The Year's Best Horror Stories 21

“A quiet place, isn’t it,” I said, trying to think of something nice to say about it. “Why is the center closed off? What’s in there?”

Keenen and Mrs. Winton glanced at each other like parents desperately trying to put off explaining the facts of life to their pregnant daughter.

“Well… it was built like that,” said Keenen lamely, at last.

“The inner gate was locked and probably had been for a long time.”

“It shouldn’t have been,” said Mrs. Winton, and I caught her funny look at the gardener. “You were some time in the maze, Mr. Pine. Nothing happened, did it? That is, did you lose your way?”

“Only a couple of thousand times.”

“No singing?” said Keenen, looking down.

“Pardon?”

“I think there’s a diagram of the maze in the library,” said Mrs. Winton. “Perhaps you’d like to have another go tomorrow?”

“Isn’t there rain forecast for tomorrow?”

“Not until the evening. Well, I think it’s about lunch time. You must be starved, Mr. Pine. Afterward we’ll see if we can find the diagram of the maze.”

While Mrs. Winton cut bread in the kitchen, I asked, “By the way, what does this mean,” and I read slowly from the back of the parking ticket: “‘Retine quod aqua coercetur’?”

“It means ‘Keep that which is bound by water,’ ” she replied without a moment’s hesitation, as if the phrase had been in her thoughts all along.

The library, like everything else in and about Woodthorpe Manor, daunted me. It wasn’t that it was large (in fact it was much smaller than the average public library), it was that all of these volumes—five thousand, Mrs. Winton told me, and some of them incredibly old and rare—were a private collection.

And there was that word again: Private. And here was I. It didn’t add up.

Mrs. Winton made straight for one of the glass cabinets lining the walls, unlocked it and after a moment’s search took from between two books a leather wallet. In this was the plan of the maze with its convoluted paths, its statuary, brooks, and miniature gardens all plotted out. The middle, however, was blank.

“What’s in there?” I remembered asking this before without getting an answer.

“I’m sure I don’t know,” Mrs. Winton said. “It’s been closed for many a year.”

I thought it odd that in all her time at the Manor she’d never once been curious enough to find out what was behind the wall and trees in the center of the maze. Perhaps she had no interest in things outside her own sphere. Perhaps she had asked once and had been rebuffed. Perhaps she was lying.

“If you wish to make a copy, there are pens, pencils and a sheaf of quarto in that drawer.” She indicated a nearby writing desk. “Unfortunately the photocopying machine is in the town being repaired.”

“Duncan ran it over, too, did he?”

“Now if you’ll excuse me, Mr. Pine, I’d best be about my duties.”

I was glad I didn’t have to “dress” for dinner, being as it was in the servants’ hall. Wearing a tie is against my religion as a confirmed slouch.

There were just Mrs. Winton, Keenen, and myself at table. The only other people on the estate at this time were those who lived in the lodge, the gatekeeper and his wife, and their two sons who served as groundsmen during the night.

The talk got around (rather quickly, I thought) to the maze: Yes, I copied out the diagram… Perhaps I’ll have another go at the maze tomorrow if it doesn’t rain… Well, yes, I think it will rain tomorrow, Mrs. Winton. I can smell it…

Keenen kept pretty quiet during the meal, just picking at his food, though drinking steadily, making casualties of two bottles of rough red. “Drinking with a purpose” was a phrase that came to mind. I got the impression he was sulking, probably after an argument with Mrs. Winton which probably had me in it somewhere. This line of thought seemed to be confirmed when, during a lapse in the housekeeper’s conversation about the various notables who had dined and slept at the Manor over the centuries, Keenen muttered, “And you’re only the second Australian we’ve—”

He jolted as though kicked. He glared at Mrs. Winton in a half focused way. She continued her dinner as if nothing had happened. I would hate to have played poker with her.

I excused myself not long after that and wandered upstairs to the library. I paused halfway up, listening for the explosion I thought must erupt in the servants’ hall. But all remained quiet. They probably were at each other again, but in a restrained way, which befitted this stately home.

I’d noticed that the library had been catalogued on the Dewey decimal system and that the cabinet where the maze diagram was shelved was labeled 133, the listing for books on occult matters. I guessed it was a Woodthorpe family joke as “occult” can also mean “hidden.”

Luckily the cabinet was still unlocked. That afternoon I’d seen a first edition of Elliot O’Donnell’s Screaming Skulls with which I hoped to read myself to sleep. While looking for the O’Donnell, I came across a folder bound in red buckram that had the appearance of a scrapbook or diary. Conscience and curiosity tugged me in opposite directions. Curiosity won.

The date on the first page was 26th July, 1823. The handwriting was crabbed, and for the most part illegible; a sure sign, my conscience took glee in reminding me, that it’d been meant for the writer’s eyes only. I leafed over the pages, pausing here and there to attempt to decipher a passage, a sentence, or even just a word, usually without any luck. But partway down the second page was a word beginning with K, followed by something like Birdfellow. Whoever or whatever this may have been, both names were referred to several times throughout the diary. Another name that was repeated, though only in the last few pages, was “Mother Gwynne.” She seemed somehow to be associated with that Latin phrase about being bound by water, as it was referred to (in semilegible printing) on two separate pages immediately following her name. Around the middle of the diary I managed: “The Ground Keepers have communicated their distress in that there are Shapes abroad.” Nowhere was the writer identified.

Before I left the library I noticed in passing that the folder had been shelved tightly against Wentworth Day’s Here Are Ghosts and Witches.

I sat at my window for a long time, alternately reading Screaming Skulls, trying to decipher more of the diary, and watching the long summer twilight come in, all English and still new to me. Nothing like sunset at home, where night falls out of the afternoon sky like a black weight.

In the distance were the tops of the trees standing inside that inner wall of the maze. Perhaps it was the fading light or my eyes tired from reading, but I could’ve sworn they were nodding and tossing although there Wasn’t a breath of wind anywhere.

Next morning I woke up early and ragged, having had nightmares of screaming skulls half the night.

A phone was ringing somewhere downstairs, and ten minutes later as I passed the drawing room door I heard Mrs. Winton saying, “… booked a room, as per your instructions, My Lord…”

I scratched up a bit of breakfast for myself, and was just cracking into a boiled egg when Mrs. Winton entered the kitchen. She said, “Oh, Mr. Pine…” and for several seconds more found nothing else to say. Then, “Have you been here long?”

“Three minutes, unless your egg timer’s slow.” I wondered if she’d meant Did you overhear me on the telephone? I said, “Was that His Lordship?”

“Yes. It was.” She made a pretense of looking out the window. “It’s going to be a lovely day today. If you’re going for a hike around the grounds, I’ll make you a packed lunch. What would you like?”

Subtle, yes, in a sledgehammer way. Half an hour later I picked up a small hamper bag from the entrance hall table. It was heavier than a roast beef sandwich had a right to be, so I checked it out. Sandwiches. Bottle of cordial. Binoculars.

“All right,” I muttered to myself. “All right, I’ll play your silly game,” and headed for the maze.