Willow reached for Gus as the Collector tore apart the titan's skull. They couldn't leave Amity and Luz like that. Either they all escaped together, or they all stayed together.
Out of nowhere fingers crunched into her shoulder. Suddenly she was on the ground, windless void knocked into her lungs. The golden smudge behind Luz swept into Hunter's shape.
Willow knew by then she couldn't move fast enough. In the time it took to lift her finger to draw the circle it was too late. Amity and Luz slammed into her. The last thing she saw before the door clapped shut were Hunter's eyes. His apology so full of everything thrummed in her pulse.
For the final second they looked at each other.
The door took him away. It shut out everything she'd ever known.
Luz opened the door, over, and over, and over. Nothing. The inside of the dwelling appeared to be little more than lifeless wood and refuse.
Rain pelted Willow's hair and clothes. It trickled coldly down her face. Her glasses misted.
Maybe it rained forever on this side.
She relived the whole thing trying to make sense of it all. Luz had built a portal before. They could build another. They could go back. Had they stopped the draining spell? Had everyone woken up? All the marks spreading over Hunter—they'd gone away—so her dads must be okay too. What would the Collector do to Hunter, to everyone? How long would it take to get back? Where would she stay in the human realm? This and a thousand other thoughts sprouted recklessly, growing and tangling too fast to manage.
Gus sniffled and curled to the damp earth. The empty spot opposite Willow gaped like a barren hole. Everyone together, or no one. Why, Hunter?
Why?
Sorry, Willow.
"I was supposed to protect you." Mud furrowed against her fingers, scratchy and gritty, different from home.
x x x
It took weeks to collect materials for a new door, and they had to draw some of King's blood. Luz borrowed a machine called a generator to power the portal.
"It looks like any other human door," Amity said.
"I know, but don't be discouraged! It always looks like this on the human side. Way shinier when it's open, but, yeah. Here goes." Luz flexed her fingers and turned the knob.
The same abandoned room as always revealed itself. Willow stood back and watched the others make adjustments to the mechanisms attached to the doorway. Even though she listened just as hard as everyone else to Luz's explanations, things didn't respond for her the way they should. It was exactly like the abomination track.
Willow understood the concepts. But when she tried to make something with them, when she tried to help, things broke.
She was useless. Again.
"Willow, can you pass me the socket wrench?" Amity asked.
"Uh. Sure. Which one was that?"
"It's round on the top. Just bring the whole set."
They spent the rest of the weekend on the portal with no results.
Luz said, "It must need something different if it's built here. We'll figure it out."
x x x
Weeks turned into months.
Every day was hard. Luz didn't have a whole lot of friends in the human realm. To find other families to stay with they had to get help from the basilisk Vee, who did have human friends, except those friends all thought Vee was Luz. It was confusing. And terrible, when Vee told them what Belos had done to resurrect extinct magical creatures for cruel research.
It made Willow mad.
It made her think about Hunter. He'd lived with Belos his whole life. He'd… probably helped him conduct those experiments.
Willow scrunched her knees to her face. Her host family was nice enough. Through the wall she could hear footsteps and pans in the kitchen as Carla and her parents moved around, the TV muffled in the background.
The human world had machines. Machines weren't sentient like magic or plants. Humans held complete and total control over them. Control: it was what Belos had done with the witches, branding them, deciding their fates, using them to try and erase magic altogether.
Belos had been a human.
Humans feared magic the way witches feared wild magic. Luz's mom had made them promise to not use their powers here. Even Clover had to stay in hiding. Rather than keep her as a statue Willow sent her into the woods to live freely.
"I don't understand," Gus said one night when they were all together. "Luz is cool, so why would anyone else have a problem with magic?"
They got a human history lesson in witch hunting Willow wished she'd never heard. The humans didn't even have to know for sure someone was a witch, they just had to accuse each other of it. People died.
Just because fewer humans knew about witches these days didn't make it safe. Vee had been captured by a human. Human technology made it hard to hide. Even if it seemed like no one was watching someone might be.
"Be careful," Luz said. "You never really know who's recording a video, or if someone has a trail cam in the woods."
Sitting on the floor Willow pulled the tip of her ear. Everyone stared at her ears. The scrutiny felt just like it did when everyone saw her as a screw-up. There was no way to explain why the new kids at school all had long ears. Luz laughed it off nervously and said it was fashion. Maybe that helped a little.
It was weird how humans all looked the same. High School wasn't anything like Hexside. Well, except for the pressure and the bullying.
At least Willow knew she had privacy inside Carla's guest room. She drew a circle. Her Penstagram scroll dropped into her hand. A dated chat with her dads floated at the top.
