All of the work, all of it, smashed to bits in one moment.The fence lay defeated.
Corinthia, who did not believe in barefoot walking under any circumstances, flung off the blankets.Cold concrete slapped the bottoms of her feet.She slipped out the screen door and stepped off the porch.Chilled sand infiltrated the spaces between her toes.Damp grass left cool trails of moisture along the side of her feet; she felt it all but ignored it, rushing across the lawn.
She walked onto the platform of the fallen fence and stood in the breach itself, the surrounding tree limbs black like the sky, the underlying sand white like the moon.
Again, the neighbors’ fences stood untouched.But this time, a new path had opened up.It unfurled like a snowy carpet into the interior of the Refuge before disappearing, as such paths seemed to do, around a corner.
Corinthia looked back at her little house.Despite its closeness, it seemed to have moved farther away.The yellow lights in the windows shone brightly but distantly.Beaufort could be heard pawing at the screen door, no doubt worried why his mistress was on the other side at a time when all should be tucked up in bed.
Corinthia looked down at the border between her home and the Refuge, reduced to a literal line in the sand: where the fence lay, and beyond it.She swayed; in the darkness her balance was not what it should have been, and to look down was like balancing at the edge of a steep cliff and feeling gravity’s pull to what lay below.
This was the time to turn back.Morning was the proper, sensible time for dealing with such things.
And yet the pull was there.The pull of the Refuge, that had set its burrs into her heart the day of that ridiculous bet with Stevie, and now refused to set her free.
“Don’t be silly,” Corinthia said to herself, against the strong suspicion that she had already been quite silly, in one way or another, and thatthathad somehow led tothis, in a way she did not fully understand.In rebellion against this fear, she brought one foot firmly to the ground outside the fence—and gasped.
The whole world shook.Deliciously.And personally—just as the neighboring fences were untouched, Corinthia was certain that only she had felt Shadow Ridge rock on its axis.
On second thought, perhaps Beaufort, too.Dogs were wiser than most people gave them credit for.
Corinthia looked into the deep, dark woods.The breeze that finally touched the trees made the leaves shift, which, in the cool light, looked like many eyes blinking back at her.
In all of Corinthia’s life, almost everything could be found in a book, comfortably folded in the gift wrap of its cover and the snug padding of its pages.And if that were true, as Corinthia knew it to be, then this, too, could be explained.She was ready to solve it.Ready to understand.A librarian’s need to catalog could not be withstood.
She turned her back on the Refuge and strode across the lawn.Entered the porch.Called the dog to heel.Walked inside and carefully dried her feet before putting on regular clothes, a pair of fresh socks, and her walking sneakers.She generously sprinkled Beaufort’s bed with treats to encourage him to settle down and rest.
And then Corinthia went outside, shut and locked the door, and returned to where her fence lost its battle with the Refuge.
She placed one foot over the border and felt the world tremble, which only made her more determined to understand, to find what unknown process knocked down fences and made the Refuge bloom in her mind like wildflowers, uncontrolled and beautiful.
She stepped fully inside.
Her eyes adjusted slowly.What had at first appeared to be impenetrable darkness revealed itself one plant at a time, resolving into full clarity: oak trunks becoming visible beneath the branches; flowers acquiring light on their blooms; lichen revealing its shape.Though everything should have been tending to drowsiness, the Refuge had never seemed more alive.
When the trees knocked against each other, it was not unlike when the elementary school students set up their wooden xylophones for a show in the outdoor amphitheater, and nervously tapped the keys while waiting for instructions from the teacher.
Even the birds sounded excited.They surrounded Corinthia invisibly, to the left and right and ahead, their cries casting a joyful net around her.They were welcoming her, she thought, and immediately chased the thought away for its sheer absurdity.
She walked on, slowly, certain that whatever had trounced her fence must reveal itself if she paid close enough attention.She reached the turn in the path and looked back.Moments ago it had looked far away; now it looked like a house she had once lived in, long ago.Not hers at all but something that had moved on without her, or that she had left behind.
She turned the corner.
Suddenly the comparison to Castle Adventure was no longer whimsical but almost literal.The walls of the path stretched a little higher, grew a little thicker.When she wasn’t looking at them directly she could have sworn there were small pinpricks of light within, like will o’ the wisps.
Corinthia wished for high ground—for turrets like the old Castle Adventure, to see down into the maze.Pizza and birthday cake would have been nice, too.Chocolate cake with chocolate frosting.
She continued down the path.There were no landmarks to be seen.She had walked several of the trails, yet did not recognize this one, nor how it might connect to the others.It was no longer a surprise that Stevie had gotten lost even after working here so many years.
Corinthia drifted along, as if in a dream, footsteps quiet on the cool white sand, quiet enough to hear a soft hiss of movement behind her.She looked back to see the gray snake minding its own business and crossing the trail, tongue flickering in a thoughtful and utterly nonthreatening way.
The Corinthia who would have run split away from the Corinthia who did not, and disappeared, like a ghost, into the past.
Corinthia of the present nodded briefly to the snake, as if to a colleague, and kept walking.
The lights in the tangled oaks grew brighter, like old-fashioned gaslamps turned up to a higher flame.At this level of illumination it was surprising that the residents of the surrounding neighborhoods did not descend on the Refuge out of curiosity—but then, Corinthia had lived in such a neighborhood for years, and had never seen anything out of the ordinary.
She could only assume that whatever was happening here was only visible here.Or only visible at certain times, or to certain people.She could not be sure.Corinthia thought of herself as many things—librarian, chocolate lover, dog rescuer, friend—but had never conceived of herself as someone who would be the exception to a rule.
