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“Mom, you were AWESOME back there! Thanks for being cool... about everything.” Luz said, surprised at her mother for once in her life. She was being reflected through the light and rain- having just rescued her doppelganger, borderline sister at this point- from a crazy conspiracy theorist that lived in their town.
However, Luz was not expecting the reaction on her mother’s face when she came back to look at Luz.
Her mother was starting to choke up. “I'm trying to hold it together... I really am... But I have never been this scared before. A demon realm? Magic? How are you gonna get back here? Is this the only way I can touch you?”
She reached for Luz’s hand- but it phased through her like a ghost.
Luz looked at her mother and, in her desperation, to explain everything, pushed the words out without thinking. “I... I need a little more time, but if I keep working my hardest, I will make a working portal, I promise!”
Her mother wiped away some tears. “As scary as this is, it really does seem like you've matured…”
Luz quickly jumped to take the compliment. “Yes! I’ve learned so much… Staying here was the best decision I ever made.”
Suddenly she felt her stomach churn. Now she understood how Lilith could hiss out what she did on the bridge months back- except she had done so to the one person she never wanted to upset with this whole journey she chose to do.
“You…” her mother said, ever slightly angry in her tone as the tears began to dry. “…chose to stay there?”
“Oh, uh….” Luz said, realizing very quickly that she was living out her worst nightmare. Her Grom fright.
“Were you trying to live out some witch fantasy? Did you…” she paused for a moment before asking. “…did you hate living with me that much?” she looked so hurt at the thing Luz had casually slipped out. Luz hadn’t practiced this- she should have just said she was trapped here like every other isekai protagonist known to man. Why didn’t she? Why didn’t she fib about that part?
“Mama… no!” Luz said, unable to fully explain the complicated feelings she had that resulted in her coming to the Boiling Isles and deciding to stay in the first place.
There was no time for that as she felt the rope tug on her waist. Eda and King were pulling her back through. This was the worst time. If she had a minute more she could explain everything.
“No,” Luz said, panicked. “Not yet. Not… yet! MOM!” she cried, feeling her presence get ripped from the cube she was holding in the strange in between dimension she was in. She saw her mother’s pained face across the cubes, her consciousness spread between this and the human realm through the rain still. “I’m being pulled back!”
“Baby? No, no no no no no…” her mother watched in horror as she saw Luz get pulled back even further. “When you come home… promise you’ll stay here. I didn’t mean to push you away. I swear things will be different.” she cried, trying to do anything in her power to get her daughter back, her hands trying to grasp her ghostly daughter.
Luz began to tear up. “Mom. It’s not you! It never was!” She didn’t have time to think things through, she needed her mother to know how desperate she was to still have her affection. It was the only recourse left.
“Promise me, Luz… please!” her mother said, pained still as she tried to latch onto her. But it was far too late.
“Okay, mom. I promise…” Luz said, fading away as she was submerged into the black fluid of the reflecting dimension. She shakily breathed as everything faded away, only able to hear her mother crying.
“Mom…” Luz said with tears in her eyes. She felt the rope desperately pull her through as she was submerged- she did her best to wipe her eyes, although even in the strange ethereal fluid she was in, it was difficult to tell what was coming from her eyes and what was from the pool.
And suddenly, the cord stopped pulling. Luz felt a suddenly, visceral feeling that she was not moving back- she was floating without any pull to the demon realm. Not just uh oh, this is bad- this was far worse than she could ever imagine.
She frantically attempted to swim, before remembering she could pull on the rope herself to see if Eda and King just took a break from pulling- not that they would, she just wanted to believe she wasn’t trapped here- and as she pulled the rest of the rope to her, it really began to sink in for her. The end of the rope was frayed- cut and liquidized at the end. The unstable portal door had closed without her emerging at the other side.
She shakily held the end of the rope, looking in the darkness. She was too deep in to see the surface at either side. It was completely pitch black. She was going to drown, she thought. Except, as she exhaled shaky breaths, she realized that it did not have the properties of water- it didn’t fill her lungs.
She couldn’t even die.
