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As Enid has learned over time, Wednesday’s nighttime routine is very uniform; an evening shower to wash away the day’s muck, a cello session on the balcony, and then lights-out. Wednesday is one of those people who rarely strays too far from the typical when it comes to her routine, and maybe Enid can appreciate the way her roommates leads an expected life, but when Wednesday crawls through the window half-past eight that night and immediately tells Enid that she’s going to go to bed, Enid quickly spins around in her chair and gives Wednesday an incredulous look.
“No shower tonight?” Enid asks her. Wednesday could benefit from one; she’s got dirt caked under the crescents of her fingernails and her braids are starting to come undone under the pressure of whatever she’s been out doing. “You always shower before bed. You don’t let outside germs in your bed.”
Wednesday’s body visibly sags as she lifts her messenger bag off her shoulder and hangs it over the back of her chair. “I will shower before class in the morning. I’m feeling more rundown than usual this evening. You don’t need to tiptoe around me. I can fall asleep to the sound of bombs and screams. You can continue doing whatever it is you’re doing.”
“Are you sick or something?” Enid asks, unintentionally scooting further away. “Just tell me if I need to quarantine myself. I have my last dance rehearsal in t-minus 21 hours. I can’t risk taking out everybody three days before the big night. The show must go on.”
Wednesday lifts her head from where she was leaned down to untie and remove her boots. “I’m not under the weather, Enid. I said I’m feeling rundown. I’ll be back to my typical self in the morning, but for now, I would like to get some extra rest.”
Now that Enid is getting a better look at Wednesday under the yellow lamplight, she notices deep, dark circles lining the undersides of her eyelids and silhouettes of tears forming grayish streaks on her cheeks. She tilts her head, concerned, and moves to stand up, but Wednesday is quick to duck away and turn her back to Enid.
“You don’t need to worry about me, Enid,” Wednesday says as she’s pulling back her heavy covers and fluffing up her pillows. “I’m going to slip into some suitable nightclothes and get a couple of extra hours of sleep.”
Enid gives a halfhearted shrug, although watching Wednesday prepare herself for bed without first showering is bizarre. If she weren’t worried about having one of her appendages broken off, she would feel Wednesday’s forehead and tuck her into bed herself.
Within the next ten minutes, while Enid is working on a research paper, Wednesday emerges from their adjoined bathroom, dressed in a comfortable and simple cotton black pajama set with white piping lining the seams of the button down top. She’s unusually quiet and slow as she moves from one end of the room to the other. When she’s brushing a coat of dust off her lampshade, Enid notices that her fingernails are clean but her hair continues showing evidence of an adventure she probably didn’t need to be on.
“Horrible dreams, Enid,” Wednesday says, trying to be somewhat polite, and turns off her bedside lamp as she gets situated in bed.
If there’s one thing Enid might be envious of, it’s the fact that Wednesday can fall asleep the same moment she closes her eyes. She rarely ever lays there in contemplation, she never tosses and turns herself into frustration, she hardly ever moves. Enid finds it admirable that someone can slip into unconsciousness and stay there, unmoving, for hours without needing to use the bathroom or having to flip the pillow to the cold side. It’s a talent, but it’s a Wednesday Addams thing.
Enid watches from afar, clicking her glitter pen. She tries, earnestly, to not pay too much attention or read too much into it, but she does throw a look over her shoulder every so often. Wednesday never twitches and her arms never move from where they rest crossed over her chest like she’s dead and buried in a casket. Wednesday’s not a snorer, either; her slumber is hallmarked by soft breaths leaving her body and the rise-and-fall of her chest with every deep sigh.
Suddenly, Thing jumps onto Enid’s desk, scattering her papers. She glares at him for a moment, then notices that he’s making an effort to sign at her. She watches him carefully, reading the way his fingers speak to her.
You saw the black tears?
“Well, it’s kinda hard to miss it,” Enid whispers, glancing over at Wednesday. “I dont want to ask. I know she gets super bothered when people ask invasive questions, especially if she’s feeling vulnerable. Better to leave it alone. Maybe she just needs some extra rest.”
I think it’s the psychic exhaustion again. Morticia tried to warn her.
Enid shrugs. “Yeah, but you know Wednesday is stubborn. She overuses her powers all the time and suffers the consequences for it. Mrs. Addams told me rest and quiet are the only ways to treat psychic exhaustion; well, besides not overusing her powers, of course. She’ll feel better after some sleep. Just be quiet and don’t wake her up.”
Thing salutes her and springs off the desk. Enid listens to his faint scuttling, until the sound of him fades away into the night wind. She plaintively looks at her mountain of papers that have been collecting on her desk over the course of the past few hours, and when she next looks at the time, she realizes that she’s been working on this research paper for far too long.
