Chapter Text
Wednesday slept for longer than she had intended. When she woke, it was to afternoon light, the sun already tracking its lazy descent toward the horizon. Despite how long she had slept, her mind still felt foggy, her limbs heavy. She had dreamed of fire. The flames that had taken Goody’s mother and countless other outcasts, sliding blearily into the blaze that had raged across the courtyard as she fought Crackstone and the swirling column of fire that had consumed him.
Enid was still asleep, half of her face pressed into her pillow, the other half obscured by her hair. Wednesday stood, looking between Enid and the book laying guiltily on her desk. She was fairly sure by now that touching the book wouldn’t spark another vision, at least not unless she was also holding Goody’s raven brooch, so she could continue reading without waking Enid. But, little as she wanted to delay the task any further, she knew that Enid would be hungry when she woke, and perhaps an espresso would make Wednesday feel a touch better. She could spare a few moments for a trip to the dining hall.
She had gotten a quad espresso that tasted terribly burnt and grabbed a few pieces of fruit before reviewing the paltry selection of sandwiches on offer. As she was reaching for a chicken salad sandwich that looked only somewhat sad, she felt a presence loom over her shoulder.
Wednesday closed her eyes and counted to thirteen before turning to face Principal Weems and her dour expression.
“May I help you?”
“I would like you to accompany me to my office, Ms. Addams.”
“For what purpose?”
“We have an important matter to discuss, Ms. Addams, that would be best done in private.”
Wednesday glowered, but remained silent. The only thing protesting would accomplish would be raising Weems’s suspicions. She trailed after the principal, well aware that the few other students in the cafeteria were watching and whispering about how Wednesday Addams was in trouble. Again.
She sat as she was instructed, neatly lining up her espresso cup and fruit on the edge of the desk to remind Weems that she was, indeed, disrupting her perfectly innocent late Sunday lunch.
Weems took her place in her ostentatious desk chair, fixing Wednesday with that Very Serious look that was supposed to inspire honesty or shame or whatever.
“I took notice that you and Ms. Sinclair were not in attendance at last night’s dance. May I ask what you were doing instead?”
“That’s what this is about? Is attendance at school dances mandatory?” Wednesday scoffed and waited, but that icy gaze didn’t waver. “We remained in our room. Enid wanted to watch movies rather than attending the dance. In case it had slipped your notice, Enid has not been in a particularly celebratory mood this semester. Does the administration have any input on that?”
Her attempt to derail the conversation, predictably, didn’t work. “Can anybody confirm your and Ms. Sinclair’s whereabouts last night, Ms. Addams?”
“Sure. Ask Thing. He would be all too pleased to discuss The Devil Wears Prada with you. What a movie, hmm? Can you verify that the school is taking action to support a student showing signs of depression?” She did feel a twinge of guilt about using Enid’s mental state to try to worm her way out of this conversation, but the questions weren’t entirely unfounded. She did want to know if Weems had taken notice of how badly Enid seemed to be struggling. She wanted to know if the school could do something about it that she couldn't.
But again, no such luck. “I hardly think that your…" she searched, for a moment, for the most politically correct term to use in reference to a sentient severed hand. "That Mr. Addams is an unbiased party. Is there anyone else who can attest to your plans?”
Wednesday shrugged, giving Weems a blank stare. “Maybe. Enid might have told her friends that she would not be in attendance. Yoko or Divina, potentially Bianca. What is this about?”
Weems searched Wednesday's face for long seconds, presumably looking for any hint of guilt or consternation stemming from this Very Serious talk. "Something has gone missing from my office. Something that was kept in a secure location. For, might I add, the protection of the students on this campus."
Wednesday quirked an eyebrow. "How terrible. What might that something be?"
"I believe you already know the answer to that question, Ms. Addams."
She sighed, long suffering and weary. "Would I be asking if I knew? Have you forgotten what a good, compliant little girl I've become? No more getting in trouble. Why would I jeopardize that? Especially because, may I remind you, my agreeable behavior is for Enid’s benefit."
"I'm not convinced that stealing something that once belonged to your family would fall under your definition of an immoral act, Ms. Addams. But that book contains deeply dangerous magic, magic that should not again see the light of day. Magic that, if I must remind you, nearly led to the destruction of this school and everyone within it."
Heat flared up in Wednesday's face, behind her eyes, and she spoke through gritted teeth. "Do you think I've forgotten that? For as long as I live, I will be unable to forget just how close to destruction we came. How close to death I came that night, how close Enid came to death. I am not leaping at chances to begin dabbling in black magic. I was in my room, with Enid, all night. We watched movies. End of story."
Weems attempted a couple more lines of inquiry, trying to get Wednesday to admit any length of time outside of her dorm, but she sat silently, her arms crossed petulantly, until the principal gave up.
At the door, she turned to look over her shoulder at the fuming woman, who raised an eyebrow expectantly. "I would recommend focusing your attention where it's truly needed. Try to help Enid instead of interrogating me, for a change."
Weems sighed, but a touch of that anger seemed to slide away. "Any discussions I have with other students, Ms. Addams, especially regarding sensitive matters, are strictly confidential."
Wednesday slammed the door behind her.
