The Haunting of Blight Manor - Greenisher (2024)

Chapter 1: Rue

Chapter Text

The house was in a large cul-de-sac, but rumours of ghosts meant that almost nobody checked in on it anymore. The lawn was overgrown, the mailbox long knocked over. Its nearest neighbor was currently empty, the residents having left on vacation yesterday. They’d never have a better time to do this.

The door popped open easily enough after less than a minute of fiddling, leading to a doorway thick with dust. Old circulars and mail catalogs were flopped behind the door. “I thought they’d stopped making these,” Gus said, peering at a catalog from a stationery company. “My dad has one of these pens from his high school graduation!”

“It’s been abandoned a while,” Willow said, checking her camera. “Are your mics on?”

“Clipped up!” Gus patted his chest, then winced. “Oops. Gotta remember not to hit the mic.”

“Ready to go!” Luz stepped through the threshold, standing in front of the stairs, both arms raised. “This bad boy is ready to get spooky! Hit record, Wil!”

“3, 2, 1,” Willow pushed the button for record, aiming her camera at Luz. “And we’re rolling.”

“Alright!” Luz went into presenter mode, hands on her hips. “This week on Ghoul Friends, we’re investigating the mysterious goings on at The Old Burner House! In a survey sent out to Hexside U students, it was listed at number three on the list of most haunted places in Bonesborough!”

“Number three?” Gus waggled his eyebrows as he leaned into frame. “Now we’re getting to the really spooky stuff!”

“Give us a run down of the history, Gus!”

Gus cleared his throat, pushing imaginary glasses up his nose. “Robert Burner, Bob to his buddies, was born in Scotland in 1844. He migrated to America and bought land here in California in 1878, and constructed this home in 1880.”

“It’s held up pretty well considering its age,” Luz noted, looking around. Willow panned the camera over the house, showing off the interior; bare bricks, wallpaper peeling. “Alright! Tell us about the ghosts!”

“We don’t have any complaints about hauntings prior to 1960,” Gus explained. “The last Burner died out around then and the house was put up for sale. But everyone who’s bought it has heard horrible noises at night. Babies crying! People sobbing! PLUS! People have felt a sorrowful presence upstairs, with unidentified figures moving through the halls!”

“So cool,” Luz whispered.

“And downstairs in the basem*nt, electronics have stopped working!”

“We’ll check that part out last in case our camera stops working,” Willow said.

“Not to mention,” Gus turned on his flashlight under his chin, lighting his face from below. “Rumours of the wolfman! Several frat parties have made trips to the area, only to spot a mysterious figuredressed like a werewolf around the time of the full moon! Hexisde Rugby’s very own Tight Head Prop Boscha reportedly screamed and ran when confronted with the beast!” The camera shook slightly as Willow muffled laughter. “Tight Head Prop is a real term, Willow. We’ve come here not quite at the full moon so we probably won’t be blessed by a visit from Mr. Wolfy, but that won’t stop our investigations!”

“Or any ghosts,” Luz added. “I’m pretty sure ghosts aren’t affected by the full moon.”

“Accounts vary,” Gus said, with a wide smile. “But these ghosts are seen month-round!”

“Alright!” Luz pointed to the open plan living area. “Let’s check this place out!”

“Careful,” Willow reminded them as Luz and Gus bounded into the next room, Luz a few steps ahead. Neither seemed to hear her as they dashed about, examining the area.

There was a crack as they reached the middle of the room; Luz made a noise that sounded like a baseball in a blender as her foot went straight through the rotten floor, trapping her up to the knee. “Oh no!” Gus cried, running to her, straight through the same patch of exposed floorboards. He let out a startled noise as the wood collapsed under his feet in a cloud of dust; there was a faint slap of a body on something solid. A long pause followed. “I’m okay!” came a winded voice from the floor below. “Nothing broken! Bones or otherwise.”

“Should I…call an ambulance?” Willow asked dubiously, looking up from the camera to squint through the darkness at the shapes she vaguely recognised as her pals.

“Nope! No authorities! Not after last time! Eda will kill me,” Luz struggled, attempting to pull herself free. “No worries folks, all part of the show!”

Willow stepped closer, using the penlight on her keyring to shine a thin beam of light across the darkened floor, searching for where Gus had fallen through. There was a loud bang behind her and she jumped, nearly dropping it, turning swiftly to see Gus leaning up out of a trapdoor he’d thrown open. “Over here! There’s stairs to the basem*nt!”

“A trapdoor?” Willow looked over to where Luz was still stuck and made a shrugging gesture. “Need help?”

“Nope! I’m absolutely fine! I’ll get out of this myself!” Luz told her firmly, patting the wood surrounding her, looking for somewhere she could put her weight. “Use the spirit box! Let’s see what secrets lurk in this old house!”

Gus was already haring back down the stairs. Willow followed, mindful of every creak in case more collapsed. The basem*nt here stank of mildew, the atmosphere so close that it was hard to breathe in deeply. There were exposed wooden beams, the bones of the house itself. Willow frowned as she looked for danger in the dark; black mold, asbestos. Gus made himself busy, going through his backpack of equipment, pulling out a black box that looked like a miniature radio. A spirit box — a device that swept AM and FM frequencies to pick up words from ghosts. It was supposed to make it easier for ghosts to manipulate the airwaves and speak to people; Willow knew it worked by producing fragments of words broadcast across multiple frequencies. A human’s brain, innately pattern-seeking, would comprehend those fragments of sound as whatever word they wanted to hear. But it also made Gus happy, so she wasn’t about to rain on his parade with her facts.

She looked up at Luz’s leg, still dangling through the ceiling, and sighed. “Luz, are you sure you don’t need help?” she asked, angling the camera up.

“I am absolutely fine!” Luz said, kicking her leg so hard her converse nearly flew off. “Totally A-Okay!” She wiggled again and the floor creaked unpleasantly. There was an unpleasant groan in the building. “I can totally get myself free, totally—” The creaking was joined by another loud crack. Willow panned the camera to follow Luz as she dropped through the floor and landed in a heap on the ground. Luz sat up, holding up both thumbs. “All good! See! I’m free!”

Willow moved her camera back up to view the two new holes in the ceiling where her friends had fallen through. That wasn’t good.

The room was filled with a horrifying buzz of static as Gus switched on the spirit box. “Oh ghost of this abandoned house!” he called out as Luz gingerly picked herself up. “Uneasy spirit of the darkness! What’s up? How’re you doing? Wanna chat with us?” The box continued to spit out static, occasional garbled syllables.

“I heard ‘Doug’!” Gus said, eyes wide and full of stars.

“I heard ‘No’!” Luz said, scrambling over to the box.

“I…didn’t hear anything,” Willow admitted, smiling. Being the straight man to their goofballs was pretty good.

Gus and Luz leaned into the box, and Willow zoomed in with the camera, examining it. The static buzzed, an incomprehensible set of words, more static. “How are you today?” Luz asked. “¿Cómo estás?”

The spirit box buzzed more static, and both Luz and Gus looked up, eyes wide.

“I heard ‘a star’!” Gus said, examining it. “Do you feel like a star cuz we’re filming you, ghost pal?”

“I heard ‘asar’!” Luz said, grinning widely. “Asar un pollos? Are you hungry?”

“Ohhh, a hungry ghost,” Gus leaned into the box. “You want us to bring you food? My budget stretches to McDonald’s.”

Luz squinted at the box, hearing something else. “Was that light?”

“Pretty sure it was Bly,” Gus said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

The box rolled over frequencies, static so loud it made Willow’s teeth itch. Just as she was about to suggest they turn it off, they heard a clear voice through the speaker: GET OUT! They looked at each other, silent and still. More static sung and buzzed through the device, and then another voice, androgynous, overcome by noise as though sinking into a sea of sound: GET OUT!

Willow shuddered, trying to focus the camera on her friends. Luz had jumped straight into Gus who was holding her up, glancing around, terror on both their faces. “Welp,” said Gus. “I’d say that’s pretty great evidence of ghosts.”

“YEP!” Luz dropped out of his arms, legs stiff. “Okay that about wraps out our investigation into the Burner household,” LEAVE THE MANOR hissed the speaker in a multitude of voices, emotionless, static overrunning. LEAVE THE MANOR LEAVE THE MANOR LEAVE THE MANOR LEAVE THE MANOR—

“Time to go!” Gus was hopping up the stairs, holding the trapdoor open. “Let’s go, let’s go!”

It took a visit to Jamba Juice to calm them down after they’d peeled out of the cul-de-sac in Willow’s beater car, Luz hanging out of the passenger side window to catch any last spooky presences. In Hexside’s outdated media lab, Willow scanned over what she’d managed to capture, adding in audio and effects, while Luz and Gus shared a laptop, checking over their social media accounts.

“‘We’ve got a crazy video for you, coming soon!’” Luz looked up. “How much should I reveal?”

“Keep ‘em guessing!” Gus was examining his drink. “Hey, I think the girl who writes fruit fanfic was working today. I’ve got a blueberry/spinach poem on my label.”

“She’s really improving,” Luz checked his drink as Gus pulled the computer back over. “I’d never have thought to rhyme Spinach with touch.”

“I take photos every time I find her food poetry. I’m really hoping she gets ‘em published. An anthology of food fic! Oh, hey, we’ve got a question from the Patreon,” Gus said, checking their account. “‘Luz, how come your moms let you break into old houses?’”

“Oh that’s easy,” Luz pulled the laptop over to tap out a response. “Technically, I only have one mom. But it’s only a matter of time til Eda proposes! I’ve seen the ring! And the adoption papers!”

“That…wasn’t the question,” Willow said, but didn’t push the issue. “Gus, I need you to record the intro for the next episode before we head out.”

“I’m on it! I’ll use my best announcer voice!” Gus climbed over the chairs between them to flop against Willow. “Ooohhhh, can I narrate the bonus blooper reel?”

“There won’t be a blooper reel!” Luz looked up from where she was tapping out answers to their Patreon supporters. “Everything we recorded was gold dust! I bet Willow hasn’t cut a second of our work!”

“You can narrate the blooper reel,” Willow whispered to Gus. She stretched her arms out, rotating her shoulders as she scanned over the timeline in her video editing software, Gus gazing in wonder over her shoulder. “Alright,” she decided. “I think this episode is in the can.”

“Yet another ghost busted by the Ghoul Friends!” Luz whooped, pumping her arms. “Nice! Upload it, upload it!”

“Upload it!” Gus added, joining in with Luz’s chant.

“Upload time!” Willow switched windows to YouTube, finger hovering over the button. “Three, two, one—”

All three called out “UPLOAD!” at the same time, a private little bit between them, a ritual. They crowded around Willow’s screen, eager, fascinated.

Nothing happened for a moment, a rainbow spinning where her cursor had been. A loading bar popped up after a second, the green moving just the tiniest fraction of a bit. “Welp!” Said Willow. “Still as slow as ever!”

Luz let out a breath she’d been holding. “I keep forgetting that’s not instantaneous.”

“I gotta get into computer science and invent a faster internet,” Gus groaned.

“Aw,” Luz threw an arm around his shoulders. “But I like your articles so much!”

“Shucks,” Gus leaned past her to examine the loading bar as it inched its way up. “I’ll keep doing my articles. I could be a polymath!”

“You could,” Willow agreed, checking her watch. “I’ve gotta go, I’ve got class.”

“Oh, shoot,” Luz slapped a hand to her head. “I lost track of time! I’ve got math in a few and it’s right across campus!”

“Free period for me!” Gus flexed.

“You can look after the upload in that case,” Willow told him, standing up and grabbing her bag to leave.

“That’s a lot of responsibility,” Gus rubbed his chin. “Will you help me study for my next bio test if I do? I really need to beat Mattholomule. I’m pretty sure he’s paying someone to take his exams for him, and it’s driving me crazy! Last time he beat me he—”

“Heelied through the corridors waving a sign that said ‘better than Gus’ on it,” Luz finished. It was a story that had been oft discussed between them, alongside potential revenge ideas.

“I’ll help,” Willow agreed and Gus punched the air with joy.

“Now I know I’ll beat him!” He waved them off as they picked up their bags and ran for the door. “Good luck! Have fun! Make good choices!”

“I won’t and you can’t make me!” Luz called back as Willow shook her head.

The professor was late, or Luz would’ve been in some trouble as she slid into the room a few minutes after the official lecture start time. The other students in her class all seemed busily engaged in chats with each other; Luz squeezed past several gossiping groups to find a seat at the back. Math was not her strong suit. She’d found this spot to be one where she was rarely picked on for an answer.

Relaxing in her chair, she glanced around the classroom, looking for familiar faces. As usual, she scanned very quickly over Skara (sat over at the other side of the room with Boscha) and back to the front, eyes lingering on a brown head of hair in the first row. Amity Blight. Somehow, they’d ended up in most of the same classes this year, but had yet to speak more than the couple of sentences they’d shared a few weeks ago when Luz had asked to borrow a pen in psychology. Still, it was hard not to spot the captain of the school rugby team; to Luz, at least, she stood out like there was a spotlight on her, everywhere she went.

It would be nice to be friends with her. Amity looked like she could be pretty fun.

She’d been thinking of making an excuse to move closer to the front and slide into an empty space beside Amity when the professor finally walked in, arms wide. “Sorry I’m late! I crashed into that guy who heelies everywhere! Papers all over.”

Luz settled back in her chair, ready to let her brain go numb in the face of Math Facts when she felt her phone vibrate in her pocket, the specific frequency she’d set her texts to. She slid the phone out, just far enough to see the screen, expecting words from mom about needing something to be picked up for dinner, or Eda about needing drinks (she’d been so happy when Luz had turned twenty one). Instead was a single message from an unknown number:

> Is this Luz Noceda, the Ghost Hunter?

As she gaped at the message, trying to work out how anyone who knew about the Ghoul Friends YouTube channel would know her number, a second text message came in:

> I have important information about a haunted house you’d be interested in

And then a third:

>I’ll pay you to investigate it.

Well, alright. She could always use extra cash. Luz looked up to make sure nobody was watching. The professor had his back to the class, writing something on the whiteboard. Amity, like most others in the class, was busy making notes. Nobody was looking.

> Hi, That’s me! I’m Luz!
> How can I help your haunted house?

> You can help by getting to the bottom of things
> :)

Now why did that smiley look ominous? Luz rubbed her head under her beanie in thought.

> Sure!
> Just tell us the address and we’ll check it out!

She watched as an address popped up for a house in an area she knew was at the very outskirts of town. As she copied the address and pasted it into Google Maps, her brain did an internal calculation; if this was a prank on them, it would take a while for the cops to show up, and there wouldn’t be any neighbours to call them. Which was good. Although they’d become pretty skilled at running from the cops after setting off intruder alarms from a mixture of Eda’s tips and bitter experience, it was always best to find places where you could avoid that kind of thing. She nodded to herself, ready to agree, when another text came through.

> $500 now, $500 after the completion of your investigation

Well alright. That was $333 for all of them. That would pay for some new camera equipment. She opened the texts to agree, when another message followed.

> Each.

She swallowed. $1000 in her bank account would go a very long way.

> Sure! I’ll tell the others and we’ll meet you there!

This couldn’t go wrong, she told herself as she slid the phone into her pocket and looked up at the board to see some strange and incalculable spell written out. “Why are there so many letters,” she muttered to herself, the texts going out of her mind as she sped to write everything down.

Willow and Gus had both been unsure until Luz mentioned the money. After that, Willow remained somewhat unsure, but Gus was totally in. Willow found herself agreeing just to make sure Gus and Luz didn’t run into trouble, but as they jumped into her car and Luz showed her the address, she frowned.

“What’s up?”

“I know the house, that’s all,” Willow said, carefully switching gears as the car pulled into reverse. She owned an old car, stick shift, tape deck, vinyl interiors, but she took immense care of it. As they pulled out into the highway, she slipped in a Fleetwood Mac tape, passed down from her dads. “I’ve been before.”

“What?!” As the strains of Dreams began to play from the tinny speakers, Luz looked over, mouth wide, hands on her cheeks. “You’ve been to the haunted house and not told us?!”

“It wasn’t haunted when I went,” Willow told her, peering over the steering wheel at the line of cars in front of them. They’d need to pass through the middle of town to get there. She calculated how long that would take in her head, trying to guess the state of traffic. Just after rush hour, things would be clearing… “I was last there fifteen years ago, though. Maybe things have changed since.”

“Oh man, sweet baby Willow,” Luz sighed. “I love seeing baby pics of you. You got any shot at the house?”

To her surprise, Willow’s jaw tightened, her shoulders tensed. “Let’s not talk about that.”

They had to drive for a while to reach the spot. It was set out away from the main area of town, up on a hill that overlooked the suburbs, but set away from other residences, way back from the road. A gate was the first sign they’d made it, and as Willow pulled into the driveway, gravel crunching under tyre, all three of them peered up. The house itself was several storeys high, imposingly built. The stonework was grey and worn, a plant Willow identified as English ivy creeping up a wall. It looked like someone had shoved a castle into a stately home, an architectural nightmare. Luz craned her head up and spotted a stained glass window, a crenellated tower, and the sort of tower she’d expect a princess to be letting down her hair from, if this were a fairy tale. Gus, leaning out of the window of Willow’s car, narrowed his eyes at the number of slim windows, the broken statues on the walls. Those had been grotesques, he recognised. Why had they been broken?

There were two other vehicles at the top of the driveway. Willow pulled up next to a sensible looking mint green car, and Luz jumped out before she’d come to a full stop, Gus following. Willow made sure she was parked well before joining them. They were admiring a deep green Porsche. “Man,” Luz said. “The second I get money I am buying one of these babies.”

“You can’t drive,” Gus reminded her. “Buy one for me instead.”

“I’d totally learn to drive for a Porsche.”

Willow had walked past them both to look at the custom license plate. She groaned. “Luz, what was the name of the person who requested us here?”

“Oh, Emira.” Luz leaned over. “Oh hey! The license plate is 3MIR469! Same person, d’you think?”

“Yep,” Willow said, shaking her head. “I do.”

As she spoke, the doors of the large house swung open. Stood in the doorway were two figures. The evening was drawing in out here, and they were illuminated by the lights inside the house, lit up from behind like stars. They were of similar heights, one with short hair, the other with a long braid, but both wore identical smiles, matching grey suits tailored to their forms. Willow heard Luz gulp beside her, and said, “Yeah, this is about what I was expecting.”

“Welcome,” said the gentleman bowing.

“To Blight Manor,” finished the lady, bowing with him.

“Willow,” Luz whispered, holding up her beanie to hide her mouth. “Willow I’m…I’m too bi to handle this.”

The twins — they had to be twins — strolled down to greet them, in synch. “Hello, hello, I’m Emira,” the beautiful woman said, reaching out to shake their hands. “I’m the one who texted you, Luz,” she lifted Luz’s hand to her lips.

“And I’m Edric,” said the equally beautiful man. “We haven’t spoken yet, but I’m sure I’ll love getting to know you.” He winked. Luz leaned on Willow to stop her legs from collapsing under her, a wide smile on her face as she shook their hands. Gus even giggled bashfully as Edric squeezed his fingers and Emira squeezed his upper arm. Only Willow appeared to be immune. She was staring at the two with tired, mistrustful eyes. The twins squinted at her, Emira seeming to recognise her first.

“Willow…Willow Park, right?”

“Right.”

“What?” Edric peered at her, as though trying to picture her younger. “Of course! Little Willow! I haven’t seen you since you were much littler! Even littler than now!”

“What?” Luz looked over at her friend, mouth hanging open. “You guys know each other?”

“Oh yeah!” Edric threw an arm around Willow’s shoulders, and Luz noted the way Willow’s eyes narrowed behind her spectacles. “Willow here used to be BFFs with our little sister.”

“When we were six,” Willow clarified. “Fifteen years ago.”

“I bet you were super cute,” Luz said, trying to picture it. “Where are the baby pics of that?”

“We’ve got plenty,” Emira told her, winking as she slipped an arm around Luz’s shoulders. “Why don’t you all come in? We can chat about the assignment.” Her other hand pressed to Gus’s back.

“Sounds great to me!” Gus said, happy to be propelled.

“You good with that, Willow?” Luz asked, noticing her friend’s discontent. Willow’s arms were folded tightly across her chest, but she nodded and followed, Edric bringing up the rear.

The inside of the manor was beautiful and elegant in a way that screamed money. There was nothing gaudy about the decor; the furnishings were high quality but sparse, leaving vast amounts of space in each room. It didn’t really smell of anything here, Luz noted. Only faintly of cleaning products and dust. “Man, if I had a house like this, there’d be a basketball court right where those sofas are,” Gus said, admiringly. “And a private movie theater. Ooohhh, and slides between each floor!”

“We tried to install slides, but nobody would give us a fair quote,” Emira said.

“We do have a secret indoor pool. You can use it if you find it!” Edric said, with a wink that made both Luz and Gus blush.

“I wouldn’t recommend it,” Emira said with a laugh. “I can’t remember the last time we cleaned it.”

“Oh, I’m sure Mitten’s used it,” Edric mused. “She’s gotta do something here.”

“You have a cat that can swim?” Luz asked, excitement in her voice. “This is amazing! Best job ever!”

The twins looked at each other and laughed. Willow appeared to grow stiffer.

“Not exactly,” Emira said, leading them through a long corridor to a living room. She gestured to a couch, and all three of the Ghoul Friends sat down at once. It was deeply uncomfortable. “Watch out for the furniture,” she added. “Our mom picked it out. She was way more into fashion than comfort.”

“I can tell,” Luz said, grimacing as she shifted.

“It feels like there’s a knee in my spine,” Gus whispered, horrified.

“She died a while ago,” Emira mused. “I guess we could replace this stuff, but to be perfectly honest, we don’t live here anymore.”

“Who does?” Luz asked, trying to lean forward.

“Our little sister,” Edric said with a shrug. “We asked her to move into the city with us, but she’s pretty happy out here.”

“Not happy,” Emira shrugged. “She’s hardly ever happy.”

“She says she’s fine out here,” Edric corrected himself.

“Why’d you guys leave this big house?” Gus asked, looking around. “It’s huge!”

“Our place in town is closer to work,” Edric said, sprawling onto a chair. “We can’t mess around, we’ve gotta run Blight Industries.”

“I’ve got to run Blight Industries,” Emira corrected him. “I’m the CEO. My brother’s my secretary.”

Blight Industries. Gus frowned at the name, rubbing his chin. Luz saw him make a note in his phone. She leaned forward, resting her arms on her thighs. “That totally explains how you can afford to pay us for checking your house out! Is it this house? Do you have another?”

“It’s this one,” Emira nodded. “Our homes in the city are certified unhaunted.”

“We went to a specialist for that.”

“What kind of things do you see? Or hear? Or sense?” Luz pulled a notebook out of her bag, a pen, getting ready to scrawl notes. “Do you feel things? Smell things? Taste them?”

“Taste?” Asked Edric, rubbing his chin. “Can you taste ghosts?”

“Sometimes!”

“Hmm…” he looked around the room, and stuck his tongue out thoughtfully.

“So far, it’s mostly hearing things,” Emira said, ignoring her brother. “Sometimes seeing. You’ll be in a room and suddenly a piece of furniture will be thrown at you. Or you’ll hear someone shouting your name, but you’re the only one home. I’ve seen a dark figure once or twice — Ed has too — and we’ve all felt a cold hand grab our arm when we’re alone in the room.”

Luz shuddered at that, but wrote down every detail she could. “And do you sense a presence? Like…demonic? Evil? Malicious?”

Both twins looked at each other. “I wouldn’t say demonic,” Edric mused.

“Hostile, perhaps,” Emira agreed. “Uptight.”

“Real stickler.”

“Cold, unloving…”

“Rude,” Edric added. “Don’t forget rude.”

“Absolutely,” Emira agreed. “We believe we know the ghost.”

“Whaaaat.” Luz’s pen went right through her paper. She leaned in, mouth agape.

“Our mother,” Edric said, with a shrug.

“The house was fine, and we didn’t experience anything creepy. Not until right after she died.” Emira considered this statement. “A couple of weeks, anyway. After we laid her to rest.”

“We thought it might be both of our parents,” Ed added. “But yelling, throwing stuff, that’s not dad’s style.”

“He’s more the ‘ominous dark figures standing over you and rooms going suddenly freezing cold’ type. Though that happens too. Just not as often.” Emira paused and when she did, all of them heard movement from deeper in the house. Luz felt Guz inhale sharply beside her, and held her own breath, body stiff as she listened.

The floorboards creaked and shifted, footsteps coming down the hall. Luz reached for Willow’s hand, noting that the twins had also paused, both looking over their shoulders. Is this it? she wondered. She’d never come fully face to face with a ghost before, only heard things through the spirit box or felt cold patches in rooms. And the camera isn’t even running!

The steps paused by the door to the living room, and next to her Gus swallowed and leaned into her. Someone stepped into view and Luz heard both of the twins exhale as a slim brunette in shorts and a sweater stood in the doorway, golden eyes scanning their group with disapproval. “Emira,” she said, “Edric, you’re supposed to text me when you’re coming over.”

“Amity!” Luz said, delighted. She dropped her notebook in her hurry to jump up, half wanting to greet the other girl, half needing to move after the intensity of that pause. “It’s me! Luz! We have math together! And psychology! And art!”

Had Amity’s ears gone red? Luz decided she was seeing things. Amity took a step back, stopping the greeting, and throwing a look at the twins.

“Hey Mittens. You scared the crap out of us,” Edric said, an easy smile on his face.

“Speak for yourself,” Emira hopped up. “We brought your pals to check out the ghost stuff going on over here. Are you going to play nice?”

“I’m twenty-one,” Amity folded her arms. “You can’t order me to play nice with strangers you invited into my home.”

“Iro,” said Emira.

“Lyny,” added Edric.

Amity glared at both of them. Luz looked over at Willow. “Twin speak,” Willow whispered back.

“Secret twin language,” Luz whispered. “Just like in the books!”

“Huh,” said Gus, frowning. He made another note in his phone.

“Fine,” Amity folded her arms. “There’s no ghost here,” she said, over the shoulders of the twins. “But if my siblings insist on showing you around, I won’t stand in their way.”

She turned on her heel and was starting to walk out when Luz grabbed her hand. “Wait! We’d love to talk to you too!” Amity whipped round to stare at her, looking taken aback. Luz smiled at her warmly, letting go to turn back to the others. Amity held her hands up, staring at them, an odd look on her face. Emira made a noise like a small laugh, hiding it quickly. Edric pretended to cough politely. “Okay! So we’ve got a potential ghost that hangs out around here. What’s the plan?”

“Sleepover and see if it tries to grab us!” Gus punched the air.

“Are you happy for us to investigate?” Luz turned. Amity was still staring at her hands. Luz tapped her shoulder.

“What?”

“Can we look around? Maybe stay over?”

“Stay over?” Amity looked panicked.

“Absolutely,” said Emira. “We’ll order dinner.”

“A sleepover! Sounds like great fun!” Edric added. Amity stared hard at both siblings, face turning a strange shade of pink. “We won’t be here — we’ve got an early meeting tomorrow, you know how it is.” He clapped Amity on the shoulder. “Play nice with your pals, Mittens.”

Amity folded her arms tightly across her chest, glaring at her siblings who made a quick escape past her. “We’ll deposit the money in your accounts!” Emira called.

“And send a delivery driver!” Edric added, slipping out after her.

As the sound of the front door shutting came distantly, the group fell silent. Willow was looking anywhere but Amity. Amity was staring down the corridor at where her siblings had left. Gus was typing a list on his phone, and Luz was looking at Amity. “Are you sure you’re okay with this?” she asked.

Amity looked around, quickly, startled, wide eyes meeting Luz’s and then immediately looking away. “Oh. Right. Listen, if my siblings are paying you, you might as well check the place out. You won’t find anything. But maybe that’ll stop them from telling everybody our house is haunted.” She gestured around the room, indicating the larger house.

“Give us a tour!” Gus said with a grin, jumping up out of his seat. “Where’s the spookiest spot?”

“Nowhere,” Amity said firmly. “Because ghosts don’t exist.” From a floor above, there was a loud creaking noise. All three of the Ghoul Friends looked up, and then back at Amity. “House…settling,” she managed to croak out. “That’s the house settling.”

“I getcha,” Luz said, patting her arm. Amity stared at where she’d been patted, a confused look on her face. “So where’s the creaking coming from?”

“Would you like drinks? Water? Tea?” Amity was starting to speed walk away in the opposite direction of the creaking. “We’ve got a wonderful kitchen.”

Willow and Luz shared a look. Gus caught up to Amity, matching her stride. She came up to about his shoulder, and there was a look of faint consternation on her face when she had to turn to look up at him. “D’you remember me?” He was asking. “We went to the same high school.”

“I remember you being shorter.”

“I had a growth spurt. You go to our college right? Luz has talked about having classes with you.”

“Yes,” Amity looked straight ahead. “We share classes.”

“I remember you got a full ride to Harvard and Yale,” Gus was saying as they turned a corner. “Why’d you choose Hexside?”

“Closer to home,” Amity replied through gritted teeth. “I didn’t apply for those. Edric did.”

Behind them, Luz fell in step with Willow, who was looking uncharacteristically grumpy. “We can leave if you want,” she said gently, sliding an arm around her shoulders.

“I know we can,” Willow said, reaching up to squeeze her hand. “Nothing’s forcing me to be here. I promise.”

“Amity is the kid you fell out with when you were little?”

“She called me names for falling behind in class,” Willow frowned. “My dad always said that being so concerned with the academic ability of a first grader just reflected sadly on her. But it really hurt.”

Luz rubbed her back. When she’d moved here as a teenager in the long summer between middle school and high school, kids had still been making fun of Willow. She recognised that insult; Boscha had been calling Willow that for a long time. Most students had stopped once they’d hit high school and Willow had found her stride — the most beautiful flowers were the latest to bloom, and Willow was living proof of that — but Boscha had kept it up for a while. The seeds of that insult had started with Amity Blight. “You’re smart and beautiful and you can kick all their asses,” Luz whispered into her ear, and Willow cracked her first smile since they’d pulled up.

“My dads were pretty pleased we stopped hanging out anyway,” she confided. “Apparently her mom was super rude to them. Weirdly hom*ophobic.”

“Gross,” Luz stuck out her tongue.

Willow giggled. “If she isthe ghost haunting this place, she’s got plenty of reasons to be mad.”

“Oh!” Luz giggled too, thoughts on the twins, how they’d flirted with all three of them. She felt herself flush. They hadbeen cute. “Do you think she knew about the twins?”

“Almost definitely,” Willow agreed. “And—”

Whatever she was about to say was cut off as they reached the kitchen. It was wide enough that it could’ve fit the first floor of Luz’s house inside, with a marble island in the center. Gus was sat atop it, drinking a long glass of water. Amity had her back to a wall, looking under siege as she watched them. “Wow,” Luz said, stepping into the cavernous room. “Everything’s so…white!” She examined the walls, the counters. “It looks like nobody’s cooked here for weeks. You must be great at cleaning, Amity!”

Amity looked at her feet. “Yep.”

Luz and Willow joined Gus at the kitchen island and Luz pulled out her notes. “Okay. So we know there’s spooky noises. Edric mentioned patches of cold. And they’d heard people shouting their names. Hey, Amity?”

Amity looked up, as though surprised to be addressed. “Yes?”

“Do more spooky things happen at night or during the day?”

“Night.” She paused. “Or that’s when the twins insist they’ve heard things.”

“Awesome!” Luz checked her notes again, figuring out a game plan.

“Sleepover!” Gus cheered.

“We need to make sure Mittens is comfortable first,” Luz reminded him.

“My name is Amity,” came the muttered response from the far wall.

“Amity! Are you comfortable with us staying over?” Luz turned her bright smile on her, leaning over. “We can get in our PJs, watch movies til late at night, scan the house and get some shut eye! What d’you say?”

“And do you have a secret movie theater?” Gus asked. “I asked the twins but they were inconclusive. And flirtatious. Strangely flirtatious.”

“They do that,” Willow assured him.

“Why do you keep talking about sleeping over? Did any of you even bring pyjamas?” Amity asked, an eyebrow raised.

“Oh! Yeah! …no,” Luz admitted. “In that case, what if we just hang out here til it’s late and then check things out?”

“Heck yeah!” Gus hopped off the island. “Maybe we can look for the secret pool!”

Willow opened her mouth to reply, then closed it again. She was frowning deeply. “Could everyone be quiet for a moment?”

They fell silent. Luz looked around, listening hard. Gus had both hands cupped behind his ears. Willow was staring out of the kitchen and into the corridor. Amity, she noticed, had pulled into herself, staring at the floor, hugging herself. There was a look of sheer misery on her face. Luz got up to go to her and see what was wrong, but froze in place. She could hear something.

Light at first, but growing closer. The distinct sound of a person walking. Luz hopped down from the island, coming closer to Amity. “Is someone else living here?” She asked. That would explain the creaks and noises the twins weren’t expecting. A secret boyfriend? A secret girlfriend? Someone trapped in the walls? Amity shook her head and shut her eyes tight.

The footsteps grew louder under they were just outside the doorway. Luz could see the floor moving under the weight of a person, but couldn’t see anything that could be making that noise. The footsteps echoed through them, making the hair on her arms stand up straight. Luz shivered, reaching out. Gus was standing next to Willow, a protective hand on her shoulder. Luz reached out and her fingers curled around Amity’s wrist. None of them spoke.

A great coldness filled the room, as though they’d gone from California to Alaska in microseconds. When Luz exhaled, she could see her breath fogging in front of her face. Amity was stiff beside her.

The lights popped and broke, casting them in shadow. Gus cried out in alarm. Nobody spoke as Willow said something to him that Luz couldn’t catch. She heard the rustling of cloth moving up ahead, a gentle click, and was immediately blinded by Willow’s flashlight. “Augh!”

“Luz?” Willow called out. “That you?”

“S’me!” She held up the wrist she was holding. “And I’ve got Amity!”

“I’ve got Willow!” Gus called back. “Or Willow has me!”

“At least the footsteps have stopped,” Willow breathed with relief. She rubbed her arms, hooked one through one of Gus’s to bolster herself, worry reading in every line of her face.

“It was just the house settling,” Amity said, eyes downcast. Luz let go of her hand and ran to Gus and Willow. Behind her back Amity flexed the hand that had been held, watching as the fingers opened and closed. “It was the house settling,” she repeated, the ghost of body heat on her skin. “Just the house. Just the house.”

Chapter 2: Single Ladies

Chapter Text

Luz jumped as a loud noise, the thudding of drums, split the heavy air. She held her breath, feeling flight or fight run through her, curling her fingers into fists, prepared to punch a ghost right in its ghost face. And then frowned as she recognised the first few beats. "Is that— is someone playing Single Ladies?"

Gus held up his phone. "It’s scientifically impossible to die while listening to Beyoncé," he asserted with an immense amount of confidence about something that sounded so easy to disprove. "The vibes are just all wrong for being murdered!"

"We’re not going to be murdered," Willow murmured through the darkness. She moved to examine the light switch, hesitating by the hallway before resolutely stepping over the threshold of the kitchen, her jaw set and eyes narrowed behind her round glasses. When nothing happened to her, no ghouls in the darkness, no hands grabbing her, no screaming banshees, she took a few more steps into the dark hall, almost disappearing as black night swallowed her, claiming her. "I can’t get any of the other light switches to work," she called back. "I think you’ve got a power cut."

"I’ll check for a circuit breaker," Gus galloped after her using the light of his phone screen to guide him, Beyoncé fading down the hall as he did.

"You okay?" Luz asked Amity, grabbing her wrist again.

Amity stared at the hand on her wrist, tugged her arm away after a baffled moment. "I’m fine. It’s just a power cut."

Luz pulled her hat down a little further over her ears, thoughtful. It hadn’t felt like just a power cut. She’d seen the movement of the floorboards, heard the creak of something with physical weight walking through the old house. "Okay," she said, mostly to put a pin in the conversation. No good going round in circles. "What d’you normally do when there’s a power cut?"

"First time."

"Really?" Luz gingerly picked her way across the dark kitchen, looking around. "We’ve had a couple. Our apartment is pretty old. Usually we break out the candles and play board games." When she turned back to Amity, her smile was warm. "You get the candles and I can get a game!"

"We…don’t own any board games."

"I’ve got a Scrabble app on my phone," Luz held up her old Android, the screen cracked from years of misuse. "Wanna play?"

It took Amity a few seconds to know if she was serious. "No."

"Monopoly? Ticket to Ride? Risk?" Luz swiped through her phone. "Ooh— I’ve got a PDF of the Player’s Handbook if you wanna try Dungeons and Dragons?"

"No. Thank you." Amity crossed to one of the counters, groping for a drawer handle. She pulled it open and patted about, unfamiliarly, before locating a candle and lighting it. "Better."

"Agreed." Luz came in closer. In the dim light of the candle, Amity looked uncertain, even small. They made eye contact and Luz watched the other girl shut her worried expression down, closing herself off, moving her face to neutral. She wanted to talk to her, to draw herself out of her shell again. She wanted to make Amity smile, really smile.

"Hey," she said, and immediately ran out of ideas of what to say. Amity quirked an inquisitive eyebrow, waiting for her to go on. "So…you don’t believe in ghosts?"

"I do not." Amity said, voice firm.

"Have you ever been somewhere really spooky?"

"I live somewhere super spooky," Amity murmured. "Allegedly."

Darn. That was a good point. Everything else went out of her head, conversation starters parachuting out the emergency exit. Luz was running out of things to talk about, something that never happened. She rubbed the back of her neck, tried a different hyperfixation. "What about cryptids?"

"I don’t believe in those either."

"Really?" She took a deep inhale. There was a scent of faint vanilla in the air, something pleasant emanating from the candle. "I’d love to see Bigfoot sometime."

"Bigfoot."

"Yeah. And Mothman." Amity didn’t respond. She stared at Luz in that locked down way of hers. Luz scrambled, flatfooted, through this awkward set of moments, feeling as though she was watching herself fail and powerless to stop it. "Do you know them? They’re super cool. Mothman comes from West Virginia and there’s a theory that he’s a mutated owl and he brings prophetic dreams about calamity, and Bigfoot of course is a big mountain friend who leaves huge tracks, and they’ve found what could be his DNA but most Bigfoot artifacts are from bears apparently—"

(Why couldn’t she stop talking?)

"I’ve…heard of them," Amity said, looking down at the candle. "Listen, Luz—"

Whatever she’d been about to say was cut off as the lights in the hallway sprang into life. She jumped back, nearly dropping the candle, a tiny spatter of melted wax hitting the floor; Luz reached out and steadied her without thinking, peering out of the room, waiting for whatever presence had just made itself known to appear.

They heard what it was before they saw it. A faint strain, like a guitar in the distance. "Is that…" Amity stepped forwards, brow knitting in concern. "Flawless? The remix?"

Luz exhaled a breath she hadn’t realised she was holding as Gus ran back into the room, Beyoncé still blasting from his phone. "I found the breaker!" He said, triumphant. "Looks like all the switchy…flippy…thingies inside were flipped the wrong way!"

"Thingies is the technical term for them," Willow said, following close on his heels.

"So I just kept pushing buttons til everything worked out! No power cut! Might not even be supernatural!"

Hyperaware, Luz noticed the way Amity’s shoulders seemed to relax at that confirmation. Now, she thought idly, why is someone who doesn’t believe in ghosts so happy about that?

None of them wanted to stay much longer after that, and Amity was only too happy to show them the door. Bundling into Willow’s car, they peeled out of Blight Manor’s driveway faster than was strictly necessary, Destiny’s Child absolutely slamming through the speakers until the broken down car seemed to thrum with it. Luz turned round in the backseat to watch Blight Manor recede into the distance, eyes searching for it long after they’d left. None of them spoke for a minute, deep in their own thoughts. They drove in a tense silence for five, ten minutes, before Willow asked, "Does anyone want to get something to drink?"

And that had sounded like the best idea ever.

Secret Room was never full, and while it was absolutely gross, covered in graffiti, with a terrible selection of drinks, it was conveniently placed in the center of town and everything was cheap. The food wasn’t bad, if you ignored the dismal grade in the window from the health inspector, and nobody tended to listen in on your conversations about illegal stuff because they were busy plotting their own crimes. It’d become one of the Ghoul Friends’s favourite hangouts. Top three, at least.

"This is a fake ID," the scrawny brunette behind the bar said, examining the card he’d been handed with a skeptical eye.

"Hey! No way!" Gus leaned on the bar, trying his best charming smile. "Why would I have a fake ID! Their IDs weren’t fake," he gestured at Willow and Luz. "And I’m with them! They’re twenty-one, and so it follows, by logic, that I am also twenty-one."

"Yeah," said the bartender leaning in, his loose tank top showing the intricate tattoo of a vine of roses that stretched over his chest and shoulders. "Except I went to school with you. It’s me, Jerbo. I know you’re nineteen, Gus. And I know your name’s Augustus Porter, which would be on your legal ID.This says Gus Gusington in the name field!"

"Ah…um. Hi Jerbo! Would you believe I was never actually skipped a few grades and have been the same age as you guys the whole time? And I…changed my name?"

"I absolutely would not."

"Oh no."

Luz ignored the series of mistakes Gus was currently making behind her, focusing on the notes they’d managed to piece together. The Hitachino in front of her with the owl on the label was zingy and lemony-fresh. Opposite her, Willow was frowning at her camera, a pint of stout next to her elbow. "Where do you think we go from here?" Luz ventured, unwilling to take any more quiet.

Willow looked up, biting her lip in thought. "It’s a tough one. It’s great to finally have hard evidence of a haunting, but…"

"Stuff’s whack, yo!"

"Yeah." She looked up over Luz’s shoulder to where Jerbo was cutting up Gus’s fake ID and Gus was barely holding back tears.

("Jerbo, no! I spent a bad amount of money on the materials for that card!"

"You made it?"

"It took me a whole afternoon!")

"I knew Alador and Odalia were dead," Willow continued. "But I didn’t think they were…you know, haunting stuff. They don’t seem like prototypical ghosts."

"What were they like?" Luz leaned forward, interested. The image she had in her head of the Blight parents was of a middle aged Edric and Emira. And honestly? Nice."Anything like the Blights we know?"

"No," Willow waved Gus over as he left the bar with a frown and a soft drink. "Jerbo went easy on you, huh?"

"He sure did," Gus settled glumly between them with a pint glass filled with lemonade. "He was definitely grouchy I didn’t recognise him. You guys talking Blights?"

"Yep," Luz leaned on her elbow, taking a sip from Gus’s glass. "I didn’t know them."

"Oh yeah," Gus waved her off, pulling his drink to safety. "I guess you moved into town the summer after they died, huh?"

"Around then," Willow confirmed, and turned back to Luz. "Odalia and Alador kept to themselves, really. They were always smartly dressed. And I know they tended to keep Ed, Em and Amity like extensions of themselves. They came to school wearing matching outfits all the time, and they all had to do the same activities. Ballet, etiquette lessons, horseback riding…And their grades had to be top, top of the class in every subject or else. I think Ed and Em set records for academic achievements."

"I’m stuck on ballet," Luz admitted, trying to stop picturing either of the Blight twins leaping across a stage in tight clothing and failing.

"What’s Jerbo up to these days anyhow?" Gus asked, squinting over Luz’s shoulder. "I bet he’d let me use one of my IDs here if I could befriend him…"

Willow gave the long suffering smile she always gave when keeping her friends on track turned into herding cats. "Either way," she said, "They were weird, and old fashioned, and hom*ophobic, and rude, and put too much pressure on academics, and definitely not nice people, but I wouldn’t have expected them to be haunting their kids."

"If they were haunting their kids," Gus said, eyes still on Jerbo, "They’d be haunting Edric and Emira too. But their place slash places are ghost free. It’s just the big house."

"I wonder why Amity hasn’t moved out?" Luz took a thoughtful sip of beer, thumb rubbing over the red owl on the label. She thought back to Amity, who’d looked so fearful. What was she hiding? What was going on? "If her mom and dad were as rich as everyone makes them out to be, she probably got left more than enough to get her own spot like Ed and Em."

"Might be being held in trust?" Gus suggested. "My dad set a provision in his will that if he dies I can’t touch any of his stuff til I’m 25."

"That restriction would only have been applied to Amity, in that case," Willow pointed out. "Edric and Emira bought their places and started working at Blight Industries right out of high school. They’re only about 23, 24 or so."

The murmur of other drinkers in the room overtook their conversation as they fell into thought. The bar itself was smaller than most places in Bonesborough, with a distinct No Cops vibe. The floors were sticky with spilled drinks, and behind the counter was a collage of banned customers, mostly made up of photos of Eda, though Luz was sure she’d spotted a candid of Bump in a Hawaiian shirt there too. A few tables were occupied, and she could see a few faces they knew. Eileen was attempting to play Viney behind them at the pool table. As usual, Viney was casually setting up trick shot after trick shot, destroying her. Luz focused on the taste of her drink, listening to the faint knock of pool balls rolling over the baize of the pool table, the soft thunk as pool cues made contact.

"Maybe it’s haunting her specifically?" Gus suggested, glancing at the bar over his shoulder. Jerbo had his back to them when he checked; he casually poured some of Luz’s beer into his lemonade.

"But why her?" Luz asked, chin on her hand. "And not the twins?"

"The twins were always a little more chaotic than anyone anticipated," Willow grinned briefly, some well buried memory surfacing. "Whereas Amity tended to do what her mom told her. She was pretty terrified of her. Odalia could be trying to keep control of her favourite."

"Bleak." Luz poured a little more of her beer into Gus’s drink casually, using his straw to mix the two into a shandy where Jerbo couldn’t see. "A lot of ghosts spring up from people who died uneasily. Do you think that’s it? Maybe she died with regrets."

"Could be?" Willow drank her drink, pretending to stand up and check her jacket on one of the other chairs to fully block Jerbo’s view as he turned round. "I know they died in a car accident, but not much else."

"That might be it," Luz ran her fingers through her hair, sipping her horrible beer and lemonade mix. "But if they died in a car accident, wouldn’t they still be haunting the stretch of road where they died? That’s how it usually happens. You know the stories where someone picks up a hitchhiker, talks to ‘em, and then turns around to see they’re gone?"

"Maybe they died in the driveway, or drove into the house?" Willow mused. "It’s on the property…that should count. We’ll have to find out a bit more."

"He’s coming over," Gus hissed, and proceeded to gulp his drink down. Willow nodded to Jerbo just as Gus finished and turned with a smile. "Howdy Sheriff Jerbo!"

"You seem awful jolly for someone who only had a lemonade," Jerbo observed, eyes narrowed as he picked up Gus’s empty glass.

"I just love lemon—" he hiccuped. "—ade. Lemonade!"

"Hmmm," Jerbo narrowed his eyes at both Luz and Willow. Willow shrugged. Luz gave him her best impression of innocence.

"Why would we break any perfectly rational laws that totally follow worldwide convention and aren’t at all archaic and based on puritanical systems of power?" Gus tried for puppy dog eyes, and hiccuped again, ruining it.

"You’re lucky I don’t feel like disrupting your," he gestured to all of them. "Whole thing."

"Do you know anything about ghosts, Jerbo?" Luz asked.

"Did a ghost turn your beer into a shandy?"

"Uh," Luz took a deep gulp of the drink, speaking around a mouthful of liquid. "If I drink it fast enough you can’t prove it!"

"You’re all the worst," he sighed, but he had no inclination to pursue it. Instead he moved to the snooker table to watch Viney play.

They waited for Jerbo to step away, shaking his head, before getting back to their conference. Luz leaned in. "What if it’s a poltergeist? Do we know what gets rid of poltergeists?"

"Salt circles?" Gus mused. "I think it’s slug rules."

"Just as slimy, right?"

"That’s ectoplasmic entities."

"That’s my research dude," Luz said fondly, leaning up to rub his head. "So tall and so smart."

"Handsome too," Gus agreed.

Willow was thinking this over, arms folded. "A poltergeist does fit the bill," she agreed. "But aren’t they usually…not a dead person? Just negative energy?"

That was a good point. Luz considered this carefully. "But we saw it move the floorboards, and it definitely destroyed the lights. Everything else fits, aside from it turning up right after Odalia died."

"I hate to play the skeptic," Gus cut in, "But did we actually see any of that?" He shrugged at Luz’s frowning face, something only a man with a heart of cold should have been able to do. "I’ll admit, I heard creaks, and I thought I saw the floorboards moving. But that could easily be written off as a trick of the eye. And when I checked out the circuit breaker, the main switchy things were flipped. That could just be a surge."

"A creepy surge," Luz said, frowning. "A creepy, coincidental surge."

"Here’s my theory! The house is extremely ugly," Gus spread his hands on the table. "Now, I don’t know a lot about architecture, and hopefully I can forget what I already know, but…stands to reason a house that’s that much of an affront to good taste has really terrible hodge-podge insides too. Maybe their electrician just hated them and didn’t wire the house properly?"

"Amity said this was her first power cut," Luz frowned. "And I believe her. She didn’t seem to know what to do."

All three sat in silence again, each chewing over their own thoughts. This time, Willow was the person to break it. "Maybe we should go back again tomorrow?"

"Oh," Amity said, with the exasperation of a homeowner spotting groundhogs in their freshly manicured lawn the next afternoon as she opened the door to see all three of them there with backpacks. "You’re back. I wasn’t expecting you."

"We fueled up and we’re ready to go!" Luz pointed to her backpack, grinning widely. "I’ve got so much salt in my backpack! I love your socks, by the way. Orange, pink and white? That’s a cool pattern!"

"Uh…huh," Amity looked at her lesbian pride adorned feet and back up at the Ghoul Friends, her arms folding over her chest. "If you’re here to check out the ghost, you don’t have to. You can just say you did. I’ll tell Emira to pay you regardless."

"Hey!" Gus leaned over Luz, resting his arm on her shoulder, with confidence he hadn’t had in the Secret Room earlier. "What we saw was definitely a ghost."

"If we investigate it and give Emira a full report — with video! — surely she’ll stop asking ghost hunters to stop by. Right?" Luz gave her a winning smile, a pair of fingerguns. "That way you only have to deal with us, and not the next group Em pays!"

Amity considered this for a few long moments, weirdos in my house vs weirdos in my family compared as though they were a feather and a heart on a set of scales, calculations to estimate which of the two parties would bother her the most for the longest plain on her face. "Fine," came her final response. "Only to make sure Team Rocket stops getting involved." She turned on her heel, striding deeper into the house. Luz stepped in after her first, ducking into the darkened home close behind her, gesturing to the others to follow.

"How long has this house been here?" Gus asked, taking his shoes off at the door and sliding on his socks after them.

"Twenty-five years," Amity said, distantly. "My parents built it when their company took off."

"That explains so much." Gus muttered.

Luz caught up with Amity, sliding her hands into her pockets, attempting a casual stride. "Soooo!" She began, less casual. Why did all of her conversation attempts fall flat on Amity? "How was everything after we left last night?"

"Fine," Amity replied quickly, a cold edge in her voice. "Normal. No ghosts."

"Not even a little one?"

"Nope."

"Not Caspar? The friendly ghost?"

"No."

"Not his bad and smelly uncles?"

"What? No."

"No sign of Slimer?"

"Are you seriously just naming ghosts from movies?"

"Maybe. But that’s good you haven’t seen any. Last night was kinda intense." Luz paused leaning into a side room filled with trophies. The metal of most of them was tarnished enough to be visible at a glance, and dust stood several centimeters thick on the shelves. "You’ve got a lot of accolades. Kudos!"

"None of them are mine." Amity stopped in the hall, looking back at the group. "Where…exactly…did you want to start?

"The kitchen! That was the site of the paranormal activity last time," Luz nodded to herself, striding in the direction she remembered it being in. She hesitated halfway down the corridor, and turned back. "Wait, which way is it? This place is kind of a labyrinth. You got any red string?" Amity shook her head and stalked past her, leading the way.

The kitchen was nicer in the day than it had been in the evening. The windows were floor to ceiling, showing the rolling gardens of the Blight Estate. There was an orchard towards the back, and the sky was beginning to stain pink and orange in the late afternoon, soft light seeping in and drowning the kitchen in a warm glow. The tiled floor and counters were all white and marble; Gus slid across it in his socks while Willow walked over to the windows to peer through them.

Amity had retreated again, back against the wall, arms folded. As Gus and Willow examined the room, she closed her eyes. Luz observed this briefly, before breaking away from the others and coming to lean against the wall next to her. Last time, when whatever it was had happened, there’d been something that had looked like panic in the other girl. Naked fear. Now she was clearly unhappy, closing off, bracing herself for some unpleasant event. "Hey," Luz waved, wanting to interrupt her thoughts. "Can you play a game with me?"

"What?" Amity opened an eye, looking the very pinnacle of unamused. "Why would I—"

"Can you name five things you can see?" Luz asked, cutting her off. She smiled widely. "Just five!"

"Your dumb hat."

"That’s one," Luz took off her beanie, a pang of self-consciousness in her chest. She held it between her hands. "What else?"

Amity’s eyes slid to the ground. "My socks."

"Yeah, they’re cute. Three more!"

"Hmm," the other girl shrugged. "I suppose, my arms. The floor. My jeans."

"That’s five!" Luz leaned comfortably against the wall, offering her a smile. "Can you name four things you can touch?"

"What is this game?"

"Just humor me."

There was a long silence. Amity finally uncrossed her arms and tugged on the bottom of her shirt. "This," she said. Luz held out her beanie. "Your dumb hat," she said, taking the edge of it between her thumb and forefinger. She kept it, holding it in one hand. Reaching up with her free hand, she touched her hair, then her nose. "Hair and skin. That’s four."

"Right!" Luz grinned at her, didn’t try to take her hat back. She ran her fingers through her newly bare hair, touseling it. "Now, what are three things you can hear."

"You, obviously."

"Obviously," Luz agreed.

"I can hear your friend pacing around."

"He does like to pace."

She didn’t speak for a moment, long enough that Luz worried she’d abandoned it. "The wind outside. It’s picking up a bit."

"Oh yeah?" Luz leaned in, listening hard. "Oh, yeah! I can hear it too! That little whistling noise, right?"

Amity’s cheeks flushed. "It’s normal noise," she said, almost defensive. "The wind just seems louder sometimes in this house."

"Sure! I hear it at our house a lot too. It’s always nice to get all tucked up and listen to the wind just zoom around outside. Added rain’s even better!" Luz laid a hand comfortably on her shoulder. Amity turned to stare at it, hard. "Well, what about two things you can smell?"

"What? Are you asking me if you smell?"

"Just in general! Things around the room."

"I…" She seemed to want to say something. But shook her head, as though deciding to get it over with. "I can smell lemons. And I can smell," she gave Luz a sideways look. "Coconut? Is that your hair?"

"Good nose! Okay. One last one." Luz held up a finger. "What’s one thing you can taste?"

"Why are you asking me weird questions?" Amity started to fold her arms again, and remembered she was holding Luz’s hat. She pushed it into the other girl’s chest. "I am not telling you that."

"It’s supposed to be, like, your sandwich for lunch and stuff," Luz said with a tiny shrug, keeping her warm expression, welcoming smile. "Something you’ve eaten."

"Why do you want to know what I eat for lunch?"

"Oh, secret, huh?" Luz tapped her nose. "I gotcha!" Amity was shaking her head, but she looked a little less tense. That was good. She patted her shoulder, turning back to the other Ghoul Friends. "Should we check out the rest of the house?"

"Yeah! I wanna see how many interior design sins took place here," Gus rubbed his hands together. "Maybe the house was built over a mass grave of Better Home catalogues!"

"I live here, remember?" Amity asked, voice icy.

"I forgive you. You didn’t decorate," Gus replied with a wide smile.

Willow shook her head, stepping on ahead and down the long, cold looking hall. Gus bounded after her, his socked feet sliding on the laminated floors. Luz paused at the doorway, waiting for Amity. "Show us around!" She called, reaching out. Amity drew her shoulders up to her ears, face red.

"It’s a standard house."

"I…It’s pretty big."

"It’s not that big."

"You have a princess tower," Luz pointed up, face comically surprised. "Like…for princesses! Up there! And a secret pool somewhere! That’s a big house!"

"There’s plenty of bigger houses." Amity slunk past her down the hall. "This one’s just…larger than you’re used to."

"I’m used to a two bedroom apartment above a pawn shop," Luz told her, laughing just a little at her naked privilege. "My place has four whole rooms. Your place has like, a hundred rooms!"

"It’s a simple eight bedroom home," Amity muttered.

"How many bathrooms do you have?" Gus called back.

She stared at him, as though wondering if this were a trap. "Six."

"I’m gonna use all of ‘em," Gus told Willow, matter of factly.

"You are not," Amity hissed, running to catch up with him. Gus took off at a sprint, the girl following close behind. Luz speedwalked to catch up with Willow, draping an arm around her shoulders.

"Do you remember any of this place?"

"I know where Amity’s room is," Willow said humming with thought. "Up in the tower. I think Edric and Emira had most of the west part of the house to themselves. I’m not sure where Odalia and Alador were. The second floor, I think?"

"Wow," Luz tried to muster up some jealousy around having a house this size, but found she couldn’t. When she’d been a really small kid, scared of the dark, her mom and dad had always been close by. And after that, mom and Eda had always been in the next room, ready to run to her if she needed them. The idea of being here alone sent a rough pang of sympathy through her chest. She pushed a hand through her hair before pulling her hat back on. She left it on for a beat, but felt insecurity rear its head again; she took her hat off again and shoved it into the pocket of her olive jacket.

Willow eyed Luz’s fiddling and said, firmly, "I like your hat."

"It’s bad etiquette to wear a hat indoors," Luz said, half-smiling. "But…thanks."

Willow shook her head, frowning. "She might be sad and broody. But that doesn’t give her license to hurt you. I’m gonna tell her off."

"Nah," Luz said, but her smile grew a bit further. She offered Willow her elbow instead, and they linked arms, coming down the corridor together.

When they caught up to Amity and Gus, Amity was writing out Guest Use only Guests can ONLY use this bathroom on a post-it note while Gus laughed. She slapped the note to a door, ears red. Gus laughed harder. "Why is it such a big deal?"

"I’m only putting up with you to stop those clowns from sending more in here," Amity slapped a post-it note that said GUEST in jagged sharpie letters to Gus’s chest. He giggled harder. "Stop finding this funny!"

"Children," Willow shook her head. "Can we act like adults?"

"Don’t worry, we’ll behave," Luz tried to reassure both of them, looking between Amity and Willow, before giving Gus a pleading look. "Or we’ll try. Right? We’re all friends here!"

"We are not friends," Amity said, teeth gritted.

"But we can be," Luz said, smiling at her. Amity stopped baring her teeth and looked away. Gus took the sharpie from her loose fingers and crossed out the GUEST on the post-it attached to his chest, replacing it with FRIEND written in his beautiful cursive instead.

"Buddies!"

"I’ll show you the basem*nt first," Amity said, turning on her heel to walk away, the tips of her ears scarlet.

The basem*nt was not as creepy as they’d hoped it would be. It was cavernous and large, but apparently unused, bar a small washing machine and dryer in the corner. The floor and walls were white concrete, and it looked unfinished, out of odds with the rest of the house. "Here’s the breaker," Gus called, pointing to a box on the wall. "I found that one the other night. Dad says they’re always in basem*nts or the garage."

"The garage is unavailable." Amity told them, as though it were a broken down theme park ride.

"So it’s here instead," Gus tapped his temple. "Process of deduction. I told y’all I should go for that PI license."

"That’s a horrifying thought," Amity turned on her heels, walking quickly up the stairs. When they didn’t immediately follow, she paused by the door and looked at them. "Are you coming?"

"Sure!" Luz followed her with that bright, warm smile. Amity turned very quickly, nearly walking straight into the door frame. She shrugged it off, walking quickly through the doorway. They followed her up a set of cold stairs, a bare hallway. This felt alien to Luz; when a person stepped through the door of her mother’s apartment they were bombarded with colours, decorations, photos of family. Blight Manor gave the impression of being carved completely from a single piece of marble, with no warmth to be found anywhere.

This changed at the top of the stairs. "Huh," Willow said, adjusting her glasses. "I don’t remember that being there."

"It was added later," Amity said, and Luz noted that this was the first time she’d spoken to Willow directly. Rude.

They were talking about a large canvas high on the wall of the second floor. It was painted in classical style. A man and a woman were pictured, the woman sat upon an ornate chair, the man stood slightly behind her, his hand on its back. Two small children, almost identical but for their moles being placed on different sides of their faces, were stood either side of the chair. An even smaller child sat at the woman’s feet. "For our family photo, we just went to the mall," Luz said, examining the details. "You know, until King got banned for trying to eat that kindergartener."

The artist had been incredibly skilled, whoever they were. That would be Odalia there in the chair, Luz recognised, wearing a smirk she’d seen on the faces of all three Blight siblings. So that was Alador behind her, a tall, handsome man with light chestnut brown hair and a widow’s peak. To either side would be the twins, looking as serious as Luz had ever seen them. Sat in front of her mother, the painted Amity looked sombre, as though at a funeral not a portrait sitting. All of the Blight children were painted in matching outfits, formal dresses, emerald green, mauve and mulberry. "You’ve got the same hair as your dad," Luz said. "But you’ve got your mom’s face shape. That’s pretty cool! I mostly look like my mom." Amity turned and strode away quickly from the portrait without speaking, moving down the hall. As Gus and Willow turned to follow her, Luz stopped to stare at the painting a moment longer.

Both Alador and Odalia had the golden eyes of their children. Gazing up at them, Luz squinted. From here, the way the light hit the paint, they almost seemed to shine the way a real eye might. She tried to deconstruct the technique, work out how it was done so she could re-use it later. When she shifted her head, the eyes seemed to follow her around the room. She took a breath, looked away to call after the group. In the corner of her vision, Alador’s painted eyes seemed to blink.

She jolted back around; the painting hadn’t moved. She ran her hand down her forearms, feeling goosebumps. As she tried to catch up with the others, she couldn’t shake the feeling of someone staring at her back.

They’d gotten further ahead than she’d realised — or she’d been staring at the painting longer than she’d thought. She reached the end of the hall and found she had to climb up another set of stairs, and then another. Despite being able to hear her friends just ahead, she couldn’t catch up and a cold sensation was running up her spine. The hallway stretched out so far that she found herself sprinting, trying to reach the low voices of the others and they seemed to disappear into the distance. She tripped and scrambled, feeling like prey chased by some massive predator. Pushing herself to her feet, Luz threw herself through a doorway looking for any sort of safety, out of breath.

The scene she fell into was blessedly normal.

"Your room is bigger than some apartments," Gus was saying, standing in the center of a neat bedroom. There was a single bed in one corner, a desk beside it, posters on the walls of what looked like the USA Women’s ice hockey team, the English women’s rugby team, a highlighted and annotated schedule that broke her day down between studying, studying some more, studying even more than that, classes and sports, and a calendar of cute cats that hung on the wall. September had a cat with huge eyes gazing out of the photo, resting its little head on a ball of twine. "How come there’s nothing in it?"

Luz slumped against the doorway, breathing hard, glad to be among the others. She forced herself to smile, trying to shake off the feeling of fear still clinging in her chest. Swinging one arm over Gus’s shoulder, she reached for one of the books on Amity’s desk, disturbing something beneath it. She blinked for a moment, recognising the style of binding. A sketchbook? "Hey, you draw?"

"I don’t," Amity snatched up the sketchbook, red faced, sliding it under the pillow of her bed. "I thought your team were here to look for ghosts!"

"We are!" Luz turned the book she was holding over. "Hey, this is one of the Azura books! I’ve got all of these at home!"

"Including the movies," Willow said, raising her eyebrows at Amity a few times. That was weird. Luz decided she’d ask what that meant later. "And the little known OVA. And the Switch adventure game…"

Amity made eye contact with Willow, and spun on her heel, arms folded. "They’re good books," she said, voice strained.

"Oh yeah, definitely," Luz agreed. "You’ve got some really good books here. The Price of Salt, Fingersmith, I heard good things about those. Hey, is this one of the Fire Emblem games?"

"They’re…they’re strategy games. It’s basically chess!"

"I remember these," Gus examined the case as though it were a clue. "Aren’t they full of underdressed anime swordswomen?"

"You can also play an underdressed anime swordswoman and marry the other underdressed anime swordswomen," Willow noted. There was a strange smile on her face.

"Okay, that’s enough!" Amity began pushing them out, face very red. "You’ve seen enough of my room!" She propelled them out, hands on Luz and Gus’s backs. Willow followed behind, grinning widely.

"Is that your bathroom?" Gus asked, jerking a thumb at an ornate oaken door.

"Keep moving."

"The view is great from up here," Luz said, managing to shake off Amity’s insistent pushing. She peered out of one of the windows cut into the wall, and saw the town laid out below them, the lights of the drive-in movie place, the flat roof of the bowling alley. When she leaned, she thought she could spot the alley off mainstreet where Eda’s shop and her apartment were. "Hey, I think my place is somewhere down there."

Amity looked over her shoulder, following her pointing. "That’s where the weird shop is, isn’t it? The tarot one?"

"Oh yeah, Eda does tarot in the back," Luz started walking again, following the corridor. "It’s also a pawn shop. I think she used to be a fence, but she swears that’s over and done with. And she sells her own homemade remedies. Mom is…less enthused about that part."

"Hm," Amity said, following. "I know it. It’s a small shop. Ed and Em dragged me there so that they could have their fortunes told once."

"Yeah, it’s small, but it’s ours, you know?" Luz paused. "Or, well, it’s my moms’s."

Amity fell into step with her. "Do they both work in the shop?"

"Nah, it’s Eda’s baby, really. She owned it before she met us, but my mom bought up half when she and Eda settled down. My mom’s a nurse in the emergency room. It’s suuuper tough, but she does a really good job. She got an award last year!"

"We’re very proud of her," Willow said, to remind Amity that she and Gus were still there. Amity’s shoulders shot up to her ears and she strode on ahead. Willow nudged Luz with an elbow, and Luz took her arm.

"This was my father’s study," Amity said, pushing open a door on the next floor. Gus went through his backpack for an EMF meter while Luz stepped inside. Willow, however, took a few steps back.

"Bad memories," she said, with a faint smile when Luz gave her a questioning look.

"I suppose you…only saw this place when we were in trouble." Amity looked away, cheeks pink. "Things have changed since."

"Hey!" Luz pointed at one of the walls. "There’s a flag in here that matches your socks!"

Amity went even redder. "It’s my study now," she added by way of explanation.

"So many books on law," Gus said, wide eyed as he flicked through a tome of corporate law intricacies and felt immediately exhausted and morally compromised. "Wow! How do you stay awake in here?"

"Hey!" Luz pointed above the ornate mahogany desk, a grin of recognition on her face. "Lilith! You’ve got a poster of Lilith up there!"

There was a poster here of a severe looking woman with black hair, tied back in a sharp bun. She was glaring down her nose at the camera, a stack of paper under her arms, the steps of a courthouse behind her, Steve her paralegal holding a coffee with her name on it beside her. She was scowling as though she’d just lost a case, but Luz knew better; she had a good idea of who’d taken that photo, given that a smaller version was framed above her own mantle at home.

"Yes. Lilith Clawthorne, of Clawthorne and Partners. How do you know her?" Amity sounded as surprised as she looked, big golden eyes taken off guard.

"She’s my aunt! Her little sister is my mom, Eda!" Luz punched the air. "And she’s also my lawyer! Whenever things go wrong legally she makes ‘em all better!"

"…Huh." Amity looked back at the poster, rubbing her chin. "How often do you need a lawyer?"

"So often." Luz ran her fingers over the spines of leather bound legal texts. Some of these were new, many old. When she pulled one out to flick through it, she found post-it notes sticking out, notes on each one written so small she could barely make them out. That was Amity’s handwriting, she knew it from how crazy neat it was. There were notes on every page, and on every page of the next book she checked too. "You seem like you’re working pretty hard towards it."

"It’s important to me. It’s a goal I’ve set. I don’t intend to miss it." Amity said, jaw set. Luz’s eyebrow rose slightly. Sometimes she thought she saw the mask fall, the exhausted person below the façade. Amity Blight, genius, was more Amity Blight, obsessive worker. All of the things in her life that might be entertaining seemed to have been pushed out of sight, treated like an embarrassment. Instead she seemed to be forcing herself to take on more than Luz imagined was healthy.

"I didn’t know you wanted to be a lawyer," Willow said, quietly. "I thought you wanted to be an artist."

It hadn’t seemed possible for Amity to get redder, but she did. "When I was six.This is my new plan." There was an edge of insistence in her voice, an attempt to convince someone. Insistence. Not conviction. "I can join the family business as a lawyer. An artist can’t help."

"What! That’s not true!" Luz threw her arm around her shoulders. Amity, again, gave her a look that fell between confused and horrified. "Being an artist helps people! You’re giving them a window into the world, representing them, making them feel loved and giving them stuff to care about! Artists have some of the most important jobs in the universe! They shape the way society sees itself!"

Amity slipped out from under her arm. "Being a lawyer is the best path for me," she said, firmly. "Let’s move along."

Willow, still outside the study, was frowning, co*cking her head to one side. "Is the wind getting stronger?"

All four of them paused where they were, listening, hearing the way the wind was beginning to batter against the house. A high whistling noise, the sound of debris being picked up and hurled at the walls as though by some malevolent creature. Usually Luz liked the wind, when it beat around outside and the walls of her home made her feel warm and protected. Here, she thought she heard the walls whispering with the wind conspiratorially as though sharing where they were, where they could be found. Outside it looked like the trees in the orchard were swaying dangerously, the foliage shifting. "That’s not going to be fun to drive home in."

"Don’t look at me," Amity said, stepping out of the study as gravel was lifted from the driveway and slammed into the glass window, making Gus, who’d been staring out of it, fall back. "You’re not sleeping over."

Gus was uncharacteristically quiet as they followed. Luz cast a glance at him, but he shook his head when she opened her mouth. They kept moving, down another set of stairs and to a floor with thick carpets rolled out over the corridors. There were paintings hung up at occasional intervals here, pastoral scenes of what looked like some European countryside. Luz paused by one, walked backwards a few steps to the previous painting. "Hey, are these all one scene?"

"When put together they create a larger painting," Amity confirmed, continuing to walk. "It’s of a village on the edge of a forest somewhere."

"They always creeped me out," Willow murmured to Gus and Luz. Gus seemed oddly silent, barely paying attention, eyes on his feet.

Luz stared into the paintings, walking between two of them. A rolling field, a forest at its boundaries. She squinted. If she closed one eye and squeezed the other half shut, she could almost see a figure in the trees, matching her step for step as she walked between the paintings, popping out of the frames. She shuddered, running to catch-up with the others.

"My mother and father’s room," Amity said, gesturing to a door. "In accordance with their will, the doors remain shut."

"You’ve never been tempted to open it?" Luz asked, grabbing Willow’s arm as she caught up with them. Willow patted her, seeming to recognise her nervousness.

"No. We’ve plenty of rooms," Amity said, with a shrug. In the silence that stretched out, they could hear the wind singing through the drafty spots in the house, a low howl. Gus leaned forward to peer out of one of the thin windows cut into the hall. "What else do you need to see?"

"Where are we?" Luz paused. "In relation to the ground floor, I mean."

"Above the kitchen," Amity folded her arms, looking away. Luz felt her brain ticking, thinking of the creaking, the sound of movement above them last night.

Was there something behind this locked door?

Some one?

"Can we go?" Gus asked, suddenly, just as Luz was weighing her options around attempting to peek into the room.

"Huh?" Luz looked back at him, nonplussed. "You wanna—?

"Can we go?" He asked again. "Please?"

Luz reached for his hand. He squeezed her fingers, and she noticed his palms were sweaty. All of his jovility had slid away, and his entire body was stiff. "Sure. Willow, Amity, is that cool?"

"Fine by me." Amity began to stalk back down the hall.

Gus reached out to grab her arm. "You should come too." He swallowed, eyes wide. "Please?" A silence spread between them. Amity shook her head. "Please?" He asked again.

"I’ll go to my sister’s," she said after a moment, "If it’s so important to you. But I’ve no interest in spending more time with you three."

Gus let out a breath, shoulders falling in relief. "Okay. That’s good. Thanks, Amity."

The atmosphere only seemed to grow heavier as they crossed back across the maze of the house. Several times, Luz thought they’d doubled back on themselves, passed the same rooms over and over. It seemed to take far longer to reach the hall with the horrible portrait than it had been to come from there. Once they reached the hall, Gus walked quickly to the door, looking like a wound spring. He shoved his feet into his shoes without trying to put them on properly, walking outside to the driveway. He stared down the gravel drive until the girls had gotten out, and then stepped up to the cars, waiting to be the last person to open the door and get in, keeping an eye out to make sure the girls were in first.

In the backseat, he breathed out, one long exhale. He shivered, leaning forward to wrap arms around both Luz and Willow in the front seats. "You okay?" Luz asked, patting his forearm. "You’re been looking super unwell."

He shook his head. "This is gonna sound stupid," he said. "But I…when we were up there, I kept…seeing stuff in the big backyard."

"Stuff?" Willow sounded concerned. She shifted gears as they came down the road, trying to give Gus as much of her attention as possible

Gus frowned, looking for the right way to explain things. Finally, in a small voice, he admitted, "I thought I heard a man saying stuff. Like chanting? Pretty intimidating. I figured it was the window, but," He swallowed. "When I looked down, I could see a masked man in the yard looking up at us, right at us. I looked for him again, I figured I could point him out and ask Amity if she had a gardener or whatever, but when I looked back, he was gone. There was no way he could’ve covered the ground to the trees or get out of view in the split second I looked away! But he just…disappeared."

None of them moved. A sudden tension overcame all three as they considered those words, picturing what had happened. Luz slid her finger to her phone and hit play on the first Beyoncé song she could find. As Formation began playing in the car, Willow finally turned the key, sending the ignition rumbling, and drove out. They all watched the windows as they left, looking for something that none of them could name.

Chapter 3: Photos from When We Were Young

Chapter Text

All around them the silence of Hexside U’s library was interrupted by the occasional cough or rustle of a bag, and a librarian shushing any speakers who made a noise above a whisper. Gus was leaning his arms on the carrel desk he was sat at, deep in research. Books were stacked like a protective wall about him, his head barely visible above the raised wooden sides. Luz, sitting at the next desk, felt completely unproductive in comparison. She’d been trying to skim through the pages of a book on paranormal investigation, but her attention kept spinning out of control. The silence of the library wasn’t somewhere she could study effectively; she needed somewhere she could talk and listen to music and pace. Otherwise it felt like there were bees in her brain, her attention jumping from topic to topic impulsively. She’d tried to focus on the page in front of her, knee bouncing, for what had felt like hours already. This task was Herculean.

Eventually, just as she was sure she’d need to explode into movement and tell him she needed to go outside and get coffee or stretch her legs or something, Gus’s head rose above the forest of dead trees he’d built for himself, and he reached over to pat her arm. "This is what I was looking for," he said, and rolled on his chair a little, giving her space to look. Luz leaned over, eyeing his screen, excited for literally anythingother than the book in front of her. The article he’d pulled up on his old laptop, amid tens of browser tabs that she could see, was from the archives of the local newspaper, seven years previous. Nearly exactly seven years, she noted, somewhere in the back of her mind. She nodded at the byline — Perry Porter, best reporter in the area (not that she was biased) — and scanned the title.

Blighted by Tragedy: A Family Lies Shattered After a Mysterious Car Crash

"Maybe not the right time for puns," Gus whispered. "But dad didn’t control the headline."

Luz slid an arm around his shoulders and leaned in as her eyes moved down the article. It was matter of fact reporting: Alador and Odalia Blight had been in one of their cars. It was mid-winter, unseasonably cold for California. Black ice had coated the road. They appeared to have spun out of control, the car careening into a ditch. Luz’s lips moved as she read, trying to take everything in, focus on each word as they came. Unusually bad crash on an otherwise empty road. It was not believed they had survived for long at the scene. Someone had called an ambulance immediately after the crash but that potential witness had been gone by the time EMTs had arrived. Bonesborough PD were appealing for witnesses, but otherwise saw it as an unfortunate accident. They were survived by three children.

"Huh," Luz said, voice trailing off. "Black ice?"

"Yeah," Gus frowned. "I guess that winter was pretty bad? I don’t really remember it being that much worse than usual, but I guess it was."

Luz reread the article, then read it again, looking for any hints of the paranormal, anything spooky or unexplainable. There was nothing here to go off of but the tragedy of sudden and unquantifiable loss, and she felt icky trying to glean anything paranormal from that. She leaned back in her chair, putting her foot on the desk. "I wonder who called for an ambulance?"

"And why they didn’t show themselves," Gus tapped his pen to his bottom lip. "I know I would’ve said something. If I was the last person to see them alive, I dunno. I feel like I’d want to meet the kids at least. Answer questions?"

"Maybe they didn’t have any answers? Or they just couldn’t handle talking, emotionally speaking." Luz put her hands behind her head, leaning back in her chair. Gus rested his arm over her shoulders. "Sometimes it’s cathartic to talk to someone. Sometimes I guess it’s just painful."

"You two look like you’re wilting in here." Willow’s voice. They both turned to greet her, Luz pulling up a third chair. "Doing research?" Her gardening gloves were peeking out of one of the pockets of her coat, a fresh flower behind her ear, and she smelled like new rain and soft earth. Fresh from the greenhouse was always Willow at her happiest. She’d brought them homegrown avocados.

"Aw, sick! Mom loves these!" A librarian leaned over to shush in their direction, and Luz covered her mouth with her free hand, stowing two avocados in her pocket for later

"We’ve been researching super hard," Gus pointed to the screen, and patted one of his piles of books. "I figured if we knew in what circ*mstances the Blights died we’d be able to figure out what kind of ghosts they were. But all that’s been reported is that they died in a car crash. All I can find about car crash ghosts," he patted his piles of books, "Is that they usually only hang out on the roads where they died."

Willow adjusted her glasses, reading over Luz’s shoulder. After a while, she frowned. "I paid pretty close attention to that story when it happened. I don’t remember the bit about the anonymous 911 call. That’s weird."

"It’s probably a scoop," Gus looked proud. "Dad’s pretty awesome at those. It’s how he got on TV!"

Willow leaned in to read further. The three of them sat in silence for a moment or two, Gus flipping through his books for anything he’d missed, Willow scanning the article, and Luz glumly attempting to juggle the avocados while looking around the library at other students as they worked and wishing she could focus on a single page. Finally, Willow sighed in defeat. "I guess we won’t find out more from here."

"We could try and ask one of the Blight kids. But Amity hasn’t replied to any of my texts." Luz held up her phone, the lack of read receipts visible on any of the texts she’d sent Amity throughout the last few days. "And Ed and Em are so busy they need us to make an appointment before we can talk to them! I dropped something into their calendar, but it’s not til tomorrow."

