THE KEEPERS MET ON VIDEO conference fifteen minutes before buses and parental rides departed for school.
Finn: “We had a tricky situation last night.”
Willa: “As in, Maybeck and Finn saved me.”
Finn: “And Philby.”
Maybeck, looking over Finn’s shoulder, said, “It was the Evil Queen and Cruella.”
Charlene: “Same as Downtown Disney.”
Charlene was using her own video image as a mirror while applying mascara.
Willa: “The fob was missing.”
Charlene: “Did you check-”
Willa: “The Lost and Found? Yes. Not there. Gone. It’s got to be why they crossed you, Charlene. Finn and Philby come into the Park and the three of you lead them to the fob. You Returned and they stole it. None of us saw that coming.”
Maybeck: “Whoa.”
Charlene: “They stole it, because…?”
Maybeck: “We become stuck in the Syndrome, for one thing.”
Philby: “First the server, then the fob. If we hadn’t managed to hack back into the server last night, Willa would still be stuck there.”
Finn: “I guess I can see how that helps them break out Maleficent-I mean, it takes us out of the picture-but it’s sure a lot of planning, a lot of work, if you ask me.”
Philby: “Which means we’re missing something. The bigger picture.”
He then described his fight with Hugo.
Philby: “Obviously, they knew I would try to Return you three. They sent Hugo to stop me. Hugo must be the one we can’t see in the photo. I still can’t believe he’d do this to me.”
Maybeck: “To us.”
Charlene: “This just gets creepier and creepier.”
She applied one last stroke of mascara and twisted the tube shut.
Willa: “But the real reason they wanted me was for me to describe Jess’s sketch. The one she showed me at school.”
Finn: “We need to see that up close.”
Philby: “Question-how did the Evil Queen know you’d seen the sketch?”
A general silence.
Finn: “A green-eyes. One of the spies saw Jess show Willa.”
In light of Hugo and Luowski, this seemed like the best explanation.
Charlene: “So we’re not safe at school and we’re not safe crossed over. Anyone feel like a vacation?”
She won some laughter-but not much.
Charlene: “Seriously, any ideas? I’ve got to get downstairs. The bus’ll be here any minute.”
Philby: “Stay here a second longer.”
He waited for everyone’s attention on-screen, especially Charlene’s.
Philby: “What if we missed a major clue? Finn saw Cruella on the telephone at Downtown Disney.”
Maybeck: “We all agreed that was bizarre.”
Philby: “But what if she and the Queen were DHIs at the time?”
Silence.
Philby: “What if the phone call was to request a manual Return? It’s possible DisneyQuest serves as Downtown’s centerpiece. We don’t know.”
Maybeck cursed.
Finn: “Using the phone as the signal to send them back.”
Philby: “Exactly.”
Willa: “That’s why they want the fob so badly. To make it easier for them to Return.”
Philby: “I think so, yes.”
Maybeck shouted, and Finn cupped his ear.
Maybeck: “Hold on! Wait a second.”
Philby: “We know they took control of the server. It was them who locked me out, not the Imagineers. I was never buying that. We got all hung up on it being about us, about controlling us. Locking us in the Syndrome. And sure, that’s probably part of it, but it also may be what they want us to think.”
Finn: “It explains them stealing the fob. But how could they have done it? How could they have turned themselves into DHIs?”
Philby: “The same way we turned Amanda and Jess into DHIs.”
Another long silence.
Willa: “But think about it. If they need the Return, if they can cross over as DHIs, then when that’s happening they’re asleep, right?”
For a moment it seemed as if the connection had failed-no one moved in their respective video windows. Charlene was no longer concerned with catching her bus.
Philby: “Makes sense.”
Finn: “I’ll tell you one thing; the Queen wasn’t any DHI last night. She was throwing spells all over the place.”
Charlene: “So last night she was real. But if they stole the fob for themselves, then they must be planning to cross over into one of the Parks, and a manual Return is just too hard for them to pull off.”
Willa: “They’re afraid of Jess knowing something about this. They’ve always tried to control her, from clear back at the start. If we can see the future, then maybe we can stop them. That’s got to be what they’re worried about.”
Charlene: “And you’re right, Willa; if they’re DHIs, then they’re asleep somewhere. We know that much.”
Maybeck: “I see where this is going and I’m liking it.”
