Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Wednesday’s POV

I simply do not believe in anniversaries. They are nothing but calendars shrouded in sentiment. I think they are nothing but reminders of dates that humans insist on treating like rituals. But the living will have their memorials, and the dead will endure them. I, by chance, find myself caught up in the unseemly space between both parties, so I keep a schedule.

It has been ten years since I ended Tyler’s life. Nothing about that pleases me to this day. No anniversary can soften the decision I had to make.

Before my mind wanders off further, I focus on finishing the sentence. I finish the sentence and dot the final 'I' as though sealing off an injury. After that I place my pen on the edge of the desk. I do not trouble myself to read the line through; I never read conclusions immediately.  I know conclusions work out best when they are left alone.

My study is surrounded by draft pages that are stuck into towers. They’re grouped according to the succession of failures leading up to my most recent success. The critics refer to them as my trials. I refer to them as growth. Every part of those drafts shaped my current successfully published book.

My room is filled with candles that light the room. The wax has formed on the candle holders. I take a look out of the window into my garden. It’s a foggy night, which seems fitting for the date. The roses in the garden have started to rot. It’s almost elegant. The ravens outside look restless. It always feels like they seem to have very intense opinions regarding the moon that rises over my garden every night. I interpret their insistence as reassurance. It is the living who require interpretation.

My mind goes back to my study. It smells like ink mixed with ashes. On the wall opposite my desk hangs a framed clipping of a newspaper. It’s about my book ‘’The Anatomy of a Hyde. The book has made me successful in a way only the public can understand. It has made me able to buy this house; it even encouraged men to deliver me contracts for my next books. I signed them right away.

Success, by the common mind, is a concept I find boring. It’s dull and renders the patient inconveniently conscious.

I close the leather journal containing the first draft of the next book and band it with its ribbon. The study becomes louder when I stop writing. The sounds feel intense. I take in every one of them. The tiny hiss of the candle wax, the rain tapping against the glass of my windows and even the creak of the wooden floor.

The clock on the mantle grinds to the exact minute it did ten years ago. Time has always been predictable. Time is the only factor that will remain steady in life.

I stand up from my chair. It’s a Victorian relic that was a gift from my parents. I walk to the chair in the corner of my study. It’s covered with the black dress I chose for this evening. It’s practical but fits with the memorial.

When one visits the dead, one should dress as if they might file a complaint. My hair remains braided into precise lines. Some insist the style implies I am frozen at sixteen. They are wrong. I maintain my braids because they prevent hair from interfering with work. Nostalgia is not a factor. Nostalgia is an infection.

When I have changed into my dress, I walk downstairs. I stop in front of the mirror in the hallway. I look at my own eyes. There’s an absence of emotion in them that used to irritate me. But I’ve grown used to it. I put on my gloves before making my way to the front door.

I’m about to step out of the door when I notice a small parcel. Inside the parcel is a white hyacinth bloom, recently severed. The hyacinth is an unsubtle choice. Please forgive me, says the language of flowers. I do not speak that language except when weaponising it; still, the hyacinth has a bruised, honest scent that I respect. It apologises without expectation. Plants are superior to people in this way.

I step into the night. Leaving my house behind. The house used to be an orphanage. I purchased it because it came with an institutional melancholy and a cemetery that strayed conveniently onto the property line. The gates are ornamental. Almost as a suggestion of containment rather than a mandate. I do not lock them. The dead find their way home whether one invites them or not.

I make my way to the small cemetery that belongs to my property. The rain seems to intensify while I make my way down the gravel path. It softens while the rain falls to the ground. The ravens relocate to follow me, their bodies hunched.

The cemetery is small. I know every stone and every person that has been laid to rest. I even know every error on the stones. Some were carved by hands that trembled too much with grief. Others by hands that had never known either and were therefore careless. Tyler’s marker is one up for debate. I demanded his stone to be plain. I wanted his name on it, with his date of birth and the day of his death.

The man who carved the stones suggested an epitaph to me. I suggested he’d obey or he’d lose a few fingers. Let’s just say he complied. The only extravagance is a small hyde flower engraved along the lower left edge. I wanted it to be there.

Sometimes my mind wanders to the question of if I did the right thing. I never know the answer.

I kneel on the damp moss and lay the hyacinth at the base of the stone, adjusting the stem until it aligns with his gravestone. The rain strikes the petals of the flower.

“I do not believe in speaking to stones,” I say, “but I believe in remembrance.”

If Tyler is here, it is as a chemical argument. Calcium, phosphorus, leftover iron. Somewhere, a worm has an opinion about him. I do not in any serious sense expect a reply. Still, the cemetery is a better listener than most people I have met.

“Ten years,” I tell him. “You’re not here anymore to count, but I am.”

Of course I don’t get an answer. But it’s almost as if the rain is answering for him. I turn my face up, letting a few drops of rain hit my eyelashes. It doesn’t sting.

It is not the first time I have come here, and it will not be the last. I’ve come to the conclusion that even my mind loves to run in circles.

Tyler died where the trees met the lake. As he was dying, his lungs struggled to remember how to breathe, and his eyes searched for mine. In the end, my hands were on his face. I remember that clearly, because sometimes I can still feel it in the middle of the night. The memory of his bones beneath my fingers. He was no longer filled with Hyde. You could see it slip back into the darkness. The boy who was still there looked shocked. He let out a tiny sound as his breath left him.

The police report called it self-defence. The town called it justice. Even the students of Nevermore called it necessary. I never thought of it that way.

When you use a blade for a long time, a certain ache sets in. It starts in your fingers and moves to your wrist, slow and steady. It’s not exactly pain. No, more like something that won’t go away. I still feel it sometimes when I’m signing first editions at bookshops. One time a woman with shiny nails said that I was “so brave, reliving that trauma for art.” She meant well.

I keep a list of moments that, if they had gone differently, might have changed everything. Making lists helps me feel some control. They make the chaos seem smaller, easier to face. If I hadn’t followed him that night. If I’d picked a different weapon. If I’d let someone else go first. If I hadn’t believed I could end it so cleanly. If I had, just once, doubted myself.

I’m very good at being sure of things. Unfortunately, that’s not always a good skill to have. People often mistake it for cruelty. I do have cruelty in me.

I place my gloved hand on the stone. The cold seeps through the leather and into my skin. My nerves send a simple message: it’s cold. The skin on my wrist tightens. I like feelings that remind the body it’s still alive.

“I’m not here to apologize,” I tell the name on Tyler’s grave. The hyacinth seems to disagree, but I let it believe what it wants. “I’m here to give a report.”

Here is my report: I’ve built a life that my sixteen-year-old self would have found embarrassing. I own a house. I pay people to fix the roof. I go to my publisher’s parties just long enough for gossip columns to get a photo of me turning down snacks. My schedule is full,apologise,” always full. People ask me to speak on panels, and I only agree if the topic is to my liking.

Enid sends me postcards covered in glitter that always seems to escape into my books, my clothes, and even my tea. I don’t mind; it makes me laugh. She writes about her small victories: proud students, wolves that drive her wild, and quiet Tuesdays that make her hopeful for the rest of the week. She ends every card with a rainbow sticker. It’s so sincere it almost feels dangerous. She always asks if I’m taking care of myself.

I am taking care of myself. The body is a tool, and tools rust if they’re not maintained.

Xavier writes too, though his letters are more like sketches. They’re bits of memory, faint confessions. He signs his name as if he’s saying sorry. I reply once for every four letters he sends. That keeps the balance.

I get fan letters too. Some ask for hope; others ask for blood. I prefer the ones that ask for blood; at least they’re honest. I also get letters from mothers who’ve lost children, asking if I believe in forgiveness. I file those under “sentiment” and “knife care”. The two categories overlap more than you’d think.

People tell me The Anatomy of a Hyde saved their lives. Sometimes I wonder if it’s also killed someone. Books can be quiet killers. You never know which line might push someone over the edge they built for themselves.

A drop of rain slips between my glove and my sleeve, running down my arm like it knows where it’s going. I let it fall and imagine it drawing a line between who I used to be and who I am now. It’s a pointless thought. Both versions of me live in the same head.

“Do you want to know the worst part?” I ask the gravestone. The worst part changes from day to day. Today, it’s this: his last breath warmed my fingers. My body remembers warmth as betrayal.

I picture Tyler’s face when he smiled. It was that strange, careful smile that looked like he’d learnt it from a book and was testing it out. I don’t like sentiment, but I can still list what was good about him. Tyler was pleasant, but only in pieces. I lay those pieces out in my mind. His laughter that always came a second too late, as if he had to fetch it from another room; the way he held cups with both hands, trying to warm both the drink and himself; his posture, trying hard to be tall but ending up only looking young. When the Hyde inside him woke up, those same pieces didn’t disappear. No, they just rearranged themselves around something darker. That’s what made it dangerous.

People like to see the world in pairs: monster or boy, guilty or innocent. I would have loved the world to be black and white. But I know it’s not that simple.

A raven lands on Tyler’s grave. It shakes the rain from its feathers and stares at me with eyes as black as coal. Then it makes a rough sound.

“No,” I tell it. The raven blinks, offended, and hops over to a nearby cross so it can glare at me from above.

Rain has soaked through my coat and runs down my back in a cold stream. I stand up. Kneeling looks too much like praying, and I don’t stay in that position for long.

“Report concluded,” I say before leaving the cemetery.

On the walk back, the fog presses against me, heavy with rain. My boots stick to the ground with each step, pulling free from the mud. The gate squeaks when I open it. My ancestors would probably approve of my house, though I try not to think about their approval too much. It tends to make people value the wrong things.

Inside the entryway, I take off my gloves and set them on a porcelain tray. Water drips from my coat onto the tile in slow, steady taps. I don’t clean it up. The floor has survived worse. I pull off my boots carefully.

In the study, the candles have burnt down since I left, their flames small and tired. I relight the stubborn ones. The flames flare up with a quiet hiss. Fire is wonderfully simple. It understands hunger.

On the desk is a letter I didn’t open before leaving. The envelope bears the Nevermore crest, sealed in black wax. I try not to get sentimental, but this kind of intrusion deserves attention. I think about ignoring. But my curiosity gets to me, so I open it.

Principal Weems is dead, so she couldn’t have written it. Whoever took her place signs the letter “Acting Headmistress L. Fairweather”, a name so cheerful it annoys me. Her handwriting is thin. The letter invites me to an alumni event. It’s not about literature but clearly about money. It adds, in that fake-sincere way only administrative letters can, that The Anatomy of a Hyde has “sparked meaningful conversations among our students about accountability, monstrosity, and healing.” They underlined healing, as if I might miss the point.

I set the letter beside the opener and place a small paperweight on it to keep it still.

The invitation has nothing to do with the anniversary, but the mind connects what it wants to. I can’t help noticing that the same people who once saw me as a warning now see me as a product. I don’t celebrate the change from monster to marketing tool. It says something about the sickness in the culture. It’s something worse than whateverlived inside Tyler’s skin.

…

I return to my journal. I open it and write down two words: Ten years. The ink spreads around the page. The blur looks beautiful.

I don’t plan to sleep, but the body makes its demands at the worst times. I blow out most of the candles, leaving one burning to watch over the room. I walk to the phonograph. I only keep music that feels clean and precise. Tonight I choose Bach. It’s a partita that lines up my thoughts. When the bow touches the strings, even the air seems to remember it has a spine.

I lie down on the fainting couch that has never managed to make me faint. I close my eyes; there’s no point in staring at the ceiling. The music smooths the knots in my mind. I let each note come and go without trying to hold onto it.

Maybe I slept. If I did, it was the thin, uneasy kind of sleep you get after surgery when the body borrows rest it doesn’t trust.

I wake with the feeling that something in the room has changed. Not much, no, just a shift in pressure. The candle flame stands straight, alert. My skin warns me: the air is a little cooler, and it tastes faintly of iron, the way it does when lightning is about to make a point. I sit up.

…

I turn my attention to my desk. That’s where I see the cause of the change in the room. There’s a small square of old fabric, waiting next to the invitation from Nevermore. The cloth seems to be folded with care. It’s dark, and the edges seem hand-stitched. Whoever left it didn’t disturb the dust. I never trust intruders who are so neat.

I stand up and walk to my desk. The music has shifted into a sad, logical rhythm. I think about throwing it away, but I can’t stop myself.

I pick up the fabric. It’s heavier than it looks. It smells faintly of smoke and something else I try not to recognise. The scent is a mixture of damp earth and wet leaves and even has a hint of animal. It smells like the place where Tyler died.

I unfold the cloth. Inside is a silver pocket watch, tarnished and engraved with a strange looping pattern that draws the eyes in circles. If you stare long enough, the design forms a shape. It’s not a serpent eating its tail, but something sharper, a loop that never quite closes. Along the edge, tiny letters are carved with care. I know the script. It’s old, part of my family’s history. Goody Addams never believed in gifts that weren’t also punishments.

The watch isn’t ticking. I know it never will. Both hands are set to midnight but are not perfectly aligned. The second hand hovers above the face like a small, restless blade.

A torn piece of paper lies folded with the cloth. The edges are brown with age, the tear uneven as if someone ripped it out in a hurry. A sentence is written in reddish ink: We are instruments; the question is who plays us.

It’s an intrusive line. It annoys me. But it’s not wrong.

I don’t ask how it ended up on my desk. Someone must have placed it here. Which means they wanted me to have it. I press the watch’s stem. It clicks softly before the lid opens.

The glass doesn’t show my reflection properly. My face breaks apart, multiplies, then settles on a version of me that looks both younger and more tired. The glass isn’t normal. No, it’s been polished with something that remembers other faces, other nights. For a second, the numbers on the dial shift and then settle back into place.

Inside, the gears try to move. Among them is something that shouldn’t be there: a strand of black hair, coiled tight around a gear. It’s been placed there deliberately. If this is some kind of sick joke or revenge quest, it’s a personal one.

When I close the watch, the metal warms against my hand. I dislike objects that just show up out of nowhere. Especially ones that smell like him.

I’ve seen devices like this before, in journals that should’ve been destroyed with their owners. They weren’t watches then. No, they were mirrors, rings, or knives with hollow handles. The idea was always the same: time, like flesh, can be cut. And cuts always have consequences. So do scars that heal the wrong way. Until now, I’ve been sure to leave the wound from that night closed.

A thought is forming, though. It isn’t wild; nothing about me is. It arrives in order, step by step. What if the cut could be undone? Not the entire night. No, that’s impossible. But only a single moment. A choice. A breath I shouldn’t have taken. That it was mercy and redemption. The funny thing is that I don’t believe in those.

What tempts me is precision. My mistake wasn’t killing him. My mistake was thinking his death solved the equation cleanly. Ten years later, the leftover piece still stares back at me from the mirror and asks if I know how to finish the maths.

Suddenly the watch feels heavier in my hands. I can feel my pulse rise. It beats faster than it should. I breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth, trying to calm myself down.

…

At the window, the rain turns to sleet for three exact seconds, then back again as if the sky can’t make up its mind. The ravens go quiet. The candle flickers, then steadies itself.

“Well,” I say aloud, “if this is an invitation, it’s a very rude one.”

A less careful person would wind the watch. A more sentimental one would call Enid. A truly cautious one would bury it in the yard. I do none of those. I set the watch on the desk and draw a chalk circle around it. I’m not cautious or reckless. I’m simply curious.

The chalk circle isn’t for protection. Chalk has never saved anyone from a family curse. The circle is for observation. If the watch moves while I’m watching, I’ll have proof. I trust evidence more than instinct. Instinct is useful, but data is the structure that lets movement happen.

I sit and open a new page in my journal. I title it Hyde Temporal Variables. I start a list of what I remember happened that night. After that I find myself drawing the woods, how they were that night. I sketch the fracture line across the boy’s face when Hyde left him. I record the colour of his lips, the temperature of the air, and the exact weight of my guilt then and now for comparison.

…

An hour later I drop my pen and read what I have written so far. I glance at the watch. It hasn’t moved beyond the circle. It lies there, perfectly still.

I reach out to touch the watch’s case, then pause. Not out of fear, but because touching it would mean I am crossing a line.

I stand, go to the window, and unhook the latch. Cold air slips in, brushing the sweat at the back of my neck. I let it question me for a moment, then close the window. I do not agree to its terms.

…

When I turn around to my desk, I notice that the chalk circle has smudged. For a moment it looks like a fingerprint. I wipe it away, trying to convince myself I am wrong.

I pick up the watch. The second hand is moving. I never wound it.

I don’t drop it. My fingers tighten around the grip of the watch. I can feel the metal press into my skin. Inside I see the strand of hair around the gear pull tighter. The hands of the watch twitch.  Not toward one or twelve, but to a point in between that no real clock should recognise.

Suddenly a sound fills the room from nowhere. It’s a faint bell. It’s not loud. But it makes the air tremble. Even the remaining candle that is burning flickers.

The watch seems to open on its own. The face doesn’t brighten. No, it sharpens. The numbers shift, losing their familiar shapes and becoming something else. The second hand slices across an invisible mark. When it finishes the cut, something in the world changes. Barely visible, but enough if you focus. You could miss it if you wanted to pretend it wasn’t real. But I am fully awake.

…

I somehow find myself thinking about Tyler’s grave. The hyacinth I placed near the grave slowly drowning in the rain, the ravens watching like judges, and the way his last breath warmed my gloves. I think about the sentence on that piece of paper: We are instruments; the question is who plays us.

“I play myself,” I say out loud. It isn’t exactly true, “And sometimes I let the knife play me.”

The hands of the watch meet at twelve, then slide beneath the surface of the face. In their place, a new shape appear. Something I’ve only seen hinted at in forbidden notes: a small notch at the edge of the dial, just big enough for a single drop of blood.

Of course. Everything asks for a price. The world doesn’t run on charity. I know it needs my blood. So without hesitation. I use the same knife I used on Tyler. It rests in a thin drawer I rarely open. The blade is spotless. The handle still fits my hand perfectly.’

 It settles into my grip with a familiar, shameful ease. The kind that comes from a sin practisedappears. too often.

I prick the tip of my left index finger. The drop of blood forms neatly.

…

When the drop of blood hits the watch, the room seems to shift. The floor, the shelves, and the ceiling move half a step to the left while staying exactly where they are. I feel a strange satisfaction, the kind that comes when an impossible equation suddenly makes sense. The watch absorbs the blood.

My heartbeat changes, syncing to a rhythm that isn’t mine. The candle stretches its flame upward, as if waiting for a verdict. The house answers with a soft creak of its beams. Something unseen moves downward. Through the roof, through me, through the floor.

I don’t faint. I don’t kneel. I stand still. The smell of wet leaves grows stronger. The room cools by four degrees. The watch warms by one. My finger throbs steadily. The air hums with a sound too low to hear. If I said Tyler’s name now, it would have edges.

I lift the watch. It feels heavier.

I look into the mirror above my fireplace. It shows my usual face. Until it suddenly flickers. I see a younger version of myself appear. The girl was ready for battle, her hair braided tight, her mouth set in a straight line because curves were for lies. Then she fades. I don’t reach for her. I don’t miss her. She’s still here, carried forward through ten years of living. Haunted by guilt of something that happened ten years ago.

I slip the watch into the inner pocket of my dress.

In the fireplace, the last coal exhales and dies. The scent is sweet, like a memory corrected.

I sit down behind my desk before picking up my pen. I start writing in my journal: Variable introduced.

Outside, the ravens start calling again. They sound almost excited. I don’t allow myself excitement. No, it feels too close to panic. Instead, I allow precision. I focus on the moment exactly as it is: the ink drying, the candle steadying, the watch defying stillness, and the blood drying on my fingertip. What comes next will be planned.

It is still the tenth anniversary of his death. For the first time in ten years, I feel something shift. After I finish writing, I pinch out the last candle. I can feel the brief sting, but I welcome the pain. After the candle is out, darkness follows. I can feel the watch in the pocket of my dress.

…

Somewhere near the cemetery, the ground shifts. Like something has stood up and remembered it was once a boy who made coffee for a living.

Tomorrow, or whatever word fits when time stops behaving, I will return to the grave. If the hyacinth has survived, I’ll take it. I’ll begin the experiment not for forgiveness, but for accuracy. If the universe thinks it can be rewritten, it can endure my edits.

For now, I have work. A schedule. A watch that isn’t really a watch, and a knife that has already told one truth.

Ten years is a clean number. A grave is a precise address. And I am, above all, an instrument that tunes itself.

I wipe the blood from my fingertip onto the edge of the journal. It leaves a dark, neat line.
I sleep for one hour and twelve minutes. In the morning I will begin.

Chapter Text

Wednesday’s POV

When morning hits, it feels tiring as always. People always talk about morning as if the daylight could fix everything. As if the sunlight could erase what happened the night before. In my study, the light taps on the windows, enters quietly, and avoids disturbing anything that matters. My watch is still where I left it, in the pocket of last night’s dress, gently warming the fabric.

I get up without any stretch or yawn. The body has its habits, but my mind ignores them. The air is a little colder. The window is covered with faint lines of condensation. I listen before I move: the tired candle wick still trying to burn, the wood of the house settling and the faraway sound of ravens arguing.

I stick to my routine. It keeps everything from collapsing. I brush my teeth. Wash my face. Braid my hair into two lines. It’s more pattern than sentiment. I make coffee not because I need it, but because it’s part of my routine. I drink it black.

My desk still holds last night’s evidence. My journal is open to the line I wrote: Variable introduced. I think about adding a note, but notes weaken sentences until they forget what they meant. I close the book, tie it with a black ribbon, and put it away among other finished things.

The dress from last night hangs there. I replace it with a suit I bought after a photographer told me people trust a woman in a collar more than one in a veil. The suit is sharp and controlled; from afar it looks like discipline. I pin the watch inside the inner pocket with a small black stitch so it won’t slip away. I tell myself this is caution.

Outside the fog has turned into a weak daylight. It makes everything look vulnerable. On the way out I pass the cemetery. It hides itself neatly behind the plants, pretending not to exist. But I know I looked through the gate; I could see the exact patch of ground where Tyler’s name is carved into stone. I don’t look, not because I am avoiding it, but because there’s no point in visiting so soon again. I’ll go back when a date or memorial demands me to.

By the time I leave the house, the watch has cooled from last night’s warmth into a calm, heavy weight against my chest. It keeps its secrets. I keep mine. The ravens on the roof watch silently. Good. I don’t like an audience unless they’ve paid for the privilege.

The city wears its rain awkwardly, like a corpse wearing lipstick. It’s too bright, in all the wrong places. I take the tram because it has order: tracks, rules, and a schedule that I like. People avoid looking at me. They always have, but now they also know who I am. A child whispers my name to his mother, who straightens his posture as if that might keep him from reading my books. He keeps staring. Monster or moralist, I will let them decide. Either choice is too simple.

…

The agency is on the top floor of an old textile mill that still carries the faint smell of heat and work. The elevator stops at every floor. When it finally opens, a receptionist with pearl earrings greets me by my full name, then quickly shortens it to “Miss Addams”, smiling in the careful, trained way of someone performing good manners.

“You’re early,” she says.
“I’m exactly on time,” I correct. “Everyone else is imprecise.”
She nods as if I’ve complimented her. Maybe I have.

The agent waits in a glass-walled conference room. His name is Rowan Hale. He says it’s his real name. I doubt it. Today he’s wearing a navy suit with lapels wider than his integrity. His pen looks heavy. He stands when I walk in but tries to make it look casual.

“Wednesday,” he says, spreading his hands. You look…”
“Alive,” I finish for him. “It’s still inconvenient.”
He laughs, then checks whether laughing was appropriate. “Have a seat. Drink? Coffee? Tea?”
“Water,” I say. “Plain.”

He pours it carefully, like it’s something rare he’s personally secured. I let him.

“We’re very excited about the new manuscript,” he says, tapping a folder that holds months of my focus and detachment. “Early excerpts have real traction. There’s momentum. The Anatomy of a Hyde has become…well, forgive me…definitive. This next one will put you beyond debate.”

“Beyond debate is beyond interest,” I reply. “Debate is free marketing provided by your enemies.”

He leans forward. “The editor wondered if we might make your public image a bit more... forgiving. Readers like softness. A path to healing. You understand.”
“I understand many paths,” I say. “Most of them lead into the woods, where people pretend they’re not lost.”

He forces a smile and writes something down. “Still, if we adjust the language, less ‘dissection’ and more ‘reclamation’, we could reach more people. Maybe even book clubs, day panels and streaming audiences.’’ He says streams have way too much excitement. “And perhaps a short tour. You could visit a few cities. You could talk about your trauma and tell the truth. You could share your unique..ehm …perspective.’’

Trauma and truth. He lines the words up like snacks and waits to see which one I’ll take.
“My perspective is already in the work,” I say. “If they want more, they can reread it with their eyes open this time.”

He smiles the way men do when deciding whether to argue or flirt. He wisely chooses neither.
“We could position you as a voice for survivors,” he suggests. “A hero.”
“I’m not a hero,” I say. “I’m a killer.’’
“A bestseller claiming she’s a killer won’t make them buy your books.”
“So be it,” I answer. “I can’t be a hero. I’m not.”
He winces. “Surely you’re some kind of hero, Miss Addams.’’
“No, Mr Hale. I’m an adult with a knife.’’

He taps his pen, then backs down. “We will talk about it later...” he says.  “As for the cover, there’s a concept we love.” He turns a mock-up toward me: my own profile in matte black, a specimen tag pinned to my throat with the word 'subject' in clinical handwriting.

“Too sentimental,” I say.
“Sentimental?” he repeats. “It’s clinical.”
“Clinical is a kind of sentiment,” I tell him. “For people who want authority more than affection.”
He flips the mock-up face down, as if it might die without light.
“We’ll revisit,” he says.
“We won’t,” I say. “It’s dead.”

He stares at the paper, hoping it might revive. It doesn’t.
“There’s one more thing,” he continues, eager to move on. “A streaming platform wants to develop a limited series inspired by Anatomy. Not a direct adaptation, more a ‘spiritual successor’. A young outsider studying the nature of monsters in a haunted town. You’d be an executive producer. You could give your creative input; there’s a strong compensation for it.’’ He glances at my hands.
“Do they want to understand Hyde,” I ask, “or tame him?”
“Contextualise,” he corrects himself mid-word.
“Giving monsters dialogue doesn’t make them safe,” I say. The watch in my pocket grows a degree warmer, approving. “Tell them no.”
He sighs, disappointed in numbers, not in morals. “All right. We’ll say you refused to protect the work’s integrity.”
“Don’t spin it,” I say. “Tell them I’m not selling a secondhand version of something I’ve done.’’
He writes it down word for word. He knows a quote when he hears one. He hopes I’ll forget I said it. I won’t.

He tries to recover his charm. “We’re hosting a small industry dinner next week. Strategic but intimate. If you came. Even just for fifteen minutes, you could give a toast. You don’t have to talk about healing from what you’ve done, no. You could just say something cool and leave. That’s what the readers adore about you.’’
“They adore the illusion of refusal,” I say. “It makes them feel bold without taking risks.”
He spreads his hands. “Isn’t that what this business is?”
“No,” I say. “This business is exchange. If they want my silence, they can pay extra.”

He laughs, genuinely this time. “You are, as always, devastating.”
“Only efficient,” I reply.

We wrap up: dates, contracts, interviews I won’t give, and a few I might if the questions behave. He tries to schedule me; I let him pretend he can.

When the meeting ends, he offers a handshake. I take it. His palm is warm with effort; mine is cool by design.

At the door, he hesitates. “Wednesday,” he says quietly. “Are you... well?”
“Would you care if I were not?’’ I ask him.

He studies me for a second. “If you need anything…”
“No thank you,” I say. “I like to take care of my own.’’

Of course he doesn’t understand. Most people don’t understand, and honestly, I don’t blame them. It’s something most will never get in their lives.

Outside, the rain has thinned to a tired smear. I walk instead of taking the tram. Movement has its own language, and I like sentences that involve the body. The city keeps itself tidy with a pride I don’t share. People live here. People eat here. People decide which parts of themselves to pretend will last. I pass a florist who refuses to sell hyacinths out of season. Good, because a florist with boundaries is a rare thing.

…

I finally make it back home. By the time I reach the gate of my property, the sky has settled on a shade of grey that flatters no one. The ravens are back on the fence posts, as if they’ve been assigned their positions. The house looks the same as always. It looks like it has been repaired twice. When I open the door, the entryway has the scent of damp stone and books. Just the scent I love most.

To my surprise there’s a package waiting for me on the threshold. It’s half wrapped in brown paper. I pick it up and examine it. It has no return address. It isn’t heavy either. When I tilt it, it makes the sound of paper shuffling.

I carry it to the study and set it on the desk beneath the shadow of the watch. The knife from the top drawer slices the string cleanly. Inside it is a tissue paper with the colour of oversteeped tea. Beneath it is a stack of photographs.

Photographs are more dangerous than weapons. Photographs pretend to be proof of memories when in reality they can hit you the hardest.

The first photo shows a shopfront reflected in a rain-dark window. There are no people on it. Just an electric sign fighting weather. The next shows someone’s hands holding a porcelain cup. I set it aside.

The third photo is a photo of the Weathervane’s sign in winter. The letters are edged with frost. The photo is clearly taken from across the street.

On the fourth photo is a visible shadow of someone inside the Weathervane. The person is leaning on the counter.

My pulse stays steady. The watch grows warmer anyway. I go through the rest of the photos without reacting. A paper placemat printed with a maze. A coffee ring shaped like a broken halo. A coat on the back of a chair, one sleeve turned as if about to wave.

The final photos lose their focus. The edges are blurred. Someone moved mid-shot. A laugh started, then stopped. One has a name written on the back, the handwriting careful but not careful enough: “Ty”. The rest never made it.

I take one breath that fails to feel normal. Then I arrange the photos in an order that satisfies me. I could burn them, but I don’t. Fire is for endings. This feels like a beginning that hasn’t revealed its price.

…

I lose my focus when I hear a sound move through the house. Before I can investigate where the sound is coming from, I hear the bell at the gate ring once. I know right away who it is.

It’s my mother. She doesn’t make appointments. She only needs a doorway. I meet her at the front door.

She’s dressed as if mourning were a sacred ritual. Velvet the colour of darkness; a brooch like a drop of night at her throat. When she tilts her chin, I see again the calm geometry of a woman who wears mystery as elegance.

“Little storm cloud,” she says. It’s half affection, half strategy. She kisses the air beside my cheek. I let it land or not, as it wishes.

“You’re early,” I say.
She smiles. “No, cara mia. I am right on time.”
I step aside. “Then come in and prove it.”

My mother glides past me. My mother knows how to move through rooms. She sits down on the chair near my desk. She sits down before removing her gloves. She places them on my desk.  Turning even that into a quiet performance.

“You’ve been difficult to reach,” she says, her eyes scanning corners for dust or secrets. “Your letters are very precise. I prefer wounds I can answer in person.”
“Letters behave better than people,” I reply. “They stay where you put them.”

Her gaze settles briefly on the box of photographs before I can move it. She knows the weight of evidence.
“Gifts from admirers?”
“Gifts from the past,” I say. “Or its accomplices.”

She nods, choosing not to pry. My mother’s mercy is rooted in curiosity, not kindness.
“You’re thin,” she observes, not as a criticism. “Are you sleeping?”
“I slept,” I say. “Briefly. It was enough.”
“Enough for the dead, perhaps,” she murmurs. “The living require better lies.”

I pour tea, because resistance would be pointless. We drink without ceremony. The steam rises like a veil, deciding who it should belong to.

“You received our invitation,” she says. I know she’s talking about the school’s fundraising letter. “A dreadful event. They’ll say your name as if it were a donation.”
“I prefer cheques,” I tell her. “They’re quieter.”
“You always were the practical one.” She sets her cup down softly. “Your father misses you loudly. I miss you quietly. Enid sends postcards that glow in the dark. Your brother sends me photos of knives he isn’t yet allowed to own.”
“Everyone seems to be thriving,” I say. “How unsettling.”
“And you?” she asks, finally reaching the question that matters.
“I’m working,” I say. It serves as both answer and refusal.

Her gaze shifts to the mantel, where the watch sits. She isn’t surprised. Mothers rarely are.
“Our family’s little relics have a way of returning when ignored,” she says. “Have you been ignoring anything important?”
“Constantly,” I say. “It’s the only way to get things done.”

She almost smiles. “When your grandmother taught me the old ways, she warned me not to polish the glass too clear. She said real glass remembers. It shows you what you want, then holds you accountable.”
“Grandmother was a romantic,” I say.
“She was a scientist,” Mother corrects. “She simply used romance the way you use knives.”

Suddenly my mother stands before moving around my room. Her fingers hover over my books. ‘’This place suits you. It’s like it’s all designed to serve you.’’
“Neither do children,” she says, turning back. “If you hear anything at night…” she begins, then stops before she can finish her sentence.

…

We both hear a sound coming from outside. It’s like the earth is moving without consent. The faint cough of a hinge somewhere in the weather.

I see my mother’s eyes sharpen. Mine are narrow, almost amused. “Ravens?” she asks.
“Ravens don’t apologise,” I say. “That sounded like an apology.”

‘’Maybe an unwanted guest?’’ she suggests, her mouth curving slightly.

I don’t hesitate for a second. I fetch my coat and walk toward the hallway. My mother doesn’t tell me to be careful. The only thing we say to each other is to be efficient.

My mother follows me to the door. She rests her fingers on my sleeve.

“If you intend to change anything,” she says softly, “do it with your eyes open.”
“I always do,” I tell her.
“I know,” she says, and lets me go.

…

I walk outside looking around when I see that the path to the cemetery seems to gleam. The fog settles lower when I hear the sound come again. It’s closer than before. When I arrive at the cemetery. I see that the hyacinth I left last night has collapsed, perfectly honest in its ruin. That feels right. The ravens watch me with their small, judgemental hearts.

Tyler’s stone looks the same: plain as usual. My name doesn’t belong on it, but my fingerprints do. I kneel, not in prayer, just out of habit. The ground swells slightly, then goes still again. I open my palm over the watch. The air cools exactly one degree.

“Show me,” I say. Trying to understand what’s happening.

The watch hears me and takes it literally. Heat spreads against my skin from the inside out. The second hand doesn’t tick; it drifts. The notch I fed last night reappears, fine as a whisper. I don’t bleed yet. I wait.

Behind me, a branch decides not to stay still. I don’t turn. Turning gives things too much importance. The ground exhales a sound that isn’t a voice but almost is. Something inside me shifts slightly sideways.

“Efficient,” I say to the air. “Finally.”

The watch hums. It’s not loud, but deep enough to feel in my bones. I press my thumb to the lid, and it opens easily, as if it’s been waiting for this moment.

I don’t cut myself this time. The blood from last night stirs, remembering its promise. The notch drinks memory instead of iron. The second hand crosses the point on the dial where numbers stop meaning numbers.

I look at the headstone, then beyond it, to the patient soil. What moves beneath isn’t a body. It’s a sentence just starting to form.

When I stand, the horizon tilts and steadies again, embarrassed by its own reaction. The watch warms in agreement. I’m grateful. The body needs small lies to keep going. The mind doesn’t.

The night opens. Not to speak, but to make room. A wind rises from the ground and moves up my skirt. I let it pass through me. The feeling is unpleasant but true.

I close the watch, and the dark closes with it, like an agreement being renewed. The sound stops. The ground remembers itself. I file away the new data.

As I turn to leave, something white catches my eye at the edge of the path. It’s a paper. Damp at the corners, folded with the same precision as the package. I pick it up. ‘’We are instruments; the question is who plays us’’ is written on it.

The same sentence, copied again. The ink is smudged where a thumb couldn’t help itself. I slip the paper into my pocket beside the watch and leave the cemetery.

…

My mother is waiting in the doorway when I return to the house. I don’t hesitate for a second and show her the paper. She reads it and nods.

“Good,” she says. “At least the enemy can quote.”
“Who says it’s an enemy?” I ask.
“Anyone who gives you choices is an enemy,” she replies. Then, after a pause, she picks up her gloves. “I’ll leave you to your work. If the past decides to be fragile with you, remind it which family you belong to.”

She kisses the air again. Then she leaves. The gate closes behind her with a loud squeak.

…

When I’m finally alone again I return to my study. The photographs from before are still there. I go through all the photos again. On the back of the last photo, the blurred one with the half-written name. I notice a second, fainter mark beneath the first. The writer had pressed too hard, as if trying to carve the name instead of just writing it: Ty…g..

Maybe it’s a message from someone who didn’t yet know their own strength. I’m not sentimental. I’m methodical. I take a pencil and shade lightly over the back until the pressed letters begin to show. The name appears. The air changes around it. I put down the pencil and sit still, while the room quietly adjusts to make space for a truth I already knew.

Outside, the ravens shift positions on the fence. Inside, the watch settles into a new rhythm.

Night returns without asking. The house gathers its shadows and dares me to make them look elegant. I light two candles.

…

I know I can’t go to sleep like this, so I open a random book in the hope I can borrow someone else’s thoughts to distract me. But the word doesn’t cooperate. My mind keeps circling back to the smell of the cemetery. A scent of wet earth. I close the book and accept that I’m awake, just with my eyes closed.

I feel that the watch doesn’t want my blood tonight. It wants proof. So I sleep, if only to deny it a performance.

After a while I hear the sound again. This time it’s closer near the house. It’s not inside the walls. Not yet. It’s in the ground just outside the study window, as if the lawn has learnt to breathe. I’m standing before I realise I’ve moved. For once, body and mind agree. That’s rare for me. I take the knife from my desk, just to be sure.

I open the window of my study, trying to see where the sound is coming from. The air outside is colder than yesterday. There’s a smell of wet leaves taking over my scent.

I open my window fully and step out of it until I can feel the grass underneath my feet. Somewhere in the dark, a bell rings softly. I pretend not to hear it. The ground dips politely beneath my feet.

At the graveyard gate, the hinges open on their own. I go in without hesitation.

At Tyler’s grave, the hyacinth has stopped pretending. It now looks exactly like what it is: something beautiful that died because attention isn’t enough to live on. The dirt around the stone is darker, as if it drank too much water. The watch trembles once against my ribs, then steadies. I open it, trying to understand what’s happening.

The small notch appears. I don’t feed it this time. Instead, I place the watch face-down on the stone and rest my hand on its back. The metal translates my heartbeat into its own rhythm. The ground responds by remembering a shape. Not a body, but a boy. A faint outline stitched together from everyday moments: the way a cup tilts, the posture of someone trying to seem taller. The shape stands without standing. The scent of coffee drifts into the air.

“I’m not here for forgiveness,” I tell it quietly. “I’m here for data.”

The shape doesn’t argue. It just exists.

I lift the watch. The second hand moves past the place on the dial where twelve pretends to be a door and then becomes one. The bell in the ground isn’t faint anymore. No, it’s a line I could cross if I were foolish. I’m not often foolish. Just sometimes greedy.

“Very well,” I say to the night. “Show me the terms.”

They come like a draught through an open door: no blood tonight, only evidence. One more visit to the grave. One more alignment at the exact minute the town once called justice. Then the door will open as wide as I can stand it. I can feel the tension in my body rise.

“I accept,” I say.

Around me I can hear the ravens protest, speaking their old, exact language. The watch doesn’t. It warms, then cools, then settles again.

I return to the house, to the desk, to the candle that knows my breath by now. The photographs wait to be arranged into meaning. I deny them. I slide them into the drawer and lock it.

“Tomorrow,” I tell the dark room. “Then we will proceed.’’

The watch responds with the smallest click.

…

But when sleep finally finds me, it doesn’t feel like rest. It feels like falling through a sentence before it ends.

When I open my eyes, I’m outside on damp earth beneath trees that know my name. The air smells fresh, a mixture of dirt and pine needles. The forest around me hums with the exact silence I remember. This is the place where I killed Tyler.

My hand moves on instinct to the watch. Its face catches a shard of moonlight. For a moment I think it’s cracked, but it isn’t. It’s showing me my own reflection. I’m young. Too young. Twelve years too young, to be precise.

The second hand turns once, steady and sure as I hold my breath.

Chapter Text

Wednesday's POV

I sit up. It’s like the ground lets go of me slowly. It even leaves mud on my hands. The cold here feels different. It’s raw, and it feels real. It feels like winter. At least there’s no city noise, no buzz of electricity, and no pipes making sounds in the walls. Only the steady breathing of the pine trees and an owl calling out.

I take stock of what I have because making a list helps the world make sense to me.
Dress: black, dirty with bits of leaves, practical. Boots: soaked up to the laces; one lace is starting to tear. Knife: still here. Watch: warm against my skin. Bones: all fine. Fear: missing, maybe just misplaced. Curiosity: sharp and ready.

I look down one more time. The watch shows me a younger version of myself. My cheekbones aren’t defined. My mouth hasn’t learnt how to say no. My skin is untouched by a mixture of smoke or ink. My eyes look the same, though. They just belong to a smaller face. I realise I must be 14 years old here. In the old timeline, fourteen came late to Nevermore, like a storm that slept in and pretended it meant to. Now I’ve woken up in the space between two versions of history.

…

The path I took the night I killed Tyler shows faintly where it should be. It’s like a shadow under the moss, a darker patch in the wet ground. But the forest is 12 years younger, and it feels like it. The trees hold their bark too tightly. Even the plants on the ground haven’t yet learnt to thin out and make walking easier. I pick a direction, because standing still leads to panic, and panic is something I refuse to do.

North. My body remembers north.

The moonlight fades from silver to dull grey behind thin clouds. The branches above bend together like a roof. Here’s the stump where the search team once tied orange tape. Now there’s nothing: no tape, no shouted orders, no officials pretending to care. Only rings of fungus, like a calendar that forgot to count. A puddle catches my reflection. I look, because pretending not to see is a slower kind of poison.

I can see the face in the puddle look back at me. My face looks sharp in places and young in ways that I know will harden. I undo one braid and weave it again, just to make sure my hands still work. My fingers move as they should.

The air grows sweeter as the forest opens up. It’s a mixed scent of yeast, smoke, and the faint, metallic hint of a river. I realise Jericho must be close. The wild shapes of nature give way to human order: fences pretending to claim land, laundry lines fluttering in the wind, and gravel paths still untouched by pavement. I stop at the edge of the trees and listen. A truck shifts gears with a deep. It’s not the soft whine of city cars but the sound of something built to work. Farther away, a bell strikes eight, clear and certain. Either the church has stayed the same, or I’m walking beneath its old confidence.

…

The watch remains silent. Both the hands point to twelve. When I press the button, nothing happens. It just grows warmer again in my chest.

I step out of the forest and onto the road. The gravel looks newer and rougher. The ditch beside it opens wide. Wildflowers stand tall and untamed, not yet cut down by city maintenance. The town ahead looks freshly made, proud of its new paint. The general store sign still has all its letters. The pharmacy window still shines. Even the tourist board talks about winter with happy fonts, as if February were just a fun project.

When I walk into town, no one looks at me. No one takes notice or writes me into their story. I’d almost forgotten how good it feels to be invisible and to be able to move unseen.

In the distance a woman is sweeping her porch. Further away a man carries a box carefully, and some children are playing outside. Their lack of awareness is the best proof.

…

I make my way past the bakery. The glass windows are fogged up. It’s advertising warmth and comfort. Inside I see an old baker working with steady hands. He’s lifting loaves from the oven. I can hear him humming; the sound clears a forgotten memory in me. Suddenly a small child presses his face to the glass, leaving smudges shaped like stars. I count seven. He licks one, and now there are eight.

A bus passes me while it grinds its way up the hill. It eventually stops with effort. It’s painted in an old-fashioned way. It’s red instead of blue. The driver wears a plain cap. A student leans out a window, letting the wind play over his hand. The air is kind; it doesn’t bite.

Jericho’s town square holds its shape. The statues still look proud, not yet ashamed of their history. The fountain quietly does its job. After that I notice the weathervane. The Weathervane’s sign hangs straight, its letters clean. The bell above the door tilts toward the street.

I don’t go inside. At least not yet. I don’t know how to handle it. I’m afraid I will be confronted with some things I have been afraid to face.

Instead, I head toward the river to see what time has written. The bridge leans slightly, its wooden planks rough and unpolished. The water moves fast and without apology. It flows downhill, as it must. Across the river, the willow trees look innocent now. They’ll lose that later, but for the moment, their sincerity is real.

…

The memory comes to me slowly, first the pressure, then the light. I let it play for a few seconds. A branch snapping. It’s the same sound as snapping a rib. The sap smells like blood. Suddenly I remember how his mouth was trying to shape my name but failing for lack of air. I even remember the angle of my wrist when I made the choice. I stop the memory before it reaches the part where an apology might appear. Remembering is like cutting something open to study it. Today, I won’t let it.

…

I find myself walking back to the square after the memory hit me out of nowhere. Across the square I notice that every building wears a new coat of paint. Posters advertise a harvest fair I remember ending badly. Though maybe that’s my guilt talking, not memory. The thrift store that will one day sell nostalgia still believes in giving things a second life. A woman dresses a headless mannequin in a denim jacket, shaping its shoulders with her hands. The motion is both caring and mechanical. It’s proof that she knows how to keep going.

A patrol car rolls into view at a careful pace. Driving at a friendly speed. Sheriff Galpin isn’t driving. The deputy looks too young, his face not yet marked by time. The passenger seat is empty. A space that feels like it’s waiting for someone. The air beside me remembers it will be filled. My body feels it. My mind takes note.

In the barber’s window, a small mirror catches my reflection and confirms what the watch already said. I’m definitely fourteen here. My mouth reacts with the smallest curve, not quite a smile, not quite a frown. Time has done something rare and exact: it has made the puzzle solvable.

I’m about to look at another store when the bell of the Weathervane catches my attention. My body recognises the sound before I think about it. That bell has always meant something to me.

…

Suddenly I see someone I would not have expected to meet in this timeline. Across the square I see Enid walk towards the bridge. I hear her laugh. She looks younger; her hair is shorter, and it’s dyed in a colour that’s way too cheerful for me. She’s carrying two paper bags while talking to someone next to her. She looks my way for a second, but I know she doesn’t know me in this timeline. I let out a sigh before turning away. I force down the urge to run toward her. I can’t let her be close to me, not yet. But deep down I want to tell her about everything.

…

Enid disappears out of sight. I decide to walk around the square again. I walk slowly and steadily, taking in my surroundings. The streetlights turn on early, eager to please the coming dusk. The hardware store swaps its display for a snow shovel. It’s either a sign of what’s coming or just a warning in disguise. The voices around me grow softer, settling into the sounds of home. Night takes over the stage from day.

Suddenly I’ve had enough of avoiding the inevitable. I head toward the café. I walk like everything is normal. It’s a choice that takes effort. The bell above the door will give me away when I step inside; that’s its job. The watch warms against my chest, as if agreeing with my decision.

I stop by the window, standing where I can watch without being seen. Inside, the Weathervane looks the same, only younger. It’s like a scar that has decided to smooth itself into skin. The counter gleams. The espresso machine hasn’t learnt to protest yet. The stools still wear their bright red vinyl proudly. I stay near the edges; the centre feels too exposed.

First, I notice a hand stacking plates that will chip in a few years. Then a chair, the one whose leg will wobble one spring and almost ruin a date for two people who take it as a bad sign. And finally I notice the sheriff’s hat resting on the counter beside a plate.

And that’s where I see him. Caught in perfect light. It’s Tyler Galpin. A boy’s face that will one day become a murder scene, then a permanent memory in my mind.

I see and hear him laughing. The sound of his laugh is pure. Untouched by what’s coming for him. Steam rises between us, and for a moment the light turns it into something almost sacred. His father says something I can’t hear, resting a hand on his shoulder in that easy, casual way that feels like it could last a lifetime.

Tyler is here right now. He’s alive, untouched and just an ordinary boy. The boy I killed once is here again, breathing, blowing gently on his coffee so it doesn’t burn his tongue.

I note every detail, refusing to feel anything that isn’t fact: the colour of his sleeve, the tilt of his jaw, the faint roughness that still says boy, not man, and the way his hands cradle the cup as if warmth is something you can borrow. My body offers three reactions. A part of me wants to run, another wants to reach out, and some part of me wants to pray. I do none of them. I just breathe slowly through my nose until the moment stops performing and becomes what it is again: a room.

…

I open the door because I know waiting any longer isn’t going to help. At that point it would be fear pretending to be strategy. The moment I open the door, I can hear the bell above the door ring with an all-too-familiar sound.

A few heads turn to look at me. Not his. The waitress gives me the look people always give to someone dressed a little too far ahead of their time. She’s curious at first. I’m relieved when she decides I’m not worth thinking about. I sit at the counter; it gives me the best view and the least attention. The menu lists its usual stuff. I refuse them all with a small nod.

“Coffee?” the waitress asks.
“Sure,” I answer.
She blinks, “Black?”
“Yes,” I say.

She walks away and leaves me alone.

…

I study the rhythm of the kitchen. I notice the hiss of steam, the slam of a door and the clinking of mugs. But the sound that catches my attention is the laugh of Sheriff Galpin. He has the same kind of laugh most men have when they’re sure they’ll never have to pay for it. Tyler laughs a second later, as if he had to walk across some invisible space to find the joke. I already knew that about him. Knowing it again doesn’t comfort me. It only confirms what I remember about him.

My coffee arrives shortly after that. It’s strong, which means it burns a little. The heat reminds my mouth how to exist. I could turn around and say his name now. I’d learn something from that, but I’d lose more. So I stay quiet and keep watching.

The door opens, and a burst of cold air makes the bell ring sharply. Two high school athletes rush in, full of careless energy, still too young to have made a mistake big enough to slow them down. One claps Tyler on the shoulder and calls him by his last name with the easy tone of everyday friendship. Tyler looks briefly shy. I notice that right away.

In the mirror behind the counter, I see my younger face pretending to stay calm and pulling it off. The watch under my dress stays warm, holding its secret steady. In the same reflection, I catch sight of Enid crossing the square again, glowing like a warning sign. She stops to tie her shoe, almost walks inside, then decides the pastry she’s carrying is enough company. For once, her survival isn’t my concern. I drink to that.

“Sorry for the wait,” the waitress says to someone farther down the counter, her voice blending easily into the background noise. The clock above the pie case runs a minute fast.

…

I see Sheriff Galpin stand up to leave. His chair leg scrapes against the floor. I see him pay in cash.

After that he says something to his son that makes Tyler roll his eyes and smile at the same time. It’s a perfect mix of irritation and affection. The sheriff puts on his hat. He tips the brim toward the waitress and no one else. After that he’s gone.

Tyler stays behind. He remains in his seat. He turns his coffee cup slowly, not restless, just thoughtful. Light shifts across his face, like it’s waiting for him to make a choice. He glances toward the mirror, probably just checking his hair. For a split second, our reflections meet. I see him; he doesn’t see me.

I could leave now and keep the balance intact. I could come back tomorrow, take the same seat, note the changes, and write it all down in a report no one would ever read. Because it wouldn’t be about healing, only observation. But instead, I let myself write one clear thought in the rare ink I save for truths that don’t perform: the universe has brought back its mistake, and it’s sitting here behind the counter.

I finish the last of my coffee. After that I stand up and take a peek outside. The town square shifts fully into night. The bakery pulls down its shade. The bus begins its evening route. From the corner, I hear Enid’s laugh as she opens her paper bag and eats her pastry standing up. I realise that everything is in its place, except for me.

I leave some cash under the coffee cup and slide off the stool. The bell above the door rings again. The cold air greets my face without warmth. In the window’s reflection, I see Tyler raise his cup for one last sip, then he sets it down. He doesn’t know he’s repeating something he’s already done before.

…

Outside, the cold folds itself around me like punctuation waiting for the sentence to finish. I walk without direction. I don’t know if I’m going north or not. My mind recites all the things I’ve seen today. None of it tells me what I’m supposed to do.

The square has emptied itself of purpose. The streetlamps hum in small, uncertain octaves. The river argues softly with its own reflection. I stop in the middle of the street because I have run out of hypotheses.

The universe has moved, and I have moved with it. That much I can measure. What I cannot measure is why.

I turn too quickly, maybe to re-enter the café, maybe to flee it. That’s when I collide with something moving in the opposite direction. The collision is an efficient disaster. I can smell a mixture of coffee and leather. After that I can feel a breath falter from surprise. After that I fall to the ground.

The world steadies itself a few seconds later. My knees hit cobblestone; my palms find cold grit. Across from me, someone curses under his breath. It’s a tone halfway between apology and amusement.

“Sorry, I didn’t….. Are you okay?”

The voice detonates in my chest. I’d know his voice from anywhere. I have heard it break, plead, and die. Here it is, sounding casual, human and even concerned.

I look up, but the night hesitates first. The boy standing over me isn’t the monster or the memory. Tyler looks younger and undamaged. The sunlight still lives in his skin.

He bends down before extending his hand. The gesture is almost enough to break me.

Suddenly I see something metallic skitter across the ground between us. It’s the watch. It has escaped my pocket, rolling a short arc before stopping at his boot. Tyler picks it up.

The second hand shivers once, as if deciding whether to confess. Tyler turns it over in his palm.

“Yours?” he asks. “It’s… warm.” He frowns, puzzled but intrigued. “Weird. It feels like it’s alive.”

He holds it out to me. I take it carefully, trying not to let my fingertips tremble when they touch his. The contact is brief, but the air registers it with impossible precision.

“Yes,” I manage. My voice sounds borrowed. “It’s mine.”

He nods, smiles the smile I buried years ago. “I’m Tyler,” he says easily, like this is just another casual evening. “Tyler Galpin.”

The watch ticks once, sharp and final, like a shutter closing.

Chapter Text

Wednesday’s POV

I’m still kneeling in the wreckage of our momentum. Almost balanced on apology and grovel. The watch sits in my palm where he placed it, a small, obedient heart pretending to be metal.

“It’s really warm,” he says again, as if the observation might change if he repeats it. “Like it’s been in the sun.”

“It’s been somewhere worse,” I reply before standing.

Tyler wipes the dust off his jeans. Up close, his innocence isn’t just an idea. It’s clear in his features. His jaw doesn’t yet show stubbornness. His eyes try to look brave but only manage to look sincere. His mouth looks dangerous because it’s so human. It hasn’t yet learnt how to be cruel.

“I didn’t see you,” he says, stepping back. “It’s my fault.”
“It is,” I say, because the truth shouldn’t be left alone. “But I was also thinking, which is dangerous while walking.”

He laughs. It’s a little late, like it took him a second to find it. “So… we both share the blame.” He holds out his hand like a peace offering. “I’m Tyler.”
“Yes,” I say, not shaking his hand. “I noticed.”

He blinks, then smiles awkwardly. “You’re new here?”
“New to tonight,” I say. “Not to the idea of it.”

He looks me over. My dress is too plain for the town square, my posture too sure to apologise. He tilts his head like a cautious animal, half curious, half careful. “Do you want… I mean, I work at the Weathervane. If you need napkins. Or a phone? I can give you a free coffee. It seems fair after I knocked you over.’’

“Compensation means someone got hurt,” I say. “I’m fine. And the last century and I are still on good terms.”

He stuffs his hands into his jacket pockets, trying to look relaxed and almost pulling it off. “Still. It’s late. You sure you’re okay?”
“I’m precise,” I tell him. “Being precise is rarer than just being okay.”

Behind us, the café bell rings for another customer. Tyler glances toward it, then back at me. He seems torn between responsibility and curiosity. He chooses responsibility, which is usually the safer mistake. “I should get back,” he says. “We’re closing soon. If you need anything. I’ll be right there.”
“I know where the café is,” I say.

He squints, half amused, half confused. “Cool.” He starts to leave, then turns back. “Hey… What’s your name?”

I think about all the futures that depend on saying it. Then I say it anyway. “Wednesday.”
“Like the day?” he asks, confused.
“Like the warning,” I correct.

He grins, then looks embarrassed by it. “Okay, Wednesday-like-the-warning. Maybe I’ll see you around.”
“You will,” I say. It’s not a promise. It’s a truth I can’t help admitting.

He raises a hand to say goodbye, realises it looks like a salute, and disappears into the light and noise of the Weathervane. The door closes behind him, causing the bell to give a smug little ring.

I stand still long enough for a streetlamp to make fun of me. My mind, usually sharp and quick, circles the thought and refuses to land. I have what I didn’t come for: proof that life still happens, that mistakes still count, and that the universe can be argued with. What I don’t have is what comes next.

…

I try to compose myself because I feel the tension. Remembering what happened during the day usually helps me put my mind at ease. I think about them in order: grave, woods, town, Enid, Tyler, Weathervane and now evening. None of them tell me what to do next.

What doesn’t help is that I look fourteen on the outside. Inside of me, it’s a mix of half-built structures and broken pieces arguing inside one skull.

I realise that my parents, at least this version of them, are unaware of what is happening. I know they could be worried. So I know I need a phone to fix that issue, fast.

I walk back into the Weathervane. The warmth greets me right away. The smell of coffee and sugar greets me. I notice that the staff are closing up. It’s a calm routine of a town that believes it’s safe: wipe, stack, count.

Tyler is wiping a table in slow circles, as if making quiet amends. He doesn’t look at me.

I walk to the counter. “Can I use your phone? I ask.
The waitress, who has her hair pinned tightly back, slides the phone toward me without stopping her tip-counting. “Local calls only,” she says automatically.
“The past isn’t long distance,” I tell her.

…

The phone cord curls around my wrist like it owns the place. I dial home by instinct. I know most 14-year-olds wouldn’t bother to remember their parents’ home number.

The phone rings a few times before someone from home picks up.

“Addams residence,” says Morticia, with just two words.
“Mother’’ I say dryly, as if it’s the most normal thing that a 14-year-old is across state lines.

There’s a pause where I can almost hear all her carefully sharpened thoughts getting ready. “Wednesday,” she says. “You’re alive. Where are you?!’’
“I’m in Jericho.”

My mother lets out a slow, controlled breath. “Jericho is hours away from your school. They’ve called twice to say you’ve gone missing. Are you aware they think you’ve been kidnapped?”
“They worry for fun.”
“I worry correctly.” Her voice makes the café’s air feel colder. “Why are you there?”

“I wanted a field trip,” I say. It’s a clean lie. It’s one of the polite ones. “For research.”
“At midnight?”
“Dawn is too dramatic.”
“You are fourteen, not forty,” she says. “Stop pretending to be an adult just because you dislike rules.”

Something sharp flickers through me. It’s an old, wordless irritation. If only you knew you were talking to another adult, I think. One with more ghosts than birthdays. But I swallow it. Explaining would only make her right in ways I don’t want to admit.

Her words hit where my body remembers being older. I’m fourteen on the outside, twenty-six on the inside. Two versions of me trying to share one spine. I look at my hands. They’re small, smooth, and still innocent. They haven’t earned their scars yet. I keep my voice calm, not to rebel, but to stay in control.

“I’ll come back soon,” I say.
“You’ll come back now.”
“I’ll come back,” I repeat, “soon.”

There’s a silence between us. It’s like waiting for the storm to come.

Come home,” she says. “Don’t make me come over to Jericho!’’
“I have to go,” I say. “There’s something I need to…”
“Don’t you dare hang up the phone, missy!”

…

I don’t mean to touch the mug beside the register, but I do. It’s porcelain, still warm, with a faint crescent of dried foam where his thumb must have been.  Suddenly the world tilts.

The vision doesn’t come gently. No, it hits me hard.

A basement breathes out rot. The stone walls sweat like they’re hiding something.  There’s a lantern that flickers, casting sickly yellow light that makes the shadows meaner. There are shelves that hold jars labelled in Latin. The language of elegant lies. A table scarred by old choices. Chains hang like punctuation waiting for a sentence. Laurel Gates bends over a notebook, her pen poised like a needle. The Hyde serum is almost finished. Her voice sounds sweet on the surface but is sharp underneath. Her voice cuts through the air: “Our sweet boy is stronger than the research predicted.”

Suddenly she turns around. Her perfume tries too hard to smell innocent, so much so that it feels wrong. It reeks of a mixture of roses and daisies.

Tyler is standing in the doorway. He’s not a monster yet. He looks scared and confused. Obviously he’s still just a boy in my vision. Gates smiles at him with the kind of gentleness people use on pets or weapons. “Soon you’ll be free of them,” she says softly.

Then everything snaps back to the present. The café comes back in pieces: the cash register coughing coins, a chair scraping the floor in apology, the clock above the pie case lying by a minute like it wants to please. The phone cord tightens around my wrist, cheap metal biting into skin. My hand grips the mug too hard.

I hang up the phone, ending the conversation with my mother abruptly.

…

I set the phone down carefully. The click sounds final, like it just cut one future away from another. The mug is still where I left it, steam rising like it owns the place. If he hasn’t turned yet, if the corruption hasn’t started, there’s still time to stop it.

Tyler walks over to the counter, holding a few coins for the tip jar. He pauses when he sees my hand gripping the counter, the phone cord tight around my wrist like a promise I didn’t mean to make.
“Everything okay?” he asks, polite in that harmless way people are before they realise how little politeness actually fixes.
“Yes,” I say. “Unfortunately.”

He smiles, thinking I made a joke when really I didn’t. “Need a ride? It’s late. I can ask my dad…”
“No.” I cut him off before the thought can grow roots. “Thank you.”
“Sure.” He taps the counter twice, then goes back to wiping tables.

I leave because staying too long leads to feelings, and feelings lead to mistakes. The bell gives me away as I step out, and the street takes me back without asking questions. The lamps glow like small, careful moons. The river nearby argues with itself in whispers and loses politely.

Suddenly a plan forms in my mind. It feels complete and certain. If I want to be sent to Nevermore two years early, I just have to make myself impossible to manage. Schools mistake obedience for goodness and anger for truth. That makes them easy to manipulate. A “field trip” can become an “escape”. A locked door can decide it’s open. Authority is just a dance, and one wrong step, in the right rhythm, can change everything.

I walk until the tidy shopfronts give way to trees, until the edge of town remembers it was forest first. The watch against my chest feels like a verdict choosing to be close instead of cruel. I press my palm to it until it warms, agreeing with me.

If time wants to replay its tragedies, I’ll interrupt. If history wants patience, it won’t get mine. And if Nevermore thinks it can wait for me, it’s wrong. Because I have work to do.

…

Morning arrives politely, the way liars always do. The sky is bruised in soft colours where the night refused to leave quietly. I slept well on the cot inside of an old ranger shed whose best quality is that it doesn’t ask questions. I wash my face in the river.

By six o’clock, I’m back on the road. The town lines up its shops like neat, sharp teeth. I buy a newspaper so anyone watching will think I care about the news. The headlines brag about the usual things: budgets, weather, and a missing cat whose photo has been printed too large for its dignity. Nothing about monsters. That’s perfect because it means the world still thinks it’s normal.

My current school is only a few hours away if you drive with bad intentions. Which I do. When I arrive at school. It greets me with its fake charm. The grass is trimmed too short. Even the hedges are ugly trimmed. The brick buildings pretend to have history, which clearly isn’t the case.

The headmistress, who believes obedience is the same as goodness, doesn’t yet realise she’s about to learn something.

I walk into Latin class one minute late. The teacher puts on his best disappointed face. I sit down without apologising and, instead of translating the assigned text, read out loud the notes he’s scribbled in the margins upside down from his lectern. His face turns a satisfying shade of offended. The class stares at me, and I enjoy it. A little too much.

In history, I fix the teacher’s timeline and refuse to quote the textbook because it’s wrong.

In chemistry, I ask for hydrochloric acid and explain, when denied, that there are cleaner ways to carve truth into stubborn materials.

In Art, I draw the Gates’ basement from my vision, sharp enough that the teacher mistakes it for emotional expression and asks me to explain my method. I say, “Observation.” She doesn’t appreciate it.

By lunch, the dean already knows I’ve become “an issue”. He schedules a meeting. I tell him I won’t go, and then I do, because an audience makes everything more interesting. His office smells of a mixture of sweat and leather.

“Miss Addams,” the dean begins, folding his hands, “we are concerned.”
“Too many pronouns,” I say. “You mean you’re concerned.”

He blinks, not used to being dragged from the safety of “we” into “I”. “Your teachers report you’ve been disruptive.”

“They’re confusing accuracy with disruption,” I say. “It happens often in places that worship rules more than results.”

His jaw tightens. He has the look of a man already writing a report in his head. “We expect cooperation.”

“Cooperation is something I give when it’s earned,” I reply.
“Wednesday…!”
“Miss Addams,” I correct. Sometimes respect has to be demanded in small, irritating ways.

The meeting ends because it has nowhere else to go. He’s showing off his authority by only helping me to get what I want. He gives me detention, then follows with a call to my parents and eventually adds a note to my record. I sign everything as if I’m giving autographs at a very boring event.

…

After classes, I take my time walking to the empty auditorium. I turn on every light and sit at the pipe organ without asking permission. I play Bach because it shows exactly how I am feeling.

