Chapter 6: Okay, time to head back to the human world
"... and that's why we banished giraffes."
Katrina finished telling Luz about giraffes while Jett tried to get every last drop out of his Rainbow Juice, tipping the plastic cup over his head, his tongue stuck out in wait.
"Wow..." Luz straightened up in her spot on the Owl House's stone balcony. "I've always found giraffes to be a rather pretty bizarre animals. But this? Mind blow!"
Katrina suppressed a giggle. Luz's reactions to any new information about magic and their world was adorable.
After a few rounds of Twelve Ball and several casual games in the Hole of Unseen Sphinxes, the teenagers called it a day. The three of them bought some snacks and get back to the Owl House where they were going to wait until Jett's mom gets back. Luz take this opportunity to learn as much as she can about magic realm, and began peppering two witchlings with questions.
"Trust me, this is nothing compared to the history of the origin of the goats." Jett said, confusing Luz.
"Goats come from this realm?"
"Oh, yeah." He assured, "They used to be invisible and much bigger."
"Tell me more!"
Luz genuinely love absorbing each new information about magic realm and its inhabitants. And so, she likely would've sat here listening for hours to come, had her bladder not made itself known.
"Bathroom break? Jett guessed.
"Five-minute. And then you can tell me more about the giant invisible goat."
"Sure thing."
After finding the bathroom, dealing with literal owls, who flew out of the bathroom, Luz went towards the balcony. But halfway through, she heard the sound...
*Ring ring! Ring ring!*
It took her a few moments to realise that the sound was ringtone coming from her own phone. Checking the caller ID, she hadn't felt flabbergasted when she saw the words "mom is calling." Her mom was calling her from another realm. ANOTHER REALM!
'The roaming fees will be terrible.' Just went through her mind. Then she realised she should have been home a hours ago. It must have been the slowest Luz pressed the "answer call" button in her life.
"Hola Mami."
"LUZ NOCEDA!" Her mother shrieked so loud that Luz had to take the phone away from her ear for a second.
"I'm totally screwed." Luz whispered to herself.
"Dónde estás?! Cómo es que no estás en casa? Está todo bien? Sabes lo preocupado que estaba?"
"Lo siento," Luz whimpered. "I didn't want to worry you. Just... I was really, really busy and there just wasn't any time to call you."
"What was so important that you didn't even send me a text?" Her mom said in a stern tone.
Luz opened her mouth to respond to the question but then closed it again.
She want to tell her mom everything - how she ends up in the fantastical world of the Boiling Isles, how she meet Jett and Katrina, about their adventure with gytrash. (Of course, she may downplay the life-threatening parts.)
Well, the only problem was, there was no way to explain everything that's happened without sounding like a lunatic.
'Only one option left.'
"Soooo... It all started when I got attacked by a stray dog at the Burrow, and-" Luz did not even finish that sentence.
"WHAT?!"
For the second time, the teen girl had to take the phone away from her ear. She knew that when her mother got like this, it was better to wait it out rather than try to interrupt.
After about 3 minutes, Luz briefly lifted her phone up to her ear.
"Está herido? Eres seguro?" Her mom's voice was just full of care.
"I'm OK, honest. I'm fine, mom."
"So what happened after the dog attacked you?"
"It chased me into the forest, and almost get me but a some boy used flare to scared the dog off. He made sure I was okay and left. I was kind of shocked. So then I followed him into forest, where bumped into a girl. It turns out that she was that boy's cousin and they both were looking for this dog."
"It was their dog?" Her mom asked in a significantly more relaxed tone.
"No. Jett, let him out of the neighborhood's yard. I mean, unintentionally, of course."
"Why the owner weren't looking for his pet?"
"Well…" Luz thought how she could phrase 'Because gytrash comes from another realm'. Suddenly, she found a perfect excuse.
"He was. But, the poor dog run very far from home. Katrina and Jett came from a different city to find him." Luz lie some more, "And because they don't know the area that well, I offered to help them. We were convinced that will quickly find this dog, but things were a little crazy."
