Kingdom Keepers VII (26 page)

P
HILBY STUDIES HIS RINGING PHONE
with apprehension. It doesn’t identify the caller’s number as either Brooke’s phone or the pay phone from which Finn recently called him, and yet the first eight digits are identical to the pay phone’s number—area code, central office code, and the first two digits of the station number. Only the final two digits are different, radically increasing the probability that the call is also coming from a pay phone inside Disneyland.

“Hello?” he answers tentatively.

It takes him a second to recognize the voice as Storey Ming’s. She talks a blue streak, not allowing Philby a word—something about Finn being “busted”—and she mentions “Security” several times.

“Slow down!” Philby shouts into his cell phone.

“Listen! I
said
, I overheard two Security guys talking on their walkie-talkies. A bunch of them are headed to Club 33. If there’s any possibility Finn is inside the club, you need to get him out now. If he’s a DHI then you’ve got to return him. I’m hoping we can trust Security, hoping they support you guys—but if I heard about this, then others have too, and if they have, he isn’t safe.”

“First, he’s not alone. Willa’s there somewhere. Second, I can’t return either of them until they’re at the Plaza. Third, I have no way to contact him or her. No way to warn either of them. So I’m afraid it is what it is.” Philby’s mind is going like a washing machine. Suds of panic rise. Willa warned him of this.
Accused
him of this. If anything happens…

“There must be something! I’ll go over there myself,” Storey says.

“And walk into a trap? Inadvisable.”

“This isn’t theory, Philby. Security is going over there to get Finn or Willa or whoever it is they’ve realized is over there.”

Wayne
, Philby thinks. At first he feels a stab of terror, but it sorts itself out in his clinical mind and becomes a useful tool.
Wayne! Of course!

“I have a possible solution. Stand by. Move to a pay phone closer to Club 33 and call me back from there. Don’t do anything stupid, Storey. For one thing, you might unintentionally put Finn in more danger than he is already in. Are we good?”

“I’ll call you,” she says. She doesn’t sound very good at all.

* * *

Incoming calls at Club 33 are rare: the restaurant’s reservations come through the Disney Dining group and appear on the computer screen before the maître d’ at his station, where he has to double as receptionist. So when the phone rings, he answers the phone with reservations of his own. “Dining…”

He doesn’t identify the club by name because
common
people
are always trying to discover the number and publish it on the Internet. He and the headwaiter are responsible for protecting the club: its storied history, its elite membership, and all aspects of its clientele’s privacy.

“Hello.” There’s no mistaking the sound: it’s a young man’s voice. A mere kid. “I’m sorry to bother you, but I need to reach someone dining at the club tonight. Wayne Kresky. It’s about his daughter, Wanda, or I wouldn’t bother you.”

The maître d’ is not in the habit of confirming any particular guest’s presence at the club, nor the identity of members. “I am aware of Mr. Kresky, of course. One of our Disney Legends. I can neither confirm nor deny Mr. Kresky’s presence with us here this evening. I am sure you understand. I am afraid you will need to find an alternate means of contacting him.”

“It’s an emergency!”

“Yes, well. I would love to help, but I’m afraid there’s little I can do. Good evening.”

The maître d’ hangs up the phone, knowing there is something he can do. He crosses into what he and his waitstaff call “the old dining room,” heading directly to the table where a white-haired man dines alone.

“Sir?” he says in a hushed voice.

The Legend looks up with piercing blue eyes.

“I am sorry to bother you. I’ve just received a phone call asking to speak with you. It was concerning your daughter and was said to be an emergency. I, of course, did not confirm you were our guest this evening but thought it prudent to communicate the message to you nonetheless.”

“Thank you,” Wayne says.

When the exchange ends there, the maître d’ returns to his station, wondering if he has done the right thing: Wayne Kresky is still just sitting there talking to himself.

* * *

“You’re Willa.”

“Yes. Hi. I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be rude, but I don’t have time for this right now.”

“I’m Brooke.”

