Keepers of the Labyrinth (20 page)

35

F
e?” Horatio said, fumbling back the way he had come.

He stumbled on a rock and careened to the side. He reached his arm out to catch himself, and he heard the crunch of his flashlight as it wedged between his side and the wall, blinking momentarily before it went out.

Horatio righted himself, searching the shadows, trying to get his eyes to readjust. “FeFe?” he said, tossing the broken flashlight to the side and rushing to his sister. He carefully placed his feet as he crouched down. He let out an involuntary gasp as he saw his sister crumbled in a pile of shattered rocks.

Heat built in his chest, and he tried to breathe clearly as he lifted a shaking hand to check her pulse. A small life force tapped against his fingers, and blood seemed to thunder into his throat, his head.

“Ee
fcharisto, patera di
a,”
he whispered under his breath. He closed his eyes, drew the necklace from his shirt and kissed it. Then he opened his eyes. “You're fine, sister,” he shouted, swatting at her cheek. “Wake up. Wake up.”

His face scrunched as his hand batted at her once more. “Now is not the time for sleeping games,” he said, thinking that might make her laugh. Thinking of how she had always tried to get out of their morning chores and Sunday meeting by pretending to be in a deep sleep.

Her eyes blinked open. She gasped, “I'm hurt.”

“You are being overdramatic,” Horatio said, even though he knew that he had always been the one to overdramatize things. He pushed himself in beside her and lifted her arm over his shoulder.

“Ah!” She jerked away, her breath growing fast.

“Where does it hurt?” Horatio asked, watching her shaking hand clutch her stomach. Watching her chest rise and fall swiftly.

“Everywhere,” she said.

“It is probably just a broken rib,” he said, smiling, though he knew she'd had a broken rib before.

She looked up at him. “You were always Mom's optimist,” she whispered, pulling up to standing.

Horatio tucked his machete into his belt as he leaned her against his shoulder.

“And you were always Mom's comedian,” he said, his throat twisting like tree roots.

“Perhaps I can manage to go a little bit farther.” She laughed and sucked in a breath.

“A little farther is all we have to go. I'll show you. Then you'll see the nebulous chamber. We'll get the Icarus Folio, Fe. And when you have that, you'll feel better.”

He stared into her eyes. “You'll never have to suffer again.”

But her eyes fell from his as she slumped against the wall. “Give me a moment, 'Ratio. Then I'll go. I promise.”

36

L
il's shoulder smarted. She blinked her eyes open, trying to steady the room as it dipped and twirled around her. It went dark. Then Sydney's face appeared. Darkness. Kat's face. Darkness. Charlie's face. Sydney's lips were moving, but Lil couldn't hear what they were saying. She couldn't hear anything, but she did see the room upend itself as a wall came into focus on her right.

She blinked again. She could feel the cold stone against her cheek. Then the hand holding her arm. Then something rubbing her neck lightly. She panicked as the sound of rushing water filled her ears, but a moment later it was followed by the distinct presence of her own heartbeat, and then, finally, voices erupted around her.

“Can you hear me?” Sydney asked. “Lil, are you there?”

Lil pushed herself up on her arm.

“Easy with the shoulder!” Sydney said as pain sliced through Lil's collarbone and into the top of her spine. She grasped at it with the opposite arm and supported it as she rose to her knees. Her eyes fell on Charlie. She was leaning up against the wall, her head rolled back. Kat was by her ankle, putting more fabric across her shin, wrapping it like a bandage.

“Is she okay?” Lil asked, pushing herself to an upright position.

“We have to get her out of here,” Kat said, wiping at her face with her forearm.

Charlie's eyes blinked open as Kat's fingers worked quickly to tie a knot. She winced and let her head fall back again.

Lil turned toward the center of the room, searching for a door. Her blood seemed to freeze in her veins as she saw everything in front of her. Ropes twisted between statues, connecting them from waist to waist, from one side of the large room to the other. And each figure held something very familiar. The labrys. Not small like the one stamped into the disk around her neck, but real. Taller than the statues. Thick-handled and sharp-bladed. A weapon in every fist.

“The labrys was on the door,” Kat said. “Impossible to miss. An actual metal one, buried in the stone.”

