When it started for Finn Whitmana boy who was no longer a child, but too young to drivenight became a thing of the past. It started in that dusty place of sparkles behind his closed eyelids and the warming, dulled sensation of sinking toward sleep. It started without his knowing, as the best things often dothere before he knew it. Never saw it coming. The sensation crept in, bit by bit, like a long shadow on a moonlit night. It didn't overtake him, didn't occupy him; it just slipped between the sheets beside him and whispered into his ear, a storyteller with no voice and no body. There was nobody to witness it but him, and even then he wasn't sure he had witnessed anything at all.
Finn gave in bit by bitno quick surrender. At first, he ran from what felt like a dream as he ran from all such nightmares. Then convincing himself that it was in fact only a dream, he accepted it reluctantly. He told himself everything was okay, even though that same self was asleep and already deeply a part of something he could not stop. It did not exactly take him over, and yet it owned him. Like so many dreams, it made no sense. At first.
But night after night he gave in a little more. The dream did not go away. It came back. It took more of him. It knew his name. It knew stuff it could not possibly know. It became him, and he became it, because the two were so tightly interlaced, they might as well have been woven together. Gradually. Gently. Until one day he walked right out of it. Walked out of his dream and into someplace else, somebody else.
"It looks so different at night," Finn heard himself say. At least he thought he heard his voice. It sounded at once ethereal and electronic, like
like what? An angelic robot. These dreams of histhese experiencesalways seemed so real that he didn't think of them as dreams at all; he was simply there, in the heart of Disney World's Magic Kingdom. Inexplicably, but absolutely, there.
Since he lived in Orlando, Disney World was Finn's home away from home. At one time he and his family had visited the park at least once a month. But lately he had stayed away as part of an employment agreementa job. This was the first time he'd been inside the Magic Kingdom in a long while.
It took him a moment to register the difference between his last visit and this one: the park now stood empty. Main Street was quiet, not a soul in sight. Its shops and stores, typically teeming with park guests, were instead dark and shuttered. He'd never seen it like this. He'd often wondered what the park was like after dark. Now he knew. Or he thought he did.
He glanced around, believing he must have been talking to someone, only to realize he stood alone, just in front of the flagpole in Town Square.
"Not so different as all that," came a man's voice that, though faint, startled Finn. He looked around, trying to find the man, and finally located him on a bench in front of the Exhibition Hall sitting so close to a seated sculpture of Goofy that Finn hadn't noticed him.
Finn moved toward him, crossing the empty street. He felt unusually light, almost buoyant. If this was a dream, it was a good one.
An old man with white hair. He wore khakis and a collared shirt and a nametag: Wayne.
"Where is everybody?" Finn asked, struck again by the synthetic sound of his voice.
"Is it empty?" Wayne asked, looking around. "Tell me what you see."
"Are you kidding?" Finn asked. "It's like
I've never seen it like this, the park after dark and all." Wayne looked disappointed. "What am I supposed to see, exactly?"
"You're only supposed to see what you can see."
"Whatever that means," Finn said.
"It means exactly what it says."
"If you say so."
"Listen, young man, I've been around here since long before any of them were even created. I live in the apartment above the firehouse. That takes some seniority, believe me."
Seniority or senility? Finn wondered. Living above the firehouse? Finn doubted it. "Exactly who were you expecting?'
Wayne had ice-blue eyes and a nice smile. "How do you think you got here?"
"That depends on where I am," Finn answered.
"Very good. I was expecting this of you. That you'd question it, but that ultimately you'd come to realize there's only one explanation. The other ones I wasn't so sure about. But you . . . Finn Whitman. What a fine name you have. A name with potential."
"What other ones?" Finn glanced around again. He saw an empty Disney World where street lamps shone yellow, and landscaped spotlights illuminated the Cinderella Castle. He saw all the familiar streets and paths and attractions, but they looked so different this empty. This eerie.
Wayne led the way up Main Street past the shops and toward the castle. He didn't speak. Finn soaked it all in. They reached the circle of grass and sat down in front of the statue of Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse, with a nice view of the castle.
"What time is it?" Wayne asked.
As Finn brought his arm up to look at his watch, he saw that his arm wasn't exactly his arm. It was . . . glowing. Not only glowing, but he could almost see through it. As if . . .
