I WALK ABOUT FOUR PACES BEHIND WILLOW, mesmerized by her insubstantial quality. She still wears my Stetson, and this, too, I can see through, so long as it rests atop her head.
I don’t believe in ghosts any more than I believe in hell or purgatory, but it’s difficult to argue with the figure skipping along in front of me. She’s indistinct—sort of fuzzy at the borders—as if someone knew they were supposed to colour in the lines, but had no lines to guide them. Each time I try to study her I find my eyes shift through her, and I’m watching the empty hallway beyond more than the ghost herself.
Willow ignores my scrutiny. She hums while she walks. I can’t place the tune, but somehow it sounds familiar.
Despite my tumble down the copper chute, nothing seems to have changed—I’ve returned to the tedium of eggshell white drywall, ninety degree turns, and corkboard overhead. But now I have a guide, according to Willow, and she chooses forks without hesitation. I find no logic in her decisions, but I’m happy to let her pick a direction for me. That is until—
“Wait,” I say. “We’ve turned left four times.”
Willow looks back at me, apparently not seeing the problem.
“Our first left, four times,” I repeat. “That means we’re back on the same path we were a few minutes ago. Full circle.”
Willow smiles. “Greenhorn, huh? I don’t know how long you’ve been here, but how well has all that logic worked out for you thus far?”
I hold my silence.
“Uh huh. This place doesn’t like to play by the rules. How many bridges have you crossed?”
“What are we talking about?”
“Bridges. Long things made of metal or wood. Often suspended over streets or bodies of water. How many?”
“I haven’t crossed any bridges.”
“Darn,” Willow sighs. “A ways to go, then.”
She turns around and starts skipping ahead again. I jog a few steps to catch up, so that I’m not left behind. Questions lodge in my throat, crowd my tongue for priority. “What is this place?” emerges first.
Willow glances at the sterile walls and floor as she walks. “Looks like an office building.”
“You know what I mean.”
Willow shakes her head, “Honestly, I don’t.”
“This maze,” I growl. “This goddamn maze. Canada? The moon? Purgatory? Am I dead or a lab rat?”
Willow shrugs. “Which would you prefer?”
I surge onward, “And what are you for that matter? Aside from ‘a ghost.’ Aside from ‘Willow.’”
“And aside from your guide? A local, I guess.”
“A local with no knowledge of the locale?”
“If you spend all your time wondering where you are, how do you expect to get where you want to be?”
“And where do I want to be?” I grumble.
“Out. Or so I assume. Am I wrong?”
Tired of talking to her back, I put my hand on her shoulder, intending to spin her around to face me. However, my hand swipes straight through her. “You mean you can take me out? You’re not trapped in this maze?”
Willow’s eyes narrow and she assesses me with a bemused smile on her lips. “I didn’t put you here, if that’s what you’re implying. This is your labyrinth, not mine. You can’t fault me for seeing the path more clearly than you.”
As she says “you,” Willow jabs a finger into my chest. To my surprise, I feel it.
“Wait. Just now. You didn’t pass through me.”
Willow lifts her finger to her lips and blows, as though it were a smoking gun. “’Course not. That’s my superpower.”
“But—” Willow interrupts the thought by clamping a hand over my mouth. I move to pry her off, but my fingers still sink through hers as though they aren’t there to begin with, and I wind up scrabbling at my own lips. I harumpf at her indignantly from behind her hand.
“My turn,” she says. “For your sake. What did you meet before me?”
She removes the hand pressed over my mouth and allows me to answer. “Nothing. This maze is really fu—”
Willow smushes a finger against my lips again. “Don’t swear. And don’t whine. Tell me what you saw.”
“A bunch of red string. And I climbed through a ceiling that turned out to be the floor tile of the floor above me. And I tumbled down an office corridor that turned into a copper pipe.”
“Any other ... locals?”
“Until you, I thought I was alone.”
“Any sound of pursuit?”
Now I squint at Willow. “Why?” I ask, “Who would be pursuing me?”
Willow shakes her head again before turning around and moving purposefully down the corridor. With nothing else to do, I fall in line. As we walk, I notice Willow’s eyes flicker to every branching hall before selecting which one to take.
Does she really know the way, or is she just guessing? And why does she keep glancing behind us, as if expecting to see something there?