Everlost (Skinjacker 1)

She turned to Nick, and found herself locked in his gaze. This time he wasn’t blushing. “I’d really like it if you could.”

Mary held eye contact with Nick much longer than she expected to. She began to feel flustered, and she never felt flustered. Flustered was not in Mary Hightower’s emotional dictionary.

“This game’s stupid,” said Lief. “Who the heck is Zelda, anyway?”

Mary tore herself away from Nick’s gaze, angry at herself for allowing a slip of her emotions. She was a mentor. She was a guardian. She needed to keep an emotional distance from the kids under her wing. She could care about them — but only the way a mother loves her children. As long as she remembered that, things would be fine.

“I have an idea for you, Nick.” Mary went to a dresser, and opened the top drawer, getting her errant feelings under control. She pulled out paper and a pen. Mary made sure all arriving Greensouls always had paper and pens. Crayons for the younger ones. “Why don’t you make a list of all the things you ever wanted to do, and then we can talk about it.”

Mary left quickly, with a bit less grace than when she arrived.

Allie found the paper and pens long before Mary showed up in her “apartment,” or “hotel room,” or “cell.” She wasn’t quite sure what to call it yet. By the time Mary arrived, Allie had filled three pages with questions.

When Mary came, she stood at the threshold until Allie invited her in. Like a vampire, Allie thought. Vampires can’t come in unless invited. “You’ve been busy,” Mary said when she saw how much Allie had written.

“I’ve been reading your books,” Allie said. “Not just the one you gave us, but other ones I found lying around.”

“Good—they will be very helpful for you.”

“—and I have some questions. Like, in one book, you say haunting is forbidden, but then somewhere else you say that we’re free spirits, and can do anything we want.”

“Well, we can,” said Mary, “but we really shouldn’t.”

“Why?”

“It’s complicated.”

“And anyway—you say that we can have no effect on the living world—they can’t see us, they can’t hear us … so if that’s true, how could we ‘haunt,’ even if we wanted to?”

Mary’s smile spoke of infinite patience among imbeciles. It made Allie furious, and so she returned the same “you’re-an-idiot-and-I’m-oh-so-smart” smile right back at her.

“As I said, it’s complicated, and it’s nothing you need to worry about on your first day here.”

“Right,” said Allie. “So I haven’t read all the books yet, I mean you’ve written so many of them—but I haven’t been able to find anything about going home.”

Allie could see Mary bristle. Allie imagined if she had been a porcupine all her quills would be standing on end.

“You can’t go home,” Mary said. “We’ve already discussed that.”

“Sure I can,” Allie said. “I can walk up to my house, walk in my front door.

Well, okay, I mean walk through my front door, but either way, I’ll be home. Why don’t any of your books talk about that?”

“You don’t want to do that,” Mary said, her voice quiet, almost threatening.

“But I do.”

“No you don’t.” Mary walked to the window, and looked out over the city. Allie had chosen a view uptown: the Empire State Building, Central Park, and beyond.

“The world of the living doesn’t look the way you remembered, does it. It looks washed out. Less vibrant than it should.”

What Mary said was true. The living world had a fundamentally faded look about it. Even Freedom Tower, rising just beside their towers, seemed like they were seeing it through fog. It was so clearly a part of a different world. A world where time moves forward, instead of just standing still, keeping everything the way it is. Or, more accurately, the way it once was.

“Look out over the city,” Mary said. “Do some buildings look more…real…to you?”

Now that Mary had mentioned it, there were buildings that stood out in clearer focus. Brighter. Allie didn’t need to be told that these were buildings that had crossed into Everlost when they were torn down.

“Sometimes they build living-world things in places where Everlost buildings stand,” Mary said. “Do you know what happens when you step into those places?”