A Celtic Witch

Chapter 7



Cass made her way down the path onto the beach under gloomy skies that matched her sulky mood, mind full of restlessness.

Nan would have said that was just reward for anyone foolish enough to sweet talk her way into Aaron’s leftover Thai curry for breakfast. Cass didn’t care—the curry had been divine, and it wasn’t spices that were riling her. She wasn’t one who built up to a storm fast—but this one had been growing ever since she’d sent foot in Fisher’s Cove.

She glared in the general direction of the rocks under her feet. “Not very informative, were you?” Landed her smack in the middle of a village full of witches without so much as a warning. Witches and a man with dark, craggy eyes and an angel of a daughter.

They’d invaded her sleep and her peace.

It felt like a high-stakes poker game with destiny—and she wasn’t impressed. This was her time to relax. Rejuvenate. Sleep without dreaming of men with stories written into the lines of their faces.

The rocks ignored her defiance. She imagined destiny did as well.

Cass walked out toward the water, the wind blowing icy mist into her face. Perhaps, on a shore far away, Nan did the same, called by the magic that joined them.

She’d never felt like a witch, really. Her hands lacked Nan’s talent for healing, and she’d never felt a desire to learn of the plants or remedies. Music had danced in her soul, not the hereditary powers that ran through family trees all over Ireland. They weren’t spoken of overmuch—but everyone knew they were there.

And in the case of Nan Cassidy, it was hard to miss. Day and night, there were always people traipsing into her living room with some ailment or another—and most left better off than they’d come.

Nan just called herself a healer woman. Which fooled no one and placated those who found the old ways distressing.

Having the occasional chat with a rock didn’t distress anyone.

Cass bent down, a glint of red catching her eye, and came back up with a piece of glass, worn by the rocks and sea and time. A broken shard once, or a bottle carelessly tossed overboard. She stroked it gently with her finger. “And look at you now. All lovely and weathered and ready to turn into something I can send back to Nan.”

Healer women usually loved green. Nan had always adored the bright and fiery reds that clashed desperately with her hair.

Cass tucked it into her pocket. Dave had said Aaron’s wife made jewelry—perhaps she could be talked into hanging it on a pretty chain or something.

“Careful,” said a boy’s voice behind her. “The waves can be sneaky at this time of year.”

She turned, keeping one eye on the water. “I grew up near the ocean. It’s not going to get a chance to grab me.”

He looked at her seriously a moment longer and then nodded. “Okay. Sometimes the people who stay at the inn are kinda dumb, so we try to take care of them.”

Anyone who didn’t keep an eye out for rogue winter waves was more than kinda dumb. “I’m Cass—what’s your name?”

The boy flushed. “Sorry, I should have said that first. I’m Kevin. I was looking for my brother.”

The beach seemed pretty barren of life, other than the two of them. “Unless he takes winter swims, I don’t think he’s out here.”

“He hasn’t yet this year.” Kevin seemed skeptical that trend would continue. “But he still manages to find plenty of trouble. Mom says he got the family rapscallion gene.”

That was a big word for a kid. “And which genes did you get?”

He looked out at the water and shrugged, suddenly diffident. “The ones that like to read and stuff.”

Something tugged at Cass’s heart—she’d been the kid who hid in a room and played her violin for hours. And took long walks on the cliffs talking to herself. “I like to read too.”

His smile was oddly appealing. “I have some books if you run out while you’re here. Or we have a library in the church.”

She tried to imagine what a kid his age might be reading and went with what she’d been immersed in at eleven or twelve. “Got anything on the history of Nova Scotia? Or pirates?”

His grin said she’d hit a bull’s-eye. “Both.”

“Awesome.” She turned back toward land—even Irish genes weren’t idiotic enough to stand around on a stormy beach for longer than ten minutes. “I’ll be in the parlor later, if you want to come by. I have a book on the Celtic heritage of Cape Breton you might like.”

She knew she’d found a kindred spirit when his eyes lit up brighter than a Christmas tree. Which wasn’t the answer she’d come to the beach seeking, but it wasn’t a message lost on her, either.

Whatever the rocks had in mind, she could find her own reasons for being here.

“Come on.” Kevin jogged in place in front of her, clearly not very warm either. “Aaron always has something yummy we can have if we promise not to invade his kitchen for the rest of the day.”

Cass snorted. She’d smelled the kitchen on her way out—she wasn’t making any such promises.

Time for breakfast number two.

-o0o-

Marcus lined up ingredients on the counter. Flour, sugar, baking powder, one rollaway egg, and cinnamon. Morgan objected fiercely to teething biscuits with no cinnamon.

Five ingredients, and he messed them up infernally often. The last batch had been missing the baking powder. Kevin and Sean reported that they’d survived a hundred-foot toss off a cliff.