"I take it this is why you haven't called."
"Sorry, I didn't want you to worry."
"Okay, we'll talk about it later." Her mom said real peaceful but firmly, "So, where are you, mija? I'll come pick you up."
Luz started panicking.
"Actually, Jett's mom will be here soon and she offered to give me a ride home." And then she added "And I'd like to spend a little more time with Jett and Katrina. Is that okay?"
'Please say yes. Please say yes! PLEASE SAY YES!' Luz, thought to herself, holding in her breath as she waited for her mother's response.
Eventually, she heard a long drawn out sigh, signaling that her mom was convinced.
"All right, but you have to be home at 9:00."
"Yes, ma'am!" Even though her mom can't see this, Luz saluted.
Her mom chuckled a bit, "See you back at home, mija. Te quiero."
"Love you too." Luz said, allowing herself to relax a little. And she hung up.
She then returned to the balcony where Katrina and Jett were waiting for her.
"What took you so long to back?" Jett asked before snatched another cookie off the bag and munched it noisily. His twenty-seventh cookies of the hour.
"I talked to my mom." Luz confessed, still holding a phone.
"You did? Katrina and Jett said at the same time, both sounding so surprised.
"Yes." Luz said, looking at her phone, "And she is a "little" mad at me right now. So, I must return to home ASAP."
"My mom has a portal that can send you back to the human world." Jett told her.
"Great. When she gets here?"
"Well, it's hard to say, really, but I doubt she'll be back before midnight." Jett said, causing Luz's blood to run cold.
"I can't wait that long!"
Katrina drummed her fingers on the balcony. "There are things we can try. But the fact that you're human can make it difficult to avoid answer questions like 'how did you get here?'."
"But there must be some way. Can't we just buy Recall Potion, Portal Gun, Realm Crystal, Cursed Music Box or Dimensional Travel Scissors? Somebody definitely selling that sort of thing. Right?"
Without the slightest hesitation Katrina give an affirmative answer to this question.
And Luz started to panic.
"Luz, you need to calm down." Katrina put a hand on her shoulder. "Peaceful mind and keep calm are the key to the solution of a problems."
"Kat's right. It's easy wh-" Jett just stops in mid-sentence. A lightbulb went off over his head. "Why didn't I think of this before?"
He's out the balcony so fast the girls can barely follow the movement.
"We'd better go after him." Katrina said and Luz nodded.
The trio walking down a hallway until they reached a door with stickerbomb and a silver plaque on it, saying JETT'S ROOM.
They stepped in, Jett started rummaging in the closet, Katrina watched him with mingled confusion and irritation, while Luz studied the room with curiosity.
Jett's room was muted shades in color and was quite bright. It was slightly messy, with candy wrappers and clothes scattered all over the wooden floor. Three different band posters of various sizes hung on the wall while a five long shelves was stocked with many comics, Pet Shop of Horrors and Ajin manga, a unicorn skull, a few rubik's cubes, many creepy-looking pens in a cup, a few spray paint cans, four frames with photos, and plenty of other things.
A drum kit and two floor pillows were up against the wall, near the punching bag that was covered in what looked like slash marks. On the floor lay the carpet in black with a neon rainbow border. A big hammock was hung from two timber beams in the corne near window. On the opposite side was a desk with chair and demonic version of lamp.
"Found it!" Jett cheered as he took out his special box.
"Portal?" Luz asked.
"Even better." Jett removed some of the contents to reveal the black key from box. "The Nowhere Key."
He said, holding a weird key in his left hand. The bow of key shows a compass with a miniature door in the center instead of a "G".
"Where did you get this?" Katrina asked, looking at mystery black key.
"I found it." Her cousin replied, with only slight smugness.
"Where exactly?" She asked with a raised brow.
"Oh, what, you want know all the places where I walk on?" Jett hummed with a teasing grin, "That's a little prying, don't you think?"
