Archive of Our Own

The first phone number in Wednesday’s new phone is Xavier’s.

The second is Enid’s.

It’s probably not praxis, that Wednesday has discouraged nearly all communication with Xavier—via ignored texts and one-word responses, what in the nine spheres of heaven had made him think she would subscribe to the cellphone-usage patterns of a typical, chronically online teenager?—but the one time she reaches out first is to ask for his help.

Xavier is … a friend – one of the precious few Wednesday has, and she’s learned from previous experience that friends don’t take too kindly to being used. The memory of Enid’s vicious reprimand and the gaping wound she left in her half of their dorm room is not one Wednesday likes to dwell on; the feeling, strange and unpleasant in a disconcerting way, of the thorn in Wednesday’s side being absent for the first time since she arrived at Nevermore, even less so.

But Xavier responds, even doesn’t mention his last unanswered missive about their winter-break Gothic Literature reading list. And it’s hard for Wednesday to feel very contrite about it all, not when he gives her exactly what she wants.

The interesting thing about Enid, once Wednesday texts her number—newly acquired and programmed into her cellphone—is that she doesn’t seem to mind filling the digital silence, undeterred when Wednesday doesn’t deem a message worth responding to. “Double-texting”, Enid calls it, though a different multiplicative adjective might be more appropriate, because sometimes Wednesday will look up from her typewriter and find an endless stream of new messages waiting to be read and potentially—and most probably—ignored. Enid, always accommodating and almost annoyingly at ease in the soft spot Wednesday has for her, talks enough for the both of them.

Wednesday has never owned a cellphone before, always preferring ink and paper as a mode of communication to modern instant messaging. The never-ending deluge of texts and notifications coming from Wednesday’s phone are foreign, unlike even the messages her parents leave on her crystal ball—which are, for some reason, much easier to turn a blind eye to—but, at the same time, not so unfamiliar. The texts evoke the constant chatter of an in-person Enid, jumping from tangent to tangent, breaking up the otherwise peaceful monotony of Wednesday’s winter break, the trill of incoming messages punctuating the quiet while Wednesday works on a new novel and her family haunts the other wings of their estate.

It’s … something, to know that Enid is there. That she’s just across the country, scars healing pretty well aw thank you for asking!!!, and omg wednesday the rain here has been so crazy you’d love it, and really?? i’d love to visit the next time we’re off! As with her waking hours, Enid features prominently in Wednesday’s dreams, frequent and vivid and confusing ever since the events of the last semester. Inundated with shadows the way Wednesday likes, pops of colour fill her nightmares now, too, bright and unmistakable.

wait, Enid texts, several days after Wednesday first messaged her, i totally got sidetracked by your new phone!!! She resends Wednesday’s very first message and tacks on a simple ???, and Wednesday’s own words glare back at her.

Hello, Enid. This is Wednesday Addams. Xavier gave me your cellphone number. Do you have a moment to “talk”?

Wednesday stares down at the glowing display of her phone. She looks over at Thing, perched on the back of his hand, fingers lazily kicking the air. He gets up, tapping the desk underneath him.

“Don’t be ridiculous. I’ll just tell her …” But Wednesday falls silent, suddenly hesitant, her mouth opening and closing over and over again. A full minute passes in silence, the truth, or something like it, at the tips of her fingers.

Thing missed you, they want to type. I have never thought my bedroom at home too large before, but it wants for another body, and The prospect of returning to Nevermore is one I find myself not entirely dreading.

Does he still make you happy?

Wednesday texts, Do you have the reading list for Gothic Literature?

Thing tap-tap-taps incomprehensibly against her writing desk, shaking with something suspiciously like laughter.

Enid is dating Ajax.

Wednesday is completely fine with it.

She’s completely fine with it, but there are optimizations that can be made, and Enid is too kind, too compassionate, too blind with apparent happiness, to see it.

Wednesday was too busy to do something else about it at the time—identifying a serial killer has proven a surprisingly large time sink—but she would have been only too happy to take her nail gun to Ajax’s heart for missing his first date with Enid; it was only because Enid had managed to talk her out of it that she hadn’t.

It would have been the easy thing, the expedient solution. And it would have saved Wednesday all of this strange, unfamiliar turmoil.

She’s loath to admit it, but Wednesday still thinks about it constantly: the way Enid had cried for days on end, oscillating between awful sadness and screaming anger, and the many torn-up sheets and stuffed-animal explosions that had resulted in. Normally, Wednesday would have enjoyed the spectacle, but something about it had been discomfiting, almost … distressing.

And if Wednesday thinks about it constantly, thinks about wringing Ajax’s neck and pulling every last snake from his capricious, date-abandoning head, just because she’s Enid’s admittedly emotionally stunted friend, then Enid herself has to think about it with every waking moment. And that can only be torture – the bad kind.

So, once school begins again, Wednesday barges into the headmaster’s office first thing, prepared to bend and manipulate a weak-spined stand-in to her will.

“Hello, my name is Wednesday Addams and I am the president of the Nevermore NeverEnough student collective,” Wednesday lies through her teeth, delivering her carefully devised pitch like the door-to-door salesmen she and Pugsley used to torment back home. “You might not have been informed yet, but we worked closely with the previous headmaster to fight for the rights—” and now Enid has her rhyming, “—of our students and improve the conditions at this school. I’ve come today to—” She stops, looking up into the face of the school’s new headmaster. “Principal Weems.”

Weems smiles at having rendered her speechless, hair as perfectly arranged and lips as dangerously red as they had been the last time Wednesday had seen her, when she’d been dying. When she’d been dead. “Miss Addams.”

Wednesday blinks once. “Or are you another shapeshifter, here to protect the reputation of the school again, or to deprive the students of the joys of an uncomfortable transition period?” she asks. “Tell me, on the first day we met, what—”

“Wednesday.” Weems’s voice is touched with exasperation now, a tone so familiar, Wednesday could be made to believe that this really is the real Weems, even though she’d clearly been dead; Wednesday, an expert on the matter, would know. “I am the real Larissa Weems. You’ll find that shapeshifters are rather hard to kill. Perhaps you would already know that if you’d paid attention in your classes, instead of chasing monsters.”

If Wednesday isn’t mistaken, Weems is teasing her. “Shapeshifters are unit six in the syllabus. We’re still on unit three. Besides, the material has been sanitized,” Wednesday says with a note of derision. “Professor Nile is a woefully unqualified teacher, as I’ve mentioned to you before.”

Weems rolls her eyes, but fondness tugs at the corners of her lips. “Yes, I remember our chats. Suffice it to say, shapeshifters are capable of both modifying and excising certain parts of the body, as well as regenerating them. I did something of that nature before the nightshade Ms. Thornhill injected me with could spread. It is a long and painful process, which is why I’ve only just come back today.”

Wednesday quirks an eyebrow, intrigued by the mentions of excision and pain and interested in learning more about what must surely be a rather bloody process, but she resolves to ask about it later. Instead, she takes a large breath and says, “While you were gone, the school enjoyed a modicum of peace. I’m sure with your return, it will be restored to a state of chaotic anarchy.”

They look at each other. Another smile graces Weems’s face. “Thank you, Wednesday,” she says. Wednesday’s chin dips once, slowly. Then, “Now, you mentioned something about ‘Nevermore NeverEnough’.”

Which is how Wednesday successfully lobbies for Gorgon mirror shades in the bathrooms and becomes the unwilling president of an abysmally named and previously nonexistent student-rights club.

“Wait, what?” Enid asks, pouting, when at lunch Wednesday tells her that she won’t be able to make their Thursday movie night because she’ll be busy with club duties. Yoko is absent, off somewhere else with the other vampires trying to recover from bat-lag after spending the holidays on nocturnal schedules with their covens.

Truthfully, Wednesday rather enjoys Thursdays with Enid, even doesn’t mind how Enid sometimes clutches her arm when they watch the occasional horror film, skin werewolf-hot through two layers of clothes, but she’s secretly relieved for the break from the onslaught of brightly coloured films. Wednesday has enjoyed them in small doses ever since her foray in the crypt with Tyler, but she and Enid had just moved on to the 2000’s part of what Enid has been calling Wednesday’s “cultural education” before the semester ended, and she doesn’t think she’s going to come out of another cookie-cutter romcom unscathed.

“I have to discuss logistics with Weems and the contractors,” Wednesday explains, watching Enid’s face scrunch up.

“What is it that you’re doing again? I mean, I know it’s something about the students, but …?”

It’s exceedingly difficult, all of a sudden, to speak. Wednesday stabs at her lunch to stall for time before offering a halting explanation. “Our first initiative will be to install mirror shades. In the bathrooms. For the Gorgons.”

Enid has fallen silent across from her. The chatter of the students in the Quad all around them continues, oblivious, while Wednesday mutilates her food, and her only thought again is of how Enid has to think about it all the time, because Wednesday thinks about it constantly, and Wednesday’s tie is constricting her, and her uniform feels oddly scratchy all over. It’s terribly inconvenient.

“Know a lot of Gorgons, huh?”

Wednesday looks up. Enid is staring at her, making slightly uncomfortable eye contact as she’s wont to do, but her smile is shy, her mouth slanting up on one side. Wednesday’s skin settles again, though the tie around her neck is now just stiflingly hot, and she fights the strange and ridiculous urge to pull at her collar and clear her throat.

But this is easy, meeting Enid stare for stare. This has always been easy.

“Exactly,” Wednesday says flatly, lips twitching when Enid laughs and breaks out into a full-blown smile, and she doesn’t move away when Enid reaches across the table to squeeze her hand.

“Well, can I join? I’m great at negotiating. I can be very persuasive.” She playfully bares her teeth and swipes at the air with her free hand, fangs and nails extended.

“I believe you,” Wednesday says, eyeing Enid’s mouth and thinking that Enid probably doesn’t even need any of that, anyway, her relentless cheer and endless charm could wear anyone down, but before Wednesday can gather her thoughts and say something to that effect, Ajax drops into the empty seat beside Enid.

“What are we talking about, and can I join too?” he asks, wrapping an arm around Enid’s shoulders.

“We can’t tell you, it’s a secret club,” Wednesday answers immediately. “No Nightshades allowed.” And Enid smiles at her again, the hand still holding Wednesday’s squeezing.

Ajax isn’t a bad boyfriend, per se, but it’s like Enid had said on the day she and Wednesday met: he’s clueless, and forgets, sometimes, or doesn’t know to put more thought into the relationship.

In contrast, Enid is—rather unexpectedly at first, given the state of the writing on her blog and her mind-numbing social-media obsession—diligent, and incredibly smart. She applies an obsessive amount of care to her course work, but Wednesday has caught sight of her graded tests and has seen it herself in their study sessions and while working on assignments together: she suspects Enid is at the top of their year or near it, and, if she wanted, she could probably afford not to study at all.

When Wednesday pointed this out one night early in the semester while they were going over their notes for a History of Creature Calamities exam the next day, the two of them on Wednesday’s side of the room after Wednesday had allowed Enid to take up rare residence with her on her bed, Enid’s smile had turned brittle, and she’d said, “Have to make sure to keep my grades up, you know? Studying is one of the only things I’m actually good at.”

