Belladonna

WHEN SYLAS VENTURED OUT OF THE STABLES FIFTEEN MINUTES later, he wore a thick navy cloak and led not one horse but two and a hound that panted at his side. Next to her golden beauty stood Balwin, the pesky chestnut stallion that was fixated on trying to eat Sylas’s hair.

“Have you brought me options?” was all Signa could think to ask.

Sylas was not too busy swatting Balwin away to snort. “I’m coming with you. Lillian’s garden is in the woods. You’ve clearly not ridden in a while, and if I were to let you ride there without an escort, Mr. Hawthorne would have my head.”

Signa fought her clenching jaw. As if sensing her annoyance, Mitra closed the space between them and nudged Signa with her shoulder. Signa, in turn, wrapped her fingers around the horse’s neck, stroking her soft hair. She could feel its fierce pulse of life beneath her fingertips. The quickness of the mare’s heart and her impatient, uneven breaths.

They were a well-suited match, each of them as eager to break free and roam as the other. But when Signa went to mount the horse, she faltered. Tall though she was, the stirrups were out of her reach. She wrapped her arms around Mitra’s neck and tried to haul herself up, but the horse whinnied and shook her off.

Behind her, Sylas asked with mirth in his voice, “Do you need assistance?”

Head held high, Signa ignored him and tried again, hanging on to the horse for dear life while trying to swing one foot into the stirrup. Mitra scuffed at the ground as Signa hung from her, slipping, refusing to admit defeat.

“My God, you are a stubborn one.” This time, Sylas didn’t ask before he set his hands upon her waist and lifted Signa onto the mare. He did it with a single sweeping motion, as though she were as light as a feather. Though Signa’s own heart fluttered, Sylas appeared to think nothing of such an intimate touch as he patted Mitra’s rump, ensured Signa’s feet were fully secure, and hauled himself up and onto Balwin.

Beneath Signa, Mitra shuddered with anticipation. She didn’t wait for a command before starting off in a trot so jarring that Signa began to slip from the saddle. She fisted the reins, bending forward at the waist to steady herself. Then Sylas was next to her, slapping a stick on Mitra’s rump. Signa wanted to snarl at him as his swat made the horse whinny and move faster, though the jarring subsided within seconds.

Signa sat up straighter, casting a glance at Sylas, whose eyes danced with mischief as he and Signa raced across the moors, over rolling hills of wildflowers and through wetlands that slowed their steeds. Closer and closer to the woods they traveled, until Signa’s chest burned with the desire to reach it.

Come to my garden. Lillian’s spirit pulled her, guiding her.

Come to my garden.

Goose bumps rose along the flesh of Signa’s arms and legs. She had never seen a spirit so angry, and the last thing she wanted was to be terrorized by Lillian Hawthorne. Even more than that—though she had no desire to admit it aloud—Signa could feel the curiosity sinking its claws into her. An unsorted mess of puzzle pieces she wished to make whole.

She had to know what the spirit wanted with her, and how a woman so young, so beautiful, had died in a secret garden tucked into the woods far behind Thorn Grove.

Signa gave Mitra a gentle nudge in the side, and the horse responded at once. She’d been Lillian’s horse after all; perhaps she felt the pull, too.

Sylas fell behind them in their haste, calling out, trying to stop them from rushing headlong into the woods. Though Mitra handled the moors expertly, never faltering from her path, Sylas struggled to urge the unruly Balwin forward. His voice sounded hollow in her ears, his protests fading with distance. Signa didn’t wait—couldn’t wait. The woods beckoned her, and she dove into the belly of the beast, letting its jaws clamp shut and swallow her whole.

The woods consumed her, embracing her so fiercely that Sylas’s frustrated cries and Balwin’s hooves cut away, the only sound a soft rustling in the autumnal trees, the leaves a mix of harvest orange and midnight green.

It didn’t take long for yellowing grass to tangle around Mitra’s white stockings. The woods tugged at Signa’s skirts, at Mitra’s mane, scratching and scraping against their skin, hungry for blood. Signa tried to cover the horse as best she could, but the branches were low and savage, clawing against Mitra’s side.

In the corners of her vision came a flash of white so fleeting that she’d have missed it if she blinked. It came again seconds later, whisking away toward the right, where trees had snapped in half or been cleared away. Signa followed after what she knew was Lillian’s spirit, which led her into a clearing and to an iron gate set into a weathered stone wall. She pushed upon the gate to find that there was a lock in its center, covered by ivy and vines.

She was glad there was no one around to hear her very unladylike curse as she looked upon the garden wall, three times her height and impossible to climb even if she stood upon Mitra’s back. She pried at the lock, frustration mounting when it didn’t so much as budge.

How was she meant to find a key to a garden that had clearly been abandoned for months? It wasn’t as though she could ask Elijah for it, and Sylas probably already knew the place was sealed and had led her on this wild-goose chase for a laugh. Hands tight on the reins, Signa was about to turn back to find Sylas and give him a piece of her mind when another flash of white flickered in the corners of her vision.

Lillian was there, watching, hiding in the shadows of the iron gate. Her hair was pale as butter, and her face was covered with moss, with rotting vines woven into and out of the gaping hole where a mouth should have been. Hollow eyes watched from between the ivy leaves. Hollow eyes that looked not at Signa but behind her, to the ground.

Signa turned to the familiar sight of tiny black berries—belladonna—and understood so well that her chest felt like it was being cleaved in two.

The night she’d last eaten belladonna—the night she’d spoken to Death—she’d used his powers as her own. What if she could do it again? She’d seen him pass through walls. Seen him disappear into the shadows, and then re-form himself at his will. Was it possible that she, too, could do that?

Signa dismounted, gritting her teeth at the sight of the belladonna berries that waited at her boots. She’d not wanted to approach Death again until it was with a way to destroy him and end her blasted curse. But if she wanted Lillian to leave her alone, it seemed there was no choice.

With dread in her belly, she stooped and plucked the berries, filling her pockets and her palms.

Death loomed in the air like an approaching storm, dark and heavy. Signa felt the weight of him choking her, warning her. Even the sound of the wind was as biting as a blade when the world slowed around her, as if time was coming to a standstill.

But Death wouldn’t touch her. He never did.

Signa pressed five berries onto her tongue and waited as her blood burned and chills shot down her spine. It didn’t take long for the poison to clench her insides. For her vision to swim while illusions of the woods tunneled around her, for a power unlike any other to form within her, beckoning her to come and sample it.

Death had arrived.