Chapter 7

Even though I'dbeen quick to separate the crystals I'd purchased from Chalce's Crystal Emporium, some contamination had occurred and I'd spent the morning purifying and recharging them. Which basically meant leaving them out in the sunlight for a few hours, since I hadn't had the time to waft them through sage smoke every hour for twelve consecutive hours.

Now with a clean and charged selenite crystal the size and shape of a monocle in my pocket, and Sawyer's warning in my head—"Don't you dare get caught. And don't you dare get yourself into a position where you have to use those iron cuffs"—I approached one of the four entrances to the corn maze with two paper bags in hand.

It was easy to spot the Crafting Circle, and it wasn't because of Flora in her red cowgirl hat, either.

Smiling her customary close-lipped, dimpled smile, Shari snapped her fingers and held out her hand to the garden gnome perched on her shoulder. Groaning dramatically, Flora released her hold on one of the crocheted bat wings sticking out from the side of Shari's head to rummaged in her jeans pocket. She extracted a wadded-up five-dollar bill and slapped it into the crocheter's hand, then strained forward, sniffing.

"Ooo, is that for us? That smells almost as good as those apple butter cinnamon rolls you make!"

"Well, these loaves are," I answered, handing over the paper bag with the four smaller rounds in it. "But the big one is for… someone else. If he shows."

"So we're at the gift-giving stage of the crush now, are we?" Daphne drawled, smiling. She held a pole with a red flag at its tip this evening instead of her blackthorn shillelagh.

"I don't know what you're talking about," I said, feigning ignorance.

As the women chuckled, I glanced over my shoulder at the teams of people starting to congregate by the sign labeled "Entrance A." They all wore something to differentiate their groups, whether it was sky-blue T-shirts, Redbud Rams mascot ball caps, or KISS-inspired face paint. Some were stretching to limber up, others testing the efficacy of their flashlights, others adorning themselves with glow-sticks so they could keep track of their party members. This was the most serious batch of corn maze contenders I'd ever seen. The air was so charged with electric tension, the teams already smack-talking each other, that I was convinced the nearest corn stalks were going to burst into popcorn.

When I didn't see the lumberjack, suddenly realizing I was scanning the crowd for him, even though I had no idea if he was coming tonight, I turned hastily back to the Crafting Circle. "You look fantastic, Shari."

The crocheter's brown eyes twinkling behind her wing-tip glasses. Her oversized sweater was a deep brown, black felt wings sewn under her arms and into the sides, and big black chunky boots with silver bat decals covered her feet. Her fishnet leggings resembled bats in flight, as did the hat on her head, and just as Flora had told me, a bandolier of brightly colored fruits—all in various stages of terror and dismemberment—was strung across her chest. On each shoulder, she wore a tiny crocheted fruit bat, one holding a banana, the other a peach.

She removed the pin of the fruit bat holding the peach and attached it to my shirt. "Since you came."

"She made us each one," Daphne said, rolling her shoulder to show hers off. The little fruit bat held a green pear; Flora's, a plum.

"So everyone knows we're on the same team," Flora said stoutly. "I'm not interested in splitting the prize money more than four ways."

"Five," Shari corrected, standing on her tiptoes to survey the rapidly building crowd. "If Charlie comes."

"We're not waiting," the garden gnome said. "The second that starter pistol goes off—"

"Ladies and gentlemen," Jakob Tabrass's raspy voice crackled over the loudspeakers, pausing so a starting pistol could crack through the charged air, "the great Corn Maze Race, a test of physical and metal fortitude, has begun!"

Flora seized both of Shari's hat bat wings and gave them a snap like they were the reins to a racehorse. "Go, woman, go!"

With a little whimper of regret, Shari abandoned her search for Charlie and hustled into the corn maze with the rest of the stampede. I laughed as we were jostled from all sides, the crush of bodies dissipating as the path divided into three offshoots: left, center, and right.

"No laughing," Flora bellowed. "And we're going straight."

"Sure, take the long way, Flora," someone jeered.

"See you at the loser's circle," another teased.

When Flora threatened to whirl Shari around and drive her into a charge after the offending voices, Daphne plucked the garden gnome off of Shari and settled her on her own shoulder. "Aaand you're coming with me. We gotta hustle."

"Shari can stay with me," I said, holding on to the woman's hand so she could look behind her for any trace of Charlie but not lose the rest of us.

"Don't you dare fall behind," Flora shouted. "I need that brain of hers. Yours, too, cider witch, if you know anything about trivia."

"Trivia?"

