Years later, now, leading Malorie up the road to Indian River, as her body seems to physically swell with the uncertainty of a brother who has fled and a mother who now knows she is immune, Olympia finds the room within herself to feel that lack of closure, that lack of understanding, once more: why did Annette look when someone told her not to?

Was it because Annette had seen her in the glass in the bathroom and wanted to discredit what Olympia knew to be true? Was it because the voice that warned her was young and Annette, so old, had simply had enough of taking orders, of living the way people had to in the new world?

Or maybe, Olympia still thinks, maybe the woman was curious. And nothing more.

She tells Malorie this story now. But saying it out loud doesn’t add any clarity. And Malorie doesn’t give her any opinions.

Mom, Olympia knows, is only thinking of Tom.

“You saw the massacre at the school for the blind,” Malorie says.

“I did.”

Olympia guides Malorie around another turn. Still no sign of Tom ahead. It’s possible Gary knows a shortcut to the community. Malorie said so.

“I’m so sorry,” Malorie says. “I should’ve helped you with that. I could’ve.”

She hears the sorrow in her mom’s voice, and she doesn’t like it. The last thing she wants is to make Malorie feel worse. About anything.

Here, they rush to her son.

Here, they’ve gotten off the train that might take them to her parents.

Malorie, Olympia knows, has suffered enough.

“No,” Olympia says. “Honestly, Mom. You’ve been the best mom in the world to us.”

Malorie grips her hand, and Olympia squeezes back.

Around the next turn, she sees it. Just as she’s seen so many of them through the years. There were dozens on the rudderless hike from the school for the blind to Camp Yadin. That journey remains the most frightening of Olympia’s life. It marked the beginning of guiding her family in secret.

This way, guys.

Look out, guys.

Uphill now.

I’ll go ahead a little. Don’t worry, I like doing it.

You hear that, Tom? So do I.

But she hadn’t heard it. She’d seen it. All of it.

Her ears are no match for her brother’s. Another secret.

“Anything?” Malorie asks.

Olympia still considers that first walk, six years old, as the time she became a woman. She’s read enough books to know that the good ones tell of a character who experiences something that changes their life. For her, it was coming to grips with immunity alone.