Summary

Ea swims “morosely” as chapter 9 begins, the feelings of community she felt during the moil fading away (41). Ea’s peer group cannot practice for the Exodus tonight, because it is too late and they may attract the “hungry attention” of the Residents and the Transients, groups of sharks that live nearby (42). She takes off and swims among the anemone. She witnesses the “famed pilgrimage of the mantas” as they climb through the water, something “none of her generation had ever seen” (44). She reflects on how the mantas had once “helped [the Longi tribe] end their terrible wandering in exile” by “showing…where to cross the migratory path of the white sharks” (44). Other members of the tribe gather around to watch as Ea’s mother comes to retrieve her. Nevertheless, Ea finds herself “in the centre of the great manta circle” by accident, feeling...