Belladonna

the sand; then, using herself as the center point, she drew a circle in the sand.
    "This is my place," Caitlin said as she drew the circle, "Within the bounds of this circle is a place of Light and hope. My heart dwells within the bounds of this circle, and creatures of the Dark are not welcome here. You cannot touch this ground. You cannot touch me."
    As she closed the circle and began tracing it again on the sand, she felt the world beneath her feet become soft, fluid.
    Come on, Caitlin Marie, think about what you need here while you have the chance to get it.
    Water. Food. A place that wasn't this place.
    As she finished the second tracing of the circle and began the third, she saw the creatures running toward her, and her focus almost snapped. But she held to the thought that she was safe inside the circle. She had to believe that. Had to.
    The world beneath her feet was no longer soft. Whatever Ephemera could do had been done.
    Caitlin bit her lower lip to hold back a cry of despair. No food, no water. Nothing but the tiny heart's hope within a circle sketched in the sand.
    She widened her stance. Shifted her hands on the hoe handle for a better grip.
    Then she watched as the ant creatures reached the circle and disappeared, reappearing on the other side of the circle moments later. They didn't go far before they began milling around, searching for something.
    Caitlin slowly lowered her arms, letting one end of the hoe rest on the sand.
    The creatures couldn't see her, couldn't sense her. Couldn't find her. She was close enough to that awful place to see it — and them — but she was no longer there.
    She sank to her knees and watched the ant creatures.
    Slowly, she noticed the difference in the sand — and the difference in the air, which smelled of fish and seawater. Within her circle, the sand was no longer rust-colored. Scooping up a handful, she let it sift through her fingers until all that was left was a small shell like the ones she used to bring home when Michael took her for a walk on the beach.
    She had done this much. Maybe after she rested a bit, she could try to shift herself from this little patch of Raven's Hill beach to her garden.
    She waited until they were gone, having accepted that their prey had somehow escaped. Then she stretched out beside the heart's hope and gently brushed a fingertip over the bloom.
    She didn't have food or water, and she would be in desperate need of both very soon. But she was safe from the creatures, and even though she didn't know how to take the next step, she had gotten back to the part of the world she knew. For now, that was enough.

    *
It found the remains of the young male — one of the three boys whose hearts had embraced Its whispers to harm the Light that lived in the cottage. But It couldn't find the Landscaper. She was here but not here. It could feel the resonance of the current of Light that had formed in the bonelovers' landscape because of her presence, but It couldn't find her.
    A spot in the sand. Nothing there — and yet something there. This had the same there/not there feel as the garden hidden on the hill behind the cottage.
    She was strong, but she had seemed unskilled, like the young ones at the Landscapers' School, who had been so easy to kill.
    But she had known how to escape from one of Its landscapes. No one had escaped from Its landscapes before.
    At least, not until that incubus had managed to elude Its attempt to bring him into the bonelovers' landscape. The incubus lived in the Den, one of the True Enemy's landscapes.
    Then the male who had fought It at the village where the Landscaper lived. He had broken free by resonating with the True Enemy's heart.
    And this young female was somehow connected with the True Enemy because of the Place of Light they had taken away from It.
    These human creatures were all connected to her, to Belladonna ... the True Enemy. It couldn't reach her landscapes. Even when It felt the male crossing over and tried to hold on to him, It had been pulled away to one of Its own landscapes. If the Landscaper found a way into one of Belladonna's landscapes, It wouldn't be able to reach her, either.
    But there were Dark hearts in every landscape, and It could always reach them.
    And one of them would be able to find Belladonna's companions — and destroy them.

    *
    "What, exactly, am I looking for?" Sebastian asked for the third time.
    Lee was ready to pound his cousin's head against a wall. "I told you. I