“Jill?” The Ogre took in the lie, and his face began to lose some of its form again, his identity moving away from the boy once known as Nick.

“Yes, you love Jill,” Milos insisted, “and you long to wrap your arms around her, and smother her in chocolate, and sink with her down to the center of the earth.”

“And . . . and this Jill . . . she loves me?”

“More than anything,” said Moose.

Squirrel snickered. “Yeah, yeah, a match made in heaven.” The Chocolate Ogre’s muddy eyes now darted back and forth between the three of them in confusion.

“Do whatever I tell you,” said Milos, “and we will make sure you find Jackin’ Jill, the girl you love.”

The Chocolate Ogre sighed, resigned, and Milos turned to the gathered kids, who still reveled in the tiny taste of chocolate they all just had. “We will track down our attackers and bring Mary back,” Milos told them. “I promise you this.”

“But there are so many of them,” said one fearful Afterlight. “And they have weapons.”

Milos waved the worry away. “Who needs weapons when we have the Chocolate Ogre on our side?”

“Wait,” said the Ogre, trying to remember something. “What about . . . uh . . . what about . . . Allie?”

To which Milos replied, “Allie who?”

The Chocolate Ogre opened his mouth as if to say something—as if there was something he was supposed to remember—someone he was supposed to find. But whatever memory he was trying to save, it sank into the mire of his mind just as the sleeping car sank into the earth.

In her book My Struggle: The Quest for a Perfect World, Mary Hightower expresses her feelings on “lost souls.”

“I believe every wayward Afterlight can be rehabilitated. It begins with the purging of living memory, and ends with the joyous discovery of one’s perfect day, to be relived forevermore. On occasion we can find powers we never knew we had—all the more reason to leave behind as many memories as we can!”

CHAPTER 16
Wurlitzer

There is a vortex in south Texas.

A place that exists both in the living world and in Everlost that is rife with unpredictable supernatural properties. It is much like the Intolerable Nexus of Extremes in Memphis—also known as Graceland—the vortex which accelerated the transmutation of Nick into chocolate. It is similar to the Orlando Frost Vortex, a curious spot that exists underneath a huge faux castle and will cryogenically freeze any Afterlight that stands there.

But to say any one vortex is like another is misleading. All vortices are unique in their effects—and the Vortex of the Aggravated Martyr—also known as the Alamo—had the power to give any army garrisoned there courage. A ridiculous amount of courage. The Neon Nightmares were not much of a fighting force until they chose to live at the Alamo—and although they numbered only a hundred and ten, their courage gave them a boldness that made them seem like twice as many. It was the type of courage that in the living world would get counties, TV shows, and knives named after you, particularly when that courage got you killed.