1·01I Havent AnsweredChapter I · The AnswerNo contact. The scene that closed the last book, from the other side. One woman not asking a question, visibly, for an entire afternoon.2·01Salt on the Outside of the WindowChapter I · The AnswerFifteen years of being unremarkable, ending in four lines. The committee is aware of the Thennet finding and has reviewed the disclosure in full. It does not affect our view.Alt
2·02A Folder She Did Not NeedChapter II · What Happens AfterwardThe question that detonates the whole book , asked by a girl standing in a doorway holding a folder as an excuse.2·03Nine is a Number That Goes in One DirectionChapter II · What Happens AfterwardA woman alone in a dark room looking down through glass at her own lit floor.
2·04The Same Long Tailed SChapter III · SolaraThe letters are deliberately not legible as a word. The image is a woman stopped on a road by a letterform.2·05Nobody Else Here Has Read itChapter III · SolaraYou have arrived. That's all. And she discovers she cannot immediately speak, so she takes her case back out of his hand.
2·06Thats a Coat Thats a FuneralChapter IV · The Long RoomFifteen years at a coastal station, laid out on a bed.2·07A Costume for a Person She Had Never BeenChapter IV · The Long RoomThe dress is the color of wet slate and has no ornament on it at all , and it fits, and that is the trouble. She looks very slightly like her father at a reception.2·08Its Optional and Everybody NoticesChapter IV · The Long RoomEstablish the room before the line that lands in it.
1·02Did He Do That Thing AgainChapter V · AgainFifteen years, and this is how she does it. Val is holding herself exactly as she held herself in a north yard at eighteen with a shoe in her hand, and her face is doing nothing at all.1·03You Appalling WomanChapter V · AgainThe single warmest sound in the first four books, produced in a room with three hundred people in it.1·04Put the Glass DownChapter V · AgainShe is aware of the room and does it anyway , because there is not one part of her capable of doing it smaller. This is not romantic. It is the end of fifteen years.
1·05Which of Us is Going FirstChapter VI · The WalkFour miles round the outside of everything, used by nobody after six. The negotiation is conducted at walking pace and is entirely businesslike.1·06Then You Want Three InstrumentsChapter VI · The WalkProduced in eleven seconds on a road without breaking stride, and it wins Kyra her third instrument a year later. She always walks faster when it is going well.
2·09Thats the Third Time Youve Read That PageChapter VII · AlexanderThe introduction of Alexander Muler. He is good at this and the frame should show the work: the turned chair, the arrival at the table without asking.2·10Youve Been Looking at the BallChapter VII · AlexanderNothing is observable. Everything is observable to about eleven people. Render the ceiling and the wrong spacing and two people looking up at it.
1·07Easy is EasyChapter VIII · The River PathChanging shoes against a wall in the dark. Twenty years, and the hands know it before either of them does.1·07Easy is EasyChapter VIII · The River PathChanging shoes against a wall in the dark. Twenty years, and the hands know it before either of them does.1·08Youre in ThreesChapter VIII · The River PathSomewhere in the first mile and a half they stop running next to each other and start running together, which is a different activity and cannot be faked. This is the frame where it has already happened.1·08Youre in ThreesChapter VIII · The River PathSomewhere in the first mile and a half they stop running next to each other and start running together, which is a different activity and cannot be faked. This is the frame where it has already happened.1·09Nobody AskedChapter VIII · The River PathNo contact. Twenty years of a sentence that would have changed somebody's whole understanding of herself, kept because nobody asked for it.
1·10Dont Be Proud About the HotChapter IX · It Won't Fit YouNine weeks of boxes and nothing on a single wall. The towels are coming out of a box, which tells its own story.1·11She Saw the Mark on Her BackChapter IX · It Won't Fit YouShe has seen it perhaps thirty times since a boot room at eighteen and has never once mentioned it, and neither has Val, and the total number of words they have exchanged on the subject in twenty years is none. Backs only.1·11She Saw the Mark on Her BackChapter IX · It Won't Fit YouShe has seen it perhaps thirty times since a boot room at eighteen and has never once mentioned it, and neither has Val, and the total number of words they have exchanged on the subject in twenty years is none. Backs only.1·12Her Own Hand Against Her Own BackChapter IX · It Won't Fit YouThe whole of her twenties in one unplanned gesture. Nobody else is in the frame.
1·13Three InstrumentsChapter X · The PitVal is not in this one and that is the point: the two of them are living on the same campus and running the same four miles and their evenings are separate. Six people at a table under the counter lamps.2·11Thats the MuleChapter X · The PitA card face up on a table, not slid, not touched. The name on it is short. Not legible.
