Kingdom Keepers the Return Book 3

by Ridley Pearson

  “We could stay,” Willa said, grasping Philby’s hand and squeezing it bloodless. “Why don’t we just stay?”

  “Because we aren’t from here. We’ve already changed so much. Who knows what damage we might do to the present—or the past, for that matter! This isn’t our place. We owe it to the lives of everyone else to get out of here. Besides,” Philby said, “what if Charlene’s right?”

  Charlene, arguably the least academic of the Keepers, had been the one to present a theory of quantum physics that had taken Wayne and Philby a good measure of time to comprehend. But once they’d processed it, they’d grown excited and demanding. She, too, knelt by Finn, her hand on the sheet covering his bare chest.

  “I think,” she said, “that if we’re going to try this, we should all be connected, all touching him. He kept us together. He never liked to be called the leader, so I won’t call him that now, but we all looked to him. We Keepers all became who we are because of him.”

  “We Fairlies, too,” said Jess, struggling not to burst into another bout of tears. “We’d never have been here without Finn.”

  “‘All for one,’ and all that,” said Maybeck. For once, there was not a hint of sarcasm in his voice. “I’m in.” He kneeled, taking hold of Finn’s foot. “Whitman, listen to Charlene, would you?” His voice broke. “Don’t be so wickedly stubborn. Let her be right.”

  Philby and Willa joined the others, forming a circle around Finn’s prone form. “If the past no longer exists…” Philby said.

  “…then there’s only the present,” Charlene completed the thought.

  The carousel music sounded.

  “They’re playing our tune,” Maybeck said. The huge wheel began to rotate; the horses started to move up and down in steady rhythm. “Somebody click their heels three times, for cripe’s sake.”

  “I’ll do even better,” Philby said, withdrawing what looked like a mousetrap tangled with a hundred colorful wires. Beneath was taped a phalanx of batteries.

  At the very center of the device was a single black button.

  Philby pushed it.

  A CIRCLE OF OVERLY BRIGHT lights atop tripods illuminated King Arthur Carrousel. Fat black cables ran from all sides to a portable generator, while other cables stretched to antennas, also placed around the carousel in a perfect circle. Seven ambulances waited, the motors running. A Disney fire crew stood by.

  The carousel was slowing.

  Joe was there, as was Mattie. A man named Brad. Kim Irvine and Teresa. They stood watching from beyond the lights as, amid an oily swirl of time and dimension, a group of teens appeared between the moving horses. The teens shimmered, dissolved like smoke, and reappeared, taking on an ethereal quality.

  On the next revolution they were gone. A collective sigh of disappointment rose from the crowd, breaking the intense energy that pervaded those in attendance.

  “Come on…” Joe muttered under his breath. Then, into a walkie-talkie, “More amplification. We’re losing them.”

  The small radio squawked. “Risky, chief.”

  “Now or never.”

  “Roger Rabbit,” said the Imagineer on the other radio.

  Kim Irvine grinned and murmured, “I love this company.”

  Joe nodded.

  The following revolution brought more clarity to the images. Around once again, and they actually looked…

  “Opaque!” Joe said. He shouted into the handset: “Keep that. Right there! You’ve got it!”

  Another revolution, the carousel winding down to a crawl.

  “No more fluctuation,” gasped Brad.

  “What’s that in the middle?” said Teresa.

  “You mean who’s that?” The words were barely out when Mattie collapsed, caught by Joe at the last minute.

  “Finn,” she said, looking up at Joe. “The name I couldn’t remember.”

  “Finn!” Joe said, nodding. For the past twenty-four hours, the name had escaped him as well. “How could I have forgotten Finn?”

  Mattie wobbled. Joe helped her to her knees. “Why is that sheet over him?” she asked.

  “Let’s not jump to judgment.” Joe took a wary step toward the carousel. His knees also gave out, and he dropped as well. “No, no, no!” he mumbled.

  “Medic to the platform!” shouted Kim Irvine in a calm, professional voice.

  The fuzzy DHIs on the platform moved.

  “Let’s go, people!” Brad shouted.

