The Host: Days 27 and 28--Chapters 57-59 and Epilogue

Chapter 57:
"Jeb. Listen to me carefully, Jeb. I am tired of being a parasite. Can you understand that? Do you think I want to go into another body and have this start all over again? Do I have to feel guilty forever for taking someone's life away from them? Do I have to have someone else hate me? I'm barely a soul anymore--I love you brutish humans too much. It's wrong for me to  be here, and I hate feeling that...And what if things change? What if you put me in someone else, steal another life, and it goes wrong? What if that body pulls me after some other love, back to the souls? What if you can't trust me anymore? What if I betray you next time? I don't want to hurt you!"

"The first part was the the pure and unadorned truth, but I was lying wildly through the second. I hoped they wouldn't hear that. It would help that the words were barely coherent, my tears turned to sobs. I would never hurt them. What had happended to me here was permanent, a part of the very atoms that made up my small body. But maybe, if I gave them a reason to fear me, they would more easily accept what had to be."

"Just a few more things to do. Three, to be precise. Three last deeds to be completed. First, I ate...Second, I went to see Sunny and Jodi...So I proceeded to my third and final deed: I lied."

"What would it be like for everyone here, meeting Melanie for the first time? Would it seem the same to them, as if there were no difference? Would they really grasp that I was gone, or would Melanie simply fill the role I had? Maybe they would find her utterly different. Maybe they would have to adjust to her all over again. Maybe she would fit in the way I never had."

"Wanda?" Kyle said.
"Yes?"
"I'm sorry."
"Um...why?"
"For trying to kill you," he said casually. "Guess I was wrong."
Ian gasped. "Please tell me you have some kind of recording device available, Doc."
"Nope. Sorry, Ian."
Ian shook his head. "This moment should be preserved. I never thought I'd live to see the day that Kyle O'Shea would admit to being wrong. C'mon, Jodi. That ought to shock you awake."
"Jodi, baby, don't you want to defend me? Tell Ian I never have been wrong before." He chuckled.
That was nice. It was nice to know that I'd earned Kyle's acceptance before I left. I hadn't expected that much.
 

"I was done, all my tasks accomplished. I only had to wait a bit now and not fall asleep. Tired as I was, I didn't think that would be a problem. My heart was pounding like a fist hitting my ribs from the inside. No more stalling. It had to be tonight, and Mel knew that, too. What had happended today with Ian had shown me that. The longer I stayed, the more tears and agruments and fights I would cause. The better the chance that I or someone else would slip up and Jamie would find out the truth. Let Mel explain it after the fact. It would be better that way."

Thanks so much, Mel thought; her words flowed fast, in a burst, her fear marring her sarcasm.
Sorry. You don't mind too much?
She sighed. How can I mind? I'd do anything you asked me to, Wanda.
Take care of them for me.
I would have done that anyway.
Ian, too.
If he'll let me. I've got a feeling he might not like me so much.
Even if he won't let you.
I'll do whatever I can for him, Wanda. I promise.

"I truly love you, Ian." It was the only way I could tell him goodbye. The only way he would accept. I knew he would remember later and understand. "With my whole soul, I love you."
"I truly love you, too, my Wanderer."

 

Chapter 58:
"This was my planet, and they wouldn't make me leave. I would stay in the dirt, in the dark grotto with my friends. A human grave for the human I had become."

"Heart and soul. Not the same thing, in my case. I'd been divided too long. It was time to make something whole again, make a whole person. Even if that excluded me."

"You are the noblest, purest creature I've ever met. The universe will be a darker place without you," he whispered.
 

Chapter 59:

"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."
 

"I held you in my hand, Wanderer. And you were so beautiful."

"Happy and sad, elated and miserable, secure and afraid, loved and denied, patient and angry, peaceful and wild, complete and empty...all of it. I would feel anything. It would all be mine."

Epilogue:
"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!"

"Look like I'm not the only one who's gone native...Burns Living Flowers," he introduced himself.
My eyes widened at his name. Fire world--how unexpected. "Wanderer," I told him.
"It's...extraordinary to meet you, Wanderer. And here I thought I was one of a kind."
"Not even close," I said, thinking of Sunny back in the caves. Perhaps we were none of us as rare as we thought.
He raised an eyebrow at my answer, intrigued. "Is that so?" he said. "Well, maybe there's some hope for this planet, after all."
"It's a strange world," I murmured, more to myself than to the other native soul.
"The strangest," he agreed.
 