Katrina raised an eyebrow and Jett was quite certain she was itching to hit him upside the head.
"Jett Callan Clawthorne where you got this key from?"
He hold his hands up in mock surrender, "Master Dion's office."
She stared back at him, a deadpanned expression on her face.
"Come on, Red, don't give me that look." Jett smirk, "You know... I got a thing for such trifles locked in a safe."
"You-"
"I'll put it back when we're done." He declared with a wave, "Nobody noticed. Trust me, it isn't first time I smuggled something from his office."
The redhead girl sighed, resting her head on her hand, "I'm going to be bailing you out of jail one day, aren't I?"
"Don't be stupid, no one shall never catch me. My family name is Clawthorne-duh!" Jett replied nonchalantly.
He closed the box and they returned to the living room.
"Ready to get home, Luz?"
Luz nodded and then asked, "So you're going to use this key to open the portal to earth or something?"
"In three words, yes and no." Came his reply.
Luz was sure that her face reflect her confusion, because Katrina began to explain.
"The Nowhere Key is one of the Keys created by Benjamin Locke the greatest Arcane Blacksmith of all time." the redhead girl pointed at key, "When this key is inserted into any door with a keyhole, the door becomes a portal to any other door anywhere."
"Wow." Luz was impressed with power of the key.
"The only hitch is that the user of the key must have seen a door of the location they wish to travel." Jett added, putting key in Luz's hand. "However, if you would like to get to your own home, that's not a problem."
The girl looked down at the key in her hand. This key was very light and has a virtually imperceptible, aura of mystery.
Looking at it, she got a weird feeling. It's like - It was like someone was whispering to her. Just one sentence in a strange language.
"So how it works?" Luz asked as she shake away the feeling.
"Put the key in the lock and imagine the door you want to opened."
The human teen did as it was told and stuck the key in the keyhole of the nearest door.
She focussed on a mental picture of right door and turned the key twice. Light flashed from behind the door, and when Luz opened the door, she saw the street on which she lived on.
On an impulse, Luz stuck her hand out over the edge of the door frame, and her fingers collided with a stretchy field, much like the plastic wrap wall. She only need a push a bit more, and it will surely burst.
She stared at the door for a moment and took her hand back.
"It's totally safe, trust me." Jett walked through the door as proof of his words. He picked up a gnome from the neighbor's yard, and then came back to the Owl House.
"See. Safer than crossing the street." He said and gave Luz a gnome with blue hat.
"Luz, what's the matter?" Katrina asked in confusion noticing that human girl had stopped with that sad look in her eyes and turned around towards the duo.
"I kind of don't want our common adventure to end." Luz admitted, putting down the gnome.
"Stay with us then, Sunbeam!"Jett suggested brightly as hooks his arm around Luz's shoulders, "Let us share this whole slimy and very stinky new world with you. We will learn you how to play a Hexes Hold'em like a true witch. We'll turn you on to some cool magic stuff. We'll go on a daring adventures that will cement our names in history, and we will make some ba-a-a-a-ad choices!"
Luz saw it as a very tempting offer.
Sure, the Boiling Isles is clearly not a full of happiness and musical numbers fantasy world she always dreamed about. She almost got eaten alive, wandered in the creepy underground labyrinth and fought with monsterous canine but this was the most fun she've ever had. And for the first time in her life she got along with someone her age.
This place maybe is dangerous and even weirder than Wonderland, but that's what makes it special.
And to top it all she have learned here that she can do magic. Magic!
Well, as tempting as that is, she still remember her last conversation with her mom.
"I have to go back to my realm."
"You don't have to stay here forever. Stay for a month or two." Katrina said with an engaging smile.
"I promise you will not regret it!" Jett assured her.
"It's not that I don't want to stay. I just can't." Luz said sincerely, "I'm going to camp tomorrow for a summer."
"Luz, correct me if I'm wrong, but you don't sound too happy about it." Katrina said.
"Honestly, this camp is the last place in the world I want to spend my vacation."
"Then why are you going to this camp?"
