by Debora Geary
-o0o-
Cass listened to the end of Kevin’s ballad, well pleased. “You practiced hard.”
His cheeks flushed. “I like it.”
He a lot more than liked it. “Are your fingers sore?”
“Not too bad.”
That was a screaming lie, but she let it pass. “It will get better—you’ll build calluses soon.” She handed him a small tube. “This is something my nan mixes up for my fingers. You only need a tiny bit, but you might ask Sophie to see if she can make more before it runs out.”
The boy examined the tube, curious. “What’s in it?”
Cass just raised an eyebrow—anyone raised around healers should know the answer to that question.
He grinned and shoved the tube in his pocket. “Right. We don’t want to know.”
Smart kid. Cass reached over and picked up Rosie. “Want to learn something new?”
“Yeah.” One word, said with eyes bright enough to light up half the village. He picked up a worn backpack tucked behind a chair. “Marcus let me borrow some of his recording stuff. He said it’s old and he doesn’t need it anymore.”
Cass raised an eyebrow at the top-of-the-line equipment that came out of his bag. She’d seen it the day before, sitting in its brand-new packaging in a certain grumpy witch’s kitchen. The man was a total fraud. “Do you know how to use it?”
Kevin nodded seriously, plugging all the bits and pieces together. He tapped the touch screen a few times and nodded again. “Okay, it’s ready. You can play now.”
Quickly, she ransacked her mental repertoire. Another ballad, maybe—but one with a sense of humor this time. “This one tells the story of a slightly clumsy knight errant, gone off to save his princess.”
Her student rolled his eyes. “How come they always want to save the princess?”
She’d asked Nan that very same question once. “Because poets and songwriters love to tell three kinds of stories.” She paused a beat, enjoying his quick attentiveness. “Our best moments, and our worst ones.”
He didn’t wait long. “And?”
It was always helpful when a musician could count. “And our dumbest ones.”
Kevin’s giggles still held the delightful remnants of little boy. “This is about some of the dumb ones, right?”
At his age, she’d definitely thought so. These days, it was something else she heard in the knight’s quest. Something bright and important, managing to shine through human foible. She shrugged and shouldered Rosie. At twelve, she would only have heard the stumbles. Maybe Kevin would be different.
She played the ballad, enjoying the determined, awkward efforts of a man who had picked up a sword only because he loved. And the wisdom of the princess who had seen beyond the errant knight’s bumbling. It had always been one of her favorites, written by a bard with an uncommon sense of humor.
Nan had always insisted it must have been written by a woman.
Watching Kevin’s eyes glint with amusement in all the right places, Cass wasn’t entirely sure. She finished the ballad and waited for him to turn off the equipment.
He flashed her a grin. “I’m going to use that for my new keep in Realm. Maybe next time we’ll win.”
She’d heard bits and pieces about the online game. “The Irish have used music to fuel victory for centuries.” Although generally not ballads of bumbling knights. “Lost today, did you?”
“Yup. Got our butts kicked by a girl.”
He sounded awfully impressed by said girl.
“She had a little help,” said a voice dryly from the doorway.
Kevin grinned down at Samantha and said not a word.
There was a story here—she could smell it. Cass set down Rosie, curious. “You won, did you?” Talk of the Realm duels had been leaking through the village.
“Yes.” She’d never seen anyone look quite so embarrassed about victory. Marcus nodded at her student. “Kevin acquitted himself quite well, however.”
“They were awesome.” Kevin grinned—clearly in on the source of the embarrassment. And close enough to manhood to know he wasn’t supposed to admit it.
Cass sat back, enjoying the interplay between the man and the boy who clearly worshipped him. Not all knights were as bumbling as they thought. Or as grumpy.
Mischievous eyes turned her way. “Maybe you can write a ballad about it, Cass.”
Given the many shades of purple Marcus had suddenly turned, she was sorely tempted.
