Read The Return: Disney Lands for Free Online Page B

sat there, unmoving. “Go ahead.”
    “Alone, Mom. In private.”
    “Because?”
    “I appreciate the concern, really. But I’m back. I’m fine. And I’m not going anywhere. I’ll see you in the morning.” Finn reached out to open his bedroom
door. Light from thehallway winked off the face of his wristwatch.
    “Mom, what’s the date?”
    “Right now?”
    “Right now. Today.”
    “The eighth.”
    “Not the seventh? You’re sure?”
    “Positive. Why?”
    Finn tapped his wristwatch’s crystal face. “This thing’s busted. It’s saying the seventh. It’s eleven thirty-nine, right?”
    “Two thirty. We can get it looked at.”
    “Two thirty! Maybe…yeah, whatever.”He looked to the open door. “Please? We should both be asleep.”
    Mrs. Whitman swooshed out of the bedroom, her robe wafting behind her like a queen’s cloak.

“I T ’ S TWO THIRTY , MAN .
I’m sleeping.Or I was.” Philby sounded groggy.
    “I returned.”
    “Yes. Congratulations. And I went to bed the moment I saw the data spike indicating you had.”
    “Like five minutes ago,” Finn said. “It’s not as if I’ve cost you a lot of sleep.”
    “Whatever.”
    “I was on King Arthur Carrousel. On Jingles.”
    “I think I knew that.”
    “But when I got off, Walt’s pen was drawn on my arm.”
    “Drawnby whom?”
    “You sound like my mother.”
    “Answer the question.”
    “Not me. I didn’t see anyone else.”
    “That’s impossible.”
    “Which is, in part, why I’m calling you.”
    “We don’t fall asleep as DHIs. Not ever. It’s not as if you nodded off and someone drew on you while you were sleeping. Text me a photo.”
    Finn did. He heard Philby’s phone ding and said, “Check out the ink. Theonly pen I had on me was the fountain pen. But that pen is drawn in—”
    “Ballpoint or marker.”
    “Exactly what I told my mother!”
    “Your mother?”
    “Long story. Later. Look, I didn’t draw it, and I didn’t have a pen to draw it with.”
    “What about it being drawn on your other self? Your sleeping self?”
    “Impossible. My mother was watching me.”
    “You have issues.”
    “Tell meabout it.”
    “Walk me through your time in the park. Tell me what you remember.”
    “Zero. I remember climbing onto Jingles and climbing off. Hey! What if this is like
Insidious
or something?”
    “Inception,”
Philby corrected. “You mean
Inception
. Layers of sleep, layers of consciousness, right?”
    “Right, yes.”
    Philby breathed heavily into the phone. “You seriously think you entereda wormhole and someone drew on your arm?”
    “What’s a wormhole? No, I think I blacked out on Jingles. I think someone came along and drew on my arm, maybe as a message. A clue.”
    “And you want me to suggest this to the others? They’ve already got one foot out the door, Finn. You know that.”
    “So how did it get there?”
    “No clue. A software glitch might explain the memory loss, but notthe pen. You must remember something.”
    “I wish.”
    “Climbing on and off Jingles. That’s it?”
    “My watch messed up. It’s still running, but it’s a few hours off.”
    “When you want to start making sense, I’m listening.”
    “You know what?” Finn fished an image from his subconscious; felt dizzy, dazed. “When I was on Jingles…I remember holding on—to his neck, you know? Because I wasgetting dizzy. I couldn’t see straight. Everything was…blurry. But I remember my watch. I think the hands were moving backward.”
    “Say again.”
    “It makes no sense, or maybe it does, since the date on my watch never advanced. You know how your phone resets the time to the current time zone? I think my watch did that. All on its
own.”
    “But it’s just a regular watch, right? Not an AppleWatch or something?”
    “Regular old, cheap watch. A Timex. The thing has never once had a problem.”
    “Except for moving backward?”
    “Obviously that didn’t happen, but that’s what I saw.”
    “Slow or