Chapter 16
The maze was large with passages constantly veering off to mysterious places. Subsets of the first crowd broke off into different corridors. Draco watched for one that turned again quickly, then darted into the passage, to then rush to the next turn and out of sight for anyone following behind him. He charged forward, and after yet another turn dared to lift his lantern high to cast light far out around him. He could hear voices and laughter from other parts of the hedge, but as he wandered he didn’t see people. Soon, Draco anticipated, most everyone will have abandoned the ballroom to explore this curiosity presented to them. Then the maze would be so full Draco would stumble over others, unless he found his way through quickly.
But the maze was large. Draco tried to track where he was going but the map he mentally followed sometimes seemed off kilter. When he turned around to retrace his steps the turns weren’t always where they should be. There was music in the distance, but it rose and ebbed as you wandered and you could never ensure the turns brought you closer to it.
Draco spotted unlit lanterns hanging from the tops of the hedges. He paused to examine one. He was tall enough he could open the hatch and light it with his own candle. After that he tried to track his progress from the light he left behind, but others must have caught on and were lighting lanterns, too.
Occasionally, there were stumps carved out to hold strange reed like items. They were labeled with signs that said the lamest things, like “Hedge enough?” or “ready to leaf?” Draco didn’t hesitate to bypass them. He was committed to solving the maze.
Even if he wasn’t dressed for it. Near the outdoor fires he had still felt chill in his layers. Now, he was sweating into his ruff. His puffy sleeves were losing their definition. The risk he’d taken in wearing his golden shoes - only worn once, for his father’s execution - was not paying off as he hustled over grass that was being beaten into dirt. At the start of the night, the shoes pinched but could be managed. Now he knew he had blisters. But he was committed to solving the maze.
He passed other explores, usually bundled in groups and hollering at each other their various opinions on what may be in any direction.
Draco didn’t join them. The more he wandered and the more he watched, the more he suspected there must be a trick being played here. Not one group knew where they were going, or, more noticeably, where they had been.
So he stopped moving in a corner where two corridors met. He was back tracking again, and something felt strange. Draco examined every piece of the corridors. The hedges were all the same height, higher than Draco’s head but he could reach the top easily with his hand. Each passage had a lamp, shining enough light to help you see how far it stretched. Next to Draco was a stump holding those strange cylindrical objects. Its sign read, “Out of stem?” Draco rolled his eyes at it. He had seen this one before. Only… it hadn’t been at a corner. Was it duplicated?
The tendrils of suspicion nagged at Draco and he crouched down to examine the hedges behind the plant. At ground level, something was definitely off. There was somehow a gap between the bottom of the hedge and the ground. Draco tilted over further until he was lying in the dirt, smooshing his ruff against his face. The light of his lantern shined through the gap, revealing another passage partially blocked by its own stump. He stuck a finger under the hedge, more curious than ever.
Then the stump he had seen across the hedge opened an eye. It shined white and bright in the light of Draco’s lantern. Draco yelped (not a scream) and dropped his lantern as he rolled back and away from the hedge.
Someone must have heard him, because from not too far away he heard a shot, “You alright over there?”
Closer, there was a hiss, “You! On the other side. Come back and lend me a hand.”
Draco gaped at the hedge, uncertain. But he was committed to solving the maze and he could taste the answer to the puzzle in the air. Draco crawled back over to the strange hedge and peaked again underneath. The brown wood creature was pointing at something Draco hadn’t noticed before. A lever. “Right there, on the count of three, pull hard!” The creature counted, “one, two, three!” And Draco pulled.
Before his eyes, Draco witnessed the hedge move.
It swung towards him, breaking away from the corner it had created, just barely missing the stump on Draco’s side. What Draco had thought was a stump on the other side took the moment to slip between the newly formed gap. Then he was pulling on Draco’s arm, practically dragging him to his feet, and shoving him down one part of the passageway. The stump creature followed Draco into it, pulling the hedge behind until it clicked into a new place. They now stood at a dead end, leaving a straight line on the other side. Footsteps soon rushed by, on that other side, with people calling out for whoever they’d heard shouting earlier.
“How on earth did that just happen?” Draco gasped.
The creature grinned and wiggled its - his? - eyebrows. Only the brows had twigs glued to them and they jiggled merrily from the motion. Draco stepped back to take it all in. He saw no clothes - only bark and moss somehow wielded together over limbs. Perhaps there were brown boots and gloves, but both were covered with mud. In the light, Draco could see the face was only mildly blemished with dirt, but twigs were still woven into his hair and beard. The hair had been dusted, but Draco could see underneath that it was red.
Draco’s mouth hung open as he admired the outfit from head to toe. “What is a troll doing mixing up this maze?” he said in awe.
The troll belly laughed, shaking the bark over his body. “It’s the only way to live. Come roll in some more dirt with me and find out for yourself.” Then he was stealthily jogging past Draco. In profile, Draco recognized his damaged ear.
What else was there to be done but follow?
The troll was the maze’s master. He navigated with ease, and paused at the slightest hint of other people. Draco had correctly assumed the crowds would thicken, but the troll knew each deadend where he could duck and hide. Especially the ones they could shift.
