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Wednesday rolled the tiny medication bottle in her hand and listened to the pills tumble hollowly inside. Nearly empty. She tucked it safely back in her writing desk’s top drawer.
Tonight Wednesday had died, taken an arrow to the shoulder, and sliced open her hand while twisting a blade into the heart of an undead pilgrim, yet her mind was fixating on her allergy. Or more accurately, to her face pressed against a fuzzy pink overcoat, safely enfolded in Enid’s embrace.
Disturbing was the mildest way to put it.
She supposed upping her allergy prescription wasn’t particularly onerous. She chalked it up to one of the hazards of having a technicolor roommate and made a mental note to begin a regimen.
It wasn’t hope, she told herself. It was a prophylactic.
She walked over to the beautiful Gothic window that filled the far wall of the room for probably the hundredth time that night, and then paced back to her desk. She did so several dozen more times until her body began to protest. She recalled the immense amount of blood she had lost. Fine, then. She would allow herself to momentarily sit.
She settled on her desk chair and turned it slightly towards the door. Thing gestured questioningly.
“Unnecessary,” Wednesday answered. “You already checked twenty minutes ago.” In truth, she had sent Thing to check on Enid and report back no less than three times already, although her roommate had only been with the school nurse for an hour. Thing had returned each time to inform her that they were busy cleaning her wounds and applying bandages, but otherwise, she was fine.
Wednesday had wanted to stay with her at the infirmary. Unfortunately, that meant the school nursing staff trying to treat her injuries as well. She had permitted one nurse to dress her palm, but when the nurse had then asked Wednesday to remove her shirt so that she could treat the arrow wound, Wednesday had informed her of the cleanest way to snap a collarbone with one working arm. After that she was asked to wait for Enid in her room.
Another fifteen minutes crawled by, then another. The distant creak of the clock tower’s enormous hands ticking by the minutes echoed in the silence. The dorm room felt larger and emptier than it ever had before. Wednesday was used to large, gloomy manors and solitary nights. Never had she felt like there was an emptiness to them, like every wistful breeze was howling straight through all the empty spaces inside of her. Every creak of the floorboards seemed to her a reminder that there was usually another set of feet treading loudly on the other side of the room.
Thing noticed. He offered to open the window to let in a cold draft, but even that failed to shake Wednesday out of her sulk.
Enid’s dolls and plush toys stared at her from across the room. They taunted her, until she got up and switched on Enid’s exuberant string lights. They glowed with nauseating color and drove back the dark in a way Wednesday found uncomfortable.
Finally, Wednesday heard familiar footsteps on the landing. The door opened, and Thing rushed to greet Enid.
“I’m fine, Thing. Thank you for checking. Three times, if I counted right.” She beamed at the little appendage. Wednesday’s heart calmed at the sight of Enid, then sped up painfully. She was no longer drenched in blood and covered in leaves. She had washed up and was wearing her usual fuzzy pink bathrobe. But one side of her face was bandaged where Tyler’s claws had sliced open her cheek. Wednesday glimpsed more bandages that vanished into her sleeves and beneath the collar of her robe, and a strange, burning ache stoked itself alive in her chest. She saw the price Enid had paid to save her, and it was far too much.
“Enid,” she greeted her. She was standing, she realized, having reflexively gotten to her feet when Enid walked in.
Enid looked up from cradling Thing to smile at her. Of course, she correctly read the tone of Wednesday’s voice. “As I was just telling Thing, I’m fine.”
But when Enid looked up, Wednesday’s mind flashed back to her standing before the school gates, blood crusted in her pale hair and coursing down her face.
Enid set Thing back on the ground gently. Wednesday was then confronted with the quandary of what to do with her limbs. She considered sitting back down and decided against it. She briefly entertained the idea of crossing over to join Enid on her side of the room, but the garish lights repelled her. She thought of how nauseatingly soft Enid’s robe looked. Her skin crawled, and her heartbeat ticked up. She thought of the allergy medication in her desk drawer.
Mercifully, Enid made the decision for her. She wandered to the side of Wednesday’s bed and sprawled backwards onto the black sheets, her pale hair haloing around her like a painting of some divinity. “I’m exhausted, but I have no clue how I’m going to sleep,” she was saying. “Every time I think of closing my eyes, I hear that creepy pilgrim’s laugh.” She shuddered.
