Everwild

And although the boy sensed this was a trick--that maybe it was somehow poisoned, or worse--he raised his fingers to his lips, and licked the chocolate off. The ogre was right--it was real and it was good.

The ogre pointed to his face. "The only good thing about it is that I get to share."

"And it's milk chocolate today," said the kid with big hands. "You must be in a good mood."

The Chocolate Ogre shrugged. "Any day I save someone from Mary is a good day." This monster was being far too friendly. The boy would have much preferred a fiery temper. At least then he would have known exactly where he stood.

"What are you going to do to me?" he asked.

"I'm not going to do anything. The question is, what are you going to do?" He folded his arms. "You crossed over with a coin. Do you remember what happened to it?"

The boy shrugged. "It was just a slug," he said. "I threw it away."

Then the Chocolate Ogre reached into a rusty gray bucket. "Hmm ... looks like I found it." He pulled a coin out of the bucket and held it out to the boy. "Take it." And when he hesitated, the big-handed kid behind him nudged him again.

The boy took the coin. It did look much like the slug he had tossed when he first arrived.

"Tell me how it feels in your hand," the ogre said.

"It feels warm."

The ogre smiled. "Good. Very good. Now you have a choice. You can keep holding it in your hand ... or you can put it into your pocket, and save it for another time."

"What happens if I hold it?"

"I really don't know. Maybe you can tell me."

And although the boy had not been this frightened since his first days in Everlost, there was a certain comfort coming from the coin itself. It filled his hand with a relaxing warmth--a sense of peace that was already radiating from his hand to his arm, to his entire spirit. His afterglow--the faint aura of light that every Afterlight radiated--seemed to grow brighter. Before he could change his mind, he closed his fist on the coin which grew ever warmer in his hand, and in a moment, space itself seemed to split before him, revealing a tu

"--Jason!" he shouted joyfully. "My name is Jason!"

The ogre nodded. "Have a safe trip, Jason."

He wanted to thank the Chocolate Ogre, but he found he was already too far away, shooting down the tu

A rainbow sparkling of light, a shimmer in the air like heat on a summer road, and the boy was gone.

"They never tell what they see," complained Joh

"If you really want to know what they see," said Nick, "then take a coin yourself."

Joh

Nick had to laugh. With all of Joh

Joh

"I'll send you down!" Joh

Nick liked to think that, in the end, Joh

With the boy dispatched to his destination, Nick went up to the train's engine, where a nine-year-old who called himself Choo-choo Charlie stoked the boiler and studied a map that he had drawn himself. Aside from Charlie's map, no one had ever made a record of Everlost's rail lines.

"D'ya think Mary would put my map in one of her books?" Charlie asked.

"Mary won't put anything in her books that doesn't help Mary," Nick told him. "You'd probably have to draw a map where all roads lead to her ."

Charlie laughed. "Most of 'em kinda do," he said. "She's got her fingers in everything." Then he got a little quiet. A little scared, maybe. "D'ya think she knows I'm helping you?"

"She'll forgive you," Nick said. "She prides herself on how forgiving she is. She'd even forgive me if I gave up my 'evil ways.' Anyway, you're not 'helping me'--I've hired you, and business is business, right?"

Then Nick handed Charlie a mug full of chocolate. Payment for his services.

"Someday I'm go

"Well," said Nick, "it's all I've got to give."

Charlie shrugged it off. "No worries. I can always trade it for something else."

He was right about that. As awful as Nick's affliction was, in Everlost dripping chocolate was like dripping gold. It was his bad luck to die at fourteen with a chocolate smudge on his face, and as he forgot more and more of his life on earth, that little smudge spread. In Everlost, we are what we remember, Mary had once told him. So why did he have to remember that stupid chocolate stain?

Allie--who had died in the same accident as Nick-- had never laughed at Nick because of it. And when other kids in Mary's domain had taken to calling him "Hershey," she helped him fight to keep his memories and his name. The thought of Allie saddened him. They had arrived here together, and had journeyed through Everlost together. He had always felt that their fates were somehow intertwined, but they had both gone their separate ways, and Nick never even had the chance to say good-bye. No doubt Allie finally made her way home to find what became of her family. He wondered if she ever took hold of her coin, and completed her journey. He hoped she had, but another, more selfish side of himself hoped that she remained here in Everlost, so he might see her again someday.

"Look," said Charlie, "Mary's already leaving."

Sure enough, Nick could see the Hindenburg in the distance, rising up to the sky.

"I should have stayed there by that tree," Nick said. "Then she'd have to face me."

"Wouldn't work," said Joh