Kingdom Keepers V (9781423153429) (13 page)

O
n an unseasonably cold spring night, a small basement window at ground level popped open, filling the girl's nostrils with salt air. The house was not actually a house at all, but a former army barracks. This was the only window in the complex rigged to avoid sounding the alarm. Months earlier, a magnet that mated with a wired sensor had been carefully removed from the window frame and secretly taped to its wired counterpart. Normally, if the window were opened, the magnetic field between the two magnets would be broken and the alarm would sound. Rigged as it was, the magnetic connection remained intact. The window could be opened and closed at will.

The girls of Barracks 14, ranging in age from eight to eighteen, used this window to come and go without being noticed. Sometimes departures facilitated food runs or attempts to contact family. Sometimes it was to try to find a boyfriend or girlfriend. Sometimes, like tonight, it was for something much more risky.

The girl climbing out, Mattie Weaver, was embarking on a quest that might, with any luck, take her away from this place forever. If caught, she wasn't sure of the consequences. She was only sure of one thing: that when a friend calls needing a favor, and that favor can be accomplished without physically hurting someone, it's a friend's duty to respond. It was part of the code of Barracks 14. Just as she assumed it was at the half dozen other barracks on the abandoned military base—although she rarely, if ever, got the chance to talk to any of those kids.

She crawled out and pulled the half-window carefully shut behind her. Tera Bergstrom had promised to close the window by morning. The window was valuable to everyone in 14. Mattie couldn't go wrecking it for others by doing anything stupid.

She lay in the damp grass for an impossibly long time, chilled to the bone by the time she dared raise to her knees.

She stood and ran. Building to building.

The gate would be guarded, but if her information was accurate there was a place to crawl under the fence by Building 7.

She moved in that direction as carefully as she'd ever moved.

I
n the glow of warm sunshine, a magnificent vessel rose fifteen stories from the water's blue surface, towering over the four-acre cruise terminal. A combination of rich black, vivid red, and royal blues, the ship glistened and sparkled like an unwrapped gift.

Inside the terminal, the pulse of excitement rippled through the thousands of Disney enthusiasts, young and old, who were waiting to board. Reporters and film crews worked through the massive crowd interviewing and photographing those lucky enough to be on the
Disney
Dream
's Panama Canal passage. The
Dream
was to be the first commercial cruise ship to pass through the upgraded Panama Canal.

“So tell us what it's like,” a Spanish-speaking reporter asked a young couple who appeared surprised by the television camera shoved in their faces.

“Incredible!” the man answered in Spanish.

“What makes this trip so special, other than it's Disney?” the reporter asked.

“We are to be on the first ship to cross through the new locks of the Panama Canal,” the man answered. “The very first ship. Such an honor! It is history we are making.”

“Did you know the
Disney Dream
was chosen out of seventy vessels that were submitted to be the first through the new canal?”

“No, but it does not surprise me the
Dream
was chosen. This is good. The family. Everything Disney stands for.”

“Was it difficult to get tickets?” the reporter asked.

“Are you kidding? It was a lottery. This is the only way. I heard over ten thousand people applied.”

“Fifteen thousand, yes. And you were among those chosen. How does that make you feel?”

“We are blessed,” the young woman said. “We feel very blessed.”

The reporter thanked them and started to move on. The man being interviewed asked for and took a photo of his wife with the reporter. Others pushed forward trying to get on TV.

Smartly dressed Cast Members passed through the crowd offering bottled water and thanking the waiting passengers for their patience as preparations were made for boarding. At the entrance to the gangway, hundreds were cordoned off behind crowd tape, cheering for the parade of Disney celebrities and VIPs currently boarding as cameras flashed and names were called out. Among them were Disney Channel stars, film actors, Radio Disney hosts, pop stars, and five teenagers known as Disney Hosts Interactive.

Finn, Maybeck, Philby, Charlene, and Willa waved to their fans and smiled for the cameras. Among the many highlights of the inaugural passage was the introduction of the shipboard Kingdom Keeper Quest, a scavenger hunt that had been wildly successful in the Magic Kingdom and was being unveiled aboard the
Dream
for the first time. The only major concern for the Keepers was that the Quest included Cast Members playing the parts of Overtakers. For the first time, Maleficent, Emperor Zurg, the Evil Queen, Cruella, and Chernabog would all be represented on board. The villains followed the Keepers as part of the grand entrance. The crowd jeered and booed them. Maleficent stuck her tongue out and everyone laughed.