“Kevin.” Something odd tickled Marcus’s voice. “Why don’t you take your recording and plug it into my computer? You can use the composing program I showed you to save it.”
The boy’s eyes lit up, but cautiously. “Can I use it after my lesson? I want to try to play the new song.”
Cass knew a dismissal when she heard it. “Go ahead, Kev. I’ll get some tea and be right here when you get back.”
The lure of the electronic gadgets was strong. One last look and the boy flew down the hallway, wires dangling in every direction.
Cass grinned and hoped he remembered to put his boots on before he hit the outdoors. And then she looked back at the man with something to say. “What’s on your mind?”
Dark eyes watched her for a while. “He’ll be hurt when you leave.”
Guilt coated her words and made them harsh. “He’ll have had lessons from one of the best fiddlers on the planet.”
“I know.” He paused, looking at Rosie and Samantha, resting together on the parlor’s table. “I didn’t know you taught.”
“I don’t.” An automatic answer to a question asked a thousand times. Cass sighed—the automatic didn’t seem to be true any longer. “Who I am appears to be a bit of a moving target this week.” She avoided looking his direction. “I don’t suppose you’d know what that feels like.”
The silence lasted a very long time. “I had a twin brother. We spent every waking hour together. He died when I was five.”
She nodded slowly. “I’ve heard.”
“Of course you have. There’s no privacy here.” He didn’t sound angry—only resigned. “When he died, he took who I was with him. I spent the next forty-three years imagining myself to be someone else.”
Gods. He could strip her heart in a second. No one else could do that.
“I know what it is to stand between worlds. And I did some damage before I figured out where I was headed.” The fierceness in his voice had gentled. Some. “Take a care. He’s only a boy.”
She stared, shaken, hearing words beneath the words, as he backed up into the shadows and was gone.
There was a moment in all music. A pause, right before the finale, that warned the audience to find their balance.
She knew, deep in her gut, that this had been one of those moments.
Chapter 19
Five people had waylaid her on her short trip to Moira’s pool. Sophie shook her head as she stepped through the back gate. Things were on the move in Fisher’s Cove, and a lot of people were worried about a certain Irish fiddler.
Starting with a wise boy holding his beloved violin—Kevin had knocked on her door at the crack of dawn. She’d barely sent him back home when Moira had shown up, bearing breakfast scones and concerns of her own.
And Aaron had flagged her down from the inn’s back porch, perturbed about his favorite guest.
Sophie slipped through the flower beds, easily imagining the wild beauty they would become in spring. And saw Cass, sitting in the warm water, her head tilted back against a handy rock.
She debated—and then left her robe at the edge of the pool. Cass wasn’t going to find privacy today, not with so many worried about her.
Fisher’s Cove was taking its stand.
Cass opened her eyes at the gentle splashing as Sophie entered the pool. “Good morning. I figured I’d have company soon. I have no idea why there aren’t twenty people in here every hour of the day.”
Sometimes there were. And it told Sophie what she wanted to know—Cass hadn’t really been seek
ing solitude. She took a deep breath and prepared to give a friend a push off a cliff. Guilt be damned. “Adam slept through the night last night.”
Cass smiled, a bit perplexed. “That’s good.”
“He fell asleep in his own bed, listening to Aaron’s recording of those lullabies you played in his kitchen.”
Green eyes widened. “That worked?”
“It didn’t at first. Whatever happens when you play, whatever Mike and Adam feel, it isn’t there in the recording.”
“Maybe they just like live music.”
Sophie hid a grin—apparently Marcus’s grumpy face was contagious. “Maybe. But I have a different theory.”
Cass raised an eyebrow. “You’re sure you’re not Irish?”
All witches were, a little bit. Sophie settled deeper in the waters. She’d had a lot of hours to think, watching her son calmly sleeping in the night. “When babies are first born, it’s a bit of a shock. They live in this nice, warm, dark, regulated world, and then suddenly it all changes.”
Green eyes on the other side of the pool squinted, less wary now. “You think Adam had trouble with the change?”
