Everfound s-3

by Neal Shusterman

  “Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it, Pollyanna.” Then Jill gave her a nasty, knowing wink, and sauntered away.

  Allie tried not to think about what Jill had said. She had other business right now. Lacey was still off by herself playing tic-tac-toe in the dirt, toward the edge of the deadspot. That sad-eyed expression never left the girl’s face. Allie went over to her.

  “Having fun?” Allie asked.

  “Maybe. I guess,” Lacey answered. “When I was with Mary, I played tic-tac-toe every day with some boy. The exact same game over and over again. It felt good to know what would happen next, but at the same time it didn’t feel good at all. Isn’t that weird?”

  “No,” said Allie. “I understand.” Then Allie reached into her pocket, and pulled out something that had been sitting there, waiting for years. An Everlost coin. When Allie held it in her hand, the coin stayed cold and inert. As long as she could skinjack, the coin wouldn’t work for her. But it would work for Lacey. Allie held it out to the girl. “Would you like to have this?”

  Lacey looked at the coin warily. “Mary said we should make a wish with it and throw it away-she said it wasn’t good for anything else-but you know what? I think she was lying.”

  “It will get you out of Everlost,” Allie told her.

  “Will it take me home like the ruby slippers?”

  Allie thought about the question. “Yes,” she told Lacey. “Not the home where you’ve been, but the one you’re going to.”

  Lacey shrugged. “I don’t remember the home I came from, anyway. All I remember is Everlost, Mary, and tictac-toe.” Lacey looked at the coin, still afraid to take it. “They say skinjackers can see the tunnel when people go in, and they know what’s there. Can you tell me?”

  Allie shook her head. “We can see the tunnel, but the light at the end is too bright to see what’s there… But I’ll bet you still remember how it felt in the tunnel, before you came to Everlost, don’t you?”

  Lacey looked off into the sun to remind her. “I remember feeling. .. kind of good about it. But then I tripped over my laces and fell.”

  “Maybe you’ll feel good this time too.”

  Then Lacey grabbed her arm, tightly as if something might grab her at that very moment and take her away. “But what if it’s a trick? What if it’s a lie? What if the light’s bad-or what if it’s fake and there’s nothing there at all? What then?”

  Allie grabbed Lacey and held her close, trying to comfort her, but how do you comfort someone from something you’re not sure of yourself? “I don’t know what’s in the light,” Allie said. “Only the people who get there know for sure… But I do know this: Everyone who has ever lived has gone down the tunnel, and everyone who ever will live will go there too. So you’re in good company.”

  “Not everyone gets where they’re going,” Lacey pointed out. “What about the souls who sink?”

  “They’ll get there eventually, even if eventually means a long time.”

  And then Lacey said, “Squirrel didn’t go into the light. He didn’t go anywhere at all. What about him?”

  Allie closed her eyes. She never liked Squirrel, but he didn’t deserve to be extinguished. “Well,” Allie said, “that’s the exception that proves the rule.”

  She held Lacey for a moment more, and when she let go, Lacey seemed comforted. More than comforted, she was calmed. She was ready.

  “Will you hold my hand until I’m gone?” Lacey asked.

  “Of course I will.”

  They stood with Allie holding her hand, then Lacey held out her other hand, and Allie placed the coin in the middle of her palm.

  “It’s warm,” Lacey said.

  Allie smiled. “Make a wish.”

  Lacey closed her palm, holding the coin tight, and in an instant they were both bathed in bright light coming from the end of an impossibly long tunnel. Lacey looked into the light, letting go of Allie’s hand, and she gasped. “It came true!” And then she was gone, shooting down the tunnel into a blinding eternity.

  Jill, who had seen the whole thing, gave Allie slow applause. “Very touching,” Jill said. “I may have to skinjack someone just so I can hurl.”

  CHAPTER 35

  Dark Cumulus

  A ny journey worth making is more meaningful made on foot. And crossing the desert is a time-honored tradition of any holy pilgrimage.”

