All the Water in the World

They approach the house. Keller wakes, barely strong enough to walk up the hill. Nonie knocks on the door. A woman answers the door and is shocked to see children. She’s wary about letting them in due to Keller’s poor health, as a new disease is spreading, but she recognizes that Keller has pneumonia and lets them in.

She leads them to a room to rest, introducing herself as Poppy and revealing that the crew she lives with will return soon. Mary, their medic, can help Keller. Poppy remarks that protecting a Black man is “extra work” (149). She gives Bix and Nonie some spare clothes that belonged to her children before they died.

The crew returns. A woman comes into the room dressed in Army fatigues and starts assessing Keller. Bix guesses that she’s Mary. She makes a willow tea to help Keller’s lungs. Bix asks about antibiotics, but Mary gives a noncommittal answer.

Jared, the leader of the house, objects to giving Keller antibiotics. Mary argues with him about a place called Hancock and then returns to treating Keller. She gives him antibiotics.

Keller rests, seemingly more comfortable. Nonie asks what Hancock is. Mary explains that it’s a nearby settlement and that they’ll have to go there. Bix is sweating, suffering from her infected leg.

When Nonie wakes the next morning, Bix’s leg is much worse. It looks septic. Nonie looks for Mary, but she finds Poppy and discovers that the Feral House defends its borders via a sniper’s nest.

Nonie recalls the second time the mosquito-borne illness came through Amen. Keller was a central part of Amen, a nurturing figure who counterbalanced Father’s brash leadership. When Mano died, Keller threw himself into work. When Angel died, Keller fell into a depression.

When Nonie returns, Keller has recovered somewhat, and she cries. Keller says he’s ready to travel to the farm. Mary overhears and is interested. Mary looks at Bix’s leg and is horrified to see its condition. However, they must travel to Hancock to see the doctor.

Nonie asks Poppy if the Feral House is hers. She reveals that when the military collapsed, Jared and his crew took it. Mary plans to take them to Hancock for medicine, though as Keller, Nonie, and Bix prepare to go, Poppy says Hancock has a debt system and isn’t a good place to stay.

Poppy tells them that their canoe is too small for the job. They instead take a Whaler, a larger craft with a motor. They travel to the Union Turnpike, where they exchange the boat for a horse named Pumpkin. They build a travois (a type of stretcher) to carry Keller.

In a flashback, Nonie recalls scavenging with Father for medication for Mother’s illness, during which Father told her that Mother’s condition was terminal.

They travel down the highway and stop at a barn belonging to a contact of Mary’s.

Nonie encounters a domesticated dog for the first time in her life. She’s terrified.

In a flashback, Nonie recalls the mosquito-borne illness in Amen and how Keller fell into a deep depression after it killed his partner, Angel. She gently coaxed him back out of it by spending time with him and asking him about bees.

Nonie asks if Mary carries a gun. She says she doesn’t because she doesn’t like them and because of her Hippocratic oath. Bix nearly falls off the horse, feverish from her infected leg. Distressed, Nonie argues with Mary, accusing her of working for Jared. Mary agrees that Jared is dangerous, but she’s an ally. She isn’t going back to him.

Nonie reflects that Angel and Mother died within a short span of time. She recalls walking through the exhibits with Mother and then “swimming” by lying under the whale and pretending she was on the ocean bed.

Bix joins her. They talk about Mother’s passing. Nonie cries.

They stop by a house and get water from a well behind it with a hand pump. Nonie thinks back to a conversation she had with her mother about finding her calling.

A starving bear wanders out of the woods. Mary quietly says to let it pass, adding that it never gets cold enough for the bears to hibernate anymore, so they suffer through the winter. As the sun sets, they arrive at Hancock.