A Celtic Witch

Chapter 11



Sophie opened the front door of the inn, Adam already craning his head. “You hear her, don’t you, sweet boy?” Curious, she released him from the carrier and set him down on all fours.

And watched, grinning, as her boy who usually hid in a corner beelined for the parlor as fast as his chubby, crawling limbs could take him. Quickly, she slid out of her wet boots and followed.

Adam was moving more slowly now, head tipped up and eyes glued on the woman at the other end of the room.

Cassidy smiled from her stool by the window and studied the small boy headed her direction. “Heard the music, did you, love?” She put her fiddle back up on her shoulder. “What do you like best, hmm?”

Fingers flew into a melodic, glitzy version of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. Adam sat up, wool longies bunched at his knees.

Still watching him, Cass switched to something fast and bright that Sophie didn’t recognize. Her son’s feet squirmed on the floor.

And then she felt the tug of distant magic, and Rosie began to sing something long, low, and melancholy. Sophie felt her own earth power rising in response.

Adam began to sway.

Cass got down off the stool, crouching down beside the small, transfixed boy. Note by note, she cocooned the two of them in soft, aching sound.

Sophie drank in her son’s silent, easy joy. And wished for Mike.

Her husband had been exhausted after the tub repair. Not from fixing a crack—for a witch of his power, that was all in a day’s work. It was trying to follow Cassidy’s magic that had flattened him. Trying to learn something that might help their boy.

But before falling facedown on the bed in a stupor, he’d said words that had lit Sophie’s mind on fire. “Cass hears the planet, Soph. Maybe that’s what Adam needs, too.”

It made an eerie kind of sense. Adam was the child of two witches connected deeply to the energies of living earth and rock.

And it was the best clue they had.

Something beat out of alignment in their son. And a woman with a violin on her shoulder and a gentle smile on her face knew how to fix it.

-o0o-

Such a sweet baby. Cass let the last notes of her improvised jazz lullaby fade into the room’s corners, her eye still on the lovely boy. She spoke in low tones, pitched just loud enough for Sophie to hear. “It’s rare for me to have such a rapt audience.”

“Your music is magic for him.”

Decades of training and Irish blood let Cass hear the unsaid things better than most. “Tell me about your son.” She looked up and met sober eyes. “You worry about him.” Lots of people did.

Sophie sank onto the floor, smiling as Adam crawled off toward a pile of blocks at the edge of the room. “Some days.”

“Some kids are just different.” Her brother Rory had been one of those. Late to walk, late to talk—and as Nan was still wont to say, late to finish sowing his wild oats.

“It’s more than that.” Sophie’s fingers played with the tassels on the edge of the rug. “I’m an introvert. A scientist and a thinker. But I’m happy that way, you know?” She looked over at her son, busy pushing a block across the floor with his toes. “Too often, Adam isn’t happy.”

Cass’s sympathy flared. She’d seen it. Adam squirming at the dinner table as the other babies sat happily babbling in someone’s lap. “I saw Mike out walking last night.” Under the light of the moon, a small head peeking over his shoulders.

“Letting me sleep. Adam’s pretty nocturnal.”

Cass scooted one block on top of the other for the watching baby. “He’s got beautiful eyes.”

“Thank you.” Sophie reached out and added a third block to the tower. “Sometimes I get so caught up in what might be wrong that I forget all the wonderful things.”

The pieces came together for Cass. “You’re a healer. That must be hard.”

No words. Just a head tipped down.

Oh, man. Healing hearts was Nan’s work, not hers. “He’s lucky, you know.” She’d seen other things at the dinner table and in the dark of night. “He’s very well loved, no matter what his struggles are.”

Sophie’s breath was shaky. “Yes. As are we. I can’t imagine this journey without the people around us.”

It was the kind of tight-knit, loving community Cass had run from. The kind that gave and took and didn’t leave enough energy for the all-consuming music. “You must have lived here a long time.”

“Feels that way.” The smile moved all the way to Sophie’s eyes this time. “It will be two years come spring.”

Cass felt her laughter bubbling up. “Wow. You grow roots fast.”

Friendship reached across the few feet of empty space. “It’s a good place to bloom.”

The unspoken wish tore at Cass’s heart. They would welcome her here, her and her fiddle that calmed troubled babies. But travelers didn’t grow roots.

Naked toes knocked over the tower of blocks. Adam’s laugh came all the way from his belly, and Cass chuckled at his infectious happiness. Such a normal sound.

And then she saw the hesitant joy on Sophie’s face and realized it wasn’t normal at all.

