Текст книги "Everfound"

Автор книги: Neal Shusterman

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Текущая страница: 16 (всего у книги 27 страниц)

At the mention of Mikey’s name Moose clenched his fists and his Afterglow turned a furious red. “I hate Mikey,” Moose growled. “I want him dead.”

“He is dead,” Milos reminded him.

“Then I want him worse than dead. I want him extinguished too!” Then he began to cry again. “I can’t believe Squirrel’s gone. What am I going to do without him?”

Milos gently patted Moose on the shoulder. “We will have our revenge,” Milos told him. “I promise.”

Moose’s sobs soon subsided into muffled cries, and now Milos could hear the faint voices and pounding coming from behind the thick vault door, which now held almost two-hundred Greensouls that should have been sleeping Interlights. Milos had no explanation for the awakening. It terrified him—and all of them were now banging around in there, demanding explanations. Milos was not ready to let them out. He was simply not in the frame of mind to fight the miserable battle to win them over, convincing them to trust him. Let them stay in the vault for all he cared.

He longed to go back to his old ways, skinjacking for profit, selling his services to whatever Afterlights he came across—and there were plenty of them east of the Mississippi. He could leave all this behind and forget it had ever happened. That’s what he was thinking when he heard someone rattling the bank doors.

He spun to see who it was, fearing that Nick had led the scar wraith to them. If it was the scar wraith, they would never get in; the glass doors, which had crossed into Everlost along with the rest of the bank, were double-locked from the inside. But instead of an enemy at his threshold, the visitor was the most welcome sight he had ever seen.

It was Mary standing there behind the glass, framed by the door, the way she had once been framed by the glass coffin. He should have realized she would have awoken when all the other Interlights had. Milos had come to believe she had been spirited somewhere far away by the Neons, but he had held on to the hope that he would be able to find her once she awoke. He never dreamed she would be the one seeking him out.

Milos stood there, still afraid to make a move toward the door, not knowing how angry at him she would be . . . but no one kept Mary waiting. He went to the door, fumbled with the locks, and opened it.

“Hello, Milos,” she said. Her voice was neither warm nor chilly. He had no idea how to read her. Behind her was a large vapor of Afterlights, but Milos wasn’t concerned with them. “Well, aren’t you going to invite me in?”

He let her in, locking the door behind her. For a moment he was at a loss for words. All he could think to say was, “Sorry about your dress.”

She brought her hand to the tear in her satin gown, directly above her heart. “It couldn’t be helped,” she said. “But it’s an important memory to keep. It reminds me of the good you’ve done.” She paused for a moment, then said, “I heard about the train. Jill told me everything.”

Milos had played this moment over and over in his mind dozens of times, all the excuses, all the explanations he would give her . . . but when the moment finally came, there was nothing he could say except this: “I’m afraid I’ve made a mess of things.”

“Yes, you have,” Mary said. Then she turned to Moose, who hid his weepy eyes in shame. “Why is he like this?” Mary asked.

“Something happened to Squirrel,” Milos explained. “He was extinguished by a scar wraith.”

Mary snorted in a most unladylike way. “There is no such thing. You should read my books again and refresh your memory.”

“I’m sorry, Mary, but there is. I saw the scar wraith with my own eyes, and I saw Squirrel extinguished. I think that is what made all the Interlights wake up.”

Mary allowed all this to sink in. “So . . . scar wraiths are real . . . and one is loose in this city. Is it seeking out Afterlights to extinguish them?”

Milos shook his head. “It just wants me,” Milos told her. “And now I think it will want you, too.” Then he added, “It is controlled by a boy who used to travel with us named Mikey.”

At that, Mary’s eyes shot to him, looking as wild as Mikey’s had, almost as if there was some sort of resemblance. It was so unnerving Milos had to look away.

“You say his name was ‘Mikey’?”

“Yes.”

“And did he have a last name?”