HEYGIL: Day of Unity about to start, Bump called, said you left
HERO!HARV: Where are you?
HELLO_WILLOW: meeting up w Luz & Gus
HERO!HARV: Go back to the safehouse. Right. Now.
HEYGIL: We'll come find you. :)
HELLO_WILLOW: being safe I promise, don't leave the house
HERO!HARV: Is Hunter with you?
HERO!HARV: Willow?
HERO!HARV: I'm calling you.
5 missed calls
HEYGIL: Willow… please answer.
2 missed calls
HERO!HARV: Love you.
HEYGIL: We'll always love you.
HEYGIL: basement vault code is in my journal, key in desk, not much there, wish it was more, sorry abt journal if you read it, being a parent is hard
HERO!HARV: love you feel like i didn't say it enough
1 missed call
HELLO_WILLOW: Dad! Dad, are you there?
Message failed to send
HELLO_WILLOW: I'm sorry!
Message failed to send
HELLO_WILLOW: … i'm sorry
Message failed to send
HELLO_WILLOW: I'm in the human realm with Luz, Gus, Amity, and King. He's the demon that lives with Luz if you don't remember. Hunter didn't make it through. If you see him… make sure he's ok please. Maybe look for him? Or, if you can find- there's a coven head named Darius but he wasn't waking up- Luz said he was a spy against Belos you can trust him. I think he'll help Hunter.
Message failed to send
HELLO_WILLOW: still doing ok
Message failed to send
HELLO_WILLOW: Hi dad & daddy. Miss you, human school is a lot harder than I thought it'd be.
Message failed to send
HELLO_WILLOW: love you
Message failed to send
HELLO_WILLOW: I know you can't answer. I just…
Message failed to send
Willow scrolled through the log to the bottom and added a new entry. She hit send and watched the clock spin underneath before the red slashed symbol showed up next to the failure message.
She'd stopped checking the scroll so often. For a while Gus thought they might get an accidental signal somewhere, and it might help them find a spot to build a new portal. It'd been a good idea. No results though.
Penstagram didn't work outside the demon realm. The others had their scrolls too but they couldn't communicate with each other. It was unsettling to look back on the last conversations she'd had before the Day of Unity. They were frozen in time. She couldn't bring herself to clear the chats, in case it's all she ever had left.
Don't think that way. It took Luz months to contact her mom but she did it.
Honestly Willow didn't know how Luz managed to live away from home for so long. It was exhausting to keep up with a totally different world. There were lots of nice things here of course, and the wildlife was fascinating, but, it wasn't home.
She wanted to go home and she couldn't. She wanted to see her parents. She just wanted to know everyone was okay.
Tears beaded the corners of her eyes. Depression swelled, darkened the rounds of her heart with its heavy hopeless weight. This could be it. She might never see any of them again. Even if they went back there was no telling what they'd be going back to. It could all be gone.
She sucked in a breath. Slowly let it out. Counted.
Even though she knew she shouldn't do it, she flicked the scroll to the recent chat pane and went to the second entry.
RULERZREACHF4N
Hunter's absolutely doofy profile picture, striking a "cool" pose with one gloved hand curled into demon horns made her smile. Then the tears rolled. She could be sad in private. No one would ever know. She could tell herself over and over that if she'd been strong enough, fast enough, if only she'd drawn the vine circle seconds before, he'd be here.
It was her fault.
Dozens of cardinal photos slipped down the scroll. Hunter almost never took photos of himself. Only if she asked.
HELLO_WILLOW: Pic of your room?
RULERZREACHF4N: hahaNO. way
HELLO_WILLOW: too messy huh?
RULERZREACHF4N: not really. ok a little., only because- I ran out of shelves
HELLO_WILLOW: how about a trade! Room pic trade.
RULERZREACHF4N: …
RULERZREACHF4N: Fine.
The upper half of Hunter's face glowered in the lower corner of the snapshot, his annoyed (shy?) gaze pointed toward the bedroom filling the rest of the picture. She'd been unbelievably relieved to know he had a real room. She couldn't see everything from a single photo but there was a window, and the small wall shelves were indeed packed, even if the blanket over the bed looked a bit threadbare.
It amazed her that he'd sent a picture. Wasn't showing the inside of the castle a security breach? Compromised security sounded like something he'd say. But Hunter was just so… unpredictable.
RULERZREACHF4N: hey do you have any books on ? magic
RULERZREACHF4N: I Won't report you
RULERZREACHF4N: its- I. have a reason. need to helps omeone, Medicine or Healing would be great AND no baby stuff! Advanced magic
HELLO_WILLOW: Did you get hurt?
