Everwild

After a couple of hours Allie was exhausted. She had surfed her way through hundreds of people--some of them several times, and she had begun to recognize the "signature" of their bodies. "Do they know we're here?" Allie asked Milos. "We're only in them for an instant, but still ... can they sense us the way we sense them?"

Milos raised his eyebrows. "Do you remember when you were alive," he asked, "and you suddenly forgot what you were about to say?"

"Yes ..."

Milos smiled. "Perhaps someone was surfing through you."

The thought gave Allie a shiver. Even though she was no longer in flesh, having surfed through so much of it, her spirit held onto some phantom physical feelings. One of those phantom feelings echoed within her when she looked at Milos, and she shivered again. She resisted the urge to move closer to him, and feel his afterglow mingle with hers. It was, after all, just a phantom feeling, easy to dismiss, wasn't it?

"Congratulations," he said gently. "You are one of the Deadlies now. You are one of us." His smile became wider, and that made her all the more uncomfortable. She turned away.

"In any case, soul-surfing is good for crowded places, and big cities," he said. "I can get through a city faster than anything." Then, with a gentle toss of his head, he said, "Although sometimes I prefer to drive if I can skinjack a good-looking man, with a Ferrari."

Allie shook her head, warding off an unpleasant memory. "I tried to jack and drive once. It didn't end well."

Milos puffed out his chest. "So then I do the driving. You ride shot put." "Shotgun," Allie corrected. His butchered expressions always made her smile, but the smile faded quickly. "I still think it's wrong to skinjack people just for fun."

"What makes fun wrong?" he asked. And when she didn't have an answer for him, Milos said, "What we do is right. It is natural--or else why would we be able to do it? If we are skinjackers, we are meant to skinjack."

"We provide a link between Everlost and the living world--perhaps the most important one," Allie insisted. "Maybe we were meant to use it for something important."

"Maybe we were meant to simply enjoy it."

She wanted to argue, but between his easy logic, and his easier smile, she found her argument had no teeth. She looked down to see that, while Milos had continued to shift his feet to keep from sinking, Allie had not, and had sunken into the sidewalk to her ankles. She pulled her feet out, feeling embarrassed that he had caught her ankle-deep.

"In life did you ever do something just for fun?" asked Milos.

"Yes ..."

"So why not be as you were in life? And if it hurts no one, why is it wrong to enjoy skinjacking? This is what we are."

"No, it's what we do!"

"No, Allie, it is what we are." Milos gently put his hand on her shoulder. "It is what you are."

"So was it fun?" Mikey asked.

Allie shrugged, trying, for his sake, to hide how much she had enjoyed the soul-surfing lesson. "It was tiring. I prefer being me, rather than the crowd. What did you do?"

"I took a walk."

"Through town?" She wondered if he had been downtown, and had seen her with Milos. If she were a fleshie she would have flushed at the thought, then she got mad at herself. She had nothing to feel guilty for.

"I went into the woods," he told her. "There's an oak grove where half the trees have crossed over. And in the middle of it I found a house that crossed over too. It would be a nice place to live. That is ... if you wanted to."

"We can't 'live,' "she reminded him.

"No, but we could enjoy our existence here. I'm tired of being a finder. I'm tired of moving around. I'm tired of everything."

Allie considered this, noting the slight lavender tinge to his afterglow. Perhaps there was a different meaning for it. "Then maybe you're ready," she said.

"Ready for what?"

"To move on."

What Allie meant as a simple observation hit Mikey like a fist on flesh. He took a step back, reeling from the blow, but tried not to show how deeply it hurt him.

"Maybe I am," he said.

She turned from him. "If you're ready, Mikey, then I won't stop you."

No, of course you won't, he wanted to say. Because then I wouldn't be an anchor around your neck anymore. But instead he said, "Tell me to stay, and I will ..."

But Allie shook her head. "That would be selfish of me." * * *

Once upon a time, Mikey McGill had a bucket of coins. He collected them from every Afterlight he brought to his ship--whether they became a part of his crew, or went to the chiming chamber to hang upside down from their ankles. Why did he take their coins? Because everyone and everything he captured was his property. That's the way he saw things back then. But why did he keep the coins in a bucket, locked safely away? The answer was simple, although he couldn't admit it to himself.

He kept them because he knew.

He knew what the coins were for, just like every Afterlight knows, without ever knowing that they know. It's the memory of a dream lost on waking; it's a name on the tip of your tongue. But if you're an Afterlight, the truth will someday come to you, and you'll realize that you've always known. Sure, for the longest time, the coin was simply standing on its edge in your mind, just a dull metallic sliver, so very hard to see ... but look again--now it's full and round and shining in your palm. It is your proof of something beyond the Everlost, and your fare to get you there.

Once upon a time, Mikey had a bucket of stolen coins, but now he only had one, and since the moment he admitted to himself what the coin was for--the same moment that Allie made the choice to join him--he was always conscious of that coin in his pocket.

Now it felt heavy, like an entire purse full of coins. All he had to do was pull it out and hold it in his hand. Would it be hot for him now? Would it cause space to part before him, revealing the tu

And where was he going?

What if he still hadn't redeemed himself? What if he'd been a monster for so long, he hadn't been able to undo all the dastardly deeds of the McGill?

Well, so what if he hadn't! If that tu

But he'd be lying if said he wasn't scared.

He didn't fear anguish--there had been enough of that in his afterlife to last an eternity. He feared ... nothingness. He feared being nothing. And yet, that's exactly how he felt now. Here, among skinjackers, he felt inferior, and that was a feeling he could not abide.

No! He would not go down the tu

The five of them walked through most of the night to make up for lost time, then early the next morning, Milos took Allie out for more skinjacking lessons. Today Milos taught her the skills of "justicing," and "terminizing."