The Covenant of Water

Parambil estate thrives under the management of Joppan, while the hospital struggles to find its footing. Mariamma enlists the assistance of Uplift Master, and the hospital starts to get what it needs; there are an abundance of patients. In her spare time, Mariamma studies the Water Tree, trying to discover more about the Condition. To her surprise, she finds that many other families in the community of Saint Thomas Christians have also suffered from multiple drownings, and that many of these families are interrelated.

Mariamma meets her father’s former editor at the ceremony to open the new hospital. She tells him about the Condition and asks him to write about it; maybe others will come forward with new information. Mariamma also decides to read through his father’s diaries—no small task, considering that his handwriting is difficult to decipher. At the end of the day, she worries about Lenin and laments that he cannot communicate with her. On a subsequent evening, after reading her father’s entry about almost destroying the Stone Woman, Mariamma walks out to where the statue was once hidden and talks to her, as if she were her mother.