Luowski said, “Your girlfriend’s waiting outside.”
“I don’t have a girlfriend.”
“Not what I hear.”
“Well, you hear wrong.”
Finn turned around and faced the taller Luowski, standing about chin height to him. But Luowski might as well have been six-feet-five and 280 pounds for the way Finn felt. He didn’t want anyone—including Greg Luowski—messing with Amanda.
“Take a look yourself, Romeo.” Luowski motioned to the door.
Finn had something to say to Luowski, but knew it would earn him a punch in the face, so he bit back his words.
He was back in the hall heading for the front doors, not feeling quite right. It bothered him that he’d lost eight minutes of his life. Nothing like that had ever happened to him before. He and the other Keepers had often discussed “side effects” of being a DHI: the extreme fatigue mixed with the occasional insomnia. He wondered if the side effects included memory lapse. Eight minutes. Gone.
He swung open the school doors.
Amanda stood at the bottom of the steps, turning her head toward him just as Finn arrived through the doors. His girlfriend…Was he supposed to get used to that? He felt happy to see her—almost too happy.
Light-headed. Weightless. He seemed to float down the steps toward her.
She stood among a group of girls. A few covered their mouths, hiding their smiles as they saw Finn. He had no idea how stupid he looked. But his vision blurred to where there was only Amanda. The others girls looked almost Photoshopped in, blurry and unidentifiable.
He didn’t know why, but he looked behind him—Luowski-the-Russian-madman stood at the top of the stairs, grinning. Finn was halfway down when Amanda approached him.
“Walk me home?” Amanda said. That was a first. He’d walked his bike with her plenty of times, but he couldn’t remember her asking for him to.
“I like that shirt,” he said, having retrieved his bike.
“It’s Jess’s.”
“You look good in it.” What a stupid thing to say. It fit her pretty tightly and she was going to think him a creep.
“Thanks.”
They walked a block. Two. Five.
“You’re awfully quiet,” she said.
“Luowski was bugging me in the bathroom,” he said, wondering where that kind of honesty came from. “He’s one of them.”
“Are you sure?”
Finn caught her up on the recent street confrontation and Luowski’s comment about not believing in magic.
“That’s fairly direct,” she said.
“It is. And there’s more.” He told her about Hugo and Philby.
“Ohmigod, they actually fought? Like with fists?”
“Like with.”
“Well, I can see why he’s creeping you out.”
“Yeah.”
“So, you gave me that message,” she said.
Finn had forgotten completely about that. It felt like a week ago. It had been the same morning in U.S. Government class. “Oh, yeah.”
“You really are distracted.”
“Sorry.”
“The note said you wanted to talk to me.”
This explained why she was waiting for him outside school. He felt like an even bigger idiot. This was one of those days to wipe off the calendar.
“I…we…the Keepers, need you and Jess. To cross over, or be ready to cross over.” He went on to explain the morning conference call.
She hesitated. “I told you about Mrs. Nash threatening to send us back to the Fairlies.”
“Why would she do that, anyway? I mean, besides you two messing up? If they wanted you in the Fairlies they would have sent you there when they found you two.”
“The one thing I learned when I was there,” she said, “is that you never can trust anything to do with that place. They told us one thing, but it was so far from the truth it wasn’t funny.”
“But if they wanted to observe you, or whatever—”
“How do we know they aren’t observing us now? How can Jess and I be sure Mrs. Nash isn’t being paid to spy on us and report back?” Amanda said.
“That’s a little paranoid.”
“You wouldn’t think so if you’d been through what we’ve been through.”
“No, I’m sure not.”
“I didn’t mean to sound so…bossy,” she said.
“I didn’t take it that way,” said Finn.
She reached over and found his hand, and for another block she held it, and he liked it.
They stopped in front of the familiar blue house with yellow trim. The twenty-minute walk had felt more like five. Time was all messed up for him. Many of the other houses on the block were Spanish influenced and one story tall. Mrs. Nash’s house looked older, and it was two stories.
