White Tree Sound Read online

  The entrance sign glowed above him. He stood in front of the rules.

  Cursing, he wiped his face. No matter where he went, he ended up here, and it didn’t take him much to figure out why.

  Instead of a crystal, a pacball was hanging in midair down the path Elf had taken.

  He needed as many crystals as he could get. She had a head start, and he needed to catch up.

  This is what he told himself over and over as he started down the path she’d taken. The wind was at his back, propelling him onward. He claimed his pacball, agitated with himself for feeling relieved he was finally heading the way his instincts told him to.

  I walk until I reach a fridge and open it. A sandwich and juice box wait for me. I eat, and it takes some of the edge off my anger. I’m emotionally drained after my first journey into the maze. Being hyper vigilant doesn’t help my tired mind, either. The sky never changes, but I’m getting tired. At some point, I’m going to need a nap, but how can I sleep here? Trolls on the inside, scary vulture people on the outside, a mysterious ring in the center.

  Either my younger self was brilliant or a complete nutcase.

  I walk onward. Whenever there’s a turn, I take it. My directional sense is awful. For all I know, I’m headed back to the beginning.

  I round another corner and stop.

  A square of grass is at the middle of this intersection. There’s a tree at the center and ...

  Oh, my god. The first bad boy I fell in love with.

  “I’ll sing for you,” says Billy Idol, clad in black leather and holding a guitar.

  How can this be bad?

  How can anything in the labyrinth be good?

  “I can’t,” I reply.

  “Just until the weather clears up.”

  “The weather’s fine.” No sooner do I speak the words than feel the first few fat raindrops splat onto my face. They’re followed by a torrent. I’m soon soaked again.

  “Five minutes,” he urges. “I’ll sing a song just for you.” He lifts the guitar and begins thrumming.

  I don’t need a magic ring to warn me. I’ve fantasized about the ultimate bad boy for over twenty years. I want to sit with him and listen to him sing beneath the tree acting as an umbrella. No rain touches him. I bet he smells like leather, spices and oak and other manly things.

  I back away. “I gotta go.”

  Whirling, I run back into the maze, in the direction I’d just come. I shake off his spell and glare at the sky. The storms here are as unpredictable as the labyrinth.

  I turn a corner – and end up in the same spot.

  Billy smiles wickedly.

  Bad boys are bad in real life, I remind myself.

  I spin on my heel, only to find the same scenario in front of me. I turn and turn and turn – and he’s in every direction now, smiling and beckoning me to leave the downpour to sit with him.

  I have no other option.

  I trudge to the tree and sit down. At once, I’m shielded from the rain. Billy Idol smiles at me and begins thrumming the guitar. I notice his pointed teeth but can’t bring myself to care. Soft, hypnotic acoustic music wraps around me. He’s not actually playing the guitar, but music comes from it nonetheless. I relax and lean back against the tree. This is where I belong. With him, under the tree, watching the rain.

  “You see?” he coos and sits down beside me. “Which song shall I sing?”

  But it fades away. Music fills my thoughts, and his warmth and scent ensnare my senses. He smells better than I thought he would.

  “White Wedding?” he prods. “Unless you have something else in mind in your fresh, vibrant brain.”

  Somewhere, in the back of my mind, an alarm goes off.

  “Yeah.” My eyes close, and I rest my head back against the tree trunk. He’s warm, a buffer against the cool breeze. He begins to sing, perfect harmony laced with menace. I shiver.

  “What’s your damage?” someone demands. I recognize the voice – maybe. I’m too lost in comfort to care. “Why are you just sitting there?”

  Hands grabs me. I notice I’m moving – but I’m not concerned.

  Not until the cold rain begins pelting me. It’s then I open my eyes and shiver. The twisted rock ballad is fading quickly.

  Where’s the warmth? Billy and his guitar? I ache for him already and to return to the warmth and comfort beneath the tree.

  I blink to focus. I’m slung over someone’s shoulder. Someone whose spacesuit is … red.

