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Obscurity. The darkness in between. Nothing certain and the void endless, but everything would take its destined course.
Amity was not supposed to be doing this. The knowledge sat heavy in her stomach, like a snack eaten right before dinnertime. Something she would never do, because she shouldn't. If Amity was good at anything, it was doing what she was supposed to do. Sometimes, she thought, beneath all of it, that was probably the only thing she was good at.
But this. A glimpse of something in obscurity. The spell had gripped her heart, tight, with its icy fingers, when she'd found it in a book of essential oracle spells. Mixing magic might have been forbidden, but reading about all kinds of magic wasn’t. And as someone predestined for the Emperor’s coven, knowing as much as she could about all main covens was the best course of action.
In the hour right before the new moon, she opened the door to her balcony and went outside, shivering in her bare feet. She wasn’t naturally gifted in oracle magic, and it wasn’t her favorite — it was too ephemeral, nothing she could see or touch or even grasp, it was wispy and never did what she needed it to do. But books on it were easy to come by in Blight manor.
She longed for a jacket and thick socks, but the spell needed her to wear as little as she could, come as bare as she could in every way, so she was in her night dress, not even a hair tie on her wrist.
Amity did not like oracle magic. But she did like what it promised her. She wasn’t talented at oracle magic. But she could make the effort for a little reassurance, a little weight off her shoulders, another reason to push forward.
Her breath fogged as she kneeled and placed the empty, brand new crystal ball at her feet. She laid her hand on it. In the moonless night, her skin was pale and waxy, and she had to clench her jaw to keep from cringing at the sight of her own fingers.
“Show me,” she whispered.
Her voice was brittle. For one, two terrible, aching beats of her heart, she thought she had failed. Then, another hand, almost a mirror image of hers, appeared on the other side of the crystal ball, and she looked up at the figure attached to it.
Future Amity did not look as old as Amity had imagined her. The spell hadn’t clarified, but she had thought whichever version of herself she would meet would be accomplished, a successful witch, a leader. Definitely someone who had finished school and joined a coven. The girl opposite her looked one or two years older than her, no more than sixteen. And yet — she was very different. Amity recognized her own eyes, her nose, the shape of her face. But she looked at herself and could not believe how she could ever look this at ease. Her cheeks were slack, no tension, mouth relaxed. Not smiling, but something in the way her eyebrows curled that told Amity she had been, not too long ago.
“Hey,” the other Amity said.
It was her own voice, no doubt about it. A little fuller, a little lower. Amity swallowed and tried to look at her older self without flinching. She couldn’t figure out what this was supposed to mean.
“Hi,” she coughed out hesitantly.
The other Amity smiled and brushed her hair over her shoulder with her free hand. It was a gesture Amity was familiar with, something she automatically did when her hair grew longer than shoulder-length, and she followed it with her eyes, expecting some relief from the familiarity.
But her hair wasn’t very familiar at all. It wasn’t green. In the low light, the color was difficult to make out, but it was definitely something else. It was light, soft, no harsh green. Amity’s heart squeezed. Fear bubbled in her stomach at just the thought of this hair color on her head.
“What did you do to your hair?”
Her voice was even raspier this time, drenched in suppressed panic. It was true that she had never liked her own hair to be green, but that wasn’t important. She didn’t know what she wanted instead and it didn't matter, anyway.
Older her was still smiling.
“I dyed it. You can see that?”
Amity nodded dumbly. Her fingers on the crystal ball twitched, and she fought the urge to take it back and wring her hands together. She couldn’t risk breaking the spell.
“Do you… did you have permission?”
“No.”
It was what she had feared, but it still drew a surprised breath from her. The other Amity moved her hand so their fingertips brushed, and Amity shivered. Her fingers were also cold. Her eyes, when she met her gaze again, were warm and intense.
“You don’t need permission to feel good about yourself. From anyone. Okay?”
Amity couldn’t nod when it was the antithesis to what she made herself believe every day. But she couldn’t shake her head or protest either, when this Amity with her ungreen hair and her unfamiliar smile said it so simply, with so much intent.
“I know it’s not easy. I still can’t fully believe it. But you can try, okay?”
She smiled at her, broader, a hint of teeth. Amity still couldn’t say anything, but she locked the words away in her mind, carefully, like a fragile petal.
“Do you want to ask me anything else?” the other Amity prompted.
Amity had prepared for this. Of course she had. But the reality left the theory so far behind that the questions she’d written down and memorized felt insubstantial now. She’d wanted to know the exact path to get to the successful place her future self would be at — how old should I be to try out for the Emperor’s coven? When will I be ready? What do I have to get better at?
Those were the questions she’d put into writing. Looking at the Amity opposite her, no coven mark on her bare arms, she didn’t need to ask them.
Then there were the questions she hadn’t put into writing, hadn’t even wanted to whisper to herself. Things like — are you happy? Does the feeling ever go away? You know, the feeling that something inside you is broken beyond repair and you’re just holding onto whatever you can reach so no one will know? Do you still remember what that felt like? Do you remember lying awake at night, too tired to sleep? Or does all that fade away? Do you still pass Willow in the hallway sometimes and clutch your books a little tighter? Is there anyone, ever, at all, you can talk to without weighing your words?
