62 pages • 2 hours read
Marian HaleDark Water Rising
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2006A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 13-18Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 13 Summary
Seth awakens to the sound of the infant, Tom, crying. Everyone laughs, relieved. Seth realizes he doesn’t hear the sound of wind and discovers the storm is over. Everyone is quiet, shocked, and relieved. They hear someone calling from outside and find a naked man, Captain Munn, whose house had broken apart. He’d clung to a mattress throughout the storm and stayed alive, but his wife and her mother are both dead. The man is full of despair; it makes Seth think about his own family and worry about their fate. He wants to head out to Uncle Nate’s, but Josiah says they should wait for the light to come back in and a bit of the water to drain away. Another neighbor, Mr. Mason, returns from checking on his own house with a can of sardines and a bottle of beer. They pass the tin and bottle around the survivors. The freshwater cistern is flooded with salt water, so they have no drinkable water. Everyone is worried all of the cisterns around town are ruined and they will not have water.
They go outside and see the Vedder house is one of only three still standing. The Peek house, where Seth and Josiah almost sheltered, is completely gone. Josiah and Seth see a dead dog with a young blonde girl lying next to it. For a moment, Seth fears it may be Ella Rose, but Josiah tells him it isn’t. They agree to wait a little longer to head back to Uncle Nate’s. As the time passes, the day gets hotter, and a bad smell of mud and bodies intensifies.
Chapter 14 Summary
Seth and Josiah wait until midmorning to head back to Uncle Nate’s. They try to avoid looking at the bodies strewn everywhere as they walk. The streets and landmarks are all destroyed, so the boys struggle to get their bearings. A group of Vedder house survivors make their way down to the beach, hoping to find a way through the high stacks of debris and mangled houses. Once there, they realize “pounding waves had eaten away at the island, pulling several hundred feet of shoreline into the gulf” (106). Seth remembers Saint Mary’s Orphanage with its 100 residents but sees the buildings that housed them are gone.
Seth tries not to look into the eyes of the dead bodies he sees, not wanting to imagine them as his family. He’s doing well until he comes across the body of one of the orphanage’s nuns. Some of the men start to pull her from the mud, but they discover a cord tied to her wrist that connected her to nine of the orphans, all of whom are now dead. They lay out the bodies for the burial crews that will follow.
The group keeps walking. Some of them speculate about neighbors and friends, but no one has answers. They come across the body of a small boy, which Josiah recognizes as Toby, the Black child who was so happy to throw the baseball four days ago. Soon, the group separates. The others head up the beach, while Seth and Josiah attempt to cross the 20-foot-high ridge of debris accumulated by the storm. As they climb, Seth thinks about the bodies that are probably hiding within the rubble. Once they reach the top, they discover the true scale of what they’re seeing—a two-story-high ridge that is “at least a hundred feet across at the base and appeared to wrap around the entire heart of the city” (111). There are collapsed houses and ships. It is chaos, and Seth cannot see Uncle Nate’s house from their position.
As they start to climb down the other side of the ridge, they hear a voice and realize there’s a girl buried in the wreckage. They try to help her but can’t get the huge timbers to move without tools. The girl says she just wants to give them her name so she won’t die anonymously. She tells them her name is Sarah Louise Ellison. Seth and Josiah promise to remember her. They put a jagged piece of mirror above where they think she is and promise to bring back help.
Chapter 15 Summary
They hear the voice of a man on their way down but cannot help him either. Josiah says, “We can’t hep ‘im, Mister Seth” (115). Seth is angry that Josiah uses the honorific “Mister” and says his name is “just plain ol’ Seth” (115). Josiah reminds Seth that race is a factor. Seth is abashed.
They hear another weak cry for help but can’t help this person either. They spot a crew of men loading bodies onto wagons and try to get them to help rescue the survivors; the men are grief-struck and beaten down and say they have no saws. Seth is angry at first, but Josiah quickly realizes the men are doing all they can. He thanks them and pulls Seth away. Seth insists they can’t go home without helping Sarah Louise, but Josiah tells him the girl already knew she couldn’t be helped. Seth sees light glint from the mirror they left on top of the ridge and says he can’t leave her. He and Josiah climb back up to the ridge and call for Sarah Louise, but she doesn’t answer.
Chapter 16 Summary
Seth is traumatized by his inability to help Sarah Louise, but Josiah keeps him moving. They pass the bodies of twin boys, around five years old. Josiah finds a shovel and offers to help Seth bury them; Seth says if they bury them, then their parents won’t be able to find them. Josiah says if the parents were still alive, they’d already have been around. They bury the boys and mark the grave. They find the body of a woman; a man sits near her, drinking. He says he doesn’t know her but that he isn’t able to find his wife. Together, they bury the woman.