---Amelia

The Host: Day 26--Chapters 55 and 56

Chapter 55:
"This wasn't so bad, not after what they'd been fearing the last few days. Yes, Kyle was a self-absorbed idiot, their faces seemed to say, but at least he was back, no harm done. No evacuation, no danger of the Seekers. No more than usual, anyway. He'd brought another worm back, but then, weren't the caves full of them these days? It just wasn't as shocking as it used to be."

"It was easy to imagine the frayed state her nerves must be in. Souls were not designed to handle violence and terror."

"I wondered who this strange man was, the one who had come back in Kyle's place. Had they checked his eyes? I couldn't believe he'd carried all this gentleness around inside his big angry body."

"How much longer would I have the feeling of a hand warm around mine? When was the last time I would walk down this tunnel? Was it this time?"

Chapter 56:
"It was an odd thing--as if Kyle and Ian had switched faces. Except Ian's face was still perfect, unbroken. Beautiful, even though it was enraged."

"When Melanie's body touched Jared's body, it was like a wildfire--a fast burn that raced across the surface of the desert and consumed everything in its path. With Ian it was different, so very different, because Melanie didn't love him the way I did. So when he touched me, it was deeper and slower than the wildfire, like the flow of molten rock far beneath the surface of the earth. Too deep to feel the heat of it, but it moved inexorably, changing the very foundations of the world with its advance."

"'Eight full lives,' I whispered against his jaw, my voice breaking. 'Eight full lives and I never found anyone I would stay on a planet for, anyone I would follow when they left. I never found a partner. Why now? Why you? You're not of my species. How can you be my partner?'" "'It's a strange universe,' he murmured."

"How could I find this, find love--now, in this eleventh hour--and have to leave it? Was it fair that my soul and body couldn't reconcile? Was it fair that I had to love Melanie, too?"

"I, the soul called Wanderer, love you, human Ian. And that will never change, no matter what I might become. If I were a Dolphin or a Bear or a Flower, it wouldn't matter. I would always love you, always remember you. You will be my only partner."


---Amelia

The Host: Days 23, 24, and 25--Chapters 49-54

Chapter 49:
The Seeker that killed Wes is Wanda's Seeker. Because Jeb wanted Wanda to have a chance to talk to the Seeker before they killed her. Killing the Seeker would be the best option, the only option.

"So why did I feel as though I was at the disadvantage? Why this strange premonition that she would be the one to walk away from our confrontation?" Wanda is still not sure if she wants to talk the the Seeker.

"I was wondering...Why? Why coudn't you let me be dead, like the rest of them? Why were you so determined to hunt me down? I didn't want to hurt anyone. I just wanted...to go my own way."

"How to finish that sentence? I didn't want...the Seeker to die? No. That wasn't true. I didn't want...to hate the Seeker? To hate her so much that I wanted her to die. To have her die while I hated her. Almost as if she died because of my hate. If I truly did not want her death, would I be able to think of a way to save her? Was it my hate that was blocking an answer? Would I be responsible if she died?"

"But...but what if I could do both? What if I could save her life and keep everyone here safe at the same time?"

"Because I could save the Seeker. Of course I could. But it would cost me. A trade. What had Kyle said? A life for a life." Wanda knows now what she must do.

Chapter 50:
"Wanda, I..." Melanie struggled for words. Still, the joy I expected from her did no come. Again, this touched me. "I don't think I can let you do this. You're more important than that. In the bigger picture, you are of much more value to them than I am. You can help them; you can save them. I can't do any of that. You have to stay."

"I can't see any other way, Mel. I wonder how I didn't see it sooner. It seems so completely obvious. Of course I have to go. Of course I have to give you yourself back. I already knew we souls were wrong to come here. So I don't have any choice now but to do the right thing, and leave.You all survived without me before; you'll do it again. You've learned so much about the souls from me--you'll help them. Can't you see? This is the happy ending. It's the way they all need the story to finish. I can give them hope. I can give them...not a future. Maybe not that. But as much as I can. Everything I can."

