The Center of the Maze: Uncollected Anthology, #22

By Jamie Ferguson

Bethea and her cousins are delighted to find that the Scottish castle they're visiting has a hedge maze! They head in, split up, and everything seems fine until Bethea realizes she's walked much, much further than the length of the maze...and no matter which branch she takes, she can't get out. She continues on to the center of the maze, and discovers she's no longer in Scotland—or even in her own world at all.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Blackbird Publishing
• Release date: Aug 13, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393524960

Book preview

The Center of the Maze

The Center of the Maze

Jamie Ferguson

Blackbird Publishing

Contents

The Center of the Maze

About the Author

The Uncollected Anthology

Uncollected Anthology Member Websites

The Center of the Maze

My cousins Cyril, Latasha, and I pressed our noses against the cool glass of the fourth-floor window and stared out at the hedge maze that began a couple hundred yards away. Tall, dark green bushes, their leaves shining in the summer sunshine, lined gravel pathways that curved, or turned at right angles to each other. In a few places the pathways opened up to wider areas that appeared to include things made of grayish-white stone, but from this distance I couldn’t tell exactly what they were.

Our families had arrived at the Scottish castle last night after the long trip from California. While we kids weren’t enthusiastic about getting dressed up for the many events associated with Aunt Susan’s wedding, much less having to attempt to be polite and well-mannered for hours at a time, we were excited to be staying in a real castle. Cyril’s dad had attempted to explain to us that it was technically a fortified mansion, but his facts failed to dampen our enthusiasm. We’d planned to look for secret passageways and keep our eyes out for ghosts, but hadn’t realized there’d be a maze as well.

This is so cool, Cyril said. He pulled on his hoodie and zipped it up. We all wore jeans, T-shirts, and hoodies, since we’d been warned that the weather here would not be anywhere near as warm as we were used to in June. Hey, do you see that thing in the middle? What is it?

In the center of the maze there was something tall