Belladonna

  “Not much left of it, is there?” Lee said, shielding his eyes as he studied the remains of the cottage.

  “No, not much left,” Michael said. The winter clothes he’d be needing soon. The books he’d carefully selected and scrimped to buy so that he could share them with Aunt Brighid and Caitlin. The little treasures he’d accumulated over the years and couldn’t carry with him. All gone. His life, his boyhood, all burned away.

  Nothing left of me here, he thought. Nothing left for me here. Except, hopefully, my father’s legacy.

  Stepping around broken, burned timbers, Michael looked up at the one corner that still appeared to be fairly intact. But even if they hadn’t been touched by the fire itself, would the books have survived?

  Only one way to find out.

  “If we can steady a ladder up to that spot, I think I can get what I’m looking for,” Michael said.

  “We can set a ladder up there right enough,” Nathan said, “but it won’t take much to have the rest of this place coming down on us.”

  “It will hold long enough,” Michael said softly, pouring every drop of his luck-bringing into those words. A dark tune playing here. The same tune he’d heard during the years he’d lived in the cottage, with only a sprinkle of bright notes coming from Nathan. Just like always.

  Lee met his eyes for a moment, then helped Nathan and Kenneday find the most solid spot for the ladder.

  Oh, the wood was weak and trembled under his feet when he eased his way across what was left of the attic. A board cracked ominously as he pulled the box out of its special cupboard. Carrying the whole box would add too much weight to his own—and the image of Rory Calhoun impaled on stone suddenly filled his mind. Two boys were saved by the death of another. He didn’t want to repeat that particular tune by saving the books but dying in the process.

  “Lee,” he called. “Come up the ladder so I can hand these over to you.” He opened the box and took the books out one at a time, stretching as far as he could and moving as little as possible to pass the books to Lee who, in turn, handed them down to Nathan and Kenneday.

  “Careful,” Lee said as Michael finally eased his way back to the ladder.

  Wood creaked and groaned as Michael started down. The wood supporting the top of the ladder suddenly broke, and he might have fallen among all the broken timbers if Lee and Nathan hadn’t been holding the ladder steady.

  “Go,” Lee said, looking at Nathan. Kenneday was already outside, his arms full of books.

  Nathan shook his head. “He said it would hold until we were safely away, so it will hold.”

  As soon as Michael had both feet on the floor, Nathan took one end of the ladder and Lee took the other. He followed them out, and as he cleared what had been the threshold of the front door, the cottage gave out a sound of creaking, wailing, agonized groaning.

  Lady’s mercy, Michael thought as the rest of the roof and attic flooring that had supported the box of books came crashing down.

  “I told you it would hold long enough,” Nathan said to Lee. Then he looked at Michael. “What comes next?”

  Michael shook his head and watched the two women walking toward them. Glorianna looked upset. Caitlin looked dazed, like she’d tumbled into a tree while running flat out. “I think what comes next is up to them.”

  “Aunt Brighid,” Caitlin said, lightly brushing her fingers over her aunt’s hand. “Auntie, it’s me. Caitlin Marie.”

  Not so bad, the doctor had said. The cuts and burns had not been significant, and Brighid was a strong woman.

  It looked bad enough to her.

  Then Brighid stirred, opened her eyes. “Caitlin?” Her hand shook as she raised it to touch Caitlin’s face. “Caitlin Marie? I saw you disappear. I saw…”

  “I know,” Caitlin said hurriedly. “I know. But I found a way back. Michael, too. He’s here. See?” She half turned in the chair by the bed and looked up at her brother.

  “Aunt Brighid,” Michael said.

  “You came,” Brighid said. “You got my message?”

  “Yes,” he replied.

  Currents of power suddenly flowed through the room as the third person moved to a position at the end of the bed where she would be clearly visible.

  Caitlin watched, helpless to understand what was happening while Brighid and Glorianna stared at each other.

  “I am Belladonna.”

  Brighid sucked in a breath and coughed it out, a rasping sound. “You’re a sorceress like Caitlin, aren’t you?”

