Kingdom Keepers VII

by Pearson, Ridley

  The horrifying growl of a dog startles Willa, making her open her eyes involuntarily.

  The dog is inside the teepee, nose in the air, red-and-black gums displayed in a nasty snarl of broken teeth. But the animal is lost. It doesn’t know where to strike.

  “Shoo!” an old lady’s voice says—from inside the teepee!

  Willa lets out a terrified yip. She hears Finn brush against the canvas wall of the teepee as he startles too.

  The dog’s head is shoved down into the sand, clearly not of its own volition.

  The disturbance of the sand spreads a fine dust up into the air; caught in the unnatural bluish light that emanates from Disneyland at night, it swirls inside the teepee. Like a photo developing in a chemical bath, the dust exposes a shape. Then, detail by detail, the figure of a Native American woman is revealed. She’s as old as dirt, with brown skin shriveled like a raisin; she’s covered in animal skins decorated with eagle feathers, wooden beads, and a single piece of turquoise.

  She’s a ghost. Or is she?

  It’s unclear if she can see Finn and Willa the way Willa can see her, but she looks directly into Willa’s eyes, sending a flash of heat down the girl’s spine.

  Willa just knew that the stories of Indians haunting Thunder Mountain had to be true. The longer she’s been a Keeper, the more she’s come to realize: It’s all true!

  The woman hits the dog a second time. It snaps at her, but, chomping down on air, ends up only biting its own tongue.

  “Shoo!” the old woman says again, her voice as dry as the sand underfoot.

  The dog whines, backs up, and leaves them.

  “Where are the spirits of the children that have joined me? Show yourselves!”

  Willa marvels at the woman’s confidence in dealing with the dog and in demanding that she and Finn show themselves. Her courage begs the question: Do ghosts have anything to fear?

  Clearly, the ghost of the Indian woman is afraid of nothing. So why should Willa be afraid? In DHI form, she can’t be bitten, stabbed, or hurt in any way. What, other than her own fear, takes hold in her and compromises the purity of her DHI? Willa realizes that, in a sense, she is this Indian ghost, only a lot younger and with the advantage of leading an alternate life as a living, breathing human being—something she can’t help imagining such a ghost must long for. She has nothing to fear. This, she realizes, is what Finn has been telling the other Keepers for several years now. But what a difference there is between hearing it and discovering it for herself!

  This is what “growing up” means. For the first time, Willa gets it. However briefly, she owns it: she herself is the only thing standing in her own way. Regardless of how long it may take to perfect this insight, if she can just keep moving, keep growing, there is nothing to stop her, nothing that can hurt her. The discovery leaves Willa feeling so elated that she wants to let loose a scream of happiness. She wants to celebrate! But she controls herself.

  “Here,” she answers calmly, scooting forward just far enough that her crossed legs and her face return to visibility.

  Finn doesn’t trust this woman—he doesn’t trust any ghost. He wishes Willa hadn’t shown herself. The Overtakers have come after them as wild dogs, yet here’s Willa, playing hide-and-seek with some ancient grandmother.

  “I’m a human child,” Willa says, “but I am not in human form.”

  “A shaman!” the woman exclaims.

  “I am beyond your understanding, but I’m not a shaman. I work for the side of good.”

  “Whose good?” the woman asks suspiciously.

  As the Indian woman’s hand moves to the beaded necklace she wears, Finn tenses. Willa has lost sight of the reason this woman and her people haunt these grounds. Her question to Willa sums it up: “Whose good?”

  Willa’s face reflects awareness of her mistake, but there is something else there that Finn doesn’t recognize. Self-assurance. Willa now projects a power he’s not seen in her or any of the other Keepers before.

  “There is only one good,” Willa says. “Make no mistake. You are an elder and therefore wise. You must know there is only the spirit. All else is dust and rock.”

  “It is so,” says the woman.

  “I and my friends do battle against those dark forces that fail to recognize this spirit. Those who would dim its flame to darkness.”

  Willa doesn’t sound like herself. She must be channeling a history book or documentary film, or maybe she’s just empathizing with this wavering ghost. Whatever the case, Finn’s impressed. He finds himself scooting forward, allowing himself to become visible.

