Chapter Text
Chapter 1: The Letter That Came from the World of the Living
The Addams mansion's dining room smells exactly as it did years ago: black coffee, melted candle wax, and old wood. It smells like home.
The unsettling part is that it no longer feels like one.
Mother sits with her back perfectly straight, as always. Her black dress blends seamlessly into the dark velvet chair as she pours something dark and thick from a silver teapot.
"My dear," she says, her voice carrying that soft, almost liquid quality she reserves for the days when she's genuinely happy. "Today is an important day."
I don't answer. I cut my toast into perfect squares.
Four squares.
Always four.
There's something about repetition that soothes the part of my mind that, for the past three and a half years, has refused to stop spinning—refused to let me find peace.
I stare at the four neatly aligned pieces and, before I can stop myself, I think of her.
Enid hated when I did that.
"Why do you do that before you've even taken a bite?" she'd asked me one morning, watching with a mixture of horror and fascination.
"That way each piece has identical proportions."
"That's psychotic, even for you!"
She smiled in that unbearably radiant way of hers.
"Wednesday, it's just breakfast. It doesn't have to be efficient."
Enid brushed a crumb from the corner of my mouth with her thumb. My cheeks flushed without my permission. Under normal circumstances, I would have pushed away any hand that dared invade my personal space.
I didn't push hers away.
"One day, I'm going to get you to bite into something without planning it first."
"That won't happen."
"We'll see, Addams."
"You finished your exams," Mother continues, as though I weren't already aware. As though I hadn't been the one sitting for six hours inside a Nevermore administrative office, answering questions on comparative Gothic literature, advanced herbology, and the mythology of marginalized clans, while the pendulum of an antique clock marked every passing second with almost hostile persistence and a woman with the expression of a funeral director drummed her fingernails against the desk, irritating me beyond measure.
"My little storm has graduated!"
Father leaps from his chair with such enthusiasm that the china rattles. Before I can anticipate it, his hands are already on my shoulders, and he's kissing both my cheeks—twice each—with the same theatrical intensity that has never diminished, no matter how many times I've explained that invasive physical affection remains invasive, even when it comes from family.
"My cara mia! An Addams, graduated and ready to face the world with all her fury!"
"I don't feel fury. I don't feel anything," I say, stepping away with a movement he interprets as affectionate simply because it isn't openly hostile. "I only completed my requirements so the two of you would stop reminding me that even Pugsley managed to graduate while I wasted three and a half years of my life on self-destructive behavior and deplorable decisions. "
Father points his fork at me.
"That, cara mia, is exactly the fury I'm talking about." He grins. "Fury doesn't always shout, my dear."
Mother smiles ever so slightly.
At that moment, Pugsley shuffles into the dining room, his hair flattened on one side and wearing the unmistakable expression of someone who fell asleep face-first on a bear trap.
"Are we really going to celebrate the fact that Wednesday finished high school at twenty-one?"
He drops into his chair.
"Your sister graduated," Mother says.
"I graduated a year ago," he replies, serving himself eggs with the indifference of someone commenting on the weather. "Wednesday didn't even bother showing up."
He gestures vaguely toward me.
I don't argue.
He's right.
There was a time when everyone assumed I'd be the first to finish anything. The first to excel. The first to leave.
Now my younger brother had graduated before I did.
Arguing with the truth is a waste of time—not even Pugsley deserves that—so I say nothing. I don't contradict him.
I was on the West Coast when he received his diploma. I intended to be there.
I never made it.
I followed a lead on Enid to Oregon, and it turned out to be exactly what most of them turn out to be. A false lead. Another werewolf. Another disappointment.
Three and a half years of that.
Leads, rumors, traces. Nothing.
Places I arrive at too late, witnesses who only vaguely remember, people who look at me with pity when I ask about someone who's disappeared and, instead of information, offer condolences I never asked for. I've never understood why people think comfort is an acceptable substitute for the truth.
I push my plate away. I've lost my appetite.
Father keeps talking; Pugsley chews; Mother watches. I barely hear them. My thoughts have already returned to where they always end up.
Enid.
Always Enid.
It had been so long that I could barely remember what it felt like to think about anything else.
I didn't even make it back for Uncle Fester's funeral three months ago. That was what finally stopped me.
Not because I gave up.
Uncle Fester was the first to go looking for her with me. The first to understand that standing still had never been an option. If I couldn't even be there to say goodbye to him, then something inside me had become more warped than I was willing to admit.
I didn't need to quit. I needed to stop improvising. I needed structure.
Thing appears on the table then, gliding between the teapot and the fruit bowl with the same precise agility that, even after a lifetime, still manages to surprise me.
He drops the mail beside my plate.
Four letters.
I look through them without much interest. An invoice from a German supplier of torture instruments Father has been importing for weeks "out of nostalgia"; a catalog of custom gravestones featuring new engraving designs—Father still hasn't decided which one he wants for Uncle Fester; a wedding invitation from a second cousin named Humbert, whose name I don't remember ever hearing before.
And then the fourth.
The envelope is an offensively ordinary shade of white for this house, as though it had boarded the wrong bus and ended up at the wrong address.
