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The monsoons came right after her death, as if the desert itself were weeping from the loss of her.
I scoffed to myself at the thought.
“Wanderer, look what you’ve made of me,” I said, sitting cross legged in front of her grave—and Walt’s and Wes’—even with the rain. With everything else I’d gone through, how would a little bit of rain hurt me? I’d go inside the caves when the storm turned heavy, but for now it was just faint enough that I could visit her.
I splayed my hand over that small patch of dirt. It didn’t look any different from any patch of dirt around this godforsaken place. Wanderer was part of the Earth now, indistinguishable from it. Maybe she would have liked that.
“You’re making me into some kind of poet,” I said, then sighed. “This is embarrassing for the both of us.”
There was no answer. Of course there wasn’t—neither from the grave in front of me, nor from the recesses of my own mind, where sometimes I wished a part of her had lingered. Maybe, I thought sometimes at night, when Jared and Jamie were asleep and I knew, deep in my heart, that I was alone, maybe she’s still here somewhere, maybe one of the scars this whole experience left me is shaped just like her, maybe one of her million tiny and shiny hair-like limbs is still attached to my brain somewhere, I’d take anything, I’d take anything—
“It doesn’t matter that the world was taken over by body-snatching aliens,” I said to the mountains, knees to my chest, hair plastered to my face. “It doesn’t matter that this is all crazy, that life is insane, that we’re living in a stupid science fiction nightmare scenario. That you were a literal worm attached to my brain. None of this means I’d get to keep a piece of you. I have to grieve like a normal fucking person. How awful is that?”
I could imagine what she would say. Mostly a litany of I’m sorry’s. She never did manage to grow a goddamn shred of—what was the opposite of literally deathly lack of self-esteem?
I got lost in thought for a good five minutes, trying to think of a goddamn word.
“This is stupid,” I declared then; I was referring both to the useless endeavor of trying to find the right word as if it would fucking mean anything and the fact that I was crying in the rain like a fucking lunatic. Or, god forbid, a Romantic.
I stood up.
“I don’t have any flowers for you,” I said quietly. “Though I don’t even know if that’s something you got to learn when you were here.”
I thought she would like being mourned for a human, but it didn’t sit right with me. I hadn’t managed to grieve like a bat, like when we had grieved for the souls Jared and Doc had been maiming, because I’d woken up screaming and it took me a long time to stop, and I wasn’t the type to cry quietly anyway. And I didn’t know how they had grieved in Origin. I didn’t know how souls grieved.
There in their heart of hearts, in their true homes, with their perfect hosts, maybe they never had to grieve at all.
***
I went home drenched and didn’t bother to dry myself as I made my way to the cafeteria. People gave me dirty and pitying looks as I went, but I didn’t care. Ian was waiting for me—of course he was—with a towel beside him, taking itty bitty bites of his shitty bread like he wanted to wait for me but was slowly but progressively losing to hunger. I sighed and sat down heavily, snatching up the towel.
He straightened up when he caught sight of me, something wide-eyed with relief in his expression. He had lost Wanderer, and he would forever be afraid of losing me as well. I was all he had left of her, after all. I had her face.
It was strangely satisfying, the thought of it. That for him, I had her face. That a part of her stayed with me, after all, even if only through Ian’s eyes.
“Hey,” I said tiredly, and stole the bread from his hands.
“You’re going to catch a cold,” he scolded without heat. He picked up another piece of bread as if he had been expecting me to steal his and I scowled at him for it. “Can’t you just take the umbrella? They got it last raid just for you.”
“You think I care about taking an umbrella, Ian? You think that’s my priority, keeping my hair dry?” I bit into the dense bread and rolled my eyes. “I’m not going to catch a cold. I’m off to a shower after this, anyway.”
“You can’t just walk into a clinic if you get sick anymore,” he muttered. “What am I supposed to do with you?”
I pinched my lips into a line.
He wasn’t fretting over me, I knew. He was fretting over her. That made it strangely hard for me to get too annoyed with him for it.
“Speaking of walking into clinics,” I started, licking crumbles off my fingers, “when are we going on another raid? I’d love some Cheetos. Honestly, I’d love anything that’s not this bread. I’ve eaten enough of this bread for a lifetime.”