  “Take this message back to your people,” Willa says, “from the children of light.”

  Willa nods toward Finn. The ghost drinks him in with her wise gaze; she smiles.

  “We come to bring change. Anyone and anything that stands in our way will feel the great force of the spirit like a wind of fire on their heels. We will drive them to the edge of the earth and throw them off into a great void.”

  Finn’s jaw hangs slack. “Willa?” he gasps.

  “Willow?” the ghost echoes uncertainly. “Are you the one they call Willow?”

  Each of the Keepers struggles with being considered part of Disney lore, with accepting that word of their exploits has traveled among Characters and Overtakers alike for several years now. Stories about them are told, embellished, and exaggerated, tales that involve children of light, heroes who beat the odds, drive back the villains, defeat the powerful, slay the dragons.

  “I am,” Willa says. “And this boy is Finnegan.”

  The ghost smiles cruelly. “My, my,” she says.

  That doesn’t sound good.

  “I did not believe the stories—you must forgive me, child.”

  The woman throws red dust at Willa. Where it comes from, Finn can’t be sure, but he thinks that her necklace likely concealed it. To his astonishment, the dust falls through Willa’s DHI, sprinkling the sand beneath her. Finn has always known Willa to startle, to scare easily. Like the other Keepers, she loses at least a small percentage of her hologram’s qualities when cornered or pushed to the wall by the dark powers.

  But not today. Not here. Willa?

  The ghost looks puzzled by the ineffectiveness of her magic, like a kid with a firecracker that doesn’t light. Confusion fades from her face, to be replaced by anger. From that anger comes a change. Her features sharpen, her neck thickens, her hackles raise, and she transfigures before their eyes into a creature with a woman’s body and a massive wolf’s head.

  Finn backs toward the teepee’s open entryway.

  “Willa!” he calls, and she starts moving too.

  The transfiguration isn’t instantaneous; the process buys the two Keepers time to join together at the mouth of the teepee, but not quite enough time to escape completely. The wolf-woman lunges and snaps her powerful jaws.

  Finn makes a fist and delivers a roundhouse blow to the wolf’s chin. As its teeth snap together, it takes a huge bite out of the canvas wall. Finn and Willa stumble back through the teepee’s entrance. As they fall to the sandy ground, they hear horses’ hooves charging. Finn expects to see more Native American ghosts, this time on horseback. What he sees instead makes him scream aloud.

  Not Willa. She rises to her feet, grabs Finn by the collar, and helps him up. Coming straight at them rides the Headless Horseman, his glinting sword raised to strike.

  “Run!” Finn shouts at Willa.

  The Headless Horseman gallops toward them. Finn calculates that he’s riding too fast to maneuver among the teepees.

  “There!” Finn directs Willa, pointing between two teepees toward the water. No way the horse can make that turn.

  To Finn’s surprise, Willa runs, but in the wrong direction, directly toward the decapitated equestrian, who carries his own head under his left arm like a soccer ball. Finn lunges, trying to grab her around the waist, but fails to stop her. This is a Willa he doesn’t know. But it’s a Willa he loves to see. So
mething transformative has just occurred inside the teepee; it’s as if she has graduated to another level, grown in a way even he hasn’t managed. He was there to witness it, but has no idea what he witnessed. Some red dust. A lot of nerve.

  Willa remains on the rider’s right—his sword hand side—until the last possible second. Then, jumping directly in front of the steed, she tosses a handful of sand into the air with perfect aim and timing. The sand blinds the widened eyes of the Horseman’s disconnected head; the blinded rider reacts, tugging the reins sideways and directing his horse straight into a teepee.

  The wolf-woman is standing only yards away. She fixes her gray eyes intently on Willa.

  As the horse digs in its hooves to skid to a stop before it crashes into the teepee, the Horseman is thrown. His head rolls in the sand; his sword lands tip down, standing upright, vibrating like a small tree in the wind.

  Willa runs for the head and kicks it to Finn as if she’s trying to score in the last minute of the World Cup. Finn bounces the head off his knee, sending it facedown into the sand. Then he stomps on it.

  The wolf-woman charges.

