Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Wednesday is, if nothing else, a consummate professional. She prides herself on applying her considerable observational skills to categorize and describe interesting experiences and feelings for use in her novel. That means that during the time in which a resurrected pilgrim is using a magical staff to liquefy her organs from the outside, a little corner of her brain is cataloging. Stomach, kidney, gallbladder. Shutting down. Rapidly. Eyes. Also failing. Difficult to attribute the exact cause of failure, given the pre-existing concussion. Left lung seems to be trying to force its way out through the nostril. Is my nose bleeding? I can’t quite tell. 

And then Bianca is there and she can breathe again, and the shattered sword is right next to her on the ground. She undoes most of Goody’s work in sewing up her hand by slicing it right back up as she’s driving the tip as deep into Joseph Crackstone’s chest as it will go. Slightly to the left - his left, not hers. Between the fourth and fifth ribs, angled slightly upwards to pierce. Just like her mother taught her. She is unsure how much of Goody’s insistence on stabbing through the heart is literal and how much is metaphorical - spirits are annoying like that - but she’s not taking chances. He catches fire and rattles his way back to a well-deserved grave. She gets three seconds of silence, which is just enough time for the adrenaline to rush out of her system and almost sends her pitching to the ground, and then Laurel is back, and Eugene is not in the hospital, and she makes a mental note to make some sort of blood sacrifice to the bees to show her renewed appreciation for swarm tactics while she’s kicking Laurel in the face as hard as she can while missing several pints of blood.

She is, by genetic predisposition, short on blood as it is. It is a point of personal pride. It is the reason she does the most convincing multi-day rigor mortis impression in the entire extended family, including the dead relatives. It is also the reason that, when she kicks Laurel a second time just for personal satisfaction, she pitches a little too far backwards on the recoil and ends up on her back in the mud with no knowledge of the intervening events. Eugene is there. So is Bianca. He asks a question. It is inane. She does not bother answering. She gets up with dignity, brushes her pants off, takes four steps in the direction of the front gate, and is on the ground again, this time on her face.

“This,” she says into the mud, “is ridiculous.”

Bianca flips her over, which would be embarrassing except that Wednesday is too busy focusing on not screaming to notice. Her shoulder hurts. Her hand hurts. Her stomach - really, Addams. Hurts? Evocative when injured you are not. 

“Shut up,” she says, to no one in particular. 

Bianca and Eugene are leaning over her. These people have no regard for personal boundaries. She tries to sit up again. Bianca grabs her by the shoulders and keeps her from standing. Wednesday considers her extensive catalog of retaliatory punishments and decides on slow, prolonged feeding to a carnivorous plant. Bianca is talking. 

“Oh my God , Addams, hold still for a fucking second , you need -“ Wednesday tunes her out and returns to her plant-based revenge fantasy. In it, Bianca tearfully admits Wednesday’s superiority in Italian fencing techniques as she’s slowly lowered into the waiting maw of Wednesday’s mother’s award-winning Venus fly trap. 

She’s so busy imagining Bianca’s solemn confession that black is truly the most practical color that she mostly doesn’t notice what Eugene and Bianca are doing until they’re hoisting both of her arms around their shoulders and at that point she really does scream and then passes out again when Eugene drops her in shock. 

She wakes up being half-dragged down the road to the front gate. The arm that had the arrow in it is mercifully dangling at her side, and Bianca, sweating and swearing quietly, is lugging her along while Eugene hovers nervously. Wednesday makes a noise that is supposed to be a dignified cough and is mostly a wet gagging sound, and Bianca looks over. 

“Hi, Wednesday. Please don’t throw up on me.” 

Wednesday glares. It is worryingly ineffective. She tries to take some of her own weight, and, finding that she doesn’t seem to be in immediate danger of falling over, attempts to push out of Bianca’s supportive hold. This is also worryingly ineffective. She glares again, and Bianca sighs. “ God , fine, go ahead. Just don’t blame me if you fall down the rest of the hill in front of the whole school and never live down the embarrassment.” She pulls her arm away slowly. Wednesday wobbles a little and bares her teeth at Eugene when he twitches like he’s going to leap forward to help. He cowers, and she feels a wave of relief that at least someone is still appropriately intimidated by her. Guilt follows immediately after. She faces front so she doesn’t have to look at him and manages, “The bees were a good touch.” 

She chances a look sideways. He’s beaming. Her life is a nightmare. Not even the fun kind. She starts walking as quickly as her legs will allow her before he tries for a hug. 

She is embarrassingly wobbly, and keeps her feet mostly through sheer determination. Bianca and Eugene flank her on either side. Although she would rather die than admit it, she is deeply, deeply grateful to see that Bianca got her most of the way down the hill. The open gate looms before them in the gray pre-dawn light, and through it she can see the milling mass of students rendered through her concussed brain in blobs of color. One of them, she notes carefully, is bright pink. Good. It is also moving towards her at high speed. Ah.

She has just enough time to brace and then Enid is crashing into her. They almost go over backwards, but Enid is much stronger right now than she reasonably should be, and they rock back onto stable footing. Wednesday, moving more on instinct than anything, leans back, using her more functional arm to keep distance. Enid doesn’t totally let go of her waist, but she pulls back a little too. She is absolutely covered in blood and grime. It’s a good look on her. She is not dead. This, Wednesday admits reluctantly, is also a good look on her. She is crying. For some reason, that does it. Wednesday stares at her as Enid’s face scrunches up, silent tears running through the streaks of mud and dirt, and her whole body takes that moment to start absolutely screaming at her that it hurts , Enid could have died , Joseph Crackstone is really, actually almost killed her and it wasn’t nearly as exciting as she thought it would be- 

Wednesday Addams forgets her pride and her reputation and the fact that the whole stupid school is watching and she clings to that horrible pink coat with both bloody hands, and she buries her face in Enid’s shoulder and makes a little choked noise that she will deny to her dying day, and she stays like that until she can’t stand it anymore. 

After an indeterminate amount of time she puts her hands on Enid’s shoulders and pushes gently. Enid goes without too much resistance. She sniffles and wipes her nose on her coat sleeve, giving Wednesday a watery smile. The rest of the school, under Bianca’s iron fist, has begun the trek back through the gate. “So,” Enid says, still sniffling a little, “I totally wolfed out.”

“I noticed.” Wednesday says, blinking black spots out of her vision. There is a beat of silence, and Wednesday’s extremely rusty social compass nudges her. 

“You were,” she begins, grasping for an appropriate compliment, “extremely vicious.” 

Enid beams. Wednesday, because she is concussed and for no other reason, feels the corners of her mouth moving upwards in response. Someone whistles at them. It’s Xavier. He’s waiting at the gate. Nearly everyone else has already made it halfway back around around the hill to the dorms. 

“You two gonna come in, or you wanna stay out all night?” He says. He’s trying for joking, but Wednesday can see the exhaustion in his shoulders. 

“Certainly,” she says, and takes a single step towards him, and then the world tilts abruptly forty-five degrees to the left and Enid is frantically whisper-shouting her name in her ear. 

Her eyes snap open. Enid yelps. Bianca is looming over her again, along with half of her class. “Not a word,” she croaks. 

“You made it,” Bianca says, “One whole step unsupervised. I am going to commission you a trophy.” 

“Don’t bother,” Wednesday manages. “I already have your Poe Cup.” 

After that it’s blurry and confused and someone is actually carrying her this time, which is unacceptable. She claws weakly at them. 

“Stop it, Wednesday.” Enid says sternly. “If I drop you, Thing will never forgive me.” 

“I would rather drown myself in an ocean of silver moon nail polish than have you carry me.” 

“Uh-huh.” 

“My revenge will be swift.”

“Mhm.”

“And merciless.”

“Mm.”

“You can kiss each and every one of the monstrosities in your stuffed unicorn collection goodbye,” Wednesday mumbles. Her head is very heavy. 

“Wednesday-“

But Wednesday is already out.

Chapter Text

Enid fills her in on the details later. They are horrifyingly embarrassing and Wednesday would make her swear to eternal secrecy if it wasn’t already, apparently, common knowledge. It goes like this: Enid makes the twenty-five minute trek to the Jericho hospital in fourteen minutes. Wednesday does have flashes of this - black tree branches swaying above her in the slowly lightening sky. Someone talking above her, rushed and breathless. A rhythmic thudding that shakes her whole body. Flashes of agony. Lots of people talking very loudly. Enid talking very loudly. Enid tells her that she grabbed a doctor by the lapels and demanded no anesthetic. She does not remember this part, but it seems probable. After this point Enid has frustratingly few details, and, strangely, refuses to engage in speculation. 

“Massive blood loss and multiple organ failure,” Wednesday says dreamily. “How delightful. Did they say which ones? I have always suspected my liver to be a weak link.” 

“I didn’t ask,” Enid says doubtfully. Wednesday sighs.

“And what else?”

A great deal, apparently. Once Wednesday is out of sight Enid follows her leaderly example and passes out. Luckily, they are already in a hospital. “And I’m totally fine. Ajax caught me, which is, you know, cool. I got a couple stitches, but I texted my dad and he says we heal super quick so they’ll be out in, like, a week.”

In other news, the rest of the student body is engaged in cleaning up the half-destroyed campus. 

“The teachers are kind of freaked without Weems there, so Bianca is basically running it.” 

Wednesday nods. “She has the makings of a great and terrible tyrant,” she muses. “I do have to give that to her, although I will of course bring her down.” Enid politely ignores that. 

At this point it is, apparently, Wednesday’s turn. She gives the abridged version. Enid sits there in open-mouthed horror. “Enid, you are going to catch flies.” 

“He stabbed you?” She squeals in response. 

“I said that, yes.” 

“And then-“

“And then my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandmother used the spiritual power of my necklace to briefly return to our plane of existence and stop the majority of the internal bleeding. Enid, what part of this is confusing.” 

Enid wordlessly buries her face in her hands, which is a response she’s used to getting from highly acclaimed psychological professionals. “What the fuck,” she says, muffled. 

“Indeed,” Wednesday says, and is then struck with curiosity. She pulls up her shirt - Eugene’s moms brought her a change of clothes, since she kept threatening horrible violence on the medical staff if they tried to keep her in a medical gown for a single second longer- and pokes carefully at the stab wound. 

There’s a great deal of bruising - Goody, focusing on the life-threatening damage and also not a healer by trade, was apparently not very concerned with aesthetics.  In the middle of the multicolored blotch there is a thin, raised scar in a sort of rough C shape in the middle of her abdomen, about two inches in diameter. It is incredibly sore, but stands up to gentle prodding. Excellent. Her shoulder is much more painful, but it’s still covered in a mass of bandages and ointment, so she can’t examine it for writing inspiration. Pity. Piercing wounds are her favorites. Enid, she notices suddenly, is staring at her stomach. She pulls her shirt back down abruptly. 

“Anything else important?” 

Enid thinks for a second. 

“Your parents were notified, obviously. They’re on their way.” She glances at the clock. “They’ll probably be here in a few minutes.” 

Wednesday stares into the middle distance, contemplating throwing herself out of the window. Tragically, they are only on the second floor, which wouldn’t do nearly enough structural damage to get her off of this mortal coil. “Enid,” she says wearily, “We need to work on your bedside manner. There are more delicate ways to tell a person that they have only a few minutes to live.” 

Enid winces. “Sorry,” she says sympathetically. “If it helps, mine are coming too.”

“Excellent,” Wednesday says. “A suicide pact, then.“ She holds her hand out to shake. Enid stares at her. 

“What?” Wednesday says. Enid buries her face in her hands again. “You know what?” She says, once again muffled, and then holds her hand out. “Sure. If my mother says  I’m a real wolf now-“ 

“-And if my parents insist upon bodily contact-“ 

“-and if anybody says anything about lycanthropy camp-“ 

“I will kill you in an honorable, immediate, and painless way, and expect you to do the same for me,” Wednesday says, shaking her hand. “Actually, mine can be painful if that’s the quickest method.” 