Wednesday’s vision had gone hazy, and her brain had filled with violent thoughts. Not the idle, pleasurable kind of violent that occupied her mind regularly, but a purposeful kind of violent – meticulous, to be carried out deliberately. Like the difference between using a sharp blade and choosing the serrated edge of a rusted-over knife, the beauty that could be achieved with the former and the punishment that could be wrought with the latter.

“Wednesday? You okay?” Enid had asked, leaning in close to look Wednesday in the face with concern.

Wednesday, seething inwardly and mentally cataloguing the silver knives in her collection, hadn’t thought her face had betrayed anything, but Enid seemed to see something there, so she’d let out one, slow breath, and said, “It’s nothing.”

But her next had her saying, “You’re one of the smartest people I know. Brave, formidable in a fight, dependable to a fault, and the only halfway-tolerable person at this school. You’re incredible.” Then, she went back to her notes on the 18th-century Siren Sinkings, turning to a new page to jot down some of the more awful ideas she’d had, to be typed up later. Wordlessly, she reached out for Enid’s phone, switching it from the relatively inoffensive track that Enid had chosen for Wednesday’s benefit to one of the horrid pop songs she seemed to favour.

Enid was a statue, her face still too close for comfort, eyes wide and unblinking; she only sprang back into motion when Wednesday craned her neck to get away from her. A moment later, she was gone, flopping onto her back to hum to the song—instead of getting up to dance, which was uncharacteristic for her—and, for just a little while, to take a break. The moment had passed, the conversation already over, but, under her breath, quiet, so that Wednesday could plausibly deny hearing it, she’d whispered her thanks.

Enid is easier on herself now when it comes to school, but still, she puts enormous thought and effort into nearly everything she does, and to an almost insufferable degree. And that, Wednesday has noticed, also extends to her relationship with Ajax.

There’s something particularly aggravating about listening to Enid brainstorm ideas for dates. It’s as if, every day, she finds new, mostly non-life-threatening ways to spend time with Ajax, which Wednesday didn’t think was possible in a town like Jericho. But there she is most evenings in their dorm, excitedly discussing the traveling carnival’s upcoming return to town, and “Is apple-picking lame? Is he going to think I’m lame?” and “The new café in town was nice but I’m pretty sure it’s a front for the occult, oh my god, I was so freaked out. We have to go together next time, Wednesday!”

(“I enjoy apple-picking,” Wednesday says, looking up from the book she’s reading. “Light, and yet devastating on impact, apples make the ideal throwing projectile.”

Enid gives a startled laugh. “Okay, context please.”

“When I was a child, we went apple-picking on a cousin’s estate every summer. Pugsley and I would have apple fights. Most apples picked, and serious injuries inflicted, won.”

Enid laughs and laughs. “I can totally imagine a little you demolishing your brother,” she says, and Wednesday can’t help but gloat, just a little. “All right,” Enid says quietly, smiling to herself, “not lame.”)

By comparison, Ajax is – well-meaning. But he takes cues from Enid, often asking her to hang out in one of their rooms, or behind the greenhouses, generally repeating dates Enid has planned before, perhaps because he knows she’ll enjoy them. And that would be fine, Wednesday would be fine with it, but every time Enid returns from one of these outings, she’s just slightly more disheartened than she was the last time, and that is simply unacceptable.

Wednesday should have dissuaded Enid from seeing Ajax before they started dating in earnest, should have pushed her to find someone better, but she couldn’t have predicted how much Enid would … matter. How improbably Wednesday would come to care for her well-being. Simply nail-gunning Ajax in the heart is no longer an option, no matter how appealing it sounds.

It’s no use thinking about it now. By Wednesday’s calculation, the benefits of continuing to date Ajax are still outweighing the costs: Enid is happy with Ajax.

And Wednesday is going to make sure that stays the case.

They’re in town for the unveiling of the memorial commemorating the people Tyler killed when Wednesday gets an idea.

“I don’t understand why Weems insists I play my cello at these events,” Wednesday says, eyeing the makeshift stage with distaste; Weems catches them staring and smiles briefly. Wednesday turns to Enid. “Surely there’s someone else at this school more willing to be her dancing monkey. And they’re probably much less likely to commit arson,” she deadpans. “Why subject me to this punishment?”

She and Enid are walking along the road circling the town centre, waiting for everything to be set up. Only Wednesday really needs to be here this early, but then Thing had hitched a ride on her cello case, currently slung across her back, and Enid had tagged along to keep her company. They’re passing time in the shops lining the street, sampling food that isn’t pilgrim-themed and drinking the coffees—a quad over ice for Wednesday, some creamy monstrosity for Enid—that Enid picked up for them at the Weathervane.

Enid laughs. “I don’t think she’s trying to punish you, Wednesday.”

“What, then?”

“I think she just likes to hear you play! She comes to every one of your performances, doesn’t she? I don’t think I’ve ever seen her at one of our dances.”

Wednesday is silent for a moment, looking across the way at Weems again, still deep in conversation with one of the organizers. “Oh.”

Enid grins at the pleased inflection in her voice. She winds her way between a florist’s outdoor displays, stooping to smell some of the flowers on sale and talking over her shoulder. “Plus, she doesn’t seem to mind your practising. When Yoko and I tried to start a band in our first year, Weems sent a literal cease and desist.”

“You play an instrument?”

“Nope! Now come on!” She holds a hand out for Wednesday’s cello, hauling it over her shoulder with ease when Wednesday gives it to her and leading the way.

“Anyway,” Enid says some time later, licking up the last dregs of her sugary insult to coffee, “are you sure you’re okay with this?” When Wednesday looks at her blankly, she explains, “After everything that happened with Tyler … I don’t know, I just think it would be okay, if you wanted to forget all about it.”

“I’m perfectly miserable,” Wednesday responds. “I hope it’s a bleak affair, especially given how I could barely enjoy the last funeral we attended in light of—” Wednesday’s mouth clamps shut and she frowns to herself. She casts Enid a sidelong glance and finds her looking questioningly at her. Changing the subject, Wednesday asks, “Are you okay? You have just as much reason to be less than fine as I have.”

“You know me,” Enid says with a smile, tipping her head back toward the sky and looking at something Wednesday can’t see, “I’m always great!”

Wednesday eyes her doubtfully. A couple of passersby walking along the sidewalk in the opposite direction notice them, sneering at their uniforms, their eyes focusing first on Wednesday, then darting to Enid’s face. Wednesday glares at them balefully until they cross the street. She quickly rearranges her expression when Enid looks back down at her.

They pass the new café where Enid took Ajax on their last date. A flyer in the window, recruiting new customers to a rewards program in exchange for a measly lock of hair—the café is definitely a front for the occult, and Wednesday is almost certain the owner is a druid—draws Wednesday’s eye.

She’s halfway through the sarabande Weems selected for her—from Bach’s sixth Cello Suite, it’s more cheerful than Wednesday would have chosen for the occasion—when the glimmers of a plan begin to form in her head.

Executing her idea is actually fairly simple.

There is a meteor shower whose peak coincides almost perfectly with the new moon this month, making for ample viewing. Although the chances of a meteor actually reaching the earth and hitting someone are almost infinitesimally small, Wednesday has always found the thought rather nice. There’s a group of hills just a short trek beyond the academy that are the ideal vantage point to star-gaze and plot revenge from; Wednesday had been planning to sneak off-campus the night of the shower to watch it herself and indulge in the age-old hobby of assigning each meteor streaking across the sky to one of her enemies.

Wednesday had had half a mind to invite Enid along with her. She has a marked preoccupation with the night sky, especially with the moon and its phases, and Wednesday had thought it might be … instructive, to introduce Enid to a different part of it.

Instead, Wednesday strikes out alone a week in advance while Enid is asleep. She scopes out the range of hills with Thing, scaling each one by the dwindling light of the moon, until she finds a remote spot where the trees are thin enough to see the sky, and sets up a line of telescopes, borrowed indefinitely from the astronomy club.

Wednesday had expected to encounter some trouble with the next step in her plan, but when she enlists Xavier’s help to design a fake flyer for her, under the guise that it’s for an event she’s organizing for her new club, he meets her request with a surprising lack of suspicion. He doesn’t even offer a comment when Wednesday requests that he remove the club’s name from the header of the first draft he sends her.

“Convoluted? No,” Wednesday tells Thing confidently when he expresses his concerns, checking the product of her efforts over one last time. “In fact, I think an element of subterfuge is absolutely crucial. Enid needs to believe she’s worth the same effort she expends, and Ajax is the first hurdle. It needs to seem organic – if they find out the idea is coming from me, it will all be for nought.” She hums approvingly, smoothing a hand over the heavy paper. “Ready to send. Ajax lives in the all-boys dorm across campus. His room is in the eastern wing with the other Gorgons, but with my newfound notoriety—” Wednesday grimaces, “—my presence will be too conspicuous. You’re to sneak in and slip this under his door.”

Thing toys with the impressively official-looking flyer, advertising an adventurous night of meteor-watching in bold letters across the top of the page, along with a map and set of instructions leading to the scenic viewing site they found earlier in the week. He hesitates.

Wednesday stares him down. “Undying loyalty, remember?”

On the night of the date, Wednesday is already awake, waiting up in anticipation of Enid’s safe return and working on her novel, when Enid bursts into their room a little after midnight and immediately starts yelling.

“Oh my god, Wednesday, I have to tell you everything!”

Wednesday looks at Thing and smirks.

Enid likes the thoughtful dates the most.

They don’t have to be expensive, or even extravagant – it’s the appearance of real thought put into an idea that seems to bring an extra, nearly exhausting level of pep to Enid’s already-very-peppy step.

Enid enjoys the private, rooftop dinner with Ajax at the only nice restaurant in Jericho—which Wednesday arranged for them by blackmailing the head chef—but it’s bar food and Korean-karaoke night at a local dive—a lucky find during one of Wednesday’s research expeditions to a neighbouring town—that dominates lunchtime conversations with Yoko for days on end, and that bears repeating with an unenthusiastic Wednesday and the rest of their friends. The busy evening Enid and Ajax revisit the traveling carnival together, this time as girlfriend and boyfriend, is a memorable one, but it’s a simple day spent by the nearby bay—Enid’s idea—that Enid remembers with a private smile that even Wednesday, with her naturally analytical mind and all of her deductive reasoning, can’t seem to decipher – that loiters perplexingly in Wednesday’s head.

To his credit, Ajax plays his part perfectly in her scheme, and follows through faithfully on each of the flyers Wednesday has delivered occasionally to his room. Like clockwork, Enid will come back to their room a day or two after Thing has dropped one off, chattering excitedly about an upcoming date. Ajax clearly likes Enid, cares for her, wants to do new things with her – he’s just usually lacking inspiration, and Wednesday is willing to provide.

