Kingdom Keepers VII

by Pearson, Ridley

  “It’s about time.”

  It’s about the watch, Finn realizes. He needs something metal to attract the lightning. If he’s not fully all clear, the watch isn’t either. If he’s some part human flesh in this condition, then the watch must be some equal part its original self: metal. Gold-plated metal. Gold, one of the best conductors of electricity.

  Did Wayne possess Jess’s gift of prophecy? Did he foresee this moment?

  Dozens of times in battle, Finn has reached for all clear by imagining a pinprick of light at the center of an endless black vacuum. He has pictured it like a train coming at him, the light growing until he is enveloped in it. He sees it now—that same intensity of white light. But the difference is that Chernabog has made his way into the basalt blackness.

  Finn drags himself to the lip of the platform, crouches, and…

  Jumps. He flies like a superhero.

  Finn’s boldness catches Chernabog by surprise. The beast spreads his arms and his wings, trying to grab Finn, to crush him against his chest. But Finn arcs through the air with surprising speed and smashes into Chernabog’s chest—and this time he makes the monster stagger.

  As fast as he can, Finn climbs, ascending Chernabog’s chest as if it were a climbing wall. He pulls himself up to Chernabog’s shoulders, grabs onto one of his hideous curled horns, and stretches Wayne’s watch toward the heavens.

  Finn thinks of the old man. Here they are, teamed up together one last time, fighting this last good fight together. The pinprick of light in the sky expands and grows more intense, just as it has so many other times. But this time, the process goes faster than ever before. Finn’s imaginary train has always moved slowly as it approaches through the darkness, washing out the fear and ushering the all clear in. Not this time: this time it comes as fast as lightning.

  VIOLET AND ELSA recover the ladder only moments after it crashes to the catwalk. Although she has fallen from a great height, Violet’s abilities protect her from harm. With Mickey standing aside, the two race to reattach the ladder, but the task proves to be physically impossible, because it has broken free from its supports. So instead, they work together to secure it well enough for Violet to climb back up to help Finn.

  After several tries, Elsa’s panic subsides, and she realizes that the tools she needs are in her hands. She instructs Jess and Willa to guide Mickey a few yards away for safety. With the three of them behind her and Violet in front holding the ladder in place, Elsa freezes the bottom of the ladder to the catwalk, leaving only a small gap at the top between the ladder and the Skyway Station’s framework.

  Violet is halfway up when an overhead explosion knocks her off the ladder a second time. Her horrified eyes fix on the ring of roiling blue electricity rolling down the mountain’s exoskeleton. “Finn!” she screams. She leaps onto the ladder a second time and climbs with abandon, angrily knocking the hatch door up and open and pulling herself outside on top.

  It’s raining hard. Lightning flashes overhead; jagged bolts dance between the clouds. In the pulses of blue light, she sees the platform empty, abandoned. No Finn. No Chernabog.

  Violet nearly hurls herself off the side, moving along the deck’s perimeter to look down in search of them, terrified that she’ll see Finn’s bloodless fingertips clutching a handhold, hanging on for dear life, but—nothing. Gritting her teeth, she dares to focus lower, on the concrete below, expecting the worst. But what she discovers is worse still.

  Elsa, who has climbed quietly behind Violet, joins her on the platform. “Where…?” Elsa begins, but she doesn’t finish her thought. “Oh, no,” she whispers.

  Violet follows the Winter Queen’s horrified gaze to the deck floor. One glance is enough. Stomach lurching, she averts her eyes.

  The platform’s thick blue vinyl-covered surface is charred black and boiled brittle, as if something was cooked there. No, not something. Someone, turned to dust, burned and vaporized by the same surge of energy that has blackened every streetlamp and bulb in the park. Violet sees residual fires flickering like candles in a dark room, sending shards of glancing light across what remains of Disneyland. She sees emptiness and finality, death. Her love for this place, its magic, its characters…that feeling struggles for air in a vacuum of evil intent.

  “Finn sacrificed himself…for us,” she whispers. She hears a peal of agony and sorrow carry like a clarion call over the park, and realizes belatedly that it comes from her own throat.

