Kingdom Keepers(27)

As he reached yet another landing, Finn realized Wayne was nowhere to be seen.

“Take the middle door,” Wayne’s voice instructed.

Finn faced half of a hexagon: three doors, all at angles. He walked through the middle door, which sprang shut behind him. He now stood in a pitch-black space. Being part hologram, Finn glowed, casting a bluish light into the absolute blackness. But the space seemed to swallow his light, to go on forever. He saw nothing.

Charlene came in next. Even when the door opened, Finn saw no walls, only blackness.

“I don’t exactly love this,” Charlene said, a pulsing blue light in the dark.

The way her voice sounded—so close and bright—told Finn that they were in a very small room.

“Look up,” he said.

“Are those stars for real?” Charlene asked.

“Is anything real here?”

The door opened. Philby, Willa, and Maybeck entered. As the door shut, the stars reappeared.

“Wow!” Philby said.

“Yeah,” Finn agreed.

“What’s this about?” Maybeck asked.

Finn jumped as Wayne said from behind him, “Move to the center, everyone.” He’d been standing there all along.

The kids crowded together into a group. Finn felt the old man’s hand grab his wrist and pull him toward what turned out to be a wall.

“Feel this?” Wayne asked.

“Yes.” It was a smooth, glassy button.

“And this?”

Another.

“Yes.”

“Push.”

Finn pushed. The floor vibrated and the stars grew closer.

It took a moment, but Willa understood before the others. “It’s an elevator!”

“An elevator without walls,” Finn said, for it wasn’t the floor that appeared to be moving, but the walls.

“It’s an elevator floor,” Maybeck said. “A platform.”

The overhead constellations grew closer. As they reached the Big Dipper, Finn could imagine it as a cleverly shaped door.

“You gotta love this,” Philby said.

“I don’t have to,” Charlene protested, sounding a little frightened.

The floor stopped. Finn heard a click. He pushed against the wall—the Big Dipper—and it opened.

They entered a small apartment, full of old furniture in pastel colors, like something from Finn’s grandparents’ house. A small drafting table occupied the far corner. Most of one wall was filled with books. A tiny galley kitchen was next to the room’s only window. Narrow and small, the slit window belonged in a castle. It was tinted with a blue theatrical lighting gel with a tiny hole cut into it to allow you to peer outside. Finn looked down over the entire Magic Kingdom. The view took his breath away. They were very high up.

“Welcome to Walt’s secret hideaway,” Wayne said.

Three phones hung from the wall: red, blue, and yellow. Philby studied them.

“Never touch any of those,” Wayne advised, eyeing each of the kids.

Charlene peered out the small hole in the window. “Beautiful,” she said. That led to each of the kids taking a turn, oohing and ahhing.

Wayne waited for them to face him. It was a small apartment with barely enough room for the six of them.

“You were each picked for a reason, or you wouldn’t be here,” he said. “Our selection of the DHIs was careful to the point of painstaking. We’ve brought you here to help us. I’m going to share a story with you. A fable. It’s something that has been in my care a long, long time. Walt entrusted me with this, and it has been in my head ever since. All fables have names. This one is called The Stonecutter and, as it turns out, has been around a few thousand years. But take note: Walt called it The Stonecutter’s Quill. It’s up to you to find out why he added quill to the name. But here’s the story. I believe it to be the key to stopping the forces that are gathering.”

The kids looked for places to sit. Willa took a chair. Charlene and Philby the couch. Maybeck sat on the floor. Finn stood.

No one said a word. Wayne had their full attention.

“It was a hot, sweltering day, and the stonecutter balanced on his haunches, chisel and hammer in hand, streams of sweat running down his back as he broke bits of rock away from the base of a wall of stone. It was hard, blistering work, and it felt like the sun had no mercy on him.

“How wonderful it must be to have the power of the sun, he thought. If I were the sun, no one could resist me! I wish I were the sun!

“In an instant, he found himself looking down on the earth, beating on it with his heat and energy. He was the sun, and he liked the way he touched everything and everyone below him without mercy. In his presence, people would be thirsty, they would be hot, and they would always know he was there.