Belladonna (16 page)

*

"Old hag! Old hag!"

"Come get what you deserve, old hag!"

Doing a trip and stumble — and just managing not to land on her face — Caitlin rushed down the last few man-lengths of the hill. She knew those voices. Coyle, Roy, and Owen were the village troublemakers, but they had always kept clear of the cottage.

"Old hag! Old hag!" That was Coyle.

"Owen! Stop diddling with yourself and bring us more rocks!" That was Roy.

Using the curse words she'd heard Michael say once — words that had earned him a slap upside the head because Aunt Brighid had also heard him — Caitlin paused at the bottom of the hill to decide what to do.

Coyle threw another rock, shattering the glass in an upstairs window, while Roy jumped up and down, yelling at Aunt Brighid, yelling for Owen. And Brighid was doing some yelling of her own but was sensible enough to stay inside.

Since her aunt's yelling was filled with anger rather than being the sound of someone crying out in pain, Caitlin decided to wait until the boys had thrown their last rocks. Then she could wade in. Maybe a hoe handle applied to their backsides would teach those hooligans a few manners.

But as she waited, she noticed the ground changing between her and the boys. Fear shivered up her spine.

There had been no sand when she'd gone up the hill that morning, but there was a large patch of it now, beginning at the base of the path she usually used to reach her garden and stretching out toward the cottage. It looked like someone had poured barrows of sand over the meadow to create a long-fingered, bony hand.

But there were no grasses or wildflowers poking up beneath the sand, which didn't look deep enough to have covered the plants. And she'd never seen rust-colored sand before and
knew
it hadn't come from any of the beaches around Raven's Hill.

As Coyle and Roy threw more rocks at the cottage windows, Caitlin watched meadow grass disappear as two of the sand fingers stretched a little further toward the cottage.

There's something out there that can change the land,
she thought.
Something ... evil.

The cottage was too isolated. She and Aunt Brighid would be nothing but hens waiting for the fox if they stayed. Which meant getting Brighid out of the cottage and escaping to the village proper. Which meant getting past those black-hearted boys.

Holding the hoe handle in a two-handed grip that would make it a useful weapon, Caitlin scanned the trees at the base of the hill, looking for some movement. Where was the third boy, Owen? It was rare to see just two of the boys when they were causing trouble, so the third had to be around.

Deal with the here and now,
Brighid always told her. Well, the here and now was the two boys she could see.

This is my place,
Caitlin thought as she stared at Coyle and Roy, who had their backs to her.
This is my land. You're not
wanted here. You're not welcome here. Leave this place!

She wasn't able to influence people, and she didn't expect anything to happen. The words were merely a way to bolster her own courage before she made a dash for the cottage that would bring her to the boys' attention.

You're not wanted here. You're not welc
—

Her focus shattered as she saw three of the sandy fingers shrink, the sand changing back to packed earth. It was bare earth —

the grass and flowers didn't magically reappear — but it was earth, not sand.

I can change the meadow hack to the way it was. I can fight this evil, make it go away.

Then her attention came back to the boys. They were waiting for her, staring at her. Each boy held a filled whiskey bottle with rags stuffed into the necks of the bottles like a wick in an oil lamp.

The rags were already burning.

"No!" Caitlin yelled.

The Eater of the World flowed toward the hillside as fast as It could. The Landscaper was trying to destroy the access It had created into the bonelovers' landscape. She was sending her resonance into the world and Ephemera was responding.

It would stop her. Yes, It would. She was stronger than many of the Landscapers It had destroyed at the school, but not as skilled or powerful — or dangerous — as the True Enemy. It could pull her into Its landscape, just as It had done with the others.

The bonelovers would do the rest.

Coyle and Roy flung the burning whiskey bottles through the broken windows. Then they grinned at her and ran, no doubt intending to be far enough away that they could claim ignorance when she accused them of setting the cottage on fire.

Because it
was
burning. Too much. Too fast.

"Aunt Brighid!"

The fingers of sand were stretching out again, reaching for the cottage, blocking her way to the back door.

Why hadn't Brighid come out the front door? They couldn't save the cottage. Not by themselves. Was Owen guarding the front door, holding some kind of club or other weapon so Brighid was afraid to leave despite the fire?

Caitlin turned, intending to run to the front of the cottage and rescue her aunt. But with her first step, the ground felt soft, fluid ... strange. She staggered. Stabbed the hoe handle into the ground to maintain her balance.

"Earth isn't fluid," Caitlin said, putting all the conviction she could into her voice. "This earth isn't soft. It's solid, and it's
real."

She felt the ground firm up, but when she looked around, she let out a cry of disbelief and despair.

She stood in the center of a perfect circle surrounded by sand. She felt a pulse of evil at the edge of the circle. In front of her, bits of meadow still poked up like hummocks in a marsh.

It was as if something were daring her to jump from one hummock to the next in order to reach safe ground. As if something dared her to pit her influence with Ephemera against its power to control the world.

If I stay here, I'm safe,
Caitlin thought. Except ...

"Auntie!" Her heart swelled with relief when she saw Brighid staggering away from the cottage, coughing horribly, and bleeding from cuts probably made by broken glass.

Her heart shrank to a cold, hard lump in her chest as she saw a shadow thicken in the ground behind her aunt, saw a darkness rise up and take the shape of a man holding a knife. He looked at Brighid, then looked at her and smiled — and she understood the message.

He
—
it
—
can't touch me where I stand, hut if I stay, he'll kill Aunt Brighid. One of us lives, one of us dies. My choice.

For a moment, she hesitated. Brighid hadn't been an easy woman to live with and she didn't think of her aunt with any warmth or joy, but Brighid had set aside her own life to help them when she and Michael were children, so she owed the woman for that.

