Chapter Text
It was dark, and all Luz Noceda could hear over the ringing in her ears were the sounds of wind rustling trees and the distant cawing of a flock of crows. She opened her eyes, only now realizing that she was laying face down on the well-packed dirt of what must be a country road. She groggily lifted herself off of the ground just enough to roll over and sit up to look around. How did she get here? For that matter, where is here? She glanced around, seeing nothing but trees and scraggly bushes around her. She tried to think back to the last thing she could remember, but her head was throbbing so much that she couldn’t draw any memories together.
Shakily, Luz rose to her feet and gulped nervously. Had she been kidnapped? Did she dare call out for help, or would that just draw unwanted attention to her? She shut her eyes and prayed to anyone that was listening that this was a dream and that she’d wake up back in her own bed. She took a deep breath and tried to steel herself.
“It’s okay Luz… just breathe, and count to five…”
She looked around again. The road didn’t have any tire marks, which was strange. Was she carried here on foot? She could almost swear she saw hoof prints in the road, which was even stranger. As her eyes darted warily between the shady trees, she noticed something on her own person that only served to deepen the mystery; on each of Luz’s forearms she had tattoos comprised of intricate interlocking circles with symbols within them, the same on each arm. Her eyes widened and she instinctively started rubbing at them as if to wipe them away. They were sore, but not as sore as she expected. She’d heard that tattoos usually hurt at first, which implied that these had been on her arms for some time without her noticing. Wait, no, that’s stupid. The pieces started to click together in Luz’s mind: she had lost time. Maybe a lot of it.
She tried once more to remember the last thing she had done… She and her mom were eating lunch together… She went upstairs to re-read The Good Witch Azura for the umpteenth time... Then nothing. Was she asleep? She pinched herself. Ow, probably not. Did she… die? She swallowed her saliva nervously and managed to choke herself on nothing. She coughed for a moment before silently hoping that the afterlife didn’t include such trivial inconveniences as choking on your own spit. No, she must be alive, she reasoned. Or at least, it’s safer to assume she is. She adjusted the backpack that was apparently buckled around her midsection before undoing the buckle and reaching over her shoulder to check inside the bag. She could feel the familiar, worn corner of her beloved book and breathed a sigh of relief. Rummaging through the rest of the bag without looking, she determined that she also had her water bottle, her old utility knife that could barely cut paper anymore, her inhaler, her sketchbook, and some pencils.
“Okay Luz, think… If you’re stranded in the woods and have no food and barely any water, what do you do?” The reality of her desperate situation started to sink in. All she could think to do was pick a direction and start following the road. This is no time to panic. Well, honestly, it was a perfect time to panic, it just wouldn’t do any good. She started walking in the direction she was facing, desperately hoping she didn’t just choose the wrong path.
≈+≈
It must have been an hour, or maybe just ten minutes, but eventually Luz found something helpful: a crossroads and a road sign. Strangely, this road sign was not modern at all, but an old dilapidated wooden sign. Stranger still, the sign bore lettering that Luz had never seen before, and yet she could understand it perfectly. “BONESBOROUGH – 2 MILES. LATISSA – 38 MILES.” Of course, she just had to go the wrong way to the nearest town. Groaning at her terrible luck, she turned around and started heading back the way she came and towards this strange town called Bonesborough. How could she read that weird sign? She couldn’t help but begin to imagine that something truly remarkable had happened to her.
Could it be that she, Luz Noceda, average teen, had been transported to another world? She couldn’t help but be excited by the thought, even though it was ridiculous… Right? Could she have been pulled into another world for some grand reason of destiny? It’s not like there was much for her back home… Other than her beloved mamá. She had next to no friends back home, save for her mom. School was hard, and it seemed like she just couldn’t fit in, no matter how hard she tried. Everyone thought she was a weirdo, that kid with the taxidermy hobby who was still obsessed with a children’s book series at 18. Luz tried her best not to let that bother her, she knew she was weird, but that’s fun. Being normal is boring. Luz kept thinking quietly to herself, passing the spot where she’d woken up without so much as a glance of recognition.
