“You’re constantly thinking of Maybeck.” Finn was feeling nervous and out of control of the situation. “I like Amanda. You know that.”
“I like Terry. I do. Very much.”
Finn wondered if it was the hotel, the place, that was getting to her. Ghosts. Strangers in rooms. Charlene acting weird.
“Well, I appreciate the company. I do. But there’s two things you need to know: I’m pretty sure I spoke to ghosts last night, no kidding. And there are a bunch of guys—Cast Members, I think—living on the fourth floor.”
“Living here?”
“I know, it’s gross. But, yeah, they’re down there. I thought you were one of them. My guess, and it’s only a guess, is that they aren’t real Cast Members. They’re the imposters we’ve been chasing around the park.”
“I’ve been worried about you, ever since Dillard, Finn. You have been so…I don’t know…driven. I felt so bad about that, Finn. We all did. But you’ve got to put it behind you.”
Finn didn’t appreciate thinking about his friend’s death, a death he had caused. Even if the others didn’t see it that way, he did.
Finn stopped in front of the door. “Behold,” he said, his voice and manner intentionally dramatic. “The room where Amanda and Jess will live sixty years from now.”
Charlene was awestruck. “Seriously?”
“This is it.”
“This is why you’re here?”
“I’m trying to help us return, Charlie.”
“Are you going to tell me this has nothing to do with Amanda?”
He smiled. “Maybe just a little. And, listen, Amanda and Jess happen to be the only two people in the present we can work with.”
“True.”
“Why were you flirting with me just now?”
“Was I?”
“As if you don’t know.”
“No, I do know, and I’m sorry. It’s embarrassing. Not that I don’t like you, I do. But I want Terry to notice me more.”
“Maybeck doesn’t notice anyone other than himself.”
She looked sad.
“I’m joking!”
“But you’re right.”
“Well, come on. Cheer up. This is a big moment.” Finn led the way into the gloomy room. Charlene followed, mindful of the dust balls on the floor that looked an awful lot like mice. At the window, she examined the wood and scrunched up her nose.
“Aww, you carved both your initials. How sweet.”
“I carved this to let them know we were here. I had seriously thought…I could have sworn…the reason I came back tonight is that I was sure one of them would have carved something back.”
“But how could that possibly work?” Charlene said. “I understand if you change their room now, in 1955, that maybe there’s some chance it’ll show up sixty years from now. But if they do something, how is it supposed to go backward?”
“None of us knows how any of this time travel stuff works, I was hoping…that’s all.”
“So maybe she has seen it,” she said. “And if she sees it, then what’s she going to do?” Charlene asked rhetorically. “She’s going to try to find a way to get a message back to you.”
“Good luck with that.”
“Think about it. What would you do?” Charlene pressed, continuing to stand too close to Finn for his comfort. “You’re always thinking up the best solutions.”
He wanted to contradict her, felt the need to contradict her, but she was tired or something, not acting like herself. Her leg touched his. “Joe, I suppose. Maybe the Crypts. I’d try to figure out where the five of us were last seen together. How we crossed over.”
“Exactly. I totally agree! Meaning, we should be checking the same place every night.”
“Jingles.”
“Jingles,” she said, nodding.
Disappointed, feeling stupid, Finn headed out of the room, Charlene close on his heels.
“Finn,” she whispered.
He turned around.
She pecked him on the cheek. The kiss puzzled him briefly. “That’s for putting up with stupid me,” she said. “I hope you know I respect you and Amanda. I still want to sting Terry, but this isn’t the way.” She hesitated, obviously thinking something. “Still, it might just work.”
“We should get out of here,” he said.
“Agreed. It’s spooky and disgusting in here. But what about the Cast Members downstairs? Don’t you want to know more about them?”
“I suppose, sure.”
“So why don’t we go have a look?”
“Because there are more of them than us?” he said. “Because they know this building much better than we do? We can’t just walk up to them and ask them what they’re doing here.”
