Kingdom Keepers Boxed Set

by Ridley Pearson

  Finn took a moment to replay it in his mind. “How did you do that?”

  Charlene took the third cup from Dillard and thanked him.

  “I…ahh…” Jez said.

  Dillard had intended one of the three for himself, but didn’t tell that to Charlene. When he moved, his various arms bounced wildly. He mumbled and headed off to get another.

  “You didn’t answer me,” Finn reminded Jez. “How did you do that?”

  Jez stumbled over her words as she made what was clearly a lame excuse. “My mom doesn’t like me messing up the kitchen. I’ve gotten pretty good at not spilling.”

  Catwoman approached. Finn recognized Amanda immediately.

  Finn hadn’t spoken to her since their collision behind One Man’s Dream. He couldn’t sort everything out: what she’d been doing there; why the cold hadn’t seemed to affect her. He didn’t feel like hanging out with her tonight. He wasn’t sure how to tell her.

  Dillard returned fairly quickly and said hello to Amanda. Her attention remained on Finn.

  “Finn?” Amanda said.

  Finn turned his back, not sure what to do. Not that, he realized, as she stormed off. He felt rotten.

  Finn offered Charlene and Jez another drink and then headed off himself, grateful to get away. The girls hung with Dillard, who struggled to get a paper cup to his mouth. He spilled some soda down his front when one of his own claws banged against him.

  Amanda snuck up behind Finn in the soda line.

  “I saw her, Finn. Jez. Behind One Man’s Dream. Those monitors are old and fuzzy, but I’m sure it was her, and I came over there to warn you.”

  Again, Finn didn’t know what to say, didn’t know what to think. He didn’t turn around.

  Amanda continued, “Doesn’t that strike you as a little odd? A little too coincidental, her being there like that? Right then?”

  “You were there, too. That struck me as odd as well.”

  “I just explained.”

  They stepped away from the soda line. Finn juggled three cups. “You weren’t sure it was her. You just said so yourself.”

  “Think about her name, Finn. Jezebel? Come on. The Bible?”

  He was not exactly a Bible scholar.

  “Jezebel is wicked. Evil. Just like a witch. And that fits with the cold, right?” Amanda asked.

  “It could have been anyone doing that,” Finn blurted out, thinking of the woman in the car.

  She leaned back and looked at him as if she didn’t know him. “What are you thinking? Are you serious? Me? Listen, there’s something you need to hear…something I have to tell you about her. I’m not supposed to—do you understand that? This could get me in big trouble….”

  Suddenly, Amanda shuddered. Her head jerked up toward the sky. Her shoulders shrugged and stiffened. Her eyes rolled in her head. Finn thought she was going to faint. He dumped all the drinks into a nearby trash can, freeing his hands, and took her by the arm. Then by the waist. She sank into his arms. She felt cold, really cold, and stiff, as if she were suffering some kind of seizure.

  Finn, wanting to avoid making a scene, walked her to a bench and sat her down.

  A commotion erupted behind him. He turned to see Charlene now sitting down on the sidewalk, her head hanging slack over her knees. She had apparently fainted as well.

  An adult hurried toward Charlene.

  “Finn!” It was Willa, late to arrive.

  “No time to explain,” he said. “You’ve got to get Charlene over here before people start asking questions. The giant crab—that’s Dillard—he’ll help you. Hurry!”

  Willa, who’d come as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, rushed across to Dillard, took hold of one of his oven mitts, and dragged him over to the wilted Charlene.

  Finn checked Amanda. She looked half asleep, her eyes barely open. Thankfully, she was breathing normally. “Amanda!” he said, but got nothing from her.

  A brownout, he thought. But a brownout affecting a human, not a DHL.

  If you’re not careful, I’ll cast a spell on you. Hadn’t Jez said something like that? Was he imagining that she’d said that?

  He looked around, his eyes searching for Jez.

  Hadn’t Amanda been just about to tell him something to do with Jez when she’d fainted?

  Willa and Dillard had Charlene walking between them. Definitely a good sign.

