Labyrinth Society (4 page)

****

Much to my relief, Devon didn't go with us. Tomi decided to stay home, too, to put red streaks in her hair, something she'd been planning to do all week. Wanting to get out of the house, but not to wander around downtown alone, I ended up tagging along with Lily to the nursing home to visit her grandfather. When Alex dropped us off at the Cedarwood nursing home, which was like an ordinary two-story house with white siding and black shutters, Lily's grandfather was waiting on the porch.

Dr. Hector Flores was sitting in a striped lawn chair. At seventy, he was still a good-looking man with thick, white hair and high cheekbones. He had muscular forearms probably from years of heavy lifting in the garden. Lily also had her grandfather's big brown eyes, though his were blank and empty at the moment.

"
Hola
, Papa," Lily said, running up on the porch and throwing her arms around her grandfather. She gave him a kiss on the cheek. He gave her a blank stare and didn't say a word. Lily wasn't at all fazed.

"Papa, this is my new friend, Mia." Lily said to the old man who seemed not to even notice she was there. "Mia, this is my
abuelo
."

"Hi, Dr. Flores," I said, awkwardly. He was wearing some kind of white plastic monitor on his wrist; I wondered if it was an alarm to alert the staff if he wondered off. The old man glanced briefly at me, and I saw something flicker behind his vacant eyes, but it was gone in an instant.

"He has good days and bad days. Last time I was here we played checkers for hours, and he talked my ear off about when he was a little boy in Guadalajara. I'd give anything to know where he is right now." Lily stared at her grandfather affectionately as he continued to stare off into space.

"Well, look who's here, and you've brought a friend," exclaimed a voice from the front door.

A woman emerged from the house. Her face was round and plain and she had slightly bucked teeth. She was wearing a yellow cotton smock and blue uniform pants with white clogs.

"Mia, this is Mrs. Sands. She's my grandpa's nurse."

"Welcome, Mia," Mrs. Sands said warmly. "Can I get you two something to drink?"

When we nodded, Mrs. Sands left and reappeared a minute later with two glasses of cold lemonade. We were sitting on the porch steps drinking the lemonade when suddenly Mr. Flores became very agitated.

"Where is Emilio?" he demanded loudly, causing me to almost drop my glass. I was startled by how deep his voice was. Lily was on her feet and at her grandfather's side in an instant.

"Emilio's gone, Papa. It's me, Lily," she said, trying to sooth the old man. He blinked a couple of times in confusion.

"Where did he go? He was supposed to be here today. Who are you? I don't know you!"

"He died, Papa, remember. It was three years ago. A car accident. I'm Lily, your granddaughter."

The old man blinked again and then started to cry. His shoulders heaved and Lily calmly rubbed his back until he quieted down. My heart broke for him and for Lily, whose eyes were bright with unshed tears.

"Emilio was my dad," Lily said, in answer to my unspoken question. After a few minutes, the old man lapsed back into a blank silence, and Lily asked me to keep an eye on him while she took our empty glasses back inside.

I leaned against the porch railing and watched the cars go by. I could hear Lily inside talking to Mrs. Sands. Then I heard another deeper voice.

"Maddy? Is it you, Maddy?"

Dr. Flores was alert and leaning forward in his chair. He was staring so intensely it scared me. I went over to the man and he continued to look at me like he knew me.

"What did you say, Mr. Flores?"

He reached out and grabbed my wrist in a viselike grip yanking me towards him. "Don't go, Maddy! It's not safe! The labyrinth isn't stable enough for one person!"

Maddy? Labyrinth? He must think I'm Mrs. T. I tried to pull free but he held fast, squeezing my wrist painfully.

"You can't go alone. It's suicide!"

"Let me go! I'm not Maddy, Dr. Flores. You're hurting me," I said, looking frantically through the screen door for Lily or Mrs. Sands, who were now nowhere to be seen.

I started to call one of them, when just as suddenly he let go. I went stumbling backwards, almost toppling over the porch railing before catching myself. The old man had disappeared back into his mind again. I stared at him warily and rubbed my wrist. A minute later, Lily and Mrs. Sands emerged from the house still talking.

"Are you okay? You look like you've seen a ghost." Lily was looking at me strangely.