  This was Mary’s decree as they marched up from south Texas, keeping away from roads and other hints of civilization. It was, she decided, the best way to steer clear of the scar wraith. The path they cut took them north of San Antonio, and they began to pick up stray Afterlights that had scattered after the Neons had attacked the train. The collective afterglow of her army was a beacon attracting Afterlights for miles in all directions, and when her scattered flock realized that it was Mary, they came running. Not all of them found their way back, but their numbers increased every day.

  Mary soon announced that her vapor of Afterlights had grown so large, they could now consider themselves a full-fledged cumulus. It was more than appropriate, because her cumulus was a storm of living light that continued to gather strength as it pushed ever forward-and this time Mary refused to rest for Afterlights who thought they needed to sleep.

  They numbered more than five hundred by the time their relentless march reached Odessa, Texas.

  Only now did Mary allow her children a rest from their travels. There was an old sports arena in Odessa that had been torn down when the new coliseum was built. The old arena was now the most substantial deadspot that the small city had to offer. With so many Afterlights under Mary’s wing now, it was a perfect-size space for a temporary respite, and an effective center of operations for her new skinjackers’ first mission. The trick was figuring out what that mission should be.

  As it turned out, Moose was very helpful in this regard. While Moose had never been accused of being a genius, he was actually a whole lot smarter without Squirrel around, and more highly motivated by his loss than by his presence. He was very clever when it came to skinjacking reconnaissance. In other words, Moose gathered information and intelligence about Odessa and what sorts of marvelous things might be accomplished there by a motivated team of skinjackers.

  Mary turned the arena’s press box into her center of operations. From here she could look out over the whole arena, and keep an eye on all her children. There was a fine basketball court below, and a few basketballs had even crossed with the arena when it was imploded. Now a spontaneous basketball game had erupted. Many Afterlights played, more were content to be spectators, and others began to spread out into the stands, finding their own particular patterns of behavior. Mary watched the repetitive games and conversations; comfort of familiarity taking root in this unfamiliar environment. It was all about habit, Mary knew. It was all about consistency. For this reason Mary was not at all surprised when Jackin’ Jill showed up in Odessa. She knew Jill was a creature of habit too.

  “Of course you’re still one of us, Jill,” Mary said, giving Jill a warm welcoming hug. “I understand your pain, and I forgive you.”

  Jill nodded but said nothing because she knew if she did, it would be a bitter accusation. Mary might forgive her, but she could never forgive Mary for having tried to send Jix down. She wished she could announce to Mary that the trick had failed, and that Jix hadn’t sunk, just to see the look on Mary’s face. It would almost be worth the fallout.

  Mary took Jill’s silence for embarrassment at her emotional outburst back on the Corpus Christi dock. “Let’s forget the past,” Mary told her. “After all, I do owe you a debt of gratitude. I won’t easily forget that you were the one who first began reaping souls!”

  Jill couldn’t meet her eye. It was not something she was proud of. Jill had done it for her own selfish reasons, of course, to secure her own position-first, within Pugsy Capone’s corrupt inner circle of Chicago hoodlums, and then, once Mary took over, she reaped to keep herself within Mary’s inner circle. Milos had accused
Jill of enjoying reaping. Well, he was right. The stalking, the hunting, the adrenaline rush of a successful kill was as thrilling to her now as it had ever been. But Jix, with the slightest caress of her spirit, had redirected those energies. Jill was still a mistress of the hunt, with a strong taste for violent mayhem… but not for murder. She no longer craved the spilling of human blood, for it was all too easy. She was beyond that now; it was unworthy of her skills. But taking down Miss Mary High-and-Mighty-now there was challenging prey!

  “So, is that what we’ll be doing?” Jill asked. “More reaping?”

  “Yes and no,” Mary told her. “More like world building. You see, Jill, there are many places in this world that really ought to cross into Everlost so that eternity can preserve them.”

  “World building…” repeated Jill.

