by Debora Geary
“Here, he’s heavy.” Nell scooped him up and deposited him on a couple of pillows, borrowing the throw to cover him. “And thanks. Ginia’s also napping thanks to Kenna’s antics. I didn’t want to wake her. I didn’t realize he had a headache.”
“Must have been quite a night.”
“Little punk niece of mine saw a dragon on Jamie’s computer screen and wanted to make friends.” Nell sounded amused—and resigned. “Hopefully she got it out of her system—I’m on duty tonight.”
Sophie just shook her head in shared sympathy. Most toddlers who wanted to be dragons weren’t actually capable of making fire.
Nell rested a hand on Aervyn’s head. “What do you think pulled him here?” She looked over at Cass, still playing dreamy music in the corner, a pile of children at her feet. “Maybe he heard there was a party.”
Aervyn had mentioned the music. “How did he hear it from his bed?” Berkeley wasn’t exactly within earshot, even for superboy.
“That would be the question.”
Not the only one. Sophie frowned. “How did you get here so fast?”
“Luck. I’ve been testing a pairing spell for Jamie. He’s worried that Kenna might develop porting skills and head for parts unknown in the middle of the night. It’s like a locator beacon—if she gets out of range, he’ll know where she’s gone. Aervyn and I were doing some testing yesterday, and I forgot to unhook us.”
Sophie raised an eyebrow. There were probably only two witches in the world who could pull off that kind of spell, and one of them was asleep. Suddenly her worries about Adam felt overblown.
“We all worry,” said Nell quietly. She glanced over at Cass one more time. “And it seems like I’ll be joining you in the question line for a certain musician. She tugs on both of our boys.”
Sophie nodded. And then felt some odd pieces connect in her mind. “Maybe…” She started slowly, trying the idea on for size. “Perhaps it’s the same thing that tugs on her.”
Nell blinked. “Not following.”
Sophie stared off into space, more certain now. “Something brought her here, too. And I’m not sure she understands it any better than we do.”
But she knew someone who did.
-o0o-
Moira looked up as first Sophie entered the kitchen, and then Nell. She reached for more teacups. “Come for a bit of sustenance, have you? There will be cookies out of the oven by and by.” Nan’s recipe.
Nell sat down, her eyes never leaving their elderly Irish visitor. “You know something of Cassidy’s magic.”
Moira grimaced. It was very direct, even for a California witch. “Nan Cassidy, this is Nell Walker. Retha Sullivan’s daughter, and mother to Aervyn.” It wasn’t normal to lay out lineages from the children, but she suspected word of their wee boy had traveled far and wide.
Recognition hit Nan’s face. “Ah, the young Merlin.”
Nell’s eyes snapped fire.
“And a great galoot I am.” Nan leaned forward, apology all over her face. “No one wants such a comparison made to a child they love. I’m not usually so loose of tongue and slow of brain.”
Nell sighed. “And I’m not usually so touchy.” Apology accepted.
So that was the word across the waters. Moira met Sophie’s eyes and saw her own worry reflected there. It wasn’t an unwarranted comparison, but Merlin had not lived a long or happy life—and sometimes people accepted the destinies others tried to hand them.
Then again, most of those people didn’t have Nell Walker for a mother.
Nan poured tea for the new arrivals, her eyes never leaving Nell’s face. “What can I tell you of my Cass?”
Moira blinked—perhaps directness was contagious.
“You can tell me what’s in her music. It pulled my son here all the way from California.”
Shock hit Nan’s face. “That’s not possible.”
That wasn’t the answer Nell was looking for. “People say that about Aervyn a lot. They’re almost never right.”
Sophie spoke quietly, still standing over by the counter. Always the watcher. “Maybe a different question will help.”
Nan met the eyes of her fellow healer. “And what would that be, heart sister?”
Sophie’s face flashed surprise at the old form of address. “Aervyn wasn’t the first person pulled here. Cass arrived, and now you’ve come.”
Ah. Moira hadn’t connected all those dots. She smiled at Nan. “The quiet ones always have the trickiest questions.”