She began to feel her whole being become submerged in terrifying thoughts- maybe this was punishment from the universe. That she had somehow willed it into being moments after being torn away because her heart broke seeing her mother cry. She felt so small and dumb in the moment- and as she looked out through the empty abyss, only able to see her hands and feet, her cape whipping in wild directions, she realized how insignificant everything felt.
Camila looked at the rain, the empty spot where Luz was in the rain, and sobbed heavily as she stared at the absence of her daughter- her real daughter- not the one who had been posing as her for the past couple months. She still loved Vee but it was not exactly the girl she had been raising for all this time now. Luz was gone again and the first time she hadn’t even known- yet this time somehow hurt even more knowing that she wasn’t with her to begin with.
Did camp scare her that much? The need to ever slightly conform to the rules and realities of modern society? She only wanted Luz to tone it down a notch- she seemed genuinely unaware of how dangerous she was becoming with bringing in fireworks and snakes to school. Maybe it was a fault of her own parenting.
She could blame herself all night but that wasn’t the call. She looked to her car, which was still on, and turned herself around to go shut off the engine. If she left it running all night, the battery would die and she’d have to restart it with a jumper cable or something along those lines and she couldn’t deal with that on top of everything she had just lost tonight.
She crammed her head through the side door and twisted the key out, before looking out to the rain again. Luz was not coming back, she understood and realized. She buried the key into her coat pocket and walked to the front door where she found Vee crumpled onto the couch, eating away at Hexus Hold Em Cards, before suddenly turning her head to Camila.
“Are you doing alright, Vee?” asked Camila, sitting down next to her other daughter. There was no way she’d let anyone take her back at this point- she was apparently a clone of an extinct race from an magical realm that her daughter, Luz, was trapped in. It meant there was no parents, nobody good who was going to come take her back- so she resigned herself to adopting the young girl and treating her still like these last couple months before she realized she wasn’t Luz.
“I’m fine, yeah,” Vee replied, eating another card. She still looked like Luz- the straight haired, yellow shirt version she had gotten to know recently- although Camila understood that at this point Vee was asserting herself as her own person. “…I’m sorry I tricked you.”
Camila shook her head. “At least you chose to be around- not that I really feel like Luz made the wrong choice… it’s all very complicated and very scary and I don’t know what to do…”
Vee held her hand to comfort her. “It’s gonna be okay, I think. She’ll figure a way back and you can hold her in your arms and you can assert how good of a mother you are- that I know you are…”
Camila gave a soft smile and hugged Vee tightly. “Thank you, Vee…”
Eda and King stared at at the empty space where the portal door had collapsed into itself- and pulled the rope that was now frayed, liquified at the end, literally melting at the end in horror. Hooty was speechless for once.
“…did…” Eda said, trying not to immediately cry. “Did… did we pull hard enough, King?” She asked the question as if to assuage guilt- that they had done everything that they could do to pull her out, that there was nothing that they could have possibly done to save her.
She felt everything cave into her heart and inactive bilesac. She just couldn’t believe it. King patted her leg and looked up to her.
“We did everything we could, it’s just… the kid… I mean, she was pulling back, maybe she found the human realm…” King spoke quietly, in a hushed tone, as if he didn’t want to believe the thing he was saying.
Eda kept her relative cool as she shook her head. “She loved it here, she chose to be here… all she wanted to see was her mom before deciding what to do next…” Eda said. “I hope she found the answers she was looking for.”
The air- the quiet air that was now deafening, rolled over them, shaking them to the core. Hooty, being an indefinitely long owl worm demon, even still stood in absolute terror that nothing was there. Nothing they could do to make this feel better, nothing they could do to fix this except make another portal- and possibly save Luz. Hooty’s mind suddenly snapped into focus.
“We need to build another portal. We can rescue Luz through those means.” Hooty said, unusually smart of him. He was good at suddenly pushing all his feeling somewhere else- which suddenly made sense when you considered how long he was.
“Right,” Eda rasped from her voice, clearly wiping tears from her eyes before suddenly going into a full panic. “Right, right. We need to build another portal now. We need to rescue Luz.”
“Thank goodness she left her notes here… although I can’t imagine how she must be feeling… if she’s still even alive.” King said.
“Don’t… don’t talk like that.” Eda said, very pained. King nodded, in no mood to bicker. They needed to gather the ingredients for a new portal door- although Luz probably wouldn’t be super thrilled about wasting another finger of Titan’s Blood from Amity’s glove- if she was still alive even.
