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“But, but . . . Mary told us he was a monster,” said one of the reluctant ones.
“He was,” said Milos being careful to choose his words just right. “But it was Mary’s dream to rehabilitate him, and to make him see her way. Now her dream has come true.”
“Mary . . . ,” said the Chocolate Ogre. He looked off, searching his sopping sweet memory of a mind. “I loved Mary,” he said. This next part came out as a question. “And . . . Mary loved . . . me?”
Milos stood with his mouth open. Moose and Squirrel were wise enough to stay quiet and waited to see how Milos would handle it.
“Yes,” Milos finally said. “Yes. Mary loves all of us, and we all love her.”
The Chocolate Ogre shook his head “No, this was different. . . .” And as Milos watched, it seemed that his features began to look clearer and more defined, less like a thing, and more like a person. Even his voice sounded less slippery. “Yes, we were in love.”
Then Milos let out a calculated laugh and Moose and Squirrel took the cue to laugh as well, until Milos put up his hand to silence them, and became very, very serious.
“Loss of memory is not a thing to laugh at,” Milos said. “All Afterlights must face it. I am truly sorry, and I hope you will forgive me. But you see, Mary has only one love—one soulmate in Everlost . . . and that would be me.”
The Ogre said nothing at first, and Milos didn’t give him any time to think it through. “In all the stories I have heard about the Chocolate Ogre, no one ever mentions Mary—but there is a girl to whom the Ogre is devoted. Let’s see, what was her name again?” Milos pretended to think for a moment, then snapped his fingers. “Jill! That’s it—her name is Jackin’ Jill.”
“Jill?” The Ogre took in the lie, and his face began to lose some of its form again, his identity moving away from the boy once known as Nick.
“Yes, you love Jill,” Milos insisted, “and you long to wrap your arms around her, and smother her in chocolate, and sink with her down to the center of the earth.”
“And . . . and this Jill . . . she loves me?”
“More than anything,” said Moose.
Squirrel snickered. “Yeah, yeah, a match made in heaven.” The Chocolate Ogre’s muddy eyes now darted back and forth between the three of them in confusion.
“Do whatever I tell you,” said Milos, “and we will make sure you find Jackin’ Jill, the girl you love.”
The Chocolate Ogre sighed, resigned, and Milos turned to the gathered kids, who still reveled in the tiny taste of chocolate they all just had. “We will track down our attackers and bring Mary back,” Milos told them. “I promise you this.”
“But there are so many of them,” said one fearful Afterlight. “And they have weapons.”
Milos waved the worry away. “Who needs weapons when we have the Chocolate Ogre on our side?”
“Wait,” said the Ogre, trying to remember something. “What about . . . uh . . . what about . . . Allie?”
To which Milos replied, “Allie who?”
The Chocolate Ogre opened his mouth as if to say something—as if there was something he was supposed to remember—someone he was supposed to find. But whatever memory he was trying to save, it sank into the mire of his mind just as the sleeping car sank into the earth.
In her book My Struggle: The Quest for a Perfect World, Mary Hightower expresses her feelings on “lost souls.”
“I believe every wayward Afterlight can be rehabilitated. It begins with the purging of living memory, and ends with the joyous discovery of one’s perfect day, to be relived forevermore. On occasion we can find powers we never knew we had—all the more reason to leave behind as many memories as we can!”
CHAPTER 16
Wurlitzer
There is a vortex in south Texas.
A place that exists both in the living world and in Everlost that is rife with unpredictable supernatural properties. It is much like the Intolerable Nexus of Extremes in Memphis—also known as Graceland—the vortex which accelerated the transmutation of Nick into chocolate. It is similar to the Orlando Frost Vortex, a curious spot that exists underneath a huge faux castle and will cryogenically freeze any Afterlight that stands there.
But to say any one vortex is like another is misleading. All vortices are unique in their effects—and the Vortex of the Aggravated Martyr—also known as the Alamo—had the power to give any army garrisoned there courage. A ridiculous amount of courage. The Neon Nightmares were not much of a fighting force until they chose to live at the Alamo—and although they numbered only a hundred and ten, their courage gave them a boldness that made them seem like twice as many. It was the type of courage that in the living world would get counties, TV shows, and knives named after you, particularly when that courage got you killed.
Due to the fact that the Alamo was a living-world tourist attraction, the place was often very crowded—especially during the day. Such a place is maddening for Afterlights—mobs of flesh-filled bodies walking through you was irritating enough in a normal spot of Everlost—but in a vortex where the two worlds kissed each other, an Afterlight can actually feel the passage of a fleshie, and fleshies can hear, feel, and sometimes even see Afterlights within a vortex—which accounts for various ghost sightings around the living world.
And so, the Neon Nightmares decided it was best if they bunked in the secret part of the Alamo where no one ever went.
