“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.”