Everfound

CHAPTER 34
Separate Ways

T hey furjacked the jaguars once more, and headed northwest by night beside the highway, constantly sniffing the air for the scent of skinjacking and perhaps something even more exotic. They found it at dawn, just twenty miles out of Corpus Christi: a powerful scent indefinable and terrifying, like the deep fumes of tornado-torn earth blended with the bitter noxious tang of imminent death, an unearthly scent that could turn a herd into a panicking stampede. “I believe it’s the smell of a scar wraith,” Jix told Jill.

He convinced Jill to wait out of sight, because he suspected anyone traveling with the scar wraith would know Jill and instantly see her as an enemy. Then he quickly put the cat into a deep sleep, peeled into Everlost, and climbed back up to the highway.

There they were: Allie, the wraith, the Chocolate Ogre, and two others that Jix didn’t recognize. One was a small girl with loose laces, and the other a boy who hung close to Allie, in a protective sort of way. Jix might have been wary if he hadn’t already chosen to be on their side.

They stood in a face-off, the little girl hiding behind Allie. “He’s one of them,” she said.

“Stay back,” said the boy close to Allie, and Jix could swear he began to grow horns, or perhaps antennae. No, definitely horns.

But Allie, who knew, or at least suspected, that Jix’s intentions held no danger for them, asked, “Are you here to help us, Jix, or cause us more problems?”

“We share the same problem,” Jix told her. “Her name is Mary.”

Allie hesitated for a moment, then asked, “So where is she?”

Jix chose not to answer that question because it didn’t matter. “Elsewhere,” he said. “I’m sure she and her vapor circled around to the north just to avoid you. And even if you do find her, you won’t defeat her. She’s too cunning, too smart, too good at what she does. You will not stand a chance against her.”

Allie crossed her arms. “We’ll see about that.”

But Jix took a few steps closer. “How many times have you faced her?” he asked. “How many times have you failed?”

“This time will be different,” the chocolate boy said.

“How will it be different?” Jix asked, but none of them had an answer. Good, thought Jix. Because when facing a spirit like Mary Hightower, knowing you knew nothing was the best place to start.

“And we have another skinjacker on our side,” Jix told them. “I believe you know her.”

Jill put her cat to sleep next to Jix’s, joining them, and they all spoke through the morning, sitting in the shade of a crossed oil well that had burned into a charred knot many years before. The decisions they reached were not easy, but Jix was persuasive in his simple, obvious logic.

Fact: The seven of them could not hope to battle Mary and her maniacal vision alone.

Fact: Mary’s skinjackers were her weakness, for she needed them to do her bidding in the living world.

Fact: His Excellency the Supreme King of the Middle Realm would be a powerful ally against her. True, Mary’s power was a viral kind of charisma that could practically melt flesh from bone, but the king had acquired certain powers in Everlost as well. It might be enough to swing things in their favor.

When the conversation was done, Allie, Mikey, and Nick went off to consider their options, Jill went off alone, if only to escape from the company, and Jix sat with Clarence-not close enough to be accidentally touched, but close enough to make it clear that Jix didn’t fear him. They both watched Lacey as she played tic-tac-toe alone in the deadspot dirt. It gave Jix a pang of sadness, because she reminded him of Inez-the girl he killed. The girl he could not save. He imagined every little girl would be a reminder, from now till the end of his memories.

Jix regarded Clarence, considering his battle wounds, considering the sparking line that held together the living from the lost side of his face. It was terrifying to behold, but it was also remarkable. To Jix, Clarence was very much like an Everlost coin: undeniable proof that the universe had tricks it was not ready to reveal to anyone.

“Go on, stare at the monster,” Clarence said bitterly, misinterpreting Jix’s unblinking gaze. “Gawk at the nasty child-eating bogeyman scar wraith.”

“No,” said Jix, “I don’t see you as a monster. We are both oddities. I have respect for that.” Clarence waved off the prospect of Jix’s respect, but Jix was insistent. “Listen to me,” Jix said. “I’ve come to think it’s no accident you are the way you are. There is a purpose for you in all of this. I sense it-and if there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s sensing. You already saved many people, and yet you still feel unfulfilled. It means you still have more to do in that purpose, I think.”

Both the living and the lost halves of Clarence’s face smiled, but it was a smile of apology. “I used to believe things like that,” he said, “but in my experience it all goes belly-up in the end. I hate to burst your bubble, but I don’t have a purpose… and when I finally go down that tunnel to the pearly gates or wherever, I’m going to slap God silly for not giving me one.”

Jix nodded, accepting Clarence’s point of view without judgment. “Do that if you must,” Jix said. “But I suspect it will all be much clearer when you are there.”

