“Oh, such beautiful decorations what are you celebrating?” An elderly woman’s voice asked.
Before even turning to look at the kind woman, Camila smiled. She didn’t really understand Luz’s love for the Boiling Isles, but her first visit had been to fight an evil …Demon? God? All-knowing being? (What was a collector, anyway?). Maybe the Boiling Isles wasn’t actually all that bad–
Camila turned to thank the young woman and met… An eye. A singular, giant, eye. With bat wings. And long white hair. And nobody. Just…
“Ooooh, let me guess!” The bat-thing said, its yellow fangs flashing. “Did a young witch sacrifice their first goat to a demon lord under a blood moon?”
“I– um, haha,” Camila said, staring at the bat thing. “Haha. Haha. Okay. This is fine.”
“Mami?” Luz’s muffled voice asked (probably? Was that even Luz? What is a Luz?). “¿Estas bien?”
“Haha.”
“Okay, let’s go. We’re going, ” Luz said, pushing her Mom forward slightly. She turned to the bat-thing, smiling, and then wincing only a tiny bit at the venom dripping from her fangs. “Sorry for troubling you, miss.”
“No, trouble,” She said, smiling sweetly. Or, well, it was a smile of some sort at least.
“See, Ma?” Luz told her mother as they continued walking, she was holding bags in either hand filled with party supplies, just like Camila. “They might be different, but they’re nice! And you’ve always told me–”
Camila turned back to look at the bat-thing. It narrowed its eyes like a predator stalking out prey. Then it smirked. Smirked.
“Haha,” She said, sure that at that point she was going crazy and turning back to look at her now passionately monologuing daughter. “I’m sure nothing will go wrong.”
“Happy Birthday, King!!!” Luz shrieked running towards the little Titan, picking him up, and embracing him with enough force to be lethal. Eda and King had come out of the Owl House to greet them before they all went inside.
“Luz!” King said, snuggling into her arms. Camila smiled at them like the proud mother she was and turned to see Eda doing the same. The witch had seemed a bit… odd to Camila at first. Still, despite the lady’s tendency to dislocate her own limbs for fun, her long status as criminal (and not just for the good-hearted reasons Luz always claimed– Camila was sure the women’s record was just as long as her children’s trauma), and her lack of… responsible adult qualities(™), she had grown on Camila. Eda’s confidence in oddness was something Camila had lost over the years, something she had wished she could be an example of for Luz but…
“Camila!” Eda said, smiling. Camila appreciated the attempt at saying it the Spanish-accented way Camila did herself.
“Eda! It’s nice to see you.”
“Likewise! And thank you for doing all this for King’s birthday, the kid hasn’t been so excited since he thought one of his stuffed animals had tried to talk to him.” Eda covered her mouth with her hand and lowered her voice, “It was actually just Hooty using the frog as a face mask. Don’t ask.”
“No problem,” Camila said.
“Is Vee coming?”
“No, she told me she made plans with a friend,” Camila straightened and smiled thinking of a girl with black hair who had whisked away her daughter while ranting about Indie movies. “But I think it’s a dateee.” Then she winced a bit at the movement due to the weight of all her bags.
“Let me help you,” Eda said, grabbing one of the bags. Bringing all the decorations and general birthday supplies from the human realm had proved to be no easy task and Camila sighed a bit as one of her heavy bags was taken off her shoulders.
“Ay Dios mío, thank you,” Camila said as they walked into the house, Camila and Luz had come early to ensure everything was set up before the rest of the guests arrived.
“Of course. You know, I’m glad you can still carry things after the last cookout.”
Camila shuttered. Dislocating her back has not been fun. Nor the acid rain. Nor finding out the “steak” grilled had actually been an assortment of demons and insects “hunted” around the Owl House. Especially because it had been after eating. She really should have questioned the tiny legs.