But something off the road in the woods did notice her, even as her downcast eyes would betray to anyone seeing her that she was deeply lost in thought. Luz looked up as she heard a twig loudly snap just off the road beside her. “Hello? Is someone there?” She desperately hoped it wasn’t a bear or something…. If she really was in a new world, it could potentially be something far worse. She gulped, thinking to herself that she hoped she was protagonist material, and not the kind of character who gets killed early on to prove how dangerous the world is in an isekai. (Luz watched a lot of anime.) She started to hear footsteps, even as she stopped and peered nervously into the bushes and trees of this dark forest she found herself in. A figure emerged slowly from the darkness of the woods… And Luz instinctively began to recoil in horror. The figure was a man in his mid-forties, probably, with a head of thinning hair and a short beard… And the empty gaze, shuffling step, and unmistakable deathly stench of a zombie. His (Its?) flesh was clearly decaying, maggots squirming around on his body and in his eyes. A zombie. For real.
Luz was no idiot, she wasn’t going to try and convince herself this wasn’t a zombie, waiting until it was too late and letting it take a big bite out of her… Or at least, she wouldn’t if she could move. Her legs were frozen with fear. Her whole body was rigid, her mouth agape. The zombie shuffled slowly towards her, and Luz couldn’t help but start babbling quietly, trying to re-collect her wits in vain. At last, just as the zombie came within a few feet of her, Luz’s survival instincts finally returned to her. The momentary shock at seeing the living dead had given way to a cool-headed burst of instinct and sharp wits. The zombie reached out at her, trying to grab her with both hands, but Luz ducked… Or tried to. In reality, she fell flat on her ass, but it was enough. The zombie pawed aimlessly at the empty air, slowly adjusting its withering gaze down towards her, already preparing another lethargic grab. Luz shuffled backwards on the ground, getting just out of reach before standing quickly and running in the direction that the sign had told her lead to the town of Bonesborough.
Luz was panting heavily by the time she got comfortably far from the zombie. Looking back over her shoulder as she ran, she saw that it was following her excruciatingly slowly. Her desperate run was taking its toll, however, as her breath became more labored and she began to cough. She reluctantly slowed her pace down to a trot and desperately fumbled over her shoulder in her backpack, looking for her inhaler. Shaking it vigorously as she coughed, she held it up to her lips, giving it a quick press from above and inhaling sharply. Within moments the medicine was at work, easing her coughing and letting her recapture her breath. Looking back towards the zombie in the distance, it seemed to have actually lost interest in her, as it was now simply standing in the middle of the road, head cocked to the side, feet in an absolutely uncomfortable rolled-over position. Luz dropped her inhaler back into her backpack, and started lightly jogging towards the town that the sign promised was in the distance.
“What kind of world have I found myself in?!”, she wondered aloud, “this is clearly not the PG fantasy world I always dreamed about… Wait… What if I’m not in another world, and I simply missed the start of a zombie apocalypse!? No, get a hold of yourself, Luz! This is no time to assume the worst… Even though it sure seems like the worst is what’s possible, right now...” The trees around her seemed to grow closer together and darker as her mind ran wild with horrible thoughts. Every crowing sound from a distant corvid, which usually soothed her, seemed instead to be quietly whispering prophecies of her doom. She spared another look behind her, the zombie out of sight. She slowed down for a moment and looked nervously into the bushes. If wandering around on a seemingly peaceful country road lead to her getting accosted by a zombie… What would happen if she dared ever leave the road? Her mind tingled with fear, her mouth going dry as she picked up her pace again and started heading for the supposed safety of a town in earnest.
Before she knew it, she started to see buildings ahead. As the buildings came into clearer view it became harder and harder to ignore the idea that she’d been taken to a different world. Old-looking buildings made of stucco and wrought timbers lined streets of hewn cobblestones and packed mud. A few people were still out amid the light of lanterns in the fading twilight sun, each person wearing rustic garb with simple yet unfamiliar designs. Some of them were merely a few feet tall, at least two had green skin, and one woman behind a small market stall had long pointed ears and monochromatic golden-black eyes. It’s official: Luz had been taken to another world. (Either that or she had wandered into a renaissance fair.) Her mouth fell agape as she wrestled with the idea. How? Why? Where? She must have looked dumbstruck as she stood at the edge of this quaint town, but the people milling about seemed to pay her little mind. The most she got was a man carrying a crate who shouted at her a strange language which she could somehow understand: “Watch it kid, get outta the damn road!”
