Kingdom Keepers VII Page 19

  He misses home. He misses Dillard. The events of that fateful day replay in his memory, preventing sleep even if he could feel tired, which he cannot. It’s a lousy night in paradise.

  Involuntarily riding a roller coaster of semiconsciousness and poisonous nightmare, Finn hears voices.

  Actually, only a single voice: Wayne’s.

  Convincing himself he’s fully awake, Finn traces the source of the voice not to his own driven-toward-insanity-exhaustion but to the stereo speakers. It’s not Wayne, but the radio. Stupid Maybeck must have bumped the radio’s on/off button in his sleep—it wouldn’t be the first time; the console is right at the foot of his bench.

  Fury at Maybeck sweeps through Finn; he’s mad at Philby too, for having the bed tonight after he, Finn, was nearly killed in the Indiana Jones ride.

  For an instant, the haze lifts and Finn realizes it’s the fatigue making him think of his friends this way; it isn’t the real him. But at the same time, that also feels like a lie; it’s increasingly difficult to distinguish the angry Finn who killed his best friend from the well-intentioned once-innocent kid who wanted to help save the Disney kingdom. Noble aspirations, he’s learning, disperse fast under the pressures of reality. What’s at stake are no longer only fairies, princesses, and sword-wielding heroes but human lives, his own included. The Keepers must confront wounds and pain, frustration and confusion, and complicated relationships that aren’t anything like they look in TV and movies. He and Amanda hurt each other’s feelings, usually unintentionally, and that hurt doesn’t go away when a laugh track kicks in.

  How many times has his mother warned him, saying things like, “I know you’re in a hurry to grow up, but believe me, cherish your childhood. You won’t get these days back,” and “Growing up isn’t all it’s cracked up to be”?

  Being a DHI has spilled over into his other world as well. His mother hasn’t fully returned to herself after the weeks she spent under Maleficent’s control. Like Finn’s, her nights are restless; unlike Finn, she battles unpredictable headaches and endures times when she hears no one, locked in a damaged space she has yet to describe or explain. She gets a faraway look sometimes that terrifies her husband and family. Finn worries for her, for his fellow Keepers, for Wayne and the kingdom. His former not-a-care-in-the-world self has been contaminated by his worrier-warrior self. His brain won’t quiet, his heart can’t stop aching.

  Finn hopes beyond hope that this is not what being an adult is like. If it is, he understands why Peter Pan thought better of it.

  As he suspected, the radio is on. Worse, Maybeck’s feet smell so bad that getting close to the console to turn off the radio is an act of self-torture. Worse yet, the radio’s on/off button now appears to be broken and won’t switch off. Pinching his nose with one hand, Finn resorts to turning down the volume. Of course that knob is also broken.

  By this point, Finn half convinces himself that he’s fallen asleep after all—the thing may be cheap, but when does a radio not turn off or turn down? He must be in some kind of waking nightmare. He tries changing stations, which also has no effect. It’s the same voice on every channel, prompting the inevitable question: Is he sleepwalking? Can people think clearly when they’re sleepwalking? Do they think they think clearly, or do they not think at all? To outside observers, they march around like zombies, but if a sleepwalker can make himself a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich, isn’t some cognitive activity going on?

  But Finn knows he’s not a zombie, just a tired kid trying to turn off a radio that won’t stop blabbing in a voice that sounds incredibly like an old guy he admires and wants badly to please. Wait. Dream or not, Finn pays enough attention to the voice to determine the identity of the speaker, and it really is Wayne’s voice—distorted, made thinner and higher by the horrible stereo, but Wayne Kresky’s voice, no question. Perhaps that explains why it will not turn off, turn down, or change channels.

  For a moment this simply confirms what Finn has been suspecting—that he’s dreaming. But maybe, he thinks, if he pays attention to the voice rather than trying to eliminate it, the dream will pass and he can get on with his much-needed sleep. Whether it’s the correct decision or not, he doesn’t see much choice; the voice doesn’t appear to be going away.

