Walking the Labyrinth (31 page)

“Hush,” Fentrice said.

They took another corner. Strange bright lines appeared in the gloom, connecting her and Fentrice, Fentrice and Thorne, connecting the rooms to one another. She was growing stronger with each turning, Molly realized, stronger and more aware. Beside her she felt Fentrice grow stronger as well.

Fentrice went through a doorway. The room was empty, but somehow Molly knew that they had reached the center, the final turning. And the Minotaur, the dreadful monster at the end of the maze—she had brought the Minotaur with her. Fentrice.

Fentrice was silent, concentrating. The lines of force drew together, warping around her and Thorne.

Suddenly Thorne stumbled back. “Where—” she said. “Fentrice! My God, what happened to you? You look so old.”

Thorne looked down at her hand, turning it back-to-palm in the darkness. “I—I’m old too. Wait, I remember. I remember something. Wait. A bridge game. An old woman, Estelle. You enchanted me. My God, you enchanted me for sixty years!”

Loud thunder cracked out. Fentrice staggered.

“You bitch!” Thorne shouted over the noise. “You took my life away, you enchanted me! I’ll kill you, you bitch!”

But Fentrice had walked the labyrinth, gathering power to herself. Thorne had been enchanted during the journey to the center, had been Estelle. Molly felt Fentrice push back. Thunder shook the room for a long minute.

The silence, when it came, was nearly as shocking as the noise. “Hush,” Fentrice said. “I enchanted you, yes. And I’ll do it again if you try to harm me. I brought you here to make amends.”

“Amends for what? For sixty lost years? What kind of amends can you make for that?”

“I don’t know,” Fentrice said.

“I’ll kill you. I’ll walk the labyrinth, become as strong as you. I’ll take your life away.”

“You already have. Did you think I could live with myself after what I’d done? I left the act, left the family, took you with me to a small town so I could watch over you. And every week I saw you at our bridge games, every week I repented what I’d done. But I felt trapped, committed to what I had chosen. Thorne, I’m so sorry. I can’t tell you how sorry—”

“Your sorrow won’t give me sixty years.”

Fentrice shook her head. Tears fell down her lined cheeks. “You’re right. I can’t make amends. I was wrong, I made a mistake. I can only say how sorry—”

“I don’t care,” Thorne said. “Live with it. I hope it makes you unhappy for the rest of your life.” She left the room, began the long walk to the beginning. A glowing thread followed her back.

“Can she find her way out?” Molly asked.

“I think so. Molly—”

Molly shook her head.

“I can’t bear to have both of you hate me,” Fentrice said. “Molly, try to understand. You wanted to enchant Peter—you said that in the letter you wrote to John. Wouldn’t you have done it if you could?”

“How do you know that? Did you read my letter?”

“Lila read it. But I know you, Molly. I raised you, after all.”

“All right, I wanted to. But I wouldn’t have. I draw the line at murder.”

“Do you? If you could have gotten away with it? If you could have him always with you, always at your beck and call, willing to do whatever you told him?”

Molly said nothing.

“It’s a terrible power we have,” Fentrice said. “Grandmother found that out, when she enchanted Lydia. She warned me, but I didn’t listen to her. We can do anything we like. The only limits are our own desires.”

Molly nodded.
What would I have done if I’d known the extent of our power? I was do angry with Peter, at least as angry as Fentrice was with Thorne. To have him always where I wanted him, doing what I wanted him to do … I might have. Maybe I would have.

What am I capable of? I’ve walked Fentrice’s labyrinth, but what would happen if I walked my own? What would I find at the center? What sort of monster is lurking there, what horrible emotions do I have that I keep hidden away, that I never look at?

“I don’t know,” Molly said. “Maybe. I don’t know anything anymore.”

Fentrice moved closer to her, put her arms around her, held her wordlessly.

They said little on the trip back to Heathrow Airport. Once there they went to their separate flights. “Good-bye, Molly,” Fentrice said.

“Good-bye, Aunt Fentrice. I—I’ll write you.”

Fentrice smiled. “Thank you, dear,” she said.

Alex Endicott was waiting for her at the San Francisco airport. “Is it over?” he asked.

Molly nodded.

“How do you feel?” he asked.

“God. God, I don’t know.”

He drove her to Callan’s house. He asked her a few questions and she answered them, but her mind was still on the labyrinth, on all the rooms that made up her life.

She went to her bedroom at Callan’s house and slept for a long time. When she woke she took out the letter she had written to John. She reread it and brought him up to date, telling him what had happened as briefly and unemotionally as she could, giving him directions to Callan’s house. Then she got in her car and drove to Pacifica to mail the letter.

She spent the next few days in her room, coming down only to eat Callan’s huge meals. Andrew Dodd was still there, she noticed. He and Callan spent a lot of time together, talking about the deaths of people they had loved. It seemed to do them both some good, and when Dodd finally went back to Oakland he promised to visit again.

A few days later a knock came at the door. “Molly!” Alex called.

What now?
she thought. She did not think she could face anyone. She went downstairs. John Stow stood there, his arm around his girlfriend Gwen.

“I got your letter,” John said simply.

She said nothing.

“Come on, let’s go out to eat,” John said. “I’ve got some questions for you.”

