Chapter 6: The Institute's Open Doors

The four of them sat in the kitchen of the Voss farmhouse, and the kitchen felt smaller than it ever had with just Mara and Aunt Ruth in it.

That was Denny's first thought when he came through the screen door: that a room could shrink to fit the size of what was happening in it. He'd had that feeling once before, standing in the hospital corridor when they told his father the disability was permanent, and the corridor had seemed to press in from both sides until it was barely wide enough to breathe. He set his backpack down on the linoleum and pulled out a chair and did not say anything, because he had learned from twelve years of watching Earl Alcott that when a man talked into silence he was mostly talking to himself.

Gordon came in last, ducking through the door with the particular care of someone who has learned that the world does not always account for the dimensions of his bag. His map was in there, rolled and sealed in its plastic sheath. He had also brought the World Book volume for K and a legal pad that was already covered in his neat, slightly cramped handwriting. He set these on the table and pushed his glasses up his nose and looked around the room with the same expression he used when entering a new data set — looking for the organizing principle before investing in the details.