Milos only shrugged, but Moose, through his sobs, said, “McGill. Mikey McGill. Like the monster. He said he was the monster. He also said he was related to you. He lied about a lot of things.”

“Of course he did,” said Mary, seeming a little less confident than she did a moment ago. “Anyone unstable enough to use a scar wraith to do his dirty work would lie about anything.”

Once again, there came more pounding from behind the vault door.

“And who is in there?” Mary asked.

Milos offered her the slightest of smiles. “I’ve been reaping for you,” he told her. “You wanted more Afterlights . . . so I have been creating accidents, forced crossings.”

Mary put her hand against the vault door, perhaps to feel the vibrations of those pounding on the far side. “How many?”

“A hundred and eighty-three,” Moose told her. “I’ve been keeping count.”

“You did want me to gather new souls, yes?” Milos asked.

She took a long moment to consider it, looking at the closed vault door almost as if she could see through it and into the hearts of every Afterlight within. Then she turned to Milos and at last she smiled. Then she gently took him into her arms, and whispered into his ear.

“You’ve done a wonderful thing,” she said. “I can forgive you for all the rest now, because I know your heart is in the right place.”

Milos felt a wave of relief wash over him. He never realized just how much he needed her forgiveness.

“A hundred and eighty-three . . . ,” said Mary, still pondering the vault door. “Well, it’s a beginning, but I think we’ll need to start thinking on a grander scale.”

“Grander scale?” asked Milos.

She gave him a gentle kiss on the cheek but said no more about it. “Open the door, then close it behind me, Milos. I’ll need some time to quell their fears. Do you have any of my books handy that I might give them?” But Milos sadly shook his head. “Just as well,” she said. “Things have most certainly changed in Everlost. Perhaps it’s time for me to write something new.” Then she went into the vault, determined to make these new children her own.

Jix waited with Jill just outside the bank with the Neons and their Greensouls. They had no idea what was going on inside, and Mary took an uncomfortably long time.

“What if Mary doesn’t come out?” the Bopper asked. “What then?”

Neither Jix nor Jill had an answer for him.

When Mary finally did come out, she was not alone, but came with Milos, Moose, and a huge vapor of Afterlights—more Greensouls, who looked uncertain, but clearly had already put their trust in Miss Mary Hightower.

Jill would not even look at Milos, and he had nothing to say to her either.

“Let us hold no animosity toward Milos,” Mary told Jix and Jill. “He has worked hard to create crossing opportunities, and to save as many souls as he could from the living world. Whatever bitterness is between you, it must now end.”

Jix agreed, and Jill nodded a bit more reluctantly.

“Good,” said Mary. “Now, Milos has given me some grave news. He has informed me that a scar wraith has come to San Antonio.”

The Afterlights close enough to hear gasped, and word of the scar wraith spread, blending with the rumors of the tentacled beast.

“A scar wraith,” said Jix. “Interesting. Such a creature would be a living vortex between worlds. It could explain many things.”

“And,” Mary continued, “it poses mortal danger to every Afterlight.” The next part seemed a bit harder for her to say. “Therefore . . . this might not be the best place for us to be.”

Jix sensed an unspoken request in her voice. There was something she needed from him. Jix knew what it was, and only now was he willing to give it. He bowed his head respectfully, and said, “I am at your service, Miss Hightower. Whatever you want to do now, I will make sure that it is done.” Then he added, “All these Afterlights are yours to command.”

“Thank you,” she said, “but I do not command, I protect.”

Jix bowed his head again. “My mistake.”

Mary looked out at the Afterlights all waiting for guidance, then she turned back to Jix, offering him a smile that seemed to him both warm and cunning. Very catlike.

“I want you to tell me about this king of yours,” she said, “and the City of Souls.”

CHAPTER 30

Something About a Chicken

They’re going to find your son soon,” a voice said loudly inside the woman’s head. “I want to prepare you for the worst. . . .”