“Indeed.” And when their visitor spoke this time, it was with deep respect. “It’s a very good one—and perhaps teases at the answer as well.” She looked over at Nell. “I’m wondering if perhaps your boy has a touch of the old magics.”
For the first time, fear flitted across their warrior witch’s face. “Aervyn doesn’t have just a ‘touch’ of anything.”
The old magics were fickle, unpredictable, and largely untrainable. Moira felt the fear taking root in her own heart.
“The rock magics are gentle and steady. They’re not to be feared.” Said with all the conviction a wise Irish grandmother could bring to bear. “I’ve listened to the rocks my whole life. If your boy hears them, that’s a thing to celebrate. The old magics are dying.”
That they were. But still, Moira worried. Very little was easy with their small boy.
“Your son has a dangerous life ahead of him.” Nan spoke to Nell, her eyes not flinching from the truth. “If he hears her music, perhaps my Cass is meant to help him one day.”
Nell nodded, her eyes gazing out a window and far away. “Perhaps.” A mother readying for the unknowable.
Moira’s heart hurt for the mother of the small boy she adored. Even for their very bravest, power could be a heavy burden.
The sounds of music from the parlor swirled down the hallway. Something happier now. More rousing.
Moira leaned into its comfort. And tried to trust.
-o0o-
They’d somehow ended up back on the beach.
Cass pulled her new hat, knit late into a night of insomnia, down over her ears. “It’s colder today.”
“You didn’t finish your porridge. Nothing keeping your belly warm.”
Nan was a great believer in the powers of a bowl of morning oatmeal. Cass scowled. “I ate enough.”
The old lady beside her merely gazed out at the winter waves. “Are you going to tell me what’s bothering you, a leanbh mo chroí, or are you just going to sulk and grump?”
Forty-four was probably a bit old for sulking. “The rocks—they’re not making sense.” Just quiet, monotone humming. Nan was one of the few people on earth who would understand how disturbing that was. “For two days now.”
“Ah. Interesting.”
The Irish never spoke in one-word sentences. “What’s interesting?”
“It sounds to me like they’ve a message for you.”
“And what would that be, exactly?” The sulks were back in full force.
“I think you know, child.” Nan’s voice carried steel—she’d always been tolerant of exuberance and strong feelings, but never of poor manners.
“Sorry.” Cass kicked a rock in disgust. “This is the time of year when I let everything go and come here to relax and remember why I play in the first place. I didn’t expect mysterious messages.” Or all the other things that had come with her arrival in Fisher’s Cove.
“I think that’s exactly right.” Nan looked entirely too pleased. “Remembering why you play. That’s precisely what the rocks are asking you to think about, Cassie mine.”
Now her grandmother was being just as mysterious as the rocks. “I play because I love music.”
“Aye.” A long pause, punctuated by two mad seagulls and one very unlucky oyster. “And?”
Because it filled a space in her soul nothing else could touch. Because it made the rocks dance. But none of those were new. “Something’s changing.”
“Yes. For forty-odd years, the rocks
have done nothing but support and anchor you.”
Fear battered the inside of Cass’s ribs. “And what, I don’t need an anchor anymore?”
“That’s the question of an impudent teenager.” A wise healer at her toughest. “And you’ll not get anywhere at untangling the mess in your heart until you find a better one.”
She hadn’t been on the receiving end of one of Nan’s lectures for almost two decades. Cass blanched, even as she tried to hear the words.
Her grandmother’s eyes softened. “It’s not the rocks that are changing, love. It’s you. And perhaps the anchor you need is changing too.”
Cass’s soul rose up in protest. “I don’t want to change.”
“Indeed.” Nan’s eyes twinkled now. “And you’ve done a very good job of dragging your heels.”
Cass stared, nonplussed.
Nan turned toward the water. “Home is just beyond the horizon there. Green hills and rocky shores.”
“I know that.” The shortness in her voice had a mind of its own.
“You believe it’s there.” Nan had plenty of temper to match. “Even though you’ve never seen it from here, you believe Ireland’s just beyond what your eyes can see, no?”
