Crowns of the Kingdom
Chapter 24: Closing in on Complications
Mickey had planned to get everyone in Fantasyland out to Central Plaza before he placed the Light Crown, but it turned out not to be necessary. A procession of pirates, bears, monkeys carrying haunted statuary, waistcoat-wearing ganders, tropical birds, and children in national costume, most of them singing and/or playing some kind of instrument, is the sort of thing that stands out even in Disneyland. So when the whole assortment arrived before Sleeping Beauty Castle with Mickey at the lead, bearing the newly materialized Light Crown aloft like a trophy (which it was), they found most of their fellow characters already waiting for them, applauding their success.
Mickey felt he should say something significant, but he seemed to have left his eloquence back in the jungle. "So, uh…" he babbled. "I guess it's that time again." He turned his gaze up the castle, to the spot above the Rocket Crown where the Light Crown belonged. From the vantage point of the drawbridge, it looked very far away indeed, practically inaccessible. He knew it was accessible, of course…but after all he'd been through, he wasn't looking forward to climbing all those stairs again.
He felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Minnie's. "Come on," she said gently, as though reading his mind. "It won't be so bad if we go up together."
"Let's all go up!" suggested Daisy. "The six of us, I mean. There's not enough room up there for all of us all of us—sorry, guys. I want to see what these time jumps look like from up there."
"It looks amazi—aw, heck, you'll find out in a few minutes. Let's go!" said Mickey. Halfway reenergized, he led the rest of the Sensational Six inside the Castle and up to the parapet. "Hold onto your hats and hair bows," he advised the others. Then he took careful aim, tossed the Light Crown, and watched it arc through the air and settle neatly over the highest spire.
For the third time came the unsettling but thrilling sensation of space rushing by, of time catapulting past. For the third time Mickey was treated to the spectacle of Disneyland's organic growth through the years. The first major event was also a huge relief: the translucent outline of Space Mountain, ghostly in the dark of night, began to shimmer with glittering motes of light that filled in the space between the lines until it was the real, solid structure that he knew and loved.
Then came a sound—a sharp, heavy sound like a pistol shot, cracking in a straight line across Tomorrowland from Space Mountain to the Matterhorn, which suddenly shuddered with activity as its straightforward spiraling double track was reconfigured into a maze of ice caverns, glowing crystals, and the glowing red eyes and guttural roars of Harold, the Abominable Snowman who made the mountain his home starting in 1978. The gunshot-like sound repeated itself, cutting across the Fantasyland courtyard into the back end of Frontierland, where an extremely localized earthquake rattled the little desert town of Rainbow Ridge, tumbled the boulders and low mesas into an extravagantly sculpted Southwestern landscape of rocky towers, and heaved and twisted the tracks of the Mine Train Thru Nature's Wonderland into the steep drops and tight curves of the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. Even after this development was complete, the rumbling sound went on for some time, growing lower and more muted until it had melded with the background noise of the entire park. By that time, an entirely different metamorphosis had begun, practically under their noses.
The simple, flat, boldly painted façades of the Fantasyland courtyard attractions were quivering like aspen leaves, the carnival tent-styled ticket booths acquiring ragged tears in their canopies. It wasn't long before the whole lot collapsed in an avalanche of wood and plaster, sending billows of dust skyward. The dust hung in the air, neither settling nor dissipating, and began to sparkle—mildly at first, but the white-gold pinpoint flashes grew brighter and more numerous, until the haze was not so much dust as pixie dust, at which point it exploded. A wave of glittery brilliance spread outward to encompass nearly all of Fantasyland, leaving magnificent changes in its wake. The outdoor spinning rides—Dumbo, the Tea Cups, and the Carrousel—were relocated to make the walkways more spacious, and the courtyard show buildings were spruced up with gorgeous Old European architectural theming that blended almost seamlessly with the Castle. The Fantasyland Theater was completely repurposed into a ride and an eatery: Pinocchio's Daring Journey and the matching Village Haus restaurant. Mickey smiled, even while he braced himself for the remainder of the trip through time—Pinocchio had been missing his ride, and would be glad to have it back.
