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