Present
Clutching the penny, Lynnea crept toward the wish well. There was no one around at this time of night. No one would see her here and mention it to Mam, who said tossing coins into the wish well was a waste of good money. And Mam would be very angry if she even suspected Lynnea wished for something beyond what Mam thought she deserved to have—food, serviceable clothes, and a place to sleep.
Besides, if Mam found out she’d gone to the wish well, she’d have to explain where she’d gotten the coin, since she wasn’t allowed to have money. And since Mam searched her tiny, barren room several times a week to make sure she wasn’t hiding anything she was forbidden to have, she wouldn’t keep the penny for long.
So she had to come tonight, had to sneak out of the farmhouse after Mam, Pa, and Ewan had fallen asleep. You needed a coin in order to make a wish at the well, and there was no telling how long it might be before Mam bobbled the egg-money jar again, spilling a few coins on the kitchen floor. Mam’s sharp eyes hadn’t noticed the penny next to a leg of the kitchen table. But Lynnea had seen it—and had convinced herself that the sunlight coming through the windows at just that moment, casting the shadow that had hidden the coin, meant she was supposed to have the penny in order to have this one chance to make a wish.
Holding her hand over the wish well, Lynnea whispered, “I wish…” But there were so many wishes crowding up inside her, she didn’t know which one to choose. And all she had was a penny. Maybe you could get only a small wish granted if you dropped a penny in the well. But a small wish wasn’t what she wanted. What she really wanted…
I wish I lived in a different place. I wish I could have friends. I wish I could do things right instead of always doing the wrong thing, no matter how hard I try. I wish I could find someone special to love. I wish someone loved me.
Something strange and powerful washed through her, startling her so much her hand snapped open.
The penny dropped into the well, and the feeling faded.
Lynnea stepped away from the well, wiping her hands on her much-mended skirt. Then she glanced at the sky and felt fear—such a familiar sensation—ripple through her. The farmhouse was beyond the other side of the village. If she didn’t hurry, she wouldn’t get back before the others got up and discovered she’d been out.
Wondering if anything good would come from the risk she’d taken tonight, Lynnea lifted her skirt above her knees and ran back to the farmhouse.
Sebastian stood at the end of the alley. The colored pole-lights that gave the Den’s main street a festively decadent appearance barely touched the entrance, as if even created light didn’t want to enter that dark space.
He was a demon. This was his landscape. But he didn’t want to walk into that dark, didn’t want to see whatever was at the other end of the alley.
Didn’t matter what he wanted. The crowd that had huddled at the edge of the alley, waiting for Teaser to fetch him, simply watched him now. Humans and demons alike, they watched him.
Beside him, Teaser extended a hand and took the torch someone passed to him.
“I’ll go with you,” Teaser said, looking pale and sick.
“I too,” a voice growled. “Go with you.”
The crowd parted for the bull demon. Big, mean, and not too bright, they came to the Den to drink in the taverns and bellow at the dancing girls. The wickedly curved horns could gore a man, and despite the bovine cast to their features, it was said they ate raw meat…of any kind.
This one held a thick wooden club that ended in a ball filled with metal spikes.
Walking into a confined space with a bull demon that was carrying a vicious-looking weapon wasn’t something any sane person would do, so feeling relief at the offer told Sebastian better than anything else could how deeply he feared what had been found in the alley.
“Thank you,” Sebastian said. He closed his eyes for a moment, gathered his courage…and walked into the alley.
Something wrong here. The ground felt soft, fluid…as if it might ripple under his feet at any moment.
No. Hard-packed ground didn’t shift, didn’t ripple. He just felt sick, a little dizzy. Which was understandable considering what he expected to find.
As they walked forward, the torchlight finally unveiled the other end of the alley.
The three of them froze. The bull demon’s breathing suddenly changed, sounding harsh and wet.
The body of the succubus they’d found a week earlier had been bad. This one was worse. Much worse.
Female. So mutilated he couldn’t say if he’d ever seen her in the Den before, could barely say with any certainty that the thing spilled over the alley was female.
“Human,” Teaser whispered.
