The Knife of Never Letting Go: Chapter 9 Summary & Analysis

Todd, Manchee, and the girl walk through the swamp until night falls. Todd gets out a flashlight to look at his map. There is another settlement on the map, right at the bottom near where it ends. Todd points to that place on the map and asks the girl if that’s where she’s from. She still doesn’t speak.

All of a sudden, the girl points at something through the trees and starts walking in that direction. Todd warns her that they have to follow the map, but she doesn’t stop, so he follows her with Manchee. They all come to a tree that looks like it’s been recently burned.

The girl again goes off into the darkness, and Todd follows her with his flashlight, nervous about crocs in the swamp. When he catches up to her, he sees something big and metal that reminds him of a fissionbike. When he tells the girl to stop moving so fast, she does, causing Todd to realize she actually can understand him.

Todd realizes that the big metal thing in the swamp is actually a spaceship. He asks the girl if it’s her ship that she crashed there. Manchee starts barking, so Todd points his flashlight in Manchee’s direction. He sees two corpses of people who look like they died in the crash and were dragged out of it. Todd notices that one of them is a woman, the first he’s ever seen, so he guesses that they must be the girl’s mother and father. The girl still has a blank look as she opens a door on the side of the metal wreckage and goes inside.