It took four hours to complete the journey from Toad Tower back to Wartwood. The route led along rough, bumpy dirt roads, where all the carts were shaken vigorously. It went through eerily quiet forest paths, where the toads steering the column did not dare to drive too fast, out of fear of spontaneous attacks by wild, nocturnal creatures. Only in the last part of the route did they ride on more relaxed, quieter paths and trails.
Within the golden carriage, all its occupants are still deeply asleep. On one side, with their backs facing the direction of travel, are sitting Hop Pop and Polly, who are sleeping with Polly snuggled up to her grandfather. To their right sits Anne, who uses her own hair as a pillow. Across from Anne sits Maddie, who involuntarily fell asleep at some point, and is curled up on the cushion with her knees angled. Next to her and across from Hop Pop and Polly, Sprig sits at the far edge of the velvet bench, like all of them, just as deeply asleep. And last but not least, between the two benches on a wooden makeshift stretcher, lies the still unknown, unconscious human girl. In the meantime, thanks to Maddie's healing potions, the girl's most serious injuries have already healed, even if all the blood on her clothes suggests otherwise.
The pleasant silence within the wagon is suddenly disturbed by several loud knocks on the metal of the wagon and a loud, raspy voice is heard from outside.
"Hey, wake up! You're home!"
Anne is the first to wake up from the driver's loud knocking, though still somewhat refuses to open her eyes. A few moments pass before she tries anyway. She expects the sun to shine directly into her eyes, so she squints them. As she realizes that it's still dark outside, and the only light within the car comes from candles encased in glass, she opens her eyes fully.
Generally speaking, Anne slept very well and noticed absolutely nothing of all the rough roads. Whether she was simply overeaten by Sasha's buffet and therefore in a food coma, or it was due to the incredibly comfortable bench cushions, she can't say for sure.
Anne looks around a bit in the wagon, trying to get her bearings. Hop Pop and Polly also seem to be gradually waking up. Sprig has tried to put the greatest possible distance between himself and Maddie and has practically squeezed himself against the sidewall, at the sight of which Anne cannot help but giggle to herself. And then, of course, there's the girl on the floor. Anne grabs one of her arms to check her pulse.
It is strong and steady, whereupon Anne sighs in relief.
Next, she nudges Hop Pop.
"Hey, wake up. We're home", she says softly. Hop Pop, on the other hand, doesn't want to hear about that right now.
"Just a few more minutes...", he mumbles, being still half asleep.
"Yeah, shut up...", Polly adds in annoyance.
"All right", Anne says, "Then the car will take you back to Toad Tower..."
"Urgh... Fine", Polly grunts in resignation. "Come on Hop Pop."
During this interaction, Maddie and Sprig have now woken up as well. While Maddie wakes up surprisingly quickly and is already sitting upright on the bench cushion again, Sprig seems to be having trouble becoming aware of his surroundings. He inadvertently opens a door, against which he leant with his whole bodyweight, doesn't notice the steps, and falls face-first out of the carriage. Polly can't help but laugh out loud at her brother, but Anne also cannot help but grin in amusement.
"Okay, I'm up. I'm awake", Sprig says after standing back up and wiping dirt off his clothes. Fortunately, he's otherwise unharmed.
Anne gives the rest a few moments to wake up before asking the next question that runs through her mind.
"Hop Pop, Sprig. Can you help me carry the girl into the house?"
"But of course, Anne", Hop Pop replies.
"Sure", Sprig agrees as well.
"Can I help too?", Maddie asks unexpectedly.
"Thanks Maddie, but you already saved her life. I could never possibly expect you to do anything more", Anne opines.
"I'm happy to help, after all. Besides, this way I can be closer to Sprig's heart...", Sprig swallows hard and is visibly intimidated by Maddie's statement.
"No no no no no no", Sprig stutters, "We'll figure it out as we go."
"Alright", Maddie replies shrugging, "I'm going to go home and brew some more potions later. I would then come by later and check on my patient"
"Thanks a lot Maddie.", Anne waves goodbye to Maddie, as she walks away from wagon, "Come on guys, we can do this"
Anne gets out of the cart and only now realizes where the wagon is located: In the middle of Wartwood, a very long way from the Plantars' farm. What she also notices right away, is that all the decorations from Anne's party for her Frog of the Year award are still spread around the village. She makes a mental note to take care of it later.
