Chapter Text
Wednesday’s day started like any other. She braided the long dark hair that now reached past her waist into her signature twin plaits, dressed in a black skirt that swished around her ankles and a close-knit turtleneck, and tied her boots snug. With an oversized coat and a leather bag slung over her shoulder she left the comforting dust and darkness of her small rented apartment and stepped into the silence of the still-sleeping city. Her commute to work took her through a dingy park, and she nodded her greeting to the transient man who called the abandoned play structure home. A toothless smile and a shake of a brown paper bag was her reward. It seemed they were both creatures of habit.
It was cold, and after 15 minutes in the freezing morning air she arrived at her first stop, nose and fingertips flush with the start of hypothermia. Refreshing.
Dowsing was passable as far as coffee shops go. Which is to say that it only seldom played drivel from whatever top 100s POP chart and that they freshly ground their own coffee beans. Stiffly, she pushed the door open, met with the jingling of bells and the earthy scent of coffee.
At her arrival, a head of tousled brown curls popped up from behind the espresso machine. “Oh. Morning, the usual?”
Wednesday hummed noncommittally, moving towards the counter with purpose. She had beat the crowd as she intended. 'Tyler' as his brass nametag helpfully supplied, was by far the most agreeable of the baristas at Dowsing. He always pulled her espresso shots on time, never tried to sell her on the overly sugared pastries in the display case, and never seemed perturbed by her stern demeanor. The only downside to Tyler being her unnamed favorite -not that she’d ever admit it- was his abysmal schedule. Or lack thereof. He would be in every morning for a while, then switch to mid shifts or nights when she had just grown accustomed to his presence, leaving her to the mercy of his coworkers; burnt espresso and the faux too-cheerful chirps of his blonde coworker Sarah or the unsubtle flirting of Miguel and his coffee “sweet enough for a girl like her.”
If Tyler was here on a Monday though, she might be safe for a while. Lady Luck truly had smiled on her this day.
She paid for her drink and watched Tyler get to work. The sleeves of his gray Henley were rolled up, and she could tell by the wrinkles in his apron and the circles under his green eyes that he hadn’t slept well the night before. Judging by the books she’d seen him annotating on the occasional time she’d caught him on his break it was probably school related, or maybe, with his all-American farmboy looks, a night spent burning the midnight oil with someone. Either way, the sleep deprivation didn’t seem to affect his routine.
“Anything exciting at work today?” He asked without looking up from his hands.
“Now that you mention it, yes. I’ve been informed that I am to assist with the reconstructive work for an autopsy today. I’ve only been allowed to observe thus far and while enthralling, it’s not quite the same as getting your hands dirty yourself.”
Tyler did look up at her then, brown eyes warm and a curious quirk to his mouth. “Should I make something for your mentor then? Short guy right? With the tattoos? Orders the caramel latte with extra syrup?”
Wednesday wasn’t sure what Mendez ordered, she hadn’t even known that he frequented Dowsing, though she supposed she did remember smelling caramel in his breath one afternoon when they were leaning together over a case. He had been excited to show her how to correct discoloration with a special mix of fluid, so it was a fairly memorable day.
“Why would you make him something?” Wednesday asked evenly, not understanding the relevance.
Tyler was already getting started on slathering the inside of a to-go cup with excessive amounts of caramel, the syrup bottle ending up nearly deflated in his long-fingered hand.
“Haven’t you ever heard of greasing the wheel?”
Wednesday pursed her lips in thought and he chuckled softly, placing a recyclable drink carrier before her on the counter. He continued easily, “Give him the drink and say it’s thanks for letting you help, then knock his socks off with your… whatever you do in there, stitching or something, and he’ll be more likely to let you help in the future.”
“They’re called sutures.”
“Sutures, then.”
Tyler placed the two hot cups in the tray and pushed it towards her, fixing her with a boyish smile.
“Bribery… I understand now, that’s an excellent tactic.” She picked up the carrier in fingers that were tingly with the return of blood and warmth, and made to leave before turning back to face his lanky figure leaning over the bar. He was still smiling at her. “I didn’t pay for the second drink.”
“Don’t worry about it, I get free drinks anyways. Perks of the job.”
Charity didn’t sit well with her, and she was about to argue when the front door opened again and the bells alerted them to the first patrons of the morning rush.
“Just take it, come back and let me know if it worked!” Tyler called and then snapped his focus to his first in a chaotic stream of clients for the day: a mother with three children bouncing in excitement over their hot treat before school.
Later, when she silently presented Mendez the drink, she was thoroughly impressed by the effect Tyler’s idea had on her mentor. He was short and dark-skinned, a man of Latino descent who looked younger than his near- 55 years would suggest. Everyone in the funeral home called him by his last name, Mendez, so Wednesday followed suit. He had told her once that she reminded him of his daughter, but she failed to see how. Wednesday was hardly the cuddly/girly type, and usually followed his directions solemnly, or if it called for it, with a biting snark.
