Chapter Text
“Barely awake, I let precious time go by/Then when she's gone/There's that odd melancholy feeling/And a sense of guilt I can't deny/What happened to the wonderful adventures/The places I had planned for us to go?”
‘Slipping Through My Fingers’ by ABBA
-
Things are not as peachy in the Noceda household as Camila had thought they would be.
To be fair, the reunion was about as dramatic as she expected. Luz sprinting up the sidewalk, the cloak she was wearing billowing out behind her. The feeling of her daughter, her baby, crashing into her after months. Camila remembers it as one of the happiest moments of her life, trying to wrap herself around her daughter as if she could shut the rest of the world out and crying hot tears into Luz’s hair. Pure euphoria, the kind Camila has only ever known from holding her baby girl in her arms.
The joy, however, doesn't last. Camila is ecstatic to have her daughter home, but for Luz, it seems to fizzle out within the first few days. By the end of the first week, she had slipped from excitement to moping on the mood scale, picking at her meals and zoning out whenever she wasn’t engaged.
She wasn’t very forthcoming with the details, either, simply replying with a shrug each time she was asked. The answer was always a soft “I just miss my friends,” followed by a hollow silence or a change in topic.
It leaves Camila at a loss for what to do. She tried everything she could think of: making Luz’s favorite foods, taking her to their favorite places, anything to get a real smile on her daughter’s face. No matter what she did, though, the moments of happiness always seemed fleeting, slipping away the moment Luz did or saw something that reminded her of the Demon Realm she’d spent the summer in.
It wasn’t like she’d been completely cut off from the other side of the portal. Luz had come back with some sort of “scroll,” their equivalent of a cell phone that allowed her to text the friends she’d made while she was there. Honestly, sometimes Camila felt like the only time she ever saw her child really light up was when she was on the thing.
Still, even the ability to keep some sort of contact doesn't seem to be able to stop the funk Luz is in. When nothing else works, Camila decides it’s time to take a step back, give her daughter time to process the complicated emotions she must be feeling.
Everything reaches a head two and a half weeks after Luz returns. Almost dead on her feet after a twelve hour shift, Camila comes home to find Vee on the couch watching TV, with Luz nowhere to be found.
That is, until she starts up the staircase. The sound of crying reaches her ears once she hits the final stair at the top. When she follows it, she finds the door to her daughter’s bedroom cracked open. Inside is Luz, curled up in her bed with the covers drawn around her. Even from a distance, she can see the tears in her eyes.
“Luz?” She asks, catching the girl’s attention. “What’s wrong?”
Luz sniffles, drawing in a shaky breath. “They’re— they’re closing the portal,” she says, voice barely above a whimper. “Willow said… she said it’s too unstable. They need to close it now so it doesn't break, in case— in case they need it in an emergency.”
In that moment, Camila feels like an awful mother, a terrible person, because the first thing she feels is relief. Relief that the portal is closing, that her daughter can’t disappear off to another realm without a trace once more. Without the portal, Luz is safe here, among humans. With her mother.
The relief, however, tastes guilty, because she knows that her daughter is grieving. She doesn't understand much about the portal, or it’s connection between the two realms, but she knows that it being open is the key to Luz maintaining communication with her friends. Without it, there’s no way for her to send messages back and forth, or pass through letters. She’d be, effectively, cut off.
A long moment passes before Camila realizes that she’s been so caught up in her own thoughts, she’d forgotten to respond. “ Mija, I’m so sorry,” she says.
“I know,” Luz says, but there isn’t any heart in it.
“Cariño—”
“Can I just be alone now?”
Luz doesn't wait for a response, turning over in bed and pulling the blankets further over her body, enough to cover her head. Camila watches on for a few moments before she leaves, closing the door behind her with a soft sigh.
The day Luz came home was the happiest day of her life. She’s beginning to realize that she’s the only one in their house who feels that way.
-
The portal closes, and Luz withdraws into herself further.
