Belladonna by Anne Bishop Page B

tumble of stones and pieces of slate that created a series of small waterfalls. The spring that fed the pool had to start somewhere among the stones since there was no sign of it on the other side of the garden wall, but she had never found the source.
    Taking the tin cup she kept tucked among the stones, she filled it under one of the little waterfalls and drank it dry once, twice. When she filled the cup a third time, she settled beside the pool, one hand moving idly through the water as she sipped from the cup and looked around the garden that had provided her with an odd kind of companionship most of her life.
    The pool had been her first exhilarating — and later, frightening — example of her power over the physical world.
    She'd been six years old when she'd found the garden hidden on the hill behind her family's cottage. Michael had just left for the first time to take up the wandering life, and she'd run off, heartbroken that her only friend and playmate had abandoned her.
    She'd run and run and run. Aunt Brighid had told her she would make friends when she started school, but it hadn't happened. The other girls teased her and said cruel things, and she knew the teacher heard the girls and did nothing, encouraging them by keeping silent. So there were no friends, and without Michael to help her, school was hard. And Aunt Brighid hadn't wanted to admit that the same ... something ... that lived inside Michael and had driven him away from Raven's Hill lived inside her, too.
    Her aunt would defend her against anyone — including the women who had been Brighid's Sisters on the White Isle — but privately, Brighid hadn't been able to hide the flinch, or the anger, whenever she saw evidence of Caitlin's and Michael's "gift."
    So all Caitlin had known that day was that the difference that lived inside her and Michael was the reason Michael had gone away, and she ran, wishing with all her young heart that she could find someone, anyone, who would be her friend.
    She'd tripped and ended up sprawled on the path. When she looked up, there was a stone wall in front of her and a rusted, broken gate.
    She had found Darling's Garden.
    Tangled and overgrown, desperately needing care, the garden tugged at her, and as she walked around it, her heartache eased.
    Here was something that needed her, wanted her, welcomed her.
    Spotting something small that looked pretty but was almost buried under weeds, she pulled up a weed to get a better look.
    Then pulled up another. And another. When she finally cleaned out a circle of ground around the little plant, she still didn't know what it was, but it made her feel a little less lost and alone.
    Years later, she learned the plant's name. Heart's hope.
    She kept going back to the garden, escaping from school as soon she could to run up the hill to the secret place. Aunt Brighid's scolding and obvious worry about where a child that age was disappearing to for hours at a time couldn't eclipse the lure of a place where the light seemed to sparkle with happiness every time she slipped through the gate.
    Then a girl at school invited all the other girls to see the expensive fountain her father had installed in the family's garden. All the girls except one.
    Not you, the girl had said. I don't want you and your evil eye to look at our fountain.
    Caitlin had stood outside the school, blinking back tears of shame as anger filled her.
    "I wish your fountain looked as rotten as your heart," she whispered.
    All the way up to the secret garden, she thought about a fountain and how lovely it would be to have one.
    When she got to the garden, there it was — not the kind of fountain appropriate for a formal garden, but a tumble of stones forming a series of waterfalls into a knee-deep pool that was guarded by a young willow tree.
    It was the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen — but it hadn't been there the day before. That was when she realized she could make things happen just because she wanted