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It starts at the apiary.
Wednesday has been feeling under the weather for a few days, not that anyone noticed her sickly pallor become even sicklier since the Poe Cup. The dark circles under her eyes couldn’t have gotten any darker to begin with. But she can feel the effects nonetheless — her body finally protesting the poor treatment it suffered. Wednesday doesn’t have time to deal with it. She has a monster to hunt.
So she crushes the bloodstained petal beneath her boot and leaves the apiary. The bees investigate the remnant lazily and eventually, pick the ground clean of any trace.
———
It is difficult to hide the disease from Enid, and that is perhaps even worse than if she hadn’t noticed. Instead, Wednesday endures wide-eyed inquiries about her health with a veneer of disdain over cold terror. It is not the kind she enjoys.
Instead, she makes any excuse she can to stay out of the dorm and scrubs bloody petals from the stonework with her heel.
———
The problem is, Wednesday isn’t stupid. She knows everything there is to know about Hanahaki Disease — it isn’t a carnivorous plant in the strictest sense, but it’s close enough to have fallen under the umbrella of her mother’s interest. She doesn’t even need to wonder who it is that is causing this. While she has come to quite like Xavier in the familial sort of way that drives her to protect Pugsley, and Tyler is a good asset to have, Enid has always been the planet Wednesday orbits. It’s really no surprise. Addamses attract tragedy better than copper conducts electricity. Her parents had weaseled their way out of the tragic romance aspect, but they’d had their fair share of struggles. It was destined.
It was inevitable.
Uncle Fester had undergone the procedure, but Wednesday hadn’t been able to ask him when he was at Nevermore. Wasn’t sure she could ever bring herself to say the words.
Instead, she says the words to invite Xavier to the dance, and ignores the coughs that seize her when she sees Enid dancing with her normie.
They look good together. He’s sweet enough, but can’t come close to her. Enid. The white rose in the wind.
The white rose stained with Wednesday’s blood.
She catches Bianca’s eye and blinks.
———
The disease progresses faster than Wednesday expected. She blames her lineage — Addamses are notorious for loving wholly and violently. It’s fitting that Wednesday should wholly and violently succumb to her fate on an accelerated timeline as well.
It is so far progressed by the day of the confrontation with Crackstone that she nearly loses her life in the battle. The events afterward, therefore, are most trying.
She has almost made it through the ordeal with her secret kept. She is so bloodied and battered that no one thinks the trail of crusted blood from the corner of her mouth out of place. Even now, in the face of mortal peril, her love for Enid manifests itself near constantly. Her ribs rattle with each breath and when it is over, she nearly weeps.
She makes it out with her secret kept, until she finds Enid covered in blood and viscera, shell-shocked by her transformation. She cannot help the embrace, nor the mournful howl of her heart, urging her to protect her love, nor the thorned rose that emerges from her throat when she lets go.
In front of the entire student body, a white rose falls to the ground, and Wednesday loses consciousness.
Her secret is out.
———
Wednesday wakes in the infirmary with her father by her bedside and her mother peering at her anxiously from the foot of the bed. Pugsley hangs back, eyes downcast, as though he is waiting to be blamed.
“Oh, my darling viper. What have you gotten yourself into?” Her father asks softly. Wednesday is so weak she cannot protest the coddling. This causes her mother’s lips to press together in worry as her father strokes strands of hair, matted with blood, from her forehead.
“Nothing you wouldn’t be proud of, Papa,” Wednesday replies in a whisper. Her mother muffles a sob with her palm and Pugsley looks as though he’s about to fall over.
“Who is it, Wednesday? Who?” Her mother demands, voice tremulous with grief that has not yet been validated.
“ Mi lobo… Mi poco lobo ,” Wednesday sighs, somewhat delirious. She can almost see Enid from the corner of her eye, beckoning her to let go of the mortal coil. Her face comes nearer, and Wednesday realizes it is not an apparition. It is real. Enid is there, and Wednesday tries not to hope, doesn’t dare to hope, but she’s there and—
“Wednesday,” Enid says in her soft, shaking voice. Wednesday wants to wrap her arms around Enid tightly enough to stop her shaking. She wants to breathe the scent of her one last time before she departs. She wants to—
“Wednesday,” Enid says in a firmer voice, “Did you hear me? I love you. I love you so much, Weds, you don’t understand. You’re my pack. I wolfed out for you. I love you , Wednesday.”
“Even your lies are sweet, mi corazón. I thank you for the mercy,” Wednesday replies with a dreamy smile upon her face.
“ I’m not lying.”
“Of course. I did not mean to insult your honor in such a way,” she returns with a grin slowly spreading along her face. She can feel the manic wideness of her eyes, the over exaggerated turn of her mouth. It isn’t true, she knows, but perhaps she can pretend. The curtain around her bed gives the illusion of privacy as she stares into Enid’s eyes. How amusing it is to be getting back at her parents for their reprehensible behavior all her life. They aren’t the only ones in love anymore. Ha.
“Good night, Enid. I hope to see you in the morning,” Wednesday says, and drops into a peaceful slumber.
———
She wakes in fits and starts. She is connected to a heart monitor and in a gown. Her head is pounding and her eyes are uncontrollable. A wave of nausea wracks her small body, but she forces it away. She is in a room, no longer a curtained section of the infirmary. Her father is again by her bedside, her mother at the foot, Pugsley a few feet away, and Enid-
Enid.
The world ends and begins in that moment. It is like seeing color for the first time, like breathing clean air after a lifetime of pollution. It’s Enid.
“Enid,” Wednesday whispers, “You’re here.”
The werewolf’s face reddens as she angrily wipes her tears. “Of course I am. It’s only the love of my life lying in a hospital bed,” she snarls, her nails morphed into claws.
Wednesday chokes, spluttering violently as her father lifts the bed into a more upright position. Thorns scratch at her esophagus and she is forced to reach into her mouth to pull out the blood-soaked stem. There are roots attached, and no flowers. It is only leaves and thorns and roots and blood. There is so much blood — Wednesday can feel it coating her throat and clogging her trachea. She swallows thickly and looks to Enid, raising an eyebrow.
“Now I’m sitting in the hospital bed.”