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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 a violent demise upon them, 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."

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, etched in her brain. A simple sentence, yet so short and so innocent, 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 down, similar to a candle burning in a cold and dark place. This sentence was in some way really reassuring. It was soothing, gentle, tranquilizing. 

Coupled with everything Wednesday had said to her, this simple phrase had managed to silence some of her worries. Her nervousness and deep fear melted away and gave way to joy. It was weak, still buried under everything else that 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 felt little joy in the last few days.

Some of her fears and worries disappeared, but the other part remained. 

All morning long, they were next to the emptiness, the joy, and the warm feeling in her chest. At lunchtime, it was still impossible for her to detach herself from them, although excitement added itself to the strange mixture. As much because of the joy of seeing Wednesday again as the nervousness, it was impossible for her to sit still in her chair as she ate 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 was going to drive her there and take Wednesday home. She didn't trust her mother with that. 

While they were on the road, Enid 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 excitement and fear. 

But she had sadly forgotten that werewolves had senses sharp enough to sense emotions, and it didn't take long before her dad reached out to turn down the radio and asked, "Nervous?"

Enid immediately snapped out of her thoughts, so abruptly 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 an answer. "And also pretty excited..." 

A faint smile came on her face.

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 daring to invite friends over," he blurted out after a short silence cut off only by the very low sound of the radio.

Enid felt her body freeze at this remark. In all her life, she never really had any friends close enough other than Wednesday. And anyone who ever dared to be and had only been invited to her house a few times. And it had only taken those few times for her to learn the hard way that her family wasn't the best with guests. 

The only times she had invited friends over to her house, her brothers had not missed a single opportunity to not only make fun of her for her choices of friends but also to simply make fun of her friends themselves, right in their faces. As for her mother, she had always been more discreet, never directly criticizing the few friends she had ever brought to her house, but never failed to tell her directly once they were alone. Her friends were never enough for her mom. 

Needless to say, it had only pushed them further away from her. 

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 push it away in the corner of her mind, figuring that her friend knew how to defend herself - a little too well - and would probably find something to bark back at. Hopefully, this wouldn't cause her parents to kick Wednesday out of their house... 

"Y-yeah," Enid finally replied to her father's comment, unable to contain a feeble stutter.

The conversation stopped there, but Enid didn't really 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 car as she worked up the courage to enter the airport alone. She anxiously made her way to Wednesday's gate. She would see her again soon. It seemed totally unreal. Wednesday? In California? Because of those strange dreams that connected them?

Just like that fateful night in the forest, her eyes scanned the crowd relentlessly for the familiar face of the girl 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 face appeared among all the other strangers. She walked through the crowd dragging a suitcase behind her, a single backpack strap slung over her shoulder. 

The moment Enid's eyes fell on her, a strange feeling crept up inside 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 come to choke it and her other sensations, it seemed to come to infiltrate every small crack of her heart to fill them and to seal them, like cement in a fissure on the sidewalk. It came to grip at the edges of the hole, of the empty wound at the place of her heart to patch them together, to suture them, to bandage them. 

The void faded. But Enid 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 suddenly come and warm the inside of her chest that was once so empty 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 inside. One second she was standing there fidgeting, and the next she was sprinting with all her might in the direction of her friend while screaming her name so loudly and happily that dozens of heads turned in her direction. Many of them saw the blonde girl speeding towards another shorter teenager 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 in the air for the space of only a few seconds and start to spin her around. 

With her face settled over her shoulder, Enid couldn't see the corner of a smile that lit up Wednesday's usually expressionless face. If she had seen her she would have screamed in an over-dramatic way as she liked to do, which made Wednesday very glad she didn't. 

Enid spun her around a couple of times before putting her back down. Only then did Wednesday force the shadow of her smile back into the deep hole from whence it came. She gently grabbed Enid's shoulders and pushed her away with all the softness she could muster. Enid 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 sorry but mostly panicked. This new mix of emotions made her move her hands briskly as she spoke, shaking them around without stopping to stomp 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! Im so sorry please forgi-"  

She stopped abruptly in her sentence when Wednesday'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, 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 do it again for that long. Next time I'll have to use my knife on you," 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 Enid to release a breath she hadn't even noticed 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 that long? Does that mean I can hug you again if I want?" she asked with equal eagerness and excitement.  

Wednesday skipped over the first question. Of course. "I 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, there was no threat in her voice, much less an intention to actually do it. Enid raised an eyebrow in a smug way. Wednesday would never intentionally hurt Enid. And both were well aware of that.

"You would never dare to do that to me," she teased with a wide grin as she took a step forward and placed her hands on her hips.

"You underestimate me." Wednesday's tone was firm. She had to lift her head to look her in the eyes.

Enid adopted an almost haughty look. "I would never underestimate you, Addams, I'm just telling the truth."

There seemed to be a shift in Wednesday's face that lasted less than a split second. It was so short that the blonde couldn't make out what it was despite the very good vision her werewolf abilities gave her. She cursed herself inside for not being able to see what it was. 

Note to herself, calling Wednesday "Addams" might provoke her emotions. She had to try again later. If she did right now, it wouldn't have the same effect.

Her smile widened.

"But anyways, let's get you back home shall we?"

-𖤓-

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

As if to remain unchanged from the usual, the joy of seeing her friend again prevented the young werewolf from staying still in her seat. She kept wiggling and changing her sitting position all the way, trying to control her smile, and of course, she got a lot of glares from her roommate. There were so many things she wanted to say to her friend to catch up on all the days that they had been separated, but the presence of her father prevented her from doing so. It was as if from the moment her parents were around a dam settled inside her and forced her to keep everything inside only to ramble once alone with her friends. In this case Wednesday. The latter found herself rather surprised not to hear Enid's 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. Enid was pretty sure that if her dad wasn't there Wednesday 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 songs of the moment. Strangely she held back.

All along the way, Enid kept replaying in her mind the moment her dad had met her friend. Of course, Wednesday had acted like Wednesday, and from Mr. Sinclair's face and reaction when the dark-haired girl introduced herself, Enid could tell that he had been a little freaked out by her. Not that she was surprised, on the contrary. She had expected this kind of reaction. 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 thing wouldn't end up in multiple homicides.

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

After picking up Wednesday's suitcase from the trunk, she skipped around the car to join Wednesday. With her backpack already on her back, she stood next to her, looking up at her house.

