Swordfights & Lullabies by Debora Geary Page A

faces in the front row.  Just shadows.
    But always now, one presence held her steady.  A quiet, gentle link, more sensed than felt, from the man who had not missed a single note in three months.  Holding steady for her final exhale.
    She shifted from reel to ballad, knowing her fingers were in fine form tonight.  Slowly she walked to the front of the stage, bathed in the focus of a single spotlight.  A Celtic warrior, music as her cape, Rosie as her sword. 
    The ballad’s notes were deceptively simple, played by uninspired student musicians the world over.  Butchered by most. 
    Rosie found the heart of each note.  Joy and sorrow and the aching knowledge that tomorrows became yesterdays all too quickly.  And the answer, weaving through the music, insistent on being heard.  Live for today.
    Notes she’d played a thousand times.  Believing, deeply, in their message.  But today, on the cusp of Cassidy Farrell’s new life, she felt more.  More of tomorrows and yesterdays, holding hands with the living of today.  Today still mattered—but it was no longer everything.  A new message for her audience.
    And for the one who played.
    She’d spent the last three months holding hands with a man hesitant to trust the simple joys of today.  Had delighted in tempting him with walks in the sun and rambles on the beach and lazy afternoon treasure hunts for a bit of frippery for Morgan’s hair.  And somewhere in the doing, he’d taught her of yesterday and tomorrow.
    Cass brought the ballad to a close, barely hearing the thundering applause, and reached out for his mind.  He insisted his magic was futile in crowds this size.  A wisp lost in a galaxy.  But it comforted her to seek anyhow.
    She could feel her magic thrumming and tamped it down.  It wasn’t meant for audiences this big.
    She loved the stage and always would—but Cassidy Farrell, witch, was learning that her magic worked best in pubs and parlors.  On a human scale.  Nights like tonight were for the performer.
    And so, she would perform.  Cass ran her fingers up Rosie’s fingerboard and launched into her violin’s name song. Ro-sheen.   This was Rosie’s last big concert too—time to show off a little.
    Or, knowing her fiddle, time to bring the house to its feet.

June 18.  Family.

    Marcus stared at his daughter, one bowl of broccoli defiantly upturned on her head, cheesy sauce already sliding down her cheeks.  And glared at Cassidy, who was doing her damnedest not to laugh.  “This is all your fault.”
    The woman he seemed doomed to love gave up all pretense at seriousness, melting into a puddle of laughter that amused their assembled audience at least as much as his stubborn girlchild.  “How do you figure?”
    He aimed one last glare before starting the delicate process of disarming his daughter.  “You’re the one who decided a good home-cooked meal was in order.”
    “I don’t feed guests hamburgers.”  Just one of the many odd rules on a Cassidy Farrell tour.  She might subsist on burgers, ramen noodles, and worse much of the time, but guests merited home cooking, even if it got put together on the entirely insufficient single burner on the bus.  At least today they’d had  a proper stove to work with.
    Tommy snorted, arm around his wife.  “You feed us burgers all the time.”
    Cass crouched down to pick up broccoli bits off the floor.  “You’re not guests.”
    “We aren’t either.”  Lizzie offered her two cents in between bites of rice and beans.  “And girls don’t like broccoli.” 
    “Some of us like it just fine,” said Moira, holding up a somewhat wilted tree on her fork.
    Marcus picked the largest pieces out of his daughter’s curls.  It was so strange, this entirely temporary life in a rental house in a state redolent with history that wasn’t his.  So much of home managed to sneak in anyhow.
    He pushed down his mental wanderings.  The broccoli was breaking into tiny bits in Morgan’s