It seemed that Enid had woken just before Wednesday reentered the room. She was sitting up in her bed rubbing her eyes, with Thing curled up next to her in his usual catlike fashion. “I was worried for a second when I woke up and you weren’t here, but Thing said you just went out to get something to eat.” Wednesday nodded curtly, tossing a wrapped sandwich, a banana, and an orange on the foot of Enid’s bed before turning away to stalk back to her desk. Behind her, Thing tapped against the sheets, and Enid relayed for him. “He says you were gone for a while.”
For someone who was just a hand, Thing could be goddamn nosy. Wednesday sighed. “I’ve just had a chat with Principal Weems.”
Had Wednesday not been so distracted, thinking of how she had been in possession of the Codex Umbrarum for such a short time, and how playing dumb could buy her only so much time, she might have taken notice of how Enid stiffened at that, how her voice took on a note of anxiety. “Um. About what?”
“She was— quite rightly— accusing us of breaking into her office to steal Goody’s book. Warning me that it contains great dangers and ‘oh please, Ms. Addams, think about how the school was nearly destroyed the last time you had your hands on that book.’” Her tone came out sharper than she intended. She wasn’t angry with Enid, not exactly, just… in the past months, her life had become one confusion after another, frustration building upon frustration, and it was starting to spill over. She closed her eyes and continued, softer. “I denied until she let me go. If she decides to interrogate you as well, our story is that we remained in our room all night and watched movies. Once I finish with the book, I’ll think of some way to return it to her office.”
Enid was silent for a moment, and Wednesday was already resigning herself to the shame of having, once again, hurt her feelings. But she said “None of that was your fault, you know. It all started four hundred years ago, I mean, Goody having to curse Crackstone. And she wouldn't have had to do that if he wasn't a psycho freak obsessed with killing everyone different from him. And it's also not your fault that Thornhill— or Gates or whatever— was also a psycho freak who wanted to finish his job. None of it was anything you had any control over."
Her words had the practiced edge of repetition, like she had gone over this argument again and again. Maybe just in her own head, maybe to defend Wednesday against her parents, she didn't know. But she could tell that Enid wanted, badly, for Wednesday to believe the same. "Yes. I know. I just need to know what happened to her. So I don't get stuck making her mistakes over again."
Enid joined Wednesday at her desk, her fingers dancing tentatively over the cover of the Codex. Wednesday gave her a brief summary of what she had read, that, most importantly, she probably wouldn't kill herself with her visions unless she decided to play around with Goody's talisman. She was still no closer to knowing what had killed Goody, though.
The next several pages after Wednesday’s stopping point were filled with incantations that could be used to focus and strengthen second sight. A couple of them were familiar to Wednesday, having appeared elsewhere in her research on her ability. A few spells were mixed in, including one that would obscure the caster. It wouldn’t make them invisible, not exactly, but it would blur their edges, make it much easier for a pair of searching eyes to simply skim right past them. Another was very similar, with its brief definition explaining that it affected an observer’s perception of the land, rather than of a person. They were powerful illusions, but unstable, requiring repeated casting and a great deal of concentration to hold the effect for any extended period of time. There was a list of vague, arcane instructions for use of the obsidian scrying mirror, and an accompanying list tracking Goody’s attempts, which slowly shifted from revealing nothing at all to revealing murky, incomprehensible figures in motion.
After that varied magical minutia, and a brief pause when Enid had asked, with genuine perplexity, how Wednesday could even begin to read that handwriting, she finally came upon another section concerning visions. Sorcha, through her years of travel, had come to own a small collection of rings, bracelets, pendants hung on fine chains, and other various pieces of jewelry. Goody had been examining each, searching for a suitable talisman. Any of her pieces could do the job, really any object would, as long as Goody grew some personal attachment to it.
She hadn’t felt any particular draw to anything she had lain her touch upon. She wasn’t sure, after all, if she would feel anything in particular, or if she should just choose something at will. That was until Sorcha found a small pouch tucked away from sight on a bookshelf, long forgotten among the piles of books, loose papers and rolled parchments, and loosely organized potion ingredients.
It held long ago memories from her home, left long behind hundreds of miles of hard ocean. And among those memories was the raven brooch, and with it, the feeling of belonging Goody had been seeking. There was nothing particularly special about it, none of the materials Sorcha had told her had a strong tie to the spiritual realm, but as she held it, she felt it was meant to be hers. She had drawn it in the corner of the page, a carefully rendered depiction that instinctually recalled Wednesday’s trepidatious desire to avoid touching it.
But, as Goody evidenced with palpable frustration, she was not to attempt to use her talisman for its psychic purposes until Sorcha deemed her ready. First, they spent hours practicing incantation after incantation, repetition after repetition, until the shape of the words lived branded onto her brain. She thought, then, that she would be allowed to use those incantations, but instead, she was subject to yet more hours of tutelage as Sorcha explained the meaning and power that lay with the symbol decorating the brooch.
It was something that had become so important to Wednesday, something she had built up as a linchpin essential to her understanding of what had happened to her ancestor. Goody, however, had apparently considered the content of Sorcha’s instruction unworthy of capturing upon the page. It was, in all honesty, probably completely unimportant within the wider context of Wednesday’s search for answers, but she couldn’t help the bubbling disappointment that rose within her. Those details were, in all likelihood, lost to the forces of time, oppression, and Goody’s impatience.
