Kingdom Keepers: The Syndrome

by Ridley Pearson

  “You think the mission had anything to do with DNA and the prehistoric bones I heard Joe and the Imagineers talking about at the airport?” Jess asked.

  “We aren’t officially part of the Keepers or the DHI program,” I said. “He can’t share stuff with us.” I felt chills and a little bit nauseated, like I might throw up.

  “Sadly,” Wanda said, “this is beginning to make some kind of sense.”

  “But it doesn’t exactly explain the clues he left,” Jess said. “Obviously, Finn wants—needs—our help, but we’ve got to figure out what these things mean, or how can we help him.”

  Mattie said, “Luowski has plans for Finn, maybe all of the Keepers.”

  “We stopped him once,” I said, “but honestly, some of that was luck. I’m not sure we’ll stop him a second time.”

  Jess, Mattie, and I all looked to Wanda at once, as if she might hold the magical answer.

  “I’m thinking,” she said.

  MATTIE

  Wanda was in the middle of explaining the history of the Imagineers when a sharp knock on the door startled all of us. Instinctively, my head whipped around to see who was there, but unfortunately my powers didn’t involve X-ray vision. I glanced at an openmouthed Jess and wide-eyed Amanda. They had no clue who it could be. I turned to Wanda, but by the look of it, she was as surprised as we were.

  Wanda held a finger to her lips and crept over to the door like a spy. She trained an eye on the peephole, while Amanda and Jess held hands tightly. Yes, it was selfish of me to be jealous at a time like this, but I couldn’t help but feel like an outsider. As I tried to push the thought back, I felt Amanda’s hand brush on my shoulder. I understood why she would avoid touching anything but my gloved hand—I was still getting used to such alienation.

  Before I could dwell further on my personal stuff, Wanda turned back to face the three of us and shrugged. I couldn’t decide what was worse: to have someone we knew show up, or someone we didn’t. Wanda beckoned Amanda forward.

  Another knock at the door, this time more impatient.

  Amanda’s eye went to the peephole. An instant later, she swiveled to face Jess and me, her face white.

  “It’s Mrs. Nash!” she hissed.

  The name sounded vaguely familiar, but wasn’t one I could match a face to.

  Jess tensed. “You’re kidding me,” she whispered.

  “I wish,” Amanda said.

  “Mattie and I can handle this,” Wanda said, “Right, Mattie?”

  She flashed me a knowing look. She wanted me to read Mrs. Nash. It was nothing new. I simply nodded, slipping off my gloves behind my back.

  Amanda and Jess made themselves scarce, disappearing down the hall toward the room where Finn lay, so still, on the bed. Before I could prep myself mentally, Wanda opened the door. A short, jowly woman with accusing eyes entered without invitation. She introduced herself to Wanda, ignoring me.

  “A little birdie told me that Amanda was in town,” Mrs. Nash said, getting straight to the point. How she’d connected Wanda and Amanda, I had no clue. “One of my girls saw her at the park. You wouldn’t happen to know where she is, hmm?”

  “I’m sorry, but she hasn’t come to see me,” Wanda said, and shrugged. “I wish she had told me she was in town.”

  “Well, I wanted to check in on her. I just miss her so.”

  Something about Mrs. Nash’s tone was off. I could tell she didn’t care about Amanda, but then why had she come looking, and for what? Shifting from foot to foot, I waited for Mrs. Nash to acknowledge my existence. But she didn’t so much as glance my way.

  “Hi, Mrs. Nash, nice to meet you,” I finally interjected. “I’m…Ma—Matilda, Wanda’s niece.”

  I offered my bare hand, but she didn’t return the greeting, preventing me from stealing a read. Her eyes scanned me; she looked unimpressed. What a confidence booster.

  “Nice to meet you,” Mrs. Nash said with clearly practiced indifference.

  The image of the Barracks 14 man from the hospital flashed through my mind. I suppressed a shudder and pushed it away, struggling to figure out the reason behind Mrs. Nash’s sudden interest in Amanda.

  Mrs. Nash spoke with her hands, gesticulating wildly as she talked to Wanda. I saw a window of opportunity and jumped in. “Oh wow! What an absolutely gorgeous ring!” I forced my tone to be more bubbly than usual. “Can I see?”

