This is it
The chapter I was anticipating from the beginning
It's over 5k of complete and utter sadness!
I cried so much while writing!
Yay xD
Help
There it was, the portal.
Amity breathed through when she walked towards it, feeling like she had shackles locked up to her wrists and ankles. Her limbs felt stiff and heavy, and whenever she made another slow step, she felt as if ice encasing her joints broke away.
Eda shot the young woman an encouraging nod, before Amity came to a stop in front of the swirling magical door, standing before her opened up widely. Willow and Gus stood on the other side of the door, both looking anxious.
"You sure you wanna do this alone?", Willow finally asked and Amity nodded at her, head neck feeling stiff.
"Yeah. I think us all going to Luz's mother would just overwhelm her.", she gulped before grabbing the strap of her bag tighter. They had packed a few of Luz's belongings to prove she had known Luz and wasn't just pulling some cruel prank on Camila. Luz's human phone, dead for a long time by now, was in it, along with her Azura book containing her handwriting, and one of her pictures of her mother and her. Whenever Amity looked at the picture, she felt a chill running down her spine.
Taking another shaky breath, the young woman pulled the beanie on that Luz had left behind, to hider her ears, and looked ahead into the swirling mass of magic staring back at her.
She and Eda had tried it out multiple times, and it had led to the human realm with no mistakes.
Finally, Amity gave herself a push and crossed the doorstep. For a moment she lost her footing as she stepped into magic, but the next she felt a floor manifest beneath her shoe. Almost stumbling, she managed to catch herself, before taking another step and coming out the other side of the portal door.
The old shack had by now half fallen into itself, the roof and the entire first floor had collapsed. Sunlight shone through the burst and broken wooden planks, entire patches lighting up the rotten floor where the roof and upper level had caved in and were missing.
Birds chirped, creatures Amity had never heard before, but she had studied them. Completely harmless, as most in the human realm was. Eda had taught her as much as she could, how humans behaved and that she had to look out for whole other dangers in the human realm.
Carriages that went faster than any staff could fly, scams that she could fall for, dangerous humans that wanted to hurt others, in ways Amity had never heard before.
But that wasn't what was worrying her at all. What was worrying her was the red roof shining through the treetops, the small house just a bit away. Amity could barely make out it was there. Eda had been there with her before, to show her where Luz had come from, so she could be prepared to go to the right house.
The young witch grabbed the strap of her bag tighter again as she took the first few tentative steps down the porch and the steps, the boards beneath her creaking dangerously while she descended.
The grass in the human realm felt soft and fragile, just a soft kick made it bend and break. The grass on the Boiling Isles was hardened by the boiling rain, thick and resilient against any weather.
She bent down, feeling like she may be procrastinating, but she decidedly wanted to take in the human realm fully for herself.
It was the first time she had crossed through the portal by herself, the only other two times had been to test it when it had opened and to find the house of Luz's family.
Now, she was listening to the birds chirping and the grass felt so soft and cool between her fingers. The ground felt springy, kind of, very soft and giving. She realized she was standing on a patch of plant, but it wasn't smoldering or trying to eat her.
Moss, she faintly remembered.
Humming to herself, she took in the scent.
Nothing smelled burnt or had a sharp, acid tone to it like it often did in the Boiling Isles.
Here in the woods, everything smelled fresh, somehow, like it did sometimes when it hadn't rained for a while on the Isles, or like it smelled in Willow's room.
Spinning around herself once she got back up to her feet, she looked around. Everything was green, and every plant looked so different from the Boiling Isles' vegetation. Nothing here was orange or green. Not even the sky.
Through the leaves that were shaking in the wind above her, a gigantic stretch of blue covered the entire sky. Luz had told her how much bigger the Human realm was than the Boiling Isles. Mainly because she hadn't exactly been off the Titan much.
Amity breathed through again, blinking against the sun that was sometimes blinding her through the thick treetops, before starting to walk. The human realm was changing slowly, the further she got out of the forest and closer to the city Luz had been living in.
