Chapter Text
Dear Mrs. Addams,
We at Penguin Random House are pleased to inform you that your most recent manuscript has been approved and will proceed to the copyediting stage in the coming weeks. Congratulations!
We would like to kindly remind you that this is a compulsory part of the publishing process, although we take your reservations about this stage into account. This manuscript will be anonymously edited to avoid any further incidents; we trust you understand that the privacy and safety of our staff are of the utmost importance to us.
While we are most thrilled to distribute the Viper de la Muerte saga, there are a few orders of business for which we will need your cooperation:
- Firstly, we urge you again to reconsider the format of your submissions. As a bestselling series, it is imperative that we are able to review and edit your manuscripts efficiently to move them through the publishing process. While we are happy to accommodate your unconventional methods of correspondence, as this letter may serve as a reminder, type-written pages in the volume at which your novels require is a barrier to our ability to provide you with written feedback. As your original contract states, we have agreed to accept physical copies of your manuscripts, but we once again request your consideration of alternative— preferably digital— submission forms (.doc, .docx, .txt, or .pdf would all be acceptable).
- Secondly, we will need your approval of the cover art options by October 25th at the latest. This may be submitted via mail upon the arrival of the proofs for your review by courier. Any constructive feedback can be addressed to the art department.
- Thirdly, and we regret to inform you that this is imperative, Penguin Random House requires your participation in the marketing of this upcoming novel. While our house has been happy to incur the cost of advertisement and marketing until now due to the positive reception of the series, many of our authors have found great success employing social media as a tool for garnering interest in upcoming and new publications. It has become clear to us that platforms such as Instagram and TikTok can be massively influential in the (growing) success of a series.
- As your contract states (Section 10(e), p.13), you may be required to: “engage in joint or cooperative efforts with The Publisher in the promotion of publishable materials, including but not limited to: press engagements, public speaking, announcements, content marketing, etc.” Content marketing may include generating interest in the series through the use of social media posts, which will also be used to disseminate information about the upcoming press tour for the novel; more details to come in the coming weeks. We would like to remind you, respectfully, that this is a contractual obligation and non-negotiable. We encourage you to manage your own account, but hiring a social media manager is also suitable if you prefer to incur the cost.
- Please provide us with your identifiable username or profile handle at your earliest convenience (we note that it will be easiest to select a handle that is consistent across any and all platforms (for example, FirstnameLastnameAuthor), and request that the name reflect company values).
We thank you for your continued commitment to Penguin Random House publishing, and we congratulate you once again on the acceptance of your 8th manuscript, Mrs. Addams. We await your reply in the coming business days.
Sincerely,
The Mystery & Suspense Books Editorial Team
Wednesday’s eye was beginning to twitch. She glared down at the letter on the desk in front of her, still vaguely accordioned from its postal transit. The dark-haired woman didn’t even know where to start; the term of address “Mrs.” made her skin crawl, a speculated relic of the patriarchal possessive ‘belonging to Mr.’
She may be married, not that it was any of their business, but if they insisted on continuing to use these insipid gendered honorifics, they could at the bare minimum find one that accounted for the fact that she was married to a woman.
They were a literary agency, after all; the least they could do was use precise language. But, her title was really the least of the elements of this letter that Wednesday took issue with.
They could anonymize her editors (not that it mattered, she already had the coordinates of most of the team members’ residencies, and deducing which one of them had ‘ideas’ about the story and prose would hardly pose a challenge) or even bother her once more about her contractually-protected right to avoid technology during the writing process (although that ice was becoming dangerously thin). But, to demand that she engage with the vapid, brain-rotting void that was social media was a step too far.
Much to Wednesday’s horror, it appeared she didn’t have much of a choice; she knew a thing or two about contractual loopholes, but with a sinking realization, it appeared she had misunderstood an element of the document.
She had read it in meticulous detail at the time of signing— fine print was a thorn in the side of any receiving party, and as much as she relished in the jigsaw trap of either inconveniencing oneself by reviewing it or facing insidious clauses at a later date, she was too smart to brush over it.
