Marina was hunting along the river, going after a tiger moth, a good deal away from the others. Tonight was dedicated solely to hunting—the next night, the Brightwing colony would migrate back north to the nursery roost, the Great Oak.

Almost...got it, she thought. Few more inches...

Marina cried out in alarm as she was suddenly hanging in midair, wings tangled up in...nothing? She couldn't see it, even with her echo vision. She flailed her wings, but the giant, invisible web held firm.

"Help!" she shouted, but she knew no one would hear her. She was too far away. "Help!"

Then the web began shaking. On one side of the river, two Humans, faces blazing with astoundingly bright light, were pulling on something, and the web was being drawn in toward them. Once Marina was drawn in, a Human extracted her from the net and pinned her wings to her sides with just his huge fingers.

What's going to happen to me? Marina thought. Are they going to eat me? Oh no. They're going to eat me, and this trap's like a spiderweb, they catch bats like spiders catch bugs and eat them! She struggled as hard as she could, twisting, trying to bite through the tough hide covering their hands.

The Human holding Marina kept stroking her fur with a huge thumb—what was he trying to do? Wait...was he trying to calm her down? No! she yelled mentally. He's playing with you! He's trying to get you calm so he can eat you!

But they weren't eating her, she was fine. They weren't doing anything to her. Slowly she felt herself relaxing the slightest bit—until they brought out a strange container. What's in that thing? she wondered in fear.

"What're you—what're you doing?" Marina demanded. "Let me go!" she screamed, terrified. The Humans can't understand me, she thought. They were talking to each other in these awful, loud, deep voices like slow, rolling thunder. She couldn't grasp their words either.

She couldn't get out of this. There wasn't any hope. She was tiny compared to them, she felt the strength in their fingers along, able to crush her with ease if they wanted. She couldn't talk to them. She went slack, defeated, and the one holding her took hold of her right wing and stretched it out.

The other Human opened the container and took out a small piece of silver metal and clasped the band onto her forearm. Marina stared at it. What was it? she thought. It had strange Human markings on it that she couldn't even begin to decipher. What did they mean?

The Human holding her stroked the fur on her head and released her from his grasp. She flapped clear. Wait till the others hear about this! This hadn't ever happened to another bat before, huh? This had to be something special... She knew it was very, very important, she just knew it. Marina glanced over her shoulder at the silver band, almost glowing in her echo vision.

Amazing!

"Mom!" Marina shouted excitedly. "Dad!" She flipped upside down and roosted beside them, sticking out her forearm to reveal the shining band. "Look! I was hunting, and then I got stuck in this weird web thing, and some Humans came and—" She cut herself off as her mother, Selena, stared at the band and began to sob. Marina turned to her father, Cleon.

"Dad?" she asked, confused. "What's...what's wrong?" Her father had this hard, blank look on his face and didn't say anything for a long while.

"We're going to the elders' roost," Cleon said finally. Selena nodded mutely and the family of three flapped to the top of their Hibernaculum, a huge hollow tree.

Marina knew the three elders' names: Pavlos, the male elder, and Letitia and Cordelia, the female elders. She had never spoken to them, but she was always kind of scared of Letitia—she had this sharp, mistrustful look that made Marina feel uneasy.

"Cleon?" Pavlos asked.

He began to ask a question, but Cleon whispered, "Look at Marina's wing." The words were barely audible, but the elders heard. Their eyes were drawn to the metal band.
What were they so worried about? What was wrong with her band?

"Wh-what's going on?" Marina stammered. "What's wrong?"

Cordelia sighed. "The band is...cursed. All bats who are banded are killed by it. Marked by Humans—it is certain death. A banded bat brings bad luck to the colony."

"Three years ago, some bats of our colony were banded," said Pavlos. "Terrible things happened to them. They would burn alive, or...or have their wings rot. A few simply died, like Penelope."

"That band makes you unclean," Letitia said emotionlessly. "You cannot stay in this colony."

Selena burst into fresh tears at the news. Cleon wrapped her in his wings, but it did nothing to calm her. Sobs wracked her body and Marina could barely process what she had heard.

The band was cursed? But she had felt so happy, so excited about it! And even worse, she had to leave the colony? No, that couldn't be true! How could the elders...how could her own colony cast her out?

"You must leave our colony immediately," Pavlos decreed. "Before the bad luck infects the others. You may never return to us. Marina Brightwing, you are from here on banished from this colony."

Suddenly a strange rage she had never felt before entered her very being. She screamed, a long, terrible, wordless scream, filled with unending fury at what was happening to her. She whirled in fury and left the elders' roost like a storm.

How could they do this to her? Even her own parents didn't even try to do anything, they just hung there and cried! Why would they do this to her?