Enid alternated glances between the two for a brief moment before asking, "What do you think about it?" Apprehension had 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 very large mansion that must have cost millions, so finding herself in a modest middle-class house set in the suburbs of San Francisco with its back to a large forest must be really unfamiliar. 

Wednesday didn't even look at her at the question. She just continued to stare at the house without blinking once. Enid wasn't even sure 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. 

Enid couldn't stop a smile from gently stretching her lips. She grabbed Wednesday's hand without really thinking twice and started pulling her towards the front door. 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 entered and closed the door. They stopped in front of the latter as Enid 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 her friend with the braids rose to her ears. "What are you doing?" 

"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 Wednesday a look. "It would be really appreciated if you didn't threaten either of my parents... or my brothers... even if it's really tempting..."

Her roommate returned her gaze. Her eyes were dark and piercing, almost frightening. 

"Why not? They wouldn't be just threats, but promises."

Enid closed her eyes for some seconds with a deep breath, "Wednesday... Please promise me..." 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."

Wednesday took a deeper breath than usual. Her version of a sigh. Her stare piercing 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 mouth to speak, but nothing came out at first. The words seemed to hurt to come out of her mouth, like broken glass rubbing against her throat. Although Wednesday probably wouldn't object to the idea... 

And here you are thinking like her, she corrupted you. 

"I... promise you... I'll only bring out the threats or the guns if they get discourteous with you." 

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

Nobody ever said they would stand up for her before...

But she couldn't let that happen. She knew it would happen, and she didn't want Wednesday 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 say 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 friend's eyes as she said that. She felt so ashamed. If she was living in a normal family she wouldn't have to say these kinds of things. But here she was.

Wednesday looked down as well. "I understand."

Enid nodded. At least that removed a chance of her friend being sent back on the first day. She breathed deeply to try to regain her composure before finally turning the knob. She threw a quick look at Wednesday 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, wearing one of her warm smiles that could fool anyone into thinking she was a loving non critical mom. Still, when her gaze landed on Wednesday, Enid could see her expression fade for less than two seconds to one of almost scorn.

Here it is...

"You girls sure took your sweet time! I was waiting for you!" she said 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 seconds 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 you from Parent's Day! Enid told us a lot about you, she was really excited that you were visiting. I hope you'll like it here, feel free to make yourself at home!"

She wasn't even Wednesday's mother and she managed to imperceptibly criticize her. The time her roommate was going to stay here would be great. 

Wednesday gave Ms. Sinclair a nod. Enid saw her hesitate for a moment before speaking. She knew a slew of insults and atrocious threats were rising in her mouth, but she had promised. "Nice to meet you as well."

That was all the two exchanged. When Enid looked over at her friend, she saw the dark look she was giving her genitrix. If she could, she would have thrown knives through her eyes. 

Enid gently grabbed her friend's arm. She plastered a smile on her face, "Come on, I'll show you my room!" Again, Wednesday didn't push her away. She just let herself be dragged up the stairs to the second floor. But they had not climbed 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 stop in her chest. Oh fuck. Wednesday had also stopped on the stairs to stare at the blonde with a faintly raised eyebrow under questioning. 

Enid forced herself to put a smile on her face to be as convincing as possible. She didn't want to worry her. "You can go upstairs and into my room, it's the last door in the back. My door is supposed to be open, you'll recognize all the colors. I'll meet you in five seconds."

And 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 hallway, whose wide doorless frame led to the living room and dining room. Her mother was leaning against the frame, still holding her dish towel in her hands. With a lump in her throat and her hands locked in front of her lap, Enid 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 but as low as possible so Wednesday wouldn't hear her. "She has troublesome child looks, doesn't she? Is she going to influence you in the wrong way?"

The teenager opened her eyes wide.

"What? No! I've known her long enough to assure you that she's a good person. She's got great grades and is on the ball, please don't worry about that, mom."

She was a bit right though... Wednesday really could be a troublemaker... 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."

"Mom!" snapped Enid, trying not to speak too loudly. She could feel her face reddening under the anger rising inside her. "You can't judge people like that by the way they look, she's just different from us, that's all."

Esther sighed loudly. Enid wanted to finish this conversation now. "I need to go now, she's waiting for me," she said as she spun around.

She tried not to start running toward the stairs as she headed up them. 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 anger 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 hallway to 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, pushing 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 most likely still expressionless. Upon hearing her voice, she quietly turned on herself to face her.

"What did your mother want to talk about?" 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 that anger 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 simple 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 eyes away from her to nervously make them wander around for the space of a few seconds, before resting them on Wednesday and placing a broad smile on her face. "But anyways. What do you think about my room?"

The girl with the two obsidian-colored braids looked around the room again, "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 decorated the neon orange and pink walls, adorned with countless fairy lights and Polaroids. Her bed was almost drowned in blankets and stuffed animals, with curtains hanging from the ceiling just like at Nevermore. While her furniture such as her desk and dresser were lost under tons of knickknacks, similar decorations, and even more stuffed animals, the nooks and crannies of the room 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 young girl living there. Eccentric, colorful, lively. 

Wednesday looked like a stain in this decor. A black ink splash on a perfectly blank 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 Enid looked at her a sudden thought 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 thought managed to bring a sudden warmth to her cheeks still warm from her previous anger. What the hell Enid?

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

Totally 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 moment the mention of dreams reached the teenager's ears, her weak smile faltered. For a moment, she had almost forgotten the real reason Wednesday came to California. 

That's when it hit her. Now that the fiery fire inside her had subsided, she noticed it for good. The empty feeling inside her was gone. For the first time in days now, the hole in her heart seemed to have filled. No more pain, no more nothing. Just fullness. Everything was back to normal. Or at least, almost. 

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

A trace similar to a freshly stitched wound that had not yet begun to heal, or to a hole that had just been filled in and that the dirt didn't have the time yet to get flat. These new stitches on her old wound also seemed to be fragile. She had the nagging feeling that at any moment the little threads holding the freshly closed injury could rip off again.  

During her sudden realization, many seconds 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?"

Wednesday was only more puzzled. "Feel what?"

"The emptiness. Inside. Filled."

It took a moment before Wednesday managed to get anything out. "Yeah... You're right. It's filled now."

