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Jill opened her mouth to speak, but the spotted boy spoke first.
“My name is Jix,” he said. “And you should not be awake.”
“Well,” said Mary as politely as she could under the circumstances. “It appears that I am, doesn’t it.”
“It was not meant as an accusation, just a fact.” Jix said. “Things will change now. The three of us should talk.”
Mary studied Jix closely. “Are you the leader here,” she asked, “or some sort of mascot?” The question was meant not so much to belittle him, but to gauge his confidence. If he bristled, he was weak and easily manipulated. But if he let the insult roll off his back, then Mary would have to carefully finesse this relationship.
Not only didn’t Jix let the insult bother him, he chose to answer the question in a way that gave no answer at all, which meant that, in his own subtle way, he was a force to be reckoned with.
“They fear me because they know what I can do,” Jix said.
“And what can you do?”
“Skinjack.”
“Is that all?”
He offered her a very cool, catlike smile. “What greater power is there?”
“Hey! What about us?” chimed in the same loudmouth Greensoul from before. “Is anyone gonna tell us what’s going on?”
The other Afterlight hit him again, harder this time.
“All questions will be answered,” Mary announced. “Just as soon as mine are.”
Mary looked around to take in her surroundings. They were standing in the middle of a street on the outskirts of a city. By the look of it, they had been marching away from the city. Living-world traffic would occasionally barrel right through them, causing great distress to the Greensouls, who were yet to understand any of this. She turned to address all the Afterlights.
“Thank you all for taking care of me in this difficult time,” she told them. “Now I think it’s best if we all go to a deadspot to sort everything out, for I can see so many of you struggling to keep yourselves from sinking into the living world.”
“Back to the Alamo basement?” suggested someone. Well, at least now Mary knew what city they were in.
“No,” said a girl toward the back of the crowd. “There’s a closer place. I was one of Avalon’s scouts. I know all the deadspots in this city. There’s one just south of here.”
“Wonderful!” said Mary. “Lead the way!” The girl, thrilled to suddenly be important, marched off and everyone followed.
Mary walked with Jix and Jill on either side of her. “Now,” she said to them, “why don’t you tell me what happened while I slept. Start from the beginning and don’t leave anything out.”
“All right,” said Jill. “But you’re not going to like it. . . .”
The deadspot was a miniature golf course that had been bulldozed by the living world, thus crossing it into Everlost. As it came with a fully stocked ball shack, the Neons, who had been sequestered in the Alamo for so long, were more than happy to entertain themselves playing a few rounds of miniature golf. The Bopper made all the Greensouls act as caddies, as if this were some fraternity initiation.
Jix and Jill sat in the shadow of the pint-sized windmill as Mary processed everything they told her. She began to make some decisions, although she didn’t share all of them. Not yet, anyway. The hardest thing to swallow was the news about the train, and how so many of her children were lost.
“Only some of them were pushed down,” Jill told her. “A lot of them just scattered.”
“Well,” said Mary. “We’ll just have to gather them back, won’t we?”
Although Jix did not respond, Mary could tell that he was not pleased by the suggestion.
Milos was apparently still in San Antonio looking for her. She was pleased by this, if only because she might have a chance to reprimand him for the horrible job he had done . . . but then, perhaps she should be more gracious and charitable to him. After all, Milos had courage and loyalty enough to bring her back to Everlost by his own hand. She could still remember the intense pain of his cold steel blade in her chest—indeed there was a tear in her dress in that exact spot over her heart—and she remembered the conflicted look in his eyes when she died. She also remembered the joy in his eyes when he tackled her from the tunnel. He was clearly in love with her, although her own feelings toward him were still not entirely defined. She did love being loved, though. As for whether she could forgive him for losing so many of her children . . . well, she supposed she wouldn’t know the depth of her forgiveness until she looked into his eyes again.
inety-three million miles away, the sun itself fell into sorrow, inexplicably dimming by one hundredth of one percent, henceforth and forever.
Of course such events have never been seen by human eyes, because a true extinguishing has never happened in the history of human life on earth.
Until now.