Philby: “If we trap their DHIs, they’ll be stuck in SBS. They won’t be able to wake up and we’ll have defeated them. But before you freak, remember we don’t have their powers. We can’t throw up laser jails and probably can’t put fear into them the way they can with us. It’s not the same.”
Maybeck: “Back up, Philbo. Forget trapping their DHIs. What we want to do is distract their DHIs. We want to find where they’re sleeping. Long as they’re sleeping, they are totally vulnerable. Totally. We can slap on the cuffs, blindfold and gag them so they can’t throw spells or do anything to anyone. We turn them over to Wanda or the Imagineers, and that’s two more behind bars.”
Philby considered the words “behind bars” and thought of Wanda and his first contact from Wayne. His thoughts moved past Wanda to Maleficent and Chernabog and their being locked up somewhere. As so often happened with him, it just struck him like a lightning bolt. The answers to math equations came this same way; science assignments, too. A spark of understanding in his brain.
Philby: “Prison! The reason they need to be DHIs has to do with Maleficent and Chernabog-”
Finn: “So they can break them out.”
Philby: “I think so, yes. It’s their end game. It’s everything they’re about.”
Charlene: “How could that possibly work?”
Philby: “Who knows? But that’s their plan. It adds up.”
The mention of Wanda had Finn wondering about her. They’d gotten her out of jail, but she hadn’t been back in contact with them. Did she fear police surveillance? Or someone worse? She had a hearing scheduled for Monday morning.
Willa: “If they’re asleep, it’s somewhere in the Parks.”
Maybeck: “Out of the way. Someplace no one’s going to bother them.”
Finn: “Or find them.”
Charlene: “Hello? The Parks are ginormous.”
Maybeck: “There can’t be that many places. Cast Members are all over the place all the time. We can figure this out.”
Maybeck didn’t often play cheerleader. None of the others knew quite what to say.
Philby: “Don’t forget, we surprised them last night by having access to the server. They thought they’d locked us out. But if they go DHI, I should be able to detect it. I won’t know exactly where they are, but the ISP, submask, and router data will help narrow it down. That would allow us to have two teams: one, like Maybeck said, to challenge their DHIs and keep them busy, while the second team tries to find where they’re sleeping.”
Maybeck: “Thing is, they’ve got the fob. The minute they figure any of this out, they Return, and then we’re in the deep woods.”
Finn: “We can’t rely on sending signals anymore. That was close last night. I think we should hide one of our cell phones in each of the Parks. We’d all know where to find them. If we need out, we call Philby and he takes us out manually.”
Philby: “Makes total sense.”
Charlene: “You expect me to give up my cell phone? Seriously?”
Willa: “Finn, we need to check with Jess about that drawing.”
Finn: “No problem. And I want to talk to Wanda. We can’t ask her to risk anything since she was arrested. But who knows how she might help us?”
Philby: “If we’re dividing up teams, I vote for Maybeck, Finn, and Charlene to go after the sleepers. Amanda, Willa, and Jess can play cat-and-mouse with the Evil Queen and Cruella. DHI against DHI.”
Willa: “I don’t mean to be a buzzkill, but I am so grounded. It’s like my mother’s got me on suicide watch or something-she wakes me up every couple hours. I mean, I want so badly to be part of whatever we’re doing, but…I just don’t know.”
All the Keepers spoke at once. No one expected anything from Willa. She’d been through enough. She apologized profusely; it was clear she wanted to be included if they crossed over, but if caught by her mother it could threaten them all.
Finn: “Well, the rest of us should dress for action each night. Philby will cross us over when he knows the Overtakers have crossed. The first thing we do when we enter a Park is to find the hidden cell phone in whatever Park we’re in. Got that? That’s our way out of the Park: we call Philby for a Return.”
Philby: “One small problem. When I hit the Return you’ll all Return as long as you’re somewhere near the landing point in whatever Park you’re in. So that makes the girls’ job more complicated. We need to get the fob back. Whichever side has the fob has freedom.”
Maybeck: “Easier said than done.”
Charlene: “Are we forgetting anything?”
Willa: “Probably.”
Finn: “So, we start tonight.”
Willa: “Be careful in school. The green-eyes are out there.”
Moments later, Finn disconnected from the conference call, a pit in his stomach about probably forgetting something.
