Anne Bishop - Belladonna

Simple minds. Simple creatures. It had nothing to fear from these things. It had no enemies in this landscape.

The male who had escaped It was dangerous. The male had powers that made It uneasy because those powers stirred old memories too vague to be useful and too strong to be dismissed.

Not quite like the True Enemy, whose resonance had filled the male’s heart, allowing him to pull away from the Eater’s landscapes. No, not like the True Enemy…but like the Old Enemy. The ones who had locked It inside Its landscapes.

But It was safe here. The male could not swim so deep to find It here. And the True Enemy did not know how to find It within Its own landscapes.

It was safe here. It would eat and rest. Then It would go back to the landscapes filled with busy human minds. It would listen to the fears revealed in the twilight of waking dreams—and It would take more things from the natural world and shape them into nightmares. Fear would have a name and become stronger for the naming.

Fear already had a name: The Eater of the World.

Pleased that It had remembered this, It left the cave. The Landscaper It had ensnared in the bonelovers’ landscape was probably nothing more than bones by now, but bringing those bones back to the cottage beside the hill would create more shadows in the people living in that village.

Especially in the hearts that would be pleased to see the bones.

Caitlin ran across sand that never ended toward a horizon that never changed. Light filtered through the bruise-colored sky, but she couldn’t find the sun, so she had no way to tell which direction she was heading, and the only assurance she had that she wasn’t walking in circles was the fact that she hadn’t crossed her own footsteps or the lines and squiggles she occasionally made in the sand with the hoe handle for the sole purpose of showing herself where she had been just in case she was walking in circles.

Feeling the stitch in her side flare up again, she slowed to a walk, breathing hard, craving water. But when she looked back, she saw the dark shapes heading toward her. Closing the distance.

Can’t, Caitlin thought as she stabbed the hoe handle into the sand and leaned on it. Can’t run anymore. Need water, need rest, need a way out of this place, need…help. Lady of Light, I need help.

She looked toward the horizon and let out a sobbing laugh. More dark shapes. More of those creatures coming for a feast. Coming for her.

Caitlin closed her eyes.

Even if she could continue to outrun them, what would be the point? Survival? For what? There was no food, no water. She was going to die here, one way or the other. And even if she could get back to Raven’s Hill with a snap of her fingers, living there wasn’t much better than being lost in this place. Yes, she had Aunt Brighid and the garden, but her life was as barren as the sand.

I don’t want to go back to Raven’s Hill. And I don’t want to die here. I need help.

The ground beneath her vibrated like she was standing on a giant tuning fork.

Her eyes popped open and she twisted her torso to look around, not daring to move her feet.

A long step away from her was a heart’s hope plant, so tiny it could barely support the single bloom.

Her breath caught. Her heart rapped against her chest. And she remembered what she had done in the meadow, what she had said.

Maybe, she thought. Maybe.

She glanced around. The dark shapes were getting closer. Couldn’t think about that. Couldn’t think about anything but what Ephemera could do.

Shifting until she stood a shoulder-width from the heart’s hope, Caitlin bent at the waist and held out the hoe handle with both hands. She rested the broken end on the sand; then, using herself as the center point, she drew a circle in the sand.

“This is my place,” Caitlin said as she drew the circle. “Within the bounds of this circle is a place of Light and hope. My heart dwells within the bounds of this circle, and creatures of the Dark are not welcome here. You cannot touch this ground. You cannot touch me.”

As she closed the circle and began tracing it again on the sand, she felt the world beneath her feet become soft, fluid.

Come on, Caitlin Marie, think about what you need here while you have the chance to get it.

Water. Food. A place that wasn’t this place.

As she finished the second tracing of the circle and began the third, she saw the creatures running toward her, and her focus almost snapped. But she held to the thought that she was safe inside the circle. She had to believe that. Had to.

The world beneath her feet was no longer soft. Whatever Ephemera could do had been done.

Caitlin bit her lower lip to hold back a cry of despair. No food, no water. Nothing but the tiny heart’s hope within a circle sketched in the sand.

She widened her stance. Shifted her hands on the hoe handle for a better grip.

Then she watched as the ant creatures reached the circle and disappeared, reappearing on the other side of the circle moments later. They didn’t go far before they began milling around, searching for something.

Caitlin slowly lowered her arms, letting one end of the hoe rest on the sand.

The creatures couldn’t see her, couldn’t sense her. Couldn’t find her. She was close enough to that awful place to see it—and them—but she was no longer there .

She sank to her knees and watched the ant creatures.

Slowly, she noticed the difference in the sand—and the difference in the air, which smelled of fish and seawater. Within her circle, the sand was no longer rust-colored. Scooping up a handful, she let it sift through her fingers until all that was left was a small shell like the ones she used to bring home when Michael took her for a walk on the beach.

She had done this much. Maybe after she rested a bit, she could try to shift herself from this little patch of Raven’s Hill beach to her garden.

She waited until they were gone, having accepted that their prey had somehow escaped. Then she stretched out beside the heart’s hope and gently brushed a fingertip over the bloom.

She didn’t have food or water, and she would be in desperate need of both very soon. But she was safe from the creatures, and even though she didn’t know how to take the next step, she had gotten back to the part of the world she knew. For now, that was enough.

It found the remains of the young male—one of the three boys whose hearts had embraced Its whispers to harm the Light that lived in the cottage. But It couldn’t find the Landscaper. She was here but not here. It could feel the resonance of the current of Light that had formed in the bonelovers’ landscape because of her presence, but It couldn’t find her .

A spot in the sand. Nothing there—and yet something there. This had the same there/not there feel as the garden hidden on the hill behind the cottage.

She was strong, but she had seemed unskilled, like the young ones at the Landscapers’ School, who had been so easy to kill. But she had known how to escape from one of Its landscapes. No one had escaped from Its landscapes before.

At least, not until that incubus had managed to elude Its attempt to bring him into the bonelovers’ landscape. The incubus lived in the Den, one of the True Enemy’s landscapes.

Then the male who had fought It at the village where the Landscaper lived. He had broken free by resonating with the True Enemy’s heart.

And this young female was somehow connected with the True Enemy because of the Place of Light they had taken away from It.

These human creatures were all connected to her, to Belladonna…the True Enemy. It couldn’t reach her landscapes. Even when It felt the male crossing over and tried to hold on to him, It had been pulled away to one of Its own landscapes. If the Landscaper found a way into one of Belladonna’s landscapes, It wouldn’t be able to reach her, either.