It runs counter to everything Wednesday knows about herself, to do all of this, voluntarily subjecting herself to something so overtly sentimental as contriving intimate outings for another person. But it pacifies the thing festering in her chest—that gnaws at her bones and eats away at her insides like blistering frostbite—to see Enid happy – blunts its claws and takes away its teeth. Like arranging the Gorgon shades had, and going to karaoke, or indulging Enid any number of her simple wants. Wednesday derives a kind of unexpected pleasure from the act, from knowing that Enid will enjoy herself because of her, and each time Enid returns to her with a smile on her face, reporting on the success of a date Wednesday secretly planned, unharmed both emotionally and physically—which has become an increasingly prevalent concern in their monster-infested town—Wednesday finds herself chasing that smile again.

Most importantly, the flyers are doing their job: Enid thinks it’s Ajax planning every one of these dates, and that look, that look of disappointment on Enid’s face is just a distant memory, appropriately relegated to some deep, unlit corner of Wednesday’s brain.

Enid is happy and, for all intents and purposes, Ajax is the one making her happy.

Everything is going according to plan.

“You’re cutting the circulation to my fingers off.”

The sound of Wednesday’s voice in the dark makes Enid jump. “Oh, sorry! I don’t even remember grabbing you.” She lets go of Wednesday’s wrist, scooting a couple inches away.

“I didn’t mean …” Enid turns away from the movie playing on her laptop to look at her.

Where it lies between them on Enid’s bedspread, Wednesday’s deadened arm twitches. She flexes her hand, watching her fingers move without being able to feel them – as though they don’t belong to her. The wonderfully unpleasant sensation of pins and needles assaults her, spreading throughout Wednesday’s arm and shoulder as the blood returns to her extremities.

Wednesday blinks. “Never mind. Pay attention, an important part is coming up.”

Enid’s cheeks puff out, her gaze returning to the screen. “I get the other ones we watched, but this is a slasher,” she whines quietly, “which part could possibly be that important?”

Wednesday waits patiently for the sudden, bloodcurdling scream that is being emitted by the laptop to end. Enid gawks beside her. “This film is a seminal work of horror, and helped define and revitalize its genre when it was first released. The murders are regrettably unrealistic,” Wednesday says with mild disdain, “and even an Addams would not survive that many stab and gunshot wounds, but the film is generally well-executed, and it went on to influence a number of successors.”

“Okay,” Enid says uncertainly. She winces as blood splatters artfully across the screen.

Wednesday shakes her head. “Regrettable,” she mutters. She glances sideways at Enid, who is staring wide-eyed at the glowing display, a mixture of fear and revulsion on her face. “If this is too much, we can put something else on, Enid.”

“No, no, if you can sit through chick flicks for me, I can definitely sit through graphic depictions of horrific violence for you,” Enid assures her with barely concealed fright.

The raised skin of Enid’s scars catch the light. “I have every confidence,” Wednesday says quietly. She gives herself a shake and says in a regular voice, “If it’s any reassurance, not a single one of these amateurs could hold a candle to you in a fight.”

Enid huffs a short laugh. “I would literally die immediately in a horror setting, I am not final-girl material. I’m more like the wimp who gets picked off in the first act.”

On screen, the film’s antagonist cackles dramatically, slashing his knife through the air. “I disagree. You’re the scariest thing inside this room,” Wednesday says, her wrist still aching from Enid’s considerable grip.

The sharp glint of teeth catches Wednesday’s eye; Enid’s grin stretches her face. “What a compliment, coming from you,” she teases. “I’m honoured.”

Wednesday lets a small smile move her mouth. “You should be. I’m in this room.”

Laughter bounces off the walls of their dorm, echoing among the rafters and drowning out the sounds of the film they’re watching. Wednesday has crucified Pugsley for less, but there’s something about Enid—who talks rather a lot during their movie nights, especially when they’re watching something she’s particularly excited to show Wednesday—that is not only tolerable, but which begs to be acknowledged. Like her texts, Enid is difficult to ignore.

“I’m surprised you haven’t fallen unconscious yet, though,” Wednesday says quietly during a lull in the movie. “I thought the sight of gore made you faint. I even had Thing prepare the smelling salts again.” She casts her eyes around the room and finds the salts where Thing left them on her nightstand before he’d disappeared at the beginning of the night, leaving the two of them alone to run some unspecified errand that he has yet to return from.

“It does, but they always exaggerate this stuff so much in movies, and I know it isn’t real, so it’s totally f—”

Wednesday sees it coming a mile away, and watches it happen in slow motion. Enid cuts herself off with a high-pitched yelp that rings in Wednesday’s ears. A split second later, she’s burying her head in the spot next to Wednesday’s, looping both arms around Wednesday’s arm and squeezing tightly.

The sweet, spine-chilling screams of a person who is about to be murdered fill their drafty attic room, but it’s almost uncomfortably warm in Enid’s bed, with her whirring laptop balanced halfway across Wednesday’s lap and Enid herself radiating heat like a branding iron. Wednesday goes rigid as Enid’s hot, panicked breaths puff against her neck and the film plays on, the flashing lights painting Enid’s shoulders a deep russet one moment, then inky black the next. She’s trembling, chest heaving lightly against Wednesday, whose own chest has gone very still, the beginnings of a breath still lingering in her lungs.

For one, interminable minute, Wednesday’s reality narrows to Enid’s thundering heartbeat, somewhere left of hers, and the heat between them, nearly intolerable now. Wednesday should extract herself – everything inside her is screaming at her to. But Enid is still trembling, and louder still than Wednesday’s instincts, than even the unbearable warmth in this room, are Enid’s short, scared breaths and the strange and comforting sensation of being buried alive.

The arms around Wednesday’s are too much at the same time that they’re something that Wednesday finds herself not completely opposed to suffering. Enid has always respected Wednesday’s boundaries, has a knack for knowing when Wednesday will be receptive to her pushing them: a hug here, a touch there. That she’s grabbed for Wednesday now when she thinks Wednesday doesn’t … There’s something pleasing about the thought – that in a moment of fear, Enid would instinctively seek her out.

But there’s something that’s a paralyzing kind of terrifying about it, too.

Wednesday is still warring with herself when the scene in the film comes to an end. Beside her, Enid makes a noise, finally realizing where she is and already shifting to move away, another apology on the tip of her tongue. And, as though from far away, Wednesday watches her own body make a decision for her—without conscious thought, or sense, or reason—her free hand moving of its own accord, drifting like a wraith in the dark to lay delicately on top of Enid’s elbow, fingers curling around it.

There’s no numbness to deliver her from the feeling this time. She breathes out, embracing the inferno, and her mind quiets.

“There’s another important part coming up,” Wednesday whispers, only a little surprised to find that her mouth is still her own.

Slowly, hesitantly, Enid settles back into her original position. Her heart slows to its regular werewolf’s lope, her breaths evening out. After a moment, she snickers weakly, the sound muffled between them, her laughter lashing hotly against Wednesday’s collar.

This time, Wednesday doesn’t say anything when her arm falls asleep.

Wednesday looks down at the sheet of paper in her hands, still warm from the printer.

There’s an old drive-in theatre on the outskirts of Jericho, run by the town’s resident zombie. Apparently not a trap to lure brain-dead moviegoers for feeding—Wednesday had checked—it hosts regular, themed movie marathons. She’d discovered it on her last reconnaissance visit to town.

Wednesday and Thing had gone to the library to print the flyer as soon as Xavier sent his final draft, and then promptly stalked all the way to Ophelia Hall. It’s where they are now, Wednesday standing in the middle of the room she shares with Enid while Thing watches her from his place on her writing desk. She stays there, unmoving and silent, until she’s startled out of her trance by the sounds of some of the other students returning to their dorms, their voices carrying through the floorboards.

Wednesday marches to her desk, stopping in front of Thing.

The idea is perfect, just like it had been when Wednesday had first thought of it. A night at the local drive-in theatre is the intersection of all of Enid’s favourite things: movies, small-town charm, starlit intimacy. There’s no reason Enid should object to it.

No reason for the heavy sense of apprehension that has come to rest on Wednesday’s shoulders.

It had been so easy to brush off the twinge of uneasiness when she first sent the date concept off to Xavier. But now, agitation crawls under her skin like spiders, odd and unsettling and not at all pleasant like the real thing.

“And why shouldn’t they enjoy the drive-in together?” Wednesday says aloud, staring down at the flyer advertising this month’s movie marathon, then turning to look at Thing. “Horror in film is not Enid’s favourite, of course—and if the proprietor of the drive-in is worth their salt, they’re sure to show some of the bloody forebears of the genre—but I’m sure she’ll appreciate the opportunity to have Ajax as her stalwart protector.”

She imagines it, the two of them alone together in some car, or else lying side by side on the lawn. Like any romantically charged moment should have, there would be a healthy dose of terror or peril – optionally, blood and screams. And under the fathomless black sea of space, Enid would reach for Ajax, pressing her face to his shoulder. She’d spend most of the night there, wrapped up in his arms, while he murmured stomach-turning platitudes to her and the rest of the world fell away.

The sound of crumpling paper interrupts her thoughts. Wednesday lets her fingers uncurl, one at a time, until the flyer slips out of them and they both watch as it floats down to her desk. Thing doesn’t say anything, the back of his hand, usually so expressive, now frustratingly opaque.

“You’re of no help,” Wednesday accuses, but she has no idea what she even wants him to say. Her thoughts are muddled, the feeling inside her chest, scraping at her ribs, even less coherent. Wednesday throws her desk drawer open and drops the flyer into it with disgust before slamming it shut and going to work on her novel, the keys of her typewriter clacking furiously under her fingers.

Blissfully, Enid doesn’t push the issue when she gets back from her after-school extracurriculars and only gets a one-word response when she asks Wednesday what the matter is. She stays on her side of the room, throwing her concerned looks every now and then that prickle at the back of Wednesday’s neck.

Wednesday doesn’t look up. Instead, she works long into the night, the flyer screaming at her with a vengeance from where it’s hiding in her drawer. She only stops long after a delicious ache has developed in her wrists and fingers, and when it’s clear Enid is having trouble falling asleep but won’t ask Wednesday to stop.

Thing stays silently by her side the entire time.

Enid—persuasive—manages to convince Wednesday to let her join Nevermore NeverEnough, even though, in Wednesday’s own words, she’s prone to overcommitting to school activities and, now in their second semester, is already in half-a-dozen student organizations, on top of maintaining her blog and her relationship with Ajax.

Despite herself and what Wednesday told Ajax that day in the Quad, Bianca and Yoko also manage to weasel their way into the group. It’s convenient anyway, because Bianca lends an air of legitimacy to the club that Wednesday isn’t very interested in keeping up herself: Bianca has become oddly invested in spreading awareness about some multi-level-marketing scheme or cult or what-have-you that began cropping up in Jericho last semester. She and Yoko also divert attention away from Wednesday, who is now frequently approached by random Gorgons trying to express their gratitude.

It was the last thing Wednesday wanted when she stepped into Weems’s office at the beginning of the semester. She’d simply wanted to put an end to the unceasing thoughts of Enid, of her heartbreak, grating and awful and like a broken record wreaking havoc in Wednesday’s mind. To … provide a sliver of comfort for a friend.

