AllFreeNovel
Share Us
There was a small African-American boy who walked around with a big ceramic piggy bank as if it was his only friend in the world. Everyone called him Little Richard. One day Jix caught him staring at Mary, as if she might open her eyes. Impossible, of course, considering she still had several more months of hibernation before her.
“Wurlitzer meant for her to come here,” said Little Richard. “It’s like that ‘Let It Be’ song. You know, ‘In times of trouble, and all that.’”
“Did Wurlitzer ever play that?” Jix asked him.
“No,” said Little Richard. Then he said with absolute confidence, “But he will when she wakes up.” Clearly he was part of whatever conspiracy had moved her here.
The Neons, fancying themselves a military unit in everything they did, set up a twenty-four-hour watch over Mary’s coffin, in case someone moved her again, or as some Neons secretly believed, she teleported herself to a different location.
By now, both Jix and Jill had come to understand the nature of the Neons’ constant battle-readiness, and why everyone there was macho to the extreme—even the girls.
“This place oughta be called the Abyss of Abysmal Aggression,” Jill told Jix, after getting into an all-out brawl with another girl.
It was Jix who figured it out. “The vortex above us is filled with the adrenalina of all the men who died here, I think. Down here, we still feel its effects. It can turn anyone into a warrior.”
“So how come it doesn’t affect you?” Jill asked.
Jix smiled and puffed out his bare chest. “It doesn’t get more macho than this.”
Jill scowled at him. “You’re an idiot.”
In truth, Jix did feel the effect of the vortex. There was a powerful urge to fight, and to challenge Avalon. But he was also disciplined and knew how to control those impulses. He had to have that much discipline to control the impulses of the cats he furjacked.
By now both Jix and Jill had come to see that the Neons’ various activities were, like so many Afterlights, repetitive day after day until they had become like rituals. The group of kids who played poker, then fought; the girl who read the same book cover-to-cover every day, then fought; the gym-rats who bench-pressed a barbell that would be far too heavy for them to lift in the living world, then fought. Only scouts and lookouts left the cramped labyrinth to search the city for Afterlights with coins, and to protect their hideout from nonexistent attackers. The Neons lived their deaths as if they were an army under siege.
While Jill wanted nothing to do with the Neons, Jix smoothly inserted himself into their routines, just as he had done on the train, making sure that each Neon knew him, and was comfortable with him. Comfortable enough to answer innocent questions that they wouldn’t even remember he had asked.
“How long has Avalon been high priest?”
“Since Wurlitzer played ‘See You Later, Alligator’ to the last one.”
“How did Wurlitzer even get down here?”
“Probably the Crocket Street tunnel—it leads to the old Grenet house.”
“Has it ever played on its own, without someone asking a question?”
“No—why would it?”
There was one girl rumored to have been here so long, she had no memory of being anywhere else. Her name was Dionne, and she spent much of her time polishing a Bowie knife—perhaps the original one. He saved the more important questions for her.
“How many songs does Wurlitzer play?” Jix asked. “Thirty? Forty?”
Dionne shook her head. “There are more songs in there than you can imagine,” she told him. “And sometimes it’ll play songs some of us have never heard before.”
Her answer confirmed what Jix had suspected; that this machine was not a simple mechanical device. It was something much, much more. Wurlitzer held the memory of every song that anyone has ever loved.
Then he asked the big question: “Has Wurlitzer ever been wrong?”
Dionne paused her knife-polishing and took a moment before answering.
“Once,” she said. “But if you ask me, it was Avalon’s mistake, not Wurlitzer’s.” Then Dionne leaned closer and whispered, “A few years ago, Avalon asked Wurlitzer for a mission, and Wurlitzer played two songs in a row when only one coin had been dropped in. The first song was ‘The Chapel of Love’ and the second was ‘Chattanooga Choo Choo.’ Avalon’s usually pretty good at figuring out what it all means, and he seemed pretty sure about this one too. He made us trek all the way out to this little town called Love, Oklahoma, looking for a chapel that had crossed over—and sure enough, we found one. Then he said we had to lift it up, and move it over to some railroad tracks that had also crossed over. We went home, and nothing ever came of it. Crazy, right?”
“Sì,” Jix agreed, “loco.” But Jix knew it wasn’t loco at all. The only reason Milos rammed the train into the mansion was because of that church. If that church hadn’t been on the tracks, Milos would never have been led to think the mansion could be knocked off the tracks, too. If it hadn’t been for the church, they would simply have sealed up the train when they saw the Neons coming, like a turtle pulling into its shell—which means Jill and Jix and Mary would not have been here now . . .
. . . which meant they were here because of Wurlitzer. Jix felt a phantom shiver run through his entire spirit. Wurlitzer didn’t just advise the Neons on matters of the present; it also anticipated the future—which meant it was truly a force to be reckoned with. Was it friend or foe? Jix wondered. Or was it fickle and unpredictable in its intentions?
When Jix crossed into Everlost, he had taken on the beliefs of his Mayan ancestors—for in this mystical world, a rich tapestry of magical beings suddenly seemed to make sense to him. Mayan gods were often mischievous, reveling in human folly, and there were dozens of them. It would have been less complicated if it came down to Wurlitzer being either the voice of God or the devil—but for Jix, there could be many other alternatives.
