“Do you always take such a tone with your allies?”
“Why did the ghosts come after you? Do not lie.”
“I am myself at a loss to understand why,” Storey says.
“You possess powers. I saw what you did. A sorceress? A witch? You must be of the kingdom, and yet you fail to identify yourself.”
“I told you: I am an ally.”
“Telling and proving are two different things.” He gestures out into the attraction with one mighty arm. The normally inanimate fish and other sea creatures have come alive and are all looking at Storey with glistening, inquisitive eyes. “We will be watching.”
“No more trouble,” she says. “Honestly, I don’t know where they came from.”
“The Haunted Mansion.”
“I mean, I’m not sure why they came.”
“To harm you.”
“Yes—yes—of course. But why would they want to harm me? I—”
“Only you know. Not I.” He stares her down. “Do not play games.”
Storey hangs her head, her fists gripped so tightly, her knuckles look like miniature snowcapped mountain peaks.
When Storey looks up, Triton is gone, leaving behind nothing but the lingering smell of ozone from the electrical discharge of his lightning strikes and four sets of coveralls collapsed in pathetic little heaps on the floor.
WHILE THE CRYPTOS INVESTIGATE the possibility of invisible ink on the pages of the stolen Archives folder, the Keepers accomplish a preplanned Imagineer-approved crossover into Disneyland. Amanda is paired with Charlene while Willa goes with Philby, leaving Maybeck with Finn.
Jess intentionally stays awake so as not to cross over. Joe has asked her to study her most recent drawings and write down every thought she has for each image she’s drawn. He seems particularly interested in the grasshopper head, though when asked specifically about it, he denies any such preoccu-pation.
It is late afternoon. The Keepers randomly awaken from naps back at the Studio and find themselves holograms on the Plaza. Their DHIs, more than three years younger in appearance than they are themselves now, have been decommissioned for the night—with apologies to those families with reservations for guides. The Keepers have been warned that this could cause some irritation in the unlikely event that a canceled family spots them; they’ve been told to use the excuse that they’re currently undergoing testing.
Maybeck and Finn head off in the direction of New Orleans Square and the Court of Angels; Willa and Philby—the brains—are to gather any crime scene evidence that may remain in Toontown, while Amanda and Charlene go in search of Storey Ming. Total time of operation: one hour. No excuses. Philby carries the fob. In case of a missed return, manual returns will be performed at subsequent ten-minute intervals.
But neither Joe nor the Keepers wants to make a spectacle of kids vanishing from plain view. Once a day is enough. Repeats will only set the Disney blogs afire with speculation about the Keepers’ escapades; that kind of publicity won’t help anyone.
Finn and Maybeck work their way up the stairs in the Court of Angels, on the lookout for Storey. Better safe than sorry. They hurry up to the next floor and reach the location of Finn and Wayne’s final meeting. Finn feels heavy-hearted as he is reminded of their last conversation, but is determined to come away with something—anything!—to help explain the events that followed.
“You remember the plan,” Finn says, allowing Maybeck to walk in front of him to serve as a screen.
“I got it. No worries.”
“You sure?”
“Whitman, this is me we’re talking about. What do you think?”
Maybeck strides through the CAST MEMBERS ONLY door used by the waitstaff, Finn immediately behind. The two boys find themselves in the vestibule where Finn had hesitated and pretended to be a busboy, with the second dining room on their left and the “library” straight ahead.
“May I help you?” a waiter asks.
“You could help us find the men’s room, my man,” says Maybeck. “We ended up on some porch out there while we were looking for it.”
“Sure thing. Down the stairs and turn left.”
Finn keeps his head down, as if embarrassed by their mistake.
“No worries,” the waiter adds. “Happens all the time.”
Finn mumbles a thank-you but avoids lifting his head, fearing that someone might recognize the boy specter who had crashed through walls and raced through tables only days before.