There’s a strange sort of tension in the house. Vee becomes skittish whenever the other girl is around, often making herself scarce in Luz’s presence. Camila herself can’t figure out how to diffuse it, and between the truth of what happened this summer and the insane hours she’s been working lately, she can’t come up with a way to broach the divide.
She wonders if Luz resents her for it all. Trying to send her to Reality Check, making her promise to stay in the Human Realm. The thought cuts deep, but she can’t manage to push it from her mind. After all, except for the conversation they’d had in the rain before Luz came back, the two of them haven’t even discussed Reality Check.
Another recent development alongside the tension is Luz’s sudden attachment to her Good Witch Azura series. It seems most times she finds her around the house and outside of her room, she’s got an installment from the series somewhere within arms reach. It’s not that Camila’s never seen her daughter with these before, considering that it was her favorite series, but it’s never been quite like this. Wherever Luz is, the books are close in hand.
It takes her days to realize it, but Camila is scared . She’s watched Luz grow up her whole life, and she’s seen it all. Seen Luz happy, seen her anxious, seen her angry. But, in all fourteen and a half years of her daughter’s life, she has never seen her seem so defeated.
She knows that she needs to do something, but the past month has left her at a loss, with no idea of where to turn or what to do. So Camila says nothing, watching as her daughter floats around the house like a ghost, and prays for a change.
-
The Demon Realm, of course, refuses to be forgotten, and comes knocking. Literally.
The whole family is home when there’s a rapping at the door, but from her spot in the living room, Camila is the only one to hear it. Expecting door-to-door salesman, or somebody else she’s going to have to shoo away, she gets up to answer it.
When she cracks open the door, however, she’s faced with two women, neither of which she recognizes. The first of them is dressed a little reserved, and her long hair is dark and neat, while the second sticks out like a sore thumb. Strange clothes and large hair, white and wild. They’re both tall, with pale skin, and—
Oh. Pointed ears.
She’s so taken aback by the sight of them, and the realization of where they must be from, that she almost misses the smaller girl hanging half a step behind the pair. Her outfit isn’t as strange as the white-haired woman’s, but it seems odd, and it takes Camila a minute to place it as the same thing that Luz was wearing when she came home. The only difference is that the pieces underneath the cloak are all one solid shade of green, while Luz had come home draped in all sorts of colors. She’s also the first one to react to Camila, offering a nervous smile and a small raise of a hand that must be a little wave.
It’s what reminds Camila that she hasn’t said anything since she’s opened the door, and that they’ve all been standing in silence for several seconds. “Hello,” she says, tentative. “Can I help you?”
She doesn't ask who they are, but they tell her anyway. “We’re friends of Luz,” the more eccentric woman says.
Camila raises an eyebrow. “Is there something we can do for you?”
“We need to talk to her about something,” she explains. “About one of her friends.”
“Please,” the other woman implores. “It’s important.”
Camila pauses to consider it, before she opens the door with a sigh. “You can come inside,” she tells them. “I’ll get Luz.”
A part of her, the protective instinct that was born the first time she saw two pink lines on a pregnancy test, screams at her. Why are you letting them into your home? You don’t know anything about them! What if they take her back?
Despite the anxiety that starts to scratch at her chest, Camila does nothing to stop them as they walk inside. Perhaps she should, considering she’s inviting people who are strangers to her into her home, allowing them to talk to her daughter, but she holds herself back. What would Luz say if her mother dismissed her friends from the Demon Realm without even allowing the girl to say hello?
“You guys can wait here,” she says, instead. “I’ll call her down.”
One of them answers with a hum, noncommittal, and Camila turns her attention to the stairs up to the second floor. Luz had disappeared to her room after coming home from school, and hasn’t reappeared yet, as per usual these days.
“Luz? Can you come downstairs, ¿mija? ”
The answering call comes a second later, muffled. “I’m not really hungry right now, mami.”
“It’s not for dinner. Can you come on down?”
“Oh. Okay, give me a minute.”
