Mosaic art by barblaz-arts/Barbara_Lazuli
Bianca Barclay had never been a big fan of Parents' Weekend.
As a teenager, it was for obvious reasons. Her whole personal situation, her fractured relationship with her mother, the shadow of Morning Song always hanging over her... No, Bianca was not looking forward to facing a couple of days that, with each passing year, felt more and more like a growing risk.
As principal of Nevermore, her reasons were more numerous and varied.
To begin with, the whole thing was a logistical nightmare.
It wasn't just a visitation day, it was a whole weekend of family gatherings in which Nevermore, at the request of the board, committed to provide accommodation for those parents who couldn't manage on their own or didn't have the means to do so.
Then there was the matter of meals, expanding the kitchen team's workload to almost triple its usual capacity. And outcast diets were varied and sometimes potentially dangerous for the occasional normie parent of a first-generation outcast.
It was utter chaos, barely under control.
The other reason that made the day a bitter experience was some of the parents themselves, both those who were present and those who were not.
It was a horrible experience to witness bright, sociable, and eloquent students retreat into silent replicas of themselves in the presence of parental figures who were clearly not ideal, to say the least.
And then there was the other side of the coin, those parents who didn't bother to show up even for a day... for Bianca, it would have been an ideal situation when she was a student, but even then she was well aware that her case was exceptional and that there were many young outcasts who would have given anything for a glimmer of attention or the presence of an absent parent.
And as principal of Nevermore, all of that was magnified for her.
Because although Bianca did not consider herself a particularly maternal person, she did consider each and every one of her students to be hers. And she would never tolerate anything that could harm them, not even if it came from their own families.
Finally, there was another element of Parents' Weekend that made her somewhat nervous. Something much more trivial in the grand scheme of things.
Specifically, the visit of old friends.
One couple in particular.
It was still relatively early in the day. Bianca was in her office giving a final review of the celebratory speech she would deliver during the midday feast. The academy was already buzzing with activity, and she could hear the noise of excited students and the first parents arriving at the premises.
It was in the midst of all this, fully focused on her work, when someone knocked on her office door. Somehow, she knew immediately who it was.
“Come in, it's open.”
The door opened and two figures as different as night and day entered the room. Bianca couldn't help but suppress a slight smile when she saw them.
Even after two decades of marriage, Wednesday and Enid Addams remained an exercise in contrasts that somehow inexplicably complemented each other. The dark, sober clothing of the former clashed with the bright, vibrant colors of the latter almost as much as their personalities contrasted.
They shouldn't have worked, but they did.
Bianca was of the opinion that Wednesday Addams' disposition had softened subtly over the years. Something she would never say out loud or where the Addams could hear her, because despite everything, she was still capable of skinning an adult alive if she set her mind to it. But it was true that although she remained serious and somber, Wednesday no longer had the constant shadow of poorly contained irritability of her younger years. At least, if you weren't stupid enough to provoke her.
For her part, Enid remained a ray of sunshine in human and occasionally lupine form. Even in her forties, she vibrated with an energy and vivacity that far surpassed that of much younger people. This was reinforced by a clear increase in self-confidence and a contained ferocity that she only brought out on occasion. To her family and friends, Enid might be like a puppy... but she was still a werewolf puppy, and only someone with suicidal tendencies would provoke something with enough strength in her jaws to break bones even without transforming.
Although Wednesday was the first to cross the threshold and enter the office, Enid quickly rushed past her, extending her arms.
Bianca got up from her desk, not bothering to try to avoid the inevitable, and let the she-wolf's two strong arms wrap around her in a hug that made her ribs creak.
“Biancaaaa! Hiiii!”
“Ugh... hi Enid, good to see you.”
Wednesday approached more slowly, stopping a few feet away from Bianca and simply crossing her arms in front of her with a look of calculated indifference.
“Barclay,” she said, in a tone barely discernible as a greeting.
“Addams,” replied Bianca, striking the same pose after finally freeing herself from Enid’s arms.
The werewolf, for her part, simply let out an exasperated snort and rolled her eyes, “Come on, girls, please. You’re both friends. It makes no sense to keep up this posturing after so many years.”
“It's not posturing, querida, it's our own personal ritual.”
“And honestly, if Wednesday started calling me just Bianca and greeting me in a conventional way, I would take it as the first sign of the Apocalypse,” said the principal.
The Addams raised an eyebrow, “The second one. My mere presence already counts as the first sign wherever I go.”
“Ah, there it is. The same old humility.”
