Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Enid, can you stop moving, please?”

Those words whispered so firmly yet so softly, caused the blonde’s eyelids to open urgently. Her whole body immediately froze on the spot, cold sweats spreading on her back as her eyes darted to the girl leaning in front of her. The face of the latter, installed not far from her own, was stiff with a neutral expression, making it look as if it was displaying a photograph in its place. Her raven black hair was disheveled and hung in two braids over her shoulders, framing her face splattered with traces of blood that she was not yet able to clean. Her gaze met Enid’s, and the werewolf couldn’t help but shut her eyelids hard so as not to stare too long into the two deep obsidian beads that served as Wednesday’s eyes. She clenched her teeth even more when, a few seconds later, she felt the disinfectant-soaked cotton pad come into contact with the four large bloody wounds now marking the left side of her face. A wave of pain and boiling warmth irradiated from her injured flesh. Once again, the urge to pull away, squirm or thrash around on her makeshift seat—the closed toilet lid—took over her. But she made tremendous efforts not to move a single inch; she didn’t want to madden her friend. She was already so kind to have proposed by herself to help her, which she was still incredibly surprised and confused about.

When they returned to Ophelia Hall about an hour earlier after everything that happened in Nevermore Forest, Wednesday was the one to advise that Enid should go shower. The teenager’s chest rising and falling with unimaginable speed, her jerky breathing, her constant shaking, and her tears running freely down her bloodstained face were all screaming that she came close to a panic attack. They were enough to convince her a nice hot shower would facilitate her to calm down. Although the shower didn’t take away the relentless fear lodged deep in her abdomen, it at least helped her to compose herself. Somewhat. 

It probably was when Wednesday saw her friend come back into the room, still trembling and with her cheek still bloody from the lacerations oozing sticky scarlet liquid, that she decided she’d better tend to them. The teen did not have a single idea of how to do that, and her roommate was quite the expert with injuries. The taller girl wasn’t in the right state of mind to counter her order, so she let her disinfect and stitch it. And so there was Wednesday, not yet cleaned herself after all the events that occurred, still hurt and…slightly disturbed, taking care of Enid without her even demanding or planning in the first place.

It was only when the dark-haired girl finished putting on the sticky stitches on the cuts that the other allowed herself to open her eyes again. 

“Done.” 

The young werewolf automatically looked at Wednesday, who stared back at her. Their eyes locked together.

“Thanks for this,” Enid murmured, as if she was afraid to speak too loudly and spoil the moment, “I wouldn’t have been able to do this alone…”

Wednesday’s face remained equally expressionless. She finally turned away, breaking their eye contact. She walked over to the sink and started collecting the reddened cotton pads to put in the trash. “Don’t mention it. Ever again. Or I will have to ensure that you hemorrhage considerably more than that.”

Enid couldn’t help a faint smile from creeping across her lips, but it faded soon enough. 

“What about you?” she said simply.

Wednesday turned around to see her; one eyebrow slightly rose. “What about me?” she repeated. 

“Your wound I mean. You should get them taken care of, or you’re gonna bleed to death.”

The subtle expression on the shorter girl’s face revealed surprise for a split second. Or maybe Enid dreamed of it. 

“Bleeding to death does possess a certain allure.” She paused. “How can you know I'm wounded as well?” she asked. Her tone was serious, albeit a hint of gentleness could be found behind her words.

Without really thinking, the golden-haired teenager’s hand rose to point at her roommate’s upper abdomen, “You’re bleeding from your shoulder.”

Confusion and disbelief only appeared to take more space on her friend’s features, but her voice remained cold. “How did you know about it?” 

Enid shrugged. Herself wasn’t so sure why suddenly every little detail seemed so… clear. It felt like every sight, every scent, every sound was so sharp, so noticeable. 

“I smelled it. The blood. And I can hear your heart beating in the injury.” The words nearly poured out of her mouth on their own; she struggled to register whatever was happening right now.

Wednesday nodded, though she looked quite intrigued by her confession. She didn’t add anything, however, and just finished cleaning the sink area. 

The blonde’s eyes roamed the white tiles of the bathroom, now stained with red drops. She contemplated for a few seconds, her heart starting to beat a bit harder in her chest. “Do you want me to help you with your wound too?” she offered without peering at her roommate; she didn’t dare to meet her sight again. Since Wednesday accepted to hug her and volunteered by herself to help Enid, she thought maybe she would be open to receiving some help from her in exchange.

It only took some seconds of pure silence for the girl to realize her mistake. Why would Wednesday need her help? Regret built up inside her, and she finally glanced at Wednesday. She had frozen in front of the washstand, her back and posture as straight as ever, her profile in her direction. In the mirror she could see her face, her eyes fixed on the sink. The werewolf was about to open her mouth again to rectify her proposition, but the psychic spoke up: “I’ll be fine.” Her tone conveyed no emotion, as usual. “You look tired, you should go to bed instead. A wolfing out and a fight can take a large amount of energy.” 

Enid didn’t react for a few moments. Even if she knew Wednesday wasn’t the type to ask for help, even if she knew deep down what her answer would be, disappointment crept inside her. She bit her lip. “Yeah, I’m pretty tired; you’re right. I’ll go then,” she granted with some hesitation.

She got up from her seat and headed for the door. Each step made her muscles ache with exhaustion, making her also realize how heavy her skull was. It was pulsating, her brain felt twice its size, and her bones were sore. She put her hand on the handle but did not turn it immediately. Her gaze redirected again to her roommate, and her heart sank behind her ribs. She still wasn’t moving. “Thank you again, Wednesday, have a good night.”

Then she left the room without taking the time to look at her reaction, which would most likely be absent anyway. She closed the door behind her, arriving in their shared dormitory. The area was plunged into darkness, lit only by the large, spherical window. Surprisingly, despite the dim glow, Enid could observe every detail of the chamber very well. Never before did she feel as if she was seeing this clearly in obscurity.

Her eyes scanned the whole place to fall on a vast, bright circle on the floor. A red circle. It was the light of the blood moon coming through the glass, reflecting in the middle of the room. An involuntary shiver ran up her spine when she noticed it. The vibrant hues on Enid’s side turned the vermilion light into distinct colored shades, but on Wednesday’s side, it was pure scarlet. It almost looked like hemoglobin. 

Her hair stood up all over her body. As she walked to her bed and crawled under her covers, she tried her best to push into the back of her mind the dozen different feelings invading her. Just thinking about the blood moon and picturing its remnants were enough to cause them. She lay on her side so that the fresh wounds were towards the ceiling, her back facing the red glow. She didn’t want to see it. She wanted to sleep. She had to sleep. 

Her eyes were so heavy, they were hurting, as well as her entire being depleted of any energy. She would have loved to fall asleep, but after at least ten minutes installed like that, her mind still refused to let her succumb to a restful slumber. As soon as she closed her eyelids, all she could see was red. The red of warm, viscous blood splashing on her face as she fought body and soul to keep the Hyde from overpowering her. The red of the iron-tasting blood spilling into her mouth and sticking to her tongue as she was pummeled, rolled, and scratched. The red of the burning blood coming out of the injuries on her face and running down her neck, her shoulder, and her chest.

Red.

A color, so simple, yet, it evoked far too many feelings; it reminisced her sensations she wished she could forget. If she focused on it long enough, she could flawlessly experience all over again her powerful werewolf paws pushing her from the soft forest floor to jump, run and attack; she could feel every muscle still throbbing from the sharp pain of her recent transformation, as well as her claws tearing into the flesh of the horrible creature targeting her. She could still perfectly feel the mighty fear overcoming her at that moment, far outweighed by the adrenaline, but also the pain. 

So much pain.

The pain added to her body every time she was thrown left and right by her opponent, the pain in her face as Tyler’s large claws pierced her pelt and epidermis; the pain when he pressed her with all his strength against that tree and scratched her back on its rough bark. The pain in her throat burning from her howls at the moon. But also, and above all, the pain from her human to werewolf transformation. Feeling her muscles change shape, her bones crack, the fur growing over her entire being, her canines come out, her teeth transforming in her gums; her claws developing to look like sharp knives, her ears emerging from the skin of her skull, her clothes clamping down on her to break as her body evolved, lengthened and thickened. 

Everything had been so agonizing. 

The worst pain she had ever imagined she would experience in her whole life. She had never believed that the transformation from human to werewolf and back again could be so excruciating. Just thinking about it made her want to burst into tears. She never wanted to transform again; she never wanted to fight again. She wished she could never see red again. 

This is what red meant to her. Blood, pain and fear. She hated red. 

Underneath her heavy, noisy contemplations came the sudden creak of a door. She couldn’t hold back the shudder that ran through her body as she reflexively and slightly turned around on her bed to recognize the bathroom entrance. Wednesday just penetrated the place. In the darkness, she witnessed her gently close it behind her, throw a quick glance in her direction then move towards her bed in her same usual solemn gait. She was now clean of any blood that had been staining her, her locks neatly tied in two braids looser than the ones she wore during the day. It didn’t take her long to shower, get dressed, treat her wound, and arrange her hair. Enid had the impression that she just left the room. Or perhaps she had been lost in thought for too long.

But that didn’t matter. 

Less than a minute elapsed, and Wednesday was lying down in her bed, finally making the noises in the place melt away. At least, not all of them disappeared completely.

A breath.

A quiet, slow breath soon started to fill the room, drowning it from any other sound. It was calm and steady, long seconds passing between each of the inhalations and exhalations. 

And a heartbeat.

Same pace and intensity as the breath. It was as if both were in perfect tune with each other to form an orchestra. But these sounds did not come from her. Her own breathing was much faster, and so was her heart. 

They were Wednesday’s. 

Enid was no longer able to concentrate on anything else. That quiet symphony invaded her mind, and soon it was all she could hear. And for some reason, it relaxed her all over. The fear still compressing her organs gradually dissipated and vanished, replaced by a feeling of tranquility and fullness. As if her heart got filled with sweetness, silence, and calm. The pain of her scars seemed to simply go away, her body sore by her recent transformation softened, relaxed, and became less stinging with every movement. Her breathing tuned to Wednesday’s, and soon her hefty eyes closed. 

However, it barely took a few seconds for them to open again. And what she saw was not the wall behind her bedside table decorated with multiple stuffed animals and a lamp. 

It was red. Just red. A deep shade of red reminiscent of blood gushing from a wound, whose carmine color stained and spread, splashed and flowed. As she blinked with difficulty, totally blinded by the bright hue, she took a few steps to turn around. The red was not only in front of her eyes; it was all around her. Above her, beside her, below her. She stood in a huge crimson space that seemed to contain no walls, no ceiling, just a long ground of hemoglobin-tinted intangible material.

She hated red. She hated it. She hated it so much.

She lowered her hesitant gaze to meet the sight of her hands. They were shaking so badly that they looked like her bones were trying to escape from under her skin. But still, she couldn’t feel them. She couldn’t feel anything. She recognized that her chest was rising and falling with the dread that this huge space was giving her, but she couldn’t feel it. She felt completely empty, in fact. As if she was just a pair of eyeballs floating in a nothingness of blood, without body, without mind, without thoughts. 

Vision still fixed on her hands, she clenched her fists. She knew her nails were digging into her palms, but she couldn’t feel them. She closed her eyelids again. 

When she opened them another time, she was in a forest. A large forest shrouded in darkness, only dimly lit with a ruby aura. More red. Enid looked up at the sky. The moon was high in it, sanguine, big, and threatening, staring back at her, still and silent. The mist on the ground gave a strange, practically luminous, bluish glow to the surroundings, mixing with the light of the stars tearing the gloomy calm of the sky. 

The girl gazed down once again, and that’s when she finally spotted it. A long red thread almost gleaming under the mystical brightness. It was tied in a delicate knot around her pinky finger. Her hand didn’t stop trembling. Her look followed the length of the cord, only to view it stretch and snake across the forest floor, heading in front of her. Without even reflecting, she started walking along it. She felt like a spectator trapped in her own body that she could not control. Her being was still empty. No sensations, no emotions, not anything. Her brain used to be vacant too. But as soon as she saw that string, a single thing appeared in it. Now, it was occupied with a lone thought: find Wednesday.

So she followed the red thread. Somehow, she knew it would lead her to Wednesday. 

Her bare feet still devoid of sensations trudged over the bumpy, frozen ground, leaves crunching under them, cold earth slipping between her toes, branches, and pebbles stabbing at her soles. While the hand linked to the strand was held up in front of her, her other was unconsciously gripping so tightly one side of her candy pink coat that her knuckles were turning white. 

She was led her out of the forest where a huge old stone fence stood, bisected by an archway with metal gates opening inward. Nevermore’s entrance. The squiggly line continued to run between them, but Enid stopped abruptly in her tracks, without even knowing why herself.

It took less than ten seconds before she noticed.

Before she saw it.

A dark figure moving in the distance, towards the doors, towards her. She could see the red string rising to her. It was bound to its hand just like Enid.

The silhouette walked through the doors, getting closer.

Wednesday. 

Enid didn’t even think. Wednesday. She took two more steps forward, then a third, and soon it became a mad dash towards her friend’s shape. She wondered no more, as she literally tossed herself at her. Her arms fiercely surrounded her waist, the shock throwing her back a bit behind. And for the first time, she felt something. She felt the faint heat coming off the body of the teenager she just captured in a bone-crushing hug. She felt her friend’s body pressing against her own trembling one to embrace her back with all her strength. Her head buried itself in her shoulder. She felt herself melting in this hug. She felt herself melting so intensely that she had almost the impression that her body was disintegrating on Wednesday. 

Then, a strange sensation crept into her chest. A sudden agony in the empty calm, an abrupt light in the darkness. Like an unexpected gap coming to dig itself into the middle of her thorax. It remained there for merely a few seconds, before subsiding away. But not completely. She could still feel it, only it was no longer painful. She could very well have compared it to a hole being filled. As if it was suddenly stuffed with who knows what, as if a patch was put on it and sewed back together.

Everything seemed to fade around her, their minds solely focusing on their physical contact. The trees leaning threateningly above them evaporated, the wide Nevermore gates dissolved, the ground vanished, and the blood moon disappeared. Yet, they all stayed here; nothing moved. But Enid and Wednesday felt like they were the only ones remaining, standing alone with that red cord linking them in a now completely empty landscape. 

It was the shorter of them who finally broke off the hug. She kept her hands on her friend’s shoulders as she took a step back to look at her. An angular face pricked with a constellation of freckles, framed by raven black hair pulled into two braids and bangs covering her forehead. Delicate half-open lips, a turned-up nose, calm breathing, wide eyes bordered by long charcoal lashes. Their gazes planted themselves together for prolonged seconds, anchoring with each other not to move anymore, diving into each other with a kind of almost palpable tension. Blue met black, starless night met azure sea, forget-me-nots met soil. 

Wednesday raised her hand to which the red thread was tied. Enid didn’t even think twice before doing the same. Their eyes finally broke away from each other and landed on their palms as they encountered. An electric shiver passed over their whole bodies. And they really felt it, alone in the middle of the void accompanied by the strange sensation always present. The werewolf girl could sense every hair on her body stand up as her face started to warm up. This simple, tiny touch sent her previously empty head spiraling in a whirlwind of emotions. So many emotions that she could not discern a single one.

“Enid?”

Detonation in the silence, bubble suddenly bursting, sweet honey voice coming to cover her with shivers. The blonde-haired teenager’s eyes abruptly moved to Wednesday. She was staring at her intensely. Her face never described many emotions, but with time she had managed to learn to decode it enough to grasp the main ones. And now, at this moment, her two deep, hypnotic, black-hole-like irises conveyed a vast amount of affection, of tenderness. Much more than she had ever seen on her face. She felt herself melting on the spot.

Wednesday unsealed her mouth again to let out her soft, weak voice once more, “The red thread. We’re connected.”

Enid opened her eyes for the third time. But this time, what stared back at her was a ceiling. Her breathing was heavy and tremulous, her body shaking from all sides with cold sweats. Her eyelids weighed a ton, her eyes burning from the recent sleep lingering over them. A sudden rush of panic overtook her, and without her even realizing what was happening, she sat down on her mattress, legs tangled in her blankets. She brought her hands to her face hurriedly, only to find them empty. No red thread was connected to her pinky. Her mouth half-opened by a word of surprise that didn’t come out, her gaze lifted abruptly to wander quickly around her. She was still in her dorm room. Her flamboyant side filled with plushies, colors, curtains hanging around her bed, rug draped over the floor, posters, and pictures on the walls. Window separated in two by the hues reflecting red tinted the ground in two different shades. On one side a pure scarlet, transitioning to the black side of Wednesday. The latter was lying motionless in her bed, hands folded in an X-shape on her chest like a corpse, half covered by her dark sheets and face directed towards the ceiling. 

It was all a dream.

It clearly was, and now she was awake. Because she could feel everything. She could feel her heart thumping rapidly, the panic compressing her entire abdomen, her accelerated, spasmodic respiration swiftly lifting her chest. She could see everything, feel everything, hear everything. Wednesday’s heartbeat. It was back, and so was her breathing. 

Enid could think too. She could think a lot. Her head was full, actually. It was overflowing, swarming with thoughts, with so many thoughts, with so many questions. 

“What the fuck was that dream?” was the main one.

What the hell was that weird as shit red place? Why was she suddenly teleported to the forest of Nevermore? Why was there no one there but her and Wednesday? Why was it a perfect replica of the evening she just experienced, minus the presence of all the students other than her and Wednesday? And what about that red thread? What was it? Where did it come from? Why were they connected? And the sentence Wednesday said… She was incapable of keeping it out of her mind. She could almost hear it again as if her friend were directly under her skull whispering it to her.

And that strange feeling that had taken hold of her chest when she hugged her. She wasn’t even able to discern what it was and why it was there.

Nothing made sense. 

Her gaze quickly headed to her digital alarm clock. Motionlessly sitting on her mattress, she stared at the red numbers dancing before her vision. It was five in the morning. Almost morning. She went to bed around midnight. Was it already morning? She did not move, bringing her fingers automatically to her pinky. She ran them over it. She still had the impression of feeling the string encircling it. When she palpated it without looking at it, she could practically feel it surrounding her finger.

“The red thread. We’re connected.”

What did she mean by that? The red thread? It was true that it connected them, but why?

Enid was so confused yet so intrigued at the same time. She was aching for answers. But surely none would be given to her. 

But for now, she needed some air. She was suffocating in this space. With her feet, she pushed back her blankets to get out of them. She glanced again at Wednesday from across the room. She still hadn’t moved. Her heart was beating the same; she was breathing identically. The werewolf threw her legs down from her mattress, and a second later she was up and walking towards the window. She ignored the red color the moonlight reflected off her as she passed through the glass and closed it gently so as not to wake Wednesday. The moment she stepped outside, the frosty early morning air hit her hard, immediately cooling her burning face, and causing her cold sweats to disperse. The warmth filling her being slowly dissipated, giving way to a heavy shiver. She walked to the edge of the balcony and leaned on it, placing her hands on the fence. The icy stone against her palms sent a welcome chill through her body, spreading to her bare feet. The ground was also frozen beneath them, but she didn’t care. It felt good.

As she shut her eyes tightly, she took a deep breath, letting the cold air fill her lungs, cool her throat, freeze her nostrils. She ultimately leaned against the railing with her elbows, between the two big scary gargoyles. She brought her hands to her eyes and rub her eyes. It was just a dream. A really strange dream. She needed to get over it.

Moving her hands on the sides of her face, she finally opened her eyelids again. Her pupils immediately looked up to meet the crimson moon. The sky was obviously not as dark as it had been earlier in the night, but the blood moon was still as visible, still as red. Enid felt herself gritting her teeth. She hated that damn blood moon. She hated red. 

Her eyes fixed on the horizon and her head even further away, she stayed that way for quite a while. She didn’t keep track of the time. And not for one second was she able to take her mind off the odd dream she just had. She thought about it a lot. Far too much, in fact. She knew she shouldn’t give too much significance to dreams, but something was so strange and so deeply troubling about this one; it attracted her like a magnet to metal. Something about it seemed so important… so real…

She replayed it in her head countless times while staring into the void, attempting to inspect every gesture she made in it, every word Wednesday said; she turned them over in her brain from top to bottom, from right to left, like a Rubik’s Cube she was trying to desperately solve. She scanned it from every angle, spun it in every possible manner, and tried to answer all her questions to guess its deeper meaning.

But no matter what she did, she had the nagging feeling that she was always missing the responses she was imploringly seeking; She couldn’t put her finger on it. She had the frustrating sensation that she had the pieces of the puzzle right in front of her, yet no way to assemble them. 

For a long time, she stayed lost in her mind, so far away that she didn’t even hear the window door turn to let a silhouette through. It was only when she saw movement in her peripheral vision that she was suddenly pulled out of her head. With a flinch, she straightened up and swiveled around. Her eyes immediately landed on Wednesday, who was advancing towards the fence. 

“Oh, it’s just you.”

The dark-haired teenager glanced at Enid upon hearing the words of this one. She barely nodded in response to her statement, before bringing her gaze to the sky, the bottom of which was now decorated with the beginning of sunrise. 

“What are you doing here?” asked Enid softly, unable to remove her eyes off Wednesday.

“I heard your awakening and all the commotion you made, rising me from my slumber like a corpse from its tomb. I couldn’t recapture Morpheus’ embrace afterwards.”

Enid took her eyes off her. Her tone was limp and low. She didn’t have an ounce of energy. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you up. I just wanted to get some fresh air.”

It was Enid’s turn to move her glance away and for her roommate to rest hers on her. “What would possibly compel you to require fresh air at six in the morning?” 

It didn’t take long before the werewolf looked back at her friend. Their gazes locked onto each other, bringing a strange, almost electric chill to the blonde’s entire body. “I had a weird dream,” she bluntly dropped. She laughed uncomfortably. “So weird that it gave me the imminent need to refresh my mind.”

Wednesday seemed as if she was about to say something, but she cut herself off. She took a pause before finally questioning, “What was it about?”

A cold feeling inevitably enveloped the taller girl. Her heart became heavy. She couldn’t tell Wednesday about such a dream. She knew she already thought she was weird as shit, but if she recounted to her that she dreamed about her; if she informed her they were hugging exactly as they had earlier, and that they were connected with a strange thread, her impression of her would get even worse.

Biting her lip, she began to play with her fingers nervously. “I had a dream about what happened in the forest…” she revealed vaguely as she looked down, face still turned towards the coal-haired girl. She wasn’t entirely lying. She was only hiding part of the truth. “I can’t make out if it was a dream or a nightmare, though.” 

“I see,” was the response she got. Her tone wasn’t dry; it was edged with gentleness and understanding. She turned back to the vision stretching out in front of her, the faint movement catching Enid’s eyes. She looked at her, and saw how the daylight was kindling her in such a way that it took Enid’s breath away. The orange hue the sun gave to her skin seemed to make it glow even more gorgeously; it illuminated her eyes and bestowed unsuspected sparkles to the blackness of her hair. The taller teen stared at her with big eyes, and she was surprised to think that she found her immensely stunning.

The second that idea crossed her mind, she instantly turned to the horizon, eyes still wide. In the cold atmosphere, she felt a warmth crackle on her cheeks. 

What the hell, Enid?!

Wednesday thankfully noticed nothing of her friend’s abrupt panic. “What occurred last night was very striking, I must admit. I believe it’s pretty normal that you dreamed about it.”

Enid didn’t dare to look at her anymore. She was blushing like a moron and didn’t want her to see it. She was so embarrassing. She was embarrassed of herself. “I guess, yeah. I just hope it won’t happen again. I wanna forget about that.” A shiver ran through her, transmitting itself to her voice. “Ugh, all that blood… Please, someone, get it out of my head.” 

“Would lobotomy help?” Wednesday offered almost seriously. Or was she completely serious? Hard to tell with her utterly flat, monotonous tone. 

Enid couldn’t hold back a chuckle at what she said. Her smile was feeling weird on her face after everything that had happened. “No thank you, I value the integrity of my eye and my frontal lobe. I’ll pass.” 

She finally dared a brief peek at her friend, meeting the sight of her profile. Unless she was hallucinating, she almost felt as if she saw the shadow of a smile on her lips, the corner of her mouth imperceptibly turned upwards.

A silence fell over the two teenagers. Smiles faded as reflections drifted slowly. The sun was quietly rising to replace the red moon, coloring the sky with warm, nearly majestic hues. 

Enid thought the conversation was over, but Wednesday suddenly spoke up again, “I had a peculiar dream too.”

Intrigue and surprise immediately stung the blonde girl. “Really?” 

“Yeah. I do not usually dream; I only get nightmares. It was uncustomary. I wonder if I unwittingly ingested poison. Or perchance it is because I lost too much blood.”

A laugh accidentally came out of Enid’s throat. “Or maybe your mind was just stirred up a lot by the night we just had. And it made your little brain create some funny dreams.”

The braided-haired girl kept her sight to the horizon, only muttering, “My brain isn't small, it is, in fact, much more considerable compared to what’s in your cranium.”

Somehow, Enid was able to decipher a joke behind Wednesday’s words. And that made her giggle again. “Sure, sure, Weds.”

“Call me Weds again and I will cut off your tongue.” 

The adolescent’s smile only got bigger, but it showed a tinge of sadness. Long seconds passed. “I’m gonna miss that.”

Wednesday’s eyebrow rose very slightly. “Cutting off your tongue? I have yet to accomplish that. How can you possibly already miss it?”

A new giggle erupted from the taller teen. “No, I’m going to miss this, all of this, Nevermore, our dorm room, the classes, all the other students, my friends, our funny conversations… It’s such a bummer they had to cut the semester short. They didn’t even think twice before announcing it. Which… I guess makes sense with Weems’ death and all the destruction around…”

“I won’t miss it. And on the contrary, it’s a joy to finally leave this place.”

“Obviously,” Enid chuckled, rolling her eyes.

The discussion faltered. But the blonde girl didn’t feel the need to restart it. She just stared at the rising sun and the colorful sky. And she couldn’t help thinking:

She will miss Wednesday too.

Chapter Text

Enid felt heavyhearted about Nevermore’s school semester being cut short. It made sense, yes, but nothing was enough to remove that feeling from her. 

The events on the night of the blood moon bequeathed an aura of fear, distrust and panic to the students. They were left with no principal and no emotional help available—Dr. Kinbott now deceased—to deal with the information of Crackstone’s revival, the chaos he created, the fact one of their teachers was a merciless psychopath, and the capture of the Hyde that had been terrorizing the region. The classes couldn’t go on normally, so the remaining instructors were obliged to cancel all of them and send all the students back home.

It was one of the first times in her life the young werewolf felt blue about missing school. Her fourteen years old past self, who had horrible grades, struggled to keep up with everyone else, and had trouble completing her homework and studies would’ve been jumping out of delight. But she wasn’t.

As sad as it was, Nevermore was her home, her real home. And having to leave it because of something like that made her feel as if she was being torn away from a place she felt safe in to be forced into a place where she wasn’t. Even with all the recent circumstances, that academy was more akin to a home than any other location she ever resided in.

All her existence, Enid was considered like a freak. Because in fact, being the only werewolf in a school of normies was quick to stick that title to her. The weird, way too energetic girl who tried to bond with everyone, only to fail every time. The loud and colorful werewolf who couldn’t shut up, but who couldn’t for the life of her obtain passing grades. The rejected kid in the class who did all the team work alone and who was ridiculed by all the people her age. The scary girl, who always felt like all her peers were ten steps ahead of her, yet whenever she attempted to take one, she took two back instead. The outcast, the freak, the weirdo. The child who was never good enough for anyone.

Even for her family.

Because the constant mockery and comments she incessantly endured at school before moving to Nevermore didn’t even stop when she was in her house. Of course, they didn’t. Why would they? Why would she have a moment’s respite? And this time it wasn’t from other students, but from her own parents and brothers. Remarks on how she acted, how she dressed, how her hair was colored, how she spoke too loudly or for too long, how bad her grades were, and obviously how she didn’t wolf out yet. She couldn’t even count the number of instances she was scolded for not handing in an assignment in time or failing an exam, or even for the smallest most insignificant thing. And it would take years to list all the times her mom asked her if she wolfed out yet, only to be deeply disappointed when learning she hadn’t yet.

And this only happened to her. Her four brothers, even if they were unruly, even if they were complete jerks, and even if they underperformed at school, they got a free pass for literally everything because they were boys and they wolfed out early. She, under no circumstances, saw her parents berate them for bad grades, and they never scolded them for anything about their appearance or personality. They were the pride of the family. 

Then there was her.

The failure of the family. A disappointment. The runt of the siblings. Everything her parents didn’t want. No matter how hard she tried, these titles would never get off her, along with being a freak. 

Discovering Nevermore Academy saved her years of insanity. Even if it was an absolutely horrifying experience to ask her parents about going there, she didn’t regret a single second. 

At that school, created for outcasts, freaks, and monsters, she was normal. Pointing out and criticizing everything about her was the custom back home, but not at Nevermore. From the moment she set foot on its old grounds, she immediately felt accepted and appreciated for who she was. Right away, everyone was so kind and welcoming to her, she easily made actual friends, her grades quickly soared, and she even passed her classes with flying colors. 

All that was worth the dread of going on a plane alone every year, sleeping somewhere else and being far away from everything she’s known. 

Thus, the more the situation fell down on her, the more all the implications of having to come back “home” twisted her stomach with anxiety. 

She was bitterly apprehensive about seeing her mother and brothers again. She already expected Esther’s remarks on how pale and tired she looked; that she should surely eat more red meat, or, once again, her critics about the hues in her hair, or the way she dressed being too multicolored for her taste. But she was also afraid her mom would ask her if she wolfed out yet. 

If she pondered it sufficiently, it was actually the main reason she was so nervous about coming back home.

Enid always believed that wolfing out would be one of the best moments of her life. From what her parents, her brothers and all her extended family told her, it was exhilarating, freeing, beautiful. But they were dead wrong. 

She thought all her existence that she would be euphoric to experience it. She always imagined how proud her mom would be of her, how much she would hug her and kiss her cheeks and compliment her. They would all throw a party for her; they would shower her with affection and make her feel amazing. She long pictured it would be the best moment of her life. But now that it happened, she was far from thinking the same anymore. 

