Clara Wintermute Timeline and Summary

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• Clara Wintermute wakes up excited on her 12th birthday because she'll be having a party and the puppeteer Grisini will be performing.
• She saw Grisini perform years ago and mostly wanted to have him there because she wants to be friends with his two apprentices, a girl and a boy. She doesn't have a great social life.
• The maid comes in and helps her prepare, and Clara begs her to let her take tea with the children when they come and set up the puppet theater. Her mother comes in and gives her a birthday present—a pretty locket.
• When the apprentices, Lizzie Rose and Parsefall, show up, they ask Clara about a painting on the wall that shows five children. She says that it's a painting of her and her siblings, except they're all dead now and she's the only living Wintermute child left.
• Then, the puppet show starts and during a skeleton puppet's dance, Clara starts laughing, much to the horror of her parents and guests. They think she's making fun of death, which makes her mother super mad.
• Clara goes to bed upset because she feels like her mother hates her and wishes that one of her other children had survived the cholera instead of Clara. It's also revealed that the locket Clara got for her birthday has locks of all her siblings' hair in it so she'll never forget them (as if she could).
• The next morning, Clara goes missing, and no one knows where she went or if she was kidnapped or ran away. They don't know that Grisini isn't just a puppeteer; he's also a magician who turns children into puppets in order to hold them for ransom.
• Because there's a lot of turmoil in Grisini's household (and he gets summoned by Cassandra the witch to explain the origins of the phoenix-stone), Grisini doesn't end up meeting Clara's father when he's supposed to in order to get the ransom.
• Instead, he disappears from the household, and Clara is left, alone, as a puppet—that is, until Lizzie Rose and Parsefall find her and realize what has happened.
• Parsefall strings up Clara like a normal puppet and goes out to perform with her, at which point her father catches sight of the puppet (which looks exactly like his daughter) and freaks out.
• After that, Clara's father comes to Grisini's place, finds a picture frame that Parsefall stole from their house, and subsequently threatens to go to the police.
• Afraid that they will be arrested, Lizzie Rose and Parsefall bring Clara (the puppet) along with them when they flee to Strachan's Ghyll, a faraway house from which a mysterious woman has written to Grisini. In her letter, she promises to leave her inheritance to his "children."
• When they get there, Clara realizes that Cassandra is trying to trick the children into stealing the phoenix-stone, which is cursed—but she can't do anything because she's a puppet.
• Still, Clara has a run-in with Cassandra who wants her to take the phoenix-stone, and after that, she tries to warn Parsefall and Lizzie Rose by speaking to them in their dreams.
• When Grisini shows himself again and threatens Parsefall and Lizzie Rose, Clara watches on helplessly as they take her with them and try to run away, only to be brought back to Strachan's Ghyll by Cassandra's magic.
• After Cassandra shows Parsefall how he lost his finger and he decides to steal the stone to have his revenge on Grisini, Clara decides that she must act—she can't let Parsefall take the phoenix-stone and be cursed.
• With all of her resolve, Clara steals the stone, and in doing so, turns back into a regular little girl. Then, she runs to the frozen lake outside to destroy the stone.
• Grisini chases her, but Clara manages to place the stone on the ice—where it cracks and breaks the ice. Grisini goes under and dies, but Clara is fished out by Parsefall and Lizzie Rose.
• Later on, Clara is reunited with her parents, who have come to Strachan's Ghyll to fetch her. Now that they've seen they can lose her, too, they are kinder to their daughter and appreciate her more.
• Clara also announces that they're going to take in Lizzie Rose and Parsefall; they will be her new siblings.
• At the very end of the book, Clara and her whole family (her mother, father, Lizzie Rose, and Parsefall) attend Cassandra's funeral, excited to return to London where they will all live together in the Wintermute home.