Kingdom Keepers: The Syndrome

by Ridley Pearson

  My reading for Jess and Amanda connected and came back at me in a mass of confusion. Joe’s confusion. Like radio wave interference, both of us saw static.

  “Do you work here?” Joe asked as he released my hand. He definitely seemed more interested.

  I smiled and relaxed my shoulders, attempting to look natural.

  “You’re a Fairlie,” Joe continued, his voice sincere. He returned the smile.

  “Yes.”

  Bombarded with thoughts—his thoughts—as the static lifted, I wondered if he was experiencing mine as well. I didn’t know what I was looking for, what exactly Jess was after. But I read concern, sincerity, admiration, curiosity, and determination. All these feelings centered on the girls, but I failed to pinpoint any specific information.

  There were pieces of sentences he’d spoken. “Social Services.” “Pixar.” “Archives.” “Fairlies.” “Inside Out.” “Prehistoric scales.” But I also saw images of a dozen different park attractions, including Avatar Land in Animal Kingdom.

  With a start, I realized some of the images had to be before-and-after scenes. It was all too jumbled. I couldn’t trust the read of a Reacher.

  He had an appointment. I was holding him up.

  “I don’t mean to keep you,” I blurted out.

  “You’re a mind reader!” he said playfully. “As a matter of fact, I do have a meeting to get to.”

  I swallowed what felt like a golf ball.

  “Well, it was nice to meet you,” I mumbled. The sooner I got away, the better. If he came to realize he’d read my thoughts, he would sense that I was predatory. I couldn’t be sure how someone so important might react to that.

  I turned to leave.

  “You’re right to be concerned,” Joe said. Had he read my mind?

  “Excuse me?” I couldn’t help myself—I looked back at him.

  “It’s dangerous for you three.”

  I took off running.

  JESS

  Park lights glowed through a futuristic landscape. The Carousel of Progress, a time capsule of sorts, one of only a couple of attractions older than the park itself. Something drew me to it, through the queue, and into the theater, a force as unexplainable as a dream—

  The realization that I was dreaming woke me up, and I shot bolt upright in bed, drenched in sweat, my heart pounding.

  The Orlando weather was going to take some adjustment, I realized. I felt as though I could hardly breathe through the humidity. A year ago I’d been able to run around in this blast furnace without a second thought! Clearly the SoCal weather had spoiled me. If only Wanda had AC.

  As it was, the humidity was making it hard to sleep, too; something I didn’t appreciate. I’d faced enough sleepless nights in the past week. And now yet another dream, one in which I recognized the attraction. That required investigation.

  Three middle-of-the-night bus rides later, I was showing my Disney ID to a toll booth security guard at the back of the Magic Kingdom. He swiped the ID. I was admitted, but I was also in the system now, which couldn’t be good.

  Walking down Main Street, I felt an overwhelming sense of déjà vu. I had done this exact same thing on the opposite coast. The week of snooping around the parks was wearing on me.

  Reaching the Central Plaza, I turned toward Tomorrowland.

  Unlike my visit to Disneyland, I reached my destination without incident, something I celebrated as a small victory. Nothing seemed out of place. Slowly, I reached out and touched the oversized cogwheel that displayed the attraction’s name.

  It hit me hard, flashes behind my eyelids so forceful that I sank to my knees, frightfully aware I was locked in a daydream.

  I saw a man, here, on this very spot. The angle of view changed and more men appeared behind him, not one man but three, all eerily similar. Two, dressed in costume. Though barely conscious, I reached and found my sketchbook and pen in my back pocket and I began drawing.

  As the vision ended, I slumped against the wall. Yet another mystery to solve. But one thing was clear; whoever these men were, they were bad news, and they were after the same thing we were.

  My first dream of the night had led me here, looking for something that I suspected had to do with Finn’s apparent disappearance. If I’d told Amanda about my dream, she’d have wanted to come, to investigate the area. But it would benefit no one if our paths were to cross those of the men I’d seen.