Maybeck heads down the stairs, but instead of following him, Finn turns toward the dead-end hallway that houses the waist-high eavesdropping closet where he hid. The closet is newly padlocked. Finn has a choice to make: as an all-clear DHI he can jump or climb through the door, but he risks being seen on the way in or out. Unable to imagine there’s actual evidence in the closet and unsure exactly what he’s looking for, he reverses direction and heads to the table where Wayne sat in the library dining room. Wayne is—was, Finn corrects himself, registering a flash of deep pain—impossibly sneaky. There’s no telling what the man might have left behind.
The table where Wayne sat is unoccupied. Finn slips into Wayne’s chair. His chest tightens; his heart pumps wildly. Right here…so very alive…Finn grits his teeth, determined to get through this. He inspects the underside of the table with his fingertips: nothing. He leans forward to similarly investigate the underside of the chair seat: nothing. But looking down, Finn notices a small pile of wood shavings against the wall, apparently swept there by a broom; their red color contrasts with the dark wood floor.
“Are you waiting for someone? May I get you a something to drink?”
Finn sits up, feeling rattled and unstable, bumping his less-than-all-clear head on the table. As he rights himself, he glimpses, as clearly as if a spotlight were aimed at it, a scar of freshly carved wood on the table’s understructure. That explains the shavings. Finn’s head is spinning.
“No—I mean, yes. I’m waiting for someone.”
“And the reservation is under…?” The waitress is suspicious, or worse, perhaps she recognizes Finn.
“Kresky,” he says, already tingling as he returns to all clear.
Word has spread through the Disney community by now. The waitress focuses intently on Finn. He wants her to recognize him, wants another minute or two at the table.
“Uh-huh.” She sounds dubious.
He lowers his voice. “I need a blank piece of paper, small, and a pencil with a decent lead. I’ll be out of here in less than a minute. Please…”
She looks right through him; he imagines her mind whirling as she considers her options.
“It’s not for me. It’s for him. He left me something.”
“And you are…?”
Finn’s hand is palm down on the table. He drops his eyes there emphatically, trying to encourage her to follow his gaze. Deliberately, he moves his arm through the wood of the table.
Her eyes are wide as she gasps, “It’s true, then.”
“Yes,” Finn says.
“Oh my gosh!”
Finn has encountered this response so often that he has become immune to it. It’s nothing but a parlor trick, but it wins him allies and warns his adversaries, and thus serves its purpose.
“Paper. Pencil. One minute,” he says.
“Which one are you?”
“I’m Finn.”
She’s impressed. “No way! The leader?”
“I get that a lot, but I’m not really sure we have a leader.”
“And modest to boot!”
Finn has met with this response too: regardless of age, people he meets in his DHI form want to strike up a conversation and be his best friend. It’s embarrassing for both parties, seeing as they’ve only just met. He won’t be rude and shoo her away, so he purses his lips, nods, and waits, hoping she’ll come back to earth.
“Cool. I’m on it!” she says.
He would ask her not to tell anyone, but that never works. People like to be viewed
as special, and they take every opportunity to single themselves out from others. Some resort to shoplifting; some get 4.0 GPAs. Waitresses run back to the kitchen and tell everyone they’ve just met a Kingdom Keeper.
A pair of chefs in white aprons and tunics appears at the maître d’s check-in table shortly thereafter. They pretend to be inspecting the reservation list, but Finn knows otherwise.
The waitress returns with a pad of paper and five pencils. This is another thing Finn has learned. People who want to help consider quantity a show of respect. He smiles wryly.
“Thank you.”
“Hey, it’s an honor.”
Finn wants her to leave him alone; he doesn’t want her to see what he’s about to do, doesn’t want to draw any more attention for fear the Overtakers might hear about his visit to the restaurant, putting an innocent bystander like this waitress in danger.
There is a clock running in Finn’s head. There’s plenty of time to make it back to the Plaza, he calculates, but he and Wayne were spotted in here by Security—and maybe by Overtakers too. What’s to stop that from happening again?
