Everfound (33 page)

Milos kissed her again. “What do I have to do?”

But she didn’t answer him quite yet.

“Do you love me, Milos? Do you love Everlost?” she asked him, as if she and Everlost were one and the same.

“You know I do.”

“Then when the time comes, you must do whatever I ask you to do without question or hesitation.”

His answer was to glance at the knife-tear in her dress. “I already have, remember? I would hand you the universe if I could.”

Which was nothing less than she was asking.

M
ary and her vapor of obedient but anxious After-lights found eight tall-masted racing yachts in the Corpus Christi marina that had crossed into Everlost, thanks to a hurricane that had devastated the Gulf Coast. Jix had calculated that a five-day journey across the gulf of Mexico would land them in the Yucatan Peninsula, and Chichén Itzá, the great City of Souls.

Naturally the Afterlights were wary, but Jix assured everyone there was nothing to fear. As jaguars are one of the few cats that love water, Jix had often sailed on scouting expeditions for the king. He acted as if he was a master of the mast, and it helped put the others at ease. He was the first to climb aboard one of the yachts, then he turned back to speak to Mary and her entire vapor.

“We are here at the start of a new journey,” Jix announced. “All that remains is for you to accept my invitation, on behalf of all your Afterlights . . . and travel with me to the City of Souls.

“Well,” said Mary, offering him a smile, “since it appears the Good Lord has granted us eight vessels for the voyage,
how could I say no?” And although it was expected that Mary would be in the lead yacht, Mary politely deferred to Jix.

“You should lead us, Jix,” Mary told him. “It is your vision, your leadership that will bring us to the City of Souls. I insist that you take the lead vessel.” Then Mary announced, “All those who wish to travel with Jix should join him now in the lead yacht.”

Many of the Neons joined Jix on his vessel, and so did Inez, the girl that he had unintentionally brought into Everlost. He was pleased that she chose to join him, for although it wasn’t forgiveness, it was at least a moment of healing trust. Jill made a move to join him, but Mary held her back.

“Milos, you go with Jix,” Mary said. “I’d like Jill to come with me. We’ve barely spoken since I’ve been awake, and we have so much to discuss.”

And although Jix longed to have Jill with him, he knew he needed to allow Mary to call the shots to strengthen the illusion that she was in control.

Jix positioned his crew around the yacht, and to every-one’s amazement, the yacht sailed out of its slip the moment the various posts were manned. There was no wind to fill the sails and yet the yacht moved through the water, for the sails themselves held within their canvas fibers a memory of every race in which they had competed. Although the living-world water left no wake behind it, the ghost-yacht rode joyfully on the powerful memory of its purpose.

“You see,” Jix called back to the others still waiting on the dock. “There’s nothing to worry about!”

Jix took his yacht out of the marina, doing simple maneuvers in the bay just to demonstrate to those on shore how easy
this was going to be . . . but the moment they were in open water, something went wrong.

The boom swung wide, capturing the memory of a transverse wind, pulling the entire yacht into a sudden starboard lurch. When Jix looked back at Milos, he saw the rope coiled tightly around Milos’s wrist to keep him tethered to the mast. Although it couldn’t be seen from the dock, he was the one pulling the boom out of line.

“I am truly sorry for this,” Milos said. But clearly he was sorry about nothing, for he pulled the rope even harder, forcing the yacht past the tipping point. The Neons on board screamed and grabbed for one another, but it was no use. They were hurled off the yacht into the sea, disappearing beneath the living-world waves without the slightest splash. Foul-Mouthed Fabian didn’t even get the chance to utter a single four-letter word. All of them plummeted with the full force of gravity toward the bottom of the bay and into the depths of the earth. Jix tried to hold on to little Inez, but she was tossed out as well. The last he saw of her were her pleading eyes before she disappeared beneath the water.

Jix tried to stay on the yacht, but the force and the speed of the sudden capsize was too great for him. He lost his grip and plunged into the unforgiving water, and all he could feel now as he dropped deeper and deeper in the water of the bay was the depth of the betrayal, and how badly he had underestimated the ruthless, diabolical Eastern Witch.

No one watching from the dock saw the cause of the “accident.” All they saw was a swiftly capsizing boat, and more
than fifty Afterlights lost. There were gasps and wails from all those assembled—but no one’s cries were as loud or as pained as Jill’s.

Mary gathered as many children as she could into her arms. “Turn away,” she told them. “Don’t look. You mustn’t look.”

In a few terrible moments, all the Afterlights that had set out with Jix were gone. The yacht was still floating, but now it floated upside down. Then, in a moment, a hand appeared from beneath the water, climbing to the upturned hull. It was Milos.

“Look at his arm,” someone shouted. “It got tangled in a rope!”

“Thank goodness!” said Mary. “Let’s see if there are others.”

But there were none . . . and in a moment, Milos skinjacked the driver of a passing motorboat and was powering his way back to them.

Through all of this Jill’s screams continued, and she had to be held back from hurling herself off the dock and into the deep. Mary grabbed her and with a physical force she rarely displayed, she pushed Jill back against a boathouse, slapping her across the face.

“Let him go!” Mary yelled at her. “Jix’s journey is not yours. He is nothing but a mewling beast bound for the center of the earth now. Is that what you truly want? To go down with him? Have you forgotten that you are a skinjacker on the verge of changing the world? Yes, mourn your loss, but don’t throw yourself away!”

And for the first time in both life and in afterlife, Jackin’ Jill crumbled to the ground in tears.

Mary now turned to the others who were all frightened and confused. She spoke commandingly, but lovingly. “Today, we have witnessed something horrible . . . but I believe we have also witnessed the hand of judgment . . . because I have reason to believe Jix was selling us into slavery to a foreign king.”

