I slowly walked out of school with the feeling of butterflies and the want to throw up still in place since receiving the message from Luz. Instead of sitting down at one of the uplifted concrete walls that held the school's hedges and bushes, mostly used as seating, I made my way over to the side of the building where our school cafeteria was and where the bus pick-up was.
Barely turning the corner I could see Luz sitting on a far bench looking at the last of the bus kids piling into a bus. My heart sped up and I felt as though I would pass out any minute but didn't as I forced my way over to Luz. By the time I was close enough to her, barely a few feet away, Luz finally noticed me.
"Hey amity!" she said with a smile, instinctively I tightened my grip on my backpack strap. I casually took a seat on the bench next to her as Luz didn't give any chance for an awkward atmosphere to form. She immediately cut to the chase as her smile faltered.
"Look, I'm just gonna cut to the chase Amity. What's up with you? Like why did you act like I wasn't there when that girl was starting stuff with Willow? And why is Willow telling me to watch out when I'm around you? what's with that? Were y'all friends or something what's the deal???" She tried to stare into my eyes but I avoided her gaze immediately as the anxiety from earlier increased with a mix of guilt now.
*sigh* "Clearly something is going on Amity, I'm not oblivious. Can you at least tell me what's wrong? Does it have something to do with me? Did I do something wrong?" she said in a guilty tone as I quickly turned to her.
"NO! Of course not, it was never your doing!" I quickly reassured her as she had now a questioning look as I unconsciously held my hands together feeling the sweat of my palms. "It's just... personal stuff... I-I can't explain and-"
"Hey, Hey, Hey!" she quickly cut me off as she grabbed my shoulders. "It's difficult, I know. Personal problems are not fun, I didn't mean to pressure you. It's just... I thought It was my fault and I did something wrong. But, it's something more than that right," I didn't give her an answer before she released her grip from my shoulder. "I'm sorry, it's just... I thought I had a good friend for once, not counting Gus and Willow, and when you ignored me I guess... I thought I did something wrong again and-"
"Luz-" I cut her off and was about to reassure her when my ringer went off and I immediately saw that it was from my sibling's group chat once I pulled out my phone.
-"bit late, down the street, be ready"- Amelia
"Sorry Luz... Amelia is down the street, I gotta go before she gets impatient," I explained as I got up and was about to leave.
"Oh wait!" Luz quickly yelled while shooting up from her seat. She looked around up before twirling her finger casting a spell as a book appeared. " I, uh, forgot to give this to you at the flea market before you left," she shyly said as she held out the book allowing me to see the cover.
"Volume 7...." I whispered as I reached out to grab it but was quickly pulled back away from my hands. "huh?"
"Before I give this to you, it was REALLY good by the way, you gotta do something for me..." I gulped as she smiled and held back out the book with her other hand holding out a pinkie.
"I need you to make a promise, your human promise. Pinky promises I think they're called right?" I didn't answer but just stared at her. I felt my face flush at her antics as she had a childish smile on her face that I quickly took a liking to. "You gotta promise that no matter what or who we're with, we will act how we usually act, normal, weird, whatever. We'll be ourselves and be truthful with one another, so don't act differently with me and I promise I won't ever do it to you, okay?" I was hesitant as the thought of my mother came to mind before I intertwined our pinkies, I like hanging out with Luz. I don't want her to leave.
She gave me the book and my worries were immediately replaced with joy. Before I could say anything else though I noticed the shift in Luz's shirt as something crawled up to her collar before popping its head out.
"Hey Stringbean, wanna say hi to Amity?" Luz asked as Stringbean looked up to Luz and then to me before floating out of her shirt and making her way to me as she swirled around me before stopping in front of my face and hissing happily. Almost trying to smile in a way.
"H-hi Stringbean," I said as I reached out and scratched behind its ear as it hissed and started to rattle the ball at the end of its tail in delight. "What exactly is it?" I asked before the snake flew back to Luz and went back into hiding under her shirt but still had its head out by her collar.
"She's Snake shifter palisman, and she's a true blessing," Luz joked as we finally began walking back to the front of the school.
"How did you get her?" I asked as Luz smiled.
"So back in the demon realm, at a certain age witches, traditionally, would be given a chunk of palisterm wood that allows for a witch to carve or get them carved to whatever they want. But recently since there has been an overharvest of trees, a program has been implemented by my uncle, the leader of the isles, and a demon named Bat Queen. Instead of further over-harvesting the trees, witches now adopt lost palisman or unowned palisman. Though with the perk of being the leader's niece I was given my wood."
"So you carved string bean?"
"uh, no, not exactly. I carved an egg to let her choose what she wanted to be. Palismans are creatures with a strong connection to magic which helps to amplify one's magic. But for palisman, carved and adopted, to bond or awaken a witch must state their deepest desires. So for me, it took a while before she actually hatched here recently. Before that I used to just talk to her and have her with me everywhere," Luz blushed embarrassed by her confession that I found it sweet and enduring... enduring?
"What was your deepest desire then?" I asked smugly as she blushed but quickly put on a playful serious expression as she held her hand to my face.
