Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

I hadn’t foreseen a vision of standing this close to Tyler—or rather, the Hyde.
I don’t need to, apparently. Misery has always had a way of finding me, the way moths find flame or serial killers find unsupervised campgrounds. I suppose it was inevitable.

Prediction is a useless talent when you’re already a disaster magnet. But this time, there was no backup, no helpful accomplice, no audience. Just me. And him.

Pain—though I’ve made its acquaintance many times—arrived with a peculiar intimacy. Even for an Addams, being hurled into a pane of glass is not part of a normal evening. I felt the sharp chorus of shattering, like an orchestra made of razors, followed by the slow, deliberate fall toward the concrete. Time thickened, viscous, forcing me to drown in every heartbeat.

Somewhere in the blur, my mother’s voice surfaced in my mind. Cryptic, maternal, and irritatingly correct. Perhaps I had made everything worse. It wouldn’t be the first time.

Impact announced itself with a bone-deep crack—sharp, echoing, final. The kind of sound you feel more than hear, vibrating through marrow and memory alike.

The concrete didn’t simply greet me; it claimed me. My shoulder hit first, the joint lurching from its socket with a wet pop, followed by the brittle splintering of ribs. I felt one give way entirely, jutting upward beneath my skin like a pale, jagged question trying to escape. My head struck next, the world momentarily flickering to white before blooming into a deep, blooming red behind my eyes.

Glass embedded itself into my arms and back in tiny, crystalline fangs, each one finding its place with surgical precision. Warmth began to spread—slow rivulets seeping through my clothes—iron-scented and oddly comforting. I could taste blood at the corner of my mouth, metallic and familiar, like an old lullaby I hadn’t heard in years.

And then the darkness arrived—not as a wave, but as a slow, velvet curtain drawn across my mind. It was merciful. I didn’t fight it. Why would I? Pain is exhausting, and oblivion is the closest thing this world has to sincerity.

I welcomed it the way one welcomes an old friend into the parlor, already knowing they’ve brought a knife.

The void was absolute. It wasn’t simply dark—it was the kind of black that felt ancient, as if it had existed long before light had ever been invented. No sound reached me here. No heartbeat, no breath, no whisper of movement. Just the tranquil stillness I’ve always preferred over the noisy persistence of life, that insistent buzzing of existence I’ve never learned to appreciate.

If “here” could even be called a place, it had no boundaries. I couldn’t tell where the ground ended or if there even was a ground. Yet I sat, knees drawn tightly to my chest, chin resting on them. My fingers laced around my shins in a hold that felt less like comfort and more like containment.

Questions tried to seep into my mind, intrusive as moths battering a window: Where am I? Who am I? I batted them away. Introspection has always been a tedious pastime, best left to poets and the recently bereaved.

Time—if it existed here—bled away without markers. There was no rising sun, no shifting shadow, just the uninterrupted weight of nothing pressing against me. It was almost enough to lull me into forgetting the difference between thought and silence.

And then—movement.

A faint scrape. A deliberate, almost polite sound, as though something was approaching but didn’t wish to alarm me. It slithered closer, the noise just brushing against the edge of my hearing before it stopped.

At my foot.

I lifted my head. Slowly.

A scorpion stood there, black as the void itself, its body gleaming with a hard, perfect sheen. Its legs twitched with precision, its claws flexed like punctuation marks preparing to end a sentence. The tail arched high over its back, a poised question mark carved in shadow.

It stared at me. I stared back.

And for the first time in this hollow, endless dark, I almost smiled. Almost.

She picked it up on her bare hands as if she was analyzing it. Nero. This is her pet as she recognise, still her face was unreadable still having an eye contact with an it that maybe doesn’t have a feeling until it stung her. It should the stung part only hurt but instead her whole body I picked it up with my bare hands, turning it over as if examining a specimen under glass.
Nero.

Recognition didn’t soften my expression—few things do. His obsidian shell gleamed, his claws flexed once, precise, mechanical. We stared at each other, one living thing to another, though I doubted he possessed anything as frivolous as feelings.

Then he stung me.

The pain should have remained localized, a simple puncture, but instead it spread like molten lead through every bone. My body felt… fractured. My vision blurred, replaced by the chaos of movement—hands shoving me, the dizzying roll of wheels beneath me. Voices broke through the fog, sharp, desperate.

“Wednesday!”

I blinked. Closed my eyes.

And the world collapsed again into the black.

When I opened them, I knew where—who—I was. Wednesday Addams.
Nero was still in my palm, unnervingly patient, as though waiting for me to finish some unfinished task. I stared at him blankly. He stung me again.

This time, my eyes opened to an entirely different scene. I was bound to a chair, rope biting into my wrists. Around me—rows of dolls, glass eyes staring, their porcelain skin cracked into spiderweb patterns. In the corner, a disembodied hand worked with startling efficiency, methodically torturing a man I didn’t recognize. His screams were hoarse and human; the sound was… pleasant.

Something in me stirred. Not horror. Not pity. Something else.

The ropes fell away—either through my effort or someone else’s—and I rose to my feet. I stepped forward, tilting my head at the display, before saying with deliberate calm:

“Let’s play dolls.”

And then—black again.

When I came to, I was sitting once more in the void. Nero was gone. In his place, a book lay before me. The cover was worn, the leather cracked like dried blood. I knew this book. I’d spent a vacation buried in its pages, sharpening my psychic edge.

Goody’s book of spells.

Memory returned in pieces: I had lost my psychic ability. I needed it back. But the reason for its loss remained hidden, as if my own mind had redacted it from me.

I opened the book.

It swallowed me whole.

When the darkness settled, I wasn’t standing in my graveyard. I was already beneath it.

The first thing I noticed was the pressure—wood only inches above my face, close enough that I could feel its cold grain against my breath. The air was stale, dense, already laced with the damp, mineral tang of soil seeping through unseen cracks. Every inhale felt heavier than the last, like the coffin was teaching my lungs a lesson in humility.

The second thing was the sound. Faint. Muffled. A dry, shifting hiss from somewhere above. Dirt. The earth was burying me grain by grain, each one tapping the lid with soft insistence, the way a polite guest might knock before breaking down your door.

My arms were locked at my sides, pressed into the thin burial lining—a fabric too coarse to be silk, too rough to be comforting. My fingertips found the seam of the lid, felt the splintered edges where the wood hadn’t been sanded smooth. A coffin built for speed, not ceremony.

I shifted slightly. The space didn’t allow much more than that. The movement made the wood creak—a slow, ancient groan that sounded like it resented being disturbed.

My heartbeat was loud here, filling the silence in steady, deliberate thuds. Not frantic. Just… methodical. I’ve never seen the point in panicking over inevitabilities. Death, after all, is the only appointment one can’t cancel.

Still, I could feel the air thinning. My breaths grew warmer, tasting faintly metallic now. I wondered how long it would take before the body’s insistence on oxygen overrode the mind’s calm acceptance.

A hand—cold, unyielding—punched through the coffin lid as if the wood were paper. Splinters rained down across my face. Fingers clamped around my throat, not in rescue, but in a deliberate, punishing grip. My windpipe protested, a sharp, crushed ache spreading down into my chest. The hand pulled, dragging me upward through the jagged opening.

The grip was merciless, digging into my skin until I could feel the pulse in my neck pounding against its hold. There was a familiarity in the touch, an echo of recognition I couldn’t place. I knew this hand. I just couldn’t recall why—or whether the memory would be welcome.

And then I was out.

The coffin, the earth, the darkness—gone. I was standing now in another place entirely.

A cemetery.

The sky was a dim, colorless grey, just enough light to reveal the outlines of leaning gravestones. The air was heavy with damp soil and the faint sweetness of rotting flowers. Wind rose suddenly, rustling the skeletal branches of trees until they bent and twisted like they were in some secret conversation.

I stood in the middle of it all, doubled over slightly, trying to catch my breath from the strangulation. The ache in my throat throbbed with each inhale, a slow reminder of the hand’s insistence.

Gravel crunched faintly under my shoes when I shifted. I looked around. Rows of headstones surrounded me in all directions, their inscriptions half-swallowed by moss. A narrow path cut through the graves, stretching ahead into a dark line that disappeared between the trees.

I didn’t know where it led. I didn’t particularly care.

But I followed it.

It felt like forever.

Step after step, the path stretched on without changing, without end. I kept walking, though I wasn’t sure if I was searching for answers… or simply hoping to remember what questions I should be asking.

At last, the path opened into a clearing.

They were there—figures cloaked in black, hoods drawn low so their faces were swallowed in shadow. They stood in silent clusters, each one turned toward a gravestone, heads bowed. Their voices didn’t carry so much as seep into the air, low and sibilant, the way the dead might gossip through the cracks in their coffins.

“She’s the one, right?”

“Yes… she caused all of this.”

“She’s truly heartless.”

“She didn’t even try to save her.”

“I thought she was supposed to be a hero.”

I didn’t slow, didn’t look at them. Whispers are only dangerous when you listen. I passed between them, the sound following me like a draft, until I reached the stone at the very end of the row.

The name carved into it stopped me cold.

ENID SINCLAIR

Beloved Daughter and Sister

And suddenly, everything was sharp. My roommate. My friend. My tether to something unbearably warm in a world that should never be.

She needed saving.

No—she needed to be saved .

And she hadn’t been.

She died because of me.

I turned, desperate to go back, to find some path out of this graveyard, this void—this prison disguised as a memory.

And then the pain bloomed. The same pain as before. Fingers digging into my throat, cutting off my breath. Only this time, I saw the owner of the grip.

Enid.

Her clothes were torn and darkened with blood, her face pale except where crimson streaked down from her hairline. Her eyes blazed—not with warmth, but with accusation. Her grip was iron, unyielding.

“I died because of you!” Her voice was jagged, shaking with rage.

“N–no—” I managed, though the air fought me for the words.

“You left me, Wednesday. You left me to die!” she spat, each syllable forcing her fingers deeper into my throat.

I didn’t resist. The fight left me before it could even begin. Instead, I lifted my right hand and cupped her left cheek. Her skin was cold and damp, like marble left in the rain.

“I… I’m sorry, Enid.”

The words were quiet, but they carried.

Black tears welled at the corners of my eyes, slipping down my face like ink spilled across pale paper. I let them fall. I let her hold me there, the pressure in my skull growing heavier with each passing second.

And when the darkness rose to claim me this time, I didn’t just accept it.

I embraced it.

Chapter Text

Lately, I’ve been feeling… left out.

It’s stupid, I know. I mean, there’s no official “Best Roommate Rulebook” that says you have to braid each other’s hair or have matching mugs with your names on them—though, come on, that would be cute—but still… after everything Wednesday and I have been through, I just thought we’d be closer by now.

Not like, hey let’s gossip about boys and paint our nails close (she’d rather be buried alive than touch glitter nail polish), but maybe the occasional late-night talk. Or a hug. Or—okay—even just her choosing to sit next to me at breakfast instead of picking the seat that’s farthest possible humanly distance away.

I guess I expected… more bonding. More something.

When I finally wolfed out, I thought that was it—my big breakthrough moment. My identity puzzle solved. But nope. Instead, it was like opening a door only to find ten more locked doors behind it.

And I’ve been avoiding Ajax ever since because… well… things between us didn’t exactly end on a sweet little bow-tied note.

More like on a “so are we doing this or not?” that fizzled into awkward silences. And if you’ve ever tried to avoid a guy in a school where the hallways are narrower than a coffin, you know it’s impossible. One turn and—bam—there he is, with that sheepish smile like he just accidentally ate your last cookie.

Then came Bruno.

I didn’t plan on it. I didn’t even see it coming, which is saying something because I usually see crushes approaching from like, a hundred miles away.

But somehow, things between us heated up fast. Maybe too fast. Maybe it was just easier to focus on him than on the very obvious, very gnawing feeling that something was wrong with Wednesday.

And she’s not talking about it. Which—hi—unfair.

And here’s the kicker

Agnes, her self-proclaimed stalker-slash-number-one-fan, totally knows something I don’t. That knowledge sits in my chest like a splinter I can’t get out. Still… no matter how frustrating, infuriating, or impossible she can be, Wednesday is still… the tunnel at the end of my light. I can’t even imagine my life without her in it.

So here I am, knees buried in cold, damp brush, next to Agnes (who is seriously bad at whispering), stuck as the lookout because apparently that’s “mission-critical.”

Which basically translates to: you can’t sneak in, Enid, you’re too bright and you’ll ruin everything. Fine. Whatever. My job was to tip off Sheriff Santiago if things went south. So I did. Anonymously. When all hell broke loose at Willow Hill Psychiatric Hospital.

Within minutes, the place was a hornet’s nest. Sirens wailed. Red and blue lights strobed against the building’s walls. Ambulances roared in, police cars screeched to a stop, officers poured out.

Through the grimy windows, I saw alarms flashing red, orderlies running in every direction, patients spilling into the night like the building itself was spitting them out. The air buzzed with this electric, ugly tension.

And all I could think was

Wednesday happened.

We waited. Every second felt like a minute, and every minute felt like an hour. My heart was pounding so loud I was sure Agnes could hear it. I scanned the windows, the doors, the shadows—waiting for a signal, a glimpse of black braids, anything.

Then it happened.

Glass exploded from a middle-story window—this sharp, gut-stabbing crack that made my shoulders jolt up to my ears. The sound punched through the chaos like it had been aimed straight at my spine. Shards caught the flashing red and blue as they tumbled, scattering like deadly little diamonds before vanishing into the dark.

And then—

A body.

It didn’t fall in a way you could mistake for anything else. No accidental slip, no cinematic slow-motion rescue incoming. It was thrown , hard, like the building itself had decided it didn’t want it anymore. The movement was violent, ungraceful, too fast and too final.

Time didn’t slow like people say it does. It… fractured. Snapped into jagged pieces. My breath caught in one of them and never came back.

The shape was wrong and right all at once—wrong because I didn’t want to believe it, right because some horrible part of me had already known it was going to be her. I froze, my eyes locking on that dark figure as it tumbled end over end. My hands clenched the cold dirt so tight my nails bit into my palms. I couldn’t blink. Couldn’t move.

When she hit the concrete, the sound was—

God.

It was the kind of sound that doesn’t just live in your head—it burrows in. It worms its way into the spaces between your thoughts and waits to ambush you later.

Too familiar. Too wrong. My eyes narrowed against the glare of the ambulance lights, my chest tightening until it was hard to breathe.

“Wednesday!” The name ripped from my throat raw and desperate, but the air swallowed it almost instantly.

And then Hyde emerged. Tyler. Huge. Monstrous. A familiar nightmare given shape. It landed with a ground-shaking thud , crushing the hood of a patrol car in a spray of glass and twisted metal. He didn’t even look at us. He just leapt back into the night, leaving wreckage in its wake, like it had already forgotten what it had done.

I couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe. The world narrowed until there was only her—sprawled and broken, blood pooling beneath her, limbs at angles that didn’t belong to her.

My best friend. My roomie. My impossible, infuriating, untouchable Wednesday.

“Wednesday? P-please, wake up…” My voice cracked and splintered, my knees slamming into the pavement before I even realized I’d moved. I pulled her into my arms, and she felt heavy —too heavy—her body limp in a way that made my skin crawl.

In the blur of flashing lights and chaos, I noticed Agnes just… standing there. Frozen. Her mouth slightly open, her eyes wide, like she’d forgotten how to function.

“Somebody get an ambulance!” a voice yelled from somewhere far away, but it was like listening through water.

I rocked Wednesday against me, holding her tighter, willing her to breathe, to twitch, to do something . My ears strained for a gasp, a cough, a whisper. My shaking hand hovered above her chest, waiting for that rise and fall.

Nothing.

The cold bit into me. The sirens wailed. The chaos churned around us. And I didn’t care.
The only thing that existed was the weight in my arms… and the suffocating thought that I might already be holding her for the last time.

Time had dissolved into a numb, colorless haze for Enid. She sat in the hard plastic chair of the hospital’s waiting area, her hands limp in her lap, unable to process the events that had led her here.

Her ears still rang with the echo of glass shattering, the sickening thud of impact, the way Wednesday’s body had crumpled against the cold pavement. Every time she blinked, the image returned—merciless, vivid.

Across from her stood the Addams family, a vision of composure that felt almost alien in the fluorescent sterility of the hospital. They were statues carved from old grief, each face unreadable in its own way.

Gomez, usually so buoyant, had tears trembling in his eyes as he dabbed at them with a folded handkerchief. His voice, when it came, cracked just enough to betray the weight in his chest.

“My little angel of death… what have you gotten yourself into?”

Beside him, Morticia was a dark tower of elegance—poise unbroken, but her words thin and frayed at the edges.

“I failed her… as my own mother failed my sister.” She stared into some distant, unseen place. Even Pugsley, restless by nature, was silent, his head bowed so low his chin nearly touched his chest.

Enid’s voice trembled into the space between them.

“Mrs. Addams, I… I’m sorry. I-I didn’t do my part to protect her. I’m her friend, but I wasn’t there—S-she—”

The rest disintegrated into sobs. She had thought her tears had run dry, wrung out of her during the frantic ride to the hospital, but now they came again, hot and heavy. Her chest ached with the weight of them. She couldn’t stop replaying it—Wednesday’s body limp in her arms, the blood, the silence.

Morticia moved closer, her presence carrying the stillness of a midnight garden. She laid a long, cool hand on Enid’s trembling shoulder, her thumb tracing slow, deliberate circles in a gesture that was both grounding and otherworldly.

“Enid, darling,” she said softly, her voice rich and measured, “this is not your fault. We know Wednesday—once her mind is set, there is no force in the world that can turn her aside. That unshakable will… she inherited it from her father.”

The wolf’s sobs only deepened. She wanted to believe the words, but guilt gnawed at her ribs like something with teeth.

Gomez, forcing a flicker of optimism into the room, straightened his posture.

“Our querida is strong enough,” he said firmly, as if saying it would make it true. “She’s an Addams, after all.”

But the air between them was thick, heavy with a silence that felt like it was waiting for bad news. Somewhere beyond the double doors, Wednesday lay suspended between worlds, and Enid felt helpless to pull her back.

The seconds dragged into minutes, each one stretching like an unbearable weight in the air. No one moved, no one spoke—every sound from the emergency room felt magnified: the hiss of oxygen, the faint beeping of machines, the murmur of rushed medical jargon behind the closed doors.

Finally, the door pushed open.

A doctor stepped out, still in scrubs splattered faintly with antiseptic and the ghost of urgency. He pulled down his surgical mask, revealing a face carved with exhaustion. His gaze swept over the waiting faces—searching, measuring—before settling.

“She’s… stable,” he began, voice low but steady. The relief was instantaneous but short-lived, for his expression did not soften.

“However… her heart stopped beating for several minutes before we managed to resuscitate her. That kind of cardiac arrest, combined with her other injuries, is not a good sign.”

He paused, as though weighing how much truth they could bear. “Right now, she’s in a medically induced coma to help her body recover from the trauma. Her brain has been deprived of oxygen—how long, we can’t be entirely certain. Time will tell how much she can regain… or if she’ll even wake up at all.”

A cold stillness fell over the hallway.

“She has multiple fractures, internal bruising, and a significant concussion. Her body is fighting, but she’s fragile. The next seventy-two hours are critical. Every night she survives will increase her chances, but there is no assurance. We will monitor her closely… but for now, it’s up to her.”

The words hung heavy in the air—up to her. As if she were somewhere between worlds, and they could only wait, powerless, for her to decide whether to come back.

Chapter Text

It had been a week.

Seven days without Wednesday’s voice.

Seven nights without the faint scrape of typewriter keys or the haunting strains of her cello cutting through the dark.

Enid lay on her bed, unmoving, her gaze fixed on the other side of the room. Wednesday’s bed was perfectly made—as if she’d just stepped out for class and would be back in five minutes—but the silence screamed otherwise. The absence pressed in from all directions, making the air thick and stale, like the room itself was holding its breath in mourning.

Thing sat on the dresser in front of her, his fingers tapping against the wood in restless, uncertain patterns. Even he seemed… off.

Enid’s voice was hoarse when she finally spoke.

“Why are you here, Thing? It’s been a week. You should be at Wednesday’s side.”

The hand moved slowly, deliberately: I was asked to look after you.

Her eyes flicked to Wednesday’s bed again, and something inside her chest gave a sharp, involuntary twist. “But Thing… I don’t need protection.” Her throat tightened. “I just need…” She faltered, swallowing against the ache in her voice. “…I just need my roomie back.”

Thing’s fingers curled in a small, sympathetic motion, but before he could reply, Enid noticed movement beside her. She turned her head—and there she was.

Agnes.

The girl stood with unsettling stillness, her dark eyes fixed on Enid as if she’d been watching for longer than she should have.

“How long have you been there, stalker?” Enid asked, her tone flat but brittle.

“Since you woke up,” Agnes replied, voice calm, almost amused.

Enid gave a weak scoff. “Great. So now you’re stalking me instead of Wednesday? What’s the plan—wait until my best friend’s trapped in a hospital bed, then finish me off while she can’t swoop in and save me?” She tried to make it sound like a jab, but the slight quiver in her words betrayed her.

Agnes tilted her head, considering. “I won’t try to kill you… yet. Especially since Wednesday isn’t here to dream up some fiendishly exotic way to kill me first.”

Enid’s brow furrowed. “Then why are you here?”

Agnes stepped closer, shadows clinging to her like smoke. “Because I know something you don’t. And maybe… I’m here to offer a little compensation for that incident with your wolf boyfriend.”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Enid muttered, turning away.

“If you say so.” Agnes’s voice dropped, her words heavier now. “But here’s the thing—you’re not safe, Enid. You think this past week has been chaos? The blood, the whispers, the schemes unraveling in the dark?” She leaned in slightly. “It’s all for you.”

Enid’s eyes narrowed. “Can you maybe, I don’t know—explain—”

Thing slammed a sharp tap against her arm, his fingers snapping through a terse, urgent gesture: Don’t.

The sudden firmness of it made Enid freeze. Agnes only gave a faint, knowing smile.

“That’s my limit for now,” she said softly.

And then—she was gone. No footsteps, no sound, no shadow slipping under the door. Just the faintest trace of her perfume in the still air, lingering like a secret half-whispered.

Enid stared at the spot where Agnes had been, her pulse uneven. She was more confused than ever—confused, and somehow even more desperate for answers she wasn’t sure she’d be ready to hear.

Enid needed air.

 Not the kind you got from simply opening a window, but the kind that let your thoughts scatter into the wind, the kind that maybe—just maybe—could make her forget how much quieter, how much emptier life felt without the shadow of her roommate haunting the halls.

Maybe it wasn’t even about forgetting. Maybe she just wanted to pretend for an hour that it wasn’t more woeful without the dark cloud of Wednesday Addams hanging over her.

She walked to the small park near campus, the late afternoon light pale and thin through the branches. Her mind wandered as her feet carried her toward the coffee cart. The order was almost muscle memory by now: venti furraccino, two pumps chocolate, one pump strawberry, and—for reasons no sane person should question—an extra pump of steak sauce. Maybe the bizarre sugar-meat concoction would be enough to keep her from thinking too much.

As she waited, a familiar scent drifted behind her—cologne she vaguely remembered from late-night study groups and awkward cafeteria small talk.

