Belladonna (8 page)

But he hadn't understood it. Oh, he'd admired it, had praised the work she had done all by herself to clean it up, but he hadn't felt anything for it.

And yet, he'd done the one thing Aunt Brighid couldn't do: He had accepted her strange communion with the world. It worried him, and it wasn't until years later that she realized he was worried for himself as well as for her. Magicians, the luck-bringers and ill-wishers who could change a person's life by doing nothing more than wishing for something to happen, had been driven out of towns when things turned sour. Some had been injured; some even killed. And in those places ... Well, it wasn't safe for
anyone
to live in those places anymore.

When she was ten years old, her secret was discovered by two boys who followed her after school one day. She didn't know if they had intended to do more than follow her; she had heard nothing while she had worked in the garden. It wasn't until she had slipped out through the gate that she heard the screams for help and found the boys. One had a leg pinned under a fall of boulders.

The other was sinking in a patch of bog.

Fortunately, it had happened during one of Michael's visits home, and he'd been walking up the hill to find her — or shout for her, since even he couldn't find Darling's Garden unless Caitlin was with him, but, oddly enough, his voice carried over the garden walls when nothing else did.

So while she had stood there, horrified that she might have done something that had caused the hill to create boulders and bog, Michael had come up the path.

A sudden crack, and a tree limb fell across the bog hole, just missing the boy and providing him with something to cling to —

and providing Michael with a safe way to pull the boy out. That same branch became a lever for freeing the other boy from the boulders.

The boys recovered from their misadventure, but no one in Raven's Hill forgot the story that Caitlin had been seen entering Darling's Garden. Darling, who, it was said, had been a mostly benevolent sorceress who could command the world to do her bidding. There had been rumors that women in her father's family had found the garden a few times, but no one had known for sure that the garden still existed until Caitlin Marie had stumbled across it.

After the incident with the boys, Aunt Brighid began talking about the White Isle and Lighthaven, a place of peace, of Light.

Maybe a place for a second chance, a new beginning — and, for Brighid, a return to the life for which she was best suited. For Caitlin, the stories about the White Isle were the seed that began a dream of friends and acceptance, of being part of a community.

Until the Sisters of Light, at Aunt Brighid's request, came to test her to see if she could be one of them.

She was not. Could never be. Wasn't welcome on their little piece of the world.

That she had failed the Light's test had been noticed by the villagers and had sealed her fate, branding her a sorceress.

And now ...

Setting the tin cup back in its place among the stones, Caitlin moved to the bed in the garden that usually gave her the most comfort. Sinking to her knees, she studied the heart's hope.

The plant hadn't bloomed for the past three years — not since she had failed the Light's test. Oh, it continued to survive even though it didn't thrive, and it produced buds each year. But nothing came of those buds, of those small promises of hope. Even now, when it was well into the harvest season and most other plants had spent themselves, it was full of buds, as if it were waiting for some signal to bloom that never came.

Like me,
Caitlin thought.
I can have my choice of professions in Raven's Hill
—
village sorceress or village whore. Take me
out for a moonlight walk, tell me how lovely I am now that I'm all grown up, tell me my hair is so lush
—
like a courtesan in a story.

Courtesan! just because I didn't spend much time in school doesn't mean I haven't read the books Michael brought borne from his
travels, doesn't mean I wouldn't know a fancy word for whore.

The pain of a lifetime of small hurts and snubs swelled up inside her until there was nothing left. There were plenty of people who were willing to use her in one way or another, but nobody really wanted her.

Swallowing down a sob as she remembered that young man standing in the moonlight, looking so romantic and saying things that ripped her heart open, she took the little folding knife out of her skirt pocket, opened it, and lifted it up to eye level. As she studied the blade, the breeze in the garden died, and it was as if the earth held its breath and waited to see what she would do.

"A whore needs to be lovely," Caitlin said. "A sorceress does not." Lifting the knife, she held the blade just above her cheek.

Imagining Aunt Brighid's horror and sorrowful acceptance upon seeing Caitlin's maimed face gave the girl a feeling of jagged pleasure. Imagining Michael's grief — and worse, the guilt that would live in his eyes ever after because he'd had to leave them in order to provide for them — made her lower the hand that held the knife.

"I can't stand this anymore," she said, staring at the heart's hope. "I can't stand being here, living here. If I wasn't around, Aunt Brighid could go back to the White Isle where she belongs. Then Michael wouldn't have to support anyone but himself and could have a better life than the one he has now. He
deserves
a better life." Tears filled her eyes. Her breath hitched. "And so do I.

Why can't I go someplace where I can have friends, where I'm accepted for what I am? Why can't there be a place like that? I'm so alone. It hurts to be so alone. Isn't there anyone out there in the world who would be my friend?"

As she curled her body over her legs, her waist-length hair swung over one shoulder. Grief flashed back to anger, which deepened to a cold, dark feeling.

Sitting up, she grabbed the hair just below the blue ribbon that kept it tidy. Then she laid the knife's blade just above the ribbon and sawed through the hair. Tossing the length of ribbon-bound hair in front of the heart's hope, she continued to grab chunks of the shortened hair and cut it even shorter, feeling a terrible satisfaction at this act of self-violation.

Then she sliced her thumb, and the pain broke the cold, dark mood.

Folding the blade into the handle, she tucked the knife in her pocket, then went to the waterfall to wash the wound. Not so deep it would need stitching, but it was painful and — she sighed as she wrapped her handkerchief around her thumb — it signaled an end to working in the garden that day.

She looked at the tufts of hair that littered the ground around where she had been sitting. She looked at the tail of beautiful hair that used to make her feel pretty and no longer gave her pleasure.

