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Wednesday pulled herself up the tree as quickly as she could, her tired muscles screaming in protest. This was probably a terrible idea. But she didn’t have any other ideas in mind. The man in the mask, her newest stalker, perhaps, stood at the base of the tree, knife in hand.
Wednesday climbed higher, a few of the thinner branches creaking underneath her weight. Okay. She had been right. If he tried to climb after her, the branches would snap underneath him, as he seemed to be a hundred or so pounds heavier than her, give or take. Thing gripped onto her shoulder, and she slowly lifted a foot closer to her, extracting two knives from her boot. She was holding onto only one branch while doing so, and she ignored the far too human-like nausea that arose when one was twenty feet off the ground with a man who wanted to kill them waiting below.
She passed one knife to Thing, keeping the other clutched in her own hand and pointing it down in warning. Her abdomen throbbed. The rush of adrenaline she’d received still had yet to wear off, but she was beginning to feel the biting pain of the slash wound the man had managed to give her while she was on the ground.
“You can’t stay up there forever!” The man called, Wednesday wrapping an arm around the closest branch and looking down at him, her knife still pointed. She couldn’t stay up there forever, obviously. She had only a few hours window before her wound would become a serious problem. But she wasn’t concerned about time.
“Three… two… one,” she said to herself, watching the doors of Nevermore open as the school officially entered its Saturday morning hours, where the students were allowed to travel freely between Nevermore and Jericho. The man turned around.
He wasn’t particularly intelligent, Wednesday had deduced that about a minute into their encounter. He’d attacked her in broad daylight. Perhaps he’d thought she would be easy to finish off.
She was glad to disappoint.
Nobody noticed her in the tree, due to thick leaves blocking her from vision, but the other students did spot and point at the man in front of it. The man with a knife. He ran the second an adult was in view. Coward.
Wednesday shifted her position in the tree and considered the situation she’d just been in. That man likely wasn’t the one leaving the messages on her phone. She doubted he had the necessary subtly to stalk her, or anyone, for that matter. Perhaps he was working with the actual stalker. Maybe there was a group of people. That would certainly be more interesting. Or maybe he was an unrelated case.
But he’d specifically targeted her. She had a lot of further research to do.
“He is gone,” she said to Thing, watching as a few teachers took off after the man. They wouldn’t catch up, he was already too far ahead. She slid the knives back into her boot, gritting her teeth as she put stress on her wound while doing so. She glanced down. The blood seeping from it had already caused her black shirt to become damp. Thankfully, blood was difficult to see through black. All she had to do now was exit the tree and go to her and Enid’s room to patch up, then hide for the rest of the day.
She moved one foot from the branch she was on, testing the space between her and the branch under her. The tip of her boots could touch it. It was moments like these where being just a little bit taller might have come in handy. She wrapped her right arm around the trunk and gripped a branch to her right, then let herself drop, her feet hitting the branch below and sliding slightly.
Wednesday held the firm belief that if you managed to climb up something, you could get down yourself. This was the reason she’d left both of her brother’s dangling off of high objects before, and once her father. They’d been fine. Because of this mindset, however, it did not occur to her that she could simply yell for help below.
She tested the distance between herself and the next branch once more, Thing tapping his fingers nervously against her shoulder. “Hold on tightly,” she said, and dropped herself down again. Sweat dripped down the side of her face, an uncomfortable feeling. Blood matched its flow from her abdomen. She was stretching the wound too much.
Slowly, she dropped down yet again, a familiar voice surprising her while she did. She caught sight of Enid walking below the tree, Yoko and Divina alongside her. And just for a second, her mind wandered. That second was enough to cause her feet to miss the next branch. Her hands, not expecting the sudden weight of her entire body, loosened their grip. And suddenly she was free falling.
Her life did not flash in front of her while she did so, Wednesday’s mind solely focused on shifting Thing to the safest position in less than a second.
She expected her impact to be sudden. Also, in the case that she survived the fall, incredibly painful. It was sudden. But it wasn’t painful. And she was very much not dead. She opened her eyes after realizing that she had closed them in the first place. She was in someone’s arms. A pair of wide blue eyes stared into hers.
