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“God, I’m so tired. I’ve been running for so long. How long has it even been? Everything always seems so hazy when the wolf is in control.” Enid thinks to herself as she lies down in the snow in whatever forest she’s ended up in. She’d just finished fighting off a small pack of wolves who didn’t seem to appreciate her wandering into their territory. With her wounds beginning to heal, she closes her eyes. “Just for a bit. Need to rest.”
It felt good for her to catch her breath for a bit. The air here is colder than she remembers it getting around Nevermore, but that’s not a problem for her. She tends to run hot even when she’s not covered in fur. The sound of snow crunching beneath feet stirred her from her rest.
“Danger. Fight. Kill.” Her wolfed snarled in her mind. She got up on all fours, ready to pounce, and growled in the direction the sounds came from. If Enid was lucky, whatever was in there would be too scared to get closer. She wasn’t sure if she could take another fight right now.
It didn’t seem to work, as the shuffling kept coming closer and closer. From out of some shrubbery stepped a small human. Black boots, black gloves, long black coat, black and white striped scarf, and two long braids hanging out from a warm winter hat. She looked at Enid with wide eyes, her breaths short and ragged.
“Enid?” She whispered like she didn’t trust her eyes.
Even her wolf grew silent at the sight of Wednesday Addams. Enid stopped growling and slowly approached her roommate. She sniffed all around her face, finding the scent she’d grown accustomed to in their dorm. Wednesday always smelled like pine and old paper.
Wednesday put her hands up on the wolf’s cheeks, and Enid could swear her breath shuddered as she made contact. “Enid Sinclair, come back to me.” She said softly, staring deep into her eyes. “Please.” Her voice broke over the word.
Enid could feel her body begin to change back, shrinking into human form again. It almost felt unnatural after having spent however long in wolf form. The cold snow stings her feet as claws and fur disappear, but Wednesday’s gloves are warm against her cheeks.
“Wednesday, you found me.” Enid’s voice comes out hoarse. She could never have expected what happened next.
Wednesday Addams threw her arms around Enid’s naked body, buried her face into her neck and began sobbing.
Enid held her tight as her own tears began escaping her eyes. “You found me.” She repeated, unsure of which person she was trying to soothe with the words. They stayed that way for less than a minute, but it felt like eternity in the best possible way. “God, it’s cold out here.” Enid said.
“Oh, yes, my apologies.” Wednesday sniffled and dropped to her knees, slinging her backpack off onto the ground in front of her. She haphazardly threw some things onto the ground as she rummaged through the bag before beginning to hand Enid a bunch of warm clothes to put on.
As Enid began dressing, suddenly a little embarrassed about being fully nude in front of Wednesday yet again, she asked, “How long was I…um…what day is it?”
Wednesday froze while returning the other items to her bag. It took her longer than Enid had thought it would to answer, like she really had to think about it. “It is March twenty-fourth. You’ve been gone for approximately four months.”
“Four months…” she whispered. “I guess that explains why it’s so cold.”
“That and the fact that we’re in northern Canada.” Wednesday stated dryly.
“Oh my God, I ran all the way to the top of Canada?” She asked with wide eyes.
“That seems to be the case, yes.” Wednesday’s voice seemed to regain its composure, but Enid could see her glancing her way every couple of seconds, like she was afraid to let Enid out of her sight for too long. Once Enid was fully dressed, Wednesday held out a thermos toward her. “I know tea isn’t your favorite drink, but it will help warm you up.”
Enid took it gratefully and took a long drink from it. “This isn’t as bad as the flavor you made me try before. Is this a new blend or something?”
“It’s the same blend, only I added honey and sugar to it.” Wednesday responded.
Enid furrowed her brow. “But you hate putting sweeteners in your tea.”
Wednesday was quiet for a moment again. “I’ve grown accustomed to it. I wanted to ensure you would find it tolerable when I found you.”
When. The word struck Enid’s ear strongly. Not “if I found you”, but when. Her cheeks warmed at the thought of Wednesday knowing that she would absolutely find Enid, and there was no questions to be had about it.
“Thank you, Wednesday.” She said softly through a smile. “Thank you for not giving up on me.” Tears once again started to form in the corners of her eyes.
“I would never give up on something this important, Enid. I’m almost insulted that you’d insinuate otherwise.” She slung the bag back over her shoulder as she stood up and looked at Enid with a small smile.
It was at this point that Enid noticed that Wednesday’s braids were frayed and messy, and that she had massive bags under her eyes. It was kind of hard to tell with all the winter clothes on, but just from her face Enid could tell that Wednesday had definitely lost some weight.
“Hey, are you doing okay? You look exhausted.” Enid asks her.
“Sleep has been avoiding me like the plague for the last two months.” Wednesday answers. “I’ve been averaging thirteen hours of sleep a week.”