It was basic geography. “That’s different.”
“Not so very, child.” Strong fingers reached for hers. “What runs through our blood has always been just beyond what our eyes can see, but we know it to be there.”
“We hear the rocks.” And there it ended. Especially if they stopped making sense.
“Yes, and that comforts me, even when you don’t come home nearly often enough. But that’s not all that moves in you, and part of you has always known it.” Nan paused, her eyes taking in the gray ocean waters. “And part of you has always run from the knowing.”
That sliced something Cass hadn’t known could bleed. “I’m a traveler, not a runner.” Runners were cowards.
“Aye.” Nan’s voice soothed as skillfully as it had cut. “And you’ve the courage of ten, love, and I’m not saying any different. You ran to your music, and a glorious thing you’ve done with it. But when you’re ready, there’s a piece of the journey you’ve yet to take.”
Cass felt a weight settling on her shoulders. “I’m just a fiddler.”
“You’ve a rare gift. One that you’ve shared with the world all your adult life.”
That sounded final somehow. “I’m not done playing.”
Lilting Irish laughter floated out over the water. “Of course you’re not.” Nan paused a moment, still looking off toward Ireland. “The most powerful thing a woman can know is who she is. You’ve always had a very good sense of that, and it’s taken you far.”
It had taken her to the ends of the world and back. Cass wasn’t sure she was ready to let go of that. “Who I am is a traveler. A musician.”
“Who you were, child of my heart.”
Cass felt her frustration bubbling up. “What are you saying?”
Green eyes didn’t waver—they never had. “Who you are is changing, my girl. It only remains to be seen if you’re willing to listen and brave enough to let Cassidy Farrell grow into the woman and witch she’s meant to be next.”
To make room for more than the music.
The idea terrified Cass all the way down to her thick wool socks. “How do I do that?” The words hissed through a throat half closed.
“You trust.” Wise eyes looked deep into hers. “You’re used to being in control of every note. This time, let the song find you.”
Chapter 14
It was Nan who had taught Cass that the best cure for a sad heart was to go on living. So she was visiting a friend for breakfast, good Irish oatmeal in the pot under her arm. And trying her damnedest not to be sad.
Even if Nan was winging away on some impersonal plane in the early-morning sky.
Cass took another breath of the sharp morning air as she walked up to Sophie’s cottage. And smelled something other than oatmeal and Nova Scotia sea breeze. Paradise—but not the edible kind. She opened the door and sniffed again.
Yes. Yummy and definitely not food.
Curious, she stripped off the layers of woolens that seemed to be having babies the longer she stayed in Fisher’s Cove. And then giggled as a stream of creative cursing emanated from the kitchen.
A head popped into the hallway. “Good morning. Come on back. I have my hands full at the moment.”
Cass followed Sophie’s disappearing shadow—and found herself in the middle of what looked like an exploded herbals shop. “Wow. What happened?”
“I’m making potions.” Sophie turned from the stove, her hands covered in something slimy and pink. “My new funnel slipped out of my hands when I was trying to fill the bottles, so I’m hunting for it. It’s in this pot somewhere.”
Sane people didn’t stick their hands into a pot on the stove.
Sophie looked over her shoulder again, eyes kind. “How are you doing today?”
“I’ll be okay.” Or not, but talking about it wasn’t going to help. Cass held up her own pot. “I brought breakfast, if you’re hungry. Oatmeal cooked the old Irish way.”
“Yumm. Give me two minutes to finish this batch.”
Cass sidled over, moving carefully past piles of dried green stuff, bottles of elixirs, and a bunch of other things she didn’t recognize, even after years of cleaning up Nan’s herbals room. “Batch of what, exactly?”
“This one’s just a lotion to help babies to sleep. It’s fast becoming my bestseller. Doesn’t work on my own kiddo, sadly.”
No self-pity, even though Adam robbed their sleep almost every day of the week. “You know,” said Cass softly, “I’ve heard you worry—but I’ve never heard you complain.”
