The Return: Disney Lands Read online

  Nick followed the game, leaning forward, elbows on his knees. Jess had disappeared for him. The other seventeen thousand people in the arena were similarly transfixed—it was a sellout crowd now.

  Jess leaned to her left. “What about the—”

  But Nick held up a hand, silencing her. “Did you see that forecheck?”

  “I know rain check, blank check, paycheck. Any relation?”

  “Do you know anything about hockey?”

  “It’s played on ice. Each team has...six...players. They jump over walls a lot. Not sure what that’s about. There’s a puck down there somewhere, though I can’t actually see it most of the time. The goalies look like they’re wearing fat suits. The fans sound like they’re really, really angry.”

  Nick took his eyes off the ice for the first time since the game had started. “That’s good. Very good, actually.”

  She had him now. “What Legacy?” Jess asked.

  A whistle blew. Music played.

  “That’s a TV timeout,” Nick said.

  “They take time out to watch TV?” Jess said.

  “For the ads!”

  “Oh, really?” As sarcastic as she could make it.

  Realizing she’d gotten him, Nick softened, eyeing her with more respect. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to report on this. Far as I’m concerned, we never met. It’s better for both of us.”

  “Why? I mean, I’m happy to hear it, don’t get me wrong. But why for you?”

  “The Legacy,” he said again, as if that meant something to them both.

  With the game under way and the crowd completely absorbed, Nick drew closer to Jess. Amanda elbowed Tim, forcing him to switch seats. As Amanda leaned in, Jess reacted poorly to the physical contact, jerking away like a kid brushing off a troublesome little brother. Then she was upset with herself.

  Keeping their three faces close together, Nick launched into an almost scholarly explanation of the early days of the company, how Walt and his brother Roy surrounded themselves with brilliant, creative minds, people who could help translate Walt’s particular genius into practical, material goods, like animated films and theme parks. How Walt’s love of magic, folklore, and fairy tales took the group on a ride from the ordinary to the sublime.

  But not every employee proved him- or herself a perfect fit. Some creative types arrived with big egos, with a need for authorship and recognition. Some quickly, some over time, each revealed him- or herself to be incompatible with the kind of teamwork Walt demanded. People moved on; others were hired. Sometimes it was amicable, but sometimes not.

  “A man named Amery Hollingsworth was fired by Roy in late 1948.”

  “Decommissioned,” Jess said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Never mind.”

  “In a newspaper interview at the time, Amery claimed he’d created the Evil Queen, Lady Tremaine, and Maleficent well ahead of their films coming out. It’s pure bunk. Those characters were borrowed from Brothers Grimm and other stories, but don’t tell Amery Hollingsworth that! His ego and his general attitude got him fired. He wasn’t happy. He started bad-mouthing Walt and Roy and the company, spreading ugly rumors.”

  “Like someone else I know,” Jess said.

  Having no idea who Nick was or what he did, Amanda gaped, taken aback by Jess’s rudeness.

  “I avoid the ugly,” Nick said in his own defense. “The rumors I spread are nice rumors. More like leaks—what’s to come, what we can get excited about. I hate the negative stuff. Unlike Amery Hollingsworth. He was a parasite. He clung to his past with the company, was paid for slanderous magazine articles slamming Walt and the company. He spread nothing but lies. The more successful the company became, the darker the lies. He sued Walt and Roy, sued the company, was constantly dragging them into court. It bankrupted him. He lost every suit, but still he kept hiring lawyers. He wouldn’t stop. He became possessed, much like the characters he claimed to have created.”

  A shot on goal brought half the crowd to its feet. Nick paused, allowing the roar to subside. The cheers came and came, like waves crashing on the shore.

  “His anger and resentment began the Legacy of Secrets. Hollingsworth was obsessed with bringing Walt and Roy down, obsessed with the dark characters he claimed he’d created. So he began what one Imagineer called the Campaign of Darkness. Even back then, there was evidence that the characters, good and bad alike, were more than just imaginary. Stories of sightings at the studios. Of direct encounters with ghosts and demons. The good characters showed up, too! Mickey sightings. Pluto. There are records. Not in Burbank, but somewhere.”