The music fills the hall and spills into the corridors, climbs the stairs, and seeps into the administrative offices. By the time I hit the final chord, the headmistress, the dean, and two teachers have gathered, all sharing the same expression of official outrage.

“Miss Addams,” the headmistress says. “My office. Now.”
“Gladly,” I say.

We have a performance titled Expectations. She quotes rules. I quote results. She offers detention. I offer strategy. She threatens suspension. I recommend transfer. It’s tidier. The conversation spins in circles until all the pretence drains out of it.

“Where would you like to be sent?” she finally asks, mistaking curiosity for control.

“Nevermore Academy,” I say.

The headmistress laughs. It’s a sharp, unfriendly sound. “We don’t send our students to circus schools for misfits.”
I tilt my head. “Then you’ll be happy when I’m no longer your problem.”

Her eyes narrow. The dean starts shuffling papers. I can see them both thinking about what matters most. Their reputation, money, or the board members who panic at anything interesting.

When schools have to choose between covering up trouble or dealing with it, they always choose the cover-up. Between discipline and transfer, transfer wins.

“Your parents”, the headmistress says, sounding proud of herself, “will never agree to this.”
“Consent”, I say, “is just a door that opens when the right letter arrives. You’ll write to Headmistress Weems at Nevermore. You’ll send my records. You’ll copy my parents. They’ll sign it. You’ll call it a joint decision.”

“You assume a lot.”
“No,” I say. “I calculate.”

…

The paperwork that follows takes forever. The headmistress calls Nevermore. Eventually calls turn into emails. Emails turn into results. I go back to my room and pack carefully.

The watch rests in my hand for a moment too long. “You’re not a miracle,” I tell it. “You’re just a wound that remembers how to open.”

At three in the morning, I wake up with the kind of certainty my family calls a vision and doctors call overthinking. The watch burns hot against my skin. I don’t feed it blood. I feed it purpose. Outside, the ravens, both younger and somehow the same, move through the air like punctuation marks. Somewhere in town, a woman with a basement and perfume that lies even better than she does is sleeping peacefully, believing she’s in control.

…

Dawn arrives with poor taste and good timing. By eight, a long black car pulls up outside the office, purring like it knows it belongs here. My mother steps out wearing black, her disapproval as stylish as always. My father follows, smiling like chaos is a love language.

The headmistress is ready to be judged and to pretend she’s winning. She gets neither. Mother reads the transfer letter once, then corrects it with her fountain pen. A pen that’s probably ended wars. Father kisses the pen like it’s a holy relic. The headmistress signs where she’s told. The dean pretends to look important. But they’re clearly not.

…

We don’t discuss reasons on the drive at first. My parents don’t know about time travel. They just know me. That’s enough. The car hums along the road, steady as a heartbeat trying to be calm.

Finally, Mother speaks. “Running away, Wednesday. How tediously traditional of you. Couldn’t you think of something more original than vanishing into the night?”
“I wasn’t running,” I say. “I was investigating.”
“Investigating what?” She asks, her voice sharp enough to carve marble. “Your own capacity for chaos?”
“The limits of the present,” I say. “And I found them disappointing.”

Mother sighs the way people do when they love something they can’t control. “You frightened us,” she says quietly. “That is not an accomplishment.”
“It wasn’t meant to be,” I say. “Fear is just proof of attachment.”
“Spare me your philosophy,” she replies. “You are fourteen. You have plenty of time to perfect arrogance.”
“I’m ahead of schedule,” I say.

Father chuckles softly from the driver’s seat. “She gets it from you, querida.”
“She gets the dramatics from you,” Mother fires back.
“I prefer to call it passion,” he says, smiling. “Our little scorpion went on an adventure. Who among us didn’t at her age?”
“I never broke curfew,” Mother says.
“No, but you broke hearts,” he replies. “I’d say our daughter is merely exploring the family talent for disruption.”

Mother’s lips tighten, but her eyes soften, if only slightly. “You could have been hurt,” she says. “Or worse.’’
“I was careful,” I answer. “Statistically, I’m more dangerous than anything I might have met.”
Father beams. “That’s my girl.”
Mother cuts him a look. “Do not encourage her, Gomez.”
“I can’t help it. She reminds me of you the day you threatened your debate coach with a fencing foil.”
“That was different,” she says.
“It always is,” he murmurs, still grinning.

For a few miles, no one speaks. The silence is comfortable in the Addams way. It’s full of affection disguised as tension.

 Suddenly Mother breaks it. “You will call every other day,” she says firmly. “A rule we shall all pretend to follow.”
“If you insist on being legendary,” she adds, “at least be punctual.”
“I prefer accuracy to fame,” I say.
“Be both,” Father suggests, squeezing my hand with the tenderness of someone who knows sharp things can love gently, too.

Eventually Jericho greets us the way small towns greet weather: by pretending they expected it. We stop at the Weathervane because Father believes coffee is sacred.

The bell goes off. Tyler looks up at us. We could pass for a haunted family portrait.

“Welcome,” he says, voice calm, eyes curious. “What can I get you?”
“Black,” I say.
“Black and resentful,” Mother adds.
“Something that tastes like victory,” Father says.
Tyler laughs late. “I can manage two out of three.”

The cups arrive. My parents pretend to be ordinary for a few minutes. It suits them. I let the warmth teach my hands how to hold something without breaking it. Tyler glances my way twice, as if he senses something but can’t name it. He stays where he is.

…

Outside, the car hums again. The gates of Nevermore rise ahead. They’re like stone and iron wound together. The school perches on the hill above Jericho, its towers cutting into the grey morning. The air shifts as we drive through the gates. It’s colder and cleaner. It’s touched by the smell of old rain trapped in stone and ink drying on forgotten pages.

Nevermore does not look welcoming. The courtyard is too neat, the cobblestones too rehearsed. Ivy crawls up the walls with suspicious discipline. The air carries hints of cedar polish, candle wax, and something faintly metallic. Beneath it all is the damp sweetness of the forest pressing close.

Larissa Weems, still alive in this timeline, greets us at the front steps with a smile.
“Mrs Addams,” she says to my mother, every word carefully sharpened. “Wednesday.”
“Headmistress,” Mother replies, her vowels lined with eyeliner. “We bring an exceptional child and a pile of paperwork.”
“Both heavy,” Weems answers. “Let’s lighten the load.”

Inside, the halls smell of polish and chalk. The portraits on the walls watch with proprietary interest. The air tastes of dust and history. We pass classrooms where the windows have learnt to filter sunlight into respectable gloom. I recognise the rhythm of the place.

Students, who I think are my future classmates, walk past in uniforms too new for stains. I arrive as a rumour with luggage. My dorm room has a bed and a desk. I set the watch on it; it behaves for now.

Weems clears her throat. “You’re early, Miss Addams.”
“Time is inaccurate,” I say. “I prefer to fix it.”
“See that you don’t fix too much,” she warns. “This is a school, not a lab.”
“Labs are safer,” I say. “They label their explosions.”

Her look promises a semester of arguments worth having. What follows is a long wait in her office. Forms are exchanged. A tour follows where I have to pretend that I don’t know every corner.

My parents leave with the careful pride of people. It’s like they have successfully delivered a curse to its proper address.

My mother kisses my forehead. Father tells me to aim for the eye. They fade into the distance and then into memory. I watch them go from my dorm window, feeling the campus close around me like a net I chose to enter.

At dusk, I walk the school’s edge. The gargoyles stand guard, damp stone breathing out the smell of moss and rain. The ravens gossip from the eaves. The air is heavy with woodsmoke and lake water. Lamplight edits the paths into sentences.

Nevermore, at night, smells like candle soot and secrets. It’s like a place that doesn’t want to sleep. Somewhere beyond these walls, a woman with a basement is sharpening a story she plans to carve into a boy. Somewhere else, a dinner bell tells on the living. The watch against my chest warms, like a quiet agreement.

I sit at my desk and write the next list:
• Greenhouse: visit late; plants hear better than people.
• Library: get a key to the restricted section; the past keeps records.
• Fencing club: watch them; precision exposes truth.
• Laurel: find her mask among the faculty and town leaders.
• When the visions return, follow them completely.

I sharpen a pencil. The page fills neatly. 

The hallway bell rings for lights-out, pretending darkness is the school’s invention. I turn off my lamp. It’s fun to obey when no one expects it. The bed is hard. Sleep considers me, then decides against it. I’ll return the favour later.

Between half-sleep and defiance, I see flashes: a boy’s hands around a mug, a woman’s pen carving lies, and a watch’s second hand deciding to move. My body rests; but my mind stands guard.

If the universe wants to repeat its tragedy, I’ll interrupt the script. If history wants patience, it won’t get mine. If Nevermore thinks it can contain me, it’s mistaken.

Chapter Text

Wednesday’s POV

The dream finds me the moment my eyes close. Suddenly I’m back inside my own house.  The walls still show my handwriting, faint and hidden in the shadows. The air smells like old smoke and part candle wax, part ink, with a hint of metal, as if the building itself is bleeding memories. The candles, long burnt out, still seem to glow a little, their light weak and ghostly.

Somewhere deeper inside, a clock ticks. It’s not steady but like a heartbeat that’s lost its rhythm. Each tick fades into the next. I follow the sound, though I already know where it leads.

The study feels different. The desk looks just as I left it. It’s clean.  A pocket watch lies open on it, its face exposed like an old wound. The second hand doesn’t move; it just circles endlessly, as if time itself forgot how to work. When the circle closes, pale light spills out, and I smell burnt paper rising from the floor.

That’s when I hear his breath before I see him. Tyler stands where the shadows pretend to behave. He doesn’t look older or younger. He looks wrong. His outline flickers, caught between apology and blame. His eyes hold the colour of something that used to be alive. When he speaks, the air shakes just to carry his voice.

“You didn’t fix it,” he says. “You repeated it.”

The knife ends up in my hand before I realise it, like an old habit I never unlearned. The metal feels alive, waiting for what comes next. I don’t remember grabbing it. I don’t remember choosing not to. The walls start closing in, colours fading away. Tyler takes a step forward and disappears, leaving only the smell of cold coffee.

Suddenly the floor gives out. The house exhales, tired of holding me.

…

I wake up with both eyes open. The ceiling above me is old wood, painted a pale colour. Thin cracks run through it. The air is cold but easy to breathe, carrying the faint smell of chalk and old soap. For a second, I think I’m still dreaming until I feel how stiff and unfamiliar the mattress is.

The room is small and narrow, more like a hallway than a bedroom. The walls seem too close, painted in a dull, quiet colour. There’s only one iron bed, neatly made with a blanket folded perfectly. A desk stands against the far wall, its surface covered in scratches from years of use. Above it, a small window hides behind ivy, turning the daylight into a sickly green pattern on the floor. The corners of the glass are fogged, as if the window doesn’t want to see the outside world.

It smells like iron, damp wood, and old detergent trying too hard to smell clean. Beneath it all, there’s a faint trace of dust and ink, which somehow feels familiar and almost comforting.

So this is Nevermore. Two years too soon.

My boots are lined up neatly under the desk, their laces crossed like praying hands. The watch lies where I left it last night. I pick it up. For a moment, it hesitates in my hand, then warms, like it recognises my heartbeat. It hums softly, the sound of something that remembers too much.

I think about writing down my dream before it fades, but I don’t. Dreams are wild things; they destroy logic if you let them. It’s better to let them fade than to give them words.

The silence feels unnatural, the kind found in old schools that have seen too many students pass through quietly. Sometimes the pipes make sounds, releasing water and rust. A beam above the window creaks, marking the hour.

Suddenly a sound that doesn’t belong to the room interrupts the silence. Three knocks on my door. The kind made by someone who’s practised how to seem calm.

…

“If it’s Death,” I say to the door, “he can wait his turn.”

The handle turns anyway. The door opens halfway, letting in a slice of golden corridor light that feels too gentle for this place. A woman stands there with a tray. It’s filled with a cup, a saucer, and a small pot of something pretending to be tea. Her hair catches the light like weathered copper, and her smile is soft enough to hide behind. She smells of roses and daisies, with a hint of something chemical underneath. It’s the kind of perfume that tries too hard to seem innocent.

“Good morning, Wednesday,” she says, voice bright enough to make the walls flinch. “I’m Ms Thornhill. I look after the students in Ophelia Hall. Just wanted to check if our newest resident survived the night.”

“I did,” I say. “Unfortunately.”

Her smile doesn’t move. “Settling in all right? The room’s a little small.”

“It’s efficient,” I reply. “Small spaces make it easier to hear your thoughts.”

She laughs softly. “That they do,” she says, placing the tray on the desk. Steam curls upward, smelling faintly of chamomile. “First class starts in ten minutes. Try not to be late.”

“Punctuality”, I say, “is just another form of fear.”

“Then you’ll get along perfectly,” she says, sounding almost pleased.

She turns to leave. The air she stirs smells sweet, but there’s something uneasy underneath. Like roses masking something dead. My watch warms against my wrist.

The door closes. The light fades. I stay still, the tea untouched, the air cooling around me again.

“The past”, I whisper, feeling the faint hum beneath my skin, “keeps better time than I do.”

…

The door has barely clicked shut before irritation blooms behind my ribs. I fucking hate Thornhill.
The name alone feels like a bruise that hasn’t appeared yet. In this timeline she’s still kind, still pretending to be soil and sunshine, still wearing that cardigan woven from goodwill and deceit. I know what she becomes. I know the sound of her torture methods. Watching her play at normalcy feels like witnessing a snake rehearse a lullaby.

I stare at the tea she left. The steam curls upward like a spirit that doesn’t know it’s dead. For a moment I consider throwing the cup against the wall just to hear something break. Instead, I pour it into the sink. The drain swallows the warmth greedily.

Getting dressed is a form of self-defence. The uniform waits, folded too neatly to be trustworthy. It’s a black skirt, white blouse, tie and jacket.
The fabric smells faintly of starch. I button it up with mechanical precision, each click a small declaration of control. The mirror on the wall offers a reflection I half recognise: a girl young enough to be corrected, old enough to know it’s pointless. The tie sits slightly crooked; I leave it that way. Perfection is suspicious.

When I open the door, the corridor greets me with polished floors and the hush of early routine. The air smells of wax, cold stone, and faint lavender.

Students drift through the hallway in small clusters, murmuring about classes, gossip, and trivial lives. They stare when they see me. Curiosity arrives first, followed quickly by the kind of silence.

Nevermore looks the same but younger somehow. It looks less haunted, more hopeful, and therefore infinitely more disappointing. The staircases still twist like polite serpents; the stained glass windows still pretend the sunlight is filtered wisdom. I walk slowly, my boots clicking against the floor with certainty.

Outside, the courtyard smells of rain trapped in stone and the metallic sweetness of wet ivy. Ravens watch from the rooftop, heads tilted. Their eyes are small mirrors, showing me as I must look to them: a creature misplaced by choice.

The first bell rings. It sounds shrill, obedient and most of all unnecessary. A group of students ahead of me murmurs about Potions. I follow them, not because I need direction but because blending in makes better camouflage than standing still.

The classroom is wide and dimly lit. Shelves lined with jars stretch to the ceiling: herbs, roots, powders, and things that once crawled and no longer do. The air smells of iron, vinegar, and crushed leaves. In the centre stand a collection of long wooden tables, their surfaces tattooed with the history of other people’s failures.

I step through the doorway and almost collide with someone taller.

“Hey!” The voice is familiar enough to make time hesitate.

Xavier Thorpe stands in front of me, hair falling into his eyes in that practised accident he’s never quite perfected. He looks exactly as I remember. He’s too eager, too open, too willing to believe that sincerity is a virtue.

“Wednesday,” he says, smiling as if the word itself might earn him credit. “Wow, that’s a long time ago!’”

“Hmm?” I ask, stepping past him.

He blinks, confused but still smiling. “Don’t you remember? We knew each other as kids?”

“I’ll take your word for it,” I say, brushing by.

Inside, the room is mostly silent. Students have already taken most of the seats. Two remain open. One beside Bianca Barclay, who glances up from her notes with a predator’s patience, and one beside Enid Sinclair, who is busy rearranging coloured vials.

Bianca looks at me with a hateful, angry gaze. Enid looks up and smiles too brightly, a sunrise in a room built for storms.

I sit beside her. She turns, half-surprised, half-delighted. “Hi! I’m Enid,” she says, her voice like sunlight filtered through glitter. “You must be new. You look like you’ve already decided you hate it here.”

“Observation or assumption?” I ask.

“Both,” she says, undeterred. “It’s kind of my thing. You’re Wednesday, right? Cool name. Kind of dramatic.”

“It’s not a name,” I say. “It’s a warning.”

Her smile falters for a heartbeat, then steadies. “Okay. Warning accepted. I’ll try not to do anything fatal before lunch.”

“Effort is optional,” I reply.

She laughs. It’s a quick, nervous sound, too alive for the room. “You’re funny.”

“I’m accurate,” I correct her.

The instructor enters then, a woman whose expression suggests she’s allergic to enthusiasm. The class falls quiet as she begins listing safety rules no one intends to follow. Enid straightens, whispering, “I’m really good at this subject. Mostly because I like making things explode on purpose.”

I glance at her beaker, then at her hands. “So long as your purpose is clear, I approve.”

“Do you ever relax?” she asks, half-whispered.

“I’m doing it now,” I answer.

The watch warms faintly against my wrist, as if amused. The smell of herbs and boiling water fills the room. I can feel eyes on me. Bianca’s, Xavier’s, the teacher’s, but it’s Enid’s presence that grounds me. Even in another timeline she’s as much herself as she can be.

…

The cauldrons begin to bubble loudly. The room smells of boiling rosemary and scorched copper. The teacher blabs on about ratios and reactions, insisting that precision is the difference between a cure and an obituary. I want to tell her that precision is simply the difference between amateurs and artists, but I restrain myself for now.

Enid hums beside me while chopping dried nettle. Her knife work is erratic, cheerful, and doomed. I focus on my own beaker, letting the steady rhythm of the glass rod keep my temper in check.

The assignment is simple: brew a tincture that clears the mind. The irony doesn’t escape me. I follow the instructions out of politeness, though politeness has never been a virtue I respect. Around me, students stir, chatter, and pretend their chaos is chemistry.

Suddenly Enid’s sleeve catches the edge of her flask. It wobbles once and tips over. A splash of violet liquid lands across my notes, smoking faintly as it eats through the paper.

“Sorry!” she blurts, panicked. “I didn’t….”

The smell is instant: sugar, acid, and burnt ink. My notes dissolve into a small, tragic hole. I feel something inside me tighten.

“It’s fine,” I say calmly, though the word feels like a diagnosis. “The loss is minimal. The experiment was dull anyway.”

“Let me fix it…”

“Please don’t,” I interrupt. “You’ve done enough.”

She frowns, clearly hurt by my response, but I’ve already turned back to my work. The mixture in my cauldron glows faintly…too faintly. I add a single drop of powdered iron just to see if it will object. It does adjust. A thin plume of dark smoke rises.

The teacher turns, glaring. “Miss Addams, control your experiment.”

“I am,” I say. “It’s everyone else who’s failing to cooperate.”

A few students laugh; others shift away from my table as though intelligence might be contagious. The teacher sighs, makes a note on her clipboard, and resumes her monologue about safety.

When the bell rings, I close my notebook or what remains of it and stand. Enid catches up to me in the corridor, still apologising.

“I really didn’t mean to ruin your notes,” she says, walking a half-step too close. “I’m kind of a disaster around glassware.”

“I’ve noticed,” I reply.

She grins, forgiving herself faster than I can. “You’re not still mad, are you?”

“Mad is a chemical imbalance,” I say. “I’m simply recalibrating my expectations.”

She laughs because she thinks I’m joking. “Next class is Thornhill’s! You’ll like her. She’s super nice. Kind of obsessed with plants, though. Like, in a healthy way.”

“Obsession”, I murmur, “rarely stays healthy for long.”

…

The greenhouse waits at the edge of campus, where the walls are damp and the air smells like a mixture of dirt and rotten leaves. The light through the glass roof turns everything brighter. I pause in the doorway and already dislike it.

Rows of potted things watch us enter. Plants that pretend to sleep but breathe too loudly. Thornhill stands at the front, radiant and composed, surrounded by a look that looks domesticated but isn’t. Her appearance is the same shade of deceit as before. She greets each student by name, saving the brightest smile for me.

“Wednesday!” she says warmly. “So glad you could join us. I hope you’re ready to get your hands dirty.”

“They already are,” I answer, taking my seat beside Enid.

Thornhill’s laugh is small and polished. “Everyone, we’ll be working with seedling hybrids today. Handle them gently; they respond to tone and touch.”

She moves between tables, her perfume soft but invasive, roses and daisies covering something sharper beneath. The plants lean toward her. I resist the urge to cut one open just to prove their devotion isn’t real.

Enid whispers, “See? She’s sweet.”

“Sugar is a preservative,” I reply. “It keeps corpses from smelling.”

Thornhill pauses near our table, smiling as if she hasn’t heard. “Miss Addams, you’ve worked with plants before?”

“I’ve buried a few,” I say.

A ripple of laughter travels through the class. Thornhill’s smile tightens, just slightly. “Well, perhaps we can focus on nurturing rather than… interring.”

“I’ll consider it,” I tell her, “if they behave.”

Her voice softens, but her eyes sharpen. “Try to see the good in things, Wednesday. Even the ones that grow slowly.”

“Some things grow best in darkness,” I reply. “Mushrooms, secrets, hypocrisy.”

The room goes still. Everyone holds their breath. Thornhill recovers quickly, straightening. “That will be enough, Miss Addams. Report to Headmistress Weems after class.”

Enid whispers, “Yikes.”

“Accuracy is rarely appreciated,” I say, standing up. I leave class before it ends.

…

The walk to Weems’ office is short, but the silence makes it longer. The corridors smell of chalk dust and candle wax. The portraits on the walls watch with patient interest.

Weems’ office is immaculate: everything lined up with the precision of power. She looks up from her desk, silver hair catching the light like a blade. “Miss Addams,” she says, her tone equal parts irritation and curiosity. “It’s your first week, and already a report?”

I sit without being asked. “The report is exaggerated. Ms Thornhill is intolerable. I merely pointed it out.”

Weems folds her hands. “You called her a hypocrite.”

“I was being charitable.”

She exhales slowly, the way people do when they realise reason will not help them. “Wednesday, you need to learn restraint. Teachers here are not your adversaries.”

“Not yet,” I say. “Give it time.”

Her eyes narrow. “You may find that sarcasm doesn’t serve you as well here as it did elsewhere.”

“I don’t serve sarcasm,” I say. “It serves me.”

For a moment, Weems almost smiles but then remembers she shouldn’t. “Detention,” she says finally. “Tonight. You’ll assist Ms Thornhill in the greenhouse.”

“That’s less a punishment and more a scientific risk,” I answer.

“Then treat it as research,” she says, dismissing me with a gesture. “Perhaps you’ll learn something.”

“I already have,” I say, standing. “The past wears perfume.”

…

Detention comes later, but the day insists on continuing its parade of irritations. The next class is fencing. It’s one of the few human activities honest enough to admit its intentions. The air in the hall smells of metal, polish, and sweat carefully disguised by detergent. Masks hang on the wall like decapitated heads, their mesh gleaming faintly in the lamplight.

I’m adjusting my glove when I hear footsteps behind me.

I turn around to see Xavier standing behind me.

“I heard about what happened in Thornhill’s class,” he says. “Word travels fast here. You really told her off?”

“I described her accurately,” I reply.

He leans against the rack of foils, trying for casual and failing. “I mean, I get it. She’s… nice. But it’s that weird kind of nice. Like, too nice, right? Makes my skin crawl a little.”

I turn to look at him. “You notice it too?”

“Yeah,” he admits, lowering his voice. “Something about her smile doesn’t reach her eyes. It’s like she’s constantly rehearsing being human.”

“A commendable observation,” I say. “For most people, humanity is a performance piece.”

He smiles faintly, relieved to have found agreement. “So you really don’t trust her?”

“I don’t trust anyone who waters things for a living,” I answer, picking up my foil. “It implies a fear of decay.”

Before he can respond, the instructor claps for silence, calling us to the floor. Students pair off, laughter filling the hall in nervous bursts. Bianca watches me from across the room with the calm certainty of someone already planning her victory.

…

“Addams,” the instructor says. “Barclay. You’re up.”

Bianca smirks as we take our positions. “Try not to bleed on the floor,” she murmurs.

“I’ll aim higher,” I tell her.

I lower my mask. The world narrows to breathe. The first clash of blades sings sharply through the air. She’s fast. Biance is as she always was, but I’ve spent lifetimes turning precision into instinct. Her movements are theatrical; mine are planned. When she lunges, I parry without effort, and when she circles, I pivot once, neatly, cutting through her rhythm like a sentence finished too early.

The match ends with my blade resting against her shoulder. The instructor calls the point. The silence that follows is awkward, to say the least.

Bianca lowers her mask, her eyes sharp with the sting of unspent pride. “Beginner’s luck,” she says, voice sweet and poisonous.

“I don’t believe in luck,” I reply, removing my mask. “Only in inaccuracy.”

Her jaw tightens. Around us, the other students whisper. The instructor moves on. I step aside, letting victory fade before it begins to feel like vanity.

…

By lunch, the hall smells of food and noise and mediocrity. I prefer to eat alone, but the universe insists on surrounding me with people. Enid waves me over, radiant with the kind of enthusiasm that makes daylight seem redundant.

“Wednesday!” she calls, waving a tray piled with things that look aggressively edible. “Over here!”

I hesitate for half a breath before joining her table. The group she’s surrounded by looks like a catalogue of teenage subcultures. Pale vampires with impeccable posture, sirens whispering in perfect sync, and gorgons with mirrored glasses polished to reflectionless shine. Enid does introductions with her usual chaotic precision.

“Everyone, this is Wednesday Addams. She’s new. She’s intense. But like, in a cool way.”

I nod once. “I’ll accept ‘intense’. The rest is still under review.”

The vampires study me with polite curiosity, their politeness sharper than fangs. One of them raises a glass of red liquid that definitely isn’t wine and says, “Welcome.” I incline my head in return.

Enid beams, oblivious to the tension that never quite reaches her. “So, fencing been? Heard you defeated Bianca.”

“Yes,” I say. “Apparently, that’s a disciplinary offence.”

“Bianca’s been talking about you too,” she adds. “She’s not used to losing.”

“Then she should practise disappointment,” I say.

Enid laughs, nearly spilling her juice. “I like you. You’re like a thunderstorm in human form.”

“That’s generous,” I reply. “Thunderstorms at least warn people first.”

She grins, then glances across the hall. “Oh, look… Bianca and Xavier. They’re kind of the unofficial royalty here.”

I follow her gaze. Bianca sits perfectly composed, Xavier beside her, both laughing at something I can’t hear. The sight feels familiar in an uncomfortable way.

“Bianca’s popular,” Enid says. “And Xavier’s… Xavier. You know how that goes.”

“I do,” I answer, though I wish I didn’t.

She tilts her head. “So what’s your dorm like? They stick you in with anyone interesting?”

“I’m alone,” I tell her. “A scheduling miracle.”

“Lucky,” she says, rolling her eyes. “My roommate’s awful. She sheds glitter, talks in her sleep, and steals my hairbrush. If I don’t get my own room soon, I might go feral.”

I look at her for a long moment. “I’ve lived with worse roommates,” I say quietly.

She laughs, not catching the echo of something heavier behind the words. “I bet. You’ve got that look.”

I want to tell her everything. I want to break the rules of causality just to warn her about the future, but the watch hums against my wrist, a small reminder that interference carries a price.

When lunch ends, the corridors split into rivers of uniformed motion. Students scatter toward their next classes like obedient insects. I head in the opposite direction. Rules are suggestions; attendance is optional.

…

Outside, the air tastes of impending rain. The path down to Jericho is quiet, bordered by trees still green. I walk until the walls of Nevermore shrink behind me, until the smell of ink and stone is replaced by exhaust and bread.

Jericho looks smaller today, or maybe I’ve simply grown too large for nostalgia. The shopfronts line up neatly, pretending permanence. The bell tower keeps time for people who still believe in minutes.

The weathervane stands as it always has, with an earnest and ordinary look. The sign creaks above the door, the bell ready to judge whoever enters.

I push it open.

The warmth inside feels like trespassing. The smell of roasted beans and burnt sugar curls through the air, familiar enough to sting. A student in uniform laughs somewhere behind me. The floorboards sigh under my boots.

Behind the counter, a familiar voice calls, “Be right with you!”

…

The Weathervane feels smaller when it’s empty of laughter. The corners hold dust and other stuff. I take the same booth I always do. It’s the one by the window where sunlight forgets to reach. The table’s surface is scarred by years of spilt sugar and impatient pens. It smells faintly of burnt espresso and pine cleaner.

My notebook lies open in front of me, half its pages gone to chemical warfare from Enid’s earlier accident. The remaining sheets curl inward like old wounds. I write anyway. Notes, observations, fragments of data.

When the cup lands on the table, it barely makes a sound.

“Black coffee,” Tyler says quietly. “No sugar, right?”

I don’t look up right away. “You remember.”

He shrugs, hands in his apron pockets. “Hard to forget an order that specific.”

“Specificity is underrated,” I say, finally glancing at him. His face is open in that infuriating way innocence often is. He nods once, uncertain whether to stay, then drifts back behind the counter.

I write another line in my notebook: He looks alive even in fluorescent light. The crime of it is how ordinary that feels.

The bell above the door interrupts me. Sheriff Donovan Galpin enters, carrying the posture of someone permanently unimpressed. His uniform looks too heavy for the room; his presence changes the air pressure. Tyler stiffens behind the counter.

“Afternoon, son,” the sheriff says, not looking at him right away. “We need to talk.”

Tyler wipes his hands on a towel. “Now? I’m kind of working.”

“Now,” his father repeats. His voice could sand glass.

They move to the end of the counter. The conversation isn’t meant for me, but sound travels.

“…heard about what you and those friends of yours did last night,” the sheriff says. “Breaking into the scrapyard? Real smart. You want to explain that?”

Tyler mutters something. It’s too quiet, too small. His father’s tone sharpens. “You’re lucky they didn’t call me first. You think being my kid gives you a free pass?”

Tyler’s jaw tightens. “No, sir.”

“Then act like it.”

The words land with precision. The room grows heavy around me. I close my notebook. The moment asks for interference, and I’ve never been good at ignoring invitations.

I stand. The scrape of my chair makes both of them look my way.

“He didn’t do it,” I say evenly.

Sheriff Galpin blinks. “Excuse me?”

“Whatever you’re accusing him of,” I continue, “he didn’t. Tyler doesn’t strike me as the criminal type. He was with me.’’

The sheriff studies me. “And you are?”

“Wednesday Addams,” I say. “My father’s reputation probably precedes me. It usually travels first-class.”

Recognition flickers behind his eyes. It’s brief and involuntary. “Addams,” he repeats, almost to himself. “Gomez Addams. Right. I remember.” His jaw works once, like a door deciding whether to slam. “That family’s been trouble in every decade I’ve worked here.”

“Consistency is a virtue,” I tell him.

He exhales sharply, shakes his head, and turns back to Tyler. “Stay out of trouble.” Then, to me: “And don’t get involved in things that don’t concern you.”

“Everything concerns me,” I say. “Eventually.”

He leaves. The bell above the door marks his exit.

Tyler stands frozen for a second, then looks at me, torn between gratitude and disbelief. “You didn’t have to do that,” he says, walking over.

“I know.”

He slides into the seat across from me, lowering his voice. “You were wrong, though. I did do it. Not the way he thinks, but still. It was stupid. We wanted to see how far we could push curfew, that’s all. Guess we found out.”

“We’ve all done things we shouldn’t have,” I say quietly, tracing the edge of my cup. “Some of us just have better reasons.”

He tilts his head. “You say that like you know.”

“I do,” I answer. “Regret is a recurring disease.”

He studies me, puzzled by the weight in words he doesn’t yet understand. “So… why help me?”

“Because innocence is loud,” I say. “And guilt prefers silence. You were too quiet.”

He huffs a laugh, though it sounds uncertain. “You’re weird.”

“I’m consistent,” I reply.

A pause stretches between us.

“So what are you doing here, anyway?” he asks after a while. “Don’t you have class?”

“I grew tired of lectures,” I say. “Repetition numbs the intellect.”

“That’s one way to say ‘skipping school.’”

“I prefer accuracy to euphemism.”

He smiles despite himself. “Well, thanks… for, you know, defending me.”

“Consider it a temporary alliance,” I say, closing my notebook.

“Right,” he says, standing. “Guess I should get back to work before Dad sends a patrol car for me.” He pauses, then adds, softer, “Still…thanks, Wednesday.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” I say. “Gratitude creates debt.”

He grins a little, then returns to the counter. I watch him move. He looks so ordinary, alive and oblivious to everything that hasn’t happened yet. The watch warms beneath my sleeve, steady as a small, private heartbeat.

I finish my coffee in silence, writing one last note before leaving: the living are harder to haunt than the dead.

Outside, the air has shifted. It’s colder, sharper, smelling of pine and distance. The road back to Nevermore stretches ahead, patient and grey. I walk it slowly, letting the day fold back around me.

…

The greenhouse waits for me later in the evening. The path to it is slick with late rain, and the air tastes faintly of copper and damp soil. The glass panes hum faintly, catching the last light of day and breaking it into fractured reflections. Everything here smells of chlorophyll.

Inside, Thornhill is already waiting. Her cardigan is the colour of withered roses, her gloves spotless, her smile polished to civility. Around her, the plants breathe too loudly, their leaves glistening.

“Wednesday,” she says, her voice soaked in sunlight that doesn’t exist. “Thank you for being… prompt.”

“I’m contractually obligated,” I say.

Her laugh is soft and deliberate. “I appreciate honesty. Even when it’s barbed.”

“I don’t sugarcoat,” I tell her. “It attracts flies.”

She gestures toward a long table lined with pots and pruning shears. “You’ll help me repot these. Simple work. Therapeutic, even.”

“Therapy is for people who think their pain is special,” I say, pulling on the gloves she hands me. The soil is cool and wet and clings to my fingers.

For a while, there’s only the sound of shifting dirt, the clink of clay pots, and the slow drip of condensation from the glass roof. Thornhill hums while she works, something cheerful and tuneless.

“You know,” she says after a moment, “I used to be like you. Quiet, serious, always observing. The world can be cruel to girls who think too much.”

“The world is cruel to everyone,” I reply. “Thinking just lets you see it coming.”

She smiles as if I’ve proved her point. “Still, it’s good to have someone to talk to. Nevermore can be isolating.”

“Isolation is underrated,” I say. “It keeps the noise manageable.”

She looks at me, eyes bright behind the lenses of her glasses. “You remind me of myself at your age.”

“Then I offer my condolences.”

Thornhill laughs again, too long this time. The sound echoes off the glass and returns smaller, less human. The plants around us shift slightly, leaves brushing each other.

I press my thumb into the soil. “You cultivate these like they’re friends.”

“They are friends,” she says. “They listen, they grow, they don’t judge.”

“They also don’t talk back,” I answer. “That’s not friendship. That’s control.”

For a brief second, something changes in her face. It’s too subtle for most people to notice, but I catch it: the corners of her mouth stiffen, and the warmth drains from her eyes. Then the expression resets.

“You’re very perceptive,” she says.

“It’s hereditary.”

We work in silence for another few minutes. The air thickens.

 Somewhere beneath the soil, roots shift as though impatient. I can feel the itch beneath my skin. It’s the memory of what she’ll do, who she’ll make him become. My fingers tighten around the pruning shears. They fit perfectly in my hand. They’re balanced and light.

She turns her back to reach for a watering can, humming again. The curve of her neck is precise, almost inviting.

It would be easy. One clean motion. It would leave no mess. No more futures would be built on her lies.

The thought arrives quietly, like a suggestion written in blood. I grip the shears harder until the handle squeaks. The watch beneath my sleeve pulses once. It’s hot, insistent, alive. It reminds me that time is watching. It always is.

Thornhill turns, smiling. “Careful,” she says, mistaking tension for clumsiness. “They’re sharp.”

“So am I,” I answer.

She laughs, unaware that the sound is saving her life.

“Why such hostility, Wednesday?” she asks gently. “I’ve done nothing to deserve it.”

“Not yet,” I say.

Her expression falters again. “You speak like you know something I don’t.”

“I usually do.”

The air between us curdles. Even the plants seem to lean away. Finally, she sighs, setting down her watering can. “You can go if you’re going to be like this. Detention only works if both parties cooperate.”

“Then I’ll save us both the trouble,” I say, stripping off the gloves.

Her voice follows me to the door. “I’m only trying to help you, Wednesday.”

I stop at the threshold. The sky outside has gone the colour of bruised glass. “You don’t help people,” I say.

Her silence is answer enough. I walk out.

The air outside hits me. It’s cold. The fog from the lake has started creeping up the hill, touching the greenhouse windows. I step into it.

Suddenly the world tilts. The ground disappears; sound collapses into a single note too low to hear. My vision tunnels.  

 The heat burns through cloth and skin, and the world collapses inward. The smell of damp earth is replaced by iron and smoke.

I’m not standing in the fog anymore. I’m back in the woods. Back in the older woods, the right ones. The night is loud with wind and memory. My hand grips the knife, its handle slick with something that isn’t rain. Tyler is on the ground, breathing in pieces. His eyes are wide, his mouth trying to find my name but choking on it instead. The moonlight makes the blood on his throat look deliberate, like ink.

I hear myself speak, my voice steady, calm, almost monstrous: It had to be done.

Tyler reaches for me. The gesture is almost gentle. After that he stops moving. The silence that follows is horrifying.

The vision doesn’t fade. It drags me through every heartbeat, every second of his dying. I feel the warmth leaving his skin.

After that, darkness follows. The image shatters.

When I open my eyes, I’m back on the path outside the greenhouse, the fog thick around me.

There’s soil and blood under my nails. I don’t imagine it. No, it’s wet, red and real. It shines faintly against the black fabric of my sleeve, smelling of rust and déjà vu.

Inside the greenhouse, I hear Thornhill humming the same tune as before. I look up at the glass panes where her shadow moves behind the plants.

I stare at my hands. The blood doesn’t fade.

Chapter Text

Wednesday’s POV

The morning light reflects on the wall of my dorm. I wake slowly, feeling disorientated. I’m not even sure how to start my day. The vision has definitely left an impression. It was in the same woods, with the same knife and with the same blood. My hands are clean now, but they remember otherwise.

The air in the room feels heavy. My dorm smells of damp wood and burned candle wax. My bed is narrow. The desk by the wall looks damaged by previous inhabitants. It’s scratched and empty except for my notebook and the watch.

The watch lies where I left it last night. When I pick it up, it’s warm against my palm, as if it has been waiting for my pulse to restart. I listen for its ticking but it doesn’t.

I sit up and try to take everything in. That’s how the world begins to make sense to me. My hands: feel steady, for now. The vision: hostile but persistent. My sanity: unverified.

The room feels smaller than it did yesterday. The walls wear their shadows too tightly. There’s nothing decorative here, no attempt at comfort.

The faint smell of soil still clings to my uniform, a reminder of the greenhouse. But it also reminds me of Laurel Gates hiding behind her pretty pseudonym. My mind plays the scene again whether I want it to or not: the conversations with her last night and the vision snapping like a trap, Tyler’s face under my knife. The images of it flash through my head.

I stand and pull on my uniform. The fabric is cold and way too clean for someone who spent the night in a nightmare. The black feels correct. The white feels like sarcasm. I braid my hair in silence, each motion precise.

When I look in the mirror, the girl who stares back seems fourteen again. But my eyes are not fooled. There’s a tension under the surface, a woman trying to breathe inside a child’s bones. The reflection looks temporary.

I pick up the watch and fasten it against my wrist. The metal touches skin like recognition.

…

Outside, Nevermore is the same as usual. The hallway smells of cleaning products and dust. Voices echo throughout the hall, mixed with laughter and footsteps. It’s the sound of people who believe time is simple. I envy their delusion.

By the time I reach the dining hall, my expression has returned to its default setting: deliberate neutrality. Students move aside without meaning to. Their curiosity is a noise I’ve learnt to tune out.

I take my seat at the far end of the table. The coffee is watery. The eggs look like they’ve been painted rather than cooked. I make notes anyway, not about the food, but about the morning:

“No blood on my hands. The watch is warm to my touch. Thornhill was observed.’’

The sunlight filters through the stained-glass windows, spilling onto the long tables. It catches the rim of my cup and fractures into colour. It would be beautiful if it weren’t so invasive.

…

The greenhouse smells in the most unappealing way. It smells of damp soil, warm rot and of green things sweating under glass. The air is so thick it could drown a thought if you let it. Sunlight leaks through the panes in pale stripes, breaking across tables cluttered with pots, trowels, and jars of unlabeled liquids.

I take my seat in the back row, beside Enid. Enid looks as happy as always. Her perfume smells like sugar and citrus. She waves at me as though we haven’t already spoken three times this week.

“Morning!” she says, smiling at me.

“It’s morning for everyone,” I reply. “Not an accomplishment.”

She giggles, undeterred. “Still grumpy, even after coffee, huh?”

“I’m consistent,” I tell her. “That’s rarer than happiness.”

Before she can answer, the door swings open and Thornhill enters. She is holding a clipboard. Her smile looks stitched on. The class sits straighter in its chairs, eager to impress her. I don’t bother pretending.

“Good morning, my little seedlings!” she sings out. “Today we’re working with aconite, also known as wolf’s bane. Handle with care, please. It’s highly toxic.”

“Then at least it’s interesting,” I murmur.

Thornhill’s head tilts toward me. “Miss Addams, perhaps you’d like to tell the class what aconite was historically used for?”

“To murder unfaithful lovers,” I answer, without hesitation.

A ripple of uneasy laughter moves through the room. Enid glances at me sideways, somewhere between impressed and alarmed. Thornhill’s smile doesn’t reach her eyes, but she nods.

“Excellent,” she says lightly. “Though these days, we prefer to use it in controlled doses. Science over scandal, right?”

“Both have their uses,” I say.

She moves through the aisles between tables, sunlight pooling around her like she’s part of the greenhouse rather than in charge of it. Her voice carries the soft tone of something that wants to sound nurturing but has rehearsed the tone too many times.

I study her the way I’d study a toxin. When you look too close and it starts to act on you.

She checks Enid’s pot, praises her soil mixture, then lingers beside mine. “Not planting yet?” she asks, too sweet.

“I prefer to observe my victims before burial,” I say.

I hear more laughter from the class. She forces a chuckle, scribbles something on her clipboard, and keeps walking. The smell of her perfume trails after her. It’s a mixture of roses and earth.

Enid leans closer once Thornhill’s back is turned. “You know, for a teacher, she’s… kind of nice.”

I tilt my head. “That’s how predators look right before they pounce.”

Enid frowns. “You’re super dramatic, you know that?”

“Precision isn’t drama,” I say, pressing the tip of my trowel into the soil. “It’s survival.”

I stab the earth once. The smell of crushed roots rises, bitter and raw.

In front of the class, Thornhill demonstrates how to trim the aconite petals, talking about toxicity as though it’s most normal thing. The light catches her eyes for a second. It’s too bright. I remember how those same hands once brewed the Hyde serum that destroyed him.

I write in my notebook under the table: Thornhill is still perfecting her disguise. Smiles as camouflage.

The class continues. Enid hums softly beside me. Thornhill’s voice smooths over every subject. I tune her out and let my mind catalogue escape routes, poisons and plans.

By the time the bell rings, I’ve counted fourteen ways to kill someone in this room using only what’s available and at least three ways to make it look like an accident.

As the students pack up, Thornhill calls after me, voice pleasant as ever.
“Wednesday, dear, a word?”

I pause in the doorway. “If it’s about my attitude, it’s not going to change.”

She laughs, soft and rehearsed. “Just remember, this is a place of growth. Even for you.”

“I prefer pruning,” I say, and leave before she can answer.

...

The corridor outside smells of dust and ink. Enid skips to catch up with me, sunlight trailing in her wake.

“You really don’t like her, huh?” she says.

“She’s the kind of woman who waters weeds and calls it compassion,” I reply.

Enid giggles. “That’s dark, even for you.”

“Thank you,” I say.

…

The corridors of Nevermore feel empty. The intercom calls out my name, “Miss Addams to the Headmistress’s office”.

I make the walk at an unhurried pace. The students I pass look at me. They look curious, uneasy, and like they are pretending not to be impressed.

Weems’s office smells like polish and parchment. The curtains are drawn halfway, letting in only the amount of light that flatters her authority. She stands behind her desk.

“Miss Addams,” she begins, voice smooth. “I’ve had a rather enlightening conversation with Ms Thornhill this morning.”

“I pity you,” I say, taking a seat without being invited.

Her jaw tightens by one degree. “She tells me you were… less than cooperative in her class.”

“I was attentive,” I correct. “I listened. I even answered her question. Truthfully.”

“You told the class aconite was used to murder unfaithful lovers,” she says flatly.

“History is factual,” I reply. “Suppressing it is propaganda.”

Weems exhales through her nose. Wednesday, this is a school. The goal here is to encourage respect, not morbidity.”

“Morbidness is just honesty with better vocabulary.”

Her eyes narrow. “You’ve been here less than a week, and I’ve already received reports from three teachers.”

“That’s efficiency,” I say.

“It’s disruption.”

“It’s both,” I counter. “Duality is natural.”

She pinches the bridge of her nose. “You can’t continue antagonizing every instructor on the grounds, Miss Addams. Nevermore is meant to help you channel your…” she searches for the word, “…passions.”

“My passions are already channeled,” I tell her. “Mostly into observation and occasionally into revenge.”

“Then perhaps,” she says slowly, “you could direct some of that energy into an extracurricular activity. Something constructive. Fencing, music, community service…”

“No.”

“Excuse me?”

“No,” I repeat. “I don’t participate in forced joy.”

Weems gives me the kind of look reserved for students who are both exhausting and slightly impressive. “Wednesday, this isn’t optional. All Nevermore students must participate in at least one after-school activity. It fosters social development.”

“I’ve already developed socially,” I say. “I simply didn’t like the results.”

“Find something,” she says, “by tomorrow.”

“Or?”

“Or I will assign you something.”

I tilt my head. “Will it involve glitter or teamwork?”

“Possibly.”

“Then I’ll find my own,” I say, standing.

Weems studies me for a long moment. Her expression softens just enough to remind me that she’s human, which only makes it worse. “Wednesday,” she says quietly, “I know you think I’m your enemy, but I’m not.”

“I don’t think that,” I say, buttoning my jacket. “Enemies are interesting. You’re management.”

Her sigh follows me out the door.

…

The next class becomes a casualty of my irritation. Obedience was never my natural element. So instead of sitting through another hour of fabricated civility, I walk.

The path to Jericho looks different in daylight. The world wears its colours. The sky leans pale over the fields, the trees move with distant wind, and the air carries the scent of thawed earth and something faintly sweet. It’s like the memory of rot deciding to bloom again.

Each step I take is with determination. My shoes sink slightly into damp gravel, leaving temporary evidence of my existence. I tell myself I’m taking a walk to clear my head, but lies work better when you say them in your own voice.

By the time I reach Jericho, the town is awake in its small, self-important way. The shopfronts gleam. The windows of the Weathervane shine.

The bell above the café door rings its habitual note. The smell inside is a chaos: roasted beans, sugar, heat, and something faintly metallic beneath it all. The air feels too warm against my skin.

I choose the same booth I always do. The one near the window, half in shadow, half in view.

My notebook opens easily. The edges of its half-burnt pages curl toward me, still marked by ash and damp. I begin to write.

Observation: the timeline has stabilised for now. Thornhill remains active.

The pen in my hand trembles. The watch sits on the table beside my coffee. It’s silent. It glows faintly in the dim light, as if remembering the blood it once borrowed.

Suddenly I can hear footsteps walking toward me. Followed by the rustle of an apron and a quiet sigh. “On the house,” he says.

Tyler sets a cup of coffee in front of me. He’s younger here, painfully so. The edges of his face haven’t yet learnt cruelty. His eyes are lighter, clearer, untouched by the weight of what’s coming. Even his posture carries innocence, that easy looseness of someone who hasn’t yet been told what he’ll become.

I study him like I would an old photograph. There’s warmth in the corner of his smile, the kind that doesn’t know it’s temporary. His hands are steady and unscarred. They linger on the cup a moment too long. It’s not out of hesitation but out of comfort. He doesn’t flinch at the world yet. He still believes it’s polite.

The sight of him. Seeing him whole, ordinary, and alive pulls at something cruel in me. Memory fills the air between us: the sound of his breath breaking, the tremor in his voice when he begged for something neither of us could name. The way his eyes looked after. They were glassy and empty. Now those same eyes are just…bright, curious and infuriatingly human.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” he says, smiling faintly.

“I see them often,” I answer. “You’re just louder than most.”

He laughs. His laughs sounds genuine. Not practiced in defense. The sound doesn’t match the Tyler I killed.

“You’ve been coming here a lot,” he says. “I was starting to think you lived here.”

“I don’t live anywhere,” I say. “I occupy spaces until they bore me.”

He pulls out the seat across from me, hesitates like he’s asking permission, then sits. The light from the window touches his jaw, a shadow of stubble is visible on his face. He looks older in the light, younger in the dark.

“So,” he says, leaning forward slightly. “What are you writing this time?”

“Notes.”

“On what?”

“Cause and effect.”

He chuckles. “Let me guess. I’m the cause.”

“Sometimes you’re the consequence,” I say.

He raises an eyebrow. “That’s cryptic.”

“It’s descriptive.”

He tilts his head, that same gentle confusion I remember from before everything broke. The same curiosity that once led him.“You always talk like that?”

“Always,” I say. “Otherwise, people start thinking I’m approachable.”

“God forbid,” he says, smiling again.

I take a sip of my coffee. It’s bitter but exactly to my liking. He watches me while holding his own cup of coffee. He looks so comfortable in his skin here. There’s no tremor under his calm exterior, no shadow moving behind his eyes. He’s still someone’s son, someone’s friend and most of all someone unruined. For the first time in a long while, I envy the timeline that hasn’t touched him.

“You seem… different today,” he says softly. “Like you’re somewhere else.”

“I am,” I admit. “It’s just inconvenient to explain.”

He laughs again. “You know, you’re strange, but not in the bad way.”

“There are no good ways,” I say automatically.

He studies me for a moment, like he’s trying to decide if that’s true. “You sound older than you look,” he says finally.

“And you sound younger than you’ll become.”

He frowns slightly. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing you need to worry about yet,” I tell him. “Time’s kinder to some people before it remembers who they are.”

He watches me for a second longer, then leans back, exhaling through a smile ‘’You talk like you’ve lived twice.”

“Once was enough,” I say. “The second time is research.”

The rain starts outside. It streaks the window behind him, distorting his reflection. I almost prefer it that way. It’s softer. Tyler stands, still smiling. “I should get back. My dad’s probably looking for a reason to be mad at me.”

“He doesn’t need one,” I say. “People like him mistake silence for guilt.”

He pauses, cup in hand. “You really do pay attention, don’t you?”

“I observe,” I say. “It’s the only thing worth doing properly.”

He gives a small, uncertain nod. “See you around, Wednesday.”

“You will,” I answer.

When he’s gone, the space he leaves behind almost feels empty. The watch on the table warms again.

I pick up my pen and write the only note that matters: Tyler Galpin is still unbroken, unknowing, unbearably alive.

…

The rain sharpens against the windows. I stay in my booth. My hands are resting on the notebook. My eyes are unfocused on the wet glass. The café has emptied a little; only the hum of conversation remains.

Tyler’s voice drifts from behind the counter, easy and unbothered. I tell myself to leave. I tell myself that I’ve collected enough data for one afternoon, but my body refuses.

The door opens with the sound of wet hinges. Sheriff Galpin enters. Even in this younger world, he carries the same heaviness. It’s that mix of exhaustion and arrogance that clings to men who believe authority is a cure for grief. His coat is slick with rain, his badge a small, polished sun at his chest. When his eyes sweep the café and stop on me, they narrow. It’s recognition.

“Well,” he says, voice low and rough, “I didn’t think Jericho had imported any Addamses this season.”

The sentence lands and the tension in the room rises. Tyler looks up from behind the counter. He looks surprised. “Dad,” he says quickly, “don’t start.”

“I’m not starting anything,” the Sheriff replies, shaking off his coat. “Just observing.” His gaze returns to me “You look like trouble.”

“I look like truth,” I say. “People confuse the two.”

He snorts. “Figures. You’ve got your father’s attitude. I arrested him once, you know.”

“I’m aware,” I reply. “He framed it.”

Tyler exhales behind the counter, muttering, “Dad…”

His father keeps going performing his irritation like it’s on schedule. “You Addams types. Always skulking around places you don’t belong. I just got word some kids vandalised the general store last night. Spray paint and two broken window. Guess whose friends were there?”

His eyes cut toward his son. Tyler his face tightens. “Dad, I didn’t…”

“Save it,” the Sheriff interrupts. “I don’t need excuses. Just the truth.”

The air in the café feels suffocating. The smell of coffee turns sour. I feel the shift, that precise moment when accusation becomes inheritance.

Without planning it, I speak. “He didn’t do it,” I say.

The Sheriff turns to me, eyebrows raised. “And how would you know that?”

“Because he was with me,” I answer, evenly.

Tyler blinks, confusion slipping into something closer to awe. “I… what?”

I keep my eyes on the Sheriff. “He was with me,” I repeat, “yesterday evening. If your evidence is based on time, you’ve already lost.”

The Sheriff studies me, suspicion sharpening behind his eyes. “You’re saying you and my son were… what exactly? Out together?”

“Research,” I say. “Philosophical in nature. Non-criminal.”

He exhales a short, humourless laugh. “You think you’re clever.”

“I think,” I say, “that truth doesn’t need to think at all.”

He stares for a moment longer, trying to decide whether to push the matter or to preserve his dignity.

Finally, he mutters, “Stay out of my business, Miss Addams.”

“Your business is human error,” I say. “I’ve always found it fascinating.”

Tyler’s trying not to laugh; the corner of his mouth betrays him. The Sheriff sighs, muttering something under his breath about “strange girls and wasted coffee”, then leaves. The door slams behind him, ringing the bell like an insult.

Tyler steps closer to my booth, still looking bewildered. “You didn’t have to do that,” he says softly.

“I know.”

He runs a hand through his hair. “But… thanks. For lying, I mean.”

“It wasn’t a lie,” I say. “It was a correction of perception.”

He shakes his head, smiling a little. “You’re something else, Wednesday.”

“I’ve been accused of worse.”

“Still,” he says“you didn’t have to get in the middle of that. He’s… he’s just angry all the time. Like he’s waiting for someone to prove him right.”

I study him again, the light from the window tracing his features. He looks so alive in this timeline. His voice still carries a hint of hope it will one day lose. It breaks my heart.

“You shouldn’t apologise for someone else’s grief,” I tell him. “It’s not contagious unless you let it be.”

He looks down at the cup in his hands, thinking. “Sometimes it feels like it is.”

We fall silent. The rain thickens outside, turning the street into a blurred reflection of the world. Tyler finishes his coffee before he sets the cup down carefully.

“I should get back,” he says again, but his voice is softer this time. “You’re… strange, but in a good way.”

“There’s no such thing,” I reply.

He grins faintly. “Right. Guess I’ll see you around.”

“You will,” I say, and watch him walk away.

When he disappears behind the counter, I exhale. It’s slow and deliberate, the way you do when you realise you’ve just spoken to a ghost who hasn’t died yet.

…

The night inside Nevermore is quietly suffocating. The cold air smells faintly of iron and salt, as if the building remembers what it was built over. Every step I take echoes.

The corridors stretch long and empty, their chandeliers dimmed. The paintings along the walls tilt slightly. I move through the dark without a lantern. Light attracts attention, and attention is a form of vulnerability.

When I reach the library, the lock is easy to break. I’ve never met one that could stop me. It yields after a minute and I slip inside.

The air is different here. It feels older and slower. It carries the heavy perfume of mildew, rotting parchment, and wax that burnt itself out centuries ago. The dust floats thick enough to taste, and the temperature drops.

I strike a match. The brief flare of sulphur brightens the room like a confession before fading into the single small flame of my candle. Its light spreads thinly across the marble floor.

The shelves are endless. The spines of the books shine faintly. Most have gold ink turned dull with age, and leather cracked in patterns that resemble dried riverbeds.

I start down the main aisle, the candle’s flame bowing slightly each time I pass a column. I trail one hand along the spines. The dust coats my fingers like ash. It feels fitting.

Halfway down, I find the restricted cabinets. The metal drawers are labelled by decade, each one older than the other. The one I want has already started to rust, its label so faded the letters are more suggestion than ink. Botanical Research: Classified.

I slide it open slowly. Inside are folders with corners softened by humidity. The smell that rises is thick and organic, something between decay and rain. My candlelight catches on the edges of glass vials tucked between papers. They’re small samples of dried petals, sealed away.

The handwriting on the first few pages is careful, practised, and academic. Notes about soil balance, chlorophyll retention, and the relation between lunar cycles and plant memory. Then, deeper in, the script begins to change. It looks tighter, more deliberate, and more human in its obsession.

The signature reads M. Thornhill.

I stare at it until the candle gutter flicks a shadow over her name. The loop of the “T” curls inward, exactly the way I remember it. I don’t need anyone to tell me. It’s Laurel Gates.

The next page isn’t about plants anymore. It’s about people. Preliminary observation: certain hybrids can mimic neural reactions if distilled into blood. The host must be emotionally compromised to ensure compliance. Recommend use of aconite and silverleaf in a two-to-one ratio. The root catalyst remains unstable. It needs to be tested with a synthetic compound derived from adrenal tissue. Goal: obedience through controlled metamorphosis. Nature can be taught devotion.

There’s a sketch beside the text. The shape of a heart overgrown with vines, with roots spreading into arteries. The ink has bled where tears or rain once touched it. The handwriting is older, but the intent feels fresh.

I realise she is already researching it. She’s researching the method and making the mixture to make the monster. A note has been added at the end, written later in darker ink: Potential subjects listed under T.G. The letters breathe in the candlelight. T.G. Tyler Galpin.

I don’t blink. I let the realisation arrive slowly, like a wound remembering it exists. I can see him again, the way he looked when he stopped pretending to be human. His eyes gone black, mouth full of a scream that didn’t belong to him. His voice still lingers in my head, apologising for something that was never his fault.

My fingers tighten on the paper until it crumples slightly. The sound is loud enough to break the silence. A smell of burnt wax seeps up. The candle’s flame trembles, shrinking low.

“Wednesday?” a voice fills the air.

I turn. I see Enid standing halfway in the doorway, one hand clutching her blanket, the other holding a lantern too bright for the hour. Her hair spills around her shoulders in soft gold. Her eyes are wide, reflecting the candlelight.

“What are you doing here?” she whispers.

“Reconstructing evidence,” I answer.

“You mean breaking in.”

“Words differ. Intent doesn’t.”

She walks closer, her blanket trailing “This is the restricted section, Wednesday.”

“That’s where people hide their regrets.”

“You could get expelled!”

“Then at least I’d be remembered.”

She exhales, a sound halfway between frustration and fear. Her gaze drops to the open file. “What are you even reading?”

“A murder weapon disguised as research.”

She squints at the handwriting. “Wait, that’s Thornhill’s name. Are you saying she…”

“I’m saying she planted seeds long before anyone noticed what would grow.”

“Wednesday…” she says softly, almost pleading. “You can’t just accuse a teacher of…”

“I can,” I cut in. “I simply choose not to yet.”

Enid’s lips press into a line. She takes another small step forward. “You look… different. Like you’re somewhere else.”

“I’m always somewhere else,” I say. “It’s the only way to think clearly.”

Before she can respond, a faint click of heels echoes outside the door. The air in the room changes. The perfume of roses and damp soil seeps under the crack. I realise it’s Thornhill.

Enid goes rigid beside me. I can feel her panic vibrating through the silence. I blow out the candle. The darkness swallows us whole. The door handle turns once. The hinges move. A line of yellow hallway light crawls across the floor and lands on the table right on the file I forgot to close.

Her silhouette fills the doorway. She doesn’t speak. She just stands there, listening, the faintest sound of her breath mingling with the smell of roses turned sour. The seconds stretch thin enough to tear. Then, as suddenly as it began, she closes the door. The footsteps fade.

Enid exhales so fast the air whistles between her teeth. “That was her! Oh my god, that was her!”

“Yes.”

“She could’ve seen us!”

“She didn’t.”

Enid glares at me in the dark. “How can you be so calm?”

“Panic doesn’t solve puzzles,” I say.

“What are you going to do?”

“Find the rest of her garden,” I answer. “And salt the roots.”

“Wednesday…”

I’m already moving toward the door, the file tucked under my arm, the candle still smoking faintly in my hand.

…

The room feels smaller tonight. The walls seem to inch closer. The air tastes of chalk and cold iron, laced faintly with the scent of wax. The single window leaks a pale shard of moonlight across the floor.

I sit at my desk, the file from the library spread out before me. The handwriting on the pages is neat. Laurel’s words bleed across the paper in black veins. I trace one line with my fingertip.

I should feel anger. Instead, I feel something worse. My pen moves without hesitation. I write notes in tight, deliberate letters:
Aconite triggers emotional collapse.  Serum binds to guilt. He was choses.

The candle trembles with every word.

For a moment, I close my eyes. I shouldn’t, but I do. The darkness behind my eyelids feels heavier than the one around me. Suddenly I’m not in Nevermore anymore. I’m back in my old room. My room in the future. The walls are lined with half-finished manuscripts, the smell of ink taking over. My typewriter waits, half-fed with a page that never learnt how to end. The curtains are drawn.

That was where I wrote the first draft of my book: The Anatomy of Hyde. My first attempt at making the truth behave. I remember the sound of it, the clack of keys, the slow rhythm of me typing. The world was quieter then, except for the ghost that haunted me.

I open my eyes again. The present waits patiently. The room is small. It’s too small for solitude, too large for comfort. My bed sits against the wall, perfectly made, uninviting. The sheets are the colour of ash, the pillow sharp-edged from disuse. The window hums softly with the wind.

My notebook lies open beside the file. I begin sketching out equations: botanical, chemical, emotional. I’m hoping to find ways to reverse the process Laurel perfected. There’s a chance, if I find the right combination, that I can stop the serum from binding to him. That I can unmake the Hyde before it begins.

I know it’s ridiculous. Hope always feels ridiculous to me.

A sudden knock on the door breaks my thoughts. I close the file, smooth the papers into a single stack, and slide them beneath my typewriter.

…

When I open the door I see Enid standing in front of me. Her hair is tangled, she has a blanket wrapped around her shoulders, and her eyes are wide with the kind of outrage. Her socks don’t match. One has a cartoon moon, the other a bleeding heart.

“What did your roommate do this time?” I ask.

Enid looks both furious and on the edge of tears. “She filled my half of the room with black glitter. Glitter, Wednesday. I can taste it. It’s in my hair, my bed and even in my clothes.’’

I blink. “A creative method of psychological warfare.”

“She said it was a ‘harmless prank’,” Enid hisses. “Now my side looks like a unicorn funeral!”

“I fail to see the tragedy,” I say dryly. “Unicorns deserve worse.”

Enid scowls. ‘’I can’t sleep in there. It’s… too much.’’

I step aside from the doorway. “You can stay here. I won’t be sleeping tonight anyway.”

Her surprise flickers through the exhaustion. “Seriously? You’re offering?”

“Temporarily,” I say. “I prefer not to hear emotional suffering echoing down the hall.”

She walks in, blanket trailing “Wow. It’s so… dark in here.”

“I find colour distracting,” I answer. “It lies too easily.”

Enid sits on the edge of the bed and looks around. “It’s so empty.”

“I travel light,” I say. “Emotionally and otherwise.”

She gives a small laugh, nervous but sincere. “You’re so weird.”

“I take that as an observation, not an insult.”

She lies down, pulling the blanket tighter. “Thanks,” she murmurs, her voice already softening with sleep.

“Don’t thank me,” I reply, turning back to my desk. “I did it for the silence.”

Her breathing evens out within minutes. She snores. It’s not softly, not delicately. It’s an honest, wholehearted noise. The kind that fills a room and refuses to apologise. It’s oddly… human.

I glance back once. The blanket has slipped off her shoulder. Her hair glows faintly in the moonlight, strands of gold tangled against the grey sheets.

I turn back to my desk. The candle burns low, its flame shaking. I dip my pen in ink and continue writing. Objective: protect Tyler Galpin from becoming what I already destroyed. Obstacle: time. Variable: myself.

Behind me, Enid snores again. Even louder this time, a sound so absurd it nearly rearranges my definition of peace. I let out a slow breath. My pen keeps moving. The night feels long but manageable. Plants grow best in the dark.

…

The candle gives up long before morning, leaving a crater of wax. The air in my room has turned dense and sleepy, holding the smell of paper, ink, and the faint metallic note of a pen nib.

