Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Their first stop was at a bird-feeder camera, in the outskirts of Sherbrooke, in Ontario. The soul-sucking void of meaningless affirmation referred to by ‘Facebook’ hosted a social group which Agnes referenced as ‘Bird Feeder Camera Pics.’ Her initial discovery, Enid’s fully-wolfed-out self on trail camera local to the interior of Silvio O. Conte National Fish And Wildlife Refuge-Vermont, came from Cornell University’s Bird Lab. Her presence had been ‘noted’ by various outdoors groups, but as the date on the trail camera corresponded to a full moon, it was more ‘tee-hee’ than ‘oh-no’.

They had no idea.

Cornell’s Bird Lab camera was well-monitored and in a public space. It was unlikely to reveal secondary information and Wednesday’s presence would be equally ‘noted’ if she were to, for example, go into a full psychic vision—complete with those irritating black tears—or the equally-likely observation of hunters, already primed to search for the Alpha gone feral. Fathers’ post-Gala conversation with Esther Sinclair had been illuminating for all the wrong reasons. How such a negligent, contemptuous, vulgar, woman could…

Nonproductive thought. Move on.

Crossing the Canadian border would be the optimal choice, no matter the difficulties smuggling a most-wanted criminal across international boundaries. It seemed, though estimations of Enid’s cognition in wolf form were specious at best, the Alpha werewolf was actively attempting to avoid humanity by traveling the northernmost of the Appalachians; an admirable goal. Wednesday herself had long been planning to divorce from the great unwashed masses as soon as was feasible, given the constraint of legally-mandated secondary education and practical restrictions limiting her access to the Addams Family trust, until her majority.

Mother was holding out for ‘college first,’ as she had always cloyingly taunted, though Wednesday’s observations on institutional learning did not lend themselves to desiring more exposure. The temptations of access to more exclusive libraries, psychic mentors among the living, and dark covens existed, but it would have to be an exceptionally alluring arrangement to test Wednesday’s tolerance for inanity.

“Ready!?” Preparatory to the border crossing, Fester had once-again ‘gone incognito’ by only his estimation. Her Uncle’s only luggage consisted of a black weekender bag, full of dye-marked, sequential American cash and a robust collection of false identity documents. He had visited Jericho’s evidence locker, before leaving town. His least-wanted identity at the moment, at his estimation, was: Fester Smith of Alabama, complete with camouflage coverall, offensive orange vest, trapper’s hat, and irritating simulacrum of a southern drawl.

They were preparing to deliberately avoid the Canadian Border Service Agency checkpoints, by navigating small town streets—slowly, obeying traffic laws and speed limits—which meant Wednesday herself was piloting the Yupiter, with Fester in the sidecar. They even procured helmets, pursuant to not being pulled over by law enforcement for trivialities if it could possibly be avoided. This was a rescue mission and time was of the essence.

The extra time it took to mindlessly wind through residential streets, grated, but was profitable. They were not stopped.

“We need money.” The petrol station in Dixville took American dollars, but only the cleanest of the bills and only reluctantly. As Fester resumed command of the vehicle: “We may be able to use US dollars in border cities, but Canadian businesses will expect payment in Canadian dollars.”

“MMMmmm,” the potential for Clostridium botulinum, Salmonella, Escherichia coli, and Listeria from a poorly-maintained gas-station hot-dog rolling machine was thrilling, but time spent training ones immune system to differentiate between harmful and helpful bacteria was time wasted, in this instance. Naturally a robust microbiome was a bulwark against other, more insidious microorganisms, but a road trip was no time to cultivate infectious bacteria. A massive plop of mustard-flavored yellow no 5, mixed with tomato-flavored red 40 dripped down Fester’s coverall. An abomination against both taste and aesthetics. How efficient.

“There can’t be that many legal things to do in this part of Ontario.” Yes, and? “Movie theatres? Bowling alley? Ah… roller rink? Any cash business.” Fester nodded, spraying the combination of grease, yellow-and-red synthetic condiments, and brown dish-liquid pretending to be coffee down his blaze-orange vest. “It’s Friday night,” Was it? The days of the week had lost all meaning. There was before-the-Gala and after. No more. “Wait a couple hours, until closing, then,” he clicked his tongue. “Last man out gets stuck holding the bag.”

“… hours? Time is of the essence, Uncle.” Wednesday’s choices from the limited supply of relatively digestible gas-station foods were hermetically canned nuts, vacuum-sealed sunflower seeds, a small yogurt—from a locally-sourced dairy, well within expiry—and beef jerky, carefully-screened for preservatives and food dyes. “Enid is being hunted.”

“Trust the process, my pig-tailed protégée.” He would know. Thing, from his position inside Wednesday’s coat pocket—the whipping air was too much for his delicate phalanges—tapped her insistently. With a slight sigh, more of a huff, really, Wednesday conceded to the professionals. With gloves on, she withdrew the Samsung cellular phone, which Enid had abandoned—along with quite a large volume of items—in the lupin cages, prior to…

Nonproductive thought. Move on.

Agnes had shown Wednesday the ‘Maps’ application, which had substantially improved her opinion of the device—including zoom features and satellite imagery was of exceptional value—and using the ‘Near My Area’ search bar, Cinéma Coaticook was swiftly located and targeted. It wasn’t like Wednesday was completely computer illiterate, not given the modern schooling paradigm. The mandatory laptop was a niggling burr in the educational saddle. Her choice to abstain was an educated one.

Enid’s passcode was the date she finally wolfed out. May of last school year. Crackstones’ final anniversary.

Even the unconscious reminder of the last time her roommate had to wolf-out and save Wednesday from supernatural horrors beyond comprehension, caused a… squirm of the intestine. A guilty wiggle. Guilt was irrelevant. There was no use crying over spilled ashes. The concern in the moment: not getting arrested before having the opportunity to burgle the theatre. Wednesday’s use of fluid, fluent French smoothed over the predictable inanities of getting Fester into the darkened seating area, while Thing was strategically deployed during the disturbance over nachos versus popcorn.

The films on offer were mediocre examples of mass-market appeal—at best—and the community too small and tightly-knit to permit the sort of unaccompanied loitering at which Addamses excelled. In the end… patience was, in actuality, the solution. It was slow, painfully-ponderous, and grating. Thing reported back, sometime around the third act climax of the film.

“Safe… in offices… locked doors.” As anticipated. It was time.

Inside of a ‘staff only’ access door, concealing bags of powdered cheese product—yellow no 5, with aspirations—Flavacol, and bottles of ominously-labeled ‘popcorn oil’ from which her Uncle was drinking deeply, they donned their burglary outfits, because who didn’t leave home without adequate lurking gear? Gloves thick enough to not leave prints, but thin enough to manipulate papers and coins; unmarked soft-sole shoes; snug, but not tight clothing covering all exposed skin in tones of dark grey, charcoal, and—in Fester’s case—dark blue. The human eye was drawn to stark black, one of the appeals of the midnight shade, but when attempting to not attract unwanted attention black-adjacent colours were superior.

“First thing you should know is the exact cash-handling procedures are going to vary by company, and even by locations within the same chain, depending on sales volume, management, and cash flow.” Uncle Fester was always a more useful instructor than any found at Nevermore. “In general a place like this has a safe, which holds bills and coin for making change, as well as bulk deposits.” Inside the salty-buttery, oily storage room, they were waiting for the switch-over from regular hallway and cinema lighting, to complete dark. “Then you have the register funds. Usually this money is kept in the safe but is counted separately from the deposit funds. At the start of the day or the shift, registers are counted to the specific amount and the cash is handed off to the cashier. At the end of the shift or day it’s counted and anything greater than the amount it started at is pulled out for deposit. This amount is compared to a record of cash sales for that register to determine if it is correct, over, or short.”

“Surprisingly sensible.” They’d never knocked over a small business like this, together. Fester preferred the challenge and the drama of large banks, jewelry-district safe heists, and art museums. Gas stations and bowling alleys offered too little thrill.

“Typically at the end of the day all the deposit money is compiled into one large batch for the daily deposit. The money is bagged and placed in the safe, then the amount logged in a binder or, these days, it an online document.” His tone of derision was obvious. “Either the next day it is taken by a manger to the bank, because banks aren’t open this late, or picked up by armored car service on pre-scheduled days of the week, in which case only the armored car operator has the safe key.”

“With luck, this was not so sophisticated of an arrangement.” They had to be moving. Enid was out there.

“Hope you packed your lockpicks.” This was a comment which obviously required no response. When didn’t Wednesday pack lockpicks?

In the end, the actual theft was… unremarkable. Thing got a lift into the drop-ceiling, used his trusty linesman’s pliers to cut the ethernet power-on-demand—score one against modern technologies, CCTV video and phone lines were much less easy to manipulate—and the security cameras were of no concern. Entry into the managerial office was trivial and though the safe was keyed, rather than the more vulnerable combination or number pad, in Fester’s experienced hands the lockpicks won the day.

Wednesday was not sour about being forced to yield to her Uncle. She wasn’t. Time was of the essence. He explained about how the more challenging safe locks were made and therefore how to forcibly open them. “Lockpicking guns work,” his tone was derisive, as such a tool lacked sophistication. “Same principle as a bump key, but only for one keyway. Nothing quicker at the aluminum plug storefront glass door cylinders than popping them with a pick gun, but where’s the fun in that?”

The take was real; almost fifty-thousand, Canadian in un-marked, non-sequential, small bills. Perfection.

Uncle Fester insisted on leaving money behind, to make up the difference. “Just look at it as a currency exchange.” He was risking the potassium permanganate stains, from the dye-marked bills, to backfill the deposit deficit. “There’s no fun in robbing a family business like this. Banks are insured against theft.”

“How… compassionate.” It was… distasteful, true, but needs must.

“Oh, compassion’s got nothing to do with it. Look at it as a bribe,” Fester cackled. “These puppies are still legal tender. The Federal Reserve will just destroy ink-dyed notes and issue new ones. It might take a few weeks to get through the system, but considering the exchange rate and taxes, they’ll probably come out ahead.” Yes, and? Empathy was not one of Wednesday’s finer traits. “The incentive, my larcenous myrmidon, is to beat the heat. You pay ‘em off, even if it’s with stolen money, and there’s less reason for an obsessive mark, hell bent on vengeance, to hunt you to the corners of the world.” He didn’t look up from counting the grubby, purple-stained currency. “Like you… and your wolf.”

Wednesday said nothing, feeling the unacceptable catch—hitch, really—in her breathing, which more than subtly indicated to anyone with ears how… unsettling she found the casual acknowledgment of her willingness to go to the literal ends of the Earth, tracking down her roommate. Enid, whose greatest fear was being a lone wolf, but unhesitatingly gave up her humanity to dig Wednesday out of…

Nonproductive thoughts. Move on.

The rural property upon which the bird-feeder camera was mounted had little in the way of security. Two large guardian dogs—easily placated with lobbed discs of raw hamburger from Cinéma Coaticook’s cold storage—were all which stood between Wednesday and her target. Thing voided the battery storage compartment of the camera system, a feat which would hopefully be blamed on a rogue squirrel, and Wednesday carefully aligned the blurry, screen-capture from the day prior, to the barn-shaped feeder.

It was… nearly three in the morning. Her breath fogged the air, lit only by the still-swollen moon. This was a mixed feeding station, with shelled sunflower seeds, white beef suet set in square cakes, roughly impaled apples, and a trough of mixed corn and sweet feed for smaller mammals. It was clear, from the gouges in the ground and the exaggerated bend of the fruit spears, something large had come through here, not long ago. The homeowner had ascribed the damage as bear-related, but no natural ursine had pink-and-blue coloured tufts.

Enid had been here.

It made sense, to a certain degree. Sustenance was inciting and the bait station was meant to entice. Enid had covered almost two hundred miles in only thirty-six hours. For a human, such a distance represented a constant, steady jog or extremely brisk walking pace. It had to be unsustainable, long-term, but Wednesday had no idea of the endurance qualities of an Alpha werewolf. Under any circumstance, locomotion required energy and calories were readily available to the wildlife at this feeding station. None of the nutrients provided were troublesome or toxic to domestic canids, it would stand to reason such wildlife feed could sustain a lycanthrope in exigent circumstances.

“Wowie, lookit the gouges on that!” Fester noticed the damage, as well. “Told ya, those puppies could slice you up like lunchmeat!”

“Enids’ claws are particularly impressive exemplars of the type.” Wednesday was… proud? There was a startling amount of satisfaction she seemed to derive from the depth of violence those magnificent natural weapons could inflict. Wednesday had always wanted claws. She was… proud of Enid’s ferocity, naturally, which was not at all an unusual observation to express about someone with whom she was closely associated. Friends, even.

Moment of truth.

Wednesday experienced an uncharacteristic amount of apprehension, pulling off her gloves to address the feeding trough brutally gouged by those aforementioned claws, as her psychic ability had been on an unauthorized leave of absence, but the vivid Sight she had of Aunt Ophelia—yet to be determined as a vision of the past, present, future, or from beyond the veil—had… not provoked the pesky black tears. Was it a sign her psychic abilities had been restored? Weems, in her self-righteous sentimentality, had alleged the ‘healing’ of the ‘rift’ between Wednesday and her mother was a prerequisite to functional Second Sight, which was ridiculous… if apparently true. So with a great deal of apprehension and no small amount of vain hope, Wednesday approached the gouges.

Nothing.

Deep breath. Banish the nonproductive, traitorous, Sisyphean clot of pointless emotion, which was getting in the way of useful progress. “Nothing here.” Her tone was even. Strong. Authoritative. Controlled. “We’ll have to go further,” into the woods, “… to find a more direct link.”

Tracking the more than eight-foot tall, five-hundred pound beast through the woods was relatively trivial for a woman of Wednesday’s outdoorsmanship skill, even in the dark. What took hours was finding a psychic anchor strong enough to provoke a vision. The temptation existed at every crushed leaf, snapped shoot, or muddy pawprint to forcibly invoke her Second-Sight. The only thing staying her proverbial hand, for her literal hands were by no means so restricted, was the spectre of complete failure.

A temporary setback, like difficulty finding a strong enough psychic anchor, was preferable to a complete suspension of all psychic activity for an indeterminate time… which Wednesday did not have to spend. Time was of the essence. Days or potentially weeks of missing Sight—thus, vital clues—weren’t equal to the hours spent searching and tracking. The investigation into LOIS sans Second Sight, when visions had been urgently needed, had been a most-painful lesson. Following such easy tracks through dense woods was time-consuming, but not particularly difficult. Short-cutting the search might save hours, but lose days, if not weeks, and as a trade-off for an otherwise achievable action… the temptation wasn’t worth the risk.

“Yahtzee.” A spruce tree, one with deliberately roughened bark. The lower, dead branches had been snapped-off and it looked as if some large, blonde creature of impressive height had stood up and used it as a back-scratching post.

They had been walking steadily up a utility cut, slashed deep into the mountainside. Enid had been traveling the short grass running beside utility trusses, supporting high-tension lines, as a welcome break from crashing through the underbrush. Wednesday had been walking the left-side of the cut, Fester took the right, both scanning for any evidence of werewolf passage. There was never going to be a more direct psychic anchor than a physical piece of Enid: a tuft of blonde fur roughly matted together with… caked-on clay, of course, having snagged and pulled when she took the moment to address the itch of drying mud.

“FESTER!”

He came running. “Well, whatdya see?”

“Nothing.” She amended, “Yet.” Not willing to admit to apprehension, she clarified, “My… neurosurgeon insisted repeated head trauma is counterproductive to functional Second-Sight.” He stared at her, blankly. “I need you to catch me, if I fall into a vision.”

“Well, that’s no fun.” Still, her Uncle gamely emptied his hands of both popcorn oil bottle and meat patty, taking up position behind her as Wednesday scaled the stumps of the lower tree branches to reach the tuft of blonde fur. “How’re you supposed to start collecting lobotomies if traumatic brain injuries are on the shelf?”

“Regrettably it’s an indulgence I may well have to forgo, Uncle.” He commiserated, grateful his own Outcast power didn’t require sanity. Refusing to acknowledge the uptick in her characteristically slow heartbeat, Wednesday disguised the moment of… preparation, both mental and physical, by asking again: “Are you ready?”

“Ready and waiting.”

She reached, gently plucking the muddy tuft of coarse, blonde fur. Beat. Breath. Then bubbling, roiling furiously, like an angry whitewater or cauldron of churning acid, the electric arc of Second-Sight raced through Wednesday’s neurons, lighting them up like a good session of electroshock therapy, and launching her—bodily—as her muscles contracted powerfully and involuntarily, into her Uncle’s waiting arms.

“Not much left to do now, buddy, but wait.” He told Thing, perched and pacing worriedly across both Fester’s shoulders. Laying his niece down gently on the roughly-bushwhacked grass, he located the popcorn oil bottle and discarded meat patty. Brushing off only a little dirt, Fester took a seat by the spruce, happily munching while waiting for her to return.

For Wednesday’s part the lancing shock left her breathless… in a thin sliver moonlight, by a lake… the Milky Way was strongly-defined, more so than Wednesday had ever seen before splashing across the night sky like a… spill of milk. The ground she was standing on was… loamy, sandy, slippery in a way which implied it was rich in fine mineral particles of silt and clay which retained water, like the finger-height waves of the lapping shore. Snowflakes whirled in the biting, Arctic wind and the frozen crystals impacting Wednesday’s face left a refreshing sting.

