MAYBECK WOKE UP in an office with gray carpeting, three gray desks, chairs on wheels and trash baskets lined with clear plastic bags. He caught sight of a pair of running shoes with gold-and-silver sparkles thrown into the covering like sequins and knew it could only be one person.
“Charlene?” he whispered dryly.
She crept around to him on hands and knees. For once, she was not wearing her nightgown but instead a black leotard top and black jeans. And those cheerleader shoes.
“Where are we?” She’d dressed and gone to sleep, as Philby had requested. Maybeck, on the other hand, had heard from Philby.
“It’s an electrical power plant on Disney property. We’re about ten miles from the Parks. Philby tracked the OTs’ DHIs here. We’re supposed to observe and report.”
“Observe what?” she asked.
“We’ll know when we see it.”
They came to their feet and approached the office door. Maybeck opened it a crack. The facility emanated a constant low-level hum, a rumbling that came up through the floor. The two were looking down a bland corridor, office doors on either side. At the end of the corridor in both directions were lighted exit signs.
“If you’re wondering which way to go,” Charlene said in a whisper, “check out the wear of the carpet. I’d say, right.”
The hallway carpet was discolored and worn to the right; it grew progressively lighter and less-used to their left.
“Good catch,” he said.
“The thing is,” she said, “if something should go wrong, we don’t want to both get caught, and to be honest, I’d rather you try to rescue me than me try to rescue you. So why don’t you let me go first? You keep watch, but hang back.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“Why? Because you’re a guy? Who’s the more athletic?”
“Who’s the tougher?” he countered.
“I’ll go to the end of the hall and stop to listen. I’ll signal you,” Charlene said.
“Since when are you the leader?” he asked.
“Have you got a better plan?”
“Just be careful,” he said. “If it’s them, if it’s the Evil Queen and Cruella, and who knows who else as DHIs…well…”
“I get it.”
Charlene moved down the hall door by door, pausing to listen, giving him a thumbs-up at each. She displayed the grace of a gymnast, raised on tiptoe, almost dancing. At last she reached the door beneath the exit sign.
Maybeck followed. The droning hum bothered him. It was like a bad sound track to a scary movie. It made it hard to hear anything, harder still to think. Power plants were huge facilities. How were they supposed to find a couple of holograms in a place this size? And what would happen to them if they were found first? More importantly, a power plant ran 24/7, so there had to be employees on the job.
He glanced back down the hall, his toes and fingers tingling as he saw something bolted to the wall near the ceiling. The Lake Buena Vista Cogeneration Facility had security cameras. He and Charlene had likely already been spotted as intruders.
The fifteen-foot diameter wooden waterwheel spun lazily at the side of Harper’s Mill. When Finn looked back across the water the wolf was gone. It might have made him feel better, but it did not. It made him realize that none of the Parks were magical for him anymore-not at night. They were mysterious, often dangerous, and always surprising. He kept his senses on full alert, worried for Amanda and grateful to have Pluto by his side.
“We need a splinter from the wheel,” Finn said. “Then we hope for some magic.”
“Yes.”
“We’ll have to break a piece off or something. I’m not sure how we’ll do that.”
“I don’t love it here,” she said.
“No. I was just thinking how my opinion of the Parks has changed.”
“No doubt,” she said.
“Pluto!” Finn called, winning the dog’s attention. “Defend!”
Pluto licked Finn’s hand, looking dog-dumb.
“Patrol!” he tried. The dog sat and offered moon eyes.
“Guard!” Amanda said harshly.
Pluto barked once sharply and went rigid.
“Good boy,” Amanda said. She ruffled his ears and Pluto pawed at her.
Pluto put his nose to the ground and headed off.
“You charm all the boys,” he said.
“Shut up.”
Finn led her over to the moving waterwheel. It was fed from the top by a waterspout. Water cascaded down its paddles, turning it.
“If I had a knife, or razor blade, or something…”
“How ’bout a rock?” Amanda said, bending down to pick one up.
He felt like a moron. “Yes. Like a rock. That might work,” he conceded. He smashed the inside edge of the huge wheel but the wood was old and hard, and pressure-treated against the water. It was like hitting rock against rock.
She said, “It should be one of the spindles, one of the spokes, right?”
“Yeah.” Again, she made him feel stupid.
The spokes were constantly moving.
“I can climb on,” Amanda said. “You know, like Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom in Pirates.”
“I’m pretty sure that was special effects,” Finn said.
“I can do this,” Amanda said, judging the wheel’s rotation. She jumped between the outside slats to inside the moving wheel and ran like a hamster, adjusting her stride to match the wheel’s revolutions. As she got the hang of it, she turned to Finn and said, “No problem! It’s kind of like a treadmill.”
Every few steps, she would have the speed wrong and start climbing with the moving wheel, then have to adjust.
“It’s not like I can stay on here forever,” she said. “Say something.”
“Run your hand on the slats,” Finn said. “Try to catch a splinter.”
“Eww!” Amanda said. “It feels like dog snot. Disgusting!” She yanked her hand away, jogging to keep pace. “Bad idea.”
Finn knew what had to be done, just not how to do it. He studied the moving mechanism, trying to think how Philby would see it.
“I need you off of there,” he told Amanda. “Please. Jump off.”
Amanda timed her dismount, but slipping between the moving slats was harder getting off than on. Stuck between slats, she got carried up and around, and Finn pulled her off before she went around again. The two tumbled to the ground.
“The only way to do this,” Finn said, “is to break it.”
At the same moment, Philby was comparing himself to a sponge left too long under the kitchen faucet; there came a point where the sponge could absorb no more water. He was currently monitoring a dozen Security webcams inside the Magic Kingdom, the DHI bandwidth, and was attempting to determine the direction of the unexpected data traffic to see if he could pinpoint where the Evil Queen and Cruella were sleeping during their DHI activity. It was too much. His brain was ready to burst.
The closet-sized bathroom was getting warm and the air stale. The laptop’s battery was burning up his thighs. If his parents caught him in here he and the Keepers were doomed.
Juggling all the open windows on his computer and computing hundredths-of-a-second differences in transmission times on the log, his finger stopped on a particular line of data. He reviewed the times again, his finger sliding down the transmission column. Using the router data, he could trace the source of the original transmission to a location, and the location to a Google map. It was like a juggler trying to handle seven items at once.
His finger crossed from the router data to the map, and back again just to make sure.
“Oh, no,” he said aloud, quickly double-checking his findings.
“The cotter,” Finn said. “It’s a pin that holds a wheel’s axle in place.”
Amanda was listening to him, but with her back turned. She was focused instead on the change in Pluto’s stance, and a crunching coming from the bushes.
“I think something’s out there,” Amanda whispered.
“Apparently, so does Pluto,” Finn said, equally softly.
“If you have plans for the wheel, I suggest you get to it,” she said.
Finn hurried around the mill house and found the door. The inside was small and dark, the air stale and moldy smelling. His hologram glowed slightly, casting a pale light in front of him. The wheel axle sat in a closed yoke resting atop a shoulder-high post. It did not connect to any kind of millstone; it was all for show. A curved band of steel wrapped over the spinning axle, securing it in the yoke, with a wooden pin bisecting the axle to keep it from slipping out. Finn could feel his fingers and toes, knew his DHI was far from pure given the events of the past several minutes. He used a section of pipe from the floor to pound the wooden cotter from the axle, which began to creep slowly out of the yoke, like a screw unscrewing.
He hurried back outside and, rounding the corner of the mill house, stopped dead in his tracks.
Alligators.
Three of them. The biggest looked a lot like Louis in Princess and the Frog-but a mean Louis. Standing between the alligators and Amanda was a very nervous-looking Pluto, low on his haunches, growling.
