Chapter Text
Wednesday is bored
A life worth living is measured by challenge, not comfort. Comfort is a reward, but rewards are not guaranteed. Trials and tribulations are the only thing life can promise, and as an Addams I cherished this deeply. Sic Gorgiamus Allos Subjectatos Nunc.
I still do. I always will. This is probably why I fell victim to an uncommon, but loathsome disease following my return from Nevermore: ennui.
The mansion felt larger than before, in an empty way. At first, I made every effort to enjoy the familiar surroundings. Nearly being killed by an undead pilgrim and his homicidal lackeys seemed an appropriate reason to kick back and relax for some time. Pugsely, my brother and favorite victim, had a very interesting lead up to his first year at Nevermore. He spent his first two weeks of summer buried alive, but his absence only proved to exacerbate my boredom. Even when I dug him up only to force him to navigate a minefield of traps (including actual mines) back to the house, I couldn’t work up the energy to further torture him. Even my parents grew worried for me when Pugsely returned with only a few burns, looking rather bored himself.
No matter my efforts, I found the safe familiarity of home stifling. At the time, I refused to admit why I felt that way. Or maybe I simply couldn’t. In retrospect, I find it difficult to nail down where my head was at. The weeks were a malaise of comfort that stole my faculties from me.
I found unexpected relief at times with Xavier’s parting gift: a cell phone. I’d rarely seen the appeal of constant contact. I tended to avoid people at all costs, thankful to live without the handicap of technology providing readily fruitless social interaction in my pocket.
I couldn’t deny, though, the clear advantages. An online search often provided learnings far faster than the family library, albeit in a limited scope. The availability of online information concerning Outcasts being woefully underdeveloped. Furthermore, I found that modern technology provided me with an optimal way to communicate. One I’d not dared dream the convenience of.
Texting became my favorite way to speak to people. All those weeks with Enid tapping away mindlessly suddenly made more sense. I stayed in contact with Eugene and Enid through text. When their topics bored me, I stopped responding, and somehow this was never interpreted as rude. However, when I was in the room with Pugsley and refused to speak with him outside of text messages, he would grow annoyed. In this way, texting empowered both progressive and toxic influences on my relationships appropriately. I’m a fan of efficiency and effectiveness, and texting was my latest tool.
I’m loath to admit it, but I came to schedule my life around this communication. Nothing else I tried seemed reliably distracting. Father would take me hunting, but the threat of legal action forced us to stop targeting endangered animals, rather removing the fun of it all. Mother stepped in to help me learn about my psychic abilities. We’d grown closer since Nevermore and the excitement of my time there. I approached the lessons with as open a mind as I could manage, but quickly found our time together a struggle. She framed her psychic leanings from a place of positivity and openness I was incapable of replicating. My own visions remained amusingly dark, and conveniently infrequent.
With Pugsely’s typical torment no longer interesting me as it once had, texting others became my sole excitement. This fact alone proved the final nail in the coffin of my dignity. I’d become what I’d most feared: a typical teenage girl. My ruination was complete. Even the continued messages from my stalker had lost my interest. Every few days, some crude image of me being brutally tortured or otherwise slaughtered would arrive, and even when I responded with compliments on their ever improving artistic skills, the response only ever resulted in additional threats.
My lackadaisical nature may have impacted my mindfulness, but I am still a detective in my black heart and rotten mind. So it was that on an evening during the second month of summer, my mind connected two strange dots.
I sat up from my bed, once more lounging in self pity, with a surge of interest. I held my phone in my hand and waited two minutes. An eternity when spent just staring. The proverbial watched pot never did come to a boil. To be more literal, I didn’t receive a text. I paced my room, in thought. A double check of the time confirmed my suspicions were not without merit. I spared a passing concern that I was simply over examining the event given my own boredom. My previous year at Nevermore had taught me to be better about openly questioning my methods. And yet, I found no logic that disavowed my findings.
I was downstairs moments later. Pugsley had left a tripwire at the base of the stairs that very nearly worked. When the darts flew by with a series of thunks in the opposite wall, I spotted my little brother looking disappointedly from behind a chaise lounge. I spared him a small nod of acknowledgement that he’d failed, but done admirably. I was in a good mood, after all. I’d found purpose.
I burst into the drawing room, disturbing my parents in the middle of their typical late night salsa dancing. Mother was dipped toward the door when I came in.
“Mother. Father,” I said by way of greeting.
“Good evening, storm cloud,” Mother responded as my father lifted her suddenly.”
“Mi tormenta!” Father cackled as they spun dramatically in each other’s arms. “Here to learn a thing or two. Your old man still has it. Isn’t that, right, ‘Tish?”
“Mmm,” she responded in a suggestive hum that made my eyes roll involuntarily, “magnifique mon amour.”
“Oh, Morticia… beloved,” father replied breathlessly. “French? How could you, mi amor? You know what it does to me.”
He then immediately set to running a string of uninterrupted kisses along her arm. I felt my stomach respond violently.