She’d always thought so. “For most babies, we wear them on our chests, let them listen to our hearts, and they slowly learn to regulate themselves. To adapt to this new world.”
“To breathe, and sleep, and be happy.” Cass nodded. “Nan’s big on wearing babies. She said I wouldn’t sleep at all unless I was curled up against someone’s heart.”
The answer shimmered in the light mist of the pool hanging between them. Sophie hoped her friend was ready. “When we talked about listening to the rocks before—you told me they were like a heartbeat.”
It took a moment. But then she saw rightness bloom in Cass’s eyes. Recognition. A witch finally understanding what moved in her veins.
And then she saw fear.
Sophie willed her fists to relax. Healing was a hard road to walk—the witch had to be willing. “I think your music is like a baby carrier. It helped Adam hear the rocks. Hear the heartbeat.”
Shock bloomed on their Irish witch’s face. However much she felt their truth, hearing the words shook her. Hard.
Sophie pressed on, needing to get to the part that mattered most. That might make it easier for all of them. “I think he’s learning to hear it himself. And maybe Aaron’s recording helps him to remember how a little. It didn’t at first, but now it does, because he’s getting better at listening.” She breathed, letting the pure joy of that sit for a moment. “You’re healing him.”
“I’m just a fiddler.”
A mother’s love kept pushing the guilt away. “And I’m a gardener and someone who enjoys making pretty yarn in a pot. But that’s not all of who I am.” Which had probably been a lot easier to accept at eight years old. She’d grown up knowing what lived inside her.
Cass wrapped her arms around her knees under the water, a woman curling away from truth. “Nan would know if I was a healer.”
Maybe the language was wrong. Sophie dug for something that might sit better. “That’s my word. What do you call the person who can help others find the center of the music? Its meaning?”
“A genius.” Amusement flitted across Cass’s face. And then understanding. “Ah. A good performer can do that. And the best teachers.”
Now they were getting somewhere. Sophie cursed herself for not starting there in the first place. “Exactly. Like you did for Kevin, showing him how to feel that ballad from the inside.” Aaron’s recording had babies now—every house in Fisher’s Cove had one, much to Kevin’s enduring embarrassment.
“He’s got nice talent.” Cass’s face was easier now. “I was only unlocking what was already inside him.”
“Exactly.” Sophie spoke quietly, waiting for Cass to hear her own words.
Green eyes were still wary—but they saw now. “You think I did that for Adam. Helped him learn to hear the rocks.”
“Yes.” Him and so many others. But that much was only a feeling. An inkling. Sometimes a witch had to think things out for herself. Even if she might have the power to help her audiences feel the planet’s very heartbeat.
Cass sat motionless on the other side of the pool, chin propped on her knees. Thinking. And still not entirely convinced.
But Sophie also saw what she had most hoped for.
A witch no longer entirely afraid. And, perhaps, a friend no longer stuck.
“Music has always been the core of me.” Quiet words, spoken into rippling waters. “I don’t know what happens if I let that go.”
The healer had no good answer for that. But the mother did. “So don’t let it go.” She waited for Cass’s eyes to meet hers. “I don’t love my husband any less because I love my son. The core of who we are can grow.”
Cass set her head back down on her knees again, staring at the rippling waters.
A seed. Waiting.
-o0o-
It hadn’t been a soothing visit to Moira’s pool—but it had been a sleep-inducing one.
Cass slid farther down the inn’s most comfortable couch and tugged the throw up under her chin, quite certain she wasn’t the first person to be tempted into a nap in its cozy depths.
So many things to think about. Later.
Gentle sounds bubbled in the room, much as they had when she’d napped on Nan’s daybed as a little girl. Moira and Lizzie sat at the table, huddled in quiet conversation over several jars of crumbly green herbs. Aaron did the accounts for the inn, keeping an eye on his twins over in the corner.
Sean sat with them, constructing an endless, looping train track and patiently rebuilding what the babies destroyed.