“It was hardly any effort,” Wednesday tells the latest Gorgon to pluck up the courage to talk to her. How she found Wednesday, hiding from her and the other Gorgons like her in a corner of one of the school greenhouses with Enid for lunch, Wednesday has no earthly clue. She throws Thing a suspicious glance, who signs hastily at her, swearing that he wasn’t tailed.

“Seriously, though! We’ve needed shades in the bathrooms for ages, but no one ever stood up and did anything about it. Not until you came along. Thank you so much, Wednesday,” the Gorgon says, edging closer, eyes shiny, and are those tears, Wednesday is not equipped to handle this. She casts a desperate glance in Enid’s direction while the Gorgon prattles on, now thanking Wednesday for saving the school from Crackstone last semester, conveniently forgetting the part Wednesday played in bringing him back in the first place.

Enid doesn’t notice Wednesday’s silent plea for help, looking up at their lunch intruder with her brow furrowed, as though deep in thought. Her hands are curled tightly around her phone, making the metal creak.

“Your thanks is not necessary,” Wednesday grinds out, staring wide-eyed and unblinking up at the Gorgon, who at last takes one uneasy step back.

This, apparently, finally shakes Enid out of her trance. “That’s ‘Wednesday’ for ‘you’re welcome’,” she reassures cheerfully. “We’ll catch up later, Ariadne!” Ariadne nods, already moving away and sending Wednesday one last uncertain smile. “She’s a sweetheart,” Enid says once she’s left, “she and her girlfriend just split up over the break.”

“Congratulations to her, or my condolences,” Wednesday says dryly. Enid laughs and, for an instant, Wednesday is helpless to do anything but watch.

She blinks. “So,” Wednesday says, “what myriad activities will be occupying Nevermore’s resident social butterfly this weekend?” She looks away, examining some of the plants flowering near them, already knowing the answer—detailed plainly in the flyer she had Thing deliver to Ajax’s room earlier this week—and bracing herself for it.

“Oh,” Enid says brightly, “none!” The speed with which Wednesday’s head snaps up nearly gives her whiplash. “Actually, I wanted to ask if you had any plans. They’re doing an old-school horror night at the drive-in theater in town this Saturday.”

Thing, lazing in the flower beds behind Enid, jumps to attention like he’s been electrocuted.

Wednesday’s jaw unhinges slightly in surprise. She stares wordlessly for a moment. Bemused, she asks, “Is that not something you’d rather do with Ajax?” From over Enid’s shoulder, Thing flops over dramatically.

“I want to go with you, silly! Honestly, Ajax asked me if I was interested, but I was already planning to ask you. It’s horror! And movies are kind of our thing,” Enid says earnestly. “So?”

“No,” Wednesday answers, mollified, the strange dread that had fallen over her like a veil when she’d first conceived of the date lifting, “no, I don’t have plans.”

“Great! I’ll get us tickets for this Saturday then.”

“I’ll have Lurch bring the family hearse around,” Wednesday says keenly, now looking forward to the weekend. “We can sit in the back.”

“Oh, that’s—hm. Wednesday, that’s really okay, I mean it’s such a long drive—”

“Nonsense. He has regular errands to run in town anyway, and he enjoys the classics.”

Enid dithers. Her eyes flit back and forth between Wednesday’s. “I—okay,” she says, giving in. “Sitting in the family hearse. In the back. Where the dead people go.” Wednesday nods fervently at her. “Perfect.”

“Dates are one thing,” Wednesday says one morning before classes. Enid is already gone, having left early to attend rehearsals with her dance troupe, leaving behind only the disaster zone she’s made of her side of the room and a whiff of perfume. From his perch on her pillow, Thing watches Wednesday pace the length of the dorm. “But there’s much more to courting than dates.”

Wednesday comes to a stop in front of Enid’s closet. “Gifts,” she decides, moving swiftly back to Thing. She thinks of Ajax’s impressive collection of beanies, some of which Wednesday has seen Enid produce in this very room. She thinks about the snood Enid gave her for her birthday, hand-crafted, spun with midnight-black yarn; the crocheted dust cover for her typewriter, just because! “Considerate gifts, romantic gestures – home-made, if possible.”

Thing taps a remark out. Wednesday’s lip curls in response. She resumes her pacing.

“Yes, I would generally agree with you, Ajax does not strike me as the creative type. And the thought alone of trying to manipulate him into learning, or even of trying to teach him myself, is its own special kind of migraine.” She runs an idle hand along Enid’s desk. “I would sooner take one of Enid’s sparkly knitting needles to the eye.”

Thing drums his fingers, then holds up his index and signs his thoughts to Wednesday.

“What on earth are you suggesting? I am not a character in a play, Thing. I will tolerate helping him along for her sake, but I won’t woo Enid for Ajax.”

Thing taps the bedspread.

“‘Give them to her myself’? For what reason would I—” Wednesday stops talking abruptly as Thing taps on. She takes three long steps toward him. Wisely, he backs away at the expression on her face. “I will pretend you didn’t just say that,” Wednesday says through gritted teeth. “The notion is—it’s beyond absurd to think that I—how you could even suggest—”

Thing, unwisely, begins signing at her again. Inexplicably, irritatingly, she notices once more the scent of Enid’s perfume, recognizing the distinctive notes of orange blossom and orris root, this time wafting from Thing’s own wrist. Wednesday gathers herself, cutting off … whatever that had been just coming out of her mouth.

“That’s ridiculous. You’ve just said something ridiculous, and I won’t hear it again,” Wednesday declares, storming out of the room and slamming the door shut before Thing can follow her out.

During study break, Wednesday, determined to ignore Thing, approaches Ajax where he’s sitting alone in the Quad, watching videos on his phone via, as far as Wednesday can tell, one of the worst among the social-media-platform offerings that Enid has shown her.

“There are daffodils growing in the eastern corner of Greenhouse 3.”

“Uh … what?” Ajax says. Wednesday doesn’t think she’s ever spoken to Ajax one-on-one, and from the uneasy look on his face, he seems to be realizing the same thing.

“Enid likes daffodils,” Wednesday says, slowly. “There is a clutch of them growing in Greenhouse 3.”

He stares up at her open-mouthed for several seconds. A video blares loudly from his phone. Wednesday turns on her heel and leaves.

The next evening after classes, Wednesday returns to their dorm to find a new splash of colour in it.

The daffodils are perched on top of Enid’s nightstand and perfectly situated in the middle of the room, halfway into Enid’s space and halfway into Wednesday’s, where some of Wednesday’s own plants sit. Enid looks up at her from where she’s crouching on her side of the room, grinning over a bucket of water and trimming the stem of a final flower, before going to place it with the others in their makeshift vase – a large jar from Eugene that once contained honey, Wednesday notes absently. Enid has even done the cuts at a sharp angle, so as to maximize the uptake of water.

Without a word, Wednesday spins on the spot, turning to her desk to put her things away and trying desperately to ignore the curious feeling rising in her stomach, the heady scent of oranges and flowers swirling together all around her.

Thing is sat by her typewriter, filing his nails. When she looks at him, eyes wide, he flips over, balancing on his base, and gestures at her, fingers spread, palm up. Behind her, Wednesday can hear Enid busying herself with mixing her own flower food together.

The notion is, suddenly, not so absurd.

The daffodils sit in their room for just over a week before they’ve wilted too much to keep any longer and Enid is forced to throw them out. For eight whole mornings, Wednesday watches Enid wake with a smile on her face because they’re the first thing she sees when she opens her eyes.

Ajax, not completely helpless, begins to give Enid flowers more frequently. Sometimes, several bunches occupy Enid’s jar at once, and each bloom, painstakingly tended to and cared for by Enid, taunts Wednesday, for reasons that are coming into sharper and more disturbing focus.

Following their night at the drive-in, during which Enid had practically strangled Wednesday in fright—both intoxicating and its own kind of curse, though, as with their movie nights, she hadn’t understood why at the time—she and Wednesday spend more time together, exploring the bores and occasional delights of Jericho, or investigating the mysteries of their school. Nothing much has changed: they still have their movie nights and eat lunch and go to classes together, and it’s nothing they haven’t done before. But it’s as though Wednesday has only just been made aware of some secret wound inside of her – as though she’s been quietly bleeding out and is finally being made to face the consequences.

It’s a gentle kind of agony, a complicated pleasure. Like planning the drive-in date had been, each date idea successfully researched and relayed to Xavier for flyer-making now is a maddening blend of gratifying and vexing, each new gift suggestion communicated to Ajax—a vintage sweater that had nearly blinded Wednesday on her last excursion with Enid to Uriah’s Heap, a new bottle of the nail polish Enid has just run out of—a triumph that chafes.

But still, every time Enid returns from an outing with Ajax, bursting with excitement and the need to talk about it, there is, mostly, only the stark relief that she’s no worse for wear, and the sweet satisfaction of a job well done. The answer to that very first question Wednesday wanted to ask Enid over winter break remains the same.

Very little can ruin Enid’s mood these days. The only thing that still consistently upsets her is the one day every month she sits behind her computer to talk with her parents. The calls are transparently scheduled around the full moon, so that each one begins with her mother coincidentally remembering that it has just passed and confirming that Enid is still wolfing out, while Enid’s father sits mutely behind his wife.

For completely unrelated reasons, Wednesday’s collection of violent ideas—hidden cleverly away among her sheet music—and her cache of silver weapons grow by the day.

After each call, Enid goes to stand outside on their balcony, gazing out at the waning moon, and Wednesday joins her at her side like she had all those months ago, before they had even become friends. They stay for hours sometimes, talking at intervals while Wednesday plays her cello and eyes her list with grim relish, until Enid stops shaking and Wednesday silently ushers her back inside.

Unlike Enid’s parents, Wednesday’s take almost too great an interest in her school work and extracurricular activities. She sits down with her mother and father, sporadically joined by Pugsley, two or three times a month, talking about her assignments and the progress she’s made in her latest concerto; about her clubs and whether she’s had the opportunity to fillet the pufferfish they sent with last month’s care package yet.

“No,” Wednesday says to her crystal ball one weekend, when she has a chance to sit down with her parents and Enid is out on another date with Ajax, “I’ve yet to convince Enid that she can trust in my preparation of the deadly animals you send me, and she seems reluctant to try some of the more exotic meats you’ve mailed. It might be best if you stopped packing them for her until I have swayed her. She sends her thanks, all the same.”

“She didn’t even want the beaver?” Gomez asks, aghast. “We were told it’s a delicacy among wolves!” Wednesday shakes her head. “Ah well, perhaps she will come around eventually.”

“Perhaps,” Wednesday says vaguely, eyes wandering. The camellias in the corner of her vision, delivered by Ajax earlier in the week and blush-pink in the afternoon sun, capture her attention for a moment. When she turns back to her parents, she finds her mother watching her.

“My darling, you’re so morose today,” Morticia says.

“Instead of your usual somber,” Gomez pipes in.

Morticia nods. “Yes, is there something the matter?”

“I am exactly as somber as I always am,” Wednesday argues automatically.

“You have yet to throw a single barb at your dear mother,” Morticia counters, “or even attempt to cut our call short in favour of ‘a more worthwhile pursuit’.”

