Chapter 33 Stop Your Vining
WHICH, SURPRISE, SURPRISE, MAKES RHEA scream her freaking head off. “You’re hurting me! Let me go! You’re hurting me!”
“You really thought this would help?” I ask dryly.
“She’s down, isn’t she?” Fifi grins. “And all that screaming requires a lot of deep breaths. She’ll be herself any second now.”
“Get off me,” Rhea snarls.
“You sure about that?” I ask.
“Pretty sure—”
“If you don’t get off me in the next two seconds, I’m going to scratch your eyes out.” Rhea’s voice is calm now, her own eyes narrowed as she glares into Fifi’s.
“And she’s back,” Arjun says wryly from where he’s stretched out on the ground.
“Lucky us.” But Fifi rolls off her.
The second Rhea’s on her back, flat on the ground, the fog dissipates completely.
“Is that it?” Paris asks, sitting up. “Is that all we had to do?”
“I don’t know.” I sit up as well so I can get a good look around.
With the fog gone, I get my first clear look at the place and realize we could be anywhere. Sure, there’s grass and a few trees, but they don’t look anything like the ones that grow all over Anaximander’s.
More, there’s no sky above us. No clouds, no sun, no long expanse of blue or gray. The area above us and beyond the grass is just…empty. A black, endless void.
There’s obviously light where we are or I wouldn’t be able to see anything, but it doesn’t go beyond the boundaries of the grassy field we’re in.
And it doesn’t seem to be coming from any light source that I can find—no lamps, no sun, no outdoor lights tucked into the ground.
It’s just there, like the rest of this place.
“Where are we?” Sullivan asks. He sounds as bewildered as I feel. It feels almost as if the moment we walked through that ancient teal door, we entered someplace that exists only in this one moment in time.
Weird.
“Does it matter?” Rhea asks as she fluffs her hair and brushes imaginary blades of grass from her blazer. “We passed that ridiculous test.”
“We passed the test?” Fifi murmurs as she rolls her eyes at me, making me laugh.
Because of course Rhea is acting like she was part of the solution instead of the problem. I’m beginning to think acting superior is in her DNA.
“Do you think that means we can go home now?” Sullivan asks, eyeing the chest, which is still closed.
“I’m pretty sure it will let us know if it’s ready for us to leave,” I answer, pushing to my feet.
Fifi stands up too. “So what do we do now?”
“Maybe figure out what it is we’re supposed to accomplish here?” Arjun suggests, joining us. His normally perfectly brushed black hair is standing straight up, like he spent the entire time he was angry yanking on it. It’s a surprisingly good look for him.
“Who says we need to accomplish anything?” Rhea picks at her light blue nail polish while she stays right where she’s at, sitting cross-legged on the ground.
“Dr. Minthe,” Arjun answers. “He said that’s how we would get the key.”
“He actually said we’d get it when we learned what we needed to about the myth,” I correct him.
“Same thing, isn’t it?” Sullivan asks.
“I feel like I learned a lot with that whole fog thing,” Paris adds. “What about the rest of you?”
“I learned not to make Fifi mad,” Arjun says with a grin. “She’s got a mean tackle.”
“I do what I can.” Fifi does a little curtsy.
Rhea glares at Arjun. “Yeah, well, it’s hard to take anything you say seriously when you look like a hedgehog.”
Arjun stops smiling, runs a self-conscious hand over his hair.
“I think hedgehogs are adorable,” I tell him.
Fifi nods. “Supercute. And your hair looks great that way.”
The smile he gives us is only half as bright as it used to be, but at least he stops smoothing his hair down.
I’m really beginning not to like Rhea.
Which is a problem, because Paris seems to like her a whole lot. He’s moved to sit next to her on the ground, and now they’re whispering together about who knows what.
“Hey, Sullivan!” Fifi calls, and I turn around to see Sullivan halfway across the clearing. “What are you doing?”
“Looking for whatever it is we have to do!” he shouts back. “I’m hungry and have no intention of missing lunch because of a key with an attitude problem.”
“Not sure the key is the one with the attitude problem,” Fifi mutters as she steps around Paris and Rhea.
I make a face. “True story.”
Because I’d rather be doing anything other than standing around here doing nothing, I head across the field toward Sullivan as Fifi and Arjun follow behind.
Considering he’s now trying to climb a tree, I’m pretty certain he’s not doing anything that will actually help us.
But maybe there really is something over there. It would be a mistake not to check.
“Does he really think there’s something up that tree?” Fifi asks.
Arjun shrugs. “Maybe he just likes climbing it. He is from Zeus Hall, after all.”
She sighs. “Why do they always feel the need to show off, anyway? I mean, I can climb a tree, but you don’t see me trying to ruin my tights, do you?”
I glance down at the tights in question, which have apples with rhinestone seeds all over them. “They’re very cool tights.”
“Right?” She flips her braids over her shoulder. “Perfect for Aphrodite Hall.”
“Um, should we be concerned about that?” Arjun points to where Sullivan is now hanging upside down from a very small tree branch.
“Surely he knows that won’t hold him—” I stop as the branch breaks and Sullivan goes tumbling to the ground.
“Or not.” Fifi shakes her head. “I guess we should check on him, huh?”
