Legacy of Secrets

by Ridley Pearson

  “They’re fakes,” Charlene said. “Their shirts and pants are wrinkled. I haven’t seen a single other Cast Member with their clothes in that shape.”

  “No.”

  “They’re looking at us.”

  “Yeah, I caught that. I think I kinda stand out.”

  “You think they know who we are?”

  “I sure hope not.” Maybeck looked around for escape options. The train turned the corner toward Main Street station, where the Disney Railroad train carrying the three Keepers was currently sidetracked.

  “Our stop’s coming up,” he said.

  “I don’t mean to freak you out or anything,” Charlene said. “But last night when Finn and I were at the hotel, I kind of…ran interference for Finn.”

  “Meaning?”

  “I may have acted lost in order to buy Finn time to search a couple rooms. What I’m trying to say is: I recognize the guy on the left, and maybe, just maybe, he remembers me.”

  “I’ve got news for you, Charlene. There’s no ‘maybe’ about it. Guys don’t forget you.”

  “I can’t tell if you’re trying to give me a compliment or if you’re mad at me.”

  “Maybe a little bit of both. For one thing, I didn’t actually love seeing you hang all over Finn.”

  “Do you think we could talk about this another time?”

  “Not really.”

  “I was afraid of that.”

  “Besides,” Maybeck said. “I know a way to beat these clowns. If they make a move for us, you stay with me.”

  “No problem.”

  “Did you happen to notice that when we sat down—”

  “Yes,” Charlene said, interrupting him. “I didn’t feel the bench under me.”

  “Exactly. We’re sitting, but not actually. We just look like we are to everyone else. And that means—”

  “We can run away, but we can’t stay and fight.”

  “Yeah. That.”

  “If we try to take them on,” Charlene said, eyes darting nervously, “it’ll reveal our DHIs.”

  “They’ll think we’re ghosts. But that won’t help us,” Maybeck said.

  “Hadn’t thought of that. So it’s hide-and-seek.”

  “More like tag. They’re ‘it,’ and we can’t let them touch us.”

  “Well, all I can say,” Charlene said, “is I hope they’re looking at us because of me and not because of you.”

  “And here I am hoping we’ll never find out.”

  Charlene turned and scanned the car again, looking for a possible way out Maybeck might not have considered. She saw framed photographs on either side of the doors at both ends of the car. They looked like pictures of trains, but she was too far off to see clearly.

  “I’m sorry if I upset you, Terry.”

  “I don’t think you are,” he said. “I think you did it on purpose, and I don’t exactly get what I did wrong.”

  “It’s weird having this conversation while looking straight ahead. I want to see you.”

  “That’s just an excuse.”

  “I suppose,” she said.

  “Okay,” Maybeck said, “they’re moving. You’ll be happy to hear that we’ll have to talk this out later.”

  “That’s not fair.”

  “You ready?” he asked.

  “Terry.” She tried to touch him tenderly on the arm, but her hand passed through his hologram. “Oh, come on!” she said, annoyed.

  “Here we go,” Maybeck said, standing. The two boys—hardly boys given that they looked to be in their early twenties—moved down the center aisle. Maybeck turned toward the back of the car, Charlene right behind him.

  “He definitely recognizes me,” she said over Maybeck’s shoulder.

  “Told you so,” he said. “This is what we’re going to do….” He stepped aside to allow her to share the narrow aisle with him. “What we’re counting on here, is that everyone is looking in the direction we’re moving.”

  It was true, Charlene realized. Passengers were either looking forward or out the windows.

  “Terry?” she said, sensing his intentions as they drew within three strides of the car’s back door. “Look!” She pointed to one of the photographs.

  “I don’t have time for the art gallery!”

  “It’s Lilly Belle! And it’s not the parlor car.” Her brow wrinkled as she read the caption aloud.

  Walt Disney’s Carolwood Pacific Railroad #173 Lilly Belle miniature live steam locomotive replica. Disney’s railroad hobby was the inspiration for the Disneyland Railroad.

