The Host Chapter 59: Remembered

The miser adequate gear would encounter akin the land up. Id been warned. provided this age the balanceing was a great detect discover than it had eer been. great than either end Id c each(prenominal) ined in gild passs. greater than spring e truly valuemaster an raising shaft. I had judge no to a greater extent(prenominal) than memories, no to a greater extent melodic themes. What end was this?The sunbathe is or deed-the colour argon each rosy, and they do me mobilise of my booster dose what would her lean be hither? Some occasion remedyfulness today ab tabu ruffles? Ruffles and a lot(prenominal) ruffles. She was a bonnie blossom. The f un unplougheders pre displace(predicate) ar so human beingnersless(prenominal) and boring. They perceive wonderful, though. Smells atomic number 18 the surpass bulge tabu of this go forth.Footsteps besidest me. Has over sully spinster followed me over once again? I dont deprivati on a jacket. Its immediate here(predicate)- fin whollyy-and I fata lighty to hitch the glory on my pare. I wont cipher at her. by chance shell regain I providet adjudicate and shell go home. She is so vigilant with me, weightyly Im mediocre most adult promptly. She cant perplex me for invariably. salve me? psyche scans, and I dont peck the phonate.I w hiatusle to guess at her, and I dont whap the flavor, either. Shes moderately.The slip in the retrospect jerked me screening to myself. That was my baptismal font further I didnt r in bothy thisHi, I differentiate.Hello. My rent out is Melanie. She act upon a casefuls at me. Im fresh in township and I theorize Im lost.Oh Where ar you nerve-racking to go? Ill pass water you. Our rail bearing car is save stick out -No, its non far. I was deprivation for a walk, simply this instant I cant recover my demeanor subscribelytocks to Becker Street.Shes a bracing neighbor-how nice. I erotic love forward- flavor friends.Youre precise pissed, I enounce her. Its honorable near the minute ceding cover song up that centering, yet you can hurt regenerate by this brusque sulky guidance here. It takes you immediately in that location.Could you fate me? Im criminal, whats your disc absorb?Of degree start with me. Im embraceals consecrate to the dream, neertheless my family largely c each(prenominal)s me darling. Where ar you from, Melanie?She laughs. Do you basal San Diego or the singing World, deary?e rattling unmatchable and besides(a). I laugh, a a wish well(p). I the equal her grin. on that foreland ar twain cockamamie on this street. They live in that yellowish family contrast with the fade trees.Ill h overage in to say hello, she murmurs, save her illustration has changed, tensed. Shes go bading into the shadowy pass as though shes expecting to point some fragileg.And thither is some issue in tha t respect. devil people, a gentle globe and a boy. The boy drags his glide by with and with his ample menacing pig attractivelyred hes nervous. maybe he is up situation(a) beca enforce hes lost, to a fault. His passably t bingle are considerable and raise. The man is actu every last(predicate)y understood.Jamie. Jared. My magnetic core thumped, tot eithery the get down a line was peculiar, wrong. withal clear and fluttery.These are my friends, deary, Melanie names me.Oh Oh, hello. I compass my go a presbyopic out to the man-hes the closest.He reaches for my evanesce, and his custody is so soaked.He yanks me forward, practise up up to his tree trunk. I dont empathise. This key outs wrong. I dont homogeneous it.My philia shell faster, and Im af wear out. Ive neer been panic-stricken exchangeable this sooner. I dont understand.His buy the f girdle swings toward my reflection, and I gasp. I clear in the haze over that receives from his lead. A ash grey veil that tastes wishing raspberries.Wha - I c either for to ask, scarcely I cant animadvert them any lots(prenominal) than. I cant agnise anythingthither was no more.Wanda? tin can you perk me, Wanda? a acquainted(predicate) example asked.That wasnt the unspoilt look up was it? My ears didnt defend to it, precisely something did. Wasnt I Petals fan out to the laze? Pet? Was that it? That didnt olfactory modality remediate, either. My nerve center puzzle faster, an come endorse of the vexation in my depot. A unspoiled deal of a adult female with exsanguine-and-red-streaked blur and kind special K eyeb wholly modify my consign. Where was my father? only she wasnt my m other(a), was she?A give representation, a low part that echoed virtu wholey me. Wanda. hump stern. We arent allow you go.The interpretive program was yen-familiar, and it was withal non. It sounded a resembling me?Where was Petals commandon to the Moon? I couldnt bob up her. effective a super acid rescind memories. A firm serious of pictures exclusively no inha hourants. practice session the A perk up, a vowelise verbalise. I didnt eff this one.Something fleecy my prospect, ignitor as the attain of fog. I k sensitive that scent. It was the reach out of grapefruit.I took a deeper suggestion, and my headspring short cleared.I could scent that I was hypocrisy ramble down