Cass opened her eyes all the way. There had been three babies with Sean just a moment ago.
Small hands tugged on the edge of her blanket.
Ah. Baby number three. Cass smiled at the roaming girl, noting her surprisingly droopy eyes. “Tired, are you, lovey?” In her current state, Cass had no trouble understanding that. “Want to come cuddle with me?”
Morgan held up her arms and waited for an assist.
That required more energy than Cass had planned to expend on the way to sleep, but she finally got the two of them settled, Morgan a comfortably heavy weight on her chest and already well on the way to dreamland.
The sound of the rocks humming contentedly in her ears, Cass pulled up the hand-knit blanket one more time and closed her eyes.
Morgan’s quiet whiffling was adorable.
Or perhaps she was already dreaming.
-o0o-
Marcus had no idea how parents survived without mind magic. Even on a good day, he lost Morgan somewhere in the bowels of Fisher’s Cove at least once.
A problem made larger by the number of people willing to let her in their doors, and a child who would toddle anywhere for a cookie and a hug.
He’d left her playing in Moira’s house long enough to go help Uncle Billy carry a new net down to his boat and had since tracked her whereabouts through half the village.
However, he had her now. He’d been strolling past the inn when he’d caught the edge of a sleepy little mental sigh—the ones she made as she stirred in her crib just before rolling over and settling back in. Probably curled up in the parlor again. She was like a cat, always headed for the nice, warm fire.
Her mind was melting back into incoherence. Sound asleep again.
He closed the inn door gently. Not that it mattered—his girl slept through earthquakes, sword fights, and home invasions on a regular basis.
Lizzie spied him first, grinning from the table where she sat with Moira. Herbal studies. It always amused him that Lizzie could recite the properties of hundreds of green things, but wouldn’t eat a single one of them.
Aaron was scowling at his computer, which could only mean it was time to do the inn’s books again. The results were always good, but getting to them generally caused considerable pain.
Aaron’s twins played in the corner, happily deconst
ructing a train track. The track’s chief engineer had his head on a pillow, eyes drooping.
Marcus shook his head—it was a strange day indeed when Sean O’Reilly was about to take a nap.
Morgan must be on the couch.
Marcus moved forward, angling around the end of the biggest piece of furniture in the room.
And felt his heart stutter.
His daughter was asleep—curled up in the arms of the woman who shared her riotous curls, love of daffodils, and utter disregard for his bad moods.
They looked as though they belonged together. Possibility caught fire in his gut.
He reached out a link to Cass’s mind. Needing. Wanting.
And crashed headfirst into her dream. A stage. A bright and glittery one, with people stretching as far as the eye could see. She played for them, and for the invisible people beyond the edges of the light. A wild and delirious song, one that screamed of battles won and souls lost and held thousands captive with every note.
He’d known she was a star—but he’d never felt it.
And in her dream, Cassidy Farrell reveled in it.
Marcus backed away, watching the dream go black. Looked down on his girl, utterly content in the arms of a woman who lived for the stage. And felt anguish rip him in two.
He scooped Morgan into his arms, deaf to her instant protests.
And glared down at bleary green eyes. “You can’t be halfway here.”
Confusion looked back up at him.
“Go. I won’t have you breaking her heart.” An impossible bravery fought to the surface and pushed out two more words. “Or mine.”
-o0o-
His eyes weren’t gentle anymore.
Cass struggled to wake up, brain still clogged with music and dreams and the cries of a bereft small girl.
And then his mind punched again. Go.
Pain slicing her soul into tiny shards, she stumbled to her feet. Blood drained as she ran, his eyes chasing her out into the cold, biting wind of the village where she no longer belonged.
Boots two sizes too big slapped at her feet. Not hers.
Cass stumbled to a stop, agonized, underdressed, and still dazed from sleep. Stood in the middle of the only road of Fisher’s Cove, blanket pulled tight in helpless defense against the wind.
