It’s time for confrontation. I have to uncover the past, in order to understand the present and decide the future. But this time it’s not Dylan I’m confronting. Entering the dining room, I find Mum laying the table with military precision.
“Who is my dad?” I shoot the question at her, leaving no time for small talk.
Startled, Mum’s hand quivers and the fork slips from her hand. Bending down to pick it up, she mumbles: “Good afternoon to you too.”
“Don’t avoid the question,” I order sternly.
Standing up, she studies me with a hand on her hip. I am still wearing my school uniform which consists of a black skirt, white T-shirt, strangling blue tie and a heavy, black blazer complete with my school’s logo.
“Why is this suddenly so important?”
“You’re avoiding…” I point out, irritated.
“I know, I know,” she relents waving her hands at me, “but you know the answer to that anyway. Your dad abandoned us when you were only a few weeks old.”
“Yes, but why did he leave?” I press, taking a few steps closer.
She tenses up and starts fidgeting. “I don’t know, he didn’t say.”
“Liar, what’s my dad’s name?” I snap at her, my eyes narrowing.
She avoids my gaze. “Terry,” she whispers.
“STOP LYING TO ME!” I yell, clenching my fists, on the verge of losing control.
Mum’s face turns pale as she backs away from me.
“Knowing won’t bring him back,” she mutters.
“STOP!” I scream and as I can’t contain my anger any longer, I release a fire bolt from my hand, setting the amber curtains behind her on fire.
Mum gasps and hurriedly puts out the fire by using a dish towel. Turning to me with a look of both awe and shock, she utters: “you’re just like your father.”
“He’s a Potent?” I ask, my eyes lighting up in wonder.
“How did you know about…?”
“From another potent at my school, who’s here for me,” I explain curtly.
“Oh, well your father couldn’t control fire, he could control earth,” she then settles down on the red sofa and I sit beside her, listening intently, “your father was very powerful and could make the Earth tremble and grow and manipulate trees and plants at his own will. Your father was very special. We met by chance in the Pine Forest and we fell in love. I always knew that he had duties to attend to back in his kingdom but he stayed here with me for a year before he left suddenly. He had to return home I believe because his mother had passed away and so he needed to go back and rule the Light Potents as no one else could,” Mum explains.
“Wait, wait, wait, throughout my whole life you’ve kept it a secret that my father is the leader of a super powerful, magical race! Why?”
“It’s not as if you’re any better, hiding your powers from me!” She points out.
“But I did it out of fear, because I thought that I was a cursed monster and not for my own selfish desire.” I retort bitterly.
“I did it to protect you!”
“By lying to me?”
“I couldn’t see another way…”
“There is always another way, mother, just some people are too blind to see it.” Dramatically, I storm out of the house and begin running to the Pine Forest.