Kingdom Keepers the Return Book 3

by Ridley Pearson

  Three guards!

  She moved her fingers like someone walking and then shook her head. We’re not getting out that way!

  Finn nodded, considering the possibilities. He, too, walked his fingers, but he motioned around, suggesting they avoid the lobby.

  Amanda rotated a make-believe crank by her ear. Projector!

  Finn nodded, then shook his head and walked his fingers, indicating silence. Then he held up his palms and separated them like curtains. He was suggesting they tiptoe through the dining theater, go backstage, and escape the building there.

  Amanda nodded. Peering around the edge at the three men in the lobby, she counted down with her fingers. Three…two…one!

  They slipped through the dining room entrance and held tight to the wall, moving ever so slowly. Those onstage were partially blinded by the projector’s light, and Hollingsworth had his back to Finn and Amanda. They made it a good distance.

  Now came the tricky part: they were even with Hollingsworth. From where they stood to the open backstage doorway a few rows ahead, they’d be exposed, easily spotted.

  As Finn considered a way around their predicament, a girl’s voice rose from the balcony.

  “HELP! INTRUDERS!”

  All eyes turned to the back of the hall, including those of Amanda and Finn. Then Finn leaned his shoulder into Amanda and nudged her toward the stage door.

  The girl they’d tied up was standing now, calling down from the balcony.

  “Two kids! Watching from up here! They got away!”

  Finn and Amanda slipped backstage into darkness, thin blue lines glowing around their invisible holograms.

  AS SOON AS THE THREE MEN drove off from the funeral home, Jess made her move to the back door. Her body felt as if it was sparkling like a fizzy drink. Philby’s plan to turn her into a hologram was apparently working. She stepped up to the door, closed her eyes, and…stepped through.

  So this is where people go once they die. It gave her the weebies.

  The funeral home’s hallways were designed to impress, to imitate a grand mansion, to make the visitor feel comfortable. It was like a stage set, someplace special but sad, lovely but godforsaken. A chill ran up her spine, through her shoulders, and out her arms. Her fingers felt cold and tingly.

  She reached down and dragged her finger across the smooth, polished wood, only to recoil. With the brief contact, she felt her chest implode with grief and sadness. Tears sprang from her eyes. She staggered, unable to walk properly, weeping uncontrollably, moaning. It was the grief of hundreds of loved ones standing at the table while being consoled for their loss. Jess saw faces—old and withered faces with staring, bloodshot eyes; young disbelieving faces; men, women, boys, girls, Latino, Caucasian, African American, Asian, all gripped with the horror of death and loss. All crawling around inside her head like her future dreams, but these weren’t dreams at all, and they weren’t in the future. This was the past. The present.

  She struggled to her feet, wanting to turn off the images, the deep-seated emotions and the pain. But she bumped into a table, and they all came flooding back.

  Her toes tingled as well. Her entire body felt different. She lost her balance, fell toward an overstuffed chair—and passed through it.

  The faces vanished. Now she saw only her current surroundings: a small sitting area with a couch and chairs, a coffee table, and two boxes of tissues. She took a deep breath, so glad, so eternally glad the faces were gone.

  It took her longer to readjust to being a hologram.

  NOW BACKSTAGE, FINN MOVED purposefully toward a thin rectangular frame of light surrounding an exit door into the alley. Partway there, Amanda stopped him. It didn’t occur to either of them that if she could stop him, if she could physically touch him, her hologram had failed.

  Instead, Finn focused his attention on the stage, where Amanda was looking. Seen from the side, the Witch Hazel mannequin divided down the arm, half projected color, half wood-white. At her feet, a low metal dish, shaped like a wok, contained a fire of brown grasses and small twigs. A table close by appeared to hold X-rays—oversize sheets of plastic film. Finn tried to absorb it all, to memorize it. His state of panic didn’t help him any.

  “You see?” Finn said. “Do you get it?”

  “Maybe not,” she admitted, “but really, we have to go!” This time, Finn pulled her, tugging her off-balance and hurrying her toward the door. Again, he missed the significance of that physical connection—missed as well the absence of the glowing blue light at the edges of their bodies.

