Chapter Text
Wednesday Friday Addams had visions that went in every direction: backwards and forwards, coming at her left and right all hours of the day. One time she’d even received a vision of a contemporaneous moment in what must have been an alternate universe where she had died and her identical twin who was either a ghost or a demon was puppeteering her limp flesh around. It seemed a violation of basic knowledge Wednesday held about her world, not just something that didn’t happen, but something that couldn’t have happened at all.
Maybe someday, Wednesday should write a letter to a quantum physicist, throw them a bone. After her novel, though.
The past was like old glass, solid enough to touch, sharp enough to cut, but murky and cloudy in a way that drove Wednesday up the wall when she was trying to psychometrically divine something for herself.
Conversely, the future was an ocean, vast enough to drown in but impossible to grasp fully – ironically the most unpredictable of all three – despite all of Wednesday’s abilities.
Wednesday’s budding powers gave her unique insights into all of this. And that was why she knew better than any boy scout, the essential nature of back up plans. Plural. The mechanical piranhas were actually plan F. Earlier iterations of her revenge even involved real carnivorous piranhas, but the pool was chlorinated – a rapid death sentence to any freshwater or saltwater fish – and there wasn’t any good way of ensuring the animals’ rapid attack anyway, not without extensively starving them.
The window of time for a successful revenge plot was closing. Her first plan could have been perfectly described as efficient overkill, but it ended with a punishment she would not be able to tolerate. An imprisonment that Wednesday didn’t need to see in its entirety to know it would strip her of her preferred autonomy for a lot longer than its purported duration. Too bad, really, she’d been quite a way into Plan B before her psychic abilities deigned to show her where it would land her. She’d have to find another project some time in the future that required several dozen gallons of sulfuric acid.
So. Piranhas.
Wednesday had some engineering knowledge, but not enough to design and manufacture an entire school of rabid fish before the end of the semester, let alone the end of the week. Luckily, she was not deficient in family members who were to the field of engineering what her mother was to the field of carnivorous botany.
Two of her Uncle Fester’s best qualities were his unconventional expertise and his enduring reluctance to ever ask any questions. He exercised both in great quantities as he designed her fish for her, scrawling last-second alterations over the top of what had apparently been at some point a deep-sea nautical drone. The red ink from the multiple classified stamps clashed unerringly with the bright blue paper until it was covered over with Fester’s black ink corrections. Once she had the first one, Fester was gone again, back out into the big, Addams-less world.
It was easy to hide herself away in Fester’s laboratory. His departure had been loud and no one thought to investigate what they thought was an empty, abandoned room. Wednesday knew her storied history with revenge schemes meant her parents were keeping a closer eye on her, so the carefully soundproofed walls provided a perfect haven in which to conceal herself from their scrutiny, as well as closely examine the way the prototype fish and its controller had been put together.
Turning one fish into eight was something completely within Wednesday’s considerable capacity. Yes, Fester would have been able to complete it within a fraction of the time, but she was no longer a child, she didn’t need her beloved uncle to complete her revenge plans for her.
Wednesday was never sure about her powers, were they as much a part of her as her eyes, or was her psychic ability simply a connection to a greater power that knew all and revealed little? It was frustrating, she didn’t know who to direct her rage at that she had not been forewarned that the punishment for Plan F had been Nevermore.
She should have stuck with the acid.
Enid wasn’t a capital P Problem. She was a little tactile for Wednesday’s preferences, but while the blonde was scared by Wednesday’s casual references to double homicide, she was not scared off. Wednesday wasn’t sure why someone so painfully pink was so eager, almost desperate, for Wednesday’s attention and acquaintanceship. The other girl hadn’t blinked when Wednesday brought up her mother, so hopefully Enid wasn’t about to launch an ‘our mothers were the closest of friends’ shaped projectile her way.
“Welcome to the quad!” Enid chirped; arms spread wide like a performer. Wednesday wished she could pay the price of admission to get out of this three-ring circus.