“That’s so not enough. And what about food?”
She was quiet again. “Average of nine meals a week.” She admits. “I’ve been rather busy.”
Enid wraps her in a hug again. “Let’s get out of this forest and get some food, huh?”
“That sounds like an excellent idea.”
Wednesday led Enid back through the woods. The hike was an hour and a half long before they reached a small town and stopped at a local burger place. Wednesday scarfed down her burger faster than Enid had seen her eat anything around the Nevermore lunch table.
Enid was only half way through her food by the time Wednesday had finished. “So, what’s the plan for getting back home?” She asked before taking another bite of her burger.
“My family’s private jet will be arriving soon. That will take us back to Vermont, where a chauffeur will take us to Nevermore.”
“Oh, God.” Enid whined, throwing her head back. “Winter break ended like two months ago. I’m so behind in school now.”
“Correct.” Wednesday stated. “We will have much to catch up on when we return.”
“What do you mean ‘we’?”
“I failed to locate you before winter break ended; I wasn’t going to abandon my task simply to fit Nevermore’s schedule.”
“Wednesday, you missed two months of school just to come find me?”
“You say ‘just’ like it was a meaningless task. I would have kept looking no matter how long it took. There was no other option besides finding you, Enid.”
Enid could feel the tears coming to her eyes again. “You have to stop saying sweet things like that, Wednesday. My heart can’t handle it.”
“I don’t say sweet things; I say true things. Whatever your heart takes from my words is its own problem.” Wednesday replies, but she looks away from Enid for the first time since she finished eating. Enid could swear she saw her cheeks turning a little pink.
Enid smiles as she quickly finishes her meal, and Wednesday leads her to the airport and into her family’s private jet. She has to take a full minute to appreciate the stunning interior of the plane. In classic Addams fashion, everything is black, but it’s all accented with crimson and gold. The leather seats look so comfortable, there’s a wall with a massive television in it, and she can see a spacious bathroom near the back.
Wednesday takes Enid to sit in the seats facing the television. They buckle in and the plane begins its ascent. Once they reach cruising altitude, Wednesday speaks up. “The pilot says the flight will be about five hours. Put on whatever you’d like.” She hands Enid a remote.
“Ooh, yay!” Enid squeals and she begins scrolling through streaming services. After about ten minutes, she finds something that catches her eye. “K-pop stars who secretly hunt demons? That sounds so cool!” She starts the movie, and the two of them watch mostly in silence, only broken by Enid remarking on how good the songs have been.
About a third of the way through the movie, one of the main characters is secretly revealed to be half demon. Enid audibly gasps and looks at Wednesday to see her reaction to the reveal, only to find her fully asleep. Enid immediately turns the volume on the tv down a couple clicks. She looks so pretty, so peaceful.
The plane jostles slightly, and Wednesday slumps over, her head and shoulder finding rest against Enid’s arm. To her surprise, Wednesday takes a big breath in and lets out what seemed to be a very contented sigh.
Enid’s cheeks blushed as she looked to the ceiling. “How am I ever supposed to get over this girl?” She thinks. After Wednesday hugged her in the woods way back at the end of sophomore year, something changed in her. Something that wanted more, wanted Wednesday in a way Enid knew she could never have.
Wednesday had talked often about never wanting to fall “into the trap of love” or “under the curse of romance” or whatever beautifully poetic way she wanted to say “I don’t want to have a romantic relationship ever”. Enid had been trying (and miserably failing) to move on the entire last semester. Bruno served as a decent enough distraction for a while, but that obviously didn’t work out, so she was right back at the start. Yearning for Wednesday yet again.
But how could she ever stop loving her? The girl who spent the last four months losing sleep, skipping meals, and missing school to find her, and then essentially said that she’d do it all over again as many times as necessary if she had to. That’s not the kind of thing your typical boarding school roommate does. But Wednesday is anything but typical, which makes it hard for Enid to figure out if this is something she could read into, or if it’s just another Wednesday-ism.
“Probably the latter.” She decides. It would be so unlike Wednesday to fall in love, especially with someone as bubbly and colorful as Enid. She’d probably be more interested in someone who matched her energy better, if she was interested in anyone at all.
Enid turned her attention back to the screen, and attempted to distract herself from the warm weight that remained on her shoulder the rest of the flight.
When Wednesday awoke, she simply sat up and apologized, making no further comments on the situation. When they exited the jet, the Addams family hearse waited for them. Out of the back, two figures exited the vehicle.
“Mi pequeña loba!” Gomez exclaimed, clasping his hands in front of him as he approached the girls. “We’re so happy that our little storm cloud finally tracked you down.” When he reached them, he pulled Enid into a tight hug.
