Total Eclipse

Chapter 1

Luz smiled and picked up her purple gel pen. She looked at the little girl and reached out for her copy of The Owl House. She gave the girl a wink and signed her name inside of the book's worn paperback cover. The girl giggled and ran to her mom and hid behind her legs. She was the last in line—the signing for her book was only meant to last an hour, but Luz wouldn't leave until they had signed each and every last copy. She waved goodbye to the girl and recollected herself.

Her award-winning and critically acclaimed children's book The Owl House was a bestseller. It had been m almost 15 years since she left the Boiling Isles, but she remembered every thrilling moment she spent there. Turning her diary and video accounts into her first novel, she felt a sense of melancholy that the success couldn't fill. Her first book turned into a second, and soon enough, she had a whole series under their belt, that was soon to become a TV show, a children's cartoon. She wrote of Eda, King, Willow, Gus, even Hooty and Lilith.

And of course, Amity.

Amity was a distant memory. Luz sometimes thought that she had made her up. Made it all up. But she could still see her in her foggy mind. Her cropped hair, green with brown roots and tied half up to a lavender purple with shaggy bangs. Her golden eyes and elvish ears, pierced with black jewelry, jewelry that now belonged to Luz. Amity seemed ad though she had something important to tell Luz right before she went into the portal, but all she did was press her earrings into Luz's palm and ran off. But she could still recognize her laugh anywhere, longed to see the blush of her cheeks once more.

It had taken Luz a while to recover from saying goodbye to her friends. They had accepted her in a way that no one else did. There was a connection she hasn't found with anyone since. She kept hoping for a way back to the Boiling Isles and had spent every minute away from her novels, rebuilding the scorched and broken portal that would take her back to her friends. She gave up her found family for the one she already had.

Luz had suffered through the rest of middle school and somehow got through high school okay. She became a cheerleader for a few years and did theatre, onstage, and with tech. Her grades weren't always great and she never did learn to focus on anything mathematical, but she got through it. Still a bit of a nuisance, but she made some friends. She had a few boyfriends.

And a few girlfriends.

But they simply bandaged the bullet holes. The emptiness consumed her, and so, when she got to college, she struggled to fill the void with her writing and studies. Losing some of her seemingly endless optimism and energy and being left with only her stories and dark bags under her eyes.

But she would get back and find herself again. Today was the day. She could feel it.

If she said it every day, it was bound to be true eventually. Right?

She walked to her home, a small house, especially considering how she could afford a much grander one. But as it was always just Luz and Luz alone, she thought it suited her needs better. She donated most of what she had anyway. She got what she needed and that was enough for her.

She pulled the key to her house from underneath her flowerpot of gardenias and turned her doorknob. Placing the tote bag on the foot of the stairs, she took a deep breath and walked to her kitchen. It was quiet, as usual, and she watched life go by while staring out of the window in her kitchen. She poured herself a cup of coffee with way too much caramel creamer and sugar and sipped slowly. She ate a slightly stale cinnamon and sugar scone from Costco as she drank it. She finished her cup and placed it and its's saucer in the sink before walking upstairs to change out of her formal wear into her crappy and faded Azula sweatshirt and black joggers and inhaled slowly.

Time to repair the portal.

Luz worked for hours, slowly losing the ability to keep her pride intact. She only lost their temper while trying to find a way back. Most of the time, it seemed hopeless. Magic didn't work here. It never would. But Luz refused to give up, her optimism still somehow sticking with her. She had learned countless tips of the trade throughout the past few years. They knew damn well that if they asked an engineer to repair a portal to take her to a magic realm, she'd be taken to the psych ward. With only a few faded magic books from the Owl House and the notes she took of the rat from the library to guide her, she was pretty much on her own.