“When will I see you again?”
Talon sighed, and gazed across the roof. “So many of these buildings look alike...but I’m sure you could find this building again if you needed to....”
Lindsay looked away as well. She knew what he was really saying. Yes, she could try to find this building from the surface, figuring out how it fit into the jagged puzzle of the city’s skyline...but he was asking her not to find it. Because if his people were to survive, either in the depths below or in the rafters above, they had to be left alone. The touch of their worlds had almost destroyed them. The next time they touched, it would be on Downside terms.
It saddened Lindsay deeply to know that he would be so close, but always out of her grasp...and yet there was great joy in knowing that she had the strength to let him go.
Talon reached up and brushed a tear from her eye. She told him that it was just the wind, but of course he knew better. “My grandmother used to say that twisting paths always cross again,” he told her. “And whose paths are more twisted than ours?”
Talon turned to the windswept sky, and it was then she noticed that the cap Talon wore wasn’t sewn from fabric at all. It was made entirely of feathers. To imagine a feathered baseball cap, she would think it to be laughable—but not this cap. As with all other things, the Downside had created a thing of great value and beauty. White gull, gray pigeon, bluejay—every feather sewn so tightly to the next that it appeared to be a single fabric filled with many shades. It seemed so natural, so normal on him that there was no question where he belonged. He belonged up here.
Up above, the winds sliced through the clouds, tearing them into a mosaic of light. The setting sun turned the whole sky crimson, and the clouds shone an electric blue, bruising to violet. It was the kind of sunset that could stop traffic...but the drivers below were not looking up. Instead, they were leaning on their horns, making it clear to both Talon and Lindsay that no one would be found on the rooftops, for in the Topside, where time was of high importance, no one had the time to look.
Faced with the spectacle of the sunset, Talon’s thoughts began to take flight. He had come here to impress Lindsay with what they had accomplished over these past few months. He never expected that he would be the one impressed, but as he stood there, he was transfixed by the glorious sky. He had seen the sky do many things since knowing it. He had seen it send rain, and flash with fire, then cough and grumble in angry complaint. He had seen it vanish, leaving nothing but a white ghost stretched from one end of the world to the other. And yes, he had seen at least a dozen sunsets, and no two were alike—but none had been like this. If there had ever been any doubt in his mind as to whether or not annexing the rooftops to the Downside was a good idea, those thoughts were now washed away. A sunset like this could only mean that, at last, the Fates were pleased, and the sky itself was welcoming them.
“I suppose you can’t really call yourselves Downsiders anymore,” said Lindsay.
Talon turned to her—it was something he had never considered. “So what might we be?”
“I’m not sure...I suppose you’re ‘Highsiders’ now.”
Talon smiled. “Highsiders,” he said, testing the sound of the word, and the feel as it flowed from his tongue. “Highsiders...I like it!”
Dizzy from the shifting winds and the intoxicating colors, he sat down. Lindsay sat beside him, and he held her, for in such a moment, one simply had to hold, or be held— and although they didn’t share the thought with one another, both were thinking the same thing: that if time began and ended in this moment, and if all of creation was just this instant in time, that would be fine. They could live with that.
Then, just before the colors of the sky began to fade, a thought occurred to Talon. “Lindsay,” he said, “you don’t suppose there might be Skysiders, too—people who walk on the dome of the sky?”
Lindsay smiled. “I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe...”
For who were they to doubt the possibilities?
The limbo-land Everlost is at war. On one side stands Mary, self-proclaimed queen of lost souls, determined to retain her iron grip on Everlost’s children. On the other is Nick, the Chocolate Ogre, determined to set the souls of Everlost free.
Everlost will never be the same.
Check out the beginning of the second book in the Skinjacker trilogy
Fresh Havoc
There were rumors.
Of terrible things, of wonderful things, of events too immense to keep to oneself, and so they were quietly shared from soul to soul, one Afterlight to another, until every Afterlight in Everlost had heard them.
There was the rumor of a beautiful sky witch, who soared across the heavens in a great silver balloon. And there were whispers of a terrible ogre made entirely of chocolate, who lured unsuspecting souls with that rich promising smell, only to cast them down a bottomless pit from which there was no return.
In a world where memories bleach clean from the fabric of time, rumors become more important than that which is actually known. They are the life’s blood of the bloodless world that lies between life and death.
On a day much like any other in Everlost, one boy was about to find out if those rumors were true.
His name is unimportant—so unimportant that he himself had forgotten it—and less important still, because in a brief time he will be gone forever.
He had died about two years earlier, and, having lost his way to the light, he slept for nine months, then had woken up in Everlost. The boy was a wanderer, solitary and silent, hiding from others who crossed his path, for fear of what they might do to him. Without camaraderie and friendship to remind him who he was, he forgot his identity more quickly than most.
On the occasions that he did come across packs of other Afterlight kids, he would listen to them from his hiding spot as they shared with each other the rumors of monsters, so he knew as well as any other Afterlight what lay in store for the unwary.
