Chapter 3
The outer wall of the labyrinth quickly grows until it is a ten foot mammoth of a wall, seeming, even from the outside, to be a couple feet thick. It's made of dirty, red, sandy looking stone, but I have no doubt that it could and would stand a thousand years before even chipping. As I start to contemplate how I'll get in, since I can't see a door or gate anywhere, I hear a strange, shrill sound rise into the air.
Squinting my eyes, I scan for the source of the sound, and find it in the form of a small stout lady creature singing by the edge of the labyrinth. I trot down the hill, the rest of the way to the wall, eager to talk to someone, maybe ask for their advice. The sound only gets worse as I get close. It's technically good; the sound is strong and pure, but uses an unnecessary amount of force and wavers far too much, and it would appear to be very much on purpose. I grit my teeth as it continues.
"Ah! Another fan laid to rest by the sound of my heavenly voice!" The owner of the voice declares, skipping away gleefully. Left behind is a tiny pixie, lying dead in the dirt. I try to ignore it, after all, I don't know how things work here.
"Excuse me, miss!" I call as she heads off to the right. She turns, pouting at me.
"And who might you be?"
"I'm Christine, I'm trying to navigate the labyrinth. Who are you?"
"I am Carlotta, siren of the labyrinth!" She declares, quite proudly too. "How can you claim to be navigating the labyrinth when you've not even made it inside?" She purses her lips into a confident, superior smile.
"Actually, I was hoping you might help me with that."
"And why should I," She hangs on that word, ", help you?"
"Well… Since your voice is so powerful, I'm sure you don't get a lot of feedback, you know, praise or anything… I fancy myself a singer as well, and I'd love to hear you up close.." I try to interest her. She acts like she's thinking heavily on it, then turns around, small tail flicking playfully.
"Well, I do love to be heard. Mmm… Yes, I shall do this. I am not unkind, after all." She laughs, amused at her own words. Without a moment's notice, she launches right into a shrieking rendition of some classical piece, but the exact one is too obscured in her liberties taken with it. It's horrible, off-tune, out of sync, and utterly unintelligible, as she's not enunciating at all. The sound is almost pleasant in some ways, but any sweetness in it is lost in the forceful power she's pumping into it. I hear tiny wings buzz and then stop, followed by several –thuds- as tiny bodies hit the floor.
"Ah, I'm too talented! Those pixies are lucky to die wrapped in my melodies!" Carlotta declares, then holds out a hand, fingers twitching, waiting for my input.
"Ah, ye-yes! You have a very powerful voice, Carlotta! It's only, if you don't mind me saying, you perhaps overuse your power? If every note is the strongest, then it's all the same, but if you reserve that strength for special moments, it might be all the more effective then!" I smile, hoping my critique is soft enough that she does not think I mean to insult her, because I don't. Truly, she has potential, but I am not a teacher, and she seems quite absorbed in her own opinion of herself. I wait for her to say something as her face falls from utter confidence to something mildly questioning.
"Hmmph.. You may have a point there.." She grumbles, then turns and flutters away on tiny feathered wings.
"Ah, wait, aren't you going to show me a way in?"
"Oh, I never agreed to do any such thing. The only thing we agreed to was that I would sing, and you would tell me what you thought. If you meant to trade that moment for help you should have been clearer." She says flippantly.
"Wait, please!" She does not, fluttering away as fast as she can. Her body is a little heavy and her wings a little too small to carry her much faster than I can stride, though, so I keep up with her quite well. "Please, do you know a way in? A hint, a clue?"
"Maybe I do, maybe I do not." She shrugs. I stop, throwing my hands in the air.
"Oh, it's hopeless!" I cry, heart clenching with panic already. Carlotta turns in the air, smug again.
"Not if you ask the right questions." With her hands on her hips and her tail flicking about, she hovers just in front of me. I pause for a moment. What have I asked? I've asked for help, advice, knowledge…
"How do I get into the labyrinth?" Perhaps asking directly will do the trick? She nods, feeling clever for 'walking me through it'.
