Legacy of Secrets

by Ridley Pearson

  “He was right about that.”

  “What exactly is the message?” Joe asked.

  “I don’t know yet,” Amanda said. “I didn’t answer him. I wanted to know what we were getting ourselves into.”

  “You won’t know that until you answer.”

  “He’s asking for the Keepers or us.”

  “Yes, I know. I’ve already tried talking to him. Believe me.” Joe sounded exasperated. “I don’t mean to be rude, but we’re not opening up until we know if there’s a threat or a problem, and that’s up to you to find out.”

  Amanda nodded solemnly. “It’s Dillard. It’s not easy.”

  Joe placed his hand gently onto her shoulder. “We’ve had our disagreements, Amanda. And listen, I know this is hard. But if you can do it for me, for the company, I’d be very grateful. Wayne means so much to all of us. Any message from him…well…it won’t go ignored.”

  Amanda nodded and rejoined Jess, who looked at her expectantly. Her eyes were moist. Amanda squeezed her hand and said, “He basically told me Wayne came up with this. I didn’t tell him about the carving, but I think that’s what made this happen. Wayne had a plan in case the Keepers ever reached out from…back then.”

  “It’s strange, seeing him…sitting there.”

  “I can hear you, you know,” Dillard said.

  The image’s lifelike reaction nearly made both girls turn and run. Taking a deep breath, Amanda stepped forward and spoke her name, followed by Jess.

  The projected eyes of Dillard’s DHI shifted back and forth eerily. Computing, they seemed to say as they locked first on Amanda, then Jess. “Excellent! Good to see you both again.”

  “Same,” Jess said.

  * * *

  “You understand we can’t talk for long.” Dillard’s DHI voice sounded like he had a bad cold. “These people get nervous.”

  “The Imagineers?” Amanda said.

  “They don’t like being excluded. If anyone gets within hearing range, I will shut down until they leave. Just so you know.”

  “Got it,” Jess said.

  “Who sent you?” Amanda asked.

  “You know.”

  “I guess so, yes.”

  “I’m sorry it’s such a short visit. It has to be this way.”

  “Don’t go!” both girls shouted, nearly in unison. In the background, Jess saw Joe take a concerned step forward.

  All at once, Amanda understood the strange voice: some of the DHI’s words were recordings of Dillard; some belonged to Wayne. She found the jumble off-putting.

  “You can understand that this is important,” Dillard said. “I had to count on you two. I am counting on you. If you are here, and you are, then our friends have succeeded in ways I wasn’t sure were possible. One or more of them has broken through. It’s a significant accomplishment. I don’t have any way of knowing if the breakthrough involved you or not, so you will have to take me at my word.”

  “It did! Finn contacted me,” Amanda said.

  The DHI took time to process this information.

  “If I am understanding correctly, you were witness to, or participated in, the breakthrough.”

  “Yes,” Amanda said. Dillard was beginning to sound like an automated telephone operator: Push one for customer service, push two for…

  “This was accomplished how? Please answer one of the following: visual, audio, other.”

  “Visual.”

  Dillard sat motionless. “You saw an image of: a person, an item, other.”

  “Other.”

  “Please describe in one hundred characters or less.”

  “A carving. On the window trim.”

  “Interesting. Let me think about that, please.” A pause as the hologram’s eyes darted. “Personalized or generalized?”

  “Personalized.”

  “To you or someone else?”

  “To me.”

  “Pay strict attention, please. Amanda?”

  “Yes.”

  “Jessica?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. In case this is or has been intercepted, I have taken my usual precautions. Do you understand?”

  This wasn’t Dillard speaking. It was his voice, his image, but it was Wayne’s words. He meant he was speaking code.

  “Yes.” Both girls answered.

  “For them, the street is only one way. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.” Jess and Amanda had talked about the Keepers being stuck in the past, that the technology in the past might not allow them to return.

  “To reach them, you must follow them. Do you understand?”

  “Yes. But how?” Jess said.

