Belladonna

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 straighten. 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