فصل 40

CHAPTER 40

AIDAN’S CHANCE

EVERYTHING SEEMED TO HAPPEN AT ONCE. The blinding whiteness suddenly vanished, replaced by the near-total darkness inside the Peter Pan’s Flight ride; the little ship was once again suspended by a pole from the overhead track. In the first few seconds, J.D., Sarah, and Peter, their eyes unaccustomed to the darkness, saw only the ghostly glow of Skull Rock, to the right. Tink chimed urgently.

“Ombra!” said Peter.

They all felt him—a cold presence close by. J.D. and Sarah looked back; the last they’d seen Aidan, he’d been coming up behind them. Then Sarah felt something in front of her. She turned and screamed as, her eyes adjusting, she saw her brother perched on the little ship’s prow, his face ghostly white, his eyes black holes.

He ducked under the sail and reached toward her.

“Aidan!” she said. “Please…”

His eyes were dead pools. His hands shot out. Sarah screamed again.

Then he was gone.

“Are you all right?” said J.D.

Sarah nodded. She looked down.

“He took the gold box!” she said.

“Was that your brother?” said Peter.

“Yes, but Ombra has him!” said Sarah.

“We’ll get him back,” said Peter, and before either Sarah or J.D. could say a word, Peter launched himself from the ship, with Tink right next to him. They flew back into the ride, disappearing in the blackness.

All this had taken only seconds, but in those seconds the little ship had reached the end of the ride. As they rounded the last corner and approached the moving walkway, they heard shouting and saw a crowd gathered on the Fantasyland concourse. In the middle of the crowd they saw people helping a big, dazed-looking man to his feet.

“That’s the guy who tried to stop us,” said Sarah.

“We need to get out of here before he sees us,” said J.D.

They quickly stepped out of the ship onto the moving walkway. They exited the ride down a hallway to the right, away from the big man, and plunged into the mass of visitors swarming through Fantasyland. Some of the people they passed pointed at Sarah, and she realized, with embarrassment, that they were looking at the Mollusk dress she wore. But she didn’t attract too much attention; this was the Magic Kingdom, where many people, including adults, wore costumes. All kinds of things went on here.

Peter, guided by Tink, flew back through the dark ride, past a line of miniature ships. Some visitors saw him and exclaimed to each other, marveling at this new wrinkle in the venerable ride. He looks just like a real flying boy!

Ahead somewhere in the blackness was Sarah’s brother, inhabited and controlled by Ombra. Peter did not yet have a plan for rescuing Aidan. For now, he simply needed to find him and stay with him.

They flew through a maze of rooms with strange miniature vistas below—islands, mermaids, ships. They then entered a larger room, the floor of which was covered with a miniature city; Peter, who’d flown over the real thing, recognized it as London. Tink chimed, and he saw Aidan ahead now—a dark shape on foot at the other end of the room, moving with unnatural quickness. Peter pursued him through the Darling nursery. Aidan had now reached the beginning of the ride. Just beyond, Peter saw a mass of people waiting to board. He dropped to the floor, sensing that for now he would be wise to proceed on foot.

Clutching the gold box, Aidan ran the wrong way through the ride entrance, vaulted a railing, and pushed his way through the line of people waiting to get on the ride. Some of them complained; a Cast Member shouted something. Aidan ignored them.

Peter followed Aidan, also ignoring the protests, which were getting louder. Aidan climbed over several line dividers; he was now out on the Fantasyland concourse. Peter was only a few feet behind. Aidan turned left and began running through the dense crowd.

Peter was noticing his surroundings—more people than he had ever seen, so many dressed oddly. It was like a city, but with no vehicles or horses, and no real houses to speak of. Strange sights, smells, and sounds everywhere. And such bright lights! He was so distracted that he almost lost track of the running figure ahead.

He forced himself to concentrate. He had dealt with Ombra more than once, and each time it had been terrifying. But that was long ago. He assumed the shadow creature’s power had been weakened—why else was he running?—but he didn’t know how much. He didn’t even know if Aidan was aware he was being followed.

They were now passing the Haunted Mansion. The crowd thinned out slightly. Peter moved a few steps closer to Aidan.

Aidan stopped.

Tink, hidden in Peter’s hair, chimed a sharp warning. Peter stopped.

Aidan turned around. Where his eyes should have been were two black voids. They were aimed directly at Peter. Peter’s blood ran cold; he had no doubt that the shadow creature knew exactly who he was. For a few seconds both of them stood utterly still. Peter struggled to control his rising fear, but he knew that if Aidan took a step toward him, he would flee.

Instead, Aidan suddenly turned and resumed running through the crowd.

Peter followed, a bit farther back than before, trying to understand what had happened. Clearly Ombra knew Peter was following, and yet he had not attacked. Why not? Where was he going? What did he plan to do? And how, if Peter was afraid to get close, was he going to rescue Sarah’s brother?

He would have to figure something out. For now, all he could do was follow the running figure.

Armstrong shook his head, trying to clear it, trying to make sense of what had just happened. He remembered grabbing the boy, and then being engulfed by—it seemed impossible—birds. Hundreds of them. He’d been knocked down, and in the chaos he had lost the boy. Something else had happened in that furious swirl of feathers: he’d felt a presence…something cold, something evil.

He shook his head again. Whatever he’d felt, thankfully it was gone, along with the birds.

And the boy.

Brushing off the offers of help from the crowd around him, Armstrong scanned the concourse, looking for Aidan.

Where did he…wait a minute.

In the distance, he caught a glimpse of a tall man, moving away. The man’s head turned. Armstrong recognized J.D.

