Charlene hand-signaled Willa to stay put. Willa nodded her agreement, but Charlene knew it couldn’t be easy, since she was holding all her weight by only a few fingers and using her leg strength to clamp her feet to the pipe. Charlene gestured with her chin for Willa to flatten herself so she wouldn’t hang down so far. Willa nodded, lengthened her hold, and pulled herself up closer to the pipe.
Willa struggled to hold on, arching her back, straightening her legs. And then it happened: she fell. Her feet slipped off the pipe, swinging down. The momentum proved too much for her tired hands. She lost her grip, letting go of the pipe, falling feet first, and dropped. Charlene expected a splash, but amazingly, Willa landed on the barge and despite her claim of not being athletic, she hit with the grace of a gymnast—her toes, ankles, knees absorbing the shock so that she arrived on the deck of the barge with only the most minimal sound, a small thud, which might have been nothing more than a wave lapping against the side of the vessel, and might have been lessened too by her being in her DHI state. The pilot didn’t turn around or react in any way.
A terrified Willa met eyes with Charlene, already scurrying across the deck of the barge and looking for a hiding place. Charlene had the presence of mind to point toward France and Willa nodded. They would meet up there if at all possible.
Willa and the barge motored out into the lake, the darkness soon masking them. The sound of the boat motor faded. Charlene scampered across the pipe like a monkey and reached Jess.
“What do we do?” Jess said.
“What we came to do,” Charlene answered. “We don’t have a choice.”
“How do you people do this?” Jess said, her voice straining to confine her emotions.
“You’ll get used to it,” Charlene said. “After a while, you actually kind of crave it.”
* * *
Finn walked calmly and steadily across the short distance to the back wall of the gift shop. He forgot about Amanda, he forgot about Wayne; he pictured the light of the train in the tunnel, wheatgrass blowing in the wind, a sailboat on the water, all things tranquil and gentle.
His hands and feet tingled, the sensation spreading up and down to meet somewhere in the center of his chest, near his heart, from where he felt a wonderfully peaceful swell of satisfaction and pleasure.
He walked straight through the cinder block wall, through a desk and a chair, arriving in an office space at the back of the gift shop. The shelves were neatly stocked with boxes and plastic bags crammed with items to replace all those sold out front. There was a computer terminal on the desk, a stapler, a phone. A Disney picture calendar hung on the wall alongside several cartoons that had been cut from the newspaper and a newspaper column titled “No Glass Slippers for This Little Princess.” Post-its hung from everywhere like ornaments from a Christmas tree. Along the wall by the door was a steel cabinet taller than Finn divided in half by a big door on the left and two smaller doors on the right, the lowest of which bore the title: LOST AND FOUND.
Finn proudly approached the locker and tried the lever: locked. He jiggled it several times to no avail. Next, he tried the desk’s center drawer, hoping for the key to unlock the lost and found: locked. In fact, every desk drawer was locked. He searched for a nail or hook where the keys might have been hung or hidden: nothing.
He knew he could reach through the metal locker door, but to do so he would have to be in all-clear, while to touch and pick up the fob he would have to be out of his all-clear state. He couldn’t even imagine the pain of losing his all-clear state while his arm was divided by a piece of steel. Besides which, the fob had not crossed over with him—it would remain fully material whether in his hand or not. Only items the DHIs held in their hands or carried in a pocket when they went to sleep achieved the DHI state; the locker door would need to be opened so Finn could remove the fob.
But to make sure he had the right place, he kneeled on the floor, settled himself, and stuck his head through the door and into the locker. His DHI’s glow shone enough light for him to see several cell phones and cameras, a sweatshirt—and the small black fob. The Return. He backed out of the locker before his own frustration removed his all-clear state and the metal bit into his neck.
So close, he thought, wondering if there wasn’t something to be done. How could he just leave it there? He tried another search of the place, including sticking his face through the top of the desk—like looking into a pool from the edge—and he spotted a set of keys he was certain would open the locker.
But there was nothing to be done about it. Just as there was no way into the locker, there was no way in to the desk. The only way to retrieve the fob was to do so while the locker was unlocked and open. During business hours, when Epcot was operating.