u/Fizzy__1

The Festival of Omar is said to ward off Death.

On the second day of July, the people of my town don masks of bone and skin, feather and claw. They empty buckets of squirrel and deer and rabbit blood into the dried lakebed. They make innocent goats and cows and horses and whatever other faithful animals they can bear to part with wade into the blood. They tie the poor things to posts, wash them head to hoof in the blood, and, at the stroke of noon, plunge knives into their hearts. When the animals convulse and lose their strength and fall beneath the surface, the people exit the lake and leave the animals to drown. Take these lives, the Festival is supposed to tell Death, and leave ours alone.

More horrifying than any of that: it works.

Our mayor is two hundred and thirty-four years old. He’s purportedly older than the town itself, which has only ever known him as Mr. Florence. He had a first name once, but he claims to have forgotten it long ago. The yellowed portraits inside the town hall depict him as a tall, dashing, black-haired man with a charming—if crooked—smile. In my twenty-three years, I’ve never seen him as anything but a gray hunchbacked man with a limp and a drooping face. A drooping face that, once a year, he hides behind a deer-skull mask with finger bones for antlers. He wears it with a tuxedo older than my parents and a pair of immaculately maintained black dress shoes.

Historically at his side has always been his wife, wearing a black dress and with her wiry hair pulled into a pitiful bun atop her inflamed scalp. I never learned her name, because she couldn’t speak to tell it to me. Her throat had given out on her some thirty years before I was born. I admit to being terrified of her, and not just when I was a little girl. She was, to the town’s best estimations, one hundred and ninety-nine. It had taken her hours to walk from one side of town to the other, and she’d had a countenance of perpetual agony. Her eyes were those of someone who’d seen more than her mind could take, and I always felt in my heart that one day she’d inflict the same horrors onto the rest of us. But I’d been wrong, because she had died just last year.

It hadn’t happened inside the town’s borders, of course. That would have been impossible. The Festival abated Death, but the town did not harbor those who bore her Touch lest She use it to gain a foothold and tear down what the town’s spent hundreds of years building. Mr. Florence exiled his wife when they discovered cancer in her breast. Their own great-grandchildren carried out the task of dragging her from town and chaining her to a rock just outside our borders. When night fell, she’d been shivering and screaming silent pleas for help. Come morning, a withered husk, a gruesome imitation of a human body, lay where she’d been. Looking at it, you’d have thought it had been left there for decades, abandoned to the elements.

If Mr. Florence feels her loss, he’s never shown it. From my vantage point, I watch him lead a group of young men to the forest, where they’ll inflict unimaginable horrors onto the innocent wildlife. The Festival always lasts at least five hours. The one we’d had the year I’d turned fourteen had stretched until sunrise the following morning. The town had reeked of copper for weeks. The town square had been literally submerged in blood. Today, a group of girls and boys not much younger than my brother sit there and weave together the hair and fur from dozens and dozens of animals into a rope. What they plan to do with it, I don’t know.

“Why aren’t you with them?”

The voice makes me flinch. At my side, standing as if she’d been there for hours, is a woman with black hair down to her waist. She might be around my age, though it’s hard to tell. Her skin is sallow, her eyes sunken and bloodshot. Her tattered ankle-length black dress hangs loose on her skeletal frame. There is an air of fragility about her that goes beyond the physical.

“I’m not welcome,” I tell her.

“Why?” Her voice is light enough that the iron-scented breeze threatens to steal it away.

My family’s condition had been a secret once. Mother’s discolored skin and open scabs were easy enough to hide under her clothing. It became harder once the illness reached her face. Unreasonable once it reached her eyes and stole her sight. She stopped leaving the house, started relying on me for everything. That was extremely hard to cover. Not impossible, though. She hardly would have been the first villager to become sedentary after seeing four or five decades. There is a certain apathy that falls upon certain people after reaching a certain age. It seems a cruel sickness all its own, and one I pray never takes hold of me.

Then it spread to my brother. He is ten years younger than I and an accident, not that Mother ever told him. His growing sickness was impossible to hide. The bundle of energy and shaggy blonde hair that sprinted all across the village day in and day out? People took notice, and then they came to our house, and they found that hyperactive boy practically trapped in his bed. His legs bled through the blankets, and the holes in his skin oozed a mixture of pus and blood. They banished us. They didn’t drag us from the house and bodily throw us across the border. No, they wouldn’t dare touch us, grotesque as we were. Not lest they risk catching whatever curse had permeated the town’s protection. But Mr. Florence ordered our door kicked down, and the assembled mob had oil and torches and a proven tendency to violence. So I took hold of my blind mother in one hand and carried my infirm brother in the other, and I led them from our home.

Since the secret is secret no more, I tell it to the woman.

She listens in silence, dark eyes still on the festival far below. I don’t know why, but that silence irritates me. It scrapes at my skin like sandpaper.

“What about you?” I ask, barely resisting the urge to instead ask What’s wrong with you? Clearly, some disease or another was eating away at her. “What are you doing here? I know you don’t live in this village.”

“I’m not so different from you. I have no place I belong. So I travel where the winds take me.”

“They don’t like outsiders,” I tell her. My tone annoys me. Why am I so quick to sound triumphant, smug even? Was it really such an achievement to rub it in her face that she’ll find no more asylum here than I? I continue in a more neutral voice. “They won’t let you in. They’ll be afraid of… whatever you have.”

She doesn’t answer. Just eases herself onto her knees, still watching the carnage. Torn tendrils of her skirt fan out beside her like the wings of a dead bird. I sit down next to her.

I don’t know how long we stay there. Two hours, maybe. The sun moves across the sky but doesn’t yet start its descent. The Festival of Omar sees more blood soak into the ground, sees more hides torn from flesh. Sees Mr. Florence lead the town in burying a dozen or so deer carcasses right under the main street. The people, as always, work with a sort of fanatical excitement. It’s bloody, difficult work, but it comes with the promise of life everlasting. You never have to say goodbye to your husband or wife, to your children, to your friends. What was a little manual labor?