Anne grabs one end of the stretcher and, with the girl on it, pulls it a little way out of the car so that Sprig and Hop Pop can grab the other end together. And Polly being Polly, she jumps on the stretcher as Sprig and Hop Pop try to lift it. They are angry for a moment, until she puts on her innocent face.
The stretcher is just barely unloaded from the golden carriage when the driver of the carriage speeds off with it, leaving the Plantars just standing there.
"Typical toads...", Hop Pop comments deprecatingly, shaking his head.
The group sets off in the direction of the Plantar farm, when suddenly the rest of the carriages from Toad Tower arrive at the village limits, and the frogs are being unloaded.
An extremely tiring ten minutes later, they finally arrive at the farm and Polly opens the front door, whereupon they carefully place the girl on the floor inside, shortly before Sprig and Hop Pop fall over, completely exhausted.
"Anne", Sprig pants out of breath, "Don't ever ask me to carry you anywhere, okay?"
"Sure, no problem, dude.", Anne replies with a small smile on her face. "We can't leave her here on the floor though".
"We could carry her down to the basement, so you can keep an eye on her every now and then.", Sprig suggests.
Generally, Anne is not thrilled about having an unknown girl sleeping in 'her room'. However, she also can't think of an alternative where she can prevent the first thing she sees when she wakes up, being oversized talking frogs, leaving her possibly utterly frightened.
Hop Pop and Sprig take a few minutes to take a deep breath, before joining Anne in carrying the girl down the stairs to the basement, and laying her down onto Anne's bed.
The three of them head back upstairs, close the basement hatch and drop down together onto the living room couch, where Polly has already made herself comfortable.
"Sooo...", Sprig begins, "what do you think happened to that girl?"
Hop Pop, sitting right next to Sprig, asks "Anne, are there things in your world that might be respon-"
"No!", Anne abruptly interrupts Hop Pop, "I know she's a human too, but nothing about her arrival here even comes close to what humans are technologically capable of."
Hop Pop ponders intensely while Anne, Sprig and Polly continue to exchange baseless ideas. Hop Pop has an apprehension about the girl's origin, but is unwilling to share it just yet out of concern for his kids' reaction. Instead, he merely says:
"So, this has been a very long evening. Why don't we all go to sleep for a few hours until at least the sun comes up? After that, and if the girl should be awake by then, you can ask her yourselves where she came from and how she got here?"
"That's probably the best idea so far HP", Anne states, "I'm crashing here on the couch."
Hop Pop gets up without a word and waddles towards his study, wishes the others a good sleep, shuts the double doors behind him, and goes straight to bed. Sprig is still feeling quite awake because of his nap on the trip back from Toad Tower, but carrying the girl has taken some of his strength. He decides to just close his eyes and rest a while in his room. Polly, on the other hand, refuses to go back to sleep, even though no one has said that she MUST do it. She starts an infuriated speech about how she is always treated like a little tadpole, and how everyone is always telling her what to do and what not to do, and how she already has much bigger ambitions and so on. While Polly continues to rant, Anne has already fallen asleep again.
Several hours pass before Anne wakes up again. The sun has risen in the meantime, and despite dense cloud cover outside, the house is now somewhat better illuminated. She looks around the house to see who else is awake. There is no trace of Polly, whose background ranting helped Anne fall asleep quite fast. However, she sees Hop Pop standing in the kitchen.
"Hey Hop Pop. How'd you sleep?", she asks as she gets up from the couch and walks over to him.
"Very well, thank you very much. However, Polly had woken me up at one point, complaining about being 'oppressed by the ones at the top'"
Anne chuckles. "I was asleep, like a little baby... Do you have any idea if the girl has woken up yet?"
"No idea."
"All right. I'll go check on her then."
Anne opens the basement hatch as quietly as possible, and sees the girl shifting back and forth uneasily, as if she's having a nightmare. Anne quietly descends the stairs and closes the hatch behind her, when suddenly the girl tears her eyes open, shoots upright, and screams out completely distraught and with all her might
"EEEEEEEDDDDDDAAAAAA!"
She pants heavily and doesn't seem to have realized where she is yet. The girl looks totally terrified and traumatized.
"Hey... everything's okay", Anne says gently and empathetically.
The girl's gaze jerks to Anne. She starts to panic and quickly crawls backwards until she reaches a wall, where she presses against it with all her might.
"Y-You are human... Wha- How-", she stammers, absolutely terrified, and her gaze now bounces around the room in panic. "W-Where am I? Wh-who are you? Where is Eda?"