  Amanda poked Jess in the side. Jess knocked her hand away with a glare.

  “These things had come alive. Whatever genius Walt had, it was stronger and more potent than he or his brother realized. He could make magic. It wasn’t just a line, an ad. He really could make dreams come true. Call it a gift, a curse. It’s all in how you look it at. And he used it for good. That’s what’s important. That’s what it was all about for the Legends. The Happiest Place on Earth. Smiles. Family. Good times.

  “Hollingsworth was the polar opposite. Where Walt loved magic, Hollingsworth studied alchemy. Undone by his hunger for fame and recognition, he made it his mission to find out if the ghosts and visions were real, and if they were, to learn how to control them.”

  “The Overtakers!” Amanda gasped. Nick nodded, his eyes wide and serious.

  “The Legacy was the start of all that, yes. It’s called the Legacy because Amery had a son. That son had three more sons. The Sleeping Beauty story goes back to the fourteen and fifteen hundreds. Evil forces have been a part of us, of human storytelling, for a long, long time.”

  “Who are you?” Amanda croaked out.

  “Me? I’m just a guy. A kid, like you. I read a lot. I like to read. To study. To figure things out. So sue me.”

  “No, no!” Amanda said quickly. “Not at all! This is amazing.”

  Nick gave her a tentative smile.

  “I don’t own a phone, smart or not. I spend too much time in libraries and none at school dances. You can take all the sports in the world, just leave me hockey and soccer. I watched a hundred hours of the World Cup, most of it live. Tim Howard is my all-time hero, but I’m too small to play keeper.”

  “Keeper,” Jess muttered. In spite of herself, she shot a look at Amanda.

  The Ducks scored a goal, and what felt like an 8.2 earthquake shook the arena. Amanda jumped. Jess turned.

  Nick said, “Oh, no!”

  On the huge TV screen over center ice, where there should have been a shot of the crowd celebrating the goal, was a picture of the three of them: Nick, Jess, and Amanda. It hung on the screen too long, finally giving way to a replay of the goal.

  “That’s them,” Nick said.

  “Them?”

  “The Legacy! You have to understand. Amery committed suicide, but not before infecting his son with his poison. It’s only grown since then. We have to get out of here. Now. Right now. I guarantee you: they’re already on their way.”

  “But, but...” Jess sputtered. “We’re not doing anything wrong. Are we?”

  No time to answer. Amanda spotted them first. “There!”

  Three different security men were converging on their section from different spots, all a good distance away. Before any kind of plan could be made, Nick jumped up and left the girls, speeding down their row, angering the fans who were still celebrating the goal, his effort made all the easier because so many were already standing.

  DOWN THE FAR REACHES of an unoccupied wing scorched decades earlier by blue-sky lightning, tucked into a recess that had once been a doorway but was now a charred arch, Jess looked up at Tim.

  “Why did you do that? Why did you put me next to Nick?”

  “Did you know there are sixteen million thunderstorms on Earth every year? That nearly two thousand storms are raging every minute of every day? Lightning can travel as far as twenty-five miles from
its origin. That’s how blue-sky lightning happens, and that’s what hit this hotel and killed that family in the elevator—just like all the stories say.”

  “What were you really after in the basement?” Jess said, fixing him with a steady gaze.

  He acted as if he hadn’t heard her. “Nick says there’s a rumor that these abandoned areas in the Tower are not as abandoned as they look. Says they’re kept this way to keep us out, that the Imagineers use them for weird stuff.”

  “I’m going to use them to hide a body if you don’t start answering my questions,” Jess said.

  “I wanted you to hear it from him. That’s all. I wanted you two to meet.”

  “You were after Legacy files.” She still hadn’t looked away, and now Tim met her eyes. His gaze was feverish, his cheeks bright with color.

