Belladonna

Chapter Seventeen

“Damn the darkness,” Michael said, bracing his feet as if that would help him regain his mental balance. Glorianna had told him that reaching Aurora and her mother’s house required nothing more than taking a step between here and there, but he’d expected a little more ceremony. He’d expected a little more warning than “hold my hand and take a step forward.” Although why he should keep expecting something more was a puzzlement.

Face it, my lad. You just don’t want to look this straight in the eyes and admit you’ve never known half of what must have been going on around you.

“I don’t hear the falls anymore,” he said, turning in a circle to look around. Nice house, but not too grand. Well cared for grounds and…

He felt his heart skip a beat when he saw the stone walls on the other side of a narrow brook.

“My mother’s walled garden,” Glorianna said. “Come to the house. By now you’d probably like a bite to eat.”

“I would, thank you.” He’d been grateful when she’d taken him up to her house on the island to freshen up and put on a clean shirt before making this visit to her mother. And he’d wondered if it had been her own manners or a customary lack of hospitality that had left out an offer of food or drink—until he realized her embarrassed mutter about reaching her mother’s house in time for the midday meal meant she’d checked her larder while he’d been washing up and had found it a bit too bare.

Which made him wonder if that was due to a lack of attention on her part or a lack of means to keep food on the table. Maybe he could offer to till some ground for a kitchen garden. Of course, after they were married, he could—

Whoa! Slow down, lad. Just because your heart has settled on the matter doesn’t mean she’s thinking of sharing home and hearth with the likes of you.

“I don’t think my mother is serving meals out in the garden today,” Glorianna said, sounding amused. “If you want food, we have to go into the kitchen.”

“What? Oh.” How long had he been staring at that garden while he’d been dreaming up a future that…

You won’t grow old together, some part of him whispered. Except in your dreams.

Why not? he asked that shadow self, feeling defiant. No one else has put a ring on her hand. She might settle for the likes of me.

“Michael?”

Pulling himself out of the argument going on in his head and heart, he smiled at her without answering the “what’s wrong?” question he’d heard in her voice. They hadn’t gone more than a few steps when he stopped again and studied the trees and the shape of the land. “I think I was near here early this morning.”

“If Sebastian was your escort to the bridge that led to Sanctuary, you were”—Glorianna turned slightly and pointed—“less than a mile from here in that direction.”

“That ripe bastard,” Michael muttered.

Her green eyes chilled, warning him off.

“You have feelings for him.” Seeing the truth of that scraped at him enough to ignore the warning chill. “When he was whispering to you in the moonlight, did he mention he has a wife?”

“Well, he was whispering,” she replied with insincere sweetness. “I may not have caught everything he said.”

Michael clamped his teeth together to keep from saying something that might have her showing him the door before he ever got the chance to know her—or for her to know him. Because he wanted to know her, both for himself and for…

Ah, Caitlin Marie. Now that you’re lost in a world gone mad, I finally found someone who might understand your heart.

When they reached the house, Glorianna opened the door just enough to poke her head inside and ask, “Anyone flying about?” He didn’t hear an answer, but she swung the door open, stepped inside the kitchen, and said, “Sebastian, darling, when you were whispering sweet nothings to me in the moonlight, why didn’t you tell me you had a wife?”

As Michael stepped into the kitchen, he registered the presence of other people in the room, but his focus was on the ripe bastard sitting at the table looking much too much at home. It gave him a mean pleasure to see Sebastian turn red and choke in response to Glorianna’s words.

“Daylight!” Sebastian said when he was able to breathe again. “Who would have said a thing like…Oh. You.”

“Yes, it’s me,” Michael said, approaching the table as Sebastian rose to face him. “Despite your little trick this morning, you haven’t seen the last of me yet.”

“That’s obvious since you’re here,” Sebastian replied.

“And it’s obvious to me that your kind have no respect for the marriage vows.”

“My kind? My kind? I wouldn’t be slinging mud if I were you, Magician. Your kind takes off his wedding ring when he comes to the Den and pretends he doesn’t have a wife, but we figure it’s better to have the succubi play with the randy human goats than have those men making promises to girls in their own landscapes. The girls would get their hearts broken—or worse; the succubi just give those men what they came for and lighten their pockets in the bargain.”

“And you think that’s honorable?”

“It’s honest.”

“That’s enough.” A black-haired, green-eyed man wedged himself between them and shoved hard enough to push Michael and Sebastian back a step.

