Kingdom Keepers: The Return Book Two: Legacy of Secrets (27 page)

Philby snapped his head in Willa’s direction. “Yeah, I guess we do.”

“We can’t let him get it.”

“No.”

“I’m faster than you,” Willa said, “by a long shot.”

“Maybe, maybe not. But it doesn’t matter. I can’t let you do it.”

“Baloney! You mean you can’t stop me.” Willa rose up on her haunches. “Cover me.”

Philby reached out for her, but too late. Willa was off and running.

Several things happened at once. Willa had cleverly waited for the guard’s movement on the carousel to turn his back to them. She sprinted and jumped onto the revolving platform, arriving 180 degrees from where she needed to be.

The carousel came around, the guard now two horses from the mysterious flapping sound. Philby stood and moved off the Mad Tea Party, allowing the guard to see him. Carefully, he offered only his profile, not his full face—he didn’t want to be easily remembered. Around came the carousel, Willa moving in a crouch toward the guard and Jingles.

Philby had blown it—having spotted him, the guard was now moving counterclockwise to the carousel’s movement—directly toward Willa.

The carousel spun. The guard kept pace with the speed of the platform’s revolution, effectively standing in place, now two horses from Willa. She stood. The guard stopped and turned. The two disappeared on the far side.

Philby advanced toward the ride.

Willa, crouching alongside an outer horse, saw the guard’s leather boots heading toward her. Jingles was four horses ahead. At this rate, unless she moved, he’d catch her before she reached Jingles….

NOW!

She stood and hurried ahead. The layout of the carousel put a half-dozen fixed horses between her and the guard. It was a game of tag with an unexpected twist: her world was moving around in circles.

The guard lunged over a moving horse and grabbed her sleeve. Willa screamed. The music surged; the horse lifted and broke his grip. She jumped ahead, snagged the flapping piece of paper. It tore.

Suddenly, there was Philby, waving his arms. The carousel had completed another rotation. “HEY!”

He bought her just enough time. Willa’s brain could function at the speed of light. In that nanosecond standing alongside Jingles, note in hand, she ran through the consequences of leaving a torn piece of the note taped to the wooden horse: any evidence would support the guard’s claims about what had happened; if Walt’s team became curious, they might study that evidence; they might discover that the tape used to stick the note to Jingles’s neck was not like any tape available in 1955; and most importantly, the note had been handwritten and was missing at least two words—what if those words were important?

Willa took only a second to reach out and peel off the length of tape and the torn piece of paper stuck to it.

A massive hand clamped down around her wrist. She let out a squeal.

“Who…what…” said a man’s deep voice, “is going on?”

“Hey!” Philby shouted, now inches from the guard.

The man’s shift of attention ever so slightly loosened his grip on Willa. She broke free and jumped off the moving carousel. Lost her balance and went down hard. Her shirt was grabbed from behind. She spun to slap the guy. Philby ducked at the last second.

“It’s me!” He yanked her to her feet. The guard had to work his way around the horses. In the few seconds it took him, the carousel had rotated half a revolution.

Philby led the way through the castle at a run. Willa was soon in the lead.

“Left!” he instructed. She slipped to the left once out of the castle, stopping short on a drawbridge beneath a wrought iron torchlight. Water churned beneath her feet. The sound of the guard running echoed in the castle tunnel.

“Down!” Philby hooked her by the arm and dragged her over the edge of the drawbridge. She and Philby hung from the side, their feet dangling above the water.

“If I fall, genius, the note is ruined,” Willa whispered.

The guard sprinted out of the castle and across the drawbridge, sliding to a stop on the stone bridge that connected the drawbridge to the park.

Seeing no one, the guard began a slow-motion turn back toward the castle. When his head came fully around, he looked to either side of the drawbridge and saw no indication of the two kids. They’d vanished.

Dangling from a heavy black chain underneath the drawbridge, Willa and Philby were face-to-face, their knees touching. Philby, one-handed, had transferred his hold from the edge of the drawbridge to the chain below.

“Thank you,” she whispered into his ear. “I’ll never doubt you again.”

T
HE IDEA WAS TO TURN
Amanda’s note to Finn into a hologram and stick it to Jingles’s neck. Whether it could possibly result in sending the note into the past was entirely theory. It was believed worth a try. The job was left to Brad and Joe’s creative team. At the urging of the Cryptos—an elite group of highly technical Imagineers who worked out of a basement bunker at the studio—the Fairlies weren’t included in any of it. They were told to return to the dorm and go about business as usual. Joe would keep them informed.

Tim, Jess, and Amanda had other ideas, but it soon became clear that they were temporary prisoners in the dorm. Under constant watch by dorm proctors, saddled with evening assignments, there was no way for them to escape.

Emily was a different story. Tim’s battery upgrade to her invisibility suit doubled the time she could move around unseen. She used three minutes of battery life to leave the hotel, rode a city bus fully visible (though somewhat embarrassed by her body-conscious outfit), and met Nick Perkins alongside a fence to the south of the park.

“I’ll stay with you until it’s too risky for both of us,” he said. “At that point, you’ll go invisible. Put your phone on vibrate. I can send you a text if things get hairy, and you’ll feel it.”

“Done. We’re good.”

They climbed over the fence, and Nick put them in position to watch the stairs to Walt’s apartment. It was among the last places Finn or the Keepers had been seen.

“By my recollection,” Nick said, “this is the first time two people who’ve never met the Keepers are doing work for them. A new era. Historic, you might say.”