However, with an unpleasant nausea beginning to wash over her, Wednesday suddenly understood that ‘content marketing’ was internet jargon about which she had... missed the memo.
She was confident at the time that the phrase referred to, well, marketing the content of the book... As in sending leather-bound copies in the mail to strangers with threatening notes, or possibly even committing small-scale crimes in homage to the novel’s plot points. How could she be so generous with her characterization?
Of course these morons had been referring to (she shuddered in disgust) content, the catch-all cliché used by media zombies to refer to anything they produced about their lives to incessantly pollute the public sphere with.
The dark-haired woman could think of literally nothing more degrading than having to not only capture an image of herself with a smartphone but upload it to the virtual equivalent of a zoo enclosure.
Actually, perhaps there was one thing: having to share it under the uninventive moniker of @WednesdayAddamsAuthor. Not only was it the lowest of hanging fruit, the least creative or intellectual way to style herself (although she was beginning to think her editorial team might be so dangerously unintelligent that such a simple-minded truism may still not be brainless enough), it would be… personally identifiable.
She heard a shrill shattering noise and felt a sharp, wet feeling on her hand, redirecting her glare from the letter with a snap to the crushed glass neck of her fountain pen, now bleeding cool, black ink down her slender wrist.
Time for the cost-benefit analysis. What were her options? She could tell them to shove their proposition where the sun doesn’t shine (or, preferably, do it herself), risking her tense but mutually beneficial relationship with her editorial team and putting her livelihood and passion into precarious standing.
As much as she delighted in burning bridges, both literal and metaphorical, watching that particular structure smoulder was by no means ideal. She was nothing if not practical.
And so, the raven moved to her next option: she could fake her own death. But, she reluctantly acknowledged that the outcome of this tactic would be nearly identical to her professional life while unrewarding to her personal affairs.
Instead, Wednesday could try to renegotiate her contract, sacrificing her own hard-won protective clauses only to ultimately still risk alienating their professional relationship, or worse, the need to stoop to digital manuscripts .
The idea of caving to their demands was a torture more acute than an iron maiden. But, was avoiding this cruel and unusual punishment worth risking the comfortable life her writing had allowed her to construct? Being an author was really the ideal career for Wednesday.
She had, for a moment before graduating high school, briefly considered living off the Addams Family Estate as an eccentric recluse; it would have given her the freedom and time to pursue whatever passing interests captured her attention, with the added bonus of limited necessary engagement with the trivialities of the outside world.
But, ultimately, she disagreed with the very concept of generational wealth, and loathed the idea of never making a name for herself beyond a tasteful but unconventional headstone in the family plot-slash-playground. She figured she may end up in an early grave regardless if she were forced to spend the rest of her adult life subjected to her family’s ceaseless whims and passions; she loved them with a fierce protectiveness, but her independence was her prized possession.
Wednesday had internally agreed to move back into the estate in the inevitable event that one or both of her parents were struck down in malaise, knocking on death’s door— she had promised them a dignified death via parricide, after all, possibly recreationally withholding their pharmaceuticals as a personal pleasure.
So, with the option of life as a trust-fund solitarian off the table, she had toyed with the idea of exploring her passion for investigatory work. But, freelance required a degree of people skills that she partially did not possess and partially could not be bothered to improve upon, and becoming a detective was out of the question as an instrument of the police force.
If there was anything more repulsive on principle than being associated with America’s Finest, it was living out a life as an agent of the state, both a symbolic and physical manifestation of systematic oppression— not to mention the stringent consequential requirement to actually follow the law rather than Wednesday’s efficient but extrajudicial methods of preference.
With investigator eliminated as a vocational path, there was a moment when Wednesday considered a career in Criminal Law; if she had to follow in somebody’s footsteps, her father was a tolerable option. However, the threat of unchecked nepotism from the Addams name was a revolting deterrent. The whole appeal of the legal field, to her, was the essence of the challenge, the argument. Nothing quite beats the satisfaction that comes with the devastating public humiliation of a peer.
