The Traveling Symphony reaches St. Deborah by the Water in midafternoon, a former roadside-commercial strip that now marks the southwestern edge of their territory. They had left Charlie there two years earlier so she could give birth in a settled place, but on arrival the only welcome is a teenage sentry under a rainbow beach umbrella who remembers them and directs them to camp at the Walmart.

As the Symphony proceeds slowly through town with music—first trumpet playing Vivaldi—Kirsten notices something wrong: almost no one comes out to watch, and those who do stare without smiling. Neither Charlie nor the sixth guitar appears, and the town feels too empty, with heat mirages on the road and only a few people moving between buildings.

At the Walmart parking lot, the company falls into routine—parking caravans, caring for horses, and debating what to perform that night. Sayid suggests King Lear but worries it would deepen the gloom; Kirsten agrees. After arguments over Lear versus Hamlet, Gil breaks the deadlock by choosing A Midsummer Night’s Dream, insisting the evening “calls for fairies.”

Rehearsal begins, with Jackson as Bottom and Kirsten struggling to re-enter Titania after time away from the role. Kirsten voices her unease to Dieter, remembering that last time they were here crowds of children followed them and watched, but now the road is empty. As the actors move into the Titania-Oberon exchange, the scene also exposes real tension: Kirsten and Sayid, once a couple for two years, are strained after Kirsten slept with a traveling peddler four months earlier, making their romantic lines land as an uncomfortable echo of their conflict.