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I jerked my head upward. All I could see was the dirt on the bottom of Clark’s boots, and the way his wavy red hair flopped as he stared above him. Then he threw his body against the labyrinth and shouted, “Hold tight!”

There was hardly time to press my body against the labyrinth when another body fell from above. A man, by the sound of his scream. He dropped past us like a rock.

I tried to shield my ears with my shoulders, but I still heard the sound.

We stayed planted for a few moments before I spoke. “The sound will have attracted others, and they’ll be on our tails soon. We must keep going.”

Shortly after, we heard voices below us. Others had found the ladder.

Wind picked up, the kind that only got worse as time went on, and our caution slipped into something desperate. Even the labyrinth seemed keen on keeping us out, withdrawing its handles even further into its clutches until it felt as if we grasped at twigs to keep ourselves going. Swoops of graceful vines swept along our path, playing at our fingers as they struggled to keep hold.

“Let us in, you vile beast,” I whispered to the labyrinth.

The vines only coiled tighter around my wrists. I had to snap them to get free.

From a scream below, another had fallen.

I shut my eyes to will courage into my blood, then kept going. The top neared. Determination drove my teeth together, and I demanded my weary limbs to hold out for a few minutes longer.

At last, Clark was able to drag his body onto a platform ahead. A moment later, he reappeared to hang an arm over the side. His face was pale and his lips dented with the cut of his teeth, but his voice came steady. “Grab hold!”

I grabbed his hands and climbed my way to safety.

We both lay on our backs for a moment, staring at the night sky. The breath he took shook a little. I wondered if he regretted coming now.

Another scream below gave me the strength I needed to sit up. We’d made it, but the knowledge was hollow at best. I’d feel better when we’d put a mile between us and this ladder.

“Welcome to the Quarter Labyrinth,” Clark was saying.

I turned to look.

The scene looked as if ripped from a storybook, the twisty kind with tragic endings that ballads were sung about.

Black stones lined the ground. They led toward two wooden arched doors with serrated edges, sitting beneath a canopy of dark green leaves. The moonlight gave everything a silver glow. Beside the doors stood a figure clothed in a long, black dress that swooped by her feet, her skin pale like stone and her body just as unmoving.

I walked first. If this were a trap of sorts, Clark could have time to run.

My boots clicked against the stones as I neared.

“Good morning,” I spoke to the statue.

At the sound of my voice, she moved.

Her head lifted first, gray eyes landing directly on mine. Her full lips were twitched upward, her shoulders pressed back, and her fingers clutching a staff. She looked like a grim reaper of death.

“You’ve made it to the labyrinth. Callahan welcomes you.”

I glanced toward the doors. “We can walk inside now?”

At that moment, another chilling scream echoed as someone must have fallen from the ladder. I cringed at the sound.

But the figure only smiled. “You can walk inside…if you wish.”

I didn’t cross the seas, lose the letters from my father, and risk my life on that ladder just to look at the doors. I reached for the handle.

“What will we find inside?” Clark, always the skeptic, asked.

The girl perused him as if just now noticing his presence. Something in her gray eyes flickered at his sight, and her body stiffened. Her words were a touch more strained as she spoke, “A maze. A challenge. And perhaps a victory.”