The same enthusiasm from earlier came to take over every other feeling inside Enid. She took small, quick steps toward her friend and grabbed one of her hands with both of hers, and lifted it into the air. She started to stomp on the floor, a big smile on her face. "Wednesday you were right! Being together really is helping! You were right!"

The latter did not even try to free herself from Enid's grip, only staring at her face, 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, Enid 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 of this and soon we'll be free of it! When are we doing that? Can we start the investigations soon?"

Following her friend's jumping 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 and force her to stop. Her tone was serious as she replied, "Enid, it's far too late to start this now."

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

"We can start tomorrow if you like," Wednesday hastened to add when she saw her expression. She did not remove her hand from her roommate's shoulder. "But for tonight, let's just unpack my bags and try to get some rest okay? We'll discuss all of this tomorrow."

Despite her saddened expression, Enid nodded briskly. "I'll help you unpack your things, I have a spare drawer for you to put your clothes in I think!" 

Her smile had reappeared quickly. Wednesday had no idea how her emotions were able to change so quickly. 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 blonde teen hopped over to the suitcase and pushed it towards her dresser in which the free drawer was located, laying it flat for access. She crouched down in front of it and opened the drawer  

"I'll put your clothes in here!" she declared, glancing at her friend as she unzipped the luggage.

She watched the goth girl return her gaze as she nodded again. Enid opened the top of the suitcase at the same time Wednesday looked away from her and turned around. She finally put her eyes on the suitcase. 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 wide smile. 

"Thing!" 

In fact, the severed hand was there, comfortably installed among the clothes all darker than the others of the owner of the luggage. The appendage made excited movements as soon as he saw the young girl 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. "I didn't know either," she hissed through clenched teeth. Her anger was directed entirely at Thing. 

Enid flattened her hands close to Thing so that he would climb onto her palms. She leapt 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 help us figure out everything's happening with us right now, don't you Thing?" 

The hand nodded in approval.

Wednesday glared at the appendage. If her eyes 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 hands higher to see Thing from higher up. "Thing, bestie, we have so many things to catch up on!"

Wednesday rolled her eyes.

-☾-

Wednesday would have loved to say that she didn't miss hearing Enid talk for hours on end about the silliest things. She would have loved to say that she intensely wanted to tear her auditory nerves out a little more with every high-pitched, excited word that came out of her mouth, and that it wasn't just an urge but a vital need.

But she would be making a big mistake by saying that because she would simply be lying. 

She would be lying because even though she didn't stop to think about it once during the next few hours, during which Enid didn't shut up once when talking to Thing, in her heart she knew that she didn't mean it. She even knew quite clearly that her heart was going in one direction while her head was going in the complete 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, sweet topping that evoked every sound that came out of her mouth. She let herself 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 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 never stop, 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, or how whenever she heard it she had the sudden urge to smile, or even how just hearing it brought a faint wave of heat to her face that she usually associated with anger. 

And this was all so unusual for her. She probably had 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 to answer, Wednesday couldn't decide if what she felt was relief or disappointment. But she didn't take the time to think about it anymore because the blonde turned to her and offered her one of her famous big smiles so adorable that they made Wednesday want to violently hit someone 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 hungry. Which was extremely surprising after days of feeling her stomach on the verge of exploding every time she even slightly thought about food. Another of the strange new things her body had produced overnight after her dreams disappeared... First the empty feeling inside her and now this. She hadn't noticed yet if the other effects on her body had vanished as well, but what she was certain of was that her emotional dysregulation had not returned to normal. She still felt an unusual overflow of emotions inside 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 simply stood up from her spot, immediately linking her hands together. Enid in turn got to her feet, but with such a sudden leap that Wednesday found herself surprised that she didn't get dizzy or simply faint. Although there was a chance that she indeed got light-headed, but 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, which was not so short, her eyes wandered all around. She observed the walls covered with wallpaper, the mismatched furniture, 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 frames that had been placed all over the walls and furniture. All the rest were pictures of her parents and brothers, and the only frames Enid was in were family pictures. A little blonde girl dressed in every color imaginable, with a wide smile missing a tooth and embellished with big azure eyes. She stood among her four darker-haired brothers and her smiling parents, seeming to stand out in every way 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 doesn't matter, she thought.

Soon, she arrived in the room leading to the dining room, where there was 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 face as he watched his sons bicker, talk loudly, and argue without trying to shut them up.

But he didn't have to attempt anything to get them to close their mouths. Following Enid, Wednesday barely took a step into the dining room 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 stopped 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. 

Enid noticed very quickly that her guest had stopped, and thus decided to make a few steps back to come back to settle down beside her. Big smile decorating her angelic face, she put a hand on her shoulder while throwing a glance at her, then moved it to her brothers who were now immobile and silent. The silence seemed deafening. Wednesday kept her laser-throwing eyes fixed straight ahead on 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 that 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!"

While the boys only gave weak, almost frightened "hi" or hand waves, Wednesday nodded in greeting. Without adding anything more, Enid brought her hand down Wednesday's arm and gently held her 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 next to their seats, followed them with his eyes without saying anything 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 setting them in front of each of her four boys, 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 even wait for everyone to be served before wildly pouncing on the contents of what had just been placed in front of them, which happened to be a large, thick, rare-looking steak with vegetables. They began to eat ferociously without even using the cutlery. They just grabbed the meat with their bare hands and bit into it with their fangs, 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 Wednesday. Her eyes wandered to Enid sitting just to her right. She looked uncomfortable 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 feel on Enid, and she turned quietly in her direction. Their eyes met just as the mother of the family returned to the dining room. Enid tried to offer Wednesday a small smile, which came out more shaky and uneasy 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 making fun of Enid. She just wanted to grab her hand to reassure 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 cut the meat. And it is a new glance in the direction of her roommate that made her notice that this last also was eating with her cutlery, cutting with delicacy 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 an appropriate word for the situation. With the loud noises of the brothers' mouths, the sounds of the meat tearing and cutting and the sounds of 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 loudly. Some of the eyes went to him, but not to Wednesday. 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 eyes migrated as one to the teenager as she raised hers to Enid's brother.

"Please specify," she answered simply while bringing a mouthful 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 dryly. 

"So what are you?"

Wednesday was glaring so hard at him. She wished she could have been able to blow his head off with her mind.

But she kept her composure as she answered. "We call that having the gothic style, so in essence, being goth."

A laugh rose to the throat of another of the brothers who leaned forward. "Are you Satanist?"