“I can,” she said emphatically. “Of course I can. I’ll tell them I’m looking for a hobo named Alfonzo. I heard he was sleeping here. I’m pretty, Finn. Not that you’ve noticed. Other boys notice that. While I have their attention, you’ll get into one of the rooms and look for a name, a piece of mail, a wallet. Anything you can find.”
“They could hurt you.”
“So you do care!”
“Of course I care. It’s something like one a.m. What if they don’t like surprises late at night?”
“They’ll like me,” she said. “And I promise you, I can run faster than any of them. You know it’s true.”
“You’re different, Charlie. What’s going on, anyway?”
“No idea. You and Philby got us here, and now no one seems to have any clue how to get us back. Our projections are horrible and are going to get us in trouble. Our only ally is a guy who’s going to be a Disney Legend someday, but isn’t close to even being an Imagineer at this point. He’s barely an intern. We can’t find the pen we came to find. Without it being in One Man’s Dream, we’ll never find it. That’s bad for everyone. We have to find that pen. We don’t seem any closer.”
“That’s why I tried to make contact with Jess and Amanda. We definitely need help.”
“Jingles,” she said.
“You distract them. I’ll search the rooms,” he said.
Charlene smiled wistfully. She gently touched his cheek using her whole hand. “Yeah, let’s get on with this.”
FINN AND CHARLENE returned to Disneyland at 2:30 a.m., an iron-on laundry name tag in hand. Finn had pulled it from the collar of a dirty shirt he’d found in a heap of clothes on the floor of one of the dorm rooms.
The name on the tag, Declan Little, meant nothing to either of them, but they hoped that by sometime tomorrow that would change: the Keepers were good at research.
They entered the wood shop behind the Opera House quietly, expecting everyone to be asleep. Instead, four anxious faces greeted them, including Wayne’s.
“Where have you two been?” asked Maybeck, his voice rising accusingly. “We’ve been trying to brainstorm on Esmeralda’s fortune. We could have used some help!”
“I discovered a cell of—”
He caught himself; Wayne wouldn’t understand what he was about to say. He explained the idea of Overtaker Kids, OTKs, to him—kids recruited as spies by the villains. The Keepers had previously confronted such kids—and not always come out on top. “There are guys living in the old hotel. They have Cast Member clothing. I think they’re some of the guys who were at the studio.”
Philby looked the most shocked. “How did you find them?”
“Chance,” Charlene said. “He left a message for Amanda, carved his initials into the room they will occupy in sixty years.”
“Interesting idea,” Philby said.
“It was worth a shot,” Finn said. “No evidence it actually worked.”
“I was his backup,” Charlene said.
“The hotel?” Philby said. “The Tower of Terror?”
“That doesn’t sound promising,” Wayne said.
“It’s actually a cool ride,” said Willa. “Very fun. But it won’t be around for a long time.”
Finn said
, “I’m not giving up. And I did speak with a ghost….Plus I got the name of one of the squatters.”
“A ghost?” Willa said.
“I think she’s one of the people who died in the Tower of Terror elevator crash.”
“No…way!” said Willa.
“Yeah, she helped me. She spooked those guys and basically saved me.”
“We have news, too.” Wayne turned to Philby. “Are you going to tell everyone? I could use some shut-eye.”
“Tell us what?” Finn said.
“We’ve been waiting to hear,” Maybeck complained. “Waiting for you two.” He placed heavy emphasis on the last bit.
“Okay! First, using the names Finn and I dug up at the Golden Horseshoe—Hollingsworth’s handlers, his posse—Wayne looked up three of them.”
“They all work for him,” Wayne said. “One used to be an animator at Warner Bros. The woman is a well-known psychic, the daughter of a man who correctly predicted the Lindbergh kidnapping.”
“That doesn’t sound great,” Willa said. “Especially considering his speech about wrecking Disneyland.”
“The other thing,” Philby said, “is a lot better. Wayne and I—mostly Wayne—have generated our first three-dimensional projections.” Philby was not known for his modesty, nor for sharing tribute, so the Keepers quickly paid attention. “We used the circuitry from my laser pointers, ‘borrowed’ some equipment, reengineered it, and set up a second transmission. We had to cannibalize Willa’s phone—”
“I didn’t mind!”
