CHAPTER TEN: THE FIRST TEST RUN
The maze staff had scheduled a private test run for selected volunteers before the ribbon cutting.
Daniel learned about it from a printed notice taped behind the ticket booth.
Voss’s company had invited a group of young participants to demonstrate the new timed route for potential investors.
Nobody had mentioned this plan to Iris.
When Daniel showed her the notice, she read it twice.
“They advertised an opening rehearsal after I suspended the controls,” she said.
“That’s a separate violation of the procedure.”
The notice listed six participants by first name.
One was Benji.
Carol saw the name and grabbed the paper.
“He helped me paint the lanterns last year.”
“He’s only eleven,” Daniel said.
“His brother follows him everywhere.”
Iris sent a volunteer to the registration desk to find the boys.
The volunteer returned with bad news.
The team had been told to report directly to the service gate, where a contractor would lead them inside.
The registration staff assumed the activity was approved.
Daniel felt a chill despite the afternoon sun.
The service gate was where the new passage began.
“We need to close every opening in that fence,” he said.
Iris gathered volunteers and assigned each a stretch of the outer perimeter.
Daniel walked toward the north side carrying a roll of warning tape.
He found two unlatched panels and a gap large enough for a child to crawl through.
A cardboard sign marked the area as CREW ACCESS.
The sign had been turned toward the inside, where visitors could not see it.
He pulled the panels together and tied them with a temporary strap.
At the next gap, a worker was stacking crates in front of an open maintenance passage.
“Can you close that?” Daniel asked.
“I was told to leave it free for deliveries.”
“There won’t be deliveries while people are walking around.
”
The worker glanced at his schedule.
“There are three more trucks due.”
“Then somebody needs to watch the opening.”
Daniel called Iris again.
She sent an additional volunteer to stand beside the passage.
By the time Daniel returned to the central gate, the warning tape had been stretched across several entrances.
The festival band began playing the first song of its public program.
Parents gathered near the ribbon cutting platform.
Nobody outside the crew area seemed aware that the safety coordinator was trying to shut down an event advertised as ready.
Carol found Benji’s mother near the snack stall.
She introduced herself and asked where the boys were.
“They’re helping with the lantern demonstration,” the mother replied.
“A man gave them yellow wristbands.”
Carol’s stomach tightened.
“Did you see which man?”
“He had a red cap.”
Carol looked toward the maintenance trailer.
The contractor in the red cap was no longer there.
She called Daniel, who had just joined Iris beside the mayor.
“The boys may already be inside,” she said.
“Iris needs to know.”
Daniel repeated the warning.
Iris immediately ordered the control station closed.
Then she took the microphone from the registration table and asked all volunteers to account for their assigned children.
A handful of parents looked up.
Most of the crowd kept talking.
Daniel moved toward the north service entrance.
He did not wait for the committee to finish its discussion.
CHAPTER ELEVEN: THE CROWD AT THE GATE
By two forty-five, families lined the path outside the Lantern Maze.
Children carried paper lanterns and argued cheerfully about which clues they would solve first.
A local reporter prepared to interview the mayor beneath a banner bearing Halcyon Adventures’ logo.
Daniel reached the service gate and found it locked.
Iris answered his call from inside the park.
“Voss had security replace the latch,” she said.
“The committee is meeting beside the fountain.
”
“Are you safe?”
“Yes, but they’re trying to remove me from the event.”
Daniel and Carol hurried toward the fountain.
A semicircle of committee members stood around Voss, who was displaying the red folder.
Iris argued that the updated route remained unfinished.
A committee chair insisted a partial opening would be a reasonable compromise.
“Keep the central platform stationary,” the chair proposed.
“Then the secret passage becomes a simple attraction.”
“No,” Iris said.
“The only open route from that room runs back through a narrow ramp.”
Voss spotted Daniel and Carol.
“This isn’t a public hearing.”
“Good,” Daniel replied.
“Then you won’t mind taking five minutes to check the equipment.
”
He opened the brass case and showed the missing strip.
The committee chair leaned closer.
“What is that?”
Daniel explained the selector and the original route limits.