The woman was taken by surprise. When her son was not among the kids who had been rescued from the playground, she feared the worst, but hoped that perhaps he wasn’t on the playground at all. Perhaps he was in the nurse’s office or the bathroom. But no one had seen him in those places—and now there was this strange voice in her head.

“I can’t imagine your pain, but you’re not alone. I’m here to comfort you.”

“Who is this?” the woman said to the voice in her mind.

“I’m a spirit sent to tell you that your son has reached his destination.”

“What do you mean ‘his destination’? Who is this? How are you inside my thoughts?”

“I’m here to comfort you in your time of sorrow. You can mourn your loss, and cry that you’ll never see him again in this life, but don’t mourn for his spirit—because I saw him go into the light with my own eyes, and there was a smile on his face brighter than I’ve ever seen! He got where he was going . . . and he’s happy.”

A few moments later, a police officer approached the woman with a pale look of such sorrow, she knew the news was very, very bad. He took off his hat and she looked away from him even before he began speaking. Yet in that horrible, horrible moment the strange visitation had given her something that freed her spirit to soar beyond the here and now. Even as her body was racked with sobs from the news of her son’s death, her spirit soared with an absolute knowledge that he was now home in the truest sense of the word, and that there was something more than this.

When Allie pulled out of the poor woman, Mikey could only stare at her in amazement. “That was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

Allie looked at him strangely. “You could hear?”

Mikey shook his head. “I didn’t need to. The look on her face told me everything. Look at her now.” They turned back to see the woman still standing just outside the police line. She still cried, but beneath it there was a smile on her face, a tiny ounce of peace and contentment behind her tremendous loss.

Mikey and Allie were alone in Everlost now. Clarence had fled the scene. The moment he realized what he had done to Squirrel, he ran. Although all the living were clamoring about a scar-covered hero who rescued everyone, Clarence clearly did not feel like a hero.

“Go after him, Nick,” Mikey had said. “Don’t let him out of your sight.”

Nick was more than happy to do it. Mikey would have done it himself—he should have done it himself, but at that moment, he was being selfish. He had not yet had his true reunion with Allie, and the last thing he wanted to do was to leave her before even saying hello. It was only after Nick was gone that Mikey realized his mistake. Nick was the only one who knew Milos’s hiding place. Now they couldn’t go after him until Nick returned.

The strange scene before them was now a blend of triumph and misery. The many who were saved, the one child who was not. As much as he and Allie wanted to leave, they couldn’t because this was where Nick would rendezvous with them, hopefully with Clarence. So they climbed to the top of the freshly crossed jungle gym, for its highest platform gave them the best view of anyone approaching in either world. Since the whole playground was now a deadspot, they could rest from their troubling adventure and not have to worry about sinking.

Living-world commotion surrounded the disaster site around them. But as Mary herself once said, Afterlights can tune out the living world if they truly want to—and at that moment, Mikey and Allie saw and heard nothing but each other.

They held each other tightly, saying comforting things.

“Everything’s going to be okay, now that you’re here.”

“We’ll make everything all right, together.”

And when Allie leaned her head gently against Mikey’s chest, he focused as intensely as he could on the memory of his heart to make it beat gently in her ear. Now their afterglows had combined into a uniform lavender glow, proving they were connected, proving they were one. It was almost like being alive.

Allie knew that time was elastic in Everlost. It moved as quickly or as slowly as the thoughts in one’s mind. But in this moment, she wished it could stop completely and leave them both there in an eternal embrace. It was perhaps the closest Allie had ever come to Mary’s way of thinking, for being here with Mikey, whispering gentle things and listening to his heartbeat, would be her perfect eternity.

Nick was terrified of forgetting again, for this time if he forgot, he would lose Mikey and Allie and never find them again. Yet this time, he knew things were different. He didn’t have someone like Milos telling him lies, confounding the few things he thought he knew.

He followed Clarence to a dimly lit bar that smelled of stale cigarettes and old varnish. It was the kind of saloon that was open before noon on a Friday. A place for career alcoholics, people who thrived in dimly lit places, hiding from illumination of any sort.

