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The hour before dawn is the quietest time on the Boiling Isles. In the short window when nocturnal creatures settle down for rest and diurnal creatures slowly awake, sometimes the only thing a witch can hear is the wind whispering through tree branches.
The Owl Lady, too worried to sleep, rises before the sun. Today, she will make a journey with her father and most recently adopted kid to see an old friend. An ancient friend. One whom she will ask for help, beg if necessary. She doesn’t know what else she can do.
For now, she summons her palisman from her hair. Owlbert coos softly. Good morning Owl Lady!
“You feeling up for an early trip, owl boy?”
In response, the little owl flaps his wings and transforms into a witch’s staff. Eda uses the staff to pull herself to her feet. She changes into clothes slightly more presentable than what she wore to bed. She’s about to fly out the window when she remembers—the teenager sleeping on a floor below may not be sleeping now. She can’t leave him alone, not even for the single hour it will take to complete this task.
Eda steps down the stairs and softly knocks on Hunter’s door. If he is asleep, she’s not planning to wake him up. There’s no response. She cracks the door open to see the teenager curled up tight.
“Kid?” she whispers.
His body is still. She waits until she sees the rise and fall of his back. He’s breathing steadily. Sound asleep.
Aside from the momentary anxiety while waiting to see him breathe, it’s nice to see him so still. He tends to twitch a lot in his sleep, Eda has observed. Sometimes he tosses and turns, but most of the time, he’s like this. Tense, his whole body curled into a fist. She’d never seen someone look angry in their sleep before he moved in. No, not angry. Scared. There hardly seems to be a difference for him.
This morning, he looks so small.
He looks like he’s decaying.
Today, Eda will get him the help he needs.
Before she leaves the house, she asks the first kid she adopted to check on Hunter while she’s out. The sleepy titan rubs his eyes and asks, “Where are you going?”
“I’m picking something up from Raine,” she says. “I won’t be gone long. If blondie in there wakes up before I get back, don’t let him do anything stupid, okay?”
“Okay,” King says.
Eda leaves out the front door, shushing Hooty before he can screech something that wakes the whole isle up.
Raine’s cottage isn’t far from the Owl House, but to Eda, it isn’t close enough. Owlbert flies fast to get them there, but in the minutes it takes, the worries are incessant. She and Owlbert land in front of Raine’s door, and she knocks. After a couple seconds without an answer, she knocks again. The door opens.
Raine Whispers, still in their flannel pyjamas and fuzzy slippers, seems confused to see Eda at their door.
“Eda, what are you doing here at this hour? Not that I’m not happy to see you, of course.” The bard blushes, but Eda doesn’t have time for flirting.
“I need your cloak,” Eda says as she steps past them. “Witch’s wool. For the kid.”
“What for, exactly?” Raine asks through a yawn.
“He needs it today.” Eda scans the small living area before stepping up to the coat closet. She’s familiar with this place, her lover’s minimal furniture and decorations. She knows where they keep their cloak. After opening the closet door, she shifts coats and scarves around looking for it. “I’ll get it back to you once we’re done. Promise.”
“Eda.” Raine places a gentle hand on Eda’s wrist. “It’s not in there.”
“But this is where you keep it,” Eda says, taking her hand back to keep searching. “So it has to be in here.”
“Can you please tell me—“
“I know where you keep things, Rainestorm. It’s supposed to be in here. Of course I know where you keep that old thing! So it’s in this closet, where I know you keep it!” Eda’s heartbeat rose in her chest. She felt the feathers of the owl beast against her neck and shoulders.
“Slow down, love.” Raine places a hand on Eda’s shoulder, more firm this time. “Tell me what’s going on.”
"Please, Raine." She turns to them, eyes glistening. “I can’t leave him alone too long. I just need to get the cloak and go home.”
“Okay,” Raine says. “Okay. I can bring you the cloak. Wait here for just a second.”
Eda nods and wipes tears from her eyes. As Raine steps into the bedroom, she starts pacing.
“Shoulda just sent a crow,” she mutters to herself. “Shoulda done this yesterday.” She glances at the front door and then bedroom’s entrance, her thoughts racing. Is the kid awake yet? Did he have nightmares again? How sick is he feeling? He’s gotten better about making it to the bathroom in time, but if he’s feeling dizzy and nauseous, he might need help getting there. And yeah, King is there. But King is also just a kid.
After what feels like too long, Raine comes back from the bedroom, a bundle of red and black fabric in their arms. Eda reaches for it, but Raine holds it back.
“Tell me what he needs this for. That’s all I want to know.”
Eda looks into their eyes, her gaze slipping down the tear-stain scars. Scars that match her kid’s. She reaches out and touches Raine’s face. “I’m taking him to see the Bat Queen,” she says. “To ask her if she can heal his curse.”
“That doesn’t answer my question. Please, Eda.”
The soft pain in Raine’s voice breaks the last of Eda’s defenses. She breaks down crying. Raine drops the cloak and embraces her, their arms so soft and familiar.
“I don’t know, Raine,” she sobs. “I have no idea if BQ will be able to help. Fuck, I don’t know if she’ll be willing to help.”