“Happy Birthday, King!” Gus said, opening the door to the Owl House wide and letting it bang against the wall (which led to a loud and hurt, “Hey!” from Hooty). “Oh, sorry, Hooty!”
“Happy Birthday!” Willow and Hunter both said as they followed behind, their hands (which had previously been linked together), shyly separating as they walked through the door. They looked away from each other. Gus gave Luz a conspiratorial wink which made Willow get beet red and march over. Behind them were Willow’s dads who were talking to Guz’s dad, followed by Darius and Alador.
“Thank you for coming!” King said, rushing up to them in a party hat.
“Are you being choked?” Hunter said, staring at the thin wire that strapped the party hat onto King’s face, eyes wide. Hunter immediately tensed and started to look around.
“No! It’s a human thing. At least…” King turned. “Luz, it’s not supposed to try to kill me, right? Because it’s kind of itchy.”
Luz turned, she had two of them positioned on her head like cat ears and one hanging off her chin like a pointy beard. She pulled at the wire. It then bounced back, hit her face, and left it red. “...I don’t know.”
“Amity!” Luz yelled, rushing to hug her girlfriend so hard that they fell to the floor.
“Luz!” Amity said smiling and hugging her tightly back. They called and sent messages and tried to visit as much as they could but somehow it never felt like enough.
Edric snapped a quick photo and Amity turned to try to attack him, but only ended up toppling further onto the floor.
“Mittens, what in this bag!?” Emira said, picking up the bag Amity had let fall in her reunion with Luz and finding it much heavier than expected.
“Obviously it has to be heavy, how else is she going to impress her girlfriend with her muscles?” Eric said, passing Amity his coat for her to hang up, only to promptly get it tossed right back to his face.
Camila walked into the loud and crowded living room where everyone was congregated with a bag of more decorations. Willow, Gus, Amity, and Hunter all exclaimed “Camila!” and went to say their hello’s, talking about the latest Hexide gossip, the tests they had done well (or bad) in, the projects they were working on, how much they missed her. All of them. At the same time.
Camila smiled and waved her hands quickly, “Kids, this is all really sweet, but one at a time, okay? And if we could continue later, it would help me do the finishing touches on the decorations. But…” Camila pushed up her glasses. “Hunter, you should use both yellow and orange for your embroidered sun, it’ll make it look more fun and realistic. Gus, I’m happy more people are joining the club, but you can’t tell people that humans eat jump ropes, even if they do look like pasta. Willow, I’m sure Emerald Entrails will do great in the coming season, they have you leading them! And you have to get me tickets for all the games. Amity, it’s okay that you didn’t get a perfect score on that test, it sucks but study more for that specific kind of subject or kind of test. Make it a goal. And if you feel like the stress is too much, remember it's okay to not always do well, it’s only human, er, natural.” The teens all nodded enthusiastically.
In the background, Alador turned to Eda. “As a long-time Dad… Yeah, I don’t think I can do that.”
“Dad?!” Amity and the twins exclaimed.
“Yes?” Alador looked confused.
“We thought– You said you had to do something so you’d come later,” Amity said.
“He was with Darius earlier, so when me and Darius met up with Gus, Willow, and their parents to walk her together to the Owl House, we all just came together,” Hunter explained cheerfully.
“He was with Darius…?” Amity said, looking up slowly, her face scrunching in confusion. Alador turned and scratched his neck, not meeting his daughter’s eyes.
“Oh, Amity, poor naive Amity,” Emira said, shaking her head and smiling.
“They are cute together though,” Eric commented, putting her face in his hands as his father and Darius flushed red.
“WHAT?!” Amity said.
“Ooo, what’s that?” Gus asked, pointing to the little donkey made of green, yellow, blue, and red strips of paper sticking out of Camila’s bag.
“Oh! I almost forgot! It's a piñata. Do you have them in the demon realm?”
“I don’t think so,” Amity said, scrunching her eyes at it suspiciously as if it were an enemy.
