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“Mamá, you have to believe me!” The lines under her mother’s eyes creased as she smiled. It wasn’t a good smile. Pain beaded up in the corners of her eyes as she squeezed Luz’s hand.
“Mija… please, get some rest.” Her voice cracked as she began to tear up, but she left the room before she completely broke down.
It was frustrating. She wanted to comfort her mom, why did the women in blue always keep her strapped to this stupid bed?
“Mama!” She shouted, to no response. “Mamá, please…” One of the blue women stopped by the side of her bed. She was wearing those weird dark goggles that made her look like a bug.
“Luz? Look at me please.”
“Where’s my mamá?”
“Tell me who you want to see.” She swallowed dryly. They never wanted to hear about Eda, or Willow, or Gus, or Amity.
She had tried to ask why they hated her friends so much, why they shook their heads in disappointment whenever she mentioned them.
Mamá had always been sad that Luz didn’t have friends.
“I- can I see Eda please? And my mamá?” She tsked, adjusting her bug goggles, then changed the needle in her arm.
“Sleep, Luz.” She didn’t want to sleep. She wanted to see her mom. She wanted to talk to Eda about runes again, or tend to the greenhouse with Willow.
Fatigue overcame her. Her head collapsed onto the thin pillow.
“Luz? Where’ve you been all day?”
“Sorry, I’m… not sure. Hope I didn’t hold you up too much.” Willow shook her head.
“Of course not! Gus and I actually have a surprise for you!” She grabbed her hand, leading her out the owl house.
The sun was warm on her skin. It had felt like years ever since she had last felt the sensation.
“Luz! Luz! C’mere!” Gus called out. He was sitting among a bunch of toadstools, proudly holding a dainty teacup between his fingers.
“Ah! Tea party time!” Giddy with excitement, she ran up to Gus, perching on one of the toadstools and drinking from the cup he gave to her. Willow rested beside her with a happy smile.
The tea didn’t taste like anything. It never did. She didn’t mind though. It was better than the bitter lukewarm water they made her drink in the hospital.
Just as her mind wandered to Eda, the witch herself burst through the front door of the owl house with a tray full of cookies and a very happy looking King. She grinned wide, taking the tackle hug Luz had thrown at her with one arm, the other one balancing the tray.
“Eda! Ugh, I’ve missed you so much.”
“I’ve missed you too, kid.” She grabbed a sweet off the tray. “Cookie?”
“Duh!” Luz wolfed it down. It felt like she had just swallowed a fistful of wet soil, but she was so overjoyed by just being able to be with them that she didn’t mind.
Every time she got to spend time with her friends was a good time. It was time she got to spend away from the scary bug women, away from her worries of disappointing her mamá.
She had made friends, so why was mamá still so sad?
Willow, having seemingly interpreted her sudden mood change, reached out and offered her a hand of consolement.
There was something missing. It felt like an empty box in the back of her head where something important used to be, but everything was so lost and out of place that she couldn't even recall what was missing.
The name came to her mind just as a face was revealed.
She walked up the hill before her, features shifting as Luz tried hard to remember.
Nobody else acknowledged her, or when Luz stood up to face the being.
And then it came back to her.
“Amity!” The human threw herself into her lover’s arms, face now decisively set in a smile. She leaned in to kiss her cheek, but froze when she noticed her expression.
Eyes, dead like marble eyes of a taxidermy animal, staring indefinitely forward and simultaneously nowhere at all, her mouth in a permanent state of neutrality. She didn’t blink.
“Luz, it’s time to wake up.” Her eyes widened, and she tore herself from the witch’s embrace.
“No! That’s not you, Amity!” She recognized the voice. It was a blue woman, coming to steal her away from her friends. They couldn’t keep taking her! Amy was hers… Alice would always be hers…
“Luz, it’s time to wake up.” She echoed hauntingly.
Her vision grew hazy. They were taking her away again. They were taking Luz away from her friends.
“Stop! STOP!” Her eyes flew open, to be greeted with a whitewash ceiling. Her least favorite thing to wake up to.
Bug lady was nearby, flicking the tip of a syringe with a gloved hand and then pressing it into the iv insert in her forearm. She wanted to struggle, but they had strapped her arms down again.
Immediately, a feeling of exhaustion overtook her.
“What’s that for?” She whispered. Whether it was in awe or in fear, it was up to interpretation.
“Luz, do you remember the name Amity?”
“I…” She squinted. “I don’t think so.” The lady was wearing a surgical mask, but Luz knew she was grinning beneath it.
“Good.” Once again, she succumbed to the darkness, having lost the will to fight as she tried her best to remember even one precise name in her head.
She couldn’t remember what she looked like. All that stuck was her polarizing glassy eyes, her firmly set frown, the terrifying, robotic voice.
Some things, she decided, were better off forgotten.