Enid sleeps in the bed with all the grace of a dropped blanket, one arm hanging toward the floor, her breath rising and falling softly.

I keep writing because I don’t trust stillness; stillness invites thought, and thought is a luxury for people who haven’t yet made enemies out of time itself. The watch sits beside me, patient and deliberate, ticking in a rhythm that feels older than reason.

Suddenly a scream interrupts the piece in my dorm. It’s not a shriek or a shout. No, just a clean tear that forces everyone else to stop breathing for a second. It crawls under the door and freezes the air before I can decide whether to stand.

Enid bolts upright, hair half wild, eyes open too far. “What was that?”

“Danger,” I tell her. “Definitely something bad.”

Enid is already out of bed, tripping over her robe. I follow her out of the dorm.

The hallway outside is a corridor of flickering light. Suddenly everyone opens their door. The smell hits first: copper and damp soil, the kind that doesn’t belong inside. Students gather in clusters, speaking in the language of disbelief. Their voices blur into one another.

We reach the open door in Ophelia Hall, and the world suddenly seems to shrink. There’s a body on the floor. It’s a girl no older than 15 years old. She’s small and lying still. Someone says she must have fainted; another, that she’s sleeping.

I don’t kneel. I simply look. Her skin has taken on the grey tint of paper left in the rain. Her hand rests against the floorboards, fingers half curled. The edges of her nails are packed with earth. It looks fresh. A pot of Thornhill’s plants stands overturned nearby.

The scent of roses drifts through the room as if someone had perfumed the air to disguise decay.

Enid turns to me. “This is my roommate. She was fine last night…”

“She isn’t now,” I reply.

The crowd parts when Weems arrives. Her robe swirls with candlelight as she scans the room, “Everyone back to your dorms. Immediately.”

Thornhill follows Weems. Thornhill her hair looks perfect. Her smile is the polite version of concern. She moves through the students with that soft-edged warmth. Her perfume smells of the same invasive sweetness from the plants.

Her eyes meet mine for a fraction too long. Her gaze is bright and almost kind, and in that moment I notice the faintest movement of her lips. A whisper shaped but never voiced: back off.

It’s a warning. The others students don’t see it. They’re too busy looking at the body, or at their shoes, or anywhere that isn’t Thornhill. But I see her. I always do.

Weems bends beside the fallen girl, checking for a pulse that clearly isn’t there. Thornhill stays standing, her hands clasped. Almost as if the performance of grief is rehearsed. The angle of her head is turned just enough to keep me in her vision.

Enid walks closer to me, her voice breaking. “Wednesday… let’s go.”

I nod once, because staring at death doesn’t teach you more about it. We turn away, the murmurs behind us dissolving into the usual theatre of panic.

At the threshold I glance back. Weems is still crouched, Thornhill is still watching, and in that instant the candlelight catches her eyes. They aren’t soft at all. They shine the way a blade does right before it’s used.

Enid clings to my sleeve, whispering my name again, but I’m already cataloguing the details: the temperature drop, the flower pot on the ground and Thornhill watching me.

By the time we reach our door, I know two things. The girl was poisoned and Thornhill’s warning was for me.

Chapter Text

Wednesday’s POV

Somehow it feels like the night refuses to end. It’s like darkness itself has taken over completely. Outside it’s raining, and it feels like every drop is repeating itself. The sound of the rain against the window is steady enough. I’d almost mistake it for comfort.

Enid is sitting cross-legged on my bed. She has her knees drawn up underneath her blanket. Her blonde hair catches the lamplight. I notice that she keeps trying to speak about small things. About how the candles smell, about the sound the pipes make and even about how soft my bedsheets are. I notice that she’s trying to keep herself together.

I let her. Her words are a kind of shield for people who can’t stand silence.

My room smells faintly of candle smoke mixed with ink. My notebook lies open on my desk. It’s filled with diagrams and observations.

The ink has begun to feather on the cheap school paper. My handwriting is precise. The watch rests on my desk. It’s half-buried in the shadow of the lamp.

Enid sighs. At least it’s loud enough to prove she’s here. That I’m not alone. ’Do you think we’re safe here?’’

“Safety”, I tell her, “is just danger politely waiting its turn.”
She doesn’t laugh, which disappoints me. She only tightens the blanket around her shoulders and stares at the rain, as though the window might offer her a distraction.

I don’t believe in distractions, so I return to my routine. I return to my notes, pretending that writing them matters. I catalogue the day: the strange unease that clung to the corridors, the way the ravens wouldn’t stop circling the greenhouse, and the feeling that the air itself was aware of being watched. Something is unfolding at Nevermore.

I’m interrupted by a knock on my door. I know whoever it is, they’re not knocking for politeness.

Enid looks up, her eyes wide, already frightened of what hasn’t happened yet. I admire her instinct. It’s rarely wrong. I rise from my chair without haste, smoothing the front of my shirt and straightening my collar. There’s no reason to rush; inevitability doesn’t appreciate enthusiasm.

“Stay here,” I tell her. “Don’t leave the room.”

When I open the door, Principal Weems is standing in front of me. She looks composed and somehow grim at the same time. Behind her the hallway is completely abandoned.

“Miss Addams,” she says, in that measured tone she always carries, “You will come with me. Now.”

I hear how her words carry weight. I’m not surprised. I’ve been expecting trouble ever since I came to this timeline.

’Wednesday?’’ Enid asks softly. ’Are you okay?’’

For a brief, unnecessary moment, I think of the way Enid is so kind that she worries about me. I look at her over my shoulder. “Lock the door,” I say quietly. “Don’t let anyone in.’’

After that I step into the hallway, leaving the safety of my room behind. The door closes behind me.

…

The hallway stretches before me. The air carries the faint smell of varnish and rain-damp stone. Each lamp along the wall flickers softly.

Principal Weems walks ahead of me. Her posture is immaculate, her spine a straight line of authority that refuses to bend even under the hour’s weight. Her heels strike the floor in exact rhythm, the sort of precision that turns footsteps. I let the sound measure the distance between us. It’s an old trick. I count her rhythm to slow time.

We pass beneath portraits of past headmistresses, their painted eyes heavy. They seem the kind of women who expected a girl like me to arrive eventually.

For a time, we don’t speak. I can feel Weems thinking ahead of herself, rehearsing lines of polite accusation. Silence, in her mouth, is just discipline waiting for a stage. In mine, it’s survival.

Finally, she says, “You understand the seriousness of what’s happened tonight.” Her voice doesn’t echo; it lands.
“I understand seriousness,” I tell her. “I just find it overused.”

She exhales through her nose. It’s the kind of sigh that sounds like it’s been filed under ‘hopeless cases’.

When we turn around the corner, I’m greeted by that awful scent. It’s unmistakably the same perfume I detest so much. This scent is the chemical echo of something that once pretended to be alive. Sweetness masking soil. Like decay wearing a corset of charm.

I stop walking. Weems pauses a few paces ahead, confused as to why I stopped.

“I assume Professor Thornhill is waiting,” I say.
Weems blinks, caught off guard by my question. “Yes. She’s been helping the investigation.”

“Of course she has,” I murmur. “Her perfume got here before she did.”

A moment later the door to Weems's office opens. Thornhill is standing in the doorway waiting for Weems and me. The scent of her perfume fills the air. Her hair is too neat for the hour. Her smile was too careful.

“Wednesday,” she says softly, her voice dipped in the kind of warmth that dies at the edge of her lips. “You look pale. Are you sleeping at all?”

“I find sleep redundant,” I reply. “Especially when bodies start decorating my dormitory.”

For a second I see a fracture in her demeanour. It’s a flicker of something dark behind her eyes. But she recovers too quickly for others to notice. She lowers her gaze in rehearsed empathy.

“You shouldn’t take this personally, dear,” she says. “Everyone’s rattled. Even you.”

“Especially me,” I answer. “I’m allergic to perfume that smells like guilt.”

Her mouth twitches, but her smile remains. “Still making jokes, I see.”
“Sure,” I say.

Before she can reply, Weems clears her throat. “Inside, both of you.”

Thornhill steps aside, gesturing for me to enter first. The gesture is polite; the shadow she casts is not.

When I step inside, I’m greeted by bright lights. Every lamp is on. The scent of coffee lingers inside the room. Sheriff Galpin sits by the desk, his uniform still damp, his expression carved into scepticism.

Thornhill closes the door behind us. The click of the latch sounds uncomfortably final.

Weems gestures to a chair. “Please, sit.”
“I prefer standing,” I say. “It keeps my conscience elevated.”

Galpin looks up from the folder in his hands. His eyes are the colour of wet asphalt. His eyes look dull, heavy, and designed for staring down guilt. “Miss Addams,” he says, “we have some questions.”

He doesn’t yet realise I have far more answers than he’ll ever want to hear.

…

The rain hasn’t stopped. The air outside the principal’s office smells like metal and wet stone. I follow Sheriff Galpin through the courtyard, his flashlight cutting through the dark.

He opens the passenger door of his patrol car and gestures for me to get in. The vinyl seat is cold and sticks to my palms. I stare straight ahead as the door slams shut. The engine starts with a sound that feels too alive for the hour.

We drive in silence for several minutes. I count the wipers as they sweep across the windscreen – “sixty-three, sixty-four, sixty-five” – before Galpin finally decides silence isn’t punishment enough.

“You know,” he says, his voice thick, “it’s always something with your family. You Addams types attract trouble the way graves attract flowers.”

I don’t respond. I know silence will unnerve him.

“First your father. He always showed up in the wrong place, knowing the wrong people. Then you. Guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

His words are lazy, meant to sting without thought. I almost pity him. “If you’re trying to provoke a confession,” I say finally, “you’ll have to do better than recycled gossip.”

He chuckles once. “You think this is a joke, huh? A girl’s dead, Addams. I’ve seen enough of your kind. I mean, the weird ones, the quiet ones. You bottle things up until they rot. Then one night you snap.”

I turn my head slowly, studying the reflection of his face in the rain-slick glass. His jaw is tight. His hands grip the wheel like it’s the only thing in his life that listens.

“And yet,” I say, “you still can’t control your own son.”

The car fills with a silence that feels like a held breath. He doesn’t look at me, but his knuckles whiten.

“Careful,” he mutters. “You’re not in a position to make enemies.”

“I don’t make enemies,” I answer evenly. “I collect them. They’re more reliable than friends.”

He says nothing after that. The rest of the drive is a war between restraint and rage, fought entirely through the steering wheel. The lights of Jericho bloom ahead.

When we pull up outside the police station, the rain has softened into mist. Galpin steps out first. I follow him.

When I step outside the car, I see Tyler. Tyler is standing near the entrance of the police station. He’s half-sheltered beneath the awning, his jacket zipped up, his hair damp with rain. He’s waiting for his father, but his posture betrays uncertainty. He takes one foot forward, one back, like he hasn’t yet chosen who he is in this version of the story.

When his eyes find me, confusion floods them. He looks exactly as he shouldn’t. He looks younger, open, unscarred by what’s still years away. For a moment I forget the night and the accusation.

“Dad?” He calls out, stepping forward. “What’s going on?”

Galpin exhales, tired already. “Go home, Tyler. Not now.”

But Tyler’s gaze doesn’t leave me. His brow furrows. “Why’s she here? She didn’t…”

“Enough,” Galpin snaps. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I know her,” Tyler insists, voice low but certain. “She wouldn’t…”

He stops talking the moment I look at him. Not as someone who is accused of murder, but as someone who knows how his story will end.

“Go home,” I say softly. “It’s late. You should stay out of this.’’

He opens his mouth to speak again, but his father’s hand lands on his shoulder, steering him away. The look in Tyler’s eyes as he’s pulled back is one I’ve seen before. It’s trust trying to survive reality.

The door to the station opens. I step inside. The walls are flickering with fluorescent light. Galpin follows, dripping rain onto the tile. “You can start talking any time now,” he says.

I almost smile. “I could,” I reply, “but then you’d stop listening.”

…

The interrogation room looks exactly as I imagined. It’s sterile, windowless, and proud of its own mediocrity. The air smells like wet paper, dust, and the kind of coffee that’s been abandoned halfway through a confession. There’s a camera in the corner pretending not to blink, and a single bulb above the table that hums like it’s chewing on its own electricity.

I sit where I’m told, folding my hands neatly on the metal surface. The chair is cold. Galpin sits opposite me, his sleeves rolled up, revealing forearms tensed from a lifetime of clinging to control. He drops a folder onto the table.

“You know why you’re here,” he says.

“I’ve been here long enough to guess,” I answer.

He opens the folder in front of me. He slides out a photograph. It’s glossy and recent. The image of Enid’s roommate stares up from the table, her skin pale, her throat marked by something deliberate. I study it without emotion. Someone wanted it to look ritualistic. Someone wanted me to see it that way.

“She was found outside Ophelia Hall,” Galpin says. “Your hall. Your room, Miss Addams, is the closest.”

“Convenient geography,” I reply. “Murderers love convenience.”

He doesn’t appreciate my response. I can see his jaw tighten. “We also found this.”

He shows a small glass vial, the kind that’s used in science labs. Inside is residue, faintly green, smelling of iron and ash. “Recognise it?”

I lean forward slightly, enough to let the light catch on my expression. “I recognise glass. I tend to avoid poisons that look like they came from a candle shop.”

“We found it under your desk,” he says.

“I’ll have to congratulate the culprit,” I murmur. “They clean better than the janitorial staff.”

He slams his palm against the table, not loud enough to scare me, just loud enough to confirm he wishes he could.

“Enough games, Addams! You’ve been here less than a week, and now there’s blood on the grounds. You expect me to believe you had nothing to do with this?”

I meet his stare. I look calm and steady. “Belief is a luxury, Sheriff. Evidence, however, is an art form.”

He laughs once, dry and disbelieving. “Always the smart mouth. You think being clever keeps you safe?”

“It keeps me awake,” I say. “Which is more than I can say for your investigation.”

For a long moment, he just looks at me. It’s like he’s trying to see the monster he’s already written into his report. The light above flickers once, casting his face in brief shadow.

“We found footprints, too,” he says finally. “Your size. Near the body.”

“Tragic,” I say. “Apparently, I share a shoe size with a murderer. I’ll have to order smaller ones.”

He leans forward. “You think this is funny?”

“I think it’s predictable,” I reply. “Frame the girl with the black wardrobe and a personality disorder. It saves you paperwork.”

Something flickers behind his eyes. For a moment I can see guilt, maybe, or just fatigue. “You think someone’s framing you?”

“I think someone’s bored,” I say. “And efficient.”

He slams the folder shut, pushes his chair back, and stands. “You know what I think? I think you came here to stir up trouble. Same as your father. He had his secrets. You’ve got yours. Maybe you finally snapped.”

“Maybe you finally ran out of imagination,” I counter.

He stares at me for a long second, then mutters something under his breath and storms out. The door shuts behind him, the sound echoing in the small room.

The silence that follows is suffocating. Even for me. I can hear the camera hum again, small and restless. I don’t look at it. Instead, I trace my finger along the edge of the table, noting the scratches in the metal. They’re small, parallel and deliberate.

Outside, I hear muffled voices. I hear Weems, Thornhill and the sheriff. Their tones overlap. Their voices are filled with professionalism and panic and guilt.

After a while I can hear footsteps outside of the door. The door opens and Thornhill steps inside. Her perfume takes over the room. It’s a mixture of roses, damp earth and something faintly metallic.

…

Thornhill closes the door behind her with a soft click. It’s the kind of sound that would comfort a frightened child, not someone like me. The lights hum louder.

She sits across from me with the poise of someone who believes good posture makes her trustworthy. “You’ve had a difficult night,” she says softly.

“I told them this questioning wasn’t necessary. You’ve been through enough already.”

I watch her without answering. She folds her hands on the table, perfectly still, except for one thumb that rubs against the other. It’s a nervous habit disguised as empathy.

“Sheriff Galpin means well,” she continues. “He’s just doing his job.”

“Framing children?” I ask. “An admirable line of work.”

Her smile doesn’t waver, but her eyes narrow. “You shouldn’t joke about this,” she says gently. “They found evidence. It’s serious.”

“Under my desk,” I remind her. “Placed with precision, in a position so obvious it might as well have come with a gift tag.”

She tilts her head. “And you think someone planted it?”

“I think someone had access,” I say. “And poor taste in poison.”

Thornhill leans forward slightly, her tone filled with "care". “Wednesday, listen to me. I know you pride yourself on being...different. On seeing darkness where others don’t. But sometimes…”

“Sometimes the darkness grows flowers,” I finish for her. “I’ve seen your garden. You water it daily.”

For the first time, her expression falters. Her pupils tighten, as if the room has just brightened. She recovers quickly, too quickly. “You sound paranoid,” she says softly. “It worries me.”

“Good,” I answer. “That means I’m doing it right.”

Her fingers touch the edge of the folder Galpin left on the table. She glances at the photograph of the dead girl, then at me. “You know, I’ve always admired your curiosity,” she says. “It’s… intense. You see patterns others don’t. But sometimes that kind of mind can invent them, too.”

I let her words linger, watching how carefully she places each one. “The thing about patterns,” I say, “is that even liars leave fingerprints in them.”

She smiles again, but the corners of her mouth look tight, almost sore from the effort.

“You’re exhausted,” she says. “Let me speak to Principal Weems. Maybe we can arrange for you to rest. I’ll stay with you if you’d like. I know you must be frightened.”

I stand slowly, pushing the chair back. The legs screech against the tile. An ugly sharp sound follows. It’s enough to make her flinch. “You mistake analysis for fear,” I tell her. “I’m not frightened. I’m cataloguing.”

Her voice softens even further. “Cataloguing what?”

I take a step closer. She doesn’t move, though I see the way her throat tightens once before she forces it still. “The scent of roses,” I say, “and how they always wilt near corpses.”

She meets my gaze. It’s not the pleasant, teacherly stare she gives students, but something sharper. She looks defensive. “Careful, Wednesday,” she says quietly. “You don’t want people to start believing you’re dangerous.”

“They already do,” I whisper. “That’s what makes me safe.”

Her hand, still resting near the folder, tightens. For a moment, the faintest tremor passes through her fingertips. It’s enough for me to confirm I already knew. She set me up.

The watch under my collar warms against my chest, its ticking syncing with my pulse. It knows what I’m realising. That Thornhill’s presence here isn’t coincidence. That her pity is theatre. That her perfume is a mask that drips truth beneath it.

We stare at each other for what feels like forever; she exhales, smooths her skirt, and stands. “I’ll tell Weems you’re not talking tonight,” she says softly. “Maybe tomorrow you’ll feel more… cooperative.”

“I don’t do cooperation,” I say. “Only autopsies.”

Her smile returns. It’s brittle and final. “Sleep well, Miss Addams.”

She leaves and closes the door behind her.

The scent of her perfume lingers. I breathe it in once. When I’m sure she’s gone, I let out the breath I’d been holding. “You overplayed your role, Laurel,” I whisper to the empty room. “Next time, try subtlety.”

…

The cell they put me in feels small. The air inside smells of iron. The walls have been painted too many times. The layers of beige are trying to bury the memory of what’s been said here. There’s a cot bolted to the floor, a sink and a single bulb that swings.

I sit cross-legged on the cot, listening to the rhythm of the rain against the barred window. It’s not unlike the ticking of the watch under my collar. No, it’s patient.

The hours pass in quiet rebellion. No one checks on me. No one dares. Somewhere down the corridor, a clock chimes four, and the world feels half dead again. I use the time to catalogue the sounds. I hear the buzz of a fly, the squeak of a shoe, and the faraway slam of a door.

By morning, Sheriff Galpin reappears. He looks exhausted. He doesn’t look at me when he unlocks the cell. “Let’s try this again,” he mutters.

I follow him down the corridor. The hallway smells like disinfectant.

The interrogation room hasn’t changed. The chair still waits. I sit before he tells me to. He doesn’t bother with small talk this time. He just leans forward and sets a new file down.

“You think you’re clever,” he says. “But we’ve got more now. Witnesses. One kid saw you leaving the dorm around the time of the murder.”

“People see what they want to see,” I answer. “And in this town, that’s usually me.”

He rubs a hand over his face. “You enjoy this, don’t you? Acting like none of it touches you.”

“It touches me,” I say. “It just doesn’t bruise.”

He exhales hard. “Why do you do this? Why can’t you just…”

“Be normal?” I finish. “Because normal is a costume. It doesn’t fit.”

He slams his hand against the table. Even harder this time. The sound rolls through the room. “You think this is a game? You think death is some kind of joke?”

I tilt my head, studying him. “No,” I say quietly. “But I think ignorance is.”

He freezes. I see the muscle in his jaw tightening, the flicker of memory behind his eyes. He’s trying not to remember something. That’s always when people are easiest to dissect.

I lean forward, my voice steady. “Tell me, Sheriff. Does the name Willowhill still make your hands shake?”

His breath catches. He tries to hide it but fails. “What did you just say?”

“Willowhill”, I repeat, drawing out each syllable. “It’s peaceful there. The kind of place where things go missing quietly. You might want to check behind the scenes before the big H crawls out of the dark.”

He stares at me, expression caught somewhere between fury and fear. “What the hell do you know about that?”

I smile. Not kind, not mocking, just factual. “Enough to ruin your appetite.”

He stands so abruptly that the chair behind him skids into the wall. “You’re sick,” he says. “You need help.”

“Everyone says that right before I’m proven right,” I reply.

He glares down at me. His hands are trembling. He storms toward the door. “Stay here. Don’t move.”

“I wasn’t planning on moving,” I say. “The room has better manners than most people.”

He slams the door shut. His footsteps retreat down the hall. For a moment, the only sound left is the swing of the light bulb above me.

…

The bulb overhead still trembles, its light cutting across the table in nervous stripes. The metal surface glints in restless patterns, like it’s trying to reflect something it doesn’t understand.

The door opens again. Sheriff Galpin steps in again. He moves slower again. His face is tight. I can see a single vein pulse near his temple. Without speaking, he walks to the corner, reaches up, and switches off the camera.

He turns back to me. His voice is quieter now, stripped of the bureaucratic armour. “You said something before,” he begins, “about Willowhill.”

I rest my elbows on the table, fingers steepled, posture impeccable. “Yes.”

His gaze sharpens. “That’s an old case. Closed before you were even…’’

“Here?” I finish. “Chronology is such a fragile thing.”

He exhales, anger rising like static. “Don’t play games with me, Addams. What do you think you know about my wife?”

“Francoise,” I say softly. His name for her lingers in the air. “She was beautiful in a fragile way. The kind of beauty that fears sunlight. You should have looked in Willowhill. Behind the greenhouse, under the old roots.”

His face drains of colour. The man who once looked at me like I was a puzzle now looks at me like I’m a prophecy he doesn’t want fulfilled. “You’re lying,” he says. “You’re…’’

“I’m thorough,” I correct. “It’s different.”

He takes a step closer, his shadow cutting the room in half. “How could you possibly know that?”

“I told you before,” I reply evenly. “You’d be amazed what the dead will share when you learn their language.”

He grips the back of the chair across from me so tightly the metal squeals. “You think this is funny? My wife has been missing for years. They found nothing.”

“They weren’t looking for the right thing,” I say. “Or the right monster.”

His voice breaks. “What are you saying?”

I tilt my head. “I’m saying you might want to hurry. Because if you don’t check Willowhill soon, something else will wake there first.”

A silence follows. Galpin doesn’t answer me. I can see the struggle in his expression. It’s disbelief warring with the faint, horrible possibility that I might be right.

“You think you can threaten me with fairy tales?” he growls.

“Fairy tales are just facts with better authors,” I say quietly. “But if you’d like, consider it a warning. It might save your son.”

That hits its mark. His whole face changes. It’s not anger this time, but something closer to fear. “What did you just say?”

“Tyler,” I say simply. “You have a habit of not listening to him. That never ends well for anyone.”

For a long moment, he just stands there, frozen in his place. The silence between us is suffocating, but before he can reply to me, the door opens.

Another officer steps inside, out of breath, holding a clipboard. “Sheriff,” he says, voice uncertain. “We got confirmation. Someone came forward for the Addams girl. She’s got an alibi.”

Galpin’s head snaps toward him. “What?”

The officer nods quickly. “Kid from Jericho. She says she was with him at the Weathervane. Time checks out.”

My pulse doesn’t change, but something cold passes through me anyway. Galpin looks at me for a long moment. It’s not relief, not gratitude, just pure frustration. “Get her out of here,” he mutters.

I stand slowly, smoothing my skirt as if I’ve merely finished a particularly dull meeting. The officer guides me toward the door. I don’t look back. The sheriff’s silence follows me.

Outside, the daylight feels raw. The rain has stopped, but the streets still glisten with its memory.

I see Tyler standing near the patrol car. His hands shoved deep into his jacket pockets, a hesitant relief softening his face. His hair is damp, curling slightly at the edges. The light hits him in a way that makes him look unreal. Like something time hasn’t learnt to damage yet.

“You didn’t have to do that,” I say.

He shrugs. “You helped me.’’

“Trades imply equality,” I answer. “You overpaid.”

He smiles, awkward but genuine. “Guess I’m bad at maths.”

I glance at him, memorising the version of him that still believes in redemption. “Be careful,” I say. “Debt has a way of collecting itself.”

He frowns. “Are you okay?”

“Not yet,” I reply. “But I’m working on it.”

…

Tyler follows me for half a block before he speaks, his footsteps uncertain against the wet pavement. “You don’t have to go back to Nevermore yet,” he says finally. “There’s a place I want to show you.”

I stop and look at him. The sky above Jericho is the colour of cooling ash. I could say no, and I should. But something in his voice sounds disarmingly human, almost like he’s asking to borrow a moment of silence.

“Lead the way,” I say flatly.

He smiles, half-relieved, half-surprised, and walks ahead.

We cut through the side streets, past shuttered shops that wear the morning light badly. The smell of damp earth takes over as the pavement gives way to soil. Birds argue above us, the river murmurs in the distance, and the town fades into myth behind a wall of pine.

The air feels cleaner here. We follow a narrow path until it opens onto a ledge overlooking the river, where moss has colonised the rocks and the water moves like a slow pulse beneath us.

“This is it,” he says, stopping near the edge. “My favourite place. When things get too loud.”

He looks younger in this light. He looks softer. The kind of young that hasn’t been broken in half yet. His profile is all contradictions. He has a smile that doesn’t trust itself, but his eyes hold too much.

“I didn’t peg you for a nature enthusiast,” I say.

He chuckles. “It’s not nature I like. It’s the quiet.”

For a moment, the sound of the river takes over. The world feels still enough. Then he turns to face me. “So… did you do it?”

His words should sting, but they don’t. They just confirm that the world hasn’t changed its habit of doubting me. “No,” I say. “I didn’t kill her.”

Tyler nods slowly, studying my face. “You’re sure?”

“I’m always sure,” I answer. “That’s the problem.”

He shoves his hands deeper into his pockets, shifting his weight. “Then why do they think you did?”

“Because I was convenient,” I say. “Because I don’t smile enough. Because I collect knives and have opinions. Because someone wanted me occupied while they rearranged the crime scene.”

“You think you were set up.”

“I know I was.”

He looks down at the river, as if the water might help him understand. “Who’d do that?”

“Someone who smells like roses,” I say quietly.

He glances at me, confusion flickering through his features, but he doesn’t push it. “I believe you,” he says finally.

The simplicity of it disarms me more than accusation ever could. I look at him. I mean, really look. The boy standing beside me isn’t the fractured version I remember. His eyes aren’t haunted; they’re open. His posture isn’t a confession; it’s an apology that hasn’t yet learnt its name. The sun hits his hair in strands of gold, and for a fleeting second, I see the person he could have been if the world hadn’t written him in blood.

“You shouldn’t,” I say.

He smiles. “Too late.”

The wind shifts, carrying the scent of wet pine and river silt. My hair lifts slightly, catching the chill. “Belief is a fragile currency,” I say. “Spend it carefully.”

He steps closer, enough that I can hear the steadiness of his breathing. “You’re not what people say you are, Wednesday.”

“And you’re not what you’ll become,” I reply.

He frowns at that, uncertain whether I’m joking. I’m not.

The river below gurgles louder, as if protesting our temporary peace. Somewhere deeper in the woods, a crow cries out. It’s one sharp note, cutting through the moment.

Tyler looks away first. “You should get back before they start another witch hunt,” he says.

“Let them,” I answer. “Witches always return stronger.”

He laughs softly. “You’re weird, you know that?”

“I’ve heard,” I say.

We start walking back in silence. The trees loom taller now. The path narrows, the earth still slick with rain. He glances at me once more before we reach the edge of town. “If you ever need to get away again,” he says, “you know where to find me.”

“I rarely run away,” I reply. “But I do occasionally retreat strategically.”

He grins. “I’ll take that as a maybe.”

“You can take it however your conscience allows,” I say.

He laughs again. It sounds crisp, unbroken and still human.

As we reach the street, I stop for a moment, watching him walk toward the café.

…

The walk back to Nevermore is long. Each step I take sounds too loud. The forest seems to close behind me, sealing off the world I came from.

The courtyard lies still, soaked in silver light. The air tastes faintly metallic. Like a storm trying to crawl back into the earth. The watch against my chest pulses with a quiet, persistent rhythm. A warning disguised as comfort.

Nevermore looks younger, as if the years haven’t yet had the courage to haunt it. The gargoyles lean over the roofline like they’ve been waiting for this exact moment. For me. The shadows arrange themselves politely across the cobblestones, neat, deliberate, rehearsed. That’s how I know something’s wrong.

Suddenly I can smell that awful scent. The roses, the scent of a garden that’s trying too hard to smell alive.

I don’t turn when she speaks. “You’re out late, Wednesday.”

“I was looking for fresh air,” I answer. “But it seems to have been claimed by perfume.”

Thornhill steps into view from behind the greenhouse, her blouse buttoned neatly, her hair pinned. The moonlight gathers around her, but it refuses to touch her face. “I was worried,” she says sweetly. “You disappeared…’’

“I tend to do that when I’m being framed for murder.”

Her smile tightens. It’s barely perceptible, but it’s there. “You shouldn’t take things so personally. Tragedy never chooses wisely. It just arrives.”

“Funny,” I say, “you talk like someone who’s practised tragedy.”

Thornhill walks closer, her heels soundless on the wet stone. “I know you’ve had a rough night. Galpin can be so… unforgiving.”

“He’s predictable,” I correct. “Unforgiving requires imagination.”

Thornhill’s laughter sounds like a mirror cracking. “You really are your mother’s daughter.”

“Thank you,” I say.

She stops a few feet away. “You’re tired,” she murmurs. “And you’ve made a mess of things. Maybe it’s time someone helped you tidy up.”

“I’m not a room, Miss Thornhill,” I say. “And I don’t respond well to cleaning.”

Her head tilts, and for a moment, her expression softens in that teacherly way she’s perfected. “You think you’re untouchable,” she whispers. “That all your little deductions keep you safe. But you don’t see it yet, do you? You’re a piece, not the board.”

She moves faster than logic allows. There’s a flash. I see something metallic, sharp enough to end me. I catch her wrist. For a moment, we are a perfect sculpture of opposition, motionless except for the tremor running through her hand.

“Don’t make this harder,” she says. “I really do admire you.”

“I can tell,” I say. “Most admirers prefer letters to homicide.”

I can see her eyes flash in anger. Suddenly she dives forward.

I crash through the greenhouse door. Glass explodes outward in a thousand brief stars. I land hard against the earth. My breath is sharp in my throat. Around me, the plants sway.

Thornhill straightens, brushing the shards that fell on her from her blouse. She looks almost serene. ’You’ve been a delightful student,” she says. “But you’ve seen too much.”

I stand up slowly. My hand finds the edge of the overturned table. “You underestimate how much I enjoy seeing.”

Her smile returns. “You think knowing me gives you power?”

“It gives me choice,” I say. “And the pleasure of not pretending anymore.”

 “You’re clever,” she says softly. “But clever girls die the same as foolish ones.”

The watch against my skin burns now, bright as an accusation. I glance at her hand. I see a glint of steel, the slow inevitability of it.

“You always did love your plants,” I say. “Shame they can’t bury you too.”

She lunges at me, and a brief impact follows. I don’t feel pain, not exactly. No, it’s shock followed by the feeling that the universe is skipping a heartbeat.

My knees give before I command them to. The world tilts after that. The air grows heavy. I taste iron and old memories.

Thornhill’s face hovers above mine. She looks serene. She’s illuminated by moonlight refracted through broken glass. “You were supposed to stay a child,” she whispers. “You were supposed to lose.”

“Children grow,” I murmur. “Monsters evolve.”

Something in her eyes flickers. It’s annoyance. She steps back. “Rest, Wednesday. This story doesn’t belong to you.”

Suddenly I can feel the watch pulse. It’s hard enough that the light inside the greenhouse bends toward it. I feel it crawl beneath my ribs, rewriting something ancient.

The moon fractures into the shards around me. The world narrows to sound: the wind moving through broken glass, the watch ticking faster and faster, my own breath fading into static.

Then the ticking stops. Then everything stops, and in that stillness, something unseen begins to move.

Chapter Text

Wednesday’s POV

The first thing I feel is weight. It’s not like something’s on top of me. No, it’s in me. It feels as if gravity has been hiding inside my bones. I open my eyes to the familiar disarray of my study. It takes a moment for the room to stop spinning.

The air smells of iron paper and iron. My blood stains the floorboards underneath me. The candles on my desk flicker. I realise I’m home. I’m in my house, in my timeline; I’m back in the present. Something that feels so foreign at the moment.

The knife wound glows red under my ribs, the silk of my dress clinging to it. Pain travels slowly upward.

I turn my head and see the watch lying beside me. The glass is cracked. The watch ticks unevenly.

I try to move, but my arm refuses. When I finally sit upright, the floor tilts under me, and my vision folds at the edges. My clock in the hall chimes once. The sound travels through the walls.

After that I can hear footsteps approach me. I look up and see my mother standing in the doorway of the study.

She opens the door without hesitation. “Wednesday!” she says.

“I was murdered,” I tell her. “Briefly.”

Her expression doesn’t change. She crosses the room in two slow steps. She kneels beside me, her perfume replacing the scent of blood. It smells of black orchids, lilies, and dirt.

My mother’s hands find my face first. I can feel her cool skin against my fevered skin. She pressed two fingers to my throat, checking my pulse. I know my pulse is weaker because I can feel it.

“Who did this?” she asks me, sounding worried.

“Laurel Gates,” I say. “Though she prefers her stage name, Thornhill. She tried to tidy up loose ends. I was the mess.”

Morticia’s gaze lowers to the wound. “You’ve bled a lot,’’ she murmurs.

“I’ll be fine,’’ I say.

My mother's eyes flicker for a second. I can see her hidden affection. She tears a strip of fabric from her own sleeve and presses it against my wound. Her movements look clinical.

“Does it hurt?”

“Only when I breathe,” I answer.

Suddenly I can hear the watch tick louder. My mother’s head turns toward the watch. She picks it up before holding it to the candlelight. The glass throws pale reflections across her skin.

“The watch,” she says softly. “You used it.”

“It used me,” I correct. “I died, and it disagreed.”

Her eyes stay on the watch. “You understand that time does not grant favours freely.”

“I don’t expect favours. Only transactions.”

My mother’s voice lowers. “Every transaction has a price. You’ve stolen life from death, my darling. Death has a long memory.”

“I’ll pay in instalments,” I tell her. “It’s more dramatic that way.”

My mother exhales before answering. ’You have your father’s flair for provocation,” she says.

“And your taste in despair,” I reply.

Her mouth curves, but it’s not quite a smile. “Let me see the wound.”

My mother presses harder against the wound. I flinch for a moment; it hurts even though I don’t like to admit it. Her fingers move efficiently. I can see my blood staining her sleeve, but she doesn’t seem to mind.

“I found you by accident,” she says. “I hadn’t heard from you in a few days, so I figured I’d pass by.”

“Time isn’t a coincidence,” I say. “You are here for a reason, Mother.’’

Her gaze sharpens. ’Seems so.’’

“I feel like a trespasser,” I say simply. “Again.”

For a moment, she says nothing. The silence stretches between us. “You should be dead.”

“I’ve heard that before.”

…

My mother insists on tending to the wound herself. I don’t argue mostly because arguing would waste oxygen, and I’m already in debt to it.

She helps me move from the study to the parlour in the east wing in my house. The air is colder in my living room. She sits me down on the couch.

My mother lights a candle. Its flame bends toward her. The light paints her cheekbones in silver and shadow, turning her into something halfway between sculpture and threat.

“Hold still,” she says softly, retrieving a box of gauze and a small bottle of something that smells of antiseptic.

“I am still,” I tell her. “It’s the world that trembles.”

She ignores me. She cleans the wound, binds it tightly, and pauses only once to look up at me.

“You’re lucky,” she says. “A few inches higher and you’d have something poetic carved into your lung.”

“Poetry is overrated,” I reply. “Death has better rhythm.”

Her mouth twitches. She doesn’t smile. When she finishes, she gestures toward the living room. “Come.’’

We sit across from each other in the velvet chairs that have outlived half the family. They were a gift from my parents.

The fire crackles. Shadows move across the walls.

For a long time, neither of us speaks. Finally, my mother interrupts the silence. “Tell me what you saw.”

So I tell her everything. I tell her about the forest being twelve years younger than it should have been, about Jericho still wearing its innocence. I tell her about the Weathervane and the way the bell above the door rang. Then I tell her about Tyler.

“Tyler Galpin,” I say, “He was alive there. He was unscarred. He was so kind and friendly.’’

My mother listens to me. She doesn’t interrupt me.

“He laughed,” I continue. “It felt like an ordinary sound, but it startled me. His voice didn’t carry the echo of the monster yet. Just a boy’s tone, who was still unbroken.’’

“I watched him,” I admit. “I watched the boy I killed ten years ago. He didn’t deserve it. Not then. He was… 'Pure' isn’t the word. But unaware, untouched. Thornhill was already there, already tightening the string around his throat. I saw it happen and couldn’t stop it.”

Morticia leans back, her fingers interlaced. “You feel guilt,” she says, not as a question but as a statement.

“Guilt is too human,” I say. “It’s something people use when they want sympathy. I prefer accuracy. I feel… intrusion. I killed a version of him that might have been saved. Now I’ve seen the version that never stood a chance.”

Morticia’s eyes glimmer. “And what do you plan to do with that knowledge?”

“File it under ‘unresolvable’.” I stare into the flames. “He was innocent. Thornhill corrupted him, and I was the one who ended him. Which makes me complicit twice, both as witness and executioner.”

She watches me quietly.  “You hate her for that.”

“I hate her for being thorough.”

“She made him a monster.”

“And I made him history,” I answer. “She took his soul; I took what was left.”

For a moment, my mother’s face softens. “Darling, monsters are never born alone.’’

“I was both witness and accomplice,” I say. “Which makes me efficient, if not forgiven.”

The clock in the hall marks the hour with a single, hesitant chime. Outside it’s raining.

My mother stands up and crosses to the window. “You should visit the grave,” she says quietly. “See for yourself that some endings stay loyal.”

I don’t move. “I’ve already seen him die twice. I doubt the soil will improve the view.”

“It might improve your understanding,” she answers, turning back to me. “Resurrection always costs more than it returns.”

I meet her gaze. “Then I’ll overpay.”

Her expression doesn’t change, but I can feel her sadness. She reaches out, brushing a strand of my hair behind my ear. Her fingers linger just long enough to remind me that affection can hurt more than wounds.

“Sleep,” she says softly. “You’re bleeding too much poetry for one night.”

“I don’t sleep,” I say. “Dreams are just unpaid debts to memory.”

“Then rest your debts,” she murmurs. “For once.”

…

I honestly didn’t plan to visit his grave. I find myself outside long after the fire in the living room has surrendered. But I can’t seem to sleep.

I find myself outside where the air carries a damp scent. It’s something that smells off.

The path to the graveyard glistens faintly under the moon. The fog has returned too, curling around the ground. Above, the sky is full of clouds.

I don’t bring a lantern. Darkness deserves its privacy.

The gate squeaks when I open it. I let it. The hinges shriek softly before yielding, the sound carrying across the rows of tombs that line the hill.

Tyler’s grave sits near the back, close to where the ravens roost in the trees. It’s a modest headstone, one I insisted on years ago. It’s grey stone. Just a name carved deep enough to survive weather.

The ground is darker there, still damp from the rain. I stop just short of the stone, my boots sinking half an inch into the mud.

“I wasn’t planning to come,” I tell him. “You’d be flattered by the spontaneity.”

A raven shifts above me, its wings rustling. It watches with the same morbid curiosity I reserve for crime scenes and birthdays. I tilt my head toward it. “You’ll get no poetry from me,” I say. “The dead have enough admirers.”

I crouch beside the grave, tracing the carved letters with my gloved fingertip. The edges of his name are rough, worn down by weather. It feels fitting. The world sanding away the memory of a boy who never got to decide what he’d become.

“I saw you,” I whisper. “Twelve years ago. You were younger, softer, inconveniently alive. You smiled at me.”

The raven caws once.

“I tried not to care,” I continue. “You were human then, and I was… efficient. You became the monster they made you into, and I did what was necessary. But now I’ve seen the version before the ruin. The one that still believed in small kindnesses and morning coffee.”

The wind picks up, lifting the edge of my coat. “It’s inconvenient, feeling something this late,” I admit. “Even guilt has better timing.”

The raven drops from its branch and lands beside the stone. It tilts its head, studying me. His eyes look like obsidian beads.

“If you’re here for dramatic effect,” I say to it, “it’s working.”

The bird hops once, pecks at the wet soil, then looks up at me again. Its feathers glisten. It lets out a low croak.

“I know,” I say quietly. “He’s still gone.”

The watch warms against my chest. I press a hand over it, half in irritation, half in surrender.

“Not now,” I whisper to it. “You’ve done enough damage for one lifetime.”

For a moment, the ticking slows. It’s almost listening.

I stand. My knees protest because the mud doesn’t let go easily. I brush the dirt from my coat and look once more at the grave.

“Rest,” I tell him. “I’ll handle the living.”

The raven flaps its wings once before it returns to its perch.

As I walk back toward the house, the fog follows me. Behind me, the raven cries once.
Ahead, the watch ticks twice.
…

Time has resumed its usual cruelty. It makes it painfully clear that no one can stop time. Not even by a cracked watch and a stubborn girl who refused to stay dead.

I spend the following weeks trying to pretend everything is back to normal. I spend most of my time in my study. Writing, brooding and dissecting my guilt. My wound seems to be healing, but my mind can’t seem to forget.

I’ve noticed that it’s when everything goes quiet that the memories take over. It seeps into everything of my life. From the hall-written pages of my manuscript to the window glass that catches my reflection. I see his face everywhere. His undamaged, younger version stays present.

Now he’s just a name carved in stone. And I’m the reason it stayed that way.

I try to focus on work, on routine. But it never lasts. Every sound in the house reminds me of something that no longer exists. Even the ticking of the clock on my desk feels like mockery. Each second a reminder that I stole time from death and did nothing useful with it.

One evening a letter arrives. It’s from Nevermore… The name at the bottom reads Principal Darian Crowe.

The letter invites me to return for an anniversary event. It’s a commemoration of the “rebuilding of Nevermore”. There’s also mention of a guest lecture on “Paranormal Ethics and Legacy”, which sounds like a desperate attempt to appear academic while avoiding lawsuits.

I would have burnt it if not for the postscript. Professor Enid Sinclair extends a personal invitation. I read the line twice. Enid being a professor is still something I have to get used to.

I set the letter down and stare at the watch on my desk.

…

I don’t know what makes me decide to go. Maybe it’s the everlasting memories of Tyler I’m trying to avoid or just a chance to escape my everyday life. But I find myself in the car to Nevermore the next day.

The road is the same. It’s narrow, lined with trees that look half dead. The fog is waiting for me at the border.

The school appears slowly through it. It has the same iron gates, the same towers, and the same faint smell of rain and stone. But something is off. The gargoyles have been cleaned. The walls are less weathered, less honest. Time has softened the menace, which doesn’t suit Nevermore.

When the car stops, I step out alone. I could almost believe I never left.

Students cross the courtyard in small groups, all wearing the same monochrome uniforms, their laughter sounding rehearsed. They glance at me. Some with curiosity, others with the instinctive unease. I return the courtesy with silence.

Inside, the entrance hall has changed. The portraits have been rearranged; the chandelier has been replaced with something modern. Principal Crowe greets me at the door. He’s tall and thin, with the smile of a man who overuses mirrors. His handshake is the kind that implies competence.

“Miss Addams,” he says. “It’s an honour. Nevermore owes much of its reputation to your… tenure.”

“Reputation,” I echo. “A curious euphemism for catastrophe.”

He laughs too loudly. “We like to think of it as transformation.”

I tilt my head. “Metamorphosis isn’t always survival.”

He blinks, unsure whether to be offended or impressed. “Professor Sinclair is waiting in the greenhouse,” he says quickly. “She insisted on greeting you herself.”

...

The greenhouse looks the same from the outside. It’s overgrown with plants. I can smell the damp earth before I even open the door. Inside the air feels heavier, full of chlorophyll and the faint sweetness of decay. The plants have grown wild.

Inside I find Enid standing by the central table. She is sorting through a tray of seedlings. She looks exactly as I remember. Her hair is still bright, streaked with softer tones.

When she turns and sees me, her face lights up. It’s that same impossible smile that once shared a dorm room with my cynicism.

“Wednesday!” she says. “You actually came.”

I stop at the threshold. “You sound surprised.”

“I am. You don’t usually answer invitations. You send polite threats instead.”

“I’m evolving.”

She laughs, that same half-sunshine, half-chaos sound that used to irritate me into affection. “You look good,” she says. “Older, obviously. But still… you.”

“Unfortunately,” I reply.

Enid removes her gloves, crossing the space between us. “I missed you, you know. It’s been years.”

“Time flies,” I say, “when you’re alive.”

…

The air inside the greenhouse clings to me. Everything breathes too loudly. The vines coil along the glass, the soil exhales its slow rot, and the water trickles somewhere unseen. It smells of wet leaves, chlorophyll, and the faint copper sweetness.

Enid brushes a lock of hair from her forehead, still smiling in that relentlessly human way of hers. She doesn’t notice how every plant in the room leans toward her, as if mistaking her warmth for sunlight.

“Sit,” she says, motioning toward the long wooden bench by the potting table. “You look like you need to.”

“I don’t sit out of need,” I reply, lowering myself onto the bench anyway. “I sit for effect.”

She grins. “Still dramatic. I missed that.”

“Most people find it exhausting.”

“I’m not most people.”

I look around the greenhouse. Somewhere above, a drop of condensation falls and lands against my sleeve. I don’t brush it off.

Enid sits across from me, leaning forward, elbows on her knees, eyes sharp despite the smile. “So,” she says, “you just show up out of nowhere? I thought the famous Wednesday Addams, author of ‘Anatomy of a Hyde’, never went to any public events.’’

“Maybe I needed a change,’’ I say. “Besides, the details aren’t important.’’

“Try me.”

Enid sounds curious. So I take a breath before answering. “Something happened,” I say. “Something inconveniently unscientific.”

Her eyebrows rise. “Unscientific? From you, that’s saying a lot.”

I reach into my coat pocket and pull out the watch. The cracked face catches the greenhouse light, fractured beams scattering across her cheek. It ticks unevenly.

“This”, I say, setting it on the table between us, “is the reason I’m here.”

Enid leans closer, her voice dropping to a whisper. “That old watch?’’

“I can’t explain what happened…’’

Her fingers hover near it but never touch. “You sound… scared,” she says softly.

I look at her. “I’m not. But I don’t know how to move on….”

“Hmm,” she says, smiling faintly. “Move on from what? What does this watch do?’’

 “It’s not just an heirloom,” I continue. “It’s a door. It opens when it shouldn’t.”

“You mean time travel?”

I tilt my head. “You say that like it’s ridiculous. You’ve seen people turn into wolves for less.”

Her smile fades, replaced by something thoughtful. “You used it.”

“I did. But I died,” I correct. “And it disagreed. It brought me back.”

Enid sits back, letting that hang in the humid air. “And where did it take you?”

“Not where,” I say. “When.”

Her breath catches. “You went back?”

“Twelve years,” I say quietly. “To Jericho. To Nevermore. To him.”

Enid’s voice is barely audible. “Tyler.”

I nod once. “He was there. He was 14 years old. He was alive and so full of life.

Enid swallows, her throat tight. “What was he like?”

“Uncorrupted,” I say. “His smile hadn’t yet learnt deception. His hands still shook when he lied. His eyes…” I stop, annoyed at myself for remembering too well. “They were unguarded. I almost envied him.”

“You cared about him,” she says.

“Care” is an inaccurate term. I was… aware of him. Intensely aware.”

“That’s the most Addams definition of love I’ve ever heard.”

“Love is inefficient,” I reply. “And yet it ruins the best minds.”

Enid’s gaze drops to the watch. “You tried to change it, didn’t you?”

“I thought I could. But time resists improvement.”

The words leave a bitter taste. My reflection warps in the glass surface of the watch.

Enid reaches out and rests her hand over mine. “You’re not responsible for what happened to him,” she says gently. “You saved people, Wednesday. You stopped, Laurel. You…”

“…killed him,” I finish. “That’s the part people forget to frame in forgiveness.”

Her hand tightens, stubborn. “You had to.”

“I keep telling myself that,” I say, “but self-deception has never been my strong suit.”

Enid watches me for a long time. Before asking me, “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because you were there,” I say. “In both timelines. You existed unchanged. You were constant.”

“Even when you’re impossible,” she says, smiling sadly.

“Especially then.”

I pick up the watch again. It feels warm, almost pulsing. “It brought me back once,” I say. “But it’s restless. It feels unfinished.”

Enid’s eyes narrow. “You’re not thinking of using it again, are you?”

I don’t answer.

She sighs. “You are.”

“I don’t intend to repeat the past,” I say. “Just interrogate it further.”

“Wednesday…”

“I’m aware of the consequences,” I interrupt. “That’s why they interest me.”

Enid leans back, watching me with that mixture of affection and exhaustion she’s perfected. “You’ll never stop, will you?”

“I could,” I say, standing. “But then who would I be?”

Enid shakes her head. “If you vanish again, I’m coming after you.”

“I’d expect nothing less,” I tell her.

…

I don’t know why, but it’s like the library is pulling me towards it. It has always been my favourite place at Nevermore. Tonight it feels colder than usual. The lamp burns low. Pooling light onto the wooden tables. Dust floats through the air in slow spirals. The smell is a perfect trinity of old paper, mould, and candle smoke. The air tastes faintly metallic.

I shouldn’t be here, which is precisely why I am. My reflection follows me across the glass of the display cases. I look pale. I feel like a portrait that hasn’t yet decided if it’s haunting or waiting.

 I move toward the restricted archives in the back. I want to see the ones locked behind a door disguised as a bookshelf. The mechanism is old. It clicks open beneath my touch with ease.

The air inside is heavier, carrying the distinct scent of disuse and secrets that didn’t survive the people who kept them. Files line the shelves like tombstones in neat rows. Their labels range from bureaucratic to foreboding: Incident Reports, 1997–2014; Faculty Records; External Affairs.

It’s that last one that interests me. The world beyond Nevermore is always the source of its worst infections.

I pull out a box marked Jericho Law Enforcement Correspondence. Its lid gives way reluctantly, dust coughing into the air. I find police reports, typed memos, newspaper clippings, and photographs that never reached public eyes inside.

I leaf through them without expectation until a name freezes my hand. Sheriff Donovan Galpin.

The document is dated two years after Tyler’s death. The headline stamped across the top:
DISCOVERY AT WILLOWHILL SANITARIUM — HUMAN REMAINS IDENTIFIED.

My pulse steadies. I unfold the first page. The typewriter ink has faded slightly. The report reads:

Following a renewed investigation into the abandoned Willowhill facility, Sheriff D. Galpin and his team discovered a concealed chamber beneath the west wing. The chamber contained multiple restraints and remnants of chemical compounds consistent with the Hyde serum. Among the evidence recovered were skeletal remains later identified through dental records as belonging to Francoise Galpin, wife of the Sheriff.

I read it twice. Then a third time, because repetition helps confirm pain. She was there. Exactly where I told him she would be.

I remember the look on his face when I said it. The flicker of disbelief, the anger barely hiding the tremor of fear. “You might want to check Willowhill, behind the scenes, for your wife,” I’d told him. “Before the big H comes out of the dark.”

He must have gone. Perhaps not immediately, perhaps years later, when guilt grew too heavy for ignorance to hold. But he went, and he found her.

The page trembles slightly in my hand. It’s not from emotion, but from realisation.

By travelling back, I had changed something. Not the world’s end, not the resurrection of the dead, but one truth. One discovery that rewrote grief.

The file continues: Evidence suggests the victim was held for an extended period of time prior to death. Signs of chemical exposure consistent with experimental use. No suspects confirmed. Investigation terminated due to insufficient evidence.

A photograph slips out from between the papers and lands on the table. I pick it up carefully by the edges. It’s black and white, slightly overexposed. The image shows the interior of a decayed basement room. A single chain still hangs from the ceiling. In the corner, half-hidden by shadow, a small figure in a coat. It’s Sheriff Galpin himself. His face is unreadable. He found her. He found what Laurel had done. And yet, the file was buried here, quietly, as if truth were an inconvenience.

I lean back, letting the chair creak. The sound echoes through the empty library.

So, I succeeded in changing something. But not the way I’d hoped. The past had bent, but it didn’t heal. It only exposed new wounds.

A faint ticking interrupts my thoughts. The watch is ticking beneath my collarbone, growing warmer again, like an eager accomplice waiting for praise. I press a hand over it.

“Don’t get sentimental,” I whisper. “You saved me, not the world.”

The ticking grows louder.

Somewhere behind me, the air shifts. It’s a draft that shouldn’t exist. The lamps flicker. For a moment, I smell something faint and floral. It’s a mixture of roses and formaldehyde.

I turn sharply. The aisle behind me is empty. The smell fades just as quickly as it arrived.

“Not tonight,” I tell the darkness. “I’m busy rewriting your obituary.”

I tuck the photograph and the first page of the report into my coat pocket. The truth belongs to the living.

As I step out of the archive, I glance toward the stained-glass window at the end of the hall. A raven sits perched on the ledge outside. He tilts his head, watching me.

…

I’ve always believed guilt to be the most loyal companion. It never sleeps, it never forgives, and it ages better than most friendships.

Nevermore’s gala unfolds with a lot of bullshit. The ballroom has been reborn from tragedy. That’s what the invitations promised. Every corner gleams as if wealth can bleach history. The air smells of wax and champagne.

I watch from the edge of the crowd, glass in hand, pretending to belong. The dress I wear is black. It’s the kind of black that absorbs light. I chose it because it reflects how I feel.

The watch ticks softly under the fabric near my heart. It hasn’t warmed since the night it saved me, or damned me, depending on perspective. Its silence feels intentional, as though it’s withholding judgement.

Enid finds me before the speeches begin. She looks colourful, as always, and far too sincere. “You’re doing that thing again,” she says.

“What thing?”

“The staring thing. Like you’re at your own funeral.”

“I like to attend in spirit before I’m forced to in body,” I reply.

She laughs, but I can tell it worries her the way my humour has lost its cruelty, replaced by something quieter and less alive. She links her arm through mine anyway. I allow it because even I need some warmth from others.

Suddenly the music stops and the principal starts to speak. His words are too confident. I’ve learnt that confidence is merely the sound of guilt. Applause fills the room, and I feel it in my ribs like a heartbeat I can’t claim. Because I shouldn’t be here.

Every smile, every word of celebration, every carefully scripted toast. They all feel like a lie written over a wound. And beneath the lace of civility, I can still smell the truth: iron, earth and smoke. The scent of the night I left behind ten years ago.

My vision flickers briefly. I see Tyler, laughing at the café, the steam from his coffee rising like a ghost between us. His hand on the mug. The warmth of the moment before I killed him.

The glass in my hand trembles. I place it down before anyone notices.

“Are you okay?” Enid whispers.

“Define ‘okay’,” I say, but the edge is gone from my voice. It sounds like a confession spoken through exhaustion.

I excuse myself before she can follow, slipping through the crowd. The corridor outside the ballroom is cooler.

I walk until the music becomes a heartbeat behind me and stop beside a window that overlooks the lake. The moon hangs above it. The reflection staring back at me looks almost human. I resent it.

I press my palm against the glass. It feels cold. My hand leaves no print. For a moment, I imagine the water beneath the window pulling me in. If I could drown quietly enough, I think, maybe time would let me finish the sentence it interrupted.

“Wednesday.”

Enid startles me. She is standing a few feet away. She is hesitant at first. You disappeared,” she says. “You’ve been off all night.”

“‘Off’ implies there was ever an ‘on’,” I reply, turning back to the glass.

She hesitates. “Is this… about him? About Tyler?”

I say nothing.

“Because if it is,” she continues gently, “you can’t keep blaming yourself. You didn’t…”

“I did,” I say, finally facing her. “And I will. It’s what keeps me awake enough to stay alive.”

Her eyes shine with something that might be pity. I hate it.

Enid takes a step closer. “You don’t have to carry it alone.”

“I don’t carry it,” I whisper. “It carries me.”

She doesn’t understand. No one ever really does. Enid reaches for me, but I step back. My heel hits the wall. I look out the window again. The water is dark now, rippling slightly under the wind.

On its surface, I see movement.  Not mine, not Enid’s. It’s just the faint shimmer of something sinking. It’s only my imagination, of course. But imagination, I’ve learnt, is simply guilt with better handwriting.

The laughter from the ballroom filters through the door, muffled and bright. Enid’s hand finds mine. “Come back,” she says softly.

I do. But not because I want to. Because ghosts, no matter how loud they get, are easier to silence when someone else is still speaking.

I let her lead me back inside. The applause begins again as we re-enter the light, but I hear it differently this time.

By the time I sit down, I realise the truth: I never left that night in Jericho. I’ve been drowning ever since. And the watch, the cruel one, is only keeping time to make sure I feel every second of it.

…

Since the gala, the world has felt slightly unreal. Nothing dramatic happened. No, it’s just a faint wrongness beneath the surface.  There are nights when the air itself feels different. When silence overtakes me.

The watch sits on my desk, its cracked face reflecting the firelight in uneven shards. It hasn’t ticked properly in days.

I’ve tried to write. The sentences come, but they don’t feel final. They decay halfway across the page, decomposing into fragments. Each word feels like a translation of a thought I never wanted to have in the first place.

My study smells of burnt ink and old rain. Books lie open. The curtains are drawn, but I can still feel the moon against the glass.

Sometimes, I catch my reflection in the window. It looks like me, but I don’t look the same. There’s a small change in how I look. It’s like there’s this hesitation in my entire demeanour.

Mother says I’m “recovering”. She leaves trays of tea outside my door, each cup cooling at the same pace as her patience. Her affection is careful and exhausting at the same time. She doesn’t understand that I’m not broken. I’m just lost, drowning in time.

The nights stretch endlessly now. I’ve stopped trying to sleep. Dreams no longer wait for permission; they ambush me. When I close my eyes, I see him again. I see Tyler. Not the monster. Not the body of the boy I killed. No, just him.

I see the version of him who laughed into his coffee, who tilted his head when I spoke, who looked at me as if I were not just an Addams.

It’s strange how memory plays favourites. Mine has chosen to keep the softness and discard the cruelty, as though guilt has a curator.

I can still smell him sometimes. That vague scent of soap, wood, and youth. It arrives uninvited and lingers for long times.

I tell myself it’s a trick of the mind. But then there are the other things. The wet footprint near my desk one morning, the faint echo of the Weathervane bell in the distance when no one is there. The line between obsession and haunting is thinner than most would believe.

Tonight, the air feels thick enough to cut. I need to leave.

I force my way out and cross the garden to the graveyard.  The grass is slick with dew. The soil smells like iron. My boots sink slightly with every step.

Tyler’s grave waits near the northern wall. I stop a few feet away and watch the stone instead of reading it. Names are just labels for ghosts. The air tastes metallic here. There’s a kind of quiet that belongs only to the dead.

I kneel, because standing feels dishonest. The mud soaks through my skirt and stains my hands. I trace the carved letters. Tyler Galpin. Even now, it feels unfinished.

A raven perches on the cross above the headstone. It watches me without pity, without malice, just with an unbearable accuracy.

“You’re late,” I whisper.

It cocks its head, unimpressed, and flies away toward the woods.

I stay until my knees ache and the cold becomes almost ceremonial.

When I return to my study, something has changed. The air smells different. The watch is no longer on the desk. It sits in the middle of the floor, directly beneath the chandelier, as if it placed itself there. The crack in its glass face seems deeper now, and the metal ticks faintly with heat.

I kneel beside it. The hands are frozen, both pointing to twelve, the mockery of precision. I reach out and touch the surface. It’s colder than the air around it. For a moment, I think I see condensation form on the glass.

It’s smoke. The kind that comes from memory when it’s burning itself alive. Inside the glass something moves. The reflection flickers.

The room moves. I drop the watch, but it doesn’t hit the floor. No, it hovers for a second and splits open with a hiss. The light spills out. The walls ripple. The ceiling bends. The air grows thick and heavy.

…

The air brakes before I do. It folds inward, trembling like glass. The fire in my study exhales its last breath, then dies, leaving the scent of burnt paper and something metallic. It smells like blood. I realise it’s probably my blood. I feel Thornhill’s dagger inside me.

I can taste the iron before I feel it. The pain arrives slowly. My knees buckle. The room spins, melting at the edges. The chandelier bends into itself. Every object begins to hum, as if reality is grinding its teeth.

And then it happens. That same terrible stillness before the watch reclaims me.

The air thickens. The watch burns through the fabric over my heart, its heat sharp enough to make me gasp. The sound, that endless, traitorous ticking, starts again. It’s faster now.

The floor vanishes. The world collapses in on itself. There’s no falling. In that absence, I feel everything: blood soaking through my fingers, the cold kiss of steel, the phantom weight of Thornhill’s hand as she twisted the blade.

The silence swells until it breaks. I feel the rain on my skin. I can feel the mud underneath me, and the smell of pine and smoke finds me.

I open my eyes. I’m lying in the woods. Everything looks too alive. The trees are younger. The air is cold in a way the present had forgotten how to be. My hand presses against the wound, and the blood that comes away is still warm, still mine.

The watch lies beside me, unbroken, gleaming faintly in the moonlight. It ticks once.

I realise where I am before I want to. I’m back in Jericho.

The town lights shimmer faintly through the trees. The road feels impossibly far away, but the thought of stillness feels worse. I drag myself upright, one hand pressed to my ribs, each step deliberate. The wound pulses with every heartbeat, spilling warmth down my side.

My breath catches. The world narrows to sound. I hear the squelch of mud, the slow percussion of rain, and the whisper of my boots scraping gravel.

I reach the edge of town. Everything looks too clean. Too new. The weathervane sign hangs proudly.

The pain at my side sharpens. I stumble once, but I keep going. My hand leaves a streak of blood on the glass door as I push it open.

The bell above the café door rings sharply.  Warmth hits me. Followed by the smell of coffee, sugar and smoke. I see a few heads turn. A laugh dies midair, and someone drops a spoon.

I see Tyler laughing at someone behind the counter.  His hair a little too long, his smile entirely unbroken. His hands move in quiet rhythm.

He looks up, expecting another customer. His eyes meet mine.

For a heartbeat, I think the watch has dragged me into a hallucination. Because he’s too vivid, too warm. But then the recognition hits his face.

“Hey…” he starts, smiling. Then his voice breaks. “Jesus, you’re bleeding.”

The room around me tilts, and my grip on the counter slips all of a sudden.

Tyler moves toward me. His hands catch me before gravity can finish its job.

“Sit down… no, here, hold… you’re okay…” His voice trips over itself. He sounds too kind.

“I’m late,” I whisper, though I don’t know to what or whom.

He frowns. “What…”

I can’t seem to finish my sentence. I collapse on the ground.

Tyler lowers me gently, his hand pressed against the wound. His eyes are wide and terrified. “Stay with me,” he says. “Hey… Look at me.”

I do. It’s the last mercy I allow myself.

Chapter Text

Wednesday’s POV

It feels like the world is falling apart. I hear sounds and can see some colours, but everything is blurry. The light above the counter hums. The Weathervane smells of burnt sugar, cold coffee, and faint electric stings. Somewhere near me, the clock above the pie case is ticking much too loud.

The next thing I register is Tyler’s arms holding me firm. Though I can feel him trembling in fear. It feels like the kind of grip that wants to keep someone alive.

His voice cuts through the static. He sounds low and desperate. “Hey… stay with me, okay? Don’t… don’t close your eyes…”

I find the demand mildly irritating. “I wasn’t planning to,” I manage, though my voice sounds like it belongs to someone already halfway to the grave.

