So why pretend? Even then, so young, she guessed it had something to do with wanting to be unbothered. Wanting people to leave her alone. Wanting people to consider her safe in a world where anybody who can see is liability. Malorie herself spoke of Annette without fear. This meant something. In what Malorie called “the new world,” going unnoticed was good. For this, after a time, Olympia came to believe that Annette was simply still trying to be good.

In a world without personal possessions, secrets were precious indeed.

She saw the woman’s face clearly in the glass, floating features in the otherwise dark space. Olympia’s heart hammered in her young chest as she watched the woman’s eyes for the first time, saw them connect with her reflection in the glass, saw the relief in Annette’s face for being allowed to look, here, where she was sure she was alone.

Then Annette looked at Olympia.

Olympia wanted to gasp, wanted to cry out, wanted to say oh, no, don’t worry, I’d never, I’d never ever, I’d never ever tell a soul that you aren’t blind!

But Annette only stared. Then she blew out the candle, and the face seemed to vanish, a wisp of smoke, features swallowed by darkness once again.

Olympia didn’t move. Nor did she hear the woman, who was much older than Malorie, move. The two remained still in the darkness for what felt to Olympia like a very long time.

When Annette did move again, Olympia steeled herself, ready for the stall door to be thrust open, or worse, to creak slowly, as the old woman’s wrinkled hands entered the dark rectangle, searching for the body belonging to the pair of eyes that had caught her.

The girl who knew her secret.

But Annette did not come. Rather, her bare feet slapped the tiled floor on the way out of the bathroom, and Olympia remained still long after that same door swung closed.

“Don’t look,” she said to Annette, later, months later, as she set out to get the basket for Rick. As Annette rounded the corner. “There’s one at the end of the hall.”

Annette’s red hair hung vibrant to a powder-blue robe.

“Look?” she asked. “But I’m blind.”

“Oh,” Olympia said, because she didn’t know what else to say and because, too, she’d just seen a creature for the first time in her life. Even the word creature was starting to feel like the wrong name for what lurked at the end of the hall.

Then Annette looked.