Summary

0017

The director goes outside to pace on the patio outside of Southern Reach. As she does so she sees that Whitby is on the far edge of the patio, where the grass ends into the water. He is squatting at the water's edge diligently working on something. It has been two years since they returned from Area X, and finally she feels that Whitby, if not herself, has begun to recover from the effects. She adjusts this assumption when she approaches him. He is giving a half-comatose mouse a bath. She asks him why he is giving a mouse a bath and he says that it is how he deals with stress and that she should not judge. The mouse is not dead, but has that same far away look in its eyes that many of the returned expedition members have.

Whitby...