The brief high of telling Enid that she was in the presence of a double killer had faded as fast as the girl’s grin had returned. “It’s a pentagon.” Wednesday deadpanned back at her, unimpressed by the amenities.
The school was a literal castle, and yet the gathering space was relatively small and rather unkempt. There was a dead tree in the middle of the green, but it looked more like a case of chronic neglect than poisoning. Was this what the once-great Wednesday Addams had been reduced to? Getting excited over the possibility of investigating a tree murder by poisoning? That really was tragic, virtually Grecian.
It seemed like most of the students gathered were close to Wednesday’s age, so she concluded that those significantly older and younger must spend time elsewhere on the campus, she didn’t care enough to ask where though.
“The whole snarky goth girl schtick might’ve worked at normie school, but here things are different.” Enid asserted unconvincingly, and Wednesday felt irritation squirm deep in her belly. “Let me give you a wiki on Nevermore’s social scene.”
Wednesday may have never been to an all-outcast school, but every co-ed high school was fundamentally the same. Even with all her fiction author experience, it was hard for Wednesday to imagine that Nevermore would be substantially different in any way. Trying to blow off her new roommate with a quick, “I’m not interested in participating in tribal adolescent cliches,” Wednesday spoke flatly, her voice dry as the Sahara, feeling much less generously inclined towards Enid.
“Participate. Don’t participate. Makes no difference to me. You seem like the kind of girl who appreciates information, but if you like going in blind, that is all up to you.” Enid’s placid expression cracked slightly as her smirk shone through.
Wednesday took a step back, not really recoiling from her roommate, but retreating to get a clearer glimpse of the bigger picture, like one of those Impressionistic artworks that were all smudges up close. Enid had hidden depths, and not-so-hidden talons. Wednesday might have had a matching disdain for Enid’s aesthetics as Enid had for hers, but she did appreciate Enid’s backbone.
Something in the creases forming makeshift parentheses around Enid’s smile, the placement of her eyes a solid distance from her hairline, reminded Wednesday of Evie Lynn. A peer of hers from school two-of-eight of which Wednesday no longer remembered the name of (A lie, it was Vanguard’s Institute for the gifted; the welcome packet was still in the back of her wardrobe). Evie Lynn hadn’t been scared of Wednesday, but Wednesday hadn’t been at the school long enough for her to have made an overture of friendship for Wednesday to reject. Leaving Vanguard had not been her fault, so the emotions of regret that thinking about it brought up in her were illogical and easily swallowed back down.
Wednesday’s respectful nod seemed to pacify her new acquaintance. Enid didn’t have any reason to give her any valuable information, especially without requesting anything in return, and Wednesday wasn’t about to offer anything up of her own accord – she wasn’t even sure how valuable Enid’s intel would end up being.
“Thank you!” Enid chirped, “I run a blog actually; I know all the gossip from basically the whole town, so if there is other stuff you might want to know about in the future, you could subscribe!” The words were overeager in the blonde’s mouth, but her offer was bright and genuine in a way that was not often directed at Wednesday. Ah, so her new roommate was eager to make a friend and twice as eager to please. That might make her equally as vulnerable as she was well-informed.
Maybe Wednesday had finally encountered some good luck – it was galling that she was at the point of needing any luck at all but desperate times, desperate measures – Enid might work as an accomplice for her plans to leave Jericho, willingly or otherwise.
“Uh, okay.” Wednesday spoke firmly, trying very hard not to sound like she was dragging each word out with nothing but brute strength. She seriously considered that she might have to rehearse this sort of casual chatter in private before her next attempt to ingratiate herself to Enid more proactively.