Finn slapped the kickstand down and faced Amanda. He knew exactly what he wanted to do—he’d just never done it exactly like he was about to do it.
Jess stepped out the front door, looking panicked.
Finn stepped up to Amanda and grabbed her by the shoulders. It was almost as if he was compelled to do this, as if he’d been told step-by-step what to do.
Much to his surprise, Amanda made no effort to pull away from him. He’d expected maybe a slap in the face.
“My shirt!” Jess hollered, making it sound like a crime.
Something was wrong. Finn knew it. He knew Jess was running to stop them from kissing, but he didn’t want to be stopped. He saw Luowski in the lavatory mirror and it just as quickly slipped out of his thought, like a wet bar of soap in the shower.
Jess’s shouting about her shirt turned Amanda’s head in her direction. A conspiracy to stop him from doing what he had to do.
He reached out, took Amanda’s chin in his fingers, and turned her toward him.
He brought his lips to hers and, as their lips met, it wasn’t just any kiss, but a ringing-in-your-ears, blinded-by-the-light kind of kiss that went on much longer than he’d expected. Amanda’s eyes opened and there was a world in there. A place he’d never been.
He drew back. He saw Amanda standing there looking stunned and all dreamy as well, but he suddenly couldn’t remember what he was doing there. Couldn’t remember how he’d gotten there. He felt startled, dizzy. Then he spotted his bike and wondered if he’d ridden here. Or had he walked the bike?
Why am I here? he thought.
Jess skidded to a stop.
“No!” she roared.
Amanda’s knees went out from under her. She’d fainted. For a moment, Finn remembered the kiss and he felt…proud—the kiss that knocks them off their feet. But there was something about Jess’s panic that pulled him out of it. Something about the way Amanda collapsed so suddenly.
What have I done?
Jess’s face went ashen. She said, “That’s my shirt!” as if that explained anything.
“What’s going on?” He felt as if he had been shoved out onto a stage and didn’t know his lines, didn’t know the role. It was some kind a nightmare he’d walked into. He tried to wake himself up.
“She’s wearing my shirt! Not me.”
“I…don’t…understand.” Finn shook Amanda, praying it was a practical joke, but sensing there was nothing funny about it.
Then Jess shook Amanda’s shoulders and it was clear this wasn’t a joke. Her body was slack, like she was asleep. She was definitely not moving. Her breathing was incredibly slow and lethargic. All of Jess’s shouting and crying wasn’t going to change things.
“Wake up!” Finn said desperately, not knowing if he meant it for himself or for her. He went woozy; could barely keep his balance.
Amanda was unresponsive.
Jess looked up at Finn and said, “What have you done?”
* * *
Finn blinked and looked around, terrified. He remembered Luowski in the lavatory, the kiss, but not how it all connected. Why had he come here in the first place?
Jess looked up with tears in her ey
es, kneeling by Amanda.
“I…” Finn said, “don’t know what happened…I didn’t mean…”
“Help me,” she said, pulling Amanda’s arms toward her. “Mrs. Nash will be back at four. We need to get her inside, upstairs, onto her bunk.”
“Wake up…” he muttered.
“Finn! I need you now!”
Finn’s senses were dulled, his head thick. “I didn’t mean it,” he said.
“WE HAVE TO GET HER INSIDE,” Jess said, tears running down her face. “RIGHT NOW!”
Finn took Amanda’s legs, Jess her arms, but Jess was crying too hard so Finn scooped Amanda up in his arms and carried her.
“I’ve got her.”
He staggered toward the front steps, still trying to grasp what had happened.
The door opened as several girls hurried out to help. They got Amanda upstairs and onto the lower bunk.
He had so much he wanted to say, but the horrified expression on Jess’s face said it all.
“We’ll tell Nash,” Jess instructed the other girls, “that Amanda’s sick and is sleeping off a headache. That’ll cover her at least for tonight.”
“What’s up?” one of the girls asked. “So she fainted. So what’s the big deal?”
