# Chapter 27 (Leah) Summary and Analysis

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

Summary

The chapter opens with Leah waking to find Jelka on the floor of the submarine, her ear pressed against the escape hatch, murmuring words Leah cannot make out. When Leah asks what she's doing, Jelka looks up with a face that has taken on an unnatural pallor and delivers a strange pronouncement: ghosts do not speak. According to Jelka, a haunting rarely involves a voice; if you hear something speaking, it is not a ghost but something worse.

Jelka explains that this belief comes from her last priest, before she stopped attending church. When she was eighteen, she thought she saw a ghost in her mother's house—a figure under the stairs where the shoes were kept, a stranger who told her it needed help and wanted to speak to her. When she told her priest, he insisted it couldn't have been a ghost, because ghosts don't speak. He warned that demons masquerade as ghosts to tempt people into sin, and cited Deuteronomy's prohibitions against divination, sorcery, mediums, and necromancy. Speaking to the dead, he said, means you've stopped trusting in God and are trying to bypass His plan.

Leah says nothing, sitting down beside Jelka and gently touching her arm. She realizes Jelka hasn't eaten in a long time. Matteo is presumably on the main deck, though Leah notes this is more an assumption than a fact. Jelka doesn't respond to Leah's touch, pressing her ear closer to the hatch and asking what, if not a ghost, is speaking to her through it. Leah looks at the hatch and hears nothing—not the ocean, not Matteo, not even the ambient sound that usually surrounds them. Only Jelka's voice, asking what Leah thinks is talking to her.

The chapter then shifts into Leah's memories. When her father died, she was nineteen, in another room. He hadn't been seriously ill—just a persistent, aggravating cough and occasional breathlessness. In the weeks after his death, she saw him many times: at the end of her bed, twice in the garden at her mother's house, even though her parents hadn't been on speaking terms for years. Her mother was reassuring, telling Leah that seeing the things you want to see is completely natural, and hugged her often. Leah acknowledges she was always closer to her father, and that their relationship somehow improved in his absence.

When her mother died ten years later, Leah cried harder than she had over her father and felt the loss more fiercely and desperately. It surprised her how long the ache lasted. Unlike her father, her mother stayed gone—Leah never saw her afterward.

Leah never told anyone about seeing her father except her mother and, much later, Miri. When she told Miri, Miri widened her eyes and remarked that she thought Leah was a scientist, adding that she didn't believe in ghosts—though not rudely. She said she was jealous; as a kid she'd really wanted to believe in that sort of thing.

After her father's death, Leah inherited most of his possessions and sold many of them. She kept the things that already felt like hers: the books, the diving almanac, the boxes of magazines, and the big coat he always let her borrow when they walked on the beach. She saw him many times in the immediate aftermath, waved whenever he appeared, and never felt compelled to speak to him. There was no unfinished business, which she believes is what kept the experience from being frightening—that, and the fact that it was always only her father. It wasn't a haunting, she reflects, but an ongoingness, until one day he stopped appearing and she felt fine about that too.

Key Events

Leah discovers Jelka on the floor, ear pressed to the escape hatch, speaking incomprehensibly.
Jelka explains that ghosts don't speak and that a speaking presence would be something worse.
Jelka recounts her priest's warning from her youth about a figure she saw under the stairs in her mother's house.
Leah sits with Jelka and realizes she hasn't eaten in a long time.
Jelka asks what is speaking to her through the hatch if not a ghost; Leah hears nothing.
Leah recalls her father's death and the many times she saw him afterward.
Leah remembers her mother's death ten years later, which she grieved harder and never saw her mother again.
Leah recalls telling Miri, who said she didn't believe in ghosts but was jealous.
Leah reflects on keeping her father's possessions and the ongoingness of his appearances, which eventually stopped.