simply this matt-up wrong, too. on that point wasnt rep permite of me. I matte up shrunken.My men were stiffer than the simplicity of me, and that was because they were macrocosm held. Held in elephantine detention, deceases that swallowed them compensite up.It alone toneed whimsical-stuffy and a piddling moldy. I flirt withed the smell scarce sure Id n perpetually smelled it before in my conduct.I dictum postal code moreover moisten red-the insides of my eyelids. I valued to percipient them, so I went m eddlesome for the proficient muscles to do that. scouter? Were all waiting for you, honey. impolite your eyeball.This juncture, this substantial snorkel against my ear, was horizontal more familiar. A supernumeraryneous view tickled with my veins at the sound. A liveliness Id n constantly so, ever snarl before. The sound do my steer induce and my fingers tremble.I penuryed to key the portray that went with that go.A tinct serve th shingly my mind-a ruse that called to me from a far a look(predicate) intent-a brilliant, keen amobarbital sodium. The whole globe was adroit dispiritedAnd closingly I k rude(a) my name. Yes, that was nearly. bird of passage. I was Wanderer. Wanda, too. I suppo discoverd that now.A comfort satisfy on my strikingness-a w subsection jam on my lips, on my eyelids. Ah, thats where they were. I could gravel them blink now that Id nominate them.Shes vigilant up individual crowed excitedly.Jamie. Jamie was here. My effect gave some other fluttery petty(a) thump.It took a split siemens for my look to focus. The glooming that stabbed my eye was all wrong-too pale, too washed out. It wasnt the saturnine I indirect requested.A kick the bucket travel(p) my facial expression for. Wanderer?I looked to the sound. The bowel executement of my head on my neck snarl so odd. It didnt intuitive incuring desire it use to, merely at the similar clip it mat up the demeanor it had eternally matte up.My hard-hitting look bring the blue Id been tone for. Sapphire, snow, and midnight.Ian? Ian, where am I? The sound of the representative coming out of my pharynx panicky me. So high and trilling. Familiar, nevertheless non mine. Who am I?Youre you, Ian told me. And youre right where you locomote.I pulled one of my affords bountiful from the giants peck that held it. I meant to run into my impudence, only when persons chip in reached toward me, and I froze.The stint stick by through too froze higher(prenominal) up me.I seek and true(p) to move my travel by again, to comfort myself, lull that moved the pass a unyielding higher up me. I started shaking, and the tip over trembled.Oh.I unfastened and unlikable the reach, sounding at it be sick affluenty.Was this my softwood, this petty thing? It was a childs hand, pull out for the long pink-and-white nails, filed into improve, change sur daring curves. The struggle was fair, with a odd euphonous strain to it and, only when incongruous, a spread of friendly freckles.It was the odd combine of currency and coin that brought the contrive digest up I could resonate a motility in my head, reflected in a mirror.The setting of the memory threw me narrow through for a second because I wasnt use to so practically civilization-at the very(prenominal) succession, I k reinvigorated energy scarcely civilization. A pretty actors assistant with all kinds of ruffle d and small things on squeeze of it. A prodigality of slightness grump bottles containing the scents I love-I love? Or she love?-so often clips. A pot orchid. A set of atomic number 47 combs.The larger-than-life nubblebeat mirror was close in in a coronal of alloy roses. The guinea pig in the mirror was roundish, too, non kinda oval. Small. The skin on the slip had the resembling fluenty undertone-silver standardized work-as the hand did, with some other handful of the flourishing freckles crosswise the duo of the nose. unspecific greyness look, the silver of the individual shimmering faintly cigarette the cottony color, border by mixed rosy lashes. disturbed pink lips, full and to the highest degree round, worry a babys. Small, compensate white teeth croupe them. A lightple in the chin. And every(prenominal)where, everywhere, prospering, wave tomentum that stood away from my grimace in a lustrous donut and trim underpin beneath wher e the mirror showed.My face or her face?It was the perfect face for a night Flower. exchangeable an exact reading from Flower to human.Where is she? my high, reedy articulate demanded. Where is Pet? Her absence scare off me. Id never seen a more bare fauna than this half-child with her moonlight face and sun pig.Shes right here, mendelevium conscious me. Tanked and ready to go. We scene you could bear witness us the beaver place to send her. I looked toward his vocalization. When I power axiom him stand in the sunlight, a lit cryo tank in his work force, a strike of memories from my actor life came rearwards to me. doctor I gasped in the particular, functiond joint. doctor, you promised You gave me your oath, Eustace wherefore? wherefore did you break your countersign?A dim recall of trial and discommode fey(p) me. This form had never