Jess and Finn met eyes. Jess said, “She bumped her head when she fell. She’ll be all right, but she might sleep through the night.”
Finn’s heart stopped: The surprise hologram of the Evil Queen; Luowski’s sudden change in attitude. He’d been so certain he’d escaped the Queen’s spell, but now her words returned to haunt him:
As soft as a whisper
No one will tell
The curse, reversed
Seen by the sister
When kissing Jezebel
“You…” he muttered, looking at Jess. It felt like a bomb going off. The pieces of a puzzle forming in your mind and finally fitting. “It was supposed to be you!”
Jess paled considerably.
She knows, Finn thought.
“It’s Nash!” came a voice from the hall.
“Back door!” Jess to Finn. “Hurry!”
Finn hesitated, looking down at Amanda, feeling horribly responsible.
“You can’t stay! GO!” Jess said. She pushed a folded piece of paper into his hand. He stuffed it into his pocket. “Take this. I thought it was me, too.”
Finn moved for the stairs, but a girl waved him back. Finn stopped, teetering on the top step.
“Pssst! ” Behind him, another of the girls had opened a window leading onto the roof. She motioned out the window.
Finn had the sneaking suspicion he wasn’t the first boy to be hurried out of Mrs. Nash’s house.
The girl at the window pressed her finger to her lips. He was to go quietly. She pointed to the far right of the roof.
Finn looked back. Jess had dried her tears, but her color had failed to return. She hurried to him and handed him a folded napkin. He pocketed this as well.
She knows it was supposed to be her, he thought.
He ducked out and was gone.
* * *
They met at five pm in the back room of Crazy Glaze. Maybeck’s aunt left them alone, wearing a worried face; she knew better than to ask what was going on.
Philby’s time was limited. His mother was waiting in the car outside; she expected him out no later than six. Charlene had Willa on speakerphone, which sat on the table next to a dozen glazed, but unfired, coffee mugs.
The collective mood was anxious. Maybeck was not tossing out his usual jokes.
Finn started off by confessing to them about the video chat where Wayne had transfigured into the Evil Queen, his going all clear, and her attempt to put him under a spell, which he recited word for word. He told them about the second encounter with Luowski in the boys’ room, and about his kissing Amanda, and her collapse.
No one openly criticized him, but their disappointment in him was obvious. The Keepers were a team, and by not telling them earlier, he’d effectively gone solo. He didn’t need to be reminded where that had now gotten them.
“First Charlene, then Willa. Now Amanda,” he said. “But it was supposed to be Jess.”
“So the Evil Queen got you with the spell,” Willa said. “And then the mirror in the bathroom. The Evil Queen is all about ‘mirror, mirror.’ Maybe Luowski reinforced the spell or something.”
“The question is,” Philby said, ever the practical one, “how do we break this particular spell? If a kiss started it, a kiss is not going to end it.” He glanced over at Charlene, remembering their kiss.
“‘Reverse the curse,’” Maybeck said. “Maybe she told us without meaning to. In Amanda’s case, the kiss made her into Sleeping Beauty instead of waking her up from a nap. Right? So, someone remind me how Sleeping Beauty got cursed in the first place?”
“She pricks her finger on a spindle that Maleficent creates,” Willa said over the speakerphone.
“Maleficent? Seriously? Now there’s a surprise! So we find a spindle—a Disney spindle, a Park spindle—and we give Amanda a splinter from it, and we see what we see,” Maybeck said. “What?” he said, when he found himself facing skeptical looks. “Does someone have a better idea? She reversed the curse, so why shouldn’t we?”
“It does make sense in a weird, Maybeck kind of way,” Charlene said. “There have got to be spindles in the Parks. We could at least try it, right? It’s better than doing nothing!”
“Can we come back to it?” Philby said. He pushed his laptop to Charlene, asking her to Google “Disney spindle.” “I don’t have much time, and there’s stuff about the log I absolutely have to tell you about.”
Charlene went to work, typing furiously.
