Almost two years had come to pass.
Thorn was finally seventeen years old, and at that point so heavily favored Jack she might as well have been his clone. She still looked like Sally, but she too easily favored Jack.
Things had been different since she found out the truth of her birth. Her powers had fully developed, she thought, and while she'd regained her previous curiosity and love of fear-inducing, she'd changed. She'd become more resolved, more silent, yet more easily distracted. Her intense need to experiment was often short-lived.
Many chalked it up to the possibility she was becoming an adult, and growing up.
Jack wasn't so sure, but he didn't dismiss the possibility either.
Time had helped Thorn's anxieties about her powers, and she'd realized that the circumstances of her birth were nothing to be ashamed of. However, she hadn't completely bounced back. She was still in shock after years of knowing, and she could only imagine that her parents felt the same when they found out.
"Thorn, your book is slipping from your hands," her father said one foggy evening as everyone sat in the family room.
"Oh. Sorry, Papa," Thorn replied, pulling the book back into view.
"Is everything all right, fright sprite? You seem upset about something."
"No, I'm all right, Papa."
Jack's eyes were narrowed slightly, but he nodded a little. Thorn had withdrawn into herself since he told her the truth, and she wasn't as keen as becoming his heir anymore, either. It was as if...she was scared to take up the mantle now that the horrible knowledge was put in her mind.
"Why don't we head to the doctor's lab this evening, and let's see what sort of experiments you can create on a dime, for old time's sake?"
As a child, Thorn had often run to Dr. Finklestein's lab in the middle of the night. At first, she sneaked away, but then her father always caught her. Eventually, they made it a bonding exercise. Her bonding times with her mother were often in clothes making and sewing, especially when it came to sewing herself back together most efficiently, and in the fastest way possible. Sometimes, though, she'd OK Thorn skipping this for a night at the lab if she felt it was necessary.
However, as the years passed, Thorn felt less of a need to and more of a need to explore her powers while they were still growing and developing. Like a child.
A shudder went down her spine.
"Y-Yeah. I think that'll be fine. I've wanted to test velocity and trajectory readings on something anyway."
Her shock wave. The one she used before she found out about herself at the pumpkin patch against the arsonist trio. She asked her father once she'd come back to herself if he saw anybody there that day, but he said the only things he noticed were her and the skeleton army he once fought against.
He'd then proceeded to tell Thorn many stories. About the year he almost ruined Christmas, the maniac called Oogie Boogie who died and rose again, Oogie's takeover of Halloween Town and the years it took to restore everything, and the final defeat.
But tonight was about testing her powers in a scientific setting. It was something only she could do; if anyone else tried, she'd lose control and her shadow manipulation would turn against the trigger.
"Come along, then." Jack rose from his seat, putting his book down on the end table beside his chair and making Zero lift his head from where he lay. "Sally, we'll be back late!"
"Be careful," came Sally's call from downstairs, probably her and Jack's bedroom.
Thorn only put her book down and followed her father out the door, not saying a word.