Wednesday seated herself carefully beside Enid on the bed, then lowered herself onto her back. They were close enough that their shoulders brushed. She did not want to discuss the pilgrim. He had killed her once, and she had returned the favor. That left the score even. An infuriating and unsatisfactory way to settle the whole affair.
“You wolfed out,” Wednesday reminded Enid. “How do you feel?”
Enid’s face lit up, and Wednesday finally understood what the room had been missing. Her smile was incandescent, and her voice warmed the space like a sunbeam. “I feel amazing! And so relieved. Like, now I don’t have to worry about my future. I can join a pack or start my own. I can finally tell my family to back off. It’s everything I wanted. Maybe I’ll join one of the packs here at Nevermore next year. Wouldn’t that be incredible?”
Wednesday usually enjoyed the feeling of her heart dropping like a stone. Concrete and gravity were a superior combination for any recreational activity. But suddenly she envisioned Enid slowly slipping away, spending more and more time with other wolves until she moved on to be with her own kind, leaving Wednesday in the dust.
“I suppose you won’t have any further use for a Raven roommate who attracts serial killers and misfortune like carrion birds to a corpse.”
Self-pity, what a tawdry sentiment.
Enid didn’t say anything. Wednesday turned to find her face inches from hers, eyes holding an impossible depth of feeling. It made her dizzy. No doubt due to the blood loss.
“Wednesday, do you know what I love most about you?” Enid asked.
“Careful,” Wednesday growled, but it was missing her usual feeling.
“You accept everyone as they are, with no expectations. I don’t mean that you don’t judge people – your standards are ridiculously, like, impossibly, high – but you judge people for their actions, not for who they are. I never have to worry about being anything other than myself around you. You let me be weird as shit and never give it a second thought. Nothing fazes you. I mean your closest confidante is literally a hand.” Enid glanced over at Thing, perching smugly on the desk, clearly enjoying Wednesday’s discomfort with this conversation. “No offense.”
Thing nodded in agreement, and Enid continued, more quietly now. “I’m glad that you were the first one to know I wolfed out – other than Thing of course. I knew you’d be happy for me. For the right reasons. Not because it meant I was normal, but because you knew what it meant to me.”
Enid pursed her lips, considering her next words carefully. Wednesday’s chest was tightening. She hoped it was cardiac arrest or something equally thrilling. Anything was better than the discomfort of her hopes hanging on whatever Enid had to say next.
“Everyone has a pack. A family, your friends. You may not be a wolf, but you’ll always be part of my pack, Wednesday. I can’t imagine it any other way.” Her eyes scanned Wednesday once, quickly. “There isn’t a future for me without you in it.”
“I don’t have a pack,” Wednesday snapped defensively, mind balking from the image of her mother’s judgmental glare, and instinctively rejecting whatever it meant to be in a pack with Pugsley. Enid’s face fell, and Wednesday realized her mistake.
“I have...an exception,” Wednesday amended. Enid looked up hopefully, and Wednesday gritted. “Only one.”
She felt the need to add, “Besides, you wouldn’t want me in your pack; I don’t play well with others. I prefer to be alone. If you were to include me, it would be a pack of one.”
“Isn’t that what we are?” Enid asked. Her eyes held Wednesday's. “Just you and me?”
Previously, Wednesday would have dismissed the idea as frivolous sentimentality. But after the night’s events, she was forced to reconsider. Enid had fought off a Hyde to save Wednesday’s life. She would have the scars for the rest of hers. Whatever Wednesday was to Enid, she was owed at least that much. And, in a corner of her heart she planned to surgically excise as soon as it was convenient, Wednesday knew that if Enid’s life were in danger, nothing would keep her from saving her. If it were ever a choice between her life or Enid’s, she couldn’t think of an easier trade.
“Perhaps,” Wednesday allowed.
Enid was quiet for a moment. Her brow was furrowed, gaze somewhere else, and Wednesday suspected that wherever she went, Wednesday was not ready to follow.
“It was worth it, you know,” Enid murmured, voice barely above a whisper. She touched her cheek, fingers grazing the bandages. Her eyes met Wednesday’s again. “I know you’re obsessed with murder and mayhem and mystery. You care about uncovering the truth more than anything else. But I feel like if it came down to it – if I really needed you – you would do the same for me. They way I saved you, and you saved the school – I think you’d do that for me, too.”
