11. Lorin

Chapter eleven

Lorin

H e blinked against the cobwebs in his eyes, looking at Kit, who was going absolutely insane on the floor next to him.

He righted himself from where he'd slumped into the sofa, feeling uneasiness start to build in his chest. The only times Kit had reacted like this had been after IT had happened. The ghost.

"Kit?" he asked slowly, taking in the disarray around him.

There was no sign of anything else. No figure. But the book he was reading was on the floor, and there was a pencil under the coffee table that had been dislodged from its previous spot. Kit was yelping and hissing at the top of his lungs next to it.

"What's happening?" he asked, sliding from the sofa and kneeling down, trying to scoop Kit up. "Did you see something?"

Kit hissed at him as if burned, squirming away and throwing himself, front paws first, onto the side of the coffee table, scratching at the surface. Completely lost and with his apprehension growing, Lorin shuffled over to the table on his knees, leaning in and pushing Kit's paws away to at least look at what had the fox so jittery.

As soon as the fur moved, his eyes went wide, breath getting caught in his throat.

Letters.

A message.

Someone had been here.

Someone had come in while he was sleeping again, and this time, they hadn't just stood there looking at him.

It had escalated.

The proof on the table made it real, and Lorin found himself sweating in fear as he scrambled for his phone.

He dialed the number and let it ring, pushing himself backward into the wall and curling up there, staring at the room in front of him, wide-eyed and terrified. They could still be here. Behind any of the closed doors. Upstairs.

Watching him.

Waiting for his attention to slip again.

The phone rang and rang and rang and then finally…

"Lorin?" his grandma answered, voice thick with sleep.

"I need you to come here," he said. "Right now!"

"What?" she asked, sounding alarmed. "Lorin, what's happening?"

He had no idea, that was the point. He had no clue what to tell her, or what to make of any of it. He just wanted someone there. He needed someone to help him figure it out. And also, he maybe needed someone who knew how to soothe him when he was agitated. She might not have seen him in years, but she knew him better than anyone else.

"Just…please," he said, and she must have heard the desperation because she promised she'd be there right away before hanging up the phone.

He put his own phone down, wrapping his arms around his legs and keeping his eyes peeled as he sat there, waiting.

Kit was still a hurricane around him. Running, yipping, disturbed.

Lorin tried holding him, tried petting him. He wanted him close to keep him safe. He did everything he could think of to get him to settle down, but he knew Kit felt his discomfort too. They were both in danger. Both of them had been asleep and vulnerable to whoever was there.

It didn't make any sense, the sick game this person was playing. They'd had them both at their mercy, unconscious and unaware.

Why just a message?

Why not do what they were threatening to do?

Did they enjoy the fear and the distress they were putting the two of them through?

Were they watching from somewhere, gloating?

He saw headlights before he heard the sound of his grandma's car parking by the fence. He jumped to his feet, heading for the door to unlock it for her.

Before he got there his grandmother walked in in her navy night robe, the house recognizing her. Lorin snatched her wrist and pulled her to the coffee table, dislodging Sjena sleeping on her shoulder.

"Lorin, for the love of…" She tried pulling away. "What is wrong with you? It's the middle of the night!"

"Yes, and when I fell asleep that—" He pointed to the surface of the coffee table. "—wasn't there. And now it is."

"Your coffee table wasn't there when you fell asleep and now it is?" she asked, her voice scratchy from sleep as she stared at him as if he'd lost his damn mind.

"Not my coffee table, the thing ON it!" He walked closer and pointed to it. Kit was parked right next to it with his front paws up on the table again.

"Your mug?" his grandma asked.

Lorin nearly growled in frustration. "The threat!!"

She frowned, walking closer and bending down to take a look at the scribbles on the table.

"K…I…L?" she read out, and he nodded frantically, not even trying to disguise how distraught he was over the entire thing.

"I clearly woke up before they could add the second L. I'm being threatened in my own home!"

"You think someone tried to write ‘kill' on your coffee table while you were sleeping?"

He flapped his hand toward the table and the letters in question. "Yes!"

"Why not just kill you?"

He gaped at her in disbelief. "What?"

"I'm not suggesting it, silly child. I'm just trying to get some logical thinking going on. If someone wants you dead, why not just kill you when they had a chance instead of leaving cryptic messages half-written on your coffee table?"

He stared.

Because he didn't have an answer to that. Sure, he'd thought of it earlier, but he'd been in such a state that all his mind had come up with was a deranged psycho getting off on his fear instead of just…how ridiculous it would have been for someone to break into someone else's home and then fail at leaving a threatening note.

"I don't know." He sighed and sank onto the sofa again. Kit hopped up and propped his front paws on Lorin's shoulders, laying his front against him like a pancake.

He was still shaking. Still restless.

Lorin cradled his back and pressed a kiss between his eyes.

