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confounds all attempts to discover where they actually go. The official term for sinking, coined by none other than Mary Hightower herself, is “Gravity Fatigue.”
    In her groundbreaking book
The Gravity of Gravity,
Mary writes: “Do not believe rumors that children leave Everlost. We are here to stay. Those who can no longer be seen have simply fallen victim to Gravity Fatigue, and are either at, or on their way to the center of the Earth. I imagine the center of the Earth must be a crowded place by now, but perhaps it is the spirits of those of us residing there that keep the Earth alive and green.”
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CHAPTER 5
Friends in High Places
    M ary Hightower was not born with that name. She could no longer remember what her true name was, although she was relatively certain her first name started with an
M.
She took the name Mary because it seemed a proper, motherly name. True, she was only fifteen, but had she lived, she would most certainly have become a mother. And anyway, she was a mother to those who needed one—and there were many.
    The name Hightower came because she was the very first who dared to ascend.
    That singular bold act of climbing the stairs and staking a claim had earned her a level of respect from others she could not have imagined. They were in awe of her, and many other Everlost children followed her lead. Realizing her position was now high in more ways than one, she decided it was time to share what she knew about Everlost with all Afterlights. Although she had been writing for more than a hundred years, she had only shared it with the small group of younger children she had taken under her wing. But the moment she became Mary Hightower, all that changed. Nowher writings were read by everyone—and what had once been a small group of children in her care had grown into hundreds. She had no doubt she would eventually be a mother to thousands.
    Some people thought of her as a god. She had no desire to be a god, but she did like the respect and honor with which she was now treated. Of course, she did have her enemies, and they called her less flattering things, but always from a safe distance.
    Today her view from the top floor was magnificent, and sometimes she swore she could see the whole world from here. Yet she knew it was a world that had gone on without her. Far below the traffic of the living world passed, dots of buses and taxis in constant congestion.
Let them go about their business,
she thought.
It means nothing to me. My concern is this world, not theirs.
    A knock at the door drew her attention away from the view. In a moment Stradivarius stepped in, a mousy boy with tufts of tightly curled blond hair.
    â€œWhat is it, Vari?”
    â€œA Finder’s here to see you, Miss Mary. He says he’s got something really good.”
    Mary sighed. Everyone called themselves “Finders” these days. Usually they had never actually found anything of importance. A scrap of paper, a piece of driftwood, maybe. The true Finders had far better goods. They were masters at what they did, and knew all the circumstances that could cause an object to cross over into Everlost. The
true
Finders were few.
    â€œIs this someone we’ve seen before?”
    â€œI think so,” said Stradivarius. “And I think he’s got real food!”
    This news caught Mary’s attention, although she tried not to show Vari how much. She was good at keeping her emotions to herself, but if the Finder truly had food that had crossed over from the living world, it would be hard to contain herself.
    â€œShow him in.”
    Vari slipped out, and returned with a young man, about thirteen years old, wearing nothing but a bathing suit, its waistband hidden by a pasty root-beer belly.
Well,
thought Mary,
we can’t choose the moment and manner of our crossing.
Just as this boy was condemned to travel eternity in a wet bathing suit, she was consigned to the most uncomfortable school