A startled silence. Then Kenneday said, “Well, that would be a crap on the romance of it, now wouldn’t it?”
Lee leaned forward a little farther to look at Kenneday. “Welcome to our part of the world.”
Michael slapped his hands on his knees. “This is all well and good, and I’m willing to try my hand at spinning a story, but you’re all forgetting one thing. How are we going to get two of those Stones and how do we plop them in the lake where they need to go?”
Another silence. Or maybe the room was full of sound that he couldn’t hear. Because now he looked at Glorianna Belladonna, who said softly, “Ephemera, hear me.”
She didn’t leave the room to see what she had done. Neither did Lee. But he went out, along with Kenneday and Caitlin, and walked down the road that now ended at the shore.
The Sentinel Stones rose up midway between the shores. Huge, black stones Michael knew hadn’t been there a few minutes ago. Stones that were both guard and doorway to a place that didn’t want to be touched by the world.
“Lady of Light, have mercy,” Kenneday whispered.
“I’m thinking when you stand in this place, the person you should be asking for mercy is called Glorianna Belladonna,” Michael said. Because she can remake the world. He glanced at Caitlin Marie, who looked so young and scared as she stared at the Stones. He put his arm around her. “Come along. Let it go for tonight. I’m thinking tomorrow is going to be another long day.”
She turned and pressed her face into his shoulder. “I’m scared, Michael.”
He kissed the top of her head. “So am I, Caitie. So am I.”
Hearts full of dissonance, unhappiness, yearnings. Glorianna drank the tea, wishing it were koffee, and let the hearts of the two women in the room flow through her. One needed to stay; the other needed to go. But there were other things that needed to be done first, so she gave Lee a pointed look.
“You’re going to need a bridge,” Lee said. Seeing their blank faces, he clarified, “A connection to another landscape. You’ll need supplies, a way to purchase things you can’t make or grow. And you’re going to need strong backs to help with some of the labor. Even if we could have done it, which we can’t, Atwater wouldn’t have been the best choice. My sense of the place was that the people wouldn’t be open-minded enough right now to being connected to another landscape in that way.”
Glorianna waited for some response, but neither Brighid nor Shaela disagreed with Lee’s assessment.
“So,” Lee continued, “is there another village on the White Isle that might be a suitable host for a bridge?”
There were advantages to talking to people who weren’t familiar with landscapes and bridges, Glorianna thought. Lee had already said he couldn’t create a stationary bridge between Lighthaven and the White Isle, but they needed a starting point to begin searching for Caitlin’s garden, and that meant finding another community of people on the island.
Brighid and Shaela exchanged a look.
“There is Darling’s Harbor,” Brighid said reluctantly, “but the people there have always been a bit strange.”
“And they’ve gotten stranger,” Shaela murmured.
“How so?” Glorianna asked, trying to remain calm. Darling’s Garden. Darling’s Harbor. Couldn’t be a coincidence.
“For one thing, during my years here, their young people would show up before the summer or winter solstice and bring a gift, then say they were going to be journeying and would we hold them in the Light,” Brighid said. “They always struck me as a simple people who were supremely confident that they were exactly where they were supposed to be.”
Glorianna felt Ephemera’s currents of power brush playfully against her own currents. She sat up straighter. There was one explanation for an entire village of people feeling confident that they were where they belonged, and it had nothing to do with them being simple.
“This village wouldn’t have a pair of Sentinel Stones, would it?” she asked.
“It does,” Brighid replied.
Glorianna knew that Lee was watching her, adding up the pieces as fast as she was.
There was a resonating bridge in the village of Darling’s Harbor, and the people there used it to go journeying. Some of them must have crossed over into landscapes beyond Elandar. Maybe they weren’t simple; maybe they didn’t want to admit they knew more about the world than the people around them.
“Anything else you can tell us about Darling’s Harbor?” Lee asked.
“They’ve gotten stranger,” Shaela said, more loudly this time. “Two or three times a year, a pair of them comes to Lighthaven, cap in hand, and asks if we’ve had news about the Seer, did we know when the Seer was coming back. A few years ago, when a bad storm swept over the whole island, they came to say the Seer’s house had been struck by lightning and burned clean to the ground, and should they be waiting to build another. Then this spring they came back to say they had built a new house and it was ready for the Heart Seer and did we have news of when she was coming.”
Glorianna’s heart beat fast and hard. “When did this start? How many years ago?”
Shaela shrugged. “A few.”
“How many?” When both women stared at her uneasily, she set down her cup and struggled for patience. “This started twelve years ago, didn’t it? They started asking about the Seer twelve years ago.”
Shaela frowned, but it was thoughtful rather than annoyed. Finally she nodded. “Yes, I think it was a dozen years ago that this started.”
Brighid gasped.
Glorianna nodded and said, “That’s when Caitlin found Darling’s Garden, wasn’t it?”
“But Caitlin’s not a Heart Seer,” Brighid protested. “Besides, that garden was hidden somewhere on the hill behind our cottage. According to stories, the women in Devyn’s family had found it a few times in the years since Darling first came to live at Raven’s Hill.”
“Caitlin isn’t a Heart Seer,” Glorianna agreed, “but she is a Landscaper who is a descendant of the Guide who had shaped that garden. That’s why it appeared for some of the women in that family. It came to them because they were Landscapers who no longer remembered how to go to it.”
“The garden acts as a separate landscape that can be imposed over another place, like my island?” Lee asked.
“Yes.” Glorianna looked at Brighid. “That’s why no one else living in Raven’s Hill could find it. It only existed on that hill for Caitlin Marie. The rest of the time it was here, on the White Isle. Where it had been created.”
“Looks like we’re going to Darling’s Harbor,” Lee said. “I’ll talk to Kenneday when he gets back from staring at the Sentinel Stones, and see if he’s sailed to that village.”
“We’ll wait until morning.” She wanted a few hours to go back to her own garden and make sure there was no sign that the Eater of the World had found Its way into one of her landscapes. And she needed to talk to Nadia.
Lee looked disapproving, since he knew her well enough to figure out the reason for the delay, but he didn’t say anything. Not much he could say since she knew he wouldn’t be turning in early either but, instead, would be making notes about the possible landscapes that might be connected to the White Isle or Lighthaven.
Lee pushed out of his chair, then proceeded to stack cups and dishes on the tray. He lifted the tray and smiled at Shaela. “Could I give you a hand with the clearing up?”
Not subtle, Glorianna thought as she watched Shaela stumble over the veiled order to leave the room, but not as blunt as he might have been.
“Your brother has a way about him,” Brighid said when they were alone.
“That’s one way of putting it,” Glorianna replied, smiling.
Brighid didn’t return the smile. “I don’t know how to say this.”
“You don’t belong here.”
Brighid closed her eyes. “I don’t belong here. I should…but I don’t.”
When Brighid opened her eyes, Glorianna saw confusion, but there was no confusion in the yearnings that came from Brighid’s heart. This heart needed the Light—and more than the Light.