Maybeck’s arrival from downstairs sets off alarms. Maybeck draws attention wherever he goes; he’s one of those guys people like to notice, one of those guys who makes sure people like what they see.
Finn’s mental clock ticks ominously.
* * *
“Why wouldn’t have the Imagineers—or the Cryptos, whoever—have collected evidence right away?” Willa asks.
She and Philby are approaching the bent Mickey statue in Toontown.
“Maybe they did,” Philby says, his eyes narrowed. “Or maybe they tried to.”
“Then why not tell us?”
“How do you react if you’re about to do something and somebody tells you they’ve already done it? You do a half-baked job, is what you do. Joe’s a smart guy. He tells us what he thinks we need to know and skips the rest.”
“That’s kind of weird, all things considered.”
“He’s a grown-up.”
“Point taken.” Willa gives a short bark of laughter. “And we’re Peter Pan, I suppose.”
“In his eyes? Yeah, probably. Kids forever. Same old, same old.”
“I get so sick of that,” Willa says.
Philby says, “Do you feel them out there? I mean, we know they’re here, right? And vice versa. They didn’t just show up in Toontown by coincidence.”
“I don’t appreciate your trying to scare me, Dell. I was the one with a knife at my throat, remember? Why couldn’t someone else have taken on this assignment?”
“I’m not trying to scare you. And yes, I’m well aware this is not a casual stroll in Disneyland.”
“Don’t patronize me. It’s not your style.”
“Of course it is. It’s exactly my style.”
They reach the fountain and walk away from it at a measured pace, side by side, eyes on the ground. Fifteen feet away from the statue, Philby changes the pattern to the one he uses when he mows the lawn at home: big sweeps out and back. They cover the area between the fountain and the stretch of territory where the OTs stood during their showdown. It feels futile: Toontown has been swept, hosed down, and inspected along with every inch of the rest of Disneyland. Then—
“Got something,” Willa says. They kneel, and Willa traces her finger in the air above a black S-shaped mark on the pale walkway.
“Yeah? So?” Philby says.
Willa points a foot or two ahead, indicating another, similar line.
Philby inches closer, squints. “I’m feeling dense. I don’t get it.”
“Who stood here?” Willa asks. She looks up, trying to catch anyone looking. Philby has infected her with fear. Only a few yards from where they now stand, she nearly lost her life. She wants to run—now!
“The OTs,” he says. “Not Wayne. Not us.”
“Correct. And who, if anyone, was barefoot?”
“Tia Dalma!”
“Correct.”
“You think—”
“I know that Tia Dalma’s feet looked dirty. Time practically stopped when I was standing there. Now I’m thinking it wasn’t dirt, because the regular cleaning would have removed any mere dirt she left behind.”
Philby traces the pattern and sniffs his finger. “Nothing.”
“They’ll get it off eventually. But not with water.”
“Because it’s oil,” Philby says. “I see what you’re saying.”
“Took you long enough.”
“Easy, prom queen.”
“Hah. You wish.”
“No, actually, I don’t. I like you just the way you are.”
“You pick the strangest times to say the things I always wish you’d say.”
“I’m not good at this, am I?”
“You’re good at everything. Don’t kid yourself.”
“Oil.”
“More like tar, given how black it is and how it won’t clean up. I remember when they tarred our school roof,” Willa smiles, eyes crinkling. “Some kids got up there and dumped some of the roofing tar down onto the playground. There’s still a stain.” She pauses. “It’s too empty here. I don’t like it. We need to hurry it up.” The surrounding attractions, gloomy and lifeless, seem to glower.
“Tar…” Philby taps a finger against his lower lip, staring into space. “So you think—what? She was on a roof?”
“Could be. Think about L.A. The La Brea Tar Pits, Philby.”
“The grave of saber-toothed cats and—”
“Full of black tar.”
“We need a sample,” he says.
“It won’t return with us.”
“Good point.”
