Part 28 (1/2)
”No, but I don't care,” I said defiantly.
”You've inherited your mother's spirit, I see.” He came around my chair and took hold of the handles. ”You knew her well?”
”Yes. I knew her well. She was about your age when I met her, too.”
”You mean you've been working for Tony all this time? Making toys?”
”Yes.” He was behind me now, pus.h.i.+ng the chair along, so I couldn't see his face, but his voice had grown even softer.
”But I thought his brother Troy was the one who designed all the toys then.”
”Oh, he was. I'm just making replicas of his designs. He taught me everything I know.”
”I see.” I sensed he wasn't being quite truthful. ”Did you work in the cottage, too? Or did you work in a factory?”
”Both.”
”Where did you meet my mother?” We were getting closer and closer to the entrance to the maze, and I thought I would talk to cloak my fear.
”Here and there.” He stopped pus.h.i.+ng me. He seemed to sense the anxiety in me. ”Are you sure you want to go on?”
I didn't answer immediately. The hedges were so high and thick, the pathways through the maze were dark and looked so deep. What if this man didn't really know his way and we got lost?
”You're sure you can go in and find your way out?” He laughed.
”Blindfolded. Maybe one day I'll do it just to show you I can. But if you're afraid . . .”
”No, no, I want to go on,” I said, forcing myself to be brave.
”Very well, then. Here we go,” he said, and pushed me forward into the great English maze. I was actually going into it! Something that had been a fantasy for much of my life was about to happen! Once again I longed for Luke to be with me. I sat back, holding my breath, and soon we were walled up in a castle of s.h.i.+ny green ivy.
It was pretty in the maze, the hedges growing as tall as ten feet and making precise right-angle turns. Of course, like most of the greenery about Farthy, it needed tr.i.m.m.i.n.g and care. But it was dark and green and soothing in there, and I felt the tension of the day, the worry, the fear, the struggle ease away from me.
”What do you think so far?” he asked as soon as we had made our first turn and gone in deeper.
”It's so quiet. I can barely hear the garden birds chirping.”
”Yes, the peaceful serenity is what I love about the maze.”
I looked up. Even the plaintive shrieks of the sea gulls flying overhead seemed m.u.f.fled, faraway. He paused as we made another turn.
”Are you seated too low to see the roof of Farthy?”
”No, I can just make it out above the hedge. It looks so far off already.”
”In the maze you can pretend you're on a different world. I often do,” he confessed. ”Do you like to pretend, to live in fantasy from time to time?”
”Yes, very much. Luke and I often did that, and if we were both home now, we probably still would, even though we would seem too old for it.”
”Luke?”
”My . . . cousin . . my aunt f.a.n.n.y's son Luke Junior.”
”Oh, yes . . . your aunt f.a.n.n.y. I had forgotten about her.”
”You knew her, too!”
”I knew of her,” he said.
He knew more than he was saying. I could tell. Who was this man? Had I been too adventurous to accept his invitation so quickly? We were heading deeper and deeper into the--great maze. I wrapped my arms about myself protectively. Part of me wanted to go right back to the house, but a stronger part of me wanted to see the cottage, wanted to know more about this mysterious, fascinating man.
”Are you cold? It does get quite cool in here.” ”I'm okay. Is it going to be much longer?”
”Only a few minutes more. We take this turn and then that and then go straight into another turn and another and then we'll be on the other side.”
”I can see how someone could easily get lost.” ”People do. Your mother once did.”
”She did? She never told me about it.”
He laughed.
”The first time I saw her. She couldn't find her way back.”
”Please tell me about that,” I begged. ”She was so reluctant to talk about her days at Farthy.”
”It was the first time she had gone into the maze. I was working in the cottage--making little suits of armor for tiny knights, I think--when suddenly she appeared at the door. She looked innocent and lost, almost like an angel who had stepped out of the mist . . . so beautiful and so full of determination. It was very foggy that day and had grown dark quickly. She was afraid she wouldn't find her way back.”
”Was Troy there, too?”
”Yes, he was.”
”Well, what happened next?” I asked, impatient with his dramatic pauses.
”Oh, we calmed her down. Gave her something to eat, as I recall, and then directed her back through the maze.”
”It's funny to think of my mother as a young girl.”
”She was a very beautiful young lady, much like yourself.”
”I'm not feeling particularly beautiful these days, though.”
”You will. I'm sure. Well, here we are, one more turn.” We went around a corner and emerged from the maze.
Before us lay a path of pale flagstone lined with tall pines. Directly ahead was the small stone cottage with a red slate roof crouched low amidst the pine trees. I couldn't keep the small cry from escaping through my lips.
It was Mommy's toy cottage, the one she had given me on my eighteenth birthday. The Tatterton replica was exact. How eerie, I thought. It was as if I had just stepped into a fantasy world, truly a toy world where people lived their dreams.
Oh, I thought, if only Luke were here. He would see that all our make-believe could come true. Those two toy figures in the toy cottage really would be us.
There was the knee-high picket fence, not meant to keep anything out, winding its crooked way around the cottage, giving support to climbing roses just the way they were in the replica.