Belladonna

Chapter Three

present

Michael paused outside the door of Shaney’s Tavern and fiercely wished he’d already downed a long glass of whiskey.

The music was out of tune here. Off rhythm. Wrong. Not as bad as Dunberry, but…

Dunberry. What had gone wrong there? All right, so he’d done a little ill-wishing the last time he’d passed through, but the ripe bastard had been cheating at cards and deserved to have some bad luck. It wasn’t as if he’d prospered from it. He just didn’t think it was fair for Torry to lose his stake simply because the boy had had the poor judgment to try to plump up his wedding purse by playing a few hands of cards. And didn’t Torry find a small bag of gold a few days later—gold his grandfather had hidden in the barn and forgotten years ago? That bit of luck-bringing had balanced out the ill-wishing, hadn’t it?

But the girl Torry was going to marry…Stabbed to death, wasn’t she, and so close to help that Torry and his friends had heard her scream.

He’d heard about it fast enough when he came into the village. Just as he heard what wasn’t quite being said. Not about the girl, Erinn, but about two boys who disappeared a few days before she was killed. Someone had seen them going off with a man who wasn’t from Dunberry but was familiar enough to be trusted. What would a man be doing with two young boys that they would need to disappear after he was done with them?

He hadn’t been in Dunberry for weeks, but sooner or later someone would put his face or his clothes on that “familiar enough” man, and it wouldn’t matter that he’d been in another village when those boys had disappeared. Once the villagers decided he was the man, he wouldn’t survive long enough to get a formal hearing.

So he’d snuck away in the wee hours of the morning, putting as much distance between himself and Dunberry as he could before the people began to stir.

He no longer fit the tune of that village. It had turned dark, sharp-edged, sour.

That’s how he heard places and people. They were melodies, harmonies, songs that fit together and gave a village a certain texture and sound. When he fit in with a place, he was another melody, another harmony. And he was the drum that settled the rhythm, fixed the beat.

But not in Dunberry. Not anymore.

The bang of a door or a shutter made him jump, which jangled the pots and pans tied to the outside of his heavy backpack. The sounds scraped nerves that were already raw, and his pounding heart was another thumping rhythm he was sure could be heard by…whatever was out there.

Tucking his walking stick under the arm holding the lantern, he wrapped his fingers around the handle on the tavern’s door. Then he twisted around to look at the thick fog that had turned familiar land into some unnatural place that had no beginning or end.

Didn’t matter if the music was wrong here. He’d beg or barter whatever he had to in order to get out of that fog for a few hours.

Giving the door a tug, he went inside the tavern, pulling off his brown, shapeless hat as he strode to the bar. The pots and pans clattered with each step. Normally he found it a comforting sound, but when he’d been walking toward the village that lay in the center of Foggy Downs, a lantern in one hand and his walking stick in the other, feeling his way like a blind man…The ordinary sound had seemed too loud in that gray world, as if he were calling something toward him that he did not want to see.

“Well, look what stumbled out of the forsaken land,” Shaney said, bracing his hands on the bar.

“Lady of Light,” Michael muttered as he set his hat and lantern on the bar. “I’ve seen fog roll in thick before, but never as bad as this.” Leaning his walking stick against the bar, he shrugged off the straps of the pack, glad to be rid of the weight.

Then he looked around the empty tavern. He could barely make out the tables on the other side of the room since Shaney hadn’t lit any of the lamps except around the bar.

“Is everyone laying low until this blows past?” he asked, rubbing his hand over one bristly cheek. If business was slow and the rooms Shaney rented to travelers were empty, maybe he could barter his way to a bath, or at least enough hot water for a good wash and a shave, as well as a bed for the night.

Shaney put two whiskey glasses on the bar, then reached for a bottle. He poured two shots.

Michael looked at the whiskey, craving the fire that would ease the chill in his bones. But he shook his head. “Since I’m hoping for a meal and a bed tonight, whiskey is a little too rich for my pocket just now.”