Instinctively, she backed away and replied “Sorry, mister!” before closing her mouth, her eyes wide as she realized that she was responding in a different language than any she had ever heard. Standing now at the edge of the street rather than in the middle of it, she started talking to herself. “Okay so I can speak English… Y puedo hablar español.. But what language is this!?” She was really stating to freak out now. Not that she wasn’t already from, well… everything, but she must have lost a lot of memories if she couldn’t even remember learning an entire new language! She looked up at the darkening sky and breathed deeply. That’s when it hit her. She might not ever see her mom again. She stood there, staring at the sky, her expression one of pain and deep sorrow… “No sé dónde estoy, mamá... Tengo miedo...”
≈+≈
Far away, in a grand hall of a castle, a pointed-eared woman with dark navy hair and a black dress approached a throne where a somewhat elder looking human man sat and read a long scroll. Flanking the throne on either side were symbols composed of an eye, wings, a sword, and a triangle. As she drew closer, the man sighed and put the scroll on a small table by the throne, addressing the woman curtly, “Have you found her, chancellor?”
The woman bowed deeply, “indeed we have, Lord Count. Our scouts have located her, and one is observing her from a safe distance as we speak. Shall we apprehend her?”
The Count nodded, “With haste, Lilith. She may be young, but she is dangerous. Take her to the dungeons so that her corrupting influence cannot be felt in our lands overlong.”
“As you command, Lord Count.” With that, the woman backed out of the hall and left. The man smiled coldly to himself, retrieved his scroll, and continued reading.
“Not much longer now… This nightmare soon shall end.”
≈+≈
Luz aimlessly wandered the streets of Bonesborough in the fading light of dusk, her thoughts bouncing from wonder, to fear, to joy at being in a fantasy world, to sadness at being forcefully separated from her mother. She was so preoccupied with her thoughts that she didn’t even notice the person stepping out of an alleyway in front of her until it was too late. She collided with the young person who was about her height, falling backwards once more as she knocked the pink-haired young woman squarely into a small pile of horse dung. After a moment of quiet shock and indignation, the young woman began to fume at Luz, both of them sitting on the muddied cobbles of the dimly-illuminated street. “You… You… IDIOT! I’m going to destroy you for this, human!” It was at that moment, being called a human, that Luz noticed the third eye on the young woman’s forehead. She didn’t know how to expertly read the expressions of someone with three eyes, but she knew anger when she saw it… And heard it.
“Hey, I’m sorry! There’s no reason to destroy me! It was an accident!” Luz pleaded desperately in the strange language she somehow knew, but it seemed in vain. She quickly stood and offered her hand to the teen on the ground, but it was slapped away as the teen stood up on her own. The pink haired teenager suddenly shouted a word that Luz couldn’t understand, waving her hand vigorously downward in an arc as a ball of hovering flame appeared between her fingers. “Woah! Magic!” Luz exclaimed without thinking, her eyes going wide with awe… And a little bit of fear.
“Uh, duh! What kind of idiot are you? And what the hell are you wearing?! Ugh, whatever, just get roasted, you little twerp!”
As Luz braced herself for the incoming fireball, her eyes shut tightly as she didn’t know whether to run, fight, or beg for mercy again… She heard a voice ring out sharply nearby: “Hey you! No offensive magic in city limits!” Cracking one eye open, Luz saw a white-cloaked figure walking towards her bearing a sharply hooked avian beak on a silver-gray mask. A city guard, perhaps?
The pink-haired teenager smiled charmingly at the guard, “Sorry sir, just showing my friend here how I plan on demoralizing the enemy when I’m going out adventuring! I didn’t mean to cause a fuss!”
“No worries, ma’am. Just keep the magic to yourself, or out of town. Carry on.”
The pink-haired magic-user dismissed the fireball and the guard turned to leave as she smiled charmingly at him with a wave. As soon as his back was turned, she lunged at Luz, grabbing her by the collar of her shirt. “I’m letting you off easy this time, twerp, since you’re not even worth my time. But if you ever bump me into gods-damned horse droppings again… You’re dead. Got it?”
“G-got it! Sorry, miss!” Luz wanted desperately to be anywhere else right now. She had always dreamed of being transported to a fantasy world, but now she had been attacked by a zombie and some kind of witch in just a handful of hours. And this was no Good Witch. It reminded her all too much of some of the kids back in high school who had bullied her relentlessly for… Well, just about everything. Luz had hoped college would be different.