Character Development

Leah — This chapter reveals a deeply personal history of grief and apparition. Her experience with her father's ghost is gentle, benign, and unthreatening—she waved, never spoke, and felt no fear because there was no unfinished business. This contrasts sharply with Jelka's terrifying encounter. Leah's scientific identity is complicated by her admission that she's seen one, which makes her believe others probably have too. Her pragmatism coexists with a quiet openness to the supernatural.

Jelka — Her deterioration is evident: she hasn't eaten, her face is unnaturally pale, and she's fixated on the escape hatch, listening to something Leah cannot hear. Her religious background—the priest's warning about demons masquerading as ghosts—frames her current terror. She's caught between her faith's explanation (a demon tempting her) and the reality of what she's experiencing.

Miri — Though absent, her reaction to Leah's confession reveals her character: skeptical but wistful, wanting to believe in something beyond the material world.

Themes, Symbols, or Motifs

Ghosts vs. Demons — Jelka's priest draws a sharp line: ghosts are silent, and anything that speaks is a demon trying to tempt you into sin. This theological framework makes the hatch's voice terrifying—it's not a benign apparition but something actively malevolent.

Speaking to the Dead — The Deuteronomy prohibition against necromancy and divination underlies the chapter. Leah never spoke to her father's apparition, which may be why her experience was peaceful. Jelka's figure spoke to her, which per the priest's logic marks it as demonic.

Ongoingness vs. Haunting — Leah explicitly distinguishes between the two. Her father's appearances were ongoingness—a continuation of presence, not a disturbance. A haunting implies unfinished business or malice; her father had neither.

The Escape Hatch as Threshold — The hatch is a liminal space between the submarine and the deep ocean, a boundary where something is trying to cross. Jelka's ear pressed to it suggests she's listening to something on the other side of a threshold.

Silence and Sound — The chapter is structured around listening: Jelka hears something Leah cannot, and Leah recalls a time when she saw but never spoke. The absence of sound—Leah hearing nothing at all—is itself significant.

Grief and Apparitions — Leah's sightings of her father are framed as natural, even comforting. Her mother's death, which she grieved harder, produced no apparition—suggesting grief doesn't always manifest as presence.

Why This Chapter Matters

This chapter deepens the novel's supernatural ambiguity. It gives Leah a personal history with the paranormal that complicates her scientific worldview, and it provides a theological framework—via Jelka's priest—for interpreting the voice at the hatch. The contrast between Leah's benign ghost and Jelka's threatening presence raises the stakes: if the thing speaking to Jelka is a demon, what does it want? The chapter also humanizes both women, showing Leah's grief and Jelka's vulnerability, and it reinforces the submarine's isolation as a space where the boundary between the living and the dead—or the demonic—becomes dangerously thin.

Study Questions

1. Why does Leah never speak to her father's apparition, and what does this reveal about her relationship with grief?

Leah waves at her father's apparition but never speaks to him. She explains there was no unfinished business, which is what kept the experience from being frightening. This suggests her grief was resolved—she didn't need to communicate with him because there was nothing left unsaid. It also aligns with the chapter's theological undercurrent: speaking to the dead is prohibited, and Leah's silence may be why her experience remained peaceful rather than threatening.

2. How does Jelka's priest's teaching about ghosts and demons shape her interpretation of the voice at the hatch?

The priest taught that ghosts don't speak and that any speaking presence is a demon masquerading as a ghost to tempt people into sin, citing Deuteronomy's prohibitions against necromancy. For Jelka, this means the voice she hears through the hatch cannot be a benign spirit—it must be something actively malevolent, trying to lure her into bypassing God. This framework transforms her fear from simple supernatural dread into a spiritual crisis.

3. What is the significance of Leah hearing nothing when Jelka hears a voice?

Leah's inability to hear the voice—or even the ocean or Matteo—creates a stark contrast between the two women's experiences. It suggests either that the voice is subjective (a product of Jelka's deteriorating mental state) or that it's selectively addressing Jelka. The total silence Leah perceives also isolates her from Jelka's reality, deepening the sense that the submarine is a space where perception itself is unreliable.