CONTENT WARNING: Religion, Internalized Homophobia
The room Luz had been given was a closet on the second floor. Eda had offered her a blanket, but Luz declined, content with a sleeping bag on the floor. The Owl Lady had done her best to clear out the stuff in the closet, but a lot of it was just pushed to the sides of the room, leading to the walls being covered in chests covered in tablecloths.
Luz patted down her sleeping bag and crawled in. Her bat and four packets of cigarettes rested next to her. She reached over to turn off the gas lamp, and a thought suddenly rushed into her head. She didn't need to use lights anymore. She could make them with magic.
In spite of herself, a giddy rush raced through her body. Eda and Monarch had been shocked when she summoned the orb of light. Eda said she'd never seen anyone use magic through paper before, much less a human. She'd spent years as a girl dreaming about this only to convince herself it could never happen, so to suddenly gain magic? It was practically too good to be true.
And with a pang, she realized that it was. For she never would've learned this magic if she hadn't run away from her mami and gotten trapped here. Who knew if it even worked on Earth. Of course she could only gain something amazing like this by being selfish. She was no Good Witch Azura, but instead Hecate.
And not the Hecate from the later books, either! Book 1 Hecate, who was just a total bitch to Azura the whole time! Honestly, sometimes it felt like Mildred Featherwhyle could've done better at foreshadowing Hecate's redemption arc-
Luz smacked her forehead. "Bad brain," she muttered. "More sleeping, less nerding."
She reached over for a cigarette to try to calm down, but stopped. She only had four packs and who knew how long she'd be stuck here. It'd be better to conserve them. Luz withdrew her hand, but immediately found herself craving a smoke, trying to convince herself that she'd just have one.
Luz growled in rage and rolled over, turning away from her cigarettes. After a couple of minutes, she found herself calmer. A thought came to her. It had never worked before, but in this situation, there wasn't much harm in trying.
Clasping her hands together, Luz reached down into her guts and tried to summon up feelings of peace and devotion. That had never come easily to her. "Please," she whispered. "God, I'm sorry. I know I shouldn't have run away from my mother, or cut school, or smoked. And you're punishing me for it." She paused, then kept talking. "I repent. I sinned, and I repent for it. Please send me back home. I don't want to be here anymore."
Nothing happened.
Luz continued her prayer. "If you send me home, I'll stop smoking. I'll take school seriously, and I'll… I'll go to the Paul Stearne Institute if that's your plan for me." Tears were forming in her eyes as she tried to think of anything else He might want.
No. Not that. Surely…
"If you send me home…" Luz promised, her voice cracking, "I'll… I'll stop being bi."
She had no idea how she could do that, but she'd heard many people telling her that's what God wanted from her. What that would even be like Luz couldn't imagine, but maybe if she was sent back to Earth, if she could see her mother again, it'd be worth it.
No portals appeared. Luz looked up to the ceiling. Did God even hear her prayers in Daemonicus? He created Earth at the center of the universe, after all. Maybe she was too far away.
Or maybe He just never heard her prayers. He did nothing when she prayed that Manny Noceda get over his cancer, that Camila find a job that paid her well, that nobody in the neighborhood mug her on her way to school. She'd stopped praying for that last one months ago.
Luz's face twisted into rage and she slammed it into the pillow, hoping that He didn't see her. Eventually, she drifted into a fitful sleep and dreamed of owls the size of buses chasing her, seeking to devour her alive, and of Camila standing by and watching it happen.
The sun came through the closet's stained-glass window in shades of red, yellow, and orange. After around fifteen minutes of trying to deny her impending awakening, Luz finally got up.
She noticed a stick of charcoal on the dresser. With a shrug, she picked up the stick and drew a tally mark on the wall. One day in the Boiling Isles.
Luz headed downstairs and heard clanging in the back of the house. She walked over there to find a room with a severely stained wooden floor. The back wall bore a large stained-glass window and a door leading outside. A table sat in the middle of the room, where Eda stood pouring out a flask into a mug. Shelves full of pots and pans lined the walls, and cold radiated from a large wooden cabinet.
