Summary

30. Joy takes the drug that Darcie takes, removes her clothes, and steps into the tunnel. She becomes increasingly uncomfortable the further in she goes, but does not stop, listening for her mother. She hears singing in strange voices and is able to discern a few words (“billy goat”, “ax”, “wooden leg”), and loses all sense of time. The singing voice eventually disappears: “like my mother,” Joy says, “it doesn’t give a damn what I want” (226).

Coming out of the tunnel, Joy vomits and has a bad reaction to the drug, but as time passes, she and Darcie keep going in, Marcus keeping an eye on them and supporting them when they come out. Joy becomes obsessive about what she does and does not hear, at times imagining the Psychologist from her earlier life speaking. Meanwhile, she and Marcus play a game of...