Sebastian jerked, breaking the awful hold the corpse had on him that had kept him staring at it. He looked at Teaser. “You recognize her?”
Teaser shuddered. “The bracelet. She always wears that wide gold bracelet. Has a rich husband. She’s a mean bitch who likes to play rough games in bed. Husband likes meat-and-potato sex, so she comes here to roll in the muck and do it naughty.”
She’s not going to do anything anymore, Sebastian thought, worried about the way Teaser talked as if the woman were going to sit up at any moment and laugh at them for being taken in by her hideous joke.
“Let’s—” Fear suddenly clamped icy hands around his spine. “Did you hear that?”
The bull demon waggled his ears and snorted. Sebastian had no idea if that meant yes or no.
The ground felt soft again, fluid again. And he would have sworn on everything he held dear that he heard a whisper of sly, wicked laughter coming from nearby.
He knew the Den. Knew these alleys as well as he knew the main streets. Something wasn’t right here.
“Let’s go,” he said, backing away from the corpse. Was there something moving up there on the walls? Something just beyond the torchlight? “Teaser, let’s go.”
The alley wasn’t long, but he felt as if he labored for hours to gain each step.
Halfway back to the street and the crowd. He turned and focused on Philo and Mr. Finch, two humans who had found their way to the Den and had settled in to stay.
Then he heard it. A faint scratching as something shifted on the wall.
He didn’t think. There wasn’t room inside him to think, not when he was certain that if he didn’t get out of that alley now, he’d end up like that woman. Or worse.
He sprinted for the mouth of the alley. Between one step and the next, the alley stretched like warm taffy, and the people waiting for him receded as the hard ground turned to sand that pulled at his feet, slowing him down. In another moment the alley would disappear and there would be nothing but sand, nothing but—
No! He was in the Den, in an alley. A short alley. Hard ground beneath him. Stone walls on either side of him. Teaser and the bull demon running just behind him. Familiar people waiting for him a few steps away. Just a few steps away. Just—
They burst out of the alley and were caught by the crowd.
His heart pounding, Sebastian spun around, deaf to the cries and questions of the humans and demons around him.
He’d almost slipped into another landscape. The alley had almost changed into another landscape. A terrible place…from which he would never return.
The certainty that something terrible had existed in that other landscape made his legs weak.
“I need a drink.” Now as desperate to get away from the crowd as he’d been to reach them, Sebastian shoved his way through the bodies and headed for Philo’s place.
Standing at the back of the alley, It watched the crowd follow the incubus like a herd of trembling sheep. On another night, It would have walked among them, looking like a well-to-do, middle-aged gentleman who had come to the Den for a little gambling, a little whoring. On another night, they would have looked at It and seen potential prey. The succubus It had killed a few days ago had certainly seen It that way. The human female stinking up the alley had been less convinced that another “human” could give her the same sensual thrill as an incubus. It had shown her It wasn’t human—and then It had shown her other things. Not that she’d been able to see most of them, since her eyes were one of the first pieces of forfeit.
Her fear had spilled out with the rest of her, a delicious feast of emotions, spiced at times with the hope that someone would see her, help her. Killing the succubus, a creature so diluted from the purebloods of her kind, had produced the first shivers of fear in the hearts of the people who lived in this place. But the human female’s terror, coaxed and nurtured in the few minutes It had taken to kill her, had seeped into the ground, changing the alley’s resonance into something It could use as a connection to one of Its own landscapes. Then It wouldn’t have to move through landscapes held by Its enemies in order to reach this hunting ground.
But something had fought Its attempt to shift the three males into the bonelovers’ landscape. They had almost crossed over, had felt the sand beneath their feet for a moment. But something—or someone—had been strong-willed enough to hold on to the alley and keep them in this place. Anything that strong was a rival to be eliminated.
But even a strong rival could be beaten if fear was molded into a sharp enough weapon.
It resonated, imposing Its will on the ground around It—forcing Ephemera to yield to Its desire.
Between the alley’s stone walls, the ground changed into rust-colored sand around the corpse.
It shifted form, Its large body changing color to match the stone while Its eight legs climbed the wall. Then It waited.
A few minutes later, the first bonelover appeared. Not long after that, the sand was hidden under a mass of glistening black bodies.
