Page 55 of Vines of the Underworld

The sound of steel meeting steel behind my back fades, so does the freezing grip on my brain.

The landscape around me blurs, and I trip over something. How did I stand up again? I blink to adjust to a bright light and look down to see—

The body of my mother slumped on the three steps leading to our porch. I nervously pull the straps of my school backpack, startled by the loud voices and children’s laughter. The school bus is parked just twenty feet away. The driver is already heading my way, worry and pity written on her face. The other kids find the sight of my mother passed out in her vomit rather amusing. She was probably out drinking again. I was so occupied with getting ready for school that I didn’t notice her absence this morning. A swarm of schoolchildren follows the driver, who bends over and pulls down the indecently rolled-up skirt of my mother, then turns to me and grabs my shoulders.

“I think you should stay home today, Celeste,” the driver murmurs, “Help me get your mom inside and open the door.”

I try to move, yet my feet are glued to the ground. Why is it so cold here? Why is everyone staring at me? An icy grip squeezes my mind, and I’m being consumed. Something drains my essence, my life…

The first group of children reaches the steps where my mom’s lifeless body lies among the stench of cheap liquor, vomit, and urine.

“My father says your mother is an alcoholic. AL-CO-HO-LIC. Is this what she is?” Becky from my math class asks.

“Is she even alive?” I hear a rumbling adolescent voice from behind.

“My mum is a nurse and says that it happens often with your mom,” Diana confidently declares, “It is because she drinks—”

Life, my life seeps away from me. The coldness crawls up my feet, and I look down at the tiny hands of eight-year-old me.

“Does she beat you, or does she just lie there and puke?” a boy asks.

Breathing gets hard. Ghostly fingers close around my throat. All eyes are on me.

“Are you an AL-CO-HO-LIC too?”

“It is because her dad left them—?”

“Oh, I thought he left because of that—”

I start taking fast, shallow breaths. The laughter grows deafening.

I’m being drained, consumed. My life seeps away with each breath.

My older self recognizes the impending panic attack, yet I can’t do anything to prevent it.

My vision blurs, and I’m hyperventilating.

“Celeste, are you okay?” the driver squeezes my bony shoulder. Laughter in the background. The air isn’t enough. I’m suffocating. I will die here while they laugh at me. Tears roll down my cheeks.

“Told you she’s crazy, just like her mom!”

“Alcoholic isn’t crazy!”

“I can see her bum!”

A cruel blade pierces my chest and nape; cold sweat runs down my brow.

“Celeste? “the driver shakes me violently, “Snap out of it!”

I can’t get enough air. This is how I die. The world around me spins and disintegrates, leaving me only with pain. Gut-wrenching, annihilating pain, the kind that rips my soul out and fills the void with alien nothingness.

I am empty, drained, squirming. Violent tremors shatter my body. I hit the ground. Not the rotten boards of our porch but in the fine black sand of the Underworld. I’m suffocating, the pain tearing me into pieces, yet the cold fingers around my brain retreat in panic like a child who touched a hot plate. The grip has loosened. Whatever has invaded my mind is running now.

No.

Not so fast.

You will pay the price.

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