“—and one of the network television cameras here for opening day will need a repair, but the end result is pretty spectacular. As convincing a 3-D as we’re going to get in 1955.” Philby smiled widely. “I have a feeling holography is about to take a giant step forward. The first decent laser is still five years away from discovery, in 1960. But we’re using laser technology in 1955. In about ten years or so, some major discoveries are going to be made. No one may ever know that Wayne Kresky, the Keepers, and Disney were behind them!”
“Nor will anyone care,” Wayne said. “Enough of that beeswax! What’s important is that, thanks to Philby’s laser pointers, you’ll all be able to move more freely about the park. No more of the bother. They’re still going to shut off the radio towers after closing, but during park hours, you’re going to be just dandy!”
“One thing about Finn’s attempt,” Charlene said. “He and I were thinking what would we do if we were in Amanda and Jess’s position? What if Finn’s initials suddenly appeared in the window like that?”
“They might try to retrace our steps. They’ll talk to Joe or Brad. They’ll look for us on park security footage. They’ll see us enter Walt’s apartment, see us running to King Arthur Carrousel. They’ll see that we never get off.”
“Jingles,” Charlene said. “If they leave a message for us, it’s going to arrive on Jingles. It’s going to be sometime during the night. We have to post a watch. Take turns.”
“There are a couple of boys on our night patrol I like a lot,” said Wayne. “Trustworthy. I could ask them to keep an eye out.”
“Sure, as long as you’ve known them a long time,” Finn said. “But we know now what we’re looking for. As for the guys in the hotel, I think we should get to know them better, starting with this.” He held up the laundry tag belonging to Declan Little.
THE KEEPERS MOVED THROUGH the Disneyland crowd with confidence and ease, their 3-D projections and period costumes blending in with the tens of thousands of park guests.
Willa had followed the hunch she’d had in Canal Boats and solved Esmeralda’s riddle: I named it after you. I hope it moves you as much as it does me.
“Walt named it for Lillian,” Willa had told them triumphantly. “The operative word is the verb.”
“Moves,” Maybeck said. “We’ve been over this already!”
“We left out the railroad,” Willa said.
“Santa Fe?” said Charlene.
“Disneyland Railroad,” Maybeck said. “That doesn’t help.”
“Lilly Belle,” Charlene said. “I named it after you. I always thought how romantic that was.” She squeezed Finn’s arm. He couldn’t take it anymore and broke away from her, making a bit of a scene.
Maybeck looked ready to split open Finn’s face.
Wayne, oblivious to the Charlene antics, brought the conversation back to where it needed to be. “Lilly Belle, the parlor car he built for her! Wonderful, Willa! So much like Mr. Disney!”
The Keepers split up. Finn told Charlene and Maybeck to board the Santa Fe railroad’s freight train while he, Philby, and Willa rode the passenger train that left from above the park entrance. Charlene didn’t appreciate the snub and took it badly; her behavior made Maybeck feel about two inches high. Finn could see behind Maybeck’s cockiness to know how it stung.
Glad to be rid of her for a while, Finn walked briskly. They waited ten minutes on the platform, the last few impatiently. Finally, the train approached.
“So many people,” Finn said. He, Willa, and Philby stood away from the others; they couldn’t risk someone bumping into their projections only to discover there was nothing to bump into. The trouble was, by standing clear, they were last in line. As holograms, there was no way for them to push onto the crowded parlor car. Willa found an open space to the left inside the door; Philby followed Finn in to the right.
“Jammed,” Finn said, his voice clearer and more normal sounding than when he’d been 2-D.
“We need to spread out,” Philby said.
“Good luck with that.”
“Yeah.” Philby rose to his toes as the train doors shut and the car jerked, beginning to move.
