Anne Bishop - Belladonna

“They went home,” Michael muttered as he made his way down to the sandbox. “They all went home. Lady of Light, my thanks for small favors.” And it was a small favor, since they were all coming back tomorrow to finish the work.

He stepped into the part of the box that held the gravel, set a little clutch of violets on the sand, then sat down on the bench.

Those women were ferocious when they set their minds to a task. It scared him a little to see how well Caitlin Marie fit in with Nadia and Lynnea. And Aunt Brighid, whom he’d always thought of as a formidable woman, didn’t seem intimidating at all compared with those two.

“They mean well. It’s a small comfort to my aching body, but they mean well.” He took out his whistle and sighed. “Just you and me tonight, wild child. Sebastian is done in, so I sent him on home.” And part of that decision was the growing doubt that their efforts were making any difference. “If you could take that little clutch of flowers to the same place you took the basket, I’ll play a little while and then we’ll all get some rest.”

He waited. Felt nothing.

“Wild child?”

Ephemera finally answered his call, but the world wasn’t happy. He couldn’t prove it, but he suspected that the Dark currents in all parts of the world were a little swollen, and little bits of unhappiness were occurring to a lot of people—a lost brooch, a broken dish, a missing toy. Each thing wasn’t more than an extra drop of unhappiness, but all those extra drops eventually could change the tone of a family or a village.

“You can do this, wild child. I know you can.”

Gone. A flurry of notes that sounded in his mind like a child blaming him for some unhappiness, and Ephemera was gone.

He could think of one reason why the world would be unhappy with him. “Did something happen when you took the basket?”

No response. He couldn’t even do that much.

The violets looked sad in the waning light. A lover’s token, rejected before it was received.

Since he was playing for no one but himself, he played the music he called “Glorianna’s Light.” Then he played the music of love. The music that remembered the touch of her hand, the feel of her lips, the wonder of being inside her.

Tears slipped down his face, and his heart ached with the remembering, but he kept playing.

And never noticed when the little clutch of violets disappeared.

She picked up the little clutch of violets and felt the resonances that had names, faces, memories. Pretty little flowers with savage hooks that dug in and dug in until she wept from the pain of remembering those names, those faces. Screamed out the agony of wanting to touch those names, those faces.

Don’t belong there. Not anymore.

But the hooks dug in, dug in, dug in. And from the thin threads that were anchored in another landscape, Light flowed.

World? It whispered. World? Is there Light?

W orld? It whispered. World? Is there Light?

Ephemera flowed through the currents of the Island in the Mist. It did not listen to the Eater of the World. Would not listen. But the question, flowing from the currents in the forbidden part of itself, brought it back to the sandbox where the Music played with it every day.

A heart wish had flowed out of the forbidden place. Her heart wish. But the Music did not answer, did not ask the world to send the proper answer. The Music was still learning to be Guide. Maybe the Music did not know?

She had been the last one at the school who had talked to it, had played with it and helped it shape itself. Who had understood how to be Guide to the World. Unlike the others before her, when the Dark Ones had come, she had listened to it when it tried to save her. It had found Light, and she had followed.

It had found Light. And she had followed.

A break in the trees where a person could stand and see the moon shining over the lake. And there was the resonance called Sebastian painting a dark-haired woman who wore a gown that looked as substantial as moonbeams.

“This is where you belong,” he said. “This is where you should be.”

“I can’t.”

“You can,” the lover said as his arms wrapped protectively around her. “I traveled a long way to find the treasure in my heart. Don’t ask me to let it go.”

She felt him fade away, but the resonance that was Sebastian was still there, as strong as memories, as full of promise as a sunrise. And then…

Mist. And music. The bright notes of the whistle made her smile, and the drum heated her blood until her heart pounded with the rhythm.

The music dimmed, as if someone had shut a door, and she stood outside in the mist. His arms closed around her, pulling her back against the warmth of his chest.

She heard the drum in the beat of his heart, knew the bright notes of the whistle would be in his voice, in his laugh.

“I can hear the music,” she said. “I can hear the music inside you.”

The music flowed over her skin, sang in her blood, rang in the scarred hollow of her chest. She swallowed and tasted tears—and didn’t know if they were her own or someone else’s.

Better to sleep. Just sleep. The music was a good dream. She could follow that dream and slip away forever.

Except the Light was pouring out of the music, feeding the starved currents of this landscape. Waking the predators.

She rolled onto her side and forced gummy eyes open to look in the direction of the fountain.

Then she scrambled to her feet and stumbled toward the fountain and the patch of ground glowing with Light.

“No,” she moaned when she saw the heart’s hope growing out of the sand. “Oh, no.”

The size of the plant was stunning enough, but it was the flowers that made the heart ache in wonder. They ranged from white as pure as hope to the deep red of passion.

The Warrior of Light must drink from the Dark Cup. She remembered that now—remembered what she had done. The Warrior of Light must drink from the Dark Cup, and turn away from the Light forever. But the Light rang in her now. Rang, sang, pulled with the need to put two halves back together to make a whole.

Here here here , Ephemera called. This way.

She looked around. Her old garden. At the school. The one she had escaped from when the Dark Guides had tried to seal her in. Ephemera had come to her that day, too.

Heart’s wish! This way!

“Pushy little world,” she muttered.

She felt the change inside her. Had felt it starting when the resonances and memories set their hooks into her savaged heart. A tiny flicker of Light that held a promise. And music.

Just a step would take her between here and there. But…where? She was no longer sure who she was or where she truly belonged.

She stared at the heart’s hope—and remembered two men in a dream.

“Take it back,” she said firmly. “Take the heart’s hope back where you found it.”

Heart’s wish. Ephemera sounded wistful.

“When the heart’s hope is back where it belongs, I’ll go where you need me to go.”

Yes yes yes!

The heart’s hope disappeared, leaving only a square of sand in a nimbus of Light.

Something tugged at her from the access point Ephemera had created. Pulled at her.

She had a sudden image of a stretchy band pulled to its fullest. A big ball of Light was at one end; she was at the other. When the band snapped back…

“Guardians and Guides, this is going to hurt.”