After a few minutes of hacking and sawing, I’ve made some progress. Sweat is trickling down my neck, and my arm aches from the repetitive chopping motion. I take a moment to massage my sore bicep, and before my eyes, a pale green tendril sprouts from the nearest vine and grows to block my path.
“Are you freaking kidding me?” I push the tiny shoot away. I’ve never seen a plant grow so fast. This isn’t right.
This is magic.A ghostly prickle runs up my spine. “No, it’s not,” I say. “This isn’t magic. There’s a practical explanation.” Bamboo grows pretty fast, right?But not that fast,a little scaredy-cat voice inside me whispers.
The vines crowd around me. When I rise to my tiptoes, I can barely glimpse the castle ruins, bathed in dusky light. The suns are setting. It’s already dark in the thicket. What will I do when night falls?
When I turn back around, I’m facing a wall of brambles. The wispy tendril I pushed aside has thickened, and ten more of its brother and sister vines have joined the fray. My little break cost me a bunch of progress, and if the vines keep growing around me like this, I’m going to be trapped.
I struggle, thrashing, slashing wildly at any vine within reach. This is what I get for believing stupid not-so-urban legends.
“Let me through,” I mutter, as if the vines are sentient. They’re acting more like fauna than flora, by Earth’s standards.
The thick stalks knit themselves into an impregnable mesh in front of me.
“Where’s an Omega when you need one?” I grumble. “Typical, fairytale bullshit.”
After a second to catch my breath, I press on, hacking at the vines.
“Only one true love can break the spell,” I mock. “Twue wuv.Mawage.” I spout the minister’s lines from Princess Bride. “‘Mawage is what bwings us together. And wuv, twue wuv…Shit!”My knife catches on a thorn and flips out of my hand. It goes end over end then plummets, almost skewering my foot.
“That’s more like it. None of those fairytales show the aftermath of the relationship. When you come home and catch him cheating with your best friend.” Something twinges in my chest and I rub it away. Am I speaking from experience? I reach for the memory, but it’s a shadowy blur. I get the sense that my relationships on Earth—at least some of them—ended badly.
I recover the knife and resume hacking in savage fury. I don’t care if I have to weed-whack my way up to the king’s door. I’m not letting Ma die.
When my arms grow tired, I stop chopping and just push myself forward, protecting my face with my hands and my makeshift machete. A prickly stalk trips me and I fall, clutching at the thicket to hold me up. My free hand catches on a vicious thorn.
“Fuck!” I shout, and drop into a crouch to inspect my torn palm. The thorn is as big as a railway spike, and sharp as a cactus tine. Blood wells up on my skin. I hiss and squeeze my hand into a fist to see if pressure will stop the bleeding.
It doesn’t. Blood oozes between my fingers and drips to the ground. “Fuck,” I whisper again. My earlier unease is turning into despair. I squeeze my eyes shut to fight back the tears, and try to breathe. But like the blood on my hand, a tear spills out.
I haven’t cried in… I don't know how long. I didn’t cry when I woke up on a strange riverbank, on a strange planet, with no memory of how I got there. I don’t really miss New York, or scrambling to make rent and find scholarships for med school. Sometimes I wonder what happened to my impressive succulent collection, but that’s about it.
Ma is my family. She took me in, and gave me a home. If I lose her—
“She’s all I have,” I whisper, because there’s no one here but me and the vines. I don’t have to be strong for anyone.
A sweet scent rises in front of my face. I open my eyes. A flower has appeared on the closest vine. It’s shaped like a typical Earth rose but has more petals, which are an amazing ombre hue that go from pink in the center to the darkest, richest wine red on the tips. The smell is delicious enough to bowl me over. And it definitely wasn’t there before.
Without thinking, I touch it with my right hand. My hurt and bloody hand. And all around me, more flowers burst open, filling the tight space with an airy sweetness.
Once a year, at tithe time, the moonflowers bloom on the vines, and when they do, they guide the way to the king’s castle.That was the legend Leelah told me. The fairytale.
I rise to my feet slowly. Ahead, the stalks part as if a giant, invisible hand swept them back. There’s enough space for me to walk without my clothes catching on the thorns—or the flowers. My feet find the worn cobblestone path, and I creep up towards the castle ruins.
The suns are now nothing but a memory shimmering beyond the horizon, but the five moons are rising and their light is enough for me to find my way. Even if I couldn’t see, I could follow the rich scent of blooming flowers.
The wind gusts under my cloak, making the fabric billow and tug me forward. The brambles around me are writhing like they’re alive, moving and parting in front of me. Maybe that’s just an illusion. Maybe this is all a dream.
But when I stagger out of the thicket and crash with a thump into the high stone walls of the ruined castle, I know it’s real. I grope along the wall—the vines at my back pushing me forward—and flinch when my fingertips find the massive wooden gate. It’s half covered in what looks like moss, but it’s sturdy enough, with a knocker set high above my head. Easy for an Alpha to reach but not a human. I go up to my tiptoes, and my fingers graze the rusty ring. Something pricks my palm. I gasp and snatch my hand back. Ugh, I got a dang splinter, this time on my other hand.
Just what I needed. More injuries. I hiss and pull it out, letting the sliver of wood drop.
All hell breaks loose. The ground shakes underneath my feet. I reach out to steady myself, but the gate before me shudders and sweeps open. Afraid, I jerk back from the castle entrance, but the vines behind me writhe and form a net mesh to stop my retreat. The ground rolls again and I surge forward, riding the moving grassy wave like a surfer. I’m pitched through the gates and into the castle grounds. I land on my face on the soft turf.
Behind me, the gates slam shut with an echoing thud.
Oh god. That’s not creepy at all. I scramble back to my feet. The good news is, I’m in a beautiful garden, and up close, the looming castle doesn’t look half bad. The walls and turrets are a bit weathered, the stone a romantic gray-green that reminds me of Edinburgh Castle back on Earth—but the broken walls and the half-ruined tower I was able to see from the market? Gone. In their place loom high, impenetrable walls, and a whole and intact tower, solid enough to intimidate the most organized medieval army.