"What's going on?" Finn asked. "What's with my arm?"
Wayne sounded critical as he said, "Figure it out." He then reached into his pocket and removed what looked like a remote control for a car: a small black plastic fob with a single button on it. Like a garage door opener, Finn thought.
"What's with that thing?" Finn asked.
"This button will send you back."
"Back where?" Finn was thinking that this wasn't like any dream he'd ever had. He studied his arm again. Then his other arm. He looked down at his legs. His whole body was glowing and vaguely translucent.
"Back to sleep," Wayne answered.
"So it is a dream? I thought so."
"Not exactly."
Finn saw two four-foot-tall chipmunks come out of the castle. They walked down a path and turned left, toward Toontown. He felt himself staring. He recognized them.
"What?" Wayne asked excitedly.
"Nothing," Finn answered.
"You saw something!" Wayne practically shouted into Finn's ear, causing Finn to jump back, startled.
Wayne jumped up, suddenly years younger. He pulled Finn to his feet.
"You saw something!" he thundered.
"Jeeess! What's the big deal?"
"Tell me what you saw."
"You saw it too!" Finn told him.
"Which character?"
Finn felt relief. Wayne knew Finn had seen a character, which had to mean he'd seen it too. He was clearly playing some kind of game by making Finn actually name the character, but Finn was good at games.
"Which character did you see?" Finn asked.
"You want me to push this button?" Wayne threatened.
Did he? Finn wasn't sure. If it was a dream, the black remote-control fob represented a way out. When was the right time to use it? He hoped to stretch this out a minute longer. It was fun here.
He glanced around at the sound of footsteps. Goofy went tearing past them, not thirty feet away, and headed into Frontierland.
Wayne never moved. Never looked in Goofy's direction.
"You're playing head games with me," Finn said.
"Am I?"
"Goofy," Finn said.
"Are you asking me if I'm goofy? I've been called worse." Wayne studied Finn. His old leathery face brightened as he said, "You saw Goofy!"
Maybe Wayne needed a hearing aidhe seemed prone to fits of shouting.
Finn backed off. "Yeah. So what? You would have too, if you'd bothered to look."
Wayne probably couldn't hear all that well. He obviously hadn't heard Goofy's footsteps, because he hadn't turned toward the sound.
Finn decided to test Wayne. "Chip and Dale," he said. "You saw them, right?"
"You saw Chip and Dale?" He made it sound like Finn had won the lottery. What was with that?
"I, ah . . . This is getting a little weird. I think I want to go back now." Finn heard himself repeat some of what Wayne had told him, though the words didn't fit in his mouth all that well. It sounded to him like someone else doing the talking.
"I'll push the button, if you like. But I have to warn you. . ." Wayne fiddled with the nametag pinned to his uniform.
"Warn me about what?"
"What you'll be missing. The park after dark. Basically all to yourself. The attractions operate day and night. Not many people know that."
"Now I know I'm dreaming."
"But you aren't," Wayne explained. "Are you forgetting your arm?"
Finn studied his arm once more. "I'll admit, that is . . . interesting. It's almost like . . . " Finn caught himself.
"Like you're glowing," Wayne said in an all-knowing, I-told-you-so tone of voice.
"Am I?"
"What might account for that?" Wayne inquired.
Finn understood somehow that a lot hung on his answerhis imagining this place, or dreaming it, or whatever was happening to him. His ability to stay here. To return. He wasn't quick to answer. He didn't want to face what Wayne was suggesting.
"I give up," he said.
"No, you don't," Wayne protested. "You never would have been chosen for this if you were the kind who gives up on things. You're a finisher, Finn. That's what I liked about you from your first audition tape."
Stunned by what the old guy had just said, Finn felt his mouth go dry. How did Wayne know about his audition tape? Exactly how complicated could a dream get?
"Who are you?" Finn blurted out.
"I'm Wayne. I work here. I was one of the first people hired by Mr. Disney to imagine this park. The rides, the attractions. They call us Imagineers."
"You knew Walt Disney?" Finn tried not to sound impressed.
"He was my boss, you might say. At any rate, he's the reason I'm here. The reason you're here."