The structures around them groan and creak. A breeze whistles through. Willa’s skin turns to gooseflesh; she crosses her arms self-protectively.
“The Cryptos will have to collect it,” she says.
“What’s wrong?” he asks. “You’re nervous. You’re never nervous.”
“A good man died here, Dell, you know? I…things were a little scary for me as well. Not my favorite place to be.”
“Did I mention I can be insensitive?” Philby reaches out and takes her hand. “You’re safe. I’ll keep you safe.”
She bites back a quivering smile. Her eyes sting. She nods—the best she can manage without coming unglued.
“THIS IS DEFINITELY messed up,” Maybeck says. “Where are they?”
He and Finn have been scouting the Plaza from a bench. It’s now several minutes past the scheduled rendezvous time, but no one has arrived.
“It’ll be fine. Study it again. You’re going to need to draw that once we’ve returned. It won’t come with me.”
Maybeck regards Finn’s drawings, a sketch and a rubbing of the freshly carved marks on the table in Club 33. “Yeah, yeah. I can make a copy of this.”
“It has to be perfect.”
“Finn, I mean…come on.”
“Yeah, I know. You’re God’s gift.”
“True story.”
“There!” Craning his neck, Finn points to Amanda and Charlene, arriving from the far side of the castle. The girls are out of breath; obviously, they’re not all clear.
“What’s wrong?” Maybeck asks.
“Nothing,” Charlene says.
“We thought we were late, is all,” Amanda adds.
“We were early—” Maybeck says.
“And we’re still here,” Finn says, completing Maybeck’s thought.
“Philby and Willa? Are they in trouble?” Amanda hasn’t taken her eyes off Finn; Maybeck can’t stop looking at Charlene.
Finn shrugs. “Every ten minutes. That’s what he said.”
“Yeah, but if Philby never gets here,” Maybeck says, “the clock never starts.”
“Toontown,” Charlene says, reminding everyone with only that one word of Philby’s destination, the events of the recent past, and the threat that part of the park represents to the Keepers.
“So, no Storey M
ing?” Finn asks.
“The ride’s closed,” Amanda says.
“We had to do a hologram thing to convince a Cast Member we were for real. Word was, the whole area stank of burning wires. Some kind of short, maybe. So we slipped through a wall, if you know what I mean, and—”
“It really did stink,” Amanda says, interrupting. “We searched behind the final scene as you said we should. If Storey was there, she was hiding from us. And then we saw the burn on the scenery. A big black smudge, like a mark made by a laser—”
“More like by a blowtorch,” Charlene says, cutting her off. “There was this panel that was scorched. Fried. But just in one spot.”
“You think they got Storey?” Maybeck asks.
Finn is about to speak when his entire body starts tingling. He glances at his watch. It’s exactly ten minutes past the rendezvous time.
* * *
Finn wakes up in his bed at the Studios and sits bolt upright. No matter how many times he crosses over, the return always freaks him out.
“Quick!” It’s Philby, standing by Finn’s bed. Finn jumps about a foot off the mattress.
“Tell me I didn’t scare you,” Philby says, sounding disappointed.
“What? You scared the—”
“Shhh!” Maybeck silences them both from the doorway.
“Get the door!” Willa says, instructing Finn, the last one through.
The theater they’re in was once used for movie premieres. The Keepers clump together in the aisle, about halfway down.
“The Cryptos know we’ve returned,” Philby says. “The server will show it. Sorry for leaving before you guys, but we had to get back fast.”
“Because?” Finn says.
“Tar, or oil, on Tia Dalma’s feet,” Willa says. “She left tracks.”
“We can’t possibly know that,” Finn says.
“There’s a high probability, okay?” Philby says. “Who else has been barefoot in Toontown, other than us? And we didn’t have beach tar on our feet.” He explains that he and Willa wanted to take a sample, but like Finn’s sketch, it wouldn’t have returned with his DHI.
Kingdom Keepers VII Page 30