Thief of Souls by Neal Shusterman
Still on his knees, Dillon adjusted the flowers, which he knew was unnecessary, because whatever he did, they were in a perfect, orderly pattern.
“Any feelings about where Lourdes might be?” Dillon asked.
Winston put his hands in his pockets and shook his head. “Only that she’s somewhere far away.”
It was not good news, because now they needed to be together even more than before. They could not let what Okoya had done to them keep them divided. Dillon stood, but kept his eyes fixed on his parents’ gravestones.
“So,” said Winston with a shrug, “are you going to do it?”
Dillon looked down at the two gravestones. His own parents had been the first two casualties of the Spirit of Destruction—their brains had been scrambled so badly just by being near Dillon, that they simply couldn’t hold on to life. It had been an untimely and unjust way to die—and if anyone deserved to be brought back, they did.
He turned to gaze at the endless fields of the departed. There was a funeral in the distance to his right, and to his left, an old woman shed tears for her husband. But they were good tears. They were natural tears.
“No,” said Dillon. “No, I’m not going to.” And he didn’t just mean his parents; he meant everyone—from the ones whose lives had ended when he had crossed the Pacific Northwest, to the ones whose deaths had had nothing to do with him at all. No, he would not bring any of them back.
“Death has got to mean something, Winston.” Dillon wiped the tears from his eyes with the heel of his hand. “Even if it’s awful, and even if it’s unfair, it’s got to mean something. I know that’s screwed, but somehow it’s also right.”
He expected Winston to disagree somehow—he never had found approval in anything that Dillon did. But this time Winston surprised him.
“I’ve done some terrible things, too,” said Winston. “I suppose I could make myself feel better by making a hundred people walk again, but then I’d never know if making them walk was the right thing to do, or if I was just doing it for myself. Best to get our own heads on straight first.”
So Winston did understand. It was comforting for once, to be on the same wavelength with him.
“One problem, though,” Winston added. “You made a promise back at the castle, that we’d never be hurt as long as we followed you. Tory and Michael were part of that promise.”
Winston was right. Dillon had made a promise, and it left him in an irreconcilable dilemma. For as much as he wanted to live by his conviction that he would never abuse the power of resurrection again, he also knew that he would break his own rule for Tory and Michael, if he got the chance.
He wished Winston could offer him some pearls of wisdom, but he had none.
Dillon closed his eyes. It was hard enough to seek out the living, but finding the dead? He wasn’t even sure if they died in the rubble of the dam, or somewhere else. “We’ll look for them,” Dillon said. “And if we ever find their bodies, we’ll decide what to do then.”
From here on in, Dillon knew, his decisions would only get harder. In the days since Okoya’s departure, tens of thousands had flown in from around the world to bathe in the healing waters of the Colorado and Columbia Rivers, and to witness Dillon’s miracle of the Backwash. People whispered his name, from the humblest to the most elite of circles, as their alliances realigned toward him. Okoya was right about one thing: It was too late to stop it. How long until everyone in the world knew his name? Twenty-four days and counting, whether he liked it or not.
“Come on, we’d better get out of here,” said Winston. “This isn’t a good place to stand for too long, if you know what I mean.”
Dillon looked around, and knew exactly what Winston meant. Thanks to Dillon, all the dead flowers gracing the neighboring stones had become fresh again—and thanks to Winston, they were all growing new buds. Even more worrisome was Dillon’s sense that the rows of the dead were ever so slowly being coaxed back toward life by his own healing presence. It was everywhere around them—growth and rejuvenation, old life and new. It was a wonderful thing, and yet terrible all at once, for this world was not ready for their brand of talents, and they were not ready to wield them.
“Come on, Dillon. Can’t let grass grow beneath our feet,” said Winston with a wry smile, because in fact it was.
Dillon had to smile as well. He couldn’t read all the patterns ahead; there were too many variables now, too many gaping unknowns. But then he could never predict the future, could he? He could only see the directions that chance and design were supposed to take, as they moved toward an unseen future. But things change; and no pattern can ever be cast in stone. It frightened him to know that even with his remarkable vision, so much in the world was out of his control and unknowable. It was that fear of the unknown that bound him to what he was; never a god, and always human. There was comfort in that, and as they left the dead behind, Dillon took strength in the knowledge that so many things were still unknown.
Neal Shusterman, New York Times bestselling author, has written more than thirty award-winning books for children, teens, and adults, including Full Tilt; the Skinjacker Trilogy (Everlost, Everwild, and Everfound); Unwind; UnWholly; Bruiser; and The Schwa Was Here, which won the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award for fiction. Several of his books are now in development as feature films. Neal lives in Southern California when he’s not traveling the globe, and can be found online at storyman.com.
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ALSO BY NEAL SHUSTERMAN
NOVELS
Antsy Does Time
Bruiser
The Dark Side of Nowhere
Dissidents
Downsiders
The Eyes of Kid Midas
Full Tilt
The Schwa Was Here
The Shadow Club
The Shadow Club Rising
Speeding Bullet
Unwind
UnWholly
What Daddy Did
THE SKINJACKER TRILOGY
Everlost
Everwild
Everfound
THE STAR SHARDS CHRONICLES
Scorpion Shards
Thief of Souls
Shattered Sky
THE DARK FUSION SERIES
Dreadlocks
Red Rider’s Hood
Duckling Ugly
STORY COLLECTIONS
Darkness Creeping
Kid Heroes
MindQuakes
MindStorms
Visit the author at storyman.com
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1999 by Neal Shusterman
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
is a trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
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Book design by Hilary Zarycky
Jacket design by Chloë Foglia
Jacket photo-illustration copyright © 2013 by Pete Harrison
The text for this book is set in Granjon.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Shusterman, Neal.
Thief of souls / Neal Shusterman.
pages cm.—(The star shards chronicles ; book 2)
Originally published by Tor, 1999.
ISBN 978-1-4424-5837-6 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4424-5113-1 (eBook)
[1. Supernatural—Fiction. 2. Horror stories.] I. Title.
PZ7.S55987Th 2013
[Fic]—dc23
2012046097
Neal Shusterman, Thief of Souls
(Series: Star Shards Chronicles # 2)