“Hey,” a voice said, warm but too casual. “Haven’t seen you in days. You’re starting to act like your roommate—making silence and isolation into some kind of… solace.”

Enid turned, her chest tightening. Bruno.

 Maybe once upon a time she could’ve leaned on him. Not now. Not when her mind was still thick with worry for Wednesday. His words didn’t help; they only made the ache sharper.

“I just want to be alone, please,” she said quietly, turning away.

A hand landed on her shoulder.

“Wanna hang out later at Lupin Cages?” Bruno’s tone was a coax, but there was an edge to it—like he couldn’t take a hint.

Enid’s voice flattened. “Bruno. Please. I want to be alone.”

“Come on, Enid,” he pressed. “We’re in the heat of the moment. Don’t push me away just because your macabre roommate isn’t here to keep you company.”

Something in her snapped at that, a pulse of anger rising in her throat.

 “BRUNO, I—”

But her voice was cut off when he suddenly spun on his heel, his expression glassy, his stance slack.

“You will leave Enid right now,” a voice commanded from behind him, low and crystalline. “And you will not speak to her again unless she approaches you first.”

Bruno blinked, mumbled something, and walked away like a puppet with its strings cut.

Enid looked past him—and there she was. Bianca Barclay, standing with that serene, dangerous composure only a siren could manage.

“Thanks, Bianca,” Enid murmured.

“Always, Sinclair,” Bianca replied, already turning to go, her hair catching the fading light before she disappeared into the crowd.

For the first time all week, Enid felt the tension in her shoulders loosen. She sat on a bench, letting the quiet wash over her… until movement caught her eye.

A raven perched atop one of the academy’s statues, its feathers slick and black as oil. One eye was pale and rotted, a milky sphere that seemed to fix on her with unblinking precision. A shiver crawled down her spine.

And then she noticed another raven. Then another. Each one landing in eerie, deliberate succession—watching her.

Thing appeared at her elbow, startling her, his frantic gestures sharp and urgent: Inside. Now.

For once, she didn’t argue. Thing’s urgency was enough.

 The tiny twitch of his fingers, the unblinking insistence in the way he pointed toward the dorm—it carried the same silent gravity as a command.

Outside, the sky had sunk into a deeper shade of gray, clouds knitted so tightly together they smothered what little light dared filter through. The air had changed, too. It wasn’t just cold; it was sharp, with the metallic tang of rain that hadn’t yet fallen, the kind that prickled at the skin and made you want to look over your shoulder.

The ravens followed.

At first, there was just one—its head cocked, a single unblinking eye fixed on her from the roof’s edge. Then another, and another. By the time she’d reached the heart of the courtyard, there were nearly a dozen scattered across the architecture—perched on the wrought-iron railing, balanced on the heads of stone gargoyles, lined along the spine of the academy’s highest ridge.

They didn’t caw. They didn’t shift their wings.

 They just watched.

 And the longer they did, the more it felt like they were connected by some silent agreement, each movement intentional, coordinated—as though they were part of something larger.

She quickened her pace.

The dorm building loomed ahead, its tall windows catching the light just enough to look like rows of pale, unblinking eyes. She didn’t care. Shelter was shelter. She shoved the heavy door open and stepped inside, the familiar scent of dust and old stone offering a fleeting moment of relief—

Until the door didn’t just close.

It slammed.

The sound cracked through the hallway like a gunshot, followed by a hiss of static that crawled across the wooden frame. For a moment, pale threads of electricity spiderwebbed along the edges before fading into a silence that felt… wrong.

Her claws slid out, the sharp sound of keratin scraping against keratin cutting through the stillness. She turned slowly—

And froze.

A man stood at the far end of the hall. Tall. Lean. Motionless. His black cap was pulled low enough that shadow bisected his face, leaving only the lower half visible. His long coat absorbed the dim light around him, drinking it in until he seemed less like a person and more like the silhouette of one.

He didn’t step closer.

 He didn’t posture.

 He simply stood there, as if his presence alone was enough to fill the space.

When he smiled, it wasn’t friendly or cruel. It was slow. Calculated.

 And Enid hated that it reminded her so much of Wednesday—those rare, razor-edged smirks that blurred the line between threat and promise. The kind that made you feel like you’d already been written into some plan, whether you knew it or not.

Something inside her stirred—an unsettling sense of recognition. Not in his face, but in the atmosphere around him. The stillness. The precision. The quiet weight that made the rest of the world seem slightly off-balance, as though the ground had shifted subtly in his favor.

“Hello, young lady,” he said.

The words were deep, smooth, and deliberate, each one landing in the air with the placement of a chess piece. His voice carried no rush, no uncertainty—only the steady cadence of someone fully in control of the conversation before it had even begun.

The temperature in the hallway seemed to drop, not with the panic of danger, but with the same cold anticipation she’d felt countless times when Wednesday was on the cusp of revealing something she’d been holding back.

Without thinking, her claws retracted.

 Not because she trusted him.

 Not because she felt safe.

But because—like Wednesday

—he didn’t feel like an intruder.

 He felt like someone who had already been here, quietly, all along.

Chapter Text

Enid froze in the doorway, claws half-extended, her pulse still racing from the run back to her dorm.
The bald man standing in the middle of her room didn’t move, didn’t lunge, didn’t even blink at the sight of her talons.
Something about him was off—no, not dangerous-off, more like eccentric raccoon rifling through your pantry at 2 a.m. off. He stood there as if her dorm was his, hands in the pockets of a long, battered coat, utterly unbothered by her defensive stance.

“Who are you, and what are you doing here?” she demanded, but the words didn’t carry their usual bite. There was no gut-level instinct to strike—yet no warm sense of safety either. Just… curiosity laced with mild unease.

The man’s face split into a grin so wide it seemed to physically rearrange his features. It was the kind of grin that made you think one of two things—either he knew the punchline to a joke you hadn’t heard yet… or you were the punchline.

“Pleasure to finally meet you,” he said, voice gravelly but somehow cheerful, the kind of tone you’d use to greet a long-lost drinking buddy.

Enid blinked at him, her claws lowering slightly. “Meet me? I don’t even know you.” Her brows knit together in suspicion.

“Oh, sure you do—well, not me personally, but you know my family.” He leaned forward like a conspirator, lowering his voice to a stage whisper that still carried across the room. “I’ve heard a lot about you from my niece. Let me guess… she’s not here right now, is she?”

Enid’s head tilted, her mind making a single, inevitable connection. “…Wednesday?”

“That’s the one!” His grin widened even further—impossibly so. “My dear, morbid little Wednesday. She sent me on a bit of a mission, you see—but I can tell you’re important to her.” His eyes glimmered with something unreadable, like he was privy to a secret Wednesday had neglected to share.

Enid didn’t know if she should feel flattered, confused, or deeply concerned. “…Okay… so… what do I call you?”

“You can call me Fester. Or Uncle Fester, if you want to be formal about it.” He paused mid-sentence, his gaze catching on her bookshelf. “Oh! Thing! You rascal!”

From behind a teetering stack of books, a familiar severed hand scuttled out, moving with spiderlike precision before leaping onto Fester’s shoulder. The little hand curled its fingers affectionately around his neck like a pet embracing its owner.

“Missed you too, buddy,” Fester said warmly, patting Thing’s knuckles with the ease of long familiarity.

Enid stared between them. “Right…” She took a breath, trying to sort the swirl of questions in her head. “So may I also ask what you’re doing here? You know… beyond the whole ‘mission from Wednesday’ thing?”

Fester leaned an elbow on her desk as if they were just two friends catching up at a café. “Well, young lady, I’m here to keep an eye on you. Protect you, even. That monster’s still out there after escaping Willowhill, and, eh, call it a hunch, but I think you might end up on its radar. Also…” He shrugged casually, “figured I’d drop in to see my other niece, Pugsley, while I’m in town.”

Enid opened her mouth to ask how exactly he planned on protecting her, but he was already moving toward the window like he’d been in the room for hours and knew every exit.

“Wait—where are you going? That’s not—”

But he didn’t bother with the door. Instead, he swung the large glass window open with a single motion.

“Stay here, kid. I’ll be back before you know it. Oh—and lock the door. Not that it’ll help.” He winked, and before she could respond, he vaulted onto the balcony and vanished into the night, Thing clinging to his coat like an eager stowaway.

Enid stood there, frozen for a moment, trying to process the fact that she’d just had an Addams family reunion in her dorm room without Wednesday present. Fester was… unsettling, but in a bright, almost clownish way—like he’d sidestepped the Addams gloom without ever abandoning its shadows.

Finally, with a sigh, she shut the window, locked it out of sheer habit, and collapsed onto her bed. Cocooning herself in her blanket, her gaze drifted to Wednesday’s empty bed across the room.

Her eyelids grew heavy, far heavier than they should have. Somewhere between exhaustion and unease, sleep took her—carrying with it the lingering image of Uncle Fester’s grin, burned like an afterimage into her mind.

She was somewhere unfamiliar—maybe a stranger’s farmland. The air smelled of damp soil and withering stalks. Her boots sank slightly into the earth as she walked, parting tall, dry grass that reached her shoulders. Each stalk brushed against her arms like brittle fingers, swaying as though whispering to one another in the wind.

Pushing forward, she reached a bald patch in the middle of the field—a perfect circle where nothing grew. In the center stood a scarecrow, slouched on its wooden post. At first glance, it was nothing remarkable: old burlap skin, straw stuffing poking through seams, a crooked hat. But then, with a flutter of wings, a raven landed on its shoulder.

Its beady gaze fixed on her.

Something was wrong. Its right eye was pure white—clouded, sightless—but the feathers around it were gone, revealing raw, pale skin.

Her stomach churned.

She took a step back. Another raven arrived, then another. Slowly, they began to gather—perching on the scarecrow’s arms, head, shoulders. They multiplied unnaturally fast, until the scarecrow was shrouded in black feathers and restless movement.

A cold certainty pressed against her mind. Run.

She turned and bolted, tall grass lashing her face. The sound behind her was deafening—wings beating, talons scraping, harsh caws echoing in her skull. The first bird struck her shoulder, its claws piercing through her sleeve. She tore herself free, but another dove for her arm, beak tearing fabric and grazing skin.

Snarling, she lashed out with her claws, slicing through feathers and flesh. The bird fell, but the others did not relent.

Then—impact. Something massive barreled into her from behind, launching her forward like a ragdoll. Her body slammed into a tree trunk, bark biting into her skin. The air was driven from her lungs, and spots danced in her vision.

Night had fallen without her noticing.
The farmland dissolved into shadow, and when Enid blinked again, the rows of golden stalks were gone—replaced by a forest that breathed. The air was damp and metallic, and every inhale tasted faintly of blood. Bark twisted like muscle, branches curled like claws overhead, and the ground pulsed faintly under her bare feet.

She pushed herself upright, heart pounding a warning she didn’t yet understand—until a flicker of movement between the trees froze her. A shadow slid from the darkness, unfolding with a sickening grace. Limbs lengthened at angles that bones were never meant to bend, vertebrae cracking audibly as the thing straightened to its full height.

The Hyde.

Its pale eyes gleamed lik e shards of bone in the dark, its grin stretching impossibly wide, showing teeth filed to points.

Her pulse jumped. She didn’t think—her body responded on instinct.
A surge of heat ripped down her spine. Her skin rippled, fur prickling along her arms and neck. She dropped to her knees as the first bone snapped and reformed, her scream catching in her throat, morphing into a low, guttural growl. Muscles thickened under her skin, her jaw lengthened into a snarl. Nails blackened and curved into claws. The transformation burned, every joint wrenching into place until her wolf stood where she had been.

“Hello, Enid,” the Hyde growled, voice oily and sharp. “It is my pleasure to finally kill you.”

It lunged.

The world became teeth and claws and blood. Its swipe was faster than she anticipated—razor talons cutting deep into her shoulder, spraying warmth across the forest floor. She retaliated, claws slashing across its ribcage, but her strike sank into something unnaturally soft, as if the creature absorbed the impact. No flinch. No slowing down.

It drove a knee into her stomach, forcing the air from her lungs, then raked its claws down her side, peeling fur and flesh. The pain was white-hot, electrifying her limbs into motion, but the Hyde moved like liquid shadow, every attack sliding just beyond where she could land it.

Blood spattered the ground, steaming in the cold night.

With one brutal swing, it slammed her into a tree so hard the bark split behind her. Stars exploded in her vision.

“Say my regards to Wednesday,” it hissed, its grin never faltering. “You’ll be with her soon.”

Its claws arched toward her throat—

Pain detonated through her neck. Her vision swam. She felt herself falling, the forest spinning away into blackness.

When her eyes opened, she was back in the farmland.

The scarecrow.

The ravens.

The grass whispering in a wind she couldn’t feel.

A loop.

She blinked, and the world reset around her like the snap of a cruelly shuffled deck of cards.

The farmland blurred at the edges, shadows bleeding into the horizon. The air thickened—thick as syrup—until it dragged her lungs down with each breath. The warmth of the fields withered into a chill that crept beneath her fur. Then, like ink blooming in water, the trees emerged.

And with them—footsteps.
Heavy. deliberate. Too familiar.

The Hyde again. Its grin, its hulking frame, the stench of rot curling in her nose—it all returned as if she’d never fought it.

Her muscles tensed, the wolf within snarling in recognition. But the thing’s voice reached her before she could move.

That voice—dripping with sadistic glee, every syllable slicing into her skull like a scalpel.
“Say my regards to Wed—”

CRACK.

A shovel’s blade slammed down, burying itself into the Hyde’s skull with a wet, bone-jarring crunch. The impact rang through the night like a death knell. Fractures spiderwebbed across its distorted brow as it reeled back, snarling, the grin twitching into something far uglier.

Its gloating choked out into a hiss of pain.

From the edge of the moonlight, another figure stepped forward, cleaving the shadows in two.

Enid’s breath caught.

The silhouette was unmistakable—knife-sharp posture, black hair like spilled ink against pale skin, eyes that fixed on her with the precision of a scalpel. The night seemed to bend around her.

Wednesday’s voice cut through the air like the shovel had cut through bone.
“Next time you want to talk, don’t.”

She wrenched the blade free, the Hyde’s blood hissing against the cold metal. “I hate being interrupted.”

“Wednesday?” Enid’s voice cracked on the name, small and startled in the cold air.

Wednesday lowered the shovel with surgical slowness, her gaze traveling from the Hyde’s fractured skull to the blood and dirt clinging to Enid. “Enid,” she said, voice cool and flat as glass. “Why is it that you’re always somewhere you shouldn’t be, and nearly dead while you’re at it?”

The tone was dry, but there was an undertone—so faint Enid almost thought she imagined it. Not shock. Not fear. But… relief? Quickly strangled down before it could take shape.

Enid didn’t move. Couldn’t. Every instinct screamed to run to her, to close the space, to cling to the only steady point in this nightmare that kept resetting, eating her alive loop after loop.

But the Hyde’s shadow twitched behind Wednesday, shoulders rising like a predator preparing to pounce.

Wednesday didn’t glance back—her grip only shifted slightly on the shovel, knuckles white, like she’d already calculated the exact force required to end it for good.

“This,” she murmured, eyes never leaving the creature, “is going to be tedious.”

Enid’s stomach dropped.

Because it meant the nightmare wasn’t over. Not yet.

Chapter Text

Enid had long since lost count of how many times they’d tried to break the loop.
Time had folded in on itself so often it felt brittle, like paper worn soft at the creases.

Beginnings bled into endings until the distinction meant nothing. But on this attempt—if “attempt” still meant anything—something shifted.

It began when her fingertips brushed against Wednesday’s.

The other girl’s head snapped back so violently it was as if an invisible hook had lodged in her skull and yanked. Black tears welled in her eyes, fat and slick, spilling down the curve of her pallid cheeks like ink spreading through wet parchment.

Her body arched in a sharp, unnatural angle before collapsing into a convulsive rhythm—spasms so violent Enid felt her own stomach turn.

“N–No… Wednesday? Wednesday!” Enid’s voice cracked as she dropped to her knees. She gripped the girl’s shoulders, trying to hold her steady, though every jolt nearly tore her from her grasp. “Come on—stay with me!”

But the seizure went on.

Her breaths came shallow and staccato. Her eyes rolled upward until only the whites stared blankly back, glassy and blind. Each second clawed by like an eternity; Enid counted them with the precision of desperation—thirty, exactly—before the tremors ebbed into stillness.

Then Wednesday blinked. Once. Twice. A third time. She sat up with a mechanical deliberation, her gaze locking on Enid as if she were trying to memorize her.

Relief hit so hard it almost broke her. Enid felt tears sting her vision, hot and humiliating. She scrubbed them away with the heel of her palm, as though erasing proof that she’d been afraid—erasing the fact that Wednesday Addams had been seconds from death in her arms.

“A–are you—” Enid began, but cold hands, still trembling faintly, cupped her face.

“It is… intolerable,” Wednesday murmured, her voice low, as if afraid of summoning something by speaking too loudly. “To see that vision again. And again. And again.” Her gaze deepened, the black of her irises seeming to draw Enid in like a slow whirlpool.

“You are the most… substantial Enid I have met in this purgatorial charade.”

Enid’s brows knitted. “Purgato—?”

“You died,” Wednesday cut in, her tone level but laced with a thread of something raw.

“Because of me. And I do not know whether you are real, or merely another conjuration meant to mock me… to make me watch you die, to keep reliving it until my wits unravel.”

Enid’s breath faltered.

“I never thought I would debase myself by apologizing to a spectral parody of my relentlessly cheerful roommate,” Wednesday went on, each word like a drop of ink in water—dark, deliberate, spreading slowly.

“But here it is. I am sorry, Enid. I could not save you. And the woe of that failure festers, loop after loop, without mercy.”

Enid’s throat tightened, the ache in her chest almost unbearable.

But before she could answer—before she could touch her, hold her, anchor her to something solid—reality fractured. The world shattered soundlessly, falling away into a fathomless black.

When sensation returned, Enid was no longer in the school courtyard—she was standing in a cemetery. The world tilted, colors leaching into shades of grave-dust gray.

Her whole body screamed with pain, as if every joint had been wrenched and reassembled wrong. The air was thick with damp earth, rotting flowers, and something sharp and metallic beneath it—blood.

And then she realized, with a slow, curling horror, that she wasn’t moving of her own accord

.
Her legs carried her forward with the jerky inevitability of a marionette, boots squelching in the mud between crooked headstones. Her arms hung loose at her sides like they were waiting for the right moment to strike. Her muscles were tense—ready—poised.

She saw her.

A familiar figure, framed in the pale wash of moonlight—dark braids swinging slightly as she turned, posture knife-straight, face pale as bone. Wednesday.

A voice, not hers, purred inside her skull. There you are.

Her hands moved before she could think, claws sliding free with a slick, animal scrape. They shot forward and closed around Wednesday’s throat.

“No! No—stop!” Enid’s mind screamed, but her voice did not reach the air. It was trapped, smothered by something coiled deep in her nerves.

Her claws sank into soft flesh. Warmth spurted between her fingers—blood. Wednesday’s eyes widened, not in fear but in calculation, before they clouded. Her lips parted, trying to drag in air, but the breath caught useless in her throat.

The pressure tightened. Bones shifted beneath Enid’s grip. The sound—like wet twigs snapping—echoed in her skull.

“I died because of you!” The voice that ripped from her throat was guttural, vibrating with loathing, warped into something unrecognizable. It wore her mouth, used her breath, but it wasn’t her.

Inside, Enid thrashed like an animal in a cage. Please! Let me go! Don’t hurt her! I’ll do anything! But her body didn’t listen. The invisible chains binding her mind only tightened, pressing her further into the dark.

Wednesday’s skin flushed deep crimson, then began to pale. Her eyes glassed over, but still, she stared directly into Enid’s—the kind of stare that cut, even while dying.

Her boots scuffed weakly in the mud as her struggles slowed. Enid could feel the life leaving her—could hear the gurgle in her throat, the wet, failing rasp of breath.

And then—

Blackness swallowed everything.

Enid woke in her room with a strangled gasp, the sound tearing out of her throat before she could stop it. Her chest rose and fell in shallow, frantic bursts, and a sheen of cold sweat soaked through her collar and into the sheets beneath her.

The moonlight slanting through the curtains looked wrong—too pale, too sharp—and for a moment the walls seemed to sway like they might collapse in on her.

Her pulse thundered in her ears. She dug her nails into the flesh of her forearm, dragging down until she felt the sting. Crescent-shaped marks bloomed red under her skin. Pain. Real pain. She clung to it like a lifeline.

She whispered to herself, almost desperately, “This is real. This is real…” as though repetition could keep her from slipping back into that place.

Something stirred at the foot of her bed.

Her head jerked up—and there he was. Thing, the disembodied hand, perched on the quilt, his fingers curling and flexing in frantic, almost spasmodic movements. His nails scraped lightly against the fabric as if he was trying to form words faster than his dexterity allowed.

She blinked, struggling to read his rapid, jittery signing. His gestures were sharp, urgent, clawing for her attention.

“What? What is it? Slow down, I can’t—” Enid started, but the door slammed open with such force it rattled the hinges.

Pugsley stood in the doorway, panting like he had run the length of the school. His eyes—usually carrying a kind of mischievous glint—were wide with something rawer. Panic.

“Enid,” he managed between breaths, “something happened to Wednesday.”

Her mind barely had time to register the words before her body was already moving. She snatched her snood from the chair, fumbling to pull it over her head with trembling hands.

Her heart pounded like a war drum in her chest. She didn’t know if it was fear or rage or something in between, but it was enough to propel her forward—down the hall, past startled faces, every shadow in her peripheral vision suddenly threatening.

Thing scrambled after her on his fingertips, quick as a spider. Pugsley kept pace just behind, his short breaths ragged.

The cold hit her lungs like a slap, but she didn’t slow down. The gravel crunched under their feet as they cut across the courtyard, its pale stones silvered under the moonlight. The tall wrought-iron gates of Nevermore loomed ahead—dark, skeletal silhouettes against the sky.

And there, beside the gates, stood Lurch.

His massive frame was still as stone, but his black eyes tracked their approach. The Addams family car waited behind him, long and glossy, its headlights burning twin halos into the mist.

Chapter Text

Pugsley and I reached the hospital in record time. I barely heard the tires squeal before I was out of the car, snood half slipping off as I sprinted down the corridor. My claws clicked against the sliding door handle, shoving it open without thinking.

The sight inside made my chest twist.

Morticia and Gomez were at Wednesday’s bedside—Morticia bent over her like a shadow draped in silk, Gomez’s hand wrapped around his wife’s shoulder in silent support. On the sheets, under the pale hospital light, Wednesday lay perfectly still. Her face looked too calm… except for the streaks of familiar black tears drying along her cheeks.

Morticia’s hand moved in delicate circles, wiping her daughter’s face as if she were afraid the touch might break her.

My voice came out small. “W-what happened to her?”

 It had only been minutes ago—no, seconds—since I’d seen her in my dreams. Seen my hands—my claws—wrapped around her throat. The memory turned my stomach. I’d never want to hurt Wednesday. She was my roommate, my best friend… my anchor.

Morticia’s gaze lifted to me, soft but sharp all at once. “Enid, darling… it seems our little storm cloud has used her abilities, even in sleep. It cannot be controlled—not even by her. She may be reclaiming them, yes, but…” She paused, her painted mouth tightening. “She’s risking her life with every moment she remains trapped in that vision.”

