Kingdom Keepers the Return Book 3

by Ridley Pearson

  Mattie sat up from atop Nick and climbed off him, onto all fours.

  “You’re awake!” Nick said.

  Mattie blinked and shook her head. She spotted Mulan at one end of the hall, a few wounded Fairlies near them and more at the other end, ready to fight. She had only seconds to assess the situation and make a choice.

  Mattie called to the Fairlies, “Help me!”

  “What?” barked Nick.

  The temperature dropped instantly, the work of a smallish girl with sky-blue hair, her eyes closed. Mattie searched her memories of the Barracks for the girl’s name…Mary Ann! She’d been dyeing her hair like that for years.

  Mattie’s limbs ached. Her rapid breathing left steam clouds hanging in the subzero air. Mulan fell to the floor and coiled into a tight ball. A shivering Flynn appeared and dragged Mulan away with him.

  The tips of Mattie’s fingers glowed a bright red. Then, with horror, she watched as a brown-black stain spread toward the first knuckle on every finger: frostbite. All around her, most of the Fairlies weren’t doing much better.

  As Dillard—unaffected by the cold—approached to help her, she saw Zeke in the clutches of several Fairlies. How had they caught Zeke? Jaw set, Mattie crawled away from the hole in the floor, toward the Fairlies. Dillard attempted to help her, but his arms passed through her.

  “Go,” she whispered to Nick. “Take Dillard.”

  “What? No!” asked Nick incredulously.

  “Now! Don’t be stupid.”

  “Whatever!” Nick dragged himself toward the hole and slipped over the edge and dropped to the floor below. Dillard lingered a moment longer, but then followed down the hole.

  “They’re gone! Stop it!” Mattie pleaded to Mary Ann. The hallway slowly warmed.

  Reading a person, a difficult task under any circumstances, was incredibly difficult for Mattie during chaos. In such situations, the human brain shuts down most thought, relying on established channels of instinct to strive for survival. Not only did Mattie’s targets shut down, but she had to battle her own brain to allow avenues of thought to remain open while her more basic self was trying to close them.

  Mattie reached Mary Ann, then touched her, reading her for “mission.”

  Mattie saw four faces, a flash of a parade or World of Color, a brown double-doored fence gate, an image of long pipes and of a fluted wheel.

  She looked back toward the hole in the floor, wondering if she’d made a great mistake by gambling on her own plan.

  “WE BOTH LIKE MATH,” Willa said.

  “Agreed.” Philby’s voice sounded apologetic, as if he were embarrassed by the admission.

  “The Transitive Property of Equality,” Willa said. “If A equals B and B equals—”

  “I’m not stupid,” Philby said, “I passed sixth grade, so what are you trying to say?”

  “We need to do something illegal.”

  “Technically we’re not breaking the law, because in 1955 we haven’t been born yet.”

  Willa smiled at him. “Good point. Look, Jess dreams of Pinocchio burning. That’s our ‘A.’ Finn and Amanda go all Wizard of Oz in the workshop where Pinocchio’s a mannequin and there’s an animation cel projected onto him. That’s ‘B.’ Pinocchio’s story was about becoming real. ‘C’—a Disney character becoming real. Sound familiar?”

  Philby’s face tightened with thought, and Willa watched the realization hit him, washing his features with fear. “The Overtakers.”

  “Exactly! Maybe that shop has less to do with Imagineers, and more to do with Cast Members like Shane and Thia.”

  “I’m listening. We still haven’t broken a law that I know of.”

  “The mannequins appear to be part of the early development of Audio-Animatronics. So you add up Jess’s Pinocchio dream, everything Finn and Amanda discovered in the workshop, and the fact that it proved dangerous. You throw in that the Pinocchio story is all about the boy becoming human—then his mannequin becoming human! Joe approved Amanda and Jess coming back here to warn us about Hollingsworth, to get us to stop him from creating the Overtakers. So…do you remember why Walt Disney fired him in the first place?”

  “Stealing animation cels!” Philby shouted it. “Oh my gosh! You have got to be kidding me!”