“There are many flavours of outcasts here, and I won’t insult you by implying that you wouldn’t know all the classes of outcasts already. But there are four main cliques here, you know, outcasts of a feather flock together.” Wednesday wondered briefly if Enid practised her monologue in the mirror, and if her rehearsals would interfere with Wednesday’s writing time in their upcoming period of reluctant cohabitation. “The biggest groups on campus are the Fangs, Furs, Stoners and Scales. There are a few ghosts somewhere, but they’re more closed ranks than anyone else.”
Wednesday mentally categorised which of the groups currently visible to her were which, taking a moment to wonder if psychics, telepaths, sorceresses and fae were particularly rare within the stone walls of Nevermore and its fake sense of community – or if those outcast classes just didn’t alliterate as nicely. The ones messing around with the fountain hydrokinetically were clearly sirens; the ones attempting to impersonate a fire alarm at the top of their lungs were likely werewolves.
“Some of the Fangs, uh, vampires have been at Nevermore for decades; they’re really good to have around because the library system is not Dewey decimal, and no one can really remember what goes where.” There was a momentary pause, “I bet they know the answers to recycled pop quizzes too, but none of them will admit to anything.” Enid’s blue eyes narrowed with a surprising amount of genuine annoyance.
Wednesday raised one eyebrow, even more reluctantly impressed, but Enid seemed to take it as censure of some kind.
“Hey! I failed out of Extradimensional Geography last semester! I know Yoko has taken it at least twice! Now I have to take it again!” Enid sounded defensive but not sorry. Wednesday could appreciate that. She watched the vampire who must be Yoko wave slightly at Enid from a small group standing under white parasols on the colonnade directly facing where they were standing, and it was returned with much less enthusiasm. This unfriendly fall out must be why she was so desperate for human connection.
“Anything else you want to tell me?” Wednesday asked, as perfectly calm and unaffected as she could, though she was self-aware enough to know she was speaking a little faster than she normally would be. She was reluctantly eager.
There was a slight pause in the conversation as the werewolves howled again, their human vocal folds cracking at the force behind the wall of noise. Even Enid winced.
“Well, because there are so many of us werewolves, full moons get pretty loud around here. I’ll let you borrow a pair of my noise-cancelling headphones until you can buy a pair of your own. I don’t think my bedazzled set will match your whole look, but you’re not sleeping without them.”
Wednesday wondered absently for a single moment about why Enid, a fellow wolf, would own enough pairs of noise-cancelling headphones to be able to lend one to Wednesday for the foreseeable future. Then, just like with most questions she had about other people, it faded rapidly.
She watched an angelically beautiful Siren gaze doe eyed at a scruffy boy who was being far too cautious to be accidentally avoiding her wintery eyes. Wednesday was momentarily captivated by the iridescent scales glittering across the Siren’s extremities that were currently exposed to the water of the fountain. She must have paused for a touch too long in the conversation because Enid looked over and caught her staring.
“That hot girl, Bianca Barclay, is the closest thing Nevermore has to royalty. Although, her crown’s been slipping lately. She’s dating our resident tortured artist, Xavier Thorpe,” Enid paused to nod at the scruffy boy in question, “but they’ve had like five spats just since the beginning of the semester. There’s a whole bet thing going on to guess if and when they’re breaking up! The boy next to her is Rowan. He’s Xavier’s roommate but they never really hung out, ever. Bianca’s like, adopted him. If she’s the court’s queen, he’s her little jester.”
“He chose her over his own roommate who he has to see every single day?” Wednesday said, sensing tension, and watching a careful few seconds of the jester’s interactions with his queen. “That seems incredibly shortsighted. Is he incapable of seeing the immediate and immense drawbacks of that decision through the haze of his pubescent lust?”
“I don’t think that’s it,” Enid said slowly, “Anyone else and yes, but Rowan is weird with girls. His mother died several years ago, and he’s never gotten over it even a little. Like you wouldn’t expect him to be fine, but it’s beyond… just beyond. He’s called every teacher at Nevermore ‘Mom’ at least twice. Even Weems. Even the men!”
