Chapter Text
“Ugh. It’s too early.” Eda mumbled as she rolled out of bed. Shuffling into her pair of slippers. As she gave a wide yawn.
She’d been getting a crappy amount of sleep lately. She’d made her peace with the owl demon for a very long time. So there had to be something else in her life that made it impossible for her to close her eyes for twenty dang minutes.
The kids weren’t the problem. King and Luz rarely did anything headache-inducing while everyone was busy rebuilding. Her partner wasn’t the problem. After the two made up, their relationship finally seemed to be on track. So nothing sleep depriving there. It definitely wasn’t her homemade apple blood (she could practically live off the stuff).
“I need coffee…” she mumbled to herself. And so Eda shuffled down the stairs in her nightrobe and slippers. When she got down to the final step, she had to take a double take for a moment.
Luz, King, and Raine were all in the room. Standing in a line with awkward smiles and a seemingly mutual expression that Eda knew all too well.
“Okay, what you ding dongs do now?”
“Whaaat gave you that idea,” Luz said, chuckling nervously.
This only made Eda more suspicious. “Okay, kid. Spill the beans. What did you do?”
King chimed in, shuffling his feet as he spoke. “Well, you definitely shouldn’t look in the kitchen. Definitely not in there.”
Eda looked at the three of them still standing there, acting like they were hiding something. After a moment, she glared at them before walking over to the other room. “Yeah. Imma check the kitchen.”
That’s when a shower of confetti rained down on top of her, and everyone started blowing party horns. The rest of Luz’s friends were there too. Gus was waving some flags. Hunter was holding up a stack of presents, ready to fall at any moment. Mrs. Noceda and Vee were holding out a delicious plate of something she had to guess was her breakfast. Meanwhile, Willow’s vines were holding up a giant banner.
Then all at once, they shouted, “HAPPY BIRTHDAY, EDA!”
The owl lady looked at everything with surprise and delight. Her tiredness was gone as she now felt underdressed yet proud that the kids managed to pull one over on her.
“Surprise! We were up all morning putting this together for you!” Luz was ecstatic and honked her horn again with emphasis.
“I can see that! Huh. Can’t believe I forgot my own birthday.” Eda said with a snort of laughter before fully joining the festivities.
Luz and the others had gotten up at four in the morning to prepare this surprise for Eda. Everyone was doing their best to make it as perfect as possible. Even though there was still much to do in repairing the isles, Eda hadn’t had a birthday with family in so long. Now she had a lot more family and friends to share it with.
They sat her down at the table where King came up to her with a little birthday card, he’d made himself. It was all of them together. And gosh darn it, it nearly made her burst into tears.
They were all such a sappy bunch.
Luz and King especially. She couldn’t imagine life without those two kiddos. Maybe they could all catch a break for a change.
“Man. Normally, something freaky and weird happens on my birthday. At least after all the craziness this past year, maybe it’ll be a normal day.” Eda said with a laugh.
Oh, Titan. She just jinxed herself, didn’t she?
…
It was dark where he was. And it was cold. At least he didn’t feel the pain of the boiling rains coming down on him anymore—or stamping feet.
He should’ve known that wouldn’t work.
Still, it was at least an attempt.
Now he lay. Floating in a space with jagged walls, an endless pool of darkness that felt like a warm bath… though he couldn’t sink below the water’s surface. Like a force was holding him above water despite feeling so very heavy. There were all sorts of cubes floating around too. Spiraling with glowing colors, yet no light seemed to emanate from it. Instead, it gave off a feeling of light rather than the light itself.
He reached out a hand to touch one. Finding it hard to suppress his latent curiosity.
Before he could make contact with the cube nearest him, it floated just far enough that he couldn’t touch it. Just like everything else, it was too far out of reach. Happiness never seemed to be obtainable.
Phillip should’ve been angry. Furious. He should’ve been cursing the heavens for his failures. But, instead, he just… felt numb. Alone. And he hated to admit it, but he was scared. Scared of this place and the unknown. He just wanted to curl up and disappear under the waves.
Then just as he started to sink, the whispers of a familiar voice brought back all his emotions—mostly negative ones. The words were jumbled and hardly intelligible, but it was unmistakable. It was no one other than his brother, Caleb.
“Come to gloat, have you? We’ll come on out with it… let’s just get this over with.” He said, closing his eyes. Only to hear footsteps coming toward him.
“No, Phillip. This is not the end for you.” A booming voice proclaimed as a figure stepped forward. It was hard to see who or what was standing close to him on the floor. He quickly stood up to see when he felt the presence of something come closer to him.
It wasn’t his brother before him but a cloaked figure. A massive one. It towered over him like the looming figure of death.
“You can’t be ….” His mouth went dry as he struggled to find the words to say. That voice. Even heavily disguised.
“Eda Clawthorne?” He said, confused until the figure removed her cloak.
The red-headed laughed as she spoke in a much more normal-sounding voice. “Actually, it’s Evelyn. But Eva works nicely too.”
This was an even greater shock to Phillip. But there was no mistaking it. Her fiery red hair, those eyes, even her voice. “You! But how can you - you’re dead! I made sure of it!”