Finn arrived at school feeling like an idiot: he’d forgotten it was a “free dress” day. That should have meant professional sports team jerseys for boys and short-shorts for girls-since neither was allowed at Finn’s school-but living in Orlando, it turned into a Disney costume contest for half of the fifteen hundred kids. Worse, a few students came as one or more of the Kingdom Keepers, and Finn didn’t know whether to feel honored or mocked.
But he looked tragically normal in a pair of shorts and a striped T-shirt. Even Amanda had gotten into it, showing up in a pressed white shirt and plaid skirt, which he assumed was connected to Harry Potter. At least a third of the remaining girls and more guys than he’d expected came as vampires. But it was Disney and Marvel Comics that won by a long shot. Iron Man characters. Alice in Wonderland. Toy Story. Every witch, dwarf, princess, and mermaid in numbers that staggered the imagination. Added into the mix were girls who dressed as princes and boys dressed as witches, so that the bathroom ended up a confusing mix, which was exactly where Finn found himself as he heard the familiar voice.
“What are you looking at, Whitless?”
Luowski’s voice, but the body of the Russian madman in Iron Man 2, complete with the scars and bad teeth and something coming off the ends of his hands, which were supposed to be bolts of electricity but looked more like Christmas-tree tinsel. Finn felt sorry for the guy: the costume got close, but in the end didn’t work.
Finn realized that he was looking at himself in the mirror-like the last time he’d run into Luowski in there. The situation was doubly strange because he didn’t remember coming into the bathroom. Nor did he remember turning on the faucet, which was currently running.
“Hey, Greg.”
In addition to the Mickey Rourke look, Luowski was wearing the green contacts. Something Finn took note of with added apprehension.
Finn chanced a glance at his watch: eight minutes had passed since the end-of-school buzzer. For a moment he couldn’t remember having been in school at all that day. He could force himself to imagine, if not actually remember, having entered the boys’ room, but he had absolutely no recollection of the past eight minutes.
The Evil Queen? Had someone dressed up like her been behind him in the mirror just a few seconds before Luowski? Was that a memory, or his imagination?
He cleared his throat. “The more important question, Greg, is why are you hanging around the boys’ room staring at other guys staring at themselves in the mirror?”
“I…ah…Who said I was?”
“Picture’s worth a thousand words.” Finn pulled his phone out of his pocket.
Luowski said, “Your girlfriend’s waiting outside.”
“I don’t have a girlfriend.”
“Not what I hear.”
“Well, you hear wrong.”
Finn turned around and faced the taller Luowski, standing about chin height to him. But Luowski might as well have been six-feet-five and 280 pounds for the way Finn felt. He didn’t want anyone-including Greg Luowski-messing with Amanda.
“Take a look yourself, Romeo.” Luowski motioned to the door.
Finn had something to say to Luowski, but knew it would earn him a punch in the face, so he bit back his words.
He was back in the hall heading for the front doors, not feeling quite right. It bothered him that he’d lost eight minutes of his life. Nothing like that had ever happened to him before. He and the other Keepers had often discussed “side effects” of being a DHI: the extreme fatigue mixed with the occasional insomnia. He wondered if the side effects included memory lapse. Eight minutes. Gone.
He swung open the school doors.
Amanda stood at the bottom of the steps, turning her head toward him just as Finn arrived through the doors. His girlfriend…Was he supposed to get used to that? He felt happy to see her-almost too happy.
Light-headed. Weightless. He seemed to float down the steps toward her.
She stood among a group of girls. A few covered their mouths, hiding their smiles as they saw Finn. He had no idea how stupid he looked. But his vision blurred to where there was only Amanda. The others girls looked almost Photoshopped in, blurry and unidentifiable.
He didn’t know why, but he looked behind him-Luowski-the-Russian-madman stood at the top of the stairs, grinning. Finn was halfway down when Amanda approached him.
“Walk me home?” Amanda said. That was a first. He’d walked his bike with her plenty of times, but he couldn’t remember her asking for him to.
“I like that shirt,” he said, having retrieved his bike.
“It’s Jess’s.”
“You look good in it.” What a stupid thing to say. It fit her pretty tightly and she was going to think him a creep.
“Thanks.”
They walked a block. Two. Five.
“You’re awfully quiet,” she said.
“Luowski was bugging me in the bathroom,” he said, wondering where that kind of honesty came from. “He’s one of them.”
