Three days after Black Sunday, the Antidote remains unharmed by Red Iscoe and his father, who are presumably overwhelmed by the storm's aftermath. Uz is devastated: bodies recovered, buildings destroyed, and families fleeing in overloaded trucks. After a week, the Antidote can no longer wait and decides to ride to Cherry Le Foy's cabin in Sheridan County, borrowing an Appaloosa named Angel from her client Fred Raffles. She dresses as a man and avoids the train to evade customers.

During the long ride, the Antidote reminisces about Cherry, her closest friend and fellow prairie witch. They met as teenage runaways, both apprenticed under their mentor Kettle. Cherry, a former brothel worker, mastered trance-work easily; the Antidote struggled and felt jealous. Cherry chose the stage name Madame Quicksand. The Antidote found her own name—the Antidote—after seeing a Pauline's Panacea poster, conceiving her purpose as an empty vessel to hold others' unbearable memories. Cherry quipped darkly that death too is an antidote to living, sparking a recurring dream of twin Ferris wheels, one full and one empty.

The Antidote recalls how she and Cherry traveled the rails together for safety, with Cherry, taller and darker-skinned, posing as her brother in dangerous towns. She reflects that every witch she has known suffered an irreparable loss, and reveals her own: her newborn son was stolen from her arms, leaving a permanent open wound that made her a Vault. She addresses the chapter directly to him. She remembers a lover who reduced her son's abduction to a market transaction, illustrating how money makes evil seem reasonable.

Reaching Cherry's hidden cabin near aspens and a tin windmill at dusk, the Antidote knocks repeatedly, then enters to find the place stripped bare—no linens, no supplies, no note, no trace of Cherry's life or work. Angel stands stiff and uneasy outside. As darkness falls, the Antidote realizes Cherry is gone, leaving her without her only true friend and confidant, and wondering who can help her now.