The living half of Clarence’s face puckered into something resembling a smile. “You are,” he said.

Allie had tried to put it out of her mind. The thought of returning to herself, the dream of skinjacking her own body had been there, burning a hole in her mind the way that Everlost coin had sat heavy in her pocket until she gave it away. Since the moment Allie knew that her body was still clinging to life, she knew this day would come, but rather than dreaming of a joyful reunion of spirit and flesh, she feared the moment. She had good reason. Her family had made a life without her, and returning now would be difficult for all of them. The sight of Milos and Moose was disturbing to her as well. Milo’s body had been in a severe state of atrophy, and Moose was completely paralyzed. Even if they could have returned to skinjack themselves, why would they have? An existence as a free spirit was better than being bound to a body with no hope of recovery, wasn’t it?

But what if her body were undamaged?

What if she could just slip back into it and resume her life?

“Once you skinjack yourself,” Jix had told her, “that’s it. You’re bound to your flesh until the day you die.” If she ever did it, she knew there would be no going back . . . so for Allie it was best never to know the state of her body. That way, she would never have to decide.

Yet in spite of all the reasons not to go, she and Clarence boarded a flight to Memphis, and Wolf River Convalescent Hospital.

CHAPTER 41
Punishment and Crime

It was decided that sending Jill down to the center of the earth was much too kind a fate for her. Punishment for treason, Mary decided, should include far more suffering than that. As a skinjacker, Jill could experience pain while in a living body, but physical torture was far too barbaric for Mary’s taste. Then it occurred to her that true punishment could only come if Jill was forced to linger within an undesirable host long enough to permanently bond with it.

Standing in the crossed gazebo, with her entire cumulus of Afterlights filling the park around her, a jury of twelve announced their verdict, without the messy inconvenience of an actual trial. Then Mary pronounced the sentence.

“Jackin’ Jill, you have been found guilty of treason and high crimes against the universe,” she proclaimed. “Your punishment is to be bound to the body of a pig for the rest of your natural days.”

Through all of it, Jill had said nothing either in defense or in objection. Primarily because she had been gagged.