Enid sighed, “Aaagh, I live surrounded by edgelords... Would it hurt you two so much to give each other a hug?”
“Third sign of the Apocalypse,” Wednesday and Bianca replied at the same time, causing Enid to let out a pitiful growl.
Bianca laughed, patting the blonde werewolf gently on the shoulder. “Anyway, I suppose you're here for the annual report, right?”
“Among other things,” said Wednesday, in a tone that immediately caught Bianca's attention. The Addams was up to something.
But whatever it was, she would deal with it in time. Bianca gestured toward the desk, inviting her visitors to sit down. “Shall we proceed, then?”
The three sat down. Bianca pulled a stack of papers from one of her desk drawers and placed it on the table as Enid leaned forward with a smile, “Well... How is my little puppy doing this year?”
Bianca placed another stack of papers and folders on the table, even larger than the previous one, and looked at Enid, raising an eyebrow. “Do you want my answer as an education professional or as a trusted friend?”
“Trusted friend,” Enid replied, after thinking about it for just a second. Sitting next to her, Wednesday simply nodded in agreement.
“Well, how can I put this...” Bianca began, “Vega Addams is both a delight as a student and a nightmare I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.”
Enid's smile froze slightly, but only a little. In contrast, Wednesday's face had taken on an expression of satisfied pride in the form of a smirk.
Bianca addressed her immediately, “Save that smile, Addams,” she said, pushing the first stack of papers toward them, “Now, from an academic perspective... Vega is an exemplary student. Brilliant. Her academic performance cannot be questioned by any standard. Here you have multiple reports of qualifications, classwork, practical exercises, various recommendations... She is active in multiple clubs, and despite some peculiarities in avoiding physical contact except for a couple of exceptions, she seems to be reasonably sociable with the rest of the student body."
“Well, that sounds great,” said Enid, happy for her daughter.
“She certainly takes after Wednesday when it comes to brains,” Bianca continued, “and unfortunately, that's also part of the problem.”
“Uh oh,” Enid muttered.
Bianca gave the she-wolf a reassuring look. “It's nothing as serious as Miss-I'm-Going-To-Torture-Hydes-In-My-Spare-Time present here. But the truth is that this same brilliance causes Vega to get bored easily with much of the material taught, and her respect for most of the teaching staff is, to put it delicately...”
“Average?” ventured Enid, even though she knew that wouldn’t be the case.
“Practically nonexistent and similar to that of a deranged gremlin,” Bianca continued, pushing the second and larger stack of papers filled with reports of complaints and transgressions, “Seriously, of all the staff, she only seems to take me and Mrs. Deetz, the spiritualism teacher, into consideration.”
“That my daughter respects you so blindly will never cease to amaze me,” Wednesday said.
Bianca just shrugged, “What can I say? The girl's not stupid... Now, the other part of the equation and the problem is that Vega also takes after you quite a bit, Enid.”
“Me? How could that be bad? I was a model student.”
“Until you met me,” Wednesday said.
“I mean, a little basic criminal knowledge isn't all bad...” Enid muttered, before gesturing for Bianca to continue.
“Well, Wednesday here used to get others involved in her shenanigans through omission, lies, manipulation, or sheer bad luck,” Barclay explained, "Vega, on the other hand, has inherited your sociability to a certain extent, and although she reserves it for a very select group of people, two in particular, she has earned their full loyalty. Which means that those two are always guaranteed to be involved in her misadventures."
“One is Sora, right?” Enid asked. “Sora Toriyama? I imagine that after what happened last year...”
“On the bright side, there haven't been any incidents of that scale since,” Bianca said, recalling how her lupine student and the young medium who would end up entering Nevermore shortly thereafter had solved the local murder of a young normie student from Jericho. “But they've been joined by Regine Ottinger, and between the three of them, they've already uncovered a case of violent poltergeists in the old wing of the academy, discovered evidence of a possible anti-outcast teen cult that was using the ruins of Willow Hill as its base of operations, and possibly sent a student to the hospital for his alleged abusive behavior toward his girlfriend, although we have no proof that the girls were actually responsible for that.”
And honestly, it's not like we've looked very hard for it either, she thought.
“Oh dear, Eugene's daughter,” said Enid, “And I was hoping she would be a good influence.”
“Eugene was someone who was willing to break curfew for our investigations without me even having to ask,” said Wednesday, almost nostalgically, “Honestly, I expected nothing less from his offspring.”
