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"There is Darling's Harbor," Brighid said reluctantly, "but the people there
have always been a bit strange."
"And they've gotten stranger," Shaela murmured.
"How so?" Glorianna asked, trying to remain calm. Darling's Garden. Darling's
Harbor. Couldn't be a coincidence.
"For one thing, during my years here, their young people would show up before
the summer or winter solstice and bring a gift, then say they were going to be
journeying and would we hold them in the Light," Brighid said. "They always
struck me as a simple people who were supremely confident that they were
exactly where they were supposed to be."
Glorianna felt Ephemera's currents of power brush playfully against her own
currents. She sat up straighten. There was one explanation for an entire
village of people feeling confident that they were where they belonged, and it
had nothing to do with them being simple.
"This village wouldn't have a pair of Sentinel Stones, would it?" she asked.
"It does," Brighid replied.
Glorianna knew that Lee was watching her, adding up the pieces as fast as she
was.
There was a resonating bridge in the village of Darling's Harbor, and the
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people there used it to go journeying. Some of them must have crossed over
into landscapes beyond Elandar. Maybe they weren't simple; maybe they didn't
want to admit they knew more about the world than the people around them.
"Anything else you can tell us about Darling's Harbor?" Lee asked.
"They've gotten stranger," Shaela said, more loudly this time. "Two or three
times a year, a pair of them comes to Lighthaven, cap in hand, and asks if
we've had news about the Seer, did we know when the Seer was coming back. A
few years ago, when a bad storm swept over the whole island, they came to say
the Seer's house had been struck by lightning and burned clean to the ground,
and should they be waiting to build another. Then this spring they came back
to say they had built a new house and it was ready for the Heart Seer and did
we have news of when she was coming.
Glorianna's heart beat fast and hard. "When did this start? How many years
ago?"
Shaela shrugged. "A few."
"How many?" When both women stared at her uneasily, she set down her cup and
struggled for patience. "This started twelve years ago, didn't it? They
started asking about the Seer twelve years ago."
Shaela frowned, but it was thoughtful rather than annoyed. Finally she nodded.
"Yes, I think it was a dozen years ago that this started." Brighid gasped.
Glorianna nodded and said, "That's when Caitlin found Darling's Garden, wasn't
it?"
"But Caitlin's not a Heart Seer," Brighid protested. "Besides, that garden was
hidden somewhere on the hill behind our cottage. According to stories, the
women in Devyn's family had found it a few times in the years since Darling
first came to live at Raven's Hill."
"Caitlin isn't a Heart Seer," Glorianna agreed, "but she is a Landscaper who
is a descendant of the Guide who had shaped that garden. That's why it
appeared for some of the women in that family. It came to them because they
were Landscapers who no longer remembered how to go to it."
"The garden acts as a separate landscape that can be imposed over another
place, like my island?" Lee, asked. "Yes." Glorianna looked at Brighid.
"That's why no one else living in Raven's Hill could find it. It only existed
on that hill for Caitlin Marie. The rest of the time it was here, on the White
Isle. Where it had been created."
"Looks like we're going to Darling's Harbor," Lee said. "I'll talk to Kenneday
when he gets back from staring at the Sentinel Stones, and see if he's sailed
to that village."
"We'll wait until morning." She wanted a few hours to go back to her own
garden and make sure there was no sign that the Eater of the World had found
Its way into one of her landscapes. And she needed to talk to Nadia.
Lee looked disapproving, since he knew her well enough to figure out the
reason for the delay, but he didn't say anything. Not much he could say since
she knew he wouldn't be turning in early either but, instead, would be making
notes about the possible landscapes that might be connected to the White Isle
or Lighthaven.
Lee pushed out of his chair, then proceeded to stack cups and dishes on the
tray. He lifted the tray and smiled at Shaela. "Could I give you a hand with
the clearing up?"
Not subtle, Glorianna thought as she watched Shaela stumble over the veiled
order to leave the room, but not as blunt as he might have been.
"Your brother has a way about him," Brighid said when they were alone.
"That's one way of putting it," Glorianna replied smiling.
Brighid didn't return the smile. "I don't know how to say this."
"You don't belong here."
Brighid closed her eyes. "I don't belong here. I should ... but I don't."
When Brighid opened her eyes, Glorianna saw confusion, but there was no
confusion in the yearnings that came from Brighid's heart. This heart needed
the Light and more than the Light.
"Do you need to live in this kind of secluded community?" Glorianna asked.
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Brighid shook her head. "I've felt secluded in one way or another all my life.
When I went to Raven's Hill to take care of the children, I had hoped..." Her
voice trailed off as sadness tilled her face.
No, Glorianna thought. For a descendent of the first Guardians of the Light,
the toil of the world would have been too hard to bear especially living in
that cottage. But there was a way for Brighid to live in the Light and meet
the world.
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