Enid laughs, which Wednesday thinks is an inappropriate way to seal a suicide pact, but she nods. “Definitely.” 

Chapter Text

Morticia and Gomez Addams arrive with their usual style, which is to say that in the three minutes between screeching up to the curb of the hospital and sweeping into Wednesday’s room they terrify three patients and a nurse, cause several sexuality crises, and generally embarrass Wednesday beyond repair. Wednesday successfully extricates herself from her father’s grasp and glares daggers at Enid, who is, like a cowardly rainbow, trying to inch backwards out of the room without being noticed. “Enid Sinclair, you have forfeited the terms of our pact and allowed me to continue to live. I will bring retribution upon you and yours for generations.” 

Her father clasps his hands together, enraptured. “Oh, Tish, our little girl! Making suicide pacts! Doesn’t it just remind you of-“ Wednesday sighs deeply and mentally resigns herself to eternal torment. 

There is, unfortunately, no doctor brave enough to tell the Addams to leave, so Wednesday feigns a full bladder, talks her way down the hall to the bathroom - “I can walk , Mother. I’m not a child -“ and then promptly picks the lock on the window and shimmies down the side of the building using a nearby downspout. 

She runs a quick checklist on herself when she hits the bottom. Slightly more out of breath than she expected. Her shoulder is throbbing uncomfortably, but the stitches appear to have held up. She takes a tentative step, leaning on the building for support, and then another, and smiles triumphantly when her knees support her the way they should. She looks around and sees no medical professionals, or worse, her parents, rushing to recapture her. (There is, unbeknownst to Wednesday, a woman named Eunice who had been working at the hospital for forty years who sees her through a window, picks up her phone to call security, mentally connects her to the terrifying couple who swept past her several minutes ago, and decides to mind her own business.)

Wednesday finds a gnarled stick about the height of her shoulder and starts walking. She moves a little more slowly than normal, but the air is crisp and cold and the dead leaves crunch pleasantly under her boots. There’s a thunderstorm coming. She can smell it in the autumn air, and breathes deeply. Her favorite weather. She reaches the gate of Nevermore just as the sun is beginning to dip below the horizon, and discards her walking stick before she climbs the hill up to the main entrance. She regrets it a little, panting as she reaches the top, but teenagers are a ruthless bunch, and they sense weakness like sharks sense blood. Much better to show up on her own two feet. 

The pentagon (she refuses outright to call it a quad) is in surprisingly good shape. The tree in the center is burned to a crisp, and there are scorch marks on the walls. The grass is blackened and crunches underfoot as she walks. The remnants of destroyed picnic tables have been mostly removed, leaving the area barren and empty. She likes it immensely more than the original design. 

She sits down on the edge of the central tree’s retaining wall to admire it, and to allow her heart rate to slow back down to a comfortable forty beats per minute. After a moment, she sees something odd- part of the grass near her foot is charred differently from the rest, a little black spot in the greenish-grey. She leans forward, grunting at the soreness in her abdomen. Her fingers brush it. 

Crack.

She is in the crypt and Laurel is bending to kiss Joseph Crackstone’s ring, she is fumbling with her lockpick and jolting to her feet ready to do - something - anything - and there is a horrible pressure and she cannot move and he has a knife and his breath is rotten in her face - 

Crack.

Joseph Crackstone is dying and his ring slips from his crumbling finger to rest in the grass - someone is bending down to pick it up, their hand covered in a dirty work glove -

Crack. 

Enid is underwater, her eyes closed, and Wednesday sees herself, entombed, pounding on the lid of a closed coffin, tears streaming down her face - the ring is falling through the air - she needs to catch it - 

“Wednesday!” 

Wednesday’s head snaps back with enough force to give her whiplash and she gasps, lungs filling with air as though she’s been underwater for minutes. She scrambles to her feet and tries to get her face under control before she turns around, and mostly succeeds. It’s Xavier. 

“Hi,” he says warily, twisting his hands behind his back.

“Hello,” she says, trying not to sound breathless. They stand in silence for a second, and Xavier clears his throat. “How’s the, uh - “ he gestures at her shoulder. She straightens up. “Fine.”

“Good. Yeah, good. Uh, thanks. For doing that.”

“You’re welcome.”

More silence. They both try to talk at the same time.

“It was a good shot, I suppose-” “Are you gonna pass out, because you look kind of-”

They both stop. Wednesday stares at him. He goes pink. “I am not,” she says icily, “going to pass out. Thank you for asking.” 

He lifts both hands in a gesture of surrender. “Sorry,” he says. “I just-” 

Wednesday stops listening. Her ears are ringing. In one hand he is holding a pair of grimy work gloves. Just like the ones she saw. She strides forward and grabs them out of his hand, ignoring his sputter of confusion as she turns them over, trying to make certain. 

“Wednesday, what-” 

“Give it back.”

“What?”

“The ring,” she repeats, making her tone calm and ignoring the heartbeat pounding in her ears. “It’s very dangerous and you can’t have it.” 

Xavier blinks at her. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

She grabs him by the arm and drags him bodily over to the charred spot where the ring fell. “Here. There was a ring in the grass here. You picked it up. Let me have it.”

Xavier shakes his head. “I wasn’t even working over here, I never saw it. I swear to God, Wednesday. Why are you so freaked out? Is it yours?”

“No,” she says quietly, letting go of his arm. Maybe she’s wrong about the gloves? No, she knows what she saw. But Xavier looks genuinely confused, unless he’s a much better liar than she gives him credit for. He’s eyeing her with concern, which she hates, so she turns on her heel and starts marching away across the pentagon. He catches up to her with ease. Curses be upon everyone above six feet tall. 

“Where are you going?” 

She side-eyes him. “Cafeteria.”

“Excellent,” Xavier says. “Everyone’s in there now for dinner. I’ll come with.” 

She stops dead, and he grins at her. “On second thought-” she starts, and he cuts her off. “No, no, c’mon Addams,” he says, bowing deeply and sweeping an arm in the direction of the cafeteria. “Grace us with your presence.” 

She glowers at him. He is unphased. This is starting to become a problem. She’ll ask Grandmama for some glowering tips. Clearly, she’s lost her edge. 

She reluctantly starts moving in the direction of the cafeteria again. She is hungry. And if Xavier is lying to her, she needs to keep an eye on him. “Awesome,” Xavier says, springing up out of his mock bow to follow her. “You do look like you’re gonna fall over literally any second, so-“ 

She elbows him in the stomach and keeps walking.

They arrive at the cafeteria, and Wednesday freezes in the doorway, heart sinking into her stomach. It’s full to bursting with raucous teenagers, but that’s not what stops her. There are pairs of those work gloves everywhere , tossed onto tables and chairs, tucked into people’s belts. She grabs Xavier by the shirtfront and pulls him down to hiss in his ear. 

“Why does everyone have these?” She shakes his pair of gloves. Xavier blinks at her. 

“They’re - school property? We were using them to clean stuff up in the quad? Splinters are really bad for vampires? And also everyone?” She lets him go and suppresses a shriek of frustration. 

This case, she thinks grimly, is not over.

Chapter Text

Enid arrives back at their room about an hour after dark, and sighs with exasperation. “ There you are.” 

Wednesday doesn’t look up from her typewriter. Enid steps over the divider to her side of the room. “Weds, are you upset?”

“Don’t call me that.”

Enid sighs. “Listen, I’m sorry for not killing you. Really. Hey, that is the most fucked thing I’ve ever said in my life! I can’t believe you’re rubbing off on me like that.” 

Wednesday turns around in her chair and surveys the traitor. Enid is keeping a respectful five-foot distance from her desk, and is twisting her hands in her oversized sweater with a sickeningly apologetic look on her face. She turns back.

“I should have known to make it a blood pact. You are forgiven, on the condition that you swear fealty to me.”

Enid bounces on her heels. Wednesday can practically hear her grinning. “Technically,” Enid drawls, moving to the other side of the desk, “I saved your life last night, so you owe me fealty.” 

Wednesday sits up straighter and keeps her expression carefully blank, watching Enid in her periphery as she leans on the desk.

“However,” Enid continues, “I am willing to call it even.” 

Wednesday looks sideways at her. “I am rubbing off on you,” she says, pleased. “Fine.”

Enid grins and bubbles revoltingly back to her side of the room. Wednesday resumes typing. “I assume you didn’t see your parents. You’re far too happy.” 

“Nope,” Enid says, popping the ‘p’ sound. “They’re stuck in the next town over. There’s a really bad storm blowing in, the sheriff’s office is shutting down roads.” She sighs. “They’ll probably get here tomorrow.” 

The crystal ball chimes. Wednesday frowns at it. “Oh, yeah,” Enid says, embarrassed. “I texted your mom and dad to say that you were ok when I got back and Xavier told me he’d seen you. They were worried.”

Wednesday sighs deeply and then blinks in consternation. She twists around in her chair to look at Enid. “My parents don’t have phones .” 

Enid throws her hands into the air. “Yeah, I know. Your mom told me to put my phone in a circle of holly branches and chant her name three times and then send the text to no one and so I did and it worked and I have no idea how. She’s scary .” Wednesday grimaces. 

The crystal ball chimes again. She answers it begrudgingly and immediately regrets it. Her parents are frowning disapprovingly at her. “Before you say anything,” she says, trying to get ahead of the conversation, “I want you to know that I had every intention of telling you where I was.” Her mother glowers. It is highly effective. Wednesday practically wilts with envy. She must be getting tips from Grandmama. 

“I just think,” Morticia starts, “that when we have to get updates on our daughter through her roommate -” Enid is melting into a puddle of embarrassment on the other side of the room. Good. She deserves the shame. 

Wednesday endures an eternity (four minutes) of castigation, which ends with her parents promising to come up to the school tomorrow morning to check on her, and several veiled threats regarding her staying put until they can do so. She lives in a prison, she thinks as she ends the connection and allows her forehead to rest on the desk with a quiet thunk. But her investigation isn’t over yet, and they have yet to build a prison strong enough to hold her. That’s a fairly good line for the novel, she thinks, and scribbles it in her notebook before she forgets. 

Something occurs to her. 

“Enid,” she says carefully, “Will you do me a favor?”

Enid looks up from where she’s laying on her bed, feet kicking in the air. “Sure. Actually, it depends. Your favors are sometimes crimes, and I’m really tired.” 

“Not a crime,” Wednesday promises. “I want to hold your hand.”

She bemusedly watches Enid’s brain screech to a halt in real time, and then realizes what she just said and freezes like a deer in headlights.  They gape at each other. Wednesday recovers first. “It’s - not - it’s for the case. I don’t want to hold your hand.” 

Enid starts functioning again, her cheeks going bright red. Wednesday’s face is burning.

 “Uh- yeah. Sure. I mean. Yeah.” Enid says. “Do you- should I go over there? Is that-?” 

“Yes, please,” Wednesday says, regretting her entire miserable existence and her inability to reverse time. Enid clambers clumsily out of her bed and over to Wednesday at the desk, and, looking as though she would rather be dead, holds her hand out. Wednesday stares at it like it’s a rabid animal. This was a horrible mistake. She reaches out very slowly, and then takes hold of Enid’s wrist with two fingers as if it was a highly venomous insect.

Nothing happens. She drops it with great relief. 

“Thank you, Enid,” she manages in a fairly even tone. “Your contributions to science and justice will be remembered.” Enid, still bright red, squeaks “Okay,” and practically sprints over to her side of the room. Wednesday absolutely refuses to look over at her, and instead stares at her typewriter for an indeterminate amount of time before she remembers what she was writing about. When she’s finally brave enough to sneak a look, Enid is buried under her customary layers of nauseating color and is snoring gently. She breathes a private sigh of relief. 

