The ground crunches underfoot, weeds and dying grass giving way to the deliberate step. The air holds a coolness, not quite evening and not quite day, one of those suspended hours where everything drifts, unanchored. The house at my back shrinks into shadow, red bricks and peeling paint receding like a memory I can’t shake off. I tell myself I’m not afraid—of the darkness pooling at the open corridor’s mouth, of the maze that rearranges itself when I’m not looking, of the fact that I’m still talking to a dog whose collar hangs from the fence, untarnished by rain, untouched by anything but time.
I wish I could see Sirijus—not just the flicker of his tail in my mind’s eye, not just the way he used to press his broad head against my knee, insistent and steady. I wish for him now, as the shadows stretch and the glowing thing at the corridor’s end pulses, brighter for a moment, then dimmer. Something in the air tastes electric. I call his name again, softly, like a password. "Sirijus." My voice doesn’t echo, just folds into the hush.
He answers, not with words, but with the blue-silver glint of memory: his ear cocked, the way it always was when he wanted to hear but didn’t want to seem too eager. It’s enough to steady me. Or maybe it’s just the night, gentle and close, pressing its palm to my back. Either way, I take another step.
The corridor absorbs me. Its walls are rough, crumbling—plaster here, brick there, then raw dirt, as if the house can’t decide what it wants to be. There’s an old poster peeling off one wall, the faded image of a smiling woman holding a soda bottle. Above my head, narrow beams of sky filter through cracks, stripes of pale gold that flick and vanish as I move.
Every sound is magnified: the scuff of my boot, the soft drip of water from somewhere unseen, the distant, hollow thump of something moving deeper inside the maze. My pulse keeps time, slow and deliberate, counting out the seconds between courage and doubt.
As the corridor bends, the glowing shape at its far end sharpens. Not a door, after all. Not quite. It’s an old window, panes blurred by age, with something pressed to the glass on the other side—a handprint, faint and child-sized, haloed by that strange, trembling light.
I stop, breath caught in my throat. The memory of small fingers curled around my own rises unbidden: my mother’s hand, once warm and sure, guiding me across a street, through a crowd, always forward. Now she’s nowhere, except in memories and the shape of that hand on the glass. The ache is sudden and sharp, a blade twisting under my ribs.
Behind me, Sirijus’s presence hovers—loyal, patient, expectant. I imagine him nudging me on, as if to say, go ahead. Find out. This is what you came for.
Outside, the sky deepens, colors bleeding together in a way that makes me ache for something I can’t name. Inside the corridor, the light grows brighter, picking out dust motes, illuminating cracks, making every flaw beautiful. I reach out, almost without thinking, my own hand hovering just above the faded print on the other side of the glass. Heat radiates from it, a warmth that shouldn’t be possible in this place, at this hour.
Then—movement. A shadow flickers behind the window, larger than a child, shifting closer. My heart thumps once, hard. Is it my mother, her spirit housed in memory and light? Is it a stranger, a threat, something summoned by all this longing? Or is it just another trick of the maze, a lesson dressed as a ghost?
I freeze, breath shallow, every sense straining toward that shape. The corridor is silent now, as if the house itself is waiting with me, holding its breath for whatever comes next.