A few yards away, Jix’s sleeping jaguar stirred and Clarence turned his living eye toward it. “Better skinjack that thing before it wakes up and eats me.”

“Chichen Itza!” said Allie. “The City of Souls is at Chichen Itza! I should have figured out it had nothing to do with a chicken.”

“I won’t go!” yelled Mikey. He could not be calmed. He raged and stormed, and as he did, his anger gave him all nature of deformities. Extra hands and arms, boils bubbling the size of golf balls on his face. Mikey didn’t just wear his heart on his sleeve, he wore it all over his body in frightening manifestations of fury.

“Calm down and think about it!” Allie told him. “What Jix proposed makes sense. You can’t go where I’m going-and anyway, I won’t be alone, I’ll have Clarence-”

“who will wipe you out of existence if he touches you,” reminded Mikey.

“So I’ll be careful. And you shouldn’t be worrying about me-you’ll have your own mission to worry about.”

“Some mission!” griped Mikey. “I will not go down to the City of Souls to grovel at the feet of some stupid king!”

“Hey,” said Nick. “I’m going there too-and I’m not complaining.”

“You’re too stupid to complain,” growled Mikey.

“That,” said Allie, “is not fair!”

“No, he’s right,” said Nick. “I’m not the boy I used to be. Maybe I never will be-but at least I’m not so selfish as to-”

“Selfish? You think I’m selfish?” Boils bubbled on Mikey’s face and popped like pizza cheeze. “I’ll show you selfish.”

“Stop it!” yelled Allie. “Now you sound like the McGill.”

Then Mikey’s face became a pale lava flow over mournful pleading eyes. “Do you know how hard I tried to find you? And now that I did, you’re going to leave? I might never see you again!”

“That’s true,” said Allie. “But there are more important things than us being together.”

“No,” yelled Mikey, “there aren’t!” and he stormed away. Allie started to go after him, but Nick stopped her.

“He’ll be okay,” Nick told her. “He needs to explode a little bit.” They watched him as he burst into different unpleasant shapes beneath the hazy morning sun.

Allie sighed. “I hate it when he explodes.”

“Actually, I think you love it.”

Allie had to smile because he was right. She thought back to the days on the Sulphur Queen. Back then Mikey was so proud to be the One True Monster of Everlost, reveling in every display of hideousness. She could not remember the moment her general disgust was replaced by understanding, and eventually love. No doubt such things sneak up on a person. She knew, in spite of everything, her feelings for Mikey were greater than the most miserable incarnations of his stormy emotions. Love, Allie concluded, wasn’t blind, it simply saw alternate dimensions.

Allie turned to Nick. “So… do you still love her?” she asked. “Do you still love Mary?”

Nick didn’t speak right away. She could tell he was struggling to find an answer. “I love… how she wraps the world around her finger so gracefully you can’t imagine it anywhere else. I love the determination she has to do ‘the right thing’… But I will never understand how she can see ending the world as ‘right.’”

Then Allie asked the big question. “If it comes down to it, and you have to destroy her… would you do it?”

Nick looked down. “It’s no worse than what you’re being asked to do.” He thought a moment more, and added, “I know I can’t save her from herself. When the time comes, I’ll do what must be done. I promise.”

Allie leaned in and gently gave Nick a kiss on his cheek… and although her lips came away puckered with chocolate, there was now a single spot on Nick’s cheek through which his true self shone through.

The sleeping jaguars had been spotted by the living, and had already been wrangled by animal control, leaving Jill fleshless. Now she leaned against the oil well, arms crossed, looking impatient. Allie found it awkward and unpleasant to be in cahoots with Jackin’ Jill, and clearly the feeling was mutual. They spoke to each other, keeping a distance, as if either one might smack the other if she got too close.

“How come you’re not with Jix?”

“I won’t go near that thing he’s with,” Jill said. “The sooner you and the scar wraith get on with your mission, the better.”

“How about your mission?” Allie asked. “Going back to Mary…”

Jill folded her arms a little tighter. “Mary won’t be so hard to find. That hoard of hers shines too brightly to hide when they’re out in the open-especially at night.”

Allie dared to take a step closer. “So I guess we’re working together now.”

“It’s like they say,” Jill told her, “ ‘my enemy’s enemy is my friend.’”

“We don’t have to be friends to work together.”

“Good,” said Jill, “I’m relieved. So when I find out the names of Mary’s new skinjackers, how do I get you the information?”

“I’ve discovered a method of instantaneous communication, that can reach all of us without even having to know where we are,” Allie said. “It’s called e-mail.”

