by Gwynn White
That was why she was careful with the knife.
“If you want to find me,” he sang, “I’ll see you at three, but not a minute before, you walk through the door. You won’t find me, so you can’t be free…”
With each lifetime, she grew older and lived longer. The futility of her efforts were etched into the fabric of her consciousness, the memories wiped away before respawning to do it again, but never completely forgotten. Her efforts were indelibly branded into her soul.
She eventually surrendered to futility. Hope extinguished, she gave herself to the Maze and merged into the present moment.
A kaleidoscope spun, the speedy winds of time circling around the eye of existence until Sunny witnessed herself as an old woman withered by eternity and carved with wisdom. Slightly bent, the old woman stood on the city’s corner. A peaceful smile dug through her wrinkles.
Her emerald green eyes glittered.
The moment of her enlightenment—the point where she embodied the wisdom of the sages, the harvest of grinding through lifetime after lifetime, when there was no separation between all those lives she had lived and no separation between her and the Maze—had arrived. How many lives did it take to reach this moment?
A pointless question.
Time, she had come to realize, was an illusion. It was the point of view taken only from the self. She didn’t need to escape the Maze to find her son.
The grand illusion of time had revealed its true nature to her on that street corner, its unwinding bestowing transcendence of the mortal coil. She had become everything. The Maze was not a dream. It was a parallel reality as valid as the flesh reality. And she was not separate from it.
This realization transcended rational thought. She had opened the secrets of the Maze, understood the secret of time, and escaped the bindings of its illusion. She was not separate from anything; therefore she could choose to be anywhere.
Choose to be anytime.
On that street corner, she lifted her eyes to a clear blue sky and slipped through the fabric of the Maze. The buildings faded into pixelated clouds. The sidewalk and streets undulated into grassy slopes. A meadow lay across the land with willowy clouds on the horizon.
The old woman stood in a field.
She had transformed the stuff of the Maze into this peaceful setting. Sunny was next to her. Heavy snowflakes fell around them, dampened the atmosphere, and stuck to their hair. A smile touched the old woman’s eyes, snow reflecting deep in her pupils and covering the world around her.
Sunny was holding her hands. She looked into her emerald eyes. The old woman held a pair of oversized sunglasses that once hid her eyes. She had removed the silken scarf that had covered her head and the jagged scar near her hairline. They weren’t in the snow-covered meadow anymore.
They were in a room.
Sunny was still holding the hands of Marie Jones, the old woman who lived across the hall from her. Marie Jones, the homeless woman with a yellow flower in her hat.
I am Mrs. Jones.
Jones, her maiden name. Marie, her middle name. Sunny Marie Jones.
A snowflake landed delicately in the old woman’s cupped palm. The crystalline flake remained perched upright and did not melt. She curled her fingers around it.
Paper dolls were all around.
At the moment of enlightenment on that street corner, Sunny could have had anything she wanted, could have been anywhere she desired. She could have escaped the Maze. She came back to find herself, to guide herself to the truth, to close the loop, to stop the searching. Because there is no search. Nothing is lost. I am the light that needs not to escape, but shines on everything.
The last beep sounded off on her wristwatch.
Sunny was alone, hands out.
Footsteps echoed down the hall and slowed on the approach. The preacher stepped into the room. He was wearing a checkered shirt tucked into pressed khakis with black dress shoes.
“Most unfortunate,” he said. “You seem to have missed an opportunity.”
Sunny looked around the room; the beds were empty. She could hear the snoring of all the lost in the shelter, felt their breath in her chest. All had been revealed; nothing was separate. Not for Sunny Grimm.
He stepped aside and let her pass. The childhood door was closed. The keyhole was dark. She peeled a strip of paint from the trim and let it flutter to the floor. Nothing was singing inside the room.
Not anymore.
“Is that yours?” the preacher asked.
The bag was in the dorm room. One with a flower on the side. He picked it up, the contents rustling. A paper doll escaped. It was full of them.
“Are you real?” she asked.
“Pardon?”
She looked around with beginner’s eyes, a child seeing the world for the very first time. Whether he was real or not depended on one’s perspective. He believed he was real. If he was not, then neither was she.
“You know the way,” he said.
He was referring to the moment she’d opened her childhood door and gazed into the white light. That was the way out of the Maze. She had found it but didn’t take it. Mrs. Jones—her own self—had come to remind her that she didn’t need to leave the Maze. One reality was the same as another. And she came here willingly.
She knew why.
Every incarnation Sunny had experienced in the Maze now held this knowledge. It was their moment of enlightenment. All of her incarnations would find it with the help of her own self. They would all know why they were here. There was no reason to escape, nowhere else to go.
There is just here and now.
The preacher walked with her toward the big room. They stopped outside the big room, beneath the clock pointing at three o’clock.
“Perhaps tomorrow night,” he said.
He expected her to return to bed and sleep another night, to wait for the digital watch to signal another opportunity. Sunny unbuckled the wristwatch and gave it to the preacher. Confused, he watched her walk out the front doors.