“Finn?” Amanda called out, not taking her eyes off the beasts.
“Yeah, I see them.”
“Help?”
“Yeah,” he said.
The waterwheel’s loose axle caused it to spin off-center; the wheel and its external post vibrated and shook. It seemed like the whole mill house might come down.
Finn sped up the process. He raised the pipe high over his head and smashed it full-force down onto the outside post and yoke.
The alligators slithered back, away from the sound. Pluto crept forward, expanding his protection of Amanda.
Finn struck the post again. The wood split. He struck yet again.
It broke.
The waterwheel rocked violently side-to-side, causing the water to spray.
“Get…away!” Finn hollered.
He grabbed Amanda.
“Slowly!” he said.
With each step backward, Louis and the two other alligators ventured forward, forcing Pluto back as well.
“Pluto! Come!” Finn commanded.
But the dog held his ground. He barked once, sharply.
With a thunderous explosion, the waterwheel broke loose of the mill house. It hit the ground spinning, throwing water out in front of it as it rolled straight for the alligators. The closest of the giant lizards lost a section of its tail as all three turned and fled into the woods. The huge wheel smashed into some trees, teetered, and fell, crashing down onto a section of stone wall along the path, wood flying.
“That’s it!” Finn said. He reached for Amanda and took hold of her arm, snagging a large splintered piece from one of the struts.
Amanda turned her head, knowing what had to be done.
Finn stabbed the tip of her index finger, drawing blood.
“Oww!” she cried out, immediately sucking on her bleeding finger. “Nowww whawt?” she asked, her words difficult to understand with a finger in her mouth.
Finn considered this a moment. “I don’t think we’ll know until you Return. Although they might know on the other end-at Mrs. Nash’s.” He glanced around, believing there was at least an hour to go before the manual Return.
Pluto moved to the bushes and was barking.
Finn and Amanda sat down on the stone wall, out of breath.
“So where’d those alligators come from?” she asked.
He looked over at her gravely. “That’s the question, isn’t it?”
“It was my question,” she said.
“And the pirate that Minnie took out, and Stitch, back when Maybeck and I were here last year. I mean: it just doesn’t add up. All that for Tom Sawyer Island? Why?”
Amanda sucked her finger, and shrugged. “That’s what I’m saying.”
“If all this security was for Cinderella Castle or Space Mountain or Splash Mountain, I think we would think that the OTs were protecting something valuable to them. I don’t know what. But this island? Off by itself. Hard to get to. Nothing here once you do get here…”
“Isolated,” she said. “And with a fort on one end.” Her eyes met Finn’s relaying a fierce intensity. “You told me that you guys talked about the OTs needing somewhere to sleep while they’re DHIs-the way we all sleep in our beds. What better place than someplace like this?”
“We have at least an hour to get back to the hub,” Finn said. “We might as well…try.”
“We might want to speed it up,” she said, pointing.
Pluto had pulled back. The alligators had returned.
“This place is very big,” Maybeck said to Charlene.
They had made their way down the facility’s main floor, passing more offices, conference rooms, and a coffee lounge. They’d also passed a half-dozen security cameras. The underlying roar of the place grew progressively louder.
“You think Security has spotted us by now?” she asked.
“Honestly? I’m wondering why no one’s come after us. In a weird way, I don’t think that’s the best sign.”
“The OTs got them?”
“It might explain why no one has bothered with us.”
“That’s depressing.”
Maybeck stopped at the end of the hall.
“You do realize,” Charlene said, studying her DHI’s somewhat shaky blue outline, “that our best defense is being one-hundred-percent hologram?”
“As if that’s going to happen.”
“So you’re scared, too?”
“I don’t get scared,” he claimed. “I get…aware. But I’m very aware at the moment. Yes.” He paused, his hand on the door. “Here we go.”
He opened the door and waved her through. They stepped out onto a steel catwalk that surrounded a central space. Three stories below two huge turbines whined. From the turbines ran a tangle of pipes and wires. The walls were decorated with signs warning of high voltage! death on contact! Nice calming stuff.
Just barely audible was a woman’s complaining voice.
The Queen? they both wondered.
Maybeck raised his voice just loud enough to be heard. “Check it out!”
A blue uniform hung from the railing. Perched alongside of it was a blue jay frantically flapping its wings. Charlene looked first to the uniform, then to the blue jay, then back to the uniform.
Maybeck said, “I think we know what happened to the security guards.” He indicated the blue jay. “I’d say someone spelled them.”
“The Evil Queen did that?” Charlene said.
“Well, it wasn’t Bambi.”
“Whose side are they on?” she asked.
“If someone did that to me, I know whose side I’d be on. But with a twisted sister like her, who knows?”
“So, what now?” she said.
“We split up, and we head down toward those voices. If one of us is caught, maybe the other can do something about it.”
“And?”
“We listen to whatever’s being said.” He studied their surroundings. “I’m taking the stairs on this side,” he declared.
Charlene took in the interconnected pipes, the railing, and the catwalks on each level.
“I can climb down there,” she said.
“FYI: There are stairs on the other side. Might be easier.”
“And more obvious. They could be watching them. I’m going to climb it,” she declared.
“Whatever,” Maybeck said. “Just don’t make me have to rescue you.”
“Other way around,” she said.
“Not likely.”
“We’ll see.”
The blue jay cawed loudly, startling them both.
The faint voices below paused with the cry of the bird.
Maybeck whispered: “See you down there.” He tiptoed off toward an exit sign.
Charlene stayed well clear of the blue jay and climbed over the metal rail, one foot placed carefully after the other. She possessed a climber’s eye, able to look up at a climbing wall and quickly plot and remember an exact route. Descending was altogether different; it was much more difficult to climb down than up. For her, plotting a descending route was twice the challenge.
She hesitated a moment, seeing a possible route play out in her mind’s eye-each toehold, hand and finger grip she would take. One pipe to the next; one clamp at a time.
She drew in a deep breath and made her first move.
Philby heard Elvis meowing on the other side of the bathroom door.
“Tssst! ” He tried to discourage him using the family tongue-between-the-teeth sound.
“MEEEEOWWWW!” Elvis wailed, sounding like a police siren.
“Tssssssssst! ”
Bang! Bang!
He was jolted back against the well of the toilet.
“Dell?” His mother.
“Busy,” he said.
“You open this door this minute!”
Philby said, “Be right out,” while looking for somewhere in this shoe box room to hide his gear.
“OPEN THIS DOOR!”
When his mother shouted like that, he lacked resistance. He obeyed, turning the knob.
Seen from his mother’s perspective, her son, fully dressed, was sitting on the closed toilet, his computer open in his lap, a phone, also on, resting on his thigh. Her face burning a new shade of crimson, she said nothing; she simply extended her hands expecting delivery of the goods.
“Mom, I can’t.”
“I don’t want to hear it, young man.”
Her hands, now shaking with rage, remained extended.
“Mom.”
“It’s nearly one o’clock. We’ll discuss it in the morning.”
He glanced at the time. How had the time passed so quickly? One am? Finn would be expecting the Return.
“Mom! Please! Just listen.”
“I’ll listen in the morning.” She added, “Maybe.”
Philby had never seen her in this particular state before-like a teakettle boiling over. Wayne had said that a friend would turn his back and betray them. He hadn’t mentioned mothers.
He closed the laptop and handed it to her, feeling like a traitor. Maybe that was it, he thought: Maybe I am the traitor Wayne warned us about.
“Guard!” Finn hated to put Pluto at risk, but the dog seemed their best chance to get out of this with all their limbs intact.
“Higher ground,” Amanda said. “It’s the best defensive position.”