Lil pushed herself up to standing. Her joints ached as she stumbled to the first statue. This one was a woman, holding a swaddled baby in the crook of one arm. The next a small child, maybe age three or four, tied by the waist to an adult, her small fist holding the labrys, which towered above her. The rope extended like an arm and circled the next statue. This one was a little bit older, her feet set apart, hair around her head in masses, unkempt and wild as if she had been turned to stone in a windstorm. She held the labrys in both hands as though wielding it against something. From her waist a rope extended to another sculpture, this time a teenager, in a running stance, the labrys in her left hand as if she were hunting with it. Lil stepped down the line, placing her hand on the ancient rope, feeling it bristle against her fingers. She stopped at the center of the room. There were two figures. A man and a woman. They leaned against each other. Lil stared at the creases and folds that created them. They looked as if they were made from the same piece of stone, only separated at the waist, where once again, the rope circled and hugged the woman. But, Lil thought, it couldn't be a symbol of captivity. In her hand was the largest weapon of them all. What did it mean?

Lil looked down the line once again, examining them more closely. Each statue also had a pitcher. Each statue was connected by rope. Each statue held a double-headed battle-ax. She squinted at their necks. Each statue had the disk emblem, hanging by a string. Lil lifted the disk from her own neck. She held it up. She spun it between her palms, looking for a place in the room where it might fit.

They were in the Ariadne chamber. Lil's heart pulsed in her neck. The Ariadne symbols were the ones that Mom wore. The ones that Bente wore. But what did it mean? She glanced around the room, looking for answers, searching for the meaning. But it evaded her.

“You didn't happen to see the riddle, did you?” Lil said, turning toward the others.

“We saw it,” Kat said, swabbing Charlie's forehead with her shirtsleeve. “We couldn't write it down.”

“Can you remember it at all?” Lil asked, making her way to the center of the room. She stood in front of the statue of the couple.

Kat took a deep breath. “I only remember part of it—”

“What do you remember?” Lil said. “Any details would help.”

“I don't know if I got the words exactly.” The yarn emerged from her pocket, and Lil watched as it flipped between her fingers like the tail of a snake. As if the yarn had soothed her, Kat spoke: “‘To all gods, honey. To the labyrinth mistress, honey. To the most holy, honey.'”

She fell silent, scowling down at the yarn and lacing faster.

“Was there anything more?” Lil asked.

“There were a few lines,” Sydney said from her place by the wall. “It was about Theseus and the guiding thread.”

Lil glanced toward the door, wanting to step back out into the passageway. Even for just a moment. Had the rocks been successful in taking out their predators? Or were they on the other side of the door, waiting? Lil grasped the disk at her waist and pulled it up, staring at the labrys. The front of it reflected the torches as though it, too, was made of fire.

“Traditionally, Ariadne is the mistress of the labyrinth,” Charlie said softly, her eyes barely opening. “Mistress of the labyrinth.”

Lil stared at the statues. “But which one is Ariadne?” She stepped closer to the couple, most prominent in the center. “They all have the same items.”

She ran her finger along the rough stone, stepping back again. As she did, a hint of sweetness tickled her nose. She looked down to see a capped urn at their feet. There was a small crack in the lid. A sliver was missing from the clay. She grasped the handle and lifted the lid off, immediately regretting her decision. Her hand froze in midair. She waited for the room to tip. Nothing happened.

“Honey,” Kat said, next to her now. She deposited the yarn into her pocket.

“They're each holding a pitcher,” Sydney said. “That must be significant.”

A ladle hung idly from the side of the urn, and Lil lifted it gently from its spot.

“Ah,” Kat snapped. “‘To the most holy, honey.' We're supposed to give a gift. An offering of honey. A
li
ba
ç
ão.
”

“A libation,” Lil said.

“Right,” Kat said.

Lil spun back toward the statues. Which was the most holy? Were any of them gods? She looked back and forth for religious emblems. Something sacred. Maybe the disk itself was sacred, a symbol of spirituality? But they were each wearing one. She walked back down the line from the eldest to the youngest. Why would Mom have had it if it was a religious item? She had never seemed to believe in much of a god. The only reason her mom's funeral had been in the church was to honor Lil's grandparents' memory. Lil came to the end of the line and stared at the swaddled baby. Her mind spun back to the day of her mother's funeral.

• • •

She and Dad went out to the airfield. There was one special rock on the edge of the woods that they had always sat on to watch Mom take off and land. She had found herself there after the funeral, looking out over the hangars toward the distant sunset. Feet tucked in. Chin to knees. She searched the horizon.

“You ran right off,” Dad said, coming over to the rock and taking a seat on it, too. Lil tucked her head in harder, trying to keep her eyes clear, but when she looked at Dad, his eyes were red-rimmed and full. He held out half a sandwich.

“You have to eat something,” he said.

Lil shook her head. “I'm not hungry.”

“You know your mother doesn't accept that excuse,” he said.

Lil extended her hand and took the sandwich. She bit into it, but the bread seemed to expand in her throat as her gaze met the horizon once more.

She worked to swallow, trying to form words. “Do you think there's a heaven and that Mom went to it?”

Dad's hand came down to rest on his knee, clutching his half of the sandwich. “I wouldn't claim to know.”

“But if there is one, she's not getting in, right? Not for . . .” Lil's throat tightened on the word, strangling her voice to a whisper. “Not for suicide.”

“Who told you that?” Dad asked, ruffling the paper over the sandwich.

“Some kid in my class,” Lil said, her head starting to ache from trying not to cry.

“Which one— You know?” He took a bite. “It doesn't matter. You want to see religion?” He set the sandwich down on the rock next to him and pulled a picture from his wallet. Lil gazed through tear-filled eyes. “You want to see faith? You want to see miracles?”

He pointed at the picture. It was of her in Mom's arms on the day she was born. “Love,” Dad said. Mom looked so happy. Her eyes tired, and full of light. Like there was something special behind them. “Pure love. Have faith in that,” Dad said.

He pressed a hand on Lil's back as she dropped the sandwich and took the picture to her heart, because it didn't matter. Either way, heaven or no, Mom wasn't here anymore.

“She's gone,” Lil said, her throat strangling her voice. She pressed her cheek into Dad's soft flannel shirt, and he stroked her hair while she tried to catch her breath.

“Not gone.” A breeze blew toward them across the field. “Not really. Blood is older than breath, Lil. And outlives it. You're always going to have a piece of her.” He kissed the top of her head. And Lil closed her eyes, feeling the cool breeze lick away the tears, sending them off into the air. “You are a piece of her.”

• • •

Lil found herself staring at the first statue in the room. The mom and baby. The woman's hair was long, curling around her shoulders and down her back. It was decorated with a web of shells so tiny, one might mistake them for little pearls. “Most holy,” Lil said. “Most pure. It's this one. It has to be.”

“Based on what?” Sydney said. “I mean, how did you come to that conclusion?”

Lil's back bristled.

“The infant child is always the most holy, historically,” Kat said.

Lil nodded appreciatively, trying to find her voice.

“Just making sure you're not making connections that don't exist,” Sydney said, staring at Lil's hand. Lil looked down to see her thumb marking a line around the spiral in the disk. “If this is ancient lore come to life,” Sydney said, “it had nothing to do with your mom.”

“Well, what do you think it is, then?” Lil snapped.

“I'm just making sure. I wasn't saying I had a conclusion.”

“Fine,” Lil said, walking briskly back to the center statue. She plunged the ladle into the urn. She pushed it down and pressed as it broke the surface. It submerged in slow motion. Then she pulled it back from the bottom. She carried it to the first statue. Took just one breath. Aimed for the pitcher and poured. The honey ran from the ladle in a long, thick golden ribbon, curling over the sides with lazy elbows, and then streamed steadily inside. As it emptied, the pitcher sank.
Click.
The ladle emptied more.
Click.
It emptied completely, with only the thinnest stream visible.
Click.
It stopped.

Lil's gaze hurried from wall to wall. Nothing happened. She examined the statue, unchanged before her eyes. She examined the back wall, spun to locate a new door. It had to work. Something had to change. Her eyes fell briefly on Charlie, who looked paler by the second despite the warm glow of the firelight.

Sydney stepped toward her. “Maybe it needs more hon—”

Lil's chest twisted. “Oh, stop,” she said through gritted teeth. She dropped the ladle to the ground. Maybe she was crazy to believe any of this. Maybe Sydney was right. Maybe no connection even existed. Maybe this was all a bad dream. And she had brought them here. And she had leaped in—completely and stupidly forward. And now she had made this mistake. The cord of the disk itched her neck, and she yanked it up and over her head.

“What are you doing?” Kat said. “Please stay calm.”

“Wait,” Sydney said.

Lil grasped the disk in her hands, her knuckles going white.

“No, seriously,” Sydney said. “Wait. Listen.”

A sound met her ears. The sound of something slowly rolling. Almost as though it hadn't been freed in ages and had taken a moment to begin. It seemed to pick up speed. Lil turned, tensing. Her muscles contracted, sending a shooting pain into her collarbone. But it didn't bother her, not much, because as she watched, a thin door opened at the base of the pedestal, and out rolled a small disk. A replica of the one that she held. That her mother had worn around her neck. It was the same size as Mom's necklace, only older and made of stone instead of metal. It stopped on its side like a coin in a slot machine. She looped the larger disk back around her unhurt shoulder, and clasped the smaller version in her hand. Just like the others they had collected throughout the labyrinth, this charm had a leather thong wrapped through a hole at the top, and Lil lifted it.