Wolf snarled and snapped at the darkness. He was obviously fighting against a powerful force attacking him from the inside. “I know you are, Wals.” The film covering his eyes wavered for a moment as Wolf tried to do the decent thing, the right thing. A little bit of the sapphire blue showed through. “That’s why I brought you here. You have to go back.”
“Back to the castle or my room?” Wals was confused. He didn’t know what Wolf meant or what he was capable of doing.
“No. Back to the twenty-first century. You have to bring back help. I…I just can’t fight this off by myself. I need help.”
“Who? Who can help with this?”
“Mato.” Wolf’s word was reduced to a whisper as the evil in him surged against the thoughts of family and friends.
“Your brother? How can I get to him? He is back on Tom Sawyer’s Island in 1817!”
“There is a way.”
“How? The portals only open with your howl. That much I do know.”
“In my locker. In the back there’s a recorder. Get Lance to help you. Use that recorder, or I am as good as dead,” he panted, hopeless.
Wals was miserable at what he saw before him. “Wolf, I can’t leave you here like this. There must be something I can do.”
“If you stay, I won’t be able to fight this spell any longer and…I…will…kill…you.”
Wals looked quickly about. He was unarmed and only the piece of broken driftwood was near at hand. He had no delusion that the wolf was joking. He knew Wolf was totally serious. Trying to reach out to touch his friend, he quickly jerked his hand back when he saw Wolf start to snap at him, the dark film coming back to cover his blue eyes. “Call the portal. Now, Wolf! You were always there for me and I will do everything I can to come through for you. Remember this: I will be back.” Wals was torn by the knowledge that he wanted to help his anguished friend, but, to do so, he had to leave him in this condition.
Head back, Wolf let out an angry, anguished howl. It was different than any Wals had ever heard before. Stepping away from the divided animal, he could see the ocean start to change. The fog came very quickly this time, as if sensing the urgency, the desperation of the summons. Falling over themselves, the waves became a swirling whirlpool as lightning split the sky high overhead.
The electricity in the air somehow sparked the new evil deep within the wolf. In a sudden frenzy, he snarled and bit at the waves that crashed onto the sandy shore. Just as the whirlpool neared the beach, Wolf began to turn on Wals, setting himself to jump at his throat. When he saw the hind legs bunch, Wals took the initiative and threw himself into the gaping darkness.
Wolf sailed through empty air where the man stood only moments before. Turning quickly he bit at the edges of the water. Once Wals had fallen through, the yawning pit closed and sparkled out, its job was done.
Seeing he was alone and his prey had vanished, the wolf dropped into the placid, lapping water, his energy totally spent. “Hurry, Wals,” he gasped, his sides heaving. “I don’t know how long I can hold out.”
Disneyland — 2008
”Mommy, look! It’s Prince Phillip!”
“Where, honey?” Deep inside the Sleeping Beauty Walkthrough, her attention distracted, the mom peered closer into the viewing window at the wildly turning spindles. “Are you sure? I don’t see him in there. Hey, where are you? You’re supposed to stay right next to me.”
Her daughter, Kyla, pulled on her arm. “No, not in there. Over there.” As she tugged on her mom, Rhea, with one hand, she impatiently gestured with the other. “Hurry before he gets away!”
As she reached for her camera, Rhea’s hand hesitated when she saw where her daughter had pointed. “Kyla? Are you sure that’s Prince Phillip?”
“Yeah! Look at the red cape and hat! Can I have a picture with him? Please!?” Almost beside herself in the excitement of seeing a real prince, Kyla clapped her hands and jumped up and down.
“Umm, he doesn’t look very…umm…happy…. I think he’s…he’s sleeping, Kyla. Let’s go back outside. Your dad’s waiting for us with little Daisy. I…I think I hear her crying,” as she looked back at the figure sprawled out on the floor. She made a quick grab at the seven-year-old’s hand. “Let’s not bother the prince right now, sweetie. Come on, we need to hurry.”
The disappointed Kyla was pulled down the last flight of stairs. “I don’t hear Daisy crying.”