"No wonder the success rate for resistant hosts was so low here on Earth. Once we learned to love our human host, what hope did we souls have? We could not exist at the expense of one we loved. Not a soul. A soul could not live that way."

"The shortest, the most important, the most heartbreaking of lives. The life that would forever define me. The life that had finally tied me to one star, to one planet, to one small family of strangers."

"Such a great hatred. Sharon would rather kill her own happiness, Doc's, too, than forgive him for helping to heal Jamie...I wondered if that would change when I was gone, or if they were both so rigid in their grudge that it would be too late for them to change. Whate an extraordinarily stupid way to waste time."

"There's something else I'm going to ask you for, Doc. I don't want to...I won't be shipped off to another planet. This is my planet, it truly is. And yet, there's really no place for me here. So...I know it might...offend some of the others. Don't tell them if you think they won't allow it. Lie if you have to. But I'd like to be buried by Walt and Wes. Can you do that for me? I won't take up much space."

Chapter 51:
"They didn't want to feel like monsters. Not again. They're trying to make up for before, only a little too late--and with the wrong soul." Jared on why the Seeker was getting "special treatment" as a prisoner.

Chapter 52:
"I find myself unable to be the death of you, Wanda. I can't stand it."

"We thought of my memories, the pretty ones. The ice castles and the night music and the colored suns. They were like fairytales to her. And she told me fairytales, too. Glass slippers, poisoned apples, mermaids who wanted to have souls..."

"We made a good team: one attending to the soul, the other to the body. Everyone was taken care of." After Wanda separed The Seeker's soul from her host, with the help of Doc.

"I'd done many things I had not wanted to do since joining the humans, but I couldn't remember any this sharply and pointedly painful. Even deciding to trade my life for the Seeker's--that was a huge, vast hurt, a wide field of ache, but it was almost manageable because it was so tied up in the bigger picture. Telling Ian goodbye was a razor-sharp piercing; it made the greater vision hard to see. I wished there was some way, any way, to save him from the same pain. There wasn't."

Chapter 53:
"The Seeker's host body was named Lacey; a dainty, soft, feminie name. Lacey. As inappropriate as the size, in my opinion. Like naming a pit bull Fluffy." Or a three-headed dog.

"In answer to my earlier question to myself, no, the face was not less repugnant with a different awareness behind it. Because the awareness was not so very different, in the end."

"Everyone wanted to see the miracle for themselves. It didn't even seem to matter to most of them that she was...difficult. She was welcome. More than welcome. Again, I felt a little of that bitter jealousy. But that was silly. She was human. She represented hope. She belonged here. She would be here long after I was gone."

On the way back from sending the Seeker's soul off, and grabbing two Healers to take back, Wanda had Ian take her to a fast food place, switching sides of course. He was a little grossed out that Wanda was dipping french fries into her shake. She made him try one, he said it was interesting. Melanie also thought it was gross. "That's why I'd cultivated the habit in the beginning. It was funny now to think of how I'd gone out of my was to annoy her."

"Maybe I didn't want to live on this sad planet with so much death. Maybe nothingness was better."

Wanda showed Doc how to separate the female Healer from her host. Before they were able to do the male Healer, he had woken up. "The Healer stared straight at me, his face childlike in his bewilderment. I knew why his eyes were on me--the lantern's rays danced off both his eyes and mine, making diamond patterns on the wall." "'Why?'" he asked me." He committed suicide. And murder, though the Soul didn't see it that way.

Chapter 54:
"I so much wished that the soul had waited for an answer, so I could have tried to explain it to him. He might even have understood. After all, what was more important, in the end, than love? To a soul, wasn't that the heart of everything? And love would have been my answer."

"Was it too late? Was she lost? WAs she already gone? Just as dead as the male body? Were all of them? Were there only a very few, like the Seeker's host, Lacey, and Melanie--the shouters, the resisters--who could be brought back? Was everyone else gone? Was Lacey an anomaly? Would Melanie come back the wasy she had...or was even that in question?"


---Amelia

The Host: Days 21 and 22--Chapters 45-48

Chapter 45:
The reason it took so long for the Healer to come back is because she wanted to grab a mirror so Wanda could see herself. Wanda left and got back to Jared safely.

