Belladonna

friend... or a meal."
    A gesture of its hand, more frightening because of the gracefulness of the movement, indicated that Michael should pick up his pack.
    When he had his pack settled on his shoulders, they closed in around him. He saw no weapon in any hand, but he knew all the Merry Makers carried a knife and a slingshot — and were lethal with both. So he followed the Heart of the Bog and hoped this Justice Maker with the deadly magics was someone he could reason with.

    *
A hand pushed her shoulder into the sand, holding her down. Another hand clamped over her mouth, And a stranger's voice said,
    "Stay quiet. I'm not going to hurt you. The boundaries are so thin the bonelovers can sense prey even though they can't reach this landscape. But this place is so small, I already broke the boundaries in order to reach you, so I don't think your access point is going to last much longer."
    The words made no sense to Caitlin, but she understood enough. Someone had come to help her, and those ant creatures —
    bonelovers? — were nearby. She relaxed her muscles, which was the only thing she could think to do to let him know she wasn't going to fight him.
    The hand lifted from her mouth. The other still rested on her shoulder, but now lightly enough to feel like offered comfort rather than a restraint.
    She didn't move except to turn her head enough to look at the man kneeling beside her. About her brother Michael's age, give or take a year. A good face. Handsome even, with the black hair and those green eyes framed by lashes that were unfairly lush. And the beginnings of those crinkle lines at the corners of the eyes that gave a man's face character and made women just look old.
    When she shifted to push herself up, his hand moved from her shoulder to her arm, pulling her up to a sitting position.
    She looked beyond her circle and clamped her hand over her mouth to stifle the scream. The sand all around them swarmed with bonelovers, and not too far beyond her circle ...
    "They found something," the man said. "Might not be human. If there's only a border between two landscapes, animals can cross over easily enough. Most instinctively avoid landscapes that are dangerous, but if they're scared and running, they could end up in a landscape like this and then not be able to get back out." He stood, then offered her a hand to help her up. "Let's go while they're occupied."
    Go where? Caitlin wondered, since she didn't see horses or a buggy or any other way to outrun the bonelovers. Then again, he had gotten here, Somehow.
    As she raised her hand to clasp his, she remembered the heart's hope. She twisted around on her knees and began scooping a channel in the sand around the tiny plant. Couldn't have many roots. Not a plant this size. And certainly not deep.
    "What are you doing?" the man demanded. "That's probably the only thing holding this access point intact."
    She looked over her shoulder and glared at him "I'm not leaving it in this place." She didn't know how much time had passed between when she'd created the circle of sand and when the stranger found her, and she wasn't sure she could explain to this man how often she'd awakened during those hours and felt like the presence of the heart's hope was a sip of courage. "I'm not leaving it."
    He held up a hand to stop her. "Wait. Don't pull it out of the ground. Don't move. Just wait."
    He moved to the edge of the circle, studied the bonelovers mounded over the unknown prey. Then he took a step and disappeared.
    "No." The word came out as a whimper. Caitlin just stared. He'd left her. She hadn't been willing to leave the plant behind, so he left her.
    Then he was back, reappearing inside her circle as suddenly as he had disappeared.
    "Here," he said, handing her a sturdy bowl. "It's been cleansed, so it doesn't resonate with any earth that's been put it in before."
    She understood the individual words, but the way he was stringing them together, the meaning escaped her. And his accent said plain as plain that he wasn't from a part of the world she knew. But she wasn't about to start asking questions that might have him thinking he'd be better off leaving her behind.
    She worked her fingers under the tiny heart's hope. Yes, just as she thought. Not much root. She scooped up the plant and the sand, but there was too little of it for the size of the bowl.
    "Just hold it at the right depth," the man said. He scooped up sand and poured it into the bowl while she held the plant