Belladonna

  “And then you appeared one day, a girl from a strange part of the world, trying to make herself understood. The elders decided that you suffered from a sickness of the heart, a…poisoning. I was twice your age, and most unwilling, but the elders assigned me the task of staying with you as you wandered the land that made up our holy place. So I followed you through our gardens, through the fields and woods. Then you stopped suddenly, lifted your face to the sky, closed your eyes…and drank peace. I watched the Light fill you, felt it rejoice in the vessel, saw you bloom like a plant responds to rain after a dry spell.

  “I watched, and I felt something shift in my heart. I understood the kind of work I could do in the world—helping others find that pool of calm, that moment of peace when they can truly hear the wishes of their own hearts and see the paths that are open to them for their life’s journey. Because I was asked to watch over you, I found my place in the Light.”

  “If I hadn’t gone to your community that day, the Dark Guides would have succeeded in sealing me in my garden at the school,” Glorianna said. After a silence that seemed to fill the world, she asked, “Why didn’t you tell me this story before?”

  “Until we became friends and trusted each other enough to talk about delicate matters, I didn’t know how you, as a Landscaper, saw the world around you. After I began to understand how you saw the world, it never felt like the right time to tell you this story. Until today. So now I will ask you, Glorianna Dark and Wise. Were my prayers, my heart wish, the reason Ephemera created a way for you to reach my part of the world? If they were, am I to blame for the sorrows in your life?”

  “No, of course not,” Glorianna said. “We make a hundred choices every day, and each of those choices, no matter how trivial, changes the landscapes we live in just a tiny bit. Enough tiny changes can change a person’s resonance and open up another landscape as the next part of their life’s journey.”

  “Or close a landscape?” Yoshani asked gently.

  She nodded. “Sometimes people cross a bridge and never find the way back to a landscape they had known because they have outgrown that place. They have nothing to offer that landscape, and it has nothing to offer them.”

  “And sometimes when they reach that point, they know it is time to leave.” Yoshani took her hand again. “You reached that point today. I think, in your heart, you never truly left the school. I think that by holding on to a landscape that was not yours, you denied your own heart’s attempts to manifest a heart wish.” He gave her hand a little squeeze. “You spoke the truth, Belladonna. You are not like them. You never were. Let them go. They have their own journey. It’s time for you to look for the people who are like you.”

  It washed through her, a wave of power, as if a dam had finally broken to free what had been trapped for so long.

  A heart wish.

  Hers.

  “Guardians and Guides,” she gasped.

  “What is it? What is wrong?” Yoshani grabbed her shoulders to support her.

  “I think it’s called an epiphany—or a heart wish released from its cage.” She felt faint resonances. “Something is already in motion. I couldn’t feel it before.”

  But she had felt it—in a stone Ephemera had brought into her garden.

  “I need to go back to the Island in the Mist,” she said as she sprang to her feet.

  “May I come with you?” Yoshani asked, rising to stand beside her.

  She hesitated, almost refused his company, then allowed the ripples still flowing through the currents of power to decide for her.

  “Thank you. Your company would be welcome.”

  “And since you are so gracious, I will even cook a meal for you,” Yoshani said as they walked away from the koi pond. “Do you have rice?”

  “Yes. No. Maybe.” She did cook when she was alone on the island for a few days and wanted to putter in the kitchen, but that wasn’t the same thing as knowing what she had in the pantry at the moment. “Lee eats things.”

  Yoshani made a sound that might have been a snicker. “In that case, I suggest we fill a basket from the guesthouse larder. Simpler that way, don’t you think?”

  She had no opinions about the simplicity of using the guesthouse larder, but she knew with absolute certainty that her life was about to change—and nothing was going to be simple.

  In the hidden part of the world known as Darling’s Garden, air ruffled the water in the pool and murmured among the leaves. Fluttered the blue ribbon that tied a long tail of brown hair.

  The garden resonated with New Darling’s heart wish, sending ripples through Ephemera’s currents of power, both Light and Dark: “Isn’t there anyone out there in the world who would be my friend?”

  An answering resonance rippled back from many places of Ephemera, but there was one place that had a stronger resonance, a better resonance. Because one heart wish could answer another. In response, Ephemera altered a little piece of the garden to provide an access point to a part of itself that resonated with that other heart wish. But New Darling did not cross over. So it took what New Darling had left for it to play with and brought it to the place that resonated with the other heart wish.

  As the long tail of brown hair disappeared from the garden, one bud on the heart’s hope bloomed into a beautiful, delicate flower.

  Chapter Eight

  Hurry, hurry, hurry, Merrill thought as the ship closed the distance to Atwater’s harbor. But not fast enough, despite having full sails. Something followed them. She could feel Its presence, feel the lure of It every time she looked at the water.

  Would they have time to get back to Lighthaven and do…What? Shaela kept asking that very question, but Merrill had no answer. If that was the Destroyer—the Well of All Evil from the ancient tales—moving through the water in pursuit of their ship, how could two plants or a prayer circle stop It?

  “It still follows,” Shaela said when she joined Merrill at the bow. “It makes no attempt to catch up to us, but It follows.”

