The Otherworldlies (12 page)

Although she hadn’t been sure before, all it took was one log passing through the white waters and into the foggy nest of thorns beneath her for Fern to realize that she was sitting on Splash Mountain, atop the hollowed-out tree trunk on the highest point of the mountain.

Her stomach sank. Panic coursed through her veins. Fern grabbed the edge of the top of the trunk, shutting her eyes and hoping to wake up back in her dining room. The wind from the log whipped around her as she tried not to cry out in terror. The familiar landmarks of the Magic Kingdom—landmarks that had been larger than life to Fern for all of her life—now seemed small from Fern’s bird’s-eye view. She looked down the side of the trunk. She sat twenty feet above the rounded grassy top of the mountain. She couldn’t jump down without risking sliding down the whole mountain or breaking her legs from the fall. Fern searched for a way down from the stump without drawing attention to herself.

Her efforts to remain inconspicuous were useless. Below her a crowd had gathered, all pointing up at the top of the mountain, shocked and awed by the tiny, pale-skinned, black-haired girl sitting on top of Splash Mountain, clutching the side of the trunk for dear life.

Word of the girl stranded atop Splash Mountain spread throughout the park. The ride itself was shut down almost immediately, as park officials roped off a large swath of the park to keep lookie-loos out of the way. Because of Fern’s position nestled in the tree, she was easily visible from almost every part of the park.

Within minutes, Fern heard the distinct sound of a helicopter circling overhead. Sure enough, someone had tipped off a traffic chopper. Fern looked up, making out a helicopter with the Channel Seven
Eyewitness News
emblem painted on both sides. She closed her eyes, envisioning her dining room once again, trying to get back. She shut her eyes so tightly, they began to hurt.

After several minutes, she opened them again. Her first eyeful was the pastel flags flying above Sleeping Beauty Castle on the other side of Big Thunder. Tears began spilling down her face. Just as Fern McAllister was powerless to stop the mysterious force that brought her to the top of this barren mountain, she was equally powerless to reverse it.

Things were getting worse for Fern, not better. When she had disappeared to the beach, she’d been scared about being somewhere alone and not knowing how she’d gotten there. Now as Fern sat atop Splash Mountain, she couldn’t imagine a worse place to have landed. Not only was she insanely high and in a very dangerous spot, the drumming of the chopper above reminded her that this was all on film. Her disappearing problem had become very public.

She put her hand across her face and wiped it dry. She would not cry; she would not give Blythe and Lee something to laugh about when they saw her on the news. Sniffing as the blades from the helicopter trumped all other sound, she sat up straight and leaned against the trunk of the concrete tree. It was cold on her back. The helicopter circled back around. She could spot the camera lens attached to its bottom. She was sure it was zooming in on her. The lump in the back of her throat began to swell. Her eyes brimmed with tears. She closed them and wiped her face again, taking a deep breath. She would not cry. She could not cry.

When she was ready, she opened her eyes again. This time, she actually
looked
out below her. The sun was setting to her right. It was a typical California sunset. The sky looked like someone had mixed together pink and orange paint—the colors swirled around one another. A few clouds picked up the orange light and shone so brightly, they looked like fluorescent flakes floating in the sky. Fern smiled to herself, realizing she probably had the best view in all of Orange County. The beauty made Fern forget her dire situation for the moment.

Fern was hesitant to turn away from the sunset and look the other way, but she figured she’d never have the chance again to take everything in from this vantage point. From as high up as Fern was, the rides looked nothing like themselves. The mountains—the Matterhorn, Big Thunder, and Space—looked similar to the way they looked from the ground. But from where Fern sat, the other attractions, like the Indiana Jones Adventure to the south, were nothing more than giant warehouses. She was gaining a whole new respect for the Magic Kingdom from her perch atop Splash Mountain. The magic, she discovered, was the illusion.

“DO NOT MOVE,” a voice yelled from below. “WE ARE COMING FOR YOU. EVERYTHING’S GOING TO BE ALL RIGHT.”

