Kingdom Keepers the Return Book 3

by Ridley Pearson

  Through the crowd, she locked eyes with Humphrey and cocked her head in a curious, indulgent manner. Her gaze made it clear that his silence exasperated her. A similar connection with Antonella, who stood only a few feet away, followed. Heart in her throat, Mattie silently egged on Humphrey, urging him to say something.

  As Mary Ann’s blah-blah-blah continued, Mattie suddenly heard, “During a parade. Some of you will still be working. Others will have gotten off shift. In either case, we go at exactly five minutes past the start of the parade, when the guests are crowded around the route, and the attractions aren’t as busy.”

  “Go? You mean attack!” some guy called out. The small crowd liked that. A modest cheer rippled somewhat pathetically through their midst. As the excitement built, Mattie slipped off her gloves and pocketed them. The morning briefings that she’d overheard from her room had ended with the sounds of slapping high fives all around. She intended to use the celebration as an opportunity.

  “There’s something else to consider,” Humphrey called out, winning silence. Mattie suppressed a smile of satisfaction, rubbing her bare hands together to warm them. Humphrey cleared his throat. “When has the Barracks done anything for us? Until now, when have they offered anything? Even a field trip beyond the fences they built?” He stepped forward, his voice rising. “When have they done anything but use us?”

  “Shut up, Humphrey!” a boy called.

  “Let him speak!” cried Antonella. A giddy feeling rose up inside Mattie; she fought to keep her face still. “The answer is never! They trained us in that wretched place—but it was just to study us. They deprived us of sleep, food, one another’s company, and for what? To study us again.”

  “Exactly,” Humphrey said. “I’m not telling you what to do. I’m not speaking for anyone but myself. But have any of you asked yourselves what happens if things go wrong today? What if two of us are caught? Eight of us?”

  “We fight our way out!” another voice proclaimed. A wave of support and hooting washed through the bunch, but it was meager at best—a few daringly vocal souls.

  “Right. Us against Tasers and nightsticks. Now, there’s a fight I want in on!” Humphrey’s voice oozed sarcasm. “Your fight is going to last about five seconds, at which point you’ll be in a police station. And here’s the thing: How many of us think someone from the Barracks is going to bail us out, associate with a bunch of freak-show kids who tried to mess up Disneyland? I don’t!” He took a breath. His fists were clenched at his sides. “The more I look at this mission, the more I think the whole purpose is to have us do their dirty work. Why? Because we’re expendable.”

  He was looking right at Mattie, who blushed and lowered her head.

  “This is what they trained us for, like Mary Ann just said. Today! Tonight! If a few of us freaks end up caught or hurt, so what?”

  Judging his crowd, Humphrey risked a long pause. There was silence, then a chorus of voices.

  “So what?” “Coward!” “Hear him out!”

  “What now, Humphrey?” The last came from Antonella.

  “Yeah,” Mary Ann said, “what now, Humphrey?”

  Humphrey stabbed an inquisitive look at Mattie, who relayed it to Antonella.

  Antonella raised her voice. “We turn it back on them! We know who they are. We see them in the parks, watching us. Anyone gonna deny it?”

  “Think to yourselves. Think for yourselves,” Humphrey challenged loudly. “Are those Barracks spies there to protect us—or to watch over us, like prison guards?”

  The hush that fell over the gathering was longer this time, which Mattie took as a good sign. She watched Mary Ann’s eyes dance across faces, assessing opinions, measuring support. In that instant, it became obvious that Mary Ann was no one to mess with: in addition to her deadly ability, she had the instincts of an adept politician.

  “Leadership will consider this,” she said, weighing her words carefully. “For the time being, we head to our jobs as usual. Await the signal. It’ll be given near the top of the hour. If it’s two long, one short, we follow the plan; if it’s two and two, we turn our abilities onto Hollingsworth’s spies. We will want them all together in one place. We will need that bargaining power. Maybe, just maybe, this is the end of the Barracks. If not, it’s the end of this place and all the stupid joy it represents.”

