Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Wednesday’s POV

I simply do not believe in anniversaries. They are nothing but calendars shrouded in sentiment. I think they are nothing but reminders of dates that humans insist on treating like rituals. But the living will have their memorials, and the dead will endure them. I, by chance, find myself caught up in the unseemly space between both parties, so I keep a schedule.

It has been ten years since I ended Tyler’s life. Nothing about that pleases me to this day. No anniversary can soften the decision I had to make.

Before my mind wanders off further, I focus on finishing the sentence. I finish the sentence and dot the final 'I' as though sealing off an injury. After that I place my pen on the edge of the desk. I do not trouble myself to read the line through; I never read conclusions immediately.  I know conclusions work out best when they are left alone.

My study is surrounded by draft pages that are stuck into towers. They’re grouped according to the succession of failures leading up to my most recent success. The critics refer to them as my trials. I refer to them as growth. Every part of those drafts shaped my current successfully published book.

My room is filled with candles that light the room. The wax has formed on the candle holders. I take a look out of the window into my garden. It’s a foggy night, which seems fitting for the date. The roses in the garden have started to rot. It’s almost elegant. The ravens outside look restless. It always feels like they seem to have very intense opinions regarding the moon that rises over my garden every night. I interpret their insistence as reassurance. It is the living who require interpretation.

My mind goes back to my study. It smells like ink mixed with ashes. On the wall opposite my desk hangs a framed clipping of a newspaper. It’s about my book ‘’The Anatomy of a Hyde. The book has made me successful in a way only the public can understand. It has made me able to buy this house; it even encouraged men to deliver me contracts for my next books. I signed them right away.

Success, by the common mind, is a concept I find boring. It’s dull and renders the patient inconveniently conscious.

I close the leather journal containing the first draft of the next book and band it with its ribbon. The study becomes louder when I stop writing. The sounds feel intense. I take in every one of them. The tiny hiss of the candle wax, the rain tapping against the glass of my windows and even the creak of the wooden floor.

The clock on the mantle grinds to the exact minute it did ten years ago. Time has always been predictable. Time is the only factor that will remain steady in life.

I stand up from my chair. It’s a Victorian relic that was a gift from my parents. I walk to the chair in the corner of my study. It’s covered with the black dress I chose for this evening. It’s practical but fits with the memorial.

When one visits the dead, one should dress as if they might file a complaint. My hair remains braided into precise lines. Some insist the style implies I am frozen at sixteen. They are wrong. I maintain my braids because they prevent hair from interfering with work. Nostalgia is not a factor. Nostalgia is an infection.

When I have changed into my dress, I walk downstairs. I stop in front of the mirror in the hallway. I look at my own eyes. There’s an absence of emotion in them that used to irritate me. But I’ve grown used to it. I put on my gloves before making my way to the front door.

I’m about to step out of the door when I notice a small parcel. Inside the parcel is a white hyacinth bloom, recently severed. The hyacinth is an unsubtle choice. Please forgive me, says the language of flowers. I do not speak that language except when weaponising it; still, the hyacinth has a bruised, honest scent that I respect. It apologises without expectation. Plants are superior to people in this way.

I step into the night. Leaving my house behind. The house used to be an orphanage. I purchased it because it came with an institutional melancholy and a cemetery that strayed conveniently onto the property line. The gates are ornamental. Almost as a suggestion of containment rather than a mandate. I do not lock them. The dead find their way home whether one invites them or not.

I make my way to the small cemetery that belongs to my property. The rain seems to intensify while I make my way down the gravel path. It softens while the rain falls to the ground. The ravens relocate to follow me, their bodies hunched.

The cemetery is small. I know every stone and every person that has been laid to rest. I even know every error on the stones. Some were carved by hands that trembled too much with grief. Others by hands that had never known either and were therefore careless. Tyler’s marker is one up for debate. I demanded his stone to be plain. I wanted his name on it, with his date of birth and the day of his death.

The man who carved the stones suggested an epitaph to me. I suggested he’d obey or he’d lose a few fingers. Let’s just say he complied. The only extravagance is a small hyde flower engraved along the lower left edge. I wanted it to be there.

Sometimes my mind wanders to the question of if I did the right thing. I never know the answer.

I kneel on the damp moss and lay the hyacinth at the base of the stone, adjusting the stem until it aligns with his gravestone. The rain strikes the petals of the flower.

“I do not believe in speaking to stones,” I say, “but I believe in remembrance.”

If Tyler is here, it is as a chemical argument. Calcium, phosphorus, leftover iron. Somewhere, a worm has an opinion about him. I do not in any serious sense expect a reply. Still, the cemetery is a better listener than most people I have met.

“Ten years,” I tell him. “You’re not here anymore to count, but I am.”

Of course I don’t get an answer. But it’s almost as if the rain is answering for him. I turn my face up, letting a few drops of rain hit my eyelashes. It doesn’t sting.

It is not the first time I have come here, and it will not be the last. I’ve come to the conclusion that even my mind loves to run in circles.

Tyler died where the trees met the lake. As he was dying, his lungs struggled to remember how to breathe, and his eyes searched for mine. In the end, my hands were on his face. I remember that clearly, because sometimes I can still feel it in the middle of the night. The memory of his bones beneath my fingers. He was no longer filled with Hyde. You could see it slip back into the darkness. The boy who was still there looked shocked. He let out a tiny sound as his breath left him.

The police report called it self-defence. The town called it justice. Even the students of Nevermore called it necessary. I never thought of it that way.

When you use a blade for a long time, a certain ache sets in. It starts in your fingers and moves to your wrist, slow and steady. It’s not exactly pain. No, more like something that won’t go away. I still feel it sometimes when I’m signing first editions at bookshops. One time a woman with shiny nails said that I was “so brave, reliving that trauma for art.” She meant well.

I keep a list of moments that, if they had gone differently, might have changed everything. Making lists helps me feel some control. They make the chaos seem smaller, easier to face. If I hadn’t followed him that night. If I’d picked a different weapon. If I’d let someone else go first. If I hadn’t believed I could end it so cleanly. If I had, just once, doubted myself.

I’m very good at being sure of things. Unfortunately, that’s not always a good skill to have. People often mistake it for cruelty. I do have cruelty in me.

I place my gloved hand on the stone. The cold seeps through the leather and into my skin. My nerves send a simple message: it’s cold. The skin on my wrist tightens. I like feelings that remind the body it’s still alive.

“I’m not here to apologize,” I tell the name on Tyler’s grave. The hyacinth seems to disagree, but I let it believe what it wants. “I’m here to give a report.”

Here is my report: I’ve built a life that my sixteen-year-old self would have found embarrassing. I own a house. I pay people to fix the roof. I go to my publisher’s parties just long enough for gossip columns to get a photo of me turning down snacks. My schedule is full,apologise,” always full. People ask me to speak on panels, and I only agree if the topic is to my liking.

Enid sends me postcards covered in glitter that always seems to escape into my books, my clothes, and even my tea. I don’t mind; it makes me laugh. She writes about her small victories: proud students, wolves that drive her wild, and quiet Tuesdays that make her hopeful for the rest of the week. She ends every card with a rainbow sticker. It’s so sincere it almost feels dangerous. She always asks if I’m taking care of myself.

I am taking care of myself. The body is a tool, and tools rust if they’re not maintained.

Xavier writes too, though his letters are more like sketches. They’re bits of memory, faint confessions. He signs his name as if he’s saying sorry. I reply once for every four letters he sends. That keeps the balance.

I get fan letters too. Some ask for hope; others ask for blood. I prefer the ones that ask for blood; at least they’re honest. I also get letters from mothers who’ve lost children, asking if I believe in forgiveness. I file those under “sentiment” and “knife care”. The two categories overlap more than you’d think.

People tell me The Anatomy of a Hyde saved their lives. Sometimes I wonder if it’s also killed someone. Books can be quiet killers. You never know which line might push someone over the edge they built for themselves.

A drop of rain slips between my glove and my sleeve, running down my arm like it knows where it’s going. I let it fall and imagine it drawing a line between who I used to be and who I am now. It’s a pointless thought. Both versions of me live in the same head.

“Do you want to know the worst part?” I ask the gravestone. The worst part changes from day to day. Today, it’s this: his last breath warmed my fingers. My body remembers warmth as betrayal.

I picture Tyler’s face when he smiled. It was that strange, careful smile that looked like he’d learnt it from a book and was testing it out. I don’t like sentiment, but I can still list what was good about him. Tyler was pleasant, but only in pieces. I lay those pieces out in my mind. His laughter that always came a second too late, as if he had to fetch it from another room; the way he held cups with both hands, trying to warm both the drink and himself; his posture, trying hard to be tall but ending up only looking young. When the Hyde inside him woke up, those same pieces didn’t disappear. No, they just rearranged themselves around something darker. That’s what made it dangerous.

People like to see the world in pairs: monster or boy, guilty or innocent. I would have loved the world to be black and white. But I know it’s not that simple.

A raven lands on Tyler’s grave. It shakes the rain from its feathers and stares at me with eyes as black as coal. Then it makes a rough sound.

“No,” I tell it. The raven blinks, offended, and hops over to a nearby cross so it can glare at me from above.

Rain has soaked through my coat and runs down my back in a cold stream. I stand up. Kneeling looks too much like praying, and I don’t stay in that position for long.

“Report concluded,” I say before leaving the cemetery.

On the walk back, the fog presses against me, heavy with rain. My boots stick to the ground with each step, pulling free from the mud. The gate squeaks when I open it. My ancestors would probably approve of my house, though I try not to think about their approval too much. It tends to make people value the wrong things.

Inside the entryway, I take off my gloves and set them on a porcelain tray. Water drips from my coat onto the tile in slow, steady taps. I don’t clean it up. The floor has survived worse. I pull off my boots carefully.

In the study, the candles have burnt down since I left, their flames small and tired. I relight the stubborn ones. The flames flare up with a quiet hiss. Fire is wonderfully simple. It understands hunger.

On the desk is a letter I didn’t open before leaving. The envelope bears the Nevermore crest, sealed in black wax. I try not to get sentimental, but this kind of intrusion deserves attention. I think about ignoring. But my curiosity gets to me, so I open it.

Principal Weems is dead, so she couldn’t have written it. Whoever took her place signs the letter “Acting Headmistress L. Fairweather”, a name so cheerful it annoys me. Her handwriting is thin. The letter invites me to an alumni event. It’s not about literature but clearly about money. It adds, in that fake-sincere way only administrative letters can, that The Anatomy of a Hyde has “sparked meaningful conversations among our students about accountability, monstrosity, and healing.” They underlined healing, as if I might miss the point.

I set the letter beside the opener and place a small paperweight on it to keep it still.

The invitation has nothing to do with the anniversary, but the mind connects what it wants to. I can’t help noticing that the same people who once saw me as a warning now see me as a product. I don’t celebrate the change from monster to marketing tool. It says something about the sickness in the culture. It’s something worse than whateverlived inside Tyler’s skin.

…

I return to my journal. I open it and write down two words: Ten years. The ink spreads around the page. The blur looks beautiful.

I don’t plan to sleep, but the body makes its demands at the worst times. I blow out most of the candles, leaving one burning to watch over the room. I walk to the phonograph. I only keep music that feels clean and precise. Tonight I choose Bach. It’s a partita that lines up my thoughts. When the bow touches the strings, even the air seems to remember it has a spine.

I lie down on the fainting couch that has never managed to make me faint. I close my eyes; there’s no point in staring at the ceiling. The music smooths the knots in my mind. I let each note come and go without trying to hold onto it.

Maybe I slept. If I did, it was the thin, uneasy kind of sleep you get after surgery when the body borrows rest it doesn’t trust.

I wake with the feeling that something in the room has changed. Not much, no, just a shift in pressure. The candle flame stands straight, alert. My skin warns me: the air is a little cooler, and it tastes faintly of iron, the way it does when lightning is about to make a point. I sit up.

…

I turn my attention to my desk. That’s where I see the cause of the change in the room. There’s a small square of old fabric, waiting next to the invitation from Nevermore. The cloth seems to be folded with care. It’s dark, and the edges seem hand-stitched. Whoever left it didn’t disturb the dust. I never trust intruders who are so neat.

I stand up and walk to my desk. The music has shifted into a sad, logical rhythm. I think about throwing it away, but I can’t stop myself.

I pick up the fabric. It’s heavier than it looks. It smells faintly of smoke and something else I try not to recognise. The scent is a mixture of damp earth and wet leaves and even has a hint of animal. It smells like the place where Tyler died.

I unfold the cloth. Inside is a silver pocket watch, tarnished and engraved with a strange looping pattern that draws the eyes in circles. If you stare long enough, the design forms a shape. It’s not a serpent eating its tail, but something sharper, a loop that never quite closes. Along the edge, tiny letters are carved with care. I know the script. It’s old, part of my family’s history. Goody Addams never believed in gifts that weren’t also punishments.

The watch isn’t ticking. I know it never will. Both hands are set to midnight but are not perfectly aligned. The second hand hovers above the face like a small, restless blade.

A torn piece of paper lies folded with the cloth. The edges are brown with age, the tear uneven as if someone ripped it out in a hurry. A sentence is written in reddish ink: We are instruments; the question is who plays us.

It’s an intrusive line. It annoys me. But it’s not wrong.

I don’t ask how it ended up on my desk. Someone must have placed it here. Which means they wanted me to have it. I press the watch’s stem. It clicks softly before the lid opens.

The glass doesn’t show my reflection properly. My face breaks apart, multiplies, then settles on a version of me that looks both younger and more tired. The glass isn’t normal. No, it’s been polished with something that remembers other faces, other nights. For a second, the numbers on the dial shift and then settle back into place.

Inside, the gears try to move. Among them is something that shouldn’t be there: a strand of black hair, coiled tight around a gear. It’s been placed there deliberately. If this is some kind of sick joke or revenge quest, it’s a personal one.

When I close the watch, the metal warms against my hand. I dislike objects that just show up out of nowhere. Especially ones that smell like him.

I’ve seen devices like this before, in journals that should’ve been destroyed with their owners. They weren’t watches then. No, they were mirrors, rings, or knives with hollow handles. The idea was always the same: time, like flesh, can be cut. And cuts always have consequences. So do scars that heal the wrong way. Until now, I’ve been sure to leave the wound from that night closed.

A thought is forming, though. It isn’t wild; nothing about me is. It arrives in order, step by step. What if the cut could be undone? Not the entire night. No, that’s impossible. But only a single moment. A choice. A breath I shouldn’t have taken. That it was mercy and redemption. The funny thing is that I don’t believe in those.

What tempts me is precision. My mistake wasn’t killing him. My mistake was thinking his death solved the equation cleanly. Ten years later, the leftover piece still stares back at me from the mirror and asks if I know how to finish the maths.

Suddenly the watch feels heavier in my hands. I can feel my pulse rise. It beats faster than it should. I breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth, trying to calm myself down.

…

At the window, the rain turns to sleet for three exact seconds, then back again as if the sky can’t make up its mind. The ravens go quiet. The candle flickers, then steadies itself.

“Well,” I say aloud, “if this is an invitation, it’s a very rude one.”

A less careful person would wind the watch. A more sentimental one would call Enid. A truly cautious one would bury it in the yard. I do none of those. I set the watch on the desk and draw a chalk circle around it. I’m not cautious or reckless. I’m simply curious.

The chalk circle isn’t for protection. Chalk has never saved anyone from a family curse. The circle is for observation. If the watch moves while I’m watching, I’ll have proof. I trust evidence more than instinct. Instinct is useful, but data is the structure that lets movement happen.

I sit and open a new page in my journal. I title it Hyde Temporal Variables. I start a list of what I remember happened that night. After that I find myself drawing the woods, how they were that night. I sketch the fracture line across the boy’s face when Hyde left him. I record the colour of his lips, the temperature of the air, and the exact weight of my guilt then and now for comparison.

…

An hour later I drop my pen and read what I have written so far. I glance at the watch. It hasn’t moved beyond the circle. It lies there, perfectly still.

I reach out to touch the watch’s case, then pause. Not out of fear, but because touching it would mean I am crossing a line.

I stand, go to the window, and unhook the latch. Cold air slips in, brushing the sweat at the back of my neck. I let it question me for a moment, then close the window. I do not agree to its terms.

…

When I turn around to my desk, I notice that the chalk circle has smudged. For a moment it looks like a fingerprint. I wipe it away, trying to convince myself I am wrong.

I pick up the watch. The second hand is moving. I never wound it.

I don’t drop it. My fingers tighten around the grip of the watch. I can feel the metal press into my skin. Inside I see the strand of hair around the gear pull tighter. The hands of the watch twitch.  Not toward one or twelve, but to a point in between that no real clock should recognise.

Suddenly a sound fills the room from nowhere. It’s a faint bell. It’s not loud. But it makes the air tremble. Even the remaining candle that is burning flickers.

The watch seems to open on its own. The face doesn’t brighten. No, it sharpens. The numbers shift, losing their familiar shapes and becoming something else. The second hand slices across an invisible mark. When it finishes the cut, something in the world changes. Barely visible, but enough if you focus. You could miss it if you wanted to pretend it wasn’t real. But I am fully awake.

…

I somehow find myself thinking about Tyler’s grave. The hyacinth I placed near the grave slowly drowning in the rain, the ravens watching like judges, and the way his last breath warmed my gloves. I think about the sentence on that piece of paper: We are instruments; the question is who plays us.

“I play myself,” I say out loud. It isn’t exactly true, “And sometimes I let the knife play me.”

The hands of the watch meet at twelve, then slide beneath the surface of the face. In their place, a new shape appear. Something I’ve only seen hinted at in forbidden notes: a small notch at the edge of the dial, just big enough for a single drop of blood.

Of course. Everything asks for a price. The world doesn’t run on charity. I know it needs my blood. So without hesitation. I use the same knife I used on Tyler. It rests in a thin drawer I rarely open. The blade is spotless. The handle still fits my hand perfectly.’

 It settles into my grip with a familiar, shameful ease. The kind that comes from a sin practisedappears. too often.

I prick the tip of my left index finger. The drop of blood forms neatly.

…

When the drop of blood hits the watch, the room seems to shift. The floor, the shelves, and the ceiling move half a step to the left while staying exactly where they are. I feel a strange satisfaction, the kind that comes when an impossible equation suddenly makes sense. The watch absorbs the blood.

My heartbeat changes, syncing to a rhythm that isn’t mine. The candle stretches its flame upward, as if waiting for a verdict. The house answers with a soft creak of its beams. Something unseen moves downward. Through the roof, through me, through the floor.

I don’t faint. I don’t kneel. I stand still. The smell of wet leaves grows stronger. The room cools by four degrees. The watch warms by one. My finger throbs steadily. The air hums with a sound too low to hear. If I said Tyler’s name now, it would have edges.

I lift the watch. It feels heavier.

I look into the mirror above my fireplace. It shows my usual face. Until it suddenly flickers. I see a younger version of myself appear. The girl was ready for battle, her hair braided tight, her mouth set in a straight line because curves were for lies. Then she fades. I don’t reach for her. I don’t miss her. She’s still here, carried forward through ten years of living. Haunted by guilt of something that happened ten years ago.

I slip the watch into the inner pocket of my dress.

In the fireplace, the last coal exhales and dies. The scent is sweet, like a memory corrected.

I sit down behind my desk before picking up my pen. I start writing in my journal: Variable introduced.

Outside, the ravens start calling again. They sound almost excited. I don’t allow myself excitement. No, it feels too close to panic. Instead, I allow precision. I focus on the moment exactly as it is: the ink drying, the candle steadying, the watch defying stillness, and the blood drying on my fingertip. What comes next will be planned.

It is still the tenth anniversary of his death. For the first time in ten years, I feel something shift. After I finish writing, I pinch out the last candle. I can feel the brief sting, but I welcome the pain. After the candle is out, darkness follows. I can feel the watch in the pocket of my dress.

…

Somewhere near the cemetery, the ground shifts. Like something has stood up and remembered it was once a boy who made coffee for a living.

Tomorrow, or whatever word fits when time stops behaving, I will return to the grave. If the hyacinth has survived, I’ll take it. I’ll begin the experiment not for forgiveness, but for accuracy. If the universe thinks it can be rewritten, it can endure my edits.

For now, I have work. A schedule. A watch that isn’t really a watch, and a knife that has already told one truth.

Ten years is a clean number. A grave is a precise address. And I am, above all, an instrument that tunes itself.

I wipe the blood from my fingertip onto the edge of the journal. It leaves a dark, neat line.
I sleep for one hour and twelve minutes. In the morning I will begin.

Chapter Text

Wednesday’s POV

When morning hits, it feels tiring as always. People always talk about morning as if the daylight could fix everything. As if the sunlight could erase what happened the night before. In my study, the light taps on the windows, enters quietly, and avoids disturbing anything that matters. My watch is still where I left it, in the pocket of last night’s dress, gently warming the fabric.

I get up without any stretch or yawn. The body has its habits, but my mind ignores them. The air is a little colder. The window is covered with faint lines of condensation. I listen before I move: the tired candle wick still trying to burn, the wood of the house settling and the faraway sound of ravens arguing.

I stick to my routine. It keeps everything from collapsing. I brush my teeth. Wash my face. Braid my hair into two lines. It’s more pattern than sentiment. I make coffee not because I need it, but because it’s part of my routine. I drink it black.

My desk still holds last night’s evidence. My journal is open to the line I wrote: Variable introduced. I think about adding a note, but notes weaken sentences until they forget what they meant. I close the book, tie it with a black ribbon, and put it away among other finished things.

The dress from last night hangs there. I replace it with a suit I bought after a photographer told me people trust a woman in a collar more than one in a veil. The suit is sharp and controlled; from afar it looks like discipline. I pin the watch inside the inner pocket with a small black stitch so it won’t slip away. I tell myself this is caution.

Outside the fog has turned into a weak daylight. It makes everything look vulnerable. On the way out I pass the cemetery. It hides itself neatly behind the plants, pretending not to exist. But I know I looked through the gate; I could see the exact patch of ground where Tyler’s name is carved into stone. I don’t look, not because I am avoiding it, but because there’s no point in visiting so soon again. I’ll go back when a date or memorial demands me to.

By the time I leave the house, the watch has cooled from last night’s warmth into a calm, heavy weight against my chest. It keeps its secrets. I keep mine. The ravens on the roof watch silently. Good. I don’t like an audience unless they’ve paid for the privilege.

The city wears its rain awkwardly, like a corpse wearing lipstick. It’s too bright, in all the wrong places. I take the tram because it has order: tracks, rules, and a schedule that I like. People avoid looking at me. They always have, but now they also know who I am. A child whispers my name to his mother, who straightens his posture as if that might keep him from reading my books. He keeps staring. Monster or moralist, I will let them decide. Either choice is too simple.

…

The agency is on the top floor of an old textile mill that still carries the faint smell of heat and work. The elevator stops at every floor. When it finally opens, a receptionist with pearl earrings greets me by my full name, then quickly shortens it to “Miss Addams”, smiling in the careful, trained way of someone performing good manners.

“You’re early,” she says.
“I’m exactly on time,” I correct. “Everyone else is imprecise.”
She nods as if I’ve complimented her. Maybe I have.

The agent waits in a glass-walled conference room. His name is Rowan Hale. He says it’s his real name. I doubt it. Today he’s wearing a navy suit with lapels wider than his integrity. His pen looks heavy. He stands when I walk in but tries to make it look casual.

“Wednesday,” he says, spreading his hands. You look…”
“Alive,” I finish for him. “It’s still inconvenient.”
He laughs, then checks whether laughing was appropriate. “Have a seat. Drink? Coffee? Tea?”
“Water,” I say. “Plain.”

He pours it carefully, like it’s something rare he’s personally secured. I let him.

“We’re very excited about the new manuscript,” he says, tapping a folder that holds months of my focus and detachment. “Early excerpts have real traction. There’s momentum. The Anatomy of a Hyde has become…well, forgive me…definitive. This next one will put you beyond debate.”

“Beyond debate is beyond interest,” I reply. “Debate is free marketing provided by your enemies.”

He leans forward. “The editor wondered if we might make your public image a bit more... forgiving. Readers like softness. A path to healing. You understand.”
“I understand many paths,” I say. “Most of them lead into the woods, where people pretend they’re not lost.”

