“Hard to say.” Yael sounds undisturbed.
Dez’s heart pounds as she moves toward the noise. “It sounds like someone’s hurt.”
“Or they’re coming,” Yael says. “Can you still not tell the difference?”
Dez thinks of the ravenous mood at the bar this evening, how all the last-years seemed so primal in their pleasure-taking that it bordered on violence. She thinks of Jet’s hand massaging Simon, and Yael saying the biggest thing the first-years had to fear at a party like that is their mentors.
The moan sounds again, higher this time. Feminine, piercing, and more desperate than before. But it’s coming from a different part of the maze, far from where Dez heard it just a moment ago.
“What is happening?” Simon says.
“We should go see if they need help,” Dez says, but she can’t even figure out where the sound is coming from. She peers around a hedgecorner and sees a lumbering, black shadow advancing through the topiary.
“Would you relax?” Yael says, tugging Dez back. “Most things are none of your business.”
“This is why you like this place,” Dez says, “because it’s violent and scary.”
“I do like horror,” Yael says.
“Not in my actual life, thank you,” Simon says.
“I like it here because …” Yael starts to say, coming to stand close to Dez. “Doesn’t it remind you of anything?”
“The Shining?” Simon says.
Dez reaches for a dark, red pomegranate growing with the hedges. She fingers a split seam of skin bursting with fruit. She didn’t realize the labyrinth was made of pomegranate trees. She’s never seen the fruit in the wild before. It’s strangely warm to the touch.
“Looks like you found a good one,” Yael says, plucking the fruit off the vine. “Eri makes delicious wine from these.”
The high-pitched, feminine shriek returns, this time followed by a deep and guttural groan of satiated release.
“Sex and death, kids,” Yael says, pocketing the pomegranate. “Everything else is mere entertainment.”
THE SCREAM TEARS DEZ FROMa dream about her brother. She leaps out of bed and runs to her window. She stares into darkness, heart racing.
Endless snow. Early morning, tranquil campus.
But Dez didn’t dream that scream.
She hears it again, bloodcurdling and long. Coming from the north side of campus.
The only window facing north in their suite is in Yael’s room. Dez hurries to the living room, then knocks on Yael’s door.
No answer.
Frantically, she tries the knob. When it opens, Yael’s already at her window, her hair in a white silk bonnet, her body in a black silk robe.
“I told you someone was hurt last night,” Dez says, rushing to her side.
“This is different,” Yael says numbly. “This just happened.”
It doesn’t take long to see the body, slung over the outer edge of the labyrinth. Dez stiffens, imagining that long and lonely fall, that shattering end.
“We need to get help,” Dez says, her voice shaking. “What did you see? What happened?”
“Shit,” Yael says under her breath. “The braid.”
Dez looks down again, wincing as she takes in the unnatural angles of the body’s limbs. The head planted deep in the snow. Finally, she notices what Yael’s talking about. The long dark braid protruding like a tail from the knit cap.