Raine takes Eda’s hand and leads her to the sofa. They grab a box of tissues and place it beside her. “Bat Queen isn't cruel. Surely she’ll at least try, right?”
Eda takes one of the soft white tissues and wipes her eyes and nose. “The kid—Hunter,” she corrects herself. “Do you know what he used to do with palismen?”
A look of confusion crosses Raine’s face before the realization. “Oh.” They reach out and wipe away one of Eda’s tears with their thumb. “I see.”
Eda takes Raine’s hand and presses it against her cheek. “If she knows or figures it out? I just—He’s got no magic. He’s sick and weak and if something happens today it’ll be my fault. But If I don’t—“ her voice breaks. “If I can’t fix this, he’ll die. I can’t let that happen.”
“It’ll be okay, love,” Raine whispers. “It will.”
“You haven’t seen him the last couple days, Rainestorm. He’s in so much pain and he tries not to show it but I know it when I see it. If I had just stayed home that night—“
“Oh, Eda.” They say softly, eyebrows furrowing. “It wasn’t your fault. You couldn’t have known.”
“I was off following some bullshit lead that got us nowhere,” Eda says. “Meanwhile, the suicidal kid I promised to take care of is left on his own to be fucking kidnapped by that freak. I should’ve been home. He was so desperate and we just left him out of the loop entirely and for what?”
“We thought he would be safer that way,” Raine says. “We didn’t know what Basil was planning.”
“Safer my ass!” Eda stands up and starts pacing again. “You didn’t see him when it happened, Raine.” She shudders at the memory. The kid—and he really is just a kid—his eyes shot with unnatural black veins, his skin drained of color, clothes torn and sticky with blood. He couldn’t even stand, puking up that vile sludge, nearly falling into it. It was all Eda could do to keep herself together long enough to bring him home. When she finally did and he crashed on the couch, she stayed up watching him to make sure he wouldn’t die.
For a while, he’d seemed to be more in the clear. Still sick, to be sure, but not at death’s jaw. She was doing her best, but nothing took the poison from his system. He was well enough to go back to school for a few days. Then she got that call from good ol’ Princie B.
Edalyn, I don’t want to alarm you, but Hunter was involved in an incident that occurred earlier this morning. His behavior is…Well, I’m concerned about him Edalyn. Please come to my office as soon as you can.
She was already prepared to fly to Hexside at a moment’s notice in case of a medical emergency, but what Bump described didn’t seem medical. Regardless, Eda was there in minutes.
Sitting in Principal Bump’s office, Hunter didn’t just look sick. Yes, his skin was gray and clammy, and those black veins had returned to the corners of his eyes. He was definitely sick. But that morning when she dropped him off, he’d been in a relatively good mood. He’d seemed especially excited to see Willow Park (an obvious crush that Eda would’ve teased him about under normal circumstances).
But any of the light he’d had in his eyes or his step was gone now. Even since the stabbing, he’d had some fight in his eyes, some determination.
In that office, he looked defeated. Numb. Hopeless.
As Principal Bump described Hunter’s strange reaction—kneeling down and declaring an acceptance of punishment—Eda’s heart had dropped.
“He began mumbling as I spoke to the crow,” Bump had said. “Something about it being better if I would ‘punish and be done’ with him.”
It reminded Eda of the bizarre sentences that tumbled out of the kid’s mouth when he’d taken that pain killing elixir the first time.
“W-Whenever I fucked up? I h-had to learn from my mistakes!” Hunter had slurred his words and then started laughing. A sound that sent a chill down Eda’s spine. “WHOOSH! Hahahah. SLICE!” He swung his hand around in some imitation of the act. “Heh. You know, jus’ whenever I deserved it. Hahaha. Prob’ly deserve it now haha.”
Eda panicked, hoping to the Titan that blondie would be able to sleep off whatever the fuck made him think he “deserved it” in that moment. “You don’t deserve to be hurt, kiddo,” she’d said.
He went on about how he’d fucked up, how he hurt his friends, how he was a fuck up. Eda dragged him down the hall to the kids’ room, certain he’d be knocked out as soon as he hit the mattress. Then he laughed again, distorted and strange. “It’d prob'ly be better if I just—haha—POOF! Disappear. Y’know? Think I done ‘nuff. Think I’d better off de—“
“Hunter,” Eda had interrupted, unable to keep the fear from her voice. “The elixir is fucking with your head. You’re not thinking clearly. So, you’re gonna go sleep it off, okay? Go to sleep and don’t say anything else.”
She laid him down on the bed. He mumbled an approximation of “yes ma’am” before his eyes rolled to the back of his head and he fell asleep. While he was out, Eda grabbed any sharp object she saw in his room, his sewing and first aid kits, the jagged knife he had for some reason. She covered him with an extra blanket and put that little pink frog beside his pillow.
Even then, he had plenty of fight in him. Eda kept as much of an eye on him as she could, even though she could tell it was getting on his nerves.
She should’ve watched closer.
