The finders usually left with a sneer and didn't come back. Finders were endlessly searching out objects that crossed into Everlost, bartering and trading the items they found for things of greater value. It had been a while since finders had come to town, and their arrival always began with hope, and ended with disappointment. She was ten when she had died, and the thing she remembered about herself more than anything else was that she had long, luxurious hair-so now it trailed behind her like a smooth amber bridal train. The cluster of Afterlights were young-and the oldest girl from the diner (who, not surprisingly called herself "Dinah") was their leader. There were stories about one finder in particular who traveled on the only horse ever known to have crossed into Everlost-and it was said she did travel with a companion, although he never played into the stories much.Īs the kids stepped out of the diner, they kept their distance, wanting to, but also afraid to believe that this could be the finder of legend. The finders, a boy and a girl, arrived riding a horse. It was the only building in town that had crossed, and so had become a home to about a dozen Afterlights. The living world had paved over the spot, and turned it into a parking lot for the bank next door, but in Everlost, the diner remained, its chrome siding shining in the afternoon sun. On a warm June afternoon, two finders came to a small-town diner that had burned down many years before.
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With the furnace blazing on the memory of coal, the steam engine headed south into a vast unknowable wild. We'll get to the southern Afterlights before Mary can!" Nick slapped him on the back, leaving an accidental chocolate stain. "We'll need to look for a finder who can trade us the paper we'll need to make a new map," said Charlie, "but until then I can scratch the map into the engine bulkhead." There was a certain excitement in breaking away from the familiar, and shattering old routines. "Come on, Charlie-let's tame the Everwild! We'll chart the rails, and mark the deadspots on the way!"Īnd although Charlie was reluctant to travel to places unknown, Nick knew he was tempted. His job was to get rid of them, which made it hard to maintain more than just the barest of skeleton crews-namely, himself, Charlie, and Johnnie-O. Perhaps the unknown wouldn't have been so daunting if they had an entire crew-but unlike Mary, Nick hadn't been interested in collecting followers. It was just like the days when America was still the New World, and no one knew what breathtaking vistas and unforeseen dangers lay over the next ridge. "And to the Afterlights there, we're in the Everwild." Perhaps the living world had finally connected coast-to-coast and around the world, but Everlost was a new frontier. "Hey, it's not my fault no one knows what's out there!" "That's all I ever hear! Everwild to the north, Everwild to the west, Everwild to the south-" Nick grunted in frustration at the mention of it. Why d'ya wanna go south anyway? Nothing there but the Everwild." I haven't charted any tracks south of Virginia. If that's what you want, then I'll play.Ĭharlie shook his head.
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There was no question her soul traps were all about gathering up an army. So Mary would not face him-and now he suspected she never would without a full-out war. Things that could not be believed in the living world, but in Everlost, anything was possible. This was the farthest south they'd ever been-but there were Afterlights who Nick had come across, who spoke of things even farther south than this.
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"D'ya want to follow her again?"Ĭharlie looked at his map. Instead, Mary always left without affording him the dignity of a proper slap in the face. Each time Nick arrived at one of her traps, and freed one of her snagged souls, he hoped for that moment of confrontation, where her anger would be undermined by the love he knew she felt for him.