Wednesday's scowl only intensified. She could feel the anger rising in her, felt 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, because 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, the reject," she commented with a wide laugh. 

"Two rejects hanging out together, it's almost cute," the other boy added with a laugh. 

"Reject? I'd call her trash," the fourth brother commented.

"Please can y'all shut up," Enid finally interjected in an annoyed voice.

"Enid, language," interjected the mother of the family.

But she ignored her.

A wide smile came over the face of the first brother who had spoken, "And what are you gonna do if we don't?"

Enid narrowed her eyes. 

The boy let out a dry laugh. "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, Enid abruptly stood up from her chair, causing her legs to scrape the floor. "She's not-" she began angrily. The same anger that distorted her usually sweet and cheerful features. 

"Enid!" suddenly interposed Esther. "Sit down."

The latter pinched her lips so hard that they shrank to a thin line. She dropped abruptly into her chair, her face now red with fury.

"Thank you," Esther said curtly as she took a bite of meat.

Enid gripped at her sweater, her gaze riveted to the floor on which her leg was bouncing at high speed. She didn't say anything.

And Wednesday couldn't help but think for the rest of the dinner she should have. And maybe herself should've said something. But 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 fact that they had misidentified her on purpose or included her in their insults. Right now, she didn't give a damn about being insulted. All she was able to think was that they had insulted Enid, that they had called her trash and a reject. And no one was insulting Enid by any name.

-☾-

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 Tiks Toks with Thing, Wednesday had been allowed by her friend 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. 

But after her usual hour of writing, her attention began to wander more frequently to Enid, who was letting out more and more frequent and loud yawns. Again, Wednesday 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 really unusual and disturbing almost.

After a while, she heard the mattress creaking accompanied by a sound of satisfaction typically made when stretching. A voice followed not so long after. 

"Are you getting tired too?"

The nimble fingers of the dark-haired teenager froze on her keyboard. She turned her head slightly toward Enid to look at her. She was now sitting cross-legged on her bed, her elbows resting on her lap with her hands supporting her head.

 "Perhaps," Wednesday replied monotonously. 

Enid took a quick peek at her digital dial. "'Maybe we should go to bed soon.'"

Wednesday turned her head back to her typewriter. She began typing again on the keyboard, each of whose keys made a small clicking sound after being pressed. "After I finish putting my last idea on paper." 

Enid leapt up from her bed. "Alright!" she declared happily as she began to gambol toward her dresser. Thing left the bed to go do his own thing at that moment. "I'm going to go get into my pajamas!" 

She opened one of her drawers only to grab the said pajamas while beginning to hum softly. Habitually, Wednesday would have told her to keep quiet, but today she just ignored 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 as she looked back at her friend. The latter returned her gaze with wide eyes.

"We hadn't thought of that, but where are you going to sleep?"

They, in fact, haven't thought about this. And it hit Wednesday with a violent cold sensation that climbed up her back. 

"I can sleep on the floor."

Enid put her hands on her hips, an offended look coming over her face. "Excuse me? You're my guest, I'm not going to make you sleep on the floor like a dog for God's sake! Especially if you're going to spend an indeterminate amount of time here. It will wreck your spine to sleep on the floor like that!"

Her roommate kept her eyebrow raised while staring at her, and Enid stared at her back without changing her expression.

"I've slept in a coffin before. This isn't much different from the floor," she blurted out.

"You what-" Enid began before stopping herself. She came over and put a hand on her forehead. "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-thats not the point! I'm not letting you sleep on the floor, period."

"Then what are we going to do?" assented Wednesday.

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. 

"Why should I permit you to sleep on the floor while I steal your bed?"

"Because you're a guest."

Wednesday crossed her arms. "There is no conceivable possibility of us doing that. Are you planning to let me sleep in your bed while you sleep on the floor the whole time I'm staying here? While you don't allow me yourself to sleep on the floor?"

"As long as it takes for us to find extra blankets, a sleeping bag, or even a mattress as I said. All the extra blankets and sleeping bags are in the garage, and it's a mess in there. Only my dad would know how to find them, but he's already in bed, so I doubt he'll be able to go get them now."

Joy came to take possession of her expression for a split second. "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 like an eternity. For a moment it was like a competition of who would look away first, who would cave in first, who would come up with the solution that both had in mind, but that no one 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!"

Wednesday stopped herself from biting the inside of her lip. "That seems to be the only solution left," she confirmed reluctantly. 

"It pretty much is the only one," Enid added before taking a deep breath. "I'm going to go change in the bathroom, you can start getting ready here in the meantime or wait to go to the bathroom after I'm done."

Still frozen in place with her arms crossed, The short girl nodded imperceptibly. She stared at Enid as she left the room, and even after Enid 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? Maybe. 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 disappear 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 Enid 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 get ready for bed. 

When she returned to the room, Enid was already lying on the left side of the bed, leaning against the headboard. She was on her phone and gave Wednesday a smiling look when she came back into the room. Seeing her, she closed whatever she was doing on her phone before plugging it in and putting it on her bedside table. When she finished that, she turned back to her friend. Without stopping to stare and smile 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 dare even tell anyone else about it, I'll find every worst possible and unimaginable means of torture to make you die slowly."

"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 possible. The werewolf 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 fell 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 rhythm, in the same way. Over the seconds, over the minutes, always the same, accompanied by a soft and calm breathing, separated by a few seconds at each one. 

The sound of a heartbeat. A quiet breath. This was what Enid fell asleep to. After settling under her covers, Wednesday at her side, she closed her eyes and it took less than a minute before she heard it. The heartbeat and the breathing, Wednesday's. 

There was something emanating from them that spread 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 fell asleep. 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 that were displaced by sleep and braids that looked like they were about to be undone. A calm face, mouth slightly ajar, eyelids delicately closed, brows and features relaxed. Pretty. She really was pretty. Looking at her gave her the impression of observing a starry sky devoid of the moon, gave her the impression of looking directly into a black hole that only absorbed her, grabbing her with a soft grip to pull her even further. A black hole as beautiful as frightening.

A black hole that appeared scary, but Enid was not afraid. Looking at that face, all she felt was a tender affection, a powerful sense of peace and tranquility. And deep inside her, as if replacing the hole that once pierced her chest, there was this other feeling. A strange inexplicable feeling that told her that all this, seeing Wednesday beside her like this in her own home, in her bed, somehow felt right.