  “Music was a favorite of Mr. Disney’s.”

  “Okay…”

  “It is imperative you and your friends know the truth now. Do you understand?”

  “No,” Amanda said. “What truth?”

  “I am gone. Wayne is gone. Acknowledge only if both are true.”

  “Yes.”

  “It is imperative you and your friends know the truth now. Do you understand?”

  The girls looked at each other, not having a clue what Dillard/Wayne was trying to say. Jess shrugged. Amanda answered for fear of losing Dillard. “Yes.”

  “The truth is not always easy to hear. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “The truth must be disseminated. Do you understand?”

  “We need to tell the others,” Jess said. “Yes, we understand.”

  “Only those who can handle it. Only those who absolutely must know. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “The truth can be dangerous for all involved. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.” Jess crossed her arms. The breeze had stopped and the morning air was a perfect 73 degrees. Still, she felt chills sweeping through her.

  “What’s he saying?” shouted Joe.

  Jess spun around and signaled for the Imagineer to give them a moment.

  “The truth must not be shared until it is known,” Dillard said. His comment seemed to be in direct response to Joe’s shouting.

  “We can’t share it with the Imagineers?” Amanda asked, her voice rising in astonishment.

  Dillard took a moment to process her inquiry. “Please restate without any interrogatives.”

  Jess had to think about that request. “We should only inform those who need to know.”

  “Correct. Inform only those who must know the truth. Do you understand?”

  “Only those directly involved,” Jess said.

  “Correct. Are you ready?” Dillard said.

  The girls nodded at each other.

  “Yes,” Amanda answered.

  “Memorize this, please. Et quasi cursores vitai lampada tradunt.”

  “It’s Latin,” Jess said. “Repeat, please.”

  “Et quasi cursores vitai lampada tradunt.”

  Jess told Amanda to memorize the first three words; she would memorize the last three. “Repeat, please.”

  Dillard repeated the expression twice more. “Say it back to me, please.”

  “Et quasi cursores…” said Amanda.

  “Vitai lampada tradunt,” said Jess.

  “Excellent. You will see me again if the next step is accomplished. With responsibility comes trial. Good luck.”

  Dillard’s projection turned granular, and then vanished, leaving the bench empty and cold.

  Joe came rushing forward. “What did he say? What was all that about?”

  The two girls froze, neither certain of how to answer. Eventually, Jess took the lead. “It was Wayne.”

  “Of course it was Wayne! What did he say?”

  “He has an assignment for us,” she said truthfully. “But it’s only for us. If we’re successful, we can share his message.”

  “That’s not how it works, Jessica,” Joe said. “You of all people should know that.”

  Amanda looked over at Jess. “What’s he talking about?”

  �
�No idea,” Jess said. Stepping forward, she challenged Joe, hoping he’d realize the mistake he’d made in referring to her Tink Tank participation in front of Amanda. “What’s so special about me?”

  Joe blinked furiously; he’d blown it, and he knew it. “Your…dreams. You know things none of us know.”

  Jess addressed him politely but firmly. “I have no dreams to share. This is up to Mandy and me. And I’m afraid that’s how it’s going to be.”

  THE FIVE KEEPERS FILLED the two front rows of a boat on Canal Boats of the World. They had the small dory to themselves. The boatman, a teenage kid with acne, ran a putt-putt outboard motor at the back, which exuded a gray stink and made enough noise to cover the sounds of their conversation.

  “Lillian’s coin takes us to Esmeralda. Esmeralda’s fortune reads, ‘I named it after you. I hope it moves you as much as it does me.’” Willa looked between the blank faces arrayed before her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “He named Disneyland after her—and him,” Charlene said. “He could have meant the park. He hopes it thrills her as much as it does him? Maybe he’s trying to apologize for all the time the park must have taken him away from her.”

  “Always romance with you,” Maybeck said affectionately. The others blinked at him in surprise; he wasn’t usually so demonstrative. But then, Charlene had a powerful effect on him.