That impatience flared once more when she was told that, still, she was not equipped to take control of her power. Sorcha had told her that her power was intrinsically connected to her body and mind, as well as the spaces she occupied within their realm and that of the spiritual. All had to be at balance and attuned with each other before she could hope to successfully channel her ability. That, as it seemed, came as a challenge to Goody. She felt plenty attuned with the space she occupied in the world, and she felt perfectly in control of her body. What Sorcha meant when she said that Goody hadn’t yet reached an adequate balance seemed to escape her.
After several paragraphs, it seemed to Wednesday that it boiled down to intensive meditation. A psychic had to be attuned to their emotional states, capable of clearing their minds of all that could cloud or misguide their visions. An attempt to bring a vision on by will would be much easier if the psychic had an object to focus upon, something connected to the person she sought knowledge about.
Eventually, Goody had been deemed ready. When Sorcha removed her necklaces in preparation for sleep, Goody had slipped one into her pocket. The next morning, as Sorcha was splitting logs for the stove, Goody sat in the quiet cabin with the brooch clutched in one hand and the swiped pendant in the other. She whispered an incantation carefully, and when nothing happened, she had to fight a wave of disappointment. But, following the lessons that she had been made to dedicate so much time to, she cleared her mind of that clouding emotion and attempted a second incantation.
That time, it worked.
Later that evening, Sorcha asked Goody to accompany her on a walk in the woods surrounding her home. When they approached a clearing that looked familiar to Goody, she was able to drop to the ground just as Sorcha, who had slowed her pace and fallen being her, swung a knife at her back. Taking advantage of the few seconds where Sorcha’s lunge left her unbalanced, Goody kicked out at her ankles and managed a good, strong connection. Sorcha dropped down on one knee but kept her grip on the knife, lashing out with it again in a sweeping downward arc. Goody rolled away from the blade with bare seconds to spare, and she responded with another kick that landed on the side of Sorcha’s other knee, dropping her further.
Goody scrambled to her feet, dancing back from another strike. Kicking had worked a treat for her so far, so she kept at it and managed to dislodge the knife from Sorcha’s hand. With the knife kicked into the underbrush and out of both of their reaches, Sorcha relaxed into a sitting position and nodded approvingly.
They continued on like that for some time, with Goody practicing the process of channeling her powers to ward off whatever surprise Sorcha had planned. Twice she had been caught unaware, with no vision having hinted at that particular attack, and once she had failed to notice the minuscule details within her vision that would have allowed her to properly anticipate the forthcoming ambush.
But Goody did seem to believe that it was becoming easier for her to will visions. The incantations had started to become second nature to her, and she felt a sense of growing control over her mind and emotions. She was beginning to understand how it felt when a vision was imminent.
Concurrently, they had been practicing the spell that would dim Goody, allow her to hide within the shadows and pass unnoticed if she was properly careful. If her goal was to put Joseph Crackstone down, she had to be able to understand and anticipate his movements. The best way to do that, to hope to reliably foresee his actions, would be to obtain something that was dear to him. It would be undoubtedly best to do so without drawing his attention.
The next several pages were filled with accounts of their practice, snippets of Goody’s sense of growing confidence within herself and her abilities. But these were mixed with feelings of growing concern for the Nightshades, with the count of days that she had been separated from her compatriots growing without a certain end in sight.
Eventually, her concern grew such that she felt a pressing need to use her power to see how the Nightshades were faring in her absence. To that point, all of her visions had revealed events that occurred within the following days, a week at the most. If her vision revealed a near future that seemed relatively free from strife, she would be mollified, free to continue her training. If she saw the opposite, she wasn’t sure if she’d have enough time to travel back to the camp to come to their aid, but arriving late would be better than completely abandoning her cohort.
She scrounged about in the pack of belongings that she had brought with her, looking for some object that was tied inextricably to the camp to aid her vision. Eventually, she landed upon the small pouch of medicinal herbs and roots she had brought in case she needed to make some quick poultice or tea. Such a connection to the space her intended target occupied in the world would surely work. When it didn’t, she systemically tried nearly everything else she had brought. Nothing ignited even the tiniest spark of her second sight.
She tried again the next day, and the next, and so on as her worry about the Nightshades began to occupy an ever growing part of her mind. She tried, after many futile attempts, to conjure a vision without using a guiding object. After all, they were useful mainly to provide something to focus on, to provide a connection to whatever she was attempting to see. Her true connection to the Nightshades, to the land that had become hers to defend and to those dedicated to that same task, lived within her.
That time, she managed a vision. It was fragmented, distorted somehow, as if she was seeing through inches of water. The camp looked diminished, smaller than it should, and blanketed by an oppressive sense of dread that lingered with Goody far beyond the bounds of the vision. She saw only flashes of the Nightshades, whispering tensely, casting furtive glances about their surroundings.
It was over before she could see anything more. She tried again and again, but it seemed that her second sight would reveal no more to her.
Sorcha protested when Goody told her that she would be leaving. There was so much more she had to learn before she could wield her power safely and to full effect. Goody, it seemed, was unwilling to hear any argumentation, but she relented to staying for one, perhaps two more nights in order to learn the spells that would allow her to lock Crackstone away and end his reign of terror.
The next couple of pages held those spells, the blood magic that had ended up allowing Crackstone to reawaken and continue that reign of terror hundreds of years later.
