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Jericho High School was over a hundred years old. No one would have doubt it, at least based on the view from the street. The building was constructed out of a slightly-crumbling, rust-red brick that could pass for respectable about one month out of the year when it was given a power wash at the end of August, right before all the students returned for the first day of classes. But there was nothing to be done about the pair of eroding lion statues flanking the front doors. They were originals from some class in the 1910s and deemed historically significant so no one wanted to move them. Sitting and rotting on their pedestals was their fate. They were done the service of having the moss and ivy scraped off of them, but that was it, and it probably for the best. Tyler was pretty sure anything stronger than a garden hose would knock their heads right off their bodies.
If the outsides of Jericho High were less than ideal, its insides were at least of the twenty-first century. In the last decade, after the requisite amount of money had gone to fixing the roads, cleaning up the parks, and propping up small businesses in town, there was enough of a surplus to go towards education in the area, and the Jericho School District pounced at the opportunity. All of the classrooms received fresh desks and chairs. These ones didn’t wobble anymore. Away went the outdated tech, replaced with smart projectors and boards. No more sneezing fits from chalk dust. Lockers didn’t get jammed anymore and the water fountains actually had enough pressure so kids didn’t have to put their mouths perilously close to the spout to get a drink. The gym got a sparkling, mint condition floor. The district went so far as to throw a bone to the artistic students that were typically ignored whenever funding came through and renovated the performing arts center so it had theater seating, a new lighting system, and decent acoustics.
Despite the facilities, school was thirty-five hours of tedium a week for Tyler. Ever since he had come back from the bootcamp, he had felt out of place at Jericho High. He had lost touch with his old crowd. Not that he necessarily minded—they were never great company to begin with, but without them he had not much to do other than put his head down and work, though that was the whole point of school, he supposed.
He was trying. Coming into this school year, Tyler decided he would put more thought into his academics than he had in the past, a resolution that was met with varying degrees of success. Staying after class to talk and connect with teachers wasn’t much of an obligation now that he was a junior and allowed to drive to and from campus, no longer beholden to the strict bus schedule. He liked English and chemistry enough. French was a mixed bag and as for pre-calculus…Tyler knew a lost cause when he saw one. As long as he averaged a C, he was happy.
Functions, function composition, inverse functions—it was all the same to him. While Mrs. Lamb wrote drew a wavy graph and plotted data points on it, Tyler drew a chessboard in his notebook, penciling in alternating cells in the gridded paper. Just ten more minutes and then he’d get a brief reprieve at lunch.
“All right, here’s the homework for tonight,” Mrs. Lamb said, an announcement that perked Tyler up. It was her sign that they could begin packing up for the period. He jotted down their assignment in his planner and swung his backpack around to open it—
“Holy shit—!”
A titter of laughter sounded among his classmates as Tyler sprang back from his bag. Mrs. Lamb frowned at him from under her glasses. “Would you like to repeat that, Tyler?”
Tyler stared in his backpack, where Thing sat on his books and binder, hidden from everyone else in the room. He held a folded piece of paper between his index and middle fingers up in the air. “Uh—no—sorry, Mrs. Lamb,” Tyler managed, unable to tear his eyes away from the hand. “Won’t happen again.”
“Mm-hm. See that it doesn’t, please,” Mrs. Lamb said sternly.
Thing flexed his fingers, as if he was about to move, but Tyler shook his head slightly—he didn’t need a disembodied hand crawling out onto his desk in full view of his peers and teacher.
Next to him, Elizabeth Carmichael grinned smugly, showing off her full mouth of braces. “Why so jumpy, Tyler?” she said, organizing her books neatly in a stack. “It’s not even Halloween yet.”
“Those Nevermore freaks are rubbing off on him,” Jonah sneered as he pushed past Tyler to get up the aisle. “Literally.”
