Manifesting | kotlc

- chapter - twenty -

After spending the day at Eamon's house, I returned home to find my mother sitting on the couch waiting. "Hey," she greeted when I walked over to her, and she gestured for me to take a seat beside her. 

"Hi mom," I responded as I sat down, leaving a little bit of room between the two of us. I studied the look on her face, not quite grasping the exact emotion she was projecting. While it was usually easy to read my mom, it was always easy because she was either happy, angry, or genuinely sad. Seeing her now, I almost wanted to say that she looked guilty, but I couldn't be sure until she started talking. 

She didn't say anything, and after a moment of pause she surprised me by attempting to wrap her arms around my body into a tight hug. It took me a few seconds to realize what she was doing, and I didn't return the hug until a second before she decided to pull away. I studied her face and finally realized the emotion. Worry, pain, guilt. It wasn't exactly the same face she made when she was sad, when her eyes would be brimmed with tears and you'd usually see her eyebrows strung together in concentration as she would hold herself back from crying. 

With this, I just had to look into her eyes to know. "Can I ask you an honest question?" she finally spoke up. 

"I guess," I told her, trying to act nonchalant. 

"Who else knows?" she asked. "I know it's not just your friends. Someone is training you." When she saw the look on my face she decided to add on, "You won't be in trouble, and neither will they." 

"Well..." I sighed. "Obviously you saw that Blythe, Lyra, and Gen know. The council knows," she flinched, "and they promised to let me keep it a secret so long as I receive training and everything. I think they were hoping that I would change my mind about keeping it all a secret after going through training." 

She stared at me. "Who's training you?" 

"Well, first off, I will admit that Eamon Foster knows, and he's the one who contacted the council for me and everything. Elwin, our school's physician, and Master Leto know as well. Eamon's parents know, I'm not sure if his brother does although for all I know he might. Marella Redek has been training me, I think as a favor to Sophie or something like that. All I know is that she's been great. Along with this, I've been able to meet a lot of other people who have manifested as a pyrokinetic. There's a lot more than you think, mom. It used to be such an obscure ability, but there were at least twenty people that I met and that doesn't include all the people like dad who are still under wraps." 

She sat there for a moment. "Sophie and Keefe Foster know of your ability?" I nodded, and sucked in my breath as I anticipated what she might say. Now that I knew of my father's background, I was worried that maybe my parent's hatred against the Fosters was more than just about their "legendary" status. 

"When Sophie first moved to the Lost Cities she pretended not to have an ability, just like I'm doing now. She warned me about the consequences," I further explained when my mother didn't say anything else. 

"I don't have a personal problem with the Fosters, Nova," my mother finally stated. "Sure, I'm not a big fan of how Sophie Foster's abilities were a result of a group of people making sure she'd have these abilities. It makes me wonder if I, and everyone like me, could have the chance to unlock abilities through a genetic science, such as Sophie Foster, but all that knowledge instead went towards putting specific abilities into one person." 

I already knew this, but I wasn't going to respond to that. "Sophie and Keefe Foster are actually really nice. They've been nothing but welcoming to me ever since I ran headfirst into their son and my life became a mess." I let out a sigh. 

"Speaking of this son," my mother sat up and gave me a look I really wish she hadn't. 

"Mom, I really-"