Suzanne Collins - Gregor and the Marks of Secret

"Where are the others? Where are the others?" Cartesian's voice screamed in Gregor's brain.

What if none of them had survived? What if they had all fallen unconscious to the tunnel floor? Maybe he was passing by them as he shuffled along, unaware of their bodies under ...

Gregor stopped and pressed his palms against his eyes. "Don't. Don't think like that. Just keep walking. You just keep walking."

It was impossible to gauge how much time was passing. The tunnel remained unchanged. His breath came in short ragged gasps. Every inch of him, inside and out, seemed coated in a layer of ash.

He remembered the water in his backpack and popped it open. The first mouthful he just swished around his mouth, rinsing the grit from his teeth, and spat on the floor. Then he took a long, deep drink, not bothering to ration it. Feeling slightly better, he trudged on.

At some point, he became aware of a faint breeze on his face. "Another current," he thought, and wondered if he should try to take cover behind a rock. But the breeze remained gentle and carried air that was definitely sweeter than what he'd been breathing. It eased the pain in his chest and the ache in his temples.

He thought the twinkle of light in the distance was only a reflection of his own light. But when he directed his beam to the ground, he could still see it there. He moved faster, causing more dust to rise. "Hey!" he tried to call. "Hey!" But he couldn't even hear his own voice.

Then he could make out a figure, as ghostly and gray as his surroundings. He caught glimpses of the light again, brighter now. Gregor broke into a run, more like a clumsy gallop really, because his knee had been damaged when he stepped off the rock.

"Hey!" he called again, and this time he heard himself and the figure turned.

Gregor stopped short. One look at Howard's face confirmed what Gregor had been dreading. Someone was dead.

"Who is it?" said Gregor, his heart slamming against his chest. "Not Boots?"

Howard stepped aside, squinting at the gray figures before him. Boots was all right. She was sitting on Temp's back, holding her scepter with its tiny light. At first glance, everyone looked all right. Ripred, Cartesian, Luxa, Hazard, the cluster of four bats. But he had miscounted. Only three bats huddled together. Lying on the floor, almost obscured by the dust, her head cradled in Hazard's lap, was Thalia.

"Oh ... not Thalia," he said. Silly, laughing little bat. But brave, too. Going under the river water to retrieve Hazard. Trying so hard to keep up with the full-grown bats. Still trying after the flood and the scorpions and the nightmarish currents.

Gregor thought of the last joke he'd told her. "What did one wall say to the other wall?" And how her frightened sobs had turned to giggles at the punch line. "Meet you at the corner." She was barely more than a baby really.

He walked over and knelt by Thalia's side. She looked so tiny, with her wings folded against her. Without that bright bubbly thing that was Thalia radiating from inside her. He gently laid a hand on her chest, brushing away some of the ash, revealing a small patch of peach-colored fur.

Hazard wept inconsolably, his tears raining down on Thalia's face. "It was the mark. The mark of secret. It took my mother and now it took her."

Under the gray powder, Luxa's face was still and distant. "It was my fault," she said. "I should never have allowed any of them to come on the picnic."

"The picnic was not the danger, Cousin," said Howard. "I was the one who insisted on trying the Swag, and it was there our troubles began."

"No, I did not fly fast enough," said Ares. "I had her, but I did not fly fast enough."

"Stop it, all of you," said Ripred. "She died from poisonous fumes, not by any of your hands. She was flying, so she breathed deeper. She is small, so she succumbed more quickly. None of you are to blame."

The whole episode was beginning to worry Boots. She slid off Temp's back and came over to Thalia. "Wake up! Wake up, Thalia!"

"Don't, Boots," said Gregor, catching her hand.

"She needs to wake up," said Boots. "Hazard is crying. When does she wake up?" Gregor could not find it within him to give his standard reply. To pretend that in a short time Thalia would be back with them, laughing and happy. And somehow it seemed wrong to try. Boots was getting older. Very soon, she would begin to realize the truth on her own, anyway. "She's not going wake up," he told her. "She's dead."

"She doesn't wake up?" said Boots.

"No, not this time," said Gregor. "This time, she had to go away."

Boots looked around at all their faces, at Hazard crying. "Where did she go?" No one had an answer. "Where is Thalia when she doesn't wake up?"

The question hung in the air for an eternity. Finally, it was Howard who spoke up. "Why, she's in your heart, Boots."

"My heart?" said Boots, putting both hands on her chest.

"Yes. That's where she lives now," said Howard.

"She can fly away?" asked Boots, pressing her palms tightly against her heart as if to keep Thalia from escaping.

"Oh, no, she will stay there forever," said Howard. Boots looked up at Gregor for confirmation. He gave her a nod. She went back over and climbed onto Temp's shell thoughtfully.

"If you mean to do something with her, do it now. We cannot stay here long or this dust will finish us all," said Ripred.

"I will take her," said Ares.

"Hazard, you must say good-bye now," said Luxa.

"No!" cried Hazard. "No! You can't take her! I won't let you!"

And then an awful scene followed where they literally had to drag Hazard from Thalia so that Ares could take her body away. To where, Gregor did not know. There was no comforting the little boy. Howard finally got a dose of sedative down his throat between wails, and his sobs quieted.

Ripred sent Aurora and Nike ahead to scout for a less toxic area. While they were gone, Howard cradled Hazard in his arms and rocked him back and forth. "You know, I lost my bond, too," said Howard. Thalia and Hazard had not been officially bonds, but it seemed a minor detail now. "Pandora was her name."

"What happened to her?" asked Hazard.

"We were on the Waterway. She flew out over an island and was attacked by mites. They killed her," said Howard.

"Couldn't you help her?" asked Hazard.

"No. I wanted to. Even when she was lost I still wanted to try. But there was nothing I could do," said Howard. "Nothing but cry, just like you are crying now."

"What was she like?" asked Hazard.

"Funny. And curious. She always had to be the first one to see something new. And she loved to eat shellfish," said Howard with a smile. "Great big piles of them."

Gregor thought of the slimy shellfish Howard had kept insisting were a delicacy, and wondered if his passion for them had anything to do with how much he associated them with Pandora.

"You're not crying about her now," said Hazard.

"No," said Howard. "I have become used to carrying her in my heart."

"My heart is so crowded already," whispered Hazard. "But I'm sure the others will make room for Thalia. She is not a very big bat." And with that, he drifted off to sleep.

Gregor thought about all the others Hazard had lost... his mother, his father, Frill... and now Thalia had gone to join them....

They were all silent for a while. No one wanted to be responsible for waking Hazard up and bringing him back to this aching reality.

Finally Ripred spoke to Gregor. "Well, at least you showed up. Thought we'd lost you for good."

"I'm all right," said Gregor. "What happened?"

"Not exactly sure. You blacked out and fell. Fortunately you had the sense to push your sister onto the bat's head," said Ripred. "Ares tried to go back for you, but we had no idea where you were and the ash was so deep."