  In the center of the still smoldering burn mark is Mickey’s sorcerer’s cap, somehow intact—the cap Finn was wearing when he climbed the mountain to meet his fate.

  WHEN ELSA AND VIOLET return to the catwalk, they find Mickey standing alone.

  “Where are the girls?” a shaken Violet asks. She passes Mickey his sorcerer’s cap, which he pulls on. It stands regally atop his head, as though it has found its proper place at last.

  Gone, Mickey says, speaking voicelessly to both of his fellow Disney characters.

  “What? Where?” Violet cries.

  Mickey blows a farewell kiss. Elsa moves as if to shake him, but Violet restrains her.

  “Don’t freeze him!” Violet begs.

  “Where did they go?” Elsa shouts. Her words echo. “Jess! Willa!” Elsa looks down, awaiting an answer, but only darkness meets her. “Girls!” she calls again. No answer.

  “If they took off that fast,” Violet says, “there must be a reason. We have to stay positive.”

  “You cannot be serious! Finn…dust. Willa and Jess have run off! We have to stay positive? How?” Turning, Elsa trips over something—and bends to retrieve Mickey’s conductor’s baton, his magic wand.

  Golly, Violet hears him say. Is that mine?

  “It is,” Violet answers, motioning to Elsa, who hands Mickey the baton and steps back.

  Mickey swings it, as if testing its balance. Then, with his free hand, he pulls his cap on more tightly and directs the baton toward the ladder, which sparkles, shimmers—and the ice freezing it in place is gone. The ladder is restored, as they found it, in one piece, secured to the wall.

  “You have been missed,” Violet says demurely.

  Mickey gives her his best, Aw, shucks! look.

  Violet has overheard the Keepers discussing Mickey’s importance, his role in what comes next. The endgame, Philby called it. She never figured she would be the one to see it through to its final moments. For a place once filled with such magic, such joy and fantasy, Disneyland feels nothing like that now. The Children of Light have been legend for years. Characters like her have hung their hopes on them. Finnegan alone took on a more than legendary, a truly mythical quality: the leader of the rebels, their heart and soul.

  Without wanting to, Violet sees the charred outline on the deck in her mind’s eye. For all her heroism, she has never considered self-sacrifice. She cannot imagine the strength it must have taken for Finn to allow himself to be struck by lightning.

  Taking a deep breath, Violet turns to Mickey and speaks aloud. “He cleared the way for you. The Keepers—the Children of Light, the Children of Life—they believed in you, believed your powers alone could restore the park to its former perfection. They were guided by a man named Wayne, and by Walt Disney before him. Together, they made this happen. They sacrificed greatly for this chance. I guess what I’m saying is: they believed. And I believe too. It’s time.” She motions toward the ladder.

  Elsa says gently, “We don’t know how many of their leaders remain.”

  Mickey shakes his head sadly, but does not speak.

  “They thought,” Violet says hesitantly, “that if you…if the park could be made whole again, the trouble would pass. The Overtakers, the evil ones who have brought the park to its knees—they’re wounded, if not destroyed. They’ve been set back years, if not forever. If—when—you heal the park and seal the earth back up, the evil will be sealed up too. The magic will be preserved.”

  Trouble has no place here, Mickey says silently. Elsa and Violet listen int
ently, hanging on his every word. It never has; it never will. He looks up the ladder to the open hatch. You say the leader…?

  Violet averts her eyes and shakes her head.

  He flew away? Violet nods, on the verge of tears. The leader, or the one called the Bat God?

  “Both, I think.”

  I defeated the Bat God once before, you know? Many years ago.

  “Yes, I’ve seen it.”

  Seen it? You are too young! Far too young.

  “I’ll explain later. We must act now. The sun is nearly up. The park must be restored before any children see it like this.”

  Lead the way. Mickey nods, indicating the ladder.

  Together, he begins to climb with Violet. Elsa stays behind, giving them room atop the mountain.

  From the platform, Mickey and Violet survey the ruined park. Under a gray shelf of clouds, the sun burns in a pink line as it rises on the eastern horizon. Seagulls float not far off.