The transformation was winding down, but there was still one more major change to go. An unused meadow at the north end of the park, just west of "it's a small world," suddenly collapsed into a deep, sloping pit. Out of the sides of the pit unfolded banks of aluminum benches and the shell of a large theatre stage, while the bottom congealed into a broad dance floor. Colored lasers flashed through fog from smoke machines, announcing the arrival of Videopolis, Disneyland's combination amphitheatre and dance club…as well as leaving no room for doubt that they were arriving in the Eighties. Only then did the passage of time return to normal, leaving the Sensational Six breathless with exhilarated wonder.
Goofy was the first to find his voice. "Wowee, Mickey! That was better'n amazing—it was…uh…outstandtabulous! And it really makes ya think, don't it?"
"Think about what?" queried Donald.
Goofy pondered that for a moment. "Uh…just think, I think," he finally replied.
Mickey chuckled. "Well, it makes me think about how we still need to make it happen two more times. Let's head down, bring everyone up to speed, and then get a good night's sleep for the next phase of this thing. With any luck, it won't be half as complicated as the last one."
"No kidding!" Minnie agreed.
Only a small handful of films had come out of Disney Animation between 1975 and 1985, and the characters retrieved from Inpotentia this time around were the fewest yet…but one of them was also the largest yet: Elliott the dragon, whose happy clucks and snorts dominated the noise of the latest reunion. At the other end of the scale were Bernard and Miss Bianca of the Rescue Aid Society, looking somewhat embarrassed at having been the rescuees for once. There were also Tod the fox and Copper the hound, and even Taran, Gurgi, and Princess Eilonwy, who didn't normally have much contact with the rest of the Disney Family, but had been affected with the others.
And that, sadly enough, was it. Mickey consoled himself with the thought that the next jump forward would free several times as many characters, and the one after that more still…and then the quest would be over, the Family would be restored, the park would be restored, and they could all get back to the business of bringing joy to humanity.
The first few minutes after the Sensational Six stepped back out onto the Castle drawbridge were, of course, absolute chaos…the good kind of chaos. Then Mickey whistled for order.
"Here's the game plan," he said. "You guys have done a great job securing Fantasyland, but we can't take Disneyland back from the Dispirations if most of us just hole up in one spot. We need to take this fight to the enemy on as many fronts as possible." He stumbled slightly over the words; he wasn't used to military-style jargon. "So first thing in the morning, get all the kids and non-fighters over to 'it's a small world,' along with a few defenders, and the rest of you spread out into the park and take down any Dispirations you find. Now, I don't know if those things are getting stronger, but they're definitely getting smarter—" ("I knew it!" muttered Donald.) "—so we need to fight as smart as we can. We've already got the home field advantage…but we can enhance that by having everyone stick to their own territory as much as possible. Elliott, patrol Main Street, O'Malley, you and your posse cover New Orleans Square, that sort of thing. And the flyers can take turns spotting and relaying messages for everyone else."
Elliott made a series of questioning grunts and disappeared with a pop.
"Good idea," said Mickey. "We can ambush them for a change." Purring with self-satisfaction, Elliott faded back into visibility. "Meanwhile, the six of us will be tracking down the next crown, and with any luck, all the activity will give us some cover. So! Are ya all with me?"
The cheer of affirmation was tremendous.
The meeting had long since broken up, most of the attendees departed for home—for such homes as they had. Yet the Queen of Hearts still lingered in the Villains' Lair, traipsing through the corridors and side rooms in the hope of "unexpectedly" meeting another straggler, whom she could then chat up—strictly on a small-talk basis, of course—and in the process "coincidentally" glean hints as to her fellow Villains' plans concerning the crisis. (She was good at small talk, having taken special lessons as a young Princess of Hearts.)
It was during her fourth circuit that she finally heard voices. Two of them, coming from the kitchen.
