Chapter 1: I am the son and the heir of a shyness that is criminally vulgar
Chapter Text
“I don’t think it would be a good idea for her to go.”
I am crouched on the stairs, listening to the famed Wednesday Addams, talk on the phone. My legs ache from the position I’m in, and I’m 95 percent sure I won’t be able to get my head out from between these bars. Apart from that, I’m basically being a stalker, like she taught me.
“Yes,” she says to whoever is on the other end. “Yes, of course.”
A beat of quiet echoes louder than words.
“No, I don’t trust anyone but you. Are you sure you can handle her?”
This time, I can hear the small, vague chatter of the person on the other end of the old telephone line. Mother must’ve left the door cracked.
“Well.” Mother huffs. “Whether she goes or not will be my decision.”
The person on the other end gives two short, accusatory sentences.
Mother pauses. “I don’t miss him, Enid,” she says. “I promise. Yes, I think about him. But no. I don’t miss him. I’m glad he’s gone.”
Miss who? I think. “What?” I whisper as loud as I dare. But Mother doesn’t hear, and if she did, she’d be livid.
More chatter from Enid. I know from a few vague calls that Enid is Mother’s best friend, but I’ve never met the woman. If she’s Mother’s friend, I can only imagine what kind of horror and woe she’d bring to my life.
“I know who he was,” Mother says. “I know what I did. Don’t you think I’ve heard enough from my mother? ‘Why did you let him deface you like that?’ ‘Why did you agree to’-”
Enid says something, interrupting Mother. She talks for about five minutes. I stifle a yawn, but convince myself to stay awake, knowing now who my mother is talking about.
My father.
I never knew him. He was never there. I don’t even have a face for the name… which I never had to begin with.
“Yes, Enid, I know.”
Mother sounds tired.
I can’t hear Enid anymore. Mother must’ve shut the door. But even if I can’t hear the woman on the other end, I can still hear my mom speak in the dead silence of the house.
“What am I going to do?”
Mother sounds like she’s sad now, or strangely passionate.
This is concerning to me, because I don’t think I’ve ever seen, nor heard, my mother cry. She’s a strict “unemotional” type.
All my life, I’ve grown up thinking that emotions are bad. My mother tells me never to get angry- and she says it so seriously that I sometimes get scared of her. I don’t know what she’s so scared of- emotions are nothing bad. But they’re something Mother doesn’t believe in. Like depression.
Enid must’ve been talking a long time, because I hadn’t heard Mother speak in a while.
Finally, her voice cuts through the silence. “No, Enid.”
A pause, and then, “I’m not okay.” Mother’s voice cracks, and I know how hard it is for her to admit that she needs help. After all, I get like that. And I’m her kid.
The door swings open and I hear footsteps. I think a number of curses as I dart soundlessly up the stairs. If Mother finds out I’ve been eavesdropping, she’ll murder me.
See, I meant that jokingly… but honestly, I wouldn’t put filicide past her.
I jump into bed and close my eyes, right before Mother comes into my room. She is still on the phone with Enid.
She kneels by my bedside. “Enid… I don’t want her to be like me.”
I don’t want to be like you, I think.
The phone is close enough now that I can hear every word Enid says.
“If you send her to Nevermore, she won’t.”
“Nevermore is why what happened, happened,” says Mother. She closes her eyes and breathes deeply. “I don’t want that for Thursday.”
“Yes,” says Enid, “but that was because of everything that others caused, not you. Nothing is happening right now in Jericho. And with me watching constantly,Thursday will be safe.”
“Except you can’t guarantee that, can you?” asks Mother. She sounds as close to an outburst as I’ve ever heard her.
“What makes you say that?”
“Because nothing was happening in Jericho before I came. How do you know Thursday won’t meet some townie who becomes a monster?”
Monster? I rustle, just enough to convince Mother that I truly am asleep.
My father was a monster?
“He wasn’t really a monster, Wednesday,” says Enid. “He was forced to become one.”
“And that could happen to Thursday,” Mother argues. “She is only half my kid. She’s half his as well. And he was a monster.”
“Thursday isn’t. There’d be signs by now, signs we can’t ignore!” I can imagine Enid throwing up her hands in argument.
“You don’t know that,” Mother says forcefully. I breathe in, then out. What does she mean by my father being a monster? Like… he was a murderer? It seems very on-brand for my mother to fall in love with a serial killer. “She’s half his.”
Why, oh why, does she keep saying the word “his” with such force?
