Chapter 5 A Witch Comes to Call #2
“God preserve us, an' keep the wicked things at bay…
Christ's cross be ma shield and ma sword…
The Lord's light blind ye and the cold earth bind ye…” His voice cracked on the last words, raw and trembling, and for a moment I thought he might bolt for the door.
But then I saw the way his eyes darted toward Sorcha, and I knew—he was too afraid of her to actually do it.
Clearly, Robbie was not okay with whatever was happening here.
Truthfully, I wasn't either. The ruby had chosen me for this…
not him. But something had happened to Robbie—something deep enough to leave scars invisible to the eye—to provoke this kind of terror.
I made a mental note to ask Baird about it later, when we were alone.
“Think on it, Mira,” Sorcha said, her voice level but edged with quiet finality. “I'll come back in a few days to talk with ye.” She didn't wait for a reply. “Let's away, Robbie.”
She walked out the door first, with Robbie close behind. The ruby was still warm in my hand. Whatever I'd agreed to—spoken or otherwise—I knew one thing with unsettling clarity. My life had already begun to bend around it.
For a long moment, neither of us spoke. Baird didn't rush to fill the silence—didn't ask if I was alright, didn't try to interpret what any of it meant. He stayed just close enough for me to feel him there, ready if I needed him.
“So,” I said finally. “That went well.”
He huffed with a small laugh. “Aye. Very neighborly visit from the local witch.”
“When she called me a maker, she said it like it wasn't just a skill.” I said. “More like it was a function.”
He mused to himself before responding. “I picked up on that. It was odd.”
“I'm not sure I like being chosen for things I don't understand,” I said quietly.
“Did ye understand your clairvoyance at first?” he countered.
I shot him a pout at being right “No. And I still don't like it.”
He pulled me into his arms—the feel of him solid, real, tangible—and kissed my forehead.
I lingered for a moment before pulling away to reheat leftovers for my dinner, and poured both of us a glass of wine. “What do you know about Sorcha?”
“She's old,” Baird said after a pause. “Older than Robbie. Older than most things, I think.”
I let that sink in. “So she's not just some barefoot hippy with a bundle of sage and a dollar-store spell book?” In truth, I wanted her to be that simple and innocuous—to be someone I could laugh off instead of someone who scared a vampire like Robbie.
Growing up in Massachusetts, I felt like witch culture was everywhere.
Salem merch, Hocus Pocus reruns, haunted tours in October. But a real witch? Never met one.
“No. She's very powerful I think.” He leaned closer to me, his voice low, almost reluctant—as if speaking about her in a voice too loud might summon her.
“Robbie told me he met her before he was turned. He was a young lad then, out fishing on the open sea when a storm came from nowhere—black skies, screaming wind. His boat capsized, and he barely survived. Washed up half-dead on an island he didnae recognize.” Baird shifted uncomfortably in his seat before he went on.
“He said a beautiful redheaded woman found him there. Nursed him back to health. She told him she was lonely…and asked him to stay. And for a time, he did. Happily.” He went quiet for a moment, and I saw the tension ripple through him before he continued.
“But one day, Robbie went out to collect firewood.
As he came back, he saw her through the cottage window…
and she wasna the woman who'd found him.
She was ancient—a withered crone with skin like parchment and eyes as sharp as glass.
She can change her appearance at will, Mira.
She'll change how she looks so ye can accept her. That's the kind of power she has.”
“What did you see her as?” I asked, still processing that she might appear as one thing to me, and someone else entirely to him.
“She looked about fifty, I suppose,” Baird said after a moment. “A wee bun on top of her head, a bit of gray in her hair. Eyes the color of a fawn…” He trailed off with a small shrug.
“That's how I saw her,” I murmured, the chill of recognition sliding down my spine.
Baird's gaze flicked to mine, and for a heartbeat, the air seemed heavier between us.
“She let him go, gave him a boat to come back. Then many years later, after Robbie was turned,” he went on, his voice lower now, “he went back to the island. Thought maybe, with her magic, she could make him human again. He said he was never sure if she couldnae or if she just wouldnae.” Baird's mouth tightened. “Because now she has him. Forever.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.
“Well…she disnae have him. He lives here, goes about his business. But every so often, she calls to him.”
“Calls to him?” I echoed, unsure what that even meant. A phone call? Somehow, I doubted it.
“Aye.” Baird nodded grimly. “He'll get in his boat and go out to her.
Stay with her a few days. Then come home like nothing happened.
Says she still looks like the beautiful maiden who found him when he's there. And from the look on his face today…” Baird exhaled heavily.
“I'd say to him, she was the young woman again.”
Every so often, Sorcha made what sounded like a witch's booty call to Robbie, and whatever hold she had on him, he couldn't—or wouldn't—refuse her. Powerful indeed. Then I remembered her cryptic comment—and the guilty look on Baird's face as I sat down at the table next to him.
“What did she mean…when she said you can see my magic?” The words felt strange and heavy on my tongue, like saying them aloud might make them real.
I wasn't sure I wanted that. I'd only just made a shaky peace with my clairvoyance, and now this—this suggestion of something deeper, something more—felt like it could undo all of that.
“I told ye before, Mira—sometimes ye glow with it. Literally.” Baird's voice was low, reverent. “It's like…an electrical field rippling over yer skin. Shimmering, like the heat waves that rise off a fire. Invisible, but not invisible—if ye ken what I mean.”
I swallowed hard, caught between disbelief and a heavier dread pooling low in my chest. The only thing keeping me from going under was the look on Baird's face—one of wonder, and maybe even pride—as he spoke.
“Most times, I see it when you're in the studio,” he went on.
“Dancing wi the torch in your hand, completely lost in your work.
But I've seen it other times too—when ye're in my arms, when ye come for me,” he said with a wicked gleam in his eyes, “and I can feel and see the power in ye then, Mira.
Strong and wild, like nothing I've ever known.”
His hand slid over mine, fingers curling gently. “You’re a rare and magical thing, Mira Garvie. And all this time, ye thought I was just bein’ romantic.”