~Chapter 4~
"Water Ballet"

"Never," I huffed, running through the corridor with the sound of the Cleaners close behind, "ever...say anything...resembles...an iced...confection...of any...kind!"

"Sorry!" Heddy shouted back.

We stampeded down the hall like buffalo, the Cleaners ten times louder than our tramping footsteps. Coming up I saw something that looked vaguely familiar...an archway, broken peices of metal hanging from it, covered in cobwebs.

"Here!" cried Rebecca. "This way!" She turned to the right and we followed her into a small room, crowding in. We just pulled April in as the big machine rolled by, the anti-climactic goblins pumping behind it.

I leaned up against the wall and had a sigh. "That was entirely too close."

Rebecca grinned. "I always wanted to run from the Cleaners."

"You are insane," Cerridwenn told her flatly, and started climbing the ladder.

Even with all the things that had already happened...I never could have guessed what was at the top.

When she got all the way up, she reached above her head and pushed off the lid that covered the vase we were supposed to be able to climb out of. Instead of a flood of light into our shadows we were greeted with a pale blue glow.

"Oh my gosh," Cerridwenn breathed slowly.

"What?" cried Irish Creme.

"Let me guess," said Corky. "It's not the hedge maze."

"Nope," Cerridwenn called back. "It's water."

"Water?" came the reply in unison.

Cerridwenn ran her hand over the blue flim that hung over the vase. She created little ripples, just like if you touched the surface of a bowl of water. She took a deep breath and stuck her head out.

We waited, and then she came back, grinning. "It's not wet." She shook her head, pearl-like beads of silvery blue falling from her braid. "You can breathe it."

"You're sure it won't hurt my flute?" I asked hesitantly.

"Yeah!" She started to pull herself up and out, and she disappeared into the water above. Her head poked back through. "Come on! It's great!"

"I can't swim," someone muttered in protest, but they were overruled as we started up the rickety ladder one at a time.

What I swam out into was this: the hedge maze, turned upside-down and flooded. I started out holding my breath, and I panicked a little when I found myself floating not towards the surface, but towards the stone pavement. I guess I had expected to bob to the surface and gasp a lungful of air, just like in my pool. When it didn't happen I started to freak out a little, and I could tell from the other Listians thrashing around that I wasn't the only one. It didn't take us long to figure out that we could breathe fine, just like Cerridwenn said, and soon we were having a ball. I had a new favorite part of the Labyrinth, that was for sure. But I also had a feeling it wasn't all fun and games. I dove down and came out at the surface, catching an upside-down view of the Castle Beyond the Goblin City before I bobbed back up into the water.

I gestured to the others when I found them clustered around the vase, and Mortelle smiled. "We can talk, Alexa, but if you want to play charades..."

I stuck my tongue out at her. "Yeah, yeah." My voice sounded kind of...bubbly. "The castle is that way."

"I guess we should go that way, then," Serena said, swimming leisurely around us.

"Agreed?" asked Seona.

We nodded. "Agreed." We took off in the general direction of the castle.

After we'd taken a couple of turns, Afton came swimming up beside me. "Alexa," she asked me hesitantly, "do you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

She shrugged. "It was kind of a grating, metallic sort of sound...but it's gone now."

"Okay."

She fell back behind me, but her blue-green eyes were worried. I made a mental note to listen carefully to the water, but didn't hear anything, and after a while, I had forgotten about it altogether. I had a lot on my mind. Every turn we took led to dead end after dead end. Hours were ticking by while we swam through the maze, and I didn't think we were accomplishing anything. We must have gone by the vase we came out of three times.

"Hey," Seona suddenly called to us, turning around, her long auburn hair floating around her face. "I see something!"

Ahead, a bright light cut through the water. We had reached the end of that maze. Beyond stood the Firey Forest, and in the distance, the castle. I glanced at my watch. We had wasted three hours in the water maze. We had nine hours left to navigate the Labyrinth.

We swam full speed towards the end of the maze...and came up hard against a surface like glass. I bumped my nose into the wall and fell back, floating shocked in the water. "What the hell?"

"It's closed," murmured Pyrephox, brushing her hand over the surface. "Well, that sucks."

"No kidding," Caitlin.replied, her voice sounding like a high giggle. "We're sushi."

We turned to look at her--that didn't seem like a typical response. She was turned away from us through. We squinted our eyes, peering back into the maze, to see what she was seeing. I heard the sound before I got a clear picture..at first I thought it was the Cleaners again, but there were three of these shapes in the water, sharp and metallic. They made a squealing, grinding sound as they turned round and round. They weren't the Cleaners. They were fish. Big, black, mechanical fish with mouthfuls of spinning teeth. It did indeed look like we were sushi.

I heard Afton's voice just above the sound. "I knew I heard something!"

Some of us swam back up, towards the floor, and some swam down towards the surface. I was one of the ones swimming down.

We broke the surface, glimpsing the strange, upside-down world outside the water maze. I reached out to grab the top of that wall that had blocked our way below...and found that it had no top. It continued up far above the surface. I shouted a curse as I felt myself slipping, floating back down, my fingers dragging over the wall. I was under the water again.

My hair fell into my face as I struggled. Someone grabbed one of the long brown strands and yanked, hard. I was going back down to the surface. There was an ear-splitting crash, and then a feeling like being in a bowl of water during an earthquake. I broke the surface, and the hand holding my hair let go. I looked around frantically and saw Cerridwenn for a split second before she grabbed my hand and pulled me back up with her. Other listians were with us, heading back through the water. Then Cerridwenn took a fast right, and pulled me through the wall. As I went through, I saw the edges of a huge, gaping hole, razor sharp pieces of it threatening to snag me. There was a piece of fabric on it already. I unconsciously hugged my flute case a little tighter as I passed through.

Then I was falling into a pile of weird leaves. "Oof," was my public statement as I hit the ground.

"Wow," breathed April. "That was about the bravest thing I've ever seen!"

"What was?" I asked groggily. There were beads of non-wet water dripping off of me. I shook my head, and they spilled over the leaves out of my hair.

"What do you mean 'what was'?" said Corky, shaking beads off of her white t-shirt. "You saved our lives. You made the monster break the wall. The old bull-fighter trick."

"I did?"

Irish Cream laughed. "Actually, you almost got eaten, then Cerridwenn grabbed you at the last second. The monster went through the wall."

I rubbed my head where my hair had been yanked and glanced at my hero. Cerridwenn gave me a huge grin in return. "So where's the monster?" I asked.

Caitlin pointed at the pile of leaves under me. "Sushi."

I looked down. They weren't leaves at all; the strange mesh scales that padded my fall belonged to the outside of that fish...which was just underneath them. I found myself looking into the monster's mouth. I jumped up. "Cripes! Give a girl a little warning!"

"So..." said Starz, looking around. "Where's Dreamin'?"

"And Katrina?" asked someone else.

"And Rebecca?"

"And Fay?"

"And--"

"They didn't make it out!" cried Corky. "What happened to them?"

A good question. We looked into the water maze behind us, and saw the other two big black fish patrolling around, and I had a sinking feeling I'd never know the answer.

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