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Wednesday felt feverish. There was a warmth rotting the cradle under her ribs, blooming up her chest and her cheeks, pressed to her back like thick clay. A tight heat that slowly swallowed her whole, a bird inside a wolf’s mouth, she could hardly breathe.
Then the heat squeezed, tougher around her torso, something pressed to her shoulder, and she suddenly felt a cold strike her dead.
“Wednesday,” she heard, but her eyes were closed, she could not move, either. “Wednesday.” A hand shook her foot, and suddenly there was a dark wall, of wooden planks centuries old, in front of her, but much closer than that were her black sheets that smelt of attic. Two anchors pinned her, radiators of the heat swarming her stomach, fiddled with the fabric of her shirt, an almost withdrawn motion, barely stroking the skin of her abdomen.
“Wednesday,” that voice called again, persistently shaking her socked foot. It was a familiar voice, yet she was deaf for it. All she could think of was those two anchors, long and firm, around her torso like a chain or rope. They were not supposed to be there, Wednesday knew, but what were they? They had movement, and she could feel them toying with her shirt, like fingers braiding.
Fingers, she thought. Digits connected to long limbs, arms, that could be used as anchors around the body of a person. Her foot was still being shaken restlessly, her name still being called, even the snapping of middle finger to thumb. The heat burgeoned, the flower of a volcanic eruption shook her sternum.
The voice called again: “Wednesday.”
“Mother,” Wednesday replied, her voice not as smooth as she would have preferred, but enough that her mother would not be able to discover the catastrophe that was her mind at that moment. Wednesday found that she could not turn her eyes to look at her, though, and instead saw only the black lines between each woeful stave of her wall. Perhaps that would pivot her attention from the unbearable warmth.
Her mother, Morticia Addams, stood at the foot of the bed, her black nails like gems on her hips, in a form-fitted long dress, very clearly unimpressed with her daughter’s lackadaisical deportment. Her eyebrows were raised. Those lightless eyes kept swerving to Wednesday’s right. Dithery. Bothered. Wednesday could feel it all shedding from her like snakeskin.
Wednesday vacillated, moving her toes around, breathing and feeling the weight of the anchors rising with. She entirely did not know what to do; if she spoke again, she could die. This is pathetic, she knew, but what of it now? Like a sack of rice, she felt like, carried by the arms of someone burnt bright by the sun.
How revolting.
“Are you all right, darling?” There was her mother’s hand again, on her foot, but she was sitting now. On the corner of the bed, dipping it a tad, but it still scared the living crap out of Wednesday: the arms shifted and tightened, the pressure below her shoulder along with. She supposed that speaking would not be a terrible thing after all.
With a breath that she concentrated in her chest, she said, “I don’t know, Mother.” Gradually, Wednesday let the breath vacate. Unfortunately, she did not die. This meant she would eventually have to face the person burnt by the sun; but first, her mother.
“Do you want to talk about… this situation you find yourself in?” asked Morticia Addams, still dithery.
“Not really, no.”
“Then how do you propose it is dealt with?”
“I’ll kill her.”
And then there was a pause, because Wednesday knew she would not kill her (she damned herself for acknowledging her). Her mother knew she would not kill her, too. But the black lines were still before her, stretching endlessly, and she was sweating enough that her eyes blurred with exhaustion.
There were a few questions that she wanted answered. In all the torridity and panic, there was something she had neglected: How she had ended up in this position in the first place. Harking back, she searched the puddles of her mind until finally a reflection not hers stared back at her. The face of a rosy-cheeked, pink-nosed blonde.
Wednesday had first noticed the quiver of the girl’s voice, choked at the back of her throat. Then the eyes, which were struck red in the white, enflamed by the pressure of palms. By her bed, a can filled to the brim with tissues, crumpled as the girl that lay slumped against her bedframe, trifling her fingers. Her hair was tied back into a tiny tail that sifted her nape. She acted as if she had been caught in the act of vulnerability. Speaking under her tongue, not lifting her chin to meet Wednesday as she always would. Remarkably, the girl's side of the room was dampened; as if in Wednesday's absence the rainbow of hues took to fading.
