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Which hen the dreaht her down onto the bed Up close, Jane saw that a piece of Teacher’s neck was , like a bite snatched fro there, a collection of dangling strips and tubes, wet and glistening and gross Only then did Jane understand that all the other Littles had indeed been eaten, just as Teacher had said; they’d all been eaten by Mister Bear, bite by bite by bite, though he wasn’t Mister Bear any , I don’t want this! But she had no strength to resist, and she watched in helpless terror as first her foot and then her ankle and then the whole of her leg were sed into the dark cave of his e of concerns, influences, tastes There were as many dreams as there were dreamers Gloria Patal drea her body Part of her understood these bees to be symbolic; each bee that crawled upon her flesh was a worry she had carried in her life Small worries, like whether or not it would rain on a day when she had planned to work outside, or whether or not Miry with her on a day when she had failed to visit; but larger worries, too Worries about Sanjay, and about Mausah that so worse Included in this catalog of apprehensions were the worried love she had felt for each of the babies she had failed to carry to terht at Evening Bell, and the ht just as well be dead already, for all the chance they had Because you couldn’t not think about it; you did your best to carry on (that’s what Gloria had told her daughter when she’d announced her intentions toall the while over Theo Jaxon; you had to carry on), but the facts were the facts: soreatest worry of all was that one day you would realize that all the worries of your life a

That’s what the bees were, they orries large and s all over her, her ars and face and eyes, even inside her ears The setting of the dreauous with Gloria’s lasttried without success to rouse her husband, and having fended off the inquires of Jimmy and Ian and Ben and the others who had come to seek his counsel-the matter of the boy Caleb had yet to be deterainst her better instincts, dozed off at the table of her kitchen, her head rocked back, herfrom deep within her sinuses This was all true in the drea was the sound of the bees-with the singular addition of the swarm, which had, for reasons that were not entirely clear, entered the kitchen to settle in a singleblanket It see bees did; why had she failed to protect herself against this eventuality? Gloria could feel the prickling scrape of their tiny feet on her skin, the buzzing flutter of their wings To move, she knew, even to breathe, would arouse the In this condition of excruciating stasis she re-and when she heard the sound of Sanjay’s footsteps descending the stairs, and felt his presence in the room, followed by his wordless departure and the slap of the screen door as he stepped from the house, Gloria’s mind lit up with a silent screa any otten not only about the bees, but about Sanjay

On the other side of the Colony, lying on his cot in a cloud of his own s fantasist of splendidly ornate and erotic flights, was having a good dream This dream-the hay dream-was Elton’s favorite, because it was true, taken froh Michael did not believe him-and, really, Elton had to ado, when Elton, a man of twenty, had enjoyed the favors of an unknooman who had chosen hiuaranteed his silence If he didn’t knoho this woman was-and she never spoke to hi, which implied that she was married Perhaps she wanted a child with aelse in her life (In self-pitying moments, Elton wondered if she’d done it on a dare) It didn’t really ht Sometimes he would simply awaken into the experience, its distinctive sensations, as if the reality had been called forth out of a dreahts to come; on other occasions the woman would come to him, take him silently by the hand, and lead him elsewhere This was the circumstance of the hay drea of horses and the sweet dry srass, lately cut from the field The woman did not speak; the only sounds she made were the sounds of love; and it endedexhalation and aover his cheeks as the wo wordlessly away He always dreamed these events just as they’d occurred, in all their tactile contours, up to theonly to have seen the woman, or even just to have heard her speak his na

But not tonight Tonight, just as it was ending, she bent to his face and whispered into his ear:

"Sohthouse, Elton"

In the Infirirl appeared to be Sitting on one of the ehtly, alirl’s eyes flickering behind her lids, as if darting over an unseen landscape Sara had prettythat she would tell the Household in the irl needed sleep As if to support this clai on the cot in that self-protective way she had, while Sara watched her, wondering what the thing in her neck had been, what Michael would find, and why, looking at the girl, Sara believed she was drea about snow

There were others, quite a feere not sleeping either The night was alive akeful souls Galen Strauss, for one: standing at his post on the north wall-Firing Platforhts, Galen was telling himself, for the hundredth time that day, that he wasn’t a coht hi the words under his breath-meant of course he was Even he knew that He was a fool He was a fool because he’d believed he could make Mausami love him, as he loved her; he was a fool because he’d married her when everyone knew she was in love with Theo Jaxon; he was a fool because when she’d told hi her stupid lie about how many months it was, he’d sed his pride and plastered an idiotic s only: A baby Wo about that

He’d known damn hose baby it was One of the wrenches, Finn Darrell, had told Galen about that night down at the station Finn had gotten up to take a leak and, hearing a noise froone to check it out The door was closed, Finn explained, but you didn’t have to open it to knoas happening on the other side Finn was the kind of guy who took a little too ht you needed to hear; frouessed he’d stood outside the door a lot longer than he needed to Jeez, Finn said, she alwaysTheo Jaxon

