I wasn’t around. Only today I didn’t seem to bother them. They must have been tired of letting me
interrupt their lives.
“Things are settling down,” Ian commented to Jeb.
“Knew they would. We’re all reasonable folks here.”
I frowned to myself.
“That’s true, at the moment,” Ian said, laughing. “My brother’s not around.”
“Exactly,” Jeb agreed.
It was interesting to me that Ian counted himself among the reasonable folks. Had he noticed that Jeb
was unarmed? I was burning with curiosity, but I couldn’t risk pointing it out in case he hadn’t.
The meal continued as it had begun. My novelty had apparently worn off.
When the meal was over, Jeb said I deserved a rest. He walked me all the way to my door, playing the
gentleman again.
“Afternoon, Wanda,” he said, tipping his imaginary hat.
I took a deep breath for bravery. “Jeb, wait.”
“Yes?”
“Jeb…” I hesitated, trying to find a polite way to put it. “I… well, maybe it’s stupid of me, but I sort of
thought we were friends.”
I scrutinized his face, looking for any change that might indicate that he was about to lie to me. He only
looked kind, but what did I know of a liar’s tells?
“Of course we are, Wanda.”
“Then why are you trying to get me killed?”
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”
I listed my evidence. “You didn’t take the gun today. And yesterday you left me alone.”
Jeb grinned. “I thought you hated that gun.”
I waited for an answer.
“Wanda, if I wanted you dead, you wouldn’t have lasted that first day.”
“I know,” I muttered, starting to feel embarrassed without understanding why. “That’s why it’s all so
confusing. ”
Jeb laughed cheerfully. “No, I don’t want you dead! That’s the whole point, kid. I’ve been getting them
all used to seeing you around, getting them to accept the situation without realizing it. It’s like boiling a
frog.”
My forehead creased at the eccentric comparison.
Jeb explained. “If you throw a frog in a pot of boiling water, it will hop right out. But if you put that frog
in a pot of tepid water and slowly warm it, the frog doesn’t figure out what’s going on until it’s too late.
Boiled frog. It’s just a matter of working by slow degrees.”
I thought about that for a second—remembered how the humans had ignored me at lunch today. Jeb
had gotten them used to me. The realization made me feel strangely hopeful. Hope was a silly thing in my
situation, but it seeped into me anyway, coloring my perceptions more brightly than before.
“Jeb?”
“Yeah?”
“Am I the frog or the water?”
He laughed. “I’ll leave that one for you to puzzle over. Self-examination is good for the soul.” He
laughed again, louder this time, as he turned to leave. “No pun intended.”
“Wait—can I ask one more?”
“Sure. I’d say it’s your turn anyway, after all I’ve asked you.”
“Whyare you my friend, Jeb?”
He pursed his lips for a second, considering his answer.
“You know I’m a curious man,” he began, and I nodded. “Well, I get to watch your souls a lot, but I
never get to talk with ’em. I’ve had so many questions just piling up higher and higher.… Plus, I’ve
always thought that if a person wants to, he can get along with just about anybody. I like putting my
theories to the test. And see, here you are, one of the nicest gals I ever met. It’s real interesting to have a
soul as a friend, and it makes me feel super special that I’ve managed it.”
He winked at me, bowed from the waist, and walked away.
He never took the gun anywhere anymore. I didn’t know where it was, but I was grateful that Jamie
wasn’t sleeping with it, at least. It made me a little nervous to have Jamie with me unprotected, but I
decided he was actually in less danger without the gun. No one would feel the need to hurt him when he
wasn’t a threat. Besides, no one came looking for me anymore.
Jeb started sending me on little errands. Run back to the kitchen for another roll, he was still hungry. Go
fetch a bucket of water, this corner of the field was dry. Pull Jamie out of his class, Jeb needed to speak
with him. Were the spinach sprouts up yet? Go and check. Did I remember my way through the south
caves? Jeb had a message for Doc.
Every time I had to carry out one of these simple directives, I was in a sweaty haze of fear. I
concentrated on being invisible and walked as quickly as I could without running through the big rooms
and the dark corridors. I tended to hug the walls and keep my eyes down. Occasionally, I would stop
conversation the way I used to, but mostly I was ignored. The only time I felt in immediate danger of
death was when I interrupted Sharon’s class to get Jamie. The look Sharon gave me seemed designed to
be followed by hostile action. But she let Jamie go with a nod after I choked out my whispered request,
and when we were alone, he held my shaking hand and told me Sharon looked the same way at anyone
who interrupted her class.