He forces a smile and writes something down. “Still, if we adjust the language, less ‘dissection’ and more ‘reclamation’, we could reach more people. Maybe even book clubs, day panels and streaming audiences.’’ He says streams have way too much excitement. “And perhaps a short tour. You could visit a few cities. You could talk about your trauma and tell the truth. You could share your unique..ehm …perspective.’’

Trauma and truth. He lines the words up like snacks and waits to see which one I’ll take.
“My perspective is already in the work,” I say. “If they want more, they can reread it with their eyes open this time.”

He smiles the way men do when deciding whether to argue or flirt. He wisely chooses neither.
“We could position you as a voice for survivors,” he suggests. “A hero.”
“I’m not a hero,” I say. “I’m a killer.’’
“A bestseller claiming she’s a killer won’t make them buy your books.”
“So be it,” I answer. “I can’t be a hero. I’m not.”
He winces. “Surely you’re some kind of hero, Miss Addams.’’
“No, Mr Hale. I’m an adult with a knife.’’

He taps his pen, then backs down. “We will talk about it later...” he says.  “As for the cover, there’s a concept we love.” He turns a mock-up toward me: my own profile in matte black, a specimen tag pinned to my throat with the word 'subject' in clinical handwriting.

“Too sentimental,” I say.
“Sentimental?” he repeats. “It’s clinical.”
“Clinical is a kind of sentiment,” I tell him. “For people who want authority more than affection.”
He flips the mock-up face down, as if it might die without light.
“We’ll revisit,” he says.
“We won’t,” I say. “It’s dead.”

He stares at the paper, hoping it might revive. It doesn’t.
“There’s one more thing,” he continues, eager to move on. “A streaming platform wants to develop a limited series inspired by Anatomy. Not a direct adaptation, more a ‘spiritual successor’. A young outsider studying the nature of monsters in a haunted town. You’d be an executive producer. You could give your creative input; there’s a strong compensation for it.’’ He glances at my hands.
“Do they want to understand Hyde,” I ask, “or tame him?”
“Contextualise,” he corrects himself mid-word.
“Giving monsters dialogue doesn’t make them safe,” I say. The watch in my pocket grows a degree warmer, approving. “Tell them no.”
He sighs, disappointed in numbers, not in morals. “All right. We’ll say you refused to protect the work’s integrity.”
“Don’t spin it,” I say. “Tell them I’m not selling a secondhand version of something I’ve done.’’
He writes it down word for word. He knows a quote when he hears one. He hopes I’ll forget I said it. I won’t.

He tries to recover his charm. “We’re hosting a small industry dinner next week. Strategic but intimate. If you came. Even just for fifteen minutes, you could give a toast. You don’t have to talk about healing from what you’ve done, no. You could just say something cool and leave. That’s what the readers adore about you.’’
“They adore the illusion of refusal,” I say. “It makes them feel bold without taking risks.”
He spreads his hands. “Isn’t that what this business is?”
“No,” I say. “This business is exchange. If they want my silence, they can pay extra.”

He laughs, genuinely this time. “You are, as always, devastating.”
“Only efficient,” I reply.

We wrap up: dates, contracts, interviews I won’t give, and a few I might if the questions behave. He tries to schedule me; I let him pretend he can.

When the meeting ends, he offers a handshake. I take it. His palm is warm with effort; mine is cool by design.

At the door, he hesitates. “Wednesday,” he says quietly. “Are you... well?”
“Would you care if I were not?’’ I ask him.

He studies me for a second. “If you need anything…”
“No thank you,” I say. “I like to take care of my own.’’

Of course he doesn’t understand. Most people don’t understand, and honestly, I don’t blame them. It’s something most will never get in their lives.

Outside, the rain has thinned to a tired smear. I walk instead of taking the tram. Movement has its own language, and I like sentences that involve the body. The city keeps itself tidy with a pride I don’t share. People live here. People eat here. People decide which parts of themselves to pretend will last. I pass a florist who refuses to sell hyacinths out of season. Good, because a florist with boundaries is a rare thing.

…

I finally make it back home. By the time I reach the gate of my property, the sky has settled on a shade of grey that flatters no one. The ravens are back on the fence posts, as if they’ve been assigned their positions. The house looks the same as always. It looks like it has been repaired twice. When I open the door, the entryway has the scent of damp stone and books. Just the scent I love most.

To my surprise there’s a package waiting for me on the threshold. It’s half wrapped in brown paper. I pick it up and examine it. It has no return address. It isn’t heavy either. When I tilt it, it makes the sound of paper shuffling.

I carry it to the study and set it on the desk beneath the shadow of the watch. The knife from the top drawer slices the string cleanly. Inside it is a tissue paper with the colour of oversteeped tea. Beneath it is a stack of photographs.

Photographs are more dangerous than weapons. Photographs pretend to be proof of memories when in reality they can hit you the hardest.

The first photo shows a shopfront reflected in a rain-dark window. There are no people on it. Just an electric sign fighting weather. The next shows someone’s hands holding a porcelain cup. I set it aside.

The third photo is a photo of the Weathervane’s sign in winter. The letters are edged with frost. The photo is clearly taken from across the street.

On the fourth photo is a visible shadow of someone inside the Weathervane. The person is leaning on the counter.

My pulse stays steady. The watch grows warmer anyway. I go through the rest of the photos without reacting. A paper placemat printed with a maze. A coffee ring shaped like a broken halo. A coat on the back of a chair, one sleeve turned as if about to wave.

The final photos lose their focus. The edges are blurred. Someone moved mid-shot. A laugh started, then stopped. One has a name written on the back, the handwriting careful but not careful enough: “Ty”. The rest never made it.

I take one breath that fails to feel normal. Then I arrange the photos in an order that satisfies me. I could burn them, but I don’t. Fire is for endings. This feels like a beginning that hasn’t revealed its price.

…

I lose my focus when I hear a sound move through the house. Before I can investigate where the sound is coming from, I hear the bell at the gate ring once. I know right away who it is.

It’s my mother. She doesn’t make appointments. She only needs a doorway. I meet her at the front door.

She’s dressed as if mourning were a sacred ritual. Velvet the colour of darkness; a brooch like a drop of night at her throat. When she tilts her chin, I see again the calm geometry of a woman who wears mystery as elegance.

“Little storm cloud,” she says. It’s half affection, half strategy. She kisses the air beside my cheek. I let it land or not, as it wishes.

“You’re early,” I say.
She smiles. “No, cara mia. I am right on time.”
I step aside. “Then come in and prove it.”

My mother glides past me. My mother knows how to move through rooms. She sits down on the chair near my desk. She sits down before removing her gloves. She places them on my desk.  Turning even that into a quiet performance.

“You’ve been difficult to reach,” she says, her eyes scanning corners for dust or secrets. “Your letters are very precise. I prefer wounds I can answer in person.”
“Letters behave better than people,” I reply. “They stay where you put them.”

Her gaze settles briefly on the box of photographs before I can move it. She knows the weight of evidence.
“Gifts from admirers?”
“Gifts from the past,” I say. “Or its accomplices.”

She nods, choosing not to pry. My mother’s mercy is rooted in curiosity, not kindness.
“You’re thin,” she observes, not as a criticism. “Are you sleeping?”
“I slept,” I say. “Briefly. It was enough.”
“Enough for the dead, perhaps,” she murmurs. “The living require better lies.”

I pour tea, because resistance would be pointless. We drink without ceremony. The steam rises like a veil, deciding who it should belong to.

“You received our invitation,” she says. I know she’s talking about the school’s fundraising letter. “A dreadful event. They’ll say your name as if it were a donation.”
“I prefer cheques,” I tell her. “They’re quieter.”
“You always were the practical one.” She sets her cup down softly. “Your father misses you loudly. I miss you quietly. Enid sends postcards that glow in the dark. Your brother sends me photos of knives he isn’t yet allowed to own.”
“Everyone seems to be thriving,” I say. “How unsettling.”
“And you?” she asks, finally reaching the question that matters.
“I’m working,” I say. It serves as both answer and refusal.

Her gaze shifts to the mantel, where the watch sits. She isn’t surprised. Mothers rarely are.
“Our family’s little relics have a way of returning when ignored,” she says. “Have you been ignoring anything important?”
“Constantly,” I say. “It’s the only way to get things done.”

She almost smiles. “When your grandmother taught me the old ways, she warned me not to polish the glass too clear. She said real glass remembers. It shows you what you want, then holds you accountable.”
“Grandmother was a romantic,” I say.
“She was a scientist,” Mother corrects. “She simply used romance the way you use knives.”

Suddenly my mother stands before moving around my room. Her fingers hover over my books. ‘’This place suits you. It’s like it’s all designed to serve you.’’
“Neither do children,” she says, turning back. “If you hear anything at night…” she begins, then stops before she can finish her sentence.

…

We both hear a sound coming from outside. It’s like the earth is moving without consent. The faint cough of a hinge somewhere in the weather.

I see my mother’s eyes sharpen. Mine are narrow, almost amused. “Ravens?” she asks.
“Ravens don’t apologise,” I say. “That sounded like an apology.”

‘’Maybe an unwanted guest?’’ she suggests, her mouth curving slightly.

I don’t hesitate for a second. I fetch my coat and walk toward the hallway. My mother doesn’t tell me to be careful. The only thing we say to each other is to be efficient.

My mother follows me to the door. She rests her fingers on my sleeve.

“If you intend to change anything,” she says softly, “do it with your eyes open.”
“I always do,” I tell her.
“I know,” she says, and lets me go.

…

I walk outside looking around when I see that the path to the cemetery seems to gleam. The fog settles lower when I hear the sound come again. It’s closer than before. When I arrive at the cemetery. I see that the hyacinth I left last night has collapsed, perfectly honest in its ruin. That feels right. The ravens watch me with their small, judgemental hearts.

Tyler’s stone looks the same: plain as usual. My name doesn’t belong on it, but my fingerprints do. I kneel, not in prayer, just out of habit. The ground swells slightly, then goes still again. I open my palm over the watch. The air cools exactly one degree.

“Show me,” I say. Trying to understand what’s happening.

The watch hears me and takes it literally. Heat spreads against my skin from the inside out. The second hand doesn’t tick; it drifts. The notch I fed last night reappears, fine as a whisper. I don’t bleed yet. I wait.

Behind me, a branch decides not to stay still. I don’t turn. Turning gives things too much importance. The ground exhales a sound that isn’t a voice but almost is. Something inside me shifts slightly sideways.

“Efficient,” I say to the air. “Finally.”

The watch hums. It’s not loud, but deep enough to feel in my bones. I press my thumb to the lid, and it opens easily, as if it’s been waiting for this moment.

I don’t cut myself this time. The blood from last night stirs, remembering its promise. The notch drinks memory instead of iron. The second hand crosses the point on the dial where numbers stop meaning numbers.

I look at the headstone, then beyond it, to the patient soil. What moves beneath isn’t a body. It’s a sentence just starting to form.

When I stand, the horizon tilts and steadies again, embarrassed by its own reaction. The watch warms in agreement. I’m grateful. The body needs small lies to keep going. The mind doesn’t.

The night opens. Not to speak, but to make room. A wind rises from the ground and moves up my skirt. I let it pass through me. The feeling is unpleasant but true.

I close the watch, and the dark closes with it, like an agreement being renewed. The sound stops. The ground remembers itself. I file away the new data.

As I turn to leave, something white catches my eye at the edge of the path. It’s a paper. Damp at the corners, folded with the same precision as the package. I pick it up. ‘’We are instruments; the question is who plays us’’ is written on it.

The same sentence, copied again. The ink is smudged where a thumb couldn’t help itself. I slip the paper into my pocket beside the watch and leave the cemetery.

…

My mother is waiting in the doorway when I return to the house. I don’t hesitate for a second and show her the paper. She reads it and nods.

“Good,” she says. “At least the enemy can quote.”
“Who says it’s an enemy?” I ask.
“Anyone who gives you choices is an enemy,” she replies. Then, after a pause, she picks up her gloves. “I’ll leave you to your work. If the past decides to be fragile with you, remind it which family you belong to.”

She kisses the air again. Then she leaves. The gate closes behind her with a loud squeak.

…

When I’m finally alone again I return to my study. The photographs from before are still there. I go through all the photos again. On the back of the last photo, the blurred one with the half-written name. I notice a second, fainter mark beneath the first. The writer had pressed too hard, as if trying to carve the name instead of just writing it: Ty…g..

Maybe it’s a message from someone who didn’t yet know their own strength. I’m not sentimental. I’m methodical. I take a pencil and shade lightly over the back until the pressed letters begin to show. The name appears. The air changes around it. I put down the pencil and sit still, while the room quietly adjusts to make space for a truth I already knew.

Outside, the ravens shift positions on the fence. Inside, the watch settles into a new rhythm.

Night returns without asking. The house gathers its shadows and dares me to make them look elegant. I light two candles.

…

I know I can’t go to sleep like this, so I open a random book in the hope I can borrow someone else’s thoughts to distract me. But the word doesn’t cooperate. My mind keeps circling back to the smell of the cemetery. A scent of wet earth. I close the book and accept that I’m awake, just with my eyes closed.

I feel that the watch doesn’t want my blood tonight. It wants proof. So I sleep, if only to deny it a performance.

After a while I hear the sound again. This time it’s closer near the house. It’s not inside the walls. Not yet. It’s in the ground just outside the study window, as if the lawn has learnt to breathe. I’m standing before I realise I’ve moved. For once, body and mind agree. That’s rare for me. I take the knife from my desk, just to be sure.

I open the window of my study, trying to see where the sound is coming from. The air outside is colder than yesterday. There’s a smell of wet leaves taking over my scent.

I open my window fully and step out of it until I can feel the grass underneath my feet. Somewhere in the dark, a bell rings softly. I pretend not to hear it. The ground dips politely beneath my feet.

At the graveyard gate, the hinges open on their own. I go in without hesitation.

At Tyler’s grave, the hyacinth has stopped pretending. It now looks exactly like what it is: something beautiful that died because attention isn’t enough to live on. The dirt around the stone is darker, as if it drank too much water. The watch trembles once against my ribs, then steadies. I open it, trying to understand what’s happening.

The small notch appears. I don’t feed it this time. Instead, I place the watch face-down on the stone and rest my hand on its back. The metal translates my heartbeat into its own rhythm. The ground responds by remembering a shape. Not a body, but a boy. A faint outline stitched together from everyday moments: the way a cup tilts, the posture of someone trying to seem taller. The shape stands without standing. The scent of coffee drifts into the air.

“I’m not here for forgiveness,” I tell it quietly. “I’m here for data.”

The shape doesn’t argue. It just exists.

I lift the watch. The second hand moves past the place on the dial where twelve pretends to be a door and then becomes one. The bell in the ground isn’t faint anymore. No, it’s a line I could cross if I were foolish. I’m not often foolish. Just sometimes greedy.

“Very well,” I say to the night. “Show me the terms.”

They come like a draught through an open door: no blood tonight, only evidence. One more visit to the grave. One more alignment at the exact minute the town once called justice. Then the door will open as wide as I can stand it. I can feel the tension in my body rise.

“I accept,” I say.

Around me I can hear the ravens protest, speaking their old, exact language. The watch doesn’t. It warms, then cools, then settles again.

I return to the house, to the desk, to the candle that knows my breath by now. The photographs wait to be arranged into meaning. I deny them. I slide them into the drawer and lock it.

“Tomorrow,” I tell the dark room. “Then we will proceed.’’

The watch responds with the smallest click.

…

But when sleep finally finds me, it doesn’t feel like rest. It feels like falling through a sentence before it ends.

When I open my eyes, I’m outside on damp earth beneath trees that know my name. The air smells fresh, a mixture of dirt and pine needles. The forest around me hums with the exact silence I remember. This is the place where I killed Tyler.

My hand moves on instinct to the watch. Its face catches a shard of moonlight. For a moment I think it’s cracked, but it isn’t. It’s showing me my own reflection. I’m young. Too young. Twelve years too young, to be precise.

The second hand turns once, steady and sure as I hold my breath.

Chapter Text

Wednesday's POV

I sit up. It’s like the ground lets go of me slowly. It even leaves mud on my hands. The cold here feels different. It’s raw, and it feels real. It feels like winter. At least there’s no city noise, no buzz of electricity, and no pipes making sounds in the walls. Only the steady breathing of the pine trees and an owl calling out.

I take stock of what I have because making a list helps the world make sense to me.
Dress: black, dirty with bits of leaves, practical. Boots: soaked up to the laces; one lace is starting to tear. Knife: still here. Watch: warm against my skin. Bones: all fine. Fear: missing, maybe just misplaced. Curiosity: sharp and ready.

I look down one more time. The watch shows me a younger version of myself. My cheekbones aren’t defined. My mouth hasn’t learnt how to say no. My skin is untouched by a mixture of smoke or ink. My eyes look the same, though. They just belong to a smaller face. I realise I must be 14 years old here. In the old timeline, fourteen came late to Nevermore, like a storm that slept in and pretended it meant to. Now I’ve woken up in the space between two versions of history.

…

The path I took the night I killed Tyler shows faintly where it should be. It’s like a shadow under the moss, a darker patch in the wet ground. But the forest is 12 years younger, and it feels like it. The trees hold their bark too tightly. Even the plants on the ground haven’t yet learnt to thin out and make walking easier. I pick a direction, because standing still leads to panic, and panic is something I refuse to do.

North. My body remembers north.

The moonlight fades from silver to dull grey behind thin clouds. The branches above bend together like a roof. Here’s the stump where the search team once tied orange tape. Now there’s nothing: no tape, no shouted orders, no officials pretending to care. Only rings of fungus, like a calendar that forgot to count. A puddle catches my reflection. I look, because pretending not to see is a slower kind of poison.

I can see the face in the puddle look back at me. My face looks sharp in places and young in ways that I know will harden. I undo one braid and weave it again, just to make sure my hands still work. My fingers move as they should.

The air grows sweeter as the forest opens up. It’s a mixed scent of yeast, smoke, and the faint, metallic hint of a river. I realise Jericho must be close. The wild shapes of nature give way to human order: fences pretending to claim land, laundry lines fluttering in the wind, and gravel paths still untouched by pavement. I stop at the edge of the trees and listen. A truck shifts gears with a deep. It’s not the soft whine of city cars but the sound of something built to work. Farther away, a bell strikes eight, clear and certain. Either the church has stayed the same, or I’m walking beneath its old confidence.

…

The watch remains silent. Both the hands point to twelve. When I press the button, nothing happens. It just grows warmer again in my chest.

I step out of the forest and onto the road. The gravel looks newer and rougher. The ditch beside it opens wide. Wildflowers stand tall and untamed, not yet cut down by city maintenance. The town ahead looks freshly made, proud of its new paint. The general store sign still has all its letters. The pharmacy window still shines. Even the tourist board talks about winter with happy fonts, as if February were just a fun project.

When I walk into town, no one looks at me. No one takes notice or writes me into their story. I’d almost forgotten how good it feels to be invisible and to be able to move unseen.

In the distance a woman is sweeping her porch. Further away a man carries a box carefully, and some children are playing outside. Their lack of awareness is the best proof.

…

I make my way past the bakery. The glass windows are fogged up. It’s advertising warmth and comfort. Inside I see an old baker working with steady hands. He’s lifting loaves from the oven. I can hear him humming; the sound clears a forgotten memory in me. Suddenly a small child presses his face to the glass, leaving smudges shaped like stars. I count seven. He licks one, and now there are eight.

A bus passes me while it grinds its way up the hill. It eventually stops with effort. It’s painted in an old-fashioned way. It’s red instead of blue. The driver wears a plain cap. A student leans out a window, letting the wind play over his hand. The air is kind; it doesn’t bite.

Jericho’s town square holds its shape. The statues still look proud, not yet ashamed of their history. The fountain quietly does its job. After that I notice the weathervane. The Weathervane’s sign hangs straight, its letters clean. The bell above the door tilts toward the street.

I don’t go inside. At least not yet. I don’t know how to handle it. I’m afraid I will be confronted with some things I have been afraid to face.

Instead, I head toward the river to see what time has written. The bridge leans slightly, its wooden planks rough and unpolished. The water moves fast and without apology. It flows downhill, as it must. Across the river, the willow trees look innocent now. They’ll lose that later, but for the moment, their sincerity is real.

…

The memory comes to me slowly, first the pressure, then the light. I let it play for a few seconds. A branch snapping. It’s the same sound as snapping a rib. The sap smells like blood. Suddenly I remember how his mouth was trying to shape my name but failing for lack of air. I even remember the angle of my wrist when I made the choice. I stop the memory before it reaches the part where an apology might appear. Remembering is like cutting something open to study it. Today, I won’t let it.

…

I find myself walking back to the square after the memory hit me out of nowhere. Across the square I notice that every building wears a new coat of paint. Posters advertise a harvest fair I remember ending badly. Though maybe that’s my guilt talking, not memory. The thrift store that will one day sell nostalgia still believes in giving things a second life. A woman dresses a headless mannequin in a denim jacket, shaping its shoulders with her hands. The motion is both caring and mechanical. It’s proof that she knows how to keep going.

A patrol car rolls into view at a careful pace. Driving at a friendly speed. Sheriff Galpin isn’t driving. The deputy looks too young, his face not yet marked by time. The passenger seat is empty. A space that feels like it’s waiting for someone. The air beside me remembers it will be filled. My body feels it. My mind takes note.

In the barber’s window, a small mirror catches my reflection and confirms what the watch already said. I’m definitely fourteen here. My mouth reacts with the smallest curve, not quite a smile, not quite a frown. Time has done something rare and exact: it has made the puzzle solvable.

I’m about to look at another store when the bell of the Weathervane catches my attention. My body recognises the sound before I think about it. That bell has always meant something to me.

…

Suddenly I see someone I would not have expected to meet in this timeline. Across the square I see Enid walk towards the bridge. I hear her laugh. She looks younger; her hair is shorter, and it’s dyed in a colour that’s way too cheerful for me. She’s carrying two paper bags while talking to someone next to her. She looks my way for a second, but I know she doesn’t know me in this timeline. I let out a sigh before turning away. I force down the urge to run toward her. I can’t let her be close to me, not yet. But deep down I want to tell her about everything.

…

Enid disappears out of sight. I decide to walk around the square again. I walk slowly and steadily, taking in my surroundings. The streetlights turn on early, eager to please the coming dusk. The hardware store swaps its display for a snow shovel. It’s either a sign of what’s coming or just a warning in disguise. The voices around me grow softer, settling into the sounds of home. Night takes over the stage from day.

Suddenly I’ve had enough of avoiding the inevitable. I head toward the café. I walk like everything is normal. It’s a choice that takes effort. The bell above the door will give me away when I step inside; that’s its job. The watch warms against my chest, as if agreeing with my decision.

I stop by the window, standing where I can watch without being seen. Inside, the Weathervane looks the same, only younger. It’s like a scar that has decided to smooth itself into skin. The counter gleams. The espresso machine hasn’t learnt to protest yet. The stools still wear their bright red vinyl proudly. I stay near the edges; the centre feels too exposed.

First, I notice a hand stacking plates that will chip in a few years. Then a chair, the one whose leg will wobble one spring and almost ruin a date for two people who take it as a bad sign. And finally I notice the sheriff’s hat resting on the counter beside a plate.

And that’s where I see him. Caught in perfect light. It’s Tyler Galpin. A boy’s face that will one day become a murder scene, then a permanent memory in my mind.

I see and hear him laughing. The sound of his laugh is pure. Untouched by what’s coming for him. Steam rises between us, and for a moment the light turns it into something almost sacred. His father says something I can’t hear, resting a hand on his shoulder in that easy, casual way that feels like it could last a lifetime.

Tyler is here right now. He’s alive, untouched and just an ordinary boy. The boy I killed once is here again, breathing, blowing gently on his coffee so it doesn’t burn his tongue.

I note every detail, refusing to feel anything that isn’t fact: the colour of his sleeve, the tilt of his jaw, the faint roughness that still says boy, not man, and the way his hands cradle the cup as if warmth is something you can borrow. My body offers three reactions. A part of me wants to run, another wants to reach out, and some part of me wants to pray. I do none of them. I just breathe slowly through my nose until the moment stops performing and becomes what it is again: a room.

…

I open the door because I know waiting any longer isn’t going to help. At that point it would be fear pretending to be strategy. The moment I open the door, I can hear the bell above the door ring with an all-too-familiar sound.

A few heads turn to look at me. Not his. The waitress gives me the look people always give to someone dressed a little too far ahead of their time. She’s curious at first. I’m relieved when she decides I’m not worth thinking about. I sit at the counter; it gives me the best view and the least attention. The menu lists its usual stuff. I refuse them all with a small nod.