Tyler blinked and looked up from his backpack. “What’d you just say?” he challenged. Jonah, standing among the other students congregated around the door waiting for the bell to ring, only smirked, turning the corners of his mouth—and Tyler’s stomach. The bell might have covered up a second reprimand from Mrs. Lamb, but if she was in the middle of one, Tyler paid no attention. He threw his belongings into his bag, knowing he must have hit Thing in the process based on feeling a few disgruntled knocks against his back. At the moment, though, Tyler didn’t care. Once he had cleared Mrs. Lamb’s threshold, he spotted Jake in the throng of the corridor and grabbed him roughly by the shoulder.
“What the hell’s your problem?” he snapped.
Jake’s mouth fell open in disbelief. “What’s my problem? My problem?”
“What, you’re going to tell me you don’t have one? Because it seems like you do,” Tyler argued.
Jake scowled. “All right, you want to know? You screwing that Nevermore psycho with the braids at their freak prom, that’s what my problem is,” Jake shot back. “That’s messed up, man.”
It was such a ludicrous charge Tyler couldn’t react immediately—is that what this was about? Some moronic, fabricated story about him and Wednesday? He might have laughed if it didn’t rile him up so much. He didn’t need this crap, especially when it was so patently ridiculous.
In a manner of speaking, the attack wasn’t surprising. Tyler was used to being the punching bag now and it had always been open season on the outcasts. Not in this way, though. There was a baseness to the words that infuriated Tyler with an anger so hot he could have hit the kid right there. This time last year, he would have, would have left him flat on his back with a bloody nose. But he wasn’t going to be that person anymore. Fighting against the urge, Tyler tamped his fury down—though only to an extent.
“First of all, you’re a dumbass, you know that?” Tyler said. “And second of all, do you really have nothing better to do with yourself than talk shit about something that didn’t even happen at a dance that was over two weeks ago? Get a fucking life.”
He left Jonah standing in the hall and descended the staircase, keyed up and his heart racing. He was supposed to be finding a place to eat before they were all taken, but he was too pissed off to contemplate such a trivial task. Instead, Tyler pushed open one of the doors leading to the quad and stepped outside. Although the weather was crisp this time of year, it was still warm enough that students took over the picnic tables to lunch in the fresh air. More than a few of them tried to sneak a peek at Tyler once they registered he was there and then quickly avert their eyes, in some artificial display of embarrassment, but their attempts at surreptitiousness were pointless so long as they didn’t shut up. Like a game of telephone, the whispers followed him down the courtyard, passing from student to student, table to table—
“Tyler and that Nevermore girl—!”
“Lucas said they were dancing together the entire time…”
“If you can call that dancing…the way he described it?“
“More like a reanimated corpse…”
“Well, Tyler seemed to like it…”
“Oh, he liked it all right. A little bit too much, if you ask me.”
“What do you mean?”
“Have you talked to Jamie? He said he heard he was there all night. All night.”
“No—! Just to get with…Wednesday Addams? Ugh. No thank you!”
A group of girls at the table nearest to him giggled—and sobered up quickly when Tyler stopped and glared at them. His ire was prickling him again. He ignored it and headed to the far side of the courtyard, pacing back and forth until he felt his temper settle. He should have never been provoked in the first place; it wasn’t worth the trouble or the risk of being written up.
Tyler slumped down onto one of the steps lining the quad and surveyed the other students, grouped together in their iron-clad packs that they had established weeks ago. He heard their empty chatter and chortling bouncing off the flagstones as if jeering at him, the only engagement he had with his classmates these days. He sighed and dropped his head for a second, staring at the pavement. If trying to be a better person meant he was relegated to being the school’s loner, so be it. At least the day was half over.
He had food in his backpack, but he didn’t feel like eating. He probably would have sat there until the bell rang again if not for the severe poking he felt in his back. Then Tyler remembered.
“Oh—dammit.”
He hadn’t yet opened the bag completely when Thing scuttled out, his middle finger held squarely in Tyler’s face. “Sorry—“ Tyler said quickly, ensuring no one was nearby to see him. “I forgot, okay? I’m not used to a random hand following me around.”
The finger remained in the air for a second longer before Thing reached into the backpack and fetched the paper he had been grasping. Tyler recognized it as Wednesday’s stationery by the black and cream color scheme. He unfolded it:
Courtyard flagpole. 11:30.