The very worst was the time I had to find Doc, because Ian insisted on showing me the way. I could
have refused, I suppose, but Jeb didn’t have a problem with the arrangement, and that meant Jeb trusted
Ian not to kill me. I was far from comfortable with testingthat theory, but it seemed the test was
inevitable. If Jeb was wrong to trust Ian, then Ian would find his opportunity soon enough. So I went with
Ian through the long black southern tunnel as if it were a trial by fire.
I lived through the first half. Doc got his message. He seemed unsurprised to see Ian tagging along
beside me. Perhaps it was my imagination, but I thought they exchanged a significant glance. I half
expected them to strap me to one of Doc’s gurneys at that point. These rooms continued to make me
feel nauseated.
But Doc just thanked me and sent me on my way as if he were busy. I couldn’t really tell what he was
doing—he had several books open and stacks and stacks of papers that seemed to contain nothing but
sketches.
On the way back, curiosity overcame my fear.
“Ian?” I asked, having a bit of difficulty saying the name for the first time.
“Yes?” He sounded surprised that I’d addressed him.
“Why haven’t you killed me yet?”
He snorted. “That’s direct.”
“You could, you know. Jeb might be annoyed, but I don’t think he’d shoot you.” What was I saying? It
sounded like I was trying to convince him. I bit my tongue.
“I know,” he said, his tone complacent.
“It doesn’t seem fair,” Ian finally said. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and I can’t see how killing you
would make anything right. It would be like executing a private for a general’s war crimes. Now, I don’t
buy all of Jeb’s crazy theories—it would be nice to believe, sure, but just because you want something to
be true doesn’t make it that way. Whether he’s right or wrong, though, you don’t appear to mean us any
harm. I have to admit, you seem honestly fond of that boy. It’s very strange to watch. Anyway, as long
as you don’t put us in danger, it seems…cruel to kill you. What’s one more misfit in this place?”
I thought about the wordmisfit for a moment. It might have been the truest description of me I’d ever
heard. Where had I ever fit in?
How strange that Ian, of all the humans, should have such a surprisingly gentle interior. I didn’t realize
thatcruelty would seem a negative to him.
He waited in silence while I considered all this.
“If you don’t want to kill me, then why did you come with me today?” I asked.
He paused again before answering.
“I’m not sure that…” He hesitated. “Jeb thinks things have calmed down, but I’m not completely sure
about that. There’re still a few people… Anyway, Doc and I have been trying to keep an eye on you
when we can. Just in case. Sending you down the south tunnel seemed like pushing your luck, to me. But
that’s what Jeb does best—he pushes luck as far as it will go.”
“You… you and Doc are trying toprotect me?”
“Strange world, isn’t it?”
It was a few seconds before I could answer.
“The strangest,” I finally agreed.
CHAPTER 25
Compelled
Another week passed, maybe two—there seemed little point in keeping track of time here, where it was
so irrelevant—and things only got stranger for me.
I worked with the humans every day, but not always with Jeb. Some days Ian was with me, some days
Doc, and some days only Jamie. I weeded fields, kneaded bread, and scrubbed counters. I carried
water, boiled onion soup, washed clothes in the far end of the black pool, and burned my hands making
that acidic soap. Everyone did their part, and since I had no right to be here, I tried to work twice as
hard as the others. I could not earn a place, I knew that, but I tried to make my presence as light a
burden as possible.
I got to know a little about the humans around me, mostly just by listening to them. I learned their names,
I also learned more about my neighbors.
Ian and Kyle shared the cave on my hallway with the two real doors propped over the entrance. Ian had
begun bunking with Wes in another corridor in protest of my presence here, but he’d moved back after
just two nights. The other nearby caves had also gone vacant for a while. Jeb told me the occupants were
afraid of me, which made me laugh. Were twenty-nine rattlesnakes afraid of a lone field mouse?
