Chapter Text
You called me baby, I called you one too
Until you spoke to me with another voice
You sent in spiders to fight for you
I was so disappointed I didn't know what to do
I wish I didn't miss you
— I Wish I Didn't Miss You, Feist
Wednesday forgot how she got here.
Something about a stalker, perhaps? Her stalker.
Something about what Enid told her, perhaps? Her roommate had been urging her to take the matter to the normie police because for once, they might be of help. Because there were satellites in outer space, Enid explained. Satellites in outer space that could secretly listen to your private conversations and send targeted advertisements but also track people's whereabouts. And the normie police might have an access to those satellites in outer space.
"So, this thing," Wednesday had said at the time, shoving her cell phone in Enid's face. "Is stalking me too?" And the only reason she didn't throw the phone directly toward the charred tree in the quad was the realization that maybe Enid was right. Maybe the normie police could provide assistance for once.
And that was how she got here, at the sheriff’s station.
But perhaps she was here for an entirely different reason. Because she remembered how they treated her mother; how they dismissed her pleas to put a stop to her stalker all those years ago. Surely Wednesday Addams wouldn't trust the normie police so easily after what happened?
Wednesday forgot why she was here, but maybe the lady at the front desk would know. Yet, when Wednesday approached the desk, she was met with a scowl that almost mirrored hers.
"Oh. You again," the woman said as if they were acquaintances. As if Wednesday was supposed to have a recollection of who she was. Then again, she had come here several times before.
Before.
The last time she was here, his cheek was pressed against her temple, his breath tickled her ear, his question lingered in her temporal lobe.
To lose?
Wednesday turned her head toward the sheriff's office, out of habit. The window blinds were kept open, allowing her a full view of the office's interior. That, she remembered. Especially the wooden desk, in front of which she had repeatedly stood in the past. And yet, the person sitting behind it was someone she didn’t recognize.
Wednesday was still eyeing the unfamiliar figure when she asked the woman, “Where is Sheriff Galpin?”
She scoffed. “You think after the whole thing with his son—” And here, Wednesday shot her a sharp look. “—we would still want him to be the Sheriff? You think he would?”
Wednesday forgot why she was here.
The truth was, the moment Wednesday turned up at the Addams Mansion following the battle at Nevermore, she knew. Her father had waited for her in the foyer with his arms splayed open, belting out, "There you are, my little cobra lily," and Wednesday just knew. She knew that her mother had seen it all in a vision: Weems’ death, Laurel Gates, Crackstone, Goody, the Hyde, Tyler— Oh, for the love of Hades! Tyler.
Morticia was seated at the séance table when Wednesday confronted her. “You could at least not tell father about it.”
"Such is married life, Darling," her mother breathed. "Your other half is entitled to your extrasensory perception, especially when your daughter is involved." Morticia swept her hands across the table and folded them on top of each other as though collecting a secret under her palms. Or a blow. "Perhaps one day you will know this too."
“How many times,” Wednesday spat. “Have I told you that I’m not you and father? I have no interest in finding a soulmate.”
At that, Morticia let out a laugh, short and raspy. “Wednesday,” she said, then. “I wanted you to find friends and love in Nevermore. I never mentioned anything about a soulmate.”
Wednesday knew how she got here; Thing had shown her the way before lodging himself in her backpack. It was almost funny, really, that between the two of them, Thing was the one who had been here more than once before.
Here. Tyler's house.
Wednesday knocked at the front door the way she used to enter the sheriff’s office; brazen, unabashed, undeterred. But when the owner of the house opened the door, there wasn’t a trace of Donovan Galpin’s signature grouch and endless frown in his very being.
Wednesday half expected to be greeted with accusation and skepticism; the same kind that this very man used to throw at her. That way, at least she’d know how to react. But all he did was swivel around and drag his feet back toward the living room. Wednesday trailed along, closing the door behind her.
When she turned to face him again, he was already sinking himself into a sagging armchair. He muttered something that sounded like a question. “What do you want?”
