- Jason is sitting at the bottom of the water tower spiral stairs—which is to say some fifteen feet above the ground—watching everyone arrive for Midnight Mass. Dan first, then Magda with Henry—wait: why do they arrive together? Finally Shin approaches, moving slowly. Henry loses patience and starts for the leg, but Jason calls out from above for him to wait, and unrolls a rope ladder he's constructed.
- Henry sees climbing this as cheating and heads for the cables; Magda and Dan climb the ladder. Shin goes gastropod-slowly. When Shin makes it to the stairs, he's still gripping the railing in terror. Jason hangs back with him.
- Then Jason climbs to the top, where he announces that Shin is stuck about a third of the way up the tower leg; he'd insisted that Jason go on without him. Magda goes back down to talk with him. Again Jason is torn: "Some Head Kahuna I am, leaving my High Priestess to deal with my wayward Keeper. But the fact is, I am furious with Shin. I went to all the trouble of making that ladder for him, and he freezes up on me. It's embarrassing!" (17.67).
- The flashing light beacon on the top of the tower is annoying so, true to form, Henry busts it. With a hacksaw. "Wait a sec, what is Henry doing with a hacksaw?" (17.75). Good question, we think. "'Brain surgery,'" is Henry's response (17.76). Um…