Wolfing out had been one of the worst experiences of her life, and she wished it never occurred. It was painful, trapping, frightening. She despised it. Now, she didn’t want any of this attention, this pride, and this love about an event she hated so much. She didn’t want her mother to finally be proud of her for something she detested so much. It made her stomach churn. 

That feeling didn’t leave her for a single second. From the minute she quit her dorm room, to the moment she was on the airplane, to the instant she was in the car with her dad. It lasted all the way through everything until she was confronted by her mother.

Luck seemed to have been on her side, though, as her arrival time fell at a late hour of the day. Maybe it was her melancholic look, or the tiredness written all over her body, but she was spared from being asked too many questions. She was quizzed about the abrupt end of the semester and about her flight, and then Esther released her. As soon as she did, the blonde teen hurried off to her room, heart hefty with worry and fatigue. She didn’t even take the time to unpack her bags before she fished out some old clothes left in her drawers and collapsed onto her bed. Her head still full of so many thoughts, she wrapped herself under her blankets and closed her eyes tightly. She was so exhausted, but her mind couldn’t help but jump into the dream.

That damned dream she had the other night. The Nevermore Forest, Wednesday, their hug. And that red thread. That line connecting them, linking them for a reason she still ignored. Along with all her worries about coming back home, it had been haunting another corner of her head. Not one second did it cease to repeat on loop inside her brain, making her revisit every little detail, searching for more hidden angles she didn’t see before. 

In the two days since she had it, it became such a central part of her mind that she struggled to do anything else. It started obsessing her, distracting her beyond belief. It made her unable to do anything but stare into the void, always trying to unravel the meaning of what her brain had unconsciously constructed. She slept very little, ate very little, and was on her phone very little. She was struggling to focus on anything, her mind always racing on so many reflections. She always had a pretty hyperactive brain, dashing thoughts at all hours of the day, preventing her from slumbering or simply concentrating. But it had never been as bad in her entire life as in the previous two days. 

All she wanted was to be able to turn off her brain, to just shut it off for at least one night; to detach it from her body so she could finally rest and stop wondering about so many things.

 As she lay down, she knew she would spend the night staring at the shade her eyelids would create, replaying that dream over and over, waiting for a sleep that would never come. She knew that, despite the tiredness occupying her, she wouldn’t be capable of finding peace in slumber.

Yet, strangely, for the first time in what felt like decades, she was wrong. It took less than a few minutes before she was dragged into the arms of Morpheus. But no sooner had she closed her eyes than she opened them again. And there she found herself again, in that broad, red space, so red that her eyeballs could have started to bleed. She couldn’t stand red.

Eyes widening at once under a sudden panic rising in her, she peered down at her hands. The red thread. There it was, tied up again after her pinky. She followed it with her eyes, watching it dangle to the ground to meander into the crimson nothingness and disappear entirely, melting into the red vomit all around her. Taking an involuntary step forward, she was trying to discern the end of it when she blinked. A fraction of a second, and she opened her eyelids again. And then she saw what was around her. She was no longer enclosed in that sickeningly pure red. 

She was surrounded by books. Shelves of books. Right and left of her. The ceiling above her rose high, appearing invisible in the darkness up there, and the floor beneath her was made of wood. She was in a bookstore aisle, lined with shelves overflowing with volumes that all appeared older and more yellowed than the next. The whole place was immersed in a kind of unsettling gloom. It was as if outside the row there wasn’t a single light, the only available one dimly illuminating what was stretching out in front of her.

She knew that if she had been out of this dream, it would have sent disagreeable cold sweats down the back of her neck. But she felt nothing. Again, her whole being was empty. She felt no sensation, no emotion. Though this time, she didn’t feel like a spectator trapped in her own body. She could move as she pleased, and she realized it only when she had the urgent urge to raise her hand to see it. 

It was when she did that she noticed that the string was still attached to her pinky finger. And it was illuminated with red. It was slight, but it was there and well discernible in the half-light of the place. Her eyes trailed along its length with haste to find it lying delicately on the ground in front of her, turning the corner of the row of books. She had this sort of conviction nagging her from all sides that she should follow it, and so she did. Neither one nor two, she did not even think, and she started to stride after it. 

Her steps quietly quickened, and soon she was swerving around the angle of the row, progressing to another identical one, turning again, advancing again and again always tracking the thread. As she walked and checked around, she came to realize that all the aisles were undifferentiated. They were all the same, multiplied in many copies, indistinguishable to the precise book, in the exact placement.

She continued to move forward more and more until she turned a new corner like all the other moments before, but this time she stopped abruptly at the entrance of the row. A dark shape was further down the aisle with its back turned to her, striding slowly towards the end. Raven colored clothes with white accents, black hair braided and hanging over her shoulders. It paid no attention to her and kept walking. A split second later, and Enid was suddenly struck with a realization. She didn’t have time to figure out for herself what was happening before her eyes as she rushed to the spot where she saw the figure disappear; a single word on her lips that she couldn’t help but yell:

“Wednesday!”

It took less than two seconds, and she reached the end of the aisle, nearly skidding on the ground when she got there. Her gaze swiftly searched for her friend, but there was nothing. Only books quietly arranged on the broad shelves, the dark and disturbing atmosphere of the place, and that same red thread surrounded by a faint aura of light stretching across the floor. 

And for the first time since she opened her eyes, she felt something. A strange, indiscernible feeling that crept into the hollow of her chest. It wasn’t nervousness, or fear, or anything else, but it wasn’t pleasant. It was the same indescribable feeling that had vaguely occupied her previous dream during her embrace with Wednesday, only to instantly disappear. A feeling of void, so deep and big. Throughout her body, it was the only sensation; it was empty. Nothing else could be found in her but that. If she shut her eyes, that would have been the unique thing she felt. Not even her heart, or her breathing, or the sensation of her clothes against her skin. 

She brought her hand still connected to that thread against her ribcage in which the odd sensation was concentrated; she closed it in a tight fist while raising the other to her mouth to call again, “Wednesday?!”

A step forward. A sudden, distant voice came out of the shadows to answer her, “Enid?”

Wednesday’s voice.

It originated from the opposite end of the string; she was sure of it. The girl didn’t even think before she started dashing at full speed while following it. Another turn around the shelf, and the form was back, turning the next corner straight ahead. And so it went with each new turn, punctuated by Enid’s occasional calls for Wednesday to wait for her and stop running away. And although once in a while she got an answer to her cries — her name shouted back —, the figure didn’t listen to her once. It just kept going without paying attention to her. 

The same queer feeling now compressing her heart, compressing her whole chest, this little merry-go-round continued until Enid arrived in a new row again, but this time something was different. Wednesday was frozen, and she was facing her. One second, the form was just entering the row quickly followed by the werewolf, and the next, she was already at the end and facing her. And her face showed sheer disbelief. More astonishment than her roommate had ever seen displayed on her face since she met her.

The blonde stopped again so brusquely in her tracks that she nearly slipped, having to catch herself on one of the shelves to the side. Her sudden movement sent it slightly rocking, its misplaced and unsteady books shaken under tremors. If she didn’t take a step backward, a second later she would have been knocked unconscious by a thick novel directly on her head. It dropped right in front of her, perfectly placed so that she could see the bound leather cover on which was engraved in gold letters “Somnia.”

Somnia?

But Enid didn’t even bother to gaze at it longer. Her almost fall lasted less than a few seconds, and soon she was scrambling to regain her balance, hurrying to set her vision on Wednesday. She was about to open her mouth to call out her name in a puzzled tone again, albeit her friend was much quicker than she was, “Enid? What’s happening? I kept cal-”

But she never finished her sentence.

Enid opened her eyes before that, meeting right away the sight of the wall right in front of her. 

It was a dream. 

Yet another dream. 

And it was even more unusual than the last one.

She had so many questions. A multitude of questions, more than a ton of questions. Like why the hell was she in this red room again? And why did she teleport into a bookstore whose rows were all more alike than the others, reminiscent of one of the most peculiar liminal spaces that ever existed? Why was Wednesday still in her dreams? Why did she keep running away from her? And what did she mean before Enid woke up? What was it? 

Still lying on her side, the girl’s hand rose to rest on her chest.

And that feeling that had occupied much of her dream… It was still there. 

She felt it there, lodged at the bottom of her torso, enveloping her sternum, each of her ribs, her heart, and her lungs, creating an incessant and immense sensation of emptiness. When she lowered her eyes, she practically expected to see a black hole replacing her chest. Because that’s how she felt: as if she had a real one replacing it, sucking in every other feeling and thought to leave only this agonizing absence.

But an absence of what?

She didn’t know. And what she didn’t know even more was that she wasn’t the only one with that feeling under her sternum.

Mention the time where Wednesday is awake in the bathroom, struggled to fall asleep and did at an unusual hour (When Enid did back in California)

Miles away, on the opposite coast, a teenage girl was standing in front of a mirror lost in a small bathroom plunged into darkness, merely lit by a dim bulb just above her. Face devoid of any expressions, she was staring intensely at her reflection, glaring at it with her ebony eyes, scrutinizing it with depth, seeming to want to pierce holes through it. While one of her hands was resting on the edge of the sink just below her, the other was raised to her chest. It was firmly pressed where her heart was, her fist clenched tightly. 

Her torso was filled with one of the most bizarre sensations she ever felt in her life. A tremendous and deep feeling of nothingness, a feeling of… lack. As if she missed something so much that it created a hole inside her that was now hemorrhaging and gaping and excruciating. An open grave in her thorax. Wednesday never missed anything or anyone. So why was this feeling even existing within her? 

She hated it. She hated this sensation, to the core of her being. Every little cell in her body was fighting to try to dislocate it from there, to chase it away so it would, under no circumstances, come back. But, alas, nothing worked. It remained. It was growing, even, defying her like a fierce beast. She loathed it. 

“Get. Yourself. Together.” Her voice was firm and commanding as it passed through her jaws clamped against each other so tightly it felt like they were about to explode. If they did, it probably wouldn’t have even bothered her. It might have been able to distract her from that other totally out-of-place sensation.

She could have remained motionless in front of the mirror for hours, if only she had not been suddenly pulled from her contemplation with an unexpected movement behind her. She spontaneously peeked over her shoulder in the reflection; she then saw it. A tall, flamboyant figure hidden in the darkness, short blond hair embellished with pink and blue, that same sickening smile constantly plastered on her face. That identical, abhorrent, nauseating, far too full of joy, grin.

From the moment her gaze landed on that figure, she felt her heart buried under the weight of that awful feeling of absence stop beating for a millisecond. Then, as if nothing happened, it started again. However the coldness and murkiness that usually reigned there flickered. Like an uncertain shadow. She thought for an instant that the ice surrounding it had melted slightly to let in a small spark of light, but for barely a complete second.

No. Impossible. Get yourself together, remember.

The whole thing lasted less than ten seconds, during which Wednesday stared into the reflection of the mirror at the still figure of Enid smiling tenderly at her from the shades. For some, this would have been a terrifying situation. But the young girl was not afraid. 

Was she a ghost? A hallucination? She turned around to defy the overly vibrant demon but found herself facing nothingness. Only the rest of the bathroom plunged into a flickering darkness under the dim bulb. Not a hint of an Enid.

“Enid?” she asked simply in a tone she tried to let out as monotonous as possible. Though she was completely alone, the psychic couldn’t allow herself to show emotion. 

She did not obtain a single answer.

It was exactly like in her dream where she had chased her friend’s silhouette as she fled from her into similar corridors of this mysterious and intriguing, yet uneasy bookstore. Where she had called her over and over again without getting any responses; where she had watched her disappear at every turn of the row. Where she had felt helpless as it brought back that odd feeling of deficit in her soul, the same sensation she felt during the first dream a few days ago.

Her eyes slowly but surely drifted down to her hand still resting against her chest, automatically going to her pinky. It was devoid of any red thread.

Chapter Text

Wednesday felt a gag seize her the moment the plate settled on the table right in front of her. A plate loaded with food concocted from an old recipe dating generations back in the Addams lineage. It appeared to be fairly good and tasted equally good from her experience. Yet, as she poked her fork into a piece of meat dripping with red sauce—reminiscent of tender flesh from a fresh corpse—sitting not far from the rim, she couldn’t stop her throat from tightening. The scent filled her nostrils, and bile rose to her mouth as her guts constricted against each other. She stared at it, dark eyes trying not to let out any kind of expression, completely still, and she thought about how she could not consume that. She wouldn’t be able to. 

She hadn’t been capable of eating—almost—anything for the past two days. 

It wasn’t that she didn’t want to, but she simply was physically unable to. For the previous two days, whenever she was about to feed the vessel that was her body; it was as if her stomach suddenly felt heavy and full, making her incapable of swallowing anything else out of fear of it exploding. No matter how hard she tried, no matter what type of food she attempted to stuff down her throat, nothing was able to get in without being thrown up barely a few minutes later. 

“My little rain cloud, why aren’t you eating? I thought this was one of your favorite meals?” 

A honeyed voice, so soft it sounded hoarse, on the verge of being whispered, snapped her out of her contemplation. The black-haired girl instantaneously lifted her eyes from the chunk of meat she had been glaring at for too long. It landed on her mother sitting at the end of the table. She was cutting a piece of her food with gestures so delicate and aerial that they became irritating, returning her gaze to her daughter only when she was ready to bring her bite to her mouth. 

“Is there something tormenting your dark mind?” 

“No,” Wednesday dropped in the firmest, most convincing tone she could muster. She didn’t even think before saying it. She put her fork back on her plate. “I just don’t have the appetite, Mother.”

Her look trailed over Morticia Addams for a few more seconds, just enough to see her frown under mild maternal concern. Then it scanned the entire table. That’s when she noticed that all eyes were on her. Pugsley, seated right next to her, was chewing steadily without taking his eyes off her. Same for Uncle Fester across from her, who was just observing her with his eyebrows furrowed in interest, and Grandmama besides him. Between the two, but mildly further back, stood Lurch in front of a wall, absolutely still. He had his empty gaze fixed on her, his face filled with curiosity. Wednesday’s eyes were about to move to her father at the end of the table when they abruptly stopped on a dim corner between Grandmama and Gomez. In it, a figure was standing motionless. In spite of the little light in this corner, she could well discern all the colors it was wearing, the short blond hair with the tips dyed with blue and pink, that angelic face marked with four scars grinning warmly at her. What in the name of Hades was she doing there again?

Again.

Since the first moment she saw her in the dark corner of that bathroom, right after that strange dream where she had been running at her, always losing her after the angle of a new shelf; she had been doing exactly what Enid would do: haunting her, stalking her, plaguing her. And it wasn’t in the pleasant way these consistently happened. Always hiding in the shadowy corners, silent as a grave, flamboyant with eye-bleeding hues, wearing that sweet, annoying smile. She was always the same, staring at her as if waiting for something. 

And as if that wasn’t enough, her presence besetting her was not only physical. It was also mental. If she wasn’t standing in a nook watching her, it was the interior of her mind she was assailing. Ever since that night when the moon was high and crimson in the sky, ever since she saw her slip outside of the window, ever since she awakened with that tight sensation around the base of her little finger; she refused to stop afflicting her. 

Wednesday closed her eyes firmly. The figure disappeared. She continued her round of looks, finally landing on her father. While everyone seemed intrigued, his expression was more on the side of concern, but still watching her with the same air his wife displayed. 

Their eyes met, and the teenager realized immediately that this was a mistake.

“You know you can talk to us about anything that’s on your mind, cara mia, we’re a close family, and close families are there to listen to each other.”

The short girl failed to control the sudden and impromptu annoyance that rose in her at the words. Before she could even fathom what she was doing, she brusquely stood up from her chair with clenched fists. Its legs scraped loudly across the dining room floor as she backed up from her original spot. “I said there was nothing tormenting me. Will you leave me alone at last? I’m simply not hungry,” she snarled with frustration visibly piercing her voice. 

The discontent that took grip of her tone quickly spread to her face, and shortly her mask of impassivity tumbled down without her even succeeding in holding it back. It only came back when the sharp words she just dropped echoed under her skull, especially when she viewed all the shocked stares that her whole family was now showing. 

Immediate guilt clenched her heart, but she managed to control it and not transmit it to her expression. 

“Forgive me, I must leave,” she stated forthwith. She didn’t even wait for the Addams’ responses that she was already striding out of the dining room in an unknown direction. As she exited it, she didn’t forget to take one final look at the last place she had seen Enid’s figure. Her perforating cerulean eyes met hers, digging a pit from front to back through her brain, and even more emotions added themselves to the already burning pile under her skull.

Wednesday’s head was filled with so many thoughts, so many emotions. Too many thoughts and emotions.

Ordinarily, her encephalon was a large black hole in which Herculean winds were howling and shrieking, sliding between the scraggly coal branches of her neurons and meandering between the gravestones and sanguineous carcasses inhabiting there. But now, no place was left for them to go through. Every effort turned to a fail as they smashed into thoughts upon thoughts.

Flying from surface to surface, always racing faster, cramming every minuscule millimeter of her consciousness. Overwhelming, overpowering, immeasurable. 

Too many thoughts, too many emotions.

She, who in her sixteen miserable years of life had constantly thrived in keeping them under control and in confining them into little labeled boxes, found herself in the last two days sensing that control slipping through her fingers. The keys started to dissolve, and so did the locks. In two days, she became unable to hold them back from spilling abrupt feelings like this. And it had guided her to do things she never thought she would ever do. Getting angry at something truly insignificant, having the sudden urge to tear up at something totally stupid, nearly smiling at something even more foolish, not being capable of controlling a laugh. A laugh. Wednesday never laughed.

And not only did she express her emotions much more strongly, but she experienced them even more intensely. Just like that feeling in her chest. 

That gaping emptiness, which hadn’t wavered once since it first presented itself, which didn’t want to leave her for a single moment, which only grew larger. No matter how hard she tried, she found herself unable to contain it and to control it. It could almost be compared to an untamable wild beast, bigger than her, more powerful than her, impossible to keep in a cage. It was gnawing at the bars, growling and pleading to be let out.

All these out-of-control feelings were as indomitable as they were disturbing to live with, as much for herself as for those around her. She wished she could say she had no idea where they all came from. But that was a lie. She had a theory. 

The dreams. It was all undoubtedly because of her dreams. The first one, the flawless replica of the night of the blood moon, plus that red thread tied to her hand, was only the nail in the coffin. And oh, how she longed to be in that coffin. After the second dream two days ago, as soon as she woke up after chasing Enid’s figure appearing and disappearing among that maze of bookshelves, it started. As soon as she got up and went to her bathroom to stare at her reflection without moving, as soon as she saw that colorful figure in the shadows. As soon as she began feeling that gaping, bleeding hole filling her chest.

As soon as she told herself that she had to put herself back together.

And clearly, it didn’t work. 

It didn’t work, despite the fact that she commanded it to herself, that she screamed it inside her mind, that she desperately wanted to hammer it into her skull, to burn it into her brain. She needed to get herself together. And she tried so hard. She encased all her overbearing emotions deep in the back of her consciousness. She harshly reprimanded herself, but most of all, she did her best to hide herself from her domineering family and avoid any kinds of questions about everything occurring. And for the first time in her life, she failed. No matter what she tried to do, not for a single second she could get these dreams out of her mind, she couldn’t get that damn sensation of emptiness, of lack, out of her chest; she couldn’t successfully fill up the hole in there still wide open and hemorrhaging more and more every day. Outside of that situation, this would’ve been delightful. Piteously, it wasn’t; she felt the exact opposite of it, in fact. She hated it. She hated all of this.

She hated that all these uncontrollable emotions, all these thoughts racing through her head, this gaping void inside her preventing her from resting. She hated the fact that they kept her up at night, leaving her cranky and tired, creating even darker circles under her eyes. She hated that they made it difficult for her to focus on anything but them. She hated the fact that they made her unable to write more than one sentence of her novel without her mind wandering far away. She hated the fact that they made her unable to read a single page of a book without truly understanding what was written before her vision. She hated the fact that they made her unable to concentrate on what others were saying to her without going far into her mind when spoken to directly. And if she thought about it the right way, they were even the reason why she was unable to eat, as if they seemed to automatically suppress her appetite whenever she tried.

All of this was a wound. A real wound, oozing with pus and blood that all possible and unimaginable tools were unable to heal and to stitch.

Although she was certain that all these things were most likely due to her dreams, she would have been incapable of explaining their specific origin; why precisely they made her feel all this. But she knew for a fact that all these dreams, these feelings, this sensation of void, these hallucinations that all surfaced overnight; she knew they were all related. 

She just needed to find out why, to find out how.

It was with her mind distant and full of thoughts that Wednesday continued to wander the long, dark, labyrinthine corridors of the Addams mansion. As best as she could, she tried to ignore the vivid figure she always saw in her peripheral vision, which appeared to follow her wherever she went. Her feet seemed to guide her on their own without her being able to control them—just like everything she couldn’t coerce into doing what she wanted. Soon she caught herself coming to a stop in front of a large wooden door engraved with protruding designs. As her eyes rose to observe it from bottom to top, it began to open with a creak that tore the silence almost violently. The raven-haired girl wasn’t even surprised to see it move by itself, because, after all, this mansion was haunted, so it wasn’t startling to find things moving and changing places. She didn’t question it further when she decided to push it open, only making it screech louder. A few steps forward, and she was standing in the middle of a large library with wooden shelves so tall they reached the ceiling, decorated with hundreds of books, each one as dusty and yellow as the next. 

She practically forgot they had a library in there.

And then it struck her. What if it was the library in her dream? 

A spark of hope began to swell inside her, a slight flame in the darkness. Maybe this was where she could find the answers to her tons of questions. Perhaps this was where she would uncover the book that nearly knocked Enid out in her dream, whatever the name was?

Usually, the psychic liked to blow out these flames of hope, especially in others. There was a kind of indescribable satisfaction when she saw the last flickers of hope leave someone, dulling the shine in their eyes, making all sorts of happy expressions disappear from their faces. But in that moment, for the first time, Wednesday wanted to keep that spark. All she desired to do was make it grow into a bonfire. 

☾

In two days of stewing in constant questions, Wednesday never considered the option of looking through the family library in case answers were hidden in there. She had been so absorbed by everything happening, so absorbed to ponder on it without doing anything else, that it never occurred to her before. Instead of sagely waiting for any sort of solution, because clearly, they weren’t too keen on showing up by themselves, she could actually start hunting them down. If her feet didn’t mysteriously guide her to that place, she would have been waiting for a very long period. That was, without any doubt, one of the only times in her existence when obliging something brought more positive than negative consequences. 

Ipso facto, she spent the rest of her evening locked in the library of the Addams family mansion. She browsed to the utmost the shelves in an initiative to possibly find the famous book she had spotted in her dream. Although she didn’t know the title or the author because she hadn’t been able to read it properly backward, she had an unwavering belief that if she saw it, she would recognize it immediately. Her convictions were always right, but she just aspired this one was too. 

So she pulled every volume from the bookshelves that remotely was the spitting image of the one she had seen, placing them on a table in stacks that only grew taller and more numerous as hours passed by. The only time she stopped her task was when she left the library to go to her room and pick up an empty notebook in the hope of recording the fruits of her research. She wanted, as well, to write down as detailed as possible her dreams so that she wouldn’t forget them. It would allow her to better analyze them, add her thoughts, her uncontrollable feelings, summaries of Enid’s apparitions, and the multitude of questions she had about all this. Along the way, she also brought Thing with her to help her collect as many tomes as feasible and be more efficient.

It took over five hours to go through the entire library and gather everything she deemed resembling, and only then did the real work begin.

“Commence looking through each of the books for anything that might be related to a red thread, the blood moon, Nevermore, sensations of emptiness, hallucinations, and dreams,” she ordered Thing. 

Thing simply gave her a thumbs up before starting to climb one of the stacks of books to get to the top of one of them and begin his job. Wednesday had no idea how he was able to read anything knowing he had no eyes, but she didn’t bother questioning herself more. She already had enough on her mind.

Finally sitting down on a chair at the table where all the books were placed, she got out her notebook, a quill, and an inkwell, and she installed them on the wooden surface in front of her.

She added while she dipped her quill in the black ink, “In the meantime, I will write down everything of importance in there. Afterwards, I will help you search.”

She didn’t even attempt to see Thing’s response to dive straight into her task. Writing it all down took slightly longer than she anticipated, but she managed to get through it after another two hours. And it wasn’t until she was done that she realized that, for the first time in two days, she had been able to concentrate on something, read something, write something. She even let out a mocking chuckle while thinking that, obviously, it had to be related to those damn dreams for her to do that. Her brain was truly, fully fixated on that.

For the first moment in two hours, she finally lifted her gaze from her notebook to rest it on Thing. “Have you found anything yet?”

This one paused in his reading to sign to her, “No, all these books have nothing to do with what you asked.”

A light sigh escaped from the girl’s mouth. Or rather a faintly heavier breath. “Then search more.”

Another thumbs up from the hand. 

Wednesday didn’t take two more seconds before she stood up to grab a book in turn and thus commenced scouring as well. Being experienced in reading, over time she had learned to read much faster than the average person, which never ceased to amaze those around her. Therefore it would be easier to get through the volumes. So she started to skim through the pages, scanning everything she could in prospects of finding words in the lexical fields of what she was surveying for. Soon she was wholly immersed in a state of attentiveness.

Another hour later, she progressed through at least three books. She felt the little flame of hope begin to gutter inside her. Thing was right. So far, everything she read had nothing to do with what she was looking for. But she tried to frantically throw gasoline on that flamelet to rekindle it. She wasn’t going to give up like this, not so easily. She was Wednesday Addams after all. And Wednesday Addams never gave up. She kept digging, even if it would lead her into a bottomless pit from which she could never climb out.

It was halfway through the fourth book that she began to feel her eyes grow heavy. But she persisted in her task, noticing merely too late that she didn’t register anymore everything she was reading. Her sight was only traveling over the words without her mind actually retaining them, her hands continuing to unconsciously turn the pages. As the minutes passed, her skull seemed to fill with cement, and her eyes became bound with bricks, closing only to reopen and resume their duty. However, at one moment, she didn’t have the strength to open them again, and without even managing to hold back, her head fell heavily on her still wide open book.

She plunged into a deep sleep. And it would have been utterly wrong to say that it was devoid of dreams.

Because no sooner did she shut her eyelids close than she opened them again.

And for the third time, she found herself encircled by red. Once more, that vast space of a red more vibrant than the hemoglobin of a perforated body, red to the point of making her own eyeballs bleed. Red was probably the only color Wednesday tolerated, but lately she judged it less and less bearable. 

Her gaze immediately dropped to her hand, and she wasn’t ever so slightly surprised to see that her pinky was surrounded by that same red thread. Again. It happened again and again in every dream. But what was the meaning of it?

Her vision entirely glued to it, Wednesday remained motionless in the middle of this large place, like an ink stain in a pool of hemoglobin. She did not move until, after a weak blink of an eye, everything changed around her. It was always the same. Dreams consistently started with her in that red area, and a simple blink was sufficient to make her shift location.

She peered to the surroundings. Trees towered all around her, a ground of soil and rocks scattered with branches, moss, and leaves under her feet. A forest, again. But it was different; it was far from being akin to the one in Nevermore, to the one in her first dream. The types of trees were different; far from being the kind that grew up back in Jericho or in New Jersey—where her family lived—, the atmosphere was more tranquil, almost soothing, quiet, and placid. No aura of stress or dread was present like the one that hung over the Nevermore Forest. The brightness was also unusual. The sky was lit up with dozens of distinct shades of color, ranging from azure to orange to pink to black. 

In front of her was a path bereft of grass, just a trail of dry, sandy dirt, winding through the many thick trees around. It climbed slightly over what seemed to be a hill to get lost behind a bend.

And on this path, that red thread could be found, still attached after Wednesday’s pinky. The latter didn’t even wait before she started to walk with quick steps in its direction. She didn’t know why she was doing this, but that didn’t stop her. Once again, she let herself be controlled by a force above her—which was typically nontraditional of her. Yet, recently she was forced into buckling to its will, whoever “its” was. She followed it snaking, twisting, moving along the route until she came to the bend. That’s where she ceased dead in her tracks when she saw what was there.

A rock cliff, plunging into the view of a forest overlooking a large city. The road was running along it after the angle. And farther on it, in front of the magnificent panorama of the tangerine sky turning to carnation hues, stood against the light a figure. Feminine, short hair, rather tall without being too tall. She was positioned a few meters away from the fence separating the path from the void, immobile. The red string was moving towards her, rising up to tie itself to her hand hanging at her side. 

A weird sensation spread through the psychic’s entire chest at the sight of her, covering as surprisingly as it might seem the feeling of absence inside her. Quietly, it made it fade away. Wednesday had never been the best at distinguishing emotions, but if she had to take a guess, she would have said it became close to joy. Albeit, that kind of joy was mixed with sadness and calmness at the same time. 

As soon as she saw her, a single word immediately rushed to her lips. “Enid?” she called without letting her surprise show.

The silhouette turned to her right away. “Wednesday?” she replied with astonishment.

She didn’t even need a few seconds before she launched herself in her direction, instantly grabbing her shoulders. The sudden impact knocked the black-haired girl back a step, but she caught herself and straightened her spine. She couldn’t stop her eyes from widening at the unexpected presence and attention.

“Wednesday! Where the hell are we? And why are you always in my dreams? What is this thread? What’s happening?”

For the space of only three small seconds, the shock only got bigger and bigger, marking every facial feature of the shorter teen. Her mask fell off altogether for a brief moment, and there was nothing she could do to put it back on except wait for it to return on its own. Since when did Enid talk to her in her dreams? And why was she asking her these questions when she was pondering them herself and actively seeking the answers? Was she the representation of her subconscious inquiring about everything she was wondering?

“What?” she quizzed, trying to keep her tone as monotone as possible.

Enid’s eyebrows furrowed widely. She took a step backwards, letting go of her friend’s shoulders. “I said, where are we, why are you in my dreams, what is this thread and what’s happening?”

A hint of displeasure crept into Wednesday’s thorax. Another emotion. But her face remained unmoved, and so did her voice, as icy and sharp as ever. Why was her subconscious Enid?

“If I knew that, maybe I would not be here.”

Hardly had her words been uttered that Enid’s air broke down under pure discouragement. 