The parlor car was decorated to resemble a Victorian sitting room. Down the left side was a row of plush red-velvet seats with dark wood arms. The wood-paneled ceiling had floral inlays, brass fixtures, and a glistening polish. The windows were double hung, flanked by red-velvet window curtains edged with golden tassels. At the far end, a gleaming oak door with a glass window looked out on the receding landscape. Another ornate chair, a marble-top card table, an imitation gas lamp with a smoked glass flute, and a long wood shelf made up the car’s right side.
Finn pushed deeper into the car, the shelf cutting into his projection. Presumably because of his angle, no one could see the wood knifing several inches into his back.
He reached the marble-top card table, hoping he might find something to do with Walt’s pen. A set of leaded glass decanters were glued to the marble. Nothing else.
Finn spotted a brass drawer handle near the wall. He reached over to it, his full concentration on making his right hand material, not a projection. He failed.
He and the other Keepers were guinea pigs for Philby and Wayne’s new, untested device, cobbled together from stolen parts of equipment engineered for technologies in the Stone Age of the information revolution. Without thinking, he’d expected his hologram to perform similarly to his three-dimensional projection in the present. It was not cooperating.
He eye-signaled Willa, who joined him a moment later. “I can’t open that drawer,” he told her. She tried. She couldn’t, either.
“This isn’t good. We can’t play the fear game all the time.”
“No. That wears me out.”
“Cover for me,” she said. Dropping to her knees and fluffing her skirt to the side, Willa tucked herself under the small table. Finn stepped over to screen her from view. A moment later, her hand appeared by his pants leg, and he moved to let her up.
“Drawer is empty,” she said. “It was dark in there, but not pitch-black. No photographs. No documents. How can finding a man’s pen be so hard?”
“There must be a clue in here. Or the pen itself.”
“Agreed.”
“If it’s here,” Finn said, “he could have hidden it out in the open. We could be looking right at it. It might be in pieces.” Finn checked the lamp. Nothing. He searched the visible areas of the car for
anything that looked like a disguised part of a black fountain pen. “The barrel would be easy to hide. Maybe the cap. But the actual guts of the thing…I don’t see how you hide that.”
The train’s track was laid in a circle around the property’s perimeter. It moved slowly, guests pressing their faces to the park-side windows, oohing and aahing at what they saw: the Riverboat lagoon, the Stage Line, the Casey Jr. roller coaster. As they circled around the speedboat rides and Autopia, they faced the Rocket Ride to the Moon, an attraction that drew the most number of lookie loos. That freed up space, allowing the three Keepers to meet at the marble-top.
“Nothing,” Philby said.
“Same,” Finn said. “And we have technical problems.” He swiped his fingertips through the tabletop.
Philby imitated him, to the same result. “Oh my…”
“Yeah,” Willa said. “We’re going to need Wayne or someone with us. This is not going to work.”
“Worse,” Finn said, “Maybeck and Charlie may not know their limitations. We’re kind of lucky we figured this out now.”
“We need to get word to them,” Philby said, sounding panicked. “You know Maybeck, always biting off more than he can chew.”
Willa said, “I’m more worried about Charlene. Did anybody else notice how strange she’s been acting?”
Finn hung his head, feeling his cheeks warm.
“Not me,” said Philby.
“You never notice anything about people’s feelings!” Willa complained.
“Ouch,” Philby said.
“Finn?” Willa asked.
“Hmm?” He looked up. “I…ah…I think we need to warn them for sure.”
Willa leveled a gaze that cut right through him. “Finn?”
“It’s complicated,” Finn said.
MAYBECK SPOTTED THEM FIRST: two boys dressed as Cast Members, doing a poor job disguising their interest in him and his adorably dressed escort.
The costumes had worked well for Opening Day. But though all women visiting the park wore dresses and formal shoes like Charlene, and most of the men donned coat and tie and pressed slacks like Maybeck, none of those guests had black skin. Zero. Maybeck was not only young and good-looking, he was a “colored boy” dressed in rich clothing, sitting alongside a gorgeous, equally young white girl. It turned out at least two young Americans in 1955 found this combination off-putting, even unacceptable.
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