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Chapters (54)
  1. Cover
  2. EVERWILD
  3. Dedication
  4. Acknowledgments
  5. Copyright Page
  6. PART ONEA Vapor of Afterlights
  7. CHAPTER 1Fresh Havoc
  8. CHAPTER 2The View on High
  9. CHAPTER 3Audience with an Ogre
  10. CHAPTER 4The Outcast
  11. CHAPTER 5Southern Discomfort
  12. CHAPTER 6Shuttle Diplomacy
  13. CHAPTER 7A Fistful of Forever
  14. PART TWODancing with the Deadlies
  15. CHAPTER 8Treasures of the Flesh
  16. CHAPTER 9Good Stewards
  17. CHAPTER 10Skinjacking for Fun and Profit
  18. CHAPTER 11Surfing Tennessee
  19. CHAPTER 12Of Monsters and Mullets
  20. CHAPTER 13Bye-bye, Miss American Pie
  21. CHAPTER 14Strange Winds
  22. CHAPTER 15The Flight of Mikey McGill
  23. PART THREEThe Great White City
  24. CHAPTER 16Mary’s Master Plan
  25. CHAPTER 17The Death Boss
  26. CHAPTER 18The Interlight Incubator
  27. CHAPTER 19Eminence Green
  28. PART FOURWay of the Chocolate Warrior
  29. CHAPTER 20The Great Train Robbery
  30. CHAPTER 21Let ’Er Rip
  31. CHAPTER 22Cram That Sucker
  32. CHAPTER 23Severance and Blithe
  33. CHAPTER 24It’s a Dog’s Life
  34. PART FIVEThe Skinjacker Revelations
  35. CHAPTER 25Lair of the Cat Woman
  36. CHAPTER 26Home
  37. CHAPTER 27Skinjacker’s Lullaby
  38. CHAPTER 28The Sleep of the Dead
  39. CHAPTER 29Teed for Two
  40. CHAPTER 30A Place on the Mantel
  41. PART SIXCity of the Dead
  42. CHAPTER 31On the Banks of Eternity
  43. CHAPTER 32The Low Approach
  44. CHAPTER 33Suspicious Minds
  45. CHAPTER 34Poolside Rendezvous
  46. CHAPTER 35Allie-Allie-Oxen-Free
  47. CHAPTER 36The Intolerable Nexus of Extremes
  48. CHAPTER 37Sky Refugees
  49. CHAPTER 38Last Train Out of Memphis
  50. CHAPTER 39At the Moment of Madness
  51. CHAPTER 40The Changeling and the Golem
  52. EPILOGUERequiem for the Living
  53. Unwind excerpt
  54. Unwholly excerpt
In her most recent book, What You Don’t Know Can Most Certainly Hurt You, Mary Hightower writes:
“It would be untrue to say Everlost is entirely free from illness and disease. Our flesh is gone, but in our beings, seeds of our own doom remain. That which was small will grow. That which was once insignificant can devour us. There are cancers beyond those of our mortal bodies. I consider them punishments for unwholesome deeds and wrongful thinking. The Chocolate Ogre serves as a perfect example, for whose thinking can be more wrong than his, and whose affliction could be more unpleasant?”

CHAPTER 20
The Great Train Robbery

A large vapor of Afterlights gathered to watch the festivities in the old train yards of Chattanooga, Tennessee. It was the most exciting thing to happen here in recent memory. It began with the arrival of the Chocolate Ogre, and rumor was that he was going to perform some sort of magic trick.

A team of ten Afterlights, supervised by the Ogre himself, took a rope, and tied it around the waist of a kid in a Confederate Army uniform.

It was, of course, Zinnia.

“Let’s not make this a show,” Nick told her. “Let’s just get this done.”

“S’already a show,” Zin pointed out, “best milk it for all it’s worth.”

Zin concentrated and thrust her ripping-hand out of Everlost, and into the living world just as easily as if she were shoving her hand into water. “Ooh” and “ahh” went the crowd. Then, through the tiny portal into the living world, Zin grabbed the rusted coupling of a living-world train car, springing it closed on her forearm, like a bear trap. They had chosen an Amtrak passenger car—an older one, because it was the only uncoupled passenger car they could find.

Once she was sure her arm was firmly snagged in the coupler, she turned to her team. “All right, y’all know the drill. One, two, three, pull!”

The other ten Afterlights behind her began to pull on the rope which was still tied around her waist. Nick watched, but couldn’t participate, because these days everything he touched became too slippery to hold on to.

The team of ten strained as they pulled on Zin with all their strength, and with her arm still firmly caught in the coupler, her body lifted off the ground. A living body might have been torn in half by such a thing, but not an Afterlight. Instead, Zin withstood the force, and the solitary train car began to move. Getting it moving was the hard part. Once it was moving, the small hole in space which at first had been just large enough for Zin’s hand, now stretched like elastic, until the entire passenger car was moving through the portal, out of the living world, and into Everlost.