The Return: Disney Lands (4 page)

“Thank you!” she said. “To activate my guide services, please say, ‘Hello, Charlene.’ To deactivate, please say, ‘Good-bye, Charlene.’”

“Good-bye, Charlene.”

“Good-bye!”

Maybeck repeated the same lines, word for word.

“Good-bye, Terry.”

“Good-bye.”

“That was actually kind of amazing,”
said the thin man.

“Kresky invented all sorts of stuff back in the late fifties and sixties.”

“Did he get the patterns for them?”

“Patents, you moron! You mean patents! I heard he got burned. The whole company did. Disney could have made a fortune. Instead, some television company got everything.”

“Can you imagine inventing color TV?”

“You couldn’t invent the fork if it was
on your plate,” the Brit said.

“Let’s get out of here. These things give me the creeps.”

The two guards reached the door. The thin man took one last look at Charlene. “She is some kind of pretty,” he said.

“You are nothing short of weird!”

They left, locking the door behind them. After a moment, Maybeck and Charlene stepped out of their cabinets and into the room.

“She is some
kind of pretty,” Maybeck said, laughing.

“Shut
up
!”

“What they were saying about Wayne’s inventions…We’d know if any of that was true, right?”

“No clue. I was a model for a DHI, Terry, not a Disney historian. I’m not even a Kingdom Keeper. Not anymore. Philby might know stuff like that. Or Willa. Honestly, I don’t
care.”

“Don’t care, or won’t care?”

“Look. You find a piece
of metal in a drawer, and you tell Philby Wayne was making custom music discs? All that does is fuel Finn’s madness.”

“We found a connection that makes Finn look a lot less mad than we thought.”

“I can’t go back, Terry. I have to go forward. I’m a fish with gills, a motorcycle, a bird—I don’t do backward.”

“We’ve been treating him like dirt,” Maybeck said. “He’s our friend. He doesn’t
deserve that.”

Charlene’s hologram couldn’t cry—that particular emotion had never been modeled. But her face bunched up, and her eyes squinted. “Oh, Terry! I’m soooo happy to hear
you say that.” Her voice, too, sounded heavy with tears. “I knew you had feelings in there somewhere! I just knew you could show them!”

“You’re mocking me!” Maybeck moved to the phone by Wayne’s chair, ready
to call Philby and give his report.

“Look. You’re going to have to choose whether you have feelings for me or for Finn. The past or the future.”

“Can’t I have both?” Maybeck said, angry now.

Charlene didn’t answer. She moved toward the door and stepped through it, leaving Maybeck alone with the phone in his hand.

T
HE PHONE RANG INSIDE
Walt’s apartment.
Finn snatched it out of its cradle. It was Philby.

“Are you insane?” Finn barked. “Someone could hear!”

Breathless, Philby told him about Maybeck’s discovery. “That unmarked disc in the music box means something, Finn. The music it plays…We know now that Wayne left that unmarked
one that plays the circus tune for us—for you—just like you were saying.”

Finn found it hard to breathe.
To speak. To think.
Vindicated!

“‘Match the music to its source,’” Philby repeated. “Let’s start there. Stay on the phone and play the music box again.”

“Stand by.”

Finn’s excitement took him in and out of all clear 1.6—the state of pure hologram. He switched out the music box discs, storing the national anthem, and playing instead the unmarked
disc they’d originally found on the
machine. The circus music.

Philby told Finn to hold the phone up to the music box. After thirty seconds he heard Philby calling across the phone.

Finn brought the receiver back to his ear.

“I Shazamed it,” Philby said. “I
matched
it, like Wayne said to do. It comes up as ‘Guinevere’s Enchantment,’ copyright Walt Disney
Company.”

“Guinevere, as in King Arthur Carrousel,” Philby
said.

“So I start there: King Arthur Carrousel?”

“He said ‘a Christmas horse,’ so the carousel makes sense. Maybe I can search that.”

“You’re as excited as I am. I can hear it in your voice.”

“Don’t let it go to your head, Finn.”

“Maybeck and Charlene helped us out.” The act of group participation was maybe better than anything.

“They did. But I’m not sure they will again.
We’re all moving on.”

“You keep saying that.”

“Because it’s the truth.”

“‘Ride the tune,’” Finn murmured.

“How long will that music box play when you wind it up?”

“No idea. Pretty long, I think. Long enough to play the whole disc.”

“If you’re going to ‘ride the tune,’ then I think you’re going to have to make it to the carousel while the box is still playing that music.”

“I can do that.”

“You have to find the Christmas horse.”

“Trickier.”

“And ride it before the music stops back in Walt’s apartment.”

The boys argued briefly about how long Finn could go without making a check-in call. Philby agreed on a thirty-minute window. Breathless, Finn hurried down an empty Main Street USA, staying in
shadow, the faint blue outline from his hologram glowing
like a firefly’s tail.

Sensing something overhead, he ducked into the Main Street Cinema entrance, peering upward at the night sky. He spotted a smoky shadow against the haze of clouds and froze, unable to forget his
encounter six months earlier with a pack of vicious wraiths at the Disney Studios. He couldn’t be sure he’d spotted a wraith patrol; he knew the Keepers wouldn’t believe him
if he
said he had. The presence of wraiths would confirm the continued existence of the Overtakers, something no one, not even Finn, would wish upon the Kingdom.

Finn convinced himself that what he’d seen could have been anything.

But as he continued forward past the castle, his attention remained as much on the sky as his surroundings. He liked to think he’d developed a sixth sense
when it came to the
Overtakers.

