At a crowded Councilhouse meeting, Liff attends because her father and Uncle Molder are on the Council and her father fears leaving the family alone. Speaker Arkelly warns that Landfall’s stores are low, the coming harvest is crucial, and children must help destroy beetles and grubs. Arkelly also threatens harsher penalties for hoarding, which makes Liff understand that public loyalty is becoming a way to mark who belongs and who is suspect.

Pardo Alleyn reports that masked gunmen stole livestock and supplies from his out-farm, and the crowd seizes on the word “Seccers.” Arkelly argues for patrols balanced against harvest labor, but Uncle Molder pushes suspicion further by implying that informers inside Landfall are helping the raiders. Liff sees fear silence her father and recognizes that Molder is exploiting the crisis to strengthen his standing.

The Widow Blisk interrupts, shouting that the Watchers have come down because of what Landfall did to them and that Remembrance is not enough. Most people dismiss or remove the Widow Blisk, but Liff notices guilt and fear in the adults’ reactions. Miranda, however, looks different: alert and unshadowed by the shared fear, making Liff wonder whether the schoolteacher is truly just another refugee from a failed farm.

As summer work continues, Liff stamps beetles and sees the forest dying while rumors circulate about the Witch, Seccers, strange animals, and giant spiders. When her father’s tractor breaks, Liff uses the errand to visit Fabian’s repair shop, where Miranda is with Fabian, Fabian’s armed sister, and Paul’s industrious family. Liff privately asks Miranda about the Watchers, and Miranda admits that her own supposed farm never spoke of them, giving Liff dangerous knowledge that Miranda and her friends do not share Landfall’s common assumptions.

Miranda cautiously questions Liff about Seccers and the Witch, then offers a practical explanation: desperate locals may be disguising themselves and raiding neighboring farms because everyone is short of food. Miranda also proposes another possibility for the Watchers, pointing to the moving star in the sky, Heorest Holt’s ship, and asking whether people might still be aboard it. The idea shocks Liff because it reframes an old symbol of Landfall’s founding as a possible living presence watching from above.

Later that night, two large black birds tap at Liff’s window, enter her room, and transform into Gothi and Gethli, the birdlike strangers Liff half-remembers. They say the one who sent them urgently needs to find hidden strangers whose mimicry is too good for Gothi to detect, and they ask Liff to come meet “Herself.” Liff refuses to help them hurt Miranda but realizes the Witch may have answers about the Watchers, Holt’s ship, the failing harvests, and the impossible things she has seen, so Liff agrees before the pair fly away and her mother closes the shutters in ordinary fear.