Rectification

Chapter 9

Suddenly they were airborne, and unspoken panic crackled all around them.

Luz looked up at the house's huge brown wings. "What? It's not supposed to do that!" she yelped.

Willow and Gus were pressing themselves against the front door as the increasing strength of the wind threatened to toss them to the ground. "Hooty's still in his trance!" Gus called. "If we can get him out of it-"

Blinded by the wind, Willow screwed her eyes shut. "It's not Hooty, though, remember? When we all held hands we stopped the house from going over the cliff! We have to stop the house, not Hooty!"

"But as soon as the house stopped, this happened," Luz replied. She glanced at Amity. "Amity? You're the magic expert here, what's going on? How do we get down?"

"The house," Amity began to grip Luz's hand even harder, as if Luz would be blown away like a leaf in the wind otherwise. "The house is flying. It's flying. House. Flying."

"Yeah, unfortunately," Luz said weakly. "Gus, Willow, get over here. We need to try again!" She was shouting now, begging to be heard over the strength of the gale.

Amity was beginning to put the puzzle pieces together. There was only one thing that was different about this Conjuring compared to the last, and only one variable that had been changed- her. The house's new transformation was her fault.

Would the shadows of her mistakes ever stop following her around?

Gus scrambled over to Luz and Amity quickly and grabbed ahold of Luz's other hand, and Willow stationed herself between Gus and Amity. As soon as all eight of their hands were joined, they were once again surrounded by the blue glow, and they felt the house freeze in midair.

"That's it," Lus whispered encouragingly, "Now we all need to focus."

Amity knew that there was some kind of "telepathic communication with the animated object" type thing that they were supposed to be doing, but she and her old friends had never managed it, so she wasn't completely sure how it worked. Nevertheless, she channeled all of her focus into connecting with Hooty- this would be so strange if I wasn't doing it for Luz- and strained with all her might to direct the house back to the ground. Was this even how it was supposed to work?

"Are we just putting it down here?" Willow asked. Amity recognized Willow's voice despite keeping her own eyes closed, directing all her senses toward Hooty. "Not, uh... where it's supposed to be?"

"Here is fine, we can figure out the rest later," Luz replied. She seems to be so confident and self-assured, Amity thought. Eda really must be a great teacher. Who would be able to guess that she's just a lost human looking for a place to fit in?

"I don't even know where here is," Gus pointed out.

"We'll figure that out later, too."

Then, somehow, the strength of the wind created by the house's wings began to flow towards the four witches, and Amity found herself fighting even harder to keep her heels dug into the dirt. "It's working!" she yelled. "Keep focused! Pretend you're taking your Abominations final and you don't want to disappoint your parents! Focus that hard!"

"Or whatever helps you!" Willow added.

If she wasn't trying to control a flying house while hanging onto her friends for dear life, Amity would have been embarrassed. "Yeah, that."

At last, the breeze died, the air went silent, and the metaphorical dust settled. Amity cracked her eyes open and, dazed, observed her surroundings. The house was standing on its legs, and Amity and the others were suspended several stories in the air. That can be fixed... She glanced at her friends. They were all gazing around in varied states of bewilderment and confusion. She waved awkwardly. "Hi. Uh... we did it... good job, guys?"