On a rainy night, Fatty drives Paper and the sleeping Big Soap in his old Packard to Hemlock Row, an isolated settlement of the Lowgods that most Chicken Hill residents avoid. Fatty worries about danger and mocks the Lowgods’ customs, but Paper insists she knows what she is doing and goes into a shack alone, warning Fatty to stay quiet unless she calls for help.

While waiting, Fatty broods about recent trouble surrounding Dodo and recalls Paper confronting him at his jook after Chona’s funeral. Paper had told Fatty that Nate and Addie are planning to break Dodo out of Pennhurst and needed Fatty to drive her to Hemlock Row because she trusts him. Fatty also talks with Big Soap about rumors that Doc Roberts assaulted Chona and about Dodo’s past—an accident that left Dodo deaf—and Fatty’s anger that Chona died amid all of it.

Inside, Paper finds a silent gathering arranged like an audience before a table with a typewriter and blank cards. Miggy Fludd, a regally dressed Lowgod woman and Paper’s former laundering coworker, arrives and conducts an “oracle” session: each person asks a question, Miggy performs a trance-like dance, then types an answer onto a card for the questioner.

After the group leaves, Miggy asks an older man, Bullis, to stay and arranges for him to help Paper later; Bullis agrees after Miggy offers him the evening’s coins. Alone with Paper, Miggy explains that she is not simply telling fortunes but giving hope, and she describes the Lowgods’ distrust of outsiders and their ability to protect their own.

Miggy then reveals she already knows why Paper has come: Dodo is held at Pennhurst in Ward C-1, reserved for patients labeled “lower functions.” Miggy says there is a man there from Hemlock Row—a former Lowgod who has “gone astray,” stays at Pennhurst full-time, handles the worst patients, and keeps order because his cruelty is tolerated. Miggy warns Paper that to get Dodo out “free and clear,” Paper’s group must deal with this twisted worker; Bullis can get them inside, and Miggy hints Paper should seek help from a “Low Country colored” living on Chicken Hill. Miggy types Paper a final card reading “Son of Man,” suggests Fatty has a good heart, and leaves abruptly before Paper can ask the worker’s name.