The beginning would feel like the end. I’d been warned.
But this time the end was a greater surprise than it had ever been. Greater than any end I’d remembered in nine lives. Greater than jumping down an elevator shaft. I had expected no more memories, no more thoughts. What end was this?
The sun is setting-the colors are all rosy, and they make me think of my friend… what would her name be here? Something about… ruffles? Ruffles and more ruffles. She was a beautiful Flower. The flowers here are so lifeless and boring. They smell wonderful, though. Smells are the best part of this place.
Footsteps behind me. Has Cloud Spinner followed me again? I don’t need a jacket. It’s warm here-finally!-and I want to feel the air on my skin. I won’t look at her. Maybe she’ll think I can’t hear and she’ll go home. She is so careful with me, but I’m almost grown now. She can’t mother me forever.
“Excuse me?” someone says, and I don’t know the voice.
I turn to look at her, and I don’t know the face, either. She’s pretty.
The face in the memory jerked me back to myself. That was my face! But I didn’t remember this…
“Hi,” I say.
“Hello. My name is Melanie.” She smiles at me. “I’m new in town and… I think I’m lost.”
“Oh! Where are you trying to go? I’ll take you. Our car is just back -”
“No, it’s not far. I was going for a walk, but now I can’t find my way back to Becker Street.”
She’s a new neighbor-how nice. I love new friends.
“You’re very close,” I tell her. “It’s just around the second corner up that way, but you can cut right through this little alley here. It takes you straight there.”
“Could you show me? I’m sorry, what’s your name?”
“Of course! Come with me. I’m Petals Open to the Moon, but my family mostly calls me Pet. Where are you from, Melanie?”
She laughs. “Do you mean San Diego or the Singing World, Pet?”
“Either one.” I laugh, too. I like her smile. “There are two Bats on this street. They live in that yellow house with the pine trees.”
“I’ll have to say hello,” she murmurs, but her voice has changed, tensed. She’s looking into the dusky alley as though she’s expecting to see something.
And there is something there. Two people, a man and a boy. The boy drags his hand through his long black hair like he’s nervous. Maybe he is worried because he’s lost, too. His pretty eyes are wide and excited. The man is very still.
Jamie. Jared. My heart thumped, but the feeling was peculiar, wrong. Too small and… fluttery.
“These are my friends, Pet,” Melanie tells me.
“Oh! Oh, hello.” I stretch my hand out to the man-he’s the closest.
He reaches for my hand, and his grip is so strong.
He yanks me forward, right up to his body. I don’t understand. This feels wrong. I don’t like it.
My heart beats faster, and I’m afraid. I’ve never been scared like this before. I don’t understand.
His hand swings toward my face, and I gasp. I suck in the mist that comes from his hand. A silver cloud that tastes like raspberries.
“Wha -” I want to ask, but I can’t see them anymore. I can’t see anything…
There was no more.
“Wanda? Can you hear me, Wanda?” a familiar voice asked.
That wasn’t the right name… was it? My ears didn’t react to it, but something did. Wasn’t I Petals Open to the Moon? Pet? Was that it? That didn’t feel right, either. My heart beat faster, an echo of the fear in my memory. A vision of a woman with white-and-red-streaked hair and kind green eyes filled my head. Where was my mother? But… she wasn’t my mother, was she?
A sound, a low voice that echoed around me. “Wanda. Come back. We aren’t letting you go.”
The voice was familiar, and it was also not. It sounded like… me?
Where was Petals Open to the Moon? I couldn’t find her. Just a thousand empty memories. A house full of pictures but no inhabitants.
“Use the Awake,” a voice said. I didn’t recognize this one.
Something brushed my face, light as the touch of fog. I knew that scent. It was the smell of grapefruit.
I took a deeper breath, and my mind suddenly cleared.
I could feel that I was lying down… but this felt wrong, too. There wasn’t… enough of me. I felt shrunken.
My hands were warmer than the rest of me, and that was because they were being held. Held in big hands, hands that swallowed them right up.
It smelled odd-stuffy and a little moldy. I remembered the smell… but surely I’d never smelled it before in my life.
I saw nothing but dull red-the insides of my eyelids. I wanted to open them, so I went searching for the right muscles to do that.
“Wanderer? We’re all waiting for you, honey. Open your eyes.”
This voice, this warm breath against my ear, was even more familiar. A strange feeling tickled through my veins at the sound. A feeling I’d never, ever felt before. The sound made my breath catch and my fingers tremble.
