“This way,” came Grimalkin’s disembodied voice up ahead. “Try to stay close.”
The bristly walls of the corridor seemed to press in on us. Puck didn’t release my hand, but we had to walk single file through the tunnel to avoid behind scratched. A couple times, I thought I saw a thorn or creeper actually move toward me, as if to prick my skin or catch my clothes. Once, I glanced back at Ironhorse to see how he was faring, but the thorns, much like the rest of the Nevernever, seemed loath to touch the great Iron fey, curling back from him as he passed.
The tunnel finally opened up into a small hollow with tunnels and paths twisting off in all directions. Overhead, the canopy of bramble shut out the light, so thick you couldn’t see the sky through the cracks. Bones lay here and there among the thorns, bleached white and gleaming in the darkness. A skull grinned at me from a tangle of brambles, empty eye sockets crawling with worms. I shuddered and turned my face into Puck’s shoulder.
“Where’s Grim?” I whispered.
“Here,” Grimalkin said, appearing out of nowhere. The cat leaped atop a large skull and regarded each of us in turn. “We are going deep into the Briars now,” he stated in a calm, very soft voice. “I would tell you what we might face, but perhaps it is better that I do not. Try to be silent. Do not separate. Do not go down another path. And stay away from any doors you come across. Many of the gates here are a one-way trip; go through one and you might not be able to go back. Are you ready?”
I raised my hand. “How do you know your way around this place, Grim?”
Grimalkin blinked. “I am a cat,” he said, and vanished down one of the tunnels.
WHEN I WAS TWELVE, my school took a field trip to a “haunted” corn maze on the outskirts of town, a week or so before Halloween. Sitting on the bus, listening to the boys brag about who would find his way out first, and the girls giggling in their own little groups, I made my own vow that I would do just as well. I remember walking down the rows of corn all by myself, feeling a thrill of both fear and excitement as I tried finding my way to the center and back again. And I remembered the sinking feeling in my gut when I knew I was lost, when I realized no one would help me, that I was alone.
This was ten thousand times worse.
The Briars were never still. They were always moving, slithering, reaching for you out of the corner of your eye. Sometimes, if you listened just right, you could almost hear them whisper your name. Deep within the tangled darkness, twigs snapped and branches rustled as things moved through the brambles. I never got a clear look, just glimpsed dark shapes shuffling away into the undergrowth. It creeped me out. Big-time.
The Briars went on, an endless maze of twisted thorns and gnarled branches, shifting, creaking and reaching out for us. As we ventured ever deeper, doors, frames and archways began appearing at odd intervals in completely random places. A faded red door hung perilously from an overhead branch, a tarnished 216 glimmering in the dim light. A filthy restroom stall, cracked and shedding green paint, stood near the edge of the path, so wrapped in thorns that it would be impossible to push the door open. Something lean and black slithered across our path and vanished through an open closet. As it creaked shut, I caught a glimpse of a child’s bedroom through the frame, and a crib outlined in moonlight, before thorny vines curled around the door and pulled it back into the Briars.
Grimalkin never hesitated, leading us on without a backward glance, passing gates and doors and strange, random things stuck in the tangled web of thorns. A mirror, a doll and an empty golf bag dangled from the branches as we walked by, as well as the countless bones and sometimes full skeletons that littered the trail. Strange creatures watched us from the shadows, mostly unseen, just their eyes glowing in the dark. Black birds with human faces perched in the branches, observing us silently as we passed, like waiting vultures. At one point, Grimalkin pulled us all into a side tunnel, hissing at us to be quiet and not move. Moments later, a massive spider, easily the size of a car, crawled over the brambles directly overhead, and I bit my lip so hard that I tasted blood. Huge and shiny, with a splash of red across its bloated abdomen, it paused a moment, as if sensing warm blood and fluids were very close, waiting for the slightest tremor to betray its quarry.
We held our breath and pretended to be stone.