Fern inhaled again and realized something: She wasn’t scared. She had been terrified when she appeared at the beach and equally terrified when she appeared here. But she wasn’t scared now. She would handle the disappearing because she had to. Perhaps the courage would leave her as quickly as it had come, but at that instant, Fern knew the Commander would’ve been proud.

Fern crawled to the edge of the small ledge and looked below. Three men in red suits with white helmets and harnesses were crawling toward her.

“CRAWL BACK FROM THE LEDGE!” the man nearest her shouted. He was ten feet away and quickly approaching. He had men on each side of him and below him, shadowing his progress.

When the man made it to the ledge, he climbed up and grabbed Fern as if her life depended on it. “It’s going to be okay,” he said. “I’ve got you,” he whispered into her ear as he put a harness on her and roped her to his own. Applause erupted from the crowd lining the perimeter set up around Critter Country.

Two choppers circled above as Fern McAllister, safe in the arms of a rescuer, rappelled down Splash Mountain in the dusk.

Sam’s guess made both Eddie’s and the Commander’s jaws drop.

“What?”

“I think she’s at Disneyland,” Sam said, terrified that he was right. “The last time this happened, she disappeared to the exact place she was thinking about. When we talked about Disneyland—that’s when she got the look.”

He walked over and turned on the television, flipping through the lower channels until he came to a live news screen with
Anaheim, California,
written in white letters across the bottom. A baritone voice reported on the scene, with the heavy sound of chopper blades heightening the drama of the live camera feed.

“Although park officials are refusing to comment on how the girl made it to the top of the mountain, you can see that a full-scale rescue operation is well under way.”

Mrs. McAllister got out of her chair and walked to the television, kneeling so that her nose was near enough to nuzzle the screen. Four men in red jumpsuits with ropes were scaling the tree at the top of Splash Mountain. They looked like LEGO men as the chopper’s camera zoomed in on Fern. She was clutching the very top of the tree trunk as the rescuers climbed closer and closer to her.

“Oh my God,” Mrs. McAllister gasped, touching the screen. “My little girl! My little girl!”

Nobody said a word, waiting breathlessly as the men in the jumpsuits closed in on Fern. Within minutes, one of the men was clutching Fern in his arms and taking her down the mountain to safety. The newscaster cheered on the air. Mrs. McAllister gripped her forehead in one hand.

“Well, I think I speak for a lot of people when I say that I can’t believe my own eyes. Thank goodness this terrible event has ended with such a fortunate result,” the newscaster said after the dramatic rescue was over and everyone was back on the ground. “I wonder, though, what the parents of this poor girl were thinking when they let her wander off and into harm’s way?”

“Turn it off,” Mrs. McAllister said with large watery eyes. “I’ve seen enough.” Eddie and Sam were paralyzed. “Turn it OFF.”

Sam obeyed.

Mrs. McAllister stepped away and sat back down in the chair. Any emotion she might have shown was now gone from the Commander’s face.

“Sam, Eddie, please go to your rooms. I’ll let you know the instant I have news about your sister.” Both boys hurried up the stairs. They could hear their mother pick up the phone and begin dialing.

“Hello? Alistair?” Sam had never heard his mother’s voice so full of unmitigated anger. “Yes, we need to talk. It can’t wait one second longer.”

Chapter 8
the man most likely to scare a
child on a day other than halloween

M
r. Alistair Kimble rarely watched the news. He had a small television set nestled in a corner of his office that he only flipped on when the Angels were playing. Although he was known for his cool demeanor in the courtroom, he was now visibly shaken. In fact, few things panicked Alistair Kimble, but when Mary Lou McAllister called and demanded he turn on his television, Mr. Kimble was terrified.

“Bing! What are you doing here?”

A blue and red parrot sat perched on the back of one of the two red leather chairs that flanked Mr. Kimble’s desk.

Alistair Kimble tried not to raise his voice. “How did you get in here?”

“Through the open window,” the parrot croaked before he reassumed human form. Joseph Bing now stood behind the chair.

