Everwild (Skinjacker 2)

Dinah's face hardened. Allie could tell by that look on her face that although she appeared to be no older than ten, she was an old, old soul. "What do I have to promise?"

"That if Mary the Sky Witch ever darkens the sky with her great balloon, you'll hide, and you won't let her take you away." The kids all looked to Dinah for guidance. "Then who will protect us from the Chocolate Ogre?" Dinah asked. "Who will protect us from the McGill?"

"It looks like you've done a pretty good job yourself," Allie told her. "And besides, there's no reason to fear the McGill or the Chocolate Ogre. Mary's the one you need to worry about."

They all nodded but seemed unconvinced--after all she was the Outcast. No matter how starstruck they might be, Allie's advice was suspect.

Dinah gave the ornament to one of the other children. "Hang it on the coatrack," she told him. "It's the closest thing we have to a Christmas tree." Then she turned back to Allie. "We'll keep our promise; we'll save the best finds for you."

It was a satisfactory business deal. She had won the loyalty of many groups of Afterlights. No--not groups--vapors, she thought, with a bitter little shake of the head. In one of Mary's annoying little etiquette books, she had insisted that a gathering of Afterlights was properly referred to as "a vapor." A flock of birds, a gaggle of geese, and a vapor of Afterlights. It irritated Allie no end that Mary so effectively determined the language they all used. Allie wouldn't have been surprised if Mary herself had coined the name "Everlost."

Allie found Mikey a street away, stomping on a huge lawn, watching the ripples it created in the living world. He seemed embarrassed to be caught doing something so childlike. Allie tried to hide her smile, because she knew it would embarrass him even more.

"Are we done here?" Mikey asked. "Yes. Where to next?" Allie made room for him on the horse--letting him ride in front of her, holding the reins. In so many other ways he had taken a backseat to her, the least she could do was allow him the dignity of deciding where their travels would take them.

"I have an idea where we should go," Mikey said. "It's not too far from here."

Allie had learned that being a finder was mostly about luck, and keen skills of observation. Some finders were hearse-chasers. That is to say, they lingered around the dying, hoping they might drop something in Everlost while crossing to the other side. But the best finds were always made quite by accident, and the best trades were made by being shrewd but honest. Even now the horse's makeshift saddlebag was full of crossed items--a crystal doorknob, an empty picture frame, a well-worn teddy bear. In Everlost all these things were treasures.

But locating and trading crossed objects was only part of a finder's job. Their real mystique came from their stories-- because while most Afterlights stayed put, finders traveled. They saw more, heard more than others, and spread the tales wherever they went. This is exactly the reason why Allie had decided to become one. When Allie first arrived in Everlost, she had heard tales of monsters and miracles, terror and salvation--but now she had some measure of control over the tales being told. She could spread the word that Mary was the real monster of Everlost and try to set people straight about Nick.

A chocolate ogre? Hah! Nick didn't have an ogreish bone in his body, so to speak. The problem was, Mary was far better at spreading her misinformation. It was much easier for other Afterlights to believe that beauty and virtue went hand in hand.

However, tales of Allie the Outcast were being spread far and wide too. Not all of them were true, of course, but she was developing quite a reputation as Everlost's loose cannon. That got her a certain amount of respect. She could grow used to that.

In fact, she already had.

Cape May: population 4034 in winter, and at least ten times that in the summer. It's the farthest south you can go in New Jersey. Everything after that is water.

Allie stood in front of the town's quaint WELCOME sign, frozen by the sight of it.

"You're sinking," said Mikey, who was still on the horse. Shiloh the horse, having grown accustomed to the strange texture of the living world, kept pulling its hooves out of the ground with a sucking sound, as if it were slowly prancing in place. Allie on the other hand, was already in the ground to her knees.

She reached up, and Mikey helped her out of the ground. "That's it, isn't it?" Mikey asked. "Cape May? I remember you said you lived in Cape May."

"Yes." With all their wanderings, Allie had lost her sense of direction. She had no idea they were this close to her home.

"It's what you wanted, isn't it? To go home?"

"Yes ... from the very beginning."

Mikey hopped off the horse and stood beside her. "Back on my ship, I used to watch you look out to shore. You had such a longing to go home. You don't know how close I came to taking you there, even then."

Allie smirked. "And you called yourself a monster."

Mikey was suitably insulted. "I was an excellent monster! The one true monster of Everlost!"

"'Hear your name and tremble.' "

Mikey looked away. "No one trembles anymore."

Allie was mad at herself for mocking him. He didn't deserve that. She touched his face gently. To look at him now, you'd never guess that the fair skinned, blue-eyed boy was once the terrifying McGill, but every once in a while Allie could still see a bit of the beast in him. It was there in the shortness of his temper, and the clumsiness of his hands, as if they were still claws. It was there in the way he approached the world--as if it still owed him something. Yes, the monster still lingered there inside him, but his face was that of a boy, attractive by any standards, if somewhat doleful.

"I like you much better this way."

"Why should I care?" But he smiled, because he did care and they both knew it.

"You must teach me to be human again," he had told her, when he first lost his monstrous form. Since then, she had done everything in her power to do so. It was in small moments like these that she caught glimpses of his successful steps back from being a monster. How long ago had that been? As is the way in Everlost, the days had blended until there was no telling. Weeks? Months? Years? Certainly not years! "So," he asked, "does bringing you home make me more human?"