Everyone but the Keepers.

“Hey, isn't that—?” Willa said, nudging Finn and pointing to the VIP waiting area.

Finn rose on his toes, but couldn't see anyone familiar. The villains continued forward, forcing the Keepers to present their key cards at the electronic readers at the final check-in.

“What? Who?” he asked.

“Never mind,” Willa said.

“Tell me.”

“It's just…it looked like your mother to me.”

Finn jumped high, trying to get a look, but the angle was wrong. He saw nothing but the adoring crowd held back by the tape. His mother was supposed to accompany him; every Keeper was required to be in the company of a parent or guardian. Wayne was supposed to have rigged the system so that Finn would have a connecting stateroom to Philby and his mother. Supposedly his mother would soon discover she was electronically blocked from boarding. Wayne was to erase her from the ship's manifest. “If it is,” Finn said, “she's in for a surprise.”

He wanted to see her, to get close enough to see if her eyes were still green. If the spell had passed, she would be a useful ally for the next two weeks. He held his card near the reader. The machine beeped and a red light flashed.

The Cast Member maintained a smile as he studied a computer screen, a practiced performance. He tried Finn's key card himself. It flashed red. The man worked the keyboard.

“I show a Mrs. Whitman accompanying you,” he said. “You're traveling with your mother, correct?”

“I…ah…there should be a note in my file,” Finn said, recalling what Wayne had told him about the updated arrangements.

The man waved Finn out of the line. The Keepers' VIP guide moved to the Cast Member's side as the others were processed through the entrance, their key cards registering green.

Finn was beginning to dislike that color.

The guide whispered to the Cast Member. She opened an iPad and began navigating.

Finn heard the man say, “The DHIs? I'm so sorry!”

The two whispered back and forth, the guide clearly pushing Finn's celebrity status. But the Cast Member was clearly a by-the-rules man. Despite his curious glances in Finn's direction, the grins he offered, his fingers never stopped dancing on the keyboard.

“There was a flag in the record…” the man said. “I can see that. But whatever note was there appears to have been deleted.”

The woman offered her iPad and the Cast Member read from it. He looked up at Finn. Back to the iPad.

“You see the signature,” the guide prodded.

“Indeed,” he said, his brow furrowing.

“I can try to call him directly if you like.”

The Cast Member clearly didn't want anything to do with such a call. Meanwhile, another fifty people had passed through the checkpoint. The other Keepers were long gone, onto the ship. Finn was anxious to get aboard.

A few more keystrokes and the Cast Member told the guide, “Very well. I have him with the Philby family in a connecting room. If you would please email that document to me, I will attach it to his record and everything should be okay.” He looked up at Finn with a bright face. “Just one minute and you're all set to go, young man.”

“Thank you,” Finn said behind a grimace. He rose to his toes again and looked back. He didn't see anyone looking anything like his mother. And that worried him. He hurried to catch up with Philby.

* * *

“That ain't right,” the sailor said from the boatswain's chair, hanging by a pair of ropes from the overhead deck like a window washer. He was repainting the
Dream
's freshly painted hull where some debris carried by high seas had (barely) scratched the hull's glossy surface. The man next to him, also slung from the deck, was in fact the window washer.

“Don't get your BVDs in a twist about it.”

“Since when do characters board the ship in costume?”

“Since today.”

“You're a real jerk.”

“And you're paranoid.”

“I don't even know what that means.”

“It means it's a maiden voyage. The first ship through the new canal. Are you kidding me? It means the rules change. Everything changes. If the Wicked Witch of the East wants to board in costume, what's the rub?”

“That wasn't the Wicked Witch of the East, cauliflower for brains, it was Maleficent. And the Evil Queen. And Cruella. And Jafar. Judge Frollo. If the passage is so special, why all the villains?”

“They've changed up every single show. You heard that. Or you read it. If you can read, that is.”

“Stuff it.”

“I'm just saying: it's been on the bulletin board on I-95 for the past week or something.” I-95 was the main hallway connecting the crew quarters with administration offices and backstage staircases to all parts of the ship. For crew members and Cast Members alike it was similar to Main Street of a very small town and was off limits to paying passengers.

