Belladonna (3 page)

Of course, by the time the other humans found the body, the rats would have had their feast as well.

It would return to this place called Dunberry, and when It did, the people would be even more vulnerable to the whispers and seeds It would plant in the dark side of the human heart — the same side that had brought It into being so long ago.

But first, It needed to reach the sea and head north. The hunting in this landscape would be sweeter once It destroyed the Place of Light.

M
ichael paused outside the door of Shaney's Tavern and fiercely wished he'd already downed a long glass of whiskey.

The music was out of tune here. Off rhythm.
Wrong.
Not as bad as Dunberry, but...

Dunberry. What had gone wrong
there!
All right, so he'd done a little ill-wishing the last time he'd passed through, but the ripe bastard had been cheating at cards and deserved to have some bad luck. It wasn't as if
he'd
prospered from it. He just didn't think it was fair for Torry to lose his stake simply because the boy had had the poor judgment to try to plump up his wedding purse by playing a few hands of cards. And didn't Torry find a small bag of gold a few days later — gold his grandfather had hidden in the barn and forgotten years ago? That bit of luck-bringing had balanced out the ill-wishing, hadn't it?

But the girl Torry was going to marry ... Stabbed to death, wasn't she, and so close to help, that Torry and his friends had heard her scream.

He'd heard about it fast enough when he came into the village. Just as he heard what wasn't quite being said. Not about the girl, Erinn, but about two boys who disappeared a few days before she was killed. Someone had seen them going off with a man who wasn't from Dunberry but was familiar enough to be trusted. What would a man be doing with two young boys that they would need to disappear after he was done with them?

He hadn't been in Dunberry for weeks, but sooner or later someone would put his face or his clothes on that "familiar enough"

man, and it wouldn't matter that he'd been in another village when those boys had disappeared. Once the villagers decided he
was
the man, he wouldn't survive long enough to get a formal hearing.

So he'd snuck away in the wee hours of the morning, putting as much distance between himself and Dunberry as he could before the people began to stir.

He no longer fit the tune of that village. It had turned dark, sharp-edged, sour.

That's how he heard places and people. They were melodies, harmonies, songs that fit together and gave a village a certain texture and sound. When he fit in with a place, he was another melody, another harmony. And he was the drum that settled the rhythm, fixed the beat.

But not in Dunberry. Not anymore.

The bang of a door or a shutter made him jump, which jangled the pots and pans tied to the outside of his heavy backpack.

The sounds scraped nerves that were already raw, and his pounding heart was another thumping rhythm he was sure could be heard by ... whatever was out there.

Tucking his walking stick under the arm holding the lantern, he wrapped his 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 — just as we knew what she was."

Michael downed the rest of the whiskey, wishing it would ease the despair growing inside him. He truly didn't want to go out in that fog, but he didn't want to end up being accused of something he didn't do and die at the hands of a mob either. "I guess I'll be on my way then."

Shaney tossed his rag on the bar and gave Michael a look that was equal parts disbelief and annoyance. "Now what part of what I was saying made that pea-sized brain of yours figure we wanted to see the back of you? And what makes you think so little of me that you'd figure I'd ask any man to walk back out in a fog that someone can get lost in when he's still within reach of his own door?"

Michael said nothing, surprised at how much Shaney's annoyance gave his heart a scratchy comfort.

"I can't change what I am," he said softly.

"No one is asking you to." Shaney scrubbed his head with his fingers, then smoothed back his hair and sighed. "Something evil passed through Foggy Downs a few days ago. The whole village had a bad night of it. Children waking up screaming from the nightmares. Babes too young to say what gave them a fright wailing for hours. And the rest of us ... It's a strange feeling to have an old fear come up and grab you by the throat so you come awake with your heart pounding and you don't quite know where you are. 'Twas a hard night, Michael, and the next morning ..." He looked at the fog-shrouded windows.

Michael stared at the windows before turning back to Shaney. "It's been like that for
days?"

"First couple of days, folks went about their business as best they could, taking care of only what was needed, sure the fog would burn off to what we're used to having here. The Missus and I even had folks gather here that first night. Had us a grand party, with music and dancing, while we all tried to put aside the bad dreams of the night before. But the fog didn't lift. Hasn't lifted. And I'm thinking this fog is more than fog, and if evil used some kind of ... magic ... to create it, then it's going to take another kind of magic to put things back the way they were."

The two men studied each other. Then Michael pressed his hands on the bar and closed his eyes.

He had no words for what he sensed, what he could feel. But the
sound
that filled his mind was a grating, creaking, sloshing, oozing, tearing. The sound of poison. The sound of old hurts, painful memories, deeply buried fears.

Then he imagined his music filling Shaney's Tavern, the bright notes of the tin whistle shining in the night like sparkles of sunlight. Certainty shivered through him. His music would shift the balance enough so the people here would be able to heal Foggy Downs. He could reestablish the beat. Fix the rhythm. Restore the balance enough to still belong.

He opened his eyes and looked at Shaney. "You put out the word, and I'll provide the music."

Shaney put out the word, and the people gathered. No one from the outlying farms, to be sure, but the families who lived close enough to the tavern to brave the fog came with a covered dish to pass around and children in tow. So Michael listened to gossip and passed along news from the other villages he'd visited during this circuit of wandering. He ate a bit of everything so no lady would be offended and pretended not to notice the speculative looks a few of the young women were giving him. He was used to those looks. Since he was a healthy, fit man who rarely stayed more than a few days in a place, certain kinds of women often looked at him like a savory dish that was only available a few times a year, which enhanced the appeal, and there were a few young widows who were willing to offer him more than just lodging when he came to their town.

While he looked like a scruffy ne'er-do-well most of the time, he cleaned up well enough when he got the chance, and the smoky blue eyes and brown hair that was always a bit shaggy went with the face that was handsome enough to attract the ladies but not so handsome it made people uneasy

Until they found out what he was.

As the rhythm of the gathering shifted from gossip and food to unspoken hopes and expectations, he fetched his tin whistle, nodded to the other men who had brought instruments, and shooed the children out of the small space that had been cleared for the musicians.

Michael closed his eyes and let himself drift on the feel of the room. Ah. There was that odd sensation he sometimes felt when he was deliberately trying to change the feel of a place. A
presence,
like a child too shy to come forward where it might be noticed, but too intrigued by the things and people around it to go away. More than that. This wild child, as he thought of it, was intrigued by
him.
He had the feeling that it could hear the music in
his
heart in the same way he could hear the music in other hearts, and
that's
what intrigued it enough to come to a gathering. The reason didn't matter. What mattered was that when he felt the wild child's presence, sometimes he could make things happen that were more than a little luck-bringing or ill-wishing directed at a specific person.

Lifting the tin whistle to his lips, he let the first notes float through the air, soft and bittersweet... and hopeful. Little by little, conversations faded — or maybe he no longer heard them. The fiddler joined him, slow and easy.

There was nothing but the music, and he wasn't playing for the people in the room. Not yet. This song was for the wild child.

To catch its interest, its attention. Its heart.

With his eyes still closed, he slipped into the next tune. More energy. Drum added to the fiddle and whistle. A sparkle of notes drifting out into the night, dancing in the fog, glistening with the energy and good spirits of the people like dew glistened on a web when touched by the morning sun.