The words landed like a weight on my ribs. That nightmare—no, that place—wasn’t just a figment of my imagination. Wednesday was in there. And I’d do anything, absolutely anything, to pull her out.

Morticia’s voice lowered. “I would never willingly make her use her gift this way, but… she needs you. I saw it.” Her eyes pinned me there, dark and unyielding. “If she can feel you beside her, it may be enough to tether her to us again.”

“I… I don’t know anything about psychic stuff,” I admitted, shifting my weight like the ground was moving beneath me. “But I’ll do my best. I want her to know I’m here. Waiting.”

Morticia’s lips curved faintly—not a smile, but something like gratitude. “Enid, sit here.” She gestured to the empty chair beside Wednesday’s bed. “And forgive me for using you, but if this doesn’t end soon… Wednesday may not return to us at all.”

That made my blood run cold. I didn’t hesitate. I slid into the chair, the plastic cushion hissing softly under me.

“I’ll do anything to save Wednesday,” I said, forcing a little brightness into my tone. “I mean, I do have these colorful claws. They’re practically made for waking people up.” I held up my hands, letting the colors catch the sterile light.

Gomez winced. Morticia’s expression didn’t change, but I swear I saw the tiniest flicker of distaste.

“Not the most orthodox medical method, Enid,” Gomez murmured.

“Maybe not,” I said, my voice firming as I reached for Wednesday’s limp hand, “but she’s not orthodox either. So maybe this is exactly what she needs.”

“Enid, dear, take my hand. And when I tell you to hold Wednesday’s, do it,” Morticia instructed.

I reached for her without thinking. The moment our palms met, a shiver jolted up my arm. Her skin was cold—not winter air cold, but the deep, heavy chill of stone left in shadow. Gentle, yes, but unsettlingly corpse-like. I swallowed hard and tightened my grip.

Morticia closed her eyes, lashes lowering like black fans. The pressure of her hand increased, not painfully, but with a deliberate firmness that made it clear something was building. The air seemed to shift—heavier, quieter. Even the light in the room seemed to dim, as if shadows had seeped in under the door.

Her breathing slowed, controlled and deliberate, each inhale longer than the last. It didn’t feel like she was simply meditating—no, this was work, something that tugged at the edges of reality.

“Now, Enid, dear,” she said at last.

I reached for Wednesday’s hand, wrapping my fingers around hers. The instant our skin touched, a strange sensation tore through me—not warmth, not even cold, but a pull, like my insides were being drawn somewhere they didn’t belong. My stomach flipped. My heart thudded unevenly. It wasn’t a good feeling. It felt like standing too close to a cliff in the dark.

“Now, my dear son,” Gomez’s voice broke through.

I barely had time to glance up before I realized Pugsley was stepping into the circle—whatever this was—and joining hands.

The change was immediate. My body lit up with sharp, electric bursts, as though lightning had threaded through my veins. It hurt—really hurt—but before I could cry out, the world tilted violently.

And then—black.

I was nowhere. Just… nowhere.

 The void around me wasn’t just dark—it swallowed dark whole. No stars, no shadows, no sound. Only me, and the sensation that every step I took was sinking into something thick and cold. The ground—if you could call it that—wasn’t solid. It shifted under my feet like I was walking on black ink, rippling sluggishly with every move.

That’s when I remembered why I was here.

 Wednesday.

My heart kicked into gear, and I started running—well, trying to. It wasn’t like running on concrete, or even mud. It was like the ground itself clung to me, trying to slow me down. Each step made a sick, sticky sound, and I kept expecting something to grab my ankles from below.

Up ahead, a tunnel loomed—thin, jagged, and impossibly dark. As I crossed its threshold, the air changed. Heavy. Cold. My chest tightened like invisible hands were pressing in on me. The shadows here weren’t still; they curled and twitched along the walls like they were watching me pass.

I wanted to turn back. My legs refused.

When I reached the end, I saw her.

 Small, still, folded into herself on the ground.

Her knees were pulled up to her chest, arms wrapped tight around them, head bowed low. Even without seeing her face, I knew. The pigtails. The aura that clung to her like an unshakable storm cloud. Even the faint scent—familiar, sharp, and cold—that reminded me of our shared room.

“Wednesday…” My voice was barely above a whisper.

I knelt beside her and reached out, my hand trembling. Normally, she’d flinch at my touch or tell me exactly how she planned to end my existence for trying—but now? Nothing.

I shook her arm gently at first, then harder. Still no reaction. Panic started eating away at my ribs. Finally, I cupped her chin and lifted her head—and froze.

Her eyes were closed, her face almost colorless, paler than I’d ever seen it. And streaming from the corners of her eyes—thick, inky tears. They ran down her cheeks in crooked rivulets, dripping onto her collar. The black bled into her skin like it was leeching the life right out of her.

“Wednesday! Wake up!” My voice cracked as I shook her again, harder now, but she was limp in my arms—cold, unresponsive.

That’s when I felt it.

 The ground beneath us wasn’t just soft anymore—it was moving. Slowly, it began to suck us down, ink rising up our sides like it wanted to drag us under.

“No. No, no, no—” I pulled her against me, wrapping my arms around her. The ink climbed higher, slick and suffocating, forcing its way against my skin, seeping in like it wanted to live inside me.

I closed my eyes, desperate, clutching her tighter. It burned in my lungs, made breathing almost impossible—until suddenly—

Light.

When I opened my eyes, the blackness was gone. I was standing in a cemetery.

Daylight spilled over weathered gravestones, and for a moment, nothing hurt. No sinking ground, no choking ink. My heart still pounded, but the air here was… too calm.

That’s when I saw her again.

The same pigtails, the same dark clothes—but now she was upright, sitting cross-legged in front of a single gravestone. From where I stood, she looked alive. Breathing. Almost peaceful.

I moved closer, slow steps crunching against the path. My eyes dropped to the name carved into the stone, and my blood went cold.

Enid Sinclair.

I stopped for a moment, forcing my breathing to steady. Weakness wasn’t an option, not here. Not when I was this close. Carefully, I lowered myself beside Wednesday. She sat hunched over, fingers curled around the brittle stem of a dead rose, its petals blackened and curling inward as if mourning themselves.

Her skin was paler than I’d ever seen, the kind of pallor that made you wonder if she’d even slept or breathed in years. Her braids were loose, strands of dark hair falling like shadows across her face, and she didn’t even notice me.

"If you’re another Enid sent to strangle me, by all means, proceed. I would welcome it as fondly as Nero’s sting,” she murmured, eyes fixed somewhere far beyond me. Her tone was a void—flat, lifeless—and the brittle trails of dried black tears fractured across her cheeks like veins in onyx.

“I’d never do that,” I said quietly.

 “I assume you’re yet another facsimile of my rainbow-sick roommate,” she said, gaze fixed elsewhere. “If so, by all means, assault my ears with one of your grotesque K-pop abominations from that infernal little black contraption you cherish.”

The corner of my mouth twitched. Instead of answering, I reached for her hand. She flinched at the sudden contact, finally turning to me with a flicker of confusion in her gaze.

“I just want my roomie back,” I said.

Her eyes slitted into suspicion. “Who are you? And why are you… warm?” The words were edged, defensive—more blade than breath. It was the Wednesday I knew in posture, but stripped of recognition.

“I’m your roommate. Your best friend. I’m alive, and we’re waiting for you.”

She pulled her hand away and stood abruptly, tension radiating off her in sharp, precise movements. “What sort of vision are you? You have no right to invade this endless void.”

I almost laughed at that. The Addams family might be faster, sharper, more calculated—but I’m a werewolf. That means I can be quicker when it matters. I stepped forward, wrapped my arms around her, and held her before she could vanish into whatever darkness she was sinking into.

She went rigid, clearly shocked, but there was a hesitation in her stillness. A moment’s pause. Maybe… acceptance.

“Come back to us, Wednesday. We’re waiting for you,” I whispered against her shoulder.

"You… bear an unsettling resemblance to the Enid I once encountered,” she murmured. Her arms hung rigid at her sides, yet she made no move to dislodge me.

“I am that Enid. And if you can reach into my nightmares, you can get out of this void,” I said firmly, holding her tighter.

Her voice faltered, almost imperceptibly. “You keep dying, Enid. No matter how many times I intervene, the outcome is the same. It’s… revolting to admit, but I’ve never felt this level of defeat.”

“This isn’t real. We’ll get through it together. Just come back.” My own voice trembled despite my best effort to keep it steady.

“I—” she began, but the world shifted.

I blinked, and the cold cemetery air vanished. I was back in the Addams’ sitting room, Mrs. Addams’ voice cutting through my disorientation.

“Enid, dear, you’ve returned. How is she?”

“She can’t control it,” I said, glancing at Wednesday’s still form. “Before, she could reach me in my nightmares. Now… she’s stuck. We just have to keep trying.”

“You’ve done more than we could ask,” Morticia said gently. “Pugsley, take Enid back to the academy. Lurch will drive.”

“With respect, Mrs. Addams… Mr. Addams… may I stay?” My voice cracked despite me. “If I sleep beside her, maybe I can reach her again.”

“You’re welcome to,” Morticia said with the faintest smile. “Though I warn you, the accommodations may not be comfortable. We can arrange another—”

“I’ll take the chair,” I interrupted quickly. “Please.”

“As you wish, dear. We’ll let the academy know you’ll be here for the night,” Gomez said warmly.

“Thank you… Morticia. Gomez.” I tried to smile, but my chest felt heavy.

I took Wednesday’s cold hand in mine, let my head rest on the edge of her bed, and drifted into a deep, dreamless sleep for the first time in a week.

When I woke, the first rays of dawn slipped through the curtains, dust motes dancing in their light. My neck ached from the position, but before

I could sit up, I felt it—a faint twitch against my palm.

Her fingers. Moving.

Chapter Text

I have once again been abandoned in this purgatory.
But this time, something felt… fractured.

Two Enids. Two identical bursts of technicolor and cloying warmth, both looking at me with that same infuriating tilt of the head. It was like being stalked by the same migraine in stereo. For a moment—against every dark instinct I possess—I wondered if this duplication was a loophole. Maybe, finally, a crack in the structure of this unsettling realm.

I waited.
Minutes trickled past, dripping like black wax down the spine of a candle.
Nothing changed.

No roommate with claws sharp enough to strangle me out of boredom.
No faithful scorpion to sting my arm into blessed distraction.
Not even the honest suffocation of that yawning void that once embraced me in pitch.

It was all… stale. The kind of stasis that eats at you until you can’t tell if you’re dead or just profoundly bored.

Perhaps Mother was right—my visions, my “gift,” could be bent into something practical, if only to end the tedium. So I crouched at Enid’s gravestone, my fingers brushing the cold marble. The stone pulsed faintly under my touch, like a cadaver’s last nerve spasm.

And then—light.
Not soft dawn or gentle glow. No, this was the kind of light that interrogates, flays, and exposes. It flooded my vision until my eyes watered in protest.

The cemetery dissolved.
Now I stood in a room so offensively genteel it felt like a personal insult. A tea table gleamed under the weight of white porcelain—its edges delicate, its purpose sinister. The air was heavy with floral perfume, an olfactory assault disguised as civility. A fireplace hissed nearby, flames dancing too neatly to be trusted.

And there she was.

Tall, statuesque, her presence like a blade hidden in velvet. Hair the color of freshly fallen snow, styled with precision sharp enough to slice through my indifference. Her coat—a once-glorious gold, now dulled with age—draped over her shoulders like the remnants of an empire that refused to admit it had crumbled. She held a teacup in one hand, as if she’d been expecting me for hours.

I broke the silence. “Tell me, Principal Weems—have I finally died, or is this hell simply wearing more lace than usual?”

“You’re not dead, Wednesday,” she said, her voice measured, every syllable polished until it gleamed.

I tilted my head, my eyes narrowing. “Then either I’ve developed a taste for hallucinations, or you’ve decided to haunt me for sport.”

A faint smile touched her lips—too faint to be genuine. “I am your new spirit guide. Think of me as… a necessary escort through this phase of your journey.”

My expression flattened into something between boredom and disdain. “Given the choice, I would rather be devoured by the eternal void than escorted anywhere by you.”

“Charming as ever,” she replied, unbothered. “But I’m afraid we don’t have the luxury of indulging your death wish. You need to wake up. There are… matters that require your attention.”

Before I could tell her precisely what she could do with her “matters,” she snapped her fingers.

The world collapsed.

I woke to the sterile tang of disinfectant crawling up my nose. White walls. The faint hum of hospital machinery. My arms were crossed over my chest in a posture that made me look far more deceased than alive.

I sat up, slow and deliberate—and there she was again. No golden coat this time. Instead, a nurse’s apron draped over her immaculate frame, the absurd domesticity of it making my stomach knot in revulsion. In one hand, she held a sponge.

Her eyes brightened in mock cheer. “Rise and shine, sleepyhead. Time for your sponge bath.”

I glared at her. “If you value your hand, I suggest you drop that sponge and back away slowly.”

Her smile widened, as if I had just proven her point about something unspoken.

This was going to be a long, grotesque recovery.

It wasn’t long before Mother and Father swept into the room—no doubt anticipating an overwrought family reunion, perhaps even a tearful embrace. As much as the thought might have pleased them, I found the idea revolting. Physical affection is a pathogen I have no immunity against.

“My little bombita, you’re finally awake!” Father exclaimed, arms already stretching toward me in what I assume was meant to be a hug.

“Attempt that and I’ll remove both your arms at the shoulder,” I murmured, my voice low enough to make him hesitate.

They exchanged one of those silent marital glances—full of unspoken understanding and, in this case, mutual sentimentalism. It was nauseating.

“Where is Enid?” I asked, cutting through their display like a scalpel.

“My little rain cloud,” Mother began, pressing her hand to her chest in some pantomime of heartfelt concern, “she was summoned back to the academy. You’ve been in slumber for over a week, and she visited you constantly. Even this morning.”

I ignored the softness in her tone—it felt like a parasitic infection I refused to host. “I need to return to the academy.”

A smile like over-polished porcelain appeared just behind them. Principal Weems. Standing too close, glowing with an excess of artificial brightness, as if she had been waiting for her cue in a particularly sinister play.

“But, my little torme—” Father started.

“Now,” I said, slicing his protest in half with a single syllable.

Weems’ smile only deepened, and I suspected she was enjoying this far too much.

When I arrived at our room, Enid was nowhere to be found. I turned, and there still stood Mother and Father, looming like twin gargoyles with misplaced affection.

“I want to be alone with my solitude,” I said. They understood immediately—if there’s one thing they respect, it’s the sanctity of self-imposed exile.

Thing was gone too. His miniature coffin-shaped house sat empty, as did the cabinet where he sometimes lurked like a disembodied vulture. I scanned the poisonous plush wolves and rainbow-vomiting abominations Enid had collected, but they only stared back at me with stitched smiles, mocking my search.

I proceeded through the Caliban Hall, ignoring the prying eyes and hushed whispers. Their gossip was meaningless static, white noise to my already fractured patience.

Opening a door at the far end, I found Pugsley sprawled on his bed, staring into the void—an activity I could almost call respectable if it weren’t for the fact that it was born of laziness, not existential dread.

“Sis! You’re back!” he blurted, scrambling to his feet and moving toward me.

“Lay a finger on me and I’ll find the nearest gargoyle to turn you to stone,” I said.

“Cool,” he replied, as only a true Addams could—utterly unfazed and possibly even hopeful.

“Where’s Enid?” My voice carried more urgency than I would have liked.

“Uh… I think I saw her with Eugene near the bee house. Maybe. I don’t know.”

That was enough. My feet carried me to the bee house, but it was deserted. The gardens were empty too, their flowers wilting in what felt like solidarity. Even the cemetery grounds offered no sign of a rainbow-vomiting werewolf.

I ran—though “ran” in my terms is more of a calculated hunt—until I collided with another body. The impact sent us both to the ground, the soil biting into my palms. Pain flared from half-healed injuries, but I ignored it.

When I looked up, she was there. Enid. Her expression was wide-eyed, almost trembling, as if her gaze alone could spill tears.

“Wednesday?” she said, her voice breaking in a way I hadn’t heard before. Before I could form a reply, she flung her arms around me.

Normally, such contact would feel like a form of assault, but this… was tolerable. I allowed one arm to rest stiffly against her back.

And then, of course, Principal Weems materialized from behind a nearby tree like some predatory apparition.

“What a lovely couple,” she said, her smile stretched too wide, too white—like a porcelain mask hiding something far less pristine.

It wasn’t lovely. It was disconcerting. For me, at least. The worst part? In the back of my mind, I suspected she wasn’t wrong about the melting part.

Chapter Text

The door to Ophelia Hall creaked open, letting in the familiar pastel warmth of their shared room. The air was thick with the sweet, almost cloying scent of Enid’s bubblegum perfume—an ever-present contrast to the faint, sterile tang of antiseptic still clinging to Wednesday’s clothes from the hospital. There was something else, too: the earthy trace of damp soil clinging to the hem of their coat, a remnant of where they’ve been before they returned.

The room felt suspended in an uneasy stillness. Wednesday stood perfectly still by her desk, her posture as rigid as ever, eyes tracking Enid’s every fidget. Enid lingered near her bed, caught between relief and something heavier, like a stormcloud that hadn’t decided whether to rain or break apart entirely.

Her hands betrayed her nerves. She tugged at the hem of her sweater, glanced at Wednesday, then looked away just as quickly. She paced—two steps to the left, pivot, two steps back—like if she stopped moving, she might lose the courage to speak.

When the words finally came, they tumbled out too fast, crashing into each other.

“I just want to say… I’m so glad you’re back. And—uh—also, I missed you.”

The last part came out faster—hurried, almost swallowed—but not so fast that it could slip past Wednesday’s notice. Her gaze sharpened, and for the briefest heartbeat, something flickered in her expression. It wasn’t quite a twitch, nor a pause, but the faint shift of someone who had heard more than was spoken. Still, she offered no reply.

Enid’s pacing didn’t stop. If anything, it quickened, like each step was an outlet for thoughts she couldn’t untangle.

“It’s just… Tyler’s still out there.” Her voice wavered, then steadied into something darker. “And he has plans to kill us.”

The words hung heavy in the air, thickening it. Tyler wasn’t simply Tyler—he was the Hyde, the creature whose claws had once come far too close to ending both their lives. And now, he had vanished into the shadows, leaving nothing but the knowledge that he was waiting.

When Wednesday spoke, her voice was soft yet unshakable, like the closing of a coffin lid.
“I’m going to fix it.”

Enid froze mid-step, her sneakers scuffing against the floor. Her next words came out sharper than she intended, the edge honed by fear, not malice.

“You’re the reason he escaped.”

The moment the accusation left her lips, she regretted it. She knew it wasn’t meant as a wound, but fear had a way of shaping the truth into a blade. And her fear wasn’t for herself—it was for Wednesday. For what might happen if the past came clawing back.

Before Wednesday could answer, another voice intruded, cutting through the room like the sudden snap of a trap.

“She’s got a point. It’ll be worse if you don’t act.”

Wednesday’s jaw tightened, the faintest ripple of restraint passing over her otherwise unreadable face. She didn’t need to turn to identify the voice—it belonged to Principal Weems. Not the Weems Enid knew, not the living Principal who once stalked these halls, but the ghost who now lingered in places only Wednesday seemed able to hear.

Weems stood just behind her, spectral hands folded with the kind of maddening serenity that suggested eternity had given her all the time in the world to lecture. Even in death, she carried herself like an institution.

Wednesday’s reply was low and cold, a growl more than a sentence.
“Stay out of this.”

Enid’s brow furrowed. “Who are you talking to?”

Her voice was sharp—confusion fraying into frustration. A moment ago she had been speaking to her best friend; now that friend stood rigid, muttering into the void.

“No one,” Wednesday said, her tone flat as a gravestone.

Enid let out an exasperated groan.
“Ugh, I missed you like crazy, but you’re acting all cryptic and broody and—ugh! I can’t even have a normal conversation with you right now. I just… need a minute"

She turned on her heel and stormed out, boots striking the hallway like a drumbeat of irritation.

Wednesday didn’t follow. She remained still, her figure motionless as a portrait, until her gaze finally shifted toward Thing, who lingered on the desk.

“Follow her. Make sure she doesn’t do anything stupid.”

Thing scuttled off without hesitation, vanishing into the corridor.

Weems’ expression softened—just barely—into something that could have been mistaken for maternal concern. But her words carried the weight of a warning meant to linger.

“If you don’t hurry, Wednesday…” Her voice was a whisper that curled like smoke. “…you’ll have nothing left to save.”

The knock at the door came like an unwelcome savior—too timely to be accidental, too insistent to ignore. Wednesday, already simmering with frustration, found it impossible to decide if she was relieved or irritated. Without her psychic visions, she was operating half-blind, and now she had to contend with the relentlessly cheerful intrusion of her so-called spirit guide.

“Sis,” the voice called through the door, syrupy and oblivious to her mood. “Grandmama has requested your presence. Lurch is waiting outside the academy to take you.”

The summons left no room for argument.

When she stepped outside, Wednesday found herself in a sprawling, The windswept field stretched in all directions, the grass whispering under a restless sky. At its center sat Grandmama Hester Frump beneath a black canopy tent that looked more suited for a witch’s wake than afternoon tea. A table was set before her, complete with a steaming pot of something that might have been tea—or might have been a potion—and a chauffeur standing off to the side, tall and cadaverous, bearing an uncanny resemblance to Lurch.

“My dear granddaughter,” Hester greeted, her voice a velvet drawl soaked in something faintly ominous, as though each syllable carried the weight of a half-forgotten eulogy. She was seated in her high-backed chair upholstered in cracked burgundy leather, surrounded by the scent of dried hemlock and candle wax. “How was your trip from the edge of death?”

Wednesday stepped forward, her shoes making no more sound on the trampled grass than a shadow passing. The wind tugged at her braids as she answered, tone as cool and exact as a scalpel.
“As much as I despise the admission, it was tolerable. But hardly an experience worth repeating.”

Hester tilted her head, the faintest smile curving her lips—less warmth than the tightening of a noose. She lifted her porcelain teacup, the rim faintly stained by whatever dark concoction steamed within. “Still brooding over that roommate of yours? Have you given her my card?” Her sip was unhurried, the scent rising from the cup sharp and strange—wormwood, graveyard soil, or both.

“Not yet, Grandmama. Nor do I intend to.”

A single arched brow rose—no more than a breath of surprise—but Hester’s gaze lingered. There was something different in Wednesday’s voice, a guarded devotion she reserved for no one else. It was the sort of detail Hester never failed to notice.

Wednesday took a step closer, her shadow pooling across the ground like black ink.
“Donate to the Nevermore gala,” she said abruptly, each word honed to a cutting edge. “I may require… additional assistance in ensuring her safety.”

For the first time, the elder woman’s expression faltered, a hairline crack in an otherwise unshakable mask. Her hand tightened ever so slightly around the teacup’s handle.
“It’s the curse,” she murmured, the words slipping out before she could restrain them.

Wednesday’s gaze sharpened to cold obsidian, the kind of stare that could pin an insect to a board.
“What curse?”