I wanted to see the face that went with that voice.
A color washed through my mind-a color that called to me from a faraway life-a brilliant, glowing blue. The whole universe was bright blue…
And finally I knew my name. Yes, that was right. Wanderer. I was Wanderer. Wanda, too. I remembered that now.
A light touch on my face-a warm pressure on my lips, on my eyelids. Ah, that’s where they were. I could make them blink now that I’d found them.
“She’s waking up!” someone crowed excitedly.
Jamie. Jamie was here. My heart gave another fluttery little thump.
It took a moment for my eyes to focus. The blue that stabbed my eyes was all wrong-too pale, too washed out. It wasn’t the blue I wanted.
A hand touched my face. “Wanderer?”
I looked to the sound. The movement of my head on my neck felt so odd. It didn’t feel like it used to, but at the same time it felt the way it had always felt.
My searching eyes found the blue I’d been looking for. Sapphire, snow, and midnight.
“Ian? Ian, where am I?” The sound of the voice coming out of my throat frightened me. So high and trilling. Familiar, but not mine. “Who am I?”
“You’re you,” Ian told me. “And you’re right where you belong.”
I pulled one of my hands free from the giant’s hand that held it. I meant to touch my face, but someone’s hand reached toward me, and I froze.
The reaching hand also froze above me.
I tried to move my hand again, to protect myself, but that moved the hand above me. I started shaking, and the hand trembled.
Oh.
I opened and closed the hand, looking at it carefully.
Was this my hand, this tiny thing? It was a child’s hand, except for the long pink-and-white nails, filed into perfect, smooth curves. The skin was fair, with a strange silvery cast to it and, entirely incongruous, a scattering of golden freckles.
It was the odd combination of silver and gold that brought the image back: I could see a face in my head, reflected in a mirror.
The setting of the memory threw me off for a moment because I wasn’t used to so much civilization-at the same time, I knew nothing but civilization. A pretty dresser with all kinds of frilly and delicate things on top of it. A profusion of dainty glass bottles containing the scents I loved-I loved? Or she loved?-so much. A potted orchid. A set of silver combs.
The big round mirror was framed in a wreath of metal roses. The face in the mirror was roundish, too, not quite oval. Small. The skin on the face had the same silver undertone-silver like moonlight-as the hand did, with another handful of the golden freckles across the bridge of the nose. Wide gray eyes, the silver of the soul shimmering faintly behind the soft color, framed by tangled golden lashes. Pale pink lips, full and almost round, like a baby’s. Small, even white teeth behind them. A dimple in the chin. And everywhere, everywhere, golden, waving hair that stood away from my face in a bright halo and fell below where the mirror showed.
My face or her face?
It was the perfect face for a Night Flower. Like an exact translation from Flower to human.
“Where is she?” my high, reedy voice demanded. “Where is Pet?” Her absence frightened me. I’d never seen a more defenseless creature than this half-child with her moonlight face and sunlight hair.
“She’s right here,” Doc assured me. “Tanked and ready to go. We thought you could tell us the best place to send her.”
I looked toward his voice. When I saw him standing in the sunlight, a lit cryotank in his hands, a rush of memories from my former life came back to me.
“Doc!” I gasped in the tiny, fragile voice. “Doc, you promised! You gave me your oath, Eustace! Why? Why did you break your word?”
A dim recollection of misery and pain touched me. This body had never felt such agony before. It shied away from the sting.
“Even an honest man sometimes caves to duress, Wanda.”
“Duress,” another terribly familiar voice scoffed.
“I’d say a knife to the throat counts as duress, Jared.”
“You knew I wouldn’t really use it.”
“That I did not. You were quite persuasive.”
“A knife?” My body trembled.
“Shh, it’s all okay,” Ian murmured. His breath blew strands of golden hair across my face, and I brushed them away-a routine gesture. “Did you really think you could leave us that way? Wanda!” He sighed, but the sigh was joyful.
Ian was happy. This insight made my worry suddenly much lighter, easier to bear.
“I told you I didn’t want to be a parasite,” I whispered.
“Let me through,” my old voice ordered. And then I could see my face, the strong one, with the sun-brown skin, the straight black line of the eyebrows over the almond-shaped, hazel eyes, the high, sharp cheekbones… See it backward, not as a reflection, the way I’d always seen it before.
