The Paper Palace

It’s February 1989 in London, and Elle is walking home after a night of drinking. A man with a knife steps out in front of Elle and asks for her wallet. She hands over her wallet, and then he asks for her ring. Elle says that it’s worthless, and the man punches her in the stomach. He tries to get the ring off her finger, and Elle spits in his face. He slaps her hard, and she thinks that she deserves this.

In 1983, three days pass before Conrad’s body washes up on shore, Jonas and Elle hide under the covers in Elle’s cabin and make a blood oath that no one can ever know about what happened on the boat. Jonas gives her a silver ring with a green stone and tells her he loves her. She thinks to herself that she loves him, too. The following summer, Jonas doesn’t return to the Back Woods. Elle says, “I feel devastated, abandoned. As if he has chosen camp over me, not because of me” (213).

Back in London, Elle stumbles to the ground. She’s about to hand over Jonas’s ring when a man steps out of the shadows and hits the other man with a tire iron.