Spooky

The Owl House was empty.
With the exception of Luz and Amity, of course. Inside and away from the foggy gloom of the day, they sat in the comfortable and well lit foyer, surrounded by knick-knacks and trophies collected from adventures that Luz couldn’t help but fantasize about, often out loud and at length whenever she noticed Amity’s gaze lingering on one for a moment too long. These fantasies were typically wild and confusing, and left Amity breathless. Or maybe that was just watching Luz in her element. The heat in her cheeks made it an easy guess as to the truth.
Luckily, the Owl House was empty.
There was no one to see her stare or sigh or snort as the strange human carried on with her nonsense, completely oblivious to Amity’s obvious affection. The homestead’s owner, Eda, had vanished after taking a brief moment to explain that she was off to take care of some sort of job, presumably illicit and involving violence. Her sister, Lilith, had made a bit more of a show of leaving, explaining that with everything she’d learned visiting some demonic ruins, she was heading to the Pits of Penultimate Pain in order to reexamine the ancient structures there with fresh eyes. Both had taken a wealth of spell circles with them.
King’s absence was a bit more out of character. Shortly after Luz and Amity had begun their study session, the little beast had started eyeing the two of them shiftily and darting about the room before eventually bolting from the house to, “Help out a friend.” Amity had her doubts about the truth of that statement, but she was hardly going to turn down the opportunity to spend some time alone with the cutest girl on the isle.
And they were truly alone, for just a few moments after King’s departure, the unsettling abomination that called itself Hooty had removed itself from the house’s door and sped off in pursuit of Lilith. Amity’s face shifted from a flushed pink to an unflattering green for a moment as she remembered the sight, and cursed herself for not listening to her friend’s advice that she not watch. She thought growing up the daughter of an Abomination specialist would have steeled her to such things. She was wrong.
And so, the Owl House was empty.
But then, why did she feel like something was watching them? The young Blight ran a hand down the back of her neck to press down hairs that couldn’t help but rise in tandem with her sense of unease as her eyes darted about the dimly lit corners of the room. As much as she’d been enjoying listening to Luz explain how she believed Eda had come into the possession of a horn carved with strange runes, Amity could no longer focus on the usual obsession. Disemboweled stuffed animals, severed hands, and eyeballs in jars were strewn amongst thick tomes and strange weaponry—sights that should have made a witch feel right at home. But something was off.
Then something touched her hand, and Amity let out a screech as she was shocked out of her observations.
“Oh, s-sorry!”
Luz sputtered, quickly withdrawing her own hand from where she’d reached out to her friend. Amity froze for a moment as she comprehended what had happened, and then let out another short scream, which was quickly followed by some sputtering of her own.
“No, no! I mean, I- uh-, sorry!” Amity tried to put together a coherent thought on the fly, but her typical improvisational skills were faltering. “Sorry, right, you were saying?”
“Actually, I’d just finished, kinda,” Luz looked away from her friend a bit bashfully, “I guess I was going on for a little too long, huh?”
“No, wait,” Amity’s mind raced, “I loved your, uh, story. It’s just that… I think there’s…”
Luz leaned in conspiratorially as her friend struggled with words. A bit too close, as Amity’s face went flush again. It was a good thing that Luz seemed to teeter on the edge of colorblind, she thought, even as Luz pressed for information.
“Yeah?”
“There’s sort of a…”
“Yeeeah?”
Amity took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a moment, hoping that the words could come a bit easier with the human out of sight.
“Do you… feel like we’re being watched?”
That seemed to catch Luz off guard, but just for an instant as she immediately started scanning the area.
“Is it the jar eyeballs?” She said, turning back to Amity after a few moments of looking about the room. “Because I keep telling Eda that they turn to look at me whenever I’m not watching, but she says—”
“No, I don’t think—,” Amity stopped for a moment as she looked again towards the ever peering orbs preserved in jars, “I don’t think that’s it. Or I mean, they probably are but that's something you get used to. Are you... sure that we’re the only ones here?”
“Of course!” Luz giggled. It was a wonderful sound, one that pushed all of Amity’s worries to the wayside. “It’s just the five of us living here, and it isn’t like they’d sneak back inside when they already live—”
Luz’s calming explanation was interrupted by a sudden crash from above, the sound of furniture falling and glass shattering, and suddenly all of Amity’s worries were back on main street. Luz’s smile faltered and her expression morphed into something a bit more uncertain. Perhaps a lot more uncertain, if Amity was an accurate judge of such things.
