I’d had no idea that this soft, cozy woman had been a part of the front line. It took me a minute to process that. I stared at her, surprised and suddenly more respectful. I’d never taken Comforters very seriously-never had a need before now. They were for those who struggled, for the weak, and it shamed me to be here. Knowing Kathy’s history made me feel slightly less awkward with her. She understood strength.
“Did it bother you?” I asked. “Pretending to be one of them?”
“No, not really. You see, this host was a lot to get used to-there was so much that was new. Sensory overload. Following the set pattern was quite as much as I could handle at first.”
“And Curt… You chose to stay with your host’s spouse? After it was over?”
This question was more pointed, and Kathy grasped that at once. She shifted in her seat, pulling her legs up and folding them under her. She gazed thoughtfully at a spot just over my head as she answered.
“Yes, I chose Curt-and he chose me. At first, of course, it was random chance, an assignment. We bonded, naturally, from spending so much time together, sharing the danger of our mission. As the university’s president, Curt had many contacts, you see. Our house was an insertion facility. We would entertain often. Humans would come through our door and our kind would leave. It all had to be very quick and quiet-you know the violence these hosts are prone to. We lived every day with the knowledge that we could meet a final end at any moment. There was constant excitement and frequent fear.
“All very good reasons why Curt and I might have formed an attachment and decided to stay together when secrecy was no longer necessary. And I could lie to you, assuage your fears, by telling you that these were the reasons. But…” She shook her head and then seemed to settle deeper into her chair, her eyes boring into me. “In so many millennia, the humans never did figure love out. How much is physical, how much in the mind? How much accident and how much fate? Why did perfect matches crumble and impossible couples thrive? I don’t know the answers any better than they did. Love simply is where it is. My host loved Curt’s host, and that love did not die when the ownership of the minds changed.”
She watched me carefully, reacting with a slight frown when I slumped in my seat.
“Melanie still grieves for Jared,” she stated.
I felt my head nod without willing the action.
“You grieve for him.”
I closed my eyes.
“The dreams continue?”
“Every night,” I mumbled.
“Tell me about them.” Her voice was soft, persuasive.
“I don’t like to think about them.”
“I know. Try. It might help.”
“How? How will it help to tell you that I see his face every time I close my eyes? That I wake up and cry when he’s not there? That the memories are so strong I can’t separate hers from mine anymore?”
I stopped abruptly, clenching my teeth.
Kathy pulled a white handkerchief from her pocket and offered it to me. When I didn’t move, she got up, walked over to me, and dropped it in my lap. She sat on the arm of my chair and waited.
I held on stubbornly for half a minute. Then I snatched the little square of fabric angrily and wiped my eyes.
“I hate this.”
“Everybody cries their first year. These emotions are so impossible. We’re all children for a bit, whether we intended that or not. I used to tear up every time I saw a pretty sunset. The taste of peanut butter would sometimes do that, too.” She patted the top of my head, then trailed her fingers gently through the lock of hair I always kept tucked behind my ear.
“Such pretty, shiny hair,” she noted. “Every time I see you it’s shorter. Why do you keep it that way?”
Already in tears, I didn’t feel like I had much dignity to defend. Why claim that it was easier to care for, as I usually did? After all, I’d come here to confess and get help-I might as well get on with it.
“It bothers her. She likes it long.”
She didn’t gasp, as I half expected she would. Kathy was good at her job. Her response was only a second late and only slightly incoherent.
“You… She… she’s still that… present?”
The appalling truth tumbled from my lips. “When she wants to be. Our history bores her. She’s more dormant while I’m working. But she’s there, all right. Sometimes I feel like she’s as present as I am.” My voice was only a whisper by the time I was done.
“Wanderer!” Kathy exclaimed, horrified. “Why didn’t you tell me it was that bad? How long has it been this way?”
“It’s getting worse. Instead of fading, she seems to be growing stronger. It’s not as bad as the Healer’s case yet-we spoke of Kevin, do you remember? She hasn’t taken control. She won’t. I won’t let that happen!” The pitch of my voice climbed.
“Of course it won’t happen,” she assured me. “Of course not. But if you’re this… unhappy, you should have told me earlier. We need to get you to a Healer.”
It took me a moment, emotionally distracted as I was, to understand.
“A Healer? You want me to skip?”
“No one would think badly of that choice, Wanderer. It’s understood, if a host is defective -”
“Defective? She’s not defective. I am. I’m too weak for this world!” My head fell into my hands as the humiliation washed through me. Fresh tears welled in my eyes.
Kathy’s arm settled around my shoulders. I was struggling so hard to control my wild emotions that I didn’t pull away, though it felt too intimate.
It bothered Melanie, too. She didn’t like being hugged by an alien.
Of course Melanie was very much present in this moment, and unbearably smug as I finally admitted to her power. She was gleeful. It was always harder to control her when I was distracted by emotion like this.
I tried to calm myself so that I would be able to put her in her place.
You are in my place. Her thought was faint but intelligible. How much worse it was getting; she was strong enough to speak to me now whenever she wished. It was as bad as that first minute of consciousness.
Go away. It’s my place now.
Never.
“Wanderer, dear, no. You are not weak, and we both know that.”
“Hmph.”
“Listen to me. You are strong. Surprisingly strong. Our kind are always so much the same, but you exceed the norm. You’re so brave it astonishes me. Your past lives are a testament to that.”
My past lives maybe, but this life? Where was my strength now?
“But humans are more individualized than we are,” Kathy went on. “There’s quite a range, and some of them are much stronger than others. I truly believe that if anyone else had been put into this host, Melanie would have crushed them in days. Maybe it’s an accident, maybe it’s fate, but it appears to me that the strongest of our kind is being hosted by the strongest of theirs.”
“Doesn’t say much for our kind, does it?”
She heard the implication behind my words. “She’s not winning, Wanderer. You are this lovely person beside me. She’s just a shadow in the corner of your mind.”
“She speaks to me, Kathy. She still thinks her own thoughts. She still keeps her secrets.”
“But she doesn’t speak for you, does she? I doubt I would be able to say as much in your place.”
I didn’t respond. I was feeling too miserable.
“I think you should consider reimplantation.”
“Kathy, you just said that she would crush a different soul. I don’t know if I believe that-you’re probably just trying to do your job and comfort me. But if she is so strong, it wouldn’t be fair to hand her off to someone else because I can’t subdue her. Who would you choose to take her on?”