Chapter Text
Grave Error
Six days ago, Wednesday Addams had nearly surrendered to the peace she’d always imagined death would bring. She would have, if Enid Sinclair hadn’t dragged her back with a burst of reckless courage that still sat hot in her thoughts. Saving her came at a cost, and now Enid was trapped in a shift that wouldn’t release her. It was one thing to owe someone. It was another, far less manageable burden, to feel the lack of them. Whatever this thing between them was, that choice had already made one grave refuse her. She had no intention of letting it keep Enid instead.
They rolled to a stop beside a gas pump that, in Wednesday’s opinion, should have been condemned and buried. Rust had eaten through the metal, the last of the paint clinging in tired flakes. It looked as exhausted as she felt. Fester, of course, was delighted. He swung his leg over the seat, chuckling, and patted the fuel tank.
“She goes through fuel faster than I go through lightbulbs,” he said, removing the cap.
Wednesday didn’t respond. Indulging him required energy she had no intention of wasting. She stayed in the sidecar, the hard shell of it holding her still while the scent of gasoline pooled around her. She breathed it in, letting the bite drag along her throat. Better to feel that than the hollow ache clawing at her chest. If she focused on the burn, she might quiet what kept straining toward the surface. She already knew which memory refused to stay down.
It wasn’t the moment Enid ran that haunted her but the look in her eyes beforehand, sorrow edged with something disturbingly like relief. A brief, trembling conflict caught in a single glance, a mute apology in the way Enid’s body braced as though torn between staying and fleeing. She tried to stop there, to hold it at that single frame.
Metal bit down on metal with a single clunk, cutting across her fixation as Fester locked the cap back into place. The sound severed the memory mid-frame and hauled her into the present. With it came the realisation that Enid had taken up residence in her thoughts again. It didn’t surprise her. Keeping Enid out had been a losing battle long before that night. Letting that truth spread would only slow her down.
She rose from the sidecar in one smooth push. Her boots met the concrete with a muted thud, the sound oddly small in the open space. She tugged her coat into place and surveyed the forecourt. Up ahead, Fester ambled toward the station with a tuneless hum, oblivious to the tension wired through her spine.
She started toward the door, then halted mid-step as a charge pricked along her nerves. Static wound itself over her fingers and up her arms, a steady crawl that ended in a lift of fine hairs along her neck. A scent drifted in, threaded so lightly through the air she might have missed it if she weren’t already attuned to every disturbance. It was the unmistakable signature of Larissa Weems.
Wednesday turned, unsurprised to find exactly the ghost she’d expected. Weems stood a few paces away, not a trace of death on her. Every line of her looked crisp and immaculate, from the fall of her tailored coat to the narrow gleam of light along her hair. Only at the outline of her body did a faint shimmer give her away, a distortion tracing the boundary between what she had been and whatever she was now. Weems tilted her head, fixing Wednesday with the keen, assessing stare that had once ruled Nevermore’s halls.
Of all the spirit guides the universe could have inflicted upon her, it selected her former headmistress. It seemed even the afterlife had a sense of cruel humour.
“I hope there is a purpose to this visit.”
“There is. Call it a welfare check, if that makes it more tolerable.”
Wednesday folded her arms across her chest. “My welfare is stable. My visions are not. Since they seem to fall under your jurisdiction, I suggest you take it up with yourself.”
Weems smoothed an invisible wrinkle from her sleeve before she met Wednesday’s eyes again. Discomfort tightened her posture, slight but impossible to miss. Wednesday took note of it with a thread of satisfaction. Watching people squirm remained one of the few pleasures she allowed herself.
“Tell me,” Weems said, “did you try what I suggested? Letting the feelings in rather than resisting them when the visions come?”
“I tested your hypothesis,” Wednesday replied. “The only clear outcome was a headache.”
