Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of racist language, outdated language regarding slavery, attempted rape, murder, child abuse, suicidal ideation, and anti-gay bias.

It is nine at night and Samantha has just killed Ty Yorkshire with a scrubbing brush. The narrative flashes back to 12 hours earlier the same day in the year 1849. Samantha is unhappy that they have moved from New York City to a small town in Missouri. She and her father are the only Chinese people in St. Joe. She wants to be a classical musician and not help her father run the Whistle general store. Her father is a kind-hearted man and surprises his teenage daughter with special cakes that he has prepared as she sets out to give violin lessons. She returns late from the lessons to find that the store has burned down, killing her father and destroying all their valuable possessions, such as a picture of her deceased mother and her father’s immigration papers. It did not destroy her mother’s bracelet, which had been removed from the now-incinerated wooden safe.