Power Play (34 page)

Step by step, his back to the opposite wall of the hallway, Philby edged into and through the patch of yellow light. He was right out where his mother could have seen him, but she never raised her head. At last—it seemed like several minutes—he was back into shadow and out of her sight.

He made it to the study door, and turned the handle incredibly gently to avoid her hearing.

Locked!

He didn’t know the door could be locked. He stared at it in disbelief.

“Not a chance,” she said.

He startled and nearly screamed. Didn’t dare turn around, but finally gathered the courage. She was in her pajamas, her reading glasses perched on the bridge of her nose.

“That you would even try this is such a disappointment. What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking of my friends. I’m thinking of that time I was caught in the Syndrome and how awful it was on you and Dad. The hospital. Nothing working. They are
counting
on me.” He was a grown boy, he reminded himself, fighting back the tears. Embarrassed by them. “Do you know what that feels like?”

“I think I might have a slight idea. Do you have any idea what it’s like to be a mother? To love another so, so much that you can’t breathe?”

“I cannot let them down. I
will not
let them down. I don’t care what the consequences are. It has nothing to do with Disney. Nothing to do with magic or entertainment. It’s about friendship, Mom. It’s about being reliable and responsible and all the stuff you and Dad preach but never let me live.”

He watched her nostrils flare, which was not a good sign. Most times, that was the signal the time bomb was ticking. But her eyes glassed over and her lips trembled and she moved toward him.

“You’re such a good boy,” she said, her arms outstretched. “I am so proud of you.”

“You…what?”

She embraced him in a way he’d never felt before. More than a hug. It felt like she might never let go.

“You’re so grown-up.”

“Mom?”

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I was only thinking of myself. It makes me…I get so scared for you and the others. I never want to lose you. I’d never, ever, forgive myself.”

“But that’s exactly—”

“Yes,” she said. “I know. I understand.”

“You do? Seriously?”

“I want to help. I want to know everything.
Everything
, you understand?”

He nodded.

“Go on. Do whatever it is you need to do. I’ll be along in a minute. I want to turn off the light so we don’t wake your father.”

* * *

“How’s it going?”

Jeannie Puckett’s grating voice. Jess had nodded off while sitting with her back to the wall next to the bunk bed. She blinked repeatedly while orienting herself. She immediately realized the impact of the dream she’d just been
living
. She reached for her diary.

“Give me a few minutes,” she said, her pen already at work.

She drew the picture in her head, allowing it to flow out of her hand rather than force it onto the page. It was almost as if the pen were alive and she was there only to keep it upright. Something miraculous transpired between her hand and the paper, a power far beyond anything she would lay claim to.

Lines appeared, like a gate or maybe the teeth of a comb. Shadows. Behind the teeth of the comb were bookshelves, or perhaps a bench. The pen kept moving. Jess looked for what was there, what was coming. A box—no, a window—in the center of the wall between the bookshelves. Or were the bookshelves church pews? Was the window really a frame hanging on the wall? Not bookshelves at all, but a cot or a bunk. A priest laying on the bunk. No, a woman. A bench on the floor between the bunks. They
were
bunks. Not a comb, but prison bars.

Her pen stopped. The woman sat up from the bunk and stood and crossed the far corner of the jail cell standing in the corner.

Jess tried to quickly sketch the woman in four postures—sitting, standing, crossing the room, standing in the far corner.

A woman in robes.

Maleficent
. Smirking, but quickly losing it so that her emotions were unreadable.

The smirk lingered in Jess’s mind. She tried to sketch it. Couldn’t get it right.

Something else…something bothering her. Something about the way Maleficent had crossed the cell. What was it?

“Look at that!” It was Jeannie again.

It broke the moment. The images on the diary page were static again. Fixed. Unmoving. Jess worked to finish what little she could envision. She would have to get it to Philby by e-mail—and e-mail was a risk in Mrs. Nash’s house, like everything else that could possibly be fun.

Jeannie rushed to Amanda’s side. “LOOK AT THAT! What’s it mean?”

Jess collected herself and looked up.