Her mumbled words weren’t heard as they exited the Castle and practically ran to their waiting family as they stood in the shade near the Castle Heraldry Shoppe. As their huge stroller was casually pushed back and forth in a soothing rhythm to keep the baby asleep, Rhea’s husband, Chad, wondered why his wife had a concerned look on her face. Chad had just watched the ‘virtual tour’ of the Walkthrough in the special room on the ground floor. That room had been set up for those who aren’t able to navigate all the stairs—like the disabled guests or those with baby strollers—and showed each of the animated dioramas as it told the story of the Sleeping Beauty. He couldn’t remember any scene that would have alarmed either his wife or his daughter. However, after another quick glance at the look on Kyla’s face, it was apparent she was pouting rather than upset. After the mother’s hurried whispers of explanation—most of them centered around the word “drunk”—the dad glanced upward at the towers of Castle as the ghost of a guy-smile played across his face. Leading the way, Rhea hoped to divert her daughter’s attention by getting them to the far corner of Fantasyland as quickly as possible. Once in the line for the Alice in Wonderland ride with its colorful caterpillar-shaped vehicles and elevated track that ran back and forth over huge Wonderland-style leaves, there were plenty of distractions—from the towering peak of the Matterhorn with its shrieking bobsled riders and the occasional Monorail gliding by to the neighboring lantern-covered, twirling Mad Tea Party. In a last-ditch effort, Rhea pointed out the costumed characters of Alice and the Mad Hatter as they laughingly spun by in a bright yellow teacup. Kyla, whose attitude at that point mirrored the expression on the face of each caterpillar as they loaded the next groups of guests—that of arm-folded obstinacy—quickly forgot the sleeping prince.
“Ooooooh, I’ve gotta quit doing that.” Wals let out a low moan as he felt to see if his head was still attached to his body. When he remembered the sight of the leaping wolf, his hand quickly dropped to his neck. Only able to get one eye to open, he checked his fingers for blood. When there wasn’t any, he gave a deep sigh of relief and tried to get into a more comfortable position to go back to sleep.
As Wals irritably shifted his body this way and that, he began to realize he just wasn’t able to get comfortable. As a matter of fact, his bed was quite hard and more cold than usual. He thrust out a hand and encountered only a cold stone floor and what felt like a solid wall instead of the scratchy woolen blanket that covered his rush-filled bed. The sound of voices, soft feminine voices, now came to his ears. The women in the tavern never sounded like that. These soft sounds overshadowed the distant echoes of the maelstrom that had unceremoniously spit him out into the darkness.
As he started to get alarmed, his head shot up and an instant wave of vertigo brought his knees up to his chest. Fighting against the feeling, he knew he had to figure out where and when he was—for he knew he wasn’t alone.
“You’d think I’d be used to this by now.” Not sure if he had spoken out loud, he was sure that he could hear footsteps as they ran away from him. “Get a grip, Davis.” He placed a steadying hand on the cool, solid surface of the wall. “Bricks, they feel like bricks. Okay, I’m inside something made of bricks.” In an attempt to talk himself through the confusion swirling through his mind, he kept up a steady stream of muttering. “Hope it’s not the castle’s oven…. King Stephan wasn’t that mad at me. Open your eyes. Come on, you can do it.”
A soft green glow welcomed his glazed eyes and soft violin music he hadn’t heard before permeated the background. He looked upward at the limp colorful pennants tha
t hung from the ceiling. “A castle. I’m in a castle. Ok, focus.” Relief surged through Wals as he finally realized he was in the Sleeping Beauty Walkthrough at the Park, and, from the depth of details within the glowing windows, he knew it was in his proper time period. “I’m home.”
When more voices could be heard as they came up the stairs and approached his location, he also realized that the Walkthrough must now be open to the public. “How long have I been gone?” When the shaky hand he ran through his hair encountered a felt hat, he tore it off his head and then looked down the length of his body. His borrowed costume was torn, filthy and bloody, definitely not up to the dress-code standards of a cast member who would be seen by the public. “Oh, this isn’t good.”