“Are you sure?”
Finn caught her up on the recent street confrontation and Luowski’s comment about not believing in magic.
“That’s fairly direct,” she said.
“It is. And there’s more.” He told her about Hugo and Philby.
“Ohmigod, they actually fought? Like with fists?”
“Like with.”
“Well, I can see why he’s creeping you out.”
“Yeah.”
“So, you gave me that message,” she said.
Finn had forgotten completely about that. It felt like a week ago. It had been the same morning in U.S. Government class. “Oh, yeah.”
“You really are distracted.”
“Sorry.”
“The note said you wanted to talk to me.”
This explained why she was waiting for him outside school. He felt like an even bigger idiot. This was one of those days to wipe off the calendar.
“I…we…the Keepers, need you and Jess. To cross over, or be ready to cross over.” He went on to explain the morning conference call.
She hesitated. “I told you about Mrs. Nash threatening to send us back to the Fairlies.”
“Why would she do that, anyway? I mean, besides you two messing up? If they wanted you in the Fairlies they would have sent you there when they found you two.”
“The one thing I learned when I was there,” she said, “is that you never can trust anything to do with that place. They told us one thing, but it was so far from the truth it wasn’t funny.”
“But if they wanted to observe you, or whatever-”
“How do we know they aren’t observing us now? How can Jess and I be sure Mrs. Nash isn’t being paid to spy on us and report back?” Amanda said.
“That’s a little paranoid.”
“You wouldn’t think so if you’d been through what we’ve been through.”
“No, I’m sure not.”
“I didn’t mean to sound so…bossy,” she said.
“I didn’t take it that way,” said Finn.
She reached over and found his hand, and for another block she held it, and he liked it.
They stopped in front of the familiar blue house with yellow trim. The twenty-minute walk had felt more like five. Time was all messed up for him. Many of the other houses on the block were Spanish influenced and one story tall. Mrs. Nash’s house looked older, and it was two stories.
Finn slapped the kickstand down and faced Amanda. He knew exactly what he wanted to do-he’d just never done it exactly like he was about to do it.
Jess stepped out the front door, looking panicked.
Finn stepped up to Amanda and grabbed her by the shoulders. It was almost as if he was compelled to do this, as if he’d been told step-by-step what to do.
Much to his surprise, Amanda made no effort to pull away from him. He’d expected maybe a slap in the face.
“My shirt!” Jess hollered, making it sound like a crime.
Something was wrong. Finn knew it. He knew Jess was running to stop them from kissing, but he didn’t want to be stopped. He saw Luowski in the lavatory mirror and it just as quickly slipped out of his thought, like a wet bar of soap in the shower.
Jess’s shouting about her shirt turned Amanda’s head in her direction. A conspiracy to stop him from doing what he had to do.
He reached out, took Amanda’s chin in his fingers, and turned her toward him.
He brought his lips to hers and, as their lips met, it wasn’t just any kiss, but a ringing-in-your-ears, blinded-by-the-light kind of kiss that went on much longer than he’d expected. Amanda’s eyes opened and there was a world in there. A place he’d never been.
He drew back. He saw Amanda standing there looking stunned and all dreamy as well, but he suddenly couldn’t remember what he was doing there. Couldn’t remember how he’d gotten there. He felt startled, dizzy. Then he spotted his bike and wondered if he’d ridden here. Or had he walked the bike?
Why am I here? he thought.
Jess skidded to a stop.
“No!” she roared.
Amanda’s knees went out from under her. She’d fainted. For a moment, Finn remembered the kiss and he felt…proud-the kiss that knocks them off their feet. But there was something about Jess’s panic that pulled him out of it. Something about the way Amanda collapsed so suddenly.
What have I done?
Jess’s face went ashen. She said, “That’s my shirt!” as if that explained anything.
“What’s going on?” He felt as if he had been shoved out onto a stage and didn’t know his lines, didn’t know the role. It was some kind a nightmare he’d walked into. He tried to wake himself up.
“She’s wearing my shirt! Not me.”
“I…don’t…understand.” Finn shook Amanda, praying it was a practical joke, but sensing there was nothing funny about it.
Then Jess shook Amanda’s shoulders and it was clear this wasn’t a joke. Her body was slack, like she was asleep. She was definitely not moving. Her breathing was incredibly slow and lethargic. All of Jess’s shouting and crying wasn’t going to change things.