  Would Amanda be led here by something other than my dream? I wasn’t sure. All I knew was that I needed to keep her away. She was an adult now, like me, and could take care of herself, but after all we’d been through I felt responsible for her well-being.

  I studied the sketch in my hand, weighing my options. I didn’t fully trust Joe. Actually, I flat-out did not trust Joe, and I was sure my flight from the Grand Floridian hadn’t exactly earned me brownie points with him, either. The Keepers were MIA; I wasn’t ready to explain this to Amanda, who was with Wanda. The man I’d gone to with these kinds of questions for the past six years was dead. I didn’t know what was going on, and I needed help.

  I needed to think outside the box.

  The Box! The nickname of a weekly live video podcast by a Disney connoisseur named…Louis? Lucious? Lou! Mongello of WDW Radio.

  Lou knew everything about Disney. Perhaps he would know one or more of the faces I’d just dreamed.

  To my delight, an Internet search revealed that he would be filming an interview with an Imagineer at Disney’s Hollywood Studios in the morning. It felt like a sign.

  I took the time to explore the Carousel of Progress, having only my dream to go on. Nothing else surfaced, and I left thirty minutes later feeling defeated.

  The park buses had long since stopped running, so I walked to the Contemporary Resort hotel and hopped a Cast Member bus to the Boardwalk. I relaxed enough to enjoy the warm night as I walked toward Disney’s Hollywood Studios. I’d gotten a late start, waking up from my dream at three A.M. It was now nearing seven. The sun shone above the horizon, and I knew Lou’s filming would start within the hour.

  Backstage at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, I had no idea of where to go while I waited for the park to open and Lou Mongello to arrive.

  The Imagineers worked backstage here. Lou’s interview would probably bring him to their offices. Why not?

  Eight o’clock. Things picking up.

  I passed a group of women in professional clothing, not costumes, with the Sorcerer Mickey name tags worn by the Imagineers. I was in the right place. Not wanting to draw attention to myself, I let them pass and stopped the next costumed Cast Member to ask for directions.

  As I walked backstage, I spotted Joe’s name on an office door. I had time, and I wanted answers. While I was not about to march into his office and ask him what was going on, I wasn’t above a few minutes of basic surveillance.

  I stood off in the corner, watching Joe’s door.

  A man in a suit knocked. The door opened. He and Joe stood outside the office, talking in hushed tones. I moved to get a closer look—and caught sight of the tie worn by Joe’s guest.

  I nearly fainted. I knew the pattern on the man’s tie. Knew it only too well.

  The only time I’d ever seen it, I’d been in Barracks 14.

  With no idea where I was going, I ran, Lou Mongello long forgotten. The park was open now, and I entered through a door at the end of Streets of America. I pushed my way through groups of guests, mumbling apologies over my shoulder. Frantic, I looked for an escape. Gasping, I slipped into Writer’s Stop, a small store on the corner, and sat down on a couch in the back, shielded from the windows by a long line of caffeine-deprived parents.

  No one gave a second glance to a girl who looked like she was in desperate need of coffee. And I did my best to stay composed on the outside. Cheery, groggy, just another girl waiting for a friend at an hour far too early for a teen to be up anywhere except Disney.

  Inside, my world was falling apart. I tried desperately to explain aw
ay what I had just seen. The signs were all there, but I didn’t want to admit it. There had to be some reason, I told myself, but inside, I was screaming. Was Joe in league with Barracks 14? Had I put us all in danger by going to him and believing him when he offered help? I felt betrayed, but worse, I felt stupid. I had learned over and over not to trust anyone but myself. First with my parents, then with the Barracks and Maleficent. Only Amanda had earned my trust, in the same way I’d earned hers. With the Keepers and the Imagineers, I had felt too secure. I had let my guard down. I’d started trusting again.

  Look where that had gotten me. Amanda and I were trying to help the Keepers, but it suddenly seemed that Joe had other plans for us. Plans he wasn’t willing to share.

  AMANDA

  So there we were on Wanda’s living room floor arguing if the Imagineers would possibly try to lure us into being captured by the Barracks 14ers.

