Malorie(44)

“Yeah,” Dean says. “Yep. But hey, it’s the day I decided to start looking again. And that means something.” Then, “Thank you, Malorie. For trusting me with your real name. And for listening to the worst thing that could’ve happened to a man. Shit. And look at me now. I’m the guy who got a train running again. In the new world. No small feat. But I’ll tell you what…every run we make, day or night, it still feels like I’m searching for that sliver of open space, that tiny hole, that speck in the universe I didn’t cover up. The point in space and time that my kids found. The one that drove them mad.”





SIXTEEN


“Mom’s gonna kill you if she catches you,” Olympia says.

“How’s she gonna catch me? She’ll be blindfolded.”

Olympia knows this is true. And Tom’s not the only one with his eyes open.

She watches her brother pore over the pages he’s taken from Malorie’s bag, the census papers that excite him more than any other written word she’s ever seen him hold.

“Indian River,” he says. “Did you read about that place? Did you read about Athena Hantz? These people are unreal.”

Olympia doesn’t answer. She’s looking in the mirror. The man Dean was right; this is a nice space. The bench, the bed, a high ceiling even. But the sensation of moving without using her own two feet is so foreign that she places her fingers on the counter, for balance.

It almost feels like she’s holding on to the only life she’s known. Because Olympia has no doubt things have changed. Whether Tom knows it or not, they’re never going back to Camp Yadin.

“Listen to this,” her brother says, crouched over the papers right beside Malorie’s open bag so he can shove them back in the second they hear her coming. “Athena Hantz claims to have lived with one for two years. You hear that, Olympia? Two years! She told the census man that the thing never bothered her. It just ‘stood in the corner of the kitchen for a while, then did the same in the living room.’ Unreal!”

Olympia doesn’t like when Tom talks like this. It’s not just that Malorie would freak out if she heard it. It has something more to do with herself. The way she sees the world. On her own. She likes that he’s excited by something, anything. She’s read about enough characters who need moments like these in their lives. Yet, hearing Tom, it feels like she’s not only on a train, but that there’s a second one, barreling toward her, an incident on its way.

“Why not go through the papers with Mom?” she asks.

“Are you kidding? She’d be afraid the letters are shaped like a creature. She wouldn’t get this at all.”

“But she brought the pages. Did you think of that? Her parents’ names are in there.”

“I hear you, but no. Ha. Not a chance. She doesn’t get it like I do. That’s just so not…Mom.”

Olympia doesn’t argue this. But she wants to. There’s a part of her that just wants the two of them to sit still until the end of this experience, all the way to Mackinaw City. There, Tom can say all the crazy stuff he wants to, and Malorie can either get upset with it or not. But if anything jeopardizes Malorie’s chances of seeing her parents, finding out if they really are alive, Olympia might go mad herself.

She gets it. She isn’t sure Tom does. The magnitude of this moment. The fact that Malorie has raised them for sixteen years, believing herself to be alone in the world, no family or friends to help. It’s harrowing. At turns, it sounds almost worse to discover they are alive, as if Malorie was not only robbed of the life she thought she was living but had been fooled into sorrow as well.

“What’s wrong?” Tom asks.

Olympia looks to him in the glass. Did her face reveal heavy thoughts? Jesus, sometimes it feels like Tom can hear her thoughts.

“Nothing.”

“Okay,” he says. But it’s the mocking way he has of saying certain things. She sees him reach to his bag, his eyes still on the pages. He fumbles inside until he removes what she knew he would.

His glasses.

His special glasses.

Tom explained them to her in great detail a month after he made them. And while Olympia was frightened by the philosophy he espoused, she was much more scared of him using them.

He wears them now, as he reads.

“Get this,” he says. “A family in Pennsylvania built helmets the size of ‘wardrobe boxes’ so there was room for food and water inside the helmet. I mean, this stuff is unbelievable!”

Olympia eyes herself. She wants to feel the excitement Tom feels. She wants to give in to the rush of being on this train, of moving, of heading north without being forced to lead her mom through woods, along empty roads, in a boat. She wants so badly to be sixteen like sixteen used to be. It sounds like it was once an incredible thing, a magical thing, being a kid. Hanging out with other teens your age. Learning how to drive a car. Sneaking out of the house. Going, walking, looking anywhere you wanted to.

Did people realize how good they had it back then? It wasn’t just a matter of being able to see or not. She’s read of plenty of blind characters who lived brilliant lives. But it’s the fear—of what’s out there. And the constant ringing of a mother’s voice, reminding her and Tom, demanding, commanding, Do you understand? Do you understand? DO YOU UNDERSTAND?