"I figured it was better to die trying than to live without the kid." Jared didn't really think they were going to make it out. This is his explanation for why he wanted to try anyways. Better to go down with a fight, then not even try at all.

They got back to the cave safely. Everyone was  angry with Jared and Wanda. Doc hesitated but he allowed Wanda to use the medicines on Jamie. They worked.

Chapter 46:
"How sad. How frightening. To be filled with so much hate that you could not even rejoice in the healing of a child...How did anyone ever come to that point." They only people not celebrating Jamie's recovery were Sharon and Maggie. They just walked out.

"What was it that made this human love so much more desirable to me than the love of my own kind.? Was it because it was exclusive and capricious? The souls offered love and acceptance to all. Did I crave a greater challenge? This love was tricky; it had no hard-and-fast rules--it might be given for free, as with Jamie, or earned through time and hard work, as with Ian, or completely and heartbreakingly unattainable, as with Jared. Or was it simply better somehow? Because these humans could hate with so much fury, was the other end of the spectrum that they could love with more heart and zeal and fire? I didn't know why I had yearned after it so desperately. All I knew was that, now that I had it, it was worth every ounce of risk and agony it had cost. It was better than I'd imagine. It was everything."

Chapter 47:
Wanda is now going out on raids. She is able to get things the others couldn't. It is easier for her, because she is a soul. On their way back to the caves after a long raid, Wanda, Jared, Ian, and Kyle stop at a motel (Kyle sleeps in the van). Wanda looks out the window and watches a family on the swings, 2 adult souls and their human child. "Something I've never seen in all my lives. I'm staring at...hope...Perhaps, someday, some of my kind and some of yours will live in peace. Wouldn't that be...strange?"

It has been decided that Wanda will have her own bed, and Ian and Jared share the other one. Ian decides for her, because it would give her agony. Jared is not really very happy about it.

"Fine," Jared snapped. "But if you try cuddling up to me tonight...so help me, O'Shea."
Ian chuckled. "Not to sound overly arrogant, but to be perfectly honest, Jared, were I so inclined, I think I could do better."

Chapter 48:
The group is almost home, when they get pulled over for speeding. Wanda knows it is a Seeker, because souls are not really needed to enforce the laws. Wanda is able to avoid suspicion, but the Seeker tells her that there had been a recent disappearance, and that humans are believed to be near the area. Jared and Wanda thinks that maybe Doc and Jeb brought in another soul while they were gone. Hearing that really upsets Wanda.

When they arrive back at the caves, Jamie informs them that Wes was killed by a Seeker.

---Amelia

The Host: Days 19 and 20--Chapters 41-44

Chapter 41:
"Would it have mattered if I'd simply been told rather than having seen the tortured remains for myself? Would the pain be less strong?"

"No, I had never intentionally cause anyone physical pain, but I had hurt Ian deeply enough by hurting myself. Human lives were so impossible tangled. What a mess." After seeing what she did in the hospital, Wanda hid for 3 days. She didn't eat and talk. And because of that, she hurt Ian.

Chapter 42:
Jamie is sick. He had injured himself by falling on a knife, and now it has become infected. They don't have the medicine to treat it. When Melanie tried to comfort Wanda after seeing the dead souls, Wanda pushed her away. It pushed her so far back that Wanda could no longer feel her. First, she had Ian kiss her to see if Melanie would come back. It didn't work, wasn't powerful enough. So Ian went and grabbed Jared. That brought Melanie back. But Jamie was still sick.

Chapter 43:
"Don't you see? For millions of my own kind, I've never been able to do that. Not for my own...children. I was always too afraid to die that final time. But I can do it for one alien child. It doesn't make any sense. Don't worry, though. I can die to protect Jamie." They can't get a hold of any antibiotics for Jamie. Wanda came up with the crazy idea to go out and get some from one of the hospitals. When she suggested, everybody was suspicious. No one would let her. So, Jared took her out in secret. He gave her a poison pill. If she were caught, she was to bite down on it.

Chapter 44:
Wanda had Jared scrape off the scar on her cheek with a rock, because she knew that it would cause the other souls to be suspicious. No soul would have a scar like that. She then had to stab herself in the arm with a knife to match Jamie's injury. She lied to the Healer about how she got it. The Healer told her what she was doing to fix Wanda, which allowed Wanda to know exactly what to grab. The Healer had left to get some more water, giving Wanda a few minutes to get the medicine she needed. But it is taking a while for the Healer to come back, so Wanda is worried.