  “No, that’s not true. Well, it’s partially true, but it’s way more than that. Look, CBS and NBC battled over color television transmission standards way back when. Nick has decent sources that claim some of the technology actually came out of Disney. Highly sophisticated stuff. That Disney could have made zillions if they’d held on to it and developed it themselves. So why didn’t they?”

  “I give up.”

  “Me too. Still, I wanted answers.”

  “You wanted answers about the Legacy, too.”

  “So what? I’m not allowed to be curious about more than one thing at once?”

  “You’re not allowed to lie.”

  “I didn’t lie.”

  “Not telling the truth is the same thing as lying.”

  Tim threw up his hands in exasperation. “Do you always tell the truth, Jess? Do any of us always tell the truth? We can’t! Truth is like a bar of soap: you try too hard to hold on to it, and it squirts away. We all have secrets. Truth and secrets are two different things. Don’t confuse them.”

  “Secrets are truths. Don’t try to pretend otherwise.” Jess paused, unsure of her next question, of what it might reveal. “How much do you believe about the Legacy?”

  “All. I believe it all. It just makes sense to me. And I think there may be files on this guy Hollingsworth down there. You put something like that in the Burbank archives and it gets found. You bury it here, in a room filled with old exams; who’s going to even look?” He lowered his voice—spoke so quietly that he gave Jess chills. “They upgraded that basement area, don’t forget. Coincidentally, it was just in the past couple of years, when your friends the Keepers were fighting off the villains. I think they had to hide the really important stuff. Everything about Disney is so public. And yes, a lot of that is because of people like Nick. I get that. But every warehouse, every piece of property, every lamp has been documented. So where do you hide the secrets?”

  “Out in the open. Wayne always said to hide things in the open.”

  “Or in the basement of a dormitory you happen to own, where no one ever goes. You upgrade some robots, put an old guy in charge of running them, and let the bloggers go wild.”

  “I was asking about the Legacy,” Jess reminded him, though her voice was slightly softer now, and she had uncrossed her arms.

  “It’s all connected. The answers about the Legacy, if they exist, are in that storage room. If they were—”

  “Shh!”

  Voices. Two women coming toward them from deeper down the burned-out hallway.

  “I’m saying this,” said one, in a low, rich voice. “What is fair to the student? I understand the company’s position, but in the case of—”

  Jess didn’t hear the rest because her ears started ringing the moment Tim kissed her. It was on-the-lips, his hand gently behind her neck. Her legs went weak, and she sank. He caught her, and she found herself kissing him back without really meaning to. The two women walked past, so engaged in conversation, they didn’t see them kissing.

  She assumed Tim was kissing her to give them an excuse to be “out of bounds” if caught. Yet, his kiss didn’t feel like an excuse, and hers certainly wasn’t.

  The kiss stopped. He whispered warmly into her ear, “Sorry about that.”

  Not me, Jess wanted to say, feeling her face burn. “That was quick thinking,” she said instead, trying to catch her breath.

  “You...I mean, we...” Tim stammered. He looked like he’d been slapped awake from a deep sleep. He leaned back, uncomfortable. “...that...It was just—”

  “I know,” Jess said.

  He leaned in toward her ever so slightly.

  “Hey!” she said, pushing him away. “Get hold of yourself.”

  “Yeah...right! Of course.”

  “You owe me an apology, but there’s no need to apologize. And that’s all I’m going to say about it. Okay?”

  Tim looked confused, but nodded slowly.

  “Did you hear what they were talking about?”

  He shook his head. “I didn’t hear anything,” he said.

  Jess bit back a grin. She wasn’t going to let him see it, see how happy he’d just made her. “The word ‘legacy’ means a gift or birthright. It’s something passed on.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I want to know what you and Nick know.”

  “You mean, are there other Hollingsworths? Is that what you’re asking? Because I don’t know, Jess. Was the guy as nasty as Nick says? I don’t know that, either.”

  “But if I could get the files?” she proposed. Her own words shocked her even as she uttered them.

  “Never gonna happen,” Tim said. “I heard Langford held both Emily and Amanda after classes.”

