He let her go, watched her run to the house. Even with her brother here, she wouldn’t leave without them. He didn’t think she would leave anyone, even kin, alone on this island. Not when that walled garden held the lives of so many.
“I’ve never heard her cry like that,” Lee said, coming up beside him. “I don’t think she has cried like that.”
“She’s cried like that before,” Michael said quietly. “But I’m thinking it’s the first time she’s let anyone witness the tears.”
“Maybe.” Lee stared at Michael, and the bewilderment of dealing with Glorianna’s tears gave way to a steely resolve. “She’s not like the other Landscapers. She’s more, and she was declared rogue because of it. Even now, with the world crashing down around us, the other Landscapers who survived won’t acknowledge her.”
“And you’re saying that if Caitlin and I learn from Glorianna, we’ll be tarred with the same brush?”
“That’s what I’m saying.”
Michael looked at Caitlin, who was hovering nearby, and thought about a young girl shunned by the other children, a young girl who had found something far more wondrous than she knew when she had discovered Darling’s Garden. And he thought about himself and his desire to hear the music in one woman’s heart rather than experience the bodies of many.
“Well, then,” he said. “Since I’ve never enjoyed dealing with fools, it’s lucky for me that I met up with you first.” He hesitated, remembering what Nathan had told him just before that monster rose from the sea. “Lee, if it can be done, I’m thinking it would be better to go to Raven’s Hill first. I’d like to check on my aunt, who was injured in a fire, and see the cottage to find out if anything remains.” Like a box of books that might provide some answers.
“Does your village have a beach?”
“Aye. Nothing grand, mind you, but enough of one for those who want to wade in the sea or look for shells.”
Lee nodded and looked at Caitlin. “Then I think we have a way to get to your village.”
Chapter Nineteen
For the second time in an hour, Glorianna stepped off Lee’s island. But this time she stood on a beach that wasn’t hers in a place that wasn’t anywhere she knew.
Not a comfortable place. Not a landscape that held a companionable resonance like she felt when she visited one of her mother’s landscapes. She couldn’t have reached this village by crossing a bridge. Her heart wouldn’t have recognized this place.
Which made no sense since this was Caitlin’s home landscape, and the girl’s resonance fit in just fine with hers and Nadia’s.
Caitlin doesn’t belong here either, Glorianna thought as the currents of power lapped around her like the waves lapped the beach. She’s a dissonance and…someone else is the bedrock. Someone’s heart anchors Raven’s Hill against the influence of a Landscaper.
She felt Caitlin come up beside her, heard Michael and Lee step off the island, but didn’t turn her head to look at any of them. How did one explain the delicate and courageous act of relinquishing a landscape to someone who hadn’t known there were landscapes until a few days ago? And it would have to be done with care since the Eater of the World already had some hold on this village.
Guardians of the Light and Guides of the Heart, show me the right path for what needs to be done.
The currents of power shifted around her, flowed through her, set things—
Wait!
—in motion.
Glorianna stood frozen, scarcely daring to breathe. She had been offering up that small prayer since she was a little girl. She had never been answered like this. Not like this. She had been thinking about Caitlin, but Ephemera had answered a different meaning to that prayer because here, in this place, it could.
Opportunities and choices. She would help Caitlin find her place in the world. In doing so, she would find the Guardians and Guides who could show her how to defeat the Eater of the World.
All she needed was the courage to follow the path.
“I’m grateful for the loan of the coat,” Caitlin said.
“Should have brought gloves,” Glorianna replied, shoving her hands in her pockets. She felt off balance, so she said nothing more, just turned to watch Lee light the two lanterns he kept on the island.
Caitlin rubbed her own hands briskly. “When the wind comes from the north, it does have a wicked bite.”
“That’s the breath of the ice beast,” Michael said, smiling. “He blows on the sea to create floes of ice so he can float down to the world of men and snatch a pretty maid to take back to his lair to be his wife.”
“Or to be his dinner if the maid doesn’t prove to be an interesting companion,” Caitlin added.
Glorianna shivered. A year ago, their words would have done no harm. Now…“Don’t tell that story to strangers.”
Lee swore softly. He, at least, understood. But Michael shook his head and said, “It’s just a story.”
“A year ago, it was just a story. Now there is something out there that can pluck the image of the ice beast out of a person’s mind and make it real. Change a story into truth. That’s what the Eater of the World does. It takes your fears and makes them real—until all that’s left in the world are the things you fear.”
She watched Caitlin’s and Michael’s expressions change as the import of her words took root. Caitlin looked unnerved, but Michael…For some reason, being reminded that stories could be more than stories had been a blow to his heart.
“Shall we go?” she asked.
“Here,” Lee said, handing a lantern to Michael. “Is it usually dark?”
“We got here ahead of the dawn,” Michael replied, looking at the sky. “Sun’s not up yet.”
“Ah.”
Lee had asked one question; Michael had answered another. This village was teetering on the edge of becoming a dark landscape, slipping over at times but always being pulled back toward the Light.
“But the sun was up when we left Aurora,” Caitlin protested.
“We’re in a different part of the world now,” Glorianna said. She touched Caitlin’s sleeve to get the girl’s attention. “Currents of Light and Dark flow through this place, although the Dark currents are a little stronger. Maybe because of things that have happened here recently.”
“Like boys setting fire to a cottage?” Caitlin muttered.
“Yes.” Glorianna studied Caitlin. What had she been doing by the time she was eighteen? What had she known by that age that this girl didn’t even begin to realize? “Can you feel their resonance? Can you feel the currents of Dark and Light?”
“I don’t know,” Caitlin whispered. “I’m standing next to you, and I feel…something…but I don’t know. I don’t think I’m allowed to do this.”
The girl has been stumbling through her life because there wasn’t anyone who could help her identify the sensations flowing all around her. She could have done so much harm if someone else’s heart hadn’t struggled to keep the village as balanced as it is.
“Take my hand.” She offered her hand to Caitlin. “I’ll show you the way my mother showed me.”
When you were learning to walk, Glorianna, you held my hand to keep your balance. Hold my hand again to learn another way of walking.
Caitlin gasped and tried to pull away.
“Don’t be afraid of it,” Glorianna said quietly, tightening her grip on Caitlin’s hand. “That’s the world you’re feeling. Ephemera flows through the heart, manifests the heart. Your heart. A Landscaper is the bedrock, the sieve through which all other hearts flow. Who she is becomes the resonance of a place.” Usually, she amended silently.
“But I can’t be good all the time. I can’t!”
“No, you can’t. There are shadows in every garden, Caitlin Marie. There is darkness in every heart. Even the Places of Light have slim currents of Dark flowing through them. No heart is purely one thing or another.” She felt a tremor of relief go through the girl at the same time that she thought, There is an answer in those words.