“All right,” she said. She turned to get her coat; Alex was still standing by the door. “Do you want to come with us?”

“Sure,” Alex said.

The drive to Pacifica cheered her a little. “So you two are back together,” she said to John and Gwen.

“Yeah,” Gwen said. She seemed happier than Molly had ever seen her. “I think he learned something from you.”

“Well, he’s not stupid, after all,” Molly said. Gwen grinned.

They went to the restaurant where she and Peter had eaten, so long ago. “So, what do you want to know?” she asked. “I thought I wrote you all about the case.”

“Oh, it’s not about the case,” John said. He looked at the other diners, abstracted. “How are you? You don’t look very good.”

“He
has
learned something,” Molly said to Gwen. “He pays attention to other people now.”

“And he doesn’t like to be talked about in the third person,” John said. “You’re avoiding the question, Molly.”

“How do you think I am?” Molly said bitterly. “My aunt, the woman who raised me, turns out to be a kind of murderer. And when I accuse her she tells me that I would have done the same thing, I would have enchanted Peter if I could. And the scary thing is I think she’s right.”

“No one’s perfect,” John said. “You said that in your letter to me.”

“Why does everyone keep quoting my letter?” Molly said. “Anyway, is that supposed to make me feel better? No one’s perfect, right. So I want to enchant Peter, to take his life away. I’m no better than Fentrice. I’m just like her.”

“Hey, we’d probably all like to enchant someone once in a while,” John said. “A couple of weeks ago I sure would have liked Gwen to do my bidding.”

“Thanks a lot,” Gwen said dryly.

“But you didn’t do it,” John said to Molly. “Peter’s still walking around.”

“He’s in jail, actually,” Molly said. “Breaking and entering.”

“Well, whatever. The important thing is that he did it to himself—you didn’t do it to him.”

“But I—I have this power. I didn’t want it, I don’t know what to do with it. I could kill someone, the way Fentrice did, or Neesa.”

“But you didn’t,” Alex said.

No
, she thought.
No, I didn’t. I didn’t walk Fentrice’s labyrinth as I thought, but my own. I’ve come to the center. I’ve seen the Minotaur. I’ve recognized my monster; I know its habits. I’ve learned a hell of a lot more about myself. All my life I’ll have to watch out for my desires. I’ll have to be terribly careful. But Alex is right. I didn’t kill anyone.

“What did you want to ask me?” she asked John.

“What do you plan to do with your life?” he said.

“Do?” Molly said. “Hell, I don’t know. I never did know.” She paused. “First I’m going to write to Fentrice. I don’t know if I can forgive her, but at least I can tell her I understand what she did. And she raised me, after all, she was good to me, if not to Thorne.… That has to count for something.”

“Do you think you’ll move again?”

“I—no, I don’t think so. I’ve got a family here. I never knew I had a family.”

“Not just family,” Alex said. “Friends. Remember what I asked you, that day on the porch? It’s all over now—do you think you can give me an answer?”

“I suspected you, you know,” she said to Alex. “I suspected Callan, Lila, everyone, and all because I didn’t want to admit the truth about Fentrice. Oh, I was so unhappy—it made me suspicious. But you—you didn’t do anything, did you?’

“No,” Alex said.

“Ask me again.”

“Would you like to go out with me, Molly?”

She looked at him. Why not? He couldn’t be as bad as Peter—no one could. She had loved Peter passionately, and all it had ever gotten her was misery. She didn’t love Alex, not yet and maybe not ever, but she liked him a lot. She could have fun with him.

“All right,” she said.

“Great,” Alex said.

“It’s about time for me to leave Callan’s,” she said. “I think I’ve learned what I had to learn, at least for now. I need to put some distance between me and him or he’ll take over my life. The family will, and I’m not ready for that yet. I’ll move back to Oakland, find another temp job. You can come get me there—we’ll have a real date.” She turned to John. “Does that answer your question?”

“Sort of,” John said. “I have an offer for you, a job offer. Would you like to be my partner?”

“Your partner?”

“That’s what I said. I’ve gotten a couple of new clients and I can’t handle them all. And I thought, well, a talent for mind reading would come in handy in my business.”

No more temp jobs, Molly thought. No more restless moves from state to state. A family, a job, good friends. A place in the world. “Sure,” she said. “Why not?”

About the Author

Lisa Goldstein has published ten novels and dozens of short stories under her own name and two fantasy novels under the pseudonym Isabel Glass. Her most recent novel is
The Uncertain Places
, which won the Mythopoeic Award. Goldstein received the National Book Award for
The Red Magician
and the Sidewise Award for her short story “Paradise Is a Walled Garden.” Her work has been nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Awards. Some of her stories appear in the collection
Travellers in Magic
.

Goldstein has worked as a proofreader, library aide, bookseller, and reviewer. She lives with her husband and their overexuberant Labrador retriever, Bonnie, in Oakland, California. Her website is
www.brazenhussies.net/goldstein
.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1996 by Lisa Goldstein

Cover design by Mauricio Diaz

ISBN: 978-1-4976-7361-8

This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

345 Hudson Street

New York, NY 10014

www.openroadmedia.com

EBOOKS BY LISA GOLDSTEIN

FROM OPEN ROAD MEDIA