Allie, wisely said nothing.

“We should make her skim,” said Raggedy Andy. “That way we’ll know whether she’s worthy.”

Johnnie-O explained that all prospective members of the Altar Boys had to take a coin and skim it on the Hudson River. If it skimmed at least twice like a stone, then you were worthy of joining the Altar Boys. You had to use a coin you crossed with, and you only got one chance because once your coin sank, it was gone for good.

Allie was confused. “But … how can you skim an Everlost coin on living-world water? It wouldn’t work—it would just fall straight through.”

“Well,” said Johnnie-O with a wink, “I’m the one who decides whether or not I saw it skim.”

The next morning, they came to the George Washington Bridge, which crossed the Hudson into the northern tip of Manhattan. There they halted. Allie looked back to see them all milling around near the on-ramp.

“We don’t do bridges,” Johnnie-O said and Allie smirked.

“Oh, are you scared?”

Johnnie-O narrowed his eyes into a glare. “If you ever tried to cross a bridge you’d know how easy it is to sink right through it, and fall into the river. But I guess you ain’t bright enough to figure that out.”

Allie was about to fire right back at him, about how she had already crossed this bridge, and maybe his name should be Johnnie-Zero, instead of Johnnie-O, because he had zero guts—but then Raggedy Andy said, “We lost more than twenty kids once trying to cross the Tappan Zee bridge. It was awful.”

Everyone looked down sadly, realized their shoes were sinking into the road, and began to shuffle around again.

“Old news,” said Johnnie-O, clenching his fists, “but we don’t cross bridges no more.”

Allie swallowed everything she was about to say. She wondered if she, Nick, and Lief would have sunk through this bridge, if they hadn’t been wearing their road-shoes.

“Maybe she is working for the Sky Witch,” said one of the little kids. “Maybe she wants us to sink.”

The others looked at her now with frightened eyes, but the look quickly mildewed into threatening.

“Johnnie-O’s right,” Allie said, “we shouldn’t risk it.”

“We’ll take the tunnel,” Johnnie-O announced, and led the way.

Flurries were falling by the time they reached the Lincoln Tunnel four hours later. Although there was a narrow service catwalk along the side, Johnnie-O led his crew right down the middle of the road, intentionally letting oncoming traffic barrel right through them.

The Everlost version of macho, thought Allie. Although she would have much preferred the catwalk, she didn’t want to show any signs of weakness, so she walked side by side with Johnnie-O, ignoring the annoying sensation of through-traffic.

By the time they reached the Manhattan side of the tunnel, the flurries had grown into a full-fledged snowstorm, the first of the winter. A violent wind tore at the coats of the living.

Snow felt different than rain or sleet as it passed through Allie. It tickled. As for the wind, she felt it, and it was indeed cold. But like all other weather conditions, feeling it and being affected by it were two different things. The cold did not, could not, make her shiver. And yet as unpleasant as it seemed for the living people fighting the snowstorm, Allie wished she could be one of them. But Johnnie-O, like Mary, had no interest in the living. Allie wondered how long until she became like that.