Behind the Vines

De: Jo Rentschler, Jill H. O'Bones

Narrado por: Virtual Voice

After a random car accident led to the uncovering of a speck of a tumor in Elizabeth's brain, the doctor was ninety percent sure treatment would get rid of it. Instead, the chemo almost killed her, and there was nothing left to do but wait for the tumor to take her life. The doctors gave her three to four years, but as the tumor grows, it would cause severe headaches, along with difficulty thinking, and other mild to severe symptoms, including hallucinations, paralysis, and neurological deterioration.

Knowing her time was short, Elizabeth wanted to spend as much time with her son as possible, but she also wanted to remember her childhood while she could and visit her mother's grave. Her memories of her mother, who died of breast cancer when she was seven, were faint because her father took her away right after the funeral and forbade her from mentioning her mother or aunt.

Thinking of the time she stayed at her aunt’s farmhouse brought both happy and sad memories because she spent her younger summers there in the kitchen making apple pies with her mom and aunt while they told her fairy tales of queens, unicorns, and fairies. However, it was also the place she stayed while her mother was in the hospital.

After school let out for the summer, Elizabeth and her son take the road trip to the small town in Iowa to find Elizabeth's past, but that search uncovers the lies her father told her, the most important was her aunt was still alive but dying in the mental hospital he had sent her to a few weeks after Elizabeth’s mother’s funeral, claiming she had tried to kill Elizabeth.

Only planning on spending a few days to take care of her aunt's final wishes, Elizabeth finds memories in each room and more come back every day, including the fairy tales. Feeling at home in her aunt's farmhouse, Elizabeth and her son decide to spend the rest of the summer there.

Then one day while horseback riding, they find a beautiful meadow where giant butterflies dance in the air. But as the tales her aunt had told her of them being fairies brought happy memories, seeing them dancing in front of her also brings a sense of unease.

A few days later, Elizabeth returns to the meadow alone, uncovering a cave hidden behind some vines dangling from the hillside. After stepping inside the cave, Elizabeth realizes those stories she was told as a child were not fairy tales, for inside the cave was a doorway that only she could open, that led into a world with fairies, unicorns, and other magical creatures, where she was the rightful queen.

With her arrival, the people believe she would bring the magic back that had been fading over the last hundred years after the last queen disappeared through the doorway. However, unlike the rest of the Kingdom, Baron Priam does not want the magic back. He wants to kill anyone or anything with any type of magical gift.

Knowing that if she told the people she was dying, Priam would take the Kingdom and kill every magical creature and people with a gift, and declare war on the Elves to eradicate all magic.

With the discovery of her heritage and everything magical that was at stake, Elizabeth must quickly learn about the Kingdom and ascend the throne so to unite the people and stop Baron Priam from taking the Kingdom by force. But more importantly, she needs to find a suitable King to rule in her place before the tumor in her head claims her life.

Previously published under the pen name Jill H. O'Bones