The moon hung high in the night sky. As equally mesmerizing in its half-state as in its full. It looked down on the Earth like a lighthouse for nocturnes who wander when the sun hides.
Distant hoots of owls could be heard from meters beyond the dark forest. The chirping of crickets and insects, and perhaps the calm breathing of a large mammal blending with the soft breeze.
Behind the small church of Jericho, all of it occurred. Beside it, however, was a conspicuous group of 3, suspiciously lurking in the town's graveyard.
"Was this your idea of interrogating Gates?" asked Adam in between his digging. He took a peek at Wednesday, catching her breath to the side.
"No," she stoically, "My initial plan was to raid their manor. Look for clues, a journal. But my discovery of new accounts on the crime derailed it. We improvise."
Adam hummed, his shovel digging with the force of a steel machine. "New accounts? I'm guessing it's not enough as evidence by itself."
With a deep breath, Wednesday pushed her shovel into the ground. "No," she huffed, "That's why we're here. I'll tell you when I confirm it."
The night deepened, and the shadows of the gravestones grew longer under the pale moonlight. Every strike of the shovels against the soil echoed faintly in the air, blending with the chorus of nocturnal life of the forest.
Rocks and soft dirt fell softly from above the hole they created as a figure observed them curiously. "Wednesday, darling— are you sure you don't need my help?"
Morticia's sultry, flowing voice caught Wednesday's attention. She paused, leaning on her shovel as her dark eyes glinted with a mix of irritation and exhaustion. "No, mother. You're on watch duty."
Morticia sighed dreamily, looking at Wednesday like a proud mother hen. "This reminds me of when you got your first grave-digging kit. You were so happy you nearly smiled."
Wednesday paused once again, her head snapping to her mother. "On second thought—"
Morticia, however, busy reminiscing, did not allow her to finish her words. "And your father, I remember he and I going through this yard one by one like the two of you."
The pale girl's eyes ticked. The dirt on her cheeks accentuated her deepening glare, like a psychopathic undertaker excited to bury a corpse.
The glare shut Morticia's 'night-dreaming' up. She turned, seemingly remembering her duty among other things of the past.
The metallic clink of Adam's shovel striking something solid broke the rhythm of the night. Both he and Wednesday froze, their gazes meeting in the half-light. A faint thud followed as he cleared the soil around a weathered wooden lid.
Garret Gates, 1972-1990.
"It seems," Adam whispered, brushing away dirt with his gloved hand, "we found our victim."
Wednesday crouched down, her black braids falling forward as she examined the coffin. Her dark eyes scanned the aged wood. "Move." She ordered before prying open the upper half of the casket.
The creak echoed through the graveyard like an invocation. The rusting hinges did well to announce that there's a group of tomb-raiders in the area. Wednesday inhaled the smell like a seasoned critic. A critic of corpses, if there is one.
Adam scanned the corpse inside. Garret's hair lay sprawled on the coffin, still attached to his scalp. His skin hadn't melted off, his teeth still perfectly attached. For all his days as living, countable in a breath, he knew corpses are meant to decompose. Why did Garret Gates not?
"Hello, Garrett." He heard Wednesday whisper. The corpse did not respond, but it might as well have for how well it's been preserved. She turned to him, eyes filled with obvious excitement at her… discovery. "I was right." The girl said with a deranged smile.
Before Adam could ask what she meant, a mocking voice rang outside. "Well, well, what do we have here?" As the beam of a flashlight passed by their heads, both he and Wednesday knew that their midnight escapade was over.
"Guess there's gonna be an Addams family reunion in lockup tonight." Adam squinted his eyes as the female officer's light focused on him. "You're all under arrest."
As Adam followed Wednesday up the hole, the only thing in his head was not the fact that they were caught, nor the corpse at his feet— what keeps on flashing in his mind is Larissa's disappointed eyes.
—-
The lock of the iron bar stuck with a clang. Sheriff Galpin, still in bandages, sneered at the Addams from behind their cell. "Get comfortable," he said with obvious disdain, "You can post bail in the morning."
Without another word, he left the room with one last shake of his head. The cell was silent, or it was supposed to be if not for the disgusting mooching sound corrupting her very ears. The iron bar did little to hinder her parents' lips from meeting one another. Not much has.
"Not even the long arm of the law could keep us apart." Gomez said passionately as they paused their… activities. "At least we'll have one last night together." Morticia replied as she rubbed his arm dramatically.
Wednesday turned to her father's side, where Adam sat quietly on the rightmost corner of the cell. He watched as her parents consumed one another like animals in heat. A burning sensation of embarrassment rose in Wednesday's head as she snapped at the two rabbits in heat.
"Enough!" Wednesday's voice cut through the air like an icy dagger, silencing the repulsive smacking sounds of her parents. "I've seen jackals with more self-control than you two."
Gomez drew back from Morticia, his moustache twitching with glee. "I'm sorry, my little storm cloud. Your mother and I just couldn't contain our passion for…. However long!"
