Zinger makes up a story to entertain Ayo, Maysie, Elisse, and Dream. She tells of Hussy Strut, a cold, fighting woman of monstrous proportion. The girls are crouched in a tiny basement, bound to the pipes of a radiator by thick wire. Dream hugs her knees and talks to herself. She recounts being stuck in a cage surrounded by onlookers, begging to be let out. Elisse cries for Aunt Zora. Zinger counts all the things they have lost. The government ran out of money and everything shut down — no lights, no water, no law enforcement, only chaos. Then she lost her father, then she lost Deena, her older sister who one day transformed into Dream, oracle of sorrows. The Aunts — Chloe, Zora, and Alice — took them in. But Zora and Chloe died, and Alice became deranged, murdered their sister Desiree, and locked the rest of the children in the basement. Escaping now, they discover Aunt Alice dead. The girls hitch a ride with Mr. Miles, who delivered water to the house, hoping to make it to another Aunt upstate. He drops them off at the water station and the girls trek quietly along the highway, praying to avoid the ruthless patrollers. But Dream, muttering a stream of brutal recollections, begins to cry out "They hurt me!" in a shout. The patrollers bear down on the girls and attack, tearing Dream's clothes. And then — Hussy Strut strides boldly over the curve of the earth, scoops up the girls and rakes the men with a fiery whip. Zinger opens her eyes to find Dream calling her by her real name, Nzingha. Aunt Gwen's is this way, she motions, "the big lady told me".