Ian knocked his shoulder against mine. “You only had to eat it for a few months. Imagine having to eat it for years.”
“Yeah, it’d suck. You’re welcome.”
“Wh—you’re welcome? What for?”
“For going on raids and getting you better food. Hey, Jamie!” I shouted when I spotted my brother walking into the cafeteria.
He beamed and dashed to my side.
“Hey, Mel! I was wondering when you’d be back! Ian, uh, he said you were visiting Wanda.”
I softened. “Yeah. She says hi, by the way.”
He smiled sadly at me. “Right.”
“And also to go finish your goddamn homework. You think I’m not aware that you haven’t been doing the reading Sharon’s assigned? I’m not stupid, Jamie.”
“I thought you were saying Wanda is the one who—”
I wound an arm around his neck and brought him down into a noogie. “Shut up! We were the same person, if I say you gotta do homework then she’s saying it too. Don’t get smart with me.”
“I heard you were talking about a raid,” he said, suffering his noogie with a lot of dignity, which made it totally not fun anymore. I let him go. “Can I go?”
I sighed. “You’re going to change the subject just like that?”
“You two are so weird,” Ian said.
“We’re normal, you’re just not used to seeing us without her,” I said. Then cringed a bit, because that was just… mean. I knocked my shoulder awkwardly against Ian and he winced right back at me, like he knew this was strange for both of us and that he got it.
“I’m changing the subject because Jared is right behind me and he doesn’t like it when you say things like that,” Jamie told me, sitting down beside me. “Can I go on this raid? Please? I’ll stay behind, I won’t get in trouble—”
“You don’t have to beg, of course you can come,” I told him. “You’re a big boy, you can handle yourself.” I paused. “No knives, though.”
He brightened up. “No knives, I promise!”
“Are you sure?” Ian asked, a line between his brows. He was looking at me, then at Jamie, as if confused. “You were so protective of him. Or, I guess—she was? You’re his big sister, so I kind of assumed that came from you.” He looked away, suddenly fond. “Though it makes sense that she would worry so much anyway.”
“Of course Mel worries about Jamie.”
I froze at the sound of this voice, but only for a second. It was hard to get rid of the split second of alarm that shot through me whenever Jared was nearby—whenever Jared surprised me—whenever Jared touched me—
He didn’t put a hand on my shoulder, like he would once have. He sat beside Jamie at the table and smiled at me, small and sad. After I’d woken up, the rage had sloughed off his face like candlewax in the sun; it left him pink-skinned and fragile with relief and hope. I had no idea what to do with it.
He was so close to my Jared—who he had been before my death had broken him. But he was still Jared, who had hurt us, hurt her, who had mutilated those souls—
Maybe Jared would have asked, eventually, she’d mused. You know I wouldn’t have said no.
He got what he wanted. Maybe that was why I couldn’t look at him; at all this monstrous joy.
“Not like Wanderer did,” I murmured, looking away from him. “Though maybe she was right. The knife thing—”
“You already said I could go,” Jamie quickly interrupted.
“No knives,” Jared said firmly, then rolled his eyes. He rested his hand behind Jamie’s seat as if reaching for me, but he didn’t touch me. “I’m already organizing the raid with everybody. You in?” he pointed his chin at Ian.
“Of course I am,” Ian said, and didn’t look at me.
But his feet knocked against mine under the table; more than anyone here, we understood each other.
***
When the thin beams of light shot out of the darkness into our faces, my first thought was that this was unfair.
We were in the rock slide where the van and the big moving truck were hidden, and this was obviously a trap; there was nothing we could have done, and we didn’t have Wanderer’s silver rings around my eyes to save us anymore. It was unfair, it was so unfair, I felt it like a fucking rock inside my throat.
Wanderer had killed herself for me just for me to die not a full month later, without her?
Worse: that I could not die, but be taken in and have someone else put in my head. Someone who wasn’t her.
