After only a few minutes, the tunnel came to an abrupt dead end. I looked back again and couldn’t see the staircase we’d come from, even though it didn’t seem like we’d gone that far. Instead, the tunnel stretched on forever behind me. Something told me there was no going back.
A ladder was built into the wall in front of me. It was wooden and rickety and led up through a narrow hole in the ceiling. I tested it, rattling it hesitantly to be sure it would support my weight.
It shook, but it didn’t give way. So I put Star in my pocket and began to climb, not knowing where it would lead me. It was a tight squeeze; like the staircase, this tunnel was basically Munchkin-size. I’d never been claustrophobic before, but I was still supremely relieved to see a square of light overhead.
At the top of the ladder, I reached up and lifted a square door. I opened it slowly, peeking out, not sure where I’d be popping up. From above, dirt shook loose into my face.
It was a flap carved into the grass, just like the one Ollie had used the night before. Except this one appeared to lead into a bunch of shrubs. Well, at least no one would be able to see me emerging from the earth.
I crawled and clawed my way up and out, through leaves and thorns and branches. When I was finally able to stand, I looked around, pulled a bunch of leaves from my hair, dusted myself off, and found that I was in the palace’s sculpture garden, a place I’d seen in the distance, out the window, but had never been in before. It wasn’t that far from the greenhouse, and I was a little nervous to be in the proximity of the Scarecrow’s lab again so soon, but no one was around. The search for Maude must have gone to the other side of the palace—to the Royal Gardens—where they’d probably discovered her mutilated wings by now.
The sculpture garden had always looked green and peaceful from a distance. Up close, it was nothing like that at all. Giant topiaries trimmed into the figures of Oz luminaries—the Lion, the Tin Woodman and the Scarecrow and Glinda, as well as others that I didn’t recognize—all towered over my head, all of them dark and shadowy in the moonlight as they stared creepily down at me.
Life-size stone statues were mixed in among them. They were made from a flaky, brittle shale; all of them with eyes that seemed strangely lifelike, as if they were watching me sneak through their ranks. I pushed down the sudden desire to draw my dagger.
The statues were carefully arranged along a spiraling stone path through the hedges. They appeared to represent every race and creature in Oz—humans, Munchkins, Quadlings—and also stranger humanoids like an armless brute with a hammer-shaped head, and a gang of sprite-size people with horns sticking out of their foreheads.
As I moved quickly down the path, Star wriggled in my pocket. I reached down for her, but she squirmed free of my hand and jumped onto the stone path. She darted on ahead: this wild-goose chase wasn’t over. This time, I didn’t question it. Clearly, she had a destination in mind.
So I followed her as she scurried along, trying not to look at the gruesome faces of the statues staring at me until we reached the entrance to the hedge maze.
There I stopped short. This was one place I didn’t want to go. While the sculpture garden had always looked like a peaceful retreat from the vantage point of the palace windows, the hedge maze, on the other hand—even from a distance—had always given me the creeps.
I don’t know why. Maybe it was just the way it exuded magic; the way it seemed to change and rearrange itself every time you looked away from it. Even in the dark, the leaves of the hedges were Technicolor-green, so saturated that the color almost bled into the atmosphere.
It seemed like the kind of place you could get lost in. The kind of place you could enter and never leave.
Unfortunately, Star didn’t seem to share my fear—she was already several yards ahead of me, and if I didn’t hurry, she would be out of sight before I knew it.
“Slow down!” I hissed after her, but she didn’t listen. I took a deep breath and followed her into the maze.
As soon as I stepped inside, the leafy walls on either side of me began to rustle, suddenly sprouting little pink buds. The climbing ivy grew and twisted.
My heart pounding, I looked back. The opening I’d just run through was no longer there. It had sealed up behind me with new growth.
“Damn,” I swore under my breath. I’d almost expected those frozen statues to come to life, but I hadn’t expected the maze to.
Keeping Star in my sights suddenly seemed more important than ever—it was no longer just a matter of not losing her. It was a matter of me not getting lost. Rats were supposed to be naturally good at mazes, right? Star seemed to have some sense of where she was going, but I knew that, on my own, I would be stuck in here for good.
There was no point in looking back, so I didn’t bother.
Relying on a rat to guide me through a magic maze pretty much summed up my last twenty-four hours. I felt out of control, isolated, and uncertain where I was headed. I plunged forward regardless. Sometimes the path was narrow and claustrophobic, the hedges so high I couldn’t even see their tops. Then I’d turn a corner into a sweeping cobblestone boulevard where the topiary walls were short enough that it seemed like I might be able to dive over them with a running start.
We turned a corner and found ourselves in a long, leafy corridor—grown over with ivy—where there didn’t appear to be any more turnoffs. The hedges stretched out in a rigid line, nowhere to go except straight ahead. Unfortunately, the path looked like it went on forever, extending so far into the distance that I couldn’t see an end. The maze felt massive, like an entire world unto itself.
The endlessness terrified me. Even Star slowed down and sniffed at the air, looking around like she was trying to get her bearings.
“Come on, Star,” I urged quietly. “Don’t fail me now.”
The hedge wall on my left was covered in a blooming honeysuckle-like vine that dripped with a sweet-smelling nectar. Without really realizing what I was doing, I reached toward one of the blossoms to sample the nectar—it smelled so sweet and alluring. A purple ladybug landed on the blossom just in front of my fingers and the flower snapped close with a crunch and a squish. I jumped back. The flowers had teeth.
I started forward, wanting to put some distance between me and the flowers. Star ambled along at my side, no longer leading the way.
“What did you get me into, Star?”
Just as I said it, her head popped up into the air and she doubled back on the path we’d been following. She began to examine one of the hedges we’d passed. It looked like any of the rest of them to me, but Star, having now made up her mind, circled around and ran straight toward it. As she did, the branches slid aside, forming an opening as wide as a doorway. I gasped—more from joy than surprise—a way out! Star ran through—and I ran right behind her.
We kept running, no longer obeying the paths laid out by the maze. The walls continued to slide aside for us as we charged on, closing at our backs as soon as we slipped through.
And then, finally, we reached the center of the maze. It was so unexpected that I almost tripped over my feet while skidding to a stop. It was a large, circular area, paved with jagged flagstones. Wildflowers bloomed everywhere, the moonlight beaming down brightly on their open faces.
Dead center in the middle of the plaza was a stone fountain that looked older than time itself. Its water spiraled up into the sky in a corkscrew and didn’t seem to come back down again.