Camila took it out of her bag and put it down. Then she started to get the string brought. In the few seconds she had been turned around, King had climbed onto it and was riding atop of it; Amity had a swirl of her abomination magic aimed in its general direction, ready to fire; and multiple Gus’ were huddled around it exclaiming, “wow!”, “cool!”, “so cute!” all at the same time. Hunter was merely standing still and looking at it with shining eyes.
“It’s beautiful,” He whispered into his hands. Camila sighed and smiled.
“Move, great beast! I command you!” King yelled as he leaned back and forth until finally toppling himself over and the donkey over, landing with the donkey atop his stomach. All the weight of the candy in the piñata was too much for him and he started thrashing around and wiggling. “Get off me! As your king I command you–!”
“Yeah, yeah, Mr. Wiggles, give me a second.” Eda pushed the donkey up using the tip of her index finger.
“My savior!” King said, hugging Eda and turning to glare at the piñata.
“Okay, everybody, come one, out!” Camila said, grabbing it and heading outside. A procession of witch children followed. She then started to tie it to a tree branch.
“Aha! A public hanging as punishment for its crimes against the king!” King said from where he nested in Eda’s arms.
“Uh, not exactly!” Luz said, waving her hand up and down. “It’s a human tradition to hang piñatas up at parties. There’s candy inside, so you get a bat and everyone takes turns trying to break open the piñata to get the candy out! It’s fun.”
“Sooo… You tie it up so that everyone can take turns slowly beating it up until it falls to its death and we can all feast on its insides?” Willow asked, her voice rising with excitement. Hunter made a small shocked noise of hurt.
“Uh, well, not exactly…” Camila started to explain nervously.
“Sounds fun!” Willow exclaimed as Gus nodded excitedly.
One of Camila’s eyes twitched for a second as she stared at the smiling pair of children she had emotionally adopted, with their bright faces, eager to murder a rainbow-colored donkey.
“Mmhm,” Camila managed.
“Okay,” Camila said. “So, we take turns. I’ve been to parties where they have different little chants to go along with it. I only really remember the Venezuelan chant though…”
“Oh! What is it?” Willow said, pressing her fingers together excitedly.
“Well, in Spanish it’s, ¡Dale, dale, dale a la piñata! ¡Túmbala pa'l suelo, queremos caramelo!, but it roughly translates to ‘hit it, hit it, hit the piñata. Knock it to the ground, we want to eat our candies!’ Then you count to three.”
“I’m surprised the syllables match the tune despite you just translating it,” Darius noted from where he was talking to Alistar.
“No, haha, I translated it way before this in preparation,” Camila said laughing a little with a serious look on her face.
“Oh, how long did it take?” Darius asked.
Camila stared at him, a fake smile stuck onto her features.
Luz stepped between them shaking her head, eyes wide, at Darius, and then grabbed the baseball bat from Camila’s hands.
“Anyways! We can start now!” Luz said, laughing nervously. “Come on, King! You’re the birthday boy, you should go first!”
King grabbed the baseball bat and locked eyes with the piñata. This was his moment. His time to right the wrongs that had been committed. His chance to serve revenge.
“Nyahhhhh!” He yelled as he ran toward the donkey, swinging his bat right through the middle as he got close–
He struck it right in the face, and it swung back and then hit him right in the face.
“King!” Gus yelled, running over to the fallen Titan. “No!”
“I– I can’t go on,” King said from his spot on the ground.
“Don’t die on me!” Gus yelled, sobbing dramatically. “Don’t die on me!”
“A– Avenge me,” King whispered, then he lowered his head to the ground with a soft, “Nya!”
“Noooooo!” Gus cried from King’s side. He was down on his knees, looking up to the sky. “It should have been me! It should have been me!”
“You’ll pay for this,” Amity said, stepping between King and the piñata in a battle stance.
“Forget about turns, let's do this one together,” Willow said, adding paint to the bottoms of her eyes, flyer derby style. Gus stood up, face grim and determined, and a flash of blue shimmered.
