After a minute, though, the sounds die out, and I stop, straining to hear where my sister and friends might be.

“Ari?” I call.

But I’m all alone.

I step timidly down the path, coming to an open plot of green with a big fountain in the middle. The space is about twice the size of my bedroom, surrounded by tall cypresses with three other pathways leading off from the big, open area. Is this the center of the maze?

The fountain is massive with a gray stone bowl at the bottom and a smaller one on top. Water shoots from the spouts, filling the upper bowl and pouring down like thick waterfalls into the lower one. It creates the prettiest sound. Like roaring rapids. So peaceful.

But not looking where I’m going, I crash into someone and stumble backward. A woman’s arms rise with her palms up and away from me as if I’m dirty and she doesn’t want to touch me.

I see Madame’s surprised eyes soften with her smile, her body graceful and fluid like this is a theater, and she’s always on stage.

“Hello, sweetheart.” Her voice is drenched in sweetness. “Are you having fun?”

I step back and drop my eyes, nodding.

“Have you seen my son?” she asks. “He loves parties, and I don’t want him to miss this.”

He loves parties? I dig in my eyebrows, confused. His father doesn’t seem to agree.

I’m about to tell her ‘no’, but then something to my right catches my attention, and I look over, thinning my eyes at the dark form.

The dark form inside the fountain.

It sits behind the water in the bottom bowl, almost entirely hidden.

Damon. Their son who was just getting yelled at upstairs.

I pause for a moment, the lie coming out before I can stop it. “No.” I shake my head. “No, I haven’t seen him, Madame. I’m sorry.”

I don’t know why I don’t tell her he’s right there, but after the way his dad just shouted at him, I guess he looks like he wants to be left alone.

I avoid Madame’s eyes like she’ll be able to tell I’m lying, and instead, stare straight ahead. Her black dress flows to mid-calf, glittering with little jewels and pearls as the top hugs her slender body and the bottom sways as she moves. Her long, black hair drapes down her back, as straight and shimmering as a cool stream of water.

I never hear my mom say anything nice about her, but while people are afraid of her, they are definitely nice to her face. She doesn’t look much older than my babysitter, but she has a kid older than me.

Without saying anything, she glides around me and walks toward the entrance, while I stay still for a moment, wondering if I should follow and just leave, too.

But I don’t.

I know he probably doesn’t want to see anyone, but I kind of feel bad that he’s alone.

Slowly, I inch toward the fountain.

Peering through the streams of the water pouring down, I try to make him out as he quietly hides. Arms clad in a black suit coat, resting on his knees, and dark hair hanging over his eyes and sticking to his porcelain cheekbones.

Why is he in the fountain?

“Damon?” I say in a timid voice. “Are you okay?”

He says nothing, and through the falling water, I can tell he doesn’t move. It’s like he doesn’t hear me.

Clearing my throat, I harden my voice. “Why are you sitting in there?” And then I add, “Can I come in, too?”

I didn’t mean to say it, but I got excited. It looks fun, and something inside me just wants him to feel better.

He shifts his head, his gaze flashing to the side, but then he turns back.

I squint into the thin slices of air between the spills to see his head bowed and wet hair hanging in his face. I spot a flash of red, noticing blood on his hand. Is he bleeding?

Maybe he wants a Band-Aid. I always want my mom and a Band-Aid when I’m hurt.

“I see you at Cathedral sometimes. You never take the bread, do you?” I ask him. “When the whole row goes to receive communion, you stay sitting there. All by yourself.”

He doesn’t move behind the water. Just like in church. He just sits there when everyone else goes up the aisle, even though he’s of age. I remember him being part of my sister’s first communion class.

I fidget. “I have my first communion soon,” I tell him. “I’m supposed to have it, I mean. You have to go to confession first, and I don’t like that part.”

Maybe that’s why he stays seated during that part of Mass. You’re not supposed to take the bread or wine unless you’ve confessed, and if he hates that part as much as I do, maybe he just sits out altogether.

I search for his eyes through the water. The spray from the falls hits my skin and costume, and the hair on my arms stands up. I want to go in there, too. I want to see.

He doesn’t feel friendly, though. I’m not sure what he’ll do if I climb in.

“Do you want me to go?” I lean my head to the side, trying to catch his eyes. “I’ll go if you want. I just don’t like it out here very much. My stupid sister ruins everything.”

