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Willow and Gus were avoiding her. It was frustrating; all day they’d been skirting around her questions and attempts to confront them about their unusually skittish behavior. They told each other everything—why was this time different? Luz had briefly worried she’d done something to upset Willow, who tended to still be sore about how much time she was spending with Amity.
Luz understood where the witch was coming from, she’d be upset if her best friend started dating her ex-bully too. But, if that was the case, why was Gus avoiding her? Gus was brutally honest about his feelings; he wore his heart on his sleeve. Willow was more closed off, but Gus was always willing to play middleman if a miscommunication occurred. Even worse, when she’d asked them about wanting to sit together at lunch, the two came up with some on-the-spot excuse about having detention. Luz loved her friends, but they were terrible liars.
But she didn’t push. Luz let them go.
The human poked her PB&J, sighing. She didn’t like being ignored.
Fridays were usually her favorite day of the week. She loved Hexside—don’t get her wrong—more than she’d ever loved school, but on Fridays, as soon as school let out, Willow and Gus would follow her back to the Owl House. There, they’d begin their usual ritual of eating far too much junk food and watching crappy Boiling Isles reality TV. It was fun, it was their chance to put aside all their worries, about school, about magic, about getting home, and let loose.
Their distance made Luz think her friends weren’t willing to hang out that night.
A plastic tray gently found a place next to her, and Luz let her eyes wander upward to land on the face of her girlfriend. She smiled, worries abandoned, and focus turned toward Amity, who nervously pulled a string of lavender hair from her face, a pale blush creeping over her nose and tinging her face.
“Are Willow and Gus joining us?” She spoke formally, a trait the witch often defaulted to when trying to hide how flustered she was.
The question made Luz frown, and she let her head fall against the lunch table. “They’ve got better things to do.”
Amity nodded, taking Luz’s hand under the table, and hesitantly letting their fingers intertwine. “I guess they would be busy, what, with the party, they’re planning and all.”
“…Party?”
The purple-haired witch made a small face, “You didn’t know? Gus has been talking my ear off all day about it.” She conjured her scroll to show her girlfriend, gesturing to the dozens of unread penstagram messages she’d likely chosen to ignore.
“The two of them have been insufferable today, how am I supposed to know the difference between Pep Ph.D. and Dr Fizz? And what in Titan’s name is a clown.” She threw up her hands, irritated, before resigning to letting them sit crossed over her chest.
Luz shrugged, still staring at the number of messages, “Pep tastes kinda like barbecue sauce if it was carbonated, Dr Fizz is sweeter, bubblier, and by far the better soda. And clowns are a staple of every good party.”
Amity looked slightly baffled, like she wasn’t expecting Luz to have an opinion either, then gently took her scroll back to rapidly text a message to Gus.
“…What’s the party for?” The words came out muffled, and slightly anxious. She wanted to help, she was a great party planner—Willow knew that, Gus knew that, why were they leaving her out?
“Oh,” Amity was stilly texting, “I think Gus’s birthday is coming up.”
“WHAT?” Luz slammed her hands on the cafeteria table, startling Amity and bringing the attention of the rest of the lunchroom to both of them, various Hexside students glaring or staring, judgingly.
Amity gently brought her hands to Luz’s shoulders, pulling the human back into her seat and nervously laughing. Said human leaned in, close, raising a hand to her mouth to whisper.
“What do you mean Gus’s birthday is coming up?” She was his friend; she should be an expert in these kinds of things! No wonder he and Willow had been avoiding her, they probably didn’t want to break the news to her that she had forgotten one of her best friends’ birthday.
“The party is this weekend,” Amity supplied, mimicking her girlfriend’s hushed tone. “They’ve been sending out invitations on penstagram all day.”
She turned her scroll toward Luz again, this time, a fun-looking, brightly colored invitation with a doodle drawing of Gus throwing confetti, sprawled across her penstagram dashboard. The specific details were cut out, but she could see that Amity was right—the party was this Saturday.
A small knot formed in Luz’s stomach. She couldn’t get a scroll—they were too intertwined with witch magic, and without a bile sack, it was hard to get one. Normally, if she really wanted to see what was going on, she’d ask Eda to borrow hers, but she didn’t have one of her own. Gus knew that, so did Willow. Did they not want her there? Why wouldn’t they give out invitations in person? Why were they hiding this from her?
She slumped onto the table, burying her face in her arms.
“I guess, well—” Amity faltered, catching up on her girlfriend’s sudden deflation, “It is his thirteenth birthday.”
Luz cringed.
“No, no,” Her girlfriend continued, “It’s his thirteenth birthday, Luz.”
She stared, blankly. “I don’t get what you mean. Why are you saying ‘thirteenth’ like that?”