Wednesday felt like there was something tearing at her innards. It was hot and unfamiliar. Yet another uncomfortable feeling Enid had introduced in her. It burned like rage, or injustice, mixed with something too personal to admit aloud or even to herself. She spoke, circling as close to the truth as she dared, hoping that expressing some of it in words might diffuse the enormity of it.
“If there is even the shadow of a doubt that I would save you, then I’ve been faithless,” she said icily. “I would sooner destroy the world than let it lose your light. My life is no more precious to me than yours. Less, if you expect me to live without you.”
Enid’s smile could have blinded her. She wished it had. The sight of Enid’s bandaged face was smelting a weapon inside Wednesday’s chest, hot and angry and sharp. She was trying to tamp down the feeling with her usual arctic disposition, to no avail.
“So we’re each other’s ride or die, huh?”
“I’m going to assume that crudely constructed turn of phrase echoes my sentiment,” Wednesday answered coldly. “Yes. Obviously.”
Enid glanced down, lips parted slightly, and Wednesday thought she was going to say something else. She waited, devouring every detail of her best friend’s expression, trying to stem the uncomfortable surge of warmth rising in her chest. She waited for Enid like a drowning man gasps for air.
“You’re staring,” Enid finally said. She lifted a hand to her cheek and peeled back the edge of her bandages with a wince. “Seriously, how do they look? You’re the one person I can trust to answer honestly. Just tell me if they’re gnarly in like a badass sort of way, or if I’m going to need to prepare myself every time I look in the mirror.”
Wednesday inhaled sharply. She sat up straight and clasped her hands in her lap. It did not help to steel herself as much as she’d hoped.
“I feel the need to be candid, Enid. And since you requested honesty –”
Enid winced. “Never mind, I think I just changed my mind –”
“Your previous beauty was self-evident,” Wednesday went on, undeterred. “Now, your fierce spirit is etched onto an already perfect canvas, such that I question why or how anyone would look anywhere else while in your presence. I certainly can’t.”
“Uh, woah,” Enid muttered. She was turning a very odd shade of pink. “Ajax just said they looked cool.”
Wednesday allowed herself one jab at Ajax, which she justified with his lackluster assessment of Enid’s appearance. “Ajax doesn’t have the sense to look up in the Sistine chapel. He would throw a drop cloth over the David to give him a little privacy. I doubt he can even spell ‘Louvre’ much less ‘Renaissance.’ I wouldn’t even wait around for him to sound out ‘Rococo.’ He’s hardly someone to consult about beauty.”
Okay, that was five jabs. But he had earned every one.
“Geez, Wednesday,” Enid said slowly. “You had to wait till we almost died to tell me that?”
“If you’re referring to Ajax, I’ve mentioned it. If you’re referring to your appearance, I’ll remind you that you own a mirror. Don’t ask me to do its job. It’s redundant.”
“Oh my God,” Enid muttered, staring somewhere off in the distance, horrified. “I think I suddenly understand your father.”
Wednesday turned to look down at Enid disapprovingly. “There’s no need for insults. My father is a decent man, though I can’t say the same for his taste.”
“I didn’t mean anything by it. Just that sometimes when you –” Enid reached up to Wednesday’s shoulder. She stopped midsentence. “Wednesday,” she said, voice shifting into dangerous territory. “Why is there blood soaking through your shirt?”
“Xavier thought it was a good idea to play Robin Hood with a supernatural Puritan. I intercepted the arrow to prevent his miscalculation from becoming fatal.”
All the color drained from Enid’s face.
“Don’t get jealous. I would have let an arrow pierce something far more valuable for you. An organ, at least. Perhaps a lung.”
“That is so not the point!” Enid’s nostrils flared, and Wednesday watched her claws extend until they dug into the fabric of her shirt. She sat up in a rush. “You got shot? And you weren’t even going to mention it to me?”
Wednesday grimaced. Enid’s voice was approaching an uncomfortable decibel level. “Volume, please.”
Enid lowered her voice. “Or maybe – I don’t know – get it treated?”
“It will heal.”
“Let me see it,” Enid demanded. “I didn’t fight a Hyde and save your life just for you to die of an infection.”
That was a fair point.
Wednesday tugged down her collar to expose the torn flesh of her shoulder.
“Oh my God. Thing, grab the medical supplies from Thornhill’s office.”
