Sassafras
By Xavier Ashton-Adderley
Second Place Winner of the 2025 Prose Award
She feels the rough roots run across her fingers, begging to be pulled. She tugs just enough on the root so that it doesn’t rip, tear, or waste away, and there it is—resting softly in the palm of her hand. But one isn’t enough… she needs more… and more… and more. In no time flat, she’s grabbed about…thirty roots in thirty seconds. A new record… and so much more than what she’d started with ten years ago. Of course, an eight-year-old girl is no match for the strength of that grown, rich tree with its beautiful green leaves and tightly wound roots; the most she could grab was five, and that was if she was lucky enough to find a tree with roots exposed. But now? Her strong stature and fiber coursing through her veins allow her to dig deep and explore her newfound strength… strength that allows her to grab several roots at once with little to no sweat. The young woman admires her catch and lets out a heavy sigh of relief… for now, it is time to drink.
To the kitchen she goes, and she gets straight to work, setting out her war-torn tea kettle and container to store her newly acquired roots. She washes the roots gracefully yet quickly under the cool tap water, having done this many times before. She sets the kettle on the stove full of water to heat up and uses a knife to mince-
“LAUREN!”
She cuts a sliver of her skin and winces in pain. Familiar footsteps barrel through the front door.
“Lauren! Where’d you put the–oh shit!”
The young man moves swiftly as Lauren cups the bleeding finger in her other hand. He runs to the closet to fetch bandages, a cloth, and hydrogen peroxide. He gallops to Lauren apologetically.
“So sorry,” he laments as he cleans her wound. “I- I didn’t mean to scare you. I just-” “It’s okay,” Lauren says softly, trying to not scream from the pain. As her finger is gently and lovingly bandaged, she starts to sweat a bit. She winces again, but this time not from the pain of her finger. She looks at her rescuer’s face, so engrossed in his task, and braces for what comes next.
“You’re making tea again?” he states with just enough friction in his voice to show great disappointment.
“It’s good for me.” “You drink too much.” “It’s tea, not liquor.”
The man finishes his task and looks up at Lauren. His face is clearly distraught. “It’s gonna kill you,” he retorts. Lauren’s eyes widen with anger.
“Don’t say that.”
“Ma told me to look after you. You’re my responsibility, and I got-”
“I’m not a child, Cameron!” Lauren turns away from Cameron and starts to mince the roots again. “I can make my own decisions, and if I want to have some tea, then I’m going to!”
“It’s not good for you.”
“It cleans the body, improves digestion, improves circulation-”
“While giving you rashes, hot flashes, and hallucinations!” Cameron yells. “I told you to leave this stuff alone! You remember what happened to ma, don’t you?”
“Don’t,” Lauren growls as she continues to mince the roots. She can feel herself growing hot with anger as she minces, almost cutting her finger off. Cameron continues to go off.
“You’re drinking too much, and you don’t even care. Killing yo’ body from the inside out. I know you ain’t a kid no more, but you need to listen to me, or you’re gonna…”
Lauren puts her freshly minced roots into the teapot. She can vaguely hear Cameron behind her grumbling and cursing but pays it no mind. She turns on the stove and allows the teapot to do its work, watching the water inside change colors and sizzle and hiss as it boils. Before she knows it, ten minutes have flown by, and Cameron’s scrutiny has completely faded. All she can hear are the little pat-pat-pats of the water heating to its boiling point. The teapot then sings its usual tune, screeching at the top of its lungs to signal to Lauren that the tea is ready to drink. She pours her drink and sips, delicate enough to savor the taste while not burning her tongue. The tea kisses Lauren’s taste buds so tenderly that Lauren’s mind is transported to her childhood again… sitting on the floor watching her ma fix the tea that always made her smile.
Even now, as she cautiously sips, the warmth of the tea and narcotic aroma give her the same comfort she felt from her mother’s arms.