Morticia followed behind him and put a loving hand on her shoulder. “We’re were quite worried about you, dear. Hearing of your safe return was relieving to say the least.”
“Oh.” Was all Enid managed to get out of her mouth for a moment as Gomez let go of her. “Um, thank you so much Mr. and Mrs. Addams. I’m surprised you guys came all this way just to see me.”
“As am I.” Wednesday gritted through her teeth. “I only requested Lurch’s assistance.”
“When we heard the news, we just had to come!” Gomez said.
“Come now, girls. Let’s get you back. It’s getting rather late.” Morticia added, gesturing to the car.
It was a long ride back to Nevermore, and, by the time they arrived, it was nearly midnight. They were then pulled in to speak with the acting principle, a very tired but kind woman in her mid forties named Jessica DuPrix, about the amount of school work they would be expected to make up for. She also gave Enid the stuff that she’d left in the lupin cages, which included her cell phone. Of course, not having been charged for four months left it completely dead.
Finally, at nearly one in the morning, they opened the door to their room in Ophelia Hall. For the first time in Enid’s memory, her side of the room was cleaner than Wednesday’s.
Wednesday’s side had two large cork boards haphazardly shoved into the space filled with photographs and papers attached to each other with black yarn. The photos looked like they were mostly from trail cameras and the notes Wednesday left were mostly about where the pictures were taken and where she thought Enid might be heading.
The floor was scattered with books and loose papers, some lying flat, some torn to confetti, some crumpled into frustrated little balls. Her typewriter sat on her desk, covered in a thick layer of dust from being unused for months.
Wednesday took a look at the state of her room and silently moved to start cleaning it all up.
Enid figured she should let her parents know she was alive, so she plugged her phone in next to her bed and stepped into the bathroom to change into pajamas. She picked up some things off her floor, feeling a little awkward to not be cleaning when Wednesday was, before her phone finally turned on and started pinging like crazy.
“What is that all about?” Wednesday asked, clearly annoyed by the onslaught of noise.
Enid quickly turned her phone to silent mode and looked at the screen. “Sorry. Phone’s been dead for a while and I just had like a thousand notifications come through all at once.”
Wednesday froze for a moment before going back to quietly cleaning.
Enid sat on her bed and looked at all the pop ups on her screen. From the five other members of her family, she had a combined total of seven texts and three missed calls, most of which seemed to be before they’d been notified that she’d gone missing. She sent a message in the family group chat.
•Hey everyone! I’m alive and back at
Nevermore.
She wasn’t sure if she’d get a response with it being so late, but one of her brothers messaged back that he was glad that she was okay.
Next she moved to messages from her friends. Yoko had sent twenty-three, Divina sent eighteen, Bianca sent fifteen, and Agnes had sent seven. Then there was the group chat which had seemed to continue on in her absence, but back around the time she disappeared most of the messages were about her. She decided to reply in there for convenience sake.
•I lived bitches! We def need to hang
tomorrow at lunch <3
Then, the messages she saved for last. She wasn’t entirely sure how many messages Wednesday had sent her, because her phone just said “99+” next to her name. She scrolled all the way to the top, figuring it would be best to read them all in order. The first text was from the day after she ran off,
•I will find you, Enid. This I swear.
Then there was nothing for a few days before the next messages. Wednesday sent her a picture of a missing poster, with a hand drawn image of Enid in wolf form,
•Thing and I are going to hang copies of this
poster throughout Jericho and some of the
surrounding towns.
Then, from that same day but several hours later came a picture of a pink stuffed rabbit sitting on Enid’s bed,
•While I was in town today, I saw this rabbit
and remembered you saying you loved it
when we once passed by the shop together.
•I’ve decided to name her Kaguya, after the
princess of a Japanese legend.
•She will be waiting for your return.
Sure enough, Enid looks over on her bed, and there sat Kaguya with the rest of her bed plushies.
The next were from a few days later,
•Someone has been tearing down your
missing posters.
•If I weren’t busy looking for you still, I’d be
hunting them down.
•Who do they think they are, interfering with
my investigation?
Two days later,
•No one has contacted me yet. I may need to
widen my search radius.
•If I remember correctly, you ran east.
Assuming you continued that way, I’m going
to put some posters up throughout New
Hampshire.
Three days later,
•I’ve finally got a lead. A farmer in New
Hampshire appears to have caught you on
a trail camera. I’m heading out immediately.
The next day,
•Fucking rain washed your tracks mostly
away. I lost your trail.
•Snowfall is going to begin soon, and it’s going
to be harder to track you.
Technically the next day at three am,
•Please come back
Two days later,
•I’ve just made a realization. I’m unsure how to
turn you back to human form when I find you.
•How careless of me. I should’ve figured that
out before even beginning the search.