The handwriting is small, compressed, slanting to the right with almost obsessive discipline. Every word seems carefully measured, as though the person who wrote it had spent years perfecting the art of wasting neither space, ink, nor paper.
I recognize it.
Not immediately.
It takes me exactly two seconds, but I recognize it. Seven years have passed, and I still recognize it. As though time had never passed. As though I were still thirteen.
My fingers tighten around the envelope.
Barely.
But in this house, "barely" never goes unnoticed.
Recognizing it irritates me. The fact that I still care irritates me even more.
I set the rest of the mail aside unopened because, all at once, it has ceased to exist. The world shrinks to a white rectangle of paper. To that meticulous handwriting.
"Wednesday?" Mother says.
She isn't asking. She's watching me.
I barely lift my eyes.
Father is no longer smiling. He isn't speaking. He's gone completely still, his fork suspended in midair, watching me with a kind of stillness that feels utterly foreign to him. More than any theatrical display ever could, that betrays the magnitude of the moment.
I turn the envelope over.
In the upper-left corner, written in the same precise hand, is his name: Joel Glicker. Beneath it, a Boston address that means nothing to me.
"You're still in touch with Joel Glicker?" Pugsley asks, leaning across the table to read over my shoulder.
I shove him back with a sharp movement of my arm.
"Joel Glicker?" Mother tilts her head ever so slightly, her voice taking on that low, velvety musicality that appears whenever something genuinely piques her interest. She searches her memory and smiles.
"The delicate boy from camp."
She pauses briefly before continuing, as though savoring the memory.
"The one with the inhaler. So fragile... and with delightfully impeccable manners. He was charming."
"The one Wednesday kissed," Pugsley adds, his tone unmistakably teasing.
I kick him in the shin beneath the table.
The sound he makes is deeply satisfying, and Pugsley doubles over, clutching his leg.
"What the hell was that for?! It's true!"
"Pugsley," Mother says, in a tone that is neither a warning nor an endorsement, "leave your sister alone."
I don't answer.
Because technically, he's right. I was the one who kissed him. Joel never would have; he never crossed a line without permission. He would move closer, observe, wait.
But he always stopped exactly at the edge. That's why what happened on Pubert's birthday unsettled me so deeply.
That time, he was the one who stepped forward. He brought it up, asked the question, shifted the balance. And I, so absurdly accustomed to being the one in control, did the only thing that seemed sensible, despite contradicting everything I'd done with him that entire summer. I pulled away. I stopped writing. I stopped replying. Eventually, he stopped trying too.
I don't open the letter immediately. I hold it between my fingers, turning the envelope over once, then twice.
I notice my parents still haven't resumed eating. They're both watching me with the particular attentiveness they reserve for moments they consider significant. Moments that, I suspect, they file away somewhere in a private collection of extraordinary family events.
I refuse to let this become breakfast entertainment. I open it right there with deliberate indifference. I don't bother looking for a letter opener; that would grant the moment a degree of solemnity I'm unwilling to acknowledge aloud.
Inside are two sheets of paper folded into perfect thirds, their creases so precise they look as though they had been made with a ruler.
There's something else, too. A stiff card slips free and lands on the table before I can stop it. A faded illustration of a woman wielding an axe. The title, printed in worn red letters, is instantly recognizable.
The Black Widow.
Twentieth-Century Killers.
Card 14 of 30.
Pugsley stops chewing.
"Is that...?"
"Later," I say, sliding the card beneath my plate before he can get any closer. Maybe I'll give it to him. Maybe I won't. It depends on how thoroughly he manages to exasperate me over the next few days. He deserves to suffer. The kick to the shin wasn't nearly enough.
I unfold the letter.
Dear Wednesday,
I hope this letter finds you, if not well, then at least no worse than the last time I heard from you. About seven years ago. I haven't kept exact count, but the fact that I can still place that moment so precisely probably says something about me I'd rather not examine too closely.
I've been thinking about you lately. Not in the occasional way someone remembers a summer with a touch of nostalgia, but in a much more persistent one. Like when a melody gets lodged somewhere in the back of your mind and, no matter how hard you try to ignore it, it keeps playing softly in the background.
Before you jump to any unproductive conclusions: no, this isn't a belated declaration of love. I know you well enough to picture exactly the expression you're wearing right now, and I'd rather you not destroy this letter before you've finished reading it.
The immediate reason for all this has a name. Amanda Buckman. Yes, that Amanda—the blonde with the braces. She goes to my university.
I suppose the universe has a particularly cruel sense of humor.
She still hates me, by the way, which I consider perfectly reasonable under the circumstances. I don't imagine it's easy to get over being tied to a tree while a group of outcasts convinces you you're about to be burned alive as a witch.
Sometimes I think that was the exact moment I realized you were the most fascinating person I'd ever meet. Or that I desperately needed therapy because your plans genuinely excited me.
Probably both.
A few weeks ago, Amanda tried to recruit me as a summer counselor at Camp Chippewa. A mentor for new campers. Just writing that sentence caused a minor respiratory episode. I also have to admit I laughed in her face, which probably didn't help convince her I'm any less insufferable.
