A spirit watches from the trees as Orleanna, Rachel, Leah, and Adah walk through a market. The spirit is that of Ruth May but also that of Africa. On the day they are in the market, Mobutu, who has run away and is in hiding, dies. It is a turning point in the Congo's history. In the market, they stop in front of a woman who is selling wooden carvings of animals. The woman is from Bulungu, but she says she does not remember a nearby village called Kilanga. She is certain there was no such place.
Orleanna buys her great-grandchildren figures of elephants, and the woman gives her a figure of an okapi as a gift. Ruth May's spirit remembers Orleanna and the four girls walking through the forest, noting how on that day Ruth May killed a spider and their presence caused an okapi to settle further in the woods. Had they not passed that way, the spider would have lived and the okapi would have been killed by a hunter. The spirit comments, "Every life is different because you passed this way and touched history."
As Orleanna and her daughters walk on, Orleanna spots a boy who is the same size as Ruth May was when she died. Orleanna begins to mentally calculate how old Ruth May would be now, but she is distracted and calmed by the feel of the okapi figure in her pocket. The spirit says, "Mother, you can still hold on but forgive, forgive and give for long as long as we both shall live I forgive you, Mother . . . The teeth at your bones are your own, the hunger is yours, forgiveness is yours." With that absolution, the spirit tells Orleanna to "Move on. Walk forward into the light."