Marcus hoped they didn’t share that little tidbit with their mother. She wasn’t likely to be impressed with their scientific methods. Or perhaps she would—mothers could be proud of the strangest things. He looked over at Morgan, sitting in her high chair playing with ice cubes. “Your Aunt Sophie thinks it’s impressive that Adam can take his socks off.”

Morgan giggled, as she should—she’d been shedding her own socks since the day she arrived.

“Indeed. I’ll be far more impressed when you can keep yours on.” Perhaps. He had an odd fondness for her naked toes, although they didn’t always smell quite so appealing these days.

Nobody seemed to care, though. All the world loved his daughter. Including, evidently, green-eyed strangers.

Marcus clunked a stainless-steel bowl down on his counter with unnecessary force—and winced at the results. Green eyes weren’t worth a headache. “How come she intrigued you so much, hmm, little one?” Morgan wasn’t shy, but she’d taken to Cassidy in a way that he’d never seen, her mind full of an odd sense of familiarity.

Fortunately their new arrival had been tolerant of sticky fingers running through her hair. He looked over at his daughter’s attempts to stick an ice cube in her own red curls. And stared.

In all the days and hours and months he’d looked at his girl, he’d never once wondered what her mother had looked like.

Until now.

Oh, sweetheart. He kept the words—and the sorrow and guilt of them—contained in his own mind. And leaned over and kissed sweet red fuzz, the lump in his throat big enough to choke them both. “Did your mama have curly hair just like you, lovey?”

Her mind had never held any visuals. But in his heart, it felt right. He brushed a hand over her curls and wished he could be everything to the child they graced.

Morgan put a wet, cold hand on his cheek. “Dadadadadadadada.”

He swallowed hard. “Dada” would have to be enough. Moving back to the counter, he got back to the daily business of being a father.

The egg yolk had just landed in a plop on top of the flour when his back door opened, swirling in cold air and one cloak-clad visitor. “Good afternoon to you, nephew. And to you, wee lovely girl.” Moira leaned over and kissed Morgan’s cheek. “Playing with ice, are you? Not a fire witch, then.”

Not a witch at all, as far as anyone could tell. When Morgan had stopped traveling, she’d been left without a stitch of power anyone could detect. Which suited Marcus just fine—she got into more than enough trouble as it was. He turned to put the kettle on.

“No need for that, thank you.” Moira put down the hood of her cloak, but didn’t take it off. “I’m only staying a minute. I came to deliver a message. There’s a big dinner up at the inn tonight. Lobster stew.”

His favorite—and in normal times, a very welcome invitation. A warm meal cooked by someone else and plenty of able-bodied volunteers to keep Morgan out of the plant life.

These, however, were not normal times. They had a visitor. Suspicion raked the back of his neck. “And why might the inn suddenly be trying to serve me lobster stew?”

His aunt shrugged, rippling her cloak. “To welcome Cassidy, I assume.”

Even he wasn’t addlebrained enough to believe it was that simple. Marcus shook his head. “Womenfolk and witches.” Meddlers, all of them.

Moira’s eyes flashed. “It’s Aaron who’s issuing this invitation, and the last time I checked, he was neither woman nor witch.”

That just meant the meddlers were pushing from the shadows. “And who planted the idea of a big supper in the first place, hmm?”

“I’ve no idea.” The innocence on his aunt’s face could be easily faked—the honest sincerity in her mind, not so much. “I assumed Aaron had a whim, what with a new guest at the inn and all.”

Hecate’s hells. Marcus took out his frustrations on the hapless egg. “In that case, I apologize for assuming you were trying to run my life yet again.”

The eyes that watched him were thoughtful now. “We’ve done rather a lot of that in the last year, I’ll admit.”

He slowed his attack on the mess in his bowl. The last year had taught him much about his obligations in this continual dance of people through his house and his life. It wasn’t always right to dump surliness onto the nearest visitor—even if they deserved it. And sometimes, the best of them deserved honesty. Aunt Moira was the very best. “I was stuck. Sometimes it takes a push to get a body moving.”

“Aye.” One word, loaded with more empathy than most people received in their lifetime.

Marcus resisted the urge to pull his aunt close and cradle her like the fragile old lady she was becoming. Barely. “I’m not stuck now.”

“No.” The smile that bloomed on Moira’s face chased away all specters of fragile old ladies. “Indeed you’re not. May the winds be with you on your journey.”

And old Irish blessing, one he’d heard hundreds of times.

It had never made his gut clench before.

She touched his cheek. “Come for lobster stew. Anything more than that will be your choice.”

He had the oddest feeling she meant it.

-o0o-

Nell landed on Sophie’s front porch and pulled her collar up around her ears. Damn freaking cold here still. She knocked on the door very quietly. Some babies slept through earthquakes and fireworks.

Adam was not one of those kids.

