She had lived nowhere else since, had known no other place. She had rarely traveled beyond the boundaries of Lighthaven in all the years that had passed since that girl had stood at the visitors’ gate and felt her heart soar at the sound of women’s voices raised in a ritual song. She didn’t regret the innocence that came from the lack of worldly experience. She wasn’t completely ignorant of what lay beyond the shores of this island—the world brushed against the White Isle often enough—but those things had never touched her, leaving her heart a pure vessel for the Light.
Now she wondered if that ignorance would doom everyone and everything she cared about.
“If the gardens give you no peace,” said a voice behind her, “do they give you answers?”
Merrill turned to look at her closest friend. Shaela never spoke of her life before coming to Lighthaven, had never once revealed what had driven a girl on the cusp of womanhood to steal a rowboat and try to make her way across the strait that separated the White Isle from Elandar. She had never said what had caused the blindness in her left eye or the slight paralysis of the left side of her face or the lameness in one leg.
There were scars on Shaela’s body that the years had faded but couldn’t erase completely. And there were scars on her heart that would never fade.
Because of that, there was always a shadow of Dark inside Shaela, but that shadow made her value the Light even more than the Sisters who had never been touched by evil.
“I feel the chill of winter,” Merrill said, turning back to look at the garden. “I dread the cold days and long nights that are coming because I can’t stop wondering if we’ll ever see the spring.”
Shaela sighed, an exasperated sound. “You’ve been chewing on this for over a month. You’ve been over the old records again and again and found nothing.”
“I found the old stories. They support the warning we heard.”
“That the Destroyer of Light, the Well of All Evil, has returned? You’ve been wearing yourself out because a voice—a man’s voice—came to you in a dream.”
“A warning,” Merrill insisted. “And a riddle.” She wrapped her arms around herself, adding quietly, “And we aren’t the only ones who heard the warning.”
“Can Brighid be trusted?” Shaela asked just as quietly.
“She was a Sister. Is still a Sister, even though she hasn’t lived with us since—” Sorrow welled up in her, as sharp as it had been sixteen years ago when she’d helped Brighid pack a trunk and leave Lighthaven in response to a young boy’s desperate plea for help.
“Since her sister, Maureen, sick in mind and heart, walked into the sea,” Shaela said.
“Yes.”
Brighid had walked in the Light, a shining beacon. But Maureen had been a bit wild, even as a girl. Instead of settling down with her man once she’d become a wife and mother, she got stranger, more twisted—until something inside her finally broke so much that she chose the sea’s cradle over her own children, leaving Brighid with the task of raising two children who had in them some Dark blood that gave them unnatural abilities to make things happen.
“Heart’s hope lies within belladonna,” Merrill said. “That’s what the voice said.”
“Belladonna is a poison,” Shaela replied. “What hope can be found in something rooted in the Dark?”
“I don’t know, but I can think of only one way to find out.”
Shaela remained silent for a long time. Then she lightly touched Merrill’s shoulder. “Writing to Brighid was one thing. But if you go to Raven’s Hill, you’ll open old hurts and leave fresh wounds.”
“I know.” The thought of it made her ache. “But if this danger is real, there is no one else I trust enough to ask for this kind of help.”
“When are you leaving?”
“There’s a ship leaving Atwater tomorrow morning. The captain has agreed to take me to Raven’s Hill.”
“You haven’t the skills to deal with the outside world.”
“Two men from the village are coming with me as escorts. They’re worldly enough, I think.”
Shaela sighed. “I’d better take care of the packing for the both of us. It’s not a long journey by sea, but you still won’t consider half of what you’ll need.”
An odd blend of alarm and relief flooded through Merrill. “You don’t have to leave the White Isle.”
Shaela spoke slowly, as if picking each word with care. “It’s best if I make this journey with you. Yes, I think it’s best.”
Merrill stared at her friend. “You believe the warning, don’t you?”
Shaela hesitated. “No, I didn’t. I didn’t—until you said you were leaving. Then I imagined you traveling by sea, and a sense of foreboding came over me. The Light within you will be a beacon in the dark. If you leave, you must succeed—and you must return or everything will be lost. I can’t shake the feeling that something will stop you from returning unless I’m with you.”
“Something’s coming,” Merrill whispered.
“Yes.”
“Something that can destroy the White Isle.”
“Yes.”
She squared her shoulders. “Then let’s make this journey—and hope the answer to this riddle is what we need to save the Light.”
Chapter Six
Merrill watched the shoreline as the sailors worked to bring the ship within the shelter of Darling’s Cove. An odd name for such a practical-minded village of people, but it was said that the man who first settled there adored his beautiful wife. Fearful that water demons would become enamored with her and try to lure her too far into the water whenever she walked along the beach, he never called her by name when they were near the sea, only darling. Always darling.
But it was his darling who, it was said, had an unusual connection to the land and had created the secret place Merrill hoped would have what they needed.
“It’s not too late,” Shaela said, coming to stand beside Merrill. “We can still turn back, find another way to do this.”
“We can’t turn back,” Merrill replied. “And it is too late—was already too late before we set foot on the ship. We’re running out of time. I can feel it. If we don’t find what we seek here…”
What happens then? she wondered. Nothing? Everything? Are we set free by our failure, or are we doomed because we failed to find the answer that would have saved us? And how am I supposed to know the difference?
“I’ll be glad to get off the water,” Shaela said. “The further south we’ve come, the more uneasy I feel.”
“I know,” Merrill whispered. “I feel it too. Like something knows we’re out here.” Like there’s a stain of evil on the water. It’s not here, not yet, but it’s getting closer. Whenever I enter that still place where the Light within me dwells, all I have to do is think about the sea, and the Light is diminished. Surely that’s a warning.
“Getting into port this early in the morning, we’ll have the whole day,” Shaela said. “If the girl can provide us with what we need quickly enough, we can be sailing home with the evening tide.” She slanted a glance at Merrill. “Unless you want to stay overnight.”
“We won’t be welcomed as guests,” Merrill snapped, lashing out in response to the pain held in that truth.
“No,” Shaela said quietly, “we won’t. We’re going to hurt both of them by coming here.” She lifted Merrill’s left wrist. “Maybe you should have offered the bracelet as a gift instead of leaving it on a rock for a raven to snatch and take back to its nest.”
“It felt like the right thing to do,” Merrill said, as troubled now by the impulse to leave the bracelet as an offering to…something…as she had been at the time she’d done it. But it wouldn’t have been an appropriate gift since Brighid had given it to her in the first place. Had Shaela forgotten that? Or did she not realize what the return of a heart-friend’s gift meant, that it was a permanent severing of a friendship?