The Fountain

Beyond a high stone wall lies a labyrinth a boy has never dared to enter— until distant voices draw him in. At its heart, a hidden fountain becomes an unexpected beacon in this short tale of wanting to be seen.  

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A young boy dragged a chair to an open window overlooking the grounds of a great stone house. From there he could watch the grounds keeper's children at play in a distant field, sword fighting with sticks and hiding among the trees at the forest's edge. Most evenings, their voices carried over the grounds and up to the boy's window. He imagined himself among them being chased and teased, silently mouthing the words to silly conversations in his mind until the sun sank behind the tree line. Then their joyful hoots and chatter would fade as they went inside, and he would be forced to turn inward to his empty room. 

Mother had forbidden him from playing with these children and insisted to his nursemaids that he focus on books, art, and music. There were no other children in the house, so he contented himself with exploring its many rooms and passageways which, by now at the age of ten, he knew better than anyone. When the weather was fine, he would pass through the kitchens, inhaling the scent of fresh herbs as the cook and his helpers worked to prepare a sumptuous midday meal, and into the orchard for pears or plums. He would pause to watch the laundresses plunging the household linens into their massive tubs filled with wonderfully soapy water before scrubbing away the dirt with gleaming bars of soap. Later he would make his way along the pebble pathways arranged in neat lines between the stone fountains and the boxwood hedgerows of the formal gardens. 
All of these familiar places the boy had been allowed to wander since he had taken his first steps—at first accompanied by his nursemaids, then later on his own—because it meant he would not be under foot indoors. But there was one part of the grounds that he avoided, and that was the labyrinth. 

At ground level, he could see almost nothing of it, for it was separated from the rest of the property by a high stone wall into which a single wooden door had been set. From his window, he could only make out the beginnings of a dense mass of square hedges before they disappeared from his field of vision. He had tried to view the curious thicket from other windows, but either by design or by chance, this was not possible. And though he had never been explicitly forbidden from entering it, his nurses had frightened him with stories of people getting lost among its twisting, narrow circuits—never to emerge.

It was a hot evening in late summer when he settled into his chair, and the air was thick and heavy with the scent of linden trees. The fountains had been turned off for the day and above their now still, dark waters, insects buzzed lazily in spherical clouds. The garden shades of gold, blush, and cream were quickly becoming indistinguishable in the gathering dark. The boy inhaled the sweet, warm air and looked out to where the children played. 

He could hear their familiar shouts in the distance, but this evening he could not see them. Squinting, he wondered whether the waning light was playing tricks on him, but quickly determined that they were not where they normally were. His stomach dropped. Somehow watching them, even from a distance, had made him feel less alone. Now, suddenly unable to see them, he got to his feet and leaned out the window wondering desperately where they had gone. 
But he could still hear them. And it was early, for he had just finished his meal, and they usually played until long after then. Where were they? He leaned further out the window, and still further, until he was afraid he might fall, scanning the grounds for movement. Then he realized that their voices sounded closer than usual. He sat still, listening intently until it became unmistakable: Unless they had somehow been brazen enough to enter the gardens, they could only be in one place, and that was the labyrinth. 

Which meant, he realized with a pounding heart, that he could go find them. 

The next day, he resolved to speak to Mother, if she would allow it, and found himself at the door of her dressing room with one of his nurses close on his heels, quietly but vehemently discouraging him from disturbing her. Ignoring her angry whispers, he raised his hand and knocked softly. At first there was no reply, so that he thought he had not knocked hard enough, until he heard a sharp voice from within instructing him to enter. 

Struggling under its weight, he pushed the door inward until he had just enough space to wriggle through, then stopped short when his eyes met hers in the mirror she was facing. Without turning, she paused, a wooden comb half way to her head. Then she slowly placed it back on her dressing table.

“Nurse,” she said. 