  He aimed for the door, but it really didn’t matter—their holograms could transfer through anything material.

  Amanda was dragging, holding herself back. Inches from the door, Finn skidded to a stop. “We can’t be afraid. We need to be all clear for this to work.”

  Amanda pursed her lips and nodded.

  “Pleasant thoughts. Like pleasant dreams.”

  She nodded again.

  “Keep right there, eyes closed. Hold on.” Finn stepped forward and banged into the door. He stumbled back, pulling Amanda down with him, and grabbed for his head. Back home in his own time, the words he spat out would have gotten him grounded.

  Reaching over for Amanda, he touched her face.

  He…touched…her…face!

  “Finn!”

  “Something’s happened,” he mumbled. “Philby. Our DHIs. I guess that’s kind of obvious.”

  “Are you all right? There’s a bump…”

  Finn felt the egg on his forehead but shrugged the pain away. “Follow me,” he murmured. Staying on hands and knees, he slipped across the far back of the stage, threading through the ancient props, sawhorses, and set decorations. Amanda followed on his heels like they were playing some kind of train game.

  Voices. Finn lay flat; Amanda lay flat. They heard the clear sounds of people approaching—a guy and a girl by the door behind them. They were panting; clearly they’d been running.

  “We lost ’em,” the boy said.

  “We don’t know we lost them,” the girl said. “And by that I mean, the door is locked.”

  “Let’s go!” shouted Hollingsworth from the dining room. “No more distractions!”

  By the way the two teens hurried back, Finn gained a respect for the degree of discipline Hollingsworth instilled in his people. Discipline…or fear. The man was no one to mess with.

  Aiming for a side exit, which would hopefully be unlocked, Finn stayed on his belly and crawled, Amanda close behind. She grabbed his ankle as a chorus of chanting rose, echoing throughout the theater. Not pleasant chanting, not choirboy material, but edgy, primal rhythms pulsing out toneless melodies. The kind of chanting that ran gooseflesh up both Finn’s arms and tickled the back of his neck.

  The large backdrop, a white screen like a giant bedsheet, hung between Finn, Amanda, and whatever was going on out on the stage. The projector threw an enormous silhouette of the Witch Hazel mannequin onto the screen, fifteen feet high and six across at the shoulders. Added to the silhouette was a low orange flickering. Open flame. Three smaller figures reached out and placed their hands on the looming figure.

  “What if they’re like us? Like Jess and me and Mattie? Early Fairlies?” Amanda inquired.

  “This is 1955!” Finn said, objecting.

  “So?”

  “So I liked your hypnotism explanation. Let’s stick with that.” Finn shook loose Amanda’s hold and belly-crawled as fast as a lizard toward the far edge of the backdrop. He eased his head around carefully to steal a look.

  On the screen, the silhouette’s arm jerked and bent at the elbow. Amanda sat up and clutched her knees to her chest, biting into her arm to keep from screaming. The silhouette’s left arm moved. Amanda lost her breath. She felt as if someone was suffocating her. How is this possible? she wondered.

  Finn’s actions told her everything. He backed up, away from his view of the stage, his face chalk gray. His mouth hung open; he wanted to speak, but like he
r, he couldn’t yet breathe. Crawling again, he reached her quickly.

  “We gotta get out of here…now!” he wheezed, still struggling for breath.

  “Finn?”

  Eyes glazed, pale face sweating, he looked deathly sick. “The skinny guy…Skellington…he put some kind of curse or spell…all the chanting…He burned the cel, just like Jess said. Witch Hazel…the mannequin’s alive, Mandy! She’s alive!”

  CROSSING OVER LATE AT NIGHT wasn’t a choice for Mattie, but a matter of course. Like it or not, when she fell asleep, Joe and the Imagineers had control of her.

  It didn’t sit well. But she didn’t have any choice in the matter.

  She awoke once again on the concrete at the foot of the Partners statue. Instead of the woman Imagineer she’d come to expect, she saw Joe tucked beneath a banana plant.