  Willa felt like she was floating. Philby not only understood her theory, he bought into it. He had jumped to the same conclusion.

  “There are two…tangible pieces of evidence in all this. The stolen animation cels, and the mannequins, which could easily have something to do with this. If we want to follow actual hard evidence…” She left it hanging, hoping Philby would bite.

  “We’re going to break into the mannequin company’s building.”

  * * *

  The following night, after Philby and Willa had transitioned from hologram to human, while the small city of Anaheim slept peacefully, Finn, Maybeck, Amanda, and Charlene escorted them to the Manaheim Display Manufacturing facility. A single-story concrete block building, the plant had tall windows that were covered by burglar-proof wrought iron. Its metal-reinforced front and back doors and four padlocked loading bays made it look like an urban fortress. Prominently displayed signs warned that the property was guarded by Holmes Electric Protective Company, of Bakersfield, California.

  Maybeck, Amanda, Philby, and Willa studied the building from directly across the street.

  “Check for skylights,” Maybeck said, addressing Charlene, who nodded and took off up an exterior water pipe, climbing like a monkey. She disappeared onto the flat roof. A moment later, she reappeared at the edge, her arms crossed in an X. She followed this with a punching motion.

  “What’s that about?” Willa asked.

  “Can’t you read sign language? There are skylights, but they don’t open,” Maybeck said. “We could break them, if necessary.”

  “No,” Philby said.

  Maybeck stepped out of the shadow briefly and raised his arms into an X. They saw Charlene descending the same downspout only moments later.

  “We’ll never get in the front door or any of the windows,” Philby said.

  “I have an idea,” Willa offered. “Did you guys see that store called Five and Dime back there? It was still open.”

  “Yeeeeaah,” Maybeck said, drawing the word out, wondering where she was going with the idea.

  “So Wayne gave Finn some money.” Willa smiled and raised an eyebrow. “What if Finn goes and buys a padlock that matches the ones on the garage doors?”

  “Okay,” Maybeck said, but inquisitively.

  “Amanda uses her ability to push one of the locks open.”

  “Is that even possible?” Maybeck asked.

  “Worth a try. Let’s say she can push one open. It’s broken after that. So—”

  “We replace it with the one Finn buys,” Philby said excitedly. “When they open tomorrow, there’ll be no evidence anyone broke in.”

  “But the combinations won’t match,” Maybeck said, shaking his head slightly. “They won’t even be able to open it.”

  “Which won’t make any sense,” Philby said, “but it will probably seem to them like the stupid padlock failed, not like someone broke in.”

  “Genius!” Maybeck said, looking squarely at Willa, who smiled uncharacteristically.

  “Wait!” Amanda said. “What if those garage doors are on the same alarm system? I mean, why wouldn’t they be?”

  “We’ll know once we open one,” Philby said. “But at least we can open one!”

  “That’s a big risk,” Amanda said.

  “We’ve got to try.” Philby was fully on board now. “If the alarm goes off, we replace the lock and book it out of here. If not, me and Willa will go inside.”

  “And what if no alarm goes off? What if it’s a silent alarm?”

  “Was there such a thing in 1955?” Maybeck asked. “I’m serious! I don’t know the answer.”

  “Let’s hope not,” Philby said. “We’re here. If there’s information, it�
�s in there.”

  “It’s simple math,” Willa said, grinning.

  The plan took less than two dollars and twenty minutes to carry out. Amanda pushed the existing padlock open like it was made of paper and opened the garage door two feet. No alarm. Philby and Willa crawled through. Amanda lowered the garage door and returned to her post.

  * * *

  Inside the building, the skylights admitted enough street light for Philby and Willa to avoid running into the lathes, saws, and drills. At the same time, the faint light turned wooden mannequins into an army of life-size ghosts. Some were headless, some without arms or legs, some in a woman’s figure, some in men’s, dozens standing, dozens more stacked on shelves, like the dead piled high in the catacombs of Gothic cathedrals.

  “I don’t like it here.”

  “Well, that makes two of us,” Philby agreed. “Office?”