Two against one, Michael thought bitterly. Brothers or first cousins, if the family resemblance was anything to go by. But if he was going to get a beating, he was going to take one last jab at earning it. Looking at Sebastian, he said, “You shame your house and your family.”

Cold fury leaped into Sebastian’s eyes. Michael braced for whatever a pissed-off wizard would do to him. And then…

“Why is everyone shouting?” Lynnea asked, stepping into the kitchen.

Michael took a step back, distancing himself from the interrupted fight. How long had she been standing there? Did she know about Sebastian and Glorianna? Or had his own ill-considered words revealed her husband’s betrayal? He’d be delighted to see the ripe bastard shut out of the marriage bed, but Lynnea didn’t deserve having her heart trampled. And it didn’t speak well of Glorianna’s heart that she would act the friend while helping herself to another woman’s husband. Which might be Sebastian’s fault entirely, him being the incubus and all.

Fool. You should have held your tongue and just done a little ill-wishing so Sebastian would get what he deserved.

“Michael?”

At first glance, he thought the person coming into the kitchen behind Lynnea was a feminine-faced boy, but the voice…

“Caitlin?” He stepped around Sebastian and the other man. His little sister was here, alive and well. “Caitlin Marie?”

He knew that particular smile, had looked for it each time he’d come home from his wandering. Her smile of welcome.

He snatched her off her feet and hugged her hard, feeling laughter bubbling up while tears stung his eyes. He set her down, and leaned back to get a good look at her and assure himself that she was, indeed, well. Which is when the little detail that had caused him to mistake her gender really registered.

“By the Light, girl! What did you do to your hair? You’ve cut it so short people will be mistaking you for a boy.”

“No, they won’t,” Teaser said, suddenly appearing in the doorway beside Lynnea. “Not with a nice pair of tits like she’s got.”

Michael spun around, pushing Caitlin behind him. “And what business do you have to be noticing her titties?”

Teaser shrugged. “I’m just saying.”

Caitlin gave him a shove, which made him turn and stare at her. Raising her chin, she said defiantly, “I don’t want to look like a girl—and I’m not going to be any man’s whore.”

Before Michael could roar about that, someone grabbed his ear and tugged him to a place at the kitchen table.

“Sit,” an older, dark-haired woman said, ignoring his yelp when she gave his ear another tug. “All this shouting over foolishness. And now you’ve got the birds upset.”

That’s when he focused again on the room in general and realized the noise filling the kitchen wasn’t coming from anything human.

He sat long enough for her to release his ear. Then he popped up from his chair, intending to give Caitlin Marie—and Teaser—a piece of his mind.

The dark-haired woman whacked him on the head with a wooden spoon. “Sit!” she said. “You too, Sebastian. Lee. Teaser.” Each name was accompanied by her pointing to a chair. “Glorianna, you and Caitlin Marie need to talk, so you girls go into the parlor. Lynnea, you go with them. And the rest of you be quiet!”

In the hush that followed, Michael looked at Glorianna and recognized a woman who was working up to being well and truly mad. He figured her anger was going to be generously heaped on his head for making everyone aware of Sebastian’s infidelity, but he intended to do his best to see that the ripe bastard got a fair share of it.

“I think the Magician and I need to discuss a few things and clear the air,” Glorianna said.

“Mud wallow?” Lee asked.

“Lee!”

He hunched his shoulders when the older woman smacked the table with her spoon. Then she looked at Glorianna. “And I think you need to speak to Caitlin Marie. You may be a powerful Landscaper and a Guide of the Heart, but in this house you are my daughter, and you will do as you’re told.”

The air snapped and crackled between the two women.

Lynnea put an arm around Caitlin’s shoulders. “Let’s go into the parlor like Nadia asked.” She and Caitlin disappeared into another room.

Glorianna hesitated for one more crackling moment, then followed them.

“You should be ashamed of yourselves,” Nadia said, glaring at the men around her kitchen table. “You’re grown men and you’re acting like…like…”

“Hooligans?” Michael suggested, giving Nadia his charming smile.

She whacked him on the shoulder. Apparently charm didn’t work with the women in this family.

“Hooligans,” Nadia said. “I don’t know what that means, but it sounds like the way you’re behaving. Yes. Hooligans.”

“Thanks very much,” Lee said dryly. “Now you’ve taught her another name to call us when she’s annoyed about something.”

Nadia gave Lee a whack.

“He started it,” Sebastian said, pointing at Michael. “Coming in here and acting all pissy. Accusing me of being unfaithful—and with my cousin no less.”

