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Back Malorie Save as PDF
Chapters (40)
  1. The Jane Tucker School for the Blind
  2. Ten Years On
  3. ONE
  4. TWO
  5. THREE
  6. FOUR
  7. FIVE
  8. SIX
  9. SEVEN
  10. EIGHT
  11. NINE
  12. TEN
  13. ELEVEN
  14. TWELVE
  15. The Blind Train
  16. THIRTEEN
  17. FOURTEEN
  18. FIFTEEN
  19. SIXTEEN
  20. SEVENTEEN
  21. EIGHTEEN
  22. NINETEEN
  23. TWENTY
  24. TWENTY-ONE
  25. TWENTY-TWO
  26. TWENTY-THREE
  27. TWENTY-FOUR
  28. Safer Rooms
  29. TWENTY-FIVE
  30. TWENTY-SIX
  31. TWENTY-SEVEN
  32. TWENTY-EIGHT
  33. TWENTY-NINE
  34. THIRTY
  35. THIRTY-ONE
  36. Dedication
  37. AFTERWORD/ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  38. BY JOSH MALERMAN
  39. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  40. What’s next onyour reading list?

Henry understands. Oh, boy, does he. It was Henry who said go, go to where the people think like you do. Be bold as you were born to be! And how those words connected with Tom. They electrified him in a way Malorie never could. Nobody has ever spoken to him like Henry does. Not Mom, not Olympia, not anybody at the school for the blind. The more Tom thinks about it, the more he believes the train was an intervention of Fate. Olympia’s told him about Fate before. Without that knock on the door by the census man, and without Tom asking him to leave the papers, he never would’ve heard about Indian River, Malorie never would’ve seen her parents’ names on the page, and he never would’ve met Henry. It scares him how close he was to spending the rest of his life at Camp Yadin, never knowing there was a whole world that felt like he does.

And they really, really do.

The man, Allan, has already retrieved the two-way mirror. He and some others are testing it out inside a large ten-person tent right now. Tom is in the next tent over, where the two volunteers, Jacob and Calvin, have been discussing the philosophy of Tom’s invention for a while. They’re next on the list, Henry reminds Tom, and the people of Indian River can’t wait to try new ideas.

Tom knows why. It’s because they want to be a part of something bigger than the life Tom was leading. It’s because they understand that, yes, someone might get hurt, but someone might also not. The people of Indian River want to be the ones to break down the door, the ones who discover a safe way to look, who return sight and seeing to a world that’s already mourned the loss of both.

Doesn’t Malorie get it? Could she really stand where Tom stands now, mere feet from the people who discuss what might be their last moments alive? Could she be this close to a breakthrough and not feel the excitement Tom feels? He knows the answer to this, and it makes him feel sick. If Malorie were here, it wouldn’t be happening. She’d get hysterical. She’d demand everyone close their eyes. She’d take him by the arm and drag him out of this tent, one gloved hand over his face.

Maybe she’d even hit him again.

“Your mother,” Henry says, once again seeming to sense where Tom’s head is at, once again proving he already knows Tom better than his own mom does, “wouldn’t get any of this at all, would she?”

“Not at all,” Tom says.

But he doesn’t want Henry bringing Malorie up right now. He doesn’t want to think of her at all.