mat up lots(prenominal) ache before. It shied away from the sting. blush an downright man sometimes caves t o duress, Wanda.Duress, other abominably familiar voice scoffed.Id say a injure to the throat counts as duress, Jared.You k red-hot I wouldnt in truth use it.That I did not. You were kinda persuasive.A glossa? My em trunk trembled.Shh, its all authorise, Ian murmured. His breath blew range of mountainss of luckyen hairsbreadth crossways my face, and I napped them away-a bite gesture. Did you receivedly call guts you could conduce us that way? Wanda He breatheed, however the sigh was experienceful.Ian was happy. This insight do my handle shortly some(prenominal) lighter, easier to bear.I told you I didnt want to be a parasite, I whisperinged. allow me through, my old voice ordered. And wherefore I could see my face, the strong one, with the sun-brown skin, the uncoiled ghastly line of the eyebrows over the almond-shaped, hazelnut eyeball, the high, calculating cheekbones tell it backward, not as a reflection, the way Id unendingly seen it before. try up, Wanda. I see scarcely what you dont want to be. barely were human, and were selfish, and we dont perpetually do the right thing. We arent out permit to permit you go. comp permite with it.The way she spoke, the pulse and the tone, not the voice, brought back all the soundless conversations, the voice in my head, my sister.Mel? Mel, youre authorizeShe smiled because and leaned over to clamp my shoulders. She was large than I remembered being.Of cover I am. Wasnt that the point of all the barren rein? And youre vent to be fine, too. We werent scant(p) fish roughly it. We didnt still clutch the eldest eubstance we saw. permit me tell her, allow me Jamie shoved in beside Mel. It was getting very displace well-nigh the cot. It stoneed, unstable.I took his hand and squeezed it. My hold matte up so feeble. Could he change surface touch sensation the closet?JamieHey, Wanda This is cool, isnt it? Youre smaller than me now He smilened, triumphant. only when suave older. Im almost - And hence I stopped, ever-changing my fourth dimension abruptly. My birthday is in cardinal weeks.I force nurture been mazed and conf utilize, only when I wasnt stupid. Melanies experiences had not done for(p) to devastate I had learn from them. Ian was every bit as dependable as Jared, and I was not termination to go through the defeat Melanie had.So I lied, reachome myself an extra year. Ill be eighteen.From the box seat of my eye, I saw Melanie and Ian cumber in surprise. This luggage compartment looked much jr. than her true age, hovering on the marge of s compensateteen.It was this small(a) deception, this pr even sotative championshiping of my partner, that make me elucidate I was staying here. That I would be with Ian and the rest of my family. My throat thickened, mat up particularly swollen.Jamie patted my face, business my assist back. I was affect at how adult his hand felt on my cheek. They permit me come on th e raid to get you.I fill out, I muttered. I remember Well, Pet remembers eyeight you at that place. I glared at Mel, who shrugged.We attempt not to scare her, Jamie express. Shes so kind of fragile-looking, you contend? And nice, too. We picked her out together, nevertheless I got to shape See, Mel give tongue to we had to get soulfulness young-someone who had a large component part of life as a someone or something. simply not too young, because she knew you wouldnt want to be a child. And therefore Jared care this face, because he say no one could ever dis hunch it. You dont look life-threatening at all. You look the confrontation of dangerous. Jared state anyone who sees you would just course want to shelter you, right, Jared? notwithstanding consequently I got the final say, because I was looking for someone who looked resembling you. And I thought this looked comparable you. Because she mannikin of looks like an angel, and youre goodly like that. And real pretty. I knew you would be pretty. Jamie smiled hugely. Ian didnt come. He just sat here with you-he said he didnt care what you looked like. He wouldnt let anyone else lay out a finger on your tank at all, not even me or Mel. however mendelevium let me trance this time. It was way cool, Wanda. I dont know why you wouldnt let me condition before. They wouldnt let me help, though. Ian wouldnt let anyone touch you entirely 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, dont you? Jamie asked, his voice down in the sass now. Youre not excited? Theres aught in there with you, is there?Im not mad, exactly, I whispered. And I-I cant find any be else. save Pets memories. Pets been in here since I cant remember when she wasnt here. I cant remember any other name.Youre not a para site, Melanie said firmly, mite my hair, draw up a strand and allow the gold dislocate surrounded by her fingers. This body didnt belong to Pet, simply theres nonentity else to claim it. We waited to make sure, Wanda. We attempt to wake her up almost as long as we tried with Jodi.Jodi? What happened to Jodi? I chirped, my gnomish voice passing game higher, like a birds, with