  From behind him emerged more than two dozen Disney security guards, Cast Members, and paramedics. The team swept up onto the carousel, each first responder assigned to a particular Keeper. Individually, the dazed teens were encouraged to their feet as their DHIs prevented anyone from physically helping them. The Keepers staggered off the attraction.

  Joe, Brad, and a full team of engineers had discovered how to keep Max alive after failing with some caged butterflies and a pair of lizards sent across time by Philby and Wayne. It hadn’t been easy; Max had left the carousel barely able to stand, and had fallen into a deep sleep within a few minutes of the return. The Cryptos and Imagineers had anticipated a similar reaction from the Keepers.

  But as the teens stepped down onto firm ground they looked each to the other and smiled widely.

  “Where are we?” Charlene said.

  Philby looked up at the sky. “Looks like Disneyland to me. Our Disneyland.”

  “You’re home!” Mattie stepped forward as if to give Philby a hug, but Joe stopped her, reminding her that the Keepers were holograms.

  Barely able to walk, Maybeck tried to lean on the shoulder of the man helping him, but his DHI passed through, forcing him to find his own balance. “Home,” he muttered. “But if this is home, where’ve we been?”

  “Their memory,” Joe said to Mattie, the two of them standing again. “We don’t know how this will affect their memory of the past few weeks.”

  Amanda’s anguished cry pierced the air. “No!!!” Amanda’s rescue team was trying to tell her to get off the carousel—and away from Finn. “I won’t leave him!”

  As she raised her arms toward the team, Joe shouted, “Everybody back!”

  Amanda pushed—not only her handlers, but also much of the surrounding equipment—lights, antennas included. The lights exploded as they struck the ground, throwing a shower of sparks twenty feet into the air.

  The carousel began moving again. It rotated faster and faster, Amanda’s pushes responsible.

  “Do something,” Joe ordered into his radio. No voices replied, the antennas down. Joe hollered. Brad barked orders. The crew ran around trying to fix things.

  The carousel continued gaining speed. Amanda had one arm around Finn, one holding on to a carousel horse pole.

  Charlene smiled and said under her breath, “That’a girl!”

  Maybeck saw a blur of color running from the crew side toward the carousel. “What’s that?” he asked his handler.

  Philby overheard and looked in the same direction.

  Willa, too. She saw the form clearly. “Not what,” she said so the boys could hear her. “Who!” Adding, “That’s the Dillard.”

  Joe overheard her. He saw the blur along with the others. “DILLARD!” he cried. He threw his unresponsive radio to the pavement in disgust. “Who authorized that DHI?”

  The Keepers and Jess looked on as the carousel’s next rotation revealed that Amanda, Finn, and the Dillard were struggling to hold on against the centrifugal force.

  When the carousel came around again, only a few of the gathering, including Maybeck, saw Finn’s arms wrapped around Amanda.

  “See that!? He’s alive!” Maybeck called out.

  The Keepers cheered.

  Another blurring revolution of the carousel. Only the bedsheet remained, wrapped around a horse, fluttering like a fallen flag.

  “Oh no!” Jess said. “Where are they? Where did they go?”

  “Sir?” one of the crew called.

  Joe and the Keepers saw the man kneeling by a b
oy’s blue-outlined image lying on the asphalt.

  The Keepers rushed to help them.

  “It’s Finn!” Jess shouted.

  “Careful!” Joe called, as the Keepers reached the hologram.

  The kids skidded to a stop. It wasn’t Finn. It wasn’t Amanda. It wasn’t the Dillard.

  Jess felt drawn toward the facedown boy. He wore strange old-fashioned pants with wide suspenders. Jess didn’t understand her attraction to the boy, but she couldn’t stop herself either; something felt weirdly familiar about him. One of her future dreams? she wondered. She kneeled, despite calls not to touch what was clearly a patchy and faltering DHI. Willa joined Jess, and together they tried and failed to roll the boy over. Half his face was visible. Jess tried to touch him gently. “I know this kid…” Willa said.

  “Me…too,” said Maybeck. The others nodded in agreement. “But how? How’s that possible?”

