A Celtic Witch

Chapter 4



An Irish traveler, following her heart. Cass looked out the window of her sporty ride, watching the steady flow of traffic across the bridge in the other direction. It wasn’t exactly a dusty road and a rucksack.

But still, she walked the path of generations that had gone before. The footloose. The restless souls. Those with stories to tell and a need to move to do it.

It had always perplexed her parents, much as they loved her. Only her nan had understood—the grandmother who could count on one hand the number of times she’d left the village of her birth. It had been Nan who stood quietly at the window the day Cass turned nineteen, letter from Juilliard in her hand, and told her to go. To walk the road she needed to walk.

Juilliard had only lasted six months—but the road had stretched out twenty-six years now. Mile after mile, the first ones full of Ramen noodles and cheap bus tickets, the last ones well supplied with beef stew and good chocolate.

Cass grinned as a blast of icy wind pummeled the side of her car and hoped the bridge was built on good Nova Scotia rock. Hell of a day for a walkabout, even with Dave’s care package riding on the seat beside her.

But the need to go had been clear.

The purple light had gone off on her computer right after she’d packed her bag to leave in the morning. Maybe she’d scared it off with her fancy new firewall—but her heart couldn’t shake the conviction that it quietly approved of her travels.

A little tugboat whose work was done.

And Dave’s care package had been on the table when she’d come down for breakfast.

But it was the rocks that had spoken most firmly. Across the waters and not much farther.

She looked out the window at the expanse of gray ocean rolling under the bridge. Water nearly crossed. So long as there was food and a little peace and quiet on the other side, she’d let all the little tugboats in her life guide her feet for a while.

Her cell phone rang as she reached the edges of Halifax. Damn—she must be getting reception again. She picked it up without looking. “Hello, Tommy.”

“About time you picked up. How’s life in the middle of nowhere?”

His growl sounded like second-generation Mafia—probably on purpose. As a B-list actor, he’d played all the accented tough-guy parts. Fortunately, that was as far as mediocre talent and a big nose had been able to take him. However much he annoyed her, he was an excellent manager.

And a good friend. One who understood her need to head for the hills far more than he admitted. “It’s good. I’m recharging.”

“That’s the point, doll.”

She snickered. They both knew if he’d tried calling her “doll” in person, she’d have slugged him in his big nose. “I’ll be ready to go in three weeks, as promised.” April Fools' Day—it had somehow seemed appropriate. “What’s up?”

“You want the big stuff first, or the annoying piddly details?”

They had a deal—he had to handle ninety percent of the piddly stuff without bugging her, and she didn’t get to hang up when he needed an answer on the rest. “From the top.”

“The Kennedy Center wants you. Celtic gala, huge promo budget.”

Even for Cassidy Farrell, that was pretty big. And Tommy’s voice was suspiciously neutral. “Okay. What’s the catch?”

“They want you for a Thanksgiving deal. Late November. Kickoff to the holidays, all that. Let you dust off those carols you like playing so much.”

Ah. “That’s way past three months.” She had an ironclad rule—no booking gigs more than three months out. Her Irish soul couldn’t handle that much commitment.

“It’s the Kennedy Center, babe.” Sinatra voice this time.

He was trying to make her laugh—that meant it was a really big deal. “Did they promise you Batman’s car or something?”

“Would it close the deal?”

Damn. That was serious. “Why this one?”

“Lots of money, lots of fame. Why else do we do this?”

It was easy to take Tommy at face value—she’d spent the first two years of their rocky professional relationship doing just that. “Something else is going on here, dude. Spill.”

Vague embarrassment filtered through her phone. “Nonna wants to hear you play again.”

Tommy’s very Italian grandmother had landed on the banks of New Jersey as a young girl and never left again. Claimed to have an allergy to trains, planes, and automobiles. And she loved every inch of her grandson’s big-nosed soul.

She also made a mean lasagna and mailed one out to Tommy every month, regular as clockwork. With instructions to share it.

Cass grimaced—and knew the deal was already done. “You should have led with that, you know.” She was good at resisting money and fame. Mafia grandmothers were a whole ’nother kettle of fish.

“You’ll do it?” The airwaves were back to gruff.

“Yeah.” She sighed. “Just this once.” Even ironclad had to bend sometimes.

Her phone was silent for a long moment. “Thanks.”

“I get a double helping of lasagna in April.” The Irish knew how to negotiate.

“Done.”

“Hit me with the rest.”

She made her way through Halifax and its quaint, oddly polite traffic circles, listening to a litany of tour minutia. Jonny’s new baby had arrived four weeks early. Missing snare drum. Bar in Portland promising the owner’s firstborn if she’d come back.