  “It just doesn’t make sense, Jess,” I said. “Joe has worked so hard to keep them away from us.”

  “This guy was meeting with Joe. I saw him.”

  Mattie stayed quiet.

  Wanda said, “I know people who know people. Let me chase this one down.”

  “Sounds good to me,” I said, not needing anything extra to worry about.

  Eyeing the odd and irreconcilable contents of a blue soy protein powder can between us, I once again felt angry at Finn for making his secret message so difficult to decode.

  “Let’s try this. What do you see, Amanda?” Wanda asked, sounding like a teacher in science lab.

  I studied the stuff carefully. “A very old black-and-white photo of a big crowd either in Disneyland or Disney World. It’s slightly blurry—only slightly—and, I think could have been shot with a phone camera given the shape. In the corner, there’s some kind of weird moon shape. It might be the reflection of a piece of a face. The person taking the photo? Hard to see.”

  “What else?”

  “One white glove,” I said, turning it over in my hand. “A hard, black rubber ball. A bag of some metal jacks and a smaller red rubber ball.” I picked up the small metal rectangle, the top third of which hinged open. “I’ve never seen one of these, whatever it is.” I picked up the one item specifically intended for me. “And an empty envelope with my name on it, but no note inside.”

  MATTIE

  While Amanda described the objects, I had an idea. I picked up the rubber ball off the floor and squeezed my eyes shut. I knew better, though: I could only read things that lived and breathed. Only darkness and disappointment. I kept trying with the next closest item, a white glove. Again, zilch.

  Reading living things had become second nature to me. All it took was a touch. My inability to contribute to the group’s efforts now frustrated me.

  I was interrupted out of my daze when Wanda called my name.

  “Mattie, what do you see?” she prompted.

  “I’ve tried reading a bunch of this stuff,” I said. “But it’s no use. It has to be living and breathing.”

  “Any ideas?” Jess was trying hard to include me. I loved her for it.

  “Well, I guess a white glove could have been used for anything—cold weather, part of a staff uniform, fashion. No dirty work. And the ball is obviously a toy. I’ve seen sports balls—squash, I think—pretty much like it, but they hardly bounce. This thing is insane the way it bounces. Then there’s the game of jacks, but that’s pretty obvious.” I looked at Wanda, who nodded for me to continue. “The photo…People take pictures, keep pictures, to remember things, and this one’s old, so someone wanted to remember something from a long time ago. Something in one of the parks. The cigarette lighter. I’ve seen them in movies. Never up close. It’s interesting.”

  No one spoke, so I continued. “It’s not like I can see any hidden meanings. They’re just a bunch of random objects in a can. Right? The only items that have any real significance—at least to me—are the empty envelope and the photo. But you guys are the Wayne experts, not me.”

  “Excellent!” Wanda said. “That’s terrific input.”

  “Really?” The word escaped my mouth, though I hadn’t meant to speak it. Just minutes earlier, I’d felt like such a dud.

  “Hugely helpful,” she said.

  JESS

  The four of us sat on Wanda’s living room floor, the contents of the mysterious blue can between us. We all agreed that Finn had left this for us to find. Somehow it conveyed a message that we had yet to figure out.

  Wanda asked each of us to describe the objects in turn. Each of us brought our own interpretations to the table. Amanda described the objects’ physical appearance, whereas Mattie, after lamenting that she couldn’t “read” them as she could people, talked about their practical uses.

  Wanda turned to me. “Thoughts, Jess?”

  I took in the assortment in front of me, picking up the red rubber ball and metal jacks before speaking, “An old-fashioned kid’s game. Make that two games; I forgot about the other ball.” I examined the black ball, cracked and hardened with age. “Seems sort of sad that they ended up in here. With no one to play with them.” I set both aside. “A cigarette lighter? Grown-ups smoke, not kids. Maybe that’s part of it? It looks like it used to be a pretty purple color.” I held up the metal rectangle, set it down again, unsure. “A white glove like they used to wear to dances, and the envelope with Amanda’s name on it. How romantic.”

