Summary

We find Stella again in Chapter 22, trudging through the knee-high snow past a farm with thirty dogs barking at her. The farmer offers her a ride to the motorway and tells her to tell her mother he was asking about her but she declines politely. She feels bad for his wife who is stuck on the mountain surrounded by all these dogs all year. She sees her mother’s ambulance in the distance but before she can reach it, a truck with two dirty smelling boys pulls up in front of her and asks if she’s seen a dog that’s killed three sheep. They plan to put it down and warn her that it’s dangerous. She pushes on through the brambles through a treacherous point where a boy has died once but makes it past even the sinking sand.

Having...