Chapter Text
CHAPTER ONE: tearing up everything.
Wednesday has already decided that Nevermore is not somewhere she wants to be. The majority of that decision is based on her parents desire for her to attend, but a small part of it (and it is only small,) is because everyone around her makes her want to drown herself in acid. The gash on her forehead only serves as proof of her own self-pity. She’d let someone popular get the better of her. She’d been beaten. Wednesday can’t deny that she loves a challenge, but losing, that was something she did not like having to handle. Sitting in the infirmary like a child who falls face first into concrete. That was someone she’d never been. She’d always been the girl pushing someone into the dirt.
“You’re Wednesday, right?”
A voice from across the room snaps her from her thoughts. It’s the boy Bianca had beaten before her. Scrawny, skewed glasses, bruises covering each inch of his arms. Bianca seems to have beaten him badly. If he wanted to share comradery in the loss, he wasn’t going to find solace in her.
“I’m Rowan. I know how you feel.”
She glares at him.
“I guarantee you don’t.”
Despite her unfriendly attitude, the boy remains undeterred.
“I didn’t think it was possible to be an outcast in a school full of outcasts. Maybe you’ll give me a run for my money.”
For a split second, Wednesday’s brow raises in excitement. Giving people a run for their money is what she was best at.
“No good deed goes unpunished.”
Grabbing her coat, Wednesday makes a beeline for the exit, but Rowan catches her hand. Without warning, her head falls back and she’s plunged into a cold night.
Blood. Entrails. A lifeless body on concrete. An inhaler and a pair of glasses left by their now deceased owner. Rowan.
Her head falls back into place, eyes darting around the room frantically as Rowan and the nurse look at her, frightened.
“Are…are you okay?”
She shakes her hand from his grasp.
“Fine.”
She’s well aware that the clicking of her typewriter infuriates Enid to an impossible degree. Even the scratching of claws against the window and the growls that slip from her roommate’s throat do not deter her. Even when Wednesday is writing nothing but drivel, when the words blur together and it ceases to make sense, she does not stop. Mary Shelley will not beat her. Viper De Le Muerte wouldn’t stop writing, so neither will she. Even when nothing she’s writing is making any sense.
With an agitated sigh, she pushes the chair, which lets out a grating noise, out from the desk and abruptly stands.
“Had enough?” Enid asks from across the room, relief dripping from her words. The room stinks of nail polish as Enid blows on her cuticles casually.
“Inspiration evades me.”
“You’re not still sulking about Bianca Barclay, are you?”
“I would never let such a transparently insecure queen bee such as her get under my skin.”
“Right…”
“I just don’t like to lose.”
She pauses for a moment. “What do you know about Rowan Laslow?”
Enid scrunches her face up in thought, before her words spill over with gossip Wednesday can’t help but wince at.
“Zavier Thorpe’s roommate. He has telekinesis, but he’s also a weird loner. Virtually no friends, no social media presence. He’s sort of like you.” She then rushes towards Wednesday excitedly. “Why, are you forming some weird kindred spirit type crush?”
Wednesday’s lips curl into a snarl.
“Romance is beneath me.”
Her roommate quirks a brow. “Then why so interested?”
She thinks back to the vision. Rowan, who looked so normal in front of her, lying on the concrete with his throat gashed and his entrails somewhere they shouldn’t be. Partly, it terrifies her. Yet mostly, it sort of excites her.
“No reason.”
“Oh. I thought we were about to have a bonding moment. Why don’t I paint your nails instead?” Enid smirks, eyes glowing excitedly, but Wednesday’s brow only furrows in response.
“I’d rather be split open and used as a cadaver.” She deadpans.
Enid’s face falls for a moment but perks up again just as fast as Thing crawls over to her side of the room excitedly.
“You ever had French nails, Thing?” Enid squeals.
There’s a knock at the door, and Thing scrambles into the huddle of Enid’s stuffed toys. Thornhill enters, hair contrasting so brightly against the darkness of Wednesday’s space it almost serves as its own light.
“How are you settling in, Wednesday?”
“The mind-numbing routine of school life remains the same as it was before.” Wednesday replies.
