Kingdom Keepers: The Syndrome (11 page)

That was a strange, dreamless night. I woke repeatedly, wondering at my surroundings. Finally, I awoke in tears. Wanda sat on the bed, shaking me gently.

“You’ve had a nightmare,” she said.

“No,” I said. “I don’t think so. More like reality. But I’m glad you woke me.”

Hearing my concern, she hugged me.

“I lied to him,” I said, crying again in the safety of her embrace.

“Who, Finn?”

I nodded, my chin striking her collarbone. “When we first met. I told him I had passes because of my family. I mentioned my mom. None of it was true. Your dad got me in there. Your dad
basically put us together, told me what to say so Finn would go into the park with me. Your dad planned it all, didn’t he?” I eased back so I could see her face.

“I don’t know,” Wanda said. “I honestly don’t.”

“I think you do.”

“He always seemed to be several steps ahead of everyone else, so I wouldn’t be surprised. But I have no firsthand knowledge. Honestly. I never knew much about what he was
doing.”

“I’m going to fix it,” I told her. “With Finn like this, it’s like I suddenly know all the stuff I want to tell him—need to tell him. I never thought…you
never think something like this can happen, you know? But here it is. And how long can he last like this? How long can he make it?”

“The Gatorade, the fluids, that was brilliant,” Wanda said. “You may have saved him right there. There are probably other things we can do, without drugs, without medicating
him. I have a close friend who’s a registered nurse. I can trust her.
We
can trust her.” She hugged me again. “We’re a team now, okay?” I heard her voice
tighten. She was hugging me so I wouldn’t see her cry. “You, me, Finn, the others. We’re a team, just like Dad planned.”

I returned the embrace, partly because I thought I was supposed to, but mostly because I never got hugged and it felt insanely good. This, I thought, is what families do. This is what I’ve
missed my whole life. This is what I want more of.

“Sounds good,” I whispered.

And then it was time.

I waited for nightfall to enter the Magic Kingdom. Faces were more difficult to see in the dark, and I didn’t want to be seen.

Greg Luowski had escaped Finn’s front yard after smashing through the second-story bedroom window and falling to the ground. At the time, it struck us as an impossible feat. I had pushed
him hard, possibly injuring him even before he’d landed. Combined with a fall of at least fifteen feet, he should have at least twisted, sprained, or fractured something—if not broken
bones. But people in general and grown-ups in particular resist the notion of magic and spells, so I didn’t tell Mrs. Whitman the reason Luowski was still able to move after that “freak
fall,” as she called it. Even a woman, a mother whose son was immersed in a world of black magic, relied more on her training as a physicist than her own experiences.

It was strange, though. Mrs. Whitman had been placed under a horrible spell for the better part of two weeks. She of all people should have believed me. But time is an eraser. Memories are
repressed and bad memories forgotten. Her analysis of Luowski’s “freak fall” explained his escape. Enough said.

Once inside the Magic Kingdom, though, I felt otherwise. A million eyes seemed to bore into me from all directions. Among them? Greg Luowski’s. I could imagine him following me, the same
way he’d clearly tracked Mattie and me. I could sense him lurking. Waiting to pounce. I felt sick to my stomach.

On the ground, I approached the first line of Finn’s riddle in reverse, mostly out of sentimentality. I wanted to save my best memory with him for last.

Our time in MK could fill a jar to overflowing

The Keepers had taught Jess and me about codes, riddles, and clues. Wayne had communicated with them in these forms in order to slip a message past the Overtakers. Finn had done the same, and I
knew to pay strict attention to his choice of words, and any possible underlying meanings.

Our
, could be the Keepers, or Finn and me.

Time
could mean something more, like “running out.”

In MK
was straightforward: in the Magic Kingdom. Which was why I was here.

Could fill a jar
might be an expression, or I might be looking for a particular jar that would be significant to anything else mentioned or implied in the message. This was a tricky
one.

To overflowing
? A water attraction, fountain, and food service all came to mind.

