Byron Hill was one of those big towns in the USA that adorned their access road with a colorful welcome sign declaring it the best place in the country or other such hyperbole spewed by the minds of the tourism department of the city council.
But the truth is that it was a good town, almost a small city.
A not very big but very active urban center where some franchises alternated with many still upstanding family and local businesses, a landscaped central square in front of the town hall building which had its own clock tower, etc. All surrounded by housing and small apartment blocks followed by multiple neighborhoods and suburbs of family homes that had been added generation by generation, a high school with its own football field, municipal swimming pool, a small movie theater, multiple parks, some nearby farms and a huge expanse of wild and untamed forest.
Byron Hill was also possibly one of the oldest settlements in the country, second only to St. Augustine and Jamestown, although the town did not boast about it.
It was also one of the largest concentrations of outcasts residing in the same area outside of the major cities. If Byron Hill had anything to be proud of, it was its preschool and elementary education program based on the integration of humans and non-humans. Children of the most diverse species played and learned together, under the rationale that such early childhood contact was the best way to break down barriers.
Of course, there were always some dissenting voices, but fortunately the majority of the population of Byron Hill knew how to keep them at bay. The reality was that multiple outcast families resided there, discreetly but without hiding their conditions, and the town was home to two werewolf packs.
Byron Hill was thus a good place to live, respectful of its traditions but open to the new and willing to embrace change. A place where prejudice was minimal and where most of your neighbors wouldn't look at you funny when you walked in with your sunglasses on a cloudy day to buy blood in the supermarket area set up for that purpose.
No one was “weird” in Byron Hill.
Well... almost no one.
There were the Addams.
Okay. It may be a bit unfair to use that term to refer to them. The truth is that the Addams were quite well liked in Byron Hill: a young married couple who moved to town with their newborn daughters about six years ago now, one of them an author of renown and growing fame and the other a human-outcast relations activist, high school gym teacher and counselor for young lycanthropes in need. All perfectly respectable.
But it's just... well... it's just that they were weird.
Or at least there was something about them that was out of the ordinary, even by outcast’s standards, something that couldn't be fully explained by words alone... something kooky, and spooky.
Altogether ooky.
For example, let's look at the case of Enid Addams. As we have already mentioned, she has been the gym teacher at Harker High School for the last five years, an activist known for her abundant articles and campaigns for the improvement of conditions and defense of rights of outcasts and other marginalized social groups, and a great help for all those lycanthropes, especially the younger ones, who could not fit in the rigid rules of some packs or who simply needed advice. Enid Addams was open, a social butterfly, friendly and polite, always with a smile ready to lend a hand. A walking flash of color (always trying out new dye combinations on the ends of her blonde hair). She was reliable, firm in her convictions and someone you could count on. A good friend, a good neighbor.
She was also almost seven feet tall, with a muscular build, a scarred face, marble-white skin whose only color was the occasional blush on her cheeks and the dark circles around her bright, almost incandescent blue eyes. And her smile, always friendly, could not hide that beneath those red lips was a row of sharp teeth, each and every one of them like a small ivory blade. And even retracted, it was obvious that her fingers ended in claws and not nails.
But that was merely a matter of appearance. No, what really unnerved some people was the constant feeling that Enid was... uncanny. Standing next to her stirred in many people a primal, atavistic instinct that not even other outcasts could provoke.
The feeling that one was before a mega-predator. An ancient and powerful entity. Something that wasn't quite of this world and that could kill you with astonishing ease if it wanted to.
And she didn't even seem to realize it.
Mind you, the effect dissipated with time, exposure and getting to know her better. The affability and compassion in her character always won out. Enid Addams could be frightening, but she was also a ray of sunshine illuminating all those around her.
But where there is light there are shadows. And in the shadows cast by Enid Addams was her eternal companion, confidant, partner and lover. Her wife, Wednesday Friday Addams.
Now, this one you should be afraid of.
Wednesday Addams was nowhere near as social as her wife. She hardly ever left the house, at least during daylight hours, which had led Enid to have to deny more than once that Wednesday was not part of the local vampire community. One of the rare occasions when she had been seen in public was when, at the behest of the high school literature teacher and convinced by her wife, she gave a talk explaining the ins and outs of her work as an author to the students.