Luz realized that it was a kitchen. "Morning, Eda!" she spoke.
Eda made a noise that was more than a grunt but not quite enough to be a groan, and downed the contents of the mug in a single shot. She slammed it to the counter, took an experimental look at her flask, then tipped it down her throat with a glug, glug, glug. Finally, the witch looked over at her.
"Oh, right, I lost my portal door and kidnadopted a human," she said. "Right. Help me with Monarch's breakfast and I'll do… something. Feed you. Maybe."
There was a pause. "You're not a morning person, are you?" said Luz.
"No," said Eda simply.
Luz smirked. "Good."
She went over to the cabinet and opened it, only for a gust of wind and snow to blow out. "What the fuck?!" exclaimed Luz, jumping back and drawing her bat. "Eda! There's a blizzard in your cabinet!"
Eda chuckled. "You kiddin'? That's just an Elemental Foodstock. Keeps your food frozen or hot dependin' on what ya need. I thought you humans had something like it back on Earth."
Embarrassed, Luz slid her bat onto her back. It was weird, but the Foodstock seemed basically like a fridge. Nothing to panic over.
Soon enough, Luz had pulled out a lump of brown meat and Eda was grilling it with a fireball she had summoned in her hand. Eda was very surprised to hear that human refrigerators didn't let out snow. "Takes all the fun out of it," she had said.
Once the meat had been grilled to a cinder, Eda sliced it into thirds using a dagger the size of Luz's arm which the witch handled so casually that Luz took a step back. Eda poured out three glasses of orange liquid from her flask, placed the meat on plates with tiny owl emblems, and sat down at the table. "Monarch! Breakfast!" she called.
There was a click-click-click as Monarch's claws skittered across the floor, and the little demon scampered up holding a stuffed bunny that, if Luz remembered correctly, was named Francois. "Who dares disturb my slumber?!" Monarch squeaked. "Ah-ha! A banquet! You will not be executed."
"Well, good-" Luz started.
"This time," Monarch muttered to Francois in what was probably supposed to be a whisper. Luz sighed and turned to her plate.
She cut a piece of the meat and lifted it to her lips. Inside, Luz was giddy. This would be perhaps the first time a human had eaten the foods of the Boiling Isles. It'd be a historic moment. She put the meat in her mouth…
And immediately gagged. Despite a rough appearance, it had an unpleasantly sludgy texture that quickly disintegrated between her teeth, filling her mouth with a sick, stale flavor. Luz spat out the meat and seized her drink, downing a gulp to wash it out of her mouth, only to spit that out too. A tangy taste met her lips, stronger than almost anything she'd eaten before, with a metallic aftertaste like eating gravel. Her legs immediately felt unsteady and tipsy as Luz got a better scent of the drink.
"Oh God, what the fuck is this?!" she burst out.
Eda jumped from her seat and rushed over to Luz. "Titan below! Luz, are you alright?"
Luz gagged as the horrible flavor inundated her mouth. She coughed up bile, which splattered on the floor. "'Msorry-" she struggled to get out before gagging again.
Eda traced a circle of light in the air with a hum, and the taste of the meat and drink suddenly vanished from Luz's mouth. The human girl moaned at the memory of it. "What… was that?" she gasped out. "This some kinda newbie hazing or something?"
Eda shook her head slowly, her mouth flattening into a line of concern. Monarch was standing on the table, their eyes containing equal parts pity for Luz and fear to get closer, lest she start yelling again.
"That was just hellboar and apple blood," said Eda. "It's pretty common food here. I'm sorry, I should've realized there'd be biochemical barriers. Let me see if I can make you something else."
"No," wheezed Luz. "You and Monarch eat first. I can wait."
"Are you sure-" Eda started.
"Positive," said Luz. "Besides, I don't have much of an appetite right now anyway." The fact that this part was true helped add to the rest of the lie.
Mollified, Eda and Monarch returned to their own meal in silence, finishing quickly. Once they had done so, Eda immediately went back to the kitchen and started pulling various foods to try out of the Elemental Foodstock. Luz had coughed up more bile at the taste of mummy jerky, been nearly knocked out by the screaming of a mandrake, flatly turned down a still-living fairy in a jar (which Eda proceeded to swallow whole), and required a "minor" exorcism after tasting an escarghost.
