- Doris Rivera is readmitted to D ward and inspires mixed feelings in Deborah. She feels joy, anger, pity, and even envy.
- Doris was a symbol of hope that life outside the mental hospital was possible. But her coming back means the world can break you again and again.
- Yr's gods tell Deborah that she is just like Doris, and that her quest to be a part of the normal world will be just as futile.
- Deborah waits outside Doris's door and asks her why she came back. Doris answers that it's none of her business.
- Finally, an attendant makes Deborah move away from Doris's door.
- Later that day, Deborah hurts her ankle while playing catch with a fellow patient's shoe.
- Deborah is escorted by two uniformed students to another hospital for physical injuries to get her ankle X-rayed.
- Deborah sees the cautious and scared way the emergency room staff looks at her. She realizes the scrutiny and prejudice Doris faced—and that she herself will face.
- Deborah is relieved to get back to D ward.
- Deborah looks at herself in a mirror, and in the Yri language she says "I love you" to herself.
- In a session with Dr. Fried, Deborah talks about the prejudice at the emergency room once they knew she was a mental patient.
- Dr. Fried assures Deborah it used to be worse before the World Wars, so it will continue to get better little by little.
- Deborah tells Dr. Fried that she still feels poisonous and unworthy. She relays a story from summer camp that proves her unworthiness.
- Deborah befriended a girl named Eugenia at camp. They were both social misfits, so the friendship made Deborah feel less lonely, but also more awful about herself.
- One day at the camp showers, Eugenia called Deborah to her. Eugenia was standing in the shower stall beating herself with a leather belt. She handed the belt to Deborah and asked her to beat her with it. Eugenia felt she didn't have to hide that part of herself from Deborah.
- After that incident, Deborah never spoke to Eugenia again. She didn't want to share in someone else's poison, which seemed even more powerful than her own. Or maybe just being around Deborah made Eugenia poisonous and crazy.
- Deborah tells Dr. Fried that she believes her sister Suzy will go insane just from being around her.
- Dr. Fried says that it must have been hard for Deborah all those years to know something was wrong with her but to have her parents tell her she was fine and deny her sickness. Dr. Fried observes: "Small wonder that mental patients have so low a tolerance for lies" (17.90).
- Dr. Fried also says their work together going to break down the power of the Yri gods and send them away.
- Inwardly, Deborah feels very scared about living without Yr.
- Back in the ward, Deborah starts asking other patients if they can read her thoughts. She's wondering if the mentally ill have some kind of special powers that sane people don't.