Willow scrolled up very briefly on Amity and Luz’s text exchanges. A grouping of longer messages from Luz, asking questions, being ignored. Her eyes moved to the last time Amity had texted back, a little after Gus had seen a figure and hurried them out of her house.

Luz Noceda (8:00pm): hey! just checking to make sure you’re okay! things got kinda scary!

Amity Blight (8:06pm): Don’t be condescending.

Luz Noceda (8:06pm): i’m sorry if that came off as condescending!

Luz Noceda (8:06pm): we’re friends right? i wanna make sure you’re okay!

Amity Blight (8:07pm): Next time you play that weird 5 things game with me I’m taking your dumb hat.

Luz Noceda (8:07pm): sorry!!! 😭😭😭

Message read at 8:07pm

"I haven’t heard from her since," Luz frowned, face the pinnacle of sad puppy.

Willow smiled serenely, handing Luz’s phone back to her. "I know where we can find Amity."

The sports field on campus was pretty big, supposedly to accommodate a multitude of sports. Truth be told, Hexside U’s main field-based competitive sport was rugby. Their women’s team had taken home a number of titles at this point, rivaled only by their ice hockey team’s latest winning streak. The common denominator for both teams was one Amity Blight: super jock. Not that any of the Ghoul Friends had ever seen her in action. "We should go to a game at some point," Luz said, fiddling with her beanie as she considered taking it off. "Hexside’s known for one sport and we’ve never even gone to watch it! Can you really say we’ve had a full university career when we’ve never shouted support for our beloved…" She paused. "Wait, what are we? Hexside Harpies?"

"Banshees," Willow supplied helpfully.

"What!" Luz looked aghast. "Where’s the flair? The alliteration?"

"Imagine the tunnels we could dig under here," Gus whistled in awe as they sidled onto the sportsfield, a pitch ringed by bleachers. "We could have an entire underground concert hall!"

"We still need to fix the one under the media lab first," Willow reminded him. "We won’t get anywhere if that keeps collapsing."

"One project at a time, I know," he sighed. "It’s only a matter of time until my tunnels stretch all over Bonesborough!"

Luz had only been on this sports field once before. She’d gone to cheerleading tryouts when she’d first started here, and had immediately fumbled by tripping over her own feet and bungling the pyrotechnical display they’d planned by setting herself and several other cheerleading hopefuls on fire. Since then, she’d kept a healthy distance between herself and the sports teams. But it’d been a couple years, so it wasn’t like that would be remembered. Probably.

The women’s rugby team were streaming out of their dressing room, wearing a mixture of their uniforms and tracksuits as they got ready to run drills. A few bystanders were on the bleachers, friends of the team, she guessed. Luz glanced around, looking for anyone they knew already, and her eyes landed on a familiar head of light hair.

"You know what, I’ll wait outside," she said with false cheer, turning on her heel. Willow grabbed her hand, keeping her in place. "Curse your many muscles."

"Hey Ghoul Pals!" Skara had already spotted them, and waved from across the pitch. Gus and Willow waved back, Willow lifting the hand holding Luz’s. Luz tried to smile, and managed a frozen, halting grimace.

"She’s not going to pay any attention to you," Willow reassured her, leading them to a seat on the other side of the pitch, heading off an attempt at a conversation at the pass. "Not while Boscha’s here."

"Okay, but that feels worse," Luz groaned, sliding into the seat, pulling her jacket up and pulling her hat down over her face. "Both options are bad and I’m going to die from it. That’s how bad it feels. I am going to die."

"Good thing we’re paranormal investigators," Gus put his feet up on the railings, unmerciful and unsympathetic. "Your ghost can keep on presenting the stream!"

"Why are you both being terrible?"

"Remember all those times we had to deal with you?" Gus asked, cheerful. "Sucking face? Giggling? Sighing?"

"You told me it didn’t bother you!"

"I’m really good at lying," Gus told her with a wide smile, patting her arm. "Deal with it, okay. Skara’s not our aim right now. We’re here to catch a bigger fish." He paused. "Well, not that much bigger. They’re both pretty short."

"Everyone’s short to you, Gus. You’re 6' 2," Willow pointed out. "I’m sorry Luz. Can you bear it for a little bit longer?"

They appeared to have turned up during a break in the training. Skara was leaning into Boscha, giggling. Boscha was cupping her cheek, a big smirk on her face. Luz groaned, pulling her hat down further to block her own view. "I hate everything about this."

"Matters of the heart seem complex," Gus said, checking his notes, nonchalantly. "Get wrecked."

Willow laughed quietly. "Hey," she said, patting Luz’s shoulder to get her attention from where she was twisting into her seat, groaning, and pulling her beanie over her eyes. "Look, there’s Amity."

Amity had come on to the pitch, holding a clipboard in one hand and a water bottle under her arm. "Alright, break it up," she said, voice clear enough that they could hear it from their position. Luz lifted her beanie enough to look at her. The other rugby team members had stepped out, Skara breaking away from Boscha to sit back in the bleachers. Amity was looking up and down their group as they huddled up around her, face serious. "We still have some drills to get through. We’re going to work on agility and passing, and then—" Amity paused as she turned to address the players circling her and her eyes fell on their group. Luz waved at her brightly, all of the torture of seeing Skarsha together seemingly forgotten. Amity’s shoulders dropped in a sigh they could hear from where they sat, and handed the list to Boscha. "Set up the cones for a standard passing and handling drill," she instructed, and strode over to their small group.

"Hey!" Luz waved again. "I like your shorts. They look so good on you!"

"What— Why are you three here?" Amity folded her arms tight across her chest, a deep frown on her face. "Is there a ghost haunting the sports field now? Have my siblings hired you to follow me around and pretend everywhere I go is full of demons? Do I come to your ghost pits and throw a ball around while you’re…doing whatever it is you do there? Bothering ghosts, I imagine?"

"Nope! That sounds expensive. The hiring option, I mean. We’d totally welcome you coming along to a haunted house with us, though!" Luz held up her phone. "We’ve been doing some investigating, but we needed to ask you some questions. I tried to text, but I’m not sure if you got them."

"We thought you were probably busy, and had missed Luz’s texts. I said we’d probably find you here," Willow said with a smile. Amity and Willow shared a look Luz couldn’t read. Willow’s smile had all the innocent benevolence of a baby angel. Amity glowered in response, red faced. "When would work for you for a quick interview?"

Behind her, Boscha had set up the training pitch. Four cones in a square, with two players standing to the east and west outside of the cones, the rest lined up between the two southern cones. As Boscha blew the whistle, the players behind the cones began running, and the player to the east threw the ball to one, who’d throw it to the next, who’d throw it to the player to the west. Luz watched with interest as they reached the far cone and rounded it, the ball being thrown back between them. "Man, your players are really disciplined."

"Yeah, I couldn’t do that," Gus stretched out, putting his feet on the chair in front of him. "I’d throw once and then be sneaking off to buy cookies."

"You couldn’t," Amity informed him. "I keep a tight watch on my players."

"That’s what the tunnels are for."

"How are you planning to sneak past me to tunnels?"

"You’ll be distracted by the spontaneous sea shanty sing-off I’ll start!"

Amity opened and closed her mouth as though considering whether or not to take that bait. She decided against it. "I have five minutes. I’ll answer whatever inane questions you have here. There’ll be no need for a follow-up meeting."

Luz opened her mouth, closed it again. Frowned. "Uh," she said. "We’d be— hey, you’re in the middle of something. So feel free to tell us to back off and come back later if it’s too painful right now! But we were hoping to ask about your parents and their crash. And I know it’s rough to suddenly be thinking about that kinda thing before you do something else. So let’s not do it now, just let us know when’s best to talk, so that you can have time to get prepared, and we can talk then."

Amity’s shoulders went stiff and drew up to her ears. Her ears twitched. Luz sucked in a breath, concerned. She should’ve handled this better. She knew better than anyone that a mere mention of this kind of loss, a rehashing of grief, could throw someone’s entire day out. Concerned, she leaned forward. "We can come back later," Willow said, gently. "But we need to know when to come back. That’s why we’re here. We’re happy to go if you need us to go."

"It’s fine," Amity said, her voice forced flat, taut like a tensed string. "I’m not going to be distracted if I talk about it. I’ve come to terms with their passing." She leaped over the barrier between the bleachers and pitch with ease (Luz whispering "wow!") and sat down on Luz’s other side.

"So," Luz said, squeezing Willow’s hand for courage. "What happened? We saw there was a car crash."

"Yep," Amity was focused on the field in front, watching the players. The passing drill had been sped up and Boscha was motivating the team by telling them how little she was impressed by them. "Black ice. They were both in the car. My father pulled on the wheel because he saw something ahead on the road, and they spun out. It was my father’s Corvette, and the make of the tyres he used were later recalled due to safety concerns. These things happen." This statement seemed practiced. Luz leaned in, concern writ large on her face. Amity leaned away. "Was that what you wanted to know?"

"Someone called 911," Gus broke in. "An anonymous caller. Did you ever find out who that was?"

Amity’s shoulders reached her ears again. She stared hard at the training players, mouth downturned. "No. They were completely anonymous."

"Did the disturbances start after they died?" Luz asked her.

"Yes," Amity said. Her ears went red. "Reportedly," she added.

"What kind of stuff?" Gus asked, pen poised over his notebook.

"The same things the twins already told you," Amity shook her head, trying to shake something off. "Footsteps, voices, cold hands, things moving around the room. Sleep paralysis. Clocks going backwards. Night creatures. Dark shapes. Things coming through mirrors. Strangers in the backyard." She shook her head. "Allegedly. Ghosts don’t exist."

Gus frowned. "You’ve named like three things the twins absolutely did not mention."

"And that’s enough for now," Amity said, standing up suddenly. "Perhaps you ought to talk to the twins and find out what secrets they’re keeping."

"Hey, wait!" Luz stood up with her and smiled, gently touching her shoulder. Amity stared down at the hand on her shoulder as though it was completely incomprehensible to her, some sort of mysterious and potentially dangerous creature. "Thanks for talking to us. I’m sorry I came all the way out here to bother you in person. Next time I’ll wait for a text back, okay?"

Her smile was bright and friendly. Amity looked away. When she looked back, Gus was holding out a folded post-it to her with a smile. "Thanks!" He said, as they got up to go. "This is us." He made a gesture, pointing to her and then to his own chest.

"Hmm." Amity waited for them to be half-way out of the stadium heading back to campus, before opening the note. It was the post-it she’d stuck to Gus’s chest the day before. The one he’d written ’friend’ on. He’d added a smiley face and a picture of two stick figures. One she guessed was him, the other her, judging by the frown. In a spate of artistic license he’d made her half his height.

"Absolutely ridiculous," she muttered, but didn’t throw it away. Instead she folded it back up and shoved it deep into the pocket of her shorts.

The offices of Blight Industries HQ were bright and shiny, painfully modern. Willow had told them on their way downtown that the office had been built specifically for the company; despite the number of similar businesses in Silicon Valley, the Blights had decided to make their homebase out here where rent was cheaper and they could be a big fish in a small pond, picking up both graduates from Hexside U and transplants from across the country. Luz felt underdressed in her olive army surplus jacket and purple and white shirt. While the staff here were in jeans, they were still somehow blindingly chic, a uniform of neatly pressed denim, black turtlenecks and white t-shirts.

She glanced down at her own jeans. The left knee was wearing through. She’d rolled up the cuffs of her jeans in classic bisexual fashion, but that meant that her lower shins and ankles were now visible, her white Vans scuffed. Gus slid his arm around hers, leaning in to whisper, "It feels like everyone here is at a costume party where the theme is ‘cool twenty-something in 2008.’"

Luz laughed, reaching to squeeze his hand. "That’s probably why I feel like I stick out so much. I’m not cool." She paused. "Also, I was, like, eight in 2008." She reached out her free hand to Willow, who gladly took it. "Nerd squad, ready to roll out?"

"Ready," said Willow.

"Speak for yourself, I’m cool," said Gus.

Emira’s office was on the top floor of Blight Industries, reached via an elevator made from transparent glass. As they rose up the side of the building, they could see the rest of Bonesborough spread out beneath their feet, laid out like a toy city. The office of the CEO was clean and surprisingly bare given how flamboyant both twins seemed. Emira greeted them from behind her desk with a smile, standing up as she did. "Hello! I was just looking over our financials for this quarter, and chasing the earnings reports from our departments."

"And I was watching Survivor," Edric appeared from behind them with fresh coffee. He poured them all mugs of steaming coffee, gesturing to the creamer and sugar on the table with a flourish. "Either way, this’ll be more interesting than what we were up to."

Willow carefully poured two creamers and a little sugar into her mug. Gus reached for the selection and came back with a handful of sugar. Luz examined the creamers, sighing with joy when she saw they were dairy-free, and adding just enough to lighten her coffee. "We’ve been by the house," she said. "We’re working on a plan of attack. I hope that’s okay."

"That’s fine." Emira drank her coffee black. She sipped it without changing it, her golden eyes evaluating the ghost hunters. "We did think of other materials — proof, if you will — that we could show you. As usual, not until after we’d left. You know how it goes."

Edric produced several photo albums. "Hey, you wanted to see baby pics of Willow, right?" He asked with a wink. Willow audibly groaned. "Aw, come on. You were a cute baby."

"I was," she said, rubbing her temple. "I know I was. I just worry about the sort of photos of me that you’d keep."

"Oh dang, baby pics!" Luz grabbed for the albums. "Which one first? Which one has the cutest pics?"

"I wouldn’t call the photos we want to show you cute," Emira said. "But I think the middle one will interest you most of all."

Luz pulled it close. The book was leather bound, soft as butter, smelling of musk. "Fancy." She flipped it open on her lap and found a treasure trove of photos. There was one of Amity and Willow, no older than six or seven. They looked happy. Luz’s smile stretched her cheeks at how cute they were; Amity had both arms thrown around Willow’s neck. Willow’s hair was mussed and her glasses were huge on her small round face. "So cute," she whispered, drawing her finger down the page to examine the other portraits.

A photo of the Blight siblings outside a funeral home, dressed in black. It seemed to have been clipped from one of the local newspapers. She’d never seen Edric or Emira look so solemn. She kept looking. Strangers with the same face shape as the Blights. A small gathering in what she recognised as Blight Manor. A photo of a man who looked a lot like Alador but not quite staring directly into the camera, a grim look on his face. A photo of Amity alone, sat at a desk, a look of concentration on her features as she focused on a task in front of her. Another of her looking away from the camera, arms folded in that wound up posture that had become so familiar. A third of her with Emira, tucked under her sister’s arm, apparently sleeping.

Luz was so focused on the pictures of Amity that she forgot, briefly, that these were supposed to be paranormal evidence. It took Gus gasping beside her to remember where she was, what they were supposed to be doing. When she looked up at him, he was trembling. "There," he whispered. "There he is again."

Gus was pointing to a photo where a young woman was playing the piano for a small gathering of what appeared to be Blight relatives in the same reception area Ed and Em had led them to originally. Luz examined it a few times, eyes drawn to Amity in the corner, leaning back from the crowd. She looked up at Gus, questioning. He pressed his fingertip to the opposite side of the photo, a point just above the piano. Luz saw only shadow at first, and was about to ask him what this was supposed to be, when she realised, and an ice cold finger of fear drew itself up her spine. The shadow looming over the piano was in the shape of a person where no person was, two pinpoints of light where the eyes might be in a face.

"There’s one here too," Ed said helpfully, taking her hand to place it on a photo of himself, shirtless, posing in the backyard, chest bare and tanned. He was apparently showing off his biceps. "Try not to get completely distracted," he added as Luz’s cheeks glowed faintly red.

Luz forced herself to look around him, to try and examine every other part of the photo. Gus went stiff beside her, and they shared a look. "That’s him," Gus said, pointing to the bushes behind Ed. "That’s who I saw the other night. Right there."

Nobody spoke. Behind the Edric in the photo, there was the faintest outline of a shape. She couldn’t see the whole person, but the shape was enough to show it to be large, eight feet tall or more. And there, where the face should be: a pinprick of light reflecting off of something the rough size and placement of an eye. Luz swallowed. "That’s the…the guy you saw?"

"It’s him for sure."

"You see him too?" Ed asked, interest in his voice. "We thought we were hallucinating him. Em insisted she and I get ourselves checked out medically before we bring in ghoul busters."

"Has Amity seen him?" Willow asked, frowning at the image. Luz could see all of the hair on her arms had risen in disagreement with the reality of this photo.

"Mittens swears she hasn’t," Edric said with a shrug.

"But given how quickly she jumps when we talk about him…" Emira shrugged with a smile. "Plus, there was that time when we got back home in time to see her having a staring competition with him. Staring out the window right at him, but swore she wasn’t looking at anything."

Luz frowned, trying to shake off the fear in her chest. "You guys mentioned before that you thought the ghost was your mother, but you use he/him pronouns for the ghost."

"This isn’t the ghost," Ed said with a shrug. "We’ve already tested this garden guy a bit by trying to make contact." He frowned. "Which I don’t recommend by the way. Given that he tried to drown us."

"What!"

"Story for another time," Em said, waving it off with a small smile. "We did test him. When we attempted to annoy him we found that he was completely unable to get past the front door of the house."

"He might’ve worked it out since," Ed mused. "But he was locked outside for all the time we knew him. And the vast majority of weird haunting stuff has happened inside." He tapped the photo of the piano player, then tapped just against the strangely shaped creature. "This one we see in the house. Different beasts. The garden spooky has a mask. This creepy crawly doesn’t have a mask. Which is why we figured it was mom, checking in on us."

"Don’t worry about the outside man," Emira said, helpfully. "We’re just happy for you to deal with the inside one. The outside ghost can’t get in, so we can ignore him easy enough."

Willow picked up one of the photos, frowning at it. Luz shook her head, trying to get out from under the oppressive feeling in her chest. This felt like too much, like too much responsibility. She checked the next album. Now that the shadowy figure had been pointed out to her, she could see it in every photo, a looming shadow that hung ominously over the three Blight children. She closed the album gently, unwilling to look any longer.

She’d gotten into paranormal investigating specifically because it had been a real fun thing to do with Willow and Gus. They’d tell a creepy story, get the giggles, occasionally get a little spike of a scare, and that would be all the consequence. While she did totally believe in ghosts, the idea of a completely malevolent presence that could harm her wasn’t something that had ever occurred to her. Luz opened her mouth ready to say, Hey, maybe you should call a real paranormal investigator.

"We’re really glad you’re willing to help us out with this," Emira said, apparently sensing their unease. "We haven’t had any luck with other paranormal investigators. When a fan of yours sent us your channel, we knew you were right for the job."

Gus and Willow shared an uneasy look. Luz stared at the closed photo album. She opened her mouth to refuse, to hand back the money. To apologize and ask to be removed from this case.

"And besides," Ed added. "It would be great if you could help Mittens out. We’d feel a lot more comfortable if she wasn’t hanging out in a haunted house all day. But she doesn’t seem to want to leave without proof it’s not all in our heads, you know?"

Luz closed her mouth. "Sure," she said. "Okay. Sure!" She took a deep breath in, trying to force air into her lungs and calm down. "We’ll see what we can do!"

"Gus, I’m pretty sure you’ve completely filled my car with books and backpacks." Willow said as she adjusted her mirror. She’d agreed to pick Gus up on her way to Blight Manor, and was now glad she had. She’d at least managed to stop him from adding another suitcase to the pile. "Is that the corkboard from your room?"

"Never know when we’ll need it to ideate over an idea!"

"I guess," Willow agreed with a little laugh, pulling down the highway. "Did you pack any clothes?"

"Yep! Six shirts! Seven pairs of underwear, two sweaters, and a formal tuxedo. Enough for a long weekend! And I brought my playstation, a few controllers — oh man! Should I go back for some blu-rays? Maybe we can get a movie night going?"

Willow laughed again, eyes on the road, feeling lighter already. "Maybe. Do you think there’s time for a movie marathon in the middle of our ghost investigation?"

"If not in the middle of a ghost investigation, then when?" Gus shifted in his seat to watch as they pulled away from the main body of the town. The Porters lived close to downtown, still in the same house they’d had before Perry had become a semi-celebrity in Bonesborough. From here, they could spot the high tower of Blight Industries, peeking out through an interrupted skyline of office buildings and stores. "How’re you doing, though? I know this is gotta be tough."

"Tough?" Willow asked absent-mindedly, all of her attention on switching gears as her car joined downtown traffic.

"You know. You and Amity." Gus turned to look at his friend, face soft. He and Willow had become pals after she and Amity’s friendship had collapsed. He’d been accelerated from second grade into fourth, and by then Willow had been friendless and bullied for years. He’d understood that feeling. In his own grade, he’d stood out for being too smart; in his new grade, he’d stood out for being too young. He’d been drawn to the quiet girl who had to sit alone in the front of class because everyone else refused to sit with her. He’d recognised a mirror to his own loneliness, a kindred spirit.

Willow had been quiet as a kid, still was quiet. Her quietness, her struggle with some of their classwork, had been misinterpreted by others as Willow being slow. But Gus knew how sharp she really was, the depths of her kindness and protectiveness. She was smart and brave, and strong beyond measure.

And he remembered, above all else, a moment in middle school where Boscha had said, "What’s it like getting straight Fs, half-a-brain Willow?" and Amity had said, "Stop it, Boscha, it’s not her fault she’s slow."He remembered the look of hurt on Willow’s face as she’d looked at Amity, the betrayal in her eyes. "I know she was sh*tty to you, growing up."

Willow didn’t answer for a bit. She fiddled with the tape player, changing tapes. Gus knew those actions. She was formulating her answer, going over it. "I wasn’t sure I wanted to be anywhere near Amity again," she admitted finally, changing tapes. "She’s never exactly apologised for being sh*tty. Just avoided me." She took the tape out before the first few bars of the song had finished, switching to radio. She scanned AM to FM, dropping onto local radio. "Most of the people who were the worst in middle school just…ended up avoiding me by the end of high school. Nobody really wants to confront the fact that they made someone’s life miserable."

Gus leaned against the dashboard. They’d never been capital P Popular, but by the time people had begun to mature, Willow had managed to cultivate her own following. The real dild*s had found themselves with fewer opportunities to bully her. "Is this okay? If you want, I can tell Luz that we’re not going anywhere further without an apology from Mittens."

"That’s alright," Willow said, and he heard the smile in her voice. "I think part of me will still be annoyed with her for a while. She was cruel when we were supposed to be best friends. She let her new friends trample over me for years. But on balance…" She let a car overtake her, turning the radio down as a host read ad copy. "That was a long time ago. I have a lot to be thankful for in my life now. I have you, and I have Luz. I have my plants, I have my dads. I’m on track to graduate with honors. I’ve got internship opportunities, and I’ve got people who love me and support me." She took a breath. Gus basked in the fact that he was something to be thankful for, smiling broadly. "And Amity…Amity lives alone in a haunted house. She doesn’t have the same support I do. She works twice as hard as I have to to be on the same level. She doesn’t have the friends she had in high school. If I hold onto my anger, I have to admit to myself I’m angry at a seven year old who doesn’t exist anymore. And that’s not very mature." She hummed softly. "We’re different people than we were. I don’t mind being out here with you and Luz. You don’t have to make her apologize." She grinned. "Although that would be pretty funny."

"Yeah?" Gus looked out the window at the cars zooming past. It had begun to rain very slightly, and his fingers traced a droplet as it rolled down Willow’s window. Light rain, always soft this time of year. "I was worried you’d be upset. I’m glad you’re not."

Willow gave Gus a wry smile. "She’s also got a super obvious crush on Luz. That’s pretty fun. I know I said I wasn’t angry anymore, but I can be petty. She’s being an exploding disaster about it and it’s fascinating to watch."

"What!" Gus’s jaw hung open. "I never even noticed!"

"Amity Blight tries to present herself as calm, collected, and a little bit smug, unless something is getting her flustered, or is out of her control." Willow tapped the wheel of her car, the corners of her lips turned upwards. "She keeps getting all red faced and annoyed around Luz. She’s got this fixation on Luz’s hat. I’ll bet you five dollars that in a few days she’ll be trying to steal it while telling herself it’s just because she doesn’t like it and not because she wants Luz to chase her to get it back."

Gus laughed, pressing a hand to his forehead. "Oh my god! They’ll be comparing hand sizes and Luz’ll be all, ‘wow Amity is really interested in my hands! I bet it’s because she thinks I’ll be good at catching a rugby ball!’"

"If we get that far before Amity combusts," Willow laughed, but there was a trace of nostalgic fondness in her voice. Her relationship with Amity had been ruptured painfully, Gus realised, but that didn’t mean she’d stopped caring about the other girl completely. "She gets frazzled, her face goes all red like she’s going to pass out, and all that energy goes into pushing people away. Bring up one of Luz’s crushes in front of her and you’ll see rainbow colored confetti all over the house from where she explodes."

"I’m glad I don’t have any crushes," Gus sighed. "I bet I’d have an even worse tell than going tomato."

"You’d just go out of your way to show off to them," Willow told him, patting his shoulder. "It’d be cute. You’d be nailing their name up in lights above the city."

"And you give them plants," Gus pointed out with a laugh.

"I need to see how they are with plants! I can’t be with someone who lets a little shrub die!" Willow considered this. "Unless they’re very cute and very sorry about it."

"Did she ever pass out? When you two were kids, I mean."

"Oh yeah," Willow laughed softly. "Not often. But once the twins managed to prank us by rigging up a trap that tipped a bucket filled with bugs on my head. She got so angry that she fainted and hit her head. The twins were so overprotective after that that we couldn’t play alone for days after. Even though it was their fault!"

"I guess they haven’t changed much," Gus rubbed his chin, thinking of them. They’d been overwhelmingly attractive, welcoming and charismatic. Very different to Amity, who he’d affectionately labeled as ‘smallest Blight, pretending badly not to be a feral gremlin’ in the museum of friendship in his brain.

They were the first to pull up to the Blight driveway. Amity was resting against one of the wooden pillars that held up the porch, looking sourly out at the shower of rain, waiting for them. She narrowed her eyes as Gus leaped out of Willow’s car and began dragging out multiple bags. "My siblings told me you’d be staying for a weekend," she said, sharply. "Not moving in."

"I only have the books as I need!" He hefted a bag and nearly collapsed under its weight. Willow, with her camera equipment under one arm, tossed Gus’s bag with ease onto her free shoulder. "Thank you, Sam!"

"No problem, Mr. Frodo."

Amity gave them both a wildly judgemental look.

"Didn’t you read all of Fellowship in first grade?" Willow asked, voice mild. "I remember you telling me the plot."

Amity pushed open the door for them with her foot, looking away so that she didn’t have to engage with this proof of her own nerdiness. "Where’s Luz?" She asked, and Gus noted, now that Willow had pointed it out, just how casual she was trying to look; leaning against the pillar, purposefully not looking at them.

"On her way!" He pulled out another few bags, teetered under the weight of the load. "She’ll be here any moment."

As Gus was on his third trip to bring his things from the car to Amity’s hallway, Willow on her fifth, they heard the revving of a loud engine from down the street. The group turned just in time to see a motorbike with two people on it fly past the manor before u-turning dangerously further up the road. It zoomed through the open gates, up the driveway so fast that Amity pressed her back to the pillar she’d been relaxing against, sure it would lose control and spin out to hit either them or the wall of the house. But the rider in front brought it to a stop, her foot hitting the ground.

This rider had long legs in tight red leather, and was somehow wearing high heels. When she pulled her helmet off and shook her long grey hair free, she grinned at the group, showing off a prominent canine tooth. She had to be over six feet tall, closer to seven in those heels. Amity openly gaped, but Gus and Willow waved as though this was a totally normal occurrence and giant women on motorbikes were forever driving up to them. "Hey kids. How ya doing?"

The figure behind her had fallen off the back of the bike and was trying to pull her own helmet off, failing. The rider helped, tugging it off with ease to reveal Luz, who jumped to her feet. "Thanks for the ride, Eda!" She reached into the helmet, retrieving her beanie from inside it, planting it back on top of her head. "Amity! This is my bonus mom! She runs the pawn slash curio slash witch shop! She knows sooooooo much about ghosts!"

"I agreed to check out the grounds as a consultant," Eda told them, jerking her thumb towards the green. "I’ll do it when I pick up the kid on Sunday. If that’s okay with you, homeowner?"

This question was aimed towards Amity, who was shrinking in on herself. Luz, still in her jeans and her white slip-ons, was attempting to peel off the leather jacket over her hoodie. As she tugged her arm free, the hoodie moved upwards, showing the warm skin of her stomach.

"Hey," Eda snapped her fingers an inch from Amity’s nose. "Hey resident kiddo. I’ve gotta go pick up my girlfriend soon, can ya answer me?"

"Wha—" Amity had been lost, all brain functions eaten up by watching Luz struggle out of the jacket. She looked over at Eda, trying to remember what she’d said and found she couldn’t. "Yes. Yeah. Yeah absolutely. That’s fine. Sure."

Behind her Gus giggled as he dragged his backpack into the hallway. "Thanks Eda," Willow said, audibly holding back her own grin. "Are you and Camila going to do anything nice?"

"We’re gonna do the same thing we do every time we get the apartment to ourselves," Eda gave Willow a pair of finger guns, clicking her teeth. "Watch sappy movies and order takeout."

"Living the dream," Luz said with a grin, handing her helmet back to Eda.

"You’re telling me." Eda set her helmet back on. "I’ll be back on Sunday. Remember kids, never talk to the cops without a lawyer! ACAB!" With a roar of the bike’s motor she was flying back down the highway, leaving Amity gaping after her.

"Does she always—"

"That’s how she says goodbye, yeah." Luz shifted her backpack on her shoulder, stepping into the porch. "I consulted with our consultant! Her fee is several baked goods and the shiniest pen from my collection. And I researched by watching pretty much every episode of Ghost Hunters and Buzzfeed Unsolved. And I have a plan!" She rubbed her hands together gleefully. "We’ll set up base camp in the living room tonight, and try to contact the ghost!"

"Speaking directly to the ghost feels like a bad idea." Amity paused. "If there is a ghost."

"And we’ll set up microphones around the house to capture any noise. And a camera! Like real ghost hunters do!" Luz was warming to her subject, nodding along. "And then we’ll sleep in there so we’re all together in case anything happens— I noticed that’s a big problem in horror movies, everyone separates— and then tomorrow morning we’ll check the tapes and then we do the same for the next floor, and then on Sunday we’ll do it for the next one!" She pumped the air, expression bright. "And next weekend we’ll do it for the other floors! We’ll have the entire house checked out in no time! Come on!"

The rest of the group looked at each other, checking for complaints. But the plan seemed solid enough, or at least had no holes that Amity could immediately poke in it, so they filed in, Luz running ahead. In the reception room, Luz dropped to her knees and started pulling things from her backpack; a camping sleeping mat, a collection of wires. Pyjamas. A book on befriending ghosts. A tripod with no camera. Three pillows. Several changes of clothes. A spare beanie. Three chargers.

"How much stuff did you bring?" Amity asked, suddenly very worried that Edric and Emira had paid for roommates instead of ghost hunters.

"Here we go!" Luz pulled out a mysterious wooden box, a grin on her face. Hanging from it was a tag from a toy store. "I got a Ouija board! Emira said I can expense it with my receipts. I read it’s best to wait til nightfall and then light candles and try."

"Sounds good to me!" Gus nodded away. "Ouija and darkness, was there ever a more iconic pair?"

"It’s five in the afternoon. What are you going to do until nightfall?" Amity asked, doubtful.

"We could watch a movie," Willow said, innocently. She gently elbowed Gus.

"What kind?" Luz asked over her shoulder, flopping onto her stomach as she worked on untangling her wires.

"Oh, I dunno. One of the Spider-Man movies?" Gus suggested, stepping back a bit so he could watch both Luz and Amity’s responses at the same time.

Luz sat up, absolutely delighted. "Oh, heck yeah! Put on anythingTom Holland, that guy’s the cutest!"

"Who?" Amity asked, arms folding again.

"Tom Holland! The British bombshell!" Luz gave a dreamy sigh. "He’s very cute. And super non-threatening. And a really athletic dude, but so compact! He’s got siblings, and I always wanted to marry someone with siblings so I can know what it’s like to not be an only child. And he’s so nice! But when he wants to, he can play super broody and badass, and you know I love a tiny lil brunette brooder. Plus I’ve heard him speak Spanish, which honestly adds to the cuteness. He’s my phone lockscreen, see?"

Amity’s frown grew deep and troubled, her ears going red. She looked away as Luz stood up and showed her her phone. "He doesn’t have any lips."

"It’s not about looks! Even if he does have those lovely brown eyes, and such nice hair. It’s about the vibe!" Luz bobbed into her view, still smiling. "It’s easy to crush on someone if they’ve got nice, comfortable vibes, right?"

"I don’t know what you mean." Amity insisted, looking away.

"Sure you do! What’s your type?"

"I don’t have one," Amity was going very red now.

"Aw, come on! Tell us about your crushes! I can tell you about all of mine!"

"No!"

Gus snickered, which reminded both of them that he was still in the room. Amity gave him a death glare, and both he and Willow grinned at her. "I bought popcorn," he said, as a peace offering. "Where’s your TV? Maybe not Spoder-Dude? We can watch something else!"

Amity made an annoyed noise, but crossed over to open an otherwise hidden cabinet, revealing a television that had been tucked away, out of sight. "We had it put in for guests. Personally, I never use it."

"You don’t watch TV?" Gus looked at her, horrified. "How d’you watch Perkin’ Up with Perry Porter? The single best local news show in the world?"

"I occasionally watch the news," she amended, grumpily. "It’s important to stay up to date."

"So you do watch Perkin’ Up with Perry Porter!" Gus punched the air, jumping.

"I didn’t say that."

"Hey," Luz patted Amity’s shoulder. "You like Azura, right? Why don’t we watch the Azura movie?" Her smile was bright and warm. "I’ve bought it on almost every platform."

"Sounds great," Willow answered, before Amity could. "Should we order a pizza?"

Gus switched on the TV. "Hey! Looks like whoever was using it last was watching the Hallmark channel!"

"Probably Edric," Amity lied.

"I’ll order a pizza," Willow said, patting Amity’s shoulder to offer an armistice.

They ordered two, one cheese-less for Luz, and the other covered in vegetables. While Willow categorised and photographed their receipts, they flopped on the floor to watch the movie. "These chairs are just…too uncomfortable to sit in," Gus muttered, laying out some of the pillows he’d brought with him to flop on top of.

"We don’t usually use them," Amity admitted.

"How come you didn’t redecorate?" Gus asked, curious.

"Edric and Emira didn’t want to. I don’t know why."

"Why don’t you redecorate? It’s just your house now, right?"

Amity didn’t answer, pretending to be too engrossed in the movie. She took a slice of the cheeseless pizza, folding it up as though making a pizza sandwich. Luz patted her shoulder. "You wanna try some of the cheese? Everyone always tells me cheeseless pizza tastes awful."

"That’s alright. Edric’s allergic to dairy. So I’m used to cheeseless pizza." She took a bite and smiled.

"Even though cheeseless pizza tastes like cardboard covered in tomato sauce?"

"I still prefer it."

"Thank you for your sacrifice."

Outside, the sun had dipped low beyond the horizon, soaking the reception room in a deep shade of nearly night, a glowing sunset of orange and pink reflecting off of the window’s glass. On screen, Azura’s staff turned to something akin to a missile launcher and she shot a beam of magic energy into her enemy. Luz cheered, actually jumping in the air for joy. As the movie wrapped up — the big romantic ending between Azura and Hecate had been bungled of course but it was still pretty good, with the two of them holding hands as they stepped into the unknown — Luz stood up with a stretch and began to try and fiddle with the ball of loose wires and extension cords she’d brought with her. "Man! I can’t wait for the comic continuation to come out. I hear there’s gonna be an issue just based around Hecate and Azura meeting each other’s moms!" She free a set of wires from the ball. "Okay, we’ve got mics!"

"We can rig up the webcams I brought," Gus frowned. "But I only have three. Man, Amity. I wish we could stick cameras all over your house!"

"Absolutely not," Amity said, arms folding again.

"If we put one up in the hall, we can point it in the direction of where those weird footsteps came from," Willow suggested. "Let me do that. Then I can set another up over the door pointing down so it can see everything happening in here, and leave the third as a spare in case one stops working."

"And I can set up my conspiracy board!" Gus wrestled his corkboard up, trying to rest it against the wall. "Can’t have a good investigation without a conspiracy board!" He took out a piece of paper marked ‘GHOSTS????' and pinned it to the middle of the board.

Luz was pulling out candles from her apparently infinite bag, setting them up in a rough circle in the middle of the room. Taking out a busted old lighter, she struggled to light one a few times, burning her fingers, before finally getting a single candle lit and using this to catch the others to flame. She placed the ouija board in the center of the circle, then hesitated. "Is a circle of salt too much?"

"For protection?" Gus asked. "I guess we can’t be too too careful!"

"As long as you clean it up after," Amity said after a moment of staring at her, blankly. "Then that’s fine."

"Alright!" Luz stuck her hand deep into her backpack, rummaged, and brought out a carton of kosher salt.

"Do you just…carry salt around?"

"A good paranormal investigator never goes without it!" Luz thought for a moment. "Hey, speaking of rocks, is this house built on granite?"

"I don’t know. Maybe?"

"Granite can retain negative energy, so that could be what’s happening. I read about it," she grinned. "Like negativity just echoing. So we think it’s a ghost but it’s actually just emotions. If nothing talks back to us, I figure that’s it!"

"Now who’s the research boy?" Gus asked over his shoulder. He’d added more cards to his corkboard: ‘DUDE IN FRONT YARD’, ‘THE ARCHITECT WHO BUILT THIS HOUSE HAD NEVER SEEN A HOUSE BEFORE’, ‘ILLUMINATI????', ‘GREMLIN’, ‘GENERAL BLIGHT WEIRDNESS’.

"I thought we agreed you were the research boy and I was the devil-may-care bad boy," Luz grinned.

"On a scale of one to ten where one is absolutely fine with what you’re currently doing not offended at all and ten is very offended, I’m at about a twenty," Amity said, eyes narrowed at the conspiracy board.

"I don’t have you filed under any of these headers," Gus lied, smiling winningly. He began to connect things up with red string, adding in a doodle to stand in for the creepy photos Ed and Em had showed them earlier.

"You’re an absolute gremlin," Amity muttered under her breath.

As Willow came back in, Luz was already walking in a circle, pouring salt out. She tossed the ouija board into the center of it, and dived in after it, landing in a tangle and jumping up again, bouncing like she was made of rubber. "Alright! Everyone into the circle! Let’s talk to a ghost!"

Chapter 4: Outer Scorpion Squadron

Chapter Text

Ghoul Friends knelt down on each side of the board as though this was something they'd done before. None of them had. "But we've seen people do it on screen all the time, so we'll be fine!" Luz assured them with her usual confidence as they reached to touch the planchette with their fingertips.

"I'll sit this one out," Amity said, eyeing the board mistrustfully. She sat between Luz and Willow, close enough to see the board.

"Okay, so from what I've seen, we should ask simple questions first," Luz nodded to herself, warming to this. "Yes or no questions. Oh! Wait! We should say hi first!" She directed the planchette, shifting it over the H and then the I. "Nice! H-I is hi! Okay, what's a good yes or no question?"

"'Are you here?'" Willow suggested. "It'll save us a lot of time if we know we're not talking into a void.”

"Right! Okay! Ghost! Are you here?" Luz looked up eagerly, as though expecting the ghost to manifest before her for an enlightened conversation. The planchette sat between them, unmoving. A few long seconds passed, stretching into nothing.

"Huh!" Gus had had his eyes closed, but now he peered at the board. "Never seen a Ouija fail before. We can put it in the outtakes."

"That's weird," Luz frowned. "It works on all the shows I watched as research!"

"That's TV," Amity leaned back, trying to hide her sigh of relief. There was nothing there. This was fine. "They probably faked it for the camera. I told you ghosts aren't real."

"Maybe it's the salt?" Willow looked at the white line surrounding them thoughtfully. "It's keeping us safe, but it's also keeping any ghosts out."

"The salt!" Luz slapped a hand to her head. "Of course!"

"Oh no," said Amity in a small voice.

"We should think pretty carefully about how we want to handle this," Gus spoke up, a rare voice of reason. "Like we're protected behind the salt right now. Do we need to make ourselves vulnerable in order to communicate? Or is there some other way of doing this, something that's guaranteed to keep us safe-"

Luz was already brushing a space in the salt. "Done! The ghosts can get in. Alright!" She put her fingers back on the planchette. "Hey Ghost! Are you here?"

The seconds ticked on, five long, silent seconds stretching to ten. Gus opened his mouth to say something else, but then shut it again quickly as the planchette began to move shakily. It skated over the board, hovering over NO .

"Oh, nobody's here," said Gus with relief.

"I didn't know ghosts could be sarcastic," Willow murmured.

The planchette skated again; they held their breaths as it paused on F and then U. The group looked at each other, blinking.

"Fu?" Asked Gus. "Or...Eff you?" The planchette moved again, this time to the numbers, stopping on 2. "The second? Man, I thought the rudest ghosts got was throwing stuff at you. What kinda ghost swears?"

H-A-H-A was spelled out on the board.

"Hey!" Luz frowned at the planchette. "Fine. You're here. Tell us your name."

Once again the planchette slid along the board, the sound of wood scraping wood filling the air, until it landed on NO .

"How 'bout some cooperation?" Luz asked, exasperated. "Tell us why you're here!" Once more the planchette slid to F and then to U . "Ugh! You're the worst ghost I've ever met! Amity, is it usually this rude?"

Amity had closed her fingers around the bottom of Luz's hoodie without noticing, staring at the board blankly, trying not to float out of this scene. Things didn't feel real; she felt like she was controlling her body distantly from a place far away. Not even the sensation of Luz's hoodie between her fingers felt like something that was happening to her; the only thing that didn't feel like it was happening from behind a pane of glass was a familiar smell of sulfur filling her nostrils, something she'd grown used to. She nodded, trying not to say anything. Yes, she knew this rudeness.

"What do you even want ?" Luz asked, frustrated. "Why are you here?"

More long seconds, as though it was deciding what to answer. The planchette moved again, shifting. R. E. V. E. N. J.

"Your ghost can't spell," Gus noted, his eyebrows knitting together in an expression that Amity couldn't read. "Hey, ghost! It's R-E-V-E-N-G-E for revenge!"

The planchette moved almost violently from letter to letter: S. H. U. T. U. P.

"Why do you need revenge?" Luz asked, a note of exasperation in her voice. "Are you kidding me? Amity's a great person! You don't need revenge on her !"

R. E. V. E. N. G. E. O. N. B. L. I. G. H. T.

Luz shook her head, disagreeing with this. "What about Ed and Em? They're great too! Why would you get revenge on them?"

R. E. V. E. N. G. E.

"You're just being a dick!" Luz looked up from the board as though she'd find the ghost floating above her, anger in her soft brown eyes. "And rude ! None of them have done anything to you! You can't get revenge on someone who hasn't done anything to you! That's not how revenge works!"

S. H. U. T. U. P .

"No! I won't!" Luz kept one finger on the planchette, but the index finger of her other hand jabbed the air as she argued with the spirit. "You're being a dick for no reason! Ed, Am and Em have done nothing to you! Leave them alone!"

O. A. T. H. B. R. E. A. K. E. R. S.

"No lawyer would take your case! You started haunting them when they were minors!" Luz's hand closed into an angry fist. "They can't be oathbreakers! That would imply they signed a contract and contracts with minors are unenforceable! If their parents screwed you over, you can't inflict your anger on the next generation! How petty can you get?!"

S. H. U. T. U. P. L. U. Z.

"Hey!" Luz pointed around herself into the air, face like thunder. "You're rude, you're petty, you don't have a good reason to be here, and you won't even show yourself, so I know you're a coward! I'm not scared of you! Amity's been living alone with you for years and she's so unafraid of you she doesn't even believe you exist!"

F. E. A. R. M. E.

"No! I will not! Stop jerking around in my friend's house, you big loser!" Luz's voice was close to a yell. "Face me already if you're so freaking scary!"

The planchette moved quickly, letter to letter, like someone typing a furious reply to a text.

Y. O. U. W. I. L. L. F. E. A. R. M. E. L. U. Z. N. O. C. E. D. A.

"Oh, you know my name? It'll take more than that to scare me!" Luz snapped back. "A lot of people know my name! I'm good at what I do!"

C. O. N. O. Z. C. O. A. T. U. P. A. D. R. E.

"Big deal!" Luz exploded. "So what! Lots of people--" she trailed off as the message hit home. "Oh. Wait. No, that- that is a pretty big deal."

"What's it say?" Gus asked, eyes wide. "Con oz coat up a dre? Oz like ounces or Australia? Or doctor Oz… Wait! Something about Doctor Oz and Doctor Dre? I know they're not real doctors, is that the con? Wait! The coat! What's with the coat ?"

"I think that's enough," Willow said, acting swiftly. "Let's close this." She took control of the planchette, sliding it to the letters spelling out GOODBYE , going through each one quickly. "G-o-o-d-b-y-e, goodbye."

A sudden shockwave of ice hit the room, the temperature dropping like a stone into deep water; there was a bang from down the hall, more, as though all the doors and windows in the house were being slammed open and shut over and over again. A freezing wind whipped through the room, scattering the salt and knocking out the candles, leaving them in the dark. Luz grabbed at her friends, managing to get her arms around Amity and Gus, Willow grabbing Gus's other side, coming back around to put her other arm around Amity so that the four of them became a protective circle encasing each other as something threw itself around their room.

They took deep breaths, heads close together as something screamed with inhuman noise by their heads and the scent of sulfur filled the air so strongly all of them could smell it. The lights above turned off and on and off and on again until the bulb shattered, raining down glass fragments over their heads. The door to the room banged on its hinges, slamming against the wall. They held onto each other, like life buoys bobbing in an unforgiving freezing sea, huddled together even as things began to still and the room began to come up to its original temperature. Luz squeezed their arms and said. "Um. I should...apologize."

"Apology accepted," Gus squeaked. He fumbled in his pockets, pulling out his phone and putting it between them, hitting play. Electronic strings began to shimmer through the air, followed by Beyoncé beginning the first verse of Survivor, interrupting the heavy atmosphere. "Okay," he said, inhaling deeply. "Now the vibes are all wrong for murdering us. We can't be killed. Totally impossible. We're all good."

Luz sighed, leaning back. "I never thought I'd be happier to hear Beyoncé. Which is saying something. I'm usually really happy to hear her!"

Willow pulled back too, face pale. "It spoke to you in Spanish," her voice was soft, slightly stunned as she turned to Luz. "What did it say?"

Luz opened her mouth to answer but before she could, Amity picked up the ouija board and frisbeed it out of the now open window. It disappeared into the darkness, making a slight thud as it hit the ground outside. "I'm sure Emira will pay you back. But that thing is not coming in here again."

"That's fair." Luz admitted.

Willow looked back to Luz. "Do you want to…"

Luz shook her head. "Can we talk about it later? I feel so," she gave the room a careful look, unwilling to admit anything along the lines of fear where the ghost might hear. No way was that ghoul hearing that they'd scared her! "Hyped up. Maybe we should do something to calm ourselves down." Willow and Gus nodded. None of them found that they were able to shake the oppressive feeling that had settled, not even with Beyoncé. The walls of the house seemed to loom in, the silence beyond their room heavy and deep like a winter snowfall. "What about hot chocolate?" She asked, jumping up to her feet, needing to move, to make a sound. "Let's go get some hot chocolate! Everyone loves hot chocolate!"

"That would be great," Gus shuddered, hugging himself. "I feel so cold!"

"Mittens-"

"Amity."

"-do you have any hot chocolate?" Luz held out her hand to her. Amity accepted it, letting herself be pulled up. Luz kept hold of her hand for a moment longer than usual, just happy to feel warm. The cold of the room had started to seep into her bones. Amity didn't let go either, a small part of her brain noticed.

"I... don't," Amity's eyes were focused on their linked hands. "I don't have any hot chocolate."

"You got any tea?" Luz co*cked her head. "Coffee? Hot drinks?"

"No," Amity shook her head. "I usually just drink water."

"Not even juice ?" Gus asked, scandalised. "No soda ?"

"No, not really." She paused. "Sometimes I add BCAA powder, if I've been at practice."

"Maybe we should go buy some cocoa?" Willow suggested, scrambling for a reason to leave. "We've got the recording equipment running. We'll know if something happens."

"Hell yeah!" Luz punched the air, and then pointed her finger up, glaring at any listening ghosts. "This isn't a retreat and we're totally not scared! We just need hot drinks!"

In the driveway, Willow moved to her car but Amity stepped past quickly, "I'll drive." She pointed to the sensible car just behind Willow's, unlocking it with the press of a button.

"That's your car?" Luz asked. "It's super nice! It looks so safe!"

"I call shotgun," Gus rushed past her to the front passenger seat.

Willow and Luz slid into the back. Despite the lack of other cars, Amity checked her mirrors carefully, taking her time as they reversed out, focusing fully on the road. She'd set up her phone to act as a map; Gus tapped its screen. "Want me to set up driving music?"

"Fine," she said, only because more silence would be even worse than other people seeing her music selection.

"You listen to a lot of Phoebe Bridgers," Gus frowned over at her, finger hovering over the Spotify app, concern written all over his face. "Like...a lot. This playlist is called 'Mondays' and just has like ten Phoebe Bridgers songs and one Mitski song. Your Tuesday playlist is just Sufjan Stevens. Are you okay? Like, in general?"

"Just set something up," she told him through gritted teeth.

Luz watched the house recede into the evening as Amity pulled away down the road and felt something in her chest ease the further away they got. She was scared. She was actually scared . This wasn't the quick fun jump of other haunted houses, this was a cold dread that spread its fingers out over her heart and squeezed. Willow patted her arm, and she flopped sideways, resting her cheek on Willow's shoulder. "That wasn't great."

"No," Willow agreed softly. "But we made contact. That's something. Right?"

"I wonder how it knew my name?" Luz stared out of the front window, watching streetlights pass overhead, the lights glowing in the darkness. "I don't think I've said my surname out here."

"What did it say to you?" Willow asked. "The last thing it said, in Spanish?"

Luz frowned. "Conozco a tu padre. It said it knows my dad."

Willow swallowed, arm wrapping around her shoulders, hugging her close. "That's really creepy."

"Yeah," Luz agreed. She exhaled deeply, forcing her shoulders down. "It was probably only trying to make me feel scared."

"We're only gonna get more scared if we talk a lot about it," Gus pointed out from the front seat. He folded his hands behind his head, put his feet up on the dashboard. "We gotta just let the creepy stuff wash off us! Like water off a duck's back. All it wants is for us to leave."

"Get your feet off my dashboard," Amity said without looking at him. Her knuckles were white on the steering wheel, and despite the lack of others on the road she was driving to exactly the speed limit, eyes never moving from the road ahead. Gus lowered his feet with a sheepish grin.

The store they'd picked was a small one, and the only one open on this side of town after 9pm. "Aw man, everything's so expensive here," Gus groaned, checking a pack of chips and finding an extra two dollars added to the price tag.

"That's the price of convenience!" Cried the gentleman behind the counter. He had a strange, pig-like nose, and a name badge that identified him as Tibblet. Behind the counter, under a note that said BANNED CUSTOMERS was a photo of Eda and Camila. Luz frowned at it.

"How did that nice lesbian couple get banned?" She asked.

"They know what they did!" Tibblet told her proudly. They eyed each other, Tibblet's eyes moving from Luz to Camila as though spotting the familial resemblance. "Do you...know them?"

"I'll pay," Amity said, before Luz could engage Tibblet further.

"You're sure?" Gus bounced on his heels.

"I'm sure. You're just going to expense it, right? I have Emira's credit card. It's just...quicker this way."

"I'm getting the fancy stuff!" Gus immediately ran for the chocolate aisle.

Willow went to follow him, but paused by Amity, and said, "Thanks." Amity stared at her feet, nodding awkwardly.

Luz stayed by Amity, picking up a carton of oat milk. "I figure if they're picking the chocolate, I can wait with you." She scuffed the ground with her toe. "Sorry for...dragging you into that thing."

"It's fine," Amity told her, looking back up. "I'm sorry it knew your full name."

"That's not your fault!" Luz said, patting her arm. "I don't think there's any way that can be your fault!"

Amity opened her mouth to say something, cheeks getting red, but then closed it again and nodded. Luz felt a growing desire to talk to her some more, to see how far she could get. Sometimes talking to Amity felt like coaxing a feral cat closer; progress could be easily undone if you weren't careful. She nudged Amity's shoulder gently with her own, and when Amity looked at her, she grinned at her. Amity looked away again, but this time she was smiling tautly. Still wound up , Luz noted, her shoulders still stiff, body still tight. Still scared... "Hey," Luz said. "What are five things you can see?"

Amity didn't answer for a moment, giving Luz an evaluating look. "You," she answered, finally. She looked down. "My shoes. A carton of eggnog." She frowned at that. "Kinda early for eggnog…"

"That's three," Luz's voice was encouraging. Amity looked away, cheeks dark.

"My hands," she said, even though it felt like that might be cheating, just looking down at her hands, the knuckles nearly brushing Luz's. "Four. The…florescent light up there. It's very bad. That's five."

The light was bad. Stark and too bright. But Luz looked golden in it, her big brown eyes warm and kind. Her hand brushed Amity's. "Okay," Luz said. "What's four things you can feel?"

Amity touched her shirt. She should've grabbed a jacket before coming out. Her shirt was thin, and while the October weather was mild, she was beginning to feel the drop in temperature. "Shirt," she said. She touched the smooth cool of the oat milk carton. "Fake milk thing." Reaching out, her fingers brushed over the tin of canned soup in front of her. "Metal." When she looked back over to Luz, Luz was holding her beanie out to her. Amity took it and squeezed. "Terrible woollen hat," she said, and didn't hand it back.

"Three things you can hear?" Luz asked, pushing her hair off of her forehead with a hand.

Amity squeezed the hat. "You, obviously."

"Obviously," Luz agreed with a grin.

"And the lights are humming," she continued. "And I can hear your friends walking around."

"Your friends too," Luz said. Amity squeezed the hat and didn't answer. "What're two things you can smell?"

"Lemons," that one was easy. Fresh and nice. "And bleach."

"Nice!" Luz was smiling at her widely, their hands almost touching. "What's one thing you can taste?"

She co*cked her head to one side, thinking about her answer when Gus ran back. "Okay! We got our stuff!" He whispered as he bounded over, handed Amity a basket of items and then sprinted out the door of the store. Luz glanced after him questioningly, until she saw what was in there. She laughed, then covered her mouth with her hand.

"What is it?" Amity asked, and then looked into the basket. "Oh," she said, and shook her head with exasperation. Luz touched her shoulder. "I'm good," she said, pushing the hat back to her, cheeks still flushed.

At the front desk, Tibblet went through their purchases. "Hot chocolate powder - ah! Only the fanciest! Oat milk, delicious! I didn't know anyone could milk oats, but here we are! Chocolate, very good. Graham crackers and marshmallows - goodness, are you planning some s'mores? How splendid!" He stopped at the final item. "Irish Cream Liqueur?"

"What about it?" Amity asked, staring back at him.

"I'll need to see your ID!" He looked over her shoulder at Luz and Willow. "Theirs too." Willow handed him her Driver's License, Luz's Passport. Amity held her Driver's License where he could see it. "And the fourth."

"There are only three of us," Amity said, in that steel voice she used sometimes. Luz grinned.

"I certainly saw a fourth member of your group-"

"There are three of us," Amity replied, hands on her hips. The two of them stared at each other, waging a mental battle.

Finally Tibblet stepped back and nodded. "That'll be $50 in total, ma'am!"

"How is that so expensive?" Luz gasped at the price. Amity slid Emira's credit card across the counter with a sharp nod.

"That's the price of convenience!" Tibblet replied with a smile and a flourish. They grabbed their bag and made their way to the door, Luz still groaning over the price. He waited for them to reach the door and called, "Sorry, ladies! Could you stop right there?"

They turned back.

"If I find any proof you've brought that alcohol to share with someone not twenty-one," he tapped the banned customer wall. "I'll be adding your faces to my wall of shame here."

"Cool, a family tradition," Luz whispered.

In the cavernous Blight kitchen, Luz was opening cupboards looking for mugs and finding instead a lot of free space. "How come you don't have any food?"

"There's some cans of soup in one of them." Amity pulled open a cupboard containing crockery. "The mugs are here."

Gus had opened her refrigerator to put away the milk, but frowned at its bareness. There was a single takeout box in it, a couple of condiments. "How come you don't have any ingredients in general?"

Amity shrugged. "I don't really cook."

"Your saucepans look pretty new," Luz observed, finding a smaller one and a whisk. "Aside from the dust." She washed the pan, lined up the mugs. "Who wants alcohol in their hot cocoa?" Willow and Gus both put their hands up. After a moment, so did Amity. "Looks like I'm the only one going sober!"

"Sorry Luz," Gus said sheepishly. "I should've grabbed something non-dairy!"

"That's okay," she collected the milk he'd put away, measuring out enough to fill their mugs, and poured it into the saucepan to heat it up. She added the chocolate, whisking to incorporate, then a little sugar to even out the bitter taste of dark chocolate.

Amity watched her movements hard, studying them. "That looks easy enough," she murmured. Near Luz, Willow was heating up the broiler, arranging squares of chocolate on Graham crackers, and then stacking marshmallows on top. "That looks easy too."

"You knew how to make that stuff already, right?" Gus asked her. "...Right?"

Amity ignored him, focusing entirely on how Luz added the cream liqueur to three of the mugs, poured in the hot chocolate and then whisked to make sure everything was incorporated. When she brought the mug over, she took it from her with reverence. Gus stared at this and decided not to question it. "And S'mores for everyone," Willow followed up, sandwiching the broiled marshmallow and chocolate with another cracker. She'd found small plates, which was good; when Gus bit into his, melted chocolate poured out over his hands. Amity sipped her hot cocoa, deciding to focus on that instead and not the chocolate covered boy leaving handprints on her counter.

The group sat up at the kitchen island, none of them wanting to head back into the room they'd designated as base camp. Instead they made conversation about everything, anything else, ignoring the elephant in the room. Gus complained about Mattholomule. Willow talked about a new plant she was cultivating, going into detail on their sprouts and blooms. Luz talked about Eda's various madcap plans for proposing to Camila. And Amity just listened, feeling the warmth of the alcohol spread through her.

Feeling comfortable was alien enough to her that when she realised her shoulders were relaxed and she didn't feel on-edge, her first response was anxiety. Was something wrong with her? Had this alcohol poisoned her? Once she'd forced that thought down, pushed through it, she found her pulsing anxiety beginning to ease. There were people talking, sharing stories. Noise in her usually silent house. Luz was sitting next to her and their arms were touching. Gus was discussing the merits of making a hot chocolate with cream liqueur instead of milk, gesturing with messy hands. And Willow was being sensible and kind, shutting him down gently with points about alcohol poisoning and getting too drunk. When their eyes met, Willow smiled at her, and, for the first time in fourteen years, Amity didn't look away. Smiled back, even.

None of them wanted to leave the kitchen, even as the clock's hands moved from ten to eleven, to twelve. Luz kept their hot chocolates topped off, until Amity had had three or four alcoholic hot chocolates, and was starting to feel the world spin. She didn't usually drink.

"We really should go to bed," Gus said, finally.

"We could stay here," Luz suggested, a tinge of hope colouring her voice.

"We already have everything set up in the reception room," Willow said, quietly.

"Ughhh," Gus threw his head back. "There's no way I could pack everything up and bring it here after this many drinks."

Willow patted Luz's shoulder, seeming to read her mind. "I feel better than I did," she said. "How about this: I'll check the video and the recordings. If anything big has happened, we'll call Eda to pick us up and we'll go sleep at your apartment. If not, we'll keep on as planned."

Gus watched her walk into the hallway and glanced between her and Luz and Amity before seeming to make his decision. "So...I'm not exactly jazzed about going back in there but...Willow can bench 200lbs and I don't think you guys can protect me as well as she can. Bye!"

"Bye Gus!" Luz waved after him, going to pour herself and Amity new drinks. "How're you doing, Ams? Wanna follow them?"

"No way." Not into that potential ghost pit.

"Sorry again," Luz said after a moment. "About the whole, taunting whatever's living in here with you thing."

Her world was spinning. Amity tried to focus herself. She'd told Luz she didn't believe in ghosts. Shouldn't she try and keep that pretense up? But the idea of continuing to lie was...exhausting. She looked at Luz's hands, tried to keep them in her vision. "It's alright. Really. Sorry you got...caught up in whatever this is."

"Revenge, though," Luz rested her chin in her hands. "Seems kinda weird for a ghost. You haven't done anything vengeance worthy have you?"

Amity frowned, thinking of what she'd done to Willow. "Not...to anyone dead ."

"What about your parents?"

"Maybe," she said. "Well... probably. They were pretty cut-throat when it came to business. So I've heard. I know a few people tried to stick some white collar crimes on them, but…" she was talking too much. It was the alcohol. She frowned. "I don't know much about it. I know their company took off really quickly. Suspiciously quickly. And they were dedicated to it. But Ed and Em have tried their best to keep me away from the messy details. I know Em is doing her best, but I think the company is losing value quickly." Luz patted her back and she felt warmth explode inside her. She drank deep, the taste of cocoa lighting up dopamine pathways in her brain. "So. You visited me at practise to ask about...ask about the car crash."

"Yeah," Luz looked sheepish. "Sorry. I know that was a bad idea. When people ask me about my dad sometimes it can throw me off for a while after--"

"It didn't throw me off," Amity said. No more than usual. She was used to those thoughts pushing their way in, interrupting her day. Used to dealing with the after-effects, of hiding how shaken she was, of clinging to anything to make it seem as though she was paying attention to the present and not half way into the past. She was an expert at forcing her head up out of the water whenever she sank into harmful memories, of paddling hard to keep her head above the tide. It was hard not to succumb, but she'd so far kept up, hadn't she? She could do this without help, even with obstacles like that thrown in her way. She was a professional.

"That's good," Luz said, a half smile on her face.

Amity was examining the mug, rolling it a little clumsily between her palms, focusing on the warmth when she spoke next. Anything to keep from looking at Luz. "It was me," she said, after a moment. "I was the 911 caller."

It took Luz a moment to place what she meant. "Wait, you mean-- your parent's crash?" As she understood, she leaned in, eyes wide. "Wait -- so you saw--?"

"I was in the car," she admitted, looking at her hands.

"What!" Luz reached out to touch her wrist, as though afraid she was a ghost; her skin was warm and soft. "Wait, what happened?"

"We were in the car driving home." Amity frowned, looking into the remains of her hot chocolate. Her voice seemed far away to her own ears, as though she was speaking from somewhere else, a long time ago. "Myself and my parents. I was in the back seat. There'd been a parent-teacher conference at my school. My grades were - of course - exceptional. Except for Spanish. I only got a B that semester. That was...a disappointment."

"Only?" Luz frowned. "B is still really good! And if you really wanna learn, I can teach you! I can talk to you in Spanish and help you out!"

Amity went briefly the shade of a fire truck and couldn't talk. "No," she said, regaining her composure. "A disappointment to them , not to me. I was proud, before they got upset." She looked down into her hot chocolate, examining it rigorously as though she was expecting Bigfoot to climb out of it. "...Maybe you could teach me. I've always liked Spanish. The language. And I've thought it was pretty since high school. The language. Spanish. Spanish the language."

"Yeah," Luz nodded. "Spanish is a beautiful language. You think you can pick it up again?"

"I've been thinking about it," Amity admitted. "But I already have a full schedule. And I never know what to say."

"Maybe come over to dinner with me and mom one day! We'll talk to you in Spanish! El que no se puede tirar, se jondea!"

Amity co*cked her head to one side, blinking. "What?"

"It's a Dominican phrase! If you can't do it the conventional way, we'll figure out another! Literally, it's something like 'if you can't jump, fall'. I kinda live by it," Luz added with a slightly sheepish grin.

"Oh," Amity nodded, a light pink in her cheeks. She smiled giddily. "I was pretty happy with B back then. I could understand written work, but I wasn't good at speaking-"

"We'll fix that."

"-And they were disappointed. They were lecturing me. A lot of the usual, we pay so much money to your tutors, you're so behind where Emira and Edric are, perhaps you need to spend less time on your hobbies and more time studying, how can you call yourself a Blight when you're so slow, you'll never be as good as the twins, how can you expect to ever be good enough to join the family business with grades like these …" she trailed off, seeing Luz's horrified face. "It's alright!" She said, holding up her hands quickly, nearly knocking over her mug with the speed at which she did, not wanting to upset Luz. "It's fine. They did that a lot. It doesn't bother me." That made Luz frown all the harder. Amity looked away. It had bothered her. But that was alright. That was something else she could push down, to ignore until sometimes it was impossible and all she could think of, a great wave of the expectations, all the ways she'd disappointed them crashing into her. Now she found herself frightened that she'd disappointed Luz too, upset her. Luz's fingers were brushing hers. She looked at their hands on the table, Luz reaching out, her own wrapped around the mug, the softness in that gesture. She swallowed.

"You don't have to tell me if it's too hard," Luz said, the back of her hand against Amity's.

"It's fine," she said, quietly. "It was a long time ago." Amity closed her eyes, trying to get the details right for this part. She'd seen it enough times in her head-- oh, but that wasn't quite right. She'd seen it on a loop, yes, but only a certain part of what had happened. The rest compressed. One part of the story played in slow motion in her brain, extending out like a concertina of pain. She remembered it well enough to feel it, phantom impact, phantom pain, but only a certain part . She couldn't control how that part resurfaced. It just did, interrupting her thoughts and presenting her with images from the past. "I was listening to them. Dad was watching the road. Mom had her eyes on me. I was staring at the road. Looking straight ahead. It was dark but not, not too dark. And their headlights were on. So we should've seen... But-- still." She swallowed. "One moment it was clear. And the next- he was there."

"Who was there?" Luz asked softly.

"The man in the mask," Amity said, fingers curling on the counter top. "I only saw him for a split second. One moment the road was clear. And then he was there. In the middle of the road. He was wearing a golden mask and he was staring directly at us. It felt like he was staring into the car. Watching us."

She took a drink, found the hot chocolate had grown lukewarm, and frowned. "Dad turns round just in time to see him. He pulls on the steering wheel, trying to swerve the car. But when we swerve, we keep moving. The car is just...spinning. We slide, and then there's this impact. Like an earthquake. We flip. The car rolls…"

It was hard to remember some of these details. "A lot is fuzzy," she admitted. "It's like looking at someone else's memories. Or seeing through static. Some of it is very vivid. A lot of it isn't." She rested her elbow on the table, propping up her chin on her hand as she stared broodily into space. Her head felt heavy. Was this what being drunk was like? Being dizzy and talking too much? She already felt a sense of embarrassment from talking too much. "I know how it felt to crash. I know I kicked a crack in one of the side windows until it shattered and I got out that way. And I know I saw my parents before I left and they were alive and responsive. After that, I remember somehow I got back to the side of the road. My cell was dead, so I found a payphone and called 911."

"How come you didn't go with the EMTs that came for them?" Luz asked softly.

"I don't know," she admitted. "I didn't want to go back to the car crash. I was scared. I didn't know if things would be worse when I got there. And I didn't want to be yelled at for distracting them until they crashed. So I just...walked back to the manor."

"Were you hurt? Did you manage to get checked out?"

"I know I'd broken my wrist. I don't remember a lot about that. Ed and Em took me to hospital after. They're the only ones who know about the crash. About me being in it, I mean. They don't know about the man I saw." She frowned. "Please don't tell them. They already worry about me."

"I won't." Luz's fingers closed the short distance between them, her hand covering Amity's. Amity shut her eyes. "Are you okay?" Luz asked softly, pulling her hand back. "Sorry! I know I'm kinda...weird! And touchy-feely! I should ask more before I just touch people."

"It's," Amity wanted to say 'no'. It was the dignified thing to do. To say no to her. To tell her to never touch her again. "It's alright," her mouth said before her brain could catch up. "This is fine."

"Yeah! I guess you play so many contact sports for a reason, right?" Luz smiled at her as she replaced her hand on Amity's. "You can handle me squeezing your hand a bit!"

She opened and shut her mouth, trying to reply. Amity had taken up ice hockey because it required a lot of concentration on multiple fronts - focusing on keeping upright, focusing on the puck, focusing on getting down the rink quickly, leaving no time for her thoughts to be interrupted by the ghosts of her memories - but also because in the trials for the team she'd been checked by another player and the feeling of another person's body against her own had sent fireworks exploding behind her eyes even as she'd smashed face first into the ice. The first time she'd locked into a scrum on the rugby pitch, she'd spent the time with her eyes closed tight, the sensation of people with their arms around her too wonderful. She'd invented complicated reasons to give herself permission to touch others, to be touched. Added a layer of competition to it, because it was fine if she could win , if she could be empirically good at contact.

And now Luz was simply...smiling at her, holding her hand.

"Are you okay?" She asked. Amity nodded. She squeezed that warm hand and closed her eyes tightly.

Taking a breath, she examined their joined hands, Luz's long fingers. She untwined their fingers, pressed her palm to Luz's, and measured the difference, fascinated. "Your hand is bigger than mine is."

"You've got tiny hands," Luz agreed, shifting to hold her hand again. "Don't worry, I'll keep this one safe."

Amity felt her stomach flip further than an Olympic gymnast. She couldn't speak for a moment. She'd just told Luz her tragic backstory. Was she being...flirted with?

To be fair. She didn't know if this was flirting or just Luz being Luz .

She hoped it was flirting.

"Can you say that phrase again?" She asked. "The one you said before? About jumping?"

"El que no se puede tirar, se jondea?"

Amity tried to repeat it, tripping over her words. Luz said it again, slower, and Amity repeated it again, then again. "Is that- is that right?"

"Yeah, that's right," Luz looked delighted. Her joy was too bright to look at directly; Amity stared at their hands instead, feeling heat radiating from her face. Luz reached over and Amity saw fireworks as she brushed her hair with the fingers of her free hand, neatening it. "You don't usually drink, do ya?"

"No," Amity admitted. "I don't drink at all. Only when the team wins. And only one."

"And you've had three," Luz's fingers were so light and gentle. They slipped a few strands behind her ears and Amity almost lost the ability to see; everything went starry, warm.

"They're very sweet," Amity said, trying to defend her decision. "And you only put this much," she indicated about a finger, "into each cup. So it's not very much."

"Liquor is stronger than beer," Luz told her with a soft little laugh that rang through her head like chimes. Luz's fingers moved to her shirt, evening it out. Amity gazed at her, wanting to move, to speak, but finding herself unable to.

"What're you doing?"

"You look a little disheveled. I'm just...re-heveling you. There."

She should say something. Tell her, I've been crushing on you since High School . Ask for a break from hand holding to stop herself from falling completely apart. Get up and go somewhere else entirely. These were all sensible options. Amity did none of those things. Instead she quickly reached out with her free hand and tugged Luz's beanie off. The hair beneath was tousled, hints of loose curl. Luz reached for it back; Amity hid it behind her back, laughing softly. "No terrible hats in the house."

Luz leaned in, reaching to get it; Amity held it out of reach, pulling back.

"Maybe you should keep it safe," Luz said, a light dancing in her eyes. Amity put it in her pocket, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. She was leaning in close, that big smile so kind and warm. Amity's eyes dipped to her lips, to the hand holding hers. She opened her mouth to say something, praying it would be cute or funny, but before she could, Gus was bouncing into the room.

"Hey! I got great news! Also bad news!" He waved his arms in a flourish. "We picked up no ghost activity on the cameras or the microphones while we were out! Bad news, I owe Willow $5."

Luz's shoulders visibly relaxed. She leaned back from Amity. "I guess that good news is also bad news because we've still got no on-camera proof, huh?" If it was bad news, she was doing a bad job at looking disappointed. "Why'd you owe Willow $5?"

"Don't worry about it! And yep! Absolutely nothing spooky happened while we were gone! I feel at ease." He crossed over to the bag of marshmallows on the counter and poured a handful of them into what was left of his hot chocolate. It was beginning to look more like marshmallows in a chocolate marinade. "How bout you guys? All good here?"

"All good!" Luz confirmed. "We were talking about our plan for the evening. You know, so we're on the same page." She winked at Amity as Gus concentrated on spooning chocolate engorged marshmallows out of his mug and into his mouth. Their talk had felt private; she wouldn't spill the beans to Gus and Willow yet. "Gonna get the sleepover started! Amity, you got a camp bed, right?"

"I have sheets," she said, doubtfully.

"That's great! We're all bedding down in the same room so we can make sure if anything targets us, a) nobody's alone - no horror movie mistakes! And b) we can capture everything. We only got a limited number of cameras and microphones after all." Luz punched the air. "Let's set us up a blanket fort!"

The Blights owned a great many extravagantly expensive sheets. Made from silk or Egyptian cotton, uniform block white, all so clean they could've been eaten off of. Luz ignored their decadence in favour of shoving the uncomfortable furniture of the reception room into a rough skeleton of an idea and draping the sheets over them to create a hollow area, a fort that she filled with their sleeping mats and pillows. "I cannot wait to sleep in there," Luz said, punching the air.

"It looks...snug." Willow said, examining it and quietly fixing a section that was already about to bow in on itself.

Amity, who's only real interaction with one of these had been the fifteen minutes the twins had once managed to have one up before their mother had spotted it and made them take it down, looked at it dubiously. "How do we know it won't collapse on us in the night?"

"We don't!" Gus told her brightly. "An element of danger always makes things fun!"

"Time to change!" Luz put her hands on her hips, grinning at her accomplishment. "Amity, you better get into your PJs too. It's not a sleepover unless we're all in jammies!"

It was hard to get upstairs with the house rotating around her. In her lonely room in the tower at the top of the house, Amity's fingers fumbled with her clothes, almost falling out of her jeans as she took them off to change. In the bathroom next to her room she splashed cold water on her face and pointed at herself in the mirror. "Keep it together," she told herself. "Stop talking so much. Sober up."

The Amity in the mirror blinked back at her blearily.

"Hey," she told the mirror. "Listen to me. Sober up. Now."

The reflection remained that of a stranger, unwilling to listen to her commands. There was too much of Odalia in her voice when she tried to tell herself what to do; too much of the twins in the rebellious face that stared back out at her.

"I'm...arguing with a mirror," she murmured, pressing her hand to her face. "And losing. I'm arguing with a mirror and losing."

She stumbled back down the stairs, nearly falling, and found the Ghoul Friends in the room she'd left them in. At least Gus and Willow were tipsy too. She could take some comfort from that.

"Nice PJs, Amity!" Luz said, over her shoulder as she finished unpacking what looked like an obscene amount of pillows from Gus's various bags. "Hey, we're matching!"

They were , Amity realised with significant dismay. They both had the same soft limited edition Good Witch Azura tee, the one that had come with the vinyl version of the third movie's soundtrack. Below it, they were both wearing shorts, Luz a pair of boxers that were covered in capybaras. Her own were covered in kittens.

"We match too!" Gus gasped. He was wearing a two piece pyjama set covered in kittens.

"Willow! Can you take a pic?" Luz threw an arm around Amity. "Twins!"

"Please don't mention twins," Amity said, cheeks hot as Luz squeezed her shoulders. But this was good. She died a little as she leaned in.

"Me too! Triplets!" Gus jumped into the picture, arms around both of them. She died again, but this time purely of horror as Willow captured this double hug.

Willow, who was wearing a neat green nightgown, smiled serenely. As Gus and Luz let her go, she gently nudged Amity with an elbow. "I got both," she said, and showed her. One photo of just Amity and Luz in their accidentally matching pyjamas, and Amity was briefly mortified to see a small smile on her face, her cheeks flushed. And then the second with Gus.

"Why am I still smiling in the second picture?" She asked, half out loud. Goddammit . "Why can't I stop talking?" She whispered to herself.

Willow patted her head. "Just wait til tomorrow morning," she told her, sympathy in her voice.

"How bad will it be?"

"Have you ever been hungover before?"

"...No."

"Let's make sure you're closest to the exit of the pillow fort." Willow gently squeezed her hand. "Come on, we're drinking some water before you go to bed."

In the kitchen, Willow poured them glasses of cold tap water. She put two in front of Amity, drinking one herself. "How're you feeling?"

"Like my head is spinning."

"Drink up, alright?" Willow took a sip from her glass, trying to encourage Amity to do the same. "The water will help."

Amity took a drink and found the water to taste clearer than usual, ice cold and fresh. Her mouth had been beginning to feel odd, cottony, but the water washed that out. "It does help," she said, amazed. "I thought people drank coffee for sober?" She reconsidered her sentence. "Sobering up."

"You're not sobering up," Willow told her, resting a hand on her shoulder. "You're just dehydrated." Amity finished her first glass and peered at the second. "Drink that one too," Willow instructed, hand moving to touch her back. "Is the room still spinning?"

"How did you know about that?"

Willow laughed softly. It was a nice sound. Despite everything, Amity felt a sudden sadness overwhelm her. She'd missed that nice sound. She looked up at the ceiling lights, which were making very gentle rounds around her head. "How do you want me to answer that?"

"You don't have to share anything you don't want to share." She looked into her glass of water. And then, because her brain kept ticking, kept wanting to know, "do you hate me?"

"No," Willow told her, voice gentle.

"Okay. That's...that's good." She raised the glass to her lips again, thinking of how they'd been once upon a time. Two small children, holding hands. Playing together, the sun casting long shadows. They'd been close, a singular team. And then she'd pushed Willow away brutally. And there'd been two little girls, both alone. "Do you think we'll be okay again?"

Willow was quiet, sipping her water. After a moment, she leaned against the counter. "Maybe," she said, patting Amity's back. "Do you want us to be okay again?"

"I do," she said, and meant it.

"So you think you'll remember this tomorrow?"

"I'm not a complete mess, Willow."

"I know," but Willow's small smile was kind and fond. She reached for her hand and held it. "Drink up. I'm going to make you take a glass to bed, too."

When they got back in the room, Gus was staking his place strategically. "Look, I'm just saying I need to be somewhere in the middle. I get scared if I think a ghost is gonna try and get me in the night!"

Luz was measuring out another salt circle, apparently unconcerned. "Right, you need at least two human shields."

"Aw, don't put it that way! It makes me sound terrible!"

"I'll go furthest in," Willow told them, handing Amity her glass of water. "Amity goes closest to the exit."

"And I'll set up next to you!" Gus said, delighted.

"I'll go between Gus and Amity," Luz nodded. "All the pyjama triplets together!"