A little girl’s fear of ants had been the seed It had nurtured long ago, feeding that fear until the girl had been glutted with it, then hollowed out by it. Her terror, day after day, had pulsed through the land, giving It the power to reshape something small and natural into a nightmare come alive—a nightmare people called bonelovers because that was all that had been left of the little girl who had been their first prey.
Sighing like a sated lover, It watched the last bonelover disappear. Being simpleminded creatures, they couldn’t cross over into the alley. For them, the alley didn’t exist. But anyone on this side of that fluid border who could be lured or driven onto that sand would disappear into the bonelovers’ landscape—and never return.
It climbed down the wall, Its body changing as It touched the sand. As a bonelover, It raced across the sand to the access point It had created that would take It back to the enemies’ lair—the place they called the Landscapers’ School. It had found a safe place there, a dark place where It could hide while It anchored Its landscapes within other landscapes—and searched for the landscape where the Dark Ones now lived.
As for the humans and other creatures who lived in this hunting ground…When they came back for the female’s body, they would find sand instead of hard ground, an elegant dress that was now tattered rags, a wide gold bracelet…and clean bones.
Sinking into a chair, Sebastian braced his arms on one of the tables scattered around the courtyard of Philo’s place. His body shook, as if it comprehended something his mind couldn’t bring into focus.
Teaser, collapsing into a chair opposite his, looked just as sick, just as frightened.
What had happened in that alley? Glorianna had told him once that a person couldn’t cross over into a landscape if the heart wasn’t open to what it held, just like you couldn’t always get back to a landscape you’d known if something had changed inside you so that your heart no longer resonated with that place. When you crossed a resonating bridge, the borders and boundaries that defined the landscapes could become as fluid as a dream. The only constant in Ephemera was that it was ever-changing.
So what did it mean that he, Teaser, and the bull demon had almost stumbled into another landscape without crossing any kind of bridge? How could two landscapes meld so that you saw one fade as the other became dominant?
Nothing like that had happened in the Den before.
Philo, a short, round, balding man who served the best food in the Den, hurried up to them and clattered two whiskey glasses on the table. Sweat beaded his forehead, but his hands were steady as he poured drinks and pushed the glasses toward Sebastian and Teaser.
Teaser gulped down the whiskey. Sebastian, afraid to haze the edges of his mind and slip into nightmare, took a cautious sip.
The crowd gathered in the street just beyond the courtyard, but there were a few precious minutes of silence before Philo shifted from one foot to the other, drawing Sebastian’s attention.
“This is the second one in two weeks,” Philo said. “There is no demon race that kills like that. Nothing in the Den kills like that. That’s why, when we found this one, we asked Teaser to fetch you.”
Sebastian frowned. “I don’t understand.”
Philo and Teaser wouldn’t look at him. When he glanced at the crowd, none of them would look at him.
Finally Teaser asked softly, “Are we being punished, Sebastian?”
“How should I…” But he did know. Looking at the naked fear in Teaser’s eyes, he did know. He shook his head. “She wouldn’t do this. Belladonna wouldn’t bring something like this into a landscape.”
At the edge of the crowd, Mr. Finch made distressed chirpy noises.
Philo wrung his hands. “If we have done something to anger the Landscaper—”
“She wouldn’t do this!” Sebastian snapped.
Silence. Then Philo said, “Someone did.”
Keeping his eyes focused on the table, Sebastian sipped his whiskey, feeling the tug of conflicting loyalties. The Den was his home. He’d spent the past fifteen years living among these people. But every good thing that had happened in his childhood had come from Glorianna, Lee, and their mother, Nadia. Every happy memory from the years before he escaped his father for the last time had a connection to at least one of them.
And the year the wizards, those self-righteous pillars of law and justice, had tried to destroy the Den…
Six years after the Den was created, the wizards came with a Level Seven Landscaper whom they had convinced somehow to take over control of the Den and “balance” the landscape.
Sebastian stood on one side of the main street with Philo, Teaser, and Mr. Finch, watching the Landscaper take a position between the line of wizards and the line of residents, her hands slightly lifted, her head tilted back, her eyes closed. Then he stared at the wizards, at one in particular who finally met his bitter stare with eyes filled with hatred.