I just smiled awkwardly. But Lily was right. I had just seen a ghost — the ghost of one of Dr. Flores's memories.

"How long has your grandfather lived here?" I asked as we waited for Alex to pick us up. Mrs. Sands had taken Mr. Flores inside for a nap.

"Just a few months. He used to live at the estate in the cottage on the grounds, where Alex lives now."

"It must have been real hard for you when he had to come here, huh?"

"Yeah. He was the one who checked himself in here. Mrs. T. hired a nurse and brought him back to the estate but he kept running back to the nursing home."

"Seriously? Why?" I'd never heard of an old person running
to
a nursing home, only
away
.

"He was getting violent," Lily said, looking down at her feet.

No kidding, I thought still rubbing my sore wrist.

"What did he do?" Lily was silent. Just then, Alex's Range Rover pulled up. We were heading down the porch steps when Lily suddenly turned and answered my question.

"He tried to set the labyrinth on fire."

****

I spent the rest of the week dodging dirty looks from Devon and being kept occupied by the rest of the household. They were all working overtime to keep me busy and out of the labyrinth. I'd gone biking with Lily, which left me sore, aching, and barely able to move. I'd gone shopping with Mrs. T., who insisted on buying me a laptop and a bunch of art supplies, another tactic to keep me busy. I'd helped Alex clean out the basement, and Tomi rearrange the furniture in her bedroom, only to have her decide she liked it better the other way. Then I had to help her change it all back. But it was cool, because afterwards she taught me how to wear a kimono. She had half a dozen, which had all belonged to her mother. She kept them in a large wooden trunk called a Tansu chest.

"No, Mia, you're not a corpse," Tomi had told me, laughing.

"Huh?" My body was wrapped in bright green silk. The kimono's long sleeves had swallowed up my arms.

"You overlap it on the left, not the right," she'd said, pulling the kimono open and folding it the opposite way. "The way you were wearing it is the way they dress dead people for their funerals." Her hands flew to her mouth like she was afraid she'd offended me. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay, Tomi," I'd told her. "I miss my grandma like crazy. But I'm getting more and more use to her not being around." Especially since I had other things to think about, like the mystery of the labyrinth. Once they'd gone wherever it was they were going, there would be no way they could keep me out.

****

Saturday finally arrived, and I couldn't have been happier. One by one we all wandered down to breakfast. Mrs. T. made omelets, croissants, and smoothies; we all sat around various spots in the kitchen silently eating or reading the newspaper. Only Tomi and Mrs. T. appeared to be in the mood for conversation. The two of them chatted in French, while Devon typed away on her laptop and sipped a banana smoothie, Lily buried her nose in a crossword puzzle book, and I — already stuffed to the gills — sketched the labyrinth from the kitchen window. I couldn't wait to get back in there. Alex came through the back door looking bleary-eyed from his late night out and everyone seemed to perk up.

"Looks like someone had a good time," Devon said sarcastically.

"You sound just like me mum," he said irritably, pouring himself a large glass of tomato juice and cracking a raw egg into it.

He sat down at the table and began liberally shaking hot sauce into his glass. His curly hair was sticking up in wild tufts all over his head, his eyes were bloodshot, and he needed a shave. I could smell beer fumes coming off him in waves all the way from where I was sitting.

"What happened to you?" asked Lily, who pulled her nose out of the paper long enough to toss Alex the sports section.

"You look like you got hit by a bus," commented Tomi.

"If you lot must know, I was out with me mates at a Columbus Crew match. I swear the lengths I have to go to get a proper football fix 'round here." He held the cold juice glass against his forehead.

"It's not football season," I said.

"I'm talkin'
real
football. Not what passes for football to you Americans," Alex said testily.

"He means soccer, Mia. You know, like in
Bend it Like Beckham
." Mrs. Tarpley sat an aspirin bottle down on the table in front of Alex, and he struggled unsuccessfully with the childproof cap.

"Oh, you mean the sport that's mad popular in every country but this one." I smiled and earned myself a scowl from Alex. I blew him a kiss and saw Devon stick her finger down her throat and make a gagging noise. We ignored her.