No one works harder than Adalina. She only has one hand and one eye, as her sister had chopped the other hand off with an axe, which she then swung into Adalina’s skull. I wasn’t born then and so don’t know the story behind all that, but Adalina lives her life as if in a trance. Each day is another chance to appease Omar. It is only his blessing that keeps her alive, and she lives to show her reverence, to ensure him she understands her debt. The giant mangled mass of skin that makes up the left side of her face is not a reminder of her suffering but of Omar’s mercy. The perfectly preserved hand she wears around her neck is a relic more divine than anything you’ll find in a church. Today, Adalina moves with an intensity that would be impressive in someone a quarter her age.

I look over to the dark-haired woman beside me, and I flinch yet again. She’s crying.

“Why?” is all I can ask.

“It’s heartbreaking.” She gestures with a bony, shaky hand to the town. “So many people, living such long lives with nothing but fear in their hearts. Death would be a gentle release.”

I stare at her, my mind running aimless circles in an effort to make sense of that. “Who are you?” I ask.

She raises a sad smile at me. “I’d like you to call me Raven.”

*

The town has been steadily growing the past hundred years, but at some point in time it had been much bigger. There are dozens of abandoned caves, hovels, and shacks from that bygone era, mostly near the outskirts. On the day my family was banished, I was lucky enough to find such a shack nestled between two hills and hidden behind a small community of trees and burr weeds. It’s even close to a pond, so we have water. I did my best to patch the roof and board up the windows, and it came with two rickety beds and a table with four chairs. Between all that and the cooking pot I made Mother carry from our old home, it isn’t that much worse than what we’re used to. Or so I tell myself.

The air inside is stale. It had been before we moved in, and the constant reek of my brother’s waste hasn’t helped the matter. Mother has enough acuity to hobble outside to relieve herself, but he hasn’t moved from his bed in over a year. The smell right now is a hair more rotten than usual, which tells me his bowels recently released. I try to be here when that happens so I can clean it before it can seep in too deeply to the sheets. It’s a pain to replace or clean them. But he’s a boy, not a clock, and the human body is an unreliable thing.

Mother is asleep, so I go right to his bed, carrying a bucket of water with me. He smiles when the floorboards creak under his bed. That’s how close I have to get for him to hear; one of his ears wasn’t much more than an open wound, and the other, I’d cut off a little more than a year ago in an attempt to stop the spread. It hadn’t helped, not that I could tell. “Mallory,” he says, turning his head vaguely in my direction.

“Hey, you.”

“Did they do it?”

I pat his arm. “Omar will be very happy with what he saw today. You’re not going anywhere.”

A look of relief falls over his features. It would be indistinguishable to anyone but me. He can only be so expressive with a twisted face and missing nose. “Was everyone there?”

“Every last one of them.” I kneel at his side and gingerly run my fingers through what’s left of his hair. A month ago, I accidentally pulled out an entire clump of his hair doing this. I don’t think he even felt it, but I’m more careful now. The remaining locks have grown duller and darker, appearing almost brown now. “I saw Conrad with his sisters.”

His chin inclines almost a full inch in his excitement.

“He’s gotten tall.”

“Really?” he asks incredulously.

I nod even though he can’t see it. Conrad used to be the shortest boy in town, coming up barely to my brother’s shoulder despite the two being born only weeks apart. “Broad, too. Just like his dad. He was digging those holes faster than anyone else.”

A faint smile pulls at my brother’s lips. “Wish I coulda been out there with him.” He waits, listening for more.

“I think Mr. Florence has even less hair than the last time I saw him. I hope he likes the bald look, because he’ll be stuck with it for the rest of time. His wife is just as elegant as ever, though.” I haven’t told him. I probably never will. “The Smiths helped make the blood lake this time.” He gives a tiny nod of appreciation; the Smith boys had been begging for the honor of making the blood lake for years. I actually hadn’t even thought to look if the Smiths had done it this year. It just seemed the sort of thing my brother would want to hear. “Do you remember Tate? The shopkeeper?” I know full well he knows Tate. The store had once been his favorite mid-day refuge from the summer sun. I haven’t seen Tate in months. Frankly, I don’t even know if he’s still here. The jovial, portly, curly-haired man might have been banished just as we have, for all I know. But I go on telling my brother how Tate had the idea to set up a stand during the Festival. Other holidays generate commerce, I tell my brother through my best approximation of a quote from Tate. Why not the Festival? He sold ornate little knives made of bone, circlets wound from twigs his daughter collected from the woods, beer he’d figured out how to brew himself—which Harold the tavern master did not appreciate.

I speak to keep him occupied as I lift his legs and take a rag to the sheets and his pants followed by his legs. There isn’t all that much to clean. I’ve seen much worse. It takes just a few minutes to do the extent of what I can with what I have. I readjust him in bed. He doesn’t seem to mind the dampness left behind. It wouldn’t matter much if he did. I’m not about to go into town this close to the Festival to buy new sheets. With how riled up the people get, I wouldn’t put it past them to tie me up and offer me up as one of the sacrifices. It’s for that same reason I haven’t gone out in public in over a week. They only begrudgingly let me visit the shops because I’ve told them my family already died and I’m living out in the farthest reaches of the forest.

After, I empty the bucket outside. I kneel at the edge of the pond and run my hands through the chill water, washing what I can off my skin. A blur of motion catches my attention: a frog takes off from its hiding place in the rocks and toward deeper water. I lunge for him. My first attempt to grab him misses. I get him with the second, but he slips through my fingers as I lift him. Before he hits the surface of the water again, I snatch him up and cup my hands around him. He’s trapped now. I can’t help but think of the animals killed during the Festival as I hurry back inside with my catch. Animals killed with meaning don’t count toward appeasing Omar. He’s a bit prissy and only likes things meant specifically for him. So the frog’s only purpose is helping my family not go hungry. I consider that to be equally worthy, but even so, I apologize to the frog before I take his head off, and I silently thank whatever other forces are at work in the universe that allowed me to find meat. It makes for a great accompaniment to the hard cheese and dried vegetables from my last visit to town.