“If I could interrupt you both,” I said loudly enough to grab their attention, “which I very much wish to do, I have an announcement.”
The interruption broke the romantic spell my parents often found themselves under. They both looked at me, my father with concern and my mother with casual interest.
“Enid Sinclair has, for several weeks, communicated with me via text at a precise time, 9:00 PM, within a range of 10 minutes. It is now 9:15 PM. I can only assume given her addiction and unending patience for communication that something has happened. I am leaving tonight to San Francisco. I am taking the hearse and Lurch. I go toward uncertain danger, but cannot be stopped. Are we clear?”
They chuckled, then my father spoke. “Oh, of course, mi corazon! Now, do be careful. Never forget that state lines mean little to properly motivated authorities.”
“Have a dreadful time, darling,” mother said as she was once more pulled into a fast paced dance routine. “And remember, diamonds are forever-”
“But a hidden blade is a girl’s best friend.”
She blew a kiss from across the room as father lifted her from the floor. I was gone shortly thereafter. It took me moments to pack, and I found myself unbothered by Pugsley’s presence as I did so. The potential of Nevermore, a new school within a more welcome setting than he’d ever known, had improved his attitude greatly. He wore it well, even if he was clearly nervous. He stood in my doorway, arms crossed and looking uncharacteristically determined.
“I could help! Seriously!”
“You know I’m loath to forgo the opportunity to use you as a human shield, brother,” I told him as I snapped into place the clasps of my steamer trunk, “however, I’d prefer one of us to stay here and watch over our parents.”
“Oh, they’re fine,” he said dismissively before stepping aside to allow Lurch through.
“Thank you, Lurch,” I said as he grunted and carried off my luggage, “and no, they’re not. Father will have blown our families investments within the week without proper supervision. Mother, without one of us to look after, will fall to temptation and begin that string of uninterrupted crime and depravity she’s always dreaming about, and I insist on being here when she’s caught.”
“Ugh!” was the best response he could give, but we both knew I was right. “Okay, I’ll stay. But… you promise to be safe?”
“Pugsley,” I began, feeling more open than I typically did, “I’ve been safe. For months. I can unequivocally confirm that safety is deplorable. I will absolutely not promise to be safe, but I do promise to find answers.”
“It’s just the stalker thing. You know?” he said, and here was the first sign of genuine worry. He placed his hands in the pockets of his shorts, unable to keep still as he wavered just outside my room.
“I know and acknowledge your concern, brother, which is why I will have to punish you accordingly on my return for implying I’m unable to handle a common stalker.”
He didn’t even respond. This back-and-forth between us had evolved into its own language at this point, and he knew I wasn’t done.
“Look,” I said pointedly, “I’m unimpressed with this person’s efforts to frighten me. However, it's all the more reason I’d like you to be here. If they were to find the courage to actually try something in our home, I’ll rely on your skills to manage them. Hopefully in such a way that I can have a crack at them on my return.”
I watched as Pugsley failed to master the satisfied smirk that claimed his expression. “So, you trust me to keep us safe?”
“I trust you know what I’ll do to you should you fail.”
Without another word, I elbowed past him into the hallway. That was dangerously close to complimenting my brother. A quick escape was necessary.
I swung open the double front doors of the mansion, and was greeted by an unexpected figure.
“Grandmama,” I greeted her.
She reached up with a card in her gnarled hand by way of response.
“The wheel of fortune,” she said, parroting the text on the tarot card, which was accompanied by the striking image of a many-spoked wheel surrounded by unnameable cosmic influences and entities. “Great opportunity, and great change. All at once. New paths, and new dangers. Be wary where you trek, dear.”
“Isn’t tarot a little beneath you? Do you intend to sit me down at a Ouija board before I leave?”
She cackled like a witch suffering from smoke inhalation. I couldn’t resist the pleasant wave of nostalgia the familiar sound washed over me.
“As sharp a tongue as ever, Wednesday, love. But you trust your elder here. Change is coming. No doubt, no doubt,” she assured me as she walked past me into the mansion. “And change, while inevitable, may not be welcome. Would you like to know the other card I drew?”
I considered the weight of her words. Grandmama was the eldest living Addams, a status with many impressive suggestions. Her guidance was second to none. I trusted her implicitly, even if I wouldn’t make it easy for her. If she said change was coming, then it most certainly was. If a second card provided context for that change that could prevent me from falling into harm, then I safely assumed it would also be accurate.
“No, thank you,” I told her. “I’d prefer to be surprised. It’s more fun that way, don’t you think?”
She smiled, revealing a half dozen rotten teeth. “Spoken like a proper Addams. Have fun, Wednesday.”
I was in the car immediately afterward. Lurch took off at unsafe speeds soon afterward, San Francisco many hours and miles away, but our inevitable destination. Inevitable as change. Inevitable as danger. I leaned back into the bench seat, feeling like myself for the first time in months. In the dark privacy of the hearse, I allowed myself to smile.