“Never mind,” Hester dismissed with a wave of her bony hand. “Defeat me in this—then we’ll talk.”

Hester’s thin hand drifted toward the far edge of the field, where a rack of long, gleaming rifles stood like sentinels beside a clockwork contraption waiting to hurl clay pigeons into the air.
“Clay pigeon shooting,” she said, her voice curling with casual menace. “First set: three rounds, full sight. Second set: three rounds… completely blindfolded. If you win, I’ll donate.”

A flicker—too brief to be called a smile—touched Wednesday’s lips, the faint gleam of someone who never turned down a challenge that bordered on the absurd.
“You’re on.”

The first round was precise, mechanical. Both women lifted their rifles with predator-like focus, shattering clay disks in mid-air with surgical efficiency. Neither spoke; the only sound was the crack of gunfire and the whistle of fragments falling to the grass.

The second round was another story.

A strip of black silk was tied over Wednesday’s eyes, plunging her into darkness. She could hear the faint smirk in Hester’s voice as she fired the first shot, hitting her target cleanly.

Wednesday stood motionless, listening. The wind. The faint creak of the trap’s lever. The angle of the release. She lifted her rifle and fired without hesitation— shatter .

Hester’s second shot hit. So did Wednesday’s.

The final target was launched high, veering slightly on the wind. Hester fired— miss .

Wednesday didn’t move at first. Then, with the unhurried certainty of someone who knew the outcome before it began, she raised the rifle, tracking the sound alone. One clean pull of the trigger— shatter .

The blindfold came off to reveal Hester’s expression: equal parts disbelief and reluctant pride.

“I see you’ve inherited the family aim,” she said slowly. “Very well, the donation will be made.”

Wednesday set the rifle down with measured grace, a faint glint in her eyes.
“I never lose.”

Chapter Text

I hadn’t even noticed how much time had bled away. Conversations with Grandmama had that effect—like sinking slowly into a comfortable coffin. Stifling, inevitable, and yet oddly familiar.

“You know, my dear granddaughter,” Grandmama drawled, her fingers drumming idly against a porcelain cup that reeked of wormwood and something far more unmentionable,

“we don’t solve anything in this family with words. We solve with deeds. Messy ones. Bloody ones.”

Her words were not a revelation. They were a reminder, written in the marrow of every Addams, etched like epitaphs onto our bones. Violence and devotion had always been our inheritance.

“I’ve mentioned the curse, haven’t I?” she continued, her tone sly, like a match struck too close to the wick.

“Yes,” I replied, flat, clipped, unwilling to indulge the theatrics. Still, my pulse betrayed me with the faintest hitch.

Her smile widened, a flash of teeth sharpened by decades of secrets. “You may not notice it, child, but you’re becoming rather… devoted to that little roommate of yours.”

The word hit like a crowbar against a coffin lid. Devoted. Too warm, too vulgar. Yet I did not dismiss it outright.

“As much as I despise the admission,” I began, each syllable cold as granite, 

“Enid has proven… tolerable. She insists on surrounding herself with nauseating colors that assault the eyes, deafening herself with shrill, repetitive music—what she proudly insists is ‘K-pop’—and indulging in her wolfish habits without shame or grace. And yet—” I let the pause linger, like a blade above the throat.

“And yet, I find her presence… manageable. Even when she gnaws at my patience like bone.”

Grandmama tilted her head, her cloudy eyes gleaming. “Manageable?” she echoed. 

“Such a weak, flimsy word for the way you describe her.” She leaned closer, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper.

“You don’t speak of a nuisance. You speak of a specimen. Something you’ve studied. Admired. Perhaps even… claimed.”

The air in my lungs grew heavier, but my face remained a mask of obsidian calm. 

“You mistake clinical observation for sentimentality. I have no use for the latter.”

“Mm,” Grandmama hummed, tapping her cup with a cracked fingernail.

“You say that, and yet your tone softens when you speak her name. Even your insults betray a certain fascination. Do you know, child, how our family’s legacy often manifests? In obsessions. In loyalties so fierce they bleed into mania. Some call it love. Others… call it the curse.”

Her words clung like mildew in my skull, unpleasantly persistent. A curse. I loathed the way the thought coiled in my mind, the way it refused to be buried.

I stood, smoothing my coat with deliberate precision, forcing finality into the motion. “If this is a lecture on sentimentality, it is wasted breath. I remain impervious.”

Grandmama chuckled, low and knowing. “Perhaps. But denial has a short half-life in this family.”

I refused to give her the satisfaction of a reply. 

The curse.

The word I would not believe.

The word that, against my will, felt far too close to truth.

Silence is a weapon, and I wield it mercilessly.

While others waste breath on hunches and feelings, I prefer evidence and patterns. The Hyde is no phantom—it bleeds, it hides, it retreats. And every predator needs a den.

The campus sprawls like a corpse with too many hiding places: the dried-out well near the greenhouse, the abandoned tunnels beneath the music wing, the crypts by the north cemetery. Or most promising of all—the drainage caverns beneath the east cliffs, where the river devours all sins.

I was rehearsing these options when the temperature in the room shifted—just enough to make the candle flame hesitate.

“Weems,” I muttered.

The figure manifested with her usual elegance, framed in pale light as though even death had conceded she deserved its finest tailoring. Larissa Weems had never tolerated disorder in life; why should death alter her priorities?

“You’re chasing shadows, Wednesday,” she said smoothly.

“You’ll never corner the Hyde unless you stop treating it like a puzzle and start treating it like prey.”

I didn’t turn. “Prey implies it can be killed. I intend to prove that correct.”

Her smile was faint—approving, perhaps. Or pitying. 

“I wonder if you realize how transparent you are. All this sudden fixation, this reckless determination. The Hyde isn’t the only danger to your heart.”

I stiffened. Spirits, it seems, are more perceptive than the living.

“Don’t be absurd,” I said flatly. “My heart is a vestigial organ. It has no function.”

“And yet,” Weems continued, drifting nearer, “

you guard that wolf-girl as though the sun itself might burn her if you looked away. Some curses are inherited, Wednesday. The Addams curse most of all.”

Her words slithered under my skin like maggots in grave dirt. I refused to answer, but the silence was confession enough.

By nightfall I returned to the academy proper, my “injuries” granting me reprieve from Principal Dort’s ever-watchful eye. He was no Weems—more interested in rules than in students, more brittle than strong. 

In a way, his negligence worked to my advantage. He left me alone, and solitude is my ally.

I set about refining my list of the Hyde’s potential lairs with the precision of an autopsy. The eastern cliffs, with their drainage caverns. The tunnels under the music wing, still lined with rusted pipes. The crumbling crypts near the north cemetery—convenient for disposal, poetic in design.

I traced pathways across my map in black ink, the lines converging like veins around a diseased heart. Angles, timings, routes of escape. Every possibility accounted for, every probability reduced to a percentage.

And yet—no matter how ruthlessly I calculated—the conclusion bled the same.

Enid.

Her face, pale and still, staring at me with the frozen vacancy of death. A streak of blood trailing down her temple, glistening against her golden hair. And worse—worse than any of it—I saw her arms outstretched, strangling me from beyond the grave.

My lungs constricted. Oxygen became an unwelcome guest.

I despised the sensation.

For an Addams, death is a lover’s hand on the shoulder. Familiar. Inevitable. We dine with it, dance with it, allow it to sharpen our every pleasure. But this—this was different. This was the first time death felt like a rival, circling, taunting me with the possibility of claiming someone I had not granted it permission to touch.

My pen snapped in half between my fingers. Ink bled across the page like an open vein. I pressed my palm into it, smearing the blackness over Enid’s name as if I could blot out the vision.

“Pathetic,” I whispered to myself. “You are allowing sentiment to corrupt strategy.”

But even as I scolded, the image replayed—Enid’s body crumpled in the shadows, her ridiculous rainbow sweaters soaked through with scarlet. My chest tightened again, as though invisible hands were wringing it dry.

I shut my eyes. Counted to ten. Imagined her laugh—shrill, irritating, alive.

That, too, I despised.

Because despite my efforts, despite my bloodline, despite every wall I have built—Enid Sinclair has become the one scenario I cannot reduce to ink and angles.

The door creaked.

Enid returned like nothing had teeth in the world. She was smiling—obnoxiously radiant—and holding a packet of black, salty licorice as if it were treasure instead of culinary sin.

 She bit into it and grimaced happily, oblivious to the monstrosities circling our lives.

“Hey, Wens. You look like you’re plotting again.”

Weems’ ghost lingered in the corner, watching. Smirking. As if she knew what I could not say.

I did not answer Enid. I only stared, unblinking, cataloguing every breath she took, every flutter of life in her frame.

Because here is the truth, stitched deep

into my veins:

I will die before I allow the Hyde to take her.

And for the first time in my life, death no longer feels like a companion. It feels like a rival.

Chapter Text

By morning, I expected Enid to return to her usual state of normalcy. By normal, I mean wasting time with her pack, or indulging in the nauseating flirtations of that werewolf jock she seems to find so charming.

Instead, I woke to the disconcerting sight of her sitting on the floor—far too close. Her hand was practically wrapped around mine, and I hadn’t even noticed until consciousness returned.

I jolted upright. She startled like a guilty child caught red-handed, snatching her hand back as though my skin had burned her.

“Uh… hi. I noticed you woke up,” Enid said, scratching the back of her neck. Embarrassment dripped from her voice.

“You noticed? Astounding. I thought the open eyes and voluntary speech would’ve gone undetected,” I mumbled.

The words scraped my throat; my limbs still ached with the kind of pain that made even my eyebrows twitch in irritation. I tried to stand, but my body betrayed me, dragging a grimace from my lips.

Enid, of course, extended her hand in assistance. I brushed it away. I am not fragile porcelain—though judging from her wounded expression, one might think I’d struck her.

“So… where are you going? Do you need help with anything? Do you want me to grab you breakfast?” Her questions rattled off like gunfire, a relentless volley that pounded against my already throbbing skull.

“Enid,” I said, each syllable sharp as a guillotine. “The only thing I want right now is silence. And solitude.”

Her jaw clenched, but she pressed on. “But Wednesday—I need to talk to you. I need you to know you’re not alone. That I’m here.”

“I never asked to feel safe,” I replied. “Least of all by someone else’s hands.”

Her lips parted, trembling. “Do you even care that I was there? That I saw—” She bit down hard, halting herself, but the panic in her eyes betrayed her.

“You don’t get it. You’re not the only one who went through it. I saw that gravestone, Wednesday. My gravestone. And I—” Her voice cracked, her breath spiraling into a frantic edge.

“Enough, Enid!” My tone rose like a blade unsheathed, sharper than intended. Her eyes widened—shocked, hurt.

“I thought…” Her voice splintered. “I thought after everything—in that void—you’d finally let me in. But maybe I was wrong. Maybe seeing my name carved in stone isn’t enough to make you care.”

Her eyes blazed, fury laced with heartbreak, her hands shaking at her sides. She was unraveling before me, and I couldn’t bring myself to stop it.

“Fine,” she said, the word cracking like a bone. “If you want to keep shutting me out, then maybe I should stop trying.”

She turned, tears slipping down her cheeks, and before I could utter a syllable to stop her, she slammed the door. The sound reverberated like a gunshot, tearing straight through me.

I sat motionless, heart pierced, regret soaking through me like poison. I never wanted her to see her own death.

Every plan I’ve made has been to prevent it—and worse, to prevent her from ever enduring it. But she knows. And now she hates me for the silence I swore was meant to protect her.

I sank back onto the bed, curling my knees to my chest. My arms wrapped around them like a noose. The room felt colder, emptier, as though her absence sucked out its final trace of life.

I am out of plans. Out of strength. Out of everything that could change the inevitable. Perhaps this is my curse—to destroy even the one person I would kill for, or die for.

And now, as always… I am alone.

“You’re making the same mistake I did, Miss Addams.”

I froze, spine rigid, chin lifting as though my posture could conceal the tremor in my chest.

Larissa Weems stood just beyond the doors, her presence immaculate as the day she walked these halls, though her form shimmered faintly—stitched together by light and memory. Her expression carried the familiar mix of sternness and sorrow, an authority that lingered even after death.

“Weems.” My tone was flat, though something unbidden coiled in my throat. “I expected you to fulfill the role of silent spirit guide, not intrude with unsolicited morning sermons.”

Her brow arched—precisely as it had when silencing entire assemblies in life. “I would call it divine punishment, but I suspect you’d savor that as a compliment.”

I narrowed my eyes. “If your purpose is to lecture me on my failings in human communication, I assure you the living have already made that their favorite pastime.”

Weems did not flinch. Her gaze softened only slightly, tempered steel instead of fire. “I am not here to scold, Wednesday. I am here to remind you. Secrets may be the currency of this school, but hoarded too long, they rot. And the rot spreads. The harder you clutch them, the faster they poison those you think you’re protecting.”

Her words struck with surgical precision. My mind conjured the image I had tried to banish—Enid’s face, wet with tears, jaw trembling as though I had carved the wound myself.

“Enid is stronger than you allow her to be,” Weems pressed, her figure shifting closer, the pale glow around her like winter moonlight.

“You mistake silence for protection, but silence is a coffin lid. I know too well where that road ends. Do not let your woe become her epitaph.”

My lips parted, but the words I had held back for hours now felt heavier than stone. “…If I tell her the truth, that the void she stumbled into was the same vision I saw—my vision of her death—she will break beneath it. And if I don’t, she walks toward it blind.”

Weems inclined her head, regal as ever, though her eyes bore the weight of her own mistakes. “Then perhaps the path lies not in silence… but in trust. To share the burden is not to weaken her. It is to arm her.”

The silence stretched. The air seemed colder, biting at the edges of my resolve.

Her voice dipped lower, a blade sliding between armor plates. “You wished her distance, and now you have it. Tell me, child of woe—does the isolation taste as sweet as you imagined?”

My throat constricted. I looked away, staring at the shadows creeping along the wall. The weight of regret pressed harder than any wound.

I did not answer. For once, words failed me.

Weems lingered, her outline flickering faintly, as though time itself tugged at her edges.

“The curse you carry does not end in silence, Wednesday,” she said softly, though her voice left no room for dismissal. “Nor in denial. It ends in what you fear most—vulnerability.”

And then she was gone, dissolving into air too still, too heavy.

My chest aching in a way far more dangerous than any blade. For the first time in years, I could not tell if my woe was the weapon I wielded… or the shroud tightening around me.

That afternoon, I sat in the central park of the academy with a book spread across my lap. The words on the page blurred into nonsense; it was only a screen for the scheming I scratched onto loose paper tucked beneath. Escape routes, contingency plans, ways to keep Enid safe. 

Across the lawn, I caught sight of her—Enid. Her laugh carried on the air, high and bright, but it rang false to my ears. Even from a distance, I saw the faint redness in her eyes, the trace of tears she thought no one had noticed.

“Did I miss a chapter, or has Miss Addams actually become more visible with her feelings since her return?”

Agnes stood across from me, uninvited as always.

“Just so you know,” I replied, my voice sharpened with venom, “I could easily stab you in under three seconds. The only reason I haven’t is because the act would lack thrill.”

Her smirk faltered, but she pressed on. “Right. So… Los Spooky Noches is coming. I’ve been scouting, and I found the blueprints. Entrances, exits. It’s possible that the Hyde will be there.”

That tugged at my attention. “You’re still useful. We’ll discuss it after classes.”

She vanished on the spot, leaving me alone with the hollow echo of Enid’s laughter.

By late afternoon, classes dismissed, I returned to the dorm. Enid’s side was empty—again. I sat at my desk, spreading the blueprint across the surface, marking potential weak points. My pen hovered over the page when the air shifted.

Weems appeared, as pristine in death as she had been in life, her hair coiled flawlessly, her gloved hands laced before her. The pale glow surrounding her made her even harder to ignore.

“Still avoiding her?” she asked.

I didn’t look up. “Perhaps distance is necessary. It allows me time to think. To make her safe.”

Her eyes narrowed, sharp as ever. “And if something happens to her while you grant yourself this luxury of space?”

“Thing’s protections in place.” My tone was flat.

Weems tilted her head. “Would that be enough?” Her voice carried the kind of bite meant to linger, and it succeeded. Before I could reply, she dissolved into light.

The door slammed open.

Enid stood in the doorway, her posture stiff, her expression thunderous. She entered without a word, moving straight to her dresser.

I turned in my chair, watching her shoulders, her hands, the determined way she refused to even glance in my direction. She stripped off her uniform jacket with jerky movements and pulled on casual clothes as if my presence were a void.

It felt… unfamiliar. Wrong. As though spiders crawled beneath my skin, their legs tracing up my spine and into my cheeks. I hated it.

Thing tapped insistently on the desk, gesturing toward Enid’s bag—packed for Jericho. Her pack was waiting. And Bruno, that jock of a werewolf, would no doubt be at her side.

My hands clenched before I realized it. I signaled Thing silently

follow her. Keep her safe.

Enid slung her bag over her shoulder, already at the door. Panic—or something sickeningly close—spilled before I could stop it.

“Don’t make Principal Dort question if you come home late,” I said. The excuse was pitiful, flimsy, but it was all I could summon.

Enid froze, then turned just enough for her eyes to catch mine. They were glistening, sharp with fury.

“Why does he care?” she demanded. “More importantly—why do you?”

Her words sliced through me like polished steel. Before I could answer, she slammed the door so hard the floor vibrated.

The silence she left behind was deafening. A twinge twisted in my chest—foreign, unbearable. Perhaps this was punishment, I thought grimly. Perhaps this was my curse.

“Since when were you here?” I asked without turning. Agnes lingered in the corner, clearly having witnessed the entire exchange.

“Since right before your lovely wolf slammed the door. I was debating if I’d be sliced in half for watching.”

“Tempting.” My voice was ice. “Give me a reason not to kill you where you stand.”

Her grin was crooked but nervous. “Because… I actually have a plan to keep her safe. If that interests you.”

I finally lifted my eyes, cold and unwavering. “Then let me hear it.”

I hadn’t noticed the time slip away. The clock tolled past ten, and still Enid had not returned.

 No faint trace of her perfume lingering down the hall. No grating pop songs humming under her breath. No voice that—

I cut the thought off like a severed thread. What am I saying? Affection is a disease, and I was raised to build immunity. Yet the absence gnawed at me, hollowing out every corner of the room.

Agnes was still talking, her words tumbling over one another, some half-formed plan to shadow the Los Spooky Noches event. My patience with her babble was wearing thin. But before I could silence her—

The door flew open with such force the hinges rattled.

Thing scrambled, his fingers skittering frantic patterns across the desk before launching himself onto the floor. His usual dramatics never shook me, but this time his movements were jagged—desperate. Erratic pounding, fists thudding into my books and papers like a heartbeat gone feral.

Agnes and I both froze.

“Thing,” I commanded, my voice a blade against the chaos. “Slow down.”

He stilled just enough, signing with trembling precision.

Enid. Danger.

The words cut through me sharper than any knife. My stomach coiled as though spiders spun webs against my ribs, constricting. My throat tightened.

I rose from my chair, the shadows shifting with me.

Enid is in danger.

Of course she is. She always will be. Because the universe, in its wretched humor, has cursed me with something fragile to protect. And if she falls, it will not just be her grave. It will be mine too.

Chapter Text

Now it was actually stressful. Like, actually. My brain wouldn’t shut up, and my chest wouldn’t unclench, and here I was out in Jericho with my pack, pretending. Pretending everything was normal. Pretending I cared about what color dress matched who, pretending I hadn’t fought with Wednesday again like it was just another Tuesday spat.

I didn’t expect it, not after the void thing. That… that should’ve changed something, right? I mean, it wasn’t small. It wasn’t just some random creepy Addams-family incident. It was huge. I saw myself dying. Over and over. And if I saw it, then she saw it too—she always does. And what then? Did she just lock it up in that little coffin of a heart she has and toss away the key like it was nothing? Or did it actually hurt her? Did it break her somewhere deep down where she’ll never admit it? Because it broke me. It shattered me in ways I didn’t even know I could be shattered.

And, yeah, I can’t deny it: it was heavy. Too heavy. Like I couldn’t breathe if I thought about it too long. And what’s worse, I don’t even know if it was real. Was it a prediction? Some twisted nightmare? Was it the truth? Or was it just the universe playing one of its sick games with me? I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore.

But I do know this: she apologized. To me. To me. Not some vague, clinical “sorry” she’d throw out like a bandaid, not some puzzle I had to untangle later. It was raw, and it was hers, and it was mine. I felt it. For the first time, I thought, maybe she’s letting me in. Maybe the walls are finally cracking.

And then, just like that—slam. Gone. She shut down again. Cold. Blank. Acting like none of it mattered. Like I didn’t matter. Like all that vulnerability was a trick of the light, and I was stupid for believing in it.

God, it frustrated me so much. It burned me from the inside out. So I yelled. I slammed the door. Because I wanted her to feel it. I wanted her to see that I wasn’t just sunshine and rainbows and “oh my god, cute shoes.” I was cracked, and I was angry, and I was hurting, and it was all because of her.

And maybe it was my imagination, maybe I was just desperate, but for one split second—just a heartbeat—I swear I saw something in her eyes. A tinge of emotion. A flicker of something real.

But then… gone. Like it was never there. Like I dreamed it. Like I was invisible all over again.

Now I’m here. Window shopping with the pack for the upcoming gala. Normal stuff. Supposed-to-be-fun stuff. And I’m trying. I am trying. I plastered a smile at every question, nodded at every dress, twirled when they asked me to twirl. I even agreed when they squealed things like “this suits you!” or “oh my god, the color is so you!”

But nothing stuck. None of it mattered. Every silk sleeve, every glittering gown just dragged me straight back to her. To Wednesday. To that black dress she wore at the last prom. The way it clung to her like midnight was alive and had chosen her body to live in. The way her shadow seemed to stretch and curl around the room like it owned the place. Like it owned me.

And suddenly nothing I touched here mattered. No sequins. No lace. Just… her. Always her.

I was spiraling, my brain screaming in loops I couldn’t escape, when a voice cut through:

“Hey, Enid, we can match each other’s color theme!”

Bruno. Too loud. Too eager.

“Oh. Uh, no. I guess I’m fine with another color,” I said quickly, polite smile locked on my face like a mask.

But he didn’t stop.

“C’mon! We could be prom king and queen!” he pushed, laughing like it was the best idea ever.

Prom king and queen. My stomach twisted. That title didn’t belong to me. Not with him. Not with anyone except—
No. Don’t go there. Don’t think her name.

“It’s okay, Bruno. I’d rather be a commoner at the gala.” I tried to joke, tried to keep it light, tried to swallow the storm in my chest.

And then—he touched my shoulder. Firm. Too firm.

“Hey, you should try it! This one fits you! And I’ll try this!”

The grip wasn’t playful anymore. It was claiming. My chest growled before my mouth could even form the word. Something inside me snapped.

“Enough, Bruno!”

It wasn’t just my voice. It was something deeper, older, more dangerous. My claws slid out before I even realized it, sharp and trembling, catching the overhead lights. My wolf was already there, snarling behind my ribs, furious. Mine, she howled inside me. Not his. Never his.

The pack froze. Their laughter died instantly, like someone had cut the string on it. Wide eyes, stiff backs. They looked at me the way people look at wild dogs—like they’re calculating how fast they could run before I lunged.