  I smiled at Amanda and reached for the last item in the pile, a vintage Disney photo. In touching it, a barrage of images flashed before my eyes: faces, laughter, bright sunlight, the smell of popcorn. Just as suddenly, the images were gone. My vision was so scrambled that I didn’t know what to make of it.

  “What just happened?” Amanda asked. She knew me too well.

  “I think for an instant there I was in this photo. I smelled popcorn, heard laughter. Nothing specific.”

  “Draw! Right now!” Amanda said.

  Taking a deep breath, I pulled my sketchbook from my backpack. “Look,” I said, flipping pages, “I didn’t tell you guys about this particular dream before, because I wanted to be certain it wasn’t just fantasy.”

  I handed them my book, turned to the sketch of a small campfire.

  “Those don’t exactly look like logs,” Mattie said.

  “Bones,” Wanda said, studying the page. “They look like bones to me. Did you know that for thousands of years, cultures around the world burned bones in rituals?”

  “Rituals,” I muttered, recalling more pieces of my dream now, “as in rubbing the bones together and kissing them before you burn them?”

  Three blank faces stared at me.

  “Pass me back my sketchbook, please. I don’t want to lose what I’m seeing.”

  AMANDA

  The empty note frustrated me. Jess’s sketch of burning bones scared me. I felt completely unsettled. Though tempted to whine about it, I got up and walked around the small room, trying to calm myself down.

  “Do you think someone took the note?” I asked.

  “No,” Jess said. “If someone else found the can, they would have thrown it out or kept it for themselves. They wouldn’t steal only the note.”

  “We don’t know that for sure,” Mattie said, “but I do think that makes sense.”

  I wanted to tell them about the heart and the initials carved into the tree, about how Finn had managed to find some old lovers’ symbol and had chosen that place to leave his watch. The romance of it cut me through me. Everything he did for me seemed to be unspoken statements and promises. They filled me with such happiness I could hardly think; I would nearly laugh aloud—at nothing.

  Now that same rush of giddiness translated to something darker. The missing note tortured me. I wanted to read whatever it was he’d written.

  “Maybe he had second thoughts,” I said aloud. “Maybe he wrote an explanation, or even another set of clues, but thought they gave too much away. So at the last minute he took the note out. I’m not sure why he would lea
ve the envelope, but he did.”

  “He was going to mail it,” Mattie said. “He had it stamped and ready.”

  “Okay,” Jess said. “Maybe the note was supposed to make sure you found the can, but in the end he didn’t think mailing you something was safe, so he was counting on you to figure it out without the hint.”

  “I like that explanation,” Wanda said. “That’s something to consider.” She hesitated and then spoke quietly, intimately. “Amanda, how much—if any—of this stuff means something to you and Finn? In other words, is it personal, or is it as strange to you as it is to us?”

  “I don’t understand any of it,” I confessed. “Toys, a glove, a cigarette lighter. As if any of us smoke! I mean, come on! What’s with that?”

  “Fire?” Jess said, her voice quavering.

  Jess had dreamed of fire once before, and the results had been catastrophic—Disneyland in flames.

  “At worst, he means to set toys on fire. Nothing to worry about. What we’re missing is the larger message,” said the daughter of Wayne, a man who always saw the bigger picture. “There’s something here. He’s gone to too much trouble.”

  “One thing,” I said. “Finn thought they might end up in SBS. Why else leave the note in his pocket, the can on Tom Sawyer Island? He went to tons of trouble to pull this off. That means it’s important. But how do all five of them end up in SBS? Let’s not forget: Maybeck and Philby were both captured and ended up in SBS. Would Philby risk crossing them all over at the same time on anything less than something super important? But clearly Finn knew they were taking a risk. He prepared for that!”

  “So, for now, we’ll assume they’re on a dangerous mission,” Wanda said.

  “Which would explain why Joe is freaking out,” Mattie said. “He sends them off and no one comes back.”