Thing taps at her. 

“Shh,” she commands quietly, glancing over at Enid, who doesn’t stir. “I wanted to see if it would trigger a vision. Don’t make that face at me, Thing.”

He performs a series of signals in a combination of French Sign Language, Morse code, and their own personal shorthand.

“No, it’s not.” 

He gives her a look. Somehow. She glares at him. “Never speak of this to anyone.” He scuttles away with a distinct air of lofty disdain. 

Crash . 

Wednesday goes stiff in her chair, fingernails digging into the wood of the desk, but her vision doesn’t flicker. After a moment of confusion, it clicks. Not a vision. The storm is just breaking. 

Crash . 

Another clap of thunder. This one jerks Enid awake with a yelp. 

“It’s fine,” Wednesday says, already halfway to the window. “It’s just the thunderstorm.” 

Enid buries her face in her pillow. “I hate thunder,” she mutters. Wednesday doesn’t take notice. She’s busy counting the seconds until the lighting flash. One. Two. Three. Four. Five- There . White light forks across the sky, multicolored through Enid’s half of the window. Wednesday grins.

“I’m going for a walk,” she announces to the huddled shape on Enid’s bed. Enid pokes her head out. “Are you serious?” Wednesday is already pulling on her raincoat. 

“Of course,” she says. “It’s a beautiful night.”

Chapter Text

And it really is beautiful, Wednesday thinks, leaning out from under the covered awning on the second floor of the pentagon and gazing up into the pouring rain. By her count, the storm is three miles and moving fast. Another flash of lightning. One, two, thr- Thunder rolls across the sky. Two and a half miles. The hallways of the school seem completely deserted, which suits her wonderfully as she makes her way down the stairs and into the pentagon. The wind is howling, and the burned-out shell of the tree in the center of the pentagon creaks ominously. It’s delightful. She has to admit it, she thinks to herself. Nevermore is a gorgeous school. She sighs contentedly, folding her hands into her raincoat pockets for warmth. 

“ Goody Addams.” 

She whips around. No, no, no, no. 

It’s him. Spectral, glinting white in the moonlight. Wednesday freezes in place, and it has nothing to do with magic. Rain lashes around them, soaking the ground, half blinding her. 

He lifts a hand towards her. She takes a step back and then it starts - horrible, searing pain in her abdomen. She chokes, grasping at her shirt, and looks down to see a dark red stain appear on the white checker marks. Her breath falters. The stain grows larger. Something is buzzing in her ears. She looks up, and Joseph Crackstone is millimeters away from her face, grinning. She jolts backwards, stumbling, one hand grasping the stab wound and the other reaching out futilely behind her for support. It meets only darkness and rain. Her knees give out as she’s trying to totter backwards, sending her to the ground, and he laughs as she drags herself by the elbows backwards, staring at him in terror, blood pooling around her -

And she wakes up in her bed, watery gray light streaming through the window. 

Wednesday is frozen for a moment, heart pounding in mute terror, and then she sits up in a rush, grabbing at her nightshirt. The scar on her stomach is whole and unbloodied. She looks over at Enid’s bed - empty. 

“Thing!” 

She scrambles out of bed to Thing’s nest and rips it open. Thing scrambles onto his fingers in alarm. “What time did I get back last night?” she hisses. He shrugs, tapping out a concerned question. She drops the covers back onto him without answering and stands stock-still for a moment, trying to think over the sound of her heart pounding. Enid. She can ask Enid. She doesn’t bother changing out of her nightclothes, just throws her raincoat back on - it’s hung neatly on a hook in her closet, exactly where it should be - and charges out into the hallway. 

The hallways are still empty. She skids into an intersection and stops, panting as she looks around. Other than a faint tapping of rain droplets on the windows and her own breathlessness, it’s eerily silent. She picks a direction almost at random and keeps running. Down the stairs, past a wing of classrooms, all empty. She narrowly avoids slamming her injured shoulder into the cafeteria doorway and grabs onto it for support - empty. Panic rises in her throat and she forces it back down, trying to make her heartbeat settle. The pentagon. And if no one is there, then - then what?

Then something is very, very wrong , she thinks grimly, and takes off running again. 

The pentagon is not empty. In fact, it seems like the entire school is crammed into it. Is there an announcement? Why wouldn’t Enid wake her up? She steps into the soft, muddy grass, and someone says “Holy shit -”

It’s Bianca, who is staring at Wednesday with wide, terrified eyes. It’s a common reaction, but not from Bianca. “What?” Wednesday says. 

“Holy shit,” is all Bianca can seem to say, and she points, finger shaking, further into the knot of students. More of them are starting to turn towards the commotion, all noticing Wednesday with the same blankly terrified expression. She steps forward in the direction of Bianca’s point, and the crowd parts like water in front of her. The ripple of murmurs spreads and rises throughout the quad, and then she reaches the center. 

The students have left a roughly circular center, about seven feet in diameter, and in the center is Enid, kneeling, her face sickly white, over Wednesday’s headless body. 

Wednesday freezes, and then her brain leaps into overdrive, flicking over the body. Her clothes. Her shoes. The head has been cut off cleanly and cauterized. Enid looks up, sees her, and sobs violently. “Wednesday-?”

Wednesday kneels beside the body opposite her and examines the fingernails. Clean. No struggle. 

Tears are starting to stream down Enid’s face, her claws out and buried in the mud like she’s using them to anchor herself to the ground.

“Wednesday, what-”

“Classic technique,” Wednesday interrupts. Weeping makes her uncomfortable, especially on Enid. “Head cut off to make it harder to identify. Vaguely the right skin tone, the right clothes, et voila. A reasonably convincing corpse.” 

Enid heaves in a breath. “But if it’s not you -”

“Then who is it? Good question.” Wednesday stands up, wiping mud on her coat. “The other good question is why . This only held up until I arrived. It’s not even a particularly good copy. What was the point ?” 

She’s pacing now, up and down the little clearing, barely noticing the way that the students crowded around the body are tripping over themselves to get back as she muses. Enid is trembling. “Wednesday, I - this - this scared me. Really bad.”

Wednesday stops and turns on her heel to meet Enid’s eyes briefly, and then looks away. “Yes,” she says. “Yes, in that way it was highly effective.”

That’s what it is. Not to convince anyone that she’s dead. Just to scare them. Just to put it in their minds that the school isn’t safe. Wednesday turns to look back at the body, brain working furiously. “This was a threat.” 

Chapter Text

The sheriff’s office, when they arrive, are less than pleased. Sheriff Galpin is notably not present, which is fine by Wednesday. Instead, she’s dealing with his deputy, who is less gruff than the sheriff but just as annoyingly rule-oriented. The body is removed to the morgue before Wednesday can examine it further, but she doesn’t get a chance to protest, because her mother and father arrive at almost the same moment. “Hello,” she says flatly, resentfully watching the body be wheeled away. 

“Darling,” Morticia says, watching it go, “While I appreciate you getting involved with Nevermore, you do seem to be attracting a fair amount of - interest. Is there something you want to tell us?” 

Wednesday blinks at her. “No.” 

Morticia smiles. “Wednesday, really. You’re a young woman now, and it’s perfectly common that a potential suitor might give gifts that you find - ah-” she turns and looks again at the body, which is now being loaded into the back of the ambulance. One of Wednesday’s boots is slightly visible. “- a little much,” Morticia finishes tactfully. “We want you to be comfortable turning down advances if you aren’t inclined to them.” 

Wednesday stares at her as though her mother just expressed a sudden desire to work at Pilgrim World. 

“No.” She says flatly, and turns on her heel, desperately scanning for an escape. She has to stop having conversations with her parents in places that aren’t high up enough to throw herself off of them when it inevitably goes poorly. 

Her eyes land on Enid, who is still pale but less weepy and is currently trapped in conversation with her parents. As Wednesday catches her eye, Enid feigns a cough and mouths “ HELP ” behind her hand. Perfect. Wednesday excuses herself from her parents and bolts. 

As she approaches, she catches the tail end of the conversation.

“- just so proud of you, sweetie, and I’ve already told your cousins, so we’ll all go down to theirs this summer for the full moon and you can show them all how you finally -” 

“Excuse me,” Wednesday says, inserting herself heroically. “Enid, come with me.”

“Okay,” Enid says immediately, but her mother huffs indignantly. “What for?” Wednesday blanks momentarily. 

“I need,” she says after a beat of silent internal panic, “to talk to Enid. About boys. One moment.” She grabs Enid by the elbow and practically drags her away. 

They make it around the corner and Wednesday releases her. Enid flops against the wall with a sigh. “Thanks.” 

Wednesday nods, arms folded as she leans back to peer around the corner. Enid’s mother has been distracted by another werewolf parent. They have a few minutes at least before she comes looking. She turns back to relay this information and the words die on her lips. Enid is giggling. It is terrible. 

“Stop that,” she says. “You look ridiculous.” Enid giggles harder. “That was the worst excuse -,” she manages. “Your face -”

Wednesday gives her an icy stare. Enid gives her a half-heartedly apologetic look and mimes zipping her mouth closed, but she keeps breaking out into muffled laughter the whole way back to their room. 

Wednesday tunes her out. She has a case to solve. The vision. The missing ring. The dead body dressed as her. The unaccounted-for hours after her walk last night. Speaking of that - 

“Enid, what time did I come back last night?” 

Enid frowns. “Like, midnight? I kept waking up because of the thunder and you were definitely there at like twelve fifteen, but I didn’t notice you coming in. And then Yoko woke me up this morning and said I had to come down to the quad to see - ” She shudders and doesn’t finish the sentence. 

Wednesday frowns. “Why didn’t you wake me up?”

“I didn’t want to bother you. And besides, you never got, like, actually discharged from the hospital, so I figured you probably still needed the rest even if you didn’t wanna take it-”

Wednesday stops dead. Enid falters a step ahead of her and turns around, concern written all over her face. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

This is unacceptable. Enid is coddling her. She sets her jaw and stares Enid down. “I am not a child.” Enid blinks. “I didn’t think-” 

“Exactly,” Wednesday practically spits at her. “You didn’t. But I am perfectly well, and I will not tolerate being treated like an invalid just because of your unfortunate misconception that I am one. Is that clear?” 

Enid’s eyes well up with tears. “Fine.” she chokes, turning on her heel to go and then whirling right back around. “Just because I was worried about you-” 

“I don’t want your pity-” 

“-it’s not pity to be freaked out when my roommate almost dies!” Enid’s claws slide out, her voice rising. “It’s not pity if seeing my best friend dead on the ground is a bad time for me! It’s called caring about people, Wednesday-” 

Wednesday grinds her teeth, furious. “You had just seen me in our room! You knew I was fine!”

“Are you, Wednesday? Are you, like, totally sure about that?” Enid’s face is tomato red with anger. “Because it seems like somebody still wants you dead, and I know you’re all totally cool with that because you’re above stupid things like being scared of murderers but I’m not -”

“Then maybe you should just leave!”

They stare at each other in silence, Wednesday stock-still, Enid’s shoulders heaving with anger, glaring at each other. 

“Sure,” Enid says, icy cold. “Sure. I’ll just go. Enjoy getting murdered ‘cause you can’t stand people caring about you. Sure.” She turns on her heel and stalks off, leaving Wednesday standing alone in the hall, swirling with anger and adrenaline. She sets her jaw and sets off the opposite way. In a sort of blind fury she strides along, taking turns at random until she reaches the doorway of the fencing gym. The windows are wide open, letting in wide swaths of gray light as rain continues to trickle weakly down the glass. Surprisingly, there’s someone here. They’re wearing full gear, and making slow, methodical movements as they fence against the air. Before Wednesday can duck back behind the corner, they notice her standing there and stand up out of a lunge to pull off their mask. It’s Bianca. She frowns. “Are you-”

“If you ask me if I am okay,” Wednesday says, “I will make your death so slow and painful that you’ll have time to reflect on every mistake you’ve ever made, including that one.”