Deciding to make it a tomorrow problem and call it quits early, Enid tucks her incomplete essay away in a folder and quietly rises from her seat. She stretches up on her tiptoes, cracks her back, and moves across the room to shut the window. When she turns back, she notices, in the low lamplight, that Wednesday’s arms have fallen to her sides. She stares at her, perplexed, and then she decides that it’s not worth dwelling on. Not tonight, anyway.
Enid spends the next thirty minutes showering and dressing herself for bed, trying her best to be discreet and not disturb Wednesday’s slumber. When she emerges from the bathroom in a pastel pink pajama set and her hair slicked back into a loose bun, Wednesday has shifted to lay on her side with her knees tucked close to her chest. Enid pauses in the doorway, head tilted like a curious dog, and sighs. She shakes her head and climbs into her own bed, turning off her bedside lamp and laying her head against a bumblebee Squishmallow.
She counts Wednesday’s breaths from across the dark room, and when she gets to 86, her eyes slide shut and she falls asleep.
—
Enid might’ve been only dreaming, but something jolts her out of her sleep. She can’t recall having a nightmare or one of those psychedelic lucid dreams that Wednesday offend talks about, but she first thing she does notice is a sudden energy shift around her. It’s billowing and rising around her like smoke, but the room is dark and full of moonlit, shapeless shadows. Her heart starts to race and her throat dries up, even when she tries to swallow.
She blinks, and she knows then that she’s really awake and not trapped in an episode of sleep paralysis, although the slender and petite shadow hovering over her bedside might indicate otherwise.
“Wednesday?” she whispers, still too afraid to move, just in case the shadow is, in fact, an intruder. “Please tell me that’s you.”
The shadow doesn’t reply or give her any consolation. Instead it stands there, unmoving, unwavering, and it breathes very humanly but also quietly and evenly. In the silver moonlight streaming through the glass, it looks familiar but also like a blob.
Enid takes a big inhale through her nose and closes her eyes. There are notes of patchouli and ink, and once that fades, there is a subtle hint of formaldehyde and earth.
“Okay, it’s you,” Enid confirms aloud as she sits up in bed and flicks on her lamp.
The room suddenly partially fills with yellow light, casting an amber glow on Wednesday’s pale and stoic face. She’s standing close to Enid’s bed but far enough away that Enid can’t tell if she’s awake or not. Enid blinks a few times, trying to clear the goo from her eyelids so Wednesday looks more like a real person instead of an amorphous cloud.
“You okay, Wednesday? It’s…” Enid asks in a yawn. She wakes her phone and checks the time. “A quarter to midnight. You should be sleeping.”
It’s typical of Wednesday to not blink, but when Enid notices that she not only fails to blink but also to swallow or move, she grows a bit concerned. She carefully lifts a hand in front of Wednesday’s face and snaps her fingers. Nothing happens. Wednesday doesn’t flinch or move her eyes to follow Enid’s hand as it slowly travels down to rest on the bed.
“Oh,” Enid says, dumbfounded. “You are sleeping.”
Wednesday stares, but it’s an empty, eerie kind of stare that makes Enid’s skin start to uncomfortably prickle.
“That’s totally not creepy at all…” Enid trails off. “Wednesday? Can you hear me?”
Wednesday exhales but continues to stare. Her eyes seem much darker and dazed now, and her stare starts to extend beyond Enid and deepens further, like she’s trying to reach the depths of Enid’s soul.
“Okay,” Enid says as she throws the covers off herself and starts to get out of bed. It takes a moment, but she eventually comes to some sort of conclusion. “You’re sleepwalking. I need to get you back to bed.”
She’s careful about putting a hand on Wednesday’s bony shoulder. She read somewhere that it’s unsafe to wake someone who is sleepwalking, because they could wake at any moment and become violent when they come to in an unfamiliar environment, but it’s late and Wednesday is violent on any given day, so perhaps it won’t matter all that much.
“Come on. Back to bed,” Enid says to Wednesday, trying to gently steer her in the right direction, but Wednesday’s feet remain planted to the spot, acting as stubborn as she usually is in her waking life. “Wednesday. It’s late and we have class tomorrow. You need to go back to your bed.”
Wednesday’s uncomfortable stare burns a hole into Enid’s forehead. Her eyes seem to be moving and tracking Enid’s every shift in movement, but she never blinks.
“You’re really creeping me out,” Enid comments. “Can I grab your hand?”
Enid doesn’t offer her entire hand, but she does hold out her right pinkie finger and nudges it against Wednesday’s, testing the waters. Wednesday doesn’t fall for it, maybe because she’s sleeping, but also because Enid hasn’t been able to convince her to lock pinkies yet. Locking pinkies is like some sort of special level Enid hasn’t been able to unlock; she tries and fails every time.