Tyler’s pressing a towel against my wound. The cotton turns red too quickly. I can feel the warmth of my blood against my ribs, and for a moment, I almost admire it. It’s proof that even now, my body refuses to surrender quietly.

I can hear him fumble for his phone. “I need… I need an ambulance at the Weathervane, please… she’s….” His words blur into background noise. I catch fragments: knife, bleeding, hurry.

The air above me feels heavy. I watch dust move through the light. There’s an old jazz record playing faintly through the speakers. It’s the kind of music meant to make customers feel safe. It doesn’t work.

I try to catalogue everything, because order is how I keep death away. The floor tiles are uneven, two chipped near the counter. The smell of cinnamon rolls is too sweet; it clings to the air. Tyler’s eyes look too bright.

“Don’t talk,” he says when I try to move. “Just…stay still, please…” His voice cracks on please.

I want to tell him that bleeding is one of the few things I do gracefully. But the words don’t make it out. My throat tastes like blood.

Somewhere in the distance I can hear the sirens.

The towel against my wound is coloured red. The world shrinks to a pinpoint: the press of Tyler’s hand, the uneven rhythm of his breathing, and the scent of coffee burning in the machine behind him.

He whispers something I can’t quite hear. Maybe my name. Maybe a prayer. I doubt there’s much difference.

For a moment, I let myself study him. I study how his hair falls forward and how tense his jaw is; his hands are shaking as they keep me tethered to life. He looks younger still, almost breakable. I remember the other him. The Hyde and the violence that sat behind his eyes. This is because Tyer hasn’t met that yet. He’s still soft and very much human.

The sirens grow louder. I can see the red light flicker across the café walls, turning every reflection into something dark.

“Don’t move,” he says again. I almost laugh. Movement isn’t the problem. Time is.

Then paramedics arrive, filling the room with their sterile chaos. Hands pull at me, voices talk over one another, questions spill out: What happened? How long ago? Is she conscious?

“Yes,” I answer, though I’m not sure to which question.

As they lift me onto the stretcher, I catch one last glimpse of Tyler. He looks pale, wild-eyed, and alive. The sight should comfort me. But it doesn’t. Because mercy always costs something, and I’m starting to wonder what price time expects me to pay this time.

…

The sirens swallow the night. Their red and blue lights paint the street. The air outside bites at the open wound in my side, cold enough to make me aware of every heartbeat. The paramedics speak in brisk, interchangeable voices as they lift me into the ambulance. The smell of metal and rubber clings to everything.

I feel the motion before I see it. The back doors of the ambulance are slammed shut, the sudden claustrophobic hum of an engine, and the oxygen mask is pressed too hard against my face. The world narrows to white light and pulse monitors.

Suddenly the silence is interrupted. I can hear Tyler arguing with someone outside. His words are fast, and he sounds desperate. “She doesn’t have anyone else here… I’m coming with her… just move…”

For once, I don’t object. He climbs inside before they can protest again, his breath fogging in the sterile air. The doors close, locking the two of us. He sits beside me, one hand braced against the bench, the other hovering near mine. He’s careful and unsure but unwilling to let go completely.

The siren’s wail becomes the only constant, rising and falling. The city outside blurs. I notice the trees, lamppost and the faint outline of the church tower all smearing into the same indistinguishable grey.

The paramedic adjusts something near my shoulder. “Stay awake, miss. You’re losing blood.”

“I’m losing patience faster,” I murmur, my voice hoarse but intact.

Tyler exhales, half a laugh, half a sob. “That’s a good sign.”

I turn my head slightly to study him. His profile is sharp in the intermittent flashes of emergency light. His cheekbones are cut in colour, his eyes are too wide, and his jaw is clenched hard enough to crack. My blood is on his sleeve.

He keeps looking at me, like he’s waiting for something. Maybe it’s reassurance, maybe permission to be afraid. I give him neither. But I don’t look away.

Outside, the night feels endless. Inside, it feels too close. The walls of the ambulance pulse with sound. The radio is murmuring coordinates, the metallic thrum of tyres on asphalt, and the rhythmic beep that insists on measuring my survival.

Tyler leans closer, voice quieter now. “You’re going to be okay. You hear me?”

“I hear you,” I say. “I’m just not sure I agree.”

He shakes his head, smiling through the panic. “God, you really don’t stop, do you?”

“I prefer continuity,” I whisper.

Without warning, the lights inside the ambulance flicker. For a moment, I see the reflection of the watch’s face in the metal panel opposite me. The second hand trembles, uncertain whether to move forward or rewind.

Tyler’s hand, finally, rests on mine. His hand feels warm and unsteady.

For a strange, fleeting moment I feel something close to relief. But I feel the muted comfort of not dying alone. I close my eyes, just for a second, letting the sirens carry me forward through a town that doesn’t yet know how broken it will be in the future.

…

I feel the ambulance lurch to a stop, the brakes screaming in protest. The doors burst open, and cold air rushes in, sharp enough to sting. Hands pull at me again. They’re new hands; they’re louder voices. The sound of wheels hit the pavement. The night outside hums with engines.

I count the hands, the footsteps and the orders barked into radios. It’s easier than counting the minutes that pass.

The fluorescent lights of the hospital hit me. It’s too white. Too clean for my liking. The colour of a world that doesn’t suit me.

They roll me through corridors that smell of antiseptic and exhaustion. Curtains flutter. I catch fragments of conversation. I hear numbers, jargon, and the kind of words people use to pretend they’re in control. “BP dropping…” “Get the trauma kit…” “Stay with us…”

I don’t plan to go anywhere, but my body doesn’t always follow instructions.

Tyler’s voice hovers nearby, breaking through the noise like static. “She’s bleeding…please… Just help her!”

A nurse pushes him back. “You can’t be here.”

“I’m not leaving her!” The sentence hangs in the air. For reasons I don’t fully understand, it steadies me.

They wheel me into a room that smells like metal. I see the instruments glint in sterile light. A monitor beeps somewhere above my head, far too cheerful about its purpose.

I stare at the ceiling tiles. There are exactly twelve. The third one has a small brown stain shaped like a bird.

My thoughts begin to lose edges. The voices blur together, overlapping into one long, meaningless chant. My name surfaces somewhere in the noise. It’s spoken by strangers and by Tyler.

A nurse leans over me. I notice how her face dissolves into light. “Wednesday, stay awake.”

“I’m trying,” I whisper, though it comes out as air. “But the ceiling is persuasive.”

The last thing I feel is the burning feeling in my chest. Then everything collapses into white. What follows is no pain, no sound, just the hum of the fluorescent lights pressing down until even they fade into nothing.

…

The darkness doesn’t arrive gently. No, it drags me under in one motion. When I open my eyes, I’m standing in the forest again. The ground is soft with moss. The air smells like rain and rot.

I can see Tyler standing ahead of me. He looks older, and his eyes look hollow. His mouth trembles around words he never gets to finish. His breath fogs in the cold air. “You don’t have to do this,” he says, but we both know I already have.

The knife in my hand gleams in that silvery way. I see my reflection in the blade. I look pale but certain. I look like a part of me is already mourning him. When I move, it isn’t a choice. It’s inevitable.

The sound of impact is sickeningly soft. I hear his final exhale. His eyes widen, not in pain but in recognition, as if he always knew this was how our story would end. Blood spreads beneath my shoes. I feel it cling to my hands like a promise I never meant to make.

And then something shifts. The forest disappears. I’m back in the Weathervane. Tyler’s body is gone. It’s replaced by Thornhill, her face lit by the golden, deceitful glow of the café lights. She’s smiling, polite as always, the way people are before cruelty.

“This is how it should’ve ended,” she whispers before she drives the knife into me. The pain is immediate and bright. I can feel the agony consume me. I taste iron. The room around me spins. I fall backward through the sound of my own heartbeat.

Then I hear a voice cut through the silence. “Hey…hey, it’s okay. You’re safe. You’re safe.”

The world snaps into colour. The light above me hums. The air smells sterile. It smells of antiseptic and gauze. The pillow beneath my head is too soft to be real, but it’s there.

Tyler’s face swims into focus beside me. I see his younger version standing beside me. His hand is wrapped around mine; his thumb is tracing small nervous circles against my skin. He looks exhausted and terrified.

“You…” I start, but my voice fractures.

He shakes his head. “Don’t talk. You lost a lot of blood.” His tone is gentle. “They said you’ll be okay. No organs hit. You got lucky.”

“Luck”, I murmur, “is for amateurs.”

He almost smiles. The relief on his face is genuine. “You scared the hell out of me.”

I study him carefully. His pupils are dilated. There’s dried blood on his shirt sleeve. I know it’s mine.

“What happened?” I ask finally.

His eyes flick toward the door, then back. “No one knows. You walked into the café with that knife plunged in your side. You were already injured.’’

“Convenient,” I whisper.

He frowns. “What?”

“Nothing.”

But it’s not nothing. Because the last thing I remember is Thornhill’s perfume. The smell of roses and soil.

The watch sits on the table beside the bed. It’s cracked but still ticking. I can feel it even from here. Its rhythm feels confronting.

Tyler follows my gaze. “They had to cut your dress off to get to the wound. I saved your… uh, weird clock thing.”

I look at him. “It’s not weird. It’s temperamental.”

He huffs a quiet laugh, his shoulders relaxing slightly. “You’re unbelievable.”

“I’ve been called worse.”

The room around me is loud. There are machines in my room and footsteps in the hall, and I can even hear the faint murmur of the nurses’ station. Tyler’s presence feels too warm.

He leans back slightly, still holding my hand as if letting go might unmake the moment. “You should rest. I’ll be right here.”

I close my eyes.

…

The hospital feels it when it’s evening. The lights overhead pulse in long, fluorescent sighs, as if even electricity has grown tired of it.  The air smells of antiseptic, wilted flowers, and the faint metallic ghost of blood.

I wake to that rhythm. The mechanical ticking sound.

For a moment, I think I’m back in the forest again, because everything is too still. Then the silence breaks. I hear voices bleed through the door.

One of them I know instantly. It’s Sheriff Galpin. His voice sounds like authority mixed with the fatigue of a man who’s spent too long chasing things he doesn’t understand.

The other voice makes my skin tighten. I hear the smooth and warm voice. It’s Thornhill.

My pulse betrays me, speeding up despite my best efforts. I shift slightly, the sheet rustling just enough for Tyler, who’s asleep in the chair near the bed, to stir.

Suddenly I hear the voices come closer.

“…She’s stable,” Sheriff Galpin says. “But she’s not saying anything. We’ll have to question her in the morning.”
“That poor girl,” Thornhill replies; she sounds soft and measured. “Such a terrible thing to happen. I told the principal that the town isn’t safe after dark. These… things happen when we ignore danger.” Her tone is full of performance. I despise her.

Galpin exhales, weary. “You work at that school, right? You said she’s one of your students?”
“I was,” Thornhill says, a faint smile in her words. “I still feel responsible for all of them. Especially Wednesday. She’s… special.”

The word 'special' slides under my skin like a splinter. I sit up too quickly; pain flares across my side. The monitor by my bed complains in shrill tones. Tyler jerks awake, confusion snapping into focus as he sees me upright.

Outside, the voices stop, and I can hear the footsteps move closer.

The door handle turns, and then she’s there. Thornhill stands in the doorway, haloed by white light from the corridor. Her hair is neat, her blouse spotless, and her expression the portrait of gentle concern. But her eyes betray her. They still have that quiet intelligence, the kind that watches for weakness and catalogues it.

“Wednesday”, she says softly, stepping inside, “you’re awake. Thank goodness. We were all so worried.”

The scent hits me first. The mixture was roses and dirt. Exactly the same as it was when she stabbed me.

I can’t move. I can’t speak. The pain pins me to the bed, but it’s not what freezes me. It’s her smile. That exact same, false, symmetrical smile from when she stabbed me.

Thornhill steps closer, each footstep slow and deliberate, the rhythm of a predator pretending not to be one.

“Don’t strain yourself,” she says. “You’ve been through enough.”

My throat closes. For a second, I almost see it again. I can imagine the dagger in her hand, the gleam of it under moonlight, and the way her expression didn’t change as she drove it into me.

I must look terrified because Tyler is suddenly on his feet. He steps between us, his arm instinctively raised.

“Hey… She’s had enough visitors tonight,” he says quickly. “She needs to rest.”

Thornhill’s eyes flick from him to me and back again. “I just wanted to check on her. That’s all.”

Tyler doesn’t move. His stance is polite but unshakeable. “You can check on her tomorrow.”

There’s a small pause before Thornhill smiles again. She has that perfect, harmless teacher smile and says, “Of course. You’re right.”

She turns toward the door. But just before she leaves, her gaze lingers on me. Just a fraction too long, a degree too focused.

“Sleep well, Wednesday,” she murmurs. “You’ll need your strength.”

The door closes behind her with a soft click.

Tyler turns back to me. He looks shaken and confused. “What the hell was that about?”

I can’t answer yet. My breath comes out uneven. The smell of roses still hangs in the air. I glance at the watch. The second hand trembles once, then starts ticking backward.

…

The silence after the door closes feels suffocating. I stare at the line the door made in the light. It’s a thin, perfect geometry. My mind is still listing everything wrong with what just happened, but the list keeps dissolving before I reach the end.

My pulse refuses to obey. It stumbles. It races, and it hurts.

The smell of her perfume still lingers. The smell of roses curdled by soil and something chemical. It drifts like smoke, invisible but invasive, crawling into the space between thought and breath. I can almost taste it, that floral sweetness turned rancid, the same scent that hung in the air when her knife found my ribs.

The hospital lights hum too loud. The rhythm of the machines bends out of sync with my own heart.

I try to count the beats, one, two, three, but they trip over each other, a misfire of biology.

This isn’t fear, I tell myself. Fear is irrational. This is data: Thornhill, the unwanted visitor; her motive; her being in denial; and, of course, the awful smell of roses.

My mind writes the list automatically, but my hand doesn’t move. My fingers twitch against the blanket like they’re trying to claw their way out of thought.

Tyler’s voice cuts through. “Hey. You okay?”

No. I’m not okay. I’m a system experiencing failure in real time. But I can’t say that. I can barely speak. The muscles in my throat lock tight, as if language itself refuses to make things real.

He steps closer, panic in his eyes now, which only makes mine worse. “You’re shaking,” he says. “You’re freezing.”

I hadn’t noticed. My body has gone cold in sections. The watch ticks from the table. Each sound feels louder than breath. I swear I can hear it thinking.

“She’s here,” I whisper. The words are foreign in my mouth.

Tyler frowns. “Who?”

“Thornhill.” My voice breaks on the name. “She killed me.”

He looks at me like someone listening to thunder they can’t see. “You’re… you’re in shock,” he says carefully. “She didn’t… You don’t know who attacked you. She’s just…’’

“Just what?” I snap. The word cuts sharper than I intended. “A teacher? A gardener? A murderer in better lighting?”

I can hear the crack in my own tone. It disgusts me. I hate when emotion betrays me like this, leaking into my voice.

The panic doesn’t look the way movies think it does. No, I don’t scream, and I don’t sob. There’s only the unbearable precision of awareness I experience. Every sound is too loud, every shadow too articulate.

I can hear my heartbeat in my teeth. I can feel the vibration of the IV through the metal stand beside me. I can see the faint tremor in my hands, and I despise it.

I press my palms flat against the blanket. “She was here,” I whisper again, steadier now, because control is the only weapon I have.

The world narrows. The walls tilt. Somewhere in the corridor, a nurse laughs. She sounds ordinary, harmless and absurdly normal. But it feels suffocating.

Tyler moves toward the door. “I’ll get someone,” he says. “You need…”

“No.” The word comes out calm and final. “No doctors. No sedatives. I need silence.”

He hesitates, caught between instinct and obedience. Then, slowly, he nods and steps back.

The second the door closes behind him, I let out the breath I’ve been holding since Thornhill’s voice touched my name.

I curl slightly, my side aching, and stare at the ceiling until it stops swaying. The fluorescent light trembles once, as if the electricity itself is nervous.

The panic stays. But it changes shape. It goes from chaos to clarity. From reaction to plan.

…

I don’t fall asleep. I just pretend to be. It’s easy to pretend. I’ve been pretending to rest since childhood. My stillness is an inherited trait; Mother calls it “poise”, doctors call it “shock”, and I call it “useful”.

Tyler sits in the chair beside my bed again, one elbow on his knee, his fingers laced loosely like he’s holding something invisible together. His breathing has evened out. It’s slow and uncertain. The kind of breathing people learn when they’re trying not to cry.

The watch on the nightstand ticks softly in the sterile air. Its rhythm doesn’t match my pulse. It hasn’t matched my pulse since the night it saved me.

The hallway outside hums with muted life. I can hear the wheels squeaking and nurses whispering, and I hear the faint metallic tremor of an elevator. I focus on those sounds instead of my own thoughts.

Then I hear a voice. A familiar one. “Where is she?”

My mother never needs to raise her voice. The moment she’s close, I can sense her presence. The nurse replies with something.

I keep my eyes closed until I feel the shift in air. I smell that old, unmistakable perfume. It’s a mixture of black orchid and grave soil.

My mother enters first. The lights don’t dare flicker. My father follows; his eyes are bright and wild with worry, the kind of expression he only saves for love and tragedy.

Tyler stands when he sees them, instinctively straightening.  “She’s been sleeping,” he says, voice quiet. “She lost a lot of blood, but she’s stable. The doctor said…”

“Leave us, Mr Galpin,” Mother interrupts softly. “My daughter wakes for family.”

Tyler hesitates, looking from her to me. I open my eyes. I open them slowly and let my gaze settle on him.

“Go,” I say. “You’ve done enough for one evening.”

He blinks, uncertain if that’s gratitude or dismissal. It’s both. Then he nods and gently sets his hand on the bedrail. It’s one last quiet gesture before he walks out. The door sighs shut behind him.

Mother sits gracefully at the edge of the bed. Father stands at her shoulder, his worry barely contained behind devotion.

“My little storm cloud,” she murmurs. “You have a talent for inconvenient timing.”

“I was attacked,” I say simply. My voice sounds wrong in the room. It sounds too dry and too calm. “But I didn’t die. So technically, it was inefficient.”

Father exhales sharply, half a laugh, half despair. “I could have lost you,” he says. “Do you have any idea what that means?”

“Yes,” I reply. “Statistically speaking, grief.”

Mother’s eyes narrow. It’s not in anger but in study. “Who did this to you?”

That’s the question, isn’t it? The one the universe keeps asking and never answers properly. I look down at my bandaged side. The gauze is clean now. It feels too clean. Like the hospital wants to erase evidence of violence.

“I don’t know,” I admit finally. “Or I no longer know in the way that matters.”

Father frowns. “You always know.”

“I did,” I say. “Before things changed.”

They exchange a glance before looking back at me.

Mother’s voice softens, almost tender. “You mean before the blood, or before the forest?”

That word 'forest lands' is wrong. My gaze lifts sharply. “The forest?”

“Yes,” she says. “Yes. You walked into the Weathervane but came from near the forest.’’

Something in my chest goes still. The room seems to tilt slightly, the fluorescent lights bending toward me.

“No, I came from the greenhouse,” I whisper.

Mother studies me closely. “You don’t remember how you got to the forest?”

“I remember the knife,” I say. “And then I remember walking to the Weathervane.’’

Father reaches for my hand. He's always too warm. “You’ll recover,” he says firmly. “You always do.”

'Recovery' is a word I’ve never trusted. I lean back against the pillow. “Mother,” I ask quietly, “what happens when time is not my friend?

Her gaze flickers, just for a second, like a candle fighting a draught. “It corrects,” she says softly.

I close my eyes. For a moment, I imagine the forest again. I can smell the smell of pine and copper, the weight of the watch against my chest and Thornhill’s perfume cutting through the air.

Somewhere in all that memory, something went wrong. Somehow, I survived it.

But the question that remains, the one I can’t yet ask, is simple and impossible: if I’m still alive, then what exactly did the watch bring back with me?

…

The next morning arrives quickly. The sunlight crawls through the blinds in lines. The hospital hums softly around me, pretending at normalcy. I hear footsteps, voices and distant machinery.

Mother and Father have gone to “speak with the sheriff”, which I suspect means Father is lecturing him on the nature of justice while Mother watches with exquisite amusement. I’m left alone. A decision I assume the universe made for its own entertainment.

The room smells like sterilised regret. My wound burns. The watch on the bedside table ticks faintly, too steady for comfort. I study it. Its crack glints in the sunlight, a hairline fracture like a thin, deliberate scar. For a moment, I imagine it breathing. Like an artefact waiting for a new command.

A knock breaks the silence.

“Come in,” I say flatly, though part of me hopes it doesn’t obey.

Thornhill steps inside, perfectly composed. Her cardigan is the colour of old leaves; her smile, the shape of a blade sheathed in manners. She carries a bouquet. They’re lilies, of course. Death’s favourite disguise.

“Wednesday,” she says softly, her voice syrup-smooth. “You gave us quite a scare.”

The flowers hit the room first. Their scent, strong and cloying, mixes with the sterile air until the sweetness feels suffocating.

“Your concern is noted,” I reply. “Though I can’t decide whether it’s genuine or pathological.”

Her smile doesn’t waver. “I came to see how you were doing.”

“You’ve seen it,” I say. “I’m alive. Much to someone’s disappointment, I imagine.”

“Always the cynic.” She sets the bouquet on the table by my bed, arranging it just so. “You really should be careful what enemies you make, Wednesday. Not everyone finds your… candour charming.”

I tilt my head, studying her face. I notice the same careful lines, the same kindness etched in just the right places. The illusion of sincerity is a craft, and she’s mastered it.

“Charm is for manipulation,” I say. “I prefer accuracy.”

Her eyes flicker. It’s a small, involuntary crack in composure. “Accuracy can be dangerous.”

“So can pretending not to be who you are.”

The air between us sharpens. For a second, neither of us moves. I can feel the edge of it, that invisible threshold between civility and violence.

She takes a slow step closer. “You’ve been through a trauma. It’s natural to feel confused. Memories blur, faces mix. I understand how the mind protects itself.”

“I don’t need protection,” I say, my voice a thread of glass. “I need answers.”

“And what question are you asking?” she counters.

I meet her eyes fully. “How is it possible that someone who stabbed me is now bringing me flowers?”

The silence in the room remains. The clock on the wall ticks, but her expression doesn’t change, but her pupils do tighten. “You’ve always had a vivid imagination,” she says softly. “Maybe you should write about it.”

“I already did,” I reply. “But the ending changed without my consent.”

That’s when she drops the act. Her smile flattens into something almost human. Her voice lowers, sharp around the edges. “You don’t know what you’re playing with, Wednesday.”

“Neither did you,” I say.

Her hand moves before I can think. I see a sharp, instinctive flick toward the flowers, maybe even to the drawer beneath them.

Suddenly the door opens.

“Hey—!” Tyler steps inside, coffee in one hand, surprise on his face. He freezes mid-step as he sees us: Thornhill standing too close, me sitting too still.

The tension fractures instantly, but not cleanly.

“Oh,” Thornhill says, too brightly. “Mr Galpin. I was just leaving.”

Tyler glances between us. His eyes linger on me. He’s searching and looks worried. After that he focuses on the lilies. “Yeah,” he says slowly. “Maybe that’s a good idea.”

She straightens her cardigan, her composure snapping neatly back into place. “Feel better soon, Wednesday,” she says, turning toward the door. “We’ll talk again once you’ve rested.”

“Count on it,” I say.

She leaves with the same careful grace she arrived with, the door shutting softly behind her.

Tyler sets the coffee down, still watching me. “What the hell was that?”

I stare at the lilies. Their scent is already souring. “An old wound reopening,” I say.

He frowns. “She…she’s your teacher, right?”

“She is many things,” I murmur. “Teacher is just the costume.”

Tyler looks like he wants to ask more, but he doesn’t. Instead, he sits back down in the chair beside me, his jaw tight.

Outside the window, the sun shifts behind a cloud, dimming the room. The light softens, but it doesn’t feel safe.

…

Tyler sits in silence for a while after Thornhill leaves. The coffee between us steams quietly, as if trying to fill the space her perfume left behind.

He’s staring at me again. It’s not in fascination, but in that unsettled way people look when they’re trying to decide whether to believe what they just saw.

“You know,” he says finally, “you don’t have to act like none of this got to you.”

“I don’t act,” I say, lifting my cup with steady hands. “I endure.”

He huffs a humourless laugh. “You always talk like that?”

“Only when awake.”

He shakes his head, but there’s a flicker of something like admiration there. “Still…whatever that was just now, you shouldn’t be alone with her again.”

“I agree,” I say, setting the cup down, “for her sake.”

Before he can respond, the door opens again. There’s no knock this time. Authority doesn’t need permission.

Sheriff Donovan Galpin steps in, his badge catching the light like a reminder of every mistake this town ever tried to bury. He looks tired.

“Mr Galpin,” he says, giving his son a nod. “Mind giving us a moment?”

Tyler glances at me, unsure. I nod once. He squeezes the back of the chair. It’s a small, reluctant goodbye before he leaves the room.

The door clicks shut. The room feels smaller immediately. Galpin stands at the foot of my bed, arms crossed, jaw set. “You Addams have a way of making things complicated,” he begins. “Out of all the people in this town, somehow it’s you who ends up stabbed and half-dead in my jurisdiction.”

I tilt my head. “It’s called talent.”

He exhales through his nose. It’s half sigh, half threat. “This isn’t funny. Whoever did this might still be out there.”

“Might”, I repeat. “What an admirably vague concern.”

His eyes narrow. “Do you remember anything? Faces? Voices?”

“Yes.”

He waits. “And?”

“I remember,” I say evenly, “the person who stabbed me.”

His expression sharpens like a predator scenting direction. “Who?”

I look past him, toward the window. The blinds draw shadows across the floor like prison bars. “That’s the interesting part,” I say slowly. “I don’t know how I ended up in the woods.”

He frowns. “Excuse me?”

“I remember the attack,” I continue. “The smell, the sound, the knife, the dirt under my hands. But when I woke, the setting was different. The geography had rearranged itself. I don’t recall travelling there. Yet there I was.”

Galpin stares at me, trying to decide whether I’m being cryptic or insane. “You’re saying what? You blacked out, and someone moved you?”

“Or time did,” I murmur.

He rubs a hand over his face. “Addams…”

“Yes?”

“Stop talking in riddles.”

“Riddles are just truths with better manners.”

He glares. “Do you know who attacked you or not?”

“I do.”

“And you’re not going to tell me.”

“Not yet.”

He takes a step closer, his voice dropping to something almost personal. “You realise obstructing an investigation is a crime, right?”

“Then you should arrest me,” I say calmly. “But before you do, check Willowhill.”

The name lands like a small explosion. His composure fractures for half a second. I see a quick flash of recognition, of pain.

“What about it?” he demands.

“Everything,” I say. “Behind the scenes. Below the ground. Some truths decay slower than bodies.”

He stares at me like he’s trying to read a code written in a dead language. “You’ve got five seconds to explain what the hell that means.”

“Four,” I say.

He curses under his breath and turns sharply toward the door. “You’re unbelievable.”

“I’ve heard that before,” I reply.

He stops with his hand on the handle. “You think this is a game, Addams? Someone tried to kill you.”

I look him dead in the eye. “Someone did kill me. It just didn’t last.”

For a moment, his face empties of expression. Then, muttering something unprintable, he walks out, the door shutting hard behind him.

Silence returns. I exhale slowly, letting it wrap around me. I won’t give her name. Not yet. Not until I know what she’s up to.

…

A few days later I find myself sitting in Tyler’s car. The drive back to Nevermore feels like being escorted to my own unfinished experiment. The sky above Jericho is a dull bruise. Every tree along the roadside looks slightly rearranged.

Tyler drives in silence. It’s almost unbearable. His hands rest loosely on the wheel, steady but scarred with tension. The rearview mirror frames his eyes.

He glances at me once, quietly. “Are you sure you’re ready to go back there?”

“Readiness is a myth,” I say. “People only use it to explain why they’re late to their own destruction.”

He exhales, something between a sigh and a laugh. “Still the same.”

“Unfortunately,” I reply.

The drive stretches in long, quiet miles. When Nevermore finally appears through the mist, it looks less like a school and more like a wound pretending to scar over. Its spires cut through the fog. The ravens on the gatepost shift like.

Tyler stops the car near the courtyard. The air outside is colder than I remember, thick with wet stone and the faint scent of pine resin. The moment I step out, the ground feels like it’s waiting for something.

Headmistress Weems stands at the top of the steps. She stands poised, pristine, and visibly irritated that I’m not dead. Her coat is immaculate, her posture even more so.

“Miss Addams,” she says. “I see rumours of your demise were exaggerated.”

“I apologise for surviving,” I answer. “I’ll try not to make a habit of it.”

Weems exhales through her nose, the Addams family’s favourite symphony. “Mr Galpin, thank you for bringing her back.”

Tyler nods. “She didn’t give me much choice,” he says.

“I rarely do,” I reply.

…

When I make it inside Nevermore smells the same as always. It’s a mixture of dust and chalk. The marble floors reflect too much light. Students watch as I walk past, whispering to each other in nervous syllables. Their curiosity scratches against my skin.

Thornhill stands near the base of the main staircase, a mug of tea in her hand, her cardigan a violent shade of sincerity. She spots me immediately, her eyes widening with theatrical relief.

“Wednesday!” she exclaims, setting down her mug. “We were so worried.”

“I didn’t ask you to be,” I say. “Worry ages people prematurely. I see you’ve survived.”

Her smile twitches but doesn’t die. “You’ve been through a terrible trauma. If you ever want to talk…”

“I’d rather gargle nails.”

Weems steps between us before Thornhill can respond. “Miss Addams will be resting today. She’s been through enough.”

“Apparently not,” I mutter.

Weems leads me up the stairs, her heels tapping a rhythm of authority. You’ll stay in your room,” she says. “Doctor Kinbott will come by to evaluate you. You’re not to wander the grounds.”

“Confinement breeds creativity,” I answer.

Weems stops at my door and studies me for a moment, her expression softening in spite of herself. “Wednesday”, she says quietly, “whoever did this to you will be found.”

“Perhaps,” I say. “But I prefer to find them first.”

Weems exhales. “Try not to make me regret letting you live.”

“I’ve been inspiring regret since birth,” I remind her.

…

When she leaves, the silence grows. My dorm room is colder than before. It feels dark. The scent of wax, ink, and dried blood lingers faintly, as if the air itself refuses to let go of what happened. I sit on the edge of the bed, staring at the bandaged wound under my ribs where Thornhill’s knife touched me.

For a moment, I let myself remember. I try to remember the forest, the perfume, and the betrayal that didn’t fit the script. And then the blank. That yawning absence of memory between the knife and the waking.

Something changed there. Something small I don’t know about.

A knock breaks the silence. I open the door.

I see Enid standing in front of me. Her hair is streaked in bright pink and gold, clashing violently against the grey world. She’s smiling, but her eyes are wet.

“Hey,” she says softly. “You’re back.”

“I am,” I reply. “Much to everyone’s disappointment.”

She steps closer, her hands trembling slightly. “You scared the life out of me, Wednesday. I thought… I thought I’d lost you.”

I study her face. There’s a sweetness there that hurts to look at. The scent of her shampoo is sugar and static. For a moment, I’m relieved she’s okay.

When she reaches out to adjust the edge of my sleeve, her hand pauses. They pause for too long, too unsure, as if she’s waiting for permission she doesn’t need.

“You should rest,” she murmurs.

“I’ve tried,” I say. “Sleep doesn’t like me anymore.”

Enid hesitates; I notice that she is searching for words, then forces a small smile. “Do you want me to stay? I could keep you company.”

I tilt my head. “Out of pity or penance?”

Her smile falters. “Neither,” she whispers. “I just… missed you.”

I step aside, gesturing toward the bed. “Then come in, if you insist on martyrdom.”

She does. Enid sits on the edge of the bed and folds her hands in her lap, looking smaller than she should.

Her voice is soft. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

I watch her. I can see the tremor in her fingers, the tiny flick of her eyes toward the window, and the faint shiver that goes through her entire body.

Something is off. The watch against my skin begins to hum. It’s a quiet, pulsing warmth that feels like recognition.

Before I can ask Enid what’s wrong, before I can breathe, the world folds.

...

The room begins to thin. It isn’t dizziness; it’s distortion. The corners lose their edges, the air folds in on itself, and the watch presses against my ribs like a pulse.

The world tilts. The firelight fades to moonlight; the smell of ink and candle wax becomes wet soil and iron. I know this place before I see it. The woods. Every branch is reaching like a hand; every breath tastes of rot and pine sap. The ground under me is soft, too soft, and something warm spreads down my side.

Pain comes next. It feels slow and intentional. The knife is already there, sunk into my stomach.

I am on my knees. Someone is behind me, dragging me by the arm. My boots leave trenches in the mud. The world swings in uneven arcs of light and shadow. Every heartbeat is a drum counting down.

When I lift my head, I see her. I see Enid. Her face is the wrong kind of pale, the kind that looks borrowed. Her eyes are wide, bright and empty.

She’s talking to someone behind her. Her words are too quiet to be sound. I can’t hear them.

I notice that Enid’s crying. Not the way grief cries, but in another way.

“Stop,” I whisper. It comes out smaller than I intend.

She doesn’t stop. I can feel her tighten her grip under my arm before pulling me further.

I see flashes of pink in her hair catching the moonlight, turning it into something cruelly beautiful.

Behind her, I can see a shadow move. It’s a woman’s shape. Moving carefully and composedly. The scent of lilac and laboratory chemicals follows her like a hymn. I know it’s Thornhill.

Her voice floats between the trees. “Just a little further, Enid. You’re doing so well.”

Enid nods, though she is still crying. She drags me forward another step, her breath coming in quick. My blood paints her wrist. I can see it glint on her skin.

I try to pull back, but my legs betray me. The knife shifts, and it hurts a lot. My own voice sounds far away. “Enid,” I whisper again, more command than plea. “Look at me.”

She does. And for a single, terrible moment, her eyes flicker. I can see my Enid, the real one, trapped behind glass. After that it’s gone. Her expression settles into a calm, mechanical sorrow.

When I fall, it’s into mud and moonlight. The shadow of Thornhill kneels beside me, whispering something that feels like a lullaby and a verdict.

After that the world collapses.

…

The vision breaks apart within seconds.

I’m back in my dorm, gasping for breath. The room feels smaller and colder. The candlelight flickers too high.

Enid is still sitting on the bed; she tilts her head, and her eyes are wide. “Wednesday?” she asks softly. “Are you okay?”

I stare at her hands. They’re clean now, not a trace of red, but I can still see it. The memory of my blood on her fingers, the tremor in her wrist as she obeyed someone else’s voice.

The betrayal lands not as a blow but as an echo. It spreads slowly.

I want to ask her if she remembers. If she knows what she’s done. But the question dies before it reaches my mouth. She’s smiling again, the same bright, fragile smile that once meant home.

Something inside me folds in on itself. “I’m fine,” I lie. The words taste metallic. “Just… remembering.”

Enid exhales in relief, reaching for my hand again. I let her, though every nerve in my body flinches. Her touch is warm. Too warm.

She doesn’t notice the way my breath catches or how my eyes refuse to meet hers. She doesn’t feel the way the air thickens with silence.

But the watch knows. It hums softly against my skin, a pulse for a secret only I can hear.

Thornhill didn’t just stab me. She created another monster, and she used my dearest friend to do it.

“The worst part of betrayal isn’t the blade,” I think. “It’s the warmth of the hand that delivers it.”

Chapter Text

Wednesday’s POV

Of course, morning arrives quickly. The light filters through my curtains, dragging pale light across the floorboards.

I wake to the sound of the watch ticking faintly on my nightstand. My body feels stitched and sore. The wound in my abdomen pulses with every breath. The doctors said I should rest. 'Rest', however, is a polite word for waiting to die slower. I prefer movement because it reminds me I’m still at war with something.

I sit up. The room smells faintly of disinfectant, candle wax, and the ghost of blood. The scent hasn’t faded. I can still see where the sheets were cut away, where Enid had sat the night.

Enid – her name rolls through my skull. I can almost see her as she was before the vision. She is bright, impatient and heartbreakingly alive. I wish I could unsee the other version: the one dragging me through the mud, eyes glassy and her voice hollow, Thornhill’s perfume wrapping around her like chains made of flowers. It doesn’t matter if she remembers. Someone does.

I dress slowly in my uniform. It’s black and white. Every motion hurts, but the pain keeps me focused. My reflection in the mirror looks as if it’s been through a small war. It’s not wrong.

Classes begin in an hour, and I intend to attend them all. Visibility is camouflage; routine is armour. No one suspects the girl who looks obedient.

The watch sits warm in my palm. It hasn’t moved since the night it saved me, though sometimes I swear I can feel it breathing. I fasten it under my sleeve and whisper, “We have work to do.”

The goals are simple enough for someone who doesn’t believe in simplicity:

1.        Find how Thornhill infected Enid.

2.        Learn how to reverse it.

3.        Save Tyler before he dies again.

The third item tastes like irony. I don’t care. The universe owes me an apology.

…

The halls of Nevermore have a certain smell in the mornings. It’s a mixture of ink, overripe fruit, and the faint sweetness of panic. I walk through it, my boots echoing against the stone floors. Every whisper folds itself back into silence when I pass. It’s one of the few courtesies I still receive.

Breakfast waits in the great hall. Platters of eggs and fruit glisten under chandeliers. The sound of clinking cutlery feels theatrical. Everyone is pretending that someone in this building wasn’t nearly killed last week.

I reach the door before I hear it. “Wednesday!”

Enid catches up with me, her shoes skidding slightly on the marble. Her hair looks different today. She has braided, subdued hair. She’s holding a tray of something absurdly colourful, and her smile is disarming, bright, and completely misplaced in this world.

“I was hoping you’d be up,” she says, breathless with sincerity. “You shouldn’t be walking around so soon.”

“I’m not made of glass,” I tell her, keeping my tone flat. “More like volcanic rock. I’m dense, slightly cursed, and impossible to break cleanly.”

Enid laughs, because she always laughs when she doesn’t know what else to do. “Still…you almost died, Wednesday. That’s serious.”

“I prefer near-death to near-boredom.”

She hesitates, biting her lip. “You still haven’t told me what really happened that night.”

“That’s because I’m waiting to remember it correctly,” I reply, eyes forward. The truth sits under my tongue. I can’t tell her she was there. I can’t tell her that her hands dragged me through the mud.

“Okay,” she says softly. “Well… I’m just glad you’re okay.”

“That makes one of us,” I mutter.

We walk together toward the tables. I take the seat farthest from everyone, as always. Enid sits across, her tray an insult of colour against my untouched black coffee. She watches me with that tilted, wounded look.

Before I can decide whether guilt or suspicion is more exhausting, the air shifts.

I smell the scent of roses before I see her. Thornhill drifts through the room. Her smile is too wide, her sympathy rehearsed.

“Wednesday,” she says, as if tasting the word. “You’re up early. How are you feeling?”

“Disappointed,” I answer. “But that’s not new.”

Her chuckle is soft and syrupy. “You’ve been through something terrible. It’s important to talk about it, you know. Healing is…”

“Overrated?” I interrupt. “Yes, I’ve heard.”

Her eyes narrow slightly, the faintest fracture in her saintly mask. She lowers her voice and leans closer. “I only want to help.”

I sip my coffee and meet her gaze without blinking. “You already have. Nearly to death.”

For a heartbeat, everything in her posture freezes, then she laughs.

Before she can respond, Principal Weems’ voice cuts through the room: “Miss Addams!”

I turn, slowly. Weems stands at the doorway. “My office. Now.”

Thornhill steps back with her usual composure, brushing a nonexistent speck of dust from her sleeve. “Another appointment, I see,” she says lightly. “We’ll continue our chat later.”

“I’ll schedule it right after my autopsy,” I say, standing.

Enid’s eyes widen, but Thornhill only smiles again. The smell of roses trails behind her as she walks away.

Weems waits, arms folded, tapping one finger against her elbow. I move toward her slowly, enjoying the echo of my own footsteps.

…

Weems’ office smells of cleaning products mixed with burnt candles. The curtains are drawn just enough to let a bit of light in. The portraits on the wall are of former principals.

Sheriff Galpin is in the office, leaning against the edge of Weems’ desk. His uniform looks freshly pressed; his conscience, less so. There’s coffee in his hand, but it’s gone cold. Judging by the faint ring it’s left on one of Weems’ precious files.

He looks up when I walk in, that familiar mixture of irritation and suspicion sharpening his face.
“Miss Addams,” he says. “Good to see you’re up and walking after what happened.”

“Walking is one of my less controversial talents,” I say, taking the seat that isn’t offered. “I try to do it daily.”

Weems sighs. “Wednesday, the sheriff wanted to update you on the investigation.”

“Update,” I repeat. “That implies progress. How uncharacteristic.”

Galpin’s jaw twitches, but he doesn’t take the bait immediately. “We found traces of soil and plant residue on your uniform,” he says. “Matches the greenhouse. You probably knew that.”

“I make a point of knowing where I’ve been attacked,” I reply. “It helps narrow down suspects.”

Weems clears her throat. “Sheriff Galpin also has reason to believe there was… a witness.”

I fold my hands neatly in my lap. “How refreshing. Someone else who enjoys storytelling.”

Galpin leans forward slightly. “A student says they saw you outside the greenhouse before the attack. They claim there was shouting, and someone else was with you. Does that sound right?”

I look him dead in the eye. “If I said no, you wouldn’t believe me. If I said yes, you’d arrest me for being present at my own attempted murder.”

He blinks. “You’re not making this easy, you know.”

“I wasn’t aware your job required ease,” I say. “I assumed it required accuracy. My mistake.”

The corner of Weems’ mouth twitches. It’s half amusement, half despair. “Wednesday, please. Just cooperate.”

“I am cooperating,” I say. “I’m sitting, not fleeing, and refraining from setting anything on fire. That’s full cooperation in my family.”

Galpin exhales sharply, pacing once before stopping in front of me. “Look. Whoever did this is dangerous. You could’ve died.”

“I’ve heard that before,” I answer. “Usually from people who underestimate me.”

He shakes his head. “You’re impossible.”

“I prefer irreplaceable.”

Weems cuts in before the sheriff combusts. “That’s enough for today. The sheriff will keep us informed.”

Galpin finishes his coffee, grimaces, and sets the empty cup on the desk with a quiet finality. “If you remember anything at all, you know where to find me.”

I stand. “Yes. In the middle of someone else’s bad decision.”

He mutters something that sounds like “just like your father” as he walks past me. I consider correcting him, but it’s not worth the energy. I’ll save that for the guilty ones.

When the door closes, Weems finally exhales, removing her glasses. “Do you have to antagonise every authority figure you meet?”

“I don’t have to,” I say. “I just find it therapeutic.”

She rubs her temples. “Classes resume now. I expect you to attend and behave.”

“Define ‘behave’.”

“Like a normal student.”

“Then no.”

Weems gives me a look sharp enough to qualify as a weapon. “Dismissed.”

I stand and adjust my sleeve where the watch hides against my skin. “You know, Principal Weems,” I say as I turn toward the door, “you really should invest in stronger locks. The past has a way of letting itself in.”

…

The fencing hall smells like metal and sweat. The floor gleams with polish. I’m not allowed to participate yet. Weems has decided that getting stabbed once in a week is enough for one student. So I sit on the bench near the wall, stitched up, bandaged, and irritated.

Students pair off in the centre of the room, their blades whispering promises they don’t intend to keep. Fencing is the only form of conversation this school still gets right.

I take a seat beside Xavier, who’s polishing his foil with unnecessary enthusiasm. He glances up when he feels me looking.
“Didn’t expect to see you back already,” he says. “Are you sure you’re good?”

“I’m adequate,” I say. “Adequacy is underrated.”

He smirks faintly, leaning back. “They said you could just watch today.”

“I’m aware,” I reply. “Apparently self-defence is considered bad form when one’s still leaking.”

Xavier laughs softly. “Only you would make near-death sound like a scheduling issue.”

Before I can answer, movement on the floor catches my eye.  I see Enid practising. She’s fencing with Bianca. On the surface, it looks like a normal match. It looks like two girls trading elegant threats with pointed steel, but Enid’s rhythm is wrong. She’s too still between strikes; her reactions are delayed just enough to unsettle me. Her eyes are bright but empty, as if someone had dimmed the soul behind them to make room for obedience.

Bianca lunges, and Enid parries too late. The tip of Bianca’s blade grazes her arm. It’s a clean touch, not a wound. Enid doesn’t flinch. She just resets her stance, smile frozen in place.

I watch every motion, every inhale, every unnatural calmness that shouldn’t belong to her. I try to find my friend in the tilt of her head or the twitch of her fingers, but all I see is control wearing a familiar face.

“Hey,” Xavier says quietly beside me. “You okay? You look like you’re planning a murder.”

“I’m considering several,” I admit. “None are recreational.”

He blinks, half amused, half unsettled. “I’ll… let you have that moment.”

Enid wins the next round, but her victory looks mechanical, like she’s following instructions whispered too close to her ear. When she removes her mask, her smile doesn’t reach her eyes. She glances my way just once, and something in my stomach tightens. Her gaze passes over me like I’m an afterthought.

It’s a look I’ve seen before. In my vision. Right before she dragged me through the mud.

I stand abruptly. “I’m leaving.”

Xavier frowns. “Class isn’t over.”

“Neither is my patience,” I say. “And I’d rather not see which ends first.”

He opens his mouth to protest, but I’m already walking out. The clang of swords fades behind me.

…

Outside, the air bites. The clouds above are low and heavy. I walk faster, through the gates, past the trees, until Nevermore shrinks behind me into something manageable.

Jericho greets me with its usual lack of charm. The weathervane sits where it always has, trying to look wholesome. The bell above the door rings as I step inside, cutting through the scent of coffee and cinnamon.

Tyler looks up from behind the counter. His expression softens when he sees me. It’s the same warmth that once fooled me into thinking the world could be kind.
“You again,” he says, but his tone carries relief. “Shouldn’t you be resting?”

“I’m allergic to rest,” I reply, taking my usual booth. “It’s a side effect of surviving.”

He grabs a mug and fills it. “Coffee? Or something less lethal?”

“Black. No mercy.”

When he brings it over, I notice the faint ink stain on his thumb, the easy looseness in his movements. He looks like a version of peace that never should have existed. For a moment, I can almost forget that once, my hand ended his heartbeat.

He sets the mug down. “So,” he says quietly. “What’s wrong this time?”

“I’m surrounded by traitors,” I answer. “And not the interesting kind.”

He tilts his head. “Want to talk about it?”

“No,” I say. “But I probably will.”

…

I finish half the coffee before speaking. The caffeine burns its way through the ache in my ribs. Tyler lingers near the counter, trying not to watch me but failing. I study him as one studies a dream that refuses to fade. I notice the lightness in his face, the way his hands move without hesitation. He has no memory of blood, no guilt under his skin. He’s alive, and he doesn’t even know how strange that feels to me.

“Do you still go to that place by the river?” I ask finally.

He looks surprised, maybe even wary. “My spot?”

“Yes, your spot,” I say, standing. “Come with me.”

He hesitates for half a second, then grabs his jacket. “You’re not supposed to be walking this far yet.”

“I’m not supposed to exist this far yet,” I answer. “And yet, here we are.”

We leave through the back door, where the air feels colder and cleaner. The streets of Jericho are quiet this time of day. The only sounds I hear are the groan of a distant bus and the rustle of leaves. Tyler keeps pace beside me, occasionally glancing my way like he’s waiting for me to vanish.

The path to the river winds through trees. The mud along the edge is still damp from last night’s rain, rich with the scent of moss and memory. The water moves fast.

“Still a lovely place,” I say, stopping near a fallen log. “I love the quietness.’’

He shrugs. “It’s quiet. Nobody comes here unless they need to think.”

“Or confess,” I murmur.

He sits beside me, elbows on his knees, looking out over the current. “So, what are we doing here, Wednesday? You’ve been… off since the hospital.”

“I was stabbed,” I remind him. “That tends to disrupt one’s mood.”

He gives me a small smile that doesn’t quite hold. “That’s not what I mean. You’ve been…struggling with something.’’

I trace my finger over the bark beside me, feeling the grooves. “Because I am.”

He waits, silent, patient in the way people are when they already know they’re about to regret asking.

“I worry about a lot,” I say.

He frowns. “About what?”

“I wish I knew,” I whisper. “I just worry…’’

His confusion is almost beautiful in its innocence. “You’re not making sense.”

“I don’t know how to put everything into words. I say. “

He turns toward me, his eyes wide. “You can try.’’

…

He’s been watching me from the corner of his eye since we left Jericho. Waiting. I can feel the weight of the question he won’t ask.

Finally, he breaks the silence. “You keep looking at me like I’m a ghost.”

“Maybe you are,” I say. “You just haven’t realised it yet.”

He lets out a nervous half-laugh. “You really know how to make a guy comfortable, you know that?”

“I’ve been told my bedside manner is legendary,” I reply dryly. “Usually by people already on their deathbed.”

He smiles, but it’s thin. The silence after it feels sharper.

“You don’t have to tell me what happened,” he says after a while. “About the attack, I mean. I get it if you’re not ready.”

“Oh, I’m ready,” I say. “I just don’t know what version of the truth to tell.”

He looks confused. “There’s more than one?”

“There always is.”

His brow furrows, the concern written plainly on his face. He hasn’t yet learnt how to hide it. “You scare me sometimes, Wednesday.”

“I scare everyone sometimes,” I say. “That’s how I know I’m doing something right.”

He leans forward, elbows on his knees. “It’s not what you say. It’s how you look at me, like you’re remembering something that hasn’t happened yet.”

I go still. The truth trembles somewhere deep in my throat. I don’t want to say it. I say it anyway.

“You remind me of something,” I whisper.

He looks over, eyes searching mine. “Something?”

“Someone”, I correct myself. “Someone I cared for.”

The word feels foreign in my mouth, soft and heavy. I rarely say it aloud; it always sounds too human.

“He died,” I continue. “Not here. Not like this. But enough for it to matter.”

Tyler doesn’t speak. He just studies my face, his own expression caught between confusion and something almost like sorrow. “Was he… someone from home?”

“In a way,” I say. “He was from another version of home. One that no longer exists.”

He waits, patient, but I don’t elaborate. The river fills the space for us, whispering things I refuse to name.

“I didn’t think you cared about anyone,” he says softly.

“I don’t,” I reply. “That’s what makes it unfortunate.”

He exhales, shaking his head slightly. “And I remind you of him?”

“Not exactly.” My voice lowers. “You remind me of what he was before he died. Before everything in him went wrong. Before someone took something pure and made it into a weapon.”

Tyler looks away, jaw tightening. “That’s… dark.”

“Everything meaningful is,” I say.

He turns back toward the water. “I don’t know if I should feel honoured or doomed.”

“Both,” I say. “They often overlap.”

For a long moment, neither of us speaks. The sun pushes faintly through the fog, painting him in light that feels unfair. The same light I once saw die in another version of him.

“You miss him,” he says finally.

“I miss what he could have been,” I answer. “That’s worse.”

He’s quiet again. I think he understands more than he’s ready to admit.

When he finally stands, brushing dirt from his hands, he looks older than he did a moment ago. “Whoever he was,” he says, “I’m sorry.”

“So am I,” I whisper.

He offers a hand. “Come on. Let’s get you back before Weems sends out a search party.”

I take it, though my instincts scream not to. His hand is warm. The pulse beneath his skin feels like proof and punishment at the same time.

As we start walking, I glance once over my shoulder. The river has already swallowed our footprints.

…

By the time we make it back to town, the fog has thinned into threads that cling to the rooftops like dying thoughts. The air smells faintly of coffee and thawing asphalt. Jericho is just beginning to sleep. I see lights flickering on behind curtains, a truck engine grumbling in the distance. The Weathervane sits at the corner of Main like it always does.

Tyler unlocks the door. The last daylight cuts across the café windows, turning the dust into glittering static. I watch it, cataloguing the details the way I always do when I’m trying not to feel something.

He flips the “Open” sign to “Closed”, then turns to me. “You should probably head back soon,” he says. “Before someone notices the Addams girl vanished from campus again.”

“Let them notice,” I say. “Suspicion is the only form of attention worth earning.”

He smiles. “You say things like that, and I can never tell if you’re joking or confessing.”

“The distinction is overrated.”

He laughs under his breath and walks behind the counter, automatically starting the espresso machine even though we’re the only two people here. The scent of coffee fills the room.

I watch him pour a cup for me without asking. He remembers how I take it. Black, unrepentant. He slides it across the counter, the steam curling like a question mark.

“Thank you,” I say, though the word feels foreign.

He shrugs. “You saved me from my dad multiple times. I owe you.”

The line between debt and connection is a dangerous one, and I can feel myself standing on it. I sip the coffee anyway.

For a moment, the world pretends to be ordinary. The clatter of cups. The hum of the espresso machine. The quiet presence of someone who doesn’t yet know what he means to me or what he once was.

He wipes his hands on a towel, glancing at the clock. “So… you’ll be okay getting back?”

“I always am,” I say, setting the cup down. “Though I doubt anyone would miss me if I weren’t.”

“That’s not true,” he says softly. “Someone would.”

The words hang in the air between us, heavier than they should be.

I should leave. I know I should. Instead, I hear myself say something I hadn’t planned to. “Tyler.”

He looks up immediately, expectant. “Yeah?”

“The Rav’n,” I say. “It’s in two days. There’s a social expectation for attendance, apparently.”

He grins faintly. “A dance? I didn’t think that was your thing.”

“It isn’t,” I say. “Which is precisely why I’m going.”

He leans against the counter, arms crossed. “So why are you telling me?”

“Because I require a partner,” I say matter-of-factly. “Someone who can blend in, deflect questions, and avoid stepping on my shoes. You seemed competent enough at the last part.”

His grin grows before he can stop it. “You’re asking me to the dance?”

“Asking implies choice,” I say. “I’m merely informing you of your upcoming obligation.”

He laughs, shaking his head. “You’re unbelievable.”

“So I’ve been told.”

He walks around the counter slowly, wiping his palms on his jeans. There’s a flicker of something in his eyes. I see a look of warmth, disbelief and maybe a trace of courage in his eyes. He stops in front of me, close enough that I can smell the faint mix of soap and roasted beans on him.

“Okay,” he says finally. “I’ll go with you.”

“Good,” I reply. “Try not to make it sentimental.”

He hesitates for half a heartbeat, then reaches up and tucks a loose strand of hair behind my ear. The motion is simple, yet it cuts through me.

“I’ll see you there, Wednesday,” he says, his voice quieter now, almost careful.

…

When I return to Nevermore, most of the halls are empty.  Every footstep sounds intrusive. The flickering lamps cast the kind of shadow.

Suddenly I can feel the air thicken. The perfume hits me. A mixture of roses and soil. I’d recognise her perfume everywhere.

I stop just before the corner. My reflection stares back from one of the glass display cases, half-obscured by trophies for “Excellence in Botany” and “Outstanding Civic Contribution”.

“Out late again, Miss Addams?”

Her voice comes from behind me, smooth and honeyed, the kind that drips before it poisons. Thornhill steps into the yellow spill of light from a wall sconce, her smile tight and deliberate. Her hands are folded, but her eyes glint.

“Curfew is a rule,” she says lightly. “But I suppose you’ve always had an allergy to authority.”

“Only to hypocrisy,” I reply, turning to face her fully. “And synthetic perfume.”

Her smile doesn’t move, but her pupils narrow. “You’ve been busy lately. Sneaking into places, asking questions that don’t belong to you.”

“Information doesn’t belong to anyone,” I say. “It’s the only democratic concept left.”

She takes a step closer, her heels clicking softly on the stone. “You really should stop peeking into my things, Wednesday. Curiosity can be fatal. You, of all people, should know that.”

I tilt my head, meeting her gaze with deliberate stillness. “You managed to put a knife in me once,” I say. “If I were you, I wouldn’t do it again.”

Her smile wavers.

“Because this time,” I continue, my voice dropping low enough for the walls to lean in, “I’ll tell Weems who you really are.”

Her name tastes like venom when I say it. “Laurel.”

Her facade flickers for an instant. The mask of the teacher, the caretaker, the delicate plant enthusiast. All of it slips. What’s left underneath is raw and ancient, something that’s been rotting for years while pretending to bloom.

“You don’t know what you’re dealing with,” she whispers. “You never did.”

“On the contrary,” I say. “You’re just a parasite with better vocabulary.”

She steps back, fixing her cardigan like a snake smoothing its scales. “You think you’re clever,” she says softly. “But you’re just a girl who doesn’t understand consequence.”

“I’m the consequence,” I reply.

Her eyes flash, and then she’s gone. She slips into the dark corridor with a predator’s grace. The smell of roses lingers.

…

The corridors feel different after she leaves. I walk slowly back toward Ophelia Hall, not out of fear, but because it feels wrong to turn my back on an enemy who prefers knives to words.

The halls are nearly empty. The lamps burn weakly, and the air smells faintly of wax, roses, and rain seeping through the stone. Somewhere, a clock counts. My ribs still ache from the wound she gave me. It’s a phantom throb that reminds me I’m still mortal.

When I reach my room, the door is already slightly ajar. A sliver of soft, pinkish light spills across the floor.

“Wednesday?” Enid asks, sounding too excited.

Enid is perched on my bed when I enter, her hair slightly tangled, her face arranged into concern. There’s a plate of pastries on the desk.

“I was worried,” she says. “You didn’t come back after fencing. Are you okay?”

Her tone is warm, trembling slightly at the edges. But something in her eyes doesn’t match. The shine is too focused, like a reflection of someone else’s intent.

“I was having an educational discussion,” I say. “With a plant enthusiast who should have stayed extinct.”

Enid blinks. “You mean… Ms Thornhill?”

“Yes,” I say, watching her reaction carefully. “We exchanged pleasantries. She threatened me. The usual faculty-student dynamic.”

Her smile falters for a fraction of a second. Like a glitch, quickly smoothed over. “You’re kidding, right?”

“I don’t kid,” I say. “I dissect.”

The silence that follows is long. Enid looks away, fiddling with the hem of her sweater. “You really shouldn’t say things like that, Wednesday. People might think you’re… paranoid.”

“People already think that,” I reply. “It saves time.”

Something flickers across her face. Maybe guilt? Fear? Or the shadow of someone else’s control. The memory from my vision pulses behind my eyes like an open wound: her dragging me through the woods, the blade already buried in my stomach, the way her expression had been vacant, obedient.

Now, watching her in the half-light, I see the same vacancy flicker beneath the surface, a faint tremor that doesn’t belong to her.

“I brought you muffins,” she says suddenly, thrusting the plate toward me. “From breakfast. They’re still good.”

“I don’t eat food that smiles at me,” I say flatly.

She laughs too quickly. “You’re so weird, Weds.”

She calls me Weds. She hasn’t done that since before… everything. The word sounds rehearsed.

“Did Thornhill ask you to come check on me?” I ask casually.

Enid freezes for half a second. It’s almost imperceptible. After that she shakes her head. “No! I just… wanted to make sure you’re okay. You were stabbed, remember?”

“I rarely forget attempted murders,” I say.

Her fingers tighten around the plate. “You think I’m lying.”

“I think you’re different.”

She swallows. “Different how?”

I take a step closer, close enough to see the faint tremor in her hands. I see the way her pupils dilate. It’s not with fear but with something mechanical, something rehearsed.

“Like a song being played by someone who doesn’t know the melody,” I say.

She forces a laugh. “That’s… creepy, even for you.”

I tilt my head, studying her. “Tell me, Enid. Do you ever dream about the woods?”

Her smile dies. “Why would you ask that?”

“Because I do,” I whisper. “And you’re always there.”

Enid looks down, breathing too fast, her fingers trembling against the porcelain plate. When she speaks, her voice sounds small. “You shouldn’t say things like that. She doesn’t like it when you remember.”

The words drop like stones into water. My blood goes still.

“She?” I repeat quietly.

But Enid just blinks, confused, as if she didn’t hear what she just said. “What?”

“You said ‘she.”

“No, I didn’t,” she says quickly. “You’re hearing things.”

For the first time since I’ve known her, she refuses to meet my eyes.

I don’t answer. I just watch her. I watch the cracks widen in real time. Something inside her is wrong. Something that isn’t hers is whispering beneath her skin.

Somewhere, in the dark greenhouse that smells like rot and roses, I know Laurel Gates is smiling.

…

Midnight is the most silent time at Nevermore. Everyone pretends to sleep.

I sit at my desk. A candle is burning so low that its wax has started to pool around the base. My notebook lies open in front of me, but the words refuse to stay obedient. Every line twists back into the same thought: she doesn’t like it when you remember.

Enid’s voice won’t leave my head.

My thoughts are interrupted when I hear a door open outside of my dorm. I hear the faint creak of the wood. I don’t move. I listen.

I extinguish my candle with a steady breath. My room folds into darkness. My pulse does not quicken, but my focus sharpens until I can hear the minute click of a doorknob turning.

After that I open my door slowly. I take a peek outside. I see Enid stepping out of her dorm barefoot. She’s wearing her school sweater.

She doesn’t look around. She just moves, like a puppet that’s already memorised its routine.

I rise silently, the floor cool under my feet, and follow.

The dormitory hallway smells faintly of polish. Enid glides through it. Down the main stairs, past the trophies, past the portraits whose painted eyes turn to follow her. Her hand brushes the wall once, steadying herself. Her fingers twitch, as if they’re trying to wake up.

She reaches the back doors of Ophelia Hall, the ones that open toward the forest path. The moonlight finds her there. She hesitates for a second before stepping outside.

I follow her into the night. The air is colder than it should be. The ground is still damp from yesterday’s rain. My wound aches with every step, a sharp reminder of where her hands once dragged me through mud, through pain, through betrayal I hadn’t been ready to understand.

She walks deeper into the trees, guided by something that isn’t sight. The forest seems to open for her, branches bending slightly, the wind softening.

Far ahead, I see a faint light in the distance. It’s the greenhouse. The heart of her influence. Enid stops just before the clearing, her breathing slow and controlled. I stop behind a tree, watching.

…

The forest at night is secretive. It’s like every gust of wind whispers secrets.

The greenhouse windows glow faintly. Inside I see a shadow shift. Someone is already there.

The door creaks open just enough for the sound to crawl out. Enid steps inside without hesitation. I edge closer, crouching low beneath the warped glass, careful not to disturb the ivy curling up the walls like veins.

Through the condensation-smeared window, I see her. Thornhill stands in the centre of the room, surrounded by rows of plants that look half-dead, half-listening. Her hands are bare this time. Enid stands a few feet away, posture unnaturally straight, eyes glazed and distant.

“You’ve done well,” Thornhill says softly. “She’s starting to doubt herself. That’s good. Confusion is fertile soil.”

Her voice is honey in the throat of a viper.

Enid nods once, woodenly. “What… happens next?”

Thornhill smiles. “Nothing yet. We wait. The Rav’n will be perfect. So many distractions, so many masks. You’ll make sure she’s where she needs to be when the time comes.”

“Where?” Enid asks.

Thornhill steps closer, tucking a lock of Enid’s hair behind her ear in a gesture so tender it makes my stomach twist. “By the lake,” she whispers.

“Do you understand?” Thornhill asks.

“Yes,” Enid answers, voice empty as glass.

Thornhill’s perfume drifts through the cracked window. I smell a mixture of roses and rot. It hits the back of my throat like memory. I force myself to stay still, even as rage coils up my spine.

The sound of her laughter follows me as I step backward, every movement deliberate. I keep to the shadows, blending into the trees as the greenhouse door closes again.

When I finally reach the path, I stop beneath a dying elm and let the silence press against me. My pulse refuses to settle. The night feels wrong. The betrayal burns in a way I didn’t think possible anymore.

Enid. My contradiction. My accidental comfort. My light that never asked to shine on someone like me. Now she’s a weapon in Thornhill’s hand.

I tilt my head back and look up at the stars. The wind stirs the leaves, and the greenhouse light flickers behind.

“Two days,” I whisper.

I turn and walk back toward Nevermore.

…

Morning arrives with the indecent brightness. The sunlight forces itself through the curtains. I let it reach my face, because refusing light only makes it try harder.

The clock on my nightstand says 6:03. I’ve been awake for hours. Sleep eludes me.

I roll out of bed. My ribs still ache, but I ignore it. The pain is background noise now, like the ticking of the watch that refuses to stop being alive.

Breakfast is the usual parade of mediocrity. Students chatter, laugh, and perform the art of pretending life is stable. I sit where I always do, with the same blank stare that people mistake for focus. Enid sits across from me, pouring syrup onto pancakes.

“You’re quiet today,” she says.

“I’m calculating,” I reply.

“Calculating what?”

“Whether the day is worth participating in.”

She laughs, bright and sharp, the sound so convincingly her that for half a heartbeat I almost believe it.

