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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?

As they cross the threshold of Cabin Three, as they take that first step toward a train none of them can know for sure will be there, it strikes Tom that he’s hearing something in Malorie’s voice that he hasn’t heard in a long time.

Risk.

It scares him. Because risk implies doubt. And if there’s one thing Malorie never expresses, it’s doubt in her decisions regarding the outside world.

Stepping out, Tom feels young, much younger than Malorie. As if all her stories about the old world suddenly carry more weight. Now, here, they make up the history of someone who’s lived a life more like the worldly characters in Olympia’s books. Now, here, Malorie seems like she knows more than he does. This after years of Tom believing the opposite.

“Come on,” Malorie says.

And Tom knows she says it to herself.

He listens. He moves. And no matter how hard he tries to shove this feeling away, this sense of being green, he can’t shake the doubt that rattles in Malorie’s voice.

“Come on.”

Risk.

They’re taking one.

A big one.

Big enough to change how he sees the world.

Already. One step from home.

SEVEN

Malorie feels the darkness. It doesn’t press in on her but rather slides across her arms and legs, her neck, her nose, her eyes. Yes, even her eyes feel exposed to the new world, her eyes that are not only closed but protected by the blindfold. It feels like the darkness, her personal darkness, the one she travels through, has gotten into her sleeves and boots, gloves and pants.

Sam and Mary Walsh. St. Ignace.

Unbelievable.

“Do not remove your hoods.”

She can’t count how many times she’s said this to the teens already. She does not hold their hands like she did the last time they took to these woods, heading the opposite way a decade ago. Tom and Olympia are sixteen years old now. At times one or the other walks ahead, at times they both take the lead, leaving Malorie in the back like the frightened friend traveling through those darkened halls of the county fair’s house of horrors. She and Shannon did that. Every year, if Malorie remembers right. She can still hear Shannon laughing, now, even as she listens for Tom’s footsteps, for Olympia’s directions, for the sounds of what exists beyond the small space the three of them make. She remembers reaching out to Shannon on those rides, at those booths, in that haunted house, looking for her sister at age sixteen, feeling a bond she knows Tom and Olympia feel now.

“Guys?”

“Yes,” Olympia says. “Right here, Mom. We’re still on the path.”