"The poor thing is scared," his grandma said, looking at Kit, and Lorin scowled at that because where was the compassion when he was falling apart just seconds ago?

"We both are," he grumbled.

"Yes. But you have the mental faculties to think logically and calm yourself down. He's all base instincts and emotions. He's terrified."

She reached a hand toward Kit to stroke him, and the fox had the nerve to turn and cuddle up to her, teeth clamping around her wide sleeve and pulling in the direction of the table.

"Are you scared, little one?" she asked, following Kit's lead back to the weird letters on his table. "Did you see who did it?"

Kit straightened up at the words, turning once and whining up at her.

"You did?" she asked as if she understood him perfectly. "So who was it? Did you see where they went? Can you maybe point us in the right direction?"

Kit sat his butt down, gluing himself to the floor and freezing in place. He wasn't even blinking. He was just…there.

Lorin frowned and exchanged a look with his grandmother. "What does that mean?"

"Well…he's your familiar, so you'd know better what his body language means," she said, throwing the hot potato of blame at him.

"It's been less than two weeks!" Lorin said, staring at Kit, who looked at him from the corner of his eye, not moving an inch.

Not moving an inch.

Kit had frozen when Grandma had asked where the intruder had gone…

"Are you saying the person is still in here?" Lorin asked slowly, fearfully, and Kit hopped up, turning in place again, just like earlier. "They never left?"

Another spin.

Lorin jerked his gaze back to his grandma who, apparently, finally realized the situation wasn't a joke. She put her finger on her lips and turned with narrowed eyes, staff held tightly in her marked hand, scanning the small room. She made a motion with her hand and sent Sjena silently gliding around to double-check. The raven came back with zero reactions to anything.

It was clear nobody was in the room with them, but the bathroom, two closed bedrooms, and the magic room were all very real possibilities.

She creakily crouched next to Kit, motioning for Lorin to join her. They huddled their heads together and she turned to the fox.

"Kit, can you mark the room the intruder is in?" she asked, whispering so they could barely hear what she was saying.

Kit tilted his head and remained in place.

"I don't think he understands," she said.

Lorin gulped against the ball in his throat. "Or…they're here in the room."

"You're not back on the haunted house theory, are you?"

"Do you have a better explanation?" he hissed at her, glaring.

She gave him one of her looks that meant she did not appreciate his attitude. Not even in the face of possible death.

"Not at the moment," she said, standing up with the help of her staff. "But even if the place was haunted. I sense nothing malevolent here. An evil spirit can't hide evil intent."

"The message!"

"Could be anything. Just like the shadow under your bed when you were twelve," she said, hobbling toward the front door.

Lorin chased after her, yelling, "And just like then, that isn't at all comforting or helpful!"

"You'll be fine, Lorin. Try to get some rest."

"You're leaving?" Lorin gasped incredulously. "After you agreed there's something weird going on, you're leaving!"

"You're a witch now, Lorin. Do you need me to solve all your problems?" she asked with an imperious look. "I sense nothing dark here, so that means there's something else going on."

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 actually do anything, 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.

Had he done that?

He'd been hoping, but he hadn't thought it would work.

He shook his head, bringing the flame to the wicks and lighting them one by one until the room was bathed in orange, flickering light.

Okay.

A mason jar.

He found one sitting on top of a shelf in the corner of the room, dusty and barely see-through anymore, but empty. He grabbed it and then started looking for the things he needed to layer inside the jar.

Black pepper to banish negative energy.

Salt to absorb the banished negativity.

Rosemary for protection.

Lavender to soothe the spirit.

Amethyst chips to drive the spirit out.

A black or gray candle to light the spirit's way out of his home.

He located the herbs and spices easily enough, stored on a shelf in clearly labeled glass jars. He layered them into the mason jar one by one, careful to keep the amounts as similar as he possibly could and the layers as neat and visible as possible.

The amethyst chips put up a fight, making him go through each little box and pouch he found along the way until he finally found some in the last drawer of the table, tucked at the very back. There was barely a handful left, and he placed them inside the jar, on top of the other ingredients, hoping it was enough.

There was a box filled with half-burned candles on one of the shelves, and he rummaged through it, locating a dark gray one. It was half gone and wonky, wax gathered on one side of it, distorting the initial shape until it was unrecognizable.

Lorin brought it all back down to the living room with him, putting the lid on the jar and closing all of the ingredients inside. He took a deep breath and with a shaking hand lit the candle, tilting it over the lid and letting the dark gray wax drip onto it, covering the silver surface as he spoke.

" Leave me alone.

Away with you.

Let this spell give me peace,

And solitude.

Away and leave.

So mote it be. "

His voice shook as he recited the simple incantation, his fingers stiff as he snuffed out the candle, took the jar and gave it a firm shake.

The ingredients inside mixed, a potent scent bursting from inside the jar. The wax on the lid spread and sealed it completely. A light came out of it, spreading through the house like lightning before fading out, leaving Lorin standing there alone, holding the jar, shaking like a leaf.

