Summary

Sarat and a group of captured women are taken to Sugarloaf, a high-security prison situated on an island in the Florida Sea. They are coerced and kept in cages, but some do not comply and are tortured in the Non-Compliance Area. The prison is patrolled by masked guards, but the prisoners listen to their conversations and obtain information about their names, hometowns, and children. The women are placed into different camps according to the severity of their charges.

Sarat does not speak during her first week at the prison. She listens to the sea and tries to repair her broken rib. She imagines her trial and “waited on death” (247), a thought that comforts her. She is placed in Camp Thursday and receives “Visitation” from a woman “in a neatly pressed suit” (251), who works for the Northern government. The woman claims that she knows everything...