~Chapter 2~
"Apples"

I was standing at the wall of the Labyrinth, my face pressed against the blocks, Katrina's feet on my shoulders. She was struggling, her feet shifting around on me as she tried to keep her balance and pull herself up enough to look over the wall. She kept pressing my nose into the stone, and I smelled a weird mix of flowers and mold, and to make matters worse, the fairies were still hanging around, the threat of a nibble never too far away. "I'm too short!" she insisted above me.

"You're too heavy!" I snapped back. "Just try to get your head over the wall."

"I'll fall!" she protested.

"No you won't," Dreamin' said behind us. "Just think positively!"

I heard Katrina snort in contempt of all things positive, her heels still grinding away into my shoulders. "Some bright idea," she muttered to Irish Creme.

"You have a better one?" the red-head asked.

"She's probably going to fall," said Cerridwenn.

"Oh-ho, Cy-ni-cal," I noised sarcastically, my head moving from side to side. "I'll have you know I am taking the utmost care with Katrina here, and that if--"

"Ahhhhh!" I felt Katrina's feet slip off my shoulders. She didn't fall...she was hanging on to the side of the wall, looking over into the Labyrinth.

"What do you see?" asked Irish Creme quickly.

"Oh..." she breathed, amazement echoing in her voice. "Nothing."

"Pardon?" said Rebecca, raising an eyebrow at the girl hanging from the wall.

Katrina was losing hold and started to kick her feet against the side, one of them narrowly missing my head. "I don't see anything. There's no Labyrinth!"

"We saw it from the hill," Aradia argued.

"Yeah...but...oh!" She fell off the wall and took me down with her. She sat up, brushing dust off of her. "There wasn't anything there. Just...the same thing that's over here." She swept her hand out, indicating the seeming miles of empty land that surrounded the Labyrinth.

"So much for crawling over," Elysian Wind said, collapsing into an indian-style position with her chin in her hands.

"Hey, I'm not quitting," I said. "There's a way through. We just have to look for it. It's not the same old Labyrinth."

Irish Creme nodded. "So, any more ideas?"

"Um, I have one." A girl who hadn't said anything up to that point raised her hand shyly. She was a tall, thin girl with blonde hair and eyes that were either blue or green...I couldn't tell. She was obviously new to the list, at any rate. She gestured to the doors. "Why don't you knock?"

"Because...well..." I stammered. I didn't know about the rest of them, but I sure felt like an idiot.

The girl stood up, strode to the doors, and knocked lightly. "Who goes?" demanded a voice.

"Fay, and the Listians," she said, her voice a whisper compared to the thunder of the one at the door.

"A man with no eyes
Saw apples on a tree
He neither took apples
Nor left apples
How can this be?"

"RIDDLES?!" I exlaimed, horrified. "I can't do riddles!!!"

"Everyone can do riddles," Mortelle told me reassuringly. Then she frowned. "You just have to figure them out," she added, sounding much less certain.

"It's a math problem," said Fay, smiling. Then she recited back:

"A man with one eye
Saw two apples on a tree
He took one
And left one
That's how simple it can be."

The doors creaked and groaned and swung open before us. "I really don't know how you did that, but I want you to know that I am extremely jealous," I told her as I walked past into the long corridor that held the way into the Labyrinth. "Welcome to the list."

And that's how we got inside. But time was running out. According to my watch (which for some reason had suddenly acquired a thirteenth hour) we had twelve hours and fourty minutes.

I looked around. That corridor wasn't quite what I'd expected it to be. It was littered with big puddles of silver glitter and water. It was darker, too, and the echo was longer. The shadows played all around. It had been eerie in the movie. It was downright creepy in reality. And I could have sworn I heard "Into the Labyrinth" somewhere in the distance.

"Not funny, Jareth," said Angel, and the music cut off abruptly.

The doors slammed shut behind us then, blocking escape. Too late to turn back, we went forward, further and further down the corridor.

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