"All right, darling. Pick your poison." That was Cruella De Vil.
The Queen of Hearts didn't recognize the second voice—also female, and shrill, but with a chirpy inflection that suggested the speaker was trying (and failing) to affect an upper-class accent. "Tequila, straight up. In fact, don't even pour it—just give me the bottle."
"All right," said Cruella, "but take it easy. That stuff'll kill you."
The Queen reached the door to the kitchen and had a peek inside. There was Cruella, leaning against one of the stainless-steel counters with her cigarette holder in one hand and a glass of something bubbly in the other. Next to her was her tequila-drinking colleague, a rather shopworn woman with a veritable mop of vermilion hair and too much makeup applied too hastily. The Queen of Hearts recognized Madam Medusa, whom she knew by sight, just not by sound. Mickey must have managed to place another crown, she realized with a little thrill of vicarious triumph.
She wasn't at all surprised to see the two of them together, given the similarities in their personalities and priorities. Clearly Cruella was consoling Medusa after the latter's recent return from Inpotentia. It seemed an excellent opportunity to do some of the aforementioned hint-gleaning, so the Queen of Hearts smoothed her gown and swept into the kitchen, feigning something akin to distress.
"Ugh! What a day! That Maleficent certainly has a lot to answer for, am I right?"
"Oh, stuff a sock in it, you Monte Carlo reject," Madam Medusa sniffed. "It's not like you were affected."
"Well, I might have been," the Queen of Hearts said. "She obviously doesn't care whom she devastates!"
Cruella smiled venomously. "Yes, darling, I saw you at yesterday's meeting. There's no need to pretend to be insightful."
The Queen glowered, her dander rising. This was exactly why she didn't deal much with the other Villains. She put on her best icy smile and dropped a metaphorical lure into the figurative waters of the conversation: "At any rate, I'm glad for once that that mouse is such a meddler. Aren't you?"
Madam Medusa choked on her tequila and wound up spitting most of it out. She and Cruella traded incredulous looks.
"I did not just hear you say that," Medusa said with a bitterly ironic chuckle.
"'For once,' you're glad of it?" said Cruella. "You know, darling, where I come from, we consider that sort of thing protesting too much."
"Well…I…" the Queen of Hearts sputtered.
"Come to think of it, it seems like you've been on a completely different page from the rest of us all along, doesn't it?" Cruella continued, straightening up. "You've been doing an awful lot of looking and listening while we've all been talking, and that's not like you at all."
"Cruella, you don't suppose…?" said Medusa.
"As a matter of fact, darling, I do," was the stony reply. The Queen of Hearts began edging back toward the kitchen door. "Lads!" Cruella squawked suddenly, and the Queen turned around to find her way blocked by two shabby-looking men, one tall and thin, the other short and fat, but otherwise nearly identical: Jasper and Horace Badun, Cruella's subordinates in crime.
"Stand aside this instant!" The Queen ordered them, grappling for her dignity like a bather with a bar of soap.
"Nuthin' doin'," growled Jasper. "We don't take orders from yew, 'Yer Majesty.'"
"Don't let her go anywhere, lads," said Cruella. "She has an urgent appointment with…well, everyone who's anyone around here. Medusa, darling, if you would be so kind, have that fellow of yours send out the word—first thing in the morning, we're having another meeting and sorting all this out once and for all!"
The gathering had long since broken up, the characters dispersed to their various night roosts…and Minnie, once again, had lost track of Mickey. At least this time, she supposed, she had no cause for worry. He had probably just gotten caught up…well, getting caught up, with the new arrivals. (Elliott's eagerness to combat Dispirations was all well and good, but he couldn't have known off the bat what he was agreeing to.)
A cursory round of the Fantasyland courtyard didn't turn up anything, but Peter Pan was on watch again, to the extent that his attention span would allow, and from his preferred altitude of fifty feet or so, he could see right over the tops of all the nearby buildings.
"Peter!" Minnie called up to him, hoping she wasn't disturbing anyone. "Peter Pan!"
