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Vee had honestly, truly thought Luz would never return. A part of her had even welcomed it. She’d tried to tell herself it was the best option. Everyone would be happy, right? Vee would be happy with a family who loved her, Luz would get to live in her stupid hellhole world, and Mami would have a daughter who did what she expected her to. But she knew in both of her hearts that this was just a deception. Vee didn’t want to give up what she had, to be the one and only recipient of Mami’s love. Going from not having a single soul in the entire universe who loved her to having pure, unconditional love was just an intoxicating experience. And like any intoxicant, it was also addictive. Vee didn’t know how she’d ever be able to give it up.
But now Luz was back. And all the attention that had been lavished upon Vee for months was suddenly back on her. It was as if Vee didn’t even exist. No, it was all about stupid Luz and her stupid problems which she wouldn’t even talk about. Sure, Vee knew they’d gone through a lot, and it was a profound relief to know Belos was dead. But was anybody thinking about Mami? Luz hadn’t thought through the consequences – yet again – of burdening Mami with four new children to raise. And now, Vee wasn’t only going to get half the affection she had before, she’d get a sixth of it, at best! Of course Mami would fawn over her real daughter.
And truly, could Vee blame her? No, she certainly could not. Her guts twisted inside of her to think of all the manifold lies she’d told since returning from camp. Her every word was a deception, carefully calculated to keep Mami from getting suspicious, from realizing she wasn’t Luz, to gain Mami’s love under false pretenses. Even after her lie had been exposed, Vee had tried to act as similar to Luz as possible, so as not to upset Mami and jeopardize her place in the Noceda household.
Vee had planned on broaching the topic of her status in the household after dinner, after everyone had gone to bed. But then she’d walked down the stairs and saw Mami hunched over her checkbook, worry written all over her face. A gigantic feeling of guilt surged through Vee. Mami had enough to worry about with her real family, her actual daughter and her friends without having to deal with some weird basilisk imposter. No, it was long past time Vee stopped infringing on Mami’s hospitality. It was the least she could do. So she trudged upstairs and left her to it.
Vee waited until the middle of the night – the time ironically labeled as the witching hour – before she made her move. She didn’t have much she owned in the world. Some clothes, a few comic books, some trophies from camp. Everything else was Luz’s. Everything else, Vee had stolen from Luz. She stuffed everything in a backpack and sneaked down the staircase.
She was almost to the front door when the lights suddenly turned on and Vee turned to face a very furious looking Mami. “And just where do you think you’re going at this ungodly hour, young lady?”
“I…I’m leaving,” Vee said. Mami opened her mouth, seemingly too shocked to say anything. “I’ve bothered you long enough. I’ve done my job here. I…I’ll find work, housing elsewhere. We’ll negotiate an appropriate price for the rent I owe you from these last few months here. I’ll pay you back, I promise.”
“Rent?” Mami said incredulously. “Pay me back? Basilisquito, you are not my tenant; you are my daughter! What in God’s name brought all this on?”
“I thought, you know, with Luz back, with her friends here…I’m just a drain on your finances…”
Mami walked over to her and took the backpack off her shoulders, and then led her to the couch. “Sweetie, we have discussed this already,” she said softly. “I told you that you have a place in my home, in my family for good. I told you that would not change when Luz returned.”
“Yeah, but that was before Luz returned with her friends! You have six people to feed! It’s better if you only have five.”
“Better for whom?” Mami shot back. “You? To be living on the street without shelter, without nourishment, without love? Me? To be without my wonderful daughter whom I love with all my heart? Your sister, who has informed me she is extremely excited about bonding with you? No, Vee, I rather think things will be much worse for us all without you here.”
Vee could feel herself switching back to her true form. “I…but I’m putting you all at risk! I mean, Luz’s witch friends can pass easily as humans, but I’m a basilisk. There are two Luzes now! How are we going to explain that?”
Mami sat down on the couch and started stroking Vee’s hair. Though she admitted it had been a difficult adjustment to getting used to the practicalities of parenting a whole other species, Mami had never given any indication she wasn’t up to the task. She’d never been repulsed by Vee’s snakelike form. To Mami, it didn’t matter what Vee had on the outside. “Oh, mija. I know this is a scary and confusing time, but we will take things one step at a time. I am never going to give up on you. Please don’t give up on me.”
Vee sighed. “I guess I was being kind of stupid, huh?”
