Canarino. Katherine Bucknell

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      They had all forgotten just how hot it was outside. The roaring, airless brightness took away their breath when they opened the front door and went out into it from the magic of the air-conditioning. The children felt a lazy heaviness climb up their legs, so that it seemed to take forever to walk across the portico and down the steps. By the time they made it over the gravel to the lawn, they only wanted to lie down in the humid, springing grass. The shade of the trees gave no relief; it was as if the temperature had permeated the landscape and radiated from the very ground itself. The air felt moist and thick, like a wet, weighty cloth, but the ground was hard underneath the grass, parched despite being watered twice a day by automatic sprinklers.

      Norma found herself hoping that the children wouldn’t run off; she felt she would never be able to chase them, let alone catch them. In fact, she felt like collapsing altogether, and she struggled with herself to stay focused on her lifelong priority: the safety and happiness of her charges.

      They need exercise, she told herself. We’ve been traveling all day. Their little legs need a good stretch and their lungs need filling with fresh air or they’ll not sleep well tonight. And she pulled them up from the grass and coaxed them around to the back of the house.

      ‘Listen to the cicadas, children. I think it’s cicadas, here in Virginia. That sort of singing, whirring sound. Do you hear it?’

      They stood in the grass and the singing swelled at them, in big pulses. It seemed to make the air feel even closer, even heavier.

      Behind the house, they came upon an enormous box hedge, higher than Norma’s head, running away in both directions like a green wall, bellying and ballooning with its ancient growth, the tiny leaves glittering in the afternoon light. There was a way through the hedge right at the center, a natural arch over brick paving. The arch led them onto a wide brick walkway running left to the shadowy veranda at the back of the house and right to the lawn which spread and fell away downhill until lost to view. There was another box hedge facing them on the other side of the walk.

      Gordon was in front, then Hope.

      ‘Look, Hope, there’s another tunnel!’ And he led the way through the matching archway in the next hedge with Norma right behind them.

      Through the second archway, the narrow brick path curved and disappeared in both directions. The box towered above them, dimming the light.

      ‘It’s a maze,’ said Norma, suddenly realizing it. ‘You’ve got to follow the path and see if you can make your way to the center.’

      So they started slowly, expectantly, along to the left, turning, winding back near where they had just been. Then they found another fork, tried right this time, came to a blank wall of springing box, fell against it, laughing.

      ‘This is not the way!’ said Hope. And she slapped at the bushes in front of her, then swung her arm backwards and forwards through them. They gave off a dry, rich smell, a mixture of dust and crushed foliage.

      ‘Don’t break the branches,’ Norma cried out, grabbing her arm, ‘it takes forever to grow something like this, and it’s been very well tended, too.’

      Hope wriggled free and twirled around with her arms extended, her fingertips just clearing the hedge encircling them, reaching for it, daring Norma. She checked to see whether Gordon was watching her. She stopped twirling and touched a leaf, pinched it between her fingertips, let go. Then she looked at Norma; it was a very saucy look. Norma did nothing.

      ‘I’m the leader now,’ Hope shouted, and she flew past Gordon back the way they had come.

      Now there was calling and laughing, sweating and puffing, all along the old brick paths for ten or fifteen minutes until they finally found the center of the maze with its stone bench and its sundial.

      Norma was dripping; all three of them were out of breath. Norma sat down on the bench and pulled at her tights, lifting them off her skin and letting them pop back.

      ‘I’ve never been so hot!’ she exclaimed. ‘We must all drink plenty of water. Pity there’s no fountain here inside the maze. Wouldn’t it be nice?’ She felt done in, utterly. ‘We’ll get used to the heat, I’m sure.’

      Gordon said, ‘I’m sick of this place. How do we get out?’

      Norma wiped the perspiration from her face with the backs of her hands. The maze seemed suffocating now; Gordon was right. But she didn’t let on. ‘Well, let’s rest just a bit and then we’ll find it. We’ve got in; we’ll surely get out.’

      ‘You lead us, Norma. You’ll find it first,’ said Gordon.

      So Norma heaved herself onto her feet.

      ‘All right then,’ she said. She saw shiny purple-black spots swimming along at the corners of her vision. Her head felt empty, floating, as she reached for Hope’s hand.

      ‘Stick with me, young lady,’ she told Hope.

      And she started blindly back along the path, steadily brushing the box with one shoulder without even noticing it, until Gordon said, ‘Norma, why are you doing that? You’re ripping all the leaves off!’

      Norma turned to look, swiveling her head this way and that way, down toward Gordon, back at the hedge, clutching Hope’s hand. She heard the cicadas sing louder and louder, like a rushing noise in her ears. Her stomach turned over inside her, and she thought she’d be sick, but instead she just keeled over backwards, toppling heavily like a felled tree into the brittle old bushes. The bushes stretched and sprang and held her in the air for a brief moment, then snapped and cracked, slowly at first, then faster, popping and exploding as she went down, down—right through the hedge to the next pathway on the opposite side with a thwack of her skull on the hard brick path that impressed Gordon and Hope more than anything else which had happened that day. They simply stood and stared.

      Hope rubbed her hand a little, where Norma had been gripping it with a death grip which had nearly pulled Hope down with her. She said, ‘Owee, Norma. Owee.’

      Then Gordon said, ‘Hopie! Poor Norma. Hers is much worse. Don’t cry, Hopie.’ And they went on looking at Norma, waiting for her to say something.

      But Norma didn’t say anything and she didn’t move.

      So naturally Hope asked, ‘Is Norma dead?’

      And Gordon said, ‘How do I know?’ Then, thinking it over, he said, ‘But we need to find Mummy.’

      Hope never liked this particular solution, but instinctively she knew Gordon was right. She nodded sadly.

      Next Gordon said, ‘If we call her loudly, Mummy will hear us and she’ll come and find us, even though we’re in this—this maze.’

      Hope nodded again. So they shouted as loudly as they could for a while, trying out both ‘Mummy!’ and ‘Help!’ They both shouted ‘Help!’ much more loudly because it felt more exciting.

      ‘Help! Help!’ Hope giggled with fear, jumping up and down. Then she smiled.

      No one came.

      Finally, Hope yelled, ‘Daddy!’ A long wailing cry.

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