“Hold it, Kyle.” Jeb’s words were unhurried, almost casual, but the big man stopped. He grimaced and turned to face Melanie’s uncle.

“Why? You said you made sure. It’s one of them.”

I recognized the voice-he was the same one who’d asked Jeb why he’d given me water.

“Well, yes, she surely is. But it’s a little complicated.”

“How?” A different man asked the question. He stood next to the big, dark-haired Kyle, and they looked so much alike that they had to be brothers.

“See, this here is my niece, too.”

“Not anymore she’s not,” Kyle said flatly. He spit again and took another deliberate step in my direction, knife ready. I could see from the way his shoulders leaned into the action that words would not stop him again. I closed my eyes.

There were two sharp metallic clicks, and someone gasped. My eyes flew open again.

“I said hold it, Kyle.” Uncle Jeb’s voice was still relaxed, but the long rifle was gripped tightly in his hands now, and the barrels were pointed at Kyle’s back. Kyle was frozen just steps from me; his machete hung motionless in the air above his shoulder.

“Jeb,” the brother said, horrified, “what are you doing?”

“Step away from the girl, Kyle.”

Kyle turned his back to us, whirling on Jeb in fury. “It’s not a girl, Jeb!”

Jeb shrugged; the gun stayed steady in his hands, pointed at Kyle. “There are things to be discussed.”

“The doctor might be able to learn something from it,” a female voice offered gruffly.

I cringed at the words, hearing in them my worst fears. When Jeb had called me his niece just now, I’d foolishly let a spark of hope flame to life-perhaps there would be pity. I’d been stupid to think that, even for a second. Death would be the only pity I could hope for from these creatures.

I looked at the woman who’d spoken, surprised to see that she was as old as Jeb, maybe older. Her hair was dark gray rather than white, which is why I hadn’t noticed her age before. Her face was a mass of wrinkles, all of them turning down into angry lines. But there was something familiar about the features behind the lines.

Melanie made the connection between this ancient face and another, smoother face in her memory.

“Aunt Maggie? You’re here? How? Is Sharon -” The words were all Melanie, but they gushed from my mouth, and I was unable to stop them. Sharing for so long in the desert had made her stronger, or me weaker. Or maybe it was just that I was concentrating on which direction the deathblow was going to fall from. I was bracing for our murder, and she was having a family reunion.

Melanie got only halfway through her surprised exclamation. The much-aged woman named Maggie lunged forward with a speed that belied her brittle exterior. She didn’t raise the hand that held the black crowbar. That was the hand I was watching, so I didn’t see her free hand swing out to slap me hard across the face.

My head snapped back and then forward. She slapped me again.

“You won’t fool us, you parasite. We know how you work. We know how well you can mimic us.”

I tasted blood inside my cheek.

Don’t do that again, I scolded Melanie. I told you what they’d think.

Melanie was too shocked to answer.

“Now, Maggie,” Jeb began in a soothing tone.

“Don’t you ‘Now, Maggie’ me, you old fool! She’s probably led a legion of them down on us.” She backed away from me, her eyes measuring my stillness as if I were a coiled snake. She stopped beside her brother.

“I don’t see anyone,” Jeb retorted. “Hey!” he yelled, and I flinched in surprise. I wasn’t the only one. Jeb waved his left hand over his head, the gun still clenched in the right. “Over here!”

“Shut up,” Maggie growled, shoving his chest. Though I had good reason to know she was strong, Jeb didn’t wobble.

“She’s alone, Mag. She was pretty much dead when I found her-she’s not in such great shape now. The centipedes don’t sacrifice their own that way. They would have come for her much sooner than I did. Whatever else she is, she’s alone.”

I saw the image of the long, many-legged insect in my head, but I didn’t make the connection.

He’s talking about you, Melanie translated. She placed the picture of the ugly bug next to my memory of a bright silver soul. I didn’t see a resemblance.

I wonder how he knows what you look like, Melanie wondered absently. My memories of a soul’s true appearance had been new to her in the beginning.

I didn’t have time to wonder with her. Jeb was walking toward me, and the others were close behind. Kyle’s hand hovered at Jeb’s shoulder, ready to restrain him or throw him out of the way, I couldn’t tell.

Jeb put his gun in his left hand and extended the right to me. I eyed it warily, waiting for it to hit me.

“C’mon,” he urged gently. “If I could carry you that far, I woulda brought you home last night. You’re gonna have to walk some more.”

“No!” Kyle grunted.

“I’m takin’ her back,” Jeb said, and for the first time there was a harsher tone to his voice. Under his beard, his jaw flexed into a stubborn line.

“Jeb!” Maggie protested.

“’S my place, Mag. I’ll do what I want.”

“Old fool!” she snapped again.

Jeb reached down and grabbed my hand from where it lay curled into a fist against my thigh. He yanked me to my feet. It was not cruelty; it was merely as if he was in a hurry. Yet was it not the very worst form of cruelty to prolong my life for the reasons he had?

I rocked unsteadily. I couldn’t feel my legs very well-just prickles like needle points as the blood flowed down.

There was a hiss of disapproval behind him. It came from more than one mouth.

“Okay, whoever you are,” he said to me, his voice still kind. “Let’s get out of here before it heats up.”

The one who must have been Kyle’s brother put his hand on Jeb’s arm.

“You can’t just show it where we live, Jeb.”

“I suppose it doesn’t matter,” Maggie said harshly. “It won’t get a chance to tell tales.”

Jeb sighed and pulled a bandanna-all but hidden by his beard-from around his neck.

“This is silly,” he muttered, but he rolled the dirty fabric, stiff with dry sweat, into a blindfold.

I kept perfectly still as he tied it over my eyes, fighting the panic that increased when I couldn’t see my enemies.

I couldn’t see, but I knew it was Jeb who put one hand on my back and guided me; none of the others would have been so gentle.

We started forward, toward the north, I thought. No one spoke at first-there was just the sound of sand grinding under many feet. The ground was even, but I stumbled on my numb legs again and again. Jeb was patient; his guiding hand was almost chivalrous.

I felt the sun rise as we walked. Some of the footsteps were faster than others. They moved ahead of us until they were hard to hear. It sounded like it was the minority that stayed with Jeb and me. I must not have looked like I needed many guards-I was faint with hunger, and I swayed with every step; my head felt dizzy and hollow.

“You aren’t planning to tell him, are you?”

It was Maggie’s voice; it came from a few feet behind me, and it sounded like an accusation.

“He’s got a right to know,” Jeb replied. The stubborn note was back in his voice.

“It’s an unkind thing you are doing, Jebediah.”

“Life is unkind, Magnolia.”

It was hard to decide who was the more terrifying of the two. Was it Jeb, who seemed so intent on keeping me alive? Or Maggie, who had first suggested the doctor-an appellation that filled me with instinctive, nauseated dread-but who seemed more worried about cruelty than her brother?

We walked in silence again for a few hours. When my legs buckled, Jeb lowered me to the ground and held a canteen to my lips as he had in the night.

“Let me know when you’re ready,” Jeb told me. His voice sounded kind, though I knew that was a false interpretation.