It’s difficult for my brother to chew, but he doesn’t complain. He rarely does. Not like my mother. I go to her bedside and lightly shake her shoulder to wake her. She turns her sightless face to me and makes the same noise as always when she returns to the waking world and remembers her life. It’s a type of gritty raspy exhalation of breath that I call her growl. She weakly but incessantly tries to push my arm away. As gingerly as I can—who am I kidding, it’s not that gingerly—I pin her arm to the bed and push food past her lips. I hold my palm over her mouth until she chews and then swallows. Even without eyes, she glares at me. There’s a burning intensity to it that used to give me chills. When I finally remove my hand, she sits up and, growling, stands. She feels her way over to my brother’s bed, then kneels just as I had. She sets a two-fingered hand on his arm, and he perks up. She still has a way of bringing a light to his face that I simply don’t possess. He loves her more than me, even now. It’s not fair to expect a child to love anyone more than his mother, but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t twist a knife in my chest.

I go to my chair at the table—the chair that faces the door—and look at the last bit of food in the bowl. There was no frog meat left. I bring the salty greens to my mouth and chew them as I try not to listen to my mother rasp incoherently to my brother. Her “words” are meant for him, not me. It only takes me a minute to eat, another five for my mother to return to her bed and lie down. Within moments, her soft snoring fills the room as if it was thunder.

I lay my head on the table and close my eyes. It’s a great while before sleep finds me.

*

I hold out as long as I can before venturing back into town. The crusty bed sheets and lack of food eventually force my hand. The latter is essential. The former, I’ve been deliberating on for weeks. I have, before, completely stripped my brother’s bed and carried it to a lake within the forest to clean. It helps, but only so much, and it’s always done with a little guilt. I have to make him go hungry and thirsty beforehand so he doesn’t end up soiling the bed itself while the bedding dries, and the sheets bear so many stains. He doesn’t know what the sheets look like. But I do, and it wears at me. Little by little. Until finally I lose the fight with myself. We’ll run out of money eventually, I told myself last night while listening to my brother and mother’s raspy breathing. Whether it’s a week or a month from now, it’ll hardly make a difference in the eternity of the rest of our lives.

It rained hard the night before, so I dip myself into the pond before departing. It’s a little after midday when I do, so lunch has passed and most people will be busy with work. First, I walk away from town, circling to the south and coming up from the main road to give the appearance of living out in the heart of the forest. It isn’t a difficult sell. There are more hills in all other directions, and the nearest settlement is far, far from our town. The prickly woods are the only place a banished person could realistically find the means to survive locally.

The coin purse I inherited/commandeered from my mother is pathetically light. The coins would fit inside a pocket at this point. Discarding the purse would also be to discard myself of the memories of being a little girl, holding my mother’s arm as we walk to the stores. She clutches that same purse tightly to keep my jumping and jostling from sending it flying. She smiles more in my memories. She even laughs on occasion.

Moreover, in the present, I keep a hold of the now-worn purse for safety. Anyone who sees me holding it knows I’m here for pedestrian reasons, rather than somehow trying to pop the bubble of their blessing with my accursed soul. No one here talks to me unless I’m buying from them. Most don’t even look at me, as if I’ll pass Death to them through eye contact. But the few who do look at me do it with one of two emotions. The first is open and hostile scorn, which is preferable. The second is something I don’t have a name for. It’s a mixture of pity and detachment. The way you might look at a squirrel that has been flattened by a wagon wheel and now lies dying under the sun. There’s nothing you can do for this unfortunate little creature, so you just carry on with your day.

I enter the little general store that’s five buildings away from the town hall. Behind the counter is an auburn-haired woman who shares my date of birth, from the year to the month to the day. Growing up, I played with her more than anyone else, as though the proximity of our birth was some kind of binding connection akin to what twins share.

Kathryn glances up when the door opens, then snaps her gaze to the counter’s unremarkable surface. She pretends to clean something with a rag. Pretends to become fixated in smoothing out her braid, which doesn’t have a hair out of place. When I approach her to make my purchase, she responds in dry mumbles that make it seem like she’s talking to herself. I make my own mumbles, apologize for getting her floor wet, and leave. As the door swings shut behind me, I don’t know if I feel lighter or heavier than when I was inside.

Head bowed, I retrace the route I took through town, avoiding the places most likely to have crowds. I make it into the forest but not yet outside the boundary of protection when I feel a gaze upon me. It feels different from what I normally get, so against my better judgement I search for its source. Maybe thirty feet away, standing still as a scarecrow beneath the shade of a birch tree, is the black-haired girl from the other day. Raven, isn’t it? She watches me watching her. I walk over, not sure why I’m bothering.

“You’re still here,” I say by way of greeting.

“I am.”

There is a pause. I find it awkward. She doesn’t seem bothered. “Are you moving into town?” I ask, not knowing what else to say.

“I would not be welcome here.”

“You’ve tried, then?”

“No.”

“… Have you spoken with anyone?”

“You’re the only one who’s noticed me.”

Has she been hiding on the outskirts of town as I have? Why would someone come here, if not for Omar’s blessing? “Where are you from?”

She hmms softly. “I’ve never settled in one place. The world is too big for me to confine myself.”

“Ah,” is all I can come up with. After another pause, I’m about to ask if she heard of the Festival and if it was why she came here in the first place, or if the sights the other day were just an unfortunate coincidence for her.

She smiles. It twists the thin skin of her face into something only marginally less frightening than a Festival mask. “Do you know what the ocean is?”

The ocean? “Water.”

“A lot of water.”

“That’s… nice.”

“It’s a wonderful sight. The waters are a different color from any other body of water, and they stretch on further than the human eye can see. And there are always waves. They rise up, bigger than a house, and crash down, one after another, as powerful as they are beautiful. There is nothing else in the world quite like it.”