“Guys, it’s just a piñata!” Luz cried. “It’s meant to be fun!”
The trio stared at her, blinking.
“See?” She grabbed the bat from the ground where it had fallen and went up to the pñiata.
“Yeah!” Camila said cheerfully. “Come on guys, hit it, hit it, hit it, hit the piñata–”
Luz moved to hit it, bat swinging in the air, cutting through it sharp and fast. She was about to–
Luz slipped into the mud, crashed into the piñata, and fell face-first onto the ground with a plop.
There was silence.
“Luz!” Amity yelled, running over to her girlfriend. Luz looked up, her eyes shut. Luz’s vision was blurry but the concern on Amity’s face was clear as she kneeled down to Luz’s side, reached out, and… Grabbed the baseball bat.
“I’m going to make that donkey pay,” Amity said, running forward just as Willow and Gus did. They ran forward and struck it with vines and purple abomination knives and blows from the baseball bat chanting, Hit it, hit it, hit it. Their wild chant (that Camila was very much regretting ever mentioning) rang out until colorful pieces of candy flew out, the rope snapped, and the donkey was but strips of papers and chunks of cardboard littered on the ground.
Camila stared the whole time with a concerned look on her face as Eda strolled over with her apple blood.
“Huh,” Eda said.
“I can explain–” Camila started.
“I didn’t know you had that game in the human world, I used to do it all the time when I was younger,” Eda said, smiling.
“You… What?”
“Yeah, yours is too quiet, though. The one we hit always had the funniest screams,” Eda said, shaking her head.
“We finished!” Willow chirped cheerfully. Behind her, Hunter was whimpering as he stared at the piñata’s remains.
“Mhmm, kids,” Camila said, moving to the side in small steps to get to the trash can as Eda and Raine reminisced about their childhood parties. “Now you each grab as much candy as you can. You can eat some of it too.”
Amity tilted her head and looked down at the sweets in suspicion. With one hand she grabbed one wrapped in the pink wrapper and inspected it, sniffing it, and then plopped it in her mouth, wrapper and all.
“Wait, no, Amity!” Luz cried from where she had fallen.
“Mmm!” Amity said, her eyes widening. “It’s good!”
Gus and Willow stared at each other and then down at the candy. Then soon all three were on their knees scooping up as much candy as they could. King quickly rose from the dead to join them.
“I liked it,” Hunter told Camila mournfully as he stared at the piñata’s remains.
“I’ll make another one, one we’ll keep,” Camila told him. She bumped her shoulder against his playfully. “We could make it together, I would teach you.”
Hunter smiled, on the corner lifting up slightly in a way Camila wanted to hold on to forever. Meanwhile, Amity, Willow, King, and multiple Guses ran around hyper from the sugar. One of the tables was flipped over and Luz was running after them yelling.
“Huh, usually Luz is the one getting into trouble,” Eda said. “Oh, wait, never mind, she just stole Gus’ candy. Oh yeah, that was definitely an old lady they just hit–”
Camila sighed and smiled to herself. Just what had she gotten herself into.
“Hunter, what happened to your hair?” Darius asked, holding his cup from the top and swishing it around dramatically (despite it being a fruit punch in a plastic cup), before taking a small, elegant sip.
“The balloon has human magic!” Hunter said from where five different ones were stuck to him.
“Yeah!” Gus added, petting the balloon stuck to his leg as if it were a little pet, jumping a bit to keep the leg up. “If you rub them against your hair they stick to you!”
“Let the kid have fun, it’s fine to be a bit messy!” Camila said, walking over with her own cup of fruit punch and holding it like (she’d like to point out) a normal person.
“I am simply looking out for him,” Daris said, turning only narrowed eyes in her direction.
“Of course! I’m just pointing that out. Nothing to argue with you about.”
“Yes, of course.”
They both took a sip.