"Me?"
"I know this can't be easy."
"It's a dream," Finn said, thinking, what's so hard about a dream?
"No, it's not a dream," Wayne said. "Take a look at the moon." Finn didn't move. Wayne's voice became more severe. "I said: look at the moon."
Finn had to turn around to locate the half-moon, like a crooked smile, hanging well above the horizon.
'When you wake upwhen you think you wake uptake a look out the window. You'll see the same moon, and you'll know."
"Know what?" Finn asked.
"That you were here. Sitting here in Disney World with an old guy named Wayne."
"You're telling me this isn't a dream?" Finn felt his words catch in his throat.
"We've got a problem. A big problem. A problem that affects not only the park, but the world outside the park. We call them the Overtakers."
"The what?" Finn didn't like the sound of that.
Wayne said urgently, "You need to contact the other hosts. All five. Arrange to meet them here at the same time. That will mean all of you have to go to bed, go to sleep, fairly close to the same time. Within half an hour of one another. Tell them that. That should work, I think."
"What are you talking about?"
"There's a fable, a story, a puzzle of sorts that was left in case of a problem like this. It's called the Stonecutter's Quill."
"A problem like what?" Finn felt totally confused. The Stonecutter's Quillthe title had an eerie sound to it.
Tom SawyerIs that really the Tom Sawyer? Finn wonderedcame out of Frontierland and headed up a long ramp into the castle. The barefoot boy was smoking a pipe with a long stem. Wayne did a good job of not reacting, of pretending he didn't see the kid.
Wayne said, "The puzzle has to be solved to be understood. It has to be understood to be of any use to us." He paused, and looked over at Finn. It felt to Finn as if Wayne were looking right through him. "You're going to solve it."
"Me?"
"The five of you," Wayne said.
Finn jumped away from the man. Again he thought, How complicated can a dream get? If Wayne was only a part of the dream, how could he possibly know about the five other hosts? How could he talk about Finn's audition tape the way he had? It was all related, all rolled into one another, but Finn couldn't sort it out.
Finn said, "You're talking about MGM Studios."
"Of course, I am," Wayne said. "You see? I knew you were the right one. You're the leader, Finn."
"I don't have the slightest clue what you're talking about," Finn said, objecting.
"Nice try. But of course you do. You know exactly what I'm talking about. You just don't want to face it. Perfectly understandable. That will change."
"A fable," Finn said, testing him again. Could a dream remember itself?
"The moon," Wayne reminded. "Don't forget the moon."
"I won't."
"All five of you. I need you together. Here. All in the same place at the same time. I can explain it to you then. Once. As a group. Just the one time. You can decideas a groupto help us or not."
"Us?" Finn said.
"I'll explain that as well."
"This is the weirdest dream I've ever had!" Finn said, not realizing he was shouting.
"You'll get over it," Wayne said. He raised his right hand, the one holding the black remote-control fob, and pressed the button with his thumb.
Finn awoke, sitting up in bed. His bedside clock read 2:07 A.M. He collected himself, checked his surroundings. He reached out and touched the glass of water next to the clock. Just the feel of it was reassuring. Thank goodness, he thought.
A dream? he wondered. "Whoa," he heard himself say aloud. "What a dream!" This time his voice sounded more the way it always sounded, which reminded him of how thin and electronic it had sounded in the park.
"Whoa," he repeated, just to hear himself say it. He scratched an itch on his head, and another on his belly. That felt better. He lay back down, his head on the pillow, his green eyes wide open to the dark room.
All at once Finn spotted a shaft of lightbluish lighton his ceiling; in the shape of a knife blade. Moonlight.
Finn slipped out of bed with trepidation. He crept toward the window, afraid to look. The closer he got to it, the more his face was bathed in that pale light. It seeped through a small crack in the curtains.
Finn raised his arm and caught sight of his watch. His arm appeared solid. It did not glow and shimmer the way it had while he was with Wayne. That came as a relief.
Finn parted the curtains.
There, out the window, hanging in the exact same place of the sky when Wayne had pointed it out to him, Finn saw the curving smile of a half-moon. Could he have known that in his sleep? How? He looked again.
The moon seemed to be laughing at him.
© Ridley Pearson