Free Everfound by Neal Shusterman Page B

eye zipping back and forth in its socket as he examined them. His voice was both rough and almost musical, too. There was a resonance to it, like there weretwo sets of vocal cords, one a little higher than the other; clashing dissonant tones like an air raid siren.
    “Don’t touch me!” Mikey screamed. “Nick, stay away from the bars! Don’t let him touch you!”
    The scar wraith circled the cage with a heavy chain that had crossed into Everlost, and locked it in place with a padlock.
    Mikey tried everything to escape. He turned his hands into lobster claws, his fingers into tiny buzz saws, he filled his arms with muscles and tried to pry the bars apart, but he couldn’t. He might have been able to push down the sides of the spring-loaded cage, but the chain and padlock now made that impossible. He thought of squeezing through the small chain-link holes of the bed frames, but he knew that wouldn’t work either. Although Mikey could reform himself into all nature of monster, all his creations were big and bulky. He couldn’t fashion himself into a creature slim enough to slither through the narrow bars and chain-link holes of a bed frame.
    The scar wraith reached out his Everlost hand, dangling the key to the padlock, taunting him. Mikey jumped back, terrified that the wraith might touch him.
    “No way out of there,” the scar wraith said. “You’re mine now, both of you. Whatever you are. You’re stuck in there until I’m done with you . . . and then . . .” The scar wraith put the key in his pocket, then limped back to the dilapidated farmhouse. He dragged a wooden rocking chair from the porch, set it down in front of the cage, and was content to just sit there and stare at Mikey and Nick for hours. Mikey watched him, just as intently as the wraith watched them.
    No one knew why a scar wraith’s touch could extinguish, but Mikey had a theory. The living world had its natural laws, its life cycle, its science. Everlost also had natural rules. True, the rules of Everlost followed the beat of a rather syncopated drummer, but the natural laws of Everlost were sensible and consistent unto themselves. . . . But a scar wraith flew in the face of both realities. It was perhaps the only truly unnatural thing in the entire universe. Was it any wonder, then, that its touch could destroy?
    “So, are you going to tell me what’s going on?” the scar wraith finally asked, after much rocking.
    “There’s a lot going on,” Mikey answered. “Be more specific.”
    “Fine,” he snapped. “If you won’t talk, then you can just . . . you can just . . .” Then he grunted, and stormed back to the farmhouse.
    Once the scar wraith left, the Ogre, who had been content to gnaw on the chocolate-coated ham bone said, “Can we go now?”
    “No, you moron!” shouted Mikey. “We’re in a stupid cage!”
    “Oh,” said the Ogre pleasantly. “Never mind.”
    Mikey immediately felt bad for losing his temper, and for a moment he longed for the good ol’ days when he could lose his temper as much as he wanted and not have to feel sorry, or apologize for anything.
    “I didn’t mean to call you a moron,” said Mikey. “I’m sorry.” But the Ogre didn’t seem the least bit bothered, and that just made Mikey feel worse about it. “Just make sure you stay away from that . . . that thing that capturedus. Trust me—you don’t want to know what happens if he touches you.”
    Mikey shivered, which made his afterglow flicker like a failing lightbulb. To be extinguished. To not . . . be . . .
    In life, people feared it. In Everlost, souls denied the possibility—but it was always in the back of Mikey’s mind, lurking among thoughts of hell and the distant memory of pain. Mikey feared the light because he wasn’t ready to be judged, if indeed he would be. However, that was a fear he knew he would overcome when he was ready. . . . But the fear of not existing at all? He doubted he’d ever get over that.
    A few hours later,