  Without waiting for a response, I snatched her hand and tried to look as if I was admiring her ring. She clearly didn’t appreciate the contact, but it was too late for her to take her hand back without appearing rude.

  Images flashed through my mind. I felt dizzy. I let go of Mrs. Nash’s hand and smiled weakly.

  “Well? Do you like it?” she asked. “It was my great-aunt Mildred’s.”

  My throat constricted. Suddenly there wasn’t enough air in the room. “Very nice,” I choked out, nearly stumbling back toward the sofa.

  Wanda concluded the conversation with Mrs. Nash as quickly as possible. A minute later, she was out the door.

  “Did you read her?” Wanda asked.

  I nodded, still struggling to catch my breath.

  “Amanda! Jess!” Wanda had charged down the hall.

  I slowed and controlled my breathing. By the time Wanda returned with Jess and Amanda in tow, I was back to normal—if it’s normal to be so scared you’re shaking.

  “It’s worse than we thought,” I choked out.

  “Worse how?” Amanda said.

  “The Barracks 14 guys offered Mrs. Nash a reward for information leading to your capture.”

  We all looked at Wanda, as if she might have advice. She was as paralyzed as the rest of us.

  “That woman will betray anyone for five dollars,” Jess said. “We’re in trouble.”

  Wanda searched each of our faces and sighed.

  “You’ll all have to be more careful coming and going,” Wanda said. “We have to assume someone’s watching my apartment.”

  “Great. Just great,” I groaned.

  “Mattie, I hate to ask more of you, but I’m going to.”

  The people at Barracks 14 had said this same thing to me any number of times. A power like mine proved too tempting to others. Ironic, since I’d have given anything to be rid of it.

  “Sure,” I said.

  Wanda said, “I think it’s time we find out how much some of Dad’s old friends know about this. And you’re just the person to ask.”

  AMANDA

  Mattie’s reading of Luowski had suggested an attack on each of the Keepers on the same night: this night. There was no time to lose. After lunch we Fairlies separated, breaking off on various missions.

  I was with Wanda. Together, we sought to move Philby, Maybeck, and Willa to one defensible location: Wayne’s fishing cabin, nestled in the trees by the lake on the golf course side of Bonnet Creek, adjacent to Fort Wilderness.

  Though I had yet to see the place, Wanda assured us it was the perfect spot, complete with a motorboat for a water escape if necessary—though I saw no way we were going to lug four comatose teenagers onto one small boat. But Wanda’s apartment offered too easy a target. So, the decision was made and we took off to rescue Maybeck.

  Bess, Maybeck’s aunt, met us at the back door of her pottery shop, Crazy Glaze. A round woman with expressive eyes and the kind of smile that melted whomever she faced, Bess (we called her Jelly) looked deeply troubled. The countenance didn’t sit well on her. Wearing an apron splattered with dried clay over a colorful but faded skirt, a Tiger Woods golf cap, and a pair of clay-speckled reading glasses around her neck, she welcomed us into her kitchen.

  The pantry, its crowded shelves stacked full of clay projects in various states of completion, gave way to the shop on the street side. The kitchen served as overflow for the projects, the counters collecting more art than food. The stove was old, the butcher-block island bowed with age, the entire space neat and tidy as a pin. Two old suitcases stood at the ready by the back door.<
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  “I’ve spoken with Finn’s mother,” Bess said. Her low, warm voice made me feel safer already. “From your phone call, and I thank you for that, I understand what it is you propose to do.” She focused her full attention on Wanda, her concern like a spotlight. “I want the best for Terry, of course, but you’re asking me to turn over my nephew to you, and I hope you’ll excuse me, but I hardly know you.”

  “They’re coming,” I said. The two women looked at me as if I’d appeared in the room out of nowhere.

  “So you say,” Bess said.

  “Luowski said so,” I corrected, “not me. You remember the last time?”

  Bess nodded. It hadn’t gone well. She’d been knocked unconscious with a Taser.

  “I’m not going to argue with any of you. You must know I appreciate your concern and your thoughtfulness, and I know this isn’t easy for any of us. But what I wanted to ask, what I hoped, is that I might close down the shop and go with you. I’d like to care for Terry. The others, too. It’s just…I can’t leave him like this; I can’t turn him over to someone else in his condition. Not again. I’m afraid my prayers won’t be heard if I abandon him.”

