Heather craned her neck, taking in just how tall these hedges were. Standing inside the maze, they almost entirely blocked out the sun.
“Are you sure about this?”
“What? Are you scared you’ll get lost?” Patty teased, elbowing her side.
“I never get scared.” Heather scoffed, but she hated puzzles, and what were mazes if not big puzzles. “It’s just, how well do they maintain this? What if there’s a wild animal or something?”
The hedge maze sat in the middle of nowhere, in a field off the side of the dirt road. They were going on a road trip, up to cottage country, but Patty had decided they needed to go through the back roads, through farmland and aging towns. Heather was sick of seeing rows and rows of corn.
Miles after they had driven through the last town, a sign had caught their attention. An old timey sign, with a rubber hose styled cartoon minotaur holding an axe in front of a picture of a maze. Defeat the Labyrinth! it read. Heather would’ve just kept going, but she wasn’t the one behind the wheel.
“It’s probably part of a carnival, I’m sure it’s fine. At most a fox stumbled in.” Patty looked at her with a smirk. “Wanna see who can find the exit fastest?”
“No, let’s turn back.”
“I bet you I’ll win!” Patty ignored her and ran off, turning a corner and disappearing from sight. Heather didn’t want to move forward, but she didn’t want Patty to be right, so she started walking.
The first few turns she took led to dead ends. The farther she went, the chillier it became, goosebumps spreading all over her arms. But every time she went to turn back, she’d hear Patty’s laughter or footsteps up ahead. She had to beat her for once.
“C’mon slowpoke!” Heather could hear Patty taunt, sounding so close by. “I’m gonna leave without you!” She looked around, but didn’t see her.
“I’m coming!” Heather yelled back.
As she resumed walking, she brushed a hand along the hedge wall, tracking where she had been. The leaves felt dry, some crumbling away in her hand despite how green the maze was. No critters or bugs rustled the branches; no birds even flew overhead. It unsettled Heather, she just wanted to get back to the car.
The laughter and taunting continued, but it started to sound warbled, like there were multiple voices, like she could hear her own as well.
“Patty? Please stop!” Heather called, trying to focus on just finding her way out. Instead of getting a response, she found herself pushed to the ground right at a fork in the maze. Looking up, she saw a figure disappearing down the right path. “Hey! Wait!”
Heather scrambled up and ran after her. She came to the centre of the maze, an open space where the grass had been stamped down. Her heart dropped. The figure in front of her wasn’t Patty, it was herself.
–
Patty waited at the car, trying to text Heather, but there was no service out here. She had finished the maze first like she knew she would and wanted to give her friend time to figure it out on her own. When she looked up from her screen, she finally saw Heather walk out from the hedges.
Image by: Mackenzie Martin | Infinitum Editor
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