“Enid!” She called out in the darkness. “ENID!”

A rustling.

Wednesday whirled, locating the source of the noise, and came face-to-snout with an extremely long pair of maxillary canines, attached to a blond, colourfully-tufted werewolf. Her roommate was shivering, violently, the California wolf—and werewolves in general—lacked the dense and fluffy winter fur, with a short undercoat and long, coarse guard hairs of a true extant member of the family Canidae and was more in danger of hypothermia than their lupine cousins… especially when wet.

“Enid.” Her voice came down, to a quiet, intimate tone. Wednesday’s hands, coming up to cup the fuzzy jowls of the Alpha, completely of their own volition. As feared: her fur was soaked and freezing, enveloping Wednesday’s fingers like cold, wet sand. Enids’ lupine skull was robustly proportioned; the muzzle was short and broad, zygomata were deep and widely arched, the sagittal crest was prominent, and the frontal region was slightly convex. Her upper incisors were large, sharp, and slanted forwards; lower incisors were broad, recurved, and placed in a straight line across.

“I don't know where you are.” Wednesday breathed as she could feel, even in the unreality of the vision-space, the moist, hot breath of the apex predator—vaguely scented of apples—and looked deeply into blue lupine eyes. “I don't know where you are going, but I will look for you, I will find you, and I will bring you home.” Wednesday searched around, furiously searching for a landmark, a peak, a… cliff, anything. Off towards the edge of the lake there was an island. Her fingers tightened in Enid’s mane as Wednesday’s mind whirled with possibilities. “Here. Come here. Find me here. I will be here. If you… when you make it here: stay.” She should be able to help herself from ordering the werewolf, like a common house pet, but she gripped the fur around Enid’s head with increasingly shaking and unsteady hands as it began dissolving under her grasp, frozen grains of sand running through her fingers. “Stay here. I will come for you. I will be here. Stay!”

As the vision melted around her, all she could hear was a whining, mournful howl. With both purpose and desperation, she tried to memorize the angle of the Milky Way, the outline of peaks in the distance, the shape of the island, the texture of the large-grained rocks on the shore, and the phase of the moon.

“Enid!” Once again, Wednesday came-back to herself from a vision, with the cry of her werewolf roommate’s name. Sitting straight up, starkly, she looked for her Uncle, who knew better than to attempt touching his niece while she was unconscious.

“Find her?” He asked, hopefully, both hamburger and popcorn oil long gone. Fester stood as Wednesday did, brushing himself off. “You were out for a while. We were starting to worry.” Thing popped out of Fester’s coat pocket waving briefly.

“Yes.” Wednesday nodded slowly, still trying to mentally memorize every detail. “Or I will.” The moon had been a thin sliver. Without a moonphase diagram, she couldn’t pin an exact date, but it would be upcoming. “About two weeks.” She would not miss the meeting. “I have to find a lake.”

“A lake? Sounds fun. Big lake? Small lake? Great Lake?” Wednesday had zoned out his voice, though, reaching back in to her backpack. Pen. Flashlight. Notebook. She had to get it down on paper, before the vision faded; the angle of the Milky Way, the location of the moon, the island… the peaks… Dimly, Wednesday felt Thing crawl up onto her leg, but as he was not obstructing the progress of her drawing, his steady, calming pressure was irrelevant.

Her fuge state broke, before Fester returned, and she asked Thing where her Uncle went. “Climb.”

“Climb what?” She looked around, then up at Things snapping and pointing. Fester was halfway up the high-tension power transmission tower. “Fester!?” Wednesday got to her feet, running to the base of the tower, staring up at her maniac Uncle, who was sawing—or possibly bending—the bright safety yellow warning sign, needlessly indicating ‘High Voltage’. Wednesday could plainly hear the humming of the voltage, even at ground level.

“Oh, hey! You’re back.” He turned around, unbothered by the height or the voltage. “I’m just gonna skeedaddle on down the lines and grab the bike. There’s got to be some kinda of trail up this way, they couldn’t have put all this up without trucks,” logically. “Should thank you!” He sounded thrilled. “Haven’t had an excuse to do this and not get arrested in a while!” Fester was grinning, ear to ear. “If you like, there’s a cluster of antennas up there.” He pointed further up the utility cut and lo, so there were. The red aircraft warning lights were all grouped in one bunch. “Probably get pretty good cell phone signal, if you wanted to tell your unpaid, expendable gopher where we’re going.” Agnes. He meant Agnes.

Agnes could help. She could research the angle of the Milky Way, get Wednesday a lunar chart, and find pictures of lakes in the region… Yes. Agnes. Wednesday would have turned immediately, to walk further up the utility cut, to the ridgeline with the antenna, but Thing furiously tapped. Fester? Wha… how…

“What are you doing?” Fester had gone back to unfastening the bright yellow warning sign. While Wednesday could appreciate the injury value of a missing ‘Danger’ sign, it wasn’t Pugsley’s birthday.

“Gonna scoot.” He cackled, “I got two parallel metal rails,” the wires, “… an electrical power supply, and a conductive projectile.” The metal sign. “Power from the power supply,” right hand, “…to the rail, across the projectile, and down the other rail, back to the power supply.” Grin. “Pop! It’ll zip me down in a jiff.”

“A railgun. Cute.” It was a wonder any government wanted to capture Fester, as opposed to bribing him to leave and go bother other electric grids.

“Don’t tell Pugsley.” He sounded serious. “He’s not ready for this one, yet. First time I tried this bad-boy, it took thirty minutes for me to figure out how to make it stop, I got so jazzed I didn’t sleep for a week, and there was a power outage across three states.”

His comment sparked a brief, but satisfyingly violent flicker of envy. Not for Pugsley, because who would envy such a softhearted slug, but for what Pugsley had: a living, breathing, experienced mentor who could teach useful skills, effectively. None of this ‘searching your feelings’ and ‘mending fences’ or some other vile pop psychology. Flowing electrons, positive and negative terminals, conduction; it was all sensible, measurable, and repeatable. How did she end up with the unpredictable, emotion-driven, Second-Sight, which left her vulnerable and shaking like a leaf after a vision, and Pugsley get the raw, reliable, destructive power of endless electricity?

Not endless… Father certainly was a cautionary tale however, to wit, was Father’s end more or less tragic than Aunt Ophelia? Better to be no less than a Normie, than missing, unspoken-of, and either now or in the past, locked-up in a dungeon, once-brilliant mind in tatters. She read her Aunts’ diary on the way up. Aside from painting Grandmamá in deeply unflattering light, the parallels to Wednesday’s situation were… uncanny. The ironies of the situation were not lost on the young author.

It was all Mother’s fault. Her Frump chromosomes guaranteed both Wednesday’s psychic visions and willowy frame, but denied her the height or the electrokinesis. As were most things involving Mother, lamentations and ruminations were nonproductive. Wednesday was on a mission. There was a lake. Within two weeks she needed to be at that lake, to receive Enid. She had to locate this lake, for which she required the assistance of her… friend, Agnes. The redhead was no longer an unpaid, expendable gopher; Wednesday would very much oppose her removal from the living, violently, if need be. Her loyalty was unquestioned, her abilities were invaluable, and her fawning behavior with lack of boundaries was improving.

Somehow, Wednesday believed Enid was responsible, as the sort of behavioral adjustment in Agnes showed the effect of a form of emotional support Wednesday knew herself to be incapable of providing. The change occurred in relation to their sudden—and quite unexpected—dance together. It was Wednesday’s understanding the dance troupe, in its entirety, would be performing the number. Agnes was not, so far as she was aware, in the dance troupe. Much like the ‘Pitch Slaps’ the Dance Team was mostly comprised of one outcast type: werewolves.

It was one of those unspoken social rules which Wednesday didn’t understand or condone. Why, if one was capable or interested, could anyone not join any group with which they felt an affinity? It was possible, in theory, but she had never seen such bias-free selection in practice. Impenetrable in-groups would inevitably form, with equally incomprehensible…

Nonproductive thought. Move on.

It was not until the dance, when Agnes and Enid successfully lured in the attention of the audience, more surely than any siren, with their synchronicity, grace, beauty…

Nonproductive thought. Move on.

There was an uncomfortably… painfully loud popping noise, more like a crack of lightning, and the hum of the high-tension lines died. Hmm. Fester must have reached the transformers. With a large, blinking fifty-foot cell phone tower, it was not difficult to locate and reach the antenna installation. As predicted, once in reasonable proximity the mobile device reported five ‘bars’ of signal strength.

“… Wednesday?” The voice on the other end of the line was uncertain. “It’s barely six. What’s happened?”

“I need you to help me find a lake.” Agnes talked Wednesday through taking a photograph of her notebook page and sending it, via text message, as Wednesday described the various features of the vision, verbally, in detail.

“Well… logically, we can make a couple of simplifying assumptions to narrow the scope of the problem.” A lack of inclusive precision seemed unacceptably detrimental to the process.

“Explain.” It was a demand.

“It’s statistically unlikely Enid would attempt… or survive an attempt, to cross the St. Lawrence.” Oh. What ruthless deduction. “Not only is it a very wide river and a very cold one, Montreal, Trois-Rivières, and Quebec City are between her and the river.” From the way Agnes pronounced the city names, she clearly had knowledge of some Latin-based language, possibly French. Useful information to know. “It’s a massive urban area, she’d be spotted—invariably—and the Mounties would get called on a creature her size, outside of the lunar cycle.” Federal Police were always a looming spectre. “From Enid’s trajectory, it seems like she’s loosely following the International Appalachian Trail, which means you’re likely looking for a lake in the trapezoid between White Mountain National Park, Bangor, Jaquet River Gorge, and the Seaway.”

“… yes.” This was a logical, rational elimination of variables. “Yes-s-s-s.” Dedicating more time to higher-percentage targets would be efficient.

“I’m sure the orientation of the Milky Way and the angle of the moon will be able to narrow down the Latitude of the lake to within a few degrees, which may help limiting outliers. That late of a waxing crescent phase will be in…” Wednesday could hear the clicking of keyboard keys, probably of a laptop computer. “Twelve days. Moonrise time will be at nine PM, apex culmination at fifteen hundred, and moonset at twenty-one hundred.” Pause. “If she’s hypothermic, you’ll need a shelter large enough for an Alpha werewolf… and the ability to get her into it.”

“Noted.” It was information of which Wednesday was already conspicuously aware. What method would allow for the swiftest search of such a large geographic area? “… a float plane.” Discarding other options, most of the lakes in the region left over after the glaciations of the Quaternary ice age, were inaccessible except by foot, all-terrain vehicle, or air. “When Father left me in British Colombia, to hibernate with the grizzlies…” she heard Agnes’s sputtering, choked exclamation of surprise at this knowledge, “… we took a float plane, to the interior. It was the only way.”

“I’ll ask about that later.” It was unclear if the statement was directed with expectation of a response. As the delightful winter of her fourteenth year spent in British Colombia with Cousin Itt and her other Sasquatch relations was not relevant to the current situation and did not warrant commentary, Wednesday offered none. “Do you… can you pilot a float plane?”

“Fester can.” Of this Wednesday was semantically uncertain, but had every confidence in her Uncle’s ability to operate any vehicle in a suitably breakneck fashion, inclusive of warning signage.

“… naturally.” Wednesday’s mind was already busy with variables: fuel requirements, back-country camping equipment, diagnostic checklist for visual inspection of lake areas, and shelter designs large enough for the expected quarry. When Agnes spoke again, her tone low and fierce, it was an unexpected intrusion to Wednesday’s thoughts. “I want a favor.”

“… excuse me?” Extortion. At this juncture in their relationship. What a masterful stroke of manipulation. Wednesday’s respect for Agnes’s leverage of the situation was not grudging.

“I know where you can find a plane.” The tone remained hot and low. “It’s not the closest, the most efficient, or the easiest to access, but… he deserves everything you can give him.”

“Explain.” Wednesday’s thirst for vengeance was unquenchable, especially for deserving targets.

“One of my father’s friends,” the poisonous emphasis on ‘friend’ was clear, “… drags him off to their bro-tastic hunting and fishing expeditions, for weeks, every season, because they have to ‘get away’ from all the oppressive women in their lives.” Wednesday’s grip on Enid’s phone became uncomfortably firm. “I know they don’t really care about the hunting, but use fraudulent license purchases to hunt for restricted species in environmentally-protected areas and offer the tags to business associates, as a bribe to look the other way for their other sins…” the venom. How exquisite. “… many other sins. Every year, every deer season, every elk season, moose season, duck season, rabbit season, Elmer season…” Agnes’s voice went sing-song. “I don’t know if he owns the plane or the outfitting organization, but I know where they go and someone with the club has to be in on the fraud, because there’s no way with legal or competitive raffle draws, anyone would get that many exotic tags or give them away, if they did.”

“… poachers?” Wednesday ipso-facto had a dim view of the abuse and lack of respect for the natural world. Arguments could be made for and against various ecological management laws or statutory hunting regulations, but the ethos of fair chase was a code of honor, measuring success not on the quantity of game taken, but the quality of the chase.

“It’s not even about the animals,” Agnes admitted, darkly. “Even though… I do like animals. It’s about the time he stole from me. Five days there. A week here. A quick three day weekend. Every school holiday. Every summer break. Where’s Daddy? Oh, he’s off maiming the wildlife, pump-kin,” she popped both ‘p’s in pumpkin. “We live on Long Island. It’s not like we need to stock the freezer for the winter. If it wasn’t hunting, it was football or hockey… or March Madness, and while I can’t get rid of the New York Islanders, I can get rid of Stony Brook Lake Adventures.” She exaggerated the consonants of the outfitter’s name. “They fly out of a suburb, near Bangor, in Maine. I know it’s a long drive and back over the border, but… Quid. Pro. Quo. Wednesday.”

“Your willingness to use my…” the word ‘relationship’ stuck in Wednesday’s throat like a particularly warty toad, refusing to escape. “… mission as leverage to extort my assistance is remarkable.” She paused, then the compliment was dragged out of her, “Well played.”

“Thank you.” Agnes sounded deeply pleased, as well she should have been. “Be in touch.”

Wednesday waited, at the top of a random mountain ridge, in Ontario, near Sherbrooke and watched the sun rise. Another day. Another failure to locate, secure, and return Enid to her bipedal self. Alone with Thing and her non-productive thoughts, Wednesday brooded. She was a good brooder, quite Byronic. To paraphrase: ‘a woman proud, moody, cynical, with defiance on her brow, and misery in her heart, a scorner of her kind, implacable in revenge, yet capable of deep and strong affection.’ It was never to be spoken aloud, but Wednesday knew herself capable of strong affection and attachment, especially for family. Thing. Mother and Father, despite their secrets. Pugsley. Fester. Even Grandmamá, though her reciprocal affection was, as always, conditional. Enid’s presence among the scant few for whom Wednesday would risk everything was not in question.

Never in question.

Questioning her commitment to the mission, would bring up uncomfortable thoughts, such as: how Enid attained her position among those… necessary to Wednesday’s continued well-being; why Enid’s presence was deemed necessary to elevate Wednesday’s quality-of-life to a minimally-acceptable status; the overwhelming anxiety and quiet desperation fueling Wednesday’s sleepless wolf-hunt; and her utterly terrifying lack of plan for what to do once Enid was recovered, to return her to fully human function.

There was no plan.

No knowledge.

Nothing to guide, lead, or suggest a way forward.

She was clueless, hopeless, ignorant, arrogant to assume this was even a mission she could accomplish…

“If I wolfed out and couldn't, you know, change back, would you come and find me?” The question had been asked, almost shyly, as if there was an answer other than ‘no problem.’ Wednesday’s word had been given—troth plighted—there was no turning back. The situation was win or die. It wasn’t Wednesday’s first do or die scenario, not by a long-shot, not even her first ride-or-die with Enid as her unwitting partner-in-crime.

Thing’s steady, solid grip on her shoulder and his pertinent questions about supply lists, the potential for necessary veterinary intervention, locating aviation fuel supplies, and the sorts of shelters which might accommodate an adult werewolf brought Wednesday back to rational thinking. Brooding, while satisfying, was nonproductive.

Chainsaw, framing chisels, axes…

Fester arrived astride the Yupiter, blasting it’s horn—La Cucaracha—well after Wednesday had recovered her wits, written two checklists, and consumed a minimally-adequate volume of caloric content to continue the mission. She explained their aircraft awaited outside Bangor, but for optimal available selection, equipment purchases should be made—potentially cached, for retrieval—as close to Montréal as possible; Mountain Equipment Company, Arc'teryx, the Surplus D'armée, SAIL camping, and several increasingly… questionable construction product supply ‘yards’ of which Uncle Fester was apparently a patron.

Fester also acquired a white panel van.

“Love this stuff,” he lifted up one, of two, fifty-five gallon-drums of highly-compressed, closed-cell, medium-density polyurethane spray-foam insulation. He set the drum in the back of the van, assuring Wednesday, “Crunchy.”