None of these felt like something she could ask this Amity, either. And the answer was clear already, in her face, her body, her hair. She knew none of it would simply pass. She had known, already, she had just wished differently. But this Amity hadn’t just gone on like before, either. She hadn’t succeeded in closing her heart off, the way Amity still thought she had to. She had found a different path, one Amity was still afraid to see clearly. She didn’t ask about it. Knowing the path existed already sent her stomach into swirls.
She cleared her throat.
“Yeah. Do I ever get to read the next Azura book? It doesn’t seem like 'The Book Nook' is going to carry them any time soon.”
The other Amity grinned. It wasn’t just a happy grin, it was also a little foreboding, and Amity’s insides seized up again. She never thought she could do this to herself.
“Oh, you are going to get to read it.”
There was something in her voice that ticked Amity off, something sly that she didn’t know how to interpret.
“O…kay?”
Older Amity nodded, still smiling, biting her lip as if she was trying hard not to say more. Then her face lit up and she reached into her pocket with her free hand to produce a folded piece of shiny paper. Amity took it and looked at her double.
She nodded at her encouragingly, and Amity unfolded it. It was an advertisement for an Azura movie, but the outfits and the character constellation were unfamiliar. She stared at it long enough to recognize Azura and Hecate, then she looked at the older Amity again.
“What am I supposed to do with it?”
She shrugged, another smile full of secrets on her lips.
“I don’t know. I just thought maybe you could use a little inspiration, in case you ever need a new necklace.”
“Why would I need a new necklace?”
“These things are pretty breakable.”
Amity didn’t want to see behind her smile. She didn’t want to believe what she thought she understood — but maybe she did. Maybe she felt the weight of the gem on her breastbone even now, when she wasn’t wearing it. Maybe she wanted to be rid of it. Her heart throbbed painfully, and she folded the picture, placed it neatly by her knee.
“Thanks.”
She looked at older Amity, searching for something in her face. She wasn’t sure what. Something to tick her off, something to tell her without a doubt this was a lie. An illusion, a fake spell placed especially for her, to test her dedication. Or maybe the opposite — something to tell her it was definitely the truth. Amity found nothing, just the same face looking back at her with that inscrutable smile. Was she this hard to read for other people?
“Anything else you want to know?”
Amity took a deep breath.
“Just hypothetically, if I did want to make a new necklace —”
.
Luz has been her girlfriend for a few hours, and Amity is used to none of it. Not the way her gentle touches feel or the swoop in her stomach when their eyes meet, and definitely not how none of these things are new but still feel so different now. She keeps telling herself I don’t have to hide this when her cheeks get a little too red and stopping the flurry of conflicting thoughts when Luz smiles at her with no, I am not overthinking, she does actually like me and —
“Hey, by the way, I love your necklace.”
“Huh?”
Amity turns to Luz, sitting next to her on the floor of the living room in the owl house. The echo mouse is back in its cage, and they’d been sitting in quiet for a while. But now Luz is smiling broadly, and Amity is just a little distracted by the color in her cheeks and the affectionate crook to her smile.
“Your necklace! You’re wearing Hecate’s necklace, that’s really cool.”
“Oh. Yes, I am.”
Amity looks down her chest, involuntarily reaches up and closes her fist around it. She herself can see the imperfections, because she knows exactly where they are. She knows where the paints bled over into each other, where the surface is a bit rough, and she knows the colors aren’t completely accurate to canon, either. But it feels good laying against her chest, no sinister meaning behind it at all, and it fits right into her fist.
“Where did you get it? Do they sell Azura merch somewhere on the Isles?”
“I made it.”
“What?”
Amity meets Luz’s eyes again, and she can’t decide what the look on her slack face means, or the tone of her voice. Her own words falter when she tries to explain.
“I… I made it. In the workshop, you know. We had everything there, and I just needed a small space and an hour or so…”
Amity trails off when she sees the look on Luz’s face. She still has to get used to Luz looking at her that way, anyway, but this look is special. She’s not quite sure Luz has ever looked like this at all. She’s clutching her hands together in front of herself, eyes almost teary.
“Are you… okay…”
Luz nods vigorously.
“You’re just so cool. That’s so cool, I—”
She breaks off and instead of trying to finish her sentence, launches herself at Amity. She can barely keep herself upright on the creaky floor of the owl house, arms full of Luz. She’s heavy and warm and she doesn’t smell clean. She smells like a day full of work and food and emotions, and Amity closes her eyes and breathes in and wishes she could smell like that, too.
Luz mumbles something into her hair. It’s not a word, just syllables strung together. It shouldn’t make sense, but it makes perfect sense to Amity when she lays her hand on Luz’s back and she twitches the tiniest bit under her palm. She’s expressing a feeling. Amity understands perfectly, because she’s feeling it, too.