Anne takes a few steps towards the girl, but not too close so as not to make the situation worse, and kneels down in front of her.
"You don't have to be afraid. You are safe here... My name is Anne..."
"I'm Luz", she stammers. "Where am I? How did I get here? ... How did you get here?"
The girl seems to have calmed down slightly, but nonetheless she is still fast- and heavy-breathing.
"You are in the basement of the Plantar family. You were badly injured when we found you, and we brought you here. Actually, I've been living down here myself most of the time, since I was stranded here. However, I thought you might rest and recover better down here on your own."
Luz's gaze continues to wander around the room a bit and falls on a crate with several pictures hanging from it. On one of them Anne herself can be seen, together with two other human girls.
"Figured you'd be living down here", Luz says somewhat more calmly, her face yet contorting slightly in pain as she tried to move.
"Like I said, you were hurt very bad when we found you. You've been given some healing potions, but I don't think you're quite healed yet."
"Yeah, I feel pretty weak too, and actually it still hurts a little- well everywhere... Heh, I didn't think I'd see anyone another human in the Boiling Isles..."
Anne is a bit taken aback. "The boiling-what?"
She sees the color drain from Luz's face abruptly, and the expression of pure fear return.
"Anne... Where exactly am I right now?"
"This is Amphibia", Anne explains calmly, and immediately regrets telling her as tears seem to form in Luz' eyes, and shock is written all over her face.
"A- Anne... C-Could you pl-please leave m-me a-alone for a- a while?", Luz asks in an extremely shaky voice.
Anne knows exactly why she is asking her this. She merely nods in agreement and makes her way back out of the basement. Anne hears Luz actively trying to suppress her tears and sobs until she has exited the basement. Once upstairs, she closes the hatch, but not before she hears Luz failing to hold back any longer and starting to cry hard. Anne feels bad.
Shortly after Anne closes the hatch, she sees Sprig coming down the stairs from the upper floor.
"Oh, she's awake, I guess?", he remarks. Anne nods. "And it didn't go well?"
Anne walks toward the living room couch, where she flops down on it in frustration. Hop Pop, still standing in the kitchen, notices and joins her.
"From the sounds of it, I guess it didn't go too well...", he guesses. Anne shakes her head.
"Hop Pop, have you ever heard of a place called 'Boiling Isles'?", she asks.
'Oh for frogs' sake...', he thinks to himself, 'First this cursed box and now a girl from hell...'
"I'm sorry, unfortunately not", he lies, "but that doesn't sound like a pleasant place."
"Maybe. But when I told her she was in Amphibia, she immediately burst into tears", Anne tells.
"Yeah, you can't miss that.", Sprig comments.
"Ugh, I feel so terrible. I wish I hadn't told her about that yet."
A sudden knock on the front door interrupts the conversation. Anne gets up and opens the door to see Maddie standing in front of it, along with a bag of potions.
"Hey Maddie, bad timing.", Anne states while pointing to the floor hatch from where Luz can be heard.
"Oh... I see. At least she's awake…", Maddie replies.
"Speaking of awake, you don't look like you've been sleeping", Anne notes jokingly.
"I had enough sleep on the drive back. I spent the last couple of hours brewing a few more healing potions in case she needs them"
"Thanks Maddie. I owe you one", Anne says gratefully.
"I have to head right back out too. Goodbye Anne. See you later Sprig.", Maddie says as she looks past Anne and straight into Sprig's eyes. He winces at that.
"She's really scary", he whispers to no one in particular.
"Come on boy… Maddie may be a little weird, but she has a good heart.", Hop Pop notes.
"Yeah... You're probably right...", Sprig sighs, "Hey Anne, you feel like going for a swim in the lake?".
Anne thinks about it for a moment, though still feeling guilty for making Luz cry.
"I don't know if that's such a good idea, Sprig. I don't want to leave Luz all alone like that", Anne says, "Oh, almost forgot: The girl's name is Luz"
"Go with him, Anne. I'll stay here and make sure she's safe. Besides, I don't want you in the house today, because I want to try something new in the kitchen"
Anne and Sprig look past Hop Pop and see quite a few ingredients lying on the countertop. They gasp heavily.
"You, want to try something new? You, Hop Pop?", Anne asks in shock. Suddenly, Polly drops down from somewhere above Hop Pop, yelling
"Who are you and what have you done to Hop Pop?"