When the boy had first crossed into Everlost, his wanderings had a purpose. He had begun in search of answers, but now he had even forgotten the questions. All that remained was an urge to keep moving, resting only when he came across a deadspot—a solid, bright patch of earth that had, like him, crossed into Everlost. He had learned very quickly that deadspots were unlike the faded, unfocused world of the living, where every footfall pulled you ankle-deep, and threatened to take you all the way down to the center of the earth if you stood still for too long.
On this day, his wanderings had brought him to a field full of deadspots—he had never seen so many in one place . . . but what really caught his attention was the bucket of popcorn. It just sat there on a deadspot, beside a huge Everlost tree, like it had no better place to be.
Somehow, the popcorn had crossed over!
The dead boy had not had the luxury of food since arriving in Everlost—and just because he didn’t need to eat anymore, it didn’t mean the cravings ended—so how could he resist that popcorn? It was the largest size, too—the kind you order with big eyes in the movie theater, but can never finish. Even now the corn inside glistened with butter. It seemed too good to be true!
Turns out, it was.
As he stepped onto the deadspot and reached for the tub, he felt a trip wire against his ankle, and in an instant a net pulled up around him, lifting him off the ground. Only after he was fully snared within the net did he realize his mistake.
He had heard of the monster that called itself the McGill, and his soul traps—but he had also heard that the McGill had traveled far away, and was now wreaking fresh havoc across the Atlantic Ocean. So then, who had set this trap? And why?
He struggled to free himself, but it was no use—his only consolation was that the bucket of popcorn was trapped in the net with him, and although half of its contents had spilled onto the ground, half still remained. He savored every single kernel, and when he was done, he waited, and he waited. Day became night, became day over and over, until he lost track of tim
e, and he began to fear that his eternity would be spent strung up in this net. . . . Until he finally heard a faint droning sound—some sort of engine approaching from the north. The sound was echoed from the south—but then, as both sounds grew louder, he realized it wasn’t an echo at all. The sounds were different. He was being approached on two sides.
Were these other Afterlights coming for him, or were they monsters? Would he be freed, or would he become the victim of fresh havoc himself? The faint memory of a heart pounded in his ghostly chest, and as the whine of engines grew louder, he waited to see who would reach him first.
The View on High
Miss Mary, one of our lookouts spotted a trap that’s sprung.”
“Excellent news! Tell Speedo to bring us down close, but not too close—we don’t want to frighten our new friend.”
Mary Hightower was in her element this far from the ground. Not so high as the living flew, where even the clouds were so far below, they seemed painted on the earth, but here, in that gap between earth and the heavens, is where she felt at home. She was queen of the Hindenburg, and she liked that just fine. The massive silver airship—the largest zeppelin ever built—had gone up in a ball of flames way back in 1937, leaving the living world and crossing into Everlost. Mary, who believed all things happened for a reason, knew why it had exploded: It had crossed into Everlost for her.
The Starboard Promenade, which ran the full length of the passenger compartment, was her plush personal retreat, and her center of operations. Its downward-slanted windows gave her a dramatic view of the ground below: the washed-out hues of the living world, speckled with features both man-made and natural that stood out more boldly than the rest. Those were the places that had crossed into Everlost. Trees and fields, buildings and roads. While Afterlights could still see the living world, it was blurred and faded. Only things and places that had crossed into Everlost appeared bright and in sharp focus. Mary estimated that one in a hundred things that died or were destroyed crossed into Everlost. The universe was very selective in what it chose to keep.
Only now, as she spent her days riding the skies, did she realize she had stayed put for way too long. She had missed so much up in her towers—but then the towers were a citadel against her brother, Mikey—the monster who called himself the McGill. Mikey had been defeated. He was harmless now. And now Mary no longer had to wait for Afterlights to find her. She could go out and find them herself.
“Why are you always looking out of those windows?” Speedo would ask her, when he took a break from piloting the airship. “What do you see?”
“A world of ghosts,” she would tell him. Speedo had no idea that the ghosts she spoke of were the so-called living. How insubstantial that world was. Nothing in it lasted, not places, not people. It was a world full of pointless pursuits that always ended the same way. A tunnel, and surrender. Well, not always, she thought happily. Not for everyone.
“I’d still rather be alive,” Speedo would say whenever she spoke of how blessed they were to be here in Everlost.
“If I had lived,” Mary would remind him, “I’d be long dead by now . . . and you’d probably be a fat, bald accountant.”
Then Speedo would look at his slight physique, dripping wet—always dripping wet in the bathing suit he died in—to reassure himself that he’d never have grown fat and bald, had he lived. But Mary knew better. Adulthood can do the most horrific things to the best of people. Mary much preferred being fifteen forever.
Mary took a moment to gather herself and prepare to greet the new arrival. She would do it personally. It was her way, and it was the least she could do. She would be the first out of the ship—a slender figure in a plush green velvet dress, and with a perfect fall of copper hair, descending the ramp from the impossibly huge hydrogen airship. This is how it was done. With class, with style. The personal touch. All new arrivals would know from the first moment they met her that she loved each and every child in her care and they were safe under her capable protection.