"Make sure she sleeps on her side," Willow reminded Luz as she crawled into the furthest part of the blanket fort, carrying her pillow with her. Gus dived in after her, grinning wildly. Amity lay down by the entrance that they'd made, and died for a third time that evening as Luz rolled over her to the space between herself and Gus.

"Night," Gus called from somewhere in the fort.

"Goodnight," Willow said, from further in.

"Night, gang!" Luz said from right beside her.

Amity wrapped herself in the sheets, trying not to speak. Words would keep falling out of her mouth with no way to track them. Drinking was not for her, she decided as her eyes began to close in the dark.

Chapter 5: Wallowa Lake Monster

Chapter Text

Luz woke up early, as the first signs of sunrise painted the living room in mottled gold and pink. She wasn’t immediately sure of where she was, aware that she was on the floor and she could hear the soft breathing of other sleepers nearby. There was a warm pressure on her hand. Slowly, things came back to her; they were here in Blight Manor. Last night she’d argued via ouija board with a ghost which may or may not have been a mistake ( totally remained to be seen). They’d made hot chocolate, and then created one big blanket fort, protected themselves with a circle of salt and all slept curled up together like sardines.

When she turned her head to the left, she could see Gus and Willow further in the fort. Gus was on his front, snoring lightly, drooling a little into his pillow. Willow was already awake and reading a novel. When she caught Luz’s eye, she nodded to her in quiet greeting. Luz waved back with her free hand, and looked to her right. Amity was curled towards her, eyes closed tight, breathing soft. At some point during the night, she'd had taken one of Luz's hands in both of hers, and wasn't letting go anytime soon. Leaning in close Luz whispered, "Hey friend, I need to get up. Are you okay if I take my hand back?"

Amity didn't respond to that but frowned when Luz managed to pry her hand free. Luz rubbed her shoulder gently, pulled up a sheet that had come loose and tucked her in, before climbing over her to leave the fort. Willow followed, leaving Gus and Amity to doze where they were. Amity’s fingers had closed tightly around air, tiny fists. Luz crouched beside her, not wanting her to wake up, and slid her hand back into Amity’s. Immediately the other girl seemed to relax, face less taut. Luz rubbed her chin with her free hand, feeling like a detective. Amity was mysteriously happier when she slept holding hands. When the hand was removed, she looked troubled. How could Luz make sure she had a good nap without having to hold her hand the whole time?

Willow was scrawling a note when Luz looked over. "I think I need to hold her hand to help her stay asleep," Luz frowned. "Maybe? Is that a thing? Do you know if it’s easier to sleep while holding hands?"

"Otters hold hands when they sleep so they don’t drift away," Willow replied, because stating a cute animal fact was better than saying I can think of at least one reason she’s holding your hand out of nowhere.

"I like otters," Luz co*cked her head to one side. Gus always slept with his arms spread wide, legs kicked out of the covers. She led Amity’s hand over to Gus’s, and placed them together. "Gus, be a good otter and keep an eye on Amity for me, okay?"

"Mmmmmk," Gus said, still mostly asleep. "Motter."

Willow had put her face in her hands for some reason when Luz slipped back out. "What’s up?"

"Nothing," Willow said, but she was smiling when she went to grab her bag from amongst a pile of Gus’s suitcases.

"Man, we should’ve gotten breakfast stuff while we were at Tibbles’s store yesterday," Detective Luz was already onto the next problem, trying to solve The Case of the Empty Stomach. "What’s a good breakfast for our lil hungover babies?" She gestured with both hands at the contents of their blanket fort. "I’m assuming they’ll be mildly hungover."

"Amity will be, probably," Willow said, rummaging in her bag and finding a box of paracetamol. "She’s a lightweight. I’m going to run out and get coffee for everyone."

"Three or four drinks isn’t enough for a hangover that bad, right?"

"A person's first time drinking can be pretty miserable," Willow said with a little smile as she retrieved note paper and a pen, beginning to write a note. "Do you want to come with?"

"Yeah, let’s get Starbucks! Oh!" Luz brightened considerably as an idea came to her. "And we can hit a diner! And get so many hash browns for our kids! Ohhh and eggs! And bacon!"

"Ssh," Willow placed a finger over her lips. "You’ll wake them."

"Oops! Sorry babies," Luz covered her mouth with a hand, before tugging a sheet over the entrance of the little fort, covering them. "Sleep well, my little otters."

"I’m really glad I only had two drinks," Willow murmured, finding her glasses and pushing them up her nose. "I can't imagine trying to ghost hunt with a hangover."

"We didn't drink that much."

"Between us we finished the bottle," Willow pointed out, finishing her note. She left it by the entrance, next to a water bottle she’d fished from her backpack. "I checked it earlier."

That didn't sound right. Luz tried to count the number of drinks they'd had between them, calculate how much volume she'd poured. Nine drinks, right? Two for Willow, the rest split between Amity and Gus. Not enough to empty an entire bottle, right? But in the end she found that it was hard to do the math, and she couldn't, because any mathematical equation to discern volume fell somewhere beyond her abilities, squarely in the realm of Wizardry .

"Huh! I guess we did," Luz gave up trying to work it out and searched for her hoodie instead, eventually finding it cast aside in a messy pile of her and Gus’s clothes. She pulled it on over her pyjama top and boxer shorts, tucked her hands into the pocket. When she slipped on her vans and stepped out the cold of a late autumn early morning made goosebumps stand up on her bare legs so that she ended up running the last few yards to the car, yelling as the wind picked up, gravel crunching under her sneakers. Willow, who had pulled on pants and a shirt in the time Luz had spent looking for her discarded hoodie, followed her out at a more leisurely pace, less cold.

The moment Willow unlocked the car door, Luz was throwing herself into the car, pulling her knees up to her chest and rubbing her hands up and down her shins. "How is it so cold already?!"

"I know," Willow said, sympathetically, bringing the engine to life and switching on the heater for her. "Where's your hat?"

"Oh, Amity took it last night. I'll have to get it back from her. I got spares though." Luz ran her fingers through her tousled brown hair, making it stick up even more than usual. Willow picked up her phone to text Gus, 애미티는 모자 훔치셨어요. you owe me $5.

"Did you want to go to Starbucks first?" she asked, scanning through the radio frequencies, hearing blasts of words, fragments of sentences. Together they almost became a phrase, hosts, sportscasters and ad copy coming together.

--losing streak-- -

--lookingamong us for answers--

--parks department descended into darkness this week--

--Hell was Galchenyuk thinking with that check in--

--Blight Industries offers you a very special view into the future--

--manner of speaking--

--Warnings released for potential floodings as the county gets ready for--

Willow hummed at the lack of interesting sound and turned off the radio.

"Starbucks is good! Let's start with coffee." Luz brought up the app, and frowned, finger hesitating over the screen. "Wait! I don’t know what Amity’s favourite is. Do you?"

"I don’t," Willow shook her head. "The twins might."

"Good idea!" Luz switched to her texting app, tapping quickly. "Lemme find out, and then I can get everyone coffee! My treat!"

"Emira’s treat," Willow corrected. "I’m expensing all of this."

Luz (7:04am): Hey Emira! :)
Luz (7:04am): what kind of coffee does Amity drink?
Emira (7:05am): Hey cutie ;)
Emira (7:05am): Mittens likes Matcha lattes, no sugar

Emira (7:05am): could do with more sugar in her life if u ask me
Emira (7:05am): buy me coffee next time ok? ❤️

Luz (7:06am): of course!

Emira (7:06am): it’s a date! ❤️

Luz felt her entire stomach do a backflip. She gave Willow a wobbly grin, as she put on her seatbelt. "I know what kinda tea Amity likes," red was blooming across her cheeks. "And I think I have a date with Emira."

Willow added this tidbit of info to her list of potential complications immediately in my future as she pulled out of the driveway, finally looking back over to Luz. "Going anywhere nice?"

"She told me to buy her coffee," Luz said with a dreamy sigh. Her phone beeped again.

Edric (7:07am): hey cutie!

Edric (7:07am): heard you were taking Em out

Edric (7:07am): not me? 🥺

Luz (7:07am): of course i’ll take you too!

Edric (7:08am): take me separately ok 🥰

Luz (7:08am): sure!

Edric (7:08am): it’s a date 😘

"I think I have dates with both twins," Luz whispered in shock.

"Oh boy," Willow murmured.

As they found themselves back amid the buildings of Bonesborough's downtown, Luz asked something she'd been turning over in her mind for a little while. "What makes eyes golden? I thought the only eye colours were like, brown, blue or green. But Amity's are gold."

"Lipochrome," Willow told her, tapping her fingers against the steering wheel as they paused at a red light. "It's a naturally occurring pigment. It makes irises appear amber or gold."

"Lipochrome," Luz repeated, rolling the word around in her mouth as though it were a tasty treat. She'd been thinking about the twins and their apparent dates, but Amity's sharp face kept stealing focus in her mind. Big golden eyes, sharp nose, small smiles. "Brown's dominant, right?"

"Right," Willow nodded.

"So gold is recessive?" Luz sighed. "That explains why she's got gold eyes and her siblings don't."

Willow gave Luz a sideways look. "Ed and Em have gold eyes too."

"But not as gold," Luz insisted, gesturing. "Amity’s eyes are super golden, and their eyes are a bit more brown. I think." Willow said nothing. They had the same shade, she was pretty sure. But she was also pretty sure she could guess why Luz thought Amity’s eyes were brighter.

Luz called their orders through the speaker, leaning over Willow to do so - chai latte for Willow, a mocha with extra sugar for Gus, a strawberry lemonade for herself, and a matcha latte for Amity. The drive-through was already populated, the workers of Bonesborough picking up their daily morning brew. Matholomule was leaning out the takeout window, holding out coffees. When he saw them he gave a nasty smile. "Where’s your friend , jerkbags?"

"Don’t you dare!" Luz yelled from inside the car. "Don't try it!"

"Maybe I’ll just," he leaned back, their drinks just out of reach. " Withhold these until you tell me where Gus is. He and I have unfinished business regarding the school paper. Specifically, unfinished business around him standing down and making me the new editor!"

"Give us our coffee!" Luz yelled, leaning out over Willow, pushing out of the window. "Give us our coffees!"

"Tell Gus to give his resignation to the board!"

"COFFEE!" Luz got half way out of her seat, her foot on the window, climbing over Willow. "GIVE US OUR COFFEE!"

"NO!"

"GIVE US OUR COFFEE!" Luz climbed halfway into the drive-thru window. "COFFEE!"

"Is there a problem here?" the manager asked, appearing from deeper in the kitchen with an unhappy look on his face.

"Everything’s fine!" Matholomule said, trying to hold up his arms to stop Luz from getting further in and block her from the manager’s view. "I’m just getting these lovely ladies their coffee!" He pushed a cup holder full of drinks to Luz and she fell back into the car. Willow managed to keep the drinks holder upright as Luz tumbled back into the footwell of the passenger seat with a yelp, and they peeled out of the drive-through, Mattholomule leaning out after them to shake his fist.

"One day we should figure out his work schedule so we don’t have a fight with him every time we get coffee," Willow mused as Luz managed to right herself and take the drinks back. "It's really hard to get through life accidentally bumping into Gus's nemesis."

"Remember when we got him fired from the bowling alley and we got like two weeks of peace before he found another job?" Luz sighed at the memory as she managed to pull herself back into her seat, strapping herself back in.

"At least they only compete over the paper and tests," Willow handed the drinks back to Luz now that she was upright, full attention back on the road. "Remember when Boscha was your nemesis? She made everything a competition."

"She was your nemesis too!"

"No she wasn't! I didn’t date the girl she was in love with," Willow pointed out with a little laugh. "Yeah, she was mean to me, but she didn’t declare me her sworn enemy!"

"It's so hard to have a nemesis when you have ADHD!" Luz flopped back in her seat. "I can’t remember things unless they’re directly in front of me, and Boscha would just hide until it slipped my mind that she was out to get me, and then she’d get me! Remember that time she hid behind trash cans for an entire afternoon just to pick me up and drop me into one when I passed by? Any time me and Skara argued, we’d make up and then like, a day later when I'd forgotten, Boscha would drop a can of paint over my head! Sometimes without taking off the lid first!"

"Boscha has the patience of an evil mastermind," Willow agreed. "Imagine how bad things would’ve gone if you and Skara had gotten even more serious."

"I don’t wanna," Luz groaned, rubbing a hand over her face. She and Skara had been serious, she’d thought. Or at least, she had been serious about Skara. They'd met in high school, known each other by sight for a few years. To Luz, she'd been the pretty, optimistic, enthusiastic member of Boscha's group of friends, an artistic musician with a smile that had made her heart flutter. Luz had thrown herself into the relationship, made plans to travel with her for concerts, talked about adopting a puppy together, even running the merch booth for Skara’s band when they’d first started playing places around Bonesborough. And then, there'd been that fateful last argument about Boscha.

Skara had finally asked Boscha what her problem was vis-a-vis Luz, Boscha had told Skara she was in love with her, and Skara had realised she loved Boscha back. A fairy tale story, the whole friends-to-lovers trope coming true. Great story, but it’d left Luz totally out in the cold.

It was hard to see your first love jumping into the arms of the girl who’d briefly made it her life’s mission to drop you from as many high places as possible. It was weird, because on some level she knew she was happy for them! She wanted Skara to be happy! And Skara was happy! But seeing them together made all of her insides twist like someone had reached right into her abdomen and grabbed them. "I wonder if Amity has an archnemesis," she wondered out loud, staring out the window, hoping to change the subject in her brain.

"It's probably just herself," Willow mused. "Should we get eggs?" She asked, sensing the time had come to change the subject.

Luz looked up, misery interrupted, and nodded. "Let's just get a huge plate of hash browns and bacon," she sighed. "And as many eggs as we can get. Fried foods! Let's go!"

When they got back with a pile of styrofoam containers, Amity was speed walking from the room. "I’m just saying!" Gus was calling out after her. "It’s fine! Lots of people hold hands in their sleep!"

"I’m getting out of here," she slipped past them, headed straight upstairs.

"I’ll go after her," Willow said, handing Luz the drinks. "Can you get us set up for breakfast?"

Luz attempted to get them set up, grabbing plates and cutlery from the cavernous kitchen before placing them down in the living room, still on the floor. There was no way she’d ask anyone to brave Odalia’s deeply uncomfortable furniture for breakfast. There was no way she was putting that energy into the happiest meal of the day. As she settled herself down to start serving, Gus toppled sideways and lay his head in her lap, muttering "I’m still so sleepy."

"I gotchu. Here's a coffee for my buddy!" Luz told him, patting his shoulder. Best not to trouble him with news about Matholomule’s various evil plans.

Willow managed to coax Amity back in with offerings of hot drinks and breakfast, and she slumped down on Luz’s other side. Luz served her her drink, a plate full of eggs and hashbrowns. "Here you go! You've got super cute bedhead, Amity."

"Thanks," she muttered, taking a glass of water that Willow was offering.

As a group, they destroyed the breakfast, Amity and Gus beginning to look less pallid as they filled up on carbs and protein. Once the takeout boxes Luz and Willow had brought for them emptied out of potato and egg and bacon, they began to focus on their plans for the day. Flopped onto the floor with their drinks, they held a small war council. Gus began charting a course through the house using a map he'd drawn himself. "Okay. So we need to hit the second floor today. What's there?"

"My parent's bedroom. Which remains sealed. A guest room. A living area, mostly used by the twins. One of the libraries."

"One of?"

"We have two.A pool room, and my mother's study," Amity folded her arms over her knees. Odalia Blight's study had been the center of her web, where she'd controlled her empire from, sending out invitations to parties, collating information, planning the lives of the people around her. "I haven't...been in there in a while."

"Might have some info on why she's stuck around," Gus said, pouring his coffee straight down his throat now that it was cool enough to gulp. "Anything that could've tethered her here." He picked up a handful of loose hash brown thoughtfully and shoved his entire fist of potato into his mouth.

Amity stared at him, eyebrows knitting together, as if she couldn’t decide if she’d actually witnessed that or not. Finally she said, "I really don’t know why they think it’s her."

"You don’t think it's her?" Luz asked.

"I don’t," she confirmed. For once, she did not follow that up with anything about her lack of belief in ghosts. Just folded her arms and looked away from the table.

They managed to get something of a preview of the further floors as Amity gave them directions to different showers. "Oh man," Gus said. "This is the real life hack to stop from having to wait turns for a shower after a sleepover: just have a rich friend."

" Emira is rich," Amity told him dryly as she pointed him to the guest bathroom on the ground floor. "I live off of her immense generosity. As do you, while you’re here. Be grateful she's being nice about it."

Luz got to use what she was almost certain was Amity’s actual bathroom. It was intensely clean, the white tiles gleaming. The cabinets were spick and span, and there were a line of incredibly expensive skin care products on the shelves, along with a vast selection of shower gels and body washes that she sniffed in turn, delighted by the variety. She tried every single expensive product when she showered, conditioning her hair twice with both of Amity's incredibly expensive conditioners, used a different shower gel on every body part, and was still the first one back downstairs.

Amity resurfaced next, hair still damp, wearing a simple yellow summer dress, and sat close to her on the floor. "Amity! You won second place! I thought Gus would be first back," Luz said. "His bathroom’s on this floor."

"I put some of Ed’s hair products in the bathroom I sent Gus to," Amity told her, eyebrows briefly raising. "If he’s anything like my brother, he’s busy preening."

"I dunno about preening," Luz laughed, looking in the direction Gus had gone, picturing his face screwed up thoughtfully as his fingers hovered over a selection of hair care products. "Probably experimenting and noting down the effects of every single one."

When she turned back, Amity was watching her with a strange intensity that made Luz's stomach jump. Not unpleasantly, she noted. Which was nice. But, she reminded herself, Amity was a very cool person who got very flustered around her sometimes. Luz had spent enough time accidentally making people uncomfortable in her childhood that she recognised a person who found her discomforting or unsettling. Still, she was delighted that Amity was trying to overcome that, to be her buddy despite how weird she seemed to find Luz, reaching out despite her own obvious unease about Luz's weirdness. Luz wouldn’t push that by admitting she thought Amity was cute to her face. It would be best, she thought, to give her space, to not get too attached, to be nice to her, to try not to overwhelm her. To be a friend.

"Hey," Amity said. "You used the soap in my bathroom?"

"Oh!" Luz felt her cheeks colour, realising the mistake she’d made. People got super protective over their stuff! "Only a little! I’m sorry, it looked super fancy, and I wanted to try it."

Amity looked away, and then back to her. "Your usual one, that smells like lemons, right?"

"Yeah!"

"I like that one better."

"Y...eah?" Luz rubbed her (now extremely soft thanks to her raiding of Amity’s products) cheek. "I can find you some, if you want? I get it for like, a dollar at Target."

To her surprise, Amity laughed. "It smells more expensive than that."

"Yeah?" More expensive? Luz tried to puzzle this out, but Amity was already trying to reword her sentence.

"Maybe not more expensive. Maybe just...nicer."

"That’s just me," Luz said, joking around, wanting to hear her laugh again. "I make everything smell good." Amity turned to smile at her, head co*cked to one side. In the light streaming in through the window her eyes looked especially golden. Lipochrome , Luz remembered, the word the only thing left in her head. "I used your skin care stuff too," she admitted, sheepishly, and was gratified when Amity laughed again. "It's so good! Feel my cheeks! They're so soft!"

Amity wasn't looking at her, Luz noticed. Which was probably that discomfort she’d noticed in action. She opened her mouth to be like hahaha or not! sorry I’m weird! But Amity held up her hand, fingers and thumb making a V shape. Luz placed her chin against the thenar webspace between Amity's thumb and forefinger, and Amity gently squeezed her cheeks. Luz giggled. "It is soft," Amity murmured, finally looking as she squished her cheeks gently.

Luz opened her mouth, ready to say something dumb, but was saved by Willow coming back in, toweling her hair off. They sprang apart and Willow looked between them, as though questioning whether or not she should say anything. Finally, she said, "No hat today, Luz?"

"Amity's keeping it safe!" Out of the corner of her eye, Luz saw Amity go very red as Willow's eyebrows rose. "Cuz it's bad etiquette to wear a hat in the house. I’m being polite!" Amity took it from a pocket and placed it on one of Luz's thighs. "That's cool!" Luz told her. "You keep it safe til we go."

Gus followed Willow after a few minutes, smelling like a confusing mixture of flowers and cologne, his hair soft, the tight coils of his curls anointed with whatever oils Edric used. "Okay, scale of one to ten, how much handsomer am I now than I usually am?"

"You look as handsome as you usually look," Willow told him fondly.

"So cute," Luz agreed.

"You're fine, I guess," Amity said, when he turned to her.

Gus beamed. "My hypothesis is correct! I am already the maximum amount of cute."

When it came time to mount their expedition to the second floor, they followed Amity up the long stairs, all four of them averting their eyes from Alador's intense searching look in the painting. "How does your dad look both bored and super intense at the same time?" Luz asked with frustration, as she accidentally made eye contact and had to look away again as the eyes followed her.

"Blight talent." Amity said, with a similar level of boredom in her voice.

The guest room had a single bed, and was more or less completely bare. "We had an aunt who used to stay here after the accident," Amity explained. "Only occasionally, to check in and ensure we weren't embarrassing the family name."

"Wait," Luz frowned, looking over to her. "Weren't you guys only kids when it happened?"

"Edric and Emira were sixteen," Amity said, leaning against the wall. "They were almost old enough to be living alone and looking after themselves."

"But you were only fourteen," Luz said, eyebrows knitting together. "Shouldn't you have had an adult around more?"

"Blights are strong and independent," she said with a shrug. "I could look after myself."

She turned to lead them out and behind her back, all three of the Ghoul Friends made significant eye contact, a secret signal of, oh boy we need to get this kid into therapy .

The living room seemed to have been used mostly for entertaining. It was more comfortable and welcoming than the one downstairs had been, with a few chairs that had the luxury of cushioning instead of being entirely built from right angles. Gus threw himself on one and sighed with pleasure. "Who decorated this room? Did your interior designer snap and go briefly crazy with good taste?"

"The twins used this room for entertaining their friends, when they still lived here," Amity nodded at the visible TV, the bookshelves, a few board games still hastily left under the table, as though someone had only just finished a game. A guitar was leaning against the far wall and Luz picked it up and strummed it. It was a little out of tune. She tried it again, adjusting as she went, until it sounded okay. She played a little bit, a few bars of a song she knew, a lullaby. "You play the guitar?" Amity asked her, a note of surprise in her voice.

"A little," Luz told her with a smile. "Skara taught me the basics while we were dating. She needed an accompanist for one of her solo projects."

"Oh, right," Amity said and turned away to examine the window outside intently.

The pool room had been so named for the large pool table in its center. There were several cabinets containing bottles of expensive alcohol against the walls, and drawers filled with crystal glasses. Luz opened one and found a box of Cuban cigars "This is where my father would entertain business partners," Amity shook her head. " Very traditional."

"It looks like it's a set from a Clue game," Gus said, examining everything, as though sure it would all turn into cardboard under intense enough scrutiny. "Hey, what's with these drinks? Whiskey isn’t usually clear."

"The twins were emptying out those bottles and replacing them with water by the time they hit high school," a little smile had tugged up the corner of her mouth, a fond memory. "Our father always pretended he didn’t notice. But he still picked them up without asking any questions that time they got very drunk at a party and had to leave at one in the morning."

"Your mom didn’t know?" Willow asked, laughing a little at the mental image.

"She knew," Amity grinned fondly. "She got very angry about it. They were grounded for a month, but they were sneaking out within a day. She knew about that too, but she always let them get away with stuff like that. I think she secretly liked that they knew how to bend the rules."

The pool table in the center of the room had several pool cues locked up next to it, along with a set of pool balls. "Do you play?" Luz asked.

"Not often," Amity said. She hesitated. "Well. A few times a month."

"Play me!" Luz was already handing her a pool cue. It took less than ten minutes for Amity to destroy her, knocking ball after ball into the pockets around the table.

"That's amazing!" Luz gasped, looking delighted at her loss. "How'd you make all those shots?"

"It's just…" Amity shrugged, a little embarrassed. "It's just math and physics. You calculate the angle and how fast the ball will go. It's easy when you know how to work everything out." She tapped the floor gently with the butt of the pool cue. "You seem very okay with losing?"

"Of course! I'm happy you won!"

"Hmm," she said, apparently finding this attitude alien.

"You don’t have to win at friendship," Willow said, resetting the table. "Gus, play me next? Then we can do winners vs winners."

The library was the next room they visited. It turned out to be massive, taking up most of this floor. The books here were eclectic, books on law and the application of law, obscure corporate cases, histories on various companies. Books on engineering and accountancy. Another set of shelves filled top to bottom with books on predictive analytics.

"How come so many of the shelves are bare?" Willow asked, examining a bookcase with empty spots.

"I've moved most of the ones relevant to my interests to my study," Amity told her. "The rest are irrelevant to me."

"That’s still a lot of books," Willow murmured.

"What's predictive analytics?" Luz asked, finger on a book about the subject.

"Essentially what Blight Industries is based off of," Amity picked up one of the books, opening it to show a complex algorithm that made Luz’s eyes cross when she tried to read it. "My mother used to write predictive algorithms. The company was built up around her work."

"So she predicted the future?" Luz asked, eyes bright with interest.

"Not all of it," Amity tapped her fingers on a bookshelf. "Important parts, cultural trends, incoming business legislation, shifts in economic markets, things others might not have seen coming. Blight Industries was used by companies looking to get ahead in a fast changing world."

" Was ?" Willow asked.

"I think we try to invest in things that have a chance of taking off now, rather than invest in things we know will take off," Amity put the book back. "Unfortunately, none of us are as skilled as she was at seeing what's coming. Emira is working on developing BI’s machine learning capabilities to try and build her own predictive department, but even working together, her entire department has yet to match my mother’s skills so far. Which is incredible, given it’s been seven years and technology has improved so far from where it was when she died." There was a troubled look on her face. "She was the most talented of us. That’s for certain."

"So what?" Luz patted her shoulder. "She was talented at that, but you’re talented at your stuff too! I bet there’s a bunch of stuff you can do that she can’t!"

"Especially now," Gus said, quietly. Despite herself, Amity smiled.

They’d all put off visiting the last room on their list. It was as if, as Gus might’ve put it, the vibes were all wrong for exploring this particular area of the manor. Odalia Blight's study was cold. Temperature wise, and in terms of interior decoration. It was dark, lined with heavy wooden furniture that cast long shadows over the plum carpet. Above the door was a painting of a hunter shooting a beautiful deer; it was caught in the moment that the arrow punctured the deer's chest, the animal leaping in agony, the hunter’s face turned away from the viewer, stance triumphant. Luz shuddered at the image, reached up and turned the frame around so they no longer had to look at it.

On Odalia's desk was a set of what looked like letter openers shaped like small daggers. Willow picked one up and hissed through her teeth. "Still sharp," she said sheepishly, wrapping her sleeve around the cut. A drop of blood had landed on the desk and now sat there, a bright red bead. She swiped it off with her sweater sleeve, frowning, but only succeeded in streaking it over the wood.

Gus popped up beside her and began flipping through a series of papers on Odalia's desk, frowning. "None of these words are in English. But they don’t look like any other languages either! I think it’s some kind of code."

"Probably to keep prying eyes off of her investments," Amity came round to peer at the papers over his shoulder. "You'd be surprised how desperate people get when they think you can see into the future. People were constantly trying to get hold of her investment portfolio. That's a...substitution cipher, I think. It looks easy enough to crack, which means it's probably a red herring, and all of her actually important stuff is somewhere else."

"How'd you know?"

"We all had to learn simple ciphers."

"What!" Gus looked astounded. "Why?"

"To keep things hidden. She got very annoyed if she found I was writing my diary in plain English," Amity explained, as though this was a usual part of childhood. "She made me start writing in ciphers in case someone found it and learned any secrets. The twins were always better at that sort of thing than I was. They taught themselves obscure languages to keep stuff hidden from her. She liked that."

"Completely normal behaviour from a parent," Gus said, shuffling through the papers, a slightly stunned look on his face.

"Be careful," Amity caught one of the papers, the only one unencoded, stopping him from shuffling. "That looks like a copy of her Will. It's got the family crest up top, see?"

This piqued his interest. Gus reached for it and read through the pages a few times, his brow furrowing. He handed it to Luz, who was reaching out for it. "I wonder why she had a fake Will in with her stuff?"

"That's the real Will." Amity shrugged. "I recognise some of it."

"No, it can't be." Gus was looking concerned.

"Why would she make a fake Will?" Amity asked, folding her arms.

"Because this one's nonsensical?" He pulled it back from Luz, reading out loud. "' To our oldest daughter and competent child, we leave ownership of Blight Industries as it must remain in the family and she is our only option .’ Rules about the garage, the attic and their room remaining sealed off for ten years after their death. Edric isn't even mentioned in it, and they only left you--"

"$100, yes. It's a nominal amount to ensure I couldn't contest it by saying they forgot about me." Amity nodded, matter of fact. When they stared at her, she tried to explain. "If you leave someone who would usually be a direct heir, like a child, out of a Will completely, they can fight for a portion of what was left by arguing they were omitted, either due to undue influence from one party or diminished capacity. If you leave a small amount, it proves you remembered them, you just didn't want to give them anything significant. It makes the easy claim of being forgotten harder to prove. Especially in California, where children don’t automatically have the right to inherit from their parents."

Gus's brain was visibly ticking in his head, a frown coming to his face as though he'd already found the answer to his question and wanted to reject it. "Why would they…"

Amity shrugged. "They updated their Will once a quarter," she said with a sigh, as though this was a normal issue children faced. Homework, sibling rivalries, parents disinheriting them… "Pretty normal stuff. It had been a hundred and fifty dollars and stock in Blight Industries, but I must've done something for them to lower it. Ed and Em had it worse off. My parents were always trying to play them off each other. Whoever had the title of best twin when they updated the Will got the company and the other was removed from the Will completely."

"But you just said," Gus leaned on the desk frowning, "that you could've contested the Will a little easier if you weren't in it. Right? Doesn't that mean whichever twin was left out could legally contest the Will?"

"It’s tough to find grounds. But it could be done. I imagine leaving one twin out was to ensure that if they died, Ed and Em would be motivated to fight each other - get a lawyer, contest the Will by finding the grounds to do so, poison their relationship with each other permanently over money." She looked up, voice still casual as she shrugged again. "I'm glad I didn't have to deal with that part." She hadn't had a flesh and blood twin to compete with; only their expectations for her, and that had been a battle she was always destined to lose.

"Minors should be legally provided for in the state of California," Willow frowned. "I think they can claim an amount of the estate up to the age of twenty-three."

"I don't think they expected to die before we were twenty-three." Amity pointed out wryly. "Edric and I elected to keep the distributions as they were, and let Emira take control of the estate. We thought that they knew best." She added, a note of sarcasm in her tone.

"No lawyer should've signed that off," Willow pushed her glasses up her nose, her shoulders stiff in indignance. "It's criminal."

"When you're very rich, there are very few actual crimes that apply to you," Amity pointed out, leaning on her mother's desk. "They weren't worried about breaking laws like others might be. They were more likely to be fined than to go to prison. A fine to them was just a price you paid to get the right to commit a crime. And neither of them would've gone to prison. Not for a simple probate case. Or...anything else, I think."

"That's...kind of f*cked," Luz said, frowning with concern.

"We thought so too at first," she rubbed the back of her head, fingers finding the buzz of her undercut. "But the rest of the family told me it's quite common. People do it all the time to motivate their children. Apparently, mother only received the money she did when my grandparents passed because she kept a detailed dossier of whatever her siblings did wrong and fed them that information. Before that, she only had a nominal amount too. And father definitely played off of his siblings. He never spoke of them after my grandmother on that side passed. I've been assured it's a perfectly normal way to ensure your children don't become complacent or relax too much after you pass."

Gus was staring at her, something in his expression like that of a person watching an injured animal struggle, a twisting of his mouth, the way his eyebrows knitted together as he debated doing something. His body decided for him. He wordlessly threw his arms around her and hugged her to his chest. Before she could adequately protest, Luz joined him, the Will clenched and crumpled in her fist, her face buried into Amity's shoulder. Willow joined the other side, so that she was enfolded into their group hug. Amity struggled, but eventually stopped, taking a breath. This didn't feel bad. It felt... good ? It made her eyes sting?

Best to unpack that later.

She gave herself three seconds to appreciate the hug. Then pushed down the part of herself that liked it, and slid down into a crouch to get out from under their arms, crawling out from the gap between their bodies. "I don't know why that was necessary."

"Because it's not normal," Gus said, firmly, a deeply upset look on his face. "And somebody told you it was normal! Look- my dad's Will stuff is all about making sure I'm taken care of."

Willow nodded. "When I was a kid my dads only updated their Will once, and it was to make sure I'd be taken care of if they died before I was an adult."

"Eda doesn't have a will," Luz said. "She's got a piece of paper that says " 'Luz and King get all my stuff equally except for my ashes that are split between Camila and Lilith .' She said because mom would like her ashes to keep somewhere safe and Lilith would hate to be responsible for her ashes, so she gets to love us and annoy Lilith after death. It's all about how you wanna look after others after you pass. Not...not how you want to control them."

Amity looked at her feet. "I don't think my parents attended the same parenting classes yours did."

"Hey, come on. Eda definitely didn't attend a parenting class," Luz reached out, little finger brushing Amity's hand, hooking her index finger. "She learned on the job. Same with mom."

"It's not about what our parents were taught," Willow said, softly. "It's about how they want to protect us after they can't be with us."

Amity turned her head, refusing to look at them, arms folding as she tried to reject this. "It's just a piece of paper," she said eventually. "It's not like it was really bad. They did it to help us know how to be strong when they weren't there. Your parents showed you they loved you through coddling, ours showed us through building character."

"Is it something you'd do to a kid?" Luz asked, looking concerned. "Cuz if you did that and I was your wife, I'd be so mad about it."

Amity looked back at the floor, examining her feet. Her ears had gone pink. "No," she said, finally, the words coming from somewhere deep inside, pulling a dagger from a wound. "It hurt. I wouldn't do it to someone else."

"I'm sorry they did that," Willow said, quietly. "I know you always did your best for them. You didn't deserve that."

Amity's hands closed into fists and she whipped round as though to say something, but didn't. Managed to hold control of herself. She nodded stiffly. "Enjoy trawling through my mother's things. I'm going to wait outside."

Once she'd shut the door, she slumped down the wall outside the room and folded her hands into tight fists, forehead on her knees. She preferred not to talk about Odalia and Alador, their parenting. Every time she did, she felt like an alien. It felt as though her reality split off from that of most others whenever talk of childhoods or parents came up. Others talked about misery from teachers or fellow kids, or how excited they were to do stupid sh*t at college. She'd been happy to work hard at school, happy to volunteer in the library, happy to do anything to be away from her parents from a young age. Adulthood, living outside of the manor, had been a dream she’d clung to, a place of safety. Before her parents had died, she’d tried to internalise every law book she could get her hands on, shadowing her father’s work, wanting desperately for school and College to be over already so she could prove herself at Yale or Harvard law, fast-forwarding from thirteen to thirty, ignoring the years between and just be spat out whole and undamaged, independent of her mother and better at the work chosen for her than her siblings, her father.

But now...

The door to the study clicked as it opened. Amity didn’t look up, because that would be an admittance of weakness, acknowledging their presence. She was still mad at them for making her feel bad. If she looked up at them they’d see how sad she looked and then they’d be nice about it and she’d lose the armor of being Mad. She felt a warmth against her arm as someone sat beside her, and thought about shifting away. "Don't worry," Willow said. "I'm not going to ask you how you’re feeling."

"I wouldn't answer."

"I know," she pressed her shoulders against the wall. "I was just going to sit out here with you."

The silence that followed wasn't too bad, actually. She’d assumed it would be awkward, but Willow didn’t try to probe, just sat with her legs crossed and looked up at the ceiling. It was a comfortable quiet, one that stretched. She counted seconds in her head, feeling Willow's arm against her own, knowing a calm couldn’t last. After she counted thirty seconds, the door clicked again and Luz stepped out, followed by Gus. They sat down against the wall opposite her, Luz's feet gently nudging hers. "You’re done ransacking my mother’s study, then?"

"Yeah. We're chilling now," Gus told her.

"Yeah! We got time, right?" Luz leaned back against the wall, and tapped her socked foot against Amity’s socked foot, which was immensely intimate, weird, and nice all at once. "Let's chill. We can just hang for a while. It’ll be cool."

"Do you have to ‘chill’ here?" Amity asked coldly, keeping the mask of Still Mad at You, Don’t be Cute up. "I think you ought to take a break from the Manor."

The group shared another look over her head. "We don't have to chill here," Luz agreed.

"Have you ever been to the Secret Room?" Willow asked her with a smile.

"So as you can see," Gus was explaining as he leaned against the counter, hastily applied moustache starting to droop, "My name is Gus Incognito, from Hawaii. I’ve got ‘donor’ on my license, cuz I’m just an all-round good guy! Look at the beautiful rainbow in the background! I’ve never been in the state of California before in my life! Where am I, my fine fellow? Also, may I have one beer?"

Viney, on shift, was leaning against the bar, giving him a deeply long suffering look. "Gus Incognito," she repeated. "So definitely not Gus Gusington."

"Definitely not, my human friend!"

"And absolutely not Augustus Porter wearing a cheap moustache?"

"Oh ho ho! No! This moustache cost a lot of money! I’ve heard he’s cool, though!"

" Gus ."

"Hey Viney. We've got valid IDs," Luz said, leaning against the bar. "Can you serve us before you kick Gus out?"

"Hey Luz," Viney came over, leaning in to smile at her. "How’re you doing?"

" So good. Thanks for all your help on my last art project! All those feathers you gave me really paid off!"

"Feathers? Wait. The owl ," Amity whispered in mild horror. She remembered that project. They’d handed in theirs at the same time. Luz had created a life-sized owl, covered in a patchwork of feathers from other birds making its plumage beautiful and varied. It had also, when Luz opened its beak, been filled with a vast amount of spiders that had crawled out all over the art room and caused a mild panic as students had stampeded out of the room.

"That’s the one!" Viney laughed, and shook her head. "It’s sitting on my desk in the Wildlife sanctuary office right now. Luz, you know I keep all of the feathers the birds leave me. You can turn them into art any time. What're you up to today?"

"Showing Amity the Secret Room!" Luz threw an arm around Amity, pulling her in and pointing at her, just in case Viney was unsure of who she was talking about, as though the single new face in the bar wasn’t enough of a clue.

"Hey! Welcome," Viney peered at her, grinning. "Emira's little sister, right? Mittens?"

"Amity," Amity said, holding out a hand as her cheeks darkened. How did the twins always get ahead of her?

"Welcome to the Secret Room." Viney shook the proffered hand. "Can I get you anything?"

"Water," she said. "Unless you have alcohol that doesn't taste like alcohol."

"I'll have a Hitachi!" Luz leaned on the counter. "Ooohhh, maybe we should get some chili nachos too. Extra avocado!"

"Your sister likes her hard seltzer," Viney said, with an odd amount of casual. "Maybe you could try one of them?"

"Sure, get me whatever Emira usually gets." Amity paused. "How often is she down here?"

"She comes down occasionally," Viney said, again, strangely aloof. She slid Amity a can of mango flavoured hard seltzer, and a Hitachi for Luz. Amity lifted her sister's credit card. "Cash only, I'm afraid. Makes it easier for us to money launder."

"I got this," Luz handed over a twenty. "They don't do receipts either, so no expensing this trip."

"It's probably better that Emira can't keep an eye on me via credit card statements and receipts," Amity said, examining the can of seltzer as though it were an alien object. She opened it up and took a sip. It really didn't taste like alcohol. It tasted mostly of mango and mineral water. Not bad.

"Don't have more than one," Willow said, noticing Amity's face as Viney poured her her usual stout.

Amity touched the owl on the Hitachi label of Luz's beer. "This and your art project. What’s with you and owls?"

"It comes from Eda, so I guess it’s genetic," Luz sipped her beer. Beside her, Willow opened her mouth to correct her, but shrugged and smiled, looking back into her drink. "She's drunk these my whole life. I used to call ‘em owl drinks. Owls are kinda her aesthetic. She's got a pet owl, named Owlbert, and her bike's named Hooty and it's got a little owl figurine on it. It's cool. Some people are dog people, some people are cat people. Eda’s an owl lady." She paused. "She does also like cats. We have one. His name is King of Demons. But cats are just owls that don't have wings, I think."

"Hmm," Amity said, thinking of the tall lady in red leather, her white hair. There was something about her that seemed completely alien to her own upbringing, an air of something slightly feral and exciting. "I don't think my parents would've liked her," she said, without realising that she was smiling.

"Yeah," Luz agreed with her own grin. "She's super cool like that."

"How long have you known her for?"

"Since I was a lil kid," Luz thought about this. "Thirteen or fourteen, I guess. That's when she and my mom started dating." She considered this, examining her internal timeline, and nodded. "Yeah, about then. It was a little after we moved here."

Viney was cutting up Gus's new fake ID when they went to find somewhere to sit and drink, and he reappeared shortly after with a glass of water, looking glum. "I spent so long trying to get every detail right!" He cried as he pulled off his fake moustache and slumped into a chair at their table, putting his glass down on the sticky-plasticky-woody surface. It was horribly stained; Amity kept her hands in her lap to stop from touching it, but Gus flopped his arms and face on it. Which: gross.

"And it did look very good," Willow assured him, patting his shoulder and taking his fake moustache to put it on her own top lip. "Eda’s lessons are really paying off! You’re getting really good at forging! Your only problem is that we went to school with all of the bartenders here."

" One day! "

"One day you'll be twenty-one," Willow agreed. "Let's hope we're not banned by then."

The nachos were very good, crunchy with just the right amount of cheese and meat. There were chopped avocados to the side and segments of lime. As the Ghoul Friends dug in, Amity hung back, noticing the C-grade from the Health Inspector in the window of the bar. "What’s up?" Luz asked.

"Nothing," she said.

"Ah, come on!" Luz loaded a chip up with meat and sour cream, salsa and guac, and held it out. "Open wide!"

" What ?"

"Come on!" Luz leaned across the table, waving the chip in her face. Amity leaned back, and then, mostly to stop Luz from getting close enough that she might drop the whole thing on Amity’s dress, tried to take it from her. "Eat up!" Luz said, relinquishing it. Amity did as she was told. They were very good nachos, her mouth noticed. Luz was already loading up a second chip for her. "Say ah !"

"You are not feeding those to me." She took this one off her too, and then a third.

"Eat up, s’good!"

"It’s alright," she said, begrudgingly. The guacamole was perhaps the best she’d ever tried. She’d admit that. And was the chili homemade? It really brought out the best in the other ingredients. She took a fourth for herself without Luz’s prompting, and Luz beamed at her.

And then Luz’s face fell as she looked over her shoulder to the door as it opened. She threw herself under the table. "What's wrong?" Amity asked, concerned.

"It's Skarsha, probably," Gus said, casually, without bothering to look up from his pile of chips. Amity went to look under the table. "Don't draw any attention to her."

She could feel Luz's shoulder against her knee. She pulled Luz’s beanie from her pocket and held it out under the table as Skara and Boscha approached.

"Hey! How are you? Amity! What’re you doing with these guys?" Skara had a huge smile. Beautiful, really. "I didn’t know you all hung out together!"

"We're chilling."

"We’re just having a drink," Willow said, still wearing the moustache. "What’re you two doing?"

"Here on a romantic date?" Gus asked, fluttering his eyelashes, propping up his chin on his hands.

"Don’t be weird," Boscha told him, eyes narrowed. "You little weirdo."

"I haven’t been little since junior year!"

"You’re weird right now," Boscha told him. They glared at each other.

Skara didn’t pay this any mind. She held out a glossy leaflet to Willow, smiling brightly. "My band’s playing here in a couple of days, and I miss seeing you guys at our shows! Will you come? Pleeeaaase ?"

Willow took the leaflet, turning it over in her hands. "You changed your band name again? I liked Critical Hits."

"What!" Gus looked over at the leaflet, scandalised. "But that was a great name! It was a Dungeons and Dragons reference! And you know I both love and miss our Dungeons and Dragons nights!"

On the leaflet in spiky writing was the word Zopiclone , the band formerly known as Critical Hits! A picture of Skara was behind it, flashing devil horns, apparently Whooo!!! -ing at the camera.

"Oh yeah!" Skara looked up brightly. "We're starting to evolve some of our music too! We’ve been experimenting with electronica and different mastering techniques. I’ve been really working on perfecting remixes of some of our earlier work. I thought it would be a great time to rebrand! I've got so many ideas for merchandising." She patted his shoulder. "But we can still play D&D, you know that! We’ll organise a time!"

"We better," Gus sighed. "Justin Time the dragonborn paladin yearns for adventure!"

"And Otto Tune, the beautiful Elven Bard will be there to support, you know it!" Skara blew them all a kiss as she skipped away. Amity, who’d known Skara since elementary school and had never once even heard of her playing Dungeons and Dragons, mouthed what the f*ck is dungeons and dragons to Boscha, who shook her head as if to say, just don’t ask, don’t ask and we’ll escape this without being given a three hour lecture as to the finer points of Waterdhavian taverns and which cantrips are best for a level one wizard.

As Skara ducked into conversation at the next table, Boscha lingered in front of them, arms folded. "You better show up," she told them, interrupting her jock-to-jock telepathy to speak to all of them. "Skara needs to have a good sized audience."

Amity met her gaze and held it. "If we have time," she said, holding her ground. Boscha’s unstoppable force met Amity’s unmovable object. They stared at each other, sparks flying, more jock-to-jock telepathy happening, this time along the lines of make me and Oh I absolutely will .

"Are you gonna play DnD with us again Boscha?" Gus teased, throwing her off. "We could always use help from Captain Hammer, the dwarf barbarian!"

"Hey! You keep that quiet!" Boscha poked him in the chest. "I don’t like that nerd sh*t. I only did that because Skara said you needed an extra person, one time ."

"But you liked it when she sang you a theme song," Gus teased.

"Keep your mouth shut. And tell your dumbass buddy that we can see her under the table," Boscha kicked the table with her foot. Luz squawked as it teetered. Apparently satisfied with that, Boscha walked off to drape an arm around Skara’s shoulders as she handed out leaflets.

Luz extricated herself once she was sure Boscha and Skara were out of sight, groaning. She'd managed to pull her beanie onto her head inside out; Willow adjusted it, taking it off and putting it back on again. Amity felt her fingers twitch, and gave in, adjusting the hat on Luz's head too, pulling it over the round of her ears. "We're gonna go, though. Right?"

"Why?" Amity asked her, visibly confused.

"Cuz Boscha’s right. Skara shouldn't be playing to a tiny crowd," Luz said. "She's really good."

"Boscha likes to try and boss the rugby team into Skara's gigs," Amity said, doubtfully. "I don't go on that principle alone. I don’t like people telling me what to do."

"Then you're missing out!" Luz said. "She's really good. I still have some of her stuff on my Spotify playlists."

"What about Boscha?" Amity asked.

"What about her?" Luz asked, tilting her head. "This is for Skara, not for Boscha."

Amity shook her head, but finally said, "Maybe," as she watched the gang go back to scooping up nachos.

"A lot of your paranormal investigation appears to be just ' hanging out ,'" Amity observed, leaning against the pool table in the pool room back at Blight Manor.

"Of course! That's why we started."

"It was a fun way to hang out," Willow agreed, watching Gus try to calculate the angle and fail. His cue hit the ball too fast at the wrong part of the curve, making it jump over the ball he'd been aiming it at; he groaned as it slid directly into the basket at the side of the table. Amity took it out, lined it up and sunk two more balls in one shot.

"This is fine," Gus said as Amity ' it's just math guys' Blight lined up a seemingly impossible angle and knocked in another. "I can just use this time where I’d normally be waiting for my turn to imagine what would happen if we took a road trip to Vegas and worked together to hustle pool players."

They'd come home that evening with takeout burgers and a few soft drinks, and, after moving their backpacks, conspiracy board, and the bulk of the blanket fort to the living area on the second floor, had come back to play pool.

"I'm not a hustler," she insisted as she potted the final ball. She leaned on her cue, watching Willow reset the board and break, sending multicoloured spheres rolling across the baize. "It's just--"

"Math," Gus finished for her, leaning against the wall. "Math and coordination."

"And practice," Amity admitted after a moment taking her turn and managing to pot three balls, one after the other. "The twins are still far better than I am."

"Maybe I should go with them to Vegas," Gus was thoughtful. "I could use the cash."

Luz rubbed her chin and thought about opening her mouth to say, hey by the way Amity your siblings asked me to take them on dates but something kept her mouth closed. This hangout felt easier than it had earlier, a calm that had overtaken them. This was pretty nice. It would probably be better to keep her questions for when Gus and Willow weren't around. "Is this what you do when you’re not working?"

"I don’t have a job," Amity said, lining up a shot.

"Yeah, but you’re still working ," Luz came over to check the angle too, crouching down to table level. "Oooohh. This one’s easy, right?" Amity missed the shot and took a step back from the table, pink cheeked. Willow stepped up with a smile, and aimed. "What do you do here when you wanna just chill?"

"Oh, there’s always something to do," Amity looked away. "I jog around the gardens, and there’s a little gym here for conditioning workouts. And there’s always books."

"I love books!" Luz threw an arm around her. "What’re your top five favourites? Azura’s number one, right? Ooohh, top five serieses!"

"Uh," she managed, looking away. "I guess, Azura…The Locked Tomb...Richard Siken poems..."

"Oh, right!" Luz noticed her discomfort and stepped back, holding up her arms. "Sorry! I keep forgetting to ask if I can do that." Willow stepped back from the table, letting Amity take her turn. "Can I put an arm around you?" Amity’s cue scraped along the baize, almost taking it off. The ball rolled, not touching anything, and she stepped back from the table to let Willow step up and take her turn. She threw Willow a look of help me change the subject and Willow nodded, kindly.

"Can you still wiggle your ears?" Willow asked casually, leaning over the table. Her shot knocked against another ball and it rolled slowly, not going anywhere. "Luz, Amity used to be able to wiggle her ears independently."

"What!" Luz looked delighted as Willow stepped back. Amity leaned over the table quickly, hoping to finish this off before she became too flustered, but Luz had her hands on her shoulders and was examining her face. "Can you show me?"

Her brain malfunctioned, two very different signals traveling through her. She wiggled her very red ears, and lined up her shot without looking at the same time, sending the white cue ball spinning off of the table on impact and onto the floor, rolling beneath a wardrobe.

Behind them, Willow laughed, and tried to turn it into a cough. "Let’s call that a draw," she said, winking at Amity who was covering her red face with one hand.

It took them twenty or so minutes to rebuild the blanket fort, working as a team to structurally reinforce the sides. It was dark by the time they finished, the light in the room making the night outside seem black in front of the window, a sheet of thick darkness. The rebuilt blanket fort looked pretty good, Amity had to admit. Hopefully there'd be no embarrassing sleep-hand holding to put her off in the morning. What had her unconscious brain been thinking? Gus of all people! Still, she’d thought, it would’ve been worse if she’d woken up holding Luz’s hand. There’d be no denying anything then; only a fool would see her red faces, her flustering and unconscious hand holding and see it as anything but having an overwhelming crush.

Willow, the architect of her pool-based demise, was setting up their cameras. Gus was flopped on the ground like a cat, playing with the spirit box. It slipped over channels, AM/FM frequencies, occasional spitting out words. "That one sounded like 'danger!'" he said, with some surprise. Another voice, garbled in the radio, said something like lucks. "Lucks into something?" Gus asked. It garbled over the channels again, static in the air.

"Could be Lux?" Luz asked, coming to lean against him.

"A star?" Gus asked it as he picked another word out of brief coherence from the box.

"Might be estrella," Luz suggested. "Which is, I mean...same thing?"

" Lucks ," said the voice again, from somewhere buried in the static. And then, " I swear to god -"

"Wonder what that’s about?" Luz draped over him, poking the box.

" --danger will Robinson--"

"--coming soon: the thing from--"

"--moving--"

Amity was sat near Gus and Luz, legs stretched out, her head supported by her hand. She’d originally sat down to watch them, but now her lambent eyes were flickering around the room, deep in some unspoken thought as the spirit box ticked through different frequencies. After a few more garbled phrases, she got up and left the room, coming back after a couple of minutes with a long, zipped up bag.

"What’s that?" Willow asked. Amity shook her head, and Willow nodded, understanding. They’d talk about it later.

As Gus put the spirit box away, Luz slid over in her socks and flopped down next to Amity. Gus and Willow settled down too, Gus dropping his head into Luz's lap again while Willow hugged her knees to her chest, leaning against Amity. Amity, without thinking about it, rested her hand on Willow’s shoulder. "It feels like we should start a campfire," Gus said. It looked like he was trying to be funny, Amity noted. But there was something serious around his eyes, as though he was looking for something, listening.

"Absolutely not." Amity told him, re: the indoor fire.

"And roast marshmallows and tell spooky stories."

"I don’t think we should be starting any fires in the house," Willow said, gently.

Luz was picking up the guitar again. She strummed a few notes and said, "We could have a sing-along? Amity, you wanna lead?"

"I do not," she said, face flushing.

"What's the temperature outside?" Gus asked suddenly.

"It was pretty mild, right?" Luz checked her phone's weather app. "In the fifties?"

"Do you have a thermometer?" Gus asked Amity. "It feels colder than that here."

Amity stood up, crossed to the wall. "The thermostat says it's at forty-five," she tried to hide the surprise in her voice, and failed. "I'm moving it up to seventy-two."

"That'd be better." Luz shook her head. "Man, I'm on edge. I don't know what that's about. Is anyone else feeling kinda weird all of a sudden?"

Amity was still staring at the thermostat. They looked at each other, noticing the way she'd gone stiff. Gus sat up and Luz crossed to look at it with her. "What's wrong?"

Amity didn't look up from the thermostat, voice quiet. "I'm having some trouble setting the temperature."

Luz examined it carefully. The thermostat had been set to sixty-five. She leaned over and shifted it to seventy-two and said, "hey, no worries. Let's head back."

"No," Amity said, firmly. Luz looked at her, and then back to the thermostat. The number had fallen. Seventy.

"I could've sworn I…"

"You did."

Before their eyes, the thermostat dropped again, sixty-five, sixty, fifty-five, fifty, forty-five, the number ticking rapidly down as though someone was turning the dial in front of them, their breath beginning to fog the air in front of them. Luz breathed in and realised, with a shock, she could smell a trace of something rotten, like old eggs in the air. A trace of something burning with it. She felt a cold sweat break out on her forehead. Where had she put the salt? Amity shut the door to their living room quickly, pulling back.

Above them, the lights began to flicker, off and on, creating a strobing effect over their bodies. The room shook as though something large and fast was approaching at speed.

"Okay," Amity said, and crossed over to grab her bag, unzipping it to reveal a metal hockey stick. She wasn't scared, had never been less scared in her life, but her hands hadn't gotten that memo; they trembled as she stood between the group and the door, stick held up protectively. "Enough's enough."

"Gremlin time," Gus gasped behind her with unconcealed awe.

Whatever it was reached their bolthole. Something big smashed against the door in an inconsistent wave, as though it was made from a great many semi-solid parts instead of one whole. There came a horrifying scrape of what sounded like bone against wood as it clawed against the door, the impact making the wood bow. It came again, great crashes that slammed into the door like something, many things, beating just out of time with each other. Something black and slick began to ooze through the crack between the door’s frame and the door itself. It crept in, some sort of non-Newtonian mass of disgustingness, forcing the door open, the lock popping, in a wave of black gunk.

"Oh," said Willow, because that was all she could think of to say. Luz was already getting between it and her and Gus, her fists raised. They were staring at what looked like a creature raised from slick black petroleum, but the slick of oil was moving in all directions. It stood on two legs, had what appeared to be two arms, and there was a shape that seemed to be based on a head. All over, the ooze that had built it wriggled unpleasantly. The thing turned and threw what had to be its right arm towards her, knocking her back. Luz gamely stood her ground, tried to charge it. Willow grabbed her by the back of her shirt to pull her back, but couldn't stop Amity from running past her, the stick held up.

Amity swung the stick hard and made a solid connection, balanced and low as though this horrifying mass of undulating darkness was just another opponent on the ice. She hit it a second time so hard that the bits of independently moving ooze that made up that part of its body flew apart on impact, splattering to the ground where they wriggled horribly, trying to get back to their whole.

She was doing a very good job of holding it off of them until it manifested a whole third arm right from the center of its chest which slammed below her guard and hard into her solar plexus. She fell to one knee, stunned, and it swept her away with a shrug, advancing on the group behind her. Willow let go of Luz’s shirt and Luz stood over Amity’s prone form protectively, managing to grab the hockey stick from where it had fallen. Luz’s grip was all wrong, and she was holding it one handed like it was a bat, something far away in Amity’s brain noticed. They’d fix that later. Fog bloomed in front of her face as her hot breath met the cold air. This was bad.

Despite the fact that Amity was on the ground and Gus had fallen back onto his butt during the initial assault, it wasn't going for them. It was reaching out, malevolence in its eyes as it grabbed hold of Willow's sweater.

Luz swung at the writhing mass of wet darkness that was the creature. It roared at her and swung a fist that grew larger and larger as it swung towards her. Luz tried to block with her free hand, but the impact felt like slapping solid concrete and she yelled out in pain. That brought Amity struggling back to her feet and she grabbed her stick off of Luz, trying to push it out. This got a result; as she shoved at the creature, it backed up, hissing like a stove. She brought the blade of the stick down overhand in a hard swing, and managed to cut through the arm that had Willow; it dropped like a burst of water being split out of something solid, like the liquid of a popping bubble in a cup of bubble tea.

Jabbing at it with the toe of the stick directly was like trying to hit stone, vibrations running through Amity’s arms. Luz grabbed the hockey stick to help, and they pushed together, jabbing at its torso. It grabbed the stick and started to heave, dragging them forwards, but Willow was behind them, arms around them, pulling back, stopping them from being taken off their feet. "Let go of the stick!"

"No!"

" Let go !" Willow gave orders so rarely, that Luz trusted her immediately. Luz let go first and then both had to grab Amity from being lugged away with the hockey stick. "Amity! Let go! "

Amity finally let go and physics played out as Willow had predicted they would; the creature fell back into the hall, slamming into the wall, she was tumbling backwards, and Gus was grabbing the dropped stick and shutting the door again before it could reassert itself, pull its shape back together. "Barricade!" He puffed, tossing the hockey stick back to Amity before running to pull furniture from out of their blanket fort.

Gus pushed furniture against the door, building a barricade from everything he could pull into place. Mom wouldn't like that, Amity thought distantly as he managed to get a sofa over, Willow helping him to pull it into place. "I'm gonna help them build the barricade, okay?" Luz told her, helping her back to her feet. She took off her beanie, placing it on Amity's head, pulling it down over her ears. "Stay here."

Amity watched as Luz ran to grab half of a table and strain as she tried to pull it with her skinny little nerd arms. She counted to three, gave herself that much rest to recover from being winded, then forced herself back fully to her feet, grabbed the other side, and helped to heft it. "What're you doing?" Luz asked.

"There's no way I'm going to just stand there," she huffed, half dragging the table. "I’m fine! Do you know how many times I've been knocked down onto ice or into mud?"

"A lot?" Luz guessed, eyes bright with wonder as she watched Amity move the table. There were wiry muscles moving under her skin. She was compact, built efficiently and athletically. And Luz found herself filing that information to the back of her mind as she thought to herself not right now ! and helped jam the table against the door

The creature slammed at the door again and Amity readied herself to get back into the fight, only to find herself being taken to the floor by Willow Park of all people, who had definitely gotten surprisingly strong since grade school. Willow had grabbed Luz on the way down too, and was now, with some difficulty, struggling with both of them to keep them still. "Stay still!"

"But--"

"We need to keep ourselves safe," she told them, face so serious and earnest that they both finally obeyed. Gus crouched near them, eyes wide as the thing slammed into the door. On the floor, the puddles that it had left behind were beginning to roil, to wriggle. Willow let out a quiet gagging sound as the ooze left on her sweater from where it had grabbed her began to animate; she ripped it off over her head and threw it at the wall as it began to reach for her.

"Why’s it keep going for Willow?" Luz asked, wide-eyed.

Gus was looking about the room, formulating plans, looking for ideas. He looked back over at Amity. "Your parents were crazy weird and into secrets, right?" He asked. "Did they have any secret passageways, or secret rooms that we could use? Is there any way out of this room?"

Amity’s brain was still locked in the fight part of fight or flight . She forced her brain to get a grip, looking for a mental map of the house. Finally, she nodded slowly.

"Alright," she said. "Follow me."

Chapter 6: Recuérdame

Chapter Text

The door shook in its frame, the furniture they'd piled up against it moving incrementally, even as Gus pushed against it. Amity scanned the walls, wishing she'd paid more attention to the twins when they'd been working on their projects around the house. But there, she saw it, a square in the cream walls that looked closer to off-white. She pressed her fingers to it, found the ridge where it sat just a little off from the wall, and pulled.

It swung open. "I knew you had secret doors!" Gus whispered, afraid the creature would hear. He leaned in. "It's so dark!"

"Grab flashlights," Willow said, grabbing one from her backpack. "Quick!"

The space between the walls was narrow, barely wider than their shoulders. The thin light of Willow's flashlight showed the bones of the house, the beams of the walls and a laminated slope that climbed up a storey. The Ghoul Friends squinted, before Luz recognised what it was. "Wait! The twins said that they hadn't built a slide between floors because contractors asked for too much money!"

"Money has rarely stopped them from doing what they want to do," Amity gestured to the slide. "Get up there."

Gus went first, crouching. His feet kept slipping on the varnish of the slide, gravity trying to take hold of him. He found the best way forward was to grip the edges of the slide, taking off his socks to throw them over his shoulder and allow the skin of his feet to grip the wood. His lungs burned from exertion, the muscles of his legs and arms unused to this sort of work. Downstairs, he heard the crash of furniture falling; their barricade being destroyed. He forced himself up the slide almost too fast; one of his feet slipped and he nearly fell back. He was saved by Willow's hand behind him, catching him, stopping him from falling. His heart squeezed in his chest from both fear and love; he wanted to stop and tell her thanks, but there was no time. The best way to thank her was to keep moving, and so he did, forcing himself up and out until the slide stopped abruptly; he pushed the wall in front and it swung open and Gus threw himself out onto a plush carpet.

Scrambling to the new door, he reached in and grabbed Willow's hand, helping her out. Amity followed next, one of her hands behind her. "She fell half way up," she explained as she jumped out, revealing that she'd been holding onto the front of Luz's shirt. Luz waved sheepishly as Amity pulled her through, Amity’s hockey stick held in one hand, and they shut the trapdoor, breathing hard.

A floor below them, the thing smashed around the room, released a scream like a kettle, too high pitched to be anything organic. A sound that ran straight through to their bones like cold.

This place was evidently the room of a teenage girl. There were posters up over the walls of musicians, generically handsome male movie stars. The plush carpet was emerald green, and Gus found that the entrance to the slide had been hidden by a One Direction poster. There were way too many concessions to heterosexuality for it to be anywhere Amity hung out on the regular, he decided.

Willow leaned a little too heavily against the bookshelf here and bumped it; a hastily put away book fell out. When she picked it up to put it back she spotted a Polaroid photo inside of it, marking a page. It was hard to make out the subject; the photo had been taken with the sun behind them so they were cast into darkness, but she thought she could see a familiar looking hairband. She frowned in recognition. Was that Viney?

Amity was already going through the room, searching for something. Willow put the book back, watching her. "This is Emira's room, isn't it?"

"It was," Amity confirmed, pulling the bookcase to check behind it. Willow hopped to blocking the books from falling, but Amity seemed too preoccupied to notice. "Where is it…"

"I didn't know she was a boy band fan," Luz was rubbing her chin.

"She's not. They're a useful cover," Amity checked the drawers next, forehead furrowed, then dived under the bed, her search frantic.

"Cover for what?" Luz asked. She picked up a book titled Dysgu Cymraeg. On the cover was a familiar flag with a dragon on it. Luz nodded, a smile growing across her face. "Say no more! I get it completely!"

Amity was almost certain that she didn't, but there was no time to unpack whatever it was Luz had put together. She found what she was looking for stashed behind a chest, and held it above her head, triumphant. A baseball bat made from solid, varnished wood. Emira had gotten it a few years ago when her team had won the state championships. "Okay, one of you take this. I know she has a fencing foil hidden somewhere…"

Gus caught her arm, "Wait! We need a plan before we just run in with weapons!"

"What? ...Right," Amity looked between them. Nodded to herself. "Right. We’ll head back out. Luz, you said ghosts can’t cross salt. So you can set up a salt circle and we can trap it in there."

Luz opened her mouth to reply confidently, with a wide smile. And went a strange colour, some shade of green and grey as her mouth closed again.

"Luz?"

"I forgot it," she whispered, eyes wide. She looked like she might throw up. "It was in my bag…"

"What was?"

"The...the salt. It was in my bag. And I didn’t...I didn’t grab it."

Oh. This was bad. Amity rubbed her head, closing her eyes. She thought about this from every angle she could consider, and finally said, "We have more salt in the kitchen. Can we use that?"

"We should be able to," Gus said, "But we'd need to get there."

Luz grabbed the baseball bat, a determined look on her face. "Look, I messed up. I'll distract the monster! You guys run and get the salt."

"Absolutely not," Amity said.

"But--"

"Nah," Gus said.

"But!!"

"Let's think about this," Willow spread her hands wide, peacemaking. "We need to get down two floors to the kitchen. Between us and the salt is whatever monster that thing is. Distracting it does seem like the best way forward...unless - Amity, are there other routes down there?"

"Fastest route is the direct one down the stairs," she said with a frown. "Once you get into the secret passages, geography tends to get a little bit…weird."

Luz rubbed her chin. That seemed like it made sense. She hadn't been able to throw off the sense that their paths around the house were inconsistent, stretched, constricted, doors and stairs not where she was expecting them to be. Amity was probably just leading them through secret passages without them realising. Which was undeniably cool, she'd admit. "Right. So what if all four of us go down the stairs. And then I can distract it!"

Willow and Amity shared a look. Willow looked back at Luz. "It was trying to grab me earlier," she said. "So I should distract it."

Luz looked horrified. "No! That's exactly why you shouldn't!"

"She should," Amity nodded. "If it’s looking for her, it won’t go after you. So you distracting it won’t work. And I know the house, sort of. I can keep us out of its reach. That way you can protect Gus on the way down the stairs."

"I don't wanna be a guy about this," Gus frowned. "But...I'm the tallest. Should I be the one to protect Willow?"

"Have you ever swung a bat?" Amity asked him.

"Good point!" Gus looked guiltily relieved. "I'll grab the salt." He frowned. "Luz, we can set a trap. Let's plan on the way downstairs. If we can get it quickly, we can get up and get them safe real fast, before it has a chance to hurt them. Right?"

"But…" Luz looked at them, distraught.

"We'll be fine," Willow promised with a small smile that didn't quite meet her eyes. "I promise. Alright?"

Luz reached out and squeezed her hand. "Okay," she whispered, and pulled her into a tight hug.

They moved as a group to the stairs. On hearing the creature stirring on the floor below, Gus gulped. To his surprise, it was Amity who reached back and patted his shoulder. "Look," she said. "Don't be frightened, or whatever." And then she said nothing else, swallowing down her words. It shouldn't have been reassuring, but Gus felt a warmth from the awkward reach out.

The stairs were dark and nearly silent; they followed Amity who walked on the very edges of the steps, a practiced route down that muffled any creaks. Willow remembered that they'd walked this same way down the stairs when they'd been kids playing together at the Manor, leaving her room to play in the gardens, and felt an immense sadness overtake the fear suddenly; sadness for a child who'd learned not to take up space, a child who'd been anxious, stressed and lashing out over academics as a six year old. How many times, she wondered, had that child hidden in the dark like this from a different sort of horror?

As they reached the landing and prepared to part ways, Amity pointed further down the stairs to Gus and Luz, the direction of the kitchen. Willow took Amity’s hand. "We're going to be okay," she said, and meant it.

Amity looked at her, their eyes meeting briefly. Willow smiled at her. Amity looked past her, an expression of mild surprise on her face. Luz and Gus were looking past her too, she noticed, Luz's mouth slowly opening wide.

In the split second before everything happened at once, Willow found herself cognisant of the fact that the crashes in the hallway of the creature moving around had stopped a little while back. And then it hit her.

Literally and figuratively.

The impact of a horrible oil slick semi-liquid creature to the space between her shoulder blades sent her spinning off her feet; the creature had crept along with the shadows to greet them and it swung into her like the hammer of god. Luz had started to run towards it, but Gus was picking Luz up and running. "Go!" He shouted, throwing Luz over his shoulder as he sprinted down the stairs. In the meantime, Amity still had hold of her hand and was pulling her back to her feet, half dragging her.

Willow was all about strength training. She did not, as a rule, do cardio past cooldowns and occasional star jump. She couldn't keep up with Amity who’s entire sports career was based on speed, but Amity was dragging her along anyway, a hand clamped around hers. Willow looked back and felt her heart freeze momentarily in her chest; the dark shape had become a wave of black, a crashing tsunami of horror, shapeless as it undulated unsettlingly towards them. She heard Luz calling something out to her from down the corridor, down the stairs, but Luz and Gus might as well have been in a different world. The creature was hissing, whistling, like a tea kettle left for too long. There was something under that noise, a buzzing like a million humming insects. Willow remembered a film she'd seen once, locusts descending on a field of crops, swarming the plants, the sheet destruction left behind. Her skin crawled as she felt the imprint of the creature's sludge on her back, seeming to move, only the barrier of her shirt between it and her skin. The field after the locusts had been through it, torn to shreds, nothing left but massing insects.

She hadn't realised she was sobbing with fear until it got too hard to breathe and run, her throat constricting. Amity threw them into a room and stood between her and the creature as it barreled down towards them. Her mother's study, Willow recognised, forcing her fist across her face as she stumbled back and fell to the ground. "We can hold it here," Amity said. "Take a deep breath, okay? Don't cry now. Don't cry now." She looked earnest, crouching opposite Willow, hand on her shoulder. "Don't cry now. You'll have time later. Don't cry now."

Willow took a shuddering breath, forced air into her lungs. "I won't," she said, "I won't."

The painting above Odalia's door shuddered as something banged against the wall, trying to force its way in. Amity squeezed her hands around her hockey stick. Willow cast about for a weapon, only to frown. "Where are the…"

"The what?"

"The letter openers?"

"I'm not sure a letter opener would help," Amity said, doubtful. "I think she had a fire kit under her desk."

A fire kit? Willow didn't have time to ask what that was; she crawled under the desk, resisting the urge to stay there. There were three things under this desk: a fire-proof safe (which, okay, sure, but there were better places for safes, surely?), a fire axe, and the set of letter openers that had been on the desk when she'd left the study what felt like forever ago now. The thing smashed a big, oily black fist through the door and Willow chose her weapon, grabbing the axe.

A floor below them, Gus dropped Luz on the floor of the kitchen and took a deep inhale of air. He'd run down here so quickly that he'd forgotten how to breathe properly, and now everything was out of whack, oxygen coming in shallow gasps. He'd made the mistake of looking up while running and had made eye contact with the portrait above the stairs, eyes that had gazed through him as though he were nothing. After that, he'd seen them in every painting, the strange yellow eyes of Alador Blight peering back out at him, even from landscapes. He could feel a cold sweat under his clothes, sticking his shirt to his back. Luz, a pile of gangly limbs on the floor, was staring furiously up past him, to where they could hear what sounded like a struggle. "C'mon, Luz," he said, running to the cupboards. "Sooner we can find the salt, sooner we can get them free."

"What if they get hurt while we’re not there?" Luz asked, and turned to him, face twisted in fear.

Gus swallowed, thinking of the sound Willow had made as the thing had hit her. He wanted to get back up there too. But he didn’t have a weapon. They had nothing between them that could hurt it. "The sooner we find it, the sooner we can fight back," he repeated, swinging open empty cupboard after empty cupboard. "Goddammit, Blights! After we exorcise Odalia for being mean, can we just force Amity out grocery shopping with us? There's literally not even seasoning in here!"

It was such a ridiculous complaint in the face of absolute and utter danger. Their friends were upstairs being hunted by a demonic presence, and Gus, overstressed, was cursing about a lack of herbs and spices. Luz couldn't help it; she laughed hysterically, pressing a hand to her face to try and hold in tears. She wasn't used to feeling so useless.

Gus pulled her to her feet and into a hug. "It's okay," he said. "Take a breath. We're good. We're gonna save them."

"We are!" Luz forced herself out of it, squeezing Gus tight. "Right! Salt!"

It was in the fifth cupboard they checked, a lonely looking glass salt grinder, a thin layer of dust on it. Gus unscrewed the top and Luz held out a bowl for lack of other porting options; he filled it with thick rocks of sea salt, more precious than any crystal. "Gus," Luz said, hesitantly. "Gus, get out of here, okay?"

"Luz-"

"I mean it! Go outside and call Eda!" She turned her head to look up. "I'm gonna go get them out."

"But we were gonna plan-- we were gonna plan-- to trap…"

"Go! I've got an idea!"

Gus frowned, but left, pulling out his phone as he sprinted towards the front door. Luz clutched the bowl as she ran upstairs. Briefly she considered the fact that she did not have a plan; she dismissed this in favour of getting up there, trusting herself to come up with something on the way.

In the study, the surface tension of the creature's body bubbled as though air was attempting to escape it. It swung a long, sticky arm out, reaching for Willow; she swung the axe wildly and managed to cut through its trunk-like limb. The surface of the cut arm wobbled, several parts bursting out at once to reform into a hand, the fingers growing long and sharp, glinting like obsidian. Willow swung wildly again, managing to take off the limb again, axe flying out of her sweaty hands to embed itself into the wall. She ran to grab the handle, but the arm was reforming again, splitting into two; both tendrils snaked, reaching for her.

Amity had been trying to distract it, getting in close to its face, hitting it, trying to force it out. Seeing its splitting arm, she swung her hockey stick down on the creature so hard that the impact reverberated in her hands, making them numb, her stick bending over the creature's head. She didn't care, was already running. The arms reared back, darting towards Willow, and she was there a second before they could make contact, throwing herself between it and her old friend.

Willow caught her, holding her up as her knees buckled. She was trying to hold her upright, whispering, "Amity? Amity?" She could feel Amity's forehead sag onto her shoulder. When the slick, sharp black limb of the creature pulled back, it was stained a rust red. It reared back again and Willow sucked in a breath, holding Amity close, preparing for the moment of impact. Instead what she heard was that buzzing again, the shrill hiss, and then a whistle, so sharp it burned her eardrums. When she looked, one of the creature's legs had collapsed in. It screamed again - because that was a scream, had to be - and its other leg collapsed.

In front of her, Amity seemed to get her bearings. She turned, throwing both arms out, her back against Willow's chest as she pushed them both into the wall, shrinking away from it. Over Amity's shoulder, Willow saw the creature hit the ground. From beneath it bloomed a million legs as it moved like a centipede, turning on the person behind it.

Luz!

Luz had one hand closed into a fist, the other holding up her baseball bat. Her expression was darker than Willow had ever seen it, a look of sincere fury. As the sentient darkness reared up like a vicious bug and shifted again, becoming more human, taking masculine shape, Luz threw whatever had been held in her fisted hand; Willow saw a white sparkle and the creature fell back with another scream. She could see mist rising from where its face had been, steam. Luz looked past it to them, and held out her hand. "Come on! Let's get out of here!"

They ran, Willow holding her friend's hand. There was something going on, she noticed, something that jumped in Amity's expression every time her left foot impacted the ground. What had happened?

They fell out of the mansion, half pulled, half dragged each other out. Gus was by the gates at the end of the driveway and he leaped up when he saw them, running to meet them, pulling them all into a hug. "Willow! You're bleeding!"

There was blood on her shirt, she noticed now. "I'm not," she said, uneasily, and looked over at Amity.

"I'm fine," she said, folding her arms. She closed her eyes briefly as she did. "I'm fine," she repeated. Luz tried to look round her to see, but Amity waved her off. "It's fine," she repeated. "How did you manage to get it off of us? I couldn't hurt it at all."

"Oh!" Luz brightened, looking a mixture of relieved and genuinely pleased with her plan. "I rubbed the baseball bat in salt. I wasn't sure if it'd do anything but…" she shrugged, smiling with relief. "I guess it helped! It must’ve been covered in lil salt bits."

Willow checked her phone, and frowned. "That's weird," she said softly.

"What is?"

"It's 4am," she said, voice soft. "But when we saw the creature for the first time…"

"It was only around 11pm," Gus looked troubled. "I noticed when I got out here. And," he gave Luz a frightened little look. I'm sorry Luz," his face flushed, eyebrows together. "I'm sorry, I didn't know what to do and Eda didn't pick up the first time, I'm sorry, I--"

"Noceda," came a familiar voice from the darkness beyond the gate. A massive figure loomed out of the darkness. Luz felt a large, familiar hand drop to her shoulder and squeeze. "Now, I remember last time your lawyer was very mad I booked you. She said there was no probable cause. But I got you now." He pulled hard, spinning her round, and Luz found herself looking up into the hardened, weather beaten face of Detective Wrath of the Bonesborough PD. "Well, well, well. With a troublemaker like Camila Noceda as your mother, how could you not end up in cuffs? I got you now! Breaking and entering!"

"She hasn't done anything!" Amity stepped up. "I'm the resident here. She wasn't breaking and entering. I invited her!"

"Now, now," Wrath turned his glare from Luz to Amity as he locked the first cuff around Luz’s wrist. "You can pretend to live here after I take her downtown. Don't try and get her off!"

"Unfortunate wording," Willow murmured, holding Amity up, an arm around her shoulder.

"It’s okay, he does this all the time," Luz said, holding up her hands to try and keep the peace.

"My name is Amity Blight." She had the hand that Willow had not put her arm under on her hip, a face like thunder. Still bleeding, but that had dropped even further down her priority list than before. "A man broke into my house while I had my friends over, we called you for help, and instead of helping me, you decided to violate the civil liberties of my companion."

"Who's the court going to believe?" Wrath asked, eyes narrowed. "Me, a decorated hero of the force? Or a buncha punk teenagers?"

"Most of us aren’t teens!" Gus pointed out, offended, shoulders squaring.

"A court doesn't have to believe our testimony alone. They have to believe the closed circuit cameras we have dotted around the grounds," Amity pointed up to one, wincing as she moved her left arm. Wrath went very quiet, suddenly glancing around. "They record sound, and all video is uploaded remotely to a cloud database. I'll be dropping a note to my father's practice, Burner & Blight, in the morning to ask them to check their servers. It goes straight to them."