“Okay, I’m grabbing your hand,” Enid says, suddenly authoritative.
When she takes Wednesday’s hand into hers, she expects some sort of knee-jerk reaction, like getting punched in the face, but nothing happens. Wednesday’s hand is cold in hers, Enid gently tugs Wednesday towards the other side of the room, glancing down between them to make sure Wednesday’s feet are actively moving under her. Wednesday is shuffling, eyes wide open, and Enid is patient as she walks her back to her own bed.
“Goodnight,” Enid says as she’s helping Wednesday lay back down. She fluffs up the black pillows and pulls the covers over Wednesday. “Quit staring. Close your eyes. You’re sleeping.”
In the shapelessness of the night, Wednesday’s stare can only be seen in the form of the whites of her eyes sparkling in the yellow lamplight that just barely stretches far enough across the room. Her dark pupils keep still, pinpointed on something on Enid’s face, as if she’s searching deeply for something important, and just as quickly as she blinks, her eyelids snap shut.
Enid’s shoulders sag as a soft, relieved breath leaves her nose. The worry bleeds from her skin and her muscles start unfurling. She waits, hovered over Wednesday’s bedside like a concerned mother, for the better part of a minute, and then she decides, once Wednesday has settled against her pillows, that whatever this was has finally ended. She takes another breath, gives her roommate another sympathetic glance, and quietly returns to her side of the dorm. She turns the lights off and makes a real attempt at getting comfortable under the covers.
The rest of the night is quiet.
—
The next night, as Enid quickly discovers, is hardly any different than the last, only this time she turns over in bed at half past two in the morning and cracks an eye open to find a short and slim silhouette hovering over her. She doesn’t startle as badly as she did last night, but there is a part of her soul that feels disturbed by the way the shadow never moves.
“Wednesday?” she asks in a soft groan, rubbing a hand over her face as she reaches over and starts fumbling around for the lamp switch.
She turns on the lamp, and a warm glow saturates her side of the room. Wednesday’s face, unwavering and still as stone, becomes the color of a summer evening sunset. Enid doesn’t immediately realize she’s staring; she stares until Wednesday moves forward the slightest bit.
“It is two o’clock in the fucking morning,” Enid says, and she knows that, for one thing, Wednesday is asleep, and for another, she’s being annoying by parroting TikTok audios again, which Yoko told her to quit doing, but it’s all factual. “I think it’s time you got your fucking ass in the bed.”
Wednesday’s knee bumps into Enid’s mattress as she’s trying to move forward. She stumbles back, her eyes suddenly blinking rapidly. She’s a few feet away from the bed, still blinking, before she suddenly comes to. She tilts her head at Enid, her big eyes traveling between herself and her vacant bed, where the pillows and blankets have been rumpled and strewn about.
“Enid?” she asks quietly, voice infused with exhaustion and confusion. She examines the palms of her hands for a moment, and Enid doesn’t know why it looks so innocent, but it does and her heart softens around the edges. Finally, Wednesday drops her hands to her sides and looks back at Enid. “Why am I not in bed?”
“You were sleepwalking,” Enid informs her, propping herself up on an elbow. “Again.”
There is a solid minute of silence between them. Wednesday glares at a random spot on Enid’s forehead, her mouth turning into a frown. She looks awfully constipated.
“Again?” she asks Enid. “What do you mean, again?”
Enid sits up more against her stuffed animals, deciding that if she has to have a full conversation with Wednesday in the middle of the night, she at least needs to be comfortable.
“You did it last night,” she tells Wednesday. “Kinda freaked me out, not gonna lie. But I took you back to your bed. You fell asleep—well, you closed your eyes—and didn’t get back up. So I thought it was a one-off thing. Sleepwalking happens sometimes. I wasn’t really worried about it after I put you back in bed.”
She’s fibbing a little—she absolutely was worried about it after she put Wednesday back in bed.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Wednesday asks. Her eyebrows furrow. “You should have told me.”
“It’s not a big deal,” Enid says, shrugging. “It happens. I did it when I was a kid. My dad just carried me back to my room. It’s not like it’s some contagious disease. It’s fine.”
Wednesday’s lips tighten. She takes a deep breath, straightening her back like a cat’s tail. “You can’t tell anyone about this. You’d better swear not to tell.”
Enid thinks about it. “I swear on my Aunt Margie’s grave. But it’s not a big deal.”
“For you, perhaps not,” Wednesday says. She doesn’t elaborate, so it definitely sounds cryptic to Enid’s curious ears, but Enid knows better than to pry too much with Wednesday, especially when they’re both feeling high-strung and irritable. “I’m going back to sleep. If I ever…do that again, you need to wake me.”
“Why would I do that when I can just put you back in bed?” Enid asks. “Seems like a waste of time and sleep.”
