It was true. Everything around them was concrete or stone, storing or reflecting the intense afternoon heat. Any drop in temperature could only be explained by something man-made or unnatural.
The Land was housed in an inelegant glass-and-concrete structure with a huge sign bearing its name. As the girls approached it, they walked slowly, trying to sense a change in temperature. Jess monitored her watch carefully.
“Nothing but hot,” Jess said.
“Personally, I think this is hopeless,” Amanda said. “I mean I know Finn and those guys have felt a chill before, but you’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Any other ideas?”
“No. That’s the thing, I guess. Finn is super-close to Wayne. His being missing is eating him up. We’ve got to do something, but I’m not sure there’s any point to—” Amanda turned because Jess had stopped walking. “Sis?” she said, using a favorite nickname.
Jessica stood there staring into space. She looked as if she was studying the sign on the building, but Amanda knew something was wrong. She hurried back to her.
“Sis?”
“I don’t want to lose it,” Jess said.
Amanda was about to say something when she thought better of it. Her “sister” was a rare and unusual creature herself; her gift of “sight” made her different in the same way that Amanda’s own gifts separated her from others. In this way neither of them felt that she belonged, which only solidified their friendship and their bond. Amanda knew better than to speak. She knew it intuitively without needing to be told. She took Jess gently by the arm and steered her toward a concrete bench. At the same time, her concern for their safety told her to search for any security cameras in the area; in the Magic Kingdom, Finn had believed some of the security people worked in concert with the Overtakers.
Again, she was about to speak; again, she controlled herself.
“Pencil,” Jess said. She sounded sleepy. “Something to write on.”
Amanda dug through her purse. No pen, no paper, but she found some mascara. She slipped Jess’s purse off her shoulder and rifled through it as well. She came up with a Winn-Dixie receipt. She put the mascara brush into Jess’s right hand and the receipt onto her leg and steered Jess’s hand to the receipt.
“Okay.” She spoke softly.
Jess had that faraway look going. But her hand began to move, and the mascara brush smeared black onto the receipt. It was no good: her effort was illegible. Amanda frantically dug through Jess’s purse. In a zippered pocket she found a stumpy wooden pencil. She replaced the mascara with the pencil. Jess’s hand began to scribble again.
She shaded and crosshatched, making the receipt darker. Then she pressed hard and wrote several letters, making them fat and black.
MKPFP IFP
Amanda looked up. Later, she wouldn’t be sure exactly why she did this. Had something instinctive told her to do so, or had it been only coincidence? These kinds of questions pestered her lately, the reasons behind events, the power of intuition and thought and what role fate played in her life and the lives of others. She didn’t mention any of this to anyone—not even Jess. It was “heavy,” deep stuff—and she was afraid she’d be teased for thinking about such things—but she lay awake at night considering the connection of her life to the lives of others, what her life might have been like had she not been orphaned, what it would mean for her and Jess to be sent back to the Fairlies, whether Finn liked her as more than a friend, where she was going to be in another three years when she turned eighteen and the foster-care system released her.
She spotted a green balloon coming toward her. Carried high above the heads of the guests pouring in to The Land, it bounced with the movement of the person carrying it.
Finn? If so, they had no time to hang out on a bench.
“We’ve got to get going,” she said to Jess, whose hand suddenly went rigid as she stopped writing. She blinked.
“Jess!” Amanda continued. “The balloon. Finn. The woman. We can’t stay here.”
Jess looked over at Amanda, then took in her surroundings. “Whoa,” she gasped. She looked down at the receipt as if seeing it for the first time. “What’s going—?”
“Now!” Amanda said, grabbing the pencil and receipt and stuffing them into her purse.
The green balloon wasn’t traveling at the speed of the other guests, but much faster. She knew it was Finn. She knew it meant trouble was coming toward them as quickly as the balloon.
She pulled Jess to her feet. “You okay?”
“Yes. Fine.”
They started toward The Land.
“It was like…one of my dreams,” Jess explained.