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“Listen,” said Allie, bridging a little bit of the distance between them and Jix. “It’s gonna be okay either way. And if you decide to stay in Everlost as skinjackers, well, maybe it was meant to be that way.” Then the questions started flying. All the things they wouldn’t ask Jix, they now threw at Allie.
“Can I skinjack someone skinny?”
“Will I turn into a cat?”
“What if I skinjack a movie star?”
“Can we skinjack one anothers’ bodies?”
“Will I turn into a cat?”
“Am I still lactose intolerant if I skinjack?”
“Will I forget who I am?”
“What if I turn into a cat?”
“Hijole!” said Jix, throwing up his hands. “Look what you’ve started.”
“All questions will be answered,” Allie told them. Then she added, “And for those of you who end up staying in Everlost, there are some pretty amazing things you can learn to do. You can be like guardian angels, and really do some good in the world.”
“Or,” mumbled SoSo, shamefully looking down, “you can destroy it.”
“Somehow,” said Allie, “I don’t think that will be a problem anymore.”
They all walked together to the town of Alamogordo, and there, on a corner as ordinary as any in the world, they said their good-byes.
“We’re staying here in town for a day or two,” said Jix. “I want to teach the new skinjackers the basics, in case they decide to stay. Mary’s skinjackers could use some training too.”
Allie gave him a hug, feeling the velvet softness of his fledgling fur, now a little bit thicker than when they first met. “Thank you for freeing me from the train.”
“Sorry about the coyote,” he said. “It was all I could find at the time. Now that I know you, I would say that you are an eagle spirit, and eagle spirits do not do well in canine bodies.”
“I really should come with you,” Allie said. “You shouldn’t have to train them alone.”
Then Jix gave her a sly, feline smile. “Who says I’ll be alone?” he said. “Sparkles told me where I can find a highly skilled skinjacker . . . although I hear she’s quite a pig.” Then he went off with the other skinjackers to the rodeo, an excellent place to practice soul-surfing.
Nick had found himself a backpack at the Trinity vortex, which he filled with odds and ends he might need in his travels. He also picked up a vintage leather jacket that he now wore over his dressy shirt and tie. “If the Supreme King of the Middle Realm can wear gold over his loin cloth, then I can wear this.”
Allie took a long look at him. “So what now?” she asked.
“Well, there’s a whole bunch of Afterlights in Atlanta, and I hear Mary left a church full of them in Eunice. In fact there’s got to be Afterlights all over the world, not to mention the ones arriving every day. And if any of them lost their coins, I know an empty Mayan city, where there’s a bottomless bucket of them.”
Allie shook her head, impressed by this brave vision of his own future.
“I remember the first time I saw you,” Allie said.
“I thought you smelled me first.”
“Right,” said Allie. “The chocolate. But then I saw you as I sat up in the dead forest, thinking I knew you. At the time, I thought I must have seen you through the windshield when our cars crashed. . . . But that wasn’t it. I think, way back then, I was seeing you as you are now. Isn’t that funny?”
“Not as funny as the way I always complained, and the way you always bossed me around!”
They embraced and held each other for a long time.
“Don’t forget me,” Nick said. “No matter where your life goes, no matter how old you get. And if you ever get the feeling that someone is looking over your shoulder, but there’s nobody there, maybe it’ll be me.”
“I’ll write to you,” said Allie, and Nick laughed. “No really. I’ll write the letter then burn it, and if I care just enough, it will cross into Everlost.”
