8:7
Gwen continued to chant rap her way the length of the walk through the swamp to The House. Every once and a while Dempsey would slant a glance at her which only seemed to encourage her, as every time he did it she’d get more exuberant and loud. Eventually Patti bumped up next to her and joined in, adding some shimmying and shaking of her own that really livened up the walk.
“Are they always like this?” Abe side-mouthed to Siobhan who they’d fallen in beside.
Siobhan gave the dancing, chanting, having a damned fine time pair a look then nodded. “Enough.”
Abe giggled, then dropped their head to look at their feet, leading Siobhan to give a chuckle herself which lifted Abe’s head. Once Abe was no longer busily staring at their feet, Siobhan jerked her chin towards Gwen and Patti. “You should join them.”
Abe cocked their head, little bird new to the world. “You think?”
“Yes.”
With a bright grin, Abe hitched their bag strap higher on their chest and hurried to catch up with Patti and Gwen. Gwen seeing Abe approach turned to shake her shoulders at them. “Woot woot!”
“Woot woot!” Abe replied on a giggle.
Kim dropped in beside Siobhan. “How are you doing?”
Siobhan eyed her. “I feel like I should ask you that.”
“Answer me and I’ll answer you.”
Siobhan lifted her shoulders on what could arguably been called a shrug, though it felt awkward like she was doing it because she was supposed to which, kind of, she was. “I have some bad nights.”
“Sucks.”
“It does.” Siobhan fixed her eyes on the tree line. “You seem to be okay. I didn’t expect you to be okay. I wasn’t-” she cut herself off and took a sharp breath through her nostrils.
“Okay?” Kim’s mouth curved on a gentle smile. “I’m not. Not really. I’m just pretty good at faking it.”
Siobhan cast back to the conversation they’d had in the bathroom after she’d lost her mind at the bar. “That stuff you said that would make you a bad bet to be taken?”
Pinching her lips in, Kim nodded. “Yeah.” She went quiet, fixing her eyes on the tree line too, then bit her lip. “If you ever want to… You know…”
“Yes.” Siobhan nodded slowly. “That might-” she trailed off, tightened her lips and rode the wave of emotion that crested inside of her, then said, “That would be good.”
Kim’s lips curved on a genuine, if close-mouthed, smile this time. “Cool.” There was a pause then she added, “Thanks for coming to get me.”
“Was there any question we wouldn’t?”
Kim shrugged. There was a weight of past wrongs in her voice when she said, “I don’t know.”
Compassion swelled in Siobhan, pushing out the fear that had risen within her along with the memories of her confinement. “You never have to worry about that. We’ll always come for you.”
Kim looked down at her feet and drew a loud breath before squaring her chin and her shoulders. “Cool.”
Quiet hung between them, heavy with unspoken words.
“I-” Siobhan started, only to stop when Patti, Abe, and Gwen reached the fence around The House.
“Yeah,” Kim said, quiet understanding in her eyes, “We’ll talk later. Got someone to rescue now.”
“Yes.” Siobhan curved her lips into something that might be a smile. “We do.”
Dan walked up next to Siobhan and stopped, his attention on Gwen, Patti, and Abe who had their face turned up and their shoulders curved in on laughter.
“Were we ever that young?” she murmured to Dan.
Dan eyed Abe a moment then shrugged. “Nope.”
“They are a good addition to the group.”
“Yep.” Dan shifted his focus to Siobhan. “You ready?”
“Yes.”
Dan slanted a look at Kim and said quietly. “She ready?”
Kim turned to give Dan a steady look. “I have ears.”
If Dan was affected by Kim’s tone he didn’t show it. “You do. Didn’t want to know if you think you’re ready. Wanted to know if Siobhan does.”
Kim reared back, blinking hard. She cocked her head left. Cocked her head right. Frowned. Then reached up and scratched her neck. “Wow. That feels like something I’d say. And I’m an ass.”
Again Dan just shrugged. At Kim’s “I’m solid,” he shifted back to look at Siobhan and lifted his brows. Siobhan shifted her gaze from Dan to Kim and back to Dan. “She’s solid.”
“Okay.” That said Dan strode forward to join Abe, Patti, and Gwen at the fence. As Ivan, Dempsey, and Ben came up behind she and Kim, Siobhan shifted her bag strap across her chest and moved forward.