Oh. Well.
“Oh my god, Wednesday, what the hell?!” Enid exclaimed, Yoko giving her an almost amused look. Wednesday took a moment to readjust herself to the feeling of being secure, looking up at the tree.
“Did you see the strange man from before?” She asked the three girls she was now surrounded by.
“The one with the mask?” Divina asked.
“Yes.”
“Yeah. The staff ran after that dude, haven’t seen them since,” Yoko said, Enid saying nothing. Her heartbeat was rapid against Wednesday’s ear, and she kept her eyes permanently fixed on her.
“Okay. Enid. He may be of importance to us.” Wednesday had told only Enid and Eugene about the stalker (or potentially stalkers, plural). She’d discussed it with Enid because any imminent threat to Wednesday would inevitably become Enid’s problem, as they shared a room. She’d discussed it with Eugene mostly because he was curious, and she did spend a decent amount of time with him as well, especially now that the new semester had started.
“Oh,” Enid avoided Yoko and Divina’s questioning looks. They stood in silence for another minute, the other students already well on their way to their intended destinations. Finally, Yoko spoke up,
“Girl, you know you can put her down, right?”
“Oh, yeah - of course. Sorry Wednesday,” Enid dropped her down, Wednesday’s knees buckling the moment her feet touched the ground. Oh, right. The bleeding wound. Enid grabbed her arms and steadied her, helping her lay down in a much more controlled manner. “Why are you wet -” she started, then looked down at the new red splotch spread across her own dress, Wednesday’s blood having soaked through her own shirt and onto Enid’s dress. “Oh. Shit.”
Wednesday took a deep breath and pushed herself up, Enid steadying her again with an arm. Yoko and Divina had long since walked off, knowing that one, Enid had it handled, and two, Wednesday wouldn’t want them around to watch her struggle.
“To the nurse’s, then?” Enid said, with the cheery voice of someone who had been in this situation many times before, and was completely used to it by now.
“I can stitch it shut in our room,” Wednesday took a few shaky steps forward. She wasn’t bothered by the pain, she was an Addams, after all. But she detested the spinning feeling that arose from blood loss or infection or fever.
“Um, no. You’ll get blood everywhere,” Enid turned her in the direction of the nurse’s with a hand, and just for that, Wednesday considered going to their room herself. Then, she glanced over Enid’s dress. Her favourite dress, one she’d been wearing almost every weekend since the start of the new semester. And now it was covered in blood. Wednesday’s blood. Enid was right. Blood was sticky and annoying when it came to cleaning it up, though it was quite pleasant to observe in other circumstances.
Three hours later, Wednesday left the nurse’s office with a fully stitched and disinfected wound and a long lecture. She was convinced the extra two hours they’d kept her to “make sure there were no complications” was their way of punishing her.
She went to her room, not in the mood to do any investigation work outside.
“Hey, Wednesday,” Enid smiled from the floor, in the middle of scrubbing at the bloodstains on her dress. Wednesday frowned and said nothing, sitting herself at her desk and reaching for the notebook she had been using to organize information about her current important situations. Its cover was black and simple. Enid had gotten her the notebook after coming back from Jericho a few weeks ago. It was probably a not-so-subtle hint that Enid was getting tired of the loose papers from Wednesday’s end that migrated to Enid’s side with the slightest breeze from an open window. But still… Wednesday looked back over at Enid, who was sitting focused on the dress.
“Is it not coming out?”
Enid let out a small sigh, “no. I’ve tried everything. It might not come out at all.” Wednesday put down her notebook and crossed the room, crouching down beside Enid and looking at the dress. It was a light shade of pink, with a blue flower on the shoulder. Wednesday had been surprised to see Enid wear it at all, since her normal choices of clothing were… quite bright, to say the least.
“I apologize, Enid,” Wednesday said. Those three words would never have even entered her mind a year ago. But things were different now. Wednesday liked being around Enid. For the first time in her life, she wanted someone to stay with her.