Bianca snorts. “Okay, fair.” She rolls her wrist, twirling the hilt of her foil lazily. “I was going to ask if you were here to blow off some steam. I could use a partner.” Wednesday tilts her head to the side slightly. Bianca raises an eyebrow. 

“Fine,” Wednesday says. “Let me change.”

Five minutes later they’re staring each other down, maskless. It’s a point of honor between them. Wednesday raises her foil, settling her feet. Bianca doesn’t ask about her shoulder or the dead body. She just shakes her arms out and mirrors Wednesday’s stance. Wednesday feels an unfamiliar rush of gratitude and blinks at herself. Bianca taps the tip of her foil to Wednesday's. “Ready?”

Wednesday bares her teeth. “Ready.”

The first lunge dissolves every thought about Enid, the body, the ring. Her father may be the swordsman of the family, but she’s not far behind him. She and Bianca trade cautious advances for a few moments, trying each other, and they settle into the rhythm. Thrust, parry, counter, parry, feint and lunge, thrust, again. Their advances get quicker, more aggressive. Wednesday parries an attack and drops, trying to sweep Bianca’s legs, but she dances out of the way and comes back with a combination of quick slices that Wednesday barely fends off, returning a thrust just a little too slowly to catch Bianca’s shoulder. They separate for a second, panting, and then Wednesday dives back in, unwilling to let Bianca recover - lunge, parry and riposte, thrust, feint, counter - too slow. Bianca makes it through her counter with a twist of her foil and lands a hit on her thigh - 

Crack .

She’s standing in the courtyard - the tree is burning behind her, heat scorching her face -

“Point!” She’s back in the gym, sword hanging limply in her hand, sweat pouring down her face. Bianca is dancing back out of range, grinning triumphantly, and then her smile falters. “Uh, Wednesday?” 

Wednesday blinks and forces her gaze back to Bianca. “Point,” she says, a little unsteadily. “Yes. Go again.”

Bianca looks a little unsure, but Wednesday refuses to give her time to develop that into full-blown concern. She doesn’t need to be coddled , she thinks furiously, and sets her feet before launching herself at Bianca again. 

This time there’s no slow build-up, no testing each other. Wednesday is a whirlwind of controlled fury, jaw set grimly, and Bianca needs only a moment to adjust before she matches the tempo. 

Crack . Fire. Crack . Joseph Crackstone’s rancid smile. Crack . The ring, glittering on his finger.

The flashes last only fractions of a second. She shoves them down and keeps attacking, forcing Bianca backwards. 

Crack . For a moment she’s fighting Crackstone, not Bianca, in the flaming courtyard, swinging wide and he parries it with the staff - Crack . She’s back in the gym, Bianca finally standing up to her flurry of blows and striking back - Wednesday counters - Crack. He’s forcing her backwards. Blood is running freely down her arm. Her breath is coming quick and shallow as she tries to make space between them. He cackles and she doubles her efforts, pushing back, tears blurring her vision as the heat from the flaming tree scorches the side of her face. There - an opening. She forgoes the sword and gets low, slamming into him and sending them both crashing to the ground. His staff flies out of his hand, and she seizes her sword in both hands, lifting it over her head to slam it down into his heart with all of her strength - do it, do it now - 

“Wednesday! Stop - stop it - Wednesday, stop .”

The words bounce around in her head strangely, staring down at Crackstone’s face, and then she blinks and she’s pinning Bianca to the ground with her knee, foil raised above her head and panting, poised to plunge it into Bianca’s chest. Bianca stares up at her, eyes wide. She’s clutching her amulet in one hand, the chain broken from where she must have ripped it off of her own neck. Siren song, Wednesday thinks dizzily. That’s why I stopped. That’s the only reason I stopped. 

Her breath catches in her throat and she slides numbly off of Bianca, the blade clattering to the ground next to them. Bianca flinches at the sound, scooting back on her elbows away from Wednesday, who is frozen in place, eyes locked with Bianca’s. Blood is roaring in her ears, making it impossible to think. She needs to go. She needs to go before something else happens. She jolts to her feet and sways there, Bianca still gaping open mouthed up at her. 

“Wednesday,” she hears her say over the rushing sound in her ears, “What was that?” 

She doesn’t have an answer. She turns and runs, ignoring Bianca calling her name. She has to get out of here. It doesn’t matter where. Mother was right , she thinks dizzily as she staggers through the hallways. I’m losing my mind. 

Chapter Text

She ends up at the beehives, barely knowing how she got there. She’s still wearing her fencing gear - she strips off the suffocatingly hot upper half to reveal her black undershirt and allows the cold October drizzle to sweep across her bare arms, raising goosebumps. She takes a long, shuddering breath and then another, wrapping her arms around herself and sinking to the ground with her back pressed against the door of the shed, and tries her hardest to think. 

The ring, the visions, the body, the unaccounted-for return to her bedroom. She can’t remember almost two hours, if Enid’s estimate is right. She’s losing track of where and when she is, and she nearly killed Bianca because of it. And all she can think about is the sight of Enid leaving her alone in the corridor. 

Which is how she ends up (after sneaking back to the now-empty gym to change out of her less-than-fresh fencing gear) at Yoko’s door, knocking. It opens, Yoko peering suspiciously at her. “Hi, Wednesday,” she says a little too loudly, and Wednesday hears a sudden flurry of frantic scrambling behind her. 

“Hello,” she says. “I need to talk to Enid.”

Yoko crosses her arms and leans in the doorway, blocking Wednesday’s view into the room. “Who says she’s here?” Wednesday clenches her jaw. This was a mistake. 

“Will you please just tell her that it’s me,” she says, trying for a patient and genial tone and mostly failing. Yoko doesn’t budge. Wednesday sighs. “I am trying,” she grits out quietly, “to apologize.” 

That gets a reaction, at least. Yoko raises one thin eyebrow. “Uh-huh,” she says. “Hang on.” The door closes. Wednesday contains a groan of misery. Her reputation is going to be in shambles by the end of the day. 

She hears more rustling and panicked whispering behind the door, and then it opens. Enid steps out, face stony, closes the door behind her, and crosses her arms. Wednesday puts her hands behind her back. 

“Enid,” she says, suddenly and uncharacteristically nervous. Enid says nothing. “I need -” 

She can’t do this. This was a terrible mistake. Thing can help her. She doesn’t need to be here. But she can’t leave. Enid will never forgive her, which is, for reasons she is still working out, an unacceptable consequence. She squares her shoulders and tries again. 

“I should not have snapped at you. I understand that you were -” she fumbles, and Enid keeps glaring. It’s highly off-putting. Is everyone getting lessons from Grandmama except her? “You were acting out of - concern - for me. I can appreciate the instinct to do so.” Still no reaction. “I apologize for my behavior.” 

There is a long, agonizing moment of silence. Wednesday tries to make eye contact, fails, and settles on staring at the wall. Enid sighs heavily, which should be better than stony silence but isn’t. She leans against the door and slides down it with a thunk, pulling her legs to her chest and resting her chin on her arms. Wednesday stands there, floundering. Eventually she points at the space next to Enid. “May I?” 

Enid nods. Wednesday sits down next to her, carefully leaving a few inches between them, and they sit, staring at the wall, for a moment. 

Wednesday looks sideways at her, summoning enough willpower to start talking. “I wanted,” she says quietly, looking back at the wall so she doesn’t have to watch Enid’s expression, “to do everything myself. I wanted to get out of here and never see my family again, and then I wanted to figure out the Hyde by myself just to prove that I could. And I failed. Miserably.” 

Enid turns to look at her, but she keeps staring at the wall. “I would’ve died over and over without someone coming to save me. Goody, Bianca, Eugene.” She swallows hard. “You.” 

Now that she’s started talking, she can’t seem to stop herself. “And now it should be over but it isn’t, something is still wrong, and I can’t fix it by myself because I don’t even know what it is, I don’t even know where I was last night - “ 

She chokes up and snaps her mouth closed, gazing fixedly at the stones of the wall across from them. Her eyes are prickling. She forces the last bit out. 

“I want - I need your help.”

Enid is still looking at her. She uses up the last of her courage to look back. Enid’s eyes are so blue, she thinks to herself. Like gazing upwards from the bottom of a frozen lake and knowing there’s something between you and the air. She looks down at the ground, the cowardice of it making the palms of her hands prickle. 

“Okay.”

Wednesday looks up. Enid’s jaw is set, but her eyes aren’t cold anymore. Wednesday has to work not to visibly melt with relief when she says, “I forgive you for being a jerk. And I’ll help.”

“Thank you,” Wednesday says. And then, very quietly before she can think better of it, “I don’t deserve a friend like you.”

Enid smiles a little sadly. “Shush. You’ve got me, so that’s all that matters.”

“Thank you,” she says again, and hopes that Enid understands everything else she’s trying to say along with it. 

“Aww,” says a muffled voice from behind the door, and Wednesday and Enid scramble to their feet at the same moment. Enid wrenches the door open, and Yoko and Devina start back at the sight of an angry werewolf and an Addams glaring at them. Wednesday steps forward, threats forming on her lips, but Enid puts her arm out and stops her. “I got it. Wait for me outside?” 

Wednesday hesitates, but Enid meets her eyes. “Trust me,” she says. Wednesday wavers for another second, and then goes. There is a furious whispered conversation behind the closed door which she tries to listen in on unabashedly, and then Enid steps out. 

“They won’t say a word,” she says confidently, and winks.

“Good,” Wednesday says, thrown off balance but inwardly a little bit pleased. “Thank you.” 

Enid hums acknowledgement. “Our room?” 

“Yes. I’ll tell you when we get there,” Wednesday says, glancing around suspiciously at the mostly empty halls. 

And she does. They sit on the floor, cross-legged, and Wednesday lays out the missing ring and the lost time last night, and how she nearly killed Bianca. She leaves out the vision of Enid drowning. Just for now, she tells herself. The visions are notoriously unreliable, everyone says so. She might be wrong, and there’s no reason to frighten Enid if she’s not sure. When she’s done talking, Enid frowns at the ground, tracing the grain of the wooden floor with her nails, and nods. 

“So what are we gonna do?”

“Well,” Wednesday starts, “given the very likely possibility that I am simply going insane, I think the best option is -”

“Why d’you think you’re going insane?”

Wednesday blinks at her. “Enid,” she says slowly, “Have you been listening?”

Enid rolls her eyes. “I know, but listen - something’s clearly wrong, and I don’t think it’s just you. If you saw the ring in a vision, that means it’s important -”

“Psychic visions are extremely unreliable -”

“Not yours! I dunno if you’ve noticed, Weds, but you’ve literally never been wrong.”

Wednesday purses her lips, the image of Enid drowning dancing behind her eyes. “I don’t see the whole picture. Also, don’t call me that.”

Enid waves her off. “Someone - a student - picked up the ring. We find out who it was, we find out what’s going on with you!”

Wednesday can’t think of much of an argument. “Fine. We’ll go to the professors and see if anyone handed it in during the cleanup. If not, we start searching rooms.” 

She stands up to grab her raincoat, swinging it around her shoulders, and something falls out of one of the pockets, clattering to the ground between her and Enid in slow motion. Her stomach turns to ice. 

“What -” Enid reaches for it. 

“Don’t touch it!” Wednesday hisses, grabbing Enid by the arm and dragging her roughly back and away from it, her mind whirring with panic.

Joseph’s Crackstone’s ring is on the floor of their room. 

Chapter Text

She doesn’t even get to enjoy Principal’s Weems’s funeral, too busy thinking about the ring, which is currently wrapped carefully in a handkerchief and hidden under a loose floorboard in her closet. Her parents attend, as does the entire student population and a surprisingly large fraction of the town. She stares at the coffin blankly, her mind going a million miles an hour. How could the ring have gotten into my coat? Someone must have put it there, but who? When? 

