The narrator and R. can see the border of the Czech Republic from their home. They can hear the sounds of a village just across it, and often cross it themselves, wandering in the forest searching for mushrooms. They see animals cross the border, ignored by the border guards. They often see the border guards, who patrol a patch of land where raspberries grow. The narrator imagines their job is to protect them.

The narrator believes people are human through forgetfulness. She thinks there is a cosmic narrative that not only predates humankind, but will outlive them as well. People only see glimpses of the world around them. This thought brings the narrator a sense of relief.

While R. is in town, the narrator visits Marta and sees a comet, frozen in the sky. Marta works on a wig while the narrator reads the booklet about Saint Kummernis.

The narrative recounts the story of the monk who wrote the account of Saint Kummernis. Johann felt he was born imperfect, in the wrong body. His father died when he was young, and one hard winter, Johann left his family for a monastery. There, Johann worked in the kitchen, and earned the name Paschalis. Paschalis still felt lost. While praying in the chapel, he often gazed at depictions of the Mother Mary and other women saints. He was beautiful, with a smooth face and flowing hair, attracting Brother Celestine.

Brother Celestine was the bursar of the monastery and took Paschalis as his assistant. Celestine desired Paschalis, and the two engaged in a sexual relationship. When Paschalis asked Celestine if what they did was a mortal sin, Celestine guaranteed him that it was not. He believed that women were the true source of evil in the world, and they need not worry.

Paschalis had no interest in a sexual relationship with a woman, and instead wanted to be a woman himself. When Celestine assigned Paschalis the role of delivering meat to the monastery’s sister convent, he reveled in being around the women.

Paschalis tried to imitate the women he saw, and began imagining himself as a woman when he was with Celestine. The following winter, Celestine died of a chill. On his next trip to the convent, Paschalis fell ill himself, and suffered a fever. He could not return to the monastery, and woke in the convent. He met the prioress and begged her to let him stay, revealing his desire to be a woman.

The prioress brought Paschalis to a hidden chapel, where he saw a depiction of Saint Kummernis for the first time. The prioress told her story, saying the convent chose her as their patron saint. However, the Pope designated her followers a cult, forcing the prioress to hide the image. She believed the Pope could change his mind, and asked if Paschalis could read and write.

Every spring, Marta buys two hens and a rooster. She eats their eggs, giving some to the narrator. Every fall, Marta kills these chickens in one day and eats all of them, much to the dismay of the narrator.

The narrator worries about Marta’s sleeping habits and Marta admits to usually sleeping only two hours a night. While she is awake, she walks out into the road and looks down at the village. She imagines all of the people sleeping in the village, across the border, and in the world. She thinks of how when one half of the Earth is awake, it must be balanced by the other half sleeping.

When the narrator dreams of the past, she sees the images of it shift and change, leading her to believe that the past is just as unknowable as the future. She feels connected to those who post their dreams online. So many people dream of the same things, creating a shared experience. She believes that dreams are the only thing that no one has a right to. They are both an individual and collective experience.

The narrator dreams that she is in a town filled with holes, as though something fell from the sky. When she sees no evidence of any objects that did this, she wonders if it was actually something that rose from the ground to the sky that made the holes.

Marta suggests God forgot to create some creatures. The narrator agrees, explaining the wodger. It would have a tortoise shell with long legs and big teeth to eat the detritus from the stream. Marta reveals that the one she truly misses is the “sluggish creature that sits at crossroads at night,” though she does not reveal its name (97).

During the summer, German tourists descend on the village, returning to see their former homes. The narrator watches the tourists as they take pictures, not of the new additions to the town, but of empty spaces.

An older couple once visited the narrator and R., showing them where houses used to stand. They told the narrator and R. that the Frost family was no longer interested in their home, even though it was the Frosts who built it.

Peter Dieter and his wife, Erika, both German, visited Wroclaw, and Peter felt as though the city changed, wrapped in shadows. After the city, they travelled to Peter’s old village, Szlarska Poreba, though Peter called it by the name he knew, Schreiberhau. In the village, the mountains and the smell in the air reminded Peter of his former life. The village itself was unrecognizable as his former home. They visited the church, behind which Peter’s home once stood.

Erika left Peter to walk up the hill to see the view he once knew well. When he reached the top, which stands on the border of Poland and the Czech Republic, he sat down. Peter wondered what it would be like to die on the hill, exhausted from his climb. His heartbeat faded, and he died with one foot in Poland and one foot in the Czech Republic.

Czech border guards found Peter near dusk. At the end of their shift, they decided to do nothing and moved Peter into Poland. Not long after, Polish guards then found Peter, also at the end of their shift, and carried him over to the Czech Republic. As Peter’s soul departed, he experienced a swaying motion, remembering a Christmas crib. In the crib, he saw wooden soldiers carrying a wooden version of himself back and forth across the border forever.

Marta grows rhubarb behind her house. After she harvests it, the narrator helps her bundle them to sell the veggies in Nowa Ruda. Her customers will make either compote or rhubarb pie, eager to taste them after a long winter without them.

The narrator’s favorite philosopher is Archemanes, who believed that “the world was created as a result of the synergy of two primal forces” (106). The first force is Chthonos, which creates and reproduces existence, while the second force is Chaos, which seeks to destroy whatever Chthonos makes. These two forces work in tandem to create Chronos, an in-between space in which existence occurs.

The prioress hid Paschalis, telling the next meat delivery team that he ran away. She tasked him with writing the story of Kummernis, but in his isolation, hidden from the nuns, he struggled. The prioress gave Paschalis a copy of Kummernis’s writings and he identified with her struggle to become someone else. He found himself distracted by the women around him, and could only leave his room and visit the secret chapel at night. He was attracted to Kummernis’s image.

Paschalis tried to feel like a woman, but struggled. The prioress grew frustrated, wanting the task completed. He hoped that when the prioress let him stay, he would be treated by the women of the convent as an equal. Instead, he felt imprisoned and isolated. The prioress encouraged him, saying she was confident that if he wrote Kummernis’s story and brought it to the Pope, the Pope would canonize Kummernis.

Paschalis imagined delivering his work to the Pope. In this fantasy, Paschalis’s work moves the Pope, and as a reward, the Pope declares Paschalis a woman. As Paschalis leaves Rome, he transforms into a woman, his male genitalia disappearing and breasts growing.