How It All Goes Down
- Mary's a busy bee with Cathedral chores for the next few weeks, so no Travis time.
- Cass and Henry visit the Travster, but Mary keeps her distance. She's still bummed about the whole Travis-chose-Cass-instead thing.
- Finally, she can't stand it any longer, so she busts out of her room—quietly, with a quilt around her shoulders.
- She hears some Sisters whispering in the Sanctuary, but when she tries to snoop further, Sister Tabitha makes her entrance and Mary ducks out.
- Mary sneaks into Travis's room, where she discovers that not only is he awake, he's no longer plagued by fever.
- She runs to his side and buries her face against him. He asks her to pray, but she's not a praying kind of gal; he asks her to tell him about the ocean instead.
- Travis holds her hand as our girl's heart goes pitter-pat and she whispers in his ear.
- Mary sneaky-sneaks to Trav's room every night and tells him about the ocean, so now she's pretty much happy all the time.
- Kneeling by his bed and holding his hand, Mary realizes something is wrong—people are coming down the hall.
- Travis drags her over his body, pushing her against the wall and under his blanket.
- A Sister pokes her head in the room to see if Travis is awake, and Mary recognizes Sister Creepy's voice. Holy nerve-racking moment. Travis plays Sleeping Beauty until Sister Tabitha closes the door and locks it.
- Travis and Mary try to figure out what the ruckus is about, but they only hear some arguing on the other side of the wall. Something about not telling people "until the time is right" (7.25).
- Mary doesn't care what's going on anymore, though, because she realizes she's smooshed up next to the Travster.
- He realizes it too—awkward physical moment—and Mary tells him she should leave before they come back.
- Sliding over Travis's body, she notices every little movement.
- Then she's kneeling over him with a leg on either side of him, and Travis grabs her hips, pulling her against him. Holy macaroni.
- There's a noise next door, and this love moment ends as Mary finishes sliding to the floor.
- She tests the door. Locked. She opens the window, but before she leaps, Travis grabs her hand and asks her when she'll come back. She doesn't know.
- He kisses her hand, her wrist, her arm. Whoa there—Mary is officially burning up.
- She backs up and takes her leap into the snow bank, then runs around the cemetery and fence line (to hide her tracks—good luck with that), before noticing a truckload of footprints in the snow.
- They lead to the gate of one of the paths through the woods. And on the other side of the gate is only one set of footprints.
- Mary realizes this means that someone from Outside made a visit to the village.
- Which means there are other people out there. Mary is freaking out inside, in a good way.
- She's about to have a skipfest through the front doors of the Cathedral when she realizes that the Sisters don't want anyone to know about the Outsider—you know, through all the whispering and stuff when they brought him to the room next to Travis. Rats.
- So she goes to her room instead.
- Mary gets more and more excited as she thinks about the Outsider. She's certain that once everyone finds out, they'll be able to leave the village, and Mary promises herself that she'll be the first person to head through the gate.