A Good Little Boggy Mun
- Briony heads to the Boggy Mun's bog-hole to see him during his "strict business hours" (9.1) of evening mist sharp.
- Briony sprinkles salt on moss, debates which hand to cut, decides on her left hand, then cuts herself while thinking of the horrible things she did to Rose and Stepmother.
- After calling to the Boggy Mun, Briony offers to come to him everyday with blood and salt if he will take back the swamp cough.
- Boggy Mun asks her to come church days as well, and she obliges.
- Boggy Mun rejects her offer though, and gets a little nosy. He asks her if she has a sweetheart, which she denies, but when Boggy Mun insists that she must be trying to save someone in particular she admits that it is for her sister.
- Somehow, this Boggy Mun has convinced Briony to confide in him despite his curse of the swamp cough and his (we imagine) gross swampy appearance. When he asks Briony the name of her sister, she tells him: Rose Larkin.
- If there's a lesson to be learned so far, it's that you can't trust swamp creatures. Boggy Mun strikes Rose with the swamp cough and tells Briony she must stop the swamp draining to save her sister. Ugh.
- Having made a mistake that will probably kill her sister, Briony now hates herself more than ever. She heads out of the swamp while thinking of all the reasons she should hate herself.
- She sees the Chime Child in the swamp and hides from her view so as not to be caught in the swamp. When she was a child, Briony remembers seeing the Chime Child in the swamp often.
- As she crosses the bridge out of the swamp, Briony decides that she will tell the villagers and save her sister tomorrow.
- Back at her house, Brownie waits for Briony. Time for three quick side notes. First, doesn't Brownie almost sound the same as Briony? Second, trying to picture this Brownie has proven to be pretty difficult for us. If you too are having trouble, we pretty much settled on something close to this in our imagination. Third, is anyone else hungry for brownies?
- Briony tries to avoid Brownie, but he insists on following her, calling her "mistress" and trying to tell her something.
- Dr. Rannigan comes to the house and confirms that Rose has swamp cough. Father tries to hold onto hope that scientists will find a cure, but the doctor talks instead of injections to stimulate her heart when it gets bad, and morphine to "to ease her passing" (9.87) when it gets worse.
- In bed that night, Briony convinces herself that she subconsciously did this to her sister on purpose. As she convinces herself of her evil, jealous plan, Briony falls deeper into her own brand of Hell.