Jix sensed an unspoken request in her voice. There was something she needed from him. Jix knew what it was, and only now was he willing to give it. He bowed his head respectfully, and said, “I am at your service, Miss Hightower. Whatever you want to do now, I will make sure that it is done.” Then he added, “All these Afterlights are yours to command.”

“Thank you,” she said, “but I do not command, I protect.”

Jix bowed his head again. “My mistake.”

Mary looked out at the Afterlights all waiting for guidance, then she turned back to Jix, offering him a smile that seemed to him both warm and cunning. Very catlike.

“I want you to tell me about this king of yours,” she said, “and the City of Souls.”

CHAPTER 30
Something About a Chicken

They’re going to find your son soon,” a voice said loudly inside the woman’s head. “I want to prepare you for the worst. . . .”

The woman was taken by surprise. When her son was not among the kids who had been rescued from the playground, she feared the worst, but hoped that perhaps he wasn’t on the playground at all. Perhaps he was in the nurse’s office or the bathroom. But no one had seen him in those places—and now there was this strange voice in her head.

“I can’t imagine your pain, but you’re not alone. I’m here to comfort you.”

“Who is this?” the woman said to the voice in her mind.

“I’m a spirit sent to tell you that your son has reached his destination.”

“What do you mean ‘his destination’? Who is this? How are you inside my thoughts?”

“I’m here to comfort you in your time of sorrow. You can mourn your loss, and cry that you’ll never see him again in this life, but don’t mourn for his spirit—because I saw him go into the light with my own eyes, and there was a smile on his face brighter than I’ve ever seen! He got where he was going . . . and he’s happy.”

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.”