“Please Wednesday, stop all those enigmas and help me, I can’t take this anymore!” she began before bringing her hand to her chest, to which the thread was attached. Her voice was cracking with every word, sounding as if she would burst into tears at any moment. Why was the Enid of her dream doing this? Why did her subconscious seem so discouraged? The goth teenager was, as well, no necessity to remind it to her in her dreams.

She promptly resumed, her tone degrading further, “Since I came back home, I’ve just been feeling worse and worse every day. And all this is because of these goddamn dreams I have every two days that I can’t figure the origin of. I need answers, and you seem like the only one who can help me acquire them…”

The surprise came back again in force to the teenager, and this time it stayed on her face much longer than a short moment, appearing to engrave itself and leave a lingering trace. Although the words were accumulating in her throat, they were stuck there, and it was impossible for her to get any of them out. She remained still, staring at her friend with wide eyes. The latter looked at her in return, immobile. Confusion surfaced in the dejection.

“Why are you making that face?”

Wednesday blinked once, her usual expression coming back to mask all the emotions on her face. She didn’t even ponder on the fact she blinked.

“I feel the same. Since I arrived back home, I started feeling the same.” She could feel her shell cracking, her wall of protection that she built over the years, even stronger than concrete, becoming fragile, buckling, snapping.

Stupefaction hit Enid like a train at full speed in its turn, destabilizing her everywhere, weakening her knees, and making her heart leap majestically. About a minute passed during which she opened and closed her mouth to try to form a coherent sentence.

“Wednesday… Are you like… real? Or just a figment of my imagination...?” she wondered with so much bewilderment yet a big curiousness.

This question almost took the latter’s breath away, as if she had just been kicked in the stomach. At least, if she could breathe in this dream, her respiration would abruptly stop. Why was her subconscious asking her that? What did she mean by that? 

And, all of a sudden, she connected the dots.

What if this Enid was not her subconscious, but someone real? The true Enid, miles away from her, joining her in her dream.

How would that even be possible...?

She breathed deeply before being able to respond, “Yes, I’m real, Enid.” 

Heavy seconds passed before the short-haired werewolf managed to speak again, “How can I be sure of that? What if you’re just my imagination lying to me, twisting and turning me around again to fool me and make me believe you’re real?”

Doubts… So Wednesday truly wasn’t the only one wondering if the other was her actual friend joining her in her dream.

The girl with the two braids stared at her. Her expression returned cold and emotionless, in spite of the fact that inside was bubbling up more than a dozen feelings tangled and muddled up together. “I don’t know how to prove it to you right now, but when we wake up, I will.”

And as if her words had triggered something in her, her eyelids opened again. She sat up straight in her chair, her cheek burning from the contact with the book she had fallen asleep on. Her back was hurting, and so was her neck and face. Yet that didn’t stop her wide-eyed gaze from darting on the area around her. She returned to the library. A book still open underneath her, her notebook accompanied by the inkwell in which the quill rested, the many stacks of books placed on the long table at which she was seated. Not a trace of Thing, but everything remained the same.

It was a dream again.

She fell asleep while reading. How strange was that… she never fell asleep while reading. 

But that was the least of her worries.

She had to prove the fact that she was real to Enid. And she had the perfect solution for that.

The young girl didn’t wait until sleep had escaped her eyelids before she hurriedly got up from her seat, grabbed her notebook with her, and rushed to the library’s exit door. She opened it with a bang only to stumble out into the darkened hallway. She completely dismissed Enid’s silhouette appearing in the many corners of deep obscurity as she raced to her room. She didn’t even bother to be silent not to wake up anyone. Less than a few minutes later, she was there.

Breathing shortened by her run and her heart beating slightly faster than usual, she didn’t even hesitate before heading to her massive wooden closet to retrieve her bag. Inside it was still located the useless phone she was given as a gift the day she left Nevermore. She hadn’t utilized it once since she arrived home. 

She felt a twinge of irritation pierce her soul as she realized that the damn phone wasn’t so meaningless after all. She opened the device quickly, rushing to her contacts. Only one name was listed. She held back a sigh as she pressed it to call it. 

She hated having to depend on others to get what she wanted. But she didn’t have much choice at this point.

A few rings echoed before a male voice with overtones of disbelief finally answered on the opposite end of the line, still slightly hoarse and bordered by a sleep from which she had just woke him up, “Wednesday? I-I thought you said I shouldn’t expect a call from you...? Even less in the middle of the night… Is there something up?”

“In fact, yes there is, Xavier,” the teenager simply declared in a low timbre. Xavier was the last person she wanted to talk to right now.

“And what is it...?” Xavier now sounded as worried as he was stunned.

“I need you to imperatively tell me, do you have Enid’s number?”

A silence reverberated at the end of the line for the space of a few seconds.

“Enid’s number? Huh? Why?”

He seemed disappointed. It almost made Wednesday laugh. Did he really imagine she would have called him for him? Of course, she was going to contact him to get something. That was just how she was.

“I don’t have the time to answer your meaningless and trivial questions. Do you have it, yes or no?” 

When the boy replied, it was with a stutter, “Y-yes, I think I do. Do you want it?” 

“Yes.” She hesitated a little too long before continuing. “Please. And as soon as possible.”

“Okay, no problem, I’ll text it to you…”

A sense of victory grew in Wednesday’s chest. Xavier seemed even more crestfallen than before, and that only made that feeling more powerful.

“Perfect. Thank you,” she concluded before hanging up curtly. This conversation was painful; she loathed every second of it. She hoped she would never have to hear this boy’s annoying voice again, or she would have to proceed to grab needles to puncture her own eardrums. 

She remained in the same place as she went to the message system for Xavier’s number, standing totally still. One could almost mistake her for a statue, or even a demon perched soundlessly in the darkness. 

It took less than a minute for the number to appear in the conversation. The moment she saw it, Wednesday’s heart seemed to practically skip a beat in her rib cage. She didn’t even use the time to answer him; she pressed the number to arrive on a page to be able to call it. She clicked on the button. Her heart sped up remarkably quickly as she brought the cell phone to her ear to hear the ringing sound. Get yourself together. Now.

Unlike Xavier, it lasted less than half a ring before the girl picked up.

A few seconds passed. A shaky respiration could be heard through the speaker. “H-hello...?” 

To her astoundment, the shorter teen found her breath hitching to the noise of that soft, nearly frightened voice, injected with distrust and faint, almost imperceptible tremors. It seemed to send an explosion of panic that made her ever so calm heart quicken even more, albeit at the same time a wave of tranquility took over the rest of her body. This sensation of peacefulness wandered all over her, hovering over the hole in her chest like an ephemeral fog. It soothed the feeling of absence, softened it, and made it more bearable. But that, it was only afterwards that she noticed it. 

“It’s me Wednesday.”

Enid’s breathing stopped right away only to start up again jerky. It was the only thing that filled the silence.

“H-hi Wednesday… How bizarre is it that you call me at 3 a.m...” Her voice trailed off. Hesitation added to it. “Whyyy are you calling me at 3 a.m...? And how did you get my number? And since when do you have a phone?” she asked with agitation and almost fear in her tone. Somehow, Wednesday knew that this concern was not because she was calling her.

“I obtained your number from Xavier—who forced a cell phone upon me—, and I’m calling you to prove that I’m real.”

She heard a peculiar noise coming out of the speaker. It sounded like the squeak of a mattress caused by a sudden weight. 

“W-what? H-how...?” 

Wednesday’s tone only got more serious. “Enid, we need to talk.”

Chapter Text

Enid’s heart was beating so ferociously that she could hear it reverberating all the way to her head. She could sense the strong pulsing in all her veins, in her neck, in her wrists, but especially against her sternum. It was pounding so violently that she felt as if it wanted to break free; she was afraid it would fracture her bones. If it hadn’t been for her rib cage, her vital organ would surely have torn through her muscles, blood vessels, and skin to escape from inside her. It felt like a wild animal was trapped in her chest, trying everything possible to escape. 

The last time she felt it thumping so madly was when she battled with Tyler. 

But today, the reason for these sharp pulsations was far from being because of combat or anything similar to that. It was actually caused by a simple sentence that had been spoken through a phone:

“It’s me Wednesday.”

She tried to maintain her composure as soon as she heard her friend’s soft, low voice drop those words. It was always with so little emotion, flat and cold, but underneath all her layers of ice, she was able to discern some eagerness and some concern. 

The fact that Wednesday called her by herself was in the first place extremely surprising, but when you added the factor that she didn’t have her number before, and even less a phone, it became shocking. It meant that she had taken action to obtain those. But what paralyzed her the most about all this was that she called her in the middle of the night, just minutes after she had woken up from a new dream. A dream where she was with the same girl on a curious mountain lit by a sunset, where before awakening she gradually realized that potentially her roommate from her dream was not just from her imagination. That maybe she was the actual one whose dream joined hers in some way, if that was even possible. She rose from that dream straight after the psychic said those words; currently, they were echoing and looping in her head: “I don’t know how to prove it to you right now, but when we wake up, I will.” 

And she did. She called her and told her she was contacting her to prove she was real.

This was by no means a coincidence. And as soon as the taller one heard that statement after stumbling over her own words, she collapsed on her bed, and nothing would have been able to get her up. Her legs were shaking almost as much as her hands, her knees were jelly and her heart was still racing.

“Enid, we need to talk.”

Wednesday’s tone was low, graver than usual. The golden-haired girl searched for the words to answer her, but her dry mouth only opened and closed without her vocal cords managing to create a single sound. 

Hearing the silence stretch, her black-haired teen spoke again, “The dreams… you had them too, right?”

The werewolf gave herself a mental slap to regain her composure. But she couldn’t keep her voice from quivering as she responded, “Y-yes I did… The Nevermore Forest, the library, and the mountain… And you were present in each of them.”

This time it was Wednesday’s turn to have her words cut off. It was only after a moment that she uttered, “I had those exact dreams as well. And you were there too.”

The shock only grew by the second in the blonde. The gears of her brain were spinning at full speed. “H-how is that even possible?”

Wednesday thought for a minute before she declared, “It appears like shared dreams.”

A calm fell between them. Enid didn’t know what else to say. Shared dreams? She fidgeted with the bottom of her pajamas shirt, her leg beginning to bounce alone on the floor. The screen of her phone quietly heating up as she was using it seemed to burn against her face, which was even hotter. That whole situation was completely insane. 

“Shared dreams… Right. We had the same dreams, and we saw each other in them. Wow okay, that’s a lot to take in…” she summarized out loud trying to process the information. And god, was it hard to process.

She closed her eyes tightly while letting out a large sigh. Her voice was much lower as she spoke, “So that explains why you were awake shortly after me that night in Nevermore. It wasn’t because you heard me making noise, was it?” 

“No, it indeed wasn’t. It was that odd dream’s fault. The one I was talking about. However I was not about to divulge such things; you would have deemed me even creepier than I am, a prospect not altogether displeasing, albeit.” 

A laugh climbed into the teenager’s throat, but she held it in. Strangely, she had been thinking the same precise thing that night. “I probably would have been more shocked than anything else knowing that I had just woken up from that same dream.”

Wednesday hummed in response. She appeared to be pondering again. The colorful girl took advantage of the silence to add, “Do you believe these common dreams are related to the bizarre red thread that… binds us in them...?” 

The voice on the other end of the line hesitated, “Perhaps. I just can’t fathom in what way and why.” She seemed to have gone into investigation mode. She sounded calmer. Enid was too. At least she wasn’t panicking anymore. 

Now that she calmed down, all her dozens of queries were beginning to resurface. “In the first dream… Didn’t you say something like ‘the red thread, we’re connected’? Why did you even say that? I don’t understand.” 

Her friend’s voice dropped slightly under the questioning. “I don’t know. I did not comprehend myself the justification that prompted such a manner of speaking in me. It was as though a puppeteer had seized control over my limbs and tongue during this whole dream. From the very instant I opened my eyes in Crackstone Crypt, to the moment I closed them again in the forest whilst in your company.”

For a reason that escaped her, at the thought of that moment when they had stared deeply into each other’s eyes, their faces so close to each other, a faint sensation of warmth began to rise on the teen’s cheeks; it caused them to take on a slight reddish tinge. It was at this instant that she was particularly glad that Wednesday was on the phone with her, and not in front of her. 

“So it’s in Crackstone Crypt you woke up, huh?” she quizzed, her head full of questions she was aching to get answers to. 

“Yes.”

“For my part, I woke up in the forest. It looked as if it was the moment just after I transformed back into a human, the night of the blood moon.”

“How compelling…” only remarked her macabre roommate. She seemed genuinely interested.

The short-haired girl added quickly. “But I couldn’t control anything as well during the first dream. It was as if I was a complete spectator of my body moving on its own without needing my mind. And my mind was totally empty, truthfully. There was only…” 

Her hand automatically went to her chest. She didn’t notice before, but since she started the call with her, the hole seemed to have filled, but only partially. 

“There was just this weird, empty sensation inside me… That was the only feeling I had in all that void, actually. It disappeared when I woke up, but after the second dream, it came back… and it stayed. And it’s getting stronger daily.”

Enid’s leg was bouncing so fast on the floor. 

“So this is what you signified when you declared in the dream that you were getting worse each passing day?” the shorter teen wondered.

“Not only that… I barely sleep, I barely eat, I barely do anything but think about these dreams, I’m always distracted, my werewolf senses seem to be heightened more and more… and I keep viewing your silhouette. Everywhere I go, every time there’s a bit of obscurity, I see you staring at me. And no offense, but it’s terrifying! I might have yelled and thrown a shoe at you the first time.”

“No offense perceived, I assure you; I find a certain amusement when individuals avow my presence fills them with trepidation.” A smile nearly resounded in the voice of the girl with ebony braids. But it faded faster than it came. “I am myself similarly afflicted, and I am convinced these dreams are the root of our shared malady.”

The tall girl didn’t know what to say. She was right. It couldn’t be due to something other than these dreams. She still couldn’t build a connection between them all, but it didn’t make any more sense if it were because of something else than that.

Wednesday continued, “The red string, those shared dreams, and now those peculiar feelings and sensations prevailing equally within us both. It seems like we really are linked in some manner. Conceivably by the red thread as you expressed earlier?” 

Filled with discouragement, Enid brought her available hand not holding the phone to her head; she grabbed to it. “Most likely yeah… God, it’s so crazy. All of this is so crazy. I don’t understand; I have so many questions.”

Again, there was another silence on the phone line. But there was nothing unpleasant about it. On the contrary, it deposited a sense of serenity on them. The werewolf was still sitting on her bed, lost in the darkness of her room, her phone pressed firmly to her ear. Even minutes after, she could feel her heart beating rapidly in her rib cage, though the rhythm was much less frantic than earlier.

“Have you observed that when we converse, the empty sentiment dissipates?” eventually remarked Wednesday.

Enid blinked forcefully, straightening her posture with a jerk “Y-yeah?”

“It also befell during the initial dream when we met vis-à-vis. And again, upon the third occasion when we were together.”

The blonde tried to find the end of her thoughts ahead of time, but nothing came to her mind. “What are you getting at?” 

“You said that the empty sensation within you did vanish when awakening from the original dream, only to return subsequent to the second. This is my own circumstance as well. And viewing this in its proper light, considering the events transpiring, during the first dream, we were still in the same room, the same school, the same state. In short, we were still close to each other. And the feeling was not present. However, upon our comeback and having the second dream, the sentiment resurfaced. And it remained given that we were not together,” she dropped like a bomb.

She took a slight breath before continuing as if to give herself the courage to keep talking. “With each passing day, the situation grows more dire because we are not together. It’s like a blockage. And the only way to dislocate that blockage is for us to restore our proximity. That is the sole course of action I can think of to drive it away.”

This hit the one with pale locks with a jolt as if a ton of bricks had been thrown at her head. And it stunned her to her core. As her heart began to beat wildly against her sternum once more, a vicious, burning, acidic sensation turned her stomach upside down. Her face instantly heated up. “Are you saying… Are you saying that we should see each other again...?”

“Yes, precisely. If we aspire to rid ourselves of this feeling, but also try to figure out what all this havoc is about, this is what we need to achieve.”

The acrid sensation seemed to go around her entire body, sending shivers through her whole being. “H-how?”

“One of us is taking the plane to encounter the other.”

One does what now?

That was the last thing Enid expected to hear from her mouth. She never imagined Wednesday would want to see her again at all. Even though she said it sounded tempting to visit her in San Francisco. She was always convinced that she hated her when they first met, yet as time went on, she seemed to tolerate her more. In the short-haired teen’s eyes, she felt as if she was just another unimportant person to her. As a matter of fact, she thought for far too long that her inky-haired friend was actually happy to return home to finally get rid of her talkative, way too energetic and annoying roommate. But here she was, asking her to see her again. 

She giggled a bit awkwardly. “Wednesday Addams? Wanting to see me again? That’s the last thing I expected to hear if I'm honest.”

“That’s the last thing I expected to say likewise. But the only way to ascertain the veracity of my advanced theory is to put it into practice.”

“Yeah… I guess you’re right,” Enid stated with some uncertainty.

“I'm always right. So what is your opinion on this? Are you keen on accepting this proposition?” finally asked the one she was talking to. To anyone else, her tone would have been devoid of emotion, but the werewolf knew her sufficiently to discern a faint one floating there. Hope.

“I believe it’s a great idea. We should see each other…” her voice weakened towards the end of her sentence. She hesitated to say the rest of her reflections, which Wednesday seemed to notice. “Is there a but?”

A queer mixture of unease and annoyance welled up inside the blonde. “I don’t know… I just don’t think my parents are going to let me take a plane again. They were already frustrated enough that I arrived home prematurely, and they had to pay for an early flight… Besides, their funds aren’t infinite…”

Wednesday didn’t even hesitate. “You don’t have to fly again. I can come to your residence.”

Stupefaction returned in full force to the short-haired girl. “Really? Your parents won’t mind?”

“Not to brag, but money is not an issue for the Addams. And I possess a repertoire of methods, including the employment of forceful measures, to persuade them to grant me leave.”

For the first time in what seemed like forever, a slight smile reached Enid’s lips. “Wow seriously? That’s awesome! So you’re gonna come here? With me? In San Francisco?” A faint excitement grew in her, making her heart swell. “Oh my god, we’ll be able to hang out, do our nails, our hair, watch movies and do everything besties usually do!”
 
“Enid,” the girl attempted to bring her back to reality. “The mere purpose of my stay shall be to unravel this mystery. And that is, only upon the approbation of my parents, which I anticipate. It won’t be for matters of a mundane and insignificant nature such as these.”

The tall one’s smile only grew wider. “Yeah of course!” A shadow of a sigh reverberated at the other end of the line. 

“But you can’t lie…” carefully restarted the blonde. “At the same time, this is going to be a bit of your visit to San Francisco like I proposed the day before we left Nevermore!! You did say it sounded tempting when I suggested it!” The enthusiasm had risen to the colorful teen voice without her being able to stop it. Even though it was three in the morning, she didn’t try to keep it down out of fear of stirring her parents and brothers from their sleep. In fact, she didn’t truly think about it. To hell with her brothers and parents.

“I hypothesize it will. But first, we must ask our parents.” Wednesday’s monotone tone was a strange contrast to her friend’s far too upbeat one.

“All right! I’ll do that as soon as they wake up,” Enid replied with the same newfound thrill.

“We’ll message each other our answers when we get them in this case. But for now, I have to go.”

“Okay, sure! Bye Wednesday, it was nice to talk to you. See you soon, hopefully!”

The teenager hesitated for a few seconds. “Yeah, it was nice… Goodbye Enid.”

Then they hung up. 

 ☀︎

It was only afterwards that Enid realized that the chances of her parents approving Wednesday coming to stay with them for an indefinite period of time were as slim as them agreeing to her flying once more. 

So the euphoria of the beginning swiftly turned to stress, and she spent the entire night up attempting to distract herself. Yet again, as if she wasn’t used to it by now, everything she tried to do didn’t work, and her mind kept going back to her dreams. But also to Wednesday. Much more on Wednesday even.

Her tension complemented well with the emptiness inside her. The latter gradually returned quickly after their call ended. Both of them mixed together to create an emotion even worse than anything she had felt in the last few days.

The sepulchral girl’s answer finally came a few hours after their phone call, and of course, it was a yes. Her parents had accepted for them to meet again. This brought back a bit of elation in the blonde, but it was promptly buried by worry. 

All that was left was to get her own parents to agree.

Later in the morning, as they were having breakfast alone without her brothers—who probably weren’t even awake yet—that’s when she gathered all her bravery. She began to nonchalantly tell them a part of the situation. She didn’t want to give the whole truth away; so she just said that she and her friend had thought about meeting each other again and that she would be coming to visit them for a while, since she was from the other side of the country. She would be the one dealing with her; they would not have to do anything about her, they would barely even see her.

And as unexpected as it sounded, they agreed. This left the teen with the honey-colored locks feeling agape for a good moment but managed to lower the distress inside her in a matter of seconds, only to be replaced by the same giddiness as earlier. The fact they wouldn’t have to make sure she stayed alive presumptively weighed in the balance; they doubtlessly couldn’t care less about if she had someone over or not. That was fine by her.

After eating, she hurried back to text Wednesday the great news, who then proceeded to advise her she had already bought a flight and whether or not Enid’s parents allowed it she would come anyway. This wasn’t really astounding coming from her. 

What stunned her the most though was when she told her that the flight she had gotten was three days away. 

☀︎

The next three days seemed to be the longest of Enid’s life. In some perspectives, three days were really short, but in others, they were far too long. And for the girl, it was the second case. Having to continue to endure this suffocating sense of absence inside her, coupled with her constant fatigue, her perpetual distraction from everything, her mind relentlessly racing, and her too many hallucinations were unbearable. 

The jubilation to see Wednesday again did not leave her, but soon enough, nervousness came back. A lot of nervousness, and dread, and apprehension. All of which were related to this visit. And she couldn’t do anything to get rid of them; she was unable to distract herself. If she wasn’t pondering the dreams, she was thinking about the stay. She couldn’t escape any of them. 

The day before the coal-haired teenager was supposed to arrive, the werewolf was still considering all the unimaginable positive and negative sides of her roommate’s visit. As she was lying on her back in bed at night, eyes open and wandering on the ceiling, her mind was spinning, void filling her abdomen, combined with both exaltation and disquiet. A really odd mix if she was frank. Quite a disagreeable blend.

Her brain being far too active, she was convinced that she would never succeed in falling asleep. But after a while, her eyelids started to get hefty. She thought for a moment that, if she closed them for a short time, it would be simply to rest them a little. She did just that, but when she opened them again; however, she was no longer in her room.

She had returned to the large crimson space, with the same thread wearing that identical color. She was back in a dream.

If she didn’t learn two days ahead that the psychic also shared her dreams, her main reaction to this discovery would have been discouragement, accompanied by a heavy sigh. But she was far from disheartened right now. All the anxiety and concern from earlier evaporated to let a faint flame of joy seep in. Although she couldn’t feel it inside her because it was obviously a dream, this flame of excitement was there and was undoubtedly due to the fact that she knew she was going to see Wednesday again. She was happy to know that if her friend’s theory were true, the terrible, deep sensation of nothingness within her would be filled when she was with her again. Finally, she might have a rest from all those horrible sensations.  

Still lost so far in her mind, she barely detected when the scenery around her suddenly changed as she blinked. When she looked up, she noticed that she was in a vast room. One of its sides was decorated in all sorts of hues, walls plastered with posters, curtains fluttering and hanging over a bed smothered in blankets and plushies, while the other contained only the necessary furniture, all in dark, depressing tones. Enid stood in the middle of this setting where each extremity seemed to be fighting to take possession of the other, right in front of a large round window with a spider web pattern. One of its halves was tinted with various colored, transparent papers, whereas the other was left untouched.

She was in Ophelia Hall, her former dorm room. 
 
“Enid… you’re there.”

The named one immediately flipped around to find herself about three feet away with a person much shorter than her, with tanned skin that matched well with her onyx hair braided on each side of her face. Her expression was frozen in a mask of impassivity, her large obsidian eyes glued directly to her.

“Wednesday! Is that… really you? Like the real Wednesday?”

“Yes, it’s me, Enid.” 

A thin smile spread across the taller teenager’s visage “Hi… It feels strange to see you face to face again after… everything I learned.” She paused briefly to breathe slightly harder. “It feels strange to know it’s the real you, connected to this body in this dream and talking to me face to face despite all the miles between us.”

“It indeed is strange,” the shorter one replied as she looked away from her to scan the room around them.

Seconds passed and Enid’s smile gradually subsided. She finally stared down and let out a low sigh. She took a few steps backwards until her back met the colored part of the large window. She slid down it until she landed on the hard, wooden floor, basked in the flamboyant light of her side. Her legs lifted to her chest, and she came to rest her arms on them to curl up even more against herself. All her movements inevitably brought the somber-haired girl’s gaze back to her.

At that moment, something snapped inside her. All of a sudden, all the pressure and worry she had been feeling in the last days buckled. Spontaneously she was like an open book with its words spilling out of the pages, escaping, and nothing powerful enough to hold them back. “Tomorrow you will take the plane, and it will no longer be through a dream that we’ll see each other, that we’ll speak to each other,” she began. “I know I’m not the one going on a plane, but it frightens me.”

The eyebrows of the teen with the two braids frowned imperceptibly. She took a few steps forward as well to come and slide against the bare side of the window in turn, sitting a few inches away from the blonde. Their shoulders were almost touching. 

“Why is that?” she asked, looking at her. Her tone had softened.

Enid was staring straight ahead into the empty room, taking in the scenery of the battle between all the colors and the monochrome.

“Everything linked to that visit scares me, actually…” she began quietly. “You visiting means you’ll have to live with my parents, and you saw them on Parents’ Day; they… can be a lot.” She had a nervous chuckle. “What if they don’t like you and kick you out while we have nothing figured out yet? What if we don’t figure out anything? That feeling of absence, what if it stays?” Her tone seemed to drop more and more with each word she spoke, becoming almost tremulous.

She turned her head slightly to see Wednesday. Their eyes met. Her expression conveyed sadness, or what appeared to be sadness. “What if we’ll be doing all that for nothing, and we’re already doomed to whatever fate they chose for us? What if nothing gets fixed?”

She looked back at the werewolf with that same intense expression she always displayed in those kinds of moments. There was something indescribable behind those big dark eyes that the her friend had not been able to figure what it meant yet.

“Enid, I promise I will attempt to do everything so your parents regard me with favor. And if they fail to comply, the fault solely lies with them; their sentiments are beyond your command. I might wish to inflict upon them a demise of considerable violence, but I shall restrain from such impulses, because such an act would ill befit our… companionship.”  

She watched her straight in the eyes as she spoke, without blinking, without even trying to turn away. And that sent heavy shivers up the taller teen’s back. She knew they were there, but she couldn’t feel them. And she did nothing about it. She just stared back at Wednesday with eyes as round as saucers. There was something so hypnotizing about her gaze, she felt drawn to it like a magnet to metal. She felt that if she turned away from those two deep beads so brown they looked black, everything around her would fall apart.

She was so engrossed in her irises, so mesmerized that she couldn’t form any words. All she could think about was their closeness, but mostly what she said. Did Wednesday truly admit they were friends?

The goth teen finally continued, “And please refrain from burdening yourself about not being capable of fixing everything. I promise we will. I have already taken a notebook to record all the information we have so far, and I am currently reviewing the contents of the library in the Addams family mansion. And we shall pursue further investigations together to try to figure out what it all means, to stop what’s happening. We’ll figure things out. Together. Okay?”

She was still staring into Enid’s eyes, and Enid was staring back at her hard, dark ones lost in the middle of a soft, placid face. Since their first deeper conversation on the balcony in Ophelia Hall—the real one—never would she have thought that reassurance would become one of Wednesday’s skills. She was more like the type to make everything worse. Yet, it seemed to work. 

The werewolf only nodded imperceptibly. She was dumbfounded by what she just heard from her mouth, but her heart was warm.

The room went silent again. The amber-haired girl finally managed to pull her look away from the enthralling abyss that was Wednesday’s gaze, bringing her eyes ahead of her. Her roommate did likewise. 

So they sat quietly next to each other, their shoulders practically pressed together until they woke up.

They’ll figure things out, yeah. Together. 

Chapter Text

"We'll figure things out. Together. Okay?"

When Enid woke up from her dream, it was this sentence that occupied her entire mind. It was reverberating in it, echoing on the walls of her skull, etching into her brain. A simple sentence, so short and so innocent, yet that kept sending a soft sensation of heat into the emptiness of her chest. It was similar to a fire suddenly lit on an icy plain where snow was pouring, similar to a candle burning in a cold and dark place. This sentence was, in some ways, really reassuring. It was gentle, soothing, tranquilizing.

Coupled with everything her roommate had said to her, this simple phrase managed to silence some of her worries. Her nervousness and deep dread melted away and gave way to joy. It was weak, still buried under everything else—which was far too powerful—but it was there.

She would see Wednesday again in just a few hours. And that made her much happier than she’d been since she’d returned to California. And she had experienced little happiness in the last few days. It helped with her worries; it relieved a part of them.

All morning long, they stayed next to the emptiness, and the warm feeling in her abdomen. At lunchtime, it was still impossible for her to detach herself from them, although excitement was getting stronger by the minute, adding itself to the strange mixture. Because of the euphoria, but also due to the anxiousness of seeing her friend again, it was inconceivable for her to sit still in her chair as she breakfasted with her parents and brothers. She was so lost in her own mind that she went so far as to completely overlook her mother’s usual remarks about her.

It was after she ate that she was finally able to leave for the airport. Her father was the one who intended to drive her there and bring Wednesday back home. She didn’t trust her mother with that.

When they were on the road, she couldn’t help but bounce her leg on the ground while fidgeting with her fingers in hopes of calming herself down a bit. Her eyes were fixed on her skirt, but she did not look at it. Her mind had swallowed her far under all her feelings of elation and fear.

But she had sadly forgotten that werewolves had senses sufficiently sharp to perceive emotions, and it didn’t take long before her dad reached out to turn down the radio. He asked, “Nervous?”

