In Luz Noceda's opinion, there was nothing stranger than time. It had been a constant enigma to her all her life. One moment, she could be reading a great fanfic, secure in the knowledge that she had all afternoon to do it, and the next, her mother would be calling her to the dinner table in that annoyed tone of voice that indicated that it was not only not the first time she had done it, but not the second or third time either. Even more puzzlingly, time was not consistent. Sometimes, it could drag on endlessly.
That had certainly been the case for the school year so far, and the fact that Luz was now an honest to goodness witch didn't change the fact that time was just stupid sometimes. When she had returned from the Boiling Isles at the end of the summer, she had immediately told her mother where she had been and what she had been doing. It was the right thing to do, but that didn't make it the easy thing to do by a long shot.
She had been terrified that Camila would forbid her from going to the Boiling Isles ever again. Or that she would think that Luz was insane and try to put her in an institution. Or that she would try to kill her own daughter for her evil powers. But none of that had happened. Camila had been skeptical, of course, but when Luz had demonstrated the reality of her powers, she had known that Luz had been telling the truth.
Camila was overjoyed that Luz finally found a place where she fit in, where she could be herself without being ostracized for it. She had grounded Luz for a month because of all the lying she had done, but Luz thought that was more than fair.
Even though Luz wanted desperately to go back to the Boiling Isles and stay there forever, Camila had insisted that she continue her human schooling. However, she could go back to the Isles on holidays and breaks. Luz had gone back to see her friends on Veterans' Day and Thanksgiving, but what she was really looking forward to was winter break. Two solid weeks in the Boiling Isles!
But it felt like it took forever to arrive. Luz cursed the very concept of time some days. If only she had access to some sort of time travel spell! But they didn't exist. (She had checked.)
Yet nothing truly lasts forever, and after what felt like an eternity, the time to return to the Isles had arrived!
But it wasn't just winter break that Luz was looking forward to. It was also the first Hanukkah that she had ever spent with her girlfriend! The thought of introducing Amity to her favorite holiday filled her with so much joy that sometimes, she thought she'd explode from anticipation.
On the first day of winter break – also, by sheer coincidence, the first day of Hanukkah – Luz bounded through the portal into total darkness. She couldn't see anything. She was definitely in the Owl House. She knew that much; she could smell the comforting smell of the enchanted wood that made the building sentient. But why couldn't she see anything? The sun of the Isles rose and fell at approximately the same time as the one on Earth; it should be daytime! And even during the night, it wasn't pitch black.
But Luz was a witch now (A WITCH! She could hardly believe her luck sometimes!) and that meant that she had magic. No darkness was a match for her. Her name literally meant light, after all. She grabbed the page containing the runes necessary to activate the light spell from her pocket and activated it.
"SURPRISE!"
The light illuminated a scene that she had been waiting for far, far too long to see. A banner that read "WELCOME BACK, LUZ!" hung from the ceiling. Her friends – her family – all stood before her in the living room. Eda, the Owl Lady, her mentor and second mother. Aunt Lilith, who had made up for her antagonistic behavior towards Eda by being the one to strike the death blow against Emperor Belos. Gus and Willow, her first ever friends. King, the demon who was the actual King of the Boiling Isles now, and cutest individual in all of existence.
And Amity.
Amity, the most gorgeous girl that Luz had ever met. Amity, whose harsh façade had obscured a hidden heart of gold that was now glaringly obvious to everyone she met. Amity, who had stolen Luz's heart and her breath and, in one incident, the particulars of which she still hadn't figured out, her appendix. Amity, who was standing in front of her (in front of her, not a universe away, but in front of her) with a beautiful smile on those infinitely kissable lips.
Her girlfriend. Her best friend. Her soulmate.
Amity.
Luz was about to kiss those lips when King ran past Amity and leapt into her arms. "Luz! I didn't miss you at all," he said, and slobbered her face with kisses. "No, not one bit."
"Me, too, King," Luz said, and gave him a hug that probably would have crushed a normal human's bones. "Me, too."
King cleared his throat and attempted to look dignified as he leapt onto the table. "Your sovereign demands that you never leave again!"
"Aw, I wish I could stay too, sweetie," Luz said, and meant it. But Luz knew it wouldn't be fair to her mom if she did stay. "But maybe when I turn 18, I'll be here to stay? No promises, though," she added quickly.