“Wake up!” Finn said desperately, not knowing if he meant it for himself or for her. He went woozy; could barely keep his balance.
Amanda was unresponsive.
Jess looked up at Finn and said, “What have you done?”
Finn blinked and looked around, terrified. He remembered Luowski in the lavatory, the kiss, but not how it all connected. Why had he come here in the first place?
Jess looked up with tears in her eyes, kneeling by Amanda.
“I…” Finn said, “don’t know what happened…I didn’t mean…”
“Help me,” she said, pulling Amanda’s arms toward her. “Mrs. Nash will be back at four. We need to get her inside, upstairs, onto her bunk.”
“Wake up…” he muttered.
“Finn! I need you now!”
Finn’s senses were dulled, his head thick. “I didn’t mean it,” he said.
“WE HAVE TO GET HER INSIDE,” Jess said, tears running down her face. “RIGHT NOW!”
Finn took Amanda’s legs, Jess her arms, but Jess was crying too hard so Finn scooped Amanda up in his arms and carried her.
“I’ve got her.”
He staggered toward the front steps, still trying to grasp what had happened.
The door opened as several girls hurried out to help. They got Amanda upstairs and onto the lower bunk.
He had so much he wanted to say, but the horrified expression on Jess’s face said it all.
“We’ll tell Nash,” Jess instructed the other girls, “that Amanda’s sick and is sleeping off a headache. That’ll cover her at least for tonight.”
“What’s up?” one of the girls asked. “So she fainted. So what’s the big deal?”
Jess and Finn met eyes. Jess said, “She bumped her head when she fell. She’ll be all right, but she might sleep through the night.”
Finn’s heart stopped: The surprise hologram of the Evil Queen; Luowski’s sudden change in attitude. He’d been so certain he’d escaped the Queen’s spell, but now her words returned to haunt him:
As soft as a whisper
No one will tell
The curse, reversed
Seen by the sister
When kissing Jezebel
“You…” he muttered, looking at Jess. It felt like a bomb going off. The pieces of a puzzle forming in your mind and finally fitting. “It was supposed to be you!”
Jess paled considerably.
She knows, Finn thought.
“It’s Nash!” came a voice from the hall.
“Back door!” Jess to Finn. “Hurry!”
Finn hesitated, looking down at Amanda, feeling horribly responsible.
“You can’t stay! GO!” Jess said. She pushed a folded piece of paper into his hand. He stuffed it into his pocket. “Take this. I thought it was me, too.”
Finn moved for the stairs, but a girl waved him back. Finn stopped, teetering on the top step.
“Pssst! ” Behind him, another of the girls had opened a window leading onto the roof. She motioned out the window.
Finn had the sneaking suspicion he wasn’t the first boy to be hurried out of Mrs. Nash’s house.
The girl at the window pressed her finger to her lips. He was to go quietly. She pointed to the far right of the roof.
Finn looked back. Jess had dried her tears, but her color had failed to return. She hurried to him and handed him a folded napkin. He pocketed this as well.
She knows it was supposed to be her, he thought.
He ducked out and was gone.
They met at five pm in the back room of Crazy Glaze. Maybeck’s aunt left them alone, wearing a worried face; she knew better than to ask what was going on.
Philby’s time was limited. His mother was waiting in the car outside; she expected him out no later than six. Charlene had Willa on speakerphone, which sat on the table next to a dozen glazed, but unfired, coffee mugs.
The collective mood was anxious. Maybeck was not tossing out his usual jokes.
Finn started off by confessing to them about the video chat where Wayne had transfigured into the Evil Queen, his going all clear, and her attempt to put him under a spell, which he recited word for word. He told them about the second encounter with Luowski in the boys’ room, and about his kissing Amanda, and her collapse.
No one openly criticized him, but their disappointment in him was obvious. The Keepers were a team, and by not telling them earlier, he’d effectively gone solo. He didn’t need to be reminded where that had now gotten them.
“First Charlene, then Willa. Now Amanda,” he said. “But it was supposed to be Jess.”
“So the Evil Queen got you with the spell,” Willa said. “And then the mirror in the bathroom. The Evil Queen is all about ‘mirror, mirror.’ Maybe Luowski reinforced the spell or something.”