"Cheers." Alex took a deep breath and chugged the thick, gross-looking, brownish orange liquid in one gulp, then sat the glass down on the table and belched long and loud. It smelled like the tomato soup we have at school if the cook had made it with beer and rotten tomatoes. Eew! Everyone but Mrs. T. scurried from the kitchen in disgust.

I was halfway up the steps to my room before realizing I'd forgotten my sketchpad. I went back to get it and stopped at the doorway when I heard Alex and Mrs. T. talking.

"So we're all set then?" asked Mrs. T.

"Yeah, it's a go. If it all goes as planned it shouldn't take more'n a day at best," replied Alex.

"Mr. Voorhees will be pleased. It will be a great asset to the museum's collection," said Mrs. T., sounding happy.

"You sure he checks out okay? We don't want a repeat of what happened with Carter Brooks. We busted our backsides working for him and then found out the urn was a bleedin' OSO. He knew it all along. And his poor wife. How horrible. I feel awful, but Carter's a smarmy git who still owes us money."

What were they talking about? And what's an OSO? I took a quiet step closer.

"It wasn't our fault. But you know how I feel about private collectors. Besides, if Voorhees doesn't honor our contract, we can always go over his head to the museum's board of directors. They won't want—" Mrs. T. suddenly stopped talking and turned to see me standing inside the doorway.

"I forgot my sketchbook." I laughed nervously. I hurried across the room and grabbed my pad and didn't miss the amused expressions on the faces of Alex and Mrs. T. They knew I'd been listening. I was going to have to work on my eavesdropping skills.

****

I spent the rest of the morning inside. Except for sleeping, I'd had little time for myself all week long. I needed to be alone to think. Tomi, Lily, and Devon were lying on a blanket in the backyard deep in discussion. Mrs. T. was working in her vegetable garden, and Alex was on the riding mower cutting the grass in the front yard. So far, it sure didn't seem like they were planning to go anywhere, rock climbing or otherwise. Instead of joining them outside, I decided to do some research on my new laptop.

First, I Googled Carter Brooks, the person I'd overheard Alex and Mrs. T. talking about, and came up with numerous hits. The most promising Carter Brooks was a billionaire businessman who owned a cosmetics firm and had been in seclusion since the sudden death of his wife, former supermodel Fiona. I read lots of stuff on his business, products, and charitable donations, but I couldn't find a single link between him and Mrs. Tarpley, let alone any work she and Alex may have done for him. I even Googled OSO, the term Alex used, and came up with nothing useful — but I wouldn't recognize it if it bit me, since I had no idea what an OSO was. Next, I did a search on Morgan Lake and got hits for towns of the same name to bodies of water. I finally Googled Dr. Everett Tarpley and got lucky.

Ms. Jarvis hadn't exaggerated about Dr. Tarpley being famous. There was tons of info about him from his archaeological finds, research articles he wrote on ancient Rome and Greece, and reviews of books he'd written. One of his books from 1972 was available through Google books. It was called
Power in the Design
and was about the energy associated with certain ancient labyrinth designs. There were pages of sketches in the book of Greek and Roman labyrinth designs Dr. Tarpley had found during excavations. All of them were square instead of round, and in the top and bottom left corners were smaller solid squares. Near the bottom right corners, but not completely in the corner, were much smaller squares. The squares had patterns of lines all leading to a smaller center square. They were almost but not exactly like the design on the rings Mrs. Tarpley, Alex, and the girls wore.

What they actually looked like were those square barcodes I see in magazine ads and movie posters. I Googled square barcode and found the name for them, QR Codes. There were web links embedded inside QR codes and they took you to a website when you scanned it with a cell phone barcode reader. I ran over and got the new cell phone Mrs. T. had bought me and scanned each of the labyrinth designs on the computer screen. Nothing happened.
What did you expect to happen, Mia?
I asked myself, feeling stupid. But it still seemed weird a design from ancient times would look like technology we used today.

Power in the Design
was out of print now, and I couldn't find anything else about it except a small review, in which the reviewer described the book as "fanciful tripe," and Dr. Tarpley's years spent in the sun on archaeological digs must have affected his brain. Harsh. There were also a bunch of newspaper articles about Everett Tarpley's mysterious disappearance during an archaeological dig in France in 1969.