Apparently, Polly had been hiding on the ceiling struts in the living room for some reason. Hop Pop laughs.
"I know that I talk a lot about ye olde times, and I want to experiment a bit with the old recipes. You're gonna like it. And now get out with you three", he said, shooing the kids out of the house. Anne, Sprig and Polly are now standing at the back of the house, and only hear the door being locked from the inside behind them.
"Oh man, it doesn't feel right leaving Luz alone with Hop Pop. Especially considering what she's going through right now…", Anne says heavy heartedly.
"You heard the old frog, he'll be fine. Besides, from the sounds of it, Luz wants to be alone right now too. We'll be back when she's better, and then she'll talk to you again, Anne.", Sprig tries to cheer her up.
"Thanks buddy. I actually feel a little relieved right now", Anne gives Sprig a hug.
"No problem. Besides, there's no use beating yourself up over something you can't change", Sprig says. "Now: LAST ONE TO THE LAKE HAS TO DO THE DISHES LATER!"
Sprig hops off, Anne runs after, and Polly yells "UNFAIR!"
Several hours have passed during which Luz has done nothing but cry her eyes out entirely. In the last few hours, there have been no more tears though, but her eyes are still completely swollen. Emotionally, Luz feels minimally better now, but her physical injuries are still quite painful. There are still several wounds and abrasions on her arms and legs, and she has heavy back pain.
At some point within the day, Luz had moved herself from the wall back to Anne's bed. Getting up was not really possible even then, so she had to crawl on the floor. Even now she finds it quite difficult to move, so now she uses her time to look around a bit more closely at the place where she is, which she has not done in detail so far.
Luz' first glance goes to a window of the basement, where she sees that it is gradually getting dark already. Are the days in Amphibia shorter than in the Isles? She hadn't realized that a whole day had already passed without her noticing. Luz turns her gaze back to the interior of the room, especially the furnishings. Actually, there is surprisingly little furniture in Anne's room, yet it feels very lively. Glowing mushrooms on the walls for lighting, as well as partially broken stone walls, and moss that hangs down on them in some places, give the room a very cozy atmosphere. And this, despite the fact that the basement is generally quite dirty.
Luz herself is currently sitting with her knees to her chest on Anne's seemingly self-built bed, consisting of several thin chopped wooden logs placed around a somewhat old-looking mattress. To her right, Luz sees a couple of wooden crates and barrels that she was sitting in front of earlier, and right next to them is a ladder that probably leads outside. To the left of Anne's bed is another wooden crate, albeit smaller, that Luz had briefly looked at before, with a photo of Anne and probably her friends. Immediately next to it hangs a small fairly detailed drawing of her with... three unusual tall frogs... Of which two are standing on two legs... and wearing clothes? That's something Luz would worry about sometime later. Leaning next to the box is a pink backpack with a light brown bottom, with various stickers and patches on it. The last things that catch her eye, are the large heating stove that stands in a corner of the basement and a stone staircase whose steps consist of tree trunks, cut unevenly in half. Her gaze falls back to the photo beside the bed.
'Is Anne perhaps in a similar position here as I am, and she is the only human in this world? It's not hard to imagine that she's also looking for a way to leave this world, and find her way back to her friends... Maybe she can also help me get home and help Eda-', Luz stops herself, 'No, I'd better not think about that any more right now... I should talk to Anne'
Luz tries to get up from the bed, however both her legs and her back don't want to cooperate.
'Come on, I can do it', she encourages herself.
On her second attempt, she takes the box that is next to Anne's bed to help her, and actually manages to stand up. In pain and with a pain-filled face, Luz slowly makes her way to the stairs. One step after the other.
Once there, she drops onto the steps and uses them to pull herself up. Again, one step after the other.
Luz now sits on one of the upper steps and uses all her body strength to open the hatch.
"Ouch", Luz mutters after opening the hatch, climbing the last few steps and now sitting on the edge of the upper floor, holding her arm, which feels slightly throbbing.
"Hey Anne, can we-", Luz starts talking ahead of herself, expecting Anne to be around, but interrupts herself when she sees a surprisingly tall and old frog, even wearing clothes and walking on two legs. Exactly the same one Anne drew in the basement, and exactly this one just comes into Luz's field of vision. She stares at him in fascination.
"Whoa", she says. The frog smiles at her and walks leisurely toward her.