As they travel, Seth and Josiah see and hear stories of tragic death and loss. Everyone is shocked and traumatized, appearing numb: “The panic and loss that had gripped us all seemed to have been replaced with bewildered calm” (122). Houses that were spared open their doors and offer water and food to any survivors. Seth and Josiah are offered water by a woman and drink their fill.
After approximately six hours of walking, the boys reach Uncle Nate’s street. Josiah and Ezra’s small house is gone, but Uncle Nate’s still stands. They see Ezra clearing debris; Josiah smiles, relieved. Everyone is astonished to see Seth and Josiah, whom they thought must be dead. Everyone at Uncle Nate’s survived, including Ella Rose. Papa isn’t there, but Mama says they expect him soon—he’s out looking for Uncle Nate, Ben, and Mr. Covington, none of whom made it home before the storm. Seth goes upstairs to check on the children and sees Ella Rose, who walks into his arms and tells him she knew he’d come back.
Chapter 17 Summary
Seth tells his family about their time during the storm and what they saw on the journey back. He is relieved to be safe in Aunt Julia’s parlor. The family cleans the house of debris and mud and then has supper. It is hard to think about eating with the strong, terrible smell outside. Kate sits next to Seth, holding his hand, which makes Seth feel emotional. Mama asks Seth to say grace, which is usually Papa’s job. Seth has mixed feelings about being “seen as a man” under these circumstances (129). They eat grits for supper. Aunt Julia credits Ezra with the family having food—he thought to put a lot of food stores up in the attic before the flooding started.
The family sits down to relax after supper. Matt sits next to Seth and quietly tells him he saw the 20-foot wall of water come for the house. He’d been sure they were all going to die. He also saw dozens of bodies piled on wagons, but he assures Seth he didn’t let the younger kids near the windows to see what was happening outside.
Papa comes home. He tells Ella Rose he found her father in a temporary morgue and gives her the man’s personal effects—a pocket watch, rings, and a tiepin. Papa tells Aunt Julia he looked everywhere but couldn’t find Uncle Nate or Ben. Aunt Julia is calm and says they got Seth and Josiah back, so they have much to be thankful for. Aunt Julia goes upstairs and comes back down with clean clothes and comforters. She tells everyone where to sleep for the night. Seth washes himself and changes into clean clothes.
Chapter 18 Summary
On Monday morning, Seth and Papa eat soda crackers and water for breakfast. They plan to look for Uncle Nate by traveling every route to the lumberyard and then checking hospitals and morgues. Seth asks if Papa thinks it’s possible they’ll find Nate alive, but Papa just says that there are so many bodies that all of them may not be able to be identified. Seth asks about food and water; Papa says there are provisions left to be rationed but that there is little fresh water. Some men went to the mainland for help yesterday.
Papa tells Josiah to be watchful because there was some looting, and some Black men were shot the day before for cutting fingers off of dead bodies to steal their rings. Ezra is worried about Josiah’s safety but says nothing. Papa, Seth, and Josiah head east, searching, but do not find Uncle Nate or Ben. They see a man on horseback giving orders to “press into service every able-bodied man they could find to help haul away the corpses” (141). Papa, Seth, and Josiah hide, but Papa feels guilty because he wants to help and do the right thing. They keep searching and finally make it to where the lumberyard was, but the business disappeared.
They decide to check the hospitals and morgues. The morgues are full of bodies of every age and nationality. Some men are already loading bodies onto barges to send out for burial at sea: “they’re barging them eighteen miles out, weighting them down with scrap metal, and giving them to the sea” (145). A man they meet tells them he’s going to help rebuild the bridge so that supplies can make it to the island. Papa decides to go with the man. He tells Seth he’ll be sleeping in one of the wrecked train cars and directs him to instruct Matt on how to bring him supplies: “He can sleep here in the train car with me nights, be home first thing every morning, and get back here again before nightfall with my meals each day” (146). He asks if Seth understands; Seth nods, but he doesn’t understand—he thinks that the family needs Papa, too. Papa tells Seth to tell Mama she was right: “There’s a reason for everything” (147).
Seth and Josiah head home. They try to be careful, but Josiah is soon caught by three men with bayonets. Josiah doesn’t alert them to Seth’s presence. He marches away with the men toward the barge. One of the other men begs the guardsman not to make him do the work; the guardsman threatens to shoot him. Seth feels guilty and horrified about what happened to Josiah, but he knows he needs to get home and update his family.