Deep down, though, she found herself frozen by the moral dilemma of defending someone who was truly guilty. Of course, there were many crimes she could forgive, especially those committed in the name of vigilante justice or the expedition of karma. Law is, ultimately, the effort to construct an evidenced, believable story more than advocate for the truth itself. She didn’t mind that idea. But, some crimes were reprehensible, making Wednesday’s own penchant for criminal activity and, at times, black-and-white moral compass an internal contradiction she wasn’t prepared to spend a lifetime parsing out.
Besides, it was writing that had always been her passion. By her introduction to Nevermore Academy at age fifteen, Wednesday had already completed three novel manuscripts, with the better part of a fourth underway. Viper de la Muerte was a lens through which she could see the world from an outsider’s perspective, and Wednesday, always inquisitive, wrote tirelessly. She never ran out of mysteries, conflicts, victories, and challenges for Viper; it kept her sharp, and it consumed her thoughts.
Sure, she was prone to obsession, but at least she had found a productive outlet— she “couldn’t keep defacing effigies of people she disliked,” and “needed to get a hobby” (or so she had been told on multiple occasions). Writing became that hobby. More than that, it was a fixation.
Pugsley had asked her once if her obsession with an author surrogate character made her a narcissist, much to her offence (she was clearly (possibly clinically) a Machiavellian), but it only poured lighter fluid on the fire. Viper wasn’t her. She was a separate, imposing, thrilling, other thing. Wednesday could control her own actions; She couldn’t control Viper’s.
Where Wednesday struggled to understand other people, Viper could expertly navigate every social interaction, every person’s feelings, every situation to extract exactly what she needed with surgical precision. The dark-haired girl had simply breathed life into something already trying to claw its way into the real world.
Maybe there was a skeleton of truth to the idea that something inside Wednesday bled into Viper during that process, but the profound boredom she would experience only writing about her own experiences would be excruciating, let alone an expert lesson in egomania. She had at least a modicum of self-awareness— Wednesday figured she could leave the documentation of her actual life to her eventual biographers.
Mystery fiction was one of the cemented passions of Wednesday’s life. She had graduated from Nevermore with a further two manuscripts than she entered with and a thoroughly revised trilogy infused with the narrative voice of an early adult. She had begrudgingly attended her graduation ceremony (a limelight celebrating a mediocrity she could frankly do without) at her parents’— but mostly Enid’s— request.
The imposing black robes she adorned were tolerable, but they couldn’t make her wear the hat at threat of injury or illness. Enid had taken its disuse as an opportunity to paint an admittedly charming scene on its flat top, a rounded caricature of Wednesday with a bloodied sword standing under moonlight. She had rolled her eyes dryly as the blonde had inscribed I lived, bitch on the margin. Enid’s own cap was painted with yellow and white flowers under a bedazzled rainbow (“Don’t just think of them as flowers, they can be pushing daisies!” She had nudged, garnering a nod of appreciation from the dark-haired girl).
At least she had been granted the mercy of crossing the stage early in the excruciatingly long ceremony, getting to sit in the comforting anonymity of the sea of other students (other than her discoloured robes and noticeably unadorned head… actually, she stuck out like a sore thumb). When Enid had gleefully skipped across the stage, her pack of brothers howling in the audience, she had taken the opportunity to yelp out “I’d like to thank the Academy!” with a wink before accepting her diploma with an ear-to-ear grin. Wednesday had to admit, the werewolf’s fangs on full display for an entire day had been a suitable consolation for her efforts.
After the ceremony, Enid had insisted on taking a barrage of pictures, most of which Wednesday successfully dodged through the inclusion of a small high-visibility strip on her collar, effectively washing out any photo taken with the flash on. Needless to say, she had refused to be in most pictures anyway, instead agreeing to snap a few of the other girl with Yoko (ultimately just a floating pair of glasses and a cap when taken with the flash), Divina, and pretty much any other classmate with the misfortune of entering a 10-foot radius of the werewolf. Every new person she saw made her cry at the thought that they would never be here, like this, all together, ever again.
