Page 1 (1/2)

Chapter 1

On the Way to the Light… On a hairpin turn, above the dead forest, on no day in particular, a white Toyota crashed into a black Mercedes, for a ray

In the front passenger seat of the Toyota sat Alexandra, Allie to her friends

She was arguing with her father about how loud the radio should be playing She had just taken off her seat belt to adjust her blouse

In the center backseat of the Mercedes, dressed for his cousin’s wedding, sat Nick, trying to eat a chocolate bar that had been sitting in his pocket for most of the day His brother and sister, who sandwiched hi his elbohich caused the molten chocolate to smear all over his face As it was a car ers, there was no seat belt for Nick

Also on the road was a small piece of sharp steel, dropped by a scrap metal truck that had been loaded to the brim About a dozen cars had avoided it, but the Mercedes wasn’t so lucky It ran over the metal, the front left tire blew, and Nick’s father lost control of the car

As the Mercedes careened over the double yellow line, into onco traffic, both Allie and Nick looked up and saw the other’s carcloser very quickly Their lives didn’t quite flash before them; there was no tiht or feltThe impact launched thes--but at such a high speed, and with no seat belts, the air bags did little to slow their ainst their foreheads, then in an instant, they had each passed through

The crash of splintering glass beca wind, and the world went very dark

Allie didn’t knohat to make of all this quite yet As the windshield fell behind her, she felt herselfas the wind grew stronger There was a point of light at the end of the tunnel, getting larger and brighter as she got closer, and there ca in her heart of calm amazement she could not describe

But on the way to the light, she hit sorabbed at it, it grunted, and for an instant she are that it was someone else she had bumped--someone about her size, and who smelled distinctly of chocolate

Both Allie and Nick went spinning wildly, crashing out of the blacker-than-black walls of the tunnel, and as they flew off course, the light before theround hard, and the exhaustion of their flight overcame them

Their sleep was drea time

Chapter 2

Arrival in Everlost The boy had not been up to the road since forever What was the point? The cars just ca He didn’t care who passed by his forest on their way to other places They didn’t care about him, so why should he?

When he heard the accident he was playing a favorite gah froet The sudden crunch of steel was so unexpected, it rip In an instant he was falling He bounced off one lis It didn’t hurt, all this banging and crashing In fact he laughed, until he had passed through all the branches, and all that reround

He hit the earth hard--it was a fall that would have certainly ended his life, had circu more than a quicker way to reach the forest floor

He picked hi the echoes of co to a halt, people were yelling

He hurried off in the direction of the sounds, cliranite slope that led up to the road This wasn’t the first accident on this treacherous strip of highway; there were o a car had even left the road, flown like a bird, and landed sh Oh, sure there had been people in the car when it had crashed, but they got where they were going even before the boy came to inspect the wreck

This nereck was bad Very bad Very messy Ambulances Fire trucks Tow trucks It was dark by the ti but broken glass and bits of ot where they were going

Resigned, and a little bit mad, the boy climbed back down to his forest

Who cared anyway? So what if no one else caames, and he’d play them tomorrow and the next day and the next, until the road itself was gone

It was as he reached the bottom of the cliff that he saw the cars, over the edge of the cliff Now they lay at the base of the cliff, in the dirt of the forest At first he thought the aht not have known they were here--but no; aot closer, he could see that neither their clothes, nor their faces bore any sign of the accident No rips, no scratches This was a very good sign! The two seemed to be about fourteen years old--a few years older than he was--and they lay a few feet apart froirl with pretty blond hair, the other a boy who kind of looked Chinese, except for his nose, and his light reddish-brown hair Their chests rose and fell with aThe boy smiled as he watched them, and made his own chest rise and fall in the sah the trees of the forest, not rustling them in the least, he waited patiently for his playmates to awake

Allie knew she was not in her bed even before she opened her eyes Had she fallen onto the floor in the ain? She was such a thrasher when she slept Half the tied off the mattress and wrapped around her like a python

Her eyes opened to clear sunlight streah the trees, which was not unusual except for the fact that there was nofor the light to shine through There was no bedrooain, and tried to reboot Human brains, she knew, could be like co between sleep and wakefulness

Sos, and once in a while you couldn’t figure out exactly how you got where you got

She wasn’t bothered by this Not yet She si her ? Was that it? In aasleep beneath the stars with her fa back into her

So about that word ain, sitting up this tis, no cae, like someone had filled her head with helium

There was soround, knees to chest

A boy with a bit of an Asian look about him He seemed both familiar and unfamiliar at the sa

Then an icy wave of h a tunnel He was there He had bumped her, the clumsy oaf!

"Hello!" said a voice behind her, er boy sitting cross-legged on the ground Behind hiht