  I felt a lump in my throat. Wanda looked as if she might cry, too. She stepped forward, and the two women hugged. I thought I heard Bess crying; her shoulders shook. The feelings Bess had expressed were foreign to me; I’d never felt that for anyone but Jess. Growing up alone had been a kind of death sentence for my emotions. I’d learned not to have them, not to go there. Only now, watching two grown women fall apart for a moment in each other’s arms, did I ache for them.

  Closing my eyes, I tried to come to grips with whatever it was Bess and Wanda were feeling. I stretched and pushed myself to feel with them, but the lump went away and I felt only self-pity, deep sadness over never having experienced what they felt now.

  Wanda opened her arms and Bess stepped into them. “Of course,” Wanda said. “Believe me, we need all the help we can get.”

  Bess politely shooed away her three remaining customers and put up the CLOSED sign in the window.

  The next challenge was how to move Maybeck, at nearly two hundred pounds and six feet tall, from the second floor to a vehicle. Bess arrived at the solution without a second thought; she’d seen part of the technique at a Boy Scout jamboree in which Maybeck had participated.

  Maybeck, a former Boy Scout! A smile crossed my face. Philby and Finn would treasure the chance to use this ammunition against their sarcastic friend.

  It turns out a ceramics artist has many useful materials lying about. We used the Boy Scout Handbook, two lengths of lumber, and a heavy blanket to fashion a stretcher, which we set down on the floor alongside Maybeck’s bed. As Bess gently pulled back the covers, my breath caught.

  “It’s all right,” Bess said, misunderstanding my reaction. “I feel that same way every time I see him like this.”

  Maybeck hadn’t dressed himself in all black—a favorite of the Keepers when they were crossing over into DHI. Nor had he donned his typical street clothes: carefully pressed blue jeans, a tight-fitting T-shirt that showed off his sculpted muscles, and his trademark LeBrons. Instead, he looked like a fashion model for the sort of retro clothing sold at a thrift store. I wouldn’t have guessed clothes could make a boy look so totally different, but for a moment, I barely recognized him.

  With Bess looking at me, I searched for an appropriate response. “It’s…different to see him so still. Strange.”

  “Yes, well, hopefully not for much longer,” Bess said. “You take his feet, Amanda. I’ll hold his head and shoulders. Wanda, from the side. On three.” She counted down.

  The improvised stretcher worked well. A piece of corrugated cardboard and some patience helped us slide Maybeck down the stairs; a dolly got him from the house to a twenty-three-year-old powder-blue pickup truck with the Crazy Glaze logo on both doors and across the tailgate. The back of the truck was fitted with a shell to protect the truck bed from weather. In our case, it hid a comatose Maybeck from wind and prying eyes.

  Wanda left her car at the ceramics shop and, together, we decided to collect Willa and Philby before heading to the fishing cabin. The remote cabin’s existence was known to only a few, Wanda said, and to access the retreat, one had to walk five holes of the golf course or ride in Wayne’s private golf Pargo, which had a flatbed on the back. We couldn’t very well attempt to transport a bunch of kids in comas into the cart at the golf clubhouse, so we’d need to figure out another way. For now, collecting and protecting all the Keepers from Luowski was enough.

  MATTIE

  Even with Jess keeping an eye on me in case I needed backup, I felt nervous as we arrived with her at Disney’s Hollywood Studios.

  I could handle stealth. I’d been hiding from people for months. Hiding was my comfort zone, and my plan to meet with the Imagineers face to face was as far from that as I could get.

  But as I arrived backstage, my skin was crawling.

  If I played it right, my plan would only require me to innocently shake hands with complete strangers. Awkward! For one thing, the more sensitive people would likely know something strange had happened. They wouldn’t know what, exactly; they’d probably think they’d lost something, or maybe missed something I’d said when I hadn’t spoken. And if I connected with a Reacher, I’d be in serious trouble. I remained on edge.

  Using Wanda’s lifetime All Ears Card, given to her by her Disney Legend father, I accessed the backstage area at Disney’s Hollywood Studios and took up a spot outside the WDI offices. At first, I just got weird looks, a few tolerant nods. One woman stopped to talk. I shook hands with her, and saw nothing but dinner plans and concern over her daughter’s toothache.

