Following the escape from the attic, Liz tries to follow Linus, but he moves too swiftly into the marsh for her to keep up. Exhausted from pushing through the sharp, high grass and weak from recuperating from her head wound, Liz sits down and falls asleep. She dreams of huge fat black people gorging themselves on more food than she has ever seen in one place. Despite the massive amounts of food children eat, they are still starving and weeping bitterly.

Liz wakes from the dream and realizes that she herself is starving. She hurries through the marsh, looking for something to eat. All of her senses seem heightened and she feels compelled to move forward by some outside force: “The earthly things that floated into her vision […] seemed to point her in a specific direction, as if to say, Here, this way” (41). Liz cannot understand what she is feeling and thinks she must be delirious.

Liz reaches a river, but a sudden gale of wind raises waves that make it impossible to cross, so she has to turn back. She lies down to rest in a thicket and hears a child moaning. At first, Liz thinks this must be a dream or some deranged fantasy, so she tries to ignore the sound.