Belladonna

Chapter Five

Merrill fingered the silver cuff bracelet on her wrist as she stared at the stone that formed a natural, shallow basin. The Sisters filled the basin with water every morning for the birds. Brighid, their leader until she had abandoned them sixteen years ago, had found the stone and designed this little contemplation corner around it.

But Merrill hadn’t come for contemplation this morning. She had come to let her heart speak to the Light as eloquently as it could. She needed help. They all needed help.

Help me find a way to protect the Light. Please, help me find a way.

Pulling the cuff bracelet off her wrist, she placed it in the shallow basin. Since it had been a gift from Brighid, she valued it more than any other possession. Giving it up seemed a sacrifice worthy of the help she sought.

Not that she really believed her prayers or a bracelet would make any difference.

Turning away from the basin before she changed her mind and took back the bracelet, she returned to the terrace that overlooked the gardens behind Lighthaven’s sprawling manor. For forty years she had lived in the manor and walked through these gardens. She had been born here on the White Isle, had spent the first years of her life in Atwater, the seaport village that acted as a portal to the rest of the world. The day after her tenth birthday, her father brought her to Lighthaven and left her with the Sisters of Light in the hopes that she would become one of them.

She had lived nowhere else since, had known no other place. She had rarely traveled beyond the boundaries of Lighthaven in all the years that had passed since that girl had stood at the visitors’ gate and felt her heart soar at the sound of women’s voices raised in a ritual song. She didn’t regret the innocence that came from the lack of worldly experience. She wasn’t completely ignorant of what lay beyond the shores of this island—the world brushed against the White Isle often enough—but those things had never touched her, leaving her heart a pure vessel for the Light.

Now she wondered if that ignorance would doom everyone and everything she cared about.

“If the gardens give you no peace,” said a voice behind her, “do they give you answers?”

Merrill turned to look at her closest friend. Shaela never spoke of her life before coming to Lighthaven, had never once revealed what had driven a girl on the cusp of womanhood to steal a rowboat and try to make her way across the strait that separated the White Isle from Elandar. She had never said what had caused the blindness in her left eye or the slight paralysis of the left side of her face or the lameness in one leg.

There were scars on Shaela’s body that the years had faded but couldn’t erase completely. And there were scars on her heart that would never fade.

Because of that, there was always a shadow of Dark inside Shaela, but that shadow made her value the Light even more than the Sisters who had never been touched by evil.

“I feel the chill of winter,” Merrill said, turning back to look at the garden. “I dread the cold days and long nights that are coming because I can’t stop wondering if we’ll ever see the spring.”

Shaela sighed, an exasperated sound. “You’ve been chewing on this for over a month. You’ve been over the old records again and again and found nothing.”

“I found the old stories. They support the warning we heard.”

“That the Destroyer of Light, the Well of All Evil, has returned? You’ve been wearing yourself out because a voice—a man’s voice—came to you in a dream.”

“A warning,” Merrill insisted. “And a riddle.” She wrapped her arms around herself, adding quietly, “And we aren’t the only ones who heard the warning.”

“Can Brighid be trusted?” Shaela asked just as quietly.

“She was a Sister. Is still a Sister, even though she hasn’t lived with us since—” Sorrow welled up in her, as sharp as it had been sixteen years ago when she’d helped Brighid pack a trunk and leave Lighthaven in response to a young boy’s desperate plea for help.

“Since her sister, Maureen, sick in mind and heart, walked into the sea,” Shaela said.

“Yes.”

Brighid had walked in the Light, a shining beacon. But Maureen had been a bit wild, even as a girl. Instead of settling down with her man once she’d become a wife and mother, she got stranger, more twisted—until something inside her finally broke so much that she chose the sea’s cradle over her own children, leaving Brighid with the task of raising two children who had in them some Dark blood that gave them unnatural abilities to make things happen.

“Heart’s hope lies within belladonna,” Merrill said. “That’s what the voice said.”

“Belladonna is a poison,” Shaela replied. “What hope can be found in something rooted in the Dark?”

“I don’t know, but I can think of only one way to find out.”

Shaela remained silent for a long time. Then she lightly touched Merrill’s shoulder. “Writing to Brighid was one thing. But if you go to Raven’s Hill, you’ll open old hurts and leave fresh wounds.”

“I know.” The thought of it made her ache. “But if this danger is real, there is no one else I trust enough to ask for this kind of help.”

“When are you leaving?”

“There’s a ship leaving Atwater tomorrow morning. The captain has agreed to take me to Raven’s Hill.”

“You haven’t the skills to deal with the outside world.”

“Two men from the village are coming with me as escorts. They’re worldly enough, I think.”

Shaela sighed. “I’d better take care of the packing for the both of us. It’s not a long journey by sea, but you still won’t consider half of what you’ll need.”

An odd blend of alarm and relief flooded through Merrill. “You don’t have to leave the White Isle.”

Shaela spoke slowly, as if picking each word with care. “It’s best if I make this journey with you. Yes, I think it’s best.”

Merrill stared at her friend. “You believe the warning, don’t you?”

Shaela hesitated. “No, I didn’t. I didn’t—until you said you were leaving. Then I imagined you traveling by sea, and a sense of foreboding came over me. The Light within you will be a beacon in the dark. If you leave, you must succeed—and you must return or everything will be lost. I can’t shake the feeling that something will stop you from returning unless I’m with you.”

“Something’s coming,” Merrill whispered.

“Yes.”

“Something that can destroy the White Isle.”

“Yes.”

She squared her shoulders. “Then let’s make this journey—and hope the answer to this riddle is what we need to save the Light.”