That last one was not fun. Luz had woken up to Eda waving a cape emblazoned with the image of an antlered skull over her, chasing off a glowing incorporeal bedsheet and screaming at it that "the Sacred Titan, Father and Mother of all Witchkind, hath marked thee a trespasser!".
Once that was over, they went back to testing food. Eda handed Luz a couple of large bronze eggs and told her to sniff them. Luz did so very cautiously, only to find that it didn't smell so bad. Upon receiving Luz's thumbs-up, Eda quickly scrambled the eggs and threw them in a bowl. Luz, with much trepidation, managed to bring a spoonful to her mouth.
It wasn't bad. The eggs were a bit heavier than most eggs on Earth, but they tasted good enough and didn't make her vomit. Luz quickly polished off the bowl. "What are these?" she asked.
"Griffon eggs!" said Eda with a smile. "They're a bit expensive, but nothing my wallet can't handle. Good to see we finally found ya somethin'!"
Luz looked for a sink, but didn't see one. "You guys have any water?" she asked.
"Water?" said Monarch, surprised. "Why would you want that?"
"…To drink it?" said Luz incredulously.
"Remember, Monarch, the Human World is covered in freezing water," said Eda. "An' as for your question, Luz, water in Daemonicus isn't as safe as water on Earth. Most natural water here is boiling hot and difficult to extract, not to mention full of parasites. We usually go for apple blood instead 'cause the alcohol kills germs. But I could make some normal water with magic for ya."
"Thanks, Eda!" said Luz as the witch conjured a chunk of ice in a mug, then started melting it with a small flame in her hand.
"No worries," said Monarch. "Just means more apple blood for us!" They took a swig from a mug.
"That's the third time I've heard you guys call it that," said Luz. "Do you mean apple juice?"
"No, we mean apple blood," said Monarch. They pulled a jug of the stuff out of the Foodstock. Luz sniffed it and suddenly realized what the metallic tang reminded her of. She turned the jug around to find an image of a screaming red fruit being slashed apart with a carving knife.
Luz gingerly placed the jug of apple blood back in the Foodstock.
After they had eaten, Luz tried to go to work at the portal door. She scraped the remains of the original off the floor, stuck them in a jar, and jabbed the key into it all. This did produce a large electric spark the first time, but that was it, and the second time yielded no sparks at all. Luz was forced to leave the jar of the door's remains in her room, to be worked on later.
Asking Eda how she found the door yielded little results, either.
"This house was under the Clawthorne name, and once I proved my identity they let me have it. I went down into the basement for the first time and boom! Portal door right there," Eda had replied. "It wasn't done yet, but I just added some standard potions and teleportation spells and it grew an eye. Next thing I knew I was in Las Angeles."
Luz had Eda try the same spells on the door ashes, but they did nothing. By the time night fell, her first day in the Owl House ended inconclusively, with nothing to show for it other than an empty plate of griffon eggs and a second tally mark on the wall.
The next few days were more of the same as Luz had Eda cast spell after spell on the ashes, with no luck. On Thursday, Luz had the idea to try using her light glyphs on the ashes, which created a couple of yellow eyes. Luz's elation at this result quickly faded when that turned out to be all that happened, and further attempts with the glyphs just made a scorched smell.
"Maybe you burned it out!" Monarch suggested. "Like that time I decided to turn the gas lamps all the way up and then Eda came back from Earth with those fireworks and-" Eda had interrupted him at that point. But Luz took the point and decided to limit her experiments with the ash per day.
The days went by and turned into weeks, and the tally marks on the wall added up. Luz didn't like how fast they were appearing. She thought they'd be a lot slower to add up, but they seemed to appear faster and faster as the days went by, and she was no closer to finding a way home than when the door had first been destroyed.
One night, after drawing the mark for the day, Luz decided to count them all. "Uno, dos, tres, quatro…" she murmured as she traced her finger over each mark. She hadn't spoken española much since coming to the Owl House, so it was good to say the words again.