Good riddance, Wednesday had thought to herself while biting her tongue and awkwardly patting Enid’s shoulder in a stiff gesture of attempted comfort.
Wednesday’s own family had celebrated in the Addams tradition— getting wasted on incredibly old red wine in a stalagmited cave bistro, smoking cigars and dancing the night away. She had to admit, that much was enjoyable, especially with Enid’s company. She loved watching Wednesday dance, and although her own moves came from a more contemporary tradition, the trill of her laughter had echoed throughout the cave like a pleasing birdsong throughout the night.
Sure, a cave full of Addamses was a bit kookier than Enid was used to (it had taken her months just to grow accustomed to Wednesday’s unique brand of loveable but morbid weirdo energy), but her party trick of flashing her claws out on command was a popular novelty that gained her immediate purchase on positive attention for the evening.
They had even shared a kiss on the dancefloor as pinstriped and red-lipped relatives exploded in cheers; Wednesday had been a little drunk and taken a rare liberty, much to Enid’s delight. She had swept the blonde girl into a deep dip mid-dance, a not-unnoticed but private reference to their first kiss, and crushed their lips together victoriously. The werewolf could even feel the shape of a smile pulling at the other girl’s mouth against her own, grinning and leaning into the exquisite spectacle of it.
After what was actually a noticeable moment longer than expected (again eliciting rambunctious Addams outcry), Wednesday righted the taller woman, face now flushed by both the warmth of alcohol and self-awareness.
“That was unexpected,” Enid had started, beaming.
“Chi ha tempo non aspetti tempo, cara mia,” Wednesday had replied, looking at her with dark eyes, hair beginning to come undone from the movement.
“Thank you for joining me tonight.”
Enid did not speak Italian, but her smile widened anyway.
“That’s not the usual cheering we get,” she teased, poking at Wednesday’s mortification as classmates had whistled and mock-propositioned them around campus following the revelation that they were more than just friends.
At the time, it had been lots of teenage parody to the likes of the smooch-sound-laden “how about a kiss, Addams?” (which, actually, represented some of the tamer offhand comments they had faced in early months, with more colourful variations slinging uncreative nicknames like ‘doggy style’ and ‘hummer,’ much to Wednesday’s near-murderous rage).
“Due unquestionably to the preferable quality of company,” the dark-haired girl had responded dryly, a note of familial affection in her tone owed to the fact that she was just slightly too comfortable after the drinks of the evening.
It had been both a head-first introduction to the extended Addams coven and an unforgettable night. Enid’s celebration, on the other hand, had been lacklustre and tense. After five graduation ceremonies, Esther had outgrown the novelty (well, the blonde chose to give her the undeserved benefit of the doubt and stick with that story, and not the more likely case that she just wasn’t able to let herself be happy for Enid without reservations).
They had gone to a mid-tier steakhouse, and Wednesday had pointedly not been invited by the Sinclairs, much to Enid’s chagrin. Something about the ‘big reservation already being such a burden on the staff,’ which her mother had conveniently forgotten to care about when sending back several steaks for being overdone.
She just kept her head down and trudged through several hours of passive-aggressive comments about her choice of university, grades, and meal selection before being handed an enveloped, generic greeting card that read:
Behind every graduate is a mother hoping for the best for the future.
Congratulations!
Mom— remember to make good choices, E
+ Dad
Yep, that sounded about right. She gave her mom a curt side hug before burying her face in her dad’s shoulder, taking him into a tight embrace. She felt the soft flannel of his shirt and the refreshing smell of his cologne, warm and evergreen, and Enid felt him kiss the top of her head with a proud pat to the shoulder before pulling back to smile through his eyes at her. Murray Sinclair was a man of few words.
The pack of werewolves had flown back to San Francisco that evening, Enid following to collect her things and move into her new accommodations a few weeks later. She had kept their card in a box stored beneath her bed, next to a simple note on creamy letterhead from the desk of Gomez Addams:
Dearest Enid,
Congratulations on this accomplishment, a true testament to your resilience and wit. We wish you all the best with your future endeavours, where you will no doubt brighten the lives of those around you for the better. You will always be part of the family. No seas un extraño, don’t be a stranger, and keep our little storm cloud out of trouble.
