Chapter 5: Summary, Analysis, and Key Themes
⚠️ 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 in Glasgow in May 2024, with Clem leaving the hospital after visiting her daughter Erin, who is in intensive care. Clem's granddaughter Freya is fractious, and Clem knows she must make difficult phone calls to share the terrible news. She decides to drop Freya at nursery, where she deliberately conceals Erin's condition from the staff, fearing she will fall apart if she speaks of it.
While driving, Clem recalls being present at Freya's birth, holding Erin's hand and whispering comfort. She remembers the moment Freya arrived as if a new color had been introduced to the world. After dropping Freya off, Clem considers calling Quinn, Erin's father and her ex-husband, who lives happily in West Yorkshire with his wife and sons. Clem reflects bitterly on their brief eighteen-month marriage, which ended while Erin was still weaning, and on Quinn's inept efforts at fatherhood. She has watched Erin cycle through hatred, love, and disappointment toward him, and has had to restrain herself from urging Erin to cut him out entirely.
Before Clem can summon the strength to call Quinn, her phone rings with an unknown number. It is Elizabeth, Senna's mother. Elizabeth is crying and reports that police with sniffer dogs in Orkney cannot find Senna. Senna had texted on Tuesday saying she wanted to come home after an argument among the girls. Elizabeth has given her phone to the police and has been calling Senna's phone nonstop, but it goes to voicemail. Clem learns that Arlo is dead, and she imagines Senna caught in the fire that claimed him, or rushing into the sea. Clem promises to tell Elizabeth if Erin says anything, then hangs up.
Clem feels the frightening stall between heartbeats in her chest and drives home urgently to take her medication, Entresto. She swallows her pills, holding the sink for support, and refuses to faint because her daughter and granddaughter need her.
Once steady, Clem enters Erin's bedroom, where she finds baby ephemera, scattered clothes, tarot cards, crystals, and runes in a jar—evidence of Erin's long-standing interest in mystical and pagan things. Her eyes settle on a mixed-media canvas above the cot that Erin made for Freya months after her birth. It spells out the words