint explains that her grandparents named her after her mother died and said she was every good thing. Patch answers that he believes it, reinforcing how deeply he sees and values her. The recollection shows why Saint's loyalty to Patch runs so deep and why her connection to the past still shapes her actions now.