At the next stump, where the sign read, “Can’t stick with it?” the troll stopped to consider next steps.
He turned and stared directly at Draco for the first time, his expression solemn as he weighed his options. He must have seen something in Draco’s face, perhaps how Draco didn’t flinch from the hard gaze or ever once duck his head at the pressure. The troll nodded to himself and said, “This is really meant for two. Do you solemnly swear you’re up to no good?” Draco gaped at him, but the troll’s expression didn’t budge.
Standing there, lost in the maze, covered in dirt, with aching feet, and having charged in to escape all the burdens hanging over him, Draco knew he was in over his head. But he was here now, in this confounding place, with his heart beating so fast he could feel it in his throat, and fascinated by the puzzle he’d been presented. The troll man in front of him might despise Draco if he knew who Draco was, but he didn’t. The troll could only size up the man in front of him, who had been willing to crawl in the dirt to help the troll with his schemes. To the troll, Draco wasn’t evil or dangerous. He was just a man who proved his mettle and could be asked not to worry about doing good. It made Draco feel alive, and he wanted to try living a little longer not worrying the way he had to every moment of every day in the real world.
“I swear,” Draco promised, just as solemn.
The troll reverted to his cheeky grin, and then he pulled Draco back down to the ground and showed him how to find the lever.
It was nearly easy, maneuvering the mechanics as a pair. Draco watched the troll work, trying to to find the trick to the machinery and how the hedges could grow off the ground.
When Draco asked, the troll winked at him. “Magic,” he said.
“There’s no such thing as magic,” Draco retorted. The troll laughed in his face and then dragged Draco out of sight before another group of lost explorers could see them.
So they wandered, seemingly without direction. Occasionally the troll would pull out a board from under the bark on his chest and fiddle with it. Draco looked over his shoulder and saw it was a map of a maze, which was large but didn’t look as giant as it felt wandering. Draco could see the troll turning knobs tracking how he meddled with the passages to make it feel longer. All the same, they were steadily getting closer to whatever was in the middle.
With enough people wandering, eventually their luck ran out. The two men heard voices from opposite directions. Both the troll and Draco turned to the same side, both recognizing something in the words being shared in the distance.
Draco heard deep laughter and a rumbling voice, instantly recognized as the dandelion.
The duo didn’t even pause to discuss their choices before they spontaneously ran in the other direction. Not a moment too soon, since the path was long before the turnoff. The troll was running too fast, he hit the hedge at the end to slow down to turn. Draco followed suit, glancing behind him as he was forced to pause.
The dandelion and his crew were in the passage and had caught sight of them running. He was with a rose, a couple vegetables, and what looked suspiciously like Luna dressed as a moss fairy.
It was a different man, tall and dressed from head to toe in a pale green that shot out above his red haired head to resemble a celery, who shouted, “Oy!” He was running after the duo before Draco and the troll had a chance to move. Draco took a second to catch his breath, gasping in air. He watched the runner, admiring the muscle on display under the tight green leggings, as the man charged with impressive speed.
The troll pulled on a smirking Draco, tugging him along. The second crowd of people also reached them, but the two men dodged between flowers while hardly slowing down. The next stump was right there, saying, “Too thorny for you?” but Draco was on the ground reaching for the lever without reading it. He heard voices shouting behind him but couldn’t make time to track who it was. Then the hedge was moving, and Draco was leaping to his feet. Both men threw themselves through the hedge opening. Draco glanced back before the hedge closed.
“I’m going to throttle you, George!” the celery shouted, still dashing after them.
The dandelion and his band weren't fair behind. The dandelion caught Draco watching and grinned. Draco shoved hard to close the hedge between them.
“You nasty, slimy goblin! I’m going to murder you!” The celery man shouted from the far side of the hedge.
The troll’s guffawed loud enough to be heard in all directions, but didn’t stay to find out how his brother would devise a way to carry out his threat. The duo ran indiscriminately, not caring whether they were seen by others, until Draco was out of breath and grabbed the troll to slow down. They collapsed together against the nearest hedge.
Draco smiled as he panted. “Why are you doing this, anyway? The maze would be hard enough without the extra trouble.”
The troll huffed. “Hard enough for what?” he asked.
Draco shrugged. He waved at people wandering not far off. “Hard enough to amuse them, I suppose.”
The troll turned to lean on his side so he could face Draco. “You’d amuse them for half an hour, and they’d remember nothing but some pretty fireworks?” the troll asked.
Draco lolled his head to the side to meet the troll’s eyes and shrugged again. “Are you trying to be remembered?” he asked.
The troll’s grin was all teeth. “Who cares if they remember me.” He watched another group approach and pass them by, looking tired and more than a little disheveled. He pointed to after them. “They wanted to show up at a party and act like every one of us didn’t just watch someone we loved die. We’re all dressed up as metaphors, but the prompt was that plants can only grow strong when the soil is fertilized. To grow strong, someone first needs to be broken down. The folks that make it to the center are going to earn it, and they’ll remember all the pain and suffering it took to make that victory sweet.”
Draco watched the bitter wrinkles in the troll’s face as he talked. The firm tilt to his lips. He listened to a man saying words that didn’t sound related to the maze. “Who did you lose?” Draco asked.