The time for such thoughts, as if it was even worth it at the moment, were pushed thoroughly back- everyone was acting entirely on the impulse to save Luz and bring her back home.
That’s what this was, right?
For her?
Right?
Luz had been floating for a long time- and she suddenly realized she could speak freely. “Alright, Luz Noceda, you’re going to be fine, there’s no… reason to not be…” Luz said.
She heard herself talk back. For a second, she thought it could be Vee, but her voice sounded differently- far raspier and pained- but as she heard her own voice, she realized she was not the one talking. “Is that a lie you’re telling yourself, or a truth you’re hoping for?”
“Who are you?!” screamed Luz, suddenly wondering if her brain was breaking down from the tragedy of being lost in space and time.
“Luz Noceda…” the voice echoed out into the lost space. Luz swam around, looking for the source.
“But… I’m Luz Noceda.” she said, triumphantly.
“I am you.” the voice said. “Everyone has another one of themselves inside themselves.”
“That doesn’t make any sense…” retorted Luz, passing it off as some kind of strange trick. “Come on, what demon is trying to trick me now…”
“Is that how you see yourself? As a demon trying to trick others?” asked the voice.
“No… hold on, you’re putting words in my mouth.” Luz said.
“I’m you. You’re putting words in your own mouth.” the voice said.
“That’s… not right,” Luz said. “Who am I trying to deceive? Huh?”
“Your friends, your mother, Eda… King…” the voice listed off names. Luz hissed in response, still trying to figure out the source as she continued to swim.
“Uh huh, how am I doing that?” asked Luz, looking around still. She didn’t believe for a minute that this was really her.
“You know you’ll have to disappoint one of them, you know. Your mother, or the people you really care about.” explained the voice.
“I care about my mother!” Luz said, defiantly. “If you were the real me, you’d know that.”
“Do you?” asked the voice once again. “Do you really? Why was it so easy to tell her that you chose to stay in the Boiling Isles? That you chose not to go back, to explain what was really going on?”
“And what, lie to her?” asked Luz.
“You immediately regretted telling her that- you absolutely would have preferred to lie. It wasn’t entirely false that you were trapped in the Boiling Isles, after all.” the voice remarked.
“It wasn’t entirely true either. Look, I do regret it, but because it was my mother crying afterwards- I wanted to explain it, I didn’t have time though.” Luz said, almost in a defeated tone.
“Admit it- you told the truth to hurt her. You knew-“ the voice began to go on, but Luz cut it off.
“I didn’t know the rope was pulling me back until after I said it! If I told the truth to hurt my mom, surely I would have known how little time I would have had left? Can’t I talk to another version of myself that isn’t so negative?” asked Luz.
“You’re with yourself- but if you’d rather, I could get another version of you to talk to.” the voice stated. Luz nodded.
“I’d prefer anything but this…” Luz said, looking around in the empty abyss, the reflective waves cast across her body.
“Chop, chop,” Eda said as she looked to Gus who was looking through Eda’’s human junk collection. “We don’t know how much time we have to rescue Luz, but the sooner we can create a door, the sooner we’ll be able to get her back.” Eda had invited over Gus, Willow, Amity, and Boscha had tagged along with Willow for some strange reason- she knew she didn’t invite the strange three eyed girl.
“How do you know that for sure?” asked Willow. “Like… what if she is just genuinely lost in there? How are we going to find her?”
“We know she didn’t go through the human realm because the door looked way different, way off. It looked like it went to another realm entirely, which means we can’t make this door better than it was.” King replied, trying to remain calm, although he was wrapped around Eda’s leg as if he was worried she would disappear on him too.. He looked to Amity who was pacing around, looking worried sick for her girlfriend.
“So where did she go, then?” asked Amity. “How come no one else went with her?”
“We had to pull her back- but I guess we didn’t do a very good job of that.” Eda replied.
“Darn right…” Amity said. “Why… why didn’t she tell me? We were going to go to the human realm together.”
“Uh huh, really?” asked Willow. “It’s not like you told me and Gus a million times.”