“Although, I suppose he could just roam free like a wild animal,” Darius started again, looking down at the liquid sloshing in his cup.
“Wild animal? Really?” Camila said.
“I am just saying–”
“You don’t have to be so strict.”
“Guys–” Hunter started only to be quickly cut off. He stood between the two of them, looking from side to side as if watching a ping pong match.
“Strict!” Darius exclaimed, his arms raising so that his drink swished dramatically and droplets fell to the ground making the room smell faintly of Verry Berry (™). “I’m simply pointing out–”
“Strict and uptight! Ay Díos, I hate parents who are like that!”
“Excuse me, I am not uptight! I support Hunter in all his endeavors!”
“Really?” Camila said.
“Yes, of course!” Darius wrinkled his nose. “Hunter, is there anything in this moment you would like to do, just ask. I will always–”
“Can I have some more candy?” Hunter asked.
“Yes, of course!”
“I’m not sure, kiddo–” Camila started, holding up her hands.
“Hah!” Daris exclaimed. “Who’s being uptight now?”
“I– You know what, Hunter?” Camila said, not looking at the boy, but instead opting to look at Darius as she scooped a handful of the candy in on one of the many bowls next to him and dumped it into Hunter’s hands. “Have all the candy you like! You deserve it!”
“No, no,” Darius said, adding more handfuls of candy into Hunter's hands. “I’m the one who said you could have it first. Obviously, I’m the one who actually means it!”
“Really? You said it first? How mature! What a great example” Camila said, dumping another overflowing handful into the boy’s hands. Half of it was falling to the floor.
“You are the one who started this whole argument and I am immature?” Darius scoffed, adding even more candy.
“I started this argument?! You–!”
Camila paused, despite all the anger boiling inside her when her hand touched the empty bottom of the bowl.
“Guys,” Hunter’s muffled voice came through the mountain of candy he was trapped in. “Um, I didn’t mean this much.”
Camila and Darius looked at each other, then the giant mountain of candy, then at each other.
“Oh, mijo, we’re so sorry,” Camila said, reaching down to dig the boy out.
“We took it too far,” Darius said, doing the same, despite the damage to his nails (that he had just gotten done, mind you, and not for cheap–).
“I didn’t mean to make you argue,” The mountain of candy told them.
“You didn’t,” Camila said. “We just disagree sometimes.
“Yes, like, for example, what colors work together because–” Darius started, eyeing Camila’s outfit, only to be gently (or not so gently) nudged by Camila. She gave him a look and he let out a sign. “Hunter, we are just trying and sometimes we don’t know if we are doing it right.”
“Doing what right?” Hunter mumbled as he was uncovered. He was sitting in a tight ball on the ground.
Camila and Darius looked at each other, in slight surprise. Because they had never said it aloud before, had they? It has sort of just happened before… Before they had decided.
“Taking care of you,” Camila said as Hunter raised his head.
“It has been harder than expected,” Darius said, looking away, face flushing a bit. Or a lot. “But very much worth it.”
“Oh,” Hunter said, face red. He looked away. “Well, um, I don’t know much about it and I guess I don’t have the best experience to base it off of but I think you guys are, um, pretty good at it, so, uh, yeah. Thank you.”
Camila and Darius froze. They looked at each other. They looked at Hunter. They looked at each other.
“We’ll figure it out,” Darius said, standing up and grabbing a pack of gummies. He turned for a second before walking away, “And for the record, I did not start that… debate.” And that was that.
“Do you guys want to open presents?” Camila asked cheerfully.
“Yeah!” King exclaimed, rushing over.
“Why aren’t we in the living room anymore,” Darius said, gesturing to the kitchen around them.
“Oh, that’s to avoid Hooty. It took me way too many months to plan how we would all get into this room without him noticing, but after all those –I think Luz called them “murder boards?”– I was finally able to crack it.” She took a calm deep breath. “I think we all need a break from–”
“Eda! It took a lot of work, but guess who I was able to bring to the kitchen with us!” Lilyth said cheerfully, walking up to her too. Then she turned around to reveal her little backpack.