  “It doesn’t need to catch us,” Merrill replied. “All It needs to do is surround the White Isle, and we’ll be trapped. Then It will consume the people living in the island’s villages, just as It did in the old stories, until Lighthaven and our Sisters are all that is left—tiny candles in the dark. Candles that, in their turn, will be snuffed out one by one.”

  “Don’t talk that way,” Shaela said, her voice sharp. “You are the leader at Lighthaven. If you believe the White Isle is lost, our Sisters will believe it too. And then it will be lost. Our belief in the Light is the ship that brings the Light to all the people who live on the White Isle as well as our countrymen in Elandar. That’s why we live apart—to maintain the innocence needed to nurture that belief.”

  “Your life wasn’t sheltered,” Merrill said.

  “No, it wasn’t. Which is why I cling to my belief in the Light. It is my raft, made from the planks of a broken life.” Shaela rubbed her fingers against her forehead. “What will we do when we reach home, Merrill? There will be no time to sit and debate. We need to decide before we reach Atwater, since whatever we do must be done swiftly.”

  “I know, I know.” But what could they do?

  Merrill curled her hands around the railing, then closed her eyes and tried to picture a ceremony they could perform that would save the White Isle—and more importantly, Lighthaven—from the Destroyer.

  And could picture nothing.

  “We’re heading into harbor,” the captain called.

  “This is what we’ll do,” Shaela said, shifting closer to Merrill. “We’ll form a prayer circle made up of seven Sisters. We’ll place the plants in the center of the circle. Four Sisters will chant the words that were heard in the dream. The other three will chant an affirmation as a refrain.”

  Merrill stared at her friend. “But that’s—That’s sorcery. You’re talking about casting a spell, not participating in a prayer circle.”

  “It’s all about belief, isn’t it?” Shaela deman
ded. “Sorcery or prayer. What difference does it make what we call it? If we stand in front of our Sisters and say seven is a number of the Light, not a tool of magic, who will doubt us? Who will doubt you, our leader? If you say it is so, it will be so.”

  Suspicion too primitive to be shaped into words suddenly filled Merrill. She felt her body draw itself up, flinch away from the other woman. A broken life, Shaela had called the past that had brought her to the White Isle. A broken life—and not an innocent one.

  “What were you before you came to the White Isle?” Merrill whispered.

  “After all the years we’ve worked together and lived together…and now you ask me.” Shaela smiled bitterly. “What do you believe I was?”

  A sorceress. She looked at the scarred face, the blind eye and wondered, for the first time, if the wounds might have been deserved.

  Why am I thinking this? she wondered, feeling off balance and a little desperate. Why am I wondering about a friend when I need her emotional strength and purpose of will. Why…?

  Then she knew. She didn’t need to look at the stern or the water beyond the ship. It was so easy to picture a black stain on the sea, moving with the tide, coming closer and closer to shore.

  Somehow, the Destroyer had reached into her mind and heart and was planting doubts, dividing her from her Sisters.

  “I think your plan will work,” Merrill said.

  “And why would you think that?”

  “Because the evil pursuing us doesn’t want me to believe in the plan—or in you.”

  “Merrill?” Shaela’s voice was sharp with worry. “Have you been tainted by the evil out there?”

  “Touched but not tainted,” Merrill replied, trying to smile. “I’ll be all right. And we’ll reach Lighthaven and perform the ceremony in time to stop the Destroyer from consuming the White Isle. I’ll leave the preparation to you. I think you understand best what we need to do. I will gather the other five Sisters.”

  Shaela lightly touched Merrill’s arm. “Heart’s hope lies within belladonna. We don’t have to understand what it means. We just have to believe it will save us.”

  Merrill nodded. Almost to the wharves now. Almost home.

  But it’s foolish to be hasty, whispered a solicitous voice. Foolish to hurry through something so important.

  Yes, it would be foolish to hurry. Especially when they weren’t even sure of how to do what needed to be done.

  Best to think carefully. For the good of all. So important. And you…So responsible for whatever happens.

  Leader. But not as good a leader as Brighid had been. Never as good.

  No, not as good, the voice whispered sadly. There is too much darkness in you, too many…unnatural…desires.

  Merrill sucked in a breath. Not true! Not true!

  But something outside of herself wanted her to doubt her decisions enough to hesitate. And that meant any delay—even the time it would take to reach Lighthaven—would be enough to destroy all chance of them succeeding.

  “We can’t wait,” Merrill said as the ship docked and the gangplank was moved into place. “We’re going to have to take whomever we can find to make up our circle. Sailors, shopgirls, anyone.”

  “And what are we going to tell those people?” Shaela asked.

  “We’ll tell them we found the magic that can save them from what is coming, but it won’t work without their help.”

  Which was, Merrill thought as she walked down the gangplank, nothing less than the truth.

  She maintained a calm facade as minutes ticked away while she and Shaela selected the spot for the circle and considered who among the people present at the wharves and warehouses would be suitable participants. But underneath was the now-incessant drumbeat of hurry, hurry, hurry.