RULERZREACHF4N: Why would I be pfff
HELLO_WILLOW: ...
RULERZREACHF4N: it's for A friend
HELLO_WILLOW: Hunter!
RULERZREACHF4N: I'm srs. Please.
HELLO_WILLOW: The Emperor's Coven burned all of it. We watched. Let's not talk about it, K?
HELLO_WILLOW: there's a healing track at hexside. Can you bring your friend here?
RULERZREACHF4N: sorry
RULERZREACHF4N: … i'm sorry. ugh
RULERZREACHF4N: if you find anything I uh,, IT's your duty to report it to me immediately! Captain2Captain
In the guest bedroom Willow sighed, hair sinking coolly against her knees. She flicked down to the very last part.
RULERZREACHF4N: Do you need a security escort?
RULERZREACHF4N: You need a security escort.
RULERZREACHF4N: don't leave without me!
RULERZREACHF4N: I'm texting gus too, meet me by the exit
HELLO_WILLOW: we'll come get you
That was the last text before they met up with Luz. We'll come get you. Did he reread that ever?
Willow scrolled further. She'd created an embarrassingly long one-sided conversation with Hunter over the past few months. At first she thought the messages might go through but eventually she accepted they wouldn't. The texts became fewer and shorter with time.
She tapped letters into the scroll and watched the cursor at the end of the new line blink.
I miss you
How could you miss a person you barely spent any time with?
She backspaced the words and stared at the now empty box. There was no non-awkward way to say it. What else could she type? Thinking about you, oh gosh, no, that was worse. Wait—why was she even worried about this? It's not like he would ever see it.
She hit enter.
HELLO_WILLOW: I hope you're okay.
Message failed to send
x x x
Months turned into years.
They didn't have to worry about their ears after Gus completed concealing stones for them. He loved exploring the unexpected pieces of the human realm. Luz and Amity spent a lot of their free time studying, determined as ever to build a portal, whether it took magic or engineering or quantum mechanics.
Willow… wasn't sure. She'd been uprooted and placed here. If she didn't adapt to the new surroundings she'd wither like a failed transplant. Maybe someday she'd find her way back. Maybe not. She wasn't the same as Luz and Amity. She didn't have the energy to live every day on the edge expecting a new breakthrough.
Sometimes bad things happened and you just had to get on with it.
All she knew were plants. She'd come to enjoy working with the flora here and her secret routine with Clover, finding ways to exercise magic and stay in shape without drawing attention. She'd even started to recognize that some humans had bits of witch in them too. They said excellent gardeners had a "green thumb," not realizing it was plant magic.
If those humans drew a spell circle would more happen? Willow didn't dare risk teaching someone to find out.
She liked her job at the small garden center in Gravesfield, and honestly, academia never did her any favors. Her dads would probably throw a fit if they heard her say she didn't think college would help her. She didn't want to get into the human science and math of plants.
"What if I became a tree doctor?" she told Luz.
"Pffft. Willow, there's no such thing as a tree doctor."
"Then I could be the first. I could go to people's orchards, or homes, or clearcut replantings and fix up their sick trees."
"That's… not a bad idea actually."
"You have to go to college, Willow," Amity said.
"I don't want to."
"Nobody will take you seriously without a degree."
"They'll take me seriously when they get results." Willow's conviction coiled. She did not need to spend more years studying.
"Hey hey," Luz cut in. "No need to get angry. None of us are going to tell you what to do."
Angry. Willow could not let her temper get ahold of her like it used to. Not here, not in the human realm. Everyone would see. Somehow she'd managed to avoid an outburst all through high school. There'd been a couple close calls but Luz was always nearby.
When they weren't together anymore what would happen? Should she go to college just to stay with everyone?
A text from Hunter after he escaped Belos came to mind.
RULERZREACHF4N: from now on, I'm making my own choices.
It was time to make her own choices too. Thinking back, she should have switched out of the abomination track a lot sooner.
Willow took a full time position at the garden center.
x x x
Every now and then Willow traded messages with the others through a group chat on her phone. She went to their college graduation parties. Luz said she couldn't take any more human education, Gus felt satisfied, and Amity was already applying for her master's. Willow was the only one who stayed in Gravesfield. She felt closest to home here and she liked to keep things simple. The big cities were a bit too chaotic and treeless for her taste.
The greenhouse this morning stayed pleasantly warm compared to the biting spring chill outside. Fresh soil and the funny smell of perlite in the growing mix wafted through the tropical enclosure. Walking between a couple exotic house plants with big fanned leaves, Willow imagined a rainforest. Someday she'd visit a real one.
