Chapter Text
The town chosen for their exile was Rhinebeck, New York. A place hidden in the crook of the Hudson Valley, where fog rose like ghosts from the river and the old Dutch houses whispered with histories too long and heavy to be retold. It suited the Addams name well enough—quiet, brooding, a place where secrets could nest without disturbance. The house Gomez had purchased for them was a sprawling colonial, all cracked shutters and a roofline sharp enough to slice the sky. It sat at the edge of a forest that spilled out endlessly, like a sea of black bark and rustling leaves, its silence pierced only by owls and the sighs of night wind.
The wedding had ended hours ago, stripped of its pomp now that the guests had vanished back to their carriages of modern convenience. The air inside the house still smelled faintly of candle smoke and lilies, though those bouquets had been discarded on the front porch like offerings to a bride neither of them had truly wanted.
Enid sat on the couch in her wedding dress, its silk folds gleaming bone-white in the lamplight. She was small there, folded in on herself, hands knotted in her lap like she was clutching invisible rosary beads. Her platinum blonde hair—coiled tightly for the ceremony—had begun to fall loose, a curl slipping against her cheek, damp with nervous sweat. She looked every inch the stranger she was: foreign tongue, foreign land, foreign fate.
Across the room, Wednesday was pouring whisky into a glass with the stillness of a surgeon. She wore a black suit tailored to sharpen her silhouette, the vest pulled tight against her torso, her shirt collar severe. The studs of her cufflinks glinted like small, malevolent eyes. A strand of her raven hair had slipped free from its braid, but she didn’t bother to tuck it away; imperfection sat on her with the authority of choice, not chance. She raised the glass to her lips, swallowed.
“I know this arrangement wasn’t your choice,” Wednesday said at last, her voice low, a stone cast into the quiet, “but we can make it work.”
Her Italian was flawless when she wanted it to be. It was in her after all thanks to her mother, alongside her father's Mexican blood. Her English, obviously too, was sharp, each word shaped with precision. But she chose English now, perhaps to force Enid to stretch toward her rather than take shelter in the comfort of her mother tongue.
Enid’s fingers worried at the fabric of her dress. Her lips parted, but nothing came at first. She glanced up, wide-eyed, like a deer testing the silence before stepping into a clearing.
“I… I no… choice,” she said haltingly, her accent thick, syllables tumbling over one another. Her voice cracked around the English, fragile as porcelain. Then softer, almost pleading: “Non volevo.” I didn’t want to.
Wednesday turned at that, her dark gaze catching Enid’s. Something flickered across her face, not pity—Wednesday Addams did not deal in pity—but a recognition. A mirror, even. She understood too well what it was to be bound to an expectation so old it wore the skin of inevitability.
“Lo so,” Wednesday replied in fluent smooth Italian, her tone cooling like steel plunged into water. I know.
The words drew a tremor of relief in Enid’s shoulders. She let out a breath, shaky, and nodded. Still, her eyes clung to Wednesday’s face as though expecting some hidden cruelty to unfold. All her life she had been warned: beauty was her curse, obedience her chain. And now she was practically shackled to this woman—a shadow carved into human form, taller, stronger, her aura magnetic enough to bend others into orbit. Enid could not tell yet if she was safe here, or if she had simply traded cages.
Wednesday crossed the room at last, her steps deliberate, unhurried. She lowered herself into the chair opposite the couch and set her glass down with a muted clink. The silence between them grew heavy, but not unbearable. Wednesday thrived in silence; she wore it like a second skin. Enid fidgeted in it, small and restless, her breath shallow.
“You speak some English,” Wednesday observed, tilting her head just slightly. “Enough to be understood. That is a beginning.”
Enid frowned faintly, cheeks heating. “I… try. È… difficile.” It is difficult. She gestured helplessly, searching for the word. “Words… run… away.”
A corner of Wednesday’s mouth twitched—not a smile, but an acknowledgment of humor found in misery. “They do that,” she agreed dryly. “They flee from me as well, though for other reasons.”
Enid blinked, not entirely understanding, but she caught the cadence, the music of Wednesday’s wit, and it softened something in her chest.
