Everwild (The Skinjacker Trilogy) Page 2

  "Whose train is it?" The boy asked in a panic, "What's gonna happen to me?"

  "Don't ask stupid questions," said the kid with big hands, "or I'll send you down soon as look at you, I swear I will." Then he pushed the boy up the steps and into a parlor car.

  The smell hit him right away.

  "Oh, no! No!"

  As wonderful as that chocolate smell was, it could

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  only mean one thing. The rumors were true, and he was doomed.

  At the other end of the car sat a figure wearing a tie and a white shirt, although the shirt had become stained with countless brown smudges. So was the rich red carpet. So were the red velvet chairs.

  "Don't be afraid," the Chocolate Ogre said--which was always what monsters said when you really should be afraid.

  Light poured in from the windows into the frightened boy's eyes, so he couldn't see the face of the ogre clearly, but then the ogre stood and came into the light. All at once everything became clear.

  It was as if someone had dipped the entire left half of his face in a fudge bucket. It seemed to ooze right out of his pores--even the color of his left eye had gone chocolate-brown. It was the other half of his face that was the more surprising, for that half did not look monstrous at all. In fact the right side of his face looked like that of an ordinary fifteen-year-old boy.

  "Let me go," the terrified Afterlight begged. "I'll do anything you want, just let me go."

  "I will," said the Chocolate Ogre. "Even better than letting you go, I'll send you on your way."

  That did not sound good, and the boy waited for the bottomless pit to open beneath his feet. But that didn't happen.

  "What's your name?" the ogre asked.

  It was something the boy had not thought about for a long time. "I'm ... me."

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  The Chocolate Ogre nodded. "You can't remember. That's okay." Then the ogre held out his hand to shake. "I'm Nick."

  The boy looked at the ogre's hand, and didn't know how to respond. It was much cleaner than the other one, which was totally covered in chocolate--but still even his "clean" hand had plenty of stains, probably from touching all the other chocolate-splattered things on the train.

  "What's the matter? You didn't expect the 'Chocolate Ogre,' to actually have a name?" His smile made chocolate drip from his cheek and to the darkly stained carpet.

  Then the big-handed kid, still standing behind the boy, nudged his shoulder hard. "Shake his hand--you're being rude!"

  The boy did as he was told--he shook the ogre's hand, and when he brought his hand back, there was chocolate on it. Even in his fear, that chocolate on his hand looked better to him than the popcorn had.

  As if reading his mind, the ogre said, "Go ahead--it's real, and it's just as good as when you were alive."

  And although the boy sensed this was a trick--that maybe it was somehow poisoned, or worse--he raised his fingers to his lips, and licked the chocolate off. The ogre was right--it was real and it was good.

  The ogre pointed to his face. "The only good thing about it is that I get to share."

  "And it's milk chocolate today," said the kid with big hands. "You must be in a good mood."

  The Chocolate Ogre shrugged. "Any day I save someone from Mary is a good day."

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  This monster was being far too friendly. The boy would have much preferred a fiery temper. At least then he would have known exactly where he stood.

  "What are you going to do to me?" he asked.

  "I'm not going to do anything. The question is, what are you going to do?" He folded his arms. "You crossed over with a coin. Do you remember what happened to it?"

  The boy shrugged. "It was just a slug," he said. "I threw it away."

  Then the Chocolate Ogre reached into a rusty gray bucket. "Hmm ... looks like I found it." He pulled a coin out of the bucket and held it out to the boy. "Take it." And when he hesitated, the big-handed kid behind him nudged him again.

  The boy took the coin. It did look much like the slug he had tossed when he first arrived.

  "Tell me how it feels in your hand," the ogre said.

  "It feels warm."

  The ogre smiled. "Good. Very good. Now you have a choice. You can keep holding it in your hand ... or you can put it into your pocket, and save it for another time."

  "What happens if I hold it?"

  "I really don't know. Maybe you can tell me."

  And although the boy had not been this frightened since his first days in Everlost, there was a certain comfort coming from the coin itself. It filled his hand with a relaxing warmth--a sense of peace that was already radiating from his hand to his arm, to his entire spirit. His afterglow--the faint aura of light that every Afterlight radiated--seemed to grow brighter.

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  Before he could change his mind, he closed his fist on the coin which grew ever warmer in his hand, and in a moment, space itself seemed to split before him, revealing a tunnel. Its walls were blacker than black, but at some impossible distance ahead was a light, as bright as the walls were dark. Why, this wasn't a bottomless pit at all! He had seen this before! Yes! He had seen it the very moment he--

  "--Jason!" he shouted joyfully. "My name is Jason!"

  The ogre nodded. "Have a safe trip, Jason."

  He wanted to thank the Chocolate Ogre, but he found he was already too far away, shooting down the tunnel, finally on his way to where he was going.

  A rainbow sparkling of light, a shimmer in the air like heat on a summer road, and the boy was gone.

  "They never tell what they see," complained Johnnie-O, cracking his oversized knuckles. "You'd think at least one of them would."

  "If you really want to know what they see," said Nick, "then take a coin yourself."