Cousin? Glorianna hadn’t said anything about being Sebastian’s cousin. In fact, she…No, a prick of jealousy had spurred his assumption that she was defending a lover. But after making what he considered to be an honest mistake, she had helped him down the wrong path by not correcting that assumption. “She’s got some brass to be blaming me,” he muttered.

“That’s enough,” Nadia snapped. She gave each one of them the Stare. “You’re not little boys who can call each other names and waggle your privates at each other.”

“Trust me, Auntie,” Sebastian said, “there’s no one sitting at this table who is interested in waggling his privates at another man.”

“Sebastian Justicemaker.”

Sebastian winced.

Michael felt a foolish urge to stick out his tongue and say “Nyah, nyah,” but Nadia was standing next to him and beat his Aunt Brighid by a long arm when it came to retaliating against male foolishness. He hadn’t had anyone whack him with a spoon since he was fifteen, and he’d figured he’d outgrown that stage of his life.

Apparently not.

“As I said”—Nadia gave each of them another dose of the Stare—“you’re not little boys who can indulge in name-calling and taking pokes at one another. You’re powerful men who have a powerful influence on this world. And starting trouble just to make trouble is unacceptable behavior from every one of you. And that goes for you too, Teaser.”

“I didn’t do anything,” Teaser muttered, slouching in his chair. “Just said the girl had a nice pair of tits.”

“Where I come from, if a man says something like that to a girl’s brother, the next thing he’d better be saying is the date of the wedding,” Michael said darkly.

“Well, we’re not in your part of the world, are we?” Teaser replied in a prissy tone of voice. “If you’re going to get all scrappy about the way we live, go back where you came from.”

I don’t know how.

Powerful men…who had a powerful influence on the world.

Remembering the sandbox—and how the world had changed to reflect his feelings—he leaned back in his chair and looked out the kitchen window. Nothing appeared different, but how could he know how much influence he had on the world? Was a nearby village filling up with heavy fog at this very moment? Was some farmer’s field suddenly full of stones that might lame a horse or break a plow? How was he to know?

“Did I break the world?” He almost expected to hear Aunt Brighid’s voice saying, You’re puffing up your consequence, boy. But no one in that kitchen dismissed his question—and a true, pure fear began to shiver through him as he looked up at Nadia. “You said we were powerful men. I’m a Magician. A luck-bringer. An ill-wisher. The world listens to me. I can make things happen.” Memories stirred, and he added in a horrified whisper, “Even when I don’t mean to.”

Nadia tossed the wooden spoon onto the table, then hurried to the back door, pausing long enough to yell “Glorianna!” before she was out the door and running toward her walled garden. A moment later, when Glorianna rushed into the kitchen, Lee pointed to the door and said, “Go.”

She hesitated a moment, and Michael saw the flash of understanding as their eyes met. Then she was gone, following her mother into the gardens.

Michael’s stomach started rolling. It was getting hard to breathe. “Rory Calhoun.” The memory sank its teeth into his heart.

He’d been sixteen years old and already planning to leave Raven’s Hill the day young Rory Calhoun and two friends met their fate in the old quarry.

He’d gone for a walk, wearing the new coat Aunt Brighid had bought him as a fare-thee-well gift. Inside, he was a swirl of fear and excitement at the prospect of leaving home for the first time since his father had settled him, his mother, and baby Caitlin into the cottage that, along with the land that came with it, had been the sole inheritance the man could offer his wife and children. Then his father had resumed the wandering life and, two years later, his mother had walked into the sea.

But that day, Michael wasn’t thinking beyond the dimly remembered romance of the wandering life, had seen it as a way to escape the looks people gave him and Caitlin Marie. He had seen a way to earn some coins with the music he’d taught himself to play on the tin whistle he’d found in a trunk of his father’s belongings.

That day, his mind and heart had been filled with the sense of adventure and the pleasure of wearing a new coat instead of a patched, secondhand one. Then Rory and two friends began following him, taunting him, throwing clods of dirt that just missed hitting him and dirtying his new coat.

Until Rory had thrown a clod that hit him square in the back. Stung that the people in this village wouldn’t let him have one nice thing, he turned and looked at Rory. “May you get everything you deserve.”

“Ooooo,” Rory said, waving his hands. “He’s ill-wishing me. Ooooo.”

They continued to follow him until they reached the old quarry. Then they abandoned him to play “dare you”—a game all the boys in the village had played at one time or another to prove manliness or bravery or some other foolish thing. Usually the game was played on the other side of the quarry, where there were slabs and ledges of stone that weren’t too far below the top. A fall on that side of the quarry might end with a broken leg or arm. On this side was a steep slope that changed to a sheer drop to the quarry floor. Any boy who fell on this side of the quarry would end up at the bottom, broken and dying.

