The hundreds of kids who were now under Nick's leadership certainly didn't love Mary. While some of her many writings had dribbled down to the South, fear and awe of the Sky Witch and her magic was much more compelling than the written word. It was their fear of her that made it easier for them to align with the Chocolate Ogre, who, in their eyes, was certainly frightening, but not terrifying. It was a case of the monster you know being better than the monster you don't know. The problem was, their fear of Mary was quick to turn soldiers into army deserters. In a world where ecto-ripping and skinjacking were possible, there was no way to make these kids believe that Mary Hightower had no such powers.
"I only know of two ecto-rippers," Nick tried to point out to a fearful group of enlistees. "There's one called 'the Haunter,' who's inside a barrel at the center of the earth, and then there's Zin, who's one of us. As for skinjackers, I've only ever met one. Her name is Allie, and she's on our side too."
It was the first time Nick had said Allie's name aloud for quite a while. It made him long to see her--to know what had become of her. And as if to answer that longing, one of the kids they had picked up in North Carolina said, "Yeah--Allie the Outcast hates the Sky Witch--she told us so herself."
Nick turned so fast, chocolate flung into the kid's eye. "What do you mean she told you? You saw her? Where?"
"A couple of months ago, in Greensboro," he said. "She came with this other kid who didn't talk much. I liked her, but the other kid scared us a little."
Nick couldn't contain his excitement. "Tell me everything!" he said. "How was she--how did she look? What was she even doing there?"
Nick sent for the dozen or so kids they picked up in Greensboro, and, pleased to be on the Chocolate Ogre's good side, they were thrilled to give all the information they could. They told Nick all about Allie--how she had become a finder; how she and a boy that Nick could only assume was Mikey McGill rode into town on a horse covered with saddlebags that were packed with crossed items.
"They had good stuff," the Greensboro kids told him, "not junk like most other finders have--and they traded fair. We asked her to show us some skinjacking, but she wouldn't do it."
Then everyone flinched at a loud popping sound, followed by another, then another. Nick already knew that sound. It was Johnnie-O cracking his knuckles. It was always a sign that he was either very anxious, or very excited.
"Y' know ..." said Johnnie-O, "if we find Allie, we'll have a ripper and a skinjacker. With a combination like that, there's a whole lot of things we could do."
But Nick was already miles ahead of him.
"Where was she headed?" Nick asked the Greensboro kids. He didn't expect much of an answer--after all, finders rarely gave away their trade routes. But the boy said quite simply:
"Memphis." * * *
"How well do you know the rail system west of here?" Nick asked Charlie. He thought Charlie would balk at the question, but Choo-choo Charlie was a tried and true conductor, and seemed ready for a new challenge. By now Charlie had gotten himself enough paper to copy the rail map he had been scratching into the engine bulkhead, and mapping the Everwild rails had become a personal mission for him.
"I know what cities should have a lot of tracks that have crossed over--but there's no way to know till we get there. D'ya mean we're not going to Birmingham?"
"Change of plans," Nick told him. "We're going to Memphis."
"I hear that's where Everlost ends," Charlie pointed out. "The Mississippi River, I mean."
"Well, I guess we'll find out, won't we?"
Then, just before Nick left the engine cab, Charlie pointed to his cheek and said, a little awkwardly, "Uh ... you got a little spot there."
Nick sighed. "That wasn't even funny the first time, Charlie."
"No," Charlie said, "I mean the other side of your face."
Nick reached up and touched his good cheek. His finger came away with a tiny spot of chocolate. He wiped it between his thumb and forefinger until it was smudged away. "Just get us to Memphis."
Nick knew that time was running out for him.
There was no way he could deny it now. It wasn't just the spot on his cheek--little eruptions had begun to pop up all over Nick's body, rising like pimples, oozing chocolate through the fabric of his clothes when they popped. Those tiny brown patches were everywhere, and were beginning to connect like raindrops on concrete, spreading like a relentless rash, to his back, his scalp, and places he didn't even want to think about. His chocolate hand was weak and getting weaker, the fingers almost fusing together. His left eye was always clouded, and losing more and more sight each day. His shirt, which used to look like a white shirt covered with brown stains, was now more brown than white, and the original color of his tie had long since been forgotten. Even his dark pants, which had always hidden the stains, could no longer resist the umber onslaught, and his shoes looked like two piles of brown candle-drippings giving rise to the rest of his body.
Nick knew it was his own memory that was poisoning him--or lack of memory. He had forgotten so much of who he had been in the living world, there was barely anything left of him. His family, his friends, they were all gone from his mind. All he knew for sure was that he had been eating a chocolate bar when he died, and it had smeared on his face. Soon his only memory would be the chocolate, and then what? What would happen when there was nothing else left of him?
He didn't want to think about it. He didn't have time to think about it. All that mattered was the task at hand--and only part of that task was building a fighting force. The rest of his plan he kept to himself, because if he told the others what madness he had in mind, he'd have a whole lot more deserters.
Before they left Chattanooga, Zin presented Nick with the flag she had made, and Nick told Charlie to fly it from the front of the train, for everyone to see. The design was a series of silver stars, in the pattern of the Big Dipper, sewn on a rich brown fabric.
"My papa always said the Big Dipper was there to catch falling stars," Zin said. "Kinda like the way you're here to catch falling souls."
Nick was all choked up, and it wasn't just the chocolate. "You have no idea what this means to me, Zin."
"Does that mean I get to be a lieutenant?"