i
- The narrator has some revelations about his relationship experiences—perhaps unsurprisingly at this point, they're not particularly comforting.
- He confesses that he's abandoned his children and lost marriages, perhaps because he'd rather hone his "craft" (by which he means his poetry writing skillz).
- We move back to Ma Kilman and her search for Philoctete's cure. See, a major part of her problem is that she learned the Christian names for the herbs, and because of this, doesn't know their true names.
- In other words, her practice of Catholicism dulled the old gods in her blood. But now she calls to them to reveal the proper herbs to her.
ii
- Ma Kilman is transfigured back to her true nature: the African sibyl or obeah woman. She liberates herself from her wig.
- She listens to the ants, which are speaking the language of her ancestors; somehow she understands them.
- And she prays in this new/old language to heal Philoctete's wound.
- Just like that, in his bed, Philoctete begins to feel the healing effects of her efforts.
iii
- Ma Kilman comes out of the woods; Seven Seas senses her as she passes.