“We don’t know. I think I’m going to go to bed,” says Enid. “If you want, you can bring her by tomorrow. I definitely would like to talk to her.”
“We’ll see,” Mother replies. “Be waiting for us, but we might not come.”
“All right. Good night, Wednesday.”
“Good night, Enid,” Mother whispers. She hangs up the phone, then turns to the wall. “Wherever you are, good night-” She mouths a name, but I can’t quite see what it was with my squinted eyes. Then she turns back to me.
“Thursday, you have far to go.”
Chapter 2: I am the son and the heir of nothing in particular
Chapter Text
I come downstairs the next morning, acting as if I didn’t hear an extremely important conversation.
“Good morning, Mother,” I say.
“And you.” She is standing at the cabinets, rearranging things. Her ability to know where I am at all times, even with her back turned, is uncanny. But it makes Mother who she is. Even if “who she is” can be read as “extremely creepy.”
I have solemnly sworn to type this all down on a very old laptop, for the sake of anyone in future times, in case we need this piece of history (my boring, macabre life) in order to not repeat it.
This is good. I wouldn’t want any future Thursdays suffering like me.
Mother enjoys suffering. Except when she’s the one experiencing it.
“I know you were eavesdropping last night,” she says, and my blood turns to ice.
“Wha-”
“Don’t act stupid, because you aren’t.” Mother looks at me pointedly before turning back to the bowls. “How much did you hear?”
“I didn’t… hear anything?” I try to not cringe at the squeakiness of my voice.
“You are my child,” says Mother. “I raised you to be a better stalker, didn’t I?”
“Ye-e-e-es?”
“Then tell me what you actually heard.” Even with her back to me, I can feel the glare that probably had been directed at whoever my father was.
“You and Enid were talking,” I say finally. “You were saying that it wasn’t a good idea for me to go to some academy- Nevermore, I think- and you were talking about how my dad was a… monster?”
Mother sighs heavily and sits down across from me. “Not even figuratively, Thursday. Your father was a monster.”
“Like a serial killer?” That would be kinda cool, actually. And it would prevent me from getting bullied or stuff like that.
“Yes, but not of his own accord. When he felt any sort of strong emotion, he could become a monster called a Hyde, forced to do whatever unholy deeds his master proposed.”
“So is that why you were worried about me? That I could be a monster?” I ask.
“Enid told me that there’d be signs by now.” Mother closes her eyes. “If I had more time, I could settle all of this.”
“Sadly, time is the thing of which we have the least,” I say, and it sounds pretty smart. Maybe I could live up to my mother.
Doubtful. Wednesday is like a celebrity- one to be admired, but distant and like someone you could never, ever be as good as. Or, in the case of some celebrities, one to be hated. I don’t hate my mother, but she is so cryptic and quizzical that she scares me sometimes.
“You may be onto something there.” Mother offers a demure smirk, the closest I’m going to get to her smiling. “I have a question for you, Thursday.”
“Sure.” I take a drink of my espresso.
“Would you rather live a life of expression, in which you could do whatever you wanted, but it came with too great a price to bear forever…” Mother trails off and looks out the glass pane on the front door. “Or would you rather be safe and sorry you didn’t pick the other one, even knowing the horrors you would’ve faced?”
I turn away from her. I don’t have to answer to know what she would say, and to know what I would say. We would ultimately both pick the same thing: safety. I would pick that because I am afraid for her, and she would pick that because she is afraid for me.
“Your father picked the first one,” Mother says. “He did whatever he wanted. He was careless with almost all of his relationships and let his emotions control him too easily.”
I can tell that she might be leaning towards some small truth, and I am right.
“He was a good person,” she says. “And I’m not saying that to defend him. I’m saying that because it’s true. I was the one person he really seemed to care for.”
“Am I to assume, then,” I say, “that he threw away his relationships… for you?”
“Maybe he did,” Mother says, “and maybe he didn’t.”
“Okay,” I say. Right now, that’s good enough for me.
We sit in silence for a long time.
A hard bang on the door echoes through the house. I look out and see no one.
Mother’s eyes widen enough that it’s noticeable. “We have to leave.”
“What? Now?” I get up from the table. “To where?”
Mother takes a deep breath. “We’re going to Enid’s. I don’t want to live safe and sorry anymore. I’m going to do something that was long overdue.”
“With Enid?”
This is when Mother kneels and looks me in the eye. “I can’t take you. It would crush you.”
“I want to know about my father!”
