A high-pitched siren's whistle called Amity Blight to the kettle as steam billowed from it and the energetic water jumped inside. She lifted it off the stove, holding it away from her body and brought it to the kitchenette counter, tipping it at the lip of a cup of instant roarmen. Water rushed from the spout onto the dry noodles, and she replaced the top to trap the steam just as the noodles began to bellow. With a plastic fork and the cup of noodles in hand, she left the staffroom of the Bonesborough Library. Above her head fat drops of boiling rain beat against the skylight glass with an unceasing rhythm and the gales outside moaned with a mocking tone as though the storm knew it had forced Amity to postpone her lunch date with her girlfriend Luz at The Owl House.
Luz had promised to make Amity something called Chapea based on a recipe her mother had taught her, but instead Amity had to settle for Monster Noodles’ Instant Roarmen.
Making it back to her private study behind the Romance section, Amity sat at her desk, peeling the top off her noodles, which had stopped their eponymous roaring by then, and emptied a packet of artificial pixie dust flavouring, mixing it in with her fork. Her study bore the evidence of the time she spent there: a cot made up with blankets stretched taut each morning, drawers containing her clothes, her cloaks and jackets draped on a coatrack, her homework and school books stacked on the corner of her desk, a field trip permission slip with the parent signature line unsigned marking her place in the first Azura novel as she reread it, and her luggage tucked into the corner of the room filled with everything else she owned.
She ate most of her meals at The Owl House at Eda insistence, and Gus had invited her for dinner a few times over the last month. Even Willow extended a daily invitation, often bringing a second lunch to school for Amity. Lunches were the most embarrassing. Luz would pretend she had packed too much for lunch and ask Amity if she wanted to split it. Her siblings Em and Ed brought her whatever they could sneak out of the house—it wasn’t much, but it was enough to survive.
A small purple abomination propped up her book as she slurped her disappointing noodles; although any meal would be disappointing when compared to one spent with Luz.
She swallowed as she reached the end of the page. “Page,” she said, and the abomination turned the page with its small hand on the end of an awkward, tentacle-like arm.
Her overnight bag on her reading chair across the room taunted her, the possibility of a sleepover at The Owl House going down the drain like the rain continuing to stream through the gutters. If she ate too many meals alone they began to taste like regret. If she slept too many nights at the library, the hard cot became a coffin enveloping the body of the life she’d known for fourteen years laid there in unrest.
Eda had invited her to stay indefinitely, using the same confusing facetious tone she always used. “Why don’t you just stay here, Boots? At least til you work things out with those pieces of work parents of yours or you get a better offer.”
Amity had declined out of habit. All her life taking up space had been an inconvenience unless she possessed a utility, some worthwhile contribution. Kindness still frightened her, a deep psychic scar certain all kindness came with expectation. It hadn’t occurred to Amity that it was enough to be opposed to be of use, that sometimes letting her friends care for her was a worthwhile act. Love was something she owed others but something she had to earn.
Instead of sitting on the sofa with Luz, cuddled under a blanket and watching the rain pummel Bonesborough outside The Owl House window, Amity stared into the cloudy surface of salty broth and squiggling noodles as they lost heat as rapidly as she lost interest in them.
A thunderous crash reverberated from the library’s main entrance and caused Amity to jump, her posture like a startled cat. She stood, carefully pushing her chair back without a sound and leaving the cup of noodles on her desk, readying her magic to confront an intruder. From her study she strode through the dark library, the tumorous gunmetal clouds plunging The Boiling Isles into premature night. She lifted her finger to ignite a light spell, but paused, dropping her hand to her side but keeping it ready like a gunslinger, creeping along the darkest shadows to maintain the element of surprise.
The banging continued, deep dissonant clattering like banging two pans together. As she neared the source of the sound, she distinguished the metallic sounds of footsteps, equally spaced claps of steel hitting the library floor. Lightning carved a wicked bright jagged scar across the sky and flared in the metallic surface of the intruder. It towered over her, a great mechanical monstrosity of steel, brass and glass, a large spherical head glaring down at her.
“Library’s closed,” Amity shouted, bursting out from the shadows with her abomination magic ready, striking the mechanical beast in the chest.
“Ahhhh!” it cried, tumbling clumsily to the ground.
The mechanical monster fell apart, its arms flying from the torso, its legs buckling beneath it and its big round head toppling from its shoulders.
Amity raised her hand prepared for a second round, but instead the quartered mechanical monster wobbled and from the hole where its head once sat, a face covered in purple abomination ooze popped up.
“Luz?” Amity summoned the ooze from Luz’s face as she ran to her and pulled her girlfriend from the body of the monster. “What are you doing?”
Luz fought her shoulders through the head hole of the toppled beast. “I found this old diving suit Eda had in the basement and I thought…”
“You’d brave the boiling rain to see me?”
“Well, yeah. I hate being alone during really bad storms, but I hate you being alone during one even more. So…” Luz dug into the torso of the diving suit and retrieved a plastic container with her Chapea inside. “Lunch date?”