  “Yes. We’ll select places a bit more substantial than that sorry little playground Milos brought into Everlost. Of course, it goes without saying that any place that crosses will bring with it any number of souls-many of them youthful enough for us to reap into our protection.”

  “So then… the new skinjackers are all with the program?” Jill asked.

  “They will be,” Mary told her, “once they’ve had time to gain the kind of broad perspective that you and I have. But for now, there’s no real need to trouble them with details that might confuse them. That’s best left to those of us who truly know what we’re doing, don’t you agree?”

  The skinjackers had been given the spacious privacy of the home-team locker room, perhaps to bolster their spirit of camaraderie. When Milos saw Jill, he folded his arms and put forth the most gloatingly superior smile Jill had ever seen.

  “Well, well,” said Milos. “Look what the cat dragged in.”

  Jill could have stomped his grinning head straight to the center of the earth, but somehow she managed to keep her cool. “You finally got an English expression right.” She would never, ever forgive Milos for capsizing the yacht, but the fact that she already despised him made it easier to mask how much more deeply she loathed him now. She was constantly fantasizing about all the ways she could end his existence or at least make him suffer. But she also knew she had to keep such dark thoughts to herself. Her job was to infiltrate and observe. She consoled herself with knowing that revenge would be more satisfying the longer she waited.

  Milos introduced her to all the new skinjackers-including their star pupil, a fifteen-year-old in an ROTC uniform.

  “This is Rotsie, from the Benson High fire,” Milos told her. “He is a natural at soul surfing and… what do you call it?”

  “’Information retrieval,’” said Rotsie.

  “Yes. He can go into a fleshie’s mind and instantly pull out any information he wants.”

  “Pleased to officially meet you,” he said, respectfully shaking Jill’s hand. “I’m sorry about your friend-the one who drowned.”

  “He didn’t drown,” Jill snapped. “He sunk. And anyway, it’s old news. What’s done is done.”

  “We’ve been training for our first mission,” said one of the other skinjackers, a girl that seemed to be bleeding sparkles out of her nails and eye makeup, and who was given the uninspired nickname “Sparkle.”

  “Mary had a vision,” another skinjacker said.

  At the mention of Mary’s so-called vision, Moose, alone in the corner, grunted, but offered no follow-up.

  “Right, Mary’s vision,” said Milos. “She has foreseen that this city’s gas main will explode, and take out several square blocks downtown.”

  “Really?” said Jill.

  “Yeah,” said one of the other boys. “So Mary wants to send us out before it happens, and stop it.”

  Milos then gave Jill a secret wink out of view of the others. “Yes. We must ‘stop’ it.”

  If Jill had blood, it would have boiled.

  At dawn, on the first Monday of the new year, Mary and all her children waited in the streets of Odessa, all eyes on the natural gas plant, where the accident would occur.

  “It’s a good thing we’re here,” Mary told them. “Gas explosions are terrible things. They kill thousands every year.”

  “I’m glad you’re in charge again, Miss Mary,” said one of her tried and true Afterlights. “Milos actually had us make bad things happen instead of stopping them.”

  “Don’t judge him too harshly,” Mary told the child. “Who could blame him for trying to save the living from their sorrow-filled world?” Then she turned to the others and spoke loudly enough for all of them to hear. “We may not succeed today in stopping the accident, for visions of the future are very hard to change. But if the cause is lost, at least we will be able to run in and save as many children as we can from the light.”

  Then she sent forth Milos and the skinjackers to do everything within their power to make things “right.”

  Milos led the way, making sure each of them knew their own small part of the plan. Moose and Jill, of course, were aware of the larger picture, but not how it all fit together. Only Milos and Mary knew the full extent of the operation, and how devastating this “accident” would be-how many hundreds would die, so that every youthful soul could be reaped. Knowing that she trusted him to pull this off meant everything to Milos, and as he marched into the plant, skinjacking the senior engineer, he smiled at everyone he passed, for he knew today would be glorious!