“On the house,” Shaney said, sounding as gloomy as the fog. “And you’re welcome to a bed and a share of whatever the Missus is making for the evening meal.”

“That’s generous of you, Shaney,” Michael said, knowing he should be grateful but feeling as if the ground had suddenly turned soft under his feet and a wrong step would sink him.

“Well, maybe you’d be willing to play a bit this evening. I could spread the word that you’re here.”

Picking up a glass of whiskey, Michael took a sip. “I’m flattered you think so highly of my music, but do you really expect people to come out in this for a drink and a few tunes?”

“They’ll come to play a few tunes with you.”

A chill went through him. The music is wrong here, Michael, my lad. Don’t be forgetting that, or what you are, and lower your guard.

He’d been shy of seventeen the first time he’d come to Foggy Downs, and had been on the road and making his own way for almost a year. Over the years since, he’d come to depend on this being a friendly, safe place to stay. If people realized what he was, Foggy Downs would no longer be as safe—or as friendly.

Shaney downed his whiskey, then pulled a rag from under the bar and began polishing the wood. “Do you remember old Bridie?”

Michael rubbed a finger around the rim of his glass. “I remember her. She smoked a pipe, had a laugh that could put sparkle on the sun, and, even at her age, could dance the legs off any man.”

“That pipe,” Shaney murmured, smiling. “She never ran out of leaf for that pipe. She’d be down to her last smoke, and something or someone would always come along to provide her with a new supply of leaf. People would ask her if she had some lucky piece hidden away because, even when bad things happened, some good would come from it. And she always said currents of luck ran through the world, and a light heart and laughter brought her all the good luck she needed.”

A silence fell between them, but it wasn’t the easy breathing space it usually was when neither felt like talking.

Finally, Shaney said, “The first time you came to Foggy Downs, Bridie saw you, heard you play. She took my father aside after you’d gone on down the road, and she told him to look after you whenever you came to our village. Said she had a feeling that we’d be putting her to ground by the spring, and even though she didn’t think you were ready to give up your wandering to put down roots, you were the best chance Foggy Downs had of having a lucky piece once she passed on. So some of us have known what you are—just as we knew what she was.”

Michael downed the rest of the whiskey, wishing it would ease the despair growing inside him. He truly didn’t want to go out in that fog, but he didn’t want to end up being accused of something he didn’t do and die at the hands of a mob either. “I guess I’ll be on my way then.”

Shaney tossed his rag on the bar and gave Michael a look that was equal parts disbelief and annoyance. “Now what part of what I was saying made that pea-sized brain of yours figure we wanted to see the back of you? And what makes you think so little of me that you’d figure I’d ask any man to walk back out in a fog that someone can get lost in when he’s still within reach of his own door?”

Michael said nothing, surprised at how much Shaney’s annoyance gave his heart a scratchy comfort.

“I can’t change what I am,” he said softly.

“No one is asking you to.” Shaney scrubbed his head with his fingers, then smoothed back his hair and sighed. “Something evil passed through Foggy Downs a few days ago. The whole village had a bad night of it. Children waking up screaming from the nightmares. Babes too young to say what gave them a fright wailing for hours. And the rest of us…It’s a strange feeling to have an old fear come up and grab you by the throat so you come awake with your heart pounding and you don’t quite know where you are. ’Twas a hard night, Michael, and the next morning…” He looked at the fog-shrouded windows.

Michael stared at the windows before turning back to Shaney. “It’s been like that for days?”

“First couple of days, folks went about their business as best they could, taking care of only what was needed, sure the fog would burn off to what we’re used to having here. The Missus and I even had folks gather here that first night. Had us a grand party, with music and dancing, while we all tried to put aside the bad dreams of the night before. But the fog didn’t lift. Hasn’t lifted. And I’m thinking this fog is more than fog, and if evil used some kind of…magic…to create it, then it’s going to take another kind of magic to put things back the way they were.”

The two men studied each other. Then Michael pressed his hands on the bar and closed his eyes.

