The Forest of Hands and Teeth Chapter 30 Summary

How It All Goes Down

  • Mary needs some alone time so she heads out on the rope bridges and stews about how mad she is that the Travster was never coming for her.
  • She takes out the book she hid in her shirt and checks out the photo of New York City.
  • She wonders about all the buildings and the people and the lost stories, and then she takes a look at the itty-bitty book itself. It says Shakespeare's Sonnets on the cover, which means diddley-squat to her.
  • As she flips through the pages, she sees that each block of text has a letter or letters above it. The same kinds of letters that were on the paths… Mary realizes now that the letters represent numbers (hey there, Roman numerals).
  • She skims the writing underneath Gabrielle's number and the number on the trunk, desperate to figure out the pattern of the numbers on the paths.
  • Jacob's voice makes her jump and hide the book away.
  • He asks her if she's going to become a zombie-lady, and she says no.
  • He says that Cass thinks she must have been bitten, but that Travis says no. He asks her if she really fought them off, and if she did, maybe she could teach him how to do it, too.
  • She pulls him into her lap and tells him that they'll do everything they can to keep him safe and sound.
  • She says Argos was the real hero, anyway.
  • Jacob says he likes the mutt, so Mary gives him to him. Jacob is a happy little camper.
  • Cass comes to tell Jake that Jed needs his help with supper, and he runs off, happily calling for Argos.
  • Cass stays with Mary. She tells her that it's kind of a bummer that both the boys love Mary so much and says, "even growing up, it was always about Mary" (30.28).
  • Mary says no way that's true, but Cass tells her she's wrong. Even as kids, both boys always wanted to hear about Mary this, or Mary that.
  • Mary says she's sorry.
  • Cass just tells her she wants to be besties again without being angry at Mary. She says that she got mad when Mary put other things in front of her because she'd already lost both Travis and Harry to her.
  • She tells Mary that she's trying to forgive her and that she's done with the whole Travis-Harry thing, anyway. She only cares about Jacob, who is like her son now, and everything else is stupid to her.
  • She tells Mary that since their hope is starting to fade, she might as well make things right between them.
  • Mary says there's still hope, but Cass thinks the plan is a pipe dream.
  • Mary realizes that Cass is now all responsible and reasonable, and she's not a fan of the change.
  • She tells Cass that she still won't give up on the ocean.
  • Cass tells her that she figured as much, but if it comes between the ocean and Jacob, she'll choose Jacob all the way.
  • Mary tells her that she makes a great mom, and secretly she hopes they'll find a place where Cass can get married and have lots more babies.
  • They play a game of finding shapes in clouds.