As Maren and Lee pass Friendship, Wisconsin, the town where Maren was born, they see a carnival. They stop and walk through the crowd. Maren feels like a child again, especially when Lee holds her hand. After they eat, Lee takes her into the Spook House, where one diorama shows a man at a table, seated before a head on a platter. There are bloody words on the wallpaper, but Maren doesn’t have time to read them as their cart passes.

On the Ferris wheel, Lee thinks he sees someone waving at them from below. Maren recognizes Sully. Lee is immediately suspicious, but he leaves briefly when Maren asks to talk to Sully alone. Sully says he doesn’t think it would be a bad idea to stick together and is vague about how he found Maren. When Lee returns, he accepts Sully’s offer, but only to give himself time to think. He believes that Sully is following Maren, but he doesn’t know why: “There’s something about him, Maren. Like he knows you” (165). He also wants to know about Sully’s damaged ear and missing fingers.

They watch a bored, angry girl running a ball game for a boy.