“… hexagonal, flexible-twist, chicken wire mesh; twenty gauge, galvanized,” Wednesday was ticking off items for her list. “Three rolls.” Good. “Have you been recently banned from Home Hardware?” She asked Fester, as he was handing off an envelope of unmarked bills to his friends, in the vacant lot, from whom they acquired the building materials.

“… define recently.”

Wednesday huffed, “If I buy you a chainsaw, will you not get us thrown out of Chas Gentmantel & Fils and L’Entrepôt De L’Outil, because I need some… specialty equipment.” Wednesday was particularly picky about her axes.

She had budgeted three chainsaws, actually: a long bar for main cuts, a small-bar for detailed cuts—like shallow notches on a log—and a second, small-bar chainsaw dedicated to an Alaskan chainsaw mill with skip-tooth ripping chain, for cutting planks. Those, the aircraft itself, and the five-ton capstan winch were the only fuel-powered tools, everything else was cordless with a battery, because supplying electric power was trivial with Fester around. Three chainsaws in the back of the van, kept Fester mute and under-the-radar while Wednesday bought the more specialized woodworking items: framing chisels, tenon cutters, dedicated mortising jig, a large and small Japanese Ryoba saw, block hand planes, spokeshave and drawknife, push-drill and push-screwdriver as a set—with bits—two sizes of hand-augers… the list wasn’t endless, but it was long.

The solution to shelter in deep woods with an adult werewolf, would be a log cabin. It was sturdy enough to withstand… vigorous, puppy-like exuberance—unlike a nylon tent—and had a reassuring permanence, in the event transforming back to bipedal locomotion was… a long-term project. It was too much to hope, that the mere presence of people who… expressed due and adequate concern for Enid’s furry condition would cause a reversion to humanity. If it was as easy as patting Enid on her multi-coloured mane, to reassure her everything was okay and she could turn back, then there wouldn’t have been as much… drama. Transformation was going to be a project. The project would require time and definition of scope, but only once basic, functional needs had been satisfied. Food, water, shelter, climate-appropriate attire, a safe sleeping den, and all the essentials for maintaining homeostasis were the immediate priority.

Fester was driving the van. Wednesday had the Yupiter with a brand-new duffle bag riding passenger in the sidecar. They were down past Lancaster, in New Hampshire, before Agnes updated Wednesday with more information. TLDR: Wednesday was right. The moon, Milky Way, and the presence of a small, visible island had narrowed the list of potential lakes, considerably. It was still a task measured in the dozens, but Enid was almost-assuredly headed for New Brunswick, possibly northern Maine, near Great Falls. Agnes appended a document with potentials, then a request for ‘Call Me’ to discuss the situation in Bangor.

The situation in Bangor was… problematic.

“What… exactly… are you doing here?” Agnes was physically present at the Stony Brook Lake Adventure office, conveniently located half-an-hour north of Bangor in Penobscot County. The vinyl lettering on the front windows of the warehouse/light-industrial zone advertised guides and rental cabins for fishing; guided hunts for bear, moose, deer, turkey, and ‘other’ game; and recreational snowmobiling, hiking, snow-shoe, canoe/kayak, and cross-country skiing trips.

“Gatekeeping.” Agnes was standing in the doorway, office open, with a cheeky tilt to her head. “I have the security codes to the building and the private-hangar access codes for Penobscot County Regional Airport.”

“More extortion?” Wednesday’s tone was warning. Her thirst for vengeance was insatiable, but her patience had limits.

“More like insurance.” Agnes chanced direct eye contact. “I’m coming with you.”

“No.” Wednesday allowed zero room for interpretation.

“We’re not going to a playground, kiddo,” Fester tempered her flat-refusal. “This is deep back-country work, not for the faint of heart.”

“… or the weak.” Agnes was too young, too inexperienced, and too much in need of supervision.

“I’m not faint,” she rebutted Fester, “… or weak,” back to addressing Wednesday. “I have my own equipment and you need every hand you can get.”

“Your research skills and Outcast abilities aren’t going to help you in the woods.” This was an unwelcome distraction. Wednesday needed to get the aircraft in the air and get searching. It was almost… it was, in actual fact, Day Four of Enid’s furry incarceration. There was a slim glow of false dawn on the horizon.

“Neither does being psychic,” Agnes was showing an abominable amount of personal growth and independence. How vexing. “… we might be Outcasts, but we’re more than the sum of our parts.” Her promise to Wednesday was personal. “I won’t slow you down.”

“Let’s take this inside.” Fester offered, diplomatically. Pugnaciously, she barred the doorway. “Kid, I’ve never been accused of indecent behavior with a minor and I’m not about to start.” He shoo’d. “We’re arguing inside, away from Normies and prying eyes. Scootch.” His fingers were in the shocking position. “Shrieking on the doorstep is for ex-wives.”

Agnes yielded the door, having felt the zing of Fester’s electricity before.

“Ex-wives? Really?” Wednesday’s temper was short, even as she shut the office door behind her. The interior lights were on and the faint smell of recently-brewed coffee, provided hope of adequate caffeination. “You had to bring up Aunt Debbie?”

“Look, I’m not saying pastels are a red flag in a relationship, but we are one for one.” Fester’s taste in ex-wives was the subject of no small debate, especially over the solstice holiday when Father tipped a little extra cyanide in the mulled wine.

Agnes asked about the wretched subject of Fester’s dearly-departed ex-wife, and he deigned to narrate the sordid tale. Meanwhile, Wednesday searched the premises thoroughly. It was a very basic building with equally uninspired ‘rustic’ interior design. There was a conference room for clients, two offices, solitary bathroom, a lounge-area—a coffee maker—and the ‘back,’ uninsulated warehouse space, where various pieces of rental equipment were itemized awaiting transit. Simple.

“… Thing, the gun cabinet.” Wednesday didn’t know the relevant statutes in Maine—nor did she care—but she was aware some states and local municipalities were fussy about ammunition and firearm storage. Also, anything of material value would probably be co-located. She paused, by the concreted-in floor safe—full size—and set a ski across the pallet-rack shelving nearby, so he could balance on something while addressing the combination dial.

Frustratingly, the inventory of the outdoor outfitters was exactly what Wednesday needed. On the storage racks were boxes of freeze-dried trail rations, grills, camp stoves, and cookware; camouflage equipment including tents, tree stands, ground blinds, and sleeping bags; gambrels and hoists for meat processing, heavy coolers for storage and transport, and vacuum-sealers; and a usable selection of shooting gear, optics, archery equipment, and trail cameras.

Long-range walkie-talkies… networkable wi-fi cameras… infra-red goggles and flashlights…

SNAP-SNAP!

Thing made it through the combination dial of the safe. Wednesday moved him to her shoulder, where his firm, steady grip was grounding… especially as she discovered twenty-five reasons to burn the entire building to the ground. Picking up the offensive objects she nearly kicked-in the insulated door between the warehouse storage and the offices, slamming the box down on the conference table, where Fester and Agnes had a detailed topographical map of New Brunswick laid-out.

“They stock silver ammunition.” The cardstock ammunition box was labelled .30-06 Springfield. Instead of the copper of a jacketed hunting round or colourful plastic ‘Ballistic’ tip of a match-grade target round, the bullet necked into the bright brass casings was a polished silver; not the matte grey of a naked lead projectile… silver.

“There’s only one reason to make silver ammunition.” It was very illegal to manufacture, possess, or carry for specific reasons. Uncle Fester reached out hesitantly, to pick up a round, even though the silver wouldn’t burn his skin… unlike the skin of a werewolf or vampire. Silver ammunition was the reason the cyclops had been slaughtered to extinction and one of very few, if inherently fatal, methods of handling a strigoi infestation, but had been banned by every international, Human-and-Outcast, rights organization on the planet. Even the Hauge conventions banned silver ammo, along with armor-piercing, poisoned, exploding, and hollow-point bullets. “They’re hunting more than turkeys, here, kid.”

“… unsurprising, given the attitudes of those involved.” Agnes was both offended… and resigned. Both Addamses stared at her, directly. If Fester had eyebrows they would have been raised.

“Your father hunts Outcasts?” Wednesday was ready to fly the float plane to Long Island… for a visit. It would be a brief visit.

“No.” The denial wasn’t strong. “Probably not, but if he knew someone who did full moon excursions…” the redheaded vanisher looked anywhere but at her idol. “It wouldn’t surprise me.”

“You’re an Outcast.” Even with her cynicism, her inherent rejection of conventional social values and general distrust of the motives of others, Wednesday otherwise assumed engaging in genocidal behavior towards ones offspring was… instinctually anathema. The survival of the species forbade such actions. It was always enlightening to be proven wrong.

“But my parents are Normies.” Agnes tilted her head, shamefully.

“You’re a lusus,” a biological term for offspring—or in the case of plants, shoots and buds—showing morphological differences from the rest of the species due to stable changes in gene expression. Some Outcast lines were genetic, like werewolves, or the strong psychic lineage of the Frump women and prevalence of cryptids in the Addams Family. Others were spontaneous. “… like Eugene.” Neither Sue or Janet, Eugene’s moms, were themselves Outcasts. He was the first of their line.

“Guilty.” Agnes had inexplicable tears, welling in her big, expressive, green eyes. “Neither of them were enthusiastic about Outcasts before I was born, let alone after.”

“Tears don’t fix anything.” Wednesday was… less severe than usual, in her pronouncement. It was a difficult lesson to learn, but a necessary one. “Actions do.” She looked across the table to her Uncle. “Fester?”

“Welcome to the Family, kiddo,” he clapped Agnes on the shoulder. She sniffled, then leaned into Fester, allowing him to wind an arm around her shaking shoulders. Over Agnes’ head, he looked at his niece, mouthing the question, “Arson?”

“There’s a more-than-adequate supply of smokeless powder in the safe,” Wednesday offered.

He rubbed his hands on Agnes’s back, sparking absently against her wool sweater, like static. “You throw the best parties.”

“Be sure to tell Mother.” The mission scope… expanded.

Where Wednesday would have otherwise taken only what was necessary for her own purposes, it was now imperative to make sure nothing survived but the building foundation. Agnes spent a good deal of time, in the offices, tapping at the computer systems and sending electronic mail to various three-letter government agencies. She emerged with a document box, filled with paperwork, which was meticulously stuffed into a selection of pre-paid, Express postal boxes, and sealed.

“Blackmail.” When pressed about her activities. “Also copies of everything I sent to the game warden and the ATF.” Shrug. “Just in case.”

The warm, winter clothing, boots, and outerwear was drive-by donated to a local women’s shelter. The superfluous camping equipment, framed backpacks, and much of the outdoor food preparation items were distributed directly to Bangor’s largest homeless encampment, Camp Hope. They dropped the Express boxes in a random series of big blue postal containers along the way and Fester traded four sets of snowshoes, two pairs of cross-country skis, and the snowblower, to a man from the Facebook Marketplace for a high-capacity highbanker sluice box and mineral processing trommel.

“What?” It was… well, it was Fester. “It’s not the Yukon, but…”

“Cabin first.” Wednesday had priorities.

They were at a… she hesitated to use the phrase ‘greasy spoon’ but it was a diner of the chrome-counter waffle type. Agnes ordered the pancakes and bacon. Fester ordered the rest of the single-page, laminated menu, plus coffee. Wednesday was picking the least offensive pieces off her Uncle’s plates: eggs—which she’d seen cracked out of the shell directly onto the hot-griddle—a few rashers of bacon, exactly twelve french fries, and four strawberries.

“I thought you were allergic to colour?” Agnes looked suspiciously at Wednesday’s fruit. Considering she’d been present for the Rosalyn Rotwood… incident, her concern was warranted.

“I am.” The tart tingle was quite pleasant. “In… varying degrees. Natural colours,” like fruit, “… are more tolerable. My sensitivities to chlorophyllins, carotenoids, and other vegetable pigments are almost nonexistent and with prophalaxis, completely irrelevant. I can eat normal vegetation without getting hives.” She chewed the strawberry, slowly. “All artificial dyes are synthetic, but not all synthetic dyes are artificial. There are many molecules found in nature, generated in laboratory environments because it's more efficient and scalable. Some of those are more acceptable than others.”

“Red 40 and Yellow No 5 are the worst.” Fester volunteered. Before she could send him a strong enough death-glare, he reminded everyone, “Remember the cheap cherry wine Cousin Lumpy brought to the last family reunion and mixed with the sangria?” Did she ever. There were still scars. On Lumpy. “Whoo-boy, I thought Morticia was going to light a fire under that boy,” literally. “Been a while since one of us got burned at the stake.”

“Great Aunt Calpurnia.” Wednesday’s tone was fond. “Burned as a witch in seventeen-oh-six at the Salem Village trials. She danced naked in the town square and enslaved a minister.”

“She was always your favourite.” Fester grinned, merrily, over his… waffles? After enough maple syrup, did the substrate matter or was it simply a delivery vehicle for corn syrup with artificial maple flavour? With pride, he recounted, “Every solstice, we play ‘Wake the Dead’ and you’d go for her casket first, pry-bar in hand…” he held his spoon, as if it were Wednesday’s favourite T-handled, stainless steel, grave-digging shovel and excavated a grave-shaped rectangle through his stack of waffles, then shoved the entire wedge into his mouth. “Ah-h-h-h. Good times.”

The suspension on the white panel van was now sagging slightly and there were two kayaks strapped to the top. Wednesday took the Yuipiter, with Agnes in the sidecar, and the delayed debate over passenger seats in the Cessna, began as soon as Agnes produced the key to the aircraft.

“The backcountry in New Brunswick, in November, is no place for an inexperienced woodsman.” Wednesday was uncompromising. “You are going home as soon as we can get a flight from Bangor International,” for commercial and passenger airlines, “… to Newark.”

“… not MacArthur?” The airfield local to Long Island.

“We live in Westfield.” Wednesday was not about to send Agnes anywhere but the Manor. “New Jersey. Number one, Cemetery Lane.” Pause. “Lurch will pick you up, in the Packard.”

Wednesday had been deliberate, making the incentive to abandon the mission worthy. Mother and Father would be able to provide more for Agnes than anything she could inflict. They wouldn’t hesitate to give Agnes the legal, parental, and emotional support Wednesday could not—was not able to—provide. She would use Agnes. It wasn’t even a question and both of them knew it. There was an instant she could see the effect her offer had on Agnes’s face—the necessity of an adequate poker face was earmarked as a future lesson—but also the moment when Agnes’s expression hardened.

“You need me.” Of all the assertions, the patently false was not a good place to start.

“No.” Flat. Uncompromising.

“When did you last sleep, Wednesday…?” Agnes’s tone hit the sing-song, again. Wednesday welded her lips shut and glared daggers. “Twenty-four hours of continuous sleep deprivation results in deficits in reasoning, decision-making, attention, and working memory.” Her green eyes bored into Wednesday—painfully smug—and she asked. “How many days has it been?”

“Irrelevant. You are not Morpheus.” Wednesday crossed her arms. “You are going home.”

“The last time you were this obsessed with saving Enid, you nearly died… twice.” Agnes cocked her head, her tenor losing none of it’s tone. “Any longer in that grave and you would have.”

White hot lightening rage roared through Wednesday. Agnes had no right to bring up Enid’s sacrifice on Wednesday’s behalf. It was a bridge too far. Even though Thing was pinching her shoulder so hard it ached, Wednesday immediately went for the large belt knife—a tacti-cool, blacked-out tanto from the outfitter’s safe—sheathed at her right hip.

“Wha… whoa, whoa, time-out,” Fester interposed himself, pressing down on her wrist in a weak spot, causing a flinch. “Uh-uh, my vicious nibling.” He took the knife. “There’s rules about stabbing family. You gotta at least give her a running start.”

“I just mean you need someone to keep an eye on you. Make sure you eat!” Agnes was yelling, now. “I’ll hit you over the head, if I have to, but if you even think about using half that heavy equipment you have in the back of that van without sleeping, you’re going to lose a leg!” Her lip was trembling. “… an-and your leg might not even come back, as a disembodied appendage, like Thing!”

“I have someone.” Wednesday’s tone was low and angry. “Two someones.” Thing had finally let up the pressure on her shoulder. There would be finger-shaped bruises, for days. The pain was grounding. It helped Wednesday put her face back on.

“She has a fair point,” Fester handed Wednesday back her knife. He splayed his palms, unapologetically, “I’m not exactly a responsible adult.”

“I am,” Thing tapped her shoulder impacting the bruise spots and causing even more clarifying pain. “So is Thing.”

“Not when you’re like this.” Agnes was frightened, crying a little, cowering slightly from the force of Wednesday’s disapproval, but unwilling to change her mind. “I’m not saying you’re not obsessed and believe me when I say I understand obsession, but when Enid is involved you are a hazard to yourself… well, and others, but my point is: while I miss Enid and I want her little furry problem to go away,” Agnes trailed off for a moment, then in a furious rush, shouted: “She doesn’t mean as much to me as she does to you!”

Silence in the hangar. But for Wednesday’s own, unnaturally loud breathing, she heard nothing.

Agnes’s voice trembled, but firmed as she concluded, “… it gives me a little more objectivity.” Her words echoed. “If we’re using the plane as a metaphor, you’d fly until you ran out of gas. I’m just here to remind you to land and fuel up.” Wednesday would just as soon have tied Agnes up in the duffel bag and shipped her, book rate, to the Manor. Then, Agnes went for the jugular. “You’ll be of no good to Enid, when we do find her, if you need more help than she does! The rule on the plane is to put on your own oxygen mask before you assist anyone else.” Agnes offered, “I can help you, so you can help Enid.”

