Chapter Text
Wednesday's hand felt cold and smooth against the fabric of her skirt and the black tights she wore below. It prickled uncomfortably and her arm twitched unwillingly.
It's not burned, she reminding herself sternly.
She flexed it, opening and closing her fingers against her palm, two, three, four times as she sat in the dull compartment of a passenger train. The feeling dissipated.
It's not burned, she reassured herself, glancing down at her hand.
The train rattled steadily and seemed to slowly change direction. Wednesday stiffened her spine, preparing to contemplate other, more satisfying matters. Like the return to Nevermore after a long vacation, the increase in physical distance from her smotheringly affectionate family, the potential for more investigation into the events of last term-
Her arm twitched again, and with it came the strange, blistering feeling across her palm again.
It's not burned, she told herself once again, sharply this time, grinding her teeth together.
Her nails were starting to dig into her thigh unconsciously. When she noticed, she relaxed her grip: if she kept that up, she'd have a ladder in her tights before they even reached the next station.
She growled audibly at herself for her unWednesdaylike behaviour, causing several people to hastily make their way from this train compartment to the next, and made a very sharp shaking movement with her head to attempt to clear her mind.
Her hand continued to prickle intermittently, so she decided to lie down sideways on it, compressing it and squashing it below her body weight on the uncomfortably carpeted chairs.
It isn't burned, Wednesday told herself furiously, closing her eyes tightly.
- - -
Finally, blessedly, Wednesday heard the announcement for the train station nearest to Nevermore. She hauled herself out of her stupor and retriever her steamer trunk from the train's luggage car, dragging it along behind her like some dark, leathery coffin and held her fiberglass cello case aloft in her other hand.
It was Coach Vlad who was waiting to meet her at Burlington and he nodded to her in greeting and silently hauled one end of her trunk up so that they now shared the weight as they walked awkwardly towards the school van, the heavy trunk slung between them.
Wednesday wouldn't say she was exactly pleased to see him, but she was could recognise that she was relieved that it was a familiar face who greeted her all the same.
As she sat in the passenger seat of the van during that journey, she mentally prepared herself for what was to come.
There would be students, familiar and new. Lots more people than she had been around all summer. There would be shouting in the hallways and running caperers and loud, unearthly noises and bells and teenagers making out and endless assemblies. There would be food not prepared by Lurch or Mother again. There would be new uniform in a bigger size with scratchy labels because she wouldn't have had a chance to cut the damn things out yet.
There would also be Enid. Wednesday's heart rate and breathing settled a little at the thought that her closest friend would be waiting at Nevermore. The texts and photographs had been pouring into her mobile over the last 24hrs from her fair-haired roommate, who had arrived a day earlier in order to be ready for the approaching full moon.
And Eugene would be there, and his bees. And all the others who had banded together to become her... friends. The people she had been able to call upon when it really mattered.
Wednesday felt a wave of nausea, her chest feeling constricted and her head feeling like blood was simultaneously rushing to it too quickly and away from it too rapidly. She opened the window, because it seemed like the done thing.
If Coach Vlad noticed any of this, he didn't show any sign.