“Don’t move,” he whispered in Amanda’s ear.
He froze. A dog came out of the shrubs. A big dog.
“It’s…Pluto,” he told Amanda. Pluto was no villain. If he’d come to help, it had to be Wanda’s or Wayne’s doing.
Amanda still hadn’t fully come around. Her eyes moved more freely, but she wasn’t speaking.
“Here, boy,” Finn hissed, holding out his hand. Pluto was big, and stronger-looking than Finn would have expected. The dog faced him, sniffing the air. He wagged his tail and sat down.
“We are here to help,” Finn said.
Pluto turned toward the bushes, wagging his tail violently.
“What is it, boy?”
Pluto barked. Just once. But loudly, causing Finn to again jump back. Pluto was trying to warn him of something or someone in the bushes.
“Amanda?” he said softly, without taking his eyes off the bushes.
“I’m here.”
He turned to look. She looked tired, but she was working on smiling.
“I feel a little zoned.”
“I can explain it all at some point. But for now: can you move? We should get away from here.”
Pluto darted over to the bushes, his tail still wagging. Finn tentatively followed, crossing the street and edging closer to the bushes. Pluto’s tail was going like a windshield wiper.
Finn sneaked up and parted the bushes. He couldn’t believe his eyes. “Minnie?” he said in a whisper.
She gave him a sweet, humble look, lowering her head while looking out the tops of her big eyes.
“I’m Finn,” he said. “Over there, that’s Amanda.”
Minnie nodded.
Finn looked around the area. “Mickey?” he asked her.
She lifted her arms and shrugged. She looked crestfallen.
“He’s not here,” Finn said, making it a statement.
She shook her head.
“Not here with you?” he said, thinking aloud, “Or not here in the Magic Kingdom?”
She shrugged for a second time.
“I…” He couldn’t think what to say. He was awestruck. Mickey and Minnie were rock stars. He recalled what Wanda had told him. “Are there more of you?”
Minnie hesitated. Pluto nudged him from behind. He looked back to see Amanda trying to get to her feet.
“Thanks!”
He hurried back to her. Minnie and Pluto followed.
He helped Amanda stand up and held her by the arm. “My friend’s in trouble,” he told the other two. “I,
Minnie smiled and nodded. She lifted a finger as if to say, “Just a minute!”
Pluto came around and heeled at Finn’s side.
“You’re staying with me,” Finn said. The dog nodded.
Minnie saluted Finn and took off running in the direction of Frontierland.
“I’m guessing,” he said, “you’re staying to protect us.” The dog yipped. “And she’s gone ahead for some reason.” He barked again.
“Are you talking to Pluto?” Amanda asked with a dry voice.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“I’ve been better. My head weighs a thousand pounds.”
“We need to go,” he said.
“I can manage. Are you going to tell me how I got here?”
“I kissed you,” he said.
“I don’t think so,” she said. “That’s not something I would forget.”
“I promise. I kissed you. It was a spell, intended for Jess.” He walked her off the hub and toward Frontierland, condensing and summarizing her story into as brief an explanation as possible.
Pluto nudged between them and leaned into Amanda.
“I think,” Finn said, “he wants you to hold onto his collar.”
Pluto’s tail went wild with excitement.
Amanda reached down and took hold. Pluto lifted his head proudly. His tail shot up like a flagpole.
“This is definitely strange,” Finn said.
Jess was not a mother. She had never even owned a pet. Like the other Fairlies, she had never met her mother, had no idea if she had living relatives. The closest thing she had to a family member was Amanda, whom she thought of as her sister. In fact, she and Amanda often introduced themselves as sisters. So, as the Kingdom Keepers carried out their plan to cross Amanda over into the Magic Kingdom in hopes of reversing the curse, Jess sat by her sister’s bedside.
A few minutes earlier, she thought she’d witnessed the cross over: Amanda had twitched and shuddered and, more encouragingly, her eyes had begun moving rapidly beneath her closed eyelids.
The other girls in Mrs. Nash’s house were supportive of her effort to keep Amanda’s condition secret. This included their roommate, Jeannie Pucket, who until now had often been a real knucklehead. But Jeannie had come through for Jess, not once but a number of times-holding off the curious Mrs. Nash and buying her unconscious roommate precious time.
It wasn’t going to last much longer, Jess thought. It seemed inevitable that Mrs. Nash would find out. That, in turn, would mean doctors, and a long downward spiral for poor Amanda.
With her diary open to the kiss, a page she had photocopied for Finn, her eyelids drooped and she briefly nodded off. Her diary slipped from her hands, landed on the bed, and fell to the floor. The sound of the book landing shocked her awake, and she looked around the room as if she’d been asleep for hours.
“It’s nothing,” Jeannie said. “You dropped your diary, is all.”
Jeannie leaned down to retrieve it. About to hand it to Jess, she hesitated.
“If you don’t mind,” Jess said, “that’s private.”
Jeannie knew it was private-it was her diary-a source of ongoing tension between the two. Jeannie could allow her curiosity to get the better of her.
“I know. I know.” Still, Jeannie was reluctant to hand it over, her attention fixed on the sketch. Finally, she passed the diary back to Jess. “Have you been there?” she asked. “What’s it like?”
“School?” Jess asked.
“What are you talking about?”
“Winter Park. Where Finn and Amanda go.”
“That’s not Winter Park High,” Jeannie said. “That’s the Lake Buena Vista power plant. I just wrote a paper on it for science class.”
“Science class? Lake what?” Jess said.
Jeannie traced the stair-step profile of the structure in the background of the kiss.
“It’s called the Lake Buena Vista Cogeneration Facility. Hang on. I’ll show you.” Jeannie dug through some papers on her desk, including a bunch of printouts from various Web sites. She singled out three of these and passed them to Jess.
“So?”
Jeannie leaned over Jess’s shoulder, selected the second of the three printouts-a photograph taken at a great distance from the power plant-and traced the stair-stepped roofline of the facility. She then pointed to Jess’s diary and traced the same pattern.
Jess went silent, her eyes dancing between the two images. She knew her dreams often combined locations or activities.
“What exactly does it do?” Jess asked.