“Coffee?” the waitress asks.
“Sure,” I answer.
She blinks, “Black?”
“Yes,” I say.

She walks away and leaves me alone.

…

I study the rhythm of the kitchen. I notice the hiss of steam, the slam of a door and the clinking of mugs. But the sound that catches my attention is the laugh of Sheriff Galpin. He has the same kind of laugh most men have when they’re sure they’ll never have to pay for it. Tyler laughs a second later, as if he had to walk across some invisible space to find the joke. I already knew that about him. Knowing it again doesn’t comfort me. It only confirms what I remember about him.

My coffee arrives shortly after that. It’s strong, which means it burns a little. The heat reminds my mouth how to exist. I could turn around and say his name now. I’d learn something from that, but I’d lose more. So I stay quiet and keep watching.

The door opens, and a burst of cold air makes the bell ring sharply. Two high school athletes rush in, full of careless energy, still too young to have made a mistake big enough to slow them down. One claps Tyler on the shoulder and calls him by his last name with the easy tone of everyday friendship. Tyler looks briefly shy. I notice that right away.

In the mirror behind the counter, I see my younger face pretending to stay calm and pulling it off. The watch under my dress stays warm, holding its secret steady. In the same reflection, I catch sight of Enid crossing the square again, glowing like a warning sign. She stops to tie her shoe, almost walks inside, then decides the pastry she’s carrying is enough company. For once, her survival isn’t my concern. I drink to that.

“Sorry for the wait,” the waitress says to someone farther down the counter, her voice blending easily into the background noise. The clock above the pie case runs a minute fast.

…

I see Sheriff Galpin stand up to leave. His chair leg scrapes against the floor. I see him pay in cash.

After that he says something to his son that makes Tyler roll his eyes and smile at the same time. It’s a perfect mix of irritation and affection. The sheriff puts on his hat. He tips the brim toward the waitress and no one else. After that he’s gone.

Tyler stays behind. He remains in his seat. He turns his coffee cup slowly, not restless, just thoughtful. Light shifts across his face, like it’s waiting for him to make a choice. He glances toward the mirror, probably just checking his hair. For a split second, our reflections meet. I see him; he doesn’t see me.

I could leave now and keep the balance intact. I could come back tomorrow, take the same seat, note the changes, and write it all down in a report no one would ever read. Because it wouldn’t be about healing, only observation. But instead, I let myself write one clear thought in the rare ink I save for truths that don’t perform: the universe has brought back its mistake, and it’s sitting here behind the counter.

I finish the last of my coffee. After that I stand up and take a peek outside. The town square shifts fully into night. The bakery pulls down its shade. The bus begins its evening route. From the corner, I hear Enid’s laugh as she opens her paper bag and eats her pastry standing up. I realise that everything is in its place, except for me.

I leave some cash under the coffee cup and slide off the stool. The bell above the door rings again. The cold air greets my face without warmth. In the window’s reflection, I see Tyler raise his cup for one last sip, then he sets it down. He doesn’t know he’s repeating something he’s already done before.

…

Outside, the cold folds itself around me like punctuation waiting for the sentence to finish. I walk without direction. I don’t know if I’m going north or not. My mind recites all the things I’ve seen today. None of it tells me what I’m supposed to do.

The square has emptied itself of purpose. The streetlamps hum in small, uncertain octaves. The river argues softly with its own reflection. I stop in the middle of the street because I have run out of hypotheses.

The universe has moved, and I have moved with it. That much I can measure. What I cannot measure is why.

I turn too quickly, maybe to re-enter the café, maybe to flee it. That’s when I collide with something moving in the opposite direction. The collision is an efficient disaster. I can smell a mixture of coffee and leather. After that I can feel a breath falter from surprise. After that I fall to the ground.

The world steadies itself a few seconds later. My knees hit cobblestone; my palms find cold grit. Across from me, someone curses under his breath. It’s a tone halfway between apology and amusement.

“Sorry, I didn’t….. Are you okay?”

The voice detonates in my chest. I’d know his voice from anywhere. I have heard it break, plead, and die. Here it is, sounding casual, human and even concerned.

I look up, but the night hesitates first. The boy standing over me isn’t the monster or the memory. Tyler looks younger and undamaged. The sunlight still lives in his skin.

He bends down before extending his hand. The gesture is almost enough to break me.

Suddenly I see something metallic skitter across the ground between us. It’s the watch. It has escaped my pocket, rolling a short arc before stopping at his boot. Tyler picks it up.

The second hand shivers once, as if deciding whether to confess. Tyler turns it over in his palm.

“Yours?” he asks. “It’s… warm.” He frowns, puzzled but intrigued. “Weird. It feels like it’s alive.”

He holds it out to me. I take it carefully, trying not to let my fingertips tremble when they touch his. The contact is brief, but the air registers it with impossible precision.

“Yes,” I manage. My voice sounds borrowed. “It’s mine.”

He nods, smiles the smile I buried years ago. “I’m Tyler,” he says easily, like this is just another casual evening. “Tyler Galpin.”

The watch ticks once, sharp and final, like a shutter closing.

Chapter Text

Wednesday’s POV

I’m still kneeling in the wreckage of our momentum. Almost balanced on apology and grovel. The watch sits in my palm where he placed it, a small, obedient heart pretending to be metal.

“It’s really warm,” he says again, as if the observation might change if he repeats it. “Like it’s been in the sun.”

“It’s been somewhere worse,” I reply before standing.

Tyler wipes the dust off his jeans. Up close, his innocence isn’t just an idea. It’s clear in his features. His jaw doesn’t yet show stubbornness. His eyes try to look brave but only manage to look sincere. His mouth looks dangerous because it’s so human. It hasn’t yet learnt how to be cruel.

“I didn’t see you,” he says, stepping back. “It’s my fault.”
“It is,” I say, because the truth shouldn’t be left alone. “But I was also thinking, which is dangerous while walking.”

He laughs. It’s a little late, like it took him a second to find it. “So… we both share the blame.” He holds out his hand like a peace offering. “I’m Tyler.”
“Yes,” I say, not shaking his hand. “I noticed.”

He blinks, then smiles awkwardly. “You’re new here?”
“New to tonight,” I say. “Not to the idea of it.”

He looks me over. My dress is too plain for the town square, my posture too sure to apologise. He tilts his head like a cautious animal, half curious, half careful. “Do you want… I mean, I work at the Weathervane. If you need napkins. Or a phone? I can give you a free coffee. It seems fair after I knocked you over.’’

“Compensation means someone got hurt,” I say. “I’m fine. And the last century and I are still on good terms.”

He stuffs his hands into his jacket pockets, trying to look relaxed and almost pulling it off. “Still. It’s late. You sure you’re okay?”
“I’m precise,” I tell him. “Being precise is rarer than just being okay.”

Behind us, the café bell rings for another customer. Tyler glances toward it, then back at me. He seems torn between responsibility and curiosity. He chooses responsibility, which is usually the safer mistake. “I should get back,” he says. “We’re closing soon. If you need anything. I’ll be right there.”
“I know where the café is,” I say.

He squints, half amused, half confused. “Cool.” He starts to leave, then turns back. “Hey… What’s your name?”

I think about all the futures that depend on saying it. Then I say it anyway. “Wednesday.”
“Like the day?” he asks, confused.
“Like the warning,” I correct.

He grins, then looks embarrassed by it. “Okay, Wednesday-like-the-warning. Maybe I’ll see you around.”
“You will,” I say. It’s not a promise. It’s a truth I can’t help admitting.

He raises a hand to say goodbye, realises it looks like a salute, and disappears into the light and noise of the Weathervane. The door closes behind him, causing the bell to give a smug little ring.

I stand still long enough for a streetlamp to make fun of me. My mind, usually sharp and quick, circles the thought and refuses to land. I have what I didn’t come for: proof that life still happens, that mistakes still count, and that the universe can be argued with. What I don’t have is what comes next.

…

I try to compose myself because I feel the tension. Remembering what happened during the day usually helps me put my mind at ease. I think about them in order: grave, woods, town, Enid, Tyler, Weathervane and now evening. None of them tell me what to do next.

What doesn’t help is that I look fourteen on the outside. Inside of me, it’s a mix of half-built structures and broken pieces arguing inside one skull.

I realise that my parents, at least this version of them, are unaware of what is happening. I know they could be worried. So I know I need a phone to fix that issue, fast.

I walk back into the Weathervane. The warmth greets me right away. The smell of coffee and sugar greets me. I notice that the staff are closing up. It’s a calm routine of a town that believes it’s safe: wipe, stack, count.

Tyler is wiping a table in slow circles, as if making quiet amends. He doesn’t look at me.

I walk to the counter. “Can I use your phone? I ask.
The waitress, who has her hair pinned tightly back, slides the phone toward me without stopping her tip-counting. “Local calls only,” she says automatically.
“The past isn’t long distance,” I tell her.

…

The phone cord curls around my wrist like it owns the place. I dial home by instinct. I know most 14-year-olds wouldn’t bother to remember their parents’ home number.

The phone rings a few times before someone from home picks up.

“Addams residence,” says Morticia, with just two words.
“Mother’’ I say dryly, as if it’s the most normal thing that a 14-year-old is across state lines.

There’s a pause where I can almost hear all her carefully sharpened thoughts getting ready. “Wednesday,” she says. “You’re alive. Where are you?!’’
“I’m in Jericho.”

My mother lets out a slow, controlled breath. “Jericho is hours away from your school. They’ve called twice to say you’ve gone missing. Are you aware they think you’ve been kidnapped?”
“They worry for fun.”
“I worry correctly.” Her voice makes the café’s air feel colder. “Why are you there?”

“I wanted a field trip,” I say. It’s a clean lie. It’s one of the polite ones. “For research.”
“At midnight?”
“Dawn is too dramatic.”
“You are fourteen, not forty,” she says. “Stop pretending to be an adult just because you dislike rules.”

Something sharp flickers through me. It’s an old, wordless irritation. If only you knew you were talking to another adult, I think. One with more ghosts than birthdays. But I swallow it. Explaining would only make her right in ways I don’t want to admit.

Her words hit where my body remembers being older. I’m fourteen on the outside, twenty-six on the inside. Two versions of me trying to share one spine. I look at my hands. They’re small, smooth, and still innocent. They haven’t earned their scars yet. I keep my voice calm, not to rebel, but to stay in control.

“I’ll come back soon,” I say.
“You’ll come back now.”
“I’ll come back,” I repeat, “soon.”

There’s a silence between us. It’s like waiting for the storm to come.

Come home,” she says. “Don’t make me come over to Jericho!’’
“I have to go,” I say. “There’s something I need to…”
“Don’t you dare hang up the phone, missy!”

…

I don’t mean to touch the mug beside the register, but I do. It’s porcelain, still warm, with a faint crescent of dried foam where his thumb must have been.  Suddenly the world tilts.

The vision doesn’t come gently. No, it hits me hard.

A basement breathes out rot. The stone walls sweat like they’re hiding something.  There’s a lantern that flickers, casting sickly yellow light that makes the shadows meaner. There are shelves that hold jars labelled in Latin. The language of elegant lies. A table scarred by old choices. Chains hang like punctuation waiting for a sentence. Laurel Gates bends over a notebook, her pen poised like a needle. The Hyde serum is almost finished. Her voice sounds sweet on the surface but is sharp underneath. Her voice cuts through the air: “Our sweet boy is stronger than the research predicted.”

Suddenly she turns around. Her perfume tries too hard to smell innocent, so much so that it feels wrong. It reeks of a mixture of roses and daisies.

Tyler is standing in the doorway. He’s not a monster yet. He looks scared and confused. Obviously he’s still just a boy in my vision. Gates smiles at him with the kind of gentleness people use on pets or weapons. “Soon you’ll be free of them,” she says softly.

Then everything snaps back to the present. The café comes back in pieces: the cash register coughing coins, a chair scraping the floor in apology, the clock above the pie case lying by a minute like it wants to please. The phone cord tightens around my wrist, cheap metal biting into skin. My hand grips the mug too hard.

I hang up the phone, ending the conversation with my mother abruptly.

…

I set the phone down carefully. The click sounds final, like it just cut one future away from another. The mug is still where I left it, steam rising like it owns the place. If he hasn’t turned yet, if the corruption hasn’t started, there’s still time to stop it.

Tyler walks over to the counter, holding a few coins for the tip jar. He pauses when he sees my hand gripping the counter, the phone cord tight around my wrist like a promise I didn’t mean to make.
“Everything okay?” he asks, polite in that harmless way people are before they realise how little politeness actually fixes.
“Yes,” I say. “Unfortunately.”

He smiles, thinking I made a joke when really I didn’t. “Need a ride? It’s late. I can ask my dad…”
“No.” I cut him off before the thought can grow roots. “Thank you.”
“Sure.” He taps the counter twice, then goes back to wiping tables.

I leave because staying too long leads to feelings, and feelings lead to mistakes. The bell gives me away as I step out, and the street takes me back without asking questions. The lamps glow like small, careful moons. The river nearby argues with itself in whispers and loses politely.

Suddenly a plan forms in my mind. It feels complete and certain. If I want to be sent to Nevermore two years early, I just have to make myself impossible to manage. Schools mistake obedience for goodness and anger for truth. That makes them easy to manipulate. A “field trip” can become an “escape”. A locked door can decide it’s open. Authority is just a dance, and one wrong step, in the right rhythm, can change everything.

I walk until the tidy shopfronts give way to trees, until the edge of town remembers it was forest first. The watch against my chest feels like a verdict choosing to be close instead of cruel. I press my palm to it until it warms, agreeing with me.

If time wants to replay its tragedies, I’ll interrupt. If history wants patience, it won’t get mine. And if Nevermore thinks it can wait for me, it’s wrong. Because I have work to do.

…

Morning arrives politely, the way liars always do. The sky is bruised in soft colours where the night refused to leave quietly. I slept well on the cot inside of an old ranger shed whose best quality is that it doesn’t ask questions. I wash my face in the river.

By six o’clock, I’m back on the road. The town lines up its shops like neat, sharp teeth. I buy a newspaper so anyone watching will think I care about the news. The headlines brag about the usual things: budgets, weather, and a missing cat whose photo has been printed too large for its dignity. Nothing about monsters. That’s perfect because it means the world still thinks it’s normal.

My current school is only a few hours away if you drive with bad intentions. Which I do. When I arrive at school. It greets me with its fake charm. The grass is trimmed too short. Even the hedges are ugly trimmed. The brick buildings pretend to have history, which clearly isn’t the case.

The headmistress, who believes obedience is the same as goodness, doesn’t yet realise she’s about to learn something.

I walk into Latin class one minute late. The teacher puts on his best disappointed face. I sit down without apologising and, instead of translating the assigned text, read out loud the notes he’s scribbled in the margins upside down from his lectern. His face turns a satisfying shade of offended. The class stares at me, and I enjoy it. A little too much.

In history, I fix the teacher’s timeline and refuse to quote the textbook because it’s wrong.

In chemistry, I ask for hydrochloric acid and explain, when denied, that there are cleaner ways to carve truth into stubborn materials.

In Art, I draw the Gates’ basement from my vision, sharp enough that the teacher mistakes it for emotional expression and asks me to explain my method. I say, “Observation.” She doesn’t appreciate it.

By lunch, the dean already knows I’ve become “an issue”. He schedules a meeting. I tell him I won’t go, and then I do, because an audience makes everything more interesting. His office smells of a mixture of sweat and leather.

“Miss Addams,” the dean begins, folding his hands, “we are concerned.”
“Too many pronouns,” I say. “You mean you’re concerned.”

He blinks, not used to being dragged from the safety of “we” into “I”. “Your teachers report you’ve been disruptive.”

“They’re confusing accuracy with disruption,” I say. “It happens often in places that worship rules more than results.”

His jaw tightens. He has the look of a man already writing a report in his head. “We expect cooperation.”

“Cooperation is something I give when it’s earned,” I reply.
“Wednesday…!”
“Miss Addams,” I correct. Sometimes respect has to be demanded in small, irritating ways.

The meeting ends because it has nowhere else to go. He’s showing off his authority by only helping me to get what I want. He gives me detention, then follows with a call to my parents and eventually adds a note to my record. I sign everything as if I’m giving autographs at a very boring event.

…

After classes, I take my time walking to the empty auditorium. I turn on every light and sit at the pipe organ without asking permission. I play Bach because it shows exactly how I am feeling.

The music fills the hall and spills into the corridors, climbs the stairs, and seeps into the administrative offices. By the time I hit the final chord, the headmistress, the dean, and two teachers have gathered, all sharing the same expression of official outrage.

“Miss Addams,” the headmistress says. “My office. Now.”
“Gladly,” I say.

We have a performance titled Expectations. She quotes rules. I quote results. She offers detention. I offer strategy. She threatens suspension. I recommend transfer. It’s tidier. The conversation spins in circles until all the pretence drains out of it.

“Where would you like to be sent?” she finally asks, mistaking curiosity for control.

“Nevermore Academy,” I say.

The headmistress laughs. It’s a sharp, unfriendly sound. “We don’t send our students to circus schools for misfits.”
I tilt my head. “Then you’ll be happy when I’m no longer your problem.”

Her eyes narrow. The dean starts shuffling papers. I can see them both thinking about what matters most. Their reputation, money, or the board members who panic at anything interesting.

When schools have to choose between covering up trouble or dealing with it, they always choose the cover-up. Between discipline and transfer, transfer wins.

“Your parents”, the headmistress says, sounding proud of herself, “will never agree to this.”
“Consent”, I say, “is just a door that opens when the right letter arrives. You’ll write to Headmistress Weems at Nevermore. You’ll send my records. You’ll copy my parents. They’ll sign it. You’ll call it a joint decision.”

“You assume a lot.”
“No,” I say. “I calculate.”

…

The paperwork that follows takes forever. The headmistress calls Nevermore. Eventually calls turn into emails. Emails turn into results. I go back to my room and pack carefully.

The watch rests in my hand for a moment too long. “You’re not a miracle,” I tell it. “You’re just a wound that remembers how to open.”

At three in the morning, I wake up with the kind of certainty my family calls a vision and doctors call overthinking. The watch burns hot against my skin. I don’t feed it blood. I feed it purpose. Outside, the ravens, both younger and somehow the same, move through the air like punctuation marks. Somewhere in town, a woman with a basement and perfume that lies even better than she does is sleeping peacefully, believing she’s in control.

…

Dawn arrives with poor taste and good timing. By eight, a long black car pulls up outside the office, purring like it knows it belongs here. My mother steps out wearing black, her disapproval as stylish as always. My father follows, smiling like chaos is a love language.

The headmistress is ready to be judged and to pretend she’s winning. She gets neither. Mother reads the transfer letter once, then corrects it with her fountain pen. A pen that’s probably ended wars. Father kisses the pen like it’s a holy relic. The headmistress signs where she’s told. The dean pretends to look important. But they’re clearly not.

…

We don’t discuss reasons on the drive at first. My parents don’t know about time travel. They just know me. That’s enough. The car hums along the road, steady as a heartbeat trying to be calm.

Finally, Mother speaks. “Running away, Wednesday. How tediously traditional of you. Couldn’t you think of something more original than vanishing into the night?”
“I wasn’t running,” I say. “I was investigating.”
“Investigating what?” She asks, her voice sharp enough to carve marble. “Your own capacity for chaos?”
“The limits of the present,” I say. “And I found them disappointing.”

Mother sighs the way people do when they love something they can’t control. “You frightened us,” she says quietly. “That is not an accomplishment.”
“It wasn’t meant to be,” I say. “Fear is just proof of attachment.”
“Spare me your philosophy,” she replies. “You are fourteen. You have plenty of time to perfect arrogance.”
“I’m ahead of schedule,” I say.

Father chuckles softly from the driver’s seat. “She gets it from you, querida.”
“She gets the dramatics from you,” Mother fires back.
“I prefer to call it passion,” he says, smiling. “Our little scorpion went on an adventure. Who among us didn’t at her age?”
“I never broke curfew,” Mother says.
“No, but you broke hearts,” he replies. “I’d say our daughter is merely exploring the family talent for disruption.”

Mother’s lips tighten, but her eyes soften, if only slightly. “You could have been hurt,” she says. “Or worse.’’
“I was careful,” I answer. “Statistically, I’m more dangerous than anything I might have met.”
Father beams. “That’s my girl.”
Mother cuts him a look. “Do not encourage her, Gomez.”
“I can’t help it. She reminds me of you the day you threatened your debate coach with a fencing foil.”
“That was different,” she says.
“It always is,” he murmurs, still grinning.

For a few miles, no one speaks. The silence is comfortable in the Addams way. It’s full of affection disguised as tension.

 Suddenly Mother breaks it. “You will call every other day,” she says firmly. “A rule we shall all pretend to follow.”
“If you insist on being legendary,” she adds, “at least be punctual.”
“I prefer accuracy to fame,” I say.
“Be both,” Father suggests, squeezing my hand with the tenderness of someone who knows sharp things can love gently, too.

Eventually Jericho greets us the way small towns greet weather: by pretending they expected it. We stop at the Weathervane because Father believes coffee is sacred.

The bell goes off. Tyler looks up at us. We could pass for a haunted family portrait.

“Welcome,” he says, voice calm, eyes curious. “What can I get you?”
“Black,” I say.
“Black and resentful,” Mother adds.
“Something that tastes like victory,” Father says.
Tyler laughs late. “I can manage two out of three.”

The cups arrive. My parents pretend to be ordinary for a few minutes. It suits them. I let the warmth teach my hands how to hold something without breaking it. Tyler glances my way twice, as if he senses something but can’t name it. He stays where he is.

…

Outside, the car hums again. The gates of Nevermore rise ahead. They’re like stone and iron wound together. The school perches on the hill above Jericho, its towers cutting into the grey morning. The air shifts as we drive through the gates. It’s colder and cleaner. It’s touched by the smell of old rain trapped in stone and ink drying on forgotten pages.

Nevermore does not look welcoming. The courtyard is too neat, the cobblestones too rehearsed. Ivy crawls up the walls with suspicious discipline. The air carries hints of cedar polish, candle wax, and something faintly metallic. Beneath it all is the damp sweetness of the forest pressing close.

Larissa Weems, still alive in this timeline, greets us at the front steps with a smile.
“Mrs Addams,” she says to my mother, every word carefully sharpened. “Wednesday.”
“Headmistress,” Mother replies, her vowels lined with eyeliner. “We bring an exceptional child and a pile of paperwork.”
“Both heavy,” Weems answers. “Let’s lighten the load.”

Inside, the halls smell of polish and chalk. The portraits on the walls watch with proprietary interest. The air tastes of dust and history. We pass classrooms where the windows have learnt to filter sunlight into respectable gloom. I recognise the rhythm of the place.

Students, who I think are my future classmates, walk past in uniforms too new for stains. I arrive as a rumour with luggage. My dorm room has a bed and a desk. I set the watch on it; it behaves for now.

Weems clears her throat. “You’re early, Miss Addams.”
“Time is inaccurate,” I say. “I prefer to fix it.”
“See that you don’t fix too much,” she warns. “This is a school, not a lab.”
“Labs are safer,” I say. “They label their explosions.”

Her look promises a semester of arguments worth having. What follows is a long wait in her office. Forms are exchanged. A tour follows where I have to pretend that I don’t know every corner.

My parents leave with the careful pride of people. It’s like they have successfully delivered a curse to its proper address.

My mother kisses my forehead. Father tells me to aim for the eye. They fade into the distance and then into memory. I watch them go from my dorm window, feeling the campus close around me like a net I chose to enter.

At dusk, I walk the school’s edge. The gargoyles stand guard, damp stone breathing out the smell of moss and rain. The ravens gossip from the eaves. The air is heavy with woodsmoke and lake water. Lamplight edits the paths into sentences.

Nevermore, at night, smells like candle soot and secrets. It’s like a place that doesn’t want to sleep. Somewhere beyond these walls, a woman with a basement is sharpening a story she plans to carve into a boy. Somewhere else, a dinner bell tells on the living. The watch against my chest warms, like a quiet agreement.

I sit at my desk and write the next list:
• Greenhouse: visit late; plants hear better than people.
• Library: get a key to the restricted section; the past keeps records.
• Fencing club: watch them; precision exposes truth.
• Laurel: find her mask among the faculty and town leaders.
• When the visions return, follow them completely.

