Everfound (Skinjacker 3)

And at that, Jackin’ Jill, who clearly never stepped back from anyone, took a major step backward.

“We’re done here, Simba.”

“For now,” said Jix, the grin never leaving his face.

She turned and headed for the door, but didn’t leave quite yet. “Think of something awful,” she said, with her back to him.

“¿Como?” he asked. “What?”

“That’s how you dowse your afterglow. Think of something awful, and your glow goes away, but just for a few seconds.” And then she was gone, locking the door, and forcing him to leave the way he came in.

In her book Tips for Taps, Mary Hightower has this to say about human emotions:

“We in Everlost are bound by many of the same emotions that we had in life. Joy and despair, love and hate, fear and contentment. Only skinjackers, however, who still have access to flesh, are cursed with those unwholesome feelings brought on by biology, which includes all forms of burning desires. They should be pitied, because unlike the rest of us, they are closer to animals.”

CHAPTER 7

What Allie Saw

After a week, Speedo’s team of finders returned with a single railroad track.

“One down, about twenty more to go,” Speedo said cheerfully, his oversized grin stretching quite literally from ear to ear.

While Milos was more than happy to stall as long as possible, Mary’s hordes were getting restless, and nothing would quell the growing discontent but moving them closer to their imaginary destination.

Milos had no choice but to go back to Allie.

“Tell me what you saw,” Milos said, “and I will set you free.”

“Deal,” Allie told him. And then she said, “This church isn’t what it appears to be.”

“If it’s not a church, then what is it?”

“No—it’s still a church but . . .” She sighed. “It would make much more sense if you saw it for yourself. Then you can honestly tell everyone you figured it out, and be the big hero.”

“I went back along the tracks. I looked. I saw nothing.”

“Did you go to the top of the hill?”

“That,” said Milos, “is much more than a mile.”

“My mistake,” said Allie. “Hard to measure distance when you’re tied to the front of a train.”

Again, Milos backtracked alone, and when the tracks began to climb up the hill, he kept going all the way to the top, which afforded him a view of the train, and the terrain around it. There was a small living-world lake to the right of the train, and on the other side of the lake there was a deadspot, about the size of a house. Only a person with a wide view from the front of the train could have seen it as the train came down the hill. There was nothing on the deadspot—just a square made of stones, and a few stone steps that led nowhere. It was the foundation of a building.

It was not unusual for random bits and pieces of the living world to cross into Everlost, but there was something very wrong with this picture. Foundations did not cross into Everlost . . . entire buildings did.

Now he understood exactly what Allie had seen—and what it meant for all of them.

Milos raced back to the train, the memory of a heart beating in his chest, not out of exertion, but out of excitement and out of a fear he was not yet ready to admit. When he arrived back, the others knew right away that something was wrong. Perhaps it was in his eyes, or maybe his Afterlight glow had grown paler—maybe even a little sickly green.

Milos weaved through the groups of jump-roping, ball-playing, yo-yo–bouncing kids, and found Speedo preparing to go out on another rail-finding expedition.

“I will need fifty of our strongest Afterlights,” Milos told him.

“What for?” asked Speedo.

Milos didn’t bother answering him. “Gather them and have them meet me by the church.”