Enid immediately snapped out of her thoughts, so brusquely torn from that comforting cocoon that she flinched slightly. Her leg came to a sudden stop on the floor. She opened her mouth and hesitated for what seemed like an eternity before formulating a response. She thought about the negative sides, but also the positive ones; a faint smile came on her face. “And also pretty excited…” 

She glanced at her father, who had his eyes fixed on the road. The man reciprocated his daughter’s smile as an answer. “I’m glad to see you’re finally inviting friends over,” he blurted out after a short silence cut off only by the very low sound of the radio.

The tall teen felt her body freeze at this remark. In all her existence, she never really had any friends close enough other than Wednesday—if she didn't count Yoko, Divina and company. And anyone who ever ventured to be had exclusively been offered to visit her residence on a few occasions. And it uniquely took those few times for her to learn the hard way that her family wasn’t the best with guests.

The sole moments she had invited school comrades over to her house, her brothers didn’t miss a single opportunity to make fun of her for her choices of company, but also to torment her friends themselves, right in their faces. As for her mother, she had always been more discreet, never directly criticizing the few individuals she ever brought over, albeit never failed to tell her personally once they were alone. Her friends were never enough for her mom.

Needless to say, it only pushed them further away from the werewolf, who was already very unlucky with friendships.

Enid was deeply afraid that it would do the same thing with Wednesday. It was one of her many fears, but she tried her best to force it away in the corner of her mind. She figured that she knew how to defend herself—a little too well—and would probably find something to bark back at her. Hopefully, this wouldn’t cause her parents to kick her guest out of their house…

“Y-yeah,” she finally replied to her father’s comment, unable to contain a feeble stutter. The conversation stopped there, but she didn’t truly mind. Her leg started bouncing on the ground again without her even realizing it as her eyes wandered over the landscape unfolding behind the car windows. The unsettling mix of emotions inside her only seemed to get worse when they arrived at the airport.

Once parked, the girl ordered her father to stay in the automobile as she worked up the courage to enter the airport alone. She anxiously made her way to the place where the newcomers would show up. She would see her again soon. It felt totally unreal. Wednesday? In California? Because of those odd dreams that connected them?

Just like that fateful night in the forest, her eyes scanned the crowd relentlessly for the familiar face of the person she was looking for. She waited, perching again and again on the tips of her toes and glancing very frequently at her phone. It seemed to take more than an eternity before the much sought-after visage appeared among all the other strangers. She walked through the mob dragging a luggage behind her, and a single backpack strap slung over her shoulder.

The moment Enid’s eyes fell on her, a weird feeling crept up within her. It seemed to suddenly cover the fear, the stress, the anxiety, and all her worries with a thin layer of calm. But also the emptiness inside her. This feeling seemed to choke it and her other sensations. It seemed to infiltrate every small crack of her heart to fill them and to seal them, like concrete in a fissure on the sidewalk. It gripped at the edges of the hole, of the hollow wound at the place of her vital organ to patch them together, to suture them, to bandage them.

The void faded. But the amber-haired teenager didn’t even have time to notice it because a sudden, incandescent blaze of joy erupted inside her. Wednesday was there. She was standing in front of her, not coming from her dreams. She was real.

At these thoughts, it took less than two seconds for it to immediately warm the interior of her chest that was once so vacant and frozen, making her face break into a wide smile. It filled her body so unexpectedly that it was impossible for her to hold it internally. One instant she was standing there fidgeting, and the next she was sprinting with all her might in her direction while happily squealing her name so loudly that dozens of heads turned her way. Many of them saw the blonde speeding towards another shorter teen who dropped her suitcase in what appeared to be surprise, and whose bag slid off her shoulder as the taller one threw herself at her. She took her with all her strength in her arms only to lift her into the air for the space of only a few seconds and start to twirl her around.

With her face engraved with shock settled over her shoulder, Enid couldn’t observe the corner of a smile that lit up the seer's usually expressionless face. If she saw her, she would have screamed in an over-dramatic way as she liked to do, which made her very glad she didn’t.

She spun her around a couple of times before putting her back down. Only then did the newcomer force her shadow of a smile into the deep hole from whence it came. She gently grabbed the colored-haired girl's shoulders and pushed her away with all the softness she could muster. The latter got the message right away and took a big step back while stomping on the spot, eyes wide.

“Oh my god, oh my god, I’m so sorry Wednesday, I didn’t mean to!” she began in a tone so fast that she almost stumbled over every word. Her expression was genuinely apologetic but mostly panicked. This new mix of emotions made her move her hands briskly as she spoke, shaking them around without stopping to shuffle from one foot to the other. “I just got just so excited and happy to see the real version of you in front of me, and I didn’t think twice before, and I know not hugging is kind of our thing, and it probably makes you uncomfortable! I’m so sorry please forgi-”

She stopped steeply in her sentence when the psychic's index finger came to rest in front of her lips. Eyes even wider than they were earlier, Enid stared at the almost mischievous look that only her friend’s eyebrows conveyed. The surprise made her stop all the movements she was doing before, but more importantly, it made her face and ears get so hot that she was truly terrified that her skin would turn completely red.

“Stop talking. Yes, I forgive you, Enid. And I am as pleased to see you in person. It certainly feels odd to be able to, though. But next time don’t push your luck with the hug. Just because I let you hug me once doesn’t mean you can repeat that act to such an extent. Subsequent occurrence, I will have to utilize my knife upon your person,” she said in a totally monotonous tone.

It was only at the end of her sentence that she withdrew her finger from in front of her mouth, allowing the werewolf to release a breath she didn’t even notice she had been holding. Her face was still as flushed as ever, but a toothy smile returned to her lips. She began to jump up and down. “You’re happy to see me too? And do it again for that long? Does that mean I can hug you again if I want?” she asked with equal eagerness and excitement.

The short one skipped over the first question. Of course. “If you ever exhibit such audacity another time, I will give you less than three seconds before I proceed to rip out every one of your organs while you’re still alive.”

Despite the atrocity of what she just said, no threat could be found in her voice, much less an intention to actually do it. Enid's smile widened. She was happy to see her once more. She missed her.

“But anyways, let’s get you back home, shall we?” 

☀︎

For the ride home, Enid installed herself in the back seat of the family automobile with Wednesday. It felt a little strange at her age to bequeath the front passenger seat empty knowing she could use it, but she automatically chose to sit there without even thinking. She herself wasn’t sure exactly why she decided to do this. Maybe it was to hold her roommate back in case she suddenly changed her mind about visiting and opened the car door to jump down? Or just not to leave her alone and embarrass her? Or perhaps—most likely—it was because she wanted to stick as close to her as possible?

As usual, the joy of seeing the onyx-haired girl again prevented the young werewolf from staying still in her seat. She kept wiggling and shifting her sitting position all the way, trying to control her smile, and of course, she got a lot of glares from her friend. There were so many things she wanted to tell her to catch up on all the days that they had been separated, but the presence of her father forestalled her from doing so. It was as if from the moment her parents were around, a dam erected within her and forced her to preserve everything inside only to ramble once alone with her friends. In this case Wednesday. The latter found herself rather surprised not to hear her annoying voice tearing at her eardrums.

The only sound that filled the slightly tense aura in the car was the pop music playing on the radio. The blonde was pretty sure that if her dad hadn’t been there, her visitor would have threatened to shut that down. Or she would end up sticking iron bars in her ears or something more horrible to stop hearing the high-pitched, irritating famous songs of the time. However, she held back.

All along the way, among many other things, she kept replaying in her mind the moment her dad met the short teen. Of course, Wednesday had acted like Wednesday, and from Mr. Sinclair’s face and reaction when she introduced herself, the golden-haired girl could see that he had been a little freaked out by her. Not that she was surprised, on the contrary. She expected this kind of outcome. She couldn’t imagine her mother and brothers’…

She just hoped that everything would be okay and that they wouldn’t all be terrified of her. Or that Wednesday wouldn’t hate them completely… Or at least that the whole ordeal wouldn’t end up in multiple homicides.

The car eventually pulled up in the parking lot of the Sinclair house. Immediately, Enid excitedly unbuckled herself and opened the door to finally get out into the fresh air. Ultimately she was able to stretch her legs; she was tired of staying still.

After picking up Wednesday’s suitcase from the trunk, she skipped around the automobile to join her. Her backpack already held by the latter, she stood next to her, looking up at her house.

The taller one alternated glances between the two for a brief moment before asking, “What do you think about it?” Apprehension crept into her voice. What if she hated her house? What if she thought less of her because of it? She knew Wednesday lived in a huge mansion that must have cost millions; so finding herself in a modest middle-class residence set in the suburbs of San Francisco with its rear to a large forest must have been really unfamiliar.

Wednesday didn’t even look at her upon hearing the question. She just continued to stare at the house without blinking once. Enid wasn’t actually convinced she had ever seen her blink before. Weren’t her eyeballs dry? She’d have to make sure to ask that question later…

“It’s appropriate,” she said simply in her usual flat tone.

The colorful girl couldn’t retain a smile from stretching her lips. She grabbed Wednesday’s hand without thinking twice and started pulling her towards the front entrance. To her surprise, she didn’t push her away. It was only at the top of the stairs that she let go. Her father had already sneaked in and closed the door. They stopped in front of it as the raised a hand in the air to turn the handle. But she never finished her action. A sudden anxiety grew in her chest.

Several long seconds passed.

The voice of the teen with the braids rose to her ears. “What are you waiting for?”

“I-I don’t know.” Enid said. But she was lying. She knew.

Her mom.

The meeting with her dad had gone well even though Wednesday seemed to have scared him somewhat, but she didn’t know if she should have the same expectations with her mom.

With her hand still on the handle, she shot her friend a look. “I know you said you would try in the dream, but I need to repeat it to you again. It would be incredibly appreciated if you didn’t threaten either of my parents… or my brothers… even if it’s tempting…”

Her roommate returned her gaze. Her eyes were dark and piercing, almost frightening. She seemed to want to reply, but she didn’t say anything. Enid knew; however, she wished to retort.

She closed her eyelids for some seconds with a deep respiration, “Wednesday… Please, I need you to promise me again, in real life,” she begged in a low voice so she wouldn’t be heard from the other side of the door. She sounded ridiculous. “I don’t want them to send you home or kick us both out.”

The psychic took a more profound breath than usual. Her version of a sigh. Her stare perforating Enid from side to side brought a strange, warm feeling to her abdomen. Oh, how she had missed those eyes as sharp as a knife blade…

Not. Right now.

Wednesday blinked once. Oh my god. She opened her jaws to speak again, but nothing was released at first. The words seemed to hurt to come out of her mouth, like broken glass rubbing against her throat. Although she probably wouldn’t object to the idea…

And here she was thinking once more like her. One could clearly see how her personality rubbed off on her.

“I... promise you… I will only unleash threats—commitments—or weapons if they get discourteous with you.”

A cold sensation washed over the taller teenager, contrasting strangely with the faint, burning feeling arriving to take over her cheeks. She… would pull out threats or weapons if her family were rude to her? Was she saying that she would defend her?

Nobody ever claimed they would stand up for her before…

But she couldn’t let that happen. She was certain it would occur, and she didn’t want her friend to get kicked out so early.

“N-no. I’m sorry, Wednesday, but I-I can’t let you do that. If they say something rude, which I know they will, just… don’t retort anything. Please… The best is to let it go and ignore it,” she barely managed to stammer. She wasn’t even able to look into her her eyes as she stated that. She felt so ashamed. If she were living in a normal family, she wouldn’t have to communicate these kinds of things. But here she was.

Wednesday’s expression didn’t budge. “I understand. I shall not.”

Enid nodded. At least that removed a chance of her guest being sent back on the first day. She breathed deeply to try to regain her composure before finally turning the knob. She threw a hasty look at the seer then took a step forward to enter the house, quickly followed by her.

“Hi Mom, we’re here!” she said in the most cheerful voice she managed to find in this moment of dread.

It took less than ten seconds before her mother appeared in the doorway of the kitchen holding a wet cloth from the dishes she was doing. She was wearing one of her pleasant smiles that could fool anyone into thinking she was a loving, noncritical mom. Still, when her stare landed on Wednesday, Enid could see her expression fade for less than two seconds to one of almost scorn.

Here it was…

“You girls sure took your sweet time! I was waiting for you!” she intonated with a voice filled with kindness and warmth. She stopped a few steps away from the two teenagers, her gaze immediately falling on the newcomer. “You must be… Wednesday!” she hesitated for a few moments over the name. Her voice conveyed a certain aversion as she said it.

But her tone returned to normal, and she continued as if nothing happened. “I recognize your… singular appearance from Parent’s Day! Enid told us a lot about you; she was really thrilled that you were visiting. I hope you’ll like it here. Feel free to make yourself at home!”

Barely one minute in, and she already managed to imperceptibly criticize her. The time her roommate was going to stay here would be great.

The macabre teenager gave Ms. Sinclair a nod. The blonde saw her hesitate for a moment before speaking. She knew a slew of insults and atrocious menaces were rising in her mouth, but she had promised. “The pleasure is equally mine, I assure you.”

Her tone was dry, almost threatening, which scared Enid for a bit. It sounded as if she was already planning something to “inflict upon her a demise of considerable violence.” But that was all the two exchanged. When she peered at her friend, she saw the dark look she was giving her mother. If she could, she would have thrown knives through her eyes.

The werewolf gently grabbed her arm and plastered a smile on her face, “Come on, I’ll show you my room!” Again, the raven-haired teen didn’t push her away. She just let herself be dragged up the stairs to the second floor. But they did not climb two steps when Esther Sinclair’s voice rang out again.

“Enid sweetie, come here real quick, I need to talk to you.”

The girl’s heart seemed to halt in her chest. Oh fuck. Wednesday had also stopped on the stairs to stare at the werewolf with an eyebrow faintly raised under questioning.

The werewolf forced herself to smile as convincingly as possible. She didn’t want to worry her. “You can go upstairs and into my room; it’s the last one at the end of the hallway. My door is supposed to be open; you’ll recognize all the colors. I’ll meet you in five seconds.”

Then she put down her friend’s suitcase that she was still carrying on one of the steps, and turned around to go back into the corridor, whose wide doorless frame led to the living room and dining room. Her mother was leaning against the frame, holding her dish towel in her hands. With a lump in her throat and her hands locked in front of her lap, the blonde walked towards her. The woman with the gray curls immediately grabbed her arm.

“That’s the friend you were talking about?!” she asked in an accusatory tone as low as possible, so Wednesday wouldn’t hear her. “That’s the creepy girl whose father got arrested during Parents’ Day! What did you think about bringing her here?! She has troublesome child looks just like her jailed father. Is she going to influence you in the wrong way? Soon you’ll be doing drugs under a bridge with her!”

The teenager opened her eyes wide. She felt offended.

“What? No! Her dad isn’t even in prison! And I’ve known her long enough to ensure you that she’s a good person. She has great grades and is well behaved. Please don’t worry about that, Mom.”

She was a bit right, though… Wednesday could be… somewhat of a troublemaker once in a while… but that wasn’t the time to think about this!

The woman narrowed her eyes.

“And why is she dressed like that? She looks like she’s going to a funeral. Her presentation gives me chills.”

“Mom!” hissed Enid, trying not to speak too vehemently. She could feel her face reddening under the anger rising inside her. “You can’t judge people like that by their appearances; she just has a different clothing style than us, that’s all!”

Esther sighed loudly. The teenager wanted to finish this conversation; she couldn’t take it anymore, or she would snap at her. “I need to go now; she’s waiting for me,” she announced a bit dryly as she spun around.

She tried not to start running towards the stairs as she headed up. Wednesday was no longer there, just as she had asked her earlier. This would have ended very badly if she had heard what her mother said.

With fury bubbling up inside her and a burning face, she climbed the stairs two at a time, catching Wednesday’s suitcase on the way. Once at the top, she slowed her pace and finally stopped in the middle of the hallway. Her eyes closed tightly as she took a deep breath in an attempt to calm herself. Pull yourself together. Now.

It was only after many seconds that she felt ready to move forward. Placing one of the kindest and truest smiles possible in this situation, she crossed the corridor to reach the door at the end of it, which was indeed open and led well into her room.

“Hii sorry about that, I’m here,” she dropped as she entered it, pulling the door behind her so that it was half closed.

Her gaze automatically went to Wednesday, who didn’t respond. She was standing with her back to her in the middle of her room, her hands bound in front of her thighs. She was watching the colorful surroundings carefully, silent and likely still expressionless. Upon hearing her voice, she quietly turned on herself to face her.

“What did your mother wish to discuss?” she asked with some curiosity.

Enid took another step away from the door. The lump in her throat hadn’t gone away, nor had the heat in her chest the indignation caused.

She couldn’t tell her. She just couldn’t.

“She only wanted to talk to me about dinner,” she lied with a nervousness that she prayed so hard wouldn’t show in her voice, “We’ll eat around six…”

She closely inspected her friend’s face, trying to discern an expression, a reaction as simple as it could be among that mask of impassivity. But all she saw was a subtle and almost invisible raising of an eyebrow. She seemed not to believe her. But this was not the time to dwell on that.

Playing with the bottom of her sweater, she pulled her sight away from her to make them nervously wander around for the space of a few seconds; before resting them again on Wednesday and placing a broad smile on her mouth. “But anyways. What do you think about my room?”

The girl with the two obsidian-colored braids looked around the place once more, “It’s… colorful.”

She wasn’t wrong.

Enid’s room was extremely colorful even. Posters of celebrities, artists of all types, music groups, movies, and TV shows adorned the neon orange and pink walls, embellished with countless fairy lights and instant photographs. Her bed was almost drowned in blankets and stuffed animals, with curtains hanging from the ceiling just like at Nevermore. As for her furniture, such as her desk and dresser, they were lost under tons of knickknacks, similar decorations, and even more stuffed animals. The nooks and crannies of the area were occupied by all sorts of other objects, such as her pair of roller skates that she hadn’t touched for at least a year. Even the floor, covered with her carpet featuring circles installed in squares of all possible and unimaginable shades, was not without color.

The whole was very much in the image of the girl living there. Eccentric, colorful, vibrant.

Wednesday looked like a stain on this decor. A black ink splash on a beautifully colored sheet of paper, a black and white character in a colorful modern movie, a dark moon in the middle of the daytime sky, an anomaly, a glitch even. She seemed so out of place in this setting, and yet, as the taller teen contemplated her, a sudden idea popped into her head, immediately taking up the entire space in her brain. This was Wednesday’s place. This was exactly where she belonged and nowhere else.

And that simple reflection managed to bring an unceremonious warmth to her cheeks still hot from her previous anger. What the hell Enid?

She pushed it into the back of her mind with violence, only hoping it would get lost under the ton of other thoughts that were already buzzing in it.

Sheerly embarrassed, she tried to divert her attention from that. She forced her smile to hold onto her lips. “Yeah, it is pretty colorful… Sorry about that, I know you’re allergic to colors.”

“I am. I have no idea how I am going to survive throughout the time I stay here to investigate what’s going on with us and those dreams.”

The split second the mention of dreams reached the teenager’s ears, her weak grin faltered. For a moment, she had almost forgotten the real reason Wednesday came to California.

That’s when it hit her. Currently that the blazing fire inside her had subsided, she noticed it for good. The empty feeling within her was gone. For the first time in days now, the hole in her heart seemed to be filled. No more pain, no more anything. Just fullness. Everything was back to normal. Or at least, almost.

Because she could still feel the trace of that previous cavity.

A trace similar to a freshly stitched wound that had not yet begun to heal, or to a pit that had just been loaded with dirt that didn’t have the time to get flat. These fresh stitches on her old laceration also seemed to be fragile. She had the nagging feeling that at any moment the little threads holding the newly closed injury could rip off again.

During her unexpected realization, many instants passed. Wednesday found herself intrigued by the sudden silence of her talkative friend. She stared at her with a frown.

It took over ten seconds before Enid dared to open her mouth again, “Do you feel it too?”

The other was only more puzzled. “Feel what?”

“The emptiness. Inside. Filled.”

It took a moment before the braided-haired teen managed to get anything out. “Yeah… You’re right. It is indeed now filled.”

The same enthusiasm from earlier seized control over every other feeling within Enid. She took small, quick steps towards her friend and grabbed one of her hands with both of hers, and lifted it between them. She started to stomp on the floor, a big smile on her face. “Wednesday you were right! Being together is helping!”

The latter did not even try to remove herself from her roommate’s grip, only staring at her visage, the corner of her mouth seeming to have turned imperceptibly upwards. “Of course I was right. I’m always right.”

Without letting go of her friend’s hands, the girl with the vibrant locks began to jump up and down. “Yes, you were right! We’ll be able to figure this out, I’m sure. We’re gonna stop all this, and shortly we’ll be free of it! When are we doing that? Can we start the investigations soon?”

Following the golden-haired teen hopping up and down in front of her without even deigning to move her head, Wednesday released one of her hands from her grip to put it on her shoulder. She forced her to a halt. Her tone was serious, as she replied, “Enid, it’s far too late to commence this now.”

The blonde’s look broke down. A pout appeared on her face.

“We can begin tomorrow if you’d like,” the psychic hastened to add when she saw her expression. She did not remove her hand from the werewolf’s shoulder. “But for tonight, let’s just unpack my bags and try to get some rest. We’ll deliberate upon these matters tomorrow.”

Despite her saddened air, Enid approved swiftly. “I’ll help you unpack your things; I have a spare drawer for you to put your clothes in, I think!”

Her smile reappeared quickly. Wednesday had no idea how her emotions were able to change so fast. She simply nodded in response. She let go of Enid and headed for her backpack. Without saying anything more, she set it on the bed as the other hopped over to the luggage and pushed it towards her dresser, in which the free drawer was located, laying it flat for access. She crouched in front of it and opened the drawer.

“I’ll put your clothes in here!” she declared, glancing at her roommate as she unzipped the suitcase.

She watched the goth girl return her gaze as she nodded again. The blonde opened the lid at the same time Wednesday looked away from her and turned around. Her pupils finally landed on the luggage. What she saw inside was enough to startle her into letting out a small cry of surprise, which immediately drew her friend’s eyes back to her. The hand of the werewolf pressed against her mouth, which widened into a large smile.

“Thing!”

In fact, the severed hand was there, comfortably installed among the clothes all darker than the others, but also a few books. There was no way she didn’t pay an extra fee at the airport for the weight of her baggage. The appendage moved excitedly as soon as he saw the teen, who declared with joy, “Wednesday, I didn’t know you brought Thing with you!”

The latter was already advancing towards Enid, only to stop behind her crouched form. “I didn’t know either,” she hissed through clenched teeth. Her anger was directed entirely at the hand.

Enid flattened her hands close to Thing so that he would climb onto her palms. She leaped to her feet to face her friend, immediately taking on a defensive look and tone, “Don’t be mad at him, he simply wanted to be with you! He’s from your family, remember? I’m sure he’d love to aid us figure out everything happening with us right now, don’t you Thing?”

The hand nodded in approval.

Wednesday glared at the appendage. If her pupils had been shooting lasers, she would have burned him to the ground by now, and only a few small shreds of skin would remain. She didn’t add anything else, simply standing still and staring at Enid, lifting her palms to see Thing from higher up. “Thing, bestie, we have so many stuff to catch up on!”

Wednesday rolled her eyes.

☾

Wednesday would have adored to say that she didn’t miss hearing Enid talk for hours on end about the silliest things. She would have enjoyed declaring that she intensely wanted to tear her auditory nerves out more with every high-pitched, jubilant word that came out of her mouth. She wished she could voice that it wasn’t just an urge but a crucial need.

But she would be lying.

She would be lying because, although she didn’t stop to think about it during the next few hours, during which her roommate didn’t shut up once when talking to Thing; in her heart she knew that she didn’t mean it. She knew quite obviously that her vital organ was going in one direction while her head was going in the opposite one.

As shocking as it was to even herself, she had actually missed Enid’s incessant and loud ramblings. For hours, that was all she heard. And not once did she want to complain and tell her to shut up. On the contrary, she just listened to everything without really holding back the words, soaking in her voice as soft, clear, and sweet as honey. She let herself be lulled by it as she got drawn into the nets of the sticky, smooth topping that evoked every sound that came out of her mouth. She permitted herself to be carried away in the well of warmth that formed and accumulated in her chest soon enough; she sank into it throughout their conversation.

Never in a million years would she dare admit it to herself, let alone to anyone else around, but she loved Enid’s ramblings. She found them so endearing, so innocent, so appealing. They made her want to dive in and never come out, basking in their delicate syllables and vowels for eternity. She loved the way she could talk for hours about things she was passionate about and not once stopped; but she also loved the way she pronounced each word, loved the way her voice resonated in her ears, under her skull, how it imprinted in her brain. She loved her voice in general.

And she would never admit it. She would never, ever admit how every time her friend opened her mouth, a warm feeling came over her. Even less, she would under no circumstances admit how, whenever she heard it, she had the sudden urge to smile, and that it brought a faint wave of heat to her face, which she usually associated with rage.

And this was all so bizarre for her. She had probably caught some kind of disease that would slowly kill her. There was no other explanation.

But when a new voice joined Enid’s and she fell silent before answering, the psychic couldn’t decide if what she felt was relief or disappointment. However, she didn’t take the time to think about it anymore because the blonde turned to her and offered her one of her big smiles; so adorable it made Wednesday want to hit someone violently to stop the avalanche of unknown emotions that surged inside her.

“Mom just said it’s dinner time! Are you hungry?”

The mention of food finally made her notice. She, indeed, was famished. Which was extremely surprising after days of feeling her stomach on the verge of exploding every time she even slightly imagined nourishment. Another of the strange new things her corporeal shell produced overnight after her dreams subsided… First the empty sensation inside her, and now this. She didn’t remark yet if the other effects on her body had vanished as well, albeit what she was certain was that her emotional dysregulation did not return to normal. She still experienced an unusual overflow of emotions within her. Those sudden heats in her face, in her chest, her urges to smile, but most of all her funny thoughts about Enid’s voice.

She would have to inspect this later and write down all the results of her observations in her notebook.

As a response, she merely stood up from her spot, immediately linking her hands together. The short-haired teen, in turn, sprung to her feet, but with such an abrupt leap that Wednesday found herself surprised that she didn’t get dizzy or faint. Although there was a chance that she indeed got light-headed, she didn’t show it or said so.

Enid hopped to the door with glee, soon followed by Wednesday, who just walked with her back straight and no expression on her face. A strange contrast between them that would never cease to amaze her.

On the way down to the dining room, which was not that short, her eyes wandered all around. She observed the walls covered with wallpaper, the mismatched furniture, and the hardwood floor marked with scratches here and there. But also all the family photos hanging on the walls. Her inquisitive gaze quickly scanned each one, and it didn’t take her long to notice that Enid was in exactly three of the twenty or so portraits that had been placed all over the walls and furniture. All the rest were images of her parents and brothers, and the only frames her roommate was in were family pictures. A little blonde girl dressed in every hue imaginable, with a wide smile missing a tooth and embellished with big azure eyes. She stood between her four darker, curly-haired brothers and her beaming parents, seeming to be different in every manner among them.

And in every one of these photos, she looked under ten years old. Not one where she was older, not one where she was totally alone.

For some reason, it made her heart ache a little.

But she tried to brush it away and went on her way. It didn’t matter, she thought.

Soon, she arrived in the dining room, where was located a large wooden table surrounded by ten chairs. Four boys older than Enid, her brothers, and the same man who had brought Wednesday here, her father, were already seated. The latter had a look of pure despondency on his visage as he watched his sons bicker, talk loudly, and argue without attempting to shut them up.

But he didn’t have to endeavor anything to get them to close their mouths. Following Enid, Wednesday barely took a step into the space when all sounds stopped. Eyes automatically went to the newcomer, scrutinizing her up and down with judgment.

A lot of judgment, even.

But it wasn’t enough for the neutral expression to disappear from the face of the teenager with the black braids. She simply came to a rest a few steps in the room and glared at each of the boys who were her friend’s brothers. As soon as these crossed her glance, they seemed to withdraw on themselves like small frightened puppies—which was what they were—to the greatest joy of the girl.

The colorful teenager noticed very quickly that her guest had stopped, and thus decided to take a few steps back to settle beside her. A big smile decorating her angelic face, she put a hand on her shoulder as she darted a peek at her, then moved it to her brothers, who were now immobile and silent. The quietness seemed deafening. Wednesday kept her laser-throwing eyes fixed straight ahead of the boys, not displaying any more emotion and not even attempting to remove Enid’s hand from her.

“Guys, this is my friend and roommate I met at Nevermore: Wednesday! She’ll be staying here for a while.” Then she turned to said roommate. “And Wednesday, here are my brothers!”

As the boys only gave weak, almost frightened “hi” or hand waves, the small teen nodded in greeting. Without adding anything more, Enid brought her hand down Wednesday’s arm and gently held her forearm to drag her to two empty seats next to each other near the end of the table. Murray Sinclair, sitting at the end of the table alongside their chairs, followed them with his eyes without articulating a single word about their arrival. It was only when he decided to open his mouth to comment on something that, at the same moment, Esther Sinclair entered the room with four plates set in her hands and on her arms.

“Dinner is served!” she exclaimed as she began installing them in front of each of her four sons, who didn’t even say thank you.

Not that it was surprising.

And as Esther headed back to the kitchen to fetch the last four plates; the brothers didn’t wait for everyone to be catered to before wildly pouncing on the contents of what had just been placed in front of them. These happened to be a large, thick, rare-looking steak with vegetables. They began to eat ferociously without even using cutlery. They just grabbed the meat with their bare hands and bit into it with their canines, making every noise imaginable.

Wednesday couldn’t help but look away to avoid witnessing this spectacle that was almost more frightening than the worst crime scene. And no crime scene was scary enough for her macabre self.

She, who was fond of gore and horror, found herself frankly disgusted by that scene.

Her eyes wandered to Enid, sitting just to her right. She appeared awkward in her chair, holding the bottom of her sweater and fidgeting with it as her leg was bouncing rapidly on the ground. She watched with discomfort, almost embarrassment according to her body language, as her brothers ate like animals.

Wednesday’s gaze soon got itself felt on her friend, and she turned quietly in her direction. Their eyes met just as the mother of the family returned to the dining room. The amber-hired girl tried to offer Wednesday a small smile, which came out shakier and uneasier than anything else. This definitely confirmed her theory: Enid was ashamed of her family.