I glance back over my shoulder toward the big lake on the opposite side of town. I obviously can’t see it from here, but I remember it just fine. Men fish in the depths. Children play in the shallows. Women wash clothes and dishes along the bank. I’ve always thought it was a huge lake, but you can stand on one shore and see the other side just fine. Its waves never get anywhere near the size of a house. “Is that so?”

When I turn my gaze back to her, Raven is kneeling. Her posture is prim and proper, her back straight as an arrow. She’s looking up at me almost expectantly. So I sit down next to her, setting my basket at my side.

“You must have spent time at the ocean,” I say.

“Frequently enough. It’s difficult to stay away. People gravitate to it, no matter where or when they are. It’s human nature to seek it out.”

“It must really be something.”

“It is. I think you would enjoy seeing it. The whales in particular.”

For a moment I think I misheard her say waves again. “Whales?”

“They’re dozens of feet long and expel enough water in a single breath to fill a bathtub.”

I frown. “Whales?” I repeat, stupefied.

She nods once, birdlike. “You would probably compare them to fish, though they are unapologetically unique.”

“Fish, that are dozens of feet long.”

“I’ve known a few to grow near a hundred.”

She does not strike me as the type to joke, so is she lying or insane? I stare at her as she peers around at our wooded surroundings. She must be insane. Whatever ails her has reached her brain. “Whales,” I say yet again.

“Whales, my dear parrot. I believe you would be fond of them.”

There’s just something about her that makes it difficult for me to think she’s crazy. It’s true that this town doesn’t get many visitors, and the ones it does don’t tend to stay long or tell many stories. I understand the world is quite large, and this town is an insignificant little speck on the map. Surely there are things I’ve never heard of. But one-hundred-foot-long fish that aren’t actually fish and that expel water? What’s next, horses with ten-foot necks?

“I think I would be,” I finally answer.

We sit in peace for a while longer, intruders in a town that would be terrified at the sight of us.

*

I return just as my mother is going inside. I see the exact moment she realizes I’m there and her entire being darkens. I pretend I’m imagining it. I have to pretend I’m imagining it. She sulks back inside, and I close the door behind us, loud enough to make sure my brother can hear it. He doesn’t react. His face is tight with pain and turned to the ceiling. That happens sometimes. No one has the strength to wear their brave face all the time.

Fortune was kind enough to let me procure fresh milk and day-old bread in town, so I make milk porridge over a small fire. It’s timely, as my brother never wants to chew when he’s like this. I let the porridge cool just a little, then take it to him. I kneel at his side and hold it closer to his face so he can smell. He doesn’t react but to tighten his mouth in protest.

“Lunch,” I prompt.

His blank stare stays locked on the ceiling.

“It’s your favorite, steak and buttered potatoes,” I say in an attempt to coax out any kind of response. Still no luck. “Growing boys need to eat. Open up.” I dip the spoon into the pot and am just starting to raise it when he speaks.

“I want to run again.” It’s a single, emotionless whisper, and it hurts me dearly.

“… I know you do.”

“I want to see Conrad.” He sniffs. “And Norm. And Jenna. And–”

“I know you do.”

He grows too still as he tries to hold in his emotions. “I want to swim again. I want to…” He squeezes his eyeless lids shut. Stays silent for five seconds. Ten.

“The food’s ready,” I weakly say. I never know what to do when this happens. When he doesn’t answer, I bring the spoon to his lips. I lightly press it against his mouth to let him know it’s there. “You need to eat.”

Almost imperceptibly he shakes his head.

“You need to eat.”

“No,” he says in a barely contained voice.

“You don’t want to turn into a skeleton, do you?” I try to sound amused at the idea. “All skin and bones, and… and….” All right, so I’m not very funny. But he still has to eat, so I try to use the spoon to push open his mouth.

Faster than I’ve seen him move in years, he slaps the spoon from my hand. Porridge splatters my face, and the spoon clatters against the stones by the cooking spit. I’m too surprised to do anything but blink.

“Oh,” I murmur, rising and retrieving the spoon. It has a little dirt on it. I brush it off with my sleeve. Awkwardly, I return to his side. “I know this isn’t fun, but–”

“No.”

“You need to eat.”

“No.”

“It’s going to get cold.”

“I don’t care.”

I exhale, then try to move the spoon to his mouth again. He swats at it before it even reaches his skin. Another glob of porridge hits me, right above my lips. It runs down into my mouth, and it tastes just like the bland moosh it is. “You’re wasting food.”

He turns his face away from me.

I’m just about to give up on him for now and go to my mother, but she’s already sitting up in bed and glaring at me with those nonexistent eyes. I loathe that look. It’s judgmental and resentful and hateful. She hates anytime I do anything with her boy. I don’t see her volunteering to take care of him, though. Not to cook, nor to do the washing, nor the sweeping, nor the shopping, nor the frog catching, nor anything else. She just seethes in my general direction all hours of the day.

“Mom doesn’t want to eat,” I tell him, lightly reaching out and cupping his cheek. I turn his unwilling face back toward me. “I know you’re hurting, but you need to eat to be strong enough to fight through it. All right? This is good for you.” I’m talking to him like he’s a child half his age, but what else am I supposed to say? “Just open your mouth, please.” I try yet again with the spoon. Touch it to his lips. He lies still as stone, face blank but for that slight twinge of pain. “Please, just–”

He thrashes. The spoon goes flying again as his arms lash out without aim, flung with no coordination and powered by desperate anger. One arm hits my sternum with surprising force, and the other swats the pot off my lap. He keeps flailing, but in that moment, my entire world shrinks to just the pot, slamming face-down onto the floor and bouncing up. Porridge flies everywhere.

“God. DAMMIT.” I’m on my feet without knowing how. “Why? Why would you do that?” I hover above my brother. The twisted, mutilated thing that used to be my brother. The angry, ungrateful… bedridden, suffering, miserable boy who’s clearly trying not to cry.