If it’s been in her pocket since last night, it might explain the unaccounted-for time after her walk, and maybe her attacking Bianca. Maybe. She doesn’t know exactly what it does, and she is, uncharacteristically, not eager to find out. Its existence makes the hair on the back of her neck stand up. She usually enjoys that sensation. 

Goody said that stabbing him through the heart would kill him for good, she thinks as the coffin is lowered into the ground. But it appears she was wrong, if he’s still appearing to me outside of visions. Unless I am losing my mind, she reflects. That possibility cannot be ruled out, no matter what Enid thinks. Thinking of Enid - she glances across the graveyard. Her roommate is gazing into the distance, a little wrinkle between her eyebrows that means she’s thinking hard. When the service breaks up, she heads directly for Wednesday. 

“Hey,” she says as they fall into step with each other, heading out of the graveyard. Wednesday doesn’t say anything, but she shifts her umbrella - the rain is still coming down is a miserable drizzle, perfect funeral weather - to cover Enid’s head. Enid looks up at it. “Thanks.” 

“Mm,” Wednesday says. “You’ll smell like wet dog if I leave you out in the rain.” 

Enid gives her a look. “I’m not even gonna try and figure out if you’re being nice or not.” 

“Always assume the latter.” 

Enid rolls her eyes, but she doesn’t seem particularly bothered.

“What were you thinking about?” 

“Hm?”

“During the funeral,” Wednesday clarifies. “You were thinking about something.”

“Oh,” Enid says. “How’d you know?”

“I know your expressions, Enid.” 

“Oh.” Enid turns pink. Wednesday stares at her until Enid remembers what they were talking about and stares at the ground, cheeks still reddened. 

“Uh, I saw Ajax right before it started and he said someone trashed the Nightshades library. Last night. Do you think - was it you?”

Wednesday frowns. “It’s entirely possible. What was taken?”

Enid shrugs. “Ajax didn’t know. Honestly, I don’t think they know half of what’s in there anyway. It seems like they kind of just like wearing cloaks and looking mysterious in there.”

“Perfectly respectable. But they should still maintain the library.”

They turn back towards the school along with the rest of the student body, who are mostly huddled up under shared umbrellas. Wednesday examines them suspiciously, but no one stands out as being especially likely to have slipped a cursed ring into her pocket. She and Enid lag to the back of the group and steer towards the statue of Edgar Allen Poe once they reach campus. After a cursory glance around at the empty pentagon, Wednesday snaps twice, and they hurry into the alcove. 

Ajax was, for once, not exaggerating, she thinks wryly as they reach the bottom of the stairs. The library has been tossed by someone with very little patience and a great deal of motivation. Books have been flung from shelves and onto the floor carelessly, leaving Wednesday and Enid to pick their way carefully through the disaster. 

“Cool,” Enid says. “How are we supposed to figure out what’s missing?”

Wednesday grimaces at the thought of cleaning all of this up. “This does make it less likely that it was me,” she says thoughtfully. “I memorized the contents of this library last month. If I was looking for something, I would’ve just taken it.”

“Unless you were trying to cover your own tracks,” Enid says helpfully. 

Wednesday blinks at her. “Yes. I didn’t think of that.” 

“That’s what I’m here for,” Enid says, winking at her. “Sinclair and Addams, detectives extraordinaire.”

“In that case,” Wednesday says, “You won’t mind sorting these by yourself.” Enid’s face drops. Wednesday lets her hang for a moment, and then gives in. “I’m joking. Obviously. Also, it would be Addams and Sinclair. Alphabetical.”

Enid flops down on the floor and reaches for the nearest pile of discarded books. “Uh-huh,” she says good-naturedly. “Alphabetical. Sure.”

Chapter Text

Bianca shows up to see the carnage about an hour in. “Enid, you’re not a member,” she says, chin raised haughtily. 

“Neither am I,” Wednesday says without looking up. 

“Yes,” Bianca says with great exasperation. “That’s part of my problem. Also, are you going to try to murder me again, because I want fair warning next time.”

Wednesday looks at her over the stack of necromancy books. “I cannot guarantee that I will not try to kill you ever again. However, I have dealt with the cause of the earlier incident, so if I do, it will be for unrelated reasons.”

And then, because Enid is giving her a look, she adds with some difficulty: “It was unintentional. I am. Sorry.” 

Bianca shrugs. “It’s cool.” She sounds so unexpectedly genuine that Wednesday stops what she’s doing entirely to look warily up at her. 

“It is?”

“Sure,” Bianca says. “Honestly, I know almost nothing about what’s been going on with you and even I know you’ve been through the shit. I’d probably go kind of ballistic too. And besides,” she smiles, teeth sharp. “I can clearly handle it.” 

Wednesday ignores the jab and regards her carefully. “Thank you,” she says, a little uncertain. 

Bianca waves her off. “Don’t mention it.” 

Gladly , Wednesday thinks, thoroughly uncomfortable. 

Equally unexpectedly, Bianca takes a seat in the middle of the floor and picks up a book. “What are we doing?”

Enid glances over at Wednesday, who shrugs. “Trying to figure out if anything’s missing and putting things in order. It’s supposed to be in backwards alphabetical order. Starting with N at the stairs and going anticlockwise around from there.”

Bianca blinks. “Seriously?”

“You should know this. It’s your library.”

Bianca mutters something under her breath that Wednesday pretends not to notice, but she pulls half of Enid’s pile of unsorted books towards herself and starts sorting. Between the three of them, it goes much faster, and Wednesday estimates that it’s only been half an hour when Enid gasps in excitement. “Here!”

They abandon their respective stacks and scramble to see what she’s looking at. The book is wrapped in the same dark purple leather as everything else, but there are pages missing towards the back. Bianca grabs it and frowns. “It’s necromancy,” she says doubtfully, squinting at the cramped, ancient handwriting. “Part of it is still here. Uh, something about growing skin back on a corpse, that’s gross -”

 Wednesday snatches it. “Let me see.” And then she stops, noticing something. 

“Enid.”

“Hm?”

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” Enid says innocently.

“You put your arms out. Just now. Are you asking for another hug, because those are for special occasions only.”

“They are?”

“Enid.”

“Sorry,” Enid says. “I was just - I thought it might trigger a vision or something. I was gonna catch you if you fell over.”

Wednesday narrows her eyes, but Enid beats her to the punch. “Not coddling,” she says sternly. “It’s just stupid to let you give yourself head trauma.”

Wednesday has a brief internal battle with her personal pride and wins. “Fine,” she says shortly. “Your concern is - appreciated. But not necessary.”

“You are both so weird,” Bianca says.

“Shut up,” they respond in unison. Wednesday ignores the embarrassment causing her cheeks to heat up and runs her fingers down the spine of the book where the pages are missing. Her stomach swoops unexpectedly, and she has a half second to look up at Enid and go “Oh -” before -

Crack .

The courtyard, rain pouring down - a hand brushing the metal of the ring in a raincoat pocket - the road to Jericho - the graveyard - an old headstone, a name she doesn’t recognize - a skull - the library, hands, fingernails black with dirt, yanking books from the shelves - the courtyard again, rain streaming down her face as she reads out loud - the bones, arranged carefully, taking on flesh and skin in a familiar tone - an axe from the display case in the hallway - her own face, eyes wide and blank, reflected in the glass -

She snaps back, wheezes “Not a word - from either of you -“ as she staggers, and then her knees give out and she collapses. Into Enid’s arms, which is equal parts infuriating and helpful. 

She manages not to pass out completely by sheer force of will and steadies herself after a moment, but Enid keeps her hands on her shoulders. “Touching,” she manages as the contact starts to make her skin prickle, and Enid, thankfully, understands and backs off, keeping her hands raised but not in contact just in case Wednesday keels over again. 

“Sorry,” she says, and thankfully appears to be refraining from saying I told you so . “You’re okay?”

“Excellent,” Wednesday says, waving her off. “I think I’m getting better at this.”

“I reiterate,” Bianca says, “You are both so weird.”

Chapter Text

Once she’s sure that Wednesday isn’t actively dying, Bianca ditches them to go to dinner - “some of us actually need to eat to live -” which leaves Wednesday free to tell Enid what she saw.

“Okay,” Enid says thoughtfully. “So we know what’s up with the ring - you touch it, you go take a nap while the creepy pilgrim -”

“Joseph Crackstone -”

“Uh-huh, him, he takes your body out for a drive and then you wake up once he’s done.”

“More or less,” Wednesday says. “He is also, apparently, capable of convincing people that they’re being stabbed when they aren’t. I will have to ask him about that. It seems extremely useful.” 

She’s joking. Mostly.

“There’s still the problem of how it got to me,” she says as they make their way back up to their room. “But I suppose it could have been any one of the students, and they’d have no memory of doing it.”

“And what happened with Bianca,” Enid adds.

“I took off my raincoat to spar,” Wednesday muses. “If I touched it then, it could have been activated. Although that doesn’t explain how I was conscious for most of that time. It’s like -” she frowns. “Interesting.”

“What is?” Enid asks, pushing open the door to their room.

“I wonder if he’s having trouble,” Wednesday says. 

“With possessing people? It seems like it’s going pretty well for him, honestly.”

“Mm,” Wednesday says, only half listening. “Enid, how do you feel about scientific inquiry?”

Enid feels ambivalent about scientific inquiry, it turns out, especially after Wednesday produces the handcuffs.

“Where did you even get those?”

“Enid, do you ever get tired of asking questions that you don’t want the answers to?”

Enid sighs heavily. Thing, who is riding on her shoulder, taps on it in traitorous solidarity. Wednesday glares at him. “Either you help me, or I’ll do it myself.”

“Oh my God, fine ,” Enid says. “But if anyone comes in, I am going to go to jail and it’s going to be totally your fault.”

Wednesday accepts that consequence. “You’d be running the place in a week,” she says briskly as she sits down at the foot of her bed, Enid helping her cinch the handcuffs to the rail so that she can sit comfortably while Thing scuttles to the closet to get her tongs. She tugs experimentally. The cuffs hold together, as they should. These were a souvenir from the time her Uncle Fester visited Alcatraz. 

Enid groans nervously, but she pulls on her gloves and accepts the tongs. “You so owe me for this,” she mutters as she retreats to the loose floorboard in the closet and retrieves the little wrapped package. The hair on Wednesday’s arms stands up as she unwraps it with gloved hands and uses the tongs to grab the ring. She puts a hand out, palm up. 

“And if anything goes wrong -”

“I am not agreeing to kill you.”

Wednesday pulls her hand back and gives Enid a look. “Thing would agree to it.”

“He would not .”

Thing pretends not to be listening because he is a coward. Wednesday huffs and puts her hand back out. The things she puts up with. Enid, holding the tongs out as far away from her body as she can get them, advances. The ring glitters unnaturally. Wednesday stares at it wide-eyed, jaw set to hide a sudden wave of nerves. Enid drops it into her hand.

Crack .

Her vision doesn’t change, but her whole arm seizes up, ice shooting up every nerve. Thing, who has the key to the handcuffs, scuttles backwards. Her ears ring oddly. She’s trying to stand up, she realizes, the handcuffs digging into her wrist uncomfortably as her legs move without her permission. She can hear, as if through water, fragments of someone shouting - no, it’s two people. She knows them both. Joseph Crackstone is muttering lowly, something Latin, and a higher voice responds angrily - Goody. She strains her ears to listen and catches a string of expletives in three different languages, followed by -

“- not your fucking body you piece of - get out, OUT I SAID -” 

And her hand snaps open involuntarily, the ring clattering to the floor. Wednesday drops back to the ground, breathing heavily. Enid is staring at her. “Wednesday?”

“I was right,” she says, vindicated and a little light-headed. “Ha.”