The older man seemed touched by her newfound eagerness to connect, more than happy to play assistant and let her take the lead while he prattled on about friends he made during his apprenticeship. He didn’t even seem to mind that she only responded with the occasional nod or a muttered, “how interesting.”
It was a long reconstruction. His baritone voice served as good background noise as she lost herself in a world of dark blood and tissue. By the end of it her fingers throbbed from pulling and wrapping the tough surgical thread around her gloved fingers, and her back ached from her curved posture over the table, the pain a reward for a job well done. Mendez nearly glowed with pride when she stepped back from the body, running a gloved fingertip down the ‘T’ sutured across the chest to inspect her work. “Excellently done, Addams, it’s like you’ve been doing this for years.”
Wednesday now knew better than to tell him about her extensive work in childhood practicing on roadkill and the occasional observation at one of Grandmama’s mortuaries. It wasn’t information the common person took well, if Enid was any judge of things. She’d had to fetch a bucket for her Nevermore roommate on more than one occasion after sharing her old research journals. Still, Wednesday could feel her lips twitch at the praise all the same.
Mendez snapped his rubber glove at the wrist as he straightened. “Time got away from us, if you want to go to lunch I can give our friend here a good rinse. We can dress him together after.”
“It’s only been a few hours. I can stay. He’s quite large, so you might need the assistance.”
He shushed her good naturedly and came to stand on her side of the porcelain table, brown eyes crinkling as he sidled next to her, knowing it would get her to move on instinct out of her aversion to closeness. “You’ve done well. Rest your hands, they’re your best tool in this industry and should be treated with respect. Besides, this old man still has some strength to him. I have to keep my muscles strong or the wife will complain.”
He winked and Wednesday wrinkled her nose in distaste. Mendez sounded for a moment, too much like her father, and she fled the embalming room before he started flexing again, the sound of his loud laugh echoing behind her.
Wednesday didn’t feel hungry just yet, so she went up to the office and relieved the receptionist, a mousy girl with light brown hair and a sweet disposition. The young woman had been staring longingly at her phone under the table, so Wednesday felt it safe to assume her coworker was overdue for her midday lunch call with her boyfriend. She waived off the girl’s gushing gratitude and promises of returning the favor and was left blessedly alone in the room. The arrangers must be busy with families, or on their respective lunches as well, so she takes the boon of solitude and fetches a journal from her leather shoulder bag. Wednesday takes the time to try and work on ideas for her latest Viper de la Muerte novel, though it seems even she isn’t immune from the age-old affliction of writer’s block. The ink dip pen drips onto the blank sheet in front of her, and outside the long windows in the office a storm cloud roils angrily. The first smatterings of rain begin to blur the glass and the world beyond it. Eyes unfocused and staring into the gloom, the buzz of shitty fluorescent bulbs in her ears- Wednesday hardly has time to appreciate the terrible day spooling ahead of her before her eyes are rolling back, spine going ramrod straight and her head snapping backwards with the force of the vision that rocks her.
She is both herself and not-
Wednesday watches through the eyes of someone else, her stomach turning as her perspective changes, the body she inhabits growing somehow taller. She They are in a dirty alley, eyes flitting about to take in the grimey details of a dumpster and stacks of cardboard. Her Their hands come into view, gnarled fingers ending in claws, and pain floods her system. Wednesday’s Their vision turns down to look at their chest for the source and doesn’t find an injury, and yet the pain is choking them. An endless ache from deep inside, like the chest cavity she had just spent her morning suturing closed. As panic overtakes them she loses control of the vision. Getting only snapshots that feel like a life stolen between heavy blinks. They blink and the twisted body she inhabits is running. Faster. Faster. The thoughts come to her like static through the edge of the pain. They blink and are at the edge of a rooftop, howling into a stormy sky, before the same claws she had seen before tear at their own flesh. Stop. Make it stop- It HURTS. They blink and they are standing hunched in darkness, a curved cement tunnel where their gasps of breath echo eerily. Lights move past them faster than Wednesday can track, her own consciousness swimming and dazed at the series of rapid fire events. The clawed fingers they share come up to hold their head and the yawning empty hole of despair pulls at their insides. Don’t go. Please… Don’t go, Da-
The shrill ring of the office phone breaks through the fog in her ears and Wednesday wakes crumpled on the ugly fake wood panelled floor. She reaches blindly over the edge of the desk with one hand and brings the other to rub the clammy sweat from under her bangs, fumbling for a moment before her hand finds the plastic landline. She answers.
“Hello. This is CrossRoads Mortuary.” She intones robotically, and the caller on the other end coughs to hide their surprise, probably expecting a certain friendly brunette.