I’m a monster.

“I’m sorry,” I try to say. Shame seals my throat shut, so I cough and try again. “I’m sorry. It’s all right. I’ll-I’ll just heat it back up later.” I pick the spoon up yet again and start scraping the porridge back in the pot. Tears well in my own eyes. I blink to keep them back, to keep them from falling into the porridge and ruining it further.

My mother growls.

I grow still. A strange feeling falls over me as I stand back up. She’s quivering with rage, glaring toward me. She points with that mangled hand of hers, moving it like she’s trying to wave me off.

“What?” I snap. Distantly, I’m aware of the way the pot clatters as I drop it on the table. “What?” I say again, now hovering over her. “You want to do it instead?”

She just quivers more, craning her neck to follow my voice.

“Why don’t you do it, then? Why don’t you do something instead of just–just.”

I turn away before I do something else I regret, leaving her bedside to sit in my chair opposite the door. I’d claimed this one when we first moved in. It lets me keep an eye on the door, should it fly open one day and allow in an angry mob. I don’t know what I thought I’d be able to do if that happened, but it never has. No one knows about this little shack. This insignificant little shack filled with insignificant, pathetic little people.

My nose tells me that, at some point, I need to change my brother’s bedding. Of course. I’m not about to pick that fight right now. I just sit. Just sit and wait as my eternal life passes by.

I’ll do better tomorrow.

Erin woke up in an empty hallway. The floor was cold, hard metal. As were the cramped walls, leading on and on to both her left and right. The ceiling—well, she couldn’t tell what that was made of. She couldn’t see it. The walls were too tall, their tops too shadowed. The only light came from the occasional torch sconce. She hadn’t the foggiest idea where she was, but that didn’t surprise her. Since the events of that one October, she hadn’t had anything that more sophisticated people would have called a stable home. After months and months of couch surfing and barhopping, Erin was no stranger to waking up in unusual places, no siree. She actually considered herself lucky just now, for she’d woken up without a pounding headache. This wasn’t even the strangest house she’d come to inside of. So this newest guy was a Dungeons & Dragons nerd, so what? This was nothing compared to that Mormon she spent the night with last month. Thinking about that made her shiver. But still, she wished she could remember something about Mystery Man. His name, for instance. Or how the heck she’d wound up on the floor of his hallway.

What did she last remember? There’d been loud noises, a gaggle of people around her, something bitter in her mouth. Hadn’t she gone to that new club on the edge of town? Right. People had been raving about the special new drink at Dionysus’s Vineyard. It was an outdoor nightclub set up inside of a sprawling formerly empty field. Bright lights, intense scents, loud music, a crowd so big and thick it was like a pit of wriggling limbs. It had cropped up overnight and became an instant hit, and it was exactly the kind of place Erin’s folks would turn their noses up at and tell Teenage Erin she’d be disowned if she was ever spotted visiting. Been there, done that, old news. But whatever that special drink was, it really was special, for her to black out yet wake up without a hangover. It left her faculties free to find a way out of here. No more tripping over Gam-Gam’s wheelchair and snapping the old bird’s hip.

Now, in Erin’s defense, she didn’t actually know if she’d broken Gam-Gam’s hip. She’d run out into the night before the old woman’s screams could wake up—what was his name?—Douglas.

Erin stood and sized up the dark hallway, daring it to give up its secrets. It didn’t, but at least it looked nice. The walls were marked with decorative carvings, featuring lines of people moving toward scenes that she couldn’t quite squint hard enough to make out. Past them, at the far end of the hallway, was a path branching sharply to the left and right. She ambled toward it, her back aching in a way that reminded her Teenage Erin was dead and buried. She hoped she’d find a sign at the intersection, maybe something pointing to Ye Olde Spa and Massage. But she found nothing. With a sigh, she went right. After maybe another thirty feet, there was another left-right intersection. She kept right. She always went right, because she was always right. She chuckled to herself but stopped when her laughter echoed sinisterly off the walls. Maybe it was a shame after all that she couldn’t remember last night: the acoustics were killer.

On and on she went, always going right when presented with a choice. Occasionally, a loud banging carried through the halls. It always seemed to come from behind her. The first couple times, she ignored it, writing it off as plumbing or the house settling or something. But at the third or fourth bang, she swore she heard footsteps drawing near. She turned around, putting on her I’m-so-happy-to-see-you face. The hall behind her was empty, and she let the expression sour like milk. Mystery Man was a little too mysterious for her liking. But she decided to give ol M.M. the benefit of the doubt and assume he just got lost, too. He really needed to consult with an interior decorator. The feng shui here sucked.

She called out, the sound of her voice surely like the first notes of a song, like a lighthouse in a storm, to her would-be Romeo. No response came. Grumbling, she backtracked to where she’d thought the footsteps had been. She called out again. Nothing. The hallway was still void of anything of particular interest, and she was becoming void of patience. Where was he? If this was some kind of post-freak game, she wasn’t a fan. Then, just as she was turning around, a loud crash came from somewhere to her left. “There you are,” she hissed as she deviated from her course and went after it.

Finally, she saw an opening, just up ahead. She hurried forward, only to be knocked off her feet as a tremendous bang made the floor shake. Her hands flew up to catch herself on the wall. Luckily for whatever may or may not have still been in her stomach, the quake subsided after just a few seconds. Quickly replacing them was a pair of heavy footsteps rushing toward her. Their rapid bang bang bangs ricocheted around the metal tunnels, sounding like a machine gun. Good. M.M. was finally deciding to show himself, and Erin could give him a piece of her mind. She stood, squared her shoulders, and marched forward.

