–––––––– The woman was lost, she knew that now. Not in the way she liked to be lost, not in the delicious manner of the maze, not as a child might thrill to running amid tall hedges, dizzy and out of breath, turning this way and that, finally finding its elusive heart, triumphant. Not that way. She was lost. And, now, oddly weak. She found herself in a marshy glen, the woods of late autumn close all around, dark woods. She could not recall ever seeing this glen before. She knew the route from the Convent by heart, over the thick wooded ridges, down to the farmland of the valley below. She took the path often for within that valley stood a hedge maze. She knew children would be there today. A penny to enter, hot apple cider awaiting them in the center of the maze, stronger cider for the