---Amelia

The Host: Day 18--Chapters 39 and 40

Chapter 39:
"It was Wes's...reaction to you that surprised me. I didn't know he had so much depth to him. I was never really aware of him before that. Oh, well. He's too young for me, but what does that matter here? It's strange how life and love go on. I didn't expect that." Lily and Wes are a couple now.

Chapter 40:
"I didn't know how to mourn here." Wanda walked into the hospital wing. There were a couple of dead human bodies, covered up. There were also bodies of souls on the table. Dead. Tortured. One of them was a child. Wanda saw this, and it freaked her out. She sees the humans as monsters now. Can you blame her?

"You're one of us, Ian. Her enemy. Did you hear what she said in there? She was screaming monsters. That's how she sees us now. She doesn't want your comfort."

"I sat in the blackness of the big hole in the ground and grieved for lost souls with a human by my side." Ian sat down in the tunnel near her. He gave her space and quiet so that she could grieve.

This chapter just saddens me. I can't imagine the emotions that Wanda was feeling when she walked into the hospital wing.

---Amelia

The Host: Days 16 and 17--Chapters 35-38

Chapter 35:
"You're more than welcome, Wanda." Ian has been really good to Wanda. In this scene, Wanda just woke up from the sleep she was put in after Walter's funeral. Apparently Ian gave her his room. He just brought her food, including some Cheetos. She just thanked him for everything he has done for her. Ian's eyes should something more than just courtesy when he replied, and Wanda was trying to figure out exactly what that was. It reminds me of The Princess Bride. Anytime Buttercup told Wesley to do something, he would always respond with, "As you wish". What he was really saying was "I love you".

"Would any of you have done the same--rescue your enemy?"

"Murder is a subjective term," Maggie hissed. "I only consider it murder when something human is killed." Kyle is on trial right now. They are going to decide if he should be allowed to stay, or if he should be thrown out or killed. Some people don't believe that Kyle did anything wrong. Wanda is not human, so it would not be murder in her case. This reminds me of the abortion controversy.

"Human is a subjective term as well, Magnolia," Jared said, glowering at her. "I thought the definition embraced some compassion, some little bit of mercy."

Chapter 36:
Jared just asked Wanda what Melanie was thinking. Melanie wants to know why he believes them now. "An...accumulation of things. You were so...kind to Walter. I've never seen anyone but Doc be that compassionate. And you saved Kyle's life, where most of us would have let him fall just to protect ourselves, intended murder aside...But when they started attacking you today...well, I snapped. I could see in them everything that shouldn't have been in me. I realized I already did believe, and that I was just being obstinate. Cruel. I think I've believed since...well, a little bit since that first night when you put yourself in front of me to save me from Kyle." Way to use logic, Jared.

Kyle's truce: "I don't think I was wrong, but you did save my life. I don't know why, but you did. So I figure, a life for a life. I won't kill you. I'll pay the debt that way."

On why Wanda saved Kyle: "I didn't let you fall because...I'm not like you. I'm not saying that I'm not...like humans. Because there are others here who would do the same. There are kind and good people here. People like your brother, and Jeb, and Doc...I'm saying that I'm not like you personally."

Chapter 37:
"What if it were you?...What if you were the one...invaded that way? What if you were trapped, and someone else was telling your body what to do? If you couldn't speak for yourself? Wouldn't you want your wishes--as much as they could be known--respected? At the very least by other humans?" Jared's question to Ian.

"But what if it were you? What if you were stuffed in a human body and let loose on this planet, only to find yourself lost among your own kind? What if you were such a good...person that you tried to save the life you'd taken, that you almost died trying to get her back to her family? What if you then found yourself surrounded by violent aliens who hated you and hurt you and tried to murder you, over and over again? What if you just kept doing whatever you could to save and heal these people despite that? Wouldn't you deserve a life, too? Wouldn't you have earned that much?" Ian's question to Jared.

Chapter 38:
"It's not the face, but the expressions on it. It's not the voice, but what you say. It's not how you look in that body, but the things you do with it. You are beautiful." Just one of the reasons why I love Ian.

---Amelia