Demons were a blight on the world. Demons were a threat to humans. Demons had no place in Ephemera, and creating a haven for such vileness…The wizards hadn’t been able to prevent the Den’s creation, but now they were determined to put an end to it.
They could have done it anywhere. They could have picked a quiet place on the outskirts of the Den, wouldn’t have needed to go more than a few steps beyond the bridge they’d used to cross over into the landscape. It would have made no difference in terms of what the Landscaper could do. Instead, they marched into the Den’s main street, taunting the humans and demons who had gathered with the knowledge that their place in the world was going to be splintered beyond recognition. The changes were already in motion, and not even killing the Landscaper would have stopped what was to come.
Finally, when he felt something swirl around his heart and knew the Landscaper was tapping into the heart’s core of every creature that made a home in the Den, he looked away from the wizards and the woman and focused on the colored lights and the buildings and the small islands of dwarf trees and night flowers that could gather sustenance from the cold light of the moon instead of the sun’s warm glow. He wanted to remember the Den as it was in this moment—because when the wizards and Landscaper were finished, there was no telling what he and the others might be able to salvage.
The swirl faded. Everyone was silent.
Then the Landscaper, one of the most powerful of her kind, rubbed her arms as if chilled and took a hesitant step away from the wizards as she looked around. As they all looked around.
Nothing had changed.
“This landscape already has a signature resonance,” the Landscaper whispered. “A very powerful signature resonance. I’m…not welcome here anymore.”
“Stupid bitch,” Teaser whispered. “Did she really think she was welcome before?”
Sebastian just watched the woman, who looked more and more uneasy with each passing moment.
“Who controls this landscape?” the Landscaper asked.
The wizards didn’t answer her, so he did. “The Den belongs to Belladonna.”
She whirled around to face the wizards. “You didn’t tell me that.”
“It wasn’t significant,” one of the wizards replied.
“Are you mad?” she screamed. “No one touches one of Belladonna’s landscapes. No one!” Her voice broke on a sob.
Pity stirred in Sebastian. The Landscaper looked like a terrified child who suddenly realized all the bad things she feared were lurking in the dark spaces truly existed.
The wizards shifted uncomfortably. “Since there is nothing more to be done here, we will go,” one of them said.
“Where am I supposed to go?” she wailed. “There’s no safe place to go.”
The wizards stared at her in disgust. Then they walked away—and never looked back.
The Landscaper crumpled in the street.
Philo lifted his hands in a helpless gesture. “Perhaps—”
“Daylight,” Teaser muttered, looking up the street.
Looking in the same direction, Sebastian felt his heart jump.
She stood beneath one of the pole-lights, staring at the Landscaper. He walked forward to meet her, once again startled by the fact that this slim, lovely woman with green eyes so like his own and a river of silky black hair could do things to their world that terrified even the fiercest demons.
“Glorianna,” he said softly when he stood before her.
“Sebastian.” Her voice still held a hint of the country lilt that had enchanted him the first time he’d met her.
“I don’t think the Landscaper truly meant us harm.” He studied her eyes, looking for the fiery compassion he knew burned within her—and found only ice. “Judge her with your heart.”
“It is not my heart that will judge her, Sebastian,” Glorianna replied. “It is her own.” She swung around him and walked toward the Landscaper.
He caught up to her, walking close enough to make it clear he was with her, whatever she chose to do, and still keeping enough distance so that she knew he wouldn’t interfere.
They stopped a few paces away from the Landscaper, who made no move to get to her feet and face them as an equal. She just looked up at them, knowing no plea she made would change anything.
No one around them spoke. No one so much as shifted a foot while Glorianna and the Landscaper stared at each other.
Finally, Glorianna said, “Go back to your landscapes.”
The Landscaper scrambled to her feet, wobbled as she took a few steps away from them, then turned and ran in the same direction the wizards had taken.
Sebastian looked at Glorianna. The sadness in her eyes was so unexpected it made him ache. He knew she’d been cast out of the school, had been declared a rogue Landscaper. Lee had told him that much, but not why. Never why.
