Archive of Our Own ^beta

The first bit of flower she coughs up is a yellow rose petal. 

It’s horribly unfair, actually, because Wednesday hates roses and the sheer intensity of the yellow is enough that staring at it actually, physically hurts her eyes. She would have preferred dahlias—the black ones, naturally—but if it had to be a rose, couldn’t it have been the thorny portion? Or at least a red rose, so she could occasionally lift a handkerchief to her mouth and imagine what it would have been like to be a 19th-century spinster, coughing up spots of blood before an inevitable death by consumption?

Oh, right. It also means she’s going to die.

Wednesday’s not an idiot; she knows the hanahaki disease when she sees it. After she washes the ugly yellow petal down the sink in the dormitory bathroom she shares with Enid, a quick early-morning raid on the Nightshades’ secret library confirms her suspicions. This leaves her with two major problems:

One: It’s a somewhat recent development, but as a matter of fact, Wednesday would rather not spend the next six months slowly shuffling off this mortal coil. 

Yes, of course she would like to die eventually—someone, after all, needs to unravel the mysteries of the darkness beyond the veil, and it sure as hell isn’t going to be one of her idiot classmates—but since last year’s brush with death at the hands of Joseph Crackstone, Wednesday has been finding more and more that she wants to experience everything that her mortal life has to offer before taking on that responsibility. (Plus, coughing up a bunch of sickeningly colorful flowers would be an incredibly lame way to go out.)

And, anyway, two: She’s pretty sure she can’t even contract the fucking hanahaki disease in the first place.

It’s not that Wednesday considers herself emotionless. She knows, through painful introspection and countless failed attempts at self-effacement, that she isn’t. She’s aware, contrary to what others may believe, of what emotions she suppresses, and why. (She’s less convinced that it’s so dramatically unhealthy, but that’s . . . less relevant at the moment.)

Anyway, the long and short of it is that she knows what she’s doing. She knows that romance is something she’s never suppressed, because she’s never had to suppress it. She knows that she looks at objectively beautiful people and feels nothing, aside from the occasional aesthetic sense of appreciation. The swooping stomach butterflies, the racing-heart attraction—those feelings are strangers to her.

Some days, her ability to effortlessly avoid the pitfalls and travails of love is a point of pride for Wednesday. It’s a useless emotion, a weakness, and her immunity to it is something she isn’t above flaunting once in a while. If the moronic pride flag designers had been intelligent enough not to mar beautiful grayscale with those garish green and purple stripes, she might even have a pin or two. (She might even have them anyway.)

Other days—the ones where she sees something detestable like Yoko and Divina making out in the hallway, and her stomach twists in that ugly manner that itsn’t quite revulsion and isn’t quite envy—she thinks she’s probably just fucking broken.

But that’s neither here nor there, Wednesday tells herself firmly. She tucks the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Magical Disorders under her arm and continues pacing the room, ignoring the incessant tickling of petals in the back of her throat. 

The operative question is this: if Wednesday is incapable of love, then why is she coughing up petals as a symptom of a disease that can only be cured by a love confession?

“Thing,” Wednesday says, the first word she’s uttered since the petal disappeared down the black marble of her sink. “While we’re figuring this out, it stays completely between us. Understood?”

Thing lifts himself off the floor to sign a response. Whatever you say.

“I mean it,” she snaps. “Not even Enid, got it? I don’t need her worrying more than she already does.”

Thing hesitates for a moment. Wednesday fixes him with her best glare.

“I’ll revoke my permission for manicure nights.”

It bothers her, a little bit, that this is the most drastic threat she can make against Thing these days. Not because she’s losing her edge—she can dish out whatever she pleases to the student body of Nevermore, thank you very much—but promises of bodily aggression have been markedly less effective against Thing since Thornhill knifed him to the wall of Wednesday’s dorm room.

Near-death experiences do kind of put these things in perspective, Wednesday supposes.

Regardless of the strength of the threat, it works. Thing reluctantly signs an agreement, and Wednesday scans the ‘hanahaki’ entry in the Manual one last time before returning the massive tome to its place on the Nightshades’ shelf.

Hanahaki Disease ( 花吐き病 (Japanese); 하나하키병 (Korean); 花吐病 (Chinese)) is a disease in which the victim coughs up flower petals when they suffer from unconfessed love. It is a type of fungal growth, which feeds on the emotional energy from a yet-unrealized confession—the more repressed the victim, the more the hanahaki feasts. As such, the disease leaves the victim only when they confess their feelings to their beloved, or when they die. It can also be cured through surgical removal, though when the infection is removed, the victim’s attachment to and memories of their love also disappear.

Yeah. She’s going to have a hell of a time getting out of this one.

Wednesday’s next problem is that her roommate is a fucking werewolf, and that means said roommate can see, hear, and smell things that no reasonable person should be able to notice. It makes keeping secrets—even the acceptable kind, like what she’s gotten Enid for All Hallow’s Eve or the fact that she knows Enid has had sex with Ajax in their dorm room but doesn’t want to address that knowledge, like, ever—a bit of a bitch.

(To be fair to Enid, she at least pretended to be surprised when she opened a brand-new bottle of color-shifting nail polish on All Hallow’s Eve. And Wednesday hasn’t seen her within twenty feet of Ajax since the Overnight Stay Incident, which either means that they’re off-again or they’ve actually broken up for good this time. Wednesday hasn’t asked, though sometimes she feels like she should.)

“Howdy, roomie,” Enid says from beneath her duvet as Wednesday steps out of their shared bathroom. Then, her voice overly casual: “You were in there for a while.”

It’s been two days since the first yellow petal. Wednesday had been hoping to go unnoticed for at least that many weeks.

“I happened to spend the evening luring gorgons into Crackstone’s crypt for flesh samples,” she replies, injecting her tone with the usual amount of frost. “My uniform was covered in grave dust.”

Enid’s eyes flick over her body. “Your clothes aren’t wet,” she says. “And you told me once that you like grave dust’s ‘sheen’.”

Damn. She probably has said that—grave dust lends her usually crisp black and white a sense of dinginess and rot, which can be useful when she’s trying to blend into a place as dark and dismal as a high school academy.

“Only when I’m not sleeping in it,” she deflects, but it’s a weak argument, and she knows Enid knows it.

Fuck, Enid can probably hear her heartbeat, anyway—or her breathing. Wednesday really needs to be more vigilant about her tells when Enid is around.

“Fine,” Wednesday sighs, unable to stomach Enid’s pout for any longer. “I’m—not feeling my best, at the moment. Coughing, mild fever. But it should pass.”

“It sounded like you were hacking up a lung in there,” Enid says, and oh right—she would have heard that, too. It was just another petal tonight, but Wednesday imagines it’s only going to get worse.

Honestly, as irritating as this all is, she is a little bit intrigued. What happens when thorns do start forcing their way up her esophagus? Is blood loss more likely to kill her than organ failure?

She ought to keep a journal, or something. For posterity.

But first, she has to get Enid off her scent. “Like I said,” Wednesday replies, shuffling grimly toward her dresser. Maybe the sound of her footsteps will mask whatever else her annoyingly perceptive roommate is picking up on. “Coughing.”

“We could go to the nurse,” Enid says, like she hasn’t already changed into her pajamas and snuggled deep beneath her mountain of comforters. (Actually, Enid probably would pull herself out of bed just to escort Wednesday to the nurse, which is simultaneously a horrifying proposition and also the tiniest bit endearing.) “Or—hey, you know what, I’ve got this amazing cough syrup my dad sent me last month—”

“I’m fine, Enid,” Wednesday says weakly. But despite the petal she just coughed up, she already feels another itch working its way up her throat.

“—and it tastes like steak tartare, so you probably won’t hate it, and honestly it works like a dream—”

“Enid, calm down, I’m fine—” Wednesday tries, but all of a sudden it’s too much. She breaks into a fit of coughs, violent enough that she feels her entire body shake, and sags lamely against her dresser.

Fucking hell. This is pitiful.

“Yeah, okay, you’re definitely getting the cough syrup.” Enid throws off her blankets and begins digging through her nightstand, while Thing scuttles up to Wednesday and perches atop her shoulder. Wednesday tilts her head back, shuts her eyes. By the time she opens them again, Enid is standing before her with a bottle of cough syrup and a tiny Erlenmeyer flask.

“I figure you’d rather drink out of this than a spoon,” Enid says cheerfully, lifting the flask for Wednesday to see. “You can pretend it’s a deadly lab concoction, or something.”

Wednesday breaks into a round of coughs so awful she feels the petal dislodge itself from her throat. She doubles over in pain, eyes watering.

“Fine,” she mumbles, all thoughts of refusal suddenly gone. She makes a grab for the flask, but she’s off-balance and her vision is still watery. She misses. “How much—”

“Ten milliliters every four to six hours,” Enid says, tipping the syrupy liquid into the flask. Wednesday swallows, feels her throat burn, and groans.

“Give me twenty.”

Enid frowns. “That’s definitely not safe,” she says, but she continues pouring past the ten-milliliter mark and stops at fifteen. “Compromise?”

“Whatever.” Wednesday reaches the flask again, but she can’t get to it—she’s seeing double all of a sudden, and she thinks her hands are wobbling? Before she quite realizes what’s happening, Enid is grasping her chin and lifting the flask up to Wednesday’s lips herself.

“Here, open up,” Enid says, and Wednesday—dazed, unthinking, stupid—Wednesday does.

She gets a mouthful of the cough syrup, but Enid sees the flower petal.

“Wednesday,” Enid gasps, pulling at her jaw. Wednesday slams her mouth shut and swallows, the cool syrup a balm against the burning in her throat—Enid is right, she thinks distantly, the steak tartare isn’t half bad—but then Enid is tugging her chin back down and fishing the condemning yellow petal out from where it’s stuck against her cheek.

Wednesday stares at it. She knows it’s just the cough syrup, but it almost looks like it’s covered in blood.

“Wednesday,” Enid says again—slower this time. “Fuck, Wends, do you know what this is?”