When Hunter and Lilith came to Eda with the thick-skulled idea to go to the Head in search of grimwalker info, she was too worked up about finding a cure that she didn’t stop to question it, didn't think too hard about what they might find there. She’d spent the last several hours scouring the night market for any potion, amulet, or forbidden text that could help, so when she got home to two excited nerds with an idea, she just went with it.
King had half-heartedly tried to warn her. He wasn’t clear enough to deter her. Darius should’ve been a voice of reason, but when he saw how sick Hunter looked, he agreed to go with them. The plan gave Hunter a spark of life.
That was snuffed out real quick.
When Eda saw him slumped against a tree, smeared with vomit and blood, stinking of rotten flesh, she wanted to fight someone. She wished she could stomp Belos into the afterlife a second time.
That hopeless, defeated look was back. It hasn’t left since.
There was a moment, the day after what happened at the Head, when she thought he might bounce back. Nothing gets blondie hyped up like academic discovery—he and Lily have more in common than a past job title. But he still seemed so tired by the end of it. Lifeless.
Eda hates to think it, but the kid looks almost skeletal. Even though he’s been trying, he just can’t keep enough food down. He throws up and then apologizes for wasting food, if he can speak at all.
Every day, Eda has felt more helpless. She rubs his back as he vomits, checks on him multiple times a night, gets her hopes up when he has a little extra energy. She hardly sleeps herself. The bags under her eyes are starting to rival Hunter’s.
He can’t see how much she cares. There are so many people who care about him. But he keeps talking about himself like he’s nothing.
Eda knows the feeling. She was 17 and a monster once.
Her response had been to drive everyone away, telling herself she was protecting them from herself.
It was her kids that brought her out of that.
First King. From weird dog to wannabe tyrant to baby titan.
Then Luz. a weirdo she couldn’t help but love.
Now Hunter. A child who was forced to be a weapon instead of a kid. Who doesn’t know how to stop being a weapon even though he would never willingly hurt anyone. Anyone except himself.
Eda can’t admit she’s out of her depth. Not to anyone but Raine.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” she tells them. “He’s sick and getting worse and if this doesn’t work, he’s convinced that killing himself is the only way to keep himself from hurting palismen. He says either the poison will kill him or he'll have to do it himself. So this has to work. And he needs the cloak because he’s got no defense if BQ ain’t feeling generous. So will you please let me take the titan-damned cloak so I can make sure my kid won’t die today?”
Raine gives Eda a strong, quick hug and then grabs the cloak from the floor. They fold it and place it in their lover’s arms. “He’s gonna live, Eda. He's gonna be okay.”
“You an oracle witch now?” Eda sniffles.
“No, but I know how strong both of you are.” Raine kisses Eda’s cheek and then her lips. “And I know nothing comes between Mama Eda and her kids.”
Eda kisses Raine again. “Let’s hope you’re right about that, Rainestorm. Come by the house tonight, will ya?”
“I’ll be there.” Raine gives one last kiss before walking Eda to the door.
She transforms into her harpy form and takes off as the sun breaches the horizon.
Eda lands in her room and dusts loose feathers from her clothes. She rushes down to check on the kid, but pauses when she hears his and King’s voices.
“…the Bat Queen’s help, right?” King was saying. “This looks…really bad.”
“I’m gonna try,” Hunter responds. “But I don’t know if she’ll be willing to help me.”
Eda took a deep breath, puts on a brave face, and then pops in the doorway. “Kid, I already told you. BQ ain’t as bad as everybody seems to think. Intimidating, abrasive, threatening, sure. But deep down she’s a big a softy.” As she steps inside, she takes in the scene. The confiscated first aid kit open in front of the kid, the bedding shoved in the corner, the faint scent of blood. She looks at King—if the little titan wasn’t there, she would be panicking.
“What happened?” she asks, trying to keep her tone steady.
Hunter visibly tenses; Eda notices the black eye-veins are back. “The wound on my side sort of re-opened,” he answers quickly. “King helped me bandage it. That’s why the first aid kit is here. I didn’t—I-I mean, it was an accident. B-But you can take the kit back—”
“Calm down, kiddo,” she says. “I’m not upset. Just worried. Mind if I sit?”
He shrugs and shakes his head. Eda sits down and hands him the cloak. She starts to explain what it is, but he knows right away. It’s nice to see him get excited about something, especially about wild magic.
“Thank you, Eda.” Hunter holds the fabric to his chest. “I really appreciate this.”
“It’s Raine you should be thanking. And we gotta give it back to them, so try not to puke on it.”
“I’ll be sure to do that. ” he says, a little bit of that life back in his eyes. “As soon as we get back. And I won’t puke on it.”
Eda wanted to hug him or at least give him a pat on the back. He still gets so tense at most touch. But he doesn’t seem to mind when she messes with his hair.
I love you, she wants to say. She isn’t sure what keeps her from saying it. She tells herself she’ll tell him later, as soon as they got back.
For now, she ruffles his hair, says, “Thanks, kiddo.” and promises to herself that they will get back and he will be okay and she will tell him.
“What for?” Hunter asks.
Eda shrugs, but she knows.
“For being in my life.”