“Haven’t I? Forgive me,” Wednesday responds crisply, “allow me to remedy the situation at once. Mother, you’re looking positively ghastly today. Have you been bathing in the blood of your enemies again?”

A slight smile lifts the corners of Morticia’s mouth while Gomez agrees enthusiastically, remarking on how perfectly the crimson sheen sets off her hair and the deadly glint in her eyes. She raises an eyebrow. After a moment, Wednesday realizes her mistake.

“Was there something else you wanted to discuss, Wednesday?” When Wednesday doesn’t say anything, Morticia continues. “Where is Enid? Perhaps she can shed some light on—”

“She’s out,” Wednesday says quickly, and then her eye twitches at the second blunder.

“Oh,” Morticia says with far too much significance for Wednesday’s liking. She raises an eyebrow. “Has this anything to do with your … project? Do you require more assistance?”

Because, while Wednesday hasn’t spent any money helping Ajax with his dates and gifts for Enid, she has racked up quite the bill of her own from the frequent day trips she makes to Jericho and the surrounding towns, both for leisure with Enid and for research without. And, instead of stealing from the family vaults or skimming off the top of the NeverEnough club funds like any sane person would have, she’d asked her parents directly for money.

Of course, Wednesday hadn’t been very specific about what the money has been for, but someone—normally, she would suspect Thing, but Lurch had grunted and groaned far more in Enid’s company than she’s ever heard him before—seems to have told them something of the nature of her needs.

“No, I …” Wednesday purses her lips. She glances at Thing, who has been sitting quietly at her side throughout her conversation with her parents, playing a slow and complicated game of Cat’s cradle with himself and politely pretending not to be listening. She looks back at the crystal ball. “I …”

Her parents wait patiently for her to finish her sentence – to bear her insides, dig her fingers into the gaping wound in her chest, and crack her rib cage open. In the silence, Wednesday’s thoughts flock to Enid like birds of prey to carrion, as they always do: where she is now, what she’s doing, how she’s feeling, out with Ajax on the date that Enid planned just for the two of them. What it might be like to …

The thought aches. Wednesday presses her palms to her eyes until stars and constellations paint the backs of her eyelids. Morticia and Gomez are exchanging looks of alarm at the rare display when she lifts her head again.

“Wednesday,” Gomez says, “mi pesadilla, my little storm cloud, please tell us what’s troubling you so! Has something happened?”

Wednesday doesn’t move for a long time. Acid climbs her throat, coating the back of her tongue and the roof of her mouth. The whole world shrinks down to their room and, like a thing alive, the walls contract and expand around her, shivering across her back and stretching thin as a cello string outward, outward, to envelop the object of her preoccupation.

“It’s Enid,” she spits out, and the cloying venom in her mouth begins to overflow. “She crowds our room. Her things, her presence, even her scent.” Wednesday takes a deep breath, blinking hard. “She has invaded my very soul, infected every cell in my traitorous body, so that my one and only thought is of her – so that I’m convinced no other thought has ever crossed me before.”

She tears away from the crystal ball and her eyes find the camellias again, dragging over each flower and shifting restlessly to the window behind them. “So that, I see Enid everywhere, now – in the light that bleeds over the horizon at the break of dawn, and in the endless darkness that stains the night sky. In—” Wednesday laughs, short, sudden, “—in every rainbow that churns my stomach, and every pop song that pierces my eardrums. Like a tsunami, she has flooded into my everyday and my every night. Even the fabric of my dreams has not been spared in the path of her destruction. She is everywhere.”

Gomez frowns. As if by instinct, he gravitates toward Morticia, his hand moving to cover hers. “My dear, I had no idea. We thought the two of you were getting along. Do you require space from her? We can have it arranged at once.”

The cello string quivers. Wednesday folds her arms across her chest. After a while, she admits, quietly, “The very opposite.”

A stillness settles over them. “Ah.” Morticia and Gomez don’t say anything else, watching her carefully, unexpectedly reticent in the face of her confession, but not, to her chagrin, especially surprised.

“She is everywhere,” Wednesday says again, filling the void, “and I cannot escape her. She is everywhere, and it’s not nearly enough.”

Her jaw throbs with the effort of getting the words out. Wednesday shuts her eyes angrily.

“Why is it that sometimes her very touch hurts, burns, but without the sweet after-ache of fire, and yet I can’t bear for her to be away?”

“Darling …” Morticia hesitates, as she’s been doing ever since Wednesday can remember, hesitates like she didn’t used to before, and even that is almost too much to bear. “I think you know.”

They sit in silence, Wednesday stewing in anguish while her parents wait.

“Is this love,” Wednesday whispers, “that cuts like a double-edged knife – pulls like a noose with two ends between us?”

A curious expression crosses Morticia’s face, so quick that Wednesday only catches a flash of it. She smiles, turning to Gomez at her side, their hands, visible even across the misty connection of Wednesday’s crystal ball, held between them. Gomez, already looking back at her, grins adoringly.

Morticia says, “What sweeter end?”

Wednesday is an evolved human being.

In possession of an above-average intelligence, of the critical thought that elevates her from the common beast, she won’t fall apart, not like the imbeciles in the movies Enid has shown her. Wednesday has faced a number of challenges since coming to Nevermore – this is just another, albeit more unexpected one.

Like her mother and father, countless Addamses before her have been beset by love and its curse and survived it; although she never anticipated it happening to her, there’s no reason Wednesday shouldn’t be able to do the same. Besides, nothing has changed, especially if Wednesday is correct, and this—being in love with Enid—has been going on for much longer than the last few weeks; she’s sure she’s felt this way and simply not had a better name for it since early in the semester, and perhaps earlier still.

“Shake the soil, don’t pack it. It needs to get between the roots.”

Enid dusts off her hands and begins to shake the pot instead. “By the way, are there bugs in this soil?”

Wednesday opens her mouth and then closes it. “No.”

“Oh my god, you hesitated!” Enid cries out, flapping her hands in a panic.

“You don’t have to worry about it,” Wednesday reassures her, but she takes the gardening gloves Thing fetches anyway, offering them to her.

Hesitantly, Enid resumes repotting the palm at Wednesday’s instruction, keeping her newly gloved hands as far away from the soil as possible. “So have you really been taking care of the plants all semester by yourself?”

“Just in this greenhouse,” Wednesday clarifies. “Some of the students from the botany club are taking care of the others.”

Enid hums. “They still haven’t found a replacement for Ms. Thornhill yet?”

“You can pack the soil now.”

“Like this?”

Wednesday nods approvingly. Enid finishes up and begins to inspect the plant’s companions while Wednesday goes back to what she was doing, answering Enid’s original question. “No, they haven’t found a replacement. Principal Weems seems to be getting desperate, though. The last time I talked to her, she was floating the idea of hiring my mother.” Wednesday ducks between several hanging vines, raising her voice so that it reaches Enid at the other end of the greenhouse. “Thankfully, she’d never take the job. My parents would waste away if they had to spend that much time apart.”

“Aw, that’s really sweet, Wednesday. Sometimes, I don’t think my parents even like each other, and then there was all the pack stuff when they got together …” Enid shrugs.

“Is it so important?”

“That you like the person you’re asking to spend the rest of your life with?” Enid frowns up at the palm she’s examining, turning its fronds this way and that and slipping a glove off to test the soil between her fingers, forgetting her previous concern about bugs. “I think so. This one’s looking a little dehydrated.”

Wednesday walks over to her with the hose, digging into the soil herself. “I think you’re right.”

They work in relative quiet for a while, Enid sprinkling the different plant foods she mixed with Wednesday earlier in the day into the soil of the many plants around them while Wednesday follows after her, surveying their health and watering them. Thing scuttles around by Enid’s eyeline, making light conversation.

They’re almost done when Enid lets out a monstrous yawn, mouth opening wide and exposing her preternaturally perfect teeth. Tears spring up in her eyes, and she blinks them away sleepily.

Wednesday examines her surreptitiously. “Why don’t you go back early? I can wrap things up here. You’ve been busy all week, and you’ve finally managed not to severely overbook yourself today. A genuine once-in-a-blue-moon phenomenon,” she pronounces.

“Oh, ha-ha,” Enid responds, shaking her head fondly. “We can go back together, I’m okay to stay until we’re finished.”

Wednesday, already checking on the last of the pots in her row, says, “It’s fine. I have to go to the library anyway.”

“Oh.” A beat of silence passes. “You’ve been spending a lot of time there recently.”

Wednesday scowls down at the plant she’s watering. “Yes, it’s been something of a necessary evil,” she complains, unable to completely swallow her contempt for the infernal situation she’s gotten herself into. She turns to find Enid smiling at her, and her stomach settles slightly.

“Your least favourite kind,” Enid teases, before interrupting herself with another yawn. “Well, if you’re sure?” Wednesday nods. “Thanks Wednesday.” She gathers her things, which have somehow spread out all across the greenhouse over the last couple hours. Before she leaves, Enid looks back and asks, “Can we do this again?” At Wednesday’s questioning look, she explains, “Taking care of the plants.”

Wednesday blinks at her. At her side, Thing jumps up and down in excitement. “You’re interested in spending more of your Saturday afternoons like this?” Enid smiles, waiting. Slowly, Wednesday inclines her head.

“Great! I’ll see you both later. Manis when the two of you get back, Thing!” She waves at them, walking away.

Wednesday and Thing watch her leave. She turns to him. “If you reveal to Enid even an inkling of my affection for her, I will string you up by your thumb.”

He gestures incredulously to himself and then taps something out to her. Wednesday pretends to ignore him. She does a final lap of the greenhouse, watering the last few planters before beginning to pack her things slowly, giving Thing ample time to clamber up onto her shoulder. They make their way out of the greenhouse and toward the school.

“You and Enid have gotten far too close,” Wednesday says with an almost imperceptible huff.

Thing taps her shoulder with mirth, signing at her smugly from her periphery.

“Yes,” Wednesday says with difficulty, “irrational though it may be, I am.”

They reach the library, zigzagging between the bookshelves until they find the table Xavier is occupying, his laptop already out. Wednesday takes the seat across from him, immediately jumping into the week’s tasks, while Thing goes to wander the shelves.

“Once you’re done with the updated Morning Song awareness pamphlets,” Wednesday is saying, “we’d like you to make a flyer about the new pastries at the Weathervane. They drive them in every morning from a bakery in Burlington. Be sure to mention the fruit tarts, and that they stop serving everything at noon.”

“Okay,” Xavier says. They work in silence for a minute, Wednesday sketching out a mock-up of the flyer, and then Xavier says, “So when are you planning to stop with these?”

“It’s very important to support our local businesses,” Wednesday says by rote, not looking up, “especially those that are more tolerant of outcasts. It’s something that Nevermore NeverEnough is very passionate about.”

“Come on, I’ve been making these flyers for you for months, Wednesday. I know they’re for Ajax and Enid.”

The lead in Wednesday’s pencil snaps. “What?”

“I’ve literally never seen any of them hanging up around the school, and Ajax is a friendly guy,” Xavier explains, “he talks. He even suggested I take someone out on a date. Plus, pastries? Star-gazing? Not exactly your typical hard-hitting social issues.”

