- Esther works up the nerve to tell Suzy just how sick Deborah is. She worries that Suzy will now see her sister as the stereotype of the crazy old woman in the attic, like in Jane Eyre.
- Esther realizes that this is the same stereotype that she and Jacob worried about at first when they saw the mental hospital.
- Jacob wants to wait longer to tell Suzy, but Esther recognizes this as its own kind of lie. Waiting to tell Suzy the truth is still a denial of the problem of how Jacob has handled Deborah's illness all along.
- Suzy is only twelve, but she takes the news in stride and says it makes sense. She's overheard her parents talking with her grandparents, and she's always suspected that Deborah was mentally instead of physically ill. The original lie her parents told her about Deborah being in a rest home for girls just never added up. Suzy takes the news well. She hopes Deborah will get better and come home soon, because she misses her sometimes.
- The Blaus feel relieved after having told Suzy the truth. They realize that the anticipation of telling her—and the anticipation of Suzy's possible reactions—was worse than the actual act of telling the truth.
- Back at the hospital, Deborah talks with Dr. Fried. She explains how being wrong about something is like flirting with death. Deborah realizes she protected her pride by retreating into Yr, where she could always be right and escape embarrassment while still clinging to the belief that she was poisonous and ruined.
- When Dr. Fried reasons with Deborah that members of Earth feel similar wounds to their pride when they're wrong, Deborah disagrees. She explains that she, as well as some other members of D ward, are really different from people of Earth—their essence (which in Yri is "nganon") is poisonous and can poison others.
- Deborah's belief in her own poisonousness is so extreme that she never lets anyone touch or borrow her belongings, for fear they might poison someone else.
- When she was younger, Deborah stole from others so she could borrow the purity of their essence, which she thought clung to their things. Then it wore off, and she'd have to steal something else.
- Deborah tells Dr. Fried a great secret, that during World War II, she believed she was Japanese. The Collect fed her this belief: they told Deborah that the hate Americans had for the Japanese was the same hate that everyone felt for her.
- Dr. Fried interprets this belief to be about Deborah feeling she was everyone's enemy.
- But in Yr, Deborah could fly or be a wild horse. This was the gift that Yr had given her on her ninth birthday—to be able to change form and be her true self, whereas on Earth everyone hated her and knew her Earth image was a poisonous enemy.
- During the war, Deborah remembers going to bed at night and being reborn as a captured Japanese soldier. The American-Jewish girl was just a mask she wore. The tumor, and her ruined female parts from the operation to remove it, were now the Japanese soldier's war wound.
- Deborah's identity as a captured soldier gave her a feeling of self-righteousness and martyrdom. The gods of Yr told her she was both captive and victim, queen and slave. She took comfort in these identities.
- Deborah then explains the role of Yr's Censor to Dr. Fried. The Censor at first was in the Midworld, the boundary land between Earth and Yr, and his role was to keep Yri secrets in Yr and out of Earth. Over time, he became a tyrant and started to control everything Deborah said both in Yr and on Earth.
- After Deborah leaves the session, Dr. Fried actually takes a little time for herself and listens to classical music.
- Back at D ward, Deborah can feel the punishment brewing in Yr, and she asks a nurse to help her.
- While Deborah waits for a cold-sheet pack to be prepared for her, the Censor in Yr tells her that being at the hospital was all part of Yr's plan to set her up—to let her trust an Earth doctor and give away her secrets. Then Yr would show her how Earth really is just full of pain and betrayal.
- Deborah is in the pack for hours and starts to feel a lot of pain and lack of circulation. She starts to whimper.
- Sylvia, who is usually mute, is in the pack next to her and starts talking to her.
- Deborah, at Sylvia's prompting, tries yelling to get the attention of an attendant.
- An attendant finally comes, but it takes what seems like hours.
- Later, in a session with Dr. Fried, Deborah remembers what Yr told her, and she says she feels like Dr. Fried will betray her. She almost eggs it on by accusing Dr. Fried of being part of a great deception that involves breaking her like the broken flowerpot she saw in her dream years ago.
- Dr. Fried tries to assure Deborah that she will not betray her trust, that she is not like the doctor who lied to her at the hospital when she was five.
- Deborah tells Dr. Fried how she was in a cold-sheet pack for hours and called for help and no one came.
- Dr. Fried listens to her with patience and then promises to keep helping her without betraying her trust.
- When Deborah asks her to prove it, Dr. Fried responds that she can prove it, but only with time.