The pages that followed were blank. Probably twenty blank pages, and Wednesday carefully scanned them all, astonishment rising with each that passed. Upon a moment of reflection, she decided that she shouldn’t be astonished at all. Of course it wouldn’t be that easy, of course Goody hadn’t detailed her death within the pages of her book of spells. Which, she thought, was all in all much less imminently dangerous than Weems had made it out to be. She supposed it was possible, but it wasn’t exactly like she expected that many people would be willing to both read through the deteriorating book filled with Goody’s archaic handwriting and to actually carry out that final litany of spells and rituals.
Wednesday flipped through the blank pages again to ensure that nothing had been missed, and when she was certain she hadn’t, she closed the book with more force than was strictly necessary. As she glared at the Codex, Enid looked up from her crochet hooks and the small pile of black and maroon yarn in her lap.
“Bad news?”
“Essentially nothing more than what I told you earlier. It was frivolous of me to expect real answers from this. Why would she have written about her own death?”
At that, Enid looked back down at her lap, threading a strand of yarn between her fingers with great focus. “I guess I didn’t think about that at all. I should’ve thought this through better. Or at least just talked to you about it first instead of springing it on you. You would’ve been able to think about that.”
“No,” Wednesday said, sighing wearily. “I expect not. I suppose I have been rather desperate for my answers, and desperation breeds a lack of foresight. It was a fine plan, and not without utility.” There were, indeed, some lessons to be had in the pages that had detailed Goody’s training, not to mention what she had learned about psychic talismans.
Enid was quiet long enough for Wednesday to think that the conversation had ended. But she looked back up, a small frown dragging the corners of her mouth down. “Your mom is a psychic, right? Not like the same type or whatever, but why don’t you talk to her? Tell her about the vision and what you’ve found so far. She might know something.”
Wednesday hadn’t expected that whole desperation breeding a lack of foresight thing to smack her in the face again so quickly, but there it was. Of course. She came from long lines of psychics on either side of her family, and she felt like she'd made nothing short of a logical misstep in not going to her mother sooner. Yes, Goody had history in this area, but that had been centuries ago, long enough that any hope of finding information about her through local means was an obvious shout into the dark. But Goody had been an Addams, and the only place to find (mostly) reliable information about their family was from the family itself. Not to mention that Morticia, as a psychic, was perhaps one of the only people who could understand her need to know how Goody had died, if it was tied to her power, as intimately as Wednesday herself.
“Yes, I suppose that should be next.”
Wednesday spent the next few hours flipping through the Codex and copying down anything that seemed remotely interesting. She also ruminated on plans to get the book back into Weems’s drawer without drawing too much ire or suspicion, although she felt like her plotting and scheming skills had begun to grow a bit rusty. Something would come to her, and she needed it to happen sooner rather than later.
She looked over at Enid, still by her side, when she was done with her replication of Goody’s writing. It pleased her to see Enid working on a crochet project after so long. She looked more focused than she had for much of the semester, her expression smooth and seemingly untroubled.
“What will that be?”
“Hm? Oh, this? Just a scarf. I’m making it for Pugsley, actually. I figure his birthday must be coming up soon too, right? Knowing you guys, it’s probably Halloween.”
One corner of Wednesday’s mouth ticked up at that. “Very close. He was born on November first, shortly after midnight. He complained a few times about it, but that stopped after our mother recounted her twenty-six hours of labor. Graphically.”
A small smile grew on Enid’s face as well at that. “Pretty effective way to shut that down, sounds like.”
Wednesday nodded, examining the growing scarf. It was simple, wide black sections divided by thinner bands of maroon. Pugsley would like it. “Not a snood?”
And just as quickly as it had come, Enid’s smile left. “Well. I didn’t think that you really liked yours. I decided that a scarf made more sense.”
Guilt was a feeling that Wednesday was still working on becoming acclimated to. She rather disliked the oxymoronic feeling of heavy hollowness that guilt filled her stomach with. “It was thoughtful of you to make the snood for me. And it was rude and thoughtless of me to treat your gift as I did.”
“It’s really not your style, though. You’re more of a, like, full on hooded cloak girl, not a snood girl.” She said snood with the same derisive tone that Wednesday herself had used when she initially received it.
“But you made it for me. And I keep what you make for me or give to me. I appreciate it all.”
“I’ve given you some pretty silly stuff,” Enid said, half shrugging one shoulder. “I’m sure not all of it’s worth keeping.”
“Enid,” Wednesday said, the barest hint of exasperation coloring her tone. “What matters to me is the care that you show with your gifts. You put effort into them. You show that you think of me. I care about that more than what the gift happens to be.”
Enid was quiet for long enough that Wednesday thought the conversation had been tabled. Enid sighed, contemplatively running her fingers along the stitches, although she didn’t pick her hooks back up. Her nails looked mostly unbitten. Eventually, she gave another little half shrug and said, “I think about you all the time. You don’t have to wonder about that.”
Wednesday spent the next few days stewing. She needed to talk to her mother and sneak the Codex back into Weems’s office, not necessarily in that order, but she had been putting both off. But Weems’s patience and willingness to let Wednesday’s excuses slide was wearing thin, made obvious by the glimpses that Wednesday kept catching of her in the halls, keeping a watchful eye on her movements. She wanted to avoid another unproductive, vexing palaver in Weems's office if she could help it. So, with Thing's help, she had hatched a plan that she figured she might, potentially, be able to pull off without raising too much suspicion.