Rain dribbled through a rip in the sky blue awning. City lights cast a gray glow on the night sky. She held her hand out to capture the rain. A small puddle splashed in her palm. When she looked up, the sky cleared. Stars danced on a celestial canvas. The road was streaked with streetlights and passing cars. The moon glowed in the puddles.
The snake graffiti was on the brick pillar with its tail in its mouth.
Sunny reached into the large bag and scatter the paper dolls. They fluttered like moths. She walked down the middle of the street with a cloud of magical paper dolls hovering overhead. The early morning traffic went around her without honking, without cursing. She simply wished for them to avoid her.
And they did.
This was the Maze. It was an experiment that only included her and her son. What the investors wanted to find out was not readily apparent to her. She came to find her son but found herself instead. She would thank them for allowing her this opportunity to find true freedom, but she still harbored anger. Willing or not, someone forced them into this eternal search. She would keep her promise to the white-haired man. Someone would pay.
But first, her son needed to awaken.
32
Hunter
After the Punch
The clouds lifted.
He ran his tongue over his teeth. Hunter reached for his chin, the stubble thick and stiff, grinding in his palm. His hand felt as light as a whisper, a phantom limb that floated toward him.
A beam of hard light cut between heavy drapes. Dust particles were effortlessly suspended.
Where am I?
He took for granted that memories awaited him upon awakening. The day. His name. Only emptiness and cutting sunlight greeted him this morning.
Sunlight.
It was gray where he was, where he’d been. It wasn’t sharp. Not illuminating.
He sat on the edge of the bed, fully clothed. His shirt was damp with body odor. His head levitated on his shoulders. He
gently rose onto his feet and split the heavy drapery, birthing the daylight on his cheeks.
Buildings and cars. People moved like insects.
An ache lingered behind his eyes and spilled into his forehead. He hid behind his hand, deep breaths soothing the pain. He searched for aspirin in his luggage, a loose duffle bag dumped in the corner.
His name came back to him as thoughts drifted out of early fog and landed with a delicate touch, presenting him with who he was and where. He grimaced. Something was missing.
The itch.
He couldn’t remember how he got to his bed or the days preceding it, but he remembered the itch that had plagued most of his life. His hand crawled over his jaw, crept behind his ear and through his hair, searching for a place on the back of his head where once he slid a needle.
And found nothing.
A bump, perhaps. A mole. But his fingers did not find what they were expecting—the port of a stent that extended between the two hemispheres of his brain to reach his frontal lobe. He turned his hands over, as if the answers were tattooed on the backs, as if the bulging arteries would divulge hieroglyphic answers, when a text arrived.
Who is this?
It was the same number he’d blocked a dozen times. All the messages had been identical.
Who is this? Who is this? Who is this?
The aspirin lodged just below his Adam’s apple. He went to the bathroom and scooped water from the faucet, spilling it down his shirt. He threw his head back to swallow and jumped.
He had expected a tired face with bags weighing down his almond-shaped eyes and frayed black hair. Instead, a vibrant complexion appeared. It was the distillation of happiness. He searched the mottled irises for missing memories.
And then he remembered them.
The needles were broken. It opened a trapdoor of withdrawal, a meeting with a white-haired man, the pulling away of a bus, and the reaching for a car. He was going to surrender to Dova and Micah.
But there was the old woman.
And then everything was consumed in a white background. Everything except her. She was still there because she felt like she was everywhere. Micah had said this world was his. Hunter didn’t know what he meant by that. His statement was authoritative, as if he didn’t own it with wealth but had created this world as if his hand was the hand of God.
It didn’t feel like it anymore.
The smell of flowers pervaded the elevator.
The doors opened. He went to the kitchenette, mouth salivating for the feel of breakfast, and returned to the front desk with half a bagel and a glass of orange juice. Faint conversations tumbled out of a back room. He knocked on the desk.
“Yes, Mr. Montebank?” A young woman appeared.
“Did I, um, check out?”
She looked down. Keystrokes peppered the background conversations while her lips silently moved. He stared at his phone while she searched. There were no missed calls, no messages. He punched the number for the cybercrime office, listening to it ring while the girl shuffled through papers. If he still had a job, he could explain the unexplainable. It was a hallucination brought on by the needle. He would have to come clean about his past, at which point he would definitely not have a job.
The call continued with no voicemail.
He reached for the back of his head. The mole wasn’t numb or tender. It was just a slight aberration. How could the stent just disappear? How many times had he driven the spike into his head, waking to live another day without the itch? Could it have grown over?
Not overnight.
“How long have I been here?”
“Pardon?” she said.
“How long have I been in this hotel?”
She mumbled through another series of keystrokes and frowned. “Weird. Let me—”
“What’s it say?” He stopped her from walking off.
“Um. I don’t see a date when you checked in. I mean, you have the room, I just don’t know how long you’ve had it.”
“I never checked out?”
“No. Do you want to?”
