“That’s not right. You’re the guest.”
I snorted quietly. “Ha. No, the bed is yours.”
“No way.” He lay down on the mat, folding his arms tightly across his chest.
Again, I saw that arguing was the wrong approach to take with Jamie. Well, this one I could rectify as soon as he was asleep. Jamie slept so deeply it was almost a coma. Melanie could carry him anywhere once he was out.
“You can use my pillow,” he told me, patting the one next to the side where he lay. “You don’t need to scrunch up at the bottom there.”
I sighed but crawled to the top of the bed.
“That’s right,” he said approvingly. “Now, could you throw me Jared’s?”
I hesitated, about to reach for the pillow under my head; he jumped up, leaned over me, and snatched the other pillow. I sighed again.
We lay in silence for a while, listening to the low whistle of the doctor’s breathing.
“Doc has a nice snore, doesn’t he?” Jamie whispered.
“It won’t keep you up,” I agreed.
“You tired?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh.”
I waited for him to say something more, but he was quiet.
“Was there something you wanted?” I asked.
He didn’t answer right away, but I could feel him struggling, so I waited.
“If I asked you something, would you tell me the truth?”
It was my turn to hesitate. “I don’t know everything,” I hedged.
“You would know this. When we were walking… me and Jeb… he was telling me some things. Things he thought, but I don’t know if he’s right.”
Melanie was suddenly very there in my head.
Jamie’s whisper was hard to hear, quieter than my breathing. “Uncle Jeb thinks that Melanie might still be alive. Inside there with you, I mean.”
My Jamie. Melanie sighed.
I said nothing to either of them.
“I didn’t know that could happen. Does that happen?” His voice broke, and I could hear that he was fighting tears. He was not a boy to cry, and here I’d grieved him this deeply twice in one day. A pain pierced through the general region of my chest.
“Does it, Wanda?”
Tell him. Please tell him that I love him.
“Why won’t you answer me?” Jamie was really crying now but trying to muffle the sound.
I crawled off the bed, squeezing into the hard space between the mattress and the mat, and threw my arm over his shaking chest. I leaned my head against his hair and felt his tears, warm on my neck.
“Is Melanie still alive, Wanda? Please?”
He was probably a tool. The old man could have sent him just for this; Jeb was smart enough to see how easily Jamie broke through my defenses. It was possible that Jeb was seeking confirmation for his theory, and he wasn’t against using the boy to get it. What would Jeb do when he was certain of the dangerous truth? How would he use the information? I didn’t think he meant me harm, but could I trust my own judgment? Humans were deceitful, treacherous creatures. I couldn’t anticipate their darker agendas when such things were unthinkable to my species.
Jamie’s body shook beside me.
He’s suffering, Melanie cried. She battered ineffectually at my control.
But I couldn’t blame this on Melanie if it turned out to be a huge mistake. I knew who was speaking now.
“She promised she would come back, didn’t she?” I murmured. “Would Melanie break a promise to you?”
Jamie slid his arms around my waist and clung to me for a long time. After a few minutes, he whispered, “Love you, Mel.”
“She loves you, too. She’s so happy that you’re here and safe.”
He was silent long enough for the tears on my skin to dry, leaving a fine, salty dust behind.
“Is everybody like that?” Jamie whispered long after I thought he’d fallen asleep. “Does everybody stay?”
“No,” I told him sadly. “No. Melanie is special.”
“She’s strong and brave.”
“Very.”
“Do you think…” He paused to sniff. “Do you think that maybe Dad is still there, too?”
I swallowed, trying to move the lump farther down my throat. It didn’t work. “No, Jamie. No, I don’t think so. Not like Melanie is.”
“Why?”
“Because he brought the Seekers looking for you. Well, the soul inside him did. Your father wouldn’t have let that happen if he were still there. Your sister never let me see where the cabin was—she didn’t even let me know that you existed for the longest time. She didn’t bring me here until she was sure that I wouldn’t hurt you.”
It was too much information. Only as I finished speaking did I realize that the doctor wasn’t snoring anymore. I could hear no noise from his breathing. Stupid. I cursed myself internally.
“Wow,” Jamie said.
I whispered into his ear, so close that there was no way the doctor could possibly overhear. “Yes, she’s very strong.”
Jamie strained to hear me, frowning, and then glanced at the opening to the dark hall. He must have realized the same thing I had, because he turned his face to my ear and whispered back softer than before. “Why would you do that? Not hurt us? Isn’t that what you want?”
“No. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Why?”
“Your sister and I have… spent a lot of time together. She shared you with me. And… I started to… to love you, too.”
“And Jared, too?”
I gritted my teeth for a second, chagrined that he had made the connection so easily. “Of course I don’t want anything to hurt Jared, either.”
“He hates you,” Jamie told me, plainly grieved by the fact.
“Yes. Everyone does.” I sighed. “I can’t blame them.”
“Jeb doesn’t. And I don’t.”
“You might, after you think about it more.”
“But you weren’t even here when they took over. You didn’t pick my dad or my mom or Melanie. You were in outer space then, right?”
“Yes, but I am what I am, Jamie. I did what souls do. I’ve had many hosts before Melanie, and nothing’s stopped me from… taking lives. Again and again. It’s how I live.”
“Does Melanie hate you?”
I thought for a minute. “Not as much as she used to.”
No. I don’t hate you at all. Not anymore.
“She says she doesn’t hate me at all anymore,” I murmured almost silently.
“How… how is she?”
“She’s happy to be here. She’s so happy to see you. She doesn’t even care that they’re going to kill us.”
Jamie stiffened under my arm. “They can’t! Not if Mel’s still alive!”
You’ve upset him, Melanie complained. You didn’t have to say that.
It won’t be any easier for him if he’s unprepared.
“They won’t believe that, Jamie,” I whispered. “They’ll think I’m lying to trick you. They’ll just want to kill me more if you tell them that. Only Seekers lie.”
The word made him shudder.
“But you’re not lying. I know it,” he said after a moment.
I shrugged.
“I won’t let them kill her.”
His voice, though quiet as a breath, was fierce with determination. I was paralyzed at the thought of him becoming more involved with this situation, with me. I thought of the barbarians he lived with. Would his age protect him from them if he tried to protect me? I doubted it. My thoughts scrambled, searching for some way to dissuade him without triggering his stubbornness.
Jamie spoke before I could say anything; he was suddenly calm, as if the answer was plain in front of him. “Jared will think of something. He always does.”
“Jared won’t believe you, either. He’ll be the angriest of them all.”
“Even if he doesn’t believe it, he’ll protect her. Just in case.”
“We’ll see,” I muttered. I’d find the perfect words later—the argument that would not sound like an argument.
Jamie was quiet, thinking. Eventually, his breathing got slower, and his mouth fell open. I waited until I was sure he was deeply under, and then I crawled over him and very carefully shifted him from the floor to the bed. He was heavier than before, but I managed. He didn’t wake.
I put Jared’s pillow back where it belonged, and then stretched out on the mat.
Well, I thought, I just hurled myself out of the frying pan. But I was too tired to care what this would mean tomorrow. Within seconds, I was unconscious.
When I woke, the crevices in the ceiling were bright with echoed sunlight, and someone was whistling.
The whistling stopped.
“Finally,” Jeb muttered when my eyes fluttered.
I rolled onto my side so that I could look at him; as I moved, Jamie’s hand slid from my arm. Sometime in the night he must have reached out to me—well, not to me, to his sister.