  “Up there.” Willa pointed to an area along the wall. A tree house platform with a deck and railing had been constructed of bare lumber. The two hurried upstairs, where three small offices stood side by side. Through sliding glass doors facing the shop floor, Willa and Philby saw paperwork, posters, and calendar girls cluttering the desks and walls. The center office, which housed a long section of filing cabinets, attracted their interest.

  “If we’re going to find a connection between the mannequins and Hollingsworth, we’d better get to it.”

  “Agreed,” Philby said.

  Willa took the filing cabinet drawers marked G-H-I, while Philby dug into those marked D-E-F.

  “If Nick Perkins were here,” Willa said, her fingers flying through the manila file separators, “I’ll bet he’d know the name of Hollingsworth’s company.”

  “Too bad we can’t text him.”

  “Too bad texting hasn’t been invented yet.”

  “We should have thought to put a message on Jingles.” The carousel horse had been used to send notes to the present time, sixty years ahead.

  “Yeah, hooray for hindsight!” She sounded angry. “Nothing under Hollingsworth.”

  “There’s a Disney file here. Looks like they order about six mannequins a month. I don’t think that helps us much.”

  “Wait!” Leaving the cabinet drawer open, Willa sat down at the desk and took hold of a rolling card file. The surface was inscribed with the word ROLODEX. Turning a knob on the side rotated one business card at a time, some typed, some handwritten. “Old-school,” Willa said, spinning it to the H tab. “Darn it! Nothing.”

  “Surprise.”

  “Hang on!” Willa left Philby alone to inspect the next office. It had a bigger desk that wasn’t as messy.

  More importantly, its Rolodex was twice as big.

  * * *

  Charlene’s adrenaline level peaked on the roof of the Manaheim Display Manufacturing plant. Back at ground level, assigned to guard the place in the dark, she began to feel sleepy and lazy. Boring. Boring. Boring. She preferred activity to sitting around any day—or night.

  Something about a pair of fast-moving headlights on the next street over sounded an alarm in her brain. It was the second time she’d noticed a car in the area. Given a split second to decide if the car was a concern to Philby and Willa, Charlene opted to be on the safe side. She reached the back door and pounded three times.

  By the time she was running away, the headlights had turned toward the building. Charlene whistled, signaling danger.

  She heard the same whistle repeated, moving around to the front. That would be Finn, she thought.

  The team was warned.

  * * *

  Willa started at the sound of the distant knocks. Having just worked her way to the chair side of the industrial- gray metal desk, she leaned toward the bigger Rolodex.

  “Come on!” Philby stood in the doorway, his whole body practically humming with tension. “Hurry! No time for that!”

  Alphabetical tabs divided the Rolodex. As Willa spun the side wheel, the letters rotated backward—O, N, M, L, K, J, I, H.

  “Wait! I’ve got it!”

  “Forget about it! We’ll come back!”

  But Willa knew they wouldn’t. It was now or never.

  * * *

  Amanda, out front, regarded the headlights as the ultimate threat. She would never have imagined the existence of a silent alarm in 1955. But maybe the fifties weren’t as prehistoric as she’d thought.

  The replacement padlock they’d bought warmed in her hand. The plan had been to replace it after Willa and Philby were done. Currently, the garage door had no lock on it at all. Images of her friends being arrested swarmed through Amanda’s brain. Two kids with no past, no residence, no family. Not good!

  But if she could manage to lock the garage door before whoever was in that car started looking around, maybe she could avoid a whole pack of trouble.

  With the headlights approaching fast, Amanda made her move, crouching as she raced for the set of delivery doors. On her belly, she locked the padlock on the door and waited, not daring to move, as a big blue Buick pulled onto the bib of the parking lot. The driver turned off the vehicle and switched off the lights.

  On the side of the car was written HOLMES ELECTRIC PROTECTIVE COMPANY.

  Amanda hesitated, not moving. The guard checked the front door. Finding it secure, he headed for the far window. Amanda belly-crawled into the shadows.

  A minute later the guard stood exactly where Amanda had lain. He checked all three loading bays, showing no signs of concern.