It was a striking experience. One that, frankly, Wednesday had not prepared herself for.
She must have done something wrong—her posture or her eyebrows, perhaps—because the girl looked at Wednesday strangely, likely surprised. The girl had said something, but Wednesday failed to listen. She ignored her, feeling horribly fragile in her bones, and went quickly to bed. Even when she hid herself under her covers, pressed the heels of her palms to her ears, she could still hear the persistent sniffles of her roommate. The roommate was trying to stifle them, but she was failing miserably enough that Wednesday had to react. In the dark of the room, the colorless-colorful half-and-half splay of light flattened across the floor like ghosts stretched thin, Wednesday lifted her blankets off and planted her feet on the hardwood. The sniffles stopped immediately.
“Enid, I will take my typewriter to your head if I hear a single hiccup come from you again.”
Enid.
There was silence, and Wednesday was suddenly very aware of not being able to perceive her roommate in the cloak of the shadows. How odd her side of the room looked at night, engulfed by the black shine. All the colors dead, no vibrance to tell you This is Enid’s side of the room. That conjured a cold weight that dragged down her body.
“I know you’re awake.” Somehow Wednesday stood up, tugging her legs along. She crossed the lights, Enid’s half whisking up her stature like flames. It was not until two feet from Enid’s bed that Wednesday could note the trembling lump under the rainbow-vomited quilt. She called again for her roommate, but no response was offered. Fingers flexed at her sides, aching to tear the quilt off to command the girl to compose herself, but… she could not, and she did not know why.
The cold weight choked the words out of her. “Why can’t you sleep?” she whispered, so softly it was unfamiliar to her tongue. This struck her, and it must have struck Enid too, because the quivering went stagnant. The lump rolled around until a blonde head poked out, those red-rimmed eyes and her pink nose the brightest things amid the dead colors. So small she looked.
It took so long for words to be real. Wednesday’s voice still felt so delicate, like her tongue was of feathers and her teeth of clouds. She asked again: “Why can’t you sleep, Enid?”
“I’m not having a great time with my mom, all right?” Enid shuddered, clutching the quilt tighter. “She’s… She has her reservations about my not being able to wolf out. She called me earlier, since it’s a full moon and all—” she gestured at their shared spider-web window “—and was extra disappointed tonight for some reason. Said a few things I don’t want to repeat.”
Her mother?
Something hardened across her skin, her bones. Crystalized, taut. Wednesday rubbed the cuff of her sleeve between her thumb and forefinger.
“Do you think you will be able to sleep at all, then?” Truly, she had no idea where this was coming from. It was like she had dunked her arm in dark waters, retrieving things to blindly toss out of her mouth. “Or should I strangle you until Death is tempted?”
Enid’s claws perforated the quilt smoothly, but they promptly paused before the supple flesh of her palm. Wednesday felt something cold prick her tongue. The furless werewolf’s eyes glistened, like blue stars warped under ravenous waters. She pressed her lips into a thread, quivered, and disconnected the line between her and Wednesday by turning on her side. That endless black line.
Was it black, or was it dampened just like Enid’s half?
“Look, Wednesday,” Enid said, her voice choked and raw. “I know cheering people up is not your thing, and I know you know that too, so how about you just stop trying. I’ll try and be quiet. Sorry for the inconvenience.”
There was that cold prick again, digging at her teeth now. A punishment, she supposed. But for what? Or was it something else? It was not an unfamiliar feeling, a cold spike traveling about. She had felt it once or twice before, and it ate her alive more entirely than bloodlust. But this did not mean she would acknowledge—
The lump under the quilt trembled like a bee’s wing, just for a moment. Every beat of color was grey now.