“Let’s focus, kiddos.” Eda said, rolling a plastic clear barrel towards the door construction site. “Boots, I need you to add in some abomination goo into this barrel, and Willow, I need you dig out for some cranial fungi. Gus, I know your dad has some television receivers, so grab those.”
“Wait, how do you know about those?” asked Gus.
“We stole some for the first portal.” Eda answered nonchalantly. Gus nodded, as if that was the expected answer, and ran back to his house. Willow looked to Boscha.
“You wanna help me look?” asked Willow. Boscha just nodded as she started to write something in her Penstagram scroll.
“I’m getting a couple more people to look- I know she’s important to you, so I figure even I don’t necessarily like her all that much-” Boscha said.
“Uh huh, right,” Willow interrupted. “Just help me look.”
Luz felt a pressure change in the strange liquid- as if she was getting deeper, or maybe it was all in her imagination. She glanced around worriedly- the voice had not spoken in some time as she asked it to find a different Luz Noceda to talk to. “Hello?” she asked in a timid voice. She was expecting something- anything by now, and yet it was not happening.
“Hello!” she heard her voice ring out through the abyss, although it sounded ever slightly different. Far bubblier.
“You’re me, right?” asked Luz, curious at the new impression of her that this dimension was trying to do.
“I’m me. I’m the Luz Noceda inside of Camila Noceda.” the voice answered her back, although the answer hit her like a ton of bricks.
“No… no… don’t…” Luz replied, nervous. “I don’t… want to talk to that Luz Noceda.”
“Why would that be?” asked the voice, in a tone Luz could not possibly discern. “I’m you, why are you afraid of me?”
“I’m afraid of how my mom sees me… she doesn’t understand me, she understands me the least out of anyone I know…” Luz said, choking.
“Do you not love your mother? She loves you, she knows you’re strange but she’d rather encourage that than lose you…” the voice replied.
“STOP IT!” screamed Luz, feeling like glass was breaking around her from the impact. She was beginning to cry, her cape whipping around violently. “STOP IT! I DON’T WANT TO BE TOLD I’M STRANGE OR WEIRD!” Bubbles in the fluid around her were formed around her, popping and swimming away from her energetic breakdown.
“That’s not a bad thing, why do you think it is?” asked the voice. “She finds it endearing, she wanted to save the objects that represented it when Vee was going to throw it away.”
Luz covered her eyes, just sobbing still as she curled up into a ball. “I… I feel so stupid already, please just go away…” she said between tears, feeling an emotional pain in her chest. “JUST GO AWAY!”
“She feels vindicated, you know. Vee went to that camp, and I know from your other selves that if you knew there was going to be people like that there, you might have gone… you chose a different path. It feels so small and insignificant, doesn’t it? All of the Boiling Isles adventures you’ve had- the only way Belos became dangerous, the reason Eda lost her powers, everything… you’ve only made things worse, haven’t you?” the voice stated.
“WHO ARE YOU?” Luz screamed, demanding more answers, in absolute hysterics. She knew some of those things weren’t entirely true as in she had felt them in the past but had been able to work through it, but the damning truths were not something she could deal with.
“I’m you.” the voice gave its same answer.
“Why are you so intent on making me miserable?!” Luz said, huffing with her whole chest as she felt herself rotate in the abyss. “Don’t you understand that I can’t go back home? That I can’t go back to mom? Why tell me all this? Why torment me like this?”
The voice merely laughed in a echoey way. “I’m not saying anything that’s not true.”
Luz hissed and breathed out heavily, forming her hands into fists. “You’re not saying anything nice, either.”
“I would if you let me.” the voice replied, and Luz just let everything go in a single moment, feeling utterly gob smacked by the truth of that. She went quiet- she just didn’t want to talk any more.
“Thank you two for coming on short notice, I figured if anyone had spare magical doohickeys that do nothing and are worth parting with, it’d be my mother.” Eda said, giving a sly laugh as she hooked her arm around her mom. Lilith hissed a little.
“She was just trying to help you- far more attention than she ever gave me.” Lilith replied.
“Now, now, you two, I’m making up for that time now for you, Lilith, and Eda, I appreciate that you’re trying to give all these useless items some secondary use. It’s… your kid in there, isn’t it?” Gwendolyn spoke, looking to Eda.