He obligingly swooped down and made a gallant mid-air bow. "What can I do for you, Minnie?"
"Have you seen Mickey lately? Since he gave his speech?"
"Oh, sure," said Peter. "I saw him heading up toward 'it's a small world' with Pluto just a few minutes ago. What do you suppose he's up to?"
"I couldn't say," said Minnie, "but I'm going to find out. It sounds like he's pushing himself too hard again. Thanks, Peter." The flying boy, however, had already lost interest in the conversation and returned to his nocturnal aerobatics.
Minnie hustled toward the north end of Fantasyland, hoping that "just a few minutes ago" was recent enough for her to overtake Mickey and Pluto on the way. Evidently, not quite—she rounded the queue area for the Storybookland Canal Boats and looked up the broad, straight walkway leading to "it's a small world" just in time to spot a shuddering in the hedge on the far side of the railroad tracks. The movement, though half-hidden in the dim illumination spilling over from the walkway lights, was plain to anyone who knew about the secret gateway between Fantasyland and Toontown, hidden behind the hedge.
Even more telling was the secondary movement that Minnie almost missed, of a whiplike black tail vanishing into the foliage. "Mickey!" Minnie shouted almost on reflex, despite knowing that he had almost no chance of hearing her so far away, especially over the thumping New Wave music emanating from Videopolis on one side, and the multicultural variations on a theme blaring from "it's a small world" on the other. Sure enough, he didn't. She broke into a jog. A few moments later, she scrambled through the hedge herself, to the strains of the most notorious children's song in the world on her right, and "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" by Tears for Fears on her left.
Minnie crossed the boundary into Toontown and resumed her accelerated pace, wondering where in the world Mickey was going in such a hurry. All of a sudden it hit her: home. It was easy to forget, with all that was going on, that they still had their homes to go to, if they chose.
Assuming, of course, that it was really safe, that the Dispirations hadn't infested Toontown in the meantime. Minnie found herself breaking into a jog again, heading for Mickey's house (he was there, all right—there was light in his front windows), worried that everything was about to go horribly wrong. But nothing did, the neighborhood remained peaceful and unsullied, and she soon arrived on her boyfriend's porch.
She was just raising her hand to ring the doorbell when the front door abruptly opened. "Oh, hi there, Minnie," said Mickey, sounding surprised. He had Pluto on a leash, and an air of purpose about him.
"Don't tell me he suddenly wanted to go for a walk," Minnie said.
"It's not that," said Mickey, snapping off the light switch and slipping out of the house. "I need him to smell something out for me, and I don't want him getting excited and leaving me behind by accident."
"Smell what out?" Minnie said, setting her hands on her hips. "Mickey, you're not planning to go looking for the next crown by yourself, are you?"
"Of course not!" Mickey retorted. "Well, sort of. But it's nothing bad. I'm just making sure not to make the same mistake twice. This time, we're going to have everything we need right off the bat."
Minnie locked eyes with him for a moment, parsing what he had just said. "Oh," she figured out. "What did you have in mind? I don't think any of the characters we just got back wear crowns, do they?"
"You'll see," Mickey replied with a fey smile. "Assuming you're coming with us, that is. I mean, would you like to come with us? It shouldn't take too long," he added almost apologetically.
"I'd love to," said Minnie, taking Mickey's hand.
Their destination turned out to be a large warehouse attached to the back of the Toontown Five and Dime, beyond the stock room—not enormous, but the space inside was certainly well-used, with floor-to-ceiling shelves dividing it into a grid of aisles barely wide enough to walk in comfortably. The shelves, in turn, were crammed with…stuff. All kinds of stuff, mostly in cardboard boxes, only some of which were labeled and all of which were placed to maximize the available room rather than according to what was in them. That was why they needed Pluto's nose. As soon as they were properly inside the stacks, Mickey released the slack on the leash and said, "Okay, boy. Find it!" The dog began walking in a tight circle, sniffing the air. Soon he had pinpointed a direction and begun frolicking off, all but dragging Mickey along with him. Minnie followed close behind.
