In her mind’s eye, Malorie sees Olympia’s mother in the attic. She witnesses the woman’s face as she sees the creature standing behind Malorie. Hears it as Olympia the woman tells the creature it’s not so bad. Sees the baby still connected to the mom between the mother’s legs, the mother who begins to lose her mind.

“Always,” Olympia says. “I’m so sorry.”

Malorie takes her daughter’s face in her hands.

Was she really all alone in the hole? Was she so close to going mad…

…the old way?

“Oh, my God, Olympia. Don’t say you’re sorry.”

What has Olympia seen over the years? What has she been shouldering?

“I think it has to do with my mom,” Olympia says. Crying still. “And what you told me about me being born when she saw one.”

Malorie agrees. But she’s too stunned to say so.

“You’ve seen everything. For years.”

“Yes.”

“And you followed me here.”

“Yes.” Trepidation in her voice. “Sort of. I found you.”

“How?”

“Dean said you weren’t on the train.”

“So you got off…”

“Yes.”

“Where’s Tom? Where is he?”

It’s too much to fathom at once. Olympia is immune.

Tom…

“He wasn’t on the train, either.”

“Oh, God.”

“Dean said he might be with a man…”

“What man, Olympia? What man?”

She hears Olympia swallow, as if bracing herself to speak a hard truth.

“Henry.”

“Who?”

“It’s a man who…”

But it doesn’t matter what Olympia says next. It doesn’t matter that her daughter’s words line up with what she knows to be true.

…he was just like the man you always talk about, the man named…

“I heard his voice just before being shoved from the train,” Malorie says. Her voice is steel. Her voice is unbreakable. “Gary.”

Her own private boogeyman, hiding, these sixteen years.

“Did you ever see him around camp?” Malorie asks. And her voice is flint.

She is already preparing herself to murder this man.

“No.”

Malorie breathes in, she holds it, she breathes out.

“Listen to me,” she says. “I heard him mention Indian River. Do you know what that place is?”

“Yes.”

“Because Tom told you?”

“Yes, mostly. I read some myself.”

“Okay.”

But it’s not okay. Because whether Gary has been watching them or not for all this time, whether he called a corner of Camp Yadin home or slept in the damp cellar of the lodge, he’s never lost track of Malorie.

She knows this now.

“You’re immune,” Malorie says. “Just like he is.”

“Mom, don’t say I’m like—”

Malorie cuts her off, her mind light-years from where she stands.

“No, this is good. This makes us even. Do you know where Indian River is?”

“No. But we can find it. Mom, I don’t like how you sound. We can’t—”

“We can, Olympia. We can do absolutely anything we want to.”