Lauren takes in all her feelings… excitement, serenity… fear? She remembers her ma taking her outside for gardening, and then them watching the sunset together, and then lying in her bed. That final memory of her… she can’t help it; she drowns it out with some more tea.
As she gulps down her tea, she takes a look around the living room, taking in the quiet and appreciating the lack of Cameron’s scrunched up face and grating dialogue. Cameron is nowhere to be found, much to her delight.
But then she hears it. That voice again. What if he’s right? What if I’ve been drinking too much? What if I’m hurting my body? What if I die in my sleep? What if I…
She chugs more of the tea to flush out her thoughts. She’s used to those ridiculing voices that beat on her for trying to stay healthy…f or taking her heavy, daily dose of medicine. But something’s different this time. Her hands shake… her teeth clench… her torso begins to shiver and sweat. Her legs don’t feel as strong as they normally do, and her heart… her heart… it beats faster… and faster… and faster-
“Hey, hey, hey, easy…” Cameron suddenly appears in front of her. “Huh?”
“Come, come sit real quick.” Cameron leads Lauren to their couch. He gently clasps her hands in his.
“What’s your least favorite food?” “What?”
“Come on, you know this. What’s that piece of food that just makes you wanna rip everything apart?”
“Uh- um… br- broccoli…” “Mhm. And what’s your favorite? “Um… p-pizza…”
“Great. Then I’ll be sure to order a broccoli pizza tonight.” Lauren starts to giggle. “No!”
“Yes, it’ll be good for you, trust.” “Don’t you dare. No!”
“It’ll be delicious.” “Stop playing with me!”
Lauren and Cameron laugh as the nightmare comes to a close. Cameron lovingly pats Lauren’s shoulder as Lauren catches her breath.
“That’s new,” Cameron says while shaking his head. “We should get you to a doctor. Make sure you’re feeling okay.”
“No, Cam, I’ll be fine.” Lauren slowly stands.
“Hey, watch your feet.” Cameron points to some glass on the floor that belonged to… oh, her cup. Lauren hadn’t noticed it, but she’d dropped her teacup on the floor and shattered it.
The tea had gotten everywhere.
“I’m sorry,” Lauren says meekly.
“It’s okay. Are you sure you don’t need a doctor?”
Lauren walks over to the steps heading upstairs to her room, careful enough to avoid all the glass. “I’m fine,” she says with a droop in her voice.
Is she fine, though? She carefully tries to walk to the stairs, but she’s stumbling, and her head starts to pound. And then… the voices… they’re still there, but now they’re LOUDER. Lauren struggles to continue as she hears the voices echoing through her head… crying… judging… crucifying. Why are you like this? How could you do this? What’s wrong with you!?
She manages to recover, though, and she heads upstairs before Cameron can question her more. Lauren enters her room, or rather, her cove… a beautiful mix of red, orange and pink that covers the walls, ceiling, and various pieces of furniture. Normally, she’d sit at her laptop to listen to some lo-fi as she drinks her tea, but she’s not really up to it right now. Lauren lays in her bed, ready to sleep off her violent headache. Ready to sleep off the anxiety she’d experienced.
Ready to get those voices out of her head.
But suddenly, she hears a smack against her window, as if a small stone had crashed against it. Lauren ignores the sound, thinking that whatever it was may have been a fluke. But then she hears it again. And again. She stands up to inspect the window, but strangely finds nothing outside that may have hit it. There isn’t even any damage.
“What the hell?” Lauren thinks to herself, her breath slowly heightening.
Lauren backs away and tries to process what happened. She calls out for her brother, hoping maybe he can offer her some clarity, but he doesn’t answer. She calls twice more… thrice more… and there’s not even a peep. Lauren’s hands get sweaty again… Did he leave me? she thinks, starting to believe the worst had happened. But then she hears another voice from downstairs…
“Lauren! Are you awake?” The voice is warm and fuzzy, instantly making her comfortable. What stands out to Lauren, though, is that she knows exactly who the voice belongs to. She bounds down the stairs to greet the angelic voice that has spoken to her and sees her relaxing on the couch.