  PART FIVE

  Stealing Life

  Philosophical Interlude with Arnie, the Grand Inquisitor

  H ow easy is murder when one calls it by a different name? How much easier is it for the conscience to condone “reaping” than “killing”-and when one knows that death isn’t the end, does it stop the killing hand for fear of retribution, or does it simply make it easier to kill, because, if life continues, how can murder be murder at all?

  “Kill them all, for the Lord knoweth them that are His.” ^* That was the creed of the medieval crusaders, cutting down everyone in their path, the good and the bad, content in the knowledge that God would sort them out in the hereafter. They believed themselves holy warriors, bringing glory and reward with every bloody slash of their swords.

  Mary Hightower, a girl from a more civilized age, needed no sword to do her holy work. Her weapons were much subtler. Her weapons were skinjackers, and the body of anyone on earth she wanted them to possess. And since her skinjackers could possess anyone, that made Mary Hightower the most powerful, and most dangerous person on earth, living or dead.

  Was that a tap on your shoulder? Do you sense some unseen spirit whispering in your ear, announcing the end of everything you know? If you do, then Mary is close by, waiting for you with a loving smile, and her hordes are there as you fall, ready to catch you, and hold you, and keep you. Forever.

  But not yet…

  CHAPTER 36

  Holding Patterns

  O n New Year’s Eve-the same night Mary first arrived in Odessa-Allie was arriving in Baltimore. Travel in Everlost took forever, but all it took for Allie to get from south Texas to Baltimore was a fleshie, a plane ticket, and a connecting flight. All it took to get Clarence into a first-class seat was a skinjacker who could provide him with cash, and an expensive suit to make him look the part.

  Allie was never proud of using skinjacking as a method of stealing. But if there was anyone who needed a spiritual Robin Hood, it was Clarence.

  “You make me feel like a person again,” he told Allie before they boarded that first plane. “I’m not sure that’s a good thing.”

  Allie had skinjacked a well-dressed middle-aged woman who very well could have been Clarence’s wife. As Clarence no longer had any ID, she had to skinjack a couple of security guards to get him through. Easy as pie.

  As they circled the airport waiting to land in miserable weather, the turbulence became so severe it nearly knocked Allie out of her host.

  “Sorry to ruin New Year’s Eve for all you good folks,” the captain announced, “but I guess the old year is hurling hailst
ones at Baltimore. I promise to have you down before the ball drops.”

  Allie could feel the tension filling the living-even the seasoned travelers. Allie felt tense as well, but it had nothing to do with the rattling of the jet. Her turbulence would start after they landed.

  Time was of the essence, but the task was daunting. So Allie did something she rarely did. She took care of herself. After they landed, Allie skinjacked a wealthy woman with nowhere to go. Then she lavished upon herself and Clarence the finest New Years’ dinner Baltimore had to offer. Afterward they retired to their respective rooms in a penthouse suite.

  But while Clarence slept, Allie did not. She opened the laptop of her host, and spent the night scouring the Web for information-and when old news reports proved insufficient, both she and Clarence hit the streets in the morning, hoping to dig up all the facts they could on the tragic tale of a Russian immigrant boy who was not entirely dead.

  Vitaly Milos Vayevsky.

  Born in St. Petersburg, Russia. Emigrated with his family to the United States at the age of eleven. Fell from the roof of a five-story apartment building at sixteen. A tree broke his fall. But not entirely.

  He suffered massive internal injuries and a subdural hematoma that left him one step short of brain-dead. He spent more than a year in a long-term care facility, and then, when insurance and money ran out, the decision was made to take him off the machines that monitored his faint life signs.

  Prognosis: grim.

  The doctors gave him just a few weeks to live in such a nonresponsive vegetative state. His parents brought him home, for his mother was determined to make her son’s final days peaceful. However, those days turned to weeks, turned to months, turned to years. And now, in a bedroom, in a fourth-floor apartment, in a working-class neighborhood of Baltimore, the body of Vitaly Milos Vayevsky slept.. . while his soul journeyed in a world between life and death.