Summary

Grace wanders towards Blackmountain, seeing far fewer people on the roads than she had the last year. The towns she passes are quieter now, but there is food. She stays in empty houses and meets various people as she walks. When she sees a ditch she is haunted by the memories of the dying and the dead she saw laying in ditches along the road. She stays the night in an empty house and dreams of a woman, two men, and children rubbing mud into their hair and onto their faces. She hitches rides with a few men, and sometimes wishes she could talk to them to tell her what she has learned.

When Grace finally makes it home, she returns to a long-abandoned house. There is no sign of her family, and no graves nearby either. Grace goes to the house of...