If he was right, that sense had just kicked in.

Approaching King Arthur Carrousel, Finn took shelter behind the Sword and the Stone rock.

If he hadn’t been a DHI for a number of years, he might not have believed his eyes.

King Arthur Carrousel
was moving
, and
the same melody
from Walt’s music box filled the air. As Philby had said, it wasn’t the
usual one-man-band cymbal crashing,
merry-go-round music that played on the ride, but the more circus-sounding tune from Walt’s music box.

The park was closed; all the other attractions shut down. Finn surveyed his surroundings for any sign of Overtakers. The sky was empty of disturbing shadows; he detected no movement nearby.
Taking a deep breath, he ran and jumped onto the moving carousel.

Slipping through the herd of white horses, Finn looked for anything that screamed
Christmas
. The steeds were adorned in green or red highlights, gold bridles, colorful saddle blankets.
He walked against the rotation for two full revolutions, dodging benches, studying which horses were stationary and which moved up and down. His mind stuck on red and green—
Christmas
colors. He looked for
bows and ribbons that might suggest a
Christmas
present.

When he began to feel queasy from the constant spinning, Finn tried the technique of focusing on a stationary object far away from him. He picked Pinocchio’s Daring Journey and, on the
opposite side of the carousel, Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride.

During his second fix on Mr. Toad’s he spotted a pair of glowing red eyes in the shadows. The
carousel moved too fast for him to feel confident about what he’d seen, but the Kingdom
Keeper in him went on high alert.

As the carousel slowed and the gears disengaged, as the music’s melody slipped lower on the tonal scale, Finn wasted no time, leaping from the moving platform and running for the castle.
He checked over his shoulder for whatever—whoever—belonged to the red eyes. Spotting
nothing—no one—he wondered if it had been a reflection or a piece of an exit sign.

Back at Walt’s apartment, he immediately called Philby. Something was different about the apartment, and the feeling put him even more on edge. He willed Philby to pick up, his palms
sweaty against the receiver.

On the fourth unanswered ring, Finn figured out what was different: the music box was silent.

He hung up and slowly approached the device, his stomach turning as much as it had while riding the carousel. King Arthur Carrousel had wound down to a stop just like a music box might.

The phone rang.

Finn dove for it.

Philby said, “Jingle Bells! Christmas! Wiki says the lead horse on the carousel is named Jingles. He was Walt’s favorite. For the fiftieth anniversary they painted
him solid gold,
but now the gold is just on the bells. They run down from the saddle. Shouldn’t be hard to find.”

“Got it.” The carousel had been running when he’d reached it, Finn added, playing the music from Walt’s music box. He complimented Philby, describing how the carousel had
in fact slowly wound down to a stop, and that returning to the apartment he found the music box had stopped
as well.

The line was unusually silent from Philby’s end. Typically, he’d have been bragging about his own genius. “Well, if we’ve learned anything from being DHIs, it’s
that nothing’s impossible. The old Walt dream thing. But, as much as I’d like to take credit for the possibility of a connection between the music box and the carousel, what
you’re saying seems more than a little far-fetched.”

“I know. But it’s Wayne, don’t forget.”

“Agreed.”

“There’s only one way to test it,” Finn proposed.

“You’re appealing to my love of deductive scientific reasoning, Finn. I resent that.”

“Good.”

“And of course, I approve.”

“Never doubted you would.”

“So, you’ll wind up the music box and try again.”

“I will.”

Finn considered mentioning the possible wraiths
and red eyes (or lights) near Mr. Toad’s. He considered mentioning how all of that might tie to the food poisoning incident. But he resented
being doubted, humiliated, and mocked by the others. He knew to keep his mouth shut. If he didn’t, if he pushed too far, Philby might not play along.

Minutes later, Finn faced the spinning carousel, marveling at its return to full speed. Jumping onto
the ride, he hurried through the rows of horses and stopped at the lead
prancer. His eyes took in the rows of golden bells, the saddle bearing a golden
50
, and an image of Mary Poppins.

Jingles.

Hairs tingled on the back of his neck. He spun and desperately searched the shadows by Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride.

The same pair of red eyes stared out at him from the dark. They blinked.

Not an exit sign.

Finn climbed onto Jingles and hugged the horse’s neck.

The air went oily. Colors swirled and mixed. Finn felt as if he were being sucked down a drain and was holding on to a rocket at the same time. Clutching to the horse, his cheek pressed to its
mane, Finn caught a fleeting glimpse of his wristwatch.

The hands were moving backward.

T
HE WOMAN LOOKED
like something from
a lame science fair diorama of the Incredibles. She stood erect, like
a grown-up Barbie doll wearing a tight-fitting tunic and ski pants. She reminded Finn of a mannequin from a shop window. Her right arm moved mechanically as she moved a glass spoon in a glass pot
on a glass stove top.

Finn quickly identified her as an Audio-Animatronic. It suggested he was onstage in a park attraction.
Not a first for Finn, but unlike the other times, he had no idea what he was doing here. He
couldn’t remember crossing over. Had no idea what attraction it was.

A voice came over a public address system, describing the “family of the future.” He recognized the expression! That line was used on the Carousel of Progress.

He looked out beyond the stage light. The boys in the audience wore
dress shirts with button-down collars; the girls, cardigan sweaters and pleated skirts. Most of the women wore white gloves,
while the men had slicked-back hair, clean-shaven faces, ties, and jackets. Not a single tattoo or piercing.