"There you go. You can get in- right through there." She gestures to the wall, where there is a magnificent wooden gate that opens with a soft click, doors swinging inward.
"Ah!" I gasp, running on my toes inside. I hear Carlotta float in after me. The immediate inside is only two directions, left or right.
"You really going in?" Carlotta asks, fluttering around me.
"I'm afraid I have to." I speak with grim determination, perhaps a little too dramatically.
"Which way shall you choose?"
"I.. I don't know. They look the same to me."
"Ha! Shows what you know! I wouldn't go either way!"
"Hmmp." My lips press together, not wanting to insult her, but getting rather impatient with her attitude. "I think I can do this, no matter which way I start out."
"Oh my, brave are we? Well, even if you can make it to the center, King Erik will never let you leave!" She bursts into a small fit of laughter, landing on a discarded tree branch.
"That's what you think." I reply softly. "I know I can do this."
"Hah." She says bitterly. "Don't say I didn't warn you; it's an impossible task." She shrugs and begins to walk away, but I can tell she's upset about my defiance. She likes to be right. I bite my lip for a moment.
"Uh, Carlotta?" I call tentatively. She turns harshly on a heel, glaring at me. She raises a single eyebrow, asking me 'what' in the harshest tone possible. "Thank you. For your help." Then I turn and run, because I don't know what more to say, and she's probably done with dealing with me anyway.
I keep up a jog, prepared to take the first turn I see. Except that it goes straight, first for a minute, and then another two, and another five. As the ground underneath climaxes at a small, rolling hill, I can see the path ahead of me stretching straight with no branches or turns in sight. I exhale in frustration, clenching my hands into fists. How can this be a labyrinth if there are no damn turns? I look back the way I came, and I can't even see the gate I came in through, which means there's no real way to maybe start over, or even see if Carlotta has more condescending advice for me. I sit down against the inner wall, out of breath.
"Hullo!" A small voice brings me out of my inner monologue. I turn to find a small blue.. worm… thing. I look around to confirm no other source, then look back to the worm.
"Did you just say 'hello'?" I ask, a little baffled. I mean, a siren I guess I could understand, but a talking worm? What isn't including in 'fairie folk'?
"No, I said 'hullo', but I suppose that's close enough." It, he nods, cheerful.
"You're a worm?" I ask, though it's a little redundant.
"Yeah."
"Do… do you happen to know how to navigate the labyrinth?"
"No, I'm just a worm." He nods, quite pleased to be just a worm. I nod. At least he's kind and straightforward. "Why don't you come inside and meet the missus?" I nearly laugh at that thought, me coming inside a worms house to meet his wife; how would I even fit?
"No, but thank you. I've got to make my way through this labyrinth to get.. something." That can't be good, that I don't remember what I'm working for, but I remember, at least, that it's very important. As long as I remember that, I can keep going. "But I can't find any turns, so I don't know how I'll ever do that."
"What're you talkin' about? There's a turn right there." He nudges his whole body at the opposite wall. I look, but I don't see anything different about the wall.
"I don't understand."
"Look, things aren't always what they look like 'round here, but I promise you if you walk through that bit a wall right there, you'll be able to keep goin'." He nudges again. I nod, a little confused, but I'm willing to try anything if it'll get me to Erik and my prize. I approach the wall with my hands in front of me, but to my surprise they don't hit the stone, and I keep walking. Turning around, I see the old path, and the worm, but now the opening between them is obvious.
"How..?" I duck my head around the corner, but I simply can't conceive how this could have seemed invisible to me.
"Like I said, things aren't always what they seem here." The worm nods, understanding. I'm touched by how patient he is, when I must seem like a child lost in a playground.
"Thank you. I've got to be going now, but I won't forget this." I start to walk off to the right, but the worm's tiny shouting stops me, calls me back.
"Don't go that way! Go the other way, it's much better!"
"Oh, thank you again, sir." I bow my head in gratitude, and start jogging.