Wednesday huffed in disgust. An expression short-lived as it was slowly replaced by triumph. "I knew that. And thanks to me, you won't have to for long."
A low voice came from behind Gomez. "How?" Adam asked as he stood up. Wednesday's gaze landed on him, a rare smirk gracing her porcelain, often cold face. "The other day, I told you we'd interrogate Garret Gates."
Adam nodded slowly, focused on every word she was about to say. Wednesday reached for her inner pocket, her hand pulling out a black handkerchief covering— a finger. He analyzed the object, not taking long before he realized the said finger was from the corpse of the man they dug out tonight.
Wednesday's smirk turned into a seldom-seen smile. "Tonight, Garret Gates talked. He didn't die from the stab. He died of nightshade poisoning."
Morticia gasped. Her hand reaching for Garret's finger in speechless disbelief. Adam loomed over Gomez. The finger, from his view despite the darkness of the room, was tainted blue.
Wednesday continued. "The remarkable preservation of soft tissue and blue tint confirms it."
Nightshade poison. Adam would be lying if he'd ever heard of such a thing. A poison that taints the skin of the infected blue, all while preserving their corpses past total decomposition.
He could hear Morticia whisper beside Gomez. "Which means Garret was dying—" "Before you stabbed him." Wednesday intervened.
A spark lit up in the couple's eyes. Disbelief, astonishment, and finally— a ray of hope. Adam, on the other hand, raised a brow at the events unfolding. Wednesday seemed to sense this, her attention turning to him. She gestured for him to move.
They relocated away from the two, closer to the door of the cell instead. "Turns out," she whispered with a frown as the mooching sound continued, "my mother was the knight in shining armor. How surprising, isn't?"
Adam nodded. Piecing together the puzzle with but a minor modification. With Morticia holding the sword. "Not really." He finally replied.
Wednesday raised a brow. The dim light from the corridor flickered, casting eerie shadows along the cell walls. Not so eerie when some people are busy making out. Adam's quiet reply hung in the air, and Wednesday tilted her head ever so slightly. "You don't know my mother."
Adam leaned back against the cold bars, his expression as unreadable as it is concealed. "They are in love." Wednesday's brows fell, her forehead crumpling to a frown. For so little he said, she could not rebuke any of it.
Love. A powerful force beyond the physical understanding of man. A cog in the wheel that fuels the mind and soul to seek, and find, and conquer all of the world itself. Disease, famine, war, and death— an entourage of apocalypses undone by a force beyond nature itself. Or perhaps a force of nature altogether.
A man's love for his neighbor. Love for one's child, wife, sibling. Mothers and fathers. Friends. A culmination of a fire burning long before man could ever form its first word— there was love. When the first mother held the hand of her child— there was love. When the plan and the grass first beheld the sun— there was love. When it dawned and the mother bird gave her egg one last chirp as it laid down on its nest to warm them— there was love.
But, what could a mind so ruled and fueled by the hard truth of touch, of smell, and of the worldly senses know about what it cannot clearly see, smell, and feel know about 'love'? What Wednesday could not touch by the tips of her fingers does not exist. The warmth of a metal bar is as true as love that exists in her dark heart. Love that exists in this cruel world.
Yet, why does she understand what she so desperately denies? Why hath her heart, an oblivion, opened once… for a murdering fiend? Wednesday shook her head.
"It's foolish." She replied as a last resort. A not-so-noble response. An inept, immature reply. Adam hummed. "It is." He agreed, surprising her.
The crisis in Wednesday's mind jumbled even further. Her glare bore down on him like their shovels on Garret Gates' grave. Adam laid his head on the bar, his long, dirtied hair falling almost to Wednesday's.
"Love is inherently foolish." He muttered, his words not reaching the two whose heads were in another space. "That's why your father willingly and foolishly incriminated himself. Choosing to love is choosing to suffer."
Self-torture is a better pastime, Wednesday voiced in her head. The list of this boy's oddities continued to show itself day by day. A particularly positive inclination to life. Wisdom beyond his years— or days. Where he was pulling these ideas from, only one could wonder. A dissection could perhaps provide her answers.
Wednesday sometimes wondered what it must feel to exist as someone made. Like Adam. Like Thing. As a creature that had learned to walk before thought. How slow must the world feel, and how different must life be?
His sentiments were rubbing off on me. She thought, like a plague. Like Enid. Wednesday sighed as she begged her mind to focus. Her eyes wandered towards Garret's finger, still in the hands of her mother.
"Enough with this," she whispered to Adam, "and enough of you two! We need to focus!"She shouted at her parents. Wednesday walked towards them, snatching Garret's finger. The moment she did, however, her world flipped.
Memories not hers flooded her mind, a dam breaking within her. An old man, a blond teenage boy in a car. "Prove to me you're still worthy to be called my son!" The old figure yelled as heavy rain poured outside. He raised a vial of blue liquid to the boy— nightshade. "Kill all those outcasts! Sneak into that dance and spike the punch bowl."
Thunder echoed and the scene changed. Nevermore, an image of her young father brawling and her mother distraught at his side. The sound of the vial shattering inside the blond boy's pocket.
