by Gwynn White
His hair was white.
“In a week, I’ll be broke,” Henk said. “I’ll have nothing to show for it. All of this will be for nothing. All of this promise will be wasted on me.”
Emotion saturated his words. He clamped his hands to keep from trembling.
“Failure does not exist,” Micah said.
“I don’t care if it exists or not. I’ll have nothing.”
“If you are here now, you have everything.”
“Stop.” Henk spoke through gritted teeth. “Just stop.”
He’d never been this close to Micah, had always seen him from a distance, more often on one of the monitors for prerecorded announcements. It was possible the man didn’t exist, perhaps an animation with perfect composure and reassuring disposition. But there he was, flesh and blood. Charisma beamed in magnetic waves and made it hard to look away; it instilled a curiosity one might experience looking at a masterpiece, one of the great wonders of the world, or a beautiful woman.
Henk wanted to drink from that fountain.
“I don’t care about higher callings or parallel universes. I gave you a fortune to enter the Maze.” He didn’t bother whispering. “If I can’t do it, I want my money back.”
“You purchased an opportunity to enter.”
“No. I purchased an entry.”
There was no legal recourse to this transaction any more than if he purchased a box full of sex slaves. A strong bluff was his only chance. Micah’s lazy eyes expressed no need to blink. They rested on Henk.
“You may exercise that entry when you are ready.”
“I can’t. I’ll never…” His hand fluttered at the tank.
“There are other ways.”
Henk jumped up. Rema tensed for what he might do. Micah remained fluid. There was no security in the room besides Rema, and Henk felt certain he could get to the most important man in the room if he wanted. Yet Micah was unconcerned, perhaps confident Henk wouldn’t do anything.
He was right.
Henk paced in the open space behind the chairs, hand to his head. He had a thing with needles. He was a dentist, put them in his patients’ mouths all day long. Not his.
“I-I-I can’t… I can’t do that. I just can’t—”
Micah raised his hand. The words were clipped off Henk’s tongue. He stopped pacing. The quivering root of fear vanished.
“What do you want from the Maze?” Micah asked.
Henk wanted what everyone else wanted. He wasn’t proud of it, but with a wave of the hand, Micah somehow cleared the fog and he saw clearly into his own desires. As ugly as they were, he saw them with great detail. He rubbed his fingers.
Money. I want the money.
Micah nodded. He’d understood before Henk did. Now they both did. And now that they were clear on his intentions, they could move forward. The details of how he would collect on his investment would be worked out, a proposal that would be given to Henk when the opportunity arrived. An opportunity he would accept, as ugly as it was.
Henk knew what he was, knew he was not a man of honor or dignity. What he would agree to was even beneath him.
Part IV
FOUND IN THE DREAM
30
Sunny
After the Punch
The doorway of a public accountant provided shelter from the drizzle. Metal bars covered a glass door and pressed into Sunny’s back. She pulled her legs against her chest.
The line had formed at the City Shelter for the Homeless.
She recognized the faded colors and ragged patterns, the same hats and coats. Day after day, they were always the same. Mrs. Jones, however, wasn’t there. Not since the first day had she seen her. Sunny had gone back to the apartment and found Mrs. Jones’s door locked. No cats calling.
Sunny’s apartment was locked, too. She knocked on the door, thinking someone might have moved in. She had no idea how many days had passed. When no one opened the door, not even a groggy Grey without the punch around his head, she knocked on her neighbors’ doors. No one came out. She went down to the building super’s apartment on the first floor and beat on the door with both fists. People were staring. She screamed at them, shouting for the super who wouldn’t open the door until someone called the police.
Sunny never came back.
No one in the line outside City Shelter for the Homeless said much about Mrs. Jones or cared that she wasn’t the first in line anymore. It was one less person to wait behind.
A man on a corner seemed to be waiting for a ride. His hands were buried in the pockets of a long black coat, rain dripping from the brim of a black hat. A fringe of white hair was exposed. He didn’t look across the street, not her way. Nor did a ride pick him up. He was there, watching.
They all are.
It was hard to gauge the season. The sky was continuously colorless, the only change was how hard the precipitation fell. How deep the puddles.
The cold gnawed at her joints, seeping into her bones. Breathing triggered a domino effect of aches; loneliness snuffed the brilliance from her stare. Her eyes had become the color of a dying pasture.
The church bells gonged. She checked the time on her digital watch. The masking tape long gone.
The line came to life.
The squatty woman, the one with the Russian hat, continued to stalk the hopeless and lost while presenting her watch like a badge or a crucifix to ward off evil. Sunny had tried to give her the time, but she would never look at her, always walking off to ask someone else as if that wasn’t the answer she was looking for.
The line shuffled toward the sky blue awning, the building swallowing them, one by one.
If this world was false, if she was indeed in some sort of dream, some altered reality of the Maze—however she got there—then it was convincing enough to no longer be false. She felt every nuance of its realness, every second of its grind.
How do I escape?