I justified myself by showing her the formal notice permanently banning me from setting foot in that camp ever again. I still keep it. To this day, it's probably the only certificate of achievement that fills me with genuine pride.
But that entire conversation made me think of you.
And of Pugsley.
And of that summer which, against all logic, remains one of the most extraordinary memories of my life.
Something shifts inside my chest.
I don't recognize it immediately because it's been a long time since I bothered putting names to feelings like that.
I keep reading.
A few days ago I went back to my parents' house for the holidays. I pulled out my old collection of serial killer trading cards. It's still intact, catalogued first alphabetically and then by the chronology of the crimes. I know that sounds disturbing, but I suspect you're the only person I don't need to explain it to.
While I was going through it, I found a card I know Pugsley would love: The Black Widow. I thought about sending it directly to him, but it seemed more appropriate for you to decide exactly how long to make him suffer before giving it to him. It would be disrespectful to deprive you of that satisfaction.
Pugsley, who's been shamelessly reading over my shoulder despite my warnings, lets out an indignant noise that I make a point of ignoring.
I searched for your name online. I even created a social media profile, something I'd never considered necessary before. I didn't find anything, which shouldn't have surprised me. You were the only thirteen-year-old I'd ever met who already seemed to have decided she would leave no digital footprint.
Even so, I was surprised.
Then I found a brief article in a local newspaper. It only mentioned your first name, not your last. Something about piranhas, a school swimming pool, and a boy who was nearly castrated.
I laughed because I knew it was you.
I didn't have the slightest doubt.
I'm not entirely sure why I decided to write to you. I suppose I wanted to know whether you still existed outside my memory. I don't expect anything to come of this letter. I suppose that's what gives me the courage to send it.
After a while, I assumed your silence meant what your silences usually mean. A deliberate decision, not an oversight.
So I respected it.
I haven't held any resentment, Wednesday.
Nor any illusions.
But I did hold on to the memory, and with time I came to understand something rather simple.
People like you aren't forgotten.
Not really.
But if some part of you is curious—even the smallest part, even if it's nothing more than morbid curiosity—I'd like to see you.
I can travel to New Jersey, or wherever you are.
Or we can simply talk.
I don't have any expectations.
I just wanted you to know I'm still here.
I've included my number below.
If you decide not to answer, I'll understand that too.
Joel G.
Father doesn't stop watching me.
He's so still that it feels unnatural.
His fingers remain wrapped around his fork, but I notice the faint tremor in his lip. His eyes glimmer beneath the warm candlelight, and for the first time all morning, I can't find even a trace of theatricality in him.
Only vulnerability.
"Gomez," Mother murmurs without taking her eyes off me. "Don't say anything."
"I'm not saying anything, Tish," he replies, his voice lower than usual. "I'm just... watching."
I ignore them both.
I fold the letter once more, following the exact same creases Joel left behind, because there's something inside me that needs to restore that order. That precision. As though respecting the geometry of the paper were easier than confronting everything it has just stirred inside me.
I slip it into the pocket of my dress.
I don't feel happy. That would be excessive. Besides, I'm no longer sure I remember exactly what happiness feels like.
Nor do I feel sadness, the emotion I've come to recognize most easily these past few years, the one I've been wearing like a second coat for the last three and a half.
What I do feel, because against all logic and against my own will I am feeling something, is curiosity.
Just as Joel predicted.
A small curiosity.
Cold.
Barely perceptible.
But real.
"Are you going to answer him?" Mother asks, with the carefully measured gentleness she uses whenever she's trying not to frighten something wounded that might flee at the slightest sudden movement.
I don't answer her immediately.
I think about the exhaustion of being alone with an obsession. Of having no one to examine the pieces with you. Of searching and searching and searching until even your own conclusions begin to erode.
I think about how exhausting it is to be the only person in the room who still believes.
I think about Enid.
About how, three and a half years ago, she saved my life. About how she disappeared immediately afterward. About how I've spent all this time trying to understand why.
And I think about Joel.
His glasses.
His inhaler.
Camp Chippewa.
His uneven breathing the first time he saw me.
That kiss.
Awkward.
Brief.
Strangely perfect.
The first for both of us.
"Maybe," I say at last.
That's all I'm willing to give them this morning.
I rise from the table, leaving my breakfast half-finished. Pugsley reaches a hand toward me, expecting the card.
I fix him with a murderous glare.
"One week of suffering," I say.
"What?"
"The kick was clearly not enough."
"That's not fair!"
"Life isn't fair."
I slip The Black Widow card into the pocket opposite the letter, where Pugsley won't be able to reach it without losing a hand.
I head upstairs toward my room.
One step.
Two.
Five.
Halfway up the first flight, I stop.
Something unsettles me.
At first, I don't understand what it is.
Then I do.
For several minutes, I hadn't been thinking about where Enid was.
The realization pierces me like a needle.
Guilt.
Confusion.
Something close to fear.
And beneath all of that...
Something else.
Curiosity.
For the first time in a very long time, I am not thinking exclusively about Enid.
I'm thinking about Joel Glicker.