Wednesday frowns, sitting back to look at him. “I’ll stop once they’re no longer necessary,” she says eventually. “Once they’re no longer helpful.”

“Right,” Xavier drawls, “sure.” He sets back to work.

Wednesday looks over at Thing, then back at him. “And you’re okay with that?” she asks slowly, reluctant to be the one carrying on the conversation, but regrettably too curious to let it lie. “That you’ve been designing flyers for me all semester, expressly for the purpose of bolstering Enid’s relationship with Ajax?”

“You’re okay with it?” When Wednesday doesn’t entertain the question, he shrugs, answering hers. “I know when I’ve lost.”

Wednesday raises an eyebrow. “You were never even playing.”

“Ouch.” Xavier clutches his chest, groaning, before bursting into laughter. He stops, smiling wryly at her. “Friends?”

Enid looms like a garishly coloured beacon in her mind. And Wednesday thinks, friends are important. Friends could be everything.

“Friends.”

“I don’t know why you’re so intent on doing this yourself.”

“It’s the pack’s baklava recipe, Wednesday, it needs honey!”

“Yes, but I could just collect it for you,” Wednesday says. “I thought you hated the bees.”

“I’m making it for Ajax. It means more when you do it yourself,” Enid insists, leading the way into the Hummers shed with her back against its exterior, shuffling sideways like a crab so as to keep the bees in view. Wednesday walks in after her, choosing not to acknowledge Thing’s pointed taps against her collarbone. “Besides, Eugene taught me how to harvest honey the last time I covered for you. Right, Eugene?”

“Did he now?” Wednesday asks, mildly impressed by his initiative.

“Enid was a natural,” Eugene confirms, “the bees loved her. Hello, ladies!” He spreads his arms wide. “I kept your suit clean and ready, Enid, just in case you changed your mind about joining the club.” Eugene eyes her hopefully.

Enid shivers with a noise of disgust. “Nope, never in a million years. Thanks for letting me do this, though. You can both try some of the baklava when it’s done!”

“Enid, are you certain you don’t want me to do this for you?” Wednesday watches Enid gingerly step into the beekeeping suit Eugene offers her. “If I recall, I do owe you a favour. ‘Payback’, and all.”

“I’m totally okay. Totally, totally okay,” Enid declares, a tremor already sliding into her voice. She shrieks suddenly at a nearby buzzing sound before realizing that it’s just her phone, and smiles sheepishly.

Wednesday sighs. Stepping forward, she takes Enid’s hat from Eugene and places it on Enid’s head, pulling the veil down over her face and neck so that it lies flat. She smooths her hands over Enid’s shoulders, worrying over the rest of her suit and making sure the zipper is done all the way up. After giving her a final once-over, Wednesday nods. When she steps back, she catches Eugene watching the two of them. He raises his eyebrows, wiggling them at her.

While Enid is preoccupied with searching for non-existent holes in the mesh of her hat, Wednesday takes the opportunity to try her hand at glaring holes into Eugene – it’s never worked before, but she knows if she tries hard enough, she’ll achieve it one day.

He simply smirks at her.

After Enid has finished her own inspection of her suit, she heads out of the clubhouse, moving toward the hives. Wednesday and Eugene follow her out, watching from a safe distance.

Once she’s out of earshot, Eugene turns to Wednesday.

“Oh, how the tables have turned!” he crows.

“The tables haven’t turned,” Wednesday retorts. In an aside, she mutters, “If anything, we’re on the same side of the table.” She crosses her arms. “What could possibly have changed so drastically in my countenance that now invites everyone within striking distance to speculate at my feelings for Enid?” Wednesday asks Thing, perched on her shoulder. He gestures broadly and unhelpfully at her face, and she bends sideways at the waist in an unsuccessful attempt at unseating him.

“Oh my god, oh my god!” Wednesday whirls around quickly, focusing back on Enid and the direction her shouts came from, already unconsciously making to move toward them. She eases up when she locates Enid, running in circles and swatting at the air around her hat where her ears are.

When Wednesday turns back to Eugene, he’s already looking back at her with a knowing smile.

“What?” Eugene doesn’t say anything right away, smile widening. “What, Eugene?”

“Nothing, it’s just …” He grins toothily at her. “I don’t think anything’s changed, you’re just different with Enid. Like, you’re actually worried about her. It’s okay, though – I told the bees to go easy on her.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Wednesday says dismissively, facing forward again. She zones in on Enid where she’s wandering between the hives, trying to gather the courage to walk up to one and brandishing her smoker like a weapon. Enid strays farther from the shed, toward the woods and almost out of eyesight.

“Just the nearby hives, Enid!” Wednesday shouts after her.

“Yes, mom!”

Enid doubles back, staying dutifully within range of the clubhouse. After an unusually long stretch of silence, interrupted only by the odd and occasional chant of “Bees detect fear, bees detect fear!” from Enid, Wednesday casts Eugene another glance, and finds him watching her again, this time with a look of concentration on his face, his brow furrowed.

“Don’t make me ask you again.”

He doesn’t waste any time. “It’s scary, almost dying.” Wednesday stares at him. “Sometimes, even just walking by the edge of the forest to get to the hives scares me.”

“I’m not scared,” Wednesday argues.

Eugene peers up at her. He pushes up his glasses. “If you were, though, it would be okay.”

They don’t say anything while Wednesday struggles for words and Eugene pretends not to be waiting. In the distance, Enid approaches a hive, edging toward it slowly and jerking back with a cry again and again in some strange dance.

Wednesday isn’t afraid of dying; she’s known death all her life, would greet it at the end of everything, not as a friend, but as a familiar face – an old rival to whom she would only concede defeat after a respectable fight. But there is a part of her still—loud, large—that remembers Thing with four fingers in the grave, Eugene bloody and broken in that hospital bed. The icy chokehold fear had had on her when Wednesday hadn’t yet caught sight of Enid in the crowd last semester, and the hot, searing needles of relief when she finally had Enid in her arms.

At last, Wednesday says, “From now on, you’ll wait for me in the Quad when we have a club meeting. We’ll walk to the hives together.”

“We can practise the Hummers Handshake on the way!”

“No.”

“Then we can talk about our crushes on Enid!”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“She’s the queen bee,” Eugene says, ignoring her, “and we are her humble workers.” He huffs a lovelorn sigh.

“Stop talking, Eugene.”

“So Enid,” Eugene says casually at dinner a week later, “how are things with Ajax going?”

“Oh, uh.” Puzzled at the topic of conversation, Enid looks sideways at Wednesday, who doesn’t dare look up from her food. “Fine. We’ve been dating for a while now.”

“Dating for a while, dating for a while, okay,” Eugene repeats, nodding. “Been on any good dates? Like, really, really awesome dates?”

“I guess?” Enid picks at her salad, smiling at him hesitantly. From his spot in the middle of the table, Thing taps out a suggestion. “Yeah, Ajax took me to visit some of the nearby orchards for the spring fruit harvest. That was fun.”

“Oh wow. Wow, I wonder how Ajax came up with that.” Thing makes a fist in a thinking pose, playing along.

Wednesday stares at them.

Enid nods distractedly, tucking into her main course. “Yeah, it was kind of …” She stops, lifting her plate and looking around it. “That’s weird, I could have sworn I grabbed a knife.” Enid searches the table and her tray.

“How strange.” Wednesday cuts neatly into her own food without looking away from Eugene and Thing.

“Hold on, let me just go get another one. Be right back!” Enid heads toward the serving tables. They watch her go.

“If the two of you don’t stop,” Wednesday says evenly, Enid’s previously missing steak knife materializing in her hand to point at them, “I will cut you limb from limb, finger from disembodied finger.”

“We have no idea what you’re talking about.” Thing extends his thumb and pinky in agreement. “I just wanted to hear all about the amazing dates Ajax has taken Enid on.” Eugene grins widely. “If I ever want a shot with Enid, I have to learn from the best, right? As in, Ajax. And the amazing dates he takes Enid on.”

“I should never have told you a thing,” Wednesday grumbles, jabbing at her food.

“Come on, you were obviously dying to talk about it with someone!” Eugene protests. “I mean, someone other than Thing. Or are you more of a suffer-in-silence kind of person?” He squints at her, turning to Thing. “She does like suffering. The tragic hero that pines from afar,” he gushes effusively, “Enid’s brooding knight in shining black armour!” Thing snaps his fingers at that.

“They will never find your bodies,” Wednesday threatens, gagging on her nausea. Eugene and Thing titter together at her expense. “This—” she motions between the two of them, “—was a mistake.”

Eugene snickers, pushing his glasses up. “Anyway, I wanted to ask if you’re busy tonight. I was going to transfer some of the bees to the bigger hives.”

Before Wednesday can reply, Thing signs something at Wednesday, flourishing his fingers suggestively.

“‘Date night’?”

Wednesday whips around to look at the person who just spoke.

Yoko frowns down at Thing from where she’s standing. She joins them, taking the seat across from Enid’s and setting her dinner down. “Since when are you dating, Wednesday? I feel like I never would have heard the end of it from Enid.”

“I’m not. Isn’t that right, Thing?” Wednesday turns to him, knife held aloft, until he signs his assent.

“Okay …” Yoko directs her attention to her food, swilling her cup of blood slowly before taking a swallow.

“When did you even gain the ability to interpret what Thing is saying?” Wednesday asks her, tone unreasonably accusatory.

Yoko leans away from her and the knife she’s still holding, bemused. “I haven’t? I just picked up a word or two here and there. ‘Date’ and ‘nail polish’ and ‘Wednesday’ are literally the only things Enid and Thing ever talk about.”

“Oh, ‘literally’?” Wednesday mimics, turning to look at Thing again. He idly shifts closer to Eugene.

“Uh, okay.” While Yoko isn’t looking, Thing sends Wednesday a quick apology for not noticing Yoko, or realizing that she would understand him. Begrudgingly, she waves it away.

“Hey Yoko!” Enid takes her seat next to Wednesday again. With a flick of her wrist, Enid’s knife slips back up Wednesday’s sleeve. “What are you guys talking about?”

Eugene says, “Dating,” at the same time that Wednesday says, “Dismemberment.”

Enid nods slowly at that, shrugging as though it makes sense. She and Yoko make conversation about their days and some of the new gossip going around the school; Eugene chimes in occasionally, relaying some of the things his bees have told him, while Wednesday leafs through one of her notebooks.

She’s just about to take her leave to get away from the din of the dining hall when Enid looks down at her phone. “Oh!” She starts wolfing down the rest of her dinner. “I have to go! I promised Bianca that I’d help her hand out the new Morning Song pamphlets.” She mumbles something else around a mouthful of food.

“Sorry, did you just say with Lucas?” Yoko frowns. “Enid.”

“I know, I know. But I promise,” Enid hurries to say, looking directly at Wednesday now to head off any potential objections early, “I’m okay with it, and he’s different now, and Bianca says he’s different. Okay?”

“If he upsets you again—”

“Nail gun.” Enid grins when the corner of Wednesday’s mouth tugs upward.