“Move slowly,” Finn said.
They backed up, taking small steps, never taking their eyes off the alligators. Pluto saw them, but held his ground.
“Good dog!” Finn called out.
They slowly worked up the hill, reaching a path.
Amanda said, “Did you know that alligators can run thirty-five miles per hour?”
“TMI,” Finn said.
“If we turn and run-” Amanda proposed.
“-they’ll have us for breakfast,” Finn said, completing her sentence for her. “I’m thinking: Scratch’s Mine.”
“You can’t be serious!”
“It will force them into single file. They’ll have to switch directions, which slows them down. If we hurry, we get out the other end of the tunnel ahead of them, at which point we head uphill, which is not what they’ll instinctively think. By the time they figure it out-if they figure it out-we’re gone.”
“What if we just made a run for it? For Minnie? The raft?”
“Yeah, okay. I’ll put you onto the raft. That works,” Finn said.
“Me? What about you?” she said.
“I…The thing is, after everything we’ve figured out…Philby, me, the others. You and Jess. I need to check this place out,” he said. “The pirate, Stitch, the alligators. It just doesn’t add up.”
“Then I’m not going.”
“You should.”
“Well, I’m not.”
“I can do this alone,” he said.
“Keepers work in pairs,” she said.
Technically, she was not a Keeper. But it seemed like the wrong time to remind her. He thought maybe that was her point.
She said, “What if I, you know, used my…What if I pushed?”
“You’re mostly DHI at the moment.”
“Actually, I’m barely DHI. Trust me, I feel much more human than hologram. What if, once we’re inside the mine, I could push the gators, and we could run for Minnie? Being inside the mine will concentrate the push. I wouldn’t need much for it to work. We could tell Minnie to leave without us. The gators might be fooled, and think we’d left.”
“We’d be trapped here,” he reminded.
“So we’d tell her to hang on the other side and wait for our signal.”
It seemed like the best way to get the gators off their trail, but a plan not without risk. If Minnie had to abandon the raft…
He said, “I guess if the push works, we go for it. If not, we’ll rethink.”
“On three?”
“No. Let’s just keep backing up. When they reach the path, we make our move,” he said.
“What about Pluto?” she asked.
“He’s a dog. He’ll figure it out.”
The two backed up slowly. The alligators slithered forward. Pluto retreated. Step by step, they all moved in a choreographed manner.
“Ready…” Finn whispered.
“Set…” she said.
The first alligator-Louis-placed his paw on the path.
Finn and Amanda turned and ran.
With her arms and legs wrapped around the pipe like a koala bear hugging a tree, Charlene slid down another three feet, finally stopped by a junction clamp. The temperature in the main building was warm, as were some of the pipes she touched. The turbines screamed in a high-pitched whine. Half-deaf, she didn’t hear the sound of flapping wings, didn’t sense the attack until it was upon her: a shadow sweeping across her face.
Charlene ducked, and swung out with her left arm, catching a bird’s wing. It struck a pipe and fell, feathers fluttering.
A second jay dive-bombed and sank its small talons into her scalp, tearing loose two large clumps of hair. Charlene cried out. Her scalp was bleeding. She sought a toehold but missed, catching herself at the last second. Now a third jay, wings tucked, came at her like a missile. She swung her arm like a baseball bat and sent it into the outfield. The bird struck the wall and was knocked unconscious.
It tumbled and landed atop one of the turbines with a thunk.
The voices stopped. Only the whine of the turbines persisted. The jay that had torn her hair out cawed and dove once more. Charlene deftly switched pipes, dropped lower, and switched back, using the elbow in the bigger pipe to shield her.
A glowing image appeared on the floor below. Maybeck? she wondered. Fearing it might not be, she adjusted to the far side of the pipe, putting an intersection of steel and PVC between her and the glow.
Charlene was looking down on a head of dark hair surrounded by a crown. The Evil Queen. Charlene reared back as the Queen looked up. A diving blue jay suddenly altered course and flew past Charlene-the Queen had redirected it. It landed on an electrical conduit below. The wounded jay atop the turbine managed to fly off.
The jays cawed furiously.
Over the roar of the turbines, a woman’s low voice shouted, “Hurry up! There’s no time to waste!”
Charlene moved quickly lower, down the pipes, using clamps and valves as toeholds. With speed and agility she descended, desperate to overhear more of what was being said.
How she regretted having separated from Maybeck. They could be working together; worse, Maybeck was something of a wild horse without a bit or bridle when left on his own.
She slid down the final few feet of pipe, arriving onto the facility floor-concrete with a thick layer of gray epoxy paint. She settled herself and dared to look past the pipe she hid behind.
Directly in front of her were more pipes and machinery. Just past these was a walkway designated by wide lines of bright yellow paint, one side of which was a concrete wall with windows looking in on a control room, the door to which was propped open, its center glass pane broken; cubes of safety glass littered the floor. Inside, she saw a bald guy in a chair, who looked either asleep or dead. There was a redheaded woman in a similar condition next to him. Cruella De Vil, the Evil Queen. And a…kid! Charlene could only see the back of his head-he was hunched over a computer-but there was no mistaking him for anything but a teenager. She couldn’t see his face.
Charlene was distracted by movement to her right-the jays flying like jets in formation. They banked right and disappeared behind the machinery. Something moved in the shadows, escaping.
Maybeck.
The Evil Queen sensed Maybeck and abruptly turned around. She and Maybeck were on opposite sides of a cinder block wall.
Charlene ducked behind the pipe, her back to its warmth. She had no way to warn Maybeck, no way to monitor what was happening. Then, overhead, a blue flash-the jays diving for Maybeck again.
She heard a series of caws. Maybeck shouting.
Then, the Evil Queen growling, “Bring him to me!”
It took Philby time to settle down. He’d never seen his mother quite like that. She’d stayed a few feet behind him and had marched him to his room like he was a convict. He’d wanted to ask her for the computer back but thought she’d have probably hit him with it-definitely not worth the risk.
His bedside clock read 12:51.
He couldn’t leave his friends stuck in Epcot and the Cogeneration Facility as DHIs. He needed Web access-and he needed it now. He possessed a dirty secret: a fifth DHI had been added to the Queen’s growing team. He’d spotted the addition in the log-it was still rocking him with aftershocks.
Mind racing, he thought of his father’s desktop Mac in his study. The trouble was, his study was an extra bedroom, and to get to it Philby would have to pass his parents’ bedroom. He doubted his mother would actually kill him, but he knew that to be caught was not an option.
Philby paced his room, frustrated and guilt-ridden. He stopped and looked at the lowered shade and thought about Hugo attacking him. His world was upside down: friends were enemies; family members were enemies. His only friends were asleep in their beds and would never wake up until and unless he Returned them. The success or failure of their attempt to free Amanda fell onto him. Their survival fell onto him.
Was he really supposed to just climb into bed and go to sleep?
As if!
He sneaked down the hall on tiptoe, a shaft of yellow light playing from his parents’ bedroom. His mother would be propped up in bed reading. He knew how difficult it was for her to get back to sleep. If he moved too quickly, she’d spot him. The trick was to slip by incredibly slowly, back to the wall so he could watch her. If she moved even a tweak, he’d jump across and she wouldn’t know if she’d seen him or not.
Step by step, his back to the opposite wall of the hallway, Philby edged into and through the patch of yellow light. He was right out where his mother could have seen him, but she never raised her head. At last-it seemed like several minutes-he was back into shadow and out of her sight.
He made it to the study door, and turned the handle incredibly gently to avoid her hearing.
Locked!
He didn’t know the door could be locked. He stared at it in disbelief.
“Not a chance,” she said.