She’s learning to lie like a professional. I taught her well, unintentionally.

Between classes, I keep the performance going. My cold, careful mimicry of routine. In fencing, I keep my distance, blaming the still-healing wound. In botany, I don’t appear at all. Thornhill’s class can rot with her plants.

When Weems inevitably intercepts me in the hall. Her smile is lined with patience, her words dipped in authority. I offer a reasonable explanation: recovery, trauma, fatigue. She nods, too politely to believe me. But she lets it go.

By afternoon, the air in Nevermore feels too still. The corridors smell faintly of candle wax.

In creative writing, Xavier talks too much, as always. Bianca rolls her eyes at him, as always. I sit two rows behind, observing the back of Enid’s head as she takes notes in cheerful loops of handwriting.

She looks alive. That’s the problem. She looks painfully alive.

Once, I might have envied her that brightness. Now, it feels like blasphemy.

After class, she waits for me by the courtyard. “We’re still going to the Rav’n, right?” she asks.

“I wouldn’t miss it,” I say.

It’s not a lie. I need to be there. She smiles, soft and unguarded, the kind of smile that could convince lesser people the world is kind.

For the rest of the day, I keep my expression neutral. My voice measured. My heartbeat is quiet. Let her believe nothing has changed. Let Thornhill think I’m still a girl recovering from her knife, still wounded enough to underestimate.

At dusk, I return to my room. The sky outside burns with the colours of diluted blood. E

I sit at my desk, sharpening a pencil until it bleeds wood dust across my fingers. The watch on the table ticks softly, the rhythm too human for a machine.

…

The day of the Rav’n feels like a poorly written play. There’s too much anticipation, too many actors pretending they don’t know the ending.

My dorm is quiet. My dress hangs by the mirror. It’s black silk. I don’t believe in sequins. Beauty should unsettle, not sparkle. The fabric moves slightly in the breeze that slips through the half-open window.

I’m fastening the last button at my wrist when I hear a knock on the door.

I open the door and find Tyler standing there. He’s wearing black. Of course he is. But it’s the kind of black that means effort. He wears a pressed shirt, a tie slightly askew, and sleeves rolled just enough to look human. His hair is damp from the rain, curls falling across his forehead. He looks older than the other students. But I have to admit that he looks good.

“Wow,” he says softly, eyes flicking over me quickly, politely. “You look…” He trails off, like he’s stepped into a language he doesn’t know.

“Dressed,” I offer.

He smiles. It’s the kind of smile that would make weaker hearts misfire. “That’s one word for it.”

“Others would be unnecessary.”

He chuckles, running a hand through his hair. “Can I come in?”

I hesitate just long enough to remind him that permission is earned, not assumed. Then I step aside.

My room is dim, lit only by the single lamp on my desk. The air smells faintly of ink, candle wax, and rain sneaking through the window. Tyler’s presence changes the temperature. He doesn’t belong here, and yet he fits in the chaos.

He glances around, his eyes landing briefly on the notebook, the watch, and the small, deliberate neatness of everything. “Still can’t decide if your room feels like a sanctuary or a crime scene.”

“Both are useful,” I reply.

He grins and leans against the desk. “So… big night.”

“The school’s ritual of superficial joy,” I say. “Where teenagers celebrate their insecurities with tulle and bad lighting.”

“Are you sure you’re not secretly looking forward to it?”

“Only in the way one anticipates a fire alarm.”

He laughs again, but there’s something quieter beneath it. It sounds like concern. “Are you sure you’re okay to go tonight? You’re still healing.”

“I’ve had worse.”

“I know,” he says, and for a second his gaze lingers, heavy with something unspoken.

He clears his throat, trying to dispel the weight in the air. “Anyway… I figured we could walk down together. Less awkward that way.”

“Less suspicious, you mean.”

He smirks. “Same thing.”

I watch him. The light hits his face at an angle that makes him look almost like the boy I lost. Still untouched by the world, unaware of the monster that once hid behind his skin.

“You’re early,” I say finally.

He shrugs. “Didn’t want to wait.”

I adjust the cuff of my sleeve. “Then let’s get this over with.”

He tilts his head, that same half-smile ghosting across his lips. “You make it sound like a funeral.”

“In some ways,” I say, locking the door behind us, “it is.”

…

The hallways of Ophelia Hall are nearly empty. The lamps hum faintly overhead, throwing slanted rectangles of light across the floor. Somewhere, laughter echoes. It’s distant, high-pitched, and artificial. The sounds of the Rav’n warming up.

We walk in silence, our footsteps syncing by accident. The air smells faintly of roses and polished marble, which makes me think of Thornhill, and I instantly regret breathing.

Halfway down the corridor, Tyler stops.

I turn to him slowly, my patience on a short leash. “If you’re about to suggest we take a selfie, I will commit a minor felony.”

He grins, shaking his head. “Not that. I, uh…wait here a second.”

He reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out something small and delicate. It’s a corsage. It’s black and white. It’s pale and sharp against dark ribbon. Thoughtfully assembled, like he somehow understood I’d sooner wear an autopsy tag than roses.

He holds it out, suddenly unsure of himself. “I figured you’d hate everything else they were selling in town.”

I stare at it, at him, then back again. “You bought me a plant corpse.”

His smile widens. “A decorative one.”

“Flowers are a ridiculous gesture,” I say. “They wilt, decay, and rot within days. They’re proof that beauty dies easily.”

“Then it’s perfect for you,” he says before he can stop himself.

I arch a brow. “Flattery implies you expect survival.”

He laughs softly, eyes dropping to the corsage like he’s embarrassed by how much he cares. “Can I put it on you, or will that violate one of your personal hexes?”

“You may try,” I say. “But if you lose a hand, that’s on you.”

He steps closer. His hands are steady, but his breath catches once when he fastens the ribbon around my wrist. His fingers brush my skin briefly.

For a moment, the silence between us shifts. The corsage sits there perfectly. Dark ribbon, pale petals, and the faintest scent of rain clinging to it.

“It suits you,” he murmurs.

“Obviously,” I say. “You followed the colour scheme of my soul.”

He smiles again. “You know, for someone who claims to hate sentiment, you’re surprisingly good at ruining mine.”

“Practice,” I reply.

We stand there for a heartbeat too long. His hand still near mine, the light flickering overhead. Somewhere down the hall, the music swells, muffled by the stone walls.

I glance at him. “Shall we go? I’d hate to miss the moment the collective joy of adolescence combusts.”

He chuckles under his breath. “Lead the way, Wednesday Addams.”

I start walking, my wrist heavier than it should be. The corsage catches the light. A gesture of life given to someone who keeps meeting death and calling it destiny. And for reasons I can’t define, it feels almost like a warning.

…

The Rav’n smells like cheap perfume, overconfidence, and disinfectant. Nevermore’s attempt at glamour has always reminded me of taxidermy. Like it’s preserving something dead and pretending it’s still beautiful.

The ballroom is drowning in silver and blue. Paper snowflakes hang from the ceiling like the corpses of a craft project gone wrong. The chandeliers bleed white light onto polished marble. A string quartet fights a losing battle against a pop remix in the corner.

Students spin in circles. It’s impressive how many ways humans can find to celebrate.

Tyler walks beside me, still trying to look like he belongs in this absurd spectacle. He’s doing an admirable job of pretending this is normal. I’m doing an admirable job of pretending I care.

The doors creak as we step inside. The room stills for half a heartbeat. It’s long enough for the collective gossip to inhale.

I hear my name ripple through the crowd like a rumour that refuses to stay buried. Addams. She’s here. Didn’t she almost die?

It’s comforting, in a way. Fear is a form of respect, just spoken at a lower volume.

Then I see him. Sheriff Galpin is leaning near the refreshment table like a predator in ill-fitting authority. His uniform is too crisp, his jaw too tight. He spots us instantly. His expression curdles.

If disapproval were an art form, he’d be a master sculptor.

“Well,” he says as we approach. “If it isn’t my favourite hospital patient.”

“Technically, I was discharged,” I reply. “Though clearly, your investigations remain in critical condition.”

Tyler exhales softly through his nose, like he’s torn between amusement and self-preservation. “Dad…’’

“No,” Galpin cuts in, his gaze still fixed on me. “We haven’t found who did it yet. I figured I’d keep an eye on things tonight. Nevermore has a way of attracting… trouble.”

“That’s called personality,” I say.

He crosses his arms. “And what do you call showing up with my son?”

“A social experiment.”

His jaw tightens. “He’s not part of your games, Addams.”

Tyler sighs, embarrassed. “Dad, come on…”

“Sheriff,” I interrupt smoothly, “if I wanted to corrupt your son, I’d start by teaching him proper conversational timing.”

There’s a twitch at the corner of his mouth. It’s rage, or maybe the reluctant understanding that I’m right. He takes a step closer, lowering his voice. “You think this is funny? You were almost killed. Whoever’s behind it could still be watching.”

I tilt my head. “Then it would be rude not to give them a show.”

The silence that follows is thick. The music swells again in the background.

Tyler clears his throat. “We should probably…uh…get some punch. Or not. Just… go.”

Galpin’s eyes narrow. “Stay where people can see you.”

“I tend to be difficult to miss,” I say.

We move past him, and I can feel his gaze burning between my shoulder blades.

The crowd parts slightly as we enter the main floor. The band starts a slow song, violins sighing like something dying beautifully. Students sway awkwardly.

I glance at Tyler. “I don’t dance.”

He smiles faintly. “I figured.”

We stand at the edge of the room, like a pair of mismatched ghosts observing the living. I can feel the pulse of the evening building. It’s too bright, too perfect, too quiet beneath the noise. The kind of stillness that comes before a scream.

The corsage on my wrist feels heavier. And across the room, I see Thornhill observing me. Her smile is sweet enough to rot teeth. Enid stands beside her, laughing too loudly, eyes just slightly wrong.

Tyler follows my gaze. “You okay?”

“I’m surrounded by masks,” I say. “It’s almost poetic.”

He frowns, glancing between Thornhill and me. “What’s going on?”

“Reality”, I say, “is starting to unravel.”

…

Tyler’s eyes linger on me for a moment too long, the way people look at something they shouldn’t touch but already want to. The band shifts to a slower rhythm. The violins melt into a tune meant for sentimentality.

“Come on,” he says quietly, his voice threading through the noise. “Just one dance.”

“I don’t dance,” I answer, automatic, precise.

“I’m sure you can dance,” he says, like he’s guessing.

“Yes,” I reply. “But I don’t like it.”

He grins. It’s that dangerous, unguarded grin that makes it hard to remember which version of him this is. “Then humour me.”

He extends his hand. I stare at it. His fingers are steady.

I sigh, the kind of sigh that could kill small talk. “Fine. But if you step on my foot, I’ll step on your grave.”

“Deal.”

His hand finds mine. They’re warm and uninvited. The music folds around us. It’s slow. Tyler moves carefully. I let him lead, because control is sometimes best surrendered in small doses.

The lights blur, silver and blue dissolving into a dream I’ve already lived. For a moment, the ballroom becomes that other one. The one of twelve years gone. Where I danced with a boy whose smile was a lie carved into something innocent. The same curl of his hair.

Only that night, the music had been Goo Goo Muck. Only that night, he had already been lost to Laurel’s poison. I had mistaken possession for affection.

The memory slices cleanly. His laugh, his eyes, the way the world had turned red under the sprinklers, and how I had thought, 'This is the beginning.' When it had been the end.

The present flickers. The room swims back into focus. Tyler’s still looking at me, unaware that I’ve just danced through a graveyard.

“Are you okay?” he asks softly.

“No,” I say. “But it’s a familiar condition.”

Tyler studies me as though trying to memorise something fragile. “Can I ask you something?”

“You can,” I say. “Whether I answer is another experiment entirely.”

He hesitates, then: “Why do you always look like you’re waiting for something bad to happen?”

The question slides beneath my ribs before I can stop it.

I look at him. I see the innocence in his eyes that doesn’t yet know what it’s capable of losing. He’s younger, lighter, untouched by the history I buried him in.

“Because”, I say finally, “it usually does.”

He looks like he wants to argue, to say something human and hopeful, but he doesn’t. He just nods slowly, like he’s hearing a confession that wasn’t meant for him.

The song ends. I step back. The air rushes between us like relief or regret; I can’t tell which.

“Thank you,” he says quietly. “For the dance.”

“Thank me for surviving it,” I correct. “It’s rarer.”

He grins. “Guess I’ll take what I can get.”

…

Suddenly the music changes. It changes into a bright noise. The air is filled with perfume, sweat, and the sound of people pretending their lives matter.

Tyler leans close to me, almost brushing my ear. “I’ll get us something to drink.”

“Make it black,” I reply. “Like regret.”

He laughs softly. It’s the kind of laugh that feels undeserved. He turns to leave. He doesn’t realise that leaving is the one thing people should never do around me.

I watch him go. His hair catches the fractured light, and I think, just for a second, of how much I hate the warmth that clings to him. How it doesn’t belong in the same room as me. How it makes the night seem almost alive.

He’s almost gone when my body betrays me. My hand lifts, my fingers curl into his shirt, and I pull. The motion is fast and graceless, but I’ve never needed grace.

He turns, startled, and I rise up, meeting him halfway. The kiss is sudden. It’s like a collision. It’s not tender; it’s proof. Proof that I can still take something before it disappears. His breath catches; his hand trembles against my sleeve. For one impossible heartbeat, the world stands still.

Then I let go. “Go,” I tell him. “Before I remember who I am.”

He grins. He looks at me dizzy and disbelieving. “You’re unbelievable.”

“Unfortunately,” I say.

He laughs and walks away, still shaking his head. I stand in the centre of the floor. My lips sting. My heartbeat feels like thunder learning restraint.

Suddenly I hear a sound of metal shifting. The chandelier above me groans. Its chain quivers, each link bright as bone under the lights. The music doesn’t stop; it only grows louder, trying to hide what’s coming.

Dust falls down. The crystals tremble. Time slows down like it’s curious about my next mistake. Suddenly the ceiling collapses. The chain of the chandelier snaps. The chandelier drops with a blazing speed.

I hear someone shout my name. I realise it’s Tyler.

Tyler doesn’t hesitate. He doesn’t think. He’s just motion. He’s raw and reckless. He hits me hard, knocking me backward, shoving me hard to the ground.

I hear the glass explode above us. The weight of the chandelier crashes down. The world folds inward. There’s a sound that follows. It’s a hollow crack.

For a second, I don’t feel anything. Just air. Then the unmistakable sound of pain.

Tyler’s above me, shielding me. The chandelier has collapsed across his back, shards of crystal embedded in his jacket, in his skin. His breath comes in jagged gasps. His hands press into the floor on either side of my head, shaking violently.

“Tyler,” I breathe.

He looks down at me, eyes wide, already fading into something not human. His pupils flicker, gold bleeding into brown. His bones shift under his skin like they’re remembering another shape. The veins along his neck pulse black. I realise it’s the Hyde.

He’s fighting it, but I can see it in the way his jaw locks and the way his breath claws its way out of his throat. But the thing inside him is awake now, and it’s furious.

He growls. It’s not at me, but at the chandelier, at the world that dared to touch me. His arms heave, muscles tearing as he lifts the edge of the wreckage off his back. He throws it aside like it’s nothing. The lights explode overhead.

Students are screaming, running, slipping in glass and fear. The air tastes of copper and ozone. I can’t move. All I can do is stare at him. I stare at the boy who died by my hand once, now bleeding to save me.

His face twists between boy and monster. The skin on his arms ripples, claws breaking through. He leans over me, panting, voice cracking under both human and beast. “You’re… safe.”

I can’t speak. The irony is too violent to name. Then, through the smoke and screaming, I see Thornhill.

Standing at the far end of the room, perfectly calm, untouched by the chaos. Her red hair gleams under the emergency lights. Her smile is almost maternal. Our eyes meet. She mouths something, slow and deliberate. ‘’It begins.’’

Chapter Text

Wednesday's POV

Everything sounds different. The music dies, in a bad way. It’s like it bleeds out. The Rav’n looks like a crime scene. Glass shards are everywhere. The air smells of perfume and fear mixed into one. People around me are screaming in fear. Normally I find it comforting, but not this time.

The chandelier lies gutted in the middle of the floor, wires twitching, lightbulbs shattered. Under it, in a chaos of gold and blood and smoke, is Tyler still covering me.

He’s still breathing. I see that his shirt is torn open down the back, the fabric is fused with shards of crystal,t and the slow bloom of blood. His body rises and falls in an uneven rhythm.

I slowly crawl out from underneath him before I kneel beside him. My dress is ruined. ’You always did have a dramatic sense of timing,” I whisper.

His lashes flicker. His eyes are no longer gold but not yet human. They find me. “Did I…,” he starts, voice breaking. “Did I hurt anyone?”

“No,” I tell him. “Just the lamp.”

He tries to laugh, but it turns into a cough. The sound of blood in his throat makes something in me tighten.

The crowd swells and parts. Sheriff Galpin bursts through the mess. His eyes go straight to Tyler. Tyler's bleeding; his looks broken. His gaze goes from Tyler to me. I know he thinks I’m a bad omen.

“What happened here?” he demands.

I glance up, unimpressed. “Gravity,” I say.

“Addams,” he snaps. “You think this is funny?”

“Not particularly. Though irony does have its charm.”

He kneels beside Tyler, checking his pulse, while his movements are frantic. For a moment, I almost feel sorry for him.

“You told me once,” he says slowly, voice darkening. “That I should watch out for the big H coming out of the dark.”

I meet his gaze. “Yes.”

His jaw tightens. “What did you mean by that?”

Behind him, Tyler groans softly, caught somewhere between consciousness and nightmare. The emergency lights turn everyone’s skin the colour of ghosts.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” I say.

“Try me.”

I stand, brushing glass off my skirt. “You just saw it.”

He freezes. His mouth opens and closes. “You’re saying that thing, whatever that was…” He nods toward Tyler. “…that’s the H?”

I don’t answer. The silence does it for me.

Around us, the teachers are shouting orders. Students are herded out like cattle, sobbing and shaking.

Galpin stands slowly, one hand still on his son’s shoulder. His voice is lower now, quieter. “How the hell did you know?”

“Experience,” I say simply.

His eyes flicker between me and Tyler, between the boy he raised and the thing that saved me. I can see the war starting in his mind.

Then the paramedics push in, cutting the moment apart. They lift Tyler onto a stretcher; glass is falling from his hair. He tries to reach for me as they wheel him away, his fingers brushing mine. “You’re safe,” he murmurs, voice faint.

“An unfamiliar concept,” I whisper back.

Galpin follows them toward the door but stops halfway. He turns, his shadow long against the ruined floor. “This isn’t over, Addams.”

I tilt my head. “It never is.”

When he’s gone, the silence returns. My reflection stares back at me from the fragments of crystal. But somewhere deep under my skin, something’s cracked open again.

Across the room, through the haze of smoke, I see her. Thornhill.  She doesn’t come closer; she just smiles. The kind of smile people wear when they’ve already written the next chapter.

…

I’ve been in interrogation rooms before. They all look the same. Cheap walls pretending to be important. This one belongs to Principal Weems. She’s standing near the window, spine a straight line of elegance and irritation.

Sheriff Galpin paces behind the desk, every step louder than it needs to be. His badge glints under the lamplight.

The chandelier incident has left the school in pieces. Students are being “escorted home”. The word 'escorted' sounds prettier than 'evacuated'.

I sit in the chair reserved for the inconvenient. My posture is perfect. I want my silence to feel deliberate.

Galpin slams a photo on the desk. It’s a grainy image of the shattered ballroom. “You knew this would happen,” he says. “You warned me.”

“I did,” I reply. “Congratulations on your belated comprehension.”

Weems clears her throat, the sound sharp as a blade. “Wednesday, this is not the time for your… tone.”

“Every time is the time for my tone.”

Galpin’s jaw flexes. “I saw what happened. My son…” his voice fractures slightly, and he catches it before it escapes … “My son turned into something. You knew. You called it.”

“Knowing and causing are not synonyms,” I say. “Though people often confuse them when they’re frightened.”

He leans closer, his shadow swallowing the desk between us. “What is that thing, Addams?”

“Something that’s been here longer than your good intentions.”

He slams his palm down, hard enough to make the lamp flicker. “Don’t play games with me!”

I don’t flinch. “You think I’m playing? Believe me, Sheriff, I only play instruments.”

Weems sighs. It’s the kind of sigh that says she’s choosing diplomacy over homicide. “Wednesday, perhaps you should tell him.’’

“I already did.’’

Weems’ lips twitch. “Then tell him again.’’

Galpin is staring now. He looks desperate but not stupid. “Have you seen this before, Addams?’’ he asks.

“Yes. I’ve even warned you.’’

His breath hitches. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Willowhill,” I say softly. The name lands like dust in a sealed room. “Behind the old gates. Past the cemetery where the weeds grow taller than the stones.”

His face changes. It’s subtle at first. But I see a flicker in his eyes, a tightening of his jaw. Then the realisation starts to crawl in.

“You might want to check it,” I continue. “Behind the ruins. For your wife.”

The silence that follows isn’t silence. He stares at me as though the word itself has reached inside him. “What the hell do you know about my wife?”

“She was good at keeping secrets,” I say. “Unfortunately, so are the people who bury them.”

He steps back. The chair leg scrapes the floor. For a moment, I think he might lunge. He doesn’t. He looks down instead. It’s the posture of someone who just met their own ghost.

Weems finally speaks, voice steady. “Sheriff, perhaps we should…”

He cuts her off. “Don’t. Not yet.” His gaze returns to me. “How do you know what’s in Willowhill?”

“I read the archives,” I lie smoothly. “Unlike most law enforcement officers, I can read without moving my lips.”

His hand curls into a fist. “You think this is a joke?”

“Quite the opposite,” I say. “It’s a eulogy waiting to happen.”

He studies me a moment longer, searching for cracks. There aren’t any.

Finally, he mutters, “You’re coming with me. Tomorrow morning.”

I tilt my head. “Field trip?”

He glares. “We’re going to Willowhill. You’re going to show me what you know.”

Weems opens her mouth to object, but I speak first. “Fine. But if you faint, I’m not carrying you.”

Galpin storms out, his boots echoing down the corridor like a warning shot.

Weems exhales slowly. “Wednesday, you’re walking on a knife’s edge.”

“Good,” I say, standing. “I like the view from there.”

Outside, the rain has started again. I catch my reflection in the window. For a moment, I almost look alive. Then I remember I’m not supposed to.

…

After my conversation with Weems, I make my way to the infirmary. I want to check on Tyler.

Even infirmaries have a way of trying to pretend. Everything is white. The walls, the sheets and even the uniforms. The smell of antiseptic tries to pass for purity, but it only reminds me of graves before the soil forgets the perfume.

They moved Tyler into the infirmary wing of Nevermore. “For safety,” Weems said. Safety is such a polite lie.

Tyler is asleep when I enter the room. His chest rises and falls beneath a sheet too thin to hide the bandages underneath. His skin is pale, almost translucent in the light. There’s glass still tangled in his hair. It glints faintly.

I take the chair beside his bed. It creaks.

“I don’t usually visit hospital beds,” I say quietly. “They make it too easy to confuse survival with success.”

His eyes open slowly. The room contracts with the sound of his breath. “You came,” he says. His voice is soft.

“I wanted to confirm you hadn’t died. I dislike unfinished business.”

A faint smile tugs at his mouth, and it hurts to see it. “You always know what to say.”

“Unfortunately.”

He looks around, as if the ceiling might answer the questions he’s too afraid to form. “They told me I saved you. That I… pulled you down before it fell.”

“That’s accurate.”

“Then why do you look like it’s a bad thing?”

Because it is. I don’t say it out loud. I let silence fill the room. He watches me, confusion softening into unease.

“I don’t remember what happened after that,” he continues. “I just… blacked out. One second I was running toward you, and the next…” His hands tremble. He stares at them as if they belong to someone else. “They said I broke the chandelier. That I threw it. I couldn’t do that.”

“You did,” I say.

He laughs nervously, shaking his head. “Then I’m stronger than I look.”

“Stronger” isn’t the word I’d use.”

That gets his attention. His eyes narrow, searching my face for something. Maybe an answer, or forgiveness. “What did you see, Wednesday?”

I meet his gaze. It’s hard not to notice the traces of gold still lingering in his irises, faint and defiant. “I saw someone who didn’t want to lose me,” I say finally.

He exhales, shaky, uncertain. “That doesn’t sound terrible.”

“No,” I admit. “That’s what makes it terrifying.”

He leans back and remains silent for a while. The sound of the rain against the windows fills the room.

When he speaks again, his voice is a whisper. “Do you ever feel like there’s something inside you you can’t control? Something that’s been waiting for the right moment to take over?”

“Constantly,” I say.

He looks at me with that same half-smile, equal parts fear and wonder. “Then maybe we’re not that different.”

The sentence lands between us. For a moment, I see it. I can see the reflection of another life, another Tyler, one who wore the same expression right before the monster inside him took everything away.

I stand. My chair protests again. “Rest,” I say. “The next few days will test your definition of recovery.”

“Wednesday,” he says, voice low, uncertain. “Was it really me? That thing?”

I pause at the door. “Not yet,” I say. “But it will be if you’re not careful.”

“Careful of whom?’’

I turn slightly. “Everyone.’’

He frowns, confusion flickering into denial. “Everyone?’’

“Yes, everyone,” I repeat.

…

The moment I step into the hallway of the infirmary, I’m stopped by Weems, who’s standing in front of me.

She drags me to her office; of course I try to complain about it, but she demanded for me to come right away.

Weems’ office always smells like lavender, and I’m not sure why. It’s a scent that never fools anyone. The rain has been steady all night, slapping against the windows like an impatient visitor.

I’m seated where she told me to sit: the chair directly opposite her desk. The chair is reserved for people who’ve caused a problem or, worse, become one.

The door bursts open without grace. Sheriff Galpin steps in first. He’s drenched, scowling and holding something invisible between his teeth. Behind him, Thornhill enters; she wears a warm smile fixed in place. Honestly, it’s the kind of expression that belongs on saints and serial killers.

After that, Enid enters the room. She’s soaked from the rain. Her eyes are swollen red, mascara carved down her face like war paint. Her wrists are cuffed in front of her.

The sight hits harder than I expect. She looks smaller and hollowed out. Like someone scraped out the sunshine that used to live under her skin.

Weems’ voice slices through the silence. “Miss Sinclair was apprehended near the north courtyard. Sheriff Galpin’s deputies found her trying to run through the forest.”

“Run?” I ask, my voice steady but not calm. “From what?”

Galpin answers, “From the scene of a near-homicide. Two witnesses saw her cutting the chandelier rope before it fell.”

My pulse doesn’t quicken, but something colder than shock slips through me. “Convenient witnesses,” I murmur.

Weems ignores me. “Wednesday, you were the target. Surely you understand the gravity of…”

“I understand gravity perfectly,” I interrupt. “It rarely acts alone.”

Enid flinches when I speak. Her eyes dart toward me, then away, as if I’m something bright she can’t look at directly.

I turn to her fully. “So. You wanted to kill me.’’ The words taste metallic, but they leave my mouth like they’ve been waiting.

Her lips tremble. “No. I didn’t... I don’t…” She shakes her head, frantic, terrified. “I don’t know why I did it. I didn’t mean to. I just remember standing there, and something in my head…it wasn’t me, Wednesday, I swear.”

“You cut the rope,” Galpin says flatly. “We found your fingerprints on the shears.”

Enid’s breathing quickens. “I wasn’t myself. I heard a voice. It told me to…” She stops, as if the rest of the sentence is forbidden.

I study her. The way her shoulders twitch. The way her pupils dilate, unfocused. It’s the look of someone who’s been rewritten.

Behind her, Thornhill clears her throat softly. “Poor thing’s in shock,” she says. “Guilt can do that.”

I turn my head just enough to meet her eyes. “Guilt doesn’t sound like you, Miss Thornhill.”

Her smile doesn’t falter. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“I think you do,” I say, low and deliberate. “Perfume doesn’t hide rot; it only delays discovery.”

Her eyes flicker. Just for a second. Enough to confirm what I already know.

Enid starts crying. They are sharp, breathless sobs that seem to echo in the corners of the room. I should feel pity. I don’t. What I feel is older than pity. It’s the hollow space left behind when trust finally dies.

“Do you even know what you’ve done?” I ask her quietly.

She looks up, desperate. “I tried to stop it. I tried to stop myself. Please believe me, Wednesday, please…”

For a moment, I almost do. But the vision from before plays again behind my eyes. The vision where her hands were on me, dragging me through the dark, Thornhill’s voice dripping through the trees.

“I would believe you,” I say, “if I hadn’t seen you do it.”

That stops her. The colour drains from her face. “You… saw?”

“Not with my eyes.”

She starts shaking her head violently, like she can dislodge the memory. “No, no, no, it wasn’t me. She…she told me I’d forget…”

Galpin’s patience fractures. “Who told you what?”

Enid’s eyes dart instinctively toward Thornhill. And that, more than any confession, is all the proof I need.

I stand, slow and deliberate. “That’s enough,” I say.

Weems’ voice sharpens. “Miss Addams…”

“I said enough.”

Thornhill steps forward, her voice perfectly measured. “Wednesday, I think you should sit down.”

“I think you should stop pretending you’re human,” I reply.

The air in the room turns cold. Weems looks between us. Galpin looks like he’s starting to suspect something he doesn’t want to admit.

Enid just breaks. Her voice cracks open into a scream, raw and wet with panic. “I didn’t mean to hurt you!” she cries. “She made me do it!”

Everyone freezes. Thornhill takes a single step forward. “Enid…”

“Don’t!” Enid shrieks, jerking back. Her eyes are wide, terrified, pleading. “Don’t touch me! You…you said you’d help me! You lied!”

The room tilts. Weems stumbles back. Galpin’s hand goes to his gun.

Thornhill’s face remains calm, serene even. But her eyes flicker toward me with quiet promise: you’ll regret this. I believe her.

I take a breath that feels like it doesn’t want to belong to me. “Well,” I say softly. “That was enlightening.”

Then everything dissolves into shouting.

…

The shouting collapses into fragments. Words fall out of mouths like teeth. The office reeks of rain, fear, and something floral. The wrong kind of floral, sharp enough to sting. Thornhill’s perfume is still winning the room.

Enid is trembling so hard the cuffs rattle against her wrists. Her eyes dart between me and Thornhill, desperate, lost, trying to find an anchor in a sea that doesn’t want her.

Thornhill steps forward first. Always the teacher. Always the saviour.
“Larissa,” she says, voice steady, smooth, and too gentle to be innocent. “I think we’re dealing with something psychological. Poor Enid has been under immense pressure. Exams, social stress, her… condition. It’s entirely possible she’s suffering a breakdown.”

The word 'breakdown' hangs in the air like the smell of bleach. It kills everything true.

Weems’ jaw tightens. “That’s a serious claim, Marilyn.”

Thornhill doesn’t flinch. “Look at her, Larissa. She’s hysterical. She’s been struggling for weeks. I’ve tried helping her, but sometimes…” She lowers her voice into a syrupy pity. “Sometimes kindness just isn’t enough.”

Enid makes a choking sound. It’s not quite a sob. “You’re lying,” she whispers.

Thornhill’s smile widens just enough to show her satisfaction. “Am I, dear?”

Galpin cuts through the tension like a blade through damp paper. “Alright, enough,” he growls. “We’ve got one kid in hysterics, another one who nearly got killed twice in the same week. Miss Addams, do you want to press charges?”

Everyone turns to me.

I let the silence stretch. I study Enid. Her hands twist in her lap, desperate, clawing at nothing. The image overlaps with the memory from the vision: her dragging me through the woods, her eyes wide and empty.

When I finally speak, my voice is the sound of a blade sliding back into its sheath. “No.”

Galpin frowns. “No?”

“I don’t want her locked up for something she didn’t do.”

Weems blinks. “Wednesday…”

“She’s not the one you should be afraid of,” I say softly, looking straight at Thornhill.

For the briefest second, her composure fractures. Then it returns, flawless.
“How noble of you,” she says, her tone dipped in false warmth. “But you can’t protect everyone, Wednesday. Especially from themselves.”

Weems steps in before I can reply. “Thank you, Marilyn. Sheriff. I’ll take it from here.”

Thornhill’s eyes linger on me a moment too long. There’s a silent conversation in that gaze. The kind that promises blood, not words.

Then she turns to Galpin. “Come along, Sheriff. I’ll update you once the student has calmed down.”

He nods reluctantly, guiding her toward the door. The moment it closes behind them, the silence shifts from suffocating to fragile.

Weems exhales, smoothing her jacket like she can press order back into the world. “Miss Addams, Miss Sinclair,” she says, her tone softer now. “I’m suspending classes for the day. Enid will remain here until we sort this out.”

Enid’s voice is small. “You believe me, right?”

Weems hesitates. That’s all it takes to answer.

Enid looks at me next, and the sight nearly cuts through my armour. Her face is streaked with tears, her lip trembling, her wrists red from the cuffs. “Wednesday, please…”

I stop her with a look. “Don’t,” I whisper. “Not here.”

Weems folds her hands. “I understand you’ve been through a trauma, Wednesday, but this obsession with Miss Thornhill…”

“Obsession?” I echo. “That’s the word people use when the truth starts to sound inconvenient.”

Weems’ patience thins, but not her restraint. “Be careful, Miss Addams. You’re treading on dangerous ground.”

“Good,” I say. “I like the company there.”

She sighs, gesturing to the door. “Go. Rest. I’ll deal with the rest.”

I rise. Enid watches me like she’s waiting for a verdict I can’t give. There’s too much noise in my head. With Thornhill’s perfume still hanging in the air, the metallic taste of betrayal at the back of my throat.

At the door, I pause just long enough to look over my shoulder. “Don’t believe everything you remember,” I tell her quietly. “And don’t forget everything you don’t.”

Her confusion follows me into the hall. And behind it, I can still hear Thornhill’s voice, whispering from some unseen corner of the school. It’s that honeyed tone she uses when she’s already chosen her next victim.

…

The rain hasn’t stopped since the chandelier fell. It’s the kind of rain that soaks through stone, that seeps into everything.

Sheriff Galpin corners me outside the main hall just as the evening bell begins to toll. He doesn’t bother with pleasantries. His coat drips on the marble floor, forming small black puddles.

“Addams,” he says, voice rough with exhaustion, “we’re leaving for Willowhill. Now.”

I don’t slow my steps. “You can leave whenever you like. I have better hobbies.”

He follows beside me, his boots echoing against the tile. “You said I’d find something there. You dropped my wife’s name like it was bait. You’re going to show me what the hell you meant.”

“I don’t take field trips with men who threaten me before breakfast.”

“Then consider it an interrogation,” he snaps.

“Those usually come with better lighting.”

I stop near the staircase and turn to face him. His eyes are ringed in red, from worry or guilt. His badge catches the lamplight, a flicker of authority that doesn’t impress me.

“I’m not going with you,” I say. “Not tonight, not ever.”

“Then you can explain yourself at the station.”

“I already have. You just didn’t like the answer.”

He takes a step closer, lowering his voice. “You think I’m stupid?”

“I think you’re terrified.”

That stops him. Only for a second.

“Tyler almost died,” he says. “You were there. You saw whatever that thing was. If you know something or if you know how to stop it. You owe me the truth.”

Owe. Such an inconvenient word. I study him for a long moment. The smell of damp wool and stale coffee clings to him. His hands are shaking, but not from anger. It’s from the thin thread of a father’s fear.

When I finally speak, it’s softer than I intend. “Tyler needs help, Sheriff. Soon.”

“I’m trying to help him.”

“No,” I say, “you’re trying to save your pride. Helping him would mean believing in things that crawl under your skin when you close your eyes.”

He frowns. “You’re talking in riddles again.”

“Riddles are safer than facts.”

He exhales sharply. “Where?”

“Willowhill.”

He blinks, caught between disbelief and dread. “There’s nothing there.’’

“Take a better look.’’

He takes another step, lowering his voice until it’s almost a growl. “How do you know all this, Addams? Did you see something? Did someone tell you?”

“I don’t owe you my methods,” I say. “Only my warning.”

“And that is…?”

“That you’re already late.”

The silence between us hardens. The rain against the windows sounds like knuckles tapping on a coffin lid.

He opens his mouth to argue, but something in my expression must stop him. He looks away instead, jaw tightening. “If you’re lying…”

“I don’t lie,” I say. “It wastes too much time.”

He starts to turn, then hesitates. “You really think Willowhill has the answer?”

“I don’t think,” I reply. “I know.”

He nods once, grimly, and walks away. The door slams behind him, leaving a trail of rainwater.

Tyler’s name flickers through my thoughts like a wound that refuses to scar. If the Sheriff reaches Willowhill before she does, the truth will devour them both. I almost feel sorry for him.

…

Hospitals smell like bleach and endings. Nevermore’s infirmary is worse; it smells like forced recovery. The air is too clean, too polite. Every surface shines as if guilt can be scrubbed into reflection.

Tyler’s bed is near the far wall, beneath a window that refuses to open. The pale light leaking through it makes his skin look too fragile for someone who once pulled me out from under a falling chandelier. He’s awake and is half propped against the pillow, staring at nothing.

I stand in the doorway a moment longer than I should, watching him breathe. It’s ridiculous how relief can feel like nausea.

He notices me eventually. “You shouldn’t be here,” he says softly. His voice sounds scraped and raw from exhaustion.

“I’ve been told that before,” I reply, stepping inside. “Usually by people who underestimate how little I care.”

A hint of a smile tries to appear, failing halfway. “Still the same, huh?”

“Unfortunately,” I say. “Stagnation is my most consistent trait.”

I stop beside his bed. The sheets are white, too white. His hands are still bruised from the fall; small flecks of glass are buried in the knuckles. For a moment, I picture the chandelier again. I see the way it fell in slow motion, the way he moved faster than reason, and the way his back arched over mine as the world tried to end above us.

“You saved me,” I say. The words taste strange.

He shrugs. “Guess I’m not as useless as I thought.”

“No,” I correct him. “You’re something worse. You’re unpredictable.”

He huffs a laugh, looking away. “I’ll take it.”

The window above him reflects our shapes in the glass. Two ghosts pretending to have survived. Behind that reflection, something shifts. I see a flicker of red hair, a shimmer of motion outside. I see Thornhill. She’s standing on the lawn beyond the window, partially veiled by rain and distance. Her posture is casual, but her expression isn’t. Her mouth curves into that too-perfect smile that never touches her eyes. She’s not watching me this time. She’s watching him. The smile lingers for one slow, deliberate second. Then, as if acknowledging that I’ve seen her, she turns and walks away.

My hands curl into fists.

Tyler follows my gaze, frowning. “What?”

“Nothing,” I say, too quickly.

He studies me. “You’re lying.”

“Constantly.”

“Was someone there?”

“No one important.”

He shifts uncomfortably, trying to sit up straighter. “You’re not very convincing.”

“I’m not trying to be.”

He sighs, wincing as the movement pulls at his shoulder. “You came to check on me?”

“I came to verify you’re still alive,” I correct. “The two are not synonymous.”

He gives a weak laugh. “You really don’t do comfort.”

“I do precision. It’s cleaner.”

For a while, neither of us speaks. The infirmary is silent except for the clock ticking in patient condescension, the soft rattle of rain against glass, and the steady rhythm of his breathing. It almost feels peaceful, which is suspicious.

Finally, he breaks the silence. “Do you ever get tired of pretending you don’t care?”

I look at him. “Do you ever get tired of pretending you do?”

That earns a genuine smile. It’s brief, tired, but real. It’s the kind of smile that would hurt to miss.

I should leave. That would be logical. Instead, I sit in the chair beside his bed. My eyes drift to the window again, but Thornhill is gone. The world outside is only rain and distance now.

“Tyler,” I say quietly.

He glances at me. “Yeah?”

“If you ever see her, Thornhill, don’t speak to her.”

“Why?”

“She’s bad at pretending to be good.”

He frowns, confused. “You don’t like her, huh?”

“Let’s say I’ve met her before,” I answer, voice low.

His brow furrows, trying to piece together something that won’t fit yet. “You talk like you know things you shouldn’t.”

“I do,” I say simply. “And that’s exactly why you should listen.”

He studies me for a long moment, eyes narrowing slightly. “Wednesday… what are you not telling me?”

The question cuts sharper than intended. I almost tell him. I almost tell him about the timelines, the graves, and the dagger still burnt into my ribs. But the words stall on my tongue.
He isn’t ready. And maybe neither am I.

Instead, I stand. “Rest, Tyler.”

“You’re leaving already?”

“I have better things to haunt.”

He shakes his head, smiling faintly. “You’re impossible.”

“So I’ve been told,” I reply, already walking toward the door.

…

I’ve already turned toward the door when his voice stops me.
“Wait,” Tyler says, softer this time. “You never answered me. Why should I stay away from her?”

I freeze. I know I should keep walking. I should leave the question where it belongs. Remaining unanswered, festering, safe. But something inside me shifts, the way wounds do when they start remembering.

I turn back slowly. “Because she’s dangerous,” I say.

“That’s not enough,” he replies. “Dangerous how?”

I study him for a long time. The pale bandage around his arm, the faint bruises along his collarbone, the shadows under his eyes. He looks human in all the ways I forgot he could.

“She manipulates,” I say finally. “She takes what’s soft in people and makes it obedient. She builds trust just to set it on fire.”

Tyler frowns, uncertain whether I’m describing Thornhill or myself. “How do you know that?”

I meet his eyes. “Because I watched her do it.”

His voice drops. “To whom?”

The air thickens. My throat feels tight, which is rare for me. Every part of me wants to say nothing. To let this moment dissolve into another unsolved sentence.

But his eyes hold the same shade they did in another lifetime. It’s the same quiet confusion, the same pulse beneath all that decency. And for the first time since I came back, I let myself falter.

“To someone I cared about,” I say. “Someone who didn’t deserve what she turned him into.”

His expression shifts. It’s something between concern and disbelief. “She hurt someone you know?”

“She killed him,” I say, and the word lands like glass shattering. “Not with a knife, not directly. She poisoned what made him human. She made him a monster.”

Tyler’s face drains of colour. “You sound like you mean that literally.”

“Literalism is overrated,” I murmur, though my pulse betrays the truth.

He stares at me, searching for meaning in what I’m not saying. “What happened to him?”

“He died.” I let the silence hang. “By my hand.”

His breath catches. It’s barely audible, but enough. “You…”

“Don’t,” I say sharply. “It wasn’t this version of him. It wasn’t this version of anything.”

He looks at me like I’ve spoken in another language, and maybe I have. “Wednesday… what are you talking about?”

I almost tell him. I almost let the truth spill. The truth is that I killed him once, that I watched his body fall in a rain-soaked clearing, that the world folded time back on itself just to punish me with the sight of him breathing again.

But the words stay inside. I’ve learnt what happens when you name ghosts too loudly. They start listening.

I inhale slowly, steadying myself. “Just promise me you’ll stay away from her. Don’t ask why.”

He hesitates, then nods. “Okay,” he says quietly. “If it matters that much to you.”

“It matters more than you know,” I whisper.

He reaches out as if to touch my hand. He stops halfway, uncertain whether he’s allowed. The gesture is nothing and everything all at once.

“Whoever she is,” he says finally, “she can’t hurt me that way. I’m not that easy to break.”

I look at him, and for a moment, I see the shadow of another Tyler. I see Tyler with blood on his hands and sorrow in his eyes. The memory almost crushes me.

“No,” I say. “You’re worse. You’re kind.”

He blinks, confused, as I turn and walk toward the door. I don’t look back. I can’t.
Because for the first time since I came back, I realise kindness might be the cruellest version of fate.

…

About an hour later I find myself in the library. It’s the only place where I feel safe.

In daylight, it pretends to be a monument to knowledge. It’s all oak and order, the perfume of wax and paper playing civility. But under moonlight, the truth seeps out. Books whisper. Shadows crawl. Even the shelves seem to lean in, eager for scandal.

The only sound is my heartbeat. The rhythm of someone who already expects to find the worst.

The restricted section sits behind a glass door etched with the Latin for For Faculty Use Only. I find the lock trivial.

Inside, the air is different. It smells faintly of dried roots, parchment, and the unmistakable trace of Thornhill’s perfume.

I run a gloved hand along the cabinet drawers. Their labels are fading, as though the words themselves are ashamed of what they hold. Then I see it: lycanthropic conditioning.

Of course. Her cruelty would be filed under something that sounds academic. I slide the folder out. Dust exhales like it’s been waiting to confess.

Inside, there are pages of cramped handwriting and sketches. A body rendered in red ink. There are lines tracing nerves and veins like vines wrapping around a trellis. Thornhill’s notes slant upward, impatient and eager.

“Subject resists full obedience. Emotional attachments increase instability. Recommend botanical suppressants and sensory deprivation.”

My stomach doesn’t turn. It never does. Horror only disgusts the unprepared. Instead, I read slower, savouring each word like evidence of her vanity.

Another page shows vials drawn in delicate pencil. The liquids inside are labelled like spells: aconitum, veratrum, and Lunaria serum. Each name a quiet betrayal. Plants that numb the mind, dull instincts, and erase the will.

The handwriting grows more erratic with each experiment.

“Physical pain enhances compliance. Begin nightly doses under lunar light. Observe resistance threshold.”

Pain as obedience. Classic human arrogance, assuming that breaking something proves ownership.

I turn the final page and find what I was looking for. Maybe even what I was dreading.

“Subject finally compliant. Vocal tremors replaced with silence. Eyes glassy, unresponsive. Obeys command tone. Successful integration.

Keep close to Addams. Emotional tether ensures containment.”

I don’t breathe for a moment. Not out of fear but out of admiration. She’s efficient, methodical, and horrifyingly elegant in her cruelty. It’s almost beautiful, the way a spider web is beautiful right before it strangles the fly.

I picture Enid. Her bright, unreasonably cheerful, laughing as if the world owed her warmth. I see her sitting in a chair, head tilted, her wrists marked with restraint. I hear Thornhill’s calm voice saying her name like a command.

And I realise it wasn’t just control. It was artistry. Thornhill didn’t destroy Enid. No, she rewrote her. Line by line, neuronee by neuronee.

A slow, precise anger crawls through me, too cold to tremble. My hand tightens around the page until it creases. The ink smudges beneath my thumb, bleeding a small imitation of justice.

I whisper, “You took the sunniest thing I’ve ever tolerated and made it scream.”

The lamp flickers as if the words offended it.

When I close the door, the glass hums faintly, reflecting my face back at me. I look pale and expressionless.

I look like her. That’s the part that bothers me most. I extinguish the light and step into the hallway. The silence follows. Somewhere deep inside me, something ancient and patient shifts. It’s the kind of rage that doesn’t burn. It plans.

…

Nevermore’s hallways are never empty. They breathe. The portraits sigh, the walls murmur, and the lamps buzz with that faint electric unease. But tonight, it’s different. The silence feels curated, as if someone swept the corridor clean of sound just for me.

The marble under my boots gleams too much, reflecting the pale chandeliers overhead. Each reflection stretches my shadow.

I clutch the edge of the file under my arm, the one detailing Thornhill’s artistry in obedience, and consider how satisfying it would be to leave it on Weems’s desk with a note: You were sleeping with your eyes open. But strategy has always been more elegant than honesty.

Halfway to my dorm, the air changes. It’s subtle. It’s a shift in pressure, a whisper that doesn’t belong to any draught. I stop.

A faint sound comes from around the corner. I tilt my head. The hall ahead is dim, the light fading unevenly as though afraid to continue. The sound stops.

“Cowardly for an ambush,” I say to no one. “At least monsters usually have the decency to roar.”

Nothing answers. I keep walking. Every few steps, I glance at the windows. I look at black glass, reflecting me in pieces. My reflection flickers once, twice. Then for a moment. It’s not me. The figure in the glass is taller, cloaked in shadow. Its outline ripples, as if something inside it wants out, and then it’s gone.

I blink once, calmly. “Lovely,” I murmur. “Now I’m being haunted by hooded figures.”

When I reach the next junction, the noise returns. It’s closer now. Something like chains or vines scraping the walls.

My pulse doesn’t quicken. It narrows. I stop beside a trophy case, its glass cracked at the corner, and listen. From the far end of the corridor comes a soft echo of laughter.

I glance behind me. The hallway is empty before I say, “If this is a warning, you’ll have to be more articulate.”

Suddenly something cold brushes my wrist. It’s so light I almost think I imagined it, but when I look down, there’s a thin streak of damp soil across my skin. It smells faintly of hyacinth and grave earth.

I stare at it. “How thoughtful,” I whisper. “A calling card.”

A gust of wind slams one of the windows open. The sound was sharp enough to slice through the silence. Papers lift from a nearby table, swirling. One of them hits my leg.
I pick it up.

It’s a note. Handwritten. The ink is still wet. ’You should have left it buried.’’

The letters shimmer faintly, like they were written in something other than ink. Blood, maybe.

I fold the paper neatly, slip it into my pocket, and whisper to the empty air, “How considerate of you to confirm my progress.”

Then I turn and walk back toward my dorm, my shadow longer now, the silence behind me.

…

Time has a strange aftertaste. It doesn’t fade when it should. No, it lingers, like a nosebleed you never notice until it stains the page.

By the time I reach my dorm, my hands are still shaking. Not visibly, of course. I’d die before giving adrenaline the satisfaction. The corridor behind me feels wrong. The walls are breathing a fraction slower than they should, the lamps flickering like they’ve forgotten which century they belong to.

When I open my door, the air inside isn’t mine. No, I know someone’s been here. It smells faintly of roses and ink.

My desk is untouched. My cello case is closed. But on my bed, neatly centred like a gift left by an obsessive admirer, is a book.

Black cover. Frayed spine. A single title embossed in silver: “The Anatomy of a Hyde”. Author: Wednesday Addams.

My breath doesn’t quicken. It narrows.

I cross the room slowly, every step deliberate. The leather is worn, familiar under my fingers. Too familiar. I know this book. I wrote it. Or will. In the future that shouldn’t exist anymore.

The first page bears my handwriting, my exact script. Each letter is sharp enough to bleed through the paper. I flip through diagrams, notes, field sketches of transformations, and even the final entry. “Tyler Galpin: Subject 001. Catalyst: Laurel Gates.”

My stomach doesn’t turn. It calcifies. This shouldn’t be here. Not yet.

I wrote this book in the other timeline. I studied every page. But it shouldn’t exist here. Yet here it is, untouched, waiting.

A slip of paper falls out between the pages. One sentence, scrawled in the same ink I use now:
“You can’t outwrite fate.”

I stare at it, the words curling like smoke on the page. My reflection stares back from the window, faint and distorted. For a heartbeat, the reflection moves a second later than I do.

“Lovely,” I whisper. “Temporal plagiarism.”

I sit on the edge of the bed, book in hand. The rain outside has stopped.

If the book survived the loop, it means something else did too.

The watch on my wrist ticks once. Steady, forward this time.

I close the book gently, as if it might bite. “Fine,” I tell it. “Let’s see what I’m destined to ruin next.”

…

I visit Tyler the next morning because pretending I don’t care has become exhausting.
He’s awake this time. He’s sitting up, half-dressed, hair a ruin of restless nights. There’s a bandage at his collarbone, a bruise at his throat, and that familiar confusion in his eyes. The kind that makes me wish emotions were as easy to cauterise as wounds.

“You look better,” I say, closing the door behind me. “Death’s jealous.”

He gives a humourless laugh. “You always know how to make an entrance.”

“I’ve been told I should arrive with thunder. It feels redundant.”

He watches me for a long moment, as if waiting for me to say something that matters. When I don’t, he breaks first.
“Last night…” He stops, frowning. “What happened to me?”

I study him. The human pulse beneath his skin. The subtle tremor in his hands, still stained faintly with antiseptic and memory.
“You saved me,” I answer. “At a cost.”

He swallows hard. “I don’t remember… what I did. But I saw the looks. Like I wasn’t me.”

“You weren’t,” I say. “Not entirely.”

He tenses. “Then what was I?”

For a long moment, the silence stretches between us. I move closer, lowering my voice. “Something called a Hyde.”

He blinks. “A what?”

“An involuntary metamorphosis of repressed emotion and chemical persuasion,” I explain. “A creature born from grief, obedience, and the misfortune of good intentions.”

“You’re talking about a monster,” he says quietly.

“Yes.”

“And you’re saying that’s… me.”

I meet his eyes. “It’s inside you. A parasite with sentimentality issues.”

He laughs once. It’s short, hollow “That’s insane.”

“Insanity’s just the word mortals use when reality stops taking bribes.”

He shakes his head, breath stuttering. “How do you know all this?”

I hesitate. My throat tightens. It’s a rare betrayal. “Because I’ve seen it before.”

“Seen it?” he echoes. “You talk like you’ve studied it.”

“I have.”

His voice breaks through the disbelief. “On who?”

The air feels too small suddenly. The edges of the room closing in. There’s an answer lodged behind my teeth. The one that would shatter what little remains unbroken between us.

“On someone I…” The door slams open before I can finish my sentence. Sheriff Galpin stands in the frame, dripping rain onto the sterile floor. His coat is half unbuttoned, his face carved into grief that hasn’t decided what shape to take yet.
“Addams,” he says, voice too calm to be harmless. “Step away from my son.”

Tyler looks between us, alarm flaring. “Dad, what’s going on?”

Galpin’s eyes don’t leave me. “Now, Wednesday.”

I don’t move. “If you’re here to discuss parenting, you’re twelve years late.”

He storms closer, slamming a folder onto the foot of the bed. The sound slices the silence clean in two. Inside are photographs. The paper is wet from rain.

The first one is of a woman’s wrist. There’s a tag still looped through the tendons. The second: a rusted door marked Widow’s Wing. The third: a Polaroid of Francoise Galpin holding her son.

Tyler goes still. Completely still. His voice is a whisper that doesn’t know how to exist. “You… found her?”

Galpin’s jaw trembles before he forces the word out. “We did.”

“Alive?”

The pause hurts more than the answer. Galpin shakes his head. “We found what was left. And it wasn’t much.”

Tyler presses a hand to his mouth. The sound he makes isn’t human. It’s the sound of belief cracking in half.

I want to speak. To offer something sharp enough to be mistaken for comfort, but Galpin cuts me off.

“You knew,” he says, low and venomous. “You told me to check Willowhill. You knew we’d find her there.”

“Yes.”

His eyes narrow, red at the edges. “You knew, and you said nothing.”

“I said enough.”

He steps closer until the scent of rain and rot fills the air between us. “You’ve been interfering in my investigation, sneaking into places you had no right to, feeding me riddles while my wife rotted under my nose.”

“Everyone needs a hobby,” I reply, though my voice feels too tight to be convincing.

He slams his hand against the wall beside me. “Don’t play with me, Addams! You’re under arrest.”

Tyler jerks upright. “What?”

Galpin doesn’t look at him. “Accessory to concealment of evidence, obstruction, and God knows what else.”

I tilt my head. “You’ve run out of imagination, Sheriff. I expected necromancy at least.”

“This isn’t a joke!”

“I’m aware,” I say calmly. “Your wife’s grave rarely qualifies as one.”

He grabs my arm roughly, pulling a pair of cuffs from his belt. “You’re coming with me.”

Tyler’s voice cracks. “Dad, stop… She’s not… she didn’t…’’

“Don’t,” Galpin snaps. “You don’t know what she’s done.”

“I don’t know what you’ve done!” Tyler shouts back, standing now, trembling. “You lied to me about Mom! You said she disappeared. You never said…”

“She was sick,” Galpin says, voice breaking. “I was trying to protect you.”

“Protect me from what?”

“From yourself,” the Sheriff finally says. The silence that follows isn’t silence. It’s a cliff edge.

Tyler stares at him, disbelieving. “What do you mean by that?”

Galpin hesitates. Which is the worst mistake of all. “I mean,” he says softly, “they did something to her. To you. And she…” He jerks his chin at me. “She knew.”

Tyler turns to me, eyes wide, wounded. “You knew about my mom? About… me?”

I don’t look away. “Yes.”

“Since when?”

“Long enough to know you’d hate me for it.”

He steps back like I’ve struck him. “Why? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because truth is a contagion,” I whisper. “And you were already infected.”

The cuffs click cold around my wrists. Metal bites, familiar and grounding.

Galpin’s voice is steady now. It’s the steadiness of someone drowning slowly. “Wednesday Addams, you’re under arrest.”

I smile faintly. “Good. I was beginning to miss the ambience.”

He pulls me toward the door. Behind me, Tyler’s breathing turns ragged. “Dad, wait…’’

But the Sheriff doesn’t. The door closes with a sound that feels like a heartbeat ending.

In the reflection on the glass, I see Tyler standing there, trembling, the light flickering gold in his eyes. He whispers something I can’t hear.

…

The cell smells like bleach and something I won’t name. Every surface here has been scrubbed raw as if guilt were a contagious substance the walls can’t quite disinfect.

Sheriff Galpin doesn’t speak at first. He’s too busy going through my things. The inventory is an inconvenience. My coat, my notebook, my pen and even the watch.
He holds it between his fingers for too long, watching the gears pulse faintly like a heartbeat trying to lie.

“Where’d you get this?” he asks.

“An antique shop,” I say. “Or destiny. They’re equally overpriced.”

He exhales sharply and tosses it into a tray. The watch ticks once. Backward. Then his hand stills.

He’s holding something else. Something I didn’t pack. A book. Black leather, frayed spine, silver title gleaming faintly under the interrogation light: The Anatomy of a Hyde. My book. The one that shouldn’t exist.

Galpin flips it open, scanning the pages with a frown. “Is this yours?”

“No,” I say automatically. Then, “Yes.” Then, “Not yet.”

He looks up. “What kind of answer is that?”

“The temporal kind.”

He doesn’t get it, but he never does. He closes the book with the sound of a door slamming shut on reason. “You know, Addams, people who talk in riddles usually have something to hide.”

“Or they’ve already hidden it,” I reply.

He shoves the book into the evidence bag, but before the zip seals, I see it. I see a slip of paper wedged between the last two pages, thin as breath.

My pulse narrows. “That wasn’t there before,” I murmur.

“What?”

“Nothing,” I say. “Just curiosity.”

When he turns away to file the paperwork, I reach through the bars, fingers brushing the edge of the bag. The page inside has shifted enough for me to read the line scrawled across it in my own handwriting.

It’s dated tomorrow. Day 421: He remembers everything.

The words blur, bleed. Another line begins to write itself beneath it, the ink forming letters even as I watch: He’s coming for me.

My breath catches not with fear, but recognition. Because I recognise the handwriting now.
It’s mine.

Galpin notices my silence. “What?” he demands.

I look up slowly, the corners of my mouth lifting in something that isn’t quite a smile. “You should probably check on your son.”

The lights flicker once before the entire station goes dark.

Somewhere beyond the bars, I hear a single sound. It’s a deep, guttural, and heartbreakingly familiar sound.

''You wanted the truth. Not it's clawing it's way through your son's skin.''

...

The world ends to the sound of metal and screaming. Not a grand, cinematic end. No, more like a slow, mechanical failure. Lights shatter. Radios die. And somewhere behind the locked doors of the Jericho police station, something large is remembering how to breathe.

The sirens outside have gone silent. The only pulse left is mine, unhurried but heavy. Like it’s bracing for déjà vu.

Sheriff Galpin slams the bolt on the evidence room door. His hands are shaking, though he pretends otherwise. “What the hell is that?” he shouts over the echoing growl that rolls through the walls.

“I’d say ‘your son,’ but you’ve never liked honest answers,” I reply.

The floor vibrates. It’s a low, animal tremor. Ceiling tiles rain dust. Something slams against the far wall, and the two-way mirror fractures into a web of silver lines.

“Addams…” Galpin starts, drawing his gun.

“It won’t help,” I say. “He’s not hunting you. Yet.”

The word yet lands between us like prophecy. The air tastes like static and copper. Somewhere, the Hyde’s ragged breathing turns into a snarl.

Then silence follows. The kind that feels sentient.

Galpin presses his back to the wall. “If you know what this thing wants, you better tell me.”

“He wants me,” I say softly. “He always does.”

Something slams against the interrogation room door. It bows inward. The hinges groan. The glass spiderwebs further, and for one perfect, horrifying second, I see an eye. It’s gold, feral, luminous, staring through the crack.

“Jesus Christ,” Galpin whispers.

“Incorrect deity,” I murmur. “This is far older.”

The door explodes inward. The Hyde crawls through. Its claws drag across the floor, leaving black gouges. Its eyes flash molten gold before landing on me.

I remember everything. The same sound. The same breath. The same moment years ago, when I stood in the woods with a blade in my hand and a boy who wasn’t a boy anymore lunging toward me. Different time. Same ending waiting to happen.

“Tyler,” Galpin chokes, stepping forward. “Son, listen to me…”

The creature tilts its head. For a heartbeat, there’s recognition. Then hunger.

“Don’t,” I say sharply. “He doesn’t know you anymore.”

Galpin aims the gun. The shot cracks like lightning. It hits the wall. The Hyde turns, furious, and moves fast.

Galpin fires again, but the gun jams. I see it before he does. I see the creature leap and I move.

The sound it makes isn’t human. It’s the sound of every wrong choice coming home.
I hit the ground hard, my shoulder screaming, but the Hyde’s claws miss Galpin by inches. They hit me instead, slicing through fabric and skin.

The sheriff’s voice is distant, panicked. “Addams!”

The Hyde looms over me, its breath hot and sour. I see the curve of its claws, the twitch of its jaw  and the boy still buried somewhere beneath it. The boy who once saved me. The boy I killed in another life.

“Stop,” I whisper. “You don’t have to do this.”

It hesitates. Just long enough for Galpin to grab a metal rod and swing. It connects with a sickening crack. The Hyde turns on him, rage exploding like thunder.

In that instant, I know the choice. If I let him attack, Galpin dies. If I stop him, I kill Tyler, again.

Some curses are too efficient to avoid. I grab the gun from the floor. The world narrows to the barrel, the creature, the trembling man behind it. My heartbeat counts the distance.

The Hyde moves like memory: sudden, familiar, inevitable. Glass explodes from the window; the siren outside warps into a single, endless note. Sheriff Galpin fires, misses. The creature turns toward him. His gold eyes alive with someone else’s hunger.

“Tyler!” he shouts, voice cracking into the kind of plea that belongs in prayers, not police reports.

He doesn’t understand that prayers don’t reach monsters. Especially the ones you raised.

The Hyde’s claws flex. The air trembles. I already know how this ends. I’ve seen it. Felt it. Bled through it. I step between them.

Galpin snarls, “Get out of the way!”
“No,” I say. “That’s not how this story ends.”

The creature lunges. I don’t move. I only decide.

The gun feels heavier than it should. It’s full of the kind of choice you can’t aim. My pulse stays even; my thoughts are clean, precise. There’s only one constant left to test.

If I kill him, the loop continues. If I die, maybe it breaks. Time, like science, only respects sacrifice.

“Wednesday…don’t…” Galpin’s voice fractures on my name.

I look at him once. The man who still doesn’t see that this isn’t about saving anyone.

Then I turn the barrel. Toward myself.

The Hyde hesitates, confused. Like an animal reading the language of suicide.

“Some things can’t be stopped,” I tell them both. “But they can be rewritten.”

And I pull the trigger. The shot is thunder in miniature. The impact folds the world inward. Light cracks, bends, implodes.

I fall, slow and silent, the air thick with smoke and disbelief. Galpin’s voice reaches me as if through water. “No…no…what did you…”

The watch on my wrist begins to hum. Low at first, then rising followed by a frequency that feels like memory itself rewinding. Its gears spin backward; the second hand shatters and reforms.

Blood blooms across my shirt like a clock face. The edges of the room begin to dissolve. The filing cabinets melting into shadow, light fixtures bending into spirals.

Galpin kneels beside me, shouting, shaking my shoulders. “Addams! Stay with me!”
I almost laugh. “I’m not going anywhere,” I whisper. “Just… else-where.”

The Hyde howls. It’s a sound made of grief and recognition. The lights strobe once, twice before the world blinks out.

Chapter Text

Wednesday’s POV

Waking up feels offensive. Consciousness was never something I craved, and yet here it is, breathing down my neck like an unwelcome guest.

The first thing I notice is the absence of pain. There’s no blood, no bullet wound, no satisfying evidence that I’ve died properly this time. My dress is intact, my pulse uncooperative. I appear to have survived, which feels like a clerical error on Death’s part.

The second thing I notice is that nothing in this room belongs to the same century I remember.

My study is both familiar and foreign. The walls are lined with my own face, younger and less jaded, glaring from the covers of The Anatomy of a Hyde in six languages. A French edition stands beside a Japanese translation. The German copy looks particularly beautiful; I respect it. Awards glitter on the mantelpiece, small metal apologies for things I no longer recall achieving.

A framed article sits on the desk: WEDNESDAY ADDAMS—THE VOICE OF THE GOTHIC AGE.
The journalist’s attempt at praise makes me itch.