“Listen up, Wanda. I know exactly what you don’t want to be. But we’re human, and we’re selfish, and we don’t always do the right thing. We aren’t going to let you go. Deal with it.”
The way she spoke, the cadence and the tone, not the voice, brought back all the silent conversations, the voice in my head, my sister.
“Mel? Mel, you’re okay!”
She smiled then and leaned over to hug my shoulders. She was bigger than I remembered being.
“Of course I am. Wasn’t that the point of all the drama? And you’re going to be fine, too. We weren’t stupid about it. We didn’t just grab the first body we saw.”
“Let me tell her, let me!” Jamie shoved in beside Mel. It was getting very crowded around the cot. It rocked, unstable.
I took his hand and squeezed it. My hands felt so feeble. Could he even feel the pressure?
“Jamie!”
“Hey, Wanda! This is cool, isn’t it? You’re smaller than me now!” He grinned, triumphant.
“But still older. I’m almost -” And then I stopped, changing my sentence abruptly. “My birthday is in two weeks.”
I might have been disoriented and confused, but I wasn’t stupid. Melanie’s experiences had not gone to waste; I had learned from them. Ian was every bit as honorable as Jared, and I was not going to go through the frustration Melanie had.
So I lied, giving myself an extra year. “I’ll be eighteen.”
From the corner of my eye, I saw Melanie and Ian stiffen in surprise. This body looked much younger than her true age, hovering on the edge of seventeen.
It was this little deception, this preemptive claiming of my partner, that made me realize I was staying here. That I would be with Ian and the rest of my family. My throat thickened, felt oddly swollen.
Jamie patted my face, calling my attention back. I was surprised at how big his hand felt on my cheek. “They let me come on the raid to get you.”
“I know,” I muttered. “I remember… Well, Pet remembers seeing you there.” I glared at Mel, who shrugged.
“We tried not to scare her,” Jamie said. “She’s so… kind of fragile-looking, you know? And nice, too. We picked her out together, but I got to decide! See, Mel said we had to get someone young-someone who had a bigger percentage of life as a soul or something. But not too young, because she knew you wouldn’t want to be a child. And then Jared liked this face, because he said no one could ever dis… distrust it. You don’t look dangerous at all. You look the opposite of dangerous. Jared said anyone who sees you would just naturally want to protect you, right, Jared? But then I got the final say, because I was looking for someone who looked like you. And I thought this looked like you. Because she sort of looks like an angel, and you’re good like that. And real pretty. I knew you would be pretty.” Jamie smiled hugely. “Ian didn’t come. He just sat here with you-he said he didn’t care what you looked like. He wouldn’t let anyone else put a finger on your tank at all, not even me or Mel. But Doc let me watch this time. It was way cool, Wanda. I don’t know why you wouldn’t let me watch before. They wouldn’t let me help, though. Ian wouldn’t let anyone touch you but him.”
Ian squeezed my hand and leaned in to whisper through all the hair. His voice was so low that I was the only one who could hear. “I held you in my hand, Wanderer. And you were so beautiful.”
My eyes got all wet, and I had to sniff.
“You like it, don’t you?” Jamie asked, his voice worried now. “You’re not mad? There’s nobody in there with you, is there?”
“I’m not mad, exactly,” I whispered. “And I-I can’t find anybody else. Just Pet’s memories. Pet’s been in here since… I can’t remember when she wasn’t here. I can’t remember any other name.”
“You’re not a parasite,” Melanie said firmly, touching my hair, pulling up a strand and letting the gold slide between her fingers. “This body didn’t belong to Pet, but there’s nobody else to claim it. We waited to make sure, Wanda. We tried to wake her up almost as long as we tried with Jodi.”
“Jodi? What happened to Jodi?” I chirped, my little voice going higher, like a bird’s, with anxiety. I struggled to get up, and Ian pulled me-it took no effort, no strength to move my tiny new body-into a sitting position with his arm supporting me. I could see all the faces then.
Doc, no more tears in his eyes. Jeb, peeking around Doc, his expression satisfied and burning with curiosity at the same time. Next, a woman I didn’t recognize for a second because her face was more animated than I’d ever seen it, and I hadn’t seen it much anyway-Mandy, the former Healer. Closer to me, Jamie, with his bright, excited smile, Melanie beside him, and Jared behind her, his hands around her waist. I knew that his hands would never feel right unless they were touching her body-my body!-now. That he would keep her as close as he could forever, hating any inch that came between them. This caused me a fierce, aching pain. The delicate heart in my thin chest shuddered. It had never been broken before, and it didn’t understand this memory.