I'm starting to feel good about this again, as now that I've been given the first turn, there's finally more choices to make, and I know the classic solution to any labyrinth: keep one hand on one side, and never let go. It gets tiresome when you walk dead ends, but it ensures that you walk out of them, at least, and you keep going in. Inevitably, you'll have walked the entire labyrinth, taken every path possible, including the correct one. Of course, I suppose that if this is anything like the labyrinth in the book, it won't always be so straightforward. Sarah gets herself in a mess of trouble.. though I'm starting to have trouble recalling the exact details. I'm beginning to wonder if maybe Erik is taking more memories than I initially asked, to cheat me out of any 'extra' help I might get from that book.
But that seems odd to me, since he was so adamant the book was wrong, at least in regards to his name, and mine of course, and something about a baby. Yeah, Sarah wishes away her baby step-brother, and I've wished away memories. But that doesn't feel like everything. Perhaps I gave away something else as well. And how would I know? I wished it and the memories of whatever it might be away! I mumble to myself about how ungrateful I was for it, no matter the pain it might have given me. I'm not a child anymore, and I can't have a fit everytime something hurts me.. Of course, I don't think I expected anyone to give a damn about my fit, so I'm not sure I'm entirely to blame. What girl reasonably expects someone to wait on their every whim?
Which reminds me- I feel like I ought to be uncomfortable with Erik's declaration of love, and how, if it's true, he's supposedly watched me all my life. And knowing, even thinking, that he may have been spying on me at any moment of my life does ruffle my thoughts a bit, since I was so unaware of it and it was obviously without my permission. But his other point- that seems odd in the way that it doesn't seem odd at all. This situation is absurd, and yet that point seems the most grounded, most truthful, most easy to comprehend of it all, which makes no sense!
For one, I hardly think I'm worthy of the love of a literal Fairie King. I'm nothing special, though I do try to be kind and considerate as much as possible. I'm… come to think of it, I can't really describe myself. Is this something else Erik has, accidentally or not, taken from me? Who am I? What am I like?
As this new set of questions take hold of my mind, a song rises through the walls and the passages, arresting my attention. Delicate, somber notes drawn out long and thin echo through the labyrinth to me. Somewhere in my heart I am sure it comes from the very centre of the castle, where Erik and my memories are waiting for me.
That doesn't matter, though. I feel it in my being, resonating with everything I am, calling me towards it. I would follow this song, this sound, until the universe was nothing but silver dust, for this sound seems to describe me, a wordless answer to my previous questions. I can feel my body relax, each step I take so smooth and careless that I feel as if I am floating.
I feel like a ghost wandering the labyrinth, a ghost of a girl both haunting the walls and being haunted. For this music, oh, this music, it is so divine, so pure, so understanding, and I wish only to in turn understand it. It is hard to remember to keep my hand on the wall, to remember that I have a purpose, a duty here, that cannot be forsaken. But the song seems to understand this as well, the lighter notes a symphony of delicate praise and adulation. Soon, the monologue it has to me is too much for me to leave alone, and so I lift my voice to join it, simple notes added without any meaning other than it simply feels right. In joining the instrument's voice with my own, the monologue becomes a conversation, and I feel so wholly understood and I hope that it knows that I am doing my best to understand it as well.
Soon, almost too easily now that I am singing, I lose myself in the song, hardly caring whether or not my hand stays on the wall or if I have walked this path before. All that matters is the song, its continuation, its completion, my part in it. I'm so sure of it, in this song I belong, I'm right and whole, that whoever is playing with me, for me, is also right and good and with me. I understand, I understand, I try to say with the sound of my voice. I understand and I'm here! As the song starts to reach up into an agreement between us, 'yes, yes we understand each other, and what more can be asked between two people?', as something starts to make itself known to me-
It's gone.
The silence, the stillness in the wake of what just was, I cannot bear it. I fall to my knees; I'm so suddenly lost without the song's presence in the labyrinth, in my mind! I gasp for air. How hard was I singing? I look around, and I can't tell where I am, the passage doesn't look familiar at all, as if I hadn't just walked here myself, as if I'd been dropped here instead. I feel numb, the kind of numbness that comes when you've done or experienced all too much. Lifting my hands to my cheeks, I find that I was crying. Hastily, I wipe away the tears.