For the next few minutes, the three of them dashed through reminiscence. For the contents of the warehouse, every last item, were keepsakes: props and costumes left over from decades' worth of animated shorts and featurettes. Although most of the boxes weren't labeled, a few of them were, usually with the title of the picture in question, and just reading the words in the fraction of a second available as Pluto hauled the party past a shelf was enough to bring the memories flooding back. And some of the items weren't even boxed, but sitting in plain view, packing an even bigger nostalgic punch into each brief glimpse. If not for Pluto, catapulting them along in the excitement of the hunt, Mickey and Minnie might have taken forever to comb the warehouse, distracted at every turn.
At one point, the tawny dog paused for another sniff-round, reorienting on the scent he was tracking. The two mice barely had time to catch their breath before they were all off again, changing direction at every intersection in a zigzag pattern. Finally, Pluto skidded to a halt and snapped into a rigid "pointing" position, with his nose aimed at a box about the right size to hold a folding card table.
"All right!" Mickey cheered. "Great job, pal!" He passed his end of the leash over to Minnie and hauled the box off of its shelf. It moved more easily than a card table. He pulled the lid open, and in a mild explosion of dust and pine fragrance, the contents were revealed.
At first glance, it didn't look like a crown at all—it looked like a Christmas wreath almost four feet in diameter. But Minnie was only confused for a second, after which she recognized the circle of evergreen and holly as the crown that Willie the Giant had worn in order to play the Ghost of Christmas Present in Mickey's Christmas Carol.
"So what do you think, Minnie?" asked Mickey. "You think this'll do it?"
Minnie giggled. "Do you think we can carry it?"
"I don't see why not. It's not that heavy."
"Oh, I get it. You brought me along just so I could help lug the loot." She kept her tone light in order to show that she was kidding.
Mickey removed the wreath-crown from the box by tipping it up on edge. It stood as tall as he did. That gave them an idea—both of them at the same time, judging by the way they suddenly looked up at each other, smiling. Even Pluto got it—he nosed at an oversized holly berry that had fallen off the wreath, making it roll across the floor.
Mere moments later, they exited the Five and Dime, rolling Willie's crown ahead of them like a great big Christmas-themed hoop and leaving a trail of fir needles behind them. "Careful!" Mickey shouted as a too-strong push sent it just ahead of their reach. They caught up two steps later and slowed the whole procession to walking speed in order to avoid losing control altogether. (A mass of evergreen and holly that large could do quite a bit of damage, loose in Toontown.)
"Too bad we won't just be able to do this tomorrow," said Mickey as they approached the gateway back to Fantasyland.
"Oh? Why not?" asked Minnie.
"Because we'll be going back to Adventureland, I'm afraid."
"Oh, brother!" But she realized he was right. The next crown on the list was the Serpent Crown, designed with a motif of rearing cobras and staring eyes in gold and ruby in order to evoke the most complex thrill ride in the park: the Indiana Jones Adventure, appropriately located in Adventureland. Not yet, however—it had debuted in 1995, the culmination of Disneyland's fourth decade. "Well, maybe with any luck, it'll be a quick trip this time," said Minnie.
They began wrestling the wreath-crown through the gate and the hedge beyond. "That's what I'm hoping for," said Mickey. "Once we get this thing someplace safe, I'm going to try getting another look at Professor von Drake's scanner device. I should have thought of that last time, but I was preoccupied thinking about my dream, and then Donald spotted the Light Crown anyway."
"Sounds like a plan," said Minnie. "May I assume I'm still invited to come with you?"
"Well, I don't know. I don't think I'll need to move anything big," Mickey quipped.
"I'll just take that as a yes," Minnie said.
They finished getting Willie's crown into Fantasyland and continued on until they were back in the courtyard. It was all but empty; most of the characters had packed it in for the night. The only ones still present were Peter Pan, performing his playful variation on guard duty, and the three Good Fairies, keeping a more mature eye on things from atop the show buildings. (The fortifications seemed to have vanished with the remodeling of the area, but this wasn't much of a loss now that the structures were built to resemble castle architecture anyway.)
