Summary of Chapter 37
Ky imagines the story he wishes he could write for Cassia, where they forget the Rising and live out their lives in the abandoned township, but acknowledges that they’d miss the ones they love, including Xander for Cassia.
Back in the cave, Cassia continues to search the books and papers. Indie goes down to search the houses and, after a moment, Ky goes after her. He is shocked to discover her in one of them holding a miniport with Xander’s face on it. He realizes that she stole Cassia’s microcard and has been hiding it. Indie admits that she took the miniport from the leader of the boys in the village before escaping to the Carving. She then reveals that she found a large, fabric map up in the cave that depicts a coded way to get to the Rising, a code that Ky knows he can sort. One phrase stands out to him on it: “Turn Again Home,” from the Tennyson poem (278). Indie thinks that Ky is supposed to be the Pilot, and though he laughs this off, she insists. He tells her that the Rising is a structured system, not like she’s imagining, but she doesn’t care. She observes how alike the two of them are and proposes that they leave without Cassia and Bram, to which Ky doesn’t respond.
Indie asks how Ky became an Aberration. He explains that the Society once suspected his father of being a rebel, which he was, and sent their family to the Outer Provinces. She brings Ky to admit that he still loves his father. Their hands creep closer and touch as they talk. Ky wants to know Indie’s story. She explains that she tried to escape the work camp but was captured, and then overheard Cassia at the village asking about Ky and the Pilot and decided to accompany her into the Carving. She confirms that the red tablet doesn’t work on her, and suggests that Xander is immune too, likely because she, he, and Ky were somehow chosen for the Rising. Ky condemns the Rising for not saving them, but Indie argues that those fit for the rebellion must find their way there. Ky says he’s not going to leave Cassia. Indie thinks he’ll join the Rising because Cassia wants him to. Ky worries that Cassia would choose Xander if she knew Xander’s secret: that he is part of the Rising.
Ky flashes back to the week before the Matching Banquet, when he was approached by some rebels and asked to join the cause, which he refused. Later, Xander told him that he joined them and was shocked that Ky didn’t. Neither knew if the rebels asked Cassia to join, nor did they inquire to avoid endangering her. Xander was surprised they didn’t give Ky a red tablet, though he didn’t even know where they were kept, only that they weren’t kept with the blue and green ones. Ky said he didn’t join the Rising because he doesn’t believe in it. Later, watching Cassia read the Tennyson poem on the Hill, Ky thought she was part of the Rising, but fell more in love when he learned that in fact Cassia preferred the other poem that had nothing to do with it.
In real time, Indie insists that she wants to join the Rising. Ky says her happiness there will be too temporary. He pleads with her to forget about it, touching her hands, and referencing something novel to the reader: that it was never Indie’s mother who carved a boat and attempted to flee the Society, but Indie herself. Ky apologizes as he strikes a match and lights the map on fire. Indie tries and fails to stop him, and then flees out the door.
Summary of Chapter 38
Cassia finds herself focused on the poem she discovered earlier in the cave, wishing she had a voice like its author. She flips through a ledger and discovers that the farmers used to trade individual pages or sections of books for things like tablets and information, similar to her interaction with the Archivist. She wonders if Xander hid a secret in the papers he concealed with the blue tablets, but finds nothing when she looks. She is then surprised when Hunter appears behind her.
Referring to when the farmers fled the area, Hunter tells her that he wanted to go with them but couldn’t because Sarah was too sick to be moved. Instead, he stayed and helped the fighters rig explosives, though they didn’t work, and he wonders why the ships didn’t come down to the settlement and find him. He admits that he forgot himself back in the Cavern, but wanted to follow through on his promise to help Cassia find the rebellion. He tells her about the map, which Cassia realizes Indie has taken. They run outside and see the flames of the map burning.
Summary of Chapter 39
Cassia rescues the map from Ky and stomps out the flames, saving most of it. She confronts him, wanting to know what else he’s hiding, including Xander’s secret. Ky says it is Xander’s to tell her. Hunter leaves to find Indie. Cassia asks if Ky wants to be a part of the Rising, to which he finally tells her no. She is shocked. Ky insists that she loves the concept of the rebellion, but doesn’t know what it’s really like. Cassia doesn’t understand how he can hate both the Society and its opponent. Ky says he trusts neither, having seen what both can do. Cassia presses him about why he’d lie. He admits that fear is the cause, the same fear that caused Cassia to sort him into a new vocation assignment back at the nutrition disposal center. He asks if she came to the Carving to find him or the Rising, and then says he regrets that he can’t join it for her.