Chapter Text

Enid demands a chance to eat before, in her words, “things go to shit again.” Wednesday agrees without much fuss - although she would never admit it, the strain of the past two days is starting to make itself felt despite her attempts to ignore it. She sits on the floor while Enid goes down to raid the kitchen and leans against the foot of her bed, rubbing the fresh bruise on her wrist absentmindedly. She tries to stretch out her injured shoulder and regrets it - she heals fast, but not that fast. Thing crawls up to her wrist and taps it gently, then signs:

[OK?]

“Of course. I’ve had worse from Pugsley.”

[REST.]

“What does it look like I’m doing?”

[THINKING.]

“I can do both.”

She glances down at him. He looks, if possible for a hand, skeptical.

“Hush,” she says, lifting him up to her shoulder. “Yes, I can.”

And she does sit there, thinking, until Thing is gently tapping her shoulder and Enid is standing there with food. Wednesday scrambles to her feet, hoping her face isn’t turning red. “I wasn’t asleep.”

“I didn’t say anything,” Enid says, “But also, it would be fine if you were. You are kind of going through the shit.”

“You sound like Bianca,” Wednesday says in a desperate attempt to divert the subject. “What is that?”

Enid holds up two plates piled high with unidentifiable meat and speckled with lettuce and cheese. “It was Taco Tuesday,” she says. “And they ran out of tortillas, so. This.” 

She offers Wednesday a fork. Wednesday takes a moment to mourn her dignity silently, and then accepts it. She is hungry. 

“Well,” Enid says, once they’ve finished silently tearing the meal to shreds and Wednesday has explained, “that’s creepy.”

“What, the part where the dead colonizer is trying to possess people or the part where my dead ancestor is apparently squatting in my brain, trying to keep him out?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Yes,” Wednesday says. “It is.”

“But I still don’t get what he wants,” Enid says, picking at her teeth with one long nail. “I mean, if it was me and I got my weird ring to you, the person who killed me, I’d just knock you off right there, right?” 

“Murder is the last resort of the unimaginative.” 

“Is that Machiavelli?”

“No, it’s my great-uncle Oscar. Crackstone probably tried, actually,” Wednesday muses. “Goody interfered, so he realized he couldn’t follow through and settled for a threatening corpse. Typical pilgrim maniac behavior. The only thing that doesn’t really make sense is how Goody is still around. Spirits need a physical vessel to stay in, everyone knows that, or they can’t -”

She stops dead. 

“Wednesday?” Enid says hesitantly after a long moment of her staring into the middle distance.

“I’m an idiot.”

“Why?”

“I’m a complete and utter idiot,” Wednesday says again, not listening. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of that. My mother is going to kill me.” 

Her parents have been lecturing her and Pugsley about the proper handling of cursed items for years, right along with things like fire safety (don’t start them in the house) and talking to strangers (they’re more afraid of you than you are of them). And she, because she is a world-class buffoon, forgot to check -

“This,” she says, pulling her necklace out from under her shirt. The obsidian W glints in the light. “She’s in this.”

Enid gapes at her. “What -” she starts, but Wednesday doesn’t bother listening. She grabs the charm of the necklace with both hands and glares at it. 

“Goody Addams,” she says, “I need to talk to you.”

Nothing happens. She fumes for a moment, and then gets up and stalks over to the window and out onto the balcony. She unclips the clasp of the necklace and dangles it over the edge. It is a long drop down into the stream below, roaring with the earlier rain. 

“I am not,” she says icily, “above threats. Come out here now or spend the rest of eternity at the bottom of a lake somewhere choking on silt. Your choice.”

Nothing.

She loosens her grip on the chain, the charm slipping an inch downwards.

“Hello, Wednesday.”

She turns triumphantly. Goody is standing on the balcony, slightly transparent. 

“Hello, Goody,” she says, her tone completely calm in a way that implies painful, slow death. “Let’s chat.”

Chapter Text

“Explain yourself.”

“I am not sure what there is to explain,” Goody says. Wednesday stops pacing to glare at her. 

“You,” Wednesday says through gritted teeth, “lied to me.”

“I omitted,” Goody says blithely. “I like the mortal plane! You have a perfectly good vessel right there that you were not even using! Can you blame me for occupying it?”

“Were you ever planning on telling me that you were living in my jewelry?”

Goody hesitates for a moment, which is all the answer Wednesday needs. “Unbelievable,” she growls, resuming her pacing up and down the room. “My own ancestor -“

“I had no plans to possess you permanently, you know,” Goody interrupts. “I was perfectly content to live quietly in there and only take over at night -“

“ What? ”

“You do not even use the body at night! You never would have noticed!”

Wednesday is, uncharacteristically, rendered speechless with indignation, which allows Goody to get in the rest of her sentence. “- Except that you failed to kill Crackstone, so now here I am, trying to keep him out of your brain so he does not kill you, and you are welcome for that, by the way -“

“I did exactly what you said to do,” Wednesday hisses. “If we’re placing blame, I believe this falls squarely on you.”

Goody sniffs disdainfully. “Young people these days have no respect for their elders,” she says, apparently to herself. Wednesday doesn’t dignify that with a response, and after a moment she reluctantly says, “I underestimated his resources. He is a powerful man.” 

Wednesday decides not to waste the energy needed to think of an appropriately biting reply, so she says nothing. 

“Um, Wednesday?”

Wednesday turns to look at Enid, irritated. “What?”

“Who are you talking to?”

Wednesday stares at her. “I am talking to Goody,” she says, pointing at the specter in question. Enid blinks. 

“Okay,” she says carefully. “It’s just that there’s no one there and you’re talking to yourself.”

“Oh, so now you believe I’m going insane.”

“I didn’t say that!” Enid squeaks. “I mean, you did put it on the table first. Is - can Goody - can she hear me?”

“Yes,” Goody says, amused.

“Yes.” Wednesday relays, teeth gritted. 

“Okay. Can she, um. Ms. Addams, can you give us a sign that you’re here? Or something? That’s what ghosts do, right?” 

Wednesday rolls her eyes, but Goody smiles. “ Ms . Addams,” she says, pleased. “She’s very polite. Certainly.”

She lifts her left hand and snaps once, and Wednesday's hand, without her permission, copies the motion, and a little green flame appears over her fingers. 

Wednesday, embarrassingly, tries to jump away from her own hand, which is ineffective. Luckily, Enid is too busy doing the same thing to notice.

“Oh my God,” she says, wide-eyed. “How did you do that?” 

“I didn’t,” Wednesday insists, flicking her hand to try to get it to disappear. Goody snaps again and it vanishes in a puff of smoke. “That was her.”

“Okay,” Enid says slowly. “Okay. That’s fine. Two pieces of haunted jewelry. That’s cool. I can be normal about this.”

Goody raises her hand in a wave, and Wednesday copies her involuntarily. “Stop doing that,” she snarls, grabbing the offending arm with her free hand and forcing it back down.

“Sorry,” Goody says in a tone that shows she is not at all sorry. 

“Explain something,” Wednesday says abruptly. “The other night, when I blacked out. He was trying to kill me and you stopped him.”

“Yes, obviously. Stop touching that ring, by the way. Keeping him from killing you is not as easy as I make it seem.”

“But when I attacked Bianca, it was different. I remember it happening, for one thing.” 

“Ah,” Goody says, at least having the decency to look a little embarrassed. “Yes. That was me, not him. I was still getting settled!” She protests as Wednesday stares daggers at her. “You were upset! High emotion makes it difficult, my memories start leaking into yours. It was unintentional.”

“You are infuriating.”

“And you are irresponsible! The ring needs to be destroyed, and here you are talking back to your elders. You don’t even know how to get rid of it.”

“I was working on it,” Wednesday mutters. “You can’t rush good curse-breaking.”

Goody sighs with an air of great longsuffering. “What are they teaching in schools these days,” she says, apparently to herself. “We’ll need -” 

Someone knocks on their door. Wednesday stuffs the necklace back into her shirt and tries to look nonchalant. “Answer it.” she hisses at Enid.

“You answer it!”

“Why?”

“I don’t know! It might be a ghost or a murderer or something!”

“Enid, that’s ridiculous -”

“It’s literally not! You were just talking to - “

“Ahem,” Gomez Addams says, muffled through the wall. “I can hear you two whispering in there.”

Wednesday opens the door. “Hello, father.” 

He sweeps into the room and locates Thing with an exclamation of delight. Wednesday shuts the door behind him.

“Father,” she says, cutting across his and Thing’s elaborate handshake. “What are you doing here?”

“You didn’t hear, víborita ? The school is shutting down. Temporarily!” he hastens, as Enid goes pale and Wednesday raises her eyebrows. “Don’t worry. It’s only because of the loss of several faculty members, the unidentified dead body, and the rampant amnesia. Things will be running smoothly again in a week! I’ve come to help you with your luggage.”

Enid shoots Wednesday an unnecessary look - she heard it too. “Amnesia,” she remarks, keeping her tone cool and uninterested. “Who?”

Her father waves a cavalier hand. “Oh, barely anything interesting. Just a professor - I forget his name, big fellow with a beard, and some students. He says this boy finds something during the clean-up, brings it to him, he forgets what happens next. And then a student, he says the same professor came up and handed him something, and then he also forgets what happened next, and so on for three or four students. The police are confused, the school is confused, so everyone agrees to shut down the school while they figure out what is happening.”

Enid is practically vibrating with excitement. Wednesday folds her arms. “They don’t remember anything at all?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Gomez says. “I was hardly paying attention when the woman - your mother, Miss Sinclair, who by the way wants to know when you are finished packing - told me. Much more interesting, I think, is the dead body! Your mother thinks it is a grand gesture of romance. Should I be inclined to agree?”

“You should not.” Wednesday says flatly. “I will finish packing myself. Please go tell mother to stop spreading falsehoods about my romantic endeavors.” 

Gomez sighs dreamily. “Don’t be embarrassed, my little cloud! Why, I remember when your mother and I -” She practically pushes him bodily out of the door and closes it with a thunk. 

“They expect us out of here tonight?” Enid says incredulously. 

“Apparently,” Wednesday says, pressing her face to the peephole in their door to make sure her father is actually leaving. “Which means that our time is limited.”

She pulls out the necklace again. “All right,” she says. “What do we need?”

Chapter Text

Goody’s list of requirements is highly specific and slightly nonsensical, even to Wednesday, who’s been doing exorcisms since she was three and has most of the standard ingredients on hand in case of emergencies.

“It seems like there has to be an easier way to do this,” Enid whispers as they sneak towards the front gate of the school. Thing, riding on her shoulder, taps agreement. It’s unusually busy for this time of evening. Apparently, the knowledge that the school is shutting down has spread quickly. It seems to take an eternity of ducking behind corners and into doorways to make it outside without being noticed and stopped. 

“Take it up with the ghost,” Wednesday says grumpily. “Go on, it’s clear. I’ll meet you at the graveyard.”

She had insisted, to Enid’s confusion, on fetching the necessary components from the crypt while Enid went to the Jericho graveyard. This meant that Enid was carrying the ring on her own - except for Thing - but that was a risk that had to be taken. Enid was not going anywhere near the lake if she could help it, she thought grimly as they split apart without another word. 

Once she makes it through the gate, sneaking becomes much easier - the grounds are pitch black except for the light of a waning moon. The only sound is her boots crunching quietly through dead leaves and the faint, musical sound of frogs croaking on the shore. When she reaches the docks, lit only by a solitary yellow lamp, she stops for a moment to listen to them.

“We need to hurry,” Goody says quietly, behind her. Her spectral form has been flickering in and out of view the whole way down. 

“I know,” Wednesday says, gazing down at the stars reflected in the black water. A wave of exhaustion washes over her without warning. “I know,” she says again, half talking to herself. Goody moves a little closer. She doesn’t make a reflection in the water. 