“It’s not your fault. Next time, like, yell or something? I’m sure the staff could’ve figured out a way to get you down.”
“How did you catch me so easily?” Wednesday asked, taking over trying to remove the blood from the dress, “I have done some of the math. You did not even stumble when catching me, even though the force of it could have caused someone larger than you to fall.”
“Werewolf,” Enid flexed an arm. Wednesday stared for a moment, then quickly returned her attention to the dress.
Enid shook her head after five more minutes, “it’s not coming out. Thanks for trying anyway… It kind of sucks. My brothers got me the dress after I beat one of them in a fight. It was… nice, feeling like I’m one of the pack. I haven’t felt like that since I was little.”
Wednesday nodded.
She was already formulating a plan.
“Eugene?” Wednesday poked her head into the Hummer’s shed the next day, Eugene right where she expected him to be, doing homework at a little desk they had dragged in a few weeks ago. He looked up from his work, his face brightening,
“Hey, Wednesday, what’s up?”
“I… require your assistance.”
“We’re not hiding a body in the shed, Wednesday, for the last time! I don’t care how desperate Fester is -”
“No. I need you to help me find a dress.” Eugene slowly put down the pencil he was holding and readjusted his glasses, clearing his throat,
“I’m sorry, I thought you just said that you needed my help finding a dress.”
“Not for me. For Enid. There was an… accident, with one yesterday, and now she needs a replacement.”
“Oh. Um, I really know about as much about dresses as you do…” Eugene looked her up and down. She was currently wearing a simple black dress, the first one she had found that morning, “which isn’t a lot, no offense. I don’t think I’d be very helpful.” Wednesday didn’t reply. “Oh, you don’t need help. You just need moral support. Sure, I’ll come!” He stood up and walked to her side, waving to Thing, who was perched on his favourite position on her shoulder.
“I would not put it in those words exactly.”
“That’s nice, let’s go!” He reached for her hand, Wednesday pulling it away with a look of warning. This didn’t bother him in the slightest as he walked alongside her while talking about a game called Minecraft, that she had heard Pugsley talk about before. She would have to investigate it further in the future. “Do we actually know where any of the clothing stores are?” He asked once they were in town, Wednesday’s hands gripping on the edge of her dress as she looked around. There weren’t a lot of buildings. But she had never bothered to check any of them out, other than the Sheriff’s Office, and, well…
The slightest hum rose in her throat as they passed by buildings with items out on display in their windows. Her humming wasn’t from a song she had stuck in her head, it wasn’t about music at all, actually. It was a familiar sound that helped her process her environment and keep her eyes sharp. She wasn’t entirely opposed to fighting a stalker behind a bakery, but as she had Eugene with her at the moment, she planned to avoid that, if at all possible.
“What did it look like?” Eugene asked.
“What?”
“The dress you’re trying to replace.”
“It was pink. And it had a blue flower on the shoulder.”
“Okay, cool. We might be able to find it here. Or we might just have to look online. Let’s go there first, that place looks promising,” Eugene pointed to a small brick building with clothing on display in the window. Wednesday nodded. They both approached the doors at a slow pace, Wednesday’s arms crossed to her chest as they stepped inside.
She was hit with an overwhelming wave of colours as she did so, nausea sinking into her stomach. Why would anyone ever purposefully choose both neon green and hot pink as wallpaper? The clothing had a range of colours. But they were all in the brightest possible shades.
“Well. That’s annoying,” Eugene said from beside, “should we go out -”
“- Yes,” Wednesday turned on her heel and left, Eugene close behind. She blinked rapidly once she was outside, staring at the grass on the ground in thought. Okay, yes, that hadn’t been pleasant. But she could take it, for Enid’s sake. She promised to herself not to belatedly leave the next store, no matter what was inside.
“Maybe we need to get out more,” Eugene said as they approached the next store.
“Why are we the problem? Perhaps everyone else is insane.”