Seeing them approaching, Dan opened the gate and stepped back so Siobhan could walk through the tangled garden. The plants swayed gently back from her steps, reminding Siobhan of Kim’s saying Earth liked her. It made an unexpected bubble of content rise in her chest. Guess all those years of poking around in the dirt, finding simple joy in coaxing life from seeds and nurturing the plants that rose from them while wondering what it would be like to have flashier Magick, hadn’t been completely a waste!
The others followed in her wake, making use of the small path she cleared. Neither the door nor the windows were open, though, as usual there was a sense The House was watching them through the gleaming panes. She turned to the others. “Now what?”
Patti walked up to the door and knocked. Rather than lowering her fist, she let it hover and when there was no obvious response to her knock she knocked again and called “Hello?”
There was the sound of a latch engaging and then the door creaked open about an inch.
“I’ll handle this,” Ben said, stepping up next to Patti and pulling a device that resembled a pen with a small round metal piece on a hinge folded back against its length. He grabbed the metal piece and tugged and the shaft telescoped out to around a two foot length. An adjustment of a knob on the side unfolded the round object at the tip revealing a mirrored surface. Another shift of Ben’s thumb turned the mirror sideways, reflecting the garden in its surprisingly clear surface.
After stooping down to peer intently at the crack in the door, Ben inserted the mirror into the small opening and cocked his head so he could peer into the darkness it revealed. He rolled his thumb over the small nob, shook his head, adjusted the angle of the shaft and rolled again. A few more adjustments. A few more head tilts. A purse of the lips. Then he nodded, withdrew the shaft and telescoped it down to its original size before placing it back in his pocket, before reaching out and gently pushing the door open.
Even though he’d clearly scoped out the interior and determined there was no threat Patti tensed her shoulders as the door swung open to reveal manicured grass and elevated beds in a manicured garden sharply contrasting the wild tangle of plants outside The House.
“Wow,” Abe pushed around Patti to shove their head through the doorway. “It’s completely different.” They turned to look at Dan. “I know you told me it is completely different every time but… Wow!”
With that, and without a backwards look, they wandered over the threshold. It was either follow them or…
Well, it was follow them and the rest did in quick order. As usual as soon as the last person, Kim following right behind Siobhan, walked through the doorway the door unceremoniously closed with a quiet click, receding into what appeared to be the rough-stone exterior wall of a castle.
It was a testament to the utter regulatory of this action that Kim and Siobhan didn’t flinch or jump when the door closed. Maybe Abe, being newer and all, might have made some comment but they were too busy exploring the garden to give any indication they noticed the door closing and the wall of the castle forming from a hazy ghost of a suggestion of a building into a fully realized structure with walls soaring three stories into a picture perfect sheep’s wool cloud dotted blue sky. Kim raised her eyes to shield it from the sun.
“Nice day for a walk,” she murmured to Siobhan. Tilting her head down to focus on the garden with its neat paths and raised beds replete with roses perfuming the still, warm air with their heady scents, she lowered her hand from her forehead to point it towards the center of the garden where a hedge wall with twining rose-covered vines stretched.
“How much do you want to bet that’s where we need to go?”
Ben wandered over, hands deep in his trouser pockets. “I wouldn’t take that bet.”
Such was the scope of the garden that the wall seemed small, maybe not much bigger than that of the outside of an average-sized house, but as they moved forward and perspective shifted it became clear the wall was considerably larger than that.
As they walked forward the rose bushes in the raised beds grew in height going from ground cover roses in varying shades of purple, red, orange, white, and pink to compact tea rose bushes standing about two feet high with their double flowers growing on long stems before progressing to standard tea roses at around three feet tall, the shrubs incrementally going from this three foot height to Grandiflora roses growing on bushes that stretched upwards from five to ten feet that effectively blocked their view of each other so they all unconsciously drew closer just in case.
Even Abe, who’d wandered a distance from the others, pulled back as the roses went from crouching to towering. They walked along, expression transfixed, the blackened fingers of their right hand splayed to play over the air, tracing things no one else could see.
The scent released by the flowers was incredible, heady, inviting deep inhalations and murmured utterances of appreciation from even the most stalwart of the group. The wall they approached soared higher than the highest of the Grandiflora.
Stopping with a Twilight Zone Grandiflora, its deep magenta-purple, double-petaled fiv- inch blooms releasing an intoxicating, spicy clove and citrus scent that wound through the senses, crossing the barriers of scent and taking on the illusion of velvet brushing the skin, forming a six foot barrier at her back, Siobhan shielded her eyes with a raised hand and craned her neck back to take in the immensity of the wall stretching, surely, as wide as the castle they’d ’emerged’ from.