It made me sorry to realize that I still loved Jared. I wasn’t free of that, wasn’t free of jealousy for the body he loved. My glance flickered back to Mel. I saw the rueful twist of the mouth that used to be mine, and knew she understood.
I continued quickly around the cluster of faces circling my bed, while Doc, after a pause, answered my question.
Trudy and Geoffrey, Heath, Paige and Andy. Brandt, even…
“Jodi didn’t respond. We kept trying as long as we could.”
Was Jodi gone, then? I wondered, my inexperienced heart throbbing. I was giving the poor frail thing such a rough awakening.
Heidi and Lily, Lily smiling a pained little smile-none the less sincere for the pain…
“We were able to keep her hydrated, but we had no way to feed her. We were worried about atrophy-her muscles, her brain…”
While my new heart ached harder than it had ever ached-ached for a woman I’d never known-my eyes continued around the circle and then froze.
Jodi, clinging to Kyle’s side, stared back at me.
She smiled tentatively, and suddenly I recognized her.
“Sunny!”
“I got to stay,” she said, not quite smug but almost. “Just like you.” She glanced at Kyle’s face-which was more stoic than I was used to seeing it-and her voice turned sad. “I’m trying, though. I am looking for her. I will keep looking.”
“Kyle had us put Sunny back when it looked like we would lose Jodi,” Doc continued quietly.
I stared at Sunny and Kyle for a moment, stunned, and then finished the circle.
Ian was watching me with a strange combination of joy and nervousness. His face was higher than it should have been, bigger than it used to be. But his eyes were still the blue I remembered. The anchor that held me to this planet.
“You okay in there?” he asked.
“I… I don’t know,” I admitted. “This feels very… weird. Every bit as weird as switching species. So much weirder than I would have thought. I… I don’t know.”
My heart fluttered again, looking into those eyes, and this was no memory of another lifetime’s love. My mouth felt dry, and my stomach quivered. The place where his arm touched my back felt more alive than the rest of my body.
“You don’t mind staying here too much, do you, Wanda? Do you think that maybe you could tolerate it?” he murmured.
Jamie squeezed my hand. Melanie put hers on top of his, then smiled when Jared added his to the pile. Trudy patted my foot. Geoffrey, Heath, Heidi, Andy, Paige, Brandt, and even Lily were beaming at me. Kyle had shuffled closer, a grin spreading across his face. Sunny’s smile was the smile of a coconspirator.
How much No Pain had Doc given me? Everything was glowing.
Ian brushed the cloud of golden hair back from my face and laid his hand on my cheek. His hand was so big just the palm covered from my jaw to my forehead; the contact sent a jolt of electricity through my silvery skin. It tingled after that first jolt, and the pit of my stomach tingled along with it.
I could feel a warm flush pinking my cheeks. My heart had never been broken before, but it had also never flown. It made me shy; I had a hard time finding my voice.
“I suppose I could do that,” I whispered. “If it makes you happy.”
“That’s not good enough, actually,” Ian disagreed. “It has to make you happy, too.”
I could only meet his gaze for a few seconds at a time; the shyness, so new and confusing to me, had my eyes dropping to my lap again and again.
“I… think it might,” I agreed. “I think it might make me very, very happy.”
Happy and sad, elated and miserable, secure and afraid, loved and denied, patient and angry, peaceful and wild, complete and empty… all of it. I would feel everything. It would all be mine.
Ian coaxed my face up until I looked him in the eyes, my cheeks flushing darker.
“Then you will stay.”
He kissed me, right in front of everyone, but I forgot the audience quickly. This was easy and right, no division, no confusion, no objection, just Ian and me, the molten rock moving through this new body, melding it into the pact.
“I will stay,” I agreed.
And my tenth life began.
EPILOGUE. Continued
I was not the same.
This was my first rebirth into a body of the same species. I found the transfer much more difficult than changing planets because I had so many expectations about being human already in place. Also, I’d inherited a lot of things from Petals Open to the Moon, and not all of them were pleasant.
I’d inherited a great deal of grief for Cloud Spinner. I missed the mother I’d never known and mourned for her suffering now. Perhaps there could be no joy on this planet without an equal weight of pain to balance it out on some unknown scale.