He had no words for what he sensed, what he could feel. But the sound that filled his mind was a grating, creaking, sloshing, oozing, tearing. The sound of poison. The sound of old hurts, painful memories, deeply buried fears.

Then he imagined his music filling Shaney’s Tavern, the bright notes of the tin whistle shining in the night like sparkles of sunlight. Certainty shivered through him. His music would shift the balance enough so the people here would be able to heal Foggy Downs. He could reestablish the beat. Fix the rhythm. Restore the balance enough to still belong.

He opened his eyes and looked at Shaney. “You put out the word, and I’ll provide the music.”

Shaney put out the word, and the people gathered. No one from the outlying farms, to be sure, but the families who lived close enough to the tavern to brave the fog came with a covered dish to pass around and children in tow. So Michael listened to gossip and passed along news from the other villages he’d visited during this circuit of wandering. He ate a bit of everything so no lady would be offended and pretended not to notice the speculative looks a few of the young women were giving him. He was used to those looks. Since he was a healthy, fit man who rarely stayed more than a few days in a place, certain kinds of women often looked at him like a savory dish that was only available a few times a year, which enhanced the appeal, and there were a few young widows who were willing to offer him more than just lodging when he came to their town.

While he looked like a scruffy ne’er-do-well most of the time, he cleaned up well enough when he got the chance, and the smoky blue eyes and brown hair that was always a bit shaggy went with the face that was handsome enough to attract the ladies but not so handsome it made people uneasy.

Until they found out what he was.

As the rhythm of the gathering shifted from gossip and food to unspoken hopes and expectations, he fetched his tin whistle, nodded to the other men who had brought instruments, and shooed the children out of the small space that had been cleared for the musicians.

Michael closed his eyes and let himself drift on the feel of the room. Ah. There was that odd sensation he sometimes felt when he was deliberately trying to change the feel of a place. A presence, like a child too shy to come forward where it might be noticed, but too intrigued by the things and people around it to go away. More than that. This wild child, as he thought of it, was intrigued by him. He had the feeling that it could hear the music in his heart in the same way he could hear the music in other hearts, and that’s what intrigued it enough to come to a gathering. The reason didn’t matter. What mattered was that when he felt the wild child’s presence, sometimes he could make things happen that were more than a little luck-bringing or ill-wishing directed at a specific person.

Lifting the tin whistle to his lips, he let the first notes float through the air, soft and bittersweet…and hopeful. Little by little, conversations faded—or maybe he no longer heard them. The fiddler joined him, slow and easy.

There was nothing but the music, and he wasn’t playing for the people in the room. Not yet. This song was for the wild child. To catch its interest, its attention. Its heart.

With his eyes still closed, he slipped into the next tune. More energy. Drum added to the fiddle and whistle. A sparkle of notes drifting out into the night, dancing in the fog, glistening with the energy and good spirits of the people like dew glistened on a web when touched by the morning sun.

Yes, he thought as he opened his eyes and watched the dancers, these were good people who welcomed the Light, who deserved the Light.

Musicians came and went, taking their turn for a few songs, then stepping back for someone else. When he was given a shove and told to take his turn on the dance floor, he ignored the bold, silent invitations—especially the one from Doreen, who worked for Shaney and always made him think of the fate of the mouse caught under the cat’s paw—and chose a girl who was old enough to be flattered by his asking to be her partner and young enough that she wouldn’t expect him to be any other kind of partner.

Not that he didn’t want to take hold of a woman and kiss her senseless. The music was hot. The energy was hot. And he wanted with a need that chewed at his bones.

But what he hungered for wasn’t here, so he gave himself to the music.

Food was reheated. People drifted to corners farthest away from the music in order to talk. Shaney opened up a few of the upstairs rooms, where children were tucked up in beds, cuddling together like puppies.

Michael talked. He danced. He ate. He played. And always, he held in his mind and heart the image of the notes sparkling in the night.

As her mind rose to that twilight place that was neither true waking nor sleeping, Glorianna dreamed of music. Folksy, but like nothing she’d heard before. Slightly different sound to the drum and the violin—at least, she thought it was a violin. But it was the bright notes of the whistle that made her smile, that had her feet twitching as if they wanted to dance, and the drum heated her blood until her heart pounded with the rhythm.