  Johnnie-O shifted his shoulders uncomfortably. "Naah," he said, "I'm not done makin' your life miserable."

  Nick had to laugh. With all of Johnnie-O's tough-guy attitude, he had turned out to be a solid friend. Of course it hadn't started that way. Johnnie-O was none too happy when Nick showed up with his magic bucket of coins. That bucket, like the fortune cookies, like the coins themselves, were a gift from the unknown places beyond the tunnel-- because the bucket was never empty as long as there was a soul who needed a coin. Nick thought he'd have to search

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  far and wide for those coins, and the fact that the bucket would refill itself the moment no one was looking was a sign to Nick that he was doing the right thing.

  Johnnie-O had watched as every member of his gang took a coin, and completed their journey out of Everlost. Why Johnnie-O didn't use his own coin is something only he could know--Nick never asked him why--such a decision was too personal to ever question.

  "I'll send you down!" Johnnie-O had screamed the day his gang took their coins and disappeared. "Even if I gotta go down to the center of the earth with you, I'll send you down!" And he had almost done it too. He and Nick had fought and struggled until both were chest deep in the earth. But when Johnnie-O realized he really would go down along with Nick, he backed off, pulled himself out, and let Nick pull himself out as well.

  Nick liked to think that, in the end, Johnnie-O realized that giving those kids a ticket out of Everlost was the right thing to do. Nick liked to think Johnnie-O respected him for it. Of course Johnnie-O would never admit that aloud, but the fact that he stayed with Nick, and helped him in his own intimidating way, was proof enough for Nick.

  With the boy dispatched to his destination, Nick went up to the train's engine, where a nine-year-old who called himself Choo-choo Charlie stoked the boiler and studied a map that he had drawn himself. Aside from Charlie's map, no one had ever made a record of Everlost's rail lines.

  "D'ya think Mary would put my map in one of her books?" Charlie asked.

  "Mary won't put anything in her books that doesn't help

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  Mary," Nick told him. "You'd probably have to draw a map where all roads lead to her ."r />
  Charlie laughed. "Most of 'em kinda do," he said. "She's got her fingers in everything." Then he got a little quiet. A little scared, maybe. "D'ya think she knows I'm helping you?"

  "She'll forgive you," Nick said. "She prides herself on how forgiving she is. She'd even forgive me if I gave up my 'evil ways.' Anyway, you're not 'helping me'--I've hired you, and business is business, right?"

  Then Nick handed Charlie a mug full of chocolate. Payment for his services.

  "Someday I'm gonna get tired of this stuff," Charlie warned.

  "Well," said Nick, "it's all I've got to give."

  Charlie shrugged it off. "No worries. I can always trade it for something else."

  He was right about that. As awful as Nick's affliction was, in Everlost dripping chocolate was like dripping gold. It was his bad luck to die at fourteen with a chocolate smudge on his face, and as he forgot more and more of his life on earth, that little smudge spread. In Everlost, we are what we remember, Mary had once told him. So why did he have to remember that stupid chocolate stain?

  Allie--who had died in the same accident as Nick-- had never laughed at Nick because of it. And when other kids in Mary's domain had taken to calling him "Hershey," she helped him fight to keep his memories and his name. The thought of Allie saddened him. They had arrived here together, and had journeyed through Everlost together. He

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  had always felt that their fates were somehow intertwined, but they had both gone their separate ways, and Nick never even had the chance to say good-bye. No doubt Allie finally made her way home to find what became of her family. He wondered if she ever took hold of her coin, and completed her journey. He hoped she had, but another, more selfish side of himself hoped that she remained here in Everlost, so he might see her again someday.

  "Look," said Charlie, "Mary's already leaving."

  Sure enough, Nick could see the Hindenburg in the distance, rising up to the sky.

  "I should have stayed there by that tree," Nick said. "Then she'd have to face me."

  "Wouldn't work," said Johnnie-O. "If she saw you there, she'd never get out of that ship."

  Johnnie-O was, right, of course. Still, Nick longed for the moment they came face-to-face. It wasn't just about seeing her frustration--it was about seeing her. Being close to her again. In spite of everything, he still loved her. It made no sense to Charlie or Johnnie-O, but it made perfect sense to Nick, because he understood Mary more than she understood herself. She was a victim of her own righteous nature--a slave to the order she tried to impose on Everlost. If he could, Nick would open her eyes to the truth of it, making her see that she was creating far more harm than good. Then, he would be there to comfort her in that moment of revelation, when all she believed about herself crumbled before her. Once she understood what was truly right, Nick had to believe she would embrace it, and together they would free as many souls from Everlost as they could.

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  This was the Mary he loved. The Mary that could be.

  Each time Nick arrived at one of her traps, and freed one of her snagged souls, he hoped for that moment of confrontation, where her anger would be undermined by the love he knew she felt for him. But she never came forward to face him. Instead, Mary always left without affording him the dignity of a proper slap in the face.

  "She's heading northwest," Charlie said. "D'ya want to follow her again?"

  "Where are we?" Nick asked.

  Charlie looked at his map. "Somewhere in Virginia. East of Richmond."