Rowan was wan, looking like he hadn’t slept more than a few hours a night for a period of time far longer than a week. He vibrated like an agitated bird from his perch next to Bianca, evidently over-caffeinated and anxious. His glasses gave him an odd, almost owlish look, and he was almost comically out of place amongst the glittering glamorousness of the sirens.
“Fascinating.” Wednesday drawled, bored already.
“I know, right? My blog is, like, the number one source for Nevermore gossip.” Wednesday didn’t know how her sarcasm had backfired so sharply as to have actually encouraged Enid, so she said nothing.
There was a frisson of electricity across Wednesday’s skin like ripples across a pond. Like heat and adrenaline all at once.
Someone was watching her.
Subtly, Wednesday glanced from side to side, trying to figure out who it was, but she couldn’t see anyone openly staring. Probably just a nosy tween gaping at the shiny new goth girl. Instead, she suddenly caught the edge of a chiselled jaw, a boy her age or a little older, not someone young and starry eyed. He was tense, watching her from a nearby corner of the five-pointed quad, but then he seemingly forced himself to relax, approaching with a measured gait that was too even to be incidental. He was at Enid’s side within moments.
“Yo, Enid! You’re not gonna believe the dirt I heard about your new roommate! She eats human flesh!” Ah, so he hadn’t been bravely approaching her despite his apprehension, he’d been locked onto Enid and hadn’t even really noticed Wednesday at all, angled slightly behind her roommate as she was. “Totally chowed down on that kid she murdered. You better watch your back.” A curious serpent emerged from the gorgon’s beanie, tasting the air eagerly.
Wednesday should figure out who was spreading such delicious lies on her behalf. She hadn’t even been here half a day. She needed to thank and then scalp them in quick order as recompense for their unrequested services.
Enid took a large step backwards, revealing Wednesday to the gorgon’s now-horrified gaze.
“Quite the contrary. I actually fillet the bodies of my victims, then feed them to my menagerie of pets,” Wednesday lied without a single flicker of guilt, watching the snake retreat quickly to the safety of the garish blue knitted cap as if that single layer of nylon yarn could either hold Wednesday back, or protect the little serpent.
“Ajax, this is my new roommate, Wednesday,” Enid introduced her cautiously, giving him the most obvious and emphatic ‘fucking behave’ eyes that Wednesday had ever borne witness to.
Eyes as wide as he could probably physically make them, Ajax gasped out a “Whoa. You’re in black and white. Like a living Instagram filter!” before Enid cut him off. Wednesday firmly reminded herself to avoid this specific gorgon in the future.
“Ignore him, gorgons spend way too much time getting stoned,” Enid told her as she physically pushed Ajax away and turned her back on him. Maybe Wednesday should be avoiding all gorgons in the future, when she could.
“He’s cute, but clueless.” So, Enid and Wednesday could both agree on one of those factors but were predisposed to disagree on the other. Ajax’s stupidity would eternally overshadow any other potentially positive trait he could hold.
“You know, it’s a small school. And there wasn’t much online about you.” Without waiting for a response, Enid continued rabidly, “Oh, you know, you should really get on Insta, Snapchat and TikTok.”
“I find social media to be a soul-sucking void of meaningless affirmation,” Wednesday shot her down before turning with an about face to stalk away, but she paused at hearing Enid’s retort.
Under her breath, Enid muttered a quick, “Should have been able to guess at that obviously bottomless pit of disdain. Suit yourself.”
Wednesday wasn’t totally sure what her parents were doing while she herself was touring the ‘quad’ and then hiding in an out-of-order disabled toilet for a few hours, but soon enough some efficient, officious aide of Weems’ found her and ushered her to the front of the school where her nuclear family were all waiting to say goodbye to her. She let her frustration boil over a little, imagining how crestfallen they would be to find that what she’d been saying all along was perfectly true. This pubescent penitentiary would never be able to hold her, and soon she’d be free not just of its stone walls, but of her parents’ surveillance and expectations. Only another Addams could really be expected to contain her, and Lurch would be taking them all with him when he left. She’d even jammed closed Thing’s trapdoor before they’d departed the manor, and she was reasonably sure her handiwork hadn’t even been discovered yet, let alone undone.