Her last brush with the sight had left her with questions she disliked. It only made her more determined to keep it to herself. In it, a woman sat with her back turned, white hair falling in a straight curtain to her waist, a crown of pale flowers woven through it in a pattern Wednesday could have picked out even from the yellowed edge of an old photograph. She had never met Aunt Ophelia. Her mother’s sister had been gone for two decades. Which meant either her visions were finally breaking, or Aunt Ophelia’s disappearance was never what they claimed. A two-decade absence could keep its secrets for now; her attention belonged to the promise lodged much closer to her chest—and, regrettably, to enduring Weems’ dissection of her psyche a little longer.
“Your problem isn’t power, Wednesday. It’s suppression. A seer’s sight draws from more than just the mind.”
If Weems saw the tension that flickered across her face, she didn’t gloat.
“Think of it as being an antenna receiving a message,” Weems said, wriggling her fingers in a vague imitation of radio waves. “Close yourself off, and the signal weakens until all you hear is static.”
She clasped her hands behind her back. Concern settled in her eyes, the kind Wednesday had never learned how to meet.
“That’s why your visions are turning on you,” Weems continued. “The black tears, the pain, all of it. It’s resistance. Your mind reaches forward, but the part of you that refuses to admit what it feels drags you back.”
Her reaction stuttered, caught between the urge to bark out a laugh and the urge to gag. Being prescribed extra emotion when she already felt saturated lodged at the back of her throat. She cleared it with a slow inhale and the practiced lie of neutrality.
“So feelings are the price of clarity. How unfortunate for me.”
If Weems heard the sarcasm, so be it. It was the only honesty Wednesday felt like offering. She leaned over the sidecar and yanked at a loose strap on one of Fester’s overstuffed satchels, grateful for an excuse to aim her attention anywhere but Weems’ stare. The buckle fought her, clicking awkwardly then gave way with a thin, brittle snap. Cheap plastic split down the centre, the jagged edge catching the light and her irritation. She went still, studying the damage. She had meant to look composed, untouchable, to hold to the weaponised calm she relied on—not advertise a crack in her control by breaking mass-produced hardware. She shoved the strap back into place anyway. The broken edge scraped her thumb, a small sting she welcomed; pain grounded her far better than whatever conversation Weems thought they were having.
The satchel refused to sit straight after that. No matter how she adjusted the strap, the weight leaned to one side, crooked in a way that felt personally offensive. Of course it did. The universe seemed determined to broadcast instability through the most mundane objects. She wiped her thumb against her skirt harder than necessary and slammed the satchel flat against the floor of the sidecar. The motion came out sharper than she intended, betraying just how tightly strung she was.
“How goes the search for Miss Sinclair?” Weems asked from behind her. She softened the name, edging it with a note Wednesday recognised and rejected. She didn’t want that from Weems, or from anyone. Pity was for the helpless. She refused to be that. She kept her back to Weems and her eyes on the forecourt, the wind worrying the ends of her braids.
“Progressing,” she said. “Uncle Fester and I are going to see Cousin Itt. He has things that may prove useful.”
“Things,” Weems repeated. “That word rarely bodes well when your family is involved.”
Wednesday turned to meet her gaze, eyes dark and steady. “Perhaps not,” she said. “But I’m willing to risk it. Itt has access to texts and relics that might hold something on alpha transformations.”
Weems drew breath, clearly ready to deliver a lecture, but a dull thump spared Wednesday the trouble of hearing it. The sound hit from the back of the vehicle. Wednesday turned toward the trunk. It quivered once, then again, harder. The latch jumped under the strain and the metal gave a short, strained creak. One corner of her mouth climbed into a faint smirk as the next blow landed from inside.
“Thing.”
She walked toward the trunk at an unhurried pace, watching it shake with each frantic thump. She took a certain satisfaction in letting him thrash a little longer. Wednesday slid her fingers beneath the handle and curled them in, the metal ridged under her fingertips as she took hold. She pulled, expecting the latch to fight her, then surrender with its usual stubborn click. The latch never yielded. Metal gave with a furious crack and a sudden drag of weight that snapped her arm straight, yanking her a half-step off balance, one heel skidding before she set her feet again. The trunk now dangled from her hand, hinges twisted out of shape, bolts ripped straight through their housing so the mounting plate hung crookedly from her grip.