He sidestepped, bringing him close enough to nudge her with his elbow. “Come on. I’ll treat you to Philo’s specialties—Stuffed Tits and Phallic Delights.”
No sadness now. Just shock swiftly changing to the suspicious look she used to give him and Lee when they’d try to convince her that something preposterous could really be true. Of course, they’d all been young enough then not to understand that nothing was preposterous in Ephemera. Especially for Glorianna.
“Stuffed Tits and Phallic Delights,” she said. “And what might those be?”
He gave her a wicked grin. “Come with me and see for yourself.”
So they went to Philo’s, and when the plates were set before her, her laughter rang through the courtyard—and for a few hours, while they drank wine and ate the various offerings Philo placed before them, he saw her as the bright-eyed girl he remembered and not whatever being an outcast and a rogue was shaping her into.
Sebastian raised his glass, discovered it was empty, and reached for the whiskey bottle.
No one dared touch one of Belladonna’s landscapes. That was the lesson wizards, Landscapers, and demons alike had learned nine years ago. Which meant a Bridge had linked two landscapes recently, enabling a killer to cross over to the Den, or another Landscaper had managed to add something to the landscape—or Philo and Teaser were right and Glorianna herself had brought something into the Den.
Which he didn’t believe. Couldn’t believe. But if it wasn’t Glorianna…
“Could be a human,” Sebastian said.
Philo stiffened. Teaser looked at him, shocked.
“It could be a human,” he repeated. “A sick mind, or an evil one, that’s come to hunt in the Den because it’s a dark landscape.”
“Well, daylight! What are we supposed to do about that?” Teaser said.
The words lodged in Sebastian’s throat like sharp stones, while the whiskey churned in his stomach along with heart-deep revulsion. “We have to inform the wizards.”
“Guardians and Guides, Sebastian,” Philo sputtered. “You’d give those creatures a reason to come back here?”
“What choice is there? A human died here.”
“Humans have died around here before,” Teaser muttered. “They cross over, see a pretty horse that acts tame enough to give them a ride, and they’re in the lake and drowning before they understand a waterhorse has ensnared them. Or they follow marsh lights instead of keeping to the path that leads them home and end up the guest of honor at a Merry Makers feast. Or they figure a bull demon isn’t smart enough to notice if they cheat while playing cards.”
“It’s not the same thing,” Sebastian said. “Anyone who wanders through the dark landscapes that surround the Den is taking a chance of never getting home again. And anyone stupid enough to cheat a bull demon is asking to be gored. This is different. Besides, you said this woman had a rich husband, which means she probably has some status in her own landscape. Someone’s going to start looking for her when she doesn’t come back.”
“Maybe,” Teaser replied. “But she gave me a different name every time I saw her, and she never said which landscape she came from.”
“Which brings us back to informing the wizards,” Sebastian said, suddenly weary.
Philo said hesitantly, “Perhaps we should wait and ask the Landscaper?”
“No one knows how to find her,” Sebastian replied. Which wasn’t quite true. Aunt Nadia probably knew how to get a message to Glorianna, but he didn’t want to tell his aunt what was happening in the Den and see a horrible truth in her eyes: that Belladonna had sent that evil to walk among them.
“So that leaves the wizards, since we do know how to find those bastards. Besides, the Justice Makers are supposed to take care of this kind of…problem.” He looked at Philo and Teaser…and accepted that there really was no choice. “I’ll go.”
Teaser pushed back from the table. “I’ll try to convince a demon cycle to give us a ride.”
“Us?” Sebastian asked, surprised. “You’re coming with me?”
Teaser moved his shoulders in what was probably meant as a shrug but looked like an uneasy twitch. “As far as the bridge, anyway.”
Which was farther than he’d thought the other incubus would go. “I’ve got to go back to the cottage and pack a bag.” Even if the journey didn’t take more than one rising and setting of the moon, he’d still need a fresh shirt to wear when he presented himself to the bastards who lived behind their walls and rituals.
He borrowed Philo’s bicycle and rode back to the cottage as fast as he could. By the time he packed some toiletries and clothing, changed into the leather pants and jacket that would probably outrage the wizards but made him feel less like a supplicant, and walked out of the cottage, Teaser was waiting for him, straddling a demon cycle.
