Malorie(32)

Yet, every day, it feels worse.

She knows Tom was outside the barn, reading, when the creatures came last night. She doesn’t think they were drawn to him just because they saw him; she believes they can sense the fact that her brother wants to figure out how to beat them.

Maybe they can tell Tom wants to make contact, of any sort?

She knows Tom brought the glasses from under his bed. She doesn’t know if they’ll work, but she definitely doesn’t think he should try.

Secrets. Tom doesn’t know she knows. And Malorie doesn’t know he has them.

But Olympia knows. Lots of things.

Sometimes this infuses her with a sense of great importance. Other times it makes her feel like she’s a liar. Like she hasn’t been truthful with Malorie and Tom over time.

She hasn’t.

It’s impossible to lie to herself, though she’s read of characters who benefit from doing it. Like how they understand the people they care about are complex, and so they ignore some of the bad stuff about each other. And why not? Does it matter that Tom resents Malorie? Does it matter that Malorie is growing distant from Tom? The old world is wholly different than the new, yes, but Olympia’s discovered that people mostly remain the same. The characters in her books aren’t so different from those in her life.

Today, they walked until the sun came up, and now it’s begun its long descent.

But they’re close.

They walk slow because they’re tired and they’re hot and at turns it all feels like a fool’s errand. There are no road signs telling them the train is close. No billboards like in the books.

But they walk. And they hope. And Olympia does all she can to make her mom feel at peace with her decision to do this.

She wants so badly for Malorie’s parents to be alive. They are, she supposes, her grandparents, whether by blood or not, and she’s read enough about grandparents to know the impact they can have on a teenager’s life.

Oh, how she wants them to be alive. In St. Ignace. Or closer. Waiting on the platform for their family. Like grandparents used to do.

“Only two miles to go,” Tom says.

They’re walking as fast as they safely can.

Olympia hears the pep in her brother’s voice. He’s been mostly quiet today. She wonders if he assumes they take his silence to mean he’s listening. But Olympia knows better. Tom goes quiet when he’s planning. Back in Camp Yadin that usually meant he was coming up with the materials he’d need for a new helmet, protective body armor, heavier gloves. But out here, she wonders.

Does it have to do with what he was reading outside the barn last night?

Malorie doesn’t speak much either, but it’s not hard to guess at what she’s thinking. Malorie believed her parents dead for seventeen years. This means, of course, that she’s already grieved. It’s hard for Olympia to imagine a world where blindfolds weren’t central to a person’s wardrobe, but if she opens her mind, if she really puts herself in Malorie’s place, she can do it. She thinks: what if the world was turned so upside down that she, Olympia, didn’t think Malorie could’ve survived? After seventeen years, weren’t Malorie’s parents dead anyway?

Dead to Malorie?

“How are we going to find it once we get there?” Olympia asks. Something to say. Then she wishes she didn’t. She knows this answer. Malorie will say they’ll listen, of course. And if they encounter any people, they’ll have to ask what they know.

“We’ll listen,” Malorie says. And, on cue, “We’ll talk to people.”

Olympia senses Tom’s reaction, knows it’s coming before it does.

“Maybe,” he says. As in, maybe you’ll let us talk to people.

Malorie stops walking. Olympia wants to shuffle her along, tell her not to worry about Tom. Now’s not the time. We’re so close.

“I’ll say who we talk to,” Malorie says. “And you’ll listen when I do.”

Tom stops, too.

“Sure, Mom. Okay.” Anger in his voice.

“Yes, completely fucking okay.”

“You act like I don’t listen,” Tom says. “You act like we don’t do every single crazy thing you tell us to!”

“Listening isn’t good enough,” Malorie says. “Believing that what I’m saying is right, that’s what matters.”

Olympia steps from them to the side of the road. Maybe they just need to have it out finally.

“We have minds of our own!” Tom yells.

“Jesus Christ, Tom,” Malorie says. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Yes I do!”

“No. You don’t. You’ve lived a completely sheltered life.”

“Well, whose fault is that?”

“Not mine!” Malorie screams. They’re screaming now.

Olympia steps farther, onto neglected grass tall enough to touch her gloved hand.

Her heel connects with something soft.

“It’s one hundred percent your fault,” Tom says. “We live by your rules.”

“That’s right. You live. You’re alive. Thanks to my rules.”

“Mom! You won’t let us talk to anybody but you!”

“What’s somebody else gonna do for you, Tom? Teach you how to tie a better blindfold?”