“No, honey,” Mami said. “I should have said all this last evening. That’s on me. Wanna know a secret?” Vee nodded. “I’m honestly just as frightened as you are by all this. There are so many unknowns and I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to help these poor children through whatever the heck they’ve been through. I need your help as much as you need mine. So what do you say, basilisquito? Will you help me?”
“I’d do just about anything for you, mami,” Vee said eagerly.
“Good. Then get back to bed. And I’ll do the same. And in the morning, we’ll figure out what to do next. Whatever happens, you will have my love and support, just like Luz, okay?”
Vee felt so ashamed and humiliated she even doubted Mami’s love for a second. And, honestly, running away had been an absurdly stupid idea. Where would she even have gone? She’d have gotten caught in two seconds, probably ending up dead on the street somewhere or in some government research laboratory.
In the morning, Luz’s explanations had been fragmented and difficult for Vee to parse, but one thing that became abundantly clear was that Luz was staying on Earth for the foreseeable future. And somehow, Vee had been roped into helping teach Luz’s friends into figuring out how to blend in. It wasn’t as if she could allow Luz to do it. Luz’s attempts to blend in had gotten her sent to Reality Check Camp.
“All right, lesson one in Vee’s Human Boot Camp,” Vee said, pacing around the basement. “Humans always fear what they don’t understand. What they fear, they hate. What they hate, they destroy. Mercilessly. Without compromise. They will chew you up and spit you up and you’ll end up in a government research lab, where you will likely be repeatedly vivisected and they’ll try to make you open holes in other realities with your mind and – ”
“Uh, Vee, did you watch Stranger Things by any chance?” Luz asked.
Vee nodded. “It was extremely informative. And those Demogorgons are just so dreamy…”
Luz coughed. “Uh, yeah, so Vee’s maybe gotten a little paranoid. Look, just don’t show any magic and keep your ears covered whenever possible and you’ll be fine! I mean, you’re humanoid, so…they’ll assume you’re human.”
“Unlike me,” Vee said without rancor.
“Yeah. Right. Unlike her. Not that there’s anything wrong with being a basilisk!”
Vee rolled her eyes. “Look, I’ve been to Reality Check Camp. I know the ropes. They taught me how to act human. Unlike you, Miss Griffins Breathe Spiders!”
“Griffins do breathe spiders,” Hunter pointed out. Luz looked phenomenally smug.
“Should we be worried?” Willow whispered at Amity.
“Nah, this is just normal sister stuff,” Amity responded. “Em and I are like this all the time.”
Vee clapped her hands to bring everyone’s attention back to her. “You must act like everyone else. Your goal is to become a cog in the wheel of society. To rid yourself of any behaviors that are considered strange, bizarre, or abnormal.”
“Yeesh. The more and more you tell me about this camp, the more glad I am I gave it a miss.” Luz put on a more serious face. “Look, let me tell you one thing. There’s really no such thing as normal. We’re all different! It’s what makes humans so strong. Sure, sometimes there are certain societal rules like don’t bring fireworks to a book report or don’t lock two people in a closet until they declare their obvious everlasting love for each other.” Everyone stared at her. “Look, in my defense, I didn’t know they were dating other people!”
Amity did a facepalm. “But you shouldn’t be afraid to be who you are,” Luz went on, “even if, yeah, right now you should be very afraid of being what you are. You can like the sort of things you like. Like the people you like! What about you, Vee? What do you like?”
“I…don’t know,” Vee admitted. It was a big problem. She hadn’t had room to become her own person, ever. For most of her life, she’d been imprisoned and even though she’d rid herself of her physical imprisonment, she’d still been metaphorically imprisoned by her need to conform to what Luz would do. Now…now she was free to be her own person, but she didn’t know how.
“Maybe we should talk about something else?” Gus suggested.
“Ah, yes!” Luz said. “Now, ladies and gentlemen, I will tell you about the noble art of…” She paused for dramatic effect. “…memes.”
As the days went on and school drew ever closer, Vee just got more and more nervous. Mami had reached out to the Owl Lady’s human ex-husband – Oak or Maple or some other tree related name – who was just as much a fraudster as his ex-wife, and was in the process of acquiring forged documentation for them. Vee would be enrolling in school as Luz’s cousin from Gravity Falls; the others would also be transfer students from Gravity Falls Mami was hosting. Mami had asked Vee what name she wanted on the ID, but Vee just couldn’t decide.