Like the motored carriages that had been invented in one of the big-city landscapes, the motored cycles had been unknown in the Den until a dozen men had crossed over a few years ago to cause some trouble and have a spree. They’d thought they were bad. They’d thought they were mean. They’d thought they were powerful—until they’d clashed with demons who were badder, meaner, and much more powerful.
The wheels were gone. So was the motor and whatever else had originally powered the cycle. The demons who had taken up residence in the cycles didn’t need those things.
The demon who inhabited this one stared at him with red eyes. Its pushed-in face and tufted ears made it look comical—if a person could ignore all the razored teeth, the powerful torso, the thick arms, and the fingers that ended with curved talons.
Satisfied that the other passenger was the person promised and not a potential meal, the demon flowed back into the hollow belly of the cycle until only its head stuck out of the hole that had once held a light.
Adjusting the straps of his pack so it settled comfortably against his back, Sebastian mounted the cycle behind Teaser.
Since the demons had the ability to float the cycles above the ground, they didn’t need roads, but this one followed the lane from the cottage back to the main street of the Den, then beyond the crowded buildings to the open countryside.
About a mile outside the Den, they stopped at a wooden bridge that crossed a stream.
There were two kinds of bridges. The stationary bridges linked one or more specific landscapes and were usually a reliable way of crossing over from one landscape to another. Resonating bridges allowed a person to cross over to any landscape that resonated with that person’s heart. Most of the time, focusing the will was sufficient to reach a particular destination. But there were other times when a resonating bridge ignored the will and listened only to the heart—and a person ended up in a landscape that wasn’t remotely close to where he intended to go. Which made traveling in Ephemera a gambler’s adventure.
And this was a resonating bridge.
Teaser looked over his shoulder. “Will this do?”
Sebastian took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “This will do.” It wasn’t as if he had a choice. There weren’t any stationary bridges that linked any of Belladonna’s landscapes to the landscape that held Wizard City.
He got off the demon cycle and walked to the edge of the bridge. He tried to clear his mind of everything but the need to reach Wizard City.
“Sebastian?”
He looked back.
Teaser shifted his shoulders, looking embarrassed. “Travel lightly.”
Heart’s Blessing. It warmed him to hear someone say it. “I’ll be back soon.” He hoped.
Wizard City. Wizard City. Other images tried to intrude—the feel of sand beneath his feet—but he chanted the words “Wizard City” under his breath as he crossed the bridge.
The land didn’t look any different, but the sky was now a predawn gray or the fading light of dusk. And when he looked back across the stream, there was no sign of Teaser or the demon cycle.
So. He’d crossed over. Now all he could do was hope he’d crossed over to the right landscape.
A rough cart path led away from the bridge. Settling the straps of his pack more comfortably on his shoulders, he followed the path to wherever it would take him.
Glorianna walked into the alley, then stopped and opened the lantern’s shutter to illuminate the ground as much as possible. One cautious step, then another. Always studying the ground, the walls, the shadows. When the light found the bones and the rust-colored sand, she stopped. Crouching, she touched a fingertip to the ground, then studied the grains of sand clinging to her skin. There were a few landscapes that had that color sand, but combined with clean bones…only one.
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.
You’re the answer to a wish, Mam said as she got down from the wagon. What’s your name, child?
Lynnea. I picked flowers for Mama, but she’s lost.
I’m going to be your mama now.
Mam picked her up and put her in the wagon. Not on the seat, but on the floor. Then Mam climbed into the wagon and slapped at the horse to make it run very fast.
Lynnea used her sleeve to wipe away the tears. She didn’t know if that was a true memory or just wishful thinking that changed Mam’s story so it didn’t hurt so much. Just as she didn’t know if she really remembered a man and woman calling her name, over and over, as if they were searching for her.
Didn’t matter now which story was true. It had all happened a long time ago. Sixteen years, in fact. She knew that because not long after she’d come to live with Mam, Ewan had his sixth birthday and Mam had baked a cake as a special treat. That evening, when she was getting ready for bed, she’d told Mam her birthday so Mam, who was her new mama now, would know what day to bake the cake.