“I wouldn’t say no to having a Gal Friday.” It was Fester’s way of saying he endorsed the notion. He was also leaving the choice in her hands.

“You will be exhausted, you will be cold, you will be wet, and you will be in pain. Your spirit will be tested,” Wednesday promised. “I have no sympathy, mercy, or sense of compassion. I will die to rescue Enid and I will drag you down with me.”

“I understand.” Agnes nodded, straightening herself back up. “I… I do care for her, too, you know.”

The rage again, bright-white like lightening, and Wednesday lost her composure. “I am her PACK!” She shouted, caught her breath, and forced her volume back. “I’m the reason she wolfed out. She is my responsibility. I promised to hunt her down. I will. I will find her and I will turn her back.”

Why was it the most forceful words, delivered in the most intimidating tone Wednesday had, sounded so weak and felt so brittle? Wednesday refused to let anyone else shoulder what she considered her personal responsibility. Enid was hers… her responsibility. That was all. Anything more was nonproductive thinking.

“That’s right,” Fester affirmed. “Now… let’s get that plane squared away and I have a couple ideas for a mobile control tower.”

The van was overloaded. The next best place to put a bunch of camping equipment, other than the back of the van, was inside the outdoor outfitters float plane. It was a Cessna 185 Skywagon, according to the vehicle paperwork under the pilot seat, and with the wi-fi local to the airfield, Agnes was able to determine effective useful load of the aircraft was around one thousand pounds. “It has a typical fuel capacity of ninety-two imperial gallons and crew capacity of five, leaving the useful load with full fuel at approximately five hundred pounds.”

Agnes had downloaded the operators manual, to a tablet, and handed it to Uncle Fester, who was… reading? Wednesday wasn’t certain she’d seen her Uncle read anything—recreationally—aside from a menu, in her life, let alone… study something. “Fester’s attention span is usually gnat-like, what sorcery on that…” the iPad, “… compels his attention?”

“I told him this model of seaplane had a hidden compartment with a secret sequence of button to press, for it to open, and the instructions were written in code, in the manual.” Fester would read the manual forwards, backwards, and in Cockney rhyming slang if he believed there was something secret concealed in it. “You don’t want your search for Enid to end prematurely because of an avoidable technical… misunderstanding.”

“Genius.” Wednesday didn’t address any emotional allusion in her comment. “What’s the range, at that fuel load? We need it to set a locus of high-percentage geographic search candidates for optimal fuel consumption.”

With the heaviest items of the equipment loaded in the plane, Fester busily memorizing the manual in order to recite it back to himself in pig-latin—in case the secret code was written in pig-latin—and Wednesday’s pencil compass, she and Agnes plotted out several flight plans, basing the plane loosely out of Saint-Quentin Parish, New Brunswick. Not that they were filing flight plans with any authority, but Wednesday needed to know the optimal routes. Fuel would be an issue, so was finding a useful landing strip—one unsupervised, naturally—but such problems were logistical and could be solved.

Sleep was also, apparently, an issue.

“Look, Thing and I will make sure you aren’t disturbed,” Agnes promised. “You can lay in the back of the van,” there was enough of the floor cleared. “Forty-five minutes. Even if you don’t actually fall unconscious, you can at least rest for a few and close your eyes.”

“My eyes are fine.” Wednesday had no time to spare for frivolities.

“They’re bloodshot,” Wednesday ignored her. “… and not in a good way.” Agnes got creative, “It looks like you’ve been… crying.”

Cold. Agnes’s observation was stone-cold and Wednesday could feel the blunt prod of clumsy manipulation, but it was effective. “Half an hour, no more,” she ordered. Agnes nodded her agreement.

While Wednesday rolled out a sleeping bag—more to protect her hair and clothes from the floor of the van than anything else—Fester was busily ‘modifying’ a CB radio, casually borrowed from a nearby truck, to speak with the VHF airband transceiver and integrated nav/comm radio equipment in the Cesssna’s cockpit. He was making a lot of noises about pulling power limiters and shorting past ballast resistors, so whatever radio console he cooked up for Agnes, as their erstwhile air traffic controller, would be powerful.

On her back, eyes staring up at the scratched, ceiling of the van—freed of its cloth headliner—Wednesday tried to clear her mind of non-productive thoughts and voluntarily incite a few moments of rest. Agnes wasn’t wrong. Prolonged sleep deprivation was inconvenient. Being left alone with her thoughts was also… inconvenient. Wednesday had never cared about the opinions of those outside her family circle and only situationally for those people she admired. She enjoyed being disliked, even, and as a consequence, rarely had any true sense of guilt or remorse for harm she may have caused others. Most of the time, Wednesday felt any actions resulting in harm to a tormentor were justified. The last time she felt guilty was at Eugene’s hospital bedside, futilely demanding answers of his unconscious form.

Wednesday was capable of introspection. She was able to realize when she had compromised her own standards of conduct and feel shame over it. Such a revelation was infrequent, but more prevalent in the last… year or so, as events became increasingly complicated. As much as Wednesday had been accused of overwhelming arrogance, she was her own harshest critic, and the hooded spectre which stole the peaceful chill of the grave from Wednesday’s sleep was not Death.

It was the tiny, cruel voice of her own creation, asking: ‘Why had Enid run?’

Wednesday was endlessly self-loathing, to have allowed Issac Night to place her in such a precarious position—underground, in a non-self-dug grave—and the necessity of rescue was… something she wished to discuss with Enid, at length, upon her recovery, but the self-reflective scaphism which kept her eyes from closing: Why had Enid fled?

Wednesday had given her word. She was mildly… ashamed—let the self-flagellation continue—the question: ‘would you come and find me?’ had even required verbalization. Fairly Wednesday was, as Enid accused, ‘chronic under-sharer’ and she was also aware her… ability to communicate such a fundamental truth, in an adequate manner, was questionable—at best. Wednesday spoke through actions and she would have hoped… would have believed…

Nonproductive thoughts. No matter.

It was clear Wednesday had not adequately informed Enid of her… of the importance of her position in Wednesday’s life, in a manner which had been fully internalized. Wednesday had promised, had even reassured; Enid potentially stuck as a fully-wolfed-out werewolf was not a problem, however temporary such a transformation may be. There was no need to flee across three states and Canada. A rental van, driven carefully to Westfield, wolfed-out Enid in the back—involuntarily restrained, if needs be—would have been all that was necessary to get the colorful werewolf home, after which all the Addams-Family’s considerable influence could be leveraged to return Enid to her rightful state.

The chase, while thrilling, was unnecessary and the longer it went on, the more it put them all in danger, from hunters or the very real environmental hazards of mountain climbing in New Brunswick in November. The only conclusion Wednesday could draw, in her thirty minutes of sleepless ‘rest’ before the van was slated to be gutted and turned into an impromptu air traffic-control tower was: Enid didn’t believe Wednesday would be ready, willing, or able to fulfill her obligations as the sole member of Enid’s pack and save her, from herself, as promised.

The realization was a dreadful pain, which burned, and even defied Wednesday’s tried-and-true method of coping with uncomfortable feelings: burying them deep inside, where they would slowly smolder. The problem was the feelings weren’t slowly eating away at her, they were melting through securely-vaulted places in Wednesday’s soul, slicing through barricades like a hot knife through butter. It was… becoming increasingly un-viable to keep a lid on all the uncomfortable things Wednesday didn’t want to feel.

Knock-KNOCK!

“Thirty minutes. Exactly.” Agnes tapped on the white exterior panel of the van. “As requested.”

“Good.” Wednesday sat up. “Let’s get this stripped out.”

With no small measure of luck, the private hangar remained empty during the afternoon. It had a propane heater, so the interior was… tolerable. Surprisingly tolerable. Wednesday had a very narrow range of comfortable indoor temperatures, the more morgue-like the better. Given all the physical activity stripping and cleaning the inside of the van, Wednesday managed to work up a decent sweat in only an Ophelia Hall t-shirt and track pants.

Fester handled the wiring. Agnes had her choice of the best camping gear Stony Brook Lake Adventures could provide and they cracked-out the spray-foam insulation for a quick test of the system. Without insulation and a heat source Agnes wouldn’t last long as a pirate air traffic controller, nor would it be even mildly livable without flooring, seating, and even a small fan. The map was lovingly pasted to the roof of the van—complete with push-pins, string, and highlighted flight plans.

“It’s just rough ply and a camp stove. Are you sure you’re going to be alright?” Fester asked, as he and Wednesday completed a rather crude, poorly-framed, lightening-quick, van-conversion. There was no finesse or luxury. The interior was patched together with spray-foam, decking screws, and spite.

“Bigger question,” Agnes turned to Fester and Wednesday, bashfully. “Can either of you give me a quick lesson in how to drive?”

Oh. OH!

The inevitable drive up the Maine coast, to New Brunswick would be a useful learning opportunity. First, though: they parked the van behind an obscured hedgerow, within scoping distance of one Aaron Schneider, or at least his little Cape Cod cottage, off the more deserted end of a numbered county road. Agnes was sleeping on her shelf-cot, Fester on the floor of the van, and Thing had crawled into a mitten—his version of a sleeping bag in cold weather—on the dash.

Wednesday was in the driver’s seat, a Swarovski spotting scope on a small tripod occupying the passenger seat, and spent the cold, wee hours of the morning watching Mr. Schneider’s front porch. He would go to work soon, as primary owner/operator of Stony Brook Lake Adventures. Any… evidence, either legitimately incriminating or planted, would be ready and waiting for the upcoming police investigation. There was a window, between him leaving and the inevitable detonation of the special gift Fester had left behind at his workplace, where they were guaranteed to have at least forty minutes of uninterrupted time to investigate his premises, before the police arrived.

It was a long wait, but finally the light went on in the kitchen. Excellent.

She woke everyone, quietly, as Mr. Schneider prepared for his last trip to the office. Wednesday had to count to thirty, verbally, to stay her hand long enough between the last visible trail of taillights from Mr. Schneider’s pick-up truck and her permission for Agnes to twist the ignition of the van’s engine. Parking was an advanced skill. She’d get better at it with time.

“Breakfast anyone?” The smell of coffee was strong, as Fester flicked on the lights. “Gloves on, hats on, masks on.” Wednesday had a balaclava, as you do. “We’re not here to wreck the place up, unfortunately, we’re here for information. Don’t touch what you don’t have to. Kid, you’re with me.”

Thing was with Wednesday and she immediately went to the garage, where there was another, large, concrete-set gun safe. This time Wednesday dragged over a… golf caddy for Thing to balance on, while he cracked the safe, and she stared up at a black, white, and red flag gracing the social space of the garage, along-side a yellow “Come and Take it” flag, with a large black rifle outline. Wednesday murmured, “Prepping for the boogaloo, are we?” a wooden, stained Punisher skull was hanging next to a Thin Blue Line poster and the whole thing was just… confusing. “Pick an ideology and stick with it, mmm?”

The… most Outcast-loathing symbology available was the so-called ‘Black Sun’ a Nazi—supposing at this point it was Neo-Nazi—symbol of the occult, offering a mystical justification for racial and ideological supremacy. It was the idea Humans—meaning, non-psychic, non-Vampire, non-Homo Fenris or Homo Caeruleus or Homo Gorgon, or any ‘animal’ Outcast type—were endowed with super-special ‘divine’ qualities, which the nutcases believed made Humanity destined to rule over other races. The ability of someone like Marilyn Thornhill—née Laurel Gates—to use witchcraft to raise the reincarnated zombie of a historic supremacist flew solidly down a certain corridor of Right Wing, anti-woke, pompous, misogynist, virtue signaling against the tolerant, queers, Outcasts, brown people, and diversity-and-inclusion in general.

Hmmm.

One quick method of comeuppance—aside from murder, which was forthcoming—was to take the Black Sun flag and click it onto the spring-loaded gates of the carabiners formerly-securing Schneider’s American flag, on his front yard flagpole. When the local—possibly even National news, depending on how slow the news day was—came to his front porch to tell America how sad it was this straight, white male with lots of guns managed to blow himself sky-high, his shame would be visible for all to see.

The garage was a red-pill, delusional fantasy-land. There was a weight-lifting system, complete with the aforementioned ideological flags, plus a large gun safe, a corner devoted to boxing, and a rack of tactical gear, hung with the sort of fanatical precision which implied he was prepared to quickly don it, Minuteman-style, as if the Canadians were coming back over the border, like the War of Eighteen-Twelve. Thing found plenty of guns in the safe, along with a collection of entirely-too-pretty to be in daily-rotation knives, night-vision gear, more expensive optics… and a collection of blank hunting tags. Too-much ammunition to be legal or practical lined the walls, in big, metal ammo boxes. There was also an ample supply of gunpowder, brass cases, rifle and pistol primers, and moulds for casting bullets.

A stray hand, bare, trailed over the barrels of the various rifles in the safe and her head snapped back in a brief, intense vision. She swayed, but stayed on her feet, calling out, “Fester!”

He came and chortled at the display of glass-fragile masculinity. “Ooo, smokin’ psychic gun right there. Agnes has some computer things going, and I’m making pie.” He offered, noting her weakened state, “You need anything?”

“… where’s his freezer.” Serial killer freezers were always where they kept the good stuff. Frequent ‘full moon excursions’ with silver ammunition—she made sure to leave a box of silver ammunition on the reloading bench, he had at least one more in the safe—meant he was a serial killer of Outcasts. She had seen it in her vision. Wednesday had a special place in her dark, desiccated heart for embarrassing serial killers.

Fester started rearranging the gunpowder, loudly commenting on the ignition speed or compression of various jugs.

“Fester! The freezer!?” It took a strong tone to distract him from explosives.

“Kitchen!” He shouted back.

She went back into the house, first seeking out Agnes, who was in an elaborately-appointed gaming room, with two, wall-sized screens, several consoles, a large computing tower with more screens, and lots of horrifying, eye-bleeding rainbow-generating LED lights.

“Ahhh!” She grimaced and squinted her eyes.

“This guy has a serious Call of Duty addiction.” Agnes told her, without looking up. “Also the porn…” she shuddered, “God the porn.”

“Are you almost finished?” Wednesday didn’t know how swiftly certain things happened on computers. Some searches and questions she had were answered so quickly, it seemed silly to ask in the first place, but other requests made Agnes sigh with the clear indication it was a question she should have known better than to ask.

“Yep, just waiting for this to fill up,” it was a progress bar. “Dumping the main hard-drive. Fortunately, he’s got all his games and media stuff on separate partitions, so this will be quick.”

“… good.” Those all sounded like good words.

A large chest freezer was in the kitchen, beside the regular refrigerator, lid compressed down by two cases of cheap beer. Classy. The freezer was all butcher paper-wrapped, arranged in separated columns by year, species and type of meat, scrap pieces of cardboard as separators. How organized. Elk was on top of ducks, turkey, and dove, beside deer, antelope, bear, and moose. It plucked, slightly, at Wednesday’s sense of justice, the waste these neat little meat packages would go to, with the man who was meant to eat them dead.

… there was a cooler in the van.

“What are you doing?” Fester came back into the kitchen, from the garage, reeking of gunpowder. Thing was with him and signaled a ‘thumbs up.’

“It’s not like he’s going to eat them.” She replied, methodically stacking. “Saves us the trouble of hunting while building.”

“Fair. Grab a couple of those pies.” He requested, “… and you’ll want the coffee. It’s whole bean!”

The freezer was disappointing. Garden variety game meat. She couldn’t tell if she was distressed or relieved, to not number any of the more ‘beastlike’ Outcasts among the freezer-packs. There was nothing… suggestive; nothing tripped her visions, besides the guns. There was a muffled thump in the distance and Fester’s head went up. “That’s our cue. All aboard whose comin’ aboard.” The trap had been sprung. With a CADPAT tactical oven mitt, he reached into the oven, “Who wants pie!?”

Breakfast was pie and coffee for Agnes and Fester. He was going to rest and lay low, while they took the van up to Great Falls. Once over the border, they could find an abandoned field, with a dirt road, pond, or other landing zone and call him in. Unfortunately, flying over the border was… tricky.

“Never been intercepted by the Air Force before, American or Canadian. Seems like it might be fun.” Fester winked. “You guys go on ahead. Don’t worry about me, I’m used to flying solo.”

A hour into driving for the very first time, Agnes had finally stopped white-knuckling the steering wheel, and managed to ask, “Aren’t you worried the Feds will trace the bombing back to us?”

“No.” Wednesday’s denial was flat.

“… can you make me feel better about why not?” Agnes’s tone was plaintive.