“Emotions, Thursday,” she says. I can see panic in her dark, dark eyes. “That monster could still be triggered.” As she is saying this, another bang echoes at the door.
“Fine. Leave me.” I turn away as she stands up, back to her full height (which is short).
“Don’t think of it as leaving,” Mother says softly. “Think of it as a mission. Think of it as something I have to do in order to make your life better.”
“What happened to making people miserable?” I cry. “If my life is miserable, I want it to stay like that!”
“You happened,” she says fiercely. “I would watch the whole world burn for you.”
“I don’t want the world to burn,” I say. “I want it to flourish.”
“You really aren’t like me at all,” she says, and I see another smirk play on her painted lips. “Pack your bags. Get in the car.”
“The car is out front,” I tell her, panicking a little myself. “With whoever’s banging on the door.”
A bang, right as scheduled.
“Okay, don’t get in the car.” Mother nods swiftly to the back of the house. “Go very quickly into the garage in the back. You know the code. Take the tarp off the black hearse, get in, and lock the doors.”
Her eyes, which are fiery and scared, make me terrified. I start to head there, but then I hear the scariest thing of all.
“Whatever happens,” she says in a low voice, “do not. Get out. Of the hearse!”
Chapter 3: You shut your mouth, how can you say I go about things the wrong way?
Chapter Text
The night seems like a blessing, falling softly and rapidly. The stars glow like fire.
I push the blankets off of myself and poke my head out of the sunroof.
I am still in the hearse. Had I been there all day? And more importantly, where is Mother?!
My prayers are answered when her silhouette gets in the front seat.
“Who was that?” I ask drowsily.
“An old enemy,” she says, as loudly as she dares. “And he may still be here, so be quiet.”
“Was it my dad?”
She shakes her head, almost too quickly. “You don’t need to worry about it. I’m sorry we’re delayed.”
There is no GPS in the funeral vehicle, so as Mother pulls it out of the driveway, she pulls up navigation on her phone. The screen is glowing so brightly, my eyes feel hot and heavy.
“How long is it to Enid’s?” I ask.
“Five hours,” she says. “It’ll be about one A.M. when we get there.”
“Can I go back to sleep?”
“If you want to.” Mother’s sentences are short, clipped, and she is speaking like she’s recovering from a massive breakup. Which, in a way, she probably is.
“Can you tell me a story?”
This question takes her by surprise, but she slowly nods in agreement. And then, to prove she is taken off guard, she asks, “What kind of story?”
I put the blanket back over myself. “A romance,” I say sleepily. “Something that you wouldn’t mind having.”
And I see her smile.
The tiniest of motions, but it’s there. I have broken through her (amazingly) thick skin.
“All right,” she agrees, and we drive into an endless lane of pine trees, lit up by the beautiful silver moon. “There was a girl, who went through all sorts of misery in her young life, and enjoyed most of it…”
I drift in and out of sleep as she relays the details of the twisted, forbidden love between the psychic girl and the boy who became a monster. She describes the colorful werewolf, the canine of a best friend, and she describes the werewolf's horribly unattractive boyfriend. Mother depicts the luring call of the beautiful and powerful siren girl, and the boy obsessed with bees, and the awful, in-your-face romance of her own parents.
She tells me of the girl’s precious investigations, which include one about a plot to summon an undead pilgrim, and the long, gruesome story of a certain Avian, mental institution, zombie, and monster grandmother. And when those stories are over, she talks in a quieter voice, and she talks about the abusive boyfriend the girl had, who ended up marrying the aforementioned siren. She tells me how the girl ran away after threatening that boy within an inch of his life, and she tells me how she fell for the monster she had loved before it all.
Mother talks about how the girl discovered that a child would be born, and how she, as a nineteen-year-old runaway, was tempted to never tell anyone at all. She tells me how the girl sent her Hyde lover away, afraid that he would find out. A vision said that the daughter’s power would be too great if trained properly by the very monster she could potentially become. She told me how all the girl’s friends betrayed her, except the ones who had forever cared about her, as much as she hated to admit that.
She speaks of the marriage of her best friend, the werewolf, to her snake-haired boyfriend. She talks about the birth of the daughter, and how the girl who had only ever cried twice did it again. She tells me of the girl’s overprotective mother, the child’s grandmother, who loved the child but hated the deeds of her daughter. And last of all, just as we turn onto Enid’s street, she says, “...and so the girl named her child after the very poem from which she was named. But to symbolize that her father was always a part of her, she picked out a different name. One that said she would travel far and wide, and do things her mother could never accomplish.”
