Cramming, which had been so hard at first, had become easier, just as the Ogre had said it would--but nothing could make this easy. It wasn't like picking a lock, it was like breaking into Fort Knox.

And to make it even worse, Kudzu began to whine and resist the second the portal began to open. "Help me!" Zin said, straining to force Kudzu forward. Now the Ogre pushed along with her, both of them straining with all their might. His snout was through, then his head, then his front legs. Kudzu let loose a mournful howl, the portal stretched around his haunches, and with a final push he was through, the portal healed closed, and Zin and the Ogre fell back, knocked down by the shock wave of the sealing portal.

Kudzu darted back and forth on the grass in front of them, confused and confounded by the change.

"Look!" the Ogre said. "He has no afterglow! Do you see? Do you see?" Kudzu was back in the living world! The browns of his fur were paler and out of focus, and his body was true flesh and bone. He leaped this way and that, searching for Zin, barking frantically. Some faint sense must have told him she was still there, but he couldn't find her and never would.

"He's alive!" the Ogre said, like some mad scientist. "He's alive!"

"I'm sorry, boy," Zin whimpered, "I'm so, so sorry... ." But she knew Kudzu couldn't hear her.

The family, hearing the barking dog, came out to the yard, and although it took a few minutes, it was the kids who won Kudzu over. They put their arms around his frightened neck.

"What's your name, boy?" the girl asked.

"It's Kudzu!" shouted Zin, but no one heard.

Thunder rolled, a little closer than before. The parents looked up at the threatening sky, and the boy said, "Let's call him Storm!"

And that finally closed the circle--because Zin suddenly remembered that Storm was his real name.

In a few moments, the dog's barks became whimpers, which soon gave way to nervous panting. It wasn't long until Kudzu/Storm lay down and rolled over, angling for a belly rub, which his new family was more than happy to provide.

Zin turned to the Ogre. "I hate you," she said, and she meant it with every bit of her being.

"You can hate me all you want," he told her. "But you've just shown your loyalty by putting your orders ahead of your personal feelings. That kind of loyalty is rewarded ... lieutenant." Then he reached forward with his chocolate-covered hand, and painted a fresh brown chevron on the sleeve of her uniform. Then he said something that put it all into focus for Zin, making her admire him almost as much as she hated him.

"I want you to remember what it took to push Kudzu into the living world," the Chocolate Ogre told her, "because very soon, that's exactly what you'll be doing to Mary Hightower."

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PART FIVE The Skinjacker Revelations In Tips for Taps, chapter 5, entitled "What You Don't Remember Can't Hurt You," Mary Hightower writes:

"Memory is a strange thing in Everlost. The Afterlight mind is like a toy box in a toddler's room. If a precious memory is taken out of the box to be pawed and fondled, chances are it won't get back into the box. Consequently the only way to hold on to a memory in Everlost is never to think about it."

Chapter 25 Lair of the Cat Woman

When it came to memory, Mary's observations didn't hold true for skinjackers. Unlike Nick, Allie never forgot her last name. It was Johnson.

With such a common last name, however, locating her parents in Memphis was not an easy matter. Her parents names were Adam and Andrea, so naturally they chose A names for their daughters. There were ten Adams, two Andreas, and more than a hundred A. Johnsons in the Memphis phone book. She had already determined that both their cell phone numbers had been disconnected, so Allie would have to skinjack someone, and start making cold calls.

It had to be done by skinjacking--she already knew that. She didn't know whether or not the "gravity" of home would apply here, but she didn't want to take the chance. Showing up at her family's new house and witnessing their lives moving forward without her might turn the ground to quicksand just as standing on her old doorstep had.

Besides, she had another compelling reason to skinjack. The Everlost wind. It was uncanny, and maddening--a gale force that only Afterlights could feel blasting off the Mississippi River. Five miles east of Memphis, where she and Milos had parted company, the wind was just a breeze, but the closer one came to the river, the more powerful the wind grew--and since Memphis rested right on the river's east bank, there was no way to escape it.

Allie skinjacked a tourist walking toward the river to see what this was all about. From within a fleshie, there seemed to be nothing unusual at all. The river appeared normal ... but then she made the mistake of peeling out of the tourist right by the riverbank. The wind caught her like a hurricane, whistling in her ears, scrambling her thoughts. She struggled against it, but in the end it lifted her off her feet, and tumbled her head over heels through building after building, until she was far enough away to find her balance again. In this city--and presumably anyplace on the east bank of the Mississippi--the only way to resist the wind was to skinjack.

Therefore negotiating Memphis required her to skinjack on a regular basis. It was a challenge, because Allie had never stayed fleshbound for long periods of time. The longest had been the recent drive with Milos, Moose, and Squirrel as they drove to Memphis in the bodies of a family. That had taken just a few hours, and Allie found that peeling out had been like trying to take off a wetsuit that was two sizes two small.