And then I saw it.

My reflection in the mirror beside me.

Not me. Not the sunshine girl they adored, not the sweet, bubbly Enid who made them friendship bracelets and baked cookies. No. What stared back was a monster. Wild-eyed. Snarling. My fangs peeking through my lips. My claws gleaming with hunger.

Someone I couldn’t control.

The horror swallowed me whole. My breath stuttered, panic drowning me faster than I could swim. My claws retracted, shaking, but the damage was done.

I stumbled back. Shoved past racks of sequins and silk, past their silence, past Bruno’s slack jaw. My chest felt like it was caving in, and all I could hear was my name echoing behind me, fading under the pounding in my ears.

“Enid! Enid, wait—!”

But I didn’t wait. I ran.

Through Jericho’s streets, my vision blurring. Past the bakery, past the bookstore, past the kids staring at me like I’d sprouted horns. My legs didn’t stop, couldn’t stop. Because if I stopped—if I slowed down—I’d hear it. I’d hear her voice in my head again, cold and sharp: you’re losing control.

And the worst part? She’d be right.

And then, at the plaza, I stopped.

Lanterns swayed overhead, strings of papel picado fluttered like paper ghosts, and people bustled with laughter as they pinned up decorations. The air buzzed with life—Los Pooky Noches was coming, Jericho’s version of joy stitched with tradition.

And all it did was remind me of her again.

Why do I keep thinking about Wednesday?!

I crouched by the crosswalk, wrapping my arms around my knees, trying to breathe like Bianca taught me—slow, in, out—but it didn’t work. My head was a swarm. I should be thinking about anything else. K-pop comebacks. The pack’s dumb inside jokes. Even Bruno and his suffocating ego—ugh, no, definitely not Bruno.

But everything circled back. Always back. To her.

Her name on my tongue, like a curse. Her face, sharp and pale, staring right through me. That blank stare that looked like it hid… something. Something I wanted to dig out of her like treasure.

Woe. That was the word. The exact word. She was my woe, and I couldn’t untangle myself from it no matter how hard I clawed.

“Enid?”

My head jerked up. A voice, soft, familiar. A silhouette blotting out the lights.

Miss Capri. Leopard-print dress flowing, curls bouncing lightly as she leaned down toward me.

“Professor Capri?” My voice cracked, raw from holding in too much.

“Are you okay?” she asked, her tone careful, calm, like she didn’t want to scare me further.

“I don’t know,” I admitted, because I didn’t. My chest was a jumble of confusion, frustration, and that thing I didn’t want to name. That thing that sounded like love and ache and disaster.

She tilted her head, eyes narrowing kindly. “Do you want to accompany me somewhere?”

It should’ve been easy to say no. To go back to the pack, who were probably still buzzing about gowns. Or to Thing, who was likely parading in sequined cut-outs just to annoy me. But I couldn’t. The thought of returning to them, of facing their eyes after what happened with Bruno, made my stomach twist.

So I nodded. Weakness, maybe. Or just escape. “Uh… I guess?”

Now we’re sitting in a little café tucked into Jericho’s side street, a warm glow spilling from the old lamps. The hum of chatter blurs into the clinking of cups. And for a while, it’s… nice. Strangely nice.

Professor Capri talks about music—not just the heavy classical pieces she teaches, but pop, soul, even the chaos of EDM. She tells stories about her wolf, about ridiculous pack adventures, about moments that made her laugh so hard she almost shifted in public.

And I laugh too. Really laugh, more than I thought I had left in me tonight. For a moment, the tightness in my chest loosens.

For a moment, I forget Wednesday.

Or maybe I only think I do.

Because then the edges of the room blur. My head tilts, heavy, like gravity doubled. My vision swims. The laughter in the café warps, stretching like sound underwater.

And through the haze, Capri’s voice cuts in. Smooth. Low. Too clear.

“You are maybe my answer to my request.”

Her words curl in my ears like a spell. Like a snare.

And then everything goes black.

Chapter Text

Enid’s eyes fluttered open to the sharp sting of metal biting into her wrists. The air was damp, heavy with the faint buzz of electricity. As her vision adjusted, dread coiled in her stomach. She wasn’t in her dorm, or anywhere remotely safe. She was strapped into a chair—no, chained into it. Thick iron cuffs held her arms and ankles in place, and the chair itself was bolted to the floor with cruel precision.

Her pulse quickened as her gaze swept the room. The chair’s frame gleamed unnaturally, wires snaking out from beneath it like veins. A control panel loomed in front of her, blinking with tiny red lights. She didn’t need to test it twice to know—this wasn’t just any chair. It was an execution chair, retrofitted with something far more sadistic.

She swallowed hard. She hated this. Hated how she always ended up here, bound and cornered, waiting for someone—usually Wednesday—to cut her loose. The thought burned inside her. She was supposed to be stronger than this.

The silence pressed in on her, broken only by the faint hum of electricity coursing through the walls. Minutes crawled by, each second heavier than the last. And then came the sound—soft, deliberate. A fluttering.

Her breath hitched as shadows shifted above. Ravens. One by one, they perched on the beams and broken rafters overhead, their black eyes glinting like tiny shards of obsidian. More came. Then more. Within moments, a murder of them encircled her, lining the room like sentinels. Their wings rustled in unison, their stares fixed solely on her.

Enid’s chest tightened. She wasn’t afraid of birds—but this wasn’t normal. This was a warning. A prelude. And she didn’t like it. Not one bit.

Wednesday strode across the stone courtyard, her expression as unreadable as ever—until a familiar, unwelcome figure crossed her path. Bruno. Loud, brash, perpetually irritating. The kind of jock who triggered her imagination to immediately calculate which weapon in her arsenal would silence him most efficiently: nail gun, throwing knives, or perhaps something more… experimental.

Before he could step further, Wednesday moved. Silent. Precise. She blocked his path, the gleam of her hidden blade pressed firmly against the artery of his neck. Her small stature made no difference—her calculation was flawless.

“Tell me something useful,” she said, voice as sharp as the knife itself. “Something that interests me. Specifically, the whereabouts of my rainbow roommate.”

Bruno froze, his throat bobbing against the blade’s edge. His voice cracked.
“What the hell is wrong with you?!”

Wednesday tilted her head, her eyes narrowing with disdain. “What’s wrong,” she corrected, “is your hideous lapse in judgment. You let Enid wander alone. At night. During this time.” The venom in her tone was enough to cut deeper than steel.

“She—she shouted at me!” Bruno stammered, frantic. “Like a monster! I didn’t—”

The knife pressed harder, a bead of crimson welling where steel kissed skin. Bruno choked on his words.

“One more nonsensical syllable,” Wednesday warned, her tone dropping to a chilling calm, “and you’ll never speak again. I assure you, I can arrange it within the minute.”

Bruno’s bravado shattered. Panic overtook him. “I don’t know! The last I saw her—she was in Jericho. At the café. With Professor Capri.”

Wednesday’s eyes flickered, calculating. Then, with deliberate control, she withdrew the knife.

“Listen carefully, Bruno,” she said, her voice even more dangerous in its softness. “I care nothing for rules. Expulsion would be a mercy compared to what I can do to you. If I hear another careless word about Enid escape your lips, you will spend your nights wondering whether I’m standing over you, blade in hand.”

Bruno stumbled back, clutching at his neck, the tiny streak of blood proof enough of her promise. He turned and bolted, all pretense of masculinity dissolving as he fled like a terrified pup.

Wednesday slid the knife back into its sheath. Her face remained stoic, but her mind was already racing—Professor Capri. The café. And Enid.

“Thing—” Wednesday began, but her words were cut short when a figure materialized before her.

Agnes.

Her smile stretched unnaturally wide, her eyes glinting with manic delight as if the shadows themselves had birthed her.

“What a delight,” Agnes purred, her voice a mixture of mockery and malice. “To witness such a crime.”

Wednesday’s grip tightened on her knife, though her face betrayed no emotion.

“I might have an idea where your rainbow wolf is hiding,” Agnes teased, her words dripping like poison.

“I don’t have the luxury of entertaining your nonsense,” Wednesday snapped, her tone colder than iron.

Agnes’s grin widened. “Oh, but you’ll want to hear this. Perhaps… a place where I attempted my first crime. A place you so cleverly unraveled. History does love to repeat itself.” She clasped her hands together, savoring the tension.

Before Wednesday could retort, the air shifted. A familiar presence.

Weems.

She appeared like smoke catching form, her spectral outline towering, regal even in death.

“Wednesday,” Weems’s voice carried both authority and urgency. “You know where to go. Make this right. Enid may already be beyond your reach—her voice silenced before you ever hear it again.”

The words pierced Wednesday’s composure more than Agnes’s mockery ever could. Her brows furrowed—just slightly—but enough to betray the faintest flicker of unease.

“You don’t have to involve yourself in this,” Wednesday muttered, turning just enough to face her spectral guide. Her hand flexed around her blade as she circled Agnes, keeping the predator in her line of sight.

“Who are you talking to?” Agnes asked suddenly, her grin faltering with curiosity. She glanced over her shoulder—only to see Weems dissolving back into smoke, vanishing as if she’d never been there.

Wednesday’s gaze sharpened. “No one,” she said flatly. Her knife lowered a fraction, not in surrender, but in decision. “But I may have a use for you.”

Agnes’s grin returned, feral and eager. “Then let me be of service… for your rainbow roommate.”

Wednesday’s eyes darkened. For once, she did not reject the alliance. She simply calculated.

Enid was still strapped to the chair, her wrists raw from trying to claw through the chains. She didn’t know if minutes or hours had passed—only the suffocating weight of being trapped, alone, and the gnawing thought that maybe no one even cared she was missing.

The silence broke with the sharp click of boots against the wooden floor. Enid turned her head, dread knotting in her chest.

Professor Capri stepped into view. Her leopard-print dress shimmered under the lantern light, but her arms were encased in long black latex gloves that gleamed like tar. Beside her stood a cloaked figure, faceless, unnervingly still. They both paused at the glowing control panel.

“Good evening, Miss Sinclair,” Capri purred, voice smooth as poison.

Enid’s heart twisted. “Why?” she whispered, the hurt raw in her voice. Just hours ago, they had been talking about music, about shared hobbies. Now—this.

Capri’s lips curled. “Wednesday Addams fascinates me. Yet she keeps refusing my invitation. Perhaps this”—she gestured at Enid—“will make her… more inclined to perform in my orchestra.”

Enid’s chest rose with fury. “Just because she said no? You did this? What kind of psycho are you?”

Capri’s laugh was soft, unbothered. “Not entirely my plan, my dear. My acquaintance here—” she nodded at the cloaked figure “—was most eager to meet Wednesday again. At Willowhill, our interests aligned.”

The stranger removed their hood.

Enid blinked. “And who the heck are you—and what happened to your face?”

Ms. Spannagel smiled thinly, her skin scarred, her expression twisted with bitterness. “You should ask your lovely roommate. She’s the reason my patients escaped. The reason for my ruin.”

Enid’s claws dug into the armrests. “So you’re the avian—the one stressing her out.”

Spannagel’s grin sharpened. “Stressed? Oh, I’ll give her more to worry about.”

She pressed a button on the panel.

A searing current ripped through the chair, jolting Enid’s entire body. She gasped, a strangled cry tearing out of her throat.

“What the—ack—!” Another surge. Enid arched against the chains, her scream echoing through the tower.

Professor Capri sat at the nearby piano, unfazed, her gloved fingers dancing across the keys. A haunting melody filled the air—Giorni Dispari by Ludovico Einaudi—but it was warped, sinister against Enid’s cries. Ravens descended, pecking at her arms until her skin tore.

Her scream became anguish incarnate, weaving with the music like a duet of torment.

Neither Capri nor Spannagel noticed the silent intruder creeping closer.

It ended abruptly—the piano’s fallboard slammed shut with a violent crack, crushing Capri’s hand. She screamed. A hand yanked her back by the hair.

Thing.

At the same time, Spannagel shrieked as a spark burst from the control panel, electrocuting her instead. Ravens flew wild and uncontrolled.

Agnes materialized out of nowhere, immediately clawing at Enid’s chains, trying to free her.

Then the room split with the crash of an axe.

Wednesday Addams stood in the chaos, her blade buried into the control panel. Sparks exploded, blowing everyone back in a storm of light and shadow.

When the smoke cleared, Wednesday was the first to rise. Cold. Unshaken. She ordered Thing with a single gesture—end Spannagel.

Capri was gone. Escaped like smoke through cracks in the walls.

Wednesday knelt before Enid, her eyes tracing the ravaged skin where the ravens had torn into her. She pressed her hands against the wounds—ice cold, merciless, but meant to save. Enid flinched, but didn’t pull away.

The control panel still hissed with dying sparks, the floor scattered with broken wings and blood. Wednesday rose, boots crushing feathers, and with one brutal swing of her axe, split the chains until they clattered uselessly to the ground.

Enid collapsed forward, straight into her.

Wednesday caught her, arms tightening as though she’d been waiting for this exact moment her entire life. Enid’s breath trembled against her neck, her tears soaking into the black fabric.

Wednesday’s hands lifted—hesitant, uncharacteristically so—before cupping Enid’s face. Blood, tears, grime… she touched it all, as if memorizing every imperfection. Her own breath stilled, a tremor slipping past the armor she’d built so carefully.

For the first time, Wednesday Addams faltered. The abyss inside her—once quiet, once hers alone—roared with clarity.

This was not weakness. It was not sentiment. It was inevitability.

An affliction she could neither dissect nor cure. A torment stitched into her marrow.

Woe is Enid.

Her woe.

Her undoing.

Her inevitable eternity.

And Wednesday Addams, against her every instinct, accepted the horror of it—

that to exist without Enid would be a fate far crueler than death.

Enid was her poison, and Wednesday would drink her forever.

Chapter Text

It had already spread across the academy like wildfire: Professor Capri’s obsession with forcing Wednesday into her orchestra, the grotesque concert gone awry, and how three students—Wednesday, Pugsley, and Agnes—had dismantled both Spannagel and the deranged professor without leaving a trace behind.

Principal Dort, much to his dismay, found the scandal threatening to overshadow his precious gala preparations. News traveled quickly, and reputations, quicker. Desperate to keep the academy’s image pristine, he employed the sirens to smooth things over—an enchantment to coax forgetfulness into the students’ minds. The chaos would be erased, the gala untainted. Perhaps, for once, Dort wasn’t entirely heartless. He granted Wednesday and Enid uninterrupted rest.

In their dormitory, the silence was heavy. Enid lay motionless on her bed, her breaths shallow but steady. Wednesday sat sentinel at her bedside, dark eyes fixed on the subtle rise and fall of her roommate’s chest. Hours bled together, but she paid them no mind. Time, to Wednesday Addams, was insignificant compared to the preservation of life she wasn’t prepared to lose. Thing scuttled dutifully back and forth, checking Enid’s pulse at her command.

Wednesday’s expression betrayed nothing. But her stillness was a mask, thinly veiling the storm inside her.

Then—a flicker. Enid’s fingers twitched. Her lips parted with a soft groan, breaking Wednesday’s iron composure. Her eyes widened in the faintest glimmer of relief before she quickly swallowed it back into her usual stoicism.

“Don’t move,” Wednesday muttered, her voice low but urgent. “Let your body heal.”

Whether Enid truly heard her or merely sensed her presence, it didn’t matter. She stirred anyway, defying Wednesday’s command with stubborn grace.

Wednesday instinctively rose, almost reaching to steady her—but froze. Touching Enid felt dangerous, not for Enid’s body but for Wednesday’s own restraint. She drew back, her hands curling into fists at her sides. Instead, she signaled Thing, who hurried forward and braced Enid with surprising gentleness.

“You’re here,” Enid rasped, her voice raw but laced with something un shakably warm. Her gaze found Wednesday, soft despite exhaustion.

Wednesday did not look away. “Yes. I’m here.”

Enid searched her expression, the smallest smile tugging at her lips despite the pain. “What happened to them?”

Wednesday’s eyes darkened, that familiar gleam of morbidity flashing behind her stoicism. “You already know the answer, Enid. Creatures like them rarely survive long enough to repent.”

Enid frowned faintly, then sighed. “Uh-huh. Classic Wednesday. But… I’m still mad at you.” Her tone was weak, but firm enough to make Wednesday blink. “And it won’t just fade away. Not unless you talk to me. Right now.”

The dormitory went still again, the tension thick enough to suffocate. Wednesday’s lips pressed into a thin line. Conversation was never her chosen battlefield—but with Enid, silence was a weapon that cut both ways.

Enid propped herself weakly against the pillows, Thing steadying her at the elbow. Her breathing was shallow, but her determination was anything but fragile. Her eyes locked on Wednesday, who sat rigid, pale fingers folded in her lap like a statue carved from granite.

“You can’t just sit there and stare at me forever,” Enid said softly, then with more insistence, 

“Wednesday, talk to me.”

Wednesday didn’t flinch. She kept her gaze level, unblinking, her silence louder than any protest.

“I saw it again,” Enid continued, her voice trembling as though pulling the words from a place she wasn’t ready to return to. “The void. The dream. It’s always the same—I see myself dying. And you’re there, Wednesday. You’re always there.”

A flicker, almost imperceptible, passed through Wednesday’s eyes. But her lips remained sealed.

Enid swallowed, forcing her words out. “And it feels real. Like I’m already half-gone. Like fate’s just… dragging me under. But I know you know something. I can see it in your face. You’re keeping it all locked up, like you always do. And I can’t—” Her voice cracked, rising sharper, desperate. “I can’t keep fighting this if you won’t even talk to me!”

That did it.

Wednesday stood so abruptly her chair scraped across the floorboards with a screech. Her hands moved—quick, jagged gestures that betrayed her composure. For the first time, the mask shattered.

“You think I haven’t tried?” Wednesday’s voice tore through the dormitory’s silence like a blade, sharper than she intended. “Every calculation, every path I’ve drawn, every plan I’ve dissected—it all ends the same. With you lying still. Cold. Lifeless.”

Her breath faltered, her shoulders rising and falling with an unsteady rhythm, as though she had been running a race she could never win. Her fingers twitched at her sides, curling and uncurling as if they couldn’t decide whether to clench or reach for something that wasn’t there.

“I see it every night,” she went on, the edge of her tone fraying in places she couldn’t stitch back together. “Your death—again and again—etched into my mind like a prophecy carved in bone. And always… always, I am the reason. My arrogance. My control. My refusal to bend. You pay the price for my existence.”

She turned sharply, pacing two steps, then wheeling back with the violence of a storm contained in human form. Her braids swung with the motion, black ribbons slicing the air. “I thought I could outwit it. Outwit death itself. I thought if I dissected every variable, stripped away every unknown, I could cut fate open and rearrange its insides.”

A humorless laugh fell from her lips, brittle and venomous. “But each move I make brings me back to the same grotesque conclusion: the more I fight to protect you, the faster I deliver you to ruin. And now—”

Her gaze snapped to Enid’s fragile body, her pale skin, her labored breath. The words lodged in her throat, but she forced them out anyway.

“Now look at you.”

For the first time, she went utterly still. Her chest rose and fell like it belonged to someone else, her carefully constructed mask trembling on its foundation.

“This isn’t strategy,” she said at last, voice dropping to a low, raw whisper, as if confessing to the gallows. “It’s helplessness. And it is mine. Had I spoken sooner… had I not buried the truth beneath my own silence and hubris—you wouldn’t be broken before me now.”

Her fists trembled, every nerve in her body revolting at the admission. Wednesday Addams was many things: precise, unflinching, ruthless in her control.

But helpless? Never.

And yet, standing before Enid Sinclair, her anchor and undoing, she was nothing else.

Enid’s breathing was shallow, but her voice steadied. “Wednesday…”

The girl of shadows refused to meet her gaze. Her fists clenched, nails nearly piercing her palms. She turned slightly, as though hiding the fracture in her carefully built walls.

But Enid saw it. She always did.

Slowly, with all the strength her body could muster, Enid lifted her hand from the sheets. Her arm trembled, but she pushed through the weakness until her fingertips brushed against Wednesday’s sleeve.

Wednesday froze.

Her breath caught as though the smallest touch had unraveled her entirely. She should have pulled away—she told herself she should—but she couldn’t. The warmth of Enid’s hand, fragile yet deliberate, burned through the icy skin of her wrist like defiance itself.

“Look at me,” Enid whispered.

Wednesday did. And for once, there was no mask. Only exhaustion. Guilt. A loneliness so raw it bordered on unbearable.

“You’re not the reason I’m here like this,” Enid said firmly, even as her voice wavered. “You’re the reason I’m still here at all. Every time. Even if fate hates us for it.”

Her fingers curled, grasping more firmly at Wednesday’s sleeve, tugging her down—an anchor against the storm.

Wednesday leaned closer, against her will, as if pulled by invisible strings. Her face hovered inches above Enid’s, shadows outlining the sharp edges of her features. Her eyes—those dark, bottomless pools—searched Enid’s expression for cracks, for lies, for anything she could dismantle. But there were none.

Only truth.

And for a flicker of a moment, Wednesday Addams allowed herself to breathe.

Enid’s lips curved into the faintest, most fragile smile. “You don’t have to carry all of it alone.”

Wednesday’s throat tightened, words threatening but refusing to form. She pressed her lips into a hard line, the only shield she had left.

Yet she didn’t move away. Couldn’t.

The silence between them thickened—not empty, but alive.

Enid’s thumb brushed once against the back of Wednesday’s hand, gentle as a heartbeat.

Wednesday shuddered. She hated that she did. She hated more that she needed it.

The storm inside her didn’t vanish. But in that moment, with Enid’s hand grounding hers, she felt something she had thought impossible.

Stillness.

And that terrified her most of all.

The candlelight guttered against the walls, shadows bending around them like watchful sentries. The dormitory sank into silence, holding its breath.

Chapter Text

Jericho’s center plaza had settled into a strange rhythm. Normal—but never truly normal—after that day. Wednesday had not blossomed into some sentimental fool, but she was… altered. Her edges remained sharp, yet there was a new fissure in her armor, a sliver of openness that made her seem almost human. Worse still, she had become suffocatingly protective when it came to Enid.

Enid, for her part, was still dizzy from the whiplash of it. She had braced herself for Wednesday’s cold dismissal, only to find herself instead pulled closer—as though the Addams girl had decided that resistance was a luxury she could no longer afford.

Now the plaza boiled with chaos and color. Students dashed between stalls, hoisting beams, painting signs, and stringing lanterns in preparation for Les Spooky Noches. Principal Dort had allowed the spectacle only when its organizers secured the gala fundraiser attachment. With profit stitched into its shadowy seams, even she could not refuse macabre revelry.

Bianca was everywhere at once, or at least it felt that way. She balanced a clipboard in one hand, barking orders at a pair of freshmen struggling with paper mache skeletons. Every task that no one else dared touch somehow found its way to her. The plaza might have descended into anarchy without her command, but the strain in her eyes betrayed how much weight she carried.

Eugene had claimed a corner with his own obsessive focus. He fussed over his honeybee stall, stringing up decorations that looked like miniature hives. Every few minutes, he would buzz nervously at anyone who came too close, shooing them off as if his winged companions might be offended by poor craftsmanship.