"Ah, hi there. By the looks of you, I guess you're feeling a little better...", Luz fascination turns to surprise, then to confusion, then to admiration, then back to confusion again. Actually, Luz had thought that after all the witches and demons she had seen on the Isles, nothing could surprise her anymore. But she was wrong. The frog seems amused at how Luz is trying to mentally process this current encounter.
The frog offers Luz a hand.
"My name is Hopediah Plantar, but everyone calls me Hop Pop. And you're Luz, right?", he asks in a friendly tone. Luz takes his hand and nods, though when he shakes her hand, she contorts her face in pain.
"Oh, right, your injuries... Um, wait here for a second", Hop Pop remembered and walked briskly towards a shelf next to the front door, from where he took a vial of yellow liquid and brought it back to Luz.
"Here, drink this. This will make you feel better.", he says, holding the vial out to Luz. Luz eyes it briefly, takes it, opens it, and drinks it all completely. She returns the vial back to Hop Pop and he holds his hand out to her again in response. "May I help you up?"
Luz smiles as she accepts his offer of assistance, and he helps her stand up. To Luz's surprise, she already finds it easier to stand up now than she did just a moment ago in the basement.
"Come, let me take you to the living room. Anne should be back soon.", he says as he leisurely moves Luz into the living room, and sits down on the couch next to her.
"Wow... Whatever that stuff was, it seems to be working already", Luz remarks, "Thank you."
"You don't have to thank me. An... acquaintance, Maddie, brewed the potion for you", Hop Pop explains.
'Potions? ', Luz wonders to herself, 'Is there magic here as well?'.
"Where is Anne anyway?", she asks.
"I had thrown her out of the house earlier, along with my grandchildren. Once to distract themselves for a while, but also so that I can cook peacefully", Hop Pop calmly tells her. Nevertheless, this statement seems to cause some uneasiness in Luz.
"Did- did I disturb you? I'm sorry, I really didn't mean to-", she asks worriedly, already wanting to apologize a thousand times for that. Hop Pop though, steps in preemptively.
"No no, not at all. In fact, I was already done when you crawled out of the basement", he speaks sympathetically.
"Oh... that's good. I don't want to cause anyone any inconvenience."
"Oh frog, I'm always happy when I can help someone. For example, when Anne arrived here a few months ago, she needed help too. And when she saved my grandson Sprig from being eaten, I took her in. Your situation is no different: when you arrived here you were badly injured and you needed help too", Luz was about to say something, but Hop Pop beat her to it and continues, "And if you think now that you don't deserve this, let me tell you this: If it were up to Sprig, you may have already saved the lives of everyone in the entire village. He thinks that the place where you appeared, was a trap. I don't know why or for whom, but your arrival provided us with a perfect escape strategy. If that didn't happen, maybe they would' have fed me to a frog-eating plant or something", Hop Pop laughs incredulously, and Luz smiles with a slight feeling of relief.
Hop Pop and Luz are startled when suddenly the front door is kicked open from outside.
"AHH, for frog's sake...", Hop Pop screams.
It's Anne, Sprig and Polly standing at the front door, completely soaked and clearly having a good time.
"Remember Sprig: you're doing the dishes today", Polly reminds her brother, full of pride, and with a devilish grin on her face.
"I still don't understand how you managed to get to the lake faster than me..."
"A winner never tells their secrets", Polly says slyly before turning her gaze towards the living room. "Oh, hi, Hop Pop. Hi unknown human girl", Luz waves in Polly's direction with a shy smile.
'I think this is going to take me a while to get used to', Luz thinks to herself before Anne runs up to her, shouting overjoyed.
"LUZ! You are doing better again-"
"Stop right there, young lady!", Hop Pop gets in Anne's way with a serious look on his face, "You're getting the whole floor wet... Dry yourself off, then feel free to chat with Luz... That includes all of you, by the way"
"Yes, Hop Pop.", the three kids reply in unison. Anne then heads down to the basement, while Sprig and Polly walk up the stairs to the top floor to dry off. When the three of them are out of sight, Hop Pop turns to Luz again.
"Luz, would you like to join us for dinner?", he asks kindly.
"I'd love to. I am starving already", Luz replies without having to think about it.
"Great. There will be cricket pie with baked eel and roasted flies for dessert", he tells her. For a few seconds Luz looked at him in disgust before she shrugged her shoulders indifferently.
"Meh, probably tastes better than it sounds like".