In other words, right now. Tyler glimpsed the time on his phone, and then the flagpole, just a dozen yards away from him and surrounded by a short, waist-high circular hedge. It was deserted, but knowing Wednesday, Tyler would have bet she was probably crouched somewhere behind the greenery. He approached slowly, checking the entire beam’s vicinity. He had nearly finished a complete circuit and was wondering if she was late when he sensed a brush of movement behind him. When he whipped about, Wednesday stood inches from him, assessing him from those dark eyes as usual.
“Jesus Christ—“ Tyler sighed. “If I end up getting a heart attack one of these days, I’m sending you the hospital bill.”
“Fine,” Wednesday said. “The heart is the hardest-working muscle in the body. I’ve always wanted to beat it.”
She certainly had a knack for turning the morbid into a virtue, if her perspective could be called virtuous. Tyler let himself indulge in his amusement briefly, until reality stepped in. Here Wednesday was, at Jericho High in broad daylight, seemingly unconcerned with the impropriety of it all. The juxtaposition was so odd he could hardly believe it, even though she was right in front of him.
“Uh—Don’t you have class?” Tyler asked.
“It’s my free period right now,” Wednesday said.
“Okay—you know you can’t be here without a visitor’s pass, right?” He wasn’t trying to get rid of her, but Wednesday always seemed to be living life on thin ice with the powers-that-be at Nevermore. Tyler didn’t want to be the one to sink her into the water.
“So if anyone catches me, they’ll report me to Weems, and she’ll give me an earful and send me to my room,” Wednesday said with admirable nonchalance. “I have bigger to fish to fry than to worry about a woman that I’ve eluded more than once already.”
Tyler shook his head ruefully. She wouldn’t be turned away so it was useless to try. “Guess I forgot who I’m talking to. So—why are you here? Must be urgent, if it couldn’t wait.”
“Two reasons.” She held up a paper bag. “This has been in my room since the Rave’n.” Tyler took it and peered inside—nestled at the bottom was the black coat he had worn over his suit that evening when he surprised her for the dance. Before they had left Ophelia Hall, Tyler had given it to Wednesday to store in her room until the night was over. With all the chaos that ensued, he never ended up retrieving it. He whistled and let out a relieved breath.
“Nice. Well, you saved my skin with this one. My dad would have killed me if it never turned up again. He’s already pissed everything else got ruined…”
“You didn’t tell him where it was?”
“I said I took it get it dry cleaned,” Tyler admitted, shrugging.
“Lucky it didn’t get any paint on it then,” Wednesday said. She peered over Tyler’s shoulder. “Oh look. Your classmates have arrived.”
Tyler followed her gaze. Lucas, Carter, and Jonah were huddled in the corner of the quad, glowering at them all the while. At their distance, Tyler couldn’t quite make out their faces, but the subject of their discussion could not be clearer.
“Yeah…I’m sorry they ruined the Rave’n for you guys,” Tyler apologized.
“Well, I wouldn’t go that far,” Wednesday said. “But Carrie’s overdone at this point. If they had any real creativity, they would have taken a page out of du Maurier’s book, not King’s.”
“What—by burning the place down?” Tyler said.
Wednesday smiled to herself. “Putting them face-to-face with their most tortured truth. That’s the real way to terrify someone. ”
“I think that’s beyond their ability,” Tyler said. “Might come as a surprise, but those guys, they’re not the smartest people that Jericho High ever saw.”
“You’re still friends with them?”
Tyler peered sideways at the trio. He could sense their judgement from here. Normally it felt like a heavy weight, but today it was more like an annoyance, an intrusion in his conversation with Wednesday. “Not anymore,” he muttered.
“Then why do they care so much who you’re talking to?” Wednesday said. “See, they’re coming now.” She nodded at them, but when Tyler caught sight of her as he turned to face them, her expression was more of dark anticipation than anything else, enjoying the prospect of easy prey. When they came even, they all squared off, measuring each other wordlessly.