Camila nods, despite the fact that her daughter can’t see her, before she turns her attention on the three witches she’s let into her home. They hover in the middle of the den, hesitant. Except, of course, for the woman who had identified them as friends of Luz. Unlike the other two, she lounges against the wall with her arms folded over her chest as if she isn’t uncomfortable in this space at all. When she meets Camila’s gaze, she offers her a smile, but it looks more like a smirk than anything.
The air between them is awkward, and Camila finds herself unsure of what to do. After all, what’s the protocol for when your daughter’s friends from another realm show up on your doorstep and ask to see her? Should she offer them something to eat? A glass of water?
Do they even drink water?
She’s saved by having to continue pondering it by the footsteps creaking down the stairs, and a flash of brown hair appears. “Yeah, mom?” Luz asks, coming into view. She opens her mouth, likely to speak again, but whatever she was going to say is cut short when she notices the guests standing in the living room.
Camila may not have recognized them, but Luz certainly does. The moment she sees them, her entire face lights up with wonder, and she crosses the distance with lightspeed. “Eda!” She cries, throwing herself into the arms of the woman with the white hair.
Eda.
Camila recognizes the name, of course. In the first couple of days, before the moodiness had set in, Luz had spent all her spare time raving about the adventures she’d had and the people she’d met. The school she’d studied at, the spells she’d learned, the place she’d stayed at. She’d called it the Owl House, and had gone on and on about Eda and King and Hooty. And, of course, there’d been Willow, and Gus and Amity, and some other names that hadn’t been mentioned often enough for her to remember off the top of her head.
Eda, from what she knew, had been the one to take care of her daughter while she was there. Luz had stayed at the woman’s house, learned magic from her, ate her food and brought her problems to the woman, like a—
Camila swallows the thought down as she watches the interaction. There’s care in the way the woman holds her daughter, but she reminds herself that’s not a bad thing. It’s good that somebody cared for Luz while she’s gone. It’s never a bad thing that somebody else loves her daughter.
(Even if, for a moment, it makes her feel replaced.)
The pair hug for a long moment before the woman pulls back, resting a hand on each of Luz’s elbows. “It’s good to see you, kid,” she says, and Luz’s lips pull into a broad grin, her eyes starting to turn a little glassy with welling tears.
“I missed you so much,” she replies. “Did you bring Owlbert? Or King?”
Eda chuckles, ruffling Luz’s hair. “The two of them wouldn’t really blend in here.”
The little witch, who had been the most reserved of them all when she’d entered, starts to bounce up and down on the balls of her feet. The movement catches Luz’s eyes, and she pulls away from Eda.
“Willow!” She shouts, launching herself into the girl. "Oh my gosh, I can’t believe you’re here!”
Willow. This is the one who Luz had described as her best friend. Camila can think of a few basic facts off the top of her head. Willow is the first person her age that Luz met, the one who snuck her into the magic school and studies plant magic. Incredibly sweet, according to her daughter, and pretty smart.
They hug for longer than Luz and Eda did, and once they pull back, Luz immediately starts grilling her about school, and that Grudgby sport she’s mentioned one or twice. She gets through a couple of questions before she seems to remember there’s a third witch in the room, and she turns.
“Hi, Lilith,” she says, and even though the greeting doesn't have the same excitement as the other ones she’s given, the grin she’s wearing doesn't budge.
“Hello, Luz,” the woman with dark hair. “It’s nice to see you.”
“It’s nice to see you!” Luz repeats, placing a heavy emphasis on the last word. “Wow, it’s so cool that you guys are all here! Did you open the portal? Does that mean you fixed it, is it stable now?”
“We’ve been working on it, but it isn’t stable enough to leave open permanently,” Willow explains. “It’s getting a lot better, though. We’re making really good progress!”
“So you opened it just to see me?”
“We did,” Eda confirms.
Luz’s grin only widens, something Camila didn’t think was possible at this point. “Aw, shucks! Is something exciting happening, or did you just miss me?”
Like a light going out, the mood shifts. All three witches, who had been watching Luz with bright eyes only moments ago, are suddenly unable to look at her. For a few, long beats, nobody answers her. As the silence goes on, Luz’s expression starts to drop, twisting from excited to confused to nervous.
