Regrettably, things are not going perfectly for Binti, she is beginning to experience health problems. Flashbacks of the mass murder in the shuttle torment her and destroy Binti's psyche. She was suffering from post-traumatic stress: nightmares and day terrors unfortunately have become her routine. Sometimes, just looking at Okwu made her want to vomit. There were the random instances of intense focused fury that invaded Binti’s mind. Moreover, she feels unclean because she left home and feels a strong necessity to come back, apologize, and complete her pilgrimage to be free of the toxic anger.

At the same time, Okwu, Binti's best friend, begins to clash with a professor at Dema University. The problem was that they hated each other fiercely and one day it almost turned into a deadly fight. Historically, their peoples have been killing each other. This negative trend began to reach even Oomza Uni. Binti, being not near Okwu, somehow felt the danger and ran headlong to save the situation, because she is a master harmonizer. “I’ve tolerated your insulting remarks all quarter. Let me end you. Your people should not plague this university,” Okwu shouted at Dema. The situation was very heated, but Binti was able to settle everything.

 

The situation was such that Binti and Okwu were forced to leave the university and return home. The appearance of a Meduse on Earth would be a great precedent, but at the same time it would be a good sign of reconciliation between humans and Meduse. They go home on the same shuttle on which they arrived in Oomza, the Third Fish. For Binti this was again an exhaustive stress, as the memories did not give her peace of mind. Upon arrival on Earth, the whole family, journalists and even soldiers are happy to welcome them. The parents are shocked that now their daughter has tentacles growing on her head, but Binti tries to calm them down and explain that Meduse are not already their enemies.

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Okwu manages to find a common language with Binti's father. He was pleasantly surprised that Okwu speaks the Himba language fluently and realized how strong a friendship his daughter and this Meduse have developed. Okwu admitted that he is very comfortable being at Binti's house with her whole family.

 

Binti's family arranges a welcoming dinner, where not the most pleasant events unfold. At first, communication went smoothly, everyone rejoiced at the unity of the whole family, but at one point, Daddy Binti becomes very ill. He falls to the floor due to developing arthritis. As it turned out, the disease progressed due to strong emotions that were caused by the unexpected departure of Binti from his native home. Everyone at the table understood this and began to look askance at Binti and reproach her for her irresponsible behavior. Although everyone was happy to see her, but trust in her has dropped a lot. The guests were even more shocked when they saw the moving tentacles (okuoko) the bandages on his head. There were whispers that maybe she shouldn't have come back. She also finally had a conversation with Dele, her childhood best friend. He accused her of selfishness and bad upbringing. Moreover, it began to seem to him that she was such a complex person that the desire to communicate with her began to disappear. Dele turned away from her and their friendship came to an end.

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After a quarrel, Binti's mood deteriorates greatly and after a few hours of sleep, Bint and Akvu decide to take a walk to the lake. Aquu disappears briefly when submerged in the water, which excites the Bandage and even more. After some time, he appears on the surface of the water and reports that his ancestors are rejoicing and dancing. They return home and while in the bedroom, Bint sees something in the window that shocked her. It was the Night Masquerade that was “a tall mass of dried sticks, raffia, and leaves with a wooden face dominated by a large tooth-filled mouth and bulbous black eyes. Long streams of raffia hung from its round chin and the sides of the head, like a wizard’s beard.” It is noteworthy that up to this point, only boys from Himba and only those who were heroes of their families could observe such a phenomenon.
 

Binti's house got surrounded by a crowd of about ten Desert People who say they will take Binti and return before nightfall. Grandma goes along with her, and when night falls, it turns out that Binti will not actually return home as fast as they promised her. She gets nervous because her family and Okwu will worry about her disappearance again. Through her okuoko, Binti manages to establish contact with Okwu and inform him that she is far from home, but she does not need help and that everything is fine with her.

 

Binti can't sleep because of worries and goes to Mwinyi to chat a bit. He informs her that although the Himba call them the Desert People, they actually call themselves Enyi Zinariya. And Binti remembers that her father, unlike her mother, is a native of Enyi Zinariya, a very old African nation with a huge amount of knowledge and technology that is not available to other Africans. Now Binti is fully aware that the roots of three peoples are mixed in her: Himba, Enyi Zinariya, and Meduse. They kept walking and walking, the road was supposed to take two more days.

 

They end up at Mwinyi's house, where they are met by priestess Ariya. Binti is still worried about the questions why she always feels anxious, why she feels unclean, and Ariya has helped her to find the answers. Ariya and Mwinyi convince Binti that she just hasn't had time to get along with her new self yet, whose genes contain the DNA of Meduse, very aggressive creatures. She needs to come to terms with this and learn to control her new self, control the Meduse inside Binti. It was very difficult to get along with this, because too many shocking events had happened in her life over the past year, the logic of which still did not fit into her head.

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Ariya holds a special dedication to Binti in Zinariya and at the end of it Binti feels that something wrong has happened. She mentally contacts her dad and finds out that the Khoush attacked their family and set fire to their house. Binti tries to reach out to Okwu as she always did before, but she fails. Scared to death, Binti and Mwinyi urgently hurry home.

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