“Fester made sure to locate the epicenter of the explosion right on the safe with the gunpowder.” First rule of recreational bombing: let the target bomb itself. “The local police will bring in an explosives expert, who will say the safe exploded… which it did,” with some assistance. “They’ll visit his home and find large quantities of improperly stored gunpowder; containers kept too close together; lots of powder residue all over the garage; and the smell of vinegar, which is the smell of decomposing saltpeter.” Fester had been busy, redecorating. “The insurance company will come to the conclusion, he was in violation of the recommended powder storage limits, outside of DOT-approved containers, which as a Federal Firearms License holder he would have known about, and therefore will push to declare the explosion an ‘accident’ for a lack of compliance with Federal storage laws, to avoid paying out.” Capitalism. “With luck,” she believed more in luck, than hope. Luck, at least, could be manipulated as Great Uncle Odhrán—the leprechaun—always maintained. Father insisted he inherited his Uncle’s gift of gab and facility with money. After all the recent revelations of the family-spirit-type Wednesday was no longer discounting the possibilities. “… we’ve left enough evidence of crimes against Outcasts which will be difficult for the local or state police to hush-up.”

“Right.” Agnes nodded, at the traffic… which was minimal.

While Wednesday was being compelled to speak and Agnes wasn’t mid-panic about merging, she asked: “Before I commit felony kidnapping of a minor, across international borders,” a crime which would make her ancestors among the sluagh sídhe very proud, “… how likely is it you have been reported missing and therefore your ID won’t make it past the border checkpoint?”

“Un-likely,” Agnes cast her eyes to her phone, which was mounted on the air vent with a special device, allowing the driver to see the mapping application—clever, that—and nodded towards Wednesday. “Check my DM’s. Dad sent me a message, this morning.”

It only took a few moments to navigate to the correct menu system. The final message, of a long thread, which included: “Go ahead and Doordash for dinner tonight, pumpkin, I’m out with the guys at Belmont.” There was an emoji. Winking? “After all I’ve done for you…” was the beginning to a discussion of her vanishing on him—again—and ended with: “One day you'll get up from under your mom's skirt, and you'll see how hard life can be.” Emoji, again. “When you were a child I could never make you happy either as I tried only to be rejected by you. I guess there is just no pleasing you. You can spend the rest of your life blaming me for everything. I don’t care.” More emojis.

“At least he hasn’t reported you missing.” Wednesday—briefly—felt… an emotion. It was unfamiliar and uncomfortable feeling, having to do with seeing this patent dysfunction in what should have been a strong, supportive relationship. Witnessing the drama made Wednesday feel… squirmy. She tried to dismiss it, as thoroughly as possible, putting the phone down, oriented back at the mapping application.

“Even if he did, it might not go anywhere.” Agnes admitted, “I’ve… been reported missing often. It’s what happens when you’re treated like a prize poodle, only good to show off, and the rest of the time I was expected to hide myself away.” Pause. “So I did. I doubt the Suffolk County police would even accept a missing persons report on me, unless there was evidence of a break in or something violent happened.”

“Their fault.” It was the best reassurance Wednesday could offer. “Not yours.”

“I have a new family now.” Agnes’s smile was… victorious. “A better one. Where my Outcast ability is celebrated and I’m accepted for who and what I am.”

“Yes.” At no point would any of the Addams Family judge or reject, purely on ability or even ‘difficult’ personality. Goodness knew Wednesday was self-aware enough to realize she had not been an easy child to raise. She was fortunate to have the family she did and knew it. Even Grandmamá had to respect Wednesday was not a Frump, she was an Addams, and Wednesday’s identity as a proud Addams was unquestionable. “Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc.”

“What?” Agnes briefly allowed her eyes to stray from the road, send Wednesday a quizzical look.

“We gladly feast on those who would subdue us,” Wednesday translated. “Our family motto.”

“… your speech at, the Founder’s Fire,” Agnes realized.

“Always words to live by,” Wednesday affirmed.

There was a long pause, where Agnes seemed to stare, furiously. “Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc… Wednesday, that’s not real Latin.” Agnes delivered the information, as if Wednesday herself wasn’t aware. “It would be more like: ‘Manducamus libenter illos qui nos dominent’ or ‘Glutimus iucunde illos qui domant nos’.”

“Glutimus iucunde illos qui domant nos.” Wednesday repeated, “We gulp with pleasure those who would tame us.” She had to hide a tiny quirk of amusement. “Mother would approve.”

Border Control into Canada was unremarkable. Wednesday took over driving, as Agnes was not legally licensed. The wait on the checkpoint line was interminable, but the interview was brief. Yes, American citizens. No, nothing to declare. Their purpose for visiting?

“Camping,” Wednesday gestured to the back of the van and it’s crude cabin conversion with visible sleeping bags, cooler, and Coleman stove. “With my Uncle.”

“Your Uncle’s Canadian?” Border Control Canada asked.

“Oui, il l'est.” She replied in French. “On séjourne au parc provincial du mont Carlton.”

“Quand retournes-tu aux États-Unis?” It was a test.

“Après la pleine lune.” She passed.

“Passez un agréable séjour au Canada.” The border control agent handed back both their ID’s.

Before they left Great Falls, Agnes Door-dashed two mixed-grill platters and the chicken tikka, from East Atlantic Tandoor. They delivered directly to their van, parked at the truck stop, much to Wednesday’s astonishment. “As long as I keep charging food to his credit card, he’ll never notice I’m not really in the house.”

“Impressive subterfuge.” One platter was far too much food for both Wednesday and Agnes, leaving the curry and the second platter for Fester. They fueled up every legal container in the van, plus one which was blatantly just a five gallon bucket with a tight-fitting lid.

Not a small amount of research later, led Agnes to a forum for trail riding dirt bikes with a PDF of a map of local fire roads. They picked one to park at, by a pond. If Fester skidded off the pond, he’d at least end up in the road, and the plane would be recoverable. They lit off flares at two hundred meter intervals and Agnes practiced talking Fester in for a landing.

“MmMmm, really appreciate the grub.” Fester complimented, as they sat around a small campfire. Agnes had boiled some water in an enamel camping kettle, using it on her own, freeze-dried meal and for Wednesday’s portable, manual espresso machine. She owned a Italian-made hand-crank coffee grinder, made of brass and beechwood, with tempered steel conical grinder, and a small moka pot, which both fit in her suitcase. It wasn’t perfect or flawless, but it was better than nothing, and even the subpar beans tasted better, knowing they were stolen from a racist.

Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc.

“Were you spotted?” Wednesday asked, as the actual border zone was more heavily surveilled than the deep interior portion at which they camped.

“Probably, but there’s no spotting us here.” His tone and exhausted slump showed the trip had been closer then Fester cared to admit, which made Wednesday frown. “What’s the plan?”

“Refuel.” The Cessna took 91 octane and they’d stocked up. “We should…”

“Rest.” Agnes interjected, spooning chili-mac. “It was a long drive and that was a tricky landing. Let them change shifts on air traffic control, give it a few hours for the heat to die down, before we take off again.”

Fester was asleep in the back of the van before the door shut on him and Agnes, on her cot-shelf. The young vanisher had on headphones, probably to deal with Fester’s incessant snoring. Thing emerged from the hoodie pocket on Wednesday’s sweatshirt. The cold was dangerous for him, who relied so heavily on nimble, bare fingertips. Thing didn’t have much bodyweight to stabilize his temperature and disliked gloves, for the restrictive, chafing feelings. After refueling the plane from their various licit and illicit containers, all that was left for Wednesday to accomplish was to gently adjust a wool glove to Thing’s exacting standards.

It was difficult, fiddly hand-work, over the flickering light of a campfire, but having something to focus on was better than being left alone with her thoughts, so… Wednesday looped stockingette with two impossibly-thin needles, to adjust the gloves; working in the seams where Thing might chafe and taking-in or adding stitches to fit his precise measurements. In the end the now-finger-tip-less over-glove fit ‘well enough’ by his standards; a necessary evil to ward off frostbite.

If Wednesday lost a little time microsleeping in the Cessna’s cabin, or caught herself nodding off once or twice over Thing’s glove, she didn’t address the issue and Thing remained silent. She took a paper-wrapped hunk of… bear meat, several cans of beans, and added this and that to the Dutch oven, banked into the fire coals, for when the others woke, doing her best to stay busy.

“Buns?” She suggested, looking at her available cookware and ingredients. Thing shrugged. “You’re right. Maybe save it for later.” Wednesday got out the bag of Maseca—the only masa hairina available at the Wal-Mart in Great Falls—and started to roll and hand-press tortillas, grilling them on a oiled-up cast-iron griddle.

“Lurch’s cooking skills definitely rubbed off on you,” Fester complimented mopping up the chili with the freshly-cooked tortillas. “This is fantastic. Bear, you said?” Yes. “MmmMMM.”

“The plan…” not just to fly around aimlessly and find Enid’s lake, but the coordinated effort of ground van and float-plane, for landings, fuelings, and evading the RCMP and the Air Force. Fester would have to take off from here, but Agnes was slated to move the van, collect at least a hundred gallons of fuel, and find a fresh landing strip while they were airborne.

“Here’s the cash.” Canadian. “Three hundred for the fuel for the plane,” counted out, “… the rest is in the envelope, under the front seat. Don’t be afraid to use it. Bribe people if you have to. Pay them to look the other way, if they ask uncomfortable questions. Purchase camping reservations, if necessary, or make donations to wildlife funds, if it gets you in a park you need to be in.” Wednesday assured her, “The money is meaningless.”

“Right.” Agnes took the cash, slowly, cautiously handling the stuffed envelope.

“According to the pilot’s records, the fuel consumption of this aircraft is fourteen gallons per hour, give or take power restrictions and altitude. We expect to be in the air for between six and seven hours, by which time we will need to land. Having an adequate landing zone is more important than gathering fuel. We can gather fuel at any time, we will need to land when the plane runs dry… one way or another.” Fester nodded along. “I’m leaving Thing with you.” He would not fair well in the uninsulated, un-pressurized cockpit of the Cessna. “Rely on him. He’s a steady hand in a crisis.”

Thing bounced a little curtsy of acknowledgment.

“Let’s go.” Wednesday insisted on going through the pre-flight checklist, but gamely put on goggles and a hard-hat—part of the chainsaw kit—on over her knit alpaca chollo, because she knew her Uncle’s driving and assumed he wasn’t much more careful in an aircraft. They strapped in, Agnes towed them—with increasing speed—to the launch point and Fester revved the propeller.

They cleared the trees.

Mostly.

Those leaves were always there, in the hydraulics of the wheels, why?

The stick, poking out of the float, also.

“Well… it’s aluminum.” The floats of the plane were just a shell. They were individually compartmentalized, but still… aluminum. They had landed on their first lake and Wednesday could walk out onto the floats to take in the damage. “Should be able to patch it.”

“A little high-speed tape and it’ll be fine.” Fester assured her. “You’re sure this isn’t the one?”

“Certain. The mountains are in the wrong position.” The long axis of the lake would be more northern. Wednesday had to wait until they were in the air, to update Agnes on the correct angle relative to the mountains, and they circled around to the next target.

“You wanna learn to fly?” Fester asked her, as she re-mounted the cabin. “Any idiot can get a light aircraft airborne, even me. It’s not hard. Well… landing is, but any landing you can crawl away from, I say.”

“… sure.”

He was correct, for the most part. Basic maneuvering was trivial and Wednesday picked up flying with relative ease. She became quite comfortable with the procedures involved in the whole experience, flying more or less straight and level, rounding off turns, climbing and descending without drama.

Fester talked her through his approach on the next lake. “You'll see a glassy band of water on the upwind side of a lake. Waves form downwind of it and increase the further you go. At six to ten knots, you'll see wind streaks on the lake parallel to the wind. Whitecaps at ten to twelve. Glassy-water landings are actually really tricky, because without visual depth perception, it can be impossible to guess how high you are above the water, so the trick is… pick an aiming point and a last visual reference, usually along the shoreline. One you have an aiming point and last visual reference, you put yourself in a landing position, configuration, and power setting for regular descent. Then you just wait for touch-down on the water. If you’re landing on a run way you wanna place it right on the centerline, close to the numbers. If you’re landing on a big lake you pretty much have all day to land.”

“… noted.” Wednesday paused, before asking her Uncle. “When did you learn to fly a float plane?”

“The Chicago job, y’know… the big one,” he stuck out his tongue. “It wasn’t a float plane at the time, but… needs must.”

The second lake was, sadly, not the one, nor was the third, but Wednesday did get to take off from the second lake, and Fester allowed her to land on the third. It alleviated some of the anxieties of continuing to fail at rescuing Enid. Wednesday took complete charge of the navigation to, approach, and landing upon Lake Four.

“There’s the island.” Good start. Wednesday began a slow, descending approach circling the lake. “Looks like there’s an abandoned structure on it. That might be a good place to set up camp.” As soon as the words left her mouth, Wednesday realized this was the lake, from her vision. The sense of deja vu was so strong, it was as if she had centuries of familiarity with the water feature. “… there was a peninsula,” paler, shallow water, “…connecting the island to the shore, but it’s worn away over the years.”

“Mmm, yep. Now, you wanna look for the glassy-band of water, alright?” Fester was preoccupied with the mundanities.

Wednesday grabbed the handset for the radio. “Carrot-Top, Cessna 6606, we are at target location four, twenty three nautical miles South-Southwest of Mont Carlton operating VOR at… six hundred feet,” over the water, “… This is our final destination. Descending to make an approach and we’ll unload our supplies.” Pause. “Good work, Carrot-Top. You narrowed down our options quicker than I could have reasonably expected. Over.”

Agnes’s voice sprang to life, “Cessna 6606, Carrot-Top… thank you. Acknowledged, you are en route to final destination. You are clear to land, I haven’t heard any traffic in your area. We will await pick-up in a few hours, and transmit our location at that time. Squawk code is eight-one, two-one. Say Again: Squawk code eight one two one. Please reply.”

“Carrot-Top, Cessna 6606, Squawk is eight-one-two-one. Acknowledged. Over and out.” The fatigue, caused Wednesday’s hands to shake—certainly not the anticipation—as she guided the plane down to the surface of the lake. It wasn’t particularly large, certainly nothing to Lake Champlain, by whose shores Nevermore rested, but even just skimming at water-level, Wednesday could recognize the location.

The profile of the mountains in the distance; the texture and colour of the sand in the embankments; the way the island monolith—possibly a granite dome with an agglomeration of glacial erratics—dominated the lake… it was all familiar. She piloted the Cessna to the embankment, The Embankment, the one from her vision, and barely had the engine toolled down before erupting from the cockpit—heedless of the knee-deep water—and raced to find the exact location where she and Enid were slated to meet… in ten days.

“Fester, turn around.” Because paranoia was only paranoia if there weren’t already hunters out to get them and Wednesday was nothing if not adequately paranoid: she started stripping.

The most primal sense humans had—Homo Fenris inclusive—was smell. In her canine form, Enid would be more sensitive to smell, than any other sensory input. The—for want of a better term—stinkiest object of clothing Wednesday had on her person, which could be reasonably removed and hung from a nearby branch was her bra. Socks were under layers of boot and trouser. Her underpants were further than she wished to strip, even with Fester obligingly looking the other way, and… there was an uncomfortably suggestive connotation about tying ones underpants up in a tree to attract someone’s attention.

It seemed tacky.

Bra removal—from under baselayer, sweatshirt, and parka—was relatively trivial. Any AFAB person swiftly learned the magic trick of ‘look ma, no bra’ without removing their outer garments, early upon reaching the bra-wearing stage. Hers was black, naturally, and looped over a branch, easily, fastening securely with a double-wrap and hooks. Wednesday did not wish to admit, even to herself, how long it had been since this particular item of clothing had been adequately laundered. They’d been on the road for four days and she had zero trust in the dye-freedom of the various laundromats and commercial detergents available.

A slightly-sweaty bra was better than one which burned her skin, because of hidden synthetic dyes—even residue off poorly-rinsed washing machine drums—and it’s… deeply ingrained scent would hopefully attract Enid’s canine attention, if the improbable occurred and both she and Agnes misjudged the arrival time of her wolf.

Enid.

Misjudged Enid’s arrival time. She was her own person and belonged to no one, especially not Wednesday.

Discussions of personal autonomy aside, the scent on the bra should reassure Enid about Wednesday’s being close at hand. Part of her mission was accomplished. There was a slight feeling of victory, the mild euphoria of accomplishment, before the next task at hand loomed: shelter. Back in the Cessna, she puttered the plane to a gentle, bumping beaching by the agglomeration of glacial erratics which defined the banks of the close-to-shore island.

“Oh, yeah, you can see,” Fester was merrily hip-deep in the lakewater. “This whole stretch right here used to be above ground.” He prodded something with his foot. “There’s blocks under there,” the sedimentary gravel. “Maybe a bridge?”

“Might be a useful source of worked stone,” Wednesday was all focused on making werewolf-appropriate shelter. “I didn’t anticipate needing masonry tools,” she’d anticipated spruce or maple logs, possibly standing-dead ash, killed by the emerald ash borer.

“Welp, put it on the list. Red and I can go shopping.” He offered.

“Let’s get eyes on what we’re working with.” If there was a structure or any sort of man-made intervention established on the island, it would give them a leg up, and from what Wednesday saw from the air, it appeared as though there were standing walls.

From the start up to the smooth granite dome, it was clear—to discerning eyes—the hand of man had put in level terraces, like elongated stairs, to lead one up to the intermediate peak. The material intervention had long eroded, the wooden retaining walls and split-rails were gone, but the dry-stacked stones and chiseled-away ‘steps’ remained. It would be an unusual place to put a farmhouse, a water-wheel for timber processing, or even a furrier’s hut for trapping. There was no arable land for miles, the current of the lake wasn’t really strong enough to motivate a sawmill, also the site was too far up the monolith, for it to have been practical, trekking back-and-forth laden with traps.