“Uh,” Luz’s head whipped towards the source of the noise above, and then back to her green-haired companion. Amity’s eyes widened and her pulse quickened, which was saying a fair deal given that she’d only a few moments prior had physical contact with a certain witch-in-the-making. “It’s probably… raccoons?”
A horrible screech of something heavy being dragged made the two girls yelp in unison, leaping a few steps backwards in time with each other as they clung together, eyes unable to leave the patch of ceiling where the sound seemed to have originated.
“B-b-big raccoons?” Luz said, sounding more like she was trying to convince herself than Amity.
“We don’t have those.” Amity said, whipping a finger in a tight circle as purple magic hummed to life, conjuring a wall of short statured abominations that formed a tight circle around the pair protectively. A few armed themselves with stuffed animals and an errant umbrella, ready to swing on anything their master deemed a threat.
It was at approximately that moment that the magical lights keeping the Owl House aglow flickered, then failed, eliciting another harmonized scream from the girls. Suddenly, the only light was coming from the twitching hole in the house’s front door, muted by the thick fog that swirled about the isle. Amity held her breath for a moment before she felt Luz detach herself from their terror induced hug. Some small part of the witch sighed longingly at the loss of warmth, but the rest was a bit too invested in self preservation to worry about that now.
“Luz?”
“Don’t worry, I’m just trying to…” There was a rustling of papers and a brief exclamation of success before the room was lit again, albeit dimly, as Amity found most of her vision obscured by the brightly smiling visage of Luz. She was holding a small orb of light, and was close enough that the little romantic inside of Amity swooned. “There we go! Light!”
“Thanks.” Amity smiled back, genuinely for a moment but it quickly became a grimace. “I don’t suppose we can just leave for a while? There’s this nice cafe I’ve been wanting to visit…”
“Nope!” Luz smirked before she grabbed Amity’s hand and began dragging her towards a stairway. “We’ve got a mystery to solve! Plus, upstairs is where I keep all my stuff, and I don’t want any creeps fiddling with my junk!”
Amity was going to raise a complaint, but her response caught in her throat as she realized that not only was she currently holding hands with the object of her affection, but that she was about to see her room. Where she slept. Where she studied. Where she…
Amity blushed just thinking about it, but luckily kept enough presence of mind to waggle her fingers in a command, ordering her abominations to keep their guards up as they moved along with the two. The floorboards creaked and groaned under the combined weight of the girls and their small squadron of squishy soldiers, which didn’t help Amity’s anxieties, which were locked in a fierce battle with her more romantic desires. Under the light of Luz’s simple spell, the shadows were long and difficult to pierce. Amity was considering asking her if she could brighten things up when they finally reached the stairs and Luz let out a gasp.
“Amity! Look!” She said, leaning over the protective purple mass to point at the steps, which were… Dirty? Amity squinted.
“Are those leaves?” She mumbled, befuddlement adding to the veritable maelstrom of emotions brewing inside of her.
“And twigs! And…” Luz squeezed between two of the abominations to poke at the mess before letting out a yelp of pain. “...thorns! I think some kind of plant demon broke in!”
Amity considered it for a moment, but shook her head as they took a few more steps forwards, revealing a mess that extended even further upwards. “No, I don’t think so, look at them. There must be a dozen different plants here. Wolfsbane, Kingsfoil, Oregano… these are all herbs used in potions.”
Luz gasped again, “Eda’s little garden! That’s about where the sounds came from too, something must be trashing her room!”
And with that she pushed forwards, dragging Amity behind her and forcing their mushy minions to slosh up the stairs to try and keep the pair at their center, catching a great deal of the discarded plant matter in their sticky feet. The trail of detritus continued all the way up the stairs and through the halls of the Owl House, leading straight towards Eda’s room just as Luz had guessed. A faint, orangish glow barely made its way past the door, which was open just a few inches. Amity’s caution finally outweighed her other mixed emotions as she planted her feet and did her best to haul her speedy companion to a stop. Luz’s rubber soles squealed along the polished wood as she continued her stride in place for a moment before turning around.
