Laura pushed past me to look at the wall. Her fists were back on her hips as she studied what I was looking at, before she let her hands fall to her side. She turned back to look at me.
"What are you looking at?" she asked.
"Well, I can kind of see invisible writing," I started, but was cut off by Laura getting on her tippy toes to look into my eye sockets. She held my head with both hands as she examined, and I went along with it until she was about to put a finger in. "Okay, okay, that's enough." Laura let go and looked up at me.
"How do you see, Max?" she asked.
I opened my mouth and closed it before opening it again to say, while throwing my arms up in the air, "I don't know." That answer seemed to please Laura as she nodded to me and walked by to go stand with Church. She turned him around and started rifling through the bag, checking for something. I leaned in close to Jay and whispered, "How do I see?" and she shrugged back at me. With that settled, I turned to face the wall to resume looking for my destination marker. When we ran back into the maze, I saw the hidden directions to Tulsa. Laura had saved me, and as such, I owed her. She needed to get there, and I would help her. Except this intersection did not have the directions I needed. I couldn't see the word Tulsa anywhere.
"Are we lost?" Jay asked. I looked at her and shook my head. I don't know why, but I just didn't want to admit that. I turned back to the wall, read through it again, and in the deluge of words, saw "Grandma's House". What the hell? Was that my grandma? The rest of the directions listed made no sense to me, stuff like "Rolling Rock" and "Heavenly Hills". I'm pretty sure that last one was a cemetery name.
"Okay, we go this way," I said as I pointed to the left. I looked back to check if Laura and Church had heard. Church was feeding Patti a treat while Laura was rubbing some potion on Patti's paw. "What are you doing to my dog?" I asked.
Laura looked up, eyebrows furrowed. "I just gave her a healing salve. You need to take better care of your animal companion!"
"Excuse me? When would I have done that? All I have is this stupid ass rotten health potion!" I said as I pulled the thing from my inventory and waved it around. Laura scoffed at that and turned her nose up. Patti was wagging her tail and licking Laura's hand. I clicked my tongue, and Patti ran over, and she did so easily. I examined her paw without Patti wincing. She had helped a lot, and I was being a dick. "Laura?" I asked. She looked at me but said nothing. "Thanks. For everything. I'm trying to get us to Tulsa, and whereas before I saw the directions to it, now I don't. Will you help me decide where to go?"
Laura smiled at the corner of her mouth and came up. Church followed after, looking a little sullen. I threw my arm around him as he came up, and I smiled at him.
"Are you smiling at me?" asked Church.
"Yup," I said. Church smiled back at me. I read out the list of directions that I could reach and told them where each pointed. Laura perked up immediately when I read "Grandma's House," but she waited until I finished reading the list. She was bobbing up and down on her feet. "Okay, so that's our choices, which sho-"
"Grandma's house!" Laura said immediately. I looked to Church and Jay, who both didn't know what to say.
"Hey Jay, is Grandma's House, you know, like code for something?" I asked.
"I don't think so?" she replied.
"Yeah, it's code for cookies!" blurted out Laura, which caused Jay to burst out laughing. Laura looked happily at Jay with a smile. "Yeah, she's cool. I like her."
And so we ended up walking the maze and following the directions to Grandma's House. Each intersection, I'd check the wall, see there was still no Tulsa, but Grandma was still there. There were a few monsters here and there, but Laura quickly dispatched them. I realized I hadn't gained experience and asked Jay about it.
"You're not partied up, that's why," she said.
"What?" I exclaimed. I feel like Laura is just part of the group now, but I guess she wasn't. I went to Laura to explain how the party system worked, but she interrupted my explanation.
"Yes, yes, I know what Dungeons and Dragons is, Max. Okay, I'll join!" she said as she held out her hand. I reached out with my bony hand and gripped. We shook once, and a giant X appeared above our hands. I just stared at it, as I kept shaking her hand, hoping it would somehow fix itself, but it remained. Laura talked to her shoulder before saying, "Lucy says I can not join your party as I am in one right now. Hold on, let me figure this out with her."
After a moment, Laura let out a little "woohoo" and held her hand out again. We shook, and she was officially in our party. We continued on our way, passing through five intersections without an incident. As we continued on, Jay looked over at me. I could feel her eyes on me, and I looked at her.
"Max?" Jay asked.
"Yeah?" I replied.
"What is Dungeons and Dragons?"
"Oh… uh, it's like a role-playing game where there's fantasy races and classes, and you go on adventures, and one person is a dungeon master and runs it." That made Jay think for a moment before replying.
"Wow, this is kind of like that, huh?" she said. Before I could reply, the Maze opened up into a field with a road leading to a rectangular building with a sign out front that read: Shelby Oak's Retirement Home. Laura came up next to me and squinted as she looked.
"Scooby Ook Re…tirement Phone?" she read.
"What?" I replied. "No, it doesn't say that. Do you need glasses?" Laura looked at me with a stern look for a moment before smiling.
"Maybe!" and she walked forward. Jay and I watched her as Church walked by to catch up with her. Patti stayed with me, looking from me to Laura and Church. She made a little whiny noise, and I let out a sigh.
"Okay, go on," I said, pointing at the two ahead. Patti let out a little bark and jogged ahead. I'm starting to think my dog liked everyone more than me now. How did that happen? I looked at Jay and smiled.
"You know you can't smile, right? It's scary looking," she said.
"Oh, hush. Come on, let's go see what Grandma's House is all about."