Page 123 of Last Seen

“Again, later. Go.”

Halley steps into a world of green so dark it’s like midnight. The air is fresher, no longer the stale notes of earth and must that told her she was underground, but something is burning. Her eyes adjust quickly, and she realizes they are in some sort of massive labyrinth. The hedges reach well over her head; the sensation of them touching the night sky is only interrupted by an orangish glow.

The covey of women and children moves quietly. They are used to silent footfalls. Perhaps every sound under the earth is magnified; perhaps they are all simply shell shocked and desperate not to be heard. They move as one in a dance that mimics the underground passages. Left. Right. Left again. Until there is a stoppage. Murmurs.

“Cat,” she says, but realizes her sister is no longer behind her.

The woman called Gretchen returns to her side. “It’s stopped,” she says, panic in her voice. “The hedges. We’re blocked. We’ve taken a wrong turn.”

“How were you navigating?” Halley asks.

“There were bows, the girls’ hair ties. But the labyrinth path is changed regularly. A deterrent.”

Halley has the horrible realization that in addition to being kept locked away underground, this group of women and children is hampered from escaping on foot by this interactive maze. Dear God.

The smell of smoke is getting more acrid and intense. Her headache pulses in response.Not now,she commands, and for once, it dims. She turns to the woman behind her.

“What’s your name?” Halley asks.

“Summer,” the woman supplies.

“I need a few of you to form a pyramid. So I can stand on your backs and see where we are. I might be able to get us back to the right path.”

Summer disappears without a word and returns with four women. They quickly assemble like a group of former cheerleaders, and Halley awkwardly climbs up on their backs. The hedges are high, but with this vantage point she can see above them. She rotates her head. She is staring into darkness, and the fire—there’s no question now, something is burning heavily—is over her left shoulder. In the distance, behind the billowing smoke and orange glow on the horizon, she can just make out a hill that looks like it is covered in wire. She climbs down. “The fire is coming from behind us. There’s a hill, with wires. I don’t know what that is.”

“The grapevines,” Summer says. “That’s Glaston. The farm is there. The vineyard. It’s the heart of the community. Without it, Brockville is reliant on the outside world.”

She says this with pride. “Your idea to burn down the farm?” Halley guesses.

Summer smiles. “I’ve always wanted to burn this place to the ground. They put too many of us there when they were finished with us.”

“Okay. Then if you know where the farm is, do you have any idea how to escape the labyrinth?”

“All I know is there are entrances in all four hamlets. We were under the entrance in Glaston, and the exit we are supposed to find is in Avalon. The graveyard is on the hill by the cliff. About a mile from the labyrinth. It’s only one grave, long overgrown. We don’t know whose it is. But it has to be one of us, from long ago.”

“The city is set on a grid, yes? North, south, east, west?”

“Sacred-geometry principles. The town looks like a grid, but it is really undulating across the Omega.”

Halley has exactly zero idea what that means. She thinks for a second, then looks up.

Time is running short. Smoke is filling the air. But the stars are just barely still visible. It is a pattern she knows, loves, and is as intimately familiar with as her own body.

Her headache flees as she stares into the night sky, calculating. Arcturus, and Betelgeuse, and Pollux. Sirius, and Canis Major. Hydra. The Big Dipper.

It is divine luck. With a prayer of thanks to her father for his relentless passion and tutoring, she grabs Summer’s hand and turns to the northwest.

“Follow me.”

Cat catches up to them as they’re backtracking, a small boy in her arms. He is too big to carry, but she is managing, lugging him along, sweat breaking on her brow. Another woman is with her. Halley assumes this is the one Cat called Heather.

“What’s wrong? Why are you coming back?”

“Dead end.”

“That was quick. They must have changed it this week, once Halley was taken.” To Halley Heather says, “Standard operating procedure when a new acolyte is brought in. They change things up until the woman is acclimated.”

“We’ve been planning this for a while,” Cat says, shifting the boy to the ground. Halley realizes with a start it’s the same child she saw out in the woods. He’s older than she thought, but so small, so skinny.