“Mommy!” Lauren shouts, running over to give her mother a large hug. Her mother feels just like she used to… warm and soft, like a comfy pillow.
“Hey, baby,” momma whispers as she strokes her daughter’s long, black, luscious locs. Lauren buries her head into her momma’s bosom, just as she used to do as a child, resting her body and feeling safe in her mother’s arms… and then she smells it… sassafras. The smell coaxes her nose like a warm hug, and Lauren thinks about the tea she had earlier. She raises her head and looks down at the floor, noticing that the shattered teacup and delicious tea have vanished. Then she thinks about Cameron.
“Momma?”
“Hm?”
“Where’s Cam?”
“He’s hanging over Andrew’s house. He should be back in a few hours.” Andrew? Lauren thinks to herself. She hadn’t heard that name in a while. “Andrew’s alive?” she asks.
Momma looks at Lauren with great concern. “Of course. Why wouldn’t he be?”
“…sorry. Dumb question,” Lauren answers quickly. She could’ve sworn she’d been to Andrew’s funeral, but that didn’t matter right now.
“Can I ask you another dumb question?” Lauren asks sweetly, still clutching onto her momma.
“Mmhm.”
“Why do you drink so much tea?”
Momma leans back, a bit caught off guard by the question.
“The tea builds up our bodies and purifies our blood. My mom… your grandmother… passed down this tea from her own mother, and from her, her own mother. The tea has been healing our family for generations… and after I had gotten liver cancer… I- I wanted to get better for you and your brother.”
“But you…you never got better,” Lauren says, unwrapping herself from her momma’s embrace. She looks into her mom’s eyes and sees a twinkle of sadness in her eyes… but then momma’s eyes quickly darken, and her face changes to a more serious expression.
“Let’s not talk about this now,” she says, switching on the TV to play Law and Order.
Lauren happily claps her hands as she watches her favorite show with her mom. She notices that the TV is also different, resembling the old TV that ended up breaking just a couple years ago.
But it doesn’t matter now. Whatever time she’s in or whatever dream she’s experiencing, all her worries pale in comparison to the joy she gets from spending time with momma. Eventually, she gets thirsty.
“Momma… can I have some tea, please?” Lauren asks sweetly. “Of course.”
Momma gets up and goes to the kitchen to fix some tea while Lauren continues to watch Law and Order, until it suddenly cuts to commercial. Lauren remembers how irritated she’d get when the cut happened, and then she takes in her situation. It’s clear to her now that she’s in the past; Andrew is still alive, the old TV is still there, and her beloved mom is still here… and now, her mom is fixing Lauren tea just like she used to.
“I could get used to this,” Lauren says to herself as she snuggles up on the couch, but as she gets into her position she notices a red splotch on her arm. It’s noticeably expanding and trying to devour her arm, which causes her to shriek.
“Honey, you alright?” momma says while holding Lauren’s cup of tea. “You’re looking a little pale. Here, drink some.”
Momma gives the cup to Lauren and she drinks the tea, which still tastes as cozy as she remembers.
“Feeling better?” momma asks with a sweet smile. “Yes, ma’am! Thank you.”
Lauren continues to drink the tea and momma sits down to watch the TV. After some time, though, Lauren gets curious again.
“Why didn’t you get better, mommy?” Lauren asks.
Suddenly, the sound of heavy rain starts to echo outside. As momma turns to her daughter with her teeth clenched and a single vein popping out of her forehead, the booming sound of thunder erupts from behind the front door. Lauren winces from the loud noise and looks at her mom in fear.
“What did I tell you?!” momma yells. “I just wa-”
“I told you I don’t want to talk about it.” “But I shook you-
“LAUREN!”
“And you wouldn’t wake up.”
Momma shakes her head and turns away from Lauren. Lauren starts to raise her voice. “I shook you and shook you and shook you until Cameron pulled me off you. I called for you, but you couldn’t hear me. Why, momma? Why couldn’t you hear me? Did you not want to hear me? Were you ignoring me??”
