“Guys?” said Ollie, turning.
Coco and Brian were gone.
The winds whispered in the cornstalks. “Guys?”
Silence.
Ollie began to backtrack. “Coco?” she called. “Brian?” Ollie could see only one set of footsteps, only hers, the print of her rain boots. Where had they gone? For that matter, where was the way they’d come in? For now, another wall of corn rose right in front of her, and she couldn’t see the house, or the barn. How was that possible? She’d—they’d—walked straight in, not turning. But now there were walls on two sides and Coco and Brian weren’t there.
Ollie felt close to panic. She spun, headed the other direction, deeper into the corn.Shush, went the stalks all around. Ollie thought she saw a dark shape up ahead.
She ran, calling, “Brian!” But it was only a scarecrow with a yellow backpack, staked upright, looking out over the field with sightless eyes. There was no other sound but the hissing corn and the whine of Ollie’s own breathing.
What if something had taken the others—just sneaked up through the corn and dragged them away? Something worse than the scarecrows?
The smiling man? Maybe he was watching her even now.
“Coco?” Ollie called again. “Brian?”
Someone yelled. “Ollie! Ollie!”
Ollie spun. “Coco?”
“Ollie!” the voice called again. Ollie began to run, calling her friends’ names.
She came to the place where the path split. Left or right? Rustling in the corn... Was that something coming up behind her?
Ollie chose a direction at random—left—and took off running. Her backpack thumped her back. “Brian! Coco!” The corn rattled. The sky blurred. Ollie passed a scarecrow, then another. Furiously, she kicked the last one down so that it lay still in the mud, looking up at the sky with its empty smiling face. Ollie was in a panic by then, alone, sobbing for air, stuck in the maze. She would never get out and all around her were the scarecrows with their snatching rake hands just waiting for the night to grab her and put her on a stake and make her a scarecrow forever.
Then Ollie put her foot in a hole, tripped, and came down hard. She could taste the salt of her tears. She lay a moment in the icy mud, crying. She was lost in a monster’s stupid corn maze and she was all alone. She wasn’t going to get out. Not before dark. What would her dad do when she never came back?
There was a sound coming from underneath her, a sound different from the sound of the wind in the corn.It took Ollie a moment to understand. One arm was stuck beneath her, the arm that wore her mother’s watch.
The watch was beeping, softly and steadily. Like a heartbeat. Like something calm.Don’t panic,Ollie’s mom had always told her.That’s the first rule of survival. Never panic.Ollie took a deep breath. That was probably what the smiling man wanted, for her to wear herself out running and being scared. Ollie sat up and then she stood. Her jeans were covered in cold, sticky mud. “I’m not scared,” Ollie said. “I’m not. I’m going to find the center. I’m getting out of here. We all are.”
She looked at her watch. The text readout was gone. In its place was a digital compass.
“Mom?” Ollie whispered. “Mom, if you’re here, please...”
No answer.Please what,Ollie thought, mad at herself.Please answer? Please drift out of the corn, a ghost?
Please don’t be dead?
The watch buzzed softly against Ollie’s wrist. The readout showed a compass needle, but instead of the normalNSEWdirections, there were only two:
There was anIwhere north should be. There was anOwhere south should be.
Ollie thought a minute and then she understood.INthe maze orOUT. MaybeOUTwas safer. No scarecrows. ButIN...INwas finding Brian and Coco.INwas maybe savingeveryone.INwas being brave. Like her mom had been brave. Always, always. Her mom was the bravest person Ollie had ever met. Ollie could be brave. Her mom was helping her. She was.
Ollie swung around untilINlined up with the path. “Show me,” she whispered.
22
OLLIE WALKED THROUGHthe corn for hours. There were a lot of scarecrows, and more and more seemed to appear as she went on. Though she never saw their heads move, they always watched her come and they always watched her go.
Sometimes she would call for Brian or Coco. No one answered. Ollie stopped once to drink from her water bottle. It was half-empty. She got cold, kept moving, wishing for pizza. It was definitely afternoon. But no countdown had appeared on her watch, just the directions leading her into the maze,INand steadilyIN.
The sun had begun to fall toward the horizon in a low autumn arc when she heard a new sound in the corn, like something big was moving through it. Then a long slow breath.