“How did I get here last night? Did someone drop me off?”
“I wasn’t on duty.”
He finished the last bite of breakfast and wandered off, a man lost in a flurry of thoughts and slippery memories. The young woman was still talking as he drifted toward the sliding front doors. Outside, the sunlight had turned a dusty orange. The glimmer of daylight was fading into dusk.
How long have I been here?
The street was dry. No puddles or streaks. The air smelled lightning-struck.
He stood on the curb and thumbed his phone. The calendar was up to date. He’d had an appointment at the police station with inspector Freddy ten days ago. The days following, though, emptied rapidly. Only the one entry since then.
Dova.
The woman with curving hips and strong arms. The way her fingers slipped over his shoulders and pinned his hands. The promises she made.
The needles she broke.
“Mr. Montebank.” The young woman from the front desk stepped onto the sidewalk and handed him an envelope. “This was at the counter.”
His name was scrawled on the front. The flap was sealed. A metal object was inside, the edges easily revealed. He tore it open and poured a key into his palm. It was nothing of significance. He held the envelope up to the dying light. Something was written on the inside as if someone had turned the envelope inside out.
Only the reflection, you’ll see. Of the one you seek.
Only then you will be, the one who is free.
The refrain was familiar. Where had he seen it? His phone went off.
Who is this?
It was the number that couldn’t be blocked. He tapped it this time instead of attempting to block it again. The dial tone rang. It clicked into silence after the fifth ring. A car locked the brakes. The tires skidded on the pavement as his thumb searched to end the call.
And then he heard the voicemail, an alluring voice that seduced the caller to leave a message. Hunter’s thighs weakened. He knew that voice well.
She’d been texting all this time.
33
Hunter
After the Punch
The stars drilled a million holes between the staggered skyscrapers, a wisp of condensation smearing the backdrop. He’d forgotten the stars, the celestial jewels concealed by the city’s humid breath, her steady exhalation of exhaust fumes and foulness. But they were always there, hidden away, now exposed.
Such beauty.
The headache still lurked between his eyes. It was a manageable nuisance that lingered in the background. Traffic streaked past him, brake lights glowing. Windows were squares of light scattered on the buildings’ dark faces. Where once their spires hid in the mist of descending clouds, now they twittered like newborns.
He dialed the number and watched the large window across the street. He remembered the old woman was there when he first arrived. She was perusing the merchandise. But she was gone when he entered. He assumed she’d gone through the back door.
And then he dreamed of her watching him from across the street, when the world turned inside out and colors flipped and reality evaporated. He woke in the hotel. It was a dream. It had to be.
Dova’s prerecorded voice began speaking after the fifth ring, her voicemail beckoning to leave a message, appointments only. He put the phone in his pocket. His appetite had returned. The café at his back was crowded. He considered a quick bite before crossing the street, looking at the menu posted on the window.
For a second time, his reflection startled him.
It was unfamiliar. He locked into his gaze, recalling the refrain from the note he’d received with a key, the same words written on a scrap of paper somewhere in Grey Grimm’s bedroom.
Only the reflection, you’ll see. Of the one you seek.
It was the musings of an eighteen-year-old, perhaps a poem for a girlfriend or a class project. Hunter leaned closer and put his
nose on the glass. The couple sitting inside looked up. He searched the depths of his pupils for a hint of the one he was seeking.
“Excuse me.” A woman bumped into him.
The sidewalk was crowded. The stranger had already blended into the flow without looking back. Despite the warm autumn air, she hid behind the raised collar of a black overcoat, slipping between the gridlocked traffic.
Emptiness haunted the softly lit interior of 511. The mysterious texts, the phone number that couldn’t be blocked, were coming from there all this time. He assumed it was Dova that had been texting. She was the only one he’d ever seen inside the business. What was the meaning of it? Was that how she tracked him?
Only the reflection, you’ll see…
He hustled across the street, hopping up the short flight of stairs. A white card was on the top step. The metal stand lay on its side just inside the glass door, the cards spilled on the bamboo floor. Random lines were scattered on the backs of them.
He’d solved the puzzle, cut and folded the 511 business card (more like a brochure, Dova said) until the Maze symbol was revealed. A psychologist might remind him that any symbol could be found if you applied the right amount of delusion.
Find a way to please yourself was the tagline. After folding it, it became Find yourself.
That was more than a coincidence. 511 was an entrance into the Maze. Solve the riddle and you’ll see. It is what you see that we have, Dova told him. The evidence was right out in the open. You just have to see it, she was telling him. And then she asked what his name meant and he said that names didn’t mean anything where he came from.
And where do you come from? she had asked.
Hunter assumed she was referring to his Asian features, but he said he came from nowhere. Why did I say that?
The floor was empty; the door at the back ajar. He pulled the front door without expecting it to surrender. It swung on silent hinges. Filtered air embraced him. The first time he’d entered the store, he dripped from the sleeves and cuffs. Now he stepped inside as light as a ballerina.