Luz winced, "That's actually a long story."
"Summarize it for us." Jett said as he and Katrina sat down on the couch.
Luz plopped beetwen them, "Well, it all started with..."
"... and then that the snake decided to attack the principal." Luz finished her tale, "Which sealed my mom's decision to send me to this camp."
Jett held the pamphlet for 'Reality Check Camp' up for inspection. His fingers barely grasped brochure, and he held it out at a distance, apparently afraid of contamination.
Katrina looked from the brochure and roke into a grin… what she wouldn't give for a camera! The look of fear on Jett's face was priceless.
"So let me see if I understand this correctly." Jett began slowly speaking, "Your school project gone awry, so your mom has decided you need to spending the summer at the Reality Check "reform camp". A place proclaiming the slogan like 'There's no place in society for you if you can't fit in' or 'Think INSIDE the box'."
"This really is a harsh punishment for one mistake." Katrina agreed with her cousin.
"Well, to be honest, it wasn't the first time that I ended up in the principal's office." Luz confessed. And despite her best effort, it unearthed a memory from the last three times.
The first time she was sent was her role as Juliet in Romeo and Juliet.
She held the dagger prop and announced, "O happy dagger, give me death!" Then she stabbed herself and ripped her dress pulling out sausages as she screamed and gurgled. She hoped that being realistic as possible would give her extra points, the only thing she got was the screams and running footsteps of everyone else on the stage terrified.
The next incident was an English project of creating a mythical creature from a popular book series. Luz, of course, chose the Griffin from the Good Witch Azrua however her model was a little disturbing as the Griffin itself was too realistic with a pigeon head and a squirrel's body, as she propped and posed the model.
"Ah finally!" She happily exclaimed, "And now for the final anatomically correct touch, spider breath," she opened the mouth of the model and hundreds of spiders came crawling of the mouth and spread throughout the classroom and the other students dashed out of there as quickly as possible.
The latest one was during a cheerleading lesson where one girl did a successful backflip which Luz was amazed and noticed that all the other students applauded the girl, Luz wanted to impress the students however, she wanted to act cool.
She threw her pom-poms and snorted, "You think that's an impressive trick? Take a look at this," She turned away from everyone's view then turned back to face them, she flipped her eyelids inside out and made bleeping and blooping noises with again students cry of terror and ran off and one student gagged and almost vomited what was in their stomach.
Katrina and Jett just stood there staring at her...
"You did all this?" Jett asked.
"This, plus a several smaller incidents." Luz said somewhat nervously.
"You are one strange human." Katrina said. It wasn't insult. Just a simple statement of fact.
Luz didn't seem angry or defensive about it. More like she was expecting it and was hurt at the fact that even a witchlings from other realm think she is weird.
"I know." She looked down, suddenly looking very sad.
"Whoa whoa whoa whoa. I don't want to see any long face." Jett said, taking a gentle hold of her by the the upper arms so she pretty much had to look at him. "Be proud of your incidents, Sunbeam! They were so C-O-O-L. I love that you put so much of yourself into this kind of stuff, you're my new favorite person."
"Wait? You don't think I'm weird?"
"Of course you are! You are one big freak!" said Jett, very loud, "And that's awesome!"
Luz beamed momentarily, for the first time in her life she met somebody who thought she and her ideas are cool. Because of her enthusiasm and quirky behavior, she was labeled as an outcast by most of her peers.
"Jett's absolutely right," Katrina injected, "There's nothing wrong with being different from most people."
Jett flicked up an ear. "I'm sorry, did you just say 'Jett is right'?"
"The first time and probably the last time in my life." Katrina bluntly stated, "Returning to the topic. Luz, you are different. But the things that make you different are the very things that make you strong. And you are strong person that is full of passion and positive energy."
Luz smiled at her. But then she sighed again.
"My mom doesn't think that kind of differences is a good thing... and she's not the only one."
Katrina frowned, "Elaborate."