Plant trays packed with potting mix and seedlings lined the racks. Soon as the frosty mornings went away they'd find new homes.
She heard the door of the store attached to the greenhouse open. Willow peeked around to see who it was. "Morning, Frank."
He returned the greeting.
Frank Barnes owned one of the big orchards out towards Killingworth. He raised his own poultry too so it wasn't uncommon to see him stop by the feed store next to the garden center. Today he probably wanted to pick up commercial grade orchard spray. The stuff was nothing like the home orchard spray they kept on the shelves. It came as a powder and needed to be diluted or it'd kill everything it touched.
Willow went into the back area and brought out the container of concentrated fungicide.
"Thanks Willow. License is still good," he said, since a person needed one to buy the stuff. She could see the expiry date in the store's database so it was all good. "Listen," Frank said. "I've been doing this a long time, but they say you've got a magic touch when it comes to plants."
Willow smiled. "You could say that."
"We're having a problem with some of our trees. Never seen anything like it. They'll be fine one morning, gone the next, roots and all. Not even a hole in the ground left. It's like the damn tree was never even there to begin with."
"I could take a look if you like?"
"Appreciate that. How much?"
Willow quoted her price. Once she knew what affected the trees she'd give another quote to solve the problem. Disappearing trees was new but she was confident she'd figure it out. She had magic on her side.
After work Willow went to the orchard. She found someone to show her the spots where trees went missing. Just like Frank said, there was nothing left to show a tree had been there, except for the grassy gap between evenly spaced trunks where another was supposed to go.
She stepped up to one of the missing tree's neighbors. Healthy bark covered the wood. No signs of fungus or disease marked the leaves. Critters hadn't gnawed anything raw, and she suspected if she dug up a root sample it'd be normal.
"Hmm. Mind if I do a little digging, and if I come back after dark?"
"Shouldn't be a problem. Only thing we know is it isn't thieves."
Alrighty then.
Willow went back to her apartment and prepared for a late night investigation. She collected a flashlight, clippers, and a shovel. Pouring sugar and water into containers and cutting up tiny pieces of meat reminded her of packing to go into hiding after that coven head came to Hexside.
How was everyone doing? She wondered about her parents, and Skara, and Viney. She thought of Hunter. Without any emperor or coven or guards what would he be up to? Maybe somewhere in Bonesborough he was pouring over books about wild magic.
It always felt a little sad to think of everyone. Hunter, especially. They'd been a team. Of course her friends had her back too but Hunter—she didn't even need to ask. He'd already be at her side.
It made her want to do the same for him.
But, that was then. Who knows where he was now, who he was with, or even what was happening over there? She certainly never saw herself becoming No Witch Willow of the human realm. She chuckled and loaded her things into the car.
Night blanketed the country drive in silence. No other lights met hers. The LED display flicked to 1:32 am as she pulled into the dirt lot beside the orchard. Some old farm machines parked at the far end of the lot alongside a few crates. Nobody was here now.
She shut the headlights off. Pitch dark descended. Gravel crunched under her shoes as she stepped out of the car and closed the door. There wasn't even a sliver of moonlight to see by.
Somewhere in the back woods an owl called.
Under the flashlight's round beam dirt turned to grass. In the freezing spring night Willow walked through the empty orchard. Gnarled branches without leaves filed by.
Now this was more like the Boiling Isles.
She set her supplies down by one of the missing trees. First she'd walk the orchard's border along the woodline to see if anything turned up. Then she'd set the insect sugar, protein, and light traps, and dig at one of the old tree locations to see if any night critters were eating roots. If she was super lucky maybe she'd see a tree disappear in the act.
The flashlight wobbled through the endlessly long tree tunnel. Its beam disappeared somewhere into the darkness beyond.
Besides the cush of grass under her shoes it was silent.
Crssh. Crssh. Crssh.
Clipped lawn passed dimly through the circle of light before vanishing into the black. Thick night smothered everything else. It ate at the fizzy particles floating through the flashlight's beam.
Willow narrowed her eyes.
Something was weird here.
Still walking she flicked the beam into the sky. Thin branch tips skimmed through it. Slowly she lowered the beam. The stark image of a trunk scrolled into view. Her witch's intuition squirmed.
She took a step. Her foot kept going, like expecting another stair at the top that wasn't there. She pitched forward. There wasn't any ground to stand on.
Her leg stabbed through a huge hole of stars. No way to stop. Freefall dropped her heart up her throat. She flailed but there was nothing to grab. The flashlight went flying.
"Clover!"
Staff in hand Willow toppled into the portal.