  “I’m a Landscaper, like Caitlin,” Glorianna replied. “We are the bedrock that protects Ephemera from the human heart.”

  “Lady of Light,” Brighid whispered. “You…could show her who she’s meant to be?”

  “I can show her.”

  “There’s nothing for her here.”

  Grief filled Glorianna’s eyes, and Caitlin wondered again what the woman had seen in her garden that had caused such distress.

  “No,” Glorianna said, “there’s nothing for her here.”

  “I’m sitting in the room,” Caitlin said, guilt that she had done something wrong making her testy. “And I’m old enough to do some deciding for myself.”

  Glorianna’s eyes never left Brighid’s, but she smiled. “Then we’ll let your auntie get some rest while we discuss those decisions.”

  That didn’t sound like she was going to be the one doing much deciding, but at least she’d have her say.

  “I’ll be back a little later,” Caitlin said, smiling at her aunt. As she rose, she saw the undiluted sadness in Michael’s eyes before he made an effort to hide his feelings.

  She held on until they were in the hallway outside her aunt’s room before the feelings spewed out. “I don’t want her here. There’s a syrupy meanness in that room. They’re taking care of her right enough, but they’re glad she’s hurt. It’s her punishment for taking care of me and Michael all these years.” She glared at her brother. “You know that’s what they’re thinking.”

  “Caitlin,” Michael said.

  She wanted to shout, wanted to scream out the anger, but she kept her voice low. “You’ve been gone, Michael. These past twelve years, you’ve been gone. And you only stayed four years after Mother died. Then you were off having your adventures.”

  “I was off trying to earn enough money to take care of the three of us,” Michael said heatedly, but he, too, kept his voice down.

  “Let’s go to one of the rooms we’ve taken before continuing this discussion,” Glorianna said.

  “There’s nothing more to discuss,” Caitlin snapped.

  “Caitlin.”

  She didn’t respond to Glorianna. She was too stunned by the way Michael suddenly paled.

  “What did we do to the world?” he whispered.

  “Somewhere around this village, a fine crop of rocks has sprung up,” Glorianna replied after a moment.

  “What?” Caitlin asked, wondering why Michael looked ready to faint while Glorianna looked sympathetic but amused.

  “Anger makes stone,” Glorianna said. “Something you can’t afford to forget. Now, would you like the rest of this to be discussed in private or would you rather go down to the parlor and put on a show so the people downstairs who are trying to eavesdrop won’t have to strain their ears?”

  “What does sass make?” Caitlin muttered.

  “Tart fruit.”

  She wasn’t sure if Glorianna was teasing or not. Based on his expression, Michael wasn’t sure either, but the answer had brought some color back to his face. So she let herself be herded into one of the rooms they had rented while Michael knocked on the door of the other to fetch Lee.

  Once the four of them were seated, Caitlin plucked up her courage to have her say. “Aunt Brighid doesn’t belong here. Michael has been on his own for a time now, and I’m old enough to make my own way. Besides, we’re going to have to start over in one place or another, and I don’t want it to be here.”

  “Ah, Caitie,” Micha
el groaned. “Why did you never say things were so hard here?”

  “It was all we had.”

  He closed his eyes as if her words had hurt him.

  “A piece at a time,” Glorianna said. “What do you want for your aunt?”

  “She’s a Lady of Light,” Caitlin replied. “She should go back to the White Isle. I don’t think she’ll ever really heal if she stays here.”

  “And you?” Glorianna asked.

  “I want to find where my garden truly belongs. And I want to learn who I am. I want to learn to be Landscaper.”

  “Aren’t you going to ask what I want?” Michael asked.

  “No,” Glorianna replied quietly. “I feel your heart well enough.”

  “So we go to the White Isle?” Lee asked.

  “If you have a way of reaching it once we get there, I have a ship that can take us,” Michael said.

  Glorianna nodded. “Then it’s settled.”

  “Captain Kenneday and Nathan are having a meal downstairs,” Lee said. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but my stomach says it’s mealtime.”

  Since there was nothing more to be done, Caitlin followed the rest of them down to the dining room.