-o0o-

It was the kind of sunny day that had the people of Fisher’s Cove wandering all over tarnation.

Marcus waved at Sophie as she headed down the road with Adam, and ratcheted Morgan up his hip for the billionth time. If he didn’t get to the inn soon, she’d want some more of her infernal flowers. And hungry as he was, they’d probably come up shriveled and brown.

They’d spent far too long on the beach, come home ravenous, and then he’d burnt the last egg, landed the toast on the floor, and tried to feed his daughter a bowl of overly soggy oatmeal.

She had not been impressed.

Granted, it hadn’t looked very appetizing. He grunted and slid Morgan up yet again. Damn winter jacket was too slippery for child hoisting. “Let’s go see if Uncle Aaron will take pity on us, munchkin.”

Anyone in the village would happily feed Morgan, but Aaron would have a few scraps for her father as well. Arm ready to fall off, Marcus stomped up the porch stairs and deposited his daughter inside the door. He took one last glance at the sun—odds are it would be gone by the time they came back out.

In his life, sunshine had always been ephemeral.

Morgan sat on the floor inside, frantically waving her boots in the air.

“In a hurry, are you?” Marcus bent down and slid them off her wiggling legs, and then watched in astonishment as she scurried toward the parlor. Aaron was almost certainly in the kitchen.

It wasn’t until he pulled off his wool hat that he knew where she’d gone. Bright, Irish-hued laughter spilled from the parlor as a small girl found her target.

Marcus closed his eyes just for a moment. He wasn’t ready for Cassidy Farrell again today. Touching her mind once had been more than enough—and an hour of storm-making on the beach had done little to erase it.

She was only here for a few days. A week at most. As ephemeral as the winter sun.

He would fetch Morgan, beg some food in the kitchen, and leave. There was no other sane answer.

Which might have worked—if Cass hadn’t begun to play.

-o0o-

Moira tipped up her face to the bright afternoon. A smart witch always said hello to the sky, even when she was outside for only a moment. Sophie had stuck her head in the cottage with a message—Cass was playing.

And Sophie’s eyes had said what her words couldn’t.

A mother’s wish.

So Moira had grabbed her cloak and left her tea, because she loved both the babe and the woman who wished on his behalf.

And if she caught a wee fiddling song or two while she was about her mission, so much the better. There had always been music growing up—and until Cassidy Farrell arrived, Moira hadn’t been aware how much she missed it.

A few steps from the inn, she could hear the easy part of her wish well on its way to being granted. The faint sounds of violin made their way out the crooks and crannies of the old walls into the brisk afternoon air.

Calling.

Moira let herself in the door—and realized she wasn’t the only one being called. Marcus, however, wasn’t nearly so happy about it. He stood, back to the wall, staring at the parlor with something akin to fear on his face.

And underneath it, a longing so fierce, so bright, it was a wonder the wall hadn’t melted.

It gave her heart such great, galloping hope. There was no one who more deserved to be blindsided by something he fiercely wanted than her nephew.

Moira stepped forward, holding on to his stalwart strength as she slid out of her boots. “Come. Show an old lady to her seat.”

It was a measure of their years together that he did as she asked. And a measure of something entirely different when his hand shook as he did it. Together, they walked into the parlor, one beautiful, scared man and the old woman who loved every inch of his cranky heart.

She wasn’t surprised at what they found inside. Morgan was sitting on top of the table, her red curls leaning over Cass’s fiddle. Their visitor sat in a chair, doing a skillful job of keeping her bow out of the toddler’s nose.

Lovely, dancing notes streamed from Rosie—and Morgan was enthralled.

Her father, however, was not. Marcus made it to his daughter’s side in three short steps, nearly yanking her off the table. “She’ll go deaf sitting that close. And the table top is no place for a child.”

Moira winced, at both the tone and Morgan’s wails.

Cass was made of sterner stuff. She looked up at the cranky man hovering over her. “She wanted to see.”

Marcus’s face blackened. “She’s a baby. Much of what she wants is completely irrational.”

The baby in question was quieting now, her attention caught by the interplay in front of her. Moira hid a smile—perhaps Morgan had some Irish blood in her veins after all.

“If I’d let her drink my coffee, you’d have the right to take that tone with me.” Cass’s eyes snapped fire.

An explosion built in the man she stared down. Young and old watched, fascinated.

And then Cass reached out a hand and touched her fingers to his. “She was hoping for some music, I think. Why don’t you sit with her and I’ll play a little for the two of you?”