There were only a few customers sitting at the bar, each in their own personal clouds of woe. An old flickering TV reported on an earthquake in Africa.

Nick tried to sit on the barstool next to Clarence, but kept sinking through it, so he stood there, constantly shifting his feet to keep from sinking. The floorboards here were thin and staying aboveground was a challenge. Clarence didn’t look at him, but he knew Nick was there.

“Go on. Sink down to hell for all I care.” Ice clinked in his amber drink as he took a long gulp.

“Hell’s not down there,” Nick told him. “Just the center of the earth.”

“Well, then,” Clarence said. “Pleasant journey. If you meet Jules Verne, give him my regards.” From the end of the bar, the bartender gave Clarence a sideways glance, so Clarence pulled out a broken Bluetooth headset, and fixed it to his ear. “I learned this trick while traveling with Mikey,” Clarence told Nick. “Makes my brand of crazy seem the same as everyone else’s.”

The fact that Clarence put on his ear prop was a good sign. It meant he was willing to talk, so there was hope of bringing him back from whatever dark place he was now in.

“Your friend Mikey knew what my touch could do, but he didn’t tell me. He turned me into a murderer. Worse than a murderer.”

“I think,” said Nick, “they call that manslaughter or wrongful death, don’t they? I mean, when it’s an accident or out of ignorance, or something.”

Clarence turned to Nick, studying him with his Everlost eye. “You’re a lot smarter than you were back in the cage,” Clarence said. “You look better too. Back then you were a thing, now you’re almost a person.”

“Thanks . . . but ‘almost’ is still ‘almost.’”

“Yeah, well, we’re all almost something.”

Nick pulled his feet out of the ground, nearly losing his balance.

“Stop that. You’re making me nervous. And when I get nervous . . .” Clarence didn’t finish the thought. He just grabbed his drink and took a swig, then stood from the bar. “Looks like someone once croaked in a booth back there. Unlucky for him, lucky for you.”

Sure enough, there was a corner booth that had a bright little deadspot on the seat just big enough for an Afterlight to sit on. They went to the booth and sat across from each other.

“You tell Mikey I’m done with this nasty business,” said Clarence. “I want nothing to do with any of you anymore.”

“I understand,” Nick said. “But—”

“No buts!” Clarence slammed his drink down so hard an ice cube leaped out and slithered across the table like a snail. There were tears in Clarence’s eyes now, both the living and the dead one.

“When I touched that boy, I felt something. Something awful. Something I can’t describe.”

“We all felt it,” Nick said.

“You may have felt it, but I caused it.” Then both his eyes seemed to go far away. “Something changed out there. I don’t know what it was, but something in the world changed because that kid didn’t deserve what I did to him—and the powers that be know that I did it.” Nick watched as a tear fell from his Everlost eye and disappeared through the living world table.

“What if,” said Nick, not even sure what he was going to say yet, “what if you were that kid and you were told you could change the world, but you would have to sacrifice yourself to do it?”

Clarence chuckled at the thought. “I believe that question was already asked a long time ago, and that creepy kid did not look anything like Jesus to me.”

“But you do think that something changed. . . .”

“I don’t know whether it’s good or bad.”

“What if it’s neither?” suggested Nick. “What if we get to make it one or the other?”

Clarence finished the rest of his drink and crunched on the remaining ice. “You’re a pain in my derriere, you know that?” Clarence said. “Derriere, that’s French for ‘butt.’”

“I figured.”

Clarence took a long look at his empty glass, his unkempt clothes, and his Everlost hand, which, to his left eye, was nothing more than a shriveled lump.

“You know, I wasn’t always like this,” he said softly.

“Neither was I,” Nick replied. “But maybe . . . maybe we’ll both find who we once were.”

Clarence looked at him, perhaps seeing more than just the chocolate. Nick thought he caught the slightest hint of a nod, but then the bartender called over.

“Hey! Hey, you in the corner!”