"Daphne, I can't with these amateurs!"

"Oof!" I skidded to a halt just shy of colliding with Daphne and Flora, the two bent as they examined something in front of them. We'd come to another divide, this one a two-way junction, both paths equally dark and oppressive, the corn stalks grown so thick they blocked the other teams' flashlights.

At the same time Daphne cried, "Cow," Flora shouted, "Left."

"What the—" I'd barely had enough time to even see there was a wooden sign staked into the ground, let alone read what it said, before our team raced down the path to the left.

"The corn maze is huge," Shari quickly explained. "Four entrances, hundreds of paths. At each junction there's multiple choice trivia. Answer it correctly, and it tells you the fastest path to the center of the maze, and eventually out an exit. You throw up your flag if you get lost and can't find your way out, and the watchers on the platforms come get you."

"And the first team to the center wins the prize," Daphne informed over her shoulder.

"Seems a lot of people take this seriously," I said, chuckling.

I'd heard of corn mazes before, though I'd never been to one, Grandmother strictly regulating the comings and goings of the Hawthornes to business and chaperoned educational outings only. Though, we had our very own hedge maze that Cousin Dahlia rearranged every year for Samhain, when she could be torn away from her watercolor paintings.

"Quit giggling and keep up," Flora barked. "Those posh Alder boys ain't winning it again this year, not when we have four team members!"

At the next intersection was a question not related to livestock this time, but mathematics. I personally needed a calculator for such a heinous equation, but Shari took one look at it, declared, "Forty-two," and the team swung right.

We hustled through the maze at a relentless march, and soon we heard voices and saw the wavering beams of nearby flashlights. We were coming up on another team.

"Charlie," Shari exclaimed.

"Woah." His blue eyes widened as his flashlight swept across her costume, his shocked lips quirking upright a second later. "Awesome."

That dimpled, close-lipped smile of Shari's came back in full force.

"You alone?" Flora demanded, having Daphne sweep the area with her flashlight.

"No, I'm with—"

"Well if it isn't the usurper," a familiar voice said, appearing a moment later.

"Hi, Cohen," I replied in my most unamused tone, though it was all for show. "You ready to lose again?"

"Pfft." He swaggered up to the trivia sign, gave it a sweep of his flashlight, and declared, "Right."

"Left," Shari corrected.

"Shhh!" Flora admonished, flapping her cowgirl hat.

"Cohen," Charlie began, "maybe we should—"

"It's left," another voice rumbled. "‘The course of true love never did run smooth' is a quote from A Midsummer's Night Dream, not Hamlet." The burly newcomer paused when the Lancaster boys gave him an odd look. "What? Dad refused to raise uncultured sons."

"Arthur," I breathed.

The lumberjack shifter wore a black Magic Brewery T-shirt like the rest of his team, tight across the chest and arms and looser around his waist. The fabric stretched in time with his elevated breathing rate—his team had been running too. While he didn't greet me, not that I blamed him, his eyes dropped from my face to the bread I held in my hands, nostrils flaring.

"Left," Flora shouted. "Run, girls!"

Daphne, who had to be at least sixty, apparently still had the legs of a deer and sprang spryly to the left.

Shari and I started backing away after them, the boys' team clearly undecided if they wanted to follow Cohen, who was stubbornly convinced right was the correct choice, or follow us.

"I wanna win this one, so I'm going with Shari's team," Charlie said suddenly, dashing after us.

"We're not sharing the prize money," the garden gnome hollered.

Shari shucked my hand like it was something wet and horrible and immediate took Charlie's when he raced up to her, offering to share his flashlight. I didn't blame her.

"Sorry?" I shrugged at the rest of the men and fled the junction after my team.

There was a shout behind me, something about "deserting us for skirts and carbs," and then the hair on the back of my neck prickled. I was being followed. Pursued.

But I wasn't scared. No, that feeling that had me picking up my pace, hardly daring to glance over my shoulder, that was anticipation, not fear. And relief, tinged with delight. For I hadn't really realized I needed to apologize to Arthur until I saw him just now, hadn't realized that was the true reason I'd dared make his favorite focaccia this afternoon, and now I was given the opportunity. Of course, there was the chance that Arthur had followed us simply because he wanted to win the maze.

But if that was the case, he could've passed me by now. From the way he'd run us away from Cody yesterday, I knew he was faster than this. He was letting me stay ahead of him, content to stalk me. My world narrowed to nothing but the twisting path in front of me and the sounds of what was coming after me.

The man, or the beast.