Kingdom Keepers VII (29 page)

“I
DON’T RECOMMEND THIS,”
Charlene says as she walks alongside Maybeck from the Heraldry Shoppe to Snow White’s Scary Adventures. “All it can be is trouble. Who do you think made that armor come alive?”

“And why would she do that unless we were getting close?” Maybeck says. “You stay out here. I’ll go in.”

“No way! We go together or not at all.”

“Don’t run so fast!” he says. “And lose the clichés.”

“This is
me
,” Charlene says. It’s one of Maybeck’s favorite lines; he grimaces wryly in recognition.

With the fireworks show approaching, the waiting line is mercifully short. They climb into one of the cars. Charlene nudges Maybeck; looking back, he sees that the Cast Member has her arm out, preventing other guests from boarding.

“Why would she do that?” Charlene asks. “Put us on here by ourselves?”

“Not good,” Maybeck says. His arms sparkle. He looks over at Charlene, whose hologram is also degrading. “Partial shadow,” he says.

Charlene studies them both, nods. “Honestly? I don’t mind so much.”

Doors open in front of them, revealing the cabin’s cheery sitting room. Drying clothes hang on a line in front of the hearth. The seat jerks left; they face a chest of drawers and see Snow White, happily climbing a set of stairs, a flaming oil lamp in hand. The Dwarfs are playing and reading.

It’s suddenly dark.

The Queen’s voice: “Now to take care of Snow White!”

Next they’re in the woods under a full moon; an instant later, the car plunges into the claustrophobic mines.

The ride stops. Maybeck mutters a word he should not. The music remains inappropriately happy, as if it’s trying to balance the oppressive darkness.

“Visitors, I see!”

They spin around in their seats.

The Evil Queen. Not a character. Not a hologram. The real deal.

Maybeck and Charlene jump out of the car and take off running, their holograms sputtering and digitizing. They lose their legs, their arms—then regain them an instant later.

Alarms sound; a man’s voice tells everyone to remain in their seats.

Maybeck pushes open the doors to the next scene. The Queen stands reflected in a full-length mirror. She turns, and the old hag stands before them. But not an Audio-Animatronic: a threat.

The hag throws an apple at Charlene, who deftly drops and slides on her knees. The projectile flies harmlessly over her head. They’re surrounded by evil laughter and the sounds of crows.

The hag reappears in front of them. “Going somewhere?”

Maybeck skids to a stop, wondering where she came from.

“Shadow! Sides!” Charlene shouts.

She disappears, leaving Maybeck all alone.

* * *

Finn steps through a wall fashioned out of plastic grating and finds himself in a hallway, facing Mickey’s laundry room. He hurries toward it; he’ll search the upstairs first. It’s an area where guests are not allowed, and thus a likely spot for Wayne to take shelter.

In the laundry room, he skids to a stop, staring at the washing machine. His stomach turns violently: Mickey’s big white gloves appear to be pressed against the machine’s glass, buffeted by waves of water, as if the mouse is desperate to escape. Wayne implied that the mouse was missing.…Finn realizes that it isn’t Mickey drowning, only his laundry being washed—but the effect is still disquieting. Finn pulls on the washer door, but it’s fixed permanently, a part of the display. Finn’s mission feels all the more urgent—he has questions only Wayne can answer.

Reaching the house’s front entrance, where guests first arrive, Finn sees a child safety door with
PLUTO
painted on it across the stairway. He’s so fixated on getting upstairs that he barely glances over his shoulder to check if he is being followed.

There’s no one behind him, nothing but a broom from the laundry room leaning against the wall behind an old-fashioned radio. If it had eyes, it would command an ideal view of both the entrance area and the living room. Mickey and, to an extent, the Keepers, have an unpleasant history with Disney brooms dating back to
Fantasia.
Thankfully, this one just appears to be an ordinary old broom.

Finn studies the entrance area, looking through the doorway to the outside and, seeing no one about to enter, zips up the stairs, his DHI passing through the waist-high
PLUTO
door like wind through a picket fence.

Finn sees two more doors: one straight ahead down the hall, the other to his right, and therefore visible from the entranceway. He walks through the door to the right. And steps into…

Air. Finn is falling—the door turns out to lead into the vaulted ceiling of the sitting room below. He lands in front of the fireplace. A guest hurries forward to help Finn but reaches out and can’t take hold of his projected arm. The man staggers back, astonished; he’s never seen a DHI before.