  The Eater of the World drifted through the water, letting the sea carry It toward the land ahead that blazed with currents of Light. There was no hurry. The Dark currents on the island were swelling rapidly and now tasted of fear—and the certainty that It could destroy the humans who lived on the island. Even the ones who guarded the Light.

  So easy to slip into that one female mind and plant a seed of suspicion in her heart where trust originally had been sown. But that trust, carelessly given and just as carelessly tended, had shallow roots and was not strong enough to survive when attacked. That female wanted to save the Place of Light, wanted to believe the magic she had acquired from the…sorceress…would be able to defeat It.

  But the female had become a battleground. Her heart cried out with the need to save the Light. Her mind didn’t truly believe the magic would save anything—or anyone. And because what her mind believed was just as strong as what her heart wanted, Ephemera would not answer.

  It amused Itself for a little while, moving toward a ship or fishing boat, then savoring the fear when the humans realized the shadow in the water was no longer following the sea’s currents but moving toward them with purpose. Cries of warning filled the air as ships and fishing boats maneuvered to escape. Some fled toward the safety of the harbor; others turned away from the island.

  Heart by heart, the humans fed the Dark currents, changing the feel of the island. And whatever heart was supposed to supply the bedrock…Murky bedrock. The heart who held the island in its keeping did not care about the people here enough to tend the landscape, so there would be little resistance when It began changing the island’s resonance to match Itself. Wasn’t that delightful? But…

  The heart that held the island also held the village where It had first noticed the guardians of the Light—another place equally neglected that It would change into a hunting ground. But there was something else on the island, tangled up in the Dark and Light currents. Something more. Something that It couldn’t sense clearly, which made It uneasy.

  No longer content to drift in the water, anticipating the feast, It moved toward the island with purpose.

  “I’m flattered that you invited me to view your garden,” Yoshani said.

  Satisfied that there was no dissonance in the part of the garden that represented her mother’s landscapes, Glorianna gave her companion a sly smile. “Would you still be flattered if I invited you to help me with the weeding?” She laughed at Yoshani’s startled expression. But when he said, “This would be permitted?” she felt a flutter of sadness, so she linked arms with him and moved on to the next part of the garden.

  “I have brought you sorrow,” Yoshani said, seeing more than she wanted him to. “I am sorry.”

  “It wasn’t you.”

  “Something in my words made you sad.”

  She stopped at the next bed but didn’t focus on it. Not yet. “This garden represents my landscapes and is my connection to them. Oh, they’re always connected to me here”—she tapped her chest to indicate her heart—“but this is a tangible…” She frowned as she tried to figure out how to explain. “Every landscape should have the Landscaper’s actual presence on a regular basis to remain balanced—and because standing on that ground is the best way to sense if a particular part of a landscape needs special attention. The gardens are an easy way for a Landscaper to step between here and there to reach the pieces of the world in her care. It’s an established path, an anchor that takes me to the same place in the landscape every time. Also, by working the soil, by planting and weeding, I can feel each landscape, so I know if any of them need immediate attention.”

  “But you invited me to work in your garden,” Yoshani said. “Would that not interfere with your landscapes?”

  Glorianna shook her head. “Your heart would not interfere with this garden.” Then her voice was barely a whisper as the sadness washed over her again. “That’s how the training begins. You work with an experienced Landscaper, weeding the beds in her garden, learning the names of the plants and what they symbolize and what they need to grow well. You learn how to combine things that are pleasing to the eye but also represent different aspects of a landscape. You learn the resonance of Ephemera’s currents of
power—the Dark as well as the Light. You learn all these things on safe ground because someone else’s resonance maintains the balance.” She forced herself to smile. “But that could all be a ploy made up by the older Landscapers to get out of doing all the weeding by themselves.”

  Yoshani looked around, then looked into her eyes. “Perhaps you need an apprentice.”

  Something rippled through her when he said the words.

  Something is changing, she thought, suddenly feeling a tug from the section of the garden she specifically wanted Yoshani to see—the beds that represented Sanctuary. No. Something has already changed.

  “Glorianna?”

  She didn’t answer him, just slipped her arm out of his and ran toward that other part of her garden, leaving him to hurry after her.

  Was it luck and the restlessness of young women, Merrill wondered, or the Lady of Light’s guiding hand that had brought three of their Sisters into Atwater? The girls had come to town to run errands and do some shopping for the community and—giving in to an impulse—had come down to the wharves to ask for news about Merrill and Shaela just as their ship’s lines were being secured.

  Only five of them in total instead of the seven Shaela had wanted, but five experienced in focusing their thoughts in order to connect with the Light were better than seven who would need to be coached.

  Foolish to set up on the wharf in front of all the warehouses, Merrill thought as she and Shaela set the pots of heart’s hope and belladonna side by side. Surely they could get away from the waterfront and the smells of seawater and fish? Atwater had a lovely little park. That would be a much more pleasing setting for a prayer circle and would take hardly any time at all to get there. Was this sense of urgency something that came whispering from the Dark so that they would act prematurely and ruin the chance of this “magic” succeeding? If she chose wrong, their failure would be her fault. How—