  Michael stripped down to his drawers, then slipped into bed and stared at the ceiling. “Tell me again why I’m sharing a room—and a bed—with you?”

  Lee tucked his hands under his head and grinned. “Because we could only afford two rooms, and the beds being what they are, you cut up stiff about sharing one with your sister. And as much as I like her, I didn’t want to share a bed with Caitlin Marie either.”

  “You’re damn right you wouldn’t be sharing a bed with her. No matter how grown-up she thinks she is, the girl is just eighteen and an innocent.”

  Lee rolled over on his side and propped himself up on one elbow. “My sister is thirty-one and, in some ways, just as innocent.”

  “Nooo,” Michael said, shaking his head in denial. “You aren’t telling me a woman as lovely as Glorianna has never been pleasured by a man.”

  “I won’t tell you she’s never had sex, and I hope it gave her pleasure….”

  “But?” Michael prodded when Lee seemed to sink into his own thoughts.

  “None of them would have had enough heart to reach her island.”

  Lee’s words filled him with hope and scared him right down to the bone. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to be Glorianna’s first love, but he kept thinking he wanted to be her lifetime’s love. Because he was certain she was his lifetime’s love.

  If you do what you must, you won’t have a lifetime with her.

  Lee rolled onto his back. After a long moment of silence, he said, “So how old were you?”

  “What?”

  “If you’re thinking Caitlin is too young at eighteen, how old were you when you were initiated into the pleasures of sex?”

  Recognizing Lee’s effort to lighten the mood, Michael said, “Are we talking brag or lie?”

  Lee closed his eyes and smiled. “Whichever provides the best story.”

  Chapter Twenty

  “I’ve never seen a landscape do that,” Glorianna said. As Kenneday’s ship sailed closer to the White Isle, she watched the island fade like a mirage in the early-morning light.

  “It’s not a comfort to hear you say that, Glorianna,” Michael scolded. “Couldn’t you tweak the truth a bit and say it doesn’t happen often?”

  She pulled her scarf up to cover the bottom half of her face, both to hide her smile and to warm up skin that was chilled by the brisk sea air. Then she pushed the scarf back down long enough to say, “It doesn’t happen often.”

  Michael looked at the now-empty sea beyond the bow of the ship, then looked back at her. “I’m thinking there’s not much sincerity in that answer.”

  This time she laughed out loud. “Half the time I’m not sure if you’re teasing or really mean what you say. You’re a hard man to please, Magician.”

  “Not so. I don’t ask for much, I’m grateful for what I’m given, and I’m willing to give a great deal in return.”

  Glorianna looked away, glad for the cold air that soothed her suddenly burning cheeks. The man wasn’t talking about enjoying each other for a few nights of sex. And yet, there was always that bittersweet resonance in his words. “You barely know me.”

  And she barely knew him.

  The heart has no secrets, Glorianna Belladonna. Not even yours. That’s why he scares you. If you let him, he’ll slip into your life—and you’ll slip into his—as if you had always been there for each other. As if there had always been love’s shining light welcoming you home.

  “I can hear the music in you,” Michael said quietly. “It’s a glorious song, as heartbreaking as it is beautiful, so full of sorrow and joy. A man could listen to that tune for a lifetime and not grow tired of it.”

  “I don’t know what you’re saying.”

  He took a step closer, his body now sheltering hers from the wind. “You know exactly what I’m saying, and it scares you. If it’s any comfort, it scares me too. Maybe it should. Love is not a small thing. It can change a life.”

  “It can change the world,” she whispered.

  “Maybe it can.” For a moment, he looked troubled by her words. Then he stepped back and smiled. “Well. I’d best let you gather your thoughts. Kenneday said he’d hold this course so you could see the White Isle vanish and reappear, but he’s fidgeting like an old maid with the effort not to ask you when you’re going to do your magic, and your brother is giving me a look that makes me want to punch him in the face or buy him a drink, I’m not sure which.”

  “What have you got against Lee?” Glorianna demanded, feeling her temper ruffle in automatic defense of her brother.