“Well, you really shouldn’t transmorph unannounced like that. You’re liable to give me a heart attack,” Alistair Kimble said, shaking his head. “Take a seat.”

“Your heart has survived a revolution and a civil war; I’m not too worried about a little transmorphing,” Joseph Bing said, smiling as he momentarily forgot the grave news he brought with him.

“Well, what do you have to say for yourself?” Alistair Kimble said, losing patience with Mr. Bing, preoccupied by the phone call he had just received.

“Alistair, we have a situation on our hands.” Joseph Bing’s voice was troubled. He got up and turned on the television, still warm from when Kimble had it on earlier.

Each channel displayed the same image: a moving mass of rescue workers escorting a girl past Sleeping Beauty Castle and into the official buildings behind Main Street.

“I’ve seen this already—it’s all they’ve been playing. Mrs. McAllister called me, enraged, a short while ago.” Alistair Kimble’s bushy beard, an inch-thick mixture of reds, browns, and heather grays, closely resembled a patchwork quilt. He always wore dark pinstripes and his chin darted out like the bow of a boat. Although over six feet five, he was as thin as a ghost. Fern and Sam often saw him lurking about town but were always unable to identify any express purpose for all the lurking. He’d be at the grocery store, but he wouldn’t have a shopping cart or any groceries. They never saw him buying anything. He was just there.

Their experience with him was not unique: Mr. Kimble wasn’t friendly to anyone. His pale yellow skin only added to his creep factor. His long chin, in combination with eyebrows that looked like arrowheads pointing to his forehead and narrow green eyes, made Fern conclude long ago that he was the person in town who should be voted Most Likely to Scare a Child on a Day Other Than Halloween.

“Mary Lou called you?”

“Yes. She’s very concerned,” Alistair said, turning the volume to a low level. “I’m somewhat surprised she didn’t storm the office. Fortunately she had to pick the child up from the theme park first.”

“It’s worse than that, Alistair,” Bing said, looking down in his lap. “The Assembly is reporting that two children tagged as possible Unusuals have disappeared in the last month. Both have been kidnapped.”

“Two of the Unusual Eleven? How can you be sure?” Although Alistair remained relatively calm, his eyebrows popped up, conveying a look of general dismay.

“I’ve heard from two other districts,” Mr. Joseph Bing said, buttoning the top button of his uniform. “Every district gives the same report. The abductions occurred from the homes with no trace, no disruption, no obvious motivation. In each place where the abductions occurred, there are reports of severely abnormal bird activity.”

“We’ve had these kinds of scares before,” Alistair Kimble replied. “They never amount to anything. It’s simply paranoia on the part of the district heads.”

“You know what everyone’s been saying, Alistair,” Mr. Bing contended, his eyes widening as he rested his hands on his rotund belly. “They’re saying that Vlad is here in San Juan. I think he must be after Fern.”

“So Vlad’s plan includes kidnapping the Unusual Eleven one by one? That’s ridiculous.
We
don’t even know where they all are. Or who they are, or if they exist at all. It’s merely wild speculation at this point.”

“There’s no reason to think that Vlad isn’t taking the Unusuals very seriously.”

“You really believe Fern is next? Come on, Joseph. We’ve covered our tracks too well.” Alistair tried to reassure Bing. “We will carry on as we always have.”

Joseph Bing directed his gaze toward the television, where the camera zoomed in on the top of Fern’s head as she was shuttled inside. When he spoke, his voice was almost mournful.

“I’m afraid, old friend, under the circumstances that’s going to be impossible.”

Mrs. McAllister didn’t have the strength or time to argue with Sam about his accompanying her to retrieve Fern. Although Sam was not often stubborn, when he chose to be, it was usually best not to argue. So the Commander made a snap decision: Sam would come with her to Disneyland, and Eddie would stay behind to answer the phone calls from worried friends and relations, assuring anyone and everyone that the situation was under control without giving too much away. Mrs. McAllister knew she could trust Eddie with this task—her son oozed earnestness. Eddie was more than happy to help in any way he could.

