A scrub jay appeared on the path ahead.It was small, and pretty, and almost inexplicably sassy, and it kept hopping forward and looking back as if to see if Corinthia would follow.
For once, she listened to her instincts and did not shove them into darkness like overdue books in a return box.If she could accept the existence of unusual fence-smashings and lighted maze-forests, why resist a bird with a personality?Corinthia followed the bird.
When the incline finally increased, Corinthia took the hill with long strides, eager to reach the top.She would get her bearings.She would understand, finally, and never be troubled again by falling fences or nonsense in general.
She reached the top, turned a corner, and at last gained a clear view into the Refuge below.
And what she saw… made absolutely, positively, no sense at all.
16
Thefirstpartofthe view made sense.The path down the hill unfurled like a white carpet.At the bottom lay the larger of the two Ephemeral Wetlands, gemlike and shining, surrounded by tall pine trees.It was what was beneath the trees, beside the water, that made no sense.
A house, deep in the heart of the Refuge.
A little house, on a small rise, with tidy walls made of hedges and a roof thatched from living branches.There were two window-like openings on either side of a round-top door crafted of skinny oak trunks twisted tightly together.
Lupine, shiny blueberry, and lyonia grew in neat flower beds beneath the windows, and a path of dried pine straw led up to the door.The night wind brought the scents of pine, water, and flowers to Corinthia.
In a way, the house reminded her of home: a woodland twin, as small and simple as her own—and yet, all of it was impossible.
For a house to stand near one of the Ephemeral Wetlands was definitely impossible; Corinthia would have run smack into it, or at least glimpsed it, on one of her rambles.No one lived in the Refuge.
And yet, there it was.A green mansion.Or a green cottage, to be precise—snug and glowing and surrounded by tended patches of flowers.
This was wonderment beyond the ordinary, beyond what had ever existed in her range of experience up to that point, expanding over the border of normal and into the sublime.Her curiosity had woken like an animal from hibernation, stretching and taking its first tentative steps in a changed world.
Still not quite believing her eyes, Corinthia took out her phone.A perfectly acceptable phone camera should have been enough to capture the basic outlines of a house, even in the dark.As she pressed the shutter button, Corinthia suffered a split-second panic that the mere act of photographing the green cottage would make it disappear.
It did not disappear, but as far as the photo was concerned, it might as well have.Just as the Refuge had lost its depth in the daytime when recorded in two dimensions, so too did the shape of the house lose all definition.The picture looked like bushes that, perhaps, if you squinted,mighthave been a house—if you had a vivid imagination.
Corinthia surveyed the Refuge from her high vantage point.None of the paths looked like they had before.Like Castle Adventure, it seemed the maze had shifted.Venturing downward meant entering the unknown.
Was it possible to be both cautious and brave?
From below her came a flutter of wings.The scrub jay landed on the path down the hill and looked up at her expectantly.Then it cocked its head, pivoted, and hopped downhill, as if it had already decided that Corinthia would follow.In faint illumination the scrub jay was more silver than blue, washed out into the monochromatic shades of an old silver tea service.
She could at least be as brave as a scrub jay, Corinthia thought.So she followed the bird down the hill, attempting (in case anyone was watching) to look strong and unafraid.It worked quite well until she tripped on an exposed root and stumbled down the last of the incline and into the clearing.
The bird flew to the ledge of one of the windows, and without further ado, fluttered inside and was lost to sight.
Corinthia faced the house alone, a trick-or-treater with no costume or candy bucket.Heat lighting silently billowed through distant clouds, lighting them up from the inside.
So much had happened.It was a strange sensation, then, to feel as if even seemingly insignificant events had been leading, inexorably, to this moment: Drew’s book selection, the lost wallet, the words of Mr.Thriller during the panel, her spur-of-the-moment decision to sleep on the porch.Each was another step in the maze.
Now she was here, and there was a door before her.She told herself it wasn’t too late to turn back, to walk home, to pretend nothing had happened; to crawl into her own bed, in her own safe little house, and resolve never to set foot in the Refuge again.But just as she could not resist turning pages to find out what happened next, she could not resist knowing what might lie behind that door.
She took the last few steps across soft, dry pine straw, and knocked.
The surface of the door was uneven, being made of living and entwined branches, and felt rough on Corinthia’s knuckles.In case the muted knocking was not heard, Corinthia added her voice.“Hello?”
There was a rustling sound inside.
The door cracked open.Golden light shone through the opening and dazzled Corinthia’s vision into a moment of spangled blindness.She raised her hand to shield her eyes, and then the glow silhouetted someone with graceful, sweeping lines.
Rosemary stepped fully into the doorway.
Oh, Corinthia thought,it’s you.Because of course it was.
