by Holly Hook
And then they walked Grandma away from the building. Fast.
"Are they taking her to security?" I asked. "Is this just because she was storming through the building like that?" I wondered what kind of crazy stuff Grandma had been saying to the people out there.
What if they thought she needed to go to an institution?
I had to go clear this up. It was my fault this had happened.
"They might be," Tate said. "But why is that one guy with them?"
It didn't make sense. Neither did those tattoos.
"I'm following them," I said.
"They could just be taking her out of Disney World," Tate said. "You know, taking her to the gate for not paying or something. I could see why they'd do that."
I suddenly felt defensive of my grandmother. She was weird, but not crazy. "Are you coming with me or not? Something isn't right about this."
Tate swallowed. His face betrayed his guilt. "I'm coming."
I walked past the check-in desk, now abandoned. I could see through the glass, and the team was pretty much jogging Grandma back in the direction of the Magic Kingdom. The creepy guy and a second man held her arms. She kept pace, being the athletic woman she was. I rammed through the sliding door, and they were too far away to hear us. Night air washed over me. Tate came out behind me. I didn't shout anything. If Grandma had told us to stay out of sight of these guys, there might be a good reason.
Even if there wasn't a good reason for anything else, she'd ordered me to avoid.
Tate and I followed far behind. I had to break into a jog myself just to keep up. Tate panted next to me. We were close to the gates to the Magic Kingdom now, and the downtown spread out beyond it, lit in pale yellows and blues. The security guard went to work unlocking the gates, and the tan shirt guy and the hotel guy kept a grip on Grandma's arms. She didn't struggle. Instead, she waited there like a good prisoner.
She might be doing this for me.
To let me escape whatever they had planned for her.
She had my admiration.
The gate slid open and we stopped and ducked behind a shrub. I checked the road behind us to make sure no security cars were coming. Check.
The whole group took Grandma inside. The security guard was the last inside the gates. She turned around and locked it right back up.
I swore. "How are we supposed to get in there now?" Maybe Tate had some good ideas.
But he shook his head. "I'm not a physical kind of guy. Sorry."
I ran up to the gate. I didn't care if these people saw me now. They were taking Grandma somewhere, and it probably wasn't the security office. I stopped at the gate and peeked into the Main Street of the Magic Kingdom. It was empty. Almost creepy. The buildings all looked dark, and I expected a bunch of workers to be out, cleaning the place, but there was no one except for Grandma and the group of captors further down the street, standing in the middle. The castle rose above them like they were all standing there, worshipping it.
Hadn't the one guy said something about midnight earlier?
The air grew electric. It crackled with energy. I put my hands on the gate.
"Red, what are you doing?" Tate asked. Then he looked at me funny. "You feel that? You think they have some force field around this place at night?"
"This is weird," I said. The sensation only got stronger the more I stood here. The group that held Grandma stood there like they were waiting for something to happen. I could barely make out her pink hat in the small crowd around her. Grandma faced the castle like she was resigned to whatever was coming. She didn't struggle. She didn't even protest.
And somewhere, a clock chimed midnight.
I had to hold in a scream. A bright golden light flashed around the security guards and the hotel guy and Grandma. It was as if someone had let off the world's brightest camera flash right in the middle of them and then multiplied it by ten. I had to squint at it, and on the other side of my squint, there was nothing but the dark street in front of us.
"Red!" Tate seized my arm as if to make sure I was still there.
"Grandma!" I shouted, grabbing onto the gate. I tried to rattle it, but this place was kept too well to allow that. "Grandma!"
"What happened to her?" Tate asked.
She was gone.
The clock finished chiming midnight. Silence fell except for some car revving its engine somewhere. The electric feeling in the air fell away and died.
They had taken her through some weird force field.
Or portal.
The crazy guy had mentioned a portal to me. And Legends.
"Grandma!" I shouted again. My eyes blurred with tears. I had brought her here, and now she was gone. Vanished. There wasn't even a shoe or a pink hat left on the pavement. Tomorrow the guests and happy families would return and walk right over the spot where the only thing for a parent I had ever had vanished without a trace.
Tate embraced me, and I turned into a mess right in his chest. "I'm sorry," he managed. "I shouldn't have gotten us those tickets. I don't know what's going on, but Red, I'm sorry."
"It's not your fault." I pulled away from him. There had to be a way in here, to that spot where Grandma had been standing less than a minute before. The castle rose above it, lit up and happy as if nothing had even happened. "There must be a portal in there. To somewhere else. That Alric guy must be on the other side."
"The...what?"
"The stuff that guy said to me earlier," I said. "It's got to be in there. Or the way to it is. It must have something to do with the stroke of midnight." My mind spun. I had to get Grandma out of there. I was responsible for this.
But Grandma had told me to get as far from here as I could.
My life was finally starting to make a little bit of sense, and I hated it.
"I don't think there's a good way in right now," Tate said. "I think you might be right. I saw this whole crazy thing right along with you. What kind of cult did your grandmother tick off?"