Wednesday sighed, shutting her eyes. “Enid,” she said. The lump stirred. “What is it that Yoko would do in this situation?” She grinded her molars as if to crush whatever words her tongue might spew next. “Or perhaps, what would you do?”
The lump rose again, popping that blonde head out like the morning sun. Enid lifted a brow, bewildered, and said, “Why?”
“Answer the question, Enid.” Wednesday thought her skull could burst open, the lava built up in a volcano prepared to blow. That would be nice, she thought. Even her fingers were out of her control, folded at her front, the thumbs circling the sleek black of their nails.
Enid propped herself up on her elbows, still shining those blue stars of hers right into Wednesday’s black coins, the endless line reconnected. Brown brows, knitted together, lips pinned to one corner by a fang. Wednesday’s thumbs worked faster, picking at each other’s cuticles. But she remained still, anxious for the girl’s answer while her brain summoned a whirlwind.
The werewolf opened her mouth and said, “Well… When either one of us has a shitty day, most of the time we’ll spend the night in one of our rooms together. Just a girl’s night and stuff, you know? Talk until we’re too exhausted, do each other’s nails, listen to music, then fall asleep. That’s all.”
Wednesday, in fact, did not know. Her thumbs were still nicking.
“Why do you ask?” asked Enid after a while of Wednesday’s silence.
“So… You would just fall asleep in a sleeping bag, and you would feel better?”
“Not in a sleeping bag, silly.” Enid giggled, smiled. “We’d share the bed. It’s nice, sometimes we’d wake up in each other’s arms.”
Wednesday shut down. Her skull promptly exploded, chunks of bone flying about, her thoughts a messy puddle at her feet that would melt through the floors. Surely her thumbs would draw blood. Colors were sparking in her periphery, flooding in and out like riptides. The room was lit again, but Wednesday was far less prepared for this overwhelming paroxysm of effulgence. Was it Enid? Had she taken a match to the corner of her eye, burnt the tips of her lashes? Or was it herself, in the center of a moment that scorched her, her mind a starburst?
She closed her eyes and said through gritted teeth, “Fine.”
Enid blinked. “What?”
“Fine. If it will get you to stop sniffling like a child, then I will allow it. Stand up.” Wednesday turned on her heels and headed for her bed. Her hand on the blanket, she looked over to see Enid stumbling out of her bed like a baby fawn and the eagerness of a shepherd dog. When they locked eyes and she opened her mouth to speak, her red-rimmed eyes and pink-dusted nose shining as the moonlight grew across her pale face, Wednesday gave her a sharp look that shrunk the brimming excitement that was bubbling up to her lips. But it was still there, nonetheless, as she clutched her hands together, skipping to catch up with her roommate.
Enid stopped before her, clearly already feeling better, and said, “Are you sure about this, Wednesday?”
“You’re risking it,” she said, climbing under her black covers, hiding her head. The dip of the mattress that followed was unexpected somehow, sparking the hairs on her arms. The bed sheets rustled as Enid accommodated herself. It was then, when the silence washed over, that Wednesday knew Enid was boring her eyes into the back of her head.
She found herself turning to meet them.
“What?” she whispered in that soft voice again, her mouth never accustomed to it. Enid was grinning. She was full of light all of a sudden, a gold cosmos beside a wannabe corpse.
“What do you mean what?” Enid said, still grinning as delightfully as her hurt would allow her. There was an ache in her voice, one she and Wednesday would have to ignore. “Wednesday Addams wants me to feel better? I think that deserves a moment of appreciation if I do say so myself. Did Thing teach you this? I’ll have to thank him too.”
“Thing did no such thing.” Wednesday very minimally cringed back. “I did this on my own accord.”
“Well, I must admit that I’m pleasantly surprised.” Enid lifted herself up and placed her cheek on her fist. “I didn’t think you had it in you.”
“Good, because this is the one and only time I will ever allow this. Savor it if you must.”