  There! Finn finally spotted Jez. She stood on the far side of the street, talking to an adult—a thin woman in a large witch’s hat, her back to Finn. He watched as Jez pointed in his direction. He felt goosebumps race up his spine. What was she talking about?

  Then, just for an instant, Jez accidentally met eyes with Finn, from clear across the street. A moment later Jez led the woman off, absorbed by the crowd.

  “Listen…” Finn said, trying to think. “I gotta go,” he told Willa.

  “What, just leave us here?” Willa asked, astonished.

  “You know anything about the Bible?” he asked Willa.

  “A little. Sure.”

  “I think I know what’s going on,” he announced to Willa just as Philby and Maybeck showed up.

  “I’m glad someone does,” Maybeck said.

  Philby had come wearing a white curly wig and big black glasses, calling himself Einstein. Maybeck had sprayed his hair gray and wore the flag of South Africa on his sleeve.

  “Nelson Mandela,” Maybeck told Finn.

  “You guys come with me,” Finn instructed as he spotted Jez and the woman again. They were well down Main Street, heading toward the castle.

  Amanda sat up suddenly, surprising them all. Willa yelped.

  “Don’t!” Amanda gasped, looking directly at Finn. “You have no idea…of their powers.”

  She slumped back, in that same lost state again.

  “We’ve got to go. Now!” he told the boys.

  The three boys hurried down Main Street.

  “What about, you know…?” Maybeck asked.

  Finn tapped his chest. “I brought the pens.”

  “Aren’t we going the wrong way? Shouldn’t we be going to the fire station?”

  “Don’t ask me how, but Jez did this to Charlene and Amanda. Made them sick.”

  “That’s ridiculous!” Maybeck said, his voice raspy. They were nearly running.

  Finn explained, “Jez hooked up with a witch! In costume? Or for real? Super skinny. Long black hair. Sound like anyone we’ve seen lately? And oh, by the way, Jez just happens to be wearing long white gloves.”

  “Can I just say, you’ve completely lost it,” Maybeck said. “And by completely, I mean one hundred percent.”

  “Gloves. Jez is wearing white gloves tonight. They go to her elbow. Amanda and I saw those same gloves at—”

  “The car wash,” Maybeck answered. He’d seen them too.

  Finn said, “Jez is a witch. And so’s her mother.” Philby and Maybeck looked stunned. “You want me to prove it, you’ll come with me.”

  Following now, Philby said, “What if you happen to be right? In that case, what are we doing chasing a witch and her daughter? I mean, how stupid can we be?”

  Maybeck huffed. “I’m going to have you guys institutionalized. Am I the only sane person left?”

  “Wait!” Finn said, stopping them. They ducked behind a pillar in front of a Main Street shop. He pointed. Jez and the woman turned left at the plaza, just before the castle.

  “How much do you want to bet they’re heading to Pirates?”

  Remembering the conversation on the monorail, Philby said, “Amanda told us Jez disappeared there.”

  “A figure of speech,” Maybeck interjected. “That’s all!”

  As Finn led them left off the street as well, Maybeck said more seriously, “Listen, I’ve been there: where Charlene and Amanda are right now. Feeling sick like that. You do not want to mess with these people.”

  “They aren’t people,” Finn said. “That’s the whole point. If they were people, then Wayne and the others c
ould deal with them. This is up to us, you guys. No one else is going to do this.”

  “We’re going in there after them?” Philby said. Jez and the woman arrived at the entrance to Pirates of the Caribbean. Sure enough, they headed inside.

  “I do not like this,” Maybeck said. “What happened to voting?”

  “All in favor?” Finn asked. He and Philby raised their hands.

  Maybeck groaned.

  They stopped short of the entrance and stared warily at the old Spanish-style building.

  “Okay,” Philby said, “now I’m scared.”

  AT NIGHT, IN THE MIDST OF a Halloween costume party, Pirates of the Caribbean took on a more menacing feel, something each boy felt as he entered. Flamenco guitar music echoed from walls that flickered in the light of dim lanterns. And while the mood was festive, the Halloween party was a special event, so the crowds were much smaller than usual. The result was an attraction with deserted hallways and a hollow echo to every sound.