Enid is standing very close to her, Wednesday realizes suddenly. Her hand—the one holding the petal—was literally just inside Wednesday’s mouth. And Wednesday didn’t even try to bite her fingers off.

Whatever. She blames the hanahaki-induced disorientation, and anyway, Enid’s violently bright nail polish probably wouldn’t have tasted very good.

“It’s a hanahaki flower,” Wednesday sighs. Remarkably, the cough syrup seems to be helping—she doesn’t burst into another coughing fit, at least. She takes a deep breath and manages an eyebrow raise. “I gather from your reaction that you know what it means.”

Enid snaps to her full height, pointing a clawed finger at Wednesday’s face. “I know it means you should have told me something,” she says. “I know it means—oh, God.” She freezes, takes a small step backward. “Are you going to die? Were you trying to die without telling me?”

“No!” Wednesday recoils, flailing for the right words. “I would have told you,” she says. “Absolutely, if it had gotten serious. But—I was hoping Thing and I could get to the bottom of it first.”

“Well, I think my best friend showing signs of a literal fatal illness is pretty fucking serious,” Enid snarls. Wednesday purses her lips and stares at her.

“It’s been two days, Enid,” she says slowly. “Realistically, I should have just under six months to find a cure. I’m not going to die.”

Enid frowns, taking in Wednesday’s calm. “Find a cure?” she says. “I thought all you needed to do was confess . . .” She trails off, her brow furrowing. “Wait a minute, how did you even catch—I mean, I thought you didn’t feel—” She waves her hand through the air vaguely. “—all that?”

She’s right, of course, but Wednesday can’t help but narrow her eyes in suspicion. “I’ve never told you that,” she says, and Enid’s eyes widen.

“Well, not entirely, I mean—no,” Enid says. She’s fully backpedaling now; Wednesday can tell she’s hiding something.  “But you didn’t—Wednesday, we share a room, you’re literally my best friend; I notice things.”

“Specifically these things?”

Enid wilts. “Fine, okay, I also . . . might have seen your pride pins while I was snooping around trying to figure out your All Hallow’s Eve present, but!” She barrels on. “That’s not the point, because I think I still would have figured out the aroace thing anyway!”

Wednesday frowns, chooses to address the most pressing matter first. “You went snooping through my desk,” she says. Enid nods guiltily. “You’re learning. I’m almost proud.”

Enid’s shoulders loosen, and she gives a small sigh of relief. Wednesday doesn’t know why she’s so surprised—since the Thornhill incident, nothing of critical significance gets stored in Wednesday’s desk, anyway.

“Flattery doesn’t suit you, Wends,” Enid says after a moment. “But, uh—I’m right, aren’t I?”

“I . . .” Wednesday says. Objectively speaking, yes; Enid is correct. The pins are the only non-Enid sources of color she’s allowed to profane her desk, for fuck’s sake, and she would never allow such a thing if she wasn’t absolutely sure. But knowing it and saying it are two entirely different things.

In most respects, Wednesday wears her otherness like armor. She wields the steel edges of her differences like blades, slicing at anyone misfortunate enough to draw too close. But this . . . this one feels more like a wound. Something missing, something that will inevitably draw pity instead of ire.

Enid, however, seems to take her hesitance for something else entirely. “Oh my God,” she says, stepping backward rapidly. “Oh my God, I wasn’t thinking—I’m so sorry, Wednesday, that was so presumptive of me—and so rude, you never have to tell me anything you don’t want to, you—”

“You’re right.” It’s half for Enid, half for herself that she forces the words out, loud enough to be heard over the top of Enid’s rambling. Because she finds she can say it, in here, with only Enid and Thing as her witnesses. Neither of them will pity her—or at least, they’ll know better than to let it show.

 “I’m . . aromantic,” she says, experiencing—savoring, she realizes—the feel of the words on her tongue. “And asexual.”

Enid’s face lights up. She opens her arms for a hug, starts to say something congratulatory or supportive or possibly both, but Wednesday cuts her off with a sigh.

“And yet,” she says, “I’m still coughing up fucking hanahaki flowers.”

“Right. Yeah.” Enid’s arms drop, and she starts to shift on the balls of her feet. It’s nervous energy, Wednesday knows—Enid’s a very physical person, and moving around helps her think. She drums her claws against her leg; Wednesday tugs her hand to the side by the sleeve before she shreds yet another pair of pajama pants.

“Oh—thanks,” Enid says, looking up at her with a chagrined smile. “And, okay, here’s the deal: you said you had six months to figure out what’s going on, right? Before it . . . kills you?”

“It’s an approximation, but yes.”

“Well, you’re wrong,” she says. Wednesday frowns, but Enid leans in closer, grasps both of her shoulders. Wednesday doesn’t bother trying to stop her. “Because you don’t have six months to figure this out,” Enid says, looking Wednesday directly in the eyes. “We do.”

Here are the facts, as Wednesday and Enid have them. (In their free time over the past few days, hey’ve replaced the Hyde investigation on Wednesday’s murder board with all of the gory hanahaki details—and despite herself, Wednesday can’t help but feeling a little bit of a thrill. This is a mystery, after all. She’s good at mysteries.)

Anyway, the facts:

One: Wednesday started coughing up petals on the 13th of November, now a full week ago (“a month after your birthday!” Enid says as they tack the sticky note to the board; Wednesday finds this less than amusing). She’s continued to cough up single petals, however; and Enid’s magic cough syrup does help with the symptoms.

Two: Depending on the rate of escalation, they can expect Wednesday to last until just before school lets out in mid-May.

Three: Also depending on the rate of escalation, the affliction will become impossible to hide months before that—likely around early March, if their luck holds.

Four: There are two known cures for hanahaki: confession and surgical removal. But confession is impossible without knowing precisely who or what she’s confessing to, and surgical removal is said to erase the victim’s memory of the subject entirely. This means they have a problem, because:

Five: There are very few people on this blighted Earth that Wednesday truly cares about, even a little bit. She doesn’t know who the disease has picked as her ‘beloved’, but there’s at least one that she would refuse to entertain the possibility of losing.

Six: “Very few people”, if they discount family members, actually means “four”: Bianca, Xavier, Eugene, and Enid.

Six-and-a-half: After a long moment of introspection, Wednesday hesitantly amends that number to “five” and adds Tyler.

“It’s okay, you know,” Enid says as Wednesday shakily sets the pencil down. “That you still care about him. You two were pretty close, before . . . well, all of it.”

“You mean before he turned into a bloodthirsty monster and tried to carve out my organs?” Wednesday snorts. “That part just made me like him more.”

Enid eyes her suspiciously. “We’ll unpack that one later,” she mutters, but not so quietly that Wednesday can’t hear. She taps her pencil against Sticky Note #6. “Okay. If I were a weird magic flower-vomiting fungus, who would I think Wednesday’s in love with?”

Wednesday sighs. The easy answer, from an outsider’s perspective, is Tyler. She’s gone on a date with him, they’ve shared a kiss, and Wednesday is Addams enough to admit that mutual attempted murder . . . kind of does something for her, fondness-wise.

But the hanahaki disease is supposed to know her. And if it does, it would know that despite Tyler’s best efforts, Wednesday found the date more boring than romantic. That the kiss did nothing for her, except grant her the vision that allowed her to finally crack the Hyde case. That even what she feels about the whole ‘monster’ thing is less attraction and more of a dark, twisted sort of academic intrigue.

So, strangely, their shared history probably makes Tyler the least likely candidate.

Wednesday relays as much to Enid, who nods and slices the sticky note into five neat strips—one with each name. Wednesday helps her pin each of them to the board, and they leave Tyler’s name at the bottom.

“It could be Eugene,” Wednesday offers as they stare at the remaining names. “I spent quite a long time next to his hospital bed, and I did feel . . . worry, for him.” And some measure of fondness, she supposes, but that’s probably implied.

They move Eugene to the top of the list, and gaze contemplatively at Bianca, Xavier, and Enid.

“I think Bianca’s more likely than Xavier,” Enid says at last. “Like, it’s kinda juicy—fiery, y’know, and it’s got the whole academic-rivals-to-lovers thing going on. With Xavier, you just . . . don’t seem like you really care.”

“I don’t,” Wednesday says. “And his repeated advances are beginning to reach a level of tangible irritation.” What she feels regarding Xavier is mostly guilt, now that she thinks about it. Maybe she should remove his name from the list entirely. 

Enid rearranges the ordering, leaving only her own name floating off to the side.

They stare at it for a long time.

“It . . . can’t be me, right?” Enid says, glancing at Wednesday out of the corner of her eye. “I mean, not that I—I’d be flattered, obviously, but I don’t mean to suggest—well—”

“Enid,” Wednesday says gently. She picks up Enid’s name and slides it into the middle of the list, beneath Bianca but above Xavier. “I know what you mean,” she says. “We’d know, wouldn’t we? We’re . . . roommates, after all. If it was you, one of us would be able to tell.”

Enid bites at her bottom lip and shifts restlessly on her feet—sure signs that she’s deep in thought. If Wednesday is being honest, the “one of them” to notice would definitely Enid, what with her stupidly perceptive werewolf senses and all—

“Wait,” Wednesday says, the metaphorical lightbulb flashing. “Enid. There’s a quantitative measurement we can use to solve this problem.”

Enid looks at her. “There’s a quantitative measurement of love? That you just, like, happen to have in your back pocket?”

“The common physiological tells of physical or romantic attraction,” Wednesday says, ignoring the skepticism, “can be measured empirically under controlled circumstances. I will hold conversations with each of the subjects on this list, and you will track my heart rate, breathing, eye contact levels, and body language with your enhanced werewolf senses. Then, we can run a simple statistical comparison—”

“Uh, Wednesday,” Enid says slowly. Her frown has only deepened, which doesn’t make sense—they can crack this now! The hanahaki disease may be magic, but it’s still a disease—it reacts to her body, her nervous system. If they can figure out what’s driving Wednesday’s physiological responses, they can determine who the disease has latched onto. And then all Wednesday has to do is fake a love confession, hope it’s convincing enough for the disease to accept, and—

“Earth to Wednesday,” Enid says, waving her claws in front of Wednesday’s face. “Um. Werewolves don’t have heightened senses?”