Oh, what would my father think of me now?
Wait, my father? I blink in confusion. Yes. Yes! I have, had, a father! And he.. He means a lot to me! Why on earth couldn't I remember him before? Is he what I wished away? How could I? I love him so much; why would I ever want him out of my life?
Then it occurs to me that the song was played on a violin, and suddenly I'm sure it's my father's. So, I wished away memories of my dad and his violin. I don't remember why, yet, but I'm more sure than ever that I'm making the right decision by trying to get it, and him, back!
So I dry my face and stand up, my whole body aching. How far did I walk when under Erik's spell? For who else could it be, playing my father's violin so perfectly, so utterly magically? As I stretch out my legs and back, I wonder why he would play, though. It's only served to help strengthen my resolve, and I would have thought, as King of Tricksters, he would have done anything to do exactly the opposite. Perhaps he meant to lead me astray with the mournful song?
Well, it doesn't matter now. I mean, I am lost, and he did succeed in getting me to remove my hand from the wall, and since I don't know which side it was that I was following, I am a little unsure how to proceed. To choose the wrong wall now would mean to backtrack everything, and I've no time to waste on repeating passages. Besides which, this part of the labyrinth is much more open, rather than tight halls it is like.. connected courtyards, with arches and stairs and growing plants and statues. Except where one might find a garden or a path to a house, there is simply more courtyards, more statues and pillars and platforms. I think my wall trick may have run out of its usefulness here anyhow.
So how to proceed?
I know must think of a way to keep check of where I have and have not been, and now that my wall trick is useless, I suppose a marking system would do better. I know from classic fairytales that stones or bread would do me no good if I had them, but I wonder if a marker, as in a modern day, used-for-writing marker, would work? I can't think of a way that would be undone or used in turn to trick me. I check the pockets of my vest- the last time I'd worn it is when I went out with Mrs. Giry and Meg, and I'd insisted on 'dolling up' for the occasion, and I remember that I definitely took some makeup with me for when I inevitably smudged something. On the inside pocket I find an eye shadow palette and one of my favorite red lipsticks. The eye shadow is a brown that unfortunately does not stand out on the stones of the labyrinth, but the lipstick does. So with a heavy heart I start to draw arrows showing the ways I have gone, consoling myself that a tube of lipstick is a small price to pay for a father. Similarly, a tube of lipstick is replaceable with a small amount of money; a father and a lifetime of memories are not.
It gets easier to mark my way with my favorite color after the first mark is made; it's already ruined, then, so there's nothing more lost after that first wound. I make it after I shimmy up a high wall to spy the castle. I figure that as long as I orient myself in that direction, most choices I make will probably lead me there.
I start to realize I have no idea how long I've been at this. I don't feel tired or hungry, and aside from the ache in my legs and sometimes my lungs, I don't really feel much as far as physical needs go. If I had to guess, I'd say I've used three of my thirteen hours, but I'm a terrible judge of time, and my wristwatch isn't working. I even try to start tracking the sun, only twice it's size into the sky, looming low, but after checking it twice I wonder if it's moved at all.
I go so far as to stop my trekking to try to spot it moving. I mumble a song that I know for a fact is longer than three minutes, and in all that time the sun does not even slide so much as a millimeter in the sky. I huff in exasperation. No clock, no reliable sun- how am I to tell how much time I have? Then I have a small idea- I can use songs to judge my time here! What time I've spent is already lost, but from here on if I can keep a song in my head and repeat it, and multiply its length by its repetitions, I will have a rough idea of how much time I'm spending.
So, humming a new song, I set back to wandering the labyrinth and marking my progress. After I sing about ten iterations of a two minute song, I hit the first dead end. I sigh, trying to be glad that I've come this far without hitting one yet, and retreat to my last mark. Except that now it's turned the opposite way..