The moon was bright enough for me to clearly see the Seekers that outnumbered us, eight to our six, once I blinked the bright spots out of my eyes. I could see the way they held their hands, the weapons that glinted in them, raised and pointed at us. Pointed at Jared and Ian, at Brandt and Aaron—our only gun still undrawn—and one centered dead on my chest.
The rock in my throat melted into sheer relief. She was dead, but at least they wouldn’t get her. At least they wouldn’t kill her or poison her or worse.
I closed a fist around the pill in my pocket. Jared reached for my hand, but I didn’t reach back.
"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... why did they get to have so many weapons when we only had one? Christ.
"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. My heart was still shattered in my chest and I had no idea how to go about putting it back together. The relief just wasn’t coming.
"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 grinned. "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 didn’t introduce. He had bright, crinkly red hair that stood out—especially because he was the tallest in the group. He alone seemed to be unarmed. He was looking curiously at us all, something strangely familiar about him. "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 stepped forward with Jared as if connected to him by a string.
"I'm Jared." He shook Nate's hand, then started to smile. "These are Melanie, Aaron, Brandt, Jamie, and Ian. There are thirty-six of us altogether."
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 Cyrus. 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 had turned to look 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 red hair. The man stepped forward, a wry smile on his face. He had freckles all over, scattered so thick across his face that he looked dark skinned, though he was fair. His eyes were dark. He was strange but so familiar. Why was he familiar? Something about the way he moved. Something about the way he smiled. I thought nonsensically that he looked kind.
"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.
Ah, I thought.
Jared opened his mouth, but I stepped forward before he could speak. The woman cocked her gun, but I was beyond noticing.
“You’re a soul,” I said. “That’s why you felt familiar.”
The fact of it felt like a shot to the chest. Burns was tall and beautiful and kind and there, behind the group, clearly beloved and protected. Nate, his best friend, who stood tall like a leader, wouldn’t let anyone lay a single hand on him.
The space beside me was vacant.
Burns blinked at me, then smiled, though I really couldn’t bring myself to smile back. When he spoke, his voice was gentle. “You feel familiar as well, but I don’t think I’ve seen you before.”
He crossed the empty space, the no-man's-land between the two groups, with his hand stretched out toward me. I caught it in a firm handshake.
"Burns Living Flowers," he introduced himself.
Fire World. How funny, that in the end I might learn more about it than she had ever known.
“Melanie Stryder,” I said evenly. “But I was the host to a soul named Wanderer.”
His eyes widened. He took a step back, which was hilarious—and then suddenly was horrifying instead, because I knew how souls could be terrified of us. What was he thinking, in this split second, I had done to her? I didn’t want Burns Living Flowers to be afraid of me.
“You might have known her by other names,” I continued, quieting my voice. “She was a Bear. Lives In The Stars. Rides The Beast. I don’t know her other names. The others call her Wanda.”
“How is this possible?” Burns asked in a quiet voice. “Where is she now?”
“She killed herself,” I told him, and my voice broke. I looked away. “To give my body back to me. Souls can’t live at the expanse of someone they love.” I smiled. “She told me that. Or, we knew that.”
His eyes filled with something. Pity, I thought, or maybe just grief, the way Wanderer had grieved for her siblings in the caves. Or maybe it was relief. Sheer relief that she had died for love, in spite of everything we humans might have done to her. He raised a hand as if he wanted to touch my face, but didn’t.
“How is it possible?” he asked quietly.
I grinned at him, sharp and without any humor. “I was one of the annoying ones who never left. Made her life hell in the beginning. But we—” My voice caught and I couldn’t keep going.
He laughed quietly. “And I thought I was such a rare thing, that a soul gone native could be the strangest thing I’d ever seen. Melanie Stryder. It’s extraordinary to meet you.”
“And I, you,” I said quietly.
Wanderer would have liked him, I thought. She would have liked to learn about the Fire World, to have a brother in this human world, a soul to stand with her. Wanderer deserved to be here, and it hurt too much to even think of metaphors for it—but who could I blame for her absence? Jared, who in another world might have asked it of her, but who hadn’t needed to, here? Wanderer herself, for taking herself from me when I hadn’t wanted her to?
Or me, because she loved me?
I closed my eyes. “It’s a strange universe.”
"It is," he agreed.