Wednesday blinks. “What?”

Enid just laughs. “Wends, we don’t—in human form, I mean, our senses are just average. Maybe a little better, but like, I definitely couldn’t pick out your heartbeat if you also happened to be talking or something.”

Wait a minute.

“But the other night,” Wednesday protests, “when you knew I was sick—and then there was All Hallow’s Eve, and me knowing about you and Ajax—”

“Okay, first off, the sick thing was pretty obvious. But, Wends.” Enid shakes her head, and the look on her face borders dangerously on fondness. “You may be a closed book to the world, but honestly, you’re kinda shit at keeping secrets from me.”

Wednesday steps back from the board and takes an emergency seat on the hardwood floor.

“Oh,” she mutters, already rearranging the facts in her head. “Fuck.”

Sure, she’s been aware that her guard is lower around Enid—lower than she angles it against the rest of the world, at least. She just thought it was better than . . . well, practically nonexistent.

She looks up at Enid, sighing. “I’m really that pathetic around you, am I?”

“Not pathetic,” Enid says, and Wednesday could swear she rolls her eyes. “But we’re roomies. We care about each other, and obviously we spend, like, every day together. That’s just how it works.”

“Proximity,” Wednesday mutters. “Yes, of course. Spending enough time with anyone results in some amount of mutual understanding—and we are good friends. That would certainly exacerbate the process.”

“Best friends,” Enid says, and Wednesday accepts the correction with an absent nod. But in her head, she makes a second copy of the board—identical to the first, right down to the color of the pins in the cork.

Then she slowly, painfully, reaches out a mental hand and drags Enid’s name to the top.

She can’t stop noticing it, after that.

The hanahaki symptoms get worse—an hour after their corkboard session, Wednesday hacks up three yellow petals at once once, and the volume slowly begins to increase from there—but even more unfortunate than the seemingly eternal nausea is this new knowledge, dogging her every step and haunting her out of the corners of her eyes.

Her relationship with Enid, she’s beginning to realize, is not the same as the relationships she has with the rest of her . . . peers.

(Friends, whatever. It’s not important right now. What’s important is, well, Enid.)

So, here are the facts, the thrice-cursed facts that are currently all conspiring to make Wednesday’s life a living anti-hell:

One: Enid can, apparently, tell when Wednesday is lying. Not because she’s learned how to detect tells from beneath Wednesday’s usual masks—though Wednesday has no doubt she has, at least a little bit—but because Wednesday just doesn’t bother to try to hide around Enid. She trusts Enid implicitly, somehow, and until a week ago, she didn’t even realize she was doing it.

Two: She’s comfortable in Enid’s space. Physically, it’s like their hug after the Crackstone fiasco unlocked some sort of floodgate, and ever since then Enid has been a flurry of surprisingly tolerable casual touch—but more than that, they’re just comfortable existing around each other. They share notes, school supplies, whatever the other happens to need. Yet Wednesday knows that if anyone else dared to offer her a pencil that’s literally headache-inducing hot pink, she would probably stab them with it on the spot. If it’s Enid, though . . . she’ll use it without question.

Three: In a first for anyone, family or not—Wednesday cares about Enid’s relationships. She realizes this a week into their investigation, after they’ve somewhat comfortably eliminated Xavier from the board: a late-night biology homework session gets derailed when Enid’s complaints about lab partner assignments finally dredges up the dreaded topic of Ajax. 

So Wednesday listens, and learns that they’ve finally broken it off for good, that the Overnight Stay Incident was the night that ended it, that Enid is actually “some kind of queer, I guess, maybe ace or a lesbian or something, but I definitely, one hundred percent, do not like men.”

(“Good,” Wednesday snorts before she can stop herself, “he didn’t deserve you anyway. Do you need me to fetch the nail gun?”

Enid says no, but Wednesday’s offer immediately becomes Number Three-and-a-Half on her list anyway.)

There are a number of others—a large number, large enough that without a board, Wednesday eventually loses track of the enumeration and has to move to a bulleted list instead—but none of them are as glaringly, hopelessly obvious as Bullet Point Number Unknown, the final nail in the proverbial vampire’s coffin:

Enid is the only one allowed to call her Wends.

She notices it ten days after the corkboard, two and half weeks into the hanahaki. She wishes she hadn’t, honestly; if she had, maybe she could still be living in denial. But there’s no denying the way she threatens to make Xavier’s organs into cello strings when says the name as a joke, nor the way she reflexively tells Eugene she’ll feed him to his own bees when he accidentally uses it sincerely.

Even Thing has to call her Wednesday—well, he’s a hand, and there’s an ASL sign for Wednesday, so saying Wends would probably actually be more effort for him—but the point is, even Thing can’t do it, and he’s family.

And to add hopelessness onto hopelessness: she doesn’t know when Enid started doing it. Because she’s so fucking okay with it, apparently, that it’s just magically crept into their shared vocabulary and she’s never even noticed.

“Thing,” Wednesday groans. She’s in the Nightshade’s secret library again, which is fortunately generally empty during the day, lying spread-eagled on the floor and staring up at the ceiling. “Thing, God, I’m fucked.”

Her stomach, which has been roiling all morning, calms just the slightest bit.

(Oh, and Bullet Point Number Unknown Plus One: she says God now. She’s quite certain that she’s picked that one up from Enid, too.)

No, you’re not, Thing signs in reply. Anyway, isn’t this good? Now at least you know what’s happening.

“No, it’s not good,” Wednesday complains. But Thing’s question is enough for her to sit up, ignoring the sudden spike of pain in her stomach, and gather herself. 

She was expecting to find a mistake—a fluke, something that the hanahaki latched onto in error that Wednesday could easily correct. Not something . . . well, to put it bluntly, not something real.

“Thing,” she says quietly. “Was I . . . wrong? When I came out, when I decided I couldn’t feel this—was I just trying to cover something up?” Was I just . . . lonely?

I don’t know, Thing signs, but Wednesday is already turning the question over in her head. And the more she considers, the more she’s convinced the answer is actually no. What she feels for Enid is—well, it’s like nothing she’s ever felt before; that much she’ll admit. But . . . it’s not romantic, either.

Wednesday has no desire to date Enid. She doesn’t want candlelit dinners, or wedding vows, or a manor house with a family. She doesn’t want disgustingly casual kisses over breakfast (like her parents) or to ask Enid to the Rave’N in a nauseatingly dramatic public—or even private—proposal (like at least half of the student body). It isn’t like that, not with them.

(It also, she double-checks just to make sure, absolutely isn’t anything sexual.

She doesn’t think she has to justify that one.)

So, maybe . . . this is just what friendship is? Maybe, if she gives it enough time, she could feel like this with Eugene and Bianca and potentially even Xavier?

That also doesn’t feel right, but it does seem closer to the truth.

“Hmm,” Wednesday says, glancing over at Thing. He turns questioningly onto his side, sensing her shift in mood.

“It’s not Enid,” she says with finality, mentally trashing her alternate version of the corkboard. “Well, we can’t rule out the possibility that the hanahaki thinks it’s her. But in terms of reality, whatever relationship we have is undoubtedly nothing out of the ordinary.”

Then, in response to a furious twist of her stomach, she collapses to her side and immediately vomits up a full yellow rose.

“This is bad,” Enid says, staring at their newest set of sticky notes. “This is very, very bad.”

As Nevermore Academy’s leading expert in bad, Wednesday can’t help but agree.

They’ve run the numbers, based on the rapid acceleration in the hanahaki flowers’ growth. It’s December first, two weeks until the winter holiday, and now six months has been abruptly reduced two and a half.

“To be clear,” Wednesday says, removing November from the corkboard’s tiny tearaway calendar, “that’s two and a half months from the onset. Which gives us until the end of January, at best.”

She’s feeling a little bit better today, at least. After her vomiting spell in the Nightshades’ library two nights ago, she’d staggered up to their room and passed out almost immediately—awakening only to outline the situation and beg another several doses of cough syrup off of Enid. But now, with the wintery morning light piercing calmly through their stained-glass window, she actually feels like she can breathe again.

Well, her throat burns every time she swallows, her head feels like it’s splitting if she tilts it wrong, and she’s a single too-quick movement away from vomiting at any given moment, but. At least she’s functional.

(In general, Wednesday thinks, she feels the most functional here—in front of the corkboard, working with Enid on their case. She’s infinitely grateful that whatever innate detective instinct she has is able to wrest control from the hanahaki to keep her focused, but she also can’t help but wonder how long this will last.

They may not have two months, even if she can stay alive that long. If Wednesday becomes too indisposed to work, then, well. She’s done for.)

“Okay, so,” Enid says slowly, turning away from the board to look at Wednesday. “I know you definitely don’t want to, but . . . maybe we should talk to an adult about this?”

Wednesday shakes her head. “Enid, there is no adult within the walls of this school who I would trust to help with this investigation. And that includes the ghost of Weems.”

“Okay, but if—I mean, shouldn’t we let someone know, at least?” Enid asks. “You know, just in case?”

“In case of what?” Wednesday says, amused. “My untimely death?” If she has to go out this way, she’d rather it be a surprise to the general student body. At least then her body might be worth a shriek or two—more, if she can time it correctly.

“No—Wednesday,” Enid growls. Her lips are curled, and her canines are extended. “In case they need to cut it out of you.”

Oh, right. That.

“That option is last-resort,” Wednesday says. She reaches out to the board, just for something to do, and tugs Tyler’s name off of the List of People that Wednesday Actually Cares About. (It isn’t as if that particular sticky note was providing useful data.)  “Anyway, I doubt the doctors will need more than a few days’ notice.”