  She ran toward the small palm tree that hid the Return, Joe fast on her heels. Behind them the castle lights shone on its rising spires and darkened roofing.

  “Wait!” he called.

  Mattie did not want to wait or talk, to plan or scheme. Joe’s very presence told her this was serious. Joe did not wait around after midnight for chitchat.

  If she could only reach the Return in time, she wouldn’t have to deal with him. How could such a short distance seem so far? How could she feel threatened by Joe, of all people?

  “Mattie, please!” He had guessed her plan.

  “Stay away!”

  “We got a message! The Keepers!”

  She skidded to a stop. The Return was stashed a yard or so to her left, Joe three yards to her right. “There’s something I have to do.” A light breeze fluttered the plants. They seemed to be waving at her, inviting her to join them.

  “Philby got a bug—an insect—to cross from the past and back again. Alive! He asked for some more gear. The Cryptos tell me it’s for radio transmission. They think Philby may have figured a way for them to return.”

  Mattie glanced toward the bushes. Back to Joe. Back to the bushes and the tempting waving of the leaves.

  “They’re going to come back,” Joe said. “It’s over, Mattie.”

  “Over? It’s not over! The Barracks Fairlies have Zeke Hollingsworth, Joe. They used me to get him. You’re talking about responsibility and worry and all that. What about Zeke, the OTs? The Fairlies? They’re trying to ruin this place. They will destroy it if we—if I don’t do something to stop them.”

  “The police can raid the Tower. Zeke will be all right.”

  “Are you listening?”

  “There’s only so much any one of us can do. That includes you, Mattie.”

  “You know that’s not true. This was your idea!” She cried, balling her hands into fists at her side.

  “A bad idea, as it turns out. It’s too dangerous.”

  “Who got to you?”

  “Mattie, be respectful.”

  “I read a guy named Humphrey. It’s bad, Joe. They’re going to rip the park apart, and they’re going to blame it on Zeke. I have to go back. I have to stop it. I can stop it!”

  “I can’t let you, Mattie. Not alone. Not by yourself.” He took a step toward her.

  “I’m not alone!” She lunged for the bushes.

  Joe dove for her ankles.

  MATTIE HAD ONLY CROSSED over and returned three or four times. The first few experiences had been so dreamlike that she couldn’t say absolutely that they’d happened.

  When she awoke on her bed in the Tower, missing her left shoe, she sat up and stared at her own foot, wiggling it, bending her ankle. Joe. Joe had stolen her running shoe right off her foot.

  Finn had told a story about waking up after his first return to find a burn on his arm, a burn he’d received while crossed over. The other Keepers had shared similar stories. But Mattie found it totally different when experiencing it herself. A mixture of disbelief and realization combined into doe-eyed astonishment.

  She was messing with a world she knew little about. What if Joe was more worried about her crossing over than what she did here? What if the technology was compromised and he’d been afraid to tell her? Why had she been so eager to return without hearing him out?

  And how was she supposed to explain a missing shoe to the Fairlies? She was Cinderella, but in reverse—she needed that shoe back!

  She undressed quickly and slipped into the musty-smelling Hello Minnie sleeping bag the Fairlies had provided. They weren’t locking her room anymore, but the wing of the Tower where they slept was guarded through the night. Humphrey was no idiot; he’d spread the Fairlies over several floors.

  She tossed and turned for the next several hours, unable to sleep. When she heard some bumping around and smelled coffee, she threw her clothes back on and headed into the break room, shoeless.

  It was Antonella, thin and dark-eyed, and suspicious by nature.

  The best offense is a good defense. Or is it the other way around? No matter!

  “Have you seen a shoe, a running shoe, anywhere?”

  Antonella didn’t answer, only glanced down at Mattie’s stocking feet. “Unless you give us something useful, you’re no use to them, to us. You understand that, right? And if you’re no use to us? Well. You know what happens to things that aren’t needed.” Her eyes ran up Mattie’s body in a way that chilled. “Put your gloves on. Right now! You know the rules!”

  Mattie did know. She would have given anything to read a girl like Antonella. “Oh my gosh! Hang on!” She returned to fetch the Minnie gloves and brought her lone running shoe along with her. “It’s like this one. Gone! How could that happen?”

