Then she tried, as hard as she could, to see what there was to see.
This time, the image didn’t vanish. She was finally able to look directly at the creature made of light, and it immediately began to take on a definite shape. It began to appear.
Angie realized then that it was using her to discover how to appear and what to be. It wasn’t reading her mind, but it was using her imagination. That was why it tried to capture people. That was why it had captured Jesse. Jesse had not been able to see well enough, but Angie could.
Angela understood, too, that Jesse had been right to say that it was bad. It wasn’t bad because it had any innate desire to hurt her, or anyone else; it was too strange a thing to have any such motive. It wasn’t evil, in any ordinary sense of the world. It was only bad because its existence—the existence she was granting it by trying to see it—would be the beginning of a contest for existence: a battle to determine what could and would be real from this moment on, in which there would be losers. If they became real, then their reality might prove more powerful than the one from which Angie had come.
There was no going back, though. Now that Angie had found that she really could see there was no way to deny what she saw. She couldn’t turn away.
She had never been so excited before in all her life, although it wasn’t really her excitement at all.
* * * *
8.
The monster—because it was a monster of sorts; there was no doubt at all about that—seemed to have considerable difficulty figuring out exactly what it ought to be.
Because it was so brightly colored, Angie’s first inclination was to see it as some kind of bird: a peacock, maybe, or a parrot, or a bird of paradise. At second glance, though, it seemed too shiny to be a bird, no matter how glossy a bird’s feathers could be, and Angie wondered whether it might actually be a snake with highly-polished scales. That seemed more appropriate, given that it was, after all, a monster. It might be an intricately-patterned python, although it was probably more likely to be something poisonous, like an adder or a hooded cobra.
When she looked more intently, however, Angie saw that it wasn’t really a bird or a snake. Nor was it any weird combination of the two. It wasn’t a dragon, or anything mythical at all. It wasn’t anything that retained the least taint of unreality. It wasn’t content to be anything out of a story, even though Angie’s imagination had been formed and educated by stories to a greater extent than anything real.
The monster was striving, in spite of all its vivid qualities born of light, for a kind of appearance that was both ordinary and extraordinary at the same time. It was striving for an appearance that no one would ever suspect, even for a moment, to be monstrous, even though everyone would be forced to recognize that it was exceptional and magnificent.
It was, Angie realized, striving for beauty. It wanted to be seen as something marvelous, but also something irresistibly attractive. For a moment or two, Angie was almost on the point of seeing it as a child: a child more like herself than Jesse, but better-looking, more charming, not quite so odd. The moment didn’t last, though. If the thing were to appear human, Angie knew, then it had to appear as an adult: a young adult, to be sure—not someone as old as her mother, let alone Mrs. Lamb—but an adult nevertheless.
Perhaps, if Jesse had been able to see all that they wanted him to be able to see, the creature at the heart of the maze would have been a strong man, a regal Hercules—but it was Angie Martindale who had turned out to possess the gift in its fullest measure, and what she saw was born of a twenty-first-century imagination, whose educative stories had been taken as much from films and TV shows as from books and oral tales. Angie’s imagination was highly visual, and its visual images had been tailored to a high level of distinction.
What Angie saw, when she finally managed to make out the form within the light, was not a fairy queen but a beauty queen, or an actress equipped with a designer dress for a red-carpet walk at an award ceremony. There was a moment then when the whole business seemed perfectly ridiculous, and rather comical, but that didn’t last. As soon as the monster fixed Angie with her piercing blue eyes, Angie knew that the manifestation was no laughing matter.
“Oh yes,” the creature said. “That’s neat, and stylish. Have you any idea how precious you are, my child? Have you any idea what a treasure you are?”
“Mum and Dad are always mentioning it,” Angie replied, “but I never really believe them. It’s just a habit they have.”
“Believe it, my precious angel,” the monster said. “There was a time, I think, when sight such as yours wasn’t quite as rare—but time passes in the world of human beings, and there never was a time when sight was as sharp. You should be grateful that you’ve had the opportunity to use your gift—and will have the opportunity now to use it to the full. Gifts that people don’t realize they have, whose use they don’t practice, can so easily vanish...but once you take possession of a gift, and practice it....”
The monster was complete now. Angie decided to think of her as “the Diva” now that she existed, because everything that existed needed a name, and it might be undiplomatic, as well as unfair, to keep on thinking of her as “the monster”.
“There is a way out, isn’t there?” Angie said. “Now that I’ve got to the centre, I can find a way out, can’t I?”
“What does that matter?” the Diva said, “That’s not what you wanted. You wanted a way in, and you’ve found it. You’ve found your destiny. You’ve found the one place in the whole of your dismal and confused world in which you’re absolutely perfect and absolutely precious. There’s so much to see, Angela—so much to see.”