Wednesday's Outcast Literature classroom was down the hall from Weems's office, and the route she always took to her next class just happened to pass by it. There would be nothing odd about her being seen in that vicinity during the passing period. What would be odd, hopefully odd enough to draw Weems out of her office for a good handful of minutes, would be the bird smacking into her window. It wasn't uncommon for there to be small, dead creatures in the woods around the school— Wednesday suspected that those hungry little shifters weren't the only predators roaming those woods— and she had sent Thing to look for a suitable distraction early that morning. He had returned dragging a mourning dove behind him, its neck and one delicate wing bent at sick angles. The occasional bird flew into the occasional window, and Wednesday could hardly be blamed for that.
Five minutes before class was to end, Thing sneaked in and gave a quick report to Wednesday underneath the desk. All the pieces were in place: Weems was in her office, the bird's body was stashed in the bushes below it, and Thing was pretty certain he had a good enough angle on the window for his throw to make a solid connection.
She nodded discretely down at him, and he scuttled off as Wednesday began to pack her belongings away. The Codex Umbrarum was tucked safely away in her satchel, her rightful possession about to slip from her grasp. It held a bitter edge, despite the relative lack of utility that the book actually held. Goody was her ancestor, connected to her by body and blood and soul. The book should be her property, hers to keep and protect, rather than being left to languish in a drawer, held in the clutches of someone who didn’t, couldn’t, understand it.
But, at the same time, they didn’t need the attention that it brought upon them. Enid had told her that Weems hadn’t called her into her office for interrogation, but Wednesday was sure it wasn’t long coming. She trusted that Enid could stick to their story and deny, deny, deny, but she also knew that authority figures made Enid nervous, and the last thing she needed was pressure from Weems. She was willing to trade additional time with the book for peace of mind.
Wednesday was up and out into the hall as soon as class was over, melting into the river of students and their excited, insipid chatter. She hung back when Weems’s door was in sight, and she had to wait for but a moment before Weems came bursting through it, headed in the direction of the side exit.
Wednesday was on the move once Weems was a decent way down the hallway. Just as Wednesday had hoped, Weems hadn’t shut and locked the door behind her in her rush to investigate the impact against her window. She cast a cautious eye about the hallway before slipping through the door, left just slightly ajar, but no one seemed to be paying her any particular mind.
She cast a cautious glance to the window, where a smear of dark blood had appeared, before kneeling in front of the desk drawers with her lock picks once again. Getting the drawer unlocked was much smoother this time. Her hands felt at least marginally steadier this time, and she’d already learned the correct pin positioning.
When the book was tucked away in Weems’s totally secure and secret hiding place for such a dangerous object, Wednesday lingered for a few seconds with her fingertips pressed against the cover. She said “May we meet again, Goody,” knowing all the while that her wish would remain unfulfilled.
Later that afternoon, when classes were done for the day and Wednesday was glaring daggers at her still-covered crystal ball, Thing scampered in through the window and onto the desk. He tapped proudly, saying that everything on his end had gone according to plan. His throw had been better than even he expected, and Weems came bustling out in short order. She found the bird and, most importantly, didn’t see Thing, so it seemed that she didn’t suspect anything other than a random act of nature. She had even given the bird a burial, if a rather quick one.
“So sentimental,” Wednesday said, a bit dismissively. “Did you follow her into her office?” He had, he reported, and managed to evade notice there as well. She needed to sweep under her bookshelves, apparently. She hadn’t looked in the drawer, but it also hadn’t seemed to notice anything amiss within the office. She just called the custodian in to ask him to clean the blood off the window, then fussed with some paperwork for a while.
Wednesday nodded, feeling a touch of relief. There had been plenty of places where that plan could have gone haywire, but luck, and mostly planning, had been on her side. “Thank you, Thing. You’ve done well.” He mimed a tip of the hat. Wednesday couldn’t blame him too much for scheming with Enid for her heist plan; she could tell that he had been missing mischief. Which reminded her… “Have you seen Enid recently?”
They had fewer classes together this semester, and she hadn’t been in the room when Wednesday returned. It wasn't like she needed to know where Enid was at all times, but it certainly made her feel better when she did know. In any case, Thing said that no, he hadn’t seen Enid around anywhere.
It had been happening more and more frequently lately, Enid’s random disappearances. The weather had been taking a turn for the worse, with frequent rain that wasn’t necessarily heavy, but which was often accompanied by a thick mist that significantly reduced visibility. As such, Nevermore’s rowing season had officially been called to a close, removing Enid’s biggest extracurricular time sink. Wednesday had brought up the idea of Enid rejoining the dance team, but she had demurred, saying only that she would think about it. Wednesday didn’t really think that she had thought about it, and her warning about knowing if she was being followed cultivated a certain reluctance to pry about her whereabouts.
But, Wednesday reasoned with herself, Enid didn’t seem to be in any worse of a mood than had become her typical when she returned from her mystery desertions. No better, for that matter, but at least it didn’t seem that anything was upsetting her further. Wednesday being insistently nosy probably wouldn't have such a neutral effect, so it became just another thing that she decided to let lie.