“Because I am asking you to,” Wednesday curtly replies. Her entire body seems rigid. “And don’t hide it from me. I need to know when I sleepwalk.”
Enid gives Wednesday a once-over, trying to understand her body language and why Wednesday’s shoulders seem to be trembling. “Has this happened before?”
“Maybe,” Wednesday says.
“That’s a yes.” Enid lays against her pillows and hugs a panda to her chest. “But it’s okay. I won’t tell. We don’t need to be weird about it, though. Shit happens and we can’t control it sometimes.”
“That’s very mature of you to say,” Wednesday observes. She means it earnestly, but it does seem a bit sarcastic. She sighs. “I’m going back to bed now. Terrible dreams.”
She crosses the room and vanishes into the shadows of her side. Enid waits until she hears the blankets drag over Wednesday’s body and the bed springs squeak under her weight before she turns out the light and settles back down in bed, this time more uncomfortable than before. Enid knows Wednesday has not fallen asleep yet by the way Wednesday’s breathing remains tight and unregulated.
“Wednesday?” she asks the ceiling.
“Yes, Enid?”
“Are you coming to my show on Saturday?”
After a minute of ruminating silence, she hears Wednesday’s shadow say, “Of course I am, Enid. I wouldn’t miss it for anything.”
They both sleep soundly until sunrise.
—
The night before Enid’s show is quiet and still, hallmarked by a gentle spray of midnight rain beating the window glass. Both Enid and Wednesday turned in early for the day, and while it took Enid some time to relax with the weight of her impending dance solo on her shoulders, she eventually fell asleep sometime before ten. Wednesday had been knocked out long before that, which initially seemed odd to Enid, but Enid wasn’t going to comment on her roommate’s recent unusual bedtime habits.
Maybe it’s a clap of thunder that wakes Enid at a quarter to one, or maybe it’s the blankets lifting on her left side, but her eyes slowly peel open to the sight of her ceiling. She feels a lithe and subtle weight sinking into the empty side of her mattress, the springs croaking and groaning. Her heart jumps into her throat and her eyelids suddenly shoot all the way open.
“Who’s there?” she whispers into the darkness. “Wednesday? Where are you?”
She fears turning to her left, in case someone has climbed through the window and is now spooning her, but her lungs fill with a familiar scent of patchouli and dust. The weight beside her shifts and a head drops into her shoulder, and then she feels the coolness of fingers brushing over her exposed forearm. Enid sharply inhales, turning her head.
“Wednesday?”
Stretching up, Enid turns on the lamp. Her eyes squint, trying to adjust to the light bathing her in yellow. A huddle of black clothes and equally black hair tucks itself under the covers. Enid quickly notices that the coldness on her arm is that of Wednesday’s fingertips grazing her skin. Wednesday’s sound asleep, her slumber only noted by her soft breathing and the way her jaw has gone completely slack enough that her Cupid’s bow lips have slightly parted.
“This isn’t weird at all,” Enid comments in a whisper, throwing her head back against her pillow. “Thing? You here?”
She hears the familiar scuttling of Thing’s fingers hitting the floor. He clambers up Enid’s bed using her blankets as a rope. She blinks absentmindedly at the black nightcap he wears on the stump of his wrist.
“Alright, Ebenezer Scrooge,” she says. She nods towards Wednesday’s who’s now curled into the fetal position. “This normal?”
Looking quite miffed by being rudely woken up, Thing huffs at her using his fingers.
“Quit being a drama queen. I don’t have time for it right now,” Enid sighs. “I asked you a question. You’d know more than I would.”
She hasn’t done it in a long time, Thing signs,
“So she’s done this before,” Enid surmises, glancing down at sleeping Wednesday with a certain fondness in her eyes as she brushes some hair away from where it hangs over Wednesday’s eyelids. She looks back at Thing, tilting her head. “We have shared a room for awhile and I’ve never seen this before.”
She used to sleepwalk when she was little. She always got in bed with Fester. He had to carry her back to her own bed.
Enid thinks for a minute. “Should I carry her back? I don’t want her to wake up and be upset she did it again. She seemed super embarrassed last time.”
She’s sensitive about it.
“You didn’t answer my question,” Enid says. “Do I carry her back? I can lift her. She’s fun-sized and I’m a werewolf.”
Do you mind her sleeping with you?
Shrugging, Enid glances at Wednesday. “I mean, it doesn’t bother me. It’s just that if she wakes up next to me, she’ll have a whole conniption. I really don’t want any drama. I have a big day. The show must go on.”
She won’t make a deal of it. She’ll pretend it never happened.
“Which is the Wednesday way,” Enid concludes with a sigh. “Fine. I’ll leave her. But if she starts hemorrhaging at the mouth about it—“
She won’t.