Behind her the bike sagged where the trunk had been, metal scraping harshly as it adjusted to the sudden imbalance. The sound snapped Thing into motion. He scrambled out through the open cavity, landing in an anxious patter before stopping short.
Wednesday lowered her gaze to the mangled trunk in her palm and took in the ruin. The damage was undeniable.
“I didn’t pull that hard.”
She took in the scene, then shifted her attention to Weems, searching for a flaw in what she saw. Shock wrote itself openly across Weems’ features. Her gaze sharpened, understanding slotting in behind the surprise.
She knows something.
“What did you just realise?” Wednesday straightened, eyes narrowing as she studied Weems waiting for an answer.
“Rottwood’s curse,” Weems said. Her gaze flicked past Wednesday’s shoulder, then came back to hold. “Something of Enid still lingers. Your body’s returned, but not the balance.”
Wednesday’s fingers loosened around the twisted metal before she thought to stop them. It slipped from her grasp and hit the ground with a hollow clatter that echoed against the desolate station. Her fingers settled back into their usual limits, and the shift yanked up the memory of a different body entirely.
She remembered the moment she woke inside Enid’s skin, the rush hitting her like a strike to the chest. Every scent came through heightened, the berry-sweet trace of Enid’s conditioner resting in the ends of her hair, brushing past Wednesday’s awareness with every small shift. It made it impossible to forget whose body she was borrowing, a level of proximity she had no business enjoying, not that her traitorous satisfaction seemed to care. Every sound sharpened until even the rustle of Enid’s clothes around her frame felt amplified in her ears. The strength ran wild and uncontained, a force that moved faster than her mind could track. Enid had been controlling this for years, choosing gentleness more often than not. That easy smile sat on top of something that could have broken a person in half.
If I’d had that strength, I could have fought back.
The thought pressed deeper. If she carried residue from the body exchange, why had it failed her when it mattered most? Why had her limbs felt weighted while the roots tightened and the earth gave way, sealing her in? She needed answers.
“If this is leftover from the exchange, explain why it stayed dormant when I was…” She paused, weighing each possible word for what had been done to her and choosing the least offensive. “…entombed.”
Weems did not flinch at the question. Her fingers tightened where they were folded, the only sign she chose her words with care.
“I can’t claim to understand it completely,” she said at last. “Residual effects behave strangely. The delay in you suggests something else stirred it.”
“Meaning what.”
“You were dying. Enid refused to let you die.” Weems offered a faint shrug, her manner more suited to policy than graves. “Who knows what the act of saving a life does to the line between two souls.”
Trust Weems to choose the one phrasing that actually got under her skin. She had no interest in speculating about souls; she knew what that choice had done to her. The line between them hadn’t shifted when Enid saved her, it had been cracking for months. Whatever boundary she had tried to keep, she was no longer standing on the safe side of it.
Weems held her silence, her gaze a little too perceptive for comfort. A faint breeze worried the hem of Wednesday’s coat as she closed the distance between them.
“You keep circling the same thought,” Weems said gently. “Enid knew what it would cost her. She chose you all the same.”
Wednesday’s next breath tightened, something knotting beneath her ribs, a pull she couldn’t control. Instinct told her to take it apart, break it into pieces she could file under discipline and ignore.
“That was her decision. Do not carry guilt she never meant for you to hold.”
The words landed where she didn’t want them, low and direct. She hated that Weems had sensed the lapse and worse, that she’d been right. Understanding or not, it still crawled over her like sympathy.
“I’m not in the habit of blaming myself.”
The words tasted wrong as they left her mouth, heavy and hollow even to her. Guilt had threaded itself through her days from the moment she realised what Enid had given up for her. Wednesday gripped the edge of her sleeve and twisted the fabric until it strained. The pressure steadied her, something solid to hold while the truth pushed hard against her chest. If she let it surface here, forcing it back down later would be worse.
“If there’s nothing else to add,” Wednesday said. She fixed Weems with a stare that made her intent clear. Her patience had thinned, stretched by the stir of her own emotions.
