How It All Goes Down
- Mary has to hang with the Sisters until Jed gets back. Oh, yeah, and her mom decided to live as a zombie. Awesome. Mary knows Jed's not going to be a happy camper about that one.
- Mary gives us a little lesson on how this whole zombification process works: With bad bites, people die and Return quickly; but just a nibble means the process could take days, and then the infected get to hang out in a cage-thingee near the Forest of Hands and Teeth until they're dead and ready to join the walking dead.
- That's where Mary's super-sick mom is now.
- Mary sits nearby, along with a bodyguard who's there to make sure she doesn't do something stupid when her mom turns.
- She sees Harry watching her, and wonders if their date for everlasting courtship is still on.
- That night, Cass brings her some food and sits with her.
- Mary asks Cass if she believes in the ocean—a place without the Unconsecrated.
- Cass thinks it's a bowl of baloney—if that place existed, then they should be there, not in their teeny little village.
- Cass starts crying and Mary holds her and almost tells her another story, but decides against it.
- Mary refuses to leave her mom, even though she's uber-scared of what's going to happen to her.
- The next morning dawns bright and clear… not. At first, Mary thinks her mom is dead, but then she realizes that she's still there. Her mom grabs Mary's fingers through her fence-cage and starts talking about the ocean. Mary believes her mother's words, though she's worried the guards will think she's lost it if they hear her yammering on.
- Mary doesn't have to worry for long, though, because soon her mom rattles her cage and slumps to the floor, dead.
- Mary stops believing in God.
- The Guardian drags Mary's mom with a rope into the Forest, where she turns into a zombie.
- Mary almost has a crazy fit, but then her brother finally shows up to comfort her; she knows he'll give her grief later on for staying at the stream and letting their mom make the choice of zombie life.