  “What we know,” Professor Philby said, “is what it’s not. It’s not: Autopia, Snow White’s Adventures, Peter Pan’s Flight, this ride, Mr. Toad’s, Mad Tea…What’s left?”

  “King Arthur, Casey Jr., Golden Horseshoe…” Finn contributed.

  “Mark Twain, Jungle Cruise,” added Willa.

  “It doesn’t make sense,” Maybeck complained.

  “Unless it’s the park itself,” Charlene said, repeating herself. “And remember, we don’t know if this has to do with the pen or not.”

  “But it’s something important,” Philby said, “or why give one coin to Roy and one to his wife? Why have them lead to Esmeralda? No, the coin is highly significant. We’re just not decoding the message correctly.”

  “Okay, okay, let’s back up,” Finn said. The boat was meandering through a canal; the view on both sides was mostly dirt. A few flowers and shrubs, very little else. No wonder they had the boat to themselves, he thought. And how much it would change in the years to come! He shook his head and refocused on the puzzle. “‘Moves you as much as it does me.’ Rides that move?”

  “That’s basically all of them,” Willa said. “Only Golden Horseshoe doesn’t move you around somehow.”

  “Maybe that means something,” Maybeck said. “Maybe it’s what doesn’t move you that Roy or Lillian was supposed to figure out.”

  “You think his pen is inside the Golden Horseshoe? Really?” Charlene’s tone was surprisingly sarcastic.

  “No, it definitely sounds stupid,” Maybeck admitted. “Look, I’m spitballing here.”

  “That’s good,” Finn said. “We need every idea there…”

  His last few words were drowned out by a blast of the steam engine’s horn on the Disney Railroad.

  “Oh my word!” Willa said. “How incredibly stupid!”

  “Me?” Finn said. “I only meant—”

  “No, silly, not you! I know the solution to the clue!”

  SOMETIME AFTER MIDNIGHT, long after the last of the fireworks had fallen from the sky like dying shooting stars, the Creole woman began her work afresh. The castle was dark, the streets of Disneyland quiet. Having tempered a young fire into a furnace of blazing coals, she returned to the tangled assortment of bones from her previous efforts. Sparks flew. Bone popped like fresh kindling.

  She stirred the gooey contents of the terra-cotta bowl with the wing bone of an owl, adding last-minute contents to the recipe. It had come to her in a nightmare. All the ingredients were various shades of green: slime from inside a lobster, mucus from the nose of a bull, the discharge from an infected wound—the most difficult of all to collect. Though she could handle disgusting things without reaction, the last bit had made her retch. She’d taken it off a dead skunk at the edge of a roadway the night before. The animal had begun to putrefy, making her task all the more foul. But there it was, stirred into the pot with the rest.

  The Creole woman poured the liquid carefully along each of the burning bones. Watched as it congealed, turning nearly fleshy in texture but remaining green in color. It smelled of skunk and death and decay.

  Delightful, she thought. Just right.

  The more she poured, the more flesh disguised the bone. Soon the flesh sprouted small hairs, which showed no reaction at all to the heat.

  “Attagirl,” Tia Dalma spoke to the fire. “Come to mama.”

  THE DAY WAS AS BRIGHT and perfect as any Los Angeles day could be. No air pollution. No marine layer. Just pure sunshine, palm trees, and cars. Lots of cars. Too many. Los Angeles was a place to own a gas station or a tire shop. Car salesmen were everybody’s friends.

  “We’re being followed.”

  Inwardly, Amanda sighed. Jess had had a rough time of it. She’d suffered first at Barracks 14, where she and Amanda had met. Then she’d been taken captive by Maleficent and held prisoner. Add to that the time when the Overtakers had, against her will, hidden her away in Animal Kingdom, and you got a young woman in her late teens who couldn’t help but constantly feel people behind her, after her, chasing her, observing her.