"Wednesday… Wednesday…"
Then, the prison cell once again.
—-
Morning came like an afterthought. Sunlight poured onto the small window slits near the ceiling, the shadow of the metal bar doing little to cover what it could not. Wednesday's eyes snapped open like tense springs.
She surveyed the room, her gaze wandering towards her parents' figure on the floor. Their hands clasped together like a pair of sea otters. Her father's snore filled the room, a sound worse than a ticking time bomb. At approximately 10 seconds into the morning, her day was already ruined. She looked at her mother, sleeping with grace so in contrast with her husband. How she could stay asleep with that alarm clock beside her is beyond Wednesday's understanding.
Her gaze wandered again. To Adam, who was… already awake. He sat on one of the wall-mounted beds, eyes staring at the ground, seemingly unconscious but was without a doubt awake.
Wednesday slowly rose to her feet, the events of the previous night swirling in her mind like a carousel of dreadful revelations. The memory of Garret's finger weighed heavily in her pocket, their key to her father's predicament.
Adam finally moved, his gaze shifting from the ground to her as the noise of the waking station began to filter through the corridor. "You're awake." He said, his voice rough from disuse, "Did you sleep well?"
Wednesday's expression remained unreadable, but her fingers brushed over the pocket as though drawing strength from the preserved evidence. "Better than none." She replied, "Although I can't say the same about you."
A chuckle escaped Adam's lips. His eyes, molten orbs of life, looked bright in the still, gloomy room. "I didn't sleep." Wednesday tilted her head at his direction. "Nervous about your first stint at crime?"
"We've done worse." He replied, still sat, but his eyes fell on the cemented floor once more. "I just didn't want to dream."
Wednesday's dark eyes lingered on Adam, her head tilting ever so slightly, as though assessing the meaning behind his words. "Dreams," she said flatly, "what kind of dreams could you possibly have?."
Adam remained silent. The faint echo of the morning breeze passed from the window, dancing in space— lingering as if to listen. "Memories of past lives."
Before Wednesday could respond, the metallic clang of keys rattled through the corridor. Officer Galpin's heavy footsteps announced his presence, his irritation practically palpable. He stopped in front of the cell, his bandages framing a face scrunched up with disdain.
He tapped the bars like alarm, waking the Addams couple awake. Gomez rustled up like an animal surprised. Morticia, on the other hand, woke like a black feline stirred awake.
"Well," he muttered, unlocking the cell, "someone bailed you out. You're out of here."
Gomez sprang to his feet, his moustache quivering with delight. "Ah! Finally, freedom calls. Morticia, my love, soon we shall embrace the sun together once more!"
Officer Galpin huffed. "Not you, Gomez. You stay." The excitement drained from his face, before remembering his reason for being here is all too different from the other three.
Morticia rose with the grace of a shadow, her hand gently brushing his arm. "Worry not, my love. We shall be together again by tonight."
Wednesday moved past the sheriff, her hand tightening around the finger in her pocket. Adam followed, his steps quiet, his thoughts clearly stirring beneath his calm exterior.
As they entered the station's main hall, a tall woman in a beige coat awaited them. Her gaze flicked over the family and the boy before she addressed Officer Galpin. "Thank you, Sheriff. My lawyers shall send you the paperworks as soon as possible."
Sheriff Galpin replied with a nod before making his way to his office. Larissa surveyed the group— Morticia, Wednesday and finally, her eyes landed on Adam. "Quite the adventure you all had last night. Exhaustion must be catching up by now."
The morning air outside the station greeted them with an almost mocking brightness. Wednesday stepped into the light, her expression as cold as ever, though her mind churned beneath the surface.
Larissa led them to her car, her beige coat fluttering slightly in the mild breeze. She turned towards the group, her eyes a possessing a mixture of unexplainable emotions masked by a polite smile. "Shall we?" She asked, opening the car door.
Wednesday shook her head. Larissa's smile faltered ever so slightly, though her posture remained composed. "Are you sure?" she asked, her voice calm yet carrying an unmistakable edge of curiosity.
"I have unfinished business," Wednesday stated, her voice flat and unwavering. Her dark eyes, sharp as razors, flicked towards Morticia. "You're coming with me."
Then she turned, gaze lingering on Adam for but a second longer than the others. She waited, perhaps, for a reply. Silence, however, is what she got.
"Wednesday, dear. How about I follow you after a while?" She said with a smile before turning to Larissa, "I have some things I need to speak with your principal."
"Suit yourself." Wednesday replied, already walking toward the edge of the lot with measured steps. Waiting, again.
Walk faster. She told herself. But her body betrayed her. She stopped meters away from the car, conspicuous enough not to gather attention from the other two, then she turned. The sun glared at her pale complexion, her stretched shadow painting the gravel in fading ink. Her eyes looked for someone, for him— but Adam did not trail like before.
She saw his figure sat in the car as the two women talked. He'll come. Wednesday expected.
He did not turn.
—-