"Well. Er," Wrath said. "Hold on there! Let's not get too hasty."

"And they'll CC in Lilith, right?" Luz asked with a widening smile, eyes on Wrath.

"I can call her right now," Amity said. "I have her number."

"Looks like we made a mistake!" Wrath was already unlocking the cuffs. "I guess you didn't break and enter after all." He gave her a sour look. "This time."

"Yeah, yeah," Luz stuck her tongue out at him, rubbing her wrists. "The least you could do after that is check out Amity's house! The guy in there's crazy!"

"Ugh," he said. And then: "Eda could unlock those with a hair pin."

"I don't have a hair pin," Luz pointed out.

"Tell her to just...give me a call, alright?" Wrath nodded to the uniformed officer with him. "Alright, let's go."

"He has a thing for Eda," Luz said, in answer to Amity's questioning look. "Are you bleeding?"

"Only a little," she lied.

Luz turned her round and made a hissing sound through her teeth when she saw whatever was happening. "That’s not a little."

"Did your mom teach you how to handle this?" Gus asked, an edge of panic in his voice.

"Teach her how to handle what?" Came a voice from the shadows. Eda stepped out from beneath trees and shadow. "Is it blood? Because you know bleeding goes straight to your other mother."

"Mom!" Luz yelled, delighted.

"Sorry 'bout the wait. I did tell you kids not to call the cops," Eda said, yawning as she sipped from a thermal cup of hot coffee. "Here," she held out another thermos. "Tea from your mom. Technically she sent both the tea and the coffee for all of us, but you guys woke me up, so you forfeit the coffee."

"Did you bring Mami's car?" Luz asked, eyes wide.

"Yeah, she insisted. In case I had to take her favourite little punks back home to her." She gave them all an evaluating look, noting their various degrees of disheveled mania and/or injury. "Which I guess I am. Lucky you."

"Nice!" Luz grabbed Amity's wrist and pulled her over to where Eda had parked the car, a dark shape amongst the trees at the end of the Manor’s driveway. She dived into the front seat and reappeared holding a first aid kit over her head. "Okay!" She found an adhesive dressing and said, "okay! Turn around!"

"It's not that bad."

"C'mon," Luz said with a smile, and she turned because she couldn't find an excuse in the face of that bright face. It was too dark to see the full damage; Luz placed the pad where she thought it was bleeding, and then added another, just in case. "There we go!"

By the time they got back to the group, Eda was throwing herself behind a water feature as Detective Wrath strode up the driveway. "Nothing in there," he said with a shrug.

That was ludicrous. "Something attacked us!" Luz yelled.

"I think you just watched too many ghost hunting movies and cracked," Wrath told her.

"There are claw marks in the floor," Willow said, voice shaking. "In the walls, in the doors…"

"Probably raccoons," Wrath shrugged. "What can I say? Call your mommy in the morning," he told Amity. "And ask her to call an exterminator."

Luz was shaking with rage as he left. "I hate that guy! He's such an absolute dick!"

"f*ck the police!" Eda agreed, popping out from behind the water feature she'd been hiding against in the dark, a fist raised high. "But what was that about claws?" She raised an eyebrow, hands on her hips. "What exactly happened out here?"

"A monster!" Gus said, words spilling out. "A big monster! It looked like it was maybe a liquid except it was also a solid! It kept changing shapes, and--"

"Attacked you?" Eda asked, interest piqued. She rubbed her chin. "Okay, so here's the thing: all of you look like you need to rest and get checked over by a doctor. But I'm also very interested as to what the hell is going on in that house. Now, a responsible guardian - like your ma or Willow's dads - they'd say head to medical treatment first…"

"But you wanna check out the house?" Luz asked, head tilted.

"I do. So bad." She looked at their tired faces, the dried blood on their hands. "Think you can stay up a little longer?"

"We can," Amity said, rubbing the bridge of her nose. "If you can tell us what that was."

"Maybe," Eda shrugged. "Let's go."

"Raccoons, huh?" Eda's voice echoed in the hall of Blight Manor as she examined a floor pocked with deep gouges, clawed by a great beast. "I know all the raccoons I've met have been eight foot tall and full of muscle."

She followed the scratch marks up the stairs, dragging her finger along the wall. It was funny, because by all rights Luz thought she should've still been afraid. But Eda walked on ahead and she felt like nothing could ever hurt her. It was easy to walk into the depths of fear when she could see the head of one of her parents ahead of her, marking the way.

Eda placed her hands on her hips, stopping ahead of them. "Salt scattered on the floor?"

"Yeah, I figured that like...maybe it would block it?" Luz rubbed her head, sheepish. "I kinda took a handful from my pocket and threw it at it when it was coming at us."

"Nice," Eda said, and knocked on the door to Odalia's study. "That's weird," she said, but didn't elaborate when Luz shot her a questioning look. Instead, she swung the door open. "Man, this is a whole lot of fire-proof stuff for a room that feels like it's in the mid-thirties, temp wise. I'd be more worried about my books freezing," she tapped on one of the cupboards. "Look at this. It's painted to look like wood."

Luz frowned. She'd thought it had been wood when she'd come here during the day. The dark outside cast everything into different shapes, the dark wood against the walls now looking smoother, colder. Eda fiddled with one of them, checking it. "Locked. Looks like a combination lock. I can get it open, but it'll take a few days."

Amity leaned against the door, because standing was becoming problematic. Willow offered her her arm, but she shook her head. Her hands felt cold; she had to fold them under her arms to start to feel anything. Willow, frowning, leaned in close. "You're starting to bleed through the bandage on your back." On some level, she'd been aware of that. She let Willow pull her close gently, let herself lean on Willow.

Eda was examining the letter openers on the desk. "Did these draw blood recently?"

"I cut myself on one," Willow said, helpfully.

"Yeah, that'd do it," Eda tucked them into a drawer. "Nobody touch these, no matter where you find them, okay?" She poured herself a little bit of coffee into the cup that came with the thermos. "Or if you do-- nah. Actually, don't worry about that yet. Just don't touch anything until I say."

Coming back over to the Ghoul Friends, Eda examined the gouges left on the door, sipping her coffee slowly. She made a little noise in her throat, and leaned in to squint at them. "Okay," she said. "I'm happy to admit that this is weird."

"Can you admit anything more?" Amity asked, an edge in her voice.

"Yeah, it’s probably demons. I knew Odalia was up to some shady sh*t - especially after what happened way back when - but demons? Wow! Man, can't believe Wrath thought these were from raccoons! But that’s the other reason you shouldn’t call the police in a situation like this," Eda said, eyeing the gouges as though this was something she saw every day. "Demons will do anything they can to make you look crazy to the police, to your teachers, to doctors. The idea is to make sure nobody in authority wants to help you. Malignant hauntings feed off of fear. And what's scarier than realising nobody's coming to help?"

"Shady?" Amity tried to draw herself up again, one hand curled into a fist, the other not quite managing. "My mother was not shady--"

"She was shady," Eda said, cutting her off. "Calm down, kid."

"Demons!" Luz’s eyebrows rose high on her forehead, mouth opening wide. "No way! It’s a ghost, isn’t it?"

"Sniff the gouges, kiddo. Smells like sulfur." Eda slapped the doorframe of Odalia’s study. "This bad boy can fit so many demons in it."

"So if it’s a demon then...we can't trust anyone in authority?" Gus asked, wide-eyed. "Not at all?"

"C'mon, Gusington." Eda gave him a reproachful look. "You've known me for how long, and you're only just getting it?"

"But I think of you as an authority! And I trust you!"

"A truly fascinating decision," Eda patted his head. "Especially given that I would sell you out for a bag of chips and a turkey sub most days."

"Come on!" Gus looked scandalised. "I'm a fancy boy! You need to hold out for a fancier meat! Steak, at least!"

"Anyway," Eda was walking back down the hall, texting as she talked. "I guess if nobody in authority believes you and your haunting slash demon, slash whatever, is getting bold enough to attack, the answer would be to just move," Eda glanced over her shoulder to give Amity a searching look. "Of course, you haven’t. So I’m assuming you’ve got a reason for not moving."

Amity was refusing to meet her eyes, her mouth a wobbly frown. Luz looked over to her and put an arm around her shoulders. "What’s up?" She asked.

"Probably a curse. Pretty much every aristocratic old family has some kinda curse. Including mine! Old aristocratic families just keep on doing curse-worthy sh*t. Either that or it's not the house that's haunted," Eda patted Luz on the head, ruffling her hair. Her phone beeped, and she checked it. "Your mom says we need to get you back to our place so you kids can calm down and get some sleep." She gave Amity another look. "And get medical attention, I guess. That one's about to pass out. Lemme guess, blood loss? Pain? Some kinda physical trauma?"

"Oh no," Luz murmured. Amity tried to pull herself up to her full height, but standing up straight was getting harder and harder to do.

"I haven't lost that much," she muttered when Luz leaned in.

"Okay," Luz said. "And, scoop."

It seemed plainly ridiculous that Luz, who couldn't even move a table, could pick her up. But suddenly her world turned sideways and Luz was holding her, one arm behind her back, the other under her knees. Willow looked exhausted too, and Gus had the red rimmed eyes that Amity saw in the mirror whenever she was up too late studying. The world was starting to split into double vision, as though her body had kept going so long only under protest and had fallen apart the moment it could safely fall apart, the sharp cold twist of pain in her back something that was growing more and more difficult to ignore. She breathed out everything in her lungs, arms wrapping around Luz's neck. "You're good," Luz told her, helpfully, and walked with her through the halls and down to where Camila’s car sat half-hidden under spreading tree branches at the bottom of the driveway. Gus, looking back, scanned the remnants of the shattered grotesques on the parapets, their shadows just visible from out here. He frowned, half-formed thoughts floating in his head. He’d need to do some research.

"Don’t tell her about all the traffic violations I’m about to rack up getting you back." Eda opened her door, sliding in and trying to adjust the seat. "Luz, your mom is too short. Can you remind her to grow a little? Just, like, five inches."

"You’ve gotta meet her half way," Luz helped Amity into the middle of the backseats. "Maybe shrink a few inches, ma."

"How dare you. I’m perfect."

"You good?" Luz asked gently, sitting next to Amity. Willow sat on her other side, Gus jumping into the front passenger seat.

"I can drive," Amity said. "It’s no problem. I can drive us back."

"Oh no. Not in this car. And sit a bit forward. Camila would throw me out if I got blood on her interiors again," Eda adjusted her mirrors, and started the engine without warning, accelerating onto the road, making a screeching turn before they’d had a chance to put on their seatbelts. "Okay! First stop, home!"

Amity leaned forward, pressing her good hand to her face so that she didn’t have to see what was happening. Luz still had an arm around her. She still had an arm around Luz. What was that about? It didn't feel as though she could get enough air into her lungs. And her shoulder hurt. It had been ignorable while their adrenaline had been pumping, but now there was a shock of sharp, stabbing agony whenever she moved her arm or turned. Luz's free hand reached for hers. "Hey," she said, voice kind. "What're five things you can see?"

Despite how little she wanted to, she cracked open an eye. "You, I guess. My feet. My knees. Your hand. The car seat."

"What're four things you can touch?" Luz reached over and tugged something from her head and Amity realised with pure mortification that she'd still been wearing Luz's beanie, had been this whole time. Luz placed it back into her hand, closed her fingers round it with her own.

"This, I guess," she said, squeezing the wool. She touched the fabric of her dress, and let herself feel the warmth of Luz's side to her own. "Cotton, body heat," she touched her calf to the seat and frowned. "Seat heater."

"What're three things you can hear?"

Ahead of them, Eda whistled as she cut off an early morning commuter; they heard the loud report of a hand leaning on a horn as it faded. "Car horn," she said immediately, and Luz found that she missed the usual, you, obviously answer. But that wasn't fair. They'd been doing this for less than a week. She didn't have a usual answer yet. "Your voice. Engine."

"Yeah, we hear the car horn a lot when Eda drives," Luz said.

"I can hear you too," Eda said, skidding across two lanes of traffic to overtake someone who hadn't needed to be overtaken. She leaned out the window to yell, "You snooze you lose!"

"What're two things you can smell?"

"Gas," Amity inhaled, hoping to catch a whiff of something familiar. But she couldn't smell lemons. "Leather."

"The interior, right?" Luz rubbed her back as Eda swerved. "What's one thing you can--"

But Eda was already drifting them into a parking space, leaving the rubber imprint of her wheels on the tarmac. "Okay! Break it up! We're here!" She leaped out, and Willow and Gus followed. Luz insisted on trying to lift Amity out, making their exit clumsy.

Eda’s storefront was shuttered, but they could spot the faded sign, lit up in the pinks and oranges of the slowly rising sun: THE OWL HOUSE - TAROT * OCCULT * PAWN SHOP * NOT A FENCE.

There was a fire escape built into the side of the building leading to an apartment on the second floor. Amity made a valiant attempt at the stairs, and Willow ended up silently lifting her the last few. Walking was getting harder, every impact of her foot on the ground sending shooting pain up her back, her legs shaking.

Eda opened the door for them, and they were greeted by a small, warm apartment. It was dressed in oranges and yellows, soft furniture, photos of family, the Dominican flag hung up on the back of the door. A small owl blinked at them from a corner of the room, tilting its head to examine them. There was a massive photo portrait hung on the wall nearest him. Eda and what had to be Luz’s other mother, Camila, standing side by side. In front of them was Luz, a little younger, maybe mid-teens. She was holding a black cat with a white pattern on its head; it was glaring into the camera as though the cameraman had done it some great wrong. They all looked very happy. Beside that was a much smaller photo, a younger version of Camila holding a baby. Next to her was a smiling man, throwing the peace sign at the camera. Lining the other walls were more pictures; family days out, group shots, Luz at school, a graduation photo for Camila. The same photo Amity had of Lilith on the stairs of the court, a photo of Lilith and Eda graduating high school together, Lilith with her red hair tied back and her glasses shining and round; she stood with her back ramrod straight, a wide smile. In contrast, Eda had already managed to stain her graduation gown and was flipping off the camera while grinning, one arm thrown around her sister, slouching.

When Camila bustled out of her and Eda's room, she was in a fluffy blue dressing gown with rabbit slippers. She blinked at them, adjusting her glasses. "Luz? Mija? What have you all been up to? You know I’m on shift in a couple of hours."

"We got attacked!" Luz held up her hands. "But we’re safe now!" She paused, and then pointed. "Oh! Wait! No we’re not! Amity got stabbed!"

"Lightly stabbed," Amity said, trying to make the point plain, holding up a shaking hand. "I’m fine."

Camila looked between them. "Ah," she said, heaving a sigh. "Eda, can you look after the kids? I’ll take a look. Come on," She began to shuffle down the corridor.

Eda placed her hands on Willow and Gus’s shoulders. "C’mon kids. Who wants to show mama how good they’ve gotten at mixing Apple Bloods?"

"Isn’t that just vodka and apple juice?" Gus questioned.

"Bingo!"

Luz helped Amity down the corridor to a bathroom. Camila was laying out a first aid kit that looked significantly more packed than the usual home first aid kit. Benefits of being an emergency nurse, Amity decided, because her tired brain figured out quickly that running through the reasons why Camila might have a selection of analgesics organised from most powerful to aspirin in a neat bag was a little too much to focus on. "I’m fine," she promised, as Camila helped her to sit on the edge of the bath.

"It's okay, cariño," Camila was so gentle, her hands soft but firm. Amity felt herself lean into them, staring up into her eyes. She looked like an older version of Luz; they had the same kindness, the same warmth. "I'll need you to take the top part of your dress off, okay?"

"I can stay here with you, if you want," Luz told her from the doorway.

"That's right," Camila smiled at her with a maternal kindness that was so beautiful that Amity felt her heart swell painfully and almost missed the horror of the next few sentences. "Luz can stay here with you, if you're nervous about taking your dress off in front of me."

"I'm good!" She said, very quickly. "I'll just- I'll wait for it to heal. Won't take long. I’ll just go now. I should be getting back..."

"Nobody's dying of a preventable injury on my watch," Eda called, pulling Luz out of the doorway by the scruff of her shirt. "Babe, Luz is gonna help me make pre-breakfast drinks. You check out that kid."

"Thank you, Mi Vida," Camila blew her a kiss and Eda pretended to catch it in mid-air, returning a wink and a finger-gun. Amity studied this closely. Was that...was that flirting? "Okay," Camila turned to her, with her daughter's big smile, her daughter's kindness and sweetness. "I need you to take off your dress." And Amity died again.

The wound itself wasn't large; the problem had been that it hadn't stopped bleeding. Camila examined her carefully, cleaned the wound with something that smelled antiseptic and stung, and applied a lidocaine gel. "I'm sure you've had worse," she'd said, waiting for the anesthetic to kick in. "Luz says you're in hockey and rugby."

"Luz talks about me?" She'd asked, a little loopy from lack of sleep, from adrenaline, from blood loss.

"Oh yes. There’s this girl I knew from High School mami, and she’s so cool, let me tell you," Camila was looking through her bag - it really was packed, why did she need that many needles? - and setting out the tools from a suturing kit. "I feel like I know you already." Amity's cheeks glowed. "Tell me about your worst hockey injury."

"I...fell on the ice. And the puck hit me in the face. I ended up in the ER and had to get stitches."

"Just below your eyebrow?" Camila asked, tapping her right eyebrow. "I can see it, just a little baby scar. It's very cute. Can you feel this?" She tapped the wound on her shoulder.

"I can feel the pressure…"

"But no pain?"

"No."

"Tell me about your worst rugby injury while I stitch you up, okay?" Camila asked.

"I’ve never had one," she admitted. "My job is to outrun the other team. And I’m really good at that."

"Oh yes?" Camila hummed. "It sounds like you’re very talented! It must be hard work. Luz says you’re top of the class, too. How do you make time for everything?"

"I just...do," she said, feeling her ears go red.

"Nearly finished," Camila told her. "I bet it hurts less than a tattoo."

"I don’t know. I’ve never gotten a tattoo. But it doesn’t hurt."

Camila finished the fifth of five perfect stitches and said, "Is that so? I know Luz has one. She thinks I don’t know about it," she added with a gentle little laugh, as she cut the final stitch, and covered it with a sterile dressing. "I’m going to give you a little painkiller as well, just to help you sleep. We’ll check on it again after I get back from my shift, okay?"

She helped Amity back into her dress and helped her zip it back up when the movement of her shoulders made the injury seem to stretch unpleasantly. "It's okay, it's okay," Camila said, hands either side of her. She forced herself upright, unwilling to lean on Camila, and followed the older woman out to the rest of the apartment.

Eda, Luz, Gus, and Willow were sitting around a table, with a jug full of apple juice and an empty bottle of vodka next to it. There was the strange looking black cat with skull-like white markings over its head in Gus's lap, insisting on being hand fed treats. Amity decided not to ask questions, and instead slumped next to Willow. Willow served her a plate of scrambled eggs with a smile, and Amity looked at what was in front of them. Scrambled eggs, a round of hot buttered toast. On the table were shakers of salt, pepper, chili flakes, and a glass container with red sauce inside. Luz's plate - and Gus's - were both covered in that red sauce, with some on Willow's too. She watched Camila sit down, kiss Eda on the cheek, and fill her own plate before adding several glugs of the red sauce to her own eggs. She took it next, and added some. This had to be something that went with the eggs. Process of deduction.

"Don't," Willow said.

"Don't stop her," Eda said.

Amity gave them questioning looks, and then lifted a forkful of eggs to her mouth. It tasted good. Different. And then the heat hit, as though she'd bitten directly into the sun itself, coating her tongue and lips, burning its way up to her sinuses.

"How’re you doing, kiddo?" Eda sipped her coffee, a smile forming on her face. "Hot sauce isn’t too spicy for you?"

Amity tried to force another forkful of eggs into her mouth, feeling her nose begin to run. "It’s fine," she managed, forcing herself not to reach for the water.

"You’re crying," Eda leaned forward, chin in her hands and elbows on the table, expression one of pure delight.

"Mi vida," Camila shook her head, but she was smiling too. "She can make fun, but on our first date she ate an entire chili pepper to show off and her whole head went as red as her hair."

"Ah," Eda sighed, refilling her coffee. "Memories."

It was decided - over her head as she tried to find something non-alcoholic to wash down the extremely hot eggs - that Amity, at least, would be staying over. Camila would drop Gus and Willow off at Willow's house on her way to her shift, and when they'd had enough sleep and recovered they'd head back to the Manor to pick up their cars.

Luz’s room was cozy, with posters all over the walls of bands, Good Witch Azura merchandise pinned up, badges, photos of her friends. There was one of Willow in what had to be Willow's room. She was looking up from her desk and smiling, a plant in her hands. Amity frowned as she examined it. "Is that a werewolf costume poking out of your closet?"

Willow looked delighted. "Yes. Yes it is."

"Why'd you have one?"

"Halloween," came the serene response.

"Halloween when?" Gus muttered. "That's always my question and you never answer!"

There was another photo of Skara and Luz with their arms around each other. Amity looked away from it. Her eyes fell on a set of flags hung over her wardrobe, somewhere they could be seen from the bed. Bisexual pride flags alternating with pride flags of other orientations. Trans, non-binary, pan, gay, ace. She looked at the pattern, smiling. And then frowned as she spotted a green and white flag with a red dragon on it. "What’s with the Welsh flag?"

"What?" Luz asked. "I don't have the Welsh flag up. Did you want me to put the Welsh flag up for you?"

"No. What? Why would I-- No. You do have it up. Your flags go bisexual, trans, bisexual, non-binary, bisexual, pan, bisexual, gay, bisexual, ace, bisexual, Wales. What’s the pattern?" Behind Luz Willow was doing her best to keep from laughing, a hand clamped over her mouth.

"Oh! That’s the lesbian flag," Luz said, filled with misplaced confidence. "It doesn't look like the other pride flags cuz it's got a dragon on it."

"That’s...that's the Welsh flag."

"No it’s not," Luz held up a finger. "The lesbian flag is the one with the dragon on it. Cuz dragons are awesome and so are lesbians. Eda told me!"

"No…" Amity pointed at her now slightly grimy, striped orange-white-pink socks. "This is the lesbian flag."

"But…" Luz was looking increasingly confused. "That's the Welsh flag? You’ve got the Welsh flag…? Hung up in your study? And on your socks? Right? Because your family is Welsh? And then Emira has the lesbian flag on her book…"

"Her book," Amity, brain ticking, thought back to Emira's room. "The book you picked up. The book that is titled Dysgu Cymraeg. Meaning 'learning Welsh'. That's the one with the lesbian flag on it?"

"I…" Luz was making a very strange facial expression. "And the one up in your study is…"

"The lesbian flag. The Welsh flag is the one with a dragon on it."

"But Eda told me-- I mean, Eda wouldn’t lie about something like…" Luz paused, stopped to think about that statement carefully. "...Eda may have lied to me." Willow patted her shoulder smiling widely. "How long have you known?" Luz groaned, pressing her entire forehead against the wall.

"As soon as she told you," Gus said, stretching. "But I agreed with Eda, lesbians are cool and deserve dragons. Wales and lesbians should totally swap flags!"

"Oh no," Luz was saying. "This explains so much--"

"It's okay," Gus patted her shoulder. "Let's go steal some of Eda's tea to make ourselves feel better." Luz followed him out, moaning wildly.

Amity looked away from this with a small smile. She found herself looking at a small guitar, leaning against the corner of Luz's small room. As they were left alone, Willow nudged her gently. "Do you like it when girls can play the guitar?" She asked, a genuine question.

Amity dropped her chin to her chest, unsure of how she wanted to answer. Finally, she nodded and looked away.

Willow nodded too. "Luz plays pretty well," she said. Amity looked at her feet, and didn't say anything, but went a deep red.

When Luz came back in with steaming cups of tea in each hand, Gus following behind with another two, Willow looked over to her and texted.

Willow (05:42): I can ask her to play it for you?

Amity (05:42): way too early for that.

Willow (05:42): you can ask her after I take Gus home. 🤗

Amity felt her stomach twist. She looked up at Willow, eyebrows knitting together.

Amity (05:42): don't go yet.

Willow (05:43): I'm tired.

Amity (05:43): sleep over here?

Amity (05:43): another blanket fort?

Willow shook her head and took a deep sip of the tea she was handed. Amity did the same, finally. It was herbal, more a smell than a taste. Pungent, lavender, something else. Her head was starting to fog.

Gus was talking about something, someone in his class he didn't get on with, Luz nodding along as they drank. Amity leaned into Willow, and felt a sudden fierce sensation inside her at how warm and solid and real her friend felt. She'd nearly lost her back in the study. She’d acted without thinking, pure instinct and fear at the thought of that thing getting Willow. Gus's words were turning into a low hum, drowned out by the constricting feeling in her chest as her brain played out alternate universes where Willow had been caught; she slid her hand into Willow's and squeezed it. Willow squeezed back, warm, alive.

When Camila called from the hall that she was ready to go, Gus skipped out, Luz following him to say goodbye to her mother. Amity kept hold of Willow's hand. "Don't go yet," she said again.

Willow rested her hand on Amity's shoulder, her fingers moving round to brush over the wound lightly. Her shoulder was still numb from the anaesthetic, but Amity felt the kiss Willow pressed to her cheek. "It's okay," she whispered into her ear. "Be brave. You faced down a whole shadow demon to protect me. You saved Luz on the slide up. You can do this for you."

"I'm really not ready to do...anything." This had been completely misread. Willow seemed to think that she was nervous about being around Luz, which was ridiculous. She just wanted to keep Willow close. She'd nearly lost her. They'd had years of animosity. What was happening to her stupid heart?

"You don't have to," Willow's eyes were soft and kind. "You like her, don't you?"

Amity didn't say anything, but nodded, ever so slightly.

"You don't have to do anything," she repeated. "But give yourself the gift of spending some time alone with her. You deserve that." Amity looked down. Willow touched her fingers to her chin, lifting it. "You do." She hugged her close, kissing her cheek again. For a moment, it felt like the great gulf that had opened between them for so many years had never existed, as though they had always been this close. She found herself holding Willow tight.

Willow extricated herself and gently whispered, "It's alright," one final time. "I'll text you when I'm home, alright?"

"Alright," she said, finally, letting Willow go.

By the time Luz got back, she'd found a pair of her pyjamas and was finishing pulling them on. "I'm sorry for borrowing these," she said, and held up her dress. "But this is no longer fit for purpose."

"That's true," Luz agreed, taking it from her and folding it. The back was stained red-rust, and the horrible goo of the creature seemed to now simply look like dark ash. Luz tossed it, overarm, into her washing basket with a smile, "honestly, Ams, borrow any of my clothes, okay? If you wanna stay here for a while, we can go back to the Manor and get you some of yours, but wear anything of mine that you wanna in the meantime!"

Amity didn't think it would be likely that she'd be staying here. There was an odd discomfort to being here, alone, in Luz's room. Luz was beginning to look exhausted, even as she tried to stay bright. She was rolling out a futon on the ground, stretching. "I can sleep on the floor," Amity told her.

"Nah," Luz teetered under a pile of bedding pulled from her closet, dropping it onto her fold out bed to make a nest. "You keep the bed! You're my guest! And you've had kinda a shock, right?"

"So did you."

"Yeah," Luz looked back at the futon, the mess of sheets she'd dropped onto it. "But. You…"

She was trying to get out of saying it. "Me?"

"Your house got invaded by a creepy thing! You got hurt! It tried to eat Willow! And Eda thinks it's a demon. And it stabbed you. Like yeah, lightly stabbed. But still! That's a big shock."

"Demons don't exist."

"You said that about ghosts."

"I did. And I mean it." She jumped to her feet, her head swimming. "I think I'd better head back."

"Nope, no, no, no way," Luz shook her head. "Okay, so let's say demons don't exist. You've been up all night! Tired driving is worse than drunk driving. Mami says so. Second! We saw the claw marks! If it's not a demon, then there's a big animal loose in your house! Why would you wanna go back before an exterminator got there?"

"Kids, can you finish your tension filled banter another time?" Eda asked, poking her head into Luz's room. "I was gonna crash til it's time to open the store."

Luz and Amity stared at each other as Eda left. Luz broke first, looking away sheepishly. She looked back and said, "Can you stay for me? If you don't wanna stay for yourself. Cuz I'd be worried about you. Otherwise, I mean."

Amity looked away. When you looked back, Luz had that little half-smile she did, her eyes earnest and warm. That was too much. She looked away again. Finally she said, "on one condition."

"Of course."

"Don't talk about my mother and father. Please."

"Talk?" Luz asked, eyebrows knitting together.

"The stuff people have been saying about them being bad parents." She stared at her feet. "I don't want you to do that."

Luz felt something in her brain click. She thought of how strangely defensive she'd been over the Will, how irritated she seemed at their mention. How tired and angry she'd been when Eda had suggested they'd summoned something.

She thought of Amity alone in the back of a crashed car, trying to kick her way out. Parents dying in the front seats in front of her, of a smaller Amity limping back home, brain full of the last thing she'd seen of them. A little girl who'd lost her parents. And Luz felt her heart crush in her chest, as though squeezed in a great fist. Reaching over, she stroked Amity's good shoulder and said, "I won't. Of course I won't. I'm sorry. That's your mom and dad. You must miss them."

Amity looked at her, as though suspicious. Luz smiled at her, and she sat down on the bed finally, drawing her knees to her chest. "Yeah," she said, as though confessing to a crime. "I do." She was quiet for a while.

"I think," she said. "I think that...well. They're gone. They've left me behind. I don't think I want to just talk about bad things they did. They can't change anything now. They can't apologize now…"

"I get it." Luz wasn't sure why she did what she did. She lifted the cover of the bed and slid in, curled around her. "Grief is messy. My dad died when I was a kid," she said. "I get it."

She thought Amity might tell her how could you get it? Or move away, or insist on leaving. But she just stared ahead, a pensive expression on her face, her nose and face so touchingly prim and pointy and beautiful. "I'm sorry you lost him," Amity said instead of anything else. "What was he like?"

"Like me, mom says." Luz patted the pillow, gently tugged Amity's good arm until she lay down too. Even with her head on the pillow Amity was holding herself very stiffly. Luz wrestled the covers out from under her, tucked her in beside her, helped her shift to keep pressure off her wound. "Energetic. And kind. And short. Like, shorter than mom. He was cheerful, all the time. And never angry. Or, that's what she says." Luz's fingers went to one of the hands Amity held at her sides. "I love that idea of him. But I know mami holds back flaws he had. I only know he had flaws cuz she says he was like me and I'm super flawed."

"I don't think you are," Amity said, and then shut her mouth tight, as though she hadn't meant to say anything. But she let Luz hold her hand, sliding her head below the covers as though diving under water. Luz gave her a moment, and when Amity kept holding her hand she took it as an invitation and followed, head under the blanket.

On her side, tucked into the sheets, Amity finally made eye contact with Luz. Luz's fingers squeezed hers. "You good?" Luz asked.

"Yes." Sort of. "I'm sorry for snapping. It's... difficult to deal with the memories of my parents sometimes."

"Yeah. Grief is complex," Luz said, squeezing her fingers again. "I know I get sad about my dad being dead a lot. I don't know why. He was in computer sales, and he traveled a lot, so I didn’t get to spend much time with him. Plus, I was only a toddler when he died. So I don't have any memories of him. Not like...real ones.”

She took a deep breath, smiled up at Amity. “I’ve got imaginary memories based on what my mom told me. Sometimes I think I can remember him picking me up or singing to me, even though I, I know that’s not real." She laughed, and was surprised at how wet it sounded. "I absolutely bawled like a lil baby at Coco. That Recuérdame song, the Gael Garcia Bernal version, still makes me cry, cuz I think about my mom telling me how he sang to me even though he wasn't a great singer, and then there's this song with a dad singing to his little kid in Spanish and it has me missing this person who’s been gone since before I could ever even know him." She pushed her free hand up, trying to wipe escaping tears away. "I know nobody's gone as long as you remember them. But sometimes I don't know if I remember him right or not. I hope I do. I hope he's not gone forever. I’d hate to have lost him forever."

She looked up, trying to picture him. A slight man, a big smile. "I think of him and get real sad. So sad it feels like all the sadness won’t fit in my chest and my ribcage’ll explode. That's weird, right?" She added, a small smile on her lips. Amity didn't answer, eyes fixed on Luz, her lambent irises like a warm fire.

"I didn't know him, but I miss him. I think about how he wasn't at my quinceañera, or my high school graduation. Or how he'll never dance with me at my wedding, or hold my kids when they’re born. But at the same time, I feel...I dunno. It's weird. If he hadn't died, I wouldn't know Eda. And she's been amazing. I have so many real memories of her teaching me how to hit a baseball and pick locks, or riding places with her on her bike, or showing me how to hide evidence, or sticking up for me whenever I got called to the Principal’s office. I love having her as a parent. She makes me feel so safe and loved. She gets me in ways mami doesn’t always," Luz gave a soft, wet little laugh. Amity's instincts overtook her desire to remain closed off and she squeezed Luz’s hand. "So then I feel guilty about missing my dad cuz I'm taking Eda for granted, and I don't want to live in a world where I don't know her. It's weird, right?"

"Maybe. When you put it like that," Amity swallowed, her throat tight. "When I remember my mom and dad...I don't only remember the bad things. I remember when I was sick and mom stayed in my bed with me and rubbed my back. I remember when I fell off my bike and she cleaned me up and told me it was alright, that I didn't have to be good at riding a bike because she didn't see it in my future. I remember the time I spent with my dad in his study, when he'd show me how he worked, or read cases to me."

She closed her eyes. "I remember when they were angry because I wasn't good enough. And I remember when they told me I couldn't hang out with Willow because she didn't get the grades and her dads weren't the right kind of people, and how they told me they'd get her pulled out of school if I kept being her friend. But I also remember…" sitting up waiting for her father when he came back from business trips, the secret cups of tea they shared late at night that her mother pretended she didn't see. She'd called teachers mom by accident because teachers were often kinder to her, more supportive. But her mother could be kind too. After she'd decided Amity would be going into corporate law, she'd bought her textbooks and quizzed her on their contents, and whenever Amity had gotten her questions correct she'd smiled and looked so happy, as though spending that money, coming up with those questions, all her effort was rewarded. "I remember the good things too."

Amity could admit this if she didn't have to look at Luz. She shut her eyes tighter. She could admit this. "It's...I know it's wrong. They weren't good people. And everyone says you shouldn't miss people who were cruel to you. But I miss my mom and dad. I still love them." She let her chin fall to her chest. "I know they weren't great parents. They were intrusive and they never saw me as my own person. It didn’t feel like I could ever live up to their expectations of me. I didn't get the grades they wanted me to get, didn't win the competitions they enrolled me in. Mom constantly told me how behind I was in her predictions of where I should be. They tried to control every part of my life. But they loved me…" she felt the wetness, just behind her eyelids. Tried to force it back and heard her voice break with the pressure. "I...miss them. I just miss them a lot. It would be less complicated if they were still here. I could be angry at them and fight with them if they were. Or I could finally find something that I could be good at that’d make them proud. But they're gone forever. I can’t fight with them. I can’t make them proud. And I, I miss them."

Luz was still holding her hand, but her free hand moved to cup Amity's cheek, her thumb swiping away a stray tear. Amity didn't know what to do with a gesture of tenderness, but moved closer, eyes opening wide and focused on the girl in front of her.

"It's okay," Luz told her, a soft look on her face. "It's okay to miss someone. Even if they weren't great. Nobody’s one hundred percent good, or one hundred percent bad. You don't have to ignore the good times. I think you gotta acknowledge that they did some f*cked up stuff to you and hurt you, but also that there were parts of them that made you feel loved and cared for, you know?"

She nodded, not able to speak. The hand that wasn't holding Luz's under the covers moved to touch the hand on her cheek. It would be too much, she knew, to ask for more tenderness. She wanted to be kissed, to be held tight. She could make do with this, she told herself firmly, repressing the urge to lean in and press her lips to Luz’s face, to finally answer one thing you can taste.

"I think the important thing is to remember that-," Luz seemed to struggle with the right words. "I guess that you don't have to accept cruelty. Like, you shouldn't take cruelty and think, oh, this is just what love is because you're used to people who say they love you being cruel to you, you know?" Her smile was so soft. "And that means being kind to yourself too. You don't have to replace the void they left in your life by being mean to yourself. I know you push yourself. I know you’re hard on yourself. I can see it from a mile away. I don't want you to be pushing yourself too hard, you know? I want you to take care of yourself too. You can’t make them proud. But others love you too. You make them proud. I know it. You’re someone to take real pride in."

Amity closed her eyes. She couldn’t think of not pushing herself. Not working hard. It felt like she was in a constant race against expectations, a race against herself, and any change in velocity might send her veering off course into more danger than she was running from. But she thought she might be able to slow down, just a little, if someone as bright and soft as Luz was there to catch her. "I want to," she admitted. "But it feels like...it feels like if I have five things in front of me, I can finish four of them perfectly. But if I miss the mark on the fifth, then nothing I've done counts. So I have to work hard."

"The stuff you do counts." Luz held her hands in both of her own. "Nothing's wasted. Not ever." Her smile was so kind that Amity couldn't look at her. It felt as though Luz could see right through her. Nobody had ever tried as hard as Luz was trying with her; that made her worry that she'd somehow manipulated Luz into caring too much.

"Will you--" she hesitated, stopping herself. She'd wanted to ask will you kiss me? Instead she squeezed Luz's hands. "Stay here with me?"

"Sure." Her voice was soft, warming. She inclined her head towards Amity’s and for a moment Amity was terrified that Luz was going to kiss her - terrified because she wanted to kiss her, terrified because of what that would mean, terrified of things changing. But Luz did something worse; she pressed her forehead to Amity’s, smiling at her with all the kindness and warmth in the world. "Wanna hug?"

Amity was so still that Luz was sure she'd overstepped. But then the other girl threw both of her arms around her, pulling her in tight. "Oofff," she said, but then wrapped Amity up, pulling her close. "Big hug."

"I don't know the song," Amity whispered. "The one you said. The Recuérdame one." This was high risk, she knew. But Luz smiled at her and got up from the bed. She picked up the guitar and came back, sitting next to her, and began to play. The melody wasn't difficult, but watching Luz's fingers move over the strings was calming.

"Recuérdame, hoy me tengo que ir, mi amor,

Recuérdame; no llores, por favor…

Te llevo en mi corazón y cerca me tendrás,

A solas yo te cantaré, soñando en regresar..."

High reward, she thought, closing her eyes and trying to memorise every part of this moment. At some point, her eyes had closed, and when she came back to consciousness, Luz was gently brushing her lips over her forehead. She kept her eyes closed, and felt the movement of the bed as Luz got off of it to lay down on the futon. And she felt oddly bereft when she ran her hand over the space that Luz had occupied.

It was mid afternoon when Amity next woke up, warm light streaming through the window. She could hear movement beyond the door, could smell something unfamiliar cooking. Low voices.

"Ah, mi vida, can you wake the girls?"

"Oooohhh no, I'm not sticking my head in there and interrupting something I shouldn't. I've learned my lesson."

"You big baby. Knock on the door!"

"Fine, fine." A knock of sharp knuckles against Luz's door. Luz rolled and groaned. "Hey! Kid! Wakey-wakey, your mom wants you."

Amity rolled as Luz sat straight up, looking bleary eyed. Her hair was sticking up on end, and she looked extraordinarily fluffy. "Wha's up?"

"Breakfast," Eda said, beyond the door.

"S'breakfas," Luz repeated, stretching. "Want some?"

She was hungry, Amity noticed. She nodded, and Luz stood up. At some point after Amity had fallen asleep Luz had thrown on new shorts, a tank-top. The golden skin of her legs was interrupted by occasional band-aids, one or two scars. Luz gestured at a wardrobe. "Wanna grab something from my closet? I'll wait outside for ya."

Luz's closet was filled with bright colours, whites and purples. Amity found a light pink button-up shirt and a pair of extremely comfortable jeans that she had to roll up further than they were already. It was supremely odd to be wearing someone else's clothes, staying in someone else's apartment. But there was not time to worry about it; breakfast was calling.

Luz had been waiting for her, and grinned when she saw her. "This way," she said, even though there was almost nowhere else to go in this tiny apartment, and led her to the small main room. A kitchen visible from a dining room table. A sofa and an easy chair in the space behind it. Outside it had begun to rain. The apartment's view of the rest of the city was blocked and shaded by growing buildings; with the added darkness of clouds, the world outside looked gloomy and grey.

Inside was bright, warm and welcoming. A wild contrast. Camila was working on something by the stove top, something Luz recognised immediately. "Mangú!"

"Mangú con les tres golpes," Camila said with a smile. "Eda you better help me with the cheese. Mija, don’t you just stand there, get mashing the plantano. Amity, cariño, can you set the table?" Luz helped her find plates and she set one down for each of them on the table, looking back awkwardly towards the group cooking in the kitchen. Luz finished mashing plantains and showed it to Camila, who was frying salami. Camila tried a little, and nodded appreciatively. "Good job," she said and gave Luz a one-armed squeeze. As Eda chopped avocado and Camila kept frying, Luz came to help Amity out, bringing cups and glasses.

"What wouldja like to drink? Wanna try Morir Soñando? I make it with oat milk! Or some Presidente? Though that’s a little early. Ooh! Or some of Eda’s tea…"

"What’s...Moira Sonato?" Amity asked, feeling the words come out clumsily.

"I’ll bring you a cup," Luz told her with a grin.

Brunch was very good. She wasn’t used to eating with people, but they were so kind to her. Eda had a pot of tea in the center of the table, but first they tried Morir Soñando, made with oat milk. ("You can really taste the oats!" Luz told her with a grin) And that was really good, even if she’d been hesitant about drinking orange juice and milk. The rest of it was good too. She hadn’t eaten a home cooked meal in seven years; the plantain, onions, salami and cheese went so well together that she lost track of the conversation happening above her head. When she resurfaced, with a clean plate, it was to the sound of family talking. Camila was asking her a question.

"Sorry?"

"How’s college going, cariño? Are you a General Studies major, like Luz?"

"Oh, no," she felt her cheeks glow. "I’m, I’m a Politics major, actually."

"Oh that’s wonderful," Camila beamed at her, and then looked over at Eda. "Mi vida, wasn’t Lilith a politics major?"

"She was," Eda leaned back, one arm behind the back of the chair. "So was I, before I dropped out. My professors never seemed to get that anarchy is a totally valid worldview." she paused. "And the faculty didn't take kindly to me being arrested during those protests. Something about Molotov co*cktails making them look bad."

"Mood," Luz said, fist-bumping her. "Anyway, Amity’s really smart. And she wants to be a lawyer like Lilith! She knows so much about her!"

"What!" Eda said, from across the table, leaning forward eagerly. "Someone’s a fan of prissy Lily?"

Camila swatted her arm. "My love, behave! Amity, that’s wonderful. There are a lot of great lawyers."

Eda laughed so hard she snorted. "Yeah! And Lilith! Wait til I tell her new fan all her embarrassing secrets!"

"Eda!"

They cleaned up after breakfast, and Amity watched as Eda and Camila worked together to wash the dishes. "Don't forget to re-open the store after your lunch break," Camila was saying.

"I forget three or four times and you get on my ass about it," Eda pretended to roll her eyes, but she was smiling. Camila poured her a glass of water and took a pill for her out of a draw, handing both to Eda and kissing her cheek. Amity looked away, stomach twisting. She wasn't used to seeing parents show each other affection like that.

She was Camila's next stop; Camila came over to test her arm's range of motion, looking concerned when she winced at moving it. "How's it feel?"

"Only a little achey," she lied. It was a nagging pain whenever she moved her arm. Camila picked up on the lie, nodding gently.

"If it gets very bad, ask Luz to give you one of the good pills. Until then," she slid a smaller one into her hand. "This will help."

Before long, Eda was complaining about customers ringing her doorbell and Camila was checking a shopping list. They left, one after the other, and the apartment was suddenly smaller, quieter.

"We don’t have to go anywhere yet," Luz told her gently. "Wanna come hang out in my room?" She had such a nice smile. Amity couldn’t say no. So she followed her back to the small, warm bedroom and sat on the bed as Luz flopped next to her. There were no chairs. Nowhere to sit but the bed. This was fine. "We can watch TV," Luz suggested "Or read a book! I can put on some music."

"Music’s good," Amity said, hoping to drown out the thudding in her ears.

Luz leaned over her to flick on the radio and Amity felt her heart flip over. This is fine, this is fine. Something cheerful played, bright guitars. "Oh hey! Wachito Rico! This good?"

"Mmhmm," Amity said, not trusting herself to say anything more. This was fine. They were friends. This was fine. She twisted a little, keeping off of her stitches, and found that that meant shifting to face Luz. She lay back down, face hot, trying to measure the pain of pressure against a stabbed shoulder vs the horror of lying in a bed facing her crush. She was able to stay on her back for ten whole seconds, counting them down, before she really had to turn and sat up.

Outside, the wind picked up, and rain slapped against the window. When Amity leaned forward, Luz could see the buzz of her undercut and oooh'd and aaahh'd at it, stars in her eyes. "Your hair is so good!"

"Thank you," she said, even redder. She tried to angle herself against the headboard, good shoulder leaning against the wood.

Luz was sitting up too, scooting to the end of the bed. She reached back and put a hand on Amity's ankle, and Amity felt her stomach flip as she looked at Luz, her slim neck, her shoulders, the loose neck of her shirt.

"Your mom, um. She called Eda 'Mi Vida'. That's 'my life', isn't it?" She didn't know why she'd asked. This was a bad line of questioning.

"Yeah!" Luz looked over, excited. "Hey! You're picking up Spanish already!"

She was so bright that Amity had to wait for her to turn back before she could get up the courage to speak again. "When you have girlfriends-- or, or boyfriends-- do you call them pet names too?"

"Sometimes," Luz flopped back onto the bed, landing perilously close, holding a Switch. She rolled onto her side, touching her toes to Amity's, hooking her foot behind her leg. Amity felt a sensation like melting deep inside. "Mostly corny stuff. Skara liked being called Mi Mariposa."

That killed the warm feeling. What filled up the void left behind was a cold sensation of icy jealousy. That was dumb, right? Luz was answering her with context. And they hadn't been together for- what, nearly a year now? But she didn't want to think about Skara being Camila's Cariño or Luz's Mariposa. She wanted to be that.

Maybe not Mariposa. That really was corny.

"What about you?" Luz asked, leaning on an elbow. If she'd noticed Amity's drop in mood, she hadn't said anything. "What kinda pet names do you use?"

"I don't have any," she said. "I haven't actually…dated anyone."

"Really?" Luz looked at her, confused. "I figured there'd be a line a mile long at your door."

That was funny enough to break her mood. She laughed, gently nudging Luz's foot, forgetting about Skara. "You've met me, right? I don't make great first impressions. Or second. Or third. Plus I've...never really been all that interested."

"Yeah?" Luz reached over her body to touch her injured arm, checking on it. She had to know, right? She had to know how close this was to holding her. "Not ever?"

"Once," she said, her cheeks burning. "Only once." Luz smiled at her and - although every time their eyes met her stomach flipped - Amity found that this was alright. She liked being this close. Her muscles had still been aching from the fight last night, from practises for two different sports, from days of hunching over a desk to study; stretched out on Luz's bed, she felt an ease overtake her.

Luz turned the Switch on, resting close. "Let's chill here," she said, "Until Gus and Willow wake up. We can just chill and play video games. Good idea?"

"Yeah." Amity leaned back, basing in the warmth, letting herself relax. She remembered what Willow had said: you don't have to win at friendship. She didn't have to put pressure on herself to be the best at hanging out if there were only two of them here.

Luz was warm against her, tongue stuck out as she focused on the switch. "Aw man! Died again."

"Yeah?" Amity looked over her head, saw Mario struggling not to be thrown off a platform. This looked like a remake of a game she'd known a long time ago. It took her a moment to focus, to make sense of the pixels. "Oh yeah. That's a tricky boss. I used to make Edric do that one for me."

"Can you do it now?"

"Sort of. Last time I checked."

Luz handed her the switch. "Pleeeeaaaase help me get past this level!"

"Okay," she said, with a small smile, taking the game console from her. She propped herself up slightly on pillows, trying to reacquaint herself with the controls, ignoring the way her left thumb complained whenever she wiggled it, and Luz wrapped both arms around her, resting her head on her chest.

"You're the best," she said, voice muffled.

Amity felt a warm glow in her cheeks. She'd assumed that contact like this would make her short circuit and explode, but so far she was still alive. That was a positive. The soft pitter-patter of rain on Luz's window, her full stomach, the comfort of the soft bed, the warmth of the arms around her body, these things felt unbelievably good. Would've felt good even without the feelings she had for the other girl. Luz rested her head above her heart and Amity took a hand off the controls briefly to run her fingers through Luz's hair, mussing it up. She felt Luz sigh, contented, and smiled. "What happened to, 'I'm sorry, I'll ask before touching you?'"

"I can move if you want." Neither of them wanted that. Amity gave a little one-shoulder shrug, but kept her fingers in Luz's hair. "I just got scared last night. A few times! But I was especially scared about you and Willow. Lemme just hang onto you now that you're safe, okay?"

"You won’t get rid of me."

"That’s fine," Luz told her, snuggling in. "I like knowing you're safe."

There were a few confusing emotions spiraling in her chest. It wasn't that she was completely inexperienced as to what happened when people got protective - anytime she got hurt, the twins made it their life's mission to be in her business, even if they'd been responsible for the initial hurt - but she was unused to someone being so earnest about it. Usually Ed and Em just bothered her.

But she'd held onto Willow's arm tightly, begged her to stay, only that morning. This was similar, she guessed. Which was...nice. That meant they were friends. Like she and Willow were friends. That was nice.

"Maybe you should move out," Luz said. "You can stay here with us! We can share my room! Oh man, my mom can cook you breakfast all the time! And we can have sleepovers!"

It was hard to keep the idea of a sleepover strictly platonic when Luz was talking straight into her chest. Amity walked off another platform and had to pause, take a few deep breaths. "Luz. If I want to sleepover, you'll know it. And I'll ask you. But you have to calm down. You're killing Mario."

"Aawww." She snuggled against her and Amity swallowed down her nerves. "As long as you do!"

She took a moment to get her breath back, to marshal her thoughts away from how nice it was to have the weight of Luz's body on her own. She focused on the game instead, one arm loosely around Luz as she played. She really wasn't very good at this. Edric had always done this for her. But she was warm, and there was soft music on the radio, and Luz's arms were flung around her and she found that she didn’t mind failing. Outside the wind was whistling between the buildings, rain falling against the window in a muted wave of white noise, a soft knocking. She felt calm and safe, her heart feeling like a contented cat, happy in her chest. Luz’s legs were curled up under her thighs, and she could rest her calves on them, tangling up.

As she finally reached the flag at the end of the level, after ten tries, she whispered, "Luz? I did it."

Luz didn't respond; she had dozed off again on her chest, her hair curling over her forehead. Amity stroked her hair, ran her thumb over the shell of her pretty ears and found the pucker of a secret scar near her helix piercing. She pressed her hand to Luz's soft cheek, idly wondering where her hidden tattoo was.

This was, she thought, as Luz snuggled into her side and sighed, a perfect day. She ran her fingers through Luz's hair again, eyes beginning to close. The whole apartment was silent and warm. Joy was brief. She knew that truth very well. Happiness never lasted. But she thought of Willow, telling her to give herself the gift of this moment. She thought of the girl curled around her.

And she closed her eyes and let herself fall away into the moment.

Chapter 7: Secrets (Cellar Door)

Chapter Text

When Luz woke up, she was wrapped up in Amity’s arms, her friend’s head resting on hers. Her phone was vibrating against the wood of her bedside table, and she shifted carefully to keep from having to leave that warm embrace. When she rolled onto her side, Amity rolled too, making a soft noise in her sleep as she pressed her face against Luz’s back. Luz rubbed her hand fondly, checked her phone.

Edric (16:21): hey pretty lady 👉🥰👉

Edric (16:21): im not doing anything tonight 🥰

Edric (16:22): in case you wanna take me on that date 🤞🥺🤞

Well. That came with a significant and very weird feeling in her chest. An uncomfortable itching somewhere under the skin. She cleared the screen, feeling her face go red hot. Amity, with her cheek pressed to her back, still half asleep, said "Was that Willow?"

Luz turned back, wrapped an arm around her and said, "Oh, no, it’s fine! It’s not Willow!" And that felt like a lie by omission. She tried to interrogate why she felt so oddly traitorous, and couldn’t. "How’s your back?" she asked, propping her chin up on one hand with a smile more like a grimace.

"It’s alright," Amity said, sitting up a little. "A little achy." It was an odd sensation, fine until she moved too much. An unpleasant, stretching feeling when she tried to move, the occasional sharp pain down her arm with the wrong movements. She thought she could keep it pretty quiet, with enough practice.

"Do you want me to get you something?" They’d now more or less swapped positions, with Amity curled up next to Luz. Luz was pretty entangled, but she started to sit up, ready to move.

"I’m comfortable here," came the small reply. "You don't have to get up."

Luz lay back down and pulled her close again, wrapping an arm around her so that they lay side by side, Amity with her head on Luz’s arm. Luz reached up to play with a bit of her hair, winding it around her finger, and felt suddenly very, very, very guilty. Maybe this was a little too intimate, given the text she'd just gotten from Edric. Amity touched her foot to Luz's and said, "How much taller than me are you?"

"Only a couple inches or so," Luz said with a grin. With their feet level, she could press her nose into Amity's hair with ease. Not that she did. Because that would be weird. And too intimate. Not like playing with her hair, because friends totally played with each other's hair and cuddled and stuff. Right? Right.

"Maybe I should grow a few inches." Amity said, quietly. It sounded like she was trying something out, something that didn’t sound quite like her.

"Nah," Luz lay her cheek on her head. "You're perfect as you are. And you’re taller than me in high heels!"

"Yeah," she said, but she was smiling. She glanced at Luz's phone, and then looked again, double-taking. "Is that...that's the photo of us in our pyjamas. Luz, is that your lockscreen?"

"Matchy-matchy!"

"When did you even get a chance to set that as your lockscreen?"

"Almost as soon as Willow sent it. We look like a couple of besties!"

"I guess," Amity said, staring up at the ceiling, carefully not making eye contact. But she was smiling a little bit, her lips curling upwards. Luz found herself smiling too. She poked her cheek very gently.

Luz's phone buzzed again, and luckily this time it was Willow. First a sticker of a dancing rabbit, followed by a sticker of a rabbit trying to drink coffee. Willow's code for I'm awake but don't have the energy to text in full sentences. Luz texted the group chat back a gif of someone drinking a Red Bull, looking over. "that's them! Ready to go grab some stuff? Or would you wanna stay here til we get back?"

"I thought you were taking me home?" Amity asked, sitting up.

"I mean, we could," Luz ran her hands through her hair. All of her general anxiety about the text from Edric had been replaced with fears around The Manor. "But I'd feel more comfortable if you stayed here. Like, at least another night."

"I should go back." Amity said, eyebrows knitting together.

"Please?" Luz asked, tilting her head, her hands on her friend's.

She paused, eyes on Luz's. "Alright," she agreed, a little hesitantly. "I'll stay here tonight."

"Great! Luz brightened. "Let's go see Eda before our ride picks us up!"

The Owl House, as it was called, was a small space with a maze of shelves, covered in arcane artefacts, antiques, dust covered trinkets and several dark times, a mixture of cookbooks and what looked like spell books. Amity paused to glance back at a sword that was definitely calling to her and nearly lost sight of Luz, who was skipping ahead to the office at the back of the store. A flickering neon light above the door read: DARE TO KNOW THE FUTURE WITH TAROT: FIRST READING FREEish!

"I didn't realise neon signs could be so long," Amity muttered.

"Yeah, Eda knows a guy."

The office here was packed with boxes of documents, unsorted miscellany that had yet to make their way into the shelves. Eda herself was sat with her feet up on the counter, a book about ancient aliens in her hand. She was wearing a shirt that said M. I. L. F. on it in large letters. On closer inspection was a slogan: Man I Love Fishing!

Amity gave her a troubled look. "Do you fish?"

"Why would you think I fish?"

"Hmm," Amity said, deciding to focus on the trinkets left over here. She examined a set of glass figurines of what looked like giraffes with fangs, rubbing her chin.

Luz pressed a hand to her shoulder, redirecting her towards Eda. "Hey! Amity, you said Ed and Em got a tarot reading. Did you?"

"No," she admitted. "I thought it was total bullsh*t." She looked over at Eda, who was putting her book down. "No offence."

"You wound me deep. Look, kiddo, I'll tell you the same thing I told your brother and sister," Eda said, producing a worn deck of cards from apparently nowhere. "That'll be fifty bucks."

"Eda, c'mon!" Luz chided.

"Fine. $45."

"The sign on the wall says First Reading Free," Amity pointed out.

"Freeish. But you're observant! I like that in a mark," Eda pointed to the chair on the other side of her desk. "This reading, we'll add to Luz's tab. What question do you have of the cards?"

A question? Amity tried to think of one as Luz steered her to the chair, hands gentle on her shoulders. "Um. I guess- will I…"

"Not a 'will I' question," Eda clarified, tapping the deck with one of her long fingers. She had amazing nails, Amity noticed. Rhinestoned and glittered, beautiful red lacquer. "That's too passive. You don't wanna just be a bystander, right? Ask for information that you can act on."

Amity considered this, only slightly distracted by Luz, who was leaning against the back of her chair, her chin on her good shoulder. "How can we stop what's going on at the house?"

"Okay, how old are you kids again? Eighteen?"

"Twenty-one," Amity said, despite her best judgment.

"She knew that already," Luz whispered. "It's showmanship, baby! All the world's a stage and she's the biggest circus clown out there!"

"Ya gotta stop trying to be my hype man, kiddo." Eda tapped and shuffled the deck, cutting the cards, doing tricks like a Vegas card-shark, counting down from twenty-one. When she was finished, she spread the cards out on the table, forming a group of them into the shape of what looked like an eye.

She turned over the first card, the pupil in the center of her eye. "Okay, kid. This represents the nature of your problem. And it's…" she raised an eyebrow. "The devil. Little on the nose."

"Good to know." Amity said, rubbing her face.

"The cards aren't literal." Eda clarified, opening a drawer in her desk to withdraw a thermos of lavender smelling tea. She poured a cup she uncovered from under a pile of books. "A Death card pulled usually just means the end of something, not your death. Baphomet over here is just a friendly little guy representing entrapment, co-dependence, bad decisions. Personal demons. You know how it goes."

"Like 'hey there inner demons, it's me, ya girl.'" Luz said, in what was obviously an attempt to clarify things.

"I manifestly do not know how it goes."

"I'm sure you'll get it eventually," Eda said, shrugging. "Anyway. This card here is supposed to represent the history behind the issue you're currently facing," she turned another card. "The Ten of Cups."

"It's...upside down?"

"That's reversed," Eda rested her chin on her hand, interest on her face. "Usually the Ten of Cups represents a happy family. Reversed, it means familial tension, family as a cause of problems. Deep-seated, family based scars."

Their eyes met over the cards. There was something she couldn't read in Eda's expression. She tried to make her own expression hard to read, and ended up just glaring.

Eda looked back to the cards with the confidence of someone who didn't have to win a staring contest to get their point across. She turned over a third card. "So this is the cause of your issue. The emperor, reversed. Emperor right way up represents authority, structure, fatherhood. Reversed, it's more like patriarchal tyranny." Eda considered this, looking between it and the ten of cups. "I'm starting to put together a picture," she said.

"No you're not," Amity rubbed her forehead.

"I'm connecting the dots."

"Please don't psychoanalyse me based on drawings on paper."

"Very skilled drawings. Me and Lily spent forever putting these decks together." She turned over the fourth card. "Something that's added to the issue. The Hanged man. A sacrifice." That seemed to stump her. Eda tilted her head in a movement very like Luz. She turned over a fifth card. "What can help solve the problem. The three of cups. That's all about friendship and sticking together. All that corny stuff I hate."

"And I love!" Luz said, punching the air.

"Because you're a nerd, Luz." Eda turned over a sixth card. "Now, how to solve the issue: Death."

"Someone has to die to solve the problem?" Amity asked, giving Eda a troubled look.

"Kiddo, I already told you death doesn't literally mean death." Eda examined the cards, tapping her chin, looking strangely preoccupied. "It's more about reminding you that you need to change, or start over, telling you to make sure that you close one door so that you can open another. It's a reminder that everyone has the power to end cycles." She spread out the cards left undealt before her. "Pick one."

Amity picked one, turned it over. "The High Priestess," she read. On very close inspection, she could see the pen strokes of the card, blotches of ink. The cardstock had begun to get fuzzy at the edges from repeated handling, beginning to crumble. How long had she been using this set? Decades?

"So what's all that mean together?" Luz asked, leaning on her chair so closely that Amity could feel her body heat, her chin on her head. It was comforting.

"Hell if I know," Eda said with a shrug. She leaned back on the back legs of her chair, sipping the tea.

"Eda!"

"Right, right, fine." Eda crashed her chair back down, rested her elbow on the desk, looking over the cards. "So it looks like whatever's happening is intergenerational. You've got a family that's wrapped up in the same bad patterns. The Emperor is about patriarchal structures, not necessarily about your father, but represents that your forefathers were who got into this whole mess. The Hanged Man is usually about sacrifice, and it looks like while the sacrifice may have been necessary, it's only exacerbated the issue. Could also mean just someone was just ignoring the issue rather than a sacrifice. That's hard to read. But the Three of Cups tells us that the way through this problem is through group effort, working together. Three of Cups can also mean the healing of painful memories or past wounds. Which leads you into how to solve the problem overall: through changing and starting over. What was the card you took?"

Amity showed her. "The High Priestess."

"Mysteries and the unknown," Eda nodded, as though this made total sense. "You just need to listen to your instincts more. Stop paying attention to your rational brain and start letting your lizard brain rule. Your prefrontal cortex isn't done cooking yet, so stop acting like it is!"

"Yeah!" Luz cheered.

"Do dumb sh*t!"

"Yeah!!"

"I'll...think about it," Amity frowned, handing the card back.

"Me next!" Luz said, bouncing. Amity got up from the chair and Luz switched places with her, grinning up at her when Amity rested her hands on Luz's shoulders.

"Fifty bucks," Eda told her, reassembling her deck.

"One general three-card reading, please!" Luz dug in her pocket as Eda reshuffled the cards, eventually producing $50 in monopoly money, which Eda accepted without comment. Eda dealt out cards in a line and Luz turned three over. "The Hermit, reversed. The 5 of Swords. And the Knight of Wands, reversed. Boy, that's a few reversed cards!"

This seemed to be some ritual between them. Eda had gone from witchy to instructional, resting her forearms on the counter. She considered the cards before them, and said, "What do you read from that, Luz?"

"5 of Swords is making mistakes, but learning," Luz frowned, brow furrowed. "And Knight of Wands, reversed, can be...absence? Altered plans. And the Hermit is about seeking answers, but reversed it's kinda...you're locked away and secluded and that's dangerous." She frowned. "I only got that card once."

"Yeah, I remember," Eda nodded. "Right before Wrath picked you up at that abandoned fairground and Lilith couldn't get you out for a couple hours." She leaned forward, looking for all the world like any of the professors they shared at Hexside. "How would you read it, if you put it all together?"

"I'm gonna make some mistakes and go away?" Luz slammed a fist into her hand. "Sounds like I'm going back to prison!"

"Back?" Amity asked, aghast.

"Or you'll make a mistake and self-isolate while you learn from it," Eda suggested, but she was frowning. "Still not a great reading, huh?"

"Yeah," Luz agreed. "Maybe we need...a second opinion!" She opened one of the many drawers of Eda's desk and took out another deck of tarot cards. "Check it out, Amity! I made these myself! I put the Good Witch Azura logo on the backs!"

These had obviously been drawn by a child, but that was charming. Amity smiled as Luz shuffled them clumsily, cutting the deck with less skill than Eda had, tapped them, and dealt twelve out on the table, two rows of sixes. The first card she turned over was for Death. "Okay! Like we said, ending cycles!"

The next card she turned over was also for Death. And the next, and the next, until the three of them were staring down at twelve cards marked with Death, a robed skeleton drawn very cutely by a child's hand. "I don't remember making this many Death cards," Luz said. "Oh wait! This might be the joke pack I made in ninth grade for shenanigans."

"I sure hope it is," Eda muttered around a sip from her tea.

Luz was regathering her cards, examining them, when there was a beep outside. "Oh! That'll be our ride! Lemme just run out real quick - Ams, you stay here with Eda while I make sure it's him and not another PI."

Amity looked at her hands as Luz left. "You don't have to stay still," Eda told her. "I know you wanna snoop round my office."

This felt like a trap. But she did want to snoop. Every shelf was packed five deep with objects. When she'd last been here it'd been in the tow of Ed and Em and she'd been far too busy hoping they wouldn't get into trouble to pay much attention to the objects on the shelves. She took a few sideways steps to the cases.

Eda watched her browse with interest. She waited until Amity had picked up a delicate princess figurine, before deciding to drop the nuclear weapon she'd been holding. "So, what're your intentions with my kid?"

Amity dropped the figurine and had to whip out her bad hand to catch it; it bounced off her palm and she just about managed to catch it right-handed, before whipping around, red-faced. "Nothing!"

"Wow," Eda rested her chin in her hand, her elbow on the desk. "Here I was thinking you were into her."

"What! That's just... ridiculous...Why would you…"

"I mean, she seemed pretty into you," Eda added, steepling her fingers and leaning back in her chair, pretending not to observe the effect that had. Amity had very swiftly gone red and looked like she might keel over. Eda grinned, putting her feet up on the desk. "You're not gonna ask her out?"

Amity sighed, looking at her hands, remembering the warm pressure of Luz's fingers squeezing her own. "I don’t know if she’d like me," she admitted, quietly.

"What’s wrong with kids these days?" Eda asked herself as she leaned away from her desk, retrieving a box full of miscellaneous objects underneath it. "Back in my day, we just wiped out on our motorbikes in front of nurses visiting Bonesborough to look for their mysteriously missing partners, gave ‘em a pair of finger guns, said ‘I’ve fallen for your beauty’ and it worked like a charm." Eda paused to consider that very specific example. "Or at least it worked once." She looked back at Amity, waving what appeared to be an accounts book in her direction. "How come your generation is so...sweaty and anxious?"

"I’m not sweaty."

"You’re sweaty," Eda went back to the box of miscellany. "Look. Just ask her out. She’ll go, no problem. She thinks you’re cute."

"She thinks I’m cute?" Amity looked back at Eda, a nervous half-glance.

"She keeps talking about you," Eda shrugged. "And she has a photo of the two of you as her lockscreen. Of course she thinks you’re cute."

Amity felt her face go luminous and hot. She hadn’t thought the matching pyjama picture lockscreen was anything but friendship. But then, she remembered, Luz was using the one without Gus in it…

She swallowed a lump in her throat and said, "Okay. So I just...I should just be like, ‘hey, I’m taking you out, I’ll pick you up at 7’. Like that?"

"Do they teach you kids nothing at school? That's not enough!" Eda pulled something from the box, shaking her head. "Here, hold this for me." Amity took what appeared to be a jagged dagger off of her hands, and frowned at it. "You have to decide what you wanna do while you’re out too. Where are you taking her? To dinner? To a movie?"

Amity pictured herself and Luz alone in a dark theater, somewhere they could hold hands or even cuddle some more without witnesses, and felt her stomach flip. "A movie," she decided quickly. "What sort of movies does she like?"

"Oh, science fiction, fantasy, that kinda stuff. I had to take her to every Star Wars when Cammy couldn’t. Boy, those are some weird movies. Space witches, space fascists. I really related to that angry beeping blue robot, I'll tell ya. But she ran around the house pretending to be a Jedi after, which was super cute."

"Yeah…" Amity felt a smile draw the corners of her mouth up as she pictured a younger Luz in a homemade Jedi costume. Her heart felt so strangely light and buoyant. Maybe she could find a place that showed older movies? There had to be a place still showing Star Wars or Lord of the Rings… "She’s so cute," she breathed out, lost for a moment in thoughts. "So cute."

"Excuse me." Eda held up a hand. "Hi. It’s me. Her mom. I’m still here."

"Oh!" She shot up, straight backed, holding the dagger close. "Sorry!"

"You really gotta be smoother. That's an objective criticism. Subjectively, Luz would probably think your," she gestured to all of Amity. "Whole high-strung feral cat deal is cute."

Amity looked down at her hands, flushing. Then back up to Eda. "Unrelated question. What’s with the knife?"

"Don't worry about it." Eda took it back from her. "Just establishing a second pair of prints. Never know when you’ll need to trip up the cops."

Amity narrowed her eyes. "And...that's a joke, right?"

"As far as you know." Eda shrugged. "Remember what I said, kid. Stop acting like your prefrontal cortex is fully baked. Follow your intuition. Do something dumb. You might have fun. For I'm guessing, the first time? Ever?"

"Not the first time," she started arguing back, but the bell above the door tingled and Luz was walking in through the door, illuminated by the setting sun behind her casting pink and gold shadows over her brown skin, her soft curling hair.

"Amity! I got us a ride! You ready to head back to the Manor and pick up our stuff?" Luz beamed brightly, looking between them. "Were you guys bonding?"

"Oh. I was...you know. We were talking about--...the ghost."

"Oh, sure!" Luz looked over at Eda who was leaning against the counter, eyeing Amity the way an owl might eye a very pathetic field mouse. "It’s been real interesting investigating everything. You wanna come along and see what everything looks like in the evening, Eda?"

"No," said both Eda and Amity at the same time.

"Alright. Well, I’m ready to head out when you are!"

"Sounds like a date," Amity finger-gunned at her. "I’ll pick you up at 7?"

Luz blinked at her. "You don’t wanna go now?"

Amity froze. "Oh. I mean. Yeah. Let’s go now." Behind her Eda laughed so hard she snorted, slapping the table. Amity cleared her throat as Eda recovered in the background. "But I mean-- maybe, if you'd like - if you'd like. We could-- would you like to go out? Later tonight? And see a movie?"

Luz's face went through a variety of very strange expressions, but settled on a kind of frozen worry. "I actually...I have a-- I'm supposed to be meeting someone! So, uh," she also finger-gunned back. "Rain check?"

"Oh my god," said Eda in the background, still laughing. "I've failed you."

Amity felt disappointment well up in her chest, but as she'd long ago learned to do, she pushed it down. "Maybe sometime soon," she said instead, and Luz nodded eagerly.

"Hey, kids," Eda had recovered and was now standing up behind the counter. "Be careful, alright? I wasn't a fan of the bad vibes of that tarot reading."

"Since when do you say vibes?" Luz asked.

"Hey! I'm Gen X! We say vibes too, whippersnapper."

Luz looked to Amity, her face so soft and open and earnest. "Did it make you nervous too?"

"A little," Amity allowed. She didn't believe in tarot. But they'd both seemed so into it, and seemed to believe her reading specifically. Now she was nervous of things changing, nervous of things moving. The Death card meant the end of a cycle; that didn't mean that what came next would be better. If the devil was really involved, then she knew it, could predict it. She didn't want to walk unknowing into something new.

"It's alright," Luz was smiling at her, reaching out her hand. Amity met her half-way, her fingers finding hers, their hands linking. "Whatever's going on, whatever's happening, we can fix it together."

"That's so corny," Amity said, but she was smiling widely, looking up at her, brushing hair behind her ear with her free hand. She'd always tried to do things alone; she couldn't think of a time when others hadn't been a source of competition. This was nice. Support. She didn't know what to do with it.

"Say it back!" Luz said, touching her cheek with her free hand. "We can fix this together!"

"We can fix this together," she repeated, smiling like a fool, a smile that only got wider when Luz folded her up into a warm hug.

"Right in front of my tea," Eda muttered from behind them. "Your adorable banter is nauseating me. Can you head out before I have to take a sick day already? Give me a call if the creature comes back out and eats one of you, alright?"

Gus was waiting outside for them, a Fiat behind him. The car was almost goofily small, a bright blue roller skate, and he offered Amity the keys. "You wanna drive?" He asked. "I've never driven to your house before. You'd know the way better than me."

"I know what you're doing," she said, but took the keys from him. Gus grinned at her. There were only two doors, so he had to fold his passenger seat forward to give Luz enough space to climb into the back. Luz was not especially tall, but Gus's car was so compact that her knees bumped the front seats as she climbed into the middle. When Amity reached back, just a little bit, she could poke her knee. She did just that before adjusting Gus's front seat, bringing it in. "Your legs are uncomfortably long."

"They doubled in size in junior year," Gus told her. "Super painful."

"I don't doubt it."

"Thanks for taking my word for it. I know you don't have much experience of growing."

"I don't need to be taller than you are," she said, waiting for him to pull on his seatbelt as Luz laughed in the back.

"That's ominous."

"I've got a tall brother. I know how you work."

The drive back was smooth and easy, Amity making up for not knowing the car by driving even more carefully than she usually did. They pulled into the driveway next to her and Willow's cars. Gus jumped out and ran round to reveal several boxes of salt in his trunk. "Here we go! Let's go and salt this baby up!"

Luz climbed out the back with difficulty and waited for Gus to run ahead to the manor with her hand on Amity's shoulder. "Hey. I know I asked before. But will you stay at my place again tonight?"

"If salt really protects against the creature…"

"Come on," Luz said softly. "I know you wanna go back for some reason. But can you stick to our place tonight?"

"I suppose," she said, cheeks flushing. "I suppose I could…"

"Great!" Luz looked relieved as she followed Amity to the house.

Gus had paused by the door. When Amity got in range he nudged her gently. "Hey, Ams, when did your family's grotesques get destroyed?"

"The what?"

He pointed up to the parapets. "Look, see, those platforms with the bits of shaped stones. I think grotesques used to sit there. Like the monsters on old European buildings?"

"Oh," she frowned. "We called them Gargoyles. They were put in when I was very small. And I think they were all destroyed in a storm quite soon after we put them in."

Gus was making a thoughtful face; he made a note of that in his phone. "How old were you?"

"I was five. Maybe seven," she said, "maybe. Ed and Em would know more."

"Noted!" Gus filed that away in his phone notes, sliding it back into his pocket.

The interior of the house seemed somehow colder and gloomier than it had before. A strange silence overtook them when they stepped inside, as though all the noise was being dampened. "Weren't there gouges here?" Luz asked, standing in front of a perfectly unmarked floor. "I'm pretty sure there were demony gouges all over."

"This happens," Amity said, folding her arms. "Sometimes things disappear."

"Creepy to know!" Luz gave her a sideways look. "Did you see that thing before?"

"No," she said, but hesitantly.

"At least it doesn't smell so much like sulfur," Gus pointed out. That was true. The place smelled oddly fresh, Luz thought. As though whatever it was that was here knew it had overstepped last night, overplayed its hand, and was trying to be more welcoming. She shuddered slightly, fingers running over a perfectly smooth wall she'd felt gouges in only the night before.

In Amity's room Gus made a circle of salt around her bed and desk, and tucked an extra box into her bedside table. She packed a few things into a spare bag, and tossed it over her shoulder.

"That's not much!" Luz exclaimed.

"I'm not staying long," she said, a little awkwardly. "Only for a day."

"I can't get you to stay longer?" Luz asked plaintively and she looked away, not meeting her eyes.

"Awkward," Gus whispered, taking Amity's bag from her. "Let's go salt-circle a few more places, okay?"

They added protective circles to Amity's study, to the library and the kitchen, to the living room they'd slept in that first night. In the second floor living room they found their bags untouched, but Gus frowned as he picked his up. "I'm pretty sure something's looked through my bag."

"What makes you think that?" Luz asked, shouldering her own before picking up another of Gus's.

"I usually zip it up all the way," he explained, showing her. "This has been partially unzipped!"

"Weird," Luz said. "Amity, do the ghosts here go through your things?"

To her surprise, Amity froze a little. "They... shouldn't," came her hesitant answer.

Luz shrugged at Gus, who shrugged back. That wasn't a great answer. Rattled, Luz checked her own bags. She'd have no way to tell if ghosts had rifled through her things; her method of packing involved shoving everything in all at once, and she often couldn't remember what she'd even packed.

They split up at the cars, Amity settling into her own with a sigh, hands on the wheel. "What about the cameras?" She asked as Luz joined her in her car, waving goodbye to Gus.

"Willow says she'll stop by to pick them up tomorrow," Luz said, leaning on the dashboard. Amity tried not to notice the way her hair curled, the way her eyes looked softer in the blue light of evening. "I think she wanted to make sure the demon wasn't chilling out waiting for her to come back in first. It did try to take a chunk out of her."

"That's fair." Her plan was to only stay one more night at Luz's. She could meet Willow at the manor tomorrow and make sure her trip to collect the cameras went well.

As they pulled out, Amity found herself considering what might be on the cameras. The twins had managed to capture shades in photos, images of the outside ghost she knew and the inside demon she didn't know so well. A small secret excitement began to grow inside her. If Willow could prove it existed, what would that mean for her? Could she be free?

Back at The Owl House, Camila was home again. She greeted them as they came in with wide, warm hugs. Which was a lot. A lot to deal with. Amity leaned away a little, and Camila immediately checked in on her, looking concerned. "Cariño, is your arm hurting?"

"No," she managed to lie, but Camila was seeing through her with a gentle smile.

"That's okay," she said. "Let's sit you down and get you some tea and something to help."

"Mami, I've gotta head back out," Luz said, checking her phone, being careful to angle the screen away from them. "I'll be back in an hour or so."

"I'm about to start baking some arepa," Camila said, arm around Amity's shoulders as Luz slipped back out, pulling on shoes over her mismatched socks. "Will you come help me?"

"I really can't cook." Which was true. She'd never made herself more than a sandwich.

"Everyone can cook! But you don't need to," Camila patted her cheek with her lovely warm hand and Amity decided that she would one hundred percent die for Camila, and that was perfectly fine. "Just help me with the ingredients, okay?"

When Luz came to pick him up from outside Blight industries, Edric was dressed in a formal shirt, the sleeves rolled up and his top few buttons undone. His jacket was slung over his shoulder and he greeted her with a movie-star smile, one that made Luz stop in her tracks. "Hey, cutie," he said, winking at her. "Wanna go for a walk?"

The walk was to a vegan restaurant down the street. "I don’t usually eat vegan, but they do the best non-dairy milkshakes I’ve ever had," Edric explained, slipping his arm into hers.

"Oh yeah! Amity mentioned you were allergic to milk!"

"My sisters just keep exposing all of my weaknesses. What're they going to do if an assassin comes after me, and like, force feeds me cheese and kills me?"

"What’re your other weaknesses?" Luz asked, intending to tease.

