Emma and the Minotaur (10 page)

“You wanted me to come?” she said.

Emma could follow the music if she chose, and maybe if she did, she would find out what had happened to Mr Milligan and now, possibly, to Jake.

Emma took a step forward. The image of a man with horns flashed in her mind. She remembered that night in the rain when she had seen something in the forest and it had frightened her.

She imagined a horned monster taking Jake away and she shuddered. She knew that it was ridiculous, that there was no such thing as monsters or men with horns but, in the dark, in the middle of the cold night, it was hard to shake away the feeling of fear that filled her stomach.

It occurred to her that the music may not last for long, and that if her friend was in there then it was her responsibility to find him. She took a deep breath and walked under the cover of the trees.

Emma took two steps and then looked back to where she had come from. She couldn’t see the road. The light from the street lamps had disappeared. She walked back a few steps and found only more forest waiting for her.

She sat down where she was and waited for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. From far away there came a long howl. The noises of night drifted to her as gradually as her night vision did. It took a long while, but eventually she could see the dark outlines of the trees and of the undergrowth in every direction. There was nothing she could do but follow the music now.

As she walked, the normal sounds of the night were joined by a different sound altogether. It was the deep groan of strained wood, like a log being bent, and it was coming from everywhere around her. She couldn’t see what was causing the sound but her mind conjured up the inevitable image of walking trees.

She walked on for a long time and, as she went, she started to notice bright eyes that were staring at her from the dark of the night. She could hear the scurrying of little feet as though the owners of the eyes were moving all around her. There was motion in the trees as well, an almost imperceptible flapping of wings. It was an eerie feeling to be watched in that way by animals that she couldn’t see. She was scared, but the eyes looked small, like they belonged to little critters and nothing that could cause her serious harm.

They walked on in the dark, Emma and the animals and the trees, so she supposed, until the night became cold and Emma had to wrap her arms around herself for warmth.

When the tree appeared, it happened quickly and suddenly. Emma didn’t realize that she was approaching a clearing, and she later thought that it was possible that the clearing hadn’t been there until she had arrived inside it.

It seemed to her as though the trees in front and the clouds above both parted at the same time, the trees to reveal the clearing, and the clouds to let the moon illuminate it. It was as though a curtain had been pulled back and a giant spotlight had been turned on so that Emma could see the source of the symphony. It was in the centre of the clearing: a great, ancient oak.

Emma approached the tree slowly and stood under its brown-green leaves.

“Are you singing to me?” she said softly.

She reached the trunk of the tree and ran her hand against its bark. There was warmth there and she felt as though she was being caressed in return. She knelt down where she was and listened to the music, and felt its caress, for a long while. It put her at ease and made her forget all the bad things that had happened. She wondered if maybe the other people who had disappeared were sitting beside their own trees somewhere and they had simply lost track of time. It would not be hard to forget herself, close her eyes, and sleep and dream long dreams while the tree sang its lullaby.

The music stopped and the earth shook. Thunder boomed somewhere inside the forest.

Emma jumped to her feet.

“What is happening?” she said to the great oak.

There was a rustling of leaves. It was as if all the branches of the tree were shaking at the same time. She looked up and saw nothing but darkness except when, once or twice, the leaves parted enough to allow a little bit of moonlight through. Even then, Emma could see nothing but leaves and branches.

When the shaking died down, she saw something drop to the ground. She approached it and saw in the moonlight that it was a smooth rod, plain and bare but for a line of holes running up one side.

“A flute?” Emma said.

“Yes,” came the answer from somewhere in the darkness beyond the clearing. There was thunder again and Emma was afraid. This time, the thunder was followed by what sounded like footsteps, huge and furious, at first distant but coming closer and closer.

The girl clutched the flute to her chest and watched as the creature who had spoken stepped into the clearing under the moonlight.

“Be afraid, Emma, but don’t fear me. Fear the one who comes next.”

The voice belonged to a man, tall and lean, with horns like those of a ram protruding from his head. His upper body was bare but, as he approached, Emma saw that his lower half was covered in fur, and in place of feet there were hooves. His face under the moonlight was frightening. It was human-like, but unnaturally elongated and seemingly always on the verge of grinning. When he spoke again, Emma saw that his teeth were fanged.

“Who—” Emma said softly, and it was all she could manage before thunder interrupted her once more.

“Call me Domino,” the creature said. “I’m a faun of the forest. You have little time for he is almost here. You shouldn’t have come at night. I stopped you when you tried once before in the rain.”

“I don’t understand what’s happening,” Emma said, her voice cracking.

The faun sighed. He nodded to the flute that she was clutching before her.

“Take care of that,” Domino said. “It is a gift from the tree. But now you must go. Come back when the sun is out and I will explain. Come to the forest and I will find you.”

“How do I leave this place?”

“I can remain unseen whenever I’m in the forest,” he said, “but you must rely on other means until you learn how.”

He motioned toward the great oak as the sound of the giant footsteps drew near.

“He will take you where you need to go,” Domino said and raised his hand toward Emma. She was afraid but the thunder, loud enough to crack the world now, made her take it. The faun walked her up to the oak and pushed her toward it. A portal of light opened on the tree’s trunk and Emma was swallowed up by it. As she was falling back into the light, she saw Domino dart into the forest just as a great beast burst into the clearing. It was an animal that had the face of fury. It had the head of a great bull with eyes that burned, and the body of a man.