“Okay,” she finally says, deciding that it’s not worth pushing the issue. It’s so late and the tiredness is starting to seep into her bones. “Goodnight, Thing.”
Terrible dreams.
He jumps off the bed and scurries back to his own bed. Enid turns out the light and scoots down into bed, careful not to disturb sleeping Wednesday. She moves closer to the edge, allowing Wednesday more room to herself because she can only assume that this isn’t going to bode well come morning light, but she’s sorely mistaken when Wednesday worms her way closer to her, as if she’s chasing her warmth. Enid stops moving long enough for Wednesday to settle down against the bone of her shoulder, her breathing deepening the moment her cheek brushes the smoothness of Enid’s flesh.
Enid resigns herself to her fate. She throws an arm over Wednesday, protectively cocooning her to her chest, and rests her chin on the crown of her head where her hair parts.
Just before she falls back to sleep, she presses her lips to Wednesday’s head and breathes in the familiarity of old books and ink, but the way her lips feel so nice against her skin is hardly noticeable in her sleepy haze, and she prefers it that way.
—
The morning begins with pink post-storm light bleeding through the window. Enid rolls over in bed and immediately takes note of the obvious vacancy on her left side. There is a faint ghost of patchouli and dust and despair lingering on her sheets, but the midnight warmth of Wednesday is gone and the memory of her crawling into Enid’s bed last night is so fleeting, it almost feels like an obscure dream.
It’s a little after seven by the time Enid decides to get out of bed. The theater kids and Capri volunteered themselves to help with setting up for tonight’s big show in the auditorium, and Enid stupidly told Capri that she would help with the props. She doesn’t want to be painted a liar, so she starts her day early, and even when she waits for Wednesday to show her face, she doesn’t hold her breath.
The room is empty and quiet, all evidence of Wednesday’s presence gone, except for her belongings standing untouched throughout the room. Her bag and shoes are missing from their usual places, her bed is neatly made, and her lamp is off.
Whatever happened last night cannot be undone. Enid doesn’t entirely understand it all, but maybe it’s not meant for her to understand, and she’s going to have to be okay with never understanding, despite the gaping wound in her chest.
—
“The show must go on, Enid.”
Enid turns her head from where she was peeking around the velvet curtain and watching the freshmen perform their rendition of Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy. She just got out of hair and makeup and it all feels hot and heavy under the stage lighting, and her nude-colored leotard hidden under her costume feels itchy, and now Morticia Addams is staring at her with a peculiar fondness in her dark brown eyes.
“Yeah, I know,” she replies. She pauses, surveying the energy radiating off Mrs. Addams. She had been assisting with the setup and ensuring the dancers make it to their first X, but now she’s hiding behind the curtains and watching from afar. “T-minus ten minutes ‘til my solo.”
“Are you nervous?” Mrs. Addams asks.
“A little,” Enid says in earnest. “I’ve been practicing a lot, and I know that I know the routine by heart, but it’s different when you’re actually about to step on the stage. I’m never fully prepared for an audience.”
“It helps to imagine the audience in their underwear,” says Mrs. Addams. “I didn’t believe it either, until I got the part of the witch in Nevermore’s production of Hansel and Gretel. Eating children sounded delightful until I saw the crowd. So, I imagined them in their underpants, and I might have giggled a bit.”
Enid cringes. “Thanks, but I really don’t wanna imagine Coach O’Hare in his underwear. I don’t wanna puke onstage.”
Mrs. Addams chuckles and moves a misplaced hair from Enid’s face. “Understandable.”
The music starts to crescendo and speed up, and Enid can hear the thumping of twenty feet hitting the stage floor in time with the beat. She takes another brave peek from behind the curtain, her eyes reacting poorly to the bright white lights illuminating the stage that’s now covered in glitter fallen from wintry costumes. The auditorium spotlights leave a lot to the imagination, but she notices that Wednesday is nowhere to be found amongst Enid’s entourage of friends and foes alike who’ve come to either cheer her on or boo her because high school sucks.
Agnes floats by mid-pirouette, obstructing Enid’s view. Finally, Enid gives up and lets the curtain close. She turns around, halfway hoping Mrs. Addams has left. She’s sorely mistaken when she bumps right into a mass of black fabric that smells familiar.
“I didn’t see Wednesday in the audience,” she tells Mrs. Addams, looking up at her. Some glitter must have fallen from her eyeshadow and into her eyes, because from here, Mrs. Addams looks like a gothic fairy. “I thought she was gonna show.”
“She will, darling,” Mrs. Addams says.
“You sound sure of yourself.”
“I am sure of myself, Enid,” she reassures, patting Enid’s head but carefully as to not rumple it. “She wouldn’t miss this for anything.”