Thornhill nods once, and although her smile never falls from her face, her eyes convey the confusion Wednesday loves to create. Despite no personal vendetta against the woman, the violence in her mind creeps to the surface as she envisions cutting her open, seeing if Thornhill’s insides are as annoyingly vibrant as the outside. At least Enid doesn’t hide in the half-baked version of quirkiness their dorm mother possesses.
“Right… Well, I’ll leave you girls to it. Lights out in five minutes.”
The door closes again behind her as she retreats, causing Thing to scurry out from his hiding spot, excitedly scrambling onto Enid’s bed to receive his manicure.
Wednesday rolls her eyes and straightens her dress as she gracefully drops onto her bed, unblinking. One week in this cesspit school and her writing edge has dried up. She needs a puzzle to solve. And fast.
While inspiration evades Wednesday, she, in turn, evades therapy. The town of Jericho, while disgustingly colourful against the crisp autumn atmosphere, somehow remains as dull as any other dreary town. The rows of quaint shops and farmers preparing for the Harvest Festival reminds her of zombies in a ghost town, working the quintessential nine to five, each resident preoccupied with their irrelevant errands. The only thing this town has to offer is a cafe. If Wednesday cannot have anything else, the sharp bitterness of coffee will suffice until her escape plan comes to fruition. Rowan may be a puzzle, but he isn’t anything compared to the great beyond.
She almost smiles when the barista jumps back in fear as she appears through the coffee machine’s steam. His look of alarm brings a jolt of joy through her spine. A whole week without Pugsley to torture has been a torture in of itself.
“Holy crap! You make a habit out of scaring the hell out of people?”
“It’s more of a hobby.”
He nods, clueless and confused. Typical normie behaviour, really. Typical normie curls, typical normie uniform, typical normie job. Could this town be any more mind numbing? It is this observation that reminds her that fixing the coffee machine is merely a transactional decision. She needs coffee. She will not drink drip. It has nothing to do with the boy looking over at her, asking how she can read Italian.
“Here’s the deal, I’m going to fix your coffee machine, and you’re gonna make me a coffee and call me a taxi.”
“Uh, no taxis in Jericho.”
She should’ve known. What kind of hellscape is this place?
“I’m Tyler by the way.” The barista offers, eyes raking over her like he’s trying to piece together a puzzle. Small minds usually have trouble figuring out how serious she is, and to a certain extent, it amuses her.
She pauses. “Wednesday.”
“Well, uh, I’ll tell you what, Wednesday, I’ll drive you to Burlington myself.”
Yahtzee. She brightens, ever so slightly.
“Perfect, put that quad into a to-go cup.”
Her hopes are quickly dashed at a smooth escape. Even her bribes don’t work when he tells her he doesn’t finish for another hour. Strange. She’s never met a man who couldn’t be bought or scared. He seems unsettled by her, but not scared. She’s never known what to make of anyone like that. This boy might be a little less normie than her observations first implied. How irritating.
The quad over ice does not smooth over the defeat of being denied an escape, only to be caught. Nor does it soothe the annoyance of being ambushed by three buckled shoe wearing imbeciles. Tyler, the annoying, snarky barista, however, does stir an interest in her. Not in any interpersonal way, no, Wednesday would rather stick needles in her eyes than engage in a friendship. Rather a transactional one. He offered her an escape. Even the cello doesn’t quell her desire for something greater than being trapped in this place. Something about it feels wrong. Not in the way that thrills her, like strange occurrences usually do, but in a twisted, un-categorically grating way. Some small part of Wednesday misses the simple pains of home. The rack. Lurch in the corner lurking. Pugsley chained in their dungeon screaming for his sister to let him out. The sugary, acidic sweetness of a bunch of outcasts squeezed together does not suit her solitary lifestyle in the slightest.
And that is the only reason she calls him. After the frustration of finding a way around a laptop, Tyler calls her.
“Are you still willing to help me escape? There’s the harvest festival this weekend, attendance is mandatory…If you’re still willing to drive to the train station, I can make it worth your while.”
His eyes soften. She hates it when that happens.
“No charge, consider it a freebie.” He responds.
She sighs. “Why?”
“Because I wish I was going with you. At least one of us will get out of this hellhole town.”