But she didn’t get a cake for her birthday. Not that year, not any year. Because cakes took time and money to make. Cakes were for real children, not someone like her.
She no longer remembered when her birthday was. Didn’t want to remember. And she couldn’t remember how old she had been the day Mam found her by the road. But she knew it had been sixteen years ago because Ewan had turned twenty-two last week—and Mam had baked him a cake.
I wish I lived in a different place. I wish someone could love me.
Foolish wishes. Just like every other wish she’d ever made.
Wiping her eyes one last time, Lynnea began collecting the eggs.
Muttering to herself, Glorianna tromped down the lane toward Sebastian’s cottage. She’d seen him and Teaser zipping down the main street on a demon cycle, heading for the other end of the Den, but there hadn’t been time to call out. Sebastian had a pack, so he must be planning to cross over to another landscape for a visit.
Opportunities and choices. She’d missed the chance to talk to Sebastian, so another pattern of events would take shape. That was the way of the world. That was the way of life.
She had known from the moment she’d looked into the green eyes of a wary boy and felt his heart’s strong desire to belong in the nice house with the kind woman and the children who weren’t being cruel that her connection with Sebastian was different from her connection with Nadia and Lee. She had known, in a child’s instinctive way, that she and Sebastian would have a powerful influence on each other’s lives. She hadn’t known then that loving her cousin and wanting to help him would break the pattern of her life so completely, but…
Opportunities and choices. She had made the choice because of Sebastian, but it had been her choice. And even though she’d never been able to put the pattern of her own life back together in a way that made it whole, she didn’t regret her choice. Had never regretted her choice. Because it had saved him.
“Sebastian,” she said—and smiled.
A swell in the currents of power washed through her, leaving her breathless. She stopped walking, just stood in the middle of the lane while she absorbed the feeling that had touched her.
Heart wish. A powerful one. The kind that would send ripples through the currents of the world.
“Sebastian?” she whispered—and felt the heart wish wash through her again.
So. The heart wish had come from him. Maybe that was the reason for his urge to visit another landscape.
Despite what she’d seen in the alley—and her suspicions of how that particular landscape had been inserted into her own—she felt her heart lift. There had been so much possibility of Light in Sebastian’s heart wish. He’d had opportunities to leave the Den and cross over to another landscape, but he’d been blind to them because, despite wanting a change, he hadn’t been ready to change his life. Maybe this time he would follow his heart.
The Den wouldn’t be the same if he left, but the Den, too, had been changing over these last few years, so this might be the time for the man and the landscape to go their separate ways. A bad time, to be sure, but a Landscaper had no right to interfere with a person’s life journey, no matter the cost.
She started walking again, anxious to reach the cottage. Sebastian wouldn’t mind her bedding down on his couch for a few hours. She needed some time to rest. She needed the peace of solitude so she could think.
But when she got close to the cottage, another swell in the currents of power washed through her. This one was fainter, as if it were a ripple of something that had begun a long way away, but no less powerful.
Another heart wish. And something more.
Glorianna reached under her hair and rubbed the back of her neck to get rid of the prickly feeling.
For good or ill, a catalyst was moving toward the Den—a person whose resonance would bring change. And that change seemed to center on the cottage.
She went inside and hoped Sebastian hadn’t rearranged the furniture since her last visit. Feeling her way in the dark, she reached the couch without tripping over anything, dropped her pack beside it, then slumped in one corner, knowing that if she stretched out she would never make the effort to get up and rummage for something to eat.
Nothing to be done about the heart wishes or the catalyst. Things were in motion, but a hundred possibilities could change the pattern that might bring those heart wishes and the catalyst together. Right now she needed to think about the alley and a landscape that had been taken out of the world long ago and shouldn’t be able to touch the rest of Ephemera. And she needed to think about a possibility she didn’t want to consider.
Sighing, Glorianna rubbed her hands over her face.
Only one way to find out. After she got some rest, she would go to the Landscapers’ School and look at the forbidden garden, just to reassure herself that the Eater of the World was still contained behind a stone wall.