Chapter 29 — 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

Leah opens the chapter by reflecting on how the situation aboard the craft deteriorated. The breakdown wasn't sudden in itself, but her recognition of it arrived suddenly, the way crises tend to. Things were bad but manageable, and then they weren't, and she'd missed the moment when they could have been fixed. The crew was trapped, and Jelka had begun hearing things that Matteo and Leah couldn't hear.

Jelka's behavior grows increasingly concerning. She presses her cheek against the main deck window, leans toward the escape hatch in the rear chamber, and Matteo pulls her away—at first with concern, then with growing impatience. He tells her she's giving him the creeps. The shower runs unattended in the wash stall; no one admits to leaving it on. Matteo throws a plate against the wall and apologizes for it.

Jelka's Saint Brendan figure begins appearing in strange places: the shower tray, the chest fridge, standing guard beneath Leah's bunk. Matteo expresses his hatred for the object, saying it feels like it's watching him. Leah, meanwhile, finds the postcard Miri bought her—an image of a tangerine-colored octopus named Pamela, a giant Pacific octopus estimated to be between three and four years old.

The tension escalates. Matteo asks Leah who she is again before claiming he's only kidding, then asks why they're there. Jelka refuses to speak, hiding in her bunk with the blanket over her head. Leah sits on the main deck and recalls Sylvia Earle's words about the ocean—that our understanding of the universe comes from it, that life exists everywhere, even in the greatest depths. She finds herself unable to bear the oppressive blankness beyond the window, grieving the absence of life in the dark water around them.

The violence escalates when Matteo drags Jelka up from the hatch where she's been crouching. She pulls away too hard, overbalances, and falls. Matteo snaps that he can't take any more of her behavior and reels back as if to kick her. Leah pushes herself between them, and Matteo pushes her back. Leah thinks help once, sharply, and wishes for Miri even though Miri is smaller than she is. Matteo apologizes later, holding his frostbitten hand out to take her elbow, saying he doesn't know what's going on.

While Leah sleeps, she misses another confrontation. She wakes to Jelka screaming and Matteo both pushing her up and pushing her away. He calls her crazy, repeatedly, and she falls down sobbing. Leah pushes herself between them again. Matteo won't explain, only says he can't be where he is, and crashes away to the main deck. Jelka refuses to speak, pressing her forehead into the metal of the escape hatch. Leah sits beside her and thinks about everything she'd hoped to do, the trappedness of everything, the darkness, the lack. She thinks to herself that this isn't the ocean—she just wanted to see the ocean—and then stops thinking because it's easier.

Jelka eventually speaks. She says she was trying to make Matteo listen. She admits she knows she shouldn't be listening, that she's not supposed to respond, but she can't stop now. She hears it all the time. She thought if Matteo would listen with her, it would make it easier. She asks Leah directly: do you hear it? The voice—whatever it is. Leah tells her helplessly that she doesn't, because there's nothing to hear.

Later, Leah finds Matteo sitting in a circle of torches on the main deck. He tells her about a story he read about a paranormal detective who spent a night in a haunted room, protected by a ring of protective objects. Leah asks if she can come inside the circle; Matteo refuses, saying it's nothing personal. He asks what she thinks they're here for. He says he doesn't think they were told the truth: the comms went out before the system died, as if they were switched off externally. He says they were shipped off with so much food onboard. He says it feels like they're waiting for something, or being experimented with—like being dropped in a tank at feeding time and waiting for the sharks.

Leah listens but finds herself unable to get her mind off the octopus, Pamela—the tight but forgiving press of a creature strong enough to break her bones and yet choosing not to. Matteo asks if she remembers that they said it was a research trip, because sometimes he feels like he's forgetting. Leah says she doesn't think it's that important, but means that there are other things she's in danger of forgetting. Matteo says Jelka is hearing things that aren't there, and he doesn't know what to do about it. Leah says neither does she.

Leah sleeps for a long time on the floor next to Matteo's circle of torches. She dreams in pieces: about the octopus, knowing her name and then forgetting it; about Miri, except her face is different and something is off about the way she moves—on all fours rather than upright, moving to the side rather than toward her. And she dreams that she's in the ocean, but not the ocean as she knew it—something older and deeper, with things there with her in the dark.