“It looks like a hedge maze.”
Ivan loomed over Siobhan from the back, craning his neck to get a good view of the maze. “Big.”
Siobhan nodded. “I’ve never seen one so large before.” Gesturing at where a wooden gate closed off the entrance centered dead center in the wall, Siobhan asked, “Shall we?”
Ivan looked to the left and the right, his gaze going along the avenue formed between the tall bushes behind them and the hedge wall stretching before them. Once he confirmed there was no obvious threat coming from either direction, he looked around at the group. “Everyone ready?.”
Dan looked up from checking his crossbows. “Yep.”
Dempsey hefted his shield and nodded. Abe poked their head around the end of the bed and gave a finger wave.
Patti eyed the gate, then turned to Siobhan. “You seem to know something about these things. What are we looking at?”
“It depends. Some kind of grid, though we won’t know if its straight paths or curved until we enter.” She eyed the wall. “Judging by the shape of the exterior my guess is straight but it could diverge once we enter.. One of the largest hedge mazes I’ve heard of is over a mile and a half long-”
“That long?” Patti’s eyebrows shot up.
Siobhan nodded. “Yes. Judging by the width of the wall we might be looking at something close to that.”
“Damn,” Ben muttered. Separating from the group he strolled over and curled his fingers over the top of the wooden gate, rising on his toes to peer into the maze. “Your right,” he called back, “looks straight. At least what I can see.”
“My guess is there’ll be a feature in the center of the maze. Often mazes will have a pavilion or a pond or sometimes even a tower at the center. Though,” she rose on tiptoe and craned her neck to look as deep as she could passed the wall Ben leaned against. “I don’t see a tower.” Dropping back to her heels, she continued. “Anyhow. I think there will be something in the center and that’s where we should head.”
“A mile and a half?” Prairie asked in a soft voice.
“That would be the amount of distance walked. Not the square mileage.”
“But we may still have to walk over a mile?”
“Yes.”
Prairie gave a tentative smile then looked down. “Okay.”
Siobhan gave the wall another look. “We could be looking at two to three acres.”
“For those of us with bad visualization skills,” Patti asked, “about how big is that in normal person measurements?”
“Two to three football fields. A football field is a good way to visualize an acre.”
“Damn.” Patti’s response pretty much summed it up. “That’s a lot of walking.”
“So, straight paths?” Ivan asked to which Siobhan shrugged. “Maybe?”
Dan moved to stand behind Ben and look over the other man’s shoulder before turning back to the group. “The Labyrinth of the Minotaur was the most famous maze from mythology. It had multiple paths that were linked together. It was created as a prison for the Minotaur.”
“Okay,” Patti drew out the word. “And?”
“People went in and didn’t come out. Not just because the Minotaur ate them.”
“Not a huge fan of where this is going,” Gwen said, shifting to stand beside Prairie and propping her plunger on her shoulder. “But go on.”
“If we are looking at Beauty and the Beast and there is a maze it is possible to draw the conclusion that elements of the Minotaur story may have been crossed with this one. Some people connect the ancient myth with the fairy tale substituting Ariadne, the daughter of Minos, with Beauty and correlating the Beast with an internal trauma or conflict within Theseus he has to fight. They make the labyrinth symbolic of the psyche.”
“Oh,” Prairie’s quiet exhalation drew the eye to her soft smile. “Interesting.”
“Yeah,” Gwen shifted and tilted her head. “It is. But what’s it got to do with what we are facing?”
“Theseus used a ball of twine Ariadne gave him to get back out of the labyrinth.”
“And?” Gwen prodded.
“Uncertain.” Dan squared his feet and his jaw. “It just came to my mind.”
“Magick?” Siobhan asked.
Dan nodded. “I think so.”
“So,” Siobhan nodded in return, “it may be relevant. We either need to be concerned about how to get out or we might have to take into account that we need something from Aillea to get Gryphon out of here.”
Abe blinked and muttered to Dempsey in a voice that didn’t carry, “How do they think that?”
Dempsey shrugged. “Don’t know. But Dan’s hunches, especially when it comes to story stuff, are usually right. You should get that, huh?”
