Everwild (Skinjacker 2)

"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.

time Nick arrived at one of her traps, and freed one of her snagged souls, he hoped for that moment of confrontation, where her anger would be undermined by the love he knew she felt for him. But she never came forward to face him. Instead, Mary always left without affording him the dignity of a proper slap in the face.

"She's heading northwest," Charlie said. "D'ya want to follow her again?"

"Where are we?" Nick asked.

Charlie looked at his map. "Somewhere in Virginia. East of Richmond."

This was the farthest south they'd ever been--but there were Afterlights who Nick had come across, who spoke of things even farther south than this. Rumors. Things that could not be believed in the living world, but in Everlost, anything was possible. So Mary would not face him--and now he suspected she never would without a full-out war. There was no question her soul traps were all about gathering up an army. Fine, Mary, thought Nick. If that's what you want, then I'll play.

"Head south."

Charlie shook his head. "Can't. I haven't charted any tracks south of Virginia. Why d'ya wanna go south anyway? Nothing there but the Everwild."

Nick grunted in frustration at the mention of it. "That's all I ever hear! Everwild to the north, Everwild to the west, Everwild to the south--"

"Hey, it's not my fault no one knows what's out there!"

"And to the Afterlights there, we're in the Everwild." Perhaps the living world had finally connected coast-to-coast and around the world, but Everlost was a new frontier. It was just like the days when America was still the New World, and no one knew what breathtaking vistas and unforeseen dangers lay over the next ridge. Perhaps the unknown wouldn't have been so daunting if they had an entire crew--but unlike Mary, Nick hadn't been interested in collecting followers. His job was to get rid of them, which made it hard to maintain more than just the barest of skeleton crews--namely, himself, Charlie, and Johnnie-O. It was time to change all that.

"Come on, Charlie--let's tame the Everwild! We'll chart the rails, and mark the deadspots on the way!"

And although Charlie was reluctant to travel to places unknown, Nick knew he was tempted. There was a certain excitement in breaking away from the familiar, and shattering old routines.

"We'll need to look for a finder who can trade us the paper we'll need to make a new map," said Charlie, "but until then I can scratch the map into the engine bulkhead."

Nick slapped him on the back, leaving an accidental chocolate stain. "Let's get started, then. We'll get to the southern Afterlights before Mary can!"

With the furnace blazing on the memory of coal, the steam engine headed south into a vast unknowable wild.

Chapter 4 The Outcast

On a warm June afternoon, two finders came to a small-town diner that had burned down many years before. The living world had paved over the spot, and turned it into a parking lot for the bank next door, but in Everlost, the diner remained, its chrome siding shining in the afternoon sun. It was the only building in town that had crossed, and so had become a home to about a dozen Afterlights.

The finders, a boy and a girl, arrived riding a horse. This was unheard of. Well, not entirely unheard of. There were stories about one finder in particular who traveled on the only horse ever known to have crossed into Everlost--and it was said she did travel with a companion, although he never played into the stories much.

As the kids stepped out of the diner, they kept their distance, wanting to, but also afraid to believe that this could be the finder of legend. The cluster of Afterlights were young--and the oldest girl from the diner (who, not surprisingly called herself "Dinah") was their leader. She was ten when she had died, and the thing she remembered about herself more than anything else was that she had long, luxurious hair--so now it trailed behind her like a smooth amber bridal train.