Wednesday flattens it, pressing her lips together to hide her amusement. “Your penchant for forgiveness is a character flaw,” she says.

Enid looks at her, head tilting, a smile on her face. “I think it’s served me pretty well,” she says, and Wednesday remembers that week she spent alone in their room, how grateful she’d been at Enid’s return, at the allowances she and Enid both make for each other. She rolls her eyes, and Enid’s expression turns victorious. “Sorry to break it to you, Wednesday,” she says conspiratorially, speaking only to her, “but you’re stuck with me!”

“Yes,” Wednesday says, feeling distinctly unstitched, watching her pack up in a rush, “that much is becoming abundantly clear.”

Enid’s laughter trails after her, threatening to unravel Wednesday further, while the others look on in mild confusion. “See you back home for movie night!” she calls over her shoulder, skipping off to go meet with Bianca and Lucas.

They sit in silence for a moment, not moving. Suddenly, Yoko chokes around the lip of her cup, coughing and hacking up blood into her fist like a dying person. Wednesday can only hope.

Yoko claws at her throat, clearing it over and over. Eventually, her breaths calm, and she scoots closer to the table to hiss at them. Wednesday frowns in dismay.

“Wait, Enid?”

“Finally caught on, have you?” Wednesday snarks, trying and failing to fight the surge of colour she can feel creeping toward her face.

But Yoko, apparently past being intimidated by Wednesday—and oh, how Wednesday misses the days where some well-aimed eye contact could send a person running—merely ignores her, mouth curling into an infuriating smirk. Her eyes flit over to Eugene from behind her sunglasses. “Everything makes so much sense now.”

“The dates,” Eugene provides, gesturing with his fork and knife. Wednesday cuts him a glare. He responds with a winning smile.

“Seriously? Oh my god, I knew it! I knew something was going on when Enid started bringing them up!” Yoko laughs with entirely too much glee. “Love him, but Ajax would never have been able to come up with some of the elaborate shit she’s told me about.”

“And the shades in the bathrooms!”

“Oh my god,” Yoko says again. She turns to look at Wednesday, who is now staring daggers at Eugene. “That was for Enid?” Her eyes widen. “Because he stoned himself and missed their first date behind the greenhouse. Holy shit, that was ages ago.”

“It was an error that had to be rectified,” Wednesday says through gritted teeth. “The fool doesn’t even know what Enid’s favourite flowers are, how can he be trusted to handle his own bodily functions?”

Yoko simply stares at her. She exchanges looks with Eugene again, then turns to Thing, who throws up his fingers. “Why go through all that trouble? I mean, no offence, but you really don’t seem like the type to sacrifice your own, like—do you even experience happiness?—satisfaction for some random guy you don’t care about. Why not go after Enid yourself, instead of helping him?”

Wednesday almost laughs. “For Ajax? I’d happily throw him under a bus transporting a troop of Girl Scouts if the opportunity presented itself.” For a moment, she pictures it, looking into the middle distance and imagining the sweet screams of traumatized children, the beautiful carnage that would paint a masterpiece on the asphalt. The spectre of a smile steals across her face at the thought. Then, she sighs and says, “So long as it pleased Enid. There’s little I wouldn’t do to make her happy, including helping her hapless boyfriend do it himself. No, I wouldn’t sacrifice my own satisfaction for Ajax. But for Enid?” Wednesday turns her eyes back on her companions. “Her satisfaction is my own. Her happiness, the ends that justify these wretched means.”

Even Thing has stilled. After a while, Eugene breaks the silence and says, “I think my shot with Enid just dropped to zero percent.” He doesn’t sound very sad about it.

Yoko nods along slowly. “I can’t believe I used to be scared of you,” she says, before giving in to laughter. “You’re, like, a romantic. A self-sacrificial softy.” Wednesday directs a glare at her. Yoko raises her hands. “Okay, okay, maybe I’m still a little scared of you. But jesus. I think my heart almost started beating again.” She turns to Eugene. “I’m honestly rooting for them. Like, Enid totally deserves this insane level of devotion.”

“If it can’t be me waiting on her hand and foot, then at least it’d be a fellow Hummer,” Eugene agrees solemnly.

“Stop talking, Eugene.”

Enid and Ajax break up on a Wednesday.

Thing thinks it’s immeasurably funny.

Wednesday wonders what she did wrong.

She analyzes several weeks’ worth of interactions in her head, poring over each one involving Enid and her relationship with Ajax: her feelings, the pitch of her voice while recounting dates to Wednesday and Yoko, her reactions at Ajax’s occasional drop-ins during lunch or at their dorm. When these yield no results, Wednesday turns to her other memories of Enid: the surprising weekend she spent with Enid visiting a local cemetery, exchanging similar childhood stories about running with wolves; the rare afternoon Enid had skipped the rest of her classes to join Wednesday when she’d been following a lead on a poltergeist that had been terrorizing the Lupin cages; a night on their balcony when Wednesday had shown Enid the basics on her cello.

Enid had – has been in good spirits. Wednesday should have had some damnable vision, should have seen some sign that she and Ajax were on the outs, but the objective truth is that things with Enid have been stable, week over week. Even Thing, with his not-so-secret designs on Wednesday’s relationship with Enid, can’t deny it: Enid is happy, just as Wednesday has been ensuring the entire semester.

It’s a mark of just how good a job she’s been doing—and just how uneventful this second half of the school year has been, forgettable stalker notwithstanding—that the entire school seems to be talking about Enid and Ajax by lunchtime, even without the aid of Nevermore’s foremost gossip blog disseminating the news of their breakup. Wednesday is in her last class before the lunch period she shares with Enid—Ancient Aberrations, which Enid already took last semester—when no fewer than three of their friends text her about the development, despite the fact that Wednesday has yet to voluntarily share her cellphone number with anyone besides Enid herself.

The only reason Wednesday keeps her phone on her person at all is because Enid had insisted. Wednesday hadn’t understood the point of having a cellphone during the school year, especially when she and Enid spend the majority of the day together, and its only real use seems to be to receive nonsensical images and texts from Enid, who is usually less than five feet away.

She feels grateful for capitulating now. By the time the school bell rings, Wednesday is already out the door with her things packed, punching viciously at her phone and scrolling through frantic messages from Yoko and the others. She makes a beeline for the club room, where she and Enid had agreed to meet for lunch earlier in the day, paying the whispering students in the hallways no mind.

After five minutes, Wednesday texts Enid. She doesn’t wait as long the next time before texting her again and setting off to find Enid herself.

Wednesday checks their regular haunts, storming through the Quad with purpose under the silent and half-frightened eyes of her classmates; she scours the buildings that house their regular classes, circles their spot in the greenhouse at least a dozen times, and combs the woods and their room for clues. Wednesday’s only consolation is that Enid is probably still on or near campus; she has excellent control while wolfed out, but Enid would never endanger the humans of Jericho by leaving while the moon is so close to full in the sky.

Something must be wrong. The entire premise of their break-up doesn’t make sense, and no one seems to know where Enid is, or seems able to agree on exactly what happened – Wednesday doesn’t even know yet who instigated the termination of their relationship, or whether anything—namely, bodily harm—needs to be done to Ajax.

And Enid is still not answering her phone.

By the time Enid responds, the school day is already over, and Wednesday is prepared to torch the school and raze the earth around it to uncover her whereabouts. She replies to Wednesday’s many missed calls and pages of texts-turned-threats with a simple, sorry! will tell you all about it back home!

Wednesday might still be tempted to torch the school.

Enid is already in their room, lounging on her bed, when Wednesday bursts in approximately two minutes later, panting from having run all the way there.

“Enid Sinclair,” Wednesday says, standing menacingly on the threshold, shoulders heaving. Their door bangs against the wall, creaking weakly on its hinges. “You have ten seconds to explain yourself before I start pulling fingernails.” Thing slips in in-between her feet.

“Wednesday!” Enid’s face lights up. She stands, skipping to the centre of the room and blatantly ignoring Wednesday’s threat of torture.

“Five seconds.”

“Okay, so, here’s the thing,” Enid says, sighing and taking her time, unbothered. She waves Wednesday inside; after a few seconds—more than five—Wednesday takes a few steps into the room, letting the door swing closed behind her. “I swear, I didn’t plan any of it, it just sort of happened. Ajax and I were walking to our next class together, and he was asking me out to that new diner I mentioned to you a while ago, which—” Enid squints, “—we’re going to come back to that in a second. But he was talking, and I kind of just realized that it didn’t really matter to me anymore if it was a date? Or, I mean, I didn’t want it to be a date. And I didn’t think it was—” She grimaces. “Sorry, I know you’re not really interested in this sort of—”

“You’re mistaken,” Wednesday says. “Tell me everything.”

Enid blinks. “Well, I didn’t think it was fair to Ajax, so I asked him if we could talk, and then I broke up with him.”

“This doesn’t explain your absence. Or why you haven’t been answering your phone.”

“Aw, Wednesday, were you worried about me?” Enid asks sweetly, clasping her hands and fluttering her eyelashes. Thing bobs up and down in the affirmative from where he’s taken up residence in the spot Enid just vacated. Wednesday ignores him.

“Given that you’re obsessed with your phone to the point of soul-sucking excess, I concluded only something utterly terrible could have happened to you for it to have become unglued from your hand.” Wednesday rolls her eyes. “One might have reason to be … mildly worried. Thing was beside himself.” Thing throws his middle finger up at her.

“Aw, Wednesday!” Enid exclaims again, cooing. When Wednesday glares at her, she grins. “Sorry for answering so late. We took a walk and ended up back at the spot where we watched that meteor shower together a while ago, and we just talked for a long time. I think we’re still going to try the diner together, but just as friends!”

They stand in silence for a moment. Wednesday’s eyes narrow skeptically. “That’s it?” Enid nods cheerfully. “Unreliable gossipmongers,” she mutters, cursing herself for getting swept up by the rumours that had been circulating around the school about malicious petrifications and premature werewolf transformations.

“When I broke up with him, he was really nice about it, too,” Enid says, folding her hands behind her back and rocking back and forth on her heels. “He asked me if it was because I wanted to date you.”

Wednesday’s limbs lock up one by one, pinning her to the spot. They look at each other. At last, Wednesday speaks. “You know.”

“Just about the really obvious stuff,” Enid says all in a rush, like she’s been desperate to talk about it, wincing apologetically. “Actually, he was really honest about the flowers and the gifts and the other things you told him to do directly. It just made me wonder. But I think near the end, even Ajax started getting suspicious of the pre-planned date ideas just falling into his lap.”

“Ajax told you about the gifts?” Wednesday exchanges a disbelieving look with Thing. “Clearly, I miscalculated,” she mutters to herself, “he needs far more help courting you than I thought. If you’re amenable, this time around, I’ll coach him much more closely.” She motions for Thing to grab her notebook and pen. “Now that you know, the ruse is also no longer necessary, which will make things even—”

“Wednesday!” Enid interrupts, laughing. Thing, strangely, hasn’t moved to do as asked, still sat resolutely in his spot on Enid’s bed. Wednesday frowns at him, before focusing again on Enid. “It’s okay. No more … courting help. I don’t want to date Ajax anymore.”

