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Sometime between the cloying, nauseating, perfection of her parents undying love for each other (showcased way too often, and ruining meals at least once a day) and the immense amount of free time the forced end of school and then summer holiday gave her, Wednesday found herself missing Nevermore.
No one had tried to kill her in at least a month, and her stalker hadn’t reached out again and it really was rather disappointing. She had grown accustomed to plots and violence and pop music and colorful roommates. Which was its own set disappointments.
She was starting to have feelings about things. And not just about homicide and other fun concepts.
Not that she was going to admit that out loud. She hated admitting it even in the dark recesses of her own mind late at night. Usually because after a few hours of writing, and a few hours of playing music, and practicing torture on Pugsley, her brain would end up focusing back on the slim black cellphone tucked away behind some of school textbooks. It wasn’t hidden by any means. Thing dragged it out daily to text or video chat Enid. Wednesday had just managed to avoid using it herself.
But while she might not have been a slave to modern technology in a physical sense, it certainly had a hold on her thoughts.
Nothing a spot of midnight grave digging down at the nearest cemetery couldn’t fix though. Well one night and one grave turned into two and by the fourth day and the accompanying local news station mistaking it for Satanic Panic, she was clearly going to have to find another way to settle her thoughts.
Dissection lasted about as long as grave digging.
Her old hobbies paled in comparison to recent events and…..
Well…
She liked being alone.
.-.-.
Wednesday very much wished she was alone. Or at least far away from her parents. She couldn’t imagine ever wanting such overt and overwhelming declarations of love and adoration spewed over her person like her parents did with each other. She didn’t want them to change. She just didn’t want to be like them.
Sometimes over dinner she’d have to listen to them, and she’d grip her knife so tightly she’d make her healing arrow wound in her shoulder ache for the next few hours.
Later in bed, she’d stare at the ceiling and let the shoulder throb, and think of Xavier’s crooked half smile as he handed her the box with the phone.
*-*-*-*
She’s alone for the afternoon, a rare event in her child home considering just how many kooky and spooky family members often stop by and call the place home.
She dials the old rotary land line carefully.
Ring.
Ring.
Ring.
Third times the charm when it’s answered.
“You know, I really would have been impressed with just a text.”
Xavier’s voice sounds way too pleased and a smidge smug, but mostly genuinely happy. The sound should grate in her ear drums like happy birdsong, but it doesn’t.
She doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t ask why he knows either through dreams, or vision, or old fashioned research what her family’s home phone number is. Doesn’t admit that she seems to be mildly ill anytime she hears his voice. Between the weird fluttering in her stomach and increased heart rate.
“See, Wednesday. The great thing about texting, is even when you don’t feel like talking you can still communicate. I’d guessed a writer like yourself would have caught on to that. But I guess the light creepy breathing on the phone thing could also be a vibe.”
He pauses, as if he expects her to actual say something.
Wednesday stares in to her mother’s rose garden and imagines the thorns growing thicker and larger enough to mangle and blind anyone that walked into their midst.
“How’s your summer been?” he finally asks when it’s clear she’s not going to speak.
“Tedious. Nauseating. Rather uninspired. Cloying.”
“Wanna trade?”
She thinks he meant it as a joke, but there’s a familiar bitter jealous bite to the words.
Similar to when….. Same as any time Ty…..
She doesn’t like it. It makes her want to stick piranhas in a pool or let loose black widow spiders in someone’s backpack for daring to insult or harm Pugsley.
“I have been looking for new people to fix some of our rusty torture equipment on.”
Xavier gives a shaky laugh, “I’ll keep that in mind.”
They are both silent for a moment.
“Have you been playing the cello?”
She thinks of ink and charcoal immortalizing her on canvas and paper and the shimmer in the air when Xavier made the image of her come to life.
She shivers despite the afternoon sun streaming in the window and the black clothes she wears.
“Yes, it makes my shoulder ache.”
He thankfully doesn’t apologize for being the reason she got wounded in the first place.
“Well…if you ever want an audience I’m just a phone call away. It was great hearing from you.”
He let’s her be the one to hang up.
*-*-*-*
She dreams of death more than she ever had in the years prior to Nevermore. She can’t enjoy the dreams because it’s always Enid or Eugene or Xavier burning or mauled or impaled before her eyes.
She finds those deaths distasteful to imagine.
She wonders if Xavier still has nightmares.
It’s easy enough to turn on the record app on the cellphone before she throws herself into bending the Cello to her will in the late hours of the night.
When she finally stops, delicious horrible ache in her shoulder, she sends the recording to Xavier before she gets enough sleep to decide against it.
-*-*-
She’s exhausted over breakfast, her father complimenting her late night practice, which is slightly less tedious than watching him bestow his everlasting love on her mother. Thing is signing at her smugly, and she excuses herself.
Takes the bus into downtown alone and finds an independent coffee shop orders a quad and sits at a table alone.
It tastes like ashes on her tongue and she thinks she might take up drinking tea moving forward.
It’s evening when she finally goes home. Skips family dinner to head to bed.
Stares at the cellphone, blinking with messages next to her pillow.
She might look more alive in Xavier’s drawing, fully animated, color only in her lips and lightly in her cheeks than she feels in person right now.
She hits the call button.
He answers on the first ring.