“Didn’t think I’d see it in the flesh,” Carter said at last. “Coming all this way just to give Galpin a present—so you really are his Nevermore psycho, huh?” He jerked his chin at Wednesday.
“Thought you’d at least be hot,” Jonah said.
Tyler bit his tongue to keep himself from smiling. For people who acted as if they knew the latest news about Wednesday, they didn’t understand the first thing about her if they presumed insulting her appearance was going to be a stinger.
Wednesday surveyed the boys, her disdain evident. “I don’t consider myself to be anyone’s, but it’s nice when incels don’t waste my time and are up front about their misogyny. At least then I know who I’m dealing with.”
“This is our turf, freak,” Carter said. “Our school. Get lost.”
“It takes a special kind of ignorance to complain about the merits of territory after you yourselves trespassed on Nevermore property to pull an amateurish prank not one month ago,” Wednesday replied. “But I guess it’s too much to expect any self-reflection from your kind.”
“You outcasts deserved it,” Carter said. “Just like what you’ll deserve if you stick around here.”
“You heard him, freak—get outta here,” Jonah said.
“Why don’t you take your own advice, Jonah,” Tyler cut in. “She’s not bothering anyone. Or did you forget what happened the last time you tried to tell her what to do?”
“You want to try me again?” Wednesday dared them with a relish. “I could use the warm up before fencing.”
“You—“ Jonah took a step toward her, his foot crunching into the bag Wednesday had brought for Tyler. Distracted, he glanced down and then snorted. “What the hell’s in this, anyway—“ He seized it off the ground and stuck his hand inside and found the garment. He inspected it, eyebrows furrowed, nonplussed, until a realization seemed to dawn on him. His eyes darted from the coat to Tyler to Wednesday, ugly revulsion disfiguring his already-twisted features even further.
“Oh, fuck this—“ As if he was carrying a live grenade, he threw the jacket back at Tyler. “I knew it. You’re fucked up, Galpin,” Jonah snarled, pointing at them. “Goddamn freaks, the both of you. Come on, let’s go—“ He gestured to Carter, retreating towards the refuge of the commons and shouting abuse up to the sky as they went.
It was no less than anything he could have expected. Tyler’s reputation was already at an all time low at this point, so any smear campaign that Jonah and Carter wanted to propagate hardly mattered. At this point, Tyler was just fed up with the stupidity of it all, and of his classmates. He followed their backs with contempt. They had known each other for years, but now he could just feel shame that he’d ever called them friends. Only Lucas remained, awkwardly caught in the middle, and Tyler was reminded of what he had overhead among the picnic tables. He took his chance.
“What the heck have you been saying about what went down at the Rave’n?” Tyler demanded.
“Nothing!” Lucas burst out. “Just that you and Wednesday were there together; I swear—“
“That’s all?”
“That’s all!”
“Then what’s with all this other crap they’re talking about?”
“I don’t know!” Lucas insisted. “It’s high school, man. What do you expect?”
He had a point. Tyler knew from experience how easily rumors proliferated and were inflated in the student ecosystem. It practically ran on half-truths and misinformation. Still, he didn’t like the idea of the talk involving Wednesday, if for selfish reasons and nothing else since he was aware that she couldn’t care less about the opinions of normies like Jonah and Carter. But if the hearsay spread and his dad caught wind of it, there would be hell to pay—even if it was just some bogus gossip parroted by his old friends.
“If you know they're full of shit then I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t mind setting the record straight the next time you hear it, all right?” Tyler said.
“Okay, okay, I will,” Lucas said. “Listen, I’m sorry I said anything at all.” Strangely enough, he sounded remorseful to the extent that Tyler believed him. He recalled Lucas was doing volunteer work at Nevermore to make up for his part in the whole paint debacle. He sighed.
“Okay, whatever,” Tyler said. “I’ll see you later.”
Relieved to end the conversation, Lucas wasted no time departing. Wednesday had not said anything all, but Tyler was sure she had been following everything. Clever curiosity animated her countenance, which was also still slightly pinched in scorn. He braced himself for her questions, but they didn’t come. Once Lucas had disappeared inside, a professionalism took over and she was quick to return to the business-like demeanor she often adopted.
