St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves

Barnaby, a maintenance worker at the City of Shells tourist attraction, is cleaning one of the enormous conch shells after hours while a storm builds in the distance. He hears screaming coming from inside Cornuta, one of the shells, and is frightened. He usually tries to leave promptly at seven because another worker, Raffy, told him that “this place turns into a motherfuckin’ ghost town after hours! The shells start singing” (157).

Cornuta is the smallest of the great conches, at 45 feet long, and is currently lying on her side for repairs. Barnaby goes to investigate and finds the screaming is real, because a young girl is stuck inside.

The girl is Lillith, usually called Big Red. She came to the City of Shells on a class trip. Her best friend, Laramie Uribe, who is two years older has also come. Her father owns the City of Shells, which is a collection of giant conch shells arranged to stand upright on the beach. Laramie, in seventh grade, tells Big Red, who is in fifth, stories of her sexual exploits—including the times she has had sex inside the great conches with Raffy.

The City of Shells turns out to be disappointing, and the beach, polluted. Big Red is disappointed to learn that they cannot go inside the shells; ever since her mother got remarried to Mr. Pappadakis, she has developed a penchant for folding herself into tight spaces, like under the sink. While in these spaces, she sometimes hears “beneath the hum of her own blood, beneath the hum of the world itself, […] the faint strains of another song. It’s a red spark of sound, just enough to cast acoustic shadows of the older song that she has forgotten” (164).

She sees a pod of manatees in the water and finds them beautiful. However, she laughs along with her classmates who think they look like turds. These same classmates are the ones who gave her the nickname Big Red, which she does not like.

However, while the rest of the class is preparing to leave and visiting the gift shop, Big Red sneaks away to Cornuta and crawls inside. Inside, she finds trash and graffiti—including a message about Laramie and Raffy. However, she enjoys the sensation of being inside and even briefly daydreams about the shell filling with water, drowning her.

She drifts off and wakes up to find that the tide is coming in. However, when she tries to get out of the shell, she finds herself trapped. When the thunder starts, she gets scared and cuts her hands trying frantically to escape. At last, she starts calling for help, catching Barnaby’s attention.

Barnaby’s main concern is that the last ferry is going to be leaving soon, but he gives in and tries to help Big Red. He reaches inside to try to pull her free after it becomes clear that she can’t get out herself. However, he slips and ends up falling into the shell with her, breaking his leg in the fall.

The two sit inside the shell. Barnaby knows that no one will be coming for at least 12 hours and Big Red doesn’t think her mother or Mr. Pappadakis will come looking for her.

She tells Barnaby her real name is Lillith, which he thinks suits her. She tells him that he looks like Harry Houdini, who is one of her girlish crushes. She imagines that Houdini was “just searching for a box that could hold him” (170).

Barnaby watches the sliver of sky he can see outside the shell and keeps hoping to hear the sound of the ferry in the distance. He also realizes that Raffy had been lying about the shells being haunted, as he hasn’t heard anything from the City of Shells.

He offers Big Red some peppermints and a swig from his flask. Although she doesn’t like the taste, she takes a big drink. Barnaby can also see how many spots he’s missed while trying to clean the shells and thinks of how he had once dreamed of being a forest ranger.

He starts explaining the history of the shells to Big Red, but then stops abruptly and asks if she’s heard any strange, ghostly noises. Big Red informs him that the strange sounds were probably just Laramie having sex with Raffy in the shells, which shocks Barnaby. He asks her if she was also planning to meet a boyfriend or playing a game when she became trapped, which causes Big Red to cry.

Comforting her, Barnaby “feels a rush of love for his pudgy shell mate” and briefly plans to adopt her and take care of her, convincing himself he’s a good person (174). Big Red isn’t sure how to explain why she crawled into the shell. She begins to feel that something is about to happen and “hears the humming with her bones” (175). The only other time she felt this was when Mr. Pappadakis pulled her onto his lap, and she didn’t know what to do. It is “that unshucked, unsafe feeling. It was with her all the time now” (176).

She leans forward and tries to kiss Barnaby, but he pushes her away quickly. He asks why she did that, but the storm finally breaks, interrupting them. The conch starts to rumble, and “below it, Big Red can hear the other song. Ghostly tones, a minor key that goes silking through the membrane of her skin” (177).

The shell starts to fill with water and Barnaby tells Big Red they have to get out. However, she ignores him and sinks further back into the shell, wedging herself inside, “searching for the origins of the music” (178).