When she arrived in the library, she was greeted by the old hag that was the local librarian, "Can I help you?" asked the woman, looking as old as the very building she worked in, she presented her card, Vee gave it to her before they separated, she was well known in the library, for not being quiet and destroying books, such as spilling beverages at them.
She was actually banned from coming here, but it seemed like Vee managed to convince the old hag she had changed, so here she was.
"Oh Luz, welcome.. Can I help you with something? Are you looking for encyclopedias again?", she asked, smiling at her quite warmly.
This threw Luz off hard, this lady was never nice to her, like ever, what sort of magic did Vee perform to turn her from the hag she knew, into this lady.
Maybe she was miss-remembering things..she was quite a menace when she was younger after all, so maybe the lady wasn't actually that bad..
She took a deep breath, she was still really angry from the argument at home,but letting it out on an older lady, who as it seemed was actually pretty nice, was not fair.
"Not really, but thank you so much, I just want to look around and read some books," said Luz, channeling all the atta girl energy she could muster, in hopes of sounding exactly like her alter ego, to fool the old librarian.
"But of course Luz, that's no problem at all.", said the librarian with a smile.
"Can I have some pen and paper?" asked Luz.
"But of course, here.", she nodded as she handed Luz a ball-pen and a few papers, "Just try not to scribble anything into books again," she reminded, in a slightly less friendly tone.
"Do not worry miss, I changed, I would not do that now," said Luz.
"I can see that dear.", said the woman and before Luz could get out of sight, "And send hi to your sister for me...", the librarian finished.
Luz looked over her shoulder, the old woman went back to reading her magazine, "I will..", said Luz quietly and she would swear she saw the older woman smile, which was impossible, she said it too quietly for her to hear.
Letting that weirdness out of her mind, she continued to the library itself, it was very old having almost no modern literature, so almost no young people ever visited, apart from the occasional College student depressingly looking for law or medical books.
Luz would not be surprised if she found some books from Jules Verne sorted as brand new works.
But today Luz was grateful for all that, it was giving her hope to find at least something that spoke about magic and took it at least a little bit seriously, but first there was something else she was itching to do since last night.
She quickly walked through the library, clutching the papers and pen in her hand, when she finally found a secluded enough table she sighed in relief and immediately sat down.
Luz laid her papers in front of her and put the pen to paper, hesitating.
She did not mean anything she said to her mother, but knowing she was not sincere and doing more magic felt like two different things.
'I can't just stop...', she told herself, she had a world to save and friends to rescue, 'Now draw Luz', she encouraged herself, slowly and carefully drawing a light glyph, but then hesitating.
Her finger hung over the glyph, it was true that the strange mist that escaped from her was not something that ever happened back on the isles.
She sat there for a moment, before gathering her resolve and tapping the paper.
The strange mist appeared again, escaping from her and entering into the glyph as light filled its lines, it did not take long until the paper crumbled and a light bulb now hung in front of her.
She let out a sigh of relief, she did not even notice she was holding her breath.
Her mind now clearer and her fear gone, she concentrated on the light, she needed to figure out how her magic worked.
Quite obviously it was different here than on the demon isles, the glyphs were supposed to work from the magic of the Titan, but there was no Titan here,..right, so how did her magic still function..
The more she thought about it the less sense it made, maybe there was a Titan here, somewhere hidden like on the north pole or maybe hidden by the government, so that was the reason why she could still use magic..
But then...that would mean magic has always been here and anyone who would have drawn a circle with stuff in it, could have activated it..could that really be the case..?
She slowly took her phone out of her pocket, it was cracked, but it still worked. She did not know what miracle made that happen, but she wished some of that miraculous energy could have instead gone for her friends and got them to safety, instead of saving her phone.
Luz pulled up a camera and started filming the light and than looking at her footage, it was there, hovering in mid air, so there was no problem in filming magic.
She frowned there was no way that in this day and age, where the internet was a thing and the everlasting need to be popular and famous in the mind of almost everyone, that someone discovered this and did not tell anyone, did not post it online for likes, or for bragging rights.
And it seemed incredibly improbable that no one ever discovered it by mistake, there were even math graphs that looked similar to glyphs, like circle graphs she herself needed to draw in school, some time back...
Maybe it was this place, Connecticut, the portal was here, maybe there was a reason why it was here, or maybe it was the other way around, maybe the portal leaked some magic here and that was why magic worked...
Yea that could be the explanation, 'But what about the hospital.', she thought, that was kinda strange, the hospital was quite far away from here, nearly ten miles from here, was the magic spread that far..
It was possible.., but if it was really because of the portal, it would have been here all this time, for nearly a century or two, how probable was it that no-one ever noticed.
It made no sense...