She entered a square room about twenty feet across, with hallways feeding into it at forty-five-degree angles at each corner. It was empty but for the wide, circular fountain in the center. It was made of gold- and silver-colored bricks, alternating around each other in a grid pattern that wove up from the floor for about three feet and elegantly expanded into a broad rim. Twelve miniature bull statues stood on the lip, like clocks on a hand. The glimmering little silver bull at four O’clock spewed water into the fountain. As she watched, he closed his mouth, and the golden five O’clock bull took over. She found herself drifting forward, enchanted. She sat on the edge of the fountain and ran her fingers through the water. It was cold and clear. The bricks at the bottom glistened and reflected her own face back at her. And, as she watched, they reflected the face of a giant, hulking shape that crept behind her. One giant, meaty hand reached for her.

“Hey, you!” she exclaimed, whipping her head around to see M.M. But he was already gone. Only the faint body heat left behind and the briefest thud thud of retreating footsteps let her know she hadn’t just hallucinated him. She looked back to the reflective bricks. Nope. No M.M. here. Just Erin, staring into her own eyes. “Hello?” she called out, watching her own mouth form the words. “Mystery Man? Owner of this…” Shit hole. Waste of space. Arbitrary and ostentatious display of a comically absurd level of wealth that wasn’t even impressive in someone of an age to court Erin as it could only have come from inheritance rather than hard work and applied know-how. “… lovely dungeon?” She was met with only an echo. “Are you shy? Hmmm?” Shrugging, she hopped back to her feet and walked into the hall opposite the one from which she’d entered. It was a bit nauseating, realizing all the halls were going diagonally. The walls themselves were so straight, she’d hadn’t noticed until she’d been in the fountain room, but now it was impossible to ignore. Each hall, each intersection, all at angles that made her suddenly feel claustrophobic.

“When I find you,” she said under her breath, leaning on the wall as she went, “I am gonna let you have it.”

Three intersections out from the fountain, she caught just a glimpse of a giant, shaggy shape at the end of the opposite hall. She sighed and went for it, then turned right, which she was only pretty sure is the direction he’d run. At the next intersection, she stopped to listen. Hearing nothing, she decided to go (relative to her position) north. She kept to that direction as long as she could. When there was a loud bang from maybe thirty feet behind her, she didn’t even dignify it by looking back. She just kept going. Either she was getting out of here, or M.M. would have to give her a damned good reason not to.

It was maybe another five minutes before she came to what appeared to be the outer wall of the dungeon. It was at a complementary angle to the hallways she’d been navigating, and it was made out of a different kind of metal. It was duller and lacking in any ornamentation. She felt around it to—she didn’t know—search for hidden switches or something, and a monstrous roar bellowed from deeper inside the maze. It was like an elephant but with far, far more bass. It made her entire body jolt. The hell was that, a mating call? Following it were M.M.’s signature heavy footsteps, rushing toward her location.

Screw it, why not? Erin took a breath, then let out a roar of her own. It was about four octaves higher and far less impressive, but hopefully he’d appreciate her participating in whatever game he was playing. She cupped her hands around her mouth and bellowed with all she had, going and going until she was out of air. Lightheaded, she fell back against the wall, sliding down to a sitting position. M.M.’s footsteps had stopped. He gave no return cry.

“Oh-kay, fine” she rasped. “I try to play along, and you ghost me. Guess I’ll just go fuck myself.”

Once she caught her breath, she followed the outer wall to the right. The thundering footsteps started up again, but she didn’t even care. She pretended they weren’t drawing nearer and nearer. She just kept on walking, keeping her hand on the wall, running her fingers across it—until suddenly they met open air. She turned to find a staircase. It was too dark to see the top. What she could make out was that it was steep and very, very tall. Was this the exit? Only one way to find out.

She was about a hundred and sixty steps up, and her calves were on fire, when she came to a landing. There was another hallway, maybe fifty feet long, that led to a door. She could actually see the ceiling now, as it was only ten feet high. Hoping it was the way out, Erin went for the door. She was halfway to it when something snorted behind her.

M.M. stood glowering at the mouth of the landing, his face and most of his body obscured by the darkness of the corridor. His bulky frame barely fit within the walls. He was leaning slightly forward, like he was about to run to her.

She really wasn’t in the mood to people-please anymore, but she pasted on a smile anyway. “Hey, you,” she said, trying and failing not to let her fatigue show in her voice. And for some reason, he flinched. She tilted her head. What, was he playing hard to get, after all this time? Making her chase him around some weird medieval dungeon. That was so conceited, so aggravating… that it was strangely intriguing. He was convinced he was enough of a catch to put her through all this. Confidence didn’t just grow on trees, you know. “You really are shy, aren’t you? It’s okay. I don’t bite. Unless you ask me to.”

Still no response.

Until he took one hesitant step forward. She smiled encouragingly, hoping he could see it. But just then, there came a great rumble, and the ceiling started to come down. Just one section, about ten feet in length and descending rather quickly directly behind her. M.M. growled and lunged forward, then paused when he saw she wasn’t running. She just watched as the path to the door was closed off.

“Is it supposed to do that?” she asked him. “It is, right? Keeps the riffraff out? Makes sure no one bothers us?”

He just stared. Slowly, slowly, he backed up, turned around, and clomped down the stairs. As soon as he was out of sight, the lowered part of the ceiling ascended back to where it belonged.

“Hmm.”

She eyed the door, weighing her options. She did not, in the end, have that much of a choice at all. Pain-in the-butt that M.M was, she couldn’t leave without speaking with her man of mystery face-to-face at least once, not after he put on such a performance. So back down the stairs she went, and, on a hunch, she followed the hallways inward until they finally led her back to the fountain plaza. Sure enough, M.M. was there. His broad, muscular, hairy back was to her as he peered into the fountain.

“Why do you not run?” he asked. His guttural voice sent a thrill through her, a thrill that grew into a current of electricity that travelled through her veins when he turned to regard her.

