Together we'll make magic...Who had conjured whom?She seemed to remember Oliver suggesting this once before, but she hadn't really appreciated the importance of his question. Was she the dream? Was Nao the one writing her into being? Agency is a tricky business, Muriel had said. Ruth had always felt substantial enough, but maybe she wasn't. Maybe she was as absent as her name indicated, a homeless and ghostly composite of words that the girl had assembled. She'd never had any cause to doubt her senses. Her empirical experience of herself, seemed trustworthy enough, but now in the dark, at four in the morning, she wasn't so sure.
In the excerpt, characters grapple with the complex interplay of identity and existence. Oliver’s inquiry about who is conjuring whom emphasizes a profound uncertainty about agency and selfhood. Ruth reflects on her existence, questioning whether she is merely a creation of Nao's imagination and whether she possesses any real substance or agency of her own. This introspection reveals her fear that her identity might be as ephemeral and insubstantial as the fragments of her name.
As Ruth contemplates her reality, she navigates a crisis of confidence about her sense of self. Despite her previous conviction in her own existence, the late-night reflections lead her to doubt her experiences and the authenticity of her being. The atmosphere of doubt and ambiguity suggests that personal identity may be intertwined with the perceptions of others, challenging her understanding of self-agency in the broader context of relationships and narratives.