She didn’t know why she was in the Maze. She still doubted she was in the Maze, testing its cruelty by pinching bruises down her legs and leaping from walls until she sprained her ankles and the pain radiated through her hips. But there was no explaining that room in the shelter, no other explanation for Donny’s amnesia or the strangeness of Mrs. Jones.
Marie.
If this was the Maze, it was not an ordinary dream, one in which she could will herself awake. There would be a way out. And she was convinced it was inside the shelter. The sign was painted on the pillar beneath the awning.
The snake eating its tail.
The symbol of eternity, or immortality. The cycle of birth and death. There was a sticker in Grey’s room, too. It had been stuck on the tin box when she found the wristwatch. Sometimes, she wondered, was it the suffering that convinced her that the dream was real? Did anguish drive her to accept what was around her as reality, transform her into a mindless human that craved relief from the world rather than the truth?
She had considered climbing to the roof of her apartment building and nose-diving to an instant end, but she knew enough about the Maze that she would not escape. The symbol of eternity suggested that was true.
Find yourself.
The torn card she’d found in the plastic said find yourself beneath the Maze symbol. Maybe it was an accident. Or the way out.
She folded the sheet of clear plastic, a poor cushion that kept her bottom half somewhat dry, and rushed across the street. No one noticed her queue up at the end of the condensing line.
“What time is it?”
The woman cruised the line, the Russian hat propped on her head as she exposed the watch on her wrist, begging someone to read it to her and not satisfied if they did.
“Get!” a stringy woman shouted at Russian hat. “It’s time to get!”
She yanked at her hat and kicked her leg. One of the shelter’s assistants ran to help her. She asked if she was ready to come inside. Russian hat shook her head, hands clutched to her chin. The attacker was escorted out of the line and to
ld to leave.
She did not go quietly.
The drizzle kept them wet. Sunny squeezed beneath the sky blue awning, arms around her chest. The preacher was greeting them with big white teeth
“Welcome.” He smiled down at Sunny. “Are you lost?”
She didn’t take his outstretched hand and ignored his false inquiry, the mocking smile. Every day at five o’clock, he welcomed her and asked if she was lost, guiding her inside for another night of wandering. He wasn’t there to help.
Just maintain the madness.
The warmth of the shelter sighed. Men and women filed into the promise of a warm meal and a place to sleep, an escape from the cruel city. They took refuge on thin mattresses, huddled with their few belongings, removed their wet boots, and dried their cold feet.
Sunny stopped beneath the clock. Down the long hallway to her right, past the restrooms and dormitories, was the antique door of her childhood. Every night, it called her, beckoned her to enter, and taunted her with a stroll into another memory.
It started with the song.
Night after night, Sunny would go to it, would stand outside the door of her youth, the paint peeling, and imagine the twirling dancer on the music box, praying that this time was different. This time she would open the door to find her son.
This time she would wake up.
She would turn the old brass knob, let the ballerina song invite her inside to witness another memory: finding her brother after a suicide attempt with a serrated knife, relive the sting of her grandmother’s switch, experience the time she was trapped behind the school by a group of boys. None of those memories hurt as much as knowing Grey was still somewhere out there.
And she was still here.
She was insane, doing the same thing over and over, going to the door and expecting a different result. But it was there, the escape was there. It had to be.
What if it’s not? What if I die and start over? Will I find my way back? It has to be now. I have to find my way out now. The clock is ticking, I’m wasting away.
Supper was in full swing, the smell of turkey and mashed potatoes, the clatter of silverware. Sunny ignored the calls to eat, transfixed by the lure of the childhood door, straining to hear the ballerina, waiting for it to announce another opportunity, another.
Residents vacated the dining hall, dishes piled into plastic bins, tables wiped and broken down. They passed beneath the clock, bumping her as they went to the restroom, some continuing onto the suites down the hall, sheets snapped over the mattresses, clothes folded.
Russian hat stopped outside the women’s bathroom, presenting her watch to anyone that passed, tapping the face, begging them to tell her what they saw.
“What time is it?” she called. “What time is it?”
The heavyset woman never approached Sunny. No matter what someone said, the answer never satisfied.
Sunny looked at the wristwatch around her wrist, the one she’d found in Grey’s bedroom, the one for mom. The one she never took off. It kept the time. And the alarm went off every night at the same time. No matter how she pushed those buttons, it never stopped.
The same time every night.
Russian hat had stopped her obsessive search. Her hands were at her sides. The distant madness had faded from her eyes. All signs of desperation—the furrowed eyebrows, the pursued lips, the mad itch needing scratched by the time—had vanished. For the first time, she looked directly at Sunny. Without disrupting another person, she walked out of the shelter and into the rain.
What time is it?
The chorus of snoring was punctuated by gasps of sleep apnea and the banter of sleep talk.
Sunny stared at a water stain on the ceiling, her heart dancing beneath the blanket. Somewhere past the restrooms, a ballerina was singing, beckoning for her to come investigate her childhood, to see what memory was next.
It started about midnight.