The nurse, who had remained just outside the door, entered reluctantly while uttering apologies. As Mother turned and began to berate her for allowing him to wander, the boy could not help but stare. Had he come from this cold, thin woman who stood before him? He pictured the mothers he'd seen in his books: plump and healthy, rosy cheeked, warm, joyful—bright-eyed. But her eyes, which she had averted from his the moment they’d met, were empty. He looked at a hand that hung limply by her side as she gestured wildly with the other, and imagined himself reaching out and holding it. It was not a happy thought. In the midst of her tirade, he heard his nurse ask hurriedly about the labyrinth, to which Mother replied that she did not care, and for everyone to leave her alone.
 
The next afternoon as the boy set out toward the labyrinth, thick, fluffy clouds floated through an aqua sky, casting moving shadows across the countryside. As he rounded the corner of the house, the long stone wall came into view. He had never ventured this far; it was much taller up close. He walked along it, dragging his fingers over its rough surface until he came to the wooden door. It did not have a lock on it, and it took little effort on his part for it to give way.

The door opened towards him to reveal a gap in the labyrinth's outermost hedge. Stepping gingerly through it, the boy found himself in a small, square enclosure. It was mossy and lush with orange and amber dahlias, pink hydrangea, and climbing jasmine that shifted gently in the breeze before disappearing into the dark foliage of the next and only other opening. Bending to peer through it he hesitated; he could not make out the tops of the hedges beyond, and there was only a stretch of several feet before he would have to make his first decision. But, he reminded himself, he had decided to trace his route on paper so that he would be able to find his way out. So, taking a deep breath, he left the safety of the flowered clearing and moved slowly into the mass beyond. 

The hedges loomed close on either side, towering over him like walls of verdant stone. They seemed to absorb light and sound, and he felt a rush of excitement as silence settled around him in the still air. Gravel crunched under his feet as he approached the first turn where he stopped to note it in his book before moving on. 

It was dense and even more confusing than he'd anticipated. Several times he'd walked along curving paths for many minutes before coming to a dead end. At times he would stop to rest, watching birds overhead or noting the sun's progress through the sky. Later, some bread, cheese, and a juicy pear he'd picked from the orchard replenished him before moving on. But as the afternoon wore on, his notes began to appear jumbled, and he found it increasingly difficult to decipher what he'd written. 

The labyrinth must have been massive, he thought, for he spent what felt like hours turning in circles before the hedgerows finally appeared to become shorter in length and his turns more frequent, until he heard the unmistakable sound of flowing water. By this point he had abandoned his notes, and as he began to make turns faster and faster, the sound became louder, until he rounded a corner and found himself in a circular clearing where there stood a stone fountain. He had reached the center of the labyrinth. 

Relieved, the boy crossed the clearing and sat on the wide edge of the fountain's pool, dragging his fingers through its waters. It was smaller than the ones in the main gardens, and its vertical jet did not clear the hedges, but it was just as clean, its water as clear as though it had been scraped of algae the day before. In fact, he realized, that was exactly what must have happened. The children must have followed their father into the labyrinth when he'd come to clean the fountain, just as he'd seen him do on the main grounds. 

He wandered around the clearing lost in thought until the clouds began to turn pink in the setting sun; he would have to hurry home in time for his meal. Glancing around, he realized that there were five entrances to the clearing and he had no idea through which one he'd come. He pulled out his notes and felt his stomach drop; the map he'd drawn was a scribbled mess. It would be of no use. He would have to move quickly to find his way out before sunset. 

As he twisted and turned his way back through the labyrinth in the gathering dark, the boy began to picture himself cold and hungry in one of its distant corners, lost forever with no one seeking him out. But the thought of making friends spurred him on, and it was not long before he emerged from the final passageway into the small square garden and through the wooden door with a smile on his face.  

Over the next few days, the boy re-entered the labyrinth, retracing the path he'd forged to its center over and over, committing the way to memory. In the evenings, he sat in his usual place at the window, for the children had never returned to the labyrinth—the only place he could hope to cross paths with them. Days turned into weeks, and the summer waned. If he could only raise a flag, he thought, and let them know he was there. 

