* * *
The new Keeper stateroom, 9603, was another unoccupied room that Storey Ming had found. An internal cabin, it had no windows to the water. But the Imagineers had once again outdone themselves: a high definition circular porthole on the wall played live video of the view as would be seen through any other stateroom window on the ninth deck. The result was a sense of the horizon and the weather; you didn’t feel like you were locked up in a windowless room.
But the cabin was small, and with the five Keepers crammed into it, smaller still. The two girls sat up against the bed’s headboard. Maybeck was stretched out sideways at their feet. Finn and Philby stood. Amanda’s hologram sat on the floor by a recycling can. Mattie Weaver sat on a plastic trash basket turned upside down. She looked uncomfortable, knowing only Amanda well.
“I know where he’s hiding,” Mattie said, speaking of Luowski. “And I know what he was told to do.”
“You see their memories.” Professor Philby studied her like she was something under a microscope for him to pick apart with stainless steel probes.
“Their thoughts, sometimes their feelings. I get glimpses, because some people think visually. I get pictures in my head.”
“Like Jess,” Willa said.
“Except she sees the future. Not me. I suppose I see the past some, but mostly it’s the present thought, I think. I don’t know exactly. I get feelings. A sense of things.”
“And what about Luowski?” Finn shifted foot to foot like a runner getting ready for a race. Nerves.
“Turmoil. Worry. Concern. He’s horribly conflicted. If I touch someone who’s happy, I’m happy. When I touched him I nearly passed out. He’s this angry jumble of mixed-up emotions. He is to get one of you for them.”
“The sacrifice,” Finn said.
“Who?” Willa barely got the word out.
Mattie shook her head. “He doesn’t know, but he knows it means death. A horrible death. He sees a knife dripping with blood.”
Silence, followed by Maybeck. “The hyena killing.”
“I don’t see the past,” Mattie reminded them all. “He fears that knife. The blood. He’s terrified. He was out there on the deck, but none of his attention was on the celebration. He’s worried, for himself, and for one of you.”
“Sacrifice,” Philby repeated, making it sound like a homework assignment. He said to Willa: “The journal.”
Finn addressed Amanda’s hologram. “Jess’s drawings.”
Amanda met eyes with him but said nothing. She looked frightened.
Mattie said, “The guy is haunted.”
“Think how we feel!” Maybeck said. Everyone but Philby laughed.
“Any images?” Philby asked.
“There were metal stairs. Darkness. But I wouldn’t put too much into it.”
“We have to protect Charlene,” Maybeck said.
“And Willa,” Philby added. “It’s girls they want. Willa, you said so.”
“That was fifteen hundred years ago, FYI.” Willa contemplated the gathering. “It could be any of us.”
“I think he’s afraid it may be him,” Mattie said, winning their attention. “That he betrayed them somehow.”
“When he warned us,” Maybeck said, reminding Finn again.
“Could be,” Finn said. “If Maleficent found out—”
“That other guy was there,” Maybeck reminded them.
“Dixon.”
“And he’s a total zombie,” Charlene said. “He was one of the stagehands Willa and I ran into.”
Philby waited for the resulting chatting to settle down. He addressed Mattie. “Can you make contact with him again?”
Mattie said, “Some people sense when they’re touched. It’s like when you go cold all of a sudden for no reason. Luowski felt me doing it.” She looked first at Philby, then the others. “The more times it’s done, the more the person can sense it. I’m basically stealing their thoughts. They feel it.”
“And Luowski knew,” Willa said. “Could that have been what he was afraid of?”
“I don’t think so,” Mattie said. “It’s possible, I suppose.”
Finn withdrew the printout of Amanda’s e-mail and passed it to Mattie. “Did you ‘see’ anything like this?” He passed it to Mattie.
“No. But as I’ve said, I don’t see the future the way Jess does.”
“We thought it was Aruba,” Finn told her. “Even though it came a little late.”
“It doesn’t look like a cave,” Mattie said of the drawing. “More like a tunnel. The walls are straight and smooth.”