“Wednesday, it’s Scott with the Coroner’s Office. We haven’t spoken in a bit, how are you?” A male’s voice says coolly over the line.
“Terrible, thank you for asking. Do you have a case for us?”
“Uh, yes, or we will.” She can hear him fidgeting by the crinkle of his clothes and the uncharacteristic nerves he exudes pique her interest immediately. She rights herself from her position half under the desk and dusts off her skirt, retaking her seat and dipping her pen in fresh ink. Scott clears his throat and continues. “The Coroner wants a hush on this for now, but we need you- well, we need someone- to reach out to the family. They’ll probably need some grief support, the investigation is underway but… it seems bad.”
“Intriguing. A violent crime I assume? I won’t breathe a word of course, but I should let you know that privacy only lasts as long as the family keeps it under wraps. We have no control over that.”
“Trust me, they will. It’s a former sheriff.”
“Ah,” Wednesday breathes, elated. “Not Joan?”
“No, God no. Not here, he was chief over in Jericho. Y’know, East, like halfway to Cambridge from here.”
Wednesday’s steady pulse quickens fractionally. “Jericho?” She echoes, and the investigator continues on about when they expect to be ready for pick-up, oblivious to the flood of memories he has unlocked. The case she never fully solved, Laurel Gates’ pet killer, loose, a ghost on the wind. The infuriating sheriff who ignored her help and let the killer get away, then turned tail and ran away from his failure, resigning to get away from the mayhem with his family.
“There’s only one survivor, so at least your paperwork will be easy, you ready for the details?” Scott asks, though she can hardly hear him at this point. She bites down on her lip hard to recenter herself, beginning to take the notes she needs for work. Wednesday hardly needs him to confirm it, but feels herself stiffen anyways as the words reach her. “The name is Donovan Galpin.”
She takes the rest of the required notes: his birthdate, date and time of death, where it took place, and gets the number for his next of kin. His son, now an orphan, will be the point of contact for her coworkers. Wednesday has been deemed too cold to be an arranger herself, though she’s had to fill in before when needed. The owner of the mortuary seems to think it’s a lack of empathy on her part, but that’s never it. Other people’s emotions are powerful, and as a psychic they get under her skin until she’s overflowing, like the energy or spirit inside her will spill past her skin and be lost out into the world around her. And yet.
In the regrettable but thankfully unseen lapse in control, Wednesday had hurried to write and took the notes in her personal journal, just below her very few brainstormed ideas for her novel. Her mind felt like a spinning, clunking thing. The gears spinning and catching as she worked through memories and new information alike. Hurriedly, before anyone came back to their desk, she copied the notes onto their official printed worksheet and left it for the receptionist to hand off. If an investigation was underway they wouldn’t be receiving Sheriff Galpin for a few days at least, so there was no rush to alert someone on their lunch.
Eventually, her coworkers trickled in and despite the fact that she felt the whispers of a migraine behind her eyes, she was forced to recount to many oohs and aahs the information shared by the investigator. The office was abuzz, it had been a while since they’d had anything past the typical elderly failure-to-thrive or vehicular manslaughter case. Though she did not care to socialize outside of work, she did find a sort of camaraderie with the people here. They all saw and heard things they couldn’t share with anyone once they left the building; the worst of humanity walked through their doors or came in through the basement garage on a gurney. Sheriff Galpin was a prime example of that.
The rest of the day passed quickly. Wednesday assumed someone had contacted Galpin’s son with the way everyone’s eyes were sad and pitying when she and Mendez finally left the embalming room and rid themselves of their protective gear. The receptionist, Millie, came and wordlessly left a broken-off piece of dark chocolate on a napkin at her side as she finished her notes for the day.
Wednesday waited till the other girl left, dark eyes sliding over to the chocolate despite herself. Right. I forgot to eat.
It was decadently bitter. Especially tinged with the faintness in her head and limbs from hunger. Wednesday didn’t realize her coworker had decent taste. She took the rest of it and crumpled the napkin in her hand, brown recycled paper with a wand and stars printed on one corner. It was from Dowsing.
She could use another quad.
Wednesday’s things were gathered quickly. She slipped back into her oversized coat and stuffed the napkin in her leather bag along with the journal and its secret notes on Sheriff Galpin’s death.
The rain made everything soft and lush, the setting sun nearly gone and only visible as a muted purplish light strangled by the storm clouds. If she was lucky, and she had been today, really, then Tyler would still be there, covering until his chronically late coverage arrived. Her nose and fingertips were tinged red with cold, the jingling of bells and the squeak of her boots sounded her arrival across the threshold, and a bored blonde leaned across the counter, popping gum. Not a brown curl or tired green eye in sight.
“Hello! Welcome to Dowsing-.”
Wednesday turned on her heel and left before she could finish her sentence.