“Oh shoot,” Amity face-palmed, a pointed ear twitching, “Of course you wouldn’t have the thirteenth, I forget how fragile humans are.”
“Hey,” Luz dragged out the word, scowling, “We’re not fragile, we’re just not meant to digest fairies or survive boiling water.”
Her girlfriend snickered, “Like I said, fragile. Anyways, when a witch turns thirteen, you have to go through some… trials.”
“I like trials,” Luz mumbled.
Amity smiled, fondly, then grimaced, “They’re not fun trials, Luz. A witch’s thirteenth birthday is said to be cursed; you have to spend the day with bad luck, and if you manage to survive, at the end of the day you can throw a party, celebrating your ability to wield magic and become a real witch. It’s a rite of passage.”
She ‘oohed’, “That sounds cool. Why wouldn’t Gus tell me about it?”
The purple-haired girl made a face, “I’m not sure. You’re perfectly capable of taking care of yourself, even if you are… squishy. I’m confident in your ability to survive the death threats of a thirteenth.”
Resting her chin in the palm of her hand, Luz grumbled. “Thank you.”
She moped the rest of the school day.
When her final class came, and the last bell screamed, Luz sulked, taking her time to put away her spell books and potions, slowly zipping her bag and slowly tucking away her pencils. She wasn’t looking forward to walking home alone.
Her feet felt heavy, footsteps echoing down the bustling hallway as other students excitedly talked about their weekend plans. She tried to ignore every whisper of ‘party’, flipping her cowl up to hide her face. Normally, Luz didn’t mind people staring. At home, she got enough of it already, but in the Boiling Isles, being the only human around made her feel… important.
She didn’t feel important right now.
Her hand gently pushed the front door of the school open, light momentarily blinding her as her eyes got adjusted to the outdoors.
“Luz!” An excited voice called her name, forcing her head to instinctively turn toward the offending noise.
Suddenly, two bodies were tackling her, and Luz found herself toppling to the ground.
“Ohmigosh, are you okay?” A very frantic Gus clambered from their pile of entangled limbs, pushing himself and Willow off of Luz.
“Wha—Gus? Willow? What are you guys doing here?” She blinked a few times, rubbing at the arm she had stupidly hit on the stone ground. Dumb human arms, always getting injured. “I thought you would’ve been getting ready for the party.”
They both cringed.
“Oh… you found out about that?” Willow fiddled with the hem of her skirt, looking away from the human’s face.
Luz felt her face get hot. She was not going to cry about this. Absolutely not. “Of course, I found out! What I wanna know is why my two best friends decided I’m not cool enough to go to their really scary thirteenth birthday party? I know Gus has to go through dangerous trials, and like, prove himself and whatever, but I’m tough! I can take it.”
Gus looked between her and Willow, as if debating whether he should say something. A beat of silence passed.
“Of course, I want you at my party,” the younger witch finally spoke, “actually, that’s what we were coming to talk to you about—”
He scratched the back of his neck, pausing briefly.
“Eda told us that humans don’t have bad luck rituals on their thirteenth birthday, so we—well—we may have—”
“It’s a double party!” Willow interrupted, face quickly turning bright pink. “Sorry, sorry! I’ve been dying of anticipation all day.”
She pulled a rolled-up parchment from her bag, unfurling it to show Luz an edited version of Gus’s party invitation. This one included a small doodle of Luz as well as Gus, both donning matching party hats and throwing confetti. At the bottom, the date and time were clearly listed.
Saturday, 9:00 pm, The Owl House.
Luz’s eyes widened, a large grin forming on her face.
“You guys!” She d’awwed, pulling them into a group hug.
“We didn’t want you to miss out, and Eda said you’d be able to handle all the bad luck just fine, and King’s okay with it as long as we bubble-wrap you, and we didn’t want to miss your birthday in case you had to go home before we can celebrate—” Gus cut his own rambling off, taking a breath.
“We got a clown!” Willow laughed, excitedly clapping.
Gus nodded enthusiastically, repeating her, “We got a clown!”
“Is this why you were texting Amity all those weird questions?”
Her friends both gasped, Gus especially offended, “I wanted to be as accurate as possible, the party is human-themed after all. Amity wasn’t supposed to tell you about it! That’s the point of a surprise party.”
“Eda was setting up pre-birthday decorations at the Owl House for tonight’s sleepover,” Willow added.
“Sleepover?” Luz repeated, awestruck. “Oh, my Azura, you guys are the best.”
The three kids hugged again, laughing about their birthday schemes. Human or not, Luz should’ve known better than to think her best friends would exclude her like that.
This was going to be the best Friday ever.