THE PATH EASES AS WE REACH ANOTHER BRIDGE, wrapped in glass panes and offering a view of the longed-for outside. The window-panes are tinted yellow, lending an eerie haze to the street below, the adjacent buildings, the stalled vehicles.
The building that we’re leaving has a facade of dull stonework, with square windows in square walls. It makes me think of bottom lines and cubicles. The building that the bridge spills into is no better, despite having wider windows and a few more storeys. Almost every blind is drawn and the building feels uninviting, if not downright hostile.
The sky overhead sputters snowflakes onto our bridge. I whine, “I thought we’d left the winter behind.”
The turgid clouds swirl like my Grandmother’s brine solution, and fat yellow flakes dive-bomb the asphalt. Slush and water droplets worm their way down the glass, leaving slender yellow streaks in their wake. The street below us glistens gold through the tinted panes, and it reminds me of White Lightning.
Willow and I start across the bridge, and we almost reach the far side when I stop.
There are figures beneath me. They are translucent to the point of invisibility, and I can only just catch shapes as they move. Their movements are difficult to catch, and even more difficult to interpret. Like a gust of wind blowing a spider thread that only momentarily sparkles in the sunlight, so too do these ‘people’ flicker in and out of my vision.
I stop and stare hard at the road, and Willow looks at me in surprise.
“You can see them, then?”
The ghosts—if that’s what they are—are so close to invisible that they make Willow look solid by comparison. Her features, while vague and indistinct, are at least recognizable: flat blonde hair, thick eyebrows, rose-dusted lips. If Willow is a ghost, the figures below me are just whispers.
“Yes, I can see them.”
No snow melts on the echoes beneath me. They seem impervious to the weather, and to my presence fifteen feet above them, cocooned in yellow glass.
I continue my thought, “But they can’t see me.”
“I don’t know about that, but I’m sure you’re no clearer to them than they are to you.”
“Is everyone else dead?” I turn sharply. “Nuclear winter, some Rip Van Winkle story, weird mutated owls? You say I’m not dead, but then what the hell is this?”
Willow laughs, “You may not be the most excitable person I’ve ever carried through this maze, but you’re certainly the most stubborn. No, they’re not dead. And neither are you. The labyrinth just has a way of ... clouding one’s vision.”
“What if we break the glass?” I say quietly, repeating my thought from long ago. “What if we smash this goddamn tunnel and jump down there? Fifteen feet onto concrete—that’s a broken leg at worst.”
Willow’s smile turns down at the corners, a small hint of sadness. “It won’t solve anything,” she says. “You can’t cheat your way out of here. You can’t take a weed whacker and flee the cornfield, all you’re going to find are more ears.”
I’m not terribly disappointed—or surprised—by the answer. The maze has been strange enough to make me suspect that this might be the case.
“And the ghosts down there will melt like whispers as you get close. There’s nothing tangible. Not yet. Because you won’t have made it out. Listen to me—” Her grip tightens on my hand. “—you’ll just be another ghost.”
I return the squeeze, but my fingers sink through hers and I wind up balling my fist. I retract my hand and stare at the street for a while longer.
And then I wonder about being a ghost in a maze. I wonder how that works, and how I would feel, trapped here forever. What might I be prepared to do, if I was lonely enough? Wouldn’t I want to keep company, any company, close by for as long as possible, especially if all it cost me was a little white lie?