  Mattie anticipated dissent or objection. The Fairlies she had left behind at Barracks 14 were not known for taking orders well. But this group appeared far more disciplined, a condition she found troubling.

  “Okay,” Mary Ann said. “We’re out of here.”

  The Fairlies turned to high-five. Mattie collected herself, raised her right hand, and moved through the snarl along with the others. In a fraction of a second, she had to decide to read for the location of the key to Zeke’s room, or for whatever Mary Ann had meant by “the signal.” With the former, she’d be reading to save a single man; the latter, the entire park and everything the Keepers had worked for, as well as the end to the system that had caged her and others like her for years.

  She managed to slap three hands. Then she followed the Fairlies out of the Tower.

  “PUSH THEM!” FINN WHISPERED. He and Amanda were crouched in the darkened wing of backstage. Before them, the Traveler, the three kids, Witch Hazel. From out among the empty tables, Hollingsworth sat behind the flickering projector.

  “We are locked in here, outnumbered, and we have no idea what kind of powers any of them have.”

  Finn laid out his plan. To his surprise, Amanda did not fully object.

  “You’ve done this kind of thing before, Finn. I get that. But never like this. Never with a guy like that…that thing onstage.”

  “In case you didn’t hear me the first time: this is the start of the Overtakers,” Finn said. “Mannequins of Disney witches coming to life right before our eyes. Lady Tremaine. Now, Hazel. Right? We can end all of this—all the evil they do—before it starts. End them before they start. That’s why you and Jess came back in time to warn us. This moment, right now. How many times do I have to say this?”

  “It was more of a concept at the time.”

  Finn kissed her on the cheek, after which he said, “Sometimes it’s nice not being a hologram.” He paused, plotting their course. “Okay…Do it!”

  FINN UNDERSTOOD THE LAW of unintended consequences, “That which one cannot foresee will out- measure that which one can.” He filed this one under: It seemed like a good idea at the time.

  In the years Finn had known her, Amanda had grown up more quickly than he had. They’d been through rough times. Tedious and trying. Bodies changed. Brains stretched. Hearts widened. Her ability had developed along with the rest of her. The kind of push that would have once exhausted her had little to no effect now. The top limit of the force of a push had multiplied with each passing year; now she was more than a force. She was a danger. A weapon.

  Face steady, hands fixed, Amanda fired her weapon across the dinner theater stage like the stream of an invisible fire hose.

  Amanda’s push toppled the Witch Hazel mannequin, sending it to the stage with a satisfying crack. The three kids onstage and the witch doctor flew off their feet and slid across the stage, limbs flailing, forming a pile that looked like a rugby scrum.

  The problem? It came as the result of air currents, force vectors, and the collision of two interrelated masses—a possible law of physics about which Finn knew nothing. The push scattered the fire—fingers of fire—into a lush orange blaze of sparks and flames that fanned out like the rays of the sun.

  Those that touched Witch Hazel set her aflame.

  As Finn and Amanda charged through a swinging door into the multilevel dining area, Finn split off, aimed for Hollingsworth’s table. Amanda looked back. The Witch Hazel mannequin stood up, her left arm and part of her head on fire. She appeared to be wood, or perhaps part flesh, part wood, and moved independently, in an eerily painful ballet. The witch, whose flaming left arm was also brok
en at the elbow, made a stirring motion with her hands, as if manipulating an invisible bowl in front of her. This was followed by a thrust so violent that a flaming chunk of wood dislodged from her arm and flew offstage, igniting a tablecloth.

  With that thrust, a half dozen round dinner tables flipped onto their edges, becoming giant wheels. The legs of forty-eight folding chairs came alive, or at least grew flexible enough to walk and run in concert. The tables paired up, making three sets of two, and, like giant hands clapping, slammed together and pulled apart while rolling ahead—two pairs aimed at Finn, who was heading for Hollingsworth, and one for Amanda. Like well-trained soldiers, the chairs fanned out quickly and, as they did, began snapping their backs to their seats like oversize angry clams.

  The speed of both tables and chairs was inconceivable. Amanda turned to run, catching a last glimpse of the spindly man, pulling himself up, his face a twist of menace.