For Jonny, she listened as Tommy trotted out to the tour bus and found the blue-and-gold baby blanket squirreled away at the bottom of her knitting bag. Hopefully the baby would be a Notre Dame fan like his daddy. The drum could be replaced. And the guy in Portland had some of the best microbrew this side of Ireland. No promises, but he’d get a call the next time they headed west.

She spied her turn and angled left, straight for Cole Harbour and Jamieson’s. Best food on the mainland—and they always let her play for her supper. Or lunch, in this case. “Gotta go, Tommy.”

He chuckled. “Belly’s empty, huh?”

By rights it should still be full of three days of beef stew. “Yup. No idea if they have Internet where I’m headed next, so you’re on your own.”

He snorted. Tommy didn’t believe in a world without Internet. He’d never been to rural Ireland. “I’ll send a carrier pigeon if I need you.” The smile in his voice widened. “Take care of yourself, okay? I want the bouncy Cassidy Farrell back.”

Damn. She’d even worried her Mafia manager. “I just need some downtime.”

It worried her when he said good-bye. He didn’t sound convinced.

-o0o-

Marcus turned the page of his book—and sighed as small hands tugged at his sleeve. “I only made it two pages, monkey girl.”

Purple eyes twinkled up at him. “G-an.”

Morgan’s baby talk was mangled—and adorable. And apparently far more comprehensible to all the womenfolk of the village than it was to him. This one, however, he’d heard before. “Soon.”

Her eyes darkened. “Soon” was not Morgan’s favorite word. “G-an.” She tugged again.

Reading time was clearly over. Marcus shook his head and got to his feet. “Fine, we’ll go visit Gran.” He’d tried explaining to a drooly Morgan once or twice that Moira was her great-aunt, not her grandmother—to no effect. Neither of them believed him.

Morgan headed for the door, grinning.

He grabbed a handful of pink off the edge of the rug and held it up. “But you have to put your socks on first.”

And mittens. And a hat. And a jacket that made her look like an escapee from the prehistoric exhibit at the museum.

She contemplated his outstretched hand for a minute, a brooding scowl on her face.

And then plunked down on her bottom and held up her toes. “G-an.”

He felt the grin crack his face, working muscles that hadn’t had nearly enough exercise in the last four decades. “How come you couldn’t just leave them on in the first place, hmm?” He dutifully dressed Morgan in socks every morning—and she just as steadfastly removed them.

Marcus slid her wiggly toes into a gaudy striped sock and grinned, oddly proud. Typical Buchanan, always doing things the hard way.

Then again, he wasn’t entirely sure what typical Buchanan was anymore. His life had changed beyond all recognition—and the many hours of the day required to keep Morgan fed, happy, and appropriately clothed for the volatile climate of Fisher’s Cove was only a part of it.

He missed Evan dearly—that hadn’t changed. But the horror of his five-year-old twin disappearing into the mists was no longer the last memory he had of his brother. And every time he saw Morgan, he imagined Evan close by, watching over the two of them.

Their guardian witch.

Grief still hit him at strange moments, but it was the kind of sorrow that time eased—and guilt was no longer its constant companion.

He picked up his daughter and kissed her cheek. Guilt had left his heart—and so much had flooded in to replace it. The cranky old bachelor had almost gotten used to loving someone so much that she undid him simply by sticking a wet Cheerio to her nose. “Come on, sweet pea. Let’s go see who’s out and about this afternoon.”

That, too, was an enormous change in his life. He’d lived the last twenty years in his solitary castle by the sea—a big, rambling place. He’d needed it to hold all of his sadness.

Now he and Morgan squeezed into a tiny, ramshackle cottage on the edge of a village that seemed to think the path to the beach ran through his kitchen. And somehow, he could no longer work up the energy to be the least bit grumpy about it.

Morgan started wiggling in his arms halfway down the road to the inn. He looked down at the rosy cheeks sticking out from her hood of bright blue wool. “It’s still a long ways—how about I carry you a bit farther, hmm?”

She grinned up at him. “Fower.”

Argh. Marcus rolled his eyes. “We left flowers all over the village yesterday.” People were beginning to talk.

“Fower.” This time, he was fairly convinced she even managed to bat her eyelashes.

He nuzzled into a cold cheek and growled. “Your wiles are wasted on me, silly girl.” A lie if there ever was one. She got more adorable every day—and he got less immune.

“Fower.”

Perhaps reason would work. “Forty-eight-year-old witches don’t learn new magic tricks. Maybe Sophie will make you flowers.”

“Fower.”