He startled and nearly screamed. Didn’t dare turn around, but finally gathered the courage. She was in her pajamas, her reading glasses perched on the bridge of her nose.
“That you would even try this is such a disappointment. What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking of my friends. I’m thinking of that time I was caught in the Syndrome and how awful it was on you and Dad. The hospital. Nothing working. They are counting on me.” He was a grown boy, he reminded himself, fighting back the tears. Embarrassed by them. “Do you know what that feels like?”
“I think I might have a slight idea. Do you have any idea what it’s like to be a mother? To love another so, so much that you can’t breathe?”
“I cannot let them down. I will not let them down. I don’t care what the consequences are. It has nothing to do with Disney. Nothing to do with magic or entertainment. It’s about friendship, Mom. It’s about being reliable and responsible and all the stuff you and Dad preach but never let me live.”
He watched her nostrils flare, which was not a good sign. Most times, that was the signal the time bomb was ticking. But her eyes glassed over and her lips trembled and she moved toward him.
“You’re such a good boy,” she said, her arms outstretched. “I am so proud of you.”
“You…what?”
She embraced him in a way he’d never felt before. More than a hug. It felt like she might never let go.
“You’re so grown-up.”
“Mom?”
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I was only thinking of myself. It makes me…I get so scared for you and the others. I never want to lose you. I’d never, ever, forgive myself.”
“But that’s exactly-”
“Yes,” she said. “I know. I understand.”
“You do? Seriously?”
“I want to help. I want to know everything. Everything, you understand?”
He nodded.
“Go on. Do whatever it is you need to do. I’ll be along in a minute. I want to turn off the light so we don’t wake your father.”
“How’s it going?”
Jeannie Puckett’s grating voice. Jess had nodded off while sitting with her back to the wall next to the bunk bed. She blinked repeatedly while orienting herself. She immediately realized the impact of the dream she’d just been living. She reached for her diary.
“Give me a few minutes,” she said, her pen already at work.
She drew the picture in her head, allowing it to flow out of her hand rather than force it onto the page. It was almost as if the pen were alive and she was there only to keep it upright. Something miraculous transpired between her hand and the paper, a power far beyond anything she would lay claim to.
Lines appeared, like a gate or maybe the teeth of a comb. Shadows. Behind the teeth of the comb were bookshelves, or perhaps a bench. The pen kept moving. Jess looked for what was there, what was coming. A box-no, a window-in the center of the wall between the bookshelves. Or were the bookshelves church pews? Was the window really a frame hanging on the wall? Not bookshelves at all, but a cot or a bunk. A priest laying on the bunk. No, a woman. A bench on the floor between the bunks. They were bunks. Not a comb, but prison bars.
Her pen stopped. The woman sat up from the bunk and stood and crossed the far corner of the jail cell standing in the corner.
Jess tried to quickly sketch the woman in four postures-sitting, standing, crossing the room, standing in the far corner.
A woman in robes.
Maleficent. Smirking, but quickly losing it so that her emotions were unreadable.
The smirk lingered in Jess’s mind. She tried to sketch it. Couldn’t get it right.
Something else…something bothering her. Something about the way Maleficent had crossed the cell. What was it?
“Look at that!” It was Jeannie again.
It broke the moment. The images on the diary page were static again. Fixed. Unmoving. Jess worked to finish what little she could envision. She would have to get it to Philby by e-mail-and e-mail was a risk in Mrs. Nash’s house, like everything else that could possibly be fun.
Jeannie rushed to Amanda’s side. “LOOK AT THAT! What’s it mean?”
Jess collected herself and looked up.
Amanda’s arms were still by her side but her hands had moved, palms toward the foot of the bed. They were jerking ever so slightly like a crossing guard signaling a stop on the corner.
“She hasn’t done anything like this. Right? This is like totally new. Right? So what’s it mean?” Jeannie asked.
Jess shook her head.
“I have no idea,” she said. But in fact, she had a pretty good idea. She’d seen Amanda do that before. She’d even worked with Amanda so she could learn how to control it.
Standing twenty feet down in the mine, palms outstretched, Amanda scooped the air as if cupping water, and then threw her arms forward and pushed the water out in front of her as the alligators entered.
They lifted off the ground, their feet paddling the air. She pushed again, and the already levitated alligators sailed out of the mine tunnel.
“Come, boy!” she heard Finn cry out.
Pluto had been caught in the push as well. He’d traveled about ten feet and had fallen, sprawled on all fours.
“Run!” Finn cried.
The mine shaft angled sharply left. The alligators had recovered quickly, now only a few feet behind Pluto, who trailed Amanda.
“Go! Go! Go!” Finn shouted.
The tunnel straightened out but the floor tipped left, off level.
Amanda tripped. Finn stopped and turned to help her up.
SNAP! An alligator’s jaw nearly caught his foot.
Amanda spun and pushed.
The alligator lifted and flew like it had been caught by a hurricane. It collided with the others. Three white bellies flashed in the dark, rocketing away from the two kids.
With one final turn, they reached the mouth of the mine shaft and popped outside.
“You go uphill,” Finn said. “Hide up there. I’ll meet you.” He turned and ran. Looking back, seeing her hesitate, he said, “Up!”
Amanda turned around and started climbing up a rocky incline.
Finn, with Pluto briefly by his side, hurried along the path, only a matter of yards from Huck’s Landing. Pluto, seeming to understand their role, held back, waiting for the alligators.
Finn reached Minnie and the raft, already pushing her off as he explained, “Head across to the other side and wait for our signal. We need to trick the alligators!”
Minnie nodded and threw a lever forward. The raft began to pull away.
Finn ducked back up the path past Potter’s Mill, looking down in time to see Pluto flying through the air and just catching the raft with his front paws. Minnie lunged and pulled him on board.
The three alligators didn’t hesitate for a second. With the raft motoring away, they slithered into the dark waters and were gone, lost in swirling flashes of green, scaly tails.
The boy in the chair of the power plant control room spun around, and Charlene nearly shrieked with what she saw. This was no Disney villain. It was just a boy. A regular teenage boy, if you discounted the shimmering green outline that contained him. By the look of him, based on Philby’s description, she already knew his name: Hugo Montcliff.
The scope and ramifications of what she saw so overwhelmed her that she intentionally avoided thinking about it. On the one hand, this felt like the end of the world; on the other, Maybeck had been captured and there was no time to contemplate what it all meant for the Keepers.
Hugo was in the control room, throwing switches and spinning dials. He barked out an order, sounding like a grown-up.
“Not yet, sonny! Hold off a minute!” With a sweep of her hand, the Evil Queen, outside the control room, transfigured the three blue jays into gorillas. They stood well over five feet tall and were pure muscle and teeth. They obeyed her command-“Bring him to me!”-springing into action and surrounding Maybeck.
Charlene searched for something-anything-resembling a weapon: a hose; a steam valve? There had to be some way to help Maybeck.
Hugo called out again. The sound generated by the machinery altered pitch, groaning lower. Charlene felt it in her teeth.
The holograms, including her own, sputtered and dimmed. Red lights flashed on the wall like those from a police car.
Charlene moved closer, now near enough to see through the Queen, almost like an X-ray. In the Queen’s translucent right hand, she held the fob-the Return. The device appeared solid, seemingly unaffected by the loss of electric power.
“I said not yet!” The Queen appeared ready to throw a spell at Hugo, if he wasn’t already under the effect of one.
Hugo made adjustments, and the pitch in the room climbed higher. The red lights stopped flashing. The holograms and their outlines returned.