At this realization, instead of feeling a mocking laugh in her throat, what she felt was compassion. Empathy. And it wasn’t long before surprise crept into her. Wednesday? Feeling empathy? That was rather unusual. Generally, she made fun of other people’s misfortunes. But not at this moment. She didn’t feel like ridiculing her roommate. She just wanted to grasp her hand to comfort her and turn to the Sinclair brothers to yell at them to eat more cleanly and quietly.

Wait…

What?

A plate placed in front of her was what abruptly snapped the teenager out of her tumultuous thoughts. She threw a quick peek at Esther, who went to her place at the other end of the table while thanking her for the food. She stared at it for a long time before grabbing a knife and a fork to chop the meat. And it was a new glance in the direction of her friend that made her notice that she was also eating with her cutlery, cutting delicately bite by bite.

For a good part of the dinner, the Sinclair family, accompanied by Wednesday, ate in silence. Or at least, “in silence” was not a suitable word for the situation. With the loud noises of the brothers’ mouths, the sounds of the meat tearing and cutting and the utensils on the plates, they were far from silent. In this case, silence meant that everyone was eating without saying anything, immersed in an uneasy, heavy, and even suffocating aura.

All this lasted until one of the boys cleared his throat boisterously. Some of the eyes went to him, but not Wednesday’s. She couldn’t care less. Or at least until he spoke up.

“And what are you exactly?” he asked, pointing to her with his fork.

All looks migrated to the teenager. She raised hers to Enid’s brother.

“Please specify,” she answered simply before bringing a small bite of meat to her mouth.

The boy leaned over the table more. “Are you like, emo?”

Wednesday had to stop herself from rolling her eyes. “No,” she replied firmly, almost aridly.

“So what are you?”

The teenager was glaring so hard at him. She wished she could have been able to blow his head off with her mind. Or with her hands, if Enid authorized her to resort to violence.

But she kept her composure as she answered. “We call that being attired in the gothic style.” She stopped herself from insulting him at the end of her sentence.

A snicker rose to the throat of another of the brothers. He tilted forward. “Are you Satanist?”

Wednesday’s scowl only intensified. She could feel the anger spiking in her, feel it start to bubble up in the pit of her stomach, but she didn’t show it. She had promised Enid that she would not kill anyone.

She didn’t want to answer such a stupid and stereotypical question, and, luckily, she didn’t have to; the boy who had asked that spoke up again as he leaned over to his brother, his gaze directed at his sister.

“She’s so desperate for friends that she picked up the last one left, such a reject,” he remarked with a wide laugh.

“Two rejects hanging out together; it’s almost cute,” the other guy added with a sneer.

“Reject? I’d call her trash,” the fourth brother commented.

“Please can y’all shut up,” the colorful teen finally interjected in an annoyed voice.

“Enid, language,” interrupted the mother of the family.

But she ignored her.

A broad smirk came over the face of the first brother who had spoken, “And what are you gonna do if we don’t?”

The werewolf narrowed her eyes.

The boy let out a dry chuckle. “That’s what I thought. Not even able to defend your weird emo friend.”

“Don’t you mean weird emo girlfriend?” the third brother added. “She looks like one of ’em.”

Without anyone expecting it, the youngest wolf abruptly stood up from her chair, causing its legs to scrape the floor. “She’s not-” she began angrily. The same anger that distorted her usually sweet and bubbly features.

“Enid!” suddenly interposed Esther. “Sit down.”

The latter pinched her lips so hard that they shrank to a thin line. She dropped forthwith onto her seat, her face now red with irritation.

“Thank you,” the mother uttered curtly as she took a bite of meat.

The gripped at her shirt, her gaze riveted to the floor on which her leg was bouncing at high speed. She didn’t comment on anything.

And Wednesday couldn’t help but think for the rest of the dinner she should have. And maybe herself should’ve said something. However she promised Enid.

She still felt that dull wrath bubbling up inside her, but this time it was entirely directed at the fact that her friend’s brothers had dared to speak unkindly to her in this way. She completely forgot about the detail that they had misidentified her on purpose or included her in their taunts. Right now, she didn’t give a damn about being denigrated. All she could think was that they insulted Enid, that they called her trash and a reject. And no one was insulting Enid by any name but her.

☾

It was about ten o’clock in the evening when fatigue began to set in for both teenagers. While Enid was lying on her bed watching TikToks with Thing, Wednesday had been permitted to sit at her desk so she could try to start writing the new volume of her novel on her typewriter. And it surprised her greatly to notice that she was able to concentrate on it, inevitably leading her to write more than she had in the entire week since she left Nevermore.

Yet after her usual hour of writing, her attention began to wander more regularly to the werewolf, who was letting out more and more frequent and loud yawns. Again, the black-haired girl would have loved to say that every one of them irritated her to the core, but they did not. They didn’t bring a single negative emotion to her, which was peculiar, disturbing even.

After a while, she heard the mattress creaking accompanied by a sound typically made when stretching. A voice followed not so long after: “Are you getting tired too?”

The nimble fingers of the psychic froze on the keys of her writing machine. She turned her head slightly towards the blonde to look at her. She was now sitting cross-legged on her bed, her elbows resting on her lap with her hands supporting her skull.

“Mayhap,” the dark-clad teen replied monotonously.

Enid took a quick peek at her digital dial. “Maybe we should go to bed soon?”

Wednesday brought her glance back to her typewriter. She commenced typing again on it, each of whose keys made a small clicking sound after being pressed. “After I finish putting my last idea on paper.”

The blonde leaped up from her bed. “All right!” she declared sunnily as she began to frolic towards her dresser. Thing left the bed to do his own stuff at that moment. “I’m going to go change into my pajamas!”

She opened one of her drawers to grab the said pajamas while starting to hum softly. Habitually, the shorter teen would have told her to keep quiet, but today she just dismissed her and continued her writing. At least, she was easy to ignore until she suddenly swore, “Oh fuck!”

An eyebrow lifted imperceptibly on the shorter teen’s blank face. She looked back at her friend; the latter returned her gaze with wide eyes.

“We didn’t think of that, but where are you going to sleep?”

They, in fact, haven’t pondered this. And it hit Wednesday with a violent, cold sensation that climbed her back.

“I can sleep on the floor.”

Enid put her hands on her hips, an outraged air coming over her face. “Excuse me? You’re my guest, I’m not about to make you sleep on the ground like a dog for God’s sake! Especially if you’re planning to spend an indeterminate amount of time here. It will wreck your spine to sleep like that!”

Her roommate kept her eyebrows up while staring at her, and the tall girl stared at her back without changing her expression.

“I’ve slept in a coffin before. This isn’t much different from the floor,” she let out.

“You what-” Enid began before stopping herself. She grabbed her nose bridge with her fingers. “Of course you did, what am I saying, you’re Wednesday Addams.”

“May I add that the coffin was underground?”

Her friend seemed so confused and surprised at the same time. It made for a very strange combination on her face. Eventually, she regained her composure. “T-that’s not the point! I’m not letting you sleep on the floor, period.”

“Therefore what are we going to do?” assented the seer.

A moment of silence followed her question.

“Until we find some extra blankets, a sleeping bag, or even an extra mattress, you should take my bed. And I’ll sleep on the floor.”

Wednesday stood up from the chair, careful not to scrape its legs on the ground, immediately turning back to Enid. She approached her until barely a meter was separating them. “Why shall I permit you to sleep on the floor while I steal your bed?”

The taller teen took a step forward in answer. “Because you’re a guest.”

the coal-haired one crossed her arms and moved ahead again. “There is no conceivable possibility of us doing that. Are you planning to let me sleep in your bed whereas you sleep on the floor the whole time I’m staying here? While you prevent me yourself to sleep on the floor?”

Her roommate walked forward once more, now leaving barely half a meter between them. “As long as it takes for us to find extra blankets, a sleeping bag, or even a mattress, as I said. All the excess sheets and sleeping bags are in the garage, and it’s a mess in there. Only my dad would know how to uncover them, but he’s already in bed, so I doubt he’ll be able to go get them at this hour. But we can ask him tomorrow.”

“We can, in fact, do that. But for tonight, you don’t want me to sleep on the floor, and I don’t want you to sleep on the floor, so what are we going to do?”

The two teens stared at each other blankly for what seemed akin to an eternity. For a moment it was like a competition of whom would look away first, who would cave in first, who would come up with the solution that both had in mind, but that none dared to say out loud.

In the end, it was Enid who lost this invisible contest that exclusively Wednesday knew about. She sighed as she let her hands slide from their position on her hips. “We can both sleep in my bed, I guess? It’s big enough for both of us. But only for tonight!”

The somber girl stopped herself from biting the inside of her lip. “That seems to be the sole remaining answer,” she confirmed reluctantly.

“It pretty much is the only one,” the sandy-haired teen added before taking a deep breath. “I’ll change in the bathroom; you can start getting ready here in the meantime or wait to go after I’m done.”

Still frozen in place with her arms crossed, the short girl nodded imperceptibly. She stared at her as she left the room, and even after she disappeared, she didn’t move for long seconds.

Sleeping in the same bed as Enid.

She couldn’t even figure out how that made her feel.

Disgusted? Perchance. Discouraged? Yeah. Relieved that she wasn’t sleeping on the floor? Also. Happy to share a bed with her...?

Maybe...?

She shook her head abruptly as if that would help her make her peculiar thoughts evaporate once again. She sharply turned around to pick up her typewriter and the pages of her novel and put them in her briefcase. Then she went to take out all her accessories to get ready for bed, and that’s when the tall teen came back. Without even a word to her, just a look and a smile from the werewolf, Wednesday proceeded to go to the bathroom to change and do her things.

When she returned to the room, Enid was already lying on the right side of the bed, leaning against the headboard. She was on her phone and gave her a smiling expression as she reappeared. She closed whatever she was doing on her device as soon as she saw her, plugging it in and putting it on her bedside table. Then she turned back to her friend. Without ceasing to stare and beam at her, she tapped the empty spot next to her.

“Come here!”

Wednesday stopped walking right next to the mattress. “I’m warning you, if I feel your cold feet on me once during the night, I’ll break your knees backwards. And don’t you dare take the whole comforter. This night will be a one-time thing and will never happen again. Besides, if you even try to tell another soul about it, I’ll find every worst possible and unimaginable means of torture to make you die slowly.”

The blonde grinned widely at her. The other felt like her heart stopped.

“Sure Weds. And don’t worry, I won’t do any of that!”

“Don’t call me Weds. I despise it.”

She loved it.

She settled under the covers as far away from Enid as feasible. The blonde didn’t answer, just smiled as she installed herself. When she saw that Wednesday was ready as well, she turned to the side to switch off her bedside lamp. The room was engulfed into darkness.

“Goodnight Weds.”

This one made no attempt to warn her again. She knew it was going to be useless no matter how many times she told her.

“Goodnight Enid.”

She finally closed her eyes.

The night was devoid of any dreams.

Chapter Text

The sound of a heartbeat.

Gentle, slow, barely audible and always pulsing at the same rate, in the same way. Over the seconds, over the minutes, always identical, accompanied by soft and calm breathing, separated by a few seconds between each. 

The sound of a heartbeat. And a quiet respiration. This was what Enid fell asleep to. After settling under the covers, Wednesday at her side, she closed her eyelids, and it took less than a moment before she heard it. The pulse and the breathing. Wednesday’s. 

There was something emanating from them that spread immediate warmth and comfort inside her like she had never felt before. There was something about them that she couldn’t explain that was so relaxing, that made her want to keep her eyes shut and lie there for days just to listen to it.

So she focused on that heartbeat, her own coming to match with it, and soon enough she plunged into a profound sleep. For the first time since the night of the blood moon, she managed to fall into the arms of Morpheus without being pulled back by the calloused hands of reality every time she dropped. It was unusual, almost frightening. But she didn’t question it too much and didn’t question it more when she woke up, and, as she opened her eyes, the first thing she saw was a face. A face so soft and hard at the same time, speckled with freckles, framed with bangs displaced by sleep and braids seeming like they were about to be undone. A serene face, mouth lightly ajar, eyelids carefully closed, brows and features relaxed. Pretty. She really was pretty. Contemplating her conferred her the impression of observing a starry sky devoid of the moon. It gave her the gut sense of looking directly into a black hole that was trying to absorb her, grabbing her with a delicate grip to pull her even further. A black hole as beautiful as harrowing.

A black hole that appeared scary, but Enid was not afraid. Not anymore.

On the first day, she would’ve been. She would have been terrorized to doze off so close to her macabre roommate as a matter of fact, and even more in the same bed. At that time, she simply wouldn’t have fathomed the idea of it. She still remembers like yesterday the first night in Ophelia Hall and how she barely closed an eye in fear of being smothered in her sleep. 

Months later, she was certain her visitor would never dare to do that. Even if she was threatening her with many things frequently, now she knew her enough to understand they were just empty threats. She was always all barks but no bites.

Nowadays, she could even say she felt comforted with her so close to her. She felt safe. She trusted her, more than anyone else ever, more than herself. That was considerably weird to think of Wednesday Addams, but in a way or another, it was the truth.

Watching that face, all she experienced was a powerful sense of peace, tranquility and tender affection. And deep inside her, as if replacing the hole that once pierced her chest, could be found this other sensation. A strange, inexplicable sentiment that told her that all this, seeing Wednesday beside her like this in her own home, in her bed, somehow felt right.

The reason why remained unclear to her, although it was standing there, staring at her with its threatening gaze. Yet, every time it tried to show up, she forcefully pushed it aside; she always ignored it. Starting to think about it for a few more seconds than usual, a warm feeling rose to her face. Not now. She has already too many things to figure out. She closed her eyes tightly before sitting up in her bed. Attempting to make as little noise as possible so as not to wake up her friend, she stood up from the mattress and headed for the bathroom while lecturing herself for even skimming the subject. Automatically, she went through her usual routine, got ready, and returned to the room where the dark girl was still sleeping. She sat on her chair covered with blankets she had removed from her bed so they both wouldn’t suffocate from the heat during their slumber. And she scrolled on her phone with Thing at her side, whispering to him once in a while. This lasted until the seer awakened. 

When she did, they didn’t exchange many words other than questions like “Did you sleep well?” Enid’s voice was still as cheerful as ever, because she really was happy to see the smaller teen up, whereas Wednesday spoke in her usual, quiet, and flat tone. The latter went to the bathroom, where she changed and redid her hair, and meanwhile the blonde headed for the kitchen to make them breakfast. She warned her before she quit to meet her there. The werewolf was pleasantly surprised to discover that her parents were not there, and neither were her brothers. That left them alone with the whole house for themselves. It actually relieved her immensely not to have to do any kinds of conversations with them, and mostly not to have to deal with them.

Now feeling relaxed about it, she began to work on a decent breakfast for them with what she could find, humming to some tunes stuck in her head. She was cooking eggs in the frying pan when her guest entered the kitchen, walking with her back straight and her hands bound in front of her lap.

“Howdy roomie! I hope you like eggs,” was the first thing the girl with the short hair said. She removed the pan from the red circle at that very moment. She put what she had just prepared on two plates in which various things were already resting on the side. Vegetables, toasted bread, and meat pieces.

“I do not mind them,” the psychic simply replied as she plopped down in a chair at the table. The same where she was sitting yesterday evening.

After turning off the stove, the teenager with the sandy locks joined her with the two plates in her hands, being careful not to trip on the carpet under the table—something she did way too many times before. She placed one of the plates in front of the seer, who thanked her, and then she took her usual place in the seat right next to her.

“Sorry in advance if you find any shells in it, I may have had a little trouble cracking the eggs.”

Wednesday gave her a look that struck as discouraged, but she said nothing. They both began to eat without a word, the ebony-clad girl sitting still in her chair and the flamboyant one squirming in hers and changing positions often, which seemed to annoy the other. The only time the werewolf froze was when her gaze fell on a black notebook resting on the table next to her friend. The latter appeared to notice her sudden, unusual immobility. 

Her eyes followed hers and landed on the notebook. At the same time, the blonde asked, “What’s that?”

“Oh, that,” she simply let out as she grabbed what had caught the other’s attention. She flipped through it quickly for a few seconds before raising her look to meet her roommate’s azure one. “It’s the notebook I mentioned to you in which I have consigned all my investigations so far, which is really not much. I have transported it here with me so that we can start talking about it.”

A mixture of excitement and curiosity climbed inside Enid. At last, they would be able to discuss all this. Wednesday vowed yesterday that they would.

“What exactly did you put inside it?” she asked quizzically as she leaned against the table, eyes wide open and full of stars.

The somber adolescent took two seconds to gather the list in her brain: “The intricate accounts of my dreams, my thoughts about them, my uncontrollable feelings, the times, the details about the appearances of your silhouette, and all the questions I have about the whole ordeal.”

Enid smiled excitedly. “Can I see?”

In response, her friend merely passed her the notebook. She returned to her plate to finish it as the one with the golden hair flipped through the pages. 

Dreams, research, descriptions of figures and sentiments, all so simple, yet so interesting; she found herself immersed in reading some sheets rather quickly. It was so odd to view her dreams on paper, but from another point of view than her own. To observe all the same feelings and sensations she had experienced, the same questions she had and still had. If it hadn’t been for the delicate handwriting, all cursive and immaculately readable, coming across as if it had been printed, she might have assumed it was herself who wrote all this.

A vague smile floated on her lips the whole time she was consulting the notebook. It was only after a moment going through Wednesday’s research in the Addams family mansion’s library that she spoke with amusement, “You did a lot of digging about the book that practically knocked me out in the bookstore dream, huh?” Surely she thought it was funny that she practically got her skull cracked open by a thick volume. If she even found some things “funny.”

The one with the colorful hair roughly expected her to answer that in her trademark snarky tone, but she actually didn’t. Her voice had interest etched into it, meaning that she turned into investigation mode. “Indeed. I am tremendously intrigued by it, and I have a feeling that it didn’t end up there, so conspicuous for nothing. I determined it might be our key to start finding responses.” She took a dry breath. “Only if I had its bloody name.”

Something instantly seemed to light up in the werewolf’s pupils. “Its name?” she repeated. “I think I remember what it was. The book fell so I could see it, and that word was really strange so-” she began to ramble before Wednesday grabbed her arm resting on the table without warning, cutting her off.

Her gaze was wide, and when it locked with her own, everything around her felt like it disappeared. For a few moments, it felt as if they were the only ones in the world. Something was so intense in these midnight irises that the vibrant teen felt her stomach somersault.

“What was the name?” the goth girl hurriedly asked.

Still unsettled by those two black beads piercing her from side to side, and now surprised by her eagerness and gesture, the blonde took a while before she was able to put her thoughts into words, “Hmm, s-something like ’Somnia’, I think…”

The seer's expression metamorphosed into one of questioning as she wondered for brief seconds. She finally withdrew her hand from her arm, leaving a burning coldness in that spot. “Somnia,” she repeated in a low voice. “It means ‘dreams’ in Latin.” 

“‘Dreams’ in Latin,” Enid echoed quizzically. “I’ve never heard that word in my life. Heck, I don’t even speak Latin! How is it feasible that it got into my dream-… huh… our dream I mean?!”

The psychic caught her chin in her hand as she pondered. “Our dreams are connected, so they may have sought your mind as well as mine to create them. So either they dug up this name in my head, or this is a real book they wanted to show us. In our case, I’m rather sure it’s a real book.”

“And I’m supposing you are dying to find it?” hypothesized Enid. “But where?”

Her friend’s onyx eyes lifted to her host’s face. Once more, their gazes locked and became lost in each other, never to move again. Something about them was so enthralling; she could have remained absorbed in them for hours…

Her thoughts were unceremoniously torn in two by the voice of the visitor rising, “Libraries, bookstores. I couldn’t find it in the Addams Mansion one, but chances are it is located in such a public place.” She appeared to shiver as she pronounced “public.”

The corner of her mouth turned up imperceptibly. But the blonde saw it.

“Enid, today we’re going to the library.”

☀︎

“Going to the library was the original plan of the two teenagers. Simple, fast, and effective. At least, that was what they thought and persisted repeating themselves. Until they got into said library, the one closest to Enid’s house and started their research. At first, they looked in surface through the aisles. Nothing. After, they examined through the database included in the computers available to the public. No outcomes. But they kept hope regardless. Then they asked employees who had either never heard of the book in their lives or sent them to different sections of the building, which they searched from top to bottom. Still no results. That’s when hope began to waver slightly.

But being the great optimist she had always been, Enid didn’t falter. She grabbed Wednesday—who seemed even more determined than her—by the arm and pulled her onto a bus to go to the second library.

Once again, they came out with no results. Yet the werewolf kept telling the macabre teen that it was probable this one just wouldn’t have it, because it was too modern for such an old-looking book. And she repeated the same thing at the third library they visited, where they found absolutely nothing again. She kept saying that as they consequently started heading for bookstores, and then more libraries and more bookstores. However, at the fifth one, she didn’t believe herself anymore. She didn’t even know if she was trying to persuade herself, or if she was attempting to convince the raven-haired girl.

At first, she had been pretty excited about spending a day with her roommate showing her San Francisco. But after a whole afternoon of unsuccessful searching, all her enthusiasm had evaporated and been replaced by frustration and fatigue. 

As they wandered down a sidewalk on a busy street towards yet another library, her steps were sluggish and lazy, and she struggled to keep up with Wednesday, who stayed unwavering.

“Weds, my legs hurt. Can we stop for a minute?” she finally blurted out to the one with the two braids while decelerating.

The latter, without saying anything about the nickname Enid had been calling her all day already, did the same to turn back towards her. She had the blonde’s phone in her hands to follow a maps app, a technology that confused her as much as it fascinated her. Her face showed annoyance, or at least the minimal version of Wednesday that was akin to irritation. “Come on Enid, we must hurry before the place closes.”

The tall teen was out of breath. She took a few more steps forward, making her friend think she had resigned herself to keep moving, but she did none of that. She only let herself fall on a metal bench placed between them on the sidewalk.

“Just one minute, I beg you, I’m dying over there.”

“No, you’re not,” replied the shorter one. “Your heart is still beating, and I can still hear that irritating voice of yours.”

“I’m still dead, though. My legs in particular,” Enid announced dramatically between breaths as she slumped onto the bench. “And I’m so tired and hungry, I could eat an entire horse.”

“Kindly don’t,” the gloomy teenager said. She moved to stand in front of the other. “Come on.”

“I can’t walk anymore Weds, please just a quick break. And it’s getting late and dark outside, and this tummy needs food.” She pointed to her stomach. 

The short girl looked increasingly frustrated. “Enid, listen, we cannot stop here. We still have libraries to search. We have to find that book; it’s particularly important if we want to try to figure out what is happening to us.”

“I know, I know, but all I ask is just a simple break. And food. I need food, and I bet you do too. Don’t lie to me,” the short-haired teen accused, pointing a finger at her roommate. Her gaze also came to rest on her face, but it was quickly drawn to a bright sign a few stores away on the other side of the street, just behind Wednesday. An idea began to form in her mind. 

A sudden burst of energy made her stand up from her bench, “We can make a compromise!”

“A compromise?” the psychic repeated, puzzled.

“Yes, a compromise. We’ll eat, and thereby catch a break, and then we can do as many remaining libraries as achievable before heading back home! How does that sound?”

The teenager took a few seconds to consider. “It sounds… all right I suppose.” 

Enid raised her hands to shake her forearms in a thrilled gesture. “Perfect! And I know just the ideal place to go eat!”

 ☀︎

“Betty’s Burgers?” 

“Yes, Betty’s Burgers!” 

Enid’s voice was filled with joy as she dragged her friend into the old-fashioned looking diner. The smell of greasy hamburgers and perfectly salted fries jumped into their nostrils the moment they walked through the glass doors. A series of gurgling sounds erupted in the blonde’s empty stomach.

“This place seems… depraved.”

“Oh come on Wednesday! Depraved? We’re talking about the best restaurant in San Francisco, here!” repeated Enid, offended, as they got in line to order. 

“We clearly do not share the same definition of the best restaurant in the world,” the coal-haired girl scoffed with the shadow of a smirk.

They exchanged glances, causing her friend to close her eyes as she nodded in despair.

They didn’t speak further as they waited in line, which fortunately wasn’t that long because the werewolf couldn’t stand the terrible hunger eating her up inside. They exchanged only a few more words when it was almost their turn to order and Enid proceeded to ask what her friend wanted to have. Wednesday had never been to a fast food restaurant in her life—which was unacceptable—so she didn’t know how the menu worked or even how to order and pay at the counter. So the blonde ended up getting her the same thing as her, and paid for both of them.

They collected their order shortly after, and went to sit at a table in the back far enough away from the bustle of the counters, the sounds of the kitchen, and all the people conversing.  

Enid quickly attacked her burger, while the other just stared at hers without consuming it.

With her mouth half-full but one hand in front of her lips, the amber-haired teen swallowed partially before declaring, “Why aren’t you eating?”

“This appears like the unhealthiest food I have ever laid eyes upon in my undiminished, miserable existence.”

“I mean, it’s not that healthy, but it’s not so terrible either! Once in a while, it can’t do lots of bad, can it?” the taller one laughed as she stuffed a fry into her mouth. “Come on, try it, I guarantee you won’t regret it.” 

Wednesday gave her a look of discouragement. But she grabbed her burger anyway and bit into it. The blonde scanned her face as she chewed and swallowed to attempt to discern any emotion. In case she witnessed the thing that would unlock her feelings and make her suddenly expressive. Albeit, of course, that didn’t happen like that.

“Aaaand?” inquired Enid with a grin. “Not bad, huh?”

“It is… decent,” replied the black-haired girl. But she took another bite immediately. She must have liked it more than she let it show.

A silence fell between them as they ate, cut only by the music blasting from the speakers. But after a while, when her friend had finished her burger and was quietly observing the surroundings, she abruptly uttered again, “I’ve been meaning to ask that since I arrived, but either the circumstances were never right for that, or it slipped from my mind.” Her gaze met her friend’s, who was emptying a cup of sugary juice grabbed from the fountain drink machines. She froze in her gulp, waiting for the rest of her sentence, which thankfully came.

“But I was wondering, have you talked to your parents about your wolfing out?”

A frigid sensation climbed up Enid’s back the same second these words escaped the raven-haired girl’s mouth. Vivid images popped into her head in a heartbeat, blocking her vision entirely. Her howling at the crimson moon for the first time, her exchanging what she thought would be her final look with her roommate, her fighting for her life with Tyler. The hemoglobin, the pain, the dirt, the trees surrounding her. Thing, the energy and adrenaline dropping down as deep as a precipice as she shifted back to her human form. And red. Lots of red, like the moon, like blood, like in her dreams, like the thread connecting them.

All these images surfaced so aggressively that she froze for long seconds, just peering at her roommate with a blank, glassy stare, the straw still in her mouth. She felt nauseous; she felt her head spinning. 

“Enid?” 

Her name. The reality. It was Wednesday’s voice. She returned to earth right away, shaking her head as if it would help her chase away her thoughts. 

“What did you say?” she asked, even though she understood her inquiry quite well.

The girl looked suspicious. 

“I said, did you tell your parents about your wolfing out...? Her question faltered at the end. “Are you okay, however? You’re suddenly really pale…”

Genuine concern came through in her voice. Enid couldn’t remember ever hearing that from her, let alone for her. 

“Y-yeah I’m okay! I just… I had my head in the clouds for a moment, all good!” she tried to proclaim in her same cheerful tone. Focus. The question. “And hmm, no I still haven’t… I figured it was better if I just… dodged the interrogation every time it came, which I have successfully done so far!”

An eyebrow rose on the goth girl’s face. “Why haven’t you told them? I evaluated it was an event you’d be proud to announce to your parents. And didn’t they ask about your scars?”

The teenager’s sight dropped to the table as her mind mechanically went to the long marks on the side of her face. They partially healed, but they didn’t seem to desire to subside, which worried her greatly. She didn’t want to end up with them for the rest of her life, deformed, disfigured like this. 

“I told them I accidentally scratched my face,” she let out limply.

She still didn’t comprehend how her parents had managed to swallow that excuse. Sure, she was clumsy, but that just was… too odd. Yet at the time, she didn’t come up with anything better. She wasn’t going to recount to them she’d been in a fight with a Hyde for God’s sake! And well, her lie seemed to have passed impeccably, so she was good for now. 

“And I guess yeah I should be proud of that, but I’m just… not.” Her eyes rose as her tone lowered, as of she was scared anyone else would hear her. But she was mostly ashamed of what she just said and what she was about to reveal. “I hated every second of that damned wolfing out, Wednesday. And I didn’t tell them because I’m certain my mom would be proud of me, and I don’t want her to be proud of me for something I’m not myself. She is never proud of me. I don’t know; it’s hard to understand.” 

Her usually so happy tone was now hushed and strangely calm. 

“It’s okay, I suspect I understand.” Wednesday’s was reassuring, somehow, in this monotony.

Enid simply raised a gaze to her pretty face, which she straightaway lowered, offering her only a weak smile. She suddenly felt so drained, even more than earlier. And to believe that she had promised her they would still be scouring libraries and bookstores.

She sighed.

She had to get a grip on herself.

“All right, are you done with your food?” she finally asked.

The one with the braids only nodded. Both of them got up in synchronization from their benches and picked up their papers and trays to put the latter in the place built for them and their litter in trash. Without really consulting each other, they left the fast food restaurant, ultimately going out in the fresh evening air that didn’t smell like pickles, ketchup, fries, and meat. With Wednesday still holding Enid’s phone with the maps application on it, they made their way to the next bookstore. 

This one appeared a little different from the last ones, as its exterior was more vintage, and it was not public. It seemed more like a private library—or more like a bookstore—selling and renting antique books. Precisely the kind they were searching for.

The second the werewolf saw it, a strange sensation fell on her. At the beginning, she barely noticed it. It was there, but it was small, and she had way too many other feelings to deal with already. But as she climbed the stairs, it suddenly seemed to expand, to spread, until it became a kind of fog that started gripping at her chest, covering the healing pit inside it. She just thought it was one of those strange negative sensations she always felt after saying out loud something she felt deeply bad about, something she had been keeping inside since that fateful night. Therefore, she didn’t bother looking deeper into it.

In spite of that, she entered the place following Wednesday, ringing a small bell as they both passed the entryway. The door closed behind them, banishing the cool city air to the scent of yellowed pages of ancient books read and reread, battered hardcovers, bookcases, and hardwood floors that were over fifty years old. The mist densified in her abdomen, but the colored teen didn’t care.