The smell changed, Amity couldn't describe what was going on, but it felt like it was pressuring her lungs. The trees stood farther apart and more roofs appeared. Strange buildings, with a lot of big windows and built much simpler than the ones in Bonesborough. There were no wooden beams or decorations. Most seemed plain to Amity's eyes as she let her limited gaze through the trees wander over them. And there were many.
Sure, Bonesborough was a big city already, but Luz had told her how much bigger the humans built their stuff.
Gulping, Amity approached the rooftop she was supposed to be going to. The strap of her bag was all wrinkled by the time she arrived, and even when she gave it a stroke or two, the wrinkles stayed in the fabric.
Rounding the house, she stepped onto something that looked like a sidewalk, but in Bonesborough, the curbs were much higher to be safe during boiling rain. It had plates of stone that Amity had never seen before, and behind that was one of the things Eda had warned her about.
A road.
Amity warily looked from left to right, partly terrified and partly in hopes to see one of those carriages Eda had been talking about, cars, but none came.
Shaking her head, she turned around to look at the house she had seen in one of Luz's pictures she had shown from home. It looked exactly the same. Rounding the weird-looking mailbox, before walking up the small path to the house.
These steps up to the front door also looked worn, but not nearly as old or rotten as the ones she had been descending at the old shack back in the woods. They looked lively and homely and well used but not at all broken.
Breathing through, Amity took the first step up and put a hand on the wooden rails. She felt the wood beneath her hand, soft and ground down by a hand running up and down it countlessly. Had Luz held onto these railings when learning to walk steps? Had she held onto them whenever she had left the house? Had she hung from them as a kid?
Gulping, Amity pulled her hand back. Suddenly, everything felt so sacred about this place.
It had been six years since Luz had last been here, but it was to Amity like everything she touched had been touched by her before, as if she was destroying the illusion.
After getting hung up on the first step, Amity looked ahead again, biting her lip. She had to do this. Luz had wanted to see her Mama again, and she would fulfill her wish. A breath left her body when she felt like she had been punched, at the memory of Luz muttering her wish on the phone call.
Amity still heard her say it like it had been yesterday.
The memory hurt like hell, and she sure didn't want to relive it right before facing Camila and having to rip open this wound again anyway, but Luz's voice was already whispering in the back of her head.
"… What's something I can do right now?", she asked and Amity once again hesitated, staring down at her Abominations homework. She was not really up for this question. Brainstorming with Luz had been fun, but she didn't want to get involved so much right now. Originally, she had just wanted to finish her homework and head straight to bed.
"… Hm, right now?", she mumbled, more focused on the sheet before her. She knew she was procrastinating Luz's question, but she really had to finish her thoughts on this answer right now, and speaking mindlessly had been the only thing to allow her to focus on completing the sentence she had begun scribbling down.
Amity's quill scratched again, so she couldn't hear Luz's distressed hum. But judging from the silence, the human seemed to wait for an answer, so Amity let out a timid sigh, before turning back to her scroll. The picture Luz had taken made her smile before she turned back to her answer sheet.
"Right now you could-… Let out a scream. Or-… Or you could write a poem.", Amity shrugged, distracted. The silence that came from the call didn't worry her. Any silence was welcome, as much as she enjoyed talking to Luz, to finish her homework. It was already late.
"… I wanna see my Mama.", she finally wheezed, making Amity shift, closer to her scroll. The way Luz had just said that didn't exactly sound good. Was she coming down with a sickness of the Boiling Isles? Maybe the Common Mold?
"Luz, are you sure you're okay?", she questioned, even picking up her scroll now to hear if Luz sounded strained in any way. Curse these things for their crappy microphones.
"Just-… A little cold. I'll go home soon.", she tried, and Amity didn't sound convinced when she hummed, not even trying to cover that up. She wanted Luz to hear how skeptical she was.
