The Heart of the Maze

At the center, on a stump, a jack-o'-lantern carved as a window: four panes and a sill, and a candle in a jar behind it. A box of kitchen matches sits on the sill, and beside it a jar lid full of burnt ones.

You light the candle. The ghosts go teal. They stop going back and forth along the hedge and stand in the light, all facing the pumpkin.

This is the part I like, the girl says.

One drifts close enough to catch. You close your hand on it. It is cold to the wrist, as at the bottom of the ice bin. There is nothing in your hand, and it hums one note anyway, a little flat.

Two hundred, the girl says, and writes it on the back of her hand, under the other numbers.

In the far hedge there is a gate, held shut with a bread-bag twist tie.