“Excuse me!” he said, pushing his way past his would-be helpers. “Gotta go.”

The Disney security guard was standing near the riverboat when he saw Aidan sprint past. He pressed the transmit button on his radio and said, “I got a Christopher Robin running through Liberty Square, heading for Frontierland.”

“Copy,” said a voice. “We’re on the way.”

Still holding the gold box, Aidan, with Peter twenty-five feet behind, ran into Frontierland; then suddenly, just before the Country Bear Jamboree, he turned left into a passageway that connected with Adventureland. Directly ahead was a popular “flying” ride, The Magic Carpets of Aladdin. Aidan swerved left onto the Adventureland concourse. He ran a few dozen yards and stopped suddenly. Peter braced, but

Aidan did not turn around.

Instead he walked toward the Swiss Family Treehouse, an attraction built around a ninety-foot-high “tree” honeycombed with stairs and walkways. The crowd here was even thinner; many visitors, eager to watch the parade, had gone to wait along the parade route.

Aidan passed the entrance to the tree house and went to a rest area on the right, out of the flow of pedestrian traffic, where six benches were lined up against a curving metal fence. Beyond the fence was a sloping embankment leading down to a waterway; the whole area was covered with dense, tropical foliage.

As Peter watched, Aidan went to the fence and carefully set the gold box on it. Cautiously, Peter edged forward.

From his hair, Tink chimed a warning. Peter, keeping his distance, moved to the side so he could see the embankment below, where Aidan had set the box. The lighting was uneven, but after a moment he saw dark shapes moving in the foliage. He realized they were birds—large, black birds. The ground swarmed with them. There were hundreds.

The foliage moved as the birds crowded together beneath Aidan, who was doing something with the box. Peter edged a step closer.

What was he doing?

The thing was leaving.

This was Aidan’s first real thought since the birds had descended on him and filled him with a cold, evil presence. After that, he had thought nothing, felt nothing, until now.

But he sensed the cold leaving him. And although Aidan had not yet regained control of his body, he was beginning to become aware again. For just a few seconds, his consciousness was somehow connected with the consciousness of the thing.

In those seconds, Aidan knew what the thing intended to do. Aidan knew he could not stop it. But he also knew that it was his chance to escape.

His hands were reaching out toward the gold box. Aidan did not control them; it was as if he were watching someone else’s hands. His hands turned the box on the fence so that the opening was pointing toward the birds. His right hand found the little wheel.

Aidan knew that the thing was about to leave him. It had to go back into the ravens when the starstuff cascaded down on them. Then it would have the power it needed.

Aidan watched his right hand turn the wheel. At the same time, he felt the thing leave him completely, flowing into the birds.

Free now, he stumbled backward.

He felt someone grab him, keeping him from falling. He turned and saw a boy. He noted his filthy clothes, his bare feet.

Peter pulled his arm. “Come along,” he said. “Hurry.”

“Who are you?” said Aidan.

“I’m…a friend of your sister’s. Come on.”

Aidan, still dazed, nodded. He followed as Peter started trotting toward the Aladdin ride.

“There he is!” said the security man, pointing. “He’s running this way!”

“That’s the Cooper kid,” said Agent Blight. “But who’s the boy running with him?”

“I don’t know,” said Agent Gomez. “But let’s grab ’em both.”

Peter and Aidan stopped when they saw them coming—a half dozen Disney security people led by a man and woman in business clothes.

“We can’t go that way,” said Aidan. “They’re after me.”

They turned to run back the way they’d come, but stopped again. The ravens had taken flight and were now swarming near the Swiss Family Treehouse. The swirling black mass was forming into a shape that both Aidan and Peter had seen before. A crowd of park visitors gathered quickly, gaping at the sight.

“We have to get away from here now,” said Aidan.

“I know,” said Peter. “Get on my back.”

“What?” said Aidan.

The security people were almost to them. In the other direction, the raven mass was billowing.

“Get on my back right now,” said Peter. Without waiting, he grabbed Aidan’s arms and draped them over his shoulders. “Hang on!” he shouted. “When I say three, jump as high as you can. One, two…”

The closest security man was ten feet away; Gomez was right behind him, followed by Blight. Two more steps and they had them.

Then the boys jumped.

And they did not come down.

Gomez, Blight, and the security people stared, open-mouthed, as the two boys rose straight up into the night and disappeared over the roofs of the Adventureland buildings, heading in the general direction of Cinderella Castle. Around them the crowd of visitors cheered, enjoying this unexpected bit of Disney technical magic. They then turned their attention back to the swirling mass of black birds next to the Swiss Family Treehouse; the birds had formed into a shape that looked like a giant, hooded figure with glowing red orbs for eyes. The shape turned, as if searching, and then exploded in a furious burst of beating wings, streaming off in the direction the boys had gone.

The crowd applauded. Even the longtime veteran visitors, the true Disney faithful, were pumped. The Magic Kingdom seemed unusually magical tonight.

Peter flew in a low, wobbly swoop over the buildings. He was straining; he was very experienced at flying with another person—he’d taken the Lost Boys on countless rides over the island—but he’d never flown anybody as heavy as Aidan. It was all he could do to stay above the roofs.

Aidan’s mood was equal parts terror and amazement—terror because of the buildings below and the birds behind; and amazement because this scruffy boy, who had mysteriously appeared to rescue him, was now flying him. Aidan could think of only one explanation for this, impossible though it seemed.

“Are you who I think you are?” he shouted into Peter’s ear.

“What?” answered Peter, focused on flying.

“I said—” began Aidan, but at that moment Tinker Bell, annoyed by the shouting, poked her head out of Peter’s hair. “Never mind,” said Aidan.