Page 31 of Found in Obscurity
Lorin could almost sense her there.
He walked farther into the room, surprisingly feeling more curious than debilitatingly sad about where he was and what was missing from the room. Being this close to her magic felt like the next best thing to knowing her, so he allowed himself to dive in.
Naturally, the first thing he felt drawn to was the countless books she seemed to have had. They were everywhere. Piled on the shelves, stacked on the floor and the couple of mismatched chairs around the room. Lorin knew she’d loved reading just as much as he did. It was one of the things he felt proud to share with her.
He approached the table and ran his fingers over the spines of some books that seemed more well used than others. All of them had something to do with magic affecting water, and using water as a medium. He had known the broad scope of what his mother could do, but his grandma found it difficult to talk about too much, and as he grew older, Lorin had found it difficult to ask.
So he just never did.
There were notebooks with her handwriting scattered between the books, and as he touched them and studied them morecarefully he realized the spines were numbered. He shifted them around until he found the first one and tucked it under his arm.
He didn’t know if he’d be able to bring himself to actually read it, but something told him he’d want to have it close.
He turned around and startled at the sight of himself reflected in a tall, ornately framed mirror tucked into one corner of the room. It was as dusty as everything else, making his reflection wobbly and distorted like one of those amusement park mirror attractions you went into so you could see yourself look like someone had tried to assemble a human without instructions.
He snorted and was about to leave when he caught sight of someone else’s face right next to his in the mirror. It was just slightly off, slightly more shifty than Lorin’s own solid reflection. Distorted almost. But there. Staring at him.
He gasped, whipping around only to find the room completely empty except for himself and the sound of Kit’s paws rushing toward him as his heart beat loudly. He turned back to the mirror and found the spot where the face had been empty.
There was nobody there anymore.
“Kit, have you seen anyone in here?” Lorin whispered urgently, tiptoeing around the small space as if whoever he’d seen in the mirror could be hiding behind one of the few pieces of furniture scattered around the room.
Kit looked baffled. Confused. He paced around, whining and pawing at Lorin, shaking his fur out. His eyes were wider than usual.
“Have you?” Lorin repeated the question when he found nobody in the room with them. He crouched down next to Kit, allowing him to wiggle his way into Lorin’s arms. He was shaking, Lorin could feel the trembles against his chest. He was pushing his nose into Lorin’s neck and whimpering softly. Lorin kissed him between the ears.
He knew where Kit was coming from with his reaction. It was unnerving, and no amount of telling himself the face he’d seen was just a figment of his imagination would help. “How about we get out of here and try again another time?”
He stood up with Kit in his arms, heading for the stairs, but the fox started squirming like crazy. Lorin tried to hold him up, tried to get back down to shorten the drop, but Kit was having absolutely none of it. He clawed and squirmed until he was released, landing on the floor with a soft thud before scurrying away behind the mirror.
“Kit?” Lorin called after him, panicked. “Come on.”
He walked closer, still eyeing the mirror warily, but the fox had tucked himself too far behind it for Lorin to be able to reach him anyway. He didn’t seem to be hurt, just spooked by something.
“Will you please come down with me?”
He heard a soft whine, but Kit never emerged. He was an animal, after all, and not beholden to instructions, or even the understanding of them in the first place. Lorin kept forgetting that.
Still bewildered and confused, Lorin decided he’d let him settle and calm down on his own. Hopefully Kit would come back down when he was ready. Lorin grabbed his mother’s journal and headed for the stairs.
“I’ll be downstairs,” he said softly, looking around himself one more time, unable to shake the uncomfortable feeling pressing down on him. “Come down whenever you’re ready, okay?”
He waited for a moment, but Kit didn’t come out, so he took the stairs down, letting the curtain separate him from whatever was happening in the magic room.
He needed to speak to his grandma—
His phone rang before he even finished the thought. He settled onto the sofa and answered the call, the journal on his knees.
“Bike working well?” his grandmother asked before he even had the chance to greet her properly.
“Yeah it worked okay. I’ll be suffering with muscle inflammation for the next decade, but it works. Once the snow hits, we’ll see.”
He heard the soft tap of claws on the floor, and then Kit hopped up onto the sofa next to him, looking slightly out of it still but present. Lorin felt relief immediately at having him within reach and sight again, reaching out and scratching his back just for an excuse to touch him.
“Exercise is good for you,” his grandma said, zero sympathy for his pain detected. “And when the snow hits, you’ll have to figure out something else, won’t you?”
“Yes, Grandma,” he said, not really wanting to get into a discussion with her about permanent solutions to problems he still had trouble accepting were his to handle now.