Actually, she thinks, a few days’ notice is probably the upper limit here. Nevermore doesn’t keep any surgeons on staff, and the normie doctors in Jericho have probably never even heard of hanahaki. She can’t just walk into the hospital and demand a rosebush be surgically removed from her stomach unless said rosebush is actively, visibly killing her.

Enid doesn’t seem totally satisfied by the answer, but she lets the matter drop. Wednesday wonders if they’re scared of the same thing—the possibility, however small, that removal of the hanahaki will result in her forgetting about Enid.

She wonders how abhorrently twisted her life has gotten, that she no longer embraces her death but thinks it might be preferable to losing Enid, anyway.

She starts coughing again. Violently.

And then suddenly—head splitting, body wracked with shivers that even pressing herself against the wall does nothing to inhibit—she realizes she can’t stop.

Before she’s fully aware of what’s happening, Wednesday is kneeling on the hardwood floor, spots dancing in her eyes. She’s doubled over, hands to her stomach, a sharp tearing pain in her gut accompanying her frantic dry hacking, and it’s all she can do to stay there, stay conscious, keep herself from toppling the rest of the way—

“Wends!” she hears Enid say, as if from inside a casket. “Shit, shit, Wednesday—”

And then Enid is kneeling next to her, wrapping her arm around Wednesday’s shoulders, and her bare forearm brushes against the exposed skin of Wednesday’s neck.

Wednesday’s back arches. Her mind is yanked sideways. She thinks she might be screaming.

She’s in a bathroom—a familiar bathroom, but not her dorm in Nevermore. It’s the Addams manor, the en-suite attached to Wednesday’s room, but for once it’s brightly lit. The heavy curtains over the window have been drawn back. Black countertops, once covered in cobwebs and dust, gleam with reflected sunlight.

Enid is wedged into the far corner, sobbing.

Enid, she wants to say. Enid, what’s wrong, why are you here, what’s happening—but she can’t. This is the future, Wednesday thinks dimly, not a seance; she can’t talk. Can’t communicate, can only listen.

“Wednesday,” Enid sniffles. Her claws are out, fangs bared, and there are tears streaming down her cheeks. She’s carving gashes into the linoleum. “Don’t leave me, Wednesday, you can’t, please, it’s not fair—”

I won’t, Wednesday mouths. Enid can’t see her, but she forces the motion through anyway. Enid, listen to me, I’m not fucking leaving you, I won’t, I promise, I—

Enid looks up, startled, and the vision collapses around her.

Wednesday wakes up in her bed.

“Fuck,” she groans. Her voice comes out scratchy, but at least she’s not choking on flower petals at the moment. She forces her eyes open to find Enid, damp washcloth in hand, perched on the side of Wednesday’s bed and clutching a small ceramic bowl.

It has a yellow rose in it, along with a smattering of bloody petals.

“Oh, thank God,” Enid breathes, her shoulders sagging in relief. “I’m so sorry, Wends, I totally forgot about—” She gestures with the hand holding the washcloth in a manner that makes absolutely no sense, but Wednesday knows what she’s talking about. “Uh, you know.”

“Don’t apologize,” Wednesday rasps. “It’s—unnecessary. I forgot about it, too.”

She hasn’t thought about her visions in months, not since they finally put Crackstone back under the ground last year, and she’s been growing more and more used to Enid’s casual touch. But still, she should have known something like this would happen eventually.

“Here,” Enid says, trading the bloody flower bowl for a glass of water from Wednesday’s nightstand. “Drink. You’ve been . . . doing a lot of coughing.”

Wednesday swallows. Her throat scrapes against itself, not only dry but raw. Pain shoots through her neck, and it’s all Wednesday can do not to collapse against the bed. She forces just a little bit of bile back up and tastes the familiar coppery tang of blood.

Fuck. “It's not just flowers anymore, is it?” she asks.

Enid’s sharp intake of breath is all the answer she needs.

Might as well rip the band-aid off. It’s always been Wednesdays’ preferred method of dealing with injuries, anyway. “Show me,” she says, craning her neck for a look into the bowl.

But Enid just shakes her head. “It’s not here,” she says quietly. “You—um. You started to cough up a stem, and it was coming out so slowly, but I didn’t want to yank it out because it might have torn your throat up with the thorns and so I just had to watch while you—”

“Enid,” Wednesday says. She pulls herself into a sitting position against her headboard. So there’s her answer about the thorns—she should have known it would be more painful than interesting. “Slow down. What happened to it?”

“Well, you started mumbling something.” Enid looks away, and it might be the lighting, but Wednesday thinks her cheeks are slightly pink. “Something about a promise? And the whole thing just—dissolved.” She winces. “That was a couple hours ago.”

“Hours?” Wednesday frowns. She was in the vision for seconds, at most, “How long was I out?”

“Uh, most of the day,” says Enid. “It’s—evening now, actually. Still Friday, but we’ve probably missed dinner.”

“Shit,” Wednesday sighs. That’s another day of investigation lost, and she doesn’t even feel rested enough to work through the night. In fact, she’s willing to bet she could fall asleep again at this very moment. 

But, first things first: Enid’s been taking care of her, even sacrificing her evening meal to keep watch, and Wednesday feels she ought to return the favor.

“I’m not that hungry, but I can send Thing to raid the kitchen if you want something to eat,” she tells Enid. Then she frowns. “Speaking of which, where is Thing?”

“I sent him out to collect our assignments,” Enid says. “Eugene said he’d take notes for us in class, and I didn’t want to leave, just in case . . .”

She trails off, but Wednesday is still caught on the earlier half of that sentence. “For us?” she asks. “Enid, have you even left this room today?”

“Of course not!” Enid looks horrified at the very suggestion. “I mean, you were fine for most of it, so it’s not like—I did work! I finished my half of our poisonous plant genealogy assignment, and I started outlining that essay for History of Gothic Literature, and—I wasn’t just sitting here staring at you for the last twelve hours.” She looks frantic, like she’s afraid of how Wednesday might react. “Because that would be weird, and kind of creepy, so obviously—”

“I don’t mind creepy,” is the first thing Wednesday thinks to say to stop the word vomit. What she really means is thank you, and Enid seems to understand that, because she lets out a sigh and the tension drains from her shoulders.

“Okay,” Enid says. “Right. Good.”

Wednesday nods faintly, trying desperately to quell the churning in her stomach.

Enid disappears into the bathroom to wash the blood-soaked petals out of the bowl, and Wednesday drags herself out of bed so she doesn’t fall asleep again. Thing returns while Enid is still in the bathroom; Wednesday cuts off his theatrical display of relief at the sight of her on her feet by directing him down to the kitchen to get Enid some food.

She places the textbook-thick stack of Eugene’s notes on Enid’s desk—that boy can write like a demon sometimes—grabs a pad of pink sticky notes from Enid’s supply pile, and returns to the murder board.

She cordons off a section in the lower right for Vision Interpretation, and is just starting to scribble out a few basic theories when Enid returns from the bathroom.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Enid demands. She doesn’t return the bowl to wherever she dug it out from, but instead deposits it atop Wednesday’s nightstand. “Wends. You should be resting.”

“I refuse to lie in bed and let my body atrophy beneath me while I’m still capable of movement.” She ignores the spike of pain in her stomach and writes Guarantee of survival: Dec 16 on a sticky note, which she sticks to the board beneath Location: Addams family manor.

“Guarantee of survival?” Enid says, walking up next to her. Either she knows debating Wednesday on the topic of rest would be pointless, or she’s intrigued enough not to bother. “What did you see, exactly?”

Wednesday swallows, then immediately realizes her mistake when her throat flares with pain. “You were . . . in my family’s manor,” she manages to say. “You were saying some things—well, that led me to believe I was close by, and still alive.”

Enid hums in acknowledgement, and doesn’t press for specifics—Wednesday feels a deep welling of gratitude at that. “And obviously we can’t be in your manor until school lets out for the holidays,” Enid says, giving voice to Wednesday’s conclusions. “So that gives us two weeks, at least. Is that what you’re thinking?”

Wednesday nods, pressing her fingers against her temples to stave off another wave of headache. Enid’s eyes light up, like she’s just had an epiphany.

“Wait a minute,” she says. “I bet you had that vision because I was planning on going home with you—well, I was going to ask, but I wasn’t going to take no for an answer either—but what if I don’t? If we keep delaying the vision, then you have to stay alive until it happens, right?”

It’s a tempting thought, but not something Wednesday is willing to stake something so important on. “I don’t think so,” she says. “The future is not entirely set in stone, and my visions are only a projection of the most probable outcomes.” Historically, she knows, Ravens have even been able to avert their visions—though the new outcomes are not always are not always better, necessarily. “If we were to make the fulfillment of this vision impossible, all that will happen is it will fail to come to pass—and we risk altering circumstances enough that the guarantee of survival vanishes.”

Enid shakes her head. “Damn,” she says, shoulders sagging. “I thought we might have had something there.”

“It was a good thought,” Wednesday says. She’s always been annoyed that seeing the future doesn’t come with any built-in causality loopholes. It’s exactly the kind of thing she would find useful. 

Wednesday takes a deep breath. “But with that in mind,” she says, “if you are still . . . inclined . . . to ask for permission to stay at the manor—I would consider that permission granted.”

It isn’t as hard as she imagined it would be, to say it. In fact, she finds it almost relieving.

“Really?” Enid says, turning to look at Wednesday. “Wow. Just like that?”

There are a hundred different things she could say—it’s the least I could do, considering; or, you said you wouldn’t accept a refusal; or, if you insist on taking care of me, I suppose—but none of them feel quite right. Wednesday shakes her head, sighs. She’s going soft, and the scariest part is that she finds she doesn’t really mind.

“Yes, actually,” she says. “Just like that.”

The feeling isn’t relief, she realizes. It’s her airway physically, noticeably clearing up, just the tiniest bit, and the roiling in her stomach beginning to settle.

Oh, no. Oh no, no, no, fuck—

Fortunately, Wednesday is momentarily saved from both her untimely epiphany and Enid’s prolonged squeal of joy by the return of Thing. He’s dragging a small sack behind him, which Wednesday tears open to find a juicy cut of steak along with a suspiciously soggy ham and cheese sandwich.