"I guess if that's the best you can do," King said sulkily. God, he was so cute.
Luz turned to face Amity, but then Eda got between them. Though they'd seen each other just a few weeks prior, it had only been by scroll, as Eda had been called away on sudden business. She hadn't wanted the position of prime minister, but that, as Aunt Lilith pointed out, just made her even more qualified for the job, and the cost of such power was, as so many of Luz's favorite fantasy novels had pointed out, responsibility.
"Wow!" Eda said, sounding genuinely impressed. "You got taller! I thought you were going to stay that height forever, shorty." Luz laughed. It was true. She'd gone through a growth spurt the month after she left the Isles. "It's great to see you. How's your mom?"
"She's good," Luz assured her. "She's very busy this time of year, but she's going to try to show up at least once before Hanukkah's over."
Willow clapped her hands. "Oh, good! I've wanted to meet your mom for ages." Camila had visited the Isles alone shortly after Luz had revealed the truth to her to see if Eda was on the up and up (well, at least as Eda could get), but had not met any of Luz's friends during that time.
"Tell me everything there is to know about Hanukkah," Gus said, pulling out a notebook.
Luz put up her hands. "Whoa, there! Plenty of time for that later. There's eight whole nights, after all." She looked over at Amity, who was rocking back and forth and looking like she was ready to explode from waiting. "Maybe you have something else you all could be doing right now?"
A smirk came across Eda's face. "Oh, yeah. Right. We got something else we can be doing, right, pals?"
King looked confused. "No, we don't – OW!"
After Eda tossed her sovereign into the kitchen, everyone quickly filed into that room, leaving Luz alone with Amity.
"You look amazing," both girls said at exactly the same time, and then let out a nearly identical giggle and blush. In Luz's opinion, it was more true about Amity. She hadn't dressed up much, just wearing her typical outfit. Amity, on the other hand, was wearing a beautiful white dress that must have cost her a fortune.
Of course, Amity could afford it now. In October, the Blight parents, always striving to live up to their name, had tried to launch a coup against the new administration. It had failed, and now they were serving a life sentence in what used to be the Conformatorium. Their assets had been stripped from them and placed in the hands of Amity's older siblings, who were always happy to splurge on whatever Amity wanted to buy.
But still. The thought that her girlfriend (SHE HAD A GIRLFRIEND NOW! And it was AMITY!) had spent so much money on something because she knew Luz would like it warmed Luz's heart.
"I've missed you so much," Luz said. "Being away from the Isles was tough, but being away from you? A zillion times tougher." The two of them shared a kiss. "I tried telling some people from school about you – not the whole witch thing, just that you were a girl I met at summer camp – but they thought I was lying." And they had said a lot worse things about her than that too, but Amity didn't really need to know about that.
Amity stroked Luz's hair. "Well, that's their loss. Hey, maybe I should come to your school for a visit one day, prove them all wrong."
"That sounds cool," Luz admitted. "But I don't want to talk about them. I want to hear everything that's been happening to you instead!"
The two of them sat on the couch, side by side, and Luz listened to her tales of learning witchcraft that would have enthralled her before all this had started, back when she thought that stuff was just fiction. But now, it was even more amazing, because she was living it.
As the moment to light the candles of the menorah neared, Amity thought about how fire was the perfect metaphor for Luz. She was relentless, energetic, and if you pissed her off, she could be very, very dangerous. And she had made Amity's life brighter and warmer from the very moment she saw her.
"Why do we even need to light these candles?" Gus complained. "A simple spell could create eight pillars of fire much bigger than these candles could make."
Amity glared at him. "It's traditional, Gus. When the Jews recovered their Temple after a long and bloody battle, there was only enough oil to light the candles for one night. And they didn't have magic. But, miraculously, through divine intervention, the oil lasted for eight whole nights."
Luz looked amazed that Amity knew that information. As a parting gift, Luz had linked Amity's scroll to the human internet. Since then, Amity had become obsessed with learning about her girlfriend's faith. It had become what Luz had referred to as a "special interest." Amity found Judaism absolutely fascinating, and had even thought about formally joining the faith once or twice, though she wasn't ready to do that yet. She had certainly learned everything she could about Hanukkah when Luz had told her that they were going to spend it together.