“You’re tired,” she says gently. The tone sounds like it’s foreign to her. 

“I’m fine.”

“Yes, I know. You’re also tired.”

“I should have sent you with Enid. She doesn’t like doing things like this.”

“You care a great deal about her.”

Wednesday blinks. “I - yes.” She doesn’t have the energy to deflect right now. Goody hums thoughtfully. Wednesday shakes herself out of it and opens the boathouse door with a creak. “Let’s go.”

The canoe - checked carefully for claw puncture marks - pushes silently off into the water, Wednesday paddling as quickly and quietly as she can manage. The frogs go quiet as she passes, and then resume their song. She hits the opposite bank with a lurch and clambers out onto wet sand, her boots sinking slightly. 

The walk through the forest is unnaturally quiet. Goody flickers out of view more permanently, although Wednesday keeps catching glimpses of her through the trees. The crypt door is still ajar. Just the way she left it, she remembers, staggering out with her front drenched in blood, her innards still knitting themselves together as she walked. For a moment her feet refuse to carry her forward, and then Goody is there at her shoulder.

“Enid will be waiting for us,” she murmurs, and Wednesday propels herself onwards, jaw clenched. 

It smells like blood and formaldehyde. She breathes deeply and keeps moving, the light of the moon filtered through the window above the tomb lighting her way. Her boots crunch over broken glass from Laurel’s collection of body parts as she passes a deep blackish-red stain on the wall to her left. She doesn’t look at it too closely. She kneels at the foot of the tomb. “This?”

“Yes,” Goody replies, now just a voice in her ear. “Carefully.”

Wednesday produces her little knife and begins to pry carefully at the seal. It doesn’t budge. She pulls harder, and with a clink , the blade breaks. She huffs in frustration and tosses the useless hilt to the ground before running her fingers around the edge of the seal, trying to find a chink in the stone that she can grip onto. 

Click .

The moment her fingers come into contact with the stone, it flares up with a reddish glow that she expects to be blisteringly hot but is just vaguely warm, and she nearly drops it as it falls neatly into her hands. 

“Excellent,” says Goody’s voice. “Don’t drop it.”

“You could have told me there was a trick to it.”

She can practically hear Goody smiling. “You’ll never learn if I give you all of the answers.”

She doesn’t dignify that with an answer, and they make it all the way back to the canoe before Goody continues. “You are, for example, improving your ability to recover from your visions.”

Wednesday smiles just a little as she pushes off of the shore, and then it fades. “You said I would be alone.”

“Yes.”

“I had a vision in the Nightshades library earlier,” Wednesday says, not sure why she’s saying this but unable to stop herself. “Enid caught me.”

Goody is very quiet. They arrive back at the docks with a thunk. Wednesday wobbles a little as she disembarks, but she makes it safely back onto solid ground.

“Yes,” Goody says, a tone in her voice that Wednesday thinks might be wistfulness. “Yes, I suppose she did.”

Chapter Text

The walk to Jericho is exhausting and takes longer than it should, but she makes it, stumbling down the dark road with only the moon and Goody for silent company. Enid, with Thing perched on her shoulder, is waiting for them in the graveyard, huddled up by a statue and jumping at every little sound. Wednesday purposefully makes more noise than necessary as she approaches. 

“Oh thank God, okay. I was about to lose my mind over here. Did you find it?” Enid hisses. Wednesday holds up the seal silently, trying to hide the fact that she’s still working on catching her breath. Enid notices anyway, because she’s infuriating like that. 

“Are you okay?”

“If anyone asks me that question again -“ she has to pause for a second to breathe, “- I will not be held responsible for my actions.” 

“Uh-huh,” Enid says, unperturbed. “Listen, what if I do the setting up?”

Wednesday shakes her head. “It’s very specific -”

Goody interrupts her. “Let her do it.” 

Wednesday blinks at her. “Why?”

“Because I have no need for you collapsing in the middle of this.”

“What did she say?” Enid asks innocently. “Is she agreeing with me?”

Wednesday, convinced that she’s being ganged up on despite the fact that Enid and Goody cannot communicate with each other, grimaces but lets it go. 

“Do not possess Enid,” she says firmly, “without her explicit consent.” 

Goody crosses her heart in a way that gives Wednesday very little confidence, but Enid holds her hand out and Wednesday reluctantly drops the necklace into it. Goody vanishes from her sight, along with a slight smell of sulfur that she hadn’t even noticed was there. Enid’s eyes go wide. 

“Uh, hi,” she says, staring at a point to the left of Wednesday. “Yeah. What? No, we’re aren’t -”

“I see now,” Wednesday says grumpily, “why this was frustrating to you.”

Enid turns pink. “Sorry,” she says, to Wednesday this time. “Uh, Goody says -” she pauses and then nods, “Goody says you might as well sit and rest. I’ll take care of it.”

And Wednesday does, unwillingly, rest, huddled at the base of the statue with Enid’s coat as a pillow while Enid works. Some uncertain amount of time later she’s gently poked awake, and stifles an enormous yawn. 

“Ready?”

“I think so,” Enid says nervously, looking back over her shoulder. “Goody says it’s fine.”

Wednesday uncurls from her position to get a better look. Enid has dug a lovely grave - nice and even edges, six feet deep almost to the inch. “It’s excellent,” she says. “You’re a natural.” 

“Don’t sound so surprised,” Enid mumbles, but even in the dark, Wednesday can see her blushing.

“Can I have Goody back?”

Enid hands back the necklace with great relief. “She’s kind of scary,” she mumbles as she does so. Goody pops back into existence directly over her shoulder. 

“Thank you,” she says, smiling unsettlingly at Enid. “I can be scarier.”

 Wednesday politely chooses not to relay that information.

The rest of the setup, which she performs with Thing’s help as it requires some genuine knowledge of exorcism methodology, goes wonderfully. It reminds her of the summer she and Pugsley spent with their aunt when she was ten. 

“Wednesday,” Enid says from where she’s sitting at the base of the statue again, periodically shooting worried glances at the rising moon.

“Hm?”

“You’re humming. Is that part of it?”

“Oh. No. I’m just enjoying myself.”

“Got it.” Enid looks up again and grimaces. “They’ve probably noticed that we’re gone by now.”

Wednesday shrugs, not looking up from what she’s doing. “We’ll be fine. It’ll take ages for them to find us. Thing, move your end to the left a little. No, other left.” He obliges. She sets down her tools and wipes her hands on her pants. “Goody?”

Goody peers over her shoulder. “Not bad,” she says. “Too much pig’s blood, but there’s no accounting for taste.”

Wednesday, who thought she was being very tasteful with the pig’s blood, chooses to ignore her. 

“You’re sure this will work?”

Goody spreads her hands. “It worked last time.”

“Enid, we’re ready.”

Enid starts up nervously. “Okay,” she says, twisting her hands together. “What should I do?”

“Don’t move. Don’t speak. Breathe quietly. Or not at all, if you can manage.” Enid, looking very pale, nods and flattens herself against the statue’s base again. Wednesday turns back to face the grave, grips her necklace tight, and begins.

Chapter Text

The worst thing about it, she thinks later, is that it goes perfectly right up until the last moment. She follows Goody’s directions to the letter. The ring, carefully shaken out of its handkerchief without her touching it, hits the dirt at the bottom of the grave and doesn’t explode into a torrent of screaming souls, which her mother always says is the trickiest thing to get through in an exorcism. She takes the shovel and pours the first shovelful of dirt over the ring, and it cracks, unnaturally loud and echoing in the dark graveyard. Enid shifts a little behind her, and she does her best to block out the sound. Goody whispers phrases in a language she doesn’t recognize, and Wednesday’s mouth copies the sounds without any input from her, the smell of sulfur growing stronger. It is distinctively unsettling. She tries to lean into it.

Another shovelful of dirt, and another. “Nearly there,” Goody whispers. “Nearly - no, no, wait -”

Wednesday sees it at the same moment. The crack in the ring widens, but there is a deep and rushing whisper coming from it that grows louder and louder, splitting her head open - Wednesday drops the shovel and covers her ears - she hears Goody shriek, “He’s running - Wednesday -” 

She grabs the shovel again, gritting her teeth at the deafening rumble in her ears, and stabs it into the ground. The last shovelful of dirt splatters down onto the ring.

Crack .

Absolute silence falls, broken only by the sound of Wednesday panting. She starts to turn towards Enid, who is wide-eyed and pale but unharmed.

“Stop.” Goody hisses, and Wednesday freezes. Goody is scanning the dimly moonlit horizon frantically. “He’s still here.”

“Look -”

Wednesday spins in the direction of Enid’s point and freezes. Joseph Crackstone, transparent and floating above the space where the ring is buried, reaches forward, grasping at her - she braces for it - Enid will take care of her until Goody can get Crackstone back out of her head - she’ll be all right - but he doesn’t aim for her.

He aims for Enid.

Something ice cold rushes past her shoulder, and she turns to look, heart sinking into her stomach. Enid is just standing there. Perfectly still, staring at nothing. Wednesday takes a very slow, careful step forward, ignoring Goody’s hiss of warning. “Enid?”

Enid looks at her, expression blank. “No.”

Wednesday shoves down a wave of rising panic and tries to make her voice even and calm. “You can’t possibly think you have something to gain by remaining in there.”

Crackstone doesn’t answer. She keeps going. “Your vessel is gone. You won’t last long on this plane of existence, and you know it. Frankly, after your performance during the blood moon, I don’t know why you’d want to. It was embarrassing.”

“You,” he says viciously, “have no idea of the forces you are dealing with. You are a child .”

Goody shifts a little behind Wednesday. I hope you have a plan here, Wednesday thinks in her direction, hoping that Goody can hear her. She doesn’t get a response.

“So you’ve been body-hopping to get to me,” she says, stalling for time. “To kill me, I assume, because you have no imagination whatsoever.” He glares at her murderously. She ignores him. “But you realized that you couldn’t, because Goody is -” she taps the side of her head, “- still in here from the first time you failed to kill me, and so - what? What next?”

“Survival.”

“Oh, I see. Running away.” She takes a step forward, and he moves back. 

“Both cowardly and ineffective. And you call yourself a homicidal maniac.” He snarls at her. “Well, you can’t take that body. Her mother will be furious.” 

Another step forward. He flings Enid’s hand up, and Wednesday freezes. She hears Goody whisper “No -”

And then he stabs her in the stomach.

No, he doesn’t, Wednesday thinks, bewildered. He’s still standing over there. He didn’t move. But she can feel the knife. She looks down. Nothing is there.

“I know this isn’t real,” she says, trying to remain straight-backed. It feels very real. It feels like there’s a growing bloodstain soaking her shirtfront. It feels like there’s freezing cold metal sticking into her stomach. “You tried this trick before.”

“Oh, indeed,” he says. “But if the mind believes itself to be dying, the body follows after.” 

The knife twists. She staggers, and with inhuman speed Enid closes the distance between them, shoving her while she’s off balance. She goes over backwards into the open grave, the wind knocked completely out of her. She lays there helplessly, trying to convince air to flow back into her lungs, and Enid’s shadow falls over her. Thing, ripped off of Enid’s shoulder, lands with a thud next to her.

“Enid -” she manages to say, and then Crackstone twists Enid’s hand and there’s a horrible creaking sound rumbling through the dirt around her. Ancient, half-rotted wood bursts from the ground an inch from her head and wraps itself up and over, and before she can blink she’s sealed into near-perfect darkness. Oh, it’s a coffin , she thinks dizzily. He’s burying me alive. That is more imagination than I gave him credit for . She can see, through gaps between twisted bits of tree root and old wooden planks, little bits of starlight. She’s still bleeding - no. No, that’s not true, she reminds herself. She only thinks she is. She thinks it so much that she can taste iron on her tongue and feel it dripping off of her fingertips when she presses them to the top of the coffin and tries, futilely, to break through it.  

