A woman, The Weaver, cleans blood off of her braids and hands so that she can weave sweetgrass into baskets. Four baskets have already been made, and she is making the last one larger so that it can hold a head. She picks at the layer of dead skin on the sole of her foot and chews on it. She finishes weaving the baskets and uses a wooden stick to stand. She pounds the stick against the wooden floor until the voices of her ancestors tell her to bring The Poet.

The Poet reads what she's written in handmade ink before signing her name and going into the bathroom of the old plantation house she grew up in. There is a spot of dried blood on her cheek that she considers leaving before deciding to make herself a bath. The water turns pink, and then she hears the sound of a stick hitting the earth in her head. When she was a kid, her grandmother warned her that if she ever heard her name called she should make sure it was her grandmother calling. If she wasn't sure it was her grandmother, she should not answer. But she has answered many times, even when it wasn't her grandmother. Now, whenever the voices need her to run an errand, stalk someone, or more they call to her. Though she knows she'll eventually respond, she tries to ignore the stick pounding by submerging herself until she is unconscious.

She wakes up on the floor of the living room with stained hands and bruised arms. She sees half a dozen sweetgrass baskets in the corner of the kitchen and a memory itches at her while her hands ache. She splashes water on her face because the water always helped bring her back, but it also helped carry her mind away. She knows she can't live without water; it's a part of her just as much as the voices are. Words come to her, and she scrambles to write them with a pencil, scratching at a patch of new skin on the sole of her foot. Writing until the paper is filled with lead calms her, but only writing with ink takes away the voices of her ancestors. Her ancestors were a mix of African and Black Caribs who hated written documentation, but she went into academia and poetry and tried to record the old ways. This is why they can't forgive her, and why they make her kill.

She stumbles to the baskets and reaches inside them, recoiling when she feels the blood and flesh she cut. At first, she says it is the Weaver's work, but she then corrects herself and says it is her own work. She remembers screams, and her blade cutting through the air. She runs into her bedroom and begins to write on a long roll of rice paper. She frantically writes all the gospel hymns, ghost stories, and work songs she can remember with ink.

The pounding in her head grows louder. The Weaver's voice tells her the paper won't save her. She keeps writing until her fingers are cramping, and the Weaver gets mad at her for denying their ancestors' sacrifices and tasks. The Poet keeps writing, but her knee gives out and crashes into the pan of ink she's laid out. She stains the paper and accidentally rips it. She tries to write with a ballpoint pen and then a pencil and then dips her finger in the remaining ink to try to continue documenting her ancestors' stories and keep the Weaver away.

Eventually, the Weaver takes over her mind. When the Poet wakes up she can't move. She screams.

She remembers the Weaver weaving sweetgrass through the Poet's skin until her fingers were bound together. The voices and the pounding stick become quiet then, and the Weaver hums while she weaves because she knows she can tell the Poet their people's secrets safely with the Poet's fingers bound.