  Joe was with them now. He, too, studied the unidentified boy. He asked Maybeck, “Do you remember nothing about where you’ve been?”

  “Where have we been?” Maybeck asked, perplexed.

  “And for how long were we there?” Philby said.

  “Where are our parents?” Charlene asked. “Our families?” She looked around. “What’s going on, anyway?”

  “I’ll be darned,” Joe said. “Nothing?”

  The Keepers didn’t bother to answer.

  “What happened to Amanda and Finn?” Mattie asked.

  “And the Dillard?” Willa said.

  Joe looked up at the empty carousel. “I think we may have lost them.”

  “What do you mean?” Philby complained, and he shuddered head to toe. “Anybody just feel that?”

  All the others responded, nearly simultaneously. “Yes! Tingling.”

  Philby reached and touched Willa’s shoulder. “We’re weakening.”

  Joe’s cell phone rang. He carried on a brusque conversation with whoever was unfortunate enough to be on the other end the call.

  “We’re going to return you,” he said, addressing Philby. “All of you.”

  “Meaning?” Charlene asked somewhat rudely.

  “To the Central Plaza,” Philby said. “Our DHIs are degrading.” He half stated this, half proposed to Joe, who didn’t contradict him. “The Cryptos want to return us as soon as possible.”

  “Sir!” With the degrading of the holograms, some physicality had returned. Two of the crew had managed to roll over the DHI of the boy. “He’s wearing a Cast Member pin. One of the old, metal ones.”

  “Nineteen fifty-five,” Philby said as if remembering the name—or trying to—of a long-lost friend. “Why do I know that date?” he asked.

  “The name?” Joe called over. “The boy’s name?”

  One of the attendants called back. “The name on the tag is Wayne.”

  THE KEEPERS COULDN’T CONTAIN themselves. “Wayne? Alive?” “He’s our age!” “Can’t be our Wayne!” They collected around the shifting DHI as it was transferred to a collapsible ambulance bed.

  The Keepers, aware of the omnipresence of magic in the parks, secretly knew that this Wayne was somehow the same Wayne Kresky who had created their DHIs. The man, in boy form, responsible for the Kingdom Keepers.

  “What…about…them?” Willa asked, pointing to the empty carousel, which was noticeably slowing. The momentary high of celebration collapsed. The emptiness of the carousel fell heavily upon them.

  “You mean us?” came a boy’s voice. A familiar voice. Helped on one side by Amanda, and on the other by a young Dillard Cole, Finn Whitman limped as he struggled to walk on his own. “Somebody might have thought to look on the other side, you know.”

  “I tried to hold on, but we flew off,” Amanda said.

  Looking confused, Dillard added, “All of us.”

  Arms swung up onto shoulders as the circle closed, tightening its grip around the three surprise arrivals. Words were spoken. Tears were shed. Hugs were shared, even though part hologram. A sense of everything having purpose overcame the group. Years of effort. Tears of joy.

  In spite of their limited memory their words included “safe,” “all over,” “finally.” They had started when younger than Dillard. They were older now. More experienced. More damaged in some ways, more themselves at the same time.

  “Head to the Hub, we’ll return you,” Joe said. They walked through the castle drawbridge together; they were not letting go of one another anytime soon. Laughter jumped out from the group. The professing of love, the kind of deep love that took years to form, lifetimes to find. Finn tussled Dillard’s cropped hair.

  “You’re here! You’re really here!” Then Finn looked up…right at the Partners statue. Something in him vaguely remembered that statue not being there the last time he’d stood in the Hub. Not that it made any sense.

  “We’re back!” Maybeck said euphorically. “We…are…back!” He started jumping up and down. The others joined him. A group of kids, unseen by anyone.

  Dancing in the dark.

  JOE GARLINGTON STUDIED DILLARD at an arm’s length, the boy’s mother in a chair next to the hospital bed that Dillard had been in and out of over the past several days.

  “We don’t know more than what we already know,” he said to the boy. Dillard nodded. “The good news is you check out fine. Healthy as any boy your age.”

  “About that,” Dillard said.