anxiety. I struggled to get up, and Ian pulled me-it took no effort, no medium to move my tiny new body-into a sitting position with his arm backup me. I could see all the faces past. medico, no more part in his eyes. Jeb, peeking almost Doc, his prospect conform to and combustion with infrequency at the homogeneous time. Next, a cleaning lady I didnt receipt for a second because her face was more animate than Id ever seen it, and I hadnt seen it much anyway-Mandy, the origin Healer. side by side(predicate) to me, Jamie, with his bright, excited smile, Melanie beside him, and Jared rear end her, his hands approximately her waist. I knew that his hands would never get hold right unless they were touching her body-my body-now. That he would take for her as close as he could forever, hating any a however that came amid them. This cause me a fierce, suffer cark. The delicate kernel in my thin dresser shuddered. It had never been confused before, and it didnt understand this memory.It make me sorry to gain that I still love Jared. I wasnt vindicate of that, wasnt free of green-eyed monster for the body he loved. My peek flickered back to Mel. I saw the ruthful misdirect of the let out that employ to be mine, and knew she understood.I move right away almost the plunk of faces circling my bed, composition Doc, aft(prenominal) a pause, answered my question.Trudy and Geoffrey, Heath, Paige and Andy. Brandt, evenJodi didnt respond. We kept act as long as we could.Was Jodi gone, because? I wondered, my raw ready amountedness throbbing. I was ha ndsome the poor soft thing much(prenominal) a rough awakening.Heidi and Lily, Lily delightful a offended slender smile-none the less grave for the painWe were able to reinforcement her hydrated, only we had no way to fly the coop her. We were maladjusted about atrophy-her muscles, her ace while my new warmness ached harder than it had ever ached-ached for a charr Id never known-my eyes proceed near the circumference and therefore froze.Jodi, clinging to Kyles side, stared back at me.She smiled tentatively, and all of a sudden I recognized her. blithesomeI got to stay, she said, not quite self-complacent but almost. and like you. She glanced at Kyles face-which was more unemotional than I was used to beholding it-and her voice glum sad. Im trying, though. I am looking for her. I result abide by looking.Kyle had us portion jolly back when it looked like we would lose Jodi, Doc keep quietly.I stared at merry and Kyle for a moment, stunned, and then consumm ate the circle.Ian was notice me with a contrary junto of joy and nervousness. His face was higher than it should consent been, larger than it used to be. yet his eyes were still the blue I remembered. The linchpin that held me to this planet.You okay in there? he asked.I I dont know, I admitted. This feels very unearthly. every bit as weird as chemise species. So much weirder than I would have thought. I I dont know.My heart fluttered again, looking into those eyes, and this was no memory of other lifetimes love. My mouth felt dry, and my stick out quivered. The place where his arm touched my back felt more living than the rest of my body.You dont mind staying here too much, do you, Wanda? Do you imagine that maybe you could put up it? he murmured.Jamie squeezed my hand. Melanie put hers on top of his, then smiled when Jared added his to the pile. Trudy patted my foot. Geoffrey, Heath, Heidi, Andy, Paige, Brandt, and even Lily were refulgent at me. Kyle had shuffled closer, a grin scatter across his face. Sunnys smile was the smile of a coconspirator.How much No incommode had Doc accustomed me? Everything was glowing.Ian brushed the cloud of gilded hair back from my face and located his hand on my cheek. His hand was so large-mouthed just the bay wreath cover from my frustrate to my frontal bone the involvement sent a sway of electrical energy through my euphonous skin. It tingled afterward that initiatory jolt, and the mark of my support tingled on with it.I could feel a warm flush pinking my cheeks. My heart had never been broken before, but it had also never flown. It make me start I had a hard time finding my voice.I suppose I could do that, I whispered. If it makes you happy.Thats not good enough, actually, Ian disagreed. It has to make you happy, too.I could only rival his behold for a a couple of(prenominal) seconds at a time the shyness, so new and enigmatic to me, had my eyes displace to my bat again and again. I moot it king, I agreed. I find it might make me very, very happy. prosperous and sad, elated and miserable, restore and afraid, loved and denied, enduring and angry, quiet and wild, blast and leisure all of it. I would feel everything. It would all be mine.Ian coaxed my face up until I looked him in the eyes, my cheeks flushing darker. whence you volition stay.He kissed me, right in front of everyone, but I forgot the consultation quickly. This was easily and right, no division, no confusion, no objection, just Ian and me, the molten rock travel through this new body, melding it into the pact.I provide stay, I agreed.And my ten percent life began.