The three-eyed mage grumbled under her breath, “Ugh, now I have to clean up before I go find my friends!” and turned to leave. But as the pink-haired teenager stormed away, Luz realized she’d probably never make it to college now. She’d finished high school just a few weeks ago, and was planning on starting by attending community college in her hometown of Gravesfield, Connecticut… She guessed that was out the window now. The pink-haired, three-eyed young woman was out of sight, and as Luz looked around, she realized two things: it had gotten dark fast… and a cold fog was rolling in. She needed shelter for the night, but she had no money, no connections… And she doubted anyone would accept payment in hyper-realistic pencil portraits. No, she was in for a long, cold night on the streets… of a dangerous world where almost everything she’d met so far had wanted her dead. She continued walking around, looking desperately everywhere she could, eventually spying a small gap between two buildings that might shelter her from the wind a little bit, and went to investigate. Looking up, she could see smoke pouring out of a chimney above her, the backside of the stone fireplace sticking out into the alleyway. She could feel the heat radiating out from the brickwork, and realized this might be the only way for her to stay warm tonight. Reluctantly, she curled up beside the chimney back and started to try to sleep. It’s not like she had anything else to do, and she was awfully tired from all that walking… Slowly but surely, despite the dense fog and howling wind, Luz managed to find herself lost in a fitful, uncomfortable sleep.
≈+≈
Luz awoke in her own bed. She could smell the delicious breakfast her mom was cooking downstairs and smiled, realizing that it had all just been a nightmare… She stood up from her bed, stretched, and started falling… Falling, falling, and falling, she tried to scream out but nobody could hear her, her throat making barely a whisper as she tumbled through the darkness. She begged for someone to help her, and as she fell, she could swear she heard a voice in the darkness but she couldn’t make out any words. She woke up.
≈+≈
Waking with a start, Luz looked around. She was still huddled next to the fireplace, the bricks now cold in the faint light of foredawn. Luz was shivering, her nose wet with runny snot, her eyes bleary in the wet cold of the foggy morning. She shakily stood up, her stomach growling with hunger. She needed food, and she needed it soon. She wasn’t exactly used to going without food for more than half a day… Well, three quarters. Sometimes she got really focused on something and would forget to eat, but this was different. This was hunger when she didn’t know where her next meal was coming from. Emerging from the alley, she looked closer at the buildings in the town, hoping to find any clue that might lead her to help, or free food, or anything else that could aid her . She took a deep breath and whispered to herself, “ deep breath s , Luz. There’s no hero that doesn’t have to go hungry once in a while…” But this self-reassurance did little to alleviate her pangs of hunger, and it did little to relieve her worries. In the slowly intensifying silvery light of dawn, Luz could hear the last calls of the owls which would surely soon be sleeping… s omething Luz desperately wished she could do for longer still. Slowly walking through the dim streets, she could see the city had a certain delightful charm to it, despite her inauspicious arrival and the surly greeting she’d received from this world. Rows of plaster-and-timber buildings lined the winding streets of cobblestones with a variety of muted colors. Black roofs and tall chimneys filled the skyline, and in the distance, towering coniferous trees of a dark emerald green filled out the space below the sky.
After some time of wandering, Luz found her way to a market which was in the process of being set up for the day. She figured that this might be a good place to find food, though she’d still need to find a way to obtain it. Wrapping her arms around her midsection, Luz stood back at the edge of the market and quietly observed the scene before her. At least a dozen people toiled in the market, offloading carts of food and goods to sell a small stalls arranged in the quaint plaza. Something that struck Luz was how different everyone looked, yet nobody seemed to care. People with green skin, pale skin, dark skin, and yet other shades were getting about their work in these early hours, treating each other like trusted friends, or at the very least friendly acquaintances. In a way, despite being a world of horrors so far, it also seemed to be a world of cooperation despite any differences. Luz mused to herself that perhaps because the world was so dangerous it drove people to put aside more petty differences than people sometimes did on Earth. Not that she expected that to apply across the board, but it was a nice thought.