“Really, I—”

“Finn’s up there.”

“Who are you again?”

“He snuck in about ten minutes ago and hasn’t come back out, so I think it’s safe to say he wasn’t caught. I’m standing guard, sort of. Keeping watch for him. And now you show up.”

“Do I know you?”

“Kind of the opposite, but that doesn’t matter. My signal is to sing, ‘It’s a Small World.’ Should I start singing?”

“No. I mean, I don’t know. Is he in trouble?”

“Doesn’t seem like it. Not so far. But then you show up, so—is he?”

“I hope not.”

“So no singing.”

“Ten minutes?” Willa asks.

“Corr—” Brooke grabs for her pocket and pulls out her vibrating phone. She studies the screen. “I know this may sound stupid. But I think this is for you. I think it’s Philby. You’re a DHI, right? Can you hold the phone?”

“Speakerphone might be better, if you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind.” Brooke answers the call on speaker. She turns down the volume so it doesn’t blast around the Court of Angels, holding the phone at head height between them.

“Brooke? Is this Brooke?”

“Philby, it’s me, Willa. I’m with Brooke.”

Adopting his Professor Philby persona, Philby outlines the events of the past few minutes: the call from Storey about park Security, Philby’s attempt to contact Wayne inside Club 33. “You two need to get to the Plaza so I can return you, ASAP. Brooke will call me to tell me when. Storey’s on her way, but I wouldn’t wait for her.” He doesn’t allow them any chance to reply. “If I don’t hear from Brooke in…seven minutes, I’m going to manually cross over everyone else as backup. Do you copy?”

“Copy,” Willa says.

The call ends. Brooke’s face is a knot of confusion. “That’s it? Just ‘copy?’”

“That’s it. Put the phone away and clear your throat,” Willa says.

“What’s going on?”

“Time to start singing.”

* * *

Storey hurries through Central Plaza at a run disguised as a fast walk. She can’t entirely hide; she needs to be able to be seen by the Kingdom Keepers. She moves to swing around a clump of family members when a boy is pushed to the pavement by his sister. Storey slips trying to avoid him. They are looking at each other at ground level when the boy’s eyes go wide.

“I know you!” the boy proclaims proudly.

Storey scrambles to her knees.

“We were on the cruise! The Panama Canal. You taught my sister dance, or something. You were with the Kingdom Keepers!”

“Not really. Good to see you again.” Storey turns to go.

“Hey, will you sign our autograph book?”

Storey keeps moving as if not hearing the boy.

“Finn did!”

She returns to the kid. “Today?”

“Yeah. Absolutely! Not that long ago.”

“Did you happen to see where he went?”

“That way.” The boy points toward Frontierland.

His older sister arrives bearing the family autograph book. Storey signs below Finn’s scribbled autograph. Thanks are exchanged.

Storey heads in the direction the boy pointed. Philby mentioned Club 33. Maybe the boy is a Kingdom Keeper, maybe an Overtaker.

She heads off, eyes wide open.

* * *

Philby can feel it all coming apart on him: Willa’s accusations, Storey’s message, the knowledge that Finn and Wayne, both critically important to the Keepers, are in the same building together and likely unaware of what’s about to go down. However this ends, it’s on him, and he knows it.

Power: Philby’s well-protected secret is that he’s addicted to it. Deep inside, he understands the driver of the bus, the pilot of the plane, the general of the army, the dictator of the country. For him, nothing comes close to the feeling of crossing over or returning the Keepers. He decides when it will happen. He makes it happen.

He has risked a great deal by sneaking into the Crypt during evening hours to cross over Finn, then Willa. Anyone could have walked in during either visit. Now, he’s considering going back again. He’s pushing his luck. He’s allowing the godlike power of being in control of his fellow Keepers to dictate his actions.

His reasonable side tells him to let it be, to let the situation sort itself out, that it’s dangerous to send the rest of the Keepers into what may already be a catastrophic situation. But the thrill of breaking into the Crypt combined with the rush of entering the computer code that will allow the others to cross over proves too tempting.