A simple scan of the surroundings, and she found herself captivated. Dozens and dozens of wooden shelves crammed with tomes of all shapes and sizes, so close to each other that there was only room for one person width to walk between them. The space seemed at once so full and confined, but equally commodious and uncluttered. It would have been difficult to explain it.

Not far from the entrance stood a massive counter with a multitude of knickknacks scattered on it, such as pens, bookmarks, more volumes, sculptures, and such. Behind it was an old man with sun-stained skin, wrinkled like crumpled paper, bearing testimony of a thousand years and a thousand adventures. His two pale eyes were enlarged by thick round glasses, and he had an almost bald head, whose only remaining hair was whiter than snow. From him, an aura of wisdom, of calmness radiated. He was exactly the kind of staff Enid had imagined working in such a library.

“Hello ladies, what can I do you for?” he asked with a smile, creating even more creases on his face.

Wednesday walked up to the counter, the werewolf staying behind to observe the surroundings. “Hello sir, indeed. We are scavenging for a book.”

The worker chuckled as he stretched his arms in an endeavor to show all around him. “You’re in the right place then!”

The short girl did not pick up on that. “The cover is in brown leather, and on it is engraved in gold letters ‘Somnia,’ written by an unknown person. We’ve been to every library in the city, and here was one of our ultimate options.” 

The elder grabbed his chin to ponder. “Hmm, I think I remember having something akin to this. Please follow me.”

With a step that Enid would have pictured being shambling and difficult, but which veered to be firm and easy, he strolled from behind his counter and into one of the rows. Wednesday was quick to follow him, forthwith caught by her friend, who hadn’t said a word since they exited the fast food. Once more, she disregarded the sensation beneath her rib cage, which seemed to only get stronger as they silently walked after the old employee. He turned right and left, entering one aisle, then another, to the point of almost getting lost. The sentiment metamorphosed from something strange she could easily ignore to something that appeared ethereal. It became so opaque inside her that she found herself unable to stop thinking about it. It intensified to such a point that she felt as if she could put her hand on her chest and grab it; grip its impenetrable, thick substance between her fingers and pull it out. It felt as if it was drawing her in a direction that would lead to something she wasn’t quite sure about, but that somehow felt… right. Every step the old man took gave her the impression that she could predict them. He turned one way, and it was as if she knew in advance that it was where he was heading. It was as if something was dragging her to a particular location, as if something was tugging at her pinky finger.

He repeated this merry-go-round until the goth girl, all of a sudden, stopped as they penetrated a new row.

“Pause,” she voiced spontaneously and firmly. 

The man spun with confusion, while the short-haired teen simply lowered her glance in front of her where her friend was. They both looked questioningly at the unmoving seer. She stared at the latter lifting her hand and installing it on the wooden edge of the bookcase.

“It’s here.”

“It is?” the old librarian questioned, perplexed. 

And then, the feeling in her chest became stronger than ever. It changed into something abruptly so mighty that she froze on the spot. In a way or another, it started murmuring around her heart; it started to tell her that she was correct, that it was indeed here, that she needed to take a few steps forward. It was there. And a quick glance nearby was enough for her to notice. The placement of the books, the shape and pattern of the wood, the lighting. Everything was similar. Everything was like the dream.

“She’s right… It is here,” she added almost in a trance as she walked onward to enter the row further. It felt as if she was attracted to a specific area.

The employee linked his hands in front of him. “Well, I’m glad you girls were able to uncover what you were looking for. I’ll go and leave you to your task,” he said with a kind beam.

The blonde would have returned it and thanked him, but she found herself incapable of uttering a single word.

With that, the librarian nodded, then walked past them to disappear to where they came from. The roommates, finding themselves all alone, quickly exchanged a dazed glance.

“You recognized it too, didn’t you?” questioned the teen with the coal hair.

It felt akin to a stab in her chest. She approved with a head gesture. The sensation was screaming at her under her ribs, above her heart pounding, but she whispered back, “It’s just like the dream. Everything is the same. It’s so eerie. I have the impression as if I’m in it again.”

“Likewise,” the psychic agreed in her undifferentiated placid tone, before adding, “When the book fell, I didn’t get to see it correctly, so I was unable to view where it arrived from. But you did. Would you be capable of spotting the location?”

The werewolf didn’t know the answer, but she found herself nodding once more without truly realizing it. The sensation knew. She started to take a few steps forward, not even understanding where her feet were leading her; she just let herself be dragged to a precise place: the central row, facing the middle shelf. Facing a brown book. 

“This one,” she said with a confidence she never recognized she had.

Wednesday rushed to her side. “This one?” she pointed to it.

Another nod. The dark-haired girl moved her hand closer to it. Her fingers curled around the binding.

Her head snapped back. 

Chapter Text

Her head snapped back. 

Bright, vivid, flickering, blinding, colorful flashes. They settled in front of her eyes, filling her vision, covering them like an opaque veil. The shelves filled with antique books, the dull lights, the smell of old dusty pages, the floor under her feet. Everything evaporated, and she felt herself swaying. She felt herself swaying and falling as if a black hole had opened under her feet; as if she was plunging into it, sinking lower and lower, towards the abyss of a vision so violent that her head began to spin and hurt. 

In the void, an image appeared. Yellowed paper, on which frantic, aggressively drawn, obsidian lines were spread, crumpling the sheet, almost tearing it with the metal tip of the quill. Scribbles, incoherent words and letters, crossed out symbols and drawings covered with ink bursts everywhere. And blood drops. A profound, opaque burgundy staining the fragile paper, turning its cream hue into a macabre mix of inked insanity and oxidizing gore.

A flash dazzled her, sending her stomach into a revulsive churn.

Then a woman filled her sight.

A woman, seemingly so young, yet appearing decrepit, abandoned by herself. Her raven-colored, disheveled, unkempt hair hid part of her exhausted face, evidence of days gone without any slumber. Her tanned complexion came across as sickly pale, highlighting the deep, dark circles under her large coal eyes. Large, coal, crazy eyes. Mad eyes, in which no sign of soul or humanity remained. Not even a glimmer of consciousness was left in them. They were the direct gateway to a soul that had turned to insanity, where all the thoughts circulating were disjointed, without rhyme or reason. 

She was the one writing on the paper with rough gestures, at a desk drowned in a clutter of sheets, books, ink spills and hemoglobin. Without warning, her vision suddenly moved dangerously close to her with a huge, blinding, nauseating flash. Then it instantly transitioned into a series of quick visions. Yet she was able to make out the smallest details as if they were already burned into her head.

A drawing, barely discernible with its shaky lines, but seeming to represent a natural space. Trees, tall grass, vines, moss and stones.

A ghoulish, crimson, ethereal moon.

Gruesome, grim shrieks of agony.

The woman’s figure, now standing in a large forested area, screaming, raging, writhing in pain on the dead leaves and cold dirt.

And next she was no longer a woman, but a massive beast, banging on the trees, denting them, sinking her claws into the soft ground. 

More flashes, dark as well as bright, a thud, a buzzing sound, mixed with a dull growl of a hungry, angry creature, and howls.

Then, Wednesday abruptly opened her eyes, finally snapping out of her vision. But she saw nothing. At least nothing discernible for a few seconds. Before her stood a pale figure who seemed to be leaning over her, as if enveloped in a luminous halo. And it was speaking. Its voice was distant and echoed under her skull pulsing with pain. She was unable to make out any words, besides the persistent buzzing in her eardrums that was burying it. She blinked repeatedly, each one permitting her to identify that mystical form above her. A sweet face finally revealed itself to her. It was drawn with concern and alarm, framed by blond hair with pink and sapphire-colored tips, whose mixture formed a purple pulling on the lilac. Its eyes a blue brighter than the ocean on a hot summer’s day pierced her from side to side. And the more she looked, the more she comprehended that the glowing halo behind its head was a light, most likely on the ceiling.

“Wednesday?!”

The voice was becoming more and more distinguishable, though it continued to echo. That’s when she noticed that she was being shaken unevenly. And she was being held in arms. 

“Wednesday can you hear me?! Are you here?”

Another blink. A sudden realization dawned on her.

“Enid?” she muttered with confusion. Her tongue was so heavy and mushy it seemed impossible to lift. Yet she did.

Her sight was getting clearer and clearer by the seconds. The person holding her was indeed Enid. She was kneeling next to her limp body, holding her off the ground in her arms, while her alarmed face was right on top of her.

In consternation, the psychic took a quick look around. She was sitting with her back half up on the hardwood floor; installed between the two library shelves filled with old novels of all sizes and colors. The shelves of their dream. It was still strange to see them in reality. Farther down on the floor lay the book she had grabbed. The one that had triggered her vision.

Noticing her blank stare wander around, the werewolf’s distressed voice rose once more, “Are you okay, Weds? What happened?”

The inky-haired teen managed to sit up on the hard ground. She brought her hand to her head to feel it. The pain was slowly fading, but it was still there. 

Enid’s eyes kept growing worried. “Was it a vision again? Your head just snapped back, and I thought you broke your neck for a moment, and then you fell backward, and I had to catch you; and I really believed you were dead, and god it was horrifying! What would I do with a dead body on my hands? I don’t know how to hide a corpse? Would I have to report it to the police? And what if I’m accused of your murder?” she began so quickly that each word stumbled over the next, making it hard for her to breathe. Only when she finished did she take a big respiration. The newly awakened girl was wondering how was she still alive; there were periods of time where she just stopped breathing, which was kind of worrisome.

She let her speak without cutting her off. She didn’t have the strength to. In fact, she barely had any strength to talk. A few seconds passed before she was able to reply, “Yes, it was a vision.” Her eyes fell on the leather book and remained unmoving.

“What did you see in it?” the amber-haired teen asked with curiosity, but also concern.

The raven-haired girl tried to stand up with difficulty, triggering a panic in the other, who brought her hands forward as if to catch her. She managed to get to her feet without much hardship, however, although her head was spinning a bit. She reached for the book and said, “I’ll explain it to you at your house.”
 
She bent down to pick it up, her fingers hesitating for a few seconds before she touched it. But when she did, nothing happened. She took it with both of them, straightened up and turned to her roommate. “Let’s go, I need fresh air.”

The short-haired one was quick to nod in agreement. They both began to walk towards the reception desk. The old man who ran the bookstore was sitting behind it, but as soon as he saw them coming, he jumped to his feet. “Hello again, ladies. Is everything okay with you? I heard you getting alarmed earlier.”

While putting the volume on the counter with a thud, the short girl threw a cold glance at Enid to warn her not to say anything about her vision and her pseudo-fainting. In response, the one with the golden locks pursed her lips and then looked at the employee with a tight smile.

The seer was the one to speak, “Indeed, no need to worry, sir, everything is going for the best,” she remarked before pointing to her host. “My friend here only got a little excited when she found the book we were searching for, nothing more.”

The werewolf stifled a nervous laugh, collecting another murderous stare from the shorter one. That was an absolutely ridiculous excuse, taking into account that, when she saw Wednesday’s neck snap back, she let out a scream. However, it was not of enthusiasm, but of terror. Perhaps, from a distance, it must have been hard to tell the difference. And her friend would presumably consider both the same thing. But for a normal person, that answer could’ve made some sense if her sound didn’t quickly turn into her calling out her name in dread to wake her up after she caught her midair. Her friend had been unconscious for less than twenty seconds, during which she had panicked a lot and probably spoke too loud. Twenty seconds, and yet they had seemed to last for hours.

They were the most terrifying twenty seconds of her life. 

And without her being able to hold it back, they transported her right back to a week in the past when she heard that her roommate had been captured by Thornhill and Tyler. They took her back to the moment when she rushed to her rescue with Thing, not even thinking in advance that she would have been helpless against the Hyde or their teacher. They drew her back to how she didn’t even know she was going to wolf out, yet headed for it without even pondering it. They brought her right back to when she arrived in that crowd of students and searched and examined and scoured for her roommate but didn’t find her at first. They sent her back to the deep fear and panic she felt when she didn’t locate her, when she didn’t see the shadow of her dark silhouette among all these clueless people.

It reminded her of how scared she had been to lose Wednesday that day.

And watching her faint like that, even for twenty seconds, made her imagine all the worst-case scenarios possible, just like that evening. It sent her head twirling into a whirlwind of morbid thoughts that twisted her stomach in concern. The main one, the one she was the most frightened of, was to lose her. 

Months ago, before meeting her, she would’ve said her deepest fear was to be alone. Running from friend to friend, from boyfriend to boyfriend, but never really feeling that spark, always feeling like her heart was constantly empty, as if nothing could fill the void inside her. And then Wednesday came into her life; she arrived, and somehow, her whole world lit up, even if she was the darkest thing that ever happened to her. For some reason, she made her feel complete. 

And that was enough to entirely shift her worst fear. Losing her became her main worry. 

In a way, it was closely related to being alone. If she lost Wednesday, she’d lose the tunnel at the end of her light; she’d lose the part of her she filled up with her mere presence. She would become truly alone, and lonely. But deep down, she knew it wasn’t quite the same. 

She started being scared to lose Wednesday because she inadvertently began caring about her. It took her way too long; it took this whole situation with Crackstone to realize she cared about her more than anyone else. In barely a few months, she had grown attached to her. So profoundly, more intensely attached to her than she ever was to anyone else in the world, more than she ever felt before. In no time at all, she became the one she was holding the dearest to her heart; she became the one she wanted to protect and keep as close as possible as long as she could. She soon became the closest she ever got to a best friend. Sure, there were Yoko, Divina, and Thing, but it was different with them. With her roommate, there was something else, something deeper, something that brought them closer to each other than she had ever been with anyone else. 

The connection between them was special. The spark; it was there.

It felt like they were meant to be friends. It felt as if it was their destiny; it felt like exterior, more powerful forces pushed them together, even if they had nothing in common. Even if they were sun and moon, bubbly and gloomy, light and dark, good and bad, white and black, colors and monochrome. Everything about them should’ve pulled them further from each other. Yet somehow, it did the opposite. Wednesday said it herself. Their friendship was some kind of weird anomaly. They worked; they shouldn’t, but they did.

Never before did she believe one day she would envisage such things. When she first met her, it would’ve been unthinkable to even picture this. However their differences actually made them complement each other well, too well. They were like two pieces of a puzzle coming from two completely distinct sets, albeit they fit with each other more than with any other pieces from their own boxes. It felt like both of them never managed to fit in with anyone else, because they were waiting for each other. They were meant to meet from day one.

And now that Enid found her, that she finally found someone to fit with, someone she could call her best friend, losing her was the worst thing she could think about. 

If she lost her, it would feel like a newfound part of herself would disappear with her. It would feel as if the emptiness came back, just like it did when they were separated from each other for barely a week.

The old man smiled, his voice rising and luring the colorful girl out of her contemplations, “I see you discovered what you were looking for, I’m pleased with that.” 

“Indeed,” the dark-clad one replied, pushing the book lightly towards the librarian. “How much for this one?” 

The latter positioned his glasses back on his nose, leaning in to examine the leather volume. He hummed softly as he thought.

“I can make it ten dollars for you girls.” 

The girl with the two braids rushed to bring her hand to her pocket to retrieve a ten-dollar bill, which she slid across the counter. As the man took it with a beam and placed it in his cash register, the teenager took their find with a, “Thank you kindly, sir, have a nice evening.”

“You too ladies,” the librarian replied.

Wednesday offered him a nod, then turned around, grabbing Enid’s arm to carry her out. The latter allowed her to drag her away and was glad to be hit by a breath of fresh air as soon as she stepped outside. They began to walk in silence in the direction of where they arrived from; they were in search of a bus stop. It was only a neighborhood farther that her roommate let go of her. 

She said immediately, “I have never had a vision akin to this before.”
  
“What do you mean?” the blonde was quick to ask.

“Never in my days has a vision given me such a headache. I’ve never had a headache from a vision, actually.”

“Oh… that’s strange.”

The coal-haired girl nodded once. 

The other pursed her lips, trying to ponder on an explanation, but nothing came out. Her brain was empty. All she could think about was the content of said vision. She really wanted to know. Her reflections quickly metamorphosed into words: “What was the vision, though?” 

She turned her gaze to her friend. She was walking beside her, holding the novel in both hands and playing delicately with the cover. She seemed deep in her thoughts.

“I saw a woman. She was dirty, disheveled, tired; she was violently scribbling in a book. She appeared out of her mind. Her eyes… they were mad. No sight of any rationality was left in them. And then there were different flashes and images, and I viewed a red moon, like the blood moon,” Wednesday told her. The teenager’s insides seem to flip upside down at these words. That scarlet celestial object really couldn’t escape her, could it? “And there was a drawing…” 

Her voice trailed off, but she did not continue. 

“A drawing?” the taller girl tried to bring her back on track. She truly did not want to focus on the fact the blood moon was illustrated in her vision. As best as she could, she concentrated her interest on her other words.

The two adolescents stopped at a crossing with a red light for pedestrians. A few people were around them, so Enid moved closer to her to hear her answer in a lower tone, “I did not get to view it long enough; everything was scrolling in front of my eyes very fast. But it looked like a place.”

“Really?” she replied in a slight nervousness. 

The smaller girl’s gaze went up to the blonde. The crosswalk sign lit up at that precise time, catching her attention quickly, and they began to follow the crowd. Their bus stop was not far away.

When on the other side, the goth teen nodded once. “And that’s not all. After, the same woman was in a forest. She was shrieking and squirming around in pain. After, it appears as if she transformed into a werewolf.”

She ceased to talk. Silence fell between them. The tall one’s air darkened as all the sensations of her first own experience flooded back into her brain. Her insides clenched and felt cold. She broke the calm as she muttered, “It appears to show a story… A woman losing her mind, escaping and then wolfing out?” 

Wednesday thought for a brief moment. “This story must be connected to that book; it must be where she was writing. Touching it and getting a vision wouldn’t make sense otherwise.” She met her friend’s gaze. “And, hopefully, we’ll find out soon.”

☀︎

As soon as Wednesday sat down in the chair at Enid’s desk cluttered with all her colorful junk, Thing rushed to join her. Setting the book down on the table, she met his eyes—if only he had eyes.

“Can you believe it, Thing? We found it,” she said with the shadow of a smile. “All that library searching in the mansion was useless after all.”

Thing had a shrug before he started gesturing gleefully.

To her side, Enid soon appeared, grinning widely despite everything that just happened at the bookstore. She was dragging a second chair across the floor to push it right next to her friend. She let herself fall on it. “Come on, open it, what are you waiting for?”

The obsidian-haired girl gave her a slight glance but didn’t stall any longer. She opened it on the first page, immediately coming across years marked straight in the middle of it with awkward lines. Not farther under it, initials could be found.

“1830–1832. W.A.” The werewolf was quick to read, leaning over the desk for a closer look as the short girl scrambled to grab her notebook and inkwell. She installed it so it could display an empty sheet and set it next to the leather volume. She jotted the dates and the letters down

“This book must have been written during those years. If my theory is exact and the woman was writing in that specific tome, perhaps it means what I saw in my vision is taking place in these times,” the shorter teenager reflected as she wrote her thoughts on paper. “And W.A. is possibly the person that wrote it.”

Enid hummed beside her. “W.A. Like Wednesday Addams?” 

Said girl had an exasperate look in her direction. “That cannot be correct; it cannot be me. It’s probably someone else with the same initials,” she asserted. 

“Imagine if it was you though! Maybe it’s the past you who did that, and you can’t remember,” let out the blonde with amusement. She grabbed her arm excitedly. “Or it might be your future self!” 

Wednesday had a faint sigh. She didn’t try to fuel her delirious theories. She simply turned to the next page, which happened to already be the beginning of the text. It was handwritten in cursive black ink. 

“Other than the fact it’s handwritten, this book doesn’t follow the usual novel formatting,” she tossed out as she was taking more notes.

The other girl was a little confused. “It doesn’t?”

“No. Novels typically have the book’s title, the author’s name, the copyright information, sometimes blank pages, acknowledgments, or a quote. This one has none of that.”

“Ooh yeah…” the werewolf said hesitantly. “But why is it important to notice...?” 
 
The psychic wrote at the same time as she spoke again. “So that means it wasn’t published through traditional means. Maybe it wasn’t published at all. There might be only one copy, and if it’s the case, we now have it in our possession. We need to be careful with it. It might be a diary.” She paused. “I wonder why it even was in a bookstore.”

The one with the sandy locks simply nodded with a weak, puzzled, “Mhm.”

Without adding anything more, Wednesday began to turn the pages to skim through the volume to analyze if she could unearth any pictures, drawings, or diagrams; to see if it was an identical formatting to the first page. But mostly to see if she could uncover what she viewed in her vision. Enid was really curious to know too, but in spite of herself, she soon found herself caught up in her thoughts. Every time she tried to focus on her task, they would come and grab her with their long, clawed hands and pull her back to the same thing. 

Their proximity.

Her shoulder brushed against her friend’s, nearly resting on hers as she leaned over the table, trying to look at the pages the seer was turning one after the other. And every little gesture she made, no matter how simple, sent a sharp burst of shivers down her arms. Each one made her hair stand on end. Her roommate didn’t notice, or at least she didn’t appear to; but most surprisingly, she didn’t attempt to move away. 

Just a few months before, if they had been this close, she would probably have threatened her with a knife to never approach her again. And here she was today, pressed up against her as they flew through the book—at least Wednesday did because Enid was far away in her mind—in her own room, after a night when they had slumbered in the same bed. And shit, she hadn’t asked her father for sleeping bags, and it was already getting late. 

A voice spontaneously called out, “Enid?”   

The latter was immediately pulled from her reverie, shaking her head as if to clear her thoughts, which, despite herself, still remained in the back of her brain. She turned to her friend, who was pretty close to her. Their shoulders were still pressed together, so their faces were only about ten centimeters apart. Their eyes locked together, and, once again, the blonde found herself immersed in those two deep, dark onyx beads. She found herself so attracted to them, as if voices were coming out of them, urging her to get even closer to them to…

To what?

“Yes?” she asked before she could finish her thoughts.

The macabre one appeared vaguely annoyed. “Enid, pay attention, please.” She sighed slightly. “I said, look at these pages.”

The werewolf’s gaze darted to the book lying on the desk. Wednesday returned a few pages, before restarting. Yellow pages packed with dark text, at the beginning full, seeming to create utter and coherent sentences. And each time she turned a page, it became worse. At first, it was the writing. The letters were neat; the sentences appeared complete. Then, the lines transitioned to clumsy, crooked, and shaky ones, and the phrases soon stopped making sense. Barely a few pages later, and nothing was making any of it anymore; whole sections became crossed out; splashes of ink could be found everywhere. It worsened, and worsened, until the pages were practically torn by the pressure applied to them with the tip of the quill. Black scribbles, entirely colored out places and dried up red spots were now what filled the pages.

Her brows furrowed gradually as the pages unraveled themselves in front of her. She found herself fairly shocked at what she was examining. These writings, these scribbles, the way the sheets suffered through so much pressure; everything spoke craziness to her. It spoke slowly losing one’s marbles, and it being clearly observable every time a new entry was added.

“Isn’t that what you said you saw in your vision…?”

“Exactly,” was her friend's response. “But look at this.”

She began to turn the rest of the messy pages a bit faster, until none of the inky muss was there anymore. One page was scrawled with ink lines, and the other was completely blank of writings, leaving only the inky and bloody mess there. And it continued until the end of the book. Simply yellowed papers devoid of any text, left totally abandoned.

“What the…” the blonde commenced with confusion.

Wednesday resumed without giving her time to say more, “And that’s not all.”

She went back about ten pages to stop at yet another empty one. However it wasn’t the page she wanted to show her, but the binding from which another one seemed to have been ripped out. Eyes wide open, Enid leaned forward to inspect it more closely.

“The page behind looks like it has something written on it,” she immediately remarked as her eyes scoured the paper after the torn sheet. 

The obsidian-haired teen gazed closer as well.

“Or drawn, rather.” She ran her finger over it to show her, “These are not traces from handwritten text; they are much denser, much more pressure was applied to a lot of other places. It appears as if someone ripped out a drawing.” 

Their eyes met. They whispered almost at the same time:

“The drawing from the vision.”

Chapter Text

As soon as Wednesday’s eyes fell upon the ghost of an old drawing, of which all that remained were its engravings on the following page, her attention was absorbed by this mysterious, bound leather diary. It got piqued and entrapped in no time at all, seized by inky talons ravaged by hysteria. 

Enid still at her side, she flipped the sheets back to the beginning of the book. She didn’t even take a minute to care about how close they were, about how their upper arms were sometimes brushing against each other, but most of the time pressed onto the other. She ignored how natural this gesture now felt and let everything around them fade away as they started reading what had been written down.

Dreams.

Records of dreams, ranging from normal ones about everyday life, periodically turned weird or goofy with the magic of the mind, to the most common nightmares. Brutal attacks, murders, accidents, chases and deaths. Needless to say, the psychic was measurably more interested in that part than the one about daily routines in the 1800s, or even about flying. She would’ve darted over the first type faster, but she found herself obliged to wait for Enid, who, initially, wanted to read everything, and secondly, barely understood anything of the old English used in the writings. Therefore, the coal-clad teenager—who was way more accustomed to this ancient version of their language—was forced to take multiple moments to read out loud excerpts that were more confusing for her friend. 

Thankfully for her mind bored by the mundane, this whole section of the journal was hardly ten pages long. Soon, the tidied writing progressively started turning sloppy, immediately stirring her attention back up. The lines before her gaze became wobbly, careless, and distorted, while the sentences quit making any sense, even for Wednesday. At that moment, she was about to start reading a part to her roommate, and she had to stop right before to try to decipher first in her psyche what was presenting itself in front of her sight. Her brows furrowed as she read the same part over and over again, still not understanding. 

It was only after a decent minute that she was brought back to reality when Enid spoke up, “Weds?”

The latter’s eyes immediately widened. The evidence struck her all of a sudden. It was as if her recall to life suddenly unlocked her brain still scrambled by all the discoveries today. “Hold on… These are French and Spanish.”

The golden-haired girl appeared even more perplexed. “French? Spanish? Why would these languages be there?” 

The shorter teen picked her quill back up and started taking a few more notes in her notebook. “I am guessing that person was fluent in English and in both of these.”

The blonde nodded, staring at the unknown words in front of her, mixed with even more words of old English she clearly was still struggling to comprehend. “Reassure me, you speak French and Spanish, right?” she asked her friend with a slight worry in her tone. 

A thought immediately crossed Wednesday’s mind. Even if it shook her to her core, even if it made her heart stop in her chest, even if her skin seemed to warm up at these words circling in her skull; she observed herself unable to resist answering, “En effet, alors cierra tu bonita boca, por favor, and let me translate it to you.”

“What did you just say?” Surprise could clearly be detected in her tone, and the young psychic found it quite pleasing. She couldn’t explain why exactly and how it managed to do that, but it did. 

A slight smirk appeared on her face. “I insulted you,” she responded in her unwavering, monotonous voice. She totally ignored Enid’s even more puzzled expression, although she wished she didn’t; she wished she could revel in her display of emotions. She adored nothing more than seeing reactions to her torments. However, her eyes focused on what was in front of her. They began to wander on the crooked lines as she tried to link the three languages together to form coherent sentences.

Barely a minute later, she started reading out loud what she managed to decode, making sure to turn the phrases into more comprehensible English: 

“November 10, 1832

Dear Somnia, 

Scarcely past midnight, yet Silas and I found ourselves roused from the arms of Morpheus in unison. Outside, the night star assumed a sanguineous tincture, thus illuminating the blackness of the sky with that direful hue; it rendered us both grievously queasy. I am writing this, as he occupies the privy, for I do not want to suffer the misfortune of forgetting what I just witnessed in my slumber. I do not know if it is the result of what the heavens are harboring, but I have been visited by the most singular dream I have encountered in many years.

For a fleeting moment, I was situated in a peculiar, scarlet expanse. It was vast, desolate, and profoundly unsettling. Then, with suddenness, I found myself transported within the confines of our residence. Silas was present; we were back together. Everything looked normal, leading me to surmise it reality for a short moment. However, what served to disabuse me of this delusion was the undeniable truth that, for reasons yet veiled to my understanding, our fingers were connected by a red cord. It was illuminating in the gloom, much as Silas had observed. He inquired whether I had been the one to place it there, to which I didn’t have the opportunity to answer, as we awakened at precisely the identical instant. We were both in a state of utter bewilderment, and upon a brief discussion, it became clear we had both dreamt of the same thing. Either this is some queer coincidence, or we truly are afflicted by the red moon.”

Wednesday’s words died down, dissipating in the room that soon mutated to a lethal silence. It turned deafening as the two girls stared at what the pages were displaying. None of them dared to talk first; they both looked at it, then their eyes raised to each other. They met in the middle, and they saw in their gazes they were both considering the same thing. Though nobody dared to cut the thick quietness that resided between them first. It felt like, if they did, it would explode in their faces in a boisterous noise that would highly startle them. 

It took around a minute—a really long minute stretching, where each second lengthened like a grain of sand falling in an hourglass devoid of any gravity—before one of them broke the contemplation between them. “Are you sure ‘W.A.’ is not you, Weds? Is this a prank?” anxiously asked Enid with an awkward laugh. She was still watching her closely, scrutinizing her face as if her mask would slip off any second and reveal it was all a joke. The latter let nothing appear.

“My kinds of pranks are more fatal. You would know it if I did; in fact, you would presumably already be hospitalized.”

The werewolf swallowed tightly. Not because of her threat, though, and Wednesday somehow knew it.

“But how do you explain this then? Why is it describing exactly what we are experiencing? The blood moon, the dreams, the thread.” Her air appeared more distressed than usual. “That can’t be a coincidence!”

Without any warning, the short teen got up from her seat. “No, it is not a coincidence.”

Enid’s widened gaze followed her as she walked to the wall on which the headboard of her friend’s bed was resting. She didn’t say anything, only looked at her as the girl with raven-colored hair stood on tiptoe in front of a large corkboard hung on the neon pink surface. It was filled with at least a hundred pictures of celebrities, animals, her friends from Nevermore, and even some with Wednesday she coaxed her into taking with her. The blonde didn’t have the time to be surprised that her roommate grabbed it and came back next to her. She put it on the desk, on top of the diary and their own notebook. “We require to make a clues board.”

