Still stunned by the otherworldly light in the fallowland, Antonina and Cleo make their way through the soaking field toward the farmhouse porch. Cleo wonders if Sheriff Iscoe will return; Antonina doubts it, recalling the terror on his face as he fled, and imagines him perhaps wrecked on the drowned road or possibly escaping back to Uz. Antonina admits she does not know whether the town will reelect, arrest, or investigate him.

Reaching the porch first, they find the unbothered cat scratching against a post. Cleo asks why anyone would flee from such a color, and Antonina answers that Vick Iscoe did not want to see his reflection changed by it - a refusal of self-confrontation that explains his flight.

As Harp and Dell stagger up to join them, a familiar whistle rises and the eastern sky turns greenish. A tornado appears at the edge of the wheat field, recalling the terror of Black Sunday. Harp shouts for the cellar and the four hold hands to stay together as they descend. Harp's flashlight dies, but Allfrey's battery-powered safelight illuminates the space. Strangely calm, perhaps still steadied by the lingering memory of the nameless color, they wait out roughly ten clock-minutes of the storm's roar - though, as Vaults know, clocks fail to measure such sounds.