The thing ended up causing a small scandal among the students' parents when, instead of talking about basic creative endeavors or details of the publishing world, Wednesday devoted the talk to showing the real inspirations for the crimes in her series of novels, photographs of actual autopsies and in-depth descriptions of the most morbid and lurid details.
There were some fainting spells. And at least one student emptied the contents of his stomach. The rest, oddly enough, have regarded her as a local celebrity ever since.
Wednesday was a contrast to her wife in multiple ways. Enid radiated light and color, Wednesday seemed to carry her own cloudy day. Enid was tall, muscular, golden-haired and often wore brightly colored clothing. Wednesday was of modest stature, fit but slender, black hair pulled back in braided pigtails, and her clothes were a proliferation of blacks and grays, with only occasional uses of white and very now and then, purples or dark blues.
With a somber countenance, an expression that ranged from serious, annoyed and irritated to maniacally violent, and with few but always sharp words when she had to make a statement, Wednesday Addams strangely did not convey the same sense of danger as Enid. Indeed, there were more than a few who felt rather annoyed by her, even ready to confront her about some of her often misinterpreted remarks. For even when she had the best of intentions, Wednesday had the social finesse of a truck loaded with logs of wood that had broken loose and were sweeping through the rest of the traffic.
Of course, more often than not, Wednesday delighted in provoking such reactions, especially if her interlocutor had shown clear signs of prejudice or hypocrisy. And if things went further...
Well, Enid Addams could intimidate people even if she didn't want to or wasn't aware of it. Wednesday Addams didn't bother trying to intimidate you if you tried anything against her. The knife that suddenly as if by magic would have materialized in her hands and now rested grazing your throat is what should intimidate you.
Between sporadic run-ins of this nature with some of Byron Hill's more conservative neighbors and the bloodthirsty nature of her otherwise famous novels, more than a few were convinced that Wednesday Addams was a serial killer in the making, if not an already active one.
And in general, the family's aura of weirdness was not helped by other details either. Like Enid transforming into a wolf in broad daylight and without a full moon, to take her daughters to school sitting on her back. Or the inexplicable noises and howls that some people swore they heard coming from their house on Poe St. Rumors also circulated about Wednesday Addams walking the streets of town at midnight some nights carrying an amputated hand with her...
And then there were their daughters.
§§§
It was a Saturday morning. Despite being in the middle of winter, and with Christmas just around the corner, the day had decided to be sunny. It was the light filtering through the curtains that woke Enid Addams from her slumber.
Something that made her wonder, as it was not her usual way of waking up on a weekend.
Enid looked down at the stiff figure that her strong arms always hugged during her sleep as if it were the best cold pillow in the world. It was a phenomenon that would never cease to strike her as funny: no matter how much Wednesday slept hugging her, during her slumber she always reverted to her “ deceased” posture, sleeping stretched out like a board with her arms folded across her chest.
“Weds?” she whispered.
There was not the slightest sign of movement or muscle alteration, and yet Enid knew immediately that Wednesday had awakened, something that was confirmed when her dark eyes opened with a catlike flicker before looking up at the she-wolf.
“Mia lupa?” she asked, her voice slightly hoarse from sleep. She frowned as she watched the light come in through the window, “What time is it?”
“I don't know, but by the sunlight I'd say it's after ten in the morning,” Enid said, ”The girls haven't come to wake us up.”
It was the usual routine of their weekends: their daughters bursting into their room at precisely nine o'clock in the morning and jumping on their bed to wake their mothers. That they hadn't done it that particular morning broke the norm.
“Mmm,” Wednesday mused as she rolled over in bed to come face to face with her wife, “Yesterday they were whispering about going out hunting in the woods. Knowing Day I wouldn't be surprised if she had dragged her sister with her before sunrise."
“Maybe we should ask Cousin Intruder, she may have seen them out,” Enid suggested.
Wednesday nodded before sitting up slightly in bed and calling loudly, “Intruder! Are you there?”
The answer came a few moments later. An echo of footsteps rustling through the gaps in the walls and a female voice of a certain age following, emerging from somewhere above the ceiling of the room.
“I'm here, what do you want?”
They had never seen Cousin Intruder. They didn't even know her real name.
She was a homeless woman who had found shelter in the wide gaps between the walls of the old house before Wednesday and Enid moved in. The two soon became aware of her presence despite her efforts to remain invisible to the new residents. And to her surprise, she had been adopted as if she were a member of the family, receiving the nickname Cousin Intruder from the girls. She had even been formally introduced to other members of the Addams Family when they came to visit.
