It is almost too much to bear.

I wander to the bed and kneel by it the way I used to do when Travis was here. I press my face into his pillow, trying to smell him, trying to remember. It is a test to see if I can really give him up.

I know that I never will. Even to save him. I am too selfish.

Before I know it I am pummeling the pillow, ripping at the sheets, a low growl in my throat. I am about to wreak more destruction when I hear a soft knock.

I freeze.

I hear the knock again. It doesn't come from the door but from the wall. I crawl over the bed and place my ear against it. With one finger I tap back. “Hello?” I ask, my voice low.

Part of me wonders if this is a trap set by Sister Tabitha to tempt me, to test whether I have taken her words to heart.

“Who's there?” I hear from the other side.

“Mary,” I respond. “Who are you?”

“My name is Gabrielle,” she says. “I came through the gate. Where am I?”

“You're in the Cathedral,” I tell her. My heart beats wild. I want to let her know she is safe but I can't be sure anymore. I have so many questions to ask her and I know that Sister Tabitha will be back at any moment and that if she catches me she will hand me over to the Forest.

But there is one thing I must know first. “Are you well? Were you …” I struggle with the words: “Bitten? Infected?” I have to know if she made it through to the village without harm. If the path is safe.

My uneven breath is so loud in my ears that I barely hear her response. “No,” she says. “No, I'm fine. I'm not Infected.”

I let my forehead fall against the wall when she says it, relief washing through me for a reason I can't identify or explain.

I open my mouth. I am about to ask her where she's from, if there is a world outside the Forest and what it's like, if there are other villages out there and are they safe. Has she ever seen the ocean and does she know why we're all here, why this happened and why we're trapped in this place.

But instead I feel tears on my cheeks and I hear a scraping in the hallway. I leap off the bed and gather the sheets I had torn from the mattress earlier in my arms and I run to the door so that when it opens Sister Tabitha won't know I was at the wall, speaking to the girl on the other side.

I duck out of the room quickly and go to the laundry, letting the steam from the boiling vats of water roll over me, making my skin glisten so that no one will know that it is tears on my cheeks rather than sweat.