Chapters 13-18 Analysis
The novel’s theme of Individual and Collective Trauma and Healing begins to emerge as the storm finally ends. This can be seen early in Chapter 13, when young Tom cries—the survivors laugh, relieved to hear the sign of life. The ability to find joy in the wake of trauma and tragedy demonstrates how people can sometimes acknowledge the good even in a horrible situation. They are relieved that the baby is alive. Despite devastating loss, the survivors work together to save what they can and to help each other. These chapters further depict the catastrophic loss of life and property as a result of the great storm. In some ways, Seth and Josiah’s journey back to Uncle Nate’s is more harrowing in the wake of the storm than it had been during. Though their lives are no longer in direct danger from the wind, water, and debris, the sights they see as they travel impact them deeply. Seth, a compassionate young man, struggles profoundly with the senseless loss he sees. He is particularly affected by the deaths of young children, easily able to picture them as his own younger siblings. These memories will linger with him throughout the rest of the novel, establishing the theme of trauma. There are early hints that Uncle Nate and Ben may have died in the storm, and Aunt Julia’s composed response to the uncertainty also helps to show her resilience. When the storm hits, it is clear that everyone involved will experience some kind of trauma associated with it, and this will converge to become a larger, collective trauma as well. Just as they are all collectively affected, they will need to come together to collectively heal, and these chapters show them doing that.
The power of nature is developed throughout the novel’s description of the city in the wake of the storm. The city, which had formerly been organized into streets and blocks, is now a vast landscape of mud and debris. As they walk down to the beach, the survivors learn that the gulf had claimed several hundred feet of city and left behind nothing but mud and sand. The enormous structures Seth had only recently become familiar with are now gone, swept away completely by the powerful waves. It is shocking that a single storm—a single evening—could have done this much damage. The narrative provides vivid descriptions of these sights to help the reader contextualize the extreme effects that the storm caused. Despite the residents’ confidence in the strength and importance of their young city, everything they’d built splintered apart and battered the remaining buildings. The ridge that Josiah and Seth must climb is a good example of this. Seth describes the houses on the other side of this barrier as being “topsy-turvy, kicked over like toy blocks” (111). He also sees that ships have been carried onto land and left askew. These descriptions give the reader an understanding of how powerful and destructive the storm was. As the largeness of the town and its infrastructure is emphasized, the novel develops ideas related to climate change and eco-crises, showing that even the most developed placed can be leveled due to the natural disasters that are appearing more frequently globally. This also speaks to The Contribution of Different Forms of Labor to the Community, as the largeness of the town shows that many different forms of labor will need to be contributed to rebuild it. The town is made up of many different parts, and it will require many different contributions to fix it.
Systemic Racism Even Amid Tragedy develops thematically in these chapters, too, notably causing tension between Seth and Josiah. When Seth tells Josiah that his name is “just plain ol’ Seth,” Josiah is downtrodden, reminding him, “Not for me, it ain’t” (115). This helps Seth to realize that “The very people who went out of their way to make sure I made something of myself, like Papa, Uncle Nate, even Mr. Farrell, were the same ones who kept Josiah right where he was” (115-16). Though Josiah and Seth are the same age and are similarly skilled carpenters, the color of Josiah’s skin prevents white people from recognizing or acknowledging his potential and value. Seth recognizes the truth of this and is deeply troubled by it. He, in some ways, sees Josiah as a peer and wants him to be a friend but sometimes struggles to understand the role Josiah must play with him. Black people in Galveston in the aftermath of the storm are in more danger of violence than their white counterparts. Papa tells Josiah in particular to be watchful, saying there’s been “looting” and that “A few colored men were shot yesterday” for “looting” (139). It is worth noting that many white people in the city will scavenge the debris for supplies to rebuild their own homes, but this will not be seen as “looting.” This demonstrates that the racism in this society is so embedded that even when society itself, along with many of its institutions, collapses, racism still stays. The community is supposed to be united around this collective tragedy, but this does not extend to Black people. Even unity in the face of tragedy is a privilege of the white people.
Josiah, despite the oppression placed on him by society, is a loyal friend to Seth, or at least a loyal companion. He works to soothe Seth’s emotions, helps him to feel better about leaving Sarah Louise behind, and ultimately protects Seth from being drafted into the work gang by drawing attention to himself and allowing Seth to hide. He showed his loyalty by voluntarily going with Seth to the rental house and then back to Uncle Nate’s, providing Seth with backup and support for his harrowing journey. It is possible that Josiah is providing far more for Seth than Seth is for Josiah, but later in the novel Seth will help to rebuild Ezra’s house.