And for a reason that remained unclear to her, although it was standing there, staring at her with its threatening gaze, all her thoughts didn't take long before bringing a warm feeling to her face. Not now. There were already too many things she had to figure out. She closed her eyes tightly before sitting up in her bed. Trying to make as little noise as possible so as not to wake Wednesday, she got up from the mattress and headed for the bathroom. Automatically, she went through her usual routine, got ready, and returned to the room where her roommate was still sleeping. She sat on her chair covered with blankets that she had removed from her bed so they both wouldn't suffocate from the heat during their sleep and scrolled on her phone with Thing at her side, whispering to him once in a while. This lasted until her friend woke up. 

When she did, they didn't exchange many words other than questions like "Did you sleep well?", Enid's voice still as cheerful as ever, because she was really happy to see her roommate up, and Wednesday in her quiet flat tone. The latter went to the bathroom where she changed and redid her hair, and meanwhile the blonde went to the kitchen to make them breakfast, warning her before she left to meet her there. The werewolf was pleasantly surprised to find that her parents were not there, and neither were her brothers, leaving them alone and with the whole house to themselves. 

She began to prepare a decent breakfast for them with what she could find. She was cooking eggs in the frying pan when Wednesday entered the kitchen, walking with her back straight and her hands bound on her thighs.

"I hope you like eggs," was the first thing Enid said. She removed the pan from the red circle at that very moment so she could put what she had just cooked on two plates in which various things were already resting on the side. 

"I do not mind them," her friend simply replied as she sat down in a chair at the table.

After turning off the stove, Enid joined her with the two plates in her hands, being careful not to trip on the carpet under the table, something she had done many times before. She placed one of the plates in front of Wednesday, who thanked her and then she took a seat at the end of the table in the chair 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 seemed almost discouraged, but she said nothing. They both began to eat without a word, the black-clad teen sitting still in her chair and Enid squirming in hers and changing positions, 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 guest. The latter seemed to notice her sudden unusual immobility. 

Her eyes followed her friend's and landed on the notebook at the same time Enid asked, "What's that?"

"Oh, that," she simply let out as she grabbed what had caught the short-haired girl's attention. She flipped through it quickly for a few seconds before raising her gaze to meet her roommate's azure one. " It's the notebook I mentioned to you that I consigned all my investigations so far, which is really not much. I have taken it 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 had promised yesterday that they would.

"What exactly did you put in it?" she asked curiously as she leaned against the table, eyes wide open and full of stars.

Wednesday took two seconds to gather the list in her thoughts, "The detailed descriptions of my dreams, my thoughts about them, my uncontrollable feelings, the descriptions, times, details about the appearances of your silhouette, and all the questions I have about the whole thing."

Enid smiled excitedly. "Can I see?"

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

Dreams, research, descriptions of silhouettes and feelings, all yet so simple, but so interesting that she found herself immersed in reading it rather quickly. It was so strange to see on paper her own dreams, but from another point of view than her own. To see all the same feelings and sensations she had felt, the same questions she had and still had. If it hadn't been for the delicate handwriting, all cursive and perfect, perfectly readable, looking like it was printed, she might have thought it was herself who had written all this.

A vague smile floated on her lips the whole time she was reading the notebook, and it was only after a moment as she went through Wednesday's research in the Addams Family mansion' library, that she said with amusement, "You did a lot of digging about the book that almost knocked me out in the library dream, huh?" Surely she thought it was funny that she almost got her skull cracked open by a huge book.

Enid almost expected her to say that in her trademark snarky tone, but none of that happened.

"Indeed. I'm tremendously intrigued by it, and I have a feeling that it didn't end up there, so conspicuous for nothing. I figure it might be our key to start finding answers." She took a dry breath. "Only if I had its bloody name."

Something suddenly seemed to light up in Enid's eyes. "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 suddenly grabbed her arm resting on the table, cutting her off.

Her eyes were wide, and when they locked with her own, everything around her seemed to disappear. For a few moments, it felt as if they were the only ones in the world. There was something so intense in that dark gaze that Enid felt her stomach do somersaults.

"What was the name?" the goth girl hurriedly asked.

Still unsettled by those two dark brown 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 'Somnium' I think..."

Wednesday's expression metamorphosed into one of questioning as she thought for brief seconds. She finally withdrew her hand from her arm, leaving a burning coldness in that spot. "Somnium," she repeated in a low voice. "It means 'dream' in Latin." 

"Dream," Enid repeated quizzically. "I've never heard that word in my life. Heck, I don't even speak Latin! How is it possible that it got into my dream- huh our dream I mean?!"

Wednesday 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 mind, or this is a real book they wanted to show us. In our case, I'm pretty sure it's a real book."

"And we have to find it. But where?" Enid added absently.

Her friend's dark eyes lifted to her host's face. Again, their eyes locked, and became lost in each other, never to move again. There was something so hypnotizing about them, she could have remained absorbed in them for hours...

Her thoughts were abruptly torn in two by the voice of her guest rising, "Libraries. I couldn't find it in the Addams Mansion one, but chances are it's in some public libraries."

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

"Enid, today we're going to the library."

-𖤓-

"Going to the library" was the base plan of the two teenagers. Simple, fast, effective. At least, that was what they thought and kept repeating themselves until they went to the said library, the one closest to Enid's house, and started their research. At first, they only looked through the database included in the computers available to the public. No results. But they still had hope. 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.

But once again, they came out with no results. But Enid kept telling Wednesday that there was a chance that this one just wouldn't have it, because it was too modern for such an old-looking book. And she told her that at the third library they went to, then the fourth, then the fifth. But at this point, she didn't believe herself. She didn't even know if she was trying to convince herself, or if she was trying to convince her friend.

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

As they walked down a sidewalk on a busy street toward yet another library, her step was slow and tired, 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 girl with the two braids while slowing down.

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 Google Maps, a technology that had confused her as much as it had fascinated her. Her face showed annoyance, or at least the minimal version of Wednesday that was akin to annoyance. "Come on Enid, we must hurry before the place closes."

The werewolf girl 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 dark-haired teenager simply. "Your heart is still beating and I can still hear that irritating voice of yours."

"I'm still dead tho. My legs in particular," Enid said almost dramatically between breaths as she slumped onto the bench. "And I'm so tired and hungry, I could eat an entire horse."