Wednesday opens and closes her mouth several times. “He made you happy.” Enid hums in agreement. “Were the dates and gifts unsatisfactory?”

“No, silly, they were perfect. Really, thank you. You know me way too well.” When Wednesday shows no sign of understanding, Enid says, “We’re just better off as friends, you know?”

“Okay,” Wednesday says slowly. “Do you—are you in need of—” Wednesday presses her lips together. She tries again. “Will you be requiring a … post-breakup debrief, to process your … feelings. About Ajax.”

A smile finds its way gradually onto Enid’s face, growing wider and wider until her canines peak from between her lips, gleaming white and razor-sharp. “Wednesday, are you proposing we have a girls night? Like, an honest-to-god, eat-our-weight-in-ice-cream, talk-shit-about-our-exes and cry-into-each-other’s-shoulders girls night?”

Wednesday’s mouth twists in distaste. “I don’t recall offering …” She squints against Enid’s blinding smile. “That. Yes, that is exactly what I’m suggesting. That we do all of … that.”

Neither of them move or talk for three excruciating seconds, before Enid breaks. She laughs and laughs, curling in on herself and clutching her sides. “Sorry, sorry!” She pulls a face, trying and failing to hide her smile. “It’s fine, Wednesday. I’m really okay. It’s sweet of you to offer, though. Especially considering I’m pretty sure you literally might not survive the experience.”

Wednesday eyes her cautiously. Enid does seem okay, not nearly as broken-up about her split from Ajax as Wednesday thought she would be – as she had been when she’d been stood up, months and months ago. Once again, Wednesday thinks wistfully, it looks like there won’t be an opportunity for her to take her nail gun out.

She nods. “Thank you for sparing me an agonizing death,” she intones seriously. Enid laughs again.

“Anyway,” she says conversationally, “you’re probably glad you won’t have to plan those dates anymore.” Enid turns on her heel and moves to crouch in front of Thing, cocking her head to look at him. “You too, Thing. No more sneaking around and scheming. Although, knowing you, Wednesday, you might’ve actually enjoyed the scheming.”

Wednesday stares after her in disbelief. Her brow furrows. “Orchestrating perfect dates for you was hardly a hardship. If anything, it was the scheming that was the issue,” Wednesday murmurs.

Enid doesn’t turn back around. In fact, she doesn’t do anything for a long time. Over her shoulder, Thing pivots on the spot like a spider, looking from Enid to Wednesday and back again, waiting.

“Oh yeah?” Enid says without turning, her voice carefully light. “Was it hard to keep up or something? I guess it must have been annoying.”

“On the contrary,” Wednesday says, moving farther into the room and putting her things down, “it was a torment.”

Enid rises from the floor, finally turning to look at Wednesday. There’s a crease in her brow, and her mouth draws a flat line across her face.

“You … didn’t like planning the dates for me and Ajax.”

“No, I didn’t.” Thing makes a cutting motion at Wednesday from behind Enid’s back, signing rapidly at her. She raises an eyebrow, shaking her head at him once.

For a moment, Enid is deathly quiet. “Okay,” she says, eyes screwing shut, some brewing emotion underscoring her tone, “let me just … get this straight. You’ve been coming up with these gifts, and dates, and ideas for my relationship with Ajax for months, but you actually sort of hated doing it.”

“Exactly.”

“It wasn’t, like, something you were doing for fun? You aren’t actually super uncharacteristically into playing matchmaker? Like, it was actually the worst?”

“Utter torture,” Wednesday agrees, slightly bewildered by Enid’s determination to belabour the point.

Enid simply looks at her. She starts pacing, traversing the distance between their beds once, twice, three times, weaving with increasing urgency between their plants and flowers and the other things that have migrated into the space over time: Wednesday’s cello, some of Thing’s favourites among Enid’s stuffed toys; her murder-board, which now mostly contains a large calendar marked with their respective class schedules and extracurriculars, alongside movie suggestions and a smattering of clues from the latest mystery plaguing their school, each one connected by several lengths of Enid’s yarn, different colours denoting different meanings. When Enid comes to a stop, the emotion that had been straining her voice finally emerges.

“Why do all this for me then?” Enid purses her lips, torn between anger and anguish. “I didn’t ask to be a source of—of torment in your life, Wednesday! Do you think I want to be a burden—”

“Stop,” Wednesday interrupts immediately, putting an end to that line of thought. “You misunderstand me. You’re everything but a source of torment for me. I did those things because they amused you. Because you’re important. And because I care about you. Besides,” she says in a feeble attempt at levity, “you didn’t have to ask. That’s what friends do.”

Enid shakes her head, trying to make sense of it all. “Wednesday, I …” Her throat bobs visibly with a swallow. “I don’t understand,” she whispers, voice abruptly wet, and this is not what Wednesday wanted. Enid directs her gaze to the floor, letting her hair fall across her face, but not before Wednesday catches a glimpse of tears beginning to brim in her eyes.

The words leave Wednesday’s mouth without another thought. “I longed for it to be me. To be the one holding your hand, making you smile, making you laugh. Taking you star-gazing and giving you flowers – accompanying you on outings even as banal as going for coffee at the Weathervane. Orchestrating these dates for you was my great pleasure,” she says again. “The thought that it was Ajax who was able to do those things with you was the torment that blazed like cold fire in my lungs,” Wednesday confesses, breathing through the icy embers even now, “soothed only by the idea that you might be enjoying yourself. That you were happy.”

Silence falls over their room like the hush after an avalanche, as Enid sways on the spot, a look of stunned surprise on her face, and Wednesday waits. In the quiet, the sounds of the rest of Ophelia Hall winding down for the evening filter through the walls, the murmur of roommates discussing their days humming in the air, Yoko’s obnoxious music drifting in among the echoes of Wednesday’s admission.

“You …” Enid says slowly, “you wanted to …”

“As much as I admire Venus flytraps, Enid, I don’t think you’d enjoy catching flies.” Enid’s mouth snaps shut.

“I just—!” she splutters, and blood rushes into her face, rendering it a pale pink. “I didn’t think you could ever think about me like that – feel that way, not about me.”

Wednesday blinks, and something like frustration creeps into her voice. “Enid, I’ve thought of little else but you over the last semester.”

Enid’s cheeks darken further, the scars from her fight with Tyler standing out, a shade or two lighter than the rest of her face; Wednesday momentarily allows herself the impulse to stare. “I—I—semester, Wednesday—” She gapes at her, turning desperately to Thing for help. He shrugs, joints popping.

“When?” she finally asks. “When did you know?”

Embarrassment makes Wednesday avert her eyes. She crosses her arms. “Not from the beginning. The realization came … after. But my regard for you has not changed. Long before I found the words to describe it, this feeling had already consumed me.” Wednesday softens a degree. “You’re incredible.”

“I can’t believe—all this time … I could’ve—we could’ve—” Enid stops, apparently at a loss for words.

Across from her, Wednesday frowns. “He made you happy,” she says again.

“Yes, Wednesday, but you—” Enid stops, running her hands down her face with a groan. “You’re going to be the death of me.”

The corner of Wednesday’s mouth quirks. “How romantic.”

Enid stares at her. Her hands grip empty air, fingers curling and uncurling into fists, as though searching for a neck to throttle, and the thought nearly brings another smile to Wednesday’s face. She watches Enid slowly work the energy off, shaking her hands out and taking a calming breath.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“And jeopardize the delicate balance you’ve managed to achieve this past year? Enid, you’re …” Wednesday stops uncertainly, jaw working over the words.

It had been so easy, talking about this with Yoko and Eugene. But discretion was a non-issue then, and tact has never been Wednesday’s strong suit; it’s never mattered much to her before, more often wielded like a weapon in battle than embraced in the service of a friend. She looks over at Thing, who gestures for her to keep going. Wednesday breathes out.

“Unhappy,” she says at last. “Angry. So much of the time. It’s only recently that I’ve seen you … truly settle into the sort of happiness that you try so hard to affect. And perhaps that is thanks to Ajax, or maybe even my friendship had some small, precious part to play, but it is glorious, Enid. There is little else on this earth that matters so much to me as your happiness, and I wouldn’t let anything threaten that, especially not anything so inconsequential as my own—”

Wednesday stops talking, looking down at the space between them where Enid has taken hold of her hands.

“Is this okay?” Enid whispers.

Her fingers are trembling gently in the places where they’re touching, thumbs sweeping wildfire over Wednesday’s knuckles while she watches. Wednesday says, faintly, “Yes.”

“Your feelings, they aren’t inconsequential,” Enid says. “They matter, don’t they?”

Wednesday blinks once. She looks up at Enid, meeting her eyes, easy as anything, reading the sincerity on her face, the pure conviction in the set of her mouth. Persuasive, Wednesday remembers. “Okay.”

“I want it to matter,” Enid explains, “what we do next. I want us both to want it, not just because when I can get you to crack a smile, it’s the best feeling in the world,” she says, a tremulous smile of her own breaking like the sun across her face and sending a thrill down Wednesday’s spine, “or because you like to see me happy. I want us to decide together. I want it to matter.”

Wednesday nods, hanging on Enid’s every word. She feels the breathless way she does when she’s suspended in a vision, or standing at the edge of the cliff behind her family home—the toes of her shoes hanging over the brink, the entire world spread out before her in shades of blue—with all of the exhilaration but none of the danger, and finds herself not particularly minding the latter’s absence. She waits, not daring to speak.

Enid smiles at her. She closes her eyes for a moment, breathing in deep and letting the air from her lungs whoosh out of her in one big, shaky exhale, before opening them again, ocean-blue in the dark, and nodding decisively. She asks, “So, what do you want?”

“I want you, Enid,” Wednesday says at once, taking the plunge, her breath rattling like a ghost inside her chest. She moves one half-step forward and, matching Enid for honesty, her heart a sharp dagger lodged in her throat, adds, “To be with you.”

The end of the day has arrived in earnest, the sun low in the sky and turning their dorm into a study in contrasts. The week’s flowers—daffodils again—like pale yellow stars twinkling from the depths of their room and sitting on the cusp of colour and shadow, catch Wednesday’s eye, and she says, dreamily, “I want us to haunt each other for eternity.” Enid laughs in surprise at that, her face scrunching, cheeks flushed; Wednesday feels the way the muscles in her own face relax in reflex, and she voices a thought she’d scarcely let herself contemplate before now. “Could you want that, too?”

Beaming, Enid steps forward as well, leaning all the way in, so that, by the time she responds, they’re so close that Wednesday’s arms graze Enid’s stomach when Enid lifts their hands to press her lips to them – so close that Enid’s answer brushes like its own kiss against Wednesday’s mouth. More laughter spills out of her, shivery and dazzling and beautiful, and there’s the danger, now, thick in the air and looping tenderly around Wednesday’s neck.

In shadow, Enid’s eyes are bright, as though the last pinpricks of honeyed sunlight still seeping into their corner of the world have chosen them as final resting place; as home.

“I want you!” Enid says between bouts of delight, “I want us to haunt each other for eternity!”

What sweeter end, Wednesday thinks.