  The headless body starts to spin in aimless circles as the black horse rears back, whinnying. The noise startles Finn, who steps back and kicks the head again, inadvertently making it rotate just enough for the eyes to roll back up out of the sand.

  The Horseman grabs his sword with the effortlessness of a ballerina and swings for Finn.

  Finn knows he’s lost a good deal of his DHI integrity. The events of the past few minutes have rattled him to his core—and none so much as the feeling of that man’s head bouncing off his knee. Finn might be able to achieve all clear if a deep-bellied wolf’s growl did not erupt behind him, but the rumbling menace turns his knees to water.

  The sword whistles as it swings past Finn’s neck; clearly, the Horseman intends to include Finn in his headless club.

  Finn feels himself shoved aside. As he falls to the sand, he turns to see Willa standing in his place, a serene smile on her face—the self-satisfied expression of a martyr willing to sacrifice herself for a greater cause.

  Finn lets loose an anguished cry. “No-o-o-o-o!”

  The blade severs Willa’s neck so cleanly that her head remains in place, then the sword stroke’s follow-through swipes the wolf-woman’s snout clean off.

  Finn crawls forward, tossing sand in front of him as if trying to splash a buddy in a swimming pool. He hits his target, once again burying the Horseman’s fallen head up to the eyeballs.

  Willa ducks and steps through the Horseman. Her head is not detached! Somehow, she has managed to maintain her all clear. She gets two steps in front of Finn and kicks the fallen head once again, lofting it high into the air. It lands in the water, where it rolls briefly, sending up a few bubbles before sinking out of sight.

  The wolf-woman rushes the Horseman just as the wolves arrive. While the two Keepers avert their eyes, horrific slobbering, crunching noises turn their stomachs. They run.

  “OT fighting OT!” Finn shouts to Willa. “What’s with that? And while we’re at it: What’s with you?”

  “Things are changing.” That’s all she says. It sets his mind spinning.

  CHARLENE MOVES FROM ONE DREAM to another, not really knowing what’s happening, because that’s the way dreams are. This one has her sitting in the Disneyland Central Plaza; she’s wearing the dark-blue boxer shorts and Beijing Olympics T-shirt that she counts as her pajamas. She has her retainer in, and her hair is held back in a French braid. Park guests gawk at her as they pose for photos by the Partners statue. Charlene pulls herself up to kneeling.

  “I hate it when he does this!” Maybeck’s voice, just behind her. He’s limping slightly, wearing black boxer shorts and a faded purple T-shirt that reads: I’M A MAINE-I-AC! ART MAINE-IA FESTIVAL, FREEPORT, 2008.

  Charlene immediately crosses her arms. This isn’t a dream. She rubs her face vigorously with the sleeve of her T-shirt, remembering that she put on zit cream before going to bed. This cannot be happening! Stealthily, she pops the retainer out; unable to pocket it—because she has no pockets!—she clamps it between the elastic band of her shorts and her waist, hoping it will stay put.

  Seeing that Maybeck is barefoot, she realizes that she’s barefoot too.

  “What the heck?” she says.

  “You got me,” Maybeck says. “I didn’t hear anything about this.” He indicates his boxers as evidence.

  Charlene crosses her arms, nods.

  “We’d better not stay here.”

  “No,” she agrees, struggling to stand without the use of her arms.

  She and Maybeck move to the perimeter of the Plaza, keeping watch—but for what, they don’t know. Are they expecting other Keepers? Overtakers? Are they here by mistake?

  “Do you remember the last time we crossed over without knowing it was going to happen?”

  “It goes way back,” Maybeck says.

  “For me: constantly! You know how many times I’ve been caught in my nightgown? Sheesh!”

  A small flurry of applause from guests across the Plaza draws their attention to Amanda, Jess, and…Philby!

  “Now I’m really confused,” Maybeck says. “Don’t we need Philby in order to return?”

  “And if not,” Charlene says, “then who crossed him over?”