  Amanda gave herself a gold star. And then…

  Five long minutes later, he reappeared at the front. Amanda waited for him to get back in the car. Instead, he withdrew a cluttered key chain that chimed dully as he sorted through his choices.

  Then the guard opened the door and headed inside.

  * * *

  HOLLINGSWORTH, AMERY read the hand-typed contact card. With no time to copy the information, Willa pulled it from the Rolodex and pocketed it. She caught up to Philby, who in the limited light looked a little sick.

  “Somebody’s here,” he gasped. “Shaking the doors, checking the windows. We’re cooked!”

  “I got his info. They had a card on Hollingsworth! We were right, Philby!”

  “That won’t matter if we’re caught.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her down the stairs with him. At the very moment they reached the shop floor, the front door opened. Philby pushed her behind a standing mannequin. He ducked behind another.

  A flashlight’s beam strayed across the ceiling, the floor, and some of the machinery. It flashed across the two mannequins, behind which the kids stood frozen in place. It found more machinery, more mannequins. It found the stairs to the offices and led the way up them for the man who held the light.

  The second he entered one of the offices, Philby pushed Willa closer toward the front door, this time hiding behind fully dressed mannequins meant as sales displays. It was an entire family: mom, dad, and two children.

  The door was only a few steps away. Philby eyed it longingly. With the guard upstairs, they might reach the door without being seen….He caught Willa looking in that direction as well. The thought was annulled by the rapid descent of shoes on stairs.

  The flashlight burned in their direction and lingered on the family of four. Onto the front door. Back onto the family. Philby dug into his pocket and retrieved a coin—a penny. He tossed it high and hard. It clattered to the floor a few feet away.

  The guard moved in that direction.

  The light turned away, and Philby hand-signaled Willa to move. They reached another set of mannequins and hid.

  From across the building, the light raced back to illuminate the family of four. Philby watched from a few yards away as the guard returned to inspect the clothed mannequins. He was maybe twelve feet from Philby and Willa.

  Philby slowed his breathing. Willa looked at him calmly, as if trying to tell him it was going to be okay. She pointed carefully to a piece of machinery the size and height of a Ping-Po
ng table. It took Philby a moment to spot the open space beneath the heavy steel platform, to understand her plan. He nodded.

  The light streaked across the crowd of mannequins. Shadows leaned and slanted. For a moment Philby felt off-balance, as if he wasn’t standing straight. The light went to the floor.

  The guard was coming in their direction.

  Willa held up three fingers. Counted down: three, two, one.

  In unison, she and Philby shifted one mannequin closer to the piece of machinery. Their movement caught the attention of the guard, but he lifted the flashlight too late; they were already posed behind a different pair of mannequins, out of sight.

  But the guard clearly had a keen sense about him. He moved toward the grouping of a dozen mannequins in which the two were hiding. With no order to the formation of the dummies, the guard was forced to walk among them to look for his burglars. The steady stream of light moved around, painting mannequins and the floor alike in a narrow white beam.

  Willa and Philby watched each other and, as the guard neared, they slithered around to the opposite sides of their mannequins. It was like hide-and-seek, a crazy, nerve-jangling ballet. The only advantage Willa and Philby had was the telltale movement of the flashlight’s beam. The man walked right past them and, turning, forced them both around to where they’d started. When he put his back to them, Philby darted to the piece of heavy machinery and slipped into the empty space beneath, finding himself inches deep in sawdust. Willa followed, tucking herself into a ball. Philby wrapped his arms around her from behind and held her.

  The flashlight moved around the area for the next several minutes. Then it went dark. The door could be heard opening and closing. Philby began to extricate himself from the cramped space, but Willa grabbed his arm, stopping him, and pressed her lips so close to Philby’s ear that she practically kissed him.

  “Remember the trick played on Charlene and Amanda?”

  Philby nodded, relaxed, and stayed where he was.

  A full five minutes passed before a long sigh filled the work area, followed by the sound of the door opening and closing a second time: the guard had faked going out, just as Shane had surprised Amanda and Charlene in the secret wall of the castle.