Page 45 of Witchlore
“Yeah, no surprise there.” I sip the tea and wince. It tastes weird with the residue of salt and sand in my mouth.
“You can’t say there’s no story here. Everything here is a story,” Bastian says flatly. “You have a mum. You have a house. I presumeyou have a dad in Paris and yet you let everyone think you’re an orphan.”
“I am. Technically.”
“What?”
“I’m adopted,” I say. “My biological parents are dead, or so I’m told. Besides, I didn’tletpeople think anything, they made assumptions without asking. It’s not my job to correct that.”
“Yeah, but why?” Bastian presses. “She seems like she cares, so did you fall out or…?”
He lets the sentence hang. I sigh and stare into the fire. He was honest with me about his crappy parents. It only seems fair I return the favor.
“She impressed you, didn’t she?” I say quietly. “So poised, so full of magic? It’s fine if she did, she’s very impressive.”
“Yeah,” Bastian admits. “I’ve never… Your shifts are just so different. Hers are so fluid.”
“Yes, they are.” I try to keep my tone as level as possible. “She’s impressive and she’s only impressed by people who can use their skill in the same way she can. So imagine how she felt when the shifter baby they longed for, the shifter baby they adopted, turned out to be an utter dud. If she seems like she cares, it’s because she cares about me getting better.”
“Well, that’s good.”
“No, not getting healthier. Getting better at shapeshifting, whatever the cost,” I say sharply. “It’s all she has ever cared about.”
I set my tea down on the carpet and rub my ankles. They’re sore but not as sore as they were when I did my shift at Boggart Hole Clough. I wonder if changing more frequently makes it actually less painful on my joints. I’ve never shifted so quickly in my life, so I don’t know.
“You don’t understand shapeshifters,” I say, with a shake of my head. “You don’t understand how they feel about witchcraft.”
“Oh, you think I didn’t notice your mum’s barely veiled disdain for witches?” he says scornfully. “Or how you flinched from her magic? I’m not asking to be inducted into the secrets of shapeshifter society, I’m just interested in you.”
I sigh and stare at a photo of my parents in front of the Leaning Tower of Pisa from the 1950s, the photograph grainy and black-and-white. They look just as they do now, as if a child has had no impact on them. I try to find words for the quiet, steady detachment of their lives from mine, for the years of pain and disappointment.
“We are magic. They can never have it, they can never take it away from us, and for this, they will always hate us. They will never trust us. Remember that,” I recite. “Shifters are taught really young that our only value is our magic. Our ability to shift is what keeps us safe: safe from humans, safe from witches. As long as we’re magically powerful then we can hold on to our place in society. Witches will tolerate us because we’re useful and humans in government will want to utilize our skills. Without our powers, we’re nothing.”
“Okay,” Bastian says with a frown. “And because you can’t do magic, your parents…?”
I stare into the fire. I don’t want to have to look at him when I explain this: my mother’s frustration, my father’s furious disappointment.
“They wanted a child who would fit in, but I knew early on that I was never going to fit. It hurt them, I think, that they couldn’t have natural children. Shifter families are so small anyway, children are important. That’s all they wanted from me, really, all they asked for. That I would be a good shifter child.”
“And… you’re not that?”
I shake my head painfully. It feels like there’s a lump in my throat that won’t go down.
“Most shifter children start shifting early, they’ve usually settled on a resting form by the time they’re five or six, but I… well, I didn’t.”
“What did you do?”
“I wouldn’t shift. I couldn’t perform any magic, either, I’ve never been able to. They were so disappointed I wasn’t likethem.” I can’t stop the derision leaking into my voice. “They’d hire shifter nannies and tutors, anyone who might get me onto a normal shifting schedule.”
“So you were homeschooled?”
“Yeah, but… worse.” I stare at the window. “They tried all sorts of things to make me normal. The shrouds were just the tip of the iceberg, but whatever they did, I just couldn’t shift at will. There was a time where I didn’t shift for years, I was nine but I looked about seven still. God, that was the worst. They wouldn’t let me outside, sometimes for months and months. This…” I stare around the lounge, remembering long days with my face pressed against the window.Come away, Orlando! Until you can shift to look appropriate and without causing suspicion, you can’t play outside!“This was like a prison. For them, too. They were stuck with me as much as I was stuck with them.”
“I don’t think it’s the same.” Bastian looks doubtful. “They were your parents. They had a responsibility.”
“They think their responsibility is to keep me safe as a shapeshifter, no matter what. Pain and discomfort, they just think that’s necessary for learning, for the greater good.”
“And what’s the greater good?” Bastian looks a little disgusted.