Ajax and Bruno lingered at the edge of the work, more distraction than contribution. Both, however, shared the same flaw: their eyes had a habit of straying toward Enid. Ajax tried for subtlety, though his not-so-hidden gawking left his hammer strikes crooked and uneven. Bruno, on the other hand, didn’t bother disguising it at all.

Enid, for her part, avoided both of them like the plague. Bruno especially grated on her nerves, his self-satisfied aura making her want to growl outright. She busied herself wherever Wednesday was stationed, though she told herself it wasn’t intentional. If she happened to carry supplies across the plaza ten times just to walk past Wednesday, that was purely coincidence.

Thing scuttled busily between them, ferrying nails, tape, or scissors with impeccable timing. Agnes hovered nearby as well, her eerie calmness enough to unsettle passersby. Wednesday claimed Agnes was useful for now, though Enid found herself side-eyeing the girl more than once. Jealousy—it was absurd, really. Agnes barely spoke. And yet, the thought of Wednesday tolerating her company more easily than others stung.

No, what unsettled Enid more was herself. Her wolf—or maybe something deeper—was restless. It prickled at her spine every time Wednesday moved out of sight, tugged her forward whenever the Addams girl drifted too far. Her senses filled with Wednesday’s presence

the faint trace of clove and parchment in her scent, the quiet electricity of her voice.

Enid wasn’t sure if it was instinct, obsession, or something more terrifying. But she knew one thing—Wednesday had to be near

Wednesday, however, found herself condemned to the most tragically mundane role imaginable   .She climbed the ladder in funereal silence, the hem of her black dress brushing the rungs as her fingers fastened a banner to the wooden post. Her dark eyes narrowed with disdain at the task, her every movement an act of contempt.

Height was not her ally, but stubbornness was. She would rather plummet headfirst onto the cobblestones than yield to the indignity of reassignment.

Enid, of course, appeared at her side, as if summoned by the magnetic pull of Wednesday’s gloom.

“You’re gonna break your neck before you finish the first banner,” she said cheerfully, already steadying the ladder with one hand and reaching up with the other. Her packmates had volunteered for stalls elsewhere, but Enid—much to her own delight—had chosen to stay with Wednesday.

“Two birds, one stone,” she whispered under her breath. 

Wednesday, naturally, pretended not to notice, though her jaw tightened each time Bruno so much as glanced their way.

Agnes shuffled over soon after, a strange gleam in her eye and some device clutched tightly in her hands. It looked like a twisted amalgamation of wires and lenses, humming faintly with unnatural life.

“It’s a camera,” Agnes explained before Wednesday could slice her with a glare. “Small. Concealed. Perfect for keeping watch during the event. If the Hyde shows up, we’ll see it before it sees us.”

Wednesday tilted her head, studying the contraption as though weighing whether to hurl it into the nearest cauldron. “If it malfunctions, I’ll take it apart and feed you the remains,” she said flatly.

Agnes only grinned wider, handing it over like an offering. “Trust me. This will help keep Enid safe.”

That was the only reason Wednesday took it.

The plaza had fallen into that strange, restless hour between afternoon and dusk. Shadows stretched long across the cobblestones, and the sun—hidden behind the drape of low clouds—left everything dim and gray. The festival stalls stood half-finished, a patchwork of color and chaos that suited Jericho perfectly. Bianca still moved briskly between tables, her patience worn thin as she barked at two volunteers to restring that banner properly, or I’ll do it myself

For Enid, that mattered far more than anyone else’s wandering eyes.

“Higher,” Wednesday ordered, lifting the last strip of black-and-silver bunting toward the beam.

Enid adjusted her grip. “Just don’t fall. I’m not catching you twice in one day.”

Wednesday shot her a cool look over her shoulder. “Your optimism disgusts me.”

The moment fractured with a shout.

“Wednesday!”

Her brother’s voice cut across the plaza like a war cry. Pugsley came barreling into view, his arms hopelessly tangled in a coil of fairy lights. They sparked violently, crackling as he dragged them across the cobblestones like some unwilling serpent. He was breathless, late, his bag slung crooked from what was clearly a frantic dash from Nevermore after finishing an assignment.

Before anyone could stop him, Pugsley stumbled against the very post Wednesday perched upon. His palm slapped down on the exposed hook—metal to wire, wire to current.

The surge was instant. Blue sparks erupted, leaping up the length of the post and into Wednesday’s arm. Her body stiffened, electricity snapping through her muscles. It wasn’t pain—at least, not the kind she feared—but enough to seize her control, enough to tilt the ladder.

The world lurched. Gravity claimed her.

Enid moved faster than thought.

She caught Wednesday before the cobblestones could. The impact knocked them both down in a tangle of banners and string lights, the air alive with the smell of ozone and burnt wire. Wednesday’s braid spilled over Enid’s shoulder, her cold hand clutching desperately at the sleeve of Enid’s jacket as if tethering herself to the only solid thing left.

The plaza noise dulled. People froze. Even Bianca stopped mid-scold, eyes narrowing in reluctant concern.

But Wednesday only registered Enid.

Enid’s face was flushed, her arms firm around her, her heartbeat a frantic drum against Wednesday’s ribs. Her voice trembled, but her grip didn’t falter. “You okay?”

For a heartbeat, Wednesday couldn’t answer. The sharp tang of smoke clung to her, mingling with the pine-sweet scent that was entirely Enid. Too close. Too vivid. Her mind, usually an iron trap, fractured on sensation.

“This is humiliating,” she whispered finally. Her tone aimed for cold indifference, but her voice betrayed her—uneven, softer than she wanted.

Enid’s lips tugged into a smile, tender, unshaken. “Nah. It’s heroic. I wasn’t gonna let you fall.”

The words cut deep, sharp in a way Wednesday couldn’t deflect. Something in her chest tightened, unbearable. Her instinct screamed to retreat, to push the warmth away—but her body hesitated, betraying her again. Her fingers brushed over Enid’s hand, a fleeting connection that burned more than the electricity had.

Forcing herself upright, she brushed the dust from her skirt. “Next time,” she muttered, her eyes darting briefly to Pugsley, “I’ll drag him down with me.”

Enid huffed a laugh, shaking her head, but didn’t release her grip until she was sure Wednesday’s balance had returned. Even then, her touch lingered.

Around them, the plaza slowly returned to life—Bianca barking orders again, Eugene fussing, all pretending not to stare. But Wednesday didn’t care. Her humiliation should have been all-consuming. Instead, she was still aware—painfully, vividly—of Enid’s arms, Enid’s warmth, Enid’s refusal to let her fall.

And that, she decided, was infinitely more dangerous than electricity.

Chapter Text

Enid’s morning had started with the steady clacking of Wednesday’s typewriter. At first, the sharp rhythm had grated against the edges of her lingering headache, but then—strangely—it became soothing. Almost like a heartbeat that wasn’t hers, but one she could rely on. A tether reminding her she wasn’t alone.

She stayed curled under the blankets longer than she meant to. Her body still ached from their last close call, but that wasn’t what kept her in bed. No, it was the sight of Wednesday, straight-backed in her chair, dark braids falling down her spine as she typed furiously.

Alive. Stubbornly alive.

Enid let herself breathe in the faint scent of ink, old paper, and something sharper—Wednesday herself. She hated to admit it, but it was grounding her more than her own frantic thoughts could.

Because truthfully, she was spiraling. Knowing her death loomed somewhere ahead, carved into prophecy and visions, was too heavy a burden. And yet… Wednesday was doing everything in her cold, calculating way to stop it. Protect her. Save her. Enid hadn’t realized just how much that meant until this moment. Until she caught herself wondering if the weight in her chest was more than just fear—if maybe it was something else, something warmer, more dangerous.

She stared too long. She knew she did. But her eyes refused to look away. They followed the straight line of Wednesday’s shoulders, the sharp precision in the way she sat, every inch of her posture unyielding and composed. Even the delicate bend of her neck seemed purposeful, as though not even gravity dared to weigh her down.

Enid’s gaze slipped lower, tracing the elegant rhythm of Wednesday’s fingers as they danced across the typewriter keys. Each strike rang out like a command—measured, certain, untouchable. The sound should have been harsh, but to Enid it felt like music, each note pounding in sync with her own heartbeat.

It wasn’t fair, how effortless Wednesday looked. How even silence bent around her like she commanded it. Enid wanted to look away, she really did—b ut her body betrayed her. Her chest rose and fell too fast, her lips parted as though caught in awe. And when her eyes finally lifted from the typewriter to Wednesday’s face, something snagged her breath.

It didn’t bother to communicate with her m ind anymore. It just beat faster and faster, like it knew something she couldn’t admit. Like it had already decided what it wanted long before her brain could catch up.

Enid’s pulse hammered harder, thoughts scattering. Sh e suddenly became aware of the scent of old books mixing with the faint, clean fragrance that was just… Wednesday. Her chest tightened almost painfully.

And then—

“What a pathetic use of morning,” Wednesday muttered at last, her voice slicing through the hush like a blade. She still hadn’t turned, eyes locked on her machine. “Gawking at me like a starved rodent. Keep it up, and I might consider gouging your eyes out.”

Enid yelped, bolting upright—too fast. Her sheets tangled around her legs, and with a strangled noise she pitched straight off the bed. She hit the floor with a graceless thud, air whooshing from her lungs.

Her ribs screamed in protest. She curled, groaning, before clawing for the mattress to pull herself up. But already Thing skittered into action at Wednesday’s command, his little fingers surprisingly strong as they pushed and hoisted her with impatient efficiency.

By the time Enid staggered upright, hair a mess, face flushed, she found herself pinned by a pair of eyes.

Wednesday had finally turned. Her typewriter was silent now, her dark gaze fixed squarely on Enid’s. Not cold. Not empty. But sharp—so sharp it felt like it could cut through every flimsy excuse Enid might’ve tried to spin.

For a second, Enid swore she wasn’t standing in their dorm anymore but standing completely exposed, her entire soul laid bare under that gaze.

“I—I wasn’t—uh—I mean—” she stammered, cheeks blazing crimson. “You—you’re imagining things.”

Wednesday’s expression didn’t shift. But her eyes flickered—just once—down Enid’s form, to the way she still clutched her ribs, to the wobble in her stance. She said nothing of it. Just gathered her bag, slipped it over her shoulder, and declared in that flat, unshakable tone:

“Get dressed. We’re leaving. Graves don’t wait, and neither do I.”

The morning was pale and cold, the kind that painted everything in shades of bone-white and shadow. Wednesday led the way down the twisting cemetery paths of Jericho, her boots crunching over damp gravel and brittle leaves. The air clung heavy with mist, curling between headstones like restless spirits.

Enid trailed a step behind, hugging her arms around herself. She tried to shake the chill crawling up her spine, but it wasn’t just the air. It was the unease.

“Do you really think we’ll find it?” she asked, her voice thinner than she meant.

“Yes.” Wednesday’s tone was clipped, certain.

Enid frowned. “You say that like you’ve already been here.”

“I have,” Wednesday replied. Her eyes never left the rows of graves ahead. “In visions. The place repeats itself, over and over. The stones. The gates. It is engraved into my mind whether I desire it or not.”

That did nothing to calm Enid’s racing pulse. She tried to distract herself with the crooked iron fences and the mottled moss clawing up gray stone. Still, every step further into the cemetery sent her heartbeat climbing.

They stopped suddenly. Wednesday’s gaze fixed on a cluster of older graves. Enid followed the line of her sight—and froze.

Her stomach hollowed out, her legs nearly giving way beneath her.

Before she could even cry out, a weight crashed down on her chest—heavy, suffocating, as if unseen hands pressed her into the ground. Her vision warped at the edges. 

And then—

“Morbid déjà vu, isn’t it?”

A voice. Smooth. Amused. Out of place.

Wednesday didn’t flinch. “Weems.”

Enid blinked, panic choking her. “Wha—what? Who?”

But there was no one there. Just graves. Just mist. Just Wednesday standing too still.

Weems, however, stepped neatly into Wednesday’s line of vision, spectral and composed as ever, though faint as a reflection in glass. The Principal’s smile was patient, if a little smug.

“What exactly is the purpose of marching Miss Sinclair past the site of her own untimely demise before breakfast?” Weems mused, head tilting with dry amusement. “Other than indulging your flair for melodrama, of course.”

Wednesday’s lip curled ever so slightly. “You are an apparition. Apprehension and breakfast are not your concern.”

“I beg to differ. I’m your guide now, remember? Guiding includes commentary.” Weems folded her hands primly, then added with maddening emphasis: “And for the record, dragging your werewolf roommate into visions of her death is a very unorthodox courting method.”

Enid staggered, clutching her ribs. “Courting—what? Wednesday, who are you talking to?”

Wednesday didn’t answer her directly. Instead, she fixed Weems with a glare sharp enough to kill—if Weems weren’t already dead.

“You were infinitely more tolerable as a headmistress,” she said flatly.

“And you were infinitely more tolerable before repressing every human emotion you so clearly harbor for her,” Weems countered smoothly, arching a brow.

Enid’s pulse jumped. “Okay, seriously, you’re freaking me out. There’s no one here but us!”

Weems gave a delighted little laugh, almost indulgent. “Oh, how tragic. She can’t even see me. Which means every snide little retort you lob into the mist makes you look… well, unhinged.”

Wednesday’s fists tightened at her sides. “I was unhinged long before you.”

The ground pulsed again, pulling the air tighter, heavier. Enid stumbled closer to Wednesday without realizing it, her hand brushing against her roommate’s sleeve.

And though Weems looked ready to make another insufferable quip, her gaze softened at the sight. “See?” she murmured. “Even when terrified, she gravitates to you. Perhaps the grave isn’t the only inevitability here.”

Wednesday exhaled slowly, steadying her glare into a blade’s edge. “If you do not stop rooting for a romance I do not have, I will find a way to exile even a ghost.”

Enid shivered, confused, frightened, and hopelessly lost. “Wednesday… please tell me what’s happening.”

But before she could answer, the weight collapsed fully. The vision cracked apart, pulling both girls into darkness.

Enid gasped first. A violent, shuddering inhale. Except—it wasn’t her voice. It wasn’t her lungs. The air burned down her throat like it belonged to someone else.

She sat up too fast, clutching at herself—only to freeze. Her hands were pale. Slim. Not hers. Her vision blurred, and then sharpened, and she caught sight of black braids falling across her shoulder.

“No way,” she whispered. Her own voice didn’t answer back—because her own voice wasn’t hers anymore.

She turned—and there she was. Her body. Blonde hair in disarray, her own blue eyes blinking wide with horror—but Wednesday’s flat tone spilling out of her lips.

“What a revolting development,” said Enid’s voice—Wednesday’s voice now.

Enid’s stomach dropped. Her hands shook as she touched her face, her hair, her clothes. She felt the fabric differently, heavier somehow. Her skin didn’t hum with warmth the way it always did. Everything about her body—her body —was wrong.

Her heart thundered, but it wasn’t her heartbeat. She could feel Wednesday in every line of her form—controlled, deliberate, like her very muscles resisted panic. But Enid’s mind was screaming.

“I’m you,” she choked. “Oh my god—I’m literally you—”

“And I am you,” Wednesday’s monotone carried from Enid’s body, but her eyes— her eyes—were sharp, almost fascinated.

Enid’s breath quickened. Tears pricked her vision. “This is—this is insane, this isn’t happening—”

But the truth was there, undeniable. The collapse. And now—body swapped.

Enid’s world had already been spinning out of control. But this? This was shattering.

And across from her, in Enid’s body, Wednesday only tilted her head with clinical interest, as though even this chaos was nothing more than a puzzle to solve.

Chapter Text

“Oh. My. God.”

She said it again, slower this time, like repeating it might somehow undo the nightmare in front of her. The sound—low, sharp, perfectly measured—didn’t even feel like it came from her own throat. That was not her voice. She scrambled upright, nearly toppling over in Wednesday Addams’ body, the sudden weight of dark braids brushing across her cheek like snakes reminding her of exactly whose skin she was trapped in.

Across from her, Enid’s body stirred in the dirt. Wednesday pushed herself up with visible disgust, as if even gravity had betrayed her. Her limbs felt awkward and loose, like marionette strings poorly tied together. She flexed her—no, Enid’s—fingers, watching the bend of joints, the pink nail beds, the faint glitter on the cuticles.

“Repulsive,” she muttered, holding her borrowed hands like they were diseased. “Even my bones feel… soft.”

Meanwhile, Enid had already stumbled toward a cracked headstone, practically tripping over herself with excitement. The reflective plaque caught a faint shimmer of moonlight, turning it into a makeshift mirror. Her new obsidian eyes blinked back at her, huge and unblinking. She tilted her head once, then twice. Then—unable to resist—she raised her brows, pouted, stretched her mouth into a dramatic frown.

“Stop that,” Wednesday snapped, her voice cutting through the night like a blade. “My face was not built for… whimsy.”

But Enid was already gone, lost to her own chaos. She puffed out her cheeks, then sucked them in until her face looked like a skeleton. She tried widening Wednesday’s eyes into cutesy sparkle-mode, which looked instead like she was about to hex someone. And then, as the cherry on top, she leaned in close to the plaque and whispered through Wednesday’s lips—

“Enid Sinclair.”

The name came out silky and razor-sharp, vibrating in Wednesday’s voice, and Enid nearly fainted from how illegal it sounded. Her knees wobbled, and she had to grip the headstone just to keep upright.

And then—just to make it worse—Wednesday’s body, her body, blushed.

Enid froze, staring at the faint rose blooming across pale cheeks. Her jaw dropped. “Oh my god, did you just—”

“No,” Wednesday cut her off immediately, her tone flat and dangerous. “I will end you.”

Enid spun around, grinning like a cat with cream. “With what? You’re stuck in my body. Good luck.”

Wednesday narrowed Enid’s borrowed eyes, fury sharpening every syllable. “I will file down your nails to stubs while you sleep.”

Enid gasped like she’d been shot. “That’s evil!”

“Or perhaps I’ll shave your head. You’d make an excellent cautionary tale about vanity.”

Enid shrieked, clutching at her borrowed braids like Wednesday had already summoned the clippers. “You wouldn’t!”

“Try me.” Wednesday’s expression in Enid’s body twitched between deadpan menace and the unfortunate natural sparkle of Enid’s big eyes. It made her look like an angry golden retriever trying to threaten homicide.

Enid burst out laughing. “This is so unfair. You’re supposed to be the scary one, but right now you look like a kicked puppy in my body!”

Wednesday’s eye twitched harder. “Careful, Sinclair. I may not control my usual arsenal, but I have creativity. I could start small… perhaps coat all of your glitter palettes in arsenic. A slow, poetic end.”

Enid clutched at her chest like the very suggestion physically wounded her. “That’s… that’s literally murder by sparkle! You can’t do that!”

“I can and I will. If you continue defiling my face with such grotesque expressions, I’ll even make it look like an accident.”

But Enid only leaned closer, lowering her borrowed voice to a whisper. “Wednesday Addams threatening murder with my dimples showing is the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Wednesday stiffened, her glare promising endless pain. “Say that again and I’ll replace every bottle of your shampoo with Nair.”

Enid yelped, hugging her head protectively. “Okay, okay! But seriously—you did blush. With my face. Which means technically, you just blushed over me.”

Wednesday’s silence was louder than words, and the twitch in her eye deepened to a tremor.

That night was supposed to be like any other Addams evening—quietly dreadful, touched with shadows, and laced with the faint scent of morbidity. But it was not.

It was, as Enid whispered under her breath with a grin she couldn’t suppress, the least spooky noche ever.

She hovered in front of Wednesday’s wardrobe—black frocks, high collars, stiff lace—and tapped her chin in thought. She was still inhabiting Wednesday’s form, every line of her body sharp, severe, and oddly intimidating even while she stood there humming.

“Sooo… what if I, like, tried something fun?” Enid murmured to her reflection, pulling out a simple black dress. “Add a pop of color, maybe a nice belt, or—wait for it—earrings.”

Behind her, Wednesday’s voice slithered across the room like a threat wrapped in silk.
“You will not desecrate my wardrobe.”

Enid turned, finding Wednesday perched on her bed, scowling in pink flannel pajamas decorated with cartoon cats. The sight alone was almost enough to make her faint.

Wednesday’s glare deepened. “Touch one frill, one stitch of embroidery, and I will find a way to burn your body from the inside out. Slowly. Painfully.”

Enid twirled anyway, the heavy skirts swishing dramatically. She tugged at the collar and struck a pose.
“You know, I don’t hate this. Kinda powerful. Scary-hot, even. I get why people fall for you.”

Wednesday’s jaw flexed. She rose, attempting a lunge that might have been menacing—if her limbs weren’t Enid’s overly long, flexible ones. She tripped, stumbled, and collapsed face-first onto the rug.

Enid squealed, half in amusement, half in horror.
“See? Even you can’t handle me.”

Wednesday peeled herself off the floor, her expression thunderous. “When this ordeal ends, Sinclair, you’ll find your shampoo mysteriously replaced with tar.”

“Rude,” Enid sing-songed, tossing her borrowed braids over her shoulder with exaggerated flair. “But also, you’d never.”

Wednesday’s eyes narrowed. “Try me.”

The night deepened, before either of them could agree on a strategy—or more accurately, before Wednesday could strangle Enid with her own colorful socks—a shimmer rippled across the room.

The air bent, twisted, then cleared. And standing at the foot of the bed, immaculate in her flowing blue suit, was none other than Larissa Weems.

Both girls froze.

“Good evening, girls,” Weems greeted, voice smooth as always. Her pale eyes flicked between the mismatched pair and a knowing smile tugged at her lips. “Ah. I see the universe has taken up comedy in its old age.”

Enid—inside Wednesday’s body—let out a strangled squeak. “Wait—you… you see her too?!”

Her knees gave out instantly. Wednesday’s body crumpled to the floor with a thud distinctly unworthy of the Addams name.

Weems arched a brow. “Dramatic. Even when she’s not herself. Fitting.”

Wednesday, trapped in Enid’s form, sighed heavily and dragged Enid’s limp body onto the mattress with far too much effort. “Explain. Now. Before I dig up a séance circle and chain you here for eternity.”

Weems folded her hands, the picture of patience. “It’s simple, really. You two have swapped souls. A little… cosmic meddling. The kind of cruel trick the fates enjoy. As if the world decided you weren’t insufferable enough apart.”

Enid groaned back to consciousness, blinking blearily. “Did she just say—souls?” She sat up, eyes wide. “Ohmygod. We’re soul-swapped.”

Weems smirked faintly, her gaze cutting to Wednesday. “Though, I must admit, Miss Addams… you wear Miss Sinclair’s form rather well. Softer. Almost… endearing.”

Wednesday’s spine stiffened. “Retract that word before I salt your grave.”

Enid, very much awake now and far too delighted, gasped. “Wait. Did she just call you—cute?”

Weems’ smirk widened. “Precisely. Perhaps fate is nudging you both closer than you realize.”

Wednesday glared with the intensity of a thousand knives, a glare sharp enough to strip paint. But Weems only tilted her head, as if amused by the futility of it.

“Take care, both of you,” Weems said, her voice softening, though her eyes glittered with mischief. “The world is stranger than you think. Don’t waste this woe.”

And just like that, she faded, dissolving into light and shadow until only silence remained.