Momma continues to shake her head. “Don’t ask me questions you know the answer to.” Lauren stands up, irate. She stares at her mom and her mom looks back at her with sad eyes.
“WHY DID YOU LEAVE ME?!”
Momma looks down to the floor, unable to hold eye contact with Lauren, who’s at the moment drilling a hole into her head with her eyes. The storm outside continues to go on, but for a moment it gets softer. Some time passes before she can speak again.
“I had a heart attack.”
“I know,” Lauren retorts. “Cameron told me.” “I was in so much pain.”
“So you gave up?”
“NO.”
Momma gets the courage to look at her daughter again, who’s now tearing up.
“I used the tea to heal the pain, only to cease it entirely… on accident. I never meant to leave you and Cameron behind…I just thought the tea would solve my problems…” Momma looks up at the ceiling to see a single drop of rain land on the couch. She continues to look up.
“Now I’m here… and now you’re here.”
“Now we’re together again,” Lauren says, hugging her mom. “And I’m never letting you go again.”
“Lauren…” momma says with a lump in her throat. She hugs Lauren tightly, and Lauren surrenders in her arms… but then feels… warm. Not the warmth she used to feel, though, but rather, excessive warmth. She feels herself rapidly getting warmer. The fireplace is still on, and she recently had tea, but there’s something seriously wrong… her body is getting hot. Really hot.
Lauren springs up and fans herself, but it barely helps. She walks over to the kitchen to pour herself a glass of water from the tap so she can cool off a bit. But to her surprise, when she turns on the faucet, all she sees is a brown liquid pour out smelling of sassafras.
“You want some more tea?”
“N- no, I’m trying t- to get some water.”
Momma chuckles. “I’m sorry, but we don’t have no more water.”
Lauren barely registers what she said as she looks into the freezer for some ice cubes.
Thankfully, she’s able to find some cold ones to eat. She puts one into her mouth… only to taste it again. Sassafras. Sassafras, sassafras, sassafras. She spits it out instinctively.
“What’s wrong?” momma asks, visibly worried.
Lauren starts to feel wobbly. “What’s wrong with our ice?” “Huh?”
Lauren’s voice raises. “Why does our ice taste like tea?!” “Because you want more tea.”
“No! I just want some water!”
“No, you don’t,” momma states firmly. “You know you don’t want no water. If you did, you wouldn’t be here right now.”
“Huh?”
“Here. With me.”
KRAKOOM! A bolt of lightning crashes just outside the window, shaking the house with its impact and briefly flickering the lights. Lauren tries to stabilize herself, almost losing her balance, but momma doesn’t even move from her seat. She looks over at Lauren, who’s still trying to catch her breath, and addresses her.
“You shouldn’t be here, Lauren. You don’t belong here.” “Huh?”
Momma stands up and Lauren feels a large drop of fluid hit her shoulder, causing her to whip her neck around and feel the large wet spot left on her shoulder. As she feels the spot with her fingers, she sees that the liquid is brown… and it has a strong smell of sassafras emanating from it. Lauren looks back up to see her mom suddenly a foot from her.
“You’re dying, baby,” momma states to her. “You gotta get outta here and go to your brother, before…”
Momma looks up. Lauren peers up with her to find more drops of the brown fluid dripping through the ceiling. Lauren gasps as the drops get heavier and heavier, threatening to flood the house she lives in, but when she looks back at momma, she sees her shaking her head and looking right at her with tears.
“You gotta let me go, baby.” “N-no, wait-”
“You gotta let me go…”
The liquid wraps around their ankles. “I’M NOT LEAVING YOU!”
“If you stay you’ll die here!” “I’M NOT-”
“LAUREN!”
Lauren is stunned into silence as another lightning strike hits the house this time. The lights go out, leaving the deafening sound of pouring sassafras tea and heavy breathing to permeate the room.