“Numbers and probability. If everyone around us is one way and we’re another, doesn’t that make us the insane ones? Of course, insane doesn’t have to mean bad…”
Oh, Wednesday could (and surprisingly had once) spend hours going back and forth on the subject. Last time they’d ended with the conclusion that love was meaningless and stealing was legal. It had been an interesting few hours.
Fortunately, the next store had no particularly offensive colours on the walls, and she stepped inside with a mildly hopeful feeling. She looked through anything and everything pink (what size was Enid? Was Wednesday supposed to know this?). Eugene paced near her, his shoes clicking against the floor as he moved back and forth. His eyes were trained on the mannequins near the clothing,
“They’re all so small. Their waists especially.” Wednesday looked over. Indeed they were. She declined to comment and went back to frantically pushing through rows of pink dresses. None of it exactly matched the shade Enid’s dress had. And there were no blue flowers at all.
Time to try another store.
She turned to Eugene to tell him they were moving along, finding him balancing on a footstool made for small children to reach high shelves, in the middle of moving the bra of one female mannequin to the male mannequin beside it. He felt her gaze and turned around, his face flushed,
“What? The male ones are just as muscular as the female ones are small. They look ridiculous when they’re replicated like, 10 times with no other types,” he continued the seemingly delicate process.
“Alright,” she replied, putting her feet beside his on the stepping stool and wrapping her arms around his waist, lifting him a few inches higher. He wasn’t very difficult to lift up, and she was rather strong in general. With a quiet cheer, he finished his task just in time. Seconds after he did so, they were met with a shout of,
“HEY!”
She dropped Eugene to the ground and they took off running, just as an employee with platinum blonde hair and large, bushy eyebrows spotted them. They continued running until Eyebrow Man was out of sight. Wednesday gave her friend a moment to catch his breath.
“Next store?” He finally wheezed. She nodded.
The next store was similar to the second. As was the store after it. And the store after that. They accidentally found themselves at the doors of the first store again, and quickly fled in the opposite direction. How many clothes stores could a small town have?
6, in this case. They made their way to the last one. Eugene turned on his phone as they entered, holding it out for her to view, “hey, is this the dress?”
“Yes,” Wednesday nodded, “how did you -”
“It’s discontinued.”
“Oh,” she gripped her dress tighter. What now? She scanned the store. Maybe she could find something similar? But would Enid even like it then? While Enid’s sense of style had originally led her to believe that her roommate wasn’t picky about clothing at all, she’d realized quite early on that it did matter to Enid. She liked warm and exciting colours, and clothes that had meaning to her, and -
Wednesday froze.
There was a dress at the edge of her line of vision. One that was pink, with white and blue patterns over it. She wrinkled her nose at the sight.
But Enid would like it.
“Eugene. I have an idea.”
“Enid,” Wednesday strode into their room that evening. Her friend was laying on her bed, writing in a pink journal with a sparkly blue pen, a pom-pom at the end of it. Enid closed the journal upon seeing her,
“Hey, Willa, what’s up?”
“I have something for you,” Wednesday removed her shoes by the door in hopes of not tracking mud throughout the room as she and Eugene had been caught in the rain on their way back. She’d slipped the box from the store under her own dress so it wouldn’t become soaked.
“Really?!” Enid sat up, bouncing up and down.
“Here,” Wednesday held it out to her, “because I ruined your old one.” Enid took it slowly, setting the box on her bed and opening it, her bouncing stilling as she saw what was inside. She lifted up the dress, holding it out toward the window so she could see it better, the setting sun peeking through the grey clouds outside and providing a little bit of light.
“Oh my god, Wednesday, wow,” she held it to her chest, and Wednesday noticed that her cheeks were slightly red. That wasn’t alarming. They had a tendency to be so. “Thank you. So much.” Then, she put it back in the box, and crossed the room to her, pulling her into a hug.
Wednesday didn’t return it, as she was still quite hesitant with physical contact. But she didn’t pull away either, like she would have with anyone else.
Enid was a safe person.
She liked her.
She trusted her.
“Thank you again,” Enid pulled away and smiled at her, meeting her eyes.
That smile, for better or for worse, lingered in Wednesday’s mind for the rest of the week.