Abe cocked their head, their expression going inwards, then nodded and smiled. “I do. I wonder-” trailing off they separated from Dan’s side and wandered over to stand next to Dan, facing towards the gate to crane to see into the maze. “Huh.”
“Huh?” Dan turned to look where Abe was looking.
“Yes.” Abe gave a decisive nod then unlatched the gate and pulled it to swing out on hidden hinges. “Huh.”
Once the way was clear they stepped into the maze and looked in both directions. “I don’t see a clear thread going in either direction. I was hoping maybe I would. But,” they shrugged with their whole body, “that was probably wishful thinking.”
“Still,” Ben stepped into the maze, then started walking to the right, his voice trailing off as he turned a corner about ten feet in, “it was a thought. We probably do need something that tells us which way to go.”
“Yep.” Dan stepped into the maze and took two steps to the left. “We could wander a long time and not find our way out.”
Ben’s voice came clearer and he came back to Abe. “We’re going to need lights. Soon as you get in there it gets pretty dark. The walls are high enough that they cast a lot of shadows. Also,” he tipped his head and looked up, “I think it’s night in there.”
“What?” Ivan stepped into the maze and tipped his head back. “Yeah. Wow. Weird.” He stepped out of the maze and looked up at the sunny sky, back into the maze, then out again. “Definitely not the same time of day in there.”
Dan stepped in further, Abe following, as Dempsey came to the entrance and sought entry. Once Dempsey was in he eyed the wall of hedge in front of them. “Couldn’t we just cut our way out if we had to?”
“Excuse me,” Siobhan popped an alchemy torch before nudging her way passed Dempsey and moving to the right to stand next to Ben so she could study the hedge. She made a humphing sound, then leaned in to peer intently at the wall. Then she fingered some of the leaves, muttering under her breath. “Roses again.”
When Ivan stopped looking at the sky and turned to Siobhan for explanation she said, “There are climbing roses on the outside of the hedge. Musk roses which have somewhat standard presenting semi-double flowers although they are particularly full. I believe they are Buff Beauty’s, although that isn’t really important. What’s important, maybe, is that these,” she pointed at the flowers growing along the vines twining through the hedges, “are Dortmund roses. Completely different. See?” She cupped a red blossom in her hand, careful to avoid the thorns on the stem, “These have far less petals and they open to show a white eye.”
“Okay.” Ivan pursed his mouth. “And?”
“Their canes are extremely vigorous.”
Again Ivan eyed her, confusion clear on his face. “And?”
“They’re hard to cut. Not even counting in the thorns, which are no joke. Considering the profusion of the vines,” Siobhan released the flower, her touch gentle, then she swept her hand to indicate the vines twining heavily among the hedges. “I’m not sure we could cut through like you suggest. If we could, it wouldn’t be fast or easy. Also, we don’t know how thick the hedges are. If they are, say, two to three feet thick it would be really hard to cut through them, even without the supporting structure of the Dortmund vines.”
Ivan frowned. “So cutting is out.”
Siobhan nodded the affirmative. “Probably. Yes.”
“Why can’t anything be easy?”
“Because then it wouldn’t be fun?” Gwen answered, tone facetious.
Ivan grinned and shook his head. “Yeah. That. So, which way?” He turned to direct this to Dan.
“Why me?”
“Because you mentioned the myth?”
Dan curled his lip. “Go left? I’ve read about a puzzle maze where that was the key, always head left.”
Ivan shrugged at this suggestion. “Good as any way, I guess.”
That said he squared up and started off in that direction, stepping around Dan and Abe. The path was wide enough that they could walk two abreast so the action was easy enough.
“Hey!”
Ivan stopped and turned to look at Siobhan. She reached into her bag and pulled out three alchemy torches, activating each one. “You’ll need a light.”
Ivan looked sheepish as he stepped back into the circle the lights formed around Siobhan. “Oops.”
Siobhan lifted her brows. “Yeah, oops. Here.” She handed Ivan a torch, then gave one to Dan, and one to Dempsey. Ivan hooked his to his belt, then strode forward again
Ben scooted around Siobhan and the rest and hurried to catch up with Ivan, taking a place at his left. He started to trail his fingers along the hedge wall but quickly ran up against one of the thorns Siobhan mentioned as a problem. With a muttered curse he yanked his hand back, shaking out his fingers and casting off a drop of blood that the thorn had raised on his skin.
Gwen hovered in the entry to the maze. “Should some of us stay back?”
Siobhan turned and eyed her. “No.”