"My.. my mark's been changed!" I exclaim, hardly willing to believe this. I put a hand to my head, panicking and trying desperately not to. I've got to confirm this. I recognize the way I came, and I head back to the mark just before this one, and I find that it's been turned around too, though heaven only knows how someone managed to turn a thirty foot stone statue!
"No, no, no! That's- That's not fair!" I cry, quite ready to break down.
"You're right, it's not fair!" A voice calls from behind me, causing me to jump.
"Th-this was a solid wall for ten feet, jus- just a moment ago.." I am in awe. That wall is now a small alcove, where two stature bearing figures stand in front of two doors, respectively. Is this a natural function of the labyrinth or is Erik doing this on purpose? Or perhaps those are one and the same?
"No, the wall's behind you!" One of the figures says. Terrified, I turn around, swinging my arm out only to hit a wall with my hand. The statue is gone, and now the alcove is sealed off.
"This is impossible… If it keeps changing then what am I supposed to do? How can I be sure anything I decide is right or not?"
"Try a door!" Says one figure, the left. I notice now that the voices are coming from below my eye level, and I finally see that these two figures are actually four people, two people perpendicular to each other, attached… somehow, I'm sure. The lower two are the ones that have been speaking thus far. The right bottom one continues:
"One leads directly to the castle! The other…!"
"Bum bum bummmmm!" The two top people speak in unison.
"Certain death!" The bottom left finishes.
"How am I to know which to choose?" I ask. Surely there is a riddle or a challenge?
"Ah… we don't know." The bottom left speakes again.
"Oh, but they do!" The bottom right points with a finger to the top two people, peering over the shields in perfect mirror to their counterparts.
"Well, I'll ask them." I say, and turn to the top halves, ready to indulge their game. But they speak before I can.
"You can only ask one of us." The top left says, nodding dutifully.
"And one of us always lies and one of us always speakes the truth. He's the liar!" The top right describes.
"Am not, I speak the truth!" The top left replies, offended.
"What a liar!" Then all four of them snicker, quite pleased with themselves. I nod. This isn't supposed to be easy, after all. I think for a moment, wondering how I can go about divining which is which. I think about those statements. If the right were the liar, then I can't even believe that they universally tell truths or lies, for the statement negates itself. But if the left is the liar, I could ask both, and presumably as many questions as I want, but I can automatically disbelieve everything he tells me. I have a hard time settling on who to ask, because I would not put it past them to both be horrid liars.
After all, with a rule that negates itself if it is spoken but the liar, it would make much more sense for the liar to be the one who does not announce the rule about lying. But this is a world of the Fae, creatures of mischief and cunning and trickery, so it's not so hard for me to believe that that this rule is meaningless, and that neither the left nor the right can be trusted at all. I groan at the absurdity.
"What's the matter, miss? Havin' a hard time deciding whom to ask?" The bottom right asks.
"Well, I have some concerns." I say flatly.
"What are those?" The bottom left asks.
"Well… I do not know how many questions I can ask. If I can ask many, then I can spend a bit of time whittling away at which is which, but I can only ask one question, then I have to be very, very clever with what I ask." Both of the bottom two nod, looking between themselves.
"You only get one question." The top right says in a helpful tone. I squint at him. If he's the liar, like I suspect he is, this is meaningless. But I can't argue with the nonsense that is having a liar tell a rule about liars that contradicts itself. I make a pouting face, which is really my thinking face, and turn to the left shield and door. I decide the left is the liar.
"Is this the door to the castle?" I ask to the dog-faced man creature. He mutters with his mirror behind the shield then pops up. I try no to question this.
"Yes." He nods affirmatively.
"Then the right is the door to the castle." I speak with confidence. The four of them gasp and giggle and question me. "It's true, it must be! You can't have a rule about liars and truths told by a liar- so the left one must be the liar and therefore the right door is the door to the castle." I square my shoulders and gently push past the right shield creatures, opening the door.
"I know I'm right." I say as I step into the room. There's a hallway with natural light peering in through an open ceiling. "Yes, I knew-"
I am cut off by the flooring falling, or perhaps disappearing out from under me.