"that classified," she stated in a deep tone as I laughed.
"Question, could a human get their own palisman?" Luz thought about it before shrugging.
"Honestly I've never even heard of a human doing magic..."
"Well then it looks like I gotta be the first," I stated as Luz had a shocked and confused expression.
*BEEP* *BEEP*
Me and Luz's attention changed to the street in front of us as we barely made it to the school's front steps since we were taking our time walking over. From the steps, I could see a visibly irritated Amelia with Ed and Em hanging out from the side windows.
"Hey Mittens!!! Hey Luz!!!" They both said in sync as I felt my face turn red while Luz tried to hold in her laughter.
"Mittens?"
"S-shut up! I'll talk to you later," I quickly spoke as I sped walk my way over to the car forcing Em to move over to allow me into the back seat before we drove off.
"BYE LUZ!" Em yelled from the other side window.
"MITTEN SAYS GOODBYE!!!!" Ed added as I felt my face turn more red.
"SHUT UP ED!!!!!"
Author POV
Luz watched the blight sibling leave the school's property as she had a blush on her face that was paired with a smile. Stringbean hissed from under Luz's shirt drawing Luz out of her daze. "Sorry Stringbean, got lost in my thoughts for a second. Let's head over to Willows."
The walk was not far from the school as Luz opted to walk all the way to Willow's house following the sent address. Upon arriving and knocking on the door of the townhome, Willow answered right away having a smile plastered on her face.
"Hey, come on in luz!"
Luz was in awe of the house and its homey vibe as she was amazed by how decorated the house was. To her right there was a living room that was well furnished and decorated with plants as it connected to a kitchen. There was an opened wall-like island that opened up both rooms making it feel bigger than it was. In front of Luz was a stairwell that had wooden steps and led up to the second floor. Instead of being connected to the wall on the left, there was instead a narrow hall that gave space to a closed-off room and had many photos scattered along the wall. Down the narrow hall was what Luz figured to be the dining room as she could, barely, see the table and chairs along with a light that shined above and was covered by a stained glass bowl.
"Willow I love your house!" Luz stated as Willow closed the front door and started to walk up the stairs with Luz following behind.
"Thanks, my dad's put a lot of effort into making the house very comfortable and welcoming," once walking up the last step Luz was hit with a faint stench that she could only pick up due to witches' heightened senses compared to humans.
"Right here to the left is my sister's room, She's probably asleep right now. If she's not blasting music she's either knocked out or out and about. Next door to her is my parent's room and down the hall is the bathroom," Luz followed Willow all the way to the open doored room on the right as they entered. "And here is my room, nothing much but it's something."
Walls painted light pink with many posters and plants decorating the room, Luz was in love with how simple yet aesthetically pleasing it was. It had a nature-like vibe and smelled of pine wood. On the bed was Gus whose head was hanging off the side of the bed until noticing Luz as she sat up properly.
"But enough touring, ready for The Talk???" Willow stated in an intimidating yet joking way that Luz misunderstood and immediately took a seat on her bed as Gus got up to stand next to Willow.
"So Graves Field has always been considered a cryptic and historic town due to not only old unsolved records of weird stuff but also the fact that Graves Field used to hunt witches and have their very own witch trials. It's the main reason why this city is so big and profitable and why it can keep expanding," Gus started off giving Luz background information before Willow continued with their sort of "presentation."
"But recently, maybe a few months ago, there have been more paranormal occurrences happening in town," Willow bent down near Luz going under her bed and pulled out a blue folder before handing it to Luz. "This here is just some clippings and reports me and Gus have done to try and find some sort of link or relation with every weird thing that has happened here in town." Luz flipped through the thick folder that barely closed as she skimmed through many reports finding many to sound like demons or random weird occurrences that could only occur back in the demon realm. "At first we didn't think much of it, since many kids would create hoaxes for attention. But that was until just recently, about a week ago, we ran into some weird creature in the forest one day."
"We do this thing where we go and venture out into the nearby forest that surrounds the city since there are a lot of abandoned buildings out there. some just run-down buildings but many are old, barely visible, shacks that were probably from the witch-hunting era." Gus chimed in as he laughed.
"But one day, when we were making our way back to the city, we noticed nearby claw marks and footprints of sorts so we, of course, followed. we ended up at this small sort of clearing with some broken and scratched-up trees as we felt a weird presence and heard weird noises. We heard a loud screeching noise or multiple creatures crying per se from off in the distance before something charged at us."
"Luz, this thing was FAST and pushed me and Willow to the ground while snapping a whole tree in half as it went past us. No creature ON EARTH could ever have that amount of speed and be able to take down a tree unless it was like a missile or robot. All we could see was a black dismorphed figure before it took off."
"But of course that's where our little finding comes in," Willow looked at Gus as he understood what she was asking of him as he made his way to the window. "This stuff was on the broken tree when we went over to look at the stump, luckily we had an empty water bottle with us to use as containment. It was this black goo-like thing and was very liquidly yet solid but-" Before Willow could continue her description of the substance, Gus interrupted as he was standing by the window confused.
"Hey did you move the bottle?"
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