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“No, you’re not,” Mikey had told him. “You’re just not yourself. That doesn’t make you stupid, it just makes you . . . muddled.”
It only served to confuse him, because if he wasn’t himself, then who was he?
Nick, Nick, Nick, Nick.
He ran from the cage and the farmhouse and the crazy scarred man, happily reciting the three things he knew that he knew. He kept to the train tracks as Mikey had said. They were easy to follow because the tracks had crossed into Everlost.
Allie, Allie, Allie, Allie.
He was content to live in the moment, but he sensed a certain sadness deep within himself. A longing for all the things he had once been, whatever those things were. He knew he had once been very clever. He had led hundreds of Afterlights, and, in fact the train he was following had once belonged to him. Mikey had said so.
Mikey, Mikey, Mikey, Mikey.
While he couldn’t grasp the memory of these things, he knew that who he had once been, was not gone completely. The memories were still out there, divided among the people he knew and loved. Seeing Mikey had brought some of those memories back to him.
Allie, Allie, Allie, Allie.
And seeing Allie would bring back even more. Only in gathering those memories, could he gather back all the pieces of the boy called Nick.
Mary, Mary, Mary, Mary.
The name stopped him in mid-stride. It had come out of nowhere—and he knew that nowhere often spat forth some very important things. A feeling came over him then, warm enough to melt him inside, but cold enough to harden him solid. It was joy poured hot into chilly foreboding. The feelings blended until he couldn’t tell one from another—and when he looked at his hands, he could, for the first time, see something resembling fingernails.
Nick, Mary, Nick, Mary, Nick, Mary.
He felt a fluttering inside his chest that he mistook for an air pocket—probably left from when he pushed himself through the cage. He had no way of knowing that the fluttering was a single beat from the fleeting memory of a heart.
CHAPTER 12
Universal Justice
Mikey told Clarence everything he knew. The crossing of himself and Mary into Everlost, his many years at the center of the earth, and the many years it took to get out. He told Clarence of his time on the ghost ship, and how he was the McGill, the most feared monster of Everlost. Mikey told him about Allie, and although he tried to hide how deep his feelings for her were, Clarence saw right through it.
took a step away from the bars just in case, then said, “No, what do you do?”
The wraith stood, took a long swig from his bottle, and eyed Mikey in that sideways way with his Everlost eye. The moon came out from behind a cloud, and it made that crossed side of his face glow—almost like the glow of an Afterlight, but not quite. “You’re a wise guy,” he said. “I don’t like wise guys.”
“Mooooon!” said the Ogre. “Tranquility . . .” Then he pointed at the full moon. “Neil Armstrong walked in a Sea of Tranquility.” Then he added, “It’s made of cheese. But you have to take off the plastic before you put it on your burger.”
Mikey sighed.
“What’s his story?” the wraith asked.
“He’s chocolate,” Mikey said.
“I can see that,” snapped the wraith.
“Why is he chocolate?”
“Because it’s all he can remember of himself.” Mikey thought that the wraith would ask for more, but he seemed satisfied with the answer.
“You boys got names, or do you just . . . ?”
“I’m Mikey. This is Nick.”
“Clarence,” he said. “Can’t say that I’m pleased to meet you.”
“No,” said Mikey. “The displeasure is mine.”
