A Celtic Witch (A Modern Witch Series: Book 6) (9 page)

And a slightly crazed need to do
something
.  He’d grown used to his nice, predictable days.  Ones that didn’t involve strangers with green eyes and a mental signature that was still haunting his head.

He glared at his daughter, sound asleep in the corner.  Abandoned in his time of need.

And then his brain caught up with its own ridiculousness.  Morgan was fed and sleeping and his house was mysteriously empty of visitors, swarming children, or little old ladies looking for a cup of sugar or the latest gossip.

A miracle of major proportions.

Tiptoeing a tad belatedly, he made his way over to his easy chair and settled in with a very satisfied sigh.  Peace.  Silence and a new library book.

And an enormous, flashing icon on his laptop screen.  A neon-pink one.

Marcus groaned—very quietly.  It had clearly been too good to be true.  He leaned over and squinted at the flashing pink. 
Urgent!  Duel Issued!

He hadn’t visited Realm in months.  Gaming was not designed for people with mobile babies.  In the time it would take him to plan a decent invasion, Morgan could probably eat half the plant life in Fisher’s Cove.

He typed a quick reply. 
Go away.

Ginia’s preteen grin popped up on his chat screen.  “Can’t.  I need you.”

He hastily turned down the volume.  “I don’t have time for duels, Warrior Girl.”  Especially ones with the world’s best ten-year-old programmer.  “Isn’t there anyone else left for you to pick on?”

She snickered.  “I don’t want to duel
you
.  I need you to be my partner.  Realm’s having a tournament.”

He knew better than to take innocent looks at face value.  “And why exactly would that be happening?”

“We planned it.”  She shrugged.  “It’s winter and all.  Witches are bored.  Besides, you can’t be a parent all the time—Mama says that would make anyone crazy.”

He wasn’t certain a trip to Realm was the cure for that.  And he was most decidedly not bored.  “Well then, how about you go find a partner who needs some excitement in their life and let me get back to the only hour of relaxation I will probably get all winter?”

Her eyes lit up.  “You have a whole hour?”

“You aren’t listening to me, youngling.”  He added a growl, expecting it to be entirely ineffectual.  Nell Walker’s daughters didn’t scare, any of them.  “Go find somebody else.”

“Can’t.”  She tapped the pink spellcube.  “We’ve already been challenged.”

He had no desire to spend his one free hour trampling over some dumb gamer silly enough to challenge Realm’s top two players.  “I’m sure you can crush the upstarts without my assistance.”

“Not a chance.”

He frowned—Warrior Girl had wicked gaming skills, and she knew it.  “Who issued the challenge?”

“Kevin.” 

The boy was developing a nice game—but he was no idiot.  Marcus felt disquiet creep into his gut.  “And who’s his partner?”

She looked at him sideways.  “The Wizard.”

Disquiet landed with both feet.  “Your mother’s in the tournament?”

“Yup.”  Ginia grinned and added a shine spell to her sword.  “She said Kevin made her an offer she couldn’t refuse.  And she has a right to wrong.  Something about librarians and bushes.”

Demon wings and bat dung.  “Your father’s playing too?”  The Hacker’s exploits were legendary in any gaming era.

“I told you.  Everyone’s playing.”  She glared at him down the full length of her sword.  “And I don’t intend to lose.”

He made a brief wish that one day Morgan might have a fraction of Ginia’s confident grace.  And then gave in.  A duel might even keep his mind off of green Irish eyes.

He raised an eyebrow at his screen.  “Well then, we’d better formulate a plan.  Your keep or mine?”  The pub would be far too full of spies and eavesdropping spells.

“Mine.”  Her eyes danced a happy jig.  “Yours is full of pink bunnies.”

He kept the curses inside his head.

Mostly.

-o0o-

Moira watched their guest from the hallway a moment—it wasn’t everyone who could sit so quietly.  Or look like they could lift off into the sky at any moment.  A wanderer, this one was.  “It’s turned into a stormy day out there.”  The rain had blown in quickly—and it hadn’t taken much to convince Moira to sit out the bluster in the inn’s parlor.

Guests were particularly cherished on an inhospitable winter’s eve.

Cass looked over from her perch on the window seat.  “I like the storms.  They remind me of home.”