My choice. My life. Doesn't mean I won't try to survive.

Watching the man-shaped darkness, Caitlin backed up to the very edge of the circle. She still had a chance. A running leap to land on the largest "hummock" and push off from there to solid ground.

Lady of Light, help me. Please, help me.

She held the hoe handle in one hand, its length evenly balanced. Probably better to leave it, but she didn't want to face the knife empty-handed.

She took off across the circle, driving with her legs, putting everything she had into the leap.

"Caitlin!" Brighid screamed.

She didn't need to look. She could feel the change in the earth beneath her as her aunt and the world she knew faded away, disappearing altogether the moment the "hummock" vanished and her foot landed on the rust-colored sand.

She stumbled, flailed, drove one end of the hoe handle into the sand. It caught on something, acting like a lever as it lifted an object up from the sand. The momentary resistance was enough to help Caitlin stay on her feet.

She paused, gasping for air as she looked around. Rust-colored sand beneath a sky the color of ripe bruises. Nothing else —

except that shifting black mound not too far from where she stood.

Caitlin watched the mound, then shook her head. Couldn't be ants. Much too big to be ants.

The mound shifted. She caught a glimpse of ... something. Thought she heard a wet-sounding cry.

She turned to free the hoe handle — and froze at the sight of the rib cage that had been pulled out of the sand. She stared at the clean bones, then at the black mound.

For one heartbeat — maybe two — something made a last, desperate effort to escape, knocking a few of the creatures away.

In that heartbeat, she saw what was left of a boy's face.

"Owen," she whispered.

She couldn't help the boy. Even if she could pull him free of those creatures, she couldn't save the boy. So she freed the hoe handle from the old bones and backed away carefully and quietly to avoid attracting attention.

When one of those unnatural ants noticed her and moved toward her, she did the only thing she could do.

She ran.

*

"Friend of yours?" Kenneday asked as their dinghy approached the stairs that led up to the south side of the Raven's Hill harbor.

"He is," Michael replied, settling his pack as he watched the man waiting for them at the top of the stairs. Nathan had been a friend since boyhood and had remained one even after it became evident that Michael was a Magician. He came back to Raven's Hill out of love and duty; however, it was the time he spent with Nathan that made those visits tolerable.

But having Nathan waiting around the harbor instead of working in his shop boded no good.

Kenneday looked back at the crewman who had rowed them to the stairs. "Stay here and keep on eye on things in case we need to leave in a hurry," he said quietly.

"Aye, Captain."

Pretending he hadn't heard that exchange, Michael climbed the stairs. A cold fist squeezed his belly when he got close enough to see the worry — and regret — in Nathan's eyes.

"Ah, Michael," Nathan said. "It's bad. I'm sorry to be the one to tell you, but it's bad."

"What happened?" Michael asked. A nudge from behind had him shifting to make room for Kenneday.

"Well, a couple of boys got into some mischief and —" Nathan stopped, swore softly, then shook his head. "No. I won't whitewash it like others want to do. The fact is we have conflicting stories and some things just plain aren't right, but the nub of it is Coyle and Roy — and we suspect Owen was with them but he hasn't been found yet — started their mischief by throwing rocks at the windows of your aunt's cottage and ended it by burning the place down. We tried, Michael. The men rallied when the smoke was spotted, and they got the water wagons and pumps out there as fast as they could, but the fire had taken hold and ... It was like that fire didn't want to be put out. And after Jamie disappeared right in front of us ... He raised his hands palm up to indicate helplessness. "I'd just come down to the harbor to see if there might be a ship that could take a message when sails coming up from the south were spotted. Your aunt said you would be coming, so I hoped ..."

Kenneday's hand on his shoulder was a warm comfort, but it didn't ease the cold fist that still squeezed his belly. "Aunt Brighid? Caitlin?"

Nathan looked away. "Don't know why your auntie stayed inside so long. Fear, I'm guessing."

A shudder went through him, jangling the pots attached to his pack. "How bad?"

"She has some cuts on her back and arms. Most likely got them from the glass when the windows were broken. And her lungs sound a bit charry from the heat and the smoke, but the doctor figures she'll mend just fine with some care."

He couldn't breathe. He could feel his lungs fill and empty, but he still couldn't breathe. "Caitlin?"

Nathan rubbed the back of his hand across his mouth. "She disappeared. We thought your aunt meant she had run away —

Caitlin was acting touched in the head, Michael; she'd gone and cut off her hair just because some boy had asked to go out walking in the moonlight. So at first, when Brighid said the sand had taken Caitlin, we thought she was just babbling because of the pain.

But when Jamie disappeared right in front of our eyes ..."

"What sand?"

"Something ... evil," Nathan whispered. "A rusty color, like dried blood. Stretching out from the base of the hill right up to one side of the cottage. Brighid said Caitlin tried to jump it in order to reach her, but the ground just changed under the girl — and she disappeared."

Something thrummed under Michael's feet.

"Where's the aunt now?" Kenneday asked.

"At the doctor's house," Nathan replied. "She'll be looked after until she mends."

Thrumming. A harsh buzzing that vibrated up from the soles of his feet. Clashing chords. Grating notes that sliced at harmony.

He had brushed against this sound before in Foggy Downs and Kendall — and in a terrible stretch of water where the voices of dead men drifted on the fog.

He'd entertained the notion that it was another Magician trying to drive him out of the villages where he felt easy. But it wasn't another Magician that had touched those places and changed their songs. It was something more. Something out of myth.

"Listen," Michael said. "Do you feel it?"

Kenneday looked puzzled, but everything about Nathan sharpened.

"Can you still hear the feel of a place?" Nathan asked.

Michael nodded. It was all clashes and grating noise— but it was in tune with pieces of Raven's Hill, and that scared him more than anything.