“Amity, we’ve got to—”
“We’ve got to think!” Amity barked, a bit too sternly. She cringed internally as Luz’s face drooped. Still, she soldiered on. “Luz, something’s wrong. If the trail was coming from Eda’s room, then we would have passed whatever it was by now. But we didn’t. What if this is a trap? It’s trying to lead us in there for something?”
Luz shifted uncomfortably, but nodded, glancing about the rest of the hallway as she waved her light around to get a better look. “That makes sense. All of the other doors are still closed, but Eda’s is cracked. But we can’t just leave something in there either. What if it escapes out a window while we’re out here?”
Amity bit her lip. “Well, that’s what the abominations are for, right?”
And with that, her magic hummed again as she untethered their gross guardians and sent the six slimy masses ahead. The door creaked open as they pressed inwards, Luz and Amity leaned and twisted themselves to try and see into the very dimly lit chamber as the abominations swarmed in with orders to destroy. The two braced themselves for the sounds of combat, with Luz withdrawing a few spell papers from her pockets and Amity holding fingers at the ready. But nothing came. Seconds turned into a few minutes, and eventually one of the abominations exited the room and shrugged unhelpfully.
“What? Nothing?” Amity blinked in confusion, squashing her creation down a bit with both hands to get a better look into the room as Luz leaned in above her to shed some light. Besides a few abominations milling about aimlessly, the room was indeed abandoned, though a few sparse candles had been lit and flickered in the breeze, causing the room’s shadows to dance faintly. But their eyes followed the crushed and crumpled plant parts through the room. About halfway to the garden, shards of ceramic and fired clay joined the mess, which diverted towards Eda’s nest. Luz’s sharp gasp was quickly followed by one from Amity as they both saw what rested there.
Amid the furs and blankets was a misshapen lump that had stained its surroundings red. As they watched, it twitched, causing a small but nauseating spray to splatter an already dampened fur. The girls both covered their mouths as they stared in horror at the still beating heart they’d discovered.
And then there came the noise. A scratching and a shifting, unsettling and lasting for only the briefest of instances, but just loud enough for the two to shift their gaze towards the last thing wrong with the room. A tall, elegantly carved wardrobe, a two door standing armoire which had been displaced. Scratches in the wooden flooring told the tale of it being shunted just a few feet, ever closer to Eda’s nest. Amity felt beads of cold sweat forming on her back, and couldn’t choke out any words. Luz’s hand tightened around her own.
As Amity stood frozen, the conjured ball of light was sent drifting into the room by a wave of Luz’s hand, a hand that then reached back to Amity’s cheek, gently moving her head to look into Luz’s eyes. Luz’s beautiful, determined eyes. She gulped, but nodded again. Amity’s fingers twitched and she pointed to the wardrobe, subtly commanding two of the abominations to step towards it.
One step, then another. A moment of breathless silence. Then the noise again, like bone scraping against wood, causing Amity to flinch backwards. But Luz’s grip stayed steady, and after taking a moment to compose herself, Amity’s fingers danced again as she gave the order. Each abomination grabbed a handle, tearing the doors open in unison.
There was a yelp, but not one that came from either of the girls as a pile of clothes and a small creature tumbled out and collapsed in a pile on the floor. A familiar yelp. Which was followed by a familiar grumbling and a similarly familiar gasp of shock.
“Just pretend I’m not here.” King said as he collected a bundle of clothes and tossed them back into the wardrobe and attempted to follow them in, to limited success.
“KING?!” Luz shouted, confused but more than a bit relieved.
“That’s the opposite of what I said to do.” The little demon admonished as he finally managed to hop back into the armoire and struggled to close its doors, both because of a pair of abominations holding them shut and because a fair deal of the clothing had become wedged in place.
“You… you did this?” Amity’s voice faltered.
“Yup,” He said proudly between grunts as he struggled against the abominations, “Set it all up for the two of you once I realized you were into each other. Romantic, right?”
“ROMANTIC?!” Luz wailed as her bewilderment reached a fever pitch.
“Yup, trail of petals, heart, bed, candles. That’s everything Luz’s movies said romance was. A-ha!” He shouted gleefully as he finally managed to wrench the door free of the purple blob’s grip and pulled it shut. Slightly muffled, he continued to speak, “Now, again, just pretend I’m not here.”
Luz and Amity looked at each other, both frazzled and out of sorts, and couldn’t help but laugh. At least, until the collective relief flooded in enough that they both collapsed, after which they continued to laugh from new positions on the floor.