First, she felt the song in her throat, the hum in her chest. The ballerina chimes followed. They grew louder, rising above the sound of slumber, the sleep of the disturbed and fitful. This was the call she heard every night. And every night she fell to the promise that it would be different; this time she’d escape. It was hard to resist.
Even now.
She dozed in and out while listening, clutching the sheets when she woke to stare at the water stain. The ballerina sang louder as the night grew longer—a puppet master tugging her strings, coaxing her out of bed. She closed her eyes, sweat dampening her pillow.
Beep—beep—beep—beep…
The room fell silent.
No snoring, no talking. No restless rustling. The night died at the beeping of her wristwatch.
She raised the lit face. Every night it went off. Every night she ignored it. Even if she pushed the buttons, it wouldn’t stop. But it wasn’t broken. It was calling.
What time is it?
It threw her feet onto the waxed floor. Someone else was in Russian hat’s bed, covers bundled on her shoulder. The blankets didn’t rise and fall with each heavy breath. She was as still as the pillow. Tempted to rouse her, to shake her shoulder, to see if she was breathing, Sunny resisted. She wasn’t breathing.
No one was.
Barefoot, Sunny walked between the rows of the lost. Their eyes were closed, their mouths open and expressions frozen. Not a sound rose from the congregation.
Even the ballerina had stopped.
The digital heartbeat of the alarm bounced through the room, the numbers stuck in place. Not even the seconds rolled over.
All those nights waiting for the ballerina, she’d never made it to three o’clock. She would immediately go to the room and stand outside the door, wishing for something different. Sometimes she would squeeze the knob until lines were printed across her palm. She would open the door to another memory, waking in the morning with the faint recollection of the alarm.
But never had she waited until three o’clock.
Shadows streaked past the bathrooms. White light outlined the door of her childhood, the brassy doorknob glimmering gold. A ray of light shot from the keyhole, a white laser beaming down the hall. A thousand suns were behind the door.
Find yourself.
The knob rattled as she neared. Reaching out, it glowed iridescent orange, a red-hot coal that was about to begin dripping on the floor. There was no radiant heat, but still she hesitated.
“Please,” she muttered, “don’t be a memory.”
She closed her eyes and grabbed it. No melting of flesh, no branding of her palm. The rattling stopped and the door popped in the frame. The keyhole laser began to swing across her belly. Light bled from the opening, bathing her in something warm, and a saline smell leaked from the room, a splash of something thick and claustrophobic.
She threw it open, shielding her eyes.
There was no kitchen counter or bedroom to see, no awful day at the playground or forgotten birthday party or accident alongside the road. It was light, pure radiant light, warm and inviting. Soft and embracing. Somewhere was the sound of tiny bubbles. It felt good, felt right. Like the sun on her face after a long winter night. A warm blanket on a cold night. A warm bath. Mamma’s embrace.
It was intimate and knowing, formless and pure. This was the essence of Sunny Grimm. This is me.
Something tumbled across the floor.
A tiny white snowflake blew over her bare feet, tickling her toes as it bounced against the wall. The room’s light threw a long sharp shadow behind it. This little white tumbleweed was the first thing that had moved. It came out of nowhere. She bent down to pick it up. It wasn’t delicate, didn’t melt. It was a paper cutout, an odd little shape with arms out.
And three legs.
Another one bounced over her feet and came to rest against the wall. More were blowing from beneath a dormitory door, the crinkling limbs forced through the gap, popping free to tumble into the open, some coming to rest on her feet, a papery snowdrift filling the corridor.
Why am I hesitating? Why?
The three questions Mrs. Jones told her in the café. She’d answered the first two. She knew who she was. The white light inside the bedroom, she was certain where she was. It was the answer to the third question she was doubting, the answer she felt certain she knew. She was here to find her son.
But why am I in the Maze? Only the willing enter, so I must have come here looking for him. Why would I escape if I came here to find him?
She turned away from the bright light and its promise of finding herself and what she assumed was the escape from the Maze. She reached for the door where the paper dolls continued spitting through the gap and collecting against the wall. A vanilla scent escaped the room as she threw it open. A flood of paper dolls spilled out and filled the hallway, piling up to her knees.
Mrs. Jones stood between the dormitory beds.
A yellow lamp threw soft shadows around the room, a contrast to the sharp white light. The scarves were around her neck, the kerchief over her head. She was hunched with age, much older than when she’d first met her outside the apartment the day this journey began. Sunny’s reflection looked back from the black saucers of sunglasses; pale yellow light revealed her gaunt figure.
A large bag was at her feet, the one where she collected items from the street, the sheets of plastic and other detritus. Paper dolls were erupting from it like popcorn, climbing over each other to the floor and blowing around the room, some escaping into the hall—the same paper dolls in her apartment were now piled a foot deep around her.
When the time comes, don’t run. Open the door.
She had said that in the café, when she told her about her son having to find his own way to a solution. Was she talking about this door? Of course she was. She guided me to the shelter, left clues in her apartment, the photo on the mirror, the phone number on the refrigerator.