Soon they were zipping north along Interstate 5. Sam noticed his mother’s white-knuckle grip on the steering wheel and realized she was as anxious as he was.

“Sam,” Mrs. McAllister said, glancing at her son, who sat in the passenger seat.

“Uh-huh?”

“Sam, I need you to do something for me.” Mrs. McAllister looked straight ahead. They were fifteen miles away from Anaheim, home of Disneyland. The carpool lane was moving, but the rest of the freeway was suffering from the daily congestion of rush hour traffic.

“There are going to be all sorts of officials asking all sorts of questions when we get to Fern,” Mrs. McAllister said.

“I know. I won’t say anything,” Sam said.

“I want you to say you were at Disneyland with Fern. You left the park and called me when you realized that Fern was missing.” Mrs. McAllister was talking quickly.

“I did?” Sam asked.

“I know it’s not the truth, Sam. But if we say Fern was at Disneyland by herself, that’s just going to arouse more suspicion. We need to retrieve Fern and then get out of there as quickly as possible. The last thing we want is the police snooping around,” Mrs. McAllister said, not taking her eyes off the road.

“Maybe they can help,” Sam said, without conviction, confused by his mother’s planned deception.

“After Fern’s home safely, we’ll figure out what to do next, okay?”

“Okay.” Sam sighed, hoping he would lay eyes on his sister soon.

“Fern said she was going to the bathroom and that’s the last you saw of her. I dropped you off after school, and you ran out of the park to call me when you couldn’t find your sister,” Mrs. McAllister said, merging out of the carpool lane as she made her way to the Disneyland Drive exit.

“What if Fern has already told them the truth?”

“Even if she has, they’ll think she’s lying,” Mrs. McAllister responded.

“How do you know that?” Sam questioned.

“Because when Fern told me the truth, I thought she was lying. And I’m her mother.”

Mary Lou McAllister may have initially convinced herself that her daughter had taken the bus to the beach, but it was now impossible to ignore Fern’s disappearances: Mary Lou McAllister was now a believer.

She didn’t bother parking in the lot, instead pulling her car right next to the entrance gates and turning on her hazard lights. A park official dressed in all khaki stood next to one of the turnstiles.

“I’m here to pick up my daughter,” Mrs. McAllister said, gripping Sam’s hand tightly before stopping in front of the man.

“The pick-up/drop-off point is just to the west, ma’am,” the official said.

“I don’t think you understand. My daughter is the girl on top of Splash Mountain,” Mrs. McAllister implored.

“Excuse me?” The man took a step backward.

“My daughter is probably terribly shaken up, and I think the sooner she sees me, the better off we all are, don’t you?”

The official reached behind his back and pulled out his walkie-talkie. He turned his back to the McAllisters and cupped his hand over his mouth as he talked into the device. Neither Sam nor Mrs. McAllister could make out to whom the official was talking or what he was saying.

“May I see some ID, please?” the official asked after ending his conversation.

Mrs. McAllister reached into a purse and pulled out her driver’s license.

“Come with me,” he said, handing Mrs. McAllister her ID back and opening a small gate next to the turnstile. Mrs. McAllister and Sam followed the man down a back alley of Main Street and into an unmarked door.

A fit man with wire-rimmed glasses was standing by the door, ready for them. The hallway was painted exclusively in yellow.

“Mrs. McAllister?” The man wore a large smile and extended his hand. “I’m Don Camille, director of operations here at the park.”

“Hello,” Mrs. McAllister said. Sam could tell that his mother was jumpy.

“I’m guessing you want to see your daughter?”

“Please, sir,” Mrs. McAllister said.

“Right this way,” he said. He led them down the corridor and to a large room with a plate-glass window. Several people were gathered outside, making no attempt to hide the fact that they were peering into the intense white room. Inside, Fern sat in a chair, with both elbows on a metal table. Her face was parallel with the table, almost as if she were hiding from the curious onlookers on the other side of the window.

Mrs. McAllister saw the top of her daughter’s shiny mass of black hair and her petite hands covering her small ears—images she’d seen on her television not long ago—and nearly lost her composure. Without awaiting further instruction, Mrs. McAllister rushed through the door.