Now Paige was back, next door, in the cave she shared with her partner, Andy, whose absence she
mourned. Lily was with Heidi in the first cave, with the flowered sheets; Heath was in the second, with
the duct-taped cardboard; and Trudy and Geoffrey were in the third, with a striped quilt. Reid and
Violetta were one cave farther down the hall than mine, their privacy protected by a stained and
threadbare oriental carpet.
The fourth cave in this corridor belonged to Doc and Sharon, and the fifth to Maggie, but none of these
three had returned.
Doc and Sharon were partnered, and Maggie, in her rare moments of sarcastic humor, teased Sharon
that it had taken the end of humanity for Sharon to find the perfect man: every mother wanted a doctor
for her daughter.
Sharon was not the girl I’d seen in Melanie’s memories. Was it the years of living alone with the dour
Maggie that had changed her into a more brightly colored version of her mother? Though her relationship
with Doc was newer to this world than I was, she showed none of the softening effects of new love.
I knew the duration of that relationship from Jamie—Sharon and Maggie rarely forgot when I was in a
room with them, and their conversation was guarded. They were still the strongest opposition, the only
people here whose ignoring me continued to feel aggressively hostile.
I’d asked Jamie how Sharon and Maggie had gotten here. Had they found Jeb on their own, beaten
Jared and Jamie here? He seemed to understand the real question: had Melanie’s last effort to find them
been entirely a waste?
Jamie told me no. When Jared had showed him Melanie’s last note, explained that she was gone—it
It had not taken long with Maggie and Jared working together for them to decipher Jeb’s riddle. The
four of them had gotten to the caves before I’d moved from Chicago to San Diego.
When Jamie and I spoke of Melanie, it was not as difficult as it should have been. She was always a part
of these conversations—soothing his pain, smoothing my awkwardness—though she had little to say. She
rarely spoke to me anymore, and when she did it was muted; now and then I wasn’t sure if I really heard
her or just my own idea of what she might think. But she made an effort for Jamie. When I heard her, it
was always with him. When she didn’t speak, we both felt her there.
“Why is Melanie so quiet now?” Jamie asked me late one night. For once, he wasn’t grilling me about
Spiders and Fire-Tasters. We were both tired—it had been a long day pulling carrots. The small of my
back was in knots.
“It’s hard for her to talk. It takes so much more effort than it takes you and me. She doesn’t have
anything she wants to say that badly.”
“What does shedo all the time?”
“She listens, I think. I guess I don’t know.”
“Can you hear her now?”
“No.”
I yawned, and he was quiet. I thought he was asleep. I drifted in that direction, too.
“Do you think she’ll go away? Really gone?” Jamie suddenly whispered. His voice caught on the last
word.
I was not a liar, and I don’t think I could have lied to Jamie if I were. I tried not to think about the
implications of my feelings for him. Because what did it mean if the greatest love I’d ever felt in my nine
lives, the first true sense of family, of maternal instinct, was for an alien life-form? I shoved the thought
away.
“I don’t know,” I told him. And then, because it was true, I added, “I hope not.”
“Do you like her like you like me? Did you used to hate her, like she hated you?”
“It’s different than how I like you. And I never really hated her, not even in the beginning. I was very
afraid of her, and I was angry that because of her I couldn’t be like everyone else. But I’ve always,
always admired strength, and Melanie is the strongest person I’ve ever known.”
Jamie laughed. “Youwere afraid ofher? ”
“You don’t think your sister can be scary? Remember the time you went too far up the canyon, and
when you came home late she ‘threw a raging hissy fit,’ according to Jared?”
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.
I was eager to keep the peace with all my new companions in any way I could. I thought I was willing to
do anything, no matter how backbreaking or smelly, but it turned out I was wrong.
“So I was thinking,” Jeb said to me one day, maybe two weeks after everyone had “calmed down.”
I was beginning to hate those words from Jeb.
“Do you remember what I was saying about you maybe teaching a little here?”
My answer was curt. “Yes.”
“Well, how ’bout it?”
I didn’t have to think it through. “No.”
My refusal sent an unexpected pang of guilt through me. I’d never refused a Calling before. It felt like a
selfish thing to do. Obviously, though, this was not the same. The souls would have never asked me to do
something so suicidal.
He frowned at me, scrunching his caterpillar eyebrows together. “Why not?”
“How do you think Sharon would like that?” I asked him in an even voice. It was just one example, but