I sharpen a pencil. The page fills neatly. 

The hallway bell rings for lights-out, pretending darkness is the school’s invention. I turn off my lamp. It’s fun to obey when no one expects it. The bed is hard. Sleep considers me, then decides against it. I’ll return the favour later.

Between half-sleep and defiance, I see flashes: a boy’s hands around a mug, a woman’s pen carving lies, and a watch’s second hand deciding to move. My body rests; but my mind stands guard.

If the universe wants to repeat its tragedy, I’ll interrupt the script. If history wants patience, it won’t get mine. If Nevermore thinks it can contain me, it’s mistaken.

Chapter Text

Wednesday’s POV

The dream finds me the moment my eyes close. Suddenly I’m back inside my own house.  The walls still show my handwriting, faint and hidden in the shadows. The air smells like old smoke and part candle wax, part ink, with a hint of metal, as if the building itself is bleeding memories. The candles, long burnt out, still seem to glow a little, their light weak and ghostly.

Somewhere deeper inside, a clock ticks. It’s not steady but like a heartbeat that’s lost its rhythm. Each tick fades into the next. I follow the sound, though I already know where it leads.

The study feels different. The desk looks just as I left it. It’s clean.  A pocket watch lies open on it, its face exposed like an old wound. The second hand doesn’t move; it just circles endlessly, as if time itself forgot how to work. When the circle closes, pale light spills out, and I smell burnt paper rising from the floor.

That’s when I hear his breath before I see him. Tyler stands where the shadows pretend to behave. He doesn’t look older or younger. He looks wrong. His outline flickers, caught between apology and blame. His eyes hold the colour of something that used to be alive. When he speaks, the air shakes just to carry his voice.

“You didn’t fix it,” he says. “You repeated it.”

The knife ends up in my hand before I realise it, like an old habit I never unlearned. The metal feels alive, waiting for what comes next. I don’t remember grabbing it. I don’t remember choosing not to. The walls start closing in, colours fading away. Tyler takes a step forward and disappears, leaving only the smell of cold coffee.

Suddenly the floor gives out. The house exhales, tired of holding me.

…

I wake up with both eyes open. The ceiling above me is old wood, painted a pale colour. Thin cracks run through it. The air is cold but easy to breathe, carrying the faint smell of chalk and old soap. For a second, I think I’m still dreaming until I feel how stiff and unfamiliar the mattress is.

The room is small and narrow, more like a hallway than a bedroom. The walls seem too close, painted in a dull, quiet colour. There’s only one iron bed, neatly made with a blanket folded perfectly. A desk stands against the far wall, its surface covered in scratches from years of use. Above it, a small window hides behind ivy, turning the daylight into a sickly green pattern on the floor. The corners of the glass are fogged, as if the window doesn’t want to see the outside world.

It smells like iron, damp wood, and old detergent trying too hard to smell clean. Beneath it all, there’s a faint trace of dust and ink, which somehow feels familiar and almost comforting.

So this is Nevermore. Two years too soon.

My boots are lined up neatly under the desk, their laces crossed like praying hands. The watch lies where I left it last night. I pick it up. For a moment, it hesitates in my hand, then warms, like it recognises my heartbeat. It hums softly, the sound of something that remembers too much.

I think about writing down my dream before it fades, but I don’t. Dreams are wild things; they destroy logic if you let them. It’s better to let them fade than to give them words.

The silence feels unnatural, the kind found in old schools that have seen too many students pass through quietly. Sometimes the pipes make sounds, releasing water and rust. A beam above the window creaks, marking the hour.

Suddenly a sound that doesn’t belong to the room interrupts the silence. Three knocks on my door. The kind made by someone who’s practised how to seem calm.

…

“If it’s Death,” I say to the door, “he can wait his turn.”

The handle turns anyway. The door opens halfway, letting in a slice of golden corridor light that feels too gentle for this place. A woman stands there with a tray. It’s filled with a cup, a saucer, and a small pot of something pretending to be tea. Her hair catches the light like weathered copper, and her smile is soft enough to hide behind. She smells of roses and daisies, with a hint of something chemical underneath. It’s the kind of perfume that tries too hard to seem innocent.

“Good morning, Wednesday,” she says, voice bright enough to make the walls flinch. “I’m Ms Thornhill. I look after the students in Ophelia Hall. Just wanted to check if our newest resident survived the night.”

“I did,” I say. “Unfortunately.”

Her smile doesn’t move. “Settling in all right? The room’s a little small.”

“It’s efficient,” I reply. “Small spaces make it easier to hear your thoughts.”

She laughs softly. “That they do,” she says, placing the tray on the desk. Steam curls upward, smelling faintly of chamomile. “First class starts in ten minutes. Try not to be late.”

“Punctuality”, I say, “is just another form of fear.”

“Then you’ll get along perfectly,” she says, sounding almost pleased.

She turns to leave. The air she stirs smells sweet, but there’s something uneasy underneath. Like roses masking something dead. My watch warms against my wrist.

The door closes. The light fades. I stay still, the tea untouched, the air cooling around me again.

“The past”, I whisper, feeling the faint hum beneath my skin, “keeps better time than I do.”

…

The door has barely clicked shut before irritation blooms behind my ribs. I fucking hate Thornhill.
The name alone feels like a bruise that hasn’t appeared yet. In this timeline she’s still kind, still pretending to be soil and sunshine, still wearing that cardigan woven from goodwill and deceit. I know what she becomes. I know the sound of her torture methods. Watching her play at normalcy feels like witnessing a snake rehearse a lullaby.

I stare at the tea she left. The steam curls upward like a spirit that doesn’t know it’s dead. For a moment I consider throwing the cup against the wall just to hear something break. Instead, I pour it into the sink. The drain swallows the warmth greedily.

Getting dressed is a form of self-defence. The uniform waits, folded too neatly to be trustworthy. It’s a black skirt, white blouse, tie and jacket.
The fabric smells faintly of starch. I button it up with mechanical precision, each click a small declaration of control. The mirror on the wall offers a reflection I half recognise: a girl young enough to be corrected, old enough to know it’s pointless. The tie sits slightly crooked; I leave it that way. Perfection is suspicious.

When I open the door, the corridor greets me with polished floors and the hush of early routine. The air smells of wax, cold stone, and faint lavender.

Students drift through the hallway in small clusters, murmuring about classes, gossip, and trivial lives. They stare when they see me. Curiosity arrives first, followed quickly by the kind of silence.

Nevermore looks the same but younger somehow. It looks less haunted, more hopeful, and therefore infinitely more disappointing. The staircases still twist like polite serpents; the stained glass windows still pretend the sunlight is filtered wisdom. I walk slowly, my boots clicking against the floor with certainty.

Outside, the courtyard smells of rain trapped in stone and the metallic sweetness of wet ivy. Ravens watch from the rooftop, heads tilted. Their eyes are small mirrors, showing me as I must look to them: a creature misplaced by choice.

The first bell rings. It sounds shrill, obedient and most of all unnecessary. A group of students ahead of me murmurs about Potions. I follow them, not because I need direction but because blending in makes better camouflage than standing still.

The classroom is wide and dimly lit. Shelves lined with jars stretch to the ceiling: herbs, roots, powders, and things that once crawled and no longer do. The air smells of iron, vinegar, and crushed leaves. In the centre stand a collection of long wooden tables, their surfaces tattooed with the history of other people’s failures.

I step through the doorway and almost collide with someone taller.

“Hey!” The voice is familiar enough to make time hesitate.

Xavier Thorpe stands in front of me, hair falling into his eyes in that practised accident he’s never quite perfected. He looks exactly as I remember. He’s too eager, too open, too willing to believe that sincerity is a virtue.

“Wednesday,” he says, smiling as if the word itself might earn him credit. “Wow, that’s a long time ago!’”

“Hmm?” I ask, stepping past him.

He blinks, confused but still smiling. “Don’t you remember? We knew each other as kids?”

“I’ll take your word for it,” I say, brushing by.

Inside, the room is mostly silent. Students have already taken most of the seats. Two remain open. One beside Bianca Barclay, who glances up from her notes with a predator’s patience, and one beside Enid Sinclair, who is busy rearranging coloured vials.

Bianca looks at me with a hateful, angry gaze. Enid looks up and smiles too brightly, a sunrise in a room built for storms.

I sit beside her. She turns, half-surprised, half-delighted. “Hi! I’m Enid,” she says, her voice like sunlight filtered through glitter. “You must be new. You look like you’ve already decided you hate it here.”

“Observation or assumption?” I ask.

“Both,” she says, undeterred. “It’s kind of my thing. You’re Wednesday, right? Cool name. Kind of dramatic.”

“It’s not a name,” I say. “It’s a warning.”

Her smile falters for a heartbeat, then steadies. “Okay. Warning accepted. I’ll try not to do anything fatal before lunch.”

“Effort is optional,” I reply.

She laughs. It’s a quick, nervous sound, too alive for the room. “You’re funny.”

“I’m accurate,” I correct her.

The instructor enters then, a woman whose expression suggests she’s allergic to enthusiasm. The class falls quiet as she begins listing safety rules no one intends to follow. Enid straightens, whispering, “I’m really good at this subject. Mostly because I like making things explode on purpose.”

I glance at her beaker, then at her hands. “So long as your purpose is clear, I approve.”

“Do you ever relax?” she asks, half-whispered.

“I’m doing it now,” I answer.

The watch warms faintly against my wrist, as if amused. The smell of herbs and boiling water fills the room. I can feel eyes on me. Bianca’s, Xavier’s, the teacher’s, but it’s Enid’s presence that grounds me. Even in another timeline she’s as much herself as she can be.

…

The cauldrons begin to bubble loudly. The room smells of boiling rosemary and scorched copper. The teacher blabs on about ratios and reactions, insisting that precision is the difference between a cure and an obituary. I want to tell her that precision is simply the difference between amateurs and artists, but I restrain myself for now.

Enid hums beside me while chopping dried nettle. Her knife work is erratic, cheerful, and doomed. I focus on my own beaker, letting the steady rhythm of the glass rod keep my temper in check.

The assignment is simple: brew a tincture that clears the mind. The irony doesn’t escape me. I follow the instructions out of politeness, though politeness has never been a virtue I respect. Around me, students stir, chatter, and pretend their chaos is chemistry.

Suddenly Enid’s sleeve catches the edge of her flask. It wobbles once and tips over. A splash of violet liquid lands across my notes, smoking faintly as it eats through the paper.

“Sorry!” she blurts, panicked. “I didn’t….”

The smell is instant: sugar, acid, and burnt ink. My notes dissolve into a small, tragic hole. I feel something inside me tighten.

“It’s fine,” I say calmly, though the word feels like a diagnosis. “The loss is minimal. The experiment was dull anyway.”

“Let me fix it…”

“Please don’t,” I interrupt. “You’ve done enough.”

She frowns, clearly hurt by my response, but I’ve already turned back to my work. The mixture in my cauldron glows faintly…too faintly. I add a single drop of powdered iron just to see if it will object. It does adjust. A thin plume of dark smoke rises.

The teacher turns, glaring. “Miss Addams, control your experiment.”

“I am,” I say. “It’s everyone else who’s failing to cooperate.”

A few students laugh; others shift away from my table as though intelligence might be contagious. The teacher sighs, makes a note on her clipboard, and resumes her monologue about safety.

When the bell rings, I close my notebook or what remains of it and stand. Enid catches up to me in the corridor, still apologising.

“I really didn’t mean to ruin your notes,” she says, walking a half-step too close. “I’m kind of a disaster around glassware.”

“I’ve noticed,” I reply.

She grins, forgiving herself faster than I can. “You’re not still mad, are you?”

“Mad is a chemical imbalance,” I say. “I’m simply recalibrating my expectations.”

She laughs because she thinks I’m joking. “Next class is Thornhill’s! You’ll like her. She’s super nice. Kind of obsessed with plants, though. Like, in a healthy way.”

“Obsession”, I murmur, “rarely stays healthy for long.”

…

The greenhouse waits at the edge of campus, where the walls are damp and the air smells like a mixture of dirt and rotten leaves. The light through the glass roof turns everything brighter. I pause in the doorway and already dislike it.

Rows of potted things watch us enter. Plants that pretend to sleep but breathe too loudly. Thornhill stands at the front, radiant and composed, surrounded by a look that looks domesticated but isn’t. Her appearance is the same shade of deceit as before. She greets each student by name, saving the brightest smile for me.

“Wednesday!” she says warmly. “So glad you could join us. I hope you’re ready to get your hands dirty.”

“They already are,” I answer, taking my seat beside Enid.

Thornhill’s laugh is small and polished. “Everyone, we’ll be working with seedling hybrids today. Handle them gently; they respond to tone and touch.”

She moves between tables, her perfume soft but invasive, roses and daisies covering something sharper beneath. The plants lean toward her. I resist the urge to cut one open just to prove their devotion isn’t real.

Enid whispers, “See? She’s sweet.”

“Sugar is a preservative,” I reply. “It keeps corpses from smelling.”

Thornhill pauses near our table, smiling as if she hasn’t heard. “Miss Addams, you’ve worked with plants before?”

“I’ve buried a few,” I say.

A ripple of laughter travels through the class. Thornhill’s smile tightens, just slightly. “Well, perhaps we can focus on nurturing rather than… interring.”

“I’ll consider it,” I tell her, “if they behave.”

Her voice softens, but her eyes sharpen. “Try to see the good in things, Wednesday. Even the ones that grow slowly.”

“Some things grow best in darkness,” I reply. “Mushrooms, secrets, hypocrisy.”

The room goes still. Everyone holds their breath. Thornhill recovers quickly, straightening. “That will be enough, Miss Addams. Report to Headmistress Weems after class.”

Enid whispers, “Yikes.”

“Accuracy is rarely appreciated,” I say, standing up. I leave class before it ends.

…

The walk to Weems’ office is short, but the silence makes it longer. The corridors smell of chalk dust and candle wax. The portraits on the walls watch with patient interest.

Weems’ office is immaculate: everything lined up with the precision of power. She looks up from her desk, silver hair catching the light like a blade. “Miss Addams,” she says, her tone equal parts irritation and curiosity. “It’s your first week, and already a report?”

I sit without being asked. “The report is exaggerated. Ms Thornhill is intolerable. I merely pointed it out.”

Weems folds her hands. “You called her a hypocrite.”

“I was being charitable.”

She exhales slowly, the way people do when they realise reason will not help them. “Wednesday, you need to learn restraint. Teachers here are not your adversaries.”

“Not yet,” I say. “Give it time.”

Her eyes narrow. “You may find that sarcasm doesn’t serve you as well here as it did elsewhere.”

“I don’t serve sarcasm,” I say. “It serves me.”

For a moment, Weems almost smiles but then remembers she shouldn’t. “Detention,” she says finally. “Tonight. You’ll assist Ms Thornhill in the greenhouse.”

“That’s less a punishment and more a scientific risk,” I answer.

“Then treat it as research,” she says, dismissing me with a gesture. “Perhaps you’ll learn something.”

“I already have,” I say, standing. “The past wears perfume.”

…

Detention comes later, but the day insists on continuing its parade of irritations. The next class is fencing. It’s one of the few human activities honest enough to admit its intentions. The air in the hall smells of metal, polish, and sweat carefully disguised by detergent. Masks hang on the wall like decapitated heads, their mesh gleaming faintly in the lamplight.

I’m adjusting my glove when I hear footsteps behind me.

I turn around to see Xavier standing behind me.

“I heard about what happened in Thornhill’s class,” he says. “Word travels fast here. You really told her off?”

“I described her accurately,” I reply.

He leans against the rack of foils, trying for casual and failing. “I mean, I get it. She’s… nice. But it’s that weird kind of nice. Like, too nice, right? Makes my skin crawl a little.”

I turn to look at him. “You notice it too?”

“Yeah,” he admits, lowering his voice. “Something about her smile doesn’t reach her eyes. It’s like she’s constantly rehearsing being human.”

“A commendable observation,” I say. “For most people, humanity is a performance piece.”

He smiles faintly, relieved to have found agreement. “So you really don’t trust her?”

“I don’t trust anyone who waters things for a living,” I answer, picking up my foil. “It implies a fear of decay.”

Before he can respond, the instructor claps for silence, calling us to the floor. Students pair off, laughter filling the hall in nervous bursts. Bianca watches me from across the room with the calm certainty of someone already planning her victory.

…

“Addams,” the instructor says. “Barclay. You’re up.”

Bianca smirks as we take our positions. “Try not to bleed on the floor,” she murmurs.

“I’ll aim higher,” I tell her.

I lower my mask. The world narrows to breathe. The first clash of blades sings sharply through the air. She’s fast. Biance is as she always was, but I’ve spent lifetimes turning precision into instinct. Her movements are theatrical; mine are planned. When she lunges, I parry without effort, and when she circles, I pivot once, neatly, cutting through her rhythm like a sentence finished too early.

The match ends with my blade resting against her shoulder. The instructor calls the point. The silence that follows is awkward, to say the least.

Bianca lowers her mask, her eyes sharp with the sting of unspent pride. “Beginner’s luck,” she says, voice sweet and poisonous.

“I don’t believe in luck,” I reply, removing my mask. “Only in inaccuracy.”

Her jaw tightens. Around us, the other students whisper. The instructor moves on. I step aside, letting victory fade before it begins to feel like vanity.

…

By lunch, the hall smells of food and noise and mediocrity. I prefer to eat alone, but the universe insists on surrounding me with people. Enid waves me over, radiant with the kind of enthusiasm that makes daylight seem redundant.

“Wednesday!” she calls, waving a tray piled with things that look aggressively edible. “Over here!”

I hesitate for half a breath before joining her table. The group she’s surrounded by looks like a catalogue of teenage subcultures. Pale vampires with impeccable posture, sirens whispering in perfect sync, and gorgons with mirrored glasses polished to reflectionless shine. Enid does introductions with her usual chaotic precision.

“Everyone, this is Wednesday Addams. She’s new. She’s intense. But like, in a cool way.”

I nod once. “I’ll accept ‘intense’. The rest is still under review.”

The vampires study me with polite curiosity, their politeness sharper than fangs. One of them raises a glass of red liquid that definitely isn’t wine and says, “Welcome.” I incline my head in return.

Enid beams, oblivious to the tension that never quite reaches her. “So, fencing been? Heard you defeated Bianca.”

“Yes,” I say. “Apparently, that’s a disciplinary offence.”

“Bianca’s been talking about you too,” she adds. “She’s not used to losing.”

“Then she should practise disappointment,” I say.

Enid laughs, nearly spilling her juice. “I like you. You’re like a thunderstorm in human form.”

“That’s generous,” I reply. “Thunderstorms at least warn people first.”

She grins, then glances across the hall. “Oh, look… Bianca and Xavier. They’re kind of the unofficial royalty here.”

I follow her gaze. Bianca sits perfectly composed, Xavier beside her, both laughing at something I can’t hear. The sight feels familiar in an uncomfortable way.

“Bianca’s popular,” Enid says. “And Xavier’s… Xavier. You know how that goes.”

“I do,” I answer, though I wish I didn’t.

She tilts her head. “So what’s your dorm like? They stick you in with anyone interesting?”

“I’m alone,” I tell her. “A scheduling miracle.”

“Lucky,” she says, rolling her eyes. “My roommate’s awful. She sheds glitter, talks in her sleep, and steals my hairbrush. If I don’t get my own room soon, I might go feral.”

I look at her for a long moment. “I’ve lived with worse roommates,” I say quietly.

She laughs, not catching the echo of something heavier behind the words. “I bet. You’ve got that look.”

I want to tell her everything. I want to break the rules of causality just to warn her about the future, but the watch hums against my wrist, a small reminder that interference carries a price.

When lunch ends, the corridors split into rivers of uniformed motion. Students scatter toward their next classes like obedient insects. I head in the opposite direction. Rules are suggestions; attendance is optional.

…

Outside, the air tastes of impending rain. The path down to Jericho is quiet, bordered by trees still green. I walk until the walls of Nevermore shrink behind me, until the smell of ink and stone is replaced by exhaust and bread.

Jericho looks smaller today, or maybe I’ve simply grown too large for nostalgia. The shopfronts line up neatly, pretending permanence. The bell tower keeps time for people who still believe in minutes.

The weathervane stands as it always has, with an earnest and ordinary look. The sign creaks above the door, the bell ready to judge whoever enters.

I push it open.

The warmth inside feels like trespassing. The smell of roasted beans and burnt sugar curls through the air, familiar enough to sting. A student in uniform laughs somewhere behind me. The floorboards sigh under my boots.

Behind the counter, a familiar voice calls, “Be right with you!”

…

The Weathervane feels smaller when it’s empty of laughter. The corners hold dust and other stuff. I take the same booth I always do. It’s the one by the window where sunlight forgets to reach. The table’s surface is scarred by years of spilt sugar and impatient pens. It smells faintly of burnt espresso and pine cleaner.

My notebook lies open in front of me, half its pages gone to chemical warfare from Enid’s earlier accident. The remaining sheets curl inward like old wounds. I write anyway. Notes, observations, fragments of data.

When the cup lands on the table, it barely makes a sound.

“Black coffee,” Tyler says quietly. “No sugar, right?”

I don’t look up right away. “You remember.”

He shrugs, hands in his apron pockets. “Hard to forget an order that specific.”

“Specificity is underrated,” I say, finally glancing at him. His face is open in that infuriating way innocence often is. He nods once, uncertain whether to stay, then drifts back behind the counter.

I write another line in my notebook: He looks alive even in fluorescent light. The crime of it is how ordinary that feels.

The bell above the door interrupts me. Sheriff Donovan Galpin enters, carrying the posture of someone permanently unimpressed. His uniform looks too heavy for the room; his presence changes the air pressure. Tyler stiffens behind the counter.

“Afternoon, son,” the sheriff says, not looking at him right away. “We need to talk.”

Tyler wipes his hands on a towel. “Now? I’m kind of working.”

“Now,” his father repeats. His voice could sand glass.

They move to the end of the counter. The conversation isn’t meant for me, but sound travels.

“…heard about what you and those friends of yours did last night,” the sheriff says. “Breaking into the scrapyard? Real smart. You want to explain that?”

Tyler mutters something. It’s too quiet, too small. His father’s tone sharpens. “You’re lucky they didn’t call me first. You think being my kid gives you a free pass?”

Tyler’s jaw tightens. “No, sir.”

“Then act like it.”

The words land with precision. The room grows heavy around me. I close my notebook. The moment asks for interference, and I’ve never been good at ignoring invitations.

I stand. The scrape of my chair makes both of them look my way.

“He didn’t do it,” I say evenly.

Sheriff Galpin blinks. “Excuse me?”

“Whatever you’re accusing him of,” I continue, “he didn’t. Tyler doesn’t strike me as the criminal type. He was with me.’’

The sheriff studies me. “And you are?”

“Wednesday Addams,” I say. “My father’s reputation probably precedes me. It usually travels first-class.”

Recognition flickers behind his eyes. It’s brief and involuntary. “Addams,” he repeats, almost to himself. “Gomez Addams. Right. I remember.” His jaw works once, like a door deciding whether to slam. “That family’s been trouble in every decade I’ve worked here.”

“Consistency is a virtue,” I tell him.

He exhales sharply, shakes his head, and turns back to Tyler. “Stay out of trouble.” Then, to me: “And don’t get involved in things that don’t concern you.”

“Everything concerns me,” I say. “Eventually.”

He leaves. The bell above the door marks his exit.

Tyler stands frozen for a second, then looks at me, torn between gratitude and disbelief. “You didn’t have to do that,” he says, walking over.

“I know.”

He slides into the seat across from me, lowering his voice. “You were wrong, though. I did do it. Not the way he thinks, but still. It was stupid. We wanted to see how far we could push curfew, that’s all. Guess we found out.”

“We’ve all done things we shouldn’t have,” I say quietly, tracing the edge of my cup. “Some of us just have better reasons.”

He tilts his head. “You say that like you know.”

“I do,” I answer. “Regret is a recurring disease.”

He studies me, puzzled by the weight in words he doesn’t yet understand. “So… why help me?”

“Because innocence is loud,” I say. “And guilt prefers silence. You were too quiet.”

He huffs a laugh, though it sounds uncertain. “You’re weird.”

“I’m consistent,” I reply.

A pause stretches between us.

“So what are you doing here, anyway?” he asks after a while. “Don’t you have class?”

