Moon Over Manifest Chapters 42-43 Summary

Chapter 42

Over the next few days, Abilene tells the girls everything.
The town seems to have healed—all those memories in the paper have brought them back together.
The mailman has finally worked up the courage to ask Velma T. out—and she said yes. Aw.
The women in town are making another quilt—a friendship quilt—and they've asked Miss Sadie to make the center square. (Triple Yay.)
It turns out that when Jinx welded her gate, he had tried his best to spell out her last name—Redizon. But since he was a beginner, it came out looking like "Perdition." Oops.
The girls have an idea to get people to stop into town and shop: they put up a sign on the highway offering free ice water.
And they find out that Mr. Underhill wasn't the Rattler, after all. But he was the spy who told Devlin and Burton about the fake quarantine. Not Mrs. Larkin after all.
Abilene starts reading Moby Dick and discovers that her dad checked it out of the library, years ago. Yep, his name is written on the checkout card.
On August 30, Abilene stands at the train station, waiting as the train pulls up.
She's sent her dad a telegram, and she's hoping he'll be on this one. (Oh, please, oh, please.)
When he's not, she starts walking down the tracks.
And there he is, coming towards her.
He's beyond happy to see her again—they're both finally home.
And that telegram she sent him?

WESTERN UNION TELEGRAPH SERVICE

Abilene's dying… of lumbago… so her daddy better come quick before she passes. They'll try and keep her on ice till he comes.
Like father, like daughter.

Abilene tells her daddy everything and gives him the map and letters and mementos.
And then he fills in the blanks, answering questions Abilene still didn't know the answers to.
But the biggest one—the identity of the Rattler—she figures out on her own.
Who else would be out late in the woods—maybe after having delivered a baby—in dark, ghostly-looking robes, with a rattling rosary at her side?
Sister Redempta.
And now Abilene knows what to write for her school assignment: "Manifest: A Town with a Past."

HATTIE MAE'S NEWS AUXILIARY

September 6, 1936: Hattie Mae is quitting her column, but she's passing it on to a young new writer in town: Abilene Tucker.