The Freedom Maze Read Online Free PDF

thought she heard a little girl laughing, and a man’s voice — or was it a bullfrog? — and a dog’s excited barking. She wasn’t sure if they were real, or she was imagining them, but she was too spooked to think. Before long, she was sobbing and plunging through gap after gap, blinded by tears and panic. When she finally ran out of breath, she was standing in a green square furnished with a bench and one of those statues Great-Grandmama had wanted to get rid of.
    Sophie sank onto the bench, gasping, took off her glasses, and scrubbed her hands over her wet face. This was not, she reminded herself, how the children in books behaved when they had adventures. She had to pull herself together and think.
    “Sophie!” Aunt Enid sounded as if she’d been calling for some time. “Sophie, where on earth are you? It’s supper time!”
    Sophie jumped up. “Aunt Enid! I’m here, Aunt Enid.”
    There was a startled silence, then, “My land! Are you in the maze?”
    “Yes,” Sophie wailed. “And I can’t get out!”
    “No need to take on, child! I’ll have you out in no time. It would be too much to ask, I suppose, for you to be in a dead end?”
    “There’s a statue,” Sophie said.
    “Lady or gentleman?”
    “Lady. No arms. There’s a sheet around her hips.”
    “Got it.” Aunt Enid’s voice now came from over to the right. “Dratted grass. I have to get Henry to mow the paths.”
    Time dragged. Leaves rattled. Aunt Enid’s voice came and went, muttering. “I could have sworn there was one here,” and “Drat the child.” Sophie wondered nervously what Aunt Enid was like when she was seriously put out.
    “Ah. There you are.”
    Aunt Enid’s face was red and shiny with heat. To Sophie’s relief, she seemed more excited than irked. “My land,” she panted. “Haven’t done that in fifteen years. No, twenty.”
    She plumped down on the bench and squinted up at the statue. “Gracious. To think of good old Belle Watling, still here after all these years. Although I guess she’s not likely to wander off, is she? Makes me feel a girl again.”
    “Who’s Belle Watling?” Sophie asked.
    Aunt Enid’s eyes crinkled. “Belle Watling is a character in
Gone With the Wind.
”
    Sophie wondered if the title referred to Belle Watling’s clothes. “I don’t understand.”
    “And I don’t propose to explain it to you. You can read the book and work it out for yourself.”
    After supper, Sophie found a copy of
Gone With the Wind
and started to read it. She could have done without Scarlett O’Hara, who she thought selfish, vain, and mean as a cross-eyed mule. Still, she was more fun to read about than the saintly Miss Melanie, who was what Mama would call a Perfect Lady. Sophie privately considered Miss Melanie a perfect wet blanket and couldn’t see what either lady saw in Ashley Wilkes. Rhett Butler alarmed her. She never did figure out why Belle Watling was a good name for an armless statue. But she loved the descriptions of clothes and parties and the funny things the slaves said, and the plot picked up when the war started, so she kept at it until her eyes closed by themselves.
    Aunt Enid laughed when Sophie brought the book down to breakfast and propped it up to read over her cornflakes. “I don’t suppose it’ll do you any harm, even if you can make head or tail of it.”
    “I’m skipping some,” Sophie admitted. “Aunt Enid, was Oak River like Tara?”
    Aunt Enid poured herself a cup of chicory coffee. “Well, Tara was a cotton plantation, but I expect you mean the slaves and balls and so on. Yes, I suppose it must have been.”
    “Did they have balls at Oak Cottage?”
    “Not after the Big House was built. Mr. Charles surely loved company. The dining room could seat forty for dinner and there was a ballroom with mirrors and crystal chandeliers, brought all the way from France.”
    Sophie’s eyes rounded. “What happened to them?”
    “Sold, along with the best part of the