  Anger stirs, along with awareness. I’m not sure what just happened, but I do know the man I don’t want to see has replaced the one whose presence I was enjoying.

  “Put me down!” I demand and kick.

  Evil-Jared does so. I glare up at him then at the sky. I’m wet and cold and tired again.

  “You ruined it!” I growl.

  “Ruined what he was going to do to you?” he retorts.

  “He was just singing to me!”

  “This place messes with your head. Our heads.” Evil-Jared isn’t mad. He’s concerned.

  It dawns on me he could be another sadistic troll.

  I backpedal. “You’re one of them,” I say. “You can’t trick me this time.”

  “One of whom?” he replies.

  “Trolls who dragged me underground to torture me.”

  Evil-Jared shakes his head. “I’m me. You’re you. That is what seduced you.” He points.

  I expect to see the vibrant grassy green square with its peaceful tree and my bad boy Billy.

  Instead, Billy is a zombie: sickly features, rotting flesh, missing teeth, hollow eyes. He’s skinny to the point of gross, and his leather clothing – and skin – hangs off him. He stands in a mud pit, chained to a skeletal tree with black bark behind a warning sign.

  “Don’t feed the zombie,” Jared reads emphatically.

  “What. The. Hell.” I stare.

  I shudder.

  I can’t avert my gaze from the zombie. I’m not in pain; it didn’t have a chance to tear my throat out. Horrified, I look up at the sky, as if I might see the twisted creator of this tale, and am greeted by nothing but rain.

  “I really do like bad boys,” I say wistfully, disappointed the labyrinth burst my bubble about meeting Billy Idol. It’s probably for the best. I know from experience that bad boys in real life are trouble and heartache.

  “Is he bad enough to take over a galaxy?” Evil-Jared asks.

  “You’re thinking of evil, not bad,” I reply.

  “That thing would’ve killed you.”

  “You wanted to feed me to the Skeksis.”

  “I didn’t mean it.”

  I face him. “Are you jealous?” I ask, startled. “Of a zombie?”

  “Come on,” Evil-Jared directs and starts away.

  “I’m not going anywhere with anyone ever again!” I exclaim.

  “If we want to get through this maze, we’re going to need to stick together.”

  “I’ve been misled twice, and I don’t like you to begin with!” I retort.

  “No, duh.” He returns to me. “I don’t like you much, either. But we have to reach that ring.”

  “How do I know you’re real?”

  He observes me for a second then lifts his hand, where he wears my ring on his pinky. The stone at its center has gone white.

  I look from it to him and back again. “It doesn’t work for you, does it?”

  He’s silent.

  “That’s why you came back.” What an asshole.

  “It is going to take us both to survive this place,” he says somewhat defensively. “I saw right through the illusion that entrapped you. Perhaps you will see through those that seek to deceive me.”

  “So your red path wasn’t smooth sailing?” I ask sarcastically.

  “Yours was?”

  We glare at one another. He’s warm, and I want to inch closer.

  “Take it,” he snaps and yanks the ring off. He hands it to me.

  I accept it with some relief.
I may still fall for more hallucinations, but maybe the ring will warn me. I slide it onto my finger, and it turns red.

  I still don’t know what that means.

  “Which way?” Evil-Jared asks with reluctance.

  I give him a knowing look and test each direction. We’re definitely not going back toward the hungry zombie, even if the ring green lights that direction alone.

  “Yellow, red, green,” I say and point. “We’ve failed epically going red or green. How about yellow?”

  He steps aside and motions for me to lead. I’m positive it’s not chivalry; he wants me to be his human shield. I’d do the same, if he had the mood ring.

  It’s absurd to let a ring that’s never once accurately identified my mood decide what I do with my life. But I follow the path it indicated as yellow nonetheless.

  The storm stops as suddenly as it started, and the clouds overhead vaporize. The weather here is either off or on. There’s no in between.

  A loud tick sounds, as if a grandfather clock has been plugged into an amplifier. It doesn’t come from any particular direction.

  “You heard that, right?” I ask, slowing.

  “I did.”

  We gaze around us uneasily.