  “Yeah, well…” Amanda trailed off, unsure what to say. She was pretty much used to it, and she loved Jess like a sister. Who could blame her for being paranoid?

  “Our seven o’clock, a girl in leggings and hoop earrings with a camo backpack. My three o’clock, guy on an electric bike.” Jess had adopted military speak sometime back, which made it all the weirder when she went into what Amanda thought of as “turtle mode”—trying to tuck her head inside her shell and never come out.

  Still, the mention of an electric bike made Amanda look twice. For whatever reason, in a city that was mostly flat, no one rode bikes or motor scooters. Amanda hazarded a glance and saw the electric bike Jess had mentioned. She also saw the cute boy riding it. He looked like something off the tennis court or baseball diamond.

  “Don’t stare!”

  “He’s adorable.”

  “Stop!”

  “I’m just saying.”

  “He’s the enemy.”

  “Jess…”

  “Every time our bus stopped, he stopped.”

  “He followed us all the way? On that thing?”

  “From the bus station. Yes. And she showed up about three blocks ago. I don’t know where she came from.”

  “You’re serious about this?”

  “The trouble with being in Imagineering School is that we seem to have forgotten we’re escapees from a place that basically had us locked up. A place that would like to have us back.”

  “You think these two are from Barracks 14? That’s clear across the country! It’s in Baltimore, Jess!”

  “I think,” Jess said calmly, “that the kid yesterday, in Cars Land…what was his name?”

  “Jason Ewart.”

  “All I remember about him is: ‘Naughty, naughty. Someone’s in trouble.’”

  “Yeah. Why haven’t we talked about that more?”

  “Because we’re scared,” Jess said. “But you know the truth, too, Amanda. He’s a Fairlie. He was at Barracks 14.”

  “No! We don’t know that!”

  “There’s no other explanation. That was an expression the Major used. No one else. When have you ever heard that before? Jason Ewart is a Fairlie.” She paused. “Thankfully, Tim and Emily don’t know. This is all ours.”

  “You’re freaking me out.”

  “Good,” Jess said. “Maybe you’ll take our secret admirers more seriously. Maybe they have to do with Jason Ewart, maybe our showing up this morning at dawn at the studios. Does it matter?”

  “Do we try to lose them?”

&n
bsp; “I don’t think so. I think we want them to see what we’re doing. They want to scare us? We’ll scare them back.”

  “Listen to you!”

  “I won’t go back there.”

  “Of course not!”

  “Ever.” Jess had never sounded so angry.

  “Me neither.”

  “If they are who we think they are, we can’t allow them to bully us. If they get closer, we get farther away. If they get in our faces, we…I don’t know.”

  “We say something random and walk away. Shouting is good.” Jess looked at her curiously. Amanda smiled. “I actually paid attention in elementary school. We spent two weeks talking about how to beat bullies.” She quoted: “‘Show no reaction; feel your inner strength; walk your way around them; make jokes, but not at your own expense; reflect insults back at the bully; outsmart with laughter,’ which is my personal favorite.”

  “And yet you ended up in Barracks 14.”

  “True,” Amanda said, “but I won’t take full blame for that.”

  The girls laughed.

  “Better now?” Amanda asked.

  “A lot. Thank you.”

  “No problem. You take Mr. Bike. I’ve got Little Miss Skinny Legs.”

  They’d reached the Flower Street entrance to the Los Angeles Public Library. Together, the girls headed up the concrete stairs leading up to the reflecting pond.

  “This is such a long shot.”

  “It is not. It makes total sense.” Jess was proud of her Internet search, which had turned up an exact match for the Latin phrase Dillard/Wayne had told them. It came from Lucretius’s De rerum natura, and translated roughly as, “Like runners they bear the lamp of life.” The same search returned several links to the Los Angeles Public Library. The expression, it seemed, was carved into the library’s tower. “Look up.”

  Amanda shielded her eyes from the sun and caught sight of the rectangular tower, rising up above the rest of the library’s facade. “Seriously, you can see that?”