Voss dismissed it as an obsolete component.
Carol raised her voice so the nearby volunteers could hear.
“Victor built this maze for children who should be able to find their way out even when the clues are difficult.”
“Nobody disputes his intentions,” Voss said.
“Your version removed the one part that made that possible.”
The reporter lowered her microphone toward them.
Voss immediately objected to turning a technical disagreement into a public spectacle.
Daniel ignored the microphone.
“We can settle this by walking the route with the committee.”
The chair hesitated.
“The ribbon cutting starts in ten minutes.”
“Then cancel the ribbon cutting,” Iris said.
A murmur passed through the crowd.
The mayor stepped forward.
“Show me the corridor.”
Voss appeared ready to object again.
The mayor did not give him the chance.
“If it’s safe, we can open later,” she said.
“If it isn’t, we can’t open at all.”
Daniel followed the group through the service gate.
Carol remained near the entrance, where volunteers began explaining the delay to waiting families.
She knew she would not be able to walk the ramp quickly enough to keep up with the inspection.
But as she watched the adults disappear into the maze, she noticed two boys climbing under a gap in the side fence.
Their paper lanterns bobbed above the grass.
Carol called after them.
Neither turned.
She handed her bag to a volunteer and went after them.
CHAPTER TWELVE: THE YELLOW WRISTBANDS
Benji and his younger brother Owen stood behind a delivery trailer studying their yellow wristbands.
A crew member had told Benji that the bands made them official preview participants.
He had promised they would be the first children to solve the secret room.
The man with the red cap had gone to collect another group,
leaving them beside a panel painted with a silver moon.
Benji noticed that the panel was open a few inches.
He looked through the gap and saw a corridor full of tiny lights.
“We shouldn’t go in without him,” Owen said.
“We’re supposed to wait near the entrance,” Benji replied.
But the ribbon-cutting music had begun, and the children thought the preview was starting without them.
Benji stepped through the opening and called back to his brother.
“I’ll look for the man.”
Owen followed because he did not want to be alone behind the trailer.
Inside, the maze sounded like an empty theater.
Their shoes tapped against plywood, and the silver lights shimmered on the walls.
Benji followed the lantern symbols until he reached a curved platform surrounded by painted doors.
One doorway showed a sign reading THE SECRET PATH.
“This must be where we go,” he told Owen.
The boys walked down the narrow ramp into a square room filled with mirrors.
A silver star hung above a cardboard box in the middle.
Inside the box were wooden puzzle pieces shaped like moons and keys.
Benji picked up a key and turned it over.
He was looking for the clue when the floor vibrated faintly beneath his shoes.
A motor rumbled somewhere beyond the wall.
Owen grabbed his sleeve.
“What was that?”
“Probably part of the show.”
The doorway shifted sideways.
A painted panel slid across it and stopped.
Benji hurried back up the ramp.
The opening had disappeared.
He pushed the wall, but it did not move.
“Hello?” he shouted.
His voice sounded small inside the mirrored room.
Owen began to cry.
Benji tried the wooden key against the painted panels even though he knew it would not help.
He remembered the yellow wristband and wondered whether it might open something.
It did not.
Then he heard Daniel’s voice through the wall.
For the first time since entering the maze, Benji stopped moving and listened.
“My name is Daniel, and we’re opening the panel,” the voice called.
Benji pressed his palm flat against the wood.
“We’re here!”
Owen moved close enough to lean against his brother.
Benji kept talking because it seemed easier than hearing his brother cry.
“There are two of us,” he called.
“We’re staying by the wall.”
Someone answered that they were doing well.
Then a familiar voice called from farther away.
“Benji, it’s Carol.”
Benji recognized the woman who had taught him to mix orange paint for paper lanterns.
He told Owen she was coming.
Owen wiped his cheeks with his sleeve.
A drill buzzed on the other side of the panel.
The room brightened as a narrow crack opened beside the wall.
Benji saw Daniel’s face through the gap.
“You’re almost out,” Daniel said.
Benji reached for Owen’s hand.
When the panel opened, he held it tightly and led his brother toward the light.