Amanda’s arms were still by her side but her hands had moved, palms toward the foot of the bed. They were jerking ever so slightly like a crossing guard signaling a stop on the corner.

“She hasn’t done anything like this. Right? This is like totally new. Right? So what’s it mean?” Jeannie asked.

Jess shook her head.

“I have no idea,” she said. But in fact, she had a pretty good idea. She’d seen Amanda do that before. She’d even worked with Amanda so she could learn how to control it.

* * *

Standing twenty feet down in the mine, palms outstretched, Amanda scooped the air as if cupping water, and then threw her arms forward and pushed the water out in front of her as the alligators entered.

They lifted off the ground, their feet paddling the air. She pushed again, and the already levitated alligators sailed out of the mine tunnel.

“Come, boy!” she heard Finn cry out.

Pluto had been caught in the push as well. He’d traveled about ten feet and had fallen, sprawled on all fours.

“Run!” Finn cried.

The mine shaft angled sharply left. The alligators had recovered quickly, now only a few feet behind Pluto, who trailed Amanda.

“Go! Go! Go!” Finn shouted.

The tunnel straightened out but the floor tipped left, off level.

Amanda tripped. Finn stopped and turned to help her up.

SNAP!
An alligator’s jaw nearly caught his foot.

Amanda spun and pushed.

The alligator lifted and flew like it had been caught by a hurricane. It collided with the others. Three white bellies flashed in the dark, rocketing away from the two kids.

With one final turn, they reached the mouth of the mine shaft and popped outside.

“You go uphill,” Finn said. “Hide up there. I’ll meet you.” He turned and ran. Looking back, seeing her hesitate, he said, “Up!”

Amanda turned around and started climbing up a rocky incline.

Finn, with Pluto briefly by his side, hurried along the path, only a matter of yards from Huck’s Landing. Pluto, seeming to understand their role, held back, waiting for the alligators.

Finn reached Minnie and the raft, already pushing her off as he explained, “Head across to the other side and wait for our signal. We need to trick the alligators!”

Minnie nodded and threw a lever forward. The raft began to pull away.

Finn ducked back up the path past Potter’s Mill, looking down in time to see Pluto flying through the air and just catching the raft with his front paws. Minnie lunged and pulled him on board.

The three alligators didn’t hesitate for a second. With the raft motoring away, they slithered into the dark waters and were gone, lost in swirling flashes of green, scaly tails.

* * *

The boy in the chair of the power plant control room spun around, and Charlene nearly shrieked with what she saw. This was no Disney villain. It was just a boy. A regular teenage boy, if you discounted the shimmering green outline that contained him. By the look of him, based on Philby’s description, she already knew his name: Hugo Montcliff.

The scope and ramifications of what she saw so overwhelmed her that she intentionally avoided thinking about it. On the one hand, this felt like the end of the world; on the other, Maybeck had been captured and there was no time to contemplate what it all meant for the Keepers.

Hugo was in the control room, throwing switches and spinning dials. He barked out an order, sounding like a grown-up.

“Not yet, sonny! Hold off a minute!” With a sweep of her hand, the Evil Queen, outside the control room, transfigured the three blue jays into gorillas. They stood well over five feet tall and were pure muscle and teeth. They obeyed her command—“Bring him to me!”—springing into action and surrounding Maybeck.

Charlene searched for something—anything—resembling a weapon: a hose; a steam valve? There had to be some way to help Maybeck.

Hugo called out again. The sound generated by the machinery altered pitch, groaning lower. Charlene felt it in her teeth.

The holograms, including her own, sputtered and dimmed. Red lights flashed on the wall like those from a police car.

Charlene moved closer, now near enough to see through the Queen, almost like an X-ray. In the Queen’s translucent right hand, she held the fob—the Return. The device appeared solid, seemingly unaffected by the loss of electric power.

“I said not yet!” The Queen appeared ready to throw a spell at Hugo, if he wasn’t already under the effect of one.

Hugo made adjustments, and the pitch in the room climbed higher. The red lights stopped flashing. The holograms and their outlines returned.