With fondness,
M & G
Much to Enid’s surprise, Wednesday (for the most part) did stay out of trouble, which the werewolf heavily attributed to both her periodic court-mandated psychiatric assessments and creative outlet. At that point, she already had an imposing saga chronicling the better part of a decade of Viper’s life. It wasn’t a challenge to find a willing publisher after graduation— turns out one of the begrudging limitations of adolescence was the reluctance of adults to take you seriously.
She had sent chapters to a selection of publishing houses while in university, securing a book deal by the end of her first undergraduate year and seeing her sixth volume (with releases now caught up with her writing) published by the end of her Master’s degree.
On top of the delicious ability to write and make a passable living, Wednesday had been exceptionally stimulated by higher education. The political climate of academia was unpalatable to her, to say the least, but the vast expanse of knowledge at her fingertips was the pomegranate seed that kept her enraptured by the unknown world. She studied Classics, Forensic Anthropology, Linguistics, and more, eventually earning her degrees in English and Criminology before settling into writing full-time.
Wednesday was pleased that being an author afforded her the flexibility of a work environment that catered to her tastes, hours, location, and methods without the limiting oversight of command chain lackeys who would never understand her craft nor her outlook on the world.
She had chosen to establish herself in Vermont, far enough away that her family wasn’t breathing down her neck but close enough that they didn’t fall into estrangement (although, at times, Wednesday could be caught halfheartedly muttering that an eternity without seeing her parents’ geriatric, flamboyant displays of public affection would be still too brief). The werewolf knew she was lying to disguise a deep tenderness for her kin, one that made her feel intolerably vulnerable. Ultimately, Vermont suited Enid’s tastes anyway, and by that standard Wednesday secretly knew she would have moved to Las Vegas if necessary.
Enid loved living in Vermont; she loved the smell of the outdoors, the coffee shops, the way the leaves shifted from green to red in the fall— it was positively Instagrammable. And, she was thrilled (on the down-low) to keep a comfortable 3,000-mile distance from her mother year-round. Okay, maybe not so down-low, but talk about healing your inner child! She and Wednesday had studied together, Enid taking an extra semester (okay, an extra three, but she set her own pace!) and ending up with a degree in Communications.
She had held the diploma over her head like a gold trophy on her graduation day, literally leaping with excitement and howling at the top of her lungs while Wednesday snapped a succession of blurry and unsuccessful mid-air photos of her. Enid had hoped for a High School Musical kind of vibe, and the dark-haired girl hadn’t quite understood the artistic brief; she didn’t get the vision. Pun intended.
But, the werewolf did get some killer selfies plastered across her feed, cap in the air, ecstatic grin brightening her features. Wednesday could be seen in the corner behind her in a select few, cringing away as if she was in the Blair Witch Project. Enid liked it— she thought it was very them. And, it totally boosted the comment ratio on her posts, so win-win!
They had purchased an old Victorian house, boasting a tall, narrow staircase and stained glass windows, with the advance from Wednesday’s seventh Viper de la Muerte instalment. The dark-haired woman had been adamant that they undergo no renovations, preserving the integrity of the gothic architecture in all of its ornamental glory; the crown moulding, the turrets, the cobwebbed chandeliers. In an absolutely cutthroat compromise, Enid negotiated total creative freedom over the ground floor and front garden.
Wednesday resigned herself to only ever leave the second story liminally or in emergencies.
The raven made her office in the turret, positioning her writing desk to look out at the thick forest that bordered their property (a must-have when shacking up with a werewolf), while Enid made herself comfortable for work by the bay window. She was in-between jobs and working freelance, mostly copywriting anonymous blog-style work (although she liked to think she gave it a certain Enid sparkle) for brand accounts and dabbling in some light content creation of her own on the side. Actually, she was a bit of a niche micro-influencer, not to brag. People just loved her, what could she say?! Who was she to deny them?
