Wanda parked in front of the costume department and led them inside. “You can probably pass as a Security guard,” she told Maybeck, who stood up taller, appreciating the comment. “That would get you inside as Finn told you he wanted. And you…” she said to Jess.
“I will be of the most help as close to the stage as possible. There’s at least a chance I’ll see something before it happens and be able to warn someone.”
“A stagehand,” Wanda said excitedly. “I can get you the headset and everything. It won’t be hooked up to anything, but no one will know that. You’ll look official, which is all that matters.”
“We can hook it up to one of our phones,” Maybeck said. “Philby can do that stuff.”
“As a stagehand, you’d have full access backstage,” Wanda said.
“We need to find the dressing room Maleficent uses.”
Maybeck said, “Amanda’s going to do that. Finn said so.”
“She’s going after the missing Cast Member,” Jess said.
“You are not going to take on the real one by yourself,” Maybeck said, trying to make his statement sound irrefutable.
Jess studied him thoughtfully. “Of course not. But the closer I can get to her—physically closer to the real one—the more likely I might be able to see her thoughts. Have a vision. Think about that, Donnie: what if I could find out what she was thinking? Planning? What if I could see her future? We’d be one step ahead of her from now on. How could she possibly win if we knew what she was going to do before she ever did it?”
Wanda looked deeply troubled. “You’re beginning to scare me,” she said.
“If it’s okay with you, we need you to get to Philby to figure out a phone for Jess,” Maybeck said. “And it would be great if you could manage to get me a Security radio—a real one.”
“What?”
“I need to be able to know what’s going on with them. Can you do that?”
“I can try, I guess.”
Jess looked at her with sympathetic eyes. “That’s all any of us can do.”
40
MRS. WHITMAN KNEW all the expressions: Be careful what you wish for. You can’t undo what’s already done. Had calmer heads prevailed, she might have considered the ramifications of her initial panic, might have thought through the effect her contacting the other parents would have, might have sat down with her husband and talked this through. But as it was, she’d considered nothing, reacting instead to a mother’s concern for the well-being of her son and believing she was acting in his best interests.
“An ambulance is taking our son to the hospital,” said Gladis Philby over the phone.
“But…”
“Listen,” Philby’s mother said. “I know we think we know what’s going on. I’ve heard the theories from the Imagineers, and I hope to God they’re right. Of course I do. But the fact is, college fund program or not, my son’s in a coma, and I can’t take any chances. If they disqualify him, take him out of the program, well, honestly, maybe that’s for the best as long as I get my son back. I can’t stand this anymore, to tell you the truth. I’m done with it.”
“But if the Imagineers are right,” Mrs. Whitman said, “then the doctors might just make matters worse. That’s why we’re keeping our Finn at home. You heard what Bess Morton, Donnie’s aunt, said about Donnie? She has been through this—she’s the only one who has been through this—and the fact of the matter is, Terrance just woke up at some point and climbed out of bed fit as a fiddle.”
“If you want to count on that…on the word of a…of an…artist,” she said with a good deal of disdain, “that is of course your prerogative. We have elected to put our faith in the doctors.”
“I want to do what’s right,” Mrs. Whitman said. “I was just hoping we, the parents, might approach this in a similar—”
“We are doing what we feel we need to do. If you are trying to pressure me into—”
“Not at all!” Mrs. Whitman said. “I’m not trying to pressure you into anything.”
“What if they should never come back?” Mrs. Philby said, her words choked. “I don’t accept all this nonsense our children have told us about dreaming and traveling…if you ask me, it’s…well, I can’t even say it. It’s horrible is what it is. The evil of our society. Where our children, our dear, precious children, could ever get hold of such things—”
“It is not what you think!” Mrs. Whitman gasped.