“Guys?”
Willow hesitates before she can meet Luz’s gaze, one hand coming up to scratch at her elbow.
“Luz,” she says, voice soft. “It’s about Amity.”
It’s a name that Camila recognizes as one of Luz’s friends, but when her daughter hears it, her eyes go wide. “Amity?” She repeats, panic starting to leak into her voice. “What happened to Amity? Is she okay? Where is she?”
The two women share glances before Eda takes a step towards Luz, crouching down to meet her height, placing a hand on each shoulder. “Kid, I’m gonna tell you what happened, but I need you to be calm, okay?” She says. “Can you do that?”
Luz swallows hard, before she nods, tears starting to well in her eyes.
“Things have been tense since you left,” Eda explains. “Even with the Emperor out of power, the Emperor’s Coven are still around. There’s a lot of reform going on, and they definitely don’t have as much power as they used to, but things aren’t perfect. A little while after you went home, there was a split, of sorts. Members who were still loyal to the Emperor, the ones that haven’t been very happy since he was taken off his throne, have split off and formed their own group. Lately, they’ve been targeting people who they feel weren’t loyal enough, or helped to take him down. And, apparently, Amity’s trip to Eclipse Lake didn’t go as unnoticed as we thought.”
Luz sits through the explanation up to this point, but at the last sentence, she cuts in. “But— but it wasn’t just Amity,” she protests. “There was you, and Lilith, and… and me, and Hunter! Why her? ”
“Hunter was there in an attempt to get the Titan’s Blood for the Emperor, and considering who the Emperor was to him, the outcasts have taken him in with open arms,” Eda says. “And Lilith and I were… expected to rebel against the Emperor, I suppose. But Amity, coming from her family? I guess they considered that more of a betrayal. So they’ve… kidnapped her.”
“Kidnapped?” Luz all but shouts, voice going up half an octave. “They took her? Where is she? Do we know?”
“Hey, hey, breathe,” Eda reminds her, squeezing her shoulders. “We found out where she is earlier today, and we’re going to get her. We are, okay?”
The words are meant to be placating, but it does nothing to lessen the fear swimming in Luz’s eyes. “Where is she?”
Eda hesitates. “The Conformatorium.”
“The Conformatorium?”
Lilith clears her throat, stepping up. “After the Emperor fell, there wasn’t much use for it, and it mostly went abandoned,” she explains. “Considering the castle was no longer a safe space for them, those who’ve split from the Emperor’s Coven have taken it as a ‘base’ of sorts. That’s where Hunter told us they’re keeping Amity.”
“Hunter? Hunter is the one who’s helping us?”
Luz says it with something akin to outrage, but at this moment, Camila feels lost. Hunter is a name that she doesn’t remember her daughter saying even once. Save for the brief mention earlier, she’s never heard this ‘Hunter’ talked about.
The conversation continues, the others blind to Camila’s confusion. “He’s the one helping us get in,” Eda explains. “Something about her not deserving to be treated like a criminal or something.”
“It could be a trap! Why does he even care about Amity?”
“I don’t think so,” Lilith replies. “Apparently, she made quite an impression on him during their trip to Eclipse Lake.”
“And between us, I don’t think the kid is really interested in the whole ‘reestablishment of the Emperor’s ideals’ shtick,” Eda adds. “It seems more like he wants to keep an eye on them than anything.”
Luz blinks, swallows, and nods. “Okay, so Amity’s in the Conformatorium,” she says, a slight shake in her voice. “When are we going to go get her?”
For the past few minutes, Camila has sat there in silence, trying to digest and process all of the information she’s hearing with so little background knowledge. However, at Luz’s words, she feels her heart kick back into spring, an awful feeling of fear rising in her chest. “What?” She exclaims, catching the attention of the entire room. “No. De ninguna manera, there is no way you are going back to— that place!”
The words fly out of her mouth before she can stop them, but when Luz’s eyes flash with betrayal, she thinks she might regret what she’s said.