"We're going to have to find out." I paced around the gates and the entrance. I could see no good way in or out. They could be murdering Grandma right now. “There has to be a way to get to that spot.”
"I don't think we can right now," Tate said. "That weird feeling's gone. I think that whatever they went through, it only works at midnight. That’s what everyone is talking about.”
“I don’t want to wait until tomorrow!” I shouted. I was losing it. “What if they kill her?" I deserved to feel like this. I would embrace it until we got her back and I apologized for the rest of my life.
I was thinking of going through that portal. Seriously. I was doing the opposite that Grandma had told me to do. But it felt right to go after her. Wrong to run. I could never live with that decision.
"We don’t know what’s going on," Tate said. "If we break in there now, they'll kick us out of Disney World forever. I think we need to go back in there tomorrow when they open, hide, and then stand at that spot right before midnight."
Chapter Three
Our next day in the Magic Kingdom wasn't nearly as enjoyable as the last one.
Even though I knew Grandma and that crazy guy wasn't going to bother us, a horrible emptiness set in on me as we paid and entered the gates for the second time. We stepped right over the spot where she had vanished the night before. I paused there, wishing for the flash of light, but the electric feeling never came.
“Tonight,” Tate said. “We can’t do anything until then.”
I had to agree. I didn’t want to try to have fun knowing Grandma was missing.
Tate and I did some of the rides mostly just to make the time go faster, but all the joy was gone. We ate to keep our energy up, but the food tasted dry and stale. The shouts of all the kids sounded like screams, and even the colors weren't as bright today. It was as if a gray cloud had settled over everything.
Tate didn't say a whole lot. He spoke less as the day wore on. I had to ask him what was wrong as the sun started to set and we sat down
to dinner at some little diner made to look like a 50’s place.
"I should have done a better job hiding this from my parents," he said. "I should have known that my mother would let this slip to your grandmother. She's so busy all the time and wouldn't have remembered, you know?"
I was more worried about whatever was on the other side of that golden flash. "Don't worry about it," I said. "We don’t even know that’s what happened.”
“It did. I called my mom this morning. She said she let something slip about Orlando.”
“Well, you had to have your parents give you the money for the trip. The blame's mine."
Tate chewed on some tater tots. "Red, you have to stop beating yourself up like this."
"Well, if I'd listened, this wouldn't have happened."
"If you had listened, nothing would have happened, ever. You'd be sitting at home in that prison. Forever.”
"Which is better than this." I glanced outside at the fading light. A kid got up and dumped his food in the trash, and the jukebox played some Oldies tune. The families were getting ready to leave. "We need to find a place to hide in after closing where the security won't find us." I’d checked around all day, but there were employees everywhere.
"If they do find us, they might take us to that portal." Tate shook his head. "You know, I came here when I was five. My grandparents brought me. I must have walked right over that spot and not even thought about it."
"I never had that experience." There was a story here, and I had to unravel it. Grandma's life might depend on it. What was happening to her now?
Another guy started cleaning off the tables. I checked him for a coat of arms tattoo, but he had none. The other employees were standing around behind the counter, chatting and glancing at us. We had to leave. Tate and I stepped into the deepening dark. We still had a few hours before midnight. I searched around at all the buildings, at any possible hiding places we could stash ourselves in for the night. The bathrooms wouldn’t work. They cleaned those. Neither would any alleys. We walked around, in the general direction of the exit, until I saw a large shrub shaped like an elephant near a waterfall.
"That," I said.
Tate grimaced. "That."
We didn't have anything else that security wouldn't check at closing. The bathrooms were out. The stores were out, and so were all the maintenance tunnels that supposedly ran underneath the park. The only options were the uncomfortable ones.
Tate and I made sure no one was coming and ran up some rocks to the elephant. We had to get on our hands and knees and crawl underneath the thick needles of the shrub to get inside. We settled in among some branches, and I had to stand funny to keep my balance. I could barely see the outside from in here, but at least we’d found a spot that was free of the needles. We had no light except for Tate's glowing phone which pocked out of his coat pocket. That would be our only way of telling the time in here.
And this was our only chance. I hoped the security didn't check the shrubs when they started the night shift. Hey, anybody fooling around in there?
We waited. The park got quieter around us as the last guests left. A radio crackled after that. I held my breath as the guard patrolled. It was not comfortable in the slightest. The branches poked into me, and if one snapped, we were in trouble.
And that was whether or not any more of the guards were in league with this Alric guy. I imagined that most of them weren’t and they’d just ban us from the park.
"I wonder if security noticed their missing employee yet," Tate whispered.
"Maybe," I said. "I wonder if the hotel's noticed the missing desk guy yet."
The hours went by, and I found myself trying not to sneeze. Another guard walked past with a crackling radio, and so did someone sweeping something up. The night crew was out. I just hoped this area was clear by the time we had to leave.
The guy swept the pavement for what felt like an hour, then finally left.
"Eleven forty-five," Tate said after about two more hours of silence.
I listened. Nothing. I crept out of the bushes and found no one standing on the path.