He was easily the tallest man Erin had ever seen, standing at about eight feet. His shoulders were broad and hairy. His arms were thick and covered in coarse black hair. His bare chest and midriff were muscular and furry as a carpet. His legs were shapely in a manly way and covered in, you guessed it, hair. Mystery Man put to shame any man she’d ever found attractive. So what if he wore a skirt made of fake bones? And so what if he wore a silly horned helmet? And so what if he had on some kind of horse mask? Erin wasn’t one to shame a little harmless roleplay. Some of the most fun she’d ever had came on the heels of meetings with people one might judgmentally consider strange.

She really wished she could remember last night.

It took a moment to find her voice. “Hey, you,” she tried yet again.

He lowered his snout-like nose. “Why?” he repeated.

She flashed him a smile.  “No need to chase me. I’m all yours.”

He regarded her. At least, she was pretty sure that’s what he was doing. It was hard to tell when she couldn’t see his actual face behind the mass of leather. “Most women flee when they see me,” he said haltingly. “My visage is too much for them to handle.” He was speaking in some accent he couldn’t place. Something European, maybe.

She took another step closer. “Oh, I can handle it. If you ask me, there’s no such thing as too much man.”

“I am no man.”

He didn’t have to convince her he was a god—she was sold! She stepped closer still. “What are you, then?” She stopped next to the fountain. The sound of running water made her realize she hadn’t peed since yesterday evening, but she tried not to let that distract her.

He inhaled deeply. His mask seemed to be glaring at her. “I am named Asterion, though I became known as the Bull of Minos.”

Erin didn’t know what a Minos was, but the straining man skirt suggested he could put a bull to shame. “Uh huh.” He was clearly trying to make his presence a dominating one. She could get down with that.

He continued. “Your people have since taken to calling me the Minotaur.”

She lowered her chin, looking up at him with the demurest expression she had. “Mmhmm.”

Now he stepped toward her. His footsteps sounded unlike her own. She looked down and saw why: instead of five normal toes per foot, he had two giant ones that looked to be covered in enormous callouses. That was a little unusual, she had to admit, but who among us is perfect? Certainly not Erin, as her family would waste no time in reminding you.

She flashed him a cheeky grin. “I’ll call you whatever you want, big boy. Just as long as we can speed this up.”

He squinted. Lord, even his facemask was hairy. And its eyes were so beady and bloodshot. “Speed this up?” Mystery Man repeated. “My sacrifices are normally terrified of being eaten. They run and scream insults, and I chase. I must admit, the chase is my favorite part.”

“But I already told you! No need to chase me, I’m all yours. I’ll even call you Asterisk, or whatever, if that’s what you want.”

“Asterion.”

“Yeah, that.” She stepped up to him and placed her hand on his granite chest. “You can educate me on all your big words after we’ve—”

He backed away, frowning. “You are strange, woman.”

Didn’t she know it. “Am I going too fast for you? Did Mommy raise a gentleman?”

He averted his gaze, his mask somehow looking conflicted. “I never met my mother. I only know of her from legend and rumor.”

She tried to rest her hand on his arm, but he stepped back again, sniffing. Was he crying? She supposed she shouldn’t be surprised he was into method acting. “That sounds very difficult, Asterion. You know… if you want, I could be your mommy.”

“You could never take her place.” He glared at her. “She was a queen.”

Erin threw her hands up and plopped down on the edge of the fountain. “Look, Minnie Tori.” She let the words hang. “I’m trying to play along here, but you’re making this really hard. I am many things, dude, but I am not a mind reader.”

“This is no game, you strumpet.” His mask’s eyes seemed to darken. “Do you truly care so little about your own life that you would antagonize me?”

“You know what?” she snapped back. “Maybe I am a strumpet! What’s wrong with that? Maybe I like being a strumpet! Maybe I enjoy being a harlot. Perhaps I’m even fond of being a bit of a hussy. Every day is an adventure! Is that so bad? Why, oh why, do people always assume that I don’t care about myself? That there’s something wrong with me? Honestly! What is with people and assumptions?”

He just glowered.

She waved a hand. “Whatever. Go ahead.”

“My mother,” he resumed in a slow, barely contained voice, “was Queen Pasiphae—”

“Pacific,” Erin said.

“You’re doing that on purpose,” he spat. “Pasiphae! And she was tricked by the gods into having a child with a bull.” He banged his fist against his chest. “She was disgusted and wanted nothing to do with me. Who could blame her? So.” He gestured vaguely around him. “King Minos had this maze—the Labyrinth—built to imprison the monster inside.”

Erin stared blankly at him. This was ridiculous. Minnietour this, Ass-Star that. Labyrinth. Who even likes that movie? “Right,” she said instead, patting the fountain. Reluctantly, he sat next to her, shoulders hunched. The little 2 o’clock bull stood between them. Now she thought of it, the little clock-bulls were designed to look exactly like him. “Sounds like you have some issues with your parents. Don’t we all? My mom—she hates everything about me. My dad? Total tool. So you know what I say? Screw em! The important thing is to focus on what makes your life worthwhile.” She ran her finger provocatively up and down the little silver bull. “This fountain is lovely! This whole maze-thing is really, um, comfortable. And, uh, pretty.”

He straightened, stunned. “It is quite comely, isn’t it? The sacrifices who end up here always seem to find it depressing and soul-crushing.”

“Yeah, comely! Your mom couldn’t have hated you too much if she and that king had such a nice place made for you, right?”

The giant man got lost in thought. “I suppose there is some truth to that.”

She touched his arm again. “Besides, I don’t think you’re a freak.”

He looked sidelong at her. “You don’t? All the other sacrifices did.”

“I’m not like most women.”

“Some of the sacrifices are men.”

That was cool. What difference did it make? She leaned against him, her heart starting to race. “I guess I’m just saying that when people ‘run and scream insults’ you just gotta tell em to buzz off. Sure, they can be annoying, but you save your energy for what really matters.” She grinned at him and reached for his hat. “Like, right now, the only people I care about are me, and you. So how about we take the costume off and get this show on the road.” She yanked at the horns, but they didn’t come off. She tried again. And again. He growled. “This… isn’t a hat, is it?”

