Migrations

Content Warning: This section depicts suicidal ideation and a suicide attempt

Franny finds herself inexorably drawn to Niall after his declaration. One day she follows him to his stately family home and watches him enter a massive cage to feed the exotic birds within. Spellbound, she steps into the cage herself. He kisses her and suggests that they marry. Franny thinks that “this must finally be it: the end of loneliness” (85). Franny and Niall marry that same day, in the spot where she heard the story about a woman who turned into a blackbird.

Aboard the Saghani, Franny bonds with most of the crew but worries that Ennis dislikes her. The dots of the three tracked terns diverge, and the crew decides to follow the westward-flying tern. After several days, the Saghani catches up to a flock of terns in the waters of the North Atlantic. Franny is delighted and catalogs the details of their flight in letters to Niall, hoping that he will “be filled with the courage of the birds just as the wind fills their feathers” (58). Save for Ennis, the entire crew is moved by the sight of the flock. Franny privately grieves the day when the last of the animals die out.