Enid hesitates. The music starts to slow and fade and she knows she’s running out of time to say what she wants to say, and although the circumstances and timing are poor, she may never again be so close in proximity to Wednesday’s mother without people around, and the thought has been eating away at her for numerous days.
“Mrs. Addams, could I ask you something?”
Mrs. Addams tilts her head, gazing fondly at Enid. “Of course you can, but it’s almost showtime.”
“I know. I’ll be fast.” She inhales. “Is it normal for Wednesday to sleepwalk?”
“She’s not done it in quite some time, but there was a point in her childhood where her father and I would always find her in the strangest places in the morning,” Mrs. Addams replies, looking at the shiny stage floor as if she’s going to find little Wednesday in the reflection. “Why do you ask?”
“Well, she’s done it a few nights in a row,” Enid says. “I’m a little worried. And, I don’t mean to be weird, but I woke up last night to her in my bed. It wasn’t inappropriate or anything like that, and best friends share a bed all the time, so I wasn’t, like, grossed out. But she’s not very affectionate, so now I’m worried.”
Mrs. Addams is quiet for a moment. “It’s been years, Enid. However, I did notice that she would sleepwalk during times of emotional distress, like when she started kindergarten, and when her beloved scorpion was murdered. Sometimes she would sleepwalk if she was feeling emotionally overwhelmed by something and couldn’t express it. Additionally, sleepwalking is common for seers when we overuse our powers. Psychic exhaustion is a real condition. I’ve warned Wednesday about it. I see she’s not minded my instructions.”
“Did it ever happen to you?”
“I do have experience with overusing my powers and sleepwalking as a consequence, yes,” Mrs. Addams sighs. “When I gave birth to Wednesday, I was always anxious about her dying in the most absurd ways—what if I accidentally dropped her into a pot of boiling stew? So I abused my powers to try and gain a little insight into her future, to see if she even had one. It didn’t work, because I was already too tired, and I ended up sleepwalking onto the balcony. Fortunately Gomez was there to find me and bring me back to bed.”
“How do I know if it’s psychic exhaustion or emotional damage?” Enid asks.
“You ask her.”
Enid wrinkles her nose. “No offense, but your daughter is emotionally constipated and doesn’t react well to people asking her personal stuff.”
Mrs. Addams smiles and goes to say something, but she’s interrupted by the audience cheering and the sound of the curtain pulling shut. The freshmen exit stage left and barrel backstage, giggling between heavy breaths. Capri guides them back to hair and makeup after giving Enid an encouraging thumbs-up.
“Showtime,” Morticia tells Enid. “Break a leg.”
Enid stumbles forward. She feels Mrs. Addams’s maternal hand guiding her towards the entrance of the stage. She watches as the curtain lifts and the spotlights beam down on her glittery makeup. Music starts to play as she emerges from behind the curtain. Her feet move on their own, using their muscle memory to push Enid forward, and as she’s on her first X, her eyes start scanning the crowd. She doesn’t find Wednesday amongst her entourage, and at first she thinks she’s doing this for nothing and Mrs. Addams did in fact lie to her to make her feel better, but then she notices a familiar shadow hovering in the center of the audience, standing behind the middle seat of the last row.
It could be Wednesday, or it also could not be, but either way, the show must go on.
—
At the end of the night, Enid returns to her dorm at half past nine. She’s carrying her dance bag on her shoulder and walking in only a pair of socks, her shoes swinging loosely in her hand by their laces. She drops everything in the doorway with a heavy thump before surveying the room. It’s noticeably empty and silent, but there is a vase of morning glory on her desk. She perks up, moving quickly to her desk to get a better look. There isn’t a card or note, which is somewhat perplexing.
“I stole them from the cemetery,” Wednesday’s voice calls out.
Spinning around, Enid bumps right into her. She takes a step back. Wednesday’s eyes focus uncomfortably on Enid’s makeup that’s coming off in streaks down her face from the heat of the stage lighting. She sparkles in the moonlight, glistening like a diamond ring.
“You brought me flowers?” Enid asks. “That’s so sweet.” She thoughtfully touches a petal. “I thought you weren’t gonna show.”
“I told you I wouldn’t miss it for anything,” Wednesday says. “Why didn’t you believe that?”
“You were practically a ghost this morning,” Enid says, and she knows it’s a sore spot, but it’s equal parts sore and true. “I just assumed…”
“I was embarrassed,” Wednesday admits, being surprisingly candid for someone who can hardly admit to fault. “I couldn’t show my face here.”
“Why?”
“Enid, I think you know why,” she replies, taking a deep inhale. She presses her lips tight together. “Don’t make me elaborate.”
“So you sleepwalked into my bed last night, big deal,” Enid passively says with a halfhearted shrug. “It’s not like you killed somebody.”
Wednesday’s eyes move to the floor. “I might have been more okay had that happened instead.”
