Labyrinth: A Collection of Transgential Paths, Ethreal Wonders and Fanciful Visions

It is a giant thing of erect white canvas, silver lines caging the walls like shimmering script and appearing like streaks of starlight where the walls changed to midnight blue and spiralied away to unknown corners. The staircases are all of white stone with polished ebony and oxidized metal railings that burst from the wood in spikes and curls. 

The labyrinth exists on several planes, for there are several floors and stairways that lead up and down. There are some rooms that seem to Alex to have no staircase leading to them and no other possible passage to follow. He discovered patrons would ascend to them in baskets of twisting vines attached to a white balloon in a mesmeric knot. The fire that propelled them skyward begins automatically, ribbongs of silver flame that expand the balloon like a giant exhaled breath. It rises like a cloud. 

Many passages lead back to other tents, but some circle into oblivion and become so lightless that patrons get uncomfortable and turn back. There are other rooms, at the end of sharply curving hallways, that lead to passages, corridors or oddities. They hold their own attractions that are quite sought-after by patrons who attempt to know every inch of the labyrinth. 

Alex does not think it is possible. 

It seems impossibly complex to Alex, who can never remember how he has arrived anywhere. He has tried to retrace his footsteps before without success. The labyrinth had swallowed up the hallway he'd emerged from, like a map shifting routes as soon as they are taken. 

"It's more like a maze than a labyrinth," he said to Sage one night as he inspected a wall of frozen flowers the sparkled like spun sugar. 

Sage leaned in to smell a crystalline peony, then a white crusted jasmine. "It is a labyrinth actually, but it goes much farther than you can see from the outside, so the circles are bigger. People just tent to get distracted and go through walls and doors into another circle of it. Everything leads back to the same place, every dead end or secret passage is just a detour."

"What is at the centre, then?"

Sage cocked her head to the side. She was silent for so long Alex thought she may not have an answer for the first time since he had known her, until she spoke, "the moon."

Text by Lucie MacAulay