For now, she could try to put one worry to bed. She resented that, once again, she had been reduced to little more than a helpless, begging fledgling, needing to run to her mother in order to piece together her poorly defined fragments of knowledge. Not to mention that Morticia ostensibly held knowledge about their powers that she hadn’t decided to impart upon her daughter. After all, what could the pendant she had given Wednesday at the start of her time at Nevermore be except for, blatantly, a psychic talisman? Why give her that, accompanied by nothing in the way of tutelage? She certainly hadn't received anything resembling psychic training in her classes; the closest any of them had come to that was Psychics of the 20th Century, which mostly involved reading trite biographies and books of poetry.
But Enid had been right, and if Wednesday wanted real answers, the best way to start would be by putting that resentment aside and speaking to her mother. She lifted the black velvet cover away from the crystal ball, revealing the dark, roiling fog within. She laid her fingertips against the cool glass, closing her eyes as she focused on the thought of her mother.
When she opened her eyes again, the fog within the crystal ball had begun to lighten and recede, being replaced by her mother, sitting at the large and ornate ebony wood desk in her study. “My darling girl,” Morticia said, once the connection between the crystal balls was strong and clear. “I wasn’t expecting to hear from you until next week. To what may I owe this delight?”
It took Wednesday a few seconds of grasping about in her mind before she realized what would be special enough about next week to warrant a scheduled conversation with her mother. She landed on the conversation she had with Enid about that scarf, when she had said that Pugsley’s birthday must be coming up soon too. Ah, right. She would be turning seventeen in less than a week. That had been the last thing on her mind recently.
So, once more, she recounted the whole circuitous story, beginning with the terrible vision she’d had in Uriah’s Heap and the lingering effects that accompanied it, and ending with an outline of what she’d gleaned from Goody’s book of spells. “So,” she said when her tale had come to its conclusion. "It seems as if there is much you have chosen not to share with me."
An odd, pinched look had come over her mother’s face soon after she started speaking, and it only worsened at that. “I suppose that’s true, but I am not without my reasons, Wednesday. You know very little about your Aunt Ophelia, correct?”
Wednesday blinked at this line of questioning. Her mother spoke so infrequently about her younger sister that, at times, she almost forgot of her existence. “I know that she died young. Little more than that.”
Morticia nodded, her gaze becoming unfocused from her crystal ball. She took a deep breath, seeming to gather herself before continuing. “Our mother was incautious in her approach to our education as psychics. It could hardly be considered an education, in truth. Your Grandmama Addams taught me far more about my ability than my mother ever did.” Wednesday tucked that little tidbit of information away for later. No matter what answers she could wring from Morticia, it would be prudent to consult Grandmama next. That was, if she could actually manage to catch the old bat while she was near her crystal ball.
“We were far too young to understand the depth and consequences of our actions when our mother taught us how to manipulate our second sight. Ophelia took to it far better than I did. She had always been so in touch with who she was and who she was meant to be. She was bright and joyful and full of life, while I felt such a disconnection to myself. I was at constant war with my own mind, and I could hardly manage to conjure even a glimpse of the future because of it. Ophelia had always desperately wanted to please our mother, and she accomplished it with her psychic aptitude. She lorded the newfound attention she was receiving over me at every opportunity.”
Morticia paused again, that faraway look returning. Wednesday had always known that her mother’s relationship with her family was strained, but she had never so clearly seen the evidence of how badly it had shaken her. Or, perhaps, she had simply never bothered to fully consider what had always been blatant.
“Ophelia began to change after learning to manipulate her ability. Her visions were so dark, violent… they terrified her, but she seemed almost compelled to continue forcing visions. She had never enjoyed spending time alone, but she began to avoid everyone close to her. When her friends became concerned, she told them of horrible things she had seen in their futures until they stopped speaking to her. At times, I was unable to tell if she was truly recounting her visions, or simply telling them what she knew would hurt most. Much of what she told me never came to fruition, but,” another pause, a catch of her breath. “Still, I wait for them.”
“Eventually, though, she stopped speaking to me almost entirely. Our mother was able to get to speak for longer, but she was never sympathetic. When Ophelia grew more erratic, Mother locked her away in her bedroom. I was disallowed from seeing Ophelia, and Mother told me that her second sight had proven to be weak. She had exhausted her power, and it was driving her mad. Ophelia was enraged. She would spend hours every day screaming, pounding on the walls and the door. One moment she would be begging us to let her out, and the next she would be hurling curses, describing how she would kill us when she got out. But still, she was my sister… and the first time I tried to find the keys to her door, Mother caught me. The following week, I was sent away to Nevermore.”
“I was beside myself for weeks when I first arrived. Angry, lost, abandoned by my mother and unable to help my sister. But there was a sort of relief lurking at the edges of all my outrage. I hated it, and I tried not to feel it, but it only grew. I had the freedom to become whoever and whatever I wanted to be, away from Mother’s constant disapproval and from what Ophelia had become. There was so much I could try, and no one telling me that I was incapable. I began to enjoy myself, even through the guilt. I was part of so many things, good at so many things. I even... although it terrified me, I finally managed to grasp control of my ability. I was sure that my visions would be just as terrible as Ophelia's, but I saw only joyful things. I only brought upon a few visions; I was too afraid of what might happen to me should my second sight prove weak as well. But all of them were at Nevermore, and I knew then that being sent away had been a blessing in disguise. Then, I met your father near the end of my first semester, and my desire to stay was cemented.”