Before she turned again, the endless black lines of her wall hungry to hypnotize her, she stared. She stared at Enid, the curve of her nose and the hike of her upper lip, how it pulled up whenever she smiled. The blue and pink washes of her hair, now curled on her neck by a hair tie, and the shimmer of her beautiful blue eyes even in the tenebrous grasp of Wednesday’s half of the room.
Enid was staring, too, at her face. Dropping from her eyes, glazing across the valley of Wednesday’s cheeks particularly. Dragging, fixated. Flicking back up to lock on her eyes again, then traveling the side of her face, the curve of her fringe, closing in on her nose, breaking off to her cheeks again. Dropping minutely, floating, centering.
Something must have gone wrong in her heart—she could not feel it. Or perhaps it was beating too quickly for her to perceive it behind her ribs. Was that heat that settled under her cheeks? Bubbling, searing them red with blood. Quickly she flipped on her other side, clutching the blanket in one fist while the other rubbed at her face fastidiously.
The mattress dipped as Enid laid down. Wednesday could still feel her eyes on her, torches in a lightless cave, so she steeled her body and held her breath as if to brace herself. Like she could sense Enid’s mouth forming words.
“Thank you, Wednesday. Really,” said the gold cosmos, in a hushed voice that pressed to Wednesday’s back like sweat. It was quiet, and the black lines stretched, stretched, stretched…
“I don’t know what I’ll do, Mother,” said Wednesday, sealing her eyes shut. A shattered breath blew from her cracked lungs. Morticia folded her hands on her lap and did nothing, her stare launched to Enid’s side of the room, that blazing parallel dimension. Stuffed toys lining the beam over her bed, sheer lengths of vivid fabrics hung from the ceiling. Paper lanterns, string lights… It was all so, so bright. Sunlight crawled across the floors, dawn spreading it to the doors. Not quite, though, which must have meant that it was getting late.
Morticia glanced at Enid over her shoulder, then watched. “Wednesday, I am here right now because principal Weems called for us—yes, your brother and father are here too, and Thing is with them—regarding an incident you had with a student. We will remain here until tomorrow, so…” She paused, finally looking at her daughter. “I would like to meet this girl. Enid, right? She must be quite the character for you to have allowed this.”
“This—” Wednesday gritted her teeth, hot as a flat stone in a dip of sand. “This predicament was not my intention.”
“That does not matter, my little storm cloud.” Morticia smiled. “Since she is not dead by now, I find that to be enough reason to believe that she has snatched you in one way or another.”
“Mother, I—” She started, but as if her ancestors were watching like rats in the walls, Enid made a soft, tired noise and nuzzled into Wednesday’s shoulder. She squeezed her torso, enough that Wednesday could discern the beat of her heart, gentle yet vibrating across her back like a mallet to a gong. A swelter caught her by the throat, made her swallow her words.
“You were saying?” Morticia raised a brow, smug, and lifted off the bed. She stood, hands cupped in front of her stomach, and stared at her daughter. “One last thing before I leave—which, by the way, you have to meet out in the courtyard in about ten minutes—is… I know that this is scary, darling, but… You can talk to me. Your father, too. We love you more than anything in the entire world.”
“There is nothing to talk about.”
“You will not change what is true by denying it.” Morticia stepped away toward the door, serving one last look at both Enid and Wednesday’s side of the room. The sunlight touched the flounce of her dress, scarred up her legs until she reached the handles.
Morticia clicked open the door, said, “Don’t be late,” and left with the whisk of her train.
Wednesday stared at the endless lines and hoped to sink through them. She wished that she would be swallowed by the floor and that the sun would set on them, allowing the unrelenting fever that had been eating away at her flesh to finally claim her life. She hoped to go back and bind herself to the bed so she wouldn't try to comfort Enid. But fatefully, nothing happened. She was trapped there, rotting under her ribs, scorching from the inside out, wondering if her heart had stopped while she slept. Her thumbs were gushing from their cuticles to their folds, and her cheeks were burning dunes.
