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The music room of Nevermore Academy was quiet—well, as quiet as it could be, considering thirty teenagers were supposed to be practicing scales.
At the front of the room, Isadora Capri sat perched on the edge of her desk, her bow tapping against her violin in perfect rhythm. Her copper hair was pinned back neatly, her black attire as crisp as her posture. She surveyed her students with the quiet severity of someone who could hear every wrong note, even if they whispered it from across the hall.
“Again,” she instructed, gesturing to the violins. A groan of wood and string followed. It was tolerable—barely.
But then, Bianca raised her hand. “Professor Capri, can I ask you something… personal?”
Isadora arched one eyebrow, the faintest curl at the corner of her lips. “Personal questions are rarely wise, Miss Barclay. But I suppose curiosity is a disease here, much like mediocrity.”
Bianca smirked. “Do you have… a partner?”
Immediately, the class perked up like vultures spotting roadkill. Ajax nearly dropped his cello. Yoko leaned forward with a grin. Even Enid clasped her hands, eyes sparkling with gossip potential.
Isadora blinked, completely unruffled. “Yes.”
The silence was so sharp it could’ve cut a bowstring.
“…Yes?” Enid squeaked. “Like… yes as in… married yes?”
“Yes.” Isadora’s tone was flat, but her eyes gleamed with amusement. “I have a wife.”
That detonated the room.
“WHAT?” Ajax shouted, then immediately shrank under Isadora’s piercing gaze. “I mean—that’s… cool. Unexpected, but cool.”
“No offense,” Enid piped up, “but you don’t exactly give off, you know, the… in love vibe.”
“That is because I am not in love with any of you,” Isadora replied dryly. “And you all clearly mistake restraint for loneliness. A tragic commentary on your generation.”
“Pictures, or it didn’t happen,” Xavier teased from the back. “You can’t just drop a bomb like that and expect us to—”
The sound of Isadora’s bow snapping through the air silenced him instantly.
“I assure you, she exists,” Isadora said, voice cool as marble. “And she is the most extraordinary woman I have ever met. That will be all.”
The class buzzed with whispers as she ordered them back to scales. None of them believed her. A wife? Professor Capri? The image was so surreal that even Wednesday—sitting stoically in the corner with her cello—tilted her head, as though evaluating whether this might be an elaborate lie.
⸻
The next week, the class had nearly forgotten about the conversation—until Isadora realized she had.
She rummaged through her bag, frown deepening. Her spare violin bow was nowhere to be found. “Unacceptable,” she muttered.
Turning to her students, she announced, “Continue practicing in my absence. If I hear a single squeak, you will write a twenty-page essay on the tonal differences between Stradivari and Guarneri.”
The students froze in terror as she stepped out into the hall, pulling out her phone. Her fingers danced across the screen quickly, summoning a message.
Darling, I left my bow at home. Could you bring it?
The reply came almost instantly: On my way. Try not to terrify your children in the meantime.
A faint smile tugged at her lips.
⸻
Twenty minutes later, the classroom door creaked open.
Every head turned.
There, framed in the doorway, was a woman none of them had ever seen before. She had an effortless grace to her—dark curls spilling over her shoulders, a white turtleneck hugging her frame, and eyes that sparkled like trouble wrapped in poetry. In her hands, she held a violin case with the missing bow neatly tucked inside.
“Forgot something, my love?” she asked, voice lilting with warmth.
The class collectively gasped.
Isadora, for once, looked slightly flustered. Just slightly. “Yes,” she said, striding forward to take the bow. “Thank you. Class, this is my wife, Laura”
“Wife?!” Ajax blurted again, because apparently he hadn’t learned his lesson.
The woman laughed, the sound soft but rich, like the low note of a cello. “I see you weren’t believed,” she teased Isadora gently.
“They think I invented you,” Isadora replied, rolling her eyes.
“Harsh,” Enid whispered to Yoko. “She’s way too pretty to be imaginary.”
Xavier leaned forward, sketchbook forgotten. “So wait—you’re real? And you’re married to her?”
The wife’s smile widened. “Last I checked, yes.” She slid her arm around Isadora’s waist with casual affection, and the students nearly combusted.
“Do you, like… play music too?” Bianca asked, clearly fishing for more information.
“I dabble,” the wife said with a mischievous glint. “But mostly I’m here to remind her not to starve herself while perfecting bow technique at three in the morning.”
“That is an exaggeration,” Isadora muttered, though the faint pink in her cheeks betrayed her.
Wednesday spoke up then, her voice as sharp as the strings of her cello. “You’ve brought irrefutable proof that you exist. Congratulations. Now kindly leave before the rest of them start documenting you like a rare cryptid.”
The wife smirked. “You must be Wednesday. Isa’s told me about you.”
Wednesday’s eyes narrowed, intrigued. “Has she now?”
“Enough,” Isadora cut in, her tone decisive. She took her bow, tucked it neatly into her violin case, and guided her wife toward the door with a hand at the small of her back. “Class dismissed early. Consider it a mercy.”
The room erupted into chatter the second they left.
⸻
Later, as the students filtered out into the courtyard, Enid was practically bouncing with excitement. “Can you believe it? Professor Capri has a wife! And she’s, like, actually nice!”
“She’s nice because she doesn’t have to teach us,” Yoko muttered.
Bianca smirked. “I give it a week before the rumor mill turns this into some gothic romance novel.”
Meanwhile, Wednesday lingered behind, her expression unreadable. Finally, she murmured, almost to herself:
“…Perhaps true love is not as implausible as I thought.”
And though no one heard her, the faint smile that brushed across her lips suggested that, for once, Wednesday Addams might have found something worth believing in.
⸻
Isadora, walking arm in arm with her wife outside the gates, exhaled in relief. “That was… tolerable.”
“You mean adorable,” her wife teased. “I think they liked me.”
“They liked you too much,” Isadora retorted, though the fondness in her voice betrayed her. “Next time, I’ll simply tell them you’re a myth again.”
Her wife laughed, pressing a kiss to her cheek. “Good luck with that, my love