“Enid, can you hear me?” 

Thunk .

Little streams of dirt trickle in through the cracks as the first shovelful of dirt lands on top of the coffin. Another thump, and another. She can hear the shovel stabbing into the dirt with mechanical regularity. What little view of the stars that she has through the cracks in the wood is rapidly disappearing. She stops wasting her breath. Enid can’t hear her.

Chapter Text

After a few minutes, the increasingly muffled sound of dirt hitting the wood above her stops, and it is very quiet. Blood is starting to soak the wood of the coffin underneath her. There is a long moment of silence filled only by the sound of her labored breathing and Thing scrabbling around, looking for a gap wide enough to escape through. He doesn’t find one.

Goody speaks. “Wednesday, get up.”

“I can’t. I’m dying. Again.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Goody says briskly. “I’ve been in your memories. You and your brother have been burying each other alive since you were old enough to hold the shovel.”

“Not with stab wounds,” Wednesday grits out. 

“It’s not a real stab wound.”

“Oh, it’s not real, I hadn’t noticed.” Wednesday hisses venomously. “How very helpful, Goody Addams, I’m miraculously cured. I’ll just get up now.”

“You ought to,” Goody says with infuriating calm. “Your werewolf is going off without you.”

“She isn’t my anything.”

“Mm,” Goody says. 

Wednesday fumes silently. She is going to find Goody’s grave and plant tulips on it. She is going to go to her mother’s private library and find a way to kill someone who’s already dead. She is going to yank Goody’s spirit out of her body with her own two hands and shove it into the Nevermore boy’s toilet. 

“No you aren’t,” Goody says.

Wednesday strangles a scream of impotent rage. Her leg jerks out, kicking the end of the coffin with a muffled thunk, the impact of which sends a flash of white-hot pain racing up her body. Hot tears squeeze their way out of the corners of her eyes and race down her cheeks. “ I can’t,” she wheezes.  

“Wednesday,” Goody whispers, “It’s all right. Open your eyes.”

“They are open,” Wednesday chokes, but she’s not really sure. Her vision is going, she thinks. Black and staticky at the edges. 

“It’s illusion magic, Wednesday. He shows people things that aren’t there - monsters, death, until they believe him. Until they burn their own families to keep themselves safe from the things he makes them think are there. But you are a seer. A very good one, if you are of my blood.” 

Goody’s voice is getting farther away and more urgent. “You want truth, Wednesday. I see it in your memories. You chase it until it gives up, you nearly kill your friends, yourself, to catch it, and now here it is in front of you and you won’t even look at it. Get up , Wednesday Addams. I’m trying to save your life, all you have to do is look, and you’ll see. Look -”

And Wednesday, furious tears running down her cheeks, uses her last iota of strength to lift her head just an inch and she sees, in the near-perfect darkness, the blurry outline of her fist pressed to the gory mess that is her abdomen. “It isn’t real,” she whispers out loud, and Goody’s quiet voice overlaps her own. “It isn’t real.” 

She forces her deadened fingers apart and presses her palm flat into the wound hard , and as her lungs seize with the pain she sees it, overlaid on top of the blood, flickering in and out of existence - a mess of greenish-blue magic, twisting like a snake, showing her something that isn’t there -

The forest goes dead silent when the first hand, covered in grime, scratched and bleeding, bursts from the freshly turned earth. 

The second hand follows. Then an elbow, and a shoulder, and Wednesday Addams claws her way out of the grave, heaving for breath, cold and murderous and spitting dirt. 

She staggers to her feet and wipes her mouth on her sleeve, and stands there swaying for a moment. The rest of the illusion sloughs off of her and onto the ground. She’s not dying. Enid needs her.

“We need to find him,” Goody’s voice whispers. 

“I know where he is.”

The run back to the lake is mostly a blur. Goody takes over control of her legs when they start giving out at some point, which she’s too winded to voice appreciation for. When she reaches the main road, a passing car swerves and nearly goes completely off the road at the sight of her, thus spawning a local urban legend centered around the ghost of a horribly murdered girl in the woods who rose from her grave and stalks the woods looking for revenge. She doesn’t notice.

She does, however, have the presence of mind to drop Thing off as they near the gates of the school. 

[ GET HELP ], she signs at him, too out of breath to say it out loud.

[ WHO? ]

[ ANYONE .]

He turns and scuttles off at top speed without another word. She does the same, and after another minute of desperate running she bursts out of the underbrush at the docks. Enid is there. Her heart sinks - her roommate is pushing off of the dock. There is a moment in which Enid’s eyes flick upwards towards the movement and she thinks she sees a little flicker of recognition in them, and then her face goes flat again as she rows away from them.

“Throw the necklace,” Goody says. 

“But -”

“Do it!”

Wednesday yanks it off of her neck and chucks it with all her strength. It lands, by a small miracle, squarely into the drifting boat. Crackstone has a split second to look down at it and say “What -” before it explodes. 

Wednesday ducks instinctively, watching stunned as white light erupts from the bottom of the boat and wraps around Enid. Goody appears in the boat. 

“Hello,” Goody says calmly. “My granddaughter wants her friend back. Now.”

And she reaches out and pushes her hands through Enid’s chest, and as they emerge on the other side Wednesday sees Crackstone, ethereal and shrieking, propelled backwards by some unseen force, and then Goody grabs him by the collar and gives Wednesday a glance back and a grin so chilling it could’ve killed a lesser Addams, and then there is a deafening whoosh and they’re both gone.

The lake ripples out from the center of the boat, little waves lapping quietly at the dock where Wednesday is standing, frozen. The frogs have gone completely silent. She meets Enid’s eyes, which are wide with shock, and then all at once Enid is crumpling over like a leaf in the wind and she goes toppling into the water without a sound before Wednesday can so much as take a step towards her.

“No -“

Wednesday bolts to the very edge of the dock and drops to her knees, scanning the black water desperately. Her heartbeat rushes into her ears, drowning out the silence around her with pure and unfiltered panic. Enid doesn’t resurface. Wednesday grits her teeth and jumps.

Chapter Text

The water is very cold. She has to bite down on a gasp that would let icy water stream into her lungs and struggles to orient herself. She can see Enid, her eyes closed, drifting away from her in the filtered moonlight. Unacceptable. Wednesday flails frantically and manages to propel herself downward. 

The water gets murkier and dimmer as she goes down and down, chasing Enid’s receding figure, until - 

She catches up just as they reach the bottom, grabbing Enid under the arms, and then it becomes apparent exactly how much trouble they are in. 

The lake is, relatively speaking, not very deep. She can see, faintly, glimmers of moonlight flickering above her. She knows with perfect, horrible certainty as soon as she looks up that she will never reach them in time. Enid is dead weight, and she is already so tired. She will be lucky to get herself back to the surface. She will not be able to carry both of them.

Wednesday grits her teeth and tries anyway.

Her first push off of the bottom of the lake gets the two of them about three feet off the bottom, and then, despite her best efforts at thrashing upwards, they begin to sink. She tries again. Five feet. They sink. Her lungs seize involuntarily, looking for air, and she clamps her jaw to keep it closed. Again. Only three feet this time. Enid is not moving. Again. Staticky darkness is circling the edges of her vision. Again. A few inches. Her boots hit the bottom again, weighing her back down. She doesn’t have time to unlace them. It wouldn’t be enough even if she did.

She is crying, she realizes. Hot tears mixing with the cold water. It doesn’t matter. No one will ever see them. Enid needs her. She tries again. She nearly screams with frustration, yanking Enid upwards as hard as she can with one arm and paddling furiously with the other, but she isn’t strong enough. Drowning in a few feet of muddy pond water, she thinks furiously. 

You could let go, a little voice says. She wants to think that it’s Goody. It isn’t. It’s just her. You might even make it to the surface if you only had your own weight to carry. I don’t care, she thinks, incandescent with rage. They sink together back to the bottom of the lake. 

“Enid,” she tries to say without opening her mouth. It comes out muffled and incomprehensible. “Enid, wake up.” She grabs Enid’s face with both hands. “Enid -” Nothing. She might already be dead. Wednesday’s lungs are burning more fiercely. She tries again. “Enid, help me.” Nothing. 

Wednesday grabs her by the lapels and shoves upwards with a muffled grunt of exertion, her boots squishing into the lake bed. Enid floats upwards a few inches, propelled, and then comes to a slow rest, almost upside down. Her hair is swirling around her head in a perfect greenish-gold halo. Spirals of silt, disturbed by Wednesday’s frantic attempts, swirl around the two of them, illuminated by pale beams of watery moonlight. Wednesday reaches out and touches one limp hand as it floats in front of her, and then, only half knowing what she’s doing, laces her fingers through Enid’s. The bottom of the lake is getting dimmer. She squeezes Enid’s hand.

Enid squeezes back. 

Wednesday nearly gasps and chokes herself to ignominious death-by-pond-water then and there. Enid’s eyes are unfocused and vague, but they are open, and her legs begin slowly, instinctively to kick. Wednesday, electrified, propels herself up to Enid’s level and points. Up , she thinks, tugging on Enid’s hand, hoping desperately that she’s conscious enough to get the message. Swim up, you ridiculous werewolf, or I swear to everything I hold dear - 

Enid gets it. Wednesday, dark spots crowding her vision, propelled by sheer adrenaline, does her best to help, and between the two of them, thrashing and kicking, they begin to rise towards the surface. Enid is an excellent swimmer. Wednesday’s oxygen-starved brain also helpfully provides the fact that she is absolutely gorgeous. I have no idea what I’m supposed to do with that information , she thinks dizzily, and then they’re breaking the surface and there is air in her lungs and she and Enid are clinging to each other like there’s nothing else in the world. 

“Swim,” she chokes as soon as she has control over her lungs again, and Enid manages a nod. Somehow, with a fistful of Enid’s coat clenched in Wednesday’s numb fingers and Enid’s claws digging into her forearm, they make it into water shallow enough to stand up in, and then shallow enough to kneel in, and then they are collapsing onto wet sand together. Wednesday does not let go. Neither does Enid, although she does roll over to vomit about a gallon of water onto the sand. 

“I feel,” Wednesday manages once Enid has finished and is collapsing back onto the sand, out of breath, “that I should have told you earlier in our relationship that I am not a strong swimmer.”

“Oh my God,” Enid rasps. “What was your plan during Poe Cup?”

“Easy,” Wednesday says, staring up at the sky and trying valiantly not to pass out. “Don’t get sunk.”

“Unbelievable,” Enid says.

Wednesday looks over at her. “I’m sorry.” 

Enid reaches her free hand over without looking and blindly pats Wednesday’s arm. “S’okay.”

Wednesday sits up abruptly. Enid blinks at her. “You were trying to protect me,” she says, a little surprised by the force in her own voice, and softens her tone. “You did protect me. I put you in danger again.” 

Enid just looks at her, and Wednesday is surprised to find that she can’t read the expression on her face. “I wanted to be there,” Enid says softly.  “With you.” 

Wednesday carefully lays down again next to Enid before her body decides that it’s done for the night and gives out on her, and gropes for her hand. Enid lets her take it. 

“Thing went for help.”

“That’s good. I don’t wanna get up.”

“No, neither do I.” 

They lay there in silence for a moment, hands clasped in between them. The skin contact sends occasional chills up Wednesday’s spine, but they aren’t unmanageable. 

Enid holds their hands up in between them. Wednesday turns her head a millimeter to look. Enid is grinning faintly.

“Special occasions?” Enid says.

“Mhm,” Wednesday replies. “Don’t get too comfortable. I’m saving up to give you a hug on your birthday.” She pauses. “Tell no one I said that.”

“Okay,” Enid says. 

The entire school is going to know by tomorrow. Wednesday, exhausted beyond belief, soaked to the bone, and with her reputation under immediate threat, squeezes Enid’s hand gently and smiles up at the sky.