Toby is the protagonist of the novel and third person limited perspective narrator, which gives readers insight into the feelings, uncertainties, and longings that she works carefully to hide from the others. She grew up in the pleeblands, and her mother died from a long illness, likely caused by the HelthWyzer vitamins she took religiously. Financially drained, her father killed himself with the rifle that Toby buried and unburied later (it was illegal) right after she buried her father. The God’s Gardeners became her home after they rescued her from a violent man until she had to leave to avoid bringing that man’s wrath onto the Gardeners. While she was with the Gardeners, Toby learned how to use mushrooms medicinally and for hallucinatory vision quests, along with other elements of herbal medicine, and she became their Eve Six. She questions whether she believes in spiritual aspects of the Gardeners or anything spiritual but continues to speak to the bees. Beneath her authoritative, kind but no-nonsense exterior, Toby is sensitive and caring. She has deep insecurities about her self-worth and womanliness, especially since she is incapable of getting pregnant. She has been in love with Zeb since she met him with the Gardeners, when he was dating the beautiful but vapid Lucerne.