Enid snorts. “That’s such a you thing to say.”
“It would be less humiliating to come to terms with,” Wednesday huffs as she lifts her head. “I never intended to do that.”
“What, get in bed with me?” Enid asks, because it sounds bizarre coming out of her mouth. “It’s really not a big deal. We kept our clothes on.”
It’s meant to be a crass joke, but Wednesday doesn’t seem to find it amusing; instead the color drains from her lips and her eyes blink rapidly.
“Don’t think I didn’t see you speaking to my mother,” Wednesday suddenly says. She sounds short of breath and hurt. “I saw you.”
“She’s a nice lady, Wednesday,” she replies. “And I needed to talk to her.”
“About my sleepwalking episodes,” Wednesday surmises, folding her arms like an angry toddler. “I know.”
One of Enid’s eyebrows shoots up. “You know?”
“I know.”
“Oh.”
“You swore on your Aunt Margie’s grave.”
Enid shrugs. “Yeah, well, I don’t have an Aunt Margie.”
“I assumed as much,” Wednesday huffs.
“How did you hear all that?” Enid asks.
“I was behind a nearby curtain. My autism doesn’t impact my hearing,” Wednesday says. “I understand you want an answer to your question. The answer is that my sleepwalking has been triggered by both mental strain and psychic exhaustion. But for the sake of my sanity, I’d prefer that you not relay that to my mother.”
Enid nods. “Okay, I guess.” She wipes some glitter off her eyelid and smears it between her fingers. “What’s with the mental strain? How bad? Because you’ve been beaten and thrown out a fucking window and survived. If that didn’t trigger it, what did?”
Wednesday glares at no particular spot on the floor, avoiding eye contact. Enid doesn’t miss the way her shoulders quiver.
“I’ve been abusing my powers,” she confirms, still refusing to lift her head. “I’ve been having these particularly disturbing dreams. More recently they’ve consisted of your death in some way. I’ve been overextending my powers to try and get a glimpse into the future.”
“To see if your dreams are real?” Enid asks, tilting her head.
Wednesday nods. “Being a raven, it can be difficult to decipher whether or not dreams are just that. We can have visions in our sleep. Most won’t be able to pinpoint them as visions, because we’re sleeping and dreaming. I did what I had to do. You’ll be relieved to know that I’ve found no evidence that my dreams are premonitions trying to come to fruition. They’re simply dreams.”
“And the sleepwalking?” Enid tries to be gentle about pressing the issue. She tries, carefully, to probe without upsetting an already upset Wednesday. “Your mom said you did it when you were little.”
“I did,” Wednesday confirms. She finally lifts her head and looks Enid in the eye. “I would often sleepwalk to Uncle Fester, sometimes to Grandmama, when she would stay overnight. Sometimes my mother would find me curled up in our cemetery. I wouldn’t go too far, but I would go far enough that it became very noticeable. I always ended up somewhere I felt safe and comfortable.”
“Like in my bed,” Enid says.
“Don’t flatter yourself,” Wednesday huffs. “It hardly means anything.”
“Well, according to you, it means that you feel safe and comfortable in my presence,” she replies with a shrug. “I think that counts for something.”
“Perhaps. Perhaps not.”
Enid sighs. “Can you quit being so emotionally constipated for once? It’s okay to say that you feel safe around me. Your subconscious clearly feels protected by me if you sleepwalked into my bed.” She smears some more glitter between her fingers. “And what if I said that I care about you a lot? What if I said that I feel equally safe in your presence?”
“I wouldn’t believe you.”
“So now I’m a liar.”
Wednesday’s jaw visibly tightens. “I never said that.”
“It was implied.” Enid hesitates a moment. “I don’t wanna argue. I feel safe with you as much as you feel safe with me. And you can’t deny that you fe safe and comforted by me. You practically melted in my arms.”
For a moment, the last bit of color drains from Wednesday’s face.
“I was sleeping. You can’t hold me to that when I’m awake,” Wednesday says. “We’re all vulnerable when we’re unconscious.”
“You were wrapped around me like a little koala,” Enid says on the end of a giggle. “And don’t get all embarrassed. I thought it was cute.”
“Cute,” Wednesday parrots with disgust in her voice. “I’m no such thing.”
“I said you are,” Enid says. “Deal with it.”
“Why are you trying to flatter me?” Wednesday asks, tilting her head. “What do you get out of it?”
Heat starts creeping up Enid’s neck in a fiery blush that glitters under the coating of stage makeup dusted over her skin.
“It’s not about getting anything out of it,” she says. “Can’t you just take a compliment?”
“Hardly.”
“Clearly.”
Wednesday’s eyes move from the floor to Enid’s eyes. Her stare is dark but somehow bright all at once. There’s a glint of either mischief or guilt in the swirls of her pupils.
