The people of Bone Gap fondly consider Finn a spacey kid who never looks anyone in the eye. His strangeness is comparable to the other Bone Gap residents, like Charlie, who lets his chickens roost in his house, and Finn’s best friend Miguel, whose house is haunted by a ghost that pilfers from the family fridge at night. There’s also Petey, the beekeeper’s daughter, known for her acerbic attitude.

Ruby establishes the premise that people can slip through magical gaps in Bone Gap and hints at Roza’s disappearance and Finn’s potential involvement.

Finn lives with his older brother, Sean, who is an emergency medical technician (EMT) and emergency room technician. Their mother, Didi, left them when Finn was 15 to pursue a relationship in Oregon with an orthodontist she met online. Finn walks through the cornfields home and hates the way the corn whispers to him. He hates the crows, too, and the way they laugh. Miguel had told him that the crows are in horror movies. Finn spots the infamous Rude boys, five boys with freckles and blond hair who live on a dairy farm and have a penchant for violence.

Though Finn has the opportunity to disappear into the corn or go the other way, he purposefully kicks a rock so the Rude boys will hear him.