Tar a thighearna…Tar a thi…Shesang the harmony. And, as she did so, the crystal began to glow, lighting up the dark labyrinth. The pinkish light filled the pathway, shining into the overgrown high corners and the mud underfoot.
Faye looked around her; now, at least, she could see where she was, though she still had no idea where to go. It wasn’t going to be an easy route through this time.
As she took some tentative steps forward, she heard a voice in the distance.
She listened hard; it was very, very distant.
The voice grew a little louder; still, it was only the volume of a whisper, and it seemed to be passed leaf to leaf in the dark, a shushing noise that carried a word.
Faye, Faye, the leaves whispered, circling her like a net.Faye.
It was Moddie’s voice. Faye turned around, trying to find the source of the whisper. She wassureit was her mother’s voice.Faye. Follow my voice.
Holding the crystal in front of her for light, she followed twist after turn, sometimes feeling as though she was walking uphill, sometimes down. But try as she might, Faye couldn’t get any closer to Moddie’s faint call and, all the time, she kicked away reaching branches and trailing weeds that seemed bent on tripping her up and holding her back.
She had to keep singing, or the crystal dimmed.Tar a thighearna…Tar a thi…she continued, hoping that the crystal wouldn’t fail her.
At the centre of a hedged-in square she found a large silver bowl of pink roses standing on a golden cube, which reminded her of the carpet of rose petals that had surrounded the Crystal Castle. As she stopped to smell them, she looked down and saw the letter M scratched in the dirt by her feet.
Moddie had been here; she was close by. Somehow, she was helping Faye through the maze.
Faye took three of the roses and picked the petals off, scattering them behind her like the breadcrumbs in Hansel and Gretel; she would need to find her way back through the labyrinth, after all.
She followed another twist and another turn and, at the far end of the next pathway, Moddie stood waiting for her, wearing a gown made entirely of rose petals. She held out her hand to her daughter.
‘Come on, darling. We don’t have much time,’ she said, and Faye ran to her, with tears burning her eyes.
36
Faye ran through the labyrinth, holding her mother’s hand.
‘To the castle! We…must…get within the castle gates. We’ll be safe there,’ Moddie called over her shoulder, and Faye saw that there were tears in her mother’s eyes, too.
‘I missed you,’ Faye called out as they ran, dodging branches and stones along the way.
‘The paths are closing!’ Moddie shouted, and pulled Faye along faster. ‘I missed you, too, my darling.’ She stopped briefly and hugged her daughter. ‘There’s so much I want to tell you, but there’s no time. For now, we have to get out of here.’
Faye held the crystal up higher and saw that Moddie was right; the sides of the pathway were drawing together. Some way in front of them she could see the moonlight glinting on the castle in the distance.
‘I don’t think we’re going to make it,’ Faye shouted in reply as the tendrils grasped for her more and more aggressively; she tore them away, but they caught her again and again, twisting up her legs and wrapping themselves around her wrists.
Moddie was the same, but different. She had not aged, because there was no ageing in spirit, and in fact shelooked younger than she was when she died. And there were other differences, too. Moddie’s hand in hers was light and insubstantial and, as they ran, it seemed that Moddie’s feet didn’t touch the ground.
‘We’ll make it,’ Moddie said. Faye remembered that determined tone. When Moddie wanted something, she usually got it. ‘Remember you’re half fae. Feel the faerie power as much as you can. You can use it here. Let it fill you.’
Faye focused on the swirling energy of faerie; she called it in, surrendered to it, with as much of herself as she could while running. She felt the power of faerie engulf her, thrill her body, sharpen her senses.
‘That’s right! More!’ Moddie shouted. Faye took in a deeper breath and felt the power unfurl from inside her at the same time it surrounded her; it grew thicker and flowed faster, faster, until she started to lose feeling in her hands and feet. ‘I’ve got you!’ Moddie yelled as Faye’s feet hovered off the ground like hers did.
The faerie power lit up the labyrinth; the light flashed on the dark hedges, and holes opened up and closed again at random in the walls of the labyrinth. The crystal glowed bright in Faye’s hand.
Moddie pulled her towards one of the holes in the hedge, but it was too small for them to fit through.
‘Can you make it bigger?’ Moddie breathed, glancing around them as the labyrinth continued to tighten. ‘When you focus on your fae magic, you can disrupt the illusion of the labyrinth. Can you control it better?’
Faye tried, but she didn’t know how. ‘Sorry.’ She felt like a failure.
But Moddie shook her head impatiently. ‘No time for sorry,’ she said. ‘You’ll learn to use it here in time. But for now, we need something else. I can’t get us through this on my own. He’s too strong for me.’