“Thing,” Wednesday sighs, “I told you to get food for Enid, not for both of us.”

Thing does his best projection of cloyingly-sweet innocence, which isn’t very good, considering he’s a stitched-up dismembered hand. Enid, however, scoops Thing up and places him on Wednesday’s shoulder, where she can’t continue to glare at him.

“Thank you, Thing,” Enid says primly. “Wednesday, eat your sandwich or I’ll be sad at you for the rest of the night.”

It shouldn’t work. It doesn’t work, Wednesday tries to tell herself; she chokes down the sandwich entirely of her own volition, and it has nothing to do with the irritatingly large puppy-dog eyes Enid continues to give her whenever she pauses.

Seriously; Enid—Enid’s a werewolf. She’s got, like, a genetic advantage on puppy-dog eyes or something.

Unfortunately, the way Wednesday’s throat begins to prickle and seize as she tries to convince herself of this idea seems to indicate otherwise.

Once they’ve finished with their meal, Wednesday and Enid continue updating the corkboard with the details of Wednesday’s vision. There isn’t a lot more to be gained, unfortunately—it was relatively short, and no amount of clasping their hands together at varying angles appears to trigger a second one—but they’re able to deduce a few more things.

One: Since she saw Enid in her en-suite bathroom, Wednesday is probably in bed in her own room.

Two: She’s probably not dead, but she’s also clearly not getting better.

Three: In the grand scheme of their investigation, none of this information is very useful.

But there’s one other thing she’s learned that she hasn’t yet shared: the fact that talking with Enid, showing gratitude for Enid, seems to cause the hanahaki’s grip to loosen. It’s a pattern that Wednesday has been trying not to think too much about, because she really doesn’t know what she’ll do if she’s right.

But she would be a shitty investigator if she didn’t at least test the theory—so when she crawls into bed for the night and Enid hovers nervously in the center of their room, clearly psyching herself up to speak, Wednesday sighs and indulges her.

“What is it?” she asks. Enid draws in a sharp breath and straightens.

“I just—our beds are so far away,” Enid mumbles, refusing to meet Wednesday’s eyes. “What if you need something in the night—what if you start choking and I don’t even notice—I couldn’t, I wouldn’t be able to . . .”

Wednesday grits her teeth together and squeezes her eyes shut. The hanahaki wants affection? Well, she’ll give it affection.

“Come here,” she says, aiming for exasperated but ending up somewhere around fond. “Sleep in my bed for the night.”

Enid’s eyes go wide. “Oh, I didn’t mean—” she says. “I mean, I don’t want to make you uncomfortable—um, your color allergy?”

She gestures at her pajamas, which are indeed hideously bright. But considering Wednesday just spent the last half-hour handling bright pink sticky notes with no adverse effects, she’s pretty sure they both know her supposed allergy is a load of horseshit.

Enid’s giving her an out, she realizes. And while Wednesday appreciates it, it’s also entirely unnecessary.

“It’s fine,” she says. “I’ll live.” Then, when Enid bites her lip and continues to dither: “I admit it would . . . make me feel better. If you were close at hand.”

That’s all Enid needs to cross the room, smile curling at the edge of her lips, and slide under the covers next to Wednesday. It’s also all Wednesday’s esophagus needs to loosen completely, and for the tiny pricks of thorns to briefly recede from her stomach lining—fuck, she didn’t even realize those were there—and allow Wednesday to heave the first (and only) uninhibited breath she’s had in days.

So. Fuck her, she guesses.

She doesn’t know how she manages to fall asleep after that, but she does. Or at the very least, when Wednesday returns to awareness with moonlight still streaming through the balcony window, she’s slipped out of consciousness long enough for Enid to wrap an arm around her stomach and pull the two of them tightly together.

Wednesday makes a single, feeble attempt to extricate herself, but the thorns prickle in her stomach as Enid tightens her grip and mumbles something unintelligible, still half-asleep.

So Enid’s a cuddler. Honestly, it’s not a huge surprise.

Wednesday considers the night’s revelations as the moon moves across the sky, casting strange half-colored patterns across the hardwood of their floor. Somehow, despite Wednesday’s certainty that what she feels for Enid falls nowhere remotely near the romantic spectrum, the hanahaki has picked Enid as the target of her affections. Which means that, one, surgical removal is now a hundred percent off the table—and therefore, two, they’re going to need to figure out that alternative method of getting her cured.

Though there is one thing she can try first.

“Enid,” Wednesdays says, forcing herself to maintain a somewhat normal volume. She feels the lie in her words before she even says them, but she presses on. “I’m . . . in love with you?”

Nothing; not even a half-second of relief from the lump that’s begun to crawl up her esophagus.

Ah, well. It was a long shot anyway.

“What was that?” Enid mumbles sleepily from behind her, and this time Wednesday is startled enough that she manages to jolt her way out of Enid’s grasp.

“Shit,” she manages, her vision full of static. Her heart jackknifes in her chest. Enid, Wednesday reminds herself, is still trying to figure herself out post-Overnight Stay Incident—a midnight confession from her best friend is probably one of the single worst things to receive in the middle of all that.

“I’m sorry,” Wednesday says quickly. “I should have—warned you or something, I didn’t realize—I’m not actually in love with you.” She breathes in, forces herself to slow down. “I just thought—I’m pretty sure the hanahaki thinks it’s you, so I thought if I said something . . .”

“Mm,” is Enid’s languid reply. She’s looking at Wednesday through half-closed eyes—calm, like Wednesday hasn’t just come inches from setting their entire friendship ablaze for literally no reason. “S’okay, I’m not in love with you either.”

She’s smiling, tugging at the hem of Wednesday’s pajama shirt as if to say come back, and Wednesday is so overwhelmed with confusion and relief that she does. She twists, letting Enid settle against her back. Wednesday matches her breathing, waits for her heart to slow.

“‘M guessing this means you cracked some of it,” Enid says, still half-asleep. “Tell me later, ‘kay?”

“Yeah,” Wednesday says, “I promise. Sorry to wake you.”

“Mm,” Enid says again, and then she’s gone, drifting off into sleep before Wednesday can follow.

She lies there, feels Enid’s warmth surrounding her, and does her best to breathe without upsetting the hanahaki. She can feel it now, coiled at the bottom of her stomach, thorns and petals and flowers jammed accusingly against her organs . . .

She isn’t in love with Enid. She can’t be in love with Enid, because for whatever reason, Wednesday has been rendered incapable of feeling the full spectrum of human emotion. It’s not a wound, she tells herself; just because she’s like this doesn’t have to mean she’s broken—but she can’t quite make herself believe it.

Because wouldn’t this be easier, if she could be in love? If she could just confess, drop the metaphorical lighter into the bone-dry kindling, and hope beyond hope that they might be able to salvage some of the ashes? It would hurt, sure, but so does this. So does stewing here in this shadowy uncertainty, unsure if what she thinks she feels for Enid is actually normal or actually different or—hell. If it’s even actually real.

For what has to be the first time in her life, Wednesday wonders if being normal would actually be . . . beneficial.

The thought tastes bitter in her throat. Or maybe that’s just the sickly yellow petal she coughs up, five long, pain-filled minutes later.

Enid takes the news of the hanahaki’s selection far better than Wednesday expected her to—but then, perhaps Wednesday just continues to underestimate others’ propensity for positive attention.

“I mean, let’s be honest, there was a good chance it would be me,” Enid says as they unpin the remaining names from the List of People Wednesday Actually Cares About. Well, Wednesday says they—it’s mostly Enid, returning the pushpins to their small plastic tray and shredding the paper between her claws while Wednesday looks on through glassy eyes and shallow breaths. “I’ve been . . . ready for this, Wednesday.”

“Ready?” Wednesday rasps out. She abandons her efforts at remaining upright in favor of a dignified position on the floor—she’s not sure if the spikes in her gut are actually better like this, or if it’s just her mind playing tricks on her. It certainly doesn’t help the incessant pounding in her skull.

Enid sits next to her and lays a hand on Wednesday’s arm. “For you to forget,” she says. “I mean, Wends, if it comes down to it—if you can’t make the confession the hanahaki wants, and it’s down to you forgetting or dying—”

“No,” Wednesday chokes. “No, I won’t—” She tries to swallow, fails, and rushes out her next sentence like her life depends on it—which, actually, it very well might.

“I care about you,” she says, and the thorns recede again. “Enid, I care about you too much to let that happen.” She sucks in a breath; her headache lessens, and suddenly she feels well enough to stand.

Oh.

This, Wednesday realizes with a jolt, is how they beat it. Now that they know what the hanahaki wants, how to keep it at bay, they have a leg up on its inexorable spread. As long as this keeps working, it can buy them time—enough time, Wednesday fervently hopes, to figure out some alternate method of removing it permanently.

And if it means she has to constantly shower Enid in affection until that happens—well. Wednesday will very grudgingly admit that there are worse ways she could be spending her days.

The major problem, they soon discover, is that any given turn of phrase has diminishing returns once it’s been used a few times. I care about you lasts nearly eight hours when Wednesday first says it—then only two, then a paltry thirty minutes. Also, Wednesday has to actually mean whatever she says, so ridiculous over-the-top declarations like I am not ungrateful to God for all His goodness to me in sending me such a lover don’t actually help them at all. 

It explains why I’m in love with you didn’t work, at least.

Wednesday takes to seeking out Enid whenever she can—in the hallway between classes, during beekeeping or archery practice, whenever one of them happens to be studying in the library—just to pay her a compliment, or remind her of the depths of her care.

It feels . . . not terrible, she supposes. Nothing she’s saying feels new to Wednesday. It’s all things she’s known, deep down, but hasn’t had a reason—or, she can admit, the courage—to say.

Though it is a little startling to realize just how deep her feelings seem to run.