“I grew tired of lectures,” I say. “Repetition numbs the intellect.”

“That’s one way to say ‘skipping school.’”

“I prefer accuracy to euphemism.”

He smiles despite himself. “Well, thanks… for, you know, defending me.”

“Consider it a temporary alliance,” I say, closing my notebook.

“Right,” he says, standing. “Guess I should get back to work before Dad sends a patrol car for me.” He pauses, then adds, softer, “Still…thanks, Wednesday.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” I say. “Gratitude creates debt.”

He grins a little, then returns to the counter. I watch him move. He looks so ordinary, alive and oblivious to everything that hasn’t happened yet. The watch warms beneath my sleeve, steady as a small, private heartbeat.

I finish my coffee in silence, writing one last note before leaving: the living are harder to haunt than the dead.

Outside, the air has shifted. It’s colder, sharper, smelling of pine and distance. The road back to Nevermore stretches ahead, patient and grey. I walk it slowly, letting the day fold back around me.

…

The greenhouse waits for me later in the evening. The path to it is slick with late rain, and the air tastes faintly of copper and damp soil. The glass panes hum faintly, catching the last light of day and breaking it into fractured reflections. Everything here smells of chlorophyll.

Inside, Thornhill is already waiting. Her cardigan is the colour of withered roses, her gloves spotless, her smile polished to civility. Around her, the plants breathe too loudly, their leaves glistening.

“Wednesday,” she says, her voice soaked in sunlight that doesn’t exist. “Thank you for being… prompt.”

“I’m contractually obligated,” I say.

Her laugh is soft and deliberate. “I appreciate honesty. Even when it’s barbed.”

“I don’t sugarcoat,” I tell her. “It attracts flies.”

She gestures toward a long table lined with pots and pruning shears. “You’ll help me repot these. Simple work. Therapeutic, even.”

“Therapy is for people who think their pain is special,” I say, pulling on the gloves she hands me. The soil is cool and wet and clings to my fingers.

For a while, there’s only the sound of shifting dirt, the clink of clay pots, and the slow drip of condensation from the glass roof. Thornhill hums while she works, something cheerful and tuneless.

“You know,” she says after a moment, “I used to be like you. Quiet, serious, always observing. The world can be cruel to girls who think too much.”

“The world is cruel to everyone,” I reply. “Thinking just lets you see it coming.”

She smiles as if I’ve proved her point. “Still, it’s good to have someone to talk to. Nevermore can be isolating.”

“Isolation is underrated,” I say. “It keeps the noise manageable.”

She looks at me, eyes bright behind the lenses of her glasses. “You remind me of myself at your age.”

“Then I offer my condolences.”

Thornhill laughs again, too long this time. The sound echoes off the glass and returns smaller, less human. The plants around us shift slightly, leaves brushing each other.

I press my thumb into the soil. “You cultivate these like they’re friends.”

“They are friends,” she says. “They listen, they grow, they don’t judge.”

“They also don’t talk back,” I answer. “That’s not friendship. That’s control.”

For a brief second, something changes in her face. It’s too subtle for most people to notice, but I catch it: the corners of her mouth stiffen, and the warmth drains from her eyes. Then the expression resets.

“You’re very perceptive,” she says.

“It’s hereditary.”

We work in silence for another few minutes. The air thickens.

 Somewhere beneath the soil, roots shift as though impatient. I can feel the itch beneath my skin. It’s the memory of what she’ll do, who she’ll make him become. My fingers tighten around the pruning shears. They fit perfectly in my hand. They’re balanced and light.

She turns her back to reach for a watering can, humming again. The curve of her neck is precise, almost inviting.

It would be easy. One clean motion. It would leave no mess. No more futures would be built on her lies.

The thought arrives quietly, like a suggestion written in blood. I grip the shears harder until the handle squeaks. The watch beneath my sleeve pulses once. It’s hot, insistent, alive. It reminds me that time is watching. It always is.

Thornhill turns, smiling. “Careful,” she says, mistaking tension for clumsiness. “They’re sharp.”

“So am I,” I answer.

She laughs, unaware that the sound is saving her life.

“Why such hostility, Wednesday?” she asks gently. “I’ve done nothing to deserve it.”

“Not yet,” I say.

Her expression falters again. “You speak like you know something I don’t.”

“I usually do.”

The air between us curdles. Even the plants seem to lean away. Finally, she sighs, setting down her watering can. “You can go if you’re going to be like this. Detention only works if both parties cooperate.”

“Then I’ll save us both the trouble,” I say, stripping off the gloves.

Her voice follows me to the door. “I’m only trying to help you, Wednesday.”

I stop at the threshold. The sky outside has gone the colour of bruised glass. “You don’t help people,” I say.

Her silence is answer enough. I walk out.

The air outside hits me. It’s cold. The fog from the lake has started creeping up the hill, touching the greenhouse windows. I step into it.

Suddenly the world tilts. The ground disappears; sound collapses into a single note too low to hear. My vision tunnels.  

 The heat burns through cloth and skin, and the world collapses inward. The smell of damp earth is replaced by iron and smoke.

I’m not standing in the fog anymore. I’m back in the woods. Back in the older woods, the right ones. The night is loud with wind and memory. My hand grips the knife, its handle slick with something that isn’t rain. Tyler is on the ground, breathing in pieces. His eyes are wide, his mouth trying to find my name but choking on it instead. The moonlight makes the blood on his throat look deliberate, like ink.

I hear myself speak, my voice steady, calm, almost monstrous: It had to be done.

Tyler reaches for me. The gesture is almost gentle. After that he stops moving. The silence that follows is horrifying.

The vision doesn’t fade. It drags me through every heartbeat, every second of his dying. I feel the warmth leaving his skin.

After that, darkness follows. The image shatters.

When I open my eyes, I’m back on the path outside the greenhouse, the fog thick around me.

There’s soil and blood under my nails. I don’t imagine it. No, it’s wet, red and real. It shines faintly against the black fabric of my sleeve, smelling of rust and déjà vu.

Inside the greenhouse, I hear Thornhill humming the same tune as before. I look up at the glass panes where her shadow moves behind the plants.

I stare at my hands. The blood doesn’t fade.

Chapter Text

Wednesday’s POV

The morning light reflects on the wall of my dorm. I wake slowly, feeling disorientated. I’m not even sure how to start my day. The vision has definitely left an impression. It was in the same woods, with the same knife and with the same blood. My hands are clean now, but they remember otherwise.

The air in the room feels heavy. My dorm smells of damp wood and burned candle wax. My bed is narrow. The desk by the wall looks damaged by previous inhabitants. It’s scratched and empty except for my notebook and the watch.

The watch lies where I left it last night. When I pick it up, it’s warm against my palm, as if it has been waiting for my pulse to restart. I listen for its ticking but it doesn’t.

I sit up and try to take everything in. That’s how the world begins to make sense to me. My hands: feel steady, for now. The vision: hostile but persistent. My sanity: unverified.

The room feels smaller than it did yesterday. The walls wear their shadows too tightly. There’s nothing decorative here, no attempt at comfort.

The faint smell of soil still clings to my uniform, a reminder of the greenhouse. But it also reminds me of Laurel Gates hiding behind her pretty pseudonym. My mind plays the scene again whether I want it to or not: the conversations with her last night and the vision snapping like a trap, Tyler’s face under my knife. The images of it flash through my head.

I stand and pull on my uniform. The fabric is cold and way too clean for someone who spent the night in a nightmare. The black feels correct. The white feels like sarcasm. I braid my hair in silence, each motion precise.

When I look in the mirror, the girl who stares back seems fourteen again. But my eyes are not fooled. There’s a tension under the surface, a woman trying to breathe inside a child’s bones. The reflection looks temporary.

I pick up the watch and fasten it against my wrist. The metal touches skin like recognition.

…

Outside, Nevermore is the same as usual. The hallway smells of cleaning products and dust. Voices echo throughout the hall, mixed with laughter and footsteps. It’s the sound of people who believe time is simple. I envy their delusion.

By the time I reach the dining hall, my expression has returned to its default setting: deliberate neutrality. Students move aside without meaning to. Their curiosity is a noise I’ve learnt to tune out.

I take my seat at the far end of the table. The coffee is watery. The eggs look like they’ve been painted rather than cooked. I make notes anyway, not about the food, but about the morning:

“No blood on my hands. The watch is warm to my touch. Thornhill was observed.’’

The sunlight filters through the stained-glass windows, spilling onto the long tables. It catches the rim of my cup and fractures into colour. It would be beautiful if it weren’t so invasive.

…

The greenhouse smells in the most unappealing way. It smells of damp soil, warm rot and of green things sweating under glass. The air is so thick it could drown a thought if you let it. Sunlight leaks through the panes in pale stripes, breaking across tables cluttered with pots, trowels, and jars of unlabeled liquids.

I take my seat in the back row, beside Enid. Enid looks as happy as always. Her perfume smells like sugar and citrus. She waves at me as though we haven’t already spoken three times this week.

“Morning!” she says, smiling at me.

“It’s morning for everyone,” I reply. “Not an accomplishment.”

She giggles, undeterred. “Still grumpy, even after coffee, huh?”

“I’m consistent,” I tell her. “That’s rarer than happiness.”

Before she can answer, the door swings open and Thornhill enters. She is holding a clipboard. Her smile looks stitched on. The class sits straighter in its chairs, eager to impress her. I don’t bother pretending.

“Good morning, my little seedlings!” she sings out. “Today we’re working with aconite, also known as wolf’s bane. Handle with care, please. It’s highly toxic.”

“Then at least it’s interesting,” I murmur.

Thornhill’s head tilts toward me. “Miss Addams, perhaps you’d like to tell the class what aconite was historically used for?”

“To murder unfaithful lovers,” I answer, without hesitation.

A ripple of uneasy laughter moves through the room. Enid glances at me sideways, somewhere between impressed and alarmed. Thornhill’s smile doesn’t reach her eyes, but she nods.

“Excellent,” she says lightly. “Though these days, we prefer to use it in controlled doses. Science over scandal, right?”

“Both have their uses,” I say.

She moves through the aisles between tables, sunlight pooling around her like she’s part of the greenhouse rather than in charge of it. Her voice carries the soft tone of something that wants to sound nurturing but has rehearsed the tone too many times.

I study her the way I’d study a toxin. When you look too close and it starts to act on you.

She checks Enid’s pot, praises her soil mixture, then lingers beside mine. “Not planting yet?” she asks, too sweet.

“I prefer to observe my victims before burial,” I say.

I hear more laughter from the class. She forces a chuckle, scribbles something on her clipboard, and keeps walking. The smell of her perfume trails after her. It’s a mixture of roses and earth.

Enid leans closer once Thornhill’s back is turned. “You know, for a teacher, she’s… kind of nice.”

I tilt my head. “That’s how predators look right before they pounce.”

Enid frowns. “You’re super dramatic, you know that?”

“Precision isn’t drama,” I say, pressing the tip of my trowel into the soil. “It’s survival.”

I stab the earth once. The smell of crushed roots rises, bitter and raw.

In front of the class, Thornhill demonstrates how to trim the aconite petals, talking about toxicity as though it’s most normal thing. The light catches her eyes for a second. It’s too bright. I remember how those same hands once brewed the Hyde serum that destroyed him.

I write in my notebook under the table: Thornhill is still perfecting her disguise. Smiles as camouflage.

The class continues. Enid hums softly beside me. Thornhill’s voice smooths over every subject. I tune her out and let my mind catalogue escape routes, poisons and plans.

By the time the bell rings, I’ve counted fourteen ways to kill someone in this room using only what’s available and at least three ways to make it look like an accident.

As the students pack up, Thornhill calls after me, voice pleasant as ever.
“Wednesday, dear, a word?”

I pause in the doorway. “If it’s about my attitude, it’s not going to change.”

She laughs, soft and rehearsed. “Just remember, this is a place of growth. Even for you.”

“I prefer pruning,” I say, and leave before she can answer.

...

The corridor outside smells of dust and ink. Enid skips to catch up with me, sunlight trailing in her wake.

“You really don’t like her, huh?” she says.

“She’s the kind of woman who waters weeds and calls it compassion,” I reply.

Enid giggles. “That’s dark, even for you.”

“Thank you,” I say.

…

The corridors of Nevermore feel empty. The intercom calls out my name, “Miss Addams to the Headmistress’s office”.

I make the walk at an unhurried pace. The students I pass look at me. They look curious, uneasy, and like they are pretending not to be impressed.

Weems’s office smells like polish and parchment. The curtains are drawn halfway, letting in only the amount of light that flatters her authority. She stands behind her desk.

“Miss Addams,” she begins, voice smooth. “I’ve had a rather enlightening conversation with Ms Thornhill this morning.”

“I pity you,” I say, taking a seat without being invited.

Her jaw tightens by one degree. “She tells me you were… less than cooperative in her class.”

“I was attentive,” I correct. “I listened. I even answered her question. Truthfully.”

“You told the class aconite was used to murder unfaithful lovers,” she says flatly.

“History is factual,” I reply. “Suppressing it is propaganda.”

Weems exhales through her nose. Wednesday, this is a school. The goal here is to encourage respect, not morbidity.”

“Morbidness is just honesty with better vocabulary.”

Her eyes narrow. “You’ve been here less than a week, and I’ve already received reports from three teachers.”

“That’s efficiency,” I say.

“It’s disruption.”

“It’s both,” I counter. “Duality is natural.”

She pinches the bridge of her nose. “You can’t continue antagonizing every instructor on the grounds, Miss Addams. Nevermore is meant to help you channel your…” she searches for the word, “…passions.”

“My passions are already channeled,” I tell her. “Mostly into observation and occasionally into revenge.”

“Then perhaps,” she says slowly, “you could direct some of that energy into an extracurricular activity. Something constructive. Fencing, music, community service…”

“No.”

“Excuse me?”

“No,” I repeat. “I don’t participate in forced joy.”

Weems gives me the kind of look reserved for students who are both exhausting and slightly impressive. “Wednesday, this isn’t optional. All Nevermore students must participate in at least one after-school activity. It fosters social development.”

“I’ve already developed socially,” I say. “I simply didn’t like the results.”

“Find something,” she says, “by tomorrow.”

“Or?”

“Or I will assign you something.”

I tilt my head. “Will it involve glitter or teamwork?”

“Possibly.”

“Then I’ll find my own,” I say, standing.

Weems studies me for a long moment. Her expression softens just enough to remind me that she’s human, which only makes it worse. “Wednesday,” she says quietly, “I know you think I’m your enemy, but I’m not.”

“I don’t think that,” I say, buttoning my jacket. “Enemies are interesting. You’re management.”

Her sigh follows me out the door.

…

The next class becomes a casualty of my irritation. Obedience was never my natural element. So instead of sitting through another hour of fabricated civility, I walk.

The path to Jericho looks different in daylight. The world wears its colours. The sky leans pale over the fields, the trees move with distant wind, and the air carries the scent of thawed earth and something faintly sweet. It’s like the memory of rot deciding to bloom again.

Each step I take is with determination. My shoes sink slightly into damp gravel, leaving temporary evidence of my existence. I tell myself I’m taking a walk to clear my head, but lies work better when you say them in your own voice.

By the time I reach Jericho, the town is awake in its small, self-important way. The shopfronts gleam. The windows of the Weathervane shine.

The bell above the café door rings its habitual note. The smell inside is a chaos: roasted beans, sugar, heat, and something faintly metallic beneath it all. The air feels too warm against my skin.

I choose the same booth I always do. The one near the window, half in shadow, half in view.

My notebook opens easily. The edges of its half-burnt pages curl toward me, still marked by ash and damp. I begin to write.

Observation: the timeline has stabilised for now. Thornhill remains active.

The pen in my hand trembles. The watch sits on the table beside my coffee. It’s silent. It glows faintly in the dim light, as if remembering the blood it once borrowed.

Suddenly I can hear footsteps walking toward me. Followed by the rustle of an apron and a quiet sigh. “On the house,” he says.

Tyler sets a cup of coffee in front of me. He’s younger here, painfully so. The edges of his face haven’t yet learnt cruelty. His eyes are lighter, clearer, untouched by the weight of what’s coming. Even his posture carries innocence, that easy looseness of someone who hasn’t yet been told what he’ll become.

I study him like I would an old photograph. There’s warmth in the corner of his smile, the kind that doesn’t know it’s temporary. His hands are steady and unscarred. They linger on the cup a moment too long. It’s not out of hesitation but out of comfort. He doesn’t flinch at the world yet. He still believes it’s polite.

The sight of him. Seeing him whole, ordinary, and alive pulls at something cruel in me. Memory fills the air between us: the sound of his breath breaking, the tremor in his voice when he begged for something neither of us could name. The way his eyes looked after. They were glassy and empty. Now those same eyes are just…bright, curious and infuriatingly human.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” he says, smiling faintly.

“I see them often,” I answer. “You’re just louder than most.”

He laughs. His laughs sounds genuine. Not practiced in defense. The sound doesn’t match the Tyler I killed.

“You’ve been coming here a lot,” he says. “I was starting to think you lived here.”

“I don’t live anywhere,” I say. “I occupy spaces until they bore me.”

He pulls out the seat across from me, hesitates like he’s asking permission, then sits. The light from the window touches his jaw, a shadow of stubble is visible on his face. He looks older in the light, younger in the dark.

“So,” he says, leaning forward slightly. “What are you writing this time?”

“Notes.”

“On what?”

“Cause and effect.”

He chuckles. “Let me guess. I’m the cause.”

“Sometimes you’re the consequence,” I say.

He raises an eyebrow. “That’s cryptic.”

“It’s descriptive.”

He tilts his head, that same gentle confusion I remember from before everything broke. The same curiosity that once led him.“You always talk like that?”

“Always,” I say. “Otherwise, people start thinking I’m approachable.”

“God forbid,” he says, smiling again.

I take a sip of my coffee. It’s bitter but exactly to my liking. He watches me while holding his own cup of coffee. He looks so comfortable in his skin here. There’s no tremor under his calm exterior, no shadow moving behind his eyes. He’s still someone’s son, someone’s friend and most of all someone unruined. For the first time in a long while, I envy the timeline that hasn’t touched him.

“You seem… different today,” he says softly. “Like you’re somewhere else.”

“I am,” I admit. “It’s just inconvenient to explain.”

He laughs again. “You know, you’re strange, but not in the bad way.”

“There are no good ways,” I say automatically.

He studies me for a moment, like he’s trying to decide if that’s true. “You sound older than you look,” he says finally.

“And you sound younger than you’ll become.”

He frowns slightly. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing you need to worry about yet,” I tell him. “Time’s kinder to some people before it remembers who they are.”

He watches me for a second longer, then leans back, exhaling through a smile ‘’You talk like you’ve lived twice.”

“Once was enough,” I say. “The second time is research.”

The rain starts outside. It streaks the window behind him, distorting his reflection. I almost prefer it that way. It’s softer. Tyler stands, still smiling. “I should get back. My dad’s probably looking for a reason to be mad at me.”

“He doesn’t need one,” I say. “People like him mistake silence for guilt.”

He pauses, cup in hand. “You really do pay attention, don’t you?”

“I observe,” I say. “It’s the only thing worth doing properly.”

He gives a small, uncertain nod. “See you around, Wednesday.”

“You will,” I answer.

When he’s gone, the space he leaves behind almost feels empty. The watch on the table warms again.

I pick up my pen and write the only note that matters: Tyler Galpin is still unbroken, unknowing, unbearably alive.

…

The rain sharpens against the windows. I stay in my booth. My hands are resting on the notebook. My eyes are unfocused on the wet glass. The café has emptied a little; only the hum of conversation remains.

Tyler’s voice drifts from behind the counter, easy and unbothered. I tell myself to leave. I tell myself that I’ve collected enough data for one afternoon, but my body refuses.

The door opens with the sound of wet hinges. Sheriff Galpin enters. Even in this younger world, he carries the same heaviness. It’s that mix of exhaustion and arrogance that clings to men who believe authority is a cure for grief. His coat is slick with rain, his badge a small, polished sun at his chest. When his eyes sweep the café and stop on me, they narrow. It’s recognition.

“Well,” he says, voice low and rough, “I didn’t think Jericho had imported any Addamses this season.”

The sentence lands and the tension in the room rises. Tyler looks up from behind the counter. He looks surprised. “Dad,” he says quickly, “don’t start.”

“I’m not starting anything,” the Sheriff replies, shaking off his coat. “Just observing.” His gaze returns to me “You look like trouble.”

“I look like truth,” I say. “People confuse the two.”

He snorts. “Figures. You’ve got your father’s attitude. I arrested him once, you know.”

“I’m aware,” I reply. “He framed it.”

Tyler exhales behind the counter, muttering, “Dad…”

His father keeps going performing his irritation like it’s on schedule. “You Addams types. Always skulking around places you don’t belong. I just got word some kids vandalised the general store last night. Spray paint and two broken window. Guess whose friends were there?”

His eyes cut toward his son. Tyler his face tightens. “Dad, I didn’t…”

“Save it,” the Sheriff interrupts. “I don’t need excuses. Just the truth.”

The air in the café feels suffocating. The smell of coffee turns sour. I feel the shift, that precise moment when accusation becomes inheritance.

Without planning it, I speak. “He didn’t do it,” I say.

The Sheriff turns to me, eyebrows raised. “And how would you know that?”

“Because he was with me,” I answer, evenly.

Tyler blinks, confusion slipping into something closer to awe. “I… what?”

I keep my eyes on the Sheriff. “He was with me,” I repeat, “yesterday evening. If your evidence is based on time, you’ve already lost.”

The Sheriff studies me, suspicion sharpening behind his eyes. “You’re saying you and my son were… what exactly? Out together?”

“Research,” I say. “Philosophical in nature. Non-criminal.”

He exhales a short, humourless laugh. “You think you’re clever.”

“I think,” I say, “that truth doesn’t need to think at all.”

He stares for a moment longer, trying to decide whether to push the matter or to preserve his dignity.

Finally, he mutters, “Stay out of my business, Miss Addams.”

“Your business is human error,” I say. “I’ve always found it fascinating.”

Tyler’s trying not to laugh; the corner of his mouth betrays him. The Sheriff sighs, muttering something under his breath about “strange girls and wasted coffee”, then leaves. The door slams behind him, ringing the bell like an insult.

Tyler steps closer to my booth, still looking bewildered. “You didn’t have to do that,” he says softly.

“I know.”

He runs a hand through his hair. “But… thanks. For lying, I mean.”

“It wasn’t a lie,” I say. “It was a correction of perception.”

He shakes his head, smiling a little. “You’re something else, Wednesday.”

“I’ve been accused of worse.”

“Still,” he says“you didn’t have to get in the middle of that. He’s… he’s just angry all the time. Like he’s waiting for someone to prove him right.”

I study him again, the light from the window tracing his features. He looks so alive in this timeline. His voice still carries a hint of hope it will one day lose. It breaks my heart.

“You shouldn’t apologise for someone else’s grief,” I tell him. “It’s not contagious unless you let it be.”

He looks down at the cup in his hands, thinking. “Sometimes it feels like it is.”

We fall silent. The rain thickens outside, turning the street into a blurred reflection of the world. Tyler finishes his coffee before he sets the cup down carefully.

“I should get back,” he says again, but his voice is softer this time. “You’re… strange, but in a good way.”

“There’s no such thing,” I reply.

He grins faintly. “Right. Guess I’ll see you around.”

“You will,” I say, and watch him walk away.

When he disappears behind the counter, I exhale. It’s slow and deliberate, the way you do when you realise you’ve just spoken to a ghost who hasn’t died yet.

…

The night inside Nevermore is quietly suffocating. The cold air smells faintly of iron and salt, as if the building remembers what it was built over. Every step I take echoes.

The corridors stretch long and empty, their chandeliers dimmed. The paintings along the walls tilt slightly. I move through the dark without a lantern. Light attracts attention, and attention is a form of vulnerability.

When I reach the library, the lock is easy to break. I’ve never met one that could stop me. It yields after a minute and I slip inside.

The air is different here. It feels older and slower. It carries the heavy perfume of mildew, rotting parchment, and wax that burnt itself out centuries ago. The dust floats thick enough to taste, and the temperature drops.

I strike a match. The brief flare of sulphur brightens the room like a confession before fading into the single small flame of my candle. Its light spreads thinly across the marble floor.

The shelves are endless. The spines of the books shine faintly. Most have gold ink turned dull with age, and leather cracked in patterns that resemble dried riverbeds.

