The wheel had been squeaking for so long, Catherine imagined she could still hear it even after it broke off the carriage.

“I told you about that wheel, Robert.”

“Squeaky wheels don’t just always fall off, miss,” Robert complained, jumping down from the driver’s seat.

Squeak. Squeak.

She could still hear it, away in the distance.

They looked off into the trees, down the path. Someone was coming.

Not someone.

Something.

SQUEAK. SQUEAK.

It trundled down the path and as it passed, it turned its head to look at them. And Katherine saw

it had wheels

that squeaked.

I was in the shop when I heard several people scream. I dropped my basket in shock, expecting gunfire or a fight, but there was only the screaming.

I found people who had fallen to their knees gripping their head in their hands. But they wouldn’t answer me. Even Arthur at the counter screamed.

I left the shop, only to hear more screaming.

They scream less now, but the smell is getting to me. I’m taking my cane and some supplies to see if the next town over is much the same. Maybe someone can tell me what they saw.

There’s a bowl of fruit on the table between us. I’m having trouble looking at it.

She says something and takes from the bowl, bites deep into it. The juice runs down her chin and she has to cup her hand under her face to catch the droplets.

I look away, disgusted. I know what that fruit really is. I know what that juice really looks like. I’ve seen them hanging from the trees in her orchard, still beating and breathing. I’ve seen them on tables still and rotting.

She’s biting into a heart.

She tells me to try one.

She’ll be waking up now, wondering where she is and how she got there. She’ll be looking around her at the walls and doorways, heart starting to speed up, breath starting to hitch. She’ll see several paths open to her, leading her out of the maze.

But only one path will have a trail. I left it for her, to show her the way. It’s red and dark and sticky and frightening, and there’s no way for her to know what’s at the end of it, but it’s the way.

She’ll have to decide whether she wants to follow it.

I asked her what she saw in the clouds. I had already said a dragon, a train, Abe Lincoln’s hat, pointing out each of them.

“A rabbit,” she said, pointing. “And… a sword. And…”

She pointed at another cloud, but said nothing.

I turned to look at her.

Her face was twisted in horror. Her eyes were wide, the whites showing. Her mouth was open as if she wanted to scream, but couldn’t.

She sat up and stared at the grass, and though I asked her what was wrong she wouldn’t tell me.

She doesn’t look at clouds anymore.

Ben came in from the woods filthy, covered in mud and dirt and blood. He wouldn’t tell us what had happened. All he would say was “The foxes…”

We washed him off and checked him all over, but it wasn’t his blood. He wasn’t injured. Only terrified, and repeating “The foxes. The foxes.”

Now, whenever the foxes wail in the forest, Ben looks up from whatever he’s doing with wide eyes, shaking, suddenly unable to speak. And ever since that night, the foxes cry and bark more and more, and closer and closer, and Ben only cries

“The foxes…”