A few days in, as embarrassed as it makes her, Wednesday starts tearing pages from her father’s book. Some phrases, after all, are a little weightier just because she’s grown up knowing the depths of affection behind them. Mi querida gives them a whole day and a half the first time she uses it, and it also turns Enid into a blushing, stuttering mess in the middle of the hallway, which at the very least is good for a little amusement.

(“You don’t . . . mind this too much, do you?” Wednesday asks later, over a joint brainstorming session for their overdue History of Gothic Literature essays. “If it’s making you embarrassed, any part of it, I’ll stop. We’ll figure out something else.”

Enid just laughs. “I don’t mind it at all, Wends,” she says. She smiles, fangs slipping ever so slightly out of her mouth, and adds, “Actually, I wouldn’t be opposed to it continuing, even once all of this is over with—”

“I would sooner put thumbscrews through my eyes,” Wednesday says, without thinking. Then she keels over, unable to stop coughing until the floor is littered with at least two flowers’ worth of rose petals and what is decidedly an unhealthy amount of blood.)

But despite Wednesday’s newfound success in keeping the hanahaki at bay, there are three unfortunate results to come out of the second-to-last week before Nevermore’s winter break:

One: Her and Enid’s attempts at finding an alternate cure for the hanahaki have all come up disappointingly empty—even their nightly raids with Thing on the Nightshades’ secret library. But there’s also a nagging thought at the edge of Wednesday’s mind, a dim awareness that they still don’t have all of the picture. There is a logic to the hanahaki, something specific that it wants from Wednesday. If they can just figure out what that is, then maybe . . .

But no. She won’t let herself chase this, not when it’s practically guaranteed to end in an impossible task.

Two—which is more of a crisis for Wednesday, specifically: Enid, somehow, seems to take their new dynamic as an invitation for her to show affection back. Sure, she’s always been . . . warm, but it’s one thing for Wednesday to scoff at Enid’s light teasing in the privacy of their dormitory—it’s another thing entirely to hear the words You’re the most terrifyingly wonderful person I’ve ever met spoken full-volume, no filter, into the hushed air of the greenhouse in the middle of class.

It’s torture, actually. The most heart-racingly exquisite torture she’s ever experienced, and Wednesday doesn’t know if she ever wants it to stop.

Oh, and three: It’s somewhat inevitable at this point that their peers have noticed something amiss.

“Okay,” Yoko says from across their dinner table. It’s the Saturday before the final week of the semester, and the weather is just turning a comfortable level of dark and chilly. Unfortunately, Wednesday still has the hanahaki to contend with, which is the excuse she gives herself for curling into Enid’s side and murmuring cara mia into her shoulder as soon as Enid sits down. Not that Yoko knows this, but she still looks decidedly unimpressed. “What the hell is going on with you two?”

Wednesday expects Enid to blush—to stammer, at best, or to give the game completely away, at worst. Not that Wednesday would blame her; Enid has always been a very open person. It just means she’s a little bit shocked when Enid straightens her spine, flicks one of her claws out with a casual menace, and says, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Yoko gapes. From where he sits next to Yoko, Eugene chokes on his mashed potatoes. Wednesday, overwhelmed by a strange sort of pride, looks up at Enid and laughs.

“And now she’s laughing,” Eugene says faintly, like he’s just been personally threatened by a ghost. “Wednesday Addams is laughing. Are we sure this is the real Wednesday?”

“I assure you,” Wednesday says, pushing away from Enid so she can fix Eugene with her best death glare. (Enid tugs at her sweater; Wednesday lays a calming finger on her arm and tilts it forward with her wrist—ASL for one minute.) “If any shapeshifter were to attempt to imitate me,” she continues to Eugene, “I would skin them alive and wear their face as recompense. And I would ensure that they remain conscious to bear witness.”

“Fine, fine,” Eugene mutters, looking suitably cowed. “You’re definitely her.”

Wednesday nods sagely, and settles back into Enid’s side.

Sure, it’s a little too warm, but she finds she doesn’t much care.

“That doesn’t answer my question,” Yoko presses. “Enid, come on, we’re best friends. You wanted to room with me last year! You’ve gotta give me the goss.”

“There’s no goss,” Enid says, somehow managing to maintain a straight face against Yoko’s inquisitive stare. “I don’t know what you could possibly mean.”

“You don’t know—” Yoko looks about ready to explode now, which is kind of impressive, given her usual collected disposition. “Wednesday Addams, Nevermore’s number one heartless bitch—sorry, Wednesday, no offense—”

“None taken; it’s more of a compliment, really. Is there really an official ranking?”

‘—is currently cuddling you in full view of the entire dining hall. She’s been following you around all week, calling you disgustingly cute pet names and while the two of you repeatedly profess your love for each other—”

“As if I would ever feel anything so trite as love,” Wednesday scoffs instinctively, but she knows it’s a mistake the moment her throat seizes. “Fuck—” she starts, but then she can’t get any further before she’s gasping, retching, twisting away from the table as she throws up everything she’s just eaten along with a full yellow rose attached to two inches of thorny stem.

Her throat stings. She tastes the metallic tang of blood, and from across the table, she hears Yoko inhale sharply as the scent hits her.

Fucking vampires, Wednesday thinks. She has just enough of her faculties left to grab the flower and shove it under her shirt before Yoko and Eugene round the table, faces riddled with alarm and concern.

“I’m fine,” Wednesday chokes. Out of the corner of her mouth, to Enid, she whispers, “I would die for you. Or kill. Whichever you want,” and she feels the churning in her stomach immediately cease.

Enid preens.

“I’m fine,” Wednesday repeats, pushing herself back up into a sitting position.

Eugene gives her a wary look, and Yoko even tries to lay a hand on her forearm, but Wednesday shakes the both off. “Just—had a bone go down the wrong way. From the chicken. Nothing to worry about.”

Mercifully, the scattered remnants of her death glare are enough to convince Yoko and Eugene to return to their seats. Wednesday reluctantly pulls herself away from Enid, half so she can eat and half to pause the interrogation while she works out exactly what she said to set off the hanahaki. Can it tell, somehow, when she’s trivializing her feelings? Does it know when she’s deflecting to hide their enormity?

What a ridiculous question. It’s the hanahaki disease; of course it knows.

When Wednesday finally checks back into the conversation, Eugene is walking Enid through a blow-by-blow description of the current state of the beehive. Yoko’s expression has gone completely glassy, but Enid is listening, nodding and humming in acknowledgement at exactly the right points.

“Hold on,” Wednesday says, breaking into the monologue as she catches Eugene’s drift. “That growth in Hive Four was actually a new queen?”

“Yeah!” Eugene says brightly. “You know, sometimes, the new queen will kill the old one if the old one is weak enough, but it’s less likely if you pull the new queen out quickly. I’m trying to petition Weems’ ghost for another full hive setup, but until we get that, I’m letting Queen Number Six live in one of the boxes in the shack . . .”

Wednesday lets him go on, satisfied, until they’re finally shooed out of the dining hall to return to their dorms.

The final week of term passes mostly uneventfully. Wednesday takes her exams, suffers through an hour-long crystal ball conversation with her parents so she can secure permission for Enid to visit over break, and continues to cycle through various displays of affection to stave off the hanahaki.

Unfortunately, as time continues to pass, everything she tries is becoming less and less effective.

They’d both figured this would happen—that this solution would be temporary, because it’s not what the hanahaki disease ultimately wants from her. But, Wednesday will admit, she’d kind of hoped it would buy them a little more time.

She has somewhat of a persistent cough by the time Lurch and her parents arrive to collect her on Saturday morning. It’s alleviated slightly by simply holding onto Enid’s hand, so Wednesday keeps a firm grip as the two of them (along with Thing in Wednesday’s handbag) climb into the back of the Addams family hearse.

“My sweet little scorpion,” her mother coos as soon as the door shuts. “How are you? How was school?”

“We talked less than a week ago, Mother,” Wednesday sighs. She squeezes Enid’s hand to ward off a cough. “School is ordinary; exams were rather tedious. I won’t be failing any classes for disciplinary reasons, which I’m sure you will be both pleased and disappointed to hear.”

“Well, you’ll have to tell your father and I all about it,” her mother beams. “And how are you, Enid, dear? Wednesday’s told us so much about you.”

“She has?” Enid says, at the same time Wednesday scoffs and says, “No, I haven’t.”

“Oh, not directly,” her mother says airily. “But I do get visions, of course.”

Unbidden, Wednesday’s eyes flick to Enid. “Visions of what?” Wednesday asks. Her mother is a Dove, which means her visions are unlikely to center around Wednesday’s recent suffering—but if her parents are even remotely aware of the hanahaki, Wednesday feels like she ought to know.

“Nothing too embarrassing, little serpent,” her mother says. She gives Wednesday a sly wink, which of course Enid sees as well, given that she and Wednesday are sitting directly opposite her parents. “All I’m saying, Wednesday, is that I’ll leave the crypt doors unlocked if you wish to—”

“Mother,” Wednesday says, turning away with a huff. “You know I’ll do no such thing.”

Curiously, the hanahaki does seem to believe that. The itch in Wednesday’s throat doesn’t even worsen.

“Mm, yes, that’s what Gomez said the first time I visited . . .” says her mother, already making doe eyes at her father.

Wednesday decides to protect what’s left of her sanity and fully tunes her out.

Predictably, her parents are fawning over each other before barely a minute has passed—no doubt lost in reminisces of their school days. Wednesday makes a retching sound, which her parents ignore, but it provokes a squeak of alarm from Enid.

“Sorry,” Wednesday mutters. She turns toward Enid, signing for Thing to interrupt her parents if they get too involved—it wouldn’t do to have them scar Enid on her very first visit to the manor. “It’s my parents, not the . . . other thing.”

Enid nods. She looks a little strangled; Wednesday resists the urge to kick her father in the shin. 

“So, uh—what’s in the crypt, then?” Enid asks, finally tearing her eyes away from Wednesday’s parents.

“Ritual grounding for blood pacts,” Wednesday says with a shrug. “I’m told if you can make one strong enough, it gains certain . . . aphrodisiacal qualities.” She grimaces. “As you can probably tell, my parents find them romantic.”