Weems let the silence hang between them, her gaze steady on Wednesday. Something unreadable settled in her expression, an invitation Wednesday recognised and dismissed at once.
“If you ever need me, Wednesday, you need only reach out.”
By the time Wednesday blinked, the forecourt had emptied, the air still holding the faint trace of perfume and static.
Reach out. As if that were something she did.
She had never reached for Weems. She had never reached for anyone—unless she counted the one girl she kept finding herself pulled toward, no matter how hard she pretended otherwise.
How did I allowed one person to become this necessary?
There was no single moment, and she hated that. It would have been easier to put a date on her mistake and pretend it could be reversed. Instead, it had grown out of smaller things—Enid learning to read the tilt of her head and backing off one question sooner than anyone else; switching the music off when Wednesday sat down to write without being asked; sticky notes appearing next to her typewriter with reminders she’d never requested, each one pink, each one irritatingly accurate; learning Thing’s finger talk with an attentiveness Wednesday had never seen from anyone outside the family, until their conversations needed no interpreter and Enid had, indisputably, won his hand—and, against Wednesday’s better judgement, had begun to stake a claim on hers as well.
Then “you are my pack” dropped between them and nothing sat quite the same afterward. By the time the grave closed over her and claws tore the earth open to drag her back out, a life without Enid was already unthinkable. Enid saving her only underlined what was already written; Wednesday had simply been too disciplined to look at it directly.
Thing snapped his fingers from the floor, the sound slicing through her haze and dragging her focus to him.
He signed. Brooding.
“I’m thinking. That’s not brooding.”
Thing stilled, fingers hovering midair as he caught the shift in her, suddenly unsure whether to speak again or stay silent. He hadn’t meant to provoke her; she found his caution a welcome consequence.
He lingered anyway at her feet, an insistent presence. She cut him a sidelong glance. “I’m fine,” she said. “I just want to get to Cousin Itt’s. Preferably without another interruption.”
Thing tapped his fingers in a quick rhythm, signing again. Her eyes narrowed despite herself. He had an infuriating talent for pulling her out of her own head when she wasn’t finished hiding there. His motions carried that needling hint of humour and, regrettably, he succeeded.
“I’m not jealous of his hair, stop projecting,” Wednesday said, a smirk tugging at her mouth. Thing curled his fingers in triumph.
The moment didn’t survive Fester’s return. His voice tore across the forecourt in a dramatic wail. “What in the unholy name of dynamite happened to my trunk?”
He barreled toward them, arms flailing, eyes locked on the mangled mess at Wednesday’s feet.
Wednesday looked down at the discarded hatch. “It was structurally unsound.”
“Structurally—?” Fester crouched beside the broken trunk, poking at the warped hinge as if hoping it might suddenly make sense. “This thing survived a minor explosion. Two, actually.”
“Exactly,” Wednesday said. “I was proving a point.”
His mouth opened, then shut again, bafflement winning over argument.
Wednesday offered nothing further. She had no interest in explaining the truth, no desire to speak the words that pressed at the back of her thoughts. Let Fester assume whatever he liked.
“Next time,” Fester muttered, stroking the ruined metal like a wounded pet, “warn a man before you decide to arm wrestle his luggage.”
“I’ll fix it. You can stop mourning.”
He blinked at her, unsure whether to be hopeful or concerned.
Wednesday didn’t wait for an answer. She opened the side compartment of the trunk and pulled out a thick leather restraint strap, worn smooth from use, dark and heavy. Fester insisted it was salvaged from his first straitjacket and kept for sentimental reasons. Wednesday had watched him buckle a giggling Pugsley to a chair with it and test a “low-voltage” joy buzzer—low enough to spare Pugsley, high enough to erase three months of security footage from a very confused bank. She slid the strap under what was left of the hinges and wrapped it around the trunk until leather crossed itself in a dark band. Her grip dug into the worn edges as she braced one boot against the frame and leaned into the final pull, letting her weight do the work; she still didn’t trust her own strength not to rip the whole thing apart again. The strap creaked as it drew in, dragging the lid back into place.
