Chapter 25: Leah – Summary, Themes, and Character Insights

⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.

⚠️ This summary and analysis contains major plot details for Chapter 25 of Our Wives Under the Sea. If you haven't read the chapter yet, you may want to do so first.

Summary

Leah opens the chapter by reflecting on a time before the oceans rose—a dry world where creatures could walk the deepest places without fear of drowning. She imagines the water drawing tight around the land, a slow catastrophe that reshaped everything. On the main deck, she finds Jelka sitting cross-legged on the floor. Leah sets a torch beside her and crouches opposite, completing a campfire illusion. She jokes about toasting marshmallows, but Jelka only twitches her head, as if listening for something. The Saint Brendan figurine stands with its face to the wall.

Jelka announces that it is her birthday. Leah, surprised, asks how she could know the date with no way to track time, but she doesn't press. She suggests they celebrate. Matteo is in the rear chamber, kicking his feet against benches, increasingly irritable and prone to interrupting himself to ask if anyone else hears a noise. Leah recalls that once she woke to find him standing at the foot of her bunk; he apologized and said he must have drifted off.

Jelka mentions the recurring smell of suppurating meat that has saturated their clothes, wondering if it's just them—if this is how people smell this far down. Leah thinks about how they first noticed the smell during their descent but doesn't argue. Jelka then asks about a sound—talking, words—but Leah hears nothing. She tells Jelka to make a wish and blow out the torch beam, as if it were a birthday candle. Jelka does, and Leah switches off the light.

In the darkness, Leah presses her face against the main-deck window and sees nothing—a blackness that feels less than black, more devoid and dumbfounding. She thinks about falling, about being snatched down, and then lifts her cheek from the glass, realizing she doesn't know how she got there. She had apparently been sleeping. Matteo appears, silhouetted in the doorway, and asks, “You, too?” He asks if she ever thinks about the plan—the things they were supposed to be doing down here. Leah tries to recall the Centre, the research project, the concept of something intended and carried out, but the images won't come. Matteo says the way he doesn't think bothers him. Leah tries to shake her head, but then she remembers a phrase—phantom fingers at the base of her skull, sunken thoughts—though it takes her longer than it should to recall who said it.

Key Events

Leah reflects on a pre-rain world and the rising oceans.
She sets a torch beside Jelka, creating a campfire illusion.
Jelka announces it's her birthday; Leah suggests celebrating.
Matteo is irritable and moving about in the rear chamber.
Jelka mentions the smell of suppurating meat and asks about a talking sound.
Leah tells Jelka to make a wish and blow out the torch beam.
Leah presses her face to the window, sees blackness, and realizes she doesn't know how she got there.
Matteo appears and asks if she too has been affected; he asks about the plan.
Leah struggles to recall the Centre and the research project.
Matteo says the way he doesn't think bothers him.
Leah remembers a phrase about phantom fingers and sunken thoughts, but recalling the speaker takes longer.

Character Development

Leah is increasingly disoriented. She loses track of time and her own actions, finding herself at the window without memory of moving there. Her attempt to recall the Centre and the research project fails, suggesting a deeper erosion of her sense of purpose and identity. She also shows a protective instinct, trying to comfort Jelka with the birthday ritual even as she herself is confused.

Jelka appears detached and almost eerily calm. She fixates on sensory hallucinations—the smell and the sound—but doesn't seem distressed. Her announcement of her birthday, with no way to know the date, hints at a fractured relationship with time. She follows Leah's instruction to blow out the torch beam, participating in a ritual that feels both childlike and unsettling.

Matteo is irritable and restless, moving about and kicking benches. He admits to being bothered by his own lack of thinking, and his question about the plan reveals a shared sense of lost purpose. His earlier sleepwalking incident, mentioned by Leah, suggests he too is experiencing altered states.

Themes, Symbols, or Motifs

Memory loss and disorientation: Leah's inability to recall how she got to the window, and her struggle to remember the Centre, highlight the crew's deteriorating mental state.
The torch as birthday candle: The torch substitutes for a candle, turning a mundane object into a ritual of celebration. This underscores the crew's attempt to impose normalcy in an abnormal environment.
The Saint Brendan figurine: Facing the wall, the figurine suggests a loss of faith or guidance. Saint Brendan was a navigator, and his turned-away face may symbolize the failure of their own navigation.
The eye insignia: The small carved eye on the comms panel evokes surveillance or watchfulness, hinting at an unseen presence or the crew's own self-monitoring.
Phantom sensations: Leah's “phantom fingers” and the recurring smell and sound suggest neurological or psychological effects of deep-sea isolation.
The rising oceans: Leah's opening reflection ties the present underwater existence to a larger environmental catastrophe, framing the mission as a response to a changed world.
Time distortion: The inability to track time, and the way birthdays and plans become meaningless, points to the crew's separation from normal temporal experience.

Why This Chapter Matters

This chapter deepens the novel's exploration of psychological deterioration under extreme isolation. It shows that all three crew members are experiencing memory loss, sensory hallucinations, and a loss of connection to their original mission. The mention of the “plan” and the Centre introduces a mystery about what they were supposed to be doing, and the fact that they can't remember it suggests a larger failure or trauma. The chapter also reinforces the theme of the sea as a transformative, almost consuming force, as the crew's identities and memories dissolve. The birthday ritual, with its torchlight and wish, offers a fragile moment of human connection amid the confusion, but it is quickly overshadowed by the darkness and the realization that Leah doesn't know how she got there. This chapter is pivotal in establishing the crew's shared disorientation and setting up the novel's central questions about memory, purpose, and the unknown.

Study Questions and Answers

1. How does Leah's memory loss manifest in this chapter, and what does it suggest about her mental state?

Leah's memory loss is shown through her inability to recall how she came to be at the main-deck window, and her struggle to remember the Centre and the research project. She also has difficulty recalling who said the phrase about phantom fingers and sunken thoughts. This suggests that her sense of time, place, and identity is fragmenting, likely due to the prolonged isolation and the unknown pressures of the deep sea.

2. What is the significance of the torch being used as a birthday candle?

The torch substitutes for a candle, turning a practical object into a symbol of celebration and normalcy. It shows the crew's attempt to maintain human rituals in an environment that strips away familiar markers of time and meaning. The act of blowing out the torch beam—and then switching it off—also mirrors the extinguishing of hope or clarity, as the darkness immediately follows.

3. How does Matteo's question about the plan reveal the crew's state?

Matteo asks Leah if she ever thinks about the plan, and she can't recall it. His admission that the way he doesn't think bothers him reveals that both he and Leah are experiencing a loss of purpose and memory. This suggests that the crew's original mission has become distant or even irrelevant, and that their psychological deterioration is affecting their ability to function as a team.