Due to the sheer volume of her hair, Anne has always taken longer than others to dry it. Nonetheless, Anne tries to hurry extra to try Hop Pop actually good smelling cooking experiment. Besides, she is quite hungry.
So she wraps her hair in a dry towel and heads back upstairs, where the others are already patiently waiting for her. She sits down in the last free seat and Hop Pop wishes everyone a bon appétit. Well, not literally.
Both Sprig and Polly are reluctant to try the plates that Hop Pop has put in front of them, but then they do decide to try some of the food. Both Sprig and Polly are pleasantly surprised.
"Hop Pop, this is the best thing you've ever cooked", Sprig praises.
"Agreed", Polly adds. Anne, who hasn't tried anything yet, is stunned.
"Seriously?", she asks incredulously, but is eventually willing to give Hop Pop's food experiment a try. "Oh... my frog... That's actually edible. In fact, it is... good. I don't believe it"
"Aww, thank you very much. You have no idea how much that means to me.", Hop Pop is deeply touched by the feedback he receives from his family, "And what does our guest has to say about it?"
His gaze moves to Luz and sees her plate being already hallway empty again. With her mouth stuffed full, she returns his gaze and compulsively swallows down what food she has in her mouth in order to answer him.
"This is better than anything I've ever eaten in the Boiling Isles before", Small tears of joy form on Hop Pop's eyes.
"I think I should experiment with old recipes more often in the future...", he says, to which, with the exception of Polly, everyone agrees. She, on the other hand, has something else on her mind right now.
"Sorry, but... Boiling what now?", she asks, to which Luz looks up from her plate towards her.
"Oh, that's where I was before I was 'sent' here", Luz explains as if it's the most normal thing in the world.
"Ooohh… sounds dangerous. Likey like..."
"Luz, I'm curious. Can you maybe tell a bit about that place? Or how you got here?", Hop Pop asks, trying to sound rather casual.
"Nope", Luz immediately replies with a neutral non-smile, "However, I do have a question myself. You gave me a potion earlier-"
"Yeah, brewed by Maddie. It's supposed to help you heal your injuries", Hop Pop says.
"Right. Um... So magic is a thing here too?", Luz continues to ask.
"Too?", Anne asks with a raised eyebrow. And Luz feels caught.
'I shouldn't have said that', Luz thinks to herself and sighs. "Okay, I will show you something, but you have to promise me that you'll keep it to yourself. I don't want more people to know about it than necessary, until I roughly know how this world works"
Everyone at the table nods and Luz grabs a tissue and finds a pen lying around and draws a symbol on it that appears odd to the others. She places it on the table and taps it once. The lines begin to glow, the tissue crumples up on itself and turns into a ball of light. Anne's jaw drops, just as Hop Pops does.
"Oh. My. Frog... You've did magic", Anne squeaks, to which Luz smiles.
"Yeah... Back on Earth, my mom wanted to send me to summer camp because I was 'too weird' for her and she wanted me to become 'more normal'... So, by pure luck I found a door that led me to the Boiling Isles and that's where I started learning magic", Anne still can't get her mouth to close.
"Can I try it too?", Anne squeaks in excitement.
"Of course.", Luz replies, but Hop Pop interrupts her.
"But not with my tissues!", he prohibits, whereupon Anne gets up from the table, retrieves her diary from the basement, tears out a page and gives it to Luz, who draws the same symbol on it as before and hands it back to Anne.
"This is a light glyph. You just have to tap it and then... voila", Luz explains. Anne taps the glyph, but nothing... She tries again and again, but nothing happens.
"Why doesn't it work?", Anne asks in disappointment and Luz is similarly confused. Sprig, sitting next to Anne also taps the glyph but again, nothing happens. Everyone at the table tries it once, always with the same result. Finally, the glyph lands again at Luz, who taps it. A ball of light forms, just like the first time.
"Hmm...", Luz ponders for a moment before contorting her face, as if she had forgotten something extremely important just before. She practically jumps up from the table and runs to the basement panicking. The Plantars exchange confused looks, before Anne also gets up and heads after her.
"Luz, what's wrong?", Anne asks. Luz is in the basement and seems to be looking for something, riddled with panic.
"Where is he? He must be here...", she speaks quietly to herself.
"Who has to be here?", Anne asks. Luz doesn't answer and turns the entire room upside down until she pulls out a longer, brown, wooden object. Luz smiles with relief as she holds it in her hand. It is the wooden stick, the tip of which resembles an owl's face, that came shooting out of the light along with Luz. Luz presses it against her chest before getting up from the floor and returning to Anne at the stairs.