“And you don’t.” It’s not a question, which Wednesday appreciates.

“Of course not. You of all people are well aware of my views on the topic of romance.”

She’s never had anyone smile at her when she says something like that—laugh, sure; in the whole look-at-Wednesday-Addams-trying-to-push-her-weirdo-vibe kind of way (or in the case of her parents, it’s more of a maybe-you’ll-change-your-mind-when-you’re-older sort of look)—but Enid does. She smiles at Wednesday, squeezes her hand (which Wednesday completely forgot she was holding; fuck, her parents have definitely noticed), and says, “Good. I’m not a huge fan of blood pacts, anyway.”

Wednesday spends the rest of the drive staring out the window, heart pounding a mile a minute, mind generating a stupidly long list of ways Enid could possibly have meant her to interpret that.

Being in the manor again is like a breath of fresh air—dank, dusty, slightly-blood-tinged fresh air, which is of course the best kind. Wednesday’s first order of business is taking her spare fencing saber and hacking down each and every installation of cobwebbed mistletoe, in an effort to keep her parents from fawning over each other so disgustingly (Enid, once she realizes what Wednesday is doing, assists the process with her claws); her second priority is actually giving Enid the tour.

It’s a somewhat abbreviated version, since climbing up and down the manor stairs in her current state is more draining than Wednesday assumed, but she gets the basics across: kitchen, dining room, emergency morgue, bathrooms, fencing room, conservatory. 

“The guest room’s haunted, by the way,” Wednesday says, fighting down a fresh wave of coughs as they deposit Enid’s bags atop the patterned duvet. (The designs have always looked suspiciously pentagonal to Wednesday, an observation which her parents have neither confirmed nor denied.) “Or at least it was when I left. There’s a flock of ghouls that likes to hang around at night. They make quite the racket.”

“Hmm.” Enid studies her expression for a moment, brow furrowed. Then she brightens. “You won’t mind if I stay in your room, then,” she says—brightly, assuredly, like she knows that was what Wednesday was angling for the whole time.

“If you must,” Wednesday sniffs, but she makes sure to send Enid the barest hint of a smile so she knows how grateful Wednesday is.

(Sadly, she doesn’t even get a respite from her churning stomach for her troubles.)

It’s Pugsley who clocks them on it first, when Wednesday and Enid descend together down the stairs into the dining room for the evening meal. “I thought you were helping Enid unpack,” he says. From where they’re seated at the table, both of her parents look up with barely-disguised interest.

“I was,” Wednesday says shortly, hoping that will be the end of that. But her death glare must be slipping—she blames it on the fact that she can barely talk without scraping the raw edges of her throat against each other—because Pugsley ignores her and continues.

“Isn’t the guest room on the first floor?”

“Yes.”

Pugsley narrows his eyes, glancing between Wednesday and Enid in a sort of frustrated bewilderment. Wednesday refuses to take pity on him, but Enid has always had the kinder soul.

“I’m staying in Wednesday’s room,” she says. She tugs Wednesday the rest of the way down the stairs by the shirtsleeve, and Wednesday allows herself to be pulled. She watches as Enid sends Pugsley an ear-to-ear grin and continues, “We’re already roomies, after all.”

Thankfully, Pugsley accepts Enid’s explanation without question, and the worst of her parents’ reaction is a significant look exchanged between the two of them and an arch of her father’s eyebrow in Wednesday’s general direction.

Wednesday ignores them, of course.

She does her best to keep her head down during dinner and avoid speaking—she sees an interrogation about Enid looming on the horizon, a labyrinth of shadows and stormclouds, and she does not have the wit at the moment to navigate around the hanahaki.

The sharp stabbing in her gut—not to mention the flashes of sandpapery agony whenever she forces herself to choke down another bite of pot roast—seem to agree with her.

Luckily, there are a multitude of other Nevermore-related topics for her parents to ask about: her father wants to know how thoroughly she's trouncing Bianca in fencing (the unfortunate answer to which is not much, since she hasn’t exactly been a regular attendee at practice in the past month); her mother asks about the state of the Nevermore greenhouse, and Wednesday provides her with a list of subtle modern techniques (along with a handful of pilfered autumn crocus seeds) she can use for the Addams family conservatory.

Enid, however, is the conversationalist among the two of them. Sure, Wednesday has seen her around their friends, but there’s something almost artful to the way she engages with Wednesday’s parents. It’s delicate at first, feeling at their proclivities like the opening strikes of a particularly skilled fencer, and then she spins topics and anecdotes that expertly guide the conversation wherever she so desires.

At one point, Enid has her mom, her dad, and Pugsley all laughing in response to the same story about one of Thing’s many misadventures, which in Wednesday’s eyes is the mark of a true virtuoso.

But alas, Enid has to flag eventually. Addams family dinners can be rather long affairs—this one has three courses, followed by coffee and dessert—and it only takes a few sentences worth of inaction for all of the evening’s hard work to disappear as abruptly as a grave robber at dawn.

Wednesday doesn’t even see their downfall coming. Lurch has just brought out the coffee wafers, and the conversation is on what Wednesday assumed to be a safe topic—the state of the espresso being served at the Weathervane—when her father leans back in his chair and says, “So, no more milquetoast barista boys for you, eh, little vulture?”

Wednesday jolts up, bewildered, and momentarily shelves her mental analysis of the opportunities someone might have had to poison her coffee cup. “What?” she rasps, and clamps her jaw shut to keep from grimacing in pain.

Enid stiffens beside her.

“Ah, you didn’t know?” Her father says. “Last time we crossed paths, Jericho’s strange little sheriff tried to tell me you were sweet on his boy. But truth be told, I found him rather bland—Enid seems much more aligned with your type, eh?”

Her type? “Bright, noisy, and despairingly cuddly?” Wednesday says, struggling against her rapidly-deteriorating throat. She digs her fingernails into her palm to distract herself from the pain. “Hardly.”

She sees her mistakes as she’s making them, but she can’t seem to get control of her mouth for long enough to stop. She’s been caught off-guard, and her first instinct, as always, is denial.

And unfortunately, there’s nothing the hanahaki hates more than that.

“I heard you calling her mon cherie earlier,” Pugsley says, in that infuriatingly smug tone of voice that only younger siblings can manage. “That’s a Mom-and-Dad word, isn’t it?”

“Oh, goodness,” her father says, faking a look of shock. “Little rattlesnake, are you learning French—?”

“I did no such thing,” Wednesday snaps. Her vision goes hazy, and her stomach starts to boil with infuriation at her family’s smugness. “I am doing no such thing. Under no circumstances would I allow that phrase to pass through my lips, much less any phrase in the so-called ‘language of love’—”

Enid kicks her under the table. All at once, awareness floods back into Wednesday and she clamps her mouth shut, but the damage is done. She coughs once, then twice, and then suddenly every symptom she’s been repressing for the past four weeks comes rushing back up to the surface.

Her throat burns. She can’t speak; she’s alternating too quickly between coughing and retching and her stomach is trying to empty itself so violently that she topples off her chair onto the floor and then Enid is there, one hand on Wednesday’s shoulder as the most excruciating pain she’s ever known tears at the inside of her throat—rose thorns, she knows, twisting and ripping and rending at flesh; the bile crawling up her esophagus sizzling away at open blood vessels, open nerves; the massive bulk of petals choking her, cutting her off, a hard stop against her airway even if she was still capable of breath; and Wednesday feels tears stream down her cheeks as she opens her mouth helplessly in a silent scream.

It’s the third time in her life that she’s cried: once, over Nero’s ashen-gray headstone; once, propped up against the half-colored window of her Nevermore dorm; and now here, once, in Enid’s sweater-clad arms on the wood of her dining room floor.

This one is the worst, she thinks, just before her vision blurs and she blacks out. No questions asked.

“I’m so sorry,” are the first words out of Wednesday’s aching throat when she awakens. Even before she opens her eyes, she knows Enid must be here, somewhere, and she has to get this apology out before the agony wracking her body takes her under again.

(Funny, she used to like pain. She still likes pain, she thinks, but she’d prefer not to feel it in this high of a quantity, ever again.)

“I know you didn’t ask to be here,” she continues, forcing her eyes open blearily. The light stabs at her, and her throat feels like it’s on fire—but there’s no longer a thorn-covered stem actively tearing up her flesh, so Enid must have done something to get rid of it. She tastes the vague memory of steak tartare; it must be the cough syrup. “I know you must have had better things to be doing for Christmas. Hell, for the whole last month—I’ve been so selfish, Enid, I—”

She coughs once, weakly. “It means the world to me that you’re here,” she says, and a heavy despair slips over her when the proclamation doesn’t even dampen the pain in her throat. “It does, even when I know I don’t deserve you, even when I can never—won’t ever say—”

The burning overtakes her again, filling her eyes with tears, and suddenly she feels another hand in hers. A blob of messy blonde hair swims before her, and then Enid is there, glaring.

“Wednesday Friday Addams,” Enid growls. Then, when Wednesday gives an indignant cough— “Shut up, I saw it on your portrait in the sitting room and you can’t stop me from using it. Wednesday, querida, I swear to you: there is nowhere I would rather be but here. I did ask to be here, in case you’d forgotten, so don’t even think about arguing.”

“But—”

“You’re the most important person in my life, Wends. The best friend I’ve ever met. I call us roomies and besties and whatever, but—sometimes I think it’s more than that. I’m not really sure what we are—but I don’t think I need to, either. I’m here for you, even when we don’t have the words for it. And if this stupid—” She takes a deep breath, and Wednesday hears the growl practically tear its way out of her throat. “—fucking hanahaki disease is going to try to get in the way of it, then, well—it can fuck right off.”

She cuts off, breath heaving, fangs bared in a vengeful snarl. Wednesday blinks the tears out of her eyes, focuses on Enid’s face in the dim light—her canines are fully extended, and the look in her eyes is almost feral.

It’s enough to make Wednesday dizzy.

