Belladonna by Anne Bishop
“Maybe,” Michael said softly, thinking of how he would have felt if he’d never managed to get back to Raven’s Hill to spend time with Aunt Brighid and Caitlin Marie. “Maybe.” Would that have been a comfort to the family Devyn had left behind, to know that his not coming back might have been a decision made by the world and not the man himself? And which family are you thinking of, my lad? “So one year he ended up in a village that he’d never visited before and saw a pretty girl who captured his heart. Maureen had fire in her eyes and a voice, when she sang, that could make you weep with gratitude just for hearing it. She had an older sister who had gone to the White Isle to become a Sister of Light, but unlike Brighid, the White Isle didn’t call to Maureen. She wasn’t a wicked girl, just restless and a little wild because of it. Then she met Devyn, who offered her a wedding ring and a way to get out of the village that was smothering her.
“For a while, things went well between them. There was Maureen’s pleasure in seeing new places, even ones that made her feel as restless and edgy as her home village. There was Devyn’s pleasure in showing his pretty wife those places that lifted his heart. And there was the pleasure they shared in the marriage bed.
“There were places where things went well for them. Money came easy enough, and when it didn’t come easy, there was still enough to get by. And there were places where things began to sour after a day or two. And people would look at my mother and mutter about an ill-wisher being among them. So Maureen and Devyn would pack up and move on.”
“She created dissonance without intending to, and then, when blamed, probably fed the Dark currents with her own unhappiness. And Devyn, being unhappy about the troubles, wasn’t able to balance things out.” Glorianna shook her head. There was pity in her eyes. “She was a Landscaper who was unaware of her heritage. Mother and I speculated that there had to be other Landscapers beyond the landscapes that were held within the gardens at the Landscapers’ School. The world would be too unstable without them. But we never considered what it would be like for those people to be so connected to Ephemera and not understand why some places would feel right and some wouldn’t.” She hesitated, and Michael heard her whisper, “Just heart’s rain. It will pass, changing nothing.”
As she said the words, clouds formed in what had been a clear sky.
“Your mother never found her landscapes, did she?” Glorianna asked, her eyes swimming with tears.
“No, I don’t think she did.” He stopped, needing a moment to regain control before going on with the story. “They first went to Raven’s Hill when she was heavy with me. Devyn’s mother’s cousin lived there. That branch of the family had once lived in a grand house and were among the landed gentry. But bit by bit they lost the knack of it, and by the time Maureen and Devyn came to Raven’s Hill, all that was left was a cottage and some land. Including a hill where the ravens gathered, which was considered an omen of a dark heart.
“Devyn put his hand to whatever work he could find, and Maureen did some fancy stitching that she’d learned as a girl, which earned a few coins and helped put food on the table. And if Maureen sometimes had dark moods and Devyn sometimes had long silences whenever he worked around the harbor and had to watch the ships leaving…Well, such things aren’t unusual for a couple waiting for the birth of their first child, because nothing would be the same for them.
“They stayed in Raven’s Hill for the birthing and a few weeks after until Maureen felt strong enough to take to the road again. But it was different now. A woman carrying a baby can’t be hauling a pack as well, and one man can’t carry what three people need. So when they left Raven’s Hill, they had a horse and a traveling wagon that held all their gear and provided Maureen with privacy when she needed to tend the baby.
“Once they adjusted to being a bit…harnessed…instead of feeling free and easy, luck rode with them. Devyn found work that paid well enough to put by a few coins for the traveling days, and Maureen, shining with a new mother’s pride, made friends with some of the women in the villages.
“I remember those years,” Michael said, his voice rough with the feelings, good and bad, that came with the memories. “For a young boy, it was an adventure, and sometimes I felt so daring that I was traveling about Elandar when most of the boys I played with hadn’t gone beyond the boundaries of their own villages.”
“And your parents?” Glorianna asked. “What about them?”
He said nothing for a minute. “I can remember them dancing together in the moonlight. I can remember the way they looked at each other, with heart and heat. And I can remember the bleakness in his eyes when she would start raging about seeing the same places and why couldn’t they find a different road?
“When I was nine, her belly swelled with another child, but it was harder for her and she was more sickly, so they went back to Raven’s Hill. Devyn’s mother’s cousin was dying, and they were there to look after her and be with her in the end. Before she died, the cousin wrote up the papers giving the cottage and land to Devyn to hold in trust for a girl child because the cottage always went to female issue.
“There was no work for him. They got by, especially after Devyn dug up a small money chest filled with gold and silver coins when he was turning the soil for a kitchen garden. But after Caitlin was born, it was like the village had closed up its heart and its pockets where he was concerned. So he took up his pack and went back to traveling. The first few times he came back, he came with pockets bulging with coins and a song in his heart. Things would be good for a few days, and then she would tumble into one of her rages and the bleakness would fill his eyes. He’d wait until the storm passed and she was calm again—until she was close to being the girl who had captured his heart all those years before. Then he would head back to the road.
