- Deborah has now been in the mental hospital for a year and a half.
- Suzy graduates from grammar school. Jacob wants to keep his focus on the healthy daughter who is right in front of him, but he thinks about Deborah, and about why she can't be there to share the day. To him, there seems to be been no improvement in her condition. He even whispers to Esther during the graduation ceremony that Deborah should come home for a little while.
- Esther and Jacob take Suzy to a nice restaurant after the ceremony to celebrate, but Deborah's presence is felt even though she's not there with them.
- Back in D ward, the patients are annoyed that spring is beautiful and they are still stuck in their crazy world.
- The patients get a little stir-crazy, and four new students who are young and beautiful make the patients feel their own perceived ugliness and sickness even more deeply.
- The pretty students make Deborah feel crazier and more self-conscious about her mental illness.
- She hears them talking meanly about Carla, who is going to be returned back to D ward from B ward, and Deborah realizes how much she cares for Carla and feels that she's "good to the bone" (18.34).
- Deborah fills Carla in on all the ward's happenings, and on how Doris Rivera is back.
- Deborah talks to Lactamaeon in Yr because she's worried she will poison Carla. Lactamaeon doesn't comfort her but says that sometimes people she cares about are punished to indirectly punish her.
- Deborah watches Carla crying. Deborah feels she is unworthy of friendship, and the Yri gods tell her that she will be Carla's murderer.
- In Yr, Deborah gets the new nickname "God-Bone-Thing" because she feels she is being sacrificed to God by the world. She's just a bone that the world is playing with.
- In a session with Dr. Fried, Deborah acts out a dramatic scene in which she's dying. Dr. Fried says this is just a sign that Deborah is an adolescent girl who loves drama. Dr. Fried feels it's a sign that Deborah really is of Earth.
- Dr. Fried then shares some personal information about an object on her desk—a piece of agate that was a gift from her dad. She breaks off a flower from a plant in her office and gives it to Deborah, saying that she trusts her with her memories, as Deborah has trusted her.
- Dr. Fried then announces that she will be going on vacation for two and half months, but she'll leave Deborah in the hands of another doctor to talk to while she's gone.
- In the next few sessions, Dr. Fried tries to prepare Deborah emotionally so she won't feel she has abandoned or rejected her while she's on vacation.
- Deborah says she will talk to the other doctor and "comply" (18.87).