As she left the Starboard Promenade, she passed other children in the common areas of the ship. She had collected forty-seven of them. In her days at the towers, there had been many, many more—but Nick had taken them from her. He had betrayed her, handing each of her children the key to their own undoing. He had placed a coin in each of their hands. The coins! Those horrid little reminders that a true death did await all of them if they were foolish enough to seek it—and just because there was a light at the end of the tunnel, it didn’t mean it was something to be desired. Not the way Mary saw it. Heaven might shine bright, but so do flames.
As the ship descended, Mary went to the control car— the ship’s bridge which hung from the belly of the giant craft. From there she would have the best view as they descended.
“We should touch down in a few minutes,” Speedo told her, as he intently piloted the sleek silver beast. He was one of the few Afterlights to refuse to take a coin on the day Nick betrayed her. That had earned him a special place. A position of trust and responsibility.
“Look at that field.” Speedo pointed it out. “Do you see all those deadspots?”
From the air it looked like a hundred random polka dots on the ground.
“There must have been a battle here once,” Mary suggested. “Perhaps the Revolutionary War.”
There was one Everlost tree, standing on its own dead-spot. “The trap is in that tree,” Speedo told her as they neared the ground.
It was a grand tree, its leaves full of rich reds and yellows, set apart from the greener summertime trees of the living world. For this tree it would always be the early days of fall, but the leaves would never drop from its branches. Mary wondered what had caused it to cross over. Perhaps lovers had carved their initials in it, and then it was struck by lightning. Perhaps it was planted in someone’s memory, but was then cut down. Or maybe it simply soaked up the blood of a fallen soldier, and died years later in a drought. For whatever reason, the tree didn’t die entirely. Instead it crossed into Everlost, like so many things that the universe saw fit to preserve.
The foliage of the tree was so dense, they couldn’t see the trap, even after they had touched down.
“I’ll go first,” Mary said. “But I’d like you to come too. I’ll need you to free our new friend from the net.”
“Of course, Miss Mary.” Speedo smiled a smile that was slightly too large for his face.
The ramp was lowered, and Mary stepped from the airship to the earth, keeping the grace of her stride even as her feet sank almost to her ankles in the living world with each step.
But as she got closer to the tree, she saw that something was terribly, terribly wrong. The net had been taken down, and there was no Afterlight inside. All that remained was the empty popcorn tub on the ground—the bait she had left, just as her brother used to—but while the McGill offered his captives slavery, Mary offered them freedom. Or at least her definition of it. But there was no Afterlight in the net to receive her gift today.
“Musta gotten out,” Speedo said as he came up behind her.
Mary shook her head. “No one gets out of these nets.”
And then a scent came to her from the tree. It was a sweet, heady aroma that filled her with a rich blend of love, swirled with loathing.
The aroma was coming from a brown handprint on the trunk of the tree. A handprint left there to mock her.
“Is that dried blood?” Speedo asked.
“No,” she told him, maintaining her poise in spite of the fury that raged within her. “It’s chocolate.”
Here’s a sneak peek at
From
1 · Connor
“There are places you can go,” Ariana tells him, “and a guy as smart as you has a decent chance of surviving to eighteen.”
Connor isn’t so sure, but looking into Ariana’s eyes makes his doubts go away, if only for a moment. Her eyes are sweet violet with streaks of gray. She’s such a slave to fashion—always getting the newest pig
ment injection the second it’s in style. Connor was never into that. He’s always kept his eyes the color they came in. Brown. He never even got tattoos, like so many kids get these days when they’re little. The only color on his skin is the tan it takes during the summer, but now, in November, that tan has long faded. He tries not to think about the fact that he’ll never see the summer again. At least not as Connor Lassiter. He still can’t believe that his life is being stolen from him at sixteen.
Ariana’s violet eyes begin to shine as they fill with tears that flow down her cheeks when she blinks. “Connor, I’m so sorry.” She holds him, and for a moment it seems as if everything is okay, as if they are the only two people on Earth. For that instant, Connor feels invincible, untouchable . . . but she lets go, the moment passes, and the world around him returns. Once more he can feel the rumble of the freeway beneath them, as cars pass by, not knowing or caring that he’s here. Once more he is just a marked kid, a week short of unwinding.
The soft, hopeful things Ariana tells him don’t help now. He can barely hear her over the rush of traffic. This place where they hide from the world is one of those dangerous places that make adults shake their heads, grateful that their own kids aren’t stupid enough to hang out on the ledge of a freeway overpass. For Connor it’s not about stupidity, or even rebellion—it’s about feeling life. Sitting on this ledge, hidden behind an exit sign is where he feels most comfortable. Sure, one false step and he’s roadkill. Yet for Connor, life on the edge is home.
There have been no other girls he’s brought here, although he hasn’t told Ariana that. He closes his eyes, feeling the vibration of the traffic as if it’s pulsing through his veins, a part of him. This has always been a good place to get away from fights with his parents, or when he just feels generally boiled. But now Connor’s beyond boiled—even beyond fighting with his mom and dad. There’s nothing more to fight about. His parents signed the order—it’s a done deal.
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