"But couldn't they have just gotten oil from somewhere else?" Willow wondered.
"Look, it's not about whether or not it happened," Luz explained. "At least not to me. For some people it is, but I'm not one of them. It's about what it means. It symbolizes the persistence of the Jews in a world where they've had no safe harbor, ever. Our oil has lasted for longer than everyone thought it would." She turned to Amity. "Would you light the candles, Am?"
Amity blinked. Luz trusted her to light the sacred candles of Hanukkah? She wasn't even Jewish. "You don't want to light them yourself?"
Luz kissed her on the cheek, and her face felt so hot that she was surprised that the candles weren't already lit from being so close to it. "I trust you," Luz whispered, and now she was just cheating. It had to be cheating to win an argument like that, didn't it?
She handed a sheet of paper to Amity with a translation of the prayers for this occasion. "Baruch atah, Adonai Eloheinu, Melech haolam, asher kid'shanu b'mitzvotav v'tsivanu l'hadlik ner shel Hanukkah," Amity recited. "Baruch atah, Adonai Eloheinu, Melech haolam, she-asah nisim laavoteinu v'imoteinu bayamim hahaeim baz'man hazeh. Baruch atah, Adonai Eloheinu, Melech haolam, shehecheyanu v'kiy'manu v'higiyanu laz'man hazeh."
In silence, Amity lit the candle on the right end of the menorah with a human match and then used it to light the shamash, the candle in the center. Luz looked like she was…crying? Oh, no! "I messed up, didn't I? Oh, Titan, Luz, I'm so sorry. This is an important tradition to you, and I screwed it up. I read online that Sephardic Jews light the shamash last, but maybe I misunderstood?"
"No, you didn't!" Luz assured her. "These are tears of joy. It's just…I can't tell you how happy I am. Being here with you all." She kissed Amity on the mouth, leaving her floating on air for a few seconds. She completely missed the next few words that Luz said.
"…traditional for Sephardic Jews. That's the kind of Jews that Mami and I are. Most Jews in the United States don't do it." Luz cleared her throat, and then recited a verse from the Tanakh in Spanish. It sounded beautiful, although Amity had no clue what it meant.
"Yeah, you know, while Gus is right about a fire spell being more efficient," Eda said, "there's something nice about this."
King tried his best to suppress a yawn. It was ludicrously unsuccessful, but the fact that he even bothered to attempt it was touching. "Okay, well, ceremony's over! Let's get to the most important part of the evening: dinner!"
Amity certainly could get behind that idea.
If there was one thing that Luz loved about being Jewish more than anything else, it was probably the food. Okay, maybe that was an exaggeration. There were a lot of things she loved about being Jewish. But food was an essential part of being Jewish. They tried to kill us, we survived, let's eat. That's what being Jewish is about, in Luz's opinion: surviving and even thriving in the face of adversity.
And thriving was definitely what they were doing right now. To commemorate their first Hanukkah together, Amity had passed on a collection of recipes for Jewish foods to Eda and Willow, and her diligent research had paid off in spades. For the main dish, the two of them had made keftes de prasa, which were kind of like the potato pancakes that Ashkenazi Jews made during the holiday, but with leeks instead of potatoes. Well, that was the theory. Luz wasn't sure what were in these keftes, but she was pretty sure it wasn't leeks in them. They were astonishingly tasty, so she definitely wasn't complaining.
For desert, they made buñuelos, fried dough fritters, covered in a cinnamon sugar syrup with coconut milk. And this time, knowing how important such a dish was to Luz's Dominican heritage, they had gotten the actual ingredients. Luz had a sneaking suspicion that a couple of McMansions on Earth would find themselves down some ingredients, but it wasn't like they couldn't buy new ones.
"This is the most delicious thing I've ever tasted," King said in between ravenously chewed bites. "I hereby pronounce this the official dessert of the Boiling Isles!"
King thinking he had power, in Luz's opinion, just made him even cuter than before. She was thankful, though, that all the real power in the new Boiling Kingdom was placed in the hands of its democratically elected prime minister. King gave ridiculous edicts, Eda ignored them, and the government worked out just fine. Life was good for its citizens, and that included Luz's friends.