  “What has two hundred and sixty-four legs, consumes more than thirty pounds of meat a day, and has only one head? At nine o’clock Friday night, hide where ears never listened.”

  The same question repeated over and over. How had he missed that? He wonders if the message changed at the instant he decided to listen, or if he was deaf to its content during his efforts to silence it. The sound of Wayne’s voice has the unexpected effect of bringing tears to Finn’s eyes; it’s like seeing a lost family pet appear at the door. A flood of happiness and relief engulfs him, and he hears himself saying aloud, “Thank you. Thank you,” having no idea to whom he’s speaking.

  The thing to do is write down the riddle. Finn takes to the task like it’s his dying wish. He considers waking Philby—it would be unfair to wake the injured Maybeck—to help him determine the riddle’s authenticity, but elects to get it down word for word instead. Wayne has a thing for words; he’s careful and conservative in his use of language. Overall, he’s impressive, not someone to question. He has answers to nearly every question, but often only poses the questions—a frustrating trait that has something to do with what he calls “making one think for oneself.” The expression baffles Finn; as far as he knows, thinking is an intimately personal act that you could not share even if you wished to. And he often does wish to.

  He scribbles out:

  What has one head, two hundred sixty-four legs, and consumes more than thirty pounds of meat a day? At nine o’clock Friday night, hide where ears never listened.

  Wayne has offered up some doozies over their time as DHIs—the Stonecutter’s Quill was among the most difficult puzzles to solve—but not only does this riddle seem to make no sense, it’s as though there’s a sentence or two missing.

  The old Imagineer uses riddles to prevent the Overtakers’ understanding any messages they intercept. He presumes the Keepers will figure them out, thereby establishing their superiority over the Overtakers and receiving information critical to their mission.

  Yet this particular message eludes Finn. He wants badly to solve it himself, to be able to deliver the solution to the others; he wants to reinforce his leadership position even while he’s wondering why it’s his to begin with. Leaders don’t kill their best friends. Leaders don’t allow their mothers to be placed under spells. Leaders don’t endlessly question their own decisions and their value to their team. At least, Finn doesn’t think they do.

  With a shiver, he forces his mind back to the task at hand. A message from Wayne is top priority. Grudgingly, Finn admits temporary defeat and wakes Philby for a consultation.

  The groggy boy emerges from the trailer’s only private room, scratching his head of red hair and contorting his freckled face like a cartoon figure. The California sun has brought out Philby’s freckles in ways the Florida sun failed to do, an effect the Professor feels needs scientific explanation—but that will have to wait. Philby fiddles with the radio, faces the front of the trailer, and gazes into the sound of Wayne’s voice, repeating its inscrutable words in an endless loop.

  “You’re not dreaming,” Philby says. “It’s him. Have you written it down?”

  “Yes. We need to wake the others. We need to solve the riddle. Now.”

  “Agreed. Here’s another riddle: Why does this stuff always happen in the middle of the night?” Philby asks. “I was actually getting a decent night’s sleep.”

  * * *

  Willa feels a chill run down her back. She trusts Philby and she cares about him—really cares about him—but she can’t believe what he’s done. For a guy who typically thinks he’s the smartest in the room, he’s made a foolish and dangerous decision. Ever since Maybeck was captured and hidden in Space Mountain all those years ago,
the Keepers have never, ever worked alone. Philby knows that. True, they’re more experienced now. But what if this is a trap? Without any backup and an unstable DHI, Finn could be easy prey.

  What if the Overtakers plan to capture him? What if, knowing that Finn killed Maleficent, they are out for revenge? Willa imagines Finn trapped, surrounded by villains, unable to go all clear because his DHI is malfunctioning. The villains approach him, getting closer and closer, and there’s nothing Finn can do.…

  “What were you thinking?” Willa gasps. For a moment, she remembers the Cryptos’ warning of an “enemy within.” Philby has always wanted to be the Keepers’ leader. His decision and its possible consequences terrify her.35

  “Cross me over,” Willa says. It’s taken the Keepers a while to solve the first part of Wayne’s riddle. Finn’s impatience has caused a Keepers rule to be broken, and Willa can’t believe Philby went along with it.