“What’s…going…on?” he gasps.
“Ghosts!”
he shouts, sounding like a little kid. His screams ricochet off the walls. Mickey’s House clears as if someone yelled
Fire!

Finn is left alone.

And in that instant he hears the sound of bristles brushing the floor. The sound grows more clear and specific: the bristles are moving in his direction. Someone scrubbing the floor? While guests are still in the park?

“Hello?” Finn calls out.

The scrubbing continues, coming toward him. Not scrubbing…more like sweeping.

Like a broom.

* * *

Maybeck and Charlene are in DHI shadow on opposite sides of the dark forest when a high-pitched man’s voice rings out from behind the old hag.

“Always making trouble, you ugly troll.”

Maybeck moves to see who’s speaking. It’s a very short, older man with a white beard but no mustache, and wire-rimmed glasses. Only when six similar-looking men emerge from the dark does Maybeck identify the leader as Doc, one of the Seven Dwarfs.

“Ugly, ugly, troll,” Doc says.

The hag spins, furious. “Go away, little man! You’re nothing but a nuisance! Another step and I’ll—”

“What? Toss us an apple?”

One of the six—Happy?—bellows with laughter. “Toss us an apple!” he repeats, amused.

Maybeck steps out of DHI shadow, signaling Charlene to join him. His leg is better now, nearly back to normal; the exercise has helped it.

“You’ll never be beautiful again!” Doc says to the hag. “How can we see any beauty in you when we’ve seen
that?
” He points at her wizened face.

Maybeck takes Charlene by the hand and leads her off; the Queen’s too obsessed with the dwarfs’ insults to notice.

“I hope they’ll be all right,” Charlene says.

Maybeck pushes through another set of doors; the ride is stopped, and Cast Members are consoling impatient park visitors.

“You there!” a man calls out.

Charlene pulls on Maybeck; together, their DHIs dissolve into and through the wall. The people they leave behind stand, gawking, wondering what it is they’ve just witnessed.

U
NABLE TO RUN FOR FEAR
of attracting unwanted attention, and intentionally avoiding the route Maybeck and Charlene have taken through the castle, Philby, Jess, and Amanda take a longer, slower route to Toontown Station, passing by Big Thunder Ranch and slipping through the heart of Fantasyland.

None of the three states the obvious: that they are taking a big chance, and following nothing more than Jess’s vision. She’s right more often than she’s wrong, but that does little to console them. If this is a bad lead, they are wasting huge amounts of precious time.

“Fireworks soon,” Philby says, recalling the rendezvous he established.

“We can’t return without him,” says Amanda.

“We’ll regroup, switch around, change plans. Don’t worry: we’re not leaving without him.”

“Them,”
Jess says, correcting him. “Don’t forget Willa.”

“As if Philby would forget Willa!” Amanda snorts.

Philby smiles.

“You should do that more often,” Amanda says.

“Do what?”

“Never mind.”

Philby asks several more times, but Amanda’s dropped it; she doesn’t want him to think she’s flirting. Boys tend to misread such things.…

Approaching the Toontown Station is a disappointment. The area’s quiet, with just a few people milling around. There’s a crowd outside It’s a Small World and a number of guests leaving Toontown.

“This isn’t right,” Philby says. “Toontown should be roped off.” Unable to stop himself, he blurts out, “Unless everyone’s too busy chasing down Overtakers.”

The train whistle sounds from far away.

“We missed Finn and Willa,” Amanda says. “Not fair!” In anger, she throws both fists toward the ground, as if she’s swinging hammers. She is lifted off her feet and propelled to the pavement flat on her back; she has “pushed” herself, allowing her anger to briefly own her.

Amanda stares down at her hands. Then she looks up at Jess, tears of frustration welling in her eyes.

“We’re going to find him,” Jess says. “Hold on to that energy. We may need it.”

* * *

The commotion outside Mickey’s House—shrieking parents running in all directions, their children held firmly by the hand—is the only signal Willa needs. Weasels on two feet cannot run nearly as fast as weasels on four feet. Willa has hidden herself among the crowds. The cries ahead of her are like a starting gun. Without hesitation, she makes for the front door of Mickey’s House, stops, and listens. She steps inside.

No one. It’s empty and silent and creepy because of it. Of all the attractions, Mickey’s House should be roiling with childish laughter. “Finn!” she calls timidly, moving discretely into the living room. She stops abruptly and stands still, reaching deep to find her pure DHI.

