Luz spent the next couple of days leading up to the weekend quietly buzzing with anticipation. She spent plenty of time digging through the piles of clutter in the owl house digging for beach supplies. Though she hung out with her friends on the weekends and saw them almost every day in class (she had been allowed to continue attending Hexside since Eda was technically pardoned), she was still excited. She'd get to spend time at a real Boiling Isles seashore without having to worry about harvesting trash slug remnants, and get to share the experience with all the people she loved most. Well, most of the people she loved, since her mamá was in another dimension and had no clue of her whereabouts. She stubbornly pushed those thoughts down.
The first to show up Saturday morning was Amity, carrying a duffel bag. She was almost immediately bowled over by the enthusiastic human. Part of her wanted to enjoy the hug for longer, but she was shy receiving such affection in front of the other members of the household. She broke it off and excused herself. "Hey, I couldn't come here in my beach clothes because I didn't want my parents to be suspicious. Do you guys have a bathroom I could change in?" She sprinted up to go change as soon as Eda pointed her in the right direction.
While she waited, Luz reviewed the contents of her backpack for what had to have been the tenth time. Just like the past nine times, it had contained snacks, drinks, towels, a blanket, goggles, a beach ball, a floaty, a bucket, a trowel, and her sketchbook. Amity came back downstairs a few moments later. She was wearing a violet tankini with all of her hair pulled up in a ponytail, revealing her undercut. Oh, wow. She looks- Luz stopped that train of thought in its tracks, adding it to that day's ever-growing pile of repressed feelings. She didn't want to mess up one of her best friendships with a crush.
Almost immediately after this, Hooty's shrill voice heralded Willow and Gus's arrival. They were both aggressively greeted and hugged by Luz, the same way Amity had been. Unlike her, they were already in their beach clothes, and each had a small bag of items to take with them.
"Welp, are we all ready to go?" asked Eda, holding her staff in one hand and a bag in the other.
"We should be," answered Luz, "but where's King?"
Eda held out her bag for Luz to take. She used her newly freed hand to push aside her and Lilith's towels, revealing a sleeping King. "Right in here!" Luz took a moment to coo at the dozing demon. "Anyway," laughed Eda, "thanks for agreeing to carry both of our bags the rest of the way."
"Huh?" Luz looked down and realized she was now carrying Eda's bag in addition to her own backpack. "Wait a second! I never agreed to this!" She tried to return the bag to Eda.
"Nope, Sorry kid! You took it when I handed it to you, no take-backs!"
Luz smirked. "Oh yeah? What if I just set the bag on the ground, leaving you and your sister without your towels?"
"And leave King alone here with Hooty? You wouldn't dream of it."
Luz looked defeated before realization dawned on her face. "Wait, Lilith's stuff is in here too, why don't we just make her carry it?"
Lilith begrudgingly took the bag that was handed to her. "Can't you at least force your demon to get out of the bag, Edalyn?"
"And make things easier on you? Not a chance. Besides, look at his little face." Eda led everyone outside, closing the door behind them. "Looks like all seven of us are ready, so it's time to get our move on."
"Seven? You mean you're not bringing me, hoot?" complained Hooty. Everyone looked disgruntled at that idea, especially Amity.
"Hey, Hooty?" observed Willow, "aren't you bound to the house? We'd need another moonlight conjuring to get you out there."
"You don't know how looong my body is. Neither do I, actually. I could try stretching there!"
"Hooty," interrupted Eda, "literally nobody wants to see that. Besides, we just finished untangling you after that wild goose chase King sent you on. Go play with some bugs or whatever it is you do all day."
"Fine! Hoot! I can see when I'm not wanted!"
With that, Eda and Lilith brandished their staves, ready to fly. Luz and Gus got on Eda's staff while Willow and Amity got on Lilith's. They were both apprehensive about trusting the dark-haired witch, but deemed it less of a risk than Eda's stunt-filled flying style. Luz and Gus, on the other hand, eagerly anticipated all the speed, loops, and flips that tended to accompany a ride on Owlbert.
The trip went by with little talking, as it was hard to hear anything over the sounds of the wind and the sea. They took a shortcut over the ocean to get to The Left Hand more quickly, giving a breathtaking view of the open water, filled with sea serpents, giant squids, and leviathans. After a while, a mass of land shaped like a massive hand appeared on the horizon. Soon enough, they reached it, landing in a shady spot next to a palm tree, far enough from the sea that they wouldn't have to worry about any waves reaching their belongings.