She finished quickly, then counted the marks a second time. That couldn't be right. But a third count brought back the same result, and Luz's heart sank.
She had been on Daemonicus for a month. Camila Noceda had spent all this time with no idea where Luz was, or that she was trying to get home. She must be worried sick. Luz wondered if the police were looking for her, or if they had better things to do than try to help a delinquent, LGBT Latina.
What would be worse? For Camila to be entirely alone in the search for Luz, or for the whole of the precint to be looking for her and unable to find her?
Tears crawled into Luz's eyes as her breath sped up. This was her fault, all of it. She ran from Camila, she tried to rush opening the door and destroyed it, and she couldn't find a way home because she was too stupid, and now she was never going to get back to Earth and-
She screamed and punched the floor. Luz squeezed her eyes shut and focused on her breath. She tried to remember what Eda had shown her- count to four. Luz shakily inhaled, then exhaled. Eventually, her hyperventilation slowed and her tense muscles relaxed to some extent, but those feelings were still rushing around inside her.
Blindly, Luz reached over for a cigarette, lit it in her lamp, and took a good, long, drag. She felt her emotions slowly fade into an comfortable, hollow, numbness. Luz sat there for a good while, blowing clouds of smoke that filled the room. Eventually, her cigarette crumpled and she reached over to the packet for another. But when she grabbed the packet, no cigarettes fell to her hand. Luz seized the package in shock and pulled it to her. It was lighter than before. Luz quickly scribbled a light glyph and held it to the package, only to find what she had dreaded: it was empty.
Shock rushed into her body, and Luz tossed the empty package across the room. Had she really gone through so many cigarettes that quickly? She had two more packages left, but if they could only last her a month each, she'd run out in two months and start going through withdrawal-
And she would've been here for three months. Luz realized with a start that she was doubting she'd manage to return home in three months.
She might never find a way home, and be trapped in this nightmare world forever, Camila never even knowing if she was alive.
Luz slept fitfully that night, and her pillow was damp with tears.
Edalyn Clawthorne opened her eyes as the orange-and-red sun peeked through her room's stained-glass window. She yawned and stretched out, her hands and feet pushing against the sides of her nest. The sticks rubbed against her back as she moved in a comforting massage.
She got to her feet and, after throwing on her dress and cloak, pulled a syringe of orange liquid out of her cabinet. With a wince, she jabbed it into her leg and felt the elixir flow through her system. While it could be ingested or injected, injections were better when she was in her witch form. The repressed rage and hunger of the Owlbeast in the back of her mind quieted.
Then she turned to the small altar in her room. A relief of the Titan's skull sat atop a gravestone, with Savage Ages runes etched into it. Eda had carved it herself out of Titanbone, from one of the huge Ribs by her house.
The witch lowered her head and pressed it to the altar. "Sacred Titan, who is both King and Queen of all Witchkind," she began, "Grant me magic upon this day. Grant me those Powers which You hold sacred, that I, your loyal servant, might protect myself from that which would harm me."
Eda felt a warmth growing in her chest. The floor beneath her knees seemed to draw her in, like the land of the Titan Themself was flowing into her. She grinned and continued her prayer. "Grant me those Powers of Imbuing of Substances, that I might provide potions out of Your land and beasts. Grant me those Powers of Deception of Images, that I might deceive and make fools of the heretics who claim to bear your name. Grant me those Powers of Movement Without Contact, that I might construct domiciles for myself and mine." She paused for a moment upon coming to the Forgotten Verses. The Empire's fault, of course.
"Grant me those Powers of Command of Redery, that I might grow sustenance and comfort. Grant me those Powers of Destruction of Flame and Frost, that I might turn aside storms. Grant me the Powers of the Greatest of Magic, the Beasts of Your Blood, that I may destroy mine enemies with but a command."
Eda felt a thrumming in the altar. She never knew if it was just her, or maybe the house settling…
Or maybe the Titan really was hearing her.
"I thank you for hearing my request, oh Sacred Titan, and shall endeavor to use this Power with my own will for Kindness and Freedom, as You would have me do."