  “We’ve got to get going!” Maybeck said emphatically.

  “It’s the same name: Lilly Belle! ‘Named it after you. Moves you…’ It’s a locomotive!”

  “It’s a model!”

  “Walt Disney’s Carolwood Pacific Railroad. That’s not Disneyland. What is that?”

  Maybeck took a fraction of a second to absorb the photo and what she was trying to tell him. “No way.”

  “‘…as much as it does me.’”

  Maybeck said, “If we don’t get out of here right now, they’re going to catch us—or try to—and that’s going to win us a lot of attention we don’t want or need.”

  Charlene nodded. “Yeah. Okay.”

  Together, they faced the train car’s wooden door. Their projections stepped through it and outside. With the passengers’ attention elsewhere, Maybeck assumed only the two guys had seen them vanish. He wondered what they were thinking.

  Next, his and Charlene’s DHIs passed through both the iron banister on the car where they stood, and the banister on the trailing car. Their projections moved through yet another door and into the crowded train car, with its rows of benches on both sides.

  Maybeck and the Keepers had come to learn that the human brain does not want to process the impossible. It will look for any reasonable explanation to an event, even going as far as to invent it.

  If two teens walk through a closed door to a moving train car, then you blink and look again. Seeing the two teens, you laugh or look away…because there’s no way that could have happened.

  Problems arise with agreement. If two or more people agree they witnessed the same phenomena, then the incident is given weight. The good thing about train cars is that most of the passengers are strangers, which greatly reduces the chance for discussion and agreement. Few people want to nudge the person next to them and say, Did you see those two kids just vaporize through the door!?

  Maybeck and Charlene saw a few pair of wide eyes, saw two passengers point at them, but those same people looked away quickly, embarrassed by what they thought they’d seen; the pointing fingers dropped, and heads turned. The train car was slowing for the station. It was time to get off.

  Behind Charlene and Maybeck, it was the same but different story. Their pursuers had struggled; opening the train car door, climbing over two railings and opening a second door had slowed them down. By the time that door came open, a mob of passengers filled the center aisle. The colored guy and the blonde had disappeared.

  Fighting through the crowd proved a hopeless effort; there were too many people in too small a space. Turning and joining the throng, they moved out onto the platform, eyes alert. Nowhere. The two were gone.

  “Did they actually…?” one of them said to the other.

  “The door?”

  “It looked like…nah…Did you see—?”

  “No! No, I didn’t see nothing. They got through that door quickly though, I’ll give you that, bud.”

  “Super-duper fast. It was almost like…nah.”

  “Nah.”

  “But that was the same girl at the hotel, right?”

  “Looked like her to me.”

  “Do we tell…him?”

  “What? Are you cuckoo crazy? How we gonna explain we lost them? He’ll tell us to hit the road. He’ll can us.”

  “So we keep this private,” the other said.

  “Far as I’m concerned, this never happened. And if you�
��ve got any brains—which is questionable—you think so, too.”

  “How am I supposed to think something never happened when it did?”

  “There you go again. What did I tell you? Dumb as a doorknob. As smart as a rock.”

  “Shut up!”

  “You shut up!”

  One boy punched the other in the shoulder. The two of them laughed. But they were forced laughs. As they started down the stairs from the platform, they both looked back over their shoulders at the train and shook their heads in disbelief.

  “YOU’RE OUR SECRET WEAPON, Mattie. Get it?” Amanda said.

  Mattie nodded, her lips twisted wryly. “I didn’t think you asked me up here to have a pedicure.”

  “You are so nice to do this!” Jess said.

  “My internship currently involves carrying trays of hot cinnamon rolls from the kitchen to the counter. I get fat just looking at them! I’m glad for the break, believe me!”

  The three girls walked beside one another across the Disney Studios lot in Burbank. Mattie was hardly fat. Short, yes, but with athletic legs and a swimmer’s shoulders. She wore her dark hair unusually short, with no makeup, a look that was both feminine and strong.

