I duck into the shadows thrown by the walls of the Cathedral under the moon. With my hands against its formidable stone face, I creep through the bushes and around the snowdrifts until I am under my window. I reach up, slide it open and slip inside, wet and shaking, my fingers and feet numb.

After stoking the embers in my fireplace I undress and hang my clothes over the chair to dry. I sit on the hearthrug, my blanket pulled over my shoulders, my body still cold inside. As I hear the wind pick up outside I am grateful that my footprints will be erased, but know that this will also mar the Outsider's footprints to the gate.

Someone from Outside has come to our village and as I sit and stare at the flames I know deep in my being that this is what I have been waiting for, what I have wished for even though I never realized it before this moment.

The Outsider is my excuse to leave this village. Now that there's proof, now that our entire village will know that there is more, that we are no longer an island, now is our time to reconnect with the Outside world.

Nothing can contain us any longer. Not when word of the Outsider gets out. And I will be the first through the gate. I will be the one to lead us to the ocean. To the place untouched by the Unconsecrated.

Three days pass and I am desperate. There has been no word of the Outsider, no mention at all. Finally, in frustration I go to see Travis but Sister Tabitha is in the hall outside his door, and she tells me his fever has returned and he has been moved and they are not allowing visitors for fear that he will not be able to fight off any other infections. I will not be allowed in to see him until they are sure he is well.

“We cannot have you and him be the reason that we all fall ill this winter, Mary,” she says.

I look past her shoulder and into Travis's empty room. “Where is he?” I ask. I feel I have a right to know.

“He is safe,” she answers. “And he is none of your concern.” She looks down her nose at me, her eyes narrowing. “Mary.” Her voice is firm, authoritative. She pauses and brings a finger up to her lips as if trying to decide what she wants to say next. “Mary, you are inquisitive, and that can be a dangerous trait. What do you think has brought us to this moment? What do you think caused the Return and brought about the Unconsecrated?” My breath is shallow. Even before I was taken to the clearing in the Forest, I have been afraid of Sister Tabitha, the oldest Sister, the leader of the Sisterhood. “I—I—” I stammer. “I thought we didn't know what caused the Return.”

Again, I wonder at the knowledge that the Sisters possess that the rest of us do not. They have, after all, been the one constant since the Return, or so we are told. They have been the driving force behind the village—the ones who created the Guardians and the reason we still exist and are all still alive.