  The park is empty! Mickey says.

  “I think they—the villains we call the Overtakers—took off when Chernabog and Finn…” Violet works to keep the sorrow from her voice. “When they flew away.”

  You must not believe the pain, child. Like the magic in this park, it is only as real as you believe it to be. Hold on to the things you cherish. Leave behind all you do not.

  She kisses him on the cheek. “Can you fix it?”

  He giggles his Mickey giggle. It has been forever since she’s heard that sound in films, and she has never heard it in person. It sounds lighter than she could have imagined.

  Do you believe I can fix it?

  “Yes, I do.”

  It’s an awful mess.

  “Yes, it is.”

  Together they take in the damage: the smoldering fires, the shattered concrete and fallen trees, the destruction at Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.

  “It seems so unfair,” Violet says. “The Children of Light should be here. This is their story. I have a feeling they would claim they are only visitors, that we are the ones who deserve to watch you. But that’s another example of their selflessness.”

  Mickey puts his white-gloved hand on hers. Then he smiles. How much do you believe?

  “Fully,” Violet says. “Without a doubt.”

  Without a doubt.

  Mickey likes that, she can tell.

  Then believe this, child: the Children of Light are here with us. We witness with more than eyes and ears. The true test of one’s faith is not belief, but commitment. From what you say, they have demonstrated that.

  “More often than any of us,” Violet says. “They lived it.” And now at last she cries.

  Below them, Elsa sheds tears of ice. They ring like tiny bells as they fall to the deck and burst apart.

  Now, now, Mickey says, there’s no place for that here.

  He lifts his baton and begins to conduct a silent melody, as if leading an orchestra as big as the entire park itself, turning right and left, spinning in circles, childish, gleeful, ebullient. His cap flaps this way and that. Violet and Elsa can hear him laughing. The sound echoes in their hearts.

  Sparkles appear like frost on the attractions and paths, and for a moment, Violet thinks Elsa is up to her Winter Queen tricks. But the sparkling frost is light, not ice. As it dances around the park, it restores the park as it was before the Skyway Station battle. Everything about it is new and untouched. The effect is slow to take hold. Magic, like a song, must take its own sweet time. Only the Skyway Station itself is left in ruins: the source of the wounds must be removed forever.

  Violet has seen her brother run at speeds that blur her vision. She herself has appeared and disappeared in the blink of an eye. Yet, nothing has prepared her for this. All the magic of the princes and princesses, the bears and chipmunks, and even all the power of the Overtakers rolled up together would amount to little compared to the healing power Mickey unleashes.

  Daylight breaks among the shooting sparks; radiant beams split the departing storms and spread warm golden light over a perfect Disneyland. In the distance, California Adventure glows. The attractions glisten. The paths shine, smooth and flawless once more.

  From a distance, all around the park, the inhabitants of Disneyland reemerge from hiding to see a familiar silhouette standing high atop the Matterhorn, waving what looks like a baton.

  One minute he’s there.

  The next, in a wink of light, he’s gone.

  The wink of light is the restoration of electric power to the park. Streetlamps flicker, but remain on. Neon buzzes back to life. Music floats from unseen speakers. A spotlight focused on the Matterhorn platform clicks on. Mickey steps into the cone of light; he was there all along.

  Violet and Elsa are so enthralled by the changes to the park that they miss the growing cloud of colors at their feet and behind them. The shapes sputter and fight to appear.

  When finally Violet turns, she screams as she sees Philby and Willa, holding hands; Charlene and Maybeck likewise; and an inconsolable Amanda held tightly in Jess’s arms. They are all there with them, just as Mickey said.

  Finn lies at their feet on the deck, unconscious or dead.

  Amanda pulls free of Jess and kneels beside Finn. “Help him,” she says to Mickey.

  Only Violet hears Mickey’s reply. I know him not. This kind is unfamiliar to me. I can heal magic, not flesh.

  “He’s not breathing!” Amanda says. “Why bring him back if he’s not breathing?”

  Mickey can do no more than look down at her and smile his endless smile.