  The three Fairlies she’d pushed were also coming to their feet.

  “Finn!” she shouted, dispersing her power toward the pair of rolling tables closest to him. They seemed ready to squish Finn like a tomato between two cymbals. The tables pivoted; the second pair headed directly for him. Amanda’s cry alerted not only Finn, who held up a chair like a lion tamer, but Hollingsworth, who hadn’t seen Finn coming.

  In the next instant, snapping chairs attacked both teens. Finn fought back with a chair of his own, Amanda using small pushes to maintain a semicircular force field around her body. Some of the chairs bit each other, prompting reprisal. In what felt like seconds, many of them were fighting among themselves like a pack of wild dogs, leaving Amanda to push others out of her way. With the distraction of her efforts, she failed to notice Finn’s situation.

  Threatened by the approaching pair of crushing tables, Finn reached for Amery Hollingsworth, hoping that by making him a target, the tables might back off. He was wrong. The tables rolled and opened, enveloping both Finn and Hollingsworth.

  “You fool!” Hollingsworth sounded resigned to their shared fate.

  Finn remembered stabbing Maleficent and seeing her dissolve, revealing Dillard, his best friend. Saw Dillard fall dead. Dark magic, he thought. Wayne had left them in Toontown, there one minute, gone from this mortal earth the next. Dark magic. Finn understood clearly that his fate was at that moment linked with those of Wayne and Dillard, knew the end had come.

  An instant of terror like none he’d ever known was followed by something more mysterious: infinite patience, the faces of the Keepers laughing, his mother hugging him, his father slapping him on the back. He experienced the warmth of triumph at seeing Hollingsworth’s unfathomable panic. In the fraction of a second they shared—a piece of time that stretched out to minutes in Finn’s mind—Hollingsworth was futilely looking for a way out where none existed. The tables had separated. Seeing Hollingsworth’s realization made Finn feel all the better.

  The tables closed.

  Finn felt pride that he’d ended this horrible man and his ruinous scheming. That with any luck he’d ended the creation of the Overtakers before they’d barely started.

  Hollingsworth’s astonished eyes found Finn, who grinned slyly.

  Hearing Amanda cry out his name, Finn turned his head. She was running toward the closing tables, leaning into it like a sprinter for the tape.

  Finn’s finish.

  He and she met eyes. This, he thought, was how he would remember her: bold, defiant, thinking to the last moment that she could change things. He felt confident she would—this girl would become a woman; that woman would continue what he and the Keepers had started.

  He closed his eyes, wished for her a perfect life, and with a stab of pain in his heart, whispered a silent good-bye.

  TWO OF THE THREE FAIRLIES Mattie read told her Mary Ann held the key to Zeke’s room. No big surprise. The third high five revealed a recognizable face, one of the hallway guard guys. Nothing more.

  She’d spent the last twenty minutes getting little done in the storeroom. She’d moved a few bins around in order to look busy.

  When Teresa approached her looking concerned, Mattie put a bin down and took a deep breath.

  “You okay, Mattie?”

  The thing about lying, Mattie realized, is that it never gets easier or better. Only worse and worse. “Actually, I’m kind of freaking out. Mary Ann, one of the leaders, told us all to listen for…I thought it was maybe Morse code. Longs and short.”

  “What exactly?” Teresa motioned for Mattie to join her in the open elevator car. But the car was just another cage, like her room in the Tower. Like the Barracks. Everyone wanted to decide things for her. Everyone wanted to lock her up.

  “Please,” Teresa said.

  Mattie stepped inside. The doors closed. She felt herself begin to melt down.

  Teresa tripped the stop button. “There’s a security camera in this car, but no microphone. Stand in the corner by the buttons and no one can read your lips.”

  “Soundproof?” Mattie said.

  “Right.”

  “This woman told me I could trust you.”

  “You can. But it’s not easy, that kind of trust.”

  “No.” Not when Joe tries to drag you away, she thought.

  “Better to trust someone than no one.”

  “I suppose.”

  “Oh, it is. You’ll have to trust me on that one.”