I’d inherited unexpected limitations. I was used to a body that was strong and fast and tall-a body that could run for miles, go without food and water, lift heavy weights, and reach high shelves. This body was weak-and not just physically. This body seized up with crippling shyness every time I was unsure of myself, which seemed to be often these days.
I’d inherited a different role in the human community. People carried things for me now and let me pass first into a room. They gave me the easiest chores and then, half the time, took the work right out of my hands anyway. Worse than that, I needed the help. My muscles were soft and not used to labor. I tired easily, and my attempts to hide that fooled no one. I probably couldn’t have run a mile without stopping.
There was more to this easy treatment than just my physical weakness, though. I was used to a pretty face, but one that people were able to look at with fear, mistrust, even hatred. My new face defied such emotions.
People touched my cheeks often, or put their fingers under my chin, holding my face up to see it better. I was frequently patted on my head (which was in easy reach, since I was shorter than everyone but the children), and my hair was stroked so regularly that I stopped noticing when it happened. Those who had never accepted me before did this as often as my friends. Even Lucina put up only a token resistance when her children began following me like two adoring puppies. Freedom, in particular, crawled onto my lap at every opportunity, burrowing his face in my hair. Isaiah was too big for such displays of affection, but he liked to hold my hand-just the same size as his-while chattering excitedly with me about Spiders and Dragons, soccer and raids. The children still wouldn’t go anywhere near Melanie; their mother had frightened them too thoroughly before for her reassurances to change things now.
Even Maggie and Sharon, though they still tried not to look at me, could not maintain their former rigidity in my presence.
My body was not the only change. The monsoons came late to the desert, and I was glad.
For one thing, I’d never smelled the rain on the creosotes before-I could only vaguely remember it from my memories of Melanie’s memories, a very dim trail of recall indeed-and now the scent washed out the musty caves, left them smelling fresh and almost spicy. The scent clung to my hair and followed me everywhere. I smelled it in my dreams.
Also, Petals Open to the Moon had lived in Seattle all her life, and the unbroken streak of blue skies and blistering heat was as bewildering-almost numbing-to my system as the dark press of heavy overcast skies would have been to any of these desert dwellers. The clouds were exciting, a change from the bland, featureless pale blue. They had depth and movement. They made pictures in the sky.
There was a great deal of reshuffling to be done in Jeb’s caves, and the move to the big game room-now the communal sleeping quarters-was good preparation for more permanent arrangements to follow.
Every space was needed, so rooms could not remain vacant. Still, only the newcomers, Candy-who had remembered her correct name at last-and Lacey, could bear to take Wes’s old space. I pitied Candy for her future roommate, but the Healer never betrayed any discontent at the prospect.
When the rains ended, Jamie would move into a free corner in Brandt and Aaron’s cave. Melanie and Jared had kicked Jamie out of their room and into Ian’s before I’d been reborn in Pet’s body; Jamie wasn’t so young that they’d needed to give him any excuse.
Kyle was working on widening the small crevice that had been Walter’s sleeping space so that it would be ready when the desert was dry again. It really wasn’t big enough for more than one, and Kyle would not be staying there alone.
At night in the game room, Sunny slept curled into a ball against Kyle’s chest, like a kitten who was friends with a big dog-a rottweiler whom she trusted implicitly. Sunny was always with Kyle. I couldn’t remember ever seeing them unattached since I’d opened these silver gray eyes for the first time.
Kyle seemed constantly bemused, too distracted by this impossible relationship he couldn’t quite wrap his head around to pay attention to much else. He wasn’t giving up on Jodi, but as Sunny clung to him, he held her to his side with gentle hands.
Before the rain, every space was taken, so I stayed with Doc in the hospital that no longer frightened me. The cots were not comfortable, but it was a very interesting place to be. Candy remembered the details of Summer Song’s life better than her own; the hospital was a place of miracles now.
After the rain, Doc would not be sleeping in the hospital anymore. The first night in the game room, Sharon had dragged her mattress right next to Doc’s without a word of explanation. Perhaps it was Doc’s fascination with the Healer that motivated Sharon, though I doubted Doc had even noticed how pretty the older woman was; his fascination was with her phenomenal knowledge. Or maybe it was just that Sharon was ready to forgive and forget. I hoped that was the case. It would be nice to think that even Sharon and Maggie might be softened over time.
