Wagon nearly full, Patience lugged it to their last stop, the bakery. On their way, they passed by the butcher shop. Anax’s eye trained upon the cuts of meat hanging in the window. Noting the absence of any people nearby, Anax murmured to talk.

“That is something I’ll miss,” he sighed.

“Meat?”

“Yes. Meat and eating in general.”

“You don’t need to eat?” Upon realization, Patience had a difficult time imagining how Anax could eat in this state. He had no teeth aside from the eight pointing out over her chest.

“I get all the energy I need from you. So you may feel slightly hungrier than normal, but we are very efficient in our second lives and don’t require much excess on your part.”

“Oh. That’s convenient, I suppose,” remarked Patience.

“I can still taste things though,” said Anax.

“H-how?”

“I can taste things my vapor touches if I will it. Don’t rightly know how it works. It’s just how it is.”

“Well, I can buy some beef later on in the season. I have to clean out our smoking shed first.”

Patience swore she heard a soft trill of delight at the back of her neck. A long while had passed since her last meal of red meat. It did sound enticing at the moment. Breaking temptation, she veered away from the butcher’s and hustled to the bakery, the wagon clamoring behind her.

The warm scent of yeast and wood smoke from the oven in the back welcomed Patience as she entered the bakery. There were a handful of people going about placing bread into their baskets. Patience tugged Anax’s skull a little further down her face. She quickly grabbed two loaves for herself and went to pay. Her heart dropped when the face behind the counter beamed back at her.

“Patience! Long time no see!” giggled the cheery heart-shaped face.

“Hi, Serafina,” Patience uttered through a grimace forced into the vague shape of a smile. She was not counting on this cherubic blonde to be working this early in the season. Normally her mother would mind the register until after the spring festival, when people would come out to see one of the spring maidens. Still, even then, Serafina would only work the later shifts in the day so as not to have to wake early. At the end of summer, the girl would go back into her vocational hibernation.

“I almost didn’t recognize you there!” she twittered.

Patience wished she had not.

“How have you been?” Serafina pushed a stray golden lock behind her ear and flashed a saccharine smile.

“Oh you know, just getting ready for spring,” grunted Patience. She firmly put a few coins on the counter, hoping to pay and leave already.

“Is your headdress a part of those plans?”

“Yeah, sure,” said Patience, patting the money on the smooth wooden surface.

An elderly woman behind Patience chimed, “How is your mother doing? I heard she came down with a fever a couple days ago.”

“The fever broke last night. Thank you for asking, Mrs. Malkin!”

“Have you started preparing for the spring festival yet?” chirped another matron. Beneath the skull, Patience felt her head grow hot. She was starting to lose her patience.

“Oh I have, Mrs. Townsend! We raised just enough over the winter! I’m going in for my final fitting tomorrow at the seamstress’s!”

“That’s wonderful! I can’t wait to see how you look!” the woman simpered.

Patience’s eyes rolled in the shade of Anax’s temples. She cleared her throat.

Serafina finally noticed the payment on the counter and made change for Patience without any acknowledgement of the delay in service.

“Here you go, Patience!” Serafina dropped two coins into Patience’s awaiting palm. “I hope you’ll come to the spring festival this year!”

“Maybe!” Patience forced her voice higher than normal to match Serafina’s. She gathered the bread to her chest and promptly left the store. The loaves landed with soft thuds into her wagon.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

“What was that about?” asked Anax as they walked down a secluded street.

“Ugh. Serafina’s known me since we were kids. We’ve never been close but I went to school with her so we know of each other well enough.”

“And the hostility?”

Patience inhaled deeply, preparing to vent,“She just irritates me. A lot. Serafina’s the baker’s daughter, but she doesn’t have any real interest in the bakery, she just tends the till whenever she wants or when she’s forced to. She’s never had to work a hard day in her life and people—strangers shower her with affection. Like the dress for example. She’s been one of the main maidens in the spring festival for years now. Last year her dress ripped when she tripped on her way down from a parade wagon. A bunch of people in town began donating money to her for a new one.”

“She has an agreeable personality. People are drawn to that,” Anax noted.

“Well it’s not agreeable to me. Ugh, she can stay afloat by just being her stupid self doing nothing,” huffed Patience. The wagon paused on a stubborn cobblestone and was violently jerked into motion again. She sighed, “and here I am, making things work by myself. I’m an outsider. Few seek my company. Few want anything to do with me.”