“When Caitlin had a first birthday, he sent a present and a packet of money by way of a ship heading north. A few weeks later, he sent another packet of money and a letter by way of another ship. A few weeks after that, there was just a packet of money. We never heard from him again. But the cottage belonged to Caitlin Marie, since she was a daughter of his lineage, so we still had a place to live.
“During that time, after Devyn went back to the road without her, Maureen began sending letters to her sister Brighid, who lived on the White Isle. I don’t know how many letters she sent. She got a few in return, but whatever was said never eased her heart.”
His throat closed with the pain of remembering.
“Finish it,” Glorianna said gently.
“When Caitlin turned two, Maureen tried to bake a cake as a special treat. Didn’t turn out right. Don’t know why it didn’t, but it wasn’t edible—and it was all she had to give. She wept and raged and smashed things.” His eyes filled with tears as he thought about that day, with him holding on to Caitlin to protect her from the shards of dishes and glass while his mother screamed out the pain of a broken life. “She walked out of the cottage—just left us there in the debris. And that night, she walked into the sea.”
“Guardians of the Light and Guides of the Heart,” Glorianna whispered.
Michael wiped the tears away. “You understand my mother, don’t you, Glorianna Belladonna? You know why she hurt, and what she should have done to ease the pain. Don’t you?”
“It wasn’t your fault, Michael. It wasn’t Caitlin’s fault—or Devyn’s. She was a Landscaper who needed to connect with the places that resonated with her heart. The world was always calling, and she was always searching for something she couldn’t name but knew she needed. There were places that resonated for your father where she was comfortable, but they were his places, not hers. And there were some places where she became a dissonance because she didn’t fit at all. She never found the place her heart recognized as ‘home,’ and the pain of it eventually broke her.”
“Will that happen to Caitlin Marie?” Michael asked.
“I think the White Isle holds some of the answers Caitlin has been looking for,” Glorianna r
He held out a hand to stop her. “I’m not sure what I’m asking, so if I’m out of line I need you to tell me so.”
She looked at him and waited.
“I need to know what I do when I’m in one of my…landscapes. After things are settled with Caitlin, could you come with me to visit one of them?”
For a moment, while they looked into each other’s eyes, he could have sworn the world itself held its breath waiting for her answer.
“Yes,” she said. “I’ll come with you.”
He stepped away to let her pass just as the ship sailed under that one bit of cloudy sky.
Kenneday raised a hand, hailing him. He hesitated, wondering what excuse he could give. And then there was no reason to hesitate, no need for an excuse—because no one would be able to distinguish the clouds’ tears from his own.
Chapter Twenty-one
Merrill didn’t know what to think, didn’t know what to feel as she watched those…people…escort Brighid to the wrought-iron gate that served as the visitors’ entrance to Lighthaven. Brighid, who had been the heart of this sanctuary of Light and never should have left the White Isle to tend those demon-spawn children. Brighid, who was coming back to them maimed in body and spirit by her time in the outside world.
When Shaela had told her someone was coming up the road in a hired carriage, she had rushed outside and locked the gate, unable—and unwilling—to hear Shaela’s objections over the pounding of her own heart. She had known on some level who was coming, and locking the gate was the only way to protect what she loved best. Not the people, despite her affection for the Sisters who nurtured the Light. No, it was the place itself she truly loved. Because it was the only safe thing to love.
Anger clogged her throat, clogged her lungs, thickened the blood trying to pump through her heart. The carriage had stopped some distance away, but she could tell who crawled out of it as though it were some pus-filled womb. Not just the demon-spawn children of Brighid’s sister coming to foul a Place of Light, but the sorceress called Belladonna was with them, along with a dark-haired man.
Belladonna. How had that creature managed to reach Lighthaven?
Hadn’t she done everything in her power to cast the Dark out of Lighthaven? Since the day Belladonna appeared on the White Isle, hadn’t she stood in the gardens for hours, focusing her heart and will on the effort of casting out the Dark? Hadn’t she spent hours in the prayer room cleansing her own heart of any feelings that didn’t belong to the Light? Hadn’t she spent just as much time praying that the hearts of all her Sisters would be equally purified?
It had worked. Almost. She had not been strong enough to cast out the shadows lodged in Shaela’s heart, and she had not been strong enough to cast out a friend who had served the Light for so many years. But those shadows must have provided the crack through which sorcery could reach the Light.
She couldn’t let the crack widen, couldn’t let the contamination spread.
She watched Brighid approach the visitors’ gate, leaning on the brown-haired man she assumed was Caitlin’s brother Michael, while Caitlin Marie kept pace with them. Belladonna and her companion were trailing far behind the others. Good. She had no desire to shame Brighid, but she was Lighthaven’s leader and had a duty to this place, so the words had to be said.
She took a deep breath and let her authority and conviction ring in her voice. “It is with joy that we look upon our lost Sister and welcome her back to the place where her heart truly dwells. But the rest of you are not welcome here. I will not allow the darkness that crawls within your hearts to poison the Light. Brighid may come back to us—if she turns away from you, who are unclean.”