He can be the hero, the one to effect the rescue of Finn and Willa. Or by trying to be the hero, he can remind himself that no one person can do it all alone.

He won’t know which until he tries.

F
INN OVERHEARS THE MESSAGE
the maître d’ delivers to Wayne.

“Sir?” Finn says into the antiquated microphone, hoping Wayne will answer.

“Give me a moment,” Wayne mutters under his breath. “Wanda has my number, you see?” Wayne has a phone out now, an old clamshell-style cell phone. “No calls, no messages—and yet an emergency.…”

Finn is as perplexed as Wayne appears to be. If there were a car accident or some other real emergency, wouldn’t Wanda or someone else call Wayne directly?

“Besides, Wanda doesn’t know I’m here. No one knows but you and whomever you might have told.”

“Philby,” Finn says at the exact same moment when he faintly hears distant voices singing “It’s a small world after all.…” Two voices, girls’. “It’s the signal. Trouble! We’ve got to go.” Finn tries to sound calm. “We’ve got to leave now, sir.”

Wayne stands.

Finn returns the mic to the shelf and headphones to their hook. He considers putting his ear to the cupboard door, but decides on doing things the DHI way instead. He eases his head into the wall, his right eye wide open, and keeps moving until he can see a slight glowing haze around his own eye. He moves incrementally forward, knowing that from out in the hallway, if someone looked very carefully, they might see an eye and a piece of his nose. Finn also hopes that such a sight would not compute; the brain would literally not see it, even if the eyes did.

What Finn sees troubles him: bounding up the stairs comes a man in khaki shorts and a white polo, a Cast Member lanyard around his neck—Security, more than likely—and, with him, a PhotoPass photographer, probably
undercover
Security. Philby claims there are hundreds of such undercover agents at work in the parks on any given day—one reason the parks remain so safe.

If Finn shows himself now, it will be trouble. He pulls back into the closet, peers through the peephole, and realizes that Wayne is gone. An exit sign suggests Wayne’s avenue of escape. As he debates his options, Finn’s mind is made up for him when the two Security men yank open the door of the cupboard. Finn immediately rolls out the other side, through the wall and into the dining room. In the process, the shock and surprise of it all degrades his v1.6, lending Finn partial materiality. He crashes onto a table where an elderly couple are enjoying their dinner. Food flies. Drinks spill.

So much for a quiet getaway, Finn thinks, as he dodges among the closely spaced tables and heads for the exit. He struggles to concentrate on three goals at once: first, to reach the exit before the two Security men catch him; second, to achieve full v1.6, as any degree of materiality will work against him; third, to catch up to Wayne and protect him at all costs. It’s this third goal that fills Finn with unexpected anxiety, even dread. Why, he’s unsure; Wayne can take care of himself. But it’s not the first time that an idea, sometimes even a seemingly random idea, has gripped Finn like a hand squeezing his heart; he’s experienced such feelings of premonition before. Finn had once dreamed about jumping from a factory roof with Willa in DHI form (complicating his dream exponentially). Bizarrely, an undeniably similar event happened only days later, leading Finn to wonder privately if he shared a premonitory power similar to Jess’s. If so, could he learn to use it deliberately? To trust it?

So why the disturbing sense of panic concerning Wayne?

These thoughts do not occupy Finn’s conscious mind, but grind away in his subconscious as he manages to attain a state of v1.6 all clear and run
through
the tables in the restaurant on his way to the exit. Not a napkin flutters, not a spoon is knocked out of place.

The dinner guests break into applause—by now, a not unfamiliar reaction to DHI special effects. Finn passes through the exit door without opening it. His immaterial state buys him time; his pursuers are forced to avoid the tables and chairs.

The exit opens into a hallway that leads out to the balcony and the stairs down to the Court of Angels.

Finn calls out to Brooke and Willa, “Wayne?”

The girls shake their heads in unison. Brooke looks slightly afraid. Willa appears ready for anything.