She took off with my friends, running away from me, and my mom is…busy. Seeing what it’s like inside a fountain for the first time seems like fun.

But he doesn’t look like he wants me here. Or anyone, for that matter.

“I’ll go,” I finally say and back away, leaving him alone.

But as I turn, the sound of the water suddenly changes, and I look over, seeing that it’s hitting his hand now.

He reaches out slowly through the water for me, inviting me in.

I hesitate a moment, trying to see if I can make out his face, but still, it’s covered by his drenched hair.

Glancing around me, I don’t see anyone, and my mom will probably be mad that I’ll get wet, but… I want to.

I can’t hold back the smile as I reach out and clutch his chilled fingers, lifting my leg and stepping into the fountain.

So long ago.

That was so long ago, but that day was burned into my mind, because it was the last day I saw my mother’s face. It was the last day I saw my bedroom and whatever new décor she would fix it up with. The last time I could run anywhere I wanted, knowing by the clear picture in front of me that the path ahead was without danger, and it was the last time people weren’t nervous around me, or that my parents loved me more than they were burdened by me.

It was the last time I was included without question or could enjoy a movie, a dance, or a play the way it was meant to be enjoyed.

It was the last day I was me as I knew it and the first day of a new reality that could never be undone. I couldn’t go back. I couldn’t rewind and not go into that maze. I couldn’t undo stepping into that fountain.

Because God, I wished I never did. Some mistakes you never heal from.

And as my mother and I stood next to my older sister, now thirteen years later on her wedding day, smelling her perfume and hearing the priest mumble through this blessed sacrament of marriage, I fought not to recoil or remember how, for one brief, beautiful moment, that fountain all those years ago was indeed a heavenly hiding place. And how I wished I was there now, if only to be away from here.

The rings, the kiss, the blessing…

And it was done. She was married.

My stomach dropped, and my eyes stung as they closed. No.

I stood there, hearing whispers and shuffles, and waited for my mother’s hand to guide me down the stairs and out of the empty cathedral.

I needed air. I needed to run.

But my mother’s and sister’s voices moved away from me.

And the same chilled fingers I reached for in that fountain all those years ago now brushed mine.

“Now…” my sister’s new husband whispered in my ear. “Now, you belong to me.”

Winter

Present

I froze, fisting my hand and feeling him sitting across from me in the limo after the service. Damon Torrance. The boy in the fountain.

The kid in the disheveled suit with hair in his eyes and a bloody hand who would barely speak or look at me.

But now he was a man, and he had definitely learned to talk. Tall and sure, there was a threat in his dark words in the church, but I could still smell that fountain on him. He smelled like cold things do. Like sharp water.

“Your father guaranteed us a lofty settlement as long as I stay married to you for a year,” my sister said as she and Damon sat side by side, across from my mother and me in the car. “I intend to see it through. No matter what you pull.”

She was speaking to him, but his voice was calm and resolute when he finally addressed her. “We won’t be divorcing, Arion. Not ever.”

His voice sounded turned away, like he was gazing out the window or anywhere but at her.

No divorce? My heart pumped harder. Of course he would divorce her. Someday, right? I couldn’t even believe it had gone this far. This was all just revenge on my family, after all. Why would he want to carry it out for a lifetime?

It was his plan to ruin us. Finding proof of my father’s embezzlement and tax fraud and causing his flight from the country, the feds seizing nearly everything we owned, our bank accounts drained, and now…the perpetrator of all the havoc swooping in to take advantage of three destitute women who needed support. Someone to save their home and put them back into the luxurious lifestyle and community standing they were accustomed to.

But no, I understood. As much as I wanted to pretend I didn’t know the end game, I did. Deep down, I did.

His plan wasn’t to ruin us. It was to torture.

For however long it entertained him to do so.

“You want to stay married to me?” my sister asked.

“I don’t want to be married to anyone else,” Damon clarified, his voice monotone and uninterested. “You’re as good as anyone, I suppose. You’re beautiful and young. You’re Thunder Bay. You’re educated and presentable. You’re healthy, so children shouldn’t be a problem…”

“You want kids?”

My sister’s question sounded almost hopeful, and I closed my eyes behind my sunglasses, cringing. “Oh, God,” I breathed out, unable to hold in the curse filled with nausea and disgust.