The one with the colored locks blinked twice. “Why would we need a clues board?”

Her braided friend was already starting to remove the tons of images camouflaging the light-brown material; Enid didn’t even object. Hovering over a picture that coincidentally displayed the both of them, her hand stopped in its gesture. Her head swiveled in her direction, her eyes looking her up and down in her same usual way. They passed over her sweet face down to her neck, but they lingered perhaps a little too long on her lips. She bludgeoned to death that realization and the thoughts that came with them. “A good investigator always needs a clues board. Could you lend me some help to remove those deplorable pictures?”  

The colorful teenager crossed her arms, one of her brows rising and her head faintly moving. She looked so serious all of a sudden, and this made Wednesday’s heart feel as if it was being mangled, trampled and crushed, in a manner that was pleasant, but not in the usual way she appreciated. “Only if you promise you won’t put up images of corpses, blood and guts like you did in Ophelia Hall.”

The macabre girl inaudibly sighed, her shoulders weakly rising under it. It took her lengthy seconds before she was able to reply, as if it was paining her to let out those words. “Yes, I promise.” 

Enid seemed satisfied with her answer; a large grin stretched on her pretty lips. Immediately, she moved her chair closer to the board and started unpinning her abundance of colorful pictures. The psychic found herself staring at her for one moment too long, but she slapped herself internally to focus on the task at hand. 

Her look came back to the instant photograph above which her hand was still floating. She seized it and couldn’t help but observe it for, once again, a bit too long. It was that one and only time when she was manipulated into taking a picture with her vibrant roommate. The werewolf's arm draped over her shoulder, her head resting against hers as she proudly displayed one of her cherubic smiles. Her chest warmed up as if acid had been hurled at it, the same for her organs that twisted with a sharp and bitter sensation. Sickening.

Before Enid could notice her small moment of weakness, she tossed it onto the pile already created by all the other papers. She didn’t allow herself to feel more emotions and merely finished clearing the board. Once it was done, she grabbed it, looked around the room, and then settled for the window. The taller girl simply observed her without commenting on anything as she walked to it and installed the board on the windowsill, its back against the glass where only darkness could be seen on the opposite side. 

She turned to her friend still sitting at the desk. “If such a proposition satisfies you, I would like to commence pinning things to the board. We shall pursue our reading tomorrow; I believe both of us had enough of learning new information.”

The sandy-haired one was quick to shake her head in approbation. “Good idea. I really think I need to lay down.” She leaped off her chair. “I don’t know about you, but today drained me!”

“I’m fine,” lied the one with the black braids. 

She herself was absolutely exhausted after all the walks around San Francisco and the revelations that dawned on them. But the death blow was the vision she had. Hours later, a headache was still drilling into her skull—which was immensely odd given that never happened to her before—and her mind was still swarming with thousands of interrogations about what she saw. 

Nonetheless, she still felt as if resting was not a good option right now. 

With everything she just learned, it just felt wrong. It felt as if all of this was slowly revealing itself to be a ticking bomb, and she needed to uncover what was unfolding as soon as possible.

As Enid went to the bathroom to change into her pajamas, Wednesday initiated her task. She sat back down at the desk, where Thing appeared to accompany her, ripped a page off the notebook and prompted to transcribe what she recorded prior to this. To begin with, she remade a sheet with an updated list of sensations she’d been having since the moment this whole experience started on that night of the blood moon. With the assistance of the appendage, she added every new element that showed itself since she was present with her roommate. How the emptiness dissolved, for example. Soon, she was at the step of pinning it to her board, just at the same moment the blonde came back into the room. 

Looking at what her friend was doing, she walked to the bed, let out a loud yawn and stretched at that time. “I’m gonna get in bed, feel free to keep going. Goodnight Weds!”

The raven-haired seer wouldn’t have answered usually, but she couldn’t restrain herself, “Goodnight Enid.”

From the corner of her eye, she watched her beam softly before turning off the light on her bedside table and sliding under the covers for sleep. It left her in a half-darkness only lit up by the lamp at the desk. The psychic’s heart felt odd in her chest, albeit she tried her best to ignore it. The time to go back to her transcriptions came, but she found herself frozen in place in front of the board, her head directed towards her friend. Her brain, her entire being, was shouting, yelling, hollering at her to move; however, some sort of weird force paralyzed her on the spot. She caught her gaze lingering a bit too long on the vision of Enid laying there, buried under her blankets, her eyes closed and that expression of someone ready to fall into a deep sleep printed on her face. 

It’s only when she brutishly bit the inside of her cheek that she was able to move. Get yourself together.

She walked back to the desk, immediately sitting back down. Her heart was beating somewhat faster than usual, yet she covered the sensation by getting busy right away. She decided on starting to sketch the locations they saw in their shared dreams, which was something she’d been wanting to do it for a while now, but she never really found the time for it. Her eyes wandered to the multicolored crayon pots on the desk before she grabbed the only black pen between so many flamboyant felt-tip pens, highlighters, styluses and wood pencils. When she pondered it long enough, she felt pretty much like this pen. The only obscurity in an all colored decor. Yet, for a reason she ignored, she didn’t feel out of place.

Despite the headache stabbing her skull, she commenced her self-imposed job. The tip of the ballpoint stylus grazed the paper to create inky lines gradually over the minutes. All of them joined each other to form a rough sketch of the Nevermore Forest. The moon up in the sky, sailing over the scenery of tall trees near the big metal gate, flooding it with that profane scarlet light. That red night star that she found herself coloring with a felt-tip pen she stole from the cup, as well as the fine thread she traced between the two silhouettes. She didn’t even think before drawing them there; she just mechanically added them to the decor, and at that moment she didn’t really ponder it. Her whole being was steeply starting to be overtaken by drowsiness coming out of nowhere, and it made her struggle to reflect further on the matter.

The more time passed, the more ground it gained. It began to affect her entire brain. The latter grew increasingly heavier, pressing harder against the inside walls of her aching head. Suddenly, it felt as if it was floating in a container filled with murky water, but all around it, ropes with ends tied to boulders had been attached. They commenced to pull her deeper into the cloudy liquid. The opaque veil gradually forming all around her made it difficult to grasp her thoughts and organize them; they started to move so slowly, yet far too quickly at the same time, darting from right to left in her mind. In less than a few minutes, this heavy aura reached all her muscles, including her eyelids, which began struggling to stay open. She fought tooth and nail to try to overcome it, but her energy soon found itself lacking. The stones pulled her entire corpse to the bottom of the water, turning all her muscles soft, weak, and unable to keep her body straight. Shortly after, her head could no longer be held upright. It fell down on the desk.

She plunged into a deep slumber while watching the illustration of the red moon.

☾

Before Wednesday’s eyelids closed, her pupils were fixed on the crimson circle marking her paper. And when she opened them again, that same red was still there. It pierced her eyes, stabbing them from front to back until it perforated her brain and imposed its sickly hue. Her first instinct was to look down at her hand, and she wasn’t even surprised to see the ruby thread hanging from her pinky finger, delicately wrapped around its base with a small loop. It descended to the floor, both material and immaterial, only to disappear into the crimson void. 

Compared to the first, and even the second time this had happened, she knew from the very first moment what was going on. If she hadn’t discovered that a blink of her eyes would take her to a new setting, that it would guide her to her roommate, she would have felt helpless. In a way, knowing that Enid was not far from her, both in reality and in her dreams, was, so to speak, very comforting. Ascertaining that she was somewhere at the end of this thread aided in calming the patched-up breach in her soul.

She blinked, and like magic, her entire being, devoid of any sensation, was transported to a completely different landscape.

For the second occurrence since she had started having these strange dreams, what surrounded her was neither a natural place like a forest nor a place she already recognized, like Ophelia Hall.

It was a house. 

More specifically, a kitchen. Dull, damaged by time, gray and lifeless. It was plunged into a gloomy darkness, dimly lit by the rays of moonlight filtering through the grimy window. Dust floated in the air, fluttering above ancient appliances that looked worn out, all pressed against walls decorated with crumbling wallpaper. Each tiny speck settled on old furniture around the room or on the faded and dilapidated hardwood floor. 

Despite the fact that the place was as old as the hills, it did not appear abandoned. On the contrary, it felt lived in. Packaged food on the counters, dishes in the washstand, a cabinet door left open, a window ajar with curtains billowing in the night breeze, a towel that still seemed damp hanging over a chair.

None of this could have prepared her for the sight that awaited her when she turned around.

Her eyes wandered across the room for a few seconds while her brain raced, trying to make connections with everything that had happened recently. Her body followed the movements of her gaze as it spun to see what was behind her. 

She froze suddenly.

There, the wear and tear of the kitchen had transformed into utter devastation. The floors were deeply scarred, furniture was overturned, and windows were shattered into a million tiny, sharp shards. Debris from stone and wood littered the cracked, dented, and slashed ground. But what hit her the hardest was the colossal opening cut into the wall. It overlooked a forest in delightful monochrome tones, buried under what appeared to be a kind of nocturnal fog. The place would have been perfectly shadowy if not for a huge ivory moon shining in the sky, piercing through the low mist. It was among the few dark clouds and all the stars twinkling like drops of paint on a sheet of paper completely covered in ink. 

Amidst this destruction stood an unusual figure sporting a multitude of hues battling against the scenery, to which a glistening hemoglobin-colored thread was rising. The nocturnal satellite’s rays landed directly on her fair hair, making it gleam with a magnificent ethereal light. It contrasted beautifully with the somber and dull environment around her. She was breathtaking. She looked sublime, angelic, divine even. Her pupils were glued to the forest landscape surrounding her, slowly turning until they anchored on the psychic, who couldn’t take her eyes off her for a single moment. Suddenly, her frosty gaze lit up, and it was as if a blaze had just erupted in the middle of the cerulean Arctic. 

She didn’t even hesitate before throwing herself in her direction with a frantic, “Wednesday!” Her hands grabbed her shoulders, the string linking them going up along with them. “I’ve been looking for you!” 

The latter didn’t even try to escape her touch; it had been a while since she had attempted that. She consciously let her do it, and she even found herself wishing she could feel her hands grasping her as she so frequently did. In fact, it had happened so often in the past that she could now immaculately imagine how they felt on her skin or through her sleeves. Over time, she had learned to recognize her touch by heart. Her slender fingers, her large palms, and her long nails. She could feel them digging into and pressing on her flesh with millimeter precision. 

Seeing her catch her, she would have expected that sensation, but nothing came. Just like every time she found herself in a dream. Just that emptiness, and the absence radiating through the seam holding her skin in place over the repaired hole in her abdomen.

Both stood in the debris of the wall, Enid outside, illuminated by the night star, Wednesday inside, shielded in the darkness. It was very reminiscent of their dorm room, where the color was always concentrated on the werewolf’s side, while she was constantly flooded with monochrome hues. 

“That’s a new location, right? I’ve never seen it before!“ remarked the taller of the two. Her eyes had started wandering around again. ”Do you recognize it?”

Wednesday shook her head from side to side. “I wish I did, however,” she commented as her gaze rose to the destruction surrounding them. “If only I was present to witness all this damage. Fascinating.”

Enid had an expression that mixed disgust and fear. “Nope. Not me. I don’t like this place.”

Although she longed for the contact—which she couldn’t feel—to last longer, curiosity took over the teenager. She gently broke free from her friend’s grip and walked past her. Her eyes scanned the shattered stone and wood surrounding her vertically. On either side, above and below her. Her hand rose to rest against the destroyed facade. She almost expected to sense its coolness beneath her fingers, but obviously nothing happened. Even after a few occurrences of dreams, it was still so deeply mind-bending. She lifted her feet one after the other to step over the bottom of the wall that remained intact and finally get out of the rubble. She looked up to inspect the outside of the building. Made entirely of rock and wood, it was surrounded by dense trees seemingly minimally affected by the cold season. From the exterior, it was much easier to see that the impact appeared to have taken place inside the cabin. The way the wreckage was scattered suggested that something large, something huge, had smashed through the stone facade in order to escape.

“What could have caused this?” she asked rhetorically.

Her roommate walked towards her, holding her own arms as if in a reassuring gesture. “No idea. But that’s scary.” She stood next to her to contemplate what she was looking at. “Must have been big,” she commented after swallowing hard. “Wouldn’t want to meet it.”

Suddenly, Wednesday turned around. Her gaze fell on what was in front of the small residence. Without warning her, she started wandering in that direction. She didn’t have time to take more than a few steps; however, before Enid let out in palpable panic, “Wednesday? Where are you going?”

“I’m going to search for clues,” replied the psychic, rapidly followed by the other approaching her with skittish hasty steps. 

“How about we look for clues inside the house instead?! Seems way safer!”

The seer gave her a half-annoyed glance. Her gaze returned to the ground, which she began to observe thoroughly, quick like a cheetah after its prey. Her friend, now trying to catch up with her but not wanting to go too fast so as not to stray too far from the building, hurriedly added, “The thing that broke through that wall is probably out there!”

The psychic ceased in her tracks, even though she hadn’t managed to progress more than three meters. Immediately, she turned back to the colorful teen. The latter, not expecting her sudden gesture, almost ran into her, but stopped at the last second. The two faced each other for a few short instants during which their gazes fought, fear versus seriousness clashing in a duel like night and day.

“You can remain within that house alone, or come with me. It’s your choice,” said the smaller of the two. 

Then she resumed walking. Surprised, Enid stood still for a moment. Her eyes darted left and right for a split second, looking into the darkness between the large tree trunks and bushes, and a squeal of terror escaped her mouth. 

“Fine!” she resigned herself in panic. She ran towards her. Her hands grabbed her clothes so she could stay as close to her as feasible and not be alone. Somehow in this void devoid of sensations, The shorter of them knew, but said nothing. She proceeded to comb through everything around her. “It’s not like you’re going to get hurt or die anyway. This is just a dream. ”

In a reflex she didn’t even understand herself, she added, “Plus, I am here.”

Enid bit her lip, still clinging to her as near as she could. She followed closely behind her, who slowly and carefully continued her investigation for a few more meters. She didn’t know exactly what kind of clues she was looking for, but she was on the lookout for absolutely anything that might come her way. However, all she could see were trees stretching as far as the eye could see, vanishing into a gaunt fog that turned gray in the moonlight. The moon happened to be full and as white as a luminous ghost, a true apparition in the darkness. 

She viewed nothing, nor did she realize anything the first few times she walked on an irregularity on the ground. At no point did she—nor did Enid—expect to gaze down again and see a large but surprisingly shallow cavity marking the terrain where her foot had just landed.

Her momentum was suddenly halted when she comprehended what was beneath her. She took a step back.

A vast imprint was carved into the cold, malleable soil. 

The blonde immediately noticed what Wednesday was looking at. “What the-,” she began as her friend crouched down on the ground.

Her hand ran over a small part of what was stamped on the earth. A slightly rounded triangle, bumpy at its base, topped with four drop-shaped crevices. In front of each of them were deep, pointed holes. “It belongs to an animal. A really big one.”
 
Their two voices rose at the same time, without either of them expecting it, “A werewolf’s.”

Surprise flooded Enid’s face, covering up all the fear she had been feeling earlier. She watched Wednesday, who was still crouched on the ground with her own towering figure behind her, and Wednesday stared back at her. An eyebrow lifted on her visage. 

“Is Wednesday Addams a werewolf expert without me even knowing?”

As if offended, the obsidian-clad one stood up to be—more or less—at her height. “I have seen werewolves before.” She looked up and down her friend’s face, only her eyes moving. “You’re not the only one I have observed transformed.”

That wasn’t entirely true. But now was not the time. It was never the time.

The amber-haired girl crossed her arms and gave her a suspicious peek, meaning she didn’t believe her. She was seeing right through her, and that made the dark one’s expression falter for barely a split second. The energetic blonde spotted it, but she didn’t have time to comment on anything before the onyx-haired one turned to contemplate the trail beneath her again. Her eyes wandered over its entirety, then moved further ahead. A second footprint was stamped on the ground, then a third, then a fourth, disappearing into the obscurity of the forest. 

“Seems like the clue I was looking for,” she muttered. She crossed the mark, quickly followed by her roommate, who still didn’t want to stop holding onto her. The footprints formed a trail leading into the unknown. Unaware of the direction they were heading, they followed it without a word, interest dominating both of them. The marks sank into the earth, lost among the leaves and dead branches. Promptly, the dirt was swapped for stones. Not small stones, however. Rather, large slabs mired in the soil. At first, only a few could be seen, albeit soon they turned into a complete pavement, replacing the entire track.

The girls stopped, their eyes anchored on what lay before them.

A dark village buried under a kind of nocturnal fog, monochrome and bland. It was so thick that it seemed opaque, concealing all the details of the houses and surroundings, which now appeared akin to silhouettes. It almost looked like smoke. This idea became even more intense and plausible when, through the moonbeams struggling to shine through it, they saw what looked like particles. Millions of them, small and dark, some falling like rain, others floating around like snowflakes. 

One of them passed right in front of Enid’s face. Despite her shock and fear, her first instinct was to catch it without even thinking. This movement captured Wednesday’s eye, who watched her open her palm. 

“Ash,” she whispered in her monotone voice. 

This spread alarm to her friend. “Ash? Wait, what if we’re in a forest on fire?! Does that mean all this mist was actually smoke all along?”

Her roommate didn’t answer; she just walked with her back straight into the fumes. The other hurriedly dropped what she had just caught and followed her in panic. “Don’t leave without me!” Her hands reached back to grab her clothes, as if afraid she would evaporate with the smoke surrounding her. 

They hadn’t even gone a few meters when, through the gray opacity, a gigantic head poked the tip of its nose. 

Chapter Text

They hadn’t even gone a few meters when, through the gray opacity, a gigantic head poked the tip of its nose. 

A head. A werewolf’s head. Black with soot, ash, and burn marks that had eaten through its fur and skin, charred against its skull in a thin, smoldering crust. Some patches of it were nevertheless intact, although the hairs looked as if they had sizzled under the blaze. Its mouth was wide open in what was presented as a howl of suffering, its massive, sharp canines exposed in front of a scorched tongue. This head was attached to a large, lean body that had once been covered with a thick layer of pelage, but was now half-combusted. Blood still flowed through the remaining pelt, destroyed in significant sections, which were shackled with strong metal chains that had undergone the same fate. They were blackened either by the fire that had consumed them, or by the skin, hemoglobin, and ashes of carbonized hair that had dripped and fallen on them. The rest of its body was tied to large posts, held in place so that it could not break free. 

It appeared to have been burned at the stake.

As soon as the information from the vision reached her brain, a shriek of terror escaped from Enid’s mouth. Right away, her claws extended into sharp, cutting blades, ready to defend herself against anything. Wednesday’s eyes widened in shock. However, neither of them had time to say another word or make another move before they were abruptly pulled out of the dream. It felt as if both of them had been torn from it with such violence that the shorter one sat up in the chair with a start. It caused her to scrape the wooden legs on the floor, while her friend woke up with a scream of horror, prompting her to straighten up. The latter was immediately muffled by her hands pressed against her mouth, concealing part of her face where it was easy to read a mixture of panic and pure fear.

In the semi-darkness of the room, still lit only by the lamp on the desk, the two teens’ eyes met for some short seconds. The silence between them stretched out, hefty and thick as they tried to absorb what they had just seen.

In other situations, other contexts, if it hadn’t been a dream shared with her roommate, the seer wouldn’t have minded this vision. On the contrary, she would have sensed only a heavy, twisted fascination. She would have relinquished herself to the sickening scent of death, fire, and the remains of once living beings burned to death. But right now, what she felt was widely different.

Deep in her soul, a gut sensation of wrongness had taken root. Because that’s how it felt to have seen that, to have witnessed the rest of what happened to that werewolf: wrong. It felt like something that should under no circumstances have occurred.

She didn’t know if it was related to a reason she still didn’t know, and might never know, or if she felt that way because the person she was the closest to was a werewolf herself. However, what she was sure of was that, alongside this strange feeling that had never affected her before, came a sense of concern. And that worry was for none other than Enid. After many occasions of the shorter girl showing her photos of bodies and blood, she had learned over time that dealing with such visions was far from her forte. But above all, through her words, her actions, and her apparent anxiety about never wolfing out, she had learned that anything related to werewolves impacted her profoundly. She knew that, despite the fact that she had wolfed out later than average and that she had been mocked for it by her kind, she cared deeply about it. Viewing the remains of one of her own, having grown up surrounded by them, must have been one of the worst things her sight had ever seen. 

In reality, the latter had already broken eye contact to lean over the trash can next to her bed and vomit everything in her stomach. Wednesday’s brows furrowed imperceptibly with concern, albeit it was quite noticeable beneath her usual nonchalant expression. Normally, she would have scolded herself for showing such emotion, as doing so was a sign of weakness. But she had other things on her mind right now.

She stood up from her chair, moving slowly and cautiously towards the bed. The blonde sat up at that moment, getting on the edge of the mattress with her back to her. Her head was bowed, her hands resting on either side of her. She only turned around when her friend’s faint voice rose in the deafening silence. “Are you all right?”

She surprised herself by asking that, but it was a genuine question, and she needed to know the answer. 

The one with the sandy locks looked at her over her shoulder, her gentle face, usually marked by joy and smiles, now contorted with weakness, disgust, and haunting fear. It pierced the raven-haired teen’s heart like an arrow shot at full speed, then twisted and thrust into the wound again and again, spurting endless streams of blood. Once more, it was not a sensation she enjoyed. In fact, it left her greatly unsettled.

The young girl didn’t answer her immediately, taking what seemed like an eternity before responding to her question. “No.”

She got out of bed listlessly, as if she had been drained of energy, grabbing the trash can with one hand and wiping her mouth with the other. “I need to brush my teeth.” 

Then she headed for the bathroom. 

Wednesday found herself alone, standing in the middle of the room, her stomach churning and tight with all kinds of emotions. The most prevalent ones, however, turned out to be what most resembled anxiety and worry. 

She stayed frozen in place, not quite sure what to do with herself. Her eyes remained fixed on the bedroom door where she had last seen her before she vanished into the hallway. She waited patiently, not daring to move, until she reappeared. She penetrated the room, spontaneously placing the empty trash can on the floor near the entrance. Her gaze met her guest’s as she pushed it with her foot so it wouldn’t be in the way.

“I’m going outside for some fresh air.”

The one with the two braids said nothing and didn’t stir. The only moment she finally dared to do anything was when her roommate came out of the room. Instinctively, without speaking a word, she followed her through the dark house, navigating it as if it were broad daylight. The blonde made her way to the patio door on the ground floor leading to the backyard, opened it, and left it open for the other, even though they hadn’t exchanged a single word or glance. As Enid installed herself on the first step, the psychic closed the entrance behind her. She stood there for a moment, watching the werewolf sitting face to a vast forest plunged into the gloominess of night. Then she finally decided to join her, plopping down on the step to her right. 

For the next few minutes, both remained immersed in deep silence; they listened to the crickets chirping in the grass, the nocturnal birds hooting, the rustling of leaves in the breeze, and the distant sound of the occasional car on the asphalt roads. It must have been around four in the morning, and at that hour, the world seemed to be on pause, calm, serene, unaware of what the teenagers were going through. A crescent moon lit up the ink-black sky, lost among the few stars visible through the trees and the light pollution of the city.

It took a long moment before Enid was able to say anything. Wednesday didn’t want to push her, giving her all the time she needed to process what they had witnessed. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything so disgusting and grotesque in my entire existence,” she ended up commenting weakly. “Even the photos you showed me before were less bad and graphic.” 

The other nodded in answer. She had to admit she was right. Even she, who was used to everything gory, bloody, and disturbing, found herself quite grossed out and uncomfortable. There was something about this sight that affected her differently from anything she had witnessed before in her life—and she had witnessed many things.

“I wonder what happened to it…” murmured the amber-haired teen. “What kind of monster would dare do that?”

It was then that the shorter girl finally managed to speak. “Someone who hates us, Outcasts.”

Her answer was so obvious that Enid was surprised she hadn’t thought of it before. “What did we ever do to them? We’re just… existing. Is it a crime to exist?”

Her gaze turned to her friend, and her friend returned it. Somehow, she had the feeling that she wasn’t just talking about Outcasts. She couldn’t quite put her finger on the real reason, though.

“Because we’re different,” she replied softly. Her tone was hushed, cautious, as if she were afraid someone might hear them. Their looks were locked together, profoundly rooted in each other. A sort of tension arose between them. Seconds passed as they remained like that, and the only time either of them broke eye contact was when Wednesday imperceptibly lowered hers to throw a glance at her lips.

She didn’t know why, but a kind of intense urge, even more intense than that of peering into her pupils, took grip of her, and nothing in the world was enough to hold her back. Not even herself.

The one with the vibrant streaks finally sighed loudly, her shoulders rising with the gesture. Only then did her gaze ultimately quit her roommate and turn to the sky. Her attention fell on the crescent moon.

“It shows a story again, doesn’t it? Just like your vision. Do you think they’re both related?”

The one with coal hair seized a moment to ponder, her stare not daring to leave the profile of her face. The slope of her nose, the bump of her lips, the curve of her chin. She found herself wondering what it would be like to touch them, to take them in her hands, to-

Her eyes tore away from her steeply and settled on the dark horizon. “No, I don’t think so. The werewolf in my vision underwent its transformation amidst a forest. That one, assuming it was it who made those tracks and was immolated in that village, appears to have wolfed out directly within the confines of the house. It demolished it unconsciously and escaped. The question remains as to why exactly.” she theorized. “So, indeed, it does seem to show a story. We’re just missing a few pieces of the puzzle; it is rather incomplete.” 

Enid hummed in answer. “I wonder what these stories mean. Why are they related to us? Are they real? God, I hope not!”

Wednesday hoped so too, but she didn’t say so. It was one of the first times she dared to hope that something horrible wasn’t true; she didn’t want to tarnish her reputation for loving the morbid—which was still true—by admitting it.

Instead, a thought flashed through her mind.

“Both of them are related to werewolves,” she instantaneously remarked. 

The flamboyant one turned to her, her eyes wide. “Wait, you’re right!” She bit her lip. “That’s kinda creepy considering I’m a werewolf too.”

An unexpected anxiety crept into the black-haired girl’s gut. Without really controlling it, she began to imagine something similar happening to Enid. Her heart tightened violently, as if the claws of these beasts were squeezing it with strength to make it explode into millions of tiny pieces of crimson flesh.

Her face gave nothing away. 

Suddenly, the blonde’s hand landed on her arm, causing her to nearly jump. “Talking about werewolves, since when do you know so much about us? How did you recognize the trail? I find it hard to swallow your lame excuse. I feel as if there’s more to it than that.”

Their pupils locked together again. She had been caught.

She gulped difficultly, her eyes wide. The gears in her brain began to spin at full speed to uncover another justification, her face warming ever so slightly.

“Time is ticking, Weds, you can’t lie to me,” the other added teasingly. 

The psychic sighed in defeat. Ashamed, she lowered her gaze. Her friend’s beautiful blue orbs were searing intensely into hers; she couldn’t bear that icy stare any longer. Ice so cold that when it touched her skin, it burned and turned scarlet under the heat. Yet she liked that sensation. 

“In my younger days, I used to be obsessed with werewolves. I have read a plethora of books concerning them and viewed tons of documentaries about them. Other than the infamous Salem Witch Trials, my most cherished bedtime tale was an old, far more sanguinary version of Little Red Riding Hood. Needless to say, I was on the wolf’s side.”

“No way!” the teenager exclaimed a little too loudly. “Why didn’t you tell me before?!” Her expression had regained its usual liveliness and euphoria. Deep down, it pleased the somber girl to see her suddenly feeling better. Enid was probably the only person whose misery she did not rejoice in, which was still an incredibly foreign concept to her.

Not wanting to show her embarrassment at this revelation, she promptly recovered by adding, “I have always harbored a fervent desire to dissect such a specimen and study it.”

For the first time since they woke up, the golden-haired girl finally smiled; it lit up her face like a ray of sunshine piercing through thick black clouds. 

“You could study me,” she offered nonchalantly. 

However, this remark was far from being taken nonchalantly by Wednesday. As soon as the words entered her ears, a violent blush spread across her cheeks. It was a monstrous heat, even more so than if she had been thrown at the stake for witchcraft. Her brain was hurled meters and meters away, towards thoughts she never imagined would traverse her mind at any point in her short, miserable life. She felt so intimidated by simply skimming them that she didn’t dare to crack open a single one.

“Being mauled by one was amongst my best dreadful childhood nightmares,” she attempted to say, trying to escape from the grave she had begun to dig for herself.

In some inexplicably fascinating ways, Enid managed to push her even deeper into the earth. “I wouldn’t mind doing that as well.” Her grin was so wide that it exposed her teeth, including her canines—something she had never noticed before. They seemed to have grown overnight, and the raven-haired one suddenly remembered her old studies. The first wolfing out of a werewolf allowed some of their mental and physical abilities to surface, which appeared to be the case for her roommate.

She found herself staring at them, perhaps too intensely. Her brain also jumped into completely unknown territory as she began to envision what it would be like to feel them in her skin, the warmth of her blood flowing against her tender flesh, her wound burning with pain. Picturing that made her want to stab herself to silence everything that was going on inside her head. Get. Yourself. Together. 

“It would be an honor to be the cause of the death of the invincible Wednesday Addams."

“And you would be the sole soul whom I would grant the privilege of ending my days,” she practically replied, but she stopped herself at the last second. She felt like a rabid hound, barking, drooling, growling, choking on the chain around her neck that held her to a post. 

Her mind began to twist with many other similar thoughts that only made everything she was feeling worse. To be murdered by your hands would be such a wonderful way to die.

It made her feel light-headed.

The colorful teen seemed to have a sudden epiphany. Her hands came back to grab her arm and shake her excitedly, her eyes wide open. “Is this the real reason why you’re my friend?” she asked jokingly. Part of her truly wanted to know regardless. Why had Wednesday Addams chosen to stick around with her, even though everything opposed them?