No, the placement was entirely aesthetic.

“It’s a chapel,” Wednesday breathed, as she tilted her head to take in the remains of the building. The roof had long collapsed in and there was a certain scorched look to the east end, which spoke of its ultimate fate. “Look, Fester: there’s the collapsed bell-tower,” a long spill of worked ashlar stone blocks, collapsed over and concealing a corroded brass bell, like a mournful cairn. The east-side wall had a blown out rosette window, and, as Wednesday was angling around the building she discovered: “… and an altar.”

“Add a couple unmarked graves and it sounds like home.” Fester clapped his hands. “Whaddya think? Desecrated or deconsecrated?”

“… does it matter?” How thrilling.

“Nope! Let’s get the stuff unloaded.” Wednesday pulled out the winch, first, and it became instantly clear the easy way to bring things up to the chapel was over the cliff. Everything was packaged in Rubbermaid totes, Pelican cases, or lashed together with rope and netting. With the five-ton winch, securely bolted to a large rock, and a few skids… the equipment cleared the smooth-sided granite monolith in record time.

“We’re going to need a pressure washer, builder’s lime, more plaster, and some mason’s tools.” She shouted at Fester from the cliff, as he was preparing to fly back to Agnes, to pick up her and Thing. Pause. “Maybe another winch,” for dedicated over-the-cliff lifting. “Clear?”

“Like mud!” He chortled back.

“Fester!” The pressure washer was immaterial, if he couldn’t manage to rendezvous. “Remember the Squawk code: eight-one-two-one.”

“Yep! Takes one to know one.” Oh, dear. Hopefully he and Agnes didn’t miss each other too badly.

Regardless, even if Fester abandoned-ship, Wednesday had the tools and the ambition to accomplish her mission. First step: handles. It was significantly easier to move hammers, sledges, shovels, augers, axes, and chisels without long, protruding wooden—or synthetic—handles. Poles would need to be harvested, trimmed, and adjusted to fit the tools, before cranking up the chainsaw for larger construction.

Wednesday was conscious of being… diminutive. Her short, slender, physique had pluses and minuses. She was frequently underestimated as a petite woman, which she turned to her advantage, and being small permitted many hiding places and techniques a large body would be unable to sustain. Small did not assist in intimidation or the rough manhandling of cut logs, large cobble-stones, or hand-cranking an inch-wide auger to begin a structural mortise. To compensate, she had always believed in using appropriate tools: cranes, guillotines, nail guns, and waterboards.

By itself a winch could only drag to or haul from an anchor point. When mounted to a structural frame, with a pulley system, a winch became a crane capable of hoisting those five tons directly up, which was of much more interest and value when handling large stones or logs. Before the low drone of Cessna engines graced her ears again, Wednesday had set up a tidy little campsite—geodesic four-season tents in a triangle around a small fire—nearby the four-walls-sans-roof of the abandoned chapel, dug a latrine pit, and had harvested, lashed-together, and floated enough small logs to the island to begin the build of both a winch-powered crane and the sadly less-lethal cousin of the guillotine… a pile driver.

“Mmmm, smells fantastic,” Fester led Agnes up the conventional path to the build site. “Got a bit brisk up there,” Agnes looked mildly traumatized, “… also slightly hot. We probably should hide the plane, while we’re not under attack from Canadian Royal Aviation.”

“… noted.” The plane could be dragged up the embankment, using the winch, and covered with a camouflage tarpaulin and some of the recently-trimmed limbs from Wednesday’s fresh logs. The excessively-militaristic aesthetic of the Stony Brook Lake Adventure outfitters had come in surprisingly handy. She would not have thought to bring camouflage netting on the first trip out.

Fester’s appreciation of the quick, no-fuss roast duck Wednesday had left slowly hanging near the fire was unnecessary… but nice. The bulk of the evening meal was made of self-heating, civilian-branded, Meals, Ready-to-Eat from a cardboard box. Wednesday’s designated torture ‘Chicken with Egg Noodles & Vegetables’ was a gastronomic horror show, but the crackers proved edible, as did the peanut butter and tri-laminate package of preserved fruit. There was hot water in the kettle, though, and enough coffee—instant or hand-ground—to satisfy even Wednesday’s appetite for caffeine.

Agnes was shaking, the coffee in her blue enamel camping cup was generating violent waves, and she turned her large, blue-green eyes to Wednesday with existential horror. “Fester… he’s insane.”

“Clinically.” Wednesday was succinct. “Yes.”

“… we can never go back to Saint Quentin.” It must have been a most enjoyable outing, indeed.

“Good to know.”

By moonlight, Wednesday was taking measurements, drawing up schematics, scribing cuts, and snapping chalk lines down logs, preparatory to construction. Agnes had to physically take away her tape-measure, before she could be convinced to lay down—briefly—for a ‘power nap.’ As usual Wednesday dreams were violent and unusually, distressingly centered on Enid’s lupine form: her being torn-apart by the Hyde, during Crackstone’s brief resurrection. Her being torn-apart by Issac Night’s resurging daVinci powers. Her being torn apart by those werewolves known to Wednesday at Nevermore—chief among them the duplicitous Lothario, Bruno—and by the time she sat upright and gave up the concept of sleep, Enid’s screams of ‘it’s all your fault’ were the only thing ringing in Wednesday’s ears.

Enough rest had been endured.

“It’s a Roman-design for a five-to-three compound-pulley tread-wheel crane, without the tread-wheel adaptation, because we have a gas-powered winch. It’s sixty-times more efficient than a human-powered hoist its size and we should be able to lift up a contiguous ridge-pole for the rafters.” Agnes hadn’t asked, but her loitering around had been pointed.

“… and the other one.” Wednesday’s notebook, with her schematics, was laying open with small pebbles holding the pages.

“Another Roman design: a pile-driver.” Agnes seemed intrigued. “I had anticipated the necessity of tamping a foundation and driving wooden piles to initiate my building design. It’s a lower priority construction, now, but if I can find a well-shaped hammer-stone and get an eyelet set in it, I may well build one.”

“Don’t let her fool you, my niece has been building guillotines since she was knee high to a brownie,” Fester emerged from his tent, stretching loudly. “Ahhh, nothing like granite for a nice, firm nap.”

“There’s oatmeal in the pot.” Wednesday knew providing fuel for her minions was important. Thing was already up on the dome of the granite monolith, comfortably wrapped in his woolen-glove onesie and a fleece blanket, with several chemical hand-warmers nestled among the blanket folds. He was assigned the task of using the spotting scope. Wednesday left a notebook, with a small pencil stub, for him to take down details of animal movement, and an airhorn, in case there was an emergent werewolf.

Always pack an airhorn. You never know when it might become mission-critical to make a lot of noise.

First task: cleaning out the abandoned chapel and determining the utility of what was left of the structure. The leaves, drifted up in wet, mucky piles, were both crunchy and slimy-moist—a most satisfying sensation. While Agnes and Fester toiled with shovels, machetes, and small axes, to clear brush and scrape down to foundation, Wednesday worked furiously on her crane.

“… Wednesday!” Agnes called, tone urgent. “You should see this!”

She took the time to properly wedge her peg, before taking off towards the building. “What is it?”

The chapel was a standard rectangle, door in front of the long axis—large door, unusually tall and wide with an arch to it—and there were three, large Lancet windows down each long-side—glass and frame-work long-gone—and the blown-out rosette window on the far wall, would have been behind the altar. The design was quite reminiscent of the Gothic cathedrals of Northern France, like Chartres or Notre-Dame de Paris, from the 13th-century, but in small scale.

“Slave chains,” Agnes and Fester had made it to the floor level, displaying orange-yellow rust stains, down the granite foundation, as rings protruded, through eyelets, in the far back of what would have been pews.

“… Fester. How much gunpowder did you take from Stony Brook?” Wednesday could use a large block of stone with an eyelet. It appeared they had several eyelets available. How convenient. “I need a hammer for my pile driver.”

“Now, we’re talking.” He rubbed his hands sparking everywhere. “One fresh basement, coming up.”

“That’s horrible,” Agnes looked at the crusty eyelets with unconcealed revulsion.

“Jesuits once owned over twenty-thousand enslaved persons to work on their plantations, farms, and ranches; mostly First Nations, Outcasts, or people of colour. The Church demanded local populations convert to Christianity, on pain of slavery or death.” Common knowledge… or at least it should have been. “This chapel was almost certainly Catholic, in origin; French by design. I would posit it was built by or for Jesuit missionaries, active among the indigenous peoples. This location would have been on the border of the viceroyalty of New France, on the bleeding edge of their long-ongoing conflict with the British New England colonists.”

“That’s… awful.” Agnes was sweaty, red strands of hair escaping her knit toque wildly, and work gloves stained with leaf-litter and slime.

“Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it.” Wednesday pronounced, her long-running debate with Weems over the ethics of new chapters in Outcast-Normie relationships slapping up against the hard evidence of slavery, exploitation, and genocide.

It was not the only revelation. Once Agnes had cleared up to the altar podium, yet another curious construction quirk made itself apparent: there was a cell. Not a monastic cell, where some poor soul would have to spend his life contemplating his sky-daddy in a state of servile fear, an incarceration cell. A small room behind and underneath the altar podium had been chipped-out—by hand, the pick marks were still blazoned across the walls—and was accessible only through a narrow slot, below the altar, which had likely been under a trapdoor. Where other churches might have placed catacombs, crypts, columbariums, or other interments, this one had two chains, dangling from a wall, and a succession of deep gouges in the solid granite.

“Was it a Hyde?” Agnes asked, anxiously, as Wednesday and Fester were both examining the space, Wednesday hardly daring to breathe too deeply or touch anything extraneous, despite wearing gloves and skin being fully-covered. A vision from this place would only be painful, uncomfortable, and a distraction to the goal of finding Enid. She didn’t want her psychic ability wasted on a potential assault and unlawful incarceration from hundreds of years ago.

“Difficult to tell,” Fester pronounced. “Whoever it was, they had a name.” Hmm? He crouched down, where Wednesday was too cautious to even fully enter, in case she touched something. “Right here: year of our lord seventeen-forty-seven, douze août…”

“August twelve,” Wednesday absently translated—needlessly it seemed—for Agnes.

“… and a name: Jean Baptiste de Lavallée.” Fester concluded. “He was locked in here long enough he had time to carve it.”

“Fantastic.” In her darkest, most cynical place Wednesday concluded the cell would serve an excellent purpose if Enid was… less enthusiastic about being rescued and required restraint or sedation. Otherwise, “It will make an excellent root cellar.”

“Yep. Always nice to have a little dungeon in the basement, y’know, for guests.” Fester straightened up. His eyes were sparkling. “Wanna blow something up?”

“… allow Agnes,” Wednesday demurred. Her crane was, as yet, unfinished but just within reach of completion. “I want my hammer stones.” She had scribed-out where she wanted Fester to blast. Everything interior had been power-washed and scrubbed with anti-fungal cleanser, which was what revealed the cell. Improper drainage. “Finish the wash,” she ordered Agnes. “Then Fester can show you how to blast through rock using linear shaped charges.”

“Is is going to be on the exam?” Agnes was cheeky and the physical labor had yet to affect her spirit.

“Yes.”

Blowing things up was always a thrill and Wednesday was aware Fester had to be entertained to be of any use. Novelty was an excellent distraction, as was mayhem, but nothing kept her Uncle happier than only-slightly organized rapid decompression. Explosions were a regular part of life at the House, especially with a brother like Pugsley. The novelty was somewhat lost on Wednesday. Blasting required drilling holes in the rock, placing the prepared explosives, and setting a firing sequence which was mostly Fester shooting lightening at it from a unreasonably-close distance. He was his own blasting cap.

She made sure Agnes was wearing ear and eye protection. Someone had to think of the children. “Fire in the hole!” Fester shouted, four times to each direction, completely unnecessarily. He took shelter with the other two, behind the stacked logs, leaned out from around their little barricade, and shot a bolt of lightening from his hands. Almost instantly they all felt a WHUMP and then BOOM, then a shower of dust, raining down in a little sandy drizzle. “Wowie! That was fun.”

“WOO!” Agnes cheered as the cloud of granite dust went up.

“At least the building is still standing.” Wednesday murmured, as they cautiously approached, Fester telling Agnes they had to check for unexploded ordinance, before the dual-scoop, crane-operated, clamshell bucket—planning ahead was key—could get in there and start clearing out the debris.

“This is so much easier than shoveling.” Agnes breathed, as her job was now supervising the screening process, as Wednesday brought out buckets of rock debris.

“Tool usage.” Wednesday was smug about her assistance devices, from behind the crane’s operation console. “We’re not animals.” Fester cut her three separate pile-driver hammers—of different sizes, therefore weights—and showed a remarkable aptitude for precision demolition… when given the opportunity to show off about his aptitude to a willing audience. He blew a good… twenty, thirty inches in some places, deep into the granite monolith, and cut good sized cubes, which would be easier to process into blocks, for a chimney.

Wednesday had asked him to blast everything but the altar, a footer for the upcoming chimney, and the concealed cell. He effectively made a crawlspace under the primary flooring, which could be insulated and provide access for future plumbing, wiring, and ductwork. Scooping took time, but not as much time as moving all that rock by hand would have, and Wednesday taught Agnes, how to use the crane, so she could work on a pile-driver, as hammers were now available.

Fester was panning for gold or at least setting up the sluicing equipment. Wednesday was willing to let him. The logs… the logs would come later and his artistry with a chainsaw would be on full-display. For the time being, if Fester brought up a few fish and several bucket-loads of sifted gravel… more power to him. In the end, by sunset and dinner, Agnes had made herself useful by putting together some scaffolding, they had a large supply of crushed rock, and Fester was setting up the bank of batteries which would keep the operation going into the night.

Wednesday did eat; the ‘Mexican Beans and Rice’ were… unpalatable, but not allergy-triggering. She needed the calories, they all did, and Thing came down from the dome of the granite monolith, with his observation report. After food, Wednesday got the angle grinder out and set to finding any location with soft ‘sour’ mortar and clearing it. The building had clearly been put together with the supervision of an expert mason, because the walls were all fine, smooth ashlar blocks of quality, locally-sourced granite. Re-pointing the mortar on a handful of courses was basically the only maintenance needed.

The walls had been here for two hundred years… easily and would be here for another two hundred, without much more effort.

“Don’t build ‘em like this anymore, do they?” Fester was helping, by coming after her, with a bucket of mortar, and a pointing trowel. He slapped the walls with the trowel, appreciatively. “Like a fortress.”

“It saves us the job of building walls. That’s at least a twenty-percent time reduction.” Ten days… almost nine days. She had to be ready. “I do think…” she posited, “… this part of the front of the building was never meant to be an exterior wall.” There were little indentations, sockets, where wooden beams—as part of a subordinate roof—would have been set. “I think this was meant to be a narthex… a vestibule…” he didn’t know the word, “… a lobby or reception area.”

“Like a coat room.” Yes. Exactly.

“I think…” she examined the little gaps along the top of the wall, where the rafter beams were meant to tie-in to the building and the rests where the purlins would lay, bitten into the rock. “The roof is meant to end in an octagonal hip.” Fester stared blankly. “A small round tower.” Like the belltower, whose ruins fell directly from that spot.

“Nifty.”

In deference to those persons asleep, Wednesday only used the grinder for a modest amount of time. She had a long night of dressing stone ahead of her; knocking old mortar off the rocks from the fallen bell-tower and squaring up the chunks Fester blasted, to make them useful for a furnace. Wednesday wasn’t unaware of the restrictions of linear time. She only needed three things, before Enid arrived: a snug roof, weather-tight coverings for doors and window holes, and a fireplace for warmth.

Everything past that point was victory.

Wednesday did fall asleep, involuntarily, over her pile of rocks. It couldn’t have been for long, but when she woke up she felt agony in her forearms and hands, from all the hammering. Masonry was not for the weak. Slowly, she prepared more oatmeal and cracked open a package of elk sausages. With more coffee fueling her system, Wednesday tried to sketch, then more precisely do a technical-drawing of the roof—layers exposed—because Fester might not understand the architectural terms or have significant skills in computation and mathematics, but he had a savant-like spacial awareness to intuitively understand building geometry. Usually, it was for the purpose of bringing the building down, but if she could get him to understand the rafter situation; the size and orientation of the purlins; and the volume of joists she’d need, when she set him loose in the wilderness with a chainsaw, he would hopefully have an idea of what she was looking-for.

“Oooh, I see. I see.” He surveyed her drawing over breakfast. “You wanna talk joists?”

“I’m thinking,” she started drawing again. As once stated, her linework was ‘hella shaky’ but this time it was because her hands were challenged. “… only half a second-story.” Enid was tall as a wolf and a den where she couldn’t stand all the way up and stretch, even, was not going to be satisfactory. “We’ll make the altar, a work table.” The fireplace was set in the dead-middle of the building, for maximum efficiency. “We’ll be cooking at this side of the fireplace,” the altar-side, “… so it makes sense to have this be a working area, the second-story over it as a bedroom,” horizontal wolves were shorter. “… and this whole front zone,” the front-half of the building, “… as a living area.”