Key Events

Jelka begins hearing sounds and voices the others can't perceive, pressing against windows and hatches
The shower runs unattended; Matteo throws a plate and apologizes
Jelka's Saint Brendan figure appears in strange locations around the craft
Leah finds the postcard of Pamela the octopus that Miri bought her
Matteo physically drags Jelka from the hatch and nearly kicks her; Leah intervenes
A second confrontation occurs while Leah sleeps; Matteo calls Jelka crazy
Jelka confesses to Leah that she hears a voice constantly and asks if Leah hears it too
Matteo builds a protective circle of torches and refuses Leah entry
Matteo articulates his theory that the mission was deceptive—the comms went out before the system died, as if switched off externally
Leah dreams of Pamela, a transformed Miri, and a deeper, older ocean

Character Development

Leah becomes increasingly passive and dissociative as the chapter progresses. She recognizes the crisis but finds herself unable to act effectively, pushing herself between Matteo and Jelka without knowing what to do next. Her internal life is dominated by memory—of Miri, of the octopus Pamela, of Sylvia Earle's writing—and she admits to herself that she's in danger of forgetting important things. Her dream at the chapter's end suggests a transformation is underway, both in her perception of Miri and in her relationship to the ocean itself.

Jelka deteriorates visibly. Her auditory hallucinations intensify, and she becomes physically drawn to the hatches and windows—the boundaries of the craft. She admits she knows she shouldn't be listening to the voice but can't stop. Her question to Leah—do you hear it?—is both a plea for validation and a test of the crew's shared reality.

Matteo moves from impatience to violence to paranoid theorizing. His apology after nearly kicking Jelka shows genuine remorse, but his behavior escalates anyway. His circle of torches represents a retreat into superstition and self-protection, and his theory about the mission being deceptive—the comms switched off externally, the excess food—suggests a mind grasping for explanations in the absence of information.

Themes, Symbols, or Motifs

The liminal boundary: Leah's meditation on the point between sea and air—constantly evaporating and condensing, where water yearns toward air and air yearns toward water—captures the crew's own liminal state. They are neither fully in the ocean nor on land, trapped in a transitional space that mirrors their psychological uncertainty.

The octopus (Pamela): The postcard of Pamela serves as a touchstone for Leah's memory and emotional life. The octopus's strength—strong enough to break her bones and yet choosing not to—becomes a model of contained power and gentleness that contrasts with the violence unfolding among the crew.

The protective circle: Matteo's circle of torches echoes the Saint Brendan figure's supposed protective function, suggesting a regression to magical thinking as rational explanations fail.

The ocean as void: Leah's grief at the absence of life in the water around them—no bioluminescence, no creatures—transforms the ocean from a site of wonder into a void, an emptiness that mirrors the crew's psychological isolation.

Memory and forgetting: Matteo's fear that he's forgetting the mission's stated purpose, and Leah's fear of forgetting more important things, point to a broader erosion of identity and certainty.

Why This Chapter Matters

Chapter 29 marks the definitive breakdown of the crew's cohesion. The violence between Matteo and Jelka, the emergence of Jelka's auditory hallucinations as a central plot element, and Matteo's theory of external deception all escalate the novel's central mysteries. Leah's dream at the chapter's end—of a transformed Miri and a deeper, older ocean—foreshadows the novel's later revelations about what has happened to Miri and what the ocean truly contains. The chapter also deepens Leah's characterization, showing her as a witness and mediator who is herself beginning to lose her grip on reality.

Study Questions and Answers

1. Why does Matteo refuse to let Leah into his circle of torches, and what does this reveal about his state of mind?

Matteo refuses Leah entry into the circle because he has retreated into a protective ritual that he believes will shield him from whatever is threatening the crew. His refusal is nothing personal, as he says, but it reveals his growing belief that the threat is external and supernatural—something that a ring of protective objects can ward off. This marks a shift from rational problem-solving to magical thinking, and it isolates him from the crew at the very moment they most need cohesion.

2. What does the Pamela postcard represent for Leah in this chapter?

The postcard of Pamela, the giant Pacific octopus, functions as a memory anchor for Leah. She wonders if she would still remember Pamela's name without the postcard to remind her, and her thoughts keep returning to the octopus's strength—the way it gripped her arm, strong enough to break her bones but choosing not to. Pamela represents a form of power that is contained and gentle, a contrast to the violence erupting among the crew, and a connection to Miri, who bought the postcard for her.

3. How does Leah's response to Jelka's question about the voice—there's nothing to hear—complicate the chapter's treatment of reality?

Leah's response is both honest and devastating. She genuinely doesn't hear the voice Jelka describes, and her statement is an attempt to ground Jelka in shared reality. But the chapter has already established that Leah's own perception is unreliable—she's forgetting things, dreaming of transformed versions of Miri, and struggling to maintain her sense of self. Her certainty that there's nothing to hear may be as much a product of her own dissociation as it is an accurate description of the world. The chapter leaves open the possibility that Jelka is hearing something real, and that Leah's inability to hear it is itself a form of limitation.