She didn’t answer him; couldn’t even if she wanted to.
Wednesday forgot why she was here.
She prided herself on being a great writer, but this is a chapter she failed to start. She didn’t even know what he was to her anymore. He was no longer “Sheriff Galpin”; he was just nothing more than the person Tyler would refer to as “Dad.” He had traded his uniform for tattered pajamas, his black coffee for stale beers.
Perhaps the monster had claimed more victims than the ones he left in the woods. There were the bodies he cut open, and then there were the leftovers, unworthy of his claws. Their limbs had been left intact, so they would be assaulted with the memory of their finger pulling the trigger on their own son. So they could glimpse their own reflection in the mirror and be reminded of the smell of a quad, the blue lights falling on a dance floor and a smile, the shoulder bumps at a café booth, a glance at a pair of lips, a tilted head leaning in.
Wednesday felt her backpack shaking behind her. When she looked over her shoulder, Thing was peeking out of an opening in the bag, gesturing toward a point somewhere on their left. Her gaze followed and settled on a staircase leading to the rooms on the second floor.
There was a mumbling speech coming from the armchair’s direction. “Nobody’s come to get them, his therapist’s files. I keep them in his room. They’re about him, they belong to him.”
And just when Wednesday began to wonder why he was telling her all this, he continued, “He talked about you.”
Tyler’s father said nothing else afterward. He didn’t even spare a glance when Wednesday walked up the stairs to go into Tyler’s room. As if she, too, belonged to him.
She already had an idea of what his bedroom would look like. After all, she had seen a small portion of it before, through a cell phone. But back then, the box bearing the logo of Jericho County Sheriff’s Department that sat on the edge of the bed was non-existent. The rest of the room was everything she had pictured; from the photographs on the walls and the dusty computer on the desk to the slightly crumpled sheets and the clothes popping out of partially closed drawers. Being in the midst of it all, it just hit her how unassuming his room was.
How very Tyler.
Freeing himself out of her backpack, Thing jumped down to the carpeted floor before clawing his way toward the box. He flicked the lid away, then, and Wednesday craned her neck to see the inside, finding a portable voice recorder and a file folder containing a patient’s records. She didn’t need to read the label to know it was Tyler’s.
The recorder, though, warranted closer observation. Although she preferred the musical vibrations generated by gramophones, Wednesday understood the working of the device. She sat on the bed beside the box and picked the recorder up, brushing her thumb against the buttons at the same time. And before she knew it, she pressed the power button.
The screen lit up at her touch. The dull orange light emanating from it was a contrast to the black digital font. Another push of a button and a list of various names appeared. Wednesday started going through the alphabetically-sorted names, knowing fully well if she pressed the down arrow symbol long enough, she would find a Tyler Galpin.
And found it she did. But then another list showed up after she clicked on his name, consisting of the dates of the therapy sessions. Wednesday knew Tyler had had sessions before her arrival in Jericho and decided to focus on the recording from the ones after. Still perched on the box beside her, Thing was suddenly tapping his fingers, letting Wednesday know that he had grown impatient. Wednesday ignored him, trying to remember when she first set foot on Nevermore. Her first quad in Weathervane. The fireworks at a harvest festival.
Another round of insistent finger taps pulled Wednesday out of her chain of thought. She looked down at Thing, watching him as he pointed at the space between her brows.
Wednesday glared at him. “My eyes didn’t glaze over!”
She didn't wait for Thing’s response, returning her attention to the voice recorder at once. She had resorted to punching the buttons in an effort to speed up her search.
And then there it was.
She clicked play.
“—me just. Oh, okay. It’s turned on now. Alright. Hello again, Tyler. How are you?”
It was Dr. Kinbott's voice playing on the recorder; sugary, just as Wednesday remembered. Wednesday had to remind herself that the real Dr. Kinbott had gone, and she could always fast-forward this recording.
