Chapter Text
“You’ve got miss Addams in your first class on your first day? Good Luck newbie.” Great. Just what Constance needed to hear after already fighting off first day anxiety combined with being the only ‘Normie’ teacher in the school. With a pat on the shoulder, Vlad the schools fencing coach walked back to the coffee station to get another cup leaving Constance biting at her lip staring at the schedule in her hand. “Don’t worry, he’s just still bitter Wednesday out fenced him in front of half the school. She’s a challenging student but a good person at heart. Don’t tell her I said that though.” Professor Orloff wheeled into Constance’s view drawing a small smile from her as he continued “Her mother was the same. And her father. She really is the exact mix of the two of them.”
“Wednesdays parents went here?” Constance mused, looking at the schedule in her hand, getting a history lesson on her students’ family tree. “Oh Miss Addams comes from a long line of Alumni on both sides, her grandmother is one of the schools wealthiest. Rumour has it they’re turning the old Iago tower into “Frump Tower” over the summer—” anything the professor said from that point on was background noise as if she was underwater “Frump? Wednesday is a frump?” Constance whispered as if the very name held power which in her case, it did. “Yes, yes Morticia Frumps daughter. Do you know the family?” If he picked up on her mood change at the mention of the name, he was polite enough (or maybe just curious enough) not to call her out on it. It was a good question… Did Constance know the family? Really? All these years later?
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September third, 1993.
Dear Diary,
I started working for the Frumps today. It’s a beautiful manor house with lots of cleaning to keep me occupied, I feel like I could get lost in here. Like a new secret is around every corner. Most days it’s going to just be me and the other staff whilst Hester tends to her business. Her eldest daughter Morticia has moved out now; she graduated a few years before me and got a place with her high school sweetheart. I don’t know his name but I remember seeing them together when I was a freshman and the Nevermore students would come to Jericho high for outreach day. They seem like a nice couple. Morticia does have a little sister called Ophelia who’s my age but she ran away a while ago, according to Hester she went to be a fortune teller for one of those circuses where the Normies that don’t see outcasts often think it’s all smoke and mirrors, Hester won’t say anymore about it than that I think it upsets her. That just leaves me, a few other maids, and Varicose (Hesters butler) here most of the time. It could be worse, I’m very grateful for Hester taking a chance on some random freshly graduated Normie but there’s something about this place that just feels…off…like the walls are whispering to me. I’m not just saying this because it belongs to an Outcast, I have no issue with that, I know not all Outcasts are scheming devil worshipers with secrets but… I don’t know…I think I just need to go to sleep. More cleaning to be done back at the manor tomorrow.
Goodnight,
Constance H.
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Constance’s second day was about as interesting as her first. Not very. And the week continued like that. Hester would go out to work, the maids would be assigned their areas by Varicose who would then leave to drive Hester wherever was needed, and everyone would get to work hardly acknowledging each other. It was a lonely life for a young woman, but it paid well and gave her plenty of time to daydream and live a thousand other lives in her head as she cleaned. Today she was in one of the many sitting rooms cleaning behind the tapestries when something interesting finally happened. She found a door. Big, dark, looming, with a breeze behind it. Constance didn’t need to be a detective to know she wasn’t meant to find it.
Shaking the handle, she wasn’t shocked to find it locked. But this house was old, whatever was behind the door probably even older. And running away from home at sixteen makes a girl pretty good at picking locks. Checking she was still alone in that wing of the house, Constance got to work. With the help of a hairpin, needle, and a few other things from her cleaning supplies the door was unlocked, and Constance was faced with a maze of dark tunnels full of cobwebs. Making her way down them she followed the shoeprints in the dust to another door and picked the lock again, this one faster than the last now she had the technique down.
“Mother?”
The frail voice that came from the corner of the room once the door was opened had Constance freezing on the spot in fear. There was only one person that could be. So, Constance took her stab in the dark. “Ophelia? Ophelia Frump?”
In the corner of what Constance now recognised as a bedroom was a girl about her age, long blonde hair tangled together clearly showing neglect. Possibly years of it. Dark circles under her eyes, clothes in various states of distress on the floor, scratchings on the wall. Her brain screamed at her to run, knowing she should be full of fear right now but only one emotion was coursing through her veins. Heartbreak. The girl in front of her was assumed dead, labelled as a runaway, the disappointment of the family no one was allowed to talk about. Now that was something Constance understood. And yet here she was, covered in dust and wounds and bruises, just a girl. A girl who needed a friend. And a hairbrush.
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September seventh, 1993.
Dear Diary,
I was right. Those feelings of doom the manor gave me, as if Ms Frump was hiding something. She was. SomeONE. Her daughter, Ophelia, not a runaway at all. I’m going back tomorrow with some stuff for her whilst Hesters out. I froze up today and ran off I feel awful but the sight of her made me sick and I didn’t want her to know that. It’ll be nice to have someone to talk to, I just have to be careful not to get caught. My logic tells me Hester kept her locked up and hidden for a reason but if you had seen her…I can’t believe a woman in that state would be dangerous. Eighteen years old locked up in her mother’s secret tunnels. I think I’m going to be sick again.
It’s okay Ophelia. You won’t be alone again.
Constance H.