“Well,” said Seth, “that’s a shame. Because, of course, if you don’t make a deal to get out, you aren’t getting out at all. You’re already part of a bargain, you know. If you won’t make a new one, well then, you’ll be my servant too.” Below, Ollie could hear creaking as the first of the scarecrows began coming up the ladder. “You will stand in the rain by day and walk my world at night. Keep the maze open and do my bidding.”
“No,” said Ollie. “Absolutely not.”
Until the mist becomes rain.Well, Ollie wasn’t about to conjure rain from the sky, so she did the only thing she could think of, which was pull her water bottle from its side pouch and fling a scattering of drops at the first scarecrowcoming up the ladder. The scarecrow screamed—a human scream. The cat hissed and jumped at Ollie, clawing at her face. Ollie threw it off and then Seth was there, tall and terrible, his mouth a great starving maw. But hestillwasn’t attacking her, Ollie realized, just trying to scare her.
In a voice still thick with tears, Ollie said, “Ihaven’t made a bargain with you. If you made a deal with Ms. Webster, then it was a cheat, a fraud. She gave what she couldn’t give: us. And I’m taking us back.”
Seth’s mouth closed, and Ollie knew she was right. He was a cold, tricky thing, but there were rules, and he’d broken one, taken what someone didn’t have the right to give. “I can onlygiveyou power over me,” said Ollie, more and more sure. “You can’t take it. You said you’d give me water. Well, I have that too.”
Seth looked less human now. His grin still took up half his face, but the eyes above were malevolent. “Little fool,” he said. “I am older than you. I am stronger than you...”
“So?” said Ollie. “If you could have made me a scarecrow, you would have done it by now. But we hid in small spaces at night, and the scarecrows couldn’t get to us, and now I am making no bargain with you. Not even for the deepest wish of my heart. So you can’t do anything to me.”
She splashed water on the next climbing scarecrow. Another human scream.
“They are the door,” said Seth, speaking fast. Hedefinitely looked afraid now. “What will you do when they are all human? The door will close.”
But Ollie smiled right back at Seth. “Do you know what else I’m pretty sure exists in both worlds? A book calledSmall Spaces. ’Cause it was bound and printed in Boston and it would be really weird if they’d only printed one copy. I have my copy right here. I guess you forget about that sort of thing when you’re a super-old corn-maze monster.”
They stared each other down. Seth spoke first. “Will you bet your life on it?” he whispered.
Ollie’s mouth was bone-dry. “Yes,” she said.
Seth bowed suddenly. “Check and mate to you,” he said. “Clever girl.”
Ollie, wary, said nothing.
In Seth’s eyes was almost a look of wonder. “I will be back,” he said. He didn’t say it like a promise, but a fact. “Nevertheless, I thank you. I do not lose very often.” He added, with a quirk of his mouth, “There is something you will want of me. One day.”
“There will be things I want,” said Olivia Adler, “but never of you.”
“Call my hound by his name,” said Seth, “and he will come.” And then the smiling man smiled at her one more time. And bowed again, courtly. And disappeared.
23
BRIAN AND COCOsprinted up to her when she touched the ground, and she found herself locked in a breathless three-way hug, full of questions. “Ollie, what happened?” asked Coco. “The scarecrows just let us go, and then the two that were climbing the ladder fell back down again and turned to dust.”
“We won, I think,” said Ollie. “The smiling man is gone.” She was so tired.
Loud, panting breaths came up out of the dark. Coco and Brian shrank back. The driver, the hound, lifted his great gray head and sniffed the three of them over. “It’s okay,” said Ollie to Brian and Coco. “He helped me. I asked him to bring you to the center of the maze. I was afraid you were lost.”
Brian scowled at the hound. “He scared me half todeath,” he said. Coco was already reaching out to rub the hound’s ears.
To the hound, Ollie said, “The smiling man said to call you and you’d come. But what’s your name?”
“I have none,” said the hoarse, panting voice. Brian and Coco both jumped again. “That’s his trick too.”
“Then let’s be traditional and call you Cerberus, even though you don’t have three heads,” said Ollie. The beast shook himself and looked pleased. “Thanks,” she added.
The bony ghosts of Beth and Cathy Webster stood beside two tall scarecrows dressed in old-fashioned black.
To Beth, Ollie said, “Thanks for writing your book. I’m pretty sure it saved our lives.”
Beth looked pleased. “I hope you will keep it.” She sighed and looked up. From between the clouds overhead gleamed a single star. “I am going on.”
“Not alone, I hope,” said Ollie.
Beth took the hand of the taller of the scarecrows and smiled at him. For a second it seemed the scarecrow was smiling back. “No, not alone.”
