This choice: Laura refuses to answer.... • Go Back... 'I'm not hiding secrets, Steve,' Laura said. 'I just sense danger in the labyrinth. You must too'
Steve considered her, and Laura said softly, 'you've got that feeling about the darkness and I don't.'
'I'm not sure we should be playing a tit or tat game here,' Steve commented, and then sighed. Laura was right on a certain level. She didn't know half about the darkness that he did and he certainly hadn't revealed everything to her. If she pushed, and found that out then she'd have even more reason to keep quiet herself. And... 'Yeah, I feel something evil in there.' He nodded at the stone wall in front of them, moss creeping up the mortar. A daisy-like flower sprouted out about half way up, and he stared at it like it was a total oddity. Well, it seemed like one. Something so pretty in a place like this.
Steve sighed, and then he caught sight of a mouse rounding the corner and tracking toward them. It huddled close to the wall. 'There's the monster,' he mumbled.
Laura gave a soft giggle into his neck, and they watched the mouse scuttle passed.
'Probably should have caught it,' Steve said. 'Could have eaten it.'
'Steve!' Laura slapped his chest.
Steve had only been half kidding, though it probably wouldn't have done them much good. He changed the subject. 'Have you seen the monster in the labyrinth?'
'No,' Laura said. 'Have you?'
'Of course not.'
'Then why do you think I have? Just because I know that it sucks souls?' Laura straightened off Steve's shoulder.
'No,' he said, even if it was true.
Laura eyed him a moment before shifting closer to the pathetic excuse for a fire. It didn't provide much warmth but the brightness at least gave a tiny bit of cheer. Laura frowned, stupid memories just out of reach again. Except for the one that let her know the monster's soul-sucking punishments. 'I had a sister,' she began and then stopped, shook her head.
Behind her, Steve was silent. Laura bowed her head, drew in a breath. 'I had a sister,' she said again, 'until she strayed into the maze one day.'
Steve drew in a sharp breath, and Laura turned. He reached for her and she readily moved back to his side, let him put his arms around her. 'I'm so sorry,' he murmured.
'It was years ago,' Laura said. 'I was no more than fifteen, Rena twelve. Always a sprite, she was, getting into trouble. Getting me into trouble too.' Laura felt a smile try to pull her lips up. These memories were unhindered by blocks and corners and dark spaces. Sometimes she wished that wasn't so.
Steve waited, finally realising that to get Laura to talk required silence on his part and patience.
'There are very many entrances to this labyrinth,' Laura began again, after a while, stating a fact Steve knew. 'There was one just a couple of miles from our village. The best pasture lay beside the maze, and we grazed sheep there. They never wandered in; animals have a sixth sense about danger, you know. I was never particularly bothered about the place either though I knew not to go near the entrance. Our parents had always told us stories about young people being forced inside by some magical pull of power, how roars of things unknown could be heard. Well, you know how it goes,' Laura said, twining hands with Steve. 'On the one hand we all stayed away, on the other we secretly egged each other on, though no one was ever brave enough to test theory. Not until my sister.'
Laura closed her eyes. She'd been on a date with a handsome young man and what a perfect day it had been, until they'd come home to find the place in an uproar. Rena and a couple of her friends had been playing jacks with stupid dares. Someone had dared Rena to step over the threshold of the maze. Rena being Rena, and without Laura there to act as her common sense, had taken up the dare. Especially since one of the rewards was a kiss from the boy she liked.
Steve maintained his silence, couldn't say the sister was silly because he'd done stupid dares at that age for much the same reason.
'When Rena stepped over the threshold, nothing happened,' Laura began again. 'So they egged her to go further and she did. Apparently she stepped out of sight and didn't come back. No one dared go in after her. When Samuel and I returned, she'd been gone about a half hour and no one had dared even get our parents.' Laura realised she had tightened her grip on Steve's hand, and let go.
Though he didn't speak she watched him flex his crunched fingers. Then he curved his hand around hers. 'You went in, didn't you?' he asked softly.
Laura nodded. 'She was my only sister, I couldn't not.' She drew in a deep breath. 'She wasn't far from the entrance, just a couple of feet down a corridor. Out of sight but they'd have found her if they'd looked. Just kneeling on the ground, eyes wide open.'
She wasn't dead. She'd blinked when Laura had called her name but there was no recognition in her gaze. A grey haze of smoke seemed to waft around her and as Laura had drawn closer, the haze coalesced into a shape. Horribly human, but distorted in the limbs so that the arms were massive. It seemed to take on solidity and then reverted to haziness, held its ground when Laura screamed at it to back off.
'It laughed,' Laura said in an odd voice. 'When I told it to back off, to leave Rena alone it laughed, and said it was too late. She'd paid the price. I didn't know quite what it meant then. We still thought the soul-sucking was part of a myth. But once I got Rena outside of the maze and lay her on the ground, I realised. Her gaze was blank, nothing...' Laura shrugged, not quite able to explain what she'd seen. 'The colour was gone too. Rena had gorgeous green eyes but they were milky grey. The village doctors could do nothing and no form of magical charm they knew helped. Rena was a husked, somehow living still but soulless.'
Laura drew in a deep breath and let it out.
'Did she die?' Steve asked quietly.
'I don't know,' Laura said.
Before Steve could question that answer, Laura revealed the final piece of that puzzle.
'The doctors said she was cursed and recommended that our parents put her back into the labyrinth. She could not harm us there - as long as we stayed away.' Laura swallowed a lump. 'They did it, they believed the doctors and dad and another man put her back in the maze. They said she never said a word or moved or anything. She... she might still b-be there. My s-sister...' Laura broke down into tears.
Steve tightened his arms around her, horrified at the images invading his mind. He was sorry he'd asked, but he also felt a little more calm. These memories were what was making Laura nervous and uncomfortable around the labyrinth.
'A couple of days after they left her there,' Laura broke into his thoughts, 'I left the village. I couldn't stay there and think of Rena so close to me and yet so far away, just lying on the ground. For all I know, she's still there and I... it's my fault.'
'What? How?'
'I should have been watching her,' Laura cried softly. 'Sam and I were only supposed to be away for a couple of hours, but we were way half the day. If I'd...'
'No!' Steve cut her off. 'It's not your fault, Laura. Don't think it is. Your sister sounds very strong willed; you wouldn't have been able to stop her from that dare. I'm sure of it!'
Laura sniffed. Probably, that was right, but it didn't stop the guilt. God, she'd done so well burying that memory and those feelings they now sliced at her as if just yesterday, as if the fifteen years of guilt she had buried was giving her a one-day hit. And yet those other memories, the ones that made her feel like she was connected to the maze somehow stayed just blurs in her mind. Rather like that smokey haze that had hovered over her sister.
Laura cried herself to sleep on Steve's shoulder.
(words: 1431) 
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