Everwild

CHAPTER 16 Mary's Master Plan

It would be untrue to say that Mary Hightower had, from the very beginning, planned the various things she would soon accomplish, and the many things she would soon attempt. Ideas take root, plans blossom, and old ones wither and die-in Everlost, just as in the living world.

Back in her days at the towers, Mary had dedicated herself to taking stray Afterlights under her wing, and finding for them the one activity that would occupy them until the end of time. She believed this to be a noble calling. Nick, however, had dazzled her children with those abominable coins, then dispatched them all into that mysterious light at the end of the tunnel, from which there is no return.

She could not blame the children, for what child could resist such a mystery? It was all Nick's pigheaded wrongmindedness, and she marveled at how much damage a single individual could do to her controlled, perfect little universe.

She hated him with a ferocity and passion that was only matched by how much she also loved him-and the endless conflict of those two emotions made it impossible to go back to the way things were before. She supposed in some ways, she owed Nick a debt of gratitude, because if he hadn't freed her children from Everlost, Mary would never have been rousted out of her own pattern; she never would have seen the larger picture, and she never would have cultivated grander plans.

Certainly she would still gather and protect as many Afterlights as she could, but that would soon become a small part of a master blueprint so massive, it would make Mary light-headed every time she was to think of it.

When she came to Chicago, however, the plan was still merely an inkling-a seedling just beginning to sprout something green. She had yet to realize how deep the roots would take, and how large the limbs would grow.