Her corner of the market was the intersection between aesthetics, self-love, and lifestyle vlogging. It wasn’t uncommon for her to post about the things that mattered most to her in long, rambling captions: Lycanthropy education, empowerment, and enjoying the little things in life. Like the floral wallpaper she had sparred out of Wednesday and plastered their living room with, for example! She liked to think it humanized her (no pun intended) and reminded her followers that she was a real person with real experiences.
She did storytimes, outfit of the day posts, skincare routines, makeup tutorials, and more, gaining a not-insignificant following after a get ready with me for the full moon as a werewolf video went viral. Wednesday, who loved to sit on the back porch and keep Enid company when she wolfed out (a combination of silent companionship and morbid fascination as the blonde’s bones snapped into new shapes in the span of minutes), had agreed to document the shift for their later reviews. The dark-haired woman wasn’t aware of its final resting place on TikTok, but what she didn’t know couldn’t hurt her.
Speaking of the devil, her wife had become something of a cryptid on Enid’s pages, occasionally featuring (much to Wednesday’s dismay) unknowingly in the background of selfies, trying desperately to slip out of frame, or appearing vicariously through oddities and disturbing decorations in the background of videos.
Enid had laughed so hard she had nearly peed when a commenter had asked what the fuck was that? and viewers had spent the rest of the day debating if OP was referring to Wednesday looming half-cropped out of frame or the taxidermy rodent operating room diorama that adorned the coffee table behind the woman.
Enid liked to keep it real with them, sharing what it was like to live a day in her life while spreading positivity in what could be a pretty toxic space. She had debated hard about how— if at all— she would feature their relationship. Authenticity was important to her, so she was quite transparent about her life and everything it entailed: being an outcast, a delayed lycanthrope, a lesbian. They were big parts of her life.
While she felt at liberty to share to her heart’s content about the prior two points, Enid was hesitant to drag Wednesday into the mix. Sometimes it was kind of unavoidable (and people could be pushy, investigative, and entitled online), but for the most part, she made a great effort to keep Wednesday a spectre— her followers just knew she was married to a mysterious goth woman who preferred her privacy and had a penchant for disconcerting décor. They didn’t even know her name. While Enid thought it was unique and perfectly suited to the woman, it was just too unusual to share without identifying her to the masses.
On several occasions, her followers had sleuthed together some guesses, brewing online conspiracies about Wednesday’s identity. They knew she lived in Vermont, had dark hair, and could occasionally be heard in the background of videos playing faint gramophone music that sounded to be in some language other than English. But, they didn’t know her first or last name.
In fact, they had incorrectly assumed it was Sinclair; Enid hadn’t changed her bio across any platforms after the marriage for brand consistency, keeping the hyphenated addition to her own name unknown. It was a red herring she worried they would alert themselves to if they went so far as to check court registries, although technically they would find that in New Jersey (influencing could be a bit of a nightmare sometimes…).
So far, their attempts to identify her had all been wildly unsuccessful, and Enid tried to limit the amount of chatter on that topic when possible. She was happy living in the moment with Wednesday— it was something just for the two of them.
As Wednesday sat stewing upstairs, unbeknownst to her wife, Enid was working on a blog piece for a skincare company. She was trying to strike the right tone between incorporating teenage vocabulary for a youthful vibe and a certain level of aspirational maturity when she heard a heavy chair pushing across the hardwood through the ceiling above her, followed by the familiar creaking of ancient wood as Wednesday descended the stairs.
Her ears perked up instinctively, taking a cursory pass over the sounds she could gather from this distance before pausing her typing. Something wasn’t quite normal. Her steps were faster than usual, her heartbeat elevated. She could smell fresh ink still wet in the air. Maybe she had spilled some? But everything up there was black anyway, so Enid concluded that was not the likely source of the stormy energy she detected.
“Everything alright?” She called out, turning her body in her chair towards the door frame and waiting for the smaller woman to appear.
Appear she did, absolutely glowering.
