I started lingering in Cecily’s bedroom, moping around as if I expected her ghost to appear and explain everything. Which was pointless, because every trace of her had been scrubbed away. There was no armoire full of gowns to rifle through, no silk pillows that carried a trace of her perfume. One day in late February, I sat on the window seat that looked out over the estate, trying to calm my swirling, maddening thoughts. A brief warm spell had melted all evidence of the previous months’ snow, and the landscape had transformed from white to grayish green. I wondered if she’d sat in that same spot on her last night at Lakecrest, if this was where she’d formulated a plan to escape. Suddenly, I caught a flicker of movement in the distance. Someone was walking along the path that led to the north edge of the estate, the path that ended at the Labyrinth.
I’d never been inside; I’d never wanted to before. But suddenly, I felt an overpowering urge to go. I rushed out of the room, down the stairs, and pulled on my coat and boots. I had the strange sensation that the apparition I’d seen was Cecily herself, luring me. I’d heard so many stories, but the woman herself was still a hazy blur: strong yet sickly, brilliant but crazy. If I walked the same twisted passageways that she once had, would I be able to summon her essence? Figure out who she really was?
I slipped out the kitchen door. The temperature had jumped from fiendishly bitter to simply cold, and I walked with my scarf hanging loose around my neck rather than twisted around my head. In the summer, this part of the estate had a certain wild beauty, but without the wildflowers and tall, swaying grasses, the landscape looked stark and unwelcoming.
When I arrived at the Labyrinth, I called out, “Hello?”
There was no answer.
The walls loomed over my head. Scraggly weeds crowded around the base, and tendrils of frostbitten ivy looked ready to push through the mortar. I could see cracks in the brick, gaps where pieces of masonry had crumbled away. It was a sad, desolate place, and I suddenly felt like a fool. Of course no one else was out here. Why would anyone want to be?
And yet I didn’t turn away. I pushed aside my distaste and walked inside. Immediately, I was faced with a choice. Left or right? Left, I decided, then right. It was important to have a system to avoid getting lost. I’d alternate directions at each turn and see where it got me.
Where it got me was nowhere. I covered a good distance, but all I saw was one narrow passage after another. There was no way to tell whether I was making progress toward the center or simply wandering in circles. I didn’t panic, but I hated the disorientation, the uncertainty of not knowing where I was. I felt stupid, not heroic. Cecily would have urged me to surrender to the magic, or some other gibberish, but my mind simply didn’t work that way. For all my curiosity about her, I’d never really considered how different her mindset was from mine, how we might not have liked each other at all.
Just as I had the thought, I heard a rustle behind me. I froze, spooked. The noise continued, getting steadily louder, then Marjorie thumped around a corner in green rubber boots, swathed from neck to knees in a fur coat.
“What are you doing here?” I demanded, annoyed.
I hadn’t even known she was home. Lakecrest was so huge that you could spend all day inside without hearing anyone else—one of the many reasons I hated it.
“I saw you march off across the lawn,” she said. “You were gone for so long, I thought you might need help.”
Was she the person I’d seen walking toward the Labyrinth? No. That figure had been wrapped in a dark, heavy coat, not fur.
“I’m lost,” I admitted.
“Follow me.” Marjorie turned back the way she’d come. “It’s easy when you know the patterns.”
Sure enough, within two turns we had entered an oval-shaped clearing. Stone benches sat at either end, and in the middle was the Minotaur statue Mabel Kostrick had described. It struck me as more odd than frightening: a muscular man’s body topped with the head of a wild bull. If I’d seen it pop out of the darkness without warning, though, I probably would have been scared witless.
“Rather delish, isn’t he?” Marjorie said. “I’m not sure how he figured into Aunt Cecily’s raging orgies—or whatever went on out here—but I feel sorry for him, stuck here all alone.”
She walked over to the statue and ran her palm along the figure’s muscular arm. The icy marble made her hand tremble.
“Aunt Cecily used to call me Artemis and Matthew Apollo. Do you know the story?”
I shook my head.
“She was the goddess of the hunt, and he was the god of light. The divine twins.”
Marjorie said the phrase with a smirk, but it struck me as an apt description. She and her brother did have an aura that set them apart from ordinary folks, something more than good looks or the elegant crispness of their voices. They carried themselves with an easy, serene aloofness that seemed at times otherworldly.
“Were you and Matthew very alike as children?” I asked.
“Were we ever!” Marjorie said. “Sometimes it felt like I could read Matts’s mind.” She glanced at me, smiling. “Don’t worry. I can’t anymore. The secrets of your married life are safe.”
“I don’t know what you mean.” I was so prim that I might have been Hannah herself.
Marjorie laughed. “I have a feeling you aren’t the prissy little miss everyone thinks you are. No girl could keep Matthew’s interest for more than a few weeks before you came along. You must have a few tricks up your sleeve.”
“I love him,” I said defiantly.
“Do you?” she asked, as if I’d just declared a belief in unicorns or fairies. I remembered Matthew telling me how mothers had pushed their daughters at him. He’d never had to pursue anyone, and his loyalty had never been tested. Was he capable of sticking out a marriage through thick and thin? I wasn’t sure.
“You don’t have to pretend with me,” Marjorie said. “I know what you’re up to.”
For one terrifying moment, I thought she’d figured it out and that I’d be revealed for who I really was.
“You’re out here because you want to solve the great family mystery, don’t you?” she asked. “The fate of Cecily Lemont! Tempting, I know. But it’s a waste of time.”
Relief washed over me. “Why?” I asked.
“Because there’s no answer.”
Marjorie’s bitter tone took me aback. She reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a cigarette. She smoked with an elegant grace that made the puffs of white an extension of herself, a billowing caress that swirled around her slender body and framed the angles of her face.
“I loved Aunt Cecily, I really did. She was quite magical. She could turn an afternoon at the beach into a pirate adventure, and before long, you’d be digging like crazy for a hidden chest of gold. But there were other times . . . times she’d stay in bed, refuse meals. I’d take up her tea, and she wouldn’t say a word when I walked in or even look at me! It was cruel.”
I thought of Matthew, skulking away to the office after supper, as he’d done off and on for weeks. The door was ajar one night, wide enough for me to peek inside and see Matthew at his desk, head in hands. Not a paper in sight. I’d tiptoed away, feeling helpless.