“The question is,” Philby said, ever the practical one, “how do we break this particular spell? If a kiss started it, a kiss is not going to end it.” He glanced over at Charlene, remembering their kiss.
“‘Reverse the curse,’” Maybeck said. “Maybe she told us without meaning to. In Amanda’s case, the kiss made her into Sleeping Beauty instead of waking her up from a nap. Right? So, someone remind me how Sleeping Beauty got cursed in the first place?”
“She pricks her finger on a spindle that Maleficent creates,” Willa said over the speakerphone.
“Maleficent? Seriously? Now there’s a surprise! So we find a spindle-a Disney spindle, a Park spindle-and we give Amanda a splinter from it, and we see what we see,” Maybeck said. “What?” he said, when he found himself facing skeptical looks. “Does someone have a better idea? She reversed the curse, so why shouldn’t we?”
“It does make sense in a weird, Maybeck kind of way,” Charlene said. “There have got to be spindles in the Parks. We could at least try it, right? It’s better than doing nothing!”
“Can we come back to it?” Philby said. He pushed his laptop to Charlene, asking her to Google “Disney spindle.” “I don’t have much time, and there’s stuff about the log I absolutely have to tell you about.”
Charlene went to work, typing furiously.
“Go ahead,” Finn said. “But make it quick.” Philby could be a talker, and Finn had no patience for that. He wanted Amanda back, right now! He couldn’t remember ever feeling this on-edge, this…guilty.
“Finn and I hacked the MK server last night, as you guys know, and I downloaded the activity log. I’ll skip the details, since getting Amanda back is way more important, but still, this could affect everything. Basically, the OTs have made themselves into DHIs. I have the proof. Empirical data. They first appeared on the Animal Kingdom server, a week ago. But get this: four ID numbers. So the Evil Queen and Cruella have company-and we don’t know who. Other OTs? If so, they’re probably ones we haven’t met yet, which is kind of freaky. Let’s hope it’s not Luowski or Sally Ringwald, or some other kids-but that’s my first guess. Sally warned Amanda and Charlene that there were more of them than we could imagine. Maybe she meant DHIs. That’s what I’d do if I were looking to defeat us: create other DHIs to take on ours. Level the playing field. Make it equal ground.”
“Good Godfrey,” said Maybeck.
“What’s more important-much more important-is that after a lot of crossing over and Returning in AK, their data tags make a handshake with a router at DisneyQuest on the night of the school thing.”
“The night we saw them,” Willa said over the phone.
“Yeah,” Philby said.
“But that’s not possible,” Willa said. Only she and Philby understood the technical side and therefore spoke the same language. “The firewalls-”
“Had to have been breached,” he said.
“They jumped?”
“They jumped,” he confirmed. “Further evidenced by data cloning onto the DHI servers in MK, the Studios, and Epcot.”
Finn raised his hand like a student in class. But Philby was focused on the phone and Willa.
“So they can go anywhere we can go,” Willa said. “And places we can’t go,” she added.
“English is spoken here,” Maybeck said.
Philby said, “Here’s the four-one-one: Disney’s careful-super careful-about protecting their data. Each Park has only two data pipes leading in and out. One is for backup. The other is the one typically used. They have major-and when I say major, I mean major-firewalls to keep data in and hackers out. That’s part of what DHI shadow is all about-it’s not just projectors. When we physically walk outside of the Parks and outside of those firewalls, we’re lost by the system. When we reenter another Park, our IDs are picked back up and we project.”
Maybeck said, “Keep it moving.”
“Anyway, there’s a DHI server for each Park for a reason: our data can’t flow through those fire-walls.”
“But theirs can?” Willa asked.
“The OTs have pulled it off somehow,” Philby said. “It’s called jumping. They jumped from Animal Kingdom to DisneyQuest and back. They then propagated-spread,” he said, directing the translation to Maybeck, who made a cruel face back at him, “their data packs to each of the Park servers. The only way to do that was to breach the firewalls. It’s radical stuff. Big-time stuff. And I’m sorry, but I don’t see them pulling it off without the help of an Imagineer, and not just any Imagineer, but someone high up-someone with detailed knowledge of the firewalls.”
“Wayne’s warning,” Finn said. “It had to do with the servers, and about a friend turning his back.”
“That was me,” Charlene said.
“Maybe not just you,” Finn said. “Maybe the Queen’s got an Imagineer under a spell, or there’s an all-out traitor among them.”