"Beautiful eyes," Edric said with a practised gaze and smile combo that destroyed her defenses. He was good.

They slid into a booth and Ed ordered them both a milkshake to share. Chocolate, with a cherry on top, which he offered to her. "Cherry for the pretty lady?"

"You’re coming on super strong," Luz said, but took the straw he offered. "Why’d you want to meet me out here anyway? I'm pretty sure you weren't being serious about the date thing."

"You saw through me?" The change was immediate; Edric's smile went from suave to mischievous and when he grinned his golden eyes (definitely not as golden as Amity's) sparkled with humour. "Nice!"

"You came on super strong," Luz said, sighing with relief at getting that right. "And you're kinda out of my league."

"Aw, you're cute enough." Edric rested his chin on his hand, leaning in. "But! You're right! This isn't a date! I'm vetting you. Your background check came back clean, so I figured I'd interview you in person."

"Background check?" Luz blinked, mouth opening and closing. "Wait! Vetting me for what?"

"Well, first I wanted to see if my sister had been brave enough to ask you out," Edric said, smiling widely, leaning in.

Luz thought back to Emira's text. "Oh! She did!"

"Well isn't that something! I didn't think she had it in her. In that case, I wanted to see if you'd treat her right, you know?" He fluttered his eyelashes at her. "She's pretty secretive, but I'm her brother. I know she's got a crush on you. So think of this as me," he placed a hand on his chest. "Figuring you out, making sure you're good enough to date my sister." He winked at her, pointing.

Luz frowned. His sister? Emira had a crush on her? A secret crush? She tried to think of what she knew about Emira: she had posters of boybands up even though she didn't like boybands. There'd been that secret photo of Viney Willow had found in her book. And she was a regular at The Secret Room...and Viney got all aloof when she was mentioned but still knew Amity's nickname and Emira's favourite drink… Luz had assumed from all those clues that Emira and Viney had something going on.

So wait. Did that mean that...

Had Luz come between them? Had Emira's secret burning for her broken up her and Viney? Had she accidentally destroyed a relationship by simply existing attractively? Luz buried her head in her hands, close to wailing. "Oh no! I'm a homewrecker!"

"You've lost me," Edric said, eyeing her with some confusion.

"I broke up Emira and Viney without even knowing!"

"Huh," said Edric, scratching his cheek as he tried to map out her thought process. A slow smile began on his face as he began to understand how she'd taken two and two and come to five.

"Why was I born this adorable?!" Luz covered her face with her hands, slumping in her chair. "I can't help being a complete cutie-pie!"

"Oh yeah," Edric grinned, pulling the milkshake closer. He half drained it while she melted into misery. "It’s a real problem. You’ve got no idea how distracted you make her."

"I’m breaking up perfectly good relationships out here!"

"I wouldn’t say she was in a relationship," Ed twisted in his chair, holding up his phone and flashing a peace sign, taking a quick selfie of the two of them to send to Emira. He captioned it: omg wait til u hear abt this. "It was hardly a relationship."

"I need to jump into the ocean. Like the full ocean."

"Unfortunately, big brother rule. Can’t let you hurt my little sister," Ed patted her hand. "Even if it’s by accidentally hurting yourself. I'll have to take vengeance. I've got a whole vengeance scale, from noogies at the low end to unspeakable acts of cruelty at the high end. Sorry 'bout it."

Luz frowned. For some reason she’d assumed Emira had been the oldest. "Ugh, I guess!" She put her chin in both her hands, elbows on the table. Edric put one of the straws in her mouth helpfully.

"Drink up! It'll help wash away the guilt!"

"All I taste is ashes," she took a sip. "No, wait, actually this is delicious."

"Right?" Edric took a sip with the other straw, still grinning his Cheshire Cat grin. "Anyway, you should probably keep this whole thing a secret from Amity. I can't imagine how upset she'll be to find out you broke up Emira and Viney of all people."

"Of course!" Luz looked aghast. "Viney was probably almost a sister-in-law to her!"

"Oh yeah," Edric agreed, a big smile on his face. "She definitely knew about them. Definitely."

"I'm so sorry I've wrecked your family."

"Believe me," Edric said, patting her hand with a grin. "You should see what we do to each other." Like this, a small voice in his head said.

Oh, the seeds he was sowing here would bud glorious chaos flowers. And, he considered, possibly his death by younger sibling. But that was the price one had to pay for being a rockin' older brother. His grave would read: Edric Blight, Best Older Brother, Coincidentally Murdered By Younger Sister, and there'd probably be a statue or something, funded by Emira of himself being murdered by Amity while flashing the peace signs to go with it. It would beawesome. He sent a second text to Emria:start the petition to make my gravestone a wifi hotspot real quick I will not be alive for much longer.

It was getting dark when Luz got back in from her visit with Edric, past nine. Her mom's car was gone, which meant that she might be back out on shift. Camila had stuck her shift rota to the refrigerator with a magnet ever since she'd started nursing, but sometimes dates and times fell out of Luz's head like water through a sieve. She put her shoes down in their usual position next to Eda's at the door and tiptoed through the apartment. The previous night's activities were really catching up on her, and despite a day of mostly resting, she felt an enormous sense of exhaustion.

Amity was mostly asleep when she got back to her room. She leaned against the bed to check on her, and the other girl opened her eyes sleepily, before shifting up on the bed. "I can sleep on the floor," Luz whispered.

"It's your bed," she murmured back.

"Cool," she crawled in next to her gratefully. "A mirmir," Luz said, tucking herself in so that the blanket nearly covered her eyes, her words muffled.

"What?"

"Mirmir. Like… a dormir," she looked up from under the sheet, smiling, looking sleepy. "But cute."

"Ah." Amity watched her snuggle back down. Feeling awkward, she tucked herself into the bed too. "Two mirmirs," she said, voice quiet.

"Wha--?" Luz blinked, opened her mouth, then laughed when she understood.

"Am I...did I get it wrong?"

"Yeah,' Luz said. "But it was very cute sooo we'll say it was right. Two mirmir. What did you do while I was gone?"

Amity was rubbing her eyes. "Your mom roped me into cooking with her. It was...it was fun." Camila had been kind about her mistakes, and at the end they'd had fresh arepa, made with cornmeal and coconut. She'd made notes all the way through, watching the process as though studying for an exam.

Luz sat up sharply. "We got arepa? No way we're going to bed yet!" She grabbed Amity's hand, pulling her up. "Let's go! Cake!"

Moving helped. Whenever she was still for too long, Luz felt the guilt of what Edric had mentioned seeping in. It was easier to stay moving with that guilt stabbing into her when she stopped. In the kitchen she served them both slices of arepa with warm oat milk, and proceeded to destroy hers, finishing it in record time. It was easier to focus on eating than to accidentally talk and maybe mention haha so I accidentally broke up your sister and her maybe secret girlfriend?

"Would you like another slice?" Amity asked, noticing how quiet she was being.

"Nah," Luz felt guilt beat in her heart, thoughts on Ed and Em. She did not deserve another slice of cake. Amity poured her a little more milk anyway, hand lingering near hers. They were silent for a few moments, Luz listening to her heart plow away in her ears.

"Are you alright?" Amity asked, voice soft with concern. "You're being very quiet."

"Oh! I'm," Luz licked her lips. "Good? Just...tired."

They were silent again. It occurred to Luz that Amity might be able to hear her heartbeat. It was super loud. And Amity was watching her carefully, chin on her hand, gold eyes (definitely definitely golder than Edric's) reflecting in the warm light of the kitchen. She was definitely wearing the thoughtful and considering face of someone who could hear another person's heartbeat across a table. Luz felt her cheeks flushed, and tried to think of ways to answer questions like why does it sound like your have an unhinged drum solo going on inside you and oh god do we need to go to hospital?

"What do you think's going to happen in the fourth Azura movie?" Amity asked instead, catching Luz completely off guard.

"I mean," Luz hesitated. This was usually the kind of thing she'd jump straight into, talk about in paragraphs. Usually people would start making polite excuses to leave around the first minute or so. "I've got a lot of theories. Are you sure?"

"Yep." Amity nodded. "Tell me your ideas."

"In that case…" Luz began to launch into it, hesitantly at first, gaining in confidence as she went on, gestures growing in size. "I know the comics aren't necessarily canon, but they did do a whole arc on Azura's relationship with her estranged daughter from the thirty sixth parallel universe, so I gotta assume they're gonna try and bring her in at some point, otherwise why write and publish a whole arc? But if they're gonna bring her in, then they need to set that up. We know Hecate's staff can open up dimensional rifts from when it exploded in the interstitial anime between the first movie and the mobile game. So the best way to set that up, I gotta assume, is to have something go wrong with Hecate's staff. And they're keeping the title quiet but we know it's gonna focus on time because so far every teaser has prominently featured watches or clocks! So my theory is they time travel and in doing so open up the parallel worlds and have to deal with that after getting back to their own time--" Amity was leaning back, watching her, a smile on her face. Luz paused briefly. "I'm not...talking too much, right?"

"No," Amity said. She cut Luz another slice of arepa. "You know a lot about this. I think that's cool. Keep going."

Luz hesitated. "Sometimes people say I talk too much," she admitted.

"I want to hear what you think about things," Amity told her.

Luz smiled, face going soft. "I'm not boring you?"

"Why would you be boring me? I like hearing about it."

"Cool," Luz sighed with relief and spread her arms. "So, according to Joseph Campbell's theory of the hero's journey…"

Willow had agreed to meet her at Blight Manor later in the afternoon to pick up the filming equipment, and so Amity drove back in the morning, picking up groceries on the way from a Whole Foods she couldn't remember ever entering. She watched videos in her car before going into the store, making notes and lists, and reading articles. She made sure she was prepared. It was like studying for an exam, she told herself, but exams rarely made her as worried as this.

By the time Willow knocked on the door, she'd been working for hours in the kitchen, a ring of salt drawn around the area she worked in, just in case.

Willow hummed with astonishment as Amity showed her in, breathing in smells that seemed alien to the Manor. "Have you been baking?" She asked, with a little astonishment. The inside of the Blight kitchen actually having food that wasn't take-out in it was unusual, to say the least.

"Yeah," Amity admitted, rubbing a flour covered hand on her arm. "A little."

Willow sat down at the kitchen island, and Amity finished what she was doing, sliding a plate with a grilled cheese atop it to her, along with a cup of herbal tea, that tasted mostly of lavender. The outside of the sandwich was crisp and brown, and Amity looked both stressed and triumphant. "I made you something."

"Is this a…"

"I watched a few tutorials. And I texted Camila."

"Right."

"And this seemed like something you'd like."

"Right," Willow was grinning widely.

"So I wanted to make it for you. I aggregated a few recipes to find a good one for you."

"Oh yeah?"

"I hope you like it."

"What is it, Amity?" Asked Willow, grinning at her, even though she could see what it was.

"A grilled cheese," Amity answered, solemnly.

"What's in it?" Willow asked.

"Gruyère, sharp cheddar and mozzarella," Amity told her, voice serious. "With some finely chopped spring onions for crunch and a drizzle of sriracha to cut through the cheese. The bread itself is an artisanal sandwich loaf I baked this morning. The outside is coated in an emulsion of butter and mayonnaise for an extra crispy golden look."

Willow put her chin on her hand and gazed at her with a wide smile. "You even baked the bread yourself."

"It had to be perfect," Amity was going red again.

"How many batches?"

"...three," she admitted. "The first two didn't come out well."

Willow giggled and took a bite. "It is perfect!"

Amity sighed with relief and slid into a chair opposite her, her apron a mess. "I'm glad. I've been working on this for a few hours."

"Good distraction?" Willow asked, kindly. She touched the toe of her foot to Amity's, across the table. "So...did you and Luz…talk?"

Amity's cheeks went pink. She looked down at the surface of the counter, but she was smiling. "We had a good time," she said, quietly. "We cuddled."

"Did you tell her?"

"No," she admitted. "I did ask her if she wanted to do anything last night, but she had plans."

"She did?" Willow blinked owlishly. Plans? Luz had very few friends, despite her friendliness, her kindness. She was pretty open about telling both Willow and Gus that they’d been her first and only friends and was still fairly open about her pretty empty social life. Willow knew very few people that Luz was friends with that she wasn’t also a pal of. It felt odd to know that Luz had plans that she’d be keeping a secret. "I’m glad you asked her, anyway."

"Yeah," Amity pushed a bit of hair behind her ear, smiling at the counter. "I hope we can…I hope she says yes, if I ask her again."

"I knew you had a crush on her, but I didn’t know it was this bad," Willow laughed gently.

"You knew? How long have you known?"

"I caught you making big puppy dog eyes at her in sophom*ore year," Willow said, playfully. "Before that too, but I wasn’t completely certain."

"I was very subtly in the closet for a lot of high school," Amity said, face going red.

"You were on the rugby team," Willow pointed out.

"Plenty of women rugby players are straight."

"Name one straight woman on our school's rugby team."

"... You've got me there," she admitted.

"Even if you weren't, you weren't exactly subtle when we were kids either," Willow said gently.

"I was."

"Remember when we were very young, and we used to play princesses because you insisted on it?" Willow asked, innocently. "Where we were both princesses, but I always needed to be saved from a dragon by you, and then we’d get married? You stuck pretty rigidly to the plot of that game."

Amity looked around the same shade as the new bottle of sriracha on her counter. "I...vaguely recall…"

"I recall pretty well," Willow smiled, sipping the tea. "And I watched you gaze at her dreamily all through high school..."

"You just said from sophom*ore year!" Amity retorted, but she was still deeply red. "But- yeah. Fine. I sort of...got a crush in freshman year. I was still pretty down after-" she looked for a euphemism. "The crash. And then one time when I didn’t want to be around anyone, she sat with me and made stupid jokes and made me laugh."

She'd been alone, feeling a peculiar mixture of broken hearted and empty, a profound loss. The cafeteria had felt too full, too many people talking, and so she'd stepped outside to eat her lunch on the edge of the sports field. The loss she felt on making her own lunch, on not reaching into her backpack to retrieve a cute lunchbox and sandwiches made by her mom had felt too raw, a gaping wound. Like an injured animal, she'd retreated somewhere away from people. A cheery voice had interrupted the laser burn of her grieving thoughts with, Hey! Nice to meet you!

Luz Noceda, recent transfer student to their school, a girl Amity knew as only being friends with known oddballs Willow and Gus, had sat beside her and made it her mission to make her laugh, telling her jokes and funny stories, pulling faces and talking in a constant upbeat stream about everything and nothing until Amity had cracked and laughed, just a little. And when she had, that strange girl with her big brown eyes and cat ear hoodie had smiled so wide and so kindly that Amity had felt her heart grow warm. She could trace the deep roots of the initial crush there, but Luz had unknowingly nurtured it with every smile, every act of kindness, every time she'd reached out for seven years.

And now here she was, with a large tree growing out of the garden her heart had made for it, a redwood, an oak. And if she were to cut it down she would see what she already knew to be true: Luz's name written in every ring.

"That sounds like Luz," Willow agreed with a smile. "She knows what it’s like to be lonely, so she’s always trying to reach out." Amity was hesitating, not telling her something. Willow looked down at the sandwich she’d cooked for her and said, "This really is good. I’m really happy you cooked for me. And it’s amazing, I can tell how much effort you put into it."

That seemed to relax her a bit. Amity needed to know when the work she'd put into something had paid off; if she knew it had, she'd only need to grapple with one fear rather than several. Willow took another few bites as she watched her friend marshal her thoughts into words.

"When Luz spoke to whatever it is in the house with the ouija board," she began. "It knew her surname. I’m scared that I’m how it knows it."

"Why do you think that?"

Amity hesitated again, as though she was about to admit something extremely unpleasant. Finally she managed, "My...my diary."

"You wrote about Luz?"

She sank in her seat, covering her face with her hands. "Yes. I mean. Sort of?"

"Take your time," Willow said, taking another bite. "What a good idea to mix the cheeses," she said softly. "I love the crunch of the onion."

"I wrote about her," Amity admitted. "I wrote a lot about her. After-- after what happened, I didn’t have to write in code anymore, I only had to make sure my diary was hidden from the twins, since they could break my codes anyway. And yeah, I wrote a lot about her that wasn’t coded, but that wasn’t-- that’s not what--" She was looking more and more flustered.

"If it's too much to say now, then that's okay. You can tell me later," Willow told her. "I’m going to focus on enjoying this sandwich you made me."

"I wrote her name," Amity said, in one long groan of horror, pressing her hands to her face. "I wrote her name and my name. I wrote ‘Mrs Amity Noceda’ and I wrote ‘Mrs Luz Blight’ and I wrote ‘Mrs Amity Blight-Noceda’ all over one of the pages in my diary pretending to be signing things and I drew her face in it so whatever's haunting this place probably read my diary and I’m sure that’s the only place I’ve ever mentioned her surname and I’m sure that’s why it knew her surname because I’ve always been so careful before and--"

"It’s okay," Willow said, interrupting this disaster flow gently. "How were you supposed to know?"

"Because mom always told us to keep stuff secret." She was still talking from behind her hands. "And if I’d just listened then Luz would be safe and-"

"There’s nothing you can do to keep Luz safe," Willow told her calmly. "Luz actively puts herself in danger. You can’t cover all eventualities. For all I know, Luz and Gus are trying to scale the television studio again. Or trying to give themselves piercings again."

"Again?"

"I told you," Willow said with a smile. She finished the sandwich and said, "That really was wonderful, Amity. You're a good cook."

She looked at the counter, grappling with the compliment and her own worries. "I wish she hadn't argued with it."

"Me too," Willow agreed. "But I don't think anything would've stopped her from arguing back. It was being mean to her friend. She doesn't stand for that."

Amity looked up at Willow finally. It was going to take more than that to get her to forgive herself but…

It was a start.

"Should we go get your cameras?" She asked, changing the subject.

Willow patted her hand. "Of course. And then will you show me that recipe? It really was good." Despite herself, Amity smiled. Willow chalked that up to a victory, but made a mental note to text Gus to check in on her later.

Willow had been gone for a few hours and Amity and the house had settled into an uneasy silence when the knock at the door came. "Hey!" Gus ran to her and threw both arms around her in greeting, dropping a kiss to the top of her head and then pulling her tight to his chest. "How're you?"

"I'm fine," she pushed him away, getting herself some space. When she looked up, he was frowning at something in the shadows of the driveway, but he looked back to her with a smile. "What're you doing here?"

"I got worried," Gus admitted. Willow had asked him to check in, that was true enough. But he'd been overcome with worry for his new friend all through the day, ever since Luz had told their group chat that Amity was heading back to the house.

"Worried?" She asked, as though this was the strangest thing in the world. "About...me?"

"Yeah," he held out his hand. "I just had a bad feeling all evening, like you shouldn't be here alone. I dunno why, but it's been kinda overpowering and I'm scared for you. And we're friends! Gotta keep your friends safe."

Amity stared at his outstretched hand. Gus looked around, feeling like there was no time for her pauses and considerations; the sensation of being watched was back now, cold fingers running down his spine. Eventually, she took her coat down from its hook next to the door. "Fine. Let's go...hang out."

The bowling alley pulsed neon bright. Their first game, Amity knocked him sideways with multiple strikes. "It's all about judging the angle," she said, brow furrowed.

"Show me how you do it," Gus said, and followed her with a soft oh as she knocked down pin after pin. The next game, he caught up with her, learning quickly how to put a spin into the ball. By the third they were easily match, set for set. Amity looked over, wanting to express annoyance, but instead saw Gus's giddy pleasure. "I'm nearly as good as you!" And that made her feel soft inside.

They moved onto the arcade in the same building after that. Gus could destroy her at any video game, but every time she clucked angrily as she lost in Time Crisis, he showed her a new trick ("Like this, angle like this,") and she found herself progressing further. "Don't you want to beat me?" She asked him, as she went through a round as the only survivor, beating him.

"It's a co-op game," Gus told her, smiling. His smile was very kind, wide and bright. Somehow she'd found herself loving it, heart softening to his charms.

He bought them fries and popcorn and she won him a teddy bear in the crane game, before showing him how to shoot goals in air hockey at exactly the right angle, and then he destroyed her at DDR, doing so well that she had to step back and watch, open-mouthed. They did not play the racing games - she refused - but he did manage to bribe her into a Star Wars themed piloting game. They both sucked at that, but Gus laughed everytime they were shot out of the air, and that made it feel okay.

"Can I show you something special?" He asked her.

"Of course," she said, without weighing it up. And he held her hand as they walked down the street to the building that housed the local television studio, the same one, Amity recognised, that Perkin' Up with Perry Porter was filmed at.

"I've known you were like me for a while," Gus told her as he swung her hand in his, a motion of pure joy. "You know, a stressed out top of the class type with a secret unhinged side."

"I'm not unhinged," she told him, trying to balance out the swings to make them more even, less wild.

"In seventh grade I saw you get into a fight with some ducks," Gus said, casually, as though he wasn't revealing a huge secret shame.

"I--" oh no. "That never happened."

"You lost," Gus continued.

"There is no way I would lose to ducks--"

"You were winning til the geese came in as back-up," Gus recollected, cheerfully. "You punched one and got chased by a swan. Then you yelled 'I am the apex predator' while they ate your lunch and a goose tried to herd you into the pond," Gus reminded her, helpfully. "You absolutely lost."

"How many people know about that?" She asked, an edge in her voice.

"Just you and me," he was squeezing her hand, a wide grin on his face.

"It better stay that way."

"I need help breaking into my dad's work," Gus told her, walking round the side of the building. He hovered under a window. "That's his office. It's not alarmed, but I can't get up there. If I give you a boost, can you pull yourself up?"

"I can," she agreed, uncertainly. "But why?"

"I bought him cookies! He said he's on a diet and he gets mad if they're in the house, but he'll totally eat them if I stash them in his work snack drawer!"

"That sounds...weird."

"Please!"

"Fine."

Gus boosted her up, lifting her with his hands on her waist. Amity vaguely recalled that he'd tried out for the cheerleading squad the same time Luz had; he would've been a pretty okay cheerleader. She grabbed the balcony's edge, felt her injury flex unpleasantly as she pulled herself up, and hung for a moment or two, curled up, gritting her teeth through the pain. She lifted her foot up, getting her toes on the edge. Now she pushed on the railing and vaulted over. Reaching down, she grabbed his hand and wrist, pulling him up and over the edge with a little difficulty. He might've been tall, but he was light. Gus bounced on his heels once he was safely in place, checking the seal of the door to the office. Once he was sure of himself, he slowly pushed it open, listening for the alarm. "Bingo! Still not alarmed!"

"I thought you were sure it wasn't," she said, suspiciously.

"Fifty-fifty," he answered with a big grin. "Come on! Let me show you around!" He was pulling a paper bag full of cookies from his messenger bag.

Gus said I love you in strange ways, she was noticing as he unlocked his father's drawer with a spare key and stashed the cookies inside. How did he show Willow and Luz he loved them? Did he cook for them? She made a mental note of the secret gift.

"Through here," he told her, opening the door to show the rest of the TV station's open plan office. A single journalist was still working in the corner, and he lifted a hand up to Gus without looking. Gus trespassing seemed like a frequent occurrence. "Hey Gary!" He called back, skipping through the newsroom like it was a playground.

Gus led her through the empty halls and up a set of stairs, taking them two at a time. At the top was a roof that overlooked Bonesborough. The neon lights of the bowling alley/arcade mix, the darkened Owl House, Blight Industries with a single light on in the office of the CEO, where Emira would be wrapping up yet another late night. Leaning on the railing that wrapped around the roof, Amity took all of this in.

Gus joined her, putting his hands on the cool metal, looking up at the swirling fog of October weather. "This has been real fun," he said. "Thanks for hanging out with me. You can see almost all of Bonesborough from up here."

Amity felt a sudden emotion roll in her stomach. This was nice, but… "Are you doing all of this because you...like me?"

"This is going to be an interesting conversation," Gus said, biting his bottom lip as he looked out over the city.

"Because I'm, I should tell you, I'm a, er, I'm a lesbian."

"What?" Gus pressed a hand to his head in shock. "You? The person who wears lesbian flag socks and plays women's rugby? A lesbian? The girl who plays in an ice hockey team? Lesbian? The girl who keeps looking at Luz's mouth? Lesbian?"

"Okay, you can stop," Amity was deeply red. "I just... usually people have underlying reasons for hanging out."

"What's your underlying reason for hanging out?" Gus was watching her face, an eyebrow raised.

"I didn't have one," she admitted, something in her twisting. She always felt a little weak whenever she didn't live up to the Blight family's interpretation of how people should act. "I guess I was...I was hoping that it would be…" she couldn't think of the right word. Without something behind it. She'd hoped that they could be hanging out without any underlying reason, without a need to network, or get something from each other.

Gus patted her shoulder. "We're friends," he reminded her. "We don't need a reason to hang out."

"But you did have one," she said.

"I did," Gus admitted. "But I don't want anything from you. Other than eternal friendship, but we got that covered."

"What was it?"

"I guess I did have a ghost question or two I should shoehorn in." He was looking suddenly very uneasy.

"What were they?"

"I guess my first," he frowned, eyebrows knitting together. "Is that the twins seemed really sure that the demon we saw was Odalia's ghost. Do you think that?"

"I…" Amity rested her elbow on the metal railing, her chin in her hand. She looked up at the single light on in Blight Industries, trying to make out Emira's shadow in her office. Maybe she should stop by after this, check in on her sister. She worked so hard. "No. I've never seen her. I know they've seen her. But I never have."

Gus nodded, brain on the buzzing that Willow had heard, the way its movements had shifted when it'd targeted her. He filed that away too, in the swiftly growing filing cabinet of his brain. "I guess I just have one more question."

"Yeah?" She asked.

"Do you see him too?"

That was not the question she'd expected. Amity looked up at him, peering into his face. Gus was gazing back at her, his eyes so dark they looked black, sombre. When he pointed, she looked slowly down to the cement of the sidewalk several storeys below. The man in the mask was watching them, eyes reflecting in the glow of the moon.

Chapter 8: te vas

Chapter Text

"You know him? "

"Sort of."

Gus walked around in a tight circle, hands pressed to his eyes, an explosion going on somewhere in the back of his brain as he tried to process this. "You know him!"

"Yeah…"

They'd moved back to his dad's office, mostly due to the unnerving sensation of being watched by a creepy looking shadow on the ground. With the final journalist gone for the night, there was a tense privacy between them, as though this office was the only place left on earth with living people in it. Amity leaned against the desk while Gus paced up and down, the sound of his feet lost in the heavy carpet. "You told us repeatedly," Gus was nervously slapping his loose fist into an open palm, "that you don't believe in ghosts!"

"How was I supposed to explain him?" Amity rubbed the bridge of her nose, eyes shut tight. This was why Odalia was so keen on secrets. Talking about things was so much trouble. People always had questions . "'Hey, this is the ghost who stood in front of our car the night my parents crashed. He hangs out in our garden and I think he's sorry about accidentally killing our parents?'"

" Killing your parents?"

"Didn't Luz…"

"What?"

"Nothing." Luz had kept her secret for her. Amity felt her heart swell. She gripped the table behind her, closing her eyes as her ears went red. Luz hadn't told them. That did mean she had to tell Gus now, probably. A downside.

Gus gave a long heave of a sigh, briefly stopping to put his hands on his hips, head hanging. "Okay," he said. "So...how do you know this guy?"

And so she tried to explain. About the car. About being in the car. About seeing him when the crash had happened. About going for help. About getting home. Gus sat on the desk next to her, legs crossed, just listening, brow furrowed as he compulsively chewed his bottom lip. He didn't probe, or ask anything else, or offer sympathy (which would've been worse than anything else).

And then she tried to explain the stuff she'd kept to herself.

"We started to see him in the garden a lot after the crash. In the shadows. In hedgerows and in the orchard. Sometimes around the town. Ed and Em tried to test and see if he could get into the house, but he could never follow them inside."

"The outside ghost," Gus ran a hand through his hair, fingers catching in the tight coils of his curls. His eyes were dark pools of calm water usually, but now there was a stormy element to the black of his irises. "They mentioned we didn't need to worry about the outside ghost during our meeting. We just had to focus on the ghost inside." He frowned. "Wait! They also mentioned he nearly drowned them!"

"Oh," she hugged herself tight. "I think that was a misunderstanding. Or that's what he said."

Gus nearly exploded, vibrating in the air. "You speak to him?"

"No." She frowned. That wasn't quite true. "Well...when I was a kid?" Maybe that was wrong too. Sometimes time itself was hard to make sense of. Some of her timelines had bows tied in them. Sometimes it felt like she was in the middle of something that had happened years ago. Sometimes it was as though her present wasn't real at all. It was hard to keep track. "Not speaking. It's hard to explain."

"Well, yeah." Gus leaned back, his eyebrows knitted together in concern. He sighed, gazing up at her. "You okay with all of this? Like, how're you doing? How do you feel?"

"How long have you seen him for?" She asked, avoiding his question like he was a defender on the ice, skating past him.

"I…" Gus frowned deeply, the furrows of his brow making him look somehow younger. A child chewing over a riddle. "At your place, from the window. We made eye contact. That was the first time. But every night since, when I wake up late and look out--" he shuddered. "I think I see him in the shadows. I see a big shape, with horns, and the moon hits his eyes and I realize he's staring right at me."

"Yeah," Amity agreed, with the ease of someone nodding as though they'd noticed the sky was blue too. "He's pretty unnerving."

"You're being pretty unnerving yourself right now, buddy." Gus threw his arm around her shoulders. "What d'ya mean when you say you've talked to him?"

She didn't look at him. She read all of the headlines from the newspaper clippings Perry had pinned on his corkboard on the wall opposite him, the posters for local bands from his local entertainment section. Her eyes lingered on a photo of Gus, Willow and Luz all together as younger teens that was hanging above an award for broadcasting. "It wasn't easy after our parents died," she said after a moment. "I argued with Ed and Em a lot for a while. They were so overprotective, it was smothering. And they were a team and I was alone. And sometimes an older relative would pass by and we'd all argue with them. Things were...fraught. during an argument over something dumb - I think I was mad about my science fair project getting destroyed by some idiot and they were downplaying it - I stormed out."

"Sure," Gus could not imagine ever storming out of anywhere, but he was a pretty even tempered dude. He rested his arms on his knees, pretending to get it. "Understandable."

"I was alone in our garden." She continued. "We've got a hidden area towards the west of the manor. A little grove of trees. It used to have a koi pond in it, and a bench to watch the koi from." Amity hesitated. "The bench is still there. And the pond. But the koi are long gone."

"Koi ponds seem like cat paradise." Gus was drawing circles on the desk with his finger. "Maybe they got eaten?"

"Maybe." She allowed. "I remember...I was sitting by it. I was trying to read, so I could calm down. I didn't realise he was standing next to me until he was." Gus shuddered at the thought of that big shadow lurching out of the darkness. Amity was examining her hands.. "But he didn't want to hurt me. It was like he...it was like he wanted to befriend me?"

That didn't sound right. Gus tried to think if the weird looking ghost had ever tried to befriend him. Nope. Just stared up and into his window at 3am. Lucky him.

Amity, for her own part, did not tell him that it had felt like the great bulk of the shadow curled down and had held her hand. The touch had been icy, bone-chilling. But it had been nice, hadn't it? To have a friend.

"I realised that he could tap against the pipes," she continued. "So...we did that. Morse code. And we talked a bit. Not much. Morse code doesn't allow for in-depth conversation. But he's...nice. Different to whatever's inside the house. And he can't get in. Ed and Em tested that thoroughly. And he was...sorry. That was one of the first things he said. Three quick taps, one quick tap one long tap one quick tap, two quick taps. SRI. It becomes 'sorry.'"

"Does your ghost friend have a name?" Gus was making a note of the morse code as she described it, underlining.

Amity frowned, trying to remember. She tapped out the pattern on the desk. One long tap, three short taps. One short tap. One short tap, one long tap, two short taps. Three long taps. Three short taps.

"I recognise O and S," said Gus, who only knew SOS in morse from old war movies watched with his dad on Sunday mornings.

"It might be an acronym," Amity said. "I didn't recognise it, so I haven't tried to translate it. Mostly I've been trying to put it out of my mind."

Gus wrote this down. One long tap. Three short taps. One short tap. One short tap, one long tap, two short taps. Three long taps. Three short taps. He chewed his bottom lip hard enough that the skin cracked, began to bleed. He didn't notice, even as Amity patted him down and pulled out a pack of tissues for him from his own jacket pocket. Underneath this, he wrote again: look up planning permission, grotesques in 2004-7. "I guess," Gus said softly, "This is why you didn't want to move out. If he can find you and loom creepily while you're out…"

"Not so much him," Amity said, turning away again. "More...if he can follow me around, what else in that house can?"

As he looked up into the deep blue of a late night sky, a spray of stars just visible, the faint pale dots of the big dipper and the north star ripped open in the canvas of the sky, Gus had to admit she had a pretty good point. "I guess I should drop you home," he said, although he wasn't happy about it.

"I guess," Amity said, and she didn't sound too happy either. "Come on. Let's get back. I've got a game tomorrow."

When Willow got over to The Owl House the afternoon after her trip to the Manor, Luz was behind the counter. She had a pile of books piled up next to her and was obviously working her way through them. Most looked like psychology textbooks; she could even spot the DSM-V there, though it didn't look like it'd been opened for long. Luz was thumbing through a book on living with trauma, making occasional notes. Her feet were up on the counter, which meant Eda wasn't in, and she was blasting sunshiny music which meant that Eda hadn't been in for a while. Willow still knocked as she entered, and Luz looked up at her from the book with a crooked smile. "Hey! You here for the pawn shop or the bad boy minding it?"

"The bad boy, I guess," Willow didn't think to smile back. Something weighed on her, trouble rumbling in her head, the Jaws theme tune playing on repeat in the back of her brain. Luz noticed the change in her friend immediately, sitting up properly, putting the book she was reading down, switching off her music. Willow moved without asking, unhooking the tiny TV in the corner Eda used to watch sports and saucy movies during the quiet times the store was open (usually between 9am to, oh, say, about 5pm) and unhooking it from the modified cable box Eda had put together back when stealing cable was a more analogue process. Pulling her camera out of her bag, she replaced the wires, connecting the camera to the TV until a picture fuzzed into being.

"It took a while to notice," she said, fast forwarding past the image on screen of the four of them hanging out in the reception room, the disastrous ouija board incident. "I watched it a few times. And then I rewound just to make sure. Look," Willow paused the recording. On screen, a dark figure flickered, caught stretching, shadowy and terrible, across their blanket fort.

Luz tried to think about how Amity might dismiss that if she was in ‘ghosts don’t exist’ mode. "Shadow from something...else? Is there a tree outside?"

"Not that close to the window," Willow scrubbed through the recording. They bounced through each frame like a stop motion animation, moving jerkily across the room. "There," she said, hitting pause again.

All four of them were talking to each other in the reception room, engrossed in their own company. It was probably, Luz thought, back when they initially planned the trip to the second floor. It took Luz a moment, as though what she was seeing was so weird that her brain had attempted to reject it. But there it was: "it's behind me," she said, softly.

An extra shadow, but not one that fit her; it hadn't quite gotten her silhouette right; the torso and hands a little too long. It wasn't where the direction of the light source logically said it should be. It was as though an inexperienced artist had shaded in a spot arbitrarily. Her actual shadow sat comfortably behind her, but the other shadow was split off, watching from a wall it shouldn’t have been projected onto. She glanced around quickly to count her shadows now, and only found one. That was good. "It's almost got my hair right," Luz swallowed, picturing the horrible goo monster they'd fought before, but with her beanie and cropped hair. "I don't enjoy that."

"It gets worse," Willow said, voice soft. "Well. I think it gets worse." She sped up the tape. Luz watched as they left the house. She watched the clock in the corner. Counted the hours, waiting for them to get back to the house.

"Hey," she said finally. "The clock says it's 12:06am. Weren't we back before 11?"

"We were," Willow’s voice was the whisper of dead leaves in fall. She fast forwarded further, picking up…nothing. No movement. It wasn't until the time read six pm the next day that she picked anything up: Gus, Luz and Amity salting the place after their return.

Luz's mouth hung open. " But we were there! Where’s the monster? It didn't pick up the fight! It didn't even pick us up playing pool!"

"I know," Willow looked shaken.

Luz held her hand, trying to think of explanations. "What about audio? We had mics up, didn’t we?"

"We did," Willow agreed. "I hadn’t checked them, because," she hesitated, cutting herself off. She looked smaller than usual, pulling herself inwards.

"We don’t have to keep checking," Luz said quickly. "Wanna go out and clear your head? I only have to watch this place til Eda finishes her lunch and to be honest, she went for lunch like four hours ago. I'm due to make a bad decision!"

"No, it’s fine," Willow steeled herself and swallowed, pulled her laptop out of her messenger bag and opened the lid, revealing her desktop background of Audrey II. They leaned in together, shoulder to shoulder as though propping each other up, eyes on the screen as Willow popped the SD card from the mic pack into the laptop. She imported the raw files into Audacity, scanning over them. Luz wasn’t an expert when it came to audio, but she saw the issue the same time Willow did.

"It’s just a flat line for hours." Luz breathed, amazed.

Willow played the last few minutes of sound before the gap; they heard the sounds of their group talking about going to the Secret Room, plans about getting dinner after. The door shutting. The silence of an empty house. More than silence; negative sound. A void of noise that was so quiet they could hear their blood crashing through their ears like the ocean.

There was a small bump in sound halfway through. Luz calculated that it must have happened around the time they got back from the Secret Door. Willow played it. They heard a noise, the door opening. A distant few thuds. Something whistled like a kettle in a way that sounded oddly organic.

Willow checked the only other spikes of sound input, nearly twenty-four hours after they'd left: the creak of a heavy door opening. Luz’s own voice saying weren’t there gouges here? I'm pretty sure there were demony gouges all over.

They looked at each other. The hair on Luz’s arms had stood up. Willow was biting her bottom lip, looking pale. "Maybe the electronics just didn’t work," Luz suggested, trying to be rational. "Sometimes that happens in houses. The Burner house, we talked about electronics breaking in the basem*nt..."

Willow wasn’t looking at her. She was staring a hole into Eda’s shop counter. "The spirit box," she said softly.

"Huh?"

"Remember? Gus was playing with it. If all of our electronics shorted…"

"That would’ve stopped working too," Luz agreed. She looked down at the keyboard. A tense silence stretched between them, a sensation of cold seeping into their bones despite the warmth and safety of the shop. "Well! I’m creeped out. Should we assemble the rest of the Ghoul Friends to tell them?"

"Gus should be free," Willow agreed, forehead furrowed so deeply she could've kept a pencil in it. "I think Amity has a rugby match today."

"What!" Luz straightened quickly, the cold replaced by worry. "No way! She's injured! What’s she thinking ?"

"She's not going to let being stabbed by a demon stop her, you know that," Willow was pulling back some of her good natured calm as she patted Luz's shoulder, taking deep breaths. "She's the captain. And it's against St. Epiphania's. The entire rugby team's been raring to beat them since they beat us last year."

"Oh yeah," Luz vaguely remembered that. "Amity had a clashing hockey playoff right? And Boscha twisted her ankle running away from the wolfman at the Burner house - why do you giggle every time I mention that?"

"No reason," Willow said, turning her sudden fit of laughter into a cough, marshalling her face to look serious. "But it’s a pretty big game. We should head out there and support."

"Go sport!" Luz agreed enthusiastically, punching the air. "Shoot the hoop!"

"Wrong sport."

"Get that home run?"

"Nope."

"Kick the ball?"

"Close enough," Willow sighed with a smile. "Do you think you'd know any more if you'd actually gotten into the cheerleading squad?"

"Probably not," Luz admitted. "But let's go! Go Hexside Harpies!"

"Banshees," Willow corrected softly, already feeling a little better.

"Why didn't anyone tell me they wore shorts?" Luz asked, leaning on the railing as the two teams filed in. Despite the women's rugby team being the best at Hexside U for years, very few students were queuing up for a Tuesday afternoon rugby match, which meant that the Ghoul Friends had managed to bag front row tickets. "I could've been watching this all through college, but noooo everyone kept the secret of muscly ladies in shorts from me!"

Willow laughed, leaning back in her seat with her soda. "What exactly did you expect them to be wearing?"

"I mean, it's like football, right? And in football they wear pants."

"It's not like football," Willow was shaking her head, a smile on her face.

"Where's their protective gear?" Luz asked. As the whistle blew, Cat managed to take immediate possession of the ball. She was running hard, pelting down the pitch, when someone from the other team launched themselves at her middle, bringing her down on the grass. Another player smashed into this pile, ripping the ball from Cat's grip and running back in the other direction. Luz winced visibly. " Why don't they have any protective gear? "

Amity's uniform came with a number 9 on the back. She seemed to be constantly moving, eyes always on the ball, calling out occasional play names and signalling the others for what looked like attacks, defenses. Whenever she did have the ball, she was a target for the players of the other team; Luz felt a significant amount of worry curling inside her like a tensing spring; she sat on the edge of her seat with her shoulders up to her ears, in full fight or flight with worry. Amity was one of the smaller players on the pitch; it was too easy to imagine her getting into one of the bone crunching tackles the opposition was launching and being super hurt. But at the same time, her level of skill and speed was incredible .

Luz didn't know anything about the sport, except that there was an oval shaped ball, there was more contact than football with less protection, and that Amity was really good at it. She watched, wide eyed, as Amity ran from one side of the pitch to the other, the pale legs under her shorts pumping. "She's so fast," Luz breathed, leaning forward to watch. "All I know about rugby is that everyone wants to do a tackle on her, but she's too fast for them to get her!"

Gus looked up from his book, A Completely Accurate History of Rugby . "Yeah, she's great at this game I absolutely know the rules to and care about the results of. Did you know rugby was invented by the Earl of Rugby as a way to gamble on teenagers after the sport of kid fighting was abolished in 1742?"

"I...don't think that's entirely accurate," Willow said, adjusting her glasses. "But I know enough about Britain to think it could be."

"I always thought you had to have huge muscles to play rugby," Luz continued, not breaking eye contact with the field, leaning almost over the railings. "Amity's so tiny compared to some of the rest of the team. Heck, I can pick her up!"

"Not that you ever think about picking her up," Willow murmured.

"Not once!" Gus agreed. "Her head would be empty, if it weren't filled with platonic thoughts."

"I thought she'd just get beaten up constantly," Luz continued, apparently unable to hear their commentary over her own heart, leaning forward to watch, starry-eyed, as Amity leaped clean over a tackle attempt without looking back and continued up the pitch, yelling orders to the rest of the team, throwing the ball sideways with deadly accuracy. "But she's way too fast for them! She doesn't have to be super tall if she can keep clear of everything!"

Gus leaned over to Willow. "I'm detecting significantly higher levels of gay than usual."

"Wait til she sees one of the hockey matches." Willow murmured back.

"I can't believe she's managed to make the sport work for her like this," Luz continued, still in her own world. On the field, Amity caught a pass and paused to look back for her team, mouth open to shout a play. As her eyes swept the pitch, Luz leaned forward, waving. "Whoo!!! Go Amity ! YEAH!!"

Amity glanced up, making eye contact with them. She froze on the pitch, eyes locked on their faces. Gus and Willow waved. Luz continued to cheer, pumping her arm. The momentary freeze was enough for the other team to catch up. Luz visibly winced as three people dived for her at once and Amity was buried under a pile of bodies with a tackle that came with a visceral crunch . "Oh no! Do you think she's okay?"

"She's in a big pile of muscular women," Gus said, marking his book and closing it as the referee ran over to sort out the tangle of human limbs. "I feel like she's pretty okay with that." Next to him, Willow choked on her soda.

"Yeah, but her injury!" Luz vaulted over the side of the audience box and hit the ground wrong, landing on her hands and knees. Amity made vaulting look so easy! Cursing a little bit, hopping on a stinging knee, she ran to where Amity was.

Boscha had gotten there first, dragging the bodies of other players off of her. Finding Amity in the mess, Boscha grabbed her by the back of the shirt and lifted her like a bag of luggage so that she hung parallel to the ground. Luz could just about hear her berating her, the call of "Goddammit, you are Amity Blight, what are you doing getting all distracted in the middle of a play?" rising over the noise of the spectators booing the visiting team as Boscha stalked away from the referee, her furious human luggage in hand.

A few steps away, Boscha jerked Amity upwards in a smooth motion like a mother cat lifting her sulky kitten, and dropped her onto her feet, continuing to march her to the edge of the field with the back of her shirt scrunched up in her hand. "What the hell were you thinking freezing up like that?"

"It's fine," Amity was muttering, walls up, nose bleeding in a free stream over her mouth and onto the pink shirt of her uniform. "It’s fine. We’re fine." But something in her face softened when she saw Luz barrelling towards her; she didn't move out of the way or try to stop her when Luz got to the end of the pitch and caught her upper arms, checked her over.

"Are you okay?" Luz asked, fear in her eyes. Fear? For me? Amity thought, melting a little bit. Boscha, reading her mind, made a noise like a retch behind her.

"I'm fine," she said, with a small smile, head tilting to one side as she gazed up at Luz's beautiful brown eyes. Luz found a paper tissue in her pocket and was trying to mop up the blood, wiping her face with it.

Boscha elbowed Amity. They made eye contact, messages passing between them like: PLEASE DO NOT BE GETTING SOFT FOR THIS NERD SHE ACTUALLY LITERALLY SUCKS AND SHE CAN’T EVEN DO A PUSH-UP I KNOW BECAUSE I CHALLENGED HER TO A PUSH-UP CONTEST ONCE AND SHE FAILED ON ONE AND I DID A HUNDRED IN THE TIME IT TOOK FOR HER TO RECOVER and I am maybe just a little bit soft for this nerd what are you gonna do about it?

"f*ck my life," Boscha groaned, pressing her hand to her forehead. "I’m taking executive action as vice-captain. Blight, off the pitch. I’m subbing you out."

"You can’t do that," Amity said, turning to Boscha, a cold fury in her face. " I'm the captain. That's mutiny."

- f*cking stop me then.

- You think I won’t stop you?

- Fight me.

- Maybe I will

"Boscha’s right!" Luz said, interrupting their telepathic conversation just as they were both rolling their proverbial sleeves up, starting to circle each other. Proverbial sleeves, as Amity's sleeves were already quite short, and Boscha had ripped the sleeves of her uniform's shirt clean off to show off her magnificent biceps. Amity shot Luz a look of abject betrayal at the taking of Boscha's side. Boscha leaned behind Luz to smirk at Amity. They went back to glaring at each other, sparks flying, Boscha leaning down and Amity craning her neck to look up. "C’mon," Luz said, pulling her in. "Lemme check out your shoulder."

To check out her shoulder, Luz would need to see under her shirt…

Boscha and Amity made the same realisation at the same time, a wide smile stretching the taller girl’s mouth as Amity’s mouth dropped open in horror. Boscha patted her head condescendingly as Amity went several shades of red. "Make better decisions! Blight, you're off! Amelia, you’re on!"

In the changing room, she undid her bra and lifted her shirt up off her back so that Luz could examine the stitches on her shoulder, glad that in this position her shirt could hide her red face. "Still looks good," Luz was saying. Amity felt soft hands touch the spot by her shoulder blade and swallowed. "Nothing's come loose. Mom's real good at her job. Hey did you get sunburned? You’re really red."

"No. I haven’t been sunburned." A beat. "Your mom is really good. Like, in general," Amity said, voice quiet. There was a long silence between them, Luz with her warm, soft hands on her bare skin, her heartbeat in her ears.

"Are you sure you didn’t get sunburned?" Luz asked again. "It feels like you’re getting redder."

"I’m sure ."

Once Luz was certain that her stitches were fine - it did take quite a while for her to check on them, Amity noticed, deciding not to think about that too much - and Amity had pulled her shirt back in place, Luz touched her bare knee, visible from her shorts. "I know your aesthetic is more femme, but you look super cute in sports gear."

Amity laughed, a little too hard, and leaned back on the sparse bench of the team’s changing room. There was nobody else here. That had to be illegal. What kind of team would leave her all alone here with Luz saying her shorts were cute?! A bad team that was what! First Boscha's mutiny, now this. They should’ve called for a break so she didn’t have to be alone with this. She’d have them running extra laps next practise, that was for sure. "I think I’m gonna disappoint your mom. She was impressed I didn’t have any rugby injuries. She wouldn’t be happy that I failed my hot streak by being subbed for injury. Even if it is just a nosebleed."

"Why would she be disappointed?" Luz asked, head tilting. "I think she’d be happy you were okay! And she’d say that you did your best. ‘ That was a very good pass you did earlier, Cariño ’ and stuff."

Luz’s accurate impression of Camila’s voice made something in her melt, and she smiled down at her cleats, rubbing the last vestiges of caked blood from her upper lip. "Really?"

"Uh huh," they were sitting facing different directions, with their legs on opposite sides of the bench, shoulder to shoulder. Luz closed the distance by hugging her. Amity didn’t exactly hug her back, but did raise her slightly bloodied hand to touch Luz’s forearm. "I thought you were amazing! You did a good job!"

She hadn’t, Amity thought. She'd wrecked her perfect streak with that tackle. But it was nice to hear the lie. She got up as the whistle outside blew for half-time. "I might go warm down." She threw Luz a look, not wanting to worry her more. "I’m fine! I just...if I’m subbed out for the game, maybe we could hang out? Or something."

"Yeah!" Luz pumped her arm. "Willow and Gus are here too! We can all hang out!"

"Oh. Yeah," Amity looked a little less enthused, but Luz didn’t notice as she helped her up.

On the ground outside the sports field Amity sat down and leaned over her legs, stretching out to touch her toes. "Wow," Luz said, sitting next to her. "I can only reach, like, my shin when I try that."

Amity shifted to touch the toes of her other foot, looking up. "I can touch them from standing too."

"Man, you're flexible." Luz tried the same and groaned when she only managed to touch mid-shin. Gus tried too, and only managed when Willow pushed down on the small of his back for him. "Can you do tricks and flips too?"

"Can you?" Amity asked, smoothly sitting back up.

"I can do the splits. Once. Then I need help getting up."

To her surprise, Amity laughed a little. "I can do the splits," she confirmed. "But I don't usually." She moved into a low runner's stretch, one leg back behind her, knee up. Luz watched her, starry eyed, as she switched legs.

"Can you show me how to be that flexible?"

"It...takes a few years," she told her. "Start with stretches."

"Did the dancing help?"

"How do you know about that?"

"Willow told me."

"Of course," Amity sighed, looking over at Willow who smiled with the innocence of a baby, a puppy, or some other adorable being that had no idea why Amity might be annoyed about her crush finding out secret embarrassing details about her life. "Yes, it did."

"I bet you were good at it," Luz said, picturing her. She was so graceful. She must've been a beautiful ballerina. "You should show me sometime! If you're comfortable."

"I won’t be," she laughed softly. "I hated it. Dancing wasn’t fun for me."

Luz tried to follow her stretch and nearly pretzeled herself, getting tangled in her own gangly limbs; Amity helped her back into more of a people shape. "It can be fun with friends! Skara’s concert is tonight. Why not come with us? Gus always gets us to dance."

"Yeah, it’ll be awesome!" Gus agreed. "You gotta!"

Amity opened and shut her mouth, unsure of whether or not she wanted to say no . Above her, a shadow fell over them. A familiar voice. "You better be there." She looked upwards, spotting Boscha, who hinged forwards at the waist to glare down at her. She stuck her tongue out and Boscha matched the gesture by sticking her own out. "What, is this the new team you’re hanging out with?"

"She’s training us to take you on," Gus told her, making a heart gesture with his hands. "We’re gonna win the cup!"

"Have you ever even once done a single exercise?" Boscha asked him, raising an eyebrow.

"In workbooks, yeah!"

"I don’t go to places I’ve been ordered to go," Amity said, eyes narrowed up at Boscha.

Boscha was narrowing her eyes. "Alright," she said finally. "How bout this: let’s play for it. The rugby team’s all tired from playing, but I bet we can still win anything against your nerd pals. You guys name the challenge. If I win, you gotta go to Skara’s concert tonight."

"If we win no more mutinies on the pitch!" Luz said, pumping both arms now. "Be nice to your captain!"

Well. That sounded alright. Amity nodded, throwing Luz a grateful look. This could be winnable. Maybe some sort of eSports? Or a quiz?

"Name the challenge," Boscha said, folding her arms.

Before Amity could speak, Gus was already yelling, " Push-ups! 3 versus 3! "

"Can you do push-ups?" Amity asked him, doubtfully. Boscha was already waving Amelia and Cat over.

Gus grinned, winking at her. Amity felt her stomach drop as Boscha threw her a timer. "Nerds versus jocks!" Boscha was saying, already dropping to the floor. "Most push-ups in a minute! Let’s go!"

It did not go well.

"Just one push-up," Amity said, crouched by her three idiot baby nerds, elbows on her knees, head tilted in her cupped hands as she eyed them with something like pain in her eyes. "Just one push-up." Luz had managed to get into a plank position. She tried to lower herself to the ground and ended up face planting in the dirt, arms collapsing underneath her. Gus wasn't doing any better, trying to balance on his knees, flailing. Willow had, at this point, cranked out multiple sets of ten without stopping. She paused, mid-plank, to take a sip of water, laughing at the other two. Amity watched the timer count down as Luz tried to push herself back up and groaned.

"And that’s seventy from me," Boscha said, finishing with a clapping push-up as the timer buzzed. "What number are the Ghoul Fools up to?"

"I managed a hundred," Willow said lightly.

Boscha opened and shut her mouth, eyes narrowing. She mouthed one hundred , brain not computing initially at being beaten by Willow Park . "Okay but, like, it’s cumulative, so!"

Luz finally managed to push her torso back off of the ground. "One hundred and one! " She gasped with the air of a marathon runner finally reaching their finish line after hours on the track.

"Out of time," Amity said, putting her hand on Luz’s back and pushing. Luz’s arms collapsed again and she hit the ground face-first with a whumph . "One hundred."

"I managed sixty," Amelia said with a grin. "And Cat got, like, fifty-five."

"I’ll see you nerds at Skara’s concert," Boscha said, arms up in the air triumphantly.

"We were gonna go anyway," Gus said, from the ground, as Boscha walked off, her varsity jacket flung over her shoulder.

"Did you throw that?" Amity asked him, eyes narrowed.

Gus gave her a look of pure puppy-dog innocence. "What! Ensure you come with us and have fun by choosing something I know we can’t do? Never ." Amity was giving him a look that would’ve killed a weaker willed man, and he backtracked. "Anyway! I know Willow does a few hundred every day anyway, it was 50-50 on her beating them by herself!"

"I managed one," Luz said, voice muffled by dirt. She held up a single finger. "One! That’s better than last time!"

"I am going," Amity said, rolling Luz over, "to make you do so many star jumps."

Luz groaned as she sat up, spitting out grass. Spotting a rugby ball peeking out of Amity’s bag she grabbed it to examine it. "How come you guys are so good at push-ups? I didn’t see anyone doing push-ups on the field. Just running and kicking and trying to kill each other."

"Body strength is important for most sports." Amity held her hand out for the ball, standing up. "Speed, strength, agility, knowing what your body can do and eye-to-hand coordination are all vital for rugby. We train with a few body weight-based exercises. Including push-ups."

Luz stood up with her and held out one of her hands. "Toss it to me!"

"You don’t catch like that," Amity told her, a little smile escaping her. "Catch it with both hands on either side of it. And we don’t pass the ball forwards. Try more side-on." She swung her arms from hip level. Luz caught it awkwardly, both arms wrapping around it.

"Nice! I caught it!" Luz held it one handed, as she would a football, and said, "Okay, so how do I...throw it?"

Amity moved behind her, adjusting her arms, resting her chin on her shoulder so that she could see over it. "Move your grip. That thumb over the seam. Move your arms down to about hip level. Right hand a bit more forward, lighter than your left." She stepped back and Luz missed her warmth. Amity held up her hands. "Okay, you'll throw as you swing your arms round. Don’t over rotate your shoulders. Twist your left hand a little bit as you do." She made the movement with her hands and wrists. "Like that. Aim for my chest."

Luz tried this, focusing hard on spinning it. She over-rotated and released the ball a little too high up; the ball went high but not far, landing a few feet away from her, rolling. Amity laughed. "You...can't throw, can you?"

"I got weak nerd arms," Luz admitted with a sigh.

"We'll work on it." Amity picked up the ball. "I'm going to pass to you. Get ready to catch."

"I'm ready!" Luz held up her hands, ready to go. Amity took a few steps away from her, sideways, and then threw. The ball sailed through the air in a perfect arc, hitting Luz square in the diaphragm. "Ooooooff," she said, but the ball bounced off her and into her waiting hands.

"Luz, are you okay?"

"I'm good!" She croaked, holding up the ball above her head. She forced breath into her lungs and grinned. "Okay! I got it!" She gave Amity a little wink. "You think you can get it off me?"

"Are you sure you want me to do that?"

Luz held the ball above her head where she couldn’t reach. "I bet I can keep it away from you," she said with all of the misplaced confidence in her body. Willow placed a hand over her face. "Think you can take it?" Amity shrugged, taking a step back. Luz thought for a moment that she was going to wave her off. Instead she slammed into her at unsettling speed, knocking Luz off her feet. "Oof! Down I go!"

Amity landed on top of her and reached up, plucking the ball from Luz's hands. "Look at that. I got it off you."

Luz only managed to smile goofily in response. It was hard to focus when every bit of her brain was dedicated to pointing out that there was a pretty girl on top of her. A memory was coming to the surface of her brain, making ripples. The first time they’d met, before they’d known each other's names. Seven years ago, she’d been slammed to the ground by an absolutely furious Amity Blight. She could still feel the pointy knees lodged into her chest, a sense memory triggered by the pressure on her torso. She giggled, a little drunkenly.

If Amity remembered that , she gave no sign that she did. Amity patted her cheek (making Luz giggle again) and stood up. "I didn't hurt you, did I?"

"Nope," Luz went to stand and felt her jeans stick uncomfortably to her knee. "Oh, whoops."

"Luz?" All hints of teasing and confidence left Amity's face in favour of pale worry. She crouched down to check, finding a bleeding graze on Luz’s knee through one of the holes in her jeans, her warm hands on her calf, her thigh. "When did you start bleeding?"

"Maybe when I jumped onto the pitch?" Luz gazed at Amity, bowled over by how soft she looked when she was worried. "That's okay. I'll go to the student health center and pick up some band-aids."

"Let me help," Amity said and Luz felt her scoop her, an arm under her knees, one by her back.

"Oh wow! You are very strong! Like...wow." Luz wrapped both arms around her, trying to force her heart back to normal. "Wow! Very strong."

"Do you think they remember we're still here?" Gus asked, off-handedly.

"Let's go get some boba," Willow said, a conciliatory hand on his shoulder.

"Should we have done something?" Gus asked as they hung around outside The Secret Door later that night, waiting for admittance. "Maybe bring Skara cookies or bake her a cake to celebrate her new band? Tres leches?"

"En esta economía?" Luz played with her phone, trying not to look around too much. "She’s pretty content with just having people turn up I think."

"Ha-ha," Gus was checking his appearance in the selfie portion of his camera, rubbing his chin as he tried to decide between a fully buttoned up shirt or a partially buttoned up shirt. "Do I look punk pop enough?"

"Nah," Luz leaned against him. She was still in her olive jacket, beanie jauntily on her head, a few strands of brown hair curling over her forehead. She’d pulled on new jeans since her fall that morning, band-aid visible through the worn out knees. Camila had insisted she take a hoodie too; she’d grabbed her old purple and white one. It was hiding a purple shirt that had once been merch for Eda’s long disbanded punk band. Gus was in a white, creased, button-up shirt and cargo shorts. "You do look adorable, though."

"I always look adorable." He checked his painted nails. "Look! Glow-in-the-dark paint!"

"Oh damn ," Luz took his hands, making appreciative noises. "Hang on, are these skulls ?"

"Yes! Look upon my beautiful skull nail polish with awe!"

"Sorry we’re late," Willow called, interrupting their nail polish talk. She and Amity were coming to meet them. Willow looked adorable, as she tended to, a neat leather jacket and a sensible sweater, comfortable jeans, her best pair of glasses. Amity was following her, immaculate make-up, black nail polish, a black dress. Luz felt her heart beat out of time and then the very significant splinter of guilt about Emira and Viney. Best to leave all the Blight ladies alone , she thought, looking at her feet as a blush rose to her cheeks. "We were doing each other’s nails." She showed her own off, covered in sparkling moons and stars.

"Snap!" Gus showed his own hands. " I spent too much time on nail polish too!"

As Willow and Gus compared hands, Luz stared at her feet, trying not to pick up on the fact that Amity had come to stand next to her. "Are you okay?" Amity asked her, and their knuckles touched. "You’re being super quiet."

"I’m," Luz offered her a smile, brain busy rolling over, competing thoughts slamming into each other. Edric over a milkshake, Viney, how very gold Amity’s eyes were. Lipochrome, Willow had said. "I’m, um."

Amity nudged her, said low so that Willow and Gus wouldn’t hear, "Are you scared to see your ex?"

"Um," Luz said with surprise, because she’d actually forgotten about that completely. Amity squeezed her hand and her entire stomach flipped.

"It’s alright," Amity said, comforting. "We’re here too."

It would be a lot to explain, to say, well yeah I know I avoid her and I act weird but I’m not scared I was gonna just be totally brave and stand in the back and slip out before the end so I can support but also not be weird but also support, did I mention I am well adjusted and totally over everything? But Amity was giving her a small, secret smile and that made her head so empty someone could’ve driven a train through it. She smiled back, squeezed Amity’s hand too.

Gus reached for her other hand, held Willow’s too, and said, "Okay! Let’s check this out."

There were a lot of people in the audience for such a small venue; all of the furniture in The Secret Room had had to be moved to the facilities room. Luz ducked her head when she saw Viney leaning against the bar, looking anywhere but there, desperate to not make eye contact. Her gaze fell on the stage, spotting Boscha, her height making her clearly visible even from the back of the room. She was leaning against the stage and facing the audience with a look of smugness; she'd managed to cajole and threaten a lot of tonight's crowd into coming. Her sleeveless turtleneck and leather jacket just added to her intimidating aura.

"How is she able to look so effortlessly cool?" Gus asked. "I spent an hour just on my hair!"

"It’s fine," Willow said serenely. "Nobody with a 4.0 in Chemistry is really cool."

"She’s maybe a little more scary than cool," Gus admitted. "Remember that time she told Luz she had some cool Azura merch in one of the school basem*nts and then locked her in there?"

"How could I forget?" Luz asked, delighted. "I never thought I’d be able to yell for the love of God Montresor! out loud and in context!"

"The fact that she answered ‘Yes, for the love of God’ should’ve been a dead giveaway about her levels of secret nerd," Willow pointed out. Amity mouthed what , eyes falling on Boscha. She tried to make eye contact, but all around them conversations were dying and Boscha was turning as Skara stepped out on stage. The crowd clapped and cheered, and Skara lit up like a doll wrapped in fairy lights. She was wearing Boscha’s varsity rugby jacket, yellow giraffe print converses, and jean shorts.

"You’re not ready for this!" Skara shouted and the crowd roared as the band behind her skated into the opening guitar riff for Black Sheep , Skara taking lead guitar.

"She's not bad," Amity said, sounding impressed.

Gus bounced up and down beside her. "Not bad? She’s amazing!"

Skara played a mixture of covers and original music, fingers moving over the guitar like it was the easiest thing in the world, switching with the other band members to play keyboard and drums on different songs. Skara was, Amity had to admit, incredibly talented. She never forgot the words to a song, never lost the rhythm, was always moving but never out of breath. The audience jumped with her when she sang upbeat, and Amity saw tears in the eyes of some as she went low into a song of deep sadness in what sounded like French.

"That one's about the time she dropped the last croissant," Luz told her, sotto voce. Amity laughed softly. Skara was finishing, moving into the next song, and Luz brightened. "That sounds like Wachito Rico! Hey, I showed her this one!'

Gus had taken Willow's hands and was playfully pulling them to the beat, a friendly dance. There were other people here, bouncing around the room with each other. Gus twirled Willow and they both laughed, swinging their arms. That looked nice. Amity knocked her hand into Luz's. "Would you like to dance?" She asked softly, afraid of the answer.

"Yeah!" Luz took her hand, and Amity placed a hand on her waist, the way she’d been taught to do when leading a ballroom dance. Luz laughed at the formality, but recognised it , placing her hand on Amity’s shoulder. When had she learned how to dance? Amity wanted to ask her but instead felt lost for words as they moved together. It was alright to be lost for words, she thought. It didn’t feel as though she had to speak. Luz’s eyes were on hers, and it was amazing how safe she felt with her, how much she trusted her innately as she matched her, step for step. There was none of the nervousness, the fear of missing steps, the rote memorising movements that she’d hated when she’d taken dance classes. It was just... fun , easy. Safe. No fear of messing up. She laughed as Luz switched the lead-and-follow, spinning her in her arms, lifting her up.

"Your weak nerd arms come and go very conveniently," she leaned in to whisper in Luz’s ear, swaying with her.

"I have a real motivation to pick you up," Luz whispered back, and Amity laughed against her, cheek to cheek, chin on her shoulder. She thought about kissing her then, and then laughed instead as Luz picked her all the way up, scooping her, spinning around with her in her arms. They were both giggling, forehead to forehead.

"Oh, they’ve definitely forgotten about us again," Gus said, spinning Willow. Willow grabbed his arms and pulled him further onto the dance floor, giving them space.

"Isn’t it better than skulking in the corner?" She asked him, leaving space between them and Amity and Luz.

"I guess!" Gus was trying and failing to move to the beat, and Willow was failing even harder; they were both turning into giggling messes as they fell together, arms tugging. "Can I tell you something?"

"Of course."

"I'm so glad we're buddies."

Willow laughed and hugged him. Up on stage, Skara was starting to close out. Behind them, Amity was dipping Luz who looked delighted. The music was changing again from poppy to a deeper guitar, the drummer jangling the cymbal over and over.

" I fell asleep in the front seat, " Skara was singing. " I never sleep in the front seat, I'm too tall… " she was pointing into the crowd at Boscha.

"Oh," said Luz. "I guess this is the ending song. She always sings to her girlfriend at the end of her concerts."

"That explains why she's singing about being tall." Amity said. She wasn't ready to stop dancing; she kept one hand on Luz's waist, the other hand interlaced with Luz's hand. "What was her song for you?"

"Sunflower by Post Malone. She knew every word!"

"I’m...not sure that’s a compliment," Willow said, mentally going over the lyrics.

"I still think she made some up," Gus said, sliding back. "Why would anyone rhyme cruise with lose?"

Luz reflexively rubbed his hair. "We should probably wish 'em well," she said. Beside her, Amity kept her arm around her waist, looking away when Willow tried to make amused eye contact with her.

The queue for the merch booth was long when they joined it. "It's gonna be a shame getting rid of my old stuff," Gus sighed. "Maybe I can just take the shirt I already have and fabric paint her new band's name on it?"

"Could do," Willow agreed. "I wonder if she got permission from our school to release varsity jackets that look like ours?"

"Probably not," Luz said with a grin.

Despite the line, it was only a few minutes before they were close to the front. Boscha had been keeping people moving. There was a man holding things up up front, leaning over the booth's wooden table and looming over Skara's small figure behind it.

"Hey," said the man, who looked like he was more pomade than person, "I just wanted to say that I thought you were pretty electric out there. How long have you been playing music?" He winked. "Cuz I bet we could collaborate on an amazing duet, if you know what I mean ."

Boscha had been glaring at this interaction from the bar where she'd gone to pick up a drink for her girl. She strode back over and slammed the glass of foaming beer to the table and grabbed Skara. The kiss she planted on her was possessive and wet, tongue visible from where they were. "Gross," said Gus, cheerfully.

"Um," said the dude. Boscha continued kissing Skara. "I mean," said the dude. Boscha waved him away without even looking, hand flapping.

Luz expected to feel something. Amity had moved her hand protectively to the small of her back at the kiss, but Luz found she didn't mind what was happening over there. Something in her was feeling all warm and settled and happy, leaving no room for jealousy. She smiled at Amity, who smiled back, her prim, pointy face made soft under the lighting of the room, her golden eyes a mug of hot tea with honey.

What a good friend , Luz thought.

She's so beautiful when she smiles , Amity thought.

"It's probably climate change," Gus said, also trying to distract Luz. "But I do not like being in California and feeling cold!"

"It's nighttime, and it's October," Willow laughed softly, taking off her sweater to give to him. It stopped short when he put it on, turning into a crop top. "Of course it's going to be chilly."

Amity was also looking cold, now that Luz noticed. "Hey, Ams. Jacket or hoodie?"

"What?"

"Do you like my jacket or my hoodie more?"

"Hoodie, I guess."

Luz pulled her jacket off and peeled off her hoodie, handing it to Amity. "Here. You look cold."

"Luz…" but Luz was smiling at her warmly, and she couldn't say no. So instead she smiled and pulled it on. It was warm and smelled like her, a wearable hug. She slid her arm back around Luz, feeling light, heart bobbing in a sea of pure joy.

At the front of the line, Skara greeted them all with hugs over the table of the merch booth, before handing Gus a replacement shirt. "This'll stop you from painting over the vintage Critical Hits shirt you already have!" She told him, voice cheerful.

"It scares me that you know me well enough to know I was gonna go straight back home and do that," Gus hugged it close.

"I thought it was a really great show," Luz said, and found that she did think that. She did not feel awkward. All she felt was a warmth from Amity's arm on her waist. "You did super good! I can't wait til you're releasing LPs and going multiplatinum!"

"I'll never sell out!" Skara grinned. "That’s a lie. I’ve invited so many A&R people to these gigs." She offered Luz a shirt too. Luz took it, and smiled back. It felt like something had healed in her heart, something that had been nagging was soothed. A jagged edge sewn shut. "Amity, you want a shirt too? It's $25 for one, but just $49.98 for two!"

"What a price break," Amity said, monotone, but handed over some money. Willow did the same thing.

"Okay! $25 each!"

"I thought it was $49.98?" Amity asked, suspicious.

"It's $49.98 if you buy it on one transaction," Skara said with a wide smile. "You guys made separate transactions!"

"My baby's so smart," Boscha was grinning at Skara like she'd just won the Nobel prize. "Hey Amity. I posted some of our push-up match to Instagram. You get a chance to watch it yet?"

"Push-up contest? This I gotta see," Skara was already opening her phone and scrolling. She frowned. "Boscha, why haven't you changed your bio yet?"

"Why should I?"

"Because it says '6'1, professional himbo' and every word of that is a lie."

"I could be a himbo."

"Himbos are strong, dumb, and nice," Skara pointed out. "You're smart, and mean."

"But strong, right?" Boscha flexed her bicep and Skara squeezed it and giggled.

"They seem pretty happy," Gus said as they walked away, Boscha still posing for Skara who was trying to pay attention to the rest of the queue. Matholomule had been in line behind them. He leaned against the booth table and said, "I'm here from Hexside's student news. I gotta say, that one song you have, the one in French? That was a good one."

"I'm bored," Boscha said.

"Thanks!" Skara said brightly. "It's about dropping the last croissant!"

Mattholomule had removed his notepad and a pen. "Which is a metaphor for…?"

"I'm really bored," Boscha said again.

"Oh, it's no metaphor!"

"So are all of your songs pretty straightforward or…"

"Yep, I'm done," Boscha picked Skara up, tossing her over her shoulders in a fireman's carry. "Get comfy, sunflower. We're going home."

"My songwriting process is documented on my website! You can send me an email through the form on the contact me page and we'll have an interview!" Skara was saying, voice disappearing as Boscha walked off with her on her shoulders, a big grin on her face.

Luz looked away from that just in time to spot a familiar non-Amity Blight at the bar. Viney was cleaning up glasses, but she looked up with an easy smile as Emira leaned over and said something. They greeted each other with an easy peck on the mouth and Luz elbowed Amity, sliding her hand into hers. "Emira and Viney!" she hissed.

"What?" Amity blinked at her, then looked to where she was pointing just in time to see Viney catch Emira's cheek in her hand and tip her head down to kiss her again.

"They're back together!" Luz breathed a long sigh of deepest relief. "Oh hell yeah! I'm not a homewrecker!"

Amity's eyes slid from Emira and Viney to Luz. "Back together?" She asked first. And then, " Homewrecker? "

"Oh yeah," Luz's smile came easy now as she relaxed, a wide grin. "Edric told me they broke up over me!"

"I didn't know they were together to begin with," Amity said, her voice very careful. "What happened?"

"Really? Ed said you’d be torn up over it!"

"What happened?" Amity asked again, something dangerous in her voice.

"Oh, Ed asked for me to take him on a date," Luz said, everything coming out now in a rush as relief flooded her. "But it wasn't a real date! He wanted to vet me! He was like my sister's got a crush on you and I was like oh no! because Emira already had a girlfriend and he was like oh she's not in a relationship and then I was like oh no!!! even harder because that meant I'd broken them up! And I--" Luz paused. Amity's face had begun to go through a series of odd gymnastics and colour changes, from pale white to something close to scarlet, her frown almost too big for her face to hold.

"Are you okay?" Gus asked, warily.

"Let go of my hand," Amity told Luz, voice uncharacteristically cold.

Luz dropped it and Amity turned on her heel, marching towards the doors of the bar. "Amity!" She called after her, but Amity didn't seem to register her voice, already striding away.

Willow had taken them for fries, trying to convince Luz that whatever had happened, Amity probably just needed a few hours to herself to figure it out. But even with Gus rubbing her back and Willow's sensible advice, Luz couldn't stop the buzzing of worry bees in her brain. She couldn't focus on what they were saying, only on the rustling nag of worry in her chest, the pit in her stomach. Finally, Willow had agreed to drop her off near the manor. "I'll just Uber home," Luz told her.

"Alright," Willow said. "If you need anything, call me, okay?"

"Okay," Luz said, and she'd kissed her on the cheek before proceeding. The driveway was filled with shadows and Luz kept her head on a swivel, trying to keep an eye on the number of shadows she had.

When Luz managed to shoulder the heavy door to Blight Manor open - it was closed, but not locked - the darkness of the empty halls was oppressive. She held her breath against the cloying smell of cotton, listening for signs of Amity. The house didn't sound empty; if she listened very carefully, she could hear a faint but regular clicking sound, like a switch being set off and on.

It was coming from the basem*nt. She called out, "Amity?" A question that received no answer as she stumbled through the darkness like it was a solid object.

When she opened the door to the basem*nt, the clicking grew more audible. She came down the stairs, wincing at the creaks, and again called out, "Amity?"

She'd looked at the basem*nt before, but only the once. Now she saw that it had its own hidden room; a door made from cloth or paper. Every now and again it would light up with the click , revealing a small figure inside, someone sitting with their knees drawn up to their chest.

Luz pulled it open and ducked her head to look inside. This room was wide, unfinished. It smelled of damp wood, of mould. Amity was sitting in a far corner, folded up on herself, clicking a flashlight off and on and off again. Luz took a hesitant step in.

"You shouldn't come any closer." Amity said, without looking up.

"I'm sorry," Luz said, feeling her eyebrows knit together, her brow furrowed. "What's up? How can I help?"

"How can you help--?" Amity rubbed a hand over her face. "You went on a date with my brother -"

"And I broke up your sister and Viney," Luz said, fretfully.

"Which is ridiculous ," Somehow this only seemed to be making her angrier. "And don't come any closer!"

Luz hesitated mid-step. "I'm sorry! I really didn't mean to."

"What am I to you?" Amity asked her, her voice cold. "Just a way to complete the set?" Luz took a step towards her. " Don't come any closer!"

"Sorry," Luz said again, but found herself struggling to understand. Why wasn't Amity mad about Emira and Viney? "We're friends! I promise! I don't know what--? Are you mad that I-- your sister and me and your brother and me--"

Amity was glaring at her, which was pretty intense. It was giving Luz more flashbacks to their first meeting. It hadn't even been her first day; Eda had brought her there on a school visit, back when they were still deciding where she should go to school after she and Camila moved in. It'd been science fair day, and Luz had split off from Eda who was following the principal when she'd spotted a girl her own age, standing over a ruined project and trying not to cry. That had been Willow. That had been how they'd met. They'd brainstormed over how to quickly put together a project for her to submit to the science fair and settled on a demonstration of gravity; Willow would use a pulley to hoist her into the air and they'd demonstrate the effects of gravity on a human being.

Of course, things had gone wrong pretty quick. When it had been their turn, Willow had pulled her up a little too sharply and Luz's entire body had swung into the tables holding up the project next to Willow's; an electromagnetic robot that smashed into pieces when Luz's foot caught it and sent it flying in a neat arc across the room.

Luz's experience with the top students at her middle school or the month or so she'd gone to high school back home, had been that they were quiet and studious, sort of mousey. Amity Blight, who's project Luz had effectively destroyed before it could be marked, had not been mousey. In fact, she had quickly become inconsolable with rage. Luz had no idea how what had happened next had happened, how she'd gone from six foot in the air to the floor of her new school's gym with Amity's sharp knees digging into her stomach, a terrifyingly feral expression on her face as she panted with the effort of having ripped her down from the ropes, both fists in Luz's shirt. Willow trying to pull her off of her, Boscha in the background yelling encouragement. Come to think of it, that had been where she'd first met the twins too, wasn't it? Two smartly dressed, equally breathtaking upperclassmen who'd wrestled Amity off of her and frog marched her away while laughing.

Luz wondered if Amity even remembered that they'd first come face to face when Amity had had both hands wrapped up in her shirt, incandescent with fury. Probably not. When did Amity think their first meeting had been?

"Why are you smiling?" Amity asked her, eyes narrowed.

"Remember the 9th grade science fair? You got real mad at me then, too."

"What? Why would I--" Luz saw the click as the memory slid into place and covered her mouth with a hand to hide her fond smile. " You ! You're the one who smashed my robot! I worked for months on it and--" Amity shook her head hard. "Stop trying to distract me!"

"I'm really sorry about going on a date with your brother and breaking up your sister and her girlfriend," Luz offered again, taking another step forward, hands reaching out. "You really are my buddy. I really do care about you. We're friends, right? I care about you a lot."

Amity's face went through a number of strange transformations again. She had begun still glaring, but glaring up at the ceiling, mouth rounding out Edric's name. Then she'd gone very red, and very pale - dangerously pale, Luz would say, like someone who was turning to ice. And by the end she sat, watching Luz's approach, head tilted and golden eyes intent as she examined her. Luz took another step forward, hopeful at this softening from red hot fury to something else.

"Don't-" Amity started, but Luz was already putting her weight down; the wood beneath her foot crumbled.

Luz fell forward, tumbling, reaching to grab the far edge of the floor, fingers scrambling as she fell into a void, letting out a very loud " WAUGH! " as she did.