The rest of the Sensational Six were also there, waiting at ground level. "And just where have you two been?" Daisy asked suggestively. "Sorry, three," she amended at Pluto's affronted snort.
"Gawrsh, breakin' out the Christmas decorations a little early, aren'tcha?" said Goofy.
"Don't be ridiculous," said Donald. "It's Willie's 'Ghost of Christmas Present' crown from the Christmas Carol featurette."
"Oh, right!" said Goofy. "We shore had a swell time with that one, didn't we?" He began miming his "Jacob Marley" performance, walking with slow, exaggerated steps with his arms outstretched plaintively. "Ebeneeeeezer Scrooooooooge!" he wailed. "A-hyuk! I still got it!" Then he crashed into a planter railing and tipped face-first into a flowerbed, proving that he didn't need to be draped with heavy chains to be a complete klutz.
"Keep it down," Minnie scolded him. "There are people trying to sleep around here, you know."
"Seriously," said Daisy. "This is the best you could do? We'll need a forklift to cart it around."
"You're welcome to come up with a better idea," said Mickey. "Now keep an eye on this thing for a little while. Minnie and I are going to talk to Professor von Drake."
After a couple of false starts due to the Carrousel having been moved, they found the entrance to Merlin's library. As they approached the library itself, they heard tense discussion within. They entered to find Merlin and Ludwig von Drake crouched on either side of Merlin's crystal ball and holding an understated but very sincere argument.
"Um…is this a bad time?" asked Minnie.
The two sages leaped to their feet, startled. "You might say so," said Merlin. "We, er, we can't seem to find Hypatia anywhere. You haven't seen her, have you?"
"No," said Mickey. "We came to ask the Professor for a favor."
"No time!" von Drake asserted. "We gotta get on the job of finding that little critter before she takes important tactical strategical information to The Enemy! And this crazy coot thinks we gonna do that with a bunch of fluffy spells!"
"Divinations," Merlin corrected him with a frown. "And they will work, if you will just give me the feather."
"Nothin' doin'! I'm not finished with my electrochemical analyses over here! We gonna do this the old-fashioned way!" He dramatically flung out a box labeled "Doggie Treats" and rattled it, apparently just to annoy the wizard.
"Maybe we should come back in the morning," Minnie whispered to Mickey.
"Are you kidding? If I know these two, they'll be even worse by morning." He raised his voice. "Professor von Drake, why is this so urgent? She can't have gone far, can she? Maybe she just found a hidey-hole and hasn't come out yet. Pets do that, you know."
"Most pets aren't Dispirations lookin' all cutesy-like," von Drake pointed out. "And you know something? I was afraid of this. I thought it was a bad idea to trust that little foxy thing too much instead of keepin' an eye on her."
"What our dear professor means," said Merlin with a sideways glance at his colleague, "is that insofar as we don't know where Hypatia has gone or what she intends, it behooves us to find her post-haste."
"Well…can you put it off long enough to give us a hand finding the next crown?" said Mickey. "It should only take a few minutes—I just wanted to check the Cosmoscope in your lab."
"That clunky old thing?" von Drake scoffed. "I got rid of it back in 1972. Technology marches on, you know how it is."
"Oh," Mickey said, crestfallen. "Well, in that case, I guess—"
"I got something' even better now," von Drake continued. "C'mere and have a look."
Shrugging, Mickey and Minnie followed him to the rear of the library, where at some point he had set up a full-scale, if rather cramped, scientific laboratory. He had stocked it with most of Merlin's alchemical equipment, plus several items that he must have brought from his own lab, since to the best of Mickey's knowledge, Merlin didn't own, for example, a Geiger counter (although you never knew, with Merlin). All this was spread across two desks and a spare chair, and looked chaotic to the untrained eye. But von Drake apparently knew exactly where in the pile to dig, for he rummaged for only a few seconds before producing a squareish device the size of a jumbo box of tissues. It featured a few buttons, a small monitor, and a radar antenna sticking out of one end.
