Keepers of the Labyrinth (3 page)

3

A
fter nineteen hours of travel, Lil found herself foggy-headed, tired and boarding a shuttle bus with the initials
FLI
on the side. She went to the back and jammed her duffel underneath the seat in front of her before sitting down.

“We're going to be full, everyone, so please make room in the seat beside you,” the man in the front said. “My name is Aestos, and I am your guide to Melios Manor today. You will be seeing me around the manor all weekend, and you should not hesitate to ask me for something if you need it. It is our duty to make your stay here in Crete one you will never forget.”

He clasped his hands together and repeated what he had said in French, German, what sounded like Spanish, then choppy Chinese and finally Greek.

She recognized a little bit of Greek, her mother's accent ringing in her ears. But she was unable to understand anything but a few words. It wasn't like she hadn't asked to know more, but her mother had been somewhat reserved about it. “You are an American,” she would say to Lil. But Lil had not ever been so sure of her identity. The kids at school had families who had been in Vermont for generations and seemed to think she was foreign even though she had been born there. And yet, Lil thought she certainly couldn't be Greek. She had never even been here before. It was like wearing a pair of mismatched shoes. Neither fit exactly right. One unwelcoming and uncomfortable. The other like no shoe she had ever seen. Greek, her heritage and her mother, were a mystery to Lil. One she desperately wanted to unravel.

Lil looked out the window, wondering if anyone else had come from the United States. Moments later, one last girl got on the bus. She was short, and her hair was loose and long but sprung out around her head in uncontained twists and curls. A pair of purple glasses framed her brown face, and she had a crease between her eyes. The kind one might get from considering the world for too long. She stopped near the front and struggled to put her suitcase in the luggage hold, then continued to the back.

“May I sit here?” she asked as she approached the vacant seat next to Lil.

“Please do,” Lil said, happy to hear words she could understand.

“I'm Sydney,” the girl said as she sat down and swung a backpack from her left shoulder into her lap.

“I'm Lil,” Lil said.

“Nice to meet you,” Sydney said, unzipping her backpack and pulling out a handheld device that looked like an inside-out walkie-talkie. Lil could see wires running across a computer chip at the front. Sydney flipped it, revealing a gray, pixelated screen. Then she hit a little button on the side, and the screen glowed green.

“Commence trilateration,” Sydney said into the side of the device.

“What's that?” Lil asked.

The device beeped and then displayed a little winding line across the screen. “Essentially it's a homemade GPS,” Sydney said, holding it out to Lil. “It just pinpointed where we are in the world.” She pointed at a little X that began to move as they pulled out of Chania Airport.

“Did you make it?” Lil asked, staring at the tiny flecks of solder, meticulously round, holding down the ends of the wires. She had once made a noisemaker at a library program, but this seemed far more advanced than anything Lil would ever attempt, even with guidance.

“Well, yeah,” Sydney said, setting it on top of her backpack, screen up. “I wouldn't exactly buy this.”

“Why do you need a GPS if you were planning on taking the bus?” Lil wondered.

Sydney looked at her, scowling. “I was bored. Besides, did you see the road we're going up? It's insanely dangerous looking. Steep. Lots of turns. Very narrow.”

Lil had noticed that the manor was in the middle of nowhere. But she was fairly used to that, being from the middle of Vermont. She wondered if that was why Mom liked Vermont.

“It
is
off the beaten path,” she said.

Sydney leveled her with a stare. “That is the understatement of the century.”

Just then, Lil became aware of the girls on their left giggling and eyeing them from across the aisle. The girl doing most of the laughing had sleek black hair that she wore in a ponytail, and eyebrows that had been plucked into sharp points.

“Reg
ardez la pauvre nerd
qui peut même pas a
cheter un poratble a
pproprié,”
she said. The dowdy girl next to her started laughing again.

Lil glared. “I don't know what she's saying, but I can tell it isn't good.”

Sydney's eyes landed on the device. “I know what she's saying,” she said, indicating a maple leaf pin she wore on her sleeve.

“You're from Canada?” Lil asked.

“Yeah, Winnipeg,” Sydney replied. “Just ignore her.”

