The Witch Among Humans

Chapter 14: The Plant

A loud banging of pans interrupted the complete silence within the room. Luz shot up from her bed, straight up falling off of the side. Eda laughed a bit, before going to help her up.

Luz groaned. "Eda, w-what are you doing?"

Eda smiled brightly at her. "Making sure you have enough time to make it to school. Duh."

Luz nodded at first... before realizing what she said. "Wait, don't we have to make something as carpeters? Carpenters. Still tired." 

"I figured that as long as this Golden Guard is here, he'll be able to take advantage of my odd jobs. I probably need to figure something else out. Plus, normal teenagers aren't usually helping to financially support someone else, and I figure it would be sad for me to rely on someone almost thirty years younger than me."

Luz gave her a smile. She didn't fully understand at the moment, but it was obvious Eda had a plan. She didn't have to stay away from school any longer.

"... wait. Thirty years? You're in your forties?"

Eda gave her a glare. "Yeah. So what?"

"W-Well you look-" Luz noticed the glaring, and her mistake. "- good for your age. Yep, that's it. I just got confused."

She quickly got up from the floor and left the room. Eda pulled some of her hair in front of her face.

"I don't look that old..."

---

The final bell of the school day rang. Luz and Willow were the first ones out of the door to the hall. They met up with Gus at the front of the school, then began walking.

Gus had promised to show them a cool new café that opened up fairly recently. "I figured it would be fun. Plus, now that you're feeling better Luz, we can show you around the city."

Luz smiled at that, although she was inwardly cringing. Eda had called the school to tell them that she had gotten a small fever. It wasn't true, obviously, yet no one else could know that. According to Eda, it had something to do with child labor laws on Earth. One more lie to tell her friends.

They reached the café, a small little place called Robin's Roast Café. It was a small building compared to some of the nearby office buildings, but it was still hard to pass by without noticing.

The trio spent the next hour there, where they tried some of the different drinks they had. Luz was excited to try coffee for the first time.

Only a little while later, Luz was stuck in the restroom, dealing with a small pain that she randomly started feeling in her stomach. She didn't fully understand it, but luckily the pain went away after a few minutes.

By the time she came back out, Gus was showing Willow something on his phone. It wasn't hard to hear what they were discussing.

"Gus, are you really sure that it's not just special effects or something?" Willow questioned.

Gus scoffed. "I know my VFX. Besides, why would someone constantly create effects that would be almost too incredibly to actually pull off?"

"Well, we know the animal outbreaks are actually happening. Maybe the government just wants to keep people calm."

"Yes, by raising more questions than answers. Makes perfect sense." Gus then noticed Luz walking over to their table with her hand on her stomach. "Oh, Luz. How's your stomach doing."

Luz smiled. "Better now. I guess I'm just not used to coffee, huh? I'll get used to it."

Willow rolled her eyes. "To be fair, not everyone likes coffee."