  “I’ve got nothing against the man,” Michael replied. “In fact, I like him. But being your brother, he feels honor bound to be a pebble in my shoe.”

  Before she could decide where the tease ended and truth began, Michael walked away and Lee came toward her, carrying the White Isle stone she and Caitlin had removed from the Garden before they set sail out of Raven’s Hill yesterday morning.

  “I don’t want this place,” Caitlin had said when they paused at the bottom of the hill behind the cottage. “If, as you say, this place is tied to me in some way, I want to be shed of it.”

  “Caitlin,” Glorianna said in quiet warning, feeling Ephemera gathering itself to manifest the girl’s will. “You lived here.”

  “And wanted to leave the way Michael did. We survived here. Had to, because it was all we had. That’s not the same as belonging to a place.”

  No, Glorianna thought, it isn’t the same.

  “I don’t care if I’m supposed to be the guardian or Landscaper or sorceress or whatever you choose to call it,” Caitlin said defiantly. “I don’t want the dead feeling that fills my heart when I think of Raven’s Hill. I don’t want this place. Let someone else be its caretaker.”

  The words had no sooner left Caitlin’s mouth when Glorianna felt Ephemera change the resonance of the world around them. Caitlin gasped and stared at her in fearful wonder.

  “You did this,” Glorianna said. “Not me.”

  A heartfelt choice. Even though it had not been done with care and had been spurred by dark feelings, Caitlin’s rejection would not leave the village floundering. Which was as clear a message as any that the girl had not been the right person to hold this landscape.

  Now that Caitlin’s heart was no longer interfering, Glorianna could feel the heart that acted as the anchor for Raven’s Hill. Solid. Steady. It would need the help of a Landscaper to strengthen the bedrock that would protect Ephemera from the chaos that lived in the human heart, but…

  Not me, Glorianna thought as she and Caitlin made their way to the harbor. There was an appeal to the solid steadiness of that anchoring heart that made her uneasy. There was temptation in its resonance. Not because there was a dark intent toward her, but because it was comfortable and coul
d turn her away from the path she needed to follow—and the man who was part of that journey.

  “I’ve never seen a landscape do that,” Lee said, staring at the open, empty sea.

  “We’re not supposed to be that truthful,” Glorianna replied.

  “Any ideas about why it did that?”

  Glorianna looked toward the stern. How far would they need to go before the island began to reappear? Would they have to sail for hours to cross the same amount of water as the length of the island? “A couple. One is that, since my resonance and Caitlin’s are tangled on the White Isle, it didn’t shift completely when I altered the landscapes to protect the Place of Light from the Eater.”

  “What is the other idea?”

  Glorianna kept her attention focused on the island. “A conflict of wills and heart wishes.” She thought that over and frowned. “Actually, it’s not so different from your island and mine.”

  “More like yours,” Lee said, nodding. “A place that can’t be reached unless you truly need to reach it and your heart resonates with it. But your island doesn’t hold a town’s worth of people hostage. They need to be connected with some part of the world, Glorianna.”

  “I know. But the first task is to find a way to reach the island and get Brighid to Lighthaven.” Half turning, she called, “Caitlin. We need you up here.”

  “Do we?” Lee asked quietly as Caitlin hurried to join them.

  “She’s connected with this island. She should be part of anything that’s done here. And we’re going to need a bridge. I can cross over without one, but the ship can’t.”

  “All right, I’ll—”

  A malevolence in the water up ahead. A knot of Dark currents that felt unnatural in a way she understood intuitively but couldn’t explain.

  Spinning around and almost knocking Caitlin to the deck, she screamed, “Turn around! Turn away! Now!”

  For one frozen moment, Kenneday stared at her. Then orders were shouted and men scrambled. Sails luffed before catching the wind again. Then the ship was turning away from the Dark water.

  Glorianna sank to the deck and closed her eyes to block out the visible world and focus on the feel of that part of Ephemera, but something powerful washed over her as the ship brushed the edge of that undiluted darkness, and the world, like the island, faded away.