"Isn't miniaturization swell?" von Drake beamed. "This baby here is the Cosmoscope 4.0 Portable! All the space-time-matter-energy surveillance capacity of the original at only a tiny fraction of the size! Plus I painted the casing silver, which I think looks pretty sharp, don't you?"
"Would you please keep it down?" Merlin huffed from the other end of the library. "I am trying to concentrate!"
Von Drake cleared his throat, properly chastened. "Anyway, this should do the trick. Let's see now…" He began punching buttons. Mickey and Minnie moved to flank him, peering at the device's monitor.
"We think it'll be in Adventureland, if that's any help," said Mickey.
After a moment, von Drake located it—a pulsing yellow dot like the one that had indicated the location of the Rocket Crown. This time, however, the dot was surrounded by an irregular yellowish blur.
"What's all that?" asked Minnie.
"Probably a secondary anomaly," said von Drake. "Like the outline of Space Mountain what Mickey saw back in 1975."
Mickey and Minnie traded a look. If more things were showing up out of their proper timeline, they might have a tougher job ahead of them than previously anticipated.
"Okay," Mickey exhaled. "So where is it?"
Von Drake tapped another button, and a map superimposed itself over the image. "Looks like Adventureland, like you figured," he said. "You kids is gettin' pretty good at this!"
Mickey stared at the little display until his brain finally made sense of the lines, then for a moment longer to memorize the location of the little blinking dot. "Got it," he said. "Thanks for your help, Professor."
"Hang on a second," said Minnie. "Professor, why don't you just use this to find Hypatia?"
"Believe me, I'd love to," he said. "But before I can do that, I need to be able to tell it what to look for." He raised his voice. "And that's why I gotta finish my analyses on that feather over here!"
"Oh, now, that really is too much!" came Merlin's voice.
"Then we'll just leave you to it," Mickey said hurriedly. "Come on, Minnie." He took her arm, and the two of them scrambled out of the library just ahead of the emerging argument.
"So now what?" said Minnie. "Should we look for Hypatia?"
"The last thing we need right now," said Mickey, "is anything else on our plate. Merlin and Professor von Drake can handle it."
"Why did they keep talking about a feather? I thought Hypatia had dragon wings, not feathers."
"Huh. You're right. Maybe she changed shape again."
"Oh, swell," said Minnie. "I hope that doesn't mean she changed sides again."
Mickey frowned. "Well, either way, we need to concentrate on the next crown. In the morning, that is. For now, we need to concentrate on getting some sleep."
"I hear that," Minnie said as they emerged back into the Fantasyland courtyard. A welcome sight met their eyes—Donald, Daisy, and Goofy had kitbashed a set of sleeping bags out of some decorative drapes from the Tinkerbell Toy Shoppe, and arranged them around Willie's wreath-crown, like a campsite. Pluto was already curled up inside the evergreen circle, snoring as only a large dog can.
"So wh—" Daisy began, but Mickey held up a hand, quieting her. "Tomorrow," he said simply.
As they settled down for the night in the nearly silent courtyard, strains of music reached them, carried by the breeze from the north end of Fantasyland: And do you feel scared? I do/But I won't stop and falter/And if we threw it all away/Things can only get better.
They hoped it was an omen.
To Be Continued…
A/N: The Eighties were the era of my childhood, and my formative experiences at Disneyland. Expect some more shameless self-indulgence in the next couple chapters. The thematic music in this chapter is just the beginning.
One of the hardest things about writing this story is not introducing more plot points than I can work through to a reasonable conclusion, or to put the same thing another way, remembering to eventually get back to all the plot points I have already introduced. It helps when I can tie them together somehow, which is what I'm attempting to do with all the subplots involving the Villains, plus one or two others that I won't mention by name 'cause I don't want to spoil anything.
—Karalora
