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You had a daughter.
Before you realized it she had gone from the small curly haired girl that you used to read to late at night to a teen - lanky and clumsy but still wrapped in the same pages that kept the nightmares away years before.
Then came the summer that everything changed.
You had a daughter.
One that was bright and kind and radiated so much warmth that the name Luz almost sounded like a prophecy.
It crippled you that no one understood that. That no one tried to put any effort into cracking below the surface, that people were so shallow.
Camp was supposed to help teach Luz how to crack through other peoples shells, but when she came home…
You had a daughter.
Luz was changed. Too changed.
For a while you thought that camp had helped - or that Luz was simply changing naturally.
But when you found Good Witch Azura 4 in the bathroom trash can you cried yourself to sleep clutching onto it like it contained every memory you had ever made with your daughter.
Maybe it did.
You told yourself for hours that you would talk to Luz, try to figure out what line of thought could try to bridge the sudden changes.
You had a daughter.
Passing only in reflections maybe, but you held her as you both cried. It was hard to think for a while, soaked in the rain - trying to ignore the regret that crushed your shoulders.
She had chosen another world, had chosen not to come home. Even told you as such.
And you couldn’t blame her.
Not one bit.
You had a daughter.
And now you had a strange girl living underneath your roof. She was odd, she had scales, she ate tarot cards.
If only your abuela could see you - shopping for tarot card sets in small cluttered witch shops with a demon girl who would give each deck a small sniff.
When she eventually found one that reeked of magic the smile she gave you was a blinding light, but her own.
You have a daughter.
Vee constantly reminds you, helped along by messages that you found the next time that you checked your phone, that even though Luz was not in this dimension - still such an odd thought - that she was trying to get back to you. And could be back at any time.
The fact that Luz was making friends was sweet news - the video of Gus and Willow that came through to your phone made you smile every time you watched it.
At home you stumbled over the word mija around Vee and pretended that you didn’t notice her stumbling over calling you mom.
You have two daughters.
It was no use pretending that Vee was not your daughter - not blood - but you remembered Luz’s conversations about found family and had always agreed with her. Blood didn’t matter in the end.
So now you had a basilisk daughter, one who was afraid of loud noises and cramped spaces, who curled up under a pile of scarves and thick blankets when the temperature dropped below 50 degrees.
Who gets night terrors with such frequency that it made you scared that Luz was trapped in such a place that would hurt Vee so badly.
You have two daughters.
And now they are both here.
You ended up juggling the number of sleeping bags and soft pillows in your head while ushering Luz and her friends in from the cold rain - silently putting names and faces together.
Vee frets, chewing on a tarot card while trying to convince Luz to take back her bunk bed, a sentiment that Luz of course refuses, not wanting to inconvenience Vee in the slightest.
They all end up on your bed anyway, a pile of young witches that don’t want to leave each other alone. As you drag blankets downstairs to set up for a night on the sofa you wonder what happened to them. And vow to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
The household grows chaotic.
Vee and Luz juggle pancakes as the rest of the witches sit at the table, almost rigidly. A car alarm goes off in the street - and the kitchen becomes a flurry of movement. Before Camila can blink Amity and Willow were in front of Luz and Vee, staffs out and power gathering at the corner of their eyes. Hunter had pushed Gus behind him, turning toward the door as red energy crackled through his hair.
When they all eventually calmed down, amid a tide of apologies and stuttering and flushed faces, you start to get a story; about a magical realm and families severed by a portal door.
It takes time, but you piece together more and more stories, more names to faces to personalities to the videos that came in over your phone.
All part of this new family.
Amity was skittish, guarded by a wall of stiff manners that crumbled the moment that Luz gave her a kiss on the cheek. She looked at your daughter like she hung the stars in the sky, and Luz looked at her in the same adoring way; you thanked whatever god looked over the Isles that the two of them had found each other.
Willow loved plants and was strong, both in muscles and spirit, she loved to help around the house and in the garden; Camila’s small yard was transformed into a greenhouse, and a particularly vicious strain of ivy covered half of the old Wittabane statue, despite constant attempts to keep it at bay.
Gus was perpetually curious, his tide of questions satiated by a library card and a stack of encyclopedias. You catch him reading two of them at once one night, pale blue illusions swirling around his head and casting the room in light - and you suddenly understand his wonder for something so other worldly.
Hunter is cold, he reminds you of ice and the worst animals that the shelter brings you, but he has a fierce protective streak that seems to extend to everyone around him. The first time he came home in trouble you didn’t miss the way that Gus and Vee looked at him like he was their hero, and you didn’t have the heart to do anything but reassure all of them that it was okay.
Okay to be hurt, okay to talk about it, okay to cling tightly to family no matter how it came.
Luz’s books may not have sunken in right away - but they got there eventually.
You have a family.