Always without ever leaving her hiding places within the walls.
“Have you seen the girls?” asked Enid, sitting up in bed.
“Oh, yes!” replied Intruder, “They went out early in the morning. Day asked me to let you know. Oh, and she left breakfast ready for you."
“Great, that means we probably have a biohazard waiting for us in the kitchen,” Wednesday muttered. Enid held back a giggle and shushed her before continuing to talk with Cousin Intruder.
“Did they say where they were going?”
“To the woods, behind the house. Something about hunting... I preferred not to ask for details. Ah, the Cartwright kid went with them.”
“Atticus? Well, that reassures me a little. With him present they'll try to restrain themselves, I hope,” Enid said, letting her head rest back on the pillow with a sigh of relief. The Cartwrights were normies, their next door neighbors and good family friends since the two had moved in. Their son Atticus was only a year older than the twins and had been an inseparable playmate of theirs forever.
“I hope they have enough sense to be back before noon,” Wednesday said, before an indecipherable expression crossed her face and she pinned her gaze on Enid as she absentmindedly began to caress one of the she-wolf's arms, “Though I guess it's also okay if they're a little late for one day.”
“Weds?” whispered Enid, trying to contain the blush that had sprung to her cheeks. And failing miserably when she suddenly felt Wednesday's lips on her chin and slowly moving down toward her throat.
“A morning all to ourselves, mia lupa,” Wednesday whispered, “How long since last time?”
A hungry growl of lust escaped Enid's throat, “Too long,” she replied, huskily, as she sat up to position herself on top of Wednesday and...
“You know I'm still here, right?” interrupted Cousin Intruder.
“We gifted you those sound-isolating headphones for a reason!”
§§§
“When you said we were going out hunting I thought it would be a game, and not...well, hunting,” muttered Atticus Cartwright. He was a boy of seven and unremarkable looking: short brown hair, brown eyes behind a pair of glasses that made them appear larger than they were, and wrapped in a bulky light blue winter coat.
“Hush Attie, you're going to scare him!” replied the girl crouched next to him behind the bush next to the tree they were using as a hiding place. In front of them, a few feet away, a hare was absentmindedly nibbling at some roots it had dug out of the snow.
The girl's name was Friday Saturday Addams. Day for family and friends, and mostly to distinguish herself from Cousin Friday. Of course, no one would ever confuse the two because Cousin Friday was older than her mothers and from another universe, but not everyone knew that.
Dressed only in jeans and a black sweatshirt, Day had no qualms about her bare feet touching the snow. The cold didn't bother her. She was a six-year-old girl, small for her age and as pale-skinned as her mothers. Her hair, as black as her eyes, was a voluminous tangle almost impossible to brush that Enid always remarked was typical of the Sinclairs, her old pack.
This, together with the small claws that had begun to appear on her hands and the pronounced fangs, were the main indications that Day had inherited Enid's lycanthropy. And since she idolized her lycanthropic mother, she had gotten it into her head to be the best wolf possible. And apparently that meant hunting a hare with her bare hands one December morning, much to the bewilderment of her best friend Atticus.
“A little more...a little more...,” muttered Day, tensing every muscle in her body.
The hare raised its head.
Now!
“RWAAAAAAAAAAR!”
Day emerged from the bush with a prodigious leap for her age and with her small claws extended, ready to clutch the flesh of her victim. Atticus hopped after her, trying to keep up, though he only managed to stumble into the bush and fall. The girl flew through the air and for a second it looked like she was going to succeed and land right on top of the hare, but the animal took off at a run and in an instant had slipped away displaying insurmountable reflexes, leaving the little girl to fall face first into the snow.
“Oof!”
There was a moment of silence broken by a giggle. A giggle that many would call adorable as soon as they heard it. To Day it was the most hellish sound on Earth.
The little werewolf accepted Atticus' hand to pull herself up from the snow and shot a furious glare at the laughing figure. Another girl sat high up on one of the tree branches with a book ajar in her hands watching the whole scene with an amused expression.
“Ha ha. You could come down and help instead of staying up there, Rissa!” retorted Day.
Larissa Tuesday Addams merely shrugged her shoulders, and smiled. Rissa always smiled.