The air smells of old paper, candle wax, and roses. The smell is what I detest the most.

I stand slowly. My reflection in the window is not the one I remember. My face has thinned; the angles have sharpened. A faint streak of silver threads through the black in my hair, a quiet rebellion of pigment. My hands look the same, though. They look steady, pale, and cruelly alive.

On the corner of the desk lies my watch. The glass is cracked, but the gears still move. For a moment, the second hand spins backward, then forward again.

My eyes drift to a calendar pinned above the typewriter. The year printed there is 2045.
Twenty-two years too late for my own funeral. Twenty years since Tyler’s.

The realisation doesn’t hurt. It just settles inside me like dust that refuses to move.

The typewriter hums softly, a machine’s version of breathing. Sheets of half-finished pages rest beside it, some written in my handwriting, some not. On the top page, in ink slightly darker than mine, a note reads: “Don’t look back. You already did.”

I glance at the mirror above the fireplace. It returns my gaze too quickly.

There are no cracks, no smoke, no blood. Just the faint reflection of a woman who looks like me, standing exactly where I stand, only slightly out of sync. Like a film frame caught between moments.

“Fascinating,” I whisper. “Time has the manners of a vandal.”

…

Exploring one’s own house shouldn’t feel like trespassing. And yet, every step echoes like an intrusion.

The hallway is a museum of unfamiliar victories. A photograph of me shaking hands with a man who looks suspiciously like the President. Another of me standing beside a museum exhibit labelled THE ADDAMS ARCHIVE — A RETROSPECTIVE OF DARK GENIUS. I’ve always loathed flattery. Apparently, success has no respect for taste.

There’s a violin resting on a stand by the window. I don’t play the violin. Or rather, I didn’t.
Its strings are still warm, as if someone was playing moments before I arrived.

In the kitchen, I find a row of teacups I don’t own and an invitation addressed to Dr Wednesday Addams, Guest of Honour, Nevermore Foundation Gala — Celebrating Twenty Years of Reform.
The word 'foundation' offends me. It implies stability.

On the refrigerator hangs a note in my own handwriting: Remember to call Ajax.
The penmanship is flawless, but the sentiment is absurd. I never write reminders for things I’d rather forget.

In the sitting room, I find a shelf of photographs I didn’t pose for. In one, Enid has her arm slung around my shoulder, her smile weaponised as always. In another, Xavier stands behind us, older, smudged with paint and patience. And there, on the corner of the frame, is Tyler. His smile is wrong. It’s too alive.

I stare at the photograph longer than I should. The glass over it ripples faintly, as if disturbed by breath that isn’t mine.

“Delightful,” I murmur. “Either I’m haunted, or nostalgia has grown hands.”

The mirror over the mantel catches my attention again. It’s the same as the one in my study. It’s the same ornate frame, but when I pass it, I don’t appear immediately. For a fraction of a second, the reflection hesitates, then catches up.

I stop. So does she, my other self, delayed by one heartbeat.

“Lateness doesn’t suit me,” I tell her.

Her lips move too, but they don’t form the same words. The silence between us thickens.
Then, faintly, her version of the room flickers. Her fire burns lower, her light colder. I blink, and it’s gone. The reflection behaves again, mocking my composure perfectly.

I step back. “I’ve been replaced by an obedient version of myself. How tragic.”

…

Suddenly I’m interrupted by a knock at the door. It’s too polite to be a threat and too hesitant for someone who would visit me regularly.

I consider ignoring it. People who knock rarely bring good news. They bring conversation.

But the knocking continues, softer this time, almost patient. I sigh before opening the door.

The man standing on the other side wears a raincoat that’s losing its argument with the weather. His hair is greyer, his eyes the same dull blue that once belonged to the boy who used to hide my guillotines out of sibling concern.

“Pugsley.”

He grins awkwardly, familiarly. “Hey, sis.”

It’s strange, that word. Sis. It lands heavier than usual, as though dragged through time before it reached me.

“You’ve aged,” I observe.

“So have you,” he replies, stepping past me into the hallway. “Not that you’d notice.”

I close the door behind him. “You knock now. I remember a time when you preferred explosions.”

“Married life,” he says. “Teaches you restraint.”

“Pity.”

He laughs, though it comes out more tired than amused. He looks around the house with the reverence of a museum guest. “You really made something of yourself, huh? Books, lectures, all those weird awards. Mom brags about you all the time.”

“How revoltingly maternal of her.”

He chuckles. “You haven’t changed.”

“On the contrary,” I say. “I appear to have skipped an entire decade of personal development.”

He frowns at that, uncertain whether to treat it as a joke. “You okay, Wednesday?”

The question feels intrusive. “Define ‘okay’.”

“You sound… off. Like you’ve been writing too long again.”

“I’m perpetually off,” I say. “It’s the only state worth maintaining.”

He doesn’t push, which disappoints me slightly. Instead, he wanders toward the mantel, stopping in front of the same photograph I noticed earlier. It’s the one with Enid, Xavier, and Tyler.

He taps the frame. “Hard to believe that was twenty years ago.”

I join him, my eyes tracing the glass. “Twenty years ago,” I repeat. “Remind me, what exactly happened twenty years ago?”

He looks at me strangely. “You really don’t remember?”

“Humour me.”

His expression softens, and that’s worse than mockery. “Tyler’s death. You were there. You wrote about it.”

“Ah,” I murmur. “Yes.’’

He doesn’t hear the doubt in my tone, or maybe he pretends not to. “I still don’t get how you lived through all that. You always said the past doesn’t haunt you, but…”

“It doesn’t haunt me,” I interrupt. “It rewrites me.”

Pugsley blinks. “You’ve been spending too much time alone.”

“Impossible,” I say. “Solitude is cheaper than therapy.”

He hesitates, studying me the way one might study a locked door. “Anyway,” he says finally, “I just came to check in. Mom and Dad are visiting Europe. Morticia’s still painting cemeteries. Father’s trying to sell them.”

“Of course.”

He starts toward the door, pausing at the threshold. “You should come by sometime. The family misses you.”

“I’m sure they do. Grief tends to sharpen affection.”

He sighs. “Take care of yourself, Wednesday.”

“That’s precisely what I intend to avoid,” I reply.

He shakes his head, smiling faintly. “Same old you.” Then he leaves, the door closing softly behind him.

The silence that follows is different now. It smells like memory. I glance again at the photograph on the mantel.

“Same old me,” I whisper. “That’s what frightens me most.”

…

Night is kinder to me than daylight. It hides questions inside shadows, and shadows are easier to manage than answers.

I spend the evening surrounded by ghosts disguised as books. Every edition of The Anatomy of a Hyde stares back at me. The English, French, Italian, and Japanese are all translated by hands I’ve never shaken. I open them one by one, hoping the words might remember what I’ve forgotten. They don’t.

My own sentences read like strangers. The cadence is mine, but the precision isn’t. Someone has softened me in translation. Where I once wrote “Humanity is an experiment in futility,” the German edition now reads “Humanity is a study in resilience.” I feel personally insulted.

On my desk, a stack of correspondence waits. Letters from universities, publishers, and journalists. An invitation to a conference titled “Monsters and the Making of the Modern Mind”.
Apparently, I’ve become respectable. A fate worse than death.

I dig deeper. Newspaper clippings, interviews, the kind of praise that curdles on the page. Each one mentions the same event: “The Hyde Murders of Jericho — Solved by Young Wednesday Addams.”

Solved. As though that word ever applied to something that still wakes me at night.

I move on to the drawer I’d never dare call sentimental. Inside, I find more evidence of a life I didn’t live: A locket with Enid’s initials. A pressed hyacinth between the pages of an old notebook. And, beneath it all, a letter addressed in Thornhill’s handwriting.

My pulse doesn’t quicken, but it listens.

The envelope is dated five years ago. I slit it open with a letter opener shaped like a coffin nail. The paper inside is cream-coloured, the ink a faded brown. It’s written in a hand too elegant to be harmless.

‘’ My dearest Wednesday,
It’s strange to think of you as an adult now rather than a student. Time is a cruel but amusing playwright, don’t you think? I’ve enjoyed watching your work flourish. You’ve finally learnt to appreciate how monsters are made.
Do come visit the new Willowhill facility sometime. I believe it would fascinate you.
— M. Thornhill’’

I read it twice. Then a third time. The ink at the bottom of the page ripples faintly, as if damp. For a moment, I swear it smells like hyacinth and rot.

I whisper, “You should have stayed dead.”

The clock on my desk clicks over to midnight. Its second hand twitches, then reverses direction for a beat, like it’s reconsidering.

I close the letter, slip it back into the drawer, and reach for one of the books again. But not the translated ones.

I reach for the original, my copy. Except… it’s different. The binding’s been re-stitched. The title embossed deeper, the edges gilded in dull silver. I open it. The ink on the last page bleeds slightly, as if still drying.

Day 421: He never forgave me. I didn’t either.

It’s my handwriting. My ink. My confession. From a future I haven’t lived yet.

The room shifts. The walls seem to lean closer, listening.

“Excellent,” I murmur. “Now even time has started editing me.”

I close the book slowly. I look into the mirror. For an instant, my reflection doesn’t match.
She’s smiling. I am not.

…

Morning arrives quickly. It leaks into my study through the curtains, painting the floor with colour I have no use for.

I move through the motions of routine the way the dead reenact their lives. I move mechanically, politely, without conviction. I take my coffee black, but it’s tasteless.

I receive multiple letters. One is a letter from my publisher detailing another “record-breaking month”. Another is an invitation to a symposium titled “The Psychology of Darkness”. Apparently, I’ve become the patron saint of irony.

The world expects me to smile now. To lecture. To sign books and pose beside banners bearing my own face. Fame just doesn’t suit me.

I go through the list of engagements written in my planner, none of which I recall agreeing to. A luncheon. A podcast interview. A photo session for The Times.
I attend none of them. I simply walk through the house instead, tracing walls that don’t remember being built, touching objects that hold memories that aren’t mine.

Every clock ticks out of sync. Every mirror lags by half a heartbeat. The house feels like a body wearing someone else’s heartbeat.

I catch my reflection once in the hallway mirror. My hair is too neat and my posture too civilised. I see a woman I might have become if I’d allowed time to sand down my sharper edges. It’s revolting.

By noon, I’ve grown tired of pretending this life belongs to me. By dusk, I’ve accepted that it doesn’t.

When the sky begins to bruise, I leave the house. The gate squeals in greeting. The path beyond it is slick with rain and memory. I follow it without needing to think. The muscle memory of grief has never failed me.

The graveyard sits on the hill, exactly where it should be. The iron gates are heavier than I remember. The air smells of rust and resignation.

Graves line the path. Moss eats away at names, roots split marble, and angels erode into expressions of quiet disgust.

I find his stone easily. I always do. TYLER GALPIN.

An epitaph written by guilt, not love. The earth around the grave is uneven, the grass growing darker here, stubborn and wild. Someone’s been tending to it, though the fresh flowers – daisies, of all things – wilt in a vase. Innocence pretending to survive decay.

I kneel. The air smells faintly of rain and cold iron. My hand rests on the stone, the chill seeping into my skin like memory.

“You were supposed to stay alive,” I say softly. ‘’I hoped that sacrificing myself would have saved you. It was the only way the story made sense.”

The wind moves through the trees, stirring the crows from their perches. Their cries scatter above me, sharp and joyful. I’ve always admired creatures that mistake mourning for celebration.

“I don’t belong here,” I continue. “Not in this version of things. Not in this house, not in this life. Someone rewrote me without asking.”

The silence that follows is companionable.  I glance up at the clouds. They’re low. The first drops of rain begin to fall, thin lines of silver cutting through the air. Rain suits this place. It blurs everything evenly.

“I should feel relieved,” I murmur. “I’m 10 years older, successful, alive. Yet somehow it all feels… diluted. Like grief that’s been filtered through glass.”

A crow lands on the headstone beside me. Its eyes are glossy and intelligent. It tilts its head, studying me.

“Don’t look at me like that,” I tell it. “Even I don’t know what comes next.”

It caws once. It’s sharp and decisive before it takes flight, black wings carving the grey sky open.

When it’s gone, I look back down at the grave. The rain runs over the carved letters, darkening them until they gleam. For a moment, I almost imagine the stone breathing.

Somewhere in the distance, thunder rolls.

“Twenty years,” I whisper. “And you’re still haunting the weather.”

I rise, brushing the damp from my gloves. The world feels heavier, the air thicker, like the sky itself is eavesdropping.

Before I turn away, I let my fingers rest against the stone one last time. “If this is peace, you can keep it,” I say. “I prefer the chaos we had.”

Then I walk back down the path, my shadow stretching behind me.

…

Time is supposed to dull things. It’s supposed to dull wounds, memories and inconvenient emotions. But apparently, time also dulls reality.

It’s been three weeks since I woke up in this… improved version of my life. Improved, of course, by capitalist standards.

My publisher sends flowers every few days. Like wilting apologies disguised as congratulations.
My face appears on magazine covers, most of which I didn’t pose for. They call me the prodigy who redefined darkness. They’re wrong. I didn’t redefine it. I simply refused to romanticise it.

The house I allegedly own sits on a hill overlooking a town that feels too quiet to trust. Every room smells faintly of polish and absence.
There’s a study with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. It’s alphabetised, organised and very sterile. My handwriting decorates the spines of novels I don’t remember writing.

I’ve tried to behave appropriately. I host interviews. I sign my name until it stops looking like a name. I say all the right things about success and the creative process, and I do it with the same enthusiasm most people reserve for dental surgery.

People call this happiness. I call it embalming.

At night, when the house stops pretending to be alive, I sit in my study and watch the rain crawl down the glass. The clock ticks too loudly. The world feels edited. Some details don’t match. A scar that isn’t mine, a book dedication to a person who doesn’t exist, a photo of me at a university I never attended.

None of it matters as much as the letter. It arrived days after I woke up. It slipped under the door.

Cream paper. Black ink. The scent of roses and soil. From the desk of Dr Laurel Thornhill-Gates.

“Dearest Wednesday,
I’ve read your book. It’s fascinating how truth always flowers from obsession.
I would be delighted to have you visit the Willowhill Institute.
You’ve inspired so much of our recent work.
Yours in perpetual curiosity,
L.G.”

Her handwriting is identical. I burnt the first letter. It came back the next morning. Somehow unburned, unwrinkled, resting neatly on my desk as if it had been waiting.

I ignored it for days. I filled my time with obligations I didn’t remember agreeing to.
Award ceremonies. Press interviews. Smiles. Flashbulbs. The dull choreography of success.

But the letter didn’t stop existing. It lingered, like perfume that refuses to fade.
Some nights, I swear I can hear her voice between the tick of the clock and the hum of the walls.

So tonight, I stop waiting. I place the letter into my coat pocket, alongside a black fountain pen and a silver pocketknife. If Thornhill wants to unearth the past, I’ll bring a shovel.

The cat. Hecate, apparently mine, watches from the piano as I fasten my coat.
“Guard the house,” I tell her. “Kill anyone who knocks.”

She blinks once. Perhaps in approval.

The rain starts as I step outside. It’s cold, heavy, insistent. The kind that doesn’t cleanse, only reveals. The world smells of wet pavement and soil.

As I walk down the path, I glance once at the horizon. Somewhere beyond the hills, the Willowhill Institute waits. It’s the last place I ever wanted to see again, and the only one that still feels real.

If Thornhill thinks I’ll come quietly, she’s forgotten who wrote the book on monsters.

…

The gates of Willowhill rise out of the fog. They’ve been painted white recently. It’s an admirable attempt at civility, but the rust still blooms beneath the surface.

The sign out front reads: WILLOWHILL INSTITUTE — A SANCTUARY FOR RESTORATION.
I’ve always found that institutions which advertise sanctuary usually specialise in containment.

The road leading up to the building is too clean, bordered by trees trimmed into obedient shapes. Even the birds are quiet, as if they’ve signed nondisclosure agreements.

When I reach the main entrance, the smell hits me first. It’s a mixture of antiseptic and cleaning products.

The first thing I notice when I walk in is how the lobby gleams. I notice the pristine marble floors and the white walls that look too clean. Someone has placed orchids on the reception counter.

The receptionist looks up as I approach. She’s young and polished, her smile trained to reach the appropriate depth without sincerity. “Good morning,” she says. “Do you have an appointment?”

“Dr Wednesday Addams,” I reply. “I believe the director is expecting me.”

Her hands are still for a fraction of a second. It’s the kind of hesitation that smells like recognition. “Of course,” she says quickly, tapping at her keyboard. “Dr Thornhill did mention you’d be coming.”

“I’m sure she did,” I murmur.

The woman stands, motioning to the hallway beyond the security doors. “Right this way. I’ll have someone escort you to the director’s office.”

Her politeness is sharp and extremely fake. The tone of someone who’s been told never to ask questions, especially about certain guests.

A guard joins us. He’s tall and silent, with eyes that have learnt not to see. We walk down a long corridor lined with glass-panelled rooms. The floors are polished to a mirror sheen; my reflection follows like a ghost that knows its place.

The air grows colder with each step. Machines hum behind walls. Somewhere distant, I hear a clock that ticks too slowly.

Through the glass, I see the patients. Some sit motionless in chairs, their eyes as blank as the walls. Others lie in beds, faces turned toward ceilings they’ll never escape. Their wrists are clean, their expressions neutral, and it’s all far too tidy to be humane.

One of them hums softly. It’s a lullaby. Off-key, repetitive. The kind of melody that mothers sing in nightmares. It’s familiar, like something I once heard through the walls of a childhood too strange for comfort.

I pause. The guard notices but says nothing. I tilt my head slightly toward the sound.

“Do they ever stop humming?” I ask.

He hesitates. “They… calm down when Dr Thornhill visits.”

“Of course they do,” I say. “Everyone calms down when the gardener prunes.”

He doesn’t answer. They never do.

As we turn another corner, the air changes. It’s a faint perfume of roses, undercut with formaldehyde. The scent is awful.

I know before the guard speaks. “The director’s office,” he says, gesturing to the glass doors at the end of the corridor.

Sunlight spills through the frosted panes, too bright, too perfect. The brass nameplate gleams:
Dr Laurel Thornhill-Gates — Director.

I straighten my coat, my expression as calm as the dead usually are. Inside that office waits a woman who once tried to kill me.

The guard opens the door.

…

The office is a cathedral of artificial grace. Sunlight bleeds through gauzy curtains, turning everything soft. The air smells of orchids.

Fresh flowers line the windowsill. White lilies, of course. The floral equivalent of apology.
Family photographs rest on the desk. I see smiling children, a husband, and a golden retriever. They’re all so perfectly framed that it’s almost insulting. None of them belong to her. I can tell by the way the dust refuses to settle on them.

Thornhill stands behind her desk when I enter. Her hair is shorter now, her smile not. The years have treated her well, or maybe she’s been feeding on them.

“Wednesday,” she says, voice warm. “You look… alive.”

“I expected ghosts,” I reply, stepping closer, “not gardeners.”

Her smile widens slightly, her eyes catching the light just enough to gleam.
“We bloom where we’re replanted,” she says. “Isn’t that what your book taught us?”

“Your memory is selective,” I murmur. “How convenient.”

She gestures toward the chair opposite her desk. “Please. Sit. I promise I’ve retired from homicide.”

I don’t move immediately. I prefer to make civility feel like a concession. When I finally sit, it’s with the posture of someone preparing to dissect rather than converse.

Thornhill pours tea. It’s jasmine, judging by the scent. The steam curls in the air.

“You’ve built quite the reputation,” she says, sliding a cup toward me. “A bestselling author. A scholar. A modern authority on monstrosity.”

“I write about what I know,” I say. “Experience is the only credential worth earning.”

Her eyes flicker with amusement. “Oh, I agree. Experience transforms us. Some of us even survive it.”

The teacup is porcelain. I don’t drink.” You seem well-adjusted for a woman who once buried herself under an alias.”

“Reinvention is a form of therapy,” she replies smoothly. “We all wear different masks, dear. You simply prefer yours literal.”

Her calmness is annoying me. She chooses every word carefully, every movement measured. It’s infuriating.

I lean forward slightly. “Why am I here, Thornhill?”

“You came to me,” she reminds me, her tone gentle. “I merely offered an invitation.”

“Invitations from you tend to end in trauma.”

She laughs softly, the sound like glass breaking politely. “Oh, Wednesday. You misunderstand me. I don’t create trauma. I redirect it. I help the broken find order.”

“By lobotomising them with kindness?”

“By giving them peace.”

“Peace,” I echo. “An interesting euphemism for sedation.”

Her smile remains fixed, unbothered. “We can’t all find purpose in pain. Some of us prefer tranquillity.”

“Tranquillity is just boredom that’s been drugged.”

“Stillness is what comes after survival,” she counters, voice low. “You should know that better than anyone.”

For a moment, silence stretches between us. She takes a sip of tea. I don’t blink or move.

Then casually, as if discussing the weather, she says, “We have one of your old classmates here.”

I don’t move, but the air does. Something shifts inside of me. “Pardon?”

Thornhill sets her cup down with grace. “She was admitted years ago. Severe emotional instability, lycanthropic regression, recurrent trauma delusions. Such a tragic case.”

Her tone is casual. I feel the stillness in my own hands before I realise I’ve stopped breathing. “Who?”

She smiles, slow and poisonous. “You’ll remember her, I’m sure. She was… so fond of you.”

My pulse remains even, but the world tilts. Just slightly, enough to feel wrong.

“Would you like to see her?” Thornhill asks softly, the smile widening, the question already knowing its answer.

…

The hallway feels too long. Every step echoes with the rhythm of something trying to remember it once had a pulse. Even the lights flicker in time.

Thornhill walks beside me, her heels whispering against the polished floor. The sound is steady, precise and even predatory. She hums softly. It’s a tune that sounds suspiciously like the lullaby I heard in the ward earlier.

It’s almost impressive, the way she’s managed to turn an asylum into a sanctuary of obedience. Every surface gleams. Every scent is antiseptic perfection. Even despair has been declawed.

We stop at the end of the corridor. A reinforced glass door waits for us, its edges sealed in brushed steel. Two simple letters gleam on the plate beside it. E.S.

“Familiar?” Thornhill asks, her voice sugarcoated with pity.

I don’t answer. I don’t blink. I simply stare through the glass.

Inside the room sits the ghost of someone I used to know. I see Enid. She’s pale, not in the delicate, ethereal way of porcelain, but in the colourless exhaustion of something that’s been left under fluorescent lights for too long.

Her once-bright hair hangs limp and washed out, bleached by time or medication or both. Her hands lie folded in her lap.
Her eyes are open, but they look elsewhere, beyond the walls, beyond the world.

I step closer to the glass. The air smells faintly of disinfectant and the kind of sadness that never needed words.

Her room is bare except for a bed bolted to the floor and a nightstand. The walls are covered in charcoal drawings. I see drawings of wolves with hollow eyes. The moon split in half. Clocks without hands. Each one rendered in obsessive, looping lines that dig deep into the paper, as if she’s trying to carve her way back into reality.

Thornhill watches me watch her. “She doesn’t talk much anymore,” she says softly, almost tenderly. “But she always wakes when someone mentions your name.”

I don’t look away from Enid. Her head moves slightly. Her fingers twitch. I see a tiny, broken pulse of recognition.

“How long?” I ask.

“10 years,” Thornhill answers. “Give or take. She was already deteriorating when they brought her in. I merely provided structure.”

“Structure”, I repeat, the word flat, obscene. “You mean captivity.”

Thornhill smiles, unbothered. “She needed boundaries. Without them, she…”
She gestures delicately to the walls. “…expresses herself in ways that are… difficult to manage.”

The hum of fluorescent lights thickens. For a moment, I swear I hear the faintest sound. Maybe a whisper, maybe a name pressing against the glass from the other side.

Enid’s lips move. But the sound doesn’t reach me, but I know what she’s trying to say.

I rest my hand against the cold glass. The surface vibrates faintly under my fingertips, as if her pulse still remembers the rhythm of mine.

“How poetic,” I whisper. “You destroyed the sun to study its ashes.”

Thornhill exhales a laugh. It’s light, cultured, and sincere only in its cruelty. “Oh, Wednesday. You make it sound so tragic. She’s not destroyed. She’s preserved. Like art.”

I turn my gaze toward her, finally meeting her eyes. “You mistake silence for peace,” I say. “That’s why everything you touch stops breathing.”

For the first time, the smile falters. Only for a heartbeat. It’s a flicker of annoyance beneath all that serenity.

“She was too bright for this world,” Thornhill murmurs, almost to herself. “I only dimmed her enough to survive it.”

My reflection stares back at me from the glass. It’s pale, motionless, and monstrous in its restraint.
Two ghosts divided by one pane of glass and a decade of cruelty.

“I should thank you,” I say at last. “You’ve reminded me why I prefer the company of the dead.”

I turn from the window. Looking at Thornhill for only a second.

…

Thornhill’s kindness is the kind that comes wrapped in chloroform. “I’ll give you a moment alone,” she says, voice honeyed, precise. “For closure.”

I tilt my head. “Closure is a euphemism for emotional taxidermy. You pin the thing, you preserve it, and then you pretend it’s still beautiful.”

Her smile doesn’t falter. It never does. “We can’t all be fond of open wounds, Wednesday.”

“No,” I say, “some of us prefer to keep them as pets.”

For a heartbeat, there’s something behind her eyes. It’s recognition, annoyance, maybe admiration. Then it’s gone. She adjusts her blouse, exhales through her nose, and gestures toward the reinforced glass door.

“I’ll leave you two to your memories,” she says. “You always liked those more than people anyway.”

She turns on her heel, her perfume lingering like a funeral bouquet. The door closes behind her with a hush of hydraulics.

A silence follows. I stand in it, letting the quiet stretch, expand, and suffocate. The air here has a weight. It’s too sterile to breathe, too dense to escape. It smells of antiseptic and resignation, a place where even time has been medicated.

Enid sits exactly where Thornhill left her. The light above her flickers faintly, as if afraid to draw attention. Her head is tilted slightly to the side, her posture too neat to be human. Dolls sit like that.

The glass between us gleams with an almost religious cleanliness. I see myself reflected in it: black eyes, black clothes, black everything. A stain on the immaculate. A reminder the world still produces inconvenient things.

I step closer. The sound of my boots on tile is sharp. It’s too loud in this curated silence. It echoes, ricochets, and comes back smaller and lonelier.

Through the glass, Enid’s eyes move. Just enough to remind me that once, they held colour. They used to look like sunrise bleeding into sugar; now they’re drained, all the gold gone to grey. Her hair hangs limp, the once-blinding pink washed into something that looks like ash pretending to be blonde.

She doesn’t look up at first. Maybe she doesn’t know she should. Maybe she was told not to.
And then she does.

The motion is slow, like she’s remembering how to move at all. Her gaze finds me not cleanly, but as if through fog. The pupils stutter before they focus. When they do, her lips part just slightly.

“…Wednesday?”

The sound of my name doesn’t echo. It drifts. Like she’s coughing up memory.

It’s strange, hearing my name like that. I’ve been called worse: murderer, witch, genius, and anomaly, all with conviction. But this? This sounds like someone whispering the name of a ghost they hope won’t answer.

“Yes,” I say softly. “Unfortunately.”

Her eyes blink twice. I think she smiles. Or tries to. Her mouth moves, slow and uncoordinated, as if speech itself is foreign currency she can no longer afford.

“You…” She stops. Breath trembles. “You left me… in the woods.”

The words fall like stones in water. Each one ripples through me.

For a moment, I don’t respond. Not because I can’t, but because language feels too primitive for guilt. “You’re confusing me with someone merciful,” I say finally. “I don’t leave people. I bury them.”

She flinches not in fear but recognition. The body always remembers tone before words.

Her fingers twitch in her lap, restless, like a marionette tugged by invisible strings.
’She said you’d come back.”

“Did she?” I murmur. “That woman always did have a flair for fiction.”

“She said… you’d finish it.”

“Finish what?”

Her eyes dart to the wall. I see the sketches of wolves, moons and clocks. They all have those compulsive, obsessive circles. Her gaze lands on the largest one, drawn directly beside her bed.
A garden. Roots tangled with skulls. Blossoms blooming from bones.

“She said”, Enid whispers, voice splintering, “the garden wasn’t done.”

My stomach twits. The garden. Of course. Thornhill’s little metaphor for control.
She’d always spoken of her victims as plants – “things that just need pruning to behave.”

Enid had always been her brightest flower. Her golden petal. Her obedient miracle.

I lean forward, my breath fogging the glass. “You’re not in her garden anymore,” I whisper. “You don’t have to grow for her.”

She blinks again, the motion mechanical, unsure. “She said… don’t listen to the dark one.”
Her tone shifts. She sounds higher and younger. “She said… you’d come for me… and I should scream.”

My throat closes before my face does. I steady it with effort, spine straight. “She says many things,” I murmur. “Most of them are wrong.”

Enid’s eyes flicker with something. Fear, maybe, or defiance trying to be born. Her hand twitches once, then again, before it lifts slightly from her lap.
The movement is trembling and uncertain. She’s reaching for me. Her fingers stop just short of the glass, frozen in that eternal almost. The distance feels surgical. Ten inches between skin.

I press my hand against the same spot. The surface is ice-cold, but beneath it, I swear I feel heat.

For the first time my pulse betrays me. It rises. The room tilts slightly, the way it does when the past and present get too close.

It feels like memory, except worse because this time, I can’t change it.

She whispers again. It’s just a sound at first. Not a word, not even sense, but it hits the glass like breath made visible. I realise too late what it is. It’s my name again. ’Wednesday…”

My mouth opens before I can stop it. “Stop,” I whisper. “You don’t owe me your voice.”

She doesn’t understand. Maybe she never did. She only stares. The look of someone who’s forgotten how to hope but still does it out of habit.

Something burns behind my eyes. It’s microscopic, chemical, and dangerous. By the time it spills, I barely feel it. It’s a tear. It’s small and quiet. Traitorous even. I hate it immediately.

I wipe it away with a precision that borders on violence. “Pathetic,” I mutter. “I can withstand torture, death, and time travel, but apparently not nostalgia.”

Her expression changes. The corners of her mouth twitch, like she almost remembers how to smile. It hurts more than I expected.

A shadow lengthens across the floor behind me. Perfume follows. A mixture of roses and rot, just like before.

“Touching,” Thornhill’s voice murmurs. “You always did bring out the poet in my patients.”

I don’t turn. My reflection in the dark glass darkens as she steps closer.
“She said your name again,” Thornhill continues. “Even after all these years. Isn’t that sweet?”

“Sweet things rot fastest,” I say. “You’d know.”

Thornhill smiles, her tone velvet-smooth. “She’s proof that some bonds transcend… conditioning.”

“She’s proof you never finish what you start,” I reply. “Even your monsters get bored of you.”

The silence that follows is brief, sharp, and almost satisfying. Then her smile returns, waxy and eternal. “Closure achieved?”

“Hardly,” I say, stepping back from the glass. “But you’ve given me something better.”

“Oh?” she asks, feigning curiosity.

“Motivation.” I start to walk away. But as I turn, the light above Enid’s bed flickers again. It’s a violent strobe that turns movement into snapshots.

One. Enid still seated. Two. Her reflection standing. Three. Both gone. When the light steadies, she’s there again, sitting motionless, as if nothing shifted at all.

Thornhill hums softly behind me. “Lights are temperamental here,” she says. “I should have maintenance check them.”

“Do,” I say without looking back. “You wouldn’t want your ghosts tripping over themselves.”

As we leave, I glance once more at the glass. My reflection looks back. But in the corner, written faintly in charcoal just below Enid’s window, I see a single word. Help. It’s small, imperfect, and smudged, but it’s there.

For the first time in years, I feel the luxury of rage. The kind of anger that doesn’t burn the world down. No, it remakes it.

‘’I saved the wrong timeline,’’ I whisper to myself before walking out of Willowhill.

…

When I return home, the air feels different. Not lighter, just emptier. Like something’s been scraped clean.

The door clicks shut behind me with an elegance I don’t trust. Silence stretches through the house, long and slow, the kind of silence that makes everyone hold their breath.
The grandfather clock in the corner ticks too loudly. Each second invading my mind.

I don’t bother turning on the lights. I’ve never liked seeing things too clearly; truth prefers the dark anyway. I hang my coat, slip off my gloves, and stand still in the foyer.

Everything looks exactly as I left it. That’s what worries me. The study still smells faintly of old paper, candle wax, and whatever brand of dust despair prefers.

My desk is covered in notes. Theories about the watch, time fractures, and paradox loops. Every page is a map of madness disguised as logic.

The book I wrote, The Anatomy of a Hyde, lies open on the table. The same sentence glares up at me from the dedication page: For those who weren’t saved but still mattered.

The letters seem darker than before, as if the ink has aged faster than the paper. I close it carefully.

Tyler’s grave still exists. Enid breathes but doesn’t live. Thornhill thrives. She’s free, fragrant, and festering in her empire of sanity. If irony were a substance, I could drown in it.

I pour myself a cup of black tea and drink it cold. The flavour is sharp and metallic. I wonder if it’s the cup or me that tastes like blood.

For hours, I sit by the fire and catalogue consequences. Every timeline leaves debris, and I’ve become something of a collector.

When exhaustion finally insists, I retreat upstairs. The house groans with its usual melancholy, floorboards sighing under memories that don’t belong to this version of me.

I pause at my bedroom door, fingers brushing the knob. It’s cold. Colder than the rest of the room.

That should have been enough warning. Inside, the moonlight leaks through the curtains, painting everything in shades of silver decay. My bed is made. The sheets are too tight, too perfect. The air smells faintly of lavender. I don’t own anything that smells like lavender.

I stand still, listening. Nothing. Except… something. A hum, barely audible. Mechanical, persistent, familiar.

It’s the watch. It’s on the nightstand, but I don’t remember putting it there. Its hands spin backward, slow but deliberate, ticking in reverse time.

I walk closer. My reflection in the glass face moves a fraction too late.

That’s when I hear it. It’s the softest whisper, right behind my ear. “Miss me?”

I turn sharply. Nothing. Just shadows. I inhale. The scent hits before the recognition does. It’s a mixture of roses, damp soil, and rot. Thornhill’s perfume.

Every muscle in my body goes still. My eyes sweep the corners, but nothing moves, yet the air feels occupied.

A creak behind me. One of the floorboards. I turn around slowly. My teacup shatters on the floor, and the sound detonates through the room like a gunshot.

I catch a glimpse. It’s not a full figure, just the hem of a dark coat vanishing through the doorway.

I chase barefoot. The hallway yawns open, moonlight fractured by the bannister.

At the top of the stairs, I stop. The front door hangs open. Wind howls through it, sharp and cold, scattering papers from the desk below.

When I listen, I hear laughter. A faint, familiar female voice.

I turn back toward my room. The watch sits where I left it. But its glass face is cracked now, and under the broken surface. Carved in neat, elegant letters I never wrote are two words: "Almost there."

The lights flicker once. Twice. Somewhere inside the house, the floorboards creak again as if someone else remembers the path better than I do.

…

Death, I’ve learnt, is not a door. It’s a hinge. It creaks, it folds, and if you’re unlucky, it opens the wrong way.

The world collapses quietly. Not with thunder or grace, but with the patient exhaustion of something that’s been dying for a very long time. The walls of my house fold inward like wet paper; the floor beneath me breathes once and exhales light. The ceiling dissolves into smoke that smells faintly of time and regret.

I don’t fall. I unravel. And then I hear it. It’s not the hum of the watch, not the whisper of inevitability, but a voice. It’s a scream, raw and unfiltered. My name, torn from someone who should no longer exist. “WEDNESDAY!”

It cuts through the void like a blade through silk. I almost laugh. Either I’ve finally achieved hallucination, or the universe is having another existential crisis.

When I open my eyes, I’m not in my house anymore. I’m in the police station.

The smell gives it away first. The mixture is gunpowder, smoke, copper, and antiseptic. The lights are too bright, the air too sharp. My head feels full of static. My body feels borrowed.

Then the pain arrives. Late, but punctual enough to make a point.

There’s blood everywhere, pooling, blooming, crawling toward the floor drain with such composure it could be performing. Mine, I assume. I’ve always preferred to make an entrance.

Someone’s voice breaks through the static. It’s low, panicked, and frantic in a way that doesn’t suit him.

“Wednesday! No… no, no, please…”

I turn my head slowly, and there he is. Tyler crouched beside me, his face painted in streaks of soot and blood, his hands pressing desperately against the hole in my chest like he could keep me from escaping again. His fingers tremble, his breathing catches, and his eyes – god, those eyes – flicker gold at the edges like a dying candle.

“Don’t move,” he says, voice cracking under its own weight. “You’re bleeding out. Just…just stay awake, okay? Stay with me.”

The absurdity of it almost makes me smile. “You’re very demanding for someone who just tried to kill me,” I whisper. My voice sounds thinner than I remember.

He chokes out a laugh that sounds like it’s fighting a sob. “Don’t…don’t do that… don’t joke…”

“Habit,” I say. “It’s either humour or hysteria. Guess which one I find more dignified.”

He presses harder, panic in every motion. “God, you’re freezing…”

“That’s not God,” I murmur. “That’s blood loss.”

His hands tremble against me, and I realise he’s shaking not from fear of monsters or curses, but because, for once, there’s nothing left to fight except time. He looks younger than I remember and older at the same time, as though both versions of him are trying to exist in the same body and failing beautifully.

“I thought you were gone,” he breathes.

“Not yet,” I manage. “I’m terribly inconsistent that way.”

He makes a sound I can’t categorise. It’s half a laugh, half a sob. His eyes meet mine again, and it hits me how much I hate and love the colour gold all at once.

“You’re insane,” he says softly.

“Frequently,” I answer. “But at least I’m consistent.”

The corners of his mouth twitch, breaking through the despair. “You always…you always have something to say, don’t you?”

“Someone has to narrate the tragedy,” I reply. “You’re not very articulate when bleeding.”

He lets out a shaky breath, pressing his forehead against mine, the contact almost gentle. His voice drops to a whisper, small and broken. “Don’t die on me, please.”

I study him, my vision beginning to blur at the edges. Like reality smearing into light. There’s so much sincerity in him that it’s almost grotesque.

“You’re crying,” I murmur. “It’s inefficient.”

“Shut up,” he whispers, a tear falling onto my cheek. “Just shut up.”

The air around us smells like iron and salt and something divine that’s been ruined by human hands.

 I can hear the sheriff shouting orders, radios crackling, and the chaos of men trying to quantify a miracle. None of it matters. There’s only him. Tyler Galpin, the boy who should have been dead, holding me like the universe owes him a refund.

“I told you not to follow me,” I whisper, words fading into each other.

“You shot yourself,” he says, voice breaking. “You…why would you…”

“To save you,” I say. “Someone had to bleed for the math to make sense.”

He shakes his head violently, his tears mixing with my blood. “That’s not… That’s not fixing anything.”

“Maybe not for you,” I whisper, “but for me, it’s progress.”

He lets out a ragged sound, half fury, half heartbreak. “God, you’re impossible.”

I smile faintly, the kind of smile that belongs to ghosts and women who’ve made peace with damnation. “That’s what makes me interesting.”

He leans closer, his voice trembling against my ear. “Please…just hold on. You can’t leave me again.”

“I’m not leaving,” I murmur. “I’m just…tired.’’

He lets out a strangled laugh that breaks halfway through, pulling me tighter like proximity could stop the bleeding.

“You always did have terrible timing,” I add, my voice barely audible now. “Couldn’t you have waited until I finished dying?”

“Stop it,” he whispers. “Please stop.”

But I don’t. I never do. Because even as the world blurs and the edges of time begin to flicker like a dying film reel, I can’t resist the poetry of contradiction.

My hand finds his cheek again, fingers leaving a crimson print against his skin. It’s proof that I was here, that he was real, that the timeline wasn’t cruel enough to erase him completely.

“You’re ridiculous,” I whisper. “You should’ve let me die properly.”

He exhales sharply, his forehead pressed against mine. “I can’t. I won’t.”

“Fine,” I breathe, my voice barely more than a sigh. “Then we’ll do it your way. I’ll haunt you instead.”

…

Hospitals have always smelt awful. The air is too cold, the lights too white, and the walls too smooth. It feels like someone tried to sand the humanity out of them. I open my eyes to that sterility and immediately wish I hadn’t.

A rhythmic beep cuts through the quiet, obnoxiously optimistic. My throat tastes like metal, and something sharp drags under my ribs when I breathe. I’m not surprised. Pain is the only reliable proof of consciousness.

There’s movement beside me. I hear the scrape of a chair, the whisper of someone standing too quickly. “Wednesday?”

I realise it’s Tyler standing next to me. He looks exhausted in that poetic way. There are dark circles under his eyes. I see a bandage on his arm. His posture is between guilt and collapse. He’s alive, which feels like a clerical error.

“You’re awake,” he says, relief cracking through his voice.

“Unfortunately,” I answer. My voice sounds like it’s been filed down. “Either I’ve survived, or hell has excellent interior design.”

He laughs. It’s the kind that isn’t laughter at all, just breathing that doesn’t know where to go. “You scared me.”

I glance around the room. I see sterile curtains, polished chrome, and machines pretending to care. “That seems to be my defining character trait.”

He sits again, closer this time, elbows on his knees. “You don’t remember?”

“Remember what?”

“After you… after you pulled the trigger.” His throat tightens on the words. “I changed back. I don’t remember doing it. I don’t remember attacking my dad, the station, or any of it. I just…when I saw you fall…” He stops, jaw locking. “You shouldn’t be alive. None of us should.”

“Optimism suits you poorly,” I say. “Don’t make it a habit.”

He exhales shakily, brushing a hand through his hair. “The doctors say you’ll be fine. You lost a lot of blood, but somehow…” He looks at me like he’s still trying to solve the equation of me existing. “…you shouldn’t be fine, but you are.”

I glance down at my hands. They’re pale and bandaged but still attached. “Death and I have an on-again, off-again relationship. We’ve agreed to take some space.”

That earns a faint smile, small but sincere. He reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls something out. It’s the watch. He holds it out carefully, like it might bite. “They found this near you. It was… humming. I thought you’d want it back.”

The second his fingers brush mine, the world fractures.

A sound follows. A low, mechanical heartbeat fills my skull. The air in the room thickens and bends. The light turns gold around the edges. And then I’m somewhere else.

I see my study. It’s older and dustier. I see books stacked like tombstones. Awards on the wall with my name engraved in gold I never earned. And beneath it all, a silence so deep it hums.

I see the house that felt wrong. The photos that didn’t belong. I see myself. Older, colder, unscarred, turning from a mirror I no longer recognise.

And behind her, behind me, the reflection moves a moment too late. Then Enid’s voice. Faint and broken. “You left me in the woods…”

Followed by Thornhill’s laughter. It’s soft, sweet, the sound of roots strangling through concrete.

Then a grave. His grave. Tyler’s. The stone cracked down the centre, as if time itself couldn’t bear the weight of his name.

And then the sound of the watch again, spinning backwards, the glass cracking open like an eye. The vision collapses in on itself. Colour devoured by white.

I gasp, the hospital crashing back around me. Machines beep faster. My pulse is everywhere.

Tyler’s hand is still holding the watch, eyes wide. “What…what just happened?”

I stare at him, the echo of the vision still burning behind my eyes. “A future,” I whisper. “Not mine. Not yet.”

He frowns. “You’re not making sense.”

“I rarely do to those still stuck in the present.”

He blinks, confused. “Wednesday… What did you see?”

I study him. He is alive, unbroken, still mercifully unaware of what he becomes. The words taste heavy in my mouth.

“I saw what happens if I fail,” I say finally. “And I don’t intend to repeat it.”

The watch hums once more, softer now, like a heartbeat settling. I slip it from his hand and place it on the table beside me.

He opens his mouth to ask another question, but I close my eyes. “Rest, Tyler. Tomorrow requires more tragedy than I can handle today.”

He hesitates, searching for something to say, then just nods and leans back in the chair, silent.

I listen to the rain tapping the window. Every drop sounds like a second running out.

Chapter Text

Wednesday’s POV

Waking up isn’t graceful. It feels like my mind yanks me back to awareness, rough and impatient, like a bored stagehand pulling up the curtain before the actors are ready. The first thing I notice is the sharp, sterile smell of a room that’s been scrubbed clean. Then comes the steady beeping of a heart monitor, announcing every beat like it’s trying to make my pulse sound poetic.

The light is harsh and pure white. It’s the kind that believes it’s holy washing the room flat so even the shadows look supervised. The plastic curtains rustle weakly when the heat turns on. My IV drips with quiet judgement down my arm, and somewhere under the bandages, my ribs ache politely. On the tray next to me sits my cracked watch, its second hand hesitating like it’s thinking of quitting. When light hits it, a thin silver line slides across the ceiling.

The door opens gently. Larissa Weems walks in, perfectly put together, dressed in grey. There’s a faint lavender scent around her. She closes the door with calm precision.

“Miss Addams,” she says, voice smooth enough to pour, “I’m relieved you’re awake.”

“Relief is an overreaction,” I reply. “I’m not that interesting unconscious.”

She lets my remark pass. The doctors say you were very lucky.”

“Luck is just causality with an alibi.”

Her gaze flicks to the monitor, then back to me; the blue in her eyes has been sharpened by sleep deprivation and institutional light. “Let’s not waste time with deflection. You discharged a firearm in a police station and turned it on yourself. I want to know why.”

“I was making a point.”

“Try again.”

I adjust a fraction on the pillow.  “Some equations only balance with blood.’’

“Whose blood?” she asks quietly.

“Mine was available.”

Weems exhales through her nose, the way people do when they’ve heard too many confessions and not enough truths. “Sheriff Galpin believes you were protecting him. Or his son. Or both. I’m less interested in chivalry and more in motive. Why, Wednesday?”

Because he lunged. Because I’ve killed him once. Because time was about to repeat itself and I refused to repeat it again. None of those fit to give her an answer.

“There are variables you don’t control,” I say. “I chose to remove the only one I owned.”

Her mouth tightens. “You are fourteen years old.”

“Biologically,” I concede. “Philosophically, I’m a graveyard.”

Silence stretches between us. Weems takes a half step nearer, enough for her shadow to touch the rail of my bed. “Listen to me,” she says, “I have buried students I couldn’t save and protected monsters I didn’t yet understand; I can handle the truth you are circling. What I will not tolerate is you dying out of stubbornness when the living still have claims on you.”

“The living are greedy,” I say. “They always want receipts.”

“Then tell me the truth.” She says while leaning in. “Did Tyler Galpin threaten your life?”

“No,” I answer, and the monitor answers with me, even. “He threatened my certainty.”

“About what?”

“About whether people survive what’s inside them.”

She studies me. You’re speaking in riddles again.”

“Riddles are for children; this is reality.” I let the sheet slip back to reveal the neat, clinical violence of the dressing; red has already tried to sign its name through the gauze. “You asked why. Fine: because the story wanted the same ending, and I declined to be predictable.”

A muscle jumps in her jaw. “And if your ending had been permanent?”

“It nearly was,” I say. “You’d have had something tasteful engraved. You’re good at tasteful.”

Weems straightens, the steel returning to her posture, the headmistress reassembling over the woman. “You’ll be observed for forty-eight hours. You will not leave this bed without clearance. You will not see the sheriff, or his son, or Miss Thornhill.”

I turn my gaze to the watch, which ticks backward one beat. “Miss Thornhill has a habit of appearing where prohibition prefers absence.”

“She is barred from the hospital,” Weems says. “And from you.”

“Bars are for cages,” I murmur. “She prefers gardens.”

I see Weems flinch for a second. Most people wouldn’t notice, but I do. ’What did she do?” Weems asks, Too fast?.

“Exists,” I say. “With intent.”

“Wednesday.”

“Ask her.”

She looks like she wants to force the truth out of me, which I respect. Instead she softens, which I do not. “I need you to trust me.”

“Trust is a solvent,” I say. “It makes structures fail.”

“Then compromise,” she says. “Tell me one true thing.”

I look at the ceiling for a second before looking back at Weems. “Tyler saved my life,” I say, finally.

Her brows lift. “The sheriff’s report suggests…”

“I didn’t say he meant to,” I cut in. “I said he did.”

Weems nods once. “And you…shot yourself…to keep him from…becoming something irreversible.”

“My motives are more selfish than that,” I say. “I refused to be his ruin twice.”

I see that my answer surprises her. She sits down in the chair next to my bed.  For a long moment neither of us speaks.

Weems suddenly interrupts the silence. ’If you won’t tell me the whole truth, at least let me build you a smaller lie to live inside until you’re ready.”

“How generous,” I say. “A dollhouse for the damned.”

“Your alternatives are worse.”

“Always,” I agree.

A knock interrupts our conversation. Weems rises, and before she opens the door, she looks back. “I will keep her away from you.”

I don’t ask which ‘her’ she means.

The door swings, and Sheriff Galpin’s profile cuts the light. His coat is wet. His eyes are sleepless. He’s a specific wreckage of a father who watched the world peel his son and isn’t certain what’s left. He stops when he sees me. He’s like a man meeting a cliff he didn’t expect.

“We’ll speak later,” Weems tells him.

He swallows. “I need five minutes.”

“You can have two,” she answers, then to me, “Don’t be clever.”

“Impossible,” I say.

She gives me a look that’s supposed to reassure me. Before she steps into the hall with him.

…

The door clicks shut behind Weems. The silence that follows feels heavy. Sheriff Galpin stands just inside the doorway, drenched in rain and wearing the kind of fatigue that never dries. His badge catches the light. It looks dulled and scratched. He doesn’t sit. No, instead he looks at me with a horrified and confused look.

“Wednesday,” he says, sounding serious.

“Sheriff.” I incline my head slightly. “You look unwell. Guilt doesn’t suit your complexion.”

He exhales, shaking his head. “You don’t waste time, do you?”

“Time and I are no longer on speaking terms.”

He takes a few steps closer, the floor creaking under his boots. The smell of wet wool and gun oil drifts with him. He looks at the IV in my arm, the monitor that tattles on my pulse, and the bruises blooming like logic on my throat.

“You’re lucky to be alive,” he says.

“Everyone keeps telling me that,” I reply. “I’m starting to suspect survival is a popularity contest I never entered.”

He sighs while pinching the bridge of his nose. “You shot yourself in my station. You know what that means for me? For him?”

“Him,” I repeat softly. “You mean your son. The one who turned into a myth and tried to end me?”

The words hang there. He flinches at my words.

“He’s not a monster,” he says, too fast. “He’s…he was overwhelmed...”

“I didn’t say he was,” I murmur. “But choice is an illusion reserved for the uninteresting.”

“Stop talking like that!” The edge in his voice fractures on itself. He drags a hand through his hair, pacing once before turning back to me. “You don’t get to do this – talk about him like he’s some… experiment. He was a kid. He is my kid.”

“And I was the collateral.”

He goes still. His throat works once before he manages, “You think I don’t know that?”

“I think you prefer not to.”

He steps closer, eyes narrowing. “You could’ve killed him. Instead, you…” His voice falters, disbelief tangled with anger. “You turned the gun on yourself. Why? To prove a point? To punish me?”

“If I wanted to punish you,” I say evenly, “you’d know.”

“Then what the hell was it?”

I meet his gaze. My eyes are steady, unblinking. “Mercy.”

The word lands between us. He stares at me for a long moment, his jaw tightening, trying to decide whether to argue or understand. He settles for neither. “You almost died. For him.”

“I did die,” I say. “Just not efficiently enough.”

He lets out a low, bitter laugh that dies before it reaches the air. “You sound just like him.”

I tilt my head. “You say that like it’s an insult.”

“It’s not,” he says quietly. “That’s what scares me.”

The silence that follows is thick with everything neither of us wants to admit. The machines hum. The clock ticks. Somewhere outside, a storm starts to rearrange the sky.

He pulls something from his coat pocket. It’s a photograph worn at the edges. It’s of Tyler as a child, no older than ten, grinning awkwardly in front of a Christmas tree. The kind of grin that doesn’t survive adulthood. He places it on the table beside my watch.

“He saved you,” he says. “I don’t know how or why, but he did. And I need to know what you saw before you pulled that trigger.”

I glance at the photo, then the watch. Both relics of people who no longer exist in their current forms. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Try me.”

“The future,” I say. “Or one of them.”

He blinks, frowning. “You hit your head?”

“I’ve hit many things, Sheriff. Reality among them.”

He scowls. “You’re not making sense.”

“I rarely do to those who insist on linear time.” I pause, studying his face. He looks older than I remember, more worn. “I saw Tyler’s end.’’

“His end?” he repeats.

“Yes,” I say. “I saw him die.”

His expression hardens. “But…how?”

“He got killed.”

He opens his mouth, closes it, then looks down at the photo again as if searching for an anchor. “Does this mean he will still die?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “But I do know I want to try and stop that from happening.’’

He studies me for a long, uneasy moment, then pockets the photo again. “You sound like you’re planning something.”

“Planning implies hesitation,” I reply. “I prefer inevitability.”

He sighs, rubbing his temples. “I don’t know what you think you saw, but you need rest. You’ve been through hell.”

“Hell and I are on a first-name basis. Rest won’t fix that.”

He steps back toward the door. “You should talk to someone, Wednesday. A doctor. A therapist. Something.”

“I did,” I say. “They called it an interrogation.”

He gives me a long, tired look, half admiration, half defeat. “You never stop, do you?”

“If I did,” I say, “the world would get lazy.”

He hesitates with his hand on the door. “If you remember anything… anything real… you’ll call me?”

“I’ll send a raven,” I say.

He almost smiles. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

He leaves, the door closing behind him with the finality of a verdict.

…

A few days pass. I spend most of my time sleeping off the pain while trying to stay focused on the task ahead. No one has visited me, except for the guard that keeps on bringing me the most awful meals.

So it’s to my surprise when the door of my room opens. This time, the footsteps I hear hesitate. But I’d recognise them anywhere. I know it’s Tyler.

Tyler stands in the doorway like he’s not sure if he’s allowed to come inside of the room. His hair is a mess of curls half-tamed by nervous fingers; his face looks pale and bruised in the ways guilt prefers to decorate people. He’s wearing a jacket that’s too big for him. It doesn’t fit, and it’s too big in the shoulders.

“Wow,” he says, voice low, interrupting the silence between us. “You look… better than I expected.”

“That’s because you expected a corpse,” I reply. “A common mistake.”

He exhales a shaky laugh, stepping inside. “You’re not wrong.”

“I rarely am. It’s a curse.”

Tyler stops at the foot of the bed, hands shoved into his pockets like he’s afraid they’ll do something dangerous if left unsupervised. “You scared the hell out of me.”

“Then my aim wasn’t completely wasted.”

He winces. “You’re joking about shooting yourself?”

“I find morbidity therapeutic. You should try it, perhaps without the weapon.”

He drags a chair closer and sits, his posture both defensive and desperate. His eyes flick to the IV, the monitor, and the pale hospital gown I intend to sue someone for making me wear. “I thought you were gone,” he says softly.

“Technically, I was,” I answer. “But death and I have an unsteady arrangement. We take turns pretending the other doesn’t exist.”

“Jesus, Wednesday…” He leans forward, elbows on his knees. “Why did you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Shoot yourself.” His voice cracks on the words. “Was it… was it because of me?”

I tilt my head, studying him like a particularly tragic painting – one you can’t decide is genius or just badly lit. “You make everything sound so self-centred. Not everything revolves around you, Tyler.”

He stares. “You pointed a gun at your chest while I was there.’’

I sigh. “Yes. Very dramatic of me. If I’d known you’d take it personally, I might’ve aimed elsewhere.”

“That’s not funny.”

“Neither was the situation.”

For a moment, neither of us speaks. The only sound is the quiet, steady rhythm of my pulse mocking us both.

Finally, he says, quieter, “I thought you were trying to save me.”

“I was.”

His eyes narrow. “Then why…’’

I cut him off. “Because sometimes salvation requires subtraction.”

He blinks, brow furrowing. “You’re talking in riddles again.”

“I’m talking in accuracy,” I correct.

He leans closer, frustration sharpening his tone. “I deserve an answer, Wednesday. You can’t just… you can’t just almost die and then give me philosophy.”

“You’d prefer sentimentality?”

“I’d prefer the truth!”

I meet his gaze evenly, unflinching. “You won’t believe it.”

“Try me.”

“You’ll call it delusion.”

“Then I’ll be delusional with you.”

That earns him a faint, almost imperceptible smile. Like a ghost of amusement that dies the moment it appears. “You’ve grown more dramatic since last we met. It’s contagious.”

He exhales sharply. “Stop deflecting. Just tell me.”

I look past him, toward the window. The night presses against the glass. “Fine,” I say. “You want the truth? I saw a world without you. A world where I lived, succeeded, and rotted in the absence of everything that once made me miserable and therefore alive. I saw your grave, Tyler. I visited it. For twenty years.”

He goes still, disbelief flickering across his face. “You’re saying… you saw the future?”

“One of them.”

“That’s impossible.”

“Most worthwhile things are.”

He shakes his head. “You really expect me to believe you saw…what, another timeline?”

“I don’t expect belief,” I say, voice cool. “I expect curiosity. You always had that, at least before it was weaponised.”

He swallows hard. “So you killed yourself to… stop that from happening?”

“Yes and no.”

“And it worked?”

I glance down at the IV line trailing into my arm. “The fact that we’re having this conversation suggests a degree of success.”

He rubs his face, muttering, “You’re unbelievable.”

“I strive for it.”

“Do you ever stop?”

“Breathing or speaking?”

He gives me a tired, broken smile. “Both.”

“Occasionally,” I say. “But only out of spite.”

He leans back in the chair, shaking his head, laughter and disbelief tangled together. “You’re something else.”

“I’ve been called worse,” I reply.

“Yeah,” he murmurs. “And somehow, you’re still here.”

“Much to everyone’s disappointment.”

He’s quiet for a moment, watching me. “What happens now?”

“Now?” I tilt my head toward the watch ticking faintly on the nightstand. “Now we see if time forgives me.”

Tyler frowns. “And if it doesn’t?”

“Then,” I say, “we improvise. Preferably with better aim.”

…

Tyler doesn’t look away. Not once. His eyes stay fixed on me, unflinching, and somehow that’s what gets to me the most. People are supposed to avert their gaze when something bleeds. It’s a social reflex, an instinct to preserve comfort. But he just keeps watching, like he’s cataloguing every fracture.

“You really think time cares what you do?” He asks finally, his voice rough, worn down by too much silence.

“Of course not,” I reply. “That’s the entire appeal of it. A force too vast to care whether we’re cruel or kind. It’s refreshingly neutral.”

He exhales a short, incredulous laugh. “You almost died, and that’s what you learnt? That the universe doesn’t give a damn?”

“I already knew that,” I say. “I just confirmed it empirically.”

Tyler drags a hand through his hair, leaving it a little more dishevelled than before. It’s a gesture of someone trying to rake frustration. “God, you sound like you practised that line.”

“I don’t rehearse,” I say flatly. “I arrive fully written.”

That earns me the faintest twitch of a smile. It’s fleeting and uncertain. It’s like a ghost is haunting the edges of his face. The ghost of the boy who used to hide behind sarcasm instead of sincerity. Then he leans forward again, elbows pressing into his knees. “You really saw it, didn’t you? That future?”

“Yes.”

“And I was dead.” His voice doesn’t rise, but the air between us tightens.

“Most people are, eventually.”

“Wednesday,” he warns softly, his voice cracking on my name.

I exhale. Slow, deliberate. “Yes. You were dead. But that wasn’t the tragedy. The tragedy was how quiet everything became afterward.”

He goes still. The silence stretches between us, thick and deafening. “You’re saying…” He falters, searching for words, for belief. “You saw a world without me, and you couldn’t stand it?”

“Don’t flatter yourself.” The words come out before I’ve even granted them permission. My voice stays even, but something sharp drags behind it. I couldn’t stand what I became. The way my edges softened to fit the hollow shapes of other people’s worlds.

His brow furrows. “What did it turn you into?”

“A success,” I say, the word tasting like ash. “The kind who wins awards for dissecting her own grief. Civilised. Polite. Normal. It was revolting.”

That actually makes him laugh. It’s a jagged sound that breaks halfway through and rebuilds itself, fragile but alive. “You? Normal? I’d pay to see that.”

“Trust me,” I reply. “You wouldn’t survive the disappointment.”

He leans back, eyes tracing the cracks in the ceiling like he’s searching for something worth believing in. “So you shot yourself to stop becoming her.”

“Among other reasons.”

“Like what?”

“Like preventing you from dying,” I say quietly. “And preventing her from living.”

He blinks, studying me. “You talk about your future self like she’s someone else.”

“She was,” I say. “Time is a cruel sculptor. It carves away everything unnecessary: warmth, purpose, mercy.”

He watches me then, intently, with that mix of curiosity and ache he tries so hard to disguise. “You know, sometimes you make me wish I’d stayed a monster. At least then you made sense.”

“That’s because monsters have rules,” I say. “Humans don’t. They’re chaos wrapped in delusion.”

He smirks faintly. “You’re unbelievable.”

“And yet here you are, believing me anyway.”

He chuckles softly, the sound fragile but real. “Maybe I just like the way you say it.”

I arch a brow. “Flattery? How desperate.”

“Call it morbid curiosity.”

“That’s the only kind worth having.”

He sighs, running his thumb along the splintered edge of the chair. “You really think Thornhill’s still out there?”

“I don’t think,” I say. “I know. Evil has excellent survival instincts.”

He nods slowly, face hardening. “And if you’re right?”

“Then I’m not finished yet.”

He studies me again with that look, equal parts defiance and devotion, like he’s trying to memorise a storm. “You never stop fighting, do you?”

“Stopping is for the dead.”

“Maybe that’s what scares me.”

“Good,” I say. “Fear means you’re learning.”

He stands, the chair scraping softly against the floor. “You need rest.”

“I need results.”

He shakes his head, smiling just enough to remind me he’s still human. “Same old Wednesday.”

I tilt my head. “There’s comfort in consistency.”

He hesitates at the door, hand on the handle. “You really think this… time thing, or whatever you saw, is not over?”

“Nothing ever is,” I say. “Not for me.”

He opens the door halfway, pausing. “Then I guess I’ll stick around. Someone’s got to keep you alive long enough to annoy fate.”

“Just try not to Hyde out,” I say. “It’s inconvenient for scheduling.”

He laughs quietly and slips out. The door closes with a soft click, and the room exhales in his absence.

The rain outside grows heavier, its rhythm tapping against the window. I turn toward the cracked watch on the table.

“Finally,” I murmur, a thin smile ghosting across my lips. “A heartbeat that understands me.”

As I watch him leave. I’ve come to realise one thing. He doesn’t know that I’d chase every timeline until my bones turned to dust, just to find one where he lived. That’s what I realised. I’m far more sentimental than I care to admit.

…

That same evening it seems like everyone has plans to visit me in the hospital. By the time Principal Weems comes to pay me a visit, the rain has slowed down. Though the clouds still hang like bruises outside the window. I’ve never been fond of sunlight, but even I can admit the grey suits me better.

Weems enters without knocking. A privilege she seems to believe she’s earned. Principal Weems seems impeccably composed as always. Even in tragedy, she dresses like someone auditioning for the role of Authority Itself.

“Miss Addams,” she says, closing the door behind her. “You’re awake. Again.”

“I do try to disappoint the reaper,” I reply. “It builds character.”

Her eyes flick toward the bandages on my arm, then back to my face. “You have quite a talent for chaos. The hospital staff are still recovering from your last performance.”

“I’ll send them flowers,” I say. “Funeral lilies, preferably.”

Weems exhales, a long, measured sound that sits somewhere between exasperation and reluctant fondness. The air smells faintly of disinfectant and rain-soaked earth. “I shouldn’t have expected remorse.”

“Remorse is a waste of intellect,” I reply, tracing a crack along the porcelain teacup on the table beside my bed. “But reflection? Occasionally useful. Which is why I requested this meeting.”

Her brows lift slightly, curiosity winning its first small battle against irritation. “Meeting?”

“Yes,” I say, adjusting my posture against the thin hospital pillows. “I need to speak with Miss Sinclair. Immediately.”

That earns me a sharp look, the kind that feels like a warning before a verdict. “Enid?”

“The one and only,” I answer. “Preferably without Thornhill’s supervision this time.”

Weems folds her arms, studying me. “Wednesday, she’s been through…”

“So have I,” I interrupt, my tone clean. “You don’t see me crocheting emotional metaphors about it.”

Her mouth tightens. “She’s fragile,” she says, though the hesitation behind her voice gives her away. She’s hiding something. The truth always leaks through the smallest cracks.

“Then she should break,” I tell her. “Only shattered things show their insides clearly.”

Weems sighs, the kind that carries both exhaustion and reluctant amusement. “You never change.”

“Stability”, I say evenly, “is my greatest vice.”

