No Escape by Julie Moffett
Chapter Fifteen
Lexi Carmichael
We stood there for a moment, staring dumbly at each other, until I realized everyone was looking at me.
“Ah…” I stammered. “Do you want me to take the lead on this puzzle?”
“Of course we do,” my mom said. “So, now what?”
It wasn’t exactly the rousing cry of confidence I might have hoped for, but no one was contradicting her, so I guess there was that. “We have to explore the maze and find the disc. Two hours seems like a long time for us to search a maze, especially with six people doing it, so there must be something tricky about how it’s hidden. Unless anyone objects, let’s divide up and explore every inch of the maze.”
“Sounds good, Lexi, but how will we know which passages have been explored and which ones we still need to do?” Oscar asked.
“Good question,” I said.
“The paths are made of rocks and gravel, so we won’t be leaving any footprints,” my dad said. “So, we’ll have to think of another way to mark it as explored.”
“How about at every place where the path divides, we leave a small pile of gravel on the right side, just past the fork, to indicate the path has been searched?” Tito suggested. “That way we won’t miss it or walk through it by accident.”
“Sounds good to me,” I said. “If we’re systematic from the start, it should save us time later if we have problems figuring out what still needs to be searched. Does everyone understand what we’re doing? We’re going to split the maze into sections and comb it, all of us looking for a golden disc. If you find it, yell loudly.”
Everyone nodded, and I blew out a breath, staring at the maze. “Okay, it looks like the maze divides into two directions. There are six of us, so let’s split into two teams. Oscar and Mia, you’re with me. Mom, Dad, and Tito, you go in the opposite direction. If any of you hit a dead end, backtrack until you find an unexplored path and follow that. Make sure to leave a pile of rocks to indicate the path has been explored. If anyone has any questions or finds something weird, just yell. We should be able to hear each other fairly well, and the gamemaster didn’t say we couldn’t shout or discuss things within the maze.”
We plunged into the maze, the thick green foliage and branches making me feel slightly claustrophobic. I led the way with Mia in the middle and Oscar taking the rear. It didn’t take long to realize it was going to be a lot more difficult than expected. There were no straight paths or ninety-degree corners. Everything was a curve, and I quickly lost track of where the entrance to the maze was located. But I couldn’t worry about that now. We had to find the disc first and worry about getting out later.
As we came to the first fork, I sent Mia down it. “Make sure you build a little pile just a couple of steps down the path to show you’ve explored it. Keep going forward and shout if you find anything or if you need one of us. You okay with that?”
“Sure. I’m feeling as fat as a fiddle. By the way, what’s a fiddle?”
“It’s a musical instrument, kind of like a violin,” I said. “And the saying is as fit as a fiddle. It means you’re feeling good.”
“Yes, exactly. That’s what I meant,” she said beaming. “I’m feeling good. But do violins actually feel fit in America?”
“We’ll talk about that later, Mia, okay?”
“Okay,” she agreed as she knelt and started to gather rocks.
Oscar and I exchanged a bemused glance and kept going, the gravel crunching under our feet. When we reached the next fork, I sent Oscar down it while I continued. When I came to the next split, I stood and thought for a moment. I knew it was statistically relevant that when people were faced with a fork in the road, most would pick the right-hand path. Just to be different, I took the left one. I knelt, built a pile of rocks, and moved on.
As I walked, I wondered what I should be looking to find. I didn’t think the disc would just be lying in the middle of the path. The puzzles had to be worthy to challenge some of the finest minds in the world, and apparently, they were sufficiently difficult, because no one had yet been able to solve all of them. I needed to find the right balance between difficult and solvable. The best puzzles were doable if the secret was understood or if it was looked at from the right perspective. I just had to figure out that part.
The problem was the hedge walls were so dense, high, and thick I couldn’t even get a glimpse of the next passage over. While the hedge tops were a bit ragged in places, the sides were well manicured and smooth, the sign of an excellent gardener. I tried forcing my way through the hedge wall without success. The branches were too closely packed, and the walls were too deep.
