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 deadspot. '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.' In her book Caution, This Means You, Mary Hightower says the following about the 'evils' of the chocolate one: 'Wise Afterlights would do well to heed the many warnings relating to the creature known as the Chocolate Ogre. He is a force of chaos and distress in this world. Indeed, Everlost itself shakes in fury at his terrible misdeeds. If there is justice in this world-and I believe there most certainly is-he will be held accountable when he meets his maker. Should the ogre be seen anywhere near your vicinity, it is best to seek shelter, and immediately report his presence to an authority.'
By 'authority,' one can only assume that Mary means herself.
CHAPTER 3 Audience with an Ogre
It was an old steam engine, forged and destroyed in the nineteenth century, but so well-loved by its conductor that it earned a place in Everlost. Of course it could travel only on tracks that no longer existed. Such were the inconveniences of life after life.
A kid with hands much too large for his body, and with a cigarette that never went out dangling from his lip, had freed the boy from Mary's net. Now he gripped the kid's arm a little too hard as he moved him through fields and woods toward the waiting train.
'Whose train is it?' The boy asked in a panic, 'What's gonna happen to me?'
'Don't ask stupid questions,' said the kid with big hands, 'or I'll send you down soon as look at you, I swear I will.' Then he pushed the boy up the steps and into a parlor car.
The smell hit him right away.
'Oh, no! No!'
As wonderful as that chocolate smell was, it could only mean one thing. The rumors were true, and he was doomed.
At the other end of the car sat a figure wearing a tie and a white shirt, although the shirt had become stained with countless brown smudges. So was the rich red carpet. So were the red velvet chairs.
'Don't be afraid,' the Chocolate Ogre said-which was always what monsters said when you really should be afraid.
Light poured in from the windows into the frightened boy's eyes, so he couldn't see the face of the ogre clearly, but then the ogre stood and came into the light. All at once everything became clear.
It was as if someone had dipped the entire left half of his face in a fudge bucket. It seemed to ooze right out of his pores-even the color of his left eye had gone chocolate-brown. It was the other half of his face that was the more surprising, for that half did not look monstrous at all. In fact the right side of his face looked like that of an ordinary fifteen-year-old boy.
'Let me go,' the terrified Afterlight begged. 'I'll do anything you want, just let me go.'
'I will,' said the Chocolate Ogre. 'Even better than letting you go, I'll send you on your way.'
That did not sound good, and the boy waited for the bottomless pit to open beneath his feet. But that didn't happen.
'What's your name?' the ogre asked.
It was something the boy had not thought about for a long time. 'I'm… me.' The Chocolate Ogre nodded. 'You can't remember. That's okay.' Then the ogre held out his hand to shake. 'I'm Nick.'
The boy looked at the ogre's hand, and didn't know how to respond. It was much cleaner than the other one, which was totally covered in chocolate-but still even his 'clean' hand had plenty of stains, probably from touching all the other chocolate-splattered things on the train.
'What's the matter? You didn't expect the 'Chocolate Ogre,' to actually have a name?' His smile made chocolate drip from his cheek and to the darkly stained carpet.
Then the big-handed kid, still standing behind the boy, nudged his shoulder hard. 'Shake his hand-you're being rude!'
The boy did as he was told-he shook the ogre's hand, and when he brought his hand back, there was chocolate on it. Even in his fear, that chocolate on his hand looked better to him than the popcorn had.
As if reading his mind, the ogre said, 'Go ahead-it's real, and it's just as good as when you were alive.'
And although the boy sensed this was a trick-that maybe it was somehow poisoned, or worse-he raised his fingers to his lips, and licked the chocolate off. The ogre was right-it was real and it was good.
The ogre pointed to his face. 'The only good thing about it is that I get to share.'
'And it's milk chocolate today,' said the kid with big hands. 'You must be in a good mood.'
The Chocolate Ogre shrugged. 'Any day I save someone from Mary is a good day.' This monster was being far too friendly. The boy would have much preferred a fiery temper. At least then he would have known exactly where