“If we could get back to the situation at hand—” she said pointedly. “Where’s your father? I’ve been to the station today and yesterday and he was gone each time. The deputy wouldn’t tell me where he was.”
“Yeah, he’s in Montpelier,” Tyler said.
The statement seemed so unexpected Tyler almost discerned the surprise crack her typically reliable seriousness. “Did he happen to forget there’s a monster killing people here?” Wednesday said.
“Hey, trust me, he didn’t want to go,” Tyler assured her. “It’s a case from the summer that’s finally going to trial. He has to testify.”
“When will he be back?”
“Thursday. You’ll be able to talk to him the day after.”
Wednesday huffed, plainly not satisfied with his answer, but there wasn’t anything she could do. “Fine. If he comes back early, I want to know.”
“How—“
“The Weathervane,” Wednesday interrupted, anticipating his uncertainty on how he would contact her when she didn’t have a phone. “I’ll come in the afternoons.”
“Great,” Tyler said, amused. “Anything else?”
Wednesday frowned at him, silently. Obviously, there was; he knew there was. She was mulling over what to say.
“What was your classmate referring to just now? When he saw your coat, what you thought Lucas was telling the others.”
Tyler pulled a face and looked at the ground, shoving his hands into his pockets. “He knows I went to the Rave’n with you.”
“That’s not what I was thinking of. Why would that be so controversial when it’s the truth?”
Tyler considered her nervously, unsure of how she would take what he would say next. “Because apparently everyone thinks we hooked up that night.”
Wednesday’s face changed from mild interest to then one of confusion. She then glanced to the side as she pondered what she had just heard. “And what would give him such an asinine impression?”
“That’s what I wanted to know from Lucas,” Tyler said. “But it sounds like it’s just a product of the rumor mill. And I guess Jonah saw you had my jacket, as if I had left it in your room the morning after and you were giving it back to me. Why that confirms anything is a mystery to me, but…”
“You did leave it in my room,” Wednesday deadpanned.
“Not in that way,” Tyler countered. “I didn’t even go past your door. Not that anyone here cares…They eat this type of stuff up.”
For the first time, Wednesday seemed to realize where they were. She scanned the courtyard, studying the boys and girls in their lunchtime cliques like a scientist observing a new species.
“They’ll lose interest soon,” she concluded, unimpressed with her surroundings. “Rumors need time to reach critical mass and then…they die. This is just the latest amusement for them to fill the days of their miserable existences. Teenagers are notoriously mercurial with what they obsess over.” Then her eyes flickered over Tyler. “Most of them, anyway.” It was as close to a compliment she would get to.
“I hope you’re right,” he said. “I just wish they didn’t have to drag you into it.”
“Well, it doesn’t make any difference to me,” Wednesday said, not the least concerned. “But I do have ways to silence people, if need be.”
“What, like cutting out their tongues?” Tyler guessed sarcastically. But her eyes glinted with pleasure at his suggestion.
“No. But it’s an excellent idea.”
“Well, I’d hate for you to get arrested for bodily mutilation again. I have a feeling they’d transfer you to a mental institution instead of just another school if that happened,” Tyler said. “So no silencing required. Like you said…they’ll forget about it eventually.”
“A shame,” Wednesday said. She regarded the students for a second longer and then fixed her eyes on Tyler. “That’s all I really wanted to know.”
“Then I’ll see you next time at the Weathervane,” Tyler said. “Thanks for stopping by.”
“Thanks for the info. I’ll expect to be kept updated.”
“You will be,” Tyler said.
They gazed at each other, unmoving. Tyler wondered if she needed directions on how to leave, but just as suddenly as the thought occurred to him, she walked passed him without another word towards the commons. He watched her march up the courtyard through the other students even as they all stopped eating to stare and snicker at her, unfazed by their scrutiny and not-so-subtle whispers.
Tyler wanted to be impressed, but he had seen this enough times from her now to know it wasn’t some grand act of bravery or pride. It was just Wednesday.