“Ah, and where’d you grow up, then?”  Moira set down the tea tray, ready for a good Irish conversation—the kind that lasted for hours and went nowhere in particular and everywhere important.

“County Galway.  Mum and Da are still there.  My sister Bri’s in Dublin, and Rory flits around depending on his mood.  He has a lot of them.”

Moira thought of Marcus and chuckled.  There was always a moody one somewhere in the family tree.  “Do you go back to see them often?”

“When I can.”  Cass turned, finally noticing the tea.  She unraveled from her neat ball on the low bench and glanced back out the window one last time.  “When I’m on this coast, I always like to go to the beach and imagine them standing there waving, just beyond the horizon.”

For fifty years and more, Moira had done exactly the same thing.  “Will you ever move back?”

“No.”  The answer came swiftly, and with sadness.  “I left because times were tough and musicians a dime a dozen.  And grew up into someone else while I traveled the world.  When I go back, it feels like the home of my childhood.”

But not the home of the woman grown.  That, too, Moira could understand.  “So where is home now?”

“I don’t know.”  Cass seemed surprised by her words—or perhaps only surprised that she’d spoken.  “I have an apartment in New York, but I hardly ever see it.”

Ah.  A plant without roots, then.  Moira sipped her tea and watched their guest stir in milk and sugar.  Very interesting indeed.  “And what brought you to our little corner of the world?”  Fisher’s Cove in March was about the furthest thing possible from a tourist destination.

“Dave in Margaree recommended it.”

That much had already been traveled through the grapevine.  It was the layers underneath that interested Moira now.  “It’s not a common time of year to be visiting Cape Breton, either.”

Green eyes looked up from tea making.  “No, it’s not.”

The invitation to talk had been issued—and anyone who’d grown up in Ireland would know that.  Moira contented herself with her own cup and waited.

“It’s the quiet months for fiddlers.”  Cass shrugged.  “I take a couple of weeks in the summer to go back home, too, but this is the time I take just for me.  I don’t mind the weather.”

It was so lovely to hear the song of home in someone else’s voice, muted by years abroad though it was.  “Make a living with your music, do you?”

“Mostly.”  The visitor’s smile seemed laden with words unsaid.

“It’s a good occupation for a wanderer.”

“My nan calls me that.”  Cass’s head tipped to the side.  “She’s the one who put a violin in my hands, too.”

A grandmother after Moira’s own heart.  “She sounds like an interesting woman.”

“In another time, she’d have been a warrior priestess, I think.”  Cass grinned.  “Or a bard.”

“A singer, is she?”

“Aye.  Says she turned me to the fiddle to cover up the creaks as her voice grew old.”  Their visitor settled back into the couch, love for an old Irish gran shining in her eyes.  “She can still stop a pub dead in its tracks with just a few notes.”

In Ireland, there was no larger compliment.  “It’s a great gift she gave you, then.  A love for music and a way to make your own.”

Green eyes sharpened.  “You see very clearly for someone I’ve just met.  Nan would like you.”

It was time to press a little deeper.  “Is she the one who taught you of power and magic as well, then?”

Blank shock hit Cass’s face, followed quickly by intrigue and a heaping dose of curiosity.  “You’re a witch?”

Moira nodded and sipped her tea.  “A bit of one.”  Time to see how well the girl knew her lore.  “I’m a Doonan.  My gran was a Gaughran.”

“My nan is a Cassidy,” said her namesake quietly. 

Ah.  The healer clan.  The girl wasn’t only named for her hair, then.  Life was such a gorgeous tapestry sometimes.  Moira smiled at the woman who was the latest bright gold thread in the weaving.  “And is it her talent you carry in your veins?”

“No.”  Cass shook her head slowly.  “Not the healing, anyhow.  I hear the rocks a bit, that’s all.”

It was another of the hereditary talents of the Cassidy clan.  Mystics, ones who heard the heartbeat of the stones under their feet.  It fit—the old magics had heralded her arrival.  “Well then, Cassidy Farrell, a very special welcome to Fisher’s Cove.  We’ve witches aplenty here—and a village well tolerant of our magics.”

And no witch who listened to the rocks had possibly come here by accident.

Moira cradled her tea, very well pleased.

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.”