Belladonna

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 could 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.

Moments later, she floated on a cushion of warmth and solid strength. Protected. Cherished. And she could hear music, lovely music, with a beat that was steady as a heart. But it was faint, so she moved toward the sound, trying to hear it better.

“That’s right, darling,” a voice said close to her ear. “That’s right. Come back to us now. Your brother doesn’t want to be turning gray-haired with worry at so young an age—and neither do I.”

“I like your voice,” she said, not interested in his confusing talk about men turning gray. She didn’t really care what he said; she just wanted to hear that lovely music in his voice.

“Open your eyes for me, darling, and I’ll talk all you want.”

She obediently opened her eyes and discovered she was braced between Michael’s thighs and held firmly against his chest. Turning her head a little gave her a clear view of Lee’s white face.

“You promised you wouldn’t faint again,” Lee said accusingly.

“I didn’t faint,” she grumbled.

“Did a good imitation of it,” Michael muttered.

“Then what did you do?” Lee asked, grabbing her hand in a bone-pinching grip.

“I—” What did happen? “Did we get clear of those Dark currents?” she asked, trying to free her hand from Lee’s grip so she could grab his hand in turn.

She didn’t think he could get paler, but Lee paled.

“Yes, we turned away before we caught more than the edge,” he said. “Although I think you scared Kenneday and the crew out of half their wits when you started screaming.”

“I wasn’t screaming.”

“Trust me, darling,” Michael said. “Before you didn’t faint, you were definitely screaming.”

“Just caught me by surprise is all.”

“Then remind me not to give you any surprises.”

That didn’t seem fair, but now that she was regaining her emotional balance, the puzzle of why she had reacted that way to those Dark currents commanded her attention.

She needed help getting to her feet, which embarrassed her enough to snap at Michael and Lee. Then she caught sight of Caitlin, clinging to the railing, with a sailor hovering nearby looking as though he dearly hoped he wouldn’t need to be helpful.

“What’s wrong with Caitlin?”

“Suddenly couldn’t hold her breakfast,” Michael said. “Have to confess, I was feeling a bit queasy myself for a bit, but I figured it was from you giving me such a scare.”

Lee looked from one to the other. “Three Landscapers, to one degree or another. Three reactions to a knot of Dark currents. You feel them all the time. Why was this different?”

Formal training. Glorianna looked into Lee’s eyes and felt relief that there was someone else here who understood the world as she did—and who knew enough to ask the question.

“Can we approach that spot more slowly?” she asked.

“Why would you want to be doing that?” Michael said.

“Because that spot is not natural. I think that’s why we all reacted to it. So if the Eater of the World didn’t create it, I’d like to figure out what did.”

Michael sighed. “I’ll talk to Kenneday. Although, with the excitement you’ve given him, I don’t know if his offer of a ship is going to hold beyond this voyage.”

As soon as they were the only ones at the bow, Lee said, “What are you expecting to find, Glorianna?”

“Maybe nothing,” she replied. “Maybe more than one answer.” She shivered. She’d felt warm enough before, but now, without the comfort of Michael’s sheltering presence, she couldn’t seem to hold off the cold as well.

Caitlin made her way over to them, looking green and shaky. Before she could say anything, Michael returned. Kenneday was clearly unhappy about returning to water that had produced such a reaction, but he turned the ship back toward that spot, running with fewer sails to cut their speed.

“Tell the captain to stay to the right of those Dark currents,” Glorianna said.

“How is he supposed to tell?” Michael asked. “It’s not like the water is a different color.”

Ephemera, hear me.

“Lady of Light,” Michael whispered a minute later at the same time some of the sailors began shouting and pointing.

Some kind of seaweed now filled a large patch of the sea, defining the knot of Dark currents. Glorianna held on to the rail and opened herself to those currents. Prepared this time for the strength of it, she recognized it for what it was. It sickened her and saddened her. And excited her.

There was something awful and seductive about that patch of water with its undulating seaweed, something compelling in its malevolence. And the lure to join that water, to feel the embrace of those seaweed limbs as desire became an anchor that would pull her under was almost overwhelming.

She gripped the railing until her hands hurt, and forced herself to focus on the clear, clean sky until the ship was once again turning away from that spot.

“It’s an anchor,” Glorianna said, still keeping her eyes fixed on the sky. “That’s why the White Isle is visible as ships approach it. But who could have done this?” And why would anyone who cherished the Light create something so deadly?

“Glorianna, darling, I’m hearing the words but they’re not making sense,” Michael said.

His voice steadied her enough that she let go of the rail with one hand so that she could turn and face him.

“There is Dark and Light in all things, Magician. In all people, in all places. Somehow the dark feelings have been cast out, but the connection can’t be severed completely. By trying to create a place that stands only in the Light, the people on the White Isle have created a dark landscape.”

Hours later, Michael sat in the stern, his whistle held loosely in his hands while he stared at the water and wondered if he would ever trust the look of anything again.

“This is sweet water,” Kenneday said happily, his hands steady on the wheel. Gone was the man who had grimly followed Glorianna’s request to head south again in order to find a current of Light that would help them approach the White Isle. “Not the direction I’d usually take to reach Atwater’s harbor, but I’ve made note of it in my log, and I’ll be looking for this channel from now on.” He glanced over his shoulder at Michael. “Why don’t you play us a tune?”