For a long moment, they simply looked at one another. Two women bound by name, not by choice. Wednesday studied her—this soprano’s daughter, her doe eyes wide even as she tried to appear composed, her body humming with unease. There was a purity about her, not the cloying kind that begged for preservation, but the stubborn resilience of someone who had endured, who still endured, despite being placed on an altar she never asked for. Wednesday recognized reverence in herself then, a rare thing. Not desire—not yet—but a solemn respect that this woman could be dropped into fire and still emerge, singed but unbroken.
“You need not fear me,” Wednesday said finally, her tone stripped of indulgence. “I will not make a sport of cruelty.”
Enid stared at her, lips parted. Then, slowly, she nodded. “Grazie,” she whispered, the word catching in her throat. Thank you.
It was clear the poor girl struggled to speak English, yet she seemed capable of understanding the sentences Wednesday spoke to her- even if to a small extent, it still made the outmost difference.
The clock ticked. Outside, the forest creaked. Inside, whisky burned in Wednesday’s veins, and Enid’s nerves thrummed like violin strings.
“Tell me,” Wednesday said, leaning back in her chair, her eyes never leaving Enid’s. “What do you want from this arrangement? Not what your family wants. Not what mine wants. You.”
Enid hesitated, her lips forming shapes without sound, then stumbling over fragile English: “Peace. I want… peace. Not… war.” She pressed her hand to her chest. “Heart… want quiet.”
Wednesday considered that, her fingers tracing the rim of her glass. Peace was not a concept she often entertained; her life was violence woven into literature, into art, into the very marrow of who she was. But for this fragile, foreign bride… perhaps she could shape her silence into something resembling it. Enid deserved it, she hadn't done anything wrong. She was forced into this as much as Wednesday was.
“You will have it,” Wednesday said, and there was no doubt in her voice. “If I must carve it out of the world myself.”
Enid’s breath hitched, and though fear still clung to her like a second gown, there was something else there now. A flicker. Not trust—not yet. But the faintest ember of it, waiting to be coaxed into flame.
And so they sat, across from each other in a house too large, too empty, two strangers bound by vows older than themselves. Testing the air.
The clock ticked on and on in the cavernous living room, the kind of silence that grew heavier with each passing second. Wednesday had drained half her whisky and poured another before she realised the blonde across from her had not moved except for the restless twitch of her hands.
It was Enid who broke the stillness. She cleared her throat, her voice tentative, the words breaking over themselves like stones in a steep river.
“You… age?” she asked, gesturing with a nervous flick of her fingers toward Wednesday. “You… how… old?”
Wednesday raised a dark brow at the simplicity of the question. It was childlike, almost endearing in its bluntness.
“Twenty-nine,” she said evenly. Then, because reciprocity was demanded of courtesy—even in arrangements like these—she asked, “And you?”
Enid pressed her lips together, counted in her head, then offered, “Venti… tre.” She held up three fingers, blue-green eyes flicking upward to ensure the math was correct. “Twenty-three.”
Wednesday leaned back, crossing her legs, her gaze never wavering. Twenty-three. A gulf of six years between them, yet worlds more in experience. The difference mattered little—it was the fact that Enid looked so young still, delicate, almost untouched by the cruelty of life… until, of course, she began to speak.
The conversation limped forward on questions like stepping-stones—favorite colors, whether they liked cities or countryside, the blunt curiosity of strangers forced into intimacy without the luxury of choice. It was awkward, stilted, but not unbearable.
It was only when the talk bent toward family that Enid’s posture shifted. Her eyes lowered to her lap, her hands tightening until her knuckles whitened. She spoke carefully, deliberately, as though each word cost her something.
“My… madre,” she began, then quickly corrected, “Mother… she say… if no marriage… niente. Nothing.”
Wednesday tilted her head. “She threatened to disinherit you?”
Enid nodded, swallowing hard. “Yes. Cut… cut all. She say… no more casa, no more money, no more… name.” Her accent curled the words, softening their edges, but the truth was jagged beneath them.
Wednesday regarded her silently. Threats of disinheritance were not foreign in families where reputation outweighed humanity. Yet something in the way Enid said it—the tremor in her voice, the way she bit down on the inside of her cheek like she was bracing herself—hinted at deeper fractures.