  They laughed together, Mattie somewhat sullenly. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d laughed wholeheartedly.

  Teresa said, “You’re trembling. Are you sure you’re okay?”

  Mattie battled back tears, nodding. “I can’t do this. Not now. There’s too much to be done. The code is going to be ‘two longs and one short,’ or ‘two longs and two shorts.’”

  Teresa worked her phone, trying for a search engine, but the underground elevator prevented reception. “Darn!”

  “I already looked up Morse code, if that’s what you were going to do. In International Morse code, two longs and one short is the letter U. Two longs and two shorts are the letter Z. But the thing is, this code is going to be heard all across Disneyland.” She took a deep breath, trying to convince Teresa how serious this was with her eyes, her voice, her whole body. “Either way, you need to tell Joe today’s the day. He’ll understand. Can you do that?”

  “Of course.” Teresa’s eyes found the stop button.

  “You were told…You’re supposed to bring me in. Joe wants you to bring me in.”

  Teresa locked eyes with her.

  “‘Not easy, that kind of trust,’” Mattie said ironically, repeating Teresa’s words back to her.

  “Mattie…” Begging forgiveness.

  “These Barracks Fairlies are going to wreck the park, maybe forever. You understand? And they’re going to blame it on a Cast Member. An older guy. They may hurt him. For all I know, they may kill him! There’s nothing Joe can do to stop it. It’s too big, too well planned. Think of me as an undercover agent, Teresa. For the time being, I’m one of them. I have access. I can stop this. We can stop this. But if you kidnap me—and that’s what you’re doing, by the way, because this is against my will—then…that’s it. All hope is lost. I have one chance, and it’s today. If you delay me, even by an hour, it’s over.”

  Again, Teresa eyed the stop button. But now Mattie did as well. Teresa had made a mistake: she hadn’t selected the second floor. If Mattie could release the stop and hit the door-open button quickly enough…

  Both girls’ eyes left the panel and found each other’s. It was to be a duel. Who was going to control the elevator car?

  Mattie reached for the panel.

  Teresa bumped her hard against the wall, knocked Mattie’s hand away, and clamped down on Mattie’s forearm, keeping her at bay. As Teresa touched her, Mattie got exactly what she wanted: she read her for “the code.”

  In the next instant, she punched her store manager in the chest, drove her shoulder into Teresa’s midsection, and propelled her
across the elevator car and into the wall.

  You don’t mess with a girl from the Barracks, Mattie thought proudly, reaching blindly for the panel and releasing the stop, then tripping the doors open. She glanced back, pushed 2, and jumped through the opening doors as Teresa unfolded from a ball on the floor in the far corner.

  The adversaries entered a staring contest.

  Mattie verbalized what she’d read. “The train whistle. You think the code will be given by the train whistle.”

  The doors began closing, time shrinking down to nothing. Teresa’s surprised expression confirmed Mattie’s read of her.

  “Have a team ready,” Mattie said. “When the whistle sounds the code: the Tower, fifth floor.” The closing elevator doors had but a foot of space remaining. “He’s in the room diagonally across from the break room. You must…”

  The doors closed; Mattie shouted, unsure if Teresa could hear, “Free Zeke Hollingsworth!”

  MATTIE BELIEVED IN DEMOCRACY. She also saw the need for oversight committees—a group of well-rounded individuals who could make the tough decisions faster than results could be achieved by a vote. But it wasn’t lost on her that throughout history such committees had gone against group conscience, citing information or intelligence known only by a few—or to personally enrich those on the committee in question.

  Nor was it lost on her that individuals wishing to thwart the decisions of such a committee had found their aims corrupted, too. Power corrupts; soda loses its fizz; reruns are boring; kittens grow into cats.

  In this moment, Mattie lacked the time to weigh heady considerations about the moral implications of her actions. She would do what she felt was right and live with the consequences. “Right” meant leaving Joe out of it. “Right” was running to the Disneyland entrance, waiting impatiently, and finally cutting the Cast Member line. “Right” meant hurrying up the stairs to the Disneyland Railroad station and, seeing no crowd, guessing the train had left in the past few minutes.