Page 48 of Found in Obscurity

Lorin opened and closed his mouth a few times at her. She closed it with the handle of her staff.

“Work it out.”

With that she hobbled down the steps and toward her car, Sjena following her with a parting caw.

Lorin wanted to chase her, to cling to her ankles, or throw himself into her back seat and refuse to move. But she was, frustratingly as always, slightly right.

All this time, he’d been saying he’d embrace being a witch. But he had yet to actuallydoanything, still looking to others for the answers instead of trying to do something about it himself.

Well…screw this ghost then.

He wasn’t going to be driven out of his parents’ house by some supernatural spirit with an asshole agenda.

He waited for his grandma’s taillights to fade into the distance before closing the door and looking down at Kit, who was pouting between his paws like he was defeated.

“Don’t worry, Kit. I’m going to work this out,” he promised.

Kit put a paw over his eyes in a very human-like gesture. Lorin felt slightly offended by it.

He settled onto the sofa, wrapped in his blankets, pulling the lamp closer and the book he’d gotten from the shop onto his lap. Maybe there would be something in this cryptic mess that could help. He thought he remembered something about unwanted presences.

Kit gave up on his impression of an exasperated pancake at some point, taking the edge of the familiar book between his teeth and dragging it over across the sofa cushions.

Lorin pushed it away gently, scratching Kit’s ears. “Not now, Kit. Maybe tomorrow, okay?”

Kit accepted the denial for once, falling into an exhausted curl at his side with a deep and audible sigh. Lorin frowned down at him, sensing his fallen mood. He stroked along the bend of his spine a few times, making long strokes all the way to the tip of his tail.

He watched Kit’s eyes slowly close, blinking a few times like he was fighting it, but the soothing motions eventually knocked him out. Lorin smiled down at him, happy that he was coming to know Kit so well.

He turned his attention back to the book and settled in for a potentially long night of research.

He moved his fingers over countless pages, his sharp nails tracing the words and symbols looking for something that could help.

And then he found it.

Unwanted Spirits

Lorin’s heart sped up as he read, the images of dark, abstract shapes sending chills up his spine. Everything about the pages gave off a creepy energy, and he began to feel paranoid, feeling like eyes were on him in the darkness.

He swallowed, but pressed on with a clenched jaw. He wasn’t going to scare himself, or let something else scare him into abandoning this. He pushed the pages of the book down to keep them flat and kept on reading.

There were ingredients listed, incantations offered, and all sorts of drawings and diagrams to help him navigate using something called a banishing spell.

Lorin had never even entertained the idea of actively using his magic. Not until he’d found himself bonded to a familiar. But now he felt himself pushed to do it. Forced into it almost.Because he wanted to feel safe in a space he was trying to turn into his home, and he’d be damned if the tiny sliver of peace and acceptance he had found would be snatched away from him by a ghost of all things.

He made sure to read the section all the way through, memorizing the banishing spell and the ingredients, grateful the spell didn’t call for anything gross, bloody, or alive. He didn’t think he could handle that for his first actual attempt at being a witch. Or any attempt, if he was being honest.

He got up carefully, tucking the blanket around Kit’s sleeping form before creeping up to the magic room. He shivered, the cramped space yawning and huge this late at night, the shadows crawling along the walls.

There wasn’t a light switch up here and the moon wasn’t bright enough, so he reached for the nearest candelabra and the pack of ancient matches nearby. One snapped as soon as he applied pressure, and he cursed under his breath before grabbing another.

This one just wouldn’t strike no matter how many times he swiped it.

“Come on,” he whispered, bringing the pack to his lips and breathing his intention into it. “Please, please, please light.”

He struck it one more time and it caught, brighter than any match had before. So bright that Lorin almost dropped it in surprise. He stared in shock for a few moments, his fingers tingling.

Hadhedone that?