"Doesn't it bother you?" Gus suddenly said, looking worried. "I mean, I've done some research on your religion too, and isn't there a thing about, you know, killing witches?"
Truth be told, it had bothered her a little. She was worried that her mother would denounce her as a pagan. Nothing could be further from the truth. Even though her magic came from the Titan, she didn't worship him as a god. To Luz, he was just another form of the God that had created Amity's universe alongside her own.
But then she had done some research, and she had discovered that when it came to magic and Judaism, things weren't as simple as black and white. "Well, for starters, the common interpretation of the verse you're thinking of is probably off," Luz explained. "There's a school of thought that even thinks that it's been completely mistranslated and refers to poisoners, not witches."
"But more likely," Amity said, picking up on the explanation as if they had rehearsed it, "the verse simply means practitioners of dark magic." Not that such a thing actually existed, at least not in the Boiling Isles. Magic was just a tool; it wasn't inherently good or evil. "Though some forms of magic are explicitly prohibited in Judaism – mostly necromantic practices – there are examples of legends of Jewish magic practitioners throughout human history. The Golem of Prague, in particular, is pretty much a classic example of abomination magic."
She suddenly flushed scarlet, not out of proximity to Luz like she sometimes did, but out of embarrassment. "Oh, look at me going on and on."
Luz kissed her on the forehead. "Hey, don't feel bad. I told you, I like it when you infodump. It's cute, and I like it when you're able to talk about things that interest you." She'd have bet every last cent she had that Amity's parents had always despised that habit of hers. By the looks of it, that thought was going through the head of everyone else at the table.
"So how has school been going for you?" Aunt Lilith said after a silence that lasted just a few seconds too long. "I know that you found it difficult before you came here, but Camila tells us that you're starting a new phase of your educational career. High school?"
Luz's eyes lit up. High school had actually been a lot better for her than middle school had been. Her time in the Isles had left her with a self-confidence that must have shown to other people, because people started actually wanting to be her friends. She had joined a D&D club and found people to sit with at lunch for the first time. And when one of her worst tormentors had called her a truly horrid slur pertaining to her sexuality, Luz had conjured up an illusory dragon, causing him to literally pee his pants in fear. He had ran straight to the principal, but this time he had been the one disbelieved, not her.
Vengeance was sweet. But having friends, she decided, was sweeter.
After her parents had discovered that she had a human girlfriend (and by the sounds of it, they couldn't decide which of the two concepts disgusted them more), Amity had been kicked out of Blight Manor and had ended up staying with Eda in the Owl House. Even though now she could return to the manor with no problems, she had continued to live in the Owl House, although she often returned to visit Emira and Edric. (They had been busy cramming for a test that night, but swore they'd come to visit for the second night of Hanukkah.)
She'd slept on the couch for the first few nights there, but when it became clear that her stay at the house would become permanent, Eda had given Amity her own bedroom. And now Luz was staying there. Though Eda didn't actually care what they got up to in there ("You can't get her pregnant, so go nuts" were her exact words), she had still, at Camila's request, enforced a rule that they had to keep the door partly open at all times when they were alone in the room together. Amity didn't mind much. It was still too early to do the things that Camila was afraid they'd be doing, in her opinion.
After dinner, Luz had introduced everyone to the game of dreidel. Even though, strictly speaking, it wasn't a Sephardic tradition, Luz nonetheless had played the game every year with her mother. Luz's father had taught her how to play initially, just a few months before he had passed away. Luz didn't talk about her father very much, but Amity knew from what little she had heard about him that he had been a good man.
In a turn of events that was entirely expected, King had taken to the game like a siren took to water, and had been constantly demanding more "tribute." When he had found out that the gelt wasn't real gold, but rather chocolate covered with gold foil, that had just made him even more enthusiastic.
But eventually, the noise had gotten too much for Amity, and she had retreated into the comfort of her room. Luz had had the same idea earlier in the night, but Amity had just lasted longer than her girlfriend.
Amity had always known that her brain worked differently than everyone else's. There were some smells and tastes that just made her want to scream whenever she experienced them, she couldn't handle being around too many people for too long, and she could become laser focused on different subjects to a level that unnerved those around her. But she had never known that there was a name for such a brain (other than the horrible mean names like anomalous and abnormal and other names that she shuddered to even think about that her parents had called her) until she had met Luz.