  Another loud tick.

  “The moons are getting closer together,” Evil-Jared says.

  I look up. They haven’t gradually shifted toward one another, as they would in real life, but tick closer like second hands on a clock.

  “How much farther do you think we have to go?” I ask, concerned.

  “I think it depends on how many crystals we collect.”

  “How many do you have?”

  “How many do you have?”

  “We’re adults. Adults share and discuss,” I state.

  He raises an eyebrow in silent disagreement.

  I don’t trust him either and drop the subject.

  We continue navigating turns in the maze. He doesn’t even ask why I pick a new direction, probably because we’re equally lost.

  “If we had the unicorn, it’d take us straight to the demon,” he says. “No labyrinth. No collecting crystals.”

  “I guess it’ll just take us longer.”

  “If we make it at all. No one else ever has.”

  “That would’ve been nice to know before we left the ship.”

  “I had hoped your ring could help. Not sure if it’s defective or its wearer is,” he adds.

  “It wouldn’t work at all for you,” I point out.

  We round a corner, and the ground trembles.

  “Do you feel that?” I ask.

  The ground trembles again.

  He stops too close to me. We reach out for the wall simultaneously as the ground quakes once more.

  “Please don’t be a T-Rex,” I murmur, trying to recall the age at which I saw Jurassic Park.

  “What is that?”

  I follow his gaze. Two huge blue ears appear over the top of one wall. Unable to determine what it is, I can correlate its movement with the trembling of the ground. Thank god, it’s not a dinosaur.

  “I feel the need for speed,” Evil-Jared says. No sooner do the words leave his mouth than he grabs my hand and pulls me away from the wall.

  “Do you know what that is?” I ask. I don’t resist. If the man who wants to control the galaxy is freaking out, I’m not sticking around to see why.

  “If it’s chasing us, it’s bad.” His pace quickens, and we race away from whatever it is that’s coming. Evil-Jared chooses directions randomly whenever we reach an intersection. Somehow, the creature pursuing us never gets nearer or farther away. It’s like we’re running in circles, except we’re not. We can’t be.

  As abruptly as it started, the mini-quakes stop.

  We duck around another corner, and Evil-Jared stops suddenly. He catches me with his other arm and pushes me against the wall. He presses his chest to the wall.

  Panting, we exchange looks and listen. His arm remains across my abdomen, our sides pressed together. I shouldn’t notice his touch when faced with danger, but I do.

  It’s quiet.

  He drops his arm and eases away from the wall. I do the same.

  I start to relax when a roar sounds. It’s not a threatening roar, more like the terrible sound effects in one of those black and white Godzilla movies, an elephant sucking in helium before trumpeting.

  “Care Bear,” Evil-Jared whispers. “I heard about them in the legends of this place.”

  A massive stuffed bear stands up from behind the wall directly in front of us. It’s blue, with the exception of the white belly. Storm clouds or rainbows or flowers are displayed on the stuffed versions. Instead, animated black lightning streaks across his belly, leaving me no doubt as to the threat it poses. Its mouth opens, revealing fangs, and it gives another cheesy Godzilla roar.

  This time, I’m the one who grabs Evil-Jared’s hand and bolts.

  We run and run and run. Instead of turning at any intersection, I go straight. This time, the Care Bear falls behind us. Its roars grow weaker, and the ground stops rumbling.

  When I feel like my lungs are about to burst, I stop and bend over, panting.

  Evil-Jared catches his breath first and takes off again.

  It takes me a minute longer before I catch up to him. “I can’t keep up with you!” I shout as he pulls away.

  He slows. We walk in silence. Neither of us wants to talk about the Care Bear. I’m too traumatized about seeing my favorite stuffed animal with fangs.

  The night grows cooler. I hug myself, miserably wet and tired.

  We reach an intersection.

  “Which way?” he asks.

  “Does it matter?” I retort. “We’re going nowhere. There’s no food, my feet are frozen, I didn’t bring my inhaler, and I’m so freaking tired, I don’t care if a Care Bear or Dildo-troll eats me!” Tears sting my eyes. I don’t mean to cry, but I’m too exhausted to be rational.

