As the morning sun struggles to break through the strange canopy of fog and smoke, Kat and I use makeshift outhouses the army erected overnight, and then we stand in a queue for more than an hour for breakfast. Relief supplies have arrived by ship on the ocean side of the peninsula, and more are expected as word of our unfolding disaster has been sent across working telegraph wires south of San Francisco. The promised army tents arrived during the night, too, and now the troops are attempting to create orderly rows of canvas shelters and assigning them to people via another long and winding queue.

After we eat, I check the bulletin board for any news from Belinda and see nothing, not even my own note. After a bit of searching I see that someone has taken my scrap of paper, turned it over, and written their own desperate message on the back: Missing! Four-year-old twins! Boy and girl. Worried parents are waiting for them at the canteen. Please help!

I leave it as is and tear another bit from Da’s word book. Again, I borrow a pencil and write a message I can only hope Belinda will see.

We stand in a queue for a tent, but because there are only two of us, Kat and I are quartered with a pair of elderly sisters who are none too happy to share a shelter with strangers. I can tell by their clothing that they have money, or at least they did have money. They are wearing silks and ermine and jewels and an air of importance. The older of the two tells the army sergeant in charge of the tent assignments that she and her sister insist on having their own tent, but the man doesn’t even look up at her when he tells her they won’t be getting one. The two of them turn up their noses at Kat and me as we step in and stow our few belongings inside. I don’t care. At least with a place to put the travel case—which I’m sure the two sisters will have no interest in—Kat and I can look for Belinda without my having to carry it.

But our search for Belinda is again fruitless, even after finding the nurse who delivered Belinda’s baby in one of the tents for the injured. She doesn’t know where Belinda ended up. Some of the patients were rerouted as we fled the pavilion. I tell the nurse I will keep checking in with her, and that if she learns where Belinda is to please get word to me.

After spending the better part of the afternoon looking for Belinda, we start to walk back to the tent to rest before standing in the queue for supper. The air is heavily tinged with smoke and ash, and I begin to hear in the distance explosion after explosion after explosion. Kat startles with each one and buries her face in my skirt. I hear someone say that the army is blowing up whole blocks of buildings that survived the earthquake with nary any damage at all so that when the fires reach them—and they will reach them—there will be nothing but low-lying rubble to consume.