“I thought they would,” he said. “That’s why I came here. Dolly told me about it once when she was writing a book about medieval France. She told me that in the story the heroine waited in the labyrinth for her friend to rescue her. I figured you would know the story too and that you’d come if I waited long enough.”

“The Unicorn and the Rose,” I said, recalling the Dahlia LaMotte novel in which the heroine, Rosamond du Montmorency, time travels back to medieval France by walking the labyrinth at Chartres. I was touched that Brock had known I would come looking for him. “Are we really in Chartres?” I asked, looking around the vast cathedral for signs of tourists.

Brock chuckled and shook his head. “Not the Chartres that’s in France,” he replied, “but a replica of it inside the spiral.”

“I don’t really understand,” I admitted.

“Me neither,” he replied sheepishly. “Dolly said that the labyrinth exists outside time, but I’m not sure what that means.”

“I’m just relieved to find you,” I said. “Everyone will be so happy to see you … but how do we get back?” A mist crept across the floor, blurring the lines of the labyrinth.

“We have to walk the labyrinth back to the center,” he said, taking my hand in his broad, calloused one. “And I’m afraid you must go first.”

“Okay,” I said, taking the lead and looking for the entrance, which was barely visible in the fog. I had to crouch down to see the lines of the labyrinth, which made it awkward to hold onto his hand, so he let it go, promising to stay close behind me. I slowly moved forward. Whenever my feet touched a line, I felt an electric jolt warning me not to step over the boundary.

“What would happen if we stepped out of the lines?” I asked Brock. When he didn’t answer right away I started to turn around, afraid I’d lost him, but he caught me by the shoulders and turned me back away from him.

“You mustn’t ever turn backwards when walking the spiral!” The fear in his voice and the strength of his grip startled me. Brock was the gentlest of men. He’d have to have good reason to handle me so roughly. “Just keep walking,” he said.

I crept on. I could tell by how small the revolutions had become that we were near the center of the circle. A few more turns and we were at the six-petaled flower at the center of the labyrinth. It was filled with a twilight blue mist that seethed and roiled like a storm cloud. Veins and sparks of lightning crackled within it. I was terrified to step inside it.

“What’s in there?” I asked Brock.