The drone of daily life is abruptly brought to an end when the coffee machine decides to be possessed by a Tyler-hating demon. He wishes he could feel something else other than boredom or frustration. Or the deep, dreaded anxiety that weighs down his ribcage every waking moment. He’s convinced he’s going to lose his job over this, and then, somehow, a salvation appears from the steam. Literally.
She stands as if she’s a re-animated corpse. Back straight, eyes unblinking, hair falling in two braids to her waist. A vintage picture of a creepy doll come to life. If he wasn’t a little bit terrified in the moment, he’d think her beautiful. Reading Italian and demanding things from him like he’ll obey her at the drop of a hat.
He almost regrets it when he turns her down. If he wasn’t held here by some invisible weight, he would’ve left the shift early to drive her. Maybe keep driving once he’d dropped her off. He thinks about this often, even though he never plans to go anywhere in particular. Maybe he’d end up in New York, or Chicago, or some burnt out town in Missouri. He thinks even that would be better than here. Maybe he’d end up in Skidmore, solve the mystery of who killed Ken Rex McElroy. Maybe he’d wind up dead in a forest somewhere, dehydrated and taken by the earth. Even that would be better than here.
Still, Tyler stays. He stays because where else can he go, really? His father, no matter how shitty, keeps a roof over his head. His school life, no matter how suffocating, means that he can get into college one day. So, he waits. He goes to school day after day, he works the late shift at the Weathervane and puts each miserable penny into a savings account. Even when a pigtailed goth fixes the coffee machine and practically begs for a way out, he doesn’t take it. Because he can’t be bought. He can’t be bought with cash or deep, dark eyes that pour into his with such conviction his knees almost give way.
He stays because this is where he belongs.
Thing is unnerving. Yet somehow, Tyler senses that there’s more where this came from. A single piece in the never-ending puzzle of a Nevermore goth girl.
As soon as the call ends and Thing disappears out the window, Tyler hits his head against the desk. He’d given so much away so easily, and now he has to pray she didn’t catch it. He does wish he was going with her. He wants nothing more than to get out of here.
His phone buzzes. The same number as always. The same tingling sensation of dread and awe mixed into a Tyler-shaped body that doesn’t always feel like his own.
Meet me at the Weathervane.
Almost begrudgingly, he types his reply, fingers trembling over every word. It’s right then and there that he decides that this time, he’ll do it. One more meeting, one more favour, then he’s gone. When Wednesday gets on the train at Burlington, maybe he’ll go with her.
The Harvest Festival is exactly the kind of event that Wednesday has spent the entirety of her life trying to avoid. Bright lights, trivial games, no way to truly win. Kids with their candy-stained teeth, and parents with artificial smiles pretending that their meaningless lives mean something.
Weems is still watching her. Smiling through a burger as she observes Wednesday throwing darts. She doesn’t have to think too hard to burst the bubbles. Even when Xavier approaches with more friendly drivel that couldn’t be more grating if he tried.
“You could bring home a whole…pack…”
She doesn’t entertain the obvious comment. “Pandas don’t travel in packs, they prefer the solitude.”
He sighs. “Subtle hint taken.”
Even as he says it, it’s clear he hasn’t taken the hint at all. She grits her teeth.
“You should know I’m waiting for someone.”
As if summoned, Tyler appears from the crowd, head down, hands in his pockets.
“Everything okay here?” He asks, eyes shifting from Wednesday to Xavier, who stalks away with a glare.
“Fine.” She turns to the worker as he hands her a large panda, handing him a twenty. “Can you give this to the sad woman on the bench over there?”
The man sighs wearily, pocketing the twenty and retreating to Weem’s position on the bench as Wednesday stalks away silently, Tyler in tow.
“Hey, we got a problem…” Tyler pulls her over through the crowd. “My dad hit me with a curfew.”
Wednesday huffs. “Meet me behind the carpark when the fireworks start.”
Tyler’s eyes become fixed on the ground. “Hey, I… uh… Can I come with you?” His gaze flits up to meet hers, and she can’t help but soften, ever so slightly, at the look he gives her. She’s not one to give into desperate pleas.
“Why?”