“That’s not true,” wailed Jill, but her voice was weak, and her objection ignored.

“Sadly now, we’ll never know for sure,” Mary told her children, “but from this moment on, I pledge to you to protect you from such evil designs. Our path is, and has always been, to the west. We will not lose our way again.”

Mary had them all hold a minute of silence for the souls lost to gravity, and when the minute was over, she called Moose forward. Moose had been given a special task to take his mind off of Squirrel. He now presented to Mary six Afterlights he had gathered from the crowd. Four boys, two girls. They were all Greensouls, products of the Great Awakening. They varied in ages. The youngest was nine and the oldest was fifteen. Mary smiled at them once they were gathered.

“You may not have realized this,” she told the six of them, “but you are very, very special. All Afterlights are special, of course, but you have a purpose and a destiny that makes you more important than you could possibly imagine.”

The youngest boy raised his hand as if he were in a classroom. “Does it have to do with the way we get stuck inside living people?” he asked.

Mary smiled and the warmth of her smile seemed to light the overcast day as brightly as the sun. “You are skinjackers,
and part of an elite team now. Milos, Moose, and Jill will show you how to use your powers.” But when Mary turned to Jill, Jill was gone. Mary searched the dock and the living world beyond it, but she was nowhere—and Mary wondered if perhaps she was too harsh on the poor girl. Surely she would realize that Mary had her best interests at heart, and return. Regardless, Mary could not allow this to distract her. There was still one more thing to be done.

“Little Richard,” she called, looking for him in the crowd. “Will you come here, please?”

Little Richard pushed his way through the crowd, his bank now jangling with coins Mary had asked him to gather from all the Greensouls.

“You lost many friends today, didn’t you?”

The boy nodded.

“I want you to close your eyes, make a wish for them . . . and once you’ve made your wish, kiss the bank, and hand it to me.”

Little Richard did as he was told. He made a silent wish, kissed the bank, and put it in Mary’s hands.

Then she cast the piggybank full of all the Greensouls’ coins into the sea.

J
ix had plunged to the bottom of the bay. He had seen the others helplessly disappear into the ocean floor beneath him. There was nothing he could do to save them, but he knew he might be able to save himself. It would take split-second timing, the sum of his skills as a skinjacker and the largest amount of luck he had known. He knew it was his only chance. As he fell, nearing the ocean floor, he spread out his arms wide and kept his eyes open for something alive, but there was nothing.

Then, just at the moment of impact on the ocean floor, he felt it: a sea slug not much larger than his finger, squirming in the mud. He leaped toward it, bringing his arms together and squeezing his spirit in upon itself like a collapsing sun, until he found the primitive nervous system of the slug and invaded it, flooding its tiny consciousness with his soul.

Darkness. Numbness, an emptiness of all thought and feeling, and absolutely no sense of time. It was the hardest thing he ever had to bear, to hold his full consciousness in the primitive flesh of a tiny spineless creature. But he did it. He did it long enough to sense a passing crab and he quickly
leaped into that. Jix’s consciousness was so great that he killed the sea slug the moment he left it.

Now he was held in the exoskeleton of the crab and it felt no better than the slug. But he had some sensory awareness now. There was a fish swimming by him. He could feel it on his antennae. And so he leaped to that. Again, the crab died from the weight and loss of his consciousness.

Now inside the fish, he swam away from the school and, seeing a large shape moving in front of him, he leaped directly inside its mouth and found himself inhabiting a harbor seal. The seal was able to hold his spirit without dying, and at last, he had enough familiar senses to navigate his way to the surface.

When he broke surface, he looked around with the eyes of the seal. Mary and all her children were long gone, as he suspected. This desperate journey through small creatures had taken him much longer than it seemed, for those creatures were unable to comprehend something as complex as time. He had no clue if this was even the same day.

There was a challenge before him now, and although he lived for challenge, he needed to truly prepare himself this time. So he swam close to shore, leaped from the seal to a human, then skinjacked his way all the way to the Corpus Christi Zoo.

There, he furjacked himself the most majestic jaguar he could find, releasing it out into a stormy twilight.

The smells, the sights, and sounds of life through the senses of the cat rejuvenated him, and brought him back to his true self. Independent. Alert. Knowing his needs and knowing how to meet them.

He killed a deer in the nearby woods and ate its sweet meat, relishing every bite. Then, when he was full and satisfied, he rested and took stock of his entire situation. His existence had always been comfortable, he had always held a clear picture of himself, his duties, and his place in a world. He saw that world as a place so full of turning gears he had no hope of comprehending how things fit together, so why even try?

Now things were different, however. Now he wasn’t just looking out from inside of the clockwork. Instead, he was actually seeing the final motion of the escapement—the ticking hands of the clock itself.

And it was a doomsday clock.

Both his feline and human instincts told him to let it be. It was not his problem, or his place to interfere. If the living world was destined to fall, let it happen, let it pass into history once and for all. Who was he to try to save it?

But on the other hand, if the living world were lost, then there would never again be great cats to furjack . . . and couldn’t it be that hearing the actual ticking of the clock gave one the responsibility to stop it?

Chasing Mary, however, would lead to another confrontation, which he knew he would lose. He was not so proud to think that he could best her alone. She was master of what she did. Smarter. Slyer. If he were going to face her, he was going to have to have more cards stacked on his side. He’d have to set a new plan in motion.

He raised his nose to the air, and sniffed in the night—more out of habit than anything else. . . . He never expected he’d pick up the wet-lightning scent of skinjacker in the air.
It couldn’t be Moose or Milos—they were long gone, and this scent was coming from the city itself. He followed the scent into Corpus Christi, and tracked it back to where he least expected. The city zoo.