Squirrel was not the finest spirit around, but consoled himself with knowing he wasn’t the worst one either. His existence had always been one of ignoble embarrassment. He had crossed into Everlost when he had fallen from a tree while trying to peek inside the window of a girl who would have nothing to do with him. As a skinjacker, his simple pleasures were not all that different, peering into people’s lives for his own amusement. He was not an enlightened spirit and was less concerned with good and bad, right and wrong, than he was concerned with just making it through the day in one piece. That, and having a good laugh. Lately, however, there wasn’t much laughter and he had been trying to convince Moose it was time for both of them to bail. After today, they might have done it too.

But today, Squirrel was touched by a scar wraith.

The power of belief is a very real thing in Everlost. The way one looks, physical strength, is all determined by what an Afterlight believes—and no one can truly control what they believe. We can lie to ourselves, saying we believe one thing, and sometimes we convince others it’s true, with the hope that by convincing others, we can convince ourselves. Wars are often waged not because of what we believe, but because of the things we want others to believe.

Squirrel was not sure of any of his beliefs. He was not so deep that he pondered such things. But when Clarence reached for him with a hand that was clearly a part of Everlost, attached to a body that clearly was not, Squirrel, in the furthest recesses of his soul, believed that the touch of a scar wraith would extinguish him forever and ever.

So that’s exactly what it did.

To those watching, it was undramatic and instantaneous. Clarence grasped on to Squirrel’s shoulder, Squirrel uttered the tiniest little squeal . . . and then he was gone.

No tunnel.

No shimmer of rainbow light.

One moment he was there, and the next he wasn’t. He simply dissolved into nothingness. Extinguished.

Clarence was thrown off balance by Squirrel’s unexpected vanishing act, and Milos, forgetting his resolve to stand against the scar wraith, turned and ran in terror, skinjacking the first fleshie to cross his path.

Clarence didn’t bother with Milos. He was more concerned with the spirit who had disappeared at his touch.

“Where’d he go?” Clarence asked. “Is this another ghostie trick?”

Mikey shook his head, not wanting to believe it. There was a stirring in his soul now, building toward pain—the kind of pain the living felt. “No trick, Clarence.”

“So, where did he go?”

“Nowhere,” Mikey sadly told him. “He went nowhere.”

CHAPTER 28
The Tears of Eternity