Belladonna

fingers around the handle on the tavern's door.
    Then he twisted around to look at the thick fog that had turned familiar land into some unnatural place that had no beginning or end.
    Didn't matter if the music was wrong here. He'd beg or barter whatever he had to in order to get out of that fog for a few hours.
    Giving the door a tug, he went inside the tavern, pulling off his brown, shapeless hat as he strode to the bar. The pots and pans clattered with each step. Normally he found it a comforting sound, but when he'd been walking toward the village that lay in the center of Foggy Downs, a lantern in one hand and his walking stick in the other, feeling his way like a blind man ... The ordinary sound had seemed too loud in that gray world, as if he were calling something toward him that he did not want to see.
    "Well, look what stumbled out of the forsaken land," Shaney said, bracing his hands on the bar.
    "Lady of Light," Michael muttered as he set his hat and lantern on the bar. "I've seen fog roll in thick before, but never as bad as this." Leaning his walking stick against the bar, he shrugged off the straps of the pack, glad to be rid of the weight.
    Then he looked around the empty tavern. He could barely make out the tables on the other side of the room since Shaney hadn't lit any of the lamps except around the bar.
    "Is everyone laying low until this blows past?" he asked, rubbing his hand over one bristly cheek. If business was slow and the rooms Shaney rented to travelers were empty, maybe he could barter his way to a bath, or at least enough hot water for a good wash and a shave, as well as a bed for the night.
    Shaney put two whiskey glasses on the bar, then reached for a bottle. He poured two shots.
    Michael looked at the whiskey, craving the fire that would ease the chill in his bones. But he shook his head. "Since I'm hoping for a meal and a bed tonight, whiskey is a little too rich for my pocket just now."
    "On the house," Shaney said, sounding as gloomy as the fog. "And you're welcome to a bed and a share of whatever the Missus is making for the evening meal."
    "That's generous of you, Shaney," Michael said, knowing he should be grateful but feeling as if the ground had suddenly turned soft under his feet and a wrong step would sink him.
    "Well, maybe you'd be willing to play a bit this evening. I could spread the word that you're here."
    Picking up a glass of whiskey, Michael took a sip. "I'm flattered you think so highly of my music, but do you really expect people to come out in this for a drink and a few tunes?"
    "They'll come to play a few tunes with you."
    A chill went through him. The music is wrong here, Michael, my lad. Don't be forgetting that, or what you are, and lower your guard.
    He'd been shy of seventeen the first time he'd come to Foggy Downs, and had been on the road and making his own way for almost a year. Over the years since, he'd come to depend on this being a friendly, safe place to stay. If people realized what he was, Foggy Downs would no longer be as safe — or as friendly.
    Shaney downed his whiskey, then pulled a rag from under the bar and began polishing the wood. "Do you remember old Bridie?"
    Michael rubbed a finger around the rim of his glass. "I remember her. She smoked a pipe, had a laugh that could put sparkle on the sun, and, even at her age, could dance the legs off any man."
    "That pipe," Shaney murmured, smiling. "She never ran out of leaf for that pipe. She'd be down to her last smoke, and something or someone would always come along to provide her with a new supply of leaf. People would ask her if she had some lucky piece hidden away because, even when bad things happened, some good would come from it. And she always said currents of luck ran through the world, and a light heart and laughter brought her all the good luck she needed."
    A silence fell between them, but it wasn't the easy breathing space it usually was when neither felt like talking.
    Finally, Shaney said, "The first time you came to Foggy Downs, Bridie saw you, heard you play. She took my father aside after you'd gone on down the road, and she told him to look after you whenever you came to our village. Said she had a feeling that we'd be putting her to ground by the spring, and even though she didn't think you were ready to give up your wandering to put down roots, you were the best chance Foggy Downs had of having a luck piece once she passed on. So some of us have known what you are —