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Lily Owens is a 14-year old white girl who lives with her father, T. Ray Owens, in the town of Sylvan, South Carolina. Lily thinks back on the summer she’s had after an eventful day at school. The narrative then jumps back to the beginning of the summer where we see that Lily and her mother were arguing about something before Deborah Fontanel was killed by a gunshot blast while packing a suitcase when Lily was 4 years old. She remembers holding a gun but can’t remember clearly what happened next except that she blames herself for her mother’s death because she feels like it’s her fault for not stopping it from happening since she was there when it happened and could have stopped her father from doing so if only she tried harder to stop him or even if she grabbed hold of his hand instead of letting go which resulted in Deborah being shot dead by him as he held onto his gun tightly while trying to kill them both. She keeps all these things including pictures and gloves inside an old wooden box which are all mementos left behind by Deborah whom everyone called “Mama” until one day they found out that Mama is actually dead after stumbling upon some letters written by Mama addressed to someone else whom no one knew about until much later on when they decided to visit this person named Miss Walters who lived somewhere in Tiburon, South Carolina where they learned more about their past than what they already knew and also discovered many secrets kept hidden away from them for so long regarding their family history such as why Mama went off without telling anyone where she went or why did Papa insist that no one should know anything about this place called Tiburon or its whereabouts?

In July 1964, Lily’s maid Rosaleen tells her that she’s going to go register to vote. She says the Civil Rights Act has been passed and she wants to be a part of it. Lily decides to go with her because they’re close friends and they walk into town together. However, as soon as they get there, some racist men attack them both for no reason at all and hit Rosaleen in the head. The police arrest Rosaleen for assault but Lily is able to convince them that she was attacked too so the police let her off without any charges being pressed against her but not before giving her a warning about staying out of trouble or else face jail time herself next time around.

Lily rushes back home, where she has a fight with her father. T. Ray tells Lily that her mother never loved her and was planning to leave both of them on the day she died. He also says that Rosaleen’s life is in danger because they’ll want revenge after attacking Rosaleen once before. Furious, Lily decides to run away from home and tells her dad that he can’t tell her what happened to Deborah (Lily’s mom). She writes him a letter telling him how much it hurts when he lies about his wife and leaves for the hospital where Rosaleen is being treated for injuries sustained during the attack by the three men who attacked them earlier. Lily helps Rosaleen escape from the hospital so they can go find out more about Deborah together without having any interference from T. Ray or anyone else while trying to avoid getting caught by those same racists who were after them in their first encounter at church earlier on in this chapter.

Rosaleen and Lily hitchhike to Tiburon. They stop at a general store, where Lily notices jars of honey with the same image of the black Virgin Mary on them. She learns that a local black family, the Boatwrights, makes and sells this honey, and she and Rosaleen go to their house hoping to learn more about Deborah. The Boatwright sisters are August (the oldest), June (a schoolteacher), and May (the youngest). Lily lies about her parents being dead in order for them to stay with the sisters. Rosaleen quickly learns that August’s life revolves around bees: she keeps a huge number of beehives which she uses to make honey, candles etc.. When they meet August we also find out that May had a twin sister named April who shot herself; since then May has been odd and lonely—whenever she hears about something sad, she writes down a description of it in stone wall by their house