There was an awkward, fruitless, stuttering noise, and for a waif-thin moment, Wednesday thought it was coming from her car. A preposterous thought, really, Lurch was far too careful at checking over the vehicle to ever allow it to get to a spluttering state.
A look around revealed two teens peering uselessly into the bonnet of a red sedan, parked awkwardly at the edge of the drive, like the driver had managed – with nothing but grit – to make it a few feet before the engine refused to proceed. Neither of them were wearing the Nevermore uniform, but one of them might have been Enid’s wayward friend, Yoko, patting the roof of the car encouragingly like it was a particularly stupid dog and urging the driver to “Try again! Try again!”
“Look at you, my little deathtrap,” Wednesday’s father said, draping a heavy arm around her shoulder and bringing her attention back to her more immediate surroundings. “Seeing you in this uniform brings back so many terrible memories. Doesn’t it, Tish?” Wednesday wondered for the briefest, tiniest of moments if either of her parents had worn custom monochrome uniforms during their time at Nevermore. All the photographs they had of their time as students were either black and white or faded sepia, and Wednesday had never thought of the question before, never been bothered enough to ask.
Either way, Wednesday was pretty sure she wouldn’t survive much more fond reminiscing over their long-past terrible memories of meeting at Nevermore on their very first day and falling in instant, soppy love.
“Yes. Why don’t you boys wait in the car? Wednesday and I need a moment.” Morticia spoke with the sort of faux casualness that meant there really wasn’t much of a choice here for any of them. It was easy to think over how it must have been watching Miss Frump, recent graduate, help out as an emergency botany teacher on this very campus.
Wednesday patiently endured a side squeeze from her father and a full body embrace from Pugsley. Despite the fact that he was larger than her both in the vertical and horizontal axes, he grunted audibly from the effort in his attempt to make their farewell hug a painful experience for her. It was a thoughtful, if fruitless, gesture.
Wednesday tried not to think about how she’d felt finding out her brother had been imprisoned in his own locker for more than three hours, the stiff pain in his jaw as it was clasped around that bright red apple, the terror in her own throat at hearing he’d missed all of his morning classes when she’d known he’d arrived at the school at the same time she had. “Pugsley, you’re soft and weak. You’ll never survive without me. I give you two months, tops.” Be safe, she didn’t bother to add.
“I’m gonna miss you, too, sis,” Pugsley told her, and it was hard to know if the pain in his eyes really counted as sisterly-inflicted torture or not. They’d never spent very long apart, by virtue of their narrow age gap, so this would be a substantive change for both of them. Wednesday didn’t even have to try to prevent the unusual emotions from surfacing on her facial features, which obediently remain placid, but the fact that she was feeling at all was an embarrassment – if only to herself.
“Any plans you have of running away end right now. I’ve alerted all family members to contact me the minute you darken their doorstep.” Morticia’s voice dropped to a mere whisper for dramatic effect. “You have nowhere to go.” Wednesday took a moment to imagine what Morticia’s intended effect was, a feeling of helplessness, reluctant surrender, awe at being outmanoeuvred so early in the game. Unfortunately for her mother, she felt none of those things.
Wednesday crossed her arms, determined to convey her sincerity to her eternally light-hearted mother, “As usual, you underestimate me, Mother. I will escape this educational penitentiary, and you will never hear from me again.” Wednesday had fought not just against her parents but against her entire family’s wishes for her to attend Nevermore for years, and it was equal parts frustrating and galling that it had all come to absolutely nothing. The humiliation of her starched collar rubbed at her sensitive throat.