She fell flailing, no time to adjust her fall; her foot felt the cold impact of icy water first, and suddenly she was under the surface of deep water, tasting chlorine and horrible blood-warm water. Eyes closed, she scramble-swam upwards, breaking the surface in a confused mess of limbs, breathing in damp air and more water, coughing and choking.

From a floor above her, Amity called, "Can you swim?" Her voice echoed through, bouncing strangely off the water.

"Uh huh!"

"Good." The light of the flashlight illuminated what she could see under wet hair, the burn of chlorine when she tried to open her eyes. "Now I can say I told you not to come closer! The floor here is unfinished! You can only walk on certain parts!"

"I can't wait to tell Gus I found the secret pool," Luz said, wetly. She coughed and splashed now that she was oriented, treading water. "Are you gonna...help me out?"

The flashlight moved off of her face, pointed at the edge of the pool. "Ladder’s over there."

By the time Luz managed to pull herself out of the secret pool and squelch miserably up the stairs to the main house (coming up through yet another secret door in the basem*nt because how could a family of five even live without a hundred different secret rooms? ) Amity was trying to plan her revenge. Her brain was still stuttering over how satisfying it would be to confront Edric in person and kick his ass up and down the halls of Blight Industries, leaving her deeply preoccupied. She wasn’t as good as the twins were in terms of long-term planning, a lack of devious imagination making it harder for her. She was far more direct.

She did, at least, despite the distraction of her churning fury, throw Luz a towel and direct her to the guest bathroom. She even let her borrow a new shirt and shorts, was magnanimous enough to let her throw her wet clothes into the washing machine.

What Luz had had in her pockets were unfortunate casualties of her fall. Luz used the guest bathroom's hairdryer on her phone and her wallet before using it on herself; she was just about able to send the message 'phone broke :(' to her mom before her phone shut itself off completely. Which meant: no uber back, no calling Willow. She sighed, putting it on a radiator in the hopes that something would dry enough to let her turn it on later.

Leaning, hair still damp, against the door jamb of the reception room, she was not surprised to see a carton of salt and a set of bedding set neatly on the couch. Okay. At least she didn’t have to worry about getting home til her clothes were dry tomorrow. Hearing a creak from a floor up, she cupped her mouth with her hands and called, "Hey! Amity! We're still friends, right?"

There was no reply. The creaking fell silent.

Oh.

Well.

Okay.

Miserable, Luz made a pile of the bedding on the floor to curl up in, and circled it with salt. Buried in her nest of bedding, she looked up at the ceiling, to where Amity was, somewhere several floors above her, and felt a sigh heave its way out of her chest. She fell asleep with her arms under her pillow, still wondering how she could put things right.

She slept badly, brain too alert, and woke a few hours later primarily because the sound of light footsteps outside her room had sent everything in her brain into sirens blazing, adrenaline pumping, emergency mode. It was late, the house dark. Every shadow in the room seemed to pulse with the potential for danger, Luz's heart thudding in her chest. She closed her eyes, listening hard. The footsteps were too light to be the monster, she was pretty sure. They were pacing up and down the corridor, like someone was struggling to decide something important.

The footsteps paused outside her door again. She heard the way the handle creaked slightly, as though being turned, but the person on the other side seemed to think the better of it, and stopped. Luz lay very still and the footsteps receded back up the hall.

Luz pulled herself out of the makeshift nest. She leaned out of the doorway and softly called, "hey?"

The figure who'd been turning a corner paused, looked back. In the darkness of the old house, Amity looked a little like a ghost herself; white faced, remorseful.

"What's up?" Luz asked.

"I'm getting sick of secrets," she said.

"I'm not a huge fan of them either," Luz smiled at her softly.

"And I'm angry."

"I did kinda notice that, yeah."

"And because I’m angry, I want to…" she was struggling for the words, thinking hard. "I want to do something the twins would never do. Something that would horrify them. Or annoy them. Or make them excited? I was hoping to horrify. I wasn't sure if you were awake. If you'd want to join me."

"Yeah?" Luz took a step forward. Cautiously this time, toes feeling for any fragility in the ground beneath her feet. "What're you going to do?"

I'm going to," there were thoughts chasing themselves through Amity’s brain, all of her plans half formed.. "I think I'm going to open one of the sealed rooms. I think I'm going to open their room. My mom and dad's."

"What?" Luz blinked openly. "But, wait, the Will-?"

"Didn't you say it?" Amity's raised eyebrow was visible, even in the low light. Maybe it wasn’t visible. Maybe, Luz thought, she just knew Amity well enough to know her eyebrow was raised. "The Will was designed as a control mechanism?"

"Yeah, but…" you were mad when I said that. Luz bit her lip. "Lemme at least get-- candles and salt! Candles so we can see even if the electricity goes again! Salt! Lemme get those! Then I'll come help!" She didn't wait for an answer, turning to dash towards the kitchen, bare feet slapping on the floor, occasionally hopping as her feet touched cold tile. She found more salt, some candles in a drawer. A matchbook. Essentials , she decided, as she ran back up the stairs.

Amity might have known the place well enough to navigate with the lights off, but Luz crashed into the sides of walls, tripped over decorative vases, and, at least once, went clean over when she missed a step down into a room. With pain in her scraped knees, swearing, still forgetting she could turn any lights on, she sprinted to where she thought she knew Amity would be; despite the obstacle course, it felt straight forward getting there. It was as though the house had delayed her, but only enough to make sure she didn't stop what was happening.

When she reached her, Amity was on her knees in front of the open door of her parent's bedroom, staring inside. Luz dropped to slide on her knees once she was close enough, and put both of her hands on her shoulders. "I'm here," she whispered.

Amity pointed without speaking as Luz struggled to light a candle (oh what she was reduced to without her phone's flashlight). It was, Luz thought as her eyes adjusted, mostly a normal bedroom. A large four-poster bed in the center of the room, a vanity with a huge mirror. Photos, Luz noticed, feeling her stomach twist. The photos she'd have expected to be on the walls downstairs, photos of Ed and Em and Amity, they were displayed here, framed ornately, staged photos from professional studios. A wardrobe made from some dark material.

But something was wrong with this picture. Luz spotted it after a moment; the room was too small. She leaned forward and saw what Amity had. There was a wall here, cutting through the room, making it appear artificially small. A long thin strip cut off from the rest of the room, an open door showing the inside of this bonus room. They could see within it floor to ceiling mirrors, giving them a reflected view of the rest of the room: empty, but for a tarnished bronze cauldron. The only lights would've come from a set of torches in sconces on the wall.

Torches? Sconces?!

"What the f*ck," Luz managed to whisper, eyes wide.

Amity said nothing, but reached up to hold her hand. Luz, sitting behind her, pulled her between her legs, holding her close, both arms wrapped around her as though scared this was a dream and she'd vanish. "My phone's boned," she said, very softly, as though afraid she'd disturb something out here if she spoke too loudly. "Do you have Eda's number?"

"I don't."

"Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool." She squeezed her tightly, pressing her forehead against Amity's shoulder as panic began to creep up. "Cool. Cool cool cool cool cool."

Amity pulled the door to the bedroom shut. They sat very still together, the candle sending flickering shadows up the walls of the corridor. Luz was too afraid to count them.

Chapter 9: Interlude: Camila and Eda

Chapter Text

Eighteen years ago.

When her texts had gone unanswered for a few hours, Camila had been a little anxious but had managed to push it to the back of her mind for her shift. Back at home, she’d held Luz in one arm as she’d cooed and tried to wriggle out of bathtime prep, and called her boyfriend. Her phone went to the voicemail of his trusty Nokia 3310.

Luis was due to be back by the first of November, and, hopeful his phone had just died and he hadn’t had a chance to check the emails she’d sent, Camila bundled Luz up and went to wait at the airport for his plane. His plane arrived, but he wasn’t on it. They waited in the airport arrivals for nearly six hours, watching tired faces come through the lounge.

By the second of November, Camila was out of her mind with worry. She reported him missing in their city, and called Bonesborough PD. The cop on duty was dismissive. "Look, lady. Your boyfriend was a traveling salesman, right? He’s probably just traveled on to his next stop."

Camila, watching their daughter play with the giraffe toy he’d given her shook her head. "He wouldn’t have left his daughter."

"Dads run out on their kids all the time!" said the officer on the phone, who’d identified himself as Officer Wrath. "I remember, my dad once told me he was going to the store for a carton of smokes. Last I saw of him for twenty years."

Camila struggled to keep her temper, voice dangerously calm as she told him, "He wouldn’t have left his daughter."

"People always think they know someone," Wrath said, with a side of confidence that made Camila’s fury spike. "Listen to me: he just didn’t wanna come home."

Within a few hours of slamming the phone down on Bonesborough PD, Camila had arranged for someone to cover her shifts, called her parents to babysit Luz, and had taken a chunk out of her savings to buy a ticket to Bonesborough, with only a change of clothes, a photo of her boyfriend, and the name of the company he’d been visiting: Blight Industries.

"This is harassment now," Wrath said. "You can't keep bothering these nice people."

Camila put her hands on her hips and glared up at him, all 5'5 of worried fury. "I am just asking questions."

They were standing outside Blight Industries, workers looking like worried mice speed walking past them. Nobody wanted to get in the middle of a confrontation between Officer Wrath and the young woman trying to stand up to him.

"You've been told," Wrath rubbed a big hand over his big face. "Repeatedly! To leave!"

"Not until I have an answer."

"Lady! You got your answer!" Wrath was close to shouting. "Odalia Blight's secretary told you! Your boyfriend came through, sold some computers and left! There's no conspiracy!"

"Where is the proof?"

Wrath groaned loudly. "Look, I'm being as sympathetic as I can be here. But I just got a call about trespassing--"

"Trespassing!" How was that possible? She was outside! Wrath didn't seem to care, he was ploughing on.

"So I need you to get moving, okay? Get outta here before I have to arrest you!"

Camila briefly stood her ground, before remembering how an arrest would affect her; she could lose her job at the hospital. She wouldn't be able to pay rent, feed Luz. She pushed her glasses up her nose and turned on her heel, walking away from the cop, feeling hot, angry tears sting her eyes. Wrath was staying at the ugly office, apparently to make sure she was going, so she walked fully round a corner and leaned against the brick of an alleyway to breathe in, force her lungs to work.

What was happening? She'd come here to talk to Luis's last client, find out when he'd arrived at and left their offices to get an idea of his final hours before he’d vanished. Instead, she'd been stonewalled, refused entry, the police called. Something was going on. But what?

She was rubbing her head, thoughts winding and unwinding into conspiracy, when she heard the jagged sound of a motorcycle growing louder, getting closer. There was a red haired woman on a bike, weaving erratically. With the sinking pit she got in her stomach whenever she spotted an emergency in progress, Camila stepped up just as the woman fully lost control and the bike flipped; she was thrown, landing in a heap on the ground. Camila crouched down beside her. "Are you alright?"

She didn't look alright, but a vocal response would tell her a lot. The woman pulled off her helmet, revealing a red-haired, amber eyed, pointy-nosed, young woman. They blinked at each other briefly, Camila waiting for a response. The woman on the floor raised two shaking fingers, forming them into...were those finger guns? "I've fallen for your beauty," she said, and then briefly passed out.

When she came to, Camila was on the line to 911, checking over her wounds. "I'm fine," she promised. "I'm all good! No need to call the feds."

"You just crashed."

"I had a brief wipeout," the other woman said, grabbing Camila's phone to yell "I HAD A BRIEF WIPEOUT DON'T WORRY ABOUT IT" down the phone. "No ambulance. I cannot deal with seeing Officer Wrath twice in one day."

Officer Wrath. Camila pressed a hand to her face. "I don’t want to see that man again either. Does your town only have the one first responder?"

"Feels like it sometimes." The woman who'd gone splat pushed herself up to her feet, leaning against the wall with a loud groan. "Okay. Okay! Nothing's broken! I’m pretty sure nothing’s broken." She offered Camila a grin, showing off a prominent fang. "Let me buy you a drink for checking in on me."

The Secret Room was a new bar, with shining, clean exteriors. Camila ordered a glass of white wine, and the woman got a shot of whiskey, which she dropped into a beer and proceeded to gulp down. Finished, she leaned against the bar and said, "Anyway, my name's Eda Clawthorne. Who're you?"

"Camila Noceda."

"Cool name," Eda pushed a hand back through her hair, leaning in. "What's a nice lady like you doing helping a delinquent like me?"

"You look a little past the usual delinquent age."

"I'm still in my twenties!" Eda considered this. "Just about."

"Hanging on for dear life?"

"Rude." But she was smiling. "I got a thirty and flirty mug just waiting for when I tip over the line. You like my bar?"

"This is your place?" Camila looked around. Eda looked a little too scrappy to own a whole bar.

"I'm an investor," Eda shrugged with a wild, bright smile. "I won the local lottery! I figured out a system to predict the numbers, and they had to change up their whole way of doing sh*t!"

"How’d you do that?"

"It’s probabilistic theory. Law of Large Numbers." Eda took a long sip of her drink. "That and I broke into the studio where they do the lotto and messed with the machine they used to draw until I could get it more likely to pull numbers I like."

"That’s a crime," Camila noted, feeling a wave of exasperation hit her. She took another sip of wine, trying to work out how it would be possible to mess with a lottery machine, and realised she didn’t know how this Eda person could do that. Eda was watching her with the grin of a person who knew they were going to be asked more about something they were particularly proud of, so Camila sighed and bit the bullet. "How did you do that?"

Eda rubbed her hands together. "So! The balls are dropped into these clear perspex containers, right? And they blast air into the containers to mix them all together. Then a small platform pushes up from the bottom and lifts one of those balls, right? And that’s the pick." She held up a finger, looking smug. "I figured out that the balls that are lowest in the perspex container are the ones more likely to get picked. And I also figured out that if you break into the TV studio, there’s nobody around to stop you from messing with a couple of the balls to weigh them down a lil bit and make sure they’re lowest!"

"That sounds insane."

"That’s what everyone says about my schemes," Eda leaned her elbow on the counter, grinning. "But they work!"

Camila looked around the shine of the bar, proof of Eda’s schemes. "I suppose they do."

"So," Eda leaned in. "We don’t get a lot of new faces here. You new?"

Camila cast her eyes downward towards the wooden surface of the bar. "I was looking for someone."

"Someone fun? Cuz you found em!"

Camila blinked at her, and pushed her glasses up her nose. "Someone specific." She held the stem of the wine glass between her fingers delicately. "My boyfriend is a software salesman. He came through Bonesborough. He went missing here."

"Oh sh*t, really?" Eda ordered another beer. "What happened?"

"I don’t know," Camila frowned deeply. "We called the night before his meeting, he spoke to our daughter on the phone. And then he just...didn’t respond to any texts or calls. I reported him missing but--"

"You got Wrath on the line, huh?"

"How’d you guess?"

"Cuz he’s not there to protect the public. He’s there to protect property while coasting through the rest of the job til he gets his huge pension." Eda spread her hands. "Look, you helped me up when I was pancaked--"

"You are very much still bleeding," Camila murmured.

Eda glanced down at where a little blood was starting to drip out of her sleeve, over her hand. "My point stands. You helped me, I’ll help you." She patted Camila’s shoulder, leaving a pink stain. "I’ll find your guy. Hey, quick question."

"Hm?" Camila was beginning to regret this, but she tried to hide that.

"You said you guys had a kid. You struck me as kinda traditional when I first saw you. Granted I was upside down when I first saw you. How come no marriage?"

Camila gave a faint smile. "I don’t believe in the institution of marriage. I think it’s old fashioned and a little sexist."

Eda’s face went through a number of joyful gymnastics. "You’re my kinda lady," she said finally, raising her glass to her. "You know if he actually got to Blight Industries for his meeting?"

Camila felt her stomach flip-flop nervously, trying to pull together the facts she actually had in her mind. "Nobody actually confirmed that," she said after a moment. "He left his hotel for the meeting, but they didn’t let me into the reception to find out if he actually got there."

"And trespassed you when you stayed out there?" Eda nodded in recognition of familiar tactics. "The number of times the Blights have called the cops on me is waaaaaay up there. Odalia was the biggest narc at school."

"You know them?" Camila asked, head tilting.

"Of course. Everyone in town does." Eda sipped her beer. "Rich assholes who just keep on getting richer. Their parents were even worse. Pretty sure her dad killed a guy."

"Really?"

"Probably. Most rich people have killed someone. Statistically."

Statistically? Camila clung to her wine glass for dear life. But she didn’t have any other choices, any other support. The police had been useless. She knew nobody here. And nobody else was talking. She looked up into the strange, intelligent face of the woman who’d pancaked off a motorbike in front of her, and said "Alright," slowly. "What should we do to find him?"

"I’ll get us in," Eda said with a heaping serving of confidence that, for some reason, reminded Camila of the toddler she’d left at home. "What size shirt d’you wear?"

An hour later, they were strolling in through the front doors of Blight Industries, wheeling a trolley filled with packages - boxes Eda had wrapped in brown paper and filled with printer paper. With hats marked with the logo of a delivery company sitting low to cover their faces, they sneaked past a receptionist who was on a phone call and to the barriers that stopped anyone who didn't have an ID from passing further into the building. An employee, already half-way out the door, paused to buzz them in with his ID.

"That was... easy," Camila forced down the urge to glance round herself.

"As long as you look like you're supposed to be somewhere, you can go pretty much anywhere," Eda told her with a grin. "Think about it. You're a nurse, right? Are you really gonna be challenging other nurses walking down the hall? Nah. People are too wrapped up in their own heads to pay attention, unless you're looking super suspicious. Just walk in confidently and nobody will know you're not supposed to be here." Eda wheeled them into an elevator and paused, rubbing her chin as she considered their next move. "I bet the CEO is on the top floor. And I'll bet their executive assistant is in the office next to theirs…" with her elbow, she hit the button for the top floor and grinned as the lift chugged upwards.

It had been built into a glass tube, allowing them to see all of Bonesborough as they climbed higher and higher, mounting floor after floor. Camila closed her eyes, a little queasily, stress and anxiety setting off a wave of intrusive thoughts in her brain where the glass floor shattered or they never stopped climbing. Eda gently elbowed her. "You okay?"

"You have very sharp elbows."

"They go with my sharp mind and sharp sense of style. How're you doing?"

"I am not sure heights are for me," Camila admitted.

"Next time I'll break into their office alone," Eda promised her with a grin in her voice. The elevator jolted as it slid into the top and Camila's brain sold her a vision of it dropping all the way back down like a rollercoaster that was so realistic she felt her stomach drop into a pit and her knees wobble. Eda placed a firm and guiding hand on the small of her back, propelling her through the doors as they opened; it was a relief to be on a floor that didn't move.

The office of the CEO was dark, the Executive Assistant desk next to it almost empty. Eda reached into her hair and recovered a hair clip. As Camila nervously watched the door, Eda fiddled with the lock until finally it popped open with a soft noise. "Nice."

Camila crossed to enter the office of Odalia Blight, examining it. Fireproof furniture, plush carpeting. A view out over all of Bonesborough. Pictures of her desk of three children in matching dresses, two kindergarten age, one the same age as her Luz.

"Which day was it? That he was here?" Eda’s voice interrupted her sad thoughts. She was holding up a little pocket diary that she'd snagged from the assistant's desk.

"Thirty-first of October," Camila said, coming over to see the diary's pages as Eda opened them. It looked like scribbles at first glance.

"What the hell?"

"Ah," Camila said, brain recognising the scribbles but unable to translate. "This is shorthand."

"I can't read it," Eda rubbed her cheek before trying to copy it as best she could onto one of the papers from their boxes. "But my sister knows a whole raft of legal secretaries. She'd be able to point us to someone who could help."

Behind them, the elevator was making a soft humming noise. At some point, unnoticed by them, someone had called it, and it was now rising up. Eda folded her paper and slipped it into her pocket. Camila closed the drawer.

The elevator made a little ding as it reached their floor and a woman stepped out. Taller than Camila was, nowhere near as tall as Eda. Intense golden eyes, a mouth that seemed better at smirking than smiling. An expensive plum suit. She radiated cold at every step, and looked them over disapprovingly. "I'm sorry," said Odalia Blight. "Why are you in my office?"

Eda was standing pretty still, back to her. Camila's brain worked quickly: Odalia knew Eda, Odalia would know Eda's voice. So she spoke up instead, before Eda could come up with a solution. "We were let in. We're just here to deliver some printer paper."

"And you've made your delivery," Odalia waved then off, her brain evidently considering them too boring to consider further. "Now get out, will you? You should’ve have been directed up here in the first place."

They passed her, pushing the empty trolley. As they power walked into the open arms of the elevator, Odalia's eyes fell upon the slightly open drawer of her assistant's desk. Her head snapped up, golden eyes burning into them as she opened her mouth. But the elevator was already shutting its doors and sinking down, out of the hell of that office.

"Are you sure you didn't just imagine this?" Lilith asked, once Eda had gotten the chance to show it to her, twirling the paper between her thumb and forefinger. Almost instantly the atmosphere in their drab two bed apartment changed, going from a sleepy breakfast calm to a tense silence. She knew it was the wrong thing to say, even before she looked up and caught sight of her younger sister's face, twisted in uncharacteristic hurt. She looked at the floor. "I'm sorry."

"I didn't imagine it."

"I am. I just--!" A long sigh. "I know. I'm sorry. I know you didn't."

"No you don't. That's the problem. You don't trust me." Eda leaned out of her chair to snatch the paper back, nearly upending her bowl of lucky charms, and Lilith held it behind her back, getting a bit of her sleeve in the butter for her plain toast. "Give it back! I'll look it up myself."

"I'll help! Alright? I'll help!" Now Lilith was in full I know what's best for you mode and apparently what was best for her was indulging what Lilith saw as her reality. Eda groaned as Lilith squinted at the paper, holding it away from her, turning around and leaning back as though it was one of the toys they'd fought over as kids.

"At least put on your glasses, Lily."

"They're so unprofessional," she muttered, but found the thick lenses in one of her pockets and put them on, still squinting at Eda's chicken scratch approximation of shorthand. She frowned. "It looks like, maybe something to do with a trial court? This scribble looks like the sign for trial court."

"It-...how?"

"Shorthand," Lilith shrugged. "You boil down words to squiggles. Makes it a lot easier to note down everything that happens in a courtroom. It's why stenographers are so vital. You can melt down entire systems of governments to just a few quick lines on a paper. It’s wonderfully orderly."

"God, I hate your systems and your order."

"Yes, yes, I know, anarchy forever." Lilith rubbed her chin thoughtfully, finally saying, "You've bungled this sentence. I don't know if it's saying dinner at the manor or destroy the mansion."

"Let's assume it's the former," Eda said, jumping up, already running to the phone.

After Eda called Camila about the diary entry, it took her another few weeks of anxious waiting until she could buy a plane ticket, take more leave, drop Luz off with her grandparents, and fly back out to Bonesborough. She’d thanked the woman who’d called her repeatedly, but didn’t expect to run into her again. Instead, after dropping her single bag off at the hotel, she’d immediately gone back to Blight Industries to ask to meet with the CEO. And had been subsequently turfed out.

That didn’t stop her. Camila hit the library next, and came out after half an hour with an address. If the Blights wouldn’t let her into their office, she’d go to their home.

The gates of Blight Manor were like something out of a corny movie, high and iron with a wrought B that swooped across both. Camila noticed in the back of her mind that the iron of the gate stretched, winding across the insides of the walls that wrapped around the Manor's grounds. That was a weird design choice.

She leaned against those high gates, trying to peer in, and saw nothing moving in the grounds. There was a buzzer by the gates and she hit it briefly, listened to the line crackle without answer. That was fine. If they wouldn't come out to her, she could wait them out. Laying siege was no problem.

Leaning against the hood of her tiny rental car, Camila tried to focus on the pages of the book she'd brought with her, a battered textbook one of her coworkers had lent her when she'd said she wanted to look into getting her master's, training to become a Nurse Practitioner. She was trying to focus on words on the page that kept melting away, reading and re-reading a sentence on pharmacology over and over when she heard the steady engine of an approaching vehicle.

Camila jumped up, but the gates opened smoothly, the car refusing to stop. She made eye contact with the passenger, seeing Odalia Blight's cold eyes again. They held eye contact as the car drove up to the house, gates shutting smoothly behind it. Camila, feeling her heart thudding in her ears, hit the buzzer again. Static. She hit it again and again, eyes on the door.

It took roughly thirty minutes of continuously pushing the button before the CEO of Blight Industries appeared again, framed in her doorway, unclear from this far away. She strode down the driveway, long black dress fluttering by her heels as she stood, two feet away from the gate, and folded her arms. Odalia looked deeply unimpressed and her voice was like cut glass. "You're one of the fake UPS delivery people who broke into my office."

Camila did not know very much about committing crimes. But she could hear that strange red haired woman whispering in the back of her head: probably best not to admit guilt for a breaking and entering, Cam. "I've been trying to speak to you," she said instead of confirming her identity.

"I don't grant interviews." Odalia's mouth seemed to be in a permanent smirk. "Where are you from? Forbes? Time?"

"I'm not a journalist," Camila tried to keep calm, deciding that if she wasn't arrested for breaking and entering she should probably make sure she wasn't arrested for strangling Odalia Blight either. "Blight Industries had a salesman visit-"

"If this is a sales call, you've gone all the wrong way about it," Odalia interrupted, rolling her eyes. "You need to get your account manager to call my people. Nobody goes directly to people's houses anymore. It's 2003, for goodness' sakes. Get with the times. Learn to email."

Odalia was turning when Camila called out, "Luis Sánchez. That was the name of the salesman. He visited your company. And then he went missing. I just want to know where he is. I want to know what happened after he left his hotel room."

Odalia was standing very still in the yard. But she was still listening, Camila could tell. She pushed further, the grey of the endless tired sadness she'd been rolling through colouring her voice. "We have a daughter. She's three years old. I want her to grow up with a dad. I want to find him. I need to know where he went. You saw him. I need to know what you saw!"

Camila couldn't see her reaction to these words. She scanned her back and shoulders, looking for any signs she'd heard, but they remained ramrod straight. After a few long seconds, Odalia turned slowly, arms still folded. She raised an eyebrow and said, "Oh, come on. You can't expect me to remember every name that passes me by."

"He visited your house," Camila said, struggling to keep her voice level.

"And what proof do you have of that?" Odalia asked her, eyes narrowed.

"Your secretary wrote the meeting in your diary--"

"My secretary's event planning diary doesn't leave Blight Industries. How would you know what my secretary wrote unless you were in my office?" Odalia's voice was sharp as a knife, dangerous. Camila's mouth pressed into a line as she stared at her. If she said something, Odalia could twist it into getting the police on her side, investigate her for breaking and entering. Then what would happen? If Luis remained missing and she went to jail, what would happen to her happy girl?

"I just want to know what happened," Camila kept her voice steady, "when you saw him. You were the last to see him."

They stared each other down, lambent golden eyes meeting soft brown ones. Odalia's mouth wasn't smirking anymore, more of a cold little sucker, like she'd found a slice of lemon in her food. "I don't know what you're talking about," Odalia said. "You should leave."

"I'm not leaving without an answer," Camila told her, firmly.

"You will." Odalia's voice was confident as she swept back up the driveway.

Camila wasn't scared, but that message hadn't reached her body: she was shaking all over. She picked up the textbook again, settling in to wait. "I won't leave without an answer," she called to Odalia's retreating back.

"You will!" Odalia called back, not looking.

The first patrol car turned up ten minutes later. Odalia calling her bluff. Camila groaned and folded. She'd need to come up with another strategy to find out what had happened.

She regrouped back in the library, going with plan B. Borrowing one of the computers, she scanned in a photo she carried of Luis and Luz and got started on Microsoft Word. After an hour or so, she had a workable missing persons poster, his photo front and center, her information (pager and cell) in comic sans underneath the photo. Above it, in eye-catching word art was the word: MISSING. Satisfied with her work, she printed these makeshift posters out, black and white because colour copies were 10¢. And then she began her grim work.

She started outside Blight Industries, duct taping the posters up to lamp posts, handing them out to passersby who took them without glancing at the contents. Once she'd covered that area, she began to work her way around downtown, sticking up posters, handing them out.

The evening was drawing in as she began to run out of posters. She was wandering, looking for uncovered lamp posts or pedestrians who hadn't yet taken a poster, when a hand grabbed her shoulder. "What are you still doing out here?"

Camila turned and found herself looking up into the broad face of Officer Wrath. He was bleary looking, leaning outside a bar she'd not paid much attention to before. There was a cigarette in the ashtray on the table next to him, a few bottles of beer, most empty, around it. "My boyfriend is still missing."

"You can't be out here, hassling folks. That nice Mrs Blight called and said you were sitting outside her house all afternoon."

"That was where he was last seen." Camila drew herself up to her towering and terrifying height of 5'5 and put her hands on her hips. "I am doing your job because you have refused to help."

"I'm helping! I'm doing my job. My job is to keep our citizens safe from wackadoos like you who see crime where there isn't any." Wrath poked his meaty finger, jabbing her in the shoulder.

Camila felt her anger rising. She swallowed, trying to keep it at bay. "He has been missing for--"

"Look, lady," Wrath shrugged like this interruption was nothing, shotgunning what was left of his beer. He smelled like sour notes of beer and bad decisions, and he leaned in drunkenly. Camila stood her ground, hands in fists. "You gotta let go, already. Your boyfriend was some salesperson. They're grifters! He left the Blight place three months ago. All he's probably done is move onto the next town! You thought you meant something to him. Ya didn't. sh*t happens."

"He wouldn't leave his child," Camila said, gritting out the words, her only thought of the little girl at home, somewhere safe. She could write her name now. He'd missed that. And this big moron of a police officer didn't care, hadn't even thought to care.

"Sure he would! Happens all the time." Wrath leaned in, too close, foul breath in her face, filling her vision. "He found something better. Maybe someone prettier, like my dad did. I'm not wasting police time on--"

Camila acted before she could think it through, as though his proximity had triggered a reflex. She leaned back and smacked him, full in the mouth, with her closed fist. She had never really fought before, but her dad had boxed, and he’d taught her how to throw a mean punch when she'd been a teenager; a drunk man was no match for her right hook. Wrath fell sideways, hitting the ground like a uniformed sack of potatoes. She took a step forward as though to help--

And was pulled away by a pair of wiry arms. "Nope nope nope," said the voice of the woman who'd helped her before. "Nope!"

"Ms Clawthorne?" Camila asked, voice a little numb as she was dragged to a bedraggled looking motorcycle.

"Hop on and hold tight! You just assaulted a cop!"

That was a pretty sobering fact. Camila let herself be dragged onto the back of the bike, wrapping her arms around Eda's waist as she took off. Suddenly horribly aware that they'd moved too quickly to put on a helmet, Camila buried her face in the back of Eda's back and prayed.

If there was a loving god, he or she seemed to hear her; in a few minutes Eda was bringing them to a stop outside a storefront for what looked like a pawn shop. Pulling open the door, Eda directed her inside. Camila took a few deep breaths, and turned slowly. Eda grabbed her shoulders and Camila was surprised to see how delighted she was. "You punched a cop! He went down! One hit! That was incredible!"

"It...was?" Now that the adrenaline was failing, Camila mostly felt queasy. Her knuckles hurt. Eda directed her to a chair, laughing as she did.

"It was awesome. You gotta teach me how to punch like that." She hit a button on an electric kettle and it roared to life, rumbling as it heated up the water within. "What kinda tea d'you drink? My sister's banned coffee and most caffeine, so I got like five kinds of herbal tea. This one's lavender flavour. One cup free for every cop you wreck!"

Camila shakily accepted a cup of lavender tea, sinking into the chair as though she didn't have any bones. The chair itself seemed ancient. When she checked the tag someone had written in spiky handwriting ANTIQUE, OWNED BY ROYALTY, $150. "If it's an antique and owned by royalty, why is it only $150?"

"Makes people think they're looking at a bargain," Eda fell into the chair next to hers, sitting sideways, her long legs over its arms as she drank her own tea. "How did you get on with speaking to the Blights?"

"I-"

"Got trespassed again?" Eda guessed. "That's your mistake. You gotta stop letting them know what you're going to do. If you act totally unpredictable, they'll never be able to stop you. When I was in high school, Odalia thought she could catch me skipping class because I said near her that I’d be at the bowling alley the next day instead of math. I managed to steal all of our principal’s shoes and hide them in the bowling alley that night, and when she got busted for hanging out in the bowling alley to bust me, she got slammed with stealing Bump’s shoes on top of that. Next time just jump the gates and break in!"

"I have to keep within the law," Camila said. "I have my child to think of. My job…"

"Then just call me and I'll do it. The law is a promise of violence from the upper classes held up by corrupt enforcers. It is my joy and my duty to absolutely break it on a regular goddamn basis." Eda was sipping her tea, eyes narrowed as she looked out at the street. "Hey. You only saw Odalia?"

"Yes," Camila's brow furrowed. "She was suspicious. And rude."

"Did you ever see Alador? Her husband."

"No," Camila looked over at Eda, but she was staring out of the shop window, the blue light of the evening shading her. "Why?"

Eda hushed her with a finger, pointing outside. There was a man on the sidewalk opposite her shop. Average height, tired looking eyes, chestnut hair, a beard that Camila immediately disliked. His suit was immaculate. "That's Alador Blight," Eda told her. "Narc the second. Don’t worry, it’s dark in here, so he probably won’t be able to see in and spot us."

As they watched, he paused in front of one of the street lights, examining one of the posters Camila had put up. He looked around, waited for a pedestrian to pass him. And, when the coast was clear, ripped the poster down, tearing it. He moved to the next street lamp and did the same. The same again at the next, and at the next after that.

"Guess they're both involved," Eda murmured. Camila's stomach rolled unpleasantly.

Seventeen years ago.

Months passed with no news. Occasional mentions of sightings that had happened way back in October. Camila ate into her savings trying to balance plates, needing to get between Bonesborough and home. Luz had stopped asking where her dad was on a daily basis, now seemed to only ask when she remembered fathers existed, when they went to the playground and saw a full family, or saw a photo of him. That, Camila thought, was the worst part. Trying to keep a memory alive in a toddler was ungodly difficult, even if it was as important as this. Every night, tucking her into bed, she would remind her, papi te ama muchísimo, and tell her stories where he looked like the good guy, so she’d grow up thinking he was great.

The trips to Bonesborough still happened, but nobody was talking. She would sleep on Eda’s couch, replace the missing person fliers that were torn down, and try to trace his final steps. It was exhausting.

"I can't keep going between cities like this," Camila told Eda late one night as they shared tea in the store, wiping a hand down her face. "But if I don't, who's going to look for him?"

Eda looked at the table between them, her old school desk that Bump had brought in when he’d retired, scarred and pock-marked and covered with graffiti with a price tag that said, $1000, outsider art by well known artist Alec Downheart. She thought back to her own brief period of going missing, Lilith’s furious search for her. "I'll look," She said. And then, "I'll keep an eye out for him. There's gonna be a trace of him somewhere. Nobody is ever gone for good."

Camila's eyes were big and round and soft and brown. She reached over the table for Eda's hand and whispered, "Thank you."

"Pshaw. It's nothing," Eda told her, feeling like it might actually be Something. She'd ask Lily to leverage her investment in those tricky government structures, check in on things, see if someone matching Luis's description was being held anywhere. And hope that she didn't notice what Eda was starting to notice: that she had a big stinking crush on Camila Noceda. She'd never hear the end of it if she did.

Fifteen years ago.

The information they’d gotten had been clear: Tibblet of Grimm Hammer Groceries had CCTV footage of Luis walking into the store and then driving in the direction of Blight Manor. Camila hadn’t had enough time to arrange care for Luz; she’d packed them both up and onto a flight.

Eda had met them at the airport with excitement, and they’d gone immediately to Tibblet’s store. Tibblet greeted them with a wave and a call of "Hello, fine customers!"

"Hey, Tibbs," Eda leaned on the counter. "We heard you had some CCTV for us."

"CCTV?" Tibblet’s eyes went wide. "Why! I don’t know what you mean!"

"Cram it, Tibbs." Eda jabbed a finger into his chest, eyes narrowed. "We heard you had video for us. It’s from three years ago. You were putting feelers out on the black market for buyers."

"What!" Tibblet affected shock.

"Please," Camila said, voice soft. "I need to see the video. I need to know where he is."

There was a brief, tense silent between them. Behind them, Luz was pulling cans of beans off of the shelves and stacking them into a triangle.

"You’re too late," Tibblet said, a slow smile growing on his face. "And you couldn’t match what I was paid for the tape."

Eda stepped forward and shouted, "Tibblet, you little--" but Camila interrupted her, grabbing his shirt.

"You have to have a copy! Where was it? What happened to him?"

"Unhand me, madam!"

Eda joined in, grabbing his shirt too. "Tell us what you did with the video or we’ll fully toss you in the trash you little garbage man!"

"I’ll call the cops!" Tibblet’s voice sounded more like a nervous whine than anything else.

"How?" Eda grinned, unhinged. "How’re you gonna get free from us, little man?"

Tibblet struggled, trying to get away but between them, they grabbed him, wrestling him. "Unhand me! Free me!" Eda managed to grapple his arms, and Camila grabbed his legs. The two of them pulled him out from behind the counter and out of the store, round the back to where the dumpsters were.

"Tell us what you did with the video," Eda’s voice was all cold.

Tibblet, swinging between them, swallowed and looked for a way out of this. "I...listen! I was given a very good offer to--"

"What did you do with it?" Camila cut in and where Eda’s voice had been cold her fury was red hot.

Tibblet shrank in on himself, and said, "I deleted it. Listen! I was offered a handsome sum of money and absolutely could not say no--"

"f*ck you," Eda told him, and she and Camila swung his body between them, launching him into the dumpster.

Camila managed to hold it together almost all the way back to The Owl House. It was only after they got into its safe borders that she snapped and slammed her hand against the wall, trying to hold back tears. "Goddammit! We were so close!"

The kid, who’d been throwing her mom worried looks the entire way back, obviously picking up on something, began to cry, silent tears welling up in her eyes. Camila looked like she was pretty close to tears too. What do?

Camila was trying to pull herself together, but the kid was having trouble self-regulating. Eda picked the little girl up, folding herself into one of the unsold antique armchairs, and sat her on her knee. "Hey," she said. "Don't give your mom more to stress about."

The kid nodded, but was obviously struggling. There were tears welling up in her big brown eyes. Eda rested her hand on top of her head, mussing her hair up. "Okay. Hey. Listen to me. Look around the room. Tell me five things you can see."

The kid blinked a few times, big brown eyes, and looked around. "Mami," she said. "You. That big motorbike. And your hair. And the street."

"Nice, kid. That’s my motorbike."

"Can I ride it one time?"

"Sure, if your mom’s okay with it. Now, name four things you can touch, go."

"Um," the kid considered this, and slapped her hand to her face. The tears were drying up as she concentrated on this game. "Me. The chair. You!"

"Careful with the merchandise," Eda told her, removing a baby hand that was trying to tangle up in her hair.

"This can of beans I stole," Luz added, retrieving a can from her pocket. "Will I get in trouble for that?"

"No, stealing from Tibblet is a good thing." Eda grinned. "Okay, that’s four. Now, what’s three things you can hear?"

The kid leaned in, which was precious, fine. Kids were okay sometimes, she could allow that. "Your tummy’s rumbling!"

"That’s just the sound of my stomach eating itself. Next two?"

"If I put my hands over my ears like this," Luz demonstrated, covering her ears with cupped hands. "It sounds like the ocean!"

"Nice," Eda agreed.

"I think I can hear a meow!"

"Yeah, that’ll be my cat. His name’s King." Eda showed her the picture of him she kept in her wallet.

"Qué lindo!"

"Right. We’ll check him out later on, okay? Now, what’s two things you can smell?"

"Smells like old people in here!" Luz told her, now cheerful, tears forgotten.

"That’s my sister," Eda told her. "She’s an old lady. What else?"

Luz took in a deep breath and sneezed. "Something weird. Like, can dust have a smell?"

"If that’s what you smell," Eda told her with a grin. "There’s no wrong answers, kiddo."

Camila had turned to watch them. She'd taken off her glasses and was trying to surreptitiously wipe her eyes behind Luz's back, trying to calm down. When she put her glasses back on, she could see Eda with a hand on her daughter's head, calming her, framed in the light streaming in from the shop window opposite her.

"Okay," Eda said. "What's one thing you can taste?"

"My mouth," Luz told her, sticking out her own tongue.

Eda reached into her pocket and rummaged for a while, finally producing a small bright yellow candy. "Sorry, I only got lemon flavour. Here, kid."

Luz shoved it into her mouth, wrapper and all. "Now I taste...Lemon! And plastic!"

Eda looked up to say something and caught sight of Camila, wiping her face, trying to keep herself calm. Eda loved her then, a bubbling sensation in her chest. Camila was doing her best for her child, for her missing partner, and Eda loved her for it. So, she decided. That was awkward.

"Thank you for letting us stay," Camila said, as the evening bled into night. She clutched a hot cup of tea in her hands. Luz was in the spare room, the one Lily had lived in before she'd moved out a month or two ago. Fast asleep.

She hadn't really redecorated since Lily had left. No photos up, the walls an even grey. Eda hadn't seen the point in decorations; with the way downtown was being built up, she expected that her apartment and the little store below it would be bought up by developers soon enough. She didn't have much attachment to the place anymore. "What was I gonna do, leave you out there?"

"Ask us to get a hotel?"

"Nah. Hotels are so much of a scam that I almost got into them." She was flopped on the couch, King on her lap. Camila came to sit next to her. They knocked their tea cups together briefly, and smiled at each other. A small and private moment. "You feeling better?"

"A lot," Camila said. There was a strange, tense silence between them, both wanting to say something and neither knowing how to kick it off.

Fourteen years ago.

"Kid’s getting cuter," Eda said, scrolling through the photos of Luz, the light of the phone illuminating her face in the darkness of the car. "What’s with the Godzilla costume?"

"She made it herself."

"Good for her." Eda handed Camila back her phone, feet up on the dashboard of Cam’s rental car. "Creative kid like that must be getting good grades."

"She doesn't," Camila admitted with a small smile, sliding her phone back into her pocket. "She struggles a lot with focusing."

"Focusing's for chumps. I've been zoned out since me and Lily did shrooms in 1990, and that's how I like it."

"I'm getting her assessed next month," Camila admitted, leaning on the steering wheel. "We think she might have ADHD."

They’d been a little outside Blight Manor for a few hours now, tucked into a parking spot where they could see anyone coming or going. Cam’s kid had grown up a little more, was in school now and seemed bright and energetic, but Cam worried about her lack of friends. Eda struggled enough with her cat, and she was pretty sure King didn't have needs other than being fed and having a warm place to sleep. How did Camila juggle working, investigating a missing person, and raising her daughter? "No offense Cam, but are you taking any time for yourself? You look exhausted."

"Tired," Camila admitted. "But I think that’s normal."

"Do you think the bad vibes family are actually in?" Eda was too tall for the small rental car, even with the front seat pulled as far out as it could go. Camila smiled a little fondly at how strangely she’d managed to compress herself. "Maybe we can head back and you can actually get some sleep?"

"We should wait and see what they’re up to. Your contact on the inside said that they might be up to something."

"They did," Eda agreed. "But I can call someone and ask them to take our place. You can’t cause anarchy if you’re exhausted, Cam."

It took a little more insisting before Camila let her call someone. To her surprise, it was Lilith who turned up, looking less than pleased, sweeping out of her car. "What on earth are you two up to?"

"Hanging out."

"Please don’t lie to me, Eda."

"Not technically a lie."

"We were staking out the Blight house," Camila told her. Lilith gave her a strange look, before throwing a cross look at her sister.

"Why is that?"

"Four year anniversary," Eda shrugged. "We were told they’d be up to something. So we wanted to see if we could spot anything. Or follow them if they decided to sneak into the woods to perform dark rituals."

"I have court in the morning."

"No you don’t. I checked your schedule. It says, ‘8am, coffee with Steve. 9am, choose new black suit. 10:30am, drop off new black suit to be tailored. 11:30am, hairdressers."

Lilith groaned and rubbed her temples. "How did you get access to my schedule?"

"I’m a master criminal."

"No. Look. I’ll keep an eye out for a couple of hours. Stop grinning at me Eda. I’ll call you if they leave, but I’m not going to follow them."

"Thanks, sis!" leaning into Camila, she whispered, "I knew she was never going to follow them if they left, but if you begin with a big ask they’ll negotiate you down to the middle which is exactly what we wanted anyway." Back to Lilith, she grinned, clicking her fingers. "I’ll see you when you call us about weird sh*t, Lily!"

Camila had taken to staying in Eda’s apartment when she came over, which was pretty nice. Eda had even refused an offer from the developers buying up land around Bonesborough, cuz Camila had said her apartment was cool. So. That was something.

She waited until Camila was asleep in the spare room before heading out again, collecting something she’d prepared earlier on her way out the door. The Secret Room was starting to look a little grittier, which was fine. More character than the shining new bar she’d invested in years ago. Eda ignored the new B grade in the window from the inspectors and vaulted over the bar, landing in a pile. Morton, leaning against the bar, blinked at her. "Did you stay up all night and all day playing poker again?"

"Who told you about that?"

"I was the person you were playing poker with!"

"Oh. Right. No, this is more important." Eda stood and drew from her pocket an envelope she’d prepared earlier. Inside it were several polaroids, all of herself, all wearing different clothes. She fanned them out to show him.

"Is that Principal Bump?"

"What? Oh yeah, that’s from when I followed him on his retirement vacation," Eda cackled. "He actually came back after the first week and took up teaching again to get away from me! Have you ever seen a retiree pee from fear, Morton?"

"Once." Morton looked uncomfortable.

"Well." The wind had gone a little out of Eda’s sails. "Have you ever been the cause?"

"...Once." Morton looked even more uncomfortable.

"I’m...not going to ask any more questions about that." She began to pin the photos up, right under the banned customers sign. "There!"

"There what?"

Eda rested a hand on the counter, looking smug. "I invested in this place using a corporation. Which I created under a different corporation, which I created under a different corporation! Which means my name isn’t on this bar! Which means anyone trying to find out my link to the bar needs to go full forensic accountant to find me!"

Morton appeared to be questioning the exact reasoning behind this. He took a deep breath, the way people tended to when Eda was about to explain something wildly illegal. "Why?"

"The money wasn’t exactly-- listen Morty, we can unpack whether or not money laundering and tax evasion actually harms people, or I can continue. Which’ll it be?"

"I feel like learning about your crimes will get me at least pinned with accessory to them," Morton sighed. "And I’ve got way too much contraband in my apartment to be able to be investigated by the cops without getting charged with about ten crimes. So let’s go with you continuing."

"That’s why I hire criminals," Eda patted his shoulder. "Anyway, if I need to get away real quick - which I might - I can duck in here. It looks like I’m a banned customer so you wouldn’t let me in. Who’ll look deeper than that? Not Wrath, that’s for sure!"

"It really does worry me that we only seem to have the one cop."

"There’s also Steve," Eda rubbed her chin. "I think he’s quitting to join the DA office. He’s got a huge crush on my sister."

"Good to...know?" Morton shook his head and sighed. "Why are you so sure the cops will come after you anyway?"

"Because I’m on the tail of something huge." Eda leaned against the counter. "What do you know about the Blights?"

"They run the biggest company in town," Morton blinked, feeling pressure to think. "Um, Alador bought adderall off of me in college? Odalia found out and tried to get me arrested?"

"Right, yeah, the current Blights suck, we know."

"They’ve always been okay to me," Morton said, sotto voce. "Other than the arresting me for drug dealing thing, which was fair enough, I do occasionally sell drugs."

"But I went back further," Eda continued, not listening to him. "And it turns out? Almost every Blight sucks. Odalia’s great-great-grandpa helped found the town, and later, the mayor ceded a bunch of land to him for unknown reasons riiiiiight before being poisoned! Nobody could prove who did the poisoning, but I got my suspicions."

"Prejudices," Morton supplied, helpfully. "You have your prejudices."

"So that guy builds this huge house, before a tree branch in the Blight orchard falls on his head in a storm and he dies. So the house is passed down to the next Blight, the middle kid, who screws over a bunch of people by buying their land out from under them at cheap prices when the local factory went bust and fired everyone. Then he charges extortionate rent. It’s like I’ve always said: landlords are leeches."

"You also say birds are a government psyop to spy on private citizens," Morton pointed out.

"And I’m right on both counts." Eda tapped the counter with her nails. "So he dies after getting caught in a freak snowstorm and freezing to death. Next Blight down the list...is a weird one. The guy and his brothers all went off to fight in the war. From what I can tell, he wasn’t supposed to inherit anything. All the legal documents were hastily changed when he was the only sibling that came back. He doesn’t seem to screw anyone over but the insurance companies when he burns the original Blight Manor to the ground."

"Sweet," said Morton, who could appreciate arson when done correctly. "Nice work, Grandpa Blight!"

"Then he leaves town. I dunno how he dies. His kids go to New York City, and all become hedge fund assholes, from what I can tell. Because sucking is genetic, it just skipped a generation." She rubbed her hands together like a giddy little raccoon finding a huge slice of pizza in the garbage as she got closer to the current generation. "So his eldest son makes a bunch of money on the stock market, hits someone with a car and flees back out here. He goes swimming in Florida and gets eaten by a, wait for it, gator. His kids include Odalia Blight, who goes on to meet Alador Burner, and they get hitched after a disgusting courtship that those of us unlucky enough to go to high school with them had to witness--"

"--And college, they were pretty gross there too."

"And suddenly Odalia can see into the future and they get even richer than their hedgefunding forefathers and build a new house on the ruins of the original Blight Manor. And then my friend’s boyfriend went missing there. So I’m assuming...vampires? I mean, a salesman getting called to a mysterious manse overlooking a town full of people who fear the inhabitants of said manse, and then going missing is super Bram Stoker. Either way, every generation something untoward happens, a Blight benefits, makes a hell of a lot of cash, and then kicks the bucket in a weird way. Every generation. I even went back further to before Bonesborough was founded and there’s a bunch. There’s even a Blight who was burned as a witch in the 1500s! And another who was a witch hunter in the 1600s!"

"I guess, maybe this is just confirmation bias?" Morton suggested. "You’re just seeing what you want to see. I think maybe there’s just some unlucky incidents, and you’re turning it into its own narrative."

"There’s always someone who’s unlucky in a family, Morton." Eda put her entire hand on his head. "And lemme tell you, it’s both Odalia and Alador if they think they can go around turning computer salesmen into the undead!"

"I never know when you’re being serious." He leaned on the counter, wiped a hand down his face. "You think they’re going to come after you?"

"Probably," Eda told him. "Wrath is fully in their pocket. I think they’ve been paying him off for a while now. He knows ‘em pretty well, and knows how to keep supporting them discreetly. I think there’s a reason why anytime Camila tries to find out more, he’s there."

"I think the scariest thing about that is realising that Wrath can be sly," Morton said, pouring himself a beer.

"Yeah," Eda shrugged with a wild grin. "He’s smarter than he looks. Who cares? He looks like a brick that’s had a bad day. There’s nothing that could make him as smart as I am on my worst days." Morton poured her a beer too, and they clinked their glasses together. "He might be sneaky, but I’m the best criminal in town. There’s nothing that’ll stop me from finding out their deal."

Twelve years ago.

There was, it turned out, something that could slow her down.

"It sounds a lot scarier than it is," Eda was saying, skipping a rock across the lake. They'd broken into the wildlife sanctuary after dark, following a wild hunch. Alador Blight had donated 200k to get the infrastructure up and running to protect a section of forest outside the town boundaries. If there was a body, it would be a way to dispose of it, right?

But they'd found nothing but the pleasant quiet of the evening, the chirping of insects, evidence of animals living their own lives away from them. Here at the lake they'd paused to take stock. Eda skipping stones and Camila watching her, elbows on her thighs. Camila felt exhausted. She did every time she reached for the rough hope that her daughter's father could be found and came up short. "It doesn't sound scary to me," she said, in reply to Eda, a conversation they'd been having in bits and pieces for a little while now.

"Yeah, but you work in medical care, right?" Eda perfectly skipped a stone, sending it bouncing over the water beautifully. "It sounds scary to others. Bipolar disorder with psychotic features. Everyone hears the psychotic part and conflates it with psychopathy. It's way more boring than that."

Camila wracked her tired mind, trying to remember the criteria for diagnosis. "Hallucinations and delusions?"

"Yeeeep," Eda examined a flat, rounded stone, running her thumb over the smooth, cold surface. "Lemme tell you, my sister was not a fan."

"Lily wasn’t supportive?" Camila had met Eda’s sister a few times now. A tall, attractive lawyer who shared Eda’s apartment, as steel-willed and hard working as Eda was steel-willed and naturally talented. As much as they butted heads, they still loved each other deeply. Lilith not being supportive would be a surprise.

"Nah, she was. I think I used to embarrass her, but," Eda threw the stone up in the air and caught it, not finishing the sentence. "And she used to be really into the idea of finding a ‘cure.’ And she nearly went pretty crazy herself - I kinda got into some trouble and went missing for a while way back." Eda sighed, aimed, and snapped her wrist, sending the rock skipping over the water. "She wouldn’t let me out of her sight when I got back. Even moved in with me. She gets it now. She just hovers sometimes. I think she counts my pills every day to make sure I’m taking them. She definitely sets timers. I get calls if I don’t tell her I’ve taken my meds."

"Oh, the pain of having a loving older sister," Camila said, an eyebrow raising.

Eda laughed. "It’s the worst," she said, fondly. She looked over her shoulder at the tired woman, approached to flop onto the log beside her, throwing an arm around her shoulders. "I’m sorry we didn’t find anything tonight."

To her surprise, Camila lay her head on her arm, heaving a deep sigh. "It’s alright," she said. "It’s alright. I know we’ll find something soon." There was no conviction in her voice. She had stopped believing a while ago. She wasn't sure why she still came out here.

Eda took her glasses off, wiped them for her, and slipped them into her pocket. "You need a rest, Cam? Ten minutes?"

"Ten minutes," Camila agreed, and thought, oh, yes, this is why I still come out here. She'd found a friend. A good one, someone who looked after her. It was hard to admit that she felt lonely; she had Luz. She loved the nurses she worked with. Lonely seemed like a childish emotion, something she should've grown out of. A lot of people told her that she'd been good at being an adult even when she'd been a child; she clung to that now, trying her best to carry on as an ideal adult might. To not break down or feel lonely. She breathed in deep, looked out over the water, and said, "You know, it’s strange. I was thinking as you were speaking. I don’t remember his voice anymore."

"The memory of the voice always goes first," Eda told her. "At least it does for me. I can’t really remember what me and Lily’s mom looked like, or sounded like. But I remember her perfume. I guess that’s weird, that that’s all I remember. But she always wore this awful perfume. Just the worst, really thick, choking, cloying, all that stuff. And I’m glad she did. Cuz now, whenever I smell that kinda awful old lady perfume, I think of her. It always seems super ephemeral, but scent is the thing that brings back memories. Taste too. That’s why Proust remembered his childhood when he ate madeleines."

"Eda, I worked nights to put myself through nursing school and then I worked double shifts with a kid. I did not have time to read Proust."

"I’ll read it to you," Eda gently elbowed her with a grin.

"With what book?" Camila asked, smiling, eyes closed, face buried into Eda’s warm leather jacket.

"I got it memorised! A couple chunks, at least. Not all in one go. Thought it would be a cool party trick, but it turns out nobody’s too into fin de siècle French novels about memory. But that does mean nobody knows when I mess up the words."

"Ah, so smart," Camila said, voice muffled but approving. "That's my college dropout."

Eda took off her jacket and wrapped Camila up in it, laying her head on her lap in that empty patch of land, soon to become a wildlife sanctuary, a forbidden place, a liminal space. "Okay," she said. "You better not fall asleep. I’ll be incredibly offended and probably scarred for life." Cam patted her cheek, apparently half way to sleep already. "Fine. ‘I feel that there is much to be said for the Celtic belief that the souls of those whom we have lost are held captive in some inferior being, in an animal, in a plant, in some inanimate object, and so effectively lost to us until the day (which to many never comes) when we happen to pass by the tree or to obtain possession of the object which forms their prison. Then they start and tremble, they call us by our name, and as soon as we have recognised their voice the spell is broken. We have delivered them: they have overcome death and return to share our life...’"

It wouldn’t have mattered what she’d said, Eda knew that; Camila dozed off, barely hearing her. Eda kept up the timer. At ten minutes, she gently shook Cam awake. "Feeling better?"

"A little."

"Wanna go scratch Alador’s car?"

"I do, yes."

Ten years ago.

Camila hadn’t told Luz why they had flown out, and had sworn Eda to silence. There’d been a call from the county sheriff’s office about a body they’d found outside city limits. Cam had agreed to fly out to identify it. And Eda had agreed to babysit her kid while she did. Eda wasn’t sure how long identifying a body might take, but it had been a few hours now, with no sign of her and a worry was beginning to build. She checked her cracked phone. No replies to her texts from Camila. Behind her she heard small footsteps, and saw the kid's head pop into her office. "Eda! Do you have a needle? And some thread?"

"Sure do. Second drawer."

The kid grabbed them and ran back out, small feet making little tapping noises against the floorboards of the store.

Eda checked her phone again, and then rang Camila. It went to voicemail. She was considering what she could do (drive out there?) when she heard the kid's feet running towards her again.

"Eda do you have superglue?"

"Third drawer, kid."

"Thanks!" The kid ran off again, clutching a tube of superglue. Eda called Camila's phone again. She didn't pick up. She took a deep breath, and strode back into the main store.

The kid was attempting to glue two taxidermied pigeons together. Eda watched this, mildly impressed with her capacity for weird sh*t. "What're you doing?"

"Making a chimera? Half pigeon, half other pigeon!"

"Looking good." Eda sat down next to her, folding in like a giant scarecrow. "But it’s hard to glue an entire pigeon. What if we started taking it apart? Like, chop off this one’s head."

"We can put it where the other pigeon’s butt is!"

"I was gonna say stick it to the other pigeon’s neck, but I like that."

Eda was sawing through a taxidermied pigeon’s wings so as to create a two-headed four-winged monster when the door opened, the bell tinkling. Camila was in the doorway, a paper sack in one hand, eyes strange and distant, but they softened when they spotted the mess of feathers and glue on the floor.

"I brought sandwiches," she said, sitting with them.

"We’re making a chimera!" Luz told her, brightly. "I wanna take it to school and show everyone!"

"Will I be getting another letter from the principal?"

"Just send them my way," Eda told her, confidently, covered in feathers. "I’ll get ‘em to appreciate our artistic vision."

Luz was looking down, heavily focused on improving her design for the pigeon-pigeon chimera. Over her head, Camila mouthed, not him. Eda reached over and put a warm arm around her. Camila handed them out sandwiches from the sack she’d brought, and they ate like a family on the floor as they worked on Luz’s chimera.

Eight years ago.

Eda noticed they were doing less looking for evidence and more hanging out on Camila’s trips to Bonesborough. Camila had talked about moving out here, in vague terms. Luz quite likes it here or the school system seems to be very good here, doesn’t it? Or I saw a nurse practitioner role in the paper and the salary was a jump up. Orif I come out there, I will need to assemble an entire pharmacy and doctor's office to deal with the outcomes of your schemes, won't I, once, when Eda had revealed that she'd once been stabbed by a sword as part of a duel.

"You know," Eda had said as they’d gotten dinner with Luz only last month, "We’re kinda looking like a family."

"We are," Camila had said, expression very strange.

Sitting on the couch of Eda’s apartment together, after a day where they hadn’t discussed the ghost between them, Eda made them hot tea. And it felt disgustingly good to sit beside her and have this time together. "Aren’t we domestic and sh*t," she said, nudging Cam with her elbow. "It’s cute."

"It is nice," Camila said, brow furrowing in an expression that Eda recognised as about to do something big. Like grabbing Tibbles, or breaking into Odalia’s office. Without thinking, she threw her arm around her shoulders and squeezed them.

"What’s up?"

What came next surprised her. Camila leaned up and closed the gap between them, her mouth soft and warm. Eda met her half-way, hand reaching down to squeeze her hand. It felt comfortable. It felt right.

"I know he's gone," Camila said, quietly, as they broke apart. "He’s been gone for a long time. And I know that you've helped me more than anyone. And I know that...I love you. I’ve been falling in love with you for years."

Eda slipped her hand around her waist, and because she was extremely nervous, immediately put her foot in her mouth. "Not gonna go running off on me if he swans back in, are ya?"

It was supposed to be a sh*tty, poorly timed joke. But Camila's eyes were serious. "Listen to me," she said, touching Eda's cheek. "I'd never want this if I thought it would make you feel second best to a ghost."

Of course Cam would’ve considered that. "All love stories are ghost stories. On a quantum timeline." Eda said, because she didn't know what else to say and saying stuff that sounded smart or profound had always worked before, a way to open up space in the conversation. She used it the same way a boxer jabbed and weaved, to give herself time to think. Something about being told someone was in love with her had opened up weird anxious thoughts. She leaned in and kissed Camila again, on the corner of her mouth. "But, you know what? It might be nice to spend the pre-ghost part of that timeline with you, babe."

"How profound. Say that in Spanish and I'll be impressed," Camila sighed. She leaned into Eda, playing with a strand of her long red hair, now shot through with grey.

"Now you're making fun of me," Eda pressed the tip of her finger into Camila's cheek, very gently. "I only know how to say one romantic thing in Spanish and it's incredibly corny."

"Go on, what is it?"

"Ahem," Eda pretended to clear her throat. "Mi amor, mi vida. I know it because in high school one of the guys - Edwin W - tried to write me love poetry, and he rhymed vida with Eda."

"Did he become a cop?" Camila asked, suspicious.

Eda grinned. "He may have."

*Ah," she said, and kissed Eda on the cheek. "I shall have to call you mi vida to remind you of your high school suitor."

"Don't you dare," Eda laughed, but didn't fight it. It sounded kinda good, coming from Camila. Huffing a little, she leaned into the shorter woman, and then wrapped both arms around her. "Okay, don't tell anyone about my soft side, but I've been wanting to do this for a while."

Camila leaned into the hug, feeling the loneliness she'd felt for so long begin to abate.

Seven years ago.

"I can't say I'm sorry to see the back of them," Camila said, voice slow. "But I wish…"

"It would've been easier if we could've interrogated them directly," Eda agreed. They were sitting opposite each other in a little stretch of space in Eda's cramped little store, legs casually tangled. Camila was holding the funeral announcement for Alador and Odalia Blight, examining it. "I guess it's gonna be hard to find out info from them directly now. Short of a seance."

"No seances," Camila said, covering her face with a hand. "You know those creep me out."

"I know," Eda grinned, deciding not to tell her that she'd taught Luz how to fake her way through a seance only a week ago.

They sat in silence for a while, Camila examining the back of the funeral announcement. Her eyes were sliding over the photo in the back of Alador and Odalia with their three children, matching dresses. Similar to the photo on Odalia’s desk she’d seen all those years ago, the children older. All serious faces. "I feel sorry for their kids."

"They’ll be okay," Eda said, confidently. "It’ll take them at least five years to run out of money." Camila rolled up the announcement and bopped her on the arm with it. "Emotionally it’s terrible, of course."

"Of course," Camila said, staring back at the kids. She wouldn’t have wished growing up with parents on anyone - not even the children of the people who’d made sure Luz had grown up without a father.

A few hours ago.

The kid still wasn’t back. Luz had texted Camila at some point about her phone dying, and Eda could see Camila trying not to show how worried she was. She slid an arm around her and said, "If she’s not back soon, we’ll call Willow. That kid’s got a good head on her shoulders."

"She does," Cam agreed with a light smile, leaning into Eda.

Eda squeezed her arm and said, "You’ve been really tense. You okay?"

"More or less."

"Worried about Luz and that Blight kid?"

Camila was quiet for a little while. "A little," she admitted, finally. "I’m not sure how I feel about the Blights being brought back into my life. But…" The one they’d seen had been small and tired looking. She’d looked like Odalia, but had had none of Odalia Blight’s steel spine, her glaring lack of humanity. The cold eyes of Odalia Blight had not been what she’d seen when she’d looked at Amity Blight; she’d seen a small child, lonely and frightened. That’d hurt her heart. "I’d rather lead with kindness, mi vida. I don’t want to blame her for her mother and father’s misdeeds."

"I love that you’re so gentle," Eda pulled her in a little closer. "But if she hurts Luz, I’ll tar and feather her, babe. I mean it!"

Camila laughed lightly. "I know, my love. I know." She took off her glasses and placed them on the table, laid her head on Eda’s lap. "I also know Luz is head-over-heels for her."

"Yeah, yeah…" Eda laughed softly. "It might work out. But what do I know about romance?"

"You know enough," she said, and reached to hold her hand as they waited up for Luz.

Chapter 10: Pink in the Night

Chapter Text

In the deep darkness of the corridor, with the door to Alador and Odalia’s room shut, the only light came from the flickering of the candle. Luz, who had both of her arms wrapped around the girl between her knees, pressed her forehead to the back of Amity’s neck. For a little while, they could hear nothing but each other’s shallow breaths. She could almost hear Amity’s brain working, ticking away, overheating, could definitely feel Amity’s hands opening and closing into tight fists on her thighs, her breath coming in short, shallow spurts. Oh, Luz realised, as though through a dream, she’s having a panic attack.

She placed one of her hands on Amity’s chest, the other curling around one of Amity’s hands, squeezing it. "I’m here, I’m here. Do you think you can speak?" In front of her, Amity shook her head. Luz held her a little tighter and said, "I’m here, I’m here," again. "I’m not leaving." She tried to remember everything she could from the books she’d read. She controlled her breathing, inhaling and exhaling deep and even, and said, "Hey, just try and breathe along with me, okay? In and out, in and out…"

With the other girl pressed so tight to her body, Luz could feel the stuttered, forced way she tried to breathe deeply. Luz rested her cheek on her shoulder and said, "Good job, good job. You’re doing good. We’re gonna be okay. Good job. You’re gonna be okay..."

Amity’s hand, which had been opening and closing into a fist on Luz’s knee, moved to grip at the forearm Luz had rested across her chest. Breathing was starting to come more naturally; when Luz turned her head, she could see Amity’s pointed face screwed up in concentration as she focused on pulling air into her lungs, deep and even. "You’re always working hard," Luz told her, voice soft and amazed. She was getting control of herself so quickly. "You’re doing good. Just a little more, okay? Deep breath in, follow my breathing."

"Five things?" Amity asked, when she could speak again, voice still ragged.

"Uh huh," Luz moved her hand briefly to touch her hair, moved it back to cover Amity’s little fist. "Five things you can see?"

"It’s dark."

"You can do it."

She felt Amity squeeze her hand. "The candle. Your hands. The wall. My shadow. Your shadow."

"No other shadows?" Luz asked, too scared to look for herself, feeling her stomach lurch. Amity shook her head. "Okay. That’s good. Four things you can feel?"

"Your hand," she checked off. Luz could feel Amity’s heartbeat growing steady under her hand, hammering less. "Your legs. Your hair is tickling my neck. And your breath is really warm."

"Yeah." Luz lifted her hand to brush over Amity’s face again, and felt her eyes close. "Three things you can hear?"

"Your voice. Your heartbeat. You, breathing."

"I’m breathing pretty loud," Luz agreed with a soft smile. "What about smell?"

"Lemons," she felt the girl in her arms move very slightly. "How do you still smell like chlorine?"

"It never goes away," Luz told her, laughing a little. Amity seemed calmer, body looser. She stroked her hair, felt her respond by turning in her arms. Their eyes met in the darkness. "Are you feeling okay? Good job!"

Amity glanced at the floor, eyebrows knitting together, face still flushed in the low light of the candle. "Luz," she started to say, and then froze up again. Luz put both of her hands on Amity’s shoulders, intensely worried that she’d just regressed back into fear. She opened her mouth and Amity covered her lips with her hand.

At first all Luz could hear was the gentle ticking of a clock somewhere. Her own breathing (weirdly loud in the quiet of the house), Amity’s breathing (soft, hitching again, she’d work on calming her down again in a moment). A low buzz of static in her ears that she hadn’t noticed before. She kept her mouth shut, looking up into Amity’s eyes. Amity was very still, ears twitching, looking up. Searching for something.

The next time it happened, Luz heard it too. A creak. She squeezed Amity close, suddenly very frightened, even as her rational brain tried to remind her, that could be the house settling, that could be the house settling.

What even was a house "settling"?

They heard it again, another creak of floorboards under a heavy foot. She felt her body freeze up with fear, thinking of the dark liquid mass that’d come for Willow. Amity held her close, her warmth helping to thaw Luz’s frightened limbs. They were both breathing in time with each other again, deep, almost silent inhales and exhales. "It’s coming from inside their room," Amity said, voice slow and quiet. Luz bit her bottom lip. It was. The creak of a heavy foot. Another sound; a slithering across a wooden floor. Tangled up in each other, their ears strained.

Creak of footsteps. Slithering. A new sound joined these, the scrape of metal against metal. Luz’s brain conjured up the image of the bronze cauldron in that little bonus room. Her tired, frightened imagination fired up a projector and showed her a movie: something big and terrible knocking the bronze cauldron to the mirrored floor. Climbing out of it.

"We need to go," Amity told her, voice against her ear. "We need to hide."

The footsteps had stopped in front of the door. As something scraped against the wood, shouldering against it, they both scrambled, too tangled up to move efficiently. Amity got to her feet first, throwing her arms out to cover Luz; Luz ducked under them, grabbing the salt she’d brought up with her and pouring a handful into her palm. As the door burst open, she didn’t even wait to see what was coming out of it; she threw it at the wall of living darkness and grabbed Amity’s hand as it screamed.

Luz had taken the lead, holding Amity’s hand. In the dark, now lost without the candle, she tripped over something metal and heavy, groaning. "What was that?"

"Chair," Amity told her, taking the lead now, dragging Luz behind her. "Come on, come on, you have to keep moving. I know it hurts but keep moving."

Luz tripped back up to her feet, long legs managing to set a gait that could be compared to that of a baby deer. What she’d done with the salt had bought them some time; when she looked back down the hall she could see the creature screeching, twisting, smoke rising from its bulk. Amity led her up a set of stairs, not needing lights, not needing to stop. She shouldered a door open and swung her arm as she turned, momentum forcing Luz stumbling into the room first. Amity paused outside the door, keeping herself between Luz and the corridor outside, body shielding her.

Further down the hall, they could hear the beast rushing up the stairs, multiple feet and limbs, the scrape of its body on the walls, its weight making the wood groan. Luz tossed her salt shaker to Amity, who popped the top off of it and poured a thick line in the corridor, blocking off their room. Luz pulled her back inside, and they closed the door. Breathing hard, Luz felt her eyes adjust to the darkness as Amity moved, grabbing a chair and propping it beneath the door’s handle to lock them in. This was Amity’s study, Alador’s old study. Luz’s heart was beating so hard in her chest that it felt like it was going to escape; she took a few baby deer steps and flopped against the desk. Amity hesitated behind the door, looking between it and Luz. Finally, she came closer, sitting just in front of her. Luz could see all the muscles in her body tight, as though she were ready to jump up and understood, oh, so she can protect me if it gets in, and felt her heart break into two pieces.

She slid up, sitting beside Amity, and put an arm around her. They heard outside the crash of the creature approaching the door, smelled the sulfur, felt its scream in their bones as it encountered the salt. A grim silence followed, both on edge.

Without her phone, without any lights, Luz couldn’t tell how much time was passing. She counted their breaths instead, tried to measure by the beat of her heart. Once she reached into the hundreds, she squeezed Amity’s shoulders and said, "I think we’re safe for now."

"For now," Amity’s voice was unsettled, unbalanced.

"You don’t need to protect me," Luz told her, gently. "You don’t need to worry about me on top of everything else. I promise." Amity was shaking her head quickly, her hair getting in her face. Luz squeezed her hand, trying to sound brave. "I mean it. Don’t, don’t go throwing yourself in front of me and stuff. Don’t put that pressure on yourself."

"What if you get hurt?" Amity asked, and Luz could see in her eyes just how close she was to breaking down again, losing herself to another panic attack. "What am I supposed to do if…"

"I can look after myself," Luz promised her. "I know I don’t seem like it, but I’m way scrappy! I can totally defend myself! And you!"

"Luz."

"I’m here. Okay? I’m here. You can rely on me."

"Luz!" Amity’s adrenaline was making her heartbeat spike in her ears, everything over the last few - god, minutes? hours? - twisting, her brain refusing to process all of these conflicting feelings, turning them into something that was somehow both sharp and unfocused. Why was Luz still talking? Why were they still discussing this?

"I know you're scared," Luz said, voice so earnest. "But that's okay! I’ll be brave for you! I'll be your fearless champion!"

Amity grabbed her by her borrowed shirt, pulling her in, fear and adrenaline melding, combining to make fury. "My champion?! I’m not helpless either! I just saved you!" She took a deep breath and suddenly all that mundane anger from before - Luz and Edric going out on a date, Luz and Emira - was twisting in with how embarrassing it had been to have a panic attack in front of Luz. There was too much for her to process. It was easier to just snarl. "Why do you say stuff like that? Why do you do this stuff? Do you know what effect it has on me? Are you just playing with me to amuse yourself? Is this some kind of game to you? It’s not! This is serious! This is my life!"

She'd pulled Luz close, their noses touching, and she could feel Luz's breath on her skin again which was absolutely not making her heart beat faster from something other than anger, nope, not at all. Luz, she could tell, was not focusing on her words. Her dark eyes kept flicking from her eyes to her lips. "Can I-- real quick, I'm sorry, can I just--"

"Yes," Amity's mouth said, as her body worked out what was coming before her brain did.

Luz pressed forward, body between Amity's knees, hands propping herself up either side of Amity's hips, knocking her backwards, and kissed her. Later on, Luz would replay the small noise Amity had made, a soft gasp that had been quickly muffled by her mouth, over and over; Amity would try to edit the little sound she'd made out in the vault of her memories.

Pressing back into the kiss, Amity felt her breath hitch, felt a full pyrotechnic display behind her closed eyes, felt her heart beat out of time and felt her stomach flip, her skin lighting up as every part of her body responded with sheer joy to this, the touch of Luz's lips on hers. This wasn't how she'd imagined it going. In her head, she’d carefully planned out everything. In her head, she initiated their first kiss after a candlelit dinner where she impressed Luz with how good at romance she was. In her head now, she told herself: this is your first kiss and felt drunk with joy and fear and adrenaline. Which, now that she could compare, was a lot better than being drunk on alcohol.

Luz pulled away long enough to say, "I'm sorry, I couldn't stop thinking about-" but Amity's mouth swallowed the rest of that sentence as she pulled her in for another kiss. One of her hands had moved to Luz's waist and rested there, the other linking with Luz’s hand, the way they had done for the dance. They broke off again, Luz out of breath, grinning up at her. "Thanks," she said.

Amity kissed her a third time and thought, this is your third ever kiss, and with this one she licked her way into Luz's mouth, following wild instinct. Her brain was a box turned upside down, emptied out, nothing left. Luz was reciprocating, and wow, tongues were weird, where did they go? She should've read up on this. Were there any books you could study to help with this kind of thing? Classes? Luz's mouth and tongue felt warm and her teeth felt nice and thinking was hard so she stopped. When they broke away this time, she was out of breath and Luz was giddy.

With a laugh, Luz pressed her forehead to Amity's shoulder and said, "wow, someone's been kissing!" Which, in retrospect, was a weird thing to say. But her brain wasn't firing on all cylinders.

"I... haven't."

"No kissing?"

"First time," she admitted.

"That was your first kiss?" Luz asked, eyes round.

"I think that was the third time we kissed. Was it bad?" Oh no. What if it had been very bad? Criminally bad? Could you be banned from kissing? Amity winced.

"I couldn't tell it was your first kiss," Luz promised her. She pulled her in close, cuddled into her. "Did you like it?"

"Yes," Amity said, without even thinking about it. She'd loved it. She loved this too. Without panicking, she could appreciate this better, the warmth of a body against her own, the darkness making it hard to tell how red she’d gone.

"I liked it too," Luz's voice was gentle, her fingers playing over Amity's hands. It looked like she was building up the courage to try and do something, say something.

"We're friends." Amity said. "Right?"

"Huh?" That seemed to have taken the wind out of Luz’s sails. She opened her mouth.

Amity pushed on. "That was...friends, right? We’re pals. Buddies. Comrades."

"Comrades," Luz’s lips formed the word, rounding over the syllables, eyes looking away. "Oh. Yeah! Of course. Of course we’re friends."

That was a relief. It hurt too. Amity forced air from her chest, trying to make sense of what she’d just done. But she needed to know. She needed to make sure they were friends. It was important to know they were friends, to have that foundation. What if she’d said, want to date? And Luz had answered with, nope, not you, where’s your brother? That would’ve been terrible. As terrifying as the creature outside was, rejection was even worse.

Luz, beside her, seemed a little stunned. She was staring at her hands, an unreadable expression on her face. It was quiet outside, quiet enough that they could hear each other breathing again. The sound of Luz breathing in and out steadily next to her was intensely calming.

"Hey," Luz said, out of nowhere. "Can I get another run at that?"

"On what?"

"The, the kiss. I don't think I did it right. It was your first kiss, so I wanna go back and try again. If that's okay."

"You can try again," Amity told her, quicker than she’d ever said anything, words coming out in a jumble. Luz leaned in, arm around her shoulder, and kissed her, mouth lingering with something she might have called hunger, if she had to name it. Okay, Amity thought. I'll give myself three seconds to enjoy this and then I'll move on. She counted down from three, but Luz's hand shifted to stroke her cheek, mouth opening to deepen the kiss, and she found she couldn't break away. Okay, she told herself, three more seconds. She counted them, but her body refused to obey her when her brain told it to move away. Three more seconds, she told herself. And then again, three more seconds. But she was quickly lost in the warmth and comfort of Luz's kiss, her heart swelling. She couldn't count time, could only be, enjoying the safety and the warmth of the body next to her own.

It was weird, being stuck here. They were under siege by an unknown entity, locked in a strange post-kiss awkwardness. It was like everything was fresh, raw, brand new. They were two exposed nerves, experiencing everything from a strange, delicate angle.

"How did you know it was Emira?" Amity asked suddenly, voice almost catching in her throat. She wanted to be brave, but it was hard. "When Edric told you."

"Oh!" Luz looked over at her, brow furrowing, wishing this conversation avenue hadn’t been re-opened. "Cuz she asked me to take her out before Edric did."

Amity looked away. They were both silent for a little while, Luz feeling everything inside herself jangling at the quiet. And then Amity asked, "What's it like being an only child?"