"Please don't," Wednesday said. She moved to stand in front of her friend. "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. 

Wednesday looked increasingly frustrated. "Enid, listen, we cannot stop here. We still have libraries to search. We have to find that book, it's very 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 head. 

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

"A compromise?" Wednesday repeated, puzzled.

"Yes, a compromise. We'll eat, and thereby take a break, and then we can do as many remaining libraries as possible before heading back home! How does that sound?"

The teenager took a few seconds to consider. "It sounds... alright I suppose." 

Enid raised her hands to shake her forearms in an excited gesture. "Perfect! And I know just the perfect place to go eat!"

-𖤓-

"McDonald's?" 

"Yes, McDonald's!" 

Enid's voice was filled with excitement as she dragged her friend into the red and yellow colored restaurant. 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 the world, 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," Wednesday scoffed with the shadow of a smile.

They exchanged glances, causing Enid 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 Enid couldn't stand the terrible hunger eating her up inside. They talked only a few more words when it was almost their turn to order. Enid asked her roommate what she 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 got their order soon enough, 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 once it was unwrapped, while Wednesday just stared at hers without eating it.

With her mouth half-full but one hand in front of her lips, Enid swallowed partially before declaring, "Why don't you eat?"

"This appears like the unhealthiest food I have ever laid eyes upon in my entire miserable life."

"I mean, it's not that healthy, but it's not so bad either! Once in a while, it can't do lots of bad, can it?" Enid laughed as she bit into a fry. "Come on, try it, I promise 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 try to discern any emotion. In case she witnessed the thing that would unlock her emotions and make her suddenly expressive. But of course, that didn't happen like that.

"Aaaand?" inquired Enid with a grin. "Not bad huh?"

"It's... 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 Wednesday had finished her burger and was quietly observing the surroundings, she suddenly spoke up again.

"I've been meaning to ask that since... you know, that night, but either the circumstances were never right for that, or it slipped from my mind," her gaze met her friend's who was emptying from a cup the sugary juice taken 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 her words escaped her friend's mouth. Vivid images suddenly popped into her head, blocking her vision entirely. Her howling at the red moon for the first time, her exchanging what she thought would be her last look with Wednesday, her fighting for her life with Tyler, the blood, 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 suddenly and aggressively that she froze for long seconds, just staring at Wednesday with a blank, glassy look, the straw still in her mouth. She felt nauseous, felt her head spinning. 

"Enid?" 

Her name. The reality. It was Wednesday's voice. The called one suddenly came back to earth, shaking her head as if it would help her chase away her thoughts. 

"What did you say?" she asked, even though she understood her question very well.

The girl looked suspicious. Almost worried. 

"I said, did you tell your parents about your wolfing out...? Her question faltered at the end. "Are you okay though? You're suddenly really pale..."

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

"Y-yeah I'm okay! I just... I had my head in the clouds for a moment, all good!" tried to say Enid in her same cheerful tone. Focus. The question. "And hm, no I still haven't... I figured it was better if I just... dodged the question every time it came, which I successfully did so far!"

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

The teenager's eyes dropped to the table as her mind automatically went to the long marks on the side of her face. They had healed, but they didn't seem to want to go away, 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 of her. Sure, she was clumsy, but that just was... too odd. But at the time, she hadn't come up with anything better. She wasn't going to tell them she'd been in a fight with a Hyde for God's sake! And well, her lie seemed to have passed perfectly, so she was good for now. 

"And I guess yeah I should be proud of that, but I'm just... not." Her eyes rose. "I hated every second of that damned wolfing out, Wednesday. And I didn't tell them because I know 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 now turned low and strangely calm. 

"It's okay, I think I understand." Wednesday's was reassuring, somehow, in this monotony.

Enid simply raised a gaze which she immediately lowered, offering her only a weak smile. She suddenly felt so drained, even more than earlier. And to think that she had promised Wednesday that they would still be looking in libraries.

She sighed.

She had to get a grip on herself.

"Alright, are you done with your food?" she finally asked.

Her friend only nodded. Both of them got up almost in sync from their benches and picked up their papers and trays to put the first ones in the trash and the last ones in the places made for them. Without really consulting each other, they left the fast food restaurant, finally 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 google maps on it, they made their way to the next library. But this one looked a little different from the last ones, as its exterior was a little more old-fashioned, and it was not public. It seemed more like a private library selling and renting more antique books. Exactly the kind they were looking for.

They entered it, Enid following Wednesday, ringing a small bell as they passed. The door closed behind them, banishing the cool city air to the scent of yellowed pages of old books read and reread, battered hardcovers, bookcases, and hardwood floors that were over fifty years old. 

A simple scan of the place and Enid found herself fascinated. Dozens and dozens of wooden shelves crammed with books of all shapes and sizes, so close to each other that there was only room for one person to pass between them. The place seemed at once so full and confined, but equally spacious and uncluttered. It would have been difficult to explain it.

Not far from the entrance stood a wooden counter with a lot of bric-a-brac like pens, bookmarks, more books, wooden 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, two pale eyes enlarged by thick round glasses, 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 man Enid had imagined working in such a library.

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

Wednesday walked up to the counter, the werewolf staying behind to observe the surroundings. "Hello sir, yes, we are looking for a book."

The man laughed as he stretched his arms in an endeavor to show all around him. "You're in the right place then!"

Wednesday did not pick up on that. "The cover is in brown leather and on it is engraved in gold letters 'Somnium', written by an unknown person. We've been to every library in town, and here was in our last options." 

The old man grabbed his chin to think. "Hmm, I think I remember having something similar to this. Please follow me."

With a step that Enid would have imagined to be shambling and difficult, but which turned out to be firm and easy, he stepped from behind his counter and into one of the rows. Wednesday was quick to follow him, immediately caught by Enid, who hadn't said a word since they left the McDonald's. They silently followed the old man as he turned right and left, entering one row, then another, to the point of almost getting lost. He repeated this merry-go-round until Wednesday suddenly stopped as they entered a new row.

"Wait," she declared suddenly and firmly. 

The man turned with confusion, as did Enid, who looked questioningly at her unmoving friend. She stared at the latter lifting her hand and placing it on the wooden edge of the bookcase.

"It's here."

"It is?" said the old man and Enid almost at the same time. 

A quick glance around made the short-haired girl suddenly notice. She was right. The placement of the books, the shape and pattern of the wood, the lighting. Everything was similar. Everything was like the dream.

