Do what you will, so long as it harms none.
(From the first grimoire of a young witchling)
Finn had lost count of all the times he had thought how nice it would be not to be defined by someone else in his family.
If people knew his mother before getting acquainted with him, they would say things like "oh, you are Erica's son" and then turn to their friends, explaining about the witch of long, upstanding tradition and historical roots reaching all the way to the golden era of witch hunts. She was literally the daughter of the witches they couldn't burn, and as such, she had taught everything she knew to Finn.
If people knew his brother, they would say things like "oh, you are Lucas's brother" and proceed to marvel at the way Lucas was a prodigy for his age. Such a talented, kind-hearted cleric, charismatic speaker and a skilled exorcist. And so very handsome, too.
The latter group of people always made Finn want to spontaneously vomit.
If people knew his father, they would usually just go "oh". Then, after a while: "But you look more like a witch than a janitor. Do you know how to change a lamp?"
Finn did not, in fact, know how to change a lamp. It hadn't been one of the things he had been taught when he was a child; he knew how to make chamomile tea for restlessness and mint tea for stomach problems, he knew that lemon tea soothed broken heart and how to draw salt circles on the entrances to ward off any unwanted invisible visitors.
When he was younger, his mother would let him help with the customers. Finn had cut the deck and listened intently on the tarot readings, he had served tea and watched his mother run her thin finger across the lines on someone's palm and say what kind of fates lie in wait in the star charts of their birth moment.
As he grew older, he started to get more interested in the arts of witchcraft by himself, and instead of helping with the customers he hauled old, heavy books to his room. Endless evenings passed with him going through different occult symbols and memorizing runes by heart, practicing drawing summoning circles on the pages of his grimoire and pressing herbs. The scent of lavender never seemed to leave him.
He had never given any particular thought about what he'd want to be when he'd grow up. The sudden realization of this came to him at a dinner table, when his mother suddenly turned to him mid-conversation.
"Lucas has a good career at the church," she said gently. "What about you? What will you do after high school?"
The words had been soft, but they felt like betrayal because it was she who said them. Lucas looked at him over his plate. People always described his smile as warm and welcoming, but aimed at Finn it always had an arrogant edge Finn hated more than anything.
He hadn't given any thought to it. And now it was the last year of high school, he was seventeen. He would soon be an adult, and all he had to show for it were two almost-full grimoires, his first and his second, and an impressive knowledge on all things occult and herbal.
"Perhaps you could come to the church as well," Lucas suggested, making sure to mask his expression as helpful - a concerned older brother. "I'm sure my patron would be delighted to show you on the road of light."
Finn did not want to go to the church, but it wasn’t like he saw his future in his mother, either: a witch frequently visited by old ladies, widows and hen parties. Some because they truly believed in what they could not see, some because they wanted a good laugh out of it. There were a lot of people who just wanted an exotic story to tell your colleagues on a dreary Monday morning.
Foretelling games didn't help in clearing his future, either. It was a habit of his and his mother that after all the customers were gone, Lucas departed for the church and their father withdrew to his room to relax watching a very earthly show on this boxer or that.
Erica and Finn lingered in the living room, lit up candles and took out the cards. They brewed tea and interpreted different shapes from the leaves. They cast polished stone runes and read their message. For Erica, the fates varied, but for Finn, one message repeated across the years: one image, one impression, one word.
Shadow.
Finn would listen to his mother make different interpretations of the shadow. Sometimes she would see how Finn would be the one to summon the shadow over his life, at other times she would throw out a guess that the shadow was something he would eventually have to face.
Every time, Finn could not avoid thinking that no matter what he did, he always felt like he lived in Lucas's shadow, the light and brilliance of his path leaving everything else secondary. The wonders Finn found from the witchcraft felt dusty and crumbling once Lucas told about having summoned and exorcised a demon.
The only time he did not feel secondary to Lucas were those small moments with his mother, when she taught him and answered his questions. But after the dinner he could no longer shake the sad look in her eyes, the kind but inquiring smile.
Maybe she didn't think he was good enough to continue her work. The thought was too painful to ask aloud.
That was how it all began. From a need to prove that he could be good enough - if not for his mother, then just for himself. That was how Finn found himself late at night in his room, on a night when everyone else was gone, drawing a chalk circle on the floor.
Perhaps it wasn't to prove he was good enough, he thought afterwards.
Perhaps he just wanted to prove he was better than Lucas at something.
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