But then a familiar drawl came. "Fine," Tyler said. "I guess," he added. This, too, she remembered. The way his voice seemed to always carry a question mark like he was only half-sure about everything.
Wednesday listened as Dr. Kinbott mentioned the harvest festival the previous night, wondering if Tyler had fun at the fair.
“Well,” Tyler replied, slowly. Wednesday could almost see the creases on his forehead and the cynical glint in his squinted eyes as he deadpanned, “A kid died.”
Despite herself, Wednesday let out a soft chuckle. Thing was rustling somewhere next to her.
"And how do you feel about that?” Dr. Kinbott asked, and Wednesday had to roll her eyes.
The recording picked up the silence as Tyler took his time considering. And Tyler did answer, eventually. Although listening to him only reminded Wednesday of a version of Tyler she had spotted before. The Tyler behind the counter who was bowing his head and apologizing as a customer demanded to see his manager. The Tyler who was trying to memorize the how-tos printed in Weathervane’s employee handbook.
She knew from experience that every session with Dr. Kinbott would normally last from 30 to 45 minutes. And Wednesday listened on as Tyler continued combining words that Dr. Kinbott wanted to hear, seemingly determined to keep this session as short as possible. True enough, a little after the half-hour mark, Dr. Kinbott was talking about how much progress he had made. She was ready to let him go when she suddenly blurted out, “Unless there’s something else you want to share? Did you do anything at the festival before the accident happened?”
Tyler turned quiet again, and Wednesday’s thumb hovered above the stop button. Then she heard his whisper.
“I almost did it.”
“Excuse me?”
“I almost did it,” he repeated, clearer this time.
In the recording, Dr. Kinbott expressed her surprise. “Oh?”
"What I told you the other time.”
“You mean, leaving? You almost left Jericho?”
“Yeah—”
“We talked about this, Tyler. I don’t think leaving is an option for you right now.”
“I know. It’s just that— I met someone, and she—”
“Oh! A girl!”
Tyler's voice echoed across his room, bouncing on the walls to envelop Wednesday. "Yeah, but that’s not the point. She— She was the one who tried to leave. And there was this one split second when I really thought that maybe I could go with her. Forget all this. I know I just met her— And everything I know about her, I heard it from— From stories. But I think if anyone should understand, then it would be her.”
“And then? What happened?”
Tyler sighed. “Then a kid died.”
“Well, is the girl still in town? Maybe she can be a reason for you to stay. Why don’t you try getting to know her better?”
It was faint, but Wednesday could still hear Tyler’s voice over the recording as he hissed through his teeth. “That’s the plan.”
When Wednesday left Tyler's room, it was dark, both outside and inside the house. She climbed down the stairs, cautiously, before pausing on the last step. Downstairs, the curtains were still open, giving way to the flicker of a street lamp on the sidewalk, the only source of light in the house. Wednesday could make out the silhouette of Tyler’s father, still anchoring himself to the armchair. His head was bending forward and his chin was glued to his chest, the rise and fall of his stomach becoming the only indication that he was just dozing off—not dead.
Wednesday skated across the floor, sliding past him without making any sound. A relatively easy feat when you had spent some of your waking nights breaking into graveyards and digging graves. Opening and closing the front door was trickier, but apparently being heavily inebriated could make one insusceptible to noises.
As she walked back to Nevermore, Wednesday inserted her right hand into the pocket of her jacket. She was aware that the voice recorder she stole earlier would still be there, but it didn’t hurt to check. Her mother would be so disappointed in her. "Stealing from a sad old man, Wednesday?" she would have said. "At least wake him up first."
And Wednesday thought, "No, Mother. The sad old man had his chance; he had more than 16 years with his son. I was the one cast out, struggling to make sense of what was real."
Her fingers tightened around the voice recorder. Thing could always return it in a few days, or whenever. She didn't really care. This, this was the truth. Or at least an opportunity for her to uncover it.
Wednesday stopped in her tracks and turned around. In this distance, she could still see the roof of Tyler’s house.
Wednesday finally remembered why she was here.