When the fire threat was determined to be false, the alarm was reset, and the living were allowed back into the building—including the cranberry woman who was as loud as she was large, and demanded that security be on the lookout for ghosts. She insisted that a ghost had probably pulled the alarm. Security, however, had already nabbed her nephew as a suspect, an obnoxious boy with a history of lies and mischief. The woman insisted that Ralphy had been possessed.

Milos could not stand listening to her endless nattering. “Will you go skinjack her,” Milos told Moose, “and make her shut up?”

“Do I have to? She’s really not my type.”

“Just do it!”

Reluctantly, Moose jumped into the woman, and she immediately stopped talking. Then, commandeering her body, Moose took her out into the middle of the courtyard and started her doing the Hokey Pokey. By the time she was putting her left arm in, other tourists had begun to join in the spontaneous fun, until about a dozen Alamo visitors were doing the Hokey Pokey in the courtyard. Not to be outdone, Squirrel skinjacked an elderly gentleman in the Arbor Garden, and started doing the Chicken Dance, but nobody joined him.

Milos went back into the Shrine, and saw the Chocolate Ogre standing beneath a stone arch, looking at a series of historic Texas flags. He seemed thoughtful—which worried Milos. He did not want the Ogre thinking too much.

“People died here,” the Ogre said. “A hundred and fifty of ’em.” And he pointed to a full-fledged deadspot in a small grotto that didn’t shift in and out of phase like the rest of the building. “Jim Bowie, Davey Crockett, William Travis . . . I did a report on the Alamo once. . . .” And as he remembered, his shapeless face started to change. “I wonder if I could find the spot where Bowie died. . . .” The memory was strong enough to bring form back to his face. Cheekbones and a jawline.

“But what about Jill?” Milos said quickly. “Remember. That’s why you’re here; to find Jill.”

“Right,” said the Ogre, losing his focus. He looked around as if coming out of a trance—never realizing that this was the trance. “Well, she’s not here,” the Ogre said, then strode out to search another building.

Milos walked the grounds’ inner perimeter, getting increasingly frustrated—and then he heard something. Music—and it didn’t have the hollow timbre that living-world music had to Everlost ears. It was coming from the gift shop!

By the time Milos had gotten to the gift shop building, the music had stopped. Now the only sounds were the inane conversations of the living.