Spiral Path (Night Calls Series Book 3) by Katharine Eliska Kimbriel, Cat Kimbriel Page A

that door when I left
the bedroom this morning?—and we were back in familiar territory. Three doors
down on the left, and I was back in my room.
    “We do not have enough advanced students right now to double
up in rooms, so for now you’ll have to sleep alone. I’m sorry.” She sounded
sincere.
    I considered telling her I’d had to sleep alone my entire
life, since I had no sisters, but I kept my tongue still. Don’t volunteer information , I reminded myself. I hung my shawl
over a hanger and got my coat and boots.
    Margaret had very good manners. However astonished she might have been at my heavy sheepskin
boots and coat, she only said, “How nice and warm you must be! You will be able
to go out on the harder days.” Once I was ready, we went down to the sixth room
on the left, and Margaret led me into her own room.
    The spread on the mattress was textured and white, very
elegant, and several pillows on top made an attractive backdrop. She had what I
mistook for a handful of rare flowers in a vase on her dresser, but they turned
out to be silk.
    “How lovely!” I said as she laid her shawl on the foot of
the bed and pulled out a heavier cape.
    “My mother and grandmother taught me to do that,” she said. “They
taught me to draw flowers, them to paint them, and finally to form them from
silk.”
    She may have said something else to me, but some metal, oval
box frames attached to a pair of slippers caught my eyes. They were open on the
heel side at their tops.
    “What are those?”
    Margaret did look a bit surprised, but said: “Shoe pattens.
They lift you out of mud and snow, to keep your boots from becoming soaked or
horribly dirty. I’ll show you.” She pulled out the slippers and took the metal
frames with us.
    We went outside. While I pulled my gloves on and tucked in
my scarf, Margaret balanced against the pillar and slid her boots into the
metal scuffs. I thought she’d fall over, but no, she stepped off down the snowy
path and headed for the labyrinths and maze.
    The landscape was a wonder, even sleeping until spring.
Margaret clearly loved the gardens, being full of tidbits of information about
them. It turned out that the holly bushes that formed the women’s labyrinth
were female bushes, except for the ones that framed the entrance, while the men’s
labyrinth had male bushes, again except for the entrance, where berries could
be plainly seen.
    “And the difference is?” I asked. There was a section in my
Great-Grandmother’s book on labyrinths, but I had only glanced at it.
    She understood what I meant. “The way it spirals,” Margaret
said. “The plant in the center is different, too. You’ll see them when you walk
the paths.”
    “You can walk either path?” If so, then that meant . . .
what?
    “Yes, you can walk both!” Smiling, Margaret went on: “Mostly
they are just a beautiful, green walk. They have a use for the oldest students,
but my year hasn’t studied them yet.” She stopped at a wide, green opening in a
tall hedge. “This is the maze. Would you like to walk it? With the sun out, it
will be a nice outing.”
    “Do you know the way out, in case I’m not up to solving the
puzzle?” I smiled as I said it, because I thought I could solve it. But it
would be nice to know that Margaret could get us out in a hurry if we got too
cold.
    “Yes, I can get us out,” she assured me. “There is magic in
the maze, but it will not force us to stay in it.”
    Good. I was a
little off-kilter, with the sheer size of this place. I was willing to see
still more, but I knew I’d sleep well that night. Why, we’d yet to see the
stillroom and kitchen, so, as far as I was concerned, a lot of important things
had been left off my tour.
    “This maze was formed of yew, a tough plant favored in
Europe for mazes and labyrinths,” Margaret started as we entered the maze.
    Immediately, I felt a strong presence of magic, as if I walked
upon a woven path of energy. Eddies swirled about