Summary

In Part II, Chapter 9, Jonas continues traveling in the narrative present along his parents' former route. He notes how immune to change the terrain seems. Though it is spring and his parents were traveling in the fall, he feels the air is similar, the transitional seasons not unlike one another. As he approaches the fort, he recalls the one time Mariam told him about the trip. She lamented the fact they did not go to the ocean instead. Though Jonas barely remembers the conversation, he remembers the mention of the fort, because of his former obsession with forts in general. As a child he constructed them from sticks, believing he was making new homes for himself and his mother. Shortly after the dialogue, he and Mariam stopped talking for many years.

At the fort, Jonas feels the guard mistrusts him. He tries living...