59 Glass Bridges

by Steven Peters

  Standing in a small clearing is a snowman, as tall as I am, with two pebbles for eyes, a red string for a mouth, a frozen cucumber for a nose, and a scarf wrapped around its neck. It’s suffered through a melt at some point—its facial features droop sadly. Even its stick-arms sag, twiggy fingertips brushing against the snowy ground.

  “Look,” Willow says. “Beneath the scarf—there’s a sign around its neck.”

  I brush the sign off, and read aloud, “‘Here there be monsters.’ Well that’s fucking awesome.”

  “Ignore it,” Willow says. “I’m more interested in the snowman. I’ve never seen this in the maze before. Did you build it?”

  “Yes, I snuck out into the creepy snow-covered forest and built a snowman while you weren’t looking. That’s what I do for shits and giggles when I’m trapped in an endless maze.”

  Willow lifts the scarf and points at the red string forming the snowman’s mouth. “Well those are yours, aren’t they?”

  “Of course they’re not—” Oh god. They are. The snowman’s droopy mouth looks like the woolen mitten I’d dragged through the maze. The scarf has a long rip down one end, where it had gotten caught on the copper pipe. My prodigal clothing’s come back to me.

  “How did you know they were mine?” I whisper. “I lost them before I met you.”

  Willow looks up, surprised. “Oh. I don’t know. They suit you?”

  “They suit me….” I look down at my inflatable life raft-yellow Reeboks. My coffee stained t-shirt. My baby blue windbreaker, which doesn’t help at all against the cold.

  “Enough about you,” Willow interrupts. I look up to see that she’s wrapped the scarf around her neck. “Whaddya think? Good look on me?”

  “I think we should leave.”

  Willow sticks out her tongue, but I’m in no mood to banter. “Fine,” she says. “Party pooper. But it’s cold, so I’m taking your ugly scarf.”

  We set out through the trees once more and trudge along in silence, but it’s not long before we find another clearing—and another snowman. “Here there be monsters,” Willow reads.

  “We’ve gone in a circle.”

  Willow shrugs again and points out that maybe we haven’t, because our footprints aren’t here. There are also no hoofprints, thank god. However, when I see the snowman for a third time, I know that the maze is messing with us.

  Willow was right—it’s the goddamn corridors all over again.

  “Cheer up,” Willow says. “Could be worse. Could be an abominable snowman instead of Frosty over here. Or are you only afraid of Minotaurs?”

  “This isn’t a joke. I want out.”

  “Maybe man’s the real monster,” Willow giggles.

  “Yes,” a voice says.

  Willow whirls around and says, “Who said that?” at the same moment I scream, “The snowman can talk!”

  But the voice is coming from behind us. “Man’s the real monster,” it hoots. “Stay back, monster! Stay back!”

  Willow points and says softly, “In the trees.”

  An owl is perched on a snowy branch, peering at us from between the frozen leaves. It opens its beak, and says, “Monster! Monster!”

  “One of your talking animals?” I whisper back.

  Willow ignores me and addresses the owl instead. “Please, how do we get out of these woods?”

  The owl gives a surprised flap of its wings. It starts to preen itself.

  I quirk an eyebrow at Willow, who shrugs. “Maybe it’s just parroting us?”

  The owl looks angry, if that’s possible. It stretches its right wing out and glares at us from the treetop.

  “I think it’s pointing us on?” Willow says, but she doesn’t sound sure. “Talking owls are new for me—not sure if we can trust them.”

  The direction pointed out looks identical to every other we’ve traveled, but Willow grabs my hand and begins walking into the woods. Suddenly suspicious, I dig in my heels into the snow and crane my neck to look at the owl. “Why are you helping us?”

  The owl looks up, annoyed that we’ve cut our exit short. “To get you away,” it says.

  Now Willow looks up at the owl, frustration etched on her face. “So that’s not the way on? Why did you point us in that direction?”

  The owl ruffles its breast feathers, cocks its head to the other side. “You idiot. Just said, didn’t I?”

