How It All Goes Down
Pressia (Boats)
- Inside the house, Ingership appears at the top of the stairs and orders the men to come upstairs while the women wait in the parlor.
- This, of course, angers Pressia, so she rejects his offer to stay in the parlor. Then Lyda chimes in, "We'll do what we want."
- They all walk upstairs into a room and the wallpaper is pale green with small boats.
- Ingership's wife appears; Pressia can tell she has a lot of scratches and bruises beneath her stocking.
- His wife is holding a metal box with a switch. Looks like it's the ticker switch.
- Ingership demands her to flip the switch—Bradwell tries to stop her—but he's too late. She flips the switch.
- Tick, tick. No boom.
- Lucky for Pressia, Ingership's wife stays true to what she said back when Pressia last saw her. She changed the wiring of the switch, making it turn off the bug. No explosion.
- So Ingership is pretty mad, which is pretty understandable. But then he grabs a gun and starts to threaten everyone.
- Ingership starts to tell Bradwell that the Dome knows who he is and everything about his parents. Now Bradwell wants answers.
- Just as Ingership threatens Partridge, his wife drives a scalpel into his back. Ingership: dead.
- For now, things seem like they're over. Pressia starts to softly sing the lullaby she knows.
- The chapter has a break for the first time in the novel. We then are given the perspectives of each character during Pressia's song.
- Lyda and Partridge hold hands and talk about the bird she made in the Domesticity Display.
- Lyda acknowledges that she can't return to the Dome. She's ready to stay with everyone.
- Ingership's wife thinks about the lullaby, and then she touches the wallpaper.
- Her father used to have a boat when she was a little girl. Her name is Illia.
- El Capitan looks at the soldiers and thinks about his last memory of his mother before she went to the asylum. "You're in charge 'til I come back, El Capitan." Then he thinks of Helmud; he loves him.
- Helmud's limited perspective comes to light now. It's based on senses, and how El Capitan's heart beats on top of his heart.
- Bradwell remembers how Arthur Warlord used to play the song in his convertible.
- Partridge feels like he needs to be alone. He goes into the other room where there are computers, and he sees his father's face on the screen.
- Partridge tells him that Ingership is dead.
- His father tells Partridge that he has Hastings and Arvin Weed, and that his mother and Sedge's deaths were accidents. We're all a family here, everything's all good.
- But it's not that easy. Partridge tells him, "This is only the beginning," and then walks out of the room, stands on the car, and looks out as far as he can see.
- Pressia finishes singing, and then Illia tells Bradwell that he reminds her of a boy she once knew. She leaves the room.
- Then Bradwell kisses Pressia. (Yes, finally.)
- Pressia gives Bradwell the bell she found a long time ago, and Bradwell lifts it to his ear. It sounds like the ocean.
- The novel closes with Pressia looking out the window and seeing Partridge shouting everyone's names. They could smell smoke, meaning something is on fire.
- Cliffhanger ending: you should tune in for the next book, Fuse.