  The boys hurried down a stone corridor. Finn had lost sight of Jez and her mother just as he heard the older woman’s raspy voice saying, “Over here.”

  This was followed by a slight squeak of metal, a door swinging on hinges, and a resounding clang that reverberated off the walls.

  “You hear that?” Maybeck asked.

  The trio slowed. As they reached a sharp turn in the hall, Maybeck bent down, pretending to tie his running shoe, to let a group of eager teens race past them. When the hall was empty again, Philby pointed to a short staircase set into the wall, cordoned off by a chain.

  To the right of the hall was a pit, a jail cell holding a pair of pirate figures engaged in a game of chess.

  Maybeck hurried forward, jumped the chain, and climbed the short stairs. He reported back down to the others, “There’s a pair of cannons and a kind of turret thing. Looks like the top of a fort or something.”

  Philby, ever the academic, explained, “It’s a mock-up of a battlement, with twin eight-pound cannons and their shot in woven baskets.” He’d done his homework, as usual.

  Finn’s attention remained on the jail cell and the sturdy iron bars mounted into the concrete. He tested its door, which swung open, making the same eerie squeak they’d heard only moments before.

  Excited voices rang from the entrance to the attraction. More people coming.

  Maybeck whispered softly, “If we’re going in, we’re going in. We can’t stand around staring at it.”

  The boys stepped inside the heavy jail cell door and Finn pulled it shut.

  They ducked into shadow as several groups of kids hurried past toward the start of the ride.

  Finn then motioned down into the pit and the two pirates playing chess. It was a long way down, and there were no stairs.

  Philby found a weighted rope connected to an over-head pulley. “Care to take the elevator?” He tested the rope, held on tightly, and stepped off. He floated to the bottom of the pit. A moment later the other boys had reached the jail’s floor.

  “Okay, this is really weird,” Finn said, “but I know this guy.” He pointed to one of the pirates. He knew this figure from the laser battle. Looking more carefully, he realized that he recognized both pirates. He dared to reach over and gently poke the arm of the nearest pirate. Thankfully, it was a model, like a mannequin, and he relaxed.

  They emerged into a long, straight hallway that lay in shadowy twilight. Jail cells lined both sides.

  “It’s a…prison,” Maybeck said.

  Finn stopped and examined a shiny piece of metal that hung from one of the doors. It turned out to be a padlock. A sparkling new padlock. Each of the cells was secured with a similar lock, all brand new. On further inspection, many of the hinges to the cell doors had been recently repaired. Fresh weld marks abounded.

  “This has all been fixed up,” Philby said. “And recently. What’s with that?”

  “Padlocks,” Finn said. “A hundred padlocks stolen. Remember what Wayne said?” He recalled his father mentioning welding gear being stolen. The Overtakers.

  Philby handled one of the padlocks. “You’re not saying—”

  “You want to explain it? Go ahead!” Finn said.

  Maybeck said, “Listen, this makes sense. These cells are huge. Each cell could hold what, ten, maybe twenty people?”

  The boys continued through the gloomy jail.

  Philby did the math. “That means you could lock up hundreds of people down here. You realize that?”

  Finn said, “Park employees.”

  “They’re planning a takeover,” Philby said. “They stole the locks. They fixed up the cells.”

  Finn stated, “They obviously plan to use these.”

  “This is exactly what Wayne is afraid of,” Philby said. “Now I get it: if they organize, and if they have real powers, it’s possible they could take over the park.”

  “And once they did,” Finn said, “what would happen to the guests who arrived?”

  “It’s not just a jail, guys. Welcome to the dungeon.” Maybeck pointed to a door at the end of the jails. The door hung open, revealing a tomblike darkness beyond. “And yes,” he added quickly, “I realize how stupid this sounds.”

  Finn reminded, “Remember, we’re not crossed over. We’re not going to turn invisible. We’re not going to glow. We’re not going to walk through walls. So if we run, we run.”

  “I’m all over that,” Maybeck said.

  They paused at the door and listened to high-pitched voices faintly coming through the darkness.

  Philby whispered, “I suggest we stick to the shadows.”