Worst of all, she was not repulsed.
She wasn't writhing to get out of Enid's hold. The anchors gave her a sense of stability, and she felt soothed by the steady, quiet thud of Enid's heart. She loathed the pleasant pressure of her nose prodding on her shoulder. She loathed everything. She wanted to writhe and bring down her typewriter on the girl's head. But she was unwilling. And she refused. Because this girl, this grossly charming, smiley girl was a gold cosmos. She was a girl with blue stars for eyes, a crooked upper lip, a zest for what made her authentic; and that enchanted Wednesday.
It was a terrible thing, how badly she did not want to kill Enid.
Wednesday dared a tiny movement, the stretching of her legs beneath the blankets.
Awful mistake.
Enid wriggled around, arms loosening around Wednesday. The pressure on her shoulder eased off, drowsy croaks crawling out into the brightness of the room. One arm lifted off, now replaced by a cold residue that sunk through Wednesday’s shirt onto her skin, like a paw print in puddled mud. She vehemently craved violence at that very moment.
Enid continued to toss and fidget, incarcerated within a net of lethargy, stupor, one arm still under Wednesday’s side. This, in Wednesday’s head, had the air of the vivification of a monster. The heat drained out of her body and pooled around her pelvis, warping into a hollow metallic substance that gathered up the contents of her stomach to shovel it out her throat. This was the bad kind of nauseous. She couldn’t move, joints rusted from lack of use. Like kindling she felt like, slowly being untied from frayed ropes, to be used as fuel for the fire.
Dread.
“Wednesday?” whispered the morning voice, soft on the back of her neck. She did not move, instead stiffened like a fly on the wall when a human passes by. The girl unwound herself slothfully, slipping her arm out from underneath Wednesday.
She could have smiled, really. Yanked a real tooth-shower, pearly whites. She wanted to, it would have been wretched, and she would have enjoyed the look on Enid’s face, she supposed. But she then thought she must have been lying to herself, because that was the only reaction she could think of to throw out. Coward, she thought.
“Wednesday? What—” Enid must have finally opened her eyes. Must have come to consciousness about the hot patches on her arms. Must have realized that she had fucked up, and that Wednesday was probably going to kill her in cold blood. “Oh shit.”
“Don’t.” Before Enid could tumble off the bed, Wednesday twisted and grabbed her by the wrist. The motion caused a couple joints to pop, but both girls promptly ignored it. Wednesday's vision became clearer as the fatigue faded, allowing her to clearly see Enid at this point. Her nose was no longer red, neither were her eyes, and although her hair was unkempt, it was still tied back with the hair tie. Her arms had cloth-fold marks drawn down them. Wednesday swiftly fixed her ungainly posture—her torso had been rotated so that her arm could reach—and stood up to measure up to Enid.
Enid trifled with the drawstring of her hoodie, a nauseatingly pink one, flower-print shorts that capered around her thighs. She looked like a deer caught in headlights, flushed a color so bright that it rivalled the ones in her side of the room, flickering at the death grip Wednesday had on her arm, her fingers pinned to the inside of her wrist.
The trembling werewolf opened her mouth and said, panicked, “I’m sorry!” She clamped her eyes shut. “I should have thought ahead. Stupid, stupid! All you wanted to do was make me feel better after I kept crying like a damn baby, and I go and make you uncomfortable by… Anyway! Gosh, I’m so embarrassing. Maybe Mom was right after all. Wednesday, I’m sorry.”
Wednesday loosened her grip, withdrew her eyes from Enid’s bloodless knuckles, and saw the glimmering reflectiveness that now layered the whites of her eyes.
“Don’t apologize, Enid,” she said softly, this time not all that unfamiliar to her. “You’re not stupid, you’re not embarrassing, and… you didn’t make me uncomfortable.”