Sophie turned her head, still fishing in the pot. “He’s my son.”
Love wasn’t always that simple. And neither was friendship. “I could play for him again.”
“Thank you.” Sophie’s big spoon chased aimless bits of globby muck around her pot, unspoken words heavy in the air between them. “When you play, Mike feels magic stirring.”
So much for getting past Nan’s visit. Cass felt the bands on her chest tighten again. She was just a simple fiddler. “Maybe he hears the rocks. They like it when I play.” She could hear the weak hope in her voice. Anything to dodge what destiny seemed determined to pin to her shoulders.
“Maybe.” Sophie started to say something else—and then she drooped. A moment of weighty silence and then she turned away from the stove and washed pink gunk off her hands at the sink. “Sit. Please.”
Cass sat, still hugging the porridge pot, and waited for the other shoe to drop.
“I’m so sorry.” Sophie sat down, two bowls in her hands and eyes full of apology. “I know your gran just left and your heart is hurting. Let’s eat breakfast and talk about something totally different.”
Cass ladled out the porridge, breathing in the comfort of a smell rooted deep in her childhood. And kicked herself for being utterly selfish. She sat in the kitchen of a sleep-deprived woman who made potions so other peoples’ babies could sleep.
And set aside her own needs to ease a friend’s sadness.
Destiny could take a hike—but friends were a different matter altogether.
Cass ran her spoon around the edges of the bowl, an old childhood trick for avoiding a burnt tongue. The rocks weren’t something she discussed. Or even knew how to talk about. They just were. “It’s something I’ve lived with all my life. I don’t really know how to explain it.”
“Hmm.” Sophie trailed a spoon around the edges of her own bowl, but didn’t eat. “I hear the flowers sometimes. They whisper almost, as if they carry a message just beyond my hearing. Aunt Moira says they’re messengers of the old magics.”
Such things were said in Ireland only in very hushed tones. Cass marveled again at a place where power lived so openly. “Then you know something of what I sense. A presence.” She shrugged, the words still feeling inadequate
. “A guardian, almost—it’s been there so much of my life.”
“That sounds beautiful.” Sophie sounded almost wistful. “The flowers sometimes tolerate me, but that’s all. They love Aunt Moira, though.”
Cass guessed there wasn’t a living thing on earth that didn’t love wise Irish grandmothers. “I felt the rocks for the first time while I played my music on the cliffs just outside our village. I was throwing a teenage fit.” It had felt much more serious at the time. “So I guess I’ve always thought of them as comforting.”
Sophie reached for something green, crumbling it into little fragrant bits over her bowl. “What do they feel like? The flowers are almost like a light wind.”
Rocks were a little more sturdy than blossoms. Cass shook her head at the proffered green stuff. “A thrumming, mostly. Vibrations. A little bit like a really slow heartbeat.”
“A heartbeat.” A slow smile bloomed on Sophie’s face. “That’s just lovely.”
Cass tipped her head down. It was lovely—until the heartbeat tried to meddle in your perfectly fine life. She drew a frowny face in the top of her porridge with her spoon and started to eat.
Sophie’s voice was tinged with humor. “Do you always give your oatmeal a face?”
“Always.” Yet another of Nan Cassidy’s small legacies. “We all do. My brother Rory isn’t any more of an artist than I am, but my sister Bri has a mean talent with brown sugar and some berries.”
Sophie laughed. “Berries we’ve got.” She dug under a nearby pile of potion ingredients and held out a tin. Cass examined the contents cautiously—anyone who’d grown up around the village healer knew to inspect such offerings before eating them.
Sophie chuckled. “Safe, I promise. They’re some of Marcus’s last batch of dried cranberries. Very tasty, and no green stuff.”
Well, if a woman couldn’t trust her friends, she was in a heap of trouble. Cass took a couple, surprised by the tangy sweetness. They were delicious. She added a handful to the top of her porridge. “They’re good.” It was probably bad to sound so surprised.
“Yup.” The healer’s eyes twinkled. “Beware his cookies, though. He’s taken to sending out batches of them on a regular basis.”
