At 11:02 pm, Elsie hears aggressive pounding on Roxanne’s door and sees a tall, dark-haired man shouting for Roxanne to come out. As she prepares to call the police, Roxanne’s door opens, and Persephone appears in her pajamas, holding a blanket. Elsie grabs her dressing gown and rushes outside with Nugget.

The man asks Persephone where her mother is. Elsie improvises that she’s the babysitter and had just stepped home briefly. The man is skeptical, but Elsie bluffs that their street is heavily policed due to Joan’s habit of calling authorities. A distant siren sounds, and the man steps away to look. Elsie seizes the moment, grabs Persephone, and pulls her inside, slamming the door. Both embrace and cry.

Following his disappearance, swimmers found Billy semi-conscious at the bottom of concrete stairs leading to a beach parking area. He was hospitalized with a suspected brain injury and placed in an induced coma. Rumors immediately spread blaming Mabel, claiming that she pushed him after he rejected her advances.

Mabel became someone to be feared rather than simply ignored. Daphne loyally defended her, though no one listened. After school one day, they went to the library, where Mabel showed Daphne