Her change of course had brought them right into the path of the oncoming ghost ship. The bow of the McGill’s huge vessel rammed right into the ferry’s starboard side, but rather than slicing it in half, it simply passed through, as if the ferry wasn’t there. Around her the details of the ferry seemed to fade into nothing, as the Everlost reality of the ghost ship cancelled it out, plowing forward—and Allie remembered what Mary had said about how hard it was to see two things occupying the same space.

The bow of the McGill’s ship hit her, catching her solidly, and she realized she could not pass through this steel! If she didn’t find something to hold on to, the McGill’s ship would push her out of the ferry, and right into the sea. She reached for anything that she could grab on to and finally the anchor hanging from a hole in the bow swept past. She grabbed it, held on to it, and was lifted out of the ferry’s air space. In a moment the ferry was gone, chugging steadily toward Staten Island, and Allie was clinging for all she was worth to an anchor suspended above the churning water of New York bay. Silently thanking her parents for forcing her to stay in gymnastics for four years, she climbed the anchor chain, and deftly flipped onto the deck of the ghost ship.

She surprised a team of unlikely pirates, who grabbed her the second she was on board. They were even more unpleasantly distorted than the Altar Boys. They practically carried her to the highest deck, where something slouched on a gaudy throne.

The thing on the throne was far from human. Allie found it horrifying to look, yet harder to look away. It had sharp, three-fingered talons for hands, and skin as red as a lobster and pocked like the moon. Its mismatched eyes wandered of their own accord, and its nasty tuft of spidery hair looked like it might crawl off the creature’s head at any moment. This thing was beyond grotesque—so far beyond that Allie found her fear balanced by fascination. How could something so horrible exist?

“What are you?” she said. She thought she said it to herself but realized she had spoken aloud.

“I am the McGill,” it said. “Hear my name and tremble.”

And Allie laughed. She didn’t mean to, but that line was so goofy, she couldn’t help herself.

The McGill frowned, or at least she thought it frowned. It waved a dirty claw, and all the assembled “pirates” scrambled away like rats, except for the small-headed one standing beside her.

“I will make you suffer in ways you cannot imagine,” the McGill said, and although Allie believed it, she wasn’t going to let this beast see her fear the way she had let the Haunter see it. If there was one thing she had learned, it was that monsters only had the power that you gave them. But she also knew that monsters didn’t deal well with blatant disrespect. She had already disrespected the McGill once; she would probably not get away with it again.