I CONFRONT WILLOW ON THE WHITE DOCK, too angry to realize that—for the first time—I dig my fingers into her arm, to prevent her from leaving.
“Okay, what the fuck was that!”
Willow looks at me, her mouth downturned, her eyebrows knitted together. “‘Mother, may I go out to swim?’ ‘Yes, my darling daughter,’” she says, so quietly that I can hardly hear the words. “‘Fold your clothes up neat and prim, but don’t go near the water.’” She looks me in the eye. “You overpaid, but otherwise you did well.”
“Enough with the goddamn rhymes, what was that?”
Willow places her palm flat against my chest, halting me. Her lips curls. “Okay, first, stop swearing. Second, stop bitching, or I swear to god, I’m going to punch you in the nose, and you are so not going to win a fight with a ghost.”
Willow sinks her arm through my fingers, then solidifies her palm enough to smack my shoulder.
“Third, learn to fight your own battles. You handled the boatman just fine. How do you expect to make it out of here intact if I’m always playing Superman to your Lois Lane?”
“I—you’re Superman?”
“Trust me, I’m the hero of this story.”
“Enough,” I say through gritted teeth. “That was creepy as sh—as hell. We were on that weird-ass river for hours, and it doesn’t even feel like we’re any closer to finding a way out.”
“And that’s why you still need a guide,” Willow quips and walks away.
She doesn’t wait for me or ask if I’m ready. My annoyance blossoms as I watch her leave, but I hold my tongue and follow.
The white dock spills into a semicircular cave carved into the wall, the only entrance that I can see in a sheer cliff face before me. Willow stops in front of its mouth and, once again, materializes her flashlight, before walking briskly in.
A dim grey light still surrounds us, enough so that I can make out where the walls meet the floor in the gloom, but not enough to distinguish anything about our surroundings. Of course, when Willow’s light glances upon the same spots, they’re always revealed to be dull and featureless. Grey stone walls. Grey stone floors.
Willow doesn’t speak to me and I read anger in her posture. Over my outburst, no doubt. Good! Let her feel as frustrated as I’ve been for days now.
Days. I hope it’s only been days. It could be weeks or months, for all I know.
My legs are cramping after sitting so long on the boat. I should have used that time to stretch out my overworked muscles. Who knows how long I’ve been walking. Who knows how long I’ve been traipsing through impossible spaces. And I’m still not hungry or thirsty or greatly fatigued, which I find worrisome.
I look at the chrome watch on my wrist. The minute hand stands poised to spill into a new hour, but of course this doesn’t tell me how long we spent sailing through the darkness. All I know is that I’m about to lose another sixty minutes to this never-ending labyrinth.
Willow and I walk on. She’s angry with me. I can see it in the set of her shoulder, the heavy placement of her feet. But I’m too wrapped up in my thoughts to care, and I barely notice when glass panes replace stone tunnel walls or when we cross yet another bridge.