“Well, what did she say?” Lil said. “It depends on what she said. She can't just sit there and say—”

“She seems to think this is the only cell phone I can afford.” Sydney tapped the side of her temple. “Not too bright.”

Lil smiled, but a moment later, the girl in the seat across from them looked at her again. This time she spoke in English. “They must not have hair salons in Canada.”

“They must not have manners in France,” Lil said, standing up.

The bus pitched around a corner, and she clung to the seat back in front of her to keep her feet.

“That's Vivi Lancaster.”

Lil looked down. The girl in the seat she was clinging to turned toward her. She had short brownish hair that twisted in the front like a ski slope sliding to her forehead. Her skin was pale and her eyes were bright blue, and she wore a pair of plain suspenders over a white collared shirt. She was retro and stylish, like a mix between a black-and-white movie and the front of a modern magazine cover. And she had a slight French accent—perhaps a touch of a British one, too. Lil couldn't quite tell.

“She's been trying to lose me since the layover in Frankfurt. I'm Charlie.” The girl extended a hand over the seat. Lil took it and shook.

Sydney looked up from her device and peered over the seat.

“I'm Lil; this is Sydney,” Lil said.

“Ah,
oui,
” Charlie said. “It's a pleasure.”

The van twisted around another bend, and Lil sat down. Charlie leaned up, lacing her arms over the back of the seat.

Sydney glanced back at her device. “Here goes.”

“What's that—” Charlie started, but before she could finish what she was saying, the bus took a sharp turn, upending several bigger bags and suitcases from the luggage hold. Once the girls had righted themselves, Sydney leaned over Lil to look out the bus window, then pushed the device between them. Charlie appeared just above the seat again.

“It's a handmade GPS,” Lil said.

Sydney pointed at the screen. “We're coming up on another turn, heading up the mountain now. This is going to be sharp turns all the way up.”

Lil watched the X as it embarked on a series of S-turns.

“You were right about the road,” Lil said, looking out her window, trying to get a glimpse of where they were going. The bus tilted, carrying them higher and higher. As they continued, the shuttle got quieter and quieter. Lil pulled the window open, searching for some air. The Cretan wind blew in, and she sucked in a breath as she watched the world below become smaller with each turn. The road was narrow, and without guardrails. The only thing stopping the van, if it started over the hill, would be a few rocks, some shrubbery, maybe a roaming goat. Otherwise, they would tumble, perhaps for miles.

A tiny church on a pedestal marked the next corner, and Lil could see the stems of some flowers poking out of it.

“Do you think that's for religious offerings?” Lil asked.

Sydney looked up and shook her head, staring back down at the GPS. “No, that's where people've died. Crete has an extremely high percentage of automobile deaths. One every couple of days or so.”

“Every couple of days?” Charlie's knuckles grew white as she clutched the seat back.

“Give or take,” Sydney said, nodding. “Another turn.”

They climbed onward, and Lil watched the bees spin between wildflowers that marked the side of the road in big colorful splashes. She wondered if Mom had climbed this road. Had seen these wildflowers, had felt this breeze on her face. Lil closed her eyes and breathed in the aroma.

Opening her eyes once more, she watched as houses disappeared in the distance. They climbed to a rocky mountaintop where the road leveled off, and drove along a straightaway for a moment. The passengers on the bus seemed to take a collective sigh of relief as the sheer drop-off became guarded by trees on both sides. A mile or so later, a long stone wall cropped up on their right and hugged the bank as it wound its way toward a large sunny spot in the distance. Finally, they rounded a corner and the trees peeled back, revealing a large stonework building.

4

W
ELCOME
,
FUTURE
LE
ADERS
OF
THE
WORLD
!
The banner on the front of the manor waved like a flag in the wind. Lil made her way down the shuttle steps behind Sydney and Charlie. She slowed to a stop and stared at the manor. This was going to be their home for the next twelve days? Lil had never seen anything like it. Windows were splayed open-eyed by wooden shutters. The late-afternoon sun reflected in the glass. Below, old urns and modern plastic buckets sat side by side, holding flowers of every color. Some careened forward in floral waterfalls, and others climbed up the wall toward the balconies above them. There were two stone stairwells that wound from the ground floor up each side and plateaued into simple but decorative gardens before melding into the mountainside. Lil craned her neck, taking in the scene before her.