“Go ahead,” Finn said. “But make it quick.” Philby could be a talker, and Finn had no patience for that. He wanted Amanda back, right now! He couldn’t remember ever feeling this on-edge, this…guilty.
“Finn and I hacked the MK server last night, as you guys know, and I downloaded the activity log. I’ll skip the details, since getting Amanda back is way more important, but still, this could affect everything. Basically, the OTs have made themselves into DHIs. I have the proof. Empirical data. They first appeared on the Animal Kingdom server, a week ago. But get this: four ID numbers. So the Evil Queen and Cruella have company—and we don’t know who. Other OTs? If so, they’re probably ones we haven’t met yet, which is kind of freaky. Let’s hope it’s not Luowski or Sally Ringwald, or some other kids—but that’s my first guess. Sally warned Amanda and Charlene that there were more of them than we could imagine. Maybe she meant DHIs. That’s what I’d do if I were looking to defeat us: create other DHIs to take on ours. Level the playing field. Make it equal ground.”
“Good Godfrey,” said Maybeck.
“What’s more important—much more important—is that after a lot of crossing over and Returning in AK, their data tags make a handshake with a router at DisneyQuest on the night of the school thing.”
“The night we saw them,” Willa said over the phone.
“Yeah,” Philby said.
“But that’s not possible,” Willa said. Only she and Philby understood the technical side and therefore spoke the same language. “The firewalls—”
“Had to have been breached,” he said.
“They jumped?”
“They jumped,” he confirmed. “Further evidenced by data cloning onto the DHI servers in MK, the Studios, and Epcot.”
Finn raised his hand like a student in class. But Philby was focused on the phone and Willa.
“So they can go anywhere we can go,” Willa said. “And places we can’t go,” she added.
“English is spoken here,” Maybeck said.
Philby said, “Here’s the four-one-one: Disney’s careful—super careful—about protecting their data. Each Park has only two data pipes leading in and out. One is for backup. The other is the one typically used. They have major—and when I say major, I mean major—firewalls to keep data in and
hackers out. That’s part of what DHI shadow is all about—it’s not just projectors. When we physically walk outside of the Parks and outside of those firewalls, we’re lost by the system. When we reenter another Park, our IDs are picked back up and we project.”
Maybeck said, “Keep it moving.”
“Anyway, there’s a DHI server for each Park for a reason: our data can’t flow through those fire-walls.”
“But theirs can?” Willa asked.
“The OTs have pulled it off somehow,” Philby said. “It’s called jumping. They jumped from Animal Kingdom to DisneyQuest and back. They then propagated—spread,” he said, directing the translation to Maybeck, who made a cruel face back at him, “their data packs to each of the Park servers. The only way to do that was to breach the firewalls. It’s radical stuff. Big-time stuff. And I’m sorry, but I don’t see them pulling it off without the help of an Imagineer, and not just any Imagineer, but someone high up—someone with detailed knowledge of the firewalls.”
“Wayne’s warning,” Finn said. “It had to do with the servers, and about a friend turning his back.”
“That was me,” Charlene said.
“Maybe not just you,” Finn said. “Maybe the Queen’s got an Imagineer under a spell, or there’s an all-out traitor among them.”
“And not to get too Conspiracy Theory, or anything,” Philby said, “but what if that’s how Wanda got caught? What if an insider sold her out to the cops? You want to know why we haven’t heard from her since your mother bailed her out?” he asked Finn. “It’s because she’s convinced it will only put us in danger—that her every move is being monitored, that she’s contagious, and doesn’t want us catching her cold.”
You could have heard a pin drop.
Finn said, “Jess’s sketches.” He passed them around the table counterclockwise, starting with Maybeck. Both were photocopies. Finn described them for Willa. One of a military guy; the other, the kiss in front a massive building.
“They don’t do anything for me,” Maybeck said, passing them on.
“But it’s what the Queen wanted from me,” Willa said. “The most recent one: the military guy.”
“So just to clarify,” Charlene said, “you were supposed to kiss Jess so she couldn’t draw any more of these? Couldn’t see the future? Do I have that right?”
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