  Amanda had made the appointment with Joe Garlington, saying it was urgent. He’d squeezed her into his morning schedule, something that spoke to the influence of the Kingdom Keepers and the weight of recent events. Not everyone could get a last-minute appointment with an Imagineer.

  “You understand what we’re after?” Amanda said.

  “This guy Hollingsworth.”

  “Exactly. Any images or thoughts Joe may have. No matter how small, we need them,” Jess said. “And you’ll have to ask quickly about the Keepers, because you may not get a second chance to touch him.”

  “I’ll need help, if that happens,” Mattie said. “They’re hard to stage. One trick is to hand the person something.”

  Amanda slipped a zippered purse out of her back pocket and opened it. “I’ve got just the thing! And a story to go with it.”

  Jess saw what she was holding. “Yes! That’s amazingly perfect!”

  “What is it?” Mattie asked.

  “Better if you seem surprised,” Amanda said.

  In the long second-floor hallway, Amanda and Mattie sat on a padded bench while Jess studied the original Disney artwork that decorated the walls.

  “You’re missing out!” she called.

  “We’re waiting patiently,” Amanda said. Enduring twenty minutes with nothing to do but tap her foot had unnerved her.

  “What do you think’s going on?” Mattie said.

  “He’s busy, that’s all.” Amanda saw the stern look Mattie was giving her. “Look, I confronted him about Hollingsworth, okay? My guess is, he’s in there studying up on everything they know about the Keepers, and Jess and me at DSI. He took the meeting, which means he’s still worried about me. That’s good for us.”

  “You are seriously twisted, girl.” Mattie looked scared.

  “He’ll see you now,” announced a male secretary. He wore a collared shirt with “Walt Disney Studios” in red stitching over the chest pocket, and looked about twenty-five. He stared long and hard at Amanda as the three girls entered Joe’s office.

  Now came the hard part. Amanda counted on Joe Garlington, a proper and polite gentleman, coming around his desk to shake hands with the three teens. The problem was that the handshake might be the only time Mattie had a firm hold on him. Her Fairlie strength, like all Fairlie abilities, was unexplainable. Mattie could read thoughts with just the faintest brushing of skin to skin, an ability that dated back centuries to fortune-tellers and seers, sorcerers and sorceresses capable of reading one’s past. If one accurately heard one’s past, he or she might be more accepting of predictions for one’s future.

  Sometimes the person Mattie touched felt something like a drain opening. Sometimes not. The trick was to put the correct thought into the subject just prior to contact—tricky when shaking hands for the first time. Today, the seeding was left to Amanda.

  As Joe came toward them, he shook Jess’s hand first. Amanda made sure he shook hers next—she literally bumped Mattie out of the way. Looking mildly confused, Joe suggested they sit on the small couch in a sitting area along the wall.

  “You remember Mattie,” Amanda said, as Joe reached for the girl’s hand. “She’s come to ask about Amery Hollingsworth.” There! She’d planted the thought.

  Joe hesitated a fraction of a second before he and Mattie shook hands. Mattie squinted, looking like she’d eaten something gassy. The handshake released. Joe offered no indication that he’d physically sensed her reading him, but he squinted in a way that expressed concern. The girls crammed in next to each other on the sofa.

  “Of course! Mattie. How’s the internship working out?”

  “I think I’ve gained about five pounds, but otherwise I have a newfound respect for cinnamon buns.”

  Joe laughed along with Amanda and Jess.

  “So, what’s this about Amery Hollingsworth?” he asked Mattie, looking and sounding slightly angry, or at least confused. He directed his attention to Amanda. “It wouldn’t have anything to do with your little visit from your friend Dillard Cole, would it?”

  “Amery, Ebsy, and Rexx Hollingsworth,” Amanda said.

  Joe sat up straighter, taken aback. “O…kay. This is from Dillard, or this is your question?” he asked Mattie.

  Mattie had memorized the information from Amanda. “Amery and Ebsy were baptized in a place called the Old Otterbein Church.”

  “I’m afraid I’m still not following,” Joe said.

