It’s then that I see some glowing in the twilight at the end of those green corridors. A faint blueish glow. Maybe it’s the effects of being stranded and alone for up to eleven minutes, but as I watch, the glowing light lengthens before my eyes and I think I can just make out the shape of a woman. As it moves away, I begin to follow it. Didn’t LadyB say that the ghost of the Blue Lady shows up when someone’s life is in mortal danger? Well, maybe if she’s a bit bored she sometimes turns up when someone has been seriously inconvenienced by their own stupidity. Maybe it seems a bit mad to (a) believe in ghosts and then (b) follow said ghost which (c) might just be the last of the evening sun streaming through the hedges, but it’s all I’ve got so I put my trust in my whimsical bookwormish side and follow her.
A pang of anxiety twangs at my gut as I imagine what Peter Harding’s face must have looked like as I sprinted away from him. And Lord B. Worst of all, Hal. Hal, who had been so brilliant and articulate, just looking at me running barefootthrough the grass. Hal, who for some strange reason that seems a lot more improbable than a ghost guide, might sort of fancy me? Or at least he did until that spectacular display of craziness.
There must be many downsides being a ghost, but at least social anxiety isn’t one of them.
“Ava!” I can hear Rani calling for me in the distance. That’s good. That means they aren’t going to call out air search and rescue to find me. In fact, if I started shouting really loud, she’d probably hear me, and then probably she’d come and get me with some other people who know their way around the maze, and I’d be back at dinner before you know it. But when I think of how people will look at me, and what they will think of me, even if they hide it, I’m less keen to go back to the party.
The blue light intensified for a moment a few feet in front of me, and I’m sure that for the briefest glimpse I can see a woman’s face smiling at me, and then it vanishes as quickly as it had appeared.
“Come back!” I call after her.
“Ava?” A voice comes from the other side of the hedge.
Of course, it’s Forrest’s voice. Of course it is. It would be Forrest who finds me barefoot and lost, wandering about in a frock that deserves so much better than this in the middle of a maze. Maybe if I stay quiet he will just go away. Closing my eyes, I hold my breath and try to become one with the hedge.
“I know you are there, Ava,” Forrest says. “You do realise that I can still see you even if you close your eyes, right?”
Opening my eyes, I see the top half of Forrest peering over the hedge at me.
“How are you...?”
“I’m balanced on one of the... argh!” Forrest plummets out of view. I hear a hard thud on the grass and some very creative swearing. “I was balanced on one of the urn things. Now, I think I might have dislocated my shoulder.”
“Well, what are you even doing in a maze?” I ask.
“Looking for you!” he says. “I saw you bolt off across the lawn in this direction, and thought if it were me having a freak-out, I’d go hide in the maze. I forgot that I have no useful sense of direction and would inevitably end up lost in here.”
“You’re lost too?” I ask.
“Yep,” he admits. “We’re in this together now.” I get a sense of him staring hard at the hedge. “Well, nearly together anyway. Are you okay?”
“Yes, I’m perfectly fine,” I snap back, defensive.
“Okay, excuse me for thinking that someone who sprints off to escape a mildly challenging conversation might not be totally tip-top,” Forrest replies. “I shouldn’t have bothered worrying about you.”
“You shouldn’t.” I agree with him for once. “Anyway, how do you know why I ran away? Does everybody know now?”
“Yep,” Forrest says.
“Oh God,” I groan. “You find a way out. I’m staying here.”
“Oh, don’t be so pathetic,” Forrest says.
“I beg your pardon?” I ask him, glaring at the greenery.
“Well, do you think you’re the first person in history to make an idiot of themselves in front of other people? Shit happens. Deal with it and move on. That’s my advice. Like, did I freak out and run away when I had wine all over me, thanks to you? No Ididn’t. I sucked it up and got on with it. And that’s what you have to do now.”
“I don’t have to do anything you tell me to do,” I grumble, because I know he’s right.
“No, you don’t,” he says. “And maybe you aren’t the woman that everyone says you are. Maybe you are just someone who’s going to give up and slink back to your lab and make out with your computer...”
“What the fuck?” I ask the privet.
“And if you are, I don’t care. Less competition for me. But either way, we are getting out of this maze now, okay? Because I am hungry, and you won’t like me when I’m hungry.”
“I don’t like you now,” I say. “So, if neither of us knows the way out, how are we going to get out? I was following the ghost of the Blue Lady but she vanished when you showed up. You probably scared her off.”
“Okay, I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that and proceed as if you are a rational human being,” Forrest says. “Right. Let’s apply logic to this problem. I got to you by turning right all the time. That means that all I need to do to get out is turn left on the way back, easy-peasy.”