But by the time the DHIs strengthened, two things occurred: first, Maybeck used the moment of his faded image to slip past the gorillas, who no longer had hold of him; second, Charlene stepped out from behind the pipe and picked up a shining stainless steel sheet, part of a metal box connected to the turbines. She held it behind her like a surprise gift and moved bravely toward the Queen, who turned in her direction at the last second.
Maybeck vanished into the machinery. The gorillas appeared dumbfounded; to them it was like he was suddenly invisible.
Just as the Queen raised her hand to throw a spell while saying, “Well, what do we have here?” Charlene pulled the stainless steel panel from behind her back and held it up like a mirror in front of the Queen’s face.
“Oh…my…what a beautiful, beautiful face that is.” The Queen reached out to vainly take the mirror and, as she did, loosened her hold on the fob.
Like a magician or pickpocket, Charlene swept the fob out of the Queen’s hand, replacing it with the edge of the mirror, and pocketed the fob.
Maybeck appeared from behind her, grabbed her arm, dragging her into the control room. He closed and locked the door.
“We can’t allow them to kill the power,” he said. “I just realized what they’re trying to do.”
Just as Finn caught up to Amanda, he lost her: she shimmered, sputtered, and disappeared. As quickly as she’d vanished, she reappeared.
“That was so weird,” she said. “You just kind of broke up and disappeared.”
“You, too,” he said, holding his hands in front of his face. “They look okay now.”
“Very strange.” She reached out and pulled him down hard, behind a rock. “Careful,” she said, pointing. “Another pirate. This side of Superstition Bridge.”
“What was that about?” Finn said. “What just happened?”
“The projectors?” Amanda said.
“I guess. Or maybe Philby tried to Return us, but we’re too far from the hub so it didn’t work.”
“Might be.”
“Never seen anything like it.
“The pirate’s significant,” he said, turning back to the issue at hand. “Too many of these guys, too much going on for it not to mean something.”
“I agree.”
“The fort,” he said.
She nodded.
“You don’t have to go with me.”
“I want to,” Amanda said.
“It could be…it’s probably dangerous.”
“I know that.” She paused. “Two is better than one.”
“Isn’t that a song?”
“Shut up.”
“We don’t know what we’ll find. It could be nothing,” he said.
“You don’t believe that.”
“No.”
“Then don’t say it.”
“Aye, aye,” said Finn.
“It’s just…” She sounded frustrated. “We both know this is it. A fort? How perfect is that? A remote fort at that, and on an island? Give me a break! You guys should have figured this out a long time ago.”
“We were close. We just didn’t know it. We didn’t figure it out.”
“Stitch,” she said, remembering the story.
“Yes.” He considered this a moment. “The thing is…I like Stitch. Stitch is cute. Mischievous, but cute. I could never quite see him looking so mean and chasing me and Maybeck like that. But now, I’m thinking: spell. I’m thinking the Evil Queen can make us do just about anything she wants. Cute or not. Look at what’s happened to Luowski and the others! She feeds off people’s ambitions and desires.”
“Makes sense to me.” Amanda sneaked a peek around the rock. “How are we going to do this? Alligator-infested water. A pirate the size of the front door of Mrs. Nash’s house.”
“How are you and your arms doing?” he asked, knowing that each push weakened and tired her.
“It’s pretty lame when I’m a DHI. Not much push to the push. But I can try.”
“There are rocks down there,” he said. “If he hit his head on the rocks, it wouldn’t bother me one bit. Better than into the water where he’d make a lot of noise.”
“So we want to come at him from over there,” she said, pointing to the right of the bridge.
“We want you to,” Finn said. “Me, maybe not so much.”
They quickly worked out the details of their attack. Amanda waited as Finn crept down the hill and came at the pirate from straightaway.
“You there!” the pirate called out. He snatched an ancient pistol from his belt.
Guns? Finn thought, wondering if it was from a gift shop or for real, and having no great desire to find out.
“You take another step,” the pirate said, “and you’ll eat lead, palsy-walsy.”
Only then did the pirate’s head swivel as he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. Before he ever saw Amanda, he was airborne. The pirate crashed into an outcropping of rock and did not move. For about ten seconds.
Before Amanda could ask, “Is he…dead?” the pirate was twitching and reaching for his head.
“Run!” Finn said, grabbing Amanda’s hand and scurrying across the rickety Superstition Bridge.
Philby, entrenched at his computer, accessed the server remotely and typed in his backdoor password, waiting for the remote connection. A printout of Jess’s latest sketch sat alongside his keyboard. He didn’t understand where it was, but there was no mistaking who: Maleficent!
Excitement welled within him. His mother’s cooperation stunned him; secretly he still thought that at any moment she might come storming into his room, shouting at him to shut down everything and go back to bed, that she’d suffered a moment of weakness and had come to her senses.
So he worked fast, frustrated by a slow Ethernet connection that was as unpredictable as the weather.
In the background, he registered a sound, an unmistakable sound, from inside the house: the sliding-glass door opening. The one to the Florida room-a large screened-in porch at the back of the house. Why was his mother going out in the middle of night? Maybe she was sleepwalking. Maybe the entire conversation he’d had with her had been with a woman sleep-talking.
He typed faster, urging the connection to speed up.
Elvis meowed from the living room. There was one thing about Elvis: he only made that particular sound when he wanted to be picked up or petted. When he made it for a second time, Philby actually looked out his bedroom door as if he could see through walls. (He could not.) Because there was one thing about his mother: she could not resist Elvis. She spoiled the cat like it was a rich uncle who might bequest his entire estate someday.
It was a family joke: if Elvis meowed twice, Mom wasn’t home. Had she really fallen asleep so quickly? She’d seemed pretty worked up-
The screen changed, and Philby pulled his attention back to his computer.
He was in.
Thankfully, gorillas knew nothing about broken glass. As the first of the three explored the broken hole through the control room’s glass door, he cut his hand. Jumping back, he stuck his hand in his gaping mouth and whimpered like a baby. The injured gorilla then showed the other two his blood, and all three stepped away from the door as if it possessed powers.
Behind them, the Evil Queen could not stop adoring herself in the stainless steel mirror. She seemed oblivious to everything going on around her.
“You might be wondering what a dame like me is doing in a place like this,” Cruella De Vil said to Charlene. “And to tell you the truth, I hardly know!” The way she laughed made Charlene wonder if that hadn’t been what had shattered the glass. “It’s because I know the way of the world-our world, the modern world. Think about it: Queeny out there is from a world lit only by fire. She can hardly be considered worldly, like some of us. Eh, girly?”
“You’ll never get away with this,” Charlene said, holding up the Return fob. “One click of this button…”
Hugo spun around in his chair, his hand on a lever. “I wouldn’t be so sure. If your friend there takes one more step toward me, it’s lights out, everyone. If you push that button as the power fails, there’s no telling what will happen to us-to all of us. We might be gone forever.”
“Is that true?” she asked Maybeck, who looked ready to pounce.
He looked over at her with a terror-ridden, perplexed expression, his usual confidence sapped.
“Now, now, little girl, don’t be foolish,” Cruella said. “Hand that over to me this instant.” She flicked the ash off the burning cigarette at the end of her ebony-and-ivory holder, aiming the ember at Charlene’s face. “You wouldn’t want to see me when I’m mad.”
Maybeck scooped up an office chair, holding it above his head threateningly. “Whoever you are,” he said to Hugo, “you’re new at this. Let me tell you something about being a DHI: the slightest bit of fear and you’re partly human, partly hologram. It’s a glitch in the system that’s never been worked out. So if you think this chair is going to pass through you, you’re mistaken. Now, let go of that switch.”
Charlene matched each advancing step Cruella took, backing away from her.
“Drop the chair!” Hugo shouted, his hand still on the switch. “Do it, or we all go poof! And if Goldilocks there pushes that button, we might just…evaporate.”