I yawn, but I’ve been awake since the puppeteer part. “That was your story, wasn’t it, Mother?” I ask.
She pulls the hearse into the driveway of a very pink house. “This is the place. 2907 Howling Lane.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“Yes,” she says. “It was about me. Don’t make me regret telling you.”
“I promise,” I said.
“I have to go now, Thursday,” she says. “Grab your suitcase; I packed it in the trunk.”
When I make no move to get out of the car, she says, “Do I need to push you out of the car?”
“No,” I say sullenly.
“Then go on,” Mother says.
I get my stuff and go up the walkway.
Before I ring the doorbell, I run back to the hearse, throw open my mother’s door, and give her a fierce, tight hug. “Goodbye, Mother.”
I feel her hug back, inhale her scent of roses and lovely, peaceful death, and she says, “Goodbye, my little storm cloud.”
Before I know it, she is gone, and my finger is on the doorbell.
As I wait, I feel bad about waking up whoever comes to answer the door. Maybe I woke up the whole family?! It can’t be later than one-thirty!
Another, calmer part of my brain thinks about Enid, and what kind of person she is. I imagine her as short, plump, with curly dark hair and blue eyes.
I’m very much expecting my fantasy Enid, so when the woman in question opens the door, I’m surprised.
I got the blue eyes right, but they’re not a dark blue like I expected. They’re icy.
Her hair is curly, and it’s a shocking white-blonde, but even with the snowy color, it’s still darker than my own hair, and her ends are dyed pink and purple.
Enid is tall and thin, like a model, and she is wearing pink and white vintage pinstripe pajamas that I can appreciate.
Her eyes are bright and sparkly, and even though her smile is faintly canine, she looks very welcoming.
I think I like her already.
“Howdy, Thursday!” says Enid. She is quite cheerful for someone who has been woken up at an extremely early hour. Her smile becomes a toothy frown too quickly, though. “Where’s your mom?”
“She left,” I say blankly. “Can I come in?”
“Oh!” Enid yelps. “Of course! Please do.” And she leads me inside.
“You’re not mad that I woke you up early?” I ask her tentatively as I step into the living room. The house is an explosion of color on the inside, but under all the bright vibrance, it’s a simple duplex with a few parts that look like later additions.
“Oh, no,” Enid says. “There’s a full moon tomorrow night. I’m already about to start my lupin cycle, so I’m awake. And luckily for you, so are my wolf-dominant children!”
“You have more than one?”
Enid grins. “I have seven! And only one has wolfed out so far. That would be my oldest, Violet.”
“How old is Violet?”
“Twelve.”
“Oh,” I say. “I’m thirteen, so I think we can get along.”
“Violet’s very easy to get along with,” Enid promises. “You’ll like her.”
“Okay.”
“I have a question for you, Thursday.” She looks at me very seriously, hands wrung together.
“Yeah?” I ask, slightly scared.
Then she smiles and the tension releases from her shoulders. “Are you hungry?”
I sigh in relief. “I could eat.”
Enid pulls some sandwich materials out of the cupboards. “How do you like your sandwich?”
“Um… lettuce, ham, cheddar cheese, and if you have guacamole that would be great.”
“I have everything,” Enid says. “I probably have something somewhere in my pantry that you couldn’t find in Vermont- legally, I mean. Comes with being an Outcast and having as many kids as I do.”
“Illegal food items,” I say thoughtfully as Enid gets lettuce. “Delicious.”
She makes me my sandwich and I eat it, sitting at the table, with one candle lit. I hear footsteps coming down one of the many staircases and rapidly turn my head.
At the bottom of the staircase is a girl with purple hair. Her eyes are blue and she’s wearing a purple nightgown. “Mom? Who is this?”
“Violet!” Enid exclaims. “This is Thursday.”
Her nose wrinkles. “What kind of name is that?”
“Her mother is my best friend,” Enid says. “You know. Wednesday.”
“Oh, so we’re all going for weekday names now?” Violet snarks. “Who’s next, Monday?”
“I am so sorry,” Enid says to me. “She isn’t usually like this. Violet, do we need that lupin collar again?”
“No!” Violet yelps. “Anything but that. Please, Mom. No collar.”
Then she turns to me. “You didn’t hear that.”
I blink. “Yes, I did.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“But I did. I can’t erase things that I’ve heard.”
“Freak!” Violet turns on her heel and marches back up the stairs, claws coming out as she does.