He’d sometimes wondered what would have happened if he’d kept going, kept walking. But the air around him had trembled with a discordant song, and something about those young voices pulled at him. So he’d turned and saw them standing much too close to the edge. But that was the whole point of playing “dare you.” The quarry’s edge wasn’t stable. Walk too close and a section of stone might break away. The winner of the game was whichever boy stood closest to the edge and stamped a foot, daring the stone to break.

“They’re not bad boys,” he’d whispered as he’d watched the three shuffle up to the quarry’s edge. “Well, two of them aren’t. Without Rory, the other two would settle down and grow up.”

In that moment before things changed forever, he heard notes so harshly abrasive they made him wince. One harsh note, actually, and two others that weren’t quite in tune. Two that might fit back into the song that was Raven’s Hill if given a chance.

In that moment before things changed forever, he saw all three boys jump up and land on the edge with a two-footed stomp.

Before he could move, the boys disappeared, replaced by the roar of stone and air filled with dust.

Michael ran to the quarry, stopping a man-length from the new edge, then testing the ground, step by step, until he could look into the quarry.

Rory Calhoun hung on the edge of a new, sheer drop, impaled on a broken spire of stone. His eyes stared unblinking at the sky, but the fingers twitched, the hands tried to clench. Alive then…for a few moments longer.

As he stared at the boy, Michael realized he was hearing terrified mewling. Realized Rory’s legs hung over the drop.

“Boys?” he called.

“Help! Help!”

Two of them, alive. Clinging to their friend’s legs. Which had probably contributed to that spire of stone punching through Rory’s body.

As he stripped off his coat and dropped it, he studied the side of the quarry. There were now juts of stone he could stand on and knobs of stone for handholds. Best to belly over the side and lower himself down to the first ledge, which would get him close enough to reach the boys. He hoped.

The moment before he eased his legs over the edge, two things occurred to him: that the ledge might be a little too far down for him to get himself back out of the quarry, and that he couldn’t let the boys see what had happened to Rory.

He grabbed his coat. With a wrist flick to spread the cloth, he dropped the coat over Rory. Then he lowered himself over the edge.

Stretched to his full length, his fingers clinging to the edge, his toes barely brushed the ledge beneath him. Would it hold him? Would it hold him and the weight of a boy? It had to hold. Had to.

Saying a quick prayer to the Lady of Light, he let go of the edge, landing solidly on the stone beneath him. He pressed himself against the quarry wall, hardly daring to breathe while he waited a few moments to see if the ledge would hold. Then he pulled off his belt, made a loop at one end, and wrapped the leather around his fist a couple of times before he shifted his weight to bring himself closer to the other boys.

As clear as the memory was up to that point, the rest was fragmented images: a boy’s terrified face looking up at him; the weight as a boy slipped a hand through the loop in the belt and let go of Rory’s leg; the arrival of his friend Nathan, who had come looking for him; the look in the eyes of the men who had helped pull the boys out of the quarry—a look that said they weren’t sure if they should praise Michael for helping rescue the boys or blame him for the fall; the sound of men half swearing, half crying as they brought Rory out of the quarry and saw the damage that had been hidden under the coat.

He stayed in Raven’s Hill long enough to see Rory buried and stand with his aunt and the rest of the villagers to offer his condolences to the family. The next day, he set off on his wanderings. His new coat had been ruined, of course, and there wasn’t enough money to spare for another extravagance. So he’d started off on his new life wearing a patched, secondhand coat—and wondered if it was all he deserved.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Lee said.

Michael braced his head in his hands. He hadn’t realized he’d been talking out loud while reliving that memory. “There were some in Raven’s Hill who thought otherwise.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Lee said again. “If you hadn’t been there that day, most likely all three of those boys would have died.”

He remembered Glorianna as she stood beside the sandbox, studying the landscapes of his heart. Anger makes stone. And strength makes stone.

“So I willed a piece of stone to punch through a boy’s body? Is that what you’re saying?” Knowing now that he might have done exactly that made him ill.

“Don’t argue with him, Lee,” Sebastian said, sitting back. “He’s not ready to listen.”

A cold spot on his back. It took Michael a moment to realize it was the loss of the weight and warmth of a hand resting on his shoulder blade that he was feeling now. That warmth had been there all through his memory of Rory. That comfort of a human touch telling him silently he wasn’t alone.

Until Sebastian sat back.

