Everfound (Skinjacker 3)

“That,” said Milos, “is between Mary and me.”

With all the starts and stops, backtracking and zigzagging, their journey was taking months. During that time, Mary’s kids all fell into new routines . . . yet even in their routines there was a sense of impatience—as if they were all reluctantly passing the time until something happened—until Milos actually DID something that brought them closer to their unknown destination. More and more he felt like a leader in name only.

Now, as he knelt alone in the caboose, he looked through the glass to Mary’s closed eyelids, trying to remember what her eyes looked like. Soft and inviting, while at the same time keen and calculating. It was an intoxicating combination.

“I have tried, Mary,” he said, in barely more than a whisper. “I have tried to lead your children and to bring even more into Everlost, just as you had asked . . . but there is only so much that I can do.” He found that he had forced his hands together, clasping his knuckles in something resembling prayer. “We face so many obstacles. And now this church . . .” He looked to the date she would awaken, written on the largest pane of glass. It was still more than six months away.

“I’m not sure I can do this without you, Mary,” he pleaded. “Please, please wake up soon. . . .”

For an instant, he thought he saw a twitch of her cheek. But it was just a trick of the light sifting through the crystalline coffin.

Late that afternoon, Milos gathered all of Mary’s children in a clearing just beside the train, then he climbed up on top of the caboose, and told them his plan. “We will build a bypass around the church,” Milos told them. “But to do it, we’ll need to find loose railroad tracks that have crossed into Everlost.”

Speedo jumped at the opportunity to lead the expedition. “Leave it to me,” he said. “I used to be a finder—I can find anything!” And since it was well known that he was, indeed, Mary’s favorite finder, he was chosen to lead an expedition of twenty-five souls to scour the Oklahoma City trainyards.

The crowd seemed to approve of the idea, but then a lone voice—it could have been anyone—called out from the crowd, “And then what? Where are we even going?”

The question brought absolute silence to the crowd. All eyes were on Milos, and Milos looked out at them, watching them watching him. They bobbed up and down in that odd way an Afterlight crowd did when trying to keep from sinking in living ground.

Milos cleared his throat, although there was nothing there to block his voice, and spoke as commandingly as he could.

“Mary wanted this to be a surprise, but maybe she won’t mind if I tell you.” Then he pointed off to the setting sun. “There is a deadspot in the West,” Milos told them. “A deadspot larger than any you’ve ever seen. It is a beautiful place filled with everything you could ever want or need. A place where you can all be happy forever. This is where Mary wants us to go.”

And the crowd applauded—some actually even cheered. There was one problem, though:

Milos was lying.

Mary’s plan was to head west, and conquer . . . but “west” was a direction, not a destination, and while these children could blindly trust Mary to lead them, they weren’t so blind when it came to Milos. He was afraid to consider what they might do to him if they knew Milos had no idea where they were going, or what to do when they got there.

he arrived, all seemed the way it always did. Kids playing games, shuffling their feet to keep from sinking into the living world.

Speedo came running to him when he saw that Milos had returned. “What was there?” Speedo asked. “What did you see?”

“Nothing,” Milos told him. “I saw nothing at all.”

“So what do we do now?”

“I will figure something out!” Milos shouted at him. “Don’t ask me again!” When he looked around, he saw that his outburst had gotten the attention of some of the kids playing around them. When Mary’s kids saw him, they used to look away, too shy and respectful to make eye contact. But now when they looked at him, they stared coolly, and their gazes were an accusation. What are you doing for us? those gazes said. What good are you at all? Now it was Milos who looked away when they stared.

He considered going up to the front car, and bargaining with Allie to tell him what she saw, or perhaps threatening her—but he would not give her the satisfaction of knowing she had the upper hand. Instead, he turned, and strode toward the caboose.

“Wait, where are you going?” whined Speedo.

And Milos said, “I need to talk to Mary.”

When Mary’s army had acquired the train from the Chocolate Ogre, it did not have a caboose. It had been a simple steam engine with nine passenger cars, each from a different time period. The caboose was added at Milos’s insistence before they left Little Rock, Arkansas. He was adamant that they travel no further west until a final car—a special car—was found. No one argued. It was, in fact, the only order he gave that met with no resistance from anyone.

They finally found the caboose sitting on a slight stretch of dead track, hidden by a living-world apartment complex. Once found, attaching it to the train had been relatively easy. So was decorating it—because Christmas ornaments were both beloved and fragile, and so were naturally abundant in Everlost. The strings of brightly colored lights even stayed lit in Everlost without needing to be plugged in.

The caboose was decorated by Mary’s loving children, and the entrance was locked to everyone but Milos, the only one who knew the lock’s combination.

Now, as he spun the lock, and turned it to the combination, he took in a deep breath, for even though he no longer needed to breathe, the mere act of doing so helped him steel himself for the moment. Then, once he was sure he was ready, he stepped inside.

It was late afternoon now. Light poured into the windows of the caboose and onto an object that lay in the center. It was the only thing in the caboose.

The object was a coffin.

It wasn’t made of wood as one might expect, or even of stone, as had been done in ancient days. This coffin was made entirely of glass—bits and pieces of it, meticulously glued together with bubble gum and anything else sticky enough to do the job. There were pieces of crystal taken from chandeliers that had crossed into Everlost. There were bottles, and window panes and sunglass lenses, artfully arranged, and little stained-glass window hangings that added color. The casket was strange and piecemeal, yet perfect in its own way.