Kingdom Keepers(29)
Maybeck snorted.
Philby, deep in thought, complained. “What if there isn’t enough time?”
He won Wayne’s attention.
Finn explained, “This afternoon we all…kind of fainted. All of us. Right at the same time, and all in completely different locations.”
Wayne’s face wrinkled in concern. He considered this carefully and said, “Was this sometime after two o’clock?”
Finn gasped. “How would you know that?”
“The DHIs here in the park—they went down for a few minutes this afternoon. Something to do with the computer server. Maybeck?”
Maybeck shied from the summons.
“That’s right,” Philby said, remembering. “You’re a computer freak, aren’t you, Maybeck?”
“Freak? I’m freaking good with them, if that’s what you’re asking.”
Finn speculated, “If we’re able to cross over at night—and we certainly are, then maybe if something happens to the DHIs during the day, it also happens to us.”
Wayne said, “I think you’d better hurry.” He pursed his lips and looked each of them in the eyes before saying, “Once the Overtakers realize you intend to help us—that you’re here to stop them—I believe they’ll do whatever they can to stop you first. Maybe your fainting is the result of their dark powers. If they can stop you from crossing over, we’re defeated. Fear is one way to stop you.” He paused a moment and said, “This is new ground for all of us.”
Finn felt a chill run up his spine.
Still deep in concentration, Philby said, “Walt was an artist. An animator. He drew things. You draw things with pencils and pens. Quills.”
“Yes,” Wayne agreed. “We got that far as well.”
“So the solution to the fable has something to do with that,” Philby said. “A pen. A pencil. A quill.”
Wayne nodded. “Just as we’ve thought these many years. But what it is exactly, and where to find it? We have no idea.”
Willa had her own concerns. “What do you mean by ‘dark powers’? Some kind of magic?”
“What puts us in a bad mood when just a minute before we felt so good?” Wayne asked. “What makes us afraid of the dark when we know perfectly well there’s nothing bad out there? What explains that sometimes we think of a person and two seconds later the phone rings, and it’s that same person calling us?” Again, Wayne looked at the kids one by one, his face deadly serious. “Not all such forces have to do with hats and rabbits. There are forces bigger than all of us. Good, and bad.”
Wayne reached toward the wall. “Good luck,” he said as he pushed a circular metal plate embossed with a silhouette of Mickey Mouse. A panel in the floor opened up beneath him. Wayne fell through and disappeared.
Finn jumped up, ahead of the others. The floor was solid again. Wayne was gone.
Sitting on the coffee table in the center of the room was what looked like a small black garage-door opener with a single red button.
Wayne had used it to send him back to his bed on his earlier visits. Finn pointed it out for the others to see. “Well, I guess that’s it. So who’s in? Who’s up for solving the Stonecutter fable?”
One by one, the other DHIs tentatively lifted their hands. They had accepted Wayne’s challenge.
He said, “Philby and Willa will work to connect the fable to the Magic Kingdom. There has to be something we’re supposed to do with the story. Maybeck will find out as much as he can about the DHI servers and what we might do to protect them, to protect us. Charlene and I will study up on Walt Disney—why he might have picked the Stonecutter’s fable, what’s with the quill, and anything else we can find out. Sound okay?”
No one disagreed. Finn was the acknowledged leader.
Finn said, “I doubt this button is going to cross over with me. It’ll remain here.”
Maybeck said, “My guess is, it’s a proximity thing, like the dialogue bubbles in VMK. You have to be near it when it’s pushed in order to go back. So if you’re ever in trouble, get up here to this room and push this button.”
“Okay?”
Everyone nodded.
Finn indicated the black fob with the red button. They all gathered close together.
Maybeck said, “It might be smart to hold hands.”
The kids looked anxiously and apprehensively among themselves.
Finn said, “It wouldn’t be good to get left behind.”
They grabbed each other’s hands immediately, forming a circle. Willa took Finn’s right forearm, freeing his hand to reach down and press the button.
The world went dark.