Summary

Chapter 10 begins with commentary on the irritations people experience from traveling with other people. The Traveling Symphony is no different. Since they have arrived in St. Deborah on the Water, Kirsten is also looking to reunite with her friend Charlie, who stayed in the town a couple years earlier in order to give birth to her child with Jeremy, the sixth guitarist with the Symphony.

Restaurants, big box stores, and truck stops have been converted to shelters. When Kirsten last saw Charlie, she and Jeremy were staying at a converted IHOP. Now, the door of the restaurant is boarded up and marked with a silver-painted emblem that looks like a "t" with an extra hash mark toward the bottom of the letter.

Kirsten speaks with the midwife that she met when Charlie was left behind. The midwife remembers her, but will only tell...