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Vee was sleeping against Camila’s side. For the first time since coming to the Human Realm, she felt safe sleeping in her natural basilisk form.
Camila had seen that form earlier in the day, when she’d rescued Vee from the Gravesfield Historical Society. She’d seen the scales, the inhuman eyes, the unnaturally large ears and the tail that could strangle the life from a human’s neck if she really wanted to.
And all she’d seen was a scared child who needed protection. That’d been hours ago. She looked down at Vee with a strange mix of apprehension and affection. The girl had effectively stolen her biological daughter’s identity and impersonated her for months, and yet, Camila couldn’t bring herself to be angry. She’d only done so to escape, and survive.
The way her long tail wrapped around Camila’s leg wasn’t restrictive or hostile in the slightest. If anything, it felt comfortable. Camila stroked Vee’s scaly back up and down, eliciting small purrs from the sleeping teenage girl. “Mija… mi precioso serpiente hija… I still don’t understand what’s going on, but-” A sharp, rattling sigh. She wrapped her arms around Vee. “But I swear, I’ll protect you. This is your home. And you’re safe here.”
Vee nestled into her shirt.
The morning after Camila found out the truth, Vee was picking at her eggs in her human form. Her Luz form. “Hey… Camila, do you think we could visit a… a, what’re they called? A hypnotist?”
Camila blinked. Seeing her daughter- or someone who looked like her daughter, with her messy hair slicked back- calling her by her first name felt viscerally wrong somehow. She cleared her throat. “And why exactly would you want to do that?”
“Well…” Vee tapped her fingernail on the table. “Masha told me about them once, at Reality Check Camp; how they can, like, recover suppressed memories. I was wondering if maybe we could get one to help me remember exactly what happened when I met Luz yesterday. Maybe something she said could, like, give us some hint to where she is or- or how to bring her back.”
“Oh, Lu- Vee.” Camila corrected herself, reaching across the table to cup Vee’s cheek in the palm of her hand.
For a millisecond, Vee flinched before leaning into the warm touch. “I know, maybe it’s stupid, but I just want to help find her. To make up for… for what I did.”
“Vee, listen to me.” Camila stroked Vee’s cheek with her thumb. “What you did was…” She paused, mulling over the words in her mind. “It was identity theft, and yes, that is normally wrong. But in your circumstances, I can understand why you did it. And I honestly don’t think you have anything to make up for.”
“Oh.” Vee’s voice came out quiet. “Th-thanks, m-Camila.”
Camila slowly retracted her hand. “But still, I’m just… sorry, I’m just so worried about Luz. To think she’s trapped in some other world- the Demon Realm that you were so desperate to escape, an-an-and she’d rather be there than live with me…!” Her entire body heaved with a sob, burying her face in her palms. “What kind of a mother am I?!”
Vee looked at Camila with a soft, almost pitying gaze. “I think you’re perfect. I know I’m not your real daughter, but the way you’ve taken care of me, even now, when you know what I really am, is perfect. I- I honestly don’t know why Luz would run away.”
Camila sniffled, wiping her nose into a napkin. "Gracias, cariña. And you know, that’s actually not a bad idea. I can’t promise it’ll work, but well, it might be worth a try. And for the record, I don’t care if we’re not biologically related." She got up slightly, petting the basilisk’s hair. “You’re under my protection, and you live in my house now. As far as I’m concerned, that makes you my daughter.”
Vee’s breath hitched before she closed her eyes and purred. At the word ‘daughter’, she bit back a sob.
The Noceda family car pulled into a parking lot in Hartford. “Okay Vee, we’re here.” She announced, putting the gear into park.
“Yep.” Vee had been tapping on her knees for the whole drive. She unclicked her seatbelt and popped her door open.
When Camila rounded the car, she found Vee closing her door, eyes darting around at the few other vehicles in the lot. “Vee?” She squeezed her shoulder, inadvertently causing the girl to gasp. “Are you okay?”
“Uhhh- y-yeah. Just a bit jittery, that’s all.” Vee cleared her throat. “B-but come on, let’s go!” She darted up the ramp, towards a building with a logo on its roof depicting a watch in front of an eye.
Camila followed her newfound daughter into the building. There were only a few other people in the waiting room, absently playing on their phones. The interior itself was decorated with various hypnotism-themed posters, and in the middle of the waiting room itself was a table with a rail-and-bead toy that went untouched.
Vee and Camila walked up to the counter, where the receptionist was playing Galaga on the computer. “Excu-”
“Oh!” The receptionist paused her game, immediately standing up and trying to make it look like she’d always been at the ready. “Sorry, ma’am. How can I help you two?”
Vee cleared her throat. “Can we see someone to like, help recover memories?”
“Oh, of course!” The receptionist turned around, yelling, “Sigmund! You’ve got another patient!”
Camila scrunched up her eyes. “Huh. A hypnotist named Sigmund. What’re the chances?”
“Why do you say that?”
“Oh, nothing, sweetie.”
The receptionist turned back around, handing over a clipboard with a sheet of paper and a pen. “Here. Just fill this out and the hypnotist will see you soon.”
“Thank you, miss.” Camila took the clipboard, guiding Vee over to two empty seats and handing it over to her. She whispered, “You learned how to fill these out at camp, right?”
“Yeah.” Vee tilted her head. “Though I never expected to see the word ‘chakra’ on something like this.”