Jill laughed. “That’s so easy, it’s almost disappointing. Shouldn’t we have to communicate by magical smoke signals or something like that?”

Allie smiled in spite of herself. Jill had a point, whether she realized it or not: In Everlost, Afterlights always had to do things the hard way, from communication to transportation. It was easy to forget the advantage they had as skinjackers, having all the resources of the living world at their disposal.

“I’m setting up an e-mail address that we can all check regularly,” Allie told her. “It’s stopmarynow@gmail. com.”

“Cute.”

“All you have to do is send the names of the skinjackers to that address. You do know how to use e-mail, right?”

“Who do you think I am, Mary?” said Jill. “They had e-mail when I went into a coma.”

“Sorry.” Allie looked over to Jix, who was still talking to Clarence. Jill and Jix’s complete devotion to each other reminded Allie of her own relationship with Mikey… in a dark-side-of-the-Force sort of way. “I’m glad you found something you like better than killing people,” she told Jill.

“Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it, Pollyanna.” Then Jill gave her a nasty, knowing wink, and sauntered away.

Allie tried not to think about what Jill had said. She had other business right now. Lacey was still off by herself playing tic-tac-toe in the dirt, toward the edge of the deadspot. That sad-eyed expression never left the girl’s face. Allie went over to her.

“Having fun?” Allie asked.

“Maybe. I guess,” Lacey answered. “When I was with Mary, I played tic-tac-toe every day with some boy. The exact same game over and over again. It felt good to know what would happen next, but at the same time it didn’t feel good at all. Isn’t that weird?”

“No,” said Allie. “I understand.” Then Allie reached into her pocket, and pulled out something that had been sitting there, waiting for years. An Everlost coin. When Allie held it in her hand, the coin stayed cold and inert. As long as she could skinjack, the coin wouldn’t work for her. But it would work for Lacey. Allie held it out to the girl. “Would you like to have this?”

Lacey looked at the coin warily. “Mary said we should make a wish with it and throw it away-she said it wasn’t good for anything else-but you know what? I think she was lying.”

“It will get you out of Everlost,” Allie told her.

“Will it take me home like the ruby slippers?”

Allie thought about the question. “Yes,” she told Lacey. “Not the home where you’ve been, but the one you’re going to.”

Lacey shrugged. “I don’t remember the home I came from, anyway. All I remember is Everlost, Mary, and tictac-toe.” Lacey looked at the coin, still afraid to take it. “They say skinjackers can see the tunnel when people go in, and they know what’s there. Can you tell me?”

Allie shook her head. “We can see the tunnel, but the light at the end is too bright to see what’s there… But I’ll bet you still remember how it felt in the tunnel, before you came to Everlost, don’t you?”

Lacey looked off into the sun to remind her. “I remember feeling. .. kind of good about it. But then I tripped over my laces and fell.”

“Maybe you’ll feel good this time too.”

Then Lacey grabbed her arm, tightly as if something might grab her at that very moment and take her away. “But what if it’s a trick? What if it’s a lie? What if the light’s bad-or what if it’s fake and there’s nothing there at all? What then?”

Allie grabbed Lacey and held her close, trying to comfort her, but how do you comfort someone from something you’re not sure of yourself? “I don’t know what’s in the light,” Allie said. “Only the people who get there know for sure… But I do know this: Everyone who has ever lived has gone down the tunnel, and everyone who ever will live will go there too. So you’re in good company.”

“Not everyone gets where they’re going,” Lacey pointed out. “What about the souls who sink?”

“They’ll get there eventually, even if eventually means a long time.”

And then Lacey said, “Squirrel didn’t go into the light. He didn’t go anywhere at all. What about him?”

Allie closed her eyes. She never liked Squirrel, but he didn’t deserve to be extinguished. “Well,” Allie said, “that’s the exception that proves the rule.”

She held Lacey for a moment more, and when she let go, Lacey seemed comforted. More than comforted, she was calmed. She was ready.

“Will you hold my hand until I’m gone?” Lacey asked.

“Of course I will.”

They stood with Allie holding her hand, then Lacey held out her other hand, and Allie placed the coin in the middle of her palm.

“It’s warm,” Lacey said.

Allie smiled. “Make a wish.”

Lacey closed her palm, holding the coin tight, and in an instant they were both bathed in bright light coming from the end of an impossibly long tunnel. Lacey looked into the light, letting go of Allie’s hand, and she gasped. “It came true!” And then she was gone, shooting down the tunnel into a blinding eternity.

Jill, who had seen the whole thing, gave Allie slow applause. “Very touching,” Jill said. “I may have to skinjack someone just so I can hurl.”