'Are you okay?' Mikey knew something was wrong. Perhaps it was the way she sat so stiffly on the horse behind him, or perhaps their spirits had become so in tune, he could sense the things she felt.
'I'm fine.'
She also had another reason for her reluctance, and her mind was drawn to her coin. It had been cold in her hand, which meant she was not ready to leave Everlost. She was not ready to move on. Now, as she thought about it, she realized why. She would never be ready for that final journey until she went home, and saw the truth with her own eyes. Her whole Everlost existence had been leading to this-and yet she had stalled for as long as she could.
Because going home meant completion.
Once she learned what had become of her parents, there would be nothing holding her to Everlost. Her coin would grow warm, and although she could resist it at first, she knew she wouldn't be able to resist it for long. She would hold it in her hand, she would make the journey.
And she would lose Mikey.
For this reason, her return to Cape May was both something she longed for, and something she dreaded-but she would not share such private feelings with Mikey. When they stood on her street, a pang came to her chest. She knew she shouldn't be able to feel pain, but sometimes emotions could coalesce into phantom aches when they were strong enough.
'There it is,' she said. 'The third house on the right.'
Home. Even in the faded tones of Everlost, it looked just the same as she remembered. An unassuming Victorian house, white with blue trim. Her parents had moved to Cape May to capture some rustic charm in a modern world, so they bought an old house with plumbing that rattled, and thin wiring that could never quite grasp the concept of computers and high-voltage appliances. Circuit breakers were constantly popping, and Allie had complained endlessly about it when she was alive. Now she longed for the simple act of turning on a hair drier and plunging the house into darkness.
'Wait here,' she told Mikey. 'I need to do this alone.'
'Fair enough.'
She hopped down from the horse, already feeling an uncertainty in the ground beneath her. It felt less like tar, and more like Jell-O just before it sets. She had to move fast.
'Good luck,' Mikey said.
She crossed the street toward her home, not looking back at Mikey for fear that she might change her mind- but rushing headlong to her front door was not wise either. With the threat of sinking so very real, she needed someone who could carry her home safely.
Someone like the UPS man.
The brown truck turned onto the street, and stopped at a neighbor's house. The deliveryman pulled a package from the back of the truck, and carried it toward the neighbor's front door. Allie followed him, preparing to make her move before he rang the neighbor's bell.
Skinjacking was not a pleasant sensation. It was like diving into water that was too cold, or stepping into a tub that was too hot. Even though Allie had gotten much better at it, the sudden sensation of flesh, and all that went with it, was always a shock. She took a moment to brace herself, then she stepped inside the UPS man- – - Three more hours-I should just quit-I can't quit but I wish I could-three more hours-can't quit-wife would be furious-but there's got to be more work out there-I never should have taken this job-three more hours to go- The chill of the air, the pumping of a heart, the sudden brightness-solidness-of the living world around her. She was in! The volume of his thoughts was painful-like they were being blasted through a megaphone.
– -Three more hours-but wait-wait-I don't feel right- what's this? Who-huh-what-?
Allie quickly clamped her spirit down, taking control of his flesh, and at the same instant she forced his unsuspecting consciousness deep down into the limbic system-that primordial part of the human brain where consciousness retreated during the deepest of sleeps. It was easy to put him to sleep; he wasn't all that conscious to begin with.
She turned back to Mikey, but he was invisible now, as she knew he would be. She was seeing through living eyes now, seeing only the things that living eyes could see. As long as she stayed inside the delivery man, Everlost would be hidden from her. Once the initial shock of the skinjack had faded, she took a moment to enjoy it, luxuriating in the warmth of the sun on this warm June day. Even the heaviness of the package in her arms was a fine thing; yet another memory of the wonderful limitations of being alive.
She lingered at the neighbor's door a moment more, then left, taking the package with her to the front door of her own home. Then she stood at her own front door, frozen, just as she had been frozen at the city sign. This was the moment she had waited for. All she had to do was ring the bell. All she had to do was lift her finger-his finger-and do it. Never had a living hand felt so heavy.
Then, to her surprise, the door opened without her ever ringing the bell.
'Hi, is that package for us?'
The woman who opened the door was not her mother. She was a total stranger. She was in her twenties, and had a baby on her hip, who was very excited by the prospect of a large box.
'Just bring it in, and put it by the stairs,' the woman said. 'Do I have to sign for it?'
'Uh… uh… It's not for you.' Allie cleared her throat, startled by the way she sounded. She could never get used to the masculine timbre of her voice when she cross-jacked. It was one of several troubling things that came with being temporarily male.
'Well, if it's not for us, then who is it for?'
'The Johnson family.'
'Who?' she asked, then realized. 'Oh, right. We got things for them every once in a while, once the forwarding order expired.'
They had moved-but that could just be her mother and sister, who weren't in the car. She still had no way of knowing if her father had survived.
'Any idea where they went?'
'No,' the woman said.
'Wasn't there an accident?' Allie asked. 'I heard about it-they lost a daughter.'
'I wouldn't know about that. Sorry.'
And then Allie asked the big question. 'How long have you been living here?'
'Almost three years now.'
Allie closed her eyes, and tried to take that in. She had been in Everlost for three years. Unchanged, never aging. Still fourteen. How could so much time have passed?
'Wait a second,' the woman said. 'Of course, I can't be sure, but I seem to recall something about Memphis. I think that's where they went.'
It made sense-her mother had family there… but did that mean her father had died in the crash, and her mother had sold the house? There were so many questions still unanswered.
The woman shifted the baby to her other hip, getting impatient. 'The neighbors might know more, but then a lot of them are just summer renters.'
'Thank you. Sorry to have bothered you.'
Then the woman closed the door, to the protests of the baby, who began to wail over the fact that the box was not for him. Allie went to other homes on the street, but few neighbors were home, and the ones who did come to the door were clueless.
Allie returned to the UPS truck, took one last breath of the flavorful June air, then pulled herself out of the delivery man. Ending a skinjacking was as unpleasant as beginning one, and sometimes a fleshie who fit too well was hard to escape from-especially when she'd stayed inside for a while. Fortunately the UPS man was not one of those. She was able to extricate herself without too much effort, peeling him off like a loose-fitting robe. She suffered a moment of vertigo, and the instinctive panic of spirit separating from flesh. She endured the transition, and when she opened her eyes, the living world had faded to blurred, washed-out hues. She was back in Everlost. Beside her, the deliveryman stumbled for a moment, quickly shook off his confusion, and went to deliver his package to the proper house, never knowing that he had been skinjacked.
'What happened?' Mikey asked, coming up to her. 'Were they there? Did you talk to them?'
'They moved to Memphis,' she told him, still a bit dazed by it all.