A puff of air left the grown woman’s nostrils. “Well, there’s a good sign.” She deadpanned.
It took fifteen minutes for Sigmund to bring Vee and Camila into his minimalist office. “Please, lie on your back, Ms. Noceda.” He gestured to a therapy couch near the wall.
“Uh, sure.” Vee kicked off her shoes and laid down as instructed, adjusting her shirt. “So are you gonna like, wave a watch in front of my face or something?”
“Oh, no, nothing so simplistic.” Sigmund pulled up a chair to sit next to Vee. “Mrs. Noceda, feel free to stay with us.”
“Oh, no, I was absolutely planning to leave my teenage daughter alone with a self-proclaimed hypnotist who doesn’t even have a visible diploma.”
Sigmund blinked. “Wow. I hope that was sarcasm, or else you’re a terrible mother.”
Camila facepalmed. "Dios, por favor, salve a mija."
“Okay, Luz.” Sigmund put all five fingertips of his right hand on Vee’s forehead, pressing down on the skin. “I’m putting a gentle pressure on your third eye. Can you feel it?”
“Uh…” Vee squinted. “I guess so.”
“Good, good. Now close your eyes.”
Vee shifted nervously. “Okay.” She had to remind herself that Camila was there to protect her, taking deep breaths to bypass all of her instincts, every fiber in her being that told her not to close her eyes while someone she didn’t know had their hand on her.
“Okay, perfect.” Sigmund pressed harder on her forehead. “Just keep your eyes nice and shut… I’m going to snap my fingers, and then-” He snapped his fingers, and Vee went limp on the couch.
“V-Luz!” Camila quickly corrected herself. “What did you do?”
“Wow, I can’t believe that actually worked.” Sigmund muttered to himself.
“What was that?”
“Ah, nothing.” Sigmund quickly checked Vee’s pulse via her wrist, before letting it flop back against her. “But with any luck, young Luz should be experiencing her repressed memory within her subconscious as we speak.”
“And she’ll still remember it when she wakes up again, right?”
“Ehhh, 50/50.”
Vee found herself in an eldritch space, where she could feel a cold liquid against her scales.
“Wait- scales?!” Vee screamed, thrashing her tail and spraying herself with brackish water. “Okay… okay… nobody’s here.” She looked around, at the craggly walls and the strange multicolored cubes floating above her. “What the hell is this place?”
“A new life.”
Vee heard the voice. A voice that sounded like Luz, yet she knew to be her own. She gasped, turning into her Luz form and sprinting towards the voice. Her every step was punctuated with a tiny splash of the strange not-water.
One of the cubes appeared in front of Vee, before she could bank around it. She heard the real Luz’s voice screaming at her, before she fell into the cube and everything turned white.
“You!”
Vee fell backwards onto the bedroom floor. Luz’s bedroom floor. The mirror-cupboard was a portal to the In-Between Realm, where Camila’s biological daughter stood in the exact outfit that Vee had first met her in. “Wha- what?!”
“Vee.” Luz knelt down, extending one hand. It passed through the mirror as though it were liquid. “Vee, I forgive you. Okay? You and I are the same, right? Both of us ran away from home, to a new world. So, whaddya say? Kinda-sisters?”
Vee’s human face, her stolen face, contorted in anger. Her fists clenched in the carpet. “The same?!” Without thinking, she shot up and grabbed Luz by the shoulders. The mirror was like a cold, half-existent gel around her forearms. “You and I are not the same! I was some- some science project by a mad emperor, trying to figure out how to drain magic! My entire childhood was nothing but torture and experiments, being forced to eat live rats and drain the magic out of living things! You had a mother who loved you!”
Luz made a strangled squeaking noise, trembling under Vee’s grip on her shoulders. The face that looked like her own was red with apoplectic rage. “I’m- I’m sor-!”
“Sorry?! You should be! Camila’s worried sick about you, and you’d rather stay in that place than come back to her! You had it good in this realm, Luz!”
Luz shifted her ankles, creating ripples in the eldritch liquid of the liminal subspace. “You and Camila don’t know the whole story. But, the important thing right now is that I’m safe.”
“You’re ‘safe’? How are you safe?”
“Long story. Very long story. But to make it a short one, I’ve found people who really care about me, just like mom does- and, and I know mom cares about me! But these people get me, in I guess the same way that Cabin 7 gets you.” Her face lightened up slightly with a cautious smile. “I even have a girlfriend now.”
Vee’s grip softened against Luz’s shoulders. “I-I-I had no idea.”
“I know.” Luz sighed, “But I can’t blame you for being mad. I stayed here, even when I could’ve gone back. And even though it’s worked out for me so far, it’s not fair to mom. But I swear on God and the Titan, encontraré la forma de volver a casa.”
Vee slowly nodded. “‘I'll find a way to get back home.’ You’d better, Luz.”
The human gave a delighted gasp. “Hey cool, you’re learning Spanish!”
Despite herself, Vee chuckled. “Y bastante rápido, si me permites decirlo. So…” She put her hands in her pockets. “You still love Camila, don’t you?”
“Of course I do; she’s my mom. And nothing will ever, ever change that. And when I come back to the Human Realm, I won’t make you go back to the Demon Realm. I swear, I’d never do that to you.”
Vee smiled. “Thanks, Luz.”
And then, she woke up.