Had it worked?

He had no idea. His house felt exactly the same as it had before. He looked around, trying to figure out if anything signaled the banishment of the spirit. He half expected claw marks on his floors and footprints leading out.

There was nothing though. Just him and a soundly sleeping fox.

Lorin sighed, looking down at the jar and catching sight of his fingers in the low light.

He brought his hand up and stared at a fresh, dark mark covering the skin just under the nail of his index finger. It looked like a rune of some sort. Two little triangles touching at the tips and a line with a little arrow running through the point of contact.

His brows pulled in, a weird mixture of pride and dread spinning in his chest. His first recognizable mark. The first with a shape to it.

He'd actually done a spell.

Which meant he'd practiced magic.

He groaned at himself, too tired to have another existential crisis. He turned to place the mason jar on the coffee table, planning to cuddle up next to his familiar and finally get some uninterrupted sleep, when he saw that Kit had vanished. And in his place was the man. The ghost. Sleeping under the blanket Lorin had wrapped Kit in.

He screamed and the figure bolted upright in shock, wide-eyed and whining.

Whining?

He looked at Lorin's startled face before blinking and looking down at his own naked form, the blanket barely covering his hips.

He raised a hand in front of his face to stare at it, wiggling his fingers like he'd never seen them before. And then, because Lorin's life wasn't already weird enough, the hand began to morph into claws.

Lorin scrambled back against the wall, his heart slamming inside his chest.

He was for sure going to die. And where was Kit? Was he okay?

The answer soon smacked him in the face. The pieces falling into place one by one as fluffy white fur began to sprout through human skin.

Lorin watched as the ghost that had been haunting him, the entity he'd been trying to banish, turned into his own familiar in front of his eyes.

Kit

Kit had been so exhausted that the shift hadn't woken him. It wasn't until Lorin had screamed that he'd roused, that sound able to awaken him from even the deepest sleep. His mate was in trouble. Scared. Nothing could have kept him from him.

Turned out Lorin was screaming at the sight of him, and as he drew himself up to be indignant, he realized the room was painted into human color once more.

It didn't last long, just like the other shifts, but Kit wasn't too upset because finally Lorin had seen with his own two eyes.

He knew.

Kit scrambled out from under the blankets, ignoring the vertigo the shift brought as he spun himself in a circle once in excitement.

"K-Kit?" Lorin stuttered, still curled up against the wall in front of him with blown pupils.

Kit screeched in victory, tongue lolling out once he was done.

"That was you," Lorin said slowly. "In the mirror…and when I woke up…"

Kit yipped.

"…and you tried to write your name on the table… You weren't trying to kill me…"

Kit yipped again.

"And the familiar book you kept trying to get me to read," Lorin said, finally picking up steam. "You're so weird and act like you understand me because you can! You're not a familiar. You're a shifter !"

Well…technically, Kit was both now.

"Just like my dad."

Kit tilted his head, his ears pricking up. Had he heard that right? He jumped off the sofa and hurried over to Lorin. He pawed at his ankle.

Say it again.

"I'm so stupid," Lorin said, running his hands over his face harshly before moving up to tug his own hair, the strands standing up wildly between his fingers. "Though, to be fair to myself, he died when I was two, so what the hell do I actually know about shifting? The signs. Grandma didn't notice either and she knew him for years. I feel like I get a trauma pass."

He buried his face in his hands again, cursing quietly to himself. But all Kit could hear was one thing.

Lorin's dad had been a shifter. Kit wondered what type of animal he was.

He inched closer and Lorin peeked at him between his fingers before reaching out to pet him. He caught himself halfway with wide eyes, seeming unsure on how to handle this now.

Kit huffed in amusement, pushing his head under Lorin's hand forcefully before continuing his slink up Lorin's body to lick at his neck, then his chin, then his—

"Okay! No more of that!" Lorin said, averting his mouth from Kit's tongue.

Which was mean. And rude. And entirely not at all what should be happening right now.

He followed Lorin's face, only to be thwarted time and again.

"I didn't know you were fox making out with me this whole time!" Lorin exclaimed shrilly, clearly overwhelmed. "We need to reset our boundaries here now that you're actually naked and pretty—I mean, um, have opposable thumbs."

We're mates! Kit growled, frustrated and pouty.

But he settled back onto Lorin's lap, sulking but mollified by the fact that Lorin thought he was pretty. He'd always tried his best to maintain himself in both forms. Except for when the seasons changed and his winter coat grew out.

No one talked about those times. When his hair was an unsightly mess of white and brown.

Lorin stared down at him in consternation, a flush barely visible on his cheeks in the darkness, but Kit could sense the heat coming from them.

"So I guess we need to add this to the list of things to figure out, huh?"

Kit almost fell over in relief.

Yes! Finally!