“If I have to be honest, I’d have to say that I do feel safe in your presence,” Wednesday eventually says, and it looks painful. “As much as it pains me to admit it, I’ve always felt safe in your shadow. Dare I say that you might be the only person outside of my bloodline to ever accomplish that.”
“That’s, like, the best compliment ever,” Enid gushes, her excitement manifesting in her hands as they curl into fists and shake happily. “To be your safe person is like winning the lottery.”
Wednesday’s shoulders droop. “Quit self-aggrandizing.”
“Am I wrong?” Enid asks.
Without missing a beat, Wednesday says, “Not at all. It’s a rare occasion that I feel secure in the presence of another.”
Enid simply smiles, the corners of her eyes crinkling. They don’t say anything for a minute. If nothing else, Wednesday admires Enid and the way she seems to sparkle in the moonlight. She knows it’s the glitter in the makeup, but she can’t help but to stare, and Enid notices.
“So…” Enid says. “How did you get to the cemetery and back so fast tonight? The show ended half an hour ago and the cemetery is a far walk.”
“I didn’t visit the cemetery tonight,” Wednesday replies. “I stole the flowers before showtime. I wanted them to be here after the show, to congratulate you on your solo. I knew you would ditch the after party that Capri and my mother organized.”
Enid raises an eyebrow. “How did you know I was going to give a good performance?”
“I didn’t have any doubt.” Wednesday shrugs. “I know you.”
“You do,” Enid says, gesturing to the flowers. “I love morning glory.”
“I know. You mentioned it to Bruno once,” she says, trying to keep her cool, but even the mere thought of Bruno makes her angrily frown. “He didn’t listen to you.”
“He didn’t,” Enid confirms. “But you do.”
“That’s what…friends do,” Wednesday says.
“Yeah, friends,” Enid echoes. She looks at Wednesday in earnest now. “So…you’re not mad anymore? About the sleepwalking thing?”
“I can’t exactly prevent it,” Wednesday says. “I was angry this morning, when I had realized what I’d done. I was worried, at first, that you might become avoidant of my presence in fear of me. But as I thought about it, I came to the conclusion that it would take much more than that to scare you off. You’re a persistent person.”
“I mean, if your collection of dead things and your autism preferring serial killers as a special interest hasn’t scared me off by now, I highly doubt it’ll ever happen,” Enid says.
Wednesday’s face softens. “Fair point.”
“And, really, I love you, so there’s that,” Enid blurts.
The room goes so quiet a pin could be heard hitting the floor. Enid takes a step back, immediately clamping her mouth shut. At first, Wednesday looks a little too indifferent for her liking, but then she shuffles forward with her chin tilted confidently and her eyes more certain now than they have been the entire evening.
“Don’t be facetious, Enid,” she says, her voice oozing worry. “That is a very strong word to use. It’s not meant to be used if you don’t mean it.”
“But I do mean it,” Enid says. She tries not to sound afraid, but it’s not feasible when Wednesday is looking at her like a kicked puppy. “I promise I do. I love you.”
“I believe you,” Wednesday immediately says. “Sacrificing your humanity to save my life was more than enough proof. Especially considering that I’m an insufferable troglodyte and an intolerable piece of work.”
“You said it, not me,” Enid giggles. She relaxes and her eyes start to sparkle. “But I love you. A lot. You’re emotionally constipated but you still know me more than anybody else in this world.”
“The feeling is incredibly mutual, Enid,” she says.
For the next minute, neither one moves or says a word. Instead they stare longingly at each other, and when Enid considers asking Wednesday well, now what?, Wednesday moves closer and closer and stands on her tiptoes. She doesn’t lean in entirely, trying to be patient and not seem so desperate, but once Enid tilts her head down, she’s quick to press her lips to Enid’s.
The kiss is quick and fleeting, but it leaves Enid feeling warm and secure. When they part, Wednesday’s cheek is sparkly and bright. Enid giggles.
“I hope you’re not allergic to glitter,” she tells Wednesday. “Here, I’ll get it.”
Her thumb gently presses to Wednesday’s cold cheek and starts to wipe away the glitter, but Wednesday sidesteps and turns her head.
“Leave it,” she says.
“But you’re probably allergic—“
Wednesday interrupts her with another kiss, smearing glitter on her other cheek. Now she’s shimmering in the moonlight, just like Enid.
“It’s nothing an antihistamine won’t fix,” she says. “And, if you confessed your love to me, you must be anticipating that we’ll be doing this much more often. I suppose I’ll need to get used to the idea of being covered in costume makeup and glitter.”
“Well, I was kinda hoping.”
Wednesday nods. “The show must go on, Enid. I think you know that.”
Enid smiles and pulls her close by her waist.
“Yeah, I know.”