Luz had seen plenty of water, both on Earth and on The Isles, but the water here was the most enticing that she had ever seen. She promptly flung her backpack on the ground, rushing to jump in. Gus seemed to have the same idea.
"Wait just one minute!" shouted Eda. "You're not going anywhere until you drink your sun potion." She cringed a little bit at how much of a mom she sounded like just then.
"You don't have to worry about that," replied Luz cheerily, already taking another step towards the water. "I don't burn easily."
"Yeah, and I'm even darker than she is," Gus pointed out.
"Nope, get back over here," Eda scolded. "It's better safe than sorry; I can't do healing spells anymore and I don't want anyone complaining about pain all night," she looked to Luz, "or anyone's dads getting mad at me," she turned to Gus. "So drink up." Titan, she had somehow managed to sound even more motherly with each word.
Amity and Willow had already taken their own potions from their bags and took hearty swigs, both visibly grimacing at the taste. Luz didn't want to experience that flavour firsthand, but knew that there was no point in continuing to argue with Eda. She took a sip from the large bottle Eda handed her and had to hold back a gag before passing it onto Gus.
After that ordeal was out of the way, Gus had begun sprinting towards the sea, followed immediately by Luz, who had grabbed Willow and Amity's hands, dragging them behind her. Willow laughed and let go after a few seconds, saying her shorter legs couldn't keep up, leaving Luz to hold Amity's hand alone. When Luz looked back at Amity, she noticed the witchling's face was an impressive shade of red.
She stopped abruptly, concerned for her friend. The abrupt change in momentum caused Amity to stumble, but Luz caught her before she could fall. This caused Amity to turn even redder.
"Hey, Amity?" asked Luz, mild worry lacing her voice, "you look really red. Are you getting sunburned? I thought you took your potion and we've not been out here very long at all but I don't know how witches' skin works."
Amity sputtered and backed away from Luz "haha, uh, no I uh, I'm just overheated. Yep! Super hot out here! You run on ahead and I'll sit down and cool off!"
Luckily for Amity (and unluckily for anyone who had ever been forced to witness the two girls' awkwardness; Willow was wholeheartedly convinced they would give her grey hairs before her 15th birthday) Luz had remained oblivious as ever. "I can wait for you, Willow and Gus already beat us there. But," she continued, "I think we should walk there instead of sitting here. The water would cool you off way faster, silly." She poked at Amity's side for emphasis, causing the witchling to giggle.
"Wait, Amity, are you ticklish ?"
"Nope! Just laughing at uh, how goofy you're being? Yeah! Anyway you're right, I should get in the water, bye!" Amity sprinted away at an impressive speed.
"You can't outrun me!"
"Really? Because it sure looks like I am!"
Amity's luck ran out when she reached the water, however. She could swim, but not very fast. For once, she regretted skipping all those swimming lessons with Willow. Soon enough, the human caught up to her, poking at her sides again. Amity retaliated with a forceful splash of water to the other girl's face.
"Oh, is that how you wanna play it?" Luz returned the gesture with an even bigger splash. She had accidentally hit Gus, drawing his attention to them.
"SPLASH FIGHT!" he yelled, summoning a large illusory hand to splash them. Some stray droplets from that splash hit Willow, who had been minding her own business up to that point.
"You got my glasses wet! Augustus Porter, you are gonna PAY for this!" She drew a spell circle, causing a nearby cluster of seaweed to grow until it poked up well above the water. She used it to pick Gus up by his ankle and dunk him in the water. From there, the situation evolved into a massive 4-way water fight with no loyalties.
Back on shore Lilith had already set up her towel and begun reading a book. Eda pulled out her own towel and laid it out next to her sister's. This roused King, who no longer had any towels to cover himself up with.
"When did we get here?" he grumbled sleepily.
"Eh, not too long ago," answered Eda. "The kid packed you a towel and a floaty if you wanna go join them.
"I'll pass. It takes forever for my fur to dry. Besides, I have important plans for today!"
"And what would those be?"
"If you must know," he said, digging the shovel and bucket from Luz's bag, "I will be building myself a sand empire! And then I'll fill it with treasure! I will rule my sand citizens like a god! They will tremble before me as I threaten to crush their homes under my mighty paws! Muahaha!"
"Alright, you have fun with that," replied Eda, as the small demon scampered off.
She smiled as she turned to her sister. "Ah, it's the age-old scheme. Those five rascals wear themselves out all day, come home too tired to cause any trouble, then go to bed early. And we just get to sit here and relax the whole time. Mom and Dad might not have been great parents but honestly this was pretty clever of them to do to us."
