No, no, no. The parasite tried to remember the position of the sun a few moments ago when the Madame had glanced out the window, for the Madame kept scrubbing, and the window was nowhere in sight. The parasite was certain it had been just about to slip over the horizon, and if that was the case, she needed only a few more moments…
If only she could be free of the shackles that bound her, the magical barrier between the Madame’s faculties and her own…
“But dearie?” the Madame asked just as the girl reached the door. The parasite wasn’t sure that she’d ever felt relief, not like her human hosts did, but the weight that pulled away from her consciousness when the girl turned back around was a striking replica.
“Yes?”
The curiosity in Madame’s brain warred with the anxiety welling in her stomach.
Once again, the parasite was thankful to her past self for her choice of host.
As far as the Madame was concerned, curiosity would always win.
“I must ask, why are you not attending the ball?”
The plain girl swallowed and bit her lip, embarrassment flushing her cheeks. “I thought I might, but I’m no fool. There’s no use going like this.” She gestured to herself as if that explained everything.
In the Madame’s opinion, it did.
Something pungent wafted through the Madame’s consciousness. The parasite fought back the sudden urge to recoil. Over the years, she’d come to recognize the useless emotion, but its scent never failed to make her queasy.
Pity was the most unpleasant of human emotions. It smelled like rotting flowers and settled in the Madame’s stomach about as well as soured milk.
The Madame sighed. “Well, perhaps I might have something stored in the back. But have your payment ready. It’ll cost you forty coppers and I haven’t time for you to be finagling through your coin purse. I really don’t have time to be doing this at all.”
The girl nodded and rummaged through her coin purse while the Madame slipped behind a red velvet curtain into the storeroom and did some rummaging herself.
The parasite never understood why the Madame did this, if not for the sale. She was a clever human—about as clever as they came. And during the full moon, her hands could craft poisons specific enough to kill only the intended target, leaving buyers free to distribute the poison into entire vats of wine rather than a specific glass, without threat of murdering an entire party. She could brew love potions that needn’t be drunk, only inhaled, and the victim would fancy themselves obsessed with the original wearer of the scent. That was the parasite’s gift to the Madame, another reason she’d chosen her above all others.
The parasite had been around for a long time. Long enough to have gotten good at knowing just what kind of gift a host might manifest.
It was all in their aura, which the parasite could taste in the air as potential candidates soiled it with their breath, with their fears and hopes and dreams. Sometimes it was a skill—one they were already predisposed toward—and all the parasite did was enhance that skill.
Other times, it was a desire.
And from the sweet, intoxicating desperation sluicing off the plain girl in sheets, the parasite had a sneaking suspicion of how the girl’s gift might manifest were the parasite to take her on as a host.
It was the kind of potential gift the parasite had been sniffing for all week, ever since the Madame had heard the news.
Did you hear? The prince is throwing a ball. He intends to take a human as a wife!
Oh, the parasite had heard all right.
And better yet…
He’s hosting it the night of the full moon. Isn’t that romantic?
These humans of Dwellen and their fascination with the moon. It was part of the reason the parasite had migrated here.
In fact…
I was just dreaming of you, sweet friend, the parasite thought as the sun slipped over the horizon and the crest of the moon took its place. It didn’t matter that the storeroom contained no windows. The parasite didn’t need to glance outside to know what shift had just occurred.
Cool, intoxicating pleasure washed over Madame LeFleur’s body, and when she stepped out from behind the curtain, the hands into which the girl pressed forty copper coins no longer belonged to Madame LeFleur.
Slipping from Madame LeFleur’s fingertips into the plain girl’s body was as easy as letting go. As simple as the thudding of Madame LeFleur’s dead body against the cold ground.
That had a tendency to happen when the parasite abandoned a host.
She wasn’t entirely sure why, but she liked to imagine that when she joined herself to a human, she slipped her ethereal tendrils into the crevices of their brain, caressing the silky membrane and attaching herself to them so deeply that when she eventually rent herself from them, she ripped out a chunk of their mind in the process.
The parasite’s eldest sibling hadn’t cared for her habit of discarding her hosts before their life came to a natural end. That was how the parasite had gotten into this mess to begin with.
Still, she had no regrets as she stared down at Madame LeFleur’s pale face.
For starters, the plain girl’s brain actually possessed the capability of processing the Madame’s facial features. Her empty eyes were the color of moss and she had a mole on her upper lip. Her skin was pale rather than tanned.
But one could never tell in pale-skinned humans whether that was a byproduct of their complexion or just being dead.
The parasite would miss certain aspects of her former host, of course. She doubted she’d ever find a mind like hers. One that, when enhanced, proved there was nothing quite impossible as far as chemistry was concerned.
It had been an enjoyable pastime. But pastimes were aptly named. The opportunity to achieve something greater had shuffled through the shop doors, and the parasite wasn’t keen on missing out on it.
The parasite stretched out her new host’s limbs like a cat might unsheathe its claws as it woke from a nap in the sun.
And like a cat, it was time to go strolling in the moonlight.
The parasite stumbled to the door, grabbing first at the counter, then at shelves, to steady herself. It was always a bit of a pain—getting used to a new body, the lankiness or stoutness of the new host’s limbs, the length of their stride, even the rate of their breath as their lungs coordinated with the rest of their body.
