He tells the Agent and Bernadette that Nector and Margaret paid the fees on the Pillager land last spring. The land Agent explains that Margaret only paid for the Kashpaw allotment, and that the government received a fair price for the Pillager allotments. Stricken by this betrayal, Nanapush can hardly believe it. He strikes out, asking whose pockets were lined with the money from the Pillager land sale—those of the land Agent himself, Bernadette’s, or other Morrisseys’ or Lazarres’? Bernadette rudely tells him to go home.

When Fleur hears the news, she fills her pockets with stones, grasps a large stone across her chest, and walks into the lake. Startled, neither Nanapush nor Eli react at first. Nanapush sends Lulu for a blanket, while Eli drags Fleur out of the lake, gray and not breathing. She does open her eyes to lay a curse on Nector, telling Eli that Nector will take her place. Eli runs away to join a logging crew, wanting to earn the money to buy back a piece of the Pillager land.

Nanapush implores Lulu to behave like a daughter and go to see her mother and father, to make them see and understand one another once again.