The chapel wasn’t huge, for a church, perhaps forty feet from nave to narthex, twenty foot from window-to-window. Wednesday proposed chopping it in half with the large, circular fireplace, then the back half given two floors, the front half left with the cathedral-ceiling, which wasn’t energy or space-efficient, but would accommodate very tall guests.

Fester counted up joists, with tally-marks. “All-right, alright, uh… and they’re this big, by this big.” He showed the lengths between his hands and Wednesday just nodded. The lack of precision in his description was infuriating, but it was how he processed the information, and she needed his help.

Wednesday packed her Uncle off into the wild, with a chainsaw, an axe, an extra can of fuel strapped to his back, and a pie. “Just slide them into the lake. I’ll set up a catch net,” with her pile-driver, which was first up for assembly.

Agnes proved helpful—surprisingly strong, even—getting the pile-driver constructed and moved into position. They set up the catch-net by driving two piles into the peninsular gravel and stretching orange netting. When Wednesday heard the sound of distant chainsaw revving and heard the exultant cries of joy, it almost brought a smile to her face. In all this misery, someone found joy.

“You know, Fester’s right.” Agnes commented, looking down at her boots, thigh-deep in the water along the little sunken peninsula. She took a couple side-steps and wiggled a bit. “There’s stones under here.” She looked up at Wednesday, urgently. “Let’s switch. Bring the crane down here and take the pile-driver up there. You can level the basement and lay the gravel. I’ll bring up some of those stones.” Wednesday hesitated. “You need more stone, for the fireplace. I saw your design, you need at least double what you’ve got, if not more. If this saves us a dozen prepped blocks…”

“Right.”

Using the pile-driver as an enormous, rock-crushing hammer to roughly level everything, she added a vapor barrier, gravel, and stone dust. Pounding it all flat wasn’t scintillating, but Wednesday got into a rhythm and by lunch time, she had a flat, level crawlspace. It took discipline to not go down to the water’s edge and micromanage Agnes. She had to trust the redhead was performing useful work, while unsupervised, and get her own task accomplished.

Doors and windows were going to be a problem.

“I don’t mean to be impertinent,” Agnes started, shyly, as Wednesday groused about the unusual size, shape, and orientation of the windows of the building, over lunch. “… but the Family has, like, money, right?”

“Continue.” While Grandmamá had the obvious money, it was by no means to be said the Addams Family was not uncomfortably wealthy.

“Just take your measurements and order them.” Agnes offered, “… online. Have them shipped to Great Falls or even St. John or Bangor. I parked the van in a safe area. It wouldn’t be hard to just… pick them up.” Oh. “Doors too. They slide right in, once you do the framing. My parents remodeled… twice. I saw everything.”

Well… there was that.

Wednesday was motivated to look at Agnes’s tablet, which was connected to a… “How are you on the internet?”

“Starlink.” Agnes said, as if one word could solve this mystery. “I got us one, for when Enid is back. You know she can’t live without her TikTok.”

“… excellent choice.” The compliment fell out of Wednesday’s mouth, almost naturally. Agnes glowed. Wednesday fumbled for her bag, then her wallet. “Here.” Father’s emergency credit card. “Order windows.” She paused. “And a door. Two doors. One for that.” The front entry. “One for inside. The bedroom.”

“On it.”

If Fester was handling the roof—by harvesting logs—and Agnes was ordering doors and windows, then Wednesday had only the fireplace left. Time to mix more mortar. Nothing about masonry had improved in the last six hours. It was also slow going, as she was inexperienced at bricklaying, aside from occasionally walling Pugsley in the abyss. She knew how to lay a straight course, had done it before, but never on such a scale. Slow and steady would win this race. Being meticulous would save them from chimney fires, leaking carbon monoxide, and being smoked-out of the living space.

Her fireplace was knee-high, by dinner time, and they were down to eight days.

Agnes’s gravel-and-stone gathering method proved novel. She used the crane, the log-lifting grabbers, the scoop, and Fester’s gold sluice to neatly separate everything she dug up from the—now obviously—sunken bridge into carefully-sorted piles: clay and silt, sand, pea gravel, large gravel, rocks, and dressed stones from the former-bridge. She was also right about needing way more stone than Wednesday had bargained for and correct in assuming the plastering and mortaring would require sand and clay. The lack of sleep, the desperation, and Wednesday’s single-minded, obsessive nature were all working against her. It was… humiliating.

“I couldn’t order the pointy bits of the windows, so I just ordered the rectangle bits,” Lancet windows were tall, narrow windows with a sharp pointed arch at the top, much sharper than was fashionable in modern construction. “We can fill the rest with stone, right?”

“Yes.” More stone. Joy. Wednesday could already barely hold her espresso cup, both pairs of hands, forearms, and biceps aching.

The logs hadn’t even arrived, yet.

Day eight was about the logs.

At least, Wednesday told herself, the logs were a difficulty she anticipated. The initial plan was to go into the backcountry, harvest logs, peel logs, scribe, notch, and stack logs. There were tools for this, specialized tools, and they had them because logging was part of the plan, but masonry was not. It didn’t make the logging, trimming, scribing, and carving any easier, but at least the agony was an anticipated pain.

Fester had harvested literally almost every ash tree left in the valley. Many were either standing dead or on their last legs when they hit the lake and genteelly floated into Wednesday’s catch net. There was at least a hundred bobbing in a little artificial raft between the island and the shore. It was probably more than enough, but as had been learnt by the infernal masonry… better to over-estimate than under. Half a roof would do nobody any good.

Particularly in the rain.

It rained heavily all of day eight and into day seven, to the point where Wednesday had to remain in her tent for a significant portion of the evening, because even she lacked the discipline and passion to lay rock in a torrential thunderstorm. She and Agnes managed to swing a tarpaulin over the shell of the chapel, but it did not prevent the basement from filling up like a swimming pool.

Joy.

Day seven was a continuation of day eight, except for Wednesday got to crack out some of her specialized tools: the mortising rig, the tenon cutter, the precision Japanese saws, and the framing chisels. Agnes set some piles, in a softer part of the lower island, and cobbled together a sort of woodshed, to store the off-cuts and discarded limbs of the squaring and trimming process. Some of the bark had peeled off the logs in great strips, which she used as primitive decking and shingle material.

“We’ll need fuel,” She explained, “… for your fireplace.”

Wednesday gave in and built a very small, long-lever lifting-assist device, because once the fireplace build got past her waist, lifting and stacking the bricks had become intolerable. Her back ached, her legs were stiff like logs themselves, every sinew from fingertip to neck was screaming, and her abdomen felt like someone had used it as a punching bag. At least she had Thing.

The rain severely dampened his enthusiasm and ability to scout. He spent the evening of day seven in Wednesday’s tent, trying to keep warm and un-prune-like, and had assisted her in the internal design of the massive circular fireplace. Knowing he was the right hand of one of the most brilliant DaVinci’s to ever grace Nevermore’s halls allowed Wednesday the mental space to defer more than a few design choices to her disembodied friend. She was also incredibly exhausted and more than a little desperate.

Fester was, as always, a gifted maniac with a chainsaw.

Agnes had been given the grinder, for aggressive debarking, and the small circular saw for squaring off less-than six-inch logs. Wednesday was roughing-out knee braces, splines, scarfs, dovetails, and tenons on the massive supporting members of the roof. It was an incredible amount of organization and her labeling system was being tested, as well as her circular-saw skills. Four, ten-foot bents, made a forty foot building. Wednesday needed to construct four, full, two-story frames—in situ, because the stone walls were already up—and then lift-in sections of the roof.

There was a whole madhouse down the slope, where Fester was going hog-wild—chainsaw buzzing madly—and all Wednesday could do was keep his chains sharpened and gas tank topped off. Examining the carnage would be for later, right now he was sending square-milled cants up the cliff with grease-pencil alpha-numeric labels and she just had to trust they were what they were supposed to be; a floor joist here, a rafter there, a purlin… the longest, uncut length of ash was for the ridgepole. Hauling it up the cliff took both the hoist of the crane and the tow of the pile-driver—in reverse—and Wednesday had to build a special series of sawhorses, to hold it while she scribed and measured.

This was the important piece. It was the backbone of the roof, the zero-mark from which all the other measurements and calculations were taken. Wednesday had to not mess this one up. They could not afford a second cut. She took a deep breath and called out: “Thing!”

A construction site was hazardous to him for more than one reason—the heavy objects, sharp debris, high-speed equipment—but he came to her ridgepole and walked up and down each face, as Wednesday scribed, marked, and fretted. He double-checked her numbers, triple-checked her cuts, and offered his steadying presence to reassure her it wasn’t quite past the point of no return… yet. The diamond sawblade on the big circular saw proved its worth by cutting notches into stones—flattened on the bottom—so the internal wall studs and support timbers of the framing bents had solid anchor-points. Wednesday also notched the stones along the entableture to create joist hangars for the second-story, which was a much more challenging and harrowing task.

Masonry was… torturous, and not in a good way.

Sadly, more masonry was on the menu, quite a few—in fact most all—of the stones of the top course of the walls and along the roofline needed to be either replaced completely due to weathering, re-cut and re-oriented with the freshly flattened side facing up, or have their sockets re-chiseled and shaped to admit timbers, again. Wednesday was never going discount the manual skills of a quality mason… ever. It was a venerable and respected trade for a reason.

Day Six… felt unproductive, even though all four of them were working furiously. Everything had to dry-fit outside of the chapel, before it went in to the chapel, and this was precision woodworking in grand scale. Agnes was set up with a temporary lathe—a power drill with aspirations—to make pegs. Fester had moved on to slabbing boards and finally collapsed into his cot at the end of the day, the post-thunderstorm mania from having been struck by lightening—multiple times, he claimed—finally wearing off.

“Steady hands,” Wednesday kept muttering to herself. Each gentle tap of the mallet-to-framing chisel had to be perfect. Her carpenter’s and side-axes had to remove just enough stock… no more.

Throughout her entire adolescence, Wednesday had maintained her intention of retreating to the wilderness—as an adult—to participate in a little human interaction as possible, in the most self-sufficient manner she could. She spent summers honing woodscraft; identifying the utility of various herbs and plants; and learning to harvest, process logs into lumber, and timber frame.

Winters—those not in a state-mandated educational penitentiary—were spent hunting and trapping with Cousin Itt, Margaret, and little Cousin Whatt hibernating with bears, living among the Sasquatch community, and engaging with some of her less-socially-acceptable relations. Wednesday had attended primitive pottery seminars, gone on blacksmithing retreats, and learned traditional brain-tanning techniques from First Nations elders… all with the enthusiastic support of her parents.

Wednesday didn’t think they believed her intentions were serious.

Morticia, perhaps, took her pronouncement with slightly more panic. Wednesday had always assumed it was because she’d ‘seen’ a vision of their future, with her disappearing into the brush, and was doing her best to avert the inevitable, while not causing too many ripples in the present. With experience, now, of how badly attempting to avert fate could go… Wednesday remained uncertain about her mother’s motives. If it was already foreseen, then why panic? Mother was a Dove, she only saw joy. If she had seen Wednesday in the wilderness, it would only be a pleasant vision. If it was not foreseen, then why continue to allow her to attend retreats and seminars, when it would only increase Wednesday’s desire and ability to vacate humanity?

Very puzzling.

The ‘big-dick-energy-moment’ as Agnes coined it, was burning the frame.

Not burning it down; a controlled conflagration, in the manner of Yakisugi: an ancient Japanese wood preservation technique which involved charring the surface with fire, without fully combusting the timber, as a preservative—and aesthetic—affect. Using a weed torch on a propane tank, they burned the framing timbers, until the dry timbers started alligatoring—cracking and shrinking away—then Agnes stood by with her trusty grinder and a wire cup, to scrape away the loose charcoal and ash. The timbers were lightly rinsed, to control dust, and finished with a thorough rubbing of Sealer 707, a water-based hybrid polyurethane polymer dispersion. Wednesday purchased the five-gallon bucket of sealer, specifically for the purpose, as it was developed for sealing charred wood finishes to prevent release of carbon soot on hands and clothes, and as a water-based solution… would fully dry, quickly, unlike a penetrating oil.

The thermally-treated and waterproofed wood was water-resistant through carbonization, and its hygroscopy reduced due to chemical cellular changes during the carbonization process, which resulted in increased durability… according to experts. It additionally protected the wood against insects, fungi, and mold, as well as ironically making the wood more fire-resistant. The blackened, charred aesthetic was also a strong pull, for an Addams. Ash was a particularly fine species for the process as the contrast between the white-pale natural grain and the charred carbon was exquisite, particularly when blended with the chaotic patterns created by the flames throughout the cells and flesh of the wood.

“Hee-hee, I look like Furiosa, from Mad Max.” The reference was lost on Wednesday, but it was clearly related to the charcoal smudges all over Agnes’ face. Fester, also, had blacked-out both eyes with the charcoal dust.

Sadly or perhaps beneficially, the two had bonded… over show tunes.

Agnes brought a small speaker, through which the auditory torture commenced. While Wednesday wasn’t opposed to musical theatre, she had preferences. Les Misérables was lovely, particularly the more… tragic vocal numbers. Mmmm, empty chairs at empty tables. She’d always admired the Phantom of the Opera, though felt the musical did not give poor Erik his due. Wednesday couldn’t listen to Wicked, without intense, uncomfortable feelings, and Hamilton was only acceptable as a historical narrative for insipid modern audiences. Honestly, people, read a history book.

Into the Woods, however, was only tolerable in short exposures.

“The way is clear. The light is good. I have no fear, Nor no one should. The woods are just trees, The trees are just wood.” Agnes had a lovely, clear soprano. It may not last past puberty, but in the moment Wednesday couldn’t even complain due to poor tone. “No need to be afraid there...”

Fester on the other hand… The bucket, in which his tune could be carried, didn’t exist and never would. “There's something in the glade there.”

“Into the woods without delay.” Agnes’s spirit, far from breaking, was thriving in the woods. “But careful not to lose the way. Into the woods, who knows what may, Be lurking on the journey?” They were too merry. It had to stop. “Into the woods to get the thing, That makes it worth the journeying. Into the woods—”

“Enough!” Wednesday demanded. She glared at Thing, who was on the speaker, acting as the disc jockey. “Put on something in a minor key or not at all.”

“… I have Bach’s cello suites.” Agnes offered, timidly.

“Fine.”

Wednesday continued charring boards for the roof decking well into the night. It was only through running out of propane, to fuel the torch, which caused her to stop… and address the fireplace, again. At least bricklaying was a silent agony. The portion of the fireplace facing the social space was infinitely easier to lay, than the cooktop, oven, griddle, and grill on the other side. From the still-slightly-moist basement floor, the fireplace was now as tall as she was, which wasn’t very tall at all.

Day five was a big day. It was frame-raising day. The sill blocks were cut, placed, and pounded into position. The roof notches were freshly cut and squared. The massive timbers were cut, fitted, finished, and the sealer had set. If they made it to the roof decking, it was charred and ready. They didn’t need the quick-drying sealer for the roof, a normal penetrating oil would do, as it was an exterior surface and the days of off-gassing and cross-polymerization would irritate no noses.

The four bents assembled and lifted into position without any trouble.

It was such a relief, to see some progress, Wednesday could have smiled, if she had the energy. Heartened, buoyed by the visual progress of lifting bents, rafters, and eventually the large ridge-pole, it was a less-dismal feeling around the evening meal. Wednesday had even taken the time to throw together a rich stew of moose-meat and freeze-dried potatoes, with a small loaf of bread for each of them. She nurtured a sponge-starter, feeding it a careful measure of flour, before storing it in a jar, near the warm rocks to mature overnight.

Masonry would be the death of her.

Fester and Agnes were climbing up the scaffolding like demented monkeys, adding braces, purlins, joists, and wall studs. The place was starting to look like a construction project and not an abandoned chapel. The tarpaulin pulled tight over the open roof, but when the rains came again… which they did… it was of much more effect, and the basement remained mostly-dry. All of Day Four, for Wednesday, was the infernal chimney-piece.

The plumb lines, the level lines, the serpentine interior, and fitting the sanity-defying cooktops! Wednesday was fit to be tied! Her vision was blurring and her hands were shaky so badly, it was humiliating, but a masonry heater/stove like this was the most efficient heater for the climate. She actually dissociated, for a time, only coming back to herself when Agnes called her name—not for the first time—and she nearly dropped the stone in her hand, fingers suddenly nerveless, and had to quickly catch it in both hands, thus fumbling her trowel all the way down the scaffold.

“… It’s only the last few feet of the chimney,” Agnes’s voice was cajoling. “You need to eat.”

“Let her go, Red,” Fester’s voice was soft, but in the stone chapel, it carried. “If she doesn’t want to stop, she won’t.”

“… no, I’m coming.” There was a… urge. A firm urge. She was… hungry. Very hungry. Fester had prepared birria de chivo, except instead of chivo he had whitetail. She tried to move, but her legs were numb. “In… in a moment.”

“Need a hand?” Fester offered and she felt, for the longest, most tempting moment, the urge to just let her Uncle pluck her down from a height—as he had many times in her youth—only to set her down and offer her treats.