The task of finding and approaching her family would require a very specific kind of host, but who to choose? There were so many variables, Allie had to create herself a checklist of all the things that her host should, and should not be.

1) It had to be someone her parents would invite inside.

If she skinjacked a deliveryman, as she had done when she approached her old house in New Jersey, it wouldn't be good enough. With a deliveryman as her host, any encounter would be brief, and only over the threshold of the front door. What she needed was not just a way to get the door open, but a way to get through it.

2) It had to be someone they would feel comfortable talking with about the accident.

When she finally got inside their new home, she didn't want to talk about the weather and current events, she wanted to know how it all played out, and somehow give her parents, her sister, and maybe herself, some comfort and closure.

3) It had to be someone who would not be missed for multiple skinjackings.

If Allie was to use someone's body as a base of operations, it would be a nuisance if that person had a demanding job or a whole lot of personal responsibilities.

4) It had to be someone who would not notice the lost time themselves.

A suspicious fleshie was the worst kind of host. Best to choose someone who wouldn't be aware that something unusual was going on--or at least could come up with a logical explanation for the missing time.

With all these things to consider, Allie was undecided for days, shuttling from person to person, hiding within them, observing them, thinking she had the perfect host, but then changing her mind. Allie finally settled on a woman who lived alone, except for a multitude of cats that came and went through a pet door. By Allie's observations, the woman's life was simple, and predictable. Tending to the cats, watching TV, crocheting, taking an afternoon nap. No one bothered her, and she bothered no one else. She was the perfect host for a long-term project.

When the woman lay down for her nap at two o'clock the following afternoon, Allie skinjacked her, and her detective work began. The first few phone calls determined that none of the Adams and Andreas listed were her parents, so she went on to the countless A. Johnsons. The idea that one of her parents' live voices could be at the other end of any phone call made her borrowed heart race, but mostly she got answering machines, which was a relief each time. That first day all she did was make calls, but not a single A. Johnson had been her mother or her father, and what few Memphis relatives she knew by name must have been unlisted too.

After three hours of unsuccessful phone calls, Allie began to doubt everything. What if the people in New Jersey were wrong, and her parents didn't come to Memphis? What if her father died in the accident after all? Allie began to despair, and her own emotional turmoil began to wake the woman.

Losing control of a fleshie was like slipping on wet ice--once you lost control, it was hard to get it back, and Allie was slip-sliding like crazy. The woman awoke, took over her own body, and Allie quickly hid behind the woman's thoughts--which, without proper preparation, was like hiding behind window curtains. Now there was only a slim veil between her consciousness and Allie's--any powerful thought would reveal her presence, so she tried not to think at all.

--My my my--half past five long nap--my my my--how did I get into the kitchen--my my my--I didn't leave that phone book out did I--my my my--

Allie knew peeling out of the woman wouldn't be easy, having been in her for more than three hours, but she didn't want to linger inside her either. She peeled out while the woman was distracted, tending to the cats--but after three whole hours, this wasn't like peeling off a wet suit, it was more like ripping off a Band-Aid. It was sharp and shocking. The woman gasped and fell back into a chair, her hand on her chest. Then, when the woman caught her breath, she went around the house checking that all the locks were secure, as if she sensed an intruder. So much for not raising suspicion.

Now Allie was back in the wind--not strong enough to knock her off her feet, but disorienting nonetheless. She skinjacked someone driving through the neighborhood, then when she got to a more crowded street, she soul-surfed from car to car, until she was far enough away from the river that the wind was bearable. She spent the night knees-to-chest on a roadside deadspot the size of a basketball, considering what her next move should be.

It was somewhere around midnight that it struck Allie how amazingly stupid she had been! Her investigative technique was stuck in "Nancy Drew" mode, which might have been fine when the cat woman was her age, but not in this day and age. Allie should have been much more forward-thinking. This, after all, was the age of information. Why would anyone need a phone book when you had e-mail addresses?

Allie returned the following day to discover that the cat woman was cutting-edge. In her spare room, she had a laptop that picked up a neighbor's wireless network. Of course her Internet favorites list contained things like the Crocheting Club of America, but it was good to know that even the hopelessly old-fashioned and questionably batty could still be Web-savvy.

Now Allie had a plan. She waited until the woman took her afternoon nap, jacked her the instant the woman's head hit the pillow, and went straight for the laptop.

First Allie created a new e-mail address: [email protected] /* */ . The question was, why would the cat woman have a reason to e-mail Allie's parents? Allie had the perfect solution. The cat woman bore a slight resemblance to Mrs. Wintuck, one of Allie's old teachers. Of course the hair was the wrong color and a little too straight, but that could be dealt with. Allie felt confident that this woman could pass for Mrs. Wintuck--at least when it came to her parents. So she composed an e-mail using both of her parents' e-mail addresses as recipients, marking it "urgent."