Fester gaped at the repaired trunk, then at her. “Well,” he said, “that’s inventive.”
“It will survive the trip.”
“Good.” He swung himself back onto the bike. “If that little furball’s got something that can help, we’re not wasting time. Anyone who saves my favourite niece deserves a fighting chance.”
She let the moment pass in silence, the smallest shift at her mouth acknowledging it without ever quite reaching satisfaction. She stepped back into the sidecar, her boots scraping against the floor as she lowered herself into place. Thing hopped in after her and tapped once against the seat, a soft click of agreement that carried more conviction than words.
Fester twisted the ignition. The engine rumbled awake with a deep, throaty growl that cut through the lingering silence of the station. He revved the throttle far louder than necessary. Drama, as always. Exhaust puffed out behind them and drifted through the weeds that clawed at the edge of the near-abandoned forecourt. The sidecar jolted when he shifted into gear. Wednesday steadied herself with one hand on the frame, and the wind snatched at her collar as they turned toward the stretch of road leading north.
A splash of pink near the gas pump caught her eye just as the bike began to pull away. A stuffed bear sat slumped at the base of the pump, its once-bright fur sun-faded to a weary blush. The fabric clung in uneven clumps, the weather having chewed at it for far too long. It matched the shade that ran through so much of Enid’s life—her clothes, her school things, the ridiculous headbands she wore on days she claimed she needed something bright. A colour Wednesday had once considered invasive, until she realised she’d stopped trying to remove it. She should have looked away. She didn’t.
Something inside her slipped, a thread coming loose in the weave of her thoughts. Heat rushed up the back of her neck and into her skull, tipping her head back before she could pull in a full breath. Air left her in a thin, surprised gasp. Silence pressed in and everything pulled apart around her. A flare rose behind her eyes, bright in a way her visions never were, cutting through the usual darkness like a blade of light—memory, not prophecy, forcing itself forward. Scenes uncoiled with startling clarity, vivid and intrusive, crowding the darkness behind her eyelids, her mind taking full advantage of the first gap in her guard.
First meeting:
“Howdy, roomie.”
Enid’s grin burst into the room like sunlight, bright and warm and entirely impossible to ignore. It cut straight through the gloom of Nevermore’s dorm and landed on Wednesday with a force she wasn’t prepared for.
First feeling:
On her first transformation, Enid threw herself between Wednesday and a monster, all teeth and fury and stupid, blazing loyalty. The sight of the wolf braced in front of her knocked the air out of Wednesday’s lungs in a way the danger itself didn’t. In the aftermath, she reached Wednesday in a rush, arms wrapping around her waist, tight and shaking, dragging her in against a body that still trembled with leftover fear. Wednesday’s instincts reacted first; her hands came up to the girl’s shoulders and pushed, prying her off and forcing a slice of space between them. Her hands were still on those shoulders when she looked up and ran straight into Enid’s eyes. The blue hit her first, too bright at this distance, rimmed red from crying and blown wide with everything they’d just barely survived. Something in Wednesday’s chest slid sideways. The urge to keep her at arm’s length bled out of her limbs. Her fingers found Enid’s sleeves, tightening in the fabric as she pulled her back in until their bodies met again. This time she didn’t resist when those arms came around her waist and warmth pressed between them. Something in her answered with a small, treacherous click. Not affection. Not yet. But it marked a change she couldn’t undo, one that kept her slightly askew for months after.
The gala:
She saw herself again at the edge of the crowd, silent among the noise while Enid moved beneath the coloured rigging. Her plan to overturn Principal Dort’s attempt to strip her Grandmamma of her fortune was already in motion. She should have been concentrating on every moving piece, making sure each step landed cleanly where it needed to. Instead, Enid kept tearing holes in her focus simply by existing at the centre of the room. Colours caught in her hair, the beat rolling through her hips and shoulders in a way Wednesday’s gaze tracked despite itself. She told herself she watched the routine only to time her part in the plan, nothing more. And yet she kept her attention fixed on Enid, a simple, damning fact that refused to be argued with.