Summary of Chapter 40
Hunter and Indie return and Hunter gives Cassia the map, reminding them all of how little time they have. He plans to go find the farms, Indie to find the Rising, but Cassia suggests they stay together as far as the plains. Hunter has a plan to cause a fake landslide using leftover explosives and seal the cave from the Society. Ky agrees to help him in exchange for something from the cave.
Cassia and Indie head back to retrieve Eli and pack for the journey. Cassia puts some pages from the books into her bags in addition to survival supplies. Indie reveals that she’s been using her wasp nest to hide Cassia’s microcard, admitting that she stole it back at the work camp, and also reveals the miniport. She admits to having found the piece of paper from Xander that Cassia dropped a while back that had Xander’s secret on it, which she read and Ky later disposed of. All of this flabbergasts Cassia. Frustrated, she wishes to have back everything that’s been stolen from her, including artifacts like Ky’s compass and Bram’s old watch, but also the beautiful pieces of her relationship with Ky. She takes a moment to look at Xander’s information on the card, and realizes that Indie has looked at it every night that they’ve been out there. Cassia accuses Indie of being in love with Xander, which Indie doesn’t deny. Cassia suddenly realizes that she wants both Xander and Ky. Indie says Cassia needs to choose between them, suggesting she knows them better than her, having figured out Xander’s secret and that Ky might be the Pilot. As Indie leaves, Cassia realizes that all of this is less important than getting all of them to safety. For a moment, she considers taking the red tablet still sitting in her bag, but remembers her grandfather’s encouragement to be stronger so as not to need them, and instead thinks to herself that she plans to fight for the things she cannot go without.
Analysis of Chapters 37-40
This section of chapters provides a crucial look into Ky and Indie’s characters, both separately and as a pair. The revelation that Indie is harboring both a miniport and Cassia’s microcard reveals much of the mystery about her and her need to keep her bag safe, demonstrating a vulnerability in loving Xander that she hadn’t yet shown in Crossed. The fact that it was Indie who attempted to flee the Society in a boat, not her mother, shows both her tenacity and also her shame in being unable to admit that it was she who failed to escape and subsequently caused her Reclassification. Finally, Indie provides testimony that she and Cassia see their relationship very differently: while Cassia considers them friends to a certain extent, Indie is ready at Ky’s word to leave Cassia and Eli behind, a demonstration of Indie’s true allegiance to—if anybody—only Ky.
And this allegiance is not without merit. Ky draws a legitimate parallel between the two in saying, “I feel a pity so deep for [Indie] that it might be something else entirely. Empathy. You have to believe in something to survive. She’s picked the Rising. I chose Cassia” (280). Both harbor a quiet, hardened hate for the Society that abused and estranged them. And both, as Ky points out, find solace in things that give them purpose and make their struggle worth the fight. That Indie chose the Rising and Ky chose Cassia highlights the continuous theme of having to make difficult choices throughout Crossed and the Matched series at large. Additionally, it demonstrates that Ky considers joining the Rising and staying with Cassia mutually exclusive choices, an ultimately divisive conflict for the two.
To elaborate on an above point, the theme of choice becomes not only salient but also pivotal in these few chapters: Indie urges Cassia to choose between Xander and Ky, suggesting that Cassia doesn’t know either well enough to do so. Ky feels caught between choosing Cassia and the Rising, a conflict that parallels Cassia’s: for the first time, she’s not the only character in Matched faced with two very different and opposing options. Ky’s indecision then corners Cassia into a potential second choice, between Ky and the Rising; if the former refutes the latter, she likely can’t have both. In contrast to all of this, Indie establishes that her mind is made up; she intends to join the Rising. Her certainty therefore helps her act as a foil character for the other two.
In Chapter 40, upon reflecting on all that Indie and others have taken from her, Cassia admits to wanting everything back, a sentiment similar in many ways to Ky’s earlier admittance that he sometimes wants the red tablets to work and for himself to forget. Their simultaneous vulnerability demonstrates the difficulty of their trials. However, the things Cassia wants back are different from Ky’s wish; she wants his compass, Bram’s watch, and especially her compact, things that have been taken as a result of undesired events, whereas Ky wishes away terrible events themselves, to be free from tragedy that Cassia still hasn’t experienced. This illustrates the continued gap in experience between the two, albeit a gap that’s been slowly drawing narrower.
Cassia’s realization that Indie loves Xander is a sudden point of internal conflict, bringing her desire for him back into focus alongside that which she still holds for Ky. This rekindling of her desires illustrates Xander’s strong influence in Crossed’s story despite his relatively sparse presence, an influence further nurtured by the papers he stored in Cassia’s blue tablets and the jealousy that Ky continues to demonstrate whenever he’s mentioned. It shows that Cassia may not have her heart as strictly set on Ky as Condie would initially have had you believe, and that she may yet have to make up her mind as to where her heart’s allegiance lies.
