Anne Bishop - Belladonna

Until people discovered Caitlin’s link to the hidden garden, he had been the one the villagers didn’t want around because he had a power no one understood. But everyone knew what it did and what the person who wielded that power was.

A luck-bringer. An ill-wisher.

A Magician.

There was nothing wrong with Maeve’s hearing. And there would be nothing anyone could do to curb Doreen’s spiteful tongue. It wouldn’t matter if Maeve tried to soften the gossip. The damage would be done. By the time the next market day ended, everyone in Foggy Downs would know he was a Magician.

Some would hate him for it, and would blame him for any bit of trouble that came their way. And, in truth, he would deserve some of that blame. But he had heard of Magicians who had been killed in other parts of Elandar because it was so easy to bury them in the blame.

So he would leave Foggy Downs while the people still thought kindly of him. He needed to get back to Raven’s Hill anyway, needed to talk to his aunt as soon as he could.

Because of the dreams. Because of her .

That was the real reason he wouldn’t have been of any use to Doreen, even if he’d been willing. He didn’t want any other woman since he’d begun dreaming about her.

Long black hair. Green eyes. A beautiful face that he had never seen in the flesh. But he could feel the shape of her in his arms, breathe in the scent of her, taste the warmth of her. Hear the music of her heart.

That, more than anything, seduced him. He could hear the music of her heart. And it made him yearn for things he couldn’t put into words, except one: home .

Night after night, she filled him with hungers he thought would kill him if he didn’t satisfy them soon. And there was always someone or something whispering in his ear, “This is what you’ve searched for. This is who you’ve searched for.”

Deny it, defy it, reject it during every waking moment. It didn’t matter. Somehow he had fallen in love with the woman who haunted his dreams—a woman he’d never met and wasn’t certain even existed.

His aunt was the only person he knew whose training might provide him with an answer about the nature of these dreams, so he was going back to Raven’s Hill.

Stripping down to his drawers, Michael got into bed and was asleep within minutes. He didn’t dream about the woman; he dreamed about his aunt. She stood in front of the family’s cottage, holding out two plants.

One was called heart’s hope. The other was belladonna.

It found Its way to the sea. Taking the form of the well-to-do, middle-aged gentleman that had served It so well in other places, It spent a few days hunting around the docks and alleyways of the seaport. To Its delight, the brutal killings nurtured seeds of distrust and fear that sprang up whenever humans encountered someone who wasn’t exactly like themselves. Easy enough to hunt and then feast on the dark feelings shaped by terror—and then be the whisper in the back of the crowd, assuring people that anyone who wasn’t them must be evil.

Easy enough. But not as easy as It expected. There was strong bedrock around the docks of this seaport—a heart and will through which Ephemera manifested the emotions and wishes of other human hearts.

But what bedrock, what heart? It had destroyed most of the lesser enemies, the females called Landscapers and the males called Bridges. Through Its creatures, It controlled the school where the enemies had gathered, turning their place into one of Its own landscapes. Now the few Landscapers who had survived were contained in whichever landscapes they had fled to, leaving all the other landscapes in their care vulnerable to Its influence.

But this bedrock did not have the resonance of a lesser enemy. And it didn’t feel like the True Enemy, the one called Belladonna. This was something other, something different.

A new kind of Enemy.

It had touched the resonance of this Enemy in two other places in this part of the world. It would recognize that heart now if It found the resonance in another place.

But if It could recognize the Enemy, could the Enemy recognize It, find It ?

As that thought took shape and grew stronger, It lost Its pleasure in the hunt. It didn’t want to be found until It was ready to be found—until It had destroyed the Place of Light the True Enemy hadn’t yet hidden within her landscapes.

It left the seaport and flowed steadily north, a shadow beneath the waves. When It wanted to feed, It changed into the form that belonged to the sea, swelling Its size to be able to hunt whatever creatures were available.

Then It stopped at a fishing village, hungry for more than the flesh It could find in the sea. Slipping into the human minds through the twilight of waking dreams, It found a fear that matched Its sea shape. A diminished fear; a safe fear that produced no more than a delicious shiver. Because the thing that was feared was nothing more than a story now, wasn’t believed to be real.

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.

Merrill 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.