“An unequivocal no.” Wednesday seethed, Enid now noticing a now-slightly-crumpled letter in her white-knuckled grip.
“Aww, a love letter? For me?” She batted her eyelashes playfully, trying to tease out if this was a somebody-is-about-to-die kind of rage or something a little easier to temper. Wednesday stared at her dryly.
“The contents of this letter are about as far from sweet nothings as they come,” she hissed, offering the paper in Enid’s direction with an outstretched arm and disgusted expression. Wednesday averted her gaze.
“A letter from my publisher.”
Enid rose and took the letter, scanning over the text. At first, she was confused. This seemed like another acceptance letter for the series, wasn’t that a good thing? But, as she read further, her stomach began to sink. She looked back up at Wednesday apprehensively.
“Content marketing,” the raven spat, a look of horror and dread colouring her enraged expression. Oh, the woes of having to exist in the 21st century.
“Content marketing…” Enid echoed. “And you agreed to this?” She asked skeptically.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Wednesday said darkly. “But, essentially, I have a legally binding obligation to concede to their demands. It is a ransom of the highest stakes.” She gestured intensely, trying to express herself.
“They are extorting me.”
Normally the dark-haired woman would think that it was all just a little bit brilliant beneath her rage, but she seemed to glean no pleasure at all from their deception, Enid noted. She thought for another second, processing what exactly she sensed was being implied.
“And you want my help?” Enid asked tentatively, the smallest, most unnoticeable hint of hopefulness in her intonation.
Okay, maybe it wasn’t that small and unnoticeable, she agreed, watching as Wednesday tilted her head forward in a face that said is this a joke to you?
A smile broke across the werewolf’s face. Wednesday grimaced.
“OMG!! Are you kidding me right now??” She squealed, crushing the letter against her chest in excitement, eyes positively sparkling with glee.
“Wednesday Addams, on social media??” She could stop turning the knife now, Wednesday thought.
She didn’t dignify that with a response, which Enid paid no mind.
“@WednesdayAddamsAuthor is a reeeeaaalllly shitty username, though,” she started, chewing at her cheeks in a thrilled preoccupation. “It’s to the point, which would be good for SEO, but way too much of a mouthful. Besides, if you have anything to offer social media, it’s a unique perspective.” she chirped.
Permit me death’s quick embrace, thought Wednesday, recoiling at the imagery of the data-mining purgatory as a god to make offerings to.
“How about something like ‘wednesdayfriday’?” Enid asked, face scrunched in thought.
The raven stared at her like she had just put a plastic crystal knob on their bedroom door.
“It’s mortifying enough that they are entitled to my first and last name— I think I deserve the dignity of keeping at least one to myself,” she retorted.
“Okay, okay, that’s fair,” the blonde hummed.
She knew Wednesday would probably like to use the moment to send a pointed (possibly threatening) message in any case.
“You have to send them the username, right? Maybe you can choose something kind of snarky they technically can’t say no to?”
Wednesday’s deadpan expression shifted slightly, wheels beginning to turn. Enid felt pleased with herself. As she exuberantly took the other woman’s phone and installed all the necessary apps (her wife sitting on the ornate Victorian fainting chair in the corner, groaning into her hands), she couldn’t help but feel a little sad for her. This really was like forcing Wednesday to walk over hot coals or broken glass— or, actually, something her wife would find a lot less pleasant than that.
They settled on a username, @sisyphean_visio_nocturna, longer in characters than Enid would have liked but at least shorter than trying to cram the Latin translation of “we gladly feast on those who would subdue us” into a social media handle. Wednesday said it meant “a Sisyphean nightmare,” a way to tell her editorial team at Random House that their demands had pushed her into a never-ending torture of mythical proportions.
Okay, she could work with that!
In fact, Enid was confident that working with Wednesday on this fun little project (or, as the raven had characterized it, a “profoundly agonizing punishment”) was going to be something she could get used to. It could be a way to share a little piece of her world with the other woman and spend some time together, at the very least!
Now they just needed to watch the mailbox for a letter about the press engagements.
Enid couldn’t wait.