“No.”

“You have horns.”

“Yes.”

“We’re not role playing, are we?”

“I do not know what that means.”

“You’re an actual bull, aren’t you?”

“Minotaur.”

She released his horns, and his hand shot up. His thick fingers wrapped around her wrist with a grip that could turn steel to putty. “You don’t really feed on the people who get thrown down here, do you?” she asked, wincing. “You don’t strike me as that kind of guy.”

“Feed,” he repeated.

Deep down, Erin always wondered if maybe those judgmental people had been right, that her lifestyle would get her into trouble. But at least this trouble had come on her own terms. That had to mean something. She closed her eyes, accepting her fate.

The pressure on her arm vanished.

“Go,” he grumbled. “I’m not in the mood.”

Erin stood, rubbing her wrist, staring at him, even as he turned his gaze to the ground. “Go?” she repeated stupidly.

“Go.” He waved a burly hand. “You know the way out. Go, and leave me to my eternal fate.”

She didn’t go. She stayed planted.

His lips turned upward into a snarl. “Go!” he bellowed, the force of it making her hair billow. “I am the Minotaur, and this is my prison. Leave me be.”

“No.”

He froze.

“That’s crap,” she said. “You don’t actually enjoy acting like a monster, do you?”

He looked at her, bewildered.

“You just think you have to do it. You were only a baby when they threw you down here, right? You’ve never known anything different. That old king said you were a monster that had to be locked away, so that’s all you ever were. But let me tell you that you don’t have to be.” She held up her wrist. “I’m free! You let me go. I’m proof that you’re not a monster, not in your heart. One conversation with me, and you decided you didn’t want to hurt me. You big softie. Now come on. If I’m going, you’re going with me.”

He sputtered, not managing to get out any words before she grabbed his big meaty hand and yanked. He allowed her to pull him to his feet, and then to guide him from the room.

“It won’t work,” he finally managed at the first intersection. “This place was designed to keep me imprisoned.”

“Yeah, yeah, I heard you before. But I don’t care. I’m not letting a kindred soul stay stuck in a place like this forever.”

And so they went, Erin dragging him north at every opportunity until they reached the outer wall, and then the staircase. He hadn’t resisted up to that point, looking too flustered by how brazen she was to do much of anything, but here he slowed. She kept tugging, a consistent pressure that got him to, step by step, ascend with her. After a frankly stupid amount of time and yanking, they made it to the hallway with the descending ceiling, where finally he planted his feet.

“It won’t work. I won’t disgrace myself by trying.”

“Now what kind of quitter attitude is that?” She released his arm but stayed at his side. “You’ll never know what you can do unless you try.”

He snorted and crossed his arms as if annoyed, but she didn’t miss that shimmer in his eyes.

“What was that you said earlier? This labyrinth was built to ‘imprison the monster inside,’ right? You’re not a monster just because some stuffy old fart said you were.”

“You speak like a simpleton.”

“Call me a simpleton if you want, but would you call me a monster?”

“What? Of course not.”

“Even if my parents told me that I was?” She raised her eyebrows, then walked backwards. Until she was halfway through, at the point where the ceiling had dropped down earlier. “You don’t have to believe what other people tell you about yourself. What matters is what you think of yourself. I don’t think I’m a monster. I don’t think you are either. But what do you think?”

He ground his teeth so hard it was audible. “King Minos’s architects designed this hall to keep me from exiting. Your cheap psychological tricks won’t change the machinery.”

“Buddy,” she snapped, “I get the feeling you don’t know dick about how this place works.”

His nostrils flared, but he didn’t speak.

“Do you realize this isn’t, er, Athens, or whatever? I don’t even know if Athens still exists!” She pointed straight up. “Topside is a little place called Dayton, Ohio. Ever heard of it?”

Frowning, he shook his head.

“There’s a lot of magic horseshitery afoot here, my guy. Just trust me, who trusts you. Give it a try.”

She held out her hand.

After a great deal of deliberation, he took one step forward. Then another. The ceiling didn’t budge an inch. With each foot he crossed, the frustration on his face melted away, replaced by something Erin didn’t have a word for. Another step, and he was at her side. She took his hand, guided him further still.

“Told ya.”

Together, they reached the door. She released him and motioned for him to open it. He hesitated, glanced over his shoulder, back at the Labyrinth. At the only home the poor guy had ever known. Then he wrapped his big hand around the knob. Eased open the door. Sunlight poured in. They stepped outside, and the instant they were through, the door vanished. There was no way back down.

They’d emerged in a ditch behind the field where Dionysus’s Vineyard had been the night before. Now, there was no trace the place had ever existed. It had appeared overnight and vanished just as suddenly. Erin figured that wasn’t their problem to worry about anymore. Seeing as her car had mercifully been spared the magical dematerialization, she led Asterion toward it. He definitely wouldn’t fit in the passenger seat, but she was pretty sure she could squeeze him in the trunk. Before they could figure that out, someone screamed.

On the other side of the street was a blonde woman, walking not one, not two, but three toy poodles. She took one look at Asterion and took off running, dropping the leashes. The poodles, for their part, didn’t react. They were too busy sniffing at the base of a tree. One of them lifted its leg.

“Would you believe that’s how my family reacts when I try to show up to holiday get-togethers?” Erin asked Asterion, then dramatically mimicked the woman’s scream. He didn’t respond, staring after the woman’s retreating form with a profound expression morphing his face. Maybe he was free now, but that doesn’t mean things would be easy. But eventually people would come to accept him as Erin’s hormonally-challenged cousin, or something. She would make sure of it. A shower, a haircut, and some therapy for his eating-people complex would go a long way toward helping Asterion find the real him. “Their loss. If they don’t want me, I don’t want them.”

“I appreciate you trying to console me,” he said, “but I’m certain that young maiden saw you and started screaming.”

He’d said it so seriously, it took her a moment to realize it was a joke. She scoffed and swatted his arm. “You dick.”