Maybeck’s eyes darted. Cruella’s burning cigarette was closing in on Charlene’s face.
“Do it,” Maybeck said. He wanted her to push the Return.
If I push the button, I drop the fob and we’ll lose it again, Charlene was thinking. She banged into the counter behind her. Her hand felt a drawer handle. She hooked a finger into the handle and pulled the drawer open slightly. If she knew where to find the Return, they could come back to get it. She held it in her hand over the open drawer.
Cruella eyed the Queen through the office windows, clearly wanting her powers to throw spells. But the Queen was still struck by her own reflection.
Hugo Montcliff’s hand remained on the oversized switch. “You hit me with that chair, pal, and you’re going to be the one who throws this switch.”
“I suggest we all calm down,” said Cruella. “This is what we call a stalemate.”
As they crossed Superstition Bridge, Finn and Amanda heard the voices from within Fort Langhorn. They hurried to the left to avoid being seen.
“I can’t believe it!” Finn said.
“It sounds like a convention or something.”
“Of Overtakers.”
“You think?”
“I promise.” Eager to get a look inside, Finn moved toward the fort’s open gate. He sneaked a peek, his heart beating painfully in his chest with what he saw. The Horned King from The Black Cauldron. Gaston. Prince John from Robin Hood. He’d seen all three in a single glance. Milling throughout the center courtyard were pirates and a dozen other characters Finn had seen before but couldn’t name.
He slipped back next to Amanda, breathing hard. “This is it,” he said, winded by nerves. “Their hideout.”
“What now?”
“If the Queen and Cruella are asleep, there’s a good chance they’re in there,” he said.
“We’re going in there?”
In the distance, across the bridge, the pirate was stirring. He’d be on his feet any minute. He’d sound the alarm. The bridge was the only way off the island.
“We’ve got serious problems,” Finn said. “Follow me.”
He led her around the side of the fort so the waking pirate wouldn’t spot them. “They’re all in there,” he told her. “You can’t believe how many.” Then he said somewhat desperately, “There are only five of us. Seven, counting you and Jess.”
“Ariel told Willa there are many, many more. That they’re waiting for a leader.”
Finn skidded to a stop.
“What?” he gasped. “Why didn’t I hear about this?”
She shrugged. “Girl talk,” she said. “She knows…we all know how hung up you are on living up to Wayne’s expectations.”
“That’s not true.”
“Isn’t it?” said Amanda.
“Who said I’m the leader?”
“You see?” she said. “That’s what I’m talking about.”
They continued along the fort wall, sneaking past the door leading to Pappy’s Fishing Pier and kept following the wall as it turned again.
“Don’t be mad.”
“I’m not mad,” said Finn.
“You’re stewing.”
“What’s that?”
“That’s what Mrs. Nash calls it when you get so mad you won’t talk. She doesn’t let us stew. Everything gets out in the open.”
“I’m not stewing,” he said.
“If you say so.”
Then he stewed some more, not knowing what to say. They rounded the third corner.
“Are we just going to go around in a full circle, or what?” she asked.
“I remember coming here with my family years ago,” he said. “And maybe I’m mixing it up with the tunnels on the other island, but I’m pretty sure there’s a secret escape tunnel running from the fort.”
“That’s what we’re looking for?”
“That’s what I’m looking for, yes.”
“And if we find it?”
“I’m going in there.”
“No way, Finn.”
“Not you, don’t worry.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about! You can’t go in there with a zillion Overtakers inside.”
He stopped. They pressed their backs to the logs as he said, “Listen…Look…I don’t know exactly how to explain this, but I’m not even sure you’re going to wake up tonight. Okay? I’m freaking out here. These people, these things are ruining everything, and they’re only getting stronger. We…the five of us…the Keepers-and you and Jess, and Wayne and Wanda-we either stop them or…that’s just the thing: I don’t know what. I don’t know if any of us will be around, or if we’ll be lying in bed unable to wake up, like you are right now. I’m not playing hero here. I’m afraid. I’m afraid to go to sleep. Afraid to go to school. I can’t live like this. I’m going to find those two and stop them. Obviously, they’re only the tip of the iceberg,” he said, the voices of Overtakers rising over the wall. “But I’m not losing you. I’m not running away.”
She leaned across and kissed him, and despite him being a DHI, it felt to him as amazing as it had in front of Mrs. Nash’s.
When she pulled her lips off his, he said, “See? There’s still magic in the Parks.”
“Is that it?” she asked, pointing.
At first he thought she was disappointed in the kiss. Then he saw a rock wall coming out from below ground.
“The escape tunnel!” he said, greatly relieved.
Philby found his loyalties tested. He didn’t want to leave the connection to the server, but Elvis was still out there meowing. Philby had definitely heard his mother open the sliding door to the Florida room. So what was going on? What if it wasn’t his mother? What if Hugo had returned?
Blood overcame photons. He sneaked out into the living room to check it out. The room was dark, as was the outside. It was late. Neighbors’ houses were shuttered for the night.
In the greenish glow of some of the kitchen appliance displays, he spotted Elvis rubbing up against the open sliding glass door and meowing. The fan in the Florida room spun lazily. A breeze blew outside, clattering the palm fronds.
Philby walked on his toes, slinking forward.
“Hey, pal.” A low voice. Not his mother’s.
Philby jumped and banged against the sliding door’s metal doorjamb.
A kid-a giant of a kid-had his hand over Philby’s mother’s mouth and her arm wrenched up behind her back. Her eyes were bulging, pleading to her son through palpable terror.
“You must be Luowski,” Philby said, his voice eerily calm. He’d never truly hated before. He’d never had the urge to hurt someone like he had now. The boy’s size meant nothing; what he’d heard about him meant nothing. He was hurting his mother, and that was all there was in the world-the only thing that existed.
“You will let her go right now,” Philby said.
“Oh, yeah? Or else?”
“I will rain down a world of hurt on you the likes of which you’ve never known.”
Luowski spit out laughter, but Philby sensed concern lingering down under the boy’s calm exterior.
“I don’t think so,” Luowski said. “I think you will do exactly as I say, or the world of hurt will be on your conscious, pal. And it won’t be raining down on me, believe me.” He goosed Mrs. Philby’s arm up more tightly, and Philby watched her strain under the pain.
“It’s ‘conscience,’ nimrod. You’re out of your depths…beyond your pay scale…” Philby said, as he edged closer. “You have stepped so far over the line that I’m not going to let you go back. You can beg, but I won’t hear you.”
“Tough? You, nerd boy? Think so? You’re going to show me your Internet modem, and we’re going to shut that puppy down. Then, we’re going to give it…” he stole a glance at his wristwatch, “…fifteen, twenty minutes, and I’ll be on my way.”
He’d told Philby much more than he’d meant to. Whatever was going down with the Overtakers, it was happening this very minute. Right now! In fifteen minutes it would all be over.
“Got to pick on girls, big guy?” Philby said. “Big Mr. Greg Luowski picks on a mother because he’s too afraid of a Kingdom Keeper.”
“Am not!”
“Have they told you what we can do? What we’re capable of? I’m guessing not. I’m guessing the Queen either put you under a spell or made it sound like a really cool thing to take us on, to join up with her. But she left out a few details, I’m willing to bet. Like the fact that I can walk through a door or a wall when I’m a DHI. Like I can walk into your home and find you, or your mother, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me. You might want to think about that before you continue down the road you’re on, Greg. You will never hear the end of this. This will never go away.”
Luowski tried hard to look composed.
“Never. Ever. You let her go right now, or you’ll have five of us in your house and no evidence that anyone was ever there but you and your parents. Whatever happens will be put on you.”