Morticia’s pained sigh cut through the threat, “You are a brilliant girl, Wednesday, but sometimes you get in your own way.” As always, Morticia thought the best way, the only way, was the way paved by her. An endless, neatly groomed road where life was a song and Morticia ruled over all with her endless perfection.
Wednesday glared, beyond exhausted at her mother’s refusal to see their differences, and only ever highlighting the – admittedly many – ways in which the two of them were similar.
“I’m sure you’ll grow to love Nevermore, and find it as life-changing as I did,” Morticia told her, eyes misty with memories of a long-faded past kept alive only through an unending rota of anecdotes that Wednesday and Pugsley had grown up on.
“Oh, I got you a little something,” Morticia said, holding out a silver locket, edged with tiny black stones glittering even in the muted sunlight. Embossed on the front was a capital W. It was old, but not antique, used but not significantly worn in any way. “See, it’s a W but also an M. Our initials. It doesn’t open anymore, jammed since before I was born. The perimeter jewels are all obsidian, Aztec priests used gems just like these, in this configuration, to conjure visions. It symbolises the connection between us, made evident through our powers.”
The reveal that her mother knew about her abilities, probably had known for weeks, if not months or, hecate-forbid, the whole time, was just insult to injury.
“Which one of your spirits suggested this toe-curling tchotchke?” Wednesday bit, feeling immediately bitter at the revelation.
Morticia looked wounded in return. Finally, a crack in the façade. Just like within a fencing match, Wednesday advanced in on her opponent’s visible weakness.
“I’m not you, Mother. I will never fall in love, or be a housewife, or have a family.” Wednesday made sure to speak with conviction, as well as the disdain – which came naturally at the mere thought of following perfectly in her mother’s footsteps, each imprint mapped out for her so perfectly that when someone else looked back all they’d ever see were Morticia’s impressions, like Wednesday had never even existed in the first place.
“I’m told girls your age say hurtful things, and I shouldn’t take it to heart.”
“Fortunately, you don’t have one.”
“Finally, a kind word for your mother.” Morticia gestured dramatically behind her at their butler, her long sleeves aiding the graceful movement. “Lurch, the crystal ball, please.”
Morticia held the crystal ball out to Wednesday, “We can’t talk to you for the first week while you’re settling in, so we’ll call you next Sunday.” Hopefully, Wednesday would be long gone by then. “But before then?” Morticia asked, “Please keep in mind that your father and I have a…rather intense and somewhat sordid history with both the current town Sheriff and the Mayor, as well as Weems herself. I don’t think I’ll have to ask anyone for them to keep a nice and close eye on you!”
With that final victory, and without sufficient time for Wednesday to even respond with one of her sudden deluge of questions, Morticia swept elegantly into the backseat of the family car where her brother and father were waiting.
Wednesday watched her family hearse peel away, leaving just the two other teenagers alternatively shouting at and beseeching the car to start. She turned to leave, but at the last second she walked over. She wasn’t eager to return to her rainbow-lit dorm until she absolutely had to, and if she was lucky there might be something unusually configured in the mechanisms of the old car that could provide her with a few valuable minutes of entertainment.
The teenage boy was one she was perfectly sure she’d never seen before. He had a veritable halo of curls, styled messily in a way that must have taken at least an hour to upkeep, each glossy tendril too perfectly formed and fallen to be totally natural. He was tall, too, not just taller than Wednesday, which wasn’t a high bar, but also tall enough to tower over Perhaps-Yoko, who was much closer to an average height for their collective age than Wednesday.
Coincidentally, just as she decided to approach, the teens leaned their heads together, holding the car manual at an odd angle as though they were attempting to decode some ancient, lost language. The girl pointed emphatically at something on the page and asked, “What if we tried with the key just one more time?” which earned her only a dubious-sounding scoff in return. When they finally admitted defeat on comprehending the page and lowered it, she was waiting for their attention directly in their eyeline.