But the moment Luz continued talking, that short unease faded again and Amity put down her scroll, before turning back to her homework. She sure hoped Luz would do hers, their teacher would not take kindly to her forgetting it.
Shaking her head, Amity broke her gaze from the door and looked to the side of the door, spotting the doorbell.
Her feet felt heavy again when she took the next few steps, up to the door to try and straighten her shoulders. Tensions were keeping them pulled up, and even if Amity tried, she couldn't relax her muscles. A tremble rolled over her, from her scalp down to her back, and let the hairs on her arms and legs stand in goosebumps.
Hiccupping, she looked at the doorbell, before she lifted a slow, heavy hand to it and pushed it down. The tremble didn't stop and she began shaking in anticipation and fear.
Something in the house sounded, like steps, and she took two steps down again, not to be so close to the door. Time slowed for Amity when she felt her fingernails digging into her palms, trying not to get too nervous. Gulping around the big lump in her throat, she tried breathing through slowly, in through the nose, and out through the mouth, but it did little to help her anxiety.
The door opened and a woman in her mid-forties looked down at Amity. Even if she was a good bit smaller than her, Amity having taken down the few steps made her feel like a child. It probably didn't help that she had sunken into herself a little, and the woman in front of her seemed so… Adult.
Unable to hide the surprise at the stranger in front of her door, Camila narrowed her eyes.
"Uhm, hi. Can I help you?", she asked, but Amity found herself unable to look away from those brown eyes. The same eyes Luz had.
Titan, she had looked so much like her mother.
Amity would recognize this woman from anywhere, she had looked at Luz's picture often enough. Her brown hair had gotten grey patches by now, and she looked decidedly more tired than she had on the picture with Luz. But the skin tone was the same, even if a bit darker than that of her daughter, the remaining brown hair had almost the same shade as Luz's and Titan, her eyes were identical in color. Luz's had been a tad bit lighter, wider, more open to wonder, but she could see the similarities so strikingly intensely that she had to suck in a sharp breath at the complexion she was looking at.
"I-… I'm Amity Blight. Are you Camila Noceda?", she tried to control her voice, but it was more of a pathetic croak in the end. Camila's eyes widened.
For a moment, Amity feared she would shut the door on her or worse, start screaming, but Camila's skeptical face quickly turned into something Amity didn't have any trouble deciphering.
Hope.
"… You're that girl Luz talked about in one of her videos!", she suddenly exclaimed and Amity could see her breath quickening before she looked back into the house and then back at her, "Do-… Do you have any information on my daughter?!"
Camila's voice cracked and Amity had to gulp, but she nodded. Opening the door, the woman waved her in and Amity felt her heart sinking.
When she entered the house, everything was so much more Luz than Amity could've ever anticipated. There was nothing still belonging to Luz, she supposed Camila must've put her everyday stuff away over the years, but everything in here screamed Luz. The photographs of a way younger Luz, a child in her mother's arms, still hanging on the walls. A few of her alone, with ridiculous hairstyles or Azura stuff. One of her and her father.
Amity grazed over his face shortly, before turning back to Camila, who ushered her through the hallway into the living room.
"You see, a while back I got these videos and texts from Luz, from her phone. It must've been two weeks ago, I think.", she sat Amity down and took a place next to her, not noticing the young woman stiffening when she mentioned when the texts had started coming in, "They look-… Old, but, maybe the phone got reception again. I-… I thought Luz to be gone, but-… Now with these texts, I-…"
Her voice clearly quivered when she looked back up to Amity. Something inside her clicked.
It must've happened when they had opened the portal for the first time again. She didn't know exactly how human technology and the "internet" worked, but the messages Luz had been sending her mother must have sent the moment they had reconnected the realms through the portal. Camila had received the videos and texts from six years ago and must've gained a new hope for her daughter.
Suddenly, Amity's task of telling her what had happened seemed a lot harder.
Camila had never known what had happened to her daughter and had probably believed her to be dead at some point.
Amity would have to let die Luz all over again for her mother.
