| previous chapter |
Lo and behold, we turn the blank page and there are 2 more chapters to go! Wanda expected there to be blackness, but suddenly she is remembering Petals Open to the Moon’s last memories of Mel, Jared, and Jamie kidnapping her. Even once she is pulled out of the memories by Awake, she hears the voices around her but can’t place them and is confused about where and what she is. Finally something triggers when she hears Ian’s voice in her ear; “I wanted to see the face that went with that voice.” She starts remembering her name and all her loved ones in the cave. She tries to look at her hand, but mistakes it for a stranger’s.
Was this my hand, this tiny thing? It was a child’s hand, except for the long pink-and-white nails, filed into perfect smooth curves. The skin was fair, with a strange silvery cast to it and, entirely incongruous, a scattering of golden freckles.
…
Wide gray eyes, the silver of the soul shimmering faintly behind the soft color, framed by tangled golden lastes. Pale pink lips, full and almost round, like a baby’s. Small, even white teeth behind them. A dimple in the chin. And everywhere, everywhere, golden waving hair that stood away from my face in a bright halo and fell below where the mirror showed.
After Wanda is done discovering herself, she snaps back to reality, angry with Doc for not keeping his promise to her. Doc reveals that Jared held a knife to his throat while he was performing the operation on Melanie/Wanda and demanded that they save Wanda in a cryotank. Wanda pitifully complains that she “didn’t want to be a parasite” anymore. Mel bursts through and Wanda see her for the first time and cuts the crap and tells it like it is: “Listen up, Wanda. I know exactly what you don’t want to be. But we’re human, and we’re selfish, and we don’t always do the right thing. We aren’t going to let you go. Deal with it.”
At this point Wanda “cleverly” disguises the fact that she’s only 17 and lies to make herself a year older. Jamie describes how they went on the raid and decided on Pet. He got to make the final decision on who to choose and chose Pet “Because she sort of looks like an angel, and you’re good like that. And real pretty. I knew you would be pretty.” (Aww, Jamie’s so sweet.) During all this time Ian stayed at the caves holding Wanderer’s cryotank and wouldn’t let a single other person touch it. Then we get Ian’s awesome line, “I held you in my hand, Wanderer. And you were so beautiful.”
Wanda has a brief moment of jealousy when she sees Jared holding Melanie. She’s still in love with Jared, despite changing bodies. The group reveals to Wanda that they weren’t able to revive Jodi, so instead of letting her starve to death, they re-inserted Sunny who is very happy to have gotten to stay. Sunny says that she is looking for Jodi inside her head to see if she can find her, if she’s still there. They also tell Wanderer that the human host she’s in didn’t revive either – so she shouldn’t think of herself as a parasite.
Finally Ian asks the important question: Will Wanderer stay with them on Earth? She agrees, “If it makes you happy.” Ian disagrees and tells her, “That’s not good enough. It has to make you happy, too.”
For a moment she pauses but then responds, “I think it might make me very, very happy.”
And my tenth life began.