A few man-lengths away from the carriage, Glorianna tripped, caught herself, then looked back to see what had snagged her foot.
“What’s wrong?” Lee asked softly, stopping with her.
“Nothing,” she said just as softly as she studied the ground. “Everything.”
It wasn’t visible to the eye, but if she let her mind and heart drift in the currents of Light and Dark that flowed through the White Isle, she could almost see it as a physical reality: the border that separated two landscapes.
“Brighid said she could tell the moment she took the first step on ground that belonged to Lighthaven,” Lee said. “And she’s right. Between one step and the next, everything does feel a little different. We must have crossed a border.”
Glorianna kept studying the ground as the currents of power flowed around her, and through her.
From the moment her feet had touched the White Isle, she had felt that same odd dissonance she’d felt when she’d taken the island out of reach of the Eater of the World. Since Michael tended to describe things in terms of music, she guessed he would say the island was playing two different songs and, because the notes were tangled together, both sounded slightly out of tune.
But they were untangling now, becoming clearer, more distinct. And…
“It was a border,” she said, not quite believing what she was sensing, “but it’s becoming a boundary.”
“Boundaries require bridges,” Lee said sharply. “And these people don’t know about boundaries and borders and bridges, so this doesn’t usually occur.”
That’s right. It didn’t. Maybe Elandar and this island weren’t as seamless as people thought, but it was still a whole, unbroken piece of the world.
But that didn’t answer the question of why Ephemera was altering a border to become a boundary that would make the separation of places apparent. Was it because she and Caitlin were on the island together? Or was something else spurring this change in the world?
The currents swelled suddenly, washing through her. She spun around and looked at the people standing on opposite sides of a gate.
Three women—Brighid, Merrill, and Caitlin Marie. Three heart wishes in conflict with each other. And yet…the same heart wish.
“Guardians and Guides.” She staggered as the ground suddenly dipped and swayed beneath her, as the world itself cried out for help.
“Hey!” Lee grabbed her. “Don’t you faint on me again. Don’t you do that, Glorianna.”
She gave him a shove that had him stumbling back a step and uttering a shocked curse. “We have to stop them before…” No time to explain. The bedrock of a Landscaper’s heart wasn’t established well enough here, so Ephemera was gathering itself to manifest those heart wishes without guidance.
She ran for the gate, aware that an argument was taking place, aware that the Dark currents in this place had been extinguished to the point where they couldn’t absorb the bad feelings now swelling in a Place of Light, aware that the ground had become soft and the air heavy, that every heartbeat was a distant clap of thunder, a warning peal of the storm about to break.
She couldn’t move fast enough. She would never reach them in time to tell them to stop, to wait, to think. So she did the only thing she could since she had a connection to the White Isle and Ephemera trusted her to guide it through the most ever-changing landscape of all—the human heart.
Ephemera, hear me. Give those hearts what they desire. But manifest those heart wishes through me. Through ME.
As she felt the world gather itself to obey her command, she heard two voices, raised in anger, say at the same moment, “I don’t want you.”
Thunder. Avalanches. The crash of the sea. The scream of the wind when it was filled with wild insanity.
The roar of a world tearing itself apart.
Everything snapped back into focus. Her last step had her knocking into Caitlin before she put her hands out to catch herself as she fetched up against the stone wall beside the gate. She leaned against it, rested her cheek against it as she closed her eyes.
Good stone. Solid stone. Not the stone of anger, but the stone of strength.
All the tangled currents were no longer tangled. Her resonance formed the bedrock
“I thought shattering the world had been difficult, but it wasn’t,” she said as strong hands settled on her shoulders. “The difficult part is keeping the pieces in harmony enough to stay together.”
For a moment, she thought it was Lee standing behind her. Then she realized the shape of the hands wasn’t quite right. And the warmth of those hands, the way they touched her…No, those weren’t her brother’s hands.
“Darling, I’m hearing the words, but they have no meaning,” Michael said as he drew her away from the wall and back against him. “And if you’re going to be scaring me on a regular basis, I’m telling you now I want kisses. The kind that make a man’s head swim and will kick his heart back out of his stomach.”
“Isn’t there a saying about the connection between men’s hearts and stomachs?” Foolish to be flirting, but she felt oddly light and happy, as if she’d taken in that first breath of spring after a hard winter.
“I haven’t the foggiest idea what you’re talking about,” Michael said, laughter in his voice.
Then Lee said in a strained voice, “Fog is a good way to describe it,” and the breath of spring vanished as she eased away from Michael and looked back toward the place where she had tripped.
Dark currents flowed through Lighthaven again, but they were slender threads that resonated with her. That fog, however…
She brushed her fingers over Michael’s arm. “Go with Lee. See if you can find out the source of that fog.”
He gave her a questioning look, then nodded. Good. Since they both knew he didn’t have the training to figure out the reason for the fog, he was assuming she just didn’t want her brother going alone to investigate. Which was true.
The other part of the truth was she wanted the men out of hearing before she let her anger flow.