First posted April 2023.

Each prayer ties itself in a knot around Ariadne’s arms, her waist, her legs. Pulls come from this direction and that, up and down and sideways in the dark, until she can no longer feel the floor beneath her feet. Pleas echo off the unseen walls and red yarn, thick and abrasive, burns marks into her skin as it tightens.

It is always the Labyrinth. She does not need to see the cracking tile nor feel the cold, pebbled dirt to know where she is. Humid air flows through its halls like her blood through her own arteries, their pulses matched in steady tempo. Her bones are made from its stone walls.

Retracing her steps leads her in circles. She cannot remember how she arrived here. Puzzle pieces with unmatched edges scatter across the surface of her mind: fragments of different images and journeys. In one, there are torches in the darkness, and waves of thin, light fabric stretching like earthbound clouds across the narrow paths. The smell of incense and the hissing of snakes fill the air. Her feet twitch in the memory, eager to dance with companions whose names are stuck on the tip of her tongue. Laughter echoes through the endless corridors, with joyous screams between panting breaths accompanying the rhythmic thud of the dancers’ bodies moving in unison. Knives so sharp they make sound as they move through the air slice the skin of the sacrifice; the tastes of metal, salt, and honey fill her mouth.

In another picture, there is a young man, bright and dark as the changing sea. She holds out the ball of yarn, and he takes it. In his other hand, he holds a clean sword. She pretends she does not see it. The sun rises, and the man walks into the Labyrinth; from the shadow, she watches. Behind him, the trail of yarn holds taut, bouncing with his steps but not breaking. Her gaze lingers on his face — somehow, in the darkness, she sees the contours of him without fault: the sharpness of his jawline, the soft wave in his golden hair, the smooth expanse of his bared chest. As he progresses deeper into the Labyrinth, his footsteps echo the beat of her heart.

Another picture is bathed in morning sunlight. Waves crash on white sand and she digs her fingers deep into the piles of jagged, broken shells. She does not see the Labyrinth, but she feels it; its sharp turns and angles overlay the world, invisibly and inescapably. There is someone around the corner — a ship with black sails disappearing over the horizon. She turns her back, and now a new corner is in front of her, with someone on the other side of it, as well. Thunder rumbles in the distance, though she sees no dark clouds in the sky. The light coming from around the corner dances in the edges of her vision, sparkles and shadows undulating in captivating syncopation. Inside the Labyrinth, she hears a bull roar.

What she does not see are doors. The yarn wrapped in loops around her tightens as the words ring, harsh and shrill, in her ears: how do I start, where is the light at the end, which path do I take? In reaching for the start, she finds the thread unravelling; each beginning builds on what came before, spinning backwards on and on without a point to call the first. The future, too, is a province she cannot inhabit. To know the end before taking a step towards it is a power she finds out of her grasp.

She is not the way in, nor the way out. Rather, she is the way.

A simple knot tied around one of her wrists is just within reach of her other hand. With small, precise motions, she unpicks the knot, untangling the yarn and letting it fall into the darkness beneath her. Freeing one hand, she then unwinds the other. One knot at a time, each strand of yarn in turn is liberated.

Released from the tangled web, she lands on her feet. Crisp, cold air slices her throat as she swallows it down. There is a vastness to her now: a feeling of herself beyond the boundaries of her body. Journeys begin somewhere before her, and end somewhere after her. She lives in the in-between, in the hesitant breath before a decision is made, in the courageous step towards futures unknown.

Surrounding her in the dark, she feels the presence of every mortal who calls her name. A smile pulls at the corner of her mouth, unseen by those around her. She was one of them, once. The gods, for the most part, sympathise, but do not empathise. Ariadne does. She remembers.

She reaches for a hand in the dark, and feels timid, thin, bony fingers quivering in hers. A small voice asks her, How do I know it will turn out right?

“You don’t,” replies the goddess of the path.

The walk through the Labyrinth twists and turns. The steps one takes are love and betrayal, losing and finding. They come in many combinations, many different patterns. Mortals weep into Ariadne’s arms, wondering how they could have made mistakes. She remembers.

She cannot see the end, but still, she steps forward.

How do I go on, they ask, not knowing the end?

Ariadne smiles, and takes their hand. “You go on.”