"Well, I'm not like the rest of teenagers." Luz paused for a moment. "So, I don't have a single friend at school because they all think I'm a screw-up and-"
"All the more reason to stay with us." Jett cut in, "You are freak. We are freaks. And, us wierdos have to stick together."
Luz shook her head, rueful, "You do not even know how much I would like to stay in the Boiling Isles. I just really cannot stay." she told them, "If I don't come home, my mom will think I ran away from home."
"So what? These types of situations - happens all the time." Jett just said, "I mean kids ran away from home to back after few days or weeks. Half the people I know have do it. Even Katrina tried running away from home once when she was eight, but ended up back home because of her awful sense of direction. So, I'm guessing that doesn't really count."
That earned him a slap to the arm from Katrina. "We agreed never to speak of that!"
Luz giggled softly before turned serious and said, "I'd love to stay here with you for a while, but I don't want my mom to worry about me. If I had disappeared, she... I just can't do that to her."
"If that is your decision then we shall abide by it." Katrina replied, the sincerity evident is her voice. Jett said nothing, looking a bit disappoint but understanding.
Luz turned toward the opened door leading to the Human Realm.
"Well, I guess this is goodbye." Luz said as she turned to Jett and Katrina, who were silent and listened to the human. "Thank you so much for adventure, guys. I know we may spent nearly three hours wandering through the creepy caves and had a near-death experience, but this was the most fun I've ever had in my life. And what you showed me today was just awesome."
Both cousins shared a slight smile before refocusing on Luz. The closed their eyes for a moment, and then joining hands to create a spell circle heading towards human teen.
Two colorful strands of thread just crawled out of a circle. Strands circled in the air, knitting together into a bracelet. When the magic aura was gone, the bracelet wrapped itself around Luz's wrist.
"We had fun, too." Jett said with a smile.
"And we made you a friendship bracelet so you don't forget our common adventure." Katrina said with a grin on her face.
"Thanks," Their words - the meanign of their words - clicked in Luz's head, "We're friends?"
"You and us have had such a lovely bonding experience." Katrina said brightly.
"Of course we're friends." Jett finished with a bigger smile.
"So I can expect you guys to come and visit sometime?" Luz looked up at them with hope in her eyes.
"As sure as griffins breath spiders."
'I knew it!' Luz thought, being happy that she was right about the relation with griffins and spiders Also she was smiling, on cloud nine, and stars in her eyes. Because their answer assures her that she'll see Jett and Katrina again.
And then, she realized...
Really, it was time to say goodbye.
"Take care and see you soon, Sunbeam." Jett said, lifting his fist up, Luz pressed her fist against Jett's, forming a fist bump.
"Be proud of who you are and don't let camp alter your personality. I want to see our passionate freak human when we'll meet again." Katrina said, giving the younger girl a short hug. "And one more thing: you can't tell anybody about the Boiling Isles 'cause it's a secret."
"Top-top-top secret." Jett added in a stage whisper.
"I swear, never ever to tell. Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye!" Luz promised.
Katrina and Jett smiled at her. They could see she meant it.
"See you soon, guys!"
And with these words Luz jumped head first through a door to well known world .
"You know, I really liked Luz." Jett said as the door slammed shut on its own.
"Me too."
"Thinking about doing what I think you're thinking about doing?" Jett asked, pulling the key out the lock.
"Yes." Katrina had the poker face. Then she grabbed the key out of his hand.
Jett smirked and threw an arm over Katrina's shoulder. "So let's do that."
"Jett, you do realize that this could get us into a lot of trouble, with a big T." Katrina crossed her arms. "We have no certainty that we will convince them."
"We have my cute begging face and your good argumentative skills. Our success is preordained."
"Are you sure that this crazy idea has a chance of success?"
"Nope." Jett admitted but the smirk was still present. "But we like living on the edge."
Katrina looked at him for a long moment and then she smiled. "Yes, we do."
Author's Note: I hope you enjoyed this. comments and kuddos are encouraged, consider bookmarks.