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However, tales of Allie the Outcast were being spread far and wide too Not all of the quite a reputation as Everlost's loose cannon That got her a certain arow used to that

In fact, she already had

Cape May: population 4034 in winter, and at least ten tio in New Jersey Everything after that is water

Allie stood in front of the town's quaint WELCOME sign, frozen by the sight of it

"You're sinking," said Mikey, as still on the horse Shiloh the horse, having grown accusto its hooves out of the ground with a sucking sound, as if it were slowly prancing in place Allie on the other hand, was already in the ground to her knees

She reached up, and Mikey helped her out of the ground "That's it, isn't it?" Mikey asked "Cape May? I remember you said you lived in Cape May"

"Yes" With all their wanderings, Allie had lost her sense of direction She had no idea they were this close to her hoo ho"

Mikey hopped off the horse and stood beside her "Back on my ship, I used to watch you look out to shore You had such a longing to go ho you there, even then"

Allie smirked "And you called yourself a monster"

Mikey was suitably insulted "I was an excellent monster! The one true monster of Everlost!"

"'Hear your name and tremble' "

Mikey looked away "No one trembles any hiently To look at hiuess that the fair skinned, blue-eyed boy was once the terrifying McGill, but every once in a while Allie could still see a bit of the beast in him It was there in the shortness of his temper, and the clumsiness of his hands, as if they were still claws It was there in the way he approached the world--as if it still owed hiered there inside him, but his face was that of a boy, attractive by any standards, if somewhat doleful

"I like you much better this way"

"Why should I care?" But he smiled, because he did care and they both knew it

"You ain," he had told her, when he first lost hisin her power to do so It was in sli a o had that been? As is the way in Everlost, the days had blended until there was no telling Weeks? Months? Years? Certainly not years! "So," he asked, "does bringing you home make me more human?"

"Yes, it does"

Even his selflessness rapped in self-interest It would have bothered her, but she knew that he would have done this for her anyway, even if it had no benefit for him It made him different from his sister, for while Mary pretended to serve others, deep down she was serving no one but herself

"Just remember--I can't help you if you sink," Mikey said "You kno it is when you go ho too fast for me to ever catch you"

"I know" She ell aware of the dangers of going hos, but because of Mikey's firsthand account

Hoht The ground becoets Mikey had told Allie how he and his sister had gone hoo, shortly after they died The one on without theround in a matter of seconds Mary had been lucky--somehow she had avoided his fate She never had to endure that long, slow journey down to the center of the earth

Mikey, however, had discovered a skill--perhaps the rarest of all Everlost skills His as so great that he could force change upon hi at the earth around him His memory of flesh was replaced by a full body scar, thick as leather and as pocked as the surface of the moon He hting the relentless pull of gravity year after year, until the day he broke surface

But that was all over now He was Mikey again, and he was slowly growing used to his old self, just as Allie was growing accustoh all of their travels, in the back of herhome had been so important to her when she had first arrived here But so best saved for tomorrow, and then the tohts, she did not forget her life on Earth She did not forget her faet her name

She didn't knohy she should be different fros in her books of questionable inforhts didn't possess Why she and no one else should have these poas a ht call it "possession," but she much preferred the Everlost ter for evil purposes Shetheir bodies for a short time--and only when absolutely necessary

They made their way down the quaintwent about their blurred, h Allie and Mikey, but they had grown accustoh and around them so they barely noticed it anymore Not even their horse did

"Turn left here," Allie told Mikey at the next corner, and as they turned onto the street where she once lived, a sense of dread began to fill that place that ought to be filled with great joy and anticipation

For what if her father hadn't survived the crash after all?

What if he went down that tunnel into the light in that terrible head-on collision, leaving her mother and sister to mourn for both of the Perhaps it was the way she sat so stiffly on the horse behind him, or perhaps their spirits had becos she felt