“And not to get too Conspiracy Theory, or anything,” Philby said, “but what if that’s how Wanda got caught? What if an insider sold her out to the cops? You want to know why we haven’t heard from her since your mother bailed her out?” he asked Finn. “It’s because she’s convinced it will only put us in danger-that her every move is being monitored, that she’s contagious, and doesn’t want us catching her cold.”
You could have heard a pin drop.
Finn said, “Jess’s sketches.” He passed them around the table counterclockwise, starting with Maybeck. Both were photocopies. Finn described them for Willa. One of a military guy; the other, the kiss in front a massive building.
“They don’t do anything for me,” Maybeck said, passing them on.
“But it’s what the Queen wanted from me,” Willa said. “The most recent one: the military guy.”
“So just to clarify,” Charlene said, “you were supposed to kiss Jess so she couldn’t draw any more of these? Couldn’t see the future? Do I have that right?”
“I wish we knew,” Finn said. “But, yeah. I think so.”
“I thought you said you kissed Amanda at Mrs. Nash’s,” Philby said. “So what’s with the multiplex behind you two?”
“No clue,” said Finn. “You know how her ‘visions’ mix stuff up. I thought it might be school. But you’re right-it could be a movie theater or an outlet mall or something.”
“So,” Willa said over the phone, “we have two sketches that don’t necessarily help us, but are apparently of huge importance and interest to the Queen. Amanda’s in a coma because of them. We think there’s a possible jailbreak attempt but we don’t know where or when, and the woman who might be able to help us is probably under police surveillance. What am I missing?”
“You make it sound so ugly,” Charlene said.
“What about the spindle theory?” Finn asked. “I mean, seriously, is that all we’ve got?”
“Reverse the curse,” Maybeck said.
“As much as I’d like to say we might find a Disney character capable of countering a spell by the Evil Queen, I can’t think of any,” Philby said. “Anyone?”
No one piped up.
“No,” Philby said. “It’s logical that if a kiss put her into this, I suppose a prick from a spindle might get her out.”
Maybeck said, “It’s got to be worth a try. Maleficent and the Queen are playing for the same team. The Queen throws a spell onto Finn about reversing the curse. I mean, how can we ignore that?”
“We’ve got to try something,” Finn said. “We can’t just abandon Amanda. Mrs. Nash will hospitalize her. She’s already threatened to send the girls back to the Fairlies. This will seal the deal.”
Charlene said, “Do I have to be the one to say what we’re all thinking but no one wants to say?” She was internally fuming over the kiss, but she held her tongue about that.
“This I’ve got to hear,” Maybeck said.
“This is exactly what they want: us focusing on Amanda instead of them.”
Finn said, “I know. I know.” He nodded reluctantly. “But that’s where I am. Until Amanda’s awake, I don’t care what the OTs are up to.”
“How did it feel when you were crossed over without your consent?” Maybeck said, attacking Charlene. “’Cause I can tell you, I didn’t like it. Not one bit.”
“I’m just saying: we can’t ignore everything else that’s happening. That’s all.”
“Agreed,” Philby said.
Finn said, “You all know where I’m at.”
Maybeck said. “Here’s another idea: We lay a trap, capture the Evil Queen, and waterboard her until she tells us how to get Amanda back. Spindles? Seriously, what was I thinking?”
“There are weaver spindles in Epcot’s Morocco,” Charlene reported, reading from Philby’s computer. “And in China the acrobats spin plates on spindles. Those are the only ones I can find.”
Finn said, “I vote we get both of those and try them on Amanda. We do it right now, tonight, before Mrs. Nash freaks out and does something random.”
“But what if they want us focused on Amanda? When Amanda and I questioned Sally Ringwald, she mentioned Saturday morning. That’s tomorrow morning. What if tonight’s the start of the future? What if tonight is the jailbreak?”
Finn fingered the page torn from Jess’s diary. The boy and the girl kissing. The building in the background that looked like steps, or maybe a multiplex. Something was bothering him about it, but he couldn’t make sense of it. He looked up. Everyone was staring at him. They seemed to be waiting for him to say something.
He looked around the table at his friends. He thought about Amanda collapsing to the ground-that look in Jess’s eyes. He felt worse than he’d ever felt.
“We’d better get started,” he said.