Who were these people? Michael wondered at the same time something inside him asked, How can I be one of them?

Before the silence around the table could become awkward, Glorianna and Nadia walked into the kitchen at the same time Lynnea and Caitlin eased into the kitchen from the doorway leading to the rest of the house.

“Is everyone done shouting?” Lynnea asked.

“For the moment,” Nadia replied. She looked at the people in her kitchen and nodded. “We’ll have to use the dining room. The kitchen table is too small for so many. Girls, you’ll set the table and help me fix the soup and sandwiches. That will be a simple-enough meal.”

“After we eat, I think we’ll”—Sebastian gestured to indicate Lee and Teaser—“take Michael to the Den for a few hours.”

“We’ll see,” Nadia said, going over to the counter to start another pot of koffee. “You’re not ten years old anymore, but the rules still apply. If your behavior creates stones and weeds in my personal garden, you will clear the stones and weeds out of my personal garden.”

“But—” Sebastian studied his aunt for a moment, then huffed. “Yes, Auntie. The four of us will be happy to clear the stones and weeds out of the garden.”

“Teaser and I weren’t involved in this,” Lee protested.

“Now you are,” Sebastian replied, which earned him a scowl from his cousin.

“And after the meal,” Glorianna said, looking at Caitlin, “you’re going to tell me everything you know about your garden. And you”—those green eyes locked onto Michael—“are going to tell me exactly how you got to this part of Ephemera.”

Glorianna stood by the kitchen window, watching four men spend an unfathomable amount of time sorting out a few gardening tools. “Do you think they’ll actually get anything done?”

“Two of them might dither and not take me as seriously as they should,” Nadia said, bringing two mugs of koffee to the table, “but Sebastian and Lee aren’t likely to forget what will happen if I go out to inspect the beds and find a stone or weed.”

She turned away from the window and grinned. “It was more devastating because you were so polite about it, smiling at them as you handed them lanterns and informed them you would keep their dinners warm, no matter how long it took them to finish cleaning up the garden.”

“They were at an age when food was a fine motivator,” Nadia said, smiling. Then the smile faded. “So what do you think of this Magician?”

“He doesn’t see the way we do, doesn’t feel the resonance the way we do,” Glorianna said, sitting down at the table. “He talks about luck-bringing and ill-wishing and the music of a place. I’m not sure if he’s a Guide of the Heart or a Landscaper or some combination of both. Then there’s Caitlin, who definitely is a Landscaper, but more like me than the Landscapers who were at the school. She’s been tending a garden with no knowledge or understanding about her connection to the places held within those walls. And Michael looks after his landscapes by wandering from place to place, making a circuit in order to tend to each of them before going back home for a few days to rest in a place that resonates with another’s heart. Which is not so different from the Landscapers who traveled through their landscapes and then returned to the school to rest.” She sipped her koffee. “They may have borders in this Elandar, but they have no boundaries, no bridges. Their piece of the world didn’t shatter. Maybe if I can understand how the landscapes work in their part of the world, I can find a way to make this part of the world whole again.”

“Do you really want to do that?” Nadia asked.

Glorianna stared out the window rather than look at her mother.

“The Eater of the World is out there, Glorianna. It has touched Elandar three times that we know of. Four if you include that haunted stretch of sea that Michael passed through. Instead of putting the world back together, maybe you should be thinking of breaking more of it.”

She rubbed her forehead, trying to deny the headache starting to brew behind her eyes. “Lee is the only Bridge working with us. He can’t take on the burden of doing more.”

“Then what are you going to do?”

Glorianna glanced out the window. It looked like the men were getting something done now. “I think Sebastian is right. Caitlin and Michael need some time together, and the rest of us need a few hours to set aside the weight of the world. Tonight we’ll go to the Den and eat at Philo’s, listen to music, and…” Remember what romance feels like?

When she had first seen Moonlight Lover, she’d wondered if the fantasy lover was an incubus—someone Sebastian knew and had used as a model for the painting. Then Michael had showed up on her island—someone who was, and wasn’t, like her.

Considering the assessing way he had looked at her and that slip of jealousy he’d shown when he’d thought Sebastian was a lover, the odds were good that he would be interested in a night’s romp in bed. But did she really want that from him, with him?

In some ways, she wanted that very much. But her heart needed more. With Ephemera so dependent right now on the choices she made, she had to be careful.

“We’re going to eat at Philo’s, listen to music, and…?” Nadia asked.

“And tomorrow Caitlin and I will pay a visit to the White Isle,” Glorianna said, tucking the idea of romance away, along with her heart.