“Did you ever have her favor to lose?” Wednesday asked, her voice low.
Enid let out a brittle laugh, one that cracked before it fully formed. She shook her head. “She… never love me. Not… once.”
She looked up then, and something unguarded broke free in her face. Words tumbled, halting, broken English stitched with bursts of Italian where her tongue failed her.
“She… always uomo della casa. Man of the house,” Enid said, the phrase sharp. “Not mio padre. Father… small, soft. Greek.” She made a rounded gesture with her hands, as if shaping his belly in the air. “He love her. Sempre. Always. But… weak.”
Her throat worked as she pushed onward. “She scream, she hit. My brothers… i gemelli—the twins—safe. Always safe. I… no.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “She hate me… after six.”
Wednesday did not interrupt. She simply watched, every word recorded in her mind as though carved into marble.
Enid’s voice grew more fragile as she unraveled pieces of her past. “Soap… mouth, sì? Brutale doccia fredda.” Brutal cold showers. She shivered visibly at the memory. “Hair… she pull me… hall. Staff see. Everyone see.” Her fingers touched her scalp unconsciously, tracing phantom pain. “She… slap. Punch mouth.” She mimed it with her hand, quick, jerking. “Kick me… fuori. Outside.”
Her lips trembled, but she didn’t stop. “Always scream. Always… say brutte parole. Fat. Brutta. Piccola. Ugly. Short. Hair…” She lifted a trembling curl from her temple, letting it fall. “Always say… make straight. Straighten. Always wrong. Io… io sempre sbagliata.” I was always wrong.
There was no melodrama in her tone—no self-pity, no attempt at performance. It was delivered plainly, almost clinically, and that was what made it ache sharper. She was not trying to convince Wednesday. She was simply unburdening because there was nowhere else for the words to go.
Wednesday’s fingers tapped once against her glass, the only sign of movement. Her face was unreadable, marble and shadow. Yet something flickered in her dark eyes—fury, perhaps, though tempered into something quieter.
When she finally spoke, her voice was softer than before. “I recall when I first met your mother.”
Enid blinked, caught off guard.
Wednesday’s gaze drifted past her, toward the darkened window, as if replaying the memory on the night outside. “She was… arresting. Beautiful in the way of things sharpened to a point. Intimidating, yes. Commanding. She showered me with compliments—called me brillante, feroce, straordinaria. She looked at me as if I were some prized relic she might display in her collection.”
Her eyes returned to Enid, sharp and unyielding. “And yet, she could not summon the same reverence for her own daughter.”
Enid’s throat tightened. She ducked her head, tears threatening but held at bay. “No. Never. For me… only…” Her hands clenched as though wringing invisible cloth. “Only hate. She do this all my life.”
Wednesday leaned back in her chair, folding her arms. Her jaw tightened. In the quiet, the image of Esther returned—her poise, her air of command, her carefully constructed elegance. A woman who had valued Wednesday enough to praise her brilliance, yet discarded her own blood like spoiled fruit.
It was grotesque. Hypocritical. Almost amusing, if it weren’t so despicable.
Wednesday allowed a long silence to linger before she spoke again. Her words were deliberate, carved. “Your mother is mistaken.”
Enid looked up, startled, confusion written across her features.
“You are not fat. You are not ugly. And you are certainly not unworthy.” Wednesday’s voice was steady, not indulgent, not softened for comfort—but firm, undeniable, like law spoken from the bench.
The words struck Enid harder than she expected. Her lips parted, her chest hitched with a breath she hadn’t meant to take. For a moment, she looked as though she might crumble under the weight of hearing it aloud—for the first time, perhaps, from anyone who mattered.
She swallowed, blinking rapidly, then nodded, almost frantically, as if to seal the moment away before it slipped from her grasp. “Grazie,” she whispered. “Grazie.”
Wednesday did not respond with sentiment. She merely lifted her glass, the amber liquid catching the lamplight, and drank. But in her silence, the words lingered, heavy as stone yet strangely protective.
The clock continued to tick on.
Enid, fidgeting with the lace of her sleeve, suddenly smiled in a way both wistful and shy. “Your… parents,” she began carefully. “Molto… molto gentili. Very… very kind. Strani… strange.” Her lips twitched with a nervous laugh. “But… dream. Dream parents.”