It was damnably hard to argue with someone who only had a vocabulary of six words. And he suspected an increase in her vocabulary wasn’t something to look forward to.

He plunked her down on the ground and slid off his glove. At this rate, he was going to need to bribe a fire witch for some handwarmer spells, too. With his other still-gloved hand, he pushed twigs and rotting leaves aside, working his way down to bare soil. Morgan babbled happily at his side, anticipating her favorite part.

The power that came when he called to it was disturbingly strong. Annoyed, he shoved a line of it into the soil. And tried not to laugh as a whole clump of something lavender popped up. Definitely not daffodils—and they matched Morgan’s eyes. “Opinionated flowers, are you?”

His daughter leaned over and buried her face in the flowers. He watched carefully—she was still fairly confused about the difference between sniffing a blossom and eating it, and his knowledge of edible plants was far too sparse to let her go about eating the greenery.

She pushed herself to her feet, a fair accomplishment for a child in snow pants, boots, and three layers of woolens. And signed for “more.”

His knees weren’t as limber as hers. Marcus cleared a patch a foot away from the clump of purple and sent another pulse of power into the earth. And then frowned at the flower that rose up under his fingers. Orange this time.

Be darned if he was asking Sophie why the cursed plants were changing.

He wasn’t an earth witch, dammit.

Morgan grinned in approval—and then toddled three steps and plunked down again, looking at the ground expectantly.

Marcus sighed. It was going to take them all of the remaining hours of daylight to go a hundred feet. Again. Apparently they had to carpet the village in flowers first.

And soft-headed old man that he had become, he would probably go along with it.

-o0o-

Cass pulled her car to the side of the road, amused. When Dave said “off the beaten track,” he wasn’t kidding. Fisher’s Cove wasn’t more than three or four miles off the main highway—but she’d venture a guess that very few tourists found it by accident.

Not the most logical place to set up an inn. Hopefully it would be one of those quirky, underappreciated gems that she loved. Dave rarely sent her wrong.

She was still a little way from the huddle of cottages, and slightly uphill. Until she’d come around the bend in the road, she’d been fairly convinced that her scrawled directions had been written by pixies.

But the village was here, tucked behind some small, rocky hills that thoroughly hid it from the rest of planet Earth.

And like the music that flowed in her veins, it was ageless. Houses on the edge of run-down, framed by brambles and browns that were probably lovely gardens in the summer. A couple of nets hanging, and a cove with boats visible just beyond the village.

Not a postcard—but not an eyesore, either. A humble, hardworking sort of place.

Oddly Irish. Home, without all the restrictions.

A small group of children dashed out of a house and made a mad run for the front door of the church. Cass grinned—the church had been their indoor playground when she was a kid, too. The succession of priests had growled at them, issued proclamations about heavenly manners, and left out plates of cookies.

Her stomach rumbled at the thought of cookies. She reached over and grabbed the last of the PEI fried potato skins she’d snagged on her way out of Jamieson’s. The rest of the year, she ate like a normal person. Something about Nova Scotia turned her into a hungry bear.

Which seemed backwards—this was supposed to be hibernation, Cassidy Farrell style.

She crunched, her potato-eating genes entirely happy. And wondered why the rocks had brought her here.

Probably not for a game of hide-and-seek in the church pews, and the village wasn’t big enough for a decent pub. But the rocks seemed to think she belonged here, and their tugging had been very consistent with Dave’s scrawled directions.

She grimaced and reached for the gearshift. This was way too much thinking to be doing about a fishing village. She’d found a comfy spot to lay her head in places far smaller and dingier than this. The rocks would make their point clear in time—they always did. Pulling her car back out onto the road, she drove slowly down the hill.

And smiled as she spied the biggest building in town. That must be the inn.

-o0o-

The wind rattled something fierce this afternoon. Moira walked to the window, wrapping her shawl around her shoulders a little more tightly. Nearly enough to shake an old witch’s bones, it was.

It had blown like that back home this time of year.

She lifted a cup of tea to her lips, inhaling her gran’s old recipe.

A lot of nostalgia today—and it wasn’t just the smell of tea and the bite of the weather. The old energies were moving, whispering tales and calling to those with the ability to hear.

So few ever bothered now.

Carefully Moira pulled a light stream of power. And tapping into the wise and unpredictable magics of the crone, asked permission to listen.

The whispers got a little louder—and an old witch of small magics and open heart smiled as she heard their story.

A journey. A song. A choice.

The wind was blowing something in.

Moira set her cup on the counter and reached for her winter cloak. If something was coming, she’d meet it in the way of the Irish.

With warmth in her heart, steel at the ready, and friends at her side.