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to my unspoken question. After a few minutes, the old man lapsed back into a blank silence, and Lily asked me to keep an eye on him while she took our empty glasses back inside.
    I leaned against the porch railing and watched the cars go by. I could hear Lily inside talking to Mrs. Sands. Then I heard another deeper voice.
    "Maddy? Is it you, Maddy?"
    Dr. Flores was alert and leaning forward in his chair. He was staring so intensely it scared me. I went over to the man and he continued to look at me like he knew me.
    "What did you say, Mr. Flores?"
    He reached out and grabbed my wrist in a viselike grip yanking me towards him. "Don't go, Maddy! It's not safe! The labyrinth isn't stable enough for one person!"
    Maddy? Labyrinth? He must think I'm Mrs. T. I tried to pull free but he held fast, squeezing my wrist painfully.
    "You can't go alone. It's suicide!"
    "Let me go! I'm not Maddy, Dr. Flores. You're hurting me," I said, looking frantically through the screen door for Lily or Mrs. Sands, who were now nowhere to be seen.
    I started to call one of them, when just as suddenly he let go. I went stumbling backwards, almost toppling over the porch railing before catching myself. The old man had disappeared back into his mind again. I stared at him warily and rubbed my wrist. A minute later, Lily and Mrs. Sands emerged from the house still talking.
    "Are you okay? You look like you've seen a ghost." Lily was looking at me strangely.
    I just smiled awkwardly. But Lily was right. I had just seen a ghost — the ghost of one of Dr. Flores's memories.
    "How long has your grandfather lived here?" I asked as we waited for Alex to pick us up. Mrs. Sands had taken Mr. Flores inside for a nap.
    "Just a few months. He used to live at the estate in the cottage on the grounds, where Alex lives now."
    "It must have been real hard for you when he had to come here, huh?"
    "Yeah. He was the one who checked himself in here. Mrs. T. hired a nurse and brought him back to the estate but he kept running back to the nursing home."
    "Seriously? Why?" I'd never heard of an old person running to a nursing home, only away .
    "He was getting violent," Lily said, looking down at her feet.
    No kidding, I thought still rubbing my sore wrist.
    "What did he do?" Lily was silent. Just then, Alex's Range Rover pulled up. We were heading down the porch steps when Lily suddenly turned and answered my question.
    "He tried to set the labyrinth on fire."
    ****
    I spent the rest of the week dodging dirty looks from Devon and being kept occupied by the rest of the household. They were all working overtime to keep me busy and out of the labyrinth. I'd gone biking with Lily, which left me sore, aching, and barely able to move. I'd gone shopping with Mrs. T., who insisted on buying me a laptop and a bunch of art supplies, another tactic to keep me busy. I'd helped Alex clean out the basement, and Tomi rearrange the furniture in her bedroom, only to have her decide she liked it better the other way. Then I had to help her change it all back. But it was cool, because afterwards she taught me how to wear a kimono. She had half a dozen, which had all belonged to her mother. She kept them in a large wooden trunk called a Tansu chest.
    "No, Mia, you're not a corpse," Tomi had told me, laughing.
    "Huh?" My body was wrapped in bright green silk. The kimono's long sleeves had swallowed up my arms.
    "You overlap it on the left, not the right," she'd said, pulling the kimono open and folding it the opposite way. "The way you were wearing it is the way they dress dead people for their funerals." Her hands flew to her mouth like she was afraid she'd offended me. "I'm sorry."
    "It's okay, Tomi," I'd told her. "I miss my grandma like crazy. But I'm getting more and more use to her not being around." Especially since I had other things to think about, like the mystery of the labyrinth. Once they'd gone wherever it was they were going, there would be no way they could keep me