"Anne, this is Owlbert"
"Um...", Anne isn't sure what is expected of her right now. Is anything supposed to happen? Luz holds the figure closer to her own face.
"Come on buddy. We're safe here", Luz whispers.
After a few seconds, the wooden figure seems to transform into a real, little owl.
"Awww, ohmygosh how cute…", Anne squeaks.
"Anne, Owlbert. Owlbert, Anne."
The owl looks at Anne intimidated, and a moment later flies onto Luz's shoulder to hide from Anne's gaze. A low howl can be heard.
"I know, but she's all right. She saved my life.", Luz talks to the owl, and Anne is again utterly confused. Luz can talk to animals?
"You can understand her?", she asks incredulously.
"Him. And yes, he is a palisman. A loyal companion, and there's nothing I wouldn't do to protect him", Luz counters.
"Nawww... Really very cute"
"Hooot", the little owl makes before flying from Luz shoulder to Anne's and smearing his head along hers. This sight is almost too cute, which is why Luz can't help but lets out a long drawn "Nawww".
"Let's go back upstairs", Anne suggests before Owlbert flies back onto Luz's shoulder.
"Good idea. Go ahead", Luz says, but waits a few more seconds in the basement.
"Hooot."
"I know, I miss her too. But she's all right. She has to be… Don't worry, we'll find our way back.", Luz whispers to Owlbert before they walk up the stairs together, and back to the kitchen table. Once there, Luz gets ready to introduce Owlbert to the others as well.
"Guys, meet Owlbert. He's a palisman and I think he's the reason why I can use glyphs, and all of you unfortunately can't."
In response, Luz hears a lot of "Aww "s and "Cool "s and she assumes she saw Owlbert blush slightly.
"How did you get him?", Hop Pop asks. Unfortunately, that's a question Luz has to pull herself together quite a bit.
"He... used to belong to a person I was very close to, and I miss really badly".
"I... I'm sorry if I opened a yet fresh wound", Hop Pop apologizes. Luz sniffles once in an attempt to hold back her tears.
"It's okay. You couldn't have known", Luz soothes him. Hop Pop stands up and takes one of Luz's hands in his and looks right at her.
"Luz, I want to promise you something", he begins, "I promise to help you get back. Be it together with Anne to Earth or to the Boiling Isles".
Luz can't hold back anymore and tears flow down her cheeks. However, these are not tears of sadness, but tears of joy. She shows her gratitude by going to give him a heartfelt hug.
"Thank you so much, Hop Pop. You don't know how much this means to me", she says. Owlbert, meanwhile, also hops on his head, spreads his wings and tries to hug him as well. Anne, Sprig and even Polly joins in the hug.
"Thanks kids. However, it's late by now, you guys should start going to sleep", he says after breaking up the group hug again.
"You're ruining the moment, HP.", Anne comments, to which he laughs.
"I know. But I'm serious... Luz, where do you want to sleep? I could offer you the couch in the living room or the one in my study..."
"Um...", Luz thinks about it.
"She could also sleep with me in the basement", Anne suddenly suggests, seeming quite excited. "We could hang a hammock for her..."
"Hammock?", Luz abruptly looks up at Anne with a sparkle in her eyes. "I love hammocks. I'm in", she says excitedly.
"All right", Hop Pop says. Anne sprints down to the basement, and all the others hear are construction noises.
"Ou-kay...", Luz says to herself, "I'll say goodnight to you guys then. And thanks again. For everything."
"You're welcome, Luz", Hop Pop says before turning around, and starts clearing the dining table while Sprig has already reluctantly started to clean the dishes.
Luz descends to the basement, where she sees that Anne has hung a hammock between the stairs and the heating stove.
"Girls' night?", Anne asks, grinning expectantly. Luz, on the other hand, is a bit hesitant.
"I'd rather not. At least not tonight... I would really like to just sleep right now", she replies to Anne. While it is understandable, she is now a bit disappointed about this.
"It's all right. Maybe some other time", she says, to which Luz yawns heavily. "Oh, before I forget: I put some healing potions under your hammock. You should drink some before you lie down. If all goes well, you should be feeling much better by tomorrow"
"Thank you. I guess I should thank that Maddie for what she did for me tomorrow.", Luz says.
"Yeah... Anyway, sleep well Luz"
"You too Anne"