The narrator and her husband, R., moved into their home three years ago. When sleet fell and caused some light flooding, they discovered that their home was built on top of an underground river, and that water flowed through their basement.

From their window, they can see Marta’s house. Marta is mysterious and disappears every winter. The narrator and Marta share a bond, often chatting. Marta speaks to the narrator about events and people that the narrator discovers are both real and imagined.

The narrator struggles to remember the many stories Marta tells her, only remembering pieces. Despite this, the narrator confides in Marta, telling her of her overwhelming fear of death. She thinks Marta does not live in the past, or for the future, but rather firmly in the present.

The narrator and R.’s neighbor, So-and-So, shares the story spreading through the area. One evening, as So-and-So was walking back from the nearby village of Nowa Ruda, he saw Marek Marek’s door open. When he went inside, he found the man “half hanging, half lying by the door, twisted and unquestionably dead” (8).

So-and-So left, but for the next two days, Marek Marek appeared to So-and-So at night, though he did not say anything. So-and-So sought out the local priest, who advised So-and-So to tell the ghost to leave him alone. The next night, Marek Marek did not appear, and the following day, his sister found his body. Afterward, So-and-So felt profound relief.

The local radio station hosts frequent trivia competitions, which were always won by the same man, Mr. Wadera. Eventually, the radio host made a plea to Mr. Wadera to stop calling in.

One day, the narrator asks Marta why So-and-So sees ghosts, but she does not. Marta tells her that So-and-So only sees the world from outside himself, meaning he is incapable of serious thinking. Marta believes this is the kind of person who sees ghosts.

Marek’s mother and sisters loved him. Despite this, Marek Marek often felt a pain inside him from a young age. His father was abusive and Marek would go to the library to escape. When he was 15, he got drunk for the first time, and the pain went away.

Marek Marek struggled with his interactions with women as he grew up, displaying a tendency for violence when he drank. He drank, nonetheless, and when he injured his father in a fight, Marek Marek went to a detox ward. The sobriety, however, made him yearn to escape his body, and he attempted death by suicide.

When he left the ward, he lived alone and struggled with the pain inside him. Marek Marek imagined the pain as a bird trapped inside him, fighting to get out. The pain grew more severe, and Marek Marek isolated himself further after his dog froze to death.

Later that winter, Marek Marek robbed the local store, stealing bottles of vodka. When he depleted the vodka, he decided to die by suicide, and for the first time, he felt as though the bird was gone. The rope slipped during his first try, but on the second attempt, he regretted his decision and tried to stop himself from dying. As he struggled, his neck snapped.

The previous year, the narrator put an ad in the newspaper, asking to collect people’s dreams. She did not have much luck but found a website where people shared their dreams. She reads them every day, categorizing them and seeing similarities between them. She believes that there is a science to them.

One day, the narrator and R. find a pre-war DKW, a German car, rusted in the forest. Later that day, they see a Toyota with Swiss plates drive past from the Czech border. Later that night, border guards speed by. The next morning, the narrator sees many dreams online from the night before about cars.

In the early spring of 1969, Krysia, who worked in the Cooperative Bank in Nowa Ruda, dreamed she heard voices in her left ear. One voice was clear, a man who called himself Amos. Krysia fell in love with the voice, and looked in phone books to try and find the man. She struggled until she found, “A. Mos, 54 Sienkiewicz Street, Czestochowa” (31).

Amos’s voice disappeared, and Krysia despaired. When the bank offered a training course for employees in Czestochowa, Krysia took the opportunity to find A. Mos. She knocked on his door, but the man swore he did not know her. The man invited her in, but when Krysia realized that this was not the same man, she left. She missed her train back to Nowa Ruda, and the man found her crying in a café. He invited her back to his apartment, where she discovered that the man was a poet. One of his works referenced a conversation she had with the voice of Amos.

Convinced it was him, Krysia had sex with the man. Afterward, she asked about the poem, and the man revealed that it was about a bar, and not the conversation she dreamed. When Krysia returned home, she felt hopeless.

One day, the voice of Amos returned. She went to a clairvoyant, asking what would happen to her. He told her that she would have a husband and child, though he only saw a vision of destruction. That night, Krysia heard the voice of Amos.

As the narrator and Marta are shelling peas, Marta insists she does not have to leave home to know the world. She believes those who travel worry too much about what is around them. At home, a person is not distracted by the world, and can be more reflective.

Marta tells the narrator of hidden caves in the mountains, where an immortal blind white lizard lives. Though the narrator doubts this, she remembers how she once believed the coelacanth—a type of fish—lived forever.

Guidebooks describe the village of Pietno as a unique location in Poland. The sun does not shine on the village from October to March, as the surrounding mountains block out the sun.

Velvet foot is a delicious winter mushroom that grows on fallen trees. Agnieszka often visits when the narrator makes velvet foot croquettes. Agnieszka lives above Pietno, and sees the village from her home, supplying the narrator with plenty of gossip.

During one visit, Agnieszka reminisces about her time working at Tinworld, the local textile mill. Tinworld used to organize outings for workers, and on one such trip to Oswiecim, Agnieszka encountered a new store that was selling cooking oil. There were no limits to how many bottles a person could buy, and Agnieszka bought 10 bottles. They lasted for two years.

The chapter ends with a recipe for velvet foot croquettes.

The narrator imagines herself as a mushroom. She thinks of the way in which they coexist with nature and observe the world around them. She knows she would no longer be afraid of death, as the worst that could happen to her is being eaten.

The narrator believes that Marta has a distinctive smell, like that of unmoved objects, and associates it with the elderly.

Marta and the narrator visit the local basilica. The two women walk through the Way of the Cross outside, and Marta points out a woman on a cross. The narrator recognizes it, as a similar depiction hangs in a nearby chapel, though on that one the woman has a beard. The woman is Saint Solicitous, or Saint Kummernis. At a souvenir shop, the narrator buys a booklet about her.

The booklet is titled The Life of Kummernis of Schonau, written with the aid of the Holy Spirit and of the Mother Superior of the Benedictine Order at Kloster by Paschalis, monk. In its Preface, Paschalis asserts that he means to prove those who doubt Kummernis wrong.

Kummernis was the sixth daughter of a baron, in the village of Schonau. Her mother died in childbirth. As she grew up, she became beautiful, and began attracting many suitors. Her father married her five older sisters to his knights, and sent Kummernis to a convent. Kummernis earned a reputation for being holy. Once, in a mirror, the face of Jesus appeared over her own, and lingered for a day.

Kummernis’s father decided to marry her to a friend and the convent sent her home. Kummernis asked her father to send her back to the convent, pleading for him to not force her to marry, saying her only master was the Lord. When he refused, Kummernis ran away and hid in a cave. One day, the Count of Karlsberg sought Kummernis out to heal his ailing children, and she cured them. She continued to perform miracles, and returned to her convent and took her vows.

When her father found her, he tried to convince Kummernis that she could live a holy life through marriage. Kummernis yet again refused. In response, her father attacked the convent, kidnapped Kummernis, and locked her in his home. While inside, Kummernis did not eat or drink, but only prayed, asking God to free her of the femininity that made men covet her. Her father visited her and Kummernis confronted him, now sporting a long beard. Her father, in a rage, sealed the chamber, and the Devil visited her. He appeared as Jesus on the cross, but Kummernis recognized him and asked him to confess. The Devil begged humanity’s forgiveness.

Enraged, Kummernis’s father crucified her to the roof beams. He cut off her beard, but it miraculously grew back. Paschalis pleads with readers to remember and share this story as an example of resistance to evil.