Emma tried to cry out in fear but she was ripped apart into a million a pieces by a noise that was like hundreds of windows shattering all at once.

Emma was sitting on a bench next to a bus stop.

It was morning on a busy street and the road in front of her was full of traffic. There was a bus shelter next to the bench and there were a few people inside. They were looking at her. A woman was sitting next to her but she stood up and walked away.

Emma glanced toward the people in the shelter and they all looked away at once and pretended that she wasn’t there.

She looked down at her lap and saw that she was holding a plain flute made of wood. She swung her feet back and forth as memories began to creep back to her. There was something about a forest. She hummed and waited patiently for all the memories to return.

A black cat came and jumped up on the bench beside her.

“Hello, Mr Cat,” she said as she watched him lick his paw.

The cat paused in mid-lick and looked straight at her and then at the people behind her in the bus shelter.

“They see a girl appear out of nowhere and that’s how they react,” he said. “They try to disappear her right back again.”

Emma blinked. She looked around and behind the cat and under the bench. He watched her the entire time. She wanted to giggle.

“I can talk to animals!” she said and raised her hands in the air in delight.

The cat blinked at her. “I can’t understand anything that you’re saying,” he said. “You’re just talking nonsense like the rest of them.” The cat leaped down from the bench and ran off across a lawn and around the building behind it.

Emma lowered her arms and frowned. After a moment, she raised them into the air again.

“I can listen to animals!” she said.

A bus pulled up at that moment and the people who had been waiting for it climbed in. A number of them cast quick glances at Emma as they departed.

When the bus drove away, Emma saw that there was a hospital across the street. There was a sprawling parking lot in front of it.

“He’ll take me where I need to go,” she said as her memory returned. “A hospital? Am I hurt?”

She checked herself over and thought that she was uninjured, but she realized that she was still in her pink pajamas and slippers. They were still wet and dirty. Maybe the hospital would give her something clean to wear. She walked to the corner and pushed the button for the crosswalk.

When she was across the street, she walked straight through the parking lot and up to the hospital’s main entrance. Automatic doors slid open and she went inside.

A voice from a speaker somewhere told her to sanitize her hands using a dispenser that hung on the wall. She did so and then went through another set of doors into the main foyer. It was a spacious room and there was a help desk off to the side. She couldn’t think of anything to say so she took one of the many chairs in the waiting area and considered it. At that time of day the hospital was busy, with people coming in and out for whatever reason. She didn’t see anyone actually use the help desk and she wondered how it was that they all seemed to know what they were doing.

An old man rolled by on a wheelchair. He had a cigarette in his mouth and he winked at her as he went out the door.

An elderly couple sat down on the chairs opposite Emma’s and smiled. She smiled back. The woman spoke to the man in a whisper.

A voice came over the public address system announcing a “code green” in the mental health ward.

“Emma!”

Down the hall came Jake. Emma stood up and ran to him and threw her arms around him.

“You’re alive!” she said.

“Emma, you’re filthy,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

She backed up and blushed as Victoria Milligan walked up behind him.

“Hello, Mrs Milligan,” Emma said.

“Hi, Emma,” she said. “Call me Vicky. What are you doing here? Look at you! What happened?”

Emma took a breath. “There was a singing tree in the forest and he gave me this flute. Then a thing with horns came and there was another bigger thing with horns and it was very scary, but the smaller one pushed me into the tree and I showed up here. It was night then but it’s day now. I’m not sure what day it is though.”

“I see,” Victoria Milligan said. “Is your father with you, my dear?”

“No, he’s still at home. I ran away crying!”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. I think I understand what happened now, Emma. You sure got far running away. Well, we should get you home, don’t you think? We were just heading out ourselves.”

“Yes, Mrs Vicky,” Emma said. “I guess I’ve been bad and I should apologize to my dad.”

Mrs Milligan offered Emma her cell phone and she called her father. She was surprised to learn that he wasn’t angry with her and that he already knew about her adventure. He told her to get home safely and that they would talk about it then.

“I don’t understand how he knows,” she said as they were leaving the hospital. “It’s all so weird.”

They left the building and went straight back to the bus stop across the street. They sat at the bench to wait for the bus that would take them to the station, where they would transfer to the one that would take them home.

“Why were you at the hospital?” Emma said.

“Grandpa,” Jake said.

“He had a stroke yesterday,” Mrs Milligan said, “and we were here with him all day and through the night. It’s Wednesday, by the way, my dear, in case you’re still not sure about the day.”

“Thank you, Mrs Vicky,” Emma said. “I’m sorry to hear about his stroke.”

“Just Vicky please,” said Mrs Milligan.

The bus ride home took almost an hour and a half. During that time, Emma recounted the previous night’s events in more detail to Jake and his mother. As she told the story, she became animated during the parts she considered to be the exciting ones and she drew glances from the other passengers. When she described the great monster at the end, she put her hands on her head like they were horns and roared loudly. Many of the passengers laughed.

“A minotaur, was it?” Mrs Milligan said. “And the other one was a faun, right? From the stories...”

Emma didn’t think that she was taking her seriously. It seemed more like she was playing along with a child’s made up stories. She didn’t blame the woman because the story really was outrageous and Emma would’ve found it hard to believe it herself if she hadn’t been there. Jake did appear to believe her and he had been caught in rapt attention the entire time.