“That’s on a need-to-know basis.” He shoots her own words back at her with such velocity she’s taken aback. The boy is running from something, the same as she is. Perhaps he’s a mystery in of himself, far more than she initially had given him credit for. However, that doesn’t make him intriguing enough to distract her from her mission.
“Once we get on the train, our paths diverge.”
He smiles. “Deal.”
She nods once before turning on her heel and disappearing into the crowd. Tyler hovers for a moment, the desire to follow her pulling him forward like a magnet. He doesn’t. He walks in the other direction, heart skipping a beat in the anticipation of what’s to follow.
The fireworks begin with alarming volume. Usually, Wednesday is a fan of explosives, but the excitement is lost at the expense of normie enjoyment. Tiny toddlers are thrown onto the shoulders of their parents for optimal view, but Wednesday’s goal remains the same. She weaves through the crowd with extraordinary ease, dashing between them determinedly. She catches a glimpse of Tyler at the edge of the events, following her movements with a frown of anxiety. He doesn’t know her well enough to know that she’s escaped the death traps of her family home more times than she can count. A crowd isn’t so different, really.
He almost grabs her hand as she reaches him, but a defiant slap deters him.
“Which one is your car?”
“Um… That one.” He points to a beaten car across the lot. “You ready for this?”
“It’s a singular step in a well-formulated plan.”
Yet, as they scurry across the parking lot, a blood-curdling scream sounds from the outskirts of the forest. It’s not loud enough to be heard by the crowd, but the pair’s proximity to the woods causes Wednesday’s head to snap in the direction of the noise. She’s heard several before, screams of pleasure from the rack, but this is pure, unfiltered terror.
Rowan. In the haze of her escape plan’s progression, she’d almost forgotten about the vision. Perhaps she wasn’t too late to stop it.
“Rowan!”
Against Tyler’s warnings, she hurdles towards the forest, him trailing behind her with terror.
“Have you ever seen a horror movie?” Tyler screams at her, following her regardless.
He’s completely aware that this is how they’ll die. Or at the very least, find something awful. He’s had his fair share of trauma in his life, and despite the desire to avoid any more, he follows her. Freedom seems further out of reach the deeper into the woods that they descend.
No more screams are heard as she stops in the middle of nowhere, Tyler panting behind her.
“Wednesday, we need to go.”
“You followed me, remember?”
He snorts. “My apologies for not wanting you to die alone.”
“We all die alone.”
The response feels like a punch in the gut, but he shoves the pain down. He’s used to it. He wants to leave. The forest, the showground, the town. And instead, he’s here with Wednesday, and these moments might very well be his last.
“Where did it come from?” She mutters to herself, looking sharply into the darkness before retreating even further into the woods.
“This is a bad idea.”
Wednesday stops dead, and Tyler thinks that he’s finally gotten through to her, before he follows her gaze and his blood runs cold. Wednesday’s eyes widen.
The body of Rowan Laslow lies before them, twisted and mangled, exactly as her vision had implied. His body appears to be torn from the inside out, yet it remained far too clean to have been the work of any animal. A clean line cuts him open from his chest to his stomach. The punctures surrounding his body are not claw marks or the work of any teeth, but rather a blade, angry and vengeful as the human heart so often is.
“Holy shit…” Tyler mumbles, turning away and attempting not to gag. “Bear attack?”
Wednesday glares at him sharply. “Then where’s the bear? No, this is too clean. Crime of passion.” She mutters clinically, eyes grazing over the body as she crouches and lets her fingers hover over it.
“We need to call my dad.” Tyler clears his throat, trying to contain a semblance of sanity in this whole fucked-up ordeal. He’d seen this kid around. Always alone, occasionally watching a spoon stir his coffee with a hand hovered over it. The inhaler the kid was never without now useless next to the corpse.
“Let me find Weems first.”
He looks at her. “I thought we were leaving.” He sounds disappointed, but Wednesday’s thoughts are racing to fast to parse this information. Her eyes harden.
“Not anymore.”
Tyler sighs, the great escape now completed obscured from view. His dad is going to kill him.
Rather than the inner turmoil that swirls in Tyler’s gut, Wednesday’s resolve only seems to be strengthened in the presence of a dead body. She straightens up and looks him dead in the eyes.
“I have a murder to solve.”