I take the right fork this time, distracted by the rough soil biting into the soft soles of my bare feet, when a body slams into mine.
Just like earlier today, Greer is stuck, spinning in a circle in an attempt to go left.
“Good luck, Greer!” I take the path to the left and leave her alone, cursing in frustration.
I’m sprinting toward what I hope is the center of the maze when a hedge springs up from the ground, throwing me flat on my back.
The wind is knocked from my lungs. I push myself up to find my nightdress ripped and the palms of my hands shredded and bloody.
I slowly rise to my feet, faltering as blinding pain shoots through my body. It’s like pure fire is running up the column of my spine and down my limbs. In the space of a heartbeat it is gone, but it leaves me shaking in the aftermath.
I take off again, more careful this time. Something white flashes in my peripheral vision, and I pause, thinking it’s another girl in her nightdress, but it’s charging at me in a flash.
Not a girl—a... goose? I nearly laugh, but then it expands itsmassive wings and flaps at me until my back is flush against the sharp edges of the maze.
No, not a goose—a swan. The biggest swan I’ve ever seen. It lunges at me and bites my ankle hard enough to draw blood. I cry out.
It lunges again, its sharp beak connecting with the soft skin below my knee. I swear and kick at it, but that only makes it angrier.
There’s a clatter of metal next to me, and I look down to see a sword, a full-blown sword with a ruby-encrusted handle, spit out by the maze.
I scoop it up off the ground, and the wretched swan takes the opportunity to bite onto a lock of my hair and yank me to the dirt. I kick and kick, but it just keeps pulling, so I lift the sword and behead the creature in one fell swoop.
It dies with a honk, a splatter of blood, and a storm of white feathers. Then its body crumbles to dust, like it was never real at all, but its blood remains splashed across my face.
I’m panting desperately. It’s getting darker by the moment, as if the moon is being dimmed.
Every minute or two I hear screams from other sections of the maze. I think I hear a low laugh too, but that could be my imagination.
I round a corner and find nothing but a solid hedge in front of me. I turn back to see the passage I came from knit together, trapping me in a box.
Do I climb like Emmy did earlier today?
I slash at one wall with my sword, but it doesn’t make so much as a dent. I cry out in frustration.
Suddenly, glowing script appears on one wall, as if an invisible hand is writing it in front of me.
I’m always running but have no feet; I have a bed but do not sleep.
A riddle? Somewhere to my right someone is screaming. They sound close.
“Who’s there?” I call.
The walls of the hedge inch closer, closing me in. I try to steady my breathing. It’s no good if I panic. I wish I’d paid attention during lessons today instead of copying Marion’s answers.
I read the riddle once more:I’m always running but have no feet; I have a bed but do not sleep.
“A river!” I shout, and a hole opens up in the hedge in front of me, barely large enough to step through.
The hedge closes behind me the moment I’m on the other side, and I’m faced with yet another blocked path, boxed in between hedges in a space so small I can’t extend my arms.
What breaks but never falls, what falls but never breaks.
More screaming. “Olive?” I call. “Emmy?” I shouldn’t have left Greer alone, spinning in circles.
From over the hedge comes the sound of footsteps getting closer, steady and persistent. Or is that a heartbeat? The ticking of a clock? I cover my ears to find that the sound is coming from inside my own head.
Tick, tick, tick.
