Mr. Ibis and Anubis prepare a body for burial at their funeral parlor. Mr. Ibis sits to write down the story of Essie MacGowan and Mad Sweeney coming to America.

Essie was an ambitious young Irishwoman who used her sexual appeal and skillful manipulation to attempt to rise above her station. As a child, her grandmother would tell her about the leprechauns, and she would believe in them, tell their story, and leave tributes to them throughout her life.

As a young woman, Essie left a "kindness of gold" for a leprechaun (Mad Sweeney) who wound up being bound to her for life. She worked as a maid and seduced the son of the noblewoman she worked for. When he gave her a piece of jewelry and promised to marry her upon her return from school, she was accused of theft by the noblewoman and sentenced to transportation and servitude in America.

On the ship, Essie seduces the captain and finagles her way into a ride back to London. Once there, the smitten captain marries her. But as soon as he leaves for another trip to the Americas, Essie splits, robbing him blind. She makes her living as a prolific thief, eventually forgetting to keep leaving tributes to the leprechauns. 

Essie's luck turns and she's caught once again for thieving. This time, she's bound to be sentenced to death. In her jail cell, she has a conversation with Mad Sweeney about the chance to be happy in America and start a new life. Sweeney suggests that she bargain with the warden in order to save her life and have her sentence commuted to transportation.

The next day, she successfully seduces the warden and becomes pregnant. Pleading her child's life, her sentence is commuted to transportation for life. After a rough boat journey, she arrives in America with her baby and goes to work as a wet nurse and maid for a widowed man and tobacco farmer named Richardson in Virginia.

Eventually, she seduces Donald and escapes her servitude by becoming his wife. Essie winds up having a happy and prosperous life. At the end of her long life, she continues telling stories of leprechauns to her grandkids, but none of them (or her Virginian neighbors) are interested in hearing them. She begins keeping them to herself.

The night she dies, Mad Sweeney appears to tell her about how she (and others like her) brought him, a leprechaun, with them to America. He escorts her to the afterlife.

Laura, Salim, and Mad Sweeney continue to drive towards Kentucky for Laura's resurrection. They make a stop at a sacred White Buffalo statue. Sweeney lets slip that the gods are meeting at the House on the Rock in Wisconsin. Laura informs Salim, releasing him from driving them. Salim gratefully scampers off, intending to track down the djinn there.

Laura, meanwhile, steals an ice cream truck in order to slow her decomposition. She and Sweeney continue on towards Kentucky in it. In the truck, Sweeney tells of his past: He is committed to fighting a war for Wednesday because way back when, he ran away from a war when he foresaw his death on the battlefield.

On the way, a white rabbit runs into the road and causes them to crash. In the crash, Laura is ejected from the car and her stitching rips open. Sweeney's coin falls from her body and she's rendered dead once again, instantly. 

Sweeney revives and sees Laura lying dead in the middle of the road. He retrieves his coin and prepares to go, but soon flashes back guiltily to staring at Laura's dying body after the initial car crash that killed her, speaking to one of Wednesday's ravens. This reveals that Sweeney caused the crash and Laura's death -- on Wednesday's orders.

Feeling guilty and with a change of heart, Sweeney puts the coin back in Laura's chest. She revives, punches him for staring at her naked chest, rights the ice cream truck, and gets them both back on their way to Kentucky as if nothing has happened.