Chapter Text
“Peonies and primrose,” Wednesday cursed. She pulled her monogrammed handkerchief out of her shirt pocket and dabbed at her forehead as she glared down into the open grave.
Vague Addams was, save for the floaters, missing his entire rib cage. That would be perfectly fine, except records indicated she should have an intact skeleton. Wednesday needed an entire skeleton. Considering the fact this was the seventeenth grave she had dug open only to find missing bones, she was properly annoyed. Especially as the family records had never been remotely this inaccurate before in her experience and Wednesday had a lot of experience in this graveyard.
If she weren’t on a tight schedule Wednesday would seriously consider surveying the entire cemetery to do a proper update of the family records. None of the graves she had dug up showed recent signs of disturbance, which meant the bones had been missing for a while. It was a travesty that their records were so out of date. She’d simply have to correct it after the reunion.
There was rustling in the nearby bushes and Wednesday turned toward it with interest. Perhaps a rabid wolf would pop out and she could wrestle it into submission to work out her frustration. Alas, only a woman appeared and she didn’t look the least bit rabid. The leafy twigs in her hair did appear far more fetching on her than they ever had on Aunt Ophelia, though her cheery demeanor did rather ruin the effect.
When she caught sight of Wednesday she jerked back a step, but then reclaimed it. Wednesday nodded in approval. Timidity never got anyone anywhere. Since she made no further movements Wednesday turned her attention back to the graves. She still needed to find a skeleton.
“Umm, excuse me,” the woman said.
“Yes?” Wednesday said, resisting the urge to sigh. This interloper wasn’t welcome in her opinion, but as the only living Addams around she supposed she ought to play host. It would be rude not to.
“Did you open that grave?” she asked, pointing down at old Vague.
“Yes. As well as all the other open graves at the moment,” Wednesday said, gesturing expansively at her field of holes.
“Why?”
“I need a complete skeleton. All 206 bones to be accounted for. Yet despite our family’s extensive records, none of these relatives have been fully laid to rest here. It is confounding. I distinctly remember we used Cousin Ick the last time we hosted hide and bone seek and all his bones were recovered.”
“But now he’s missing all his phalanges?”
“Yes,” Wednesday said, spinning around to pin her with her gaze. Cousin Ick’s grave was too far away for this woman to see from her current location. “How do you know that?”
“I’m afraid it’s my fault. His phalanges are currently decorating a shawl.”
“You—”
“—I asked permission first,” she hurriedly added, cutting Wednesday off. “Everyone here was very cool with loaning me pieces. A couple even insisted.”
“Did they now?” That did sound a little like Aunt Deliria.
“Yes! Oh, I’m sorry, can we start this over again?” she asked, again continuing before Wednesday could respond. “Hi, I’m Lydia Deetz and I’m a necromancer.”
“Charmed,” Wednesday said. “Wednesday Addams.”
“Addams, as in… oh no.”
“Indeed. Have you been grave robbing my relatives for professional or personal reasons?” She didn’t object to it, Wednesday had been known to do a spot of grave robbing from time to time, but it was rare to meet anyone outside the family who practiced.
“I