"Um-"

"Don't worry. I'll find out soon enough." She looked tired as she leaned back against the desk, closing her eyes. "I think I'll speak to them tomorrow."

Luz bit her bottom lip. "Amity?"

"Hm?"

"You said something about me completing a set," Luz said, and her words came out all in a rush. "I don't wanna do something like that. I like you for you! I think you're wonderful! I wanna be," her voice caught in her throat and she didn't know why, "Your friend because I think you're wonderful. Not for your brother, or your sister."

"Oh." Amity threw her a sideways look, oddly soft and vulnerable. She was too tired to fight. The kindness was a balm to her aching heart. She nodded a little bit, and looked away. "It hurt. Because I think you're pretty great," she said, once she'd screwed up the courage to. "I...I really like you. And I’d hope you’d like me for me. Not for them."

Amity had never confessed anything about her feelings to anyone before. She’d thought, once, she could. That it might be as easy as it was when she emptied her heart out to the blank pages of her diary. Now she found it difficult. Diaries didn’t judge the way people did. A diary couldn’t push you away, make fun of you, reject you wholesale. She wanted to tell Luz how she felt, to say, I know I’m not as good as my brother and sister, I know I’m not as good as I could be, but I’m trying and I hope that’s enough, but her brain spun out, a car missing a wheel. I like you was all she could manage. There was a monster somewhere outside, but it felt like the most dangerous thing here were her own feelings.

Beside her, Luz sighed and scooted down, lay her head on Amity's shoulder, fingers interlacing with hers. Amity schooled herself, evaluating this. How was this different from the times she'd seen Gus and Luz hold hands, or Willow and Luz hold hands? "I’m sorry," Luz said, in the voice of someone who was holding something back. "I don’t wanna make you feel bad. I’m, I’m really glad you still wanna be friends."

It wasn't different from the times she’d seen Gus and Luz hold hands, Willow and Luz hold hands. Amity felt a very strange crushing sensation in her chest. A mixture of happiness at being close to Luz, at having kissed her, having been held by her, followed by a sucking pain in her chest at the knowledge that their feelings were not reciprocal; Luz liked her as a friend and Luz was hands-on, touchy-feely with her friends. Amity wanted the touches, wanted to hold hands, wanted Luz hugging her, laying her head on her shoulder, sharing a bed with her, but all with a different intention than friendship. But if she said all that, she might lose the affection given to her now. And, wow, the affection felt so good, fireworks lighting up every time someone squeezed her hand or held her close, something in her needing it, even as her first instinct was to flinch away. Her lips felt oddly tingly; she took a risk and turned her head, brushing her lips over the top of Luz's head and saw her reflexive wide smile. That was...that was nice. Wasn't it? A smile for her.

Luz looked up at her and Amity, unable to think of another thing to do, caught her face in her hands, cupping her cheeks, and gazed down at her bright, coffee-coloured eyes. Luz smiled up at her and that smile transformed everything inside her into something soft and warm and comfortable. And Amity realised that for the first time, she felt at home in her home, that would feel at home anywhere as long as she could gaze into those eyes. It would have been easy to kiss her again, then. To say that she actually meant the kisses to be romantic, not friendly, sorry, whoops! Big mistake! Sorry! More kisses please! But rejection would've hurt even more than usual coming from Luz; she forced that urge down. Distracting herself, Amity concentrated on examining the pucker of a small scar in her upper ear just below her piercing, touched it with the tip of her finger, mapping the surface of Luz's ear so that she could dream about touching her lips to it later. "What happened there?"

"Oh, that was where I got my ear pierced the first time."

"The first time," Amity said. She touched the lobes, the small studs there. "Not here?"

"Oh yeah, I've had those since I was a baby! No this was my first like...adult piercing. I wanted to get this and an eyebrow ring, but I couldn't afford a piercer so me and Skara decided to do it ourselves cuz we knew that we could use a needle and some antiseptic and it would be okay."

"It wasn't okay, was it?" Amity asked, a smile in her voice.

"No, it got pretty infected. Mami was crazy mad with us," Luz grinned at the memory, no embarrassment, just a warm joy emanating from her. "And Eda couldn't stop laughing when she saw how big my ear swelled up to. She nearly passed out when she heard about it." She laughed too, her hand moving to touch Amity's where it sat on her cheek. "Still, Mom didn't get as mad as she will do when she finds out we got stick 'n' pokes."

"What's a...what's that?" Amity asked, with a sinking feeling. Camila might already know about those.

Luz grinned, her smile big and wild, and Amity's stomach flipped. "Home tattoo! Me and Gus did matching ones on each other! Except it hurts a lot so it's kinda uneven because we both kept having to stop and we didn't like hurting each other. It’s so painful. But it looks so cool. And it’s like, permanent proof that we’re buddies that we can carry everywhere!"

"Can you show me?"

Luz rolled up the sleeve of her borrowed shirt. There was a tiny lopsided GF on the inside of her elbow. It was long faded. Amity found herself laughing. "Luz. How are you not dead?"

"Hey! We took care this time! Used a whole bunch of hand sanitiser!" She was leaning in, her body weight close and warm. Their noses were almost touching, her chest an inch away at most from Amity's chest. Amity reached for her, leaning back and tugging more of her on top of her body, wanting to be tangled up with her. "Do you have any secret tattoos?"

"I don't."

"You should get one. It's fun to have a secret!"

"I've had enough of secrets," she said, but there was no bite in her words. She touched the tiny scar on Luz's ear with her thumb. "And I don't want an infection. I'll get a normal tattoo when I get one."

"What'll you get?"

"Maybe...maybe something…" she tried to think, but her brain was short-circuiting pleasantly at all this contact. She'd had plans originally, something for the Hexside Banshees, but all her brain could see now was sunflowers, lights, bright warm spots. She reached for a Hail Mary pass. When she’d visited family in New York as a kid, she’d seen highlighted words in her great-grandfather’s bible, the one he’d taken with him to Europe as a soldier. "Et lux in tenebris lucet et tenebrae eam non comprehenderunt. It means 'the light shines in the darkness and the darkness can't overcome it,' in Latin."

"Nice! You'd almost have my name!"

"What?" Oh no.

"Luz Noceda. Ceder means give in - like cede in English - so No Ceda or No Cede is 'doesn't give in'. Luz no ceda! Light doesn't give in! Noceda’s also a river in Spain, but that’s less fun. Hey! I think that counts as your Spanish lesson for today!"

"What does Camila mean?" Amity asked, because since meeting her, she thought about Camila on a pretty regular basis.

"I'm not sure," Luz admitted. "But I don't think her name makes a sentence like mine does."

The quiet of the house was beginning to feel comfortable, less terrifying. They listened out for nearby creaks or bangs, still alert, but didn’t hear any. Luz moved down and lay her head on Amity's lap and Amity's hand rested on her chest, above her heart. It beat a soft rhythm under her palm. Luz looked up at her with relief; as much as she'd enjoyed kissing her, that had been a wild impulse based on how beautiful she’d looked in the half light, how weirdly protective Luz had felt of her. Like a knight with a princess in a fairytale, or that time in the sixth Azura novel, when Hecate had briefly been injured and Azura had had to take care of her in the middle of battle.

She didn’t want this friendship to disappear because she’d done something weird. When Luz had been a kid, she'd been the kind of kid who'd driven people away with her weirdness, her impulsiveness. Amity couldn't even look her in the eye a lot of the time, even though she’d been getting better at that recently. Amity was kind, pushing past her aversion to be her friend anyway. She didn't want to have messed that up with a kiss. That Amity was okay with occasional kisses on top of their friendship was a pretty good deal. The kiss had felt real good, but she wasn't sure that Amity had forgiven her for what had happened with the twins; it was, she told herself, way easier to not explore that impulse further and accept being a FWB (friend with besos) than to lose her. "I'm sorry about asking out both your siblings," she started, wanting to apologise again. It didn't seem like Amity had fully accepted her apology. She wanted to keep trying until she'd made it up to her fully.

Amity felt a horror rise in her stomach at the idea of her longtime crush (and now, first kiss) discussing her polyamorous intentions with her older siblings. She needed to stop thinking about that immediately. "Um," she said, and couldn't think of what to change the subject to. "Um. What are five things you can see?"

"Your eyes," Luz said, gazing into warm honey coloured irises. "Your nose. Your hair. Your ears. Your shirt. Your--"

"Five things."

"Right." Luz smiled at her before prompting, "Four things?"

"Four things you can touch?"

Luz reached up and stroked Amity's cheek, caught the edge of her shirt between her thumb and forefinger. "Two," she said, watching the pure act of magic that happened when Amity smiled that made her pretty pointy face all soft. She squeezed Amity's hand, feeling the warmth there, and then brought it to her mouth and brushed her lips over it. "Four," she said, and her heart contracted pleasantly when she saw the light brush of pink over Amity's cheeks.

(This was fine, Amity reminded herself. This was a friendly hand kiss.)

"Three things you can hear?"

"Mostly my own heart." She sighed, feeling her lungs empty. "I can hear you too. And...nothing else. No footsteps! No bangs!"

"That’s for the best," Amity said, mouth sliding into a crooked smile. "Two things you can smell?"

Luz reached up and caught Amity's shirt and breathed her in. "Kinda like flowers? But you smell a little like lemons too."

"Yeah?" Amity stroked her hair back from her face. "I...got new shower gel."

"And I can still kinda taste chlorine."

"You beat me to the last question," Amity said, but there was nothing but kindness in her voice. "Go to sleep, Luz. I'll keep an eye on things."

"Okay. But wake me up soon, alright? You need to sleep too."

"Sure."

Luz closed her eyes, and started to doze. Amity kept her eyes open for as long as she could, but broke her promise, dozing off against the hard wooden edge of the desk.

Amity’s phone buzzing in her pocket woke her up. She’d forgotten its existence; it was low on charge, the screen dim. She stretched, holding it a groan at how stiff she was. At some point in the night she’d slid down to the wooden ground and was now very uncomfortable. Boscha’s name popped up on screen.

Boscha (09:25): how come ur not in class

Amity (09:30): overslept.

Amity (09:30): bad night.

Boscha (09:31): sux

Amity (09:31): did I miss anything important?

Boscha (09:31): btw aren't you glad I made u come to see skaras band?

Amity (09:32): did I miss anything important

Boscha (09:33): they were soooooo good

Boscha (09:33): but then she's always good

Amity (09:34): did I miss anything important.

Boscha (09:35): I can get u their ep

Amity (09:35): why do you enter every conversation with an agenda?

Boscha (09:35): lol so you liked it

Boscha (09:35): stop being grumpy bc my biceps are bigger than urs

Boscha (09:35): and my gfs better than urs

"Her biceps are not bigger than mine." Amity muttered, darkly.

"Who're you talking about?" Luz asked, blearily, coming to wakefulness. She’d had a more comfortable sleep; her head was resting on Amity's chest, half of her using Amity like a pillow.

"Boscha."

"Oh. Um," said Luz in the tone of someone who wants to tell the truth but is afraid the truth will greatly upset someone. She changed the subject instead, blinking at the light streaming in through the windows. "What time is it?"

"Half nine," Amity told her, experimenting with how many middle finger emojis she could fit in a single text. After a moment of thought, because as much as something in her had liked the idea that Boscha thought Luz was her girlfriend she should probably tell the truth, she added, btw Luz and I aren't dating.

Boscha (09:36): hahahahaha holy sh*t

Boscha (09:36): u 2 broke up already????

She groaned and pressed a hand to her face. "Why don't I keep Boscha blocked on my phone?"

"I dunno," Luz said, sitting up. "Her kinda insulting texts get pretty charming after a while. Once she sent me a video where she cracked a walnut in her elbow by flexing. She said the walnut was meant to represent me but honestly, it was so cool I ended up rewatching it a whole bunch."

The twist that happened in Amity’s gut was probably about Boscha being mean to Luz. Right? "When you fix your phone, I'm blocking her on it."

"Because of the flexing?"

"It's obviously just an intimidation attempt!" Amity argued, cheeks flushing as she sat up too. "She can't treat you like that!"

"I'm not intimidated! I know I can beat Boscha where it counts." Luz lay back down, putting her hands behind her head with a grin. And paused. "Huh. I can't actually think...of where I can beat her. I'm pretty sure I can. You know. At something."

"You're ridiculous," Amity told her, and forgetting that today was a brand new day, that they didn't have the same weird intimacy of last night, she flopped down on the ground, head resting on Luz's chest. Luz lay one of her arms on Amity's shoulders, the other under her head.

"I know," she said, sounding comfortable. "But I think you like me more than you like her. So I win at that! And I've never had a video uploaded to the internet of someone in a wolf-man suit chasing me around. So I win at that too."

"Yeah," Amity sighed. "Willow's pretty funny."

"Willow?" Luz asked, confused.

"Yeah?" Amity looked up at her, equally confused. "You weren't involved?"

"Involved in...what?"

"Willow dressing up like a wolf-man to scare Boscha?"

"Willow is the wolf-man!?" Luz slapped her hand to her forehead. "What! How! How is that possible? Actually, that...explains a lot."

Amity shook her head. "You didn't figure it out when you saw the costume?"

"She said it was for Halloween!"

"Or how she laughs whenever anyone brings up Boscha getting chased?"

"She's a fan of Boscha getting her ass handed to her! A lot of people are!" Luz pressed both her hands to her head. "Man, you've got to think I'm dumb for this and the whole flag thing."

Against all of her better judgement, Amity sighed with a grin and squeezed Luz gently, closing her eyes. "I know you've got other things on your mind. And you trust people when they tell you something the first time. That's what I like about you."

Luz's fingers got lost in her hair. They lay in silence briefly, enjoying the feel of the room. "Um. So. I know it was a friend thing. And so maybe it shouldn't happen often. But. I kinda want to kiss you again. If I can."

"Clean up first."

The real sign that Amity was on her way to forgiving her was that she let her use her bathroom to shower, once they were sure that the terrors of the night had once again faded with the day. There was no sign of the creature, no sign of anything that had happened the night before, but for the edges of their salt barrier being ragged, as though something had tried to dig through it. Even better, her clothes from the night before were freshly laundered and dry in the washer-dryer. Luz, delighted by their safety and their steps towards forgiveness, used every single expensive lotion in Amity’s cabinet and a spare toothbrush, got dressed in her own clothes (her hoodie, she noticed, wasn’t with her cleaned clothes, which was weird but probably nothing to worry about), and flopped happily down next to Amity back in the study, hair still damp.

"We’re safe!"

"Yeah," Amity agreed. She’d used one of the guest bathrooms, and smelled nice and fresh. She was charging her phone, tapping her bottom lip thoughtfully. "I’ve got to speak to my siblings today. Should I drop you somewhere you can get your phone fixed?" She frowned up at Luz. "I can pay for that. Since...it was our pool."

"When the twins said they had a pool, they said oh, Mittens uses it and I thought that meant they had a cat they’d trained how to swim," Luz blurted out, mouth moving before her brain had caught up. "I thought it was so cool that they had a pet that went swimming!"

"I get to squeeze your cheeks again for that." Amity took Luz's chin in her hands, reclining back as Luz leaned forward, grinning. "Your face is so soft."

"I used your stuff again," Luz told her, smile too big for her face. There was something about resting her chin in the space between Amity's thumb and forefinger that felt very good. She leaned in a little past the hand and got her promised kiss, feeling like she was floating on air.

They talked endlessly in the car, about nothing, mostly. Talked about the classes they shared, made observations about the world outside the car door. Amity appreciated this; her brain was almost entirely focused on the road, and having Luz tell about things in full paragraphs, enthusiastically info-dumping, meant that she was able to enjoy her voice without having to worry about being distracted too much from the road. Her excitement and happiness was contagious.

She dropped Luz off at their college’s campus, and before she left, reached out the window to tug her shirt and pull her in for an unexpected hug. Luz brushed her lips over her temple, and she floated on that contact all the way downtown to Blight Industries. Right, she thought, parking in the building’s underground parking lot. Time to see my brother.

When she strode past reception nobody stopped her. One of her sister’s employees, recognising her, used their pass to swipe her in and she nodded to them, looking through them. Stepping into the elevator, she hit the button for the top floor with her elbow, and it rose up above Bonesborough, giving her enough time to get really very angry all over again.

Emira wasn’t in her office when Amity got there. She stalked around her desk like a caged animal, looking for evidence of where she and Ed might be. Luckily, she didn’t have too long to wait; there was a jaunty whistled tune from down the hall where Emira’s executive kitchen was, and Ed strode in a moment later with a cup of fancy coffee in one hand and a croissant in the other.

"You!"

Ed held up his hands and said, "Me?" His sister was already barrelling towards him, face scarlet with fury. Ed dropped his coffee and snack, privately mourning the loss of his delightful croissant, hopping over Em’s desk to keep something solid between them. "Hey Mittens! You seem a little infuriated today."

"You took Luz out on a date!"

"I sure did!"

"You know I like her!"

"I sure do!" Ed ducked to one side as Amity threw a pen at him, and dived sideways to avoid her as she leapt onto the desk. "Listen! Listen! Mittens! Calm down! All I was doing was trying to make sure she was good enough to date my baby sister. If you think about it, I’m one of the good guys." Amity jumped down on his side of the desk and he kept moving, weaving away. "And wow, she is cute. Waaaay out of your league."

"I’m going to revoke your right to kneecaps!"

"My knees are all you can reach, you feral little monster!"

"Get back here!"

Ed grabbed a pile of carefully organised papers from Em’s inbox and threw them at Amity to force her back, using the space he’d created to take a running leap at a set of filing cabinets, climbing out of reach on the top. Safe, he stuck his tongue out at her. "You should’ve put as much work into growing as you did into homework, Mittens!"

Amity stalked back and forth in front of the cabinets, hands in tight fists, glaring up at him. Edric considered the series of bad decisions that had led him to this point and tried to regret them. Nope. It’d been pretty awesome. Amity glared at him. "You could’ve really hurt her. She thought she’d broken up Emira and her...girlfriend? Why didn’t you tell me Emira had a girlfriend!"

"You know, it’s more of a fling," Edric said, then thought about this. "A...three year long fling? With full commitment?"

"THREE YEARS?" Amity howled. "Three years and neither of you told me? I had to find out from Luz thinking she’d broken up Emira and this Viney person, after being asked out by both you and her - which, by the way, what the hell?"

"We wanted to check her out and make sure she was good enough for our little sister!"

"No you didn’t!" She pointed up at him. "You were being nosy and controlling and chaotic for no good reason!"

"A little," Ed admitted, crouching on top of the filing cabinets and smiling like a Cheshire Cat. Amity was going from scarlet to purple with fury, which meant she wasn’t trying to find a way up onto the cabinets to kick his ass, so Ed pressed his advantage while he looked for a way down which would keep his knees intact. "All I wanted to do was get the low-down on how she feels about you. I don’t think it’s entirely my fault that she thinks we’re cuter and smarter than you are. We got dates with her in like, two seconds. You think you could’ve done that? But look, when I marry Luz you can absolutely be my bridesmaid."

Ed watched his sister’s face go from purple to blue, and decided, in retrospect, that had been a little too far. He shouted down, "Hey! I was kidding! Don’t forget to breathe!"

But it was too late, and she was falling sideways. There was a crack as her head hit the desk and he winced, breathing in through his teeth. "Oops. Passed out."

He flopped down, landing on his forearms and knees, and picked his sister up, tossing her over his shoulder. "Okay! Let’s go find a first aid kit."

"What are the predictive models coming out of the technology teams looking like?" Emira asked the packed meeting room. Sat around the desk were her heads of departments, senior stakeholders, product owners, representatives from around the company. She was, easily, the youngest person here, but if she kept business-like and firm she could keep on top of things, look smarter than she ever felt here, keep their hard-earned respect. She’d worked hard to keep on top of things, to be able to run these meetings without her employees shooting each other derisive looks when they thought she wasn’t looking.

"We’re looking at about a 61% accuracy when it comes to predicting meme trends on Twitter," a woman with thick glasses told her, tapping on her laptop. Behind them, the large screen monitor showed a series of graphs. "It’s difficult to predict nihilistic Gen Z comedy, but we’re able to pick up engagements on high impact Twitter accounts early and base forecasting on that."

"That’s a great start," Emira nodded, turning to her Chief of Technology. "Kiki, how are we doing in terms of securing our previous work? I noticed there were some reports of potential issues coming in from the devs on floor 5."

Her Chief of Technology wasn’t listening. She was staring out of the glass wall of the conference room. Emira’s eyes followed hers. Ed was leaning against the glass, both forearms pressed on the wall of the conference room, open mouth pressed against it. Amity was next to him, also leaning through the glass in an identical pose, glaring through it, a lollipop in her mouth and a band-aid on her head. "Ignore them," Emira said, turning away, fury spiking. "Can we go back to the point about our security?"

"They’re. They appear to be making faces."

Outside, Ed had his entire tongue pressed to the glass, eyes crossed. Amity was fully grimacing.

"Ignore them. Let’s go over how this will affect our quarterly development velocity. What’s the status on the MVP delivery of the--" Ed was making kissy faces through the glass. Amity was holding up a picture of Viney. "...Let’s take a ten minute recess while I go and make sure they’re not lost."

Emira pulled them both into a private conference room by their collars before hissing, "I will kick both your asses."

"I think you’ve got to give us a way to keep you from kicking our asses," Ed said. "Like, leave me alone or I’ll kick your ass."

"Or leave Luz alone or I’ll kick your ass," Amity suggested. "That’s from me, by the way. I need you both to leave Luz alone or I’ll kick your asses."

"No, it’s a promise. I’m going to find out whatever dumb thing you two are getting into, and I will kick both your asses once I do."

"Good luck catching me," Amity muttered.

"Quite frankly I’m appalled at this unprofessional behaviour," Edric said, a hand held to his heart. "From my manager at that. I can't imagine what HR will think of this."

"Spit it out," Emira told them, hands on her hips.

"I nearly killed Mittens," Edric said, brightly. "She went fully blue! How many injuries have you had in the last week, sis? I heard your nose got crunched in rugby." He flicked the tip of Amity’s nose. Emira grabbed the back of Amity’s shirt to stop her launching at Ed without even looking. "Anyway, she’s mad about that thing about Luz."

"Oh. Yeah," Emira said, voice suddenly full of the innocence of a cherubic angel, or a newborn kitten. "When you, Edric, working alone, tried to trick the girl she likes into going out on a date with you. Of course she’d be upset, Edric. That’s terrible. Absolutely awful behaviour. I can’t even begin to tell you how underhanded and--"

"She also knows you asked Luz first."

"Ah," Emira found herself having to shift from holding Amity back to having to put a palm on her head to keep her at arm’s length as Amity tried to switch targets. "Well, listen. See. About that. Oh look," she said, glancing out the window of the meeting room. "It’s time for me to head back in! Bye!" Shoving her sister to give herself space, Emira threw open the door and got out. Amity charged after her and they engaged in a battle at the door, Emira holding it closed as Amity tried to force her way out.

"It won’t hurt for long," Amity promised, shouldering the door. "I just need to put your elbows on the wrong way quickly."

"Come on Emira!" Edric called, making sure the conference table was between him and Amity. "She’s only little! We can totally take her!"

"I will shave your eyebrows, Edric! I will rip off your feet and make them your new ears! You’re not gonna have thumbs when I’m done with you!" Amity turned to point at him, and Emira took her chance and pushed in, slamming her sister to the ground. Edric immediately hared on over, grabbing Amity’s legs while Emira grabbed her arms. They wrestled her into a chair with a horrible amount of difficulty, Emira catching at least one bite and Ed getting a kick to the shoulder. "This isn’t fair!"

"It’s definitely not fair," Edric agreed, using his suit jacket to tie her to the chair.

"Absolutely not fair," Emira agreed, using a roll of masking tape someone had left on the conference table to tie her ankles together. "But that’s life."

Ed stuck the lollipop back in her mouth. "Anyway, she’s mad at us for the Luz thing. And also for the me accidentally making her so mad she passed out thing. Even though I took care of her and cleaned her up and put a band-aid on her head and gave her a lollipop, cuz she’s my favourite baby."

"I guess that’s pretty understandable," Emira nodded.

"And also the you being in a long term relationship we’ve never mentioned before thing."

"I mean…" Emira shrugged. "I would’ve told you if we got married, Mittens." Amity spat the lollipop at her. "Absolutely feral behaviour."

"At least you didn’t find out the way I did," Edric told Amity, affecting a scandalised air. "Do you have any idea how traumatising it was when I opened her front door to find--"

"I did tell you to text me before dropping in."

"I thought you were out!"

"The real question is why you were coming into my apartment while I was out…"

"I wanted to move all your furniture six inches to the left to annoy and surprise you!"

"Are you both done?" Amity asked, eyes narrowing.

"More or less," Emira said. "So you’re mad at us for checking in on the girl you like. But," she poked Amity’s shoulder. "Would you have actually made a move if we hadn’t hired her to look at the house to begin with?"

Amity’s face went from white to pink to scarlet. "Made a move--"

"Do something other than draw her face and hearts in the back of your notebook," Ed shrugged. "Ask her out?"

"I did," Amity said, eyes burning as they leveled on Edric. "She said she couldn’t make it because she was going out with you."

"Oh," Edric visibly winced. "Oops."

"Yeah, oops!"

"You dumb girl stealing twink," Emira said, with a grin. She slapped his arm lightly, leaning against the table. "You awful little himbo. You bisexual disaster man. Right. So you need us to steer clear of your love life. We can watch from afar. That’s the safest spot to watch train derailments from, after all."

"It’s not a train derailment!" Amity insisted. "We even kissed!" The twins exchanged a smug look. Amity went from scarlet to vermillion, and tried to clarify in case they’d gotten the wrong idea and thought she had any amount of game. "...like friends. A friend kiss."

This time the look the twins exchanged was confused. "Like...on the cheek?" Edric asked.

"It’s-- listen. That’s not...entirely what we need to talk about." Amity took a deep breath in, exhaled deeply. "I...opened one of the sealed rooms."

Ed and Em looked at each other a third time, this time identical nonplussed looks on their faces, and then back at Amity. "Is...that meant to be a big deal?" Emira asked her.

"Did you two--"

"Nah, we never got round to it," Ed shrugged. "But what’s the big deal? It’s just a few rooms. What’re they gonna do about us opening them? Undead themselves?"

"It’s sort of a big deal," Amity said, slowly. "I opened up their room. Mom and dad’s." She shifted in the chair. "Can you untie me?"

Edric took a little bit of convincing, but finally undid the suit jacket and Emira used a pair of scissors from the table’s collection of odd stationery to cut her free from the tape. Once free, Amity punched Ed in the stomach and, when he folded over, followed that with a hook that caught him right in the eye, sending him to the ground with a smack of fist meeting orbital socket, before wheeling back round to her sister to continue. "In their room was a strange side room, filled with mirrors and I think a cauldron. The layout of the house has been moving. More than usual, I mean. And a strange creature has been running through the halls and trying to eat my friends. I know you think it’s mom. But I don’t think it is."

Edric rubbed his eye and groaned in a fetal position on the floor, while Emira considered this, leaning against the table. "Maybe it’s something else?"

"Something that can take her shape?" Edric suggested from the floor, voice strained. His eye was starting to get red. "But also the shape of other things."

"Maybe it’s not a ghost," Amity suggested, quietly. None of the siblings spoke. Edric pulled himself painfully up, flipped a compact mirror out of his pocket and checked his face in it.

"Who knows?" Emira said finally. "Either way, I’m sure the... what are they called?"

"Ghoul Friends," Amity supplied. "They even have matching tattoos." She grinned hard and involuntarily, looking down at her shoes, at the thought of the shaky GF hidden on Luz’s arm.

"Right, them. I’m sure they’ll figure it out," Emira patted her shoulder.

"I’m going to open up the other doors," Amity told them, standing as tall as she could, which was several inches below them. "I’m going to unseal the rooms. I’m going to find out what’s going on."

"I guess we’ll be there too," Emira put an arm around her shoulders.

"Yeah! Annoying you is our job. We can’t let a ghost put us out of work," Edric agreed, putting his arm around her other shoulder. "And, you know, we’ll protect you or whatever."

By the time she got back in, Luz was back. "Didn’t go home?" Amity asked, walking into her kitchen to find Luz leaning on the counter with a backpack beside her, a paper bag on the counter itself.

"I went home and picked some stuff up. And walked back." Luz sat up, smiling at her. "I brought you notes for class! And handouts from our professors for the classes you missed! And a bunch of sandwiches. And I found Willow and Gus at school and talked to them to get them to come over later, so you don't have to be alone tonight if something happens again. But mostly, sandwiches!"

She indicated the brown bag, and Amity opened it up to reveal several foil wrapped packages. "I guess it’ll be good to see Gus and Willow. I didn’t leave you a key. Can you pick locks?"

"Oh, yeah, Eda showed me how when I was like, nine." Luz paused, as though realising how unsettling an answer that was. "But, the door was open, I promise! I would’ve waited outside otherwise."

Amity frowned. She couldn’t remember leaving the door unlocked. But then, it’d been unlocked yesterday too. It could just be her bad memory misfiring again. "That’s alright. What are these?"

"Chimichurri sandwiches!" Luz leaned on the counter, excited. "My mom used to take me to get these after school at least once a week!"

She’d never had something like this before, but if Camila liked them, they were probably pretty good. "Alright," she said, taking one. Luz eagerly sat up next to her, and they tapped their sandwiches together on Luz's insistence before eating them.

"I wanted you to know that um," Luz said, around a mouth full of chimichurri sandwich, "I’m sorry again about asking out both your brother and your sister."

Oh no. Amity swallowed down a bit too much and choked, taking a gulp of water to help.

"They’re both super good looking and I was just very, like, completely overcome by their collective beauty! I didn't mean to make you feel second-"

"Oh no."

"-And I’m really sorry about Emira and Viney too. I wanted to say that again. I’ve felt so bad about all of that and making you feel bad and I know I said sorry yesterday but I wanted to say sorry again today-"

"Luz," Amity said, finally able to marshal a response. "These sandwiches are very good. But your apology words are very bad. The words are just all...all bad. Let’s just enjoy the sandwiches, okay?"

"Okay," Luz said, eyes cast downward as they ate.

Upstairs in the library, Amity settled in to wait for her siblings on a single couch that was, in Blight terms, comfortable, in normal person terms made your back feel like it was being jumped on by a million tiny elves. Luz hovered in the doorway, looking uneasy. "What’s wrong?" Amity asked her.

"I read some of the books you talked about," Luz was saying, voice a little nervous. "I wanted to show you that I like having you as my friend! I like you. And I'm sorry about your siblings and I like you." She was holding up a poetry collection, one Amity recognised. "You said you liked Richard Siken so I got one of his books from the library. His poems are really sad, but I like the last line of this one: I couldn't get the boy to kill me, but I wore his jacket for the longest time. I've only ever dated one boy for three dates and I never wore his jacket so I guess I can't relate, but it really stuck out to me. And I think his take on, um, I think it's called blank verse--"

It was occurring to Amity that Luz was attempting to apologise via book report. A third apology. Why was she apologising again? She held up her arm, making the space beside herself on the couch obvious. Luz dived for it, snuggling under her arm and looking up at her, grinning so hard everything else seemed to vanish but her hands around Amity's waist, her body against her side. Amity gently squished her cheeks, cupping Luz's chin. "It's okay," she said. "You keep apologising. But it’s okay."

"Willow told me that Edric called her and said you yelled at him for a really long time! And told him you were going to revoke his knee privileges!"

Amity tried to measure how much yelling and threatening she'd managed to do before passing out and after waking up again. She decided to round down the amount of shouting, so as to not look completely unhinged to Luz. "Edric is exaggerating because he is a craven liar. I would never tell someone I would revoke their knees or put their elbows on backwards, or make their feet their new ears. What does that stuff even mean?"

Luz ignored the red flag of her very specific denial and flopped her head onto Amity's shoulder. "I'm glad! I don't want anyone getting in trouble for me."

"Luz…" she sighed, and reached to squeeze Luz's shoulder with her free hand. And froze. Suddenly, she was very close to holding Luz in both of her arms, which was significantly less platonic than just having one arm around her. Luz was gazing up at her, head tilted, hair tousled and messy, making her brown eyes somehow seem larger as it curled and framed them, her lips soft looking, top lip a bow. "Where's your hat?" She asked, instead of, hey, remember we talked about friend kisses can I have another few friend kisses so that we can hit ten kisses ever on the 'number of times Amity has been kissed' global record so far we are only on five, I counted.

"Oh! It's in my pocket. I know you don't like it when I wear it indoors."

"You can wear it indoors. If you like."

"But--"

"It makes you comfortable, right? That's more important than etiquette." The back of Luz's hair was brushing against her inner arm, a warm sensation. She took several careful breaths, trying not to breathe out of time. Belatedly, she was reminded that she still had Luz’s hoodie stashed somewhere. She should give it back. Right? Right. She couldn’t get her mouth to volunteer that information.

Luz kissed her cheek, smiling brightly, and pulled her beanie back on. Amity felt everything in her go all soft and warm, just in time for the front door downstairs to open. There were suddenly several voices at the door, lighting up the cold house, echoing in the hallway. Luz jumped up and if she was a little red, Amity couldn't tell. They could hear four separate voices rising through the corridors, and the sound of Ed specifically saying "I’m getting sick of this guy," and then a crash.

"Amity!" Gus’s voice called up the stairs. "Me and your brother are throwing away this creepy portrait of your family! Hope you don’t mind!"

"That’s okay," she called back down, before adding, "Thanks," as an afterthought.

There was a crash from downstairs. Emira and Willow came in through the door that Luz held open, and were followed by Ed and Gus who were rubbing their hands together.

"Did we interrupt anything?" Emira asked, hands on her hips.

"Hey, Emira, I wanted to say," Luz started. Amity considered telling her to shut up, but considered how horrified Emira would be to have her love life out in the open, and instead grinned at her from behind Luz. "I’m so sorry about breaking up you and Viney. I really didn’t mean to make you crush on me. I was so glad when I saw you two were back together!"

Emira’s eyes had taken on the long suffering aspect of a person facing down a ten mile run with no shoes. "That’s. Fine."

"I hope this won’t be awkward for you."

Ed had come to stand next to Amity. They made eye contact and immediately began cracking up behind Luz’s back, silently falling apart on each other, gasping for air. Emira’s eyes slid from Luz’s face to her siblings, and she raised a single eyebrow that said, you will both pay for this.

"It’s completely fine, Luz. I’ll absolutely get over it. Myself and my...paramour are stronger than ever." As Luz turned away, she stuck her tongue out at Ed and Amity who immediately began snickering out loud.

As Willow sat on the floor and gestured for Amity to sit beside her, Amity slid off the couch. Ed flopped down next to her, long legs spread out, and Gus, Emira and Luz closed the circle with them, carrying bags. Luz, Amity noticed, was taking the baseball bat from before out of her backpack. It was now looking scuffed from its previous adventures, crusted in white crystals.

"That’s my bat," Emira noted. "Since when do you play baseball?"

"Oh!" Luz patted it. "Amity handed it off to me while we were being chased by a demon, so I covered it in salt and smacked the demon with it. Sorry Emira, I kinda put it in super glue and coated it with rock salt earlier today so that we can have a weapon if the demon comes after us again."

"Love hearing there’s a demon in our childhood home," Ed said. "I thought the only demon we had to worry about was mom."

"Or you."

"Ouch, Em."

Willow’s shoulder was leaning against Amity’s. It was reassuringly warm. "Where are we starting?" She asked, the question directed at Amity.

"I think maybe we start with their room," Amity decided. "Something horrible came out of it last night. And it was weird. And I want to make sure it’s less weird now. And then let’s check out the attic." She did not want to check out the garage. The idea of seeing their cars again made her break out into a cold sweat. The group considered this, icy silence falling over them.

"Hey," Ed said, leaning forward on his knees, trying to break the tension. "You kids wanna hear a joke about twins?"

"Sure," said Gus, leaning against Willow.

"So there’s this guy and he’s dating a girl. And one day in the middle of the night, her twin climbs into their bed with him…" Amity felt herself black out briefly from embarrassment. When she came back to consciousness, Ed was ending with, "And then he says, ‘of course I could tell the difference babe, you have much smaller hands than he does!’"

"Oh wow," Gus said, brightly. "That certainly followed the usual joke structure!"

"It definitely did!"

Emira pulled a pack of alcoholic seltzers from her purse, shaking her head as she handed them out to the group. "If I’m dealing with both Edric and my parents’s weirdness, I’m not doing it sober. Grab a drink."

Amity took it off of her. A mango hard seltzer, the same as the one Viney had given her in the Secret Room. She texted, lol gay to her sister’s phone, even knowing she would pay for her impudence later.

"Should the rest of us get weapons too?" Gus questioned, eyeing Luz’s baseball bat.

"I call net! All the sexiest characters use nets as weapons," Ed said, hand on his chest.

"I’ve got a fencing foil somewhere," Emira mused, hand on her chin. "I could use that."

"I really do not want you running around, drinking and wielding weapons," Amity told them, disapprovingly.

"It’s going to be alright," Willow told her gently, rubbing her shoulder. "Don’t worry about them."

Amity rubbed her temple as Edric, Emira, Gus and Luz all raised their seltzer cans to each other, grinning. It was going to be a long evening.

Chapter 11: Shadows on the Wall

Chapter Text

Odalia and Alador’s bedroom looked different in the light of late afternoon. The shadows were less intimidating. There was a four poster bed. A vanity with a huge mirror, their reflections gawking in it. Staged photos of the kids. A dark wardrobe. "Huh," Gus said. "That looks like more fire proof furniture."

"Probably not a good indicator," Ed mused. He ran a hand through his hair, picking up one of the photos. "I really hated how they forced us into these matching dresses."

"You two still match," Amity observed. "You’re both wearing grey suits now."

"Not on purpose," Emira corrected. "That would be insane, we’re grown adults. It’s not our fault we look best in the same colours."

"Sometimes if she’s annoyed me, I ask her girlfriend what she’s wearing before she goes to work and then match on purpose," Ed confided to Gus, sotto voce.

"Completely normal, not at all unhinged," Gus replied brightly.

"That’s why I like you," Ed patted Gus on the shoulder. "You call me out."

"I call you out too," Willow murmured.

"Yes, but you always seem like you’re one joking comment away from throwing both of us out of a window."

"I am."

Amity had crossed over to the strange, cut-off area. When she stood in the entrance, she could see herself reflected hundreds of times, hundreds of small, pale, wide-eyed reflections gazing pensively back at her. Luz stepped up behind her and lay her hand on her shoulder. They looked at it together, torches, scones, a tarnished cauldron sitting on a raised platform.

"That’s kinda creepy." Gus had popped up behind them. He slipped around them, stepping into the area. He touched one of the torches with a frown, picking it up and twirling it. "There’s something about this that makes me feel really...I don’t know. There’s something familiar about this! It makes my entire brain itch."

"How is anything about this familiar?" Amity threw him a look. With all the mirrors she could see it was more sour than she’d meant it to be; she frowned and caught that expression too, and covered her face with her hand. Luz held her free hand, and she looked at Luz instead. "Put your beanie on," she murmured, reaching up to brush her hand through Luz’s hair.

"Are you messing with my hair?" Luz raised an eyebrow, grinning.

"You look a bit disheveled," Amity said. "I'm just... re-heveling you."

"Yeah?" Luz leaned in a little. "You remember that?"

"We’re still here," Emira called out, and Amity went red.

"Not for long," Willow said, an ominous tone in her voice.

"It feels like I’ve seen something like this before." Gus was frowning as he picked up the cauldron. The metal had tarnished under years of being untouched, what was left of its contents long evaporated. "Was this copper? It feels like copper."

"It’s really weird," Emira agreed, finally stepping up. She peered over their shoulders, her drawn face reflected a million times until it no longer looked real. Refracted light, golden eyes.

Edric hung back, Willow standing with him. When Amity glanced over her shoulder she thought, for a moment, that Willow had a hand on his back. That couldn’t be right. Could it?

Gus ran his fingers through his hair, an expression of strange focus on his face. He held the cauldron up to his eyes as though by looking into it he could solve this whole mystery. Finally, he laid it back down and looked over at the group. "Do you guys mind if I take some of this stuff?"

"Nope," Emira told him. "As long as I can get out of here first you can burn it down for all I care."

"I wouldn’t go that far."

"I might," Emira muttered, grabbing Amity’s arm and Edric’s hand, pulling them out with her. "Come on! I’m not investigating another creepy locked room til I’ve eaten!"

Willow and Luz followed them. Gus picked up the cauldron and looked into it one final time, before placing it upside down on its little altar, picking up a torch instead.

Emira was already ordering by the time they got back, nerves having apparently kicked her into highly efficient mode. "Two cheeseless. Still no broccoli for you, Willow? Luz, Gus, what do you want?"

"Vegetarian feast?" Gus suggested, putting the torch into his backpack.

"I’ll share a cheeseless with you guys," Luz decided.

"No broccoli," Willow confirmed, sitting neatly down with them.

Edric and Emira filled the room with noise in the space between the ordering and the pizza arriving. They refused to admit to being nervous, but talked about everything and nothing, putting on a private show, making jokes about each other, teasing Amity, who took this with occasional eye rolls, visibly tenser than her siblings.

Once the pizza arrived, the same poor delivery boy who’d had to schlep it up the long Blight driveway when they’d ordered a few days ago, Emira handed out more seltzers.

"Do you two have matching nail polish?" Emira asked, as the group set into their pizzas.

Willow and Gus nodded. Gus pressed a hand to his chest, bringing out a small bottle of a polish that was black with glitter and other colours shot through it, making it look like a shimmering galaxy behind the glass. "Behold! My nail polish. Dad got this for me when I got straight A's last semester. Originally he wanted me to take a gap year between high school and college cuz he was worried I put too much pressure on myself, so he gets super excited whenever I do well."

"Sounds like a cool guy." Edric examined this bottle, handing it back to Gus and checking his fingers. "You're really good at nail polish. This looks great."

"Reminds me of when we were kids and I used to practice make-up looks on Mittens," Emira mused. "Remember that?"

"Vaguely." Amity felt her gut twist a bit at the memory, and was surprised by the wave of nostalgia that had hit her. Her and Emira, sitting at a table, Emira teaching her how to do a steady cat eye, or pick a lipstick. That had been nice. When had that stopped? When was the last time they'd sat down to do that?

Edric was holding one of Willow's hands and one of Gus's, comparing. "Looking good," he said, and gave a low whistle of approval.

Amity stared at their hands too, eyes tracing the patterns, feeling a pang of envy, and Gus nudged her. "Here! I'll do your nails too."

She didn't want to admit that she wanted to match with them, but she still thrust both her hands out to him very quickly. Gus folded over them, tongue sticking out as he purposefully worked over her nails. Luz wasn't matching them, she noticed, as Gus painted smooth, sparkly nail polish on her fingernails, happily eating a pizza that was just base and sauce. "You don't want to," don't say match or it'll make it seem like you want to match, "Also wear nail polish?"

"Nah," Luz shrugged. "I feel sorta," a frown, briefly. "Not gender dysphoria, I think that's too far. But sometimes I feel uncomfortable if I'm dressed too feminine. Or too masculine, actually. I kinda prefer just being all gender non-conforming and stuff."

Amity turned this over in her mind slowly, examining her nails while Gus worked on making sure no polish got onto her skin. "Am I using the right pronouns for you? She/her? I'm sorry if I'm not."

"Yeah, those are good!" Luz rubbed her chin, looking up at the ceiling. "I feel kinda like maybe one day I’ll identify as non-binary, but I call myself a boy sometimes and a girl sometimes, so maybe I'm more gender-fluid? I haven't had a lotta time to really in-depth think about it. Only that I'm not really cis. But I don't feel uncomfortable when people use 'she' to refer to me. I guess I'm pretty open to things changing! I'm only 21, y'know?" She grinned, and her face was so bright, smeared with tomato sauce. "I feel pretty good as I am right now with no labels! And I feel best when I've got some really good GNC style going on. So nah on the nail polish right now."

Amity thought about this, and her mouth cracked into a smile. "You went to prom in a suit and a dress. I remember. I thought you looked good."

"Eda lent you the suit, right?" Gus asked, remembering. "I was going to lend you one but I'd gone through my growth spurt and I think the arms were too long."

"Yeah." Luz nodded, and looked over to Amity. When they grinned at each other, Luz’s was the sunshine bright of a star; Amity’s was wild, like an animal that had been caged and was delighting in new freedom. Luz wanted to kiss her again, but settled for flopping against her, picking up the hand Gus had finished with to examine it. This contact wasn’t quite enough, and her heart rolled over. "I did look good! It was so much fun. You were in a dress, right? Pink?"

"Pink," Amity said, although she hadn’t thought of that dress in a long time. The larger memory turned around in her head. She'd been getting some punch, avoiding anyone who might think to ask her to dance, had looked over to the dance floor to spot Luz twirling someone — was that Skara with her? In a sports jersey? — and had felt her entire stomach flip over unpleasantly. Boscha had been watching them dance too with her arms folded and a face like thunder, looking for all the world as though she was watching some nerd dance away with the girl of her dreams. Which was, in retrospect, what had happened. "You and Skara were together then?"

"Oh, nah," Luz shook her head, going pink. "We just danced together because we thought it’d be fun. We hadn’t even really talked before that. Then we danced again, and again, and again, and it was super fun. So we figured we’d meet up since we had that much fun. And we just...kept having fun whenever we hung out! No matter what we did, bowling or arcades, or driving, or concerts, or just hanging out. We figured out it was like dates about a month or so in."

Gus was finishing with a flourish. Amity found herself smiling at him shyly as he said, "Ta-dah!" revealing ten beautifully painted fingers. "And Luz, that was the longest month of my life. Do you have any idea how often we ended up third and fourth wheeling? Or Boscha would come along and just be super grouchy." He flopped next to Amity, his body warm and solid and that felt nice as he rested his chin on her shoulder. "I like this better. You’re nicer."

"What do you mean by this?" Amity asked him. Gus grinned next to her face, not saying anything. Had Luz talked to him about the…? No. No, she wouldn't have. Right?

"Maybe I can do one finger," Luz said. "So all the Ghoul Friends match!"

"I feel left out." Ed elbowed his older sister.

"Should we make our own club name?" Em asked her brother. "I feel like we should make our own club name."

"Blight Frights," Ed suggested.

"Let’s go back to the drawing board. What else rhymes with Blight?"

"Rights. Tights? Kites? Mights?"

“I think we need to just throw this whole idea out."

"I think the stars in the nail polish will look good on you," Amity told Luz quietly. "Really cool. Like a rebellious bad boy." Luz lit up, and Amity forced down the urge to kiss her again.

Willow, who'd been quiet through this, focusing on her pizza, looked between them. She took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes, debated stepping in. Luz was looking down at Gus who was leaning over Amity to paint one of her fingers. Amity was gazing at Luz, eyes soft, a small smile on her lips. The Blight twins were busy arguing over what to call themselves.

Willow preferred wild flowers to cultivated gardens. But every good horticulturist knew when to step in and fix something.

"Amity," she was standing up, nodding just outside the room. "Can we talk in private? Before we go further."

"Oh, sure." Amity rolled Gus off of her lap (he made a soft whump as he hit the carpet) and stood to follow Willow. "Where did you want to go?"

"Somewhere private," Willow murmured.

They went up a floor. Amity's study was a steady presence, shelves full of books. Willow could remember, vaguely, that they'd never been allowed in here as kids. But Amity had told her a secret once, that sometimes her father would let her in here to read case studies with him when nobody else was around to see them, because one day she'd be taking over as the family's lawyer. She'd been very proud of that. Willow's fathers had read her bedtime stories; Amity's father had read her jurisprudence. She'd been groomed to take over from when she'd been only a baby. As Willow examined the walls of legal textbooks, the thick files of corporate rulings, she bit her bottom lip. Was this something Amity wanted?

"What did you want to speak to me about?"

"Do you want to be a lawyer?" Willow asked, because she couldn't keep the question in.

"Of course I do." Immediate pink spots had risen to her cheeks.

"Luz said you were in her classes." Willow took off her glasses, cleaning them on the edges of her shirt. "Art, psychology, math. How many of those are related to your major?"

"Is this what you came to talk to me about?"

"No." Willow kept cleaning her glasses. Without them, her world was a series of colourful blurs. It would be easier to talk about this without looking directly at her old friend. "No. Luz mentioned the two of you kissed."

Amity went so obviously stiff that even without her glasses Willow could see it. Which was how Willow had expected her to respond. "She told you?"

"Oh, yes," Willow said, putting her glasses back on. Amity looked clearer, redder faced. She blinked behind the lenses. "She was a little confused about it. So we talked a bit. Or, she talked and I listened."

"Hmm." Amity looked displeased at that.

"What happened?" Willow asked, folding her arms and leaning forward, an interrogator.

Amity shifted from foot to foot, a guilty party. "We were in a stressful situation. And I was yelling at her because she was talking a lot. And then she kissed me. But it was okay. It was a kiss between friends. A friendship kiss."

"Friendship kiss," Willow repeated, voice flat.

"Yeah. Like friends?"

"On the cheek?"

"No." Amity was slowly flushing the same shade as a fire engine. "On the mouth. Maybe with a tongue? A little bit."

"How many times?"

Amity stared at the carpet, holding up five fingers.

"Yeah, that's not...not a thing. Friendship kisses aren't a thing," Willow said, rubbing the bridge of her nose. There was something in her expression Amity couldn't read and she felt a surge of frustration. How had Willow managed to become an adult, someone who knew about relationships, faster than her? How did Willow know this when she didn't? How was Willow an authority? "Definitely not with tongue. Did Luz French you?"

"No! I–!" Oh boy. "Maybe friendship kisses are a thing," she argued, brows knitting together, feeling a spike of some complicated feeling. She couldn't tell what Willow was thinking, but it would be worst of all if Willow was feeling sorry for her. She couldn't live with that. "How do you know? Anyway, you and Luz must have kissed. You’re always holding hands!"

"We have," Willow agreed. "But because of mutual attraction, not because of friendship."

Mutual attraction? Amity spluttered. It was bad enough trying to deal with her brother and sister as competition; was Willow about to take Luz away from her too? "So," she said, pulling herself together, voice a little more gruff than she meant it to be. "You and Luz are…"

"We kissed in high school," Willow clarified. "We were playing truth or dare. We realised we each thought the other was cute. We kissed about it. We decided that we'd prefer to be friends because kissing felt weird."

"Oh," Amity said, remembering how quickly Luz had told her she'd be her friend. She looked at her feet, wiggling her toes in her orange-white-pink striped socks, trying not to see Willow and Luz kissing in her mind's eye. Failing. "We agreed we wanted to be friends."

Willow, who'd already heard Luz's and then she said we should be friends and is that weird or do I just kiss so weird it makes romance impossible what is wrong with me is my tongue weird is my breath real bad what’s wrong with me????? stream-of-consciousness freakout vis-a-vis the kiss, moved her hand from rubbing the bridge of her nose to directly rubbing her temple. "I don't think it was like that, exactly. You said it first, right? That you were friends."

"Because we're friends." Amity didn't know what she wanted now. Except to be near Luz's warm smile, kind eyes. To be fed by Camila again. To listen to Camila and Eda, warm and maternal, softly talking a room away from her while Luz held her close and she pretended to sleep. She’d never slept as well as she had the night she’d spent sleeping in Luz’s arms, pretending to be part of Luz’s family. She kicked into the carpet with her toe. She didn't want to risk losing any of that. She'd barely been introduced to them and already never wanted to live life without them.

Willow took off her glasses again, trying to work out how to get through to Amity as she rubbed circles over her lenses with the edge of her shirt. Finally she stepped forward and said, "Okay. We're friends. So kiss me."

"What?"

"Friend kisses. Right? So we should be able to kiss in a friendly way. We can recreate the conditions of your experiment. I do this all the time in labs." Willow had meant recreating the conditions of experiments, but Amity's overheating brain went straight to kissing.How many people was Willow kissing in her labs?

Amity frowned. "The twins weren't here when I did this last time."

"They won't come up here." Willow gave her a little smile. "Gus knows to keep them busy."

Amity looked around a few times, listening for twins, afraid that despite Willow's assurance they'd sense she was about to do something they could tease her for and would burst out from behind the door. She was certain this would be used against her if they found out. She listened close and found she could hear Emira's voice lifting from the floor below, Gus talking to her with interest. Edric laughing at something. Her shoulders sagged with a little relief. She was safe. Closing her eyes she leaned in and touched her mouth very gently to the corner of Willow's.

It was a nice feeling. It was alright. But Willow wasn't pushing her body against her. Amity didn't feel the need to wrap her hands up in Willow's shirt and pull her close the way she had done before. When she and Luz had kissed, it had felt like Luz was a fire, warming her from a long freeze, like she needed to be as close as possible. She couldn't think of a great metaphor to describe the way her lips fit against Willow's. They just sort of...did, very comfortably. Which was nice. But not the same. And, she noticed abruptly, she didn't want to stick her tongue right into her friend's mouth.

That memory was hitting her like a brick of embarrassment. A squirming feeling made itself known inside her. She'd pulled Luz in and initiated a French kiss. That felt like she'd revealed some weird secret about herself, something nobody should know. Nobody should know that she yearned. Nobody should be able to guess that she was so desperate for affection that the first time someone kissed her she'd tried to push her entire tongue into their face.

She pulled away. "Different?" Willow asked her, even though she knew the answer.

"Yeah," Amity said, and counted six. Willow placed both of her hands on her shoulders, lighter on her stabbed shoulder, and Amity exhaled a little sigh at the contact. "But, you know. You kiss differently to her too."

"Everybody kisses a different way."

"No," Amity said, feeling another surge of embarrassment. Did everyone know how to do this, talk about this, know the vocab but her? Was she secretly a baby in adult clothing? Were regular kissers Willow and Luz and Boscha all laughing at her somewhere for being bad at kissing, for not knowing how to do this, for being bad at being an adult? She’d been too busy to focus on her love life. It was hard work, keeping on top of things. "I mean. She was more...eager."

"Probably because she's crushing on you," Willow told her, her hand heavy on Amity's good shoulder, her other hand moving to gently squeeze her other bicep, away from her still healing shoulder. Amity refused to look at her, finding interest in their socks. "She's attracted to you. Of course she'd kiss you differently to me."

"And...you're...not attracted to me?" Why did that hurt? Because she did think Willow was cute. If they didn't have their history, her great betrayal, if she didn't feel such guilt, she might have felt something else, small and delicate like a baby bird, make a home in her heart. Because the kiss they'd just shared hadn't been as world shattering as the one the night before, but it had gone through a list of things she needed and checked off the boxes: warm, physical contact, kind, comfortable.

"I think you're very attractive," Willow told her. "Really. I think you’re beautiful. But…" Willow considered her friend, so fragile and soft not so deep down, and felt a surge of fondness that overwhelmed the last dregs of resentment. How did she say, Amity Blight you are an absolute exploding disaster, just a supernova of a person without being cruel? "Do you know how much to water a succulent?"

That was a weird question. Amity mumbled, "Like...once a day? Twice? Water’s food for plants, right. So. Breakfast and dinner?"

There was an exasperated smile in Willow's voice. "That would kill it." Amity was looking down. Willow cupped her cheek and lifted Amity's face so they could make eye contact. "I really care about you. I want you to know that. You're still the little girl who used to run my life and make me play princesses with her when we were small."

The smile that slid onto Amity's face was very small and very sweet, illuminating them both in the light of their repairing friendship. She reached up to push hair past her ear. "I–" she said, and immediately wasn't sure she deserved to be forgiven by anyone. "You don't have to forgive me yet."

"I didn't say that I forgave you." Willow rubbed her hand up and down her bicep, gentle. "But forgiving you isn’t something I can stop myself from doing, I think." Her hand cupped Amity’s face and turned it, brushing her lips over her cheek. "Let's go and get Luz. So you can tell her how you feel. So the two of you aren't dancing around each other. So you can both know."

"With everyone else here?" Amity asked, doubtful.

Willow squeezed her hands. "It’s been quiet here so far, but if something happens. Like it did when that thing chased us–" she frowned. "It's best to say something now, right? In case something happens."

Amity, who’d quietly running through all of the potential downsides to this, understood suddenly the bravery Willow was exhibiting by being here at all, let alone stooping to help her put her petty romantic life in order. She squeezed Willow’s hands in a thanks she couldn’t quite work out how to voice. Her heart was starting to thud in her chest, fear of Luz turning away, telling her no, lighting up in her brain. Would the twins laugh at her if Luz turned her down where they could see or hear? "Will you keep the others busy? It’s probably safer anyway. If you’re with them."

"Of course," Willow told her, moving to press her hand to her back gently, steering her out of the room.

When they reached the lounge, Gus and Edric were in the middle of a handstand contest, with Em cheering Gus on and Luz shouting for Ed. Amity slid her hand into Luz's and pulled her away from the group. Willow waved them off, coming back to try and redirect the group into something that did not involve them being upside down.

Amity pulled Luz back upstairs into the study without talking, too nervous to speak. "What’s up?" Luz asked her, squeezing her fingers as they stepped inside the stronghold.

But Amity was dropping her hand, looking for a book on the shelves. "Can you hold this?" She pushed a book that she'd flipped open into Luz's hand. "And read it?"

"Uh," Luz looked at the text. It was dense, tiny words in massive, cramped paragraphs. Brow furrowing, she mouthed the words Appellate review de novo and tried to focus on it. This was important, right? Amity thought it was important. "Sure! Of course I can!"

Amity had just needed her to be focusing on something else, something that wasn’t her. She took a deep breath, waited for Luz to seem deeply engaged, and then slipped under her looped arms and kissed her, counted seven in her head. As Luz dropped the book in surprise, she stepped back and pressed her hand to her head and said, "I did it in the wrong order."

"What?" Luz asked her, looking a little stunned, a lot happy, mouth slightly open and eyes shining. "What's in the wrong order? That felt like a good order to me!"

"I meant to say something first." She tried to push through her fear, standing with shoulders squared in front of Luz, taking deep breaths, hands in fists as she tried to speak. In the end, she handed Luz back the book. "Can you go back to reading this?"

"Uh," Luz was catching on. She threw Amity a quick look, biting her bottom lip, but opened the book to a random page. "I’m reading about something called nolo contendere, I am totally not focusing on you. Did you know it has the same effect as a guilty plea? But without admitting fault which seems weird I guess. How do you admit fault but not guilt? I don’t get that! Aw man, I gotta fix my phone! Lilith could tell me!"

Okay. That was better. Luz had gone from pretending to focus on something else to actually focusing on something else, and the pressure was off. Amity pushed hair behind her ear again, her fingers brushing her own hot cheeks. "When you kissed me. Was it because you liked me? Romantically?"

"Like, what’s the difference between an actual admission of guilt and—" the words crashed into Luz as she was mid-sentence, sending her spinning off subject. She looked up at Amity quickly, cheeks pink, and looked away. "Um." Luz opened and shut her mouth as Amity grabbed her hand like someone drowning. "I, hey, look. I just wanna make sure you're comfortable. And—"

"It wasn't Em." Amity was speaking all in a rush now, trying to get things out.

"What?"

"Ed's sister. He didn't mean Em." She squeezed the hand she was holding, exhaling all at once. "The sister with a crush on you. It wasn’t her. It wasn’t ever her. It was, it was…"

Luz looked over at her, her brain ticking as it came to its conclusion. At first she wanted to reject this idea: under a dictionary definition of Perfect, she was pretty sure there was a photo of Amity Blight. She was so strong, so smart, so hardworking, so organised. Her eyes were the prettiest Luz had ever seen and her hair was so soft, and she always smelled nice. The idea that she'd look at Luz and see someone desirable was a weird one, but the evidence was all coming together.

Had all those times where they’d made eye contact and Amity had looked away been because she liked her and didn’t want to show it? When she’d gone red at Luz’s attention, had that been from something that hadn’t been discomfort, repulsion? Amity's hand was trembling in hers. Or maybe Luz was the one trembling? Or they both were? It was hard to tell. Amity liked her. She hadn’t meant it when she’d said she wanted to kiss her as a friend, which was, well, maybe a little obvious in hindsight. Given the Frenching and all.

She’d closed off the possibility of romance, because she’d taken Amity at her word the first time. I gotta start investigating this stuff independently, she thought to herself, with an internal sigh. She had got to stop taking people at their words and start looking deeper. She laughed a little, feeling a warmth spread through her, a sense of wonder as she looked down into the face of the beautiful girl who really did want to kiss her romantically, not platonically.

"Wow," Luz said, a beautiful smile beginning to make itself visible on her face. And then that smile disappeared and she said "Wow," again as a whole other, less romantic realisation stunned her, and she dropped their held hands, blinking in shock. "I can't believe all three of you let me walk around for a solid two days thinking I broke up a couple."

Amity let out a shaking little sigh. "Sorry," she said. "I just…" it was hard to explain. Their family dynamics were complex and weird. "I…I’m sorry for my part in it. I really am. I just thought..." She leaned back against Alador's desk, now her desk, and Luz came to lean next to her, ready to listen to this explanation, still unsmiling, brow still furrowed. "You've seen the trophy room downstairs, right?"

"Yeah," Luz nodded. "It's pretty packed."

"With their trophies. Ed and Em's. They were county champions, state champions, national champions at everything they could turn their hands to. They've never needed anyone but each other. I managed top of the class when I tried my hardest. They managed worldwide ranking. I...none of my achievements are good enough to show there. I can't outdo them at anything. I got angry at them for sweeping in when they saw you because I," her hand searched for, found Luz's hand again. Luz’s hands were only a little bigger than hers were, but they felt so secure, as though she was being held. "I’m trying my best. But I knew I'd lose again. If it was a competition against them for you. I can’t compete with them. I didn't want to lose. I don't want to lose. I want to be with you. Even if they're better than I am for you. I don't want to lose you. I just figured that you preferred them. I...didn’t want to hear you say that you liked them better. I know it’s wrong to be jealous. I shouldn’t be jealous, I’m not even on their level. I just..."

Amity took a shaking breath, trembling all over now. "I wanted to...exist in a world where I could still be near you. Where you didn't confirm that you liked them better, because I didn't ask. I guess I...didn’t want you to reject me. I’m scared of what’s happening here with the monster. But the idea of you rejecting me scared me more than all of this." She looked down at their hands. "It's so embarrassing to be scared of something like that. But I…" Luz squeezed her hand and she found the strength to keep talking somehow, reflecting vaguely that this was the longest she'd ever talked about her feelings. That she felt okay talking about them, knowing Willow was running interference to keep people away, that Luz would listen to her. "When me and Willow were chased by that thing, I wasn't as afraid as I was after we kissed. Being rejected by you was the scariest thing I could imagine. I don't want to lose you. You make me feel…"

A lifetime of bottling her feelings had left her with a very simple vocabulary when it came to explaining her thoughts. She searched for the right word and the entire English language slid through her fingers.

Luz, looking at the way Amity was holding her hand now, thought about helping her calm from the panic attack. Of sharing the five things game. Thought about the things they'd talked about when she'd stayed over. Of how relaxed Amity – someone who was so usually wound up – had become around the whole group over the last – sh*t, week? It felt like longer than that. "Safe, right?"

Amity looked up at her, taken off guard, golden eyes big and round. She bit her bottom lip. "Safe," she tried the word out. Her first thought was to reject it — she could fight off the monsters here without Luz, she was physically stronger than Luz was, she was pretty sure — but then she thought of how easy it was to talk to Luz. How the worries that usually buzzed endlessly, chasing themselves around in her head, could be so easily soothed by the other girl's presence. How when she looked into her deep brown eyes, she felt a warm kindness radiating through them that she hadn’t had in her life before now. "Safe," she agreed, placing the word between them, willing to redefine it in her head to include this kind of protection.

Luz was going a little red. Amity had initially read this as embarrassment. But her frown was getting huge, too big for her face. "We're gonna talk about how you and your siblings interact, no problem. And we’ll talk about communication, and helping you feel more safe and stuff. But I am gonna have to go yell at your brother and sister for a while okay?"

"It's, it's okay." Amity held up her free hand to excuse them, to say, no this is just how we are, this is how we work together, we’ve competed for everything since we were kids and I always come third, mom said this is how it’ll always be.

"Nope! It’s not okay." Luz's free hand was in a fist. She turned quickly, quick enough for Amity to see that she was absolutely furious. She dropped Amity’s hand, placed both her hands on Amity's cheeks (making Amity's entire stomach flip flop) and said, "Look, you can totally forgive them for what they did to you but they did very much just treat me like an object and make me upset over something that never happened!"

Amity felt her face go hot. She'd never seen Luz look so angry, except when she'd been sticking up for her against the ouija board. She felt her mouth split into a wide grin. "Kick their asses," she said.

"And when I finish," Luz added, still mad, pointing directly at her, "We are gonna talk about us! Okay!"

"Okay," Amity said, smiling helplessly as she followed Luz's march to where the twins were lounging.

"Hey!" Luz said, hands on her hips. "We gotta talk!"

Emira pointed at Edric, who was trying to make a sandwich out of two pizza slices. "That’s him, officer. That’s your guy!"

"No," Luz’s brow furrowed as Edric dropped the slices of pizza, putting his hands up in the air. "No, I’m being serious here!"

"Sure, sure." Ed leaned on his sister. "What’s up, Luz?"

Luz took in a deep breath and said, "You guys made me think I’d really screwed up. You made me feel really guilty and upset. And that’s f*cked up! You treated my emotions as a game and made me think I’d done something wrong! That’s not right! I’m not some toy you can play with. I’m not a trophy! I’m a person! You can’t screw people over for fun like that!"

"Look," Edric looked uncomfortable. "I didn't mean to actually hurt your feelings—"

"We weren’t doing this to just mess with you," Emira added, looking just as uncomfortable. "I’m sorry if you think we didn’t consider your feelings."

"I don't think you actually considered her at all," Willow said, quietly, coming to stand next to Luz. "You have this habit of forgetting people outside yourselves exist. You definitely treat your sister like a pet, not a person. And you treated Luz as less than that."

"Hey, now," Emira started to say, trying to stand up for herself. "I wouldn't go that far!"

"What was your end game?" Willow asked. "Just hurting your sister?"

"We wanted to..." Edric was sweating. "We wanted to help—"

"No," Willow said. "You wanted to have fun. And you did, at Luz’s expense. And that’s not right."

"And you had fun at each other’s expenses too. You made fun of each other and Amity. You guys have gotta treat each other better," Luz told them, brow furrowed. "I'm really disappointed in you. Can you at least try to be better?" She turned to Amity, who had been watching Luz hold her entire family to account with a look of wide-eyed awe. "That goes for you too! You let me think I'd done something wrong too! You all have to be better! I can help, but you need to work on it properly! Amity, why are you smiling?"

She had started to grin, very widely. "I don't know," she said, trying to get her face under control. "Nobody's ever told us to be better and meant as people before. I really like that."

"I really wish I could maintain being mad about you guys for like ten seconds before feeling very sad." Willow rubbed the bridge of her nose.

"From this and all those threats Ed told us Amity leveled at him, I gotta come to the psychological conclusion that you guys are super affected by the Cain instinct." Gus asked, thoughtfully, his first time speaking in a while. "Which leads to the question: if Amity is Cain, and Edric is Abel, what does that make you, Emira?"

"God, I guess." Emira shrugged, and then made eye contact with a very unamused looking Willow. "I’m kidding!"

They decided on the attic next, a slightly tenser procession heading up the stairs. Amity was hyper aware of Luz’s presence behind her, and when Luz tapped her on the shoulder she turned quickly and eagerly. "Hi! Luz! Do you need something?"

"I was, uh," Luz let the twins get a little ahead before saying, "So. If you want us to leave the attic, do you want to have a signal?"

"A signal?"

"Like a safeword or a gesture, or something."

"I could just say 'let's leave.'"

"You could," Luz agreed. "A safeword would also be pretty good. What about," she cast about a bit, looking for something they could use. "Hooty."

"What?"

"It's the name of Eda's bike." Luz gave her that warm smile again. "If you say that, then we'll know it's time to scramble out. How about that?"

"Sure," Amity said, and smiled back.

The attic was in the main section of the house, a few floors above the Blight parent rooms. Luz noted that they were directly above the kitchen too, as Amity hopped for the trap door. "Do you need a ladder?" Luz asked her.

"No!" She jumped again. "I can get it!"

Gus took pity on her and reached up on his tip-toes to pull the trapdoor down, stairs sliding out smoothly as he did. "After you, ladies," he said, bowing. "And you, Ed."

"Thanks," Amity muttered begrudgingly, and started her climb, hand over hand. Luz, at the bottom of the stairs, switched her flashlight on. Willow, behind her, wordlessly took out her camera and began rolling. Ed, looking slightly rattled, began climbing up after his younger sister, while Emira followed him.

Luz went up next, followed by Gus, Willow taking up the rear. The attic was huge, but it had been finished, which Luz noted with relief as she tested out the floorboards with her foot. Amity had moved to sit in the middle, knees up to her chest, arms around her legs, a pensive look on her face.

Gus was frowning deeply, chewing his bottom lip. Luz nudged him. "You okay?"

"Yeah...just…" he scratched his chin. "It's weird, right? If this hasn't been opened in years, you'd expect spiders and stuff. I can't see any bugs."

"I can't see any signs of life except us," Willow agreed, voice somber.

Amity stood up and crossed over to where Luz was. She grabbed the arm of her jacket and said, "Hooty." Then added, "but only us."

"Sure," as she followed Amity down out of the attic, she signalled to Gus and Willow to stay up there.

Downstairs, Amity leaned on a wall, refusing to look at her. "What's up?"

"I need a favour," she tapped on the wall of the corridor, still not looking.

"Sure! How can I help?"

Amity was silent a little while longer, finally mumbling. "Can you check the walls?"

"Of course."

"I just need to know," she frowned. "Please don't draw attention to it. I just need to know if I'm…"

"What's wrong?" Luz asked softly.

"I think the walls are bleeding," Amity said after a moment. "And I don't know if that's in my head or not."

Luz sucked in a breath. "Okay," she said. "I'll check 'em and tell you."

Amity followed close behind as she climbed up the ladder. Luz crossed to the wall and looked at it closely. She drew her finger along it and swallowed as it came back wet, a thick red-brown liquid that stank of metal and rust on her finger. She showed it to Amity.

"Can you ask them to triple check?" Amity whispered.

"Uh-huh. Guys? The walls are oozing."

"Why does that look so much like blood?" Gus asked, as he came over to look. "Willow, what could it be?"

Ed took one look at it and said, "Oh no, that’s so gross."

"Maybe it’s just rusty water?" Emira suggested, hiding behind her brother.

"I don't know what this is," Willow admitted. "But I'm the science student here," she paused briefly. "Not counting political science. Let me check it out." She rummaged through her bag for something to hold the liquid, eventually sadly producing a film canister. "Sorry trip to Portland," she said regretfully as she tipped the film roll out and put it in her pocket. "I hope you survive this."

Pressing the edge of the canister to the wall, she scraped upwards, catching the red liquid inside. She pressed the lid down tightly and stowed it safe inside her purse. Then she found wet wipes. "Clean your hands, Luz. We don't know what effect that liquid might have."

"Thanks, Willow," Luz said with relief as she cleaned her hands off. She nodded to Amity and smiled. When she turned back to look at the rest of the attic, she felt Amity's fingers fumble against her own, and squeezed her hand gently.

"I’m not doing this to put any pressure on you or anything. This is only because I can't see well in the dark," Amity said quietly.

Luz thought of how she'd been able to spot the liquid on the wall from feet away, and smiled. "Yeah? No worries, I've got you."

Gus was the next person to spot something out of the ordinary. He'd stepped beyond the boundaries of the flashlight and made a soft noise of dismay.

"What's wrong?" Willow called, walking after him, camera high.

Luz looked over at Amity and the twins. "Do you wanna see? Or wanna hang back here?"

Amity was quiet for a moment, before seeming to steel herself. "Let's go."

"I guess," said Edric, with all the enthusiasm of a cat agreeing to a bath.

The flashlight illuminated Willow and Gus at the far end of the attic. Gus was huddled in on himself, while Willow was bent over something. Luz swung her flashlight around, looking at where they were, and dropped it in surprise. Amity picked it up, her hand shaking as she held it up, keeping the light on them.

There was a circle drawn on the floor, surrounded by runes Luz didn't recognise. To her pattern-forming brain, it looked almost as though someone had tried to draw a goat with long horns entirely from straight lines. In the center of the circle was the skeleton of a small creature, tied to the floor. There was a vial beside it, the liquid inside brown and long dried. A piece of a Hawaiian shirt, now dirty and ripped.

"It looks like it was a rabbit," Willow said, softly. "The skeleton. My TA would know."

Gus was looking from the shirt to the attic’s trapdoor quickly. "Look—hey. Sorry! I know it’s creepy, but I’ll be a minute! I just need to check something real quick!"

"You can check something but I’m waiting outside of this attic for you," Emira said, tugging her brother with her towards the trapdoor. Amity grabbed Willow with her free hand, pulling her away from the skeleton, hauling Luz with them both.

They waited in a huddle at the bottom of the stairs for Gus and were rewarded after five minutes or so by his footsteps charging up the stairs and down the hall to them. He was holding the torch from the Blight room, and he climbed the ladder almost without looking at them, so focused on his theory.

Willow took a deep breath. "I guess we follow him," she murmured.

In the flashlight’s beam they found Gus crouched in by the runes and the circle, comparing the torch to the bit of shirt. He looked up finally, holding both up. "It’s the same material," he said, and then hesitated. "Oh! I mean, what’s wrapped around the top of this torch. There’s an accelerant on it, I think some kind of fat or oil? But it’s part of the same shirt. It’s got the same pattern on it!"

"That’s…" Emira frowned. "You’ve got an incredible eye. Where are you doing your internship?"

"I intern at the TV studio." Gus was rubbing his chin, bottom lip stuck out as he considered his options. "One day I’m gonna be an investigative journalist."

"I could definitely find a job for him," Emira muttered to her brother.

"You barely find enough work for me. But, agreed."

"Shhh," Amity whispered through her teeth. She could see what Gus was thinking of doing. She dropped Willow and Luz’s hands and came to where he was crouching. They looked at each other, and a moment of pure understanding passed between them; Amity dug in her pockets and retrieved a lighter.

"You see what we’ve done, Emira?" Edric put his hand to his forehead. "We’ve driven her to smoking!"

"It’s for candles," Amity told him without looking, handing it to him. "In case the power cuts again."

"It probably will." Gus took the lighter from her and sparked it. A flame jumped into being.

It took some time for the torch to light. A bedroom wasn’t optimal torch storage. The fat it had been dipped in once was now old and crusting into the cloth. Gus held the light to it, doggedly, and eventually a small piece lit. He watched as it flared, lighting his face with an orange glow.

Predictably, the attic went completely dark. Unpredictably, Luz’s flashlight also went completely dark.

"Ah," said Gus. "That’s a complication."

He held the torch high and the group drew into its circle of light, pressing shoulder to shoulder. Luz, out of habit now, tried to count her shadows and breathed in sharply. There were six of them here, and far more than six shadows. Shadows of different shapes and sizes pressed up against the circle of light, wildly searching for a way in, pushing against the boundary.

The shadows were faint at first, but grew solid, took form. Developed facial features, clothes, expressions, hungry faces. "That looks like my grandpa," Edric said, voice choking as he pointed to a tall man with a nose that pointed upwards, his cheekbones severe. He was leaning towards them, trying to break the bounds of the light.

"I’ve seen her in photo albums," Emira frowned, pointing at another shape. This was a slim woman with big golden eyes who had her mouth open in a silent scream, reaching out to them. "That’s, I want to say, our great-great aunt? She died a long time ago."

There were more of these, not only people from photo albums. Others, people they didn’t recognise. A man in the Hawaiian shirt that Gus had recognised as being part of the torch was opening and closing his mouth, trying to speak. The other ghosts deteriorated, the older they got. They writhed en-masse, becoming a wall of reaching arms, of silent screams. The hungry dead, looking for the living.

Amity had frozen beside Luz. When Edric noticed, he followed her eyes to what she had seen, and swore. "Emira! It’s her!"

"What?" Emira looked, and came eye to eye with her mother.

Odalia was standing on the edge of the crowd. She was not climbing over others like the other ghosts were. She stood with her hands behind her back, observing her children. There was a dent in her brow and she was frowning, but she made no movement as Ed and Em stepped between her and Amity. Both of them were shaking; they held hands, blocking their sister from her view. Alador appeared beside her, his tired, neutral gaze taking them in. They tried to say something, but they couldn’t be heard.

Luz had lost track of Amity’s hand at some point. The ghost in the Hawaiian shirt had not stopped looking at her. There was something familiar about him that she couldn’t put her finger on, but that sense of knowing him somehow drew her to the edge of the field of light. He was bright eyed, apparently coherent as he reached up, pressing the tips of his fingers against the boundary of light. His lips rounded out four syllables that looked a lot like Luz Noceda. Luz’s hand breached the boundary and when he took it, his hand felt solid and cold like marble. There was something soft in his eyes that she immediately trusted. He was trying to say more, mouth moving in a furious flurry, talking to her in full paragraphs.

That felt familiar too.

Luz listened, concentrating, trying to understand. He was trying to pull her through the boundary, but gently, small tugs. She didn’t let him, so he held her hand with both of his, pulled it to his chest. There was no heartbeat, just more cold. He was still speaking, eyes filling, and she didn’t know why that hurt like it did. "Who are you?" she asked him, and the tears spilled down his cheeks; he cradled her arm as though she was someone very important to him, and she didn’t know why that hurt.

But the rest of the dead had seen her arm through the barrier. And the dead were hungry. They charged towards her, reaching to grab at her, fingernails scraping at her skin. Luz cried out in shock, a completely undignified, "Waugh!"

Willow reached over, wrapping an arm around her waist, and pulled her back in. "Gus! Douse the torch!"

"What if that brings them in?" Gus asked, fearfully. He’d been holding this torch as melting fat spurted and dripped onto his wrist; he’d held it high, worried he’d lose his friends if anything got through.

"Then we run! But the light summoned them, right?" Willow was forcing her voice to steadiness. "So maybe it’ll unsummon them!"

"Right!" Gus swallowed. He’d come here without an exit plan, a bottle of water, a bucket of sand, anything that could put this out. He tried to think his way through this, brain ticking through a number of scenarios where he threw himself onto the torch to save the others, and immediately rejecting them. That wasn’t what he was about. Finally, he forced a deep breath in, dropped the torch, and jumped on it, suddenly very glad he’d forgotten to take off his boots at the door.

Their world sank into darkness and the wall of the dead seemed to overtake them. Only to fade away to translucence, and then nothing at all as the lights downstairs and Luz’s flashlight all flickered back on.

"I might need to like...change," Gus said. "I’m pretty sure I just sweat through everything I’m wearing."