“I saw my sister one final time during the semester break. She had become much quieter, but her moods were just as volatile. One night, she threw a soup bowl on the floor. Mother had me fill the mop bucket, and when I brought it to her, I caught a glimpse of Ophelia. There was blood tracking down her cheeks like tears, but she looked so pleased with herself. I could barely recognize her, half-starved and mad. I know I should have done more to help her, done anything, but all I could think about was how relieved I would be to leave again. She died two months into my second semester at Nevermore. She was barely fourteen. Mother wanted me to return home, but I refused. I told her that there was no circumstance in which I would join the family business, and there was little else that would compel me to return. Eventually, she capitulated, and I was allowed to complete my education at Nevermore. In the end, I think she was simply glad to be rid of her obligations to me while I was away.”
Morticia closed her eyes for a moment, letting the weight of confession fall off of her. She looked weary, like the telling had sapped her of all energy. Even through the slightly warped image contained within the crystal ball, Wednesday could see the glint of tears on her mother’s cheekbones. “I never again intentionally brought about a vision. And that, my little bird, is why I have neglected to share with you any of what I know about controlling this ability. I had to be sure that you were old enough, that you could understand the responsibility and constraint that you would need to practice. You’ve proven yourself plenty mature by now, and I had wanted to share what I’ve learned from Grandmama Addams with you over the summer. But, Wednesday, you were so distraught, and I was afraid of how you may use your power if you were able to control it. I would be unable to live with myself if any harm came to you because of what I taught you.”
A heavy silence lingered in the air between them, close and pressing in spite of the miles of separation. Wednesday could acquiesce to the validity of her mother’s fears. She had wanted nothing more than to have a vision about Enid, and it seemed unlikely that she would have been able to moderate herself effectively. If Morticia held any intention of scaring Wednesday away from uninhibited use of her power, she had pretty well succeeded. And besides the clarity that had been shed upon the raging vortex that was the Frump familial dynamic, Morticia’s childhood chronicle seemed to provide another piece for Wednesday’s puzzle. If Ophelia had been bleeding from her eyes because of some sort of psychic exhaustion, the same could very well be the cause of Goody’s bleeding.
To Wednesday’s great frustration, her therapist’s voice had lodged itself firmly within the recesses of her brain, always blathering on about respecting other people’s displays of vulnerability and emotional contributions. She could choose to be upset about having been kept in the dark about something as pertinent as mind-melting psychic exhaustion, but what benefit would that actually have? Besides that, the image that Morticia had painted of herself as a child, so lost and alone in the face of such discord, had kindled an ache deep in her chest. So she said “I appreciate being told now. Truthfully, I agree with your assessment. I would have been unwise. But my vision of Goody was… disquieting. I’ve not found myself eager to repeat the experience. What I wanted from all this searching, more than anything, was to know how to avoid falling into whatever pitfalls Goody found herself in.”
“You must remember, ma chérie, above all, that our ability is a gift to be accepted on its own terms, rather than a thing to wrest control from. The future is inevitable, whether you know what it holds for you or not. So much can be lost when you favor anticipation above presence.”
They spoke for a few more minutes, replete with reminders that Morticia would be available whenever Wednesday should need her, no matter the time or subject. After they bid their goodbyes, Wednesday stared into the cold expanse of the crystal ball, thinking. Enid still had yet to return, and there was one final avenue she wished to turn to during this period of privacy.
Grandmama Addams had been traveling extensively, as she was wont to do, staying with members of the family for short times before moving on again. She carried a small, travel-sized crystal ball with her, but the thing was more temperamental than any other Wednesday had encountered, and older than most to boot. Grandmama, for that matter, had a sort of ephemerally ancient quality about her, like she had already been old for longer than most people could hope to live, and would continue to be old until her soul was taken to the afterlife by force. It was unclear exactly how old she was; Gomez and Fester gave differing answers with inconsistent, shifting timelines, and none of them had ever rung particularly true to Wednesday.
But luck had decided to be with Wednesday that afternoon, and her Grandmama’s face slowly became visible, blurred slightly by the light mist that remained within the sphere. The connection was fragile, but hopefully strong enough to last the duration Wednesday needed. Grandmama’s wild shock of silver hair had grown wilder since Wednesday had seen her last, but the grin on her face was the same as ever, sly and just a little bit impish. It always took Wednesday a little bit by surprise, just how much her father and Grandmama looked alike.
After listening to several minutes of updates about what seemed like every member of the Addams family living in the Americas, Wednesday cut in. “Grandmama, may I interrupt? I’ve been hoping to speak to you about something that has been concerning me.” The old woman waved her hand in assent, one curious eyebrow, along with a mountain of wrinkles, pulling upwards. “Do you know anything about Goody Addams?”
The corners of Grandmama’s ever-present wry smile turned a fraction down for what might have been the first time in Wednesday’s memory. Although it might've been a simple trick of lighting caused by the poor connection, a shadow seemed to have overtaken the typical luminosity of her features. “I know what has been passed down through the family, what I’ve learned by communing with the ancestors. Why do you ask?”
