Everlost (Skinjacker 1)

Meadow just smiled. “Sure you do.”

And so to prove it Allie reached into her pockets, and turned them out. “See?”

“What about your back pockets?”

Allie sighed and checked her back pockets, knowing full well they were empty—she never used her back pockets. So it surprised her when she found the coin. Not even Johnnie-O’s goons had found it. But then, she had given them such a nasty look when they had reached for her rear, they never actually checked her back pockets.

“Weird,” Allie said, as she looked at the coin.

“Not really.” Meadow gave her a hippie love-fest smile. “With all the money living people spend, everyone has at least one coin in their pocket when they cross.”

“I once had a coin,” Lief said, dejectedly, “but it got stolen.”

“Make a wish anyway,” said Meadow. “Mary says all wishes have a chance of coming true, except one.”

Nick threw his coin in, then Allie threw hers. She made the wish every Greensoul made. The wish to be alive again. The one wish that didn’t come true.

Once their wishes had joined the others in the fountain, Meadow led them toward Tower One. Lief was the ultimate tourist, staring heavenward to where the towers touched the sky. He bumped into other kids again and again, for he refused to look down. “How do they stay up?” Lief asked. “Wouldn’t something so tall fall down?”

Allie was not a girl quickly given to tears, but she had found herself crying at least once a day since her arrival. Sometimes it was the revelation of just how drastically her existence had changed that would draw tears to her eyes. Other times it was the depth of how much she missed her family. Today the tears were sudden and unexpected.

“What’s the matter?” Lief asked. But there really was no way to explain to him.

She wasn’t even sure of the reason. Was she crying with joy that this place had left a permanent impression on the world, and that it was still here in Everlost? Or was being here a reminder of how much was truly lost on that awful day when the towers crossed so violently from the world of the living? So many souls got where they were going that day, when they shouldn’t have been going at all.

“This is wrong,” Allie said. “Children shouldn’t be playing here. It’s…it’s like dancing on a grave.”

“No,” said Meadow, “it’s like putting flowers on a grave. Mary says the more happiness we bring back to this place, the more we honor it.”

“So, exactly who is this Mary?” Nick asked.

Meadow scrunched up her lips, trying to think of how to explain. “Mary’s kind of like, a shaman, you know? A spiritual leader. Anyway, she knows lots of stuff, and so she pretty much runs things around here.”

The elevator stopped abruptly and the door slid open, to reveal that they had come all the way up to the observation level. They could tell because of all of the coin-operated binocular machines lined up by the narrow windows that stretched from ceiling to floor. But everything else here had changed. It must have been remodeled into a makeshift orphanage. Just as in the square below, young Afterlights from various time periods lingered, playing games or just sitting, waiting for something to happen to them. Allie still wasn’t sure whether this was like some desecration of hallowed ground, or if having children here was somehow healing.

As they walked around the floor to the north side, they passed a food court with a pizza place and a hot dog stand. The counters were closed. It looked like they hadn’t served any food in a long time—but at each table sat kids, eating what appeared to be very, very small pieces of cake.

“That can’t be,” said Lief. “They’re eating. How can they be eating?”

Meadow smiled. “Mary traded something for a birthday cake. She shared it with all of the younger children.”

“But, we don’t eat,” said Lief, confused.

“Just because we don’t, doesn’t mean we can’t when there’s ghost food around.”

“Ghost food?” said Lief. “There’s ghost food?”

Nick looked at him and shook his head. “You’ve been around a hundred years, and you didn’t know there was ghost food?”

Lief looked like a kid who had missed the bus to Disneyland. “No one ever told me.”

Seeing the smaller children eating the birthday cake reminded Allie how hungry she was. Just like her craving for sleep, she knew her hunger would eventually pass, but there was no telling when. If it had been she who had gotten the birthday cake, she would not have been so generous as to share it with anyone.

Maybe with Nick and Lief, but certainly not a hoard of little kids.

“You’ll really dig Mary,” said Meadow. Allie had to admit there was something comforting when Meadow’s lingo matched her clothes.

A makeshift wall had been built, blocking off the north half of the floor.