Johnnie took some time to rustle up what memories he could. “When I died, The Whistler was my favorite radio show,” he said.

Radio, thought Nick. That would probably place Johnnie-O in the 1930s, maybe ’40s.

“The place we’re going is part of my history, but part of your future—and anything I tell you will just make you ask more questions that I don’t want to answer.”

Nick turned and continued walking.

“I’m really starting not to like you,” Johnnie-O said. “Not that I ever liked you to begin with.” But still he followed Nick east.

Great tragedies have great consequences. They ripple through the fabric of this world and the next. When the loss is too great for either world to bear, Everlost absorbs the shock, like a cushion between the two.

On a sunny Tuesday—for it seems so many awful things happen on a Tuesday—six astronauts and one schoolteacher attempted to pierce the sky. Instead they touched the stars.

Ask anyone who was alive at the time, and they will still remember where they were the moment they heard that the shuttle Challenger blew up just seventy-three seconds after lifting off from Cape Canaveral. The shape of that terrible explosion became burned into human consciousness like the shape of the mushroom cloud over Hiroshima.

The world mourned the lives lost, as well as mourning the loss of an idea, for although space flight had always been, and would always be a dangerous endeavor, there was a certain unspoken faith that human ingenuity, and the grace of God, would keep our ascent to the heavens safe. But the universe is nothing if not balanced. For every Apollo Thirteen, there would be a Challenger. For every miracle, a tragedy.

But look away now from that fiery forked cloud in the sky, for history cannot be undone. Instead look to the Cape, where you will see a spacecraft pointed eternally heavenward, preserved in Everlost, in that perfect moment of glorious anticipation. Its countdown is forever frozen at one second before liftoff, for that is the last moment a launch can be aborted. It is the moment that stands on the edge of hope and doom.

Seven valiant souls got where they were going that morning, and while eternity opened its gates to welcome them, Everlost opened its gates to welcome the majestic vessel that took them where all men have gone before.

“What is that, some kind of castle?” asked Johnnie-O, looking across the lagoon to the towering marvel.

Nick forgave him his ignorance. What would have been the point in trying to explain this earlier? It was best to let him see it for himself. “It’s a spaceship.”

“Do you think I’m an idiot?”