  “We’ll rest,” he says wisely, unfazed by my outburst.

  I release a shaky breath.

  Evil-Jared chooses a spot several feet away from the intersection and sits down. I hate the idea of sleeping on the ground. Right now, though, I hate everything.

  I plop down beside him. “I haven’t seen a refrigerator in a while,” I say. “I hope they’re not gone.”

  “I’m sure we’ll find food,” he replies. “Don’t worry.”

  Is he being supportive?

  He lies down on the stone ground of the maze, his back to me. I wipe my face. My clothes are wet but no longer heavy, kind of like taking them out of the dryer ten minutes too soon. My feet are miserable. I pull off my footwear and wring out my socks before lying them flat to dry.

  I stretch out beside Evil-Jared, my back to him.

  The stone beneath me is colder than the air. If I don’t sleep, I’m going to murder that damn Care Bear the next time I see it. I get pretty hostile without adequate rest.

  The temperature changes as quickly as the storms, and I’m soon shaking. I inch back, until my back touches Evil-Jared’s. He feels so much warmer than I do.

  I’m too tired to hold onto my anger. I can’t remember ever feeling this scared – or this alone. It’s hard to keep my emotions contained, and my guard up, when I’m challenged and stressed at every turn. But I think the quiet moments are the worst. That’s when I think about how my ex and his woman looked at one another, as if they were in love.

  How long does it take to get over heartbreak? Sometimes I believe the problem to be all me. I’ve been sitting on soul-crushing emotions for over a year now. I didn’t want to make matters worse by voicing them during the mess itself.

  Of everything I could have thought then, I didn’t want to hurt him by telling him what I feel.

  There’s no logic in that. I mean, he didn’t give a shit about hurting me. So why did I spare his feelings? Is that what good people do – try to think of others – or is that what stupid people do?

  I’m leaning to
wards stupid. This long after the events, I’m the only one suffering.

  Tears sting my eyes. This isn’t the right place or time for a breakdown.

  “Are you cold?” the space knight asks.

  I swallow hard. “No,” I lie.

  “I am.”

  I don’t have it in me to care.

  His back leaves mine, and I assume he’s going to sleep across the aisle from me in silent objection of the partnership neither of us wants. Instead, one of his arms slides around my midsection, and he pulls me against his body.

  I freeze.

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” he murmurs. “I’m just cold.”

  It’s one thing to admire his body, quite another to feel it. He’s a combination of strength and warmth. I fit against him snugly. His breath teases the hair near my ear, and I shiver. I want to shun him but find myself too interested in the physical sensation of us pressed together.

  He pulls me closer as soon as he feels me relax. His chest moves in a steady rhythm against my back as he breathes, and his warmth takes away the chill tormenting my drenched body.

  “Do you even know what a dildo is?” he asks sleepily.

  It’s either the most romantic question I’ve ever been asked while being spooned by a handsome man – or the worst. I’m too tired to determine which at the moment.

  “You have to stop calling him that,” he adds. “It’s weird.”

  “It’s his name,” I reply in the same grouchy tone.

  In a labyrinth where every corner hides some new, bizarre horror, I shouldn’t be able to sleep. I shouldn’t breathe in his caramel-bourbon scent and feel as though I’m safe and where I belong, or snuggle against his body for any other reason than warmth. Definitely not because I want to experience every inch of his muscular frame.

  Determined not to let my attraction doom me as it has in the past, I somehow drop into a deep sleep not long after he wraps his arm around me.

  I sleep well. Really well. Better than I have in a very long time. I don’t want to think it’s because of him, but there’s no other explanation. The stone ground and chilled air definitely aren’t conducive to sleeping.

  The labyrinth is quiet. No giant Care Bears chasing us or trolls trying to lure me underground. No birds or sounds of life, either. It’s a strange place where reality shifts at whim. Does anything really flourish here? Or is it like an intersection of multiple universes that change throughout the day?