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"But how -- "

"MyNick finish the question

"Re birth She died in that bed"

"A dead-spot!"

Mary nodded "I stayed there for a long ti I was there, climbed into the bed with his neife I couldn’t bear to see theh so that the weight of being ho anyh I sank quickly, I didn’t sink entirely, and the farther away froot the easier it was to walk"

"What about your brother?" Nick gently asked

"I never saw hiain," Mary answered "He sank to the center of the Earth"

Mary didn’t say anything for a very long time There was an unpleasant heaviness where her stoe, ethereal sense of weightlessness Everlost spirits did not float through the air as the living iht "I’ve never told anyone that before, not even Vari"

Nick put his hand gently on her shoulder "I know it must be horrible to lose your brother like that," he said, "but maybe, maybe, I could be like a brother to you" Then he moved a little closer "Or…hat Ielse" Then he leaned toward her, and he kissed her

Mary did not kno to deal with this In the many years that she had been in Everlost there were boys ould try to force kisses on her She wasn’t interested in those boys, and she always had ht theht off On the other hand, neither did she want to have her judgment clouded by unfamiliar emotions So she didn’t respond to hi her lack of response as disinterest

"Don’t be," was all Mary said, but kept all of her feelings wrapped up tightly inside, just as she rapped up inside her lacy velvet dress

Rejection was every bit as hu in death as it was in life

It’s because of the chocolate, Nick thought No, it’s because I’er than her Nick didn’t wait for an elevator, he climbed up the stairs two steps at a ti the door Sure, Nick had been lovesick before There was that girl in science--or was it history--he wasn’t sure anyh, it would never pass, and he wondered if he tried hard enough if he would be able to siain, much less face her for eternity

Mary, Mary, Mary Her face and name were locked in his mind…And suddenly he realized that there was no room for the name that truly should have been in his et Hershey is what the other kids called him now, but that wasn’t his name, was it? His name started with an N Nate Noel Norman He was certain that it started with an N!

Mary found herHe could coax the sweetest sounds from the Stradivarius violin -- the same violin from which Vari had taken his Everlost name Today he played Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, one of Mary’s favorites It was supposed to be played by a string quartet, but Vari was the only string player a the 320 kids in her care They had plenty of instruh People loved their instruments, so quite a few crossed over A trumpet that had been run over by a bus, a piano that had fallen sixteen stories Once in a while Mary tried to put together an orchestra, but not enough kids arrived in Everlost with the talent, or the desire to play

"What would you like , so she hadn’t even realized Vari had stopped playing

"Whatever pleases you, Vari"

He began to play so Mary couldn’t identify the composer She preferred happierNick up," Mary said "I’ you play, too"

The passion of Vari’s playing seemed to fade "Hershey’s a toad"

"You should learn to like hiot a dirty face, and I don’t like his eyes"

"He’s half-Japanese You mustn’t be prejudiced just because he has an Asian look about his eyes"

Vari said nothing to that He played a fewstanzas of music, then said, "Why do you alant hi Not like some other kids Not like me"

Mary had to admit that it was true--Nick was not a standout spirit But then, why did it matter what he could do? Why couldn’t he just be?

She stood, and went to one of the western s It was a clear afternoon, and she could see across the Hudson River to New Jersey, but a faint haze hid the horizon from her

The world had beco Airplanes took people across the country in a matter of hours You could talk with people around the world just by pressing buttons on a telephone, and now those phones weren’t even connected to wires Everlost wasn’t like that It was still an unexplored wilderness of wild children, and gaping unknowns Mary knew very little of children beyond her sphere of influence Even after all her years here, her explorations were li in, and traveling as little as possible Moving fro she had occupied for so many years to the towers had expanded her realm, and drawn many more children to her than she had sheltered before --yet even still, the only inforot froh Mostly they spoke of rumors Sometimes she liked what she heard, and soht occurred to her; a ive Nick a purpose and a reason to be so many in her world

"Finders have told o now," Mary told Vari "Which means there uidance, don’t you think?"

Vari stopped playing "You’re thinking of leaving here?"

Mary shook her head "No But that doesn’t mean I can’t send someone out there

So I know That person can set up an outpost in an unexplored city Chicago, perhaps"

"Who would you send?"

"I was thinking about Nick Of course it will take years to train hireat hurry"

Vari came up beside her, looked toward the hazy horizon, then turned to her