“Mom! Sam!” Fern’s eyes were bloodshot and her face was tear-stained. Mrs. McAllister held her arms out. After two large bounds, Fern was in her mother’s arms.

“I’m so glad you’re okay,” Mrs. McAllister whispered in her daughter’s ear. “We’re going to figure this out.”

“Okay,” Fern said. Her face regained some of its color.

“You stay here. I’m going to talk to the man outside,” Mrs. McAllister said, squeezing her daughter tightly. Mrs. McAllister left the room and Sam stood in front of his sister.

“Are you okay?”

“Sure,” Fern replied, trying to hide the fact that she’d been crying. Sam watched his sister wiping the tears from her face.

“It happened again,” Sam said, his voice full of compassion.

“Yeah,” Fern said. Words were coming slowly as each twin tried to read the other’s expression.

“You were on television,” Sam said. “All the channels were showing you on the top of the mountain. You couldn’t really make out your face, though.”

“I could see the news choppers,” Fern said, hesitating to mention out loud the vantage point from which she saw the helicopters. “So, I didn’t look upset?” she asked. “I was trying not to look upset.”

“Well, you did a good job. Actually, you just looked very small,” Sam said.

“Could’ve been worse, I guess,” Fern said.

“So . . . is this the Disneyland Jail?” Sam said, looking around at the white cell, trying to change the subject. The McAllister twins had often talked about what the Disneyland Jail must look like. Sometimes they figured the bars would be made of rubber or that Disney villains from the past would be painted on the walls as a stark reminder to potential theme park criminals. Though neither twin was mischievous nor brazen enough to land in the imagined jail, they had heard about its existence from multiple sources so that it began to take on a folkloric quality.

“I think it must be. When they first brought me in, they took me to a room where a nurse checked me out, and I think I passed some cells.”

“Then I guess you beat me to it—you found a way into the Disneyland Jail,” Sam said, giving a halfhearted smile to his sister. “Does this mean you’re a criminal?”

Fern smiled. A little encouraged, Sam pressed on. “What were your cellmates like? Serving life sentences for jumping out of their boats on Pirates of the Caribbean?”

“I want all of this to stop,” Fern said, her eyes brimming over once again. She was tired of being strong.

Sam tried to sound confident. “On the way over here, Mom said she’d figure everything out when we got home,” he said, hoping to bolster his sister. “You know what that means, Fern, don’t you? Anything the Commander says, goes.”

“What if I can’t stop doing this, Sam?” The composure Fern had found on top of Splash Mountain was gone. “I’m scared.” Fresh tears fell silently down her face. Sam, having been by his sister’s side for all her twelve years, was unable to look at her and lie, though he wanted to.

“Me too,” he said, thinking of what else he could say. “I researched
Poseidon
on the Internet. Either Lindsey Lin was calling you a submarine nuclear missile or a god of the sea.”

Fern looked up at Sam. She saw her mother through the window. Within a few moments, Mrs. McAllister was back in the room, accompanied by Don Camille. She turned to her daughter.

“Come on, Fern, we’re going home,” she said, calm now that Fern was in her sight. “Mr. Camille has said he’ll escort us out the back entrance.”

As the McAllisters made their way home, there was an atmosphere of uncertainty in the car. Sam was the first to speak up.

“I don’t understand, Mom. Didn’t they want to ask Fern questions? Didn’t they want to figure out what happened?”

Mrs. McAllister looked in the rearview mirror at her son. “Actually, Sam, they only wanted two things: to make sure I wasn’t going to sue, and to make sure none of us would give any interviews,” she said. At that moment, no one in the car had any desire to tackle the thorny topic of how, exactly, Fern had reached the top of Splash Mountain in the first place. They would later, when they were no longer in sight of the mountain itself.

“But why?” Sam said.

“Because a place like Disneyland doesn’t want any bad press, especially when it comes to safety issues. Fern’s climb is the exact kind of public relations nightmare that they want to avoid.”