Looking across the market, Luz weighed her options… She could try and offer to help set up the market in exchange for a few… Coins? Probably? But she quickly reconsidered. With her tendency to get out of breath with any physical exertion, she figured she wouldn’t be able to do the job well enough to get paid. She could simply go explain her situation and ask for food, but that seemed unlikely to work. Panhandling? Theft? Luz considered the last one to be a final resort. She wasn’t the biggest fan of how people with lots of resources would rather see money change hands than feed the starving, but she wasn’t the biggest fan of taking without asking either… But she was very hungry… Maybe later. She was well aware that the longer she waited, the harder it would be to work through the hunger and obtain the food she needed. But maybe first she should find water. She had drank the last of her water bottle on the day before, and she could use a drink. The cold wet weather had kept her from losing any water from sweat, but her mouth was still quite dry. Peering about the edges of the marketplace, Luz saw not the kind of medieval well she expected but a slightly more modern pump well, the kind some people in the countryside on Earth still used. Cocking an eyebrow, she moved over towards it, grabbing her bottle from her bag and unscrewing the top. She neared the old bronze pump and looked around her, wondering if anyone would stop her from filling her bottle but as nobody seemed to be minding her standing by the well, she leaned down, placed her bottle under the spout, and started to pump. It was quite the mess it made, but within a few pumps her bottle was full. She was quite glad that there was a drain under the spout, otherwise her shoes would have probably gotten soaked. Screwing the top on her bottle again, she gingerly sipped at the water, knowing from experience that drinking too fast on an empty stomach was a bad idea. The water tasted pretty bad, honestly. It had the taste of mineral water, but not the fancy kind… It was more like kind you bought at a gas station from a brand you’ve never heard of. Grimacing, she understood that she needed water more than fine taste right now, and continued to drink.
After she’d drained her bottle and refilled it, she looked around once more, and seeing that the market was mostly set up now and people were starting to shop, she started to peruse the stalls. Stalls of food drew her attention the most, but the proprietors of the stalls could seemingly sense the hunger from her and were watching her closely. It was unlikely she’d be able to steal anything even if she wanted to. There was a stall selling weapons like swords and axes, which was at least cool to look at from a distance. There was a stall selling armor, which would be great to have if it wasn’t more than her budget of zero… Coins? She still didn’t know what the currency was here. She also found a small shop selling potions of some kind just off the market square, which excited her quite a bit. One stall that caught her eye was apparently some kind of junk stand, with all kinds of baubles, trinkets, antiques, and unwanted heirlooms for sale. The proprietor was a confident-looking woman with long pointed ears, golden-black eyes, and a wild mane of gray hair. Luz realized she’d seen this woman at a different stall the day before when she’d first arrived, but she hadn’t given her much thought then . Or really now, for that matter. But the woman was clearly looking Luz over as she looked over the table of discarded relics, which made Luz worried that she might be caught doing… Something.
“Hey kid, you’re not from around here, are you?” said the woman with a hint of concern in her voice.
“Oh, uh, no, I’m not. I’m from…” Luz realized that divulging her means of arrival might be a bad idea, given her reception by the only other people she’d spoken to so far, so she simply continued, “I’m from far away.”
“Well I can hear your stomach growling from here. You don’t have anything to eat, huh?” Luz shook her head meekly in response and the woman let out a quiet grim laugh. “I’ve been there, kiddo. Tell you what. I’ll make a distraction, you swipe something to eat, and I’ll make sure you don’t get caught.”
Luz was taken aback by the bluntness and suddenness of the offer and cocked an eyebrow again. “Why are you helping me? And How do I know I can trust you?”
The woman sighed, saying “I don’t like seeing anyone go hungry while I can help it. Plus, you’ve got the whole fish-outta-water look about you, so if I don’t help you out, believe me, kid, there’s far worse people than me in this town who would love to take advantage of a newcomer if they could. As for why you should trust me…. Ehhhh, do you really have a choice?”
Luz was once more struck by the bluntness of the confident woman
in a scarlet dress
before her, and looked around the market. This was so not what she was expecting to do if she ever arrived in a fantasy world… And this isn’t what Azura would have done… But Azura didn’t have to go hungry on her first day in a fantasy world. Azura was a fine hero, but things were kinda handed to her… Luz, it seems, would have to fight to survive, at least for now. Taking a deep breath, she answered the pointy-eared woman: “Fine. Let’s do it. If this goes bad… Uh… I don’t have any way to threaten you other than saying I’ll be very sad?”
The woman let out a snorting laugh and smiled, one golden fang gleaming in the morning sun which was starting to break through the fog. “Here’s the part of the plan you need to know: Go find something you want to grab, and do a big stretch when you’ve found it. I’ll take that signal, and cause a distraction. You grab it, come back here, and hide under the tablecloth. Got it?”
