I sighed and rolled onto my stomach. “Does Jeb have to get his way every single time?”
Jamie thought for a moment, then nodded. “Pretty much, yeah.”
I took a big bite of bread. When I was done chewing, I said, “I think I’ll eat in here from now on.”
“Ian’s going to ask you questions tomorrow when you’re weeding the spinach. Jeb’s not making him—he wants to.”
“Well, that’s wonderful.”
“You’re pretty good with sarcasm. I thought the parasites—I mean the souls—didn’t like negative humor. Just the happy stuff.”
“They’d learn pretty quick in here, kid.”
Jamie laughed and then took my hand. “You don’t hate it here, do you? You’re not miserable, are you?”
His big chocolate-colored eyes were troubled.
I pressed his hand to my face. “I’m fine,” I told him, and at that moment, it was entirely the truth.
CHAPTER 26
Returned
Without ever actually agreeing to do it, I became the teacher Jeb wanted.
My “class” was informal. I answered questions every night after dinner. I found that as long as I was willing to do this, Ian and Doc and Jeb would leave me alone during the day so that I could concentrate on my chores. We always convened in the kitchen; I liked to help with the baking while I spoke. It gave me an excuse to pause before answering a difficult question, and somewhere to look when I didn’t want to meet anyone’s eyes. In my head, it seemed fitting; my words were sometimes upsetting, but my actions were always for their good.
I didn’t want to admit that Jamie was right. Obviously, people didn’t like me. They couldn’t; I wasn’t one of them. Jamie liked me, but that was just some strange chemical reaction that was far from rational. Jeb liked me, but Jeb was crazy. The rest of them didn’t have either excuse.
No, they didn’t like me. But things changed when I started talking.
The first time I noticed it was the morning after I answered Doc’s questions at dinner; I was in the black bathing room, washing clothes with Trudy, Lily, and Jamie.
“Could you hand me the soap, please, Wanda?” Trudy asked from my left.
An electric current ran through my body at the sound of my name spoken by a female voice. Numbly, I passed her the soap and then rinsed the sting off my hand.
“Thank you,” she added.
“You’re welcome,” I murmured. My voice cracked on the last syllable.
I passed Lily in the hall a day later on my way to find Jamie before dinner.
“Wanda,” she said, nodding.
“Lily,” I answered, my throat dry.
Soon it wasn’t just Doc and Ian who asked questions at night. It surprised me who the most vocal were: exhausted Walter, his face a worrisome shade of gray, was endlessly interested in the Bats of the Singing World. Heath, usually silent, letting Trudy and Geoffrey talk for him, was outspoken during these evenings. He had some fascination with Fire World, and though it was one of my least favorite stories to tell, he peppered me with questions until he’d heard every detail I knew. Lily was concerned with the mechanics of things—she wanted to know about the ships that carried us from planet to planet, their pilots, their fuel. It was to Lily that I explained the cryotanks—something they had all seen but few understood the purpose of. Shy Wes, usually sitting close to Lily, asked not about other planets but about this one. How did it work? No money, no recompense for work—why did our souls’ society not fall apart? I tried to explain that it was not so different from life in the caves. Did we not all work without money and share in the products of our labor equally?
“Yes,” he interrupted me, shaking his head. “But it’s different here—Jeb has a gun for the slackers.”
Everyone looked at Jeb, who winked, and then they all laughed.
Jeb was in attendance about every other night. He didn’t participate; he just sat thoughtfully in the back of the room, occasionally grinning.
He was right about the entertainment factor; oddly, for we all had legs, the situation reminded me of the See Weeds. There had been a special title for entertainers there, like Comforter or Healer or Seeker. I was one of the Storytellers, so the transition to a teacher here on Earth had not been such a change, profession-wise, at least. It was much the same in the kitchen after dark, with the smell of smoke and baking bread filling the room. Everyone was stuck here, as good as planted. My stories were something new, something to think about besides the usual—the same endlessly repeated sweaty chores, the same thirty-five faces, the same memories of other faces that brought the same grief with them, the same fear and the same despair that had long been familiar companions. And so the kitchen was always full for my casual lessons. Only Sharon and Maggie were conspicuously and consistently absent.
I was in about my fourth week as an informal teacher when life in the caves changed again.
The kitchen was crowded, as was usual. Jeb and Doc were the only ones missing besides the normal two. On the counter next to me was a metal tray of dark, doughy rolls, swollen to twice the size they’d started at. They were ready for the oven, as soon as the current tray was done. Trudy checked every few minutes to make sure nothing was burning.
Often, I tried to get Jamie to talk for me when he knew the story well. I liked to watch the enthusiasm light up his face, and the way he used his hands to draw pictures in the air. Tonight, Heidi wanted to know more about the Dolphins, so I asked Jamie to answer her questions as well as he could.
The humans always spoke with sadness when they asked about our newest acquisition. They saw the Dolphins as mirrors of themselves in the first years of the occupation. Heidi’s dark eyes, disconcerting underneath her fringe of white-blond hair, were tight with sympathy as she asked her questions.