The chapter opens on a morning when Hollis has been living with Josie for three weeks. She is enjoying cutting wood for Josie’s art and for fires when winter comes. She goes downstairs and while Josie silently works on her whittling, Hollis looks around the brightly-colored house, which has pictures Josie has painted all over the walls. Hollis has been trying to draw the house and, in her head,, Steven has been reminding her how sad it is she doesn’t have the colored pencils the Regans gave her.

Though it’s Monday and Hollis should go to school, Josie proposes they go somewhere in the Silver Bullet, Josie’s old Buick. Hollis isn’t worried because she’s gotten good at forging notes for her teachers when she skips school. Josie drives a little too fast and promises to teach Hollis to drive one day, which Hollis thinks would have made the car-loving Steven crazy but tries not to remember him.

Josie takes Hollis out to the Atlantic, calling it “my ocean” (23). She and Hollis have a conversation about how they both love water, but Hollis prefers rivers. They explore, smelling the ocean’s scent and looking at the fish. Hollis wonders whether there is snow on the mountain in

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