  An idea seems to dawn on Willow. Her voice takes on a cooing tone, as if speaking to a child, and she says, “Ah, you’re right. But, see, that’s the trouble—every time we leave, we keep coming back.”

  “I know.” The owl glowers. “Been watching you. Here be monsters.”

  “Right,” Willow says, “Here be monsters. But if we’re not here, we can’t very well be monsters, now can we?”

  “Man is the real monster,” the owl quips.

  “He’s not so bad, really,” Willow says, “Besides, I’m a ghost.”

  The owl bobs its head and shuffles a little on its branch. “Ghost should take the monster away.”

  “That’s the plan,” Willow says, “but I need directions. If I had your wings, I’d just fly him out of here.”

  “If you climb my tree, I’ll fly up higher. Or peck at your eyes.” The owl looks down coolly, but it bobs its head towards the snowman. “That way,” it coos. “The nose knows. Put the monster on the train.”

  I look back at the snowman, run my gaze down its crooked green nose. I see nothing but identical trees in that direction.

  “That’s the way?” Willow confirms. The owl turns its head 180 degrees in agreement.

  “On the train,” the owl hoots. “On the train.”

  “I was talking to an owl,” I mutter as we walk away. “An owl. That’s some Narnia shit.”

  Willow pats me on the shoulder. “Hold on to your pigtails, Susan. We’re not out of the Wardrobe yet.”

  • 35 •

  THE OWL’S DIRECTIONS LEAD US to a railway track that’s been cleared of snow. A series of long steel columns suspend cables over the track. Following the track takes us to a train platform. On the platform we wait. We wait for a long time.

  The sun peeks out from behind a parapet of clouds. Six lampposts, about six metres tall and painted sky blue, ring the train platform. Each lamp sports a single round, snow-capped bulb perched atop its slender stalk.

  The platform itself is little more than a slab of concrete with stairs spilling off either side. Half the platform is protected from the elements by a black-shingled roof on trout-green pillars, while the other half is open to the air. Yellow paint on the pavement and crimson rail guards warn Willow and I away from standing too close to the platform’s edge, though no train seems to be coming.

  Near the train platform stand two gazebo-like structures, one on either side of the railway tracks, each with a large yellow sign instructing us to LOOK BOTH WAYS FOR TRAINS. Beneath the yellow signs, yellow gates give us access across the tracks.

  “Erich Heckel was here,” I joke, pointing at the bright and clashing colours around us.

  “I don’t get it,” Willow says.

  She points out a map standing in the centre of the platform, but the damn thing is illegible. In fact, it’s less a map and more a symbol—some unholy cross between ouroboros and caduceus: a symmetrical pattern of two lines, one red and one blue, intertwining with and consuming each other.

  “This train had better not be a giant snake or something,” I mutter.

  I look at my watch. The minute hand has just moved beyond the midway point, which tells me that I’m half an hour into whatever the hour currently is. Morning. Half an hour into morning.

  I take off my shoes as the winter sun warms our little slice of civilization and I begin extracting the pulpy mess from within them. I also give Willow her sweater back, and drape my windbreaker over the red rails, letting it dry in the sun.

  Willow gives my stained shirt and outdated khakis a critical once over. “All right,” she says. “I’ve got something
for you.”

  She hands me a neatly folded bundle, wrapped in brown paper, and smiles at what must be the flabbergasted expression on my face.

  “It was lying on the platform,” Willow says. “There’s one for me too.”

  My suspicion flares again. She’s not saying something. “I didn’t see them.”

  Willow sticks out her tongue. “I know. You were busy looking at lampposts.”

  Inside of the brown paper is a neatly folded button-up shirt, a pair of black dress pants, a suit jacket, and a pink tie.

  Willow’s package holds a sleek, black dress, which she holds up against her sweater. She nods, as if she expected this. “Good,” she says, and casts an eye at the clothing I’m carrying.

  “You’ll clean up nicely too. Or you would, if not for that shrub on your chin.”

  I bring a hand up to my neck and I’m surprised by the growth there. I drop the clothes and bring both hands to my face. My beard is coarse and wiry—it feels more like six months’ worth of hair than the few days or weeks I’ve been trapped in this maze.