"Wait, what did you just say about our parents?"
"Did you think they took us here that often because they liked it ?" Eda laughed.
"I mean yes, but that wasn't what I meant. What do you mean they weren't good parents?"
"After all these years, you still haven't realized? They pit us against each other, flipped out if we didn't give them absolute obedience, and took every chance to ignore us unless we were being punished or if we achieved something really big."
"Yeah, but it's not like they hit us or anything!"
"That's below bare minimum right there."
"But! But they were our parents! Our blood! They had to have loved us!" Lilith looked increasingly distressed.
"Blood doesn't mean jack squat!"
Now Lilith looked deeply upset. "Edalyn, did our sisterhood mean NOTHING to you?"
"Lily, it meant everything to me. But not because of something as silly as blood. It was important to me because of who you were and everything we went through together. You were my best friend, you were the one who helped me when I got hurt. And if you only loved me because of some stupid blood and not for me then I honestly don't know what to say to you." Now Eda looked almost as upset as her sister.
Lilith put a placating hand on Eda's shoulder. "No, you're right. We'd grown so far apart the past couple decades that our blood ties felt like all I had left."
In a moment of tenderness towards her older sister that she hadn't experienced in ages, Eda pulled Lilith into a hug, gently patting her on the back. After some time, Eda felt Lilith calm down and decided to continue her previous point. "I'd think after mentoring minty-fresh over there, you'd be able to take a look at her home life and realize that not all parents automatically love their children."
"Wait, are you talking about Amity? What's wrong with her family?" Lilith backed away from Eda in shock.
"Did you seriously not notice any of the red flags?"
"Unlike you and your human, I had a perfectly professional relationship with my protege. I never asked those kinds of things."
"It's not just in the bits I've overheard her telling Luz, it's in her mannerisms as well! It's glaringly obvious Odalia's still the same old bully who liked to steal your money, but nowadays she's got kids to take it out on."
"But Amity's such a good kid! I'm sure they should-"
"That's the thing." Eda sighed, looking at her sister with pity. "When parents don't love their kids or mistreat them, it's never the kids' fault." It was exceedingly clear that she wasn't just talking about the Blights. "No amount of being a good kid can fix their parents, and it really shouldn't have to."
"But- but maybe if we- I- had just tried harder- if I'd been better- mom and dad wouldn't- maybe they'd love me" Lilith was an emotional, stuttering mess. She was gasping like a fish out of water by the end of her statement. She felt like her world was collapsing as Eda's words toppled the beliefs she'd worked oh so hard to build.
Eda pulled her older sister into another hug, running her fingers comfortingly through her hair. "It's okay, let it out." The offer was tempting. Lilith wanted so badly to start sobbing like the scared little child she still was deep inside. But now was not a good time. It was supposed to be a carefree day, and she didn't want to risk a bunch of children seeing her sobbing. On top of that, she knew Eda hadn't even fully forgiven her yet, and she didn't want to force her little sister to comfort her like this.
Eda sounded melancholy as she continued. "Even if I still had my magic, necromancy wasn't my strongest suit. I can't go ask our parents whether or not they loved us. But I don't think it would change the fact that they were bad parents either way. If there's anything I've learned in the past two decades, it's that someone can really love you but still hurt you anyway."
Lilith knew that that last statement was referring to her. The guilt compounded with her already fragile state, bringing her almost to her breaking point. She knew if Eda said anything more to her, or even if she allowed herself to be held for much longer, she'd fall over the edge. She steeled herself with a deep breath and removed herself from the hug. "Eda, thank you for this conversation, but I don't think I can handle talking about this anymore. I'm going back to my reading."
A few moments of uncomfortable silence passed between them. Eda removed Owlbert from her staff and was absently petting his feathers. Lilith was trying to read but failing miserably, her eyes rereading the same paragraph over and over while her brain processed nothing.
Eda decided to break the silence and change the subject. "So, whatcha' readin'?"
"Oh, you know, just studying some ancient runes?" Lilith tried to hide the book's cover against her legs before Eda could see, but she wasn't fast enough. The younger witch was able to get a full view of the cover, which featured a woman in a corset and long skirt locked in a passionate embrace with a woman in golden armour.
"Oh yeah? And what kind of ancient knowledge are you finding in the pages of ' An Enchanting Night With the Enchantress Knight'? Care to share with the class?"
Lilith's face turned a shade of red to rival that of her ex-protege.
