The Traveling Symphony pushes south from St. Deborah by the Water in brutal July heat, exhausted and frightened that the prophet or his men may follow. As they walk, Kirsten argues companionably with Dieter about her “Survival is insufficient” tattoo, remembers fragments of the old world through August’s Star Trek stories, and briefly indulges a childish, lingering hope of reaching missing people—especially Charlie—through sheer thought.

After an early-afternoon rest and scouts sent back down the road, the Symphony continues for hours and finally makes a roadside camp. While members set up tents and talk about lost conveniences like air-conditioning, a commotion erupts at the third caravan.

The first cello drags out a hidden stowaway: the girl who had followed Kirsten in St. Deborah. The girl, soaked with urine and terrified, begs not to be sent back. The conductor insists the Symphony cannot take children, but the girl explains she fled because she has been “promised to the prophet” as his next wife; she is twelve, and the prophet already has four wives living in the gas station.

Questioned further, the girl—Eleanor—says she was not spying and reveals that Charlie and the sixth guitar (Jeremy) went to a place called the Museum of Civilization, which she believes could be where she might find them if she escaped. The Symphony realizes they are headed that direction anyway, near Severn City, but worries the museum might be rumor or even a trap, especially when Eleanor adds that the prophet is from there.

Weighing their long-standing policy of non-intervention against the impossibility of returning a child bride to the prophet, the Symphony chooses to take Eleanor and continue into unfamiliar territory along Lake Michigan. Over dinner, Eleanor describes how the prophet’s seemingly peaceful sect arrived in St. Deborah, quietly revealed its power and weaponry, and seized control after winter fever killed the mayor, with the prophet taking the mayor’s wife and moving into the gas station.