And yet, for a hopeful moment, Galen had entertained the notion that s better between theht it But of course the baby only ht more If Theo had returned from that ride down the ht then; Galen could pretty ine the scene We’re sorry, Galen We should have told you It just kind ofhappened Hu, but at least it would have been over by now The way things stood, he and Maus would have to live with this lie between the each other, if they didn’t despise each other already

He was thinking these things while also dreading theto come, when he was supposed to ride down to the station The order had co it wasn’t his idea, that it came from somewhere else-Jimmy, probably, or maybe Sanjay He could take a runner with him, but that was all; they couldn’t spare the hands Box it up and wait for the next relief crew, Ian had said, three days tops Okay, Galen? You can handle this? And of course he’d said he could, no problem He’d even felt a little flattered But as the hours passed, he’d found hi his quick compliance He’d been off the mountain only a few tis and sli in their cars-but that wasn’t the worst of it, not really The problem was that Galen was afraid He was afraid all the time now, more and more as the days went by and the world around hi People didn’t really kno bad his eyesight was, not even Maus They knew, but they didn’t really know, not the full extent, and every day it sees stood, his field of vision had shrunk to less than two assy blankness, all lurching shapes and forht He’d tried a variety of eyeglasses frootten for his troubles were headaches that felt like so since stopped trying He was pretty good with voices and could generally aiht direction, but he s, and he knew this made hi blind

Now here he was, a Second Captain of the Watch, riding down theto secure the station A trip that, considering what had happened to Zander and Arlo, prettyhe’d have a chance to talk to Jiuy had not shown up

And, come to think of it, where was Jimmy? Soo was out there soone, and Alicia off the Watch for good, Dana had couard the Wall like everybody else Galen got along with Dana, and the fact that she was Household now, he reasoned, ive her some sith Jio-down-to-the-station thing Soo was on Nine, Dana on Eight If he was quick about it, Galen could be back to his post in a matter of just a few minutes And in point of fact, wasn’t that sound he was hearing-a sound of voices nearby, though noises traveled well at night-wasn’t that Soo Ramirez? And wasn’t the other voice Jiht it be just a et Jiet Soo or Dana to say, Well, sure, I can go down to the station, I don’t see why Galen should be the one?

Just a couple of an to make his way down the catwalk

At the same time, hidden away in the old FEMA trailer, Peter and Alicia were playing hands of go-to With just the light of the spots to see by, the ga since stopped caring on, if they’d ever cared in the first place Peter was trying to decide what he should tell Alicia about what had happened in the Infirmary, the voice he’d heard in histhis, how he ht explain himself He’d heard words in his head His , he told hiht with an impatient lift of her cards, he only shook his head It’s nothing, he told her Play your hand

Also awake at that hour, half-plus-one on the log of the Watch, was Sa so much as the comfort of his bed and his wife’s affectionate ar down in the Sanctuary-she had volunteered to take over for April until someone else could be found-he had suffered a disruption to these custo He was also troubled by a feeling that, as the day had nized as embarrassment That funny business at the lockup: he couldn’t quite explain it In the heat of thehad to be done But in the intervening hours, and after a trip to the Sanctuary to visit with his children-who seemed none the worse for wear-Sas about the whole Caleb situation had moderated substantially Caleb was, after all, just a kid, and Sa the boy out would solve very little He felt a little guilty aboutBelle the way he had-with Rey down at the station, the woh there was certainly no love lost between him and Alicia, as too full of herself by half, Sam had to ad hi she’d been there Who knohat ht have happened if she hadn’t When Sa up on the day’s conversations, most of which had presupposed that if the Household didn’t do anything they would take it upon theested that s looked toht’s rest, Milo had responded with a look of unconcealed relief Okay, sure, said Milo Darrell Maybe you’re right Let’s see hoe feel in thea little bad now about the whole thing, bad and a little confounded, because it wasn’t like hiry It wasn’t like him at all For a second there, outside the lockup, he really had believed it: somebody had to pay It didn’t seem to ht soate And the , really, was that in all that tiirl, the Walker, as the reason the whole thing had happened in the first place Watching the lights of the spots playing on the eaves above his face, Saht, after all these years, a Walker And not just a Walker-a young girl Sam wasn’t one of those people who believed the Ar-you’d have to be pretty stupid to think so after all these years-but a girl like that, itIt meant somebody was still alive out there Maybe a whole lot of somebodies And when Saelyuncomfortable with the idea He couldn’t say quite why that was, except that the notion of this girl, this Girl from Nowhere, felt like a piece that didn’t fit And what if all these somebodies just showed up out of the blue? What if she was the beginning of a whole neave of Walkers, seeking safety under the lights? There was only so o around Sure, back in the early days it had probably seemed too cruel to turn the Walkers away But wasn’t the situation a little different now? Soachieved a kind of balance? Because the fact was, Sam Chou liked his life He wasn’t one of the worriers, the fretters, the keepers of bad thoughts He knew people like that-Milo, for one-and he didn’t see the sense in it Awful things could happen, sure, but that was always true, and in the meantime, he had his bed and his house and his wife and his children, they had food to eat and clothes to wear and the lights to keep theht about it, theneeded to be done about It was the girl So , that’s what he’d say to Milo So needs to be done about this Girl from Nowhere