On TV, the news had switched away from the quake, and now was reporting live from the playground disaster. A teacher being interviewed spoke of a disheveled, scar-faced man who had saved them.

“Hey!” yelled the bartender. “Are you the guy?”

Clarence sighed. “Yeah, I’m the guy.”

“That’s great, man. Hey, your drink is on the house!”

“That’s good, because I can’t pay for it anyway.”

Then Clarence left with the invisible chocolate boy before the bartender could call the media.

Nick met Mikey and Allie back at the playground. Clarence kept his distance, hiding his face because reporters still swarmed the accident scene in search of the mysterious scarred hero. Nick then led them halfway across town to the crossed bank, only to find it deserted. The vault was empty and not a single Afterlight was in sight.

“Milos could have left the city by now,” Mikey said, furious at himself for not going after him right away. “He could be anywhere!”

“I don’t understand,” said Nick, peering into the empty vault. “It was full of sleeping spirits. The ‘Angels of Life’ couldn’t have carried them away—there were too many.”

Then they heard a small voice somewhere behind them. “That’s because they all woke up.”

Allie recognized the voice right away. “Lacey?” Allie searched the bank, and found her hiding under the teller counter. She sat knees-to-chest, looking numb. Looking lost. Allie told the others to stay back. The last thing that Lacey needed was an audience. Then Allie knelt down to her and gently asked, “What happened, Lacey?”

“All the kids we reaped woke up. Mary woke up too, and she came to take them away.”

“Mary’s awake?” It was too much for Allie to process. How on earth could Mary be awake? It hadn’t been nine months. Allie had never heard of an Interlight waking up prematurely.

“I was glad Mary woke up at first, because I thought for sure the bad stuff would stop,” Lacey said. Then her voice got soft as if she was afraid Mary might hear. “But then I heard them all talking. Mary likes what Milos did. How could she like it? How could she?” Lacey looked up to Allie, her eyes pleading for an answer.

“I don’t know” was all Allie could say. Then she looked up to see Mikey and Nick peering over the counter. They had both heard. She couldn’t imagine the mixed feelings they must have had—Nick so in love with Mary for so long, in spite of all the awful things she’d done; Mikey struggling to reconcile the memory of his sister with the self-righteous power-hungry spirit she had become. And they didn’t even know the worst of it. Only Allie did, for only she had seen into Mary’s mind.

Allie returned her attention to Lacey. “Do you know where they were going?”

Lacey shrugged. “Kind of. But it didn’t make sense. I heard them talking about chickens. ‘It’s a chicken,’ they said. ‘We’re going somewhere far away, and it’s a chicken.’”

Allie went off with Nick and Mikey to puzzle all this out. Clarence stayed to entertain Lacey, who, amazingly, was not frightened by his creepy appearance. She had dozens of questions about both sides of his face—like whether or not he needed glasses, and how do you find glasses that have half-crossed?

Allie took Nick and Mikey into the vault, and they sat there, a summit meeting of three questionable superpowers: a skinjacker, an ex-ogre, and a part-time monster.

“This is going to be hard to hear,” Allie told them, “but you need to hear it. And then we have to decide what to do.”

Mikey took her hand and smiled at her, but Nick just looked down sullenly. “I’m remembering more and more about Mary,” he said. “I kind of wish I didn’t.”

Allie wasn’t sure how much Nick remembered, and how much Mikey even knew about that fateful day the bridge blew up, so she told them how she helped drag Mary, hair-first, out of Everlost, and into the living world. “When Mary was crammed back into the living world, she had a body. She was flesh and bone . . . at least she was before Milos re-killed her. And while she was alive . . . I skinjacked her. I saw Mary’s deepest thoughts. Everything she hoped for, everything she believed, everything she planned to do.” Allie hesitated, not wanting to say it, but knowing she had to. “Mary believes she was put on earth to bring an end to the living world.”

Both Nick and Mikey just stared at her.

“What do you mean . . . end?” asked Mikey.