Finn tries to figure out where Wayne has gone, but he can’t take the time. The two Security guys are already out onto the balcony.

“Go!” Finn shouts to the girls. He catches up to them on the run as the three land at the bottom of the stairs and enter the courtyard. “Right!” he instructs, remembering that to the left is a dead end. Brooke proves to be an incredibly fast runner. At the Golden Horseshoe restaurant, in the lead, she runs to the right toward the plaza. Finn lets her go.

“This way,” he tells Willa, leading her toward Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.

“But this is the long way!”

“Exactly!”

“You want to take the long way?”

“Which way will those guys go?” Finn asks. One of the advantages of DHI v2.0 is endurance; Finn and Willa wish they could run at full speed indefinitely. Hopefully, they’ll have more endurance than their pursuers even in v1.6.

“I suppose they’ll separate.”

“Divide and conquer. Yes. Only if they are very well trained. They will be betting on us to head straight for the gates, not the Plaza.”

“Good point.”

Finn glances back—no sign of either Security guy—grabs Willa’s hand, and tugs. They walk straight through the fence and find themselves in thick greenery.

Willa collides with a tree and turns; she’s lost her pure DHI state. Finn holds on to her hand and pulls her along with him, making sure to avoid obstacles. It’s a setback.

“Do your best to get it back,” he says.

“I know!”

The pressure of such a request doesn’t help matters; Finn wishes he’d kept his trap shut.

Finn stops abruptly and releases Willa’s hand, and the two spin their arms frantically, trying to maintain their balance; they are perched on the edge of the Rivers of America lake, about to fall in. Willa stops her forward progress first and steadies Finn.

“This way!” she says, taking the lead and keeping the water to their left.

Finn feels the urgency to run, sensing
the Security pair behind them, even though he does not see or hear them.

“You hear that?” he asks Willa.

“I’m so far from all clear, I’m only hearing my heart about to burst.”

“Feet…many feet…coming really fast.”

“Those guys?”

Willa is leading Finn at a run along the water’s edge, following a tamped-down path through the vegetation. Finn is thinking that the path must be the result of Cast Members maintaining the lake, but with the sound of steps growing closer behind them, a second thought enters his mind.

“Animals.”

“What animals?”

“This path. Those feet. Animals, not people.”

“Animals?” Her hand softens in Finn’s grip as she draws closer to pure DHI state, but now it firms up again. She’s scared.

As he achieves all clear once more, Finn hears animals panting and low, slurping growls. His body tingles as he, too, loses some of his DHI state.

“Dogs. Wild dogs.”

“Bambi!”
Willa calls back to him. She possesses Philby’s encyclopedic intelligence, the ability to call upon her learned database of sometimes unrelated facts and assemble them firmly together, like playing with magnets. One word,
dogs
, and she’s able to identify the right Disney film as source material. It wouldn’t be
101 Dalmatians
, because all the dogs in that movie are good; the dogs in
Bambi
are quite a different matter.

“Refresh my memory!” Finn says.

“Bloodthirsty. Relentless. Nothing Bambi did could slow them down.”

“Overtakers?”

“Well, they aren’t on our side, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Willa skids to a stop. They’ve arrived at the Indian camp with its teepees.

“Remember the Magic Kingdom?” Willa says.

The Keepers had used a similar Indian camp as a rendezvous point once before, long ago, having discovered that once they were inside the teepees, they were in DHI shadow, and therefore impossible to see.

“Let’s go!” Finn says, taking the lead from Willa.

“Only one problem!” Willa calls out, halted back at the fence that surrounds the encampment. “In Disneyland, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad is haunted by Indian ghosts because it was built on a burial ground.”

Finn skids to a stop. He can hear the dogs dangerously close.

“Willa! Those are only ghost stories! The teepees are our only hope! As in
now
!”

Finn and Willa glimpse the dogs’ reflections in the surface of the lake an instant before the dogs themselves charge into view. Willa sprints toward Finn, her hand outstretched. She felt so much safer holding his hand.

