Disney at Dawn

“Are you saying she was…kidnapped?” Charlene said, a little too concerned with her hair to have stayed with the discussion.

“If humans take you, you’re kidnapped,” Maybeck answered. “I doubt there’s a name for it when it’s a band of Disney villains. But yeah. She’s missing.”

“But why?” Charlene asked Maybeck. “Why kidnap Jez?”

The three kids stared at Amanda, waiting for an answer. She pursed her lips as if she’d swallowed something bitter. “If I told you—which I can’t—you wouldn’t believe me.”

“Try us,” Maybeck said.

“You’d be surprised at what we can handle,” said Willa.

“The Overtakers?” Maybeck asked, wi

“You don’t know the half of it,” Amanda said.

“Try us,” Maybeck repeated.

“Please tell us,” Willa pleaded. She wiped the rain from her eyes. “We want to help, but we need to know what’s going on, what we’re involved in.”

Charlene proved she’d been paying attention after all. “This has to do with Fi

That incident had happened months ago, though the kids remembered it as if it were yesterday. Maleficent had kept Jez under her control to prevent Jez’s own powers from interfering with Maleficent’s plan. The DHIs had managed to trap Maleficent, and Fi

“We have to hurry,” Willa said. “For one thing, those kids are blowing our cover. For another, every second counts. She can’t be far.”

“Since when are you a detective? You’ve been reading too many American Girl books,” snapped Charlene.

“No, she’s right,” Maybeck said. “Time is in our favor, but not for long. Amanda and I will retrace her route, looking for her. Willa, you and Charlene get Fi

Amanda jerked her head toward Cinderella Castle. “He’s in there?” she gasped, and then mumbled, “I’d nearly forgotten.”

“Forgotten what?” Maybeck asked.

Amanda looked back and forth from the sputtering and sparking DHI of her sister to the colorful lights illuminating the castle.

“Something horrible’s going to happen,” Amanda whispered. “Jezebel dreamed about it. We came here to warn all of you.” She met eyes with Maybeck and then Willa. “He’s actually in there?”

“She dreamed about it?” Charlene said, distrustful and sarcastic. “Your sister can dream the future, I suppose? Is that what you’re trying to tell us?”

“Fairlies have abilities you wouldn’t believe.”

“What’s a Fairlie?” Willa blurted out.

“I told you you wouldn’t believe me.”

8

FINN FOLLOWED PHILBY up the tightly wound spiral staircase in complete darkness, his lungs and legs burning, his head pounding. Transforming himself into a DHI—twice in a matter of minutes—had taxed him. He climbed, half in, half out of consciousness, sliding his hand along the cool steel handrail, faint of head but not of heart. Someone was trying to attract lightning to Cinderella Castle. He envisioned the penthouse apartment converted into a Frankenstein laboratory, some Disney monster strapped to a stainless-steel table with wires attached to his head and heart. He didn’t know what to think—except that the Overtakers had sent the Dapper Dan to stop them. That had to mean something big was going down.

Thunder cracked outside, sending a rumble up his legs. Climbing higher in a lightning storm was not the smartest move. He felt another tremor in his chest.

Speaking in a breathless whisper as they climbed, Fi

Philby stopped, and Fi

The staircase vibrated: the man was climbing toward them.

“But if that’s the case, then this guy’s suicidal,” Philby said, “because he’s right behind us.”

“But if he’s an Overtaker, how do we even know he’s real?”

“How do we know if any of this is real?” Philby quipped. “Not one of us has ever told our parents about what happens to us at night. Why do you think that is?” He answered his own question. “Because they wouldn’t believe it.”

Shadows flickered on the wall. A flashlight. The guy!

“Climb!” Fi

They started climbing higher, ru

It was bolted shut; there was no doorknob or handle.

In the dim light, Fi

OPEN ONLY IN EMERGENCY

“Do we dare?” Fi

“It has to lead into the apartment,” said Philby.

“Agreed.”

The light from the flashlight rose more quickly now. “And we’re trying to get into the apartment.”

Fi

Together they entered into another dark space. Fi

“We’re in a closet,” Fi

“The stairs are the apartment’s fire escape,” said Philby. “Makes sense.” But why lock a fire escape from the outside? Fi

He groped in the dark and touched another door in front of them and opened it a crack. The closet led into the apartment’s small bedroom, the shiny bedspread a hideous shade of grass green. The air smelled stale and dusty. The boys slipped into the bedroom. It felt unbearably warm.

Heavy footsteps clomped up the stairs.

“Hurry!” Fi

They hurried to the bedroom door, and Fi

“Anything?” Philby asked, one eye nervously on the blocked closet behind them.

“It sounds like someone mumbling.” Fi

Fi

Maleficent—the most powerful of the Disney fairies and Fi

Casting a spell? Fi

His legs shook with fear. The last he’d known, she’d been locked in a jail cell in the catacombs beneath Pirates of the Caribbean. What was she doing here?

She stepped away from the window but continued chanting. Through the window, the sky darkened. The storm roared as lightning flashed and thunder cracked. Fi