The troll blinked, his face blanking for a moment before he sighed and flopped back to the hedge. This was the first time Draco saw him stand still. He was staring at nothing instead of Draco. “My dad passed two weeks ago,” the troll said.
“I’m sorry,” Draco replied automatically. He meant it, but it sounded insufficient. He found he wanted to say something more but what he blurted out was, “My father died, too.”
“Yeah?” the troll said, still not looking.
“Mmhmm,” Draco answered. “But, not like from the pox. Sorry, no, I mean a while ago.”
The troll nodded, unperturbed. “Is it still awful?” he asked.
“The fucking worst,” Draco admitted, for the first time since it happened. The troll laughed at that, too. Draco liked how he laughed at everything. It was nice that living with grief could be as humorous as constantly pulling tricks on young party goers. Something about it all just made sense, like throwing a party to torment people so they better appreciated the prize at the end. Draco smiled at the troll. “So, you’re the host then?” he asked.
The troll pushed off from the hedge and struck a pose to accentuate his long limbs draped with bark. “The one and only!”
Draco held out his hands and clapped. “Well done,” he congratulated. He gestured to the maze around him. “Is it for your father, then?”
The troll paused, again embodying a stillness he found only in grief. “No,” was all he said. Then the stillness was gone, and he picked a direction seemling at random to travel towards. “You coming?”
Of course, Draco did.
Draco lost track of how long they carried on, but he’d soaked through his garb with sweat, which hardly mattered after the time he spent rolling in dirt. He was limping from the pain in his feet, but never once complained. Instead he told the troll his puns were stupid and took his time whenever they had to get back to their feet.
Each time the troll laughed at him, but always offered his hand and slowed his pace without Draco having to ask.
Draco had just told off the troll for, “Too hard for yew?” and the two men were down on the ground fiddling with another lever. The troll ignored the jab and replied, “You surprised me tonight, pretty boy. I didn’t think you had it in you.”
Draco scowled at him even as the hedge swung open. “Shut up, troll,” he muttered.
The troll chuckled again, helping Draco to his feet. “I’m serious. I thought you’d give it up ages ago.” He looked Draco over again. “It’s nice to be proven wrong from time to time.” He hung an arm over Draco’s shoulder and angled him in a new direction.
There, in front of them both, was an archway built of hedges with the words “Mischief managed” strung across the top. Draco stumbled towards it, eager to know what was on the other side. The troll walked with him through the arch way and into a large clearing beyond. It was lit up by lanterns strung in all directions, and small fire circles with logs and stumps that people lounged against as they soaked in the heat. Elaborate sculptures were everywhere, mimicking any type of flower you could think of. Some were made of wood or clay and painted in vibrant color. Some were blown from glass and shone in the flickering light. Some were forged from metal and offered shimmering reflections. Food and wine was plentiful, served on plates and glasses shaped like flower blossoms. The musicians were here, dressed as different colored tulips. In the center was a large fountain with flowing water. Sculptures of blooming water hyacinth and water lilies were scattered within it.
It was beautiful, and more importantly peaceful, after so much effort to find it. Quite a few people had managed their way through, despite the duo’s trickery. One and all embraced decadent relaxation.
Draco turned to the troll, wanting to share in the moment. The troll was grinning again, pleased with his work and its reception. In the bright light of the party, the man didn’t look as goblinesc. He had fair features, with a spattering of freckles under the grime. The twig eyebrows and muddy clothes were charming instead of grisled. Draco liked how quickly the troll laughed. And after a night of tomfoolery he was feeling daring.
“Random question, by any chance are you into blokes?” Draco threw it out there because what did he have to lose.
The troll furrowed his twiggy brows. “Come again?” he asked, but he didn’t pull away so he wasn’t offended.
“You know, if another man chatted you up, would you be into it?”
There was that full belly laugh. The troll did pull away a bit then, but left his arm on Draco’s shoulder to brace himself while he chuckled. “You ARE full of surprises, aren’t you?” he asked when he caught his breath. “Nah, mate, I don’t swing that way.” Then with a sly smile, “but I have a brother…”
“The one in the green tights?” Draco asked hopefully.
This launched a new round of laughter and the troll pulled away to slap his knee. “Oh my god I can’t even tell him you said that, he’d be insufferable.” The troll wiped tears from his eyes, smearing his dirt around. “Nah, one of my older brothers. He manages the king’s stables and would take you for a ride, if you catch my drift.” Draco rolled his eyes at yet another bad pun from the troll, but couldn’t help but smile. This comradery wouldn’t continue in the real world, but Draco would bask in the moment now and be content.
The contentment was interrupted the next moment by the screech of a loud whistle followed by a crackle and a bang. Draco turned just in time to see a flare of color shoot upwards above the maze.
The troll cheered. “The first of the quitters!” he shouted gleefully. Then he gently shoved Draco towards the party. “Drink up and rest, my friend.” His departure saved Draco from making excuses to never meet up with anyone after the party.
Still, Draco smirked and waved after the troll. The contentment was back in force as he watched his friend bound back into the maze.