“ALL RIGHT, ASSHOLE,” Willow says. “My turn. I’ve kept in good spirits so far, but dragging you around is like wearing a pair of concrete shoes in a quagmire. You can play the whipped dog, trailing after me, but remember that I offered to help and you said ‘yes.’”
“Listen,” I snap back, “ever since I met you, things have gone from weird to fucked up. You can’t expect me to—”
“No.” Willow jabs her finger through my chest in a sharp, stabbing motion. Even though she’s right in front of me, I can barely see her through the gloom in the tunnel. “I can and I do expect you to shut up. You’re not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy. If you thought this would be easy, you were wrong. And if you still think you can pull a magical solution out of that stupid Stetson of yours, we can part ways anytime.”
“The hat’s gone. I lost it when the Mino—I mean, when we got separated.”
“It’s behind you, dummy.”
“I—what?” I turn around, and sure enough, the cowboy hat is lying in the centre of the tunnel, just barely visible in the dark. “What the fuck? How did this get here?”
“Can we focus?” Willow asks.
I’m confused. “No, really, how did—”
“I don’t care,” Willow says. “Stop staring at your stupid hat and pay attention. I led you out of the building you’d been wandering around for God-only-knows how long. I showed you the bridges. And you were like a fish out of water on that river, but you made it across, safe and dry. Because. Of. Me.”
“I’m sorry,” I say quietly. “I shouldn’t have yelled. That fucking river—I was just rattled.”
“Well, don’t take it out on me,” Willow says. Then her flinty eyes soften. “But you’re forgiven, for now. If it’s any consolation, you’re not the worst tourist I’ve ever hauled across the river.”
I walk slowly over and hover above my cowboy hat, as if sudden movements might frighten it away. “The worst—?”
“The boatman gives everyone the willies. One lady tried to jump out and swim.”
Snow dusts the top of the Stetson. I pick it up and brush it off. I look up, but the glass is intact.
“She didn’t manage to get more than a leg over the rail, before he caught her and dragged her back onboard. Good thing too—that water’s cold.”
I shift my weight, and I’m suddenly conscious of a slight crunch underfoot and my cold feet. “Willow, the tunnel’s coated in snow.”
“Oh, is it snowing? I hadn’t noticed.” Willow rolls her eyes.
“Not the ceiling. Underfoot.”
I look back at her. She’s looking around as if she’s only just noticed as well. “You could stuff some pages from your book into your shoes, if your toes are getting cold. Those shoes have seen better days.”
“Did we pass an open doorway and completely miss our exit?”
“No....” Willow lets the word drag. I hear the uncertainty. “No, I don’t know why there’s snow in here. Permafrost, maybe.”
“That’s not how permafrost works.”
Willow shrugs. “I don’t know. What’s that?”
“My Stetson, as you pointed out.” I place the refrigerated cowboy hat on top of my head.
“No, what’s that under it?”
Willow points back at the snow-packed earth, and then I too see the vague shape imprinted in the snow. We’re both stooping low to see what it is, when a wall of white hugging the right side of our tunnel collapses under its own weight and treats us to a little more light—enough for both of us to see the fresh hoofprint in the snow.
“Willow?” My voice comes out reedier than I would like.
“I see it. And look—there’s more.”
She’s right. There’s a whole line of hoofprints—apparently we’ve been stomping over them for some time now. My only consolation is that they’re heading the opposite direction, back the way we came—and we haven’t met any monster.
“I’ve seen them before,” I whisper. “In the maze.”
“There’s a huge cow lost somewhere in here, somewhere. Now isn’t that sad?”
“Yeah,” I agree quietly.
Willow seems happier now, as we set off down the snowy tunnel. I watch her translucent back, almost invisible in the murky tunnel against the backdrop of white.
Why is she humming? What’s she hiding from me? She’s been through the maze, she says. She’s taken others. She would know if some monster is stalking these halls, wouldn’t she?
Maybe she’s putting on a brave face for me. Maybe she knows there’s a monster in this maze, and she’s trying to protect me. Or maybe, a tiny voice whispers in my ear, maybe all the monsters are in league. Maybe she’s leading me right to it.
I follow a dozen steps behind Willow. I can’t help but look down and watch the floor as I walk. I’m now far too conscious of the hoofprints I’d previously missed in the dim light. I strain my ears for the sounds of hooves being set in snow, imagining that they’ll sound similar to my footsteps.
“That’s strange,” Willow says.
“What is?” I murmur, but I don’t look up.
“It’s snowing.”
“Mm.”
“No, look,” Willow says. I’m not paying attention and I walk through her. I turn around in surprise. She reaches up, places a hand on my head, then pushes a small pile of snow off to sprinkle in front of my face. “This is what I mean.”
Oh. It’s snowing.
I look up. Sure enough, snowflakes fall down atop my nose and lashes. I blink into the grey-black sky at the snow falling on me.
The glass walls are gone. The dim light that I’d thought was filtering in from my left is the only light all around me. The sun must have set while the storm persisted.
“But the tunnel—” I stutter. “When did we leave the tunnel?”
Willow rubs her chin. “I have no idea. I was looking at the hoofprints.”
“Maybe we should turn around?”
“We could,” Willow says, hesitation buttering her words. “But the boatman doesn’t ferry people backwards. And what if we run into a heifer that’s just as cold and irritable as we are?”
“A heifer. Right. Or a bull.”
“At least the wind has died down?” Willow chirps. Is her smile too forced? “Maybe we can find a barn or something to bunker down in for the night.”
I say nothing, but she’s right. I don’t want to go back now. I don’t want to see the boatman, or his river, or whatever left these tracks behind.
So Willow and I keep walking. We follow the tracks in the wrong direction, because we can’t make out any other landmarks. Willow brings out her flashlight to guide us through the gloom as the world sinks into darkness and the snow around us slowly builds.
We follow the footprints as far as we can, until they’re swallowed by the falling snow.