  “Exactly,” Antonella said. “How could that happen? The room has no windows. You must have been wearing it on your way in.”

  “Why would someone take one of my shoes? That doesn’t make sense.”

  “No, it doesn’t.”

  “Just like this mission of yours.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Have you thought about what you’re doing? Other than getting out of the Barracks.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “You—all of us—are being used in the exact same way they used us in Baltimore. Don’t you see? I don’t know about you, but I grew up loving Disney. Everything about it! Why would I want to wreck that? I wouldn’t. But they do. Do you know why? Do you know the history of this thing?”

  “It’s none of my business.” Antonella’s eyes darted left and right, as if she were searching for an escape.

  “You don’t want it to be your business because they offered to get you out of the Barracks,” Mattie said. “That’s all that matters, right? I understand that, but it’s not all that’s at stake! The guy who owns the Barracks, who runs it…his father stole from Walt Disney! That’s what this is about. He stole from Walt Disney, and Walt fired him. That’s all this is, a son trying to mess up the guy who fired his father, except they’re dead, his father and Walt Disney both. So what’s the point, Antonella? It means nothing.”

  “That can’t be right.”

  “No? Okay. So you tell me why the people running the Barracks allowed a dozen Fairlies, all with abilities that can be used to scare people or physically destroy things, to be sent to Disneyland. Because it wasn’t for vacation!”

  Antonella might as well have been slapped across the face. She reeled back, putting her hands against the counter as if for support.

  “Consider this,” Mattie continued. She was a little breathless, but she had to do this, had to build up the idea she’d reached into Humphrey. “If you, or any of us are caught, we’ll be arrested. Do you think the Barracks is going to bail us out? You think they care? Do you think they give a rat’s tail what happens to any of us?”

  She caught her breath. Antonella was staring at her like at a car wreck, like she couldn’t look away.

  “No, they do not. They want us to do what they can’t, and they want us to be blamed so they’re not. Not to mention how selfish you—all of us!—are being!”

 
“Selfish? We’re living like homeless people, girl. Don’t go there. That is just plain nonsense!”

  “Really? Then answer me this, Antonella. What’s going to happen when a bunch of teenagers who have special powers are blamed for damaging, maybe ruining, ‘the happiest place on earth’? We, the Fairlies, go from being freaks to bad guys. We’re the juvies, the criminals, the kids you can’t trust because they’re so strange to begin with! We wreck it for every kid out there who’s growing up wondering why they’re so different. How can we do that? How can you do that?”

  Antonella’s tears told Mattie she’d connected. The tough girl stood there, shoulders slumped and loose, not looking so tough anymore.

  Only as she tasted salt on her lips did Mattie realize she was crying, too. Not for herself, but for the young kids with abilities. She’d been there; Antonella had been there. They understood.

  “I have a little sister,” Antonella gushed. “Fire. Pyrokinesis.”

  “Three Fairlies in one family? That’s—”

  “Rare.”

  “Unheard of. No one has ever…” Mattie blinked, trying to take it all in. “I have heard that if it ever did happen, both abilities would be more powerful than others’. Are your parents—?”

  “Dead. Both dead. If they had abilities, they never told us.”

  “And your little sister? Antonella…you cannot go to jail. You have got to get this figured out, and soon!”

  “You don’t go against the Barracks.”

  “Agreed,” Mattie said, clearly surprising Antonella. She waited for the expression of bewilderment to leave the other girl’s face. “You don’t go against them. It’s suicide. Some of those kids in 13 never looked right to me. You get put over there, part of you goes missing. Permanently.”

  “You’re not making sense.” Antonella was angry, or embarrassed by her crying, or both.

  “I can’t do it. You can’t do it. But we can. One of us, two of us, three of us try to go against them, we end up in Barracks 13 or worse. But if we all go against them together? If we turn our abilities back on them…” She left time for Antonella to imagine the possibilities. “Instead of them seeking revenge for some dead guy, we get our revenge on them! How sweet would that be?”