Suddenly, I realized I’d made a mistake. The gamemaster hadn’t said we had to follow the maze, only that what we were looking for was in the maze. If I’d thought about it logically, I should have instructed someone to walk the outside of the maze looking for other entrances or some potential clue of significance. I debated going back to do that myself but decided I could still leave time to do it later.
I came to another fork and started to take the left path again until I saw a small pile of stones. Someone had already been here. I took the other path, leaving my own pile. This one continued for a short distance before forking again with both paths unmarked. Again, I went left and found a flat stepping-stone embedded in the center of the path with a Roman numeral III etched on it. I looked around, trying to discern the significance of the number. I saw exactly nothing except more of the smooth walls of the hedge. I lifted the stone up, but there was nothing underneath it. I even dug in the dirt beneath the stone but found nothing.
I replaced it and moved on. Although I couldn’t tell for sure, my intuition told me I was running along the perimeter of the maze. There was no way to confirm it, as the hedges were too high and dense, and I’d become thoroughly disoriented. I considered using the sun as a navigation aid, however, the maze curved too much for the sun to help me.
Ahead and to the left of me, I heard Mia calling my name. “Mia? Did you find something?” I yelled.
“Two flat stones with Roman numerals on them.”
My excitement leaped. “I found one, too. What were the numerals?”
“One and two,” she shouted back. “What does it mean?”
“I don’t know yet, but the stone I saw had the Roman numeral three on it. Keep looking.”
I kept walking until I came to a dead end in the shape of a small teardrop-shaped alcove. A small sundial had been placed on a stone pedestal in the middle of the alcove. I quickly approached it, noting the time—10:15. That meant we’d been searching the maze for about thirty minutes. Although it told time, a sundial was not like a clock with twelve hours on the face. As the Earth spun, the shadow would change shape and position, thereby marking the passage of time.
This sundial was made of a greenish-gray metal embedded into a light-brown stone and firmly affixed to the pedestal. The face resembled a clock with Roman numerals with the hours spaced evenly around the dial except at the bottom. That was odd and made me look closer.
I wondered if there was a connection between the sundial and the round stone with the number III that I’d found, but if so, it wasn’t obvious. This sundial’s triangular blade that cast the shadow to tell time was tightly embedded in the sundial face. I recalled from a biography of Archimedes that the shadow-casting element on a sundial was called a gnomon. I tried to press and move the gnomon, to no avail.
I turned my attention to the pedestal. It was unremarkable, without markings or writings. I got down on my hands and knees and looked at every inch, pushing and pulling on everything, but got nothing.
I ran through the science of the sundial in my head, hoping something would jump out at me. Ancient civilizations, including the Greeks and Chinese, had used sundials to determine the change of seasons, calculate mathematics, create calendars, determine latitude, and study the stars. The sundial itself was clever in its simplicity. Unfortunately, nothing seemed to help me in terms of a search for a small golden disc.
Sighing, I backtracked my way out of the area onto a main path, when I stumbled upon my dad looking lost.
“Lexi, have you found anything yet?”
“Nothing except a sundial and stones with Roman numerals on them. How about you?”
“I saw a large rock with a Roman numeral five. Although, until you just said that, I thought it was just a large rock with the letter V on it. I wondered if something was being spelled out, but Roman numerals makes sense, too. What numbers did you see?”
“Three, but Mia saw one and two.”
“Well, I also found an exit out of the maze. That reminds me, I did see another number stone, this one with an X on it, right near the exit. When I got outside, there wasn’t anything to see. Just some more great views of the water, the cliffs rising above the beach, and the maze outside walls stretching out in both directions. No disc in sight.”
A woman’s scream caused us both to jump.
“That’s your mother,” Dad exclaimed. Before I could say a word, he tore off down the path.