'Mom could not do it..' a memory struck her, when she gave her mother the glyph back at the hospital, it seemed that even when her mother tapped the glyph, nothing happened. It was the same glyph that worked for Luz without an issue..., was she special??
But it would explain the mist that was clearly coming from her,.. she suddenly sat up straight, as another idea struck her and extinguished her light immediately.
What if she just carried some magic with her, could she run out?
That would make sense, she was in another realm, that explained the mist, the magic was being sucked from her, making magic happen, Luz was starting to panic, 'What if I lose my magic, how am I ever going to her back.., what if I already have only some small slivers left, what if..', she was taking deep breaths, trying to calm down.
This was not good, but then again, something was not right, something did not click, 'That thing that happened to me..!!', she remembered, the bloodshot eyes, pale skin, what was that about..
And it recovered, after a while in the hospital it recovered, it took no more than an hour and some change, the time she was under the blanket crying, for her to look as normal as ever.
She took her pen and started to draw, but not a glyph this time. She needed to sort her thoughts, she drew herself a normal girl, before adding a otter onesie to her drawn self, she was still Luz, a human like no otter.
Than satisfied, she added a portal, drawing arrows signifying her passing thru, she then discovered her glyphs and than got back, no other magical revelation happened, as far as she knew, so the fact that she could use magic now, was just her staying there was some time.. and that was it??
She let out a frustrated groan, Luz did not know, she let the pen be and got up to browse the library, maybe she would find some clues here, she started walking down shelves, until she arrived in the history section and started looking.
Her time in the library, endless looking through old history books and yellowed newspapers was a complete waste of time.
The only thing she found, that held any interest to her at all, was a book about witch hunting in the area, with a detailed description of her least favorite witch hunter,
*Philip and Caleb Wittebanes*
She read the article, *They came into the area in the early 16 century*, Luz already knew that, *They both became witch hunters a popular job in Gravesfield at the time*, nothing new here, *Becoming famous very quickly, but then disappearing just as fast* checked out as far as Luz knew, this book was no help at all.
She closed the book and put it aside, dissatisfied with its contents, as if it was the book's fault what someone decided to write into it.
She continued to stare at the closed tome, lost at what she should do now, "How did Philip became famous in the first place, it's not like burned anyone to death..", she said out loud.
"Nor did he hang anybody.", " Or drown anyone..", she continued , a sudden realization downing on her, there was no mention of any witch hunt actually succeeding and punishing someone, witch or someone innocent, as if being a witch was a crime anyway, but then..how did they get famous and why was witch-hunter a favorite profession in this town.
'If you need more crops, there will be more farmers, if have too much wildlife it will attract hunters and if you have too much witches.. witch-hunters', yea that made sense, but than..., where were the records, books, anything about them, if this town was a hub of activity for witches, there should be mentions of them everywhere.
The hunters here were fighting them or hunting them to be more precise, if they defeated a witch, Luz was certain they would want at least a book about themselves, statue, plague, ..something, humans were like that, always needing to have their accomplishments on display, trying to prove something to others.
If witches were here, where did they disappear, did they go back to the isles..were they all hunted down.., no there would be a statue of the hunters at least, so what could have happened to them...
Unless..
They did not win.., what if witches won that fight, hunters wanted to take them all down, but did not succeeded and instead got taken down themselves, than no statues, books or plagues, witches who won would not want anything celebrating deaths of their comrades, if they won, they could remove all literature about magic from here.
What was also strange, now that Luz thought about it, was that she expected at least some tomes about magic, not real magic, but about earth magic, like stargazing, predicting the future from palm and usual stuff like that, but there was nothing here, not even a mention, that was suspicious.
And nor Philip or Caleb would know, or be affected by any of this as they were both in the Demon isles at that point, it was making more and more sense as she thought about it.
Not that it helped her in any regard, "Unless some witches are still luring in the shadows of this town!!!", she said out loud menacingly, before laughing, it was nice that she still could laugh at herself.
"Heyo, if there are some witches here I need help learning more about magic", she said into the wind.
And then all the hairs on her body stood up all at once, as a wave of terror washed over her.
Someone was standing behind her.
*Craaaack*
That was the sound of the broken pencil in Luz's hands, she gripped it too tightly, Luz was terrified, she sat in a corner, her back was against the wall, it was not that no-one should be able to sneak behind her, there was no place to sneak into..
But yet, her senses were telling her otherwise, she did not hear, see or feel anything, but she knew someone was standing inches behind her, their gaze concentrated solely on her.
Slowly she turned to look.
To find nothing at all.
'Yea fuck this shit', thought Luz intensely as she bolted away from the library, barely grabbing her phone, leaving everything else behind.
'Nope nope nope and noooope'
She ran all the way home, but than the true nightmare begun.