Thing scurried off and returned in no time with a small medical kit. Enid grabbed it and began pulling out gauze, antiseptic, and bandages and laid them out on the bed.
“You are unbelievable,” Enid huffed. “Would it have killed you to let a medical professional do this? Or someone who actually knows what they’re doing?”
“I’m perfectly capable of administering aid myself,” Wednesday argued.
“Yeah except you’ve been sitting here for over an hour and didn’t, so I’m going to do it now, before it gets infected.”
“I had Thing help me pour hydrogen peroxide on it after I bathed. See, how it’s foaming at the edges?”
“Oh my God Wednesday, that’s medieval. What else did you try? Leeches?”
Wednesday’s eyes glittered. “Later. I’ve lost too much blood tonight.”
“The shirt has to go,” Enid sighed. “I can’t bandage it like this.”
Wednesday’s entire body locked up. Enid saw her stiffen and relented. “Okay, we’ll do it the hard way. Get your arm out of your sleeve and through your collar. I’m warning you, it’s going to hurt.”
She was right. She didn’t mind the pain so much as Enid bossing her around, but after a couple minutes Wednesday managed to wrench her arm free. Enid wasted no time carefully applying butterfly stitches to knit together the gaping flesh. She applied gobs of antiseptic and then covered the wound with gauze. She was careful to barely let her fingers brush Wednesday’s skin, until she had to gently press her palm against Wednesday’s shoulder to secure the gauze with tape. Wednesday closed her eyes and shuddered.
“I’m sorry,” Enid said. “I know you hate being touched. I’m almost done.”
Except Enid’s touch did not fill her with nausea. For the second time that night, she failed to even find it unpleasant.
Her mind skittered away from that realization like a shadow before the sun.
Wednesday forced herself to focus on Enid’s hands, avoiding her eyes with an intensity that meant she was staring, unblinking, as Enid worked.
“I know, I know,” Enid said apologetically, feeling her gaze. “Just one last piece of tape. Are you okay?”
Wednesday’s mind spun out in useless bewilderment. Never had her thoughts been so quiet, when she needed them most.
“Why do you have to paint your nails so colorfully? It makes this – difficult.”
Enid rolled her eyes. “Fine. If this happens again, I’ll paint them black for you.”
Wednesday pulled away to look Enid in the eyes. “Thank you,” she said solemnly.
“I – ok. Sure.”
Enid laid back down and swung herself fully onto the bed. Wednesday felt the warmth at her back like a hearth.
“That should do it. Now I’m going to try and actually get some rest.”
Enid yawned, then sat up abruptly. “Is that the sun?” she gasped. Wednesday turned to see the sky through the window turning faintly pink.
“Ugh,” Enid groaned, flopping dramatically onto the pillow. Wednesday’s pillow, Wednesday noted. “That means we have to clear out in a few hours.” She yawned again. “I have so much to pack. It’s going to take hours just to sort through my coats and jackets, and I don’t even want to think about my plushie collection. Oh nooo, and I almost forgot about my shoes! Those will take a week to pack alone. I can’t believe I fought a Hyde, and they still expect us to be packed up and out of here by the end of the day.”
Wednesday tuned the words out, though she still absorbed the familiar rise and fall of Enid’s voice. It filled her with ease, like the sound of her typewriter keys clattering or the strains of her cello as she practiced her favorite concerto. The previous night was very nearly the last time she might have experienced any of those things.
Thing pointed at Enid. She had fallen asleep, hair splayed across the pillow, mouth slightly open in exhausted ease. The pink of dawn saturated her hair and bathed her features in a rosy glow.
Wednesday had never been afraid of loss and had only once been its victim. After Nero, she had sealed the coffin of her heart to ensure nothing could ever again take up residence there and burden her with something to lose.
She curled up onto her side like a wounded animal, watching the light stretch over Enid’s sleeping form, and realized she had not been careful enough.
She remembered her last thoughts as she lay dying in Crackstone’s crypt. She saw Enid’s grin when she had appeared out of nowhere and tackled Tyler, moments before he eviscerated Wednesday. She remembered Enid’s bloodstained face crisscrossed with tear tracks at the gates in front of the school, then the feeling of her arms around Wednesday, holding her like she was her last tie to earth. She thought again of the allergy pills in her desk.