Angie knew what the Diva meant. They were very numerous— or could be, with the aid of the spiral maze, which multiplied them by reflection. They wanted her to see them all. They wanted to appear. They wanted to be. And she could do it. She could make them all real. She could make a whole new reality, and she could be at the heart of it.
She knew that Jesse had been right, though. That would be bad—not because they were evil, intent on doing harm for the sake of doing harm, but simply because their existence would eclipse all the things that already existed. There was a sense, Angie knew, in which the universe wasn’t big enough for them as well as us—and us, in this instance didn’t mean just human beings, or even everything living, but everything material.
Angie shut her eyes, but that didn’t work. She knew, even before she opened them, that the Diva would still be there, smiling.
“I’ve changed my mind,” Angie whispered.
“Now why would you want to do that?” the Diva asked. “Even if you could. That’s not what you really want at all, is it?”
Angie realized that the Diva wasn’t just making conversation. Here in the maze, her feelings weren’t entirely her own any more, any more than her sight and her voice were her own. She could feel their excitement, their pleasure, their anticipation. If she wasn’t careful, that would soon be all she’d be able to feel—but she could resist it. She could resist the Diva’s power of suggestion. She could resist the Diva and the way the walls of the maze forced her into its centre in spite of the fact that they weren’t solid. She could still set things right, if only she could figure out how. She ought to be able to do that. She was the daughter of an engineer. The difficult she had done at once; now it was time to attempt the impossible.
“I’m glad I came here,” Angie told the Diva. “I had to find out what this was all about. Now I know—not everything, of course, but I do understand know why curiosity kills cats, and why it’s sometimes not a good idea to want to see everything. I’m sorry.”
“What are you sorry about?” the Diva asked.
“About having to send you back again. About having to deny you what you want. It’s a pity—you’re very beautiful. I didn’t know I had that much imagination. I’ll never be able to draw anything like you.”
“You can’t unsee me, Angela,” the Lady said. “You co
uldn’t send me back even if you wanted to. And you can’t get out. That drawing can’t help you—it’s not really a map.”
For a moment or two, Angie thought that what the Diva was saying might actually be true: that the drawing couldn’t help her, because it wasn’t really a map; that she wouldn’t be able to get out, even though there was a way to do it; that she couldn’t send the Diva back into the light, because she couldn’t unsee what she had now consented to see.
Then she realized that the Diva was trying to trick her: to deflect her attention away from the solution to the mystery. Of course she couldn’t unsee, because there was no such thing—but that wasn’t what she had to do at all. The gift she had was the gift of sight, and what she had to do was see...and that was why the drawing was not only useful, in spite of the fact that it wasn’t a map, but quite invaluable.
She realized, now, what the drawing really was, and why it had been so important that she get it right. She realized why Jesse had been trapped, because he’d never been able to get it right, even though he could see well enough to know why the maze was there.
She knew that she had time in hand, now. Maybe not much— because the impossible was only supposed to take a little longer— but enough to look around. So she looked around, not at the walls but through them. She looked past them into the vast wilderness of time.
She felt a momentary pang of disappointment because she could only see the past, not the as-yet-unmade future, and felt slightly frustrated because so much of the past was darkness, and life so very sparse, but she caught glimpses of the big bang and supernovas, dinosaurs and mammoths, Babylon and Rome, the rediscovery of America and the French Revolution. She had no chance to capture any details, but she did get a sense of the whole.
“Right,” she said. “I know where I am, now, and I know where you are. I’m not trapped in the maze—the maze is trapped in me. When I finally drew it right, I captured it.”
“Don’t be silly, Angela,” the Diva said. “The maze existed long before you were born, and it’ll be here long after you’re dead. It’s much bigger than you are.”
“The bigger things are,” Angie observed, “The easier they are to see. The trick is not to focus too intently on the things that catch you up and try to take over your life. The trick is to see the bigger picture.”
“You could do so much,” the Diva said. “With us to help you, you can see anything you want to see, do anything you want to do. You wouldn‘t he trapped!”
“It’s nothing personal,” Angie told the Diva. “You are what you are, and you can’t help it. If you were a snake, you couldn’t help being poisonous. But there’s only one way out of here. If I don’t use it, I’ll be going round in wonky circles forever.”
The Diva might have leapt upon her then like some savage beast. The monster might have torn her into little pieces and flooded the maze with her blood. But that wasn’t the kind of monster the Diva was—and Angie felt that she was entitled to take a little of the credit for that herself.
“You’re mad,” the Diva said. “You’d be throwing away everything. Believe me, child, we can give you more than you could ever dream of having. You’re too young to know, as yet, what a meager thing human life is—but you’ve seen the maze, and you’ve seen me. You can imagine, I know, what we might make of you.”
“Yes,” Angie said. “But that’s not what I am.”
She lifted the sheet of paper on which she’d drawn the maze to eye-level and ripped it in two. Then she tore the two pieces into four and the four to eight, and crumpled the fragments in her hand. Then she dropped them, knowing exactly what it was that she was throwing away.
