to solidify his control over his group of followers. Emily often helps him, though friction is created between the two when Gerald seeks out other partners. Eventually, Gerald (who, according to the narrator, has too kind a heart) adopts feral children who had inhabited the sewers into his gang. However, the children are filthy and vicious, with their behaviour leading to the collapse of Gerald's formerly well-managed gang. The people of the community gather to discuss what should be done about the children when the police arrive and break up the meeting. Fearing that the eyes of the authorities (described as "them") have fallen upon the community, many of the narrator's neighbours flee in the following months. Months go by and society continues to collapse. The feral children are ostensibly under Gerald's control, but often run wild in what remains of the neighbourhood. Water is in short supply, caravans and traders are often attacked, and it is implied that even the government is starting to abandon parts of the city. Emily and the narrator spend most of their time in the flat and are able to interact with the children due to Emily's relationship with Gerald, but both fear an attack in the future, as the children are actively raiding and killing other humans at night. By this point, most of the residents of the neighbourhood have departed for the lands to the north and west of the city, lands from which there is forebodingly no news. Eventually, the children turn on Gerald and attack him, while he remains incredulous that such young children could betray him. Emily is able to save Gerald and hurry him into the flat. Faced with a bleak existence, the small group of Emily, Gerald, Hugo, and the Narrator fall asleep, expecting an attack from the children. The narrator awakes to find that the wall has opened before her and a new world lies on the other side. Emily leads the group through, whereupon they step into a new, better world as the walls dissolve away. Periodically, the narrator is able, through meditating on a certain wall (see above) in her flat, to traverse space and time. Many of these visions are about Emily's sad childhood under the care of her harsh mother and distant father. At the end of the novel, the main character's strange new family breaks through dimensional barriers via the wall