“Well,” Henry says, “I have a surprise for you. But you cannot tell a soul!” He raises a finger.

“Promise,” Tom says.

Henry hands Tom his glasses back, gets up from the lower bunk, and steps to the wall. Where there was once a window is now a slate of black metal. Henry places his hands flat to the metal, looks to Tom, then shifts the plate so that a triangle of sunlight enters the cabin.

“Here’s your chance,” Henry says. “The big world, waiting for you to take a look.”

Tom hears a hundred warnings in Malorie’s voice. As if she were sitting inside his head.

I’m the only person you can trust. The house you were born in went mad. The school we thought was safe went mad. And wherever we go, if there are other people there, that place will go mad, too. Do you understand?

Yes, Mommy. (Always yes, always.)

Because there are men and women out there who maybe once lived like we do but got sick of it and so they gave up. And there are men and women out there who never believed it in the first place. Do you understand?

Yes.

Good. Because those are the people who got lazy. Some after the creatures arrived. And some long before.

“Tom?” Henry says.

From where he sits Tom can’t see the window, can’t see outside. But he sees the light.

Malorie, in his head, louder:

There’s a way to go about what you’re trying to do. The man you were named after pushed back, too. But never without the fold. He never got lazy. Do you understand?

“Yes,” he says, actually, out loud.

Henry smiles. And opens a palm to the glass.

“Carpe diem, Tom.”

Tom feels like his whole life has led up to this moment. Here’s a man, an adult, not Malorie, whose philosophy rings true. Here’s a man who is able to articulate the things Tom has never been able to. Here’s a man giving him the chance to test not only his glasses, but his resolve, his spine, his perspective of what Malorie calls the new world but is the only one to Tom.

He puts the glasses on.

Malorie stands up in his head.

Maybe she shouldn’t have slapped him. But Tom’s glad she did. Glad because it was the slap he needed to leave the room, leave her side, to cut the apron strings, to set off alone. And maybe he was supposed to meet Henry. And maybe Henry was supposed to meet him. And maybe Tom was meant to walk up to this window, right now, and to look out, to see whatever it is Henry sees, to prove to himself that all these feelings, all these ideas, have come from a true place after all.