The Keepers had covered every inch of the park over the course of their many battles with the Overtakers. If Finn was talking about the Keepers in the park, I was in trouble; it might take weeks
to cover all the spots. But in my heart I believed he meant the two of us. Filling the jar to overflowing was a reference to how we’d grown together as friends. The expression had a touch of
romance, too, that gave me chills. He’d anticipated how that might affect me.

I approached each stop—I could think of three in particular—keeping in mind my memories of what had happened there and how the present-day Finn would want me to think about it.

Should I be stuck, it’s yours for the knowing.

Finn was stuck in SBS. That needed no translation.
Yours for the knowing
proved more challenging. I wasn’t sure if I would know, if I had to figure something out, if whatever I was
supposed to know would then reveal something else. I’d keep alert for anything.

I found the Cast Member backstage entrance in Tomorrowland, which accessed that area’s trash chute. Wayne had told all of us that Disney didn’t cart or carry the trash out of the
Magic Kingdom; they sucked it out through negative-pressurized tubes housed in the underground network of tunnels known to Cast Members as the Utilidor. The tube system was accessed through a
variety of backstage chutes. The chutes themselves looked like submarine hatches—heavily weighted, hinged lids sitting atop a wide metal tube rising up through concrete in a specially
designated trash station.

Here I had held the lid open, allowing Finn to jump
into
the trash system. Had he not been able to attain All Clear and turn himself into a hologram, Maleficent, who’d entered
behind, might have killed him. I thought about “time” and how quickly Finn had been sucked out of the park through the trash tubes in matter of minutes. I thought about
“time” in terms of his battle with Maleficent, which had pulled Jess back from a deep, dark curse that made her Maleficent’s daughter-slave. I searched the area for a clock. I
wandered from trash can to trash can, wondering if the “overflowing” reference had to do with trash. I searched for any kind of jar. I came away frustrated, impatient, and angry, having
found nothing of significance.

Fresh in my mind’s eye, a boy lay in bed, fully dressed, occasionally twitching, only able to drink from a straw. My boy, a boy I’d come to cherish and think about constantly. A boy
who mattered to me. So far I seemed incapable of helping him. Defending him was only going to get more difficult; Mr. Whitman’s determination to take him to doctors would soon win out. Finn
was out of “time” in more ways than he’d probably imagined.

Time was running out for me as well. I’d spent far too much of it searching Tomorrowland. I had to get to the Haunted Mansion before the park closed for the night.

Waiting in line, memories played before my eyes like videos. Hurrying into the attraction with a seventh-grade boy I barely knew, a boy I’d lied to in order to share his company. Working
to avoid security Cast Members in pursuit of Finn.

I snapped out of my daydream as the spot on the back of my neck, beneath my hair, began to overheat. A barometer I’d come to trust, it meant danger. Not the kind of warning system involved
with decision-making, but an alarm that signaled hostile intent. People or animals or Overtaker
villains
were either in my vicinity or spying on me.

I knew better than to immediately turn to look. As long as whoever, whatever, was out there believed I was oblivious to their presence, they’d be in less of a hurry. Surveillance was an
art form. Maybe they wanted to capture or harm me; maybe they were merely curious about what I was doing in the park alone. I suspected I would discover Greg Luowski or the girl with the vivid
green eyes back there. I wanted so badly to look that my neck tensed.

The standby line steered us into an interactive area of graves and tombstones, pieces of which moved or reacted to each guest, their tremors enhancing my already excessive paranoia. However,
interacting with the set pieces allowed me to finally get a look back at the line.

I nearly screamed.

Two women, both too old for college. One wore a white knit polo shirt. Shirts like those were part of the costume for Cast Members who worked the merchandise shops. The woman next to her, who
had dark hair and wore too much makeup, had on a blue T-shirt. I couldn’t see more than their heads and shoulders. They struck me as Cast Members or security guards, but I couldn’t rule
out Overtakers.

Every kind of person might be in a Disney park at any given hour. People of all nationalities, faiths, and levels of income. Yet, somehow, I knew that these two were here looking for me. I
sincerely doubted they were Overtakers, but I didn’t fear Disney security guards a lot less.