“You’ve got to take care of your brother. He needs you.” “I need you…”
Lauren starts to cry, then notices the tea quickly wrapping itself around their knees. She tries to run, trudging through the fluid furiously as her mom shakes her head. She holds on tightly to her mom.
“P- please don’t leave me. Don’t leave me, please.” Momma gives her a kiss on the forehead.
“I’m sorry, baby. But I gotta leave the rest to you. Live longer for me.” “Mommy… I love you… please…”
Momma cups her hands around Lauren’s face as the tea reaches their chests. “Promise me that the next time I see you here, it’ll be a long way from now, okay?
Promise me before you go.” “Where do I even go?”
Momma points upstairs as the liquid gets to their necks.
“Your room. Get to your room, quickly… and don’t look back.”
Lauren squeezes her mom again as the liquid gets to their chins. Momma gives Lauren a final kiss on the forehead.
“Go!”
Lauren trudges through the tea as it gets to her eyes, and then above her head. She swims up to the steps and remembers her mom telling her not to look back… but she never was much of a good listener. She looks back and sees that her mom is now gone. Lauren frantically swims up the stairs to her room and shuts the door before the tea can bust through.
Lauren takes a breath as she looks outside her bedroom window and sees that tea has completely flooded the outside. Despite being in her room, though, the tea is still rising and rising quicker than ever before. It had only been 30 seconds since she’d been in her room, but the tea that seeped through the door is now up to her ankles.
Lauren scrambles onto her bed and for the first time in a while, begins to pray. “Oh, God, please let me wake up… please let me wake up… if you’re out there…please… save me!”
The tea madly races past her head, leaving Lauren no room to breathe. She can feel her eyes burning as she struggles to keep them open, and then she feels her body start to ache. She can no longer swim, see, or even breathe, and she slowly can feel herself losing oxygen.
“Please!” she echoes in her thoughts, hoping that God will hear her. But as she sinks to the bottom of her room and sees… red… she forcefully tries to breathe again… and now… unable to move or do anything… starts to black out…
And a white light shatters Lauren’s eyes. White dances around the room that Lauren suddenly finds herself in, and it takes around thirty seconds for the room to be visible to the eye. Lauren’s… in a hospital room… laying in a hospital bed, opening her eyes to a hospital television playing Law and Order. She looks around to see an empty cup on the side and a muffin and realizes that she can turn her head only so much. Her body aches, but especially her lower half. She feels like she’d taken a gut punch from Mike Tyson. And the smell… the room smells like how one would imagine a hospital room to smell, but with a slight mix of Cameron’s deplorable Axe body spray. Then she sees the man himself, with bags under his eyes and a slight smile creeping on his face as he sits in his chair.
“Wassup, buttercup,” he says with the voice of a 50-year-old smoker. “’Bout time you got up. Had me worried for a sec.”
Lauren stirs. “What- what happened?”
“You drank too much o’ that damn tea. What do you remember?”
Lauren taps her head to remember. “I made sassafras tea… you yelled at me… I drank the tea… and I went upstairs.”
“You don’t remember the panic attack?”
“I’d rather not remember it,” Lauren says with a chuckle. She coughs from the laughter and notices that her chest hurts.
“You passed the hell out and fell down the stairs. Turns out your blood pressure was high.” Cameron gets up and stands next to Lauren. “Thought you weren’t gonna wake up, bud.”
“I… I also saw mom.”
“Yeah?” Cameron says, holding her hand. “What’d she say?” “She told me to let her go.” Lauren says with tears in her eyes. “Then I guess we’d better listen before she beat us, huh?”
“Yeah.” Lauren clutches Cameron’s hand tightly. Cameron returns the intensity and gives her forehead a kiss before he goes to sit down. But Lauren has one more request.
“Cam?”
“Hm?”
“Can you get some water, please?” Cameron smiles. “Sure, buttercup.”
Cameron leaves the room, leaving Lauren to sit and rest on her thoughts, which now don’t seem to be vicious anymore. She can, at least for now, sit and relax.