The natural beauty of the place seemed endless. Back on the ground, over to her left stood a large vegetable garden, and Lil took a deep breath as a warm, salty aroma sailed toward her on the breeze. She spotted a large fire pit with several roast chickens spinning above it. The grease spattered into the flames, as if asking them to rise higher. The garden reminded her of her mother's herb garden. And the herb on the chicken had to be rosemary. That was Mom's favorite, and the smell seemed to surround Lil, fill her senses. She stepped toward it without thinking.

“Is that—”

“Dinner,” Aestos said as he handed the last bag to the last girl, closed the bus door and headed toward the garden. “And that's not all, so do not be late.”

“We'd better check in,” Sydney said, dropping her device into her backpack and retrieving her welcome packet. Charlie led the way to the back of the line as Lil picked up her duffel bag from the dirt driveway and followed.

After about fifteen minutes, they had wound their way to an arched wooden door. The top half of it was open, and an oval sign swung in the breeze next to it.
(
RECEPTION
)
was carved into the raw wood.

Lil looked into the office. A short, flustered-looking woman stood in front of them. She had curly hair that had erupted into flyaways all around her head. A set of round spectacles, held together on one side by several pieces of duct tape, were propped on her nose. She wore a lanyard that held her name: Trudy. She flipped to the final page of a logbook and placed a large folded piece of paper in it.

“All right,” she said, looking up at Lil. Lil cocked her head to the side. Was she imagining it or had Trudy's lips turned up in a smile? The way her eyes twinkled, it almost seemed as though she recognized her.

Lil cleared her throat. “Lili—”

But before she could finish, the woman had retrieved a registration packet from the box in front of her and held it out. Lil saw her name on a sticky label in the upper right-hand corner.

“Welcome, Lilith,” Trudy said in a lilting Irish accent.

She hadn't imagined the look, then. “How—”

“And this must be Sydney Bennington,” Trudy said, pulling the next one out and handing it to Sydney, “hailing from ‘O Canada.' I have family on the East Coast.”

Sydney nodded a thank-you and accepted the folder as Lil stepped aside, feeling foolish for thinking that there had been a connection.

“And last, but not least, we have Charlotte Babineaux.”

“Charlie,
s'il vo
us plaît,
” Charlie said, accepting the folder.

“Very well,” Trudy said. She pulled her glasses from her face and waved her hand as she looked out over their shoulders. “It's a hot one. Let's get ye in out of the sun.” She swung the door open, and the girls spilled inside, hauling their luggage with them.

“Now, your room number is on your registration packet. Please fetch your keys from the rail,” she said, pointing toward a set of hooks that sat next to an interior door. Lil peered at her folder. She was Room 4D. She went to the wall and picked up a wooden lanyard attached to a large cast-iron key.

Trudy rattled on while Sydney and Charlie retrieved their keys.

“You're all in Hall D, which is the one just above us. You'll take a left toward the kitchen and head up the back stairwell to get there. I'll see ye at dinner, I'm sure.” Trudy herded them toward the interior door.

Lil grabbed the knob and pushed it open into a cool stone hallway.

“Second floor, all right?” Trudy called after them.

“Yes, ma'am,” the three replied as they passed into the hallway.

“Wait!” Trudy said.

Lil turned back.

“Ye can't forget your candles. Remember, we're an eco-friendly, self-sustaining facility, which means that the whole building is solar powered.” She held up three candles by their wicks with one hand.

“I have a flashlight,” Sydney said.

Trudy stared at her, still holding out the candles. “That's fine if that is what ye require, but we're in favor of sustainable living here, and while your flashlight's batteries fill landfills, these candles were made here at Melios Manor using our very own beeswax.”

Sydney looked skeptical. “A little dangerous, everyone running around with candles.”

Trudy's eyebrows rose. “The building is stone. We've never had a problem before.” She turned to the others. “Bring these to dinner—you'll want them on the way back. There will be extras in the lobby if ye need them.”