Enid clutched Wednesday’s borrowed chest, her heart hammering like a drum. “Sooo…” she whispered, wide-eyed. “Does this mean we’re, like… soulmates?”

Wednesday pinched the bridge of Enid’s borrowed nose with visible agony.

“God. Kill me now.”

Chapter Text

That night, Jericho Plaza was dripping in faux cobwebs, twinkling lanterns, and a suspicious amount of cheap glitter. The annual Less Spooky Noche Festival had arrived—a town-wide attempt to make Halloween feel like fun instead of ritualistically cursed. For once, even the Addamses would have found it… cheerful. Which, to Wednesday, meant nauseating.

Unfortunately, she wasn’t in her own body.

Enid—still inhabiting Wednesday’s pale form—was practically glowing with giddy energy. The black lace dress hugged her shoulders like she was born for gothic couture. She twirled, letting the fabric sweep dramatically as she eyed the rows of stalls.

“Sooo…” she sang, clasping Wednesday’s pale hands together. “Since I’m technically you right now, I get to pick what we do first.”

From beside her, Wednesday trapped in Enid’s body, with hair that bounced far too cheerfully for her taste narrowed her bright-blue eyes.

 “We are not wasting precious hours on caramel apples, Enid. Nor on pumpkin-shaped keychains. Or—heaven forbid—face painting.”

Enid gasped, scandalized in her borrowed deadpan voice.

 “Face painting is sacred.” She leaned closer, smirking with a wicked little spark only Enid could manage. 

“C’mon, Wends. Loosen up. You might actually like being… me for a night.”

The words dripped into Wednesday’s ears like poison. She snapped back, flat as a guillotine blade:

“I would rather be embalmed alive.”

Still, when Enid tugged her— her own body —toward a booth selling candied popcorn, Wednesday begrudgingly followed.

Eugene and Pugsley were already lingering near the fortune-telling tent, trading candied apples and pointing at the stalls with the enthusiasm of kids set loose. Bianca stood a little apart, arms folded, eyes narrowing at the approaching pair. Ajax leaned lazily against the tent pole, chewing on popcorn, his gaze bouncing between them with open confusion.

“Something’s… off,” Ajax muttered, squinting.

“Understatement,” Bianca hissed, never looking away. “Since when does Wednesday Addams prance across a plaza holding cotton candy like it’s a newborn child?”

And indeed, Enid—inhabiting Wednesday’s sharp, gothic frame—was beaming, actually beaming , her black-clad hand proudly holding up a bag of neon-pink fluff. She looked like Wednesday Addams had joined a cheer squad against her will and discovered she liked it.

Pugsley frowned. “Is she… okay? Did she eat sugar for the first time ever?”

Eugene pushed his glasses up, whispering, “Or maybe it’s like… body-snatcher stuff. I’ve seen that in at least three horror movies. Bad news, all of them.”

Meanwhile, Wednesday—trapped in Enid’s sunny form—was attempting what she assumed was a proper Sinclair impression. She stretched her lips into something that should have resembled a cheerful smile, but instead looked like someone baring their teeth before a kill. 

Then she tilted her head toward Ajax and forced out, far too loudly:

“Cool… popcorn, dude.”

The group froze. Even the fortune-teller poked her head out of the tent flap.

Ajax blinked. “Uh. Thanks?”

Enid—in Wednesday’s monotone voice whispered—clutched her cotton candy to her chest like a horror-struck parent. “Oh my God. Did you just say talk to Ajax and say dude ?”

Wednesday’s glare, from Enid’s honey-colored eyes, could’ve split atoms.

Bianca raised a brow, lips curling into a knowing smirk. “Yep. Something’s definitely wrong. Either you’ve both lost your minds… or this is going to be way too much fun for me to watch.”

Enid wearing Wednesday’s body like a costume she couldn’t quite control insisted on trying her hand at the ring toss stall. She squared her shoulders, narrowed her borrowed Addams eyes with dramatic intensity, and flicked the first ring. It bounced off the peg. The second flew straight past the target and hit a balloon vendor in the back. The third arced so far off course it landed in someone’s soda cup.

“It’s the arms, not me!” Enid declared, utterly scandalized, her voice dripping with Wednesday’s signature deadpan. “These things are calibrated for murder weapons, not carnival games.”

The carny raised an unimpressed brow. “Sure, kid.”

Meanwhile, across the plaza, Wednesday—inhabiting Enid’s sunshine frame—was testing out the pet adoption stall. A fluffy golden retriever wagged up to her, tail thumping like a drumroll. With calculated suspicion, Wednesday lowered Enid’s hand to pat its head.

The dog immediately sank its teeth into her fingers.

“Typical,” she muttered flatly, shaking it off and inspecting the crescent marks with grim approval. Then she wiped the smear of blood across Enid’s bubblegum-pink cardigan like it was war paint. The volunteer gasped in horror.

“That’s pastel,” Wednesday intoned darkly. “It deserved to suffer.”

Enid, catching sight of her own familiar face sulking, arms crossed and scowling like a storm cloud trapped in daylight, burst into helpless giggles. She clutched the cotton candy tighter, nearly dropping it.

“You’re… kinda cute when you pout like me,” she teased, wiggling Wednesday’s eyebrows exaggeratedly just to drive the point home.

Wednesday—staring out from Enid’s sunny features with pure disdain—snapped, “Stop talking.”

Her attempt at icy severity was ruined by the fact that Enid’s body automatically flushed pink at the edges, the tiniest betraying blush lighting up her borrowed cheeks.

Enid’s grin only widened. “Oh my God… you’re blushing as me.”

“Say one more word,” Wednesday growled, “and I will shave your head in your sleep.”

“Worth it,” Enid chirped, positively glowing.

Just when the absurdity couldn’t grow worse, a shimmer rippled through the festival lights. Blue silk materialized at the edge of the plaza.

Larissa Weems. Elegant as ever, though her form glowed faint and translucent.

Enid froze mid-bite of caramel corn. Her borrowed dark eyes went wide. “Nope. Nope. Absolutely not! This is officially nightmare fuel!”

Weems’s smile curved knowingly. “And yet, Miss Sinclair, here I am again.” She pivoted toward Wednesday—still trapped in Enid’s frame—and added with sly warmth: “ I’m your new… guide remember?. Though clearly, you need more guiding than most.”

Wednesday’s borrowed face darkened. “If you appear again without my consent, I will commission a séance solely to banish you into something undignified. Perhaps a haunted sock drawer.”

Unfazed, Weems’s eyes glinted mischievously. “I must admit, you two are rather… adorable in this state. A matched set of woes, bound by accident.”

Enid nearly choked on caramel corn. “Why does she sound like she’s shipping us right now?!”

“Because I am,” Weems purred, her smirk a blade. “After all, Miss Addams—no one has ever made you laugh but Miss Sinclair. Fate enjoys irony.”

A hot blush burned across Enid’s cheeks—unmistakable against Wednesday’s borrowed pallor. Her scowl only deepened.

“I do not laugh,” Wednesday replied flatly. “What you mistook was a noise resembling amusement. The death rattle of my soul, perhaps. Nothing more.”

Weems chuckled low, silken and amused. “Denial looks rather fetching on you.”

Her figure began to dissolve into smoke, her final words curling in the air:

“Careful, girls. Even borrowed woes can cut deep.”

As the festival dragged on, chaos piled high. Somehow, in the midst of tugging each other away from stalls, dodging awkward questions from their friends, and Enid dramatically twirling in Wednesday’s black lace under the lanterns “I feel so goth and gorgeous right now!” , the inevitable happened.

They became separated.

Enid—still trapped inside Wednesday’s body—was distracted by a glowing crystal booth, drawn to the way the vendor promised to “read destinies in fractured light.” “Oooh, shiny!” she chirped, leaning closer with wide-eyed wonder.

She turned a second later. Wednesday was gone.

The crowd swallowed the dark braid and pale face she had been watching all night. Panic started to curl in her chest. “Wens? …Wens!”

Somewhere behind the tents, shadows pressed thick. A hand clamped over a borrowed mouth.

The scream strangled against leather. Rope dug into her wrists before she could even sink her teeth in. Vision spun—colorful lights collapsing into nothing but choking dark.

When she came to, the air was suffocating—hot, heavy, laced with oil and dust. She was crammed into a trunk, the metal ridges biting into her shoulder blades. Her stomach heaved.

Enid’s body. Wednesday’s soul. Bound together in the worst possible combination.

The trunk creaked. Moonlight carved a cruel line through the dark.

Tyler loomed. His hood cast shadows over his scar, but the hatred in his eyes burned bright.

His lips curled into a venomous smirk. “This time,” he hissed, voice low and jagged, “I’ll be able to kill you, Sinclair.”

Wednesday stared up at him from inside Enid’s body. The ropes cut her wrists raw, but her gaze—Enid’s soft blue gaze filled with Wednesday’s iron fury—did not waver.

Her voice came out wrong, too bright and trembling, but her words were sharp as razors:

“Try it. And you’ll wish you stayed in prison.”

Tyler froze for a beat. Something in her tone—too cold, too measured—didn’t match the girl he thought he’d cornered.

Enid’s body might have looked fragile. But the soul inside was already calculating how best to destroy him.

Chapter Text

The syringe pierced before Wednesday could even twist away. The sting burned through Enid’s borrowed veins, numbing her limbs with humiliating speed. Her head spun, the lanterns of the carnival collapsing into smeared streaks of light. The last thing she saw was Tyler’s smile—too wide, too satisfied.

When she woke, the world had changed.

Her arms were pulled taut, chains digging into soft wrists she detested being forced to wear. Her borrowed nails—ridiculously pastel—were bloodied from scraping uselessly against the iron. The oak tree behind her was massive, gnarled with age, its roots like serpents coiled in the dirt. The chains were threaded through drilled iron bolts, anchored deep. An insult. If she were in her own body, she would have already slipped free.

But she wasn’t. She was trapped in Enid Sinclair’s fragile frame, declawed and defanged. For the first time in years, true frustration pressed hot against her ribs.

Pathetic.

Wednesday drew a breath, slow, cold, deliberate. She tugged again—not to escape, but to gauge rhythm, pressure, possibility. Pain blossomed down her arms. She didn’t flinch.

Somewhere in the distance, boots crunched over dried leaves.

Her head tilted toward the sound. Her pulse didn’t quicken, but the fury simmering beneath her ribs sharpened like a blade.

From the shadows, a figure appeared—familiar, unnervingly so. A woman, smiling as if she’d walked into a lecture hall instead of a crime scene.

“Hello again, Miss Sinclair.”

Professor Capri.

The once-beloved Nevermore faculty member glided forward, her steps calculated, eyes too curious. Wednesday’s borrowed heart went still, then quickened with realization. Beside her, emerging like a shadow peeled from her side, was Tyler. His grin was cruel, sharp as broken glass.

“I brought company,” he said, venom dripping with each syllable.

Wednesday lifted her head, defiance etched into Enid’s trembling mouth. She forced the cadence of Enid’s lilting voice, straining every word to disguise her fury.
“Professor Capri.”

Capri’s gaze lingered too long, too sharp. She circled like a hawk, scanning her face, her posture, her very scent. Then she spoke, calm but cutting:

“This is not Miss Sinclair, Tyler.”

Wednesday’s spine went rigid.

Capri’s lips curled. “Her wolf is not bound to her. And her scent… wrong. Hollow. Like something borrowed.”

Tyler’s grin faltered, confusion slipping in. He glanced at Capri, then back at Wednesday.

“What the hell are you saying?”

Wednesday’s mind flicked like a switchblade. She could feel the danger tightening. If they uncovered the truth—that she was inside Enid’s body—their leverage would shift entirely. Enid would be exposed. Her own options would shrink to none.

So she did the only thing she could.

She laughed.

Not Enid’s bubbly, sunshine giggle. A low, chilling sound that slithered out of Enid’s throat, alien in its darkness. Her head lifted, eyes blazing even in borrowed blue.

“You’re chasing phantoms, Professor. Perhaps your age is catching up with you.”

Capri’s brows arched, amused. Tyler blinked, unsettled.

Wednesday pressed harder, letting venom coat Enid’s voice. “Chain me here. Drug me again. It makes no difference. I will still carve your downfall from the marrow of your bones. Slowly. Poetically. And I will ensure your corpses are buried so shallow, even crows refuse the feast.”

Tyler stiffened. Capri only smiled wider.

And in the silence that followed, Wednesday thought— Enid, you better be moving faster than you ever have in your life.

Meanwhile, across the carnival, Enid—still trapped in Wednesday’s sharp, raven-feathered body—was unraveling in ways Wednesday Addams never would.

She dragged Pugsley by the collar behind the haunted house, ignoring the squeals and fake thunder inside. His face lit up when he saw his sister, but she wasted no time.

“What’s the problem, sis?” he asked, unfazed, like being yanked by the throat was part of their usual sibling bonding.

Enid clenched Wednesday’s fists so tight her knuckles cracked. “Okay, listen very carefully. I’m not Wednesday. I’m Enid. We switched bodies.”

Pugsley blinked. Then broke into a wide grin. “Cool.”

Enid smacked his arm so hard her borrowed knuckles stung. “Not cool! No time for commentary! We need to find Wednesday—well, technically me—but you get it!”

She shoved her hands through her borrowed black hair, groaning. “I can’t sniff her out, I can’t use wolf strength, I’m basically just a very cranky, very goth disaster!”

Pugsley tilted his head, deadpan. “So… normal Wednesday.”

“Ughhh, stop being funny!” she snapped.

Together, they pulled in reinforcements. Within minutes, Bianca swept in like a general, Ajax skulked along nervously, Eugene buzzed overhead with two of his bees circling his head like scouts, Agnes drifted in with her uncanny calm, and—unfortunately—Bruno trailed after them, chewing on cotton candy like he hadn’t noticed a crisis was happening.

Enid paced, black boots crunching in the gravel. “Okay. We’re splitting into groups. Check the woods, stalls, rooftops, creepy back tents—anything. If you find something—scream, throw sparks, release bees, I don’t care. Just signal .”

Pugsley grinned and lifted his hand. Electricity sparked, crackling between his fingers like fireworks. “I’ll blast the sky.”

Enid’s jaw dropped despite her panic. “Since when can you do that ?”

He shrugged, sheepish. “Since Tuesday.”

“Perfect,” Enid said, shoving down the panic clawing at her chest.

“If you see her—uh, me—blast the sky. Or scream. Or set something on fire. I don’t care. Just make sure everyone knows.”

Bianca’s sharp eyes narrowed. “Why does this sound like more than just a kidnapping?”

Enid froze. Her throat bobbed. She prayed Pugsley wouldn’t—

“She switched bodies with my sister,” he blurted proudly, as if announcing the weather.

“PUGSLEY!” Enid barked, smacking his arm again.

The group erupted . Bianca muttered curses under her breath, Ajax’s snakes writhed in disbelief, Eugene nearly dropped his bees, and Bruno just said, “Whoa, trippy,” between mouthfuls of candy.

Enid threw her arms out, desperate. “It doesn’t matter! Save the Q&A for after we’re not chained to some psycho’s oak tree, okay?!” Her voice cracked—Wednesday’s voice, urgent and high—and for once, no one argued.

The plan snapped into motion.

Bianca closed her eyes, drawing in the air around her, listening with her siren’s intuition for disturbances in the flow of sound. Ajax scouted the rooftops with his clumsy but loyal determination, his snakes flicking tongues in every direction. Eugene sent his bees darting in pairs, buzzing through the carnival like tiny golden drones. Agnes whispered to the shadows under the stalls, her hands glowing faintly as she urged them outward like search hounds. Even Bruno—lazy, obnoxious Bruno—pressed his palm to the earth, mumbling something about listening to the dirt before going still.

Enid stood in the center of it all, pacing in her too-dark boots, biting the inside of Wednesday’s cheek. For once, no pastel optimism, no easy faith that things would work out. Just dread. Pure, gnawing dread.

If Wednesday—in Enid’s softer, more breakable body—was hurt because she hadn’t been fast enough… she’d never forgive herself.

She clenched her fists, shaking. Hold on, Wends. Please. I’m coming.

And somewhere deep in the woods, Wednesday tilted Enid’s head back against the rough bark of the oak, chains biting into wrists that weren’t hers. The cold seeped through her borrowed skin, numbing, but her glare burned hotter than fire.

Her gaze, dark and unblinking through Enid’s bright lashes, fixed on her captors. Every detail was catalogued with surgical precision: the way Tyler’s smirk curled too easily, the faint tremor in his hand after driving in the syringe, the overconfidence that already reeked of weakness. And Professor Capri—her old instructor—eyes glinting with something smugly academic, like she’d discovered a rare specimen.

Wednesday’s borrowed chest rose in a slow, deliberate breath. She allowed silence to stretch until it turned suffocating, until they shifted under the weight of her stillness.

Finally, she spoke, each syllable honed like a scalpel.
“If you think you’ve trapped me,” she whispered, voice like a blade dragging across glass, “you’re already bleeding.”

Her lips—Enid’s lips, painted soft pink—curled into a smile that did not belong on them. It was too sharp, too merciless, too alive with the promise of ruin.

Tyler chuckled lowly, as if to dismiss the threat. “You’re chained to a tree, Sinclair. Try a new angle.”

Wednesday tilted her head. “Chained?” Her tone was almost curious, clinical. “No. I see restraints. And restraints are opportunities. They tell me what you fear I’ll do if my hands are free.”

Capri’s brows arched slightly at the words, but she didn’t answer. She only studied her like prey pinned for dissection.

Wednesday continued, unbothered, her words turning venomous in Enid’s sugar-sweet voice.
“You’ve mistaken me for my body. A rookie mistake. I am not flesh, nor wolf, nor bone. I am inevitability.”

For the briefest moment, the forest seemed to lean in—branches creaking, wind stirring the dead leaves as though nature itself was listening.

Wednesday’s eyes narrowed, black pools reflecting no fear.
“And inevitability,” she whispered, the chains clinking softly as she shifted, “doesn’t lose.”

Chapter Text

The night thickened like tar, the carnival lights sputtering uselessly against the creeping blackness of the woods.

Pugsley had never felt true terror before—not when chained in the attic, not when Grandmama’s experiments went awry, not even when Father had taught him to juggle knives while blindfolded. But this was different.

Because dangling before him, lashed to the gnarled oak by ropes that bit into flesh, was his sister.
Or at least—her soul.

Enid’s sunshine frame slumped forward, marred by scratches and smears of blood. Her breathing was shallow but steady—proof of Addams tolerance for pain—but the sight still made Pugsley’s throat clench.

He tilted his face to the sky and roared.

Electricity tore from his hands like a storm breaking, lighting the woods in streaks of white-blue. The signal.

It didn’t take long. Branches snapped, leaves rustled, and shadows darted as the others arrived: Bianca with her sharpened blade and sharper eyes, Ajax with stone skin creeping up his arms, Eugene already buzzing with a swarm of bees that seemed to sense his dread. Agnes swept in behind them.And Bruno—half hesitant, half resigned—eyes glowing under the full moon’s pull.

Enid in Wednesday’s body stumbled out last, gasping at the sight of herself tied up and bloodied. Her heart stuttered at the sight of her body broken, but still alive. Still fighting.

“Wednesday…” she whispered, her borrowed voice cracking.

But before they could move, the forest split with a roar.

The Hyde.

It barreled from the treeline, larger than the stalls it crushed beneath claw and limb, its grotesque frame slick with moonlight. And from the shadows behind it stepped Miss Capri, her lips curling before her bones shattered and fur spilled across her body in a seamless transformation. An experienced wolf, every line of her posture radiated control and menace.

“Protect her!” Enid screamed—Wednesday’s sharp voice carrying urgency the others rarely heard.

The battle exploded.

Bianca’s blade flashed under the moonlight, fencing steel ringing against the Hyde’s jagged claws. Sparks spat into the dark as she twisted away, her siren voice cutting through the air like a command. The Hyde faltered mid-lunge, its feral mind buckling under her pull—but only for a breath. With a guttural snarl it shook it off, snapping back at her, teeth scraping against steel. Bianca grit her teeth, blocking with a desperate parry that jarred her shoulders.

From the side, Ajax ripped the beanie off his head. His snakes writhed free with a furious hiss, their eyes burning with ancient light. He locked eyes with the Hyde, forcing its monstrous gaze into his own. Stone crept up its clawed arm, spreading jagged and fast across its torso. For a moment, victory seemed near—the Hyde’s chest cracked into stone, its jaw locking open in a silent roar.

But then, with a sickening crack, the stone shattered. Shards broke away, slicing open raw muscle beneath as the beast ripped itself free of the half-petrification. Black blood streaked down its arm where fragments tore flesh apart. Roaring, the Hyde lunged through the pain and slammed a claw across Ajax’s chest, hurling him backward. He hit the ground hard, the air knocked out of him, snakes screeching as their glow flickered. Blood seeped from the gashes across his ribs, staining the earth dark.

Above, Eugene’s swarm poured in, a living storm. Bees covered the Hyde’s face and shoulders, stingers striking a s one. The monster bellowed, swiping blindly as welts swelled across its skin. Eugene stood trembling but resolute, his hands clenched into fists, commanding his hive like a general.

And in the shadows, Agnes became a phantom. Knives whispered through the air, slicing into the Hyde’s flank, calf, and shoulder in quick succession. It spun, blood spraying across the clearing, but saw nothing—only darkness. She was already gone, only to strike again, unseen and merciless.

And then—another battle split the night.

On the far edge of the field, Pugsley fought shoulder to shoulder with Bruno. Under the full moon, Bruno’s body convulsed—bones snapping, sinew stretching—as fur tore through skin. His cry warped into a howl, and the wolf burst free, larger and stronger than he had ever been. He lunged without hesitation, slamming into Miss Capri with the weight of a battering ram.

Capri, seasoned predator that she was, met him in mid-air. Their impact shook the ground, her claws dragging shallow furrows across Bruno’s flank—but only scratches compared to the wolf’s fury. Bruno shook her grip loose with a violent twist, sinking his teeth into her shoulder. Capri snarled, twisting away, blood spotting her fur.

Before she could counter, the air snapped—Pugsley raised his hands, blue sparks crawling across his fingers. Electricity built in his palms until it roared, a wild, crackling storm. With a shout, he hurled the charge into Capri’s side. The shock lit her fur in harsh white light, muscles locking as the current surged through her body. Capri screamed, staggering, smoke curling faintly from her skin.

Bruno pounced, seizing the opening. He slammed her down into the dirt, claws digging into her arm as his fangs snapped at her throat. Capri raked three shallow gashes across his muzzle, red lines beading in his fur—but Bruno didn’t let go, his wolfish growl vibrating like thunder.

Pugsley wasn’t finished. His hands sparked again, brighter this time, the static humming through the night air. “Stay down!” he yelled, unleashing another crackling burst. It struck Capri square across the chest, making her convulse and howl as Bruno pressed her deeper into the ground.

Capri’s breath came ragged, fangs bared, the copper tang of her own blood mixing with the night air. Bruno loomed over her, fur bristling, while Pugsley stood at his side, electricity crawling eagerly between his fists. Together, they didn’t look like cornered prey anymore. They looked like predators.

The night rang with howls, sparks, and snarls—but this fight, at least, was turning in their favor.