  “No way.”

  “Why, because it’s too dangerous? You realize how this is going to look? We’re supposed to work in pairs. But you sent Finn off alone. Everyone knows you’ve wanted the leadership role. If anything should happen to Finn, how do you think it’s going look?”

  Philby looks panic-stricken.

  “Yeah,” Willa says. “That’s what I thought. So I repeat: Cross me over! As in now!”

  A YOUNG GIRL, no older than six, clings to her mother as they board a Doom Buggy in the Haunted Mansion. A teenager’s taunting in the Stretching Room scared the little one, causing her to question her earlier excitement over a first-ever visit to the “grown-up” attraction.

  The Doom Buggy creeps forward. Sitting with her mother at her side, the little girl sees nothing as scary as the teenager suggested was in store for her. She relaxes—just a little—and begins to enjoy the ride.

  Mother and daughter round a corner into a room in which a large glass ball floats like a giant bubble. A woman’s head floats within the ball, her face pale, her lips red. A chant echoes eerily. The girl feels a chill. Her mother wraps her arm around her, and the girl cuddles close.

  “You know the glass snow globes we have at home?” her mother asks. It’s a rhetorical question; the snow globes are her daughter’s favorite souvenirs. “That woman—Madame Leota, they call her—is like that.”

  “But she’s alive!”

  “It’s a trick. An illusion. It does look real, doesn’t it?”

  The girl knows her mother’s voice well enough to understand that even she is surprised by what she’s calling “an illusion”—whatever that means.

  Their buggy lunges forward as the ride comes to an abrupt stop. Around them, a few park guests scream. The girl, having never been on the ride before, assumes this is all just part of the show. Even so, she’s prompted to complain. “I don’t like this so much.”

  Her mother says nothing, only clutches her more tightly, making the little girl uneasy. Theatrical smoke spills into the room. It tastes funny, like the air in the laundry room at home.

  “This is new,” her mother says. She’s a veteran of the ride. She doesn’t sound too thrilled.

  From out of the swirling smoke emerges a woman in a flowing nightgown.

  “Look, Mommy, it’s a vampire!”

  Her mother squeezes her daughter’s shoulder all the harder.

  A hideous Madame Leota approaches, not at all the headless woman in the glass ball. But it’s her. Somehow, there’s no denying it. The young girl screams. Trapped in the Doom Buggy by the safety bar, the girl and her mother can do nothing but squirm away as far from Leota as they can get. Leota finishes her chant and raises her arms as her eyes roll back in her head. The girl’s mother screams louder than she ever has before, prompting her daughter to release a shriek so shrill that a ripple of cries arises from the neighboring buggies in response.

  A flash of lightning explodes only a few feet away from their buggy. Madame Leota is gone. Vaporized. A foul-smelling pocket of brown smoke spirals up from the spot on which the ghost stood.

  “Who’s that?” the girl says. But her mother’s eyes are clamped shut. The person the girl has spotted holds something that looks vaguely like a gun, but thin wires emerge out of its handle. The wires are attached to a plastic comb, which is lying on the floor where the ghost was. As quickly as this person appears, he vanishes.

  The buggies buck and start to move. Emergency lights replace the show lights. A calm voice tells guests, “Playful ghosts have interrupted our tour. Please remain seated in your Doom Buggy. We will proceed in a moment.”

  The buggies move faster than before, whipping along the track in the patchy glare of the emergency lighting. The scenes around them look like their family attic: scattered, dust-covered junk.

  “That wasn’t fun,” the girl says. “Mommy? I said, ‘That wasn’t fun.’”

  “No, sweetie,” her mother says, looking terrified in the harsh white emergency lights. “That wasn’t fun. It went too far, even for me. But we’re safe now. We’re fine.”

  “What about her?”

  “Who, sweetie?”

  “Her.”

  The girl points up. In the shadow of one of the rafters, a woman’s burned face is just visible. It’s Madame Leota, tucked into a ball, her singed arms clutched tightly around her legs. The little girl’s mother screams.