  “What? This is … Jesus, how long have I been stuck here?”

  Willow’s not listening. She says, “Dibs on the platform. You have to change in the woods. Scoot.”

  I’m shooed away, but a seed of doubt wriggles at me as I swap my rags for black pants and a suit jacket. Two bundles of clothes. Not one, not four. Two. A suit and a dress. What’s more, this clothing could be tailored for me, it fits so well. The fit is perfect and the fabric feels light and natural, like a second skin. I’ve owned some nice suits, but nothing like this.

  Willow shouts for me, so I finish changing and bundle my old clothing up. I’ll worry about it later. I have new clothes and, for once, it feels like we’re making progress through this maze. That will have to be good enough.

  I return to the train platform, and stop at the sight of Willow. Her dress, which also looks to have been tailored for her, is a sombre black. A simple, steel crucifix hangs at her throat. And she’s wearing a black veil.

  “Willow?” I ask softly. I look at her, and then down at myself. “We look like we’re about to attend a funeral.”

  Willow clutches her bouquet of grass in front of her. Her veil’s down and I can’t see her eyes. “The train’s here,” she whispers. “All aboard.”

  • 36 •

  LUNCH AT MY GRANDMOTHER’S was whole grain bread in a wicker basket, slices of salami and patties of bologna, cubed cheddar cheese, tomato wedges, quartered pickles, Becel margarine coiled by melon baller, a flask of French’s mustard, a vase of Hellmann’s mayonnaise, and whatever hard candy I could smuggle from the glass jar in the pantry without her noticing.

  I eschewed the sandwich I was supposed to make. Instead, I suckled each ingredient separately. Even the margarine got sampled, its saltiness complementing the crusty bread that I’d swallowed mere moments before.

  A thicket of raspberry bushes oppressed the kitchen-side window. Perched on the edge of my seat, two pickles tucked under my upper lip like vampire fangs, I watched the butterflies that flitted over to sample the swelling red berries. My fingers itched, shredded napkins into confetti, twitched around a phantom butterfly net.

  From a young age, I delighted in the awesome destructive power of a magnifying glass. That focused speck of sunlight, my theophany, would hover over insects and deliver my judgment until their thoraxes split and sizzled.

  As I grew older, my technique became more refined. A butterfly net and a thin syringe of formaldehyde replaced the magnifying glass. Now, after lunch—after every lunch—I would bunker beneath the raspberry bushes, crawling on toes and fingertips to avoid the thorns overhead, and I would ambush butterflies with my net.

  Occasionally, I caught one.

  Net pinned to the ground, monarch or painted lady contained within its silken web, I constricted the net’s free space with a hand, until the butterfly was robbed of any room in which to struggle. The needle slipped in effortlessly, the syringe slowly draining into the insect. The tricky part was pinching its thorax between thumb and forefinger, wings behind its back, so as not to damage the specimen.

  There’s an irony in that, I suppose.

  Relaxing the butterfly’s corpse required humidity and a sealed glass jar. Slowly its wings would soften, splay wide, reveal the butterfly’s beautiful colours. I tumbled the insect from its jar, onto a styrofoam plank, beside a tray of pins.

  The pinning process was meditative. I eased the wings apart with forceps, never touching them with my fingers, lest the scales be scraped off and the corpse’s beauty marred. I fastened the body to the styrofoam with a single spike through its centre. The rest of the pins I placed so as to force the wings apart without penetrating them. My painted lady on her canvas.

  Then I’d go outside, and find more butterflies to hang in my room. My Grandmother watched me from the kitchen window as my net smacked into the lawn over and over again.

  Whenever I caught something, I looked up at her and smiled.

  • 37 •

  AFTER GHOULISH RIVERS, warping hallways, and a talking owl, the train is thoroughly un-extraordinary. I watch the red, grey, and white tube approach through the tree trunks, while yellow lights flash around the platform, unnecessarily warning us of its approach.

  I’m feeling a little silly that I put on a suit to ride light rail, but Willow’s sombre attitude is still freaking me out.

