Kingdom Keepers: The Syndrome (15 page)

Inside, my world was falling apart. I tried desperately to explain away what I had just seen. The signs were all there, but I didn’t want to admit it. There had to be some reason, I told
myself, but inside, I was screaming. Was Joe in league with Barracks 14? Had I put us all in danger by going to him and believing him when he offered help? I felt betrayed, but worse, I felt
stupid. I had learned over and over not to trust anyone but myself. First with my parents, then with the Barracks and Maleficent. Only Amanda had earned my trust, in the same way I’d earned
hers. With the Keepers and the Imagineers, I had felt too secure. I had let my guard down. I’d started trusting again.

Look where that had gotten me. Amanda and I were trying to help the Keepers, but it suddenly seemed that Joe had other plans for us. Plans he wasn’t willing to share.

AMANDA

So there we were on Wanda’s living room floor arguing if the Imagineers would possibly try to lure us into being captured by the Barracks 14ers.

“It just doesn’t make sense, Jess,” I said. “Joe has worked so hard to keep them away from us.”

“This guy was meeting with Joe. I saw him.”

Mattie stayed quiet.

Wanda said, “I know people who know people. Let me chase this one down.”

“Sounds good to me,” I said, not needing anything extra to worry about.

Eyeing the odd and irreconcilable contents of a blue soy protein powder can between us, I once again felt angry at Finn for making his secret message so difficult to decode.

“Let’s try this. What do you see, Amanda?” Wanda asked, sounding like a teacher in science lab.

I studied the stuff carefully. “A very old black-and-white photo of a big crowd either in Disneyland or Disney World. It’s slightly blurry—only slightly—and, I think
could have been shot with a phone camera given the shape. In the corner, there’s some kind of weird moon shape. It might be the reflection of a piece of a face. The person taking the photo?
Hard to see.”

“What else?”

“One white glove,” I said, turning it over in my hand. “A hard, black rubber ball. A bag of some metal jacks and a smaller red rubber ball.” I picked up the small metal
rectangle, the top third of which hinged open. “I’ve never seen one of these, whatever it is.” I picked up the one item specifically intended for me. “And an empty envelope
with my name on it, but no note inside.”

MATTIE

While Amanda described the objects, I had an idea. I picked up the rubber ball off the floor and squeezed my eyes shut. I knew better, though: I could only read things that
lived and breathed. Only darkness and disappointment. I kept trying with the next closest item, a white glove. Again, zilch.

Reading living things had become second nature to me. All it took was a touch. My inability to contribute to the group’s efforts now frustrated me.

I was interrupted out of my daze when Wanda called my name.

“Mattie, what do you see?” she prompted.

“I’ve tried reading a bunch of this stuff,” I said. “But it’s no use. It has to be living and breathing.”

“Any ideas?” Jess was trying hard to include me. I loved her for it.

“Well, I guess a white glove could have been used for anything—cold weather, part of a staff uniform, fashion. No dirty work. And the ball is obviously a toy. I’ve seen sports
balls—squash, I think—pretty much like it, but they hardly bounce. This thing is insane the way it bounces. Then there’s the game of jacks, but that’s pretty obvious.”
I looked at Wanda, who nodded for me to continue. “The photo…People take pictures, keep pictures, to remember things, and this one’s old, so someone wanted to remember something from
a long time ago. Something in one of the parks. The cigarette lighter. I’ve seen them in movies. Never up close. It’s interesting.”

No one spoke, so I continued. “It’s not like I can see any hidden meanings. They’re just a bunch of random objects in a can. Right? The only items that have any real
significance—at least to me—are the empty envelope and the photo. But you guys are the Wayne experts, not me.”

“Excellent!” Wanda said. “That’s terrific input.”

“Really?” The word escaped my mouth, though I hadn’t meant to speak it. Just minutes earlier, I’d felt like such a dud.

“Hugely helpful,” she said.

JESS

The four of us sat on Wanda’s living room floor, the contents of the mysterious blue can between us. We all agreed that Finn had left this for us to find. Somehow it
conveyed a message that we had yet to figure out.

Wanda asked each of us to describe the objects in turn. Each of us brought our own interpretations to the table. Amanda described the objects’ physical appearance, whereas Mattie, after
lamenting that she couldn’t “read” them as she could people, talked about their practical uses.

Wanda turned to me. “Thoughts, Jess?”