"Yes," Ed said. "Sweat. Me too. Definitely that."

"Okay," Emira said, once they were safely downstairs. "So we’ll get you back to your houses. Mittens, you can stay with me. We should all get out of here and—"

"I’m not leaving," Amity said, sounding tired. She leaned against a wall, gazing out of one of the high windows to the orchard beyond. Gus performed a complicated little shuffle so he could lay a hand on her shoulder without seeing out of the window. "Gus already saw the outside ghost. And that was in town. If something’s here, it’s following me. I don’t want to put you at risk."

Emira rubbed her hand down her face. Ed leaned on Emira, before saying, "Well, alright. Guess we’re staying over!" He stood up straight and put his hands on his hips. "Let’s go and watch a movie or something. Change the atmosphere. Play some Beyoncé."

"It is physically impossible to be murdered while listening to Beyoncé," Gus agreed with relief. "I’ll stay too! I can show you guys all my favourite Netflix shows!"

"I’ll need to drop off this." Willow retrieved the sample she’d taken from her pocket, frowning. "But I’ll come back after."

"Yeah, and I’m sticking around." Luz shrugged. "Like, wasn’t even a question. I was gonna stay no matter what." Amity offered her a small smile. Luz, however, was looking at Gus, concerned. "You’ve seen one of the ghosts out and around?"

"Hey! No asking me about ghosts until after the vibes have been reset!"

"Go and set up some Nailed It or something," Emira nodded towards the lounge. "We need a quick Blights-only talk."

In the library, amongst the bookshelves, Edric said all in a rush, "Hey, I’m really sorry about hurting you. I know that wasn’t right."

"We all get locked into competition," Emira observed, leaning against one of the shelves. "Mom and dad used to set us up against each other. We hated that. I don’t know why we keep doing it to ourselves."

"Probably because we’ve grown into uncomfortably toxic patterns of defining our self worth according to which one of us is doing best at any given time," Edric said with an eloquence that surprised even him.

Emira nodded slowly. "I guess that’s something we should figure out later on, right? I don’t think there has to be a best sibling. Maybe we can work on that, after this. Work on being more of a team than all being in competition."

It was hard to explain, even after over two decades, how they felt about their younger sister. Small, alien to them, sometimes an afterthought. There was something possessive about the way they treated her, like she’d been brought in as an extra to tug along after them. They were still locked into that childhood pattern of seeing their baby sibling as something that belonged to them, forgetting, sometimes, that she was defined by things outside of her relationship to them. "So," Edric said, feeling weird and squirmy about being earnest. "Anyway. I wanted to say, I love you. I really do. I’m sorry."

Emira had her arms folded. Edric nudged her with his elbow. "Same," she said. Ed jabbed her harder, and she shoved him off. "Yes, yes, fine! Amity, I love you. I’m sorry that we nearly screwed things over for you. I don’t want to hurt you."

"I love you both too." Amity murmured. She stared at the floor, at her socks. "I guess that’s why I’ve been...quiet about all of this. I’m sorry you’ve been dragged back into this house. It was okay when you were out of here. I guess because it didn’t really matter, if it was just happening to me. I could pretend it wasn’t real."

She frowned. The house and her had had almost a comfortable relationship, before this. There’d been creaks all the time, voices in the distance. Something that had called her name from the depths of the house sometimes. Extra shadows. Shapes moving. Nothing big. And it had always left her alone if she’d gotten too scared, or had to go find the Outside Ghost to have someone else near. "I’m sorry I’ve dragged you back into this."

"Hey," Ed put an arm around her, mussing up her hair. "You didn’t drag us back in. You’re our sister. And, like it or not, this is our house too." He paused. "Well. It’s Em’s, right?"

"Nope." Em had come to Amity’s other side, messing her hair up even worse. "I only got their cash and the company."

"Oh well. I’m sure it belongs to one of us," Ed mused. "We’ll figure it out. But look. Even if it wasn’t, we’d be doing this for you because we love you. Of course we wanna protect you. I know our assbutt parents left us with unhealthy mechanisms when it comes to showing that love and protection, but we do."

"I am uncomfortable with this amount of touching coming from you two," Amity told them, despite having wrapped her arms around them both. "Can you stop? Don’t escalate." Ed kissed her left cheek and Em kissed her right cheek, and Amity howled, "THIS IS PUNITIVE! THESE KISSES ARE PUNITIVE!"

Downstairs in the lounge, setting up a comfortable space from where to watch shows, Gus and Luz looked up. "Huh," Luz said, looking nonplussed. "Guess they’ve made up."

Willow got back from campus later that evening, bringing with her some more drinks. They watched Nailed It, all of them talking excitedly about baking cakes, Amity quietly noting down all of the baking tips, until they began to feel safe again.

Luz set a line of salt around the room, while Willow moved the furniture aside to open up space for them. The Ghoul Friends had all bought sleeping bags, Amity noted with a little squeeze of her heart. They’d been planning to stay over. Edric and Emira retrieved their own bedding, and Willow set herself up in the corner with them to keep an eye on them. Gus tucked himself up by Willow.

Amity had initially set herself up a blanket and pillow between their group and the door. As night drew in, she found herself lying very still. The darkness was so heavy that it felt like physical pressure. She inhaled, held her breath, listened. In the darkness, she could hear Luz sighing, shifting, still awake.

Amity shifted closer to Luz, bringing her blanket and pillow. She nudged her gently and Luz made a little noise. "Are you still mad at me?" she whispered.

"Kind of," Luz said, throwing an arm around her. Amity welded herself to Luz's side, cuddling up. "I'm still mad. But that's okay. I’m getting considerably less mad. I was at, like, a five out of ten. Now I’m at a two. Mostly at your mom and dad. Like 0.001% at you."

"I'm sorry," Amity said, whispering it into her ear, unsure of how to say, I'm trying to be better.

"I know." Luz tucked her under her chin and let her nestle against her chest. "I know." Amity was still a little stiff in her arms. "¿Qué lo qué?"

Amity leaned up and kissed her again, counted eight as the kiss was returned. Not hungrily this time, but tender. Pulling her in even closer, so that they were pressed tightly to each other again. There was something forgiving in that cuddle, and she let her body relax against Luz’s. "I’ve really liked you," Amity confided in her, feeling brave at the chance of forgiveness. "Ever since you came over while I was alone and made me laugh in high school."

"Yeah?" Luz gave a sleepy smile and kissed her forehead. "Not since you tried to knock me out for breaking your robot?"

"That was a long time ago," Amity mumbled, pressing her hot face into Luz’s shoulder. "Over seven years. I’m a different person. Well. I’m not. But I wouldn’t do that to you again."

"Seven years," Luz mumbled, half into Amity’s hair. "I read somewhere that all the atoms in your body replace each other over seven years, so I guess you are a different person." That was meant to be a joke, but Luz frowned, brain kicking into a thoughtful spiral. "Huh. That's kinda like the ship of Theseus, right?"

"The Argo?" Amity asked, blinking sleepily as she tried to pull both their blankets over each other to make one super blanket, organising their sleeping space.

"It’s this thought exercise I read about. If you have something and you replace it bit by bit, is it still the same thing? Like Theseus's ship was docked in the harbours of Athens for a lot of years, and they replaced any parts that didn't work until every part of it had been replaced at some point. So since it didn’t have the same ship as it did when Theseus owned it, was it still the same ship? If every seven years all of our atoms are replaced, does that mean we're the same people?" Luz was staring at her hands over Amity’s shoulders. "Am I the same person that you nearly went ape-sh*t on seven years ago? If I’m not, what am I? At what point did I stop being Luz Noceda? At what point did I start being Luz Noceda? Am I just a collection of stray atoms hallucinating a life for themselves or am I–"

"Luz," Amity said, very softly, interrupting her. Her eyes were that beautiful shade of gold, like a cat's, and when those eyes looked into Luz's, she felt her brain slow down from 500 thoughts an hour to, like, 50, all of which involved Amity. She leaned over her, propping herself up with both hands at either side of Luz's head (Luz would have to examine the way her heart sped up later on) and kissed her temple. "You are so smart. But your brain is overworking itself. Close your eyes."

Luz did as she was told, aware of how red hot her cheeks were. She felt Amity's kiss on her forehead, and said, "You close yours too," pulling her in, kissing her neck, grinning against her warm skin at the soft noise she made, before letting her cuddle back down, head on Luz’s bicep.

There was a long quiet. The entire house seemed oddly restful, no sounds being made. Luz thought that maybe Amity had fallen asleep. But then she moved and rested her head just on Luz's shoulder, just above her chest, and her breath skated across the skin of Luz’s neck. She’d forgotten how mad she was by now; she squeezed Amity gently, her entire world exploding into fireworks. Amity moved up long enough to kiss her cheek, and settled back down in her arms. "Go to sleep," she said. "I can hear you thinking. You need to rest that big brain of yours."

Luz did as she was told, settling down. She was almost all the way there, almost sleeping, when she felt Amity move against her, reaching up to stroke her cheek. "I can tell you're still awake because you just went red," Amity's voice, soft and amused.

"How am I supposed to not go red though? You’re keeping me awake." She felt the other girl lean in so close that her breath tickled the skin of her lips, her cheeks, and went even redder. "Okay, now you're doing that on purpose."

"Maybe," she admitted, and kissed the tip of her nose. "Sleep well, my smart girl."

Everything in Luz wanted to yell 'your smart girl!?' back at her. But that brief moment (of panic? of delight?) was offset by the feeling of Amity's head returning to her chest, Amity's arms wrapping around her. She felt her heart beat out of time, her cheeks red. In the morning, she decided. In the morning they’d talk. It might be nice to establish a label from the beginning, to be Amity’s something, to know where they both stood and what they wanted from each other. She smiled as she dozed off, feeling Amity’s half-asleep hand reach up to run through her hair, heart full. "Night, mi jeva."

Several feet away from them, Edric nudged his sister. "Do you think God is punishing us by keeping us awake to listen to that?"

"Oh, we one hundred percent deserve it," Emira whispered back.

"You bet you do," muttered Willow from a foot away, where she'd set up her sleeping bag to keep an eye on them. Gus, his foot across her body, snored.

Chapter 12: Everything stays

Chapter Text

When Amity woke up, she wasn't immediately sure of where she was. As had happened with all of the Ghoul Friends Ghost Finding Sleepovers, she was aware that she was on the floor and she could hear the soft breathing of other sleepers nearby. There was a warm pressure on her hand, and on her chest.

She could remember, vaguely, starting to wake from a nightmare earlier, a warm hand moving to rest on her chest, calming her. When she opened her eyes, she could see that she was on her back. Luz was on her side facing her. Her left hand was holding Amity's right hand, her right hand resting just over Amity's heart.

This was nice, wasn't it?

Edric was already up and about, and she could smell coffee brewing. Emira had rolled onto her stomach and had a pillow pulled over her head. Willow was curled into a ball under a spare sheet and Gus…

Gus appeared to be trying to do a push-up. Away from the sleeping group, he'd set himself up in front of his phone, which was propped up, showing a diagram she couldn't quite make out. He was sweating a little, holding a plank, arms shaking.

Amity thought about pretending she didn't see this. She was very warm and comfortable here. But Gus made a little noise, and she groaned and extricated herself from Luz's hands, replacing her body with a pillow to keep Luz company.

Coming over to crouch by Gus, she said, "What's your record?"

"Record?" he panted.

"Number of push-ups."

Gus dropped, arms like jelly, and exhaled noisily. "I think the most I ever did was in the push-up competition! And that was under pressure! I've always done better under pressure!"

"Why did you get up and decide to do a push-up now?"

"I dunno! It feels like I should know how to do one, right?"

"Start from the bottom." She showed him, starting on the floor and pushing up slowly. Gus tried to follow her example, throwing her a lost look. "Maybe let's not even start with a full push-up. Come on."

She led him to the wall, and leaned against it, pressing back against the wall in a vertical push-up. "Like that. Try that first."

Gus got started, looking confused at first, but getting the spirit by the fifth. "Oh man! This way I can do clapping push-ups like Boscha!" He tried, pushing back, clapping, and falling into the wall.

Amity leaned against the wall, watching this impassively. "That looked painful."

"My nose hurts!"

"I bet. Wanna try something less painful?"

"Like what?" Gus asked, rubbing his nose.

"Can you do a sit-up?"

When Edric finally made his way up into the room they'd taken as a base camp, Amity was holding Gus's feet down and calling out encouragement as he wobbled his shoulders up off the ground. Willow was sat nearby, looking as though she'd just woken up, counting his reps on her fingers, and Luz, still mostly asleep, was mumbling "Yeah!!!" every time Gus's back lifted off the wooden floor.

Emira was in their corner. She'd collected the pillows from the other beds at some point and had used them to prop herself up while she replied to emails on her phone.

"What's going on?" Edric asked her. "Have they decided to go from nerds to jocks? Have we interrupted a make-over montage? Is geek sweat important in ghost finding rituals?"

"I think they're just being encouraging to each other. Have you ever heard of such a thing?"

"My love language is acts of service, not words of affirmation." Edric handed her a coffee, black, no sugar.

"I'm fairly certain love languages are bullsh*t."

"Yeah, but it's a useful excuse to hide behind, right?" Coming to stand behind the group, he looked down at them, bemused. "One coffee with dairy-free creamer for Luz, one coffee with two creams and light sugar for Willow, one coffee that's more sugar than coffee for Gusington…and a matcha latte for the baby."

The exercise support group disbanded, Gus flopping onto Willow for support as he sucked down his coffee. Willow smiled down at him. "Twenty."

"That's twenty more than I've ever done!" Gus cheered, looking exhausted. "Oh man, my entire torso hurts. How many of those do I have to do to get a six-pack?"

"Thousands," Amity told him. "Millions."

"Do you have a six-pack?" Gus asked, wiping his brow. Luz shot a secret look at Amity while pretending to examine her coffee.

"I don't."

"It must be hard in that case," Gus mused. "So I shouldn't feel like I should be developing them! I no longer feel bound to unrealistic body expectations."

"That was fast," Amity said over her tea.

"He adjusts quickly," Willow assured her.

"Lucky him." Ed raised his eyebrows. "What's the play, Ghoul Buds? What's happening now?"

"I guess there's the final sealed room,." Luz said, gathering up a change of clothes. "Ams, are you going to give me back my hoodie? You had it after Skara's concert."

Amity raised both of her eyebrows, looking surprised. "What hoodie?"

"Touché." Luz kissed the top of her head. "Okay, you can keep it until I steal it back."

"I don't have it."

"You're really good at lying." Luz looked back over to Ed. "I dunno. Maybe we hit the final room while it's light and then skedaddle to consider our findings at the Secret Room?"

"We don't have to go there," Em cut in hastily. "I know somewhere way cooler we could go for brunch."

"And we can stop by the Secret Room after." Ed added, grinning. Em slapped his shoulder.

Willow nudged Luz gently. "And after that, we could head to the science department," she murmured. "I spoke to one of the professors while I was over there yesterday. They could help."

That was promising.

"I'd like to hit the library first," Gus said, thoughtfully. "I've got some ideas I'd like to develop into full blown hypotheses with some good old fashioned research!"

Once they were showered and changed (Gus trying to stand upwind so that Ed wouldn't notice the sheer amount of body wash Gus had "borrowed" from him), they made their way as a group towards the library. The twins split off once they reached the door.

"Divide and conquer," Emira said with a wink as she and Edric disappeared down a corridor. *We'll be back soon."

"I don't understand how they bothered to become fluent in five separate languages when they can simply communicate psychically," Amity muttered, watching their retreating backs.

Luz lay an arm around her shoulders. "That's fine. You'll be fluent in Spanish. And I'll teach you all the cool slang and you'll show ‘em then!"

"High hopes," Amity said, with a little grin. Her ears were going red. "I actually. Um." She tugged Luz away from Willow and Gus, around a few bookshelves. Fumbling a little with her phone, she navigated to her audiobook app. "The day after you could help me learn Spanish. I downloaded a course. In Spanish."

She held up her phone. On screen, Luz spotted the Spanish flag and the word Castilian. Luz looked from it to Amity. Amity looked like someone sharing a secret, her face red, a little wobbly smile. "You're so cute," Luz told her, and meant it. "I wish there was a stronger word for cute." She folded her hands around Amity's hands so that they were both holding Amity's phone, and decided that she'd just handle the differences as they came up. Amity looked both excited and nervous, and she beamed when Luz smiled at her. "Once you feel ready for it, I'll test you. And I'll talk to you in Spanish. And so will mom! Okay?"

"Sí. El que no se puede tirar, se jondea."

Luz's jaw dropped open. "What!"

Amity went even redder, hesitated, and then said again, a little more stumbling as she second guessed herself: "El que no se puede tirar, se jondea? If you can't jump—"

"—Fall, yeah." Luz nodded, eyes wide. "Hey! You remembered!"

"Yeah, I-I practiced it after you taught me how to say it." She was smiling, a very small, very shy little smile. Luz felt her heart beat very quickly. "There's a lot I can't say still. But I want to, one day."

"I'll help." Luz squeezed her hands.

Amity lay her head on Luz's shoulder. It was just…gaining vocabulary. Whether in English or in Spanish. Knowing that safe didn't just mean physically defended or that cariño could also mean a feeling of peace when someone kind was calling her by that name. It was all about finding new meanings for words, creating a private dictionary. Luz's hands lay at the small of her back, tugged her close. There had to be a word for this feeling too. She'd find it.

By the time they re-emerged from the shelves, Gus was swiftly building a fortress for himself out of books. Some of Odalia's predictive analytics books, some of Alador's corporate law books. What looked like most of the small sliver of fiction books, a couple of history texts.

"The Odyssey?" Amity picked up the worn book from the desk. "I haven't seen this for a while."

"What language is it in?" Gus asked, resting his chin on his hand. "Modern Greek or Ancient Greek?"

"Homeric Greek. Can you read it?"

"I only learned a couple of words." He was frowning again, chewing on his bottom lip. "You know, for essays on epic poetry and to look cool to anyone really into classical Greek literature."

"I can't read it." Amity handed it back to him. "I took Latin in high school. I think Emira took Ancient Greek."

"Cool…" he bit his bottom lip again, taking the book back from her. "Okay, cool. Could you see if you could find any more books on history?"

"I can, but I think you've got them all there."

When Amity turned her back, Gus flipped through the pages of The Odyssey and took a photo of something. Luz raised an eyebrow, but Gus shook his head, looking deeply concerned before going back to his reading.

Amity stabilised Luz's legs with a hand on one side. Willow checked her timer. "That's nearly two minutes."

"Okay, I gotta be close to the record now!"

One hand still holding Luz's leg, Amity checked her phone. "I'm seeing twelve minutes as the record."

Luz was attempting to handstand in the back of the library while Amity and Willow helped. It wasn't going well, not least because Luz wasn't very good at doing a handstand. Her legs wobbled everywhere, arms never quite managing a steady base. She took in a deep gasp of air and turned that into an exclamation of: "Twelve minutes?!"

"Think you can make it?" Willow asked her, righting her as she started to wobble to the left again.

"I can do it! I can totally do it! I can totally—" Luz's left arm collapsed under the strain. She fell forward, away from Amity and Willow, landing face first on the wooden floor. The rest of her went ragdoll, legs somehow going over her shoulders until she looked like a very uncomfortable pretzel of gangly limbs. She untangled herself, trying to jump back to her feet, yelling "I'm fine, I'm fine—" only to immediately teeter-totter. "My head, my head!" Luz clutched her skull. "All of the blood is still up here and it's making me so dizzy!"

Amity put both arms around her, reaching up to rub her head, ruffling her hair. "Is this better? I'm keeping you upright and still."

"Luz, you're super red," Willow said, a little laugh in her voice. "I guess the blood is still up there. Amity maybe if you rub her head harder?"

"Oh yeah," Amity agreed, running her fingers through Luz's hair. "That's definitely the play. Head rubs definitely don't lead to blushing."

"I can't believe you're both teaming up on me," Luz groaned, leaning into Amity as she rubbed her hair. "Ugh! The worst!"

"I notice you're not pulling away." Amity fluffed up her hair, then moved her hand down to cup Luz's chin, squeeze her cheeks. "Your hair is so soft."

"I just need to get steady, okay?" Luz rested her arms on Amity's shoulders and leaned in, pressing her forehead to her girl's. "Let me get less dizzy."

Behind them, Gus stood up with a furious yell of "I love books!"

"Yeah you do!" Luz said, eyes wide, looking away from Amity but keeping her arms around her. "What's up?"

Gus threw his arms in the air, marching up and down, still yelling. "I'm mad and frustrated so I'm reminding myself that I'm only frustrated because I've been working really hard and haven't made a breakthrough! And it's not the fault of the books! It's nobody's fault! And my first instinct is to yell I hate studying or I hate books but I don't! I love books and studying! I just want to vent! So I'm blowing off steam by yelling about how much I love them instead!"

Willow folded her arms, eyebrows knitting together. "Makes sense."

"Would it help if we also yelled?" Luz asked him.

"Please say no," Amity said, eyes closed.

There was a knock at the door, and Em poked her head around. "Sounds like we've got a grumpy Gus on our hands!" She pushed the door open fully, greeting them with paper bags full of pastries and bottles of orange juice. "We brought back breakfast on the way back from our mysterious errand."

"She's trying to stop us from visiting the Secret Room until she can confirm her girlfriend isn't working," Ed added, following her in with more bags. "Pain au chocolat anyone? Almond croissant? Butter croissant?"

Even Gus put his work down as they gathered around the precious paper bags of free pastries. Willow pointed him towards one of the chairs and got him a bottle of orange juice and his own bag of croissants, one of each kind. The others split the pastries between them, Ed sticking to an orange juice and refusing the paper bags when offered.

"Wasn't one of Skara's songs about a croissant?" Amity asked Luz, a little nervous about treading this new ground: talking about exes with a current love interest. "You said. The one in French?"

"Requiem (pour un croissant)? Yeah, that was about a croissant. People hear the title and go, oh hey that absolutely cannot be about actual croissants, croissant is crescent in French, maybe she's singing about the moon? But it's actually about a croissant." Luz paused briefly and managed to make an entire almond croissant disappear, which was as fascinating as it was impressive. "But yeah it's about a croissant. Actually, it was a whole plate of them! We'd been craving them all week! It was when she got that apartment and we were trying you know, kinda living together — or at least I was staying over there a lot—"

Amity nodded, face contorted as she tried to control it into an expression of knowing you were that serious about someone else totally hasn't crushed me.

"—and it's really tough, living alone! Rent is so much! And bills! And groceries! And paying tuition! I still worked at the arcade, so I could like, pay some of it, and she was trying to get her music off the ground so she was hustling a lot, and we had like, absolutely no money. I guess we could've asked our families, but like…sometimes you wanna try to be independent and make your own way, right?"

"Yep," Amity said, refusing to look at Em, who was staring pointedly at her. "Go on, Luz."

"Well, anyway, we were living off of a lot of instant noodles and frozen vegetables and eggs. You know, super cheap stuff? And we were starting to really crave actual food. It's kinda weird, Boscha worked with me in the arcade for a while and suddenly quit to work in a bakery. Probably unrelated, right?"

"Yeah," Amity said, shiftily, remembering Boscha telling her specifically, Skara's super hungry all the time, but she hates it when I buy lunch for her because she doesn't want charity but I'm gonna take care of her anyway. "Unrelated."

"Anyway, we'd been craving croissants for, like, a month. Like every day! We'd wake up and go to class and every day someone would be drinking a coffee and eating a croissant. There was this one guy who always got black coffee and dipped his butter croissant in it and we used to be in the back and Skara would be like, dragging her hands down her face going no!!! You're getting it soggy and you're getting crumbs in your coffee you're ruining both! Or we'd walk in and someone would have one that was still warm and Skara would just be tugging my sleeve the entire time going Luz! Smell it! Doesn't it smell like the best food in the world? And man, I can do amazing things with ramen but I cannot cook a croissant, and when you've got like, a couple dollars in your pocket after paying all your bills — which I gotta do immediately after I get paid or I forget to — then even stuff like a croissant becomes an unaffordable luxury!"

"This story feels…unrelatable," Ed said, tapping his top lip. At the look Luz gave him, he immediately stiffened. "Oh my god! That sounded so rich boy! I just meant desiring croissants in general! I'm allergic to the dairy!"

"Anyway," Luz continued, patting Amity's arm to stop the death glare she was giving Ed. "One day Boscha texts Skara all happy because the bakery has croissants that have been left over for the day and she's allowed to take them home! So we ran all the way there and Boscha had like three croissants there and they were only kinda stale. So I ate mine, and Skara was talking to hers — she does this thing sometimes where if she's super excited about something she starts composing like, poetry or music about it — and as we were walking back to her apartment, um, do you remember Prudelphina?"

Amity vaguely remembered her from a freshman year. She'd been head cheerleader for a minute, covering cheer practise fliers with aggressively heterosexual mottos like live, laugh, love, and ominously glitter related slogans. "Yeah, she stopped turning up for cheer practice after a while. Boscha said she got bored of it."

"Ah man, that must've been where Boscha and Skara knew her from! Anyway, she slammed right into Skara and knocked that croissant she'd been dreaming of right out of her hands and onto the sidewalk. Me and Boscha ran after Prudelphina, but Boscha got all terrifying and told me that she didn't need witnesses. By the time I got back to Skara, she was cradling the croissant and singing to it in French and that's where the song started!"

"An epic that truly rivals anything that Homer could've come up with," Emira nodded.

"You've got icing sugar," Amity pointed at Luz's mouth. "All over."

"I do?" Luz moved her hand to the wrong side of her face. Amity leaned up to wipe her cheek with her thumb. Luz leaned into her, smiling, dropping an icing sugar kiss onto her lips.

"Gross." Edric said around a mouth filled with orange juice.

"We're allowed to be gross! We're technically dating now. Right?" Luz nudged Amity with her elbow.

"Dating?" Amity raised her eyebrow. "You haven't taken me on a single date yet."

"Get your sister to pay me for this job, and I'll take you on the fanciest date ever." Luz spread her hands wide. "Bright lights! Arthouse movies! Pastries! Vegan milkshakes! It'll be incredible!"

"I said I'd pay you for finding proof of a ghost," Emira chimed in playfully when Amity looked at her. "All you've found are demons."

"Give us the money." Amity folded her arms.

"The audacity."

"What about the attic ghosts?" Luz asked, remembering the man who'd held her arm. "Those were ghosts, probably!"

Emira lifted her shoulders. "That thing in the attic seemed pretty demonic. Where's the proof that was ghosts and not some kind of demonic entity?"

"Fine." Luz slipped her arm around Amity's shoulders, gently booped her pointy nose. "The moment we finish up here, IOU one nice date. Somewhere expensive. We gotta be getting hazard pay for this."

Emira leaned back against one of the shelves with a grin. "That's not in your contract."

"We'll re-negotiate," Willow started to say.

"I'm teasing," Em said at the same time, just as something shook the entire house. A clamour that sent the walls shaking, books falling from the shelves.

Gus was the first person out, haring through the door. The others followed after him.

On the wall of the staircase, where the portrait had hung before they'd pulled it down, was a single word painted in red.

OATHBREAKERS

"Oh boy." Luz put her arm around Amity again, protectively this time.

Emira put her hands on her hips, glowering at the word. "Is that because of our contract negotiations? What kind of boring demon gets mad over contract negotiations?"

Willow took a photo of the word on her phone, eyebrows furrowing. It was the same shade of red as what had been bleeding through the walls of the attic.

Gus sat down on the landing. He pulled himself in, knees to his chest, hands on his head, as though trying to physically hold his thoughts inside his pulsing skull. "Maybe," he said slowly. "Maybe…maybe only one of them is interested in contracts?"

"What?" Em asked.

Ed crouched down by Gus. "What's up?"

"What if it's…what if it's…" Gus frowned hard, rubbing his head. "I don't know! I can't make my brain think!"

Em came to crouch down by him too, thinking, words of affirmation. "If anyone can put this together, you can. Come on, you're the brains of the operation here, right? You've done all that research, you've got all that knowledge in your head! You know you can think this through!"

Willow patted his hair, and said, "It's alright. Do you need us to take a break? We can go somewhere else."

"He's got it!" Luz patted one of Gus's knees. "Gus is the smartest dude I know! He'll know the answer!"

"You can do it," Amity said, because it felt awkward to not say anything. She had faith Gus could do this without her help.

Gus took a deep breath. "Okay," he said. "This is weird. But we've been talking about something inside the house. I don't think that's the…" He took a breath. "I think there's something in here. But I don't think it's working alone. And I don't think it's the boss in this situation. I think it's acting under direction! Think about it!"

He stood up, throwing an arm wide. "Whatever's happening keeps coming back to the idea of breaking an oath. And when Emira teased Luz about an unfair contract, this happened. But when Luz argued with the creature through the ouija board, its grasp of legalities was not great! And besides that, what Em was doing just now wasn't breaking the contract, because Emira never agreed to hazard pay! It feels like someone going through the motions without knowing what it means!"

Gus began to pace, taking deep, gulping breaths as his brain worked. "And it feels like it doesn't come out unless something specifically triggers it! It came out because we used the ouija board, Eda thought it attacked us when Willow cut her hand—"

"—It came after us when we unsealed the door!" Luz slapped her hand to her forehead.

"—which is probably why it hasn't bothered Amity so much while she's been living here alone!" Gus slapped his fist into his hand. "It's only coming out when something triggers it to appear! Which feels like something that would happen from something taking orders! And—"

Gus turned to the Blight siblings, a look of something soft in his eyes. "And I know about the grotesques. Amity mentioned they got commissioned when she was super young. I looked into it! They were a rush job." Biting his lip, he took his phone and began to scroll through a folder of photographs taken for research purposes. One of the headlines from an old newspaper read: TAKE NOTHING FOR GRANITE: homeowners across Bonesborough lose statues in a one-night-spree!

"Dad…did actually help choose the headline for this one," he admitted, zooming in. "But! Over one night a bunch of stone fixtures across Bonesborough were either destroyed or stolen, including your family's grotesques! Dad made a note that yours had only been there for less than a year and it looked like they'd been smashed to pieces. But I noticed them to begin with because, because," he was tripping over his words, scared of coming to his conclusion. "Because grotesques keep things out. They offer protection over a place. That's why they're on churches. Smashing them feels like the actions of something angry that it can't get past them!"

"Keep things out, huh?" Edric said, leaning on Amity's shoulder.

"There's iron in the walls too, right?" Gus asked. "The ones outside? I'm sure there's other stuff too! It's to keep something out."

"Perhaps something that enjoys drowning a pair of innocent twins?" Emira asked, leaning on Amity's other shoulder. "While trying to befriend their younger sibling?"

"It's not like that," Amity told them, but alarm bells were going off in her head. She freed herself, with some difficulty, and fell into Luz's waiting arms. "It's not like that," she tried to assure Luz, who was blinking at her.

"It might be like that," Gus said, very quietly. "If he thinks you'll eventually let him in."

"So," Ed folded his arms. "You think those grotesques and stuff were to keep one guy in particular out? And since he can't leave, he's sent in his buddy?"

"I don't know for sure." Gus said, hugging himself. Willow put her hand on his shoulder, bolstering him, and he felt a little braver. "But that's my theory."

"But then," Em rubbed her jaw. "Why target Mittens? Out of all of us?"

Luz, still holding Amity, looked over at them with surprise. "Because she's alone."

"Only recently," Ed said. "We lived here for a while, you know."

"Yeah, but you two are kinda a set, right?" Luz asked, one of her hands resting on Amity's back. "You two do a lot together, and you've got a lot in common, and you're kind of a team. Sometimes it can be lonely, if it feels like you're third wheeling a matched set," she added, thinking of Skara and Boscha for some reason.

Despite being twins, Ed and Em were rarely able to achieve psychic communication. But when they looked into each other's eyes now, both thought the exact same thing: Ouch.

"If it's iron in the walls, it could explain the liquid," Willow said, leaning closer to the wall. "It's the wrong shade. Maybe something added into the liquid?"

"You dropped the sample off at the school lab, right?" Gus asked her, reaching to squeeze her hand.

"I did!" Willow smiled a beautiful smile. "My TA even pointed me towards someone in our department who does scientific studies of hauntings! Dr. Ree Dancer. They might be able to give us some pointers. Maybe an explanation for what's going on?" She frowned and leaned in, whispering to Gus, "Between you and me, I've been hoping this is all just a carbon monoxide hallucination."

Gus laughed, and felt his chest loosen a little. "That would be nice. I hope it's that. Or whichever option has the least number of angry ghosts-slash-demons trying to kill us."

"We should head over there after we unseal that final room." Willow beamed at them.

"Can you three go ahead?" Emira asked. "We wanna chat to our sister real quick."

Luz glanced down at Amity, but Amity patted her arm reassuringly. They squeezed each other's hands, and Luz followed Gus and Willow down the stairs.

"So," Em said, in the awkward silence that followed. "How are you feeling?"

"Not…great," Amity admitted. "I feel kind of dumb, actually." She pushed a hand through her hair. "I let a…whatever he is, ghost? Demon? Manipulate me into liking him, despite the stuff he'd done because he was easy to talk to. That's pretty dumb."

"It is," Ed agreed.

Em elbowed him. "It's alright," she said gently. "I'm just sorry that you didn't feel like you could talk to us."

Amity stared at the floor. "You two were always so far ahead of me in everything," she said, after a moment. "I was working so hard on catching up that—" she cut herself off. Pushed a hand through her hair again, pushing it off of her forehead. "Sometimes it's hard to remember that you're my siblings, not goal posts. I wanted to be on your level and I wasn't." She looked at her hands. "You two always had each other to rely on. I wish I had that."

"You have us to rely on too," Ed told her, voice losing its characteristic playfulness, turning sombre. "We can both be as much there for you as we are for each other."

"If being in love has taught me nothing else," Emira started, holding up a finger. Edric groaned. "It's that loving someone isn't finite. You can't run out of it. I know it felt like we grew up in a war for resources and love was one of those things that we had to fight over for scraps of — yes Mittens, you might not remember it, but me and Ed used to fight each other horribly for any sign of affection — but it's," she gestured to the empty wall. "It's like the portrait, right? Just because our parents put something a certain way, doesn't mean we have to leave it like that. We can change things."

Loving someone isn't finite. Amity looked at Luz's back disappearing down the stairs. But she was thinking of Camila Noceda.

"Is that thoughtful silence an agreement to changing things or nah?" Edric asked, leaning in.

"We should change things," Amity agreed, quietly, cognisant that her sister had told her a secret too: she was in love. "I know I could stand to change as much as you two."

"That's good!" Ed said, arms in the air as Emira wrapped her up in a hug. He enveloped them both immediately after, squeezing.

"No! No more punitive hugs!" Amity gasped under this hug pile.

"It's not a punitive hug!" Emira insisted, hugging her tighter. "It's a we love you hug!"

"It's a we're sorry hug!" Edric added, squeezing them both.

"You two are the worst," Amity told them, but stopped fighting the hug and let it happen.

"Are you sure you wanna come in?" Emira asked Amity outside the garage door.

"I can handle it," Amity insisted as Edric opened the door.

Inside, the first thing to greet them was the car. It hadn't been fixed. The back window was still broken, the wheels loose.

"I cannot handle this," Amity said and turned on her heel.

"I'll wait outside with her," Emira said, nodding towards the garage. "You guys can dig through."

Edric was the only Blight to step through with them, hands in his pockets. He kept his face impassive. "I guess nobody thought about fixing the car," he said. "We let our extended family pick up a lot of the work in those early weeks. I guess that wasn't very Blight of us," he added with a crooked smile. Gus patted his arm.

The rest of the garage was neat and tidy. A table with some tools against the back wall, the smashed car, little else. Luz knocked against the wall and said, "Hey, this is metal. Like the filing cabinets. Is it fireproof too?"

"Probably," said Willow, hand on the cold metal wall, she glanced under the table, and did a double-take. "Hey, there's a safe here."

Ed helped her lift it to the table. He hummed, wiggling the dial lock a few times before trying his birthday. He did the same series of numbers again, and slapped his hand to his forehead.

"What's wrong?" Luz asked, concerned.

"My birthday didn't work," Ed said, staring into horrified space. "So I tried Em's."

Willow laughed. "Ed," she said, gently. "It's a dial lock. I can crack it, Eda taught me. Would you like me to try?"

"Be my guest," he bowed low, and Willow stepped in.

As she worked, Luz leaned against the table. "Maybe Amity's birthday would've worked?"

"It…wouldn't have," Ed said with an awkward grin.

Behind them, there was a pop as the safe door swung open. They crowded around Willow to look inside. There was very little there; it was a small container. There was a leather-bound book with pages that were yellowing, hand-written. And a letter, sealed with wax. To my children was written on it with an ink pen, in fine, flowing handwriting. "I make my E's the same way she does," Edric said, very softly, holding the envelope.

"That's from your mom?" Luz asked.

"I guess that's hers too," he said, picking up the book in his other hand. "It's in her cipher. This thing's almost impossible to crack."

"Are you going to take the letter to your sisters?" Willow asked.

Ed twirled it in his long fingers, lips moving. Finally he said, "I'm going to open it now. I'll make sure she's not saying anything unkind before I show it to them. They don't need that."

He slid his finger beneath the wax seal, breaking it. The envelope was thick paper, but the letter inside was a lighter stock. The bottom read, from the desk of Odalia Blight and her words were written in English, in ink.

To my children: I love you. I'm sorry. My burdens will not pass to you if I can stop them. I hope you'll understand.

I do love you.

-Mom.

"Well okay," Ed said. "This might need a bit of preparation before we introduce it. I don't think anyone should take an ‘I love you' from mom unprepared. It's like taking paracetamol without any water, just burns the whole way down."

He ran his hand through his hair, suddenly preoccupied, and said, "I'll hang onto this. Okay? Look, I promise, no more Blight secrets and lies. But I need to think of a way to tell them." He folded the paper into his pocket and looked back out. "Damn," he said. "I guess now this is a whole thing we gotta worry about."

Ed and Em separated from them again, needing to get back to work. With no sealed rooms left in the house, the Ghoul Friends decided to follow Willow's lead in search of scientific explanations.

Ree Dancer met them in one of the lab rooms of the physics department. They were less than 5' tall, pale, with short black hair, mostly tied back, a lot escaping. With their large front teeth and big green eyes, they gave the impression of being a rabbit that had temporarily taken on the shape of a human. Pushing a pair of glasses up their nose, they blinked at each of them in turn and said, in a musical accent, "Well, alright. Nice to meet you all finally. Been talking to one of you name of Willow over email. How can I help?"

"You're Dr. Dancer?" Willow checked.

"That's me," Dr. Dancer replied pleasantly. "Thank you for not leading with Tiny Dancer, I get that a lot."

"Like, to your face? Immediately?" Gus asked, concerned.

"Oh yes. At least I didn't follow my first plan and go into the army. At least one of those ranks really wouldn't have suited me."

"What, why?" Gus asked.

"Don't worry about that," Willow said. She stepped over. "I'm Willow. We need some help. We've been investigating ghosts and—"

"Ghosts! Goodness." Ree leaned in, interested. "I love ghosts. Show me the ghosts."

"Professor?" A voice came from just inside the room. "Are these new people I can hear?"

A second figure came round the corner of the hallway, slender and medium height. He was wearing a varsity jacket with the affected carelessness of an actor on a television show, and when he tossed his light brown hair and smiled, his green eyes crinkled. The only thing less than perfectly symmetrical about his face was a break in the bridge of his nose. His eyes alighted on all of them as he walked into the room. He frowned at Willow in recognition. "Aw man. You've brought in someone immune to my many charms."

"You two know each other?" Luz asked, looking between them.

"Did he fail the plant test?" Gus whispered to Willow.

"He's the reason for the plant test," Willow answered, shrugging with a pained smile. "It's easy to stop being attracted to someone when they're mean to plants."

Ángel was ignoring this, leaning across the table to smile at Luz, who wasn't looking. At some point, Amity had reached for her hand and was playing with it, and now she was completely preoccupied with her. "Goddammit," he said. "I am in hell. What sins have I committed to be this good looking and have literally nobody be affected by it? All I want is at least one person to swoon when I smile."

"Your personality is a pretty big sin." Ree leaned against one of the lab tables, waving at him. "This is Ángel Javier Fernandez. He's my grad student. None of the other professors could stand him."

"And…" Ángel added with a grin, lifting his finger.

"And because I'm the only person in the department with an interest in cryptozoology."

"And…"

"No."

"Say it!" Ángel looked joyful. "Say it, professor! What else am I studying?"

"And necromancy," Ree added, a look of private pain crossing their little face. "Purely academic, of course. No raising the dead here, ha ha ha." They shot Ángel a look that said we will discuss this later.

He wasn't paying attention. "Hey," he said, pointing at Amity. "Didn't you break my nose during the exhibition mixed team hockey game? I was trying to get the puck off you, you violently checked me into the boards, I cried, you spent like a minute in the sin bin and when you came out you immediately checked me again so that my beautiful face got smeared all over the ice?"

"That sounds like something I would do."

"A pox upon your house."

"I know there is." Amity glanced over at where Willow was looking especially long-suffering, and decided to twist the knife on this guy. "I don't even remember you. You're too nondescript."

"I. Am. Cursed." He fell backwards into a chair, a hand going to his forehead as he swooned. "I am cursed with going unnoticed despite my perfect hair and also my perfect face."

"I thought you were cute." Willow rubbed her temples. "And then you opened your mouth about my houseplants."

"Eventually you become completely immune to him. I'm thinking of studying his effects on the public in general for my next paper. The Vibes are Just Awful: a study of Ángel Javier Fernandez specifically." Ree sounded exhausted as they flicked through the timeline of the tape Willow had brought them on their laptop, watching shadows slide over the walls of Blight Manor, Luz with two shadows, their disappearance from the video. "You sent me the timestamps for all the bad stuff, right? Ah, yeah, here it is, in your email. Absolutely fascinating. When did you first experience supernatural occurrences?"

"When we came into the house," Luz was starting to say. Gus cut her off.

"No, before that." Gus bit his bottom lip again, something upsetting him. "We investigated a different house the day before that. Our spirit box went crazy."

"A lot of ghosts use radio waves to communicate." Ree nodded, folding their arms. "Can you remember what it said?"

"We don't have to!" Gus pumped his arms, delighted. "We have a YouTube channel!"

"Show me." Ree made grabby hands. Gus retrieved his phone and navigated to the YouTube app.

The professor watched the video of their trip to the Burner house on Gus's phone, skipping back over the spirit box section a few times, running their fingers through their dark hair, teeth gritted in a grimace of concentration. "I can't help you there," they said, after a moment. "I can't make it out. But it does sound like something wanted you away from the house. But it's saying leave the manor so maybe the house you're in in the video isn't the house it's talking about? I wouldn't describe it as a manor."

Gus sagged heavily against one of the lab tables, another theory proven correct in his brain. He pursed his lips and took a deep inhale. "I'm wondering," he said, softly. "I'm starting to wonder…"

Ree handed him back his phone, folding their legs on the seat of their chair and hunching up thoughtfully, hands on their shins, somehow managing to look even more like a lagomorph. "Do you know Eda Clawthorne? She's a friend of mine. She's a pretty decent fence and witch…y type, who's helped me out in the past. Absolutely magical person. She could probably help you."

"She did give us those jobs when we needed cash," Ángel cut in, looking up from the staring contest he was having with Amity. "And found out when the cemetery groundskeeper was off work so that we could—"

"Sh sh sh, ah shaddap," Ree waved at him. "Sh!"

"Know her?" Luz pointed her thumb at her chest, face lit up with pride as she ignored every red flag that had been waved in front of her. "I'm that fence-slash-witch's kid! I can't believe I didn't ask her! Oh, but, like," she turned to Willow. "She must've seen it already, right? Eda says she watches every episode of our ghost hunting show! She must've thought we could figure it out without her help!"

When Luz turned back, Willow shook her head very slightly. Ree caught her eye over Luz's shoulder and nodded, understanding. "Ah, right then. Yeah, better get it to your mum! Practical workplace experience almost always is more educational than stuffy academic stuff. Maybe give her a bit of context first, yeah? If she's watched everything you've done it might be hard for her to keep up. You know us people over the age of twenty-five. Just…heads totally full of other stuff. Like…taxes? I think? Insurance? Good on ya." Ree skipped through the rest of the video on their laptop, putting their ear against the speaker, listening carefully.

"Look," Ángel was saying to Amity. "I'm just saying, it was completely unfair and I was distracted. In a rematch I could totally take you. Totally. If I had a head start to make it fair after the nose breaking."

"I really don't even remember you. Are you sure you're even on the regular men's team?"

"I'm on the…B-team. But I could totally take you at air hockey. It's non-contact, you can't intimidate me with your skill and talent and nose breaking!"

"What are you even talking about?"

"I'm telling you how I could beat you to avenge myself upon you for both breaking my nose and not even recognising me as your greatest threat! Me! I am a nemesis to fear!"

"No, you're not. You're just a grudge-holding narcissist with no skill for skating."

"Arm wrestle me! Right now!"

This was flying off the rails. Willow had organised this to find a more mundane avenue of inquiry, but now Gus and Luz were staring at Gus's phone screen, rewinding the spirit box moment over and over, and Amity was humouring Ángel with an arm wrestle. Ignoring this one-sided spat as best she could, Willow asked Ree, "Have you ever managed to contact a ghost? In a way that can be peer reviewed? Have your methods been published academically?"

Ree gave a thousand yard stare out of the window. "You have no idea how hard it is to get my work on contacting ghosts peer-reviewed. The academic field is rife with sceptics. There's so much focus on physical empirical proof. Bringing back something incontrovertible has become my obsession. Something…solid. But even if I were to bring the dead back to life to prove that something of the soul remains after death — which I have not! — I've no doubt even that would be dismissed as…a fairy tale."

Willow narrowed her eyes, as Ree rubbed their chin, lost in thought.

"But…" Gus looked up from his phone, a little lost. "How should we tell the ghosts we got their messages if there's no way to contact them?"

"I said the ways I knew weren't peer reviewed." Ree corrected. "There's other ways. A ouija board, though that can be — as you saw — overwhelmed by demonic forces."

As he quickly lost the arm wrestle to Amity, hand slammed into the table with such force he fell off his chair, Ángel righted himself, rubbing his forearm. He tossed his light brown hair, his green eyes crinkling as though he'd totally meant to lose. When his nose wrinkled in the dappled light through the window, they could see the spray of freckles across the light bend in its bridge. "You probably need to hold a seance," he told them. His voice was sweet and melodious, flipping back to calm. "You'll need a powerful empath, someone with one foot in the spiritual realm, to lead it. They'd be able to make a connection with any ghosts in there. A seance could help you make a connection with, and understand, who's speaking to you through the radio, or any of the other ghosts in there. If they're powerful enough, they could even serve to hold off the demonic presence long enough for you to talk to whatever ghosts are haunting the place." He batted his long eyelashes. "Personally, I'd love to offer my services."

Ree, who had turned to begin examining the film canister of ‘blood', running a hand through their hair until it stuck up at all ends, threw him a look. "Ángel I would define you as an empath in the same way I would describe a man-eating shark as an excellent babysitter. Perhaps I would prefer the shark's babysitting skills to your empathic capacity."

"I didn't say anything about me being that empath, doc. All I said was I wanted to lead. I do attract ghosts, though." He winked at Willow. "I attract everyone. When I am less cursed and my good looks are noticed."

"Leave her alone." Luz told him firmly, poking him in the chest.

"¿Pero tú de qué vas? Come on. No me jodas."

"¡Oye, no me hables así!"

Amity folded her arms, stepping between them. "I don't know what's going on, but I will check you into another wall if you say something mean to any of my friends again."

Luz stuck her tongue out at Ángel over Amity's shoulder.

"Ah boy, this again." Ree used a pipette to take a sample of the sample of blood. "I'm taking some of your attic blood for study, Willow. I know you told me about your rust water theory, but it's not behaving as I'd expect that to behave."

"Do you two work together a lot?" Gus asked, looking between Ree and Ángel. "In person?"

"He's allowed to come into the office once a week. Any more than that and I'd be long deported." Ree turned to begin puttering about, unpacking equipment.

"Much as my name tells you that I am heaven-sent," Ángel pressed his hand to his chest as Ree cleared their throat. "Ree very much clawed their way here out of hell."

Ree nodded, thoughtfully. "Bit unfair to Brecon, but I get it. I've got plenty of decent reviews on the old rating site, despite the unfortunate fact of my demonic nature."

"You're on ratemyprofessors.com?"

"No, I set up ratemyree.com. Very specific, but I've only published the most glowing of reviews."

"That's not very integrity focused," Gus sighed.

"Demons are not very integrity-focused," Ree shrugged. "What can I say? He was right on that point."

As they left the building, Willow looked incredibly down. Amity patted her shoulder awkwardly. "He was a dick," she told her. "I'm glad you didn't date him long."

"He used to be less of a dick." Willow said with a sigh. "Or less of a dick upfront. But I don't have to deal with him at all again after this."

"Nope! We can go to the lab for you if you need any other info." Luz said. "He's probably terrified of Amity now anyway. And I will yell at him more! Louder!"

"You know," Willow said, defeat ringing in her voice. "I came here expecting that we'd find a scientific explanation for what was going on, but honestly, Eda makes much more sense than those two."

"It's a real website," Gus said, staring at his phone with a growing sense of alarm. "One of the reviews is for discreet removal of incriminating evidence by an Alec Downheart?"

"Huh," said Luz. "We've got some of his art in Eda's store."

Eda was behind the counter when they got there, feet up and watching a Lifetime movie on the tiny screen. When she saw them, she switched quickly to sports.

"Research?" Luz asked with a grin.

"I've watched so many of these awful movies now. Keep it quiet, kiddo. Don't wreck my rep."

"You got it!" Luz sat on the counter until Eda pushed her off of it. "We spoke to someone who knew you? A Dr. Ree Dancer?"

"Oh sh*t," Eda sprang up. "You didn't go to a second location with them, did you? Get any prints on anything they had? Agree to give them an alibi? Help with any spell components? Nothing like that?"

"No," Luz looked perturbed, but brightened. "No! We were talking about ways to get in contact with ghosts. And they told us to try a seance!"

"They also called you a witch," Gus added. Eda and Luz both considered this description, and nodded at it.

"A seance is a bad idea." Eda leaned on the counter, frowning. "A dangerous idea. Do you guys even know how to pull something like that off?"

"We might!" Luz stood up, hands on her hips. "I've seen a lot of documentaries!"

"Look, kid." Eda folded her arms. "Tapping into the spiritual world requires an empath with skills. Someone with a strong belief in the other side. Someone who can feel what others are feeling, but keep hold of themselves. Someone who knows themselves really well. Someone who's not impulsive. That rules out three of you."

Willow, Amity and Luz looked between each other. Willow shrugged, smiling awkwardly. Amity lifted her shoulders to her ears, and Luz rubbed her head.

"I guess that leaves me," Gus said, faintly. "I'm all those things. And I can already see at least one ghost…"

"I don't think it should be Gus." Amity said, feeling a sudden protective surge.

"Would you do it?" Willow asked Eda.

"And have my entire soul touched by ghosts again?" Eda stuck her tongue out in exaggerated disgust. "No way! I just got everything clean in there after the last time! Seances and me don't go well together."

"I'll still do it." Gus squared his shoulders, looking as determined as he could. "Even if it's dangerous. Don't try and stop me."

"Did I say I was going to stop you?" Eda rubbed a hand through his hair. "Kid, listen. You're all adults. I let you guys make your own mistakes. I only step in if there's a chance you'll die." Eda paused, still rubbing his head, looking away to consider this. "Hang on, can ghostly possession kill someone? Goddammit, where's that weird little necromancer when I have a question? Ah well. You'll probably be fine. Stop by tomorrow, and I'll give you some pointers."

They split off after that. Gus needed time to read and prepare himself. Willow and Amity followed him out, Amity pausing briefly to say, "Hey, I'll be back in a few hours," to Luz before disappearing.

Very mysterious.

Eda closed up shop, following Luz back upstairs without a word. In the apartment, Eda pulled out thick books in Latin and languages Luz didn't recognise, brewing endless cups of tea and mixing apple blood while reading. Luz watched TV, documentaries she could pay attention to while drawing. She doodled Willow in a big heart and showed Owlbert, who nodded. The hours passed like this, quiet and peaceful, until her mom got back from the hospital and they could confer, catch up in the kitchen as a family, Eda putting the books away and Luz finally dropping the ghost documentaries.

When the knock at the door came, Luz was the one to open it. Amity was back in the doorway, her mouth set in a way that said I have been hyping myself up for something. She was wearing her shorts, and a big sweater that swallowed her up. "Amity!"

"Hi, Luz. I was… in the neighbourhood, and I thought I'd…"

Luz gasped, touching the thick sweater. "It's so big! It makes your hands look so tiny…how did you manage to find such a big sweater?"

Amity pointed at herself. "Small."

"Oh," Luz laughed, putting her arms around her. "I forget you take up so little space physically, cuz you take up so much space in my brain."

Amity leaned her head against Luz's arm, too embarrassed to respond to that. She looked up, immediately ready to ask her to be her girlfriend, but hesitated. This was the wrong place to ask, right? She should go with her first instinct and ask while they were out on a date or doing something romantic, not standing in a doorway. Oh, but was a date not spontaneous enough? And they still hadn't gone out on a date. What should she do?

"What's that?" Luz asked, bringing her back to earth as her little finger touched the bag Amity held. Amity pulled it back, defensive.

"Nothing important!" Luz co*cked her head to one side, nonplussed. She had such big eyes. Like an otter. A very expressive otter. Amity felt her heart melt. "If you're visiting someone's house, you should bring a gift," she said, looking away.

"A gift? For my moms?"

"For Camila," Amity specified, and felt her face flush red. "As she cooked for me last time. I suppose Eda can have some too. And you."

"Oh!" Luz grinned. "What is it?"

Amity hesitated, but finally lifted the bag and opened the white box inside. "Macarons. I found a recipe. It was simple enough. A lot easier than people would think."

"Wow!" Luz's eyebrows shot up. "Wait— you made them? Yourself?"

"Yes." She really was going red now, the same shade as tomato. "It was easy enough to follow the directions." She'd read five recipes, watched multiple YouTube videos, and made two practice batches that afternoon, relying on Ed to tell her if they were any good. "Easy enough," she repeated, entire body red.

"But you said you didn't know how to cook!"

"It's easy to learn." Amity looked away, fire engine red. "Like I said, I just followed the instructions."

Luz was grinning. "You taught yourself how to bake to make my mom's favourite dessert!" She slid an arm around Amity's shoulders, and Amity shut her eyes again at the sensation of a warm body next to her own. "I should warn Eda she's got competition."

"What?! No! That wasn't my intent—!" But Luz was laughing, patting her shoulder. Amity tried to bring her rolling boil back down to a simmer, feeling butterflies in her stomach. Luz didn't seem to feel the same level of butterflies, of being unable to do anything properly, of being overcome that she did. I hope you like me as much as I like you, she thought, and had to look away; looking at Luz was like looking into the sun sometimes. Luz kissed her, a soft pressure on her mouth that made her sigh. Okay. That was better. Amity squeezed her tightly and said, "You can't tease me like that."

"I know." Luz pulled back, her hands on her shoulders, and gazed at her fondly. "But sometimes I like it when you go red, cuz you're very cute. Also, what kinda excuse is I was in the neighbourhood? You cooked for us! This was premeditated!"

"Kid," Eda's voice came from somewhere deeper in the apartment. "I appreciate you gotta get your flirt on, but you're letting all the recycled air outta the apartment."

Eda and Camila were both in the kitchen when Amity and Luz came in. Eda was leaning against one of the counters, dressed in a floor-length skirt and a comfy looking sweater. Camila looked like she might've just gotten in from a shift, with a jacket on over her scrubs. "Amity!" Camila brightened when she saw her. "Cariño! We were just talking about playing a board game! Would you like to join us?"

"Which board game?" Amity felt a specific sort of anxiety rise, a familiar pinprick from the rare family game nights of the Blight household, which had turned into exhibition matches, which had turned into competitive bloodbaths. It was hard to think of a board game that wasn't extremely stressful.

"We wanted monopoly, but Eda said it was stolen by Hasbro from a socialist icon and the point of the game was all about educating people how terrible actual monopolies are." Luz told her. "And we already know that so we weren't sure we should play it."

"Plus, that and Settlers of Catan are only fun to play with Lily, cuz she gets so serious and so mad if you cheat." Eda grinned at some obscure memory. "Once she threw an entire rule book at my head. And then a few other things."

"Mom wanted to play dominos, but I never remember the rules, and I keep getting distracted and making domino houses." Luz sighed. "So I'm not great at that."

"And we don't play Scrabble because sometimes both of them lie to me about made-up words being English words I haven't seen yet," Camila poured herself a cup of tea, side-eyeing her daughter and her girlfriend, who both laughed.

"I'd be on your side," Amity said quickly.

"Then they would do the same to you in Spanish!"

"We would," Eda agreed. "Especially Luz."

"Hey! What? No!" Luz shook her head furiously. "Especially Eda!"

"How about Werewolf?" Eda suggested.

"Oh," Amity gave a very shy smile. "I've played that with the rugby team." Boscha had been unanimously voted the werewolf every turn, even when she'd already been killed or voted out. That had been fun! "I'd like to play that, if that's alright."

"Sounds great to me! I love any games based on lying." Eda rubbed Amity's hair into a mess, before kissing Camila's cheek. "I'll go get your slippers, if you set up."

Eda was terrifyingly good at Werewolf. At no point was Amity able to work out her role. Luz had easy tells; she always looked exaggeratedly thoughtful whenever she was playing werewolf. And Camila played very carefully, refusing to take risks, insisting on evidence before accusations. As over competitive and confident as Eda was as she beat them over and over, Amity never felt like she was losing anything by not winning. It was just…fun.

After, they settled back in the small living area, and Camila cooed over the macarons she'd made. Amity insisted she get the better ones, giving Luz and Eda the ones that had cracked. Eda made them tea, and the cat, King, tried to steal macarons out of Luz's hands while they talked about everything and nothing, stories from the emergency room, weird customers, classes she and Luz shared. When she leaned her head against Luz's shoulder, trying to work out how to ask if she could stay the night, she felt warm and comfortable.

Luz, feeling the warm weight of Amity's head on her shoulder, relaxed back on the couch, her arm moving around Amity's shoulders. Her eyes drifted over the photos on their wall, the pictures she'd seen every day. Her eyes skimmed them, something strange jostling the back of her brain. Her eyes met the eyes in the photo of her father and her entire body went stiff. It was as though the 2D photo gained dimensions, leaned out of the paper. Inside her brain, her memory of the shades in the attic sputtered into life.

She said, "Wait," and stood up, gently righting Amity before striding to the wall. Grabbing the photo, she pointed to him. "Amity, do you remember—? He was there! Last night!"

"I didn't see." Amity stood up too, concerned. "Ed and Em were blocking me in, I couldn't see past them."

Camila was standing too now. "You saw his ghost?" She asked, in a soft voice. "In the Manor?"

"Uh huh!" Luz pointed to the picture. "He grabbed my arm. So he recognised me!" The memory played out in full and she slumped onto the couch. "I didn't recognise him. Oh no. Oh no. He's always smiling in photos! I didn't recognise him without the smile…"

"But why was he there?" Amity sat back down next to her. "I mostly saw Blights there."

"Wait, kiddo, slow down." Eda spread her hands. Camila was still standing in the middle of the room, looking stunned. Eda helped her to a chair and sat down too. "You saw ghosts? Can you go back?"

"Up in the attic there's a weird circle full of runes," Luz began to explain, eyes entirely focused on the photo of her father. "And we wanted to know what it was."

"Oh yeah, that was a mistake." Eda nodded. "Keep going."

"So we lit a lantern and it seemed to summon a bunch of ghosts. They couldn't get past the circle, and they couldn't talk, but they kept trying to get through."

"Sounds like souls that have been trapped somehow." Eda was considering this carefully, turning it over in her mind. "After a while, they get kinda feral. We'll need to tell Gusington, so he doesn't get in trouble when he goes for his seance."

"But why would my dad be there?" Luz asked softly, rubbing a thumb over his printed face.

"Mija," Camila started softly. She looked at Eda asking for help.

"Cuz he went missing after dinner with the Blightriarchs." Eda's tone was matter-of-fact. She patted Camila's knee, ignoring the look she was giving her. Camila had not, after all, specified the help she wanted. Eda leaned forward, but pulled her punches. "Signs pointed to them knowing how he died."

Amity had been taking a drink of tea. She choked, managing to spill half of it over herself. "What?"

"Kind of a spanner in the works there, huh?" Eda murmured, raising a single eyebrow.

Camila leaned over, putting an arm around her daughter. "I wasn't sure about telling you. I wanted to do it less," she looked at her girlfriend. "Suddenly. But yes. He went missing after dinner with them. We looked for him — we are still looking, Eda has kept so many lines of enquiry open —- and all signs led to…" she trailed off.

Luz was very quiet. She gave the photo back to her mom, and leaned back against the sofa.

"I'm sorry," Amity said, voice very small, coming from deep inside. "I didn't know, I—"

Luz looked over at her, surprised. "Why are you sorry? You didn't do anything."

"But—"

"It's okay," Luz assured her, squeezing her hand.

Amity looked at Camila, worried that this was the signal, that she'd lose the shreds of maternal kindness she'd gotten from her. But Camila reached over Luz and gently placed a hand on her knee. Amity felt her shoulders relax. Camila didn't hate her. Her heart fought a war between mom and dad's souls are trapped and they've done something terrible and unforgivable and I shouldn't be panicking over their eternal souls. What could she even do? Aside from perhaps burning down the manor and pretending she had no association with anything Blight — change her name, walk away. But that wouldn't be possible either. She had to stay close to Ed, to Em. Now that she could finally talk to them, she didn't want to be apart from them. And despite everything, she still saw her parents. Locked in the front seats, dying because she hadn't gotten help fast enough, locked in the attic, staring at their children, unable to speak. She couldn't leave them. She folded herself over her tea and closed her eyes, paralysed.

Beside her, Luz had leaned back against the couch and come to a conclusion immediately: somehow, some way, she was going to free every single one of those trapped souls. There was no alternative.

The question was how.

Chapter 13: Good Grief

Chapter Text

"I didn't know," Amity said, back in Luz's room, holding a plate of macarons and feeling useless. They’d split away from the living room to come here, Luz all quiet and strange, deep in her own thoughts.

"I know," Luz told her. Luz didn't seem to be entirely with her, a large part of her somewhere else. "It's okay."

Amity put the plate down on her tiny desk, reaching for her hand. "I'm sorry."

"Why?" Luz co*cked her head, quizzically. "You have nothing to do with it!"

"It was my family."

"We don't know the whole story." Luz squeezed her hand. "We don't know why he was there! All we have are our theories. Besides, whatever happened happened to your mom and dad too."

"Whatever happened." Amity's voice sounded tired as she echoed Luz. "How are you feeling?"

They sat down together, backs against the side of Luz's bed. "We just have to work out what's happened," Luz continued. "It's a big jump from bad parents to murderers. For all we know that demon got him and they just panicked and…"

Luz's voice was trailing off. Amity squeezed her hand. "Don't think about demons," she said. "Don't think about ghosts. Let's have a night where we don't think about either of them."

After a moment, Luz nodded. Amity stood up and crossed to her bedroom window. When she looked through it, she could see the man in the mask looking up at her from the street below. They made brief eye contact.

For a long time, despite how terrifying he had seemed, he'd also been a constant. A silent presence that listened to her, that tapped out words in code to her whenever she'd been feeling especially isolated and alone. She'd felt very brave then, talking to the ghost that her siblings feared. As a child she'd dreamed of him and not all of those dreams had been based in fear; whenever she'd looked out of her window and seen him looking back, it had felt like a reassurance, like someone was taking an interest in her overshadowed accomplishments. She'd even believed him when he'd awkwardly apologised to her about the crash through morse code. She had felt very mature then, hadn't she? Forgiveness was mature. She couldn't help herself; before closing the curtains, she raised her hand to wave to him. He raised his own hand in acknowledgment, a small moment passing between them, before she shut Luz's curtains. "Is that a Sailor Moon pattern?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah! I prefer Hunter × Hunter, but mom says Sailor Moon is cuter. I guess she's right."

"They're both cute." Amity sat back down beside her. She'd been less interested in Hunter X Hunter. When she'd been younger and hadn't understood herself as well she'd been repelled from any works that didn't have at least two women who could gaze at each other smolderingly. She had assumed that that had been because she'd been a feminist who liked female narratives. That was true. She was also very gay. Leaning into Luz she said, "I was scared that you would want me to leave. Because of…"

"What? No! Of course not!" Luz lay her arm around Amity's shoulders. "No! I mean, I'm shocked. But I also…it's okay. I don't think any of this comes down to you or is your fault. None of this is because of you. So why would I be mad at you, or want you to leave? I want you to stay! You make me happy. And I know mom likes you."

That felt nice. "Yeah?"

"I trust you," Luz told her, simply, and held her hand.

She didn't know what to do with that. So she leaned in, pressing a kiss to Luz's mouth. Luz kissed her back, smiling, and she thought of all the things she wanted to say, tried to make words from them. "I trust you too," she said eventually, when no other way to communicate came to mind.

"Could I get another macaron?" Luz asked her. "I know you were saving all the best ones for mom–"

"I only brought cracked ones in here." Amity stood up quickly to grab the plate. On the desk beneath it, along with all of Luz's other photos, was a strip of photobooth images of a younger Luz and Camila, stuffed in together. Luz pulling faces, Camila looking so happy. Amity picked it up, smiling widely.

"You really like my mom, huh?"

"I might be smiling at this picture of you."

"You're not though."

"I'm not," she admitted, bringing the plate back over. "She's very nice. I'm not used to that."

Luz took a macaron from the plate, considering that. She handed Amity one, and pulled her up into her lap. "Oh!" She grabbed a book from her bedside table, a Miles Morales trade paperback. "Almost forgot. I've got a book! So I'm totally focused on that."

Amity looked up at her, confused, before remembering their talk in the study. She let out a little huff of laughter and said, "thanks."

Luz's arms looped around her to read the book over her shoulder and she scanned each page too, reading faster than Luz did, finishing each page earlier. She had no idea who these characters were, but Miles seemed interesting enough. This was nice. She was comfortable here. She took a small bite of the macaron in her hand. Turning, she gazed up at Luz, trying to memorize her features. After a moment, Luz noticed her intense interest and looked over at her, smiled at her. Amity, not thinking right, shoved the rest of her macaron in Luz's mouth.

"I've eaten too many today," she managed, trying to explain herself, mortified, leaning away. Why had she done that?

"S'good!" Luz insisted, chewing. She tugged Amity back to her, pulling her in, encouraging her to relax back against her. "Really! How many did you have?"

"I...made a few batches. I had three or four. I made Edric eat a lot of them too."

"Did he like them?"

"He liked them," there was a distinct note of pride in her voice. "I knew he'd be honest. So I guess they're good."

Luz smiled at the pride in Amity's voice and stroked her soft brown hair, finding it to be almost copper in the low light. A warm colour. She pushed her hand under the curtain of hair and found a shaggy undercut. The urge came to her to volunteer to do upkeep, to shave it, if Amity wanted. But Luz had never done hair before, except when she’d to cut her own in tenth grade and had accidentally shaved off a patch on the side of her head. Trying to do Amity’s hair wouldn't turn out well. She knew that. She just wanted to be close to her.

Instead of kick-starting a hair disaster, Luz kissed the back of Amity's head, hugged her close, and continued trying to read the book.

In her lap, Amity twisted so she could continue to watch her, unblinking. The curve of her soft cheeks, the warmth of her skin, the way some of her hair curled loosely over her forehead – these things were an endless point of fascination. The way her brow crinkled ever so slightly, how she bit her bottom lip, and frowned when she was trying to concentrate and something was distracting her–

"Ams," Luz said. "What's up? Do you want me for something?"

"Uh." Yes, kissing. Wait, is that weird to say? It's weird. Say no. "No? Sorry." Amity looked around the room, her ears burning. "I can get up?"

"I don't want you to get up either." Luz seemed to consider this. "What if I stop reading? Then you can have all of my attention!"

"I don't think I'm brave enough for that," she answered honestly.

Luz smiled at her, caught her hand and kissed it. "Okay. I'll put on a movie. That way you can pretend I'm totally not paying attention."

Luz's room was small. She didn't have to move far (still holding Amity to her chest) to recover her laptop from under her bed. "Is your desktop background just snakes?" Amity asked as she flipped it open.

"Yep! They're so cute!"

"I suppose they are," Amity said, which was not something she'd expected herself to say. She felt ambivalent towards snakes at most. One of Luz's hands had moved up from the laptop to gently rub her nails through the undercut at the back of Amity's head and her ability to think was leaving her.

Luz found one of the Azura OVAs and put it on, leaning back against her bed. Amity, who'd seen this one a million times already, split her attention between the screen and the girl who trusted her. The way Luz's eyes lit up, or she grinned uncontrollably or threw her arms up in the air to wave them at important moments, these were all beautiful. Even with Amity on her thighs, she stretched out her legs and wiggled them sometimes, or rocked them both from side to side at exhilarating parts. The way she quoted along, complete with matching gestures, or hugged Amity when her excitement was overwhelming. Amity made lists in her head of every beautiful response, everything about her.

When it was over, Luz held her close, laughing into her hair with excitement. "Oh man, I love that ending! Hecate rescuing Azura from the well of eternal darkness and both of them coming together and banishing Lord Malignant into the ethereal zone…"

"Me too." She inhaled, looking for courage, and said, "I like how into it you get."

"I think you know it pretty well too!" Luz poked her ribs gently, which tickled, and she squirmed and laughed. "You tapped my arm in time with all of the music!"

"I know it pretty well." She rested her head on Luz's shoulder and said, "It's really fun. And it's the best fantasy series. By a long shot. It's my favourite."

"Uh huh." Luz leaned forward, squishing her a little bit, but not unpleasantly. "I bet you like all the morally ambiguous characters. All the bad girls who pretend they don't care but secretly do. Like Hecate."

"A little." Her fingers entwined with Luz's, and she couldn't help what she said next. "Do you think you'll ever be as excited for anything as you are for Azura? Are you going to be getting married someday thinking I wish Azura was involved or something?"

"That's why I gotta marry you! Guaranteed inclusion of Azura!"

Luz was saying something else but everything she said got lost in the rush of blood to Amity's cheeks. She couldn't think properly. "I– um–..."

"Are you okay?" There was very sweet concern in the other girl's tone. "You look kind of faint. Should I get my mom?"

"No! No, no…"

Luz kissed her forehead. It was a gentle kiss after all of that energy. Just lips brushing her forehead. "We should totally do a marathon. Just watch every movie and TV adaptation one time!"

"Yeah, absolutely. Any time. Maybe tomorrow? Or this weekend?" Could this be it? Could this be the date?

"Maybe we should figure out your ghosts first." Luz squeezed her again, head on her shoulder. "I wanna make sure you've got nothing to worry about."

"I'm always going to worry."

"Yeah," Luz frowned. "But I want you to only be worrying about tests and exams and studying and games. You've got too much to worry about. I wanna get rid of one of those things."

Luz looked so earnest that Amity didn't have the heart to tell her there was someone else she worried about a lot. She'd just have to stick close by. She wouldn't have to worry about Luz if she could protect her. "It's getting late," she said softly. "Should we go to bed?"

"Oh yeah!" Luz stretched and Amity finally got up, reaching down to pull her up with her. "I don't think we have a spare toothbrush but–" Amity was reaching into the pocket of her sweater and retrieving a small bag of toiletries, wearing a nervous grin. "You...brought a toothbrush?"

"Yeah…"

"Hey! What happened to I was just in the neighbourhood?" Luz clapped a hand to her forehead, laughing at the obvious deceit. "Did you bring pyjamas?"

"No…" if she'd brought a whole bag it would've been obvious that she'd wanted to stay over. People couldn't know that she wanted things.

"I've got some clothes you could wear," Luz began digging in her wardrobe before glancing over. "Hey, how come you keep borrowing my clothes and they keep disappearing into your house?"

"Ghost?" Amity suggested, shrugging with innocence. Luz's clothes were comfortable and the fabric conditioner she used made them smell like her even after days apart. "Ghosts took them, I guess."

"You can borrow my clothes, but I'm absolutely going to borrow yours back," Luz told her. "I will get my hoodie back. You're grinning really hard."

"Yeah," Amity said through a smile that was so wide it almost hurt. "I know."

In the end, she borrowed an old shirt from Eda's long broken up punk band, some soft shorts. Before she lay down, Luz made her pull up the back of the loaned t-shirt, and checked the healing wound. She felt a light pressure; Luz's lips and nose, the feather brush of Luz's eyelashes as she kissed the stitches. Her inhalation was interrupted; Luz cuddled against her until she began breathing again.

They hit the bed with a soft whumph tumbling over together, and arranged themselves on the mattress, finding the right position.

"Maybe you should get a weighted blanket," Luz suggested, once they were aligned and were pulling the duvet up to cover them both.

"Why?"

"They're supposed to help with anxiety and stuff."

Amity pulled her closer, half on top of her. "Behold: my weighted blanket that helps with anxiety and stuff."

Luz kissed her, lips catching the edge of her jaw. "Wise guy. I'll just get you one for your birthday. When is it?"

"May 4th."

"Oh, you're a Taurus! That makes sense." Luz yawned, mind skating back through Eda's books. "Taurus born on the fourth of the month, that's methodical, strong-willed, responsible, determined, intelligent…" Courageous, easily angered, repressed… Luz felt a fondness bloom. Eda had made her spend a summer writing up birth charts for her customers, and Luz knew how to do them pretty well by now, knew the keywords off by heart.

"I don't know what that means." Her mother had liked horoscopes, but Amity had preferred solid ground. "Which one are you?"

"I'm a Leo."

"I'll figure out what that is." Amity sighed, nose pressing to Luz's.

"Maybe I'll make you a birth chart to go with your blanket," Luz said, already closing her eyes with a smile. "Eda taught me how."

It wasn't until later that night, briefly waking up after a dream that Amity realised: Luz had never answered her when she'd asked how she was feeling.

There was a real peace in waking up next to Luz. In the quiet of the morning, when it felt like they were the only people left on earth, looking at the way her eyelashes caught the light. For all of the other girl’s boundless energy during the day, there was a quiet calm in Luz’s sleeping face, in the way that she sometimes mumbled in her sleep, fragments of dreams. In the night, if Amity made a noise – she’d tested this for purely scientific reasons – Luz would mumble something incomprehensible and roll to wrap her arms around her protectively, even if she was dead asleep. Amity felt her heart thud out of time whenever this happened, a warmth filling her that made her smile very widely. There was something very nice about someone wanting to protect her.

Maybe, she considered as she lay on her back, arms behind her head, listening to the buzz of a full apartment, it was just nice to wake up in a family home. Outside their room, she could hear low voices, could smell someone cooking breakfast. A cat meowed. Next to her, Luz stirred, blinking awake. "Morning," she mumbled, and pressed a closed mouth kiss to her lips, and Amity responded by hugging her. "Are you hugging me so tight cuz it’s cold?"

"It’s not that cold." That wasn’t why she was holding her tight.

"I guess," Luz snuggled against her. "You feel sorta cold."

"Do I?"

"Yeah. But you feel cold a lot. That’s why I hold your hand so much. Gotta make sure my girl doesn’t freeze!" Luz frowned, sitting up. She located a blanket from the bottom of the bed and wrapped Amity up, holding her close. "I dunno, you feel colder than usual. I’m not letting you go til you warm up. Blanket buddies!"

"Feels like a convenient excuse to hug me."

"Maybe." Luz held her close. "Maybe it’s just an excuse to stop you from getting up."

"If I don’t get up, I can’t brush my teeth. And then I can’t kiss you."

"That's a good point." Luz narrowed her eyes as she considered this, rubbing her chin. "But I can still kiss the rest of your face, so…"

There was a knock at their door. "I can sense awkward flirting coming from this room," Eda's voice. "You guys have thirty minutes to wrap it up and get dressed. Meet me downstairs. It’s boot camp time."

The click of her heels on the wood sounded into the distance. "What does that even mean?" Amity wondered aloud.

"It means," Luz said, optimistically, "I got twenty-five minutes of cuddles before we gotta head to the store!"

"There's no way you can get down there and ready in five minutes."

"Bet on it."

Luz lost that bed.

Thirty three minutes later they found themselves downstairs in the closed store, Amity's hair only half done, in a borrowed pair of jeans and a shirt, Luz still bed-headed, back in her signature purple and white. Gus was there too, the whites of his eyes slightly pink, a bleary look on his face. Willow was tipping a coffee into his open mouth.

There was a handmade sign above one of the shelves that read:

Eda’s very cool séance training camp

"Huh," Luz said, staring up at it. "Are you sure you don't wanna get involved in our séance, Eda? It looks like you’ve done a lotta work to prepare. This feels like when you kept telling us you didn't want to come ghost hunting with us and kept turning up outside where we were exploring."

"Those times were all coincidences. Look, I'm sure. I told you, I don't want anything touching my soul that I wouldn't touch myself with a ten foot pole." Eda placed her hands on her hips, somehow managing to look intimidating despite her cozy sweater and long skirt. Amity blinked. Eda's sweater had writing on it. Cool mom to some nerd kids.

"Are these the nerd kids?" She asked, gesturing at the Ghoul Friends.

"Yep," Eda answered.

"We're cool," Gus answered at the same time.

"You're not." Eda rubbed his head. "You're super not. Gusington, I want you to start by writing up everything you know about séances. You have five minutes." She pretended to set a timer and Gus rushed for a paper and pen, pulling a notebook and fountain pen from his backpack, dropping to his hands and knees to scrawl information. Willow and Luz got down on the floor to help him, whispering suggestions. Amity turned to browse the rest of the store.

"Why do you have so many strangely shaped vases?" She asked Eda, picking up one with two spouts.

"For flowers." Eda told her with a straight face.

"You don't sell flowers," Amity frowned, turning it over in her hands.

"Not since they legalised it."

"What a mysterious statement."

"Not to anyone who can hang." Leaving Amity to puzzle over that, Eda turned back to the Ghoul Friends. "Okay, hurry up."

Amity picked up the sword in the display case, eyeing it with interest. "Put the sword back," Eda told her without looking round, and she jumped and nearly dropped it.

"How did you–"

"You're a lesbian, it's a sword, I just assumed."

Gus was staring at a messy paragraph, frowning. "I think this is all? I don't know! I'm suddenly so stressed!"

Eda took it from him, scanning through it. "Okay, you got everyone holding hands, that's right. Candles. Calling out to the spirit world. All good, Gus."