Evelyn raised an eyebrow and scoffed. “Geez, is that any way to talk to your sister-in-law?”
“You’re no sister of mine, nuptial or otherwise! You stole my brother and turned him to your wild wicked ways. You! You’re the vilest of all those forsaken witches.”
“After all these years, you still believe that old junk, huh? No wonder Caleb could never pass on.”
The witch’s words stuck a painful cord with Phillip, who did his best to suppress his tears. Then, in anger, he gritted his teeth and pointed an accusatory finger at her, grimacing. “If it wasn’t for you, my brother’s soul would never have been in jeopardy. You took him and me from our home, stranding us here in this ill-begotten place! I did everything to try to save humanity. But time and time again, I was punished for it! It was always you!”
“You nearly done? Cause, unfortunately, we don’t have too much time to talk.” She pointed to his feet where his ankles had begun to sink. The dark water crept up on him. As much as he wanted to slip beneath the deep, something told him that he wouldn’t want to do that if he wanted any chance of making it out alive.
He pulled them back reflexively and glared back at her with crossed arms. “Is this another half-baked attempt from my brother to make me feel remorse for what I’ve done?”
“No, actually, this one is all me.” She admitted as she grabbed a nearby cube to look at it. “I know about everything you’ve done, Phillip. And in some ways, I’m responsible. As much as Caleb feels you can’t be saved, he doesn't want to give up on you. That’s why he isn’t able to move on and rest. He’s been stuck in limbo all this time, waiting for you to see the error of your ways.”
“Hmpf, the error in my ways….” Phillip said, looking at his feet.
She gave a soft smile and knelt in her towering form. “Listen. I came here because I want you and your brother to be at peace. And we both know that will never happen if you keep this up. If you leave now, you and your brother may never be reunited. And I can’t sit by and let that happen.”
“So, what. You want to help the witch hunter now? The one you cursed?”
“Yeah! With this.” The witch’s closed fist unfurled to reveal two tiny white blossoms.
A faint golden glow, like the light spell from the glyphs, surrounded the two blooms. It was unique from any other flower he’d seen on Earth or the Boiling Isles. It was not too dissimilar from bluebells in shape, but instead of a tube, it seemed to be an infinite number of petals tightly packed together to form the same shape. One levitated up out of her hand and towards Phillip.
“What are you doing?”
“Say Ahh.”
“I will not say-” Midway through his sentence, the witch pinched his nose, forcing his mouth open in a gasp. The flower levitated into his mouth and forced its way down his throat. She released her grip as he sputtered and coughed. “Augh! What was that!”
“Saving your ungrateful butt. That’s what.” Evelyn laughed as she placed the other flower in his hand. “Here. Don’t forget this. You’ll have to keep this one with you to find the answers when you go back.”
“Go back? You mean…”
“Yep. That flower I just gave you will give you a second chance at life. But with a few conditions.”
“What kind of conditions?” Phillip said, glaring at the witch in front of him.
Out of thin air, she produced a list of parchments (as a joke, he presumed) and read each item individually. “First thing first. It will remove your previous curse, but due to the flower’s properties, it will cast a new one in its place. So, you’ll have to break it if you want to keep living. The only way to do that is to do three things. First, receive forgiveness from the people you’ve wronged. Second, forgive your brother and apologize. Foremost, to realize the error of your ways before time runs out.”
Phillip would never do that in a million years, but her last few words puzzled him. “Time, what are you-”
“Ah bup bup. Not finished. Another thing is that the flower’s spell can have funny side effects, especially on humans, from what I’ve been told. So don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Phillip interjected once again as she shuffled down the list. “I did not agree to this!”
“Lastly. You will need magic to survive. Suppose you try to get it by hurting any witches or palismen. This will only cause the curse’s effect to speed up. So you’ll need to rely on others to help you survive.” Evelyn said before putting the list away. “I think that’s everything I can tell.”
“Do I get a choice in any of this?!” He let out his frustration through words though his target seemed unphased by it all.
The witch raised her brow and crossed her arms as she gave him a certain look. “I think you know what the answer to that is already.”
Suddenly he started floating up. He grabbed onto Evelyn’s arm to stop himself but could not. He saw her finger creating a golden ring of magic that seemed to form a bubble around him. Slowly but surely, his grip slipped. He was enveloped by the bubble he floated further and further up. Phillip shot one last glance at the witch who simply stood there. Smiling with tears as he floated back.
“This is your last chance, Phillip. Please don’t let us down…” She whispered softly to him before she simply vanished from view.
Then there was a bright flash of white light as he was thrust back.
…
Phillip woke up on his back near the base of a grassy knoll. A group of confused and startled witchlings looked down at him.
Where was he now?
He could hear the birds chirping. The soft rumble of distant waves. The horrible screeching of some beast and odd metallic creaking. Phillip lifted his head slowly. Sitting up and looking around him to see himself in the center of a children’s playground.
Then he felt a pair of small feet connect with his back as a child on a swing hurtle into him. Landing him face-first into the dirt.
This did not bode well for him.