In another flashback, Edward leaves the Jimsons in search of a city called Auburn, where he hopes to enroll in college. He checks into a boarding house run by an old woman, where he sleeps for three straight days and nights. When he wakes, he offers to help the woman in any way he can. She tells him that a group of kids recently stole her one glass eye that she keeps in a cup of water on her nightstand at night. Edward vows to retrieve it for her.

He starts hanging out with groups of college students, some of whom relish the educational environment, and others of whom, like the kids who stole the eye, came to Auburn "merely to fool around" (58). He hears these kids talking about the eye, saying that it has powers, and can see on its own. Each night, the leader of the group of boys that had stolen it pass the eye to one of the boys for safekeeping. The eye is kept in a wooden box, and the boy who keeps it overnight is supposed to stay up all night keeping watch over it. Edward decides to try infiltrating the group to get the eye back.