It was a symbolic gesture. The maze wasn’t contained in the pieces of paper—but the drawing was the means by which she’d seen it for what it was and brought it into, her mind.
She looked around at the walls full of light, and looked through them. She used her gift for seeing what was really there. She had enough presence of mind to shout: “Crouch down!” to Jesse before she put her hands up to protect her face and crouched down herself—but she peeped through her fingers, so that she could see what happened to the Diva.
The light stayed bright for a few seconds longer, but it couldn’t compete with the darkness. Because it was Easter, the moon was a long way from full, but it wouldn’t have mattered, because the bindweed would have screened out its light just as it screened out the fainter light of the stars.
The walls of the maze had no substance, and they couldn’t sustain themselves against the brutal reality of the brambles and the hawthorn, or even the dead apple trees. Angie had to make an initial effort to see through the glamorous illusion of the maze, but as soon as she had caught the merest glimpse of a thorny branch there was no stopping the violent solidity of the overgrown orchard. Its force was overwhelming.
The Diva spread her arms wide, and screamed at the top of her voice, using the sound in a determined attempt to assert her reality. She was real, thanks to Angie; she had found the form that she wanted and needed, thanks to Angie—but the very fact of becoming real rendered her vulnerable. The thorns slashed at her solid arms, her solid throat and her solid eyes. The delicate designer dress was cut to chiffon ribbons, and rivers of red began to stain its tatters.
The Diva was standing exactly where a hawthorn tree needed and deserved to be, and the hawthorn reclaimed its space with savage efficiency. It wasn’t content to flay her from without; its twisted trunk invaded her body, churning through her like a corkscrew.
Fortunately—for Angie as well as the monster itself—the Diva’s agony didn’t last long. No blood rained down on to the ground, either to fertilize it or poison it. The substance granted by Angie’s sight was exploded by her determination to see through it, and it vanished into the thinnest air imaginable.
The decision was not without penalty, of course. The thorns had not been able to hurt Angie while she was in the maze—or, to be strictly accurate, while the maze was in her—but now that she was back in the overgrown orchard there was nothing to restrain them.
Jesse was in exactly the same predicament, although he did no more than gasp when he suddenly found himself oppressed from every side, as well as from above and below, by thrusting branches and brambles. He was solid enough to turn them aside, though, and they had been too long beneath the bindweed to have much strength left in them.
Angie felt herself poked and prodded, but she too was able to turn the branches aside.
The difficult part, she knew, would begin when she and Jesse had to move—to fight their way out from the heart of the thicket to its edge. She didn’t doubt that they could do it, though.
Nor did Jesse. “Follow me,” he said. “Stay close. I’ll clear a path for us.”
Angie was grateful, then, that the boy was bigger than she was, and a good deal more muscular. His gift of sight might be incomplete, but he was tough and he was brave. He used his arms and his legs with grim determination, smashing a way through the brittle boughs. He must have been terribly scratched by the hawthorn and the brambles alike, but he never flinched. He would have won free within a minute if Angie hadn’t grabbed him around the waist and said: “Wait!”
He stopped immediately. “What is it?” he asked.
“Just a moment,” she said. “I’ve still got the shape of the maze in my head. I’ve got to get it exactly right.”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“It’s still here,” she said. “The maze, I mean. We can’t see it any longer, but it’s still here. What was the garden like when you first saw it? Were there herbs and vegetables?”
“No,” Jesse told her. “There were bushes—myrtles, I think.”
“That’s what we need to find, then,” Angie told him. “You need to find the bushes you remember—and you can, I think, if only I can get the maze just right.”
“I can’t see...,” he began—but then Angie figured out exactly where they were in the maze, and she shoved him sidewa
ys, to the left. She guessed that he hadn’t finished the sentence because he’d suddenly found that he could see, and that the hawthorn had abruptly let him alone, consigning him to the gentler care of another kind of growth entirely—which might or might not have been myrtle.
“You can go through the walls,” she told him. “You just have to master the trick of it.”
The night was too dark to allow her to see much of the nineteenth-century house, and what she could see looked very similar in outline to the twenty-first century cottage, but Angie could sense several differences during the glimpse that she obtained. There was a momentary odor that was pleasantly sharp and strangely sweet, which she didn’t recognize but which seemed strangely appealing. She wasn’t tempted, even though she knew that the reverse step she would have to take when she let go of Jesse’s waist would take her back to odors of a very different kind: dank and dusty odors, mingled with the stench of rotting wood.
When she did let him go, he was able to stand up and step clear. The moonlight caught him then, and she saw that his new clothes were utterly ruined. They were badly torn and hideously dirty—as if he’d just fought his way through a filthy thicket.
The Best of Both Worlds and Other Ambiguous Tales - [SSC] Page 22