Gwen reared back at Siobhan’s quick response. Siobhan rolled her eyes at Gwen’s drawn out, “Sorry!”
“No splitting the party,” she said. “Have we learned nothing?”
“We have learned many things.”
Siobhan shook her head and gave a mock sigh. “Have we learned nothing about splitting the party?”
Gwen saluted with her plunger. “Yes. Mom.”
This drew a deeper, more heartfelt sigh from Siobhan but it was quickly chased by a laugh. “You are something.”
“I am!” Gwen agreed with over exuberance. “Now, let’s do this thing.” So saying she stepped into the maze and looked right and left. “Left?”
“Yes.”
Prairie, Kim, and Patti stepped into the maze as Gwen scurried forward to fall into step behind Dempsey where he walked behind Dan and Abe.
“Hey!” she said, all jaunty like the tilt of her plunger on her shoulder.
“Hey,” Dempsey replied, lifting his shield and checking the strap to make sure it was secure.
“Battle buddies?”
“Sure.” Dempsey shrugged. “I guess.”
“Such enthusiasm!”
Dempsey sighed, pinched the bridge of his nose, and muttered, “Three acres,” to which Gwen beamed, joy radiating off her in direct contrast to the grouch coming off Dempsey. She may have also uttered, “Whee!”
May have.
“Prairie?” Prairie stopped and turned at Siobhan’s call.
“Yes?”
Siobhan held out the last alchemy torch. “Here.”
Prairie took the torch and then looked at Patti. “Battle buddies?”
Patti shrugged. “Sure. Sounds good. You, me, and Sass.”
Prairie’s smile settled on Sass, hanging out the window of the small house attached to Patti’s belt and looking around curiously. “Great.”
That said Patti and Prairie fell in behind Dempsey and Gwen, who was still trying without any success to make small talk with the taciturn man. Siobhan looked to Kim. “Looks like we’re buddies.”
Kim smiled. “Always.”
With that they joined the end of the train, walking two abreast down the wide path. Reaching a juncture where a entry opened in the hedge, offering options to keep going straight or turning to enter the new path, Ivan called back, “Straight or right?”
“Uhm,” Siobhan called back, “flip a coin?”
“That’s a stupid way to decide!”
“You got a better one?”
“Left,” Dan’s voice came firm with conviction.
“Why?” Ivan asked.
“Because.” Again there was such certainty it was hard to challenge Dan’s statement.
“Because Magick?” Siobhan called up the path.
“Sure.”
“Can’t fault that logic,” Siobhan muttered, tone dry, before lifting her voice to pitch to Ivan, “Keep going straight!”
As Siobhan drew up to where the right turn was that they’d rejected, she poked her head in, just to get a look. The path went a very short distance then forked off with options of left or right. Keeping in mind the whole “don’t split the party” thing she’d sold Gwen, she drew back, bumping into Kim who’d followed her in taking the right turn.
“Don’t split the party,” she muttered to Kim, who crossed her arms and gave Siobhan a look. “Sound advice.”
Siobhan shrugged and stepped back to the path to the left, or straight. Dang, she was already getting twisted around and they hadn’t even made a turn yet! As she turned back to the path her foot caught on a vine protruding from the wall and she stumbled. She pressed her hand to the wall to steady herself and looked back to glower at the vine.
“Was that there before?” She asked Kim, squinting to see the vine where it half disappeared into the shadows at the base of the wall.
Kim scratched her jaw. “Not sure. Maybe?”
Siobhan stooped to tuck the vine back against the wall so they wouldn’t catch their leg on it when they left. A small blossom on the vine caught her eye. It was kind of hard to tell why since, in the shadows, it was hard to really get a lot of detail.
She twisted to look up at Kim who continued to hover near her. “Do you have a light?”
“Uh,” Kim lifted her brows, then made a twisting motion with her hand that flared her fingers out in a fan. A small flame burst into life in her upturned palm. “Always?”
“Bring it down here? Careful not to set the hedge on fire.”
“Not my first rodeo, cowgirl.” Kim crouched, bringing the flame close enough to illuminate the area at the base of the hedge wall without getting so close it would cause a fire hazard.
“Huh.” Siobhan reached forward and cupped the flower in her hand. In the light of Kim’s flame it became clear what had caught at her subconscious. Instead of being red with a white eye and yellow stamens the flower’s color palette was reversed, the petals a stunning egg-yolk toned yellow and the stamens in the white eye a mellow crimson. “Weird.”
