Eli and Joshua are being taken into foster care with William and Amanda Porter of Chicago after the death of their father, who was killed by Eli. The two boys do not mix well with a home in modern Chicago; their formal, Amish-like clothes from Gatlin and Eli's fire-and-brimstone prayer at dinner, as well as his bringing a suitcase full of corn to Chicago, strike their new parents and neighbors as unusual. On his first night in Chicago, after everyone else has gone to sleep, Eli quietly leaves the Porter's house for an empty factory on the other side of a nearby cornfield. Taking with him the suitcase of corn, Eli prays to "He Who Walks Behind the Rows" and plants corn seeds on the grounds of the factory, causing rows of corn to appear almost instantly.