The thing is, Philby was freaking out his own mother. But sometimes there was collateral damage. He had to accept the fallout.
“You and me, Luowski,” Philby said. “Leave her out of this. Or are you too chicken?”
“Nice try.”
“You’ve seen what Finn can do. I know you have. Amanda, too, I hear. How about me, Greg? What can I do? Did you think about that before you came into my house? Because you should have.”
Luowski was sweating now, either from the heat, or from everything Philby was saying.
His mother bent her knee and drove the ball of her heel up and into a spot between the boy’s legs that made Luowski’s eyes squint shut as he screamed. She elbowed him in the chest and dove to the side as her son charged.
Philby never thought about what he was doing. He was all about adrenaline and instinct-this caveman urge to protect his mother. He lowered his shoulder and hit Luowski in the chest like a football tackle, knocking the boy off his feet and into a rattan chair. The chair spilled over. They blew through the screen door, shredding it, and rolled out onto the patio.
Luowski was more bear than human. His strength returned, and Philby felt it like a machine had been switched on. Finn had described the supernatural strength of being thrown by Luowski, but only now as he felt his shoulders crushed by the boy’s grip did he fully get the picture. Luowski was an Overtaker, not just another big kid.
Philby felt Luowski’s muscles contract: he was going to throw him into the wall of the house; he was going to crush every bone in his body. He was going to kill him.
“Greg!” Philby’s mother’s voice.
Luowski was as programmed as any other kid: when an adult called your name, you looked.
A spray hit Luowski’s face-bug spray, Philby realized by the smell. The boy-giant released Philby and slapped his hands over his eyes, crying like a wild animal.
“Ahhhhhhh!” He staggered around the lawn, wiped some of it clean, and took off running as Mrs. Philby charged at him, can outstretched, ready to deliver another dose.
Luowski was gone. Philby’s mom stood there panting. But a smile curled proudly at her lips.
“We showed him,” she said.
“WHAT IS GOING ON!?”
Philby’s father.
“What the heck happened to my Florida room?” He was in a pair of tighty-whities and a T-shirt. He looked…disappointed.
“Dad, it was-” Philby said.
“-a gator,” his mother said, interrupting. “But Dell and I handled it, didn’t we, sweetheart?”
Philby looked up at his mother. Maybe she was under a spell as well.
“Yeah, we did.”
“Go back to bed,” his mother told his father. “We can deal with this in the morning.”
His father, looking totally perplexed, knew better than to tangle with his wife when she was holding a can of bug spray.
“You’re all right?” he asked the two.
“No,” Philby’s mother said. “We’re better than just all right. We’re good.”
Definitely some kind of spell.
Finn blinked, allowing his eyes to adjust. Some light filtered in from the mouth of the tunnel, where Amanda stood guard. He was helped by the faint glow of his DHI. But soon the entrance was well behind him, and the depth of the tunnel began to choke out all light. A glow came from behind him and he spun around, ready to strike out.
“It’s me!” Amanda hissed.
“What are you doing here? We had a plan!”
“You had a plan. I had…reservations. Isn’t one of the rules that Keepers never go alone?”
“There are exceptions.”
“Like when the odds are a hundred-to-one against us?”
“I explained: If we’re separated, it gives you a chance to come rescue me.”
“Yeah, like that’s going to happen!”
“It’s called strategy.”
“It’s called stupid. I’m much more help here with you than back looking at the stars and getting all freaked out by the wind in the bushes.”
“So, you’re afraid,” he said.
“No, no,” she said sarcastically. “I’m real used to this.”
“Hey,” he said, indicating the faintness of his blue outline. “I’m scared, too, in case you hadn’t noticed. I don’t exactly love small spaces…like tunnels, for instance. But here we are.”
“Here we are,” she said.
They crept forward, deeper into the narrow tunnel. Water dripped down the walls. A sharp edge of rock appeared just ahead-the tunnel divided. But no, Finn realized-the tunnel to the right was blocked by a wooden door.
“Now that’s interesting,” Finn whispered.
“The wood is new,” she said. “Really new.”
“Yes. Not a bad place to lock yourself away for a little nap.” The door was locked. He understood what had to be done. “I’m going in there,” he said. “I can go all clear long enough to get through the door-I know I can.” He tried to psych himself up for it, as it would require a complete brainwash to get his full DHI back.
“That would leave you alone in there. And, by the way, me alone out here.”
“Yeah,” he said.
“Please, don’t.”
His blue line grew stronger without his closing his eyes, without concentrating. It’s her, he thought. He was feeding off her concern for him.
“At one o’clock,” he said, “you need to be back at the hub.”
“Please…”
“With or without me.”
“Don’t even go there.” She sized up the door. “I can push it open.”
“It would take everything left in you, and it might turn out to be a broom closet. No. Save your strength. We may need it.”
“Do not humor me,” she said.
“I’m being confident. I’m feeling confident.” His blue line was exceptionally strong. His toes and fingers tingled. He offered her a fleeting smile, and he stepped through the door.
“I will crush you like a bug,” Maybeck said, his arms still rock-solid as he held the chair aloft.
“When I pull this switch there won’t be any you. So what then?” said Hugo.
“Enough with the yakety yak,” Cruella said, “Just pull the switch.”
“Get that thing from her, and I will,” Hugo said. “We can’t risk them happening together. Do something!”
Cruella aimed the burning cigarette closer to Charlene’s face.
Charlene glanced at the wall clock, trying to stall for the remaining three minutes. She couldn’t help Finn and Amanda Return-that would have to still be up to Philby-but the fob offered her and Maybeck a way out. The rising confidence in Maybeck’s eyes suggested he might know what she was thinking.
Click. The minute hand moved forward. Two minutes to go.
Finn was always on time for everything, but he wasn’t necessarily early.
“Tell them why they’re doing this, Terry,” Charlene said.
“Oh, yes, by all means. Please!” said Hugo.
Maybeck’s eyes found the clock. “Because Maleficent’s prison cell is controlled electronically, and this facility provides Disney World’s backup power.”
Judging by the state of alarm on Cruella’s face, he’d hit a home run. Charlene tried to keep her own surprise from showing. This was the first she’d heard his theory.
“So, really,” Charlene said, “where do you think the rest of us are right now?”
“PULL THE SWITCH, YOU LITTLE TWIT!” Cruella shouted at Hugo.
Charlene’s thumb warmed the plastic button on the fob, rubbing back and forth, so tempted to send them all back from where they’d come.
Finn inched forward, a tightness gripping his chest immediately, his DHI’s blue outline dimming. His eyes slowly adjusted to his own faint glow.
The cave walls sweated, the air dank, the space narrow and confined. His head swooned. He moved forward tentatively as the tunnel turned slightly, and he gasped.
Cruella De Vil. Asleep on some furs atop an air mattress. He leaned closer; her eyeballs danced beneath her eyelids. It looked…horrific.
Just beyond Cruella, the Evil Queen slept on her back, hands folded across her belly, her crown in place. Her lips and nose were twitching. She seemed to be grinning slightly.
He had them.
For a moment, the shock of the discovery proved too much; he simply stared. If he could tie them up, gag the Queen so she couldn’t throw spells, then wait for sunrise and the return of the Characters to their various attractions, then maybe, just maybe, the Imagineers had two more prisoners. Two more generals, Shan-Yu would have said.
He had his two shoelaces. A sash around the Queen’s robe. A plan formed in his head.
The way their eyes moved behind their lids was disturbing. He couldn’t stop himself from looking.
He checked a watch that hung from Cruella’s neck:
12:59. In one minute he would be Returned-that is, if he and Amanda were close enough to the hub. He had no desire to test the system. But he needed more time. He began unlacing his shoes frantically. They would never get another chance like this.