Wednesday shifted, angling her body away from Enid, until their foreheads were nearly touching. Slowly, she brought up her arm and rested her hand beside Enid’s between them, so that her pinky was just brushing Enid’s, light as a cobweb. Innocuous. Deniable.
She thought of the almost-empty pill bottle in her desk drawer. She had been so cautious, and yet here she was, with even more to lose.
“I won’t allow your life to be imperiled again,” Wednesday vowed. “Nothing is going to harm you. I won’t let that happen.”
Her heart was thudding agonizingly slowly against her ribs. Enid’s eyes opened, and for a panicked second, Wednesday thought she had heard it.
Enid rubbed her face, eyes blurry with sleep.
“Is your shoulder bothering you?” she asked, eyelids drooping. “You look like you’re in pain.”
“I’m fine. Rest. You need it,” she said. It came out like an order, but some of her worry must have bled through, because Enid’s eyes opened, gaze sharpening. Or maybe Wednesday wasn’t quite as adept at concealing her emotions from Enid as she thought.
“Come here,” Enid invited.
Wednesday glared. “Not under any circumstances.”
She rolled over so that she was facing away from her, to drive home the point.
“I can sleep in my own bed, if you prefer.”
Emotional blackmail. A favorite of Addams family game nights, one which Wednesday usually won with her eyes closed. Enid would need to do better than that.
“Suit yourself.”
“Maybe I will.”
Thing was watching the exchange with interest until Wednesday shot him a look that sent him scuttling off the desk. He leapt onto the floor. From where he was standing, only Wednesday could see what he signed before he turned and shut himself in his own room.
Wednesday didn’t need him pointing out the folly of her pride for the umpteenth time. But this time he had forced her into checkmate before she could even make a move. It was a simple question, but it stymied her – what mattered to her more, her pride, or Enid?
Wednesday felt the mattress shift as her roommate got up. “Wait,” she gritted, fighting the words even as she said them. “Stay.”
She didn’t need to turn to know Enid was grinning. The mattress shifted again, and the warmth at Wednesday’s back was smothering. But it was comforting, too, like a pillow held over her face as she slept.
“Does that mean –” Enid’s voice was hesitant. “Can I –?”
“Yes,” Wednesday interrupted.
“You don’t even know what – Are you sure?” Disbelief. Wednesday had crossed that threshold already.
“I won’t repeat myself. If I change my mind, trust me, you’ll know.”
Enid laughed softly. “Ominous, but okay. That’s good. If you can threaten me, you haven’t totally flipped.”
She pressed close against Wednesday’s back with a happy sigh and buried her face in Wednesday’s neck, circling one arm around her waist.
Wednesday grabbed her hand. “Tread very, very carefully.”
“Your threats aren’t as effective when you’re holding my hand.”
“I am restraining your hand. For your own sake, or Thing will soon have a companion.”
“My previous point stands,” she said smugly. Then, softly, “Thanks, Wednesday.”
Wednesday contemplated letting the moment pass. But she abhorred hypocrisy, and that would be toeing the line of lying, to both Enid and herself. “What makes you so sure this is only for your benefit?”
“Careful,” Enid teased. “You don’t want to lose plausible deniability.”
“That won’t be necessary. If you speak at all of this, the authorities will never find your remains. No one would believe you anyway.”
Enid smiled against her neck. “They might after tonight. You hugged me in front of the entire school, remember?”
Wednesday shot a look over her shoulder that would have struck a weaker person dead on the spot. Enid fielded it with grace and a smile. “Don’t worry, I don’t plan on saying a word about this to anyone.”
“That includes Thing.”
“How does it – why Thing?”
“He’s a sore winner. I cannot tell you how insufferable he is when he’s proven right. He gloats.”
She sensed Enid’s smirk. “And what would he be right about?”
“Enid, I have willingly vowed my life to you. Which means if you continue to push me, I will be obligated to kill us both.”
“Okay, okay. Goodnight Wednesday.” She heard the smile in Enid’s voice. Of course, she couldn’t resist turning the thumbscrew one last time. Wednesday always looked forward to the second thumb the most anyway. “My ride or die.”
Wednesday didn’t reply. It would only encourage her sappy nonsense. She waited until Enid’s breathing evened out, and the soft drone of her snore filled the room like a fly trapped in a spider web.
“Goodnight, Enid,” she said quietly. “My only exception.”