Martha goes to her workroom intending to think through Rebecca Foster’s situation and finds a note from Cyrus. In it, Cyrus admits he struck Joshua Burgess because Burgess put his hands on Hannah, but he swears he took the girls home afterward and had nothing to do with Burgess’s death. Because Martha knows Cyrus to be honest, she believes him. She then turns to her diary, rereading entries from August through October to reconstruct the aftermath of Rebecca’s assault.

The diary reminds Martha that Rebecca first told her on August 19 that Joseph North and Joshua Burgess had abused her on August 10, but Rebecca chose to stay silent until Isaac returned. Martha now believes that delay hurt Rebecca’s case, because her visible injuries had healed by the time she went public. Martha also remembers being questioned by Isaac and then by North on September 30, and she realizes Burgess’s death is entangled with the rape accusation. Rebecca’s relief at Burgess’s death, Cyrus’s fight with him, Isaac’s outrage, and North’s interest in controlling testimony all make Martha suspect that several men could have wanted Burgess dead.

Martha walks down to Ballard’s Mill to speak with Ephraim. After some teasing between them, she tells him how Sam Dawin saw a body under the ice, how Amos Pollard had Martha inspect it at the tavern, and how she determined that the dead man was Burgess. She explains that Burgess had been beaten and hanged before being thrown into the river. When Martha tells Ephraim that Burgess attacked Hannah at the Frolic and Cyrus beat him for it, Ephraim immediately understands why suspicion might fall on their son. Together they consider other likely suspects, especially Isaac Foster and Joseph North, both of whom had reason to benefit from Burgess’s death. Martha also notes that Amos’s decision to summon her just before the Court of General Sessions meets gives her medical findings legal weight.

Martha then tells Ephraim about the rare black or silver fox she saw near the house and her uneasy sense that it was trying to direct her attention. Ephraim does not dismiss her feeling. Drawing on what he knows of Wabanaki belief, he says a fox may appear in times of uncertainty as a guide, and he warns Martha not to discount strange signs. Later, after returning to her diary, Martha is struck by an old entry noting that there were "Indians there" when she visited Rebecca shortly after the rape.

That detail leads Martha to a new theory. She recalls finding an empty tin in Rebecca’s parlor that smelled of tansy and savine, herbs used to bring on menstruation or labor. After Rebecca confessed that she is pregnant and the child is not Isaac’s, Martha realizes Rebecca likely feared pregnancy almost immediately after the assault and may have received those herbs from the Wabanaki women she befriended. The chapter ends not with a solution to Burgess’s murder, but with Martha and Ephraim sharing tenderness, underscoring the steadiness of their marriage amid violence, fear, and uncertainty.