I would not stay in the hospital anymore, either.
The crucial conversation with Ian might never have taken place if not for Jamie. My mouth would go all dry and my palms would sweat whenever I so much as thought of bringing it up. What if those feelings in the hospital, those few perfect moments of certainty right after I’d awoken in this body, had been illusion? What if I remembered them wrong? I knew that nothing had changed for me, but how could I be certain Ian felt the same? The body he’d fallen in love with was still right here!
I expected him to be unsettled-we all were. If it was difficult for me, a soul used to such changes, how hard must it be for the humans?
I was working to put the last of the jealousy and the perplexing echoes of the love I still felt for Jared behind me. I didn’t need or want them. Ian was the right partner for me. But sometimes I would catch myself staring at Jared and feel confused. I’d seen Melanie touch Ian’s arm or hand and then jerk away as if she’d suddenly remembered who she was. Even Jared, who had the least reason for uncertainty, would occasionally meet my confused gaze with a searching one of his own. And Ian… Of course it must have been hardest for him. I understood that.
We were together nearly as much as Kyle and Sunny. Ian constantly touched my face and hair, was always holding my hands. But who did not respond to this body that way? And wasn’t it platonic for everyone else? Why didn’t he kiss me again, the way he had that first day?
Maybe he could never love me inside this body, as appealing as it seemed to be to all the other humans here.
That worry was heavy in my heart the night Ian had carried my cot-because it was too heavy for me-to the big, dark game room.
It was raining for the first time in more than six months. There were both laughter and complaints as people shook out their damp bedding and arranged their places. I saw Sharon with Doc and smiled.
“Over here, Wanda,” Jamie called, waving me toward where he’d just set his mattress next to Ian’s. “There’s room for all three of us now.”
Jamie was the one person who treated me almost exactly the same as before. He did make allowances for my puny physique, but he never seemed surprised to see me enter a room or shocked when Wanderer’s words came through these lips.
“You don’t really want that cot, do you, Wanda? I’ll bet we could all fit okay on the mattresses if we shoved them together.” Jamie grinned at me while he kicked one mattress into the other without waiting for agreement. “You don’t take up much space.”
He took the cot from Ian and set it on its side, out of the way. Then Jamie stretched out on the very edge of the far mattress and turned his back to us.
“Oh, hey, Ian,” he added without turning. “I talked to Brandt and Aaron, and I think I’m going to move in with them. Well, I’m beat. Night, guys.”
I stared at Jamie’s unmoving form for a long moment. Ian was just as motionless. He couldn’t have been having a panic attack, too, though. Was he thinking of some way to extricate himself from the situation?
“Lights out,” Jeb bellowed from across the room. “Everybody shut yer trap so I can get some shut-eye.”
People laughed, but took him seriously as always. One by one, the four lamps were dimmed until the room was black.
Ian’s hand found mine; it was warm. Did he notice how cold and sweaty my skin was?
He sank to his knees on the mattress, tugging me gently along. I followed and lay down on the seam between the beds. He kept my hand.
“Is this okay?” Ian whispered. There were other hushed conversations going on around us, made indistinct by the rush of the sulfur spring.
“Yes, thank you,” I answered.
Jamie rolled over, shaking the mattress and knocking into me. “Oops, sorry, Wanda,” he murmured, and then I heard him yawn.
Automatically, I shifted out of his way. Ian was closer than I’d thought. I gasped quietly when I ran into him, then tried to give him some room. His arm was suddenly around me, holding me to his body.
It was the strangest feeling; having Ian’s arm around me in this very nonplatonic way reminded me oddly of my first experience with No Pain. Like I’d been in agony without realizing it, and his touch had taken all the hurt away.
That feeling erased my shyness. I rolled so that I was facing him, and he tightened his arm around me.
“Is this okay?” I whispered, repeating his question.
He kissed my forehead. “Better than okay.”
We were silent for a few minutes. Most of the other conversations had died out.
He bent down so that his lips were at my ear and whispered, quieter than before, “Wanda, do you think…?” He fell silent.
“Yes?”
“Well, it looks like I have a room all to myself now. That’s not right.”
“No. There’s not enough space for you to be alone.”
“I don’t want to be alone. But…”
Why wouldn’t he ask? “But what?”
“Have you had enough time to sort things out yet? I don’t want to rush you. I know it’s confusing… with Jared…”
It took me a moment to process what he was saying, but then I giggled quietly. Melanie wasn’t much given to giggling, but Pet had been, and her body betrayed me at this most inopportune moment.