  Thirty yards away, the guests are quickly exiting with the help of Cast Members. They all turn as one in horror as the woman’s anguished cry flies up from inside the ride behind them, spurring all to run in panic for the exit, despite futile calls from the Cast Members to remain calm.36

  FINN CROSSES OVER INTO THE PLAZA with only a minor incident. He knows where to find Club 33 and is feeling more familiar with Disneyland. As a result, he is more confident and relaxed. The issue is one he’s faced before: the problem of how to deal with the astonished guest.

  This time it’s an eight-year-old boy who’s familiar with the Keepers from Disney 365 on the Disney Channel. The boy witnesses Finn’s materialization—a shadow forms, particles of light sparkle, and the three-dimensional projected image of Finn Whitman appears—as real as any boy he’s met before. Finn’s celebrity is all that registers, not his being a hologram; in fact, it never occurs to the boy that he’s looking at a hologram. He’s seen so many special effects in his short life, he can no longer distinguish reality from the movies and shows he sees. Tell him Iron Man can’t fly and he’ll scoff at you; try to explain that Percy Jackson is just a story and he’ll dismiss you as stupid and ignorant. This is Finn, the Kingdom Keeper.

  “Is it really you?” the boy asks.

  “It is.” Finn steps up to the boy and kneels down onto one knee so he can look him in the eye. “And I’m on a mission,” he whispers, “so I need you to keep a secret. You can’t tell anyone you saw me. Can you do that?”

  The boy nods, now unable to utter a word.

  “Attaboy. Thanks!”

  Another nod, this time sheepish. The boy looks back and Finn follows his line of sight to a woman busy with a toddler in a stroller; he takes her to be the boy’s mother. Finn spots an autograph book sticking out of a pocket on the back of the stroller.

  “The thing is,” Finn says, “if other kids see me sign your autograph book, then maybe they’re going to want my autograph too, and that means other people will know our secret, and then it won’t be our secret any more. So let’s do this: you sneak over there like the best Kingdom Keeper Insider spy we’ve ever had. Okay? Do your best to hide the autograph book as you bring it over to me.” The boy is now nodding so hard, it looks like his head might pop off. “I will pretend to tie my shoe. Don’t forget a pen! Bring me the book, place it by my shoes and I’ll sign it and you can sneak it back. Deal?”

  “Deal!”

  “Great. You’d better tell me your name now.”

  “Phillip. My name’s Phillip.”

  “Nice to meet you, Phillip. Okay. Start your mission!”

  A minute later, the autograph book is signed, and
Finn is on his way, wishing he and the Keepers had more interaction in the parks with the guests. The encounter will be something the boy remembers always—Finn is certain of that. The astonished eyes, the sincere excitement—that’s what the parks stand for: the thrill of imagination, the magic of the mind. All that is what he and the Keepers are fighting for—quite literally at times: the opportunity to dream. Finn’s brief encounter with the boy has satisfied some empty space in him that needed filling. The Overtakers want to blot out such thrills, destroy one of the few places left where mind triumphs over matter.

  His head lowered so that his face will not be recognized, Finn follows the sea of running shoes, sunburned legs, ankle socks, canes, crutches, and wheels of many sizes and varieties. Reminded of his reason for coming here, he feels emboldened. Might cannot be allowed to triumph over right.

  Finn’s destination remains only marginally uncertain. When the Keepers solve one of Wayne’s riddles, they try not to second-guess themselves. The solution involved a battle of wits and demanded a combination of both knowledge and experience.

  * * *

  Hours earlier, the Keepers had gathered for dinner at the Studio Commissary, taking a table away from other workers. Food fueled their collective power of reasoning. They did some of their best group thinking at places like Cosmic Ray’s or the Disney Dream’s cabanas.

  What has one head, two hundred sixty-four legs, and consumes more than thirty pounds of meat a day? At nine o’clock Friday night, hide where ears never listened.

  Maybeck began sketching almost immediately, first drawing legs: many, many people, each with two legs.