It was just that I had never considered that option viable, ultimate betrayal that it was to every soul on this planet.
Once the humans knew that I had this answer, the one they had murdered for over and over again, it would cost me.
No, Wanda!
Don’t you want to be free?
A long pause.
I wouldn’t ask you for this, she finally said. And I wouldn’t do it for you. And I sure as hell wouldn’t do it for the Seeker!
You don’t have to ask. I think I might have volunteered… eventually.
Why do you think that? she demanded, her tone close to a sob. It touched me. I expected her to be elated.
In part because of them. Jared and Jamie. I can give them the whole world, everything they want. I can give them you. I probably would have realized that… someday. Who knows? Maybe Jared would have asked. You know I wouldn’t have said no.
Ian’s right. You’re too self-sacrificing. You don’t have any limits. You need limits, Wanda!
Ah, Ian, I moaned. A new pain twisted through me, surprisingly close to my heart.
You’ll take the whole world away from him. Everything he wants.
It would never work with Ian. Not in this body, even though he loves it. It doesn’t love him.
Wanda, I… Melanie struggled for words. Still, the joy I expected from her did not come. Again, this touched me. I don’t think I can let you do this. You’re more important than that. In the bigger picture, you are of much more value to them than I am. You can help them; you can save them. I can’t do any of that. You have to stay.
I can’t see any other way, Mel. I wonder how I didn’t see it sooner. It seems so completely obvious. Of course I have to go. Of course I have to give you yourself back. I already knew we souls were wrong to come here. So I don’t have any choice now but to do the right thing, and leave. You all survived without me before; you’ll do it again. You’ve learned so much about the souls from me-you’ll help them. Can’t you see? This is the happy ending. It’s the way they all need the story to finish. I can give them hope. I can give them… not a future. Maybe not that. But as much as I can. Everything I can.
No, Wanda, no.
She was crying, becoming incoherent. Her sorrow brought tears to my eyes. I’d no idea that she cared so much for me. Almost as much as I cared for her. I hadn’t realized that we loved each other.
Even if Jared had never asked me for this, even if Jared did not exist… Once this path had occurred to me, I would have had to proceed down it. I loved her that much.
No wonder the success rate for resistant hosts was so low here on Earth. Once we learned to love our human host, what hope did we souls have? We could not exist at the expense of one we loved. Not a soul. A soul could not live that way.
I rolled myself over and, in the starlight, I looked at my body.
My hands were dirty and scratched, but under the surface blemishes, they were beautiful. The skin was a pretty sun-browned color; even bleached in the pale light, it was pretty. The nails were chewed short but still healthy and smooth, with little half moons of white at the bases. I fluttered my fingers, watching the muscles pull the bones in graceful patterns. I let them dance above me, where they became black fluid shapes against the stars.
I ran them through my hair. It was almost to my shoulders now. Mel would like that. After a few weeks of shampoo in hotel showers and Health vitamins, it was glossy and soft again.
I stretched my arms out as far as they would go, tugging against the tendons until some of my joints cracked. My arms felt strong. They could pull me up a mountainside, they could carry a heavy load, they could plow a field. But they were also soft. They could hold a child, they could comfort a friend, they could love… but that was not for me.
I took a deep breath, and tears welled out of the corners of my eyes and rolled down my temples into my hair.
I tensed the muscles in my legs, felt their ready strength and speed. I wanted to run, to have an open field that I could race across just to see how fast I could go. I wanted to do this barefoot, so I could feel the earth beneath my feet. I wanted to feel the wind fly through my hair. I wanted it to rain, so that I could smell it in the air as I ran.
My feet flexed and pointed slowly, to the rhythm of my breathing. In and out. Flex and point. It felt nice.
I traced my face with my fingertips. They were warm on my skin, skin that was smooth and pretty. I was glad I was giving Melanie her face back the way it had been. I closed my eyes and stroked my eyelids.
I’d lived in so many bodies, but never one I loved like this. Never one that I craved in this way. Of course, this would be the one I’d have to give up.
The irony made me laugh, and I concentrated on the feel of the air that popped in little bubbles from my chest and up through my throat. Laughter was like a fresh breeze-it cleaned its way through the body, making everything feel good. Did other species have such a simple healer? I couldn’t remember one.
I touched my lips and remembered how it felt to kiss Jared, and how it felt to kiss Ian. Not everyone got to kiss so many other beautiful bodies. I’d had more than some, even in this short time.
It was just so short! Maybe a year now, I wasn’t completely sure. Just one quick revolution of a blue green planet around an unexceptional yellow star. The shortest life of any I’d ever lived.
The shortest, the most important, the most heartbreaking of lives. The life that would forever define me. The life that had finally tied me to one star, to one planet, to one small family of strangers.
A little more time… would that be so wrong?
No, Mel whispered. Just take a little more time.
You never know how much time you’ll have, I whispered back.
But I did. I knew exactly how much time I had. I couldn’t take any more time. My time was up.
I was going anyway. I had to do the right thing, be my true self, with what time I had left.
With a sigh that seemed to come all the way from the soles of my feet and the palms of my hands, I got up.
Aaron and Brandt wouldn’t wait forever. And now I had a few more questions that I needed answered. This time, the questions were for Doc.
The caves were full of sad, cast-down eyes. It was easy enough to slip unobtrusively past them all. No one cared what I was doing right now, except maybe Jeb, Brandt, and Aaron, and they weren’t here.
I didn’t have an open, rainy field, but at least I had the long south tunnel. It was too dark to run flat out the way I wanted, but I kept up a steady jog. It felt good as my muscles warmed.
I expected I would find Doc already there, but I’d wait if I had to. He would be alone. Poor Doc, that was usually the case now.
Doc had been sleeping alone in his hospital since the night we’d saved Jamie’s life. Sharon had taken her things from their room and moved them to her mother’s, and Doc wouldn’t sleep in the empty room.
Such a great hatred. Sharon would rather kill her own happiness, and Doc’s, too, than forgive him for helping me heal Jamie.
Sharon and Maggie were barely a presence in the caves anymore. They looked past everyone now, the way they used to look past only me. I wondered if that would change when I was gone, or if they were both so rigid in their grudge that it would be too late for them to change.