Her eyes softened with the memory, blue-green shimmering like glass catching candlelight. “They… hug me. Subito. Immediately. Say… bella figlia. Beautiful daughter.” The words fell awkward in English but earnest, warmed by the glow of recollection. “They… look at me… like sun.”
For a moment, Enid’s voice almost broke. She bit down on her lip, eyes darting away. To be welcomed by strangers as family, when her own blood had scorned her since childhood—it had cracked something open in her chest, something she wasn’t sure could ever be closed again.
Wednesday did not soften in return, but she did not remain untouched. Her dark gaze was steady, reflecting her own parents’ faces in memory.
“They have always been like this,” she said evenly, though her tone carried a weight of reverence. “It is their greatest gift. Fierce love, unbroken passion. It is what made the Addams name endure long past what history should have allowed.”
Her eyes narrowed slightly, not in malice but in reflection. “Even if others see us as grotesque, eccentric, mad—they still envy. They want what they have. That devotion. That fire.”
Wednesday’s voice shifted lower, almost contemplative. “They would sooner impale themselves on an iron spike than raise a hand to me or Pugsley. I was always allowed my freedom. To play, to experiment, to craft my macabre amusements without restraint. There was no leash, no scolding voice, no chain.”
Her fingers tapped against the arm of her chair, the only break in her stillness. “Until…”
The word lingered, heavy, and Enid’s gaze rose, curious, nervous.
Wednesday’s eyes fixed on the dying embers. “Until my brother died.”
The silence cracked sharp then, sharper than the fire’s hiss.
“My sweet, beloved Pugsley,” Wednesday continued, her voice so level it felt carved from stone. “His death broke them. They were… devastated. Hollowed out. And in their grief, fear began to bloom where freedom once thrived.”
Enid’s lips parted, stricken, but no words came. She knew grief, in her way, but to hear Wednesday speak so starkly of it—without tears, without tremor—was almost more haunting.
“They began to look at me differently,” Wednesday said. “No longer as a daughter free to sharpen her own edges. But as a vessel. A last hope for the bloodline. The one who must carry forward what Pugsley no longer could.”
Her dark eyes flicked to Enid, unwavering. “It is why we sit here, tonight. In this house. In this arrangement neither of us asked for.”
Enid swallowed hard, her curls trembling as she nodded. She wanted to speak—her English flailed, but she forced it forward. “So… not you. Not… your want. Is… tradition.”
Wednesday inclined her head. “Precisely. They tolerated my refusals for years. But once I turned twenty-nine—the age, they tell me, when a woman is perfectly ripe for elopement and children—they began to press harder. Push further. Overstep.”
The whisky caught lamplight as she swirled it, her expression unchanged. “I have entertained lovers before. Mere arrangements of interest. But those… were not enough. A lover is not a marriage. Without a marriage there is no consummation. Without consummation, no children. And without children… no legacy.”
Her mouth twisted then, not quite a smile—something sharper, bitterer. “And so, I am married. To a stranger whose language barely meets mine, in a house chosen by others, with a future scripted long before either of us could reject the role, or even get a mere say.”
Enid sat stunned, her lips trembling as she took it in. She had thought Wednesday cold, untouchable, stone and blade in human form. But what she heard now was something different—still sharp, still terrifying in its honesty, but human in a way she hadn’t expected.
For a long moment, she could only whisper: “Mi dispiace.” I’m sorry.
Wednesday’s dark gaze caught hers again, piercing. “Do not be sorry,” she said. “Pity is wasted on me.”
Enid nodded quickly, cheeks flushed. “No pity. Only…” She searched desperately for the word, pressing her hand to her chest. “Dolore.” Pain.
Wednesday’s stare lingered a beat longer, then she inclined her head. Acknowledgment, if not acceptance.
The silence returned, but it was not the same silence as before. It was thicker now, laced with truths too raw to ignore. Enid’s chest rose and fell quickly, her hands trembling faintly as she folded them tighter into her lap. Wednesday reclined back, a shadow carved against the lamplight, and yet… something softer had seeped in around the edges of her presence.