By the level of pain he felt when he straightened out his legs, he could only guess that he tumbled down a flight of stairs when he came out of the time vortex. As he slowly got to his feet, Wals only thought was to get out of the Castle and out of sight as quickly as possible. He knew there was a cast member-only door just around the corner from the exit to the Walkthrough. Not even glancing at the new effects inside the windows, he hurried down the rest of the stairs with the hope that he wouldn’t encounter any guests eager for a picture. Since it was rare for one of the princes to come out for Meet-and-Greets to pose for pictures and sign autographs for the guests, Wals understood the need to keep a low profile in his current condition and go find Lance.
The tattered cape was held tightly across his blood-stained, torn shirt as he emerged from the darkness of the Walkthrough into the bright sunlight.
And straight into the waiting arms of Security.
“Keep smiling, Wals. That’s a good prince,” Lance muttered through his own forced smile. “Wave. Hold the cape shut. Don’t make eye contact. Atta boy. Little more to go.” He kept up his encouragement as the dazed Wals was briskly escorted through the side exit of the Castle. Lance and his men kept up the fast pace as they went past Snow White’s Grotto and across to the entrance of Tomorrowland. It was the shortest distance to the backstage area where the cast members’ lockers were located behind the eastern side of Main Street. Unlike their sister Park in Florida, Disneyland had no underground tunnels in this section. Protectively surrounded by a force of security guards led by Lance, Wals managed to smile and wave while he kept his bloody arm hidden by the disreputable cape.
When Security had gotten a call alerting them that a guest had found an apparently drunk Prince Phillip sleeping it off inside the Castle, Lance had immediately sprung into action. He figured at least part of the missing group might be back from wherever it was they had gone. The other three security guards who were chosen were known for being able to keep a confidence. Lance literally ran them to the Castle, knowing whoever they found would need to get out of sight as quickly as possible. Since there had been no mention in the call of a naked man, Lance silently wondered what had happened to his friend and security partner, Wolf. There would be time enough for questions once Wals was safely out of sight and cleaned up. He looked like he had been on the losing end of an intense fight.
Once the whitewashed Cast Member Only gate, just past the First Aid station nestled behind the Star Tours attraction, closed securely behind them, Lance gave a dismissing nod to the other men. Without so much as a curious look or question for Wals, they told Lance they’d see him later and headed back to their previous patrols.
Alone in the cast member lounge, Lance handed the returned traveler a bottle of cold water. Slumped in a chair, Wals looked perplexed as if he was trying to decide whether he should drink it or pour it over his head. After a few moments of staring at the clear bottle, he decided to drink it and, eyes closed, sighed deeply as the cool, clean liquid poured down his parched throat. Ah, now that’s how water’s supposed to taste. A small smile played over his face. And there’s nothing floating in it.
Lance patiently waited until Wals finished the water before he ventured to ask any questions. “Are you all right?” That seemed an appropriate place to start.
Wals could see the security guard eyeing the blood on his shirt and the long, jagged rip in the fabric. “Not sure how to answer that.” Wals gave a small, mirthless laugh. His eyes roamed around the familiar break room as if he couldn’t believe he was actually back. The calendar on the wall received a fair share of his attention, as well.
When he saw his friend’s worried stare at the date, Lance nodded. “Yeah, you guys have been gone for over a month. Wolf had asked us to keep the Walkthrough closed until you all got back, but,” he shrugged and gestured with his empty hands, “time kept going. They needed to get it finished and open in time to meet the deadline. We couldn’t keep putting them off without any explanation. I know Wolf wanted to prevent just the type of scene you created, but….” Lance broke off as he brought his hands back together and leaned forward in his chair. How do you apologize for something like this? “We just didn’t know when you’d be back.”
Wals briefly nodded that he understood. “We didn’t know, either.” He thought back on Wolf’s condition when he had left. That wasn’t something he could just spring on Wolf’s best friend all at once, so he began the story in a different place. “Rose did get back to her family.” Patient, Lance merely nodded. Wals looked away and tried to figure out the words he needed. “It seemed like we came back to her time after the events that we are familiar with from the story. You know, the animated fairy tale….” He broke off, not knowing how much Wolf had explained to his partner regarding the details of the swan in the moat. When Lance indicated that he knew the particulars, Wals continued. “Apparently, back then, it was well known that the Evil Fairy hadn’t died like everyone thought. Since Rose had been her initial target, the three Good Fairies took it upon themselves to send her to another place for protection. Through a couple of…umm, well, I guess they were errors on their parts, she ended up here at the only ‘Sleeping Beauty Castle’ their magic spell could find, and—thanks to a kind, but badly timed, suggestion by one of them—she arrived here in the body of a swan. What we all don’t understand is why their Prince Phillip disappeared at the same time Rose did.” Wals held out his arms as he looked down at his costume. “And, apparently, I am not the prince. My…uh…affection for Rose wasn’t taken too kindly by her family back there….” He broke off again as he gazed into the distance, his thoughts on the beautiful princess he had to leave behind.