Tate and I walked through the park towards the entrance, back towards the downtown area. The castle was lit up again tonight, and the air was beginning to take on a bit of that electric feeling. My heart pounded. My skin tingled with it. We were going to go through some portal, and I had no idea what was on the other side.
Tate and I had to hide in an alley while another guy walked past, sweeping, but otherwise, it was empty in this part of the park. Somewhere someone laughed. Maybe the employees here usually finished their rounds by this time, or they had learned not to be here when the clock struck midnight. Or perhaps they just got a bad feeling from this spot like people were supposed to get in haunted houses.
"Eleven fifty-five," Tate said. The guy had moved on, broom in tow.
We left the alley. My heart pounded harder, and I fought the urge to turn back. We were going to see whatever was on the other side of that flash. Tate reached out and held my hand while we faced the castle. I checked the buildings. We stood between the same two ones that Grandma had been the night before. Tate was sweating. Nervous. His palm was cold. He was going to go through this right along with me.
"Tate, thanks."
"Well, it wouldn't be right if I didn't go. I'm the one who took us on this trip."
"How are we going to get back here?" I asked. "Once we're on the other side of whatever this is?"
He swallowed. "I don't know, Red. We'll have to figure that out when we get there."
I stepped closer to Tate. The tingling feeling got stronger, racing across my skin. It was the spot, all right. I focused on the castle and how magical it looked. It was straight ahead. We had just a couple of minutes left. The feeling intensified, and I almost got dizzy with it. Something magic was happening here, all right.
I held onto Tate's arm tighter and tighter the stronger it got. "You're cutting off circulation to my hand," he said. "You're strong."
We both gasped for breath as the electric feeling reached a peak and the clock somewhere struck twelve and chimed.
The flash came, and I screamed. I couldn't help it. Tate shouted something next to me as the golden glow consumed everything. It stabbed at my eyes and assaulted me from every angle. For a second, we were floating in a vast sea of golden light, and then we were standing on the ground again.
Everything was bright. I caught my breath. The air was different. Fresh. Vibrant colors flashed around us. I blinked as my eyes adjusted and the light got less intense.
It was daylight now.
I blinked, and Tate let go of my hand. Or I let go of his.
The sunlight warmed the outside of my hoodie, and there was a whiff of grass and countryside.
"Red," Tate said. He gulped. "I don't think we're in Disney World anymore."
I looked around.
I had to agree.
Puffy clouds drifted through a crisp blue sky, and the sun hung right overhead. It was noon. Time had jumped about twelve hours in a flash. And there were fields and trees here. Lots and lots of fields and trees. We stood at the edge of a lush green forest and an expanse of tall grass. Flowers of every color grew everywhere. The temperature reminded me of early summer. Florida had been more muggy and humid, but this was different.
We had left November behind. Wherever we were, it was more like early June.
"Is that a village?" Tate asked.
I looked in the direction he was pointing.
Yes.
Small cottages hung close together with thatch roofs in the distance, way over on the other side of the field. One had smoke curling out of its chimney, and a couple of oxen grazed in front of another. There were even a few sheep in the distance, and they weren't as dirty as the ones I'd seen at farms back home. They all had perfect wool without a speck of dirt on them. This place wasn't Disney World at all. I felt like we'd gone back in time.
A young woman came out of a house and
dumped out a wooden bucket of water. She wore a bonnet and a black dress with an apron. She must not have noticed us standing there because she turned and went back into her house.
These people didn't even have cars. I saw no trace of modern technology anywhere.
"What is this?" Tate asked. "I don't remember this being in the park. Maybe we're in some obscure part of it where actors hang out on break when they're not working." He faced me and grinned, but his eyes were big with fear.
"Tate, you're babbling," I said.
He took both my hands in his. "I think I have the right. Look at this, Red!"
I breathed in. The air here was clean and familiar, almost. It made a wave of excitement pulse through me and tickled at the very edge of my memory. It was like I had smelled this place before. The scent here was almost sweet. Tate let go of my arms, and I backed into a cluster of bright blue flowers. Even when Grandma had taken me out in search of yard sales a few years ago, and we drove way out into the country, the air wasn't as pure as this. It was a virgin, untouched world.
The woman came back out of her house to dump out another pail of water.
And this time, she noticed us.
I stiffened. The woman stood there, watching us for what felt like a long time. She wasn't someone who was just working here and taking a break. It was someone who was shocked that we were here. Finally, she ran back into the house and came back out again with a guy. The guy wore a leather hat and overalls like he was some farmer. She said something to him and ran further into the little village. A couple of chickens ran to the side as she passed.
"I don't think these are Disney employees taking a break," I said. "I think we might be in another world, Tate. Or another time in our world."
"What?" he managed. He was losing it. Tate hadn't signed up for this.
"Well, we did see Grandma disappear into thin air with those guys. They must have come here." I reached over and grabbed Tate's hand. The guy was approaching. He walked across the field towards us, and he held a pitchfork in his hands.
A very sharp, intimidating pitchfork.
This situation might be dangerous.