“Well, she’s not really mine,” Eda said. “It’s not kidnapping but… I dunno, it’s complicated. I certainally see her as such, but like, I know she’s not. She has a mother that loves her. At least, that’s what I’ve been told, I’m not sure what kid runs off for an extended adventure in a magical realm where she does a bunch of homework she sucks at.”
“Luz works hard, don’t chide her…” King said, still wrapped around Eda’s leg like a house arrest bracelet. Eda rolled her eyes.
“I’m not. It’s just… well, I guess the only kid I legally for sure have is this little goober right here, but even then, I only raised him.” Eda clarified.
“I understand, it’s all very complicated and confusing.” Gwendolyn asserted. “I did like that girl though… she was always very willing to help and clarify- without her perspective I just merely saw the curse as something to be cured… now I see it as my daughters’ unique strengths.” Eda couldn’t help but smile- her words rung true, Luz was a very special person. She was wrong on it being complicated and confusing though- was it not enough to just a deep bond and a sense of purpose? Even if Eda could never really be her mother, she sure felt like it and Raine was able to see through it.
Raine… she needed to change subjects quick. Thinking about it really would put a damper on things.
“You unlock harpy form, Lilith?” asked Eda.
“Harpy… what?” asked Lilith as she tossed a supposedly enchanted hairbrush to the door construction site that really just gave Eda more gray hairs than she was already growing at time. Some “curse lifter” that turned out to be.
“Ah, well, Hooty can help you with that while you’re in town…” Eda replied. “We’re just about done constructing this thing…” she noted to herself. “…I sure hope it works.”
Luz felt her hands clasp together as she buried her head down, arching to whatever felt like down at the time. She was at a low point. She felt like she was here for hours and every second felt like torture- she couldn’t even contact anyone through cubes, she was in the deep end of this dimension, only able to talk to herself.
“Hey, other Luz… if that’s what you call yourself…” she asked in the open air. “…you said there are other Luz Nocedas, right? What’s the Luz Noceda that exists inside of Amity Blight?”
“The Luz who exists in Amity Blight is a very idealized state of yourself. A genuine person who is willing to do whatever she can for her, loves her without question or uses her, the traits she truly values.” the voice replied. “Yet, not without flaw. She originally saw you as a try-hard no magic wizard, but her value in you softened as she realized you were genuinely trying your best and that it was unfortunate circumstances that she met you under. The value you saw was what she wanted to see and believe about herself- that someone who puts in the hard work can stand on their own without a prestigious family name to hold them up.”
“Don't worry, you always have a way of sneaking into people's hearts.” She heard Amity’s voice echo through the abysss.
“Amity?!” Luz said in a blur of excitement.
“A memory… don’t get too excited.” the voice elaborated.
“You lost! You cheated! Say it! Say you're not a witch!” Amity’s voice rang through the emptiness. A memory from a more tumultuous time- yet it still stung.
“I am a witch now… one of the best now…” Luz replied. “…but what does it matter when I can’t bring that talent to the human realm? My magic doesn’t work outside the Boiling Isles…”
“Humans have no magical ability. But I doubt that'll stop you.” Amity’s voice rung out.
“Wait… yeah, that’s right, that’s always been right…” Luz commented. “She always thought I could do it, she knew I was stubborn by nature…”
“Is that a good thing?” asked the voice.
“I think it is… I’m just me, most people who understand me generally like me…” Luz thought allowed.
“Is it everyone’s best interest to understand you then? When you act out in strange ways and generally complicate their lives?” the voice asked.
“Yes… the inner Luz in Eda would understand.” Luz replied.
“You think throwing your life away is gonna help me? Well, it won't. You helped me find King's crown when you barely knew me. You saved me from turning to stone and you even got me talking to my sister again. So, unfortunately for you, my life is pretty great, because I'm friends with Luz, the human.” Eda’s voice rang out as a memory, echoing through the dark abyss. Luz smiled a little bit, lifting her head up.
“Are you aware then, that she was going to throw her life away in the name of stopping a couple of the Coven Leaders?” asked the voice.
“Uh, they're not mine, mine. Well, it doesn't matter. They both have real families to return to.” Eda’s voice rang out- this was not her memory, but it informed Eda’s version of Luz.