Enid slumped. Strangely enough Wednesday could practically see Enid’s ears perk up, rotate like a dog’s, the glimmering of her eyes blinked away. “Really?” she whispered, taking a step into Wednesday’s zone. “I really didn’t ruin anything?”
“No, Enid. I…” Wednesday paused, cursing herself for not being able to look Enid in those puppy eyes of hers. “I wouldn’t let something like that ruin us.”
That must have been the correct thing to say despite the war that waged within the confines of Wednesday’s skull, because Enid suddenly sprung and clasped her roommate’s hand between hers—Wednesday would never get used to her innate strength—and stretched a smile across her teeth, those tiny but larger than normal canines peeking out from behind that crooked upper lip.
“Oh, Wednesday! You have no idea how happy that makes me.” She rolled her head, curving the column of her neck. A laugh spat out from her, relief in the mists. “Oh, I’m so glad.”
“… Good…” said Wednesday because what else was she supposed to say? Enid was bubbling, a ferocious grip on Wednesday’s hands, practically buzzing out of her skin. But there was something miserable about the shape of her eyes, a twist to her smile that did not fill her cheekbones as they should. Dull now, bereft of blush.
She really was a pup.
Wednesday cursed it all.
She thought of time and estimated that she must have about a minute or two before she was meant to go down to the courtyard to meet with her family. She wasn’t even dressed yet; still in her black button-down pajamas, buttons down her sternum, vacuums of sunlight. Copper her teeth tasted like, and her eyes were burning. The heat must have settled there, rooted in her gums, tucked deep into her sockets.
Rot, rot, rot.
“Wednesday?”
“Enid.” Wednesday wanted to rot. To rot from under her ribs, nightly, soaked in a fever, like a waterlogged trunk. Induced by anchors around her torso, pinned down, a pressure on her shoulder. Cosmos pressed to her back, melting the skin off her spine. Fingers that fiddled with the front of her shirt distractedly, bugs that crawled over her stomach. A sack of rice in the arms of someone burnt by the sun.
Wednesday withstood. She evaluated her emotions and sensations. Black to blue, she couldn’t keep her eyes on Enid’s as they flickered to those bloodless knuckles, rings on a queen’s finger. Wednesday rotated her wrist one-hundred degrees with a solid twist. She seized Enid's and pulled her own out of her by grabbing hold of hers. Popped lock. She eventually managed to maintain a solid hold on Enid's blue stars, her pulse hammering against Wednesday's fingertips in quick, thunderous waves.
Gold, blinding cosmos.
She lifted Enid’s arm, staring endlessly, and held it close to her face. This was dangerous, Wednesday knew. Her body was waves of hot and cold, a whirlpool absorbing her from the inside. Hollow noises, endless black pit shot through the middle of the sea. She could hear Enid’s pulse now.
Wednesday drew her eyes down to the heel of Enid’s palm: a delicate, supple pouch, pale and plush as a pillow.
She kissed it. As swift as a butterfly’s wing touching the petal of a flower, but something flooded. Instinct, liquid in an airless jug. The hand around Enid’s wrist lifted, hooked her fingers over hers, and kissed the once bloodless knuckles. It was irrepressible; Wednesday grazed her lips across the curve of Enid’s wrist, halfway down her forearm. She kissed there gently and noticed that she had bent down to a bow. What was this haze that clouded her eyes, like a sheer veil. A breeze that lifted it off her face for just a moment and let her see a bright light, glowing on a black expanse. Then the breeze was gone, and she was left with a blur, diamond cutouts of light through embroidered lace.
She smelled rot.
Oh.
Wednesday looked up, and there was nothing but a ball of red.
“Don’t overheat, amor mío.” Wednesday released Enid, staring at that scarlet-crossed face with what she recognized as amusement. “I’ll going to get dressed and go downstairs to find my family. Meet us in the courtyard, all right? My mother wants to get to know you.”