Everwild (Skinjacker 2)

"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." 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. 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 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 Mary," Nick told him. "You'd probably have to draw a map where all roads lead to her ."

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.