“I’ll go… stir the pot.” Agnes practically ran out the door, unsubtly, giving Wednesday the privacy to accept assistance. It both impressed Wednesday and distressed her. To be so transparent, but have the vulnerability protected… it was unanticipated. It excited an emotion from her, which she couldn’t place, but it wasn’t… unpleasant.

“Yes, Uncle Fester.” She held out her arms.

He lifted her down gently, just as he had when she was much younger, but not so much smaller. It was minimal bodily contact—which she approved—and his hands under her arms. What hadn’t happened before, was the grunt.

“Ooph,” Fester set her down with a smile, but one which edged in pain. “Your Uncle’s getting old, kiddo.” He told her, with a rue smile. “Been blown off the block a couple times.”

Immediately Wednesday’s crushing sense of guilt, smacked her around the side of the head like a tsunami. He was hurting. He was hurting because of her and her… mission. Her mission to rescue Enid. Her failure of a mission to rescue Enid… again… for the second time, this Semester… mostly at her own initiation…

Wednesday was mute through dinner, though she did eat everything put in front of her and mindlessly washed the dishes. Fifteen minutes after drying off, she was back up the scaffolding. It was her fault Enid was out here, cold and alone, and she was going to put up this damned, infernal device or die trying.

The chimney drew perfectly, for the first time, early on Day Three.

“Whoo,” Agnes said, with a bit of a smile, holding her hands out to the large, circular masonry heater, comically. “It’s actually surprisingly cosy in here.”

“Wait till we get the roof on this bad boy and foam it up. It’ll be cookin’,” Fester promised. “Nail gun ready?”

Wednesday was born for this.

She loved a good nail gun. Wednesday was a connoisseur of models, power methods, and trigger mechanisms. This one was a quick, off-the-Big-Box-rack model, chosen because of it’s compatibility with the battery system of the other tools. It would do the job, though. Fester started Agnes on insulation-foaming the stone, while Wednesday decked out the roof. It was a most satisfactory day.

There was heat, there was a roof, and all that were left were the windows.

“Just a quick trip,” Wednesday was a touch anxious and not afraid to show it. Taking a flight, so close to Enid’s arrival day, was… opening the opportunity for failures. “In and out.”

“Like Puritans have sex!” He winked, “We’ll be back in a jiff.” Agnes wouldn’t have been necessary, if Fester could operate a mobile phone without shorting it out, and they needed the redemption code to pick up the window shipment.

All Wednesday could do was nod.

More nail gun work, getting the 20-gauge chicken-wire up on the wall studs… ahead of starting to plaster. With the foam job done—despite Fester saving the leftover polyurethane cheetos in a bag, for later—the building was effectively complete. The window holes could be temporarily patched up—Agnes created some plastic-covered foam plugs—and the door might have to be a wool blanket, but the heat was working and the building was functionally weather-tight. It would do, if Enid arrived early. Thing was on the roof, by the chimney, with his spotting scope keeping lookout, for just such a contingency.

Plastering was oddly… therapeutic. This was the ‘brown coat’ just there to provide a sticky base coat for the finish plaster. It was more sand, sawdust, lime, and clay than anything. There was something artistic and satisfying about plastering a wall and if it was never for this circumstance, Wednesday would never had learned this about herself. How interesting.

The longer and longer it was until Fester and Agnes returned, the more agitated Wednesday became. When she finally heard them, she was sawing planks with the chainsaw mill because she found the only way she could focus was if life and limb were at hand.

“… how was the trip?” She asked as Agnes and Fester both looked beat. “I’ve got pot pie in the kitchen.”

“Ohohohohohhoho” Fester rubbed his hands… no sparks. “Sound like victory to me.”

“We got the windows and doors,” Agnes reported, “… the dealer was actually really nice and made sure we got the approved installation products.” Wednesday couldn’t tell if she was being sarcastic and the person had been of assistance or if they pressed the accessory purchase on the out-of-townees. “You did say I could just bribe people…”

It was the latter. Of course.

“Bribe away.” Wednesday permitted. “Anything else?”

“Refilled the propane tanks as a backup to the big stove, for the incinerating toilet, and in case you need a flamethrower.” The weed burner. “Some fresh food. More fuel. Got those… doggie supplies you wanted.” The comment was pointed and she ignored it. “Did a few loads of laundry.” Fester must have been in agony. He hated being domestic. “Got some stuff for the kitchen… and a bathroom.” Shower system. Tub. Sink. Faucet. “I might not have tried to stop him at the plumbing supply.”

“Fester will be Fester.”

He was at the table—the former altar—and there were already a few rough, green-stick chairs. Agnes brought out an oil lamp and some kerosene, the blue-enamel camping plates were out, and the kettle was full of tea. It was… surprisingly cosy, as Agnes had said.

“MMMmm, just like Lurch makes it.” Fester complimented, “Slightly less charred, but you know your father…”

“Fire blackening is an art.” Wednesday acknowledged. “I am but a neophyte.”

“I think it’s really good,” Agnes ventured. “But we did Doordash pizza.”

“Porque no los dos!” Fester grinned, arms spread out wide. “Pizza is always a little better after the third day, anyway, when it has a little mould on it.”

Wednesday agreed.

Two days remained.

The plaster had to set for a while, before finishing, so they shifted attention to the floors, windows, and doors. Agnes handled the doorframe, which was complicated, but it was her choice to get the ‘Gothic Double Door Entryway’ instead of simpler double-doors with a small, curved window over them. Fester was busily assembling the under-floor. Wednesday ignored the six rectangular windows in the Lancet window holes, which were all temporarily patched with boards and insulation-foam.

Instead, she was straight for the rosette window.

The replacement Agnes had purchased was a thirty-inch, triple-pane, fixed round window as a fully-assembled ‘kit.’ Wednesday still had to fit the wooden frame, flash and weather-seal the outside, and plaster inside around the King and Jack studs. Her tactic was to make a chunky, but simply-assembled frame from lap joints, using six segments to form a hexagon, then to chisel and lightly finish-sand her way to fit the circular profile. She was pleasantly surprised at the completeness of the kit and the clarity of the instructions. Paying the extra money for professional slide-in windows was worth it.

It still took all morning, from dawn to lunch, to set the big, round window.

Trying to be… she wanted… standing there on a plank of the scaffold, between two joists—the second-story floor was not-installed yet, Fester was waiting on her to finish and cover the glass, to begin the second-story sub-flooring. Wednesday did not want to admit to sentimentality, however… she may or may not have saved/acquired some colourful pieces of cellophane. The pieces of clear, colourful plastic wrap were purely opportunistically-sourced from leftover packaging material… and also the craft section of Wal-Mart in Great Falls.

“Just a minute.” Her tone was soft, asking a bit more time of her Uncle to… fully-complete the look.

The coloured cellophane went on randomly—while Wednesday was wearing gloves—in large, irregular blocks. She was aware of the method Enid used to stick the cellophane to the window pane in their dormitory… soapy water. Occasionally, mainly if there was a rapid-drop of temperature outdoors, condensation would build up on the inside of their very-not-double-walled-or-insulated balcony window and cause Enid’s carefully-placed colours to slip off. They’d have to wait for the spot to dry, before Enid would be up on Ophelia Hall’s decorating ladder, to gently tease the colours back up with a spray bottle and squeegee.

Carefully, with a utility-knife blade, Wednesday traced-out, then lifted, a delicate lace of black contact-paper… in the shape of a spider-web. Using a plumb line and a great deal of patience, she slowly rolled the contact paper, in wedges, over the colour blocks and the other-wise blank half of the round window. Et voila: a minuscule, non-opening, non-balcony-access… spider-web window, with half a rainbow on one side.

She wasn’t sentimental. It was… necessary to remind wolf-Enid of their connection. That was all.

“That’s gorgeous.” Agnes breathed, looking up at the window as the sun had peaked and there were… nauseatingly-familiar rainbow splashes splaying all over Wednesday’s brand-new walls.

“… it will do.” Wednesday took no credit, it was a poor imitation of the original. “How’s the door?”

“Almost ready to fit the pieces of the kit,” Agnes had been busily-framing all morning, also. Carpentry lessons were paying off. “I’m… probably going to need help lifting the slide-in, into place.”

“The small leverage lift will do.” The one Wednesday used to lift baskets of stones, up two stories to the chimney-top, as opposed to the full-size outdoor crane.

“Right.”

It did take both of them to fit the large, Gothic-style double-doors—goodness knew how much they’d cost, but Father must have authorized the transaction—and Wednesday had to reluctantly admit: “… good choice.”

Agnes’s expression was supremely smug and Wednesday endured the implied told-you-so with equanimity. “Thank you.”

They were two massive, eight-foot high, mahogany-stained, arched, pre-hung door units, with aesthetic, thematically-appropriate strap hinges, a pair of slender, Lancet windows on each side of the door, and the doors met flawlessly in the middle, with a dead-bolt and knob. The doors looked very much like the dormitory doors at Nevermore… only doubled.

With a lockable door, one window in, and sub-flooring… Wednesday felt prepared. They had shelter. Sure there was more plaster to apply, six more windows to fit, true flooring to carefully dove-tail and install, never mind the bathroom, kitchen, and other utilities… but there was a roof, a floor, walls, a hearth, a door, and Enid’s rainbow window.

They were ready for Enid… except for one thing.

The ‘doggie supplies’ Agnes had teased her about—to no reaction whatsoever—were werewolf-comfort items: a very large, weighted dog-bowl, much like the ones she’d seen in the Nevermore lupin cages; a Tug-E-Nuff powerball bungie toy in extra-extra large; and the absolute largest size, doggie-bed on the market: the Gorilla Pad. It had a base of eight-inches of orthopedic mattress, massive five inch side-bolsters in gel-infused memory-foam, a zipper cover made of weather-resistant, black Kevlar canvas, plus separate, interior waterproof covers for the mattress and the bolsters; it was six-feet in diameter and designed to accommodate the largest of the giant-breed domestic canines… or a teenage werewolf.

It would take some time for the highly-compressed foams to un-compress and off-gas the manufacturing stink, meanwhile… Wednesday was going to build a bed-frame. With the success of the round window frame under her belt, she elected to make a round frame, supported on sturdy, tree-trunk legs. Using the marine-grade anchor-line rope she’d been using for the pulleys and control lines of the crane and pile-driver—not to mention all the small lashing jobs around the work-site—she carefully drilled holes in the substantial timbers of the bed-frame, and knotted a smooth, giving surface for the mattress.

Wednesday had to construct the bed-frame upstairs, because there was no way she was lifting a finished product up to the second-story without endangering the chimney she’d spent so long constructing. It was all done with hand tools, except the drilling for the rope anchors. Wednesday had knit before—tatted lace, even—and the work was soothing and rhythmic. Agnes brought her up an elk burger, with a heated MRE pack of ‘Santa Fe Style Brown Rice and Beans’ and some of the vacuum-sealed spiced apples.

“That’s gorgeous, I didn’t know you could…” Agnes was speaking about her progress through the tatting.

“It’s a basic tatting motif, the tatted circle, because I’m working with only a shuttle.” It was the best she could do, under the circumstance. “I have a white lace set of collar and cuffs, which I tatted myself. This isn’t particularly challenging work.”

“I’m just impress you know how to tat lace… at all.” She sounded… wistful. There was a longing in Agnes’s tone, as if she had missed-out on… tatting lessons, as a youth? Her emotional expression made very little sense to Wednesday, but it was problem she could address.

“Would you like to learn?” Wednesday offered her the shuttle. “The work is mindless, once you learn the pattern, and…” excuse, excuse, excuse, “… I must pause my own work, in order to eat. You taking over would be efficient.”

It was most certainly not efficient to take the time to instruct Agnes, who worked much more slowly, and she did not take the work back, once she’d finished her meal, instead opting to correct and continue to instruct, while Agnes gained a modicum of proficiency. The experience, however, was… satisfying. Wednesday did have to secure the last few circles, within the larger circle, and anchor the last rope through the last anchor-point, but agreed with Agnes: it had come out looking quite well. The Gorilla-Pad fit comfortably on the rope supports, which were not sagging even with two young women testing it, and if they lined up the bed frame… with the window… it was nothing to comment on and no commentary was ventured.

Agnes and Fester had moved their camp into the main living area, maintaining two privacy tents, essentially, and setting up the various bits of camp furniture into a domestic arrangement. Thing was out on the roof, in a small, cozy box, by the chimney, with his spotting scope, several chemical hand-warmers, and airhorn. If they were off in their estimation of Enid’s arrival, by even a few hours, the entire lake would know.

Fester had spent some time in the afternoon by the water’s edge, making a raft out of the two kayaks, more of the anchor rope for lashing, and a selection of long off-cuts from milling cants. They ended up with a fairly-sturdy, by Festers’ standard, pontoon raft with one long sculling oar, a post from which to scull, and stone block for an anchor, with… more anchor rope and a cleat to tie-off. He claimed to have tested it and affirmed the raft displaced enough to carry one adult werewolf to the island, from the shore.

Wednesday intended to wait at the chapel-house, until Thing alerted her of Enid’s presence. She did. Unfortunately, her lack of patience worked against her, and out of an abundance of paranoia, she took the raft, sculled to the embankment where the Enid-meeting was slated to occur… and found her bra. It was… moist and dirty, but probably washable, and exchanged the filthy one, for the one she had worn throughout the day.

From moonrise at nine, through apex culmination at fifteen hundred, and past moonset at twenty-one hundred… Wednesday waited. She had a Stanley thermos of coffee. It was no difficulty to sit on the branch of a tree… and loiter. The sunrise was lovely from the water. It was now, Day One.

Wednesday was far too… much anticipating meeting with Enid, to focus well. Over breakfast, Fester and Agnes were talking about fitting counters and possibly a cabinet or two in the working half of the downstairs space. She listened. Gave opinions even. She couldn’t say what they were after they left her mouth, but she put on every facade of being completely in control over her emotions. They were not roiling like boiling acid. She did not bother Thing, every hour, on the hour, needlessly thank-you-very-much.

Plastering. Plastering was soothing and the plaster in the downstairs was dry enough to withstand a finish coat. Between the two of them, Fester and Agnes managed to frame, install, and weatherproof two of the six downstairs Lancet windows. Fester used the masons tools to roughly chip six triangular pieces of granite, to make up for the lack of arch in the pre-boxed, slide-in windows, and mortared two of them in place. Wednesday also took the time to put together a rough bathroom space—sheet-metal tub, Yakima RoadShower system with a hand-held shower attachment, incinerating toilet and propane supply—placed in the under-stair space already framed off with several studs. Agnes called it the Harry-Potter bathroom, under the stairs. For the time being it was just Wednesday’s tent material—sacrificed because she was sleeping in the bedroom, obviously—stapled in the gaps of the framing-studs, to visually give a bathroom user some privacy.

Privacy would be an illusion, until proper walls were installed, but it did permit Wednesday to change her clothing and re-braid her hair, in private, without having to make elaborate death threats. Bathing had previously been reserved to a cold-water—lake water—splash, either on the shore or with a bucket, behind a drapery, after having loudly and to-the-face declared to every member of the campsite bathing was an intention and to vacate the area. Even a quick shower behind a camouflage nylon tent panel, with hot water, indoors, was a massive improvement to wading out, nude, in the near-frozen lake.

Even Wednesday’s enthusiasm for the cold shower was tempered… particularly from having to share her bath with fish and frogs. She was a rugged outdoors-woman, but did have some grooming standards and a metal tub with a shower attachment was much appreciated. It meant absolutely nothing how meticulously she prepared herself for the arrival of Enid. The shower was thoroughly deserved, her hair had been begging for a proper wash and plait, and if she painted her nails or added a bit of powder and eyeliner… well, looking ones best was a compliment to the guest.

Before nine PM, Wednesday had been forcibly napped, fed, and given a pep talk. “Remember, if not tonight, tomorrow and the day after are certainly possibilities.” Agnes was worrying about the exact percentage of visible moon. “Also, we don’t know what sort of… mental place Enid might be in.” She offered Wednesday her black leather messenger bag. “So, I packed the epi-pen of colloidal silver,” which Enid had taken to the lupin cages, to prevent an involuntary transformation, “… and your taser, just in case.” Also, a few substantial chunks of thawed moose, if Enid required immediate… enticement.

“Also, don’t worry about getting slashed. Scars are great. Chicks dig ‘em.” Fester offered with a grin. “Remember: stabbing is only a red-flag in a relationship, if one of you isn’t a feral monster, and even then… once or twice, y’know. Ladies will be ladies.”

“Enough, Uncle.” Thing offered a thumbs-up, climbing onto her shoulder, so she could place him on the eves. He would skitter on up to his viewing nest, by the chimney, on his own. “I’ll tell Enid,” Wednesday promised, as he signed a message for her. Then he added a pointed comment to Wednesday, about what she was doing here and had to be admonished, “Hush, old hand,” but her tone wasn’t nearly as harsh as it could have been. Almost fond, in fact. “One step at a time.”

It was a long and ultimately fruitless night, sitting in the underbrush, but Wednesday was unbothered. The freezing-rain had never set in. For her vision to be complete, the weather had to turn cold, wet, and nasty. In the morning of D-Day plus one, when clouds gathered and Agnes reported the weather, from the float-plane’s morning radio update, Wednesday did smile, if only to herself. This was it. Today was the day.