Matty hopes that Leader will assign him the true name “Messenger,” just like Leader assigned the blind man’s true name, “Seer.” While Forest has been known to strangle and kill many who enter, Forest has never hurt or threatened Matty but instead appears to aid him in his tasks. This means that Matty frequently travels in Forest. Matty often serves as a messenger for Leader, a young man with exceptional ability and piercing blue eyes. Matty came from a town on the other side of the dense and dangerous Forest, relocating to Village when he was six years old.

In Village, those with differences are welcomed and valued, which sets the town apart from other societies in this fictional world. Many of the villagers have some sort of physical difference that made life in their homelands difficult or impossible. Matty and Seer live in Village, where people have come to escape from cruel and unjust governments in their homelands. Seer is the father of Kira, the protagonist of the previous book, Gathering Blue.

The book begins with Matty cooking over a fire in a simple house with his adopted father, a blind man called Seer. It recounts events change his village and how he works to reverse those changes. The book tells the story of Matty, a teenage boy who lives in a utopian village where are all welcomed. While the setting of Messenger is not stated in this book, earlier books in the series show civilizations that exist sometime in the future after present-day civilizations were destroyed.

The messenger lowry