“I’m okay!” Sullivan shouts, leaping up.
“Considering he fell on his head, I have no idea how,” Arjun mutters. “But good for him.”
I wave so Sullivan knows we heard him, but before I can say anything else, a scream sounds from behind me. And it isn’t coming from Rhea.
“Paris!” I take off running toward my brother, who is standing over the wooden chest.
“Not again!” Arjun groans as he runs with me. “What did they do this time?”
Judging from the fact that long, thick vines are now shooting out of the chest, my guess is they tried to get the key again. The question is, why? Not that I can ask Paris at the moment, considering one of those vines is currently wrapped around his mouth like a gag.
Apparently, it didn’t like the screaming any more than the rest of us—though I’m guessing it’s got very different reasons.
We’re almost to them when more vines shoot out of the box. One winds around Paris’s waist and lifts him several feet in the air, while the others do the same to Rhea.
“Oh my gods!” Fifi panics as we get close enough to be in vine range. “What should we do? I don’t want the vines to get—”
She breaks off on a shriek as a vine wraps itself around her ankles and yanks them out from under her.
“Ellie, help!” She grabs on to my hands as she falls.
I grab on as tightly as I can and do my best to hold her in place as the vine starts yanking her back toward the box. But the thing is much stronger than I thought it would be. Within seconds, it’s dragging both of us forward.
Arjun jumps in to assist, grabbing on to my waist and pulling me backward as hard as he can.
At first I think it might work, but we barely gain a few inches before more vines come shooting out at us. One circles Fifi’s wrists and yanks her away from me while the others wrap around Arjun and me.
One vine winds its way around my shoulders while another winds around my thighs, locking my legs together. I reach down to claw at it, trying to get it off me, but another one grabs on to my wrist and yanks my hand far above my head while a fourth one wraps around my neck.
And then I’m flying—or at least hovering several feet above the air—as the vines slowly start to pull us toward the chest. Panic races through me so hard and fast that, for several seconds, I stop thinking. My hands start shaking, my mouth turns desert dry, and chills race through my whole body.
I force myself to take a deep breath, force myself to try to think through the panic—which is easier said than done when under attack by some mutant plant.
But then I remind myself this is just a lesson. Just something Dr. Minthe wants us to learn from. At the moment I don’t have any idea what we could possibly learn from this truly bizarre situation, but there’s got to be something. I just have to calm down long enough to figure out what it is.
Dr. Minthe may be the head of Hades Hall, but there’s no way Dr. Themis would allow him to dispatch a bunch of first years to the Underworld on their very first day of classes. This is just another exercise we have to think our way through.
Just a lesson, I remind myself as the vines yank me around some more.
Just a lesson. Just a lesson. Just a lesson.
The mantra calms me down enough that I stop flailing around, trying to fight the unfightable. And once I stop fighting, my brain starts working again.
Obviously, Paris and Rhea decided to try for the key a second time. And just as obviously, they failed. But we figured out how to get out of the fog—which means there’s a way out of this, too.
Another shout sounds behind me, and I realize the plant got Sullivan, too.
Now, all six of us are wrapped up in vines and suspended several feet above the ground.
Although, as I glance at Rhea—who also has a vine wrapped around her mouth and whose face is growing red because she is literally hanging upside down—I decide to count my blessings.
I may be several feet off the ground, but at least I’m hovering at a good angle, with my head several inches higher than my feet. I may not have any idea how to get out of this predicament, but at least all the blood isn’t currently rushing to my head.
“So, Rhea, are you pathologically unable to think of anything—or anyone—but your own ambition?” Arjun asks in a surprisingly conversational tone. “Because this is the second time you’ve gotten us into a mess because you just won’t stop and think for a second.”
Rhea’s eyes narrow and she tries to answer, but the vine across her mouth makes it impossible for us to understand any of the very angry sounds coming out of her mouth. I can’t say I’m sorry about that, considering I pretty much feel the same way Arjun does.
“I’m all for casting blame for this mess on to Paris and Rhea,” Fifi whispers.
I’m pretty sure that’s because one of the vines is currently wrapped around her throat and she doesn’t want to upset it—a decision I absolutely agree with.
“But can we come up with a plan to get out of here before we start yelling at anyone?”
“I’m not sure there is a plan,” Arjun answers as the vines undulate up and down, bending and stretching and turning us as they see fit. “I mean, besides wait for Dr. Minthe to figure out we’re missing and come save us.”
“But that means we’d lose!” Sullivan sounds horrified. “I’m not okay with that.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, we’re currently being held prisoner by a plant,” Arjun shoots back. “News flash, man. I’m pretty sure we’ve already lost.”
He’s got a solid point, but I’m no more ready to accept it than Sullivan. This is the first day of class—the first day. No way am I going to fail an assignment on the first day. I mean, hopefully I’ll never fail an assignment, but I’m definitely not going to do it today.
“We’ve got to be able to do something,” I tell them. “Because there’s no way I’m going to let the story of our first day at Anaximander’s end like this.”
As soon as I say the words, lightning crackles across the ground.
Rain comes pouring down in torrents.
Twigs, sharp as spears, fly through the air.
And somewhere deep inside myself, I feel a crack, a quake, a shift, that warns me something important is happening.
I just wish I knew what it was.