Had Johnnie-O and his gang changed their minds? Or was this the monster that she had summoned out of the woods, pulling her out of the Earth, only to devour her? But with her eyes clear, she could now see into the face of her savior.

“Lief?”

“Are you okay?” Lief said. “I thought you were lost for sure.”

Nick was there too, and together the both of them pulled until Allie came out and landed on the solid ground of the dead-spot. She collapsed in a heap, breathing heavily, and Lief looked at her strangely.

“I know, I know,” said Allie. “I don’t have to be out of breath, but I want to be. It feels right to be.”

“It’s okay,” said Lief. “Maybe someday you can teach me to feel that way again.”

“Where’s Johnnie-O and his cast of morons?” Allie asked.

“Gone,” Nick told her. “They were so freaked when Lief came charging out at them, they took off.”

Lief laughed. “They really thought I was the McGill. Ain’t that a hoot and a half?”

Lief began to pull ghost weeds from beneath the WELCOME TO ROCKLAND COUNTY! sign, and used their stalks to repair his road-shoes, which must have broken when he charged Johnnie-O. “Have you been following us all this time?” Allie asked.

Lief shrugged. “Well, yeah. I had to make sure you didn’t get eaten by no monsters, didn’t I?”

“Great,” said Nick. “We’ve got our own guardian angel.”

“If I were an angel, I wouldn’t be here, would I?”

Allie smiled. After all these years Lief had left his forest for them. It could not have been a choice he made lightly, and so she vowed to herself that from this moment on, she would look out for him in any way she could.

They didn’t wait until dawn, figuring Johnnie-O and his gang might come back. Rather than being troubled by the encounter, Allie found herself heartened by it. Nick was his usual gloom and doom, talking about Lord of the Flies and the dangers of rogue bands of parentless kids—but even in his worry, there was a new energy—because running into Johnnie-O proved that there were lots of Afterlights around. Not all of them would be as unpleasant as Johnnie-O’s gang.

They came to the Hudson River, and stayed on the highway that ran along the Palisades: sheer cliffs, carved by the relentless glaciers of the last Ice Age, which lined the western shore of the river. Traffic became denser, but they bore it no mind, not caring if the occasional car passed through them. In fact, for a while they tried to make a game of it, trying to figure out what song was playing on the radio during the brief instant each car sped through.

“The things we dead folk do to amuse ourselves,” Allie said, heaving a heavy sigh. The game didn’t last long, mainly because Lief, who had never heard a car radio, much less rock ‘n’ roll, felt increasingly left out.