And through it all, Wednesday’s soul—trapped inside Enid’s trembling frame, bloodied and bound—lifted its head. Every rattle of the chains dug deeper into her borrowed skin, but Enid, buried within, pushed back, desperate to break free. The iron refused to give.

From the shadows, Bianca shouted, urgency cracking her voice.

“Enid—bait it!”

Enid, in Wednesday’s body, spun toward the monster, chest heaving. Her eyes blazed as she shouted into the night, voice cracking but defiant.

"I’m the one you want, right here!"

She bolted across the clearing, drawing the Hyde’s furious gaze. The beast roared and lunged, claws tearing after her—only to strike the chain anchoring Wednesday’s borrowed body. Metal shrieked, sparks flying as the links snapped apart under its brutal force.

The trap shattered. Wednesday—still trapped in Enid’s body—slumped forward, chains spilling to the ground.

The Hyde roared again, but before it could turn, Bruno and Ajax were there, cutting its path, forcing it back with a flurry of strikes. Agnes throwing knives, buying them seconds.

Enid’s borrowed body staggered toward her own pale frame crumpled on the earth. Hands shaking, she pressed her palm to the skin that was rightfully hers.

And in that instant, the world convulsed.

A violent surge ripped through both of them. Enid’s vision exploded into black, consciousness dragged under. She fell, her breath stolen, chest aching with the injuries her body had endured.

But when she blinked awake, the world had shifted.

Wednesday Addams stood before her—back in her rightful body, bloodied but unbowed. Her dagger slid from her boot in one fluid motion, the steel catching moonlight like a smile carved in silver. Without hesitation, she stepped forward, shielding Enid with her body.

The Hyde shrieked, but it no longer faced confusion or weakness. It faced Wednesday Addams—alive, restored, and already calculating how to end it.

Enid’s vision flickered back—her own body aching, ribs burning, every bruise screaming at once. But there she was: Wednesday, black-eyed and unyielding, standing between her and the monster.

“Stay down, Enid,” she rasped, voice low and edged like steel. Her gaze locked on the Hyde with a fury that could have gutted a god. “They’ll have to peel me apart to get to you.”

But Enid wasn’t staying down.

The full moon’s light seared through her, hotter than fire, stronger than fear. Her chest convulsed with the tremors of the change, fur threatening to rip through skin she could no longer contain. Her wolf form begged—no, demanded—to be freed.

And then, with a shuddering cry, she gave in.

Brown fur tore across her body, muscles stretching, bones snapping into place. Her howl split the chaos, primal and keening, shaking the air. Wolf Enid burst forward, eyes glowing with wild light, no longer holding back.

The Hyde reared, too slow. She lunged, fangs burying deep into its arm, dragging it down with all her weight. The monster howled, its claws raking the ground, sparks flying.

Wednesday didn’t hesitate. She slipped into the opening Enid carved, blade flashing in a vicious arc across its chest. Hot blood sprayed, black in the moonlight. The Hyde staggered, but its rage only deepened.

All around them, the night was war.

Bruno, in full wolf form, clashed with Capri fang-to-fang, their snarls ripping through the forest like thunder. Their bodies slammed against the dirt, claws shredding bark and earth alike. Ajax leapt in at every opening, stone gaze flashing, forcing the Hyde to recoil just long enough for the others to strike.

The battle dragged, brutal and endless, every heartbeat a near-death. The Hyde towered, wounded but not weakening, its fury feeding on pain.

And then—in a heartbeat stretched into eternity—it turned.

The beast reared back, claws glinting in the moonlight as it arced its arm straight toward Wednesday.

Enid moved first.

Her brown-furred body tore through the clearing like a comet, slamming into the Hyde just as its claws arced for Wednesday. She shoved the Addams girl down, shielding her with every ounce of her wolf frame.

The sound was sickening—claws raking through flesh, bone cracking. A strangled yelp split the night, raw and helpless, as blood streaked across her fur. She crumpled mid-lunge, collapsing into Wednesday’s arms. The fur melted away, and suddenly it was Enid again—fragile, human, trembling, bleeding in Wednesday’s grasp.

“Enid. Don’t you dare.”

Her coat tore from her shoulders, thrown across Enid’s body with useless precision. Blood still seeped through.

Enid coughed, crimson on her lips, but her smile was strangely calm. “Wednesday… you’re… my mate. My dark cloud. Never thought doom could feel like home.”

Wednesday’s eyes widened—black glass catching light with something unspoken, something she had no vocabulary for. Her voice was flat, but it shook at the edges.

“No. You don’t leave me. Not now. Not ever.”

Behind them, the chaos closed. Bruno tore into Capri’s arm, refusing to let go. Ajax ripped his beanie off, serpents flashing as she froze mid-scream. Lightning lanced the night as Pugsley struck the Hyde again and again, Bianca’s siren call pinning the monster just long enough for Eugene’s bees to blind it and Agnes’ knives to end it. Together, they forced both monsters down. When silence fell, it was heavy and absolute.

Wednesday’s gaze never left Enid. She looked up once, monotone, to the others. “Get help.”

They scattered.

Her eyes cut to Pugsley. The mask cracked. 

“Pugsley. Make her heart beat.”

He stumbled closer, electricity sparking wildly across his hands. He pressed them against Enid’s chest. One jolt. Another. Her body twitched but stayed still.

“Again.” Wednesday’s voice broke—not loud, not dramatic, but hoarse with something she couldn’t hide.

Pugsley obeyed. Lightning tore the clearing apart. The shock burned her too, but she didn’t flinch. She only held Enid tighter.

 “Again.”

Another strike.

Enid convulsed—then gasped. Her chest heaved, air rasping into her lungs. Her eyes fluttered open.

Wednesday froze. For once, she couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. Her voice came in a whisper, stripped of armor. “Enid…”

Enid’s trembling hand brushed her cheek. “Guess… I’m not done annoying you yet.”

Her hand fell limp, but her eyes stayed open. Weak, unsteady—but alive.

Behind them,  some of their friends collapsed, spent and broken.

From the tree line, Weems emerged, face shadowed with rare sorrow. “Addams… your vision has found you. But at a price.”

Wednesday ignored her. She bowed her head, blood staining her hands, arms locked around Enid as if iron could keep her here. Her voice was monotone, almost calm, but it shook with every word.

“She will not go.”

The clearing held its breath.

Only the shallow rattle of Enid’s breathing filled the night—and Pugsley’s quiet, hidden sobs.

Chapter Text

The first day after the battle bled into night, and Wednesday did not move. Enid lay pale and bandaged in their dorm bed, her breathing shallow, each rise and fall of her chest a fragile thread that tethered her to this world. Wednesday’s chair was pulled so close that her knees touched the mattress. Her dark eyes never left Enid’s face, calculating every flicker of movement, every faint sound of air that passed her lips.

Friends came and went. Bianca brought herbs, Ajax left flowers he pretended weren’t his, and Eugene whispered promises to have his bees guard the window. Pugsley lingered the longest, guilt written in the sparks that still flickered across his fingertips. But Wednesday remained unmoved, speaking little, her posture rigid as though guarding a tomb.

By evening, even her family appeared. Morticia pressed a kiss to her daughter’s crown, whispering of the curse of love that no Addams escapes. Gomez tried—foolishly—to bring humor, and was silenced by his daughter’s single glance. They left with shadows heavier than when they arrived.

That night, when all was silent but Enid’s rattling breaths, Weems came. Or rather—her ghostly silhouette, pale as moonlight, seated in the corner chair. Her eyes were sad but steady.

“You know this was always your curse, Addams,” she said softly.

Wednesday didn’t flinch. Her hand rested on Enid’s wrist, fingers poised over the pulse. “If it is a curse, it’s mine alone to bear.”

Weems tilted her head, studying her like a headmistress still grading her best student. “No. It is hers too. She has bound herself to you as you have to her. That is what it means to find a mate, whether you admit it or not. You can pretend indifference, but love makes its own truths.”

Wednesday’s eyes finally lifted, cold and sharp. “Love is a distraction. An unnecessary liability. It weakens the mind and clouds judgment.”

Yet her voice cracked faintly at the edges, betraying her.

Weems smiled, the kind that tasted of pity and knowing. “And yet you haven’t left her side for a single breath. That isn’t liability, Addams. That is devotion. And devotion… terrifies you.”

Wednesday didn’t respond, but when she turned back to Enid, her thumb brushed against the werewolf’s knuckles in a motion so delicate it was almost invisible.

On the second afternoon, the academy gathered in the hall for an announcement. Wednesday went, not because she cared for routine, but because leaving Enid in her sleep felt like abandoning her battlefield post.

Principal Dort introduced the interim professor Rosaline Rotwood.

She carried herself with an unnerving elegance, a spectral figure that looked as though she had stepped out of a forgotten painting. Her hair was a cascade of silver-white, falling in perfect waves that glimmered like frost beneath candlelight. Her skin, pale as bone, contrasted sharply with the deep crimson of her lips — lips that seemed to hold secrets as sharp as knives.

Her eyes were the most unsettling of all: cold, piercing, and ancient, as though she had seen centuries unfold and still found them disappointing. Every glance lingered too long, as though she were dissecting the soul of whoever stood before her. Flowing garments of pale silk swayed as if stirred by an invisible wind, making her presence ethereal, almost ghostlike.

And yet, despite that aura of unease, there was allure. A hypnotic beauty threaded with danger — the kind of presence that could silence a room not by command, but by sheer, inescapable gravity. When she spoke, her voice carried a deceptive calm — low, smooth, and deliberate, like poison poured into a glass of wine.

Rosaline Rotwood was not a woman to be ignored. She was the sort one either trusted too quickly or feared too late.

The lesson came and went. Wednesday absorbed nothing. She measured Rotwood’s tone, her pauses, her gaze lingering a moment too long on students as though cataloging them.

When the room emptied, Rotwood’s voice cut through.
“Miss Addams. Stay.”

Wednesday did, more out of suspicion than obedience.

The woman stepped forward, composure unnerving, her every movement too perfect, too controlled. She leaned against the desk, folding her hands. “I’ve heard much about you.”

Wednesday’s stare was blade-sharp. “What a deeply uninspired opening line. You must forgive me if I don’t swoon at the flattery.”

The professor’s lips curved, faint and amused. “Just so you know—I am aware you’ve been observing me. But I am not your enemy.”

Wednesday’s head tilted. “How reassuring. After all, nothing says innocence quite like declaring it outright.”

Rotwood chuckled. “Clever girl. But perhaps I can prove myself. Would you like… answers?”

She extended her hand.

Wednesday stared at it, unmoving. Suspicion burned in her eyes.

Rotwood leaned closer, voice dropping. “It may relate to your wolf friend.”

That pierced Wednesday’s armor. Her hand shot out before thought could restrain her.

The vision struck—violent, disorienting.

She saw Enid waking, blue eyes opening, finding her first. Then the scene fractured—Enid laughing, dancing beneath silver light, twirling with a figure whose face blurred as though smeared by fate. A hand touched hers, and suddenly Enid’s lips pressed to the stranger’s in a kiss that shattered Wednesday’s chest like glass.

Then it was gone. She stumbled back into reality, breathing hard, hand snapping free.

Her voice was low, dangerous. “What false reality have you forced upon me?”

Rotwood only smiled. “Not false. A possibility. A glimpse of what you fear. Or what you cannot admit you desire.”

Wednesday’s glare was lethal. “If this is some ploy, I’ll carve the truth from you inch by inch.”

Rotwood met her threat without flinching. “Maybe I am only trying to make you see what is worth living for.”

Before Wednesday could respond, Thing scuttled onto the desk, signing with frantic urgency.

Enid was waking.

And just like that, Wednesday turned on her heel and vanished from the room. Whatever trap Rotwood had laid, it could wait. The only truth that mattered was in their dorm, breathing again.

Enid’s lashes fluttered before her eyes fully opened. The dorm was dim, the curtains drawn against the late-afternoon sun, but she blinked toward the silhouette beside her bed.

“Wen—” Her voice cracked, dry from sleep.

Wednesday was already pressing a glass of water into her hand before she could finish. “Drink. You were unconscious for fourteen hours. I assumed dehydration, exhaustion, or possibly an ancient curse. The water covers at least two of those.”

Enid smiled, weak but glowing. “You stayed.”

“I am not in the habit of abandoning those under my care,” Wednesday replied flatly, though her hand lingered near the glass as if ready to steady it. “Besides, I would not trust anyone else to notice if your breathing stopped.”

“That’s… oddly romantic?” Enid murmured, sipping. “Thanks, Wens.”

The Addams girl twitched—an almost imperceptible tightening around her mouth, a stiffness in her shoulders—as though affection were an electrical surge through exposed wires.

Wednesday barely left Enid’s side. She insisted it was purely for medical observation, but her presence was so constant that even Thing began drumming accusatory words on the edge of her desk: clingy, hovering, and, once, obsessed, though Wednesday promptly flicked him off the table before he could finish the last flourish of his “s.”

Enid, however, soaked in every moment. For her, it was heaven. Every time Wednesday adjusted her blankets with a sharp, precise tug, or pressed a steaming cup of herbal tea into her hands with a dry mutter about preventing early demise, Enid’s chest warmed in a way that had nothing to do with the tea. Even when Wednesday read aloud from her leather-bound journals—grim musings about death, curses, and ways to ensure a clean autopsy—Enid listened like it was a lullaby, sighing happily as she nestled closer.

Her favorite part, though, was when Wednesday sat still long enough for her to lean her head against her shoulder. Enid could feel Wednesday’s entire body tense, stiffening like a soldier under siege, but she never moved away. That was victory enough.

By the time lunch rolled around the next day, Enid was testing the boundaries. Wednesday had insisted on carrying the tray herself, arranging the meal with the precision of someone setting surgical tools. She ladled soup into a bowl and slid it directly in front of Enid, then sat down beside her with the spoon already in hand.

“You know…” Enid began, raising a brow as the spoon hovered expectantly near her lips, “you don’t have to feed me soup. My arms work fine now.”

Wednesday’s gaze didn’t falter. Spoon still poised, she replied with clinical calm. “If you insist. But don’t blame me when your feeble muscles betray you and you choke to death in your own enthusiasm.”

Enid grinned, heart thumping. “Wow. That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said while threatening me with soup.”

Wednesday twitched—just slightly, but enough for Enid to notice. The corner of her mouth moved as though she meant to deliver a sharp retort, but the words caught in her throat. For the first time, silence pressed heavy between them.

Finally, with one swift movement, Wednesday set the spoon down with a sharp clink against the porcelain. The sound echoed louder than it should have, like the punctuation of a thought she refused to voice.

Enid leaned in, biting back a smirk. She didn’t say it out loud, but she knew she was getting to her.

Enid recovered faster than anyone could’ve predicted. By the next day, her wolf healing powers had knitted away most of the pain, leaving behind little more than faint bruises—and an excuse to milk every ounce of Wednesday’s attention.

And Enid did exactly that.

If she noticed Wednesday shadowing her every step, she didn’t complain. If anything, she leaned into it—literally.

“Careful,” Wednesday muttered as Enid looped her arm through hers on their way to class.

“Careful of what? You?” Enid teased, tilting her head to rest on Wednesday’s shoulder. “You’re all bark, no bite.”

Wednesday stopped walking. Dead stop. She turned, stared at Enid with those unblinking black eyes. “Do not test that hypothesis.”

Enid only laughed, loud and unapologetic, because she knew she already had—and survived.

In the library, while Wednesday scribbled furiously in her journal, Enid sprawled across the rug at her feet, humming and braiding her golden hair. “You know, you’re kind of amazing, Wens. All mysterious, protective, broody… like a gothic guardian angel.”

Wednesday’s quill froze mid-scratch. Her jaw tightened. “Your flattery is both nauseating and… distracting.”

“Good,” Enid chirped, flashing her wolfish grin. “Then it’s working.”

Thing smacked the edge of the desk twice in agreement.

Wednesday twitched, the faintest betrayal of composure. Her lips parted as though to issue a sharp retort—but nothing came. She simply dipped her quill again, her hand moving almost mechanically, as though pretending she hadn’t glitched.

Enid’s heart soared every time she caught those little malfunctions. They were proof that beneath Wednesday’s iron mask, something was cracking. Something soft.

That night, as curfew bells echoed, a low magical hum spread through the dorms. Then Principal Dort’s voice boomed overhead, magically projected into every hallway and room:

“Students of Nevermore—tomorrow evening will be our annual Gala Night. Attendance is mandatory. Formal attire required. Behavior will be… monitored.”

Excited whispers erupted instantly. Doors creaked open, laughter and chatter spilling into the halls.

Enid sat up straight in bed, squealing softly into her pillow. “Wen! Gala Night! Dresses, dancing, music—it’s going to be perfect!”

From her desk, Wednesday didn’t look up. Candlelight painted her profile in stark relief, shadows clinging to her like armor. “Mandatory frivolity. My favorite kind.”

But Enid saw it—the twitch at the corner of her lips. The same one that always betrayed her when her carefully sculpted indifference faltered.

Enid pushed herself up on her elbows, smile wide and mischievous. “Sooo… I was thinking.” She let the words dangle, watching Wednesday’s quill slow down. “Since I’m, you know, alive again, thanks to your overprotective Florence Nightingale routine…”

Wednesday’s quill snapped against the page.

“…maybe you should be my date to the Gala.” Enid beamed, leaning forward on her bed like she was presenting the greatest idea ever conceived. Then, with a wink: “Be my gala date, mate?”

Wednesday froze. Her face remained impassive, but her silence stretched, just long enough for Thing to drum impatiently against the wood.

Enid pouted dramatically. “Oh, come on. It’s fate. It’s destiny. It’s wolf-law or something.”

Wednesday finally turned her head, dark gaze locking onto Enid. She looked like she wanted to refuse—like every instinct screamed at her to deny the curse of emotion. But her mouth betrayed her before her brain could stop it.

“…Fine,” Wednesday said at last, voice flat, betraying nothing.

Enid squealed, kicking her feet against the mattress, glowing with triumph.

Wednesday turned back to her desk immediately, hoping the candlelight hid the faintest, most damning twitch at the corner of her lips.

But Enid saw. She always saw.

And tomorrow night, she was going to make Wednesday dance.

The grand doors of the Gala Hall groaned open, iron hinges echoing like a funeral bell at midnight. Inside, the air shimmered with candlelight—hundreds, maybe thousands of flames hovered, suspended in invisible hands, their glow bending against crystal chandeliers and the velvet-draped walls. A string quartet played something ancient and unsettling, a melody sharp as shattered glass. Yet, strangely, the students swayed as though it were the sweetest lullaby.

And then—the whispers began.

They were late.

In the threshold, framed in shadow and gold, stood Wednesday Addams and Enid Sinclair, hand in hand. The spotlight from above dropped instantly upon them, as if the entire hall had been waiting for this exact entrance.

Wednesday’s gown was blacker than midnight, sheer sleeves flowing like smoke, the veil over her eyes cutting her face in half like a secret. Her lips, blood-red, curved into the faintest scowl at the attention. She looked less like a girl attending a dance and more like a raven descending from the gallows.

Beside her, Enid gleamed in a silver-blue silk gown that clung and flared in waves, the fabric shifting with her every breath as though woven from moonlight itself. The neckline echoed Wednesday’s severe collar, but soft embroidery of black roses wound along her gloves—a quiet rebellion against her brightness, a mirror to Wednesday’s darkness. Together, they didn’t look like opposites. They looked inevitable.

The room fell silent. Every eye followed them, as though prophecy had unfolded right there in the doorway.

Enid squeezed Wednesday’s hand, leaning close enough for only her to hear.
“Told you we’d make an entrance.”

Wednesday’s lips twitched faintly. “I detest being the center of attention.”

“Uh-huh.” Enid grinned, tugging her forward. “Which is why you’re letting me drag you onto the dance floor.”

The quartet’s music swelled—violins sharp, cellos haunting. Before Wednesday could argue, Enid had already led her into the swirl of silk and shadow.

And then—the world narrowed.

Gasps rippled through the crowd, not at the scandal of it though it was scandalous , but at the precision of it. Wednesday moved like a blade, every step sharp, every turn deliberate. Enid, radiant in her silver gown, followed seamlessly, her lessons snapping into place, every spin and pivot stitched with sudden grace. What she lacked in practice, she made up for in instinct—her body knew Wednesday’s rhythm, the way wolves know the pull of the moon.

From the edge of the room, Morticia Addams raised a glass of champagne, her dark eyes glittering.

“Enid is her curse, mon chéri,” she whispered.

Gomez chuckled, smile widening. “Then I suppose a wolf will be coming into the family, Tish.”

On the floor, the girls spun tighter, their gowns brushing in flashes of black and silver. Enid laughed breathlessly, the sound ringing against the violins, while Wednesday’s eyes never left hers—two abysses locked onto starlight. Every dip lingered too long, every turn pressed them closer, until it was impossible to tell whether they were dancing or dueling.

And then—the final note struck.

Silence.

The crowd froze with them, as though even the hall itself dared not breathe.

Wednesday stood inches from Enid, their bodies still tangled in the aftermath of movement, their chests rising and falling with sharp, ragged breaths. Slowly, deliberately, Wednesday lifted her right hand, gloved fingers brushing against Enid’s flushed cheek. Enid’s laughter died instantly. Her blue-gold eyes widened, locked to Wednesday’s like prey caught in the gaze of a predator.

For a moment, there was nothing—no orchestra, no whispers, not even the scrape of shoes across the marble floor. Only the pulse between them, a static charge suspended like a blade poised above a neck.

And then Wednesday breathed it.

“Mi veneno.”

My poison.

Her words coiled into Enid’s lungs, venomous and intoxicating. Enid’s breath stuttered, her lips parting as though Wednesday had stolen the very air from her.

The raven’s veil brushed against the wolf’s cheek as Wednesday leaned closer, every inch of her approach deliberate—measured as though she were composing a symphony of ruin. Their foreheads hovered a whisper apart, candlelight trembling across them, fire daring to dance on the edge of ice.

And then she kissed her.

It was not gentle. It was not sweet. It was Wednesday Addams—unyielding, inevitable. A kiss like a curse pressed into skin, a claim etched deeper than ink, a confession disguised as damnation.

The gala hall gasped alive around them. Students whispered like startled birds, some laughed nervously, some stared as if witnessing an omen. But the Addams girl did not flinch, and the werewolf in her arms only clung tighter.

For the first time, the noise of the world withered to nothing.

There was only the raven.

And the wolf.

And a kiss that felt less like discovery and more like destiny.

When they parted—barely, breathless, their lips still brushing—Wednesday’s dark eyes searched Enid’s face, unreadable, unrelenting.

Enid swallowed, her grin trembling at the edges, too bright for the shadows around her. 

“Figures,” she whispered, voice husky with mischief and awe. “Turns out my dark cloud has a face… and apparently, she’s my date to Gala Night.”

Wednesday’s mouth twitched, the faintest ghost of a smile—a betrayal of composure only Enid could wring from her. “Woe to the wolf who finds herself ensnared by a raven,” she murmured, tone as cutting as it was reverent.

Enid’s laughter bubbled up, soft and breathless, her eyes still locked to Wednesday’s. “And woe to the raven… because she just met her mate.”

The music resumed. The students kept staring.

But for Wednesday and Enid, the prophecy had already been written.