Using a tomb as a screen, I moved away from them, advancing forward in line. All the while, I was thinking that the graveyard represented the end of “time,” that cremation jars,
carrying the ashes of the dead, might be “filled to overflowing.” Finn’s words haunted me in a place that didn’t need any help being creepy; the cemetery reminded me
viscerally of Finn’s and my efforts to avoid past pursuers.

I made myself unpopular by slipping around families and paired-up guests, excusing myself softly as I went. I didn’t need to look back when I heard the distant complaints. My pursuers had
lost sight of me and were hurrying, trying to fix the problem. As long as I kept my patience and didn’t anger those around me too much, I might achieve my goal—get locked in the
Stretching Room without them.

I entered the welcome room. So far, so good. Glancing back, I saw the top of the dark-haired woman’s head moving as rudely as I had, cutting the line by pushing her way forward.

The dark-haired head pushed closer. My right leg shook nervously, the way it sometimes did before math tests. Instinctively, I moved toward the doors, which I knew were about to open. As we were
admitted, I crossed the octagonal chamber to the panel that would lead to the Doom Buggies.

Our Cast Member host told us to stay away from the walls. The doors closed. I didn’t see the security woman. She hadn’t made it inside the Stretching Room.

For the first time in several long minutes, I felt myself relax. I enjoyed the voice of the ghost, the puns, and the storyline. But then I screamed the loudest as, in the midst of total
darkness, a booming, evil voice called out, “Of course, there’s always
my
way!”

The guests looked up. A few let out muffled screams.

The lights came on. Instructions were spoken. The wall panel slid open. The crowd surged forward.

The dark-haired woman stood mere feet away from me. She’d been in the room all along. She’d used the darkness and my distraction to sneak up on me. She reached out…

I shoved her back. Other guests complained “Cut it out!” “Stop it!”

My plan had been to take the “chicken door,” an emergency exit that allowed frightened guests to skip the Doom Buggies, but that door moved just slightly as I was about to push
through. It breathed open and closed, alerting me to another door on the same hallway that had just opened.
The gift-shop woman was inside.

Clearly, their plan was to grab me up in the privacy of the chicken door hallway, away from the prying eyes of curious guests. The dark-haired woman’s sole purpose was to scare me into
using the exit.

So I didn’t. My plan required bold action, luck, and perfect timing—

Which made me think of Finn’s message.

“Sorry,” I said, barging my way through the crowd, giving no thought to being polite. The line narrowed to single file and funneled into path lines that turned back on themselves. No
way I could get stuck in there.

A velvet rope chain blocked off the handicap access. As I jumped the chain, I tried something I’d never tried before. “I’m with the Kingdom Keepers! Don’t stop the
buggies!” I ran down the moving belt and slipped in unexpectedly on a mother and her son just as the bar was about to lower. I kept my legs over the bar, so I wouldn’t be trapped, and
held my breath, not yet saying so much as hello, expecting the ride to stop. Expecting to be caught.

The ride did not stop.

“Hi,” I said, addressing the mother. “Sorry!” To the boy I asked, “Have you ever heard of the Kingdom Keepers?”

“Are you kidding me!?”

That was an affirmative.

“If you see a woman—blue shirt, dark hair—if you see her, I need you to scream as loud as you can. Will do that?”

The mother objected, horrified by the intrusion. But the boy said, “Be quiet, Mom! This is important.” She clucked her tongue, as if shocked by her son’s rudeness, but
didn’t say anything.

It was dark now. We were in a tunnel. I jumped, using the safety bar as a springboard. Hooking my fingers over the clamshell back of the next Doom Buggy in line, I swung my feet around the side.
Two young girls screamed. The nice thing about the Haunted Mansion, I realized with a rush of joy, was that such reactions were expected. People could scream as loud as they liked, and nothing
would seem out of the ordinary.

We slid past changing wall art, then entered and passed through the ghost story library. I clambered ahead through two more buggies. A lot more screaming. The ghostly dining room was below. I
strained to look for glass jars, knowing how important this station had been to Finn and Jess. Nothing.

When I heard a young boy’s piercing, bloodcurdling scream from behind me, I took it as the signal that my scout had come through: the security Cast Member was close behind.