the boundary
First appears in Chapter I
The book uses the word two ways and means it both times. There's the eastern boundary, where San Juan's packed earth gives out into farmland and then forest — a line you can stand on and agree to meet somebody at. And there's the one Sals's father meant when he said a presence had come from beyond it. Sophus is the one who refuses to keep those separate. Boundaries aren't only geography, he says. They're perceptual. Push conditions far enough and you start noticing layers of the world that are normally filtered out. Sals tries to get a label out of him for that — supernatural, or not — and is told that labels are usually less useful than paying attention. Which leaves one word doing honest work in two directions: a place you can walk to, and a limit inside a person that shifts depending on what they're willing to see. The book rarely announces which one it's using.
No card. No account. Nothing to type.
Also in The World