"Yes, it's here," she added almost in a trance as she took a step forward to enter the row further.

The man linked his hands in front of him. "Well, I'm glad you girls were able to find what you were looking for. I'll go and leave you to your task," he said with a kind smile.

Enid returned it, "Thank you very much, sir."  

With that, the librarian nodded, then walked past them to disappear to where they had come from. The teenagers, finding themselves all alone, were soon exchanging a look.

"You recognized them right away, didn't you?" questioned Wednesday.

Enid nodded. "It's just like the dream. Everything is the same. It's so eerie. I feel like I'm in it again."

"Same," Wednesday agreed in her same calm tone, before adding, "When the book fell, I didn't get to see it correctly, so I was unable to see where it came from. But you saw it. Would you be able to spot where?"

Enid didn't even know the answer herself, but she found herself nodding again without really realizing it, then starting to walk. She took a few steps forward, not even knowing where her feet were leading her, before stopping at the middle row, facing the middle shelf. Facing a brown book.

"This one," she said with a confidence she never knew 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, flashing, 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 yellowed pages, the floor under her feet. Everything disappeared and she felt herself swaying, she felt herself 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. A yellowed, crumpled paper, on which delicate black ink lines were spread. They represented a drawing, the one of three shapes standing in a dense forest. While one of the forms was huge and took almost half the page, similar to the one of a beast as terrifying as it was fluffy, the other two were much smaller. The largest figure with its open snout revealing sharp teeth was inevitably reminiscent of a huge and terrifying werewolf. With claws and fangs extended, it seemed to growl at the other two shapes that appeared to be trying to approach it. Shapes that seemed human. 

Both had a rather feminine appearance and without really ringing any bells in her, they seemed strangely familiar to her. Too familiar. One girl with short hair reaching her chin, and another with two dark braids. They had their backs to her, so she couldn't make out their faces, but she could have sworn they looked like-

Her thought had no time to finish when her vision suddenly moved dangerously close to the werewolf with a huge, blinding, nauseating flash. The image immediately transitioned into a series of quick images, yet she was able to make out the smallest details as if they were already burned into her head.

The outside of a house of rotten wood and eroded stone, decrepit and unkempt. Then inside. Dusty, dark. Screams of pain. A woman's figure standing in front of a wide window, screaming, raging, writhing in pain. And then she was no longer a woman, but a huge beast, banging on the walls, the ceilings, struggling, breaking the window, cracking the door and destroying it under her weight as she tried to get out of the place. More screams, but they were of fear, of panic. 

More flashes, dark as well as bright, a thud, a buzzing sound, mixed with a dull growl of a hungry, angry beast. New cries, but of anger.

Then the beast was outside. In an old village. Orange-red, torches lighting up in the night, a crowd screaming, unleashed, angry, fire giving the full moon a reddish color, the houses both decrepit and new, the cobblestone floors. More screams. But mostly blood, and fur. The beast was shaking its head, its large, pointed, scarlet-coated canines visible, from which a bloody arm protruded. It growled, it growled so loud. 

And then, between flashes of light, it was running away into the forest. A forest bathed in darkness from which the torches stood out, the dense vegetation, the ground damp from the cool of the night well advanced. The angry crowd followed it, chasing it, running after the fleeing beast

Wednesday suddenly opened her eyes, finally snapping out of her vision. But she saw nothing. At least, nothing discernible. 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 allowing her to identify that mystical form above her. A sweet face drawn by concern and panic framed by blond hair with pink and blue tips whose mixture made a purple pulling on the lilac finally revealed itself to her. Its eyes of a blue brighter than the ocean itself pierced her from side to side, wide open. And the more she looked, the more she realized that the glowing halo behind its head was a light most likely on the ceiling.

"Wednesday?"

The voice was becoming more and more discernible, 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. But yet she did.

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

In panic, Wednesday took a quick look around. She was sitting with her back half up on the hardwood floor between the two library shelves filled with old books 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.

Seeing her blank stare wander around, the blonde's worried voice rose again, "Are you okay, Weds? What happened?"

The inky-haired teen managed to sit up on the hard floor. 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 thought you were dead, and god it was horrifying. What would I do with a dead body in my hands? I don't know how to hide a body? Would I have to report you 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 she took a big one.

Wednesday let her finish without cutting her off. She didn't have the strength. A few seconds passed before she replied, "Yes, it was a vision." Her eyes fell on the leather book to remain unmoving.

"What did you see in it?" Enid asked with curiosity, but also concern.

Wednesday tried to get up with difficulty, triggering a panic in Enid who brought her hands forward as if to catch her. Her friend managed to get to her feet without much difficulty, although her head was spinning a bit. She reached for the book and said, "I'll explain it to you on the way back."

She bent down to pick it up, her hand hesitating for a few seconds before she touched it. But when she did, nothing happened. She picked it up with both hands and then stood up to turn to her friend. "Let's go, I need fresh air."

Enid 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 book on the counter with a thud, Wednesday threw a cold glance at Enid to warn her not to say anything about her vision and her pseudo-fainting. In response, the blonde pursed her lips and then looked at the man with a tight smile.

Wednesday was the one to speak, "Indeed, no need to worry, sir, everything is going for the best," she said before pointing to the werewolf, "my friend here only got a little excited when she found the book we were looking for, nothing more."

Enid stifled a laugh, getting another murderous look from her roommate. It was true that when she had seen Wednesday's neck snap back she had let out a scream, not of excitement, but of terror. But from a distance, it must have been hard to tell the difference. The latter had quickly turned into her calling out her name to wake her up after she caught her midair, something she still had trouble understanding, because when in God's name had she developed such a reflex? Wednesday had been unconscious for less than ten seconds, during which she had panicked a lot and probably spoken too loudly, which must have been disturbing for the owner of the place to hear. Ten seconds, and yet they had seemed to last for hours.

They were the most terrifying ten seconds of her life.

And without her being able to hold it back, they had taken her right back to some weeks in the past when she heard that Wednesday had been captured by Thornhill and Tyler. When she rushed to her rescue with Thing, not even thinking in advance that she would have been helpless against the Hyde or even Thornhill. They brought her back to how she didn't even know she was going to wolf out but had gone for it without even thinking about it. It took her right back to when she arrived in that crowd of students and searched and searched and searched for her friend but didn't find her at first. It had brought her back to the deep fear and panic she had felt when she didn't find her.