“End means end. Complete and total destruction. She wants to kill everyone and everything. She wants to bring down every building, burn every forest, empty every ocean of life. She wants to turn the earth into a dead planet. . . .”

Nick looked to her with eyes almost as pleading as Lacey’s. “But . . . why would she want to do that?”

“Because to her, Everlost is the only world that matters.”

Mikey nodded, finally understanding his sister’s twisted logic. “And once the living world is gone . . . anything worth keeping will cross. . . .”

“Exactly,” said Allie. “Imagine a world that’s nothing but the memories of a dead one. That’s the future Mary wants. She wants no future at all.”

No one said anything for a while. Allie silently fantasized that they could close themselves in that vault, and just make the rest of the world go away. But that would be no better than what Mary wanted, would it? So this was their great reunion. Things were much different now than the last time the three of them were together. Allie had thought she was dead, Mikey had been a full-time monster determined to be king of the world, and Nick was just an Afterlight boy with a small smudge of chocolate on his face. For a place that was supposed to stay the same forever, quite a lot had changed for them in Everlost.

Mikey was the first to speak. “She can’t do anything without skinjackers.”

“No,” said Allie, “she can’t.” As a skinjacker, Allie knew that more than anyone. She knew how easy it was to change things in the living world by skinjacking just the right people at just the right time—and there were many ways to end the world if you could slip into anyone anywhere and take them over. But without skinjackers, Mary was completely powerless over the living.

“So it’s not her we have to stop, then,” said Mikey. “We have to end her skinjackers before they end the world. We have to extinguish all of them.”

“No!” The three of them turned to see Clarence standing on the vault threshold. “No! I won’t do it! You can’t make me do that!”

Mikey stood up. “What if it’s the only way to save the world?”

“Then the world’s gonna end!” Clarence pointed an accusing finger at Mikey. “You didn’t blot someone out of the universe! You didn’t feel his soul die. I would rather see everyone go down the tunnel to judgment than ever see another person snuffed into nothing!”

Mikey glared at Clarence’s cold Everlost eye, but then backed down, looking beaten, perhaps even ashamed. After all, Mikey brought Clarence as a weapon. It was Mikey’s fault his weapon misfired.

“The little girl wants you,” Clarence told Allie. “She’s already bored with me.”

“Tell her I’ll be out in a minute.”

Silence fell once more when Clarence left, until Nick, who had been mostly silent, said, “Maybe they all went to Rhode Island.” Allie and Mikey looked at him strangely, and he shrugged a chocolate shoulder. “‘Rhode Island Red.’ It’s a chicken.”

Allie sighed at the thought. “Lacey must have gotten it wrong.”

“Maybe it’s some kind of secret code,” suggested Mikey.

“Well, if we’re going to stop them, we’re going to have to figure out where they went.”

Even though Allie had no need to breathe, she forced her lungs to fill, and let out a long slow breath. “What if we don’t have to find them?” she said. “What if there were a way to stop Mary’s skinjackers without having to know where they’ve gone . . . just where they’ve been?”

Mikey shook his head. “I don’t follow.”

Allie closed her eyes and shook her head, there was an idea taking form in her thoughts that she did not dare consider, so she shook the thought away before she could even put it into words. “Never mind,” she said. “I don’t know what I was thinking.” Then she went to Lacey, and asked her to point out the direction Mary and her new vapor of Afterlights had gone. While Lacey couldn’t help with a destination, she had no trouble pointing out a direction. They were heading southeast out of San Antonio.

“Body of Christ!” said Clarence, and they all looked at him strangely. He just stared back at them in disbelief. “Don’t you know your Latin? Corpus Christi, Texas. ‘Body of Christ’—although that’s one body I’m sure never set foot on the Gulf Coast. Not even on vacation. If this crazy Mary of yours went southeast, then she’s headed toward Corpus Christi.”

“Right,” said Allie with a sick little grimace. Where else would Mary would go after rising from the dead?