Stephenie Meyer - The Host

“Healing must be a fulfilling profession.” My voice sounded just right. Interested, but not unduly so. “I haven’t been in a Healing facility since insertion. This is very interesting.”

“Yes, I like it.” She started spraying my face.

“What are you doing now?”

She smiled. I guessed that I was not the first curious soul. “This is Clean. It will make sure nothing foreign stays in the wound. It kills off any of the microbes that might infect the wound.”

“Clean,” I repeated to myself.

“And the Inside Clean, just in case anything has snuck into your system. Inhale this, please.”

She had a different white cylinder in her hand, a thinner bottle with a pump rather than an aerosol top. She puffed a cloud of mist into the air above my face. I sucked in a breath. The mist tasted like mint.

“And this is Heal,” Knits Fire continued, twisting the cap off the next canister, revealing a small pouring spout. “It encourages your tissues to rejoin, to grow the way they should.”

She dribbled a tiny bit of the clear liquid into the wide cut on my arm, then she pushed the edges of the wound together. I could feel her touch, but there was no pain.

“I’ll seal this up before I move on.” She opened another container, this one a pliable tube, and then squeezed out a line of thick, clear jelly onto her finger. “Like glue,” she told me. “It holds everything together and lets the Heal do its job.” She wiped it over my arm in one swift pass. “Okay, you can move that now. Your arm is fine.”

I held it up to look. A faint pink line was visible under the shiny gel. The blood was still wet on my arm, but there was no source anymore. As I watched, the Healer cleaned my skin with one quick pass of a damp towel.

“Turn your face this way, please. Hmm, you must have hit those rocks just exactly wrong. What a mess.”

“Yes. It was a bad fall.”

“Well, thank goodness you were able to drive yourself here.”

She was lightly dripping Heal onto my cheek, smearing it with the tips of her fingers. “Ah, I love to watch it work. Looks much better already. Okay… around the edges.” She smiled to herself. “Maybe one more coat. I want this to be erased.” She worked for a minute longer. “Very nice.”

“Here’s some water,” the older woman said as she came through the door.

“Thank you, Cerulean.”

“Let me know if you need anything more. I’ll be up front.”

“Thanks.”

Cerulean left. I wondered if she was from the Flower Planet. Blue flowers were rare-one might take a name from that.

“You can sit now. How do you feel?”

I pulled myself up. “Perfect.” It was true. I hadn’t felt so healthy in a long time. The sharp shift from pain to ease made the sensation more powerful.

“That’s just how it should be. Okay, let’s dust on a little Smooth.”

She twisted the last cylinder’s top and shook an iridescent powder into her hand. She patted it into my cheek, then patted another handful onto my arm.

“You’ll always have a small line on your arm,” she said apologetically. “Like your neck. A deep wound…” She shrugged. Absentmindedly, she brushed the hair back from my neck and examined the scar. “This was nicely done. Who was your Healer?”

“Um… Faces Sunward,” I said, pulling the name from one of my old students. “I was in… Eureka, Montana. I didn’t like the cold. I moved south.”

So many lies. I felt a twist of anxiety in my stomach.

“I started out in Maine,” she said, not noticing anything amiss in my voice. As she spoke, she cleaned the blood from my neck. “It was too cold for me, too. What’s your Calling?”

“Um… I serve food. In a Mexican restaurant in… Phoenix. I like spicy food.”

“Me, too.” She wasn’t looking at me funny. She was wiping my cheek now.

“Very nice. No worries, Glass Spires. Your face looks great.”

“Thank you, Healer.”

“Of course. Would you like some water?”

“Yes, please.” I kept a grip on myself. It wouldn’t do to bolt the glass down the way I wanted to. I wasn’t able to stop myself from finishing it all, though. It tasted too good.

“Would you like more?”

“I… yes, that would be nice. Thank you.”

“I’ll be right back.”

The second she was out the door, I slid off the mattress. The paper crackled, freezing me in place. She didn’t dart back in. I had only seconds. It had taken Cerulean a few minutes to get the water. Maybe it would take the Healer just as long. Maybe the cool, pure water was far away from this room. Maybe.

I ripped the pack off my shoulders and wrenched the drawstrings open. I started with the second cabinet. There was the stacked column of Heal. I grabbed the whole column and let it clatter quietly into the bottom of my pack.

What would I say if she caught me? What lie could I tell?

I took the two kinds of Clean next, from the first cabinet. There was a second stack behind the first of each, and I took half of those, too. Then the No Pain, both stacks of that. I was about to turn back for the Seal, when the label of the next row of cylinders caught my attention.

Cool. For fevers? There were no instructions, just the label. I took the stack. Nothing here would hurt a human body. I was sure of that.

I grabbed all the Seal and two cans of Smooth. I couldn’t press my luck any further. I closed the cabinets quietly and threw my arms through the straps of the pack. I leaned against the mattress, making another crackle. I tried to look relaxed.

She didn’t come back.

I checked the clock. It had been one minute. How far away was the water?

Two minutes.

Three minutes.

Had my lies been as obvious to her as they were to me?

Sweat started to dew up on my forehead. I wiped it away quickly.

What if she brought back a Seeker?

I thought of the small pill in my pocket, and my hands shook. I could do it, though. For Jamie.

I heard quiet footsteps then, two sets, coming down the hall.

Healer Knits Fire and Cerulean walked through the door together. The Healer handed me a tall glass of water. It didn’t feel as cold as the first-my fingers were cold with fear now. The dark-skinned woman had something for me, too. She handed me a flat rectangle with a handle.

“I thought you would want to see,” Knits Fire said with a warm smile.

The tension flooded out of me. There was no suspicion or fear. Just more kindness from the souls who had dedicated their lives to Healing.

Cerulean had given me a mirror.

I held it up and then tried to stifle my gasp.

My face looked the way I remembered it from San Diego. The face I’d taken for granted there. The skin was smooth and peachy across my right cheekbone. If I looked carefully, it was just a little lighter and pinker in color than the tan on the other cheek.

It was a face that belonged to Wanderer, the soul. It belonged here, in this civilized place where there was no violence and no horror.

I realized why it was so easy to lie to these gentle creatures. Because it felt right to talk with them, because I understood their communication and their rules. The lies could be… maybe should be true. I should be filling a Calling somewhere, whether teaching at a university or serving food in a restaurant. A peaceful, easy life contributing to a greater good.

“What do you think?” the Healer asked.

“I look perfect. Thank you.”

“It was my pleasure to heal you.”

I looked at myself again, seeing details beyond the perfection. My hair was ragged-dirty, with uneven ends. There was no gloss to it-homemade soap and poor nutrition were to blame for that. Though the Healer had cleaned the blood from my neck, it was still smudged with purple dust.