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

And seeing her faint like that, even for ten seconds, had made her imagine all the worst-case scenarios. The main one was losing her. 

She never thought she would say or think such a thing, but she had grown attached to Wednesday. So deeply, more than anyone else in the world. And losing her would be like losing a part of her, a new part of her that her friend had managed to bring out.

The old man smiled, his voice rising and bringing Enid out of her thoughts, "So you found what you're looking for I see, I'm pleased to hear that." 

"Indeed," the goth girl replied, pushing the book lightly toward the librarian. "How much for this one?" 

The latter placed his glasses back on his nose, leaning in to see the book. He hummed softly as he thought.

"I can make it ten dollars for you girls." 

Wednesday 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 smile and placed it in his cash register, the teenager caught their find with a, "Thank you kindly, sir, have a nice evening."

"You too ladies," the librarian replied.

Wednesday offered her a nod, then turned around, grabbing Enid's arm to carry her out. Enid let herself be dragged 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 came from in search of a bus stop, and it was only a block later that her friend let go of her arm. 

She said immediately, "I've never had a vision like this before.   

"What do you mean?" the blonde was quick to ask.

"Never before has a vision given me such a headache. I've never had a headache from a vision, actually."

"Oh... that's strange."

"It indeed is." 

Enid pursed her lips, trying to think of 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 thoughts quickly turned to words.

"What was the vision tho?" 

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

"I saw a drawing. It showed a werewolf and two humans. They seemed to want to approach it, but the beast was growling. It looked very aggressive and ready to attack. The thing is..."

Her voice trailed off, but she did not continue.

"The thing is?" Enid tried to bring her back on track. Her curiosity had been intensely piqued  

"The thing is that these two humans looked strangely like us. One had short hair and the other had two braids. I might be mistaking them for other people, but I really don't see who else."

The two teenagers stopped at a red light. A few people were around them, so Enid moved closer to her to keep her voice low so no one would hear them. "They looked like us?" she marveled.

"They seemed," Wednesday said in the same low tone. "But it's not the first time I have a vision about a drawing."

"Really?"

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

The goth girl nodded once. "Yeah. The first time it happened to me, it was a prophecy drawn by Rowan's mother. A drawing of me with Crackstone. And it turned out to be true."

Enid continued her thought. "So this drawing of your vision could be another prophecy..."

Wednesday simply nodded, again.

"But why would we be with a werewolf? And in a forest?" 

"I have no clue. But that's not all that was in my vision."

Enid opened her eyes wide, "It's not?"

"It's not, yes. After I saw the drawing, my vision suddenly moved closer to the werewolf to show another one, unless it was the same one in the drawing, shifting in a house. Then I saw it in a village surrounded by an angry mob before it ran off into the forest."

She stopped talking. Silence fell between them, but Enid quickly spoke again, muttering, "It seems to show a story... A werewolf shifting inside a house, escaping, and then ending up in a village with a crowd who wants to chase it away." Her air suddenly darkened, her tone following, "Or kill it."

Wednesday thought for a brief moment.

"This story must be connected to that book somehow." 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, the girl met his eyes, if only he had eyes.

"Can you believe it, Thing? We found it," she said with the shadow of a smile. 

Thing gestured excitedly.

Enid smiled widely. She pulled a second chair over to the desk to sit next to her friend. She let herself fall on it. "Open it, come on, what are you waiting for?"

The goth girl gave her a slight look but didn't wait any longer. She opened the first page, immediately coming across dates marked right in the middle of the pages. 

"1950-1952" Enid was quick to read, leaning over the desk for a closer look as Wednesday scrambled to grab her notebook and inkwell. She opened it to an empty page and set it right next to the leather book, jotting down the dates.

"This book must have been written during those years. Maybe that means that what I saw in my vision is probably taking place in these times," the dark-haired teenager reflected as she wrote her thoughts on paper.

Enid hummed beside her. "Would make sense."

Wednesday then turned to the next page which happened to already be the beginning of the text. It was just words filling the paper typed on a typewriter - Wednesday recognized the font- with no title. 

"This book doesn't follow the usual novel formatting," Wednesday tossed out.

Enid was a little confused. "It doesn't?"

"No. Novels usually 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. But why is it important to notice...?" the blonde asked hesitantly. 

Wednesday 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. I'm pretty sure there's only one copy, and we now have it in our possession. We need to be careful with it."

Enid simply nodded with a weak, puzzled "Mhm."

Without adding anything more, Wednesday began to turn the pages quickly to skim the book, to see if there were any pictures, drawings, or diagrams or just to see if the book was the same formatting as the first page, pages full of text with no title. Enid was really curious to know too, but despite herself, she soon found herself caught up in her thoughts. Every time she tried to concentrate 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, almost resting on hers as she leaned over the table, trying to look at the pages Wednesday was turning quickly. And every little movement Wednesday made, no matter how simple, sent a sharp burst of shivers down her arms that made her hair stand on end. Her roommate didn't seem to notice, or at least she didn't appear to, and most surprisingly didn't try to move away. 

Just a few months ago, if they had been this close, Wednesday 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 slept in the same bed. And shit, she hadn't asked her father for sleeping bags, and it was already getting late. 

A voice suddenly called out, "Enid?"   

She was immediately pulled out of her reverie, shaking her head as if to clear her thoughts which, despite herself, still remained in the back of her head. She turned to Wednesday who was strangely 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 brown 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...

For what?

"Yes?" she asked before she could finish her thought.

Wednesday looked a little 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. Her brows immediately furrowed as she brought a hand to the pages. Empty. Devoid of any text whatsoever, only yellowed by time.

"But there's nothing?"

"Exactly. They're totally empty. And look at this."

She began to turn the pages at full speed. There were at least thirty of them completely blank. And after those, the normal text would resume, the continuation of the pages before the empty ones. 

"What the..." the blonde began with confusion.

Wednesday continued 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. But it wasn't the page she wanted to show her, but the binding on which another page was attached that looked like it had been ripped out. Eyes wide open, Enid leaned forward to inspect it more closely.

"The page seemed to have something written on it."

Wednesday looked closer as well.

"Or drawn, rather. " She ran her finger over it to show her, "That's not printed text, the black is much denser. It looks like someone ripped out a drawing." 

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

"The prophecy."