Page 12 of Beyond the Hedge Maze

Jesse unhappily got to his feet; he’d much rather keep petting the dog, but he knew better than to be rude and diligently shook the hand offered to him. “Nice to meet you, uh, Lord? Sir?”

The man laughed, his blue eyes sparkling. “Benjamin or Ben is fine. Let’s get some tea and I’ll show you around.” He rooted around his pocket and handed Jesse a piece of candy, addressing him directly. “You’re more than welcome to come inside with your father, but if you’d prefer, you can follow the path off to the side of the house, right there. It’ll take you through the gardens and around the lake. At the end of the path, I think you’ll find something entertaining. It’s about a fifteen minute walk.”

It was a nice day out, the sun hot on his arms and face. And for the first time in a month, he felt lighter, the vitamin D doing its job. He decided a walk would be better than sitting inside with his father. “Sure, okay. Thanks.”

As he wandered off, he noticed that the black town car had retreated back down the drive, taking their bags to the village bed and breakfast. Jesse huffed, irritated that he had left his MP3 player in his backpack.

Following Ben’s instructions, he took the path around the house and down to the lake, eating the piece of hard candy that had been offered to him. Without music to distract him, he let his mind wander, and like it tended to do these days, it drifted towards his mother.

Everyone kept telling him it would get easier, but so far he hadn’t seen any evidence of that being true. If anything, the days weren’t getting easier, they were just becoming more manageable. The grief was less alive some days—dulled, but never completely gone.

Briefly, he stopped by the lake, looking out over the wooden dock and letting the breeze drift over the water, rustling his hair. He had always been envious of his classmates who lived around Lake Michigan. Even when it was freezing outside, he tried to find excuses to con his friends into taking a walk along the city shoreline.

Continuing on past the lake, he stopped in his tracks as soon as Benjamin’s “something entertaining” came into view. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting to find, but he was certainly not anticipating a wall of eight foot hedges. Immediately, Jesse recognized it to be a maze, one opening clearly marked with a small wooden sign that said Enter, while another about ten feet away was marked Exit.

Jesse tentatively took a step forward, looking for some sort of guide, but found nothing. His experience with outdoor mazes had only ever consisted of the corn variety outside of the city. And those always had a map to guide him. His nerves ticked up a notch thinking that maybe it wasn’t the smartest idea to go wandering in alone, but there was no way his father would leave him there. Someone would come find him.

Aimlessly, he wandered, not paying much attention to the path he was taking with each sharp turn. He turned around, thinking he could work his way back the way he had originally come, but instead stumbled upon a straight path that he hadn’t seen before. He continued forward, ignoring the various cutouts that he assumed would lead to new routes within the maze; he hoped that he was close to the exit.

From the corner of his eye, down one of the paths he had previously chosen to ignore, he saw a flash of white that jumped out at him, compared to the monotonous green of the maze. At the dead end was a wall of white hydrangeas that weaved through the hedge starting at the ground and working their way to the very top of the leaves. He remembered his mom trying over several years to successfully plant hydrangea bushes, her squeal of excitement at the first sign of budding.

The contrast of colors was beautiful, and Jesse thought it may have been the prettiest thing he had seen that day—until he focused his attention on the person resting at the dead end.

There, sitting on a blanket, was a boy leaning against a stone bench. He was wearing baggy jeans with holes in the knees, and a navy blue and grey plaid shirt that had been rolled to his elbows. Under that he was wearing a black shirt with some lettering on the front that Jesse couldn’t make out with the way the boy was sitting.

He had headphones in, and had obviously not heard Jesse approach. Jesse knew that he should announce his presence, but he wanted to wait, just a bit longer.

His eyes caught on the smattering of hot pink paint that trailed down the pale skin of the boy’s forearm to the pencil he had clutched in his hand. The hot pink was not only on his arms, but had mixed with dozens of other colors that were speckled across the boy’s black Converse.

He was hunched over a sketchpad, completely immersed in what he was doing—a single-minded concentration that Jesse admired. The only thing that appeared to pull his focus were the wire-rimmed glasses that were too big for his face. They’d slowly slide down his nose, and he would absentmindedly push them back to their rightful place.

Like he could feel he was being watched, the boy looked up, startled to see someone else there. His pencil skidded roughly across the page, and Jesse winced, hating that he might have screwed up his drawing somehow.

The boy ripped out an earbud. “Uh, who are you?”

And oh. His voice was lovely. It was clearly laced with annoyance and apprehension, but his accent struck a chord deep within Jesse; it hummed and sang. He’d grown up surrounded by various versions of this accent, regional variations from his extended family members, the way his mother would slip into it after a few weeks visiting the UK, but hearing him was something altogether different.

Jesse stumbled into his response. “H-hi, hello, I’m Jesse.”

The other boy’s lips furrowed into a pout, highlighting dimples that were perfectly centered on his cheeks.

“Lovely,” the boy deadpanned. “But what are you doing here?”

Jesse’s gaze traveled all across his face, snagging on his dimples before locking in on his bright blue eyes. They reminded him of the blue cornflowers his mother used to grow in their small backyard garden. A little piece of home stared right at him in a hedge maze in England.

It took his brain entirely too long to answer his question; Jesse was so distracted looking at him. He wished he had been more subtle when he had approached. That he could have continued to admire him from a short distance. “My father is here for business, from the States. I’m tagging along.”

“Right.” He sighed. “I had forgotten. I’m Oliver.”

Oliver got to his feet, carefully closing the sketch pad, leaving the pencil in the seam to mark his page as he set the book on the blanket. As they shook hands, he looked up into those cornflower blue eyes and wondered what it might be like to kiss someone who was so much taller than him.

But as soon as the thought came, he shook it off. Feeling the heat rising to his cheeks, Jesse did his best to plaster a smile on his face that looked polite and normal, while his body burned from the inside out.

Chapter 6

Oliver

Ten Years Ago