Belladonna

hard-boiled yesterday, then took his cup of koffee and a thick slice of bread and butter out with him. He didn't look at the walled garden, didn't even consider going in. Not yet. Instead, he went to the new bed that held his heart's hope and the belladonna.
    "Wild child," he called softly. "Ephemera, can you hear me?"
    It heard him, but he sensed a resistance, almost as if it feared what he might ask of it. Did the world know what she intended to do?
    "Listen to me, wild child. Don't let her Light scatter. Find a place for it where it can be cherished and kept safe."
    Ephemera didn't understand. Not yet.
    Door of Locks. Stories and spirits and keys. He'd chosen a lock, based on dreams of a black-haired woman he'd fallen in love with before he'd truly seen her face or heard her voice — or known her heart. But she, as Guide and spirit, had used that key in his heart to open the door and show him a life he couldn't have imagined. Because he hadn't known the possibility of being accepted for what he was had existed.
    He ate the bread and drank the koffee. He washed the dishes and the perk pot. He repacked his clothes into the big pack, then took them out and put them in the smaller travel pack. A change of clothes, a canteen, and his whistle were all he needed right now.
    He slipped one of the one-shot bridges Lee had made for him into his coat pocket. The others, wrapped in scraps of cloth and stored in a drawstring pouch, he tucked into the pack.
    Give me enough time. Magician, she had said. I couldn't bear it if someone else was caught when I altered the landscapes.
    He waited while the minutes crawled by. When the sun had risen high enough that he could be reasonably sure that the folks in Aurora would be up and about, once he actually got there, he picked up the travel pack and left the house. As he followed the path that would lead him to the river, he slipped his hand in his pocket, mapped his fingers around the one-shot bridge — and crossed over to the Den of Iniquity.

    *
An abandoned garden. A small plot of ground compared to what she had ended up creating on the Island in the Mist, but it had been hers once, and there was just enough of her resonance left for her to take the step between here and there, to cross over to this closed piece of ground. Safety first. It would all be for nothing if the Eater's creatures killed her before she finished her task.
    Afterward ... Maybe it would be a blessing afterward.
    Sixteen years ago, the Dark Guides had tried to seal her in by poisoning her mind. If they had succeeded she would have altered the landscapes to create a smothering cage, and never would have realized she had been the instrument they had used to destroy her, never would have realized it was her power and not theirs that had chained her to a barren existence.
    Now she was going to do what the Dark Guides had failed to do. Now she was going to do much more than they had intended to do.
    Much more.
    "Ephemera," Glorianna Belladonna said softly, "hear me."

    *
The Eater of the World, in the form of an elegantly dressed, middle-aged gentleman, stepped onto the rust-colored sand that spilled out of the back of a smelly alley. Its mouth fell open in astonishment. Its eyes widened in shock.
    A dissonance in Its landscapes! New, strange flavor's of Dark — and delicious ripples of Light that winked out. Then It felt Ephemera manifest a will, obey a heart It felt the ripples of that command in the currents of power that flowed through the world.
    Then It felt...
    It looked down at the sand beneath Its feet. "No, It whispered. "The bonelovers are mine. That landscape is mine!"
    But some sly, dark heart had slipped into Its landscapes and stolen the bonelovers' landscape by altering the resonance just enough to shut It out. Something had shut It out of a landscape It had made.
    Thief!
    It staggered back a step, braced a hand against a dirty wall.
    She walks in the gardens, a voice, harsh yet oddly melodious, whispered through the currents of the world. She walks in the gardens, stealing all your work, all your nations. All your puny little creations. Boo, hoo. Boo, hoo. Poor little Enter, not have enough to do anything but hide. She already controls the Light. Where will you go, little Eater, when she rules the Dark?
    Ragged breaths as the body trembled. Fear and rage as It considered the message in those whispers.
    The True Enemy had come to the Landscapers' School. Was in the Landscapers School, taking Its