“Oh,” Wednesday rasps. “Oh, I—Enid.” She feels her vision fuzz, tries to shake her head to clear it, but that only serves to highlight the splitting pain that runs down the back of her skull. “Um. Thank you. For being here—for being with me.” 

She sighs, lays her head back against the pillow, waits for anything—even a split second of relief—from her words. But nothing comes. “Though I think . . . I think maybe we’ve run out of time.”

They’re here now, in her room, in exactly the position she feared. The pieces are in place for her vision. Her guarantee of survival has run out.

Enid is quiet for a long moment. When Wednesday opens her eyes, there are tears gathering in Enid’s.

“Okay,” Enid says quietly. “Okay, maybe, but Wednesday, promise me—you have to get it taken out. Your parents know; they let me stay with you but they’re on the phone with the hospital and you have to let them do it, you have to live, even—even if—”

No, is Wednesday’s first thought. No, when it comes down to it, she knows that death would be easier. She may not understand this tangled mess of emotions that Enid has summoned, but Wednesday knows they’re a part of her. And to give that up—to give up any part of herself, no matter how confusing or unwieldy—just to go on living? It would be a failure. A defeat.

Wednesday Addams doesn’t do failure.

And anyway, she thinks, it was always going to come down to this. Hasn’t she always known that? Her parents are completed by their love for each other, but—for better or for worse—love is something that’s always remained out of Wednesday’s reach. There’s something deliciously ironic about it, too: doomed by the inability to do the very thing she’s always decried. It’s like poetic justice.

At least her death will be well-deserved.

But even as Wednesday opens her mouth, her breath catches in her throat and she does something she hasn’t done all night, takes just one precious moment to consider—and she thinks about the vision.

Enid, crying, screaming, on Wednesday’s bathroom floor, begging Wednesday not to leave. Wednesday, ghostly, unseen, trying to make herself heard over the sobbing by swearing that she’ll stay.

And Wednesday knows, suddenly, why the vision came to her when it did. Knows that she can avert it—that she will avert it, because now that it’s upon her, she finds that she can’t allow it to happen. She cannot, for even a single moment, allow Enid to think she’s going to leave.

Because she’s seen that future, and it’s far too painful even for her dark, twisted standards.

It’s funny, she thinks—Wednesday swore to Enid once that the would die for her, or kill. It’s an Addams thing; something she’s heard her father say in some distant memory of her childhood. To be an Addams is to take pleasure in the morbid, to dance on the edge of mortality with one foot on either side, and laugh.

So, yes, Wednesday has known for quite a while that she would die for Enid. But now, when faced with the opposite conundrum: to live for her? To reject the cold comfort of the grave for the sole sake of another’s happiness, when she won’t even realize she’s done it? It's disgusting. It's unthinkable. It’s . . . altogether probable, because for Enid, Wednesday knows, she would.

“Okay,” Wednesday rasps. And Enid swallows, gasps, collapses with her head in the crook of Wednesday’s neck—but she doesn’t flee to the bathroom. Wednesday feels that future shudder and crumble as it fails to come to pass. “Okay, I’ll do it,” she continues. “I’ll hate it—it’ll be torture, the awful kind, but . . . I will. I’ll live for you, Enid. Of course I will.”

This, Wednesday thinks, is the boldest declaration anyone will ever receive from her. It’s her ultimate concession, the thing she would have found the most difficult to give, and now—just like that—she’s given it.

I’ll live for you.

The burning recedes from her throat.

“Wends,” Enid sobs, oblivious to the change, and buries her face in Wednesday’s shoulder. Wednesday takes a shocked breath, tastes the dusty manor air against her lungs—and suddenly, for the second time in as many minutes, everything becomes clear.

This is it. This, finally, is the puzzle piece she’s been missing.

And it’s been right in front of her eyes the whole time.

She’s been fighting so hard, this past month. Fighting against romance, against desire, against all the things the world tries to cram into the tiny little box they call love. She’s resisted her role models, even her parents, for whom love is eminently physical or romantic or whatever else they feel for themselves, who of course passed those views on to Wednesday because they simply didn’t know any better.

But who are they, Wednesday realizes, to set the definitions? Who are the specters of her parents, whispering insidiously in her head for seventeen long years, to tell her what love has to be? Who are two hundred thousand years of human history, each one pressuring the next pressuring the next pressuring the next, to convince her that just because the deepest depths of her emotions are different, that they can’t be love as well?

Wednesday Addams has never been one to put stock in common beliefs. So really, it should come as no surprise that this, too, is one she finds she can discard.

“Enid,” she whispers, pulling herself away from Enid’s tearstained face. “Enid, I’ve got it—what we were missing. I’ve got it.”

Enid shakes her head; Wednesday realizes belatedly that she probably isn’t making any sense. “What do you mean?”

“Enid Sinclair,” Wednesday breathes, and it’s easy. The hard part is over; it’s the part she’s already said—the part she’s finally allowed herself to feel. This part, she finds, is just formality. “I love you.”

And the wounds in her throat seal up, and the coiled tangle of thorns vanishes from the pit of her stomach for the last time.

It comes as somewhat of a surprise to Wednesday Addams that she, of all people, gets a happy ending.

(It’s completely unsurprising that Enid does, though, so maybe Wednesday could have foreseen this from the way their fates have always seemed intertwined.)

“Wait,” Enid says, confused, moments after the confession leaves Wednesday's lips. “I thought you—I mean, you’re—you don’t feel . . .”

“No, I don’t,” Wednesday says. She pulls herself into a sitting position, reveling in the glorious sensation of movement without the slightest twinge of pain. “But I still love you.” She takes a deep breath. “I don’t think I can explain it, not yet. It . . . I’ll keep looking, but I don’t think I have the words.”

She will, she vows. She will someday know how to describe this feeling in a way that doesn’t rely on comparison—on absence. In a way free of the shackles that have blinded her for so many years. Her work isn’t finished; in fact, it’s only just begun.

For a long moment, Enid looks at her. Then she settles into the bed next to Wednesday. “Okay,” she says, pursing her lips as if she’s deep in thought. “That’s okay.”

They stay like that for a few minutes, until—

“Oh,” Enid says suddenly, a smile creeping at the edges of her lips. “Oh! Of course, Wends, I—I love you, too.”

Enid catches her eye and grins, and she looks so bright and joyous in the moonlight and—okay. Seriously?

“This is so fucking unfair,” Wednesday groans, sinking back into the pillows. “I had to cough up thorns and flower petals for a month before I sorted myself out enough to say it, and you—you can just do that?”

Enid just laughs. “Well, I had you to forge the trail for me,” she says, resting her head on Wednesday’s shoulder, “But let’s be real, Wends—between the two of us, you definitely needed the bigger push.”

That’s—fair, Wednesday supposes, but also incredibly aggravating. “Perhaps I did learn something from the hanahaki,” she allows. “But if it should ever return, I will rip it up by the roots, roast it slowly over a gasoline fire to maximize its pollution exposure, and inform it in great detail exactly what I think of its communication methods.”

“Hmm,” Enid says, still grinning. “As long as Thing and I are invited, too—wait a minute, Thing!”

She throws off the covers, which ends up pulling them off Wednesday as well, and scrambles to her feet. “Come on, we have to let your family know you’re okay!”

“Oh, right,” Wednesday says, arching an eyebrow in amusement. She’s been debating the merits of giving her parents a good death scare, just for fun, but . . . maybe she’ll let them off the hook.

Just this once.

Things don’t return to normal, exactly—not that normal, for them, is at all simple to define—but they do . . . settle. At least a little bit.

Without the hanahaki, there’s no reason that Wednesday and Enid’s newfound routines of spoken affection and bed-sharing have to remain the same—no reason, really, except that neither of them seems inclined to let it go. They’re going to have to talk about this eventually, Wednesday knows. But for now they’re both content, and Wednesday has had enough emotional introspection for at least the next few months. Perhaps the next few years.

Enid’s parents request that she return for the final week of the holidays, so Wednesday reluctantly spends the first few bleary days of January alone with her family in the Addams manor. She uses the time to catch up on some of the maintenance tasks that have been lapsing—the crypt, despite how seldom it’s used, does need to be dusted every now and then; and of course there are mice in the walls to be captured, dissected, and later taxidermied—but for the most part, she holes up in her room with Thing and catches up on the month or so of writing that she’s missed. Viper is a familiar face, stoic and brilliant and exactly the way Wednesday left her, and it’s good to be reminded that some things never change.

A few days before she leaves, she comes out to her parents. It goes about as well as it could: Mother hugs her, Father calls her his sweet prickly cactus flower, and Wednesday finds them tangled up on the couch the following evening, pressed up disgustingly against each other with a single copy of The Invisible Orientation nestled between them. If Wednesday gives them a single light scoff instead of her usual sickened groan—well, they’re too absorbed in their reading to notice.

She hopes they’ll have an easier learning curve than she did.

And then another journey in the hearse comes and goes, and Wednesday is once again standing in the doorway of her room at Nevermore, Thing on her shoulder and a vase with a single yellow rose clutched in her hands.

Enid, seated at her desk, takes one look at the proffered flower and snarls. “Absolutely not,” she says. “No joking about this, Wends. Throw it out.”

Wednesday arches an eyebrow at her. “I thought it would go well with your color scheme,” she says. “Additionally, I find it useful sometimes to be reminded of the inherent fragility of these frail mortal forms—”

“Nope,” Enid says, already turning away like she knows she knows Wednesday won’t argue. “Non-negotiable. I’ll accept literally any other flower.”

Wednesday shrugs, drops the rose into the trash bin, and walks over to set the empty vase down on Enid’s desk. “I’m afraid my other choices would be rather gloomy ones,” she says. “Black dahlias, or the like. Are you sure that would be acceptable to you?”

Enid looks up at her, meets her gaze beat for beat. Wednesday feels her breath settle, wonders how she failed for so long to realize what this is. 

“I suppose,” Enid says, the corners of her lips turning up in a smile, “I’ll just have to live with it.”

Fin.