Anne Bishop - Sebastian

So this was the source of the dissonance she had felt when she’d walked through her private garden to check on her landscapes. She’d felt a ripple of uneasiness a few days ago and had intended to visit the Den and talk to Sebastian, but there had been stronger ripples of dissonance in two other landscapes. She’d crossed over to check on the disturbances in those landscapes but had found nothing unusual, so she’d decided a wizard must have been passing through those places, since their presence always created a dissonance in her landscapes. By the time she’d returned home, the ripple that had disturbed the Den had disappeared.

Until now.

She rubbed thumb against finger until she was absolutely certain she was clean of every grain of sand. Then she rose and carefully backed away.

Glorianna, these past few nights I’ve had dreams full of disturbing images, and a…sense…that something old, something evil is swimming beneath the surface of the world.

I know, Mother. I’ve had the same dreams.

She went back to the mouth of the alley, opened the pack she’d left there, and took out a jagged piece of stone. Then she walked back into the alley and carefully studied the ground, looking for the grain of sand farthest away from the bones. Setting the stone on top of the last grain of sand, she called to the world.

Ephemera, hear me.

The currents of Dark and Light power that flowed through the Den mingled with the currents of Light and Dark inside her while the world waited to manifest her will.

Take the sand before me and send it deep into the place of stones. Let the sand have the bones. They belong to that landscape now. Let nothing remain here that does not come from my heart.

She felt the currents of Dark power flow into the alley, along with a thread of Light. She watched the sand and bones disappear, along with the jagged piece of stone that would act as the anchor point connecting the place of stones to the bonelovers’ landscape.

She watched Ephemera manifest her will, responding to her in ways it responded to no other Landscaper.

Her resonance filled the alley once more. But there was still a tingle of fear where the blood had seeped into the ground, and that fear would linger, smearing the heart of every person who passed the alley.

She felt a playful tug from the currents of Light. Before she could respond and impose her will, shoots pushed up from the hard-packed ground, rapidly growing into lush, dark green leaves. Within a minute, the blood-soaked ground was covered in living green.

It was an awkward place for plants to grow, to say the least.

There’s no light here. Even moonlight won’t reach the plants. They can’t survive here.

The Light would give them what they needed. And seeing them would make the hearts happy. Wouldn’t it make the hearts happy?

Ephemera was alive, but it didn’t have an intelligence of its own. At least, it didn’t think in a way that people would consider intelligent. But long ago, Ephemera had harnessed itself to the human heart, and it constantly made and remade itself in response to those hearts. Since it responded to her heart over any other in her landscapes, the plants must have been Ephemera’s response to her desire to somehow soften the violence that had filled the alley.

She sighed, but she also smiled—and wondered what the Den’s residents would say when they discovered the greenery.

Stepping out of the alley, she picked up her pack and looked around. She could spare an hour or two. Might as well take a stroll along the main street and listen to the hearts of the Den’s residents before she went searching for Sebastian.

Lynnea slipped into the dark kitchen. But as she breathed a sigh of relief, she heard the scuff of a slipper, felt the stir of air before the heavy leather strap hit her across the back.

She cried out, but softly, knowing the punishment would be worse if she made any noise that was loud enough to wake up Pa or Ewan.

One of Mam’s strong hands grabbed her hair, yanking her head down to hold her in place, while the other hand worked the strap with brutal efficiency up and down her back, buttocks, and thighs.

“Trollop,” Mam hissed. “Slut. Whore. You think I don’t know what you’re up to?”

“I didn’t do anything bad. I just went for a walk.”

“I know what kind of walk girls take when they slip out of the house at night. I didn’t take you in and raise you up so you could run off and keep house for some man. As if something like you deserved to have a husband and children. You’re nothing but trash abandoned by the side of the road. Just trash I took in out of the goodness of my heart, hoping I could raise you up to be a decent girl. But you were born trash, and you’ll always be trash. Should have left you to die. That’s what I should have done.”

“I just went for a walk!”

The protest made no difference. The words and the blows continued until Mam had said what she wanted to say. Until Lynnea’s back ached unbearably from the strap and her heart felt scoured by the words.

Then a creak of a floorboard upstairs had Mam giving Lynnea’s hair a final yank before she stepped back.

“The man’s up. Get out to the henhouse and fetch the eggs.”

Lynnea shuffled over to the wooden counter next to the kitchen sink. Her hands shook so badly, she spilled the matches all over the counter when she opened the matchbox to light the lantern.

Cursing quietly, Mam grabbed the box and lit the lantern’s candle. “Useless. That’s all you are. A waste of time and money. Git out there now. Git.”

Taking the lantern, Lynnea moaned as she bent down to pick up the egg basket.

“And don’t you be whining and moaning,” Mam said. “You got less than you deserve, and you know it, missy.”

Another floorboard creaked.

Lynnea left the kitchen as fast as she could. If Pa came down and realized something was wrong, things would get worse. Much, much worse.

But when she got to the henhouse and hung the lantern on the peg by the door, she just stood there, staring at the sleepy hens.

This was her life. Nothing but this.

She couldn’t remember her life before the farm. Didn’t have her own memory of how she’d come to live with Mam and Pa and Ewan, just Mam’s story about finding a little girl abandoned by the side of the road.

I found you by the side of the road, and I can put you out again just as easily, and don’t you forget it, missy. You earn your keep or you go back to the road with nothing more than the clothes you’re wearing—just like I found you.

There had never been any kindness in Mam. She seemed to love Ewan and Pa in a cold sort of way, but she’d never shown even that cold kind of love to the little girl she’d taken in. Maybe she’d longed for a daughter of her own and that was the reason she’d stopped that day to pick up an abandoned child.

Why didn’t matter anymore. Every mistake—and a child could make so many—had been followed by the threat of being taken down the road and abandoned again. She’d never felt safe, had lived in fear that this would be the day she would make the mistake that would end with her being tossed out like a used-up rag.

And yet, when she tried to remember that day on her own, she remembered it differently. She could feel herself as that little girl, happy and full of anticipated pleasure as she roamed the edges of a clearing and then followed a path in the woods, picking flowers for her mama. When she came out of the woods, she was standing on the edge of a road, holding a double fistful of flowers. And her mama had gotten lost.

Then the lady, Mam, came by with the horse and little wagon. She stared at Lynnea, who was trying to be brave and not cry because her mama was lost.