“Don’t feel like it,” Michael replied, not meeting Kenneday’s eyes.

Kenneday jerked as if hit. “I’ve never known you to refuse to play a bit of music. What’s troubling you? That your lady friend recognized that dark water and you didn’t?”

“I don’t feel like playing,” Michael snapped—and then flinched. What damage had he done in that moment?

“More to the point, you don’t want to feel at all,” Glorianna said, joining them.

“Leave me be,” Michael warned. Those green eyes of hers saw too much. That heart of hers understood too much—and not enough.

“To do what?” she asked. “Close yourself off? Refuse to be what you are? You can’t hide from your feelings, Magician. You can’t hide from your own heart.”

He surged to his feet, aware that the sailors near them had stopped their work, and that Kenneday was watching and listening. But the feelings bubbled over. “This morning we brushed the edge of a place dark enough to make you faint. A place made by ordinary people, if I understood what you were saying.” He waved a hand to indicate the men on the ship. “For days now, you’ve been telling me I can do more to the world than the people around me. So how can I dare feel anything when so many people’s lives hang in the balance of a mood? Happiness is safe enough, I suppose, but no one stays happy all the time. People call me an ill-wisher, but I’ve no desire to be the unintentional cause of misery.” And how would he ever know how much misery he had caused—or if he had unknowingly created dark places in the world?

“You are the balance, the bedrock, the sieve that protects Ephemera from all the wind wishes and surface feelings that flow through the hearts of all the people who live in your landscapes.”

“What about my heart, my feelings?” Michael asked, raising his voice close to a shout. “What happens when I want to piss and moan about something?”

Glorianna put her hands on her hips and glared at him. “You tell the world you have emotional gas and it should ignore you when you fart!”

There was no sound except the wind in the sails and the ship slicing through the water.

Then someone farted, a little poot that broke the silence.

One sailor choked on a snort of laughter, which made another man sputter, which made another laugh out loud, and suddenly all the men around them were guffawing while Michael faced a woman who looked ready to tie him to an anchor and throw him overboard.

He opened his mouth, not sure what he was going to say but sure he had better say something. Before he had the chance, Glorianna turned on her heel and walked away.

Scowling, Michael went to the rail, wanting no comments, no discussion, no company.

“I’ve heard there’s an art to groveling,” Lee said.

Figures that one would ignore the emotional “no trespassing” signs, Michael thought sourly. “I’m not groveling.”

Lee, the ripe bastard, laughed.

Michael tucked his whistle inside his coat. “Maybe I’m groveling.”

“There’s no maybe about it,” Lee said cheerfully. “You make her nervous, so she’s going to find you more annoying than most people.”

“I can’t seem to keep my balance these days,” Michael said softly. “I sound like a fool half the time and act like a fool the other half.”

“Not as bad as that,” Lee replied, smiling. “Nothing has changed, Michael.”

“Everything has changed.”

“Yes. Exactly.” Lee braced his hands on the rail. “You’re beginning to understand the world, Magician.”

“Maybe.” Michael waited a beat, then added, “I’m not groveling.”

Lee’s smiled widened. “Suit yourself.”

The man could be more helpful, Michael grumbled to himself as he made his way to the bow, where Glorianna was doing a fine imitation of a merciless figurehead. After all, it’s not like I can pick a few flowers and try to charm her out of her mood.

He stopped suddenly, remembering another man trying to charm an unhappy woman by giving her a bouquet of wildflowers. He’d loved the man. Still did when the images came back to him so painfully clear. And he’d loved the woman, despite her pain and rages.

“Nothing has changed, Michael.”

“Everything has changed.”

Feeling breathless, with his heart pounding, he joined Glorianna at the bow of the ship.

“I’d like to tell you a story,” he said quietly. “Will you listen?”

Did she know how vulnerable he was at this moment? Could she understand what it meant that he was about to hand over the whole of his life to her judgment?

“I’ll listen,” she replied just as quietly.

Knowing he couldn’t say the words if he was looking at her, he fixed his eyes on the sea. “My father was a wanderer who, it was said, could charm the birds into changing their songs into gold so he could have a few coins for his pocket. I never saw such a thing happen with the birds, but I’m thinking that, before my mother came along, more than one lady slipped a few coins in his pocket as a farewell present. And to be fair, he was a hard worker who could turn his hand to just about any kind of labor and was usually cheerful about it.”

“He was a Magician?”

“He was. But he had an easy way about him, so people weren’t eager to tar him with that particular brush. Anyway, he had two older brothers who took to the road to make their fortunes. They came back to visit their parents and kin a couple of times in the beginning, then were never heard from again.”

He glanced at her to see how she was reacting to his story so far, but, like him, she kept her eyes on the sea and just nodded to indicate she understood.

“So my father, Devyn, went out on the road like his older brothers, needing more than he could find in the village where he’d been born. Sometimes things were good, sometimes they weren’t, but he settled into a route that kept his feet moving and his heart happy, and for a few years he wandered from place to place with no ties because, as much as he traveled, he never seemed able to get back to the village where most of his kin lived.”

“Maybe he couldn’t,” Glorianna said. “Often when a person crosses over to another landscape it’s because they need to take the next step of their life journey. Sometimes that means adding something more to the life they’ve known—and sometimes it means not going back to the places and people they had known.”

“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 replied. Then she turned away. “I’d better see how Lee is coming with that bridge.”

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.