Everfound (Skinjacker 3)

“I can see that,” snapped the wraith.

“Why is he chocolate?”

“Because it’s all he can remember of himself.” Mikey thought that the wraith would ask for more, but he seemed satisfied with the answer.

“You boys got names, or do you just . . . ?”

“I’m Mikey. This is Nick.”

“Clarence,” he said. “Can’t say that I’m pleased to meet you.”

“No,” said Mikey. “The displeasure is mine.”

That made Clarence laugh. He sat back down, drank some, ate some, rocked some, and finally said: “If you’re real—and I think you are—you’re gonna tell me how to make other people see you.”

“We can’t do that,” said Mikey.

Clarence didn’t seem bothered. “Guess you’ll stay in there forever, then. . . .”

Mikey rattled the cage in frustration. “We can’t do everything!”

“But you can do some things. You can make yourself look like a monster. All those claws and bulging eyes, like you did when I first caught you.” He leaned all the way back in the chair. “Do it again.”

“No! I’m not a circus monkey.”

“Well, seeing as you are in a cage,” said Clarence, “maybe that’s exactly what you are. . . .”

“I wanna see the monkey!” said the Ogre, thrilled at the prospect. “Mikey, be a monkey, aw, pleeeeze!”

Mikey ignored him. Not just because he didn’t want to be a monkey, but also because he couldn’t. Like a kid doodling in a notebook, Mikey was great at monsters, and twisted miscreations, but drawing up something real was beyond him. A monkey-faced lizard-thing was probably the best that he could do.

“Listen to me,” said Mikey, trying his best to keep his temper under control. “The girl we’re trying to rescue is a skinjacker. That means she can prove we’re real. She can possess anyone, and that will make people believe you.”

Clarence looked doubtful. “You’re making a joke, aren’t you? Having a laugh at my expense. You watch out, because . . . because . . .”

“Because what?”

Clarence stood up, hurling the bucket of chicken and his bottle far into the living world. “Because I don’t know what!” Then he started pacing back and forth, almost tripping over his own half-dead foot as he did. “Now that I got you, I don’t know what to do with you! All I know is that I can’t let you go—not now and not ever.” Then he looked off toward the moon, like it held some answer. “I can’t go back to panhandling, and benches, and all those eyes that won’t look at me. I can’t go back to being what the living people see. You’re my ticket . . . my ticket to . . . to . . .” Then Clarence collapsed back into the chair, buried his head in his hands, and began to sob. “I don’t know where, I don’t know . . . I don’t . . .” He sobbed to himself for a while, like he forgot they were even there. Then the sobs faded into snores. The wraith was asleep.

“Can we go now?” the Ogre asked.

Mikey couldn’t get mad at him anymore. “No, Nick,” he said. “I’m sorry, but no.” He gently patted his hand on Nick’s soft shoulder. When he took his hand back, it was covered in a thin layer of chocolate

. . . soft shoulder . . .

The moment the truth dawned on Mikey, he realized what an idiot he had been—how narrow his own thinking was. If Allie were here, she would have thought of it right away. Even Nick would have figured it out if he were his old self.

“Yes!” said Mikey. “Yes, Nick, you can go. You can walk out of this cage right now!”

“Okay,” said the Ogre. Then he stepped forward, then took another step, pushing himself up against the bed frames . . . then forced himself through, like fudge pushed through a screen. For a moment, he stood there halfway in, halfway out with the brass and steel of the cage right in the middle of him. “Feels funny,” he said. Then he took one more step and he was outside the cage, leaving chocolate dripping from the frame.

“You did it!”

“Yes. Your turn now!”

But Mikey knew he couldn’t squeeze through any more than he could become a circus monkey.

That’s when Clarence woke up and panicked. He stood, the chair flying out from behind him and tumbling to the ground. “What? How did you? Don’t you . . .”