Malorie(28)

Tom has to stop to consider this one. It’s all so amazing. While he’s factored in ways of viewing the creatures, he’s never considered altering the actual effect they have on people. As if madness were a malleable thing, a thing to be tamed.

He remembers the time he opened his eyes outside, a time Malorie doesn’t know about, but Olympia does. A creature had passed through camp and Tom, angry, restless, inspired, got close to the ground where it had just stood. There, he cupped his hands over his eyes and looked to the grass. He needed to know if the imprint of a creature, the effect of the creature on its immediate environment, would have the same effect as seeing one outright. He rationalized the danger away by telling himself Malorie and Olympia needed to know. The whole world needed to know. Because if an imprint left behind could drive one mad, perhaps there weren’t as many creatures in the vicinity, or on the planet, to begin with. Maybe their absence, but recent presence, could be just as bad.

He feels some embarrassment for the experiment now. While the census pages describe incredible feats, he knows in his heart his own precarious moment wouldn’t have helped anyone, because nobody knew he was experimenting.

This is one of the many trials of living with Malorie Walsh. Not being permitted to speak of such things.

He reads on:

The people of Indian River do not drink. It’s a community ordinance. But they do smoke marijuana. I’ve yet to come upon a community who values the elasticity of the human imagination quite like this one. It’s a difficult town to describe, in ordinary terms, as they do things here that are not done anywhere else. Depending on one’s personal stance, Athena Hantz’s description of her own town is either spot on or chilling: “We’re allowed,” she told me. When I asked her what she meant by that, she only smiled.

“Hell yeah,” Tom says. “Hell. Yes.”

They do things here that are not done anywhere else.

It’s invigorating. Electrifying.

We’re allowed…

Indian River is north of Lansing. Tom checked Malorie’s map twice before they left Yadin. It’s on the way to Mackinaw City.

Could he…might he…will he get to experience this city, these people, in person?

He wants to cry out. He wants to throw the blanket aside and run, loud, through the fields that no doubt lie beyond the barn. He wants to feel the night upon him. The open air. The freedom of the people who live in Indian River.

And he wants to see it. The world. The stars, the sky, the moon, the darkness.

He wants to see the night. This night. Every night. The night he learned about Indian River and the people who live there. The night he discovered others do think like he does. What’s the word Olympia uses for this kind of thing?

Relate.

Yes. Tom relates. It’s enough to make him want to climb to the top of the barn and scream hallelujah. The world isn’t made up of people who only think like Malorie. The world isn’t made up of people who only live by the fold. Not everybody will remind you, over and over, to wear your blindfold and your hoodie and your gloves when you’re the one who ought to be reminding them since you were the one born into this world in the first place.

“YES!”

He’s said it too loud. He doesn’t care. Let Mom come blindly flailing, feeling for the outer walls of the barn. Let her come shuddering into the night, this night, his night. There are people out there who think the way he does! There are people who understand that sixteen years could easily become thirty-two, then sixty-four, and…and…and an entire lifetime gone, sucked up into the paranoid rules of the Goddamn creatures.

He wishes Athena Hantz was his mom.

He flips the pages, wants to keep reading, doesn’t need to sleep. He’s sixteen years old, he’s hungry for a new life, he’s wide awake under a night’s sky that’s no different than day’s to him. He thinks of the train, wants it to exist as badly as Malorie does. He imagines people like the people of Indian River riding that very machine. He imagines like-minded strangers discussing more than just black fabric.

He brings the pages closer to his nose.

He hears footsteps coming around the side of the barn.

He turns off the light.

Huddled beneath the blanket, his first instinct is to keep the papers close to his chest. He realizes, with sudden clarity, that it’s more important to him to hold on to these pages than it is to warn Malorie and Olympia that something is near.

He closes his eyes.

He listens.

Whatever it is, it’s close. It moves slow. He doesn’t think it’s an animal, but it’s hard to tell in all this open space. Inside a house there’s an echo, dimensions, a blueprint.

Outside it’s different.

Whatever it is, it steps closer. Tom doesn’t want to feel afraid, but that’s what he is. He wants the fear within him to pour out, to leave him, to flow back toward the road, back to Camp Yadin, back to the school for the blind, back to the house he was born in.

Another step in the grass. It’s a creature. He knows this now.

The sky is silent; his mom and sister breathe steady on the other side of the wood wall. He slowly removes the blanket from his head. The cool night air chills him, and he doesn’t want to tremble in the presence of a creature.

We’re allowed, he thinks.

Yet he shudders.

He stands. He rolls up the sleeves of his hoodie.