The twin sisters were another exercise in contrasts almost as stark as their mothers. Unlike Day's dark, wild hair, Rissa sported straight blonde hair carefully styled in two braided pigtails in imitation of their mother Wednesday's. She wore a long, simple dress in shades of blue covered by a gray coat and sported boots suitable for snow. Her eyes were light blue, like a clear summer sky. Her skin did not present the sepulchral pallor of the rest of her family, being of a healthier tone and with rosy cheeks that contributed to reinforce the almost angelic aspect of her appearance. Something to which, initially, the cute smile that adorned her face also contributed.
On the surface, you might think that little Larissa was the most normal member of her family. Until you noticed that she never uttered a word (although her sister seemed to understand her as if they were having a conversation).
And she never stopped smiling.
No matter what the situation. On her face was always, fixed and unflappable, that smile. A smile that never quite reached her eyes, whose blue color suddenly seemed colder, a sign of a calculating look that always analyzed everything around her. The look of someone who has planned fifty different ways to kill you right after a first meeting but without having any malice towards you. Just for the fun of the mental exercise.
There was no signs of lycanthropy in Rissa. And although she seemed to be able to communicate silently with her sister, no traces of psychic or magical abilities had been found either. For all intents and purposes, she should be a normal child.
But she wasn't.
“She's an Addams” was all Wednesday had once opined on the matter. No more was needed. If there were any doubts about it they would vanish as she came down from the tree, dropping down and landing on her feet in the snow with hardly any sinking in. As if she barely weighed anything or the laws of gravity didn't apply to her at all.
Already on the ground, Rissa glanced at her sister, tilting her head slightly. Day, still shaking the snow off her and out of her hair, responded as if she had spoken to her.
“Yes, yes, I can see the sun is very high.”
“Rissa's right,” Atticus said, ”It'll be noon soon, and I don't know about you, but I don't want to get in any more trouble with my mom and dad after replicating that experiment of your cousin's with the frogs.”
“I don't know why they were so alarmed. Resurrected or not they were still just frogs,” Day replied, with Rissa nodding along with her as they started walking back towards the edge of the forest and the back gardens of their houses, with Atticus in the center of the formation and the two sisters walking to his right and left almost like bodyguards. It was a custom they had adopted at school to deal with any bully who tried to mess with their friend.
“By the way Attie, are you coming to the Christmas party?” asked Day when they were already out of the forest and arriving at their houses.
Atticus looked at her quizzically, “I'd like to, but... Uh... Isn't it supposed to be a family reunion?”
“Yep.”
“An Addams Family reunion,” the boy repeated.
“Yes. So?”
“Are you sure it's appropriate for me to...?” he started to ask before noticing the weight of a hand resting on his left shoulder. Atticus turned his head and found himself face to face with Rissa's smiling features and her blue eyes fixed on him. The girl merely shook her head gently, as if to say “don't think about it.”
Atticus looked back at Day, who was waiting expectantly for an answer. The boy merely shrugged and smiled nervously, “Well, if my parents let me I guess so...”
Day grinned from ear to ear revealing her sharp fangs before grabbing Atticus by the hand and running off dragging the boy in the direction of his house, “Great! Let's go talk to your parents!”
“Day! Wait! You'll rip my arm off!”
Rissa hung back, watching them go. A small satisfied “Hmm” was the only sound that came out of her mouth before she set off again towards home, fully aware of the high probability of finding her mothers in a compromising position.
And in that instant she stopped.
The girl stood still, as if paralyzed. Unconsciously she had clutched her book tighter than usual, pressing it to her chest. On her face her almost beatific smile was still present, unperturbed. But for the first time in her short life, there was a faint frown on her brow as she turned to stare into the trees of the forest they had left behind.
She could feel it, as clearly as she could feel many other things that would drive many people to madness.
Something, or someone, was watching.
NOTES
First things first... a thousand apologies! I know I warned that the pace of updates was going to be irregular for a while, but I was hoping to have this ready for New Year's and... well, here we are a week later. Sorry 😅
This is the second and last prologue, where we have a first contact with some new faces and we meet again our favorite couple. I hope you like it.
I hope you like the twins. By the way, writing the dialogue of small children is hell, I don't think I got it convincingly.
Atticus' last name is a reference to a character in an episode of The Addams Family 60's series. A no-prize for whoever figures it out.
Cousin Intruder was inspired by an old tumblr post whose url I can't seem to find.
No comments:
Post a Comment