I start down the main aisle, the candle’s flame bowing slightly each time I pass a column. I trail one hand along the spines. The dust coats my fingers like ash. It feels fitting.

Halfway down, I find the restricted cabinets. The metal drawers are labelled by decade, each one older than the other. The one I want has already started to rust, its label so faded the letters are more suggestion than ink. Botanical Research: Classified.

I slide it open slowly. Inside are folders with corners softened by humidity. The smell that rises is thick and organic, something between decay and rain. My candlelight catches on the edges of glass vials tucked between papers. They’re small samples of dried petals, sealed away.

The handwriting on the first few pages is careful, practised, and academic. Notes about soil balance, chlorophyll retention, and the relation between lunar cycles and plant memory. Then, deeper in, the script begins to change. It looks tighter, more deliberate, and more human in its obsession.

The signature reads M. Thornhill.

I stare at it until the candle gutter flicks a shadow over her name. The loop of the “T” curls inward, exactly the way I remember it. I don’t need anyone to tell me. It’s Laurel Gates.

The next page isn’t about plants anymore. It’s about people. Preliminary observation: certain hybrids can mimic neural reactions if distilled into blood. The host must be emotionally compromised to ensure compliance. Recommend use of aconite and silverleaf in a two-to-one ratio. The root catalyst remains unstable. It needs to be tested with a synthetic compound derived from adrenal tissue. Goal: obedience through controlled metamorphosis. Nature can be taught devotion.

There’s a sketch beside the text. The shape of a heart overgrown with vines, with roots spreading into arteries. The ink has bled where tears or rain once touched it. The handwriting is older, but the intent feels fresh.

I realise she is already researching it. She’s researching the method and making the mixture to make the monster. A note has been added at the end, written later in darker ink: Potential subjects listed under T.G. The letters breathe in the candlelight. T.G. Tyler Galpin.

I don’t blink. I let the realisation arrive slowly, like a wound remembering it exists. I can see him again, the way he looked when he stopped pretending to be human. His eyes gone black, mouth full of a scream that didn’t belong to him. His voice still lingers in my head, apologising for something that was never his fault.

My fingers tighten on the paper until it crumples slightly. The sound is loud enough to break the silence. A smell of burnt wax seeps up. The candle’s flame trembles, shrinking low.

“Wednesday?” a voice fills the air.

I turn. I see Enid standing halfway in the doorway, one hand clutching her blanket, the other holding a lantern too bright for the hour. Her hair spills around her shoulders in soft gold. Her eyes are wide, reflecting the candlelight.

“What are you doing here?” she whispers.

“Reconstructing evidence,” I answer.

“You mean breaking in.”

“Words differ. Intent doesn’t.”

She walks closer, her blanket trailing “This is the restricted section, Wednesday.”

“That’s where people hide their regrets.”

“You could get expelled!”

“Then at least I’d be remembered.”

She exhales, a sound halfway between frustration and fear. Her gaze drops to the open file. “What are you even reading?”

“A murder weapon disguised as research.”

She squints at the handwriting. “Wait, that’s Thornhill’s name. Are you saying she…”

“I’m saying she planted seeds long before anyone noticed what would grow.”

“Wednesday…” she says softly, almost pleading. “You can’t just accuse a teacher of…”

“I can,” I cut in. “I simply choose not to yet.”

Enid’s lips press into a line. She takes another small step forward. “You look… different. Like you’re somewhere else.”

“I’m always somewhere else,” I say. “It’s the only way to think clearly.”

Before she can respond, a faint click of heels echoes outside the door. The air in the room changes. The perfume of roses and damp soil seeps under the crack. I realise it’s Thornhill.

Enid goes rigid beside me. I can feel her panic vibrating through the silence. I blow out the candle. The darkness swallows us whole. The door handle turns once. The hinges move. A line of yellow hallway light crawls across the floor and lands on the table right on the file I forgot to close.

Her silhouette fills the doorway. She doesn’t speak. She just stands there, listening, the faintest sound of her breath mingling with the smell of roses turned sour. The seconds stretch thin enough to tear. Then, as suddenly as it began, she closes the door. The footsteps fade.

Enid exhales so fast the air whistles between her teeth. “That was her! Oh my god, that was her!”

“Yes.”

“She could’ve seen us!”

“She didn’t.”

Enid glares at me in the dark. “How can you be so calm?”

“Panic doesn’t solve puzzles,” I say.

“What are you going to do?”

“Find the rest of her garden,” I answer. “And salt the roots.”

“Wednesday…”

I’m already moving toward the door, the file tucked under my arm, the candle still smoking faintly in my hand.

…

The room feels smaller tonight. The walls seem to inch closer. The air tastes of chalk and cold iron, laced faintly with the scent of wax. The single window leaks a pale shard of moonlight across the floor.

I sit at my desk, the file from the library spread out before me. The handwriting on the pages is neat. Laurel’s words bleed across the paper in black veins. I trace one line with my fingertip.

I should feel anger. Instead, I feel something worse. My pen moves without hesitation. I write notes in tight, deliberate letters:
Aconite triggers emotional collapse.  Serum binds to guilt. He was choses.

The candle trembles with every word.

For a moment, I close my eyes. I shouldn’t, but I do. The darkness behind my eyelids feels heavier than the one around me. Suddenly I’m not in Nevermore anymore. I’m back in my old room. My room in the future. The walls are lined with half-finished manuscripts, the smell of ink taking over. My typewriter waits, half-fed with a page that never learnt how to end. The curtains are drawn.

That was where I wrote the first draft of my book: The Anatomy of Hyde. My first attempt at making the truth behave. I remember the sound of it, the clack of keys, the slow rhythm of me typing. The world was quieter then, except for the ghost that haunted me.

I open my eyes again. The present waits patiently. The room is small. It’s too small for solitude, too large for comfort. My bed sits against the wall, perfectly made, uninviting. The sheets are the colour of ash, the pillow sharp-edged from disuse. The window hums softly with the wind.

My notebook lies open beside the file. I begin sketching out equations: botanical, chemical, emotional. I’m hoping to find ways to reverse the process Laurel perfected. There’s a chance, if I find the right combination, that I can stop the serum from binding to him. That I can unmake the Hyde before it begins.

I know it’s ridiculous. Hope always feels ridiculous to me.

A sudden knock on the door breaks my thoughts. I close the file, smooth the papers into a single stack, and slide them beneath my typewriter.

…

When I open the door I see Enid standing in front of me. Her hair is tangled, she has a blanket wrapped around her shoulders, and her eyes are wide with the kind of outrage. Her socks don’t match. One has a cartoon moon, the other a bleeding heart.

“What did your roommate do this time?” I ask.

Enid looks both furious and on the edge of tears. “She filled my half of the room with black glitter. Glitter, Wednesday. I can taste it. It’s in my hair, my bed and even in my clothes.’’

I blink. “A creative method of psychological warfare.”

“She said it was a ‘harmless prank’,” Enid hisses. “Now my side looks like a unicorn funeral!”

“I fail to see the tragedy,” I say dryly. “Unicorns deserve worse.”

Enid scowls. ‘’I can’t sleep in there. It’s… too much.’’

I step aside from the doorway. “You can stay here. I won’t be sleeping tonight anyway.”

Her surprise flickers through the exhaustion. “Seriously? You’re offering?”

“Temporarily,” I say. “I prefer not to hear emotional suffering echoing down the hall.”

She walks in, blanket trailing “Wow. It’s so… dark in here.”

“I find colour distracting,” I answer. “It lies too easily.”

Enid sits on the edge of the bed and looks around. “It’s so empty.”

“I travel light,” I say. “Emotionally and otherwise.”

She gives a small laugh, nervous but sincere. “You’re so weird.”

“I take that as an observation, not an insult.”

She lies down, pulling the blanket tighter. “Thanks,” she murmurs, her voice already softening with sleep.

“Don’t thank me,” I reply, turning back to my desk. “I did it for the silence.”

Her breathing evens out within minutes. She snores. It’s not softly, not delicately. It’s an honest, wholehearted noise. The kind that fills a room and refuses to apologise. It’s oddly… human.

I glance back once. The blanket has slipped off her shoulder. Her hair glows faintly in the moonlight, strands of gold tangled against the grey sheets.

I turn back to my desk. The candle burns low, its flame shaking. I dip my pen in ink and continue writing. Objective: protect Tyler Galpin from becoming what I already destroyed. Obstacle: time. Variable: myself.

Behind me, Enid snores again. Even louder this time, a sound so absurd it nearly rearranges my definition of peace. I let out a slow breath. My pen keeps moving. The night feels long but manageable. Plants grow best in the dark.

…

The candle gives up long before morning, leaving a crater of wax. The air in my room has turned dense and sleepy, holding the smell of paper, ink, and the faint metallic note of a pen nib.

Enid sleeps in the bed with all the grace of a dropped blanket, one arm hanging toward the floor, her breath rising and falling softly.

I keep writing because I don’t trust stillness; stillness invites thought, and thought is a luxury for people who haven’t yet made enemies out of time itself. The watch sits beside me, patient and deliberate, ticking in a rhythm that feels older than reason.

Suddenly a scream interrupts the piece in my dorm. It’s not a shriek or a shout. No, just a clean tear that forces everyone else to stop breathing for a second. It crawls under the door and freezes the air before I can decide whether to stand.

Enid bolts upright, hair half wild, eyes open too far. “What was that?”

“Danger,” I tell her. “Definitely something bad.”

Enid is already out of bed, tripping over her robe. I follow her out of the dorm.

The hallway outside is a corridor of flickering light. Suddenly everyone opens their door. The smell hits first: copper and damp soil, the kind that doesn’t belong inside. Students gather in clusters, speaking in the language of disbelief. Their voices blur into one another.

We reach the open door in Ophelia Hall, and the world suddenly seems to shrink. There’s a body on the floor. It’s a girl no older than 15 years old. She’s small and lying still. Someone says she must have fainted; another, that she’s sleeping.

I don’t kneel. I simply look. Her skin has taken on the grey tint of paper left in the rain. Her hand rests against the floorboards, fingers half curled. The edges of her nails are packed with earth. It looks fresh. A pot of Thornhill’s plants stands overturned nearby.

The scent of roses drifts through the room as if someone had perfumed the air to disguise decay.

Enid turns to me. “This is my roommate. She was fine last night…”

“She isn’t now,” I reply.

The crowd parts when Weems arrives. Her robe swirls with candlelight as she scans the room, “Everyone back to your dorms. Immediately.”

Thornhill follows Weems. Thornhill her hair looks perfect. Her smile is the polite version of concern. She moves through the students with that soft-edged warmth. Her perfume smells of the same invasive sweetness from the plants.

Her eyes meet mine for a fraction too long. Her gaze is bright and almost kind, and in that moment I notice the faintest movement of her lips. A whisper shaped but never voiced: back off.

It’s a warning. The others students don’t see it. They’re too busy looking at the body, or at their shoes, or anywhere that isn’t Thornhill. But I see her. I always do.

Weems bends beside the fallen girl, checking for a pulse that clearly isn’t there. Thornhill stays standing, her hands clasped. Almost as if the performance of grief is rehearsed. The angle of her head is turned just enough to keep me in her vision.

Enid walks closer to me, her voice breaking. “Wednesday… let’s go.”

I nod once, because staring at death doesn’t teach you more about it. We turn away, the murmurs behind us dissolving into the usual theatre of panic.

At the threshold I glance back. Weems is still crouched, Thornhill is still watching, and in that instant the candlelight catches her eyes. They aren’t soft at all. They shine the way a blade does right before it’s used.

Enid clings to my sleeve, whispering my name again, but I’m already cataloguing the details: the temperature drop, the flower pot on the ground and Thornhill watching me.

By the time we reach our door, I know two things. The girl was poisoned and Thornhill’s warning was for me.

Chapter Text

Wednesday’s POV

Somehow it feels like the night refuses to end. It’s like darkness itself has taken over completely. Outside it’s raining, and it feels like every drop is repeating itself. The sound of the rain against the window is steady enough. I’d almost mistake it for comfort.

Enid is sitting cross-legged on my bed. She has her knees drawn up underneath her blanket. Her blonde hair catches the lamplight. I notice that she keeps trying to speak about small things. About how the candles smell, about the sound the pipes make and even about how soft my bedsheets are. I notice that she’s trying to keep herself together.

I let her. Her words are a kind of shield for people who can’t stand silence.

My room smells faintly of candle smoke mixed with ink. My notebook lies open on my desk. It’s filled with diagrams and observations.

The ink has begun to feather on the cheap school paper. My handwriting is precise. The watch rests on my desk. It’s half-buried in the shadow of the lamp.

Enid sighs. At least it’s loud enough to prove she’s here. That I’m not alone. ’Do you think we’re safe here?’’

“Safety”, I tell her, “is just danger politely waiting its turn.”
She doesn’t laugh, which disappoints me. She only tightens the blanket around her shoulders and stares at the rain, as though the window might offer her a distraction.

I don’t believe in distractions, so I return to my routine. I return to my notes, pretending that writing them matters. I catalogue the day: the strange unease that clung to the corridors, the way the ravens wouldn’t stop circling the greenhouse, and the feeling that the air itself was aware of being watched. Something is unfolding at Nevermore.

I’m interrupted by a knock on my door. I know whoever it is, they’re not knocking for politeness.

Enid looks up, her eyes wide, already frightened of what hasn’t happened yet. I admire her instinct. It’s rarely wrong. I rise from my chair without haste, smoothing the front of my shirt and straightening my collar. There’s no reason to rush; inevitability doesn’t appreciate enthusiasm.

“Stay here,” I tell her. “Don’t leave the room.”

When I open the door, Principal Weems is standing in front of me. She looks composed and somehow grim at the same time. Behind her the hallway is completely abandoned.

“Miss Addams,” she says, in that measured tone she always carries, “You will come with me. Now.”

I hear how her words carry weight. I’m not surprised. I’ve been expecting trouble ever since I came to this timeline.

’Wednesday?’’ Enid asks softly. ’Are you okay?’’

For a brief, unnecessary moment, I think of the way Enid is so kind that she worries about me. I look at her over my shoulder. “Lock the door,” I say quietly. “Don’t let anyone in.’’

After that I step into the hallway, leaving the safety of my room behind. The door closes behind me.

…

The hallway stretches before me. The air carries the faint smell of varnish and rain-damp stone. Each lamp along the wall flickers softly.

Principal Weems walks ahead of me. Her posture is immaculate, her spine a straight line of authority that refuses to bend even under the hour’s weight. Her heels strike the floor in exact rhythm, the sort of precision that turns footsteps. I let the sound measure the distance between us. It’s an old trick. I count her rhythm to slow time.

We pass beneath portraits of past headmistresses, their painted eyes heavy. They seem the kind of women who expected a girl like me to arrive eventually.

For a time, we don’t speak. I can feel Weems thinking ahead of herself, rehearsing lines of polite accusation. Silence, in her mouth, is just discipline waiting for a stage. In mine, it’s survival.

Finally, she says, “You understand the seriousness of what’s happened tonight.” Her voice doesn’t echo; it lands.
“I understand seriousness,” I tell her. “I just find it overused.”

She exhales through her nose. It’s the kind of sigh that sounds like it’s been filed under ‘hopeless cases’.

When we turn around the corner, I’m greeted by that awful scent. It’s unmistakably the same perfume I detest so much. This scent is the chemical echo of something that once pretended to be alive. Sweetness masking soil. Like decay wearing a corset of charm.

I stop walking. Weems pauses a few paces ahead, confused as to why I stopped.

“I assume Professor Thornhill is waiting,” I say.
Weems blinks, caught off guard by my question. “Yes. She’s been helping the investigation.”

“Of course she has,” I murmur. “Her perfume got here before she did.”

A moment later the door to Weems's office opens. Thornhill is standing in the doorway waiting for Weems and me. The scent of her perfume fills the air. Her hair is too neat for the hour. Her smile was too careful.

“Wednesday,” she says softly, her voice dipped in the kind of warmth that dies at the edge of her lips. “You look pale. Are you sleeping at all?”

“I find sleep redundant,” I reply. “Especially when bodies start decorating my dormitory.”

For a second I see a fracture in her demeanour. It’s a flicker of something dark behind her eyes. But she recovers too quickly for others to notice. She lowers her gaze in rehearsed empathy.

“You shouldn’t take this personally, dear,” she says. “Everyone’s rattled. Even you.”

“Especially me,” I answer. “I’m allergic to perfume that smells like guilt.”

Her mouth twitches, but her smile remains. “Still making jokes, I see.”
“Sure,” I say.

Before she can reply, Weems clears her throat. “Inside, both of you.”

Thornhill steps aside, gesturing for me to enter first. The gesture is polite; the shadow she casts is not.

When I step inside, I’m greeted by bright lights. Every lamp is on. The scent of coffee lingers inside the room. Sheriff Galpin sits by the desk, his uniform still damp, his expression carved into scepticism.

Thornhill closes the door behind us. The click of the latch sounds uncomfortably final.

Weems gestures to a chair. “Please, sit.”
“I prefer standing,” I say. “It keeps my conscience elevated.”

Galpin looks up from the folder in his hands. His eyes are the colour of wet asphalt. His eyes look dull, heavy, and designed for staring down guilt. “Miss Addams,” he says, “we have some questions.”

He doesn’t yet realise I have far more answers than he’ll ever want to hear.

…

The rain hasn’t stopped. The air outside the principal’s office smells like metal and wet stone. I follow Sheriff Galpin through the courtyard, his flashlight cutting through the dark.

He opens the passenger door of his patrol car and gestures for me to get in. The vinyl seat is cold and sticks to my palms. I stare straight ahead as the door slams shut. The engine starts with a sound that feels too alive for the hour.

We drive in silence for several minutes. I count the wipers as they sweep across the windscreen – “sixty-three, sixty-four, sixty-five” – before Galpin finally decides silence isn’t punishment enough.

“You know,” he says, his voice thick, “it’s always something with your family. You Addams types attract trouble the way graves attract flowers.”

I don’t respond. I know silence will unnerve him.

“First your father. He always showed up in the wrong place, knowing the wrong people. Then you. Guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

His words are lazy, meant to sting without thought. I almost pity him. “If you’re trying to provoke a confession,” I say finally, “you’ll have to do better than recycled gossip.”

He chuckles once. “You think this is a joke, huh? A girl’s dead, Addams. I’ve seen enough of your kind. I mean, the weird ones, the quiet ones. You bottle things up until they rot. Then one night you snap.”

I turn my head slowly, studying the reflection of his face in the rain-slick glass. His jaw is tight. His hands grip the wheel like it’s the only thing in his life that listens.

“And yet,” I say, “you still can’t control your own son.”

The car fills with a silence that feels like a held breath. He doesn’t look at me, but his knuckles whiten.

“Careful,” he mutters. “You’re not in a position to make enemies.”

“I don’t make enemies,” I answer evenly. “I collect them. They’re more reliable than friends.”

He says nothing after that. The rest of the drive is a war between restraint and rage, fought entirely through the steering wheel. The lights of Jericho bloom ahead.

When we pull up outside the police station, the rain has softened into mist. Galpin steps out first. I follow him.

When I step outside the car, I see Tyler. Tyler is standing near the entrance of the police station. He’s half-sheltered beneath the awning, his jacket zipped up, his hair damp with rain. He’s waiting for his father, but his posture betrays uncertainty. He takes one foot forward, one back, like he hasn’t yet chosen who he is in this version of the story.

When his eyes find me, confusion floods them. He looks exactly as he shouldn’t. He looks younger, open, unscarred by what’s still years away. For a moment I forget the night and the accusation.

“Dad?” He calls out, stepping forward. “What’s going on?”

Galpin exhales, tired already. “Go home, Tyler. Not now.”

But Tyler’s gaze doesn’t leave me. His brow furrows. “Why’s she here? She didn’t…”

“Enough,” Galpin snaps. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I know her,” Tyler insists, voice low but certain. “She wouldn’t…”

He stops talking the moment I look at him. Not as someone who is accused of murder, but as someone who knows how his story will end.

“Go home,” I say softly. “It’s late. You should stay out of this.’’

He opens his mouth to speak again, but his father’s hand lands on his shoulder, steering him away. The look in Tyler’s eyes as he’s pulled back is one I’ve seen before. It’s trust trying to survive reality.

The door to the station opens. I step inside. The walls are flickering with fluorescent light. Galpin follows, dripping rain onto the tile. “You can start talking any time now,” he says.

I almost smile. “I could,” I reply, “but then you’d stop listening.”

…

The interrogation room looks exactly as I imagined. It’s sterile, windowless, and proud of its own mediocrity. The air smells like wet paper, dust, and the kind of coffee that’s been abandoned halfway through a confession. There’s a camera in the corner pretending not to blink, and a single bulb above the table that hums like it’s chewing on its own electricity.

I sit where I’m told, folding my hands neatly on the metal surface. The chair is cold. Galpin sits opposite me, his sleeves rolled up, revealing forearms tensed from a lifetime of clinging to control. He drops a folder onto the table.

“You know why you’re here,” he says.

“I’ve been here long enough to guess,” I answer.

He opens the folder in front of me. He slides out a photograph. It’s glossy and recent. The image of Enid’s roommate stares up from the table, her skin pale, her throat marked by something deliberate. I study it without emotion. Someone wanted it to look ritualistic. Someone wanted me to see it that way.

“She was found outside Ophelia Hall,” Galpin says. “Your hall. Your room, Miss Addams, is the closest.”

“Convenient geography,” I reply. “Murderers love convenience.”

He doesn’t appreciate my response. I can see his jaw tighten. “We also found this.”

He shows a small glass vial, the kind that’s used in science labs. Inside is residue, faintly green, smelling of iron and ash. “Recognise it?”

I lean forward slightly, enough to let the light catch on my expression. “I recognise glass. I tend to avoid poisons that look like they came from a candle shop.”

“We found it under your desk,” he says.

“I’ll have to congratulate the culprit,” I murmur. “They clean better than the janitorial staff.”

He slams his palm against the table, not loud enough to scare me, just loud enough to confirm he wishes he could.

“Enough games, Addams! You’ve been here less than a week, and now there’s blood on the grounds. You expect me to believe you had nothing to do with this?”

I meet his stare. I look calm and steady. “Belief is a luxury, Sheriff. Evidence, however, is an art form.”

He laughs once, dry and disbelieving. “Always the smart mouth. You think being clever keeps you safe?”

“It keeps me awake,” I say. “Which is more than I can say for your investigation.”

For a long moment, he just looks at me. It’s like he’s trying to see the monster he’s already written into his report. The light above flickers once, casting his face in brief shadow.

“We found footprints, too,” he says finally. “Your size. Near the body.”

“Tragic,” I say. “Apparently, I share a shoe size with a murderer. I’ll have to order smaller ones.”

He leans forward. “You think this is funny?”

“I think it’s predictable,” I reply. “Frame the girl with the black wardrobe and a personality disorder. It saves you paperwork.”

Something flickers behind his eyes. For a moment I can see guilt, maybe, or just fatigue. “You think someone’s framing you?”

“I think someone’s bored,” I say. “And efficient.”

He slams the folder shut, pushes his chair back, and stands. “You know what I think? I think you came here to stir up trouble. Same as your father. He had his secrets. You’ve got yours. Maybe you finally snapped.”

“Maybe you finally ran out of imagination,” I counter.

He stares at me for a long second, then mutters something under his breath and storms out. The door shuts behind him, the sound echoing in the small room.

The silence that follows is suffocating. Even for me. I can hear the camera hum again, small and restless. I don’t look at it. Instead, I trace my finger along the edge of the table, noting the scratches in the metal. They’re small, parallel and deliberate.

Outside, I hear muffled voices. I hear Weems, Thornhill and the sheriff. Their tones overlap. Their voices are filled with professionalism and panic and guilt.

After a while I can hear footsteps outside of the door. The door opens and Thornhill steps inside. Her perfume takes over the room. It’s a mixture of roses, damp earth and something faintly metallic.

…

Thornhill closes the door behind her with a soft click. It’s the kind of sound that would comfort a frightened child, not someone like me. The lights hum louder.

She sits across from me with the poise of someone who believes good posture makes her trustworthy. “You’ve had a difficult night,” she says softly.

“I told them this questioning wasn’t necessary. You’ve been through enough already.”

I watch her without answering. She folds her hands on the table, perfectly still, except for one thumb that rubs against the other. It’s a nervous habit disguised as empathy.

