Everwild (Skinjacker 2)

Allie could not believe how exhilarating this had been. She wanted to do it again and again.

Milos must have read the excitement in her face, because he said, "You see? There are many, many joys to being a skinjacker."

Around them, the house lights began to dim. The audience roared in anticipation, and Allie looked out to the darkening theater, pretending that they were all cheering for her.

"Another game!" she said to Milos. "Hide-and-seek! I'll hide in a fleshie, and you have to find me!"

Milos crossed his arms. "How could I do that?--there are thousands of fleshies here!"

She grinned mischievously. "I'll be the one thumbing my nose at Travis Dix!" And before he could respond, she was off, surfing her way through the theater.

must have communed with a dozen patients before she felt so exhausted by it, and filled with their gratitude, that she had to stop.

It was getting dark as they left the hospital, and as her mind ran through the miraculous things they did today, she couldn't help but reel from the sheer awe of it. Since the first day she discovered she could skinjack, she had lived in fear of the idea--she had treated it like a nasty little secret, to be used only when absolutely necessary. It kept her from seeing the possibilities!

"Do you realize what we could do?" she told Milos. "Solve the world's greatest crimes, bring peace to the most troubled places on earth. Why, through skinjacking, we could actually change the world!"

Milos found this very amusing. "You wag a finger at me for playing with fleshies, and here you want to change the world!"

"I didn't say I wanted to, just that we could."

Then his gaze changed. He was no longer laughing. Now he looked a bit bemused, instead of amused--as if looking at Allie was like looking at a wonder. The gaze made her feel awkward and she had to look away.

"Perhaps I am too small-minded," Milos said. "This has always been my problem--but now, thanks to you, I will change. I will try to think more ... globally."

At the time Allie thought he was just humoring her.

Skinjacking can change the world.

Only much later would her own words come back to haunt her. In her book You Don't Know Jack, Allie the Outlaw makes the following observations:

"Unlike other Afterlights, we have an unfailing memory, and we don't change, since we don't forget who we were. What's more important to remember is that we are more like other Afterlights than we are different--and we must help nonjackers to see this. We straddle two worlds--Everlost and the world of the living. If we wish to be respected and not feared, we must be good ambassadors to both."

Chapter 12 Of Monsters and Mullets

There was no question that Nashville slowed them down, what with so many skinjacking opportunities. Mikey was the only one annoyed by how few miles they were covering. "I thought you wanted to find your family," he reminded Allie.

"I do, but I've waited this long--a couple of days won't make a difference."

She could have told him then about how she'd be stuck in Everlost for a long, long time, so there was no hurry to do anything--but she knew Mikey would ask her a million questions she had no answers to. Like what it meant to be consigned to Everlost for her "natural life," as if the universe knew when she would have died if she hadn't been in the accident. How can a date be assigned to something that will never happen?

An exploration of Nashville had turned up a sizeable vapor of Afterlights in an old burned-out factory that had crossed over. They were friendly but guarded, not trusting of outsiders--least of all a foreigner like Milos. The Nashville Afterlights made room for them in their sizeable deadspot though, and were happy to listen to all their stories of faraway places--and to them, every place was far away.

"So you've all been into the Everwild?" their leader asked--a kid who had blue hair for no reason anyone could fathom.

"Where I come from, this is the Everwild," Allie told him, and that made the other kids laugh, thinking she was making a joke.

One kid didn't laugh, though. A bone-thin, sad-eyed kid who was so hunched the other kids just called him Igor. "It's all wild," he said. "No one knows anything about anywhere--'cept of course for the Sky Witch."

Both Allie and Mikey shifted uncomfortably at Mary's mention, but neither of them said anything. Neither of them felt like sharing tales of Mary Hightower.

"But the real wild places are to the west," said Igor, and the other kids murmured their agreement. Then he whispered, "Have you felt the wind?"

"What wind?" asked Mikey.

"We don't feel wind in Everlost," Allie pointed out.

"You'll feel this wind," said Igor. "If you're goin' to Memphis you'll feel it sure enough."