She hesitates. I see the concern flickering behind her eyes before she finally nods. “Five minutes. If she’s willing.”

“Good,” I reply. “That’s four more than I need.”

Her heels click down the hallway. As soon as she’s gone, the air in the room thickens. The clock on the wall begins ticking louder.

When the door opens again, the ticking stops. Enid steps inside.

For a moment, my breath falters. Not out of sentiment, but shock at how wrong she looks in motion. Enid Sinclair was never quiet; she used to move like sunlight spilt too fast to be contained. Now, her brightness has dulled, replaced by the brittle sheen of someone who’s been rewired.

Her curls fall limp around her face, streaked with exhaustion and neglect. The colours she used to wear, unapologetic pinks and soft blues, have been replaced by something safer. Thornhill’s influence is visible. Enid's eyes, that once impossible shade of reckless blue, flicker toward the IV line beside me, cautious, almost guilty.

Weems lingers just long enough in the doorway to murmur, “I’ll give you two some privacy,” before leaving. The door closes with a click that sounds too much like finality.

Silence swells, heavy and electric.

“You look terrible,” Enid says at last, her voice hesitant but edged, like she’s testing the weight of old familiarity.

“Excellent,” I reply, unbothered. “So do you.”

Her mouth twitches. It’s a half-formed smile, trembling under its own uncertainty. The ghost of what we used to be.

She takes a step forward, the floorboards creaking faintly under her boots. The air between us is filled with tension. “You scared everyone,” she says. “Again.”

“I have that effect.”

“I mean it, Wednesday. You could’ve died.”

“I almost did. Repeatedly. It’s becoming tediously routine.”

Something flickers across her face. Anger, maybe. Or grief trying to pretend it’s something stronger. “Do you even care?” she asks.

“About what?”

“About yourself. About anyone.”

I tilt my head, studying her like a riddle I’ve already solved. “Caring has rarely changed an outcome. Observation, however, often does.”

Her jaw tightens. “God, you haven’t changed at all.”

“Contrary to popular belief,” I say, voice flat as marble, “trauma isn’t a personality upgrade.”

Enid steps closer again, and I can smell the faint trace of her perfume. A mixture between vanilla and remorse. Her hands twist together like she’s wringing invisible blood from them. “Why did you do it?” she asks. “Everyone said you shot yourself. That Tyler was…’’ Her voice breaks, the name collapsing before it can escape.

“He was many things,” I say softly. “Some of them are human.”

Enid’s eyes widen, and for a moment, I see the old her. The one who would’ve laughed at the morbidity of it. Now, she just looks tired. Haunted. “So you did it… for him?”

I study her face. The guilt there is familiar. It sits heavy on her skin, in the same place Thornhill’s poison once took root. “For him. For you. For everyone who forgot what choice looks like.”

“I don’t understand,” she whispers.

“You will,” I say. “Soon enough.”

Her gaze drifts to the bedside table. The Anatomy of a Hyde lies open, its spine cracked, pages marked with ink the colour of regret. Her fingers twitch toward it before she stops herself.

“What are you writing about?” she asks quietly.

“About the future.’’

She frowns. “You sound like you know something you shouldn’t.”

“I know many things I shouldn’t,” I tell her. “That’s what makes me dangerous.”

She stares at me, her expression splintering. “You can’t fix everything, Wednesday.”

“I don’t intend to,” I say. “I only intend to end it.”

“End what?”

“The story,” I reply. “Before it writes to us again.”

The silence that follows is unbearable in its familiarity. It’s the same kind that used to exist between us before laughter filled it. Now, it’s just sharp edges and unfinished words.

“You scare me sometimes,” she whispers finally.

“Good,” I say. “It means you’re still alive.”

From the hallway, Weems’ voice cuts through the quiet. “Time’s up.”

Enid doesn’t move. Neither do I. We remain suspended in that unbearable stillness.

“Don’t trust her,” I say suddenly.

Her brows knit. “What?”

“If you see her, Thornhill. Don’t listen. Whatever she offers, whatever she promises. Gardens only bloom when something’s buried.”

Her lips part, trembling. “You think she’s still…”

“I don’t think,” I cut in. “I know.”

The door opens again. Weems stands in the threshold, composed as ever. “Miss Sinclair?”

Enid hesitates, turning back toward me. Her eyes glint. It’s not quite tears, not quite defiance. “You’re really planning something, aren’t you?”

I allow the smallest smirk to tug at my mouth. “Always.”

She leaves then, her steps soft but hurried, like she’s running from something she doesn’t yet recognise as herself. The door shuts behind her with a click that seems to swallow the room whole.

Only then do I notice the faint shimmer around her wrist. It’s a silver bracelet, new and familiar all at once. My chest tightens. I’ve seen it before, years ahead, in another version of this story, where she sat behind glass and whispered my name through static.

…

Weems lingers by the door a moment longer after Enid leaves, her shadow stretching across the sterile tile. She doesn’t speak at first. That’s a wise choice. The silence between us stretches on.

Finally, she exhales, quiet but deliberate. “You have an extraordinary talent for unsettling people, Miss Addams.”

“I consider it community service,” I reply. “Complacency breeds mediocrity.”

She steps closer to the bed, her heels making the kind of sound that reminds you of judgement. Her posture is immaculate. “You’ve already seen Sheriff Galpin, I presume?”

“Yes. He was charmingly suspicious.”

“He has a right to be,” Weems says. “You shot yourself in his precinct. Not an act that inspires confidence.”

“Confidence is a currency for the naive,” I say. “I prefer results.”

Her eyes narrow slightly. “And what exactly did you hope to achieve?”

I meet her gaze evenly. “A course correction.”

“That sounds suspiciously like an admission.”

“Good. It means I’m being understood.”

Weems sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose. It’s a small crack in her usual composure. “You have no idea the chaos you’ve caused. Thornhill has already…”

She stops herself mid-sentence.

I catch it instantly. “Already what?”

Her pause lasts precisely long enough to confirm the worst. “…submitted her resignation.”

“Of course she has,” I murmur. “When snakes shed their skin, it’s rarely for modesty.”

Weems frowns. “She claimed she needed to attend to personal matters. Effective immediately. She left last night without warning.”

“Did she, now?” I tilt my head. “And I suppose you simply allowed it?”

“She’s not a prisoner, Wednesday.”

“On the contrary,” I say, “I think she’s always been one…just of her own invention.”

Weems gives me that look. The one she reserves for moments when she’s deciding whether to expel me or fund my research. “You believe she’s dangerous.”

“I don’t believe anything. I know she’s unfinished business.”

The principal’s voice sharpens. “If you have evidence, you’ll bring it to me. Do not act on your own.”

“Evidence is for courts,” I say. “I prefer conviction.”

Her lips press into a line. “You are not a detective, Wednesday.”

“No,” I agree. “I’m worse. I’m interested.”

For a heartbeat, the room fills with the hum of the heart monitor. It’s steady, mechanical, and utterly unimpressed by human tension.

Weems studies me, her expression unreadable. “I will, of course, notify you if she contacts the school again.”

“You won’t have to,” I reply. “She’ll come to me first.”

“Why would she?”

“Because monsters always visit the one who survived them,” I say. “It’s an ego thing.”

Weems sighs again, softer this time. “You realise this obsession will destroy you.”

“Perhaps. But only after it destroys her first.”

Finally, Weems says, “You’re being discharged tomorrow. You’ll return to Nevermore under supervision.”

“I look forward to disappointing whoever’s assigned to me.”

“Don’t test me,” she warns.

I smirk faintly. “I thought that was the whole point of my enrolment.”

Her eyes soften, just for a moment. It’s something like reluctant affection threading through her irritation. “Get some rest, Wednesday. You’ll need it.”

“For what?”

“For whatever you’re planning,” she says, turning toward the door. “You always are.”

She leaves, the sound of her heels echoing down the corridor.

“Quitting, Thornhill?” I whisper to the silent room. “How unlike you to run before the curtain call.”

…

Morning arrives with all the subtlety. Hospitals never really wake up. No, they make more noise in the morning. The fluorescent lights buzz like anxious hornets. Nurses glide past my room in identical shoes, leaving the faint scent of antiseptic and caffeine behind them.

I sit on the edge of the bed, already dressed in black, of course. My own clothes had been cleaned and folded neatly at the foot of the bed. It’s a futile attempt to civilise me. The discharge papers sit on the tray beside a half-empty cup of coffee that tastes like punishment.

When the door opens, Weems enters with the elegance she always carries. She looks irritatingly awake, her silver hair immaculate, her expression perfectly rehearsed for bureaucratic compassion.

“Ready to return to Nevermore?” she asks.

“I was born ready,” I reply. “Unfortunately, the world wasn’t.”

She ignores that. “Your vitals are stable. The doctors cleared you for discharge. I’ve arranged for a driver to take you back to the academy.”

“How disappointingly mundane.” I sign the papers without reading them. “I prefer carriages or coffins, personally.”

Weems sighs, the sound of someone too experienced to argue. “Try not to terrify the hospital staff on your way out. They’ve suffered enough.”

“I’m sure they’ll recover,” I say. “Mortality tends to put things in perspective.”

She watches me for a moment. Her gaze was half suspicion, half curiosity. “There’s something else, isn’t there? You never look this obedient unless you’re planning treason.”

“Observation suits you, Principal Weems,” I say, slipping on my gloves. “There is one… minor request.”

Her brow arches. “Go on.”

“I want to be reassigned to a specific dormitory.”

She folds her arms. “And which one would that be?”

“Enid Sinclair’s.”

The silence that follows is heavy, immediate, and oddly satisfying. Weems blinks, as if I’ve suggested we exhume the founding fathers for tea. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me. I’d like to move to Enid Sinclair’s dorm.’’

Weems’ voice cuts through the room. “Miss Sinclair tried to kill you, Wednesday. The chandelier incident? Or did you block that out with selective amnesia?”

I don’t flinch. People always assume silence means denial. It doesn’t. “I don’t block trauma,” I say. “I catalogue it.”

It’s true. I remember the exact sound the chain made when it snapped. The sound of a metallic sigh, like something finally giving up. I remember the way the glass exploded above me, each shard a tiny, glittering betrayal. I remember Enid’s face through the chaos. Her expression was blank, empty. Thornhill’s influence coiled behind her eyes like a second heartbeat.

Weems doesn’t understand. She thinks survival requires distance, that forgiveness is an intellectual error. But she didn’t see what I saw afterward. What time did it show me when it grew tired of my questions?

I saw Enid in a different future. Older and hollow. The brightness stripped from her like colour drained from a dying photograph. She sat behind glass, smiling the way corpses might if they were told to remember joy. I stood on the other side, and for once, I didn’t know what to say. There was nothing left of the girl who used to drag me toward sunlight. Only obedience. That’s what Thornhill did. She didn’t kill Enid. She rewrote her.

So yes, Enid tried to kill me. But it wasn’t her hand that moved; it was Thornhill’s will made flesh. I could hate her for it. I should. Instead, I find myself studying the fracture lines, looking for where she ends and the poison begins. Weems says I can’t save everyone. She’s right. But this isn’t everyone. This is Enid.

I’d walk through every iteration of time if I had to disassemble the universe and rewire its cause and effect just to find the version of her that still laughs too loud and hugs too tight. I’d chase down every timeline like prey until I find one where she survives without surrendering.

Because what I saw wasn’t her death. It was worse. It was her silence. And I refuse to live in a world where that sound doesn’t exist.

Her lips press into a tight line. “This isn’t one of your experiments. She’s unstable. You could be putting yourself in danger.”

“Danger”, I say calmly, “is the only environment where I function properly.”

“Do not mistake recklessness for bravery,” she snaps.

“Do not mistake supervision for control,” I counter.

For a moment, our gazes lock. It’s a quiet standoff of intellect and irritation. She breaks it first, pacing once toward the window before turning back to me. “Give me one rational reason to approve this absurd request.”

I consider her question for exactly three seconds. “Because proximity is the only way to understand guilt.”

Weems stares, the faintest trace of unease flickering across her face. “You think she remembers what she did?”

“I think she remembers more than she should,” I reply. “And if I’m correct, that makes her the most valuable source of information we have.”

“Information about what?”

“About Thornhill. About the fractures in this timeline. About why the past refuses to stay buried.”

Weems exhales through her nose, the way one might before confessing to a mistake. “You’re speaking in riddles again.”

“Not riddles,” I correct. “Warnings.”

She studies me for a long time, then finally mutters, “You are incorrigible.”

“Thank you.”

“I didn’t mean that as praise.”

“I took it as such anyway.”

Weems pinches the bridge of her nose again, as if warding off an impending migraine. “Fine. You may live with Miss Sinclair. But I’m assigning additional supervision. If I hear anything…”

“You’ll hear it from me first,” I interrupt.

“God help me,” she murmurs.

“Unlikely,” I reply. “He’s been avoiding my calls.”

She gives me one last withering look and gestures toward the door. “Your car is waiting. Try not to commit any felonies before lunch.”

“I make no promises,” I say, grabbing my bag.

As I follow her into the hallway, I glance at my reflection in the chrome elevator doors. For a fraction of a second, it lags behind. It’s the faintest delay, a skipped heartbeat in time.

I smile. “Back to Nevermore,” I whisper. “Where monsters pretend to be students, and friends pretend not to be murderers.”

…

The gates of Nevermore rise ahead like blackened teeth against a bruised sky. They should feel like home, but today they look more like déjà vu carved into iron.

The driver barely speaks as the car rolls through the courtyard. Students gather in clusters, whispering, their curiosity stitched to every glance that follows me. I’d forgotten how they stare. It’s like they’re waiting for me to start bleeding again.

Weems walks beside me, her stride crisp and confident, the very picture of composure.
Mine, on the other hand, is the composure of someone who’s already buried her own expectations.

When we reach Ophelia Hall, the familiar scent of stone, candle wax, and fear lingers in the air. I half expect to hear Enid’s music leaking through the door. Maybe something aggressively upbeat and psychologically punishing. Instead, there’s silence.

Weems stops at the door, her hand on the handle. “Are you sure about this, Wednesday?”

“I wouldn’t have requested it otherwise,” I say. “I enjoy sleeping near potential assassins. It keeps the blood pressure interesting.”

She exhales, muttering something under her breath that sounds suspiciously like a prayer. Then she opens the door.

The room is exactly as I remember it. Only slightly emptier. One side of the room radiates a sterile order: my desk, my typewriter, and my collection of obsidian quills lined with surgical precision. The other half is all colour and chaos. It’s Enid’s half. Her walls are plastered with old photos and glittering nonsense, her bed smothered in pastel blankets and pillows shaped like animals that have never known suffering.

Enid stands by the window when we enter. She’s wearing her uniform, the collar slightly crooked, her hair braided loosely over one shoulder. The sunlight hits her just enough to remind me of the girl she used to be. The one who smiled too brightly and hugged too hard.

When she turns, her eyes find me immediately. I notice a flicker of something. Shock, relief, and guilt flash across her face before she masks it with a weak smile.

“Hey,” she says softly. “You’re back.”

“Unfortunately,” I reply. “Death and I couldn’t come to terms.”

Weems clears her throat. “Miss Sinclair,” she begins, voice formal, “Miss Addams has been cleared to return to campus. As of today, you’ll be sharing quarters.’’

Enid blinks, the words taking a moment to register. “Wait… what?”

I watch the colour drain slightly from her cheeks. She looks from Weems to me, as though expecting one of us to correct the statement. Neither of us does.

“But…” she starts, glancing at Weems, “after what happened at the Rav’n—”

Weems lifts a hand. “We’ve decided to treat the incident as… an unfortunate misunderstanding. Miss Addams has expressed her confidence in you.”

Enid’s eyes dart to me again. “She… has?”

I nod once. “Every killer deserves a second chance. Some even a third.”

The silence that follows could bruise. Weems smiles thinly, the kind of smile that’s used for political funerals. “I expect you both to conduct yourselves maturely. Wednesday, you are to rest. No investigations, no extracurricular projects. Do I make myself clear?”

“Perfectly,” I say. “I’ll only experiment within school limits.”

“That’s exactly what concerns me.”

I offer a slight, morbid smile. “Good.”

Weems stares at me for a beat, then exhales and turns to leave. “I’ll have your schedule adjusted. And, Miss Sinclair…keep an eye on her.”

“Right,” Enid says faintly.

When the door clicks shut, the silence between us is thick enough to catalogue.

Enid crosses her arms, fidgeting slightly. “You seriously asked to room with me?”

“I needed proximity,” I reply. “Observation requires subjects within reach.”

“That’s… creepy, even for you.”

“Thank you.”

She sighs. “You really haven’t changed.”

“I tried once,” I say, walking to my desk. “Didn’t take.”

Her eyes follow me as I unpack my things: my typewriter, the cracked pocket watch, and a small stack of notes covered in sketches of vines and eyes. I arrange them neatly on my desk. It feels ritualistic, like I’m summoning something.

Enid watches in uneasy silence before saying, “Look… about the Rav’n…”

“Don’t,” I interrupt. “Explanations are confessions in disguise.”

“I just…” She stops, biting her lip. “I didn’t mean to…”

“Intentions are irrelevant. Results are what matter,” I say. “And you didn’t kill me. That’s the important part. For now.”

Enid stares at me, her mouth half open, like she wants to argue but can’t find the words. Instead, she nods slowly.

“Fine,” she says. “But… if we’re going to be roommates, can we at least try not to end up in the infirmary every other week?”

“I can’t make promises I have no intention of keeping,” I say.

She groans quietly. “Great. This’ll be fun.”

“Define fun.”

Enid gives me a look. Exasperation mixed with something warmer. “Never mind.”

As she turns away, I catch the faint glint of that same silver bracelet on her wrist. It catches the light.

…

Sleep has never been a skill of mine. It requires surrender, and I’ve never been particularly talented at that.

The night presses itself against my window like something trying to get in. The moon is too bright, the air too still, and even the walls of Nevermore feel complicit in keeping secrets.

My desk is littered with paper: notes, sketches, and fragments of evidence arranged with obsessive precision and emotional detachment. The perfect crime scene of thought.

The name Thornhill keeps repeating itself across the page like a bloodstain that refuses to dry.

Resignation. A word that implies choice. But Thornhill never struck me as the kind of woman who leaves quietly. Or leaves at all.

I open every document I’ve collected: attendance logs, personnel records, archived emails. Nothing about her resignation adds up. The dates contradict. Her signature shifts slightly between files. It’s like someone is trying to imitate humanity but missing the cadence.

By the time the clock strikes three, the watch on my wrist starts humming again. The same low vibration it gives before something goes wrong.

I stare at the ticking hand. It moves backward once, then forward again, as if the laws of time are debating custody.

And then everything stills. The air thickens. The lamplight flickers once, twice, before going dim. A low, electric hum fills the room. My pulse doesn’t quicken, but it listens.

I close my eyes. And the world tilts. The sound hits first. It’s a sharp gasp, followed by the scraping drag of a chair against marble. The smell of lilies and bleach.

When I open my eyes again, I’m no longer in my room. I’m standing in Weems’ office.

The light is wrong here. Too gold, too clean. The edges of the room blur slightly, like I’m watching through glass. My breath leaves no fog. I’m not in it; I’m witnessing it.

Weems stands near her desk, posture immaculate even in distress. Her voice trembles just enough to betray fear. “This isn’t necessary….”

“Necessary?” Thornhill’s voice cuts through, deceptively warm. “It’s long overdue.”

She moves closer. Her heels click softly against the marble. It’s deliberate, elegant, and predatory. The white of her blouse is spotless. The kind of spotless that suggests practice.

Weems takes a step back. “You don’t have to do this.”

“Oh, but I do,” Thornhill says. “Do you think I built all this just to watch it wilt? You prune a garden to make it grow.”

Her tone is calm. Too calm. The kind of calm that precedes dissection. In her hand, she holds something. Something long, silver, glinting in the lamplight. A pruning shear. The blade shines wet, though it hasn’t yet been used.

Weems’ face hardens. “You’re insane.”

Thornhill tilts her head, her smile polite. “Insanity is just vision without witnesses.”

She moves faster than I expect. One step forward, a flick of her wrist, and the blade catches the light as it arcs through the air.

The sound is obscene. Metal meeting flesh.

Weems gasps. A choked, strangled sound as the shear buries itself in her side. Blood blossoms instantly, staining her perfect white shirt a shade of red too poetic to describe.

Thornhill leans close, whispering something I can’t hear. Something soft. Intimate. The kind of words one saves for prayers or executions.

Weems crumples, her knees hitting the floor. Her hands clutch at the wound, trembling, slick with red. She looks up. Her eyes are wide, defiant even as the light fades.

“You won’t win,” she manages.

Thornhill crouches beside her, brushing a strand of silver hair from her face like a mother with a sleeping child.

“My dear, I already did. You just haven’t caught up yet.”

She stands, wipes the blade delicately with a handkerchief, and lays it neatly on the desk.
Then she reaches for the typewriter. Her fingers move quickly, precisely, the keys clacking like tiny bones.

When she’s done, she feeds the paper out and signs the bottom with that looping, immaculate script: ‘Resignation effective immediately.

The date at the top flickers between numbers: October 28th, 29th, and 30th until it stops, settling on tomorrow.

I move forward, instinctively, though I know I can’t interfere. My hand passes through the air like smoke. Thornhill turns suddenly, as if she can see me through the vision.

Her green, bright, cruel eyes lock on mine.

“You shouldn’t be here yet,” she says.

The words hit like a strike of cold lightning. The office begins to warp. The walls bleed into light. The sound of the watch rises, sharp and mechanical, drilling behind my ribs.

She steps closer. What’s impossible, because I’m not there, and whispers, “Roots remember where they were buried.”

Her hand reaches out through me. All I feel is pain. It’s like someone is tearing open the seam between time and skin.

I gasp, and I’m back in my room. The lamp is on. The clock reads 3:16. The watch on my wrist ticks backward once, then stops. My pulse is steady, but my hands are trembling.

On the desk in front of me lies a scrap of paper. I didn’t write it. I didn’t have to.
It’s the same stationery as Weems’ office. The same looping, perfect script.

Resignation effective immediately. The date: Tomorrow. And beneath it is a single wet fingerprint.

Chapter Text

Wednesday’s POV

Sleep is a performance I’ve long since abandoned. It requires surrender, trust, and the delusion that the world will look the same when one wakes. I prefer to remain conscious, if only to spite the universe’s insistence that I rest.

The vision hasn’t left me. It clings, playing itself over and over in the dim theatre of my mind. It was in Weems’ office. The faint jasmine steam curling from her teacup. The reflection of the clock frozen at 8:32 p.m. The gleam of Thornhill’s blade as it punctured the calm.

A murder, precise and beautiful in its choreography, except it hasn’t happened yet. The detail is intoxicating.

My dorm at Nevermore is steeped in a darkness I find soothing. The candlelight shivers against the windowpane, turning the raindrops into tiny, twitching eyes. Enid is asleep. Her steadiness reassures me that at least one of us is still able to sleep.

I sit at my desk, surrounded by paper, pens, and the quiet machinery of obsession. The air smells faintly of iron, ink, and rain. My favourite trinity.

On the desk lies the memory of the vision, an image so vivid it stays with me. I open my notebook, a well-loved ledger of crimes both theoretical and inevitable, and begin to catalogue. Each entry is written in my usual surgical precision.

Observation One: Jasmine tea, still steaming. Murder occurred within seven minutes of steeping. Suggests efficiency, not impulse.
Observation Two: Broken picture frame: damage radiating outward, not inward. Indicates internal force, possibly psychic, more likely rage disguised as calm.
Observation Three: The clock reads 8:32 p.m., meaning Weems dies tomorrow evening. The faculty meeting is scheduled at eight. Thornhill has never been punctual; poetic timing suits her.

The watch on my wrist ticks once. The second hand judders forward, then back again, like a nervous witness reconsidering its testimony.

I look at the clock across the room. It’s 1:47 a.m. in this version of reality. It’s the perfect time to plan.

I rise. My boots whisper against the cold floorboards. Movement aids thought, and I prefer my thinking to sound like preparation for a crime. I move with care.

The wind outside moans through the gargoyles, dragging along the scent of wet leaves and secrets buried poorly. Somewhere, a door creaks in a distant hallway. Perhaps Thornhill is dreaming of gardens again. I make a note to salt her flowerbeds.

On my desk sits a folded napkin I once stole from Weems’ office. It’s jasmine-scented and embroidered with the school crest. A useless trinket until tonight. I unfold it and inhale. The perfume is identical to what I smelt in the vision. Synthetic peace laced with deceit. A scent too clean to be trusted.

The vision wasn’t memory; it was instruction. The crime hasn’t happened. The clock has merely promised it.

I write that down too: time is an unreliable accomplice but a loyal witness.

In the silence, I hear my own pulse echo faintly against the ticking of the watch. Two hearts out of sync, mine and the machine’s, trying to decide which belongs to the living.

I move to the mirror by the bed. My reflection greets me. My face looks too pale, too precise, the candlelight giving my eyes a dark reflection.

Behind me, in the glass, I think I see movement. A faint outline. Someone who’s tall, poised, and wrapped in authority. Silver hair coiled neatly at the neck. It appears to be Weems.

But when I turn, the room is empty. Only my own shadow remains.

I look back to the glass. My reflection lags a fraction behind, then catches up, smirking faintly though my lips haven’t moved.

“Impersonation doesn’t suit you,” I tell her. “You lack the conviction.”

The reflection stills. The candle sputters, struggling to decide if it wants to die. I blow it out before it can make a choice.

Darkness rushes in like water through a wound. It settles comfortably, fitting around me like a familiar cloak.

I return to the desk, drawing a small clock on the next page of my notebook. I mark the hands at 8:32 and write beneath it in deliberate script: If inevitability is punctual, I intend to be early.

A gust of wind rattles the window. The fire in the hallway flickers once and dies. Somewhere below, a bell tolls. It tolls slow and deliberate, echoing through Nevermore.

Tomorrow will be interesting. I close the notebook, straighten the pen, and whisper to the room:
“Let’s see who bleeds first.”

…

Sleep is a bourgeois luxury for people content to be predictable. I am not one of them.
By morning, my mind feels like a loaded gun that refuses to be holstered. The vision keeps replaying itself behind my eyes: Weems’ office, jasmine tea, the clock at 8:32, and Thornhill’s blade descending with the casual arrogance of inevitability.

I can’t barge into the principal’s office and declare random stuff. No, I know Weems respects composure, not prophecy. So I decide on a more effective form of entry: arson.

Alchemy class provides the perfect stage. The lesson: a controlled reaction between mercury and iron. Like usual, the lesson is dull and predictable. So I decide to make it interesting.

When the professor’s back is turned, I replace the prescribed reagent with powdered phosphorus. A modest adjustment until the beaker hisses, glows white-hot, and detonates in a brilliant burst of chemical enthusiasm. The desk erupts into flames. My books catch on fire. The students start to scream.

Smoke curls through the air.

“Miss Addams!” the professor yells, batting at the spreading fire with a textbook. “What do you think you’re doing?!”

I watch the flames lick the ceiling. “Demonstrating that chaos remains the purest form of honesty.”

“Go to the principal’s office! Now!”

“I was hoping you’d say that,” I murmur, collecting my bag.

…

Nevermore’s corridors echo under my boots as I walk, soot still clinging to my boots. The sunlight filters through stained glass, painting red and gold across the floor. I imagine stepping through the hues.

By the time I reach Weems’ office, word of my experiment has clearly preceded me. The air feels taut with gossip.

I knock once. It’s a ritual and not out of respect. I enter without waiting.

Weems looks up immediately, posture perfect, expression a sculpture of restrained fury. Her hair gleams like polished silver under the office light. A cup of tea steams beside her hand, exactly as in my vision.

“Miss Addams,” she says, voice too calm to be harmless. “I’ve just been informed you attempted to immolate your classmates.”

I close the door. “Attempted? How rude. The flames were quite convincing.”

Her sigh could extinguish small fires. “You do realise this is grounds for expulsion?”

“Only if the building burns down. Which, tragically, it did not.”

She gestures for me to sit. I don’t. I want the vantage point standing gives me. I take in everything: the mahogany desk, the faint jasmine scent curling through the air, and the clock ticking dutifully behind her. 8:32 hasn’t arrived yet, but its shadow lingers.

“Why did you do it?” she asks. “And please, spare me the dramatics.”

“Then I’d have nothing to say.”

I wander closer to the bookshelf, gloved fingers trailing along the spines. Dust motes dance in the light, swirling like secrets that forgot how to hide. A framed photo sits near her elbow. I know it’s her with past students. The glass is still intact. For now.

“Sometimes,” I say, “you need to burn something to see what survives the flame.”

Weems narrows her eyes. “You’re deflecting.”

“I’m observing. It’s different.”

“Observing what, exactly?”

“Patterns.”

Her gaze sharpens. “Of what?”

“Death,” I reply, voice even. “You’d be surprised how often it rehearses itself before the performance.”

The silence that follows is immaculate. Only the faint hiss of her teacup interrupts it. Jasmine tea. Just as I remembered.

Weems leans back slightly. “This wouldn’t have anything to do with Dr Thornhill, would it?”

Her tone is casual, but the question lands like a needle through skin.

I tilt my head. “She’s been on my mind lately. Have you heard from her?”

“No,” Weems says after a moment. “Not since she resigned. Why?”

“Curiosity,” I answer. “And a mild premonition of murder.”

She blinks. “I’m sorry?”

“Don’t be,” I say. “It hasn’t happened yet.”

Her mouth opens slightly, then closes again. She studies me the way one studies a venomous creature in a glass tank. She seems to be fascinated.

“You set a fire,” she says slowly, “to earn a disciplinary meeting… so you could warn me about a potential murder that hasn’t happened yet?”

“Correct.”

“Do you realise how insane that sounds?”

“Of course,” I say. “But insanity and accuracy are often bedfellows.”

Her expression softens for half a heartbeat. It may be pity or curiosity in disguise. “Miss Addams, I truly don’t know whether to expel you or give you appraise.”

“Perhaps both,” I offer. “Death has always loved irony.”

I let the silence settle between us. Then, quietly, I say, “Cancel tonight’s staff meeting.”

She frowns. “Why?”

“Because the tea will be jasmine,” I say. “And I’d rather you didn’t drink it.”

Her posture stills. “You’re not making sense.”

“I rarely do to those still alive.”

…

Weems doesn’t dismiss me. That, in itself, is a disruption to the natural order. Like a break in the script where the adult figure usually sends me away to "reflect on my actions", as if guilt were a moral disinfectant. Instead, she studies me with an expression I can’t immediately dissect. It’s equal parts irritation and something dangerously close to interest.

“You think you’re the only one who notices rot in the garden?” she says.

Her tone is measured, soft enough to sound conversational, but every syllable lands with purpose. It is not a question. It’s a confession disguised as composure.

I tilt my head slightly, assessing her posture, the minute tremor in her hands that betrays her calm. “You’ve been watching her.”

“I’ve been watching everything,” she replies. Her eyes sharpen. “You weren’t wrong about Thornhill. I just didn’t tell you that.”

The air in her office changes. The clock ticks in uneven heartbeats behind her, and the smell of jasmine drifts upward from her teacup, faint but unmistakable. Just like the scent of my vision, of the moment I haven’t reached yet.

I don’t sit. I move closer to the desk, letting my shadow crawl across it. “You’ve been watching her for how long?”

“Since before she left Nevermore,” Weems admits. “Before you ever suspected her. Before everything.’’

“Why not act?”

“I didn’t have proof,” she says evenly. “And the Board doesn’t respond well to intuition or witch hunts. Especially when the witch in question teaches botany and brings cookies to faculty meetings.”

“Your fatal flaw,” I say, “is civility. You think rot deserves diplomacy.”

Her gaze flicks up, cold and almost amused. “And yours, Miss Addams, is obsession. You think blood is a shortcut to truth.”

It’s a fair point. I don’t argue. Truth rarely survives bureaucracy, but it does appreciate efficiency.

Weems exhales slowly, the sound of porcelain cracking beneath patience. “You said something earlier. About tea. About… murder.” Her tone suggests disbelief, but her eyes betray calculation. She’s cataloguing me, running diagnostics in silence.

“Yes,” I reply simply. “I saw it. Not in a dream but in a vision.”

Her brow arches slightly. “You’re claiming to have had a premonition.”

“I don’t claim things,” I say. “I report them.”

“And what exactly did you see?”

“Your office,” I answer. “This one. The clock reads 8:32. The jasmine tea you’re currently poisoning your taste buds with. The sound of glass breaking. Followed by you…dying.”

Weems doesn’t gasp. She doesn’t scoff. She simply watches me the way one watches the edge of a knife: curious to see if it will cut.

Finally, she says, “You don’t sound frightened.”

“Fear is a time-consuming emotion,” I reply. “I have better things to do.”

Her lips twitch, not quite into a smile. “So instead of alerting me through proper channels, you lit a classroom on fire.”

“I needed proximity, not approval.”

“Why tell me at all?” she asks. “If you already know what’s coming, what’s the point of warning me?”

It’s a fair question. I wish I had a fair answer. I study her. I see the precise tilt of her chin, the subtle wear in her eyes, and the way her hand curls protectively near the teacup as if drawn to its inevitability. “Because”, I say, “I have no interest in repeating tragedies. They get boring after the second occurrence.”

Weems’ silence is surgical. She takes a slow breath and finally leans forward, resting her elbows on the desk. “You’ve changed.”

“I’m evolving,” I correct.

“No,” she says. “You’re reacting.”

The accusation lands harder than I expect. “To what?”

“To them.”

Her tone shifts. It’s quieter but aimed to wound. “To Tyler. To Enid. To everything you pretend doesn’t reach you.”

For a moment, the room feels smaller. The shadows press closer; the air folds inward. I look down at the file still sitting between us. I see Thornhill’s paper trail, her meticulous garden of deceit. “You think sentiment compromises me.”

“I think it motivates you,” she says softly. “And you hate that.”

I glance up sharply, but she doesn’t flinch. She’s too old, too wise, and too practised at facing monsters, even ones she hired by accident.

“You think I care,” I say flatly.

“I know you do,” she counters. “You wouldn’t have risked expulsion to warn me otherwise. You wouldn’t have shot yourself for a boy who was about to devour you and his father. You wouldn’t still flinch when someone mentions the word ‘chandelier.’”

Her words carve through me with the precision of someone who’s studied my anatomy. My emotional side, not physical. I want to deny it. I should deny it. “I did what was necessary,” I say. “Not what was kind.”

She smiles faintly. “And yet, you sound defensive.”

I turn away before she can see what crosses my face. It’s not guilt, not shame, just an unwelcome ache that feels far too human for my taste. I stare at the shelves behind her. At the books lined up like soldiers, the framed certificates, and the window reflecting both of us back in muted daylight.

“Tyler Galpin was about to kill his father,’’ I say finally. “If I hadn’t intervened, he would’ve ended him and more people.’’

The words taste steady and measured, but I know I’m lying. Not about what he was, but about what he still means. Because ever since the first time I lost him, twenty-two years ago, the night I killed him, something in me never came back. It stayed there with him, frozen in that moment. And no matter how many times I try to bury it, that part of me still stirs, reaching for a ghost I made myself.

“And Enid?”
Her name lands like an echo. “She’s no different,” I say slowly. “She didn’t choose to hurt anyone. Thornhill used her too.”

“And yet,” Weems murmurs, “you’re the only one who seems determined to save them both.”

I don’t respond. I can feel her eyes on me. They’re sharp, assessing, and knowing far too much.
In another life, perhaps, she could have been my accomplice. In this one, she’s my mirror: older, wiser, and doomed to the same mistakes.

“You’re not the only one who sees the patterns,” she says finally. “I’ve been following Thornhill’s movements for months. Every letter, every transfer, every research grant she touched. She’s still working, Wednesday. Still building whatever she started here. And you may have just forced her hand.”

Her words blur at the edges. Because for all my logic and calculation, there’s still that image. The image of Enid’s wide and blank eyes when she cut down that chandelier. My supposed best friend. My almost-heart. Used like a marionette in someone else’s show. It shouldn’t have hurt. I told myself that a hundred times, but it did. It still does. To know that if I don’t save her, no one will. And if I do… I might lose what’s left of myself in the process.

“That’s the goal,” I say quietly. “I want her to make a move.”

Weems exhales, standing. She moves toward the window, the light cutting her hair into silver fire. “You play a dangerous game for someone who doesn’t believe in losing.”

“I don’t believe in anything,” I correct. “That’s what makes me effective.”

She turns back to me, eyes narrowing just enough to betray her worry. “If you’re right, Thornhill won’t come for me tonight. She’ll come for you.”

I smirk faintly. “She already did once. I survived.”

“That doesn’t make you immortal.”

“Not yet.”

Her expression softens again. “You remind me of myself before I learnt restraint.”

“I’ve never considered restraint a virtue,” I say.

“I know,” she murmurs. “That’s what frightens me.”

I look at her, at the desk, at the fragile peace that hangs between us. I realise, perhaps for the first time, that this woman isn’t oblivious. She’s preparing.

She doesn’t dismiss me. She just says, “Stay close tonight. And if you see her. If Thornhill comes near me again. You run.”

“Running is for prey,” I reply.

Her gaze holds mine for a long moment before she nods slightly. “Then I suppose I’ll see you at 8:32.”

…

The day passed by quickly. The air is sharp, carrying the metallic scent of rain and regret, and the sun is nowhere to be seen.

I leave Weems’ office with my thoughts circling like vultures. The clock in the hallway clicks toward inevitability, each second an accusation. There’s one truth that keeps repeating itself in my mind like a cursed refrain: if something happens tonight, I don’t want Tyler to die again. Not for me. Not because of me.

So I ask him to meet me by the river. The path is quiet, except for the crunch of wet leaves under my boots. I pass the shadow of the greenhouse. Thornhill’s old kingdom, and for a moment I imagine the faint smell of jasmine following me like mockery. It clings to me.

Tyler is already there. He stands at the edge of the water, hands buried in his jacket pockets, shoulders tense in that way that betrays both defensiveness and apology. The wind combs through his hair. His reflection in the river looks ghostly. He looks fragmented, half-drowned, like someone caught between what he was and what he fears becoming.

When he sees me, he tries to smile, and it almost works. “You sure know how to pick the most dramatic meeting spots,” he says softly. “Should I be worried?”

“Always,” I reply, stepping closer. “Worry keeps people interesting.”

He exhales, a laugh that isn’t quite a laugh. “You said you needed to talk. That usually means bad news.”

“Observation suits you,” I say. “Maybe there’s hope for you yet.”

The corner of his mouth twitches, but his eyes don’t match it. “So what is this about?”

The question sits between us, heavy, electric. The current whispers against the rocks below. Somewhere far off, a bird calls. A sound too lonely for something still alive.

“I owe you the truth,” I say finally.

His brow furrows. “About what?”

I stare at the water because it’s easier than looking at him. The reflection of myself fractures across the surface, like a secret struggling to stay buried. “About why I shot myself.”

He tenses immediately. “You don’t have to…”

“I do.”

He hesitates. His voice drops to a whisper. “You told me I wouldn’t believe you.”

“I still think you won’t,” I say. “But disbelief is irrelevant. The truth remains consistent, whether you accept it or not.”

The wind shifts. My hair moves against my face. I tuck it behind my ear with mechanical precision. It’s a ritual to steady my hands before vivisection. “You need to understand something. I didn’t pull that trigger because I wanted to die.”

He nods slowly, wary. “Then why?”

“Because I couldn’t do it again.”

“Do what again?”

I finally look at him. His face is open. He looks unguarded in a way that makes my throat tighten with irritation and something dangerously close to fondness. “Kill you,” I say.

His mouth parts, but no sound comes out. He looks at me as if I’ve spoken another language, one that shouldn’t exist.

“I don’t…” He swallows. “What are you talking about?”

“There was another timeline,” I say, my voice cutting through the night like glass. “Another version of this life. You were under Thornhill’s control. She used you…the Hyde…as her weapon. And in that timeline, you lost control completely. You killed people. You nearly killed me.”

He takes a step back, shaking his head. “No. That’s…that’s impossible.”

“I remember the smell of the forest,” I continue, unblinking. “The sound your claws made when they dragged through the soil. I remember the way you looked at me…not like you knew me, but like you’d already decided I was next.”

“Stop.”

“I had a blade,” I say. “You lunged. And I did what I always do when cornered… I survived.”

“Wednesday…”

“I killed you.”

The words leave my mouth like smoke. I watch them dissolve into the air and almost wish they wouldn’t.

Tyler’s breathing quickens. He runs a trembling hand through his hair, eyes wide, voice cracking between disbelief and desperation. “You can’t mean that. You can’t…”

“It happened,” I say flatly. “And it keeps happening. You die, I live, and the universe applauds the repetition.”

He stares at me like the ground has shifted under him. “Why are you telling me this? Why would you tell me something like that?”

The question lingers, raw and trembling.

“Because I can’t carry it anymore,” I say quietly. “Because every time I look at you, I see both of you. I see the boy who saved me and the monster I killed. And because if something happens tonight, I want you to understand that I never wanted to pull that knife on you.’’

He steps forward, the distance between us shrinking until the scent of rain and river mud mixes with his cologne. Faint coffee and engine oil. “You expect me to believe that?”

“I expect you to listen.”

His jaw tightens. “You’re saying that I hurt you. That you killed me.”

“Yes.”

“Why?” he whispers. “Why tell me this now? Why…?”

“Because you deserve the truth before someone else takes it from you.”

He looks away, staring at the dark water. “So, I die in your perfect, orderly version of reality. And you live with it. Just like that?”
“No,” I say. “I live despite it. That’s the punishment.”

Silence stretches between us until it’s almost physical. Like a wire pulled taut, vibrating with everything we’re not saying. The river murmurs beneath it. Then Tyler turns back. The fury is gone; what’s left is ruin.

“I can’t understand it,” he says hoarsely. “I can’t even imagine hurting you. I can’t… I wouldn’t. Because…” His breath catches. “Because I’d have to be insane not to love you.”

The word 'love' lands like a wound reopening. Something inside me twists. It’s a dull, familiar ache that’s half grief, half hunger. I tell myself not to react, not to let the past rewrite itself in his voice. But my throat tightens anyway. I remember the smell of the woods that night. The sound of his voice right before it all broke.

Don’t flinch. Don’t believe him. Don’t forgive him. But his eyes…God, his eyes…aren’t lying now. They’re wet, shining in the dark like the river swallowing the stars.

He shakes his head, trembling. “No. Don’t. Don’t look at me like that.” His voice fractures. “I almost killed you in the station that night, didn’t I?”

The words fall between us like a confession and a curse.

“I saw the fear in your eyes,” he chokes out. “And I still couldn’t stop. I wanted to. God, I wanted to.”

His shoulders cave, the fight leaving him all at once. A sob slips out, raw and unguarded, and for a moment he’s just a boy breaking apart under the weight of what he’s done that night.

I ache for him. Because I remember the warmth of his hand before it all went wrong. The way he smiled like he didn’t know how dangerous he was. The way I kept walking closer, even when I should’ve run.

Now he’s crying, and I can’t move. If I touch him, I’ll fall apart too. So I stay still, perfectly, terribly still, as his tears hit the ground and vanish into the dirt, and the river keeps whispering below us, carrying everything away. Because some part of me will always hear that whisper. And some part of me will always love him. Even though I will never admit that.

…

The river has always been good at keeping secrets. It’s the one thing we have in common.

The air grows colder as I begin to speak, like the night itself knows what I’m about to exhume. I stand there, half in shadow, half in moonlight, the sound of the current murmuring under my words. Tyler doesn’t move. He’s watching me with that quiet, anxious focus that makes people dangerous, not because they mean harm, but because they’re listening too hard.

“You want to know what happened that night,” I say at last. “The night I killed you.”

His throat works, but no words come out. He nods once.

“Then listen,” I whisper. “Because I will only say it once.”

The memory comes back like blood through gauze. It’s blurred, red, and impossible to separate from the pain.

“It was raining that night. The kind of rain that feels personal. The woods were darker than I’d ever seen them. I could smell the rot in the soil and the iron in the air. It wasn’t thunder I heard first. It was you.”

He flinches, just slightly.

“You weren’t Tyler anymore,” I continue, voice steady despite the way my pulse rebels. “You were the Hyde. And not the half-controlled version you once feared. No, you were complete. Perfect. Every muscle built for violence, every breath an echo of her command. Thornhill had stripped you down to instinct and fury.”

My eyes drift to the water; its ripples catch the moonlight like torn film. “You didn’t speak. You only looked at me. With those same eyes, gold and feverish, and for the first time in my life, I knew what it felt like to be prey.”

He whispers, “Stop.”

But I don’t. I can’t.” You came at me from the trees. Fast. Animal-fast. I ran, not out of fear, but strategy. I led you toward the clearing by the chapel ruins. It was open ground. It was the only place I had a chance. I remember slipping in the mud, hearing you laugh. It was that horrible, guttural sound before you hit me. Your claws tore through my coat, my skin. I still have the scar on my ribs.”

I touch my side briefly, a reflex. “I don’t remember deciding to fight back. I just did. The knife was already in my hand. You pinned me. Your breath was hot, your eyes empty. And then, for a second – just a second – you hesitated. You said my name. Not as a growl. As a plea.”

I look up at him now. His eyes are shining. Too bright. “And that’s when I realised you were still in there. Still fighting her.”

My voice drops, almost reverent. “If you’d stayed that way for another heartbeat, maybe it would’ve been different. But she called you. I heard her voice. And you lunged.”

The words come slower now, heavier. “So I did what had to be done. I drove the blade into your chest. Once. Clean. Efficient. You fell back into the mud. The rain stopped when you hit the ground, as if the world decided it was finished too.”

Tyler covers his mouth with one hand. I can see the tremor in his shoulders. “Jesus Christ…”

“I waited,” I say. “I watched your eyes fade back to blue before they closed. And I thought for one terrible, perfect moment that you looked at peace. I told myself it was mercy.”

The wind catches my hair, cold fingers tracing my cheek. “But when it was over, when the others found me, I didn’t feel victorious. I felt hollow. Like I’d carved the last of myself out right along with you.”

Tyler turns away, his back shaking. The sound he makes isn’t quite a sob, but close. “You’re saying I died because of you.”

“You died because of her,” I correct. “I was just the blade.”

He’s breathing unevenly now, voice fraying. “I can’t… I can’t even picture that. Hurting you. Wanting to.” He laughs once, bitterly, like the sound of glass cracking. “I can’t fathom why I would ever hurt you. Because I’d have to be insane not to love you…in every timeline.”

The words fall like ash. For a long moment, I don’t move. The river hums quietly, pretending not to listen. My pulse echoes in my ears, a slow, traitorous rhythm.

“Love”, I say finally, “is just grief with better marketing.”

He looks at me, eyes burning. “You don’t mean that.”

“Of course I do,” I whisper. “If I didn’t, I’d still be digging you out of the dirt.”

His breath hitches, sharp and raw. “You killed me because you loved me.”

“I killed you because I couldn’t save you,” I correct, voice low and deliberate. “And I shot myself because I couldn’t survive doing it twice.”

The silence that follows is vast. The kind that expands until it swallows everything human in it. The river moves sluggishly, dragging its own reflection downstream.

Tyler steps forward slowly, uncertain, like someone approaching an animal that might bite. His voice is hoarse when he finally speaks. “And now?”

“Now,” I say, “I’m trying to rewrite what time insists on repeating. You’re alive. Thornhill’s not done. And I have no interest in being merciful a second time.”

His hands shake when he reaches out. He stops before he touches me, his fingers hovering in the air between us, trembling with something that could be hope or hysteria. “You still see me as that monster.”

“I see you as both,” I admit. “The boy and the beast. The tragedy and the aftermath. And the worst part?”

He looks up. “What?”

“I can’t decide which one I miss more.”

…

The world narrows until it’s only the two of us. Tyler is still standing close. Close enough that I can feel the warmth rolling off him in small, uncertain waves. His breath trembles when it hits the cold. His hands hang uselessly between us, as if even they can’t decide whether to reach for me or repent.

I should move. I should leave. I should let this moment rot before it flowers into something reckless. But I don’t. Because for once, time isn’t demanding. It’s holding its breath.

He looks at me the way dying men look at light – not because it saves them, but because it’s the last thing they’ll see. His voice breaks when he finally says, “If I did all that, if I became that thing, if you really killed me… then this shouldn’t even be possible. I shouldn’t even be standing here.”

“Nothing about us has ever been possible,” I say. “That’s what makes it inevitable.”

He lets out a sound that’s almost a laugh, except it hurts too much. His eyes flick to my lips, then back to my eyes. Like a silent question. I should say no. I should remind him that sentimentality is a parasite. But then again, I’ve always been a willing host for beautiful diseases.

When he steps closer, the space between us dies quietly. His hand trembles when it touches my jaw, fingers cold, careful, and reverent. I don’t flinch. I simply watch him the way I’d watch a star collapse. Curious, horrified, unable to look away.

“Tell me to stop,” he whispers.

“I never tell people to stop,” I reply. “I prefer to watch them ruin themselves properly.”

He almost smiles, and then he kisses me. It isn’t soft. It isn’t delicate. It’s the kind of kiss that feels like a confession, a wound, a warning. His lips are trembling and warm, and the taste of him is salt and smoke and everything I’ve spent years trying to forget. The world dissolves around us. The trees, the river, the rules. All of it folds into this single, irredeemable moment.

When he finally pulls back, our foreheads are still touching. He’s shaking. So am I, though I’ll never admit it. “This is wrong,” he whispers.

“Most worthwhile things are,” I answer.

He lets out a breath that sounds like surrender. “Then why does it feel like goodbye?”

“Because it is,” I say softly. “Goodbyes are the only things people like us ever do well.”

He stares at me, eyes wet, mouth trembling with a thousand unsaid things. “You don’t have to keep punishing yourself, Wednesday. You don’t have to live like this.”

I tilt my head, studying him the way I’d study an endangered species. “Of course I do. Guilt is the only thing that survives us.”

For a heartbeat, neither of us moves. The river keeps whispering. He takes my hand carefully, like he’s afraid it’ll dissolve. His skin is warm. Mine is not. “If I could change it,” he says, “if I could take it all back…”

“You wouldn’t be you,” I interrupt.

He swallows hard, eyes searching mine. “And you wouldn’t be you if you let me.”

“Precisely.”

We stand there, two broken constants orbiting the same ruin. And for once, I allow myself the smallest truth. “If there is another timeline,” I whisper, “another cruel experiment where we meet again, promise me one thing.”

He nods slowly. “Anything.”

“Don’t fall in love with me there either.”

He laughs. It’s a quiet, broken and beautiful laugh. “Too late.”

I allow a ghost of a smile. “Then I suppose some curses are simply efficient.”

The wind moves through the trees, scattering the last of the leaves into the river. Somewhere, a clock chimes. It’s not a warning, just a reminder that time still has us on a leash.

He leans in again, slower this time, as if memorising proximity. I close my eyes, not out of surrender, but because sometimes the only way to survive a moment is to let it look like death.

When we finally part, the air feels colder, like the night itself disapproves of mercy. He whispers, “So this is it?”

I nod once. “Every beautiful thing ends. That’s how you know it was real.”

And then I turn toward the path back to Nevermore, my pulse steady, my hands cold, and the taste of inevitability still burning on my lips.

…

The gates of Nevermore rise through the fog. I’ve always found comfort in its silhouette. It’s sharp, unwelcoming, and consistent. Today, though, it feels heavier. The iron hums faintly when I pass through it, like it remembers every version of me that’s walked these grounds and bled for them.

By the time I reach Ophelia Hall, the corridors are empty.

When I push open the door to my dorm, Enid is awake. She’s sitting cross-legged on her bed, surrounded by the aftermath of what looks like an unsuccessful attempt at cheer: fairy lights, half-braided friendship bracelets, and an open box of untouched pink macarons. Her phone hums with soft music. It’s something tragically upbeat.

She looks up when I enter, her expression shifting through at least three emotions before it settles somewhere between relief and guilt. “You’re back,” she says, voice small.

“Your observational skills are improving,” I reply.

She flinches at my tone, an old reflex, and then looks down. “I wasn’t sure if you were ever coming back.”

“I have an unfortunate habit of surviving,” I say, shrugging off my coat and hanging it by the door. The movement feels mechanical, rehearsed. My muscles ache from the conversation at the river, from the weight of things I’ve said that should have remained buried.

The silence that follows is brittle. She breaks it first. “How’s Tyler?”

“Alive,” I say. “Which is more than can be said for my sense of emotional detachment.”

Her brow furrows. “I don’t know what that means.”

“Neither do I,” I admit, and that seems to surprise us both.

I sit on my bed, facing her. For a moment, we just exist. Like two creatures held together by shared disaster. She fidgets with one of the bracelets, twisting the strands until they fray. There’s something fragile about her today. It’s the kind of fragility that comes from holding yourself together too long.

“Enid,” I begin. “I need to tell you something, and it will sound… improbable.”

She blinks. “When do you ever tell me something probable?”

“Touché,” I say. “Then consider this a continuation of the trend.”

I draw a breath. “When I shot myself, I didn’t die. Not in the conventional sense. I woke up somewhere else. In a different version of my life, twenty years from now. I was older. Successful. But utterly alone. You were gone. Tyler was dead. And Thornhill…” my mouth tightens “…was thriving. Director of Willowhill, experimenting on minds she found inconvenient. Including yours.”

Her face drains of colour. “Me?”

“Yes.”

She stares at me like I’ve spoken a curse. “That’s… that’s insane.”

“Correct,” I say evenly. “But it was also real. Every moment. Every scar.”

I describe it to Enid: the white walls, the glass rooms, the way she sat in that chair with her hair washed pale and her eyes emptied of everything human. I tell her about the charcoal sketches. The sketches of the wolves and moons and broken clocks and how her voice was barely a ghost when she whispered my name.

Enid’s hands shake as she listens. “I don’t… I don’t remember any of that.”

“You wouldn’t,” I say softly. “You haven’t lived it yet. But I have.”

For a moment, there’s nothing. No sound except the faint hum of the fairy lights and the low growl of the storm outside. Then Enid looks at me, eyes wide and wet. “So what are you saying? That we’re stuck in some… loop?”

“I’m saying the universe has a terrible sense of humour,” I reply. “And that Thornhill intends to use you.’’

She shivers, curling her knees up to her chest. “You really saw me there?”

“Yes.”

“What was I like?”

“Beautiful,” I say. “And broken. Like something she’d painted over too many times.”

She looks away, and I can see the tremor in her lip. I hate that I notice it. I hate that I care.

“I don’t want that future,” she whispers.

“Then don’t surrender to it.”

She laughs weakly. “Easy for you to say. You’re… you.”

“Contrary to popular belief,” I say, “I am not immune to despair. I simply manage it better.”

Her gaze flicks up. “You really think I’d give up?”

“I think,” I answer carefully, “you’ve already come close.”

She goes still. I can see it in her eyes. The memory of that night at the Rav’n, the chandelier swinging above us, the scream that never quite escaped her throat. The guilt she carries like a bruise.

Her voice breaks when she says, “I never meant to hurt you.”

“I know.”

She blinks at me, startled. “You… do?”

I nod. “You were not in control. It’s not you who did it. It was her. I forgive you, Enid.’’

Her breath catches. “You forgive me?”

“I’m trying something radical,” I say dryly. “Emotional evolution.”

For a heartbeat, she just stares at me. Then she moves slowly, as if afraid the air might shatter, and crosses the room. I don’t expect what happens next. She leans down and wraps her arms around me.

The contact is immediate, warm, and suffocating. My spine locks up. My first instinct is to recoil, to retreat into familiar, comfortable detachment. But I don’t.

Her heartbeat is fast, stuttering against mine. Her hair smells faintly of rain and cheap strawberry shampoo. It’s absurdly domestic. I’ve been stabbed with less intimacy.

I don’t return the hug, not at first. I simply sit there, trapped in the foreignness of it. Then, slowly, against my better judgement, I let my hand rise and rest on her back. It feels… unbearable. And necessary.

She whispers into my shoulder, “I don’t deserve this.”

“Actually you do deserve it.’’ I reply quietly.

When she pulls back, her face is streaked with tears, but she’s smiling. Faintly, shakily, like someone who’s just remembered what hope feels like. “Thank you,” she says.

“Don’t thank me,” I murmur. “Just don’t make me regret it.”

Enid laughs. It’s a broken sound. I watch her for a moment, then glance toward the window. The storm outside rattles the glass, lightning flickering over the trees. But for now, the room is quiet. The lights hum. The warmth lingers.

For the first time in what feels like centuries, I allow myself the smallest, most treacherous luxury of all. Forgiveness, I realise, isn’t mercy. It’s a wound that decided to stop bleeding.

…

Night has a pulse tonight. It throbs against the windows of Nevermore, slow and deliberate, as if time itself is holding its breath. The storm outside has grown bolder. The thunder prowling along the rooftops, lightning dissecting the clouds with surgical precision.

I move through the corridors like a trespasser in my own life. Every portrait I pass seems to shift its eyes after me, every candle burns a little too high, and every shadow behaves as though it’s waiting for a cue. My boots echo against the floor in perfect rhythm with the clock tower outside. The hour approaches.

By the time I reach Weems’s office, I already know what I’ll find, or rather, what I’ll try to prevent.

The door opens before I can knock. She stands by the window, composed as always, spine straight, hands clasped behind her back. The lamplight paints her in gold and shadow. For a moment, she looks like a statue carved to honour restraint itself.

“Miss Addams,” she says without turning. “You’re late.”

“Time is a predator, not a servant,” I reply. “I prefer to make it chase me.”

She smiles faintly at that. It’s a weary, elegant expression, as though she’s amused despite herself. “I assume you’ve come because of your… vision.”

I nod once. “If you refuse to evacuate, I’d at least recommend bracing for homicide.”

She turns to face me, eyes steady, sharp, and too calm. “Are you ready?”

“For what?”

“The hour you saw,” she says, voice quieter now, almost tender. “I assume that’s why you’re here.”

The grandfather clock ticks in the corner, old and patient, each sound heavy enough to bruise the air. I glance at its face for one minute until the hour strikes. One minute before the vision becomes memory again, this time written in blood instead of prophecy.

I want to warn her. I open my mouth, but the words disobey me. There’s something about Weems’s composure, the way she stands already expecting the storm, that steals the urgency from me. She doesn’t look like a woman unaware of her fate. She looks like one who’s already negotiated with it.

Before I can decide if that’s comforting or horrifying, the door handle turns.

We both look up. There’s a heartbeat of silence, and then the door bursts open.

Wind crashes into the room, wild and living, scattering papers and extinguishing the candles in one violent exhale. The lightning that follows blinds me for a second – just enough for her shape to form from the glare like something summoned rather than alive. It’s Thornhill.

Thornhill has perfect posture. A smile carved in porcelain and venom. Hair so precisely curled that it mocks the chaos behind her eyes. She steps through the threshold like she owns the air, perfume preceding her. A mixture of roses and rotted soil.

“Well,” she says brightly, as if greeting old friends at a funeral. “What an intimate gathering.”

My fingers twitch toward the blade under my sleeve, more instinct than choice. “You have an unfortunate tendency to ruin perfectly good nights.”

“And you”, she purrs, “have an unfortunate tendency to survive them.”

Her voice is honeyed, but her eyes are cold. They’re calculating, satisfied and cruel. Then she steps aside, and something darker follows her.

It’s Tyler. Only it isn’t Tyler anymore. The light from the hallway bends over him wrong, like it’s afraid to touch him. His eyes gleam gold, wet and fevered, the beast inside barely leashed. He’s trembling not from fear, but from the effort it takes to stay human. Thornhill’s hand rests lightly on his shoulder, the gesture almost maternal, except for the fact that her fingers press just hard enough to bruise.

When his gaze meets mine, something cracks in my chest. It’s familiarity colliding with horror. The face is his. The expression isn’t.

“Tyler,” I whisper, though it feels like blasphemy to use his name on this thing.

Thornhill smiles wider. “He’s such a faithful creation. All he needed was purpose. Isn’t that right, my dear?”

He doesn’t answer. His jaw flexes. The gold in his eyes ripples like something burning beneath glass.

“You’ve turned him into a weapon,” I say quietly.

“I’ve turned him into what he always was,” she replies. “Potential is such a waste when left unsupervised.”

The air tightens. Thunder mutters outside, slow and rolling, as though the heavens are politely warning us to end this scene before it begins.

Weems steps forward. “This is a school,” she says, her voice iron wrapped in silk. “You’re trespassing.”

“Oh, I know,” Thornhill says, walking further in. “But nostalgia can be so persuasive.”

Tyler follows, his movement sharp and jerky, the way puppets sometimes tremble when the string is pulled too fast.

The clock behind us strikes the hour. The sound is monstrous, a heartbeat stretched into thunder. The first chime rolls through the room like a shockwave, and something changes in the light. The shadows deepen, stretch, and twist. The mirror over Weems’s desk warps like water. The second chime hits, and then I see it.

Another me. Standing beside the mirror. Watching. Her eyes, my eyes, are darker, colder, and drained of their human residue. She wears the same dress, but older somehow; the fabric is torn near the collar, streaked faintly with blood. And on her wrist gleams the silver watch, the one I lost, still ticking backwards.

Weems stiffens. Thornhill falters. Even Tyler’s breathing hitches.

My double tilts her head. It’s that same small, deliberate motion I make when studying something worth dissecting. Her voice is low and steady when she speaks, and it is my voice exactly. “You weren’t supposed to be here yet.”

My pulse stutters, and for a moment, even I feel something like dread. “You’re me.”

Her lips curve in a near-smile. “An approximation.”

Thornhill’s eyes flash. “How poetic,” she murmurs, though her tone betrays the first hairline crack of fear. “Two of you. I’d say the world doesn’t deserve even one.”

My other self turns to her slowly. “And yet, here you still are contaminating it.”

The clock chimes again, louder. The air splits with a sound like glass screaming. The mirror behind my double fractures outward, not from impact, but from whatever she’s become. Shards drift into the air like suspended rain.

Tyler growls, the Hyde pushing closer to the surface. Thornhill grips his wrist hard enough to draw blood. Weems takes one step back, her face a portrait of disbelief and something else beneath it. Relief, maybe. Recognition.

The other me looks at her, then at me. “You broke the loop,” she says. “But you didn’t erase it. You left the door open.”

“What door?” I ask, though my voice feels far away.

She smiles thinly. “The one that lets me in.”

The next second, everything happens at once. The clock shatters. The mirror collapses inward. The light dies. Tyler screams. It’s not human, not animal, but something in between.
Thornhill shouts his name, and Weems vanishes. She’s just gone, dissolved into the dark.

Before I can move, before I can even draw breath, my other self steps forward, reaches out of the mirror’s ruins, and grabs my wrist.

Her touch burns cold, like time itself scalding me for interfering. Her face is inches from mine. I can see every tiny difference: the faint scar at her jaw, the emptiness in her gaze.

“Don’t fight it,” she whispers. “It’s already happening.”

“What is it?” I demand.

Her smile is razor-thin. “The collapse.”

Suddenly the world folds. The air implodes. Everything that exists screams once and goes silent.

The last thing I see before the dark swallows us both is Tyler, half-human, half-monster, falling to his knees, reaching toward me like he’s trying to stop two versions of the same sin from merging.

Chapter Text

Wednesday’s POV

The dark doesn’t fall this time. It descends in one blow.  It folds around me until up and down are social constructs and air is an afterthought.

For a moment, there is nothing but the faint vibration under my skin. I hear the pulse of the watch still ticking backward, arrogant even here. Then the sound begins. It’s distant and too slow to be called a heartbeat. More like the echo of something remembering how to exist.

“You shouldn’t have turned it again,” says my voice. It’s not an accusation. It’s a diagnosis.

She steps out of the dark like the negative of a photograph. She has the same bones, same hair, and same posture, but where I cast shadows, she is one. Her eyes are pale, washed-out versions of my own. The kind that have seen too many endings and decided to stop blinking.

“You think you’re saving them,” she says quietly. “But you’re unmaking everything you touch.”

I stand perfectly still. “You sound like Weems on a good day.”

“Lies have never suited us,” she replies.

The world around us starts to arrange itself. Like fragments of time grafted together like a patchwork wound. The blackened door of Weems’ office. The riverbank at night. A broken clock ticking on the ceiling. All overlapping, all wrong.

My reflection, my replica, steps closer. “Every turn of that watch burns a thread from the tapestry. You call it rewinding. The universe calls it consumption.”

“I call it resourcefulness.”

She laughs. It sounds softly, bitterly. “You call it mercy. But mercy is just cruelty with better timing.”

I study her. “You’re me from the future, then? The end result of my so-called interference?”

“No,” she says. “I’m what was left when you ended the future.”

The words land like stones. “You’re saying I destroyed the world?”