Both of them started in surprise, flinching away from her, the man with a low “Holy crap!” and the girl with a high-pitched scream that echoed rather pleasantly off of the stone architecture.
“Do you make a habit of scaring the hell out of people?” the boy said defensively, stepping forward as though Wednesday was going to physically attack his friend. “Look, if you’re here for a shuttle ride into town, you’re in the wrong place. I’m not interested in being an Uber driver even if I could take you anywhere.” It was clear that the two strangers were close, possibly even in a romantic fashion – Wednesday couldn’t even lie to herself that she had the ability or inclination to be able to detect that sort of thing without actively witnessing the couples’ tongues in each other’s mouths.
“It’s more of a hobby,” Wednesday said spookily, ready to cut her losses and return to the quad. Maybe she could find Enid’s gorgon again and frighten him.
The girl, who Wednesday was now very nearly certain was Yoko, cracked up with laughter, showing a hint of fangs through her smiling mouth and stopping the boy in his tracks. “You’re the new student? Enid’s roommate? It’s Wednesday, right? I love that black uniform on you!”
Wednesday didn’t get a chance to respond to either the laughter or the comment on her appearance before the teenage boy turned back to his car with a dismissive, “I’m Tyler. Look, it’s nice to meet you, I guess, but I need to get my car working. It’s an emergency. This is just the worst fucking time for it to be having a seizure.”
“What’s wrong with your car?” Wednesday asked.
As if to illustrate, Tyler leaned over through the open window of the driver’s seat and tried to turn the key in the ignition once more, “It’s been chronically neglected for years and now it’s expressing its pent-up frustration at an incredibly inconvenient moment. Doesn’t help that the manual was printed before I was born and seemed to have spent time being stored in a whole jug of motor oil.”
“It’s the starter stuck on the flywheel of the car,” Wednesday told him. She was reasonably sure based on the sound alone and was ready to proceed as though she was perfectly confident.
“I kn—” Tyler had clearly been prepared to snap, before actually registering what it was that she’d said. “It is? You don’t even need to see the manual?” He held out the stained paper like a peace offering, which Wednesday completely ignored. Even current, comprehensive, contemporary manuals weren’t a replacement for practical mechanical knowledge and experience.
“What I need is a crowbar.” Wednesday told Yoko, who delicately handed her a large wrench, like she was scared the surface of the dirty tool was somehow contagious and was trying to let it touch her skin as little as possible. It wasn’t clear if a wrench was all that they had, or if Yoko didn’t know what a crowbar actually looked like and was taking a guess. Wednesday gave her the crystal ball in exchange.
“Turn the key again.” Wednesday said, pointing emphatically at Tyler with the business end of the wrench. He either had so much faith in her, or so much desperation in the situation that instead of leaning in, he got into the driver’s seat and did up his seatbelt. As he tried again to start the engine, Wednesday tapped the starter motor gently with the edge of the wrench until the car purred to life.
“Yes!” Tyler called, shifting the car gear to leave. “I’d love to stay and chat, I’ve never met another Nevermore kid willing to get their hands dirty, but I’m going to be so, so late for work already. But I promise, Wednesday, I’ll get you back later! Also, I’m actually—, ugh, no time. Catch you later though! Bye, Yoko!” He smiled out the driver’s window with a devastating half grin, guaranteed to set the heart of any teen girl all aflutter with its roguish, nonthreatening charm. Luckily, Wednesday, having no metaphorical heart at all – only a physical one – was perfectly immune.
With that, he peeled away, driving significantly over the posted speed limit, before Wednesday could even demand he pay her back by calling her a taxi.
Next to her, Yoko made a terrified whimper of a noise, “Oh shit, I am so late for…uh…Library Club, Bianca’ll kill me. I gotta go too, great to meet you though, Wednesday!” Yoko shoved the crystal ball none too delicately into Wednesday’s arms before bolting back into the school, leaving her alone.
Finally.