Her unraveling:
Enid’s voice replayed in her memory. “The truth is, you are my pack, Wednesday.”
The phrase threaded itself into her before she had the chance to look away, catching on every recent compromise she’d made—the nights she chose Enid over sleep, the way her plans now began with Enid’s safety and worked outward. The word pack should have left room for others. In her head, it narrowed to mine. That was the moment the lie she’d been repeating to herself came undone.
She had fallen hopelessly in love with Enid Sinclair.
The pretence was in calling it anything less. Admitting it aloud, especially to Enid, was so far beyond the realm of possibility it barely qualified as fantasy. It was easier to live with the short-circuit in her system every time Enid looked her way than to hand her the truth.
Reality came back in a hard, blinding snap. Wind slammed against her face, tearing at her eyes and coat, and everything around her lurched back into motion. Wednesday’s fingers clamped around the sidecar frame, pressure biting through her knuckles until her joints ached, the jolt answered by a hard, insistent rhythm in her chest. Every beat underlined what she should never have allowed to happen.
She had slipped. She had cared. And the consequence had been swift. The universe had treated her moment of weakness like an error to correct, burying her alive while Enid was forced into a choice that could cost her everything. Wednesday had tried so fiercely to keep her safe, only to become the reason she now stood in danger. Life never hesitated to offer the same lesson: attachment was a liability. Wanting anything—anyone—left her exposed in ways she couldn’t defend against.
She inhaled slowly, dragging air into lungs that felt too tight, the kind of breath she used after visions of blood or death. Except this wasn’t that. The sensation clinging to her now was warm in places where her visions were usually cold. Her visions were meant to cut. They were not supposed to carry Enid’s smile or the way she had once fit against her shoulder.
A tap against her forearm drew her attention. Thing perched in the sidecar beside her, his fingers brushing her sleeve before he signed, OK?
She let the question hang and kept her eyes on the road, the grey strip of tarmac pulling them toward the same girl her thoughts refused to release. The solid weight of that first desperate hug still lived in her muscles, an imprint on her skin that ached without hurting.
“I’m functioning.”
Vision?
She gave a small nod.
Bad?
Normally she said yes without thinking. Visions were always bad; they were supposed to be. This time she heard herself hesitate before she spoke, and she loathed the lapse.
“Not in the usual way.”
Thing straightened, fingers curling in surprise. Good?
Wednesday’s throat constricted. She looked away, then back at the shape his fingers still held for good, fully aware that, where Enid was involved, the word fit far too well on more than one level. She let herself know it. Her mouth pretended otherwise.
“It was inaccurate.”
How?
“It felt light,” she muttered. “My visions don’t feel like that.”
Thing stared, or the hand equivalent of staring, long enough that she almost regretted telling him anything. Then he signed one word, annoyingly certain. Enid.
She didn’t contradict him. She couldn’t. The truth sat too close to the surface for denial to sound believable. Thing angled a finger toward her face. She didn’t need him to spell it out. She had braced for ink-dark tracks and the petty inconvenience of scrubbing them away. Wednesday’s fingertips skimmed the hollow beneath her eye. Clean. She checked again, unwilling to accept the change without proof. Still nothing. She lowered her hand, her thoughts locking around the absence as her brow tightened. Her visions had always left their mark, black streaks down her cheeks that rode the crack of pain splitting her skull whenever the sight took hold.
What Weems had said earlier crept back through her thoughts with irritating accuracy. Her visions were changing. She did not trust change. She kept her eyes on the road, hoping the stretch of asphalt might steady the unrest building behind her ribs.
Mile by mile, the road dragged them north, toward a cousin with questionable ethics and, with any luck, even more questionable artefacts. Enid lay somewhere beyond that horizon, buried beneath fur and instinct, waiting for a rescue Wednesday had already promised her. Whatever lived in her chest had already proved itself stronger than death. This particular weakness, she decided, was a small price to pay for tearing someone out of the jaws of fate.
Especially when that weakness answered to the name Enid Sinclair.