  “Willow,” I look over at her. “Where are we going?”

  “You mean ‘are we there yet,’” Willow says. I can feel her rolling her eyes at me, even if I can’t see them behind her veil.

  “Yes. Will this train take us out of the maze?”

  “Getting closer,” Willow says. The train pulls up to the platform and its doors slide open, waiting for us to board. “The train’s different for everyone, but eventually we’ll reach the wood.”

  “The different wood.”

  “Right.”

  “And after that, we’re out?”

  Willow jumps the track between the train and the platform and holds a hand out for me to follow. “After that, yes.”

  “So after the wood—”

  “We’ll get there,” she says. “But you’re going to have to trust me. Don’t forget your Bible.”

  “You ripped its guts out.”

  “Not entirely,” Willow says, thrusting the ruined book at me. “It still has the beginning and the end.”

  I shrug and tuck the tattered book into my suit jacket. My Stetson, too, finds its way back onto my head. The other clothes I leave behind. Only the scarf is spared, I realize while boarding the train—Willow has wrapped it around her neck.

  The train door closes behind us and the floor lurches. We begin to move.

  Willow is still not meeting my eyes and I feel like something’s wrong. My palms sweat. There’s a lump in my throat.

  But the train car is exactly what you’d expect. Grey poles rise throughout it so that those forced to stand can have something to hold onto. Not that there are other passengers, of course.

  The sides of the car are lined by seats swaddled in red fabric, for the elderly, pregnant and insufferably greedy. I guess that’s us. Willow takes a seat on the left and, because something about this train spooks me, I sit on the opposite side of the aisle. I look out of the window to avoid looking at her.

  The plains that sprawl across the horizon confound me. Behind me there’s a wood—the wood we left? But in front, nothing but hills. But there’s no snow there, and no sign of any glass tunnel that we would have wandered around for hours or days. There are also no farmhouses or crops or even a single plume of smoke to be seen—just blank, rolling grasslands, covered in mossy green and polka-dotted with wildflowers. It’s like suddenly stepping from winter into spring.

  Other than the vegetation, the scene is eerily lifeless. No flies or bumblebees on the flowers, no gopher holes in the grass. No talking owls, at least none I can see. And, though Willow and I ride the
train until the sun begins to sink low on the horizon, the scenery hardly changes.

  Willow grows more and more restless as the evening wears on. I resist the urge to ask her if we’re there yet. The train hasn’t made any stops.

  Willow, fidgety, starts to move about the train car. She stands, sits, leans her head against the window, and hangs on the metal railing. She doesn’t talk to me, and when I open my mouth to speak I still find my voice weirdly strangled.

  So I stare out the window and watch the same hills roll by repeatedly.

  Finally, Willow gives a shout, and I look up at her. She’s tugging on the door at the far end of the train car, a door that I’m not entirely certain is meant to be opened. “Over here,” she calls, and waves me towards her. “I’ve found the right car.”

  But I can’t do it. Not yet. I lean my head back against the glass, ignore her summons.

  • 38 •

  ONLY WHEN MY WATCH TELLS ME that Willow’s been gone for ten minutes do I reluctantly pull myself from my seat. I’ll be damned if I’m losing my guide again.

  I stumble forward, swayed by the motion of the moving train. When I reach the far end, I push against the closed door and step through.

  There aren’t normal seats in this train car. Instead, the entire thing is lined with wooden pews. There’s also an organ at the far end, and as I step through the door, a dirge begins to play, though nobody’s sitting at the keys. Willow stands at the car’s far end, in front of a table and—

  Ah. So that’s what this feeling is.

  Behind the table rests a coffin.

  I stumble again, though this has nothing to do with the train. I put a hand on each pew to steady myself, and claw my way closer to the front of the train.

  Willow turns away from the table and gives me a sad smile, as if she understands what she couldn’t possibly understand. As if she is empathetic. Then she makes room for me, goes to stand between two pews and looks at the world passing by outside.

  She’s placed her dead weeds in an empty vase on the table, and somehow they make sense now. I get why she carried them all this way. I never would’ve. It would never have occurred to me.