But by the time the DHIs strengthened, two things occurred: first, Maybeck used the moment of his faded image to slip past the gorillas, who no longer had hold of him; second, Charlene stepped out from behind the pipe and picked up a shining stainless steel sheet, part of a metal box connected to the turbines. She held it behind her like a surprise gift and moved bravely toward the Queen, who turned in her direction at the last second.

Maybeck vanished into the machinery. The gorillas appeared dumbfounded; to them it was like he was suddenly invisible.

Just as the Queen raised her hand to throw a spell while saying, “Well, what do we have here?” Charlene pulled the stainless steel panel from behind her back and held it up like a mirror in front of the Queen’s face.

“Oh…my…what a beautiful, beautiful face that is.” The Queen reached out to vainly take the mirror and, as she did, loosened her hold on the fob.

Like a magician or pickpocket, Charlene swept the fob out of the Queen’s hand, replacing it with the edge of the mirror, and pocketed the fob.

Maybeck appeared from behind her, grabbed her arm, dragging her into the control room. He closed and locked the door.

“We can’t allow them to kill the power,” he said. “I just realized what they’re trying to do.”

* * *

Just as Finn caught up to Amanda, he lost her: she shimmered, sputtered, and disappeared. As quickly as she’d vanished, she reappeared.

“That was so weird,” she said. “You just kind of broke up and disappeared.”

“You, too,” he said, holding his hands in front of his face. “They look okay now.”

“Very strange.” She reached out and pulled him down hard, behind a rock. “Careful,” she said, pointing. “Another pirate. This side of Superstition Bridge.”

“What was that about?” Finn said. “What just happened?”

“The projectors?” Amanda said.

“I guess. Or maybe Philby tried to Return us, but we’re too far from the hub so it didn’t work.”

“Might be.”

“Never seen anything like it.

“The pirate’s significant,” he said, turning back to the issue at hand. “Too many of these guys, too much going on for it not to mean something.”

“I agree.”

“The fort,” he said.

She nodded.

“You don’t have to go with me.”

“I want to,” Amanda said.

“It could be…it’s probably dangerous.”

“I know that.” She paused. “Two is better than one.”

“Isn’t that a song?”

“Shut up.”

“We don’t know what we’ll find. It could be nothing,” he said.

“You don’t believe that.”

“No.”

“Then don’t say it.”

“Aye, aye,” said Finn.

“It’s just…” She sounded frustrated. “We both know this is it. A fort? How perfect is that? A remote fort at that, and on an island? Give me a break! You guys should have figured this out a long time ago.”

“We were close. We just didn’t know it. We didn’t figure it out.”

“Stitch,” she said, remembering the story.

“Yes.” He considered this a moment. “The thing is…I like Stitch. Stitch is cute. Mischievous, but cute. I could never quite see him looking so mean and chasing me and Maybeck like that. But now, I’m thinking: spell. I’m thinking the Evil Queen can make us do just about anything she wants. Cute or not. Look at what’s happened to Luowski and the others! She feeds off people’s ambitions and desires.”

“Makes sense to me.” Amanda sneaked a peek around the rock. “How are we going to do this? Alligator-infested water. A pirate the size of the front door of Mrs. Nash’s house.”

“How are you and your arms doing?” he asked, knowing that each push weakened and tired her.

“It’s pretty lame when I’m a DHI. Not much push to the push. But I can try.”

“There are rocks down there,” he said. “If he hit his head on the rocks, it wouldn’t bother me one bit. Better than into the water where he’d make a lot of noise.”

“So we want to come at him from over there,” she said, pointing to the right of the bridge.

“We want you to,” Finn said. “Me, maybe not so much.”

They quickly worked out the details of their attack. Amanda waited as Finn crept down the hill and came at the pirate from straightaway.

“You there!” the pirate called out. He snatched an ancient pistol from his belt.

Guns? Finn thought, wondering if it was from a gift shop or for real, and having no great desire to find out.

“You take another step,” the pirate said, “and you’ll eat lead, palsy-walsy.”

Only then did the pirate’s head swivel as he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. Before he ever saw Amanda, he was airborne. The pirate crashed into an outcropping of rock and did not move. For about ten seconds.

Before Amanda could ask, “Is he…dead?” the pirate was twitching and reaching for his head.