Page 2 of The Catacomb King
This time, when I reached the border, I unlaced my boots and peeled off my socks. The boundary between worlds was as stark and obvious as a horizon. On one side, dry rocky earth ruined by the drought. On the other side, grass. I always knew it was a bad idea to take off my shoes, but what could I say? These ill-advised trips were the only time I got to feel anything alive on my skin. Gods knew I wasn’t exactly bedding down with anyone.
I inhaled through my nose, enjoying the shiver of anticipation.
Then I crossed.
I loved this moment. I knew I shouldn’t, but I did. Even without the visual marker of the grass, you knew as soon as you crossed over that you were somewhere new. The air over the underworld was thicker and more humid, shot through with static electricity. It slid into my lungs like water and made my hair puff out.
It was warmer here, too. And the grass was always dewy.
I filled my basket with herbs and swept as many dew-drops as I could into a glass flask. By the time my flask was half-full, the black sky was lightening on the Underworld side, and the bite in the air was weakening. I was furious at not having had time to get more water, but I had to go to work. I put the flask in my pocket and turned to leave.
Then something rustled behind me.
It sounded like a… footstep.
I paused.
It sounded again. My heart thumped in my chest, a mouse in a cage.
Why was I so scared all of a sudden?
My body stayed frozen on blind instinct.
No, come on. I wrestled with myself. I was being stupid. There was nothing behind me. No one was going to kidnap me; the godlings famously only kidnapped beautiful women, and Iwas only wiry, sarcastic little Persephone. I’d been coming to the fields over the underworld for three months, and there hadneverbeen anything, or anyone, else. Nothing but the wind.
Except… wind didn’t make that sound.
I swallowed. My fingers trembled on my basket. I forced myself to keep walking, toward the human world and my boots…
Wait.
My blood chilled.
My boots were onthisside of the border.
I always left them on the rocky side, my own side. But here they were, surrounded by grass.
Had someone… moved them?
And if so… who?
I froze.
The little hairs on the backs of my arms had stood on end. Like the hairs of a rabbit watched by a hawk.
Someone else was here.
And I discovered that I was very, very afraid.
My heart began to thrum. Gods, I had been so stupid! I closed my eyes, petrified; I thought I sensed whatever it was — whateverhewas, I thought wildly, somehow knowing that whatever was stalking me was a male, who ever heard of a female godling kidnapping a human girl — drawing closer and closer to me, reaching out its scaly claws… I imagined his teeth in my flesh, blunt and slick, sinking into the meat of my breasts, my thighs…
No. I wasn’t going to go down like this.
With one deep breath I gathered all my courage and whipped around with my fists up.
There was nothing there. No one behind me.
Just the paling sky. The rustling grass.