“Collar?” I ask Enid when she’s gone.
“Werewolf thing.” The woman smiles sadly. “Want a cookie? They’re double chocolate.”
“Oh!” I exclaim. “Yes!”
I end up eating four before I sit back and begin to undo my tightly braided hair. “Enid, is my mom coming back?”
Enid sighs. “I would tell you yes, but I have to be honest with Wednesday’s kid. I really don’t know.”
“She just… left me.” I look down, feeling the tears in my eyes. “She doesn’t love me.”
Through the water in my eyes, I watch her face switch into “protective mom” mode. She comes over and I let her put her arms around me.
“No, baby,” Enid says. “Your mother loves you so much. She wouldn’t have kept you alive this long if she didn’t.”
“She abandoned me,” I say into her pink pajamas.
“No, she didn’t.” Enid sighs. “You’re not very much like Wednesday, are you?”
“I’m Thursday,” I say, shuddering. “I’m not anyone else.” I pull back and look at Enid’s very kind face. “I think I want to go to bed now.”
“Of course.” Enid smiles softly. “There’s a shower upstairs. Violet’s room is on the right. You can borrow some of her clothes, and I’ve already told her to put out the air mattress for you.”
“Thank you, Enid.” I give her a smile in return and head up the stairs. It’s dark, and I almost trip over the top step, but I find Violet’s room. It’s not hard. Hers is the only door surrounded by purple LEDs and vines. The sign on the door reads, “DO NOT ENTER,” but there’s some folded clothes outside that I assume I’m supposed to wear.
I go into the bathroom across the hall, shower quickly, and put on the pajamas. They’re lavender, which is abysmal, but I can deal with it for one night.
I open the door to Violet’s room.
“Hello?”
The room is bright and dark at the same time. Purple LEDs line the walls inside the room as well, and there’s technology everywhere. Phone stands, computers, monitors. It’s almost like she’s a wannabe influencer. There’s no air mattress on the ground, though, just a shaggy purple rug and a faded green blanket that’s barely the size of my face.
“Hi,” I say again. “Violet?”
She’s sitting on her bed, scrolling on her phone with one lavender-nailed hand. The screen lights up her face. “What?” she says. Her tone isn’t very nice, so maybe I’ll put on some of my mother’s deadly sarcasm.
“Oh, I don’t know,” I say. “You could be a little nicer to the daughter of a celebrity.”
She looks me in the eye. “Your mom isn’t a celebrity,” Violet says. “She’s a weirdo. And why do you look like a ghost?”
“Why do you look like a Teletubby?” I shoot back. In my defense, I’m not wrong. Her purple hair is twisted up into a donut bun on her head, and she looks like something out of that old creepy cartoon.
“Whatever,” Violet says. “You’re sleeping on the floor.”
“Uh… no.”
“Okay, look here, freak,” she says. “My room, my rules. And I don’t have the patience or work ethic to put out the stupid air mattress.”
“Look here, freak,” I snark back at her. “I don’t have the patience or work ethic to deal with a low-intelligence canine like you. If you don’t want to put out the air mattress, I will seriously throw your bed through the wall.”
She raises an eyebrow. “Excuse me? How?”
“You wanna see?”
Her curiosity wins over her meanness, and she gives a shrug, telling me she’s trying hard not to care. “All right,” she finally says. “You got super strength or something?”
“No,” I tell her. “My ability is this.”
I stretch out my hand towards her and the purple phone goes flying out of her hands, hovering above her head. “Telekinesis,” Violet says. Her eyes widen. “Oh em gee. That is so cool!”
“Then why were you so rude?” I ask her.
Violet sighs, plucking her phone from the air. “Lupin cycle. I’m usually a delightful person.”
I sincerely doubt that, and don’t approve of her using her wolf status as an excuse, but I’ve done the “ability lie” a few times with my own mother, so… whatever. I don’t care.
“Fine,” I say. “Snap at me again and I’ll choke you with the Force.”
Violet bursts out laughing. “The Force? From those really old space movies?”
“Yes,” I say solemnly.
“You are so weird,” Violet says. “Wanna take a selfie?”
Thatfanficfan on Chapter 1 Sun 26 Oct 2025 02:51AM UTC
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Thatfanficfan on Chapter 2 Sun 26 Oct 2025 02:57AM UTC
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Half_Sugar on Chapter 3 Thu 09 Oct 2025 05:43PM UTC
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FANGIRLslay on Chapter 3 Thu 09 Oct 2025 08:28PM UTC
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