“Not the part about villains boarding in costume.”

“Will you get over that?”

The man finished his last stroke of touch-up, the paint baking in the afternoon sunshine. To look down the length of the vessel from this vantage point was to fully comprehend the vast size of the ship. It wasn't simply big, it was huge. Monstrous. How so many thousands of tons of steel and iron could be made to float was beyond him; he confined his thinking to the sanding and the application of paint.

As the worker admired his effort, a group of stage actors arrived at the Cast Member–only gangway directly beneath the man, near the bow of the ship. At the tail end of this line were four younger actors, one of whom was wide-shouldered, thick at the neck, and wore his hair cut military short. Easily mistaken for being several years older than he was. The first of these kids swiped his key card in front of the electronic reader.

The console beeped and a light turned red.

“Just a minute,” the security Cast Member, a young Asian woman, said. “This thing's been acting up today.” She typed on the keyboard. “Try it again.”

The boy moved his card slowly in front of the reader. The red light flashed, but there was no warning beep this time.

“Perfect,” the woman said. “Welcome aboard.” She looked up at the actor through vivid green eyes. The same color eyes looked back at her. The two smiled nearly simultaneously.

One by one the security woman processed the next three, each key card sounding a warning beep and flashing a red light. One by one the “problems” were taken care of, and the arrivals were processed into the system.

Two of the four wore sunglasses until well within the ship. This, because it was strange enough that the other two had eyes the exact same color of green. Four kids with unusual green eyes, especially moving around in a group, were certain to attract attention.

And they couldn't have that. Their job was to blend in.

* * *

“The
Dream
welcomes aboard,” came the amplified voice of the Cast Member who stood just inside the ship, “the Philby family!” There was a small smattering of applause from other Cast Members. Chip and Dale jumped for joy and clapped their paws—as they did for every arriving family. The other Keepers had arrived ahead of Philby and Finn and were already standing beneath the spectacular chandelier that hung from the ceiling of the three-story lobby. The expansive, gilded area was a statement of grandeur. It told you this was indeed a magical ship and that you had entered a world where every girl was a princess and every boy a prince. Crew members, neatly turned out in crisply starched white uniforms, stood straight-backed, welcoming arrivals. Far across the marble-tiled floor, oversize porthole windows offered a glimpse of water and the industrialized shore beyond, as if a reminder you were not on land. For it was impossible—
impossible
—that such a lobby, with its ornate trim, balconies, portraits of princesses, stairs leading to a dining room, and four glass elevators rising and falling, could possibly be at sea and not on land.

“Whoa,” said Maybeck, rarely one to be impressed by anything other than himself.

“Yes,” said Philby, “a feat of engineering.”

“Really?” said Charlene. “Is that all you've got? Engineering?”

He said, “The exoskeletons of the elevator shafts must serve as—”

Willa touched Philby's arm as the others turned to shut him up. “Maybe later,” she whispered. “I'd love to figure out the structural support system with you.”

Philby said, “I can handle it.” He leaned back to study the ceiling. He moved toward the elevators. The others followed.

Finn continued to listen for any welcome announcement that included his own last name, fearing his mother might actually attempt to board. He reminded himself that Wayne had taken care of it, had invalidated her ticket, but unlike other Wayne promises, Finn did not trust this particular one. Ursula's surprising Triton; the rescue dummies searching for Finn after he'd been in Typhoon Lagoon for only minutes; his mother's green eyes—all these things filled him with a sense of unease. Unlike the other guests boarding, he did not view the ship as an escape from regular life, but as a trap. Once the gangways were removed, the doors sealed, the lines gathered, and the ship set sail there was no getting off.

“We have work to do,” Philby reminded softly over Finn's shoulder as they boarded the oval-shaped elevator with Philby's mother. “While the crew is distracted.”

“I'm with you,” Finn said. “But what about…?” He glanced toward Mrs. Philby.

“Leave her to me,” Philby said.

They arrived at the Deck 11 concierge staterooms, having had no idea they were to be treated as VIPs. Here, beyond a gated entrance that kept these staterooms private, they walked down a walnut-paneled hallway on thick carpet bearing nautical patterns mixed in with hidden Mickeys. Mrs. Philby unlocked and pushed open the stateroom door and gasped audibly. Finn's room was next door. His eyes bulged as he saw inside.