Summary

Later, Bud is preparing to sleep in his car on the drive to Memphis because there are not guesthouses that will accept Black lodgers in the area. He meets a family of other Black people who are doing the same thing. He speaks with a young girl who refuses to accept that Memphis exists until she herself is there. She says that if Bud gets to Memphis first Memphis will exist for him but it still will not exist for her until she’s there. Bud remembered some children he had encountered when he was a child who believed that if you got fern seeds on you, it would make you invisible. Bud demonstrated that was not true by covering himself in fern seeds. One of the children mused that maybe they only made you invisible if you believed they would.

In the narration...