I took in the assortment in front of me, picking up the red rubber ball and metal jacks before speaking, “An old-fashioned kid’s game. Make that two games; I forgot about the other
ball.” I examined the black ball, cracked and hardened with age. “Seems sort of sad that they ended up in here. With no one to play with them.” I set both aside. “A
cigarette lighter? Grown-ups smoke, not kids. Maybe that’s part of it? It looks like it used to be a pretty purple color.” I held up the metal rectangle, set it down again, unsure.
“A white glove like they used to wear to dances, and the envelope with Amanda’s name on it. How romantic.”

I smiled at Amanda and reached for the last item in the pile, a vintage Disney photo. In touching it, a barrage of images flashed before my eyes: faces, laughter, bright sunlight, the smell of
popcorn. Just as suddenly, the images were gone. My vision was so scrambled that I didn’t know what to make of it.

“What just happened?” Amanda asked. She knew me too well.

“I think for an instant there I was in this photo. I smelled popcorn, heard laughter. Nothing specific.”

“Draw! Right now!” Amanda said.

Taking a deep breath, I pulled my sketchbook from my backpack. “Look,” I said, flipping pages, “I didn’t tell you guys about this particular dream before, because I
wanted to be certain it wasn’t just fantasy.”

I handed them my book, turned to the sketch of a small campfire.

“Those don’t exactly look like logs,” Mattie said.

“Bones,” Wanda said, studying the page. “They look like bones to me. Did you know that for thousands of years, cultures around the world burned bones in rituals?”

“Rituals,” I muttered, recalling more pieces of my dream now, “as in rubbing the bones together and kissing them before you burn them?”

Three blank faces stared at me.

“Pass me back my sketchbook, please. I don’t want to lose what I’m seeing.”

AMANDA

The empty note frustrated me. Jess’s sketch of burning bones scared me. I felt completely unsettled. Though tempted to whine about it, I got up and walked around the
small room, trying to calm myself down.

“Do you think someone took the note?” I asked.

“No,” Jess said. “If someone else found the can, they would have thrown it out or kept it for themselves. They wouldn’t steal only the note.”

“We don’t know that for sure,” Mattie said, “but I do think that makes sense.”

I wanted to tell them about the heart and the initials carved into the tree, about how Finn had managed to find some old lovers’ symbol and had chosen that place to leave his watch. The
romance of it cut me through me. Everything he did for me seemed to be unspoken statements and promises. They filled me with such happiness I could hardly think; I would nearly laugh aloud—at
nothing.

Now that same rush of giddiness translated to something darker. The missing note tortured me. I wanted to read whatever it was he’d written.

“Maybe he had second thoughts,” I said aloud. “Maybe he wrote an explanation, or even another set of clues, but thought they gave too much away. So at the last minute he took
the note out. I’m not sure why he would leave the envelope, but he did.”

“He was going to mail it,” Mattie said. “He had it stamped and ready.”

“Okay,” Jess said. “Maybe the note was supposed to make sure you found the can, but in the end he didn’t think mailing you something was safe, so he was counting on you
to figure it out without the hint.”

“I like that explanation,” Wanda said. “That’s something to consider.” She hesitated and then spoke quietly, intimately. “Amanda, how much—if
any—of this stuff means something to you and Finn? In other words, is it personal, or is it as strange to you as it is to us?”

“I don’t understand any of it,” I confessed. “Toys, a glove, a cigarette lighter. As if any of us smoke! I mean, come on! What’s with that?”

“Fire?” Jess said, her voice quavering.

Jess had dreamed of fire once before, and the results had been catastrophic—Disneyland in flames.

“At worst, he means to set toys on fire. Nothing to worry about. What we’re missing is the larger message,” said the daughter of Wayne, a man who always saw the bigger picture.
“There’s something here. He’s gone to too much trouble.”

“One thing,” I said. “Finn thought they might end up in SBS. Why else leave the note in his pocket, the can on Tom Sawyer Island? He went to tons of trouble to pull this off.
That means it’s important. But how do all five of them end up in SBS? Let’s not forget: Maybeck and Philby were both captured and ended up in SBS. Would Philby risk crossing them all
over at the same time on anything less than something super important? But clearly Finn knew they were taking a risk. He prepared for that!”

“So, for now, we’ll assume they’re on a dangerous mission,” Wanda said.

“Which would explain why Joe is freaking out,” Mattie said. “He sends them off and no one comes back.”

“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.