With that, she finished her prayer and walked downstairs. Her eyes widened in surprise when she saw Luz at the door, throwing on her bomber jacket. "Luz, where are you going?" she asked.
"Didn't you say something about a town near here?" Luz returned.
"Yeah, Bonesborough. It's right through Intestine Forest. But why do you want to go there?" Eda asked, worry seeping into her mind and voice.
"I've been here working on the portal for a month, Eda," said Luz. "I need to work out a way to get back home, and Bonesborough might hold the secret. Maybe somebody else has a portal?"
"Luz, Bonesborough's not as safe as the Owl House!" said Eda. "They will eat you! Literally eat you alive! And that's if they're being nice!"
"You go there every market day," said Monarch from the couch.
"Not the point, Monarch!" Eda yelled.
"You worry too much, Owl Lady," said Luz bluntly, swinging up her bat. "I grew up in the city, I know how to dodge cops. And it's not like I'm getting anything done here."
Eda opened her mouth, but stopped and nodded. "Okay, fair. But at least take Monarch with ya. They know the streets and can stop ya from getting eaten."
"But Edaaaaa!" whined Monarch. "The Golden Guard's on the crystal ball! I wanna see what happened since last episode!"
"Don't you "But Eda" me!" said Eda sternly. "Now go stop our new roommate from getting made into little kebabs."
Monarch sighed, flopped off the couch, and crawled towards Luz, climbing up her leg to hang from her shoulder. "Onward, minion."
"I don't need a babysitter!" Luz complained.
"Too bad, you're getting one," Eda responded. "Be back before it gets dark." She snapped her fingers and a teasing lilt entered her voice. "Oh! I should pack you a lu-unch~"
"Fuck off," Luz groaned as she threw the door open and stomped off.
Eda sighed. She hoped her kids would be okay.
"Left! No, other left!" Monarch yelled from Luz's shoulders as she marched through the red-leaved Intestine Forest. Luz sighed and changed directions for the eleventh time, only for Monarch to speak again: "Wait, no, you had it right the first time."
Luz let out a cry of exasperation and dropped to the dirt. It felt warmer and squishier than the ground on Earth, although not by much. "Are you just screwing with me?!" she snapped at Monarch.
"What? No! I don't have a screwdriver!" said Monarch.
"Figure of speech," Luz groaned. She turned her gaze to the orange sky. "How am I supposed to find this place if even you don't know where it is?!"
Suddenly, a shape crossed the clouds. Luz's eyes widened as she saw a huge football-like shape over the sun. It gave off a whirring, ticking noise that she could hear from the ground. A small gondola was attached to the bottom, and large, fleshy eyes and hands emerged from the wood.
"A zeppelin," Luz murmured. She jumped to her feet and sprinted after the aircraft. Monarch clung to her shoulders, squeaking, as she ran through burgundy bushes and dodged tree roots that leapt up to grab at her feet, keeping the zeppelin in sight at all times.
Luz panted, out of breath, as she emerged from Intestine Forest. She was standing on the edge of a cliff overlooking a large city built around several towering rib bone formations. The city consisted of countless thatched-roof houses of a few stories, smoke pouring out of their chimneys. The city itself was colored a dry white, but brass and copper poked out here and there in the form of large clock towers and globes. An immense cathedral sat in the center of it all, the size of skyscrapers on Earth. It was made of pristine white stone and adorned with crow's heads and stained glass.
And there was magic, oh there was magic. As Luz watched, an entire building assembled itself out of thin air, with nobody moving the parts. Truck-sized animals flew through the sky, resembling giant quadrupedal vultures. The zeppelin docked at a massive copper ring floating in the air. Luz strained her eyes to watch as the passengers filed out onto platforms, where people wearing bright blue uniforms stood. Flashes of blue light scattered across the platforms, and once it was over, everyone was gone. The zeppelin quickly detached from the copper ring and floated off.
"And this is Bonesborough!" said Monarch triumphantly. "Located by me and me alone! You're welcome!"
"I… y'know what?" said Luz, her voice and eyes full of wonder that hadn't been there in a long time. "Thanks, Monarch."
With that, Luz climbed down the cliff and headed for Bonesborough.