Page 6 of Found in Obscurity

“So.” His grandma’s voice made him open them again, tension flooding back in when he saw the expression carved into her weathered face. “Let’s talk.”

She’d clearly used last night to lull him into a false sense of security and let him think he’d have at least a full day without this, but apparently, she was just as efficient and no-nonsense as he’d remembered her.

He barely swallowed the bite in his mouth, the lump getting stuck in his throat with how tight it had suddenly gotten. He placed his slice of bread onto his plate, wanting to disappear inside the blue and gold swirls.

“I guess we should,” he murmured.

She nodded, putting her own food down and crossing her hands in front of her plate.

Hands that had nails sharper and longer than anyone he’d met before. With marks so dark and visible they looked like they were glowing. Each shape on her fingers was clearly defined and visible despite the skin being wrinkled with age. They spoke of her power.

“Twelve years, Lorin,” she said, and some of that sharpness in her voice rounded at the corners. “I thought I’d never see you again.”

“You’d always be able to find me in the end,” he said around the lump in his throat. “Just like you have now.”

“That is not the point. The point is that you didn’t want to be found. You made it near impossible to track your whereabouts. Why?”

“I…”

“And I don’t want bullshit answers.” She pointed a claw at him. “After all these years I deserve to know the truth. I raised you. I sacrificed a lot to turn you into a functioning human being. I think the least you can do is explain yourself.”

He sighed, the knot in his stomach twisting tighter. She was still good at the guilt-tripping. Lorin wondered if that was one of the powers she possessed. To make you feel like crap for disappointing her. For even thinking about it.

“You’re right,” he said finally, knowing there was no getting out of the conversation. “I didn’t want to be found by you.”

“Why?” she asked, and he struggled to form a sentence that would convey how he was feeling without offending her. Except he didn’t think there was a way.

“Because you never understood, and you never accepted,” he said bitterly. “Not when I first told you, not when I explained for the millionth time, and not even now, otherwise you wouldn’t have to ask.”

“Lorin…”

“I still don’t want this.” He raised his hands into the air and turned his nails and fingers toward her. “If I can find a way to give it up, I will do it.”

“That is like saying you don’t want to be human,” she said, that same outrage coloring every word. She still didn’t get it, and he was right to think she never would. “There is no stopping being who you are, Lorin. You were born a witch.”

“I don’t have to live like one, though!” His voice was just slightly louder than before. “I’ve been living away from all of this for so long and nothing bad happened. I can just keep doing that. You just have to accept it and let it go. And then maybe you and I can still have a relationship, without it hanging between us.”

She pursed her lips, challenge lighting up her wizened gaze. “So that’s your plan then? Ignore the power instead of learning to harness it? Hide yourself from everyone because nobody can see this side of you ever? Live in exile from your roots forever?”

He’d been doing it for twelve years. Most days he could convince himself it was enough. The frustration of running aimlessly with no clear direction in life was easy to beat down if it meant he was protecting himself. That he wasn’t proving them right by falling into the projection they wanted to cast over him.

“I don’t mind solitude.”

She scoffed. “Always so stubborn. I hate others as much as the next spinster, but you need a community. Everyone needs somewhere to belong.”

“I belong there, Grandma.”

“Do you?” she asked, tilting her head. “Do you really feel like that’s the place for you?”

He set his jaw. “Yes.”

“Why? Are you truly happy, Lorin?”

He opened his mouth and then closed it with a click, realizing that after all these years, he wasn’t sure how to answer that.

Happy?

It had never been the focus of his intent. The walls around him had been the priority.