Eda’s voice lacked any emotion. “Hooty.”
Everyone gathered around as he tore through wrapping paper. Amity got him a copy of “The Good Witch Azura” Book 1 and Darius a purple abomination lamp, styled like a human lava lamp. Gus gave him a little box that displayed a little projection of King if opened and Hunter a crown that he had made using cardboard, foam, paint, and glitter. Willow gave him a mini Emerald Entrails jersey and Lilyth’s gift was a golden collar.
“Why’s it so heavy?” King asked, squinting at it. Lilyth grabbed it excitedly, scooping it up out of the box.
“That, oh great Titan, is because the tag is made of real goblin gold! The material of the collar itself was foraged by ancient weavers and is so rare it has no English name. As you can see, I engraved the tag with your full title, by hand of course, in perfect calligraphy, using diamond detailing. It took me two months simply to perfect the art of making a perfect cursive “K” on metal without melting it, messing up the original shape, but I knew this was just the minimum for a gift fit for the demon lord!”
Alador looked at his quite empty hands and gulped. Without noticing, King stared blankly at Lilyth. “Uh, thank you.” He reached to take it back, only for Lilyth to hold it closer to her chest, dramatically.
“Would you say it’s your favorite gift?” She asked.
“Uhhhh… y– yeah,” King said and the collar fell to the ground, forgotten, as Lilyth celebrated.
“Is she okay?” Alador asked Eda, whispering.
“Yeah,” Eda said, smiling and taking a swing of her apple blood. “That’s just perfect little teacher’s pet Lilyth for you.”
“What did you get me, Eda?” King asked, looking around. “It better not be apple blood, you know that’s just for yourself.”
“What…? I’d never do that,” Eda said laughing nervously. “But no, Luz convinced me to work with her on something different.”
Luz leaned down and revealed what she had been hiding behind her back. It was a big photo album reading “Weirdos Stick Together” in big sparkly letters. King gingerly opened it, flipping through dozens of photos. Himself as a baby with a young Eda; Luz on one of her first days, trying desperately to flick some demon’s mucus off of her leg with Eda and King running after her in the background; King and Luz flying through the skies during their broom race; Eda and King posing with the adoption papers; The three of them standing in front of the Owl house smiling and laughing.
“The rest of the pages are blank,” Luz said. “So that you can add more photos as you make new memories.”
“Thank you, Luz,” King said, tearing up a bit and giving her a hug. “And you too Eda!”
“Yeah, get in here, Owl Lady!” Luz said, gesturing for a nearly crying witch to join their embrace.
“Awwww,” Camila said. Next to her, Lilyth frowned.
“But my gift was still the best, right?”
“Darius,” Alador whispered.
“Yes?”
“I completely forgot to get the kid a gift.”
“Well, it might not be expected of you. You are simply a parent after all.”
“…I might have gotten annoyed at that Lilyth lady and told everyone loudly that my gift would be better.”
Daris sighed, “Of course, you did. Just give him some of your technology–” he paused, shuttering to think of what the young Titan might do with an abomination blaster. “Or, on second, thought, just ask if you can jump in on someone else’s gift.”
“Who hasn’t given a gift yet?”
“Oooooh, I think my gift is the last one leh-eft!” Hooty exclaimed cheerfully.
“Oh Titan,” Alador said. “What have I done to deserve this?”
“Hooty and I decided to do a joint gift,” Alador explained.
“Yes, as a testament to our friendship, we decided to come together!” Hooty said, cheerfully. (In the background Lilyth was on all fours, muttering Why Hootsifer, why?)
“Uh, yes, exactly,” Alador said, clearing his throat. There was silence. “So the gift is…”
Silence.
“The gift is…” Alador tried again, looking right at Hooty.
Silence.
