Fangs and Cello Strings

The first time I saw Wednesday Addams, she was trying to drown a boy in the fountain outside the Nevermore gates.

Not literally. Principal Weems would've had a stroke. But she was standing over him with that blank, unreadable face while he sputtered and coughed on the cobblestones, and her hands were still wet. I watched from the dormitory window, pressing my nose against the glass hard enough to leave a smudge. The boy, some normie townie who'd probably said something stupid, scrambled to his feet and ran. Wednesday didn't watch him go. She just turned and walked toward the main building like nothing had happened, her braids swinging in perfect rhythm.

I remember thinking: *That's the new girl?*

And then, quieter, somewhere in my chest: *Oh no.*

I'd been at Nevermore for two years by then. Long enough to know every corner of the campus, every shortcut through the woods, every spot where the moonlight hit the stone walls just right. Long enough to be bored. My wolf hadn't come in yet, and the other furs looked at me sideways because of it, and I'd gotten real good at pretending I didn't notice. I had my vlog. I had my nail art. I had a carefully curated collection of stuffed animals that took up half my bed. What I didn't have was a roommate who didn't transfer out after a week.

Until Wednesday.

She arrived with a cello case and a typewriter and a look that suggested she'd rather be anywhere else. Including hell. Maybe especially hell. I met her in the hallway outside our room, and I smiled so wide my cheeks hurt, and I said, "Hi! I'm Enid. Your roommate. Well, obviously. Since we're standing outside our room. Which is our room. Together."

She stared at me for three full seconds. I counted.

"I requested a single," she said.

"Yep. Weems said no. Something about social integration." I shrugged, trying to keep my voice bright. "I think it's code for 'we don't have enough beds.'"

Wednesday pushed past me into the room. She stopped in the middle, her dark eyes sweeping over my side: the pink comforter, the fairy lights, the poster of a boy band I'd outgrown but couldn't bring myself to take down. Her lip curled. Just slightly. A micro-expression that would've been invisible on anyone else.

"This is a nightmare," she said.

"Most people say that when they see the room, not the roommate."

"I wasn't referring to the room."

Okay. Ouch.

I told myself it didn't matter. I told myself I'd dealt with worse. I unpacked my things while she arranged her typewriter on the desk, and I chattered about classes and clubs and the best places to hide from the teachers, and she didn't respond once. Not a single word. By dinner, I'd convinced myself she was just shy. By bedtime, I'd downgraded that to "probably a sociopath."

But here's the thing I couldn't stop noticing: she wasn't boring.

Everyone at Nevermore was boring. The vampires talked about blood types like wine snobs. The sirens spent hours comparing vocal ranges. The gorgons had a whole clique based on whose snakes were the most venomous. And the furs? The furs were the worst. They ranked themselves by how early their wolves came in, and I was at the bottom, a late bloomer with no bloom in sight.

Wednesday didn't care about any of it. She walked through the halls like she was already planning her escape. She sat alone at meals, reading books with titles I couldn't pronounce. She played her cello at odd hours, and the music was dark and complicated, and I'd lie in bed listening, wondering what it felt like to be that sure of yourself.

The first week, she almost got expelled for setting a fire in the botany lab. The second week, she solved a thirty-year-old cold case about a missing student. The third week, I caught her sneaking back into our room at 3 a.m. with dirt on her face and a knife in her boot.

"You're bleeding," I said.

She looked down at her arm. A long scratch, shallow but angry. "It's nothing."

"That's not nothing. Sit down. I'll get the first aid kit."

"I don't need your help."

"I know you don't." I was already up, already digging through my drawer. "But I'm giving it anyway. Consider it roommate bonding."

She sat. I don't know why. Maybe she was tired. Maybe the scratch hurt more than she let on. Maybe she was curious what I'd do.

I cleaned the wound with peroxide, and she didn't flinch. Her skin was cold under my fingers. Not vampire cold. Just... Wednesday cold. Like she'd been carved from marble and left in the shade. I could feel her pulse though, steady and slow, and I wondered if she ever got nervous. If anything ever made her heart race.

"You're staring," she said.

"You're interesting."

"I'm not."

"You are." I pressed a bandage over the scratch, smoothing the edges. "You're the most interesting person I've ever met. And I've met a lot of people. Most of them boring."

She looked at me then. Really looked. And for a second, I saw something flicker behind her eyes. Something that wasn't annoyance or disdain. Something almost like surprise.

"You're strange," she said.

"Thanks."

"It wasn't a compliment."

"Didn't say it was."

She pulled her arm away and stood. The moment broke. But I felt it linger, like the afterimage of a bright light. She climbed into her bed without another word, and I lay awake for hours, listening to her breathe.

That was the night I started to realize I was in trouble.

Not because Wednesday was dangerous. She was. Obviously. But because I wanted to be near her. I wanted to know what she was thinking. I wanted to make her look at me like that again, like I'd surprised her, like I was something she hadn't expected.

I'd never felt that before. Not for anyone.

And I had no idea what to do with it.