So visitors arriving at Sophie and Mike’s house walked softly, spoke in whispers, and ported politely onto the front porch instead of into the nice, warm living room. Nell peered in the window, looking for signs of life inside.

“Come on in—he’s awake.” Sophie grinned from the doorway, speaking in a normal voice. “You must be freezing, dressed like that.”

Not in any normal climate. Nell stepped inside and rubbed her hands together. Which accomplished exactly nothing, so she pulled a little fire power into her fingers instead. Better. “You really manage to grow plants in weather like this?” She was here to pick up an order of herbs.

“Some. The ground around Moira’s pool is pretty warm.” Sophie’s forehead creased. “Didn’t Ginia want echinacea and lavender?”

Something like that. Nell frowned, trying to remember where she’d put the list. “Do those make sense for a cold? Aervyn’s sneezing, and the girls don’t want to miss Bean’s birthday party.” It was a good plan, presuming they could get whatever concoction Ginia was planning into their little brother—Aervyn was getting wiser in the ways of sneaky green stuff.

“Yes, they do.” Sophie reached up into a large cabinet, coming down with three glass jars. “But all of those are fall harvested, so she just wants the dried forms. Those keep just fine, even in a Canadian winter.”

Nell rolled her eyes. “Whatever. I’m just the delivery girl.”

“Uh, huh.” Sophie sounded skeptical, even as she carefully transferred crumbly green stuff to three smaller jars.

It was mostly true. Somebody had to come—she’d just been happy to volunteer. “The girls are on KP duty.” The terrible consequences of a spaghetti-sauce lesson from Uncle Jamie. “And I heard rumors there’s a new witch in town.”

Sophie laughed. “I feel like I should be wearing a cowboy hat.”

“Aervyn’s got several, if you want to borrow one.” Nell settled into a chair. Her son had only sneezed twice—that didn’t qualify as an emergency. “What’s she like?”

“Irish.” Sophie’s eyebrows waggled. “And Moira thinks she’s been sent for Marcus.”

Oh, good grief. The gossip train hadn’t mentioned that particular detail. Probably because it had come via the under-thirteen crowd. “Kevin didn’t mention that part.”

Sophie’s jar of green stuff nearly hit the floor as she giggled and sneezed all at the same time. “He’s a twelve-year-old boy.”

Truth—but a pretty observant one. Nell felt a moment of pity for any woman the fates had decided to throw at Marcus Buchanan. “Kevin said she plays the violin.”

“Yeah, she’s a fiddler. Cassidy Farrell. Aaron says she’s one of the best in the world.” Sophie poked and prodded at the contents of a new jar. Healer, distracted.

Aaron’s kitchen was always full of music of one kind or another, so Nell was prepared to trust his opinion. She twiddled her thumbs, thinking. Whoever had been messing with her fetching spell had pretty solid computer skills. That didn’t sound like an Irish musician, but no way a strange witch landed in Fisher’s Cove in the middle of winter by accident. “I assume she’s the witch we fetched.” Sort of—it had been a bit of a coding standoff.

“I assume so.” Sophie shrugged. “Either that or you go with Moira’s theory that she was sent by the fairies.”

Aervyn had taken to blaming the state of his room on the fairies—Nell wasn’t buying that one, either. “So assuming Cassidy’s not really here to torment Marcus, what do you think is going on?”

Sophie looked up, confused.

“Usually there’s a reason we fetched someone. Sierra was aging out of foster care, Lauren had powers she didn’t know about…”

“Hmm. She tours a lot as a musician. I think this is a bit of a vacation.”

Fisher’s Cove witches weren’t usually this gullible. “When was the last time you had a tourist in the middle of March?” Such lovely weather and all.

“Point taken.” Sophie plunked three jars onto the side table beside Nell, brain clearly in gear now. “Why don’t you stay for dinner? Aaron’s cooking up a feast and Cassidy’s the guest of honor—you can do some detective work in person.”

It pained Nell deeply that she had to say no. “We’re putting up a new Realm release tonight.” All able-bodied programmers on red alert. They were releasing a new set of levels. With dragons.

“Ouch—good luck with that.” Sophie grinned. “How’s your coffee supply?”

“Not big enough.” Given the average witch player’s penchant for trying spells they hadn’t properly tested yet, and the average dragon’s fondness for setting things on fire, nobody in The Dungeon was sleeping tonight.

The witchy mystery of Fisher’s Cove would just have to wait.

With one possible exception. “If she flirts with Marcus, send up a bat signal, pretty please?” Some things couldn’t be missed, even for renegade dragons.

Sophie chuckled. “I’m pretty sure you’d feel the earthquake all the way over in California.”

Truth. Nell scooped up the herbs. Time to cure a sneeze.

And maybe learn a little more about Cassidy Farrell, too.