The Corn Maze Contract

The Alders had lived at the end of our cul-de-sac for as long as I could remember. Their son, Marcus, and I had been inseparable until middle school, when our interests diverged—he into sports and I into books. Now we exchanged polite nods at the mailbox. My younger sister, Lily, remained thick as thieves with their daughter, Emily. Every Labor Day weekend, the Alders threw their infamous ‘End of Summer Bash,’ a street-wide cookout that culminated in a trek to the abandoned fairgrounds a mile away, where the county set off fireworks. I dreaded it, but my best friend, Noah, who lived next door, made it bearable.

This year, the party was in full swing when Lily, Emily, and a new girl named Piper—who had moved in three houses down—disappeared upstairs to Emily’s room for a fashion show. I was in the backyard with Noah, nursing a lukewarm soda, when I heard a shrill laugh from the second-floor window. I glanced up and saw the three of them silhouetted against the glass, Piper clutching a phone that I recognized as Mrs. Alder’s. A chill ran down my spine, but I shrugged it off.

At dusk, the adults corralled us toward the fairgrounds. The path cut through a field of corn that had been left to rot, the stalks brown and brittle. It was a popular shortcut, but tonight the corn seemed thicker, darker, and the wind through the husks sounded like whispers. I stayed close to Noah, who was telling a ghost story about a farmer who’d murdered his family and buried them somewhere in these fields. I laughed, but my eyes kept drifting to the spot where the girls had been walking ahead of us. They were gone.

I nudged Noah and pointed. The girls had vanished. We jogged ahead, calling their names, but the only response was the rustle of corn. The adults ahead didn’t seem to notice, their laughter carrying on the warm breeze. Panic clawed at my throat as we reached the fairgrounds, a ghost of a place with a rusted Ferris wheel and a ticket booth that looked like a mouth. There was no firework display, just a low-hanging fog that blurred the shapes of the crowd. I spotted the Alder parents, their faces blank, staring into the fog as if waiting for something.

Then I heard it—a rhythmic metallic clang, like a gong, from deep within the corn. I told Noah we had to find Lily. He looked scared, but he nodded. We pushed through the corn, the stalks slapping our faces, and the clanging grew louder. We emerged into a clearing where a rusted silo stood, its door ajar. Inside, a single bare bulb swung, casting dancing shadows. The three girls were there, sitting in a circle, their faces pale and slack. Between them lay a cracked mirror, and they were passing it around, each whispering a name into it.

I stepped forward, and Piper looked up, her eyes wide and frenzied. ‘The mirror keeps them,’ she said, her voice too steady. ‘We’re giving them a place to stay.’ She held up the phone, and I saw the screen showed a live feed of my parents’ house, the front door wide open. I grabbed Lily’s arm, pulling her to her feet. Emily stood, but her eyes were glassy. ‘We’re not done,’ Emily said. ‘The corn wants more.’

We stumbled back to the party, but the colors were wrong—the lights too bright, the smiles too wide. My parents didn’t seem to notice us emerging, only asked if we’d seen the fireworks. When I turned to point at the silo, it was gone. The corn was a empty field, and the fairgrounds were just a patch of dirt. The Alder house stood dark at the end of the street, and a single word was painted on the mailbox in white: ‘HARVEST.’

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I watched from my window as the Alders loaded their car with suitcases. Emily and Piper were in the backseat, and as the car pulled away, they both turned and waved. In Emily’s hand was the cracked mirror, and in the reflection, I saw not their faces, but the smiling visage of the old farmer who’d been missing for years. The next morning, the Alders were gone, and a new family moved in the following week. My sister refused to talk about what happened in the silo, but she started leaving her bedroom door open a crack every night, and the window slightly ajar, as if she expected someone to climb in. I found a piece of paper in her notebook, scrawled in handwriting that wasn’t hers: ‘The corn remembers your name.’