  “Yeah. The way it has been explained to me is that we designed your DHI when you were fourteen. That was nearly five years ago. When you jumped onto King Arthur Carrousel with Finn and Amanda, when the three of you were spun off, you returned with them. But as your fourteen-year-old self. We assume, and we can only assume, you will continue to age and grow normally.” He said this as much to Dillard’s mom as to the boy himself.

  “But five years younger than my best friend!”

  “You’re five years behind in school as well. They’ve all graduated high school.”

  “But how?”

  Joe shrugged. “Dillard, a terrible thing happened to you.”

  “Finn stabbed me.”

  “Well…”

  “Not that he knew it was me. I’m not saying that!”

  “No, he certainly did not! And the point is—”

  “He killed me.”

  “He killed, or thought he killed, Tia Dalma. It was a spell. The point being…”

  “You’re alive!” his mother said for something like the hundredth time since the family had arrived from Florida. At least, Dillard thought, she isn’t still crying about it.

  “I guess it’s better than the alternative,” Dillard said, sounding disappointed.

  Joe chuckled. “I’m told you’re free to go. There will be regular checkups, of course. In Florida, I assume. We’ll arrange everything.”

  Dillard’s mother thanked Joe repeatedly and sincerely. “I’m sorry for all those things I said back when—”

  “I would have said them too,” Joe confessed. “Completely understand. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

  “How is he?” Dillard asked. “Wayne, right?”

  Joe nodded. “It’s getting interesting,” he said.

  * * *

  The doctors huddled with Joe for several long minutes before admitting him to the room three doors down. The first day there had been partial evidence. On this day, the aging was far more pronounced.

  The way it had been explained, Wayne had created his own projected image in 1955 with the help of Philby’s small laser pointers. He remained a DHI because the Imagineers lacked the necessary personalized algorithms and imaging data to return him. With each day, his projected image aged another ten or more years. He already looked like a man in his thirties.

  And there was nothing anyone could do to make him human.

  Having lost him once, Joe was determined not to allow it to happen again. But for now, the same 1950s clothing had stretched and ripped as the image had aged. It was one of the more bizarre phenomena Joe had witnessed�
��and he’d seen plenty!

  “You’ll be happy to know,” he told the unresponsive DHI, “the Keepers’ memories of 1955 have returned along with them. They remember you as a young man and they said how great you were to them, how you saved them.”

  A sharp rap on the door startled Joe. He had to check his watch to see he’d been standing there looking at Wayne for nearly thirty minutes.

  “I’ve got it!” Brad said, coming inside. Brad had overseen the original DHI imaging of the Keepers.

  “Got what?”

  “We’re wrong! I mean, it’s true we don’t have any of the necessary DHI imaging data to return Wayne. I get that! I realize that.”

  “Focus.”

  Brad’s breathing was frantic, his face flushed. “WE don’t!” he said. “That’s been our problem, Joe. We know we never imaged Wayne. We know the data that came through when he returned to the carousel was lousy, corrupted data—that he was lucky to return as any kind of image. But here he is!”

  “All of which I know. Tell me what I don’t know.”

  “The Overtakers.”

  “Are gone. Once and for all. Gone.”

  “Think!”

  “Do not test me, Brad. I’ve barely slept in three days. I’m about to lose a close friend, a Disney Legend, for the SECOND time! I’m running low, friend.”

  “Fantasmic,” Brad said excitedly. “The stage. Remember? Who showed up on the stage?”

  “W…a…y…n…e.”

  “Yeah, Wayne.”

  “That was the Overtakers’ doing. They’re the ones who imaged him, turned him into a DHI.”

  “Right,” said Brad. “But they projected him—”

  “—using our projectors!” Joe said, finishing for him. “The Overtakers hacked us and projected his DHI over our systems!”

  “The Cryptos, the Imagineers, capture all that data, Joe. All of it. We save all the data from every show. Been that way as long as I can remember.”

  “So we must have captured Wayne’s DHI data.” Joe could barely speak the words.

  “We did! Absolutely! I’m going to search our digital archives. It’s in there somewhere.”