  This was the farthest south they'd ever been--but there were Afterlights who Nick had come across, who spoke of things even farther south than this. Rumors. Things that could not be believed in the living world, but in Everlost, anything was possible. So Mary would not face him--and now he suspected she never would without a full-out war. There was no question her soul traps were all about gathering up an army. Fine, Mary, thought Nick. If that's what you want, then I'll play.

  "Head south."

  Charlie shook his head. "Can't. I haven't charted any tracks south of Virginia. Why d'ya wanna go south anyway? Nothing there but the Everwild."

  Nick grunted in frustration at the mention of it. "That's all I ever hear! Everwild to the north, Everwild to the west, Everwild to the south--"

  "Hey, it's not my fault no one knows what's out there!"

  "And to the Afterlights there, we're in the Everwild."

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  Perhaps the living world had finally connected coast-to-coast and around the world, but Everlost was a new frontier. It was just like the days when America was still the New World, and no one knew what breathtaking vistas and unforeseen dangers lay over the next ridge. Perhaps the unknown wouldn't have been so daunting if they had an entire crew--but unlike Mary, Nick hadn't been interested in collecting followers. His job was to get rid of them, which made it hard to maintain more than just the barest of skeleton crews--namely, himself, Charlie, and Johnnie-O. It was time to change all that.

  "Come on, Charlie--let's tame the Everwild! We'll chart the rails, and mark the deadspots on the way!"

  And although Charlie was reluctant to travel to places unknown, Nick knew he was tempted. There was a certain excitement in breaking away from the familiar, and shattering old routines.

  "We'll need to look for a finder who can trade us the paper we'll need to make a new map," said Charlie, "but until then I can scratch the map into the engine bulkhead."

  Nick slapped him on the back, leaving an accidental chocolate stain. "Let's get started, then. We'll get to the southern Afterlights before Mary can!"

  With the furnace blazing on the memory of coal, the steam engine headed south into a vast unknowable wild.

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  CHAPTER 4 The Outcast

  On a warm June afternoon, two finders came to a small-town diner that had burned down many years before. The living world had paved over the spot, and turned it into a parking lot for the bank next door, but in Everlost, the diner remained, its chrome siding shining in the afternoon sun. It was the only building in town that had crossed, and so had become a home to about a dozen Afterlights.

  The finders, a boy and a girl, arrived riding a horse. This was unheard of. Well, not entirely unheard of. There were stories about one finder in particular who traveled on the only horse ever known to have crossed into Everlost--and it was said she did travel with a companion, although he never played into the stories much.

  As the kids stepped out of the diner, they kept their distance, wanting to, but also afraid to believe that this could be the finder of legend. The cluster of Afterlights were young--and the oldest girl from the diner (who, not surprisingly called herself "Dinah") was their leader. She was ten when she had died, and the thing she remembered about

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  herself more than anything else was that she had long, luxurious hair--so now it trailed behind her like a smooth amber bridal train.

  It had been a while since finders had come to town, and their arrival always began with hope, and ended with disappointment. Finders were endlessly searching out objects that crossed into Everlost, bartering and trading the items they found for things of greater value. But nothing much crossed here. The finders usually left with a sneer and didn't come back.

  "Sorry," Dinah said to the two, as they got off their horse. "We don't have much to trade. Just this." And she held out a shoelace.

  The boy laughed. "The lace crossed, but not the shoe that went with it?"

  Dinah shrugged. She expected this reaction. "It's what we've got. If you want it, then give us something in return. If not, then leave." She looked over at the girl, daring to ask what the younger kids in her care were too afraid to ask. "You have a name?"

  The girl smiled. "If you want my name, it'll cost you a shoelace."

  Dinah pulled the shoelace back, shoving it in her pocket. "A name's not even worth that much here. It's probably made up anyway, like everyone else's."

  The girl finder grinned again. "I
think I have something to trade for the lace." Then she reached into a saddlebag and pulled out a shimmering ornament that said Baby's first Christmas.

  All the younger kids oohed and ahhed, but Dinah kept

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  her stony expression. "That's worth more than a shoelace. And finders don't just give things away."

  "Consider it a gift of good will," the girl said, "from Allie the Outcast."

  This was the moment Allie loved most. The gasps, and the expressions on their faces. Some would believe she was who she claimed to be, others would have their doubts, but by the time she left, they would all believe--because it was true, and she liked to believe that truth did make itself clear in the end.

  The young Afterlights, who had been so standoffish just a moment ago, now crowded around her, bombarding her with questions.

  "You're Allie the Outcast?"

  "Is it true you can skinjack?"

  "Is it true you spit in the face of the Sky Witch?"

  "Is it true you charmed the McGill like a snake?"

  She glanced at Mikey, who was not at all amused.

  "I admit nothing," Allie said with a smirk, which just made them believe it all the more.

  Dinah, however was only partially convinced. "All right, if you are who you say you are, then let's see you skinjack." The kids all voiced their nervous approval of the suggestion. "Go on--there's plenty of fleshies around." Allie looked around them, and sure enough the moving blurs of the living swept by them on the street, so easy to tune out when one wasn't looking.

  "I'm not a circus act," Allie said sternly. "I don't perform on command."