  “I might have missed it,” Mattie said, playing her role perfectly. If Joe had looked over at Amanda, he might have seen her lips moving in nearly perfect sync with Mattie’s voice. “If it hadn’t been for Rexx, I wouldn’t have…” She stumbled here, but regained her memory and composure. “…bothered to look up the address of the church.”

  “What church?” a nervous Joe asked.

  “It was Rexx who changed all that,” Mattie said. That had been Jess’s line, a stinger. Joe knew he’d been read.

  “I thought we were all on the same side,” he said to the girls. “What’s the meaning of this?”

  “Rexx was baptized in the Baltimore Basilica of the National Shrine…of the Assumption…of the Blessed Virgin Mary.” Mattie exhaled audibly.

  “Well, that’s a mouthful,” Joe said, trying to make light of it.

  “Emphasis on Baltimore,” Amanda said.

  “And you know this because?”

  “Dillard. Wayne’s fortune cookie.”

  Joe sat back, nodding. He looked like a man trying to figure out what to say. “Baltimore. I admit, I didn’t see that coming. You know this how?”

  “He had foresight,” Amanda said. “We are concerned about sharing this, about who we can trust—”

  “‘Whom,’” Jess said, annoying Amanda.

  “I’m honored,” Joe said.

  “We need you to promise that, for now, you won’t share this.” Amanda stared at him intently.

  “That’s a difficult promise to make without knowing the nature of what you’re about to say.”

  “But that’s the deal,” Amanda said.

  Joe considered each of the girls carefully. “Deals typically involve two sides. What do I get?”

  “Information. Knowledge of what was so important to Wayne that he left a clue even as he was dying. He directed us to documents. We have proof.”

  “Baltimore,” Jess said.

  Joe pursed his lips. This was not a conversation he wanted to have, but it was information he craved. “I promise I’ll keep this to myself. But there’s a caveat: if it threatens the company or any individuals, I will make a judgment call, and it may not be to your liking.”

  “Barracks 14,” Amanda said, silently accepting his conditions, “is clearly Hollingsworth’s baby. We know he’s connected to Disney. We know for a fact that at least
one Fairlie—a boy—is currently posing as a Cast Member in Disneyland. We know the Keepers have time traveled. We can prove that as well.”

  “Finn has contacted us,” Jess said. “We have to let him know we got his message.”

  Mattie took a chance. She reached out and took hold of Joe’s hand. “You’re the only one we can think of who can help us.”

  It took Joe a long moment to look down at his hand in hers and realize what was going on. He jerked it away. “You’re reading me! You tricked me!”

  “We needed a backup plan in case you wouldn’t cooperate,” Amanda said.

  Mattie silently looked over at Jess and nodded. “Walt’s apartment,” she said.

  Amanda remained focused on Joe. “Will you help us?”

  His face flushed with anger, his voice tight, his head spinning, Joe addressed the three girls. “I never break a promise if I can help it.”

  WILLA AND PHILBY hid among the Mad Tea Party’s cups and saucers. The spot afforded them a perfect view of King Arthur Carrousel. It was going on 2 a.m., and their knees were starting to cramp. They’d become their “real selves” at the stroke of midnight—they were just now getting used to it. Every thirty minutes, right on schedule, a security guard strolled past, forcing the two teens to lay low and not utter a sound.

  At the end of one such pass, as the guard turned toward the castle, the carousel began moving, the music blaring out into the silent night. The guard turned, dumbfounded and perhaps a bit afraid. Philby saw it, having poked his head just high enough to make out what was going on when the music started.

  Willa tugged on his shirt. Philby slapped her hand away, which made her tug all the harder.

  “What?” he whispered, his voice covered by the loud music.

  “Jingles! Look for Jingles.”

  “Duh!” he said nastily, then, “Ouch!” She’d punched him.

  The guard appeared to have little idea how to handle this unexpected occurrence. He took a step toward the suddenly moving ride, followed by a step back. He stood still. Finally, after prolonged consideration, he called out. “Hello? Who’s there?”