“Sheriff Galpin means well,” she continues. “He’s just doing his job.”

“Framing children?” I ask. “An admirable line of work.”

Her smile doesn’t waver, but her eyes narrow. “You shouldn’t joke about this,” she says gently. “They found evidence. It’s serious.”

“Under my desk,” I remind her. “Placed with precision, in a position so obvious it might as well have come with a gift tag.”

She tilts her head. “And you think someone planted it?”

“I think someone had access,” I say. “And poor taste in poison.”

Thornhill leans forward slightly, her tone filled with "care". “Wednesday, listen to me. I know you pride yourself on being...different. On seeing darkness where others don’t. But sometimes…”

“Sometimes the darkness grows flowers,” I finish for her. “I’ve seen your garden. You water it daily.”

For the first time, her expression falters. Her pupils tighten, as if the room has just brightened. She recovers quickly, too quickly. “You sound paranoid,” she says softly. “It worries me.”

“Good,” I answer. “That means I’m doing it right.”

Her fingers touch the edge of the folder Galpin left on the table. She glances at the photograph of the dead girl, then at me. “You know, I’ve always admired your curiosity,” she says. “It’s… intense. You see patterns others don’t. But sometimes that kind of mind can invent them, too.”

I let her words linger, watching how carefully she places each one. “The thing about patterns,” I say, “is that even liars leave fingerprints in them.”

She smiles again, but the corners of her mouth look tight, almost sore from the effort.

“You’re exhausted,” she says. “Let me speak to Principal Weems. Maybe we can arrange for you to rest. I’ll stay with you if you’d like. I know you must be frightened.”

I stand slowly, pushing the chair back. The legs screech against the tile. An ugly sharp sound follows. It’s enough to make her flinch. “You mistake analysis for fear,” I tell her. “I’m not frightened. I’m cataloguing.”

Her voice softens even further. “Cataloguing what?”

I take a step closer. She doesn’t move, though I see the way her throat tightens once before she forces it still. “The scent of roses,” I say, “and how they always wilt near corpses.”

She meets my gaze. It’s not the pleasant, teacherly stare she gives students, but something sharper. She looks defensive. “Careful, Wednesday,” she says quietly. “You don’t want people to start believing you’re dangerous.”

“They already do,” I whisper. “That’s what makes me safe.”

Her hand, still resting near the folder, tightens. For a moment, the faintest tremor passes through her fingertips. It’s enough for me to confirm I already knew. She set me up.

The watch under my collar warms against my chest, its ticking syncing with my pulse. It knows what I’m realising. That Thornhill’s presence here isn’t coincidence. That her pity is theatre. That her perfume is a mask that drips truth beneath it.

We stare at each other for what feels like forever; she exhales, smooths her skirt, and stands. “I’ll tell Weems you’re not talking tonight,” she says softly. “Maybe tomorrow you’ll feel more… cooperative.”

“I don’t do cooperation,” I say. “Only autopsies.”

Her smile returns. It’s brittle and final. “Sleep well, Miss Addams.”

She leaves and closes the door behind her.

The scent of her perfume lingers. I breathe it in once. When I’m sure she’s gone, I let out the breath I’d been holding. “You overplayed your role, Laurel,” I whisper to the empty room. “Next time, try subtlety.”

…

The cell they put me in feels small. The air inside smells of iron. The walls have been painted too many times. The layers of beige are trying to bury the memory of what’s been said here. There’s a cot bolted to the floor, a sink and a single bulb that swings.

I sit cross-legged on the cot, listening to the rhythm of the rain against the barred window. It’s not unlike the ticking of the watch under my collar. No, it’s patient.

The hours pass in quiet rebellion. No one checks on me. No one dares. Somewhere down the corridor, a clock chimes four, and the world feels half dead again. I use the time to catalogue the sounds. I hear the buzz of a fly, the squeak of a shoe, and the faraway slam of a door.

By morning, Sheriff Galpin reappears. He looks exhausted. He doesn’t look at me when he unlocks the cell. “Let’s try this again,” he mutters.

I follow him down the corridor. The hallway smells like disinfectant.

The interrogation room hasn’t changed. The chair still waits. I sit before he tells me to. He doesn’t bother with small talk this time. He just leans forward and sets a new file down.

“You think you’re clever,” he says. “But we’ve got more now. Witnesses. One kid saw you leaving the dorm around the time of the murder.”

“People see what they want to see,” I answer. “And in this town, that’s usually me.”

He rubs a hand over his face. “You enjoy this, don’t you? Acting like none of it touches you.”

“It touches me,” I say. “It just doesn’t bruise.”

He exhales hard. “Why do you do this? Why can’t you just…”

“Be normal?” I finish. “Because normal is a costume. It doesn’t fit.”

He slams his hand against the table. Even harder this time. The sound rolls through the room. “You think this is a game? You think death is some kind of joke?”

I tilt my head, studying him. “No,” I say quietly. “But I think ignorance is.”

He freezes. I see the muscle in his jaw tightening, the flicker of memory behind his eyes. He’s trying not to remember something. That’s always when people are easiest to dissect.

I lean forward, my voice steady. “Tell me, Sheriff. Does the name Willowhill still make your hands shake?”

His breath catches. He tries to hide it but fails. “What did you just say?”

“Willowhill”, I repeat, drawing out each syllable. “It’s peaceful there. The kind of place where things go missing quietly. You might want to check behind the scenes before the big H crawls out of the dark.”

He stares at me, expression caught somewhere between fury and fear. “What the hell do you know about that?”

I smile. Not kind, not mocking, just factual. “Enough to ruin your appetite.”

He stands so abruptly that the chair behind him skids into the wall. “You’re sick,” he says. “You need help.”

“Everyone says that right before I’m proven right,” I reply.

He glares down at me. His hands are trembling. He storms toward the door. “Stay here. Don’t move.”

“I wasn’t planning on moving,” I say. “The room has better manners than most people.”

He slams the door shut. His footsteps retreat down the hall. For a moment, the only sound left is the swing of the light bulb above me.

…

The bulb overhead still trembles, its light cutting across the table in nervous stripes. The metal surface glints in restless patterns, like it’s trying to reflect something it doesn’t understand.

The door opens again. Sheriff Galpin steps in again. He moves slower again. His face is tight. I can see a single vein pulse near his temple. Without speaking, he walks to the corner, reaches up, and switches off the camera.

He turns back to me. His voice is quieter now, stripped of the bureaucratic armour. “You said something before,” he begins, “about Willowhill.”

I rest my elbows on the table, fingers steepled, posture impeccable. “Yes.”

His gaze sharpens. “That’s an old case. Closed before you were even…’’

“Here?” I finish. “Chronology is such a fragile thing.”

He exhales, anger rising like static. “Don’t play games with me, Addams. What do you think you know about my wife?”

“Francoise,” I say softly. His name for her lingers in the air. “She was beautiful in a fragile way. The kind of beauty that fears sunlight. You should have looked in Willowhill. Behind the greenhouse, under the old roots.”

His face drains of colour. The man who once looked at me like I was a puzzle now looks at me like I’m a prophecy he doesn’t want fulfilled. “You’re lying,” he says. “You’re…’’

“I’m thorough,” I correct. “It’s different.”

He takes a step closer, his shadow cutting the room in half. “How could you possibly know that?”

“I told you before,” I reply evenly. “You’d be amazed what the dead will share when you learn their language.”

He grips the back of the chair across from me so tightly the metal squeals. “You think this is funny? My wife has been missing for years. They found nothing.”

“They weren’t looking for the right thing,” I say. “Or the right monster.”

His voice breaks. “What are you saying?”

I tilt my head. “I’m saying you might want to hurry. Because if you don’t check Willowhill soon, something else will wake there first.”

A silence follows. Galpin doesn’t answer me. I can see the struggle in his expression. It’s disbelief warring with the faint, horrible possibility that I might be right.

“You think you can threaten me with fairy tales?” he growls.

“Fairy tales are just facts with better authors,” I say quietly. “But if you’d like, consider it a warning. It might save your son.”

That hits its mark. His whole face changes. It’s not anger this time, but something closer to fear. “What did you just say?”

“Tyler,” I say simply. “You have a habit of not listening to him. That never ends well for anyone.”

For a long moment, he just stands there, frozen in his place. The silence between us is suffocating, but before he can reply to me, the door opens.

Another officer steps inside, out of breath, holding a clipboard. “Sheriff,” he says, voice uncertain. “We got confirmation. Someone came forward for the Addams girl. She’s got an alibi.”

Galpin’s head snaps toward him. “What?”

The officer nods quickly. “Kid from Jericho. She says she was with him at the Weathervane. Time checks out.”

My pulse doesn’t change, but something cold passes through me anyway. Galpin looks at me for a long moment. It’s not relief, not gratitude, just pure frustration. “Get her out of here,” he mutters.

I stand slowly, smoothing my skirt as if I’ve merely finished a particularly dull meeting. The officer guides me toward the door. I don’t look back. The sheriff’s silence follows me.

Outside, the daylight feels raw. The rain has stopped, but the streets still glisten with its memory.

I see Tyler standing near the patrol car. His hands shoved deep into his jacket pockets, a hesitant relief softening his face. His hair is damp, curling slightly at the edges. The light hits him in a way that makes him look unreal. Like something time hasn’t learnt to damage yet.

“You didn’t have to do that,” I say.

He shrugs. “You helped me.’’

“Trades imply equality,” I answer. “You overpaid.”

He smiles, awkward but genuine. “Guess I’m bad at maths.”

I glance at him, memorising the version of him that still believes in redemption. “Be careful,” I say. “Debt has a way of collecting itself.”

He frowns. “Are you okay?”

“Not yet,” I reply. “But I’m working on it.”

…

Tyler follows me for half a block before he speaks, his footsteps uncertain against the wet pavement. “You don’t have to go back to Nevermore yet,” he says finally. “There’s a place I want to show you.”

I stop and look at him. The sky above Jericho is the colour of cooling ash. I could say no, and I should. But something in his voice sounds disarmingly human, almost like he’s asking to borrow a moment of silence.

“Lead the way,” I say flatly.

He smiles, half-relieved, half-surprised, and walks ahead.

We cut through the side streets, past shuttered shops that wear the morning light badly. The smell of damp earth takes over as the pavement gives way to soil. Birds argue above us, the river murmurs in the distance, and the town fades into myth behind a wall of pine.

The air feels cleaner here. We follow a narrow path until it opens onto a ledge overlooking the river, where moss has colonised the rocks and the water moves like a slow pulse beneath us.

“This is it,” he says, stopping near the edge. “My favourite place. When things get too loud.”

He looks younger in this light. He looks softer. The kind of young that hasn’t been broken in half yet. His profile is all contradictions. He has a smile that doesn’t trust itself, but his eyes hold too much.

“I didn’t peg you for a nature enthusiast,” I say.

He chuckles. “It’s not nature I like. It’s the quiet.”

For a moment, the sound of the river takes over. The world feels still enough. Then he turns to face me. “So… did you do it?”

His words should sting, but they don’t. They just confirm that the world hasn’t changed its habit of doubting me. “No,” I say. “I didn’t kill her.”

Tyler nods slowly, studying my face. “You’re sure?”

“I’m always sure,” I answer. “That’s the problem.”

He shoves his hands deeper into his pockets, shifting his weight. “Then why do they think you did?”

“Because I was convenient,” I say. “Because I don’t smile enough. Because I collect knives and have opinions. Because someone wanted me occupied while they rearranged the crime scene.”

“You think you were set up.”

“I know I was.”

He looks down at the river, as if the water might help him understand. “Who’d do that?”

“Someone who smells like roses,” I say quietly.

He glances at me, confusion flickering through his features, but he doesn’t push it. “I believe you,” he says finally.

The simplicity of it disarms me more than accusation ever could. I look at him. I mean, really look. The boy standing beside me isn’t the fractured version I remember. His eyes aren’t haunted; they’re open. His posture isn’t a confession; it’s an apology that hasn’t yet learnt its name. The sun hits his hair in strands of gold, and for a fleeting second, I see the person he could have been if the world hadn’t written him in blood.

“You shouldn’t,” I say.

He smiles. “Too late.”

The wind shifts, carrying the scent of wet pine and river silt. My hair lifts slightly, catching the chill. “Belief is a fragile currency,” I say. “Spend it carefully.”

He steps closer, enough that I can hear the steadiness of his breathing. “You’re not what people say you are, Wednesday.”

“And you’re not what you’ll become,” I reply.

He frowns at that, uncertain whether I’m joking. I’m not.

The river below gurgles louder, as if protesting our temporary peace. Somewhere deeper in the woods, a crow cries out. It’s one sharp note, cutting through the moment.

Tyler looks away first. “You should get back before they start another witch hunt,” he says.

“Let them,” I answer. “Witches always return stronger.”

He laughs softly. “You’re weird, you know that?”

“I’ve heard,” I say.

We start walking back in silence. The trees loom taller now. The path narrows, the earth still slick with rain. He glances at me once more before we reach the edge of town. “If you ever need to get away again,” he says, “you know where to find me.”

“I rarely run away,” I reply. “But I do occasionally retreat strategically.”

He grins. “I’ll take that as a maybe.”

“You can take it however your conscience allows,” I say.

He laughs again. It sounds crisp, unbroken and still human.

As we reach the street, I stop for a moment, watching him walk toward the café.

…

The walk back to Nevermore is long. Each step I take sounds too loud. The forest seems to close behind me, sealing off the world I came from.

The courtyard lies still, soaked in silver light. The air tastes faintly metallic. Like a storm trying to crawl back into the earth. The watch against my chest pulses with a quiet, persistent rhythm. A warning disguised as comfort.

Nevermore looks younger, as if the years haven’t yet had the courage to haunt it. The gargoyles lean over the roofline like they’ve been waiting for this exact moment. For me. The shadows arrange themselves politely across the cobblestones, neat, deliberate, rehearsed. That’s how I know something’s wrong.

Suddenly I can smell that awful scent. The roses, the scent of a garden that’s trying too hard to smell alive.

I don’t turn when she speaks. “You’re out late, Wednesday.”

“I was looking for fresh air,” I answer. “But it seems to have been claimed by perfume.”

Thornhill steps into view from behind the greenhouse, her blouse buttoned neatly, her hair pinned. The moonlight gathers around her, but it refuses to touch her face. “I was worried,” she says sweetly. “You disappeared…’’

“I tend to do that when I’m being framed for murder.”

Her smile tightens. It’s barely perceptible, but it’s there. “You shouldn’t take things so personally. Tragedy never chooses wisely. It just arrives.”

“Funny,” I say, “you talk like someone who’s practised tragedy.”

Thornhill walks closer, her heels soundless on the wet stone. “I know you’ve had a rough night. Galpin can be so… unforgiving.”

“He’s predictable,” I correct. “Unforgiving requires imagination.”

Thornhill’s laughter sounds like a mirror cracking. “You really are your mother’s daughter.”

“Thank you,” I say.

She stops a few feet away. “You’re tired,” she murmurs. “And you’ve made a mess of things. Maybe it’s time someone helped you tidy up.”

“I’m not a room, Miss Thornhill,” I say. “And I don’t respond well to cleaning.”

Her head tilts, and for a moment, her expression softens in that teacherly way she’s perfected. “You think you’re untouchable,” she whispers. “That all your little deductions keep you safe. But you don’t see it yet, do you? You’re a piece, not the board.”

She moves faster than logic allows. There’s a flash. I see something metallic, sharp enough to end me. I catch her wrist. For a moment, we are a perfect sculpture of opposition, motionless except for the tremor running through her hand.

“Don’t make this harder,” she says. “I really do admire you.”

“I can tell,” I say. “Most admirers prefer letters to homicide.”

I can see her eyes flash in anger. Suddenly she dives forward.

I crash through the greenhouse door. Glass explodes outward in a thousand brief stars. I land hard against the earth. My breath is sharp in my throat. Around me, the plants sway.

Thornhill straightens, brushing the shards that fell on her from her blouse. She looks almost serene. ’You’ve been a delightful student,” she says. “But you’ve seen too much.”

I stand up slowly. My hand finds the edge of the overturned table. “You underestimate how much I enjoy seeing.”

Her smile returns. “You think knowing me gives you power?”

“It gives me choice,” I say. “And the pleasure of not pretending anymore.”

 “You’re clever,” she says softly. “But clever girls die the same as foolish ones.”

The watch against my skin burns now, bright as an accusation. I glance at her hand. I see a glint of steel, the slow inevitability of it.

“You always did love your plants,” I say. “Shame they can’t bury you too.”

She lunges at me, and a brief impact follows. I don’t feel pain, not exactly. No, it’s shock followed by the feeling that the universe is skipping a heartbeat.

My knees give before I command them to. The world tilts after that. The air grows heavy. I taste iron and old memories.

Thornhill’s face hovers above mine. She looks serene. She’s illuminated by moonlight refracted through broken glass. “You were supposed to stay a child,” she whispers. “You were supposed to lose.”

“Children grow,” I murmur. “Monsters evolve.”

Something in her eyes flickers. It’s annoyance. She steps back. “Rest, Wednesday. This story doesn’t belong to you.”

Suddenly I can feel the watch pulse. It’s hard enough that the light inside the greenhouse bends toward it. I feel it crawl beneath my ribs, rewriting something ancient.

The moon fractures into the shards around me. The world narrows to sound: the wind moving through broken glass, the watch ticking faster and faster, my own breath fading into static.

Then the ticking stops. Then everything stops, and in that stillness, something unseen begins to move.

Chapter Text

Wednesday’s POV

The first thing I feel is weight. It’s not like something’s on top of me. No, it’s in me. It feels as if gravity has been hiding inside my bones. I open my eyes to the familiar disarray of my study. It takes a moment for the room to stop spinning.

The air smells of iron paper and iron. My blood stains the floorboards underneath me. The candles on my desk flicker. I realise I’m home. I’m in my house, in my timeline; I’m back in the present. Something that feels so foreign at the moment.

The knife wound glows red under my ribs, the silk of my dress clinging to it. Pain travels slowly upward.

I turn my head and see the watch lying beside me. The glass is cracked. The watch ticks unevenly.

I try to move, but my arm refuses. When I finally sit upright, the floor tilts under me, and my vision folds at the edges. My clock in the hall chimes once. The sound travels through the walls.

After that I can hear footsteps approach me. I look up and see my mother standing in the doorway of the study.

She opens the door without hesitation. “Wednesday!” she says.

“I was murdered,” I tell her. “Briefly.”

Her expression doesn’t change. She crosses the room in two slow steps. She kneels beside me, her perfume replacing the scent of blood. It smells of black orchids, lilies, and dirt.

My mother’s hands find my face first. I can feel her cool skin against my fevered skin. She pressed two fingers to my throat, checking my pulse. I know my pulse is weaker because I can feel it.

“Who did this?” she asks me, sounding worried.

“Laurel Gates,” I say. “Though she prefers her stage name, Thornhill. She tried to tidy up loose ends. I was the mess.”

Morticia’s gaze lowers to the wound. “You’ve bled a lot,’’ she murmurs.

“I’ll be fine,’’ I say.

My mother's eyes flicker for a second. I can see her hidden affection. She tears a strip of fabric from her own sleeve and presses it against my wound. Her movements look clinical.

“Does it hurt?”

“Only when I breathe,” I answer.

Suddenly I can hear the watch tick louder. My mother’s head turns toward the watch. She picks it up before holding it to the candlelight. The glass throws pale reflections across her skin.

“The watch,” she says softly. “You used it.”

“It used me,” I correct. “I died, and it disagreed.”

Her eyes stay on the watch. “You understand that time does not grant favours freely.”

“I don’t expect favours. Only transactions.”

My mother’s voice lowers. “Every transaction has a price. You’ve stolen life from death, my darling. Death has a long memory.”

“I’ll pay in instalments,” I tell her. “It’s more dramatic that way.”

My mother exhales before answering. ’You have your father’s flair for provocation,” she says.

“And your taste in despair,” I reply.

Her mouth curves, but it’s not quite a smile. “Let me see the wound.”

My mother presses harder against the wound. I flinch for a moment; it hurts even though I don’t like to admit it. Her fingers move efficiently. I can see my blood staining her sleeve, but she doesn’t seem to mind.

“I found you by accident,” she says. “I hadn’t heard from you in a few days, so I figured I’d pass by.”

“Time isn’t a coincidence,” I say. “You are here for a reason, Mother.’’

Her gaze sharpens. ’Seems so.’’

“I feel like a trespasser,” I say simply. “Again.”

For a moment, she says nothing. The silence stretches between us. “You should be dead.”

“I’ve heard that before.”

…

My mother insists on tending to the wound herself. I don’t argue mostly because arguing would waste oxygen, and I’m already in debt to it.

She helps me move from the study to the parlour in the east wing in my house. The air is colder in my living room. She sits me down on the couch.

My mother lights a candle. Its flame bends toward her. The light paints her cheekbones in silver and shadow, turning her into something halfway between sculpture and threat.

“Hold still,” she says softly, retrieving a box of gauze and a small bottle of something that smells of antiseptic.

“I am still,” I tell her. “It’s the world that trembles.”

She ignores me. She cleans the wound, binds it tightly, and pauses only once to look up at me.

“You’re lucky,” she says. “A few inches higher and you’d have something poetic carved into your lung.”

“Poetry is overrated,” I reply. “Death has better rhythm.”

Her mouth twitches. She doesn’t smile. When she finishes, she gestures toward the living room. “Come.’’

We sit across from each other in the velvet chairs that have outlived half the family. They were a gift from my parents.

The fire crackles. Shadows move across the walls.

For a long time, neither of us speaks. Finally, my mother interrupts the silence. “Tell me what you saw.”

So I tell her everything. I tell her about the forest being twelve years younger than it should have been, about Jericho still wearing its innocence. I tell her about the Weathervane and the way the bell above the door rang. Then I tell her about Tyler.

“Tyler Galpin,” I say, “He was alive there. He was unscarred. He was so kind and friendly.’’

My mother listens to me. She doesn’t interrupt me.

“He laughed,” I continue. “It felt like an ordinary sound, but it startled me. His voice didn’t carry the echo of the monster yet. Just a boy’s tone, who was still unbroken.’’

“I watched him,” I admit. “I watched the boy I killed ten years ago. He didn’t deserve it. Not then. He was… 'Pure' isn’t the word. But unaware, untouched. Thornhill was already there, already tightening the string around his throat. I saw it happen and couldn’t stop it.”

Morticia leans back, her fingers interlaced. “You feel guilt,” she says, not as a question but as a statement.

“Guilt is too human,” I say. “It’s something people use when they want sympathy. I prefer accuracy. I feel… intrusion. I killed a version of him that might have been saved. Now I’ve seen the version that never stood a chance.”

Morticia’s eyes glimmer. “And what do you plan to do with that knowledge?”

“File it under ‘unresolvable’.” I stare into the flames. “He was innocent. Thornhill corrupted him, and I was the one who ended him. Which makes me complicit twice, both as witness and executioner.”

She watches me quietly.  “You hate her for that.”

“I hate her for being thorough.”

“She made him a monster.”

“And I made him history,” I answer. “She took his soul; I took what was left.”

For a moment, my mother’s face softens. “Darling, monsters are never born alone.’’

“I was both witness and accomplice,” I say. “Which makes me efficient, if not forgiven.”

The clock in the hall marks the hour with a single, hesitant chime. Outside it’s raining.

My mother stands up and crosses to the window. “You should visit the grave,” she says quietly. “See for yourself that some endings stay loyal.”

I don’t move. “I’ve already seen him die twice. I doubt the soil will improve the view.”

“It might improve your understanding,” she answers, turning back to me. “Resurrection always costs more than it returns.”

I meet her gaze. “Then I’ll overpay.”

Her expression doesn’t change, but I can feel her sadness. She reaches out, brushing a strand of my hair behind my ear. Her fingers linger just long enough to remind me that affection can hurt more than wounds.

“Sleep,” she says softly. “You’re bleeding too much poetry for one night.”

“I don’t sleep,” I say. “Dreams are just unpaid debts to memory.”

“Then rest your debts,” she murmurs. “For once.”

…

I honestly didn’t plan to visit his grave. I find myself outside long after the fire in the living room has surrendered. But I can’t seem to sleep.

I find myself outside where the air carries a damp scent. It’s something that smells off.

The path to the graveyard glistens faintly under the moon. The fog has returned too, curling around the ground. Above, the sky is full of clouds.