Luz had the exact same type of brain as hers, and they were both autistic. Having a label to put on the weirdness that she had tried desperately to hide made it easier to admit to herself and others that those differences existed. It'd take a long while before she developed the courage to truly embrace her autism fully, rather than try desperately to hide it, but Luz was willing to help her every step of the way, and that made it so much easier.
Unsurprisingly, Luz was still awake. Luz was a night owl – fitting for the place she was now residing in – and usually stayed up late. "Hey," Luz said, smiling adorably at her. "You doing okay?"
"Yeah, just needed to be alone," Amity said, and then her eyes widened. "I mean with you! I didn't mean I don't want to be with you! I mean –"
Luz laughed, not meanly like her siblings would before they had seen the error of their ways, but in that wonderful way that was so uniquely her. "Yeah, I know what you mean. I like being alone with you, too." She sat up in the bed. "So Gus told me that you're trying out the bard track?"
Amity's eyes lit up with enthusiasm. "YES! And I love it! It's like it was made for me!" Eda's first action as prime minister had been to abolish the coven system and allow students of magic to learn as many or as few of the tracks as they so chose. Though Amity enjoyed abomination magic, it had still been forced upon her by her parents, so she had been rotating through the topics that the Blights had felt were "beneath her" to get a glimpse of what she was missing.
And the moment she had cast her first spell in the bard track, she knew that she had found her calling. The bard track was all about emotion, and all her life, Amity had been trained to never show emotion in ways that her parents didn't want. Wielding bard magic allowed her to let loose with her emotions in a constructive manner, to create ballads that truly encapsulated the frustration and loneliness that years of people trying to put the square peg that was her into a round hole had inflicted upon her. But it also allowed her to put into words things like the astonishing love that she had for Luz, the profound gratitude that she felt to Eda for giving her a home, and the joy of being finally, finally free.
For the first time in her life, she could truly be herself, and her magic was now reflecting that.
Amity realized that she had been woolgathering for too long and shook her head to clear her thoughts. "Actually, I found a song from your culture that I'd like to sing to you. If…if you don't mind? When I heard it, I thought of you."
"Yes!" Luz shouted, probably loud enough to wake anyone in the house that was asleep. "I mean, yes. Yes, I'd love to, Amity."
Amity summoned the spectral orchestra that she had especially created for this moment, and started the music. The song was called Kol Dodi, and it was written by Fortuna, a Brazilian singer. She wasn't actually sure what it was saying, though she knew what a few lines meant. Titan, she really hoped that she would be pronouncing it right.
"Kol dodi, kol dodi, kol dodi hine zé ba, " Amity sang. "Kol dodi, kol dodi, kol dodi hine zé ba. Mekapetz el heharim, medaleg el ha gvaot. Mekapetz el heharim, medaleg el ha gvaot."
As she sang the words in the language of Luz's ancestors, she tried to imbue the words with the full extent of her love for Luz. Luz had sliced away the façade her parents had forced her to put up and exposed the truth of Amity's heart within. She was smart, funny, beautiful, and caring. Every time that Amity even saw her, it felt like her heart was racing and like she was floating on clouds. Luz brought so much joy to her heart, and she tried her best to pour every ounce of that joy into her words.
As she repeated the chorus, Amity could see by the look on Luz's face that she was definitely succeeding in her objective.
"Madgika voz de my ensuenyo," Amity sang, "manyanika de manyana." She was pretty sure the first line meant "magical voice of my dreams" or maybe daydreams. "Arrelumbra y arrelumbra, luzezika de mi alma."
That last verse meant light of her soul, Amity was almost entirely certain. Luz's name meant light in Spanish, so luzezika probably meant something similar. And that's what Luz was. She was the light of Amity's soul.
After a second repetition of the second chorus, the song came to an end, and the moment appeared to hang in the air for an infinitely long time. And then Luz leapt out of the bed and tackled her to the ground with a hug.
"Remember your mom's rule, Luz!" Eda shouted from her room across the hall.
"That's the sweetest thing anyone's ever done for me," Luz said, tears of joy streaming down her face. "I love you so much."
"Happy Hanukkah, Luz."
"Happy Hanukkah, Amity."