There, just ahead of her, is a broom tiptoeing on its bristles.

* * *

As Maybeck and Charlene emerge from Snow White’s Scary Adventures—a ride that has definitely lived up to its name—they spot a pair of Cast Members riding Segways; they’re heading rapidly in the direction of It’s a Small World.

“Security,” Maybeck says. “They don’t usually show themselves like that. Why aren’t they backstage?”

“Let’s find out!” Charlene says, jogging off, running hard to keep the Segways in sight.

* * *

Finn knows that his fear of the broom is degrading his hologram, despite his best attempts to mask it. The brooms could have killed Maybeck and Charlene in the Battle for the Base; they are skinny and fast, and he knows of no way to threaten or eliminate them. This one doesn’t appear to have a bucket of the acidlike green goo that presented such a danger to Maybeck and Charlene, but that fact isn’t enough to alleviate Finn’s sense of dread. No matter how you slice it, it’s plain disturbing to see a broom walking on its bristles as if it has two stubby legs.

When Willa appears behind the broom, a combination of anger and relief rushes through Finn. She’s not supposed to be here, he thinks.

“What does it want?” Willa asks. Her voice spins the broom in her direction; a small puff of dust rises from the floor. She feels the hairs on her neck stand up.

“Me. Us, now, I suppose.”

“What exactly is it supposed to do?” she asks. “Choke us on dust?”

“Don’t make it ang—”

The broom comes at Willa so fast that she has no time to move. It thrusts the top of its handle—its head? do they even have heads?—into her middle, below her ribs. As she bends forward, retching, its handle strikes her on the head, not once, but repeatedly. Her DHI is gone—she’s feeling this brutally, as she would any such beating.

Finn runs and tackles the broom, pulling its handle to the floor with him. But the wiry wood bends like a pole-vault pole, then straightens, launching Finn across the room, a human projectile. Finn crashes into the stone above the fireplace and tumbles to the floor.

Willa covers her head with her hands as she writhes in pain on the floor.

“Stop it!”

The broom strikes again. And again.

“Hey!” Finn shouts.

The broom stiffens, then turns.

Dang, it’s an ugly thing,
Finn thinks. So common, you’d hardly even think about it normally; so dangerous, you just want to run. Finn has been in dozens of threatening situations; he has battled witches and dragons, monsters and pirates. He’s faced dolls and crash-test dummies. Yet, once again he finds battling inanimate objects terrifying. How do you fight something that’s already dead?

Willa points at Finn as if to say,
You.

Finn bears the weight of that pointing finger.
Me.
Willa’s in trouble; she needs him. But what does she expect him to do?

Thankfully, it takes Finn only a fraction of a second to realize he’s being egotistical and self-indulgent. Willa isn’t pointing at him; she’s pointing at the fireplace behind him. Finn connects the fire to the broomcorn serving as the broom’s two legs: Willa is pointing out a weapon he can use.

If this weren’t Disneyland, if he weren’t a hologram facing a sadistic broom, Finn would accept that the red glow coming from behind him is only flickering electric light. But he knows better.
To dream is to believe
.

If he and Willa believe the red glow is the fire it pretends to be, then it’s fire. The logs in the bucket on the hearth are not plastic, but wood.

Taking a deep breath, channeling his belief, Finn jams a log through the rubbery mesh screen into the fireplace. It comes out flaming.
I love this place!

The broom reacts stiffly, but too late; in the midst of charging Finn, its forward momentum proves irreversible. Finn lights the broomcorn and watches the broom try to stomp out the flames burning up its “feet”—with its feet! Its efforts only fan the flames further.

Willa’s up. Remembering that she alone can affect her current state, that fear is something that can be shed, she runs to the broom, grabs it, and hurries from the room. Finn follows.

In the laundry room, Willa drowns the fire in the broom’s own bucket.

“Nails!” she cries, directing Finn to a can on a shelf above the drying towels. Nodding, Finn grabs a nail and the dust brush from the wall; he uses the latter as a hammer, securing the handle of the broom to the maple chest against which it leans.

“Not going anywhere,” Willa says, breathless.

“Are you all right?” Finn asks, examining her head.

“No, but I’ll live,” she says, touching her bruises. “For the record? I considered letting him burn for a minute there.”

“You’re such a softie,” Finn says, offering her a quick hug before they hurry from the house.