Page 20 of Found in Obscurity

The door closed behind him on its own, like it was in cahoots with his grandma. It wanted him to stay now it had him.

Lorin shuffled straight to the armchair, placing his hands on the back and slumping down, heart racing.

What was he supposed to do? Live here? Give up his life in the city? His job? He had no friends to speak of, so it wasn’t like anyone would be missing him in that area, but he still had ties there. He couldn’t just cut everything out without a word because his witch heritage had come back to bite him in the ass. He didn’t think that was a valid excuse to violate his lease and his work contract.

The fox knocked over a box with a crash and Lorin glanced over as it looked innocently back at him amid a mess of old shoes, its amber eyes shining in the low light. Lorin shook his head, feeling a tiny tickle of amusement that he squashed.

He had no choice. That was the answer.

It had always been the answer.

His whole life.

Now Lorin just had to deal with the outcome.

He had a familiar. His witch power was going to increase. Those were facts. While he could choose not to live up to his potential as a witch, the familiar was nonnegotiable. He was responsible for and actually had to take care of it. He couldn’t rely on his grandma forever and pick his life back up in the city the same as before. She’d given him the grace of a few days to let it sink in. She’d kept the fox healthy while he’d tried his best not to look at it, despite the fox’s pleas for notice and attention.

But now it was just them.

Lorin had to confront it instead of burying himself in distractions and running away.

He took a deep breath, figuring that he’d deal with things one at a time. He still had another week and a half of vacation time, but he didn’t think just sending an email saying he needed more time would work. He needed to decide what to do about it if he was staying in Oak’s Hollow. But he didn’t have the bandwidth for it just then.

He’d work out what to do about his job, his apartment, and his belongings another day. Right now he had a disheveled cabin and a fox running amok inside it.

He reached for the nearest light switch to fully see what he was dealing with and was met with a hollow click.

No power.

Wonderful.

The fox came bounding over then, making ear-splitting sounds with its mouth hanging open in an excited grin. Lorin had forgotten how harsh foxes’ voices actually were.

Lorin frowned down at it. “What’s wrong? What do you want?”

It hopped around his ankles, clearly trying to communicate something. Lorin had no idea what.

“Stars, isn’t it supposed to be easier than this?” he said to the dead air before looking down at the fox. “I’m a horrible witch. I’m not cut out for it, okay? I have no idea what you want from me.”

The fox gave a huff and ran to the back of the cabin where a sliding door had been placed. Lorin frowned deeper and worked his way over, dodging the fallen shoes and a few more boxes of things his grandma must have collected before giving up and leaving the rest where they were.

The fox pawed at the curtain partially obscuring the view into the woods and Lorin located the lock before pulling both of them open at once. The fox hopped outside, looking back at him expectantly.

“Do you want some privacy? I can leave you to do your thing if you need to, like…go…”

If the fox could have rolled its eyes, Lorin was sure it would have. There was a distinct air of disdain vibrating around them suddenly.

“Am I supposed to follow?”

The fox disappeared around the corner of the cabin porch like that was the answer and Lorin sighed, following along until he rounded the corner and saw a generator against the wall. It was connected to what looked like solar panels on the roof that hadn’t been visible from the front of the house. Next to it was a large barrel that had pipes going into the house, presumably for some source of water.

“Oh,” Lorin said, utterly surprised. “Did you find this before we came in?”

The fox sat down and wrapped its tail around three paws, raising the other one to lick at. It was effectively the fox equivalent of examining its nails smugly.

A helpless smile curled the corners of Lorin’s lips. “I guess you’re pretty smart. Or it was just a coincidence…”

The fox made a noise like it was objecting.