The giant crumbled. Marcus nearly fell into the straight-backed chair behind him, eyes never leaving the green-eyed Irish witch who’d knocked him over.

Moira sat down on the couch, her own knees none too steady. There were very few people who could breach the thick walls of Marcus Buchanan’s fortress.

And Cassidy Farrell had done it with the touch of her fingers.

-o0o-

He must have the flu.

Marcus sat in a hard chair, squirmy daughter in his lap—and felt like he’d been hit with a bubonic plague spell.

Hissing water ran in his veins, overheating and pushing painfully against the natural order of things. His head radiated shades of the terrible morning after the night he’d discovered bourbon. And something slimy and green threatened just on the edges of his vision.

He shuddered, a man overwhelmed with his own weakness.

Cass raised her violin to her shoulders, a witch oblivious to the devastation she’d caused.

Marcus would have run if his legs had still been attached. Or if his daughter hadn’t cuddled into his chest, soft cheeks glowing as she waited for Rosie to sing.

With eyes only for the child, their visitor began to play, a lilting, light melody that spoke of flowers and meadows and days filled with sunshine.

It delighted Morgan.

And it drained the last drops of blood from Marcus’s heart.

-o0o-

Another ten seconds and her teeth were going to freeze.

Too damn bad.

Cass angled into the twists and turns of the road heading south and hoped the garda were sitting somewhere snug by a fire. They might consider her speed a little extreme.

Her hair streamed behind her, glorying in the sudden, unexpected winter freedom. Ten thousand tiny pricks of salt mist lanced her face, scrubbing skin and washing away the trail of frustrated tears that had exploded as she’d left.

Fisher’s Cove had welcomed her, enticed her. Filled her belly with good food and put a soft pillow under her head. Assembled themselves into a gorgeous dancing, living, delighting audience for her music.

And then they’d dropped her headfirst into a pot of boiling water.

She resisted the urge to stomp on the gas pedal any harder. Her mission was escape, not suicide.

Another mile of desolate coast streamed by, the emptiness gradually soothing the wild beast clawing in her chest. Cass reached up a hand to make sure her ears were still attached—and then, with a sigh, rolled up the windows.

A forty-four-year-old woman could only throw a tantrum for so long. And even if her ears didn’t need it, the car’s snazzy red leather interior probably didn’t appreciate the frozen, pelting salt.

The sudden quiet assaulted her—and let the mind garbage she’d been trying to blow away come rolling back.

Sophie’s gentle, insistent offers of friendship and the unspoken pleas on behalf of her beautiful boy.

Cass had no idea how to help him—just the pressing feeling that she should.

Kevin, and his mute desire to learn how to play.

And the man with the gruff manners and the gentle soul. Such a mass of contradictions. Rosie’s music had pulled him into the room, but his eyes had blazed with the need to run. Fierce and proud—but a simple touch had scared him silly.

A man who invited no one into his life. And she had the insane urge to push her way in anyhow.

Dammit, she was a musician. A free spirit who had been happy wandering the roads for twenty-six years. A woman who had chafed under the pressures and demands and commitments of a close-knit community in a land not so very different from this one.

The music that surged in her veins didn’t leave room for a life like that.

Tears pricked Cass’s eyes again. And this time, she knew they needed release. With the exaggerated care of someone toppling-over drunk, she pulled over to the side of the road. Not that it mattered—she hadn’t seen another car in more than an hour.

Stumbling, vision blurred, she headed across the rocks to the lonely beach.

Solitude. Not an easy thing to come by in the tiny village by the sea. They lived together, ate together, chased small children together.

Did magic together.

She’d felt that awesome communion   with others before. Musicians—good ones—did it all the time. It was a big piece of what pulled her back to Margaree for three weeks every year.

And a big part of what chased her away the other forty-nine. Music didn’t share like that. Not hers—it never had.

The rocks under her feet were a minefield now, grabbing at her toes. She couldn’t run even if she knew where to go. Cass slowed, swiping at the tears. Hating the need for them.

She’d always been quick to cry, even for someone born in the green hills of Ireland. But she wasn’t weak. Three weeks of the year she softened. Opened.

And somehow, this time, her soft nest had been tipped over.

But life wasn’t always fair, and usually Cassidy Farrell knew how to dust her knees and get back up.

Calmer now, she sat down on a large boulder and waited for the rocks to scold. To tug. And finally to soothe.

All her life, they’d offered her comfort.

Now, they only hummed. A quiet, monotonous sound that didn’t have any answers at all.