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
Any 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.”