Also, Petals Open to the Moon had lived in Seattle all her life, and the unbroken streak of blue skies and blistering heat was as bewildering—almost numbing—to my system as the dark press of heavy overcast skies would have been to any of these desert dwellers. The clouds were exciting, a change from the bland, featureless pale blue. They had depth and movement. They made pictures in the sky.
There was a great deal of reshuffling to be done in Jeb’s caves, and the move to the big game room—now the communal sleeping quarters—was good preparation for more permanent arrangements to follow.
Every space was needed, so rooms could not remain vacant. Still, only the newcomers, Candy—who had remembered her correct name at last—and Lacey, could bear to take Wes’s old space. I pitied Candy for her future roommate, but the Healer never betrayed any discontent at the prospect.
When the rains ended, Jamie would move into a free corner in Brandt and Aaron’s cave. Melanie and Jared had kicked Jamie out of their room and into Ian’s before I’d been reborn in Pet’s body; Jamie wasn’t so young that they’d needed to give him any excuse.
Kyle was working on widening the small crevice that had been Walter’s sleeping space so that it would be ready when the desert was dry again. It really wasn’t big enough for more than one, and Kyle would not be staying there alone.
At night in the game room, Sunny slept curled into a ball against Kyle’s chest, like a kitten who was friends with a big dog—a rottweiler whom she trusted implicitly. Sunny was always with Kyle. I couldn’t remember ever seeing them unattached since I’d opened these silver gray eyes for the first time.
Kyle seemed constantly bemused, too distracted by this impossible relationship he couldn’t quite wrap his head around to pay attention to much else. He wasn’t giving up on Jodi, but as Sunny clung to him, he held her to his side with gentle hands.
Before the rain, every space was taken, so I stayed with Doc in the hospital that no longer frightened me. The cots were not comfortable, but it was a very interesting place to be. Candy remembered the details of Summer Song’s life better than her own; the hospital was a place of miracles now.
After the rain, Doc would not be sleeping in the hospital anymore. The first night in the game room, Sharon had dragged her mattress right next to Doc’s without a word of explanation. Perhaps it was Doc’s fascination with the Healer that motivated Sharon, though I doubted Doc had even noticed how pretty the older woman was; his fascination was with her phenomenal knowledge. Or maybe it was just that Sharon was ready to forgive and forget. I hoped that was the case. It would be nice to think that even Sharon and Maggie might be softened over time.
I would not stay in the hospital anymore, either.
The crucial conversation with Ian might never have taken place if not for Jamie. My mouth would go all dry and my palms would sweat whenever I so much as thought of bringing it up. What if those feelings in the hospital, those few perfect moments of certainty right after I’d awoken in this body, had been illusion? What if I remembered them wrong? I knew that nothing had changed for me, but how could I be certain Ian felt the same? The body he’d fallen in love with was still right here!
I expected him to be unsettled—we all were. If it was difficult for me, a soul used to such changes, how hard must it be for the humans?
I was working to put the last of the jealousy and the perplexing echoes of the love I still felt for Jared behind me. I didn’t need or want them. Ian was the right partner for me. But sometimes I would catch myself staring at Jared and feel confused. I’d seen Melanie touch Ian’s arm or hand and then jerk away as if she’d suddenly remembered who she was. Even Jared, who had the least reason for uncertainty, would occasionally meet my confused gaze with a searching one of his own. And Ian… Of course it must have been hardest for him. I understood that.
We were together nearly as much as Kyle and Sunny. Ian constantly touched my face and hair, was always holding my hands. But who did not respond to this body that way? And wasn’t it platonic for everyone else? Why didn’t he kiss me again, the way he had that first day?
Maybe he could never love me inside this body, as appealing as it seemed to be to all the other humans here.
That worry was heavy in my heart the night Ian had carried my cot—because it was too heavy for me—to the big, dark game room.
It was raining for the first time in more than six months. There were both laughter and complaints as people shook out their damp bedding and arranged their places. I saw Sharon with Doc and smiled.
“Over here, Wanda,” Jamie called, waving me toward where he’d just set his mattress next to Ian’s. “There’s room for all three of us now.”
Jamie was the one person who treated me almost exactly the same as before. He did make allowances for my puny physique, but he never seemed surprised to see me enter a room or shocked when Wanderer’s words came through these lips.
“You don’t really want that cot, do you, Wanda? I’ll bet we could all fit okay on the mattresses if we shoved them together.” Jamie grinned at me while he kicked one mattress into the other without waiting for agreement. “You don’t take up much space.”
He took the cot from Ian and set it on its side, out of the way. Then Jamie stretched out on the very edge of the far mattress and turned his back to us.
“Oh, hey, Ian,” he added without turning. “I talked to Brandt and Aaron, and I think I’m going to move in with them. Well, I’m beat. Night, guys.”