“What?” he demanded.
“I was giving you time to sort things out,” I explained in a whisper. “I didn’t want to rush you-because I know it’s confusing. With Melanie.”
He jumped just a little in surprise. “You thought…? But Melanie isn’t you. I was never confused.”
I was smiling in the dark now. “And Jared isn’t you.”
His voice was tighter when he answered. “But he’s still Jared. And you love him.”
Ian was jealous again? I shouldn’t have been pleased by negative emotions, but I had to admit this was encouraging.
“Jared is my past, another life. You are my present.”
He was quiet for a moment. When he spoke again, his voice was rough with emotion. “And your future, if you want that.”
“Yes, please.”
And then he kissed me in the most unplatonic way possible under the crowded circumstances, and I was thrilled to remember that I’d been smart enough to lie about my age.
The rains would end, and when they did, Ian and I would be together, partners in the truest sense. This was a promise and an obligation I had never had in all my lives. Thinking of it made me feel joyful and anxious and shy and desperately impatient all at the same time-made me feel human.
After all this had been settled, Ian and I were more inseparable than ever. So when it came time for me to test my new face on the other souls, of course he went with me.
This raid was a relief for me after long weeks of frustration. It was bad enough that my new body was weak and nearly useless in the caves; I couldn’t believe it when the others didn’t want to let me use my body for the one thing it was perfect for.
Jared had specifically approved of Jamie’s choice because of this guileless, vulnerable face that no one could ever doubt, this delicate build that anyone would be motivated to protect, but even he had a hard time putting his theory into practice. I was sure raiding would be every bit as easy for me now as it had been before, but Jared, Jeb, Ian, and the others-everyone but Jamie and Mel-debated for days, trying to find a way around using me for that. It was ridiculous.
I saw them eyeing Sunny, but she was still unproven, not trusted. On top of that, Sunny had absolutely no intention of setting one foot outside. The very word raid had her cowering in terror. Kyle would not go out with us; Sunny had gone hysterical the one time he’d mentioned it.
In the end, practicality had won out. I was needed.
It was good to be needed.
Supplies had been dwindling; this would be a long, thorough trip. Jared was leading the raid, as usual, so it went without saying that Melanie was included. Aaron and Brandt volunteered, not that we really needed the muscle; they were tired of being cooped up.
We were going far to the north, and I was excited to see the new places-to feel the cold again.
Excitement got a bit out of hand in this body. I was bouncy and hyper the night we drove to the rock slide where the van and the big moving truck were hidden. Ian was laughing at me because I could hardly hold still as we loaded the clothes and sundries we would need into the van. He held my hand, he said, to tether me to the surface of the planet.
Was I too loud? Too oblivious to my surroundings? No, of course that was not it. There was nothing I could have done. This was a trap, and it was too late for us the minute we arrived.
We froze when the thin beams of light shot out of the darkness into Jared’s and Melanie’s faces. My face, my eyes, the ones that might have helped us, stayed obscured, hidden in the shadow made by Ian’s wide back.
My eyes were not blinded by the glare, and the moon was bright enough for me to clearly see the Seekers that outnumbered us, eight to our six. Bright enough for me to see the way they held their hands, to see the weapons that glinted in them, raised and pointed at us. Pointed at Jared and Mel, at Brandt and Aaron-our only gun still undrawn-and one centered dead on Ian’s chest.
Why had I let him come with me? Why did he have to die, too? Lily’s bewildered questions echoed in my head: Why did life and love go on? What was the point?
My fragile little heart shattered into a million pieces, and I fumbled for the pill in my pocket.
“Steady, now, everybody just keep calm,” the man in the center of the group of Seekers called out. “Wait, wait, don’t be swallowing anything! Jeez, get a grip! No, look!”
The man turned the flashlight on his own face.
His face was sun browned and craggy, like a rock that had been eroded by the wind. His hair was dark, with white at the temples, and it curled in a bushy mess around his ears. And his eyes-his eyes were dark brown. Just dark brown, nothing more.
“See?” he said. “Okay, now, you don’t shoot us, and we won’t shoot you. See?” And he laid the gun he was carrying to the ground. “C’mon, guys,” he said, and the others slid their guns back into holsters-on their hips, their ankles, their backs… so many weapons.