Gulping and breathing through, she bit her lip while looking at the older woman. Her round ears looked so much like Luz's, she noticed.
"What-… What did Luz talk about, Mrs. Noceda?", she softly asked and Camila shrugged, holding her phone, a paused image of Luz, frozen in time, staring back up to her. Her arms were blurred as if she was gesturing wildly. A sad smile spread on Amity's lips when she followed Camila's gaze down to the young teenager.
"… I don't really know if I'm being honest…", she mumbled and Amity felt her eyes pricking with tears, "She talks about a weird place, the Boiling Isles, she called it. A place full of witches and demons. But she also-… She talked about friends she made."
Camila's shoulders were hanging as she locked her phone again and looked back up to Amity. Luz's image vanished and Amity felt a pang in her heart. What she would've given to see these videos at least once.
"I-… I thought it was a scam at first. She looked exactly like when she left here for camp. When I-…", heavy emotions overcame the woman and Amity almost reached out to comfort her, "Doesn't matter. I thought, if it wasn't a scam, she must've lost her mind or have been kidnapped and forced to ramble this nonsense and the videos were sent to me now to torture me… But. Now you show up."
Their eyes locked again and Amity almost couldn't swallow down the sob that had been building in her throat. Camila looked so hopeful, so excited, almost, to see her. All because Luz had mentioned her in an old video. Suddenly, she felt herself struggling with her clouded vision, tears welling up in her eyes because she realized that this woman still loved Luz so much, she was willing to grasp every straw for her daughter even after all these years.
"… Mrs. Noceda, I-…", she tried but Camila waved her hand.
"Call me Camila, please. Any friend of Luz's is welcome in this house, especially considering she never had many.", she sighed, before looking back to Amity again, "Can you-… Can you tell me what happened to my daughter?"
This was it. She would have to let Luz die all over again, not only for Camila but also for herself.
But first, she knew she had to do something else. Gulping, she reached up to the beanie that Camila had probably already recognized as Luz's and grabbed it. Her fingers wouldn't close at first because of how weak she felt, but she overcame the lack of control and pulled the beanie off her hair. Her brown locks fell freely but still didn't cover up her witch ears.
Camila's eyebrows furrowed when Amity handed her the beanie before her eyes landed on her ears. Amity used the moment to tie her bangs back up in the half ponytail she was used to before Camila managed to get a word out.
"Is that-… A costume?", she asked, and Amity shook her head.
"Everything that Luz said in these videos is true.", she finally mumbled and let her hands fall back into her lap, following them with her gaze, "The Boiling Isles is where I was born. Witches and demons are all I've known for all my life, I'm a witch myself. There, magic exists. And-… Luz was there. I-… I met her."
A moment of silence spread between them, before Camila looked back down to her locked phone, obviously still skeptical. But Amity didn't care if she believed her or not. All she wanted to do was to reassure her that Luz hadn't been lying.
Apparently, Camila quickly moved on from her doubts, because after a short while, she searched Amity's gaze again. She knew the older human didn't believe her, she remembered she had had trouble imagining a world completely without magic, but it didn't matter. She had mentioned Luz and Camila wanted to know more.
"No matter if it's right or not, you said you knew Luz.", Amity nodded and looked back down to her hands, before remembering her bag. Swiftly, albeit with shaking hands, she unpacked Luz's phone, her pictures, and her Azura book, handing the items to Camila.
"You might remember these. I brought them as proof that I'm telling the truth.", she quietly said and tried not to look in Camila's direction when she gave into a dry sob while inspecting Luz's things. Amity rubbed her hands together, not wanting to interrupt such an intimate moment, and Camila seemed to appreciate that. Another hiccup sounded from her direction and Amity didn't dare to look up, before the human placed the things on the low coffee table, before starting to talk again.
"Why-… Why are you here?", she finally choked out and Amity suspected that the woman already knew why she was here. Coming here alone, bringing Luz's things, talking of her in the past. When she looked up, she saw the tears already flowing down her cheeks.