But there was more to be nervous about than just that. Her friends from camp, Michael, Masha, and Linus, were all going to be at school with her this upcoming year. And Vee had to tell them the truth, or else she’d have to spend the whole time pretending she didn’t know them, and honestly, Vee didn’t think she could handle that. Cabin 7 was something that was truly Vee’s own. Her successes at camp had been done on her own merits, not thanks to Mami’s astonishing largess or stepping into Luz’s shoes. They were her friends. And yet…would they still be her friends if they knew the truth about her?
Well, there was only one way to find out. If they reacted badly, she could just kill them all and hide the bodies, right? That was a normal human thing to do, Vee was pretty sure. They killed each other constantly for reasons that were a lot more petty than trying to preserve their identity and their very life. Yeah. She was panicking for no reason.
Vee had a whole speech planned, but she was so nervous that she ended up shifting to her true form the instant she’d established that she and her friends were alone in Linus’s house.
“Dude!” Michael said. “That is one bitching Halloween costume. You’re totally gonna rock the contest.” Vee rolled her eyes. Michael had been sent to Reality Check Camp for marijuana possession. He’d claimed to be innocent, and Vee honestly believed him. He acted like he was high all the time, even when Vee knew for a fact he was clean.
“That is no costume, Mike,” Masha said in an awed voice. “Whoa…you’re one cool looking creature there, girl. Uh, it is girl, right? Don’t wanna make any assumptions.”
Vee shrugged. Figuring out what exactly was going on with her gender-wise was on her to-do list, but a ways down it. She had no issues with being called a girl or people using she/her pronouns; whether or not there were better options was a later problem. “I’m good for now. I’ll let you know if it changes…but seriously, you’re not freaked out?”
“Nah,” Linus said in the most casual tone ever. “We’re cabinmates! That’s not something a little something like you turning out to be a giant snake’s ever gonna change.”
“I always thought there was something otherworldly about you,” Masha said knowingly. “Your aura always seemed different. Also, you put in the milk before the cereal. Seriously, who does that?!” Vee knew she’d been forgetting something.
Michael threw an arm around Vee. “No matter what happens, you’re still our friend Luz.”
Vee laughed nervously. “Ah, yeah, well, see, I’m kind of…not? I mean, there is a Luz, but she’s not me. I was taking her place while she was in the Demon Realm and now she’s back, and I’m gonna pretend to be her cousin. Also, my name is Vee, but I’m not sure I wanna keep it.”
“So…uh, sorry if this is kind of rude, but what are you?” Linus asked.
“Oh, I’m a basilisk!” Vee said with a nervous laugh. “Sorry I didn’t mention that. But I don’t turn people to stone – that’s just a stereotype.”
Masha looked Vee straight in the eyes – a move that would have killed them if Vee had been like the basilisks of mythology. “We’ve got your back, Vee. We’ll keep your secret. Right, everyone?”
“YEAH!” Linus and Michael said. They both looked Vee in the eyes too as a sign of solidarity.
Vee felt a warmth in her hearts she hadn’t felt since Mami had told her she loved her for the first time knowingly – the first time anyone had ever told Vee that. “Aw, you guys are the best. So, uh, Linus, I know you’ve got a lot of fashion magazines around here. I was hoping I could look through them to figure out my look?”
“Oh, yeah! Yeah, what’s mine is yours! We’ll make you the most you-like you there is!”
Vee appreciated the sentiment, once she could decipher it. She spent the rest of the afternoon looking through fashion magazines and shapeshifting not just into various outfits, but also into various bodies. It took several hours, but Vee finally found a look she liked.
“So what’s the big surprise you wanna show us?” Mami asked her as Vee led everyone into a clothing store. Luz, who had been briefed on the surprise in advance, could hardly contain her excitement.
“It’s so cool, mami; you’re gonna love it, I promise!” Luz said. Vee walked over to a rack of clothes and took a deep breath. Luz started clapping her hands in anticipation. Vee walked through the rack and emerged with her new look.
She was a completely different looking person now. She had a broader, more square face, messy hair that was half dirty blond and half cyan, and was dressed in an orange sweater emblazoned with a pumpkin, jeans with holes in the knee, and brown boots. Vee posed, praying that Mami would like the new look. That she wouldn’t give up on Vee now that she didn’t look like her real biological daughter.
But as always, her fears were for naught, because when Mami saw her look, a huge look of happiness came over her face and she swept Vee in a hug. “You look amazing, mija! Very fashionable and very you. I’m so proud of you! You’ve really come into your own here, Vee.”
“Actually, about the name…” Mami nodded encouragingly. “I was thinking about what you said, about changing it? And I think I wanna change it to Esperanza. Because you gave me hope.”