Spinning in self-admiration, the Evil Queen’s green-outlined DHI, glued to her own reflection, noticed three gorillas behind her. Gorillas? In the distant realm of consciousness, a flicker of reality spoiled her celebration of her unparalleled beauty, returning her to the moment at hand. She dropped the stainless steel sheet and it landed loudly.
Charlene caught the changes to the Queen through the control room windows. There was Maybeck, his arms beginning to shake from holding the chair for so long; Cruella, advancing the glowing end of her cigarette at Charlene’s perfect complexion; Hugo Montcliff, his hand on a master switch.
“What are you three doing standing around?” she heard the Queen complain. “I said ‘Get them!’ ”
The gorillas charged the door, more afraid of the Queen than some broken glass.
Charlene was no Jess-but she could see the future. The gorillas were going for Terry. He would not have a chance.
Maybeck heard the door break open and understood that he was the target. He had never hurt another person-not like he was about to hurt this kid. But he brought the chair down onto Hugo holding the switch with a vengeance.
Hugo Montcliff saw the look in Maybeck’s eyes and knew the fate that awaited him. He was, in fact, going to be squished like a bug. He pulled the switch.
Charlene pushed the button. The fob fell into the drawer.
The two facility workers taped into the chairs screamed through their gags in unison; the kids and the two costumed freaks vanished. Like a magic act. Now you see them, now you don’t.
Finn was just tying the Queen’s hands together when she sat bolt-upright. He screamed at the top of his lungs and fell back.
Seeing Finn so close, the Queen screamed as well, the released terror echoing off the tunnel’s sheer stone walls.
Cruella’s eyes bugged open. It took a moment for her to reorient herself.
In the uncomfortable moment that followed, the only sound was the steady drip of condensation coming off the rock walls.
For Finn, their coming awake was like living a horror movie. The Queen began untying her hands with her teeth. Cruella rolled over on her furs. Finn saw the Queen’s hands coming loose-her ability to throw a spell was only seconds away. He backed off, looking down at his own hands with their faint blue outline. In his current state he wasn’t going to walk through the door any time soon.
“Well, what do we have here?” the Evil Queen said, knowing perfectly well what she had here. She had Finn. Cornered.
He banged his back into the door. He willed himself to all clear, but knew it was hopeless. He was terrified of the Queen; what chance did he have?
“What’s happening to him?” Cruella asked.
Finn looked down at his hands-sputtering and translucent. Like nothing he’d ever seen.
“Where’d he go!?” shouted Cruella.
“Who turned out the lights?” the Queen said.
Finn stood still, wondering why everything had gone pitch-black and why they couldn’t see him. It took him several long seconds to grasp the situation: he was in DHI shadow, his DHI no longer providing a glow in the tunnel. Invisible. The projectors had apparently been turned off. By who? More importantly: why? His first guess was Philby.
“No, no, no!” Cruella said. “It’s the power failure. We did it! We succeeded! By tomorrow morning at seven o’clock we’ll be whole aga-”
“SILENCE!” the Queen erupted. “Say nothing more. He’s still here, you fool. FIND HIM!”
“I can’t see my own nose!” Cruella complained. “And I have a big nose.”
“Hold your arms out. We should be able to feel him.”
Finn knew everything the Queen had said was true. He made himself small, arms at his side, and ducked down into a squat, his ears intent upon hearing the sound of their shuffling feet as they moved toward him.
He was going to be caught. The tunnel was too narrow to slip past them. His best chance was surprise. He charged.
Cruella shrieked. He felt her arms spin like a propeller. He averted his face, knowing the Queen was next.
“Umph!” she said, as he hit her and went down with her onto the air mattress. She grabbed for him, but he rolled and clawed the wall and moved off her. He glued his back to the wet stone, anticipating their next move.
“This way!” the Queen roared.
In their haste, the two moved past him.
“Do you have him?”
“NO! Do you?”
Finn hurried past the two air mattresses, hands outstretched, and found the wooden door. He felt left, right, up, down-there! A dead-bolt lock. He turned it.
The door came open.
He heard footfalls racing in front of him.
“Is that you?” he called to the sound.
“What’s going on? I can’t see a thing!” came Amanda’s terrified voice. “There were noises…”
“Get to the bridge!” he said. “I’ll explain later!”
“GET HIM!” he heard the Queen’s voice echoing from behind him.
You can’t catch what you can’t see, Finn thought.
Reaching the mouth of the escape tunnel, Finn and Amanda rushed out into total darkness.
“It’s a blackout!” he said, realizing there wasn’t a single light on in the entire Park. Only the moon offered any chance to see or be seen. As many times as he’d been in the Parks at night, he’d never seen it like this.
“If there’s no power, how can we exist?” she called out.
They rounded the final corner of the fort. From inside came shouts and cries. The Queen must have raised the alarm. Overtakers began pouring out of the fort behind them.
“Who knows?” he answered. “But here we are. We can talk. We can hear each other. Who cares? We’ve got to get out of here.”
They ran past the wobbly pirate they’d knocked down a few minutes earlier. Finn crashed into him and the guy went down again. A stream of Overtakers crowded the bridge.
“MIIINNNNNNIEEE!!” Finn shouted.
They both heard a motor start in the distance.
Finn glanced back at the Overtakers.
“Faster!” he called out.
“What’s happening?”
“Mom,” Philby said. “I don’t have time to explain it all. Not exactly sure, anyway.”
She’d gone from tyrannical Keepers hater to poster mom, sitting by her son’s side and watching him manipulate a dozen windows on his computer screen simultaneously.
The server had never faltered, but without warning the Projection icon had turned red, indicating a full Park-wide failure of all projectors.
“It’s some kind of power failure, I think,” he said. “The projectors are out, but the server is still up. It’s probably on a battery backup of some kind. But if that’s right, it won’t last long. Five minutes. Ten, at the outside. I’ve got to get them back.”
“I thought you said they were back,” she said.
“That was Maybeck and Charlene. Yeah, they Returned okay. It’s Finn and Amanda.”
“The sick girl…”
“Yeah…We hope not.”
“So, can you help them?”
“I’m late. And I’m kind of busy here.”
“I’ll shut up,” she said, straining to sit back, but then sticking her face alongside his shoulder.
Philby executed a few lines of code and pushed Enter.
The screen filled with data that then began to scroll automatically.
“What’s that?” his mother asked.
“It’s okay,” he said, fed up with her questions, but trying to sound patient. “It’s begun. A few minutes is all, and we’ll know.”
Finn and Amanda-invisible-jumped onto the raft, joining Pluto and Minnie.
“Go!” Finn said to Minnie, who startled, and looked around trying to see him in the moonlight. “Please! Take us back!”
Minnie threw a lever and the raft pulled away from the dock ahead of the Overtakers’ arrival. Once to the other side, an invisible Finn kissed Minnie on the cheek before he and Amanda jumped off.
They ran hard, Pluto at their side, keeping up with them effortlessly.
When Pluto barked sharply three times, Finn looked behind them.
The wolf, head to the ground. Moving like a tornado toward them.
“We’ve got company,” he told Amanda.
“How can he possibly-?”
“Who knows? Smell? Maybe he’s after Pluto.”
The hub and Cinderella Castle came into view and, as they did, all the lights in the Park pulsed once and went dark again. With them, Amanda’s DHI sparkled, eerily translucent, and then vanished again with the loss of power.
“Almost there,” Finn said. He caught up and reached for her. Trying to feel her. He bumped her back with his fist, reached down her arm, and took her hand. He tingled all over. He knew that feeling. Knew it only too well.