2·12No Youll Come BackChapter XI · The MorningThe half second is the whole image. She sees it and he recovers beautifully, and she walks up the coast road feeling about nineteen.2·13Its Been Looked at More Than OnceChapter XI · The MorningThe sentence the entire book rests on, delivered in a dark stairwell as a man being straightforward about an inconvenient fact, which is the whole of the trick. He believes it.2·14Something That Stopped WorkingChapter XI · The MorningA piece of Sethal physiology handled as a domestic fact. Render the pail, the morning light, and a face that is entirely unbothered — nothing clinical and nothing coy.2·15Ask Me Something InterestingChapter XI · The MorningThe pause that goes on. She gives him the herd at nine and the young one at the back, and nothing comes back, and she does not identify it until she is on the coach.
2·16No I Havent Finished Thats Not the Good BitChapter XII · The DateNineteen years of wanting one thing, announced badly to four hundred people.2·17The List in the DrawerChapter XII · The DateShe is aware, folding it, that this is a decision she has made on his behalf about what he should be protected from. She has got very good at spotting that. It has turned out not to help as much as she expected.
2·18AhChapter XIII · Eleven DaysThe first thing she felt was not fear. It was a kind of terrible, disgraceful gladness, arriving from a long way down, ahead of everything sensible. It lasted a few seconds.2·19Thats an Allowed AnswerChapter XIII · Eleven DaysA warm office on a terrace where nobody knows her, paid for herself. The physician is entirely kind and writes nothing down.2·20She Did Not Build a BoxChapter XIII · Eleven DaysThe difference between this and her twenties, and she notices it on the third day and it steadies her more than anything else does. An object image: a long untidy honest list.
2·21And Then Arriving from UnderneathChapter XIV · The Same ArithmeticNothing has ever happened to me that somebody did not schedule. And what she feels, sitting in the dark, is not dismay.2·22Theres NothingChapter XIV · The Same ArithmeticTwo people. It goes through her once and she puts it down immediately, because the alternative shape of the thought is absurd.
1·14You Didnt SayChapter XV · What IfNo contact. Two women arriving at the same thought two years apart and discovering it on a road, and one of them never mentioned it.1·15I Pictured a StationChapter XV · What IfOn a roof reached by a ladder, looking at a small light eleven hundred miles up. Val stays standing, which she does when a thing needs somewhere to go.2·23The Only Clock Ive GotChapter XV · What IfThe only way the reader is told how much time has passed. Render the girl, not the women: seventeen, on a doorstep, visibly a person rather than a child.2·23The Only Clock Ive GotChapter XV · What IfThe only way the reader is told how much time has passed. Render the girl, not the women: seventeen, on a doorstep, visibly a person rather than a child.
1·16Four Minutes and Eleven SecondsChapter XVI · The TrialForty feet, two levels, four hundred people, and four minutes in which a ship is not anywhere. Sorren Dael's descendant waiting to find out whether he was right.1·16Four Minutes and Eleven SecondsChapter XVI · The TrialForty feet, two levels, four hundred people, and four minutes in which a ship is not anywhere. Sorren Dael's descendant waiting to find out whether he was right.2·24Two and a Half InstrumentsChapter XVI · The TrialNine days at the yards, down the night before, so tired the cold has stopped registering, and standing up for it if it kills her.2·25Hands Behind His BackChapter XVI · The TrialEleven people around him and none of them talking to him.1·16Four Minutes and Eleven SecondsChapter XVI · The TrialForty feet, two levels, four hundred people, and four minutes in which a ship is not anywhere. Sorren Dael's descendant waiting to find out whether he was right.2·27Ilen Vosse Sitting DownChapter XVI · The TrialNineteen years, and when it arrives he sits on a step. Everything else in the frame is noise and he is the only still thing in it.2·27Ilen Vosse Sitting DownChapter XVI · The TrialNineteen years, and when it arrives he sits on a step. Everything else in the frame is noise and he is the only still thing in it.
1·17Shall We Just Do the LoopChapter XVII · The BagNo contact, and nothing visible is happening. Six miles instead of eleven, and both of them believe they have got away with it.1·18No but the Point isChapter XVII · The BagThe best moment in the book. One of them doing an impression of Ilen Vosse in the rain, and the other one laughing until she cannot run.1·19Nothing Ive Forgotten itChapter XVII · The BagNo contact. She constructs the whole reason in about a second and a half and recognizes the workmanship, having watched it done from the outside for twenty years. The image is two profiles on a wet path and one sentence not said.1·20The Bag on the ChairChapter XVII · The BagThe last image of the book and there is nobody's face in it. An ordinary institute card with a strip taped across it, two short pieces of tape at either end, a pink mark, and four letters showing past the edge of the tape.2·28A Coat Worn IndoorsChapter XVII · The BagNothing is visible and that is the point. Render the behavior, not the condition.2·29Things on the Walls NowChapter XVII · The BagThe counterpart to 1·10, a year on, and nobody is in it. The walls are the whole story.2·30Four LettersChapter XVII · The BagThe last image of the book. She does not move. She looks at it for a long time. Render the card and the hand and nothing else — the four letters must read as letters and not as a word.