Turning slightly she scanned the vines and flowers in her immediate area. The rest of them were the standard red with a white heart and yellow stamens. Being careful to be gentle, she slipped her hand out from under the blossom, avoiding the inch and a half long thorns protruding from the cane.
“Must be a mutation.” So saying she rose from her crouch and pointed down the path with her chin. “We should hurry to catch up.”
“Sure.” Kim made a reverse of her earlier gesture, turning her wrist and enclosing the flame in her palm within the cage of her fingers. It danced there for a mikro, then disappeared, going back to wherever it was it had come from.
“I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of seeing that.”
Kim grinned. “Me neither.”
They hurried to catch up with the others, cutting in right behind them as the path came to an abrupt end at a wall, requiring them to turn right, which they did. Siobhan nearly ran into Gwen who was crouched staring at the ground near the wall just beyond the turn. The face she turned up to Siobhan was soft with confusion. To her left and just down the path Ivan crouched with an equally confused expression on his handsome features.
He prodded the ground with a broad forefinger and muttered, “Weird.”
Siobhan and Kim stopped and Siobhan asked. “What’s weird?”
Ivan turned his face up. “We decided it made sense to mark where we turn so we can find our way out. Since we don’t have a magic ball of yarn we decided to put down markers.”
He turned his hand up, revealing a small firefly made of metal. “I brought these along in case we needed lights. Saves your alchemy.”
Siobhan nodded. “Okay.”
“I activated it, like this,” he ran his thumb under the belly of the firefly and its end lit up, casting a phosphorescent glow, and small wings unfolded from the body with a metallic chime before beginning to flutter fast enough it was hard to track the movement.
Kim’s eyes went wide. “Hey, cool!”
“Thanks,” Ivan replied in an absent tone. “Then I set it near the hedge and put it in hover mode. It ate it.”
“The firefly ate-” Kim pursed her lips and tipped her head, “what?”
“The hedge ate the firefly.”
“Come again?”
“Here.” Ivan reached to the bottom of his jacket and twisted off the lowest button, then propped it against the hedge. It sat there for a few mikros and then the button sank into the hedge, disappearing completely one blink to the other.
“The fuck?”
Ivan rocked back on his heels and braced his hands on his thighs. “Yeah. Like that.”
Siobhan eyed the hedge and rubbed her chin. “Huh,” getting another “yeah,” from Ivan in reply.
“Did you try anything else?”
Abe raised a hand, reminding Siobhan of her students. “Yes, Abe?”
“Dan and I tried telling the hedge to stop.”
“Oh-kay,” Siobhan drew out the word. “That’s a thing?”
Abe shrugged. Siobhan looked to Dan. He shrugged too.
“Okay. Can I assume it didn’t work?”
“You can assume,” Dan replied, tone dry.
Siobhan’s mouth twisted to the side. “I’ll assume putting down a torch would just lose us a torch.”
“That’s our guess,” Dempsey said.
“Any other thoughts.”
Gwen looked up at the sky. “There’s stars and constellations. Could be we could do star navigation?”
Siobhan looked up and squinted at the constellations clearly picked out, like pegs from light-brite set gleaming against the velvet darkness. “Anyone know how to navigate by the stars?”
“I read a book once,” Dan offered, to which Ben grinned and said, “Of course you did!”
“Did it teach you how to navigate by the stars?” Prairie asked.
“No.”
“Well, okay, then,” Siobhan said, “that won’t work either then.”
“Do you have paint or something in your bag?”
Siobhan rolled her eyes at Ben’s question. “No. I do not have paint in my bag. I have something in my bag, but fresh out of paint.”
“Just asking. It’s like a bag of holding. Who knows what you’ve got in there!”
“Maybe we just walk a bit and try to memorize our steps?”
To Ivan’s suggestion, Kim snorted. “I don’t recall that working so good in that Theseus myth.”
Gwen and Ivan continued to stoop, peering at the ground and the hedge. Ivan was just making to rise when a roar came from further back along the path they’d already walked. It was loud. It was strong. Wisps of air came flying from that direction, carried on the strength of it or maybe fleeing it, twining around Kim and lifting her hair so it billowed and swayed on the invisible breeze.
“Guys!” she yelled, “Incoming!”
“You think!” Patti pivoted in the direction of the sound and shoved her hair, grabbed and flung by the moving air, out of her face.
Enter The Woods 