  Ten minutes later, a younger woman breezed by.

  “Hello! I wonder if you can help me?” I made my voice syrupy sweet.

  “I can try.” She smiled warmly. I made a mental note to keep using the syrupy sweet tone.

  “I’m the granddaughter of the Disney Legend, Wayne Kresky,” I said, using the exact words Wanda had suggested. “The family is trying to gather signatures and e-mails to help lobby for a Disney Internship called Blue Sky—a think-tank of young creative types that will help us look thirty years into the future.”

  “Sounds incredible!” The young woman accepted the clipboard and filled out the appropriate spaces. “Not going so well, is it?”

  Hers was the first name on the list.

  I lowered my eyes. “I can’t exactly go in there and bug people.”

  “No, but I can!” she said. “Come with me.”

  Over the next few minutes I gathered a string of signatures, and read each person as we shook hands. There was no earth-shattering news. Pixar had a new film in the works I wasn’t supposed to know about. A new land was being installed into the Animal Kingdom was slightly behind schedule. Frozen’s popularity continued to soar. I filed it all away, unsure what it might mean.

  A tall man with steel-gray hair and piercing eyes approached the front doors. Working off intuition, I intercepted him before he entered. He had an air of importance. Wanda would have insisted.

  Having won his attention, I rattled off my spiel. He seemed indifferent, but he couldn’t be rude and refuse my extended hand.

  “This just isn’t how it’s done,” he said as we shook. “I knew Wayne well. He wouldn’t approve.”

  I heard his words, but it was his thoughts that flooded mine: he was hungry, tired, excited by something at work, discouraged, afraid. I didn’t know what to name—to pinpoint—I was adrift in another’s mind, not the most stable or reassuring place. But just as I was about to break contact, I saw something unusual.

  In the mental image, the charred remains of a small pyre sat in the middle of a dark room. The pyre had been made of kindling and, on top, something smooth and white. Bones? Whatever it was, it gave me the creeps. I knew it was important, so I grabbed the image for my own. The man resisted the attempt, shoving me off the image like he
was dumping me out of a chair.

  The next image hit me: Finn and Philby in a narrow room decorated in an old-fashioned way. They were moving. This was not how I read people—I saw frozen images, bits and glimpses. Never movement. What was I—?

  I felt pushback. Although all of this transpired in a fraction of a second, I’d held his hand too long. Awk-ward! I thought, snatching my hand back too quickly. I thanked the man for helping me out. He looked uncomfortable, though in the end he signed my sheet.

  “Let me know how else I can help,” he said. “It’s a good idea, but not the best approach. A petition isn’t going to convince anyone.”

  I couldn’t tell if he was baiting me or being sincere. If only I’d remained connected just a nanosecond longer. Idiot! I had to find him again. Hopefully, next time I’d have backup.

  Another Imagineer walked by, and I had to recite my fake purpose for the twelfth time. After I shook his hand, I thought, I was done for the day. I needed to tell Jess about the drawing ASAP.

  I finished talking and reached out my hand to the man, but as our skin connected, something felt different. Regret coursed through me; I should have paid better attention to what this guy was.

  A Reacher.

  AMANDA

  Willa lived with her mother and father (he’d suffered a bad accident that left him with a pronounced limp) in a small but well kept home a few short blocks from Edgewater High School. The front yard needed watering and mowing; the shrubs out had seen better days, but the house itself, a charming yellow cottage, had a welcoming presence.

  Wanda went to the door and was shown inside by a woman I guessed was Willa’s mother. Bess remained in the cab of the truck, while I sat cross-legged next to Maybeck, whom we’d secured with bungee cords. I opened the shell’s overhead vent to get some air flowing in. Time slowed. What was probably five minutes felt more like twenty.

  Finally, Wanda came outside and approached the pickup truck. She opened the driver’s side door and spoke to Bess as I came up alongside.

  “She wouldn’t admit to any of it at first. When she finally broke down, though, it was clear how scared she is. They knew better than to involve doctors, thank goodness. But she’s resisting the idea of moving her. Willa’s father was more understanding. My mention of Luowski and what you and the Whitmans had gone through,” she said to me, “clearly affected him. I think he realized he was no match for some young hooligans. He doesn’t walk very well. They’re talking it over now.”