“She… would never say that. She would never abandon us. She didn’t-” Luz asserted, she didn’t know where that had come from, she knew she was missing context. “You have no idea what you’re talking about, you malformed voice.”
“I’m just you.” the voice said one more time.
“I promise.” A memory of Luz- from not too long ago.
“What did you really mean by this? What do you consider your real home, Luz Noceda?” asked the voice.
“This was what it was all about?” asked Luz, throwing her arms up.
“Answer the question, Luz.” the voice seemed to beg.
“Get me out of here. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want be alone.” Luz said.
“ANSWER THE QUESTION, LUZ!” it started to scream and hiss like a steam pipe.
“It’s so cold… it’s really no use fighting any more. I’m so tired… of everything…” Luz said, feeling her eyes lull. She felt no fright, no anger, no emotion at all- she was genuinely just beginning to cave into herself.
“ANSWER US!” screeched the voice.
“What does it matter if I have no way to make the actual choice you’re asking me to make? I’ve been stuck here forever…” Luz retorted. In the face of oblivion, she curled up and could no longer hear her own voice- see her own self- the waves of the mirror dimension curling around her.
Hooty pulled the last of the wire required for the door together. “I volunteer to go in.” Amity said as Eda tore off a finger from the soaked glove, taken from Amity’s snow wear.
“Absolutely not, Boots. I don’t need another child going missing.” Eda stated. “You think you have some kind of right to save her, but I’m here to tell you that it’s not going to be enough. I’m the most powerful witch on the boiling isles and for all intents and purposes, her mother here, I’m doing it.” She gave everyone involved a look- a look that told everyone there not to argue back, as she wrapped the rope around her waist and cinched it tight.
King clung tighter to Eda. “I don’t want you to go.”
Eda shook her head. “I’m sorry little buddy, but you’re going to have let me go for just a minute, okay? It won’t take long. Now, Lilith!”
She shook her leg and King stayed fastened on- Eda knew she would have to let him off rough, no matter how nice she said it. She twisted her leg off and hobbled towards the portal as Lilith began to pedal in the bathtub generator.
She ran towards the door as Willow, Gus, Amity, Boscha, King, Hooty, Gwendolyn, and Owlbert tugged on it tight, to keep her tethered to her home. She waved her hand as the leg returned to her body, just in time to reconnect as she sank through the black visage of the portal door, which was already dented in at the frame by it’s own multiversal weight.
She sank through the strange new dimension and with the rope tightly fastened around her waist, looking around in the dark abyss. She knew not to float towards the surface- she knew that her and King pulling her through would have probably put her in this space and not the above ground mirrored dimension. Something instinctual- maternal just told her that.
After flailing around for a bit, she knew she had no other choice if she wanted to find Luz fast. She closed her eyes, winding up in her head with the Owl Beast which was laying on a nest of vole skeletons. “I need to transform.” The Owl Beast nodded it’s head, agreeing to the deal with no strings attached, and Eda woke up transformed in her Harpy form.
She swam quicker with the extra limbs attached to her back, and her vision could give out a heat signature not too far ahead. When she felt detached rope, she knew she had found her. She yanked it close to her as Luz limply hanged onto the other end.
“Shhh… momma’s here… momma’s here…” Eda said, wrapping around Luz’s cold body. She couldn’t tell if Luz was breathing, although she did have a pulse. She tugged hard at the rope, feeling it pull her back as she held onto Luz for dear life.
The entire force of the family pulled back for Eda and Luz, yanking them through the light at the bottom of the dark pool, and they arrived on dirt ground, Eda barely able to fit through the door, but the force was strong enough that it was barely a issue. Eda sat on her hands and knees, looking to Lilith.
“This is Harpy form, by the way.” Eda said, to a shocked Lilith.
“LUZ!” Amity said as she ran to her right side, looking to the sleeping Luz. She held her hand- she was in a very deep sleep that she was beginning to slowly wake out of, looking to Gus and Willow who had come by her left side, giving her a wave.
“Amity…” Luz said quietly before looking at the red skies. “I’m back home…”
She smiled softly, although her gut still felt wrong, knowing she made a promise to her mom that she honestly was now more sure than ever that she could not keep.