In the water, the kids finished yet another round of "marco polo", a human game that Luz had taught them after they grew bored of splash fights and racing. Nobody understood the meaning behind the phrases yelled, including Luz (she said Marco Polo was the name of "some explorer dude" but didn't know why the game involved yelling his name). Despite the odd phrases, the rules were pretty straightforward and everyone had fun. Gus in particular was excited to play a real human beach game.
"Do you guys wanna learn another human beach game?"
"Do you even have to ask? Of course!"
"This one is called sharks and minnows," Luz began. "It was always my cousins' favourite. When my mamá could afford to take time off work, we'd visit my extended family in the Dominican Republic and we'd play this all the time..." Luz caught herself reminiscing about a time she may never be able to go back to and pushed those thoughts aside before they could make her sad.
"Anyway! So to start out, one person is the shark and everyone else are minnows. The minnows swim out a certain distance and the shark stands between them and the shore. Their goal is to get to the shore before the shark catches them. If the shark catches them all in the first round, the shark wins. Otherwise, the captured minnows become sharks and the surviving minnows go back out to the starting point and that gets repeated until the last surviving minnow wins."
Gus looked absolutely enraptured.
"Hey," Willow noted, "that's kinda similar to a game we have here called sea serpent. We have a serpent instead of a shark and the minnows are just called prey. Except the serpent gets goggles and nobody else is allowed to put their head under water. That way, the serpent can sneak up on their prey and kill them without warning." She wiggled her fingers in a jokingly spooky manner. "Some versions say the serpent can't open their eyes above water but that's too difficult in a big body of water like this. Also, we only do one round."
"Huh, even childrens' games on the Boiling Isles are weirdly threatening! Neat! I brought some goggles if we wanna play that next, but one of us would have to go get them."
"Maybe after lunch. I'm starting to get a bit worn out and hungry from all this swimming, so let's go back after a few rounds of sharks and minnows." Amity and Gus both nodded, agreeing with Willow.
Meanwhile, on the shore, King had built a rather large (though somewhat misshapen) sand kingdom, consisting of many separate sand "houses", a larger "castle", a moat, and a big pit in the middle of it all. He was attempting to fill the pit with various treasures (seashells and various shiny objects he managed to dig up). However, he got distracted from his quest when he saw a small crab.
"Yes! Excellent! You shall be my first subject." He tried to pick the crab up and the crab, predictably, pinched his paw before scurrying away.
"Nyeh! I shall have vengeance! Vengeance I say! I will conquer you and you will be forced to worship you as your god! And I will be a vengeful, angry god!"
Luz and co. got out of the water and she jogged over to him, patting his skull. "Are you having fun playing with your little sandcastle?"
"No! I'm preparing for war!"
"Well do you wanna take a break with us?"
"No! Vengeance rests for nothing!"
"Not even for a lunch break?"
"Okay, vengeance rests for some things. Let's go!"
The five of them ran over to Eda and Lilith who had both calmed down from their earlier conversation and were now napping and reading, respectively. Luz jostled Eda. "Wake up, it's lunch time."
"Alright, kid, set up the blanket. I'll get out the sandwiches. Hopefully they aren't too flat since someone" she looked pointedly at King "decided to fall asleep in my bag"
"Ah, whatever," he replied, "who needs sandwiches when we have six sandy witches right here? Ay?" Luz and Gus laughed, both giving him a human-style high five. The other four witches just groaned in agony at the awful pun.
"Well if it doesn't matter then why don't you just skip lunch," Eda teased.
"No! I'm sorry! I was just kidding!"
Willow dug around in her bag before pulling out a small handful of various seeds. "I brought food too!"
Eda raised a brow. "Kid, I know I have the whole owl motif going on but I don't eat birdseed."
Willow laughed and stepped back a few meters. "Watch this!" Her eyes glowed green and the seeds in her hand rapidly grew into an expanse of greenery, filled with ripe fruits. "Ta-da!"
"Hot dang kid, why haven't I just been doing that all these years instead of paying for groceries?"
"Well, Miss Eda, most witches are only good at growing plants that are big and strong but don't know how to make sure the fruits are edible. I had to put in a lot of practice for this!"
"Oh, pretty impressive, especially for a Hexside twerp."
"Hey! I'm a Hexside twerp!" Luz protested, laughing.
"Yep," laughed Eda, ruffling her apprentice's hair, "but I like you and your little friends anyways."
Once the food and drinks were passed out, lunch went somewhat calmly. Lilith didn't feel welcome in the circle with the rest of Eda's mishmash family, but she sat close to them and even contributed to their conversation sometimes. It was progress, at least.