“You have me now,” said Anax. Patience grumbled, unwilling to admit she did enjoy having Anax’s company. To be able to speak to another daily was something she sorely missed.

They passed a closed gate of a lot. Patience recalled when this lot belonged to her father. As a child, he would walk her to school in the mornings and he would be in his atelier until class let out. She would then spend the afternoon by her father’s side, working on essays and equations while he did his work. Once it neared dinnertime, the two would set off back home. When her father decided to retire, he sold his studio and parcel to a mechanic and took all of his equipment to set up shop at home in their yard, only taking the rare commission or project of personal friends. Noises of machinery and metal rang from behind the fence. Patience missed the time when it was quiet and serene in the lot.

Before they left town, Patience bought two oranges from a cart. Across the bridge, she lounged under a budding cherry tree and began to snack. It seemed that Anax’s eye was calming down at last. The orb settled above her cheek, staring at her fingers peeling the fruit.

“Did you enjoy the trip into town?” asked Patience, chucking torn peels into a bush.

“Very much. I did not know people came in so many shapes and colors. Particularly the general store keeper, I’ve not known humans to be as dark as he.”

“Have you seen humans before?”

“Only ones that ventured into our forest. Not many. The closest I’ve ever seen one was a second-born.”

“So like me? The human was a host?”

“The donor. Yes. But this second-born took over the human completely and had enveloped them in his body.”

“Like when you wrap around me?”

“As so,” said Anax. Patience yelped in surprise as Anax’s mist formed a cocoon around her. Ropes of silvery white coalesced and gave form to his own body, a hulking fog bundling her torso and limbs, arm over arm, leg over leg. He was a glove and she a hand, only this glove was the master. Anax stood their legs up. Patience panicked having lost control. She flexed her limbs only to meet heavy resistance, like pushing against immovable sacks of sand. She was floating a couple feet off the ground, held up by the solid smoky frame of the creature she wore on her head.

“All right! I get it! Put me down! Please!” gasped the girl. Anax reclined and his body vaporized nearly instantaneously, leaving only a few wisps languishing over Patience’s shoulders and back. He remained silent as Patience caught her breath.

Still slightly shaken, Patience made a deliberate decision to not address what had just transpired. It was something she would have to accept. He could do this at any time. She should be thankful he did not insist upon it. A foggy coil lifted a jeweled citrine cluster to her lips.

“See? I can move us around. Needn’t rely on you always,” said Anax quite pleased with himself. Patience quivered and forced down the rest of the orange. She stowed the second fruit in her wagon to save for another day.

“How do others of your species get their hosts anyway?” babbled the girl.

“Sometimes we help our first-deceased family members find a life-donor.”

Thoughts of hulking monsters kidnapping poor unsuspecting humans crackled in her mind. She gulped.

“Normally just deer or wolves, on very rare occasions stray traveling humans.”

Her mind still sympathized with hapless lost souls forced into physical and mental slavery. It was a terrible thing, but she saw no use in arguing with Anax over it right now. She held her tongue.

“Other times, if we’ve perished alone, we lay dormant and simply wait for a creature to crawl into our skull.”

“So even a mouse would work?”

“It does not take much,” said Anax.

“But mice don’t live very long.”

“With one of my kind they can.”

“You can prolong your host’s life?” asked Patience astounded.

“We give our life-donors what we can to ensure we both stay alive.”

“I thought you could simply move them away from danger.”

“That and our mist. Look around you, you are mine, I am all over you, surely you are breathing in some of my essence. We’ve never studied it ourselves … we just know it to be this way; but I suppose it has some preservative and regenerative properties. ”

Patience dropped a handful of peels on to the ground. A feeling of horror welled up in her stomach, but the positive implications currently outweighed it.

“That’s … that’s simply amazing,” she whispered.

She shook her head. She had to focus back on her own life. This creature was now a part of it, but she still lived in the same house and had the same obstacles as she did a week ago. For now, Anax only complicated things. However, that was not to say Anax was not useful either. Upon returning home, she had Anax carry buckets of water from the pump, and the barreled reservoir in the kitchen was filled in half the time Patience would have normally taken.