paradise, but it was kind of pretty. The trees were full and lush. They’d never lose their leaves. He wondered if the weather of the living world could still affect him. If not, then it wouldn’t be so bad staying here. Certainly the boy they called Lief had adjusted, so couldn’t they? But then, that wasn’t the real question. The question was, did they want to?
Lief waited in his tree house, and soon they climbed up to him, as he knew they would. He quickly hid his special things as Nick and Allie reached the platform, both of them huffing and puffing, as if they were out of breath.
“Stop that,” he told them. “You’re not out of breath, you just think you are, so stop it.”
“Lief, please, this is important,” Allie said. “We need you to tell us about the ‘others’ you were talking about before.”
There was no sense trying to hide it now, so he told them what he knew. “They come through my forest every once in a while. Other kids on their way places.
They never stay long-and none have come through here for years.”
“Where do they go?”
“Anywhere. They’re always running. They’re always running from the McGill.”
“The what?”
“The McGill.”
“Is that a grown-up?”
Lief shook his head. “No grown-ups here. Only kids. Kids and monsters.”
“Monsters!” said Nick. “That’s great. That’s wonderful. I’m so glad I asked.”
But Allie wasn’t shaken. “There are no such things as monsters,” she told Lief.
He looked to Allie, then to Nick, then back to Allie again.
“There are here.”
On the absence of adults in Everlost, Alary Hightower writes: “To date no grown-up has ever been documented to cross into Everlost. The reason is quite obvious when you stop to think about it. You see, adults, being the way they are, never get lost on the way to the light no matter how hard they get bumped, simply because adults always think they know exactly where they’re going, even if they don’t, and so they all wind up going somewhere. If you don’t believe me, ask yourself this: Have you ever seen a grown-up get into a car so they could go ‘nowhere in particular’?”
On the presence of monsters, Mary Hightower is curiously silent.
CHAPTER 4
A Coin on its Edge Night had fallen over the woods, and the three dead kids sat on the highest platform of the tree house bathed in an unnaturally bright moonlight that truly made them look like ghosts. It took a while for Nick and Allie to realize that the moon wasn’t out that night.
“Great,” said Nick, not thinking it was great at all. “Just what I always wanted-to be a glow-in-the-dark ghost.”
“Don’t call us ghosts,” Allie said.
Nick simply didn’t have the patience for Allies issues with word choice. “Face it, that’s what we are.”
“‘Ghost’ implies a whole lot of things that I am NOT. Do I look like Casper to you?”
“Fine,” said Nick. “We’re not ghosts, we’re Undefined Spectral Doohickies. USDs.
Are you happy now?”
“Well that’s just stupid.”
“We’re Afterlights,” said Lief. They both turned to him. “The others who pass through – that’s what they call us, on account of how we glow in the dark – in the daytime, too, if you look close enough.”
“Afterlights,” repeated Allie. “See, I told you we weren’t ghosts.”
Allie and Lief began to talk about monsters again, and, as far as Nick was concerned, this was a conversation he would just as well stay out of. Instead, Nick decided to hold his breath, to see if it were true that oxygen was no longer a requirement. Still, he listened.
“If nothing can hurt you here,” asked Allie, “why be afraid of the McGill?”
“The McGill knows how to hurt you in other ways. It knows how to make you suffer till the end of time, and it’ll do it too, if it gets the chance.” Lief’s eyes were wide, and he made sweeping gestures with his hands like he was telling a campfire story. “The McGill hates kids that get stuck here – hates the sounds we make. It’ll tear out your tongue if it hears you talk, and rip out your lungs if it hears you pretending to breathe. They say the McGill is the devil’s own pet hound that chewed through its leash, and escaped. It couldn’t make it all the way to the living world, but it made it to here. That’s why we have to stay in the forest. It doesn’t know about the forest. We’re safe here.”
Nick could tell that Allie wasn’t convinced. He wasn’t convinced himself, but in light of their current predicament, suddenly anything seemed possible.
“How do you know all this?” Allie asked.
“The other kids who come through the forest. They tell stories.”
“Did these kids actually see the McGill?” Allie asked.
“No one who’s ever seen it has escaped.”
“How convenient.”
Nick released his breath, having held it for ten minutes with no ill effects.
“Technically speaking,” Nick said, “there have always been monsters, or at least they were called that until people knew something better to call them. The giant squid. The megamouth shark. The anaconda.”
“See!” said Lief.
Allie threw Nick a withering look. “Thank you Mr. Google. The next time I need some crucial information, I’ll type in some choice keywords.”
“Yeah,” said Nick. “I’m sure your keywords will all have four letters.”
Allie turned back to Lief. “So, is this McGill a giant squid?”
“I don’t know,” said Lief, “but whatever it is, it’s terrible.”
“It’s made-up,” insisted Allie.
“You don’t know everything!”
“No,” said Allie, “but now I’ve got all the time in the world, so I eventually will.”
Nick had to admit that both Lief and Allie had their points. Lief’s stories reeked of exaggeration, but every story had some basis in truth. On the other hand, Allie had a practical view of things.
“Lief,” Nick asked, “has anyone who’s passed through here ever come back?”
“No,” Lief said. “They were all eaten by the McGill.”
“Or they found a better place to be,” suggested Nick.
“Either we stay here, or we get eaten by the McGill,” said Lief. “That’s why I’m staying here.”
“What if there’s another choice?” said Nick. “If we’re not alive, but we’re not quite dead, then maybe…” He pulled a coin out of his pocket- one of the few things that had come with him, along with those overly formal clothes he wore.
“Maybe we’re like coins standing on their edge?”
Allie considered this. “Meaning?”
“Meaning, we might be able to shake things up a little, and find a way to come up heads.”
“Or tails,” suggested Allie.
“What are you talking about?” said Lief.
“Life and death.” Nick flipped the coin, and slapped it down on the back of his palm, keeping it covered with his other hand, so none of them could see how it had landed. “Maybe-just maybe -we can find a way out of here. A way into the light at the end of the tunnel… or maybe even a path back to life.”
It seemed the trees themselves held the thought, sifting it through their boughs, giving it resonance.
“Could that be possible?” Allie asked, and looked to Lief.
“I don’t know,” he told them.