The dark psychic felt tremendously reassured that she no longer had to reply to her previous words. However, even after intensive searching in her brain crammed with disturbing thoughts, she couldn’t find the slightest response to give her. She herself didn’t really know the answer to her question. And that made her feel as if she was being put directly under a spotlight. Part of her ascertained that, consciously, this wasn’t the case. But unconsciously? What if it was the reason why she stuck around with her despite everything? She found herself mortally flustered by the idea of it. Never before had she realized the irony and coincidence of her past obsession with lycanthropes and her first close friend ever being one herself. And now, she was staying in a house full of them. Her younger self would have been woeful about it. 

“No, that is not why,” she chose to respond, not wanting to expose all of her confusing thoughts. “Everything about the way I tolerate you defies reason.”

A giggle of excitement escaped the blonde's mouth; she seemed far too happy at her reply. Wednesday found herself not minding its sound after all the worries she had just experienced for her.

☾

The day after this dream, not an instant did it stop occupying the minds of the two roommates. Throughout the hours following their sudden awakening, Enid did her absolute best to prevent her brain from returning to the vision of that poor werewolf doomed to such a harrowing and cruel fatality. She attempted so hard to remove the images she had witnessed from her head. They haunted it, engraved there; they hammered inside her skull and on each of its walls, trying to break them and insert themselves into every crack. That expression of plain fear and agony imprinted on its charred face after being burned to death; the way its large carcass was placed against those posts; the way each of its limbs with carbonized skin and fur conveying its desire to escape; how every little detail of its body showed the internal struggle it had gone through in an effort to get out of this hopeless situation for which it was destined. The images of the hemoglobin, the incineration, the fried hair, the calcined flesh stuck to its bones; the sight of the damaged chains restraining it and holding it to the pillars.

None of this would let go of her, like a leech affixed to her epidermis, sucking, pumping, and absorbing all her blood, all her sanity. 

Alas, this dream was not the only thing that refused to leave their minds, Enid’s mind. In fact, it was only a small part of a whole, a whole so immense that she could not yet see the end of it. This whole was the totality of what was happening at that moment, the entirety of this story. 

These dreams, this red thread, the sensations she had experienced before. So many questions occupied her mind. To the multitude she had before, more had been added. What was the reason this poor beast had been the victim of this tragedy? Why did it all appear to be more and more connected to werewolves? What they had seen in the vision and in the dreams, were they real? What was the tie between each of these strange dreams, the book, the vision, and the red thread linking them? 

These questions kept spiralling around in her head.

It probably didn’t help to get rid of them that the two girls spent all their free time the next day doing even more research.

Sitting on Enid’s bed, side by side with their backs against the headboard, they recommenced reading the diary; making sure to take their time so they could analyze as much information as possible and not overlook anything that might be useful to them. They remained alert to any mention of the moon, of strange dreams, of the common thread connecting the individuals in the first translation, and of personal information about the woman who had written it. Who could she be? Was she this “W.A.”? In order not to exhaust themselves trying to decipher everything at once, they took frequent breaks to transcribe excerpts that appeared important and record notes about them, but also to continue drafting the locations of all the dreams. As their brains filled up with what they read, they added a ton of new sheets to their clue board. 

Transcribed passages, drawings, hypotheses, interrogations.

The journal resumed talking about dreams. The one following the first they had read seemed to be a normal one. Not the slightest trace of a red thread. Subsequently, the next day, it was mentioned again. Just like the first one, it included this unknown woman, this W.A., as they had theorized, and this man, Silas. Once more, the two were connected by the same cord. As soon as they fell asleep every other day, they found themselves in a new place, just like them. A normal dream, then a connected dream, then a normal dream, consistently every two days. This was a question they had never considered before, but it was quickly added to their board. Was there an explanation why it happened every two days? These individuals weren’t the only ones enduring this; the teenagers were too. 

However, unlike them, these connected people didn’t seem as troubled by what they were going through. Not as much as Wednesday and Enid. Maybe a little confused at first, but not to the point of becoming utterly obsessed with the reason they were experiencing this.

Nothing about it seemed to be a mystery they had to solve; after a few of them, they appeared to have simply accepted their new reality; they began to live as if it wasn’t truly happening. It turned into their routine.

It presumably helped that their dreams were entirely normal: everyday locations where they met, hung out together, and acted as if they were in reality. Talking, laughing, spending time together. Places that, incidentally, seemed to start returning after a while. Consistently in the same order, like a cycle.

At least, until something inexplicable happened.

W.A. disappeared for about a week, which they quickly noticed as the dates suddenly became spaced out. And when she came back, the first thing she wrote was:

“Silas died.”

The only writing inked on a sheet left totally blank. 

An aura of concern fell over the girls. They just exchanged glances. Then the dark one turned the page.

“He succumbed to the cruel clutches of lung cancer. They say he had a substantial hemorrhage in his lungs; the event transpired with startling swiftness. Alas, prior to that, he fared most wretchedly. His respiration was perpetually laboured, he was coughing up blood with distressing frequency, and he was so weak. His life had descended into a living Hell; our lives had descended into a living Hell. It was a grievious spectacle to behold. 

The only respites from his affliction;the fleeting moments when he was not tormented, when we could spend time together unburdened by the ceaseless reminder of his declining health, were found in our dreams. For reasons that remain shrouded in enigma, when I dreamed, he dreamed with me; we were connected. We could live the existence we long envisioned had not his illness progressed so quickly. We were at peace there.

I try to tell myself that he is at peace too where he is now.

I hope to see him again in my next dream.”

The ink of the finely and delicately traced words had been erased with what appeared to be tears, blurred and spread into darker circles.

“Poor woman…” Enid commented in a soft, melancholic voice. 

A silence followed, as if they were paying their respects to these people.

Wednesday finally added quietly, as if afraid of breaking something, “That may elucidate why they did not regard this as a mystery.” She turned the page vigilantly. “They merely embraced that moment as a pause from all the anguish.”

That made the taller one oddly sad.

Before their eyes now lay a handwriting that seemed a little more hastily done, as if the author was in a hurry and had to go somewhere crucial. The date was more than two days later, but it was hard to tell with the faded letters.

“The dreams have ceased. So will I never see him again?”

These sentences, this question, were the only things on two entire pages, other than black drops of ink. It had dripped there, as if too much had been put on the quill, and, along the way, it had unintentionally left marks. These sentences, even though they were small, even though they didn’t signify much, struck the teenagers with force. They may have been short; however, their meaning was enormous. Enid found herself hugely unsettled. But what did it symbolize? She understood the words at first glance, yet not the message behind them; it was so major that she had a challenging time processing it. 

It hit her hard when two ends of a mystery—a tiny part of the whole unfolding before her—connected. It was as if two electrical wires stripped of their protective rubber met and created a bright spark. The death of this man, Silas, was affecting dreams and if they happened or not. It made a certain amount of sense, given that he was no longer there, but it was still a very harsh realization.

Her guest’s movements appeared wary as she turned the page. The werewolf also had the sensation that they had to be careful with what they were holding, as if this volume were a time bomb waiting for the right instant to explode.

That bomb seemed to explode in their faces the moment the psychic read aloud in a vigilant voice the text mixing an old version of English, French, and Spanish:

“No one ever told me that grief felt so empty. It’s as if his grave had been excavated within my very breast. I’ve never lost anyone before, and thus am uncertain if my sentiments are commonplace. I feel incomplete without him; I feel hollow. With each passing day, my longing for him intensifies”

It felt like a bucket of ice water had been thrown directly into their faces. This effect only worsened when they noticed how her handwriting became shakier as she wrote. It looked as if it had been penned by a trembling hand. 

The two roommates didn’t speak for what seemed like infinite minutes. It was Wednesday who finally summed up what they were both thinking, “So we’re not the only ones feeling it.” 

The blonde bit the inside of her cheek. “I’m starting to connect some dots, and I don’t like it.”

Her friend turned to her, one eyebrow weakly raised. Her expression conveyed intrigue, but also a kind of concern. This did not help to comfort the macabre girl. She swallowed hard.

“The parallels between these people and us are beginning to be more than a coincidence. They have joined dreams where they are linked by the thread; they occur every other day, and… this feeling of emptiness. Could it be because one of them is dead? Because they are apart...? Just like we were in California and New Jersey. The emptiness only happened when we weren’t together.”

The macabre one hummed in response. “Seems akin to it.” She appeared even gloomier than her usual dark self. Enid didn’t have time to address it, however; the other turned the page. 

The writing was even more unstable there. It was so bad that the onyx-haired one had trouble reading some of the words. They had become so unsteady, sometimes overlapping each other, some clumsily crossed out, sometimes to the point where the sheet had torn under the pressure. And if the words weren’t in terrible condition themselves, they were hidden under large drops of ink, sometimes wiped and smeared, sometimes simply soaked into the pages and all the ones that followed. As for the sentences themselves, they had begun to lose their usual coherence. Typically, the author was able to link the three languages perfectly so that someone familiar with them would be capable of understanding everything syntactically. But from these pages onward, it was as if she had stopped trying; some of her sentences bluntly quit making sense.

However, Wednesday decoded what was written as best as she could:

“What trespass have I committed to warrant the loss of such a cherished soul? It should have been I stricken by this vile malady. He was undeserving of such torment, whilst I was. I was keenly aware of my inadequacy as a Christian. God, in His inscrutable wisdom, has resolved upon retribution for my transgressions by inflicting this burden upon me.” 

The text seemed to continue on the next page, where the ink had bled through and obscured a large part of it. The rest was wholly crossed out. Even with the pressure that the pen had left on the paper, it was purely impossible to understand anything that was written. They spent at least five minutes trying to understand what it all meant, but eventually gave up. The page turned.

Red.

Through the monochrome hues, alongside the ink stains and barely discernible inscriptions, drops of hemoglobin had seeped through. Of all sizes, dried but retaining a certain scarlet color, they spread across the pages covered with indecipherable scribbles. They finally managed to understand through them:

“I feel like I’m going crazy. 

I see him everywhere.  His shadow lurks in the murkiest corners; he observes me with a baleful gaze, staring at me. He is presently situated directly behind me, and I apprehend he’s going to jump at my throat any second. I can already feel the imminence of his nails grazing my neck. If he does, I dread that I might be incapable of restraining myself from attacking him back. 

Of late, I have found myself far too often beset by temptation with far too many souls. Even my sons. 

Overnight, I became bereft of command over my lycanthropic aptitudes. My claws will not cease to come out. I believe I inadvertently marred a whole side of my visage. Though it pains me, I am indifferent. It’s a sensation, a solitary one amidst the encroaching void that keeps spreading. It robs me of appetite, slumber, and focus. All I can do is think about him, write here, and weep. I’m afraid my sanity is beginning to falter.

I might be haunted.”

Wednesday looked so captivated, her eyes wide and her mouth slightly open. She seemed about to turn the page, but Enid precipitously placed her hand on the journal to stop her. Her heart was racing, and she felt as if all the blood had drained from her face. She felt dizzy. 

“She’s a werewolf. Like me.”

She said it so simply, so brusquely, but it appeared to strike her friend so hard that her breath caught audibly. She looked at her, a mixture of understanding and confusion filling her whole soul. She was unable to respond, as she was so disturbed. The tall blonde stared back at her. A sort of lucidity passed between them, like a kind of invisible communication flowing from one to the other. The short-haired girl withdrew her hand, authorizing her roommate to continue reading.

The following pages were worse than anything they had seen so far. 

Ink splotches, traces of blood, incoherent words and phrases, yet appearing so pained and enraged, paper torn under pressure. Amidst all this, it was possible to make out a few simple words:

“I am slowly wolfing out. I feel hysterical, erratic, inhumane. I am no longer master of my actions. Ephraim. Theodore. My deepest regrets, my loves. Should you seek my whereabouts, know that I shall be found at his gravestone, where the red thread binds us.”

Chapter Text

“I am slowly wolfing out. I feel hysterical, erratic, inhumane. I am no longer master of my actions. Ephraim. Theodore. My deepest regrets, my loves. Should you seek my whereabouts, know that I shall be found at his gravestone, where the red thread binds us.”

The feeling that the two young girls experienced while reading, understanding and deciphering everything written on these pages was indistinguishable. It was a sort of sickening and bitter mixture of astonishment, shock, melancholy, and anxiety. A feeling that grabbed them by the throat and strangled them with emotions, making them deeply unwell. It bubbled up in their stomachs, enveloped their hearts, which struggled to start beating again, twisted their guts, spread goose bumps all over their skin, and filled their heads with a hundred questions.

Trying to absorb what they had just seen, they looked into each other’s eyes in a kind of agreement about their general state after that. They searched for words for what seemed like an eternity, even though their brains were stuffed with them. But nothing struck as right to say in these circumstances. Nothing dared to come out for several lengthy minutes. 

It was far too long before Wednesday turned the page again to know what happened afterwards. What glared back at her were two more completely blank sheets. Perfectly empty, except for the ink and hemoglobin that had bled through the paper, in addition to the pressure marks caused by heavy writing. The next pages were identical, same for the ones after that, and after, and after again, until the end of the journal. W.A. had never written again.

Realizing this took the teenagers’ breath away, but they said nothing. The one with the two braids simply turned back to the first blank pages. Aside from the vestiges of what had come before, the only notable thing about them was the binding. Joined to it were the remains of a piece of paper that had been torn off violently and clumsily. Dark streaks could be seen on the edges that stayed attached. However, in the present situation, they were unable to focus on this detail. It was all too much at that moment; they couldn’t take it all in at once, even though they wished they could.

She returned to the final pages with marks of this woman and dropped the volume on the bed. She pushed it away with her fingertips. 

Once and for all, she found the strength to speak: “These are the pages I saw in my vision.” Her voice was low, weak, and uncertain, and seemed to convey a kind of nervousness. It was incredibly rare to hear such a tone from Wednesday Addams.

Enid noticed it, and a keen concern was added to everything that was currently assailing her, including the revelation of what her roommate had seen. She stared at her, incapable of responding, sensing as if her vocal cords had simply quit working, so great was the disbelief. In fact, it kept growing inside her. It felt like a nuclear bomb whose shockwave spread further and further, engulfing everything around it in its radioactive cloud, reducing to burnt flesh all those who had the misfortune of being exposed to it. It reached all her organs one after the other; her lungs stopped their constant contractions, her muscles became limp, weak, and trembling, and her heart tightened in her chest, giving the impression that it was decomposing on the spot. And of course, her vocal cords ceased understanding how to make a single sound.

Detecting that she was not about to say anything, the psychic was the one who spoke again, “That woman I saw in my vision, the one with disheveled black hair, an exhausted face, and pale skin. It was her. It was W.A. It can only be her. W.A. had already succumbed to madness, and so was the lady I saw. In fact, she had already lost it. Her gaze was wild; she appeared to have utterly gone mad; no semblance of lucidity remained within her. She was writing these very pages, I saw it. And now, we have the confirmation that she was a werewolf.”

She paused, then continued even more quietly and anxiously, “She also has to be the one who wolfed out in my vision. She couldn’t control herself anymore; she was losing her sanity, her humanity, so much that she transformed in the forest and… headed for Silas' final resting place. ‘Should you seek my whereabouts, know that I shall be found at his gravestone, where the red thread binds us.’ Everything makes sense now.”

The blonde alternated wide-eyed glances between the book and her friend. She swallowed hard. “That adds even more to the theory that all of this is somehow related to werewolves,” she ultimately managed to comment in a particularly faint tone. It was as if an obscure force had finally given her back her own voice.

“It has to be,” replied the other.

She returned to the shredded page. Her index finger, with its immaculately black nail, ran delicately over the binding where the page had been pulled. “I also saw a drawing, but I didn’t have time to make out what it was,” she specified in her usual monotone voice. She placed her finger on the ripped section. “I wager this is the exact page where it was. Curious how it was torn off…”

“Whatever she drew, she appeared to really be going through it,” replied the taller teen, leaning closer to the book to survey the aggressive lines on what had been marked on the mysterious missing sheet. Her shoulder pressed even tighter against Wednesday’s, who did nothing about it. Enid continued, “I wonder why she ripped it out…”

The psychic unfortunately didn’t know any more, but she tried either way, “Her final entries were scattered and erratic. Perchance, her emotions got the better of her, and she tore it out in a fit of rage or during a mental breakdown.”

The werewolf nodded. That did make sense. Then, as her eyes fell back on the chaotic text, a thought occurred to her. She stammered for a little bit. “Wh-what if she wolfed out because it was a full moon? I can’t see any other explanation…” she theorized. “What even happened to her after?” She was well aware Wednesday didn’t know the answer, but she still needed to let out her reflections. 

The latter took a deeper breath, like a sigh. “Further queries to add to the board and the notebook.”

Their eyes both slid to the cork board still sitting on the windowsill, not far from the bed where they were installed. It was already overflowing with papers of all kinds pinned with multicolored thumbtacks. The sheets with colorful, vibrant writing contrasted with others consisting of delicate, dark ink strokes traced with a pen. It was easy to see who had written what, which was a rather silly sight. They had beforehand displayed a large number of questions, sketches of dreams, passages, and theories. 

The macabre girl was the one who found the ability to get up. Enid’s gaze followed her as she made her way to their masterpiece. She stood in front of it so that the other could observe the profile of her body from her position, which she didn’t dare leave. The seer crossed her arms, as if that would help her better examine what was before her. She stared at it intensely in the manner she knew so well how to do; her large, dark eyes could have pierced through it if she had been able to.

“To recapitulate: We are not alone in experiencing connected dreams every two days, where we’re linked by a red thread; W.A. and Silas shared this fate as well. The places in which they find themselves in their sleep describe a perfect circle, returning evermore to their beginning. This is something we have yet to see, if that even shall happen to us, that is.”

Her voice trailed off, and surprisingly, it was the blonde who filled the silence again to join in her summary, “And if they’re physically separated, they seem to lose their minds. Just like we did when we were apart.”

Her roommate turned to the other to meet her big blue gaze. She nodded in accord with her words. “These individuals are, in some manner, linked to us, and we need to find out how and why.”

☀︎

Enid and Wednesday spent the rest of their day recovering and revamping the board. They each went their separate ways to continue their tasks as they had before their most recent dream. The colorful teen preferred to stay in bed, lying on her stomach to be more comfortable, since her back had started to hurt from sitting up. She had her friend's notebook in her hands and updated it with the new dream they’d just had, the sensations they’d felt, and all the new questions, theories, and discoveries. Every once in a while, she got up to add a piece of paper to the board with one of the many inquiries or hypotheses they had. When she did, she could never resist taking a discreet peek at what the other was doing.

The latter had installed herself at her desk—which she seemed to have already adopted—in order to better continue the sketches. She had finished several, which the blonde noticed quite quickly from her first furtive visit. Since the end of their reading, she had managed to complete her drawing of Nevermore Forest—started just before their dream—and had finished the one from the bookstore. Then she began the one of the mountain. However, she didn’t finalize it, as it had been set aside, and she seemed to have immediately jumped to the future completed image of the paw print, moving shortly after to the next one. As soon as the golden-haired one saw the graphic sketch of the charred body, she felt nauseous. So she averted her gaze to avoid overthinking it and ending up vomiting again. Drawing it now made sense, considering they were still a little shaken by the situation, and the details and visions were still rather fresh. But at that moment, it was still too fresh in her psyche. Yet then again, she had the impression that, even years later, her disgust and horror would never fade.

It remained in the back of her mind as she worked, refusing to let go. In spite of this, she managed to recover slightly from what she had seen, read, and heard. She regained some of her usual attitude, which was well demonstrated when she contemplated once more what the somber teen was drawing.

Now she was working on the sketch of the house where they had found themselves that night. As she was about to pin something to the board, Enid stopped behind her along the way, crossing her arms on her back with a piece of paper on which a question was written in her hand. She leaned over her shoulder and playfully said, “The hole in the wall was much bigger than that.”

Wednesday turned her gaze slightly to see her in her peripheral vision, finally noticing how close they were. If she swiveled her head toward her, the tip of her nose could have touched her friend’s cheek. She didn’t, however, merely replying, “That’s how I viewed it.”

The werewolf pulled up the seat she had been sitting on since they began their research. Her roommate had taken over her usual office chair, but she didn’t mind; she was even happy to witness her using her things. She plopped down and leaned forward to put her arm against hers without really thinking about it. She chuckled and teased her, “That’s because you’re short.”

Said short girl gave her a look that could have punctured her skull, but she did nothing; she never did anything to Enid, even if she insulted her playfully. Anyone else would have ended up on the ground groaning in pain—something she had already done multiple times before, like with the boys in the Weathervane. Her strength was exceptionally surprising despite her diminutive size. 

“I’ll cut off your legs, and we’ll see who’s the shortest now,” she replied. Her voice still had that same monotone tone, but the one with amber locks was nevertheless able to discern a kind of amusement in it. Her threat made her laugh when any other soul would have quivered with fear. 

“Let me correct it,” she offered. 

The shorter one let out a faint sigh. “If you possess such intellect, then help yourself.” Without thinking, she handed her the pen and didn’t even try to move out of the way. Enid’s expression was playful as she grabbed it, lightly brushing her fingers. Unexpectedly, it sent violent shivers down her arms, and she was pretty glad at that moment that the sleeves of her flamboyant sweater covered them. She ignored them entirely, simply blaming it on the temperature of the chilly season. She brought the sheet closer to her, and under the girl’s onyx irises, she began to draw. Or she tried to. 

The quill prematurely ran out of ink, which she only noticed when the sharp metal end left blank marks on the paper. She lifted the tip up to her eye to look at it. “Shit,” she muttered. It made Wednesday smile faintly at the thought that she had no idea she could dip it back into her inkwell, the corner of her mouth rising imperceptibly. Unfortunately, it didn’t last long, as her friend grabbed one of her colored ballpoint pens—the ones that smelled like fruits—and continued her work.

No sooner had the tip touched the paper than the eyes of the teen with the two braids suddenly widened.

“You’re gonna ruin my drawing, Enid,” she warned with a kind of panicked haste. 

“Nuh-huh. I’m gonna improve it!” answered the latter as she turned to her with a smile showing her canines. “You gave me the green light, so that’s what I’m doing.” She brought her pupils back to the sketch, where pink lines were added around the entrance in the wall to enlarge it. “You did say we would do this together, didn’t you?”

The seer stared at her with a wide gaze for a long moment before grumbling. At that moment, she turned her glance to the side as if not to see her. Out of the corner of her vision, she watched her anyway until she pushed the drawing back towards her. The black lines now blended impeccably with the pink ones to create a mixture of their distinct colors. She sighed imperceptibly, which her roommate heard. “What? You don’t like it?”

The dark girl narrowed her eyes to gaze at her. She did. This terrible amalgam of monochrome and lively pigments felt so right in her sight, and she actually loved seeing it. It squeezed her small, cold, dead heart with horror. She didn’t have the capability to say it, though. “Just… go put it on the board. This is a trivial matter for now.”

Enid’s beam was so big that it showed all her teeth. She scoffed lightheartedly as she stood up, grabbing her paper with the question, which was the original reason she had gotten up. She pinned both of them on it carefully, her eyes scanning the entirety of the portrait that the ensemble created.

She skipped back to the desk and returned to the chair next to her friend, who had resumed working on the sketch of the mountain in their shared dream. As if by reflex, her shoulder pressed against hers, and neither of them pointed it out. Even though never in a million years the crepuscular girl would admit it, she didn’t mind that kind of touch. It was simple and unobtrusive, but it allowed them to stay close.

Lately, she had found herself slipping a lot.

Letting her hug her once, always being so close to her, being in perpetual physical contact with her, and even sleeping in the same bed as her. She had no idea why she hadn’t snapped yet about any of these things. Truthfully, she never really thought about doing so. Each and every one of them just… felt natural. Every time they occurred, she just allowed them to, not minding them. She somewhat liked them. Perchance. 

The one with the vibrant streaks returned to the dream journal, deciding this time to go back to the start of the notebook to read what her investigation partner had written. She grabbed more colored pencils and began taking notes. She added her version of events to the margins, including questions, theories, and even some comments on both the dreams, interrogations, and Wednesday’s personal notes about how she felt and what she thought. She changed shades every few sentences, turning the desk into a battlefield filled with a chaos of hues. The coal-haired teen attempted not to pay attention, keeping her focus on the sketch she was trying to finish. 

It was only when yet another ballpoint pen in an eye-bleeding tint rolled onto her sheet of paper that she looked up at her roommate.

“Enid, you’re creating a disarray on the desk. Can’t you clean up your junk as you use it?”

The mentionned teenager gave her a whimsical expression. “Can I remind you this is my desk in my room?”

Wednesday caught her tongue with her teeth to bite it slightly. She was right. But she wasn’t going to let her get away with it so easily. “Yes, however, it is rolling on my sheet and disturbing my undertaking.”

Her eyes landed at that moment on what exactly the other had been busy with. She was back to her own colorful pages where she had started to make, what appeared to be, doodles all around the text. Immediately, her first instinct was to grab the journal swiftly to get a closer look at what had been marked there. Illustrations of little hearts, flowers, stars, smiley faces, and even a simple, small drawing of both their heads. Enid, drawn in pink, purple, and blue, grinning as usual, and Wednesday next to her, drawn in black ink, her expression monotonous and her braids peeking out on either side of her visage. They were surrounded by doodles, such as hearts and more stars, but also a basic sketch of a crow on the dark one’s side, and a wolf on the colorful girl's.

She hated them. 

She loved them.

The blonde was somewhat shocked when the notebook was snatched from her, but when she quickly realized what the psychic was doing—staring at her illustrations—her broad grin returned to her mouth.

The shorter one didn’t even take her eyes off what she was looking at. “What are these?” Her expression was indecipherable, even to Enid, as was her tone. She guessed it might be exasperation mixed with disdain. But she wasn’t sure.

“Doodles!” she simply declared, as if it wasn’t obvious enough already. She didn’t let go of her lighthearted attitude for a moment, which seemed to be fueled even more each exchange they had. 

Her friend finally looked at her. “This is a serious situation; you shouldn’t take it too lightly, Enid.” She said her name in a way that highlighted the importance of her words. 

The latter rolled her eyes dramatically, sighing loudly. “Come on! We shouldn’t make ourselves sick with all that; it’s heavy enough as it is; we don’t have to be so serious all the time. Have a little whimsy in your life, Wednesday,” she replied, putting the same kind of emphasis on her name.

This shut her up sufficiently that she was unable to find any responses worthy of her words. The short-haired one smiled triumphantly, grasped back the journal, and then resumed her doodles, whereas the Addams daughter forced herself to return to her task. They spoke nothing more on the subject, simply continuing what they were doing. This time, Enid added small, discreet drawings to the pages on which her roommate had taken all her notes. She sighed, defeated, but said nothing more about it. 

Throughout it, their shoulders remained against each other, and both peeked over the other’s once in a while to see what she was doing. They invaded each other’s personal space a lot, but neither of them objected. The only moment they communicated was when, sometimes, the werewolf nudged her to ask her to read a theory and approve or reject it before putting it down on paper and attaching it to the board. Once, when she read what she had written in bright green, she frowned slightly as she reread it several times. She even repeated it aloud to question her about it:

“Shared dreams are akin to playing an online video game. If one disconnects, the other is automatically kicked out. One cannot exist without the other in this universe. This may be the reason why W.A. stopped having dreams after Silas died—he was permanently disconnected. And this is the same for us, like that first night in Nevermore when we woke up one after the other.”

Enid nodded as she read, a big smile on her face, letting out a “Mhm!”

Wednesday’s eye twitched at her lack of helpfulness. “I do not understand all these metaphors and gibberish.”

The other teen laughed. “You’ve never played a video game with anyone?” Then she stopped and thought about it some more. “Of course you never did; why am I even bothering to ask?” Wednesday nodded in agreement. “I should get you to play one!” The girl’s nod turned into a sharp negative shake of her head. Her friend chuckled.

She tried to rephrase her theory in simpler terms: “If one wakes up, the bond coerces the other to do the same. So the fact that Silas passed away prevented W.A. from connecting to the dream, since the red thread had been broken.”

“Was the string truly broken, though?” was the first thing Wednesday asked, which made the other one frown. Seeing her expression, she added, “W.A. did mention that she would be at the place where the red thread binds them. Perhaps even beyond death, they remain intertwined; not even Grim Reaper himself could sever the rope between them. The current merely ceased flowing through the cord.”

“In some ways… that’s really beautiful…" commented the short-haired teen, "but morbid as hell.” Her gaze lowered to the notebook that the seer was still holding.

She rewrote this theory on yet another piece of paper and went to pin it to the board, also grabbing the drawing of the mountain that the other had managed to finish in the meantime. She was almost done with Ophelia Hall’s now. 

As she searched for two free thumbtacks to add the strips of paper to the already overflowing board—and they were only at the beginning of their investigation—the psychic blurted out:

“There’s something else I have been intending to do.”

The blonde twisted her head toward her with a raised eyebrow, a feeling that intensified when her roommate got up from her seat for the first time in a long while. She turned to face her, her gaze meeting hers.

“Do you possess charcoal?”

Enid’s brows furrowed deeply, creating confused creases between them. “Why, in the ever-loving hell would I have charcoal?”

Wednesday didn’t answer her, suddenly swerving around to scan the desk with her eyes. Her next step was to grab a graphite pencil and a sharpener she found nearby. With confident movements, knowing what she was doing, she honed it until the gray lead was as sharp as a weapon. She sat back down in her chair as her friend approached her with interest. Standing next to her, she watched her seize W.A.’s journal, take a blank sheet of paper, and place it over the two pages she had seen in her vision.

“What are you even doing?” she asked curiously. 

“A stone rubbing. Something commonly practiced on gravestones and monuments—of which I possess some experience—yet it can work with deep indents on paper. Since we do not have charcoal, I’ll use this graphite pencil to transcribe what was marked on the torn page. It feels as if it’s absolutely crucial to know.”

“Ooh,” the werewolf hummed with interest. She watched with fascination as she placed the angle of the nib against the paper so that the entire tip was in contact with it. She began to rub it very softly and delicately from corner to corner of the sheet. Gradually, whiter marks appeared through the shiny gray lines. At first, only a few showed themselves, but the further she went across the sheet, the more they multiplied, linked together; they commenced to form an image of rough, clumsy, aggressive lines, connecting with what remained of the papers still attached to the binding.

A rudimentary and incomplete illustration of a lush forest began to take shape. A gravestone with an indistinguishable name written on it stood in its middle.