Finn takes hold and together they run, not to the first teepee but to the one in the center of the camp. Finn climbs through the entrance into the teepee’s interior and watches his arm disappear as if it’s been hacked off.

The pack of wild dogs is bearing down on Willa as she dives into the teepee behind Finn. They are scraggly, scruffy, drooling, ugly dogs with matted fur and savage eyes.

Willa lands face-first on the sand floor and rolls to her left, into the darkest corner of the tent. By the time she’s sitting up, Willa looks down at herself and sees nothing: DHI shadow. She knows to shut her eyes and focus on an imagined pinprick of light in a void of total darkness—a technique learned from Finn that helps her obtain all clear. She presses her invisible hands to her invisible ears, and the world goes quiet. Not quite silent, but better. Willa imagines the bottom of a deep well—cool, quiet, and absolutely dark.…

The horrifying growl of a dog startles Willa, making her open her eyes involuntarily.

The dog is inside the teepee, nose in the air, red-and-black gums displayed in a nasty snarl of broken teeth. But the animal is lost. It doesn’t know where to strike.

“Shoo!” an old lady’s voice says—
from inside the teepee
!

Willa lets out a terrified yip. She hears Finn brush against the canvas wall of the teepee as he startles too.

The dog’s head is shoved down into the sand, clearly not of its own volition.

The disturbance of the sand spreads a fine dust up into the air; caught in the unnatural bluish light that emanates from Disneyland at night, it swirls inside the teepee. Like a photo developing in a chemical bath, the dust exposes a shape. Then, detail by detail, the figure of a Native American woman is revealed. She’s as old as dirt, with brown skin shriveled like a raisin; she’s covered in animal skins decorated with eagle feathers, wooden beads, and a single piece of turquoise.

She’s a ghost. Or is she?

It’s unclear if she can see Finn and Willa the way Willa can see her, but she looks directly into Willa’s eyes, sending a flash of heat down the girl’s spine.

Willa just
knew
that the stories of Indians haunting Thunder Mountain had to be true. The longer she’s been a Keeper, the more she’s come to realize:
It’s all true!

The woman hits the dog a second time. It snaps at her, but, chomping down on air, ends up only biting its own tongue.

“Shoo!” the old woman says again, her voice as dry as the sand underfoot.

The dog whines, backs up, and leaves them.

“Where are the spirits of the children that have joined me? Show yourselves!”

Willa marvels at the woman’s confidence in dealing with the dog and in demanding that she and Finn show themselves. Her courage begs the question: Do ghosts have anything to fear?

Clearly, the ghost of the Indian woman is afraid of nothing. So why should Willa be afraid? In DHI form, she can’t be bitten, stabbed, or hurt in any way. What, other than her own fear, takes hold in her and compromises the purity of her DHI? Willa realizes that, in a sense, she
is
this Indian ghost, only a lot younger and with the advantage of leading an alternate life as a living, breathing human being—something she can’t help imagining such a ghost must long for. She has nothing to fear. This, she realizes, is what Finn has been telling the other Keepers for several years now. But what a difference there is between hearing it and discovering it for herself!

This is what “growing up” means. For the first time, Willa gets it. However briefly, she owns it:
she herself
is the only thing standing in her own way. Regardless of how long it may take to perfect this insight, if she can just keep moving, keep growing, there is nothing to stop her, nothing that can hurt her. The discovery leaves Willa feeling so elated that she wants to let loose a scream of happiness. She wants to celebrate! But she controls herself.

“Here,” she answers calmly, scooting forward just far enough that her crossed legs and her face return to visibility.

Finn doesn’t trust this woman—he doesn’t trust any ghost. He wishes Willa hadn’t shown herself. The Overtakers have come after them as wild dogs, yet here’s Willa, playing hide-and-seek with some ancient grandmother.

“I’m a human child,” Willa says, “but I am not in human form.”

“A shaman!” the woman exclaims.

“I am beyond your understanding, but I’m not a shaman. I work for the side of good.”