I don’t bring a lantern. Darkness deserves its privacy.

The gate squeaks when I open it. I let it. The hinges shriek softly before yielding, the sound carrying across the rows of tombs that line the hill.

Tyler’s grave sits near the back, close to where the ravens roost in the trees. It’s a modest headstone, one I insisted on years ago. It’s grey stone. Just a name carved deep enough to survive weather.

The ground is darker there, still damp from the rain. I stop just short of the stone, my boots sinking half an inch into the mud.

“I wasn’t planning to come,” I tell him. “You’d be flattered by the spontaneity.”

A raven shifts above me, its wings rustling. It watches with the same morbid curiosity I reserve for crime scenes and birthdays. I tilt my head toward it. “You’ll get no poetry from me,” I say. “The dead have enough admirers.”

I crouch beside the grave, tracing the carved letters with my gloved fingertip. The edges of his name are rough, worn down by weather. It feels fitting. The world sanding away the memory of a boy who never got to decide what he’d become.

“I saw you,” I whisper. “Twelve years ago. You were younger, softer, inconveniently alive. You smiled at me.”

The raven caws once.

“I tried not to care,” I continue. “You were human then, and I was… efficient. You became the monster they made you into, and I did what was necessary. But now I’ve seen the version before the ruin. The one that still believed in small kindnesses and morning coffee.”

The wind picks up, lifting the edge of my coat. “It’s inconvenient, feeling something this late,” I admit. “Even guilt has better timing.”

The raven drops from its branch and lands beside the stone. It tilts its head, studying me. His eyes look like obsidian beads.

“If you’re here for dramatic effect,” I say to it, “it’s working.”

The bird hops once, pecks at the wet soil, then looks up at me again. Its feathers glisten. It lets out a low croak.

“I know,” I say quietly. “He’s still gone.”

The watch warms against my chest. I press a hand over it, half in irritation, half in surrender.

“Not now,” I whisper to it. “You’ve done enough damage for one lifetime.”

For a moment, the ticking slows. It’s almost listening.

I stand. My knees protest because the mud doesn’t let go easily. I brush the dirt from my coat and look once more at the grave.

“Rest,” I tell him. “I’ll handle the living.”

The raven flaps its wings once before it returns to its perch.

As I walk back toward the house, the fog follows me. Behind me, the raven cries once.
Ahead, the watch ticks twice.
…

Time has resumed its usual cruelty. It makes it painfully clear that no one can stop time. Not even by a cracked watch and a stubborn girl who refused to stay dead.

I spend the following weeks trying to pretend everything is back to normal. I spend most of my time in my study. Writing, brooding and dissecting my guilt. My wound seems to be healing, but my mind can’t seem to forget.

I’ve noticed that it’s when everything goes quiet that the memories take over. It seeps into everything of my life. From the hall-written pages of my manuscript to the window glass that catches my reflection. I see his face everywhere. His undamaged, younger version stays present.

Now he’s just a name carved in stone. And I’m the reason it stayed that way.

I try to focus on work, on routine. But it never lasts. Every sound in the house reminds me of something that no longer exists. Even the ticking of the clock on my desk feels like mockery. Each second a reminder that I stole time from death and did nothing useful with it.

One evening a letter arrives. It’s from Nevermore… The name at the bottom reads Principal Darian Crowe.

The letter invites me to return for an anniversary event. It’s a commemoration of the “rebuilding of Nevermore”. There’s also mention of a guest lecture on “Paranormal Ethics and Legacy”, which sounds like a desperate attempt to appear academic while avoiding lawsuits.

I would have burnt it if not for the postscript. Professor Enid Sinclair extends a personal invitation. I read the line twice. Enid being a professor is still something I have to get used to.

I set the letter down and stare at the watch on my desk.

…

I don’t know what makes me decide to go. Maybe it’s the everlasting memories of Tyler I’m trying to avoid or just a chance to escape my everyday life. But I find myself in the car to Nevermore the next day.

The road is the same. It’s narrow, lined with trees that look half dead. The fog is waiting for me at the border.

The school appears slowly through it. It has the same iron gates, the same towers, and the same faint smell of rain and stone. But something is off. The gargoyles have been cleaned. The walls are less weathered, less honest. Time has softened the menace, which doesn’t suit Nevermore.

When the car stops, I step out alone. I could almost believe I never left.

Students cross the courtyard in small groups, all wearing the same monochrome uniforms, their laughter sounding rehearsed. They glance at me. Some with curiosity, others with the instinctive unease. I return the courtesy with silence.

Inside, the entrance hall has changed. The portraits have been rearranged; the chandelier has been replaced with something modern. Principal Crowe greets me at the door. He’s tall and thin, with the smile of a man who overuses mirrors. His handshake is the kind that implies competence.

“Miss Addams,” he says. “It’s an honour. Nevermore owes much of its reputation to your… tenure.”

“Reputation,” I echo. “A curious euphemism for catastrophe.”

He laughs too loudly. “We like to think of it as transformation.”

I tilt my head. “Metamorphosis isn’t always survival.”

He blinks, unsure whether to be offended or impressed. “Professor Sinclair is waiting in the greenhouse,” he says quickly. “She insisted on greeting you herself.”

...

The greenhouse looks the same from the outside. It’s overgrown with plants. I can smell the damp earth before I even open the door. Inside the air feels heavier, full of chlorophyll and the faint sweetness of decay. The plants have grown wild.

Inside I find Enid standing by the central table. She is sorting through a tray of seedlings. She looks exactly as I remember. Her hair is still bright, streaked with softer tones.

When she turns and sees me, her face lights up. It’s that same impossible smile that once shared a dorm room with my cynicism.

“Wednesday!” she says. “You actually came.”

I stop at the threshold. “You sound surprised.”

“I am. You don’t usually answer invitations. You send polite threats instead.”

“I’m evolving.”

She laughs, that same half-sunshine, half-chaos sound that used to irritate me into affection. “You look good,” she says. “Older, obviously. But still… you.”

“Unfortunately,” I reply.

Enid removes her gloves, crossing the space between us. “I missed you, you know. It’s been years.”

“Time flies,” I say, “when you’re alive.”

…

The air inside the greenhouse clings to me. Everything breathes too loudly. The vines coil along the glass, the soil exhales its slow rot, and the water trickles somewhere unseen. It smells of wet leaves, chlorophyll, and the faint copper sweetness.

Enid brushes a lock of hair from her forehead, still smiling in that relentlessly human way of hers. She doesn’t notice how every plant in the room leans toward her, as if mistaking her warmth for sunlight.

“Sit,” she says, motioning toward the long wooden bench by the potting table. “You look like you need to.”

“I don’t sit out of need,” I reply, lowering myself onto the bench anyway. “I sit for effect.”

She grins. “Still dramatic. I missed that.”

“Most people find it exhausting.”

“I’m not most people.”

I look around the greenhouse. Somewhere above, a drop of condensation falls and lands against my sleeve. I don’t brush it off.

Enid sits across from me, leaning forward, elbows on her knees, eyes sharp despite the smile. “So,” she says, “you just show up out of nowhere? I thought the famous Wednesday Addams, author of ‘Anatomy of a Hyde’, never went to any public events.’’

“Maybe I needed a change,’’ I say. “Besides, the details aren’t important.’’

“Try me.”

Enid sounds curious. So I take a breath before answering. “Something happened,” I say. “Something inconveniently unscientific.”

Her eyebrows rise. “Unscientific? From you, that’s saying a lot.”

I reach into my coat pocket and pull out the watch. The cracked face catches the greenhouse light, fractured beams scattering across her cheek. It ticks unevenly.

“This”, I say, setting it on the table between us, “is the reason I’m here.”

Enid leans closer, her voice dropping to a whisper. “That old watch?’’

“I can’t explain what happened…’’

Her fingers hover near it but never touch. “You sound… scared,” she says softly.

I look at her. “I’m not. But I don’t know how to move on….”

“Hmm,” she says, smiling faintly. “Move on from what? What does this watch do?’’

 “It’s not just an heirloom,” I continue. “It’s a door. It opens when it shouldn’t.”

“You mean time travel?”

I tilt my head. “You say that like it’s ridiculous. You’ve seen people turn into wolves for less.”

Her smile fades, replaced by something thoughtful. “You used it.”

“I did. But I died,” I correct. “And it disagreed. It brought me back.”

Enid sits back, letting that hang in the humid air. “And where did it take you?”

“Not where,” I say. “When.”

Her breath catches. “You went back?”

“Twelve years,” I say quietly. “To Jericho. To Nevermore. To him.”

Enid’s voice is barely audible. “Tyler.”

I nod once. “He was there. He was 14 years old. He was alive and so full of life.

Enid swallows, her throat tight. “What was he like?”

“Uncorrupted,” I say. “His smile hadn’t yet learnt deception. His hands still shook when he lied. His eyes…” I stop, annoyed at myself for remembering too well. “They were unguarded. I almost envied him.”

“You cared about him,” she says.

“Care” is an inaccurate term. I was… aware of him. Intensely aware.”

“That’s the most Addams definition of love I’ve ever heard.”

“Love is inefficient,” I reply. “And yet it ruins the best minds.”

Enid’s gaze drops to the watch. “You tried to change it, didn’t you?”

“I thought I could. But time resists improvement.”

The words leave a bitter taste. My reflection warps in the glass surface of the watch.

Enid reaches out and rests her hand over mine. “You’re not responsible for what happened to him,” she says gently. “You saved people, Wednesday. You stopped, Laurel. You…”

“…killed him,” I finish. “That’s the part people forget to frame in forgiveness.”

Her hand tightens, stubborn. “You had to.”

“I keep telling myself that,” I say, “but self-deception has never been my strong suit.”

Enid watches me for a long time. Before asking me, “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because you were there,” I say. “In both timelines. You existed unchanged. You were constant.”

“Even when you’re impossible,” she says, smiling sadly.

“Especially then.”

I pick up the watch again. It feels warm, almost pulsing. “It brought me back once,” I say. “But it’s restless. It feels unfinished.”

Enid’s eyes narrow. “You’re not thinking of using it again, are you?”

I don’t answer.

She sighs. “You are.”

“I don’t intend to repeat the past,” I say. “Just interrogate it further.”

“Wednesday…”

“I’m aware of the consequences,” I interrupt. “That’s why they interest me.”

Enid leans back, watching me with that mixture of affection and exhaustion she’s perfected. “You’ll never stop, will you?”

“I could,” I say, standing. “But then who would I be?”

Enid shakes her head. “If you vanish again, I’m coming after you.”

“I’d expect nothing less,” I tell her.

…

I don’t know why, but it’s like the library is pulling me towards it. It has always been my favourite place at Nevermore. Tonight it feels colder than usual. The lamp burns low. Pooling light onto the wooden tables. Dust floats through the air in slow spirals. The smell is a perfect trinity of old paper, mould, and candle smoke. The air tastes faintly metallic.

I shouldn’t be here, which is precisely why I am. My reflection follows me across the glass of the display cases. I look pale. I feel like a portrait that hasn’t yet decided if it’s haunting or waiting.

 I move toward the restricted archives in the back. I want to see the ones locked behind a door disguised as a bookshelf. The mechanism is old. It clicks open beneath my touch with ease.

The air inside is heavier, carrying the distinct scent of disuse and secrets that didn’t survive the people who kept them. Files line the shelves like tombstones in neat rows. Their labels range from bureaucratic to foreboding: Incident Reports, 1997–2014; Faculty Records; External Affairs.

It’s that last one that interests me. The world beyond Nevermore is always the source of its worst infections.

I pull out a box marked Jericho Law Enforcement Correspondence. Its lid gives way reluctantly, dust coughing into the air. I find police reports, typed memos, newspaper clippings, and photographs that never reached public eyes inside.

I leaf through them without expectation until a name freezes my hand. Sheriff Donovan Galpin.

The document is dated two years after Tyler’s death. The headline stamped across the top:
DISCOVERY AT WILLOWHILL SANITARIUM — HUMAN REMAINS IDENTIFIED.

My pulse steadies. I unfold the first page. The typewriter ink has faded slightly. The report reads:

Following a renewed investigation into the abandoned Willowhill facility, Sheriff D. Galpin and his team discovered a concealed chamber beneath the west wing. The chamber contained multiple restraints and remnants of chemical compounds consistent with the Hyde serum. Among the evidence recovered were skeletal remains later identified through dental records as belonging to Francoise Galpin, wife of the Sheriff.

I read it twice. Then a third time, because repetition helps confirm pain. She was there. Exactly where I told him she would be.

I remember the look on his face when I said it. The flicker of disbelief, the anger barely hiding the tremor of fear. “You might want to check Willowhill, behind the scenes, for your wife,” I’d told him. “Before the big H comes out of the dark.”

He must have gone. Perhaps not immediately, perhaps years later, when guilt grew too heavy for ignorance to hold. But he went, and he found her.

The page trembles slightly in my hand. It’s not from emotion, but from realisation.

By travelling back, I had changed something. Not the world’s end, not the resurrection of the dead, but one truth. One discovery that rewrote grief.

The file continues: Evidence suggests the victim was held for an extended period of time prior to death. Signs of chemical exposure consistent with experimental use. No suspects confirmed. Investigation terminated due to insufficient evidence.

A photograph slips out from between the papers and lands on the table. I pick it up carefully by the edges. It’s black and white, slightly overexposed. The image shows the interior of a decayed basement room. A single chain still hangs from the ceiling. In the corner, half-hidden by shadow, a small figure in a coat. It’s Sheriff Galpin himself. His face is unreadable. He found her. He found what Laurel had done. And yet, the file was buried here, quietly, as if truth were an inconvenience.

I lean back, letting the chair creak. The sound echoes through the empty library.

So, I succeeded in changing something. But not the way I’d hoped. The past had bent, but it didn’t heal. It only exposed new wounds.

A faint ticking interrupts my thoughts. The watch is ticking beneath my collarbone, growing warmer again, like an eager accomplice waiting for praise. I press a hand over it.

“Don’t get sentimental,” I whisper. “You saved me, not the world.”

The ticking grows louder.

Somewhere behind me, the air shifts. It’s a draft that shouldn’t exist. The lamps flicker. For a moment, I smell something faint and floral. It’s a mixture of roses and formaldehyde.

I turn sharply. The aisle behind me is empty. The smell fades just as quickly as it arrived.

“Not tonight,” I tell the darkness. “I’m busy rewriting your obituary.”

I tuck the photograph and the first page of the report into my coat pocket. The truth belongs to the living.

As I step out of the archive, I glance toward the stained-glass window at the end of the hall. A raven sits perched on the ledge outside. He tilts his head, watching me.

…

I’ve always believed guilt to be the most loyal companion. It never sleeps, it never forgives, and it ages better than most friendships.

Nevermore’s gala unfolds with a lot of bullshit. The ballroom has been reborn from tragedy. That’s what the invitations promised. Every corner gleams as if wealth can bleach history. The air smells of wax and champagne.

I watch from the edge of the crowd, glass in hand, pretending to belong. The dress I wear is black. It’s the kind of black that absorbs light. I chose it because it reflects how I feel.

The watch ticks softly under the fabric near my heart. It hasn’t warmed since the night it saved me, or damned me, depending on perspective. Its silence feels intentional, as though it’s withholding judgement.

Enid finds me before the speeches begin. She looks colourful, as always, and far too sincere. “You’re doing that thing again,” she says.

“What thing?”

“The staring thing. Like you’re at your own funeral.”

“I like to attend in spirit before I’m forced to in body,” I reply.

She laughs, but I can tell it worries her the way my humour has lost its cruelty, replaced by something quieter and less alive. She links her arm through mine anyway. I allow it because even I need some warmth from others.

Suddenly the music stops and the principal starts to speak. His words are too confident. I’ve learnt that confidence is merely the sound of guilt. Applause fills the room, and I feel it in my ribs like a heartbeat I can’t claim. Because I shouldn’t be here.

Every smile, every word of celebration, every carefully scripted toast. They all feel like a lie written over a wound. And beneath the lace of civility, I can still smell the truth: iron, earth and smoke. The scent of the night I left behind ten years ago.

My vision flickers briefly. I see Tyler, laughing at the café, the steam from his coffee rising like a ghost between us. His hand on the mug. The warmth of the moment before I killed him.

The glass in my hand trembles. I place it down before anyone notices.

“Are you okay?” Enid whispers.

“Define ‘okay’,” I say, but the edge is gone from my voice. It sounds like a confession spoken through exhaustion.

I excuse myself before she can follow, slipping through the crowd. The corridor outside the ballroom is cooler.

I walk until the music becomes a heartbeat behind me and stop beside a window that overlooks the lake. The moon hangs above it. The reflection staring back at me looks almost human. I resent it.

I press my palm against the glass. It feels cold. My hand leaves no print. For a moment, I imagine the water beneath the window pulling me in. If I could drown quietly enough, I think, maybe time would let me finish the sentence it interrupted.

“Wednesday.”

Enid startles me. She is standing a few feet away. She is hesitant at first. You disappeared,” she says. “You’ve been off all night.”

“‘Off’ implies there was ever an ‘on’,” I reply, turning back to the glass.

She hesitates. “Is this… about him? About Tyler?”

I say nothing.

“Because if it is,” she continues gently, “you can’t keep blaming yourself. You didn’t…”

“I did,” I say, finally facing her. “And I will. It’s what keeps me awake enough to stay alive.”

Her eyes shine with something that might be pity. I hate it.

Enid takes a step closer. “You don’t have to carry it alone.”

“I don’t carry it,” I whisper. “It carries me.”

She doesn’t understand. No one ever really does. Enid reaches for me, but I step back. My heel hits the wall. I look out the window again. The water is dark now, rippling slightly under the wind.

On its surface, I see movement.  Not mine, not Enid’s. It’s just the faint shimmer of something sinking. It’s only my imagination, of course. But imagination, I’ve learnt, is simply guilt with better handwriting.

The laughter from the ballroom filters through the door, muffled and bright. Enid’s hand finds mine. “Come back,” she says softly.

I do. But not because I want to. Because ghosts, no matter how loud they get, are easier to silence when someone else is still speaking.

I let her lead me back inside. The applause begins again as we re-enter the light, but I hear it differently this time.

By the time I sit down, I realise the truth: I never left that night in Jericho. I’ve been drowning ever since. And the watch, the cruel one, is only keeping time to make sure I feel every second of it.

…

Since the gala, the world has felt slightly unreal. Nothing dramatic happened. No, it’s just a faint wrongness beneath the surface.  There are nights when the air itself feels different. When silence overtakes me.

The watch sits on my desk, its cracked face reflecting the firelight in uneven shards. It hasn’t ticked properly in days.

I’ve tried to write. The sentences come, but they don’t feel final. They decay halfway across the page, decomposing into fragments. Each word feels like a translation of a thought I never wanted to have in the first place.

My study smells of burnt ink and old rain. Books lie open. The curtains are drawn, but I can still feel the moon against the glass.

Sometimes, I catch my reflection in the window. It looks like me, but I don’t look the same. There’s a small change in how I look. It’s like there’s this hesitation in my entire demeanour.

Mother says I’m “recovering”. She leaves trays of tea outside my door, each cup cooling at the same pace as her patience. Her affection is careful and exhausting at the same time. She doesn’t understand that I’m not broken. I’m just lost, drowning in time.

The nights stretch endlessly now. I’ve stopped trying to sleep. Dreams no longer wait for permission; they ambush me. When I close my eyes, I see him again. I see Tyler. Not the monster. Not the body of the boy I killed. No, just him.

I see the version of him who laughed into his coffee, who tilted his head when I spoke, who looked at me as if I were not just an Addams.

It’s strange how memory plays favourites. Mine has chosen to keep the softness and discard the cruelty, as though guilt has a curator.

I can still smell him sometimes. That vague scent of soap, wood, and youth. It arrives uninvited and lingers for long times.

I tell myself it’s a trick of the mind. But then there are the other things. The wet footprint near my desk one morning, the faint echo of the Weathervane bell in the distance when no one is there. The line between obsession and haunting is thinner than most would believe.

Tonight, the air feels thick enough to cut. I need to leave.

I force my way out and cross the garden to the graveyard.  The grass is slick with dew. The soil smells like iron. My boots sink slightly with every step.

Tyler’s grave waits near the northern wall. I stop a few feet away and watch the stone instead of reading it. Names are just labels for ghosts. The air tastes metallic here. There’s a kind of quiet that belongs only to the dead.

I kneel, because standing feels dishonest. The mud soaks through my skirt and stains my hands. I trace the carved letters. Tyler Galpin. Even now, it feels unfinished.

A raven perches on the cross above the headstone. It watches me without pity, without malice, just with an unbearable accuracy.

“You’re late,” I whisper.

It cocks its head, unimpressed, and flies away toward the woods.

I stay until my knees ache and the cold becomes almost ceremonial.

When I return to my study, something has changed. The air smells different. The watch is no longer on the desk. It sits in the middle of the floor, directly beneath the chandelier, as if it placed itself there. The crack in its glass face seems deeper now, and the metal ticks faintly with heat.

I kneel beside it. The hands are frozen, both pointing to twelve, the mockery of precision. I reach out and touch the surface. It’s colder than the air around it. For a moment, I think I see condensation form on the glass.

It’s smoke. The kind that comes from memory when it’s burning itself alive. Inside the glass something moves. The reflection flickers.

The room moves. I drop the watch, but it doesn’t hit the floor. No, it hovers for a second and splits open with a hiss. The light spills out. The walls ripple. The ceiling bends. The air grows thick and heavy.

…

The air brakes before I do. It folds inward, trembling like glass. The fire in my study exhales its last breath, then dies, leaving the scent of burnt paper and something metallic. It smells like blood. I realise it’s probably my blood. I feel Thornhill’s dagger inside me.

I can taste the iron before I feel it. The pain arrives slowly. My knees buckle. The room spins, melting at the edges. The chandelier bends into itself. Every object begins to hum, as if reality is grinding its teeth.

And then it happens. That same terrible stillness before the watch reclaims me.

The air thickens. The watch burns through the fabric over my heart, its heat sharp enough to make me gasp. The sound, that endless, traitorous ticking, starts again. It’s faster now.

The floor vanishes. The world collapses in on itself. There’s no falling. In that absence, I feel everything: blood soaking through my fingers, the cold kiss of steel, the phantom weight of Thornhill’s hand as she twisted the blade.

The silence swells until it breaks. I feel the rain on my skin. I can feel the mud underneath me, and the smell of pine and smoke finds me.

I open my eyes. I’m lying in the woods. Everything looks too alive. The trees are younger. The air is cold in a way the present had forgotten how to be. My hand presses against the wound, and the blood that comes away is still warm, still mine.

The watch lies beside me, unbroken, gleaming faintly in the moonlight. It ticks once.

I realise where I am before I want to. I’m back in Jericho.

The town lights shimmer faintly through the trees. The road feels impossibly far away, but the thought of stillness feels worse. I drag myself upright, one hand pressed to my ribs, each step deliberate. The wound pulses with every heartbeat, spilling warmth down my side.

My breath catches. The world narrows to sound. I hear the squelch of mud, the slow percussion of rain, and the whisper of my boots scraping gravel.

I reach the edge of town. Everything looks too clean. Too new. The weathervane sign hangs proudly.

The pain at my side sharpens. I stumble once, but I keep going. My hand leaves a streak of blood on the glass door as I push it open.

The bell above the café door rings sharply.  Warmth hits me. Followed by the smell of coffee, sugar and smoke. I see a few heads turn. A laugh dies midair, and someone drops a spoon.

I see Tyler laughing at someone behind the counter.  His hair a little too long, his smile entirely unbroken. His hands move in quiet rhythm.

He looks up, expecting another customer. His eyes meet mine.

For a heartbeat, I think the watch has dragged me into a hallucination. Because he’s too vivid, too warm. But then the recognition hits his face.

“Hey…” he starts, smiling. Then his voice breaks. “Jesus, you’re bleeding.”

The room around me tilts, and my grip on the counter slips all of a sudden.

Tyler moves toward me. His hands catch me before gravity can finish its job.

“Sit down… no, here, hold… you’re okay…” His voice trips over itself. He sounds too kind.

“I’m late,” I whisper, though I don’t know to what or whom.

He frowns. “What…”

I can’t seem to finish my sentence. I collapse on the ground.

Tyler lowers me gently, his hand pressed against the wound. His eyes are wide and terrified. “Stay with me,” he says. “Hey… Look at me.”

I do. It’s the last mercy I allow myself.