Page 69 of Found in Obscurity

“You can’t see that?”

She shook her head. “I can’t. And I imagine nobody else can either.”

Kit made a digging motion with his front paws on the surface of the table, turning his head to look at Lorin.

“You can’t either?” Lorin asked him, and Kit flicked his tongue out, licking Lorin on the nose.

Lorin pressed his lips tight, the events of the past days rushing through his mind. The absence of the books he’d found from the library system, the strange smile on The Owner’s face when he’d offered Lorin his first book from the shop, Glenn’s comments when he’d come for a visit, Kit’s obvious distaste for Lorin’s reading choices.

None of them could see?

None of them could read the information he could?

“A pathfinder?” he asked quietly.

“There are usually a few per generation of witches. Spread around the communities to cover as much ground as possible. They have access to knowledge others don’t. They can find answers for people, tap into rituals that would be lost without them.”

“Like the Seeking?”

Her face turned serious and she leaned in, warning him. “They also guard the secrets that shouldn’t be widespread. There’s a reason some rituals and spells disappeared from public knowledge.”

Lorin swallowed, the magnitude of what she was saying falling like weights on his shoulders. A mantle she was draping over him, wanted or not. And it wasn’t lost on him. He’d felt the fear when he’d cast that spell and it had gone wrong. How he’d almost lost himself. If it hadn't been for Kit, he might not even be here right now. Spells like those were dangerous and were right to be hidden.

“I understand.”

But it made the reason he’d come to see her all the more dubious. His heart pounded.

“I know that look,” she said.

“What?”

“This ritual you wanted to show me,” she said shrewdly, eyes narrowing. “You said it gave you the creeps. Am I assuming that’s because the possibility of death is high and not because you don’t want to touch the ‘yucky ingredients’ as you used to love saying?”

“I was ten.” He rolled his eyes despite everything. “You can’t hold that against me forever.”

She gave him a flat look. “You were eighteen.”

“Excuse me for not wanting to turn frog eyes into a paste!”

“Lorin,” she said, her patience clearly wearing thin with the diversion in topic.

“It’s not dangerous…I don’t think…” he said slowly, wincing a little. “It just seems…dark.”

His grandma was the line between light and dark. She was the gray area of shadow where they touched. He’d seen her work with things that would make anyone else shiver, but she always knew where to stop.

Lorin had no idea where the boundaries were, but the shiver he’d gotten down his spine when reading had been indication enough for him to go to her this time. The Seeking was one thing, and he’d more than learned his lesson there.

This was something entirely different.

She hummed. “Go on.”

“It details a witch’s research into animals and how to transform them…into humans,” Lorin said cautiously, and Kit popped his head up in interest. “At first, I was excited. I thought I’d found the answer. But as I read further it became strange… It seemed like the goal wasn’t anything to do with shifters.”

His grandma frowned but nodded for him to continue.

“The animals kept their animal minds but were forced into human bodies. A lot of them went mad. The town was terrorized. It wasn’t even clear what the goal was for the witch. They were cast out, and that’s the end of the entry.”

“Such experiments were unfortunately common in the past,” his grandma said gravely. “Witches pushing nature and magic too far for the sake of curiosity.”