It took three days, working round the clock, to rip enough food to feed the Afterlights of Atlanta, but it was worth the effort. Nick had to admit, when they gathered for the meal, he'd never seen a group of Afterlights so joyful and so content. Whether he got his militia or not, he was glad to have done this.
When all was said and done, and everyone had eaten until they were satisfied, Isaiah asked for volunteers for Nick's army. "Someone's gotta stand up to the Sky Witch," Isaiah told them. "And we gotta do our share."
Nick had asked for fifty--and he ended up with almost eighty--which posed a logistical problem, since the train had only an engine, a parlor car, and a single passenger car. That's when Zin, to everyone's amazement, had ripped her first train car from the living world.
Isaiah was true to his word, and just before they left, he gave them pretty good intelligence as to where they could find friendly Afterlights, and which ones should probably be avoided. He also gave Nick a word of friendly, heartfelt advice.
"You need to remember who you were," Isaiah told him. "Because more and more you got that mud-pie look about you. There's more chocolate on your shirt--it's even getting into your hair now. I gotta say, it worries me."
"We can't choose what we remember," Nick said, repeating what Mary had once told him, "but I'll try."
"Well, I wish you all the luck in both worlds," Isaiah said. Then, as a gesture of friendship, they put their hands together, and crushed Isaiah's one unbroken fortune cookie between their palms.
Their fortune read, "Luck is the poorest of strategies."
While Isaiah might have felt insulted, Nick took this as evidence that he was doing the right thing--preparing for his confrontation with Mary as best he could.
That was more than a month ago. Since leaving Atlanta, Nick and his train had zigzagged from town to town, city to city, on any dead rails that would get them there.
"I'd rip us fresh train tracks," Zin said, "but I can only rip things I can actually move."
The "mud-pie" look that Isaiah had spoken of was even more pronounced than before--so much so that Nick had taken the mirror in the parlor car, and spread his chocolate hand back and forth across it until it was too thick with the stuff to show his reflection. He had work to do, and thinking about himself, well, it was just a distraction.
Based on what Isaiah had told him, they traveled to more than a dozen towns and cities in Georgia and the Carolinas, bringing in volunteers everywhere they went. Zin had become a whiz at dazzling audiences with the items she ripped right before their eyes, and once they were wide-eyed with wonder, Nick offered them a feast without being asked, because if there was one thing that was universal in Everlost, it was the absence of, and the craving for, a good meal.
By the time they reached Chattanooga, Tennessee, and added that ninth train car, Nick's anti-Mary fighting force numbered nearly four hundred.
"It's good to be part of an army again," Zin told Nick, as they headed south toward Birmingham, Alabama. "I've been waitin' halfway to forever for someone to fight."
"We fight because we have to," Nick told her. "We fight because it's the right thing to do, not because we want to."
"Speak for yourself," Zin said. "Everybody's gots their own reasons for the things they do. Alls that matters is that your reasons and mine carry the same flag."
"We don't have a flag," Nick pointed out.
"I could make one."
"Just as long as it's not Confederate."
Zin thought about it. "Whacha say I rip some fabric into Everlost, and come up with sumpin' brand spankin' new?"
"Great--you could be our own Betsy Ross."
To which she replied, "Betsy Ross was a Yankee." It was a strange thing to build an army when they had no idea where to find the enemy. "I've heard rumors that Mary's gone west," Johnnie-O told Nick. "Maybe even across the Mississippi--but I also hear there's no way to cross the Mississippi, so who knows?"
"D'ya think she's afraid to come this far south?" Charlie asked.
"Mary's not afraid," Nick told him. "But she is cautious--which means she'll only come after us when she feels she can't lose." He wondered if she knew where he was right now, and what he was doing.
"What d'ya think's gonna happen when you finally come face-to-face with her?" Charlie asked. It wasn't the first time Nick had been asked that question, and his answer was always the same.
"I don't try to guess at things that haven't happened yet."
But that was a lie. Nick couldn't deny that he had fantasies about their destined meeting. In one fantasy, he would defeat her--but he would show such mercy that Mary would break down in his arms, admit she was wrong about everything--and that admission would heal him, sending every last ounce of chocolate into remission. Then, hand in hand, they would hold their coins and step into the light.
In another version, Mary would win the battle, but be so moved by Nick's valor, and by his passion for freeing the souls she had trapped, that she would finally listen to reason, and allow Afterlights to choose their destinies for themselves. Then together they would lead Everlost into a new age.
All his fantasies ended with him and Mary together one way or another. This was something he couldn't share with anyone, for how could they trust a leader who was in love with the enemy?