“Let’s worry about the history books later, kiddo,” Emily said. “Lay it out for me.”

“We’re assuming Joe or one of the Imagineers, maybe more, will climb the stairs to Walt’s apartment. When they do, you need to be right behind them. You have to get into the apartment when the door’s open. Once inside, watch everything they do. Everything. You need to memorize it all, and you need to get out when they leave.”

“Oh, is that all?” Emily said sarcastically.

“I know it’s not easy,” Nick said. “Once outside, you can conserve your batteries as soon as you feel it’s safe. I won’t move from where you leave me. We’ll join back up and follow them. You may need to go invisible again. Who knows?”

“I was hoping you did,” she said.

“Piece of cake,” he said, trying to sound encouraging.

“Uh-huh. Sure it is.”

They waited nearly forty minutes. At last, two men in khaki pants and white shirts—Cast Members? Emily wondered—entered a gate by the firehouse and walked backstage. Nick and Emily were hunkered down behind a pair of smelly trash bins with a good view of the stairs leading up to Walt’s apartment, as well as the apartment’s outdoor patio alongside City Hall.

Nick tapped Emily on the shoulder. She disappeared. He tried to picture her catching up and staying right behind the two men.

When one of them turned suddenly, Nick held his breath. The man had to be inches from Emily. He’d heard her or sensed her. Nick waited. The man reached out, by which point Emily had either stepped down the stairs or ducked. His hand swiped only air.

The other guy called out, “Paranoid!” and continued climbing. Five minutes later, the men left the apartment in a hurry; they raced down the outside stairs and took off at a jog into the park. Nick kept his eye on them as they rounded the corner.

Immediately, Emily appeared, her back against the building’s brick wall. She waved Nick out from his hiding place.

“I saw everything,” she said, breathless. “They’re wearing Imagineering shirts, not Cast Members’. It’s Walt’s music box. They got it going, and one of them said they had to hurry. I think I should stay with them.”

“It’s too far to the carousel. Your battery will run out. We can stay backstage, cut behind the Plaza Pavilion. It’ll be a sprint through the Plaza, and you’ll have to go it alone, but at least we buy you a couple minutes of battery.”

“Okay. Let’s go!”

They followed Nick’s plan, and it nearly worked. But the men stopped at the Plaza. Emily went invisible in order to get closer, leaving Nick unable to join her.

The Plaza was dark and empty. The two Imagineers just stood there. Emily felt her battery draining. What were they waiting for?

And then one of them pointed. The hologram of the note had crossed over into the Plaza; it lay alongside the street’s curving curb. One of them rushed over, but discovered he couldn’t touch it. His hand waved through the projection. He called on a walkie-talkie. The hologram disappeared.

The men hurried through the castle, Emily following close behind. She skidded to a stop when she saw the King Arthur Carrousel moving. It was the
only
ride moving. The
only
attraction lit up.

The two Imagineers stopped as well. They had a conversation she was unable to overhear, followed by more discussion over the walkie-talkie. The hologram of the note appeared about five yards away from them. She could feel their tension as the men continued the radio conversation.

“Twelve feet to the left…” The note vanished and reappeared as directed. One of the men consulted his phone. “Five feet, two hundred degrees.” The note moved again. And again, this time hovering along the outside of the spinning horses. “Apply the algorithm.”

An instant later, the note began revolving with the platform at the exact speed of the ride. More directions. The note was now inches from a horse and perfectly timed with the carousel’s rotation. “Looking good. Slow now, and be ready….”

The note slowed. Jingles approached. Each time the carousel lapped and passed the Imagineers, small adjustments were made through the radio. At last, the hologram gave the appearance of being attached to the neck of the horse with the golden mane.

Emily’s phone buzzed at her hip. She looked down: her suit was sparking. Nick was trying to warn her that she was no longer invisible.

W
AYNE’S PICKUP
rolled to a stop in a quiet neighborhood overlooking a valley of lights. “There are laws, kiddos. Trespassing is one of them. You be careful.”

“It’s for a good cause,” said Maybeck through the truck cab’s sliding window. He, Finn, and Philby had ridden outside in the truck bed, as before.

“We can dazzle Walt with astounding facts,” Willa said from the far side of the bench seat. “For instance, It’s a Small World hasn’t been built yet, but you can bet he’s already thought of it. Stuff like that.”

“It won’t be Mr. Disney you’re talking to,” Wayne said. “It’ll be the police.”

“It’s almost one in the morning,” Charlene said. She was squeezed between Willa and Wayne, with Maybeck’s chin nearly resting on her head. “It’ll be quiet.”

“I wouldn’t count on that,” Wayne said. “The Disneys like to socialize. I heard they were having that radio guy, Ronald Reagan, over to dinner tonight. I guess what I’m saying is, be careful. Stay alert. Jeepers, you sure as heck don’t want to be caught. Anything happens, you run down the hill. The minute I see you, I’ll get the truck up and running, and we’ll be out of here lickety-split.”

The Keepers climbed the hill before them, arriving at a row of bushes and flowers. Beyond was an enormous sweeping lawn. To their right, a sprawling one-story ranch home.

“That’s the house,” Finn said.

“So much property!” Willa said. “It’s way bigger than I thought.”

“Big enough for the Carolwood Pacific Railroad,” said Philby.

Wayne had confirmed that Walt Disney owned his own backyard railroad, but he’d been unaware that Walt had named a locomotive after his wife. Charlene’s discovery had surprised everyone.