Then she ran out of the garden, ran all the way home.

"Caitlin Marie!"

She found no satisfaction in her aunt's dismay at her appearance, but she lifted her chin in defiance. "That hair was only suitable for a whore. I won't be anyone's whore."

Aunt Brighid started to speak, then changed her mind about whatever she was going to say. Instead, she pulled out a chair at the kitchen table. "Sit down. I'll get my shears and see if I can tidy up what is left your hair."

While Aunt Brighid trimmed the hair, Caitlin kept her eyes closed. There was a freedom to having hair so outrageously short.

It would be seen as unfeminine, undesirable. Tomorrow she would look through the trunks stored in the attic. There might be a few things left that Michael had outgrown. With masculine hair and masculine clothes ... Maybe she would learn to smoke a pipe. And she would make it known that any man who showed interest in her did so because he had no
real
interest in women. No man in Raven's Hill would want to be accused of taking a moonlight walk with another man. Maybe, if she were mistaken for a young, somewhat effeminate man, she could even go traveling with Michael, get away from Raven's Hill altogether and see a bit of the world. Maybe even find people who could accept this strange gift inside her and would want to be her friends.

No longer feeling quite so bleak, she helped Aunt Brighid sweep up the hair trimmings, then prepare the evening meal. Later, as they both worked on the mending, she thought about the hairs she had wound around the heart's hope and belladonna plants she had given to Merrill.

When she'd gone up to get the plants, she hadn't paid attention to anything
but
the plants. Now, picturing that corner bed in the garden, she realized the stone that had come from the White Isle had been tucked behind the plants.

After Aunt Brighid began talking about Lighthaven, she had given Caitlin the stone that had come from the White Isle as a sort of talisman, and Caitlin had brought it up to the garden to be part of the flower bed she had made to honor the Place of Light. The bed never flourished. Some lovely little flowers bloomed in the spring, but the rest of the year that ground remained stubbornly bare, no matter what she tried to plant there — or tried to coax Ephemera to produce there. After she failed the test of Light, she stopped tending that flower bed, and even the little spring flowers died out.

She didn't remember doing it, but she must have moved the stone to that corner. And now that she thought about it without anger clouding the feel of the garden, it seemed a little ... odd ... that the plants had been with that stone. Remembering the feel of a hand clasping hers when she touched the plants, she realized something else. The plants hadn't felt quite in tune with the rest of the garden — as if she were singing one song while someone else sang another, and the melodies tangled and blended at the same time, working toward harmony but not there yet.

Not there yet.

Caitlin winced. No. Surely not. It had been a childish gesture, a bit of pretend. The two hairs she had wrapped around the plants' stems
couldn't
change whatever was going to happen when Merrill and the other Ladies performed their ceremony. Could they?

*

Glorianna fastened the gold bar pin to the plain white blouse, then stepped back to get a full view of herself in the mirror. The dark green skirt, and the matching jacket that had flowers embroidered around the neckline and cuffs, were probably too formal for this meeting. With her hair pinned up, she looked like she was attending some afternoon society function instead of meeting colleagues to discuss the danger to their world.

But we aren't colleagues,
Glorianna thought as she dabbed a little scent on her pulse points.
I was never one of them.

But she had to see the Landscapers who had found their way to Sanctuary, had to talk to them and hope they would be willing to work with her to protect Ephemera from the Eater of the World.

Guardians of the Light, please help them accept me, listen to me. If they can't, if they won't, Ephemera will end up more
shattered than it is now.

The woman who looked back at her from the mirror had eyes filled with nerves instead of much-needed confidence. The woman in the mirror was tired of being an outsider who couldn't count on her own kind to stand with her in the battle that was coming. Even though she still believed in her heart that she would have to face the Eater alone, it would be a relief to know her family didn't have to shoulder the weight of being the only ones supporting her.

Which was why she had chosen these clothes for this meeting — as a reminder that her family
did
support her. Her mother had given her the blouse as a gift for her thirty-first birthday. Lee had purchased the fine green material, and Lynnea had made the skirt and jacket. Jeb, still a little uncertain of his place in the family beyond being Nadia's new husband, had given her the bar pin, which had belonged to his mother. Yes, the outfit was lovely, but it was the love and acceptance it represented that she had donned with each piece of clothing, like a shield that would protect her heart from whatever was to come.

As she turned away from the mirror, she was drawn to the watercolor that hung on the wall next to her bed. Titled
Moonlight
Lover,
the view was of the break in the trees near Sebastian's cottage, where a person could stand and see the moon shining over the lake. The dark-haired woman in the painting wore a gown that was as romantic as it was impractical, and looked as substantial as moonbeams. Standing behind her, with his arms wrapped protectively around her, was the lover. His face was shadowed, teasing the imagination to provide the details, but the body suggested a virile man in his prime.

There was something about the way he stood, with the woman leaning against his chest as they watched the moon and water, that made her think he was a man who had journeyed far and now held the treasure he had been searching for.

Sebastian, the romantic among them, had painted it for her. He had captured the yearning for romance that she thought she kept well hidden. But in the same way that the secrets of the heart couldn't be hidden from a Landscapes could romantic yearnings be hidden from an incubus?

It worried her sometimes when, in the dark of a lonely night, she conjured the image of a fantasy lover. When that shadowy lover began to feel almost real enough to touch, was she still alone in her fantasy or had an incubus joined her by reaching through the twilight of waking dreams? Or was something else trying to reach her through that yearning? Sometimes it almost felt as if she could extend her hand across countless landscapes, and touch —