“Look... if you want my opinion, you have nothing to worry about, not really. Vega is excelling in her studies, and apart from that, nothing of the same magnitude as last year has happened, and of course, despite her propensity for trouble, Vega has not reached the escalation of events perpetrated by a certain person I know,” Bianca concluded, casting an amused glance at Wednesday.
“Give her time,” replied the Addams.
“Weeeds,” whimpered Enid.
Bianca glanced at her watch. “Well, if that's all... It's going to be a very long day, and you two are just the first in a loooong line of parents I'm going to have to deal with over the next two days.”
“Before that,” Wednesday interrupted, pulling an envelope out of her jacket. “I have something for you,” she said, offering it to Bianca.
Bianca took the envelope, glancing at Wednesday, who simply said, “Please read it right now.”
Raising just one eyebrow and keeping the rest of her face completely expressionless in a way that would be the envy of experienced poker players, Bianca opened the envelope and took out the small note inside. It was a short text written in Wednesday's elegant handwriting.
Barclay,
In thirty seconds, I will get up to open the door to your office.
Two people will follow me inside.
The moment they do, you must remove your pendant and use your siren song towards the office fireplace.
Use the command “Drop it.”
W.A.
Bianca hid her surprise, merely glancing at Wednesday while pretending to continue reading. She also looked at Enid for a moment.
Enid Addams nodded and smiled, but Bianca saw a gleam in her eyes that she had only witnessed on rare occasions in the werewolf. That told her that whatever it was, she had to take it seriously.
And it was fortunate that she came to that conclusion so quickly, because the thirty seconds passed in a flash and Wednesday got up, walking steadily toward the office door. Vague voices could be heard from outside, although Bianca recognized those of Vega Addams and Sora Toriyama among them...
Wednesday opened the door. In front of her, she could make out the outlines of two female figures, difficult to distinguish due to the light coming in from outside.
She could hear snippets of conversation.
“Friday and Woe, isn't it?,” asked Wednesday.
The two women seemed to react with surprise, judging by their body language. Bianca could hear Sora Toriyama muttering, “Uh... but how did she...?” before one of the women interrupted her with a voice that sounded abnormally familiar.
“Psychic seer, just like our Wednesday. I assume you've seen us coming for a while now.”
What the hell, thought Bianca.
“Oh, much more than that,” continued Wednesday, “We have a lot to talk about.”
With those words, Wednesday turned and reentered the office, the two women immediately behind her. In that split second, Bianca understood who they were, however impossible it seemed, and knew she had to act because all of this had led to the kind of situation Wednesday Addams dragged her friends into, which surely involved some kind of mortal danger in one way or another.
As soon as the second woman crossed the threshold, Bianca ripped off her pendant and used her siren song toward the fireplace in the office, almost shouting.
“DROP IT!”
Many things happened in the few seconds that followed.
First, there was the loud, thud of something heavy falling to the floor. Bianca saw what looked like a silver pistol on the stone in front of the fireplace that hadn't been there a split second earlier, as if it had materialized out of thin air.
Enid then literally jumped out of her seat with a wolf-like growl and struck the air in front of the fireplace with all her might.
Except it wasn't the air she hit.
The air actually seemed to fragment in a strange optical effect, as if thousands of tiny crystals had shattered, and suddenly a figure materialized out of nowhere, a woman wrapped in a red cloak and hood who received Enid's fist directly to the face, throwing her against the hard marble ornamentation of the fireplace before falling unconscious to the floor.
The stunned silence that followed lasted only a few seconds, broken by Vega Addams entering the office just as her mom knocked the stranger out.
“Holy shit, Mom!”
“Language, young lady!”, growled Enid.
“What the fuck!?”
“Miss Toriyama!” exclaimed Bianca, surprised that her first reaction to the situation was to reprimand her student for her language. But in a way, it was the most sane option after what had just happened.
Because there, in her office, next to Wednesday Addams, were...
“Oh God, there are two more of you,” she muttered.
She didn't know how to explain it, because the women weren't one hundred percent identical in physical and facial features, but all her siren instincts told her that those two women were also Wednesday Addams.
They had the same harmony, the same resonance. That was despite their different ages, with the younger of the two seeming to emanate an aura of murder mixed with respect as she watched Enid with interest, and the other...
Okay, no. Impossible.
It couldn't be.
“...pink?” whispered Bianca.
The woman known as Friday in multiple universes, dressed in a bright pink sweater, simply looked at Bianca with an amused smile.
“What? It’s just the color of my enemies’ blood diluted by their tears after being crushed under my heel.”
Well, fuck me…
That was a Wednesday Addams all right.
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