“I do,” I sighed. “Enemies that are obvious and enemies that are hidden.”
Silence fell, and I could tell by the rise of tension that Erin wanted to ask more questions about my comment, but she asked another question instead. “So, James York…?”
I grimaced, “Yeah, I don’t know what he has in store. I mean…I’m unconvinced that he was being genuine. Anyway,” I wanted to change the subject because there was something that seemed off with James York, or maybe I didn’t trust tall, handsome men. “Have you seen Ashthorn’s great-great-grandson recently?”
“Yeah, he was in the food hall for breakfast this morning,” Mila informed me.
“Oh, next time, can you point him out to me, please?” I stressed, curiously. “I’d love to see what the great-great-grandson of an eccentric, castle-loving recluse was like.”
“Sure,” Mila answered in a friendly manner. “So, we’re having lunch at The Labyrinth, do you want to join us?”
“What’s The Labyrinth?” I asked, thrilled that they were inviting me into their circle, and even when I glimpsed at Erin, she seemed happy with me joining them too. Okay, perhaps we had a bad start, but things will only get better from now on. “I mean, I know what a labyrinth is,” feeling dumb, “but it seems to be the name of something.”
“It’s a coffee cart outside the main entrance into the maze,” Erin replied casually as if she assumed I knew there was a maze at Castlehill.
“Sure,” I answered, eager to see this maze. Then, like a dream come true, the bus turned a bend and descended the mountain, and stretching out from the back of the park that Morgana overlooked was a hedge maze.
A manicured green maze with about three people, who seemed tiny from this height, navigated their way through it before the maze vanished from sight as the bus turned another bend. We were now moving under a canopy of trees, before the bus stopped again.
“I didn’t see that on my map,” I muttered, scrolling for the campus map on my phone.
The tall hedge that framed the back of the park fascinated me from the moment I saw that couple appear like magic out of it. It was marked on my map as a large green space, and I assumed there was another field behind the hedge. Not that it mattered because I’d never venture into that maze anyway. I’m terrible at directions and would probably go around in circles, covering the same ground, and then die of starvation when I couldn’t find my way out and no one noticed I was gone.
“Have you been in there?” I asked them after several moments of silence.
“Yes, twice,” Erin answered, “Once in daytime and once at night, and we got kicked out. It was the night of a scare party, and everyone was wearing masks, which would look stupid in the daytime, but at night it’s like a horror movie in real time.”
I was starting to believe that Erin might be a kindred spirit when she called wearing scary masks in the daytime stupid. I agree. It’s boring and unoriginal. However, it didn’t stop masked men from breaking into my room and waving at me from my window.
Mila said, “Seniors hosted it and invitations went out to some sophomores and juniors only, like a lottery, they said. But I think they chose the students they liked.”
“Huh, interesting,” I said truthfully as the bus pulled up at our stop and we hopped off. “You’re not freshmen anymore. Maybe you’ll receive an invitation this year.”
“Even if we don’t receive an invite, I think we should sneak in again, but this time be more strategic,” Erin said with a twinkle in her eye, smiling as we walked across the road to the coffee cart called Labyrinth with the tall green hedge behind, the entrance into the maze.
“I think that sounds like fun,” I responded, hoping they’d ask me to join, and even if they didn’t, I might sneak in anyway. But then, as we found a picnic table to sit at and I took out the sandwich I'd bought earlier from the café, my heart sank, thinking of all the dumb shit that had happened since I arrived.
Then my heart uplifted as I thought about the traps in my room and wondered if I would come home to someone's eyeballs hanging off the fish hooks.
I snorted aloud, and a little bit of sandwich flew out of my mouth, landing on Erin’s cobalt blue jacket. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry,” I felt so stink and wiped the bit of chewed sandwich off her sleeve.
“Don’t worry,” she laughed, “you were obviously thinking of something funny.”
“I was,” I replied. “I was thinking of how to commit murder and get away with it.” Naturally, my first target would be Ezrah Warwick, then his older brother. My father would be so proud if I got away with it, of course, which was a different story.
“Really? Commit moider,” Mila said in an Al Capone gangster accent, obviously believing that I was joking.
“No. Joke,” I lied, and an uncomfortable silence fell as we ate our sandwiches, and I wondered if maybe they thought I wasn’tjoking. I mean…I was a Boleyn after all, which was much worse than a Wolsey, and not as bad as a Warwick.
Mila cleared her throat, breaking the silence, and I expected her to change the subject to something more palatable, but instead, “There are plenty of places to hide a body around here.”
“Yes, there are,” Erin agreed, glancing at the vista surrounding, and I was starting to wonder if these two music geeks had a dark side to them.
But then Mila changed her tune, bringing us back down to earth. “There already is a dead body here. In the carriages,” she said with genuine concern and sadness, as I thought about the forensic scientists in their yellow protective gear examining something. “Someone lost a son or daughter, brother or sister.”
Mila was definitely the good one—pure as the fallen snow. Considerate, sweet, conscientious, and likable. She was probably easily hurt but would forgive at the drop of a hat without malice, starting a new leaf. Only to be hurt again and again.
Whereas I, on the other hand, was a different story.