“Oh! Ah, yes!” Hoot said. “King, because you are our dear friend and we deeply value our friendship, we have decided to give you the best gift we could find, the kind of gift only those special to us deserve…”
Lilyth tugged at her hair as the Owl House waited in expectant silence. Then the gagging noises came. Retching that shouldn’t have even been natural. And for the full minute that it lasted, all eyes on Hootie, the tired inventor beside him questioned his life decisions. Not too long ago he had been supplying a genocidal dictator with a limitless army and now everyone was going to view him as responsible for whatever a demon noodle door was regurgitating. When had it all gone wrong?
Finally, a small little ball fell to the ground by King's feet with a thud. It was covered in some sort of slime.
“A little bit of my favorite insect snack! It's a bit like a centipede, but with extra legs to snack on! To keep it extra fresh, I’ve made sure to keep it sort alive! Sort off!” Hooty said cheerfully as King’s eyes widened in horror. The titan started at the little ball that was slowly starting to open, revealing tiny little legs–
“Oh! And you might want to be careful because it does shoot a tiny little bit of fire sometimes but–”
The room erupted into chaos.
“But remember, if it wasn't just me that you have to thank, but also Alador!”
“AHHHHHHH!”
“OH MY TITAN!”
“¿ADÓNDE ESTÁ ESE BICHO?”
“KILL IT!”
Alador didn't even flinch. Really, when had it all gone wrong?
“Happy Birthday to youuu!” Everyone finished. Most of them had loosely mumbled the words they guessed would come next except for Luz, Camila, and Gus, who sang confidently. Camila and Luz because as humans they actually knew the words and Gus because he had “learned” the song from his human research (although his versions seemed to have the phrase “happy womb evacuation day” in it much more often than the original).
King stared at the candles on the cake in front of him (homemade, Camila had said, as she discreetly threw the plastic container out) and shut his eyes to blow out the candles–
“Wait, wait,” Eda said. “We should also sing the Boiling Isles version.”
“There’s a Boiling Isles version?” Luz asked as everyone but her and her mom got out brown potato-sack cloaks.
“Wellll, usually it’s used to celebrate a witchling’s first spell, but I think it’s fitting,” Eda explained, casually throwing a cloak and Luz’s face. Luz grabbed it and tried to copy the other, putting the cloak on and pulling the hood up so that a shadow cast over her face. Eda started to outline their little circle formation around the cake with her chalk, drawing various symbols. Then they started to chant in a language foreign to Luz.
“Are we sure this isn’t a cult, mi vida?” Camila whispered to her daughter as the chalk (along with everyone else’s) eyes started to glow bright red.
“Uhh–”
The chanting grew louder and the room grew darker, except for the bright red. Suddenly wind and a cutting roaring sound filled the room, as if an ancient beast was being awakened and–
“Happy Birthday!” Willow said cheerfully as she pushed the confetti out of the popper in her hand. The room was back to being bright and calm, with everyone smiling happily. Camila blinked once, then twice.
“Awww, thank you guys, it means so much,” King said as he wiped his tearing eyes.
“I-” Camila started but then turned to see Luz getting close to King as he got ready to blow out the candles. King shut his eyes and blew hard, his sound waves followed, blowing them out, and everyone back. There was clapping and laughter, hugs and jokes. Amity told Luz something that made Camila’s daughter blush.
Camila supposed that one of the reasons her daughter had always been seen as “weird” was how Luz had always had a strange acceptance for weirdness, from dead snakes to… whatever that had just been… Despite it all, this acceptance of the unordinary was something Camila loved about her daughter and maybe, it was something she should go back to having herself.
“Thank you for inviting me,” Camila told Eda.
“Of course,” Eda said. “Also, I’m not sure you’re going to like that cake.”
“It’s always good to try!” Camila said and then put a spoonful of the cake Lilyth had brought in her mouth.
“It has demon eyes in it–”
“BLEURGH–"