“We found your cache here-clever, that; we were lucky to find it-and decided we’d hang out and make your acquaintance. It’s not every day you find another rebel cell.” He laughed a delighted laugh that came from deep in his belly. “Look at your faces! What? Did you think you all were the only ones still kickin’?” He laughed again.
None of us had moved an inch.
“Think they’re in shock, Nate,” another man said.
“We scared them half to death,” a woman said. “What do you expect?”
They waited, shuffling from foot to foot, while we stood frozen.
Jared was the first to recover. “Who are you?” he whispered.
The leader laughed again. “I’m Nate-nice to meet you, though you might not feel the same way just yet. This here’s Rob, Evan, Blake, Tom, Kim, and Rachel along with me.” He gestured around the group as he spoke, and the humans nodded at their names. I noticed one man, a little to the back, whom Nate did not introduce. He had bright, crinkly ginger hair that stood out-especially because he was the tallest in the group. He alone seemed to be unarmed. He was also staring intently at me, so I looked away. “There’s twenty-two of us altogether, though,” Nate continued.
Nate held out his hand.
Jared took a deep breath and then a step forward. When he moved, the rest of our little group silently exhaled all at once.
“I’m Jared.” He shook Nate’s hand, then started to smile. “This is Melanie, Aaron, Brandt, Ian, and Wanda. There are thirty-seven of us altogether.”
When Jared spoke my name, Ian shifted his weight, trying to obscure me completely from the other humans’ view. It was only then that I realized I was still in just as much danger as the others would have been in if these had been Seekers. Just like in the beginning. I tried to hold perfectly still.
Nate blinked at Jared’s revelation, and then his eyes widened. “Wow. That’s the first time I’ve ever been one-upped on that one.”
Now Jared blinked. “You’ve found others?”
“There are three other cells separate from ours that we know of. Eleven with Gail, seven with Russell, and eighteen with Max. We keep in touch. Even trade now and then.” Again, the belly laugh. “Gail’s little Ellen decided she wanted to keep company with my Evan here, and Carlos took up with Russell’s Cindy. And, of course, everyone needs Burns now and then -” He stopped talking abruptly, glancing uneasily around him, as if he’d said something he shouldn’t have. His eyes rested briefly on the tall redhead in the back, who was still staring at me.
“Might as well get that out of the way,” the small dark man at Nate’s elbow said.
Nate shot a suspicious glance across our little line. “Okay. Rob’s right. Let’s get this out there.” He took a deep breath. “Now, you all just take it easy and hear us out. Calmly, please. This upsets people sometimes.”
“Every time,” the one named Rob muttered. His hand drifted to the holster on his thigh.
“What?” Jared asked in a flat voice.
Nate sighed and then gestured to the tall man with the ginger red hair. The man stepped forward, a wry smile on his face. He had freckles, like me, only thousands more. They were scattered so thick across his face that he looked dark skinned, though he was fair. His eyes were dark-navy blue, maybe.
“This here is Burns. Now, he’s with us, so don’t go crazy. He’s my best friend-saved my life a hundred times. He’s one of our family, and we don’t take kindly to it when people try to kill him.”
One of the women slowly pulled her gun out and held it pointed at the ground.
The redhead spoke for the first time in a distinctly gentle tenor voice. “No, it’s okay, Nate. See? They’ve got one of their own.” He pointed straight at me, and Ian tensed. “Looks like I’m not the only one who’s gone native.”
Burns grinned at me, then crossed the empty space, the no-man’s-land between the two tribes, with his hand stretched out toward me.
I stepped out from around Ian, ignoring his muttered warning, abruptly comfortable and sure.
I liked the way Burns had phrased it. Gone native.
Burns stopped in front of me, lowering his hand a bit to compensate for the considerable difference in our heights. I took his hand-it was hard and callused next to my delicate skin-and shook it.
“Burns Living Flowers,” he introduced himself.
My eyes widened at his name. Fire World-how unexpected.
“Wanderer,” I told him.
“It’s… extraordinary to meet you, Wanderer. And here I thought I was one of a kind.”
“Not even close,” I said, thinking of Sunny back in the caves. Perhaps we were none of us as rare as we thought.
He raised an eyebrow at my answer, intrigued.
“Is that so?” he said. “Well, maybe there’s some hope for this planet, after all.”
“It’s a strange world,” I murmured, more to myself than to the other native soul.
“The strangest,” he agreed.
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