A few moments later, a police officer approached the woman with a pale look of such sorrow, she knew the news was very, very bad. He took off his hat and she looked away from him even before he began speaking. Yet in that horrible, horrible moment the strange visitation had given her something that freed her spirit to soar beyond the here and now. Even as her body was racked with sobs from the news of her son’s death, her spirit soared with an absolute knowledge that he was now home in the truest sense of the word, and that there was something more than this.
When Allie pulled out of the poor woman, Mikey could only stare at her in amazement. “That was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
Allie looked at him strangely. “You could hear?”
Mikey shook his head. “I didn’t need to. The look on her face told me everything. Look at her now.” They turned back to see the woman still standing just outside the police line. She still cried, but beneath it there was a smile on her face, a tiny ounce of peace and contentment behind her tremendous loss.
Mikey and Allie were alone in Everlost now. Clarence had fled the scene. The moment he realized what he had done to Squirrel, he ran. Although all the living were clamoring about a scar-covered hero who rescued everyone, Clarence clearly did not feel like a hero.
“Go after him, Nick,” Mikey had said. “Don’t let him out of your sight.”
Nick was more than happy to do it. Mikey would have done it himself—he should have done it himself, but at that moment, he was being selfish. He had not yet had his true reunion with Allie, and the last thing he wanted to do was to leave her before even saying hello. It was only after Nick was gone that Mikey realized his mistake. Nick was the only one who knew Milos’s hiding place. Now they couldn’t go after him until Nick returned.
The strange scene before them was now a blend of triumph and misery. The many who were saved, the one child who was not. As much as he and Allie wanted to leave, they couldn’t because this was where Nick would rendezvous with them, hopefully with Clarence. So they climbed to the top of the freshly crossed jungle gym, for its highest platform gave them the best view of anyone approaching in either world. Since the whole playground was now a deadspot, they could rest from their troubling adventure and not have to worry about sinking.
Living-world commotion surrounded the disaster site around them. But as Mary herself once said, Afterlights can tune out the living world if they truly want to—and at that moment, Mikey and Allie saw and heard nothing but each other.
They held each other tightly, saying comforting things.
“Everything’s going to be okay, now that you’re here.”
“We’ll make everything all right, together.”
And when Allie leaned her head gently against Mikey’s chest, he focused as intensely as he could on the memory of his heart to make it beat gently in her ear. Now their afterglows had combined into a uniform lavender glow, proving they were connected, proving they were one. It was almost like being alive.
Allie knew that time was elastic in Everlost. It moved as quickly or as slowly as the thoughts in one’s mind. But in this moment, she wished it could stop completely and leave them both there in an eternal embrace. It was perhaps the closest Allie had ever come to Mary’s way of thinking, for being here with Mikey, whispering gentle things and listening to his heartbeat, would be her perfect eternity.
Nick was terrified of forgetting again, for this time if he forgot, he would lose Mikey and Allie and never find them again. Yet this time, he knew things were different. He didn’t have someone like Milos telling him lies, confounding the few things he thought he knew.
He followed Clarence to a dimly lit bar that smelled of stale cigarettes and old varnish. It was the kind of saloon that was open before noon on a Friday. A place for career alcoholics, people who thrived in dimly lit places, hiding from illumination of any sort.
There were only a few customers sitting at the bar, each in their own personal clouds of woe. An old flickering TV reported on an earthquake in Africa.
Nick tried to sit on the barstool next to Clarence, but kept sinking through it, so he stood there, constantly shifting his feet to keep from sinking. The floorboards here were thin and staying aboveground was a challenge. Clarence didn’t look at him, but he knew Nick was there.
“Go on. Sink down to hell for all I care.” Ice clinked in his amber drink as he took a long gulp.
“Hell’s not down there,” Nick told him. “Just the center of the earth.”
“Well, then,” Clarence said. “Pleasant journey. If you meet Jules Verne, give him my regards.” From the end of the bar, the bartender gave Clarence a sideways glance, so Clarence pulled out a broken Bluetooth headset, and fixed it to his ear. “I learned this trick while traveling with Mikey,” Clarence told Nick. “Makes my brand of crazy seem the same as everyone else’s.”
The fact that Clarence put on his ear prop was a good sign. It meant he was willing to talk, so there was hope of bringing him back from whatever dark place he was now in.
“Your friend Mikey knew what my touch could do, but he didn’t tell me. He turned me into a murderer. Worse than a murderer.”
“I think,” said Nick, “they call that manslaughter or wrongful death, don’t they? I mean, when it’s an accident or out of ignorance, or something.”
Clarence turned to Nick, studying him with his Everlost eye. “You’re a lot smarter than you were back in the cage,” Clarence said. “You look better too. Back then you were a thing, now you’re almost a person.”
“Thanks . . . but ‘almost’ is still ‘almost.’”
“Yeah, well, we’re all almost something.”
Nick pulled his feet out of the ground, nearly losing his balance.
“Stop that. You’re making me nervous. And when I get nervous . . .” Clarence didn’t finish the thought. He just grabbed his drink and took a swig, then stood from the bar. “Looks like someone once croaked in a booth back there. Unlucky for him, lucky for you.”
Sure enough, there was a corner booth that had a bright little deadspot on the seat just big enough for an Afterlight to sit on. They went to the booth and sat across from each other.