Luz smiled weakly, partly from hunger and partly from nervousness. She’d never had to do anything like this before… And she couldn’t help but worry about what kind of distraction would be caused. Hopefully nothing too major. “Alright, I’ll go do that… Here begins your life of crime, Luz.” Luz hadn’t meant to say the last part out loud. The hunger must be getting to her more than she thought.
“Luz, huh? I’m Eda the Owl Lady. But further introductions can wait until you’re fed, kiddo.” said the woman with a genuine, if hard-to-read smile.
“Nice to meet you, Eda the Owl Lady.” Luz said with another weak smile. She turned back to the rest of the market and looked around before turning back to ask a simple question “Any food you’d recommend stealing?” but the woman was already gone. “Well that’s ominous… I think. Well Luz, here goes nothing…”
After a few minutes of wandering the marketplace’s dozens of stalls, Luz found something that made her stomach growl even louder: a stand of freshly baked bread. Taking a deep breath to steady herself, Luz stretched her arms far over her head to give the signal. The proprietor of the stand gave her a strange look, but before she could open her mouth, the sounds of an explosion could be heard nearby, causing objects to fall off of several stalls and at least one tent to collapse from the shockwave. Luz’s eyes went wide as she turned to look for the source of the sound… That had to be the distraction, but holy crap, what kind of crazy is The Owl Lady if she’s willing to cause a distraction like this for someone she just met?! Flames began to lick up the sides of what Luz assumed was a guard tower, making the incident seem all the more criminal.
While Luz stood there with her mouth agape, the market was quickly draining of people. Many fled, presumably for their homes, while others rushed to see the flames up closer, perhaps to offer help. The proprietor of the baked-goods stand seemed to forget all about her questions about Luz and rushed toward the tower. Luz looked around hastily, and seeing that nobody was watching… She swiped a loaf of bread and headed nervously for The Owl Lady’s stall. This was the beginning of the life of crime of Luz Noceda, she thought. Sparing a look over her shoulder, she could see that the tower was starting to truly burn now, the timbers smoldering, the plaster cracking, and thick clouds of smok
e
pouring off of it and reaching towards the sky.
By the time she reached The Owl Lady’s stand, the market was almost clear already. Nobody was shopping anymore, and several merchants were hurriedly packing up their things as best they could on short notice by themselves. Crawling under the tablecloth, Luz inspected her prize… The loaf that had called out to her was similar to the kind of bread you’d use for a bread bowl of soup. It seemed to be the most filling option there, and it might last her two meals at least. She took a big, awkward bite out of the heel of the loaf, and just as she did, the tablecloth started to move slightly. Before she had time to be afraid, a small brown owl poked its way under the table as if to join her. It looked up at her with its adorable large eyes and gave a soft hoot.
“Aww, hello little bean… Are you… Are you with The Owl Lady? Should I be taking her name literally?”
“Hoo!” called the owl as if to reply. Luz took it as an affirmative… Though that might just be wishful thinking on her part. Meeting someone with a magical owl that could understand her… Now that’s the kind of fantasy world she was hoping for!
Smiling down at the little owl, Luz, for a reason she couldn’t quite pin down, felt a little safer. That momentary sense of safety was briefly shattered when the table cloth got ripped away from the table, at least from her perspective. Though her fear was slightly relieved when she spotted The Owl Lady’s red dress by the table. Crawling out from under the table and sticking the rest of the loaf in her backpack, Luz stood up.
The Owl Lady was hurriedly bundling up her merchandise in the table cloth and to Luz’s wonder, Eda shoved the bundle into a bag that was far smaller than the bundle.
“C’mon, kid, let’s bounce!”
“What the heck was that, Owl Lady!? You blew up-- You just—”
“Hah! Just a little bit of direct action to stick it to the Count and his goons! But we can talk about that later, let’s fly!“
The Owl Lady produced a staff from the deceptively
spacious
bag and clicked it on the ground. As she did, the small owl flew to her and landed on top of the staff with a soft and adorable hoot. The next thing she knew, Luz was being beckoned to sit on the staff
in front of
The Owl Lady who was holding it between her legs. Luz’s eyes widened as she climbed on, speaking with wonder “Wait, is this like a broomstick? Are you-- Are you a real witch?!”
Eda snorted in laughter, “Sure am, kiddo. Now gun it, magic stick!”
As soon as Eda spoke, the staff rocketed into the sky,
leaving the town of Bonesborough far below them.