Edith runs off as the other girls push on through the dogwoods.
Irma looks down to the plain and describes the people looking like ants.
As the girls walk past the monolith they have some sort of supernatural sensation of being
pulled "inside out" and of being dizzy.
They walk on past the monolith where they lay down and fall asleep.
Miranda wakes up.
A woman comes crashing through the undergrowth and falls down amongst the girls. This
person is never called Miss McCraw but we are led to believe that it indeed Miss McCraw even
though the girls don't seem to recognise her. She is not wearing a dress, just her under-
garments.
Miranda loosens Miss McCraw's stays to help her breath as she seems exhausted.
The girls all decide to get out of their corsets.
They throw their corsets over the precipice, but don't see which way they fall.
Miss McCraw points out that the corsets seem to be magically hanging in space besides them
(not at the bottom of the cliff).
Miss McCraw suggests that the corsets are "stuck fast in time".
Miss McCraw suggests that they all "go on". Miss McCraw seems to know what's
happening...?
Miss McCraw suffers giddiness momentarily.
They all see a "hole in space", some sort of mystical supernatural phenomenon.
The "hole" seems to answer all of the mysteries of life, though they don't really ask it any
questions.
A little brown snake appears and disappears down a crack in the rock.
Miranda and Marion try to find the snake.
Miss McCraw suggests that she "goes first" (down the crack in the rock to follow the snake).
Miss McCraw magically transforms into a small creature like a lizard and crawls into the crack
and disappears.
Marion, and then Miranda, performs the same "magic" transformation and disappears down
the crack.
One of the large boulders slowly tilts over and covers the hole where Miss McCraw and the two
girls have gone.
Irma is left by herself. She is "tearing and beating at the gritty face on the boulder with her bare
hands".