Summary

In the first section of Part III, "Dust Valleys," the point of view returns to the mother. She and her husband speed after their disappeared children. After waking that morning, and finding them gone from their room, she assumed they were outside playing and returned to bed. It was not for some time that she and her husband realized they had run away. After searching without success, they make a report with the police. Eventually the open the boxes and find the boy's map and note. The father decides they are going to Echo Canyon.

The section "Heart of Light" contains the remaining elegies from Elegies for the Lost Children. In the story, the children find a phone and, while on a train, pretend to make calls to their parents. A soldier then finds them and...