  “Shadows?” Maybeck questioned. “It’s pitch-black in there.”

  “It won’t be,” Philby assured him.

  Maybeck said, “No matter what, we hang together. You do not want to go one-on-one with these people.”

  “If they are people,” Philby said, meaning it as a joke. No one laughed.

  “Any advice?” Finn asked.

  “Don’t underestimate their power over you,” Maybeck said. “You don’t want to look into their eyes. I remember looking into a pair of eyes—the cold got much more intense.”

  “So…try to think of other things, or what?” Finn asked.

  “Yeah. They definitely put thoughts into your head, which feel like your own ideas. But they aren’t your ideas at all. They’re like orders. We ought to go through that door with our minds already occupied,” Maybeck suggested. “If we go through at all.”

  “Occupied with what?” Philby asked.

  Maybeck answered, “What’s the ugliest, weirdest monster you’ve ever seen? In a movie, in your imagination, in your sleep? Try that. And don’t let go of it. Fight fire with fire.” He added, “Jez is so nice, it’s hard to see her as dangerous. That’s when you start losing power, when the cold really gets going.”

  “And you couldn’t have told us this before we decided to come here?” Philby asked, annoyed.

  “I didn’t remember any of this. Swear I didn’t. Not until just now. But man, I’m telling you, it’s all coming back in a big way.”

  “Are we all set?” Finn asked.

  The boys nodded.

  Finn led the way through the door, his feet feeling the way in front of him. The darkness gave way to a descending stone staircase. Partway down, the stairs turned left and a dim electric light shone overhead. More lights up ahead.

  The stagnant, musty air grew quickly cool. The walls dripped and green slime ran down them like thick paint. The boys sloshed through several shallow puddles. Finn followed two sets of wet shoe prints now, from puddle to puddle.

  All at once the space opened into a square room. The stone ceiling was supported by four enormous stone pillars, each with a different animal head carved onto it. The carvings were of ghoulish, evil faces, half animal, half human—hideous, with bug eyes and tongues sticking out. Stone benches ran along the walls. This was some kind of gathering place.

  The air felt even colder now.


  Finn counted three dark doorways leading from the room. Jez and the woman could have gone through any one of them.

  Philby dropped to one knee, looking for wet prints to follow. He crawled forward on his hands and knees and ended facing the middle of the three doorways. He pointed silently.

  Finn nodded.

  The boys entered a dank, narrow tunnel with walls close enough to touch on both sides at the same time. It grew ever gloomier. There was barely any light. A suffocating staleness hung in the air.

  Finn toed his way carefully ahead, encountering yet another short flight of stone steps. A single bare bulb lit the place where the tight passageway ended at a second, vast open space, a room carved from sandstone. A half dozen columns, all connected by carved arches, rose like tree trunks from the floor.

  It reminded Finn of Escher’s Keep. It was almost as if Escher himself had once been here. Many similar patterns and designs adorned the room. Had Walt Disney once shown this room to the great artist?

  Maybeck crossed his arms tightly. “Temperature alert,” he whispered. “Arctic air mass.”

  It was an unnatural cold. A far too familiar cold. They were drawing closer to the source.

  Philby, in the lead, led them to the right. Noticing that the chill was reduced here, they reversed directions, following the cold like a bloodhound follows a scent.

  A tremor of terror ran through Finn. What were they thinking in coming here? A spiral staircase that looked like a hermit crab’s shell rose to his left. Another set of narrow stone steps descended straight ahead. This place was a labyrinth. But more strangely, it was also a forced-perspective hallway. The deeper they penetrated into the room, the lower the ceiling. The effect made the room appear much longer than it actually was.

  Finn, no giant himself, ducked as the moist sandstone caught his hair. Spiderwebs stuck to his face. He clawed at them.

  The boys heard hushed voices to their right. They changed direction, hunched, and stooped by the sloped ceiling.

  “Valor is such a dangerous thing.” The same voice from the teepee: Maleficent.

  The boys stopped and turned in unison.

  She stood alongside a column. She’d hidden behind it. They’d walked right past her. “Like bees to sugar water,” she said.