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Summary: Part 3, Section 2

From Klara’s trip to Mr McBain’s barn to the end of Part 3

Klara takes her leave of Miss Helen and talks to Rick on her way out, encouraging him to visit Josie the next day. She tells Rick she is going to Mr McBain’s barn, declining his offer to accompany her, and sets out on her own. She struggles through the field, quickly growing disoriented, afraid that she will miss the moment the Sun hits the barn. She begins thinking of Rosa, and the bull she saw on the way to Morgan Falls. Her vision splits into many boxes and she is relieved when Rick appears, steadying her. Rick offers to carry her the rest of the way and they make it as the Sun is setting.

Klara goes into the barn on her own, and begins to think she is seeing parts of her old store in the barn. She sits in a folding chair as the Sun sets and covers the barn with the day’s last light; she focuses and silently asks the Sun to bless Josie with his special nourishment so that she will get well again. She promises, in return, to destroy the Cootings Machine that she once saw spewing out Pollution by the store. The Sun sets fully and Klara leaves the barn to find that Rick has been waiting for her. She tells Rick that he should try to get into Atlas Brookings, and the two start back through the field together. 

Rick visits the house the next day, and he and Josie make up. Josie apologizes to him and he goes to hug her for a long while. In the period following her visit to the barn, Klara schemes as to how to destroy the Cootings Machine. The Mother tells her one night that they are all going to go into town the following week; Josie needs to go sit for a portrait of her that a man named Mr Capaldi has been working on for a long time, and Rick and Miss Helen need to meet with a man Miss Helen calls “her secret weapon.” 

A couple days later Melania Housekeeper takes Klara aside and tells her to keep an eye on Mr Capaldi; Melania Housekeeper doesn’t trust him, and believes something creepy is going on. A few nights after that, Klara is watching Josie sleep when Josie suddenly wakes up, sobbing and calling for her mother. As Klara is trying to figure out what is wrong, the Mother bursts into the room and scoops Josie up, cradling her daughter as Josie weeps and tells her that she doesn’t want to die. The Mother comforts her until Josie falls asleep.

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