Wednesday Through the Looking-Glass: Blood Doesn't Lie [Wednesday]

The Scent of Fog and New Beginnings

The sky over Jericho promised nothing good. By Wednesday Addams's standards, it was an excellent way to start the term. The clouds had massed above the spires of Nevermore Academy like a violet bruise, swollen with cold rain ready to turn the surrounding woods into an impassable swamp.

The window of the café across from the station threw off irritating reflections, but Wednesday chose to focus instead on the methodical, hypnotic tick of the wipers against the windshield of the family car. Lurch was driving in silence, his gaze fixed on the dirt road. He was the ideal travelling companion: he felt no compulsive need to fill the void with useless words or empty pleasantries, unlike the rest of the Addams clan, who had seen her off with a mix of theatrical sobbing and threats of spectral infestations.

On the back seat, the velvet‑lined wooden box that housed Thing let out a faint tapping. A nervous, brisk Morse code.

"Yes, I know. We're seven minutes late," Wednesday replied, without taking her eyes off the muddy landscape. "But considering that my last stay at Nevermore ended with a body to bury, a partially skinned mythological monster, and an entire teaching staff in therapy for post‑traumatic stress, I'd say the welcome committee can wait. Haste is a virtue of the condemned. I prefer to choose my gallows carefully."

When the car finally passed through the wrought‑iron gates, the finials flashed metallic under the dim afternoon light. The school's gothic building rose against the leaden sky like a rotten tooth ready to be pulled. Nothing had changed in the severe lines of the dark stone. Or perhaps everything had changed beneath the surface.

The courtyard was a chaotic swarm of Outcasts, an ecosystem of anomalies that Wednesday found at once ridiculous and tolerable. Sirens traded gossip on the steps with the same frequency with which they shed iridescent scales; a knot of first‑year vampires huddled under oversized black umbrellas, moving with calculated slowness to shield their spectral complexions from the last hours of light; a little farther on, a few shapeshifters were making clumsy efforts not to growl at the vans unloading luggage, their territorial instincts sharpened by the damp air.

No sooner had Wednesday set foot on the wet cobblestones than a blurred splash of pink, highlighter yellow, and blatantly illegal enthusiasm materialised in her path.

"Wednesday! Oh my God, Wednesday! You're here! I thought your parents had locked you up in some family crypt with no reception as punishment!"

Enid Sinclair was literally bouncing on the spot. Her nails, painted in a bizarre mix of pastel colours, were already stretching forward in a desperate attempt to turn Wednesday's arrival into a hug. Wednesday stiffened at once, raising a single gloved hand to establish an insurmountable perimeter of biological safety.

"Enid. I see your ability to emit ultrasounds at frequencies lethal to the human ear has remained unchanged over the holidays. I was hoping the full moon might have mitigated your peaks of hyperactivity."

"I missed you too!" the blonde exclaimed, not in the least discouraged by her friend's glacial warmth. She grabbed one of Wednesday's suitcases before Lurch could take it, leading the retreat towards the main entrance. "You absolutely have to come up to our room. I redrew the borderline on the floor. Now it's neon fuchsia, so it pops more and goes better with my new set of space‑kitten sheets. But forget the sheets. Wednesday, you have no idea what happened this morning. The school is literally freaking out."

Wednesday arched an eyebrow, tightening the collar of her black coat as they climbed the worn stone steps. "Has someone finally decided to set fire to the journalism club, or did the cook mix up cyanide and salt?"

"No. Worse," Enid whispered, dropping her voice sharply and glancing around with exaggerated caution, as if the walls could listen. "There's been a collective mental blackout. At least ten people woke up suddenly this morning in the back courtyard, lying in the mud, with no idea how they got there. And the craziest part? None of them remembers the last three hours of last night. Not even Bianca—and you know how much of a control freak she is when it comes to her memory. It's like someone took an enormous eraser and scrubbed their brains clean."