Camila knew it, she knew exactly what was bound to come.
Amity breathed through, before turning her body back to her and fidgeting with her hands.
"I-… I came here because of a promise I made to Luz a long time ago.", she tried to control her shaking voice, but Camila didn't seem to make it easy on her when another sniffle came from the woman, "I-… I promised to her that I'd go see you."
"… I-In her place?", she choked out and Amity nodded. They both knew it, she just had to confirm it to Camila. The words didn't want to leave her lips but they had to. Camila hadn't heard anything from Luz in six years, and only now did she have the chance to hear facts. To learn the truth.
Amity knew she had to deliver.
"Mrs. Noceda… I-I'm so sorry, but Luz is gone.", she finally pressed out and with a start, Mrs. Noceda shot up from the couch. She looked up to see her barely holding it together.
"I-If you'll excuse me for a m-moment-", she whispered, barely visible, and Amity nodded past her own tears. Camila left the room shortly and Amity tried to regain some of her composure. Wiping away her tears, she stared down at her hands, before taking some hard breaths and her eyes wandering to Camila's phone. She wondered what Luz had said about her.
It took about fifteen minutes until Camila was composed enough to enter the living room again. Amity had waited patiently, not looking around too much since she felt like she was invading her late friend's private space, but when she looked up, she sucked in a hard breath.
Camila looked just about the same as she had looked in the weeks after Luz's death. Her eyes were swollen and red from crying, and her expression was broken. Gulping, she averted her eyes out of decency while Camila took a seat next to her again.
They stayed silent for a while, interrupted by the older woman's sniffles before she found her voice again.
"… When did it happen?", she croaked and Amity pulled her shoulders up. She had not looked forward to reliving her death, but Camila deserved answers after enduring the uncertainty for too long.
"She-… She died in late summer, six years ago. She was fourteen, and-… And had just been in the Boiling Isles for a few months.", Amity answered truthfully, and the pain she had worked so hard on to lessen and accept for years suddenly spiked like it had been yesterday.
Another little sniffle sounded and when she looked over, Camila was trying so hard to suppress her sobs.
"How-…", Amity already dreaded the question Camila was barely managing to phrase, "How did she die?"
She closed her eyes and her hands began trembling. All her composure and decency were out the window when she felt herself sobbing, suddenly, but she managed to push it down just enough to answer.
"Luz-… She was-… She had enemies, powerful ones. They-… They attacked her when she was alone. We-… We tried so hard to keep that from happening, but-…", her hands trembled so much when she grabbed the hem of her shirt, crumpling it up in her grip, "… She defeated them all, but she was injured. She knew-… She knew that she didn't have the time to call for healers. So she-… Called me."
Camila's eyes didn't leave her when she looked back to her and Amity knew she had to continue.
"What-… What did you talk about?", Camila softly asked. There were still tears running down her cheeks, but it was noticeable that she had already been through this before.
"I-… I didn't know she had been injured. I was-…", embarrassedly, Amity looked away again, "I was doing my homework when she called. We-… We talked about nothing specific… About the stars and-… And her bucket list. She wanted to do a bucket list."
Gulping, she then grabbed into her bag again to produce a very old and flimsy piece of paper. It was ripped in some folding lines, but Amity handled it carefully when she unfolded it and placed it on the table next to Luz's stuff.
"… These are the things we talked about.", she explained when Camila sniffled, before wiping away her tears and leaning over to read through Amity's neat handwriting. The first task, to be a real witch, still didn't have a check. The second had a few proud checks, and the paper was littered with little Azura sketches on varying skillset.
Amity had given up counting the skiing checks or adding new ones. The space was already filled up and the checks had started bleeding into the task beneath that, Skipping school. She had only done that less than a handful of times, but it had felt good noting these checks down.
The task of smashing stuff was still at one because she hadn't felt like adding another check due to her accidentally breaking Willow's teapot one very tired morning.
