Two days after leaving St. Deborah by the Water, the Traveling Symphony passes through a resort town burned years earlier, now overgrown with pink wildflowers and silent ruins. They move armed and alert with Olivia and Eleanor kept protected in the lead caravan, but find no people—only wildlife—and they kill two deer for food.

Past the fire line they stop at an old baseball field to let the horses graze and to cut grass to carry for later. Kirsten studies the fallen floodlights and tries to imagine the former world’s electricity and brightness, while Eleanor sits apart, quiet and withdrawn, braiding grass.

Scouts report a school nearby, and the conductor sends Kirsten and August to check for instruments; Jackson and Viola accompany them. They approach cautiously, watching for movement, then circle the building and enter through an open gym door.

Inside, they find evidence the school once served as a shelter or field hospital—piled cots and an old cooking fire—followed by abandonment, vandalism, and wreckage. The band room has no instruments, but they salvage a half-jar of rosin and a flute mouthpiece; graffiti includes “The end is here.”

Jackson discovers a skeleton in the men’s room with a bullet hole in its skull, and August goes to say a prayer. Leaving the stifling building, Kirsten reflects that she and August can endure exploring ruins because they remember the old world and fear its traces are disappearing as buildings collapse. Back with the Symphony, the first flute celebrates the mouthpiece, and Kirsten downplays what they found when Alexandra asks about the school.