Belladonna

Aunt Brighid had expected Merrill to show up, but Brighid had understood why Merrill was asking for these particular plants.
    Caitlin transplanted the belladonna — and shivered as if she'd suddenly stepped into a deep, cold shadow.
    Something important. And I'm part of it.
    Following impulse, she loosened her braid of waist-length brown hair. She pulled out two hairs, wrapped one around the base of each stem at the dirt line, then added a little more dirt to hide what she had done.
    She wasn't welcome at precious Lighthaven, but she would be part of whatever ceremony the Ladies of Light performed with the plants.

    *
Humming a folk tune that was currently popular in one of her landscapes, Glorianna headed for her walled garden, a basket of gardening tools in one hand and a watering can in the other. When she and her mother, Nadia, had ganged up on her brother Lee to insist that he take one day out of each seven-day for rest and renewal, she hadn't expected him to surrender so quickly — and she hadn't expected the two of them to then turn on her and make the same demand! But, like Lee, she had been working too hard, pushing too hard. That had been understandable when the threat of the Eater of the World finding a way into her landscapes had been so immediate. After all, It had found Its way into two of her dark landscapes. But there had been no sign of It for weeks, and while the danger to Ephemera hadn't lessened, there was less she or Lee could do until they found some sign of where It had gone.
    So today was for pleasure and, for her, that pleasure meant tending the earth, not as a Landscaper who was always vigilantly aware of the balance of Light and Dark currents that flowed through her landscapes but as a woman performing the simple chore of looking after her plants and cleaning out the weeds.
    Even here on her small island, the autumn day was unseasonably — and delightfully — warm, so she wore an old pair of trousers she had cut off just below the knees and one of Lee's old cotton shirts — with the sleeves cut short — that her mother would have thrown in the rag basket if Glorianna hadn't snuck it out of the family home after deciding it was perfect for warm-weather gardening. Her shoes were worn at the heels and so broken-down that her striped sock poked up through a hole in the toe, and her black hair was bundled up under a battered straw hat whose ribbons fluttered in the light breeze. Nadia called it her urchin attire, but the garden — and Ephemera itself — didn't care if she was fashionably dressed and looked pretty.
    No one really cared how she dressed or if she ever looked pretty.
    If I ever fall in love, she'd told Lee once, it will be with a man who can see me dressed like this and still think I look beautiful.
    Of course, the man would have to overlook the fact that she was a rogue Landscapes and was feared and reviled by all the other Landscapers who protected their world.

    "If you want romance, my girl, read a book," she muttered as she unlatched the gate and gave it a bump with her hip to swing it open enough to slip inside. "That's the only place you'll find a man with enough heart to stand by someone who can control Ephemera like you do." Like no other Landscaper, not even her mother, could do.
    Then she froze, all thoughts of a pleasant day in the garden and imagined romance forgotten, as the shock of what brushed against her senses caused her to drop the watering can and basket.
    "Guardians and Guides," she whispered.
    A dissonance in her garden. Something here that didn't belong. Something that didn't resonate with her.
    She plucked the short-handled hoe and tines from the basket, wanting something she could use as a weapon. A quick look around convinced her there was nothing out of order in the beds closest to her, so she closed her eyes and steadied her breathing.
    Her garden covered almost two acres of land, but what it represented was the safety and well-being of thousands of people who lived in the landscapes in her care. She had to find the dissonance and weed out the source before it contaminated everything.
    Despite her vigilance, had the Eater of the World found an anchor point in one of her landscapes that connected with this garden? Had It burrowed in somewhere like a dark, malevolent weed, waiting until she got close enough before unleashing one of its nightmarish creatures in hope of destroying her?
    Then she felt Ephemera stirring, trying to align itself to the