  “It wasn’t Mickey who brought us back,” Philby says. “It was the power coming on. Finn…the lightning strike…Mickey restored the power. I was over at Big Thunder when that lightning struck. I have no idea how I got here. The rest of you?”

  As Mickey smiles, the others shake their heads. All but Amanda, who is hysterical. “He’s—not—breathing!” she wails.

  Willa turns to Mickey, wringing her hands. “Megara, Rapunzel! Can you bring them here? Can you summon them?”

  Mickey lifts and waves his baton.

  “Look!” Charlene rushes to the edge of the platform. Out of the smoke from the fireworks Dumbo emerges, sweeping his ears with grace and ease. He’s carrying Megara and Rapunzel on his back. The elephant hovers over the platform as the two women lower themselves and drop to Mickey’s side.

  Jess can’t help herself. Through her tears, she waves at Dumbo, who winks and flies off.

  Without instruction, Megara and Rapunzel tend to Finn. They work in sync, like two nurses with metaphysical powers.

  Mickey, the Keepers, Violet, and Elsa form a semicircle around them. No one knows when exactly they all reach out and take one another’s hands, but it doesn’t matter. In the end they stand, unified.

  The powers of the two women are transformative. The color returns to Finn’s hologram. The burned and missing pieces of his DHI body are restored. It’s as if Megara and Rapunzel are retouching a painting made of light.

  Mickey giggles, turning each and every head. This time, everyone hears him. He covers his nose in embarrassment and blushes.

  Next to Elsa, another orb of light pulses and flickers. The Dillard appears.

  “Finn must be coming around!” Philby cries. “Look who’s here!”

  The Keepers and Fairlies clasp hands, celebrating the Dillard’s reappearance. Charlene claps. The Dillard merely raises an eyebrow, emotionless as ever.

  Finn sits up. Amanda gives a joyful cry and smothers him in a hug. The Keepers hug Megara; Mickey and Philby sneak in an embrace with Rapunzel.

  “What has happened here?” the Dillard says.

  Laughter rings from the top of the Matterhorn, the sound stolen away by the thunderous grand finale of fireworks overhead.

  Finn lifts his arm beyond Amanda’s embrace. The gold watch shimmers.

  “Did it work? Did it work?” He manages to swing his head far enough to take in Mickey in his cap, bearing his baton. The peaceful expressio
n on that familiar face seems to light up the sky along with the exploding fireworks.

  Mickey and Finn lock eyes.

  Finn sees someone behind those eyes he never expected to see again: Wayne—calling to Finn: My job is done. It’s your kingdom now.

  FINN WAKES, opens his eyes, and recoils at the sight of Philby, who is pressing his finger against his lips to indicate silence.

  “What the—” Finn catches himself and returns the nod. Together, the two Keepers slip out of the actors’ trailer serving as their dormitory and into a bathroom in the Frank G. Wells Building. Philby waves his hand under the faucet’s automatic sensor, producing a hissing stream of water loud enough to cover their whispered conversation.

  “Jess’s latest drawing?” Philby says. “The one after it was all over.”

  The Keepers’ past two weeks have been consumed with intensive debriefing sessions conducted by lawyers, archivists, and the Imagineers. Finn had nearly forgotten about Jess’s unexpected nightmare, which led to her sketching a new image in her diary.

  “The coffee cup?” Finn asks.

  “No, the one after that. It shows you and Maybeck, crouched down near that mirror.” Philby unfolds a copy of the sketch and passes it to Finn.

  “Yeah? So what?”

  “In it, you look like you’re holding Walt’s pen.”

  “Yeah, it does look like that. But that’s not how it happened. Her vision is off. Besides, that was years ago. I was alone, Philby. Once inside One Man’s Dream I tricked my way backstage in order to steal Walt’s pen, and Maybeck wasn’t with me. Other than that,” he concludes sarcastically, “it’s a perfect duplicate.”

  “Jess has never sketched the past. Always the future.”

  “Sometimes,” Finn says, mulling this over, “she gets it wrong. Even she’ll tell you that. But let’s say she’s right. We don’t know it’s Walt’s pen in my hand.”