The music dimmed, as if someone had shut a door, and she stood outside in a fog as thick as a soft blanket. She wasn’t surprised when his arms closed around her, pulling her back against the warmth of his chest. Then…

She heard the drum in the beat of his heart, heard the long sigh of the violin in his breath. Knew the bright notes of the whistle would be in his voice, in his laugh.

“There is music inside you,” she said. “I can hear the music inside you.”

His smile, that curving of lips against her cheek, was his only answer.

Hours later, drained in body, mind, and heart, Michael lowered his whistle and looked at the men slumped in the chairs around him. “Well, lads, looks like we’re done here.”

One of the men looked at the people asleep at the tables and grinned. “I’d say we are.”

Wanting some fresh air, Michael wove his way through the tables until he reached the tavern door and pushed it open.

“Lady of Light,” Shaney whispered behind him. “Look at that.”

Oh, he was looking—and he was stunned by what the dawn light revealed. Thick strands and knots of that heavy fog clotted the street, but it was broken up by a thin mist—the kind of mist that softened sunlight and created rainbows.

“You did it, Michael,” Shaney said, resting a hand on Michael’s shoulders.

“We all did,” he replied. He’d never influenced a place so much, so obviously. He wasn’t sure what to do about it, what to think about it.

“Wouldn’t have happened without you, though. You’re a fine musician. The best I’ve ever seen.”

“And you’ve seen the last of me for the next few hours.”

“You’ve earned your rest and more. If the Missus and I aren’t around when you wake, just help yourself to whatever you find in the kitchen, and she’ll fix you up with a proper meal later.”

Michael just nodded and headed for the stairs at the back of the tavern that led up to the rooms Shaney rented. He felt drained, hollowed out. But it was a good feeling that left him looking forward to the pleasure of stretching out on a bed with clean sheets and sleeping through the day.

He didn’t see Doreen until he was at the top of the stairs. By then it was too late to fix the tactical error of coming up to his room alone.

“Took you long enough,” Doreen said, giving him a smile that was meant to be enticing.

“It’s a proven fact that the number of stairs increases in direct proportion to the amount of drink that is consumed or the amount of sleep that was lost,” Michael said lightly.

Doreen shrugged, clearly not interested in anything but what she’d planned. “I figured, after playing all that fine music, you’d be wanting a bit of company about now. Private company.”

You figured wrong. There was a meanness in Doreen. She hid it well, most of the time, but he heard sharp notes every time he was near her. He didn’t like her, and yet despite those sharp notes, she had fit into the music that was Foggy Downs. Right now, however, even if he had wanted her, he wouldn’t have done either of them any good. At least he could be honest about that much.

“I thank you for the offer, Doreen, but I’m too tired to be good company—or any kind of company if it comes to that.”

Her smile faded. “You think you’re better than me, don’t you? I know you’ve pleasured other women, but because I wait tables in a tavern, that puts me beneath men of good reputation.”

Michael shivered. He wasn’t sure if it was due to fatigue or the other meaning beneath Doreen’s words. And maybe he was just too muzzy-headed and tired to hear it clearly, but her tune didn’t seem to fit the village anymore. It was too sharp, too…dark. Wrong.

“But you’re not a man of good reputation, are you, Michael? You’re nothing but a drifter, a wanderer, a—”

The word she spoke struck him like a blow to the heart.

“What’s that you called him?”

Michael jumped, startled by the voice on the stairs behind him. He stepped aside to let Maeve, the village postmistress and owner of Foggy Downs’s lending library, pass by.

“Musician?” Maeve said, touching fingers delicately to one ear. “Well, there’s no need to be sounding all dramatic about it. Of course he’s a musician, girl! Are your ears so stopped up with wax that you couldn’t hear him playing all night?”

Doreen’s eyes flashed with anger, but she didn’t reply.