  Amanda awakens in the Plaza, wondering why Philby has crossed over her and Jess. She thinks immediately of Finn, who could be only feet away from her. So near, yet so far. She wishes she could run to him, make sure he’s okay, but Philby must have something planned! Philby always has something planned. Finn! Her mind screams. What if he’s hurt and unable to call for help? She pushes away the negative thoughts and in so doing, maintains all-clear.39

  “Pixie Hollow,” Philby says, walking past the two. “Keep your distance. See you there.”

  Amanda and Jess stay with him. Maybeck huffs, struggling with his painful leg. Heading toward the Matterhorn, he and Charlene take the path to Pixie Hollow, a forest hideaway off the main path where park guests experience what it would be like to shrink down to the size of Tinker Bell and her fairy friends.

  Philby and the two Fairlies come around from the Matterhorn side. It’s a good call on Philby’s part: Pixie Hollow is deserted.

  Philby huddles them up. “The long and the short of it: Finn and Willa are probably in trouble. They need us.”

  “But how did you—?”

  Philby cuts off Charlene’s question. “I found the Return in the Crypto lab.” He produces the small black fob from his pocket, then stuffs it back in. “I was able to write code to cross us over. All of us. Like setting a timer. The only trick was for me to get to sleep quickly. It’s never easy. Currently I’m asleep in the Morgue. I mean, my body is…Just the sound of that gives me the creeps, so no comments, please.”

  “What kind of trouble?” Maybeck asks. “And where’d they come from?” He nods his head toward Amanda and Jess.

  “I…it was my call to bring you with us,” Philby says to the sisters. “Your talents may be helpful.” They, too, are in shorts and T-shirts, and both are barefoot. Only Philby is dressed in the street clothes he’s been wearing all day. “The trouble is this: Finn convinced me to cross him over solo to meet Wayne.”

  “Without the rest of us?” Charlene complains. “Without a plan?”

  “Alone?” Maybeck asks. “Since when?”

  “You two just decided this?” Charlene says.

  “It was a mistake, okay? My mistake,” Philby says, genuinely contrite. “Finn knew the park would be busy. He was worried that, since so many people know who we are, the more of us were there in the park, the more trouble there’d be for him. If he went alone, he could slip in and slip back out.”

  “That’s stupid!” Maybeck says.

  “It is,” Philby admits, his head lowered. “Willa chewed me out for it already.”

  “And now they’re both in trouble,” Maybeck says. “There’s a surprise
!”

  “We all are,” Philby says. He watches his friends’ faces as this registers. “Storey overheard that Secur—”

  “Storey?” Charlene practically barks.

  Philby says, “She’s here trying to warn them.”

  Maybeck huffs derisively.

  “Not as a DHI.” Philby briefly summarizes Storey’s phone call. “And there’s a girl named Brooke with Finn.”

  “Let’s just make it a party,” Charlene snaps sarcastically.

  “We pair up—I’ll stay with Jess and Mandy—and we find Finn and Willa. We reconnect at the Plaza, I hit the Return, and everything’s good.”

  “You make it sound so simple,” Charlene says. “It’s a big park. And it’s busy.”

  “I got that,” Philby says. “They were at Club 33 to start. We’ll go there. You two search for them behind the castle: Toontown, Small World. Come back through Fantasyland and into Frontierland, where we should meet you. We’ll take Main Street, Adventureland, and New Orleans Square.”

  “And if we find them?” Maybeck sounds discouraged.

  “When we find them,” Philby corrects him. “No matter what, we all hide until the fireworks. Then we meet at the Plaza during the show. That’s when we’ll return—the grand finale.”

  “But how do we communicate if—when—we find them?” Charlene asks.

  Philby isn’t often stumped, but her words give him pause. “We don’t.”

  “Where’s Storey? Can she help?” Charlene is clearly stressed.

  “No idea,” Philby says. “She said she was on her way to the club.”

  “I feel useless,” Jess says.

  “You helped us in Epcot, remember? You weren’t asleep for that,” Charlene says.

  “Besides, you’re a DHI and an extra set of eyes. You’re completely helpful!” Philby is trying to reassure to her.

  “Fireworks. Plaza,” Maybeck repeats.

  “It’s probably best if we’re on the defensive,” Philby cautions. “If the OTs realize they have a chance at Finn…well”—he looks to Amanda—“I don’t mean that the way it sounds. But the thing is—”