Content Warning: This section discusses death and racism.

The Water Logbook describes low-hanging fog.

They approach the house. Keller wakes, barely strong enough to walk up the hill. Nonie knocks on the door. A woman answers the door and is shocked to see children. She’s wary about letting them in due to Keller’s poor health, as a new disease is spreading, but she recognizes that Keller has pneumonia and lets them in.

She leads them to a room to rest, introducing herself as Poppy and revealing that the crew she lives with will return soon. Mary, their medic, can help Keller. Poppy remarks that protecting a Black man is “extra work” (149). She gives Bix and Nonie some spare clothes that belonged to her children before they died.