Disney at Dawn

“No, probably not,” Fi

“Tiger bait?” Amanda asked, horrified. “Your plan is to use us as tiger bait?”

“My plan is to rescue Jez. At the very worst, we wait out the Park’s closing.”

“Let’s look for a maintenance entrance,” Amanda encouraged. “If it actually exists, it can’t be far from the bridge.”

“Agreed. And Charlene promises not to jump the wall,” Fi

“I can do that. But I can also—”

“Don’t even think about it,” Fi

Amanda and Fi

They scouted both tiger yards from an old Indian temple made of stone and plaster, which was at the top of the tiger bridge. Amanda stared out the window that matched what Jez had sketched in the diary. An enormous tiger was stretched out in the shade about twenty feet below and across the yard. She couldn’t see the trapdoor from where she stood but could place it just to her left in her mind’s eye. She switched sides and kept looking around.

Fi

“I think I have something,” Amanda said from behind him. She faced some plants and a beautiful section of the wall, where four large stone panels had been carved, each depicting a unique scene. Fi

“I don’t think we should be seen staring, so I’m going to turn my back, but check out the second panel,” Amanda said, spi

“The owl!” Fi

“Both of which she sketched in her diary,” Amanda reminded.

“It’s a secret panel,” Fi

“We don’t know that,” Amanda protested.

“Screen me,” Fi

“I’ve got you covered,” Amanda said.

Fi

He ran his hand along the edge of one of the large stone panels, hoping to find some kind of trigger. Nothing. He tapped on it lightly. It sounded hollow. “This has got to be it,” he hissed. “But I can’t find anything to open it.”

“Try the owl,” Amanda called over her shoulder.

Of course! he thought. He stretched to reach the owl, opened his hand, and pushed. The tile with the owl moved. The panel clicked and popped open an inch. Fi

“I’ve got it!” he a

But behind the panel he saw a metal gate. And the gate was padlocked. This helped explain why, if Jez had found this entrance, she’d been unable to get out.

He didn’t hesitate for a moment. Understanding the risk he took, Fi

He’d acted a little too hastily: it was pitch dark.

He couldn’t see a thing.

52

FINN FELT HIS WAY DOWN the damp stones as the stairs beneath him fell away in a spiral to his left. It smelled at once of dust and mold, like his grandparents’ basement. He counted the stairs as he went: ten, eleven, twelve… before they leveled off. He walked on the flat now, straight ahead, his left hand skimming a rock wall, the occasional cobweb tangling in his fingers and making him jump. Fi

The sound of his ru

“Jez?” he called out softly.

The lump moved. He thought it might have turned in his direction.

He called her name again, this time a little more loudly.

“If you’re a dream, go away!” Jez’s voice!

“It’s Fi

“Why can’t I wake up?” she muttered.

Fi

And then the tu

He thought of her as having jet black hair and bone white, almost translucent, skin. Intriguing eyes. That had been how she’d looked when he’d first met her on the Sports Complex soccer field, what seemed like years earlier. In fact, it had only been a matter of months. But Jez had made a radical transformation when Maleficent’s spell had been lifted. Her hair was now a shocking blond—almost white. Her thin lips shined luminously red.

She came into his arms, like a young child hugging a parent, and then let go.

In the BlackBerry’s weird light, they both looked vaguely blue.

“I didn’t think…” she stammered. “I hoped and even prayed, though I’m not very good at praying…I wired up the iPod but couldn’t be sure…”

“Amanda found a page in your diary,” he explained. “We followed your sketches.”

“I don’t even remember what I drew.”

“Dreams,” Fi

“Nightmares is more like it. I’ve had them here as well—down here in the dark.”

She explained the ordeal she’d been through. It was much as the Kingdom Keepers had come to suspect: her detention on the sava