The two boys remained rooted firmly in place. “No way!” Philby said.

“Silly, silly boy.” She clapped her gloved hands together. Philby seemed to lose every bone in his body. He fell to the floor in a heap of unwilling limbs and muscle, a lump of flesh.

“I’m giving you a very generous opportunity here. Terry knows better than to disobey, don’t you, Terry?”

Maybeck’s lips moved, but no sound came out.

“I can add some pain, if you like,” she said to Philby.

“No!” Maybeck said, reaching for Philby.

“Go!” Finn instructed them.

They looked pained to hear this from him.

“Go,” he repeated.

Losing her patience, Maleficent asked, “Or do you prefer fire?”

Her left hand suddenly held a ball of flame. She blew it out.

“Or wind?” The room swirled with a gale force that blew dust into their eyes and knocked the boys off their feet. Neither Jez’s robes nor her mother’s so much as fluttered.

“Want to play some more?” she asked.

Maleficent lit another ball of flame in her hand. She blew on it, sending it rolling directly for Maybeck. It exploded in a puff of black smoke just before reaching him.

Helping Philby up, Finn leaned in and whispered, “Keep an image in your head. Focus on something. Protect your memory.” He gave him a little shove. “Now, go!” he said more loudly.

Maybeck led Philby by the arm. They hurried out of the room.

When they were gone, Finn said to the witch, “You’re head of the Overtakers.”

She cackled an edgy laugh. “Me? Head? False compliments will get you nowhere with me, young man. I am but a humble servant to she who lives within. My powers are so small and insignificant. Do not waste your breath. I’m an errand runner, that’s all.”

Finn felt his knees go weak. There was something more powerful than she was?

She instructed him: “Now, put it on the floor. Do so, or suffer. Your choice.”

“Make me,” Finn said.

Maleficent waved her right hand and Finn’s cape blew open. The assortment of pens and pencils taken from Walt’s desk stuck out from the cape’s inside pocket. The witch turned away and the cape fell shut.

“If you could make me hand it over, you would have,” he told her. “But you can’t. For some reason, you need me to cooperate. Why is that?”

He flashed open the cape again. And again, she averted her gaze.

“He protected against this, didn’t he? Walt Disney,” Finn said as he concealed the pens and pencils again.

Maleficent dared to venture a look at the pens, her eyes sparkling, as if Finn were holding a million dollars in gold.

He took hold of the pens and held them out toward her. Maleficent cowered away from him.

“Interesting,” Finn said. “You need one of these pens or pencils, don’t you? But which one?”

He stepped forward. She moved back, and away, ducking behind the nearest column. “The real quill can hurt you, can’t it? Dull your powers?” He understood then. This was how Wayne could stop the Overtakers.

“It can stop your plans, this pen, can’t it? You need to get rid of it. Destroy it. Even just its existence has threatened you all these years.”

“What do you know? You’re just a boy! And we all know little boys shouldn’t play with fire.”

With that, she pretended she was bowling. A large ball of fire rolled from her hand and across the floor at Finn. He dodged it easily enough, but then came a second, and a third.

Jez “caught” the balls of fire on the opposite side and bowled them back toward Maleficent.

Finn, trapped in the middle, danced to avoid the flames.

A ball singed his cape. He couldn’t keep this up for long. He found himself hopping around like an Irish step dancer.

“You will do exactly as I say,” Maleficent instructed him, still bowling her fireballs at him.

Finn understood what he had to do. Dodging the fire as he landed, he scattered several of the pens across the stone floor. A ball of fire tumbled toward the pens.

“No!” the witch shouted. With a wave of her hand, the flaming balls vanished into wisps of black smoke and the tangy smell that follows a lightning storm.

So, Finn thought, she doesn’t want to destroy the pen, and she can’t touch it herself. She has a use for it, but is also afraid of its power.

“You think yourself so clever?” she called out angrily. She walked right through his electric cage, straight for the pens.

Finn dove across the floor, swept them up into his hand, and sprinted for the white sparking fence. She had passed through without so much as a spark.

When he was crossed over, Finn had been able to walk through walls and counter the currents of Splash Mountain by concentrating on the DHI essence of his crossed-over body. So why not pass through this electric fence unharmed?

He focused on the single idea: I am light. I am nothing but light. Nothing can stop me if I’m nothing but light. Nothing can harm me if I’m—

Wham!

Reaching the fence at full stride, he was knocked back off his feet and onto the floor. He felt as if he’d been stabbed in the chest.

Maleficent seemed to float, not walk, as she approached. She towered over him. Scowling, the witch raised her arm, about to deliver a spell. Finn clutched the pens and jumped toward her, lightning fast. He thrust the pens in her face. Sparks flew as the pens connected with Maleficent.

She flew back and fell to the stone floor.

“Your Grace?” Jez called out.

The witch lay on the stone floor, stunned. The electric fence sputtered.

Finn stepped closer to the fallen witch, the pens held in front of him like a sword. She recoiled, expecting him to strike again.

“Lower the fence!” he instructed Jez. He never took his eyes off Maleficent. She seemed to be gaining her strength back. “Lower the fence, or I’ll do it again,” Finn warned.

The bars of buzzing white lines sparked twice more and then vanished.

“Release Amanda and Charlene,” he told her. When Jez hesitated, he stepped closer to Maleficent. The feeling of cold increased. Her strength was indeed returning. He needed Jez to do this quickly, before her mother came to her senses.

He stabbed at Maleficent with the fistful of pens. A second burst of sparks threw her down again.

“Okay!” Jez exclaimed. She waved her hands. “It’s done.”

Finn backed up and reached the stairway.

A weakened Maleficent lifted her head and said, “We will meet again, young man. We have unfinished business, you and I.”

Finn turned and ran.

31

The kids needed the plans that had been stolen from Finn at One Man’s Dream, and no one had any doubts as to who had taken them. Maleficent would return for the pen—the Stonecutter’s Quil

—with a vengeance. Whatever powers the pen and the plans possessed when combined, each side had their reasons for wanting what the other now possessed.

Before he left Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party, Finn paid Wayne a visit to explain the night’s events.

“It’s always such a noisy night,” Wayne complained. He looked silly dressed in a pair of pajamas and a plaid robe. He wore Mickey and Minnie Mouse fuzzy slippers.

“We need your help.”

“So it would seem. So it would seem.” Wayne paced his small apartment over the fire station, glancing out the windows occasionally. Finn heard him mutter, “When will they go home?” Then he paced some more. “Two birds with one stone,” he said, now addressing Finn.

“How’s that?” Finn asked, impatient to hook back up with his friends and leave the park.

“I can help you—will help you—but it won’t come without additional risk to us all. She has to be desperate to be bowling fire at your feet. Revealing herself like that.” He studied the pens spread out on the small dining table, where Finn had put them. “You’ll keep all of these, because they’ve obviously come in handy. Tomorrow’s the day. They’ll be expecting you by night, of course, because that’s when you’re usually here. So it can’t be night. It must be day. Furthermore, if you’re to secure the plans, then you must be a boy, not crossed over.”