Lance, immersed in the tale, was fascinated. For his own clarification, however, he backed Wals up a bit. “You said the Evil Fairy hadn’t died like was portrayed in the film. Remember when you went back to Tom Sawyer’s Island? Of course you do…,” when Wals nodded and shrugged. “Sorry. Wolf had made the statement that the things that were being changed in Disneyland in our time would affect the past. When pirates invaded Tom Sawyer’s Island here, pirates also invaded his family’s time period in the 1800’s. Right? Well, could it be the same with the Evil Fairy?” He pointed in the direction of the Castle. “When the Walkthrough reopened here, that evil presence was introduced again. Could that be what happened in Rose’s time? And, just like when you went back to the 1800’s, everyone thought it was normal. Before you all left, Wolf had mentioned Rose was worried about her family.”
Thoughtful, Wals was silent as he went over the implications. “I don’t know, Lance,” he finally had to admit. “We were so caught up in our lives just trying to survive in those primitive surroundings, I hadn’t thought about that aspect. Well,” he added with a wry smile, “I was trying to survive. Everyone else in the group seemed to be doing all right. That could possibly be the case. The townspeople back then were acting like it was just normal circumstances. I noticed that Nimue seemed to be well established in her Dark Castle since it was only spoken of in whispers. From what else I heard, it seemed to be a good distance away from Rose’s castle and sounded as if Nimue had always been there. No one said anything about her coming back.”
“Wait a minute. I don’t know that much about the
whole Sleeping Beauty time period, thing, story, whatever…, but I do know that name was associated with Merlin, not the princess. Wolf told us about her when you all came back from Camelot. If I remember what Kimberly told us about the Arthurian legend, Nimue was the one who turned on him and entombed him in a tree, right?”
Wals nodded. “Tree. Crystal cave. Bottom of the ocean. Take your pick. But, yeah, she was there when we tried to take Rose back the first time and landed too far in the past at the wrong castle. As you just said, it was Camelot, in King Arthur’s time.” Again he stopped to see if Lance was able to keep up with what he was saying.
Even though Lance had heard the same story from Wolf, he thought it was important to get Wals’ version as well. There might be something extra Wals had noticed that Wolf had missed.
Getting the go-ahead from Lance, Wals continued, “Now that I’ve seen her in both time periods and although her features seem to be altered a little, this much I know for sure—it was her. She even wants to go by her name of Nimue again and not the one usually associated with the princess. Which leads us up to the big problem I need to tell you about concerning Wolf.”
When a disturbed look came over Wals’ face, Lance could tell something was very wrong. “Is that why he’s not with you? What happened?”
Wals ran a hand through his hair and abruptly got up from his chair with a slight limp. He became more agitated as he paced back and forth across the floor. “Well, I don’t know the full story. Only that Wolf came to my room at the tavern today…uh, last night…heck, I don’t know when it was…but he came to my room and told me to follow him. I hadn’t seen him for a couple of days, but, from what we both know about Wolf, that isn’t too unusual.”
Lance had to agree with that.
“Wolf looked, well, he looked different.” Wals grimaced as he stared at the far wall for some kind of inspiration on how to describe it more clearly. As he unconsciously rubbed the long scar on his arm, Lance’s concerned glance followed the movement. “His eyes are, you know, so weirdly blue. But, when he came to me, they had turned dull, scary even. He told me, well, commanded me really, to follow him to the beach where we had come out of that time vortex thingy. He acted so differently.” Wals paused and took a deep breath before he was able to add the truly terrifying part, the part he still couldn’t believe. “It was then that he told me he was supposed to kill me and rip out my throat.”
Wolf! Happily Ever After? Page 12