•I’ll be conducting research on the topic today.
The next day,
•I believe I’ve found a solution.
•I should fit the parameters of what is
required to trigger your shift back.
•I’m relying on hope that this is the correct
answer. It is the only one I’ve found.
Five days later,
•I’ve been browsing online forums. Someone
posted another trail camera photo that looks
like it might be you.
•Seems you’ve made it all the way to Maine.
Four days later,
•Still no luck. Couldn’t find any trace of you.
•This is becoming rather frustrating.
Later that night, some messages came in that confused Enid,
•Whh are yot hidnf from me??
•I thoght you actully likd me
•Dtupid wolf runminf away ftom me
•I fuclinf hate yoi
A couple minutes after that,
•Hey E, it Yoko. Sorry about all that.
•Good news and bad news.
•Good, turns out Wednesday is really funny
when she’s drunk.
•Bad, she got significantly less fun after Ajax
brought you up.
•I didn’t even know she was capable of crying.
•Don’t worry tho. I’ll take care of her.
Wednesday never brought up that outburst, but most of her texts from this point on stopped being like updates to a case file.
Some were pleas,
•Come back, Enid.
•Please come back.
•I’ll give you whatever you want if you’d just
come home.
Some were angry,
•Why can’t you just fucking make this easy?
•Why don’t you want me to find you?
•What do I have to do to get you to stop
running?
After a long time of those kinds of messages, there was finally another update. There was another sighting in the middle of February that sent Wednesday on what was apparently her first venture to Canada, but that lead had gone dry as well, leading to another string of frustrated texts that filled most of the last weeks of the month.
In the middle of March, Wednesday sent some texts that really got under Enid’s skin as she read them,
•You are so incredibly cruel, Enid. Perhaps
even crueler than I.
•I believe I might actually hate you.
•The fact that you forced hope upon me, only
to rip it away is a punishment worse than
death.
•You told me that I was your pack, then left me
alone to freeze in the solitude I used to crave.
•I wish you’d left me to suffocate under that
fucking tree.
•At least in death, I wouldn’t miss the way your
smile brings warmth to my face.
•I hate you more than I’ve ever hated anything
you stupid mutt.
•I hate that you left me.
•I hate that I miss you.
•I hate that I hate you.
•I hate that I can’t find you.
Enid had to try really hard to suppress the urge to cry. Not because the things Wednesday said hurt her feelings, but because Enid had hurt her. Enid had made her feel that way. She decided to move on before her mind started spiraling further.
The next messages were from two days later,
•Apologies for the outburst, I’ve not been
sleeping much and it is making the frustration
compound horribly.
•Please be assured that I do not hate you.
I’m not sure I’m capable of doing so anymore.
•Truthfully, I am running out of leads. I have
one more to look into before I have to start
back at square one.
•Some hunters in northern Canada reported a
giant wolf with colorful fur.
•I beg of you, Enid, please still be there when I
arrive.
That was the final text that Wednesday had sent. Enid looked over to the other side of the room where Wednesday was sorting papers into different boxes. She had gone through so much to find Enid, and now here she is acting like everything is suddenly supposed to be normal again.
As Enid swings her foot off side of the bed, her heel hits something on the floor. She looks down and sees a book with a red bookmark sticking out of the top. “A History of Werewolf Mythology” the title reads. Out of curiosity, she picks up the book and opens it to the bookmarked page.
“In many versions of werewolf lore, it is said that if someone who deeply loves a werewolf speaks their name, the wolf would return to their human form.” The text is accompanied by four pictures of a hand reaching toward a paw that becomes another hand by the fourth one.
Enid thinks back to the moment Wednesday found her this morning.
“Enid Sinclair, come back to me. Please.” The words echo in her mind.
She steps off the bed and walks a couple paces toward Wednesday. “Is this the book you found that told you how to change me back?” She asked, her voice going hoarse as her throat dried.
Wednesday turned around and took the book from her, her cheeks blushing with embarrassment. “Yes it is.” She said flatly as she placed it in her desk. “I…didn’t intend for you to see it.”
“Why?” Enid asks, taking a tentative step closer.
She hesitates before answering. “Because now you know why I was able to make you shift back.”
Enid reaches out and grabs Wednesday’s hands. “And what’s the issue with that?”
Wednesday doesn’t seem to have an answer to that. She’s silent as she stares deeply into Enid’s eyes, her breaths getting shallow and her face getting warm.
Enid catches Wednesday glance down at her lips for just a moment, and hopes that is permission enough as she moves forward and presses their lips together. To her relief, Wednesday leans into the kiss instead of away from it.
When they pull back, Enid responds out loud to what Wednesday has been hiding behind actions for at least the last four months.
“I love you too, Wednesday.”