One evening, a nursemaid placed a fresh bowl of water on the table in the boy's room, and next to it a perfectly round bar of soap. He picked it up. It was smooth and lightly scented of  fresh herbs. As he dipped it into the bowl of water and turned it over between his fingers, an idea began to take shape in his mind. He plunged his hands into the water and swished them around before patting them dry on a cloth. Plump bubbles popped to the water's surface, a few rising gently into the air. 

Upon finishing his meal, the boy hurried down several flights of stairs to a servants' entrance that gave out onto a large square courtyard enclosed by low brick buildings. He crossed it diagonally and entered the laundry, which, as he had hoped, was empty apart from a massive wooden cabinet at one end. He made his way over to it, scanning its shelves lined with buckets, washboards, and brushes of many sizes that had been arranged neatly for the next day. Finally, his eyes came to rest on what he had come for: a basket full of soap bars. 

That evening, the boy hurried along the path of the labyrinth, slightly weighed down by his pockets. After only one wrong turn, he arrived at the central clearing. The fountain had been extinguished for the day like the others, its waters glassy and dark. Still breathing heavily, he approached the pool and threw in a bar of soap. 

It broke the water's surface with a satisfying splash. 

Then he threw in another, and yet another, until his pockets were empty and light again. 

The next day, the boy awoke and with a rush of excitement remembered what he'd done the day before. Would it work? The fountains only came on around noon, which he waited for impatiently; the morning seemed to drag on forever. He went about his day with a renewed sense of purpose, playing out the scene in his mind's eye where he would introduce himself to the other children for the first time. Yet afternoon came and went, and nothing happened. 

That evening, he sat by his window long enough to watch as the fountain jets calmed to low gurgles before going quiet, then curled up in his bed facing the wall. He was lonelier than ever. He let himself imagine the children up close, learning how old they were and whether they went to the school down in the village. Whether they were as kind and funny as he'd guessed. He wanted to tell them about a strange insect he'd encountered in the orchard, and how he'd jumped back in surprise when it had suddenly flown away, only to return and land on his shoulder. How he had secretly slid down the servants' stairs on the lid of a wooden crate which, by the time he'd reached the bottom, had fallen to pieces. He would show them the stick he had carefully selected so that he could participate in their sword fights and imagined their nods of approval. 

He was suddenly roused from these thoughts by whoops of joy nearby. His ears perked up. Was he imagining it? No, it seemed as though the children were closer than ever. He ran to the window and strained to hear, his eyes fixed on the pink skyline in the distance.

He waited, listening. 

Then, a single bubble floated into view. 

A few minutes later, the boy came hurtling around the corner of the house, stopped, and looked up, wide-eyed. There, beyond the stone wall in the distance, a positively enormous cloud of popping, floating, tumbling, and gleaming bubbles of all sizes was rising slowly from the center of the labyrinth like a silent eruption in the evening light.  

The children cheered in the distance. The moment was his. 

Crashing through the wooden door, the boy raced along the hedgerows, darting left, then right, sure of the way. 
It was unmistakable now; the voices were in the labyrinth. The gravel pathways were left disturbed in his wake, and his heart pounded in his ears. 

As he rounded the final corner into the center of the labyrinth where the fountain stood, he looked around expectantly, frantically. 

It was silent. He was alone. 

He backed up against a hedgerow, his chest tightening, tears catching in his throat. He looked up at the bubble cloud that had slowly grown throughout the day as water had rushed into the soap-filled pool. He felt foolish for thinking his plan would work, and turned his back to it. 

Utterly defeated, he walked slowly back towards the last row he'd rounded and stood still at the edge of the clearing, not wanting to return home. 

Then slowly, a small hand reached out, closed warmly around his, and pulled him around the corner.