Belladonna (5 page)

Pleased by the discovery, It followed the fishing boats the next day, causing no more than ripples of uneasiness as It flowed around and beneath the boats. But It also herded schools of fish into the nets, so the uneasiness that might have kept the fishermen away from that spot was drowned by their excitement in hauling in such a good catch.

It watched the fishing boats head back to the village at the end of the day, felt the swell of happiness in the hearts of the men

— and the hope that the catch would be as good tomorrow.

The catch would be as good. But not for them.

While the hope and happiness of the fishermen and their families fed the currents of Light, the Eater of the World floated in the water — and waited.

Ten fishing boats went out the next morning. Five returned home.

Fathers, sons, brothers. Dead.

The older men said they should have known something was wrong, with fish practically leaping into the boats to escape some danger hidden in the sea. But no one had imagined something out of the old stories coming to life. No one had considered the terror that would fill a man's heart when he saw tentacles as thick as masts and twice the length rise up out of the water and smash a boat into kindling. No one had considered the anguish of hearing a friend, wrapped in one of those tentacles, screaming as the life was crushed out of him. Or, worse, hearing bones snap before a man was flung into the sea, too injured to stay afloat for long or even swim toward another ship, but too close to the tentacles for anyone to risk trying to save him.

Because every time they had tried to save a man, another ship was lost.

So the survivors sailed back to the village, knowing they were leaving men to die. And the pain of that, the shame of it, smeared their hearts with so much hurt that the darkness of their grief seeped through the bedrock that protected their village, staining everything until a man only had to think of the possibility of bad luck to have it come true.

M
errill 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 m 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."

M
errill watched the shoreline as the sailors worked to bring the ship within the shelter of Darling's Cove. An odd name for such a practical-minded village of people, but it was said that the man who first settled there adored his beautiful wife. Fearful that water demons would become enamored with her and try to lure her too far into the water whenever she walked along the beach, he never called her by name when they were near the sea, only darling. Always darling.

But it was his darling who, it was said, had an unusual connection to the land and had created the secret place Merrill hoped would have what they needed.

"It's not too late," Shaela said, coming to stand beside Merrill. "We can still turn back, find another way to do this."

"We can't turn back," Merrill replied. "And it is too late — was already too late before we set foot on the ship. We're running out of time. I can feel it. If we don't find what we seek here ..."

What happens then?
she wondered.
Nothing? Everything? Are we set free by our failure, or are we doomed because we failed
to find the answer that would have saved us? And how am I supposed to know the difference?

"I'll be glad to get off the water," Shaela said. "The further south we've come, the more uneasy I feel."

"I know," Merrill whispered. "I feel it too. Like something knows we're out here."
Like there's a stain of evil on the water. It's
not here, not yet, but it's getting closer. Whenever I enter that still place where the Light within me dwells, all I have to do is think
about the sea, and the Light is diminished. Surely that's a warning.

"Getting into port this early in the morning, we'll have the whole day," Shaela said. "If the girl can provide us with what we need quickly enough, we can be sailing home with the evening tide." She slanted a glance at Merrill. "Unless you want to stay overnight."

"We won't be welcomed as guests," Merrill snapped, lashing out in response to the pain held in that truth.

"No," Shaela said quietly, "we won't. We're going to hurt both of them by coming here." She lifted Merrill's left wrist.

"Maybe you should have offered the bracelet as a gift instead of leaving it on a rock for a raven to snatch and take back to its nest."

"It felt like the right thing to do," Merrill said, as troubled now by the impulse to leave the bracelet as an offering to ...

something ... as she had been at the time she'd done it. But it wouldn't have been an appropriate gift since Brighid had given it to her in the first place. Had Shaela forgotten that? Or did she not realize what the return of a heart-friend's gift meant, that it was a permanent severing of a friendship?

She turned away from Shaela, wishing the task was behind them instead of something yet to be faced.

The ship anchored within easy distance of the cove's southern arm. The northern arm had wharves for merchant ships and fishing vessels; the southern arm grudgingly accommodated visitors. Piers jutted out from the land in such a way that rowed boats sent out from larger ships could discharge their passengers, but the stairs that connected the piers to the land above made use of what nature had provided, and the uneven lengths and heights of the steps were a punishment for anyone with a weak leg.

Shaela said nothing as they climbed the stairs, but it was clear her bad leg wouldn't hold up to the strain if they had to scramble around a hillside with the girl.

Maybe I could suggest she remain behind with Brighid,
Merrill thought, slipping an arm companionably through Shaela's — an unspoken apology for being snappish earlier and unobtrusive support as they made their way to the stables where a horse and buggy could be rented for the day.

She hadn't told the ship's captain the reason for this visit to Raven's Hill — or who she was visiting — but any man who sailed out of Atwater knew about Brighid — and why she no longer lived on the White Isle. So Merrill wasn't surprised when the men who had accompanied them as far as the stable didn't offer to go farther.

After paying the stable fee, Merrill climbed into the buggy, collected the reins, and made sure Shaela was comfortably settled before giving the horse the command to move forward. The cottage was no more than a mile outside the village proper, nestled at the bottom of the hill. It was in the center of a modest acreage that could have provided the family with a respectable living if there had been more than a girl and a woman to work the land.

She had visited twice before — once shortly after Brighid had settled into the cottage and again three years ago, when Brighid, on behalf of her niece, had requested that a Lady of Light come to Raven's Hill to test the girl.