Kissing someone had also stayed at a chaste, single check, contrary to screaming, which she had done again just yesterday, in preparation for today. Writing a poem followed the task of kissing someone with one check since she didn't plan on writing another one.
Slowly, she pulled out a pen and completed the task of seeing her mother again, putting a neat check behind it as Camila nodded. She let her have the bit of time to calm down again and read through the list a couple of times, before leaning back.
"You two were close, I take it?", she asked quietly and Amity nodded with a sad smile, looking back up to her before putting the pen away again.
"Yes. Luz and I were friends. She made a lot of friends on the Boiling Isles."
Camila nodded slowly, before blinking slowly, then she breathed through.
"Forgive me for my horrible hospitality-", she began and Amity already tried waving it off, "Would you like something to drink? Or a snack?"
That had caught Amity off guard. Camila had just learned her daughter was dead, had been dead for the past six years, but she seemed tired after the first initial shock. Yet still, she thought of her, first.
"… I'd-… Actually like some water, please.", she admitted and Camila got up to enter the nearby kitchen and fix some water for her.
"I need a coffee…", she mumbled to herself and Amity got up to follow her, looking at her concerned, before she addressed the young witch again, "Do you want a coffee, too?"
"Mrs. Noceda, can I help you somehow?", she instead asked and the older woman gave her the glass of water, before shaking her head.
"Oh, no, but thank you, dear. You can sit back down if you like.", she offered, yet Amity stayed where she was, taking a sip of the water to moisturize her dry throat, before speaking again while the woman turned her back to her to start working on a machine Amity didn't know.
"… Are you okay?", she finally mumbled, and Camila stiffened, before looking back at her with a sad, tired smile.
"What can I say…? I haven't heard from Luz for six years, I-… I went through all of this before. Sure, knowing for sure is-… Hard.", she shrugged, before turning the machine on, "But it's not new. I-… At some point, I knew. Getting my hopes up hurts, but I didn't-… I-…"
Sighing, Amity nodded, before shuffling closer.
"If-… If you need anything, Mrs. Noceda, we're more than willing to help. I'm-… I'm sorry it took us so long to build a new portal, but we're here now, and we'd like to offer our support, all of Luz's friends and me.", she said and while Camila looked at her tiredly, she finally nodded.
"At-… At some point, I'd like to hear your stories about her.", a small smile flickered over her features, "It'd be nice to feel her again, even if just for a moment."
Looking back up to her, Amity's eyes locked with those she had dreamed about so often already. Luz had looked very similar to Camila.
"We-… We fixed her a memorial, Mrs. Noceda. If you'd like to visit it."
For a moment, she seemed like she'd consider it. The machine stopped working and Camila took the mug from it, blowing at it to cool it down some. Her eyes looked contemplative, but in the end, she shook her head.
"Not today. For today, I'd actually like to stay here."
Nodding, Amity finished her glass of water and looked back to Camila, giving her a small bow.
"In that case, I'd-…"
Shaking her head quickly, Camila put her mug away, obviously fighting with her words.
"Wait, I-…", she slanted her lips, before sighing, "I'd like you to stay, if that's okay? I'm not ready to be alone yet, and Luz seemed close to you. Can-… Can you stay?"
Something insecure swung with Camila's voice and suddenly, Amity felt very uneasy about leaving. She would rather even stay the night, judging by the sudden insecurity the older woman portrayed.
"Of course, Mrs. Noceda.", she smiled, before offering her hands which Camila took. The warm hands reminded Amity so much of Luz's, whenever she had taken hers to pull her into another adventure, just that Camila's seemed so much calmer, even if they were rougher than Amity remembered Luz's, "I can stay if you like."
Camila managed a little smile, before taking her coffee again and leading Amity back to the living room after refilling her glass.
"So, Amity, was it?", the young witch nodded, "How did you meet Luz?"
That question tickled out the first genuine laugh of the whole week.
"You see, Mrs. Noceda, I used to go to a school named Hexside…"
That killed me goodnight
