Loddy sat on the floor behind the group with her back against the wall. She pulled her knees closer to her chest as the red-haired man continued on with his nightly story telling. Cosmo was what he had introduced himself as the night Loddy had found herself at the doorstep of a suspicious "Home for Wayward Children" in the middle of a forest she swore she'd never explored before, despite the fact that she hadn't even gone far from her home before finding it. It was if the odd house had suddenly appeared before her when she felt she had no where else to go.
Resting her chin on her knees, she began to recall that night as she had a number of times since she'd arrived only a few days ago. Once again, she'd injured one of her classmates at school. They had it coming, anyway. A few students had been taking care of an ant nest at school as a science project. The glass containment the ants were being kept in had fallen and shattered on the floor, allowing the ants in captivity to escape. How did they decide to solve their mistake? Instead of catching the ants and safely moving them to a new home, they decided it would be less of a hassle to just spray the ants with poison and start a new nest. Naturally, Loddy having been on cleaning duty that afternoon when the incident occurred, she defended the helpless bugs by giving the students involved some nasty bruises.
It seemed this was the last straw for her distant relative that she had been living with for the past five months. The lady refused to come to the school when the principal called and when Loddy, having had to walk home in the middle of winter, returned to the house that night the doors were locked and she woman came to the conclusion that a proper punishment would be to force Loddy to sleep in the shed in the back. This was also Loddy's last straw, and after hearing her so-called relative laughing with her hundredth boyfriend over Loddy's pleas to let her inside, she simply took off. The forest near her "home" was where she spent a lot of her time and she practically knew it like the back of her hand, yet somehow she found herself in an unfamiliar area. This is where she discovered the Home for Wayward Children, and with no other options for her to find shelter on a winter night, naturally she agreed to stay there for a while.
As Cosmo's story came to an end, Loddy let out a small sigh and rose to her feet. She really had no interest in searching for witches. She'd only recently discovered that there were other people with abilities like her. It was weird enough that the wayward house seemed to be a lot larger on the inside than what the outside gave off. The idea of witches existing who wanted to take advantage of some children's abilities was a little far-fetched for her. She made her way upstairs as Mr. Wannabe Detective started picking people to go with him outside, not wanting to be any part of it. She needed to make sure the bugs that she was sheltering in her room from the winter cold were still feeling okay, anyway, so she headed down the hallway towards her room.