Grandmama was aware, of course, of the trouble Wednesday, and the whole of Nevermore, had gotten into with the reanimated corpse of Crackstone. Aware too of the connection that Wednesday had shared with Goody, and of how that guiding presence had been lost to her. It seemed that little escaped Grandmama’s notice, in the realms of both reality and the spiritual. “I found her talisman in a local curiosity shop. Its true nature was unknown to me at the time, and I know not how it ended up there, but when I touched it, I had a terrible vision. It felt unlike any other I have ever had, and odd symptoms lingered for days after, a… flashing in my line of sight. In the vision, I saw Goody bleeding from her nose and ears.”
Grandmama nodded slowly, the wrinkles surrounding her mouth deepening as her lips tightened. “That can happen when you use another psychic’s talisman, those jolts in your vision. After some time, they stop. That is, if you also stop using that talisman. How much do you know about psychic exhaustion?”
“Mother told me of her experience with it. Little more than that.”
Another nod. “What happened to Ophelia was a shame. She was far too young for such responsibility, particularly with how little care those girls were afforded. Visions are taxing to the body and mind, and repeatedly forcing visions without allowing yourself time to rest only increases that cost. Some psychics come to feel a compulsive need to use their power, even through awareness of the damage they’re causing to themselves. I’ve heard that became the case for Goody. Her mission to dispatch that pilgrim became an obsession. As time passed and she grew no nearer to fulfilling that obsession, she grew increasingly paranoid. Her own power began to fail her, but she must have had another psychic’s talisman in her possession.”
Wednesday nodded quickly. “Her mother’s ring. She wrote of it in the Codex. She accidentally sparked a vision using it, and it led her to the woman who taught her how to control her visions.”
“That would be it, then. She used the talisman to fortify her sight, and managed, finally, to see something that gave her the knowledge needed to lure Crackstone to her, overpower him, and seal him away in that tomb, bound by her spells. But she was already slipping into madness, and nothing could stop it.”
“Attacks on outcasts didn’t stop once he was entombed, far from it. When the pilgrims realized their leader had been lost to them, they combed every inch of the woods. The Nightshades had become scattered at that point; so many had been driven away by Goody’s worsening paranoia and erraticism, or by the threat that the pilgrims posed. Many of those deserters were caught by village patrols. You can imagine what happened to them, I presume. When they began to close in on Goody and those few that had stayed with her, I think that the last few threads of reason that remained within her mind were severed. Her body and mind were deteriorating due to her abuse of the second sight, and her mother’s talisman had been all but depleted of its remembered power. Her concealment spells were failing. In the end, nothing she tried brought her sight back. Praying, begging, burning her possessions as offerings, sacrificing her blood. They found her and they burned her, as they burned her mother.”
Wednesday was quiet for a time, trying to piece her thoughts together. Eventually, she said “So. Her death was not by virtue of simply being a psychic. She pushed herself over the edge into oblivion.”
The image of her grandmama in the crystal ball flickered, but mostly returned to clarity within a few seconds. “In short, yes. In attempting to be the master of her power, to wrest control from it, it took control of her. The spiritual realm is governed by rules and boundaries that we cannot even hope to fully understand.”
“So I just… shouldn’t use my power?”
Grandmama waved her hand in a seesawing, noncommittal way. “Your mother takes a harder stance on that than I do. Understandably so. It’s best to let the second sight reveal to you what it wishes, but I don’t believe that there’s never a situation where forcing a vision is appropriate. You just have to learn what those situations are.”
The connection between their crystal balls, however, was fading, far too fast for there to be any expansion upon what those situations may be, or how they could be identified. Grandmama told Wednesday that she would be headed back stateside soon, and they would discuss this more when they were both back at the family home. Then, she was gone, and Wednesday was left with only the company of the cold, listlessly swirling fog within her crystal ball.
She felt weary all the way down to her bones, and rather like a very heavy rock had been dropped on the middle of her forehead. All of this, all the hours of reading and worrying and imagining how many different ways Enid’s break-in scheme could blow up in their faces, had come down to learning that at least two of the psychics within her family line had driven themselves to stark raving madness, and to avoid that, she should basically live like a normie. How goddamned fantastic. It at least served as a bit of cold comfort that Goody seemed to have mostly reverted to sanity upon her death and reappearance as a spirit, unless her particular form of brain-melting involved speaking mostly in senseless half-riddles and insisting upon other people’s lonesome fates.
Part of her didn’t know why she cared so deeply about this. She had thought herself willing to give up any ounce of connection to the spiritual realm if only it meant that she could remain living, and more importantly, in Enid’s company. She still thought that was true. But part of her did know why, though. She disliked being out of control, and she had already had to come to terms with so much being uncontrollable. Her connection to Goody had been unfairly severed due to circumstances almost completely out of her control, circumstances that had been set into motion centuries before she was even alive. Having that connection to Goody had made her feel a little bit less alone, and that was another thing she had come to terms with recently: despite what she may claim, rather vehemently, Wednesday didn't actually very much enjoy being alone.
There was a better way, however, to stave off her feelings of loneliness, and it had been foolish of her to loose sight of what was truly important in her life. Enid, of course. She needed to focus her attention on Enid and her well-being, focus on being gentle and supportive and solid until Enid deemed the time right to lay her mind bare. And, it went almost without saying, beyond that point. She could serve as Enid's refuge for as long as Enid desired that.
But, as they say, the best laid plans of mice and men go oft awry.