Smart girl, Michael thought. Maeve might have a thinning head of white hair and a wrinkled face, but there was nothing wrong with her mind or her hearing. And since she was responsible for obtaining the magazines published in the big city that informed young ladies about the latest fashions and young wives about household tips, even the sassiest woman understood the value of being respectful to Maeve.

The postmistress shook her head and let out an exasperated sigh. “Leave the boy in peace, Doreen, and let him get some sleep. Any woman worth her salt knows a man that tired hasn’t the wit for romance.”

He wasn’t sure he appreciated Maeve’s way of helping him escape, but he wasn’t going to ignore the opportunity.

“Good night, ladies,” he said, slipping past both women to reach his room. Once inside, he slid the bolt home as quietly as possible. No point insulting Doreen into doing something foolish by letting her hear him lock the door. But he wouldn’t rest easy without the lock, especially since she seemed determined to have him.

He couldn’t imagine why. Doreen enjoyed men for what she could get from them, and he didn’t have much to offer in terms of providing a woman with material things. Wary of her interest, he’d always found an excuse not to be one of her men—and now it was going to cost him. Even if Shaney and Maeve stood by him, it was still going to cost him sooner or later.

He walked toward the washstand, intending to rinse a bit of the fatigue and grittiness from his face. But he ended up staring in the mirror above the dresser.

He was twenty-eight years old. The last twelve years hadn’t been easy. He missed his sister Caitlin and his friend Nathan. Even missed his aunt Brighid on occasion. Missed the feeling of having a home and roots, even though he hadn’t felt like he’d had either when he lived in Raven’s Hill. But his continued presence would have made things harder for his family. Brighid had been a Lady of Light and still commanded respect because of that, but Caitlin Marie was whispered to be odd, strange…unnatural. A young girl who had found the walled garden hidden somewhere on the hill behind the family’s cottage. Caitlin would never be offered the things most young women dreamed of—a home, a husband, children—and his heart ached for her.

Until people discovered Caitlin’s link to the hidden garden, he had been the one the villagers didn’t want around because he had a power no one understood. But everyone knew what it did and what the person who wielded that power was.

A luck-bringer. An ill-wisher.

A Magician.

There was nothing wrong with Maeve’s hearing. And there would be nothing anyone could do to curb Doreen’s spiteful tongue. It wouldn’t matter if Maeve tried to soften the gossip. The damage would be done. By the time the next market day ended, everyone in Foggy Downs would know he was a Magician.

Some would hate him for it, and would blame him for any bit of trouble that came their way. And, in truth, he would deserve some of that blame. But he had heard of Magicians who had been killed in other parts of Elandar because it was so easy to bury them in the blame.

So he would leave Foggy Downs while the people still thought kindly of him. He needed to get back to Raven’s Hill anyway, needed to talk to his aunt as soon as he could.

Because of the dreams. Because of her.

That was the real reason he wouldn’t have been of any use to Doreen, even if he’d been willing. He didn’t want any other woman since he’d begun dreaming about her.

Long black hair. Green eyes. A beautiful face that he had never seen in the flesh. But he could feel the shape of her in his arms, breathe in the scent of her, taste the warmth of her. Hear the music of her heart.

That, more than anything, seduced him. He could hear the music of her heart. And it made him yearn for things he couldn’t put into words, except one: home.

Night after night, she filled him with hungers he thought would kill him if he didn’t satisfy them soon. And there was always someone or something whispering in his ear, “This is what you’ve searched for. This is who you’ve searched for.”

Deny it, defy it, reject it during every waking moment. It didn’t matter. Somehow he had fallen in love with the woman who haunted his dreams—a woman he’d never met and wasn’t certain even existed.

His aunt was the only person he knew whose training might provide him with an answer about the nature of these dreams, so he was going back to Raven’s Hill.

Stripping down to his drawers, Michael got into bed and was asleep within minutes. He didn’t dream about the woman; he dreamed about his aunt. She stood in front of the family’s cottage, holding out two plants.

One was called heart’s hope. The other was belladonna.