  “What? Is that why Mandy wasn’t on the four o’clock shuttle? I thought she was in conference.”

  “I think she is in conference...with Langford, and probably Bernie Crenshaw.” Tim stepped away, leaned out into the hallway to look in either direction. “They’re gone. What do you mean about you getting the files?”

  “I never said that. Forget I said that.”

  “You didn’t want anything to do with that.”

  “And I still don’t! Look, Tim, is Nick for real? Is the Legacy for real?”

  “Nick, yes. The Legacy? How should I know? And hey, calm down. It’s not like it’s a matter of life or death.”

  Jess said nothing.

  “Right? Jess...right?”

  She looked at Tim with sad, crestfallen eyes and answered in a sullen voice. “I’m not so sure.”

  THE FREEZE-FRAME VIDEO SHOWED giant cards flying wildly in all directions, scattering among a throng of Disneyland guests. Although shot from a security camera at a distance, the people were recognizable.

  Amanda saw herself in the crowd, hands outstretched. She remembered that moment clearly.

  Tobias Langford had made her take a seat in the conference room, empty but for the two of them and another woman who sat in the corner behind Amanda. This woman had not been introduced, nor had she spoken. Langford stood a few feet from Amanda, looking tall and angry.

  “That is you. There’s no denying it. The cards are flying, which is you as well, I’m assuming. You’ve used your—power? your ability?—in public inside one of our parks. You have done so without permission and apparently with little regard for our guests.”

  Amanda clutched the edge of the office chair to keep her arms from shaking. “Excuse me, sir, but Peggy, the assistant dean, told me to use what you all brought me here for. That’s all I was doing. Ask her, if you want.”

  Langford looked cornered and unsure how to answer. Instead, he played the video. A moment after the cards flew, the sword raised by the Jack of Hearts floated up into space and then clattered heavily to the ground. The crowd parted, seemingly of its own will, and people moved in a wiggling line as if they were being shoved out of the way by an invisible force.

  “And that is Emily Fredrikson, is it not? In her invisibility project.” Langford began pacing. “Well? Speak up, girl! Don’t lie to me! If you want to remain at DSI, you had better start talking. Right now!”

  “Who is she?” Amanda said, her
voice shaky. She jerked her head back at the woman behind her as she spoke. Questions, too many questions, swam in Amanda’s head. Why hadn’t Langford said anything about the cards coming alive, for one? It felt like he didn’t want to bring up the subject of Overtakers in front of this other woman, and that made Amanda wonder why not.

  “An observer. Never mind her.”

  “What, is she here to make sure you don’t hit me?”

  “I don’t hit. I don’t bite. Tell me about the basement. Ah! Your eyes flared just now. You know exactly what I’m talking about. You and Emily in the basement. Why?”

  Amanda considered how to lie without, well, not telling the truth. “I don’t like basements. They remind me of a place near Baltimore that I don’t like one bit. Not a big fan.”

  “Emily has perfected her invisibility suit, hasn’t she? That’s why the sword in the video appears to float.”

  “You’d have to ask her.”

  “Do you deny having been in the dorm basement?”

  “I told you: I don’t like basements. Have I heard stories about Dirk? Yes. But everything’s a story with Disney.”

  “Fine, then. Let’s start there. How about I tell you a story?” Langford braced his hands on the table and leaned in toward Amanda. She jutted her chin, staring right back.

  “Another time, maybe? I’m gonna be late for the four thirty shuttle.” She appealed directly to the stone-faced woman behind her. If Amanda had guessed right, it was her job to make sure Langford didn’t harass her in any way. “I need to get back to the dorm for personal reasons,” she added.

  “What were you after down there?” Langford said, refusing to yield. “Who sent you? Was it hazing? Or something more...directed? These are important questions we need answered, Miss Lockhart!”

  “No one told me to do any such thing,” Amanda said honestly. Philby had told her where she might find the files, sure, but not that she had to go get them. That had been her choice entirely.