“Not in fire or flood,” she says, tilting her head. “In amendments. You rewrote so many lines that the page tore. You pulled the thread until the loom collapsed. You tried to save Weems, and the faculty burnt. You saved Enid, and she stopped dreaming. You saved Tyler, and he stopped being real.”

I feel something small twist in my chest. It’s a mixture of irritation and horror; the two are siblings. “If I’d done nothing, they’d all be dead.”

“If you’d done nothing, they’d stay dead,” she counters. “That’s what time expects. It expects closure. But you don’t believe in it. You keep clawing open graves to see if they’re still breathing.”

The fragments around us pulse, flicker. For a moment I see Enid’s face through the dark. Her eyes were blank, and her hand was twitching as if remembering how to wave. Then Weems’ silhouette, glass through her chest where a clock should be. And then Tyler. His gold eyes dimming, his mouth open in a scream I never let finish.

I turn away, but she’s already there, circling. “You always said emotion was inefficient,” she murmurs. “But you’re the most sentimental creature time ever manufactured. Every time you turn that watch, you’re trying to say, “I love you,” in a language that only knows how to end things.”

Her hand moves, my hand reaching out. “You think the watch obeys you? It doesn’t. It’s been feeding on you. Every second you steal, it takes a truth in return. You’ve lost more than you realise.”

“I haven’t lost anything.”

She steps closer until we’re almost touching, her breath cold and smelling faintly of metal. “Then tell me,” she whispers. “What’s your mother’s favourite flower?”

I open my mouth, and nothing comes out. The knowledge is gone, neatly excised. I feel the absence like a missing tooth my tongue can’t stop searching for.

Her smile is almost kind. “It started small. Names. Faces. Then reasons. Motives. You remember that you love them but not why.”

“I don’t love anyone,” I say automatically.

She just looks at me. “That’s the first sign it’s already eating you.”

The world trembles. Clocks appear in the dark. There are hundreds of them, suspended midair, ticking out of sync. Some run backward. Some spin until the glass shatters. In one, I see Thornhill’s garden burning. In another, Tyler’s hand, bloodied and reaching for me.

“You think I’m here to haunt you,” she says. “But I’m here because this is the last loop before everything collapses. You’re not fixing reality anymore, Wednesday. You’re corroding it.”

“Then why are you still here?”

Her expression hardens. “Because I’m the firewall. I’m what time built to contain you. If you turn that watch again, I have to erase you permanently.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Adorable. I’m being threatened by my own existential backup copy.”

“You think this is a joke,” she snaps, voice slicing through the air. “You’ve already destroyed six timelines. Entire versions of Jericho burnt, or froze, or simply stopped. Every time, you promised it was the last. Every time, you wind the watch again. You call it perseverance. I call it addiction.”

The clocks flicker faster. One shatters completely, raining time like broken glass.

“What happens if I stop?” I ask quietly.

“Then they die,” she says. “But they live right. Permanently. The story ends. Time heals. You fade.”

“And if I keep going?”

“Then everything fades. Including me. Including them. The world implodes into black silence. A mercy-killing of continuity.”

Her eyes soften. “And you’ll never even know what you lost, because the watch will devour the memory of it before you notice it missing.”

The air thickens.  I can feel the hum of the mechanism on my wrist, like a heart that wants to eat.

“I can’t stop until Thornhill does,” I say. “If I do, she wins.”

“Then you’ll lose everyone else.”

“I’ve already lost them.”

“Then lose yourself,” she whispers. “It’s the only moral choice left.”

Silence stretches between us like a fault line.

Finally, she steps back, the shadows peeling from her shoulders like burnt wings. “You don’t have much time. The next turn will start the collapse. If you use it again. If you try to save one more person, I’ll come back. But not as a warning.”

“As what, then?”

“As your executioner.”

Her image flickers, and for an instant I see her as she truly is. Her eyes are hollowed by decades of rewinds, veins threaded with light, and skin ghosting at the edges where time refused to hold her shape.

Then she’s gone, leaving only the echo of my own breathing and the whisper of clocks dying out one by one.

The dark begins to recede.

…

Consciousness returns quickly. The first thing I notice is light. It’s pale and too clean to belong anywhere, kind. Then the smell follows: jasmine tea, precisely steeped, and something metallic beneath it. I am on the floor of Weems’s office, cheek against the cold wood, the taste of ozone and regret on my tongue.

The watch still ticks against my wrist, warm as fever. It shouldn’t be possible; I remember the dark swallowing it whole. Yet here it is.

Across the room, Weems stands by the window. Her silhouette is the same calm geometry I saw in every vision. She’s poised, elegant, and utterly unaware that time is already rehearsing her death.

For a moment I simply watch her. The clock behind her desk reads 8:21. Eleven minutes until inevitability.

I hear the echo of my own voice in my skull. The one that wore my face and called herself “what’s left after”.

“If you turn it again, you end everyone.”

She was right. Of course she was. But so am I. Because endings, no matter how elegant, are still failures of imagination.

I rise slowly. My reflection glints in the window beside Weems, pale and sharp enough to wound the view.

She turns when she hears me move. “Miss Addams,” she says, composed as ever, “you look as though you’ve seen a ghost.”

“I did,” I answer. “She was punctual.”

Weems blinks once, uncertain whether I’m joking. “Are you hurt?”

“Only existentially.” I dust off my sleeve. “That will take longer to heal.”

Her eyes search mine for an explanation. “What happened?”

“An argument,” I say. “With myself. I lost.”

She sighs, weary but indulgent. “You’re supposed to be in your dorm.”

“I am precisely where the tragedy occurs,” I reply. “It seemed efficient.”

The clock ticks louder. 8:24. Outside, thunder murmurs a warning.

I cross the room, studying every detail: the cup of jasmine tea (still steaming), the broken picture frame (still intact, for now), and the faint reflection of both of us in the mirror behind the desk.
Each object is a coordinate in the death I’ve already witnessed.

Weems watches me in silence, the way one watches a small, venomous animal they secretly admire. “You still believe Thornhill intends to kill me.”

“Belief is irrelevant,” I say. “She does.”

“And yet, according to you, the event hasn’t happened.”

“Not yet.”

Her sigh deepens. “Then what exactly are you planning to do?”

“Rewrite inevitability.”

She folds her arms. “And how do you intend to accomplish that?”

I meet her gaze. “By being uncooperative with fate.”

Her expression softens, almost pitying. “You’ve always mistaken defiance for strategy.”

“Defiance is strategy,” I say. “It keeps the story from getting dull.”

8:27. My fingers twitch toward the blade hidden in my sleeve. Not out of violence but because of ritual. It steadies me. Outside, the wind claws at the windows, rain starting its careful assault on the glass.

Weems moves toward the tea tray. “I suppose I can’t convince you to leave.”

“No,” I say. “But you can lock the door.” She hesitates, perhaps sensing that obedience is the only way forward. The bolt slides home with a reluctant click.

8:29. Every breath in the room feels numbered. I glance at the watch again. Its second hand trembles, then stills, as if deciding whether to betray me.

“Every turn burns a thread,” the other me had said.

If that’s true, then tonight is combustion. Weems studies me, brow furrowed. “You look…” she searches for the word, fails, and settles on, “…haunted.”

“I am,” I reply. “It’s the only company worth keeping.”

8:31. The watch begins to hum. Low, steady, almost tender. I feel it vibrating against my pulse like it’s tasting my resolve.

Weems takes a cautious step forward. “Wednesday, whatever you’re thinking…”

“It’s too late for prevention,” I interrupt. “We’re in the preservation stage now.”

8:32. The second hand jerks. The light flickers. Somewhere in the walls, something groans. The sound of time remembering what it forgot.

Then the door bursts open. Wind crashes through like an uninvited deity. Papers spiral into the air. The lamp dies with a sigh. And in the doorway stands Thornhill. Her red hair immaculate, smile precise, and cruelty tailored.

“Good evening,” she says brightly. “I see my invitation got lost in the mail.”

Behind her is Tyler. His eyes shimmer gold beneath the flicker of lightning, the Hyde clawing against the cage of his skin. He looks half-conscious, half-consumed, the leash of Thornhill’s control wrapped invisibly around his throat.

“Tyler,” I breathe. The word feels like a bruise reopening.

He flinches but doesn’t answer. His jaw tightens; his hands twitch. The veins at his temple pulse in time with the thunder.

Thornhill steps inside, voice honeyed with mock sympathy. “I must say, Headmistress Weems, you do have impeccable taste in company. The prodigal Addams is so dramatic even when she’s losing.”

Weems’ composure fractures just slightly. “You don’t belong here.”

Thornhill’s smile widens. “Neither does she. And yet, here we are. History’s most dysfunctional reunion.”

I take one step forward, the blade sliding into my palm like a thought I’ve been avoiding. “If you touch him again, I’ll plant you in your own greenhouse.”

“Still pretending to care,” Thornhill purrs. “How quaint.”

Lightning flares. The gold in Tyler’s eyes burns brighter. His breath comes faster, his shoulders shaking under an invisible weight.

“Let him go,” I say.

She tilts her head. “He’s already gone.”

The words twist in my gut, and for a fraction of a heartbeat, I hear the other me whisper from somewhere unseen: “You think you’re saving them, but you’re unmaking everything you touch.”

I push the voice aside. “Not this time,” I mutter.

Thornhill raises a hand. Tyler’s body jerks like a marionette yanked too hard. He growls. It’s deep, low, human collapsing into monster.

Weems moves instinctively toward him, but I step between them. “Stay back,” I say. “He won’t know you when it starts.”

Thornhill laughs softly. “You can’t save them both, Wednesday. You never could. Every timeline ends the same way. With blood, guilt, and your stubborn little heart pretending it isn’t breaking.”

Her words strike something I’d rather not acknowledge. The watch hums louder, almost pleading.

I ignore it. “I’ve seen how this ends,” I tell her. “And I’m here to edit the conclusion.”

She arches a brow. “And how do you propose to do that, dear?”

I lift the blade just enough to catch the lightning. “With punctuation.”

Tyler roars loudly. He sounds no longer human. His eyes blaze pure gold, claws erupting from his hands. Thornhill’s control tightens, forcing him forward.

Weems shouts my name, but I don’t move. The world narrows to the space between my pulse and his. The watch burns against my wrist, the second hand spinning backward like a desperate prayer. I can almost hear the ticking forming words: Choose.

And I do. I step toward Tyler, toward Thornhill, toward the catastrophe I’ve rewritten too many times to fear. If this is a collapse, then I’ll meet it head-on. Because if I am the end of everything, I may as well end beautifully.

…

What follows is violence. The air itself seems to brace. The candles die with a sound like gasping lungs, the clock melts into silence, and somewhere deep inside Nevermore, a low vibration begins. Time recognising what’s about to happen and retreating in disgust.

Thornhill moves first. A flick of her wrist, elegant and venomous. The vines that slumber beneath the wooden floorboards awaken, erupting upward in a sudden, violent bloom. They whip through the air like snakes tasting blood. Weems snaps her arm outward, and for a moment, the vines freeze mid-motion. Her power is forcing them still.

But Thornhill’s smile sharpens. “You always did mistake restraint for strength.”

She twists her fingers. The vines scream. The air fills with the sound of splintering wood and tearing fabric. One lashes out, slicing across Weems’s shoulder. Blood blooms through the silver of her blouse, slow and dark.

I want to move to her aid, but I can’t. Not yet. Because Tyler is on me.

He lunges with a sound that isn’t human. A half-snarled breath, half plea. The gold in his eyes burns so bright it seems to eat the whites entirely. His claws catch the light before they catch me.

I duck, narrowly missing the first strike. The air burns where his hand passes. I sweep low, spin on my heel, knife flashing toward his ribs, but he catches my wrist mid-swing, his grip iron, trembling. For a fraction of a heartbeat, he hesitates, and in that heartbeat, I see him: Tyler, not the Hyde. Conflicted, lost, breaking from the inside.

“Tyler,” I whisper, my voice sharper than any blade. “Fight her.”

His pupils flicker. The monster ripples beneath the surface, threatening to drown him whole. “I can’t,” he grinds out. “She’s…inside…”

“She’s nothing,” I hiss. “You’re stronger than this parasite.”

But Thornhill hears me and laughs. “Oh, how touching. Do you truly think he wants saving?”

Her tone is cruel and sweet, sugar over poison. “You never understood him. You never understood love, either. You always mistake destruction for devotion.”

The words sting more than I’ll ever admit. Tyler moves again, faster this time. His claws rake across my sleeve, slicing through fabric, through skin. Pain blossoms hot and wet down my arm, but I hold my ground. Blood slicks the handle of my knife, the scent of iron rising like an old friend.

He growls. It’s an animal sound, raw and wild. Before he charges.

I pivot, ducking beneath his arm, twisting behind him. My blade presses against his throat for a single, impossible second, trembling between mercy and necessity. I could end this. I’ve done it before.

But I don’t. Because the memory of that night still hums behind my ribs. The rain, the mud, the way his eyes turned human just before I killed him. I can still feel the weight of his body falling and still hear the sound it made when he hit the ground. I can’t repeat it. I won’t.

He throws me back with unnatural strength, sending me crashing against Weems’s desk. Papers scatter like startled birds. The breath leaves my lungs in a sharp, involuntary gasp.

Across the room, Weems and Thornhill are still locked in their own quiet war. Weems is dodging Thornhill's attacks. Thornhill attacks with life itself, vines and roots and creeping flora that erupt from every surface, clawing their way toward the ceiling.

The office is no longer a room; it’s a battlefield masquerading as a garden.

“Do you know why you failed, Larissa?” Thornhill sneers, stepping closer, her hand glowing faintly green. “Because you believed this place could be reformed. You built a sanctuary out of rot and called it a school.”

Weems’s voice is steady, but her knees are trembling. “And you built a prison out of love and called it salvation.”

For a second, Thornhill actually looks wounded, then her smile returns, crueller. “Beautiful last words.”

The vine nearest to Weems snaps like a whip. The thorns glint silver in the dim light. It lunges for her heart.

I don’t think. I move. The blade slips from my hand as I dive, body slamming into hers. The impact knocks us both sideways. Pain flashes through my ribs like fire, but the motion saves her. The vine pierces me instead. It slides in, hot and deep, through the curve of my side.

It’s not fatal. Not yet. But it’s intimate. The kind of wound that hurts.

Weems catches me before I hit the ground. Her eyes are wide, more shocked than afraid. “Wednesday…”

“Leave,” I manage, voice strained but calm. “Now.”

“I can’t…”

“You can and you will.” My hand tightens on her sleeve, leaving a smear of blood against the pale fabric. “If she kills you, this place dies with you. Leave. That’s an order.”

She hesitates, torn between reason and something dangerously close to care. I can see the war in her face. I can see the instinct to protect me colliding with her understanding of hierarchy.

“Go,” I whisper. “You can’t die in front of me twice.”

That breaks her. She nods once, sharp and silent, then disappears through the side door, her form flickering as she morphs. She starts shifting into a shadow of herself, something spectral and fast.

Thornhill’s laugh follows her. “Touching. Your devotion to doomed women is almost poetic.”

I pull the vine from my side in one clean motion. The pain is exquisite, crystalline, alive. Blood runs down my fingers, thick and dark. “You talk too much.”

She smirks. “And you bleed too easily.”

We face each other now, the world narrowing to this room, this air, this heartbeat.

Behind her, Tyler turns toward the door Weems vanished through, his body trembling, his eyes still gold but flickering. The Hyde in him strains for a new target, one Thornhill feeds with invisible threads.

She doesn’t even look back. She doesn’t have to. He obeys her without question, a weapon moving toward Weems’s trail.

“Tyler,” I call, but he doesn’t stop. His claws drag across the wall, leaving deep scars in the wood.

Thornhill smiles, satisfied. “He’s focusing on the headmistress now. Which leaves us…” She gestures to me, elegant as ever. “…to finish our conversation.”

My hand tightens on the hilt of my knife. The air hums between us, alive with the scent of blood, jasmine, and the faint electrical taste of unravelling fate.

I straighten my spine, ignoring the ache in my side, the warmth pooling under my ribs. “I don’t need to kill you,” I say. “I just need to make you wish I had.”

Her eyes flash green. “Then let’s see if you’ve learnt anything.’’

…

The room becomes unrecognisable. Light fractures through the cracked mirror in ribbons of gold and shadow, painting the walls like stained glass from some blasphemous cathedral.

The vines that Thornhill commands writhe around us, roots clawing through the floorboards, petals dripping with something darker than dew.

She stands in the middle of it all. She stands perfectly still, perfectly wrong.
Her eyes glow faintly green now, veins of chlorophyll spiderwebbing beneath her skin.
Her humanity is gone; she wears it only as a disguise that no longer fits.

“You never asked how I survived,” she says, voice too calm for the chaos. “Normies don’t usually walk away from your kind, do they?”

I circle her slowly, my knife tracing a thin arc of light through the air. “I assumed the devil had tenure and refused to let you go.”

She laughs softly, the sound unsettlingly organic. "The devil had nothing to do with it. I made myself something better.”

Her hand rises, and the veins beneath her skin pulse, glowing brighter. The vines react, twisting toward her like worshippers. “Did you know plants communicate? They whisper to one another underground. I wondered what would happen if they could whisper through me.”

I tilt my head, studying her like a particularly vile specimen. “I see you’ve taken self-pollination to a theological level.”

“Mock if you must,” she says, smiling faintly. “But I transcended. The serum was meant to control outcasts. I merely adjusted the ratio. A little chlorophyll. A little nerve. Now I’m everything this school feared and everything it deserves.”

Her arm flicks outward. The vines strike. I dive sideways; one lashes across my shoulder, another grazes my throat. The air fills with the scent of crushed roses and blood.

She moves toward me, elegant even in monstrosity. “You should thank me, Wednesday. I’ve become the bridge between species. The new evolution.”

“Congratulations,” I say, breathing hard. “You’ve successfully turned yourself into a houseplant with delusions of grandeur.”

Her smile falters. “You can’t win this.”

“I’m not trying to win.” I stand slowly, knife steady, blood trailing down my arm like punctuation. “I’m trying to end the conversation.”

She gestures again, and the roots surge from beneath the desk. They coil around my legs, pulling tight. The wood groans. My pulse thrums in my ears, but the watch on my wrist begins to hum louder, a deep, vibrating sound that doesn’t belong to this world.

Time shudders. For a moment, everything freezes. Thornhill mid-motion, her hair suspended like smoke. The only things moving are the second hand of the watch and me.

It feels like standing inside a dying heartbeat. The other me had warned me: “If you keep using it, you’ll collapse the whole design.” But the truth is simple. I was born to break designs.

I wrench free from the roots, every movement slow and viscous, as if fighting through honey. The air smells like iron and rot and jasmine gone sour.

When time releases its breath, I’m already behind her.

She turns, too late. “What…what did you…”

“Borrowed a moment,” I say. “Interest will be due later.”

She snarls, the sound distinctly inhuman now. Her skin ripples. Her veins are darkening, her fingers elongating into something bark-like and sharp. She isn’t Thornhill anymore; she’s the forest’s revenge, a body rewritten by hunger and self-worship.

She lunges, faster than she should be. Her arm slams into me; I hit the wall hard enough to see stars. The knife skitters out of my hand. The vines close in again, wrapping around my throat, squeezing.

Her face is close to mine, eyes glowing, voice a whisper that smells of dirt and decay. “You could’ve joined me, you know. You and I aren’t so different. We both crave control.”

I manage a smile, blood on my teeth. “You confuse control with survival. I merely prefer to pick my predators.”

She tightens the vines. Black dots swarm the edges of my vision. The watch burns against my skin. They’re searing now, humming like it’s screaming in a language older than time.

“Goodbye, Miss Addams,” she breathes.

I’m about to accept when I remember another knife in my jacket. I grab it, and without hesitation, I force it into her heart.  Suddenly a light tears through the vines, unravelling them into ash. The sound it makes isn’t a sound at all; it’s silence turning violent.

Thornhill stumbles back, clutching her arm. The green glow under her skin flickers, falters. She looks down at her hand. The veins are blackening, spreading like rot.

“What did you do?” she gasps.

I step forward, my voice low, calm, and deliberate. “You wanted to be one with your garden. Congratulations.”

Her body seizes. Roots erupt through her skin, crawling upward, threading through her hair, piercing her mouth when she tries to scream. The vines that once obeyed her now devour her.

Her eyes widen, shock melting into terror, then fury, then nothing. Her final breath smells like wilted lilies and acid rain.

I watch. I don’t look away. It’s grotesque, yes, but also strangely beautiful. Nature reclaiming its mistake.

When it’s over, she stands frozen. Half woman, half tree. Her face was preserved in an expression of rage. The roots spread through the office floor like veins through marble, sealing her there, a monument to arrogance.

I stand still, chest heaving, blood drying on my throat. For a moment, I simply listen. The rain outside has stopped. The air feels heavier, like time itself is watching, deciding how best to punish me.

I whisper to the statue that was Thornhill, “Some flowers only bloom once. You should’ve learnt when to wilt.”

Then I turn toward the door. Somewhere beyond it, I can still hear Tyler’s growl. Followed by the sound of Weems running, the sound of inevitability not quite finished.

I take a step forward, my wound pulsing in rhythm with the silence, and think, So this is what victory feels like. I feel just as hollow as before.

…

The air outside the office smells wrong. Everything feels wrong. Every step I take echoes twice. Once in sound, once in memory. The walls of Nevermore warp as I pass, the portraits melting in and out of focus, their painted eyes watching me with pity they haven’t earned.

This is what collapse feels like. The watch on my wrist has stopped ticking, yet I still hear it.
A ghost rhythm, deep beneath my skin, out of sync with everything else.
The hands frozen forever at 8:32. The hour I murdered inevitability.

I descend the stairwell, boots leaving faint smears of blood on the polished floor. Each landing looks wrong, subtly rearranged as if the school itself is reconsidering what order it was built in.

The corridor at the bottom is fractured light and shadow. The storm outside rages in reverse; raindrops drift upward past the windows, and lightning flickers backwards into clouds.

And then I hear it. A roar, raw and feral, tearing through the hallway like the sound of something ancient trying to remember how to breathe.

I know it’s Tyler.

I run. The sound guides me, pulling me toward the western wing. I push open the doors to the courtyard, and the world greets me with chaos.

The night air is soaked with ozone and the perfume of burning vines. Weems stands near the fountain, half-shifted, her form flickering between herself and something spectral. She looks tall, silver, and serpentine. The air around her vibrates with power.

Facing her, crouched low and trembling, is Tyler. Or what’s left of him.

The Hyde form is incomplete. The muscle and bone shifted painfully beneath skin, gold veins burning through the surface like molten metal. His hands, claws half-formed, dig into the wet stone. His breath comes out in broken growls.

“Tyler!” Weems’s voice cuts through the night like a blade. “Listen to me…she’s gone. Thornhill’s gone!”

But he doesn’t hear her. He’s drowning in whatever she left inside him. Command, rage, and grief are all braided together into something that’s neither human nor monster.

He lunges. Weems throws up a shield of refracted air; his claws glance off it, sending shards of pressure into the ground. The impact cracks the fountain’s base, water spilling out in brief, hysterical bursts.

I step forward. “Tyler.”

The sound of his name halts him for a fraction of a second. His head jerks toward me. His pupils flare, gold bleeding into blue, fighting for dominance.

“Wednesday…” His voice comes out strangled, as if it’s being torn from him by something that doesn’t want it said.

“I’m here.”

He stumbles back, clutching his head. The veins on his neck pulse, glowing faintly green. It’s the last echo of Thornhill’s control, still alive in his bloodstream.

Weems looks at me, eyes wide. “What did you do?”

“I pruned the garden,” I say flatly. “Now it’s screaming for its keeper.”

The ground shudders. The vines creeping up the courtyard walls curl inward, blackening, dying in slow agony. Time stutters. I see Weems’s form flicker; the moon blinks twice in the same instant.

My stomach drops. The collapse. It’s begun. The watch’s dead face glints under the moonlight. Its glass is cracked, but beneath it something moves: a shadow of my own reflection twitching in reverse.

I ignore it. I focus on Tyler.

He’s on his knees now, breathing raggedly, his body shifting back and forth between boy and beast. The look in his eyes hurts more than any wound. It’s terror. Not of me or of himself.

“Get away,” he gasps. “I can’t…control…it…”

I move closer. “Then let me.”

He snarls, baring teeth that don’t know whether they belong to a man or a monster. “You’ll have to kill me again.”

The words cut through me. There’s no accusation in them. Only resignation. “I’m not killing you,” I whisper. “Not again. Not ever.”

His hand slams against the ground, cracking the stone. “You don’t understand… She’s still in me… she’s everywhere…”

“Yes,” I say. “And she’s dead.”

He looks up, trembling. “Then why do I still hear her?”

The question hits something deep and cold. Because I hear her too. Thornhill’s voice lingers, faint as a memory but sharp as glass: ‘You can’t uproot a seed that’s already taken root.

I kneel in front of him, ignoring Weems’s warning cry. His eyes meet mine. He looks human for a second. I press my hand against his chest. His heartbeat is erratic, a clock running out of time.

“Listen to me,” I say. “You’re not her weapon anymore. You’re mine.”

His breath catches. “Yours?”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” I murmur. “It’s purely pragmatic. You’re inconveniently alive, and I detest loose ends.”

A breath of laughter escapes him. He sounds broken, almost hysterical. “You’re unbelievable.”

“Correct.”

The glow in his veins flickers again. He grimaces, doubling over, his growl turning into a strangled scream.

That’s when I realise the cost of Thornhill’s death. The energy that bound her to her creation is unravelling, and Tyler’s body is trying to follow her into oblivion.

Weems steps forward, voice urgent. “He’s destabilising… Wednesday, you need to…”

“I know.”

The world ripples. The fountain’s water freezes midair. My hair lifts slightly. The watch hums again, faint but unmistakable, the sound of time reconsidering its loyalties.

I take his face in my hands. His skin is fever-hot, his pulse a thunder under my thumbs. “Tyler,” I say, voice steady despite the panic clawing up my throat. “Look at me.”

He does. Barely. His eyes burn, flickering between gold and blue. “It’s too late,” he whispers. “You can’t save me.”

I shake my head. “You underestimate my talent for ruining inevitabilities.”

His lips part like he wants to argue, but no words come out. Only a sound. It’s a low, trembling growl that fades into a sob.

I feel it then beneath my palms: the rhythm of his heartbeat syncing to the broken tick of the watch. The time loops. I can see it: flashes of that other night, the forest, the blade, the rain. His death, my hand shaking, his blood mixing with mine.

And yet this time, I hold on. The collapse tightens around us, bending the courtyard into a distortion of itself. The moon splits, the trees reverse their growth, and the sound of the clock tower stretches into eternity.

He clutches at me like a drowning man, his claws cutting through my coat. “You should’ve let me go,” he rasps.

“Letting go is for the sentimental,” I whisper. “And I’m clinically incapable of that.”

He laughs weakly, blood on his teeth. “You care. You’ll never say it, but you do.”

For once, I don’t argue. The admission sits in my chest like a wound. “Care is just another word for contagion,” I say. “And you’ve infected me thoroughly.”

The ground splits beneath us. Weems shouts something, but her voice distorts, torn apart by the collapsing air. I can’t hear her. I can barely hear myself.

Tyler’s eyes roll back, his pulse erratic. “Wednesday…please….”

For the first time, I don’t analyse, or plan, or think. I just act. I press my forehead to his, closing the distance between disaster and devotion. “You’re not a monster,” I whisper. “You’re just what love looks like when it’s been experimented on.”

The light erupts again. It’s white, blinding, devouring. The vines shriek. The moon flickers. The world folds.

And when the light finally fades. The courtyard is silent. The rain has stopped. The clock tower no longer exists.

Tyler lies still in my arms, his chest rising faintly, shallow but real. His eyes are human again: blue, dazed, and terrified.

I exhale once, sharp and quiet. “Welcome back to the aftermath.”

He blinks up at me. “You… saved me?”

“Not exactly,” I say. “I am afraid this will still have consequences.’’

…

For a brief, impossible moment, the world is still. The rain hangs motionless in the air, each drop a suspended mirror. The moonlight filters through it, fractured and trembling. The courtyard looks like an autopsy of time itself. It looks dissected, beautiful, and wrong.

Tyler’s breath warms the hollow of my throat. He’s alive. Human again and trembling.
His pulse beats against my palm, wild and unsteady, as though his heart hasn’t yet realised it’s allowed to continue.

Weems stands a few feet away, her posture rigid, her face a mask of awe and disbelief. “You…” she begins, voice trembling. “You did it.”

I want to believe her. But belief is for the naive, and I am not one of them.

Because I can feel it already. The air tightening, the edges of the world shivering like a fevered thing. Something is still wrong. Something unfinished.

And then I hear her. The sound arrives before the shape: a whisper that slithers through the night like silk dragged over bone. It speaks in perfect unison with my heartbeat. And then she steps from the distortion behind me. Me. The other Wednesday.

Her presence warps the air. The light bends around her as if unwilling to touch her.
She looks exactly as she did in the vision. Older, colder, her dress torn near the collar, the faint scar at her jaw glinting silver in the half-light. Her eyes, my eyes, are darker. They’re drained of everything human, replaced by something ancient and tired.

Tyler stiffens. “What…’’

Weems takes a step back, horror and recognition colliding on her face. “Oh my God…”

The other me doesn’t look at them. She looks only at me.

“I warned you,” she says softly, voice perfectly calm, perfectly merciless. “And still you disobeyed.”

My grip on Tyler tightens. “You expected me to let her win.”

“I expected you to understand that ‘victory’ and ‘annihilation’ are synonyms,” she replies. “But you never did appreciate semantics.”

Her gaze drops to the watch on my wrist. It’s cracked, humming faintly with residual light.
The world around us flickers, the courtyard doubling in and out of focus. I can see the other version of it. The future is bleeding through. Thornhill’s statue, the withered trees, the silence of decades.

“What’s happening?” Weems demands. “What are you?”

The other me turns her head slightly, her tone almost polite. “I’m inevitably given manners.”

“Stop this,” I snap. “Whatever this is, stop it.”

She steps closer, her movements slow, deliberate, and predatory. “You meddled with the mechanism, Wednesday. You used the watch to unmake her. You killed Thornhill, yes, but in doing so, you broke the axis that kept this world aligned. Time is bleeding, and it will choose what to cauterise.”

Her eyes flick toward Tyler, and something in her expression shifts. It’s pity or mockery; I can’t tell. “You think you saved him,” she says. “But you’ve only postponed the equation. For every life spared, another must end. Balance demands payment.”

I glare at her. “Then take it from me.”

“I intend to.”

She reaches forward. Her hand is ice and shadow, her touch electric. Before I can react, she grips my wrist, fingers digging into the broken watch.

Tyler jerks forward. “Hey! Get away from her!”

But she doesn’t even glance at him. With a flick of her wrist, time folds. The air itself slams him backward, as if the world has decided he’s irrelevant to the scene. He hits the ground hard, breath tearing from his chest. Weems rushes to him, shouting something I can’t hear.

Because the other me leans close, so close I can feel my own breath coming back at me, colder.

“You made your choice,” she whispers. “And now I’ll make mine.”

Her hand twists. The watch snaps from my wrist with a metallic cry. She holds it between us. It looks fragile, glinting, the last anchor of everything I’ve broken.

“This was your instrument,” she says. “Your arrogance. Your salvation.”

She drops it to the ground. The moment it hits, the courtyard erupts in light. It’s white, shattering, endless. The watch explodes outward into a thousand tiny reflections, each one showing a different version of me: laughing, dying, killing, loving, failing, existing. And then they all vanish.

I can feel myself unravelling. The world blurs at the edges. My bones hum with absence.

“You’ll live,” she says. “Just not here.”

I struggle to speak, but no sound comes out.

“This is your punishment,” she continues, her voice a lullaby carved in marble. “You’ll know he lives. Tyler, this version, this fragile miracle, but not in your timeline. You’ll remember every second of him, every breath, and wake up in a world where none of it was ever real. He will heal. You will haunt. Balance restored.”

“No…” The word scrapes out of me, thin and useless. “Don’t.”

She studies me, head tilted, the same way I study insects before pinning them down. “Don’t look at me that way,” she murmurs. “You brought this upon yourself.”

Her hand lifts once more, and this time, she presses her palm to my chest. Cold floods through me, deeper than death, heavier than sleep. The world folds inward.

I hear Tyler’s voice from a distance. “Wednesday! WEDNESDAY!”

Weems, her tone raw, commanding, and panicked. “Hold on to her! Don’t let her…”

But it’s too late. The last thing I see is Tyler crawling toward me, his eyes wide, his mouth forming my name. He looks desperate, alive, reaching for something already gone.

Then darkness swallows me whole. The air stills. The courtyard fades. Only the echo of his voice remains, carved into the void like an epitaph.

And somewhere, deep in the dark, I whisper back: “I never believed in heaven… but for you, I might’ve tried.”

Chapter Text

Tyler’s POV

The storm ends the moment she’s gone. Like she took the weather with her.

The courtyard is shaking. Not from thunder anymore but from memory. From something too big to still fit inside this world. The air hums where she used to stand, the shape of her burnt into the dark like lightning that forgot how to fade.

I can still smell her. The mixture of rain, ink, and iron. It hits the back of my throat and stays there like a wound that won’t close.

My knees hit the ground before I know I’ve fallen. Everything feels wrong. The world tilts, the sky blurs, and somewhere to my left, Weems is screaming my name like she’s trying to call me back into a body I don’t recognise.

“Tyler…”

Her voice breaks halfway through, and it’s that crack, that single, human fracture, that brings me back.

I blink. The rain has stopped, but the air is still soaked. My hands are slick with mud and blood. Hers. Mine. I can’t tell the difference anymore.

She was right there. And now she’s not.

There’s no smoke, no shimmer, no trace of the thing that swallowed her. Just the echo of her last breath and that goddamn silence.

I look around. The ground where she stood is scorched, black veins of ash spiderwebbing across the stone like something alive. At the centre lies what’s left of the watch. It’s twisted, cracked, and still ticking once every few seconds like it hasn’t realised she’s gone.

I reach for it, and the moment my fingers brush metal, the air moves.

Images slam into me too fast, too sharp. The woods. The knife. Her eyes. The taste of blood.
Her voice whispering, I had to.
Then the sound of her gun, the shatter of glass, the way her body fell…

I rip my hand back. The images keep coming anyway.

I remember everything. Every version of her. Every version of me.

The Hyde roars inside my chest, but it’s not rage this time. It’s grief. My skin itches like it wants to split open to let the monster climb out and scream for her.

Weems is beside me now. I didn’t even hear her move. Her face is pale, streaked with dirt and disbelief. “She’s gone,” she says, voice low and steady, like if she doesn’t say it too loud, it might stay untrue.

I shake my head, eyes burning. “No. You don’t understand. She’s…” My voice breaks. “She doesn’t go. She leaves marks. She leaves blood. She leaves me. But she doesn’t vanish.”

Weems looks at the scorched ground, her jaw trembling. “I saw her disappear. She just…” She swallows hard. “It was like she was pulled backward. Like the air took her.”

I laugh, and it sounds like something dying. “Yeah. That’s about right. She never could stay in one world long enough to see what she broke.”

Weems doesn’t answer. She just looks at me the way people look at a cliff before they decide whether to jump.

I pick up the broken watch. It’s heavier than it should be, the glass biting into my palm. There’s something inside it. A faint whisper, maybe just the wind, maybe not. I press it to my ear.

“Don’t follow me.” It sounds like her voice. With the kind of tone that sounds like finality disguised as advice.

My hand shakes. The watch ticks once more, then stops completely. The silence after is unbearable.

Weems kneels beside me, one hand hovering near my shoulder like she’s afraid I’ll disintegrate if she touches me. “Tyler, listen to me. She’s not gone forever. People like her…”

I cut her off. “People like her don’t come back. They haunt.”

The courtyard still smells like ozone and iron. I look up at the sky. It’s clearing already, too fast. Stars blink back into existence one by one, indifferent to everything that just collapsed beneath them.

My throat tightens. “She saved you.”

Weems blinks. “What?”

“She took the hit meant for you.” I turn to face her, and my voice cracks around the words. “She chose that.”

Weems’ eyes close for a second, her composure splintering just enough to show something human underneath. “Then she died protecting what she hated most.”

“No,” I whisper. “She died protecting people. She just didn’t know how to admit it.”

The wind picks up again, colder now, dragging the scent of rain away. I stare down at the broken watch in my hand. The crack across its face looks like a fracture running through time itself.

“She said I’d live in one timeline,” I murmur. “Guess this is the one she picked.”

Weems finally touches my shoulder. “And her?”

I look up at the empty air where she vanished, at the faint shimmer that’s already fading. “She doesn’t get one.”

My chest aches. I don’t even realise I’m crying until I taste salt. “She’s probably already trying to kill Destiny in another universe.”

Weems exhales, the sound halfway between a laugh and a sob. “Then God help destiny.”

I almost smile. But it dies before it reaches my mouth. I close my hand around the shattered watch until the edges cut deep enough to remind me I’m still here.

The blood runs down my wrist, mixing with the mud. It’s a small, ugly miracle. It’s proof that I’m the one who stayed.

“I don’t know how to live in a world without her,” I whisper.

Weems looks at me, voice gentle now. “You don’t. You just survive it.”

That’s the thing. She’s right. Surviving is the cruellest form of living there is.

The courtyard finally goes still. The air clears. The moon slides out from behind the clouds, pale and merciless.

I sit there until dawn. The ground still hums where she used to be, faint and stubborn. It’s like she left a heartbeat behind to mock me. The sun rises over Nevermore. For the first time in every version of my life, she’s not here to see it.

…

By the time the storm drains itself into silence, Nevermore looks like a ghost. It’s damp, bent, and breathing too slowly. The courtyard’s half-flooded; the air still hums with what happened there. You can’t mop up a memory like that.

They told me to rest. I didn’t. They told me to stay. I couldn’t. So I walk.

Every corridor smells of candle smoke and antiseptic. Every step echoes like she’s still somewhere ahead of me, just out of reach, just behind the next door, just about to turn and say something cruel and true at the same time.

By the time I reach the gates, I’m halfway gone in my head. It’s like I’ve been walking through a film that forgot to load the next reel. My jacket’s still torn. There’s dried blood on my cuffs that isn’t all mine.

I tell myself I’ll just keep going until there’s no more road to walk. Maybe that’s how she wanted it. Maybe that’s what “Don’t follow me” really meant – not that I shouldn’t, but that I’d have to.

Then I hear someone say my name. It’s soft and hesitant.

“Tyler?” I turn.

I see Enid standing there, soaked, hair plastered to her face in gold and pink streaks dulled by rain. Her hoodie’s too big for her; her hands are twisting the sleeves until the threads fray. She looks smaller than I remember. Like someone who’s been holding her breath for weeks.

For a second, neither of us speaks. I see it in her eyes. The same hollow, the same disbelief. She’s been crying. I wonder if she knows how to stop.

“She’s gone, isn’t she?” she says finally.

The words break something in me. Not because they’re wrong, but because they’re right in a way that feels final.

“Yeah,” I manage. My voice doesn’t sound like mine. “She…” I can’t even finish the sentence. The air catches it and keeps it for itself.

Enid takes a step closer. “Weems told me what happened. The storm, Thornhill, everything. I didn’t believe it at first, but then I saw… the courtyard.” Her voice shakes. “It’s like the ground tried to remember her shape.”

I almost laugh, but it dies before it starts. “Yeah. That sounds like her. Even the dirt’s got trauma now.”

Enid’s lip trembles, then she laughs, just once. It’s a small, broken sound that might’ve been hope in a better world. She wipes at her face. “She tried to save you.’’

“She always does,” I say, staring down at my hands. The cuts from the watch are already clotting, but the ache’s still there. “She thinks saving people is the same as punishment.”

Enid looks away, whispering, “She told me once… that caring about people was a weakness. I think she was lying.”

“She was,” I whisper. “But it was the only lie she ever let herself keep.”

The wind shifts. Somewhere in the trees, something creaks.  I look at Enid again, and there’s this strange thing between us: understanding without words, loss without ownership. We both loved her in ways she’d never admit existed.

“You were close to her,” she says quietly.

“I killed her,” I answer. It comes out flat, like a fact. “And she killed me. We just kept trading the favour until Time got sick of watching.”

Enid stares at me. She doesn’t speak, doesn’t move. “She’d hate hearing you talk like that.”

“She hated a lot of things,” I say, half-smiling, “especially being right.”

The silence stretches. Enid crosses her arms, hugging herself against the wind. “I keep thinking she’s just going to walk back in. You know? Kick the door open, make some snarky comment about my hair, and tell me I’ve been too emotional again.”

I look up at the sky. It’s grey, bleeding into nothing. “If anyone could outsmart death, it’d be her.”

Enid nods slowly. “Do you think she’s… somewhere else? Like, I don’t know, another version of this?”

The question burns. Because I saw that other version. I saw the woman who came out of the mirror, the one who said Wednesday had to pay for what she’d done. And now she’s gone too, and I don’t know which one was real. Maybe none of them. Maybe all.

“I think,” I say carefully, “she’s wherever time goes when it’s too tired to keep up.”

Enid looks at me with something close to pity. “That’s… very Wednesday of you.”

“Guess she rubbed off on me.”

She snorts softly. “Lucky you.”

Then she steps closer. She hesitates, like she’s not sure I’ll let her. I don’t move, but when she rests a hand on my arm, I don’t pull away. Her hand’s warm. Mine’s ice.

“She wouldn’t want us to fall apart,” Enid says, voice trembling but certain. “She’d want us to keep going.”

“She’d want us to suffer properly,” I correct.

Enid smiles through the tears. “Same thing, really.”

The wind picks up again. The trees whisper. The smell of jasmine lingers faintly, and I swear just for a moment I hear her laugh. The kind that meant she was already three steps ahead of everyone.

Enid looks up, startled. “Did you…?”

“Yeah.”

We stand there, staring into the empty path where the sound came from. Then Enid’s hand squeezes my arm. She whispers, “She’s still here.”

I want to believe that. I need to believe that.

“Maybe,” I say. “But if she is, she’s probably judging us right now for this display of sentimentality.”

Enid sniffles, half-laughing. “Good. Then maybe she’ll know we miss her.”

I look out toward the horizon, where the forest meets the fog. The last of the rain drips from the eaves, each drop slow and deliberate, like a clock still trying to keep time without her.

“She always wanted to be remembered,” I say softly. “Guess she got her wish.”

Enid leans her head against my shoulder. “She’d call that pathetic.”

“She’d be right.”

We stay like that for a while, saying nothing, just listening to the quiet she left behind. The world feels smaller without her but sharper too.

When Enid finally leaves, I stay. The courtyard’s empty now. The storm washed away the blood, but not my memory of it.

…

The drive home feels everlasting. Every mile between Nevermore and Jericho stretches too long, too quiet. The road looks the same, but it smells wrong. It smells like wet asphalt and loss. The kind of air that carries ghosts better than sound.

I keep my eyes on the lines ahead, white dashes blurring into one continuous wound. My reflection in the windscreen looks like someone else’s. I see the reflection of my hollow eyes, bruised knuckles, and hair matted with the storm’s memory. I don’t remember turning the engine on. I don’t remember deciding to leave.

All I remember is her disappearing. And the sound it made. That soft, impossible silence, like the world exhaled her name and forgot how to inhale again.

When I pull into the driveway, the house looks smaller. The porch light flickers once, then steadies. The windows glow faintly. For a moment, I wonder if my dad’s asleep, if maybe I can just walk past him and pretend to still be the kind of son he wanted. But the door opens before I reach it.

“Tyler.” His voice sounds rough, tired, and heavy with the kind of worry that ages people twice as fast.

He’s standing there in his uniform shirt, sleeves rolled up, badge half-unclipped like he’d been halfway to heading out before I showed up. His face looks older than it should. He spends too many nights waiting for a kid who never comes home right.

I try to say hi, but the word gets stuck somewhere between my chest and my throat.

He steps aside. “Come in.”

The house smells like coffee and damp wood. The living room light buzzes faintly, yellow and unforgiving. I stand there dripping rain on the floor, not knowing where to start.

He studies me for a long time. His eyes scanning the cuts on my face, the bruises blooming along my jaw, and the half-dried blood under my nails. His voice cracks when he says, “What happened to you?”

I could lie. I’ve done it before. But tonight the lies taste like rot. “She’s gone,” I whisper.

He frowns. “Who?”

“Wednesday.”
Her name breaks the air between us.

Something flickers in his expression. Recognition, confusion, maybe grief. “Gone how?”

“She saved us. Saved you. Saved me. But she’s…” I choke on the word. “She’s just… gone. Like she was never here.”

He’s quiet for a long time. The only sound is the rain ticking against the windows. Finally, he says, “Son, I don’t understand half of what happened back there, but…”

“No one does,” I cut in, my voice sharp. “No one ever does.”

I sit down on the couch because my legs are shaking too much to stand. My hands won’t stop trembling either. I stare at them, at the way the veins pulse under the skin, at how human they look even though I know they’re not.

“I keep feeling it,” I whisper. “The Hyde. It’s still in me. Clawing and waiting. Every time I close my eyes, it moves closer.”

He sits across from me, elbows on his knees. His voice is careful and measured, like he’s talking to something fragile. “Tyler…’’

“I’m afraid, Dad...” My voice rises.

The words hang there, heavy and ugly.

He doesn’t say anything at first. Then, quietly: “You think you’ll hurt someone again.”

“I know I will.” I rub at my chest, like I can dig the thing out. “And this time, she won’t be here to stop me.”

For a moment, I see her. I see the way she looked at me by the river, the way her voice broke when she said I killed you because I couldn’t save you. It hits like a knife, twisting slowly.

My dad leans forward. His voice softens. “You’re not a monster, Tyler.”

I laugh, bitterly. “No, I’m a hybrid. A statistical miracle of biology and trauma. There’s a difference.”

“Don’t do that,” he says. “Don’t make yourself a villain because it’s easier than forgiving yourself.”

I look up at him. “Have you ever tried forgiving the part of you that wants to kill?”

That shuts him up. I hate the silence that follows, but I don’t fill it. The clock on the wall ticks unevenly. Somewhere down the hall, the house creaks.

Finally, I whisper, “I don’t know how to live with this.”

He starts to answer, but there’s a knock at the door.

Dad stands, frowning. He opens it, and I already know who it is before I see her.

Larissa Weems stands in the doorway like she’s never left the storm behind. Her hair’s still immaculate, silver and cold under the porch light, but her eyes are rimmed red. She looks at me the way people look at crime scenes. She’s assessing the damage, already cataloguing the details.

“Sheriff Galpin,” she says politely. “May I come in?”

He hesitates, then nods, stepping aside. “Sure. But I don’t think I can handle another mystery tonight.”

“I’m not here to bring one,” she replies. “I’m here to fix one.”

Her gaze shifts to me. “Tyler.”

My throat tightens. “You saw what happened.”

“I did,” she says. “And I know what you’re thinking.”

“Doubt it,” I mutter.

“You’re thinking you don’t belong anywhere anymore,” she continues evenly. “That you’re too dangerous for this town, too human for monsters, and too monstrous for people.”

Her accuracy stings. I look away. “Sounds about right.”

Weems steps closer, rain sliding from her coat. “You’re wrong. You belong somewhere that understands both.”

I blink. “What are you saying?”

She folds her hands neatly in front of her. Classic Weems composure. “Nevermore has always been a place for outcasts, Mr Galpin. You’ve proven yourself to be one in every possible sense. I’m offering you a place there. A place for guidance and control. A chance to stop running from what you are.”

My father stiffens. “You can’t be serious.”

“I’m entirely serious,” Weems says. “He’s been used, broken, and blamed for things orchestrated by someone else. He deserves a chance to understand himself properly this time.”

I laugh, hollow. “You think your school can fix me?”

“Not fix,” she corrects softly. “Teach you how to stop being afraid of yourself.”

My father looks between us. “You’re talking about putting him back in that place where all this started?”

Weems meets his gaze, unwavering. “Where it started is exactly where it should end.”

I stare at her. “Why would you even want me there? After everything that happened?’’

Her expression changes just slightly, enough to show the flicker of something I can’t name. “Because she would have wanted that.”

The room goes still. Even the clock stops ticking.

“She believed,” Weems continues, “that saving you wasn’t about redemption. It was about choice. You’ve spent your life being told what you are. Perhaps it’s time you decide for yourself.”

The words hit harder than I expect. I can’t look at her. I can’t look at my dad either. I just stare at the floor until it starts to blur.

Finally, I whisper, “And if I hurt someone again?”

Weems’s tone doesn’t waver. “Then you’ll learn how not to.”

My dad sighs, rubbing a hand over his face. “You really think this is the right call?”

She nods. “It’s the only one that offers him a future.”

I don’t remember standing. But I do. My voice shakes when I say, “Fine. I’ll go.”

Dad looks at me, eyes full of the kind of fear that belongs to someone who’s already lost too much. “Are you sure?”

“No,” I admit. “But I think she’d be disappointed if I didn’t try.”

Weems watches me carefully, like she’s seeing traces of Wednesday in me: the stubbornness, the defiance, the refusal to die quietly. She nods once. “We leave at dawn.”

When she turns to go, I stop her. “Why are you doing this?”

Her answer is quiet but sharp. “Because we both lost her. And I don’t intend to lose anyone else she tried to save.”

Then she leaves, rain swallowing her shape as the door shuts behind her.

…

A few weeks pass.

Not the kind that heal. No, it’s the kind that stretches thin and colourless, like time itself is just humouring me until it gets bored. Nevermore moves around me, alive and strange as ever, but it feels… wrong. Not in the obvious ways. There are no curses, no screams, no fresh blood drying in the dirt. Just wrong in its silence.

The gargoyles still drip when it rains. The students still gossip like nothing apocalyptic ever happened. But there’s an echo in every hallway. A missing rhythm. It’s her absence. It echoes louder than footsteps.

I tell myself I’m fine. I tell myself I’m learning. That I’m adapting. That this place can fix something that isn’t built to heal.

Most days, I sit by the greenhouse. I don’t go in. The smell of soil and jasmine makes me sick. Thornhill’s ghost is still in there somewhere, and every time I walk by, I swear the vines shift toward me like they remember my pulse.

So I sit outside, sketchbook open, pencil trembling. I draw things I shouldn’t remember. Her hands, the cut of her collar, the way the air bent around her when she was angry. Then I rip the page out before it can start to look like her.

It’s been twenty-one days since the courtyard. Twenty-one days since she vanished. Twenty-one days since the world got quiet.

By the time Weems calls me into her office, I’ve already learnt to dread that knock. The one that means she’s noticed I’ve been pretending too well.

I stand outside her door, watching my reflection warp in the glass. I look… stable. Presentable. A human impersonating a human.

Then I knock.

“Come in,” she says.

Her office hasn’t changed. It’s still pristine, still smelling faintly of paper and jasmine. There’s a cup of tea steaming beside her hand. The clock ticks softly behind her, and for a heartbeat, I can’t breathe. It’s the same one that marked 8:32 the Wednesday night that tried to rewrite fate.

Weems looks up. She studies me the way she used to study her. Like she’s trying to identify what species of grief she’s dealing with today.

“Mr Galpin,” she says. “Sit.”

I obey. The chair creaks.

“You’ve been quiet lately,” she says. “More so than usual.”

“Isn’t that a good thing?”

She arches an eyebrow. “Not when quiet means absence.”

I look away. “Maybe I’m just trying not to make noise in the wrong place.”

“Or maybe,” she says evenly, “you’re trying not to feel.”

I almost laugh. “If I could stop feeling, I would’ve done it years ago.”

Weems leans back, folding her hands. “You’re grieving.”

“I’m breathing,” I correct. “Grieving requires hope.”

“Don’t be clever,” she says softly. “It’s exhausting.”

There’s a pause. The clock ticks. I feel her watching me, dissecting me, like she used to do to her.
Like maybe if she studies long enough, she’ll find a way to fix what’s left.

“I’ve seen this before,” Weems says finally. “Loss that digs itself too deep. You’re holding onto her like she’s going to walk through that door again.”

I stare at the cup of tea on her desk. The steam twists upward, thin and fragile. “She’s not the type to die quietly.”

“Nor to stay gone,” Weems agrees. “But holding your breath for a ghost won’t bring her back.”

I glance up sharply. “You sound like you’re trying to convince yourself.”

Her expression doesn’t change. “Perhaps I am.”

Silence settles between us again. It’s not uncomfortable, exactly. Just… sharp. The kind that can cut if you breathe wrong.

“I read her file again,” I say. “Wednesdays. All her reports, her essays, her detention slips. You kept them.”

Weems nods once. “She was remarkable. Impossible. Both at once.”

“Why do you still talk about her in the past tense?”

Weems hesitates. “Because the alternative is worse.”

I press my palms against my knees to keep them from shaking. “You said she’d come back.”

“I said she might,” Weems corrects. “There’s a difference between prophecy and hope, Mr Galpin. One is crueller.”

I swallow hard. “So that’s it? We just move on?”

“Moving on doesn’t mean forgetting,” she says quietly. “It means remembering without surrendering.”

“She wouldn’t want that.”

“Wouldn’t she?”

I don’t answer. Because I don’t know.

Weems sighs softly. “She sacrificed herself for you, Tyler. You can’t turn that into punishment. That isn’t what she wanted.”

My voice cracks when I whisper, “You didn’t see her face when she did it.”

Weems’s eyes flicker with something. It’s empathy, maybe, or recognition. “You think I didn’t? You think I haven’t seen what sacrifice looks like?”

I look up. “Then tell me what I’m supposed to do with what’s left of me.”

For the first time, her voice falters. “You live. You learn to exist without her shadow guiding your every step. You find something she would have hated. Maybe peace.”

That word sounds wrong in my mouth. “She’d laugh at that.”

“Yes,” Weems says softly. “But she’d be proud too.”

I stare down at my hands again. The scars on my palms from the shattered watch are still there, faint but real. A reminder.

Weems rises, walks around the desk, and stands beside me. Her hand rests lightly on my shoulder. It’s not comforting, not intrusive, just steady. “You don’t have to be her legacy,” she says. “You just have to survive her absence.”

I nod once, because that’s all I can manage.

Weems steps back, smoothing her jacket. “Go take a walk, Tyler. Clear your head. Maybe visit the greenhouse.”

I flinch. “That place is cursed.”

“So are you,” she says. “But here you are.”

She offers a faint smile, the kind that feels almost human. “Sometimes, the cursed make the best gardeners.”

I leave before she can see the tears threaten. Outside, the air is thick with the smell of rain. The world feels fragile. Like one wrong step could make it fold in on itself. I walk toward the courtyard, the one where she disappeared.

The ground is clean now. No scorch marks, no ash. Just a wet stone and the faint hum of life carrying on.

I kneel, brush my fingers against the earth, and whisper, “You’re really not coming back, are you?”

…

One Year Later

It’s raining again. Of course it is. Nevermore’s weather seems to understand anniversaries better than people do.

The sky bleeds grey over the courtyard. It’s the same one where she vanished. The air smells like stone, rain, and something older than regret. The students have gone back to their dorms; the lights in the towers flicker. The storm hums low, as if even nature is whispering her name under its breath.

It’s been exactly one year. Three hundred and sixty-five days since she disappeared. Since the world lost its pulse for a moment and forgot how to breathe.

I still come here every year, every month, every day I can’t sleep.

Tonight, I brought flowers. Black dahlias. Her favourite. They’re poisonous, complicated, and almost too beautiful to survive anywhere near sunlight. The florist in Jericho doesn’t even keep them anymore, but I learnt how to grow them myself. It felt fitting. If I couldn’t save her, I could at least keep something of her alive.

The memorial stone sits where the courtyard splits into two paths. Someone carved it by hand. There’s no angel, no inscription beyond a single line in Latin, because of course Weems would insist on that kind of academic grief.

“Mortem non timet qui veritatem amat.” (“He who loves truth does not fear death.”)

She would’ve rolled her eyes at the melodrama, then secretly approved.

I kneel down, the rain soaking through my jeans, and set the bouquet against the stone. The petals gleam black in the low light, like they’re drinking the storm. For a long time, I don’t say anything. I just let the sound of the rain fill in all the words I’ll never be able to get right.

“I tried,” I whisper. My voice feels smaller than I remember. “I tried to do what you’d want. The research, the control, the solitude. I even stopped flinching at my reflection. But it’s still there. The Hyde. The guilt. You. Always you.”

The rain drips off the edges of the stone. A single drop clings to one of the petals, heavy and trembling, before it falls.

I run a thumb over the carved letters. The stone is cold and smooth. Permanent in a way she never allowed herself to be.

“I still see you sometimes,” I admit. “In the corners of mirrors. In thunder. In the way silence sounds before it breaks.” I pause, then laugh softly. “You’d hate this. The sentimentality. The cliché of it all. You’d tell me grief is inefficient.”

A voice behind me answers quietly, “She probably would.”

I turn. Enid stands there, hood pulled up, rain dripping off the edges. She’s grown since last year. She’s steadier somehow, like someone who’s rebuilt herself carefully, piece by piece. Her hair’s longer, streaked with gold and pink again, but softer. There’s something calmer in her eyes. The storm that used to live behind them has finally started to quiet.

She walks closer, her boots splashing in the puddles, and kneels beside me. For a while, neither of us speaks. The rain does the talking.

“She used to hate when I cried,” Enid says after a moment. “Said tears were a waste of good water.”

“She said that to you too?”

She smiles faintly. “The first time she did, I thought she was joking. The second time, I realised she wasn’t.”

We both laugh quietly. It’s a small, brittle sound that feels like exorcism.

“She saved you,” I say softly.

Enid nods. “She did. I didn’t see it then. I thought she hated me. But I get it now.” She looks at the memorial, her fingers brushing the carved letters. “Thornhill’s hold on me… It’s gone, Tyler. The dreams, the voices, the static. It’s all fading. It’s like she’s finally gone for good.”

“That’s good,” I say, though my chest tightens anyway. “You deserve peace.”

“I don’t think peace exists for people like us,” Enid says. “But… I’m learning to live without the noise. Without her voice in my head telling me what to do.”

Her tone softens, almost reverent. “I used to think Wednesday was cruel. But she wasn’t. She was just honest. Brutally, painfully honest. She said I was too soft for this world. And I hated her for it.”

I glance at her. “You don’t hate her anymore.”

Enid shakes her head. “No. I think… She saw something in me that I couldn’t see yet. Strength. Maybe even survival.”

She looks up at the sky, letting the rain hit her face. “She said once that monsters aren’t born; they’re sculpted. Maybe she was trying to unmake us before the world could.”

Her words sit heavy between us. I think about the way Wednesday always moved. Like the world was a corpse she had to examine before it decomposed completely. I think about her quiet moments, too, the ones no one else ever saw. The tiny smiles, the almost-kindness.

Enid’s voice pulls me back. “Do you still… see her?”

I nod slowly. “Sometimes. In dreams. Or when I’m close to water. It’s never clear. Just fragments of her. Her voice, her silhouette. The sound of her boots.”

Enid smiles sadly. “Then maybe she’s not really gone.”

I shake my head. “She’s gone. I just don’t know how to live like she does.”

Enid reaches out, resting her hand on mine. It’s warm despite the rain. “Then maybe that’s how we honour her. By not learning to live like she’s gone. By remembering her exactly how she was. Impossible, terrifying, brilliant.”

A drop of rain slides from my hair onto her hand. She doesn’t move it away.

“She’d hate this too,” I murmur.

“Probably,” Enid says with a small laugh. “She’d tell us to stop mourning and go find a better mystery.”

“She’d tell us to stop being sentimental.”

“She’d tell us to grow up,” Enid adds.

I glance at the memorial, at the black dahlias glistening in the rain. “She never did.”

Enid’s smile fades into something softer. “That’s why she mattered.”

The rain slows to a drizzle. The courtyard quiets. The air smells like wet stone and earth.

Enid stands, brushing the mud from her knees. “Are you coming?”

“In a minute,” I say.

She nods, tucking her hood back over her hair. “Don’t stay too long. She’d call that weakness.”

“I’ll risk it.”

Enid hesitates, then steps forward and wraps her arms around me. It’s brief, careful, but real. “She saved us both,” she whispers. “Let’s make it worth it.”

And then she’s gone, footsteps fading into the mist. I stay. Because someone should.

…

Ten Years Later

Nevermore looks smaller than I remember. Or maybe I’ve just grown too much for the kind of ghosts that live here.

The gates still creak the same way when they open. It’s that thin metallic cry that sounds halfway between a warning and a welcome. The courtyard has been redone. It looks cleaner. Someone added more roses near the memorial garden; the crimson ones she would have hated because they looked too romantic, to be honest.

It’s been ten years. A decade since Wednesday Addams left this world or whatever version of it she belonged to.

I tell my students that monsters never really die. They just change their shapes. Sometimes I almost believe it.

I teach now. “Applied Cryptopsychology and Behavioural Morphology.” The students call it Monsters 101, because the real title sounds like something she would mock relentlessly. Every time I say it aloud, I hear her dry voice in my head correcting my diction.

We hold the memorial every year, on the same day, at the same time: twilight. The air feels like velvet, the wind still cold enough to sting. The black dahlia bush I planted by the stone blooms earlier every season. It’s defiant, stubborn, thriving in the cold. Just like her.

When I arrive, they’re already there.

Morticia and Gomez stand side by side, dressed in shades of grief that somehow look regal. Time hasn’t dimmed them; if anything, they wear sorrow like jewellery. Polished by years of use. Morticia’s veil flutters faintly in the wind. Her eyes, rimmed with darkness, shine wet when they land on the memorial.

Pugsley’s here too. Older, broader, but still with the same soft bewilderment that used to live behind his eyes when his sister was alive. He sets down a small silver dagger beside the flowers. Like an offering, or maybe an apology.

Weems stands near the steps, taller than the rest of us even now, but her face is softer. She speaks less than she used to. I think she learnt from the one student who could silence anyone with a sentence.

Enid comes last, hair silver-blonde with faint traces of the pink she never fully gave up. She looks peaceful now. Less haunted. The scars from Thornhill’s control are almost invisible these days. But when she catches my eye, there’s still that flicker of recognition: the shared language of people who have both survived Wednesday Addams.

We gather around the stone. The same Latin inscription gleams faintly beneath the candlelight:

Mortem non timet qui veritatem amat. “He who loves truth does not fear death.”

No one speaks for a while. The silence feels holy. The kind that doesn’t demand sound to mean something.

It’s Weems who breaks it. “She was… impossible,” she says quietly. “And brilliant. A contradiction: no one ever survived unchanged.”

Morticia’s voice follows, a soft tremor beneath her elegance. “My darling girl was born with knives where most have bones. I used to think it would destroy her. I never realised it would save everyone else first.”

Gomez wipes his eyes with a trembling hand, his usual flair dimmed to something gentler. “She had my charm and her mother’s cruelty,” he says with a faint, broken laugh. “I was doomed from the start.”

Pugsley tries to speak, fails, then manages, “She was my sister. And she always will be.”

Enid steps forward, placing a single wolf’s tooth strung on a thin black ribbon by the flowers. “She taught me how to be brave,” she says. “Even when I didn’t want to be. Especially then.”

The wind stirs, soft and cold. Someone’s candle goes out.

I’m the last to speak. I don’t know when everyone started looking at me. Maybe because I was her opposite. Maybe because I’m the one who lived when she didn’t.

I step closer to the stone. The dahlia bush brushes my knee, wet and dark and stubbornly alive. My voice comes out low and rough.

“She used to tell me that love was just a polite form of obsession,” I say. “That it rots slower, but it still rots.”

Morticia gives the faintest smile through her tears.

“She told me once,” I continue, “that I was destined to lose myself, that monsters like me never get to keep the things we love.” I swallow, my throat tight. “But she was wrong. Because even after ten years, I still have her. Not in the way anyone wants to, not in the way that makes sense, but in every goddamn thought that refuses to fade. Every time I look at the moon, I think she’d call it derivative.”

My laugh breaks halfway through. “I never stopped hearing her voice. Every time I walk past a storm. Every time I smell jasmine. Every time someone says my name like it’s a warning.”

Morticia presses her gloved hand to her lips, eyes wet. Gomez’s arm tightens around her shoulders.

I kneel and trace her name on the stone. It’s invisible, unwritten, but carved in memory. “A part of me hasn’t let go,” I whisper. “Maybe it never will. Because, like I said once. I’d love you in every timeline, every version, every goddamn moment the universe makes the mistake of giving me breath.”

The silence that follows feels infinite. Even the rain hesitates.

Behind me, I hear Morticia sob. It’s quiet, elegant, and restrained, the way only an Addams could mourn. Gomez holds her close, his own tears falling freely now.

Enid’s crying too. So is Weems, though she tries to hide it behind her hand. Even Pugsley looks lost. He’s a grown man still staring into the space where his sister should’ve been.

I stay on my knees long after the others begin to leave. The candles burn low. The rain drips onto the stone.