Lil took all three candles, passing one to Charlie and another to Sydney. Sydney hesitated and then took the candle.

“Fine, I'll use it as a backup.”

“Preserve the water,” Trudy shouted after them. “Kindling is set in the fireplace should you need it. Become acquainted with the materials in your folder!”

They hurried to the end of the hall, where another cluster of girls stood in front of a sign that said
KOYZINA
. Lil didn't need the translation that was spelled out:
KITC
HEN
. The smell of the chicken had spilled into the hallway.

The girls turned. It was Vivi again, and two others.

“Oh, are you in Hall D?” Charlie said, not masking the disappointment in her voice.

Vivi bristled, and then a smile snuck into the corner of her mouth. “No.” She reached out a hand and patted Charlie on the shoulder. “Hall D is like servants' quarters.” She jutted her chin toward the kitchen. “We just came over to see what the smell was.”

“Servants' quarters?” Lil said as they passed her and scurried down the hallway. Lil watched as they went to a large spiral staircase that circled up from the foyer. “Do you think we're really in the servants' quarters?”

“I have no idea, but I like the smell,” Charlie said.

The delicate acidic smell of tomatoes, sliced garlic and onion poured out of the kitchen. And herbs. The aromas mixed together and made Lil's stomach dip and churn. “What time is dinner?” she asked.

“We'll have to check the schedule,” Sydney said.

Charlie peered through a window on the side of the door, and Lil looked over her head. The interior of the kitchen boasted a large counter and a wood-fired oven where three large loaves of bread grew brown in front of the open flames. Lil had seen flatbreads made in something similar. Beside the oven, copper pots and pans of every width and height leaned against one wall next to equally large wheels of cheese. And there was Aestos in the middle of it. He moved quickly, working a mortar and pestle in front of him. Without removing his eyes from his concoction, he lifted his right arm and freed a few thyme leaves above his head, where bundles of herbs were swinging in the breeze.

“Is that the bus driver?” Charlie asked.

“Yeah,” Lil said.

“Of course it is,” Sydney said. “Didn't you guys read the brochure? It said right in it that Aestos Trika was in charge of the food.” She stared at them. “It talked about how all the food was made on the grounds. Everything is organic. Remember? Eco-friendly.”

“Hippies,” Charlie said, lifting her eyebrows. Lil grinned. Her mom and dad had been called hippies simply for owning a family farm. Nowadays it seemed that any place that was self-sufficient, or even anyone who had a garden and canned their own food, was somehow associated with the free-love era.

“Not exactly,” Lil said, smelling the rosemary roast chicken. Lil suspected the chickens had been freshly killed and plucked that morning.

Sydney turned and attempted to hoist her rolling bag onto the first step. Lil grasped the bottom of it with her free hand, and they climbed toward the landing. A stained-glass window spilled colorful sunlight down the stairs as they rounded the corner and continued up to the secind floor. There was a little wooden plaque right next to a stone archway:
(
HALL D
)
. The girls pushed a wooden door open.

“This is me,” Charlie said, stopping at the first room on the right. Lil looked up at the top of the door. It was crowned by a rectangular stained-glass window. The corners of the window were blue and wavy, and in the center was a white bull with a woman sitting on its back.

“Oh, that's interesting,” Charlie said as she pushed the key into the lock.

“What's interesting?” Sydney said, setting her side of the bag down for a moment. Lil did the same.

“It's Europa.”

Lil tried to remember where she had heard the name.

“You know,” Charlie continued, “the myth about Europa and Zeus?”

Sydney shrugged. “Never heard of her.”

Charlie tilted her head and looked down the hall.

“Ah
oui,
and that is Daedalus and Icarus.” Her eyes lit up with a smile. “They're all Cretan myths.”

“3D. That's me,” Sydney said, going to the door and sliding the key into the lock. Lil grabbed the handle of her bag and followed her. How she had ended up being the bellhop, Lil wasn't exactly sure.

“Remember Daedalus and Icarus?” Charlie said, coming with them. “They build wings and fly too close to the sun?”