In the cellar after the storm, Asphodel kneels by the cat about to give birth, while Harp listens to the shortwave radio and the others quietly attend to their own concerns. Asphodel silently addresses her dead mother, finally confronting the grief she has been holding at bay since learning of her death. She realizes that resisting the pain has only made it worse, and resolves to draw it close instead of pushing it away.

Asphodel breaks down weeping, and the Antidote, wearing Asphodel's grandmother's yellow dress, holds and rocks her. Harp and Cleo Allfrey also reach out, touching her neck and shoulders, so she knows she is not alone in her grief. When Allfrey asks whether her mother would want her to seek vengeance, Asphodel rejects the idea, saying she will not waste her life hunting down Lada's killer.

As she speaks the decision aloud, a warmth rises in her, which she takes as her mother's presence. Allfrey then hands her a still, ordinary black-and-white photograph taken accidentally while testing flashbulbs in Asphodel's bedroom: the image shows Asphodel's mother Lada as a ten- or eleven-year-old girl sitting by the window. Asphodel shares the miraculous portrait with Harp and the others, and closes by writing to her mother that she is certain Lada is still with her.