Only now, as she spent her days riding the skies, did she realize she had stayed put for way too long. She had missed so much up in her towers—but then the towers were a citadel against her brother, Mikey—the monster who called himself the McGill. Mikey had been defeated. He was harmless now. And now Mary no longer had to wait for Afterlights to find her. She could go out and find them herself.

“Why are you always looking out of those windows?” Speedo would ask her, when he took a break from piloting the airship. “What do you see?”

“A world of ghosts,” she would tell him. Speedo had no idea that the ghosts she spoke of were the so-called living. How insubstantial that world was. Nothing in it lasted, not places, not people. It was a world full of pointless pursuits that always ended the same way. A tunnel, and surrender. Well, not always, she thought happily. Not for everyone.

“I’d still rather be alive,” Speedo would say whenever she spoke of how blessed they were to be here in Everlost.

“If I had lived,” Mary would remind him, “I’d be long dead by now … and you’d probably be a fat, bald accountant.”

Then Speedo would look at his slight physique, dripping wet—always dripping wet in the bathing suit he died in—to reassure himself that he’d never have grown fat and bald, had he lived. But Mary knew better. Adulthood can do the most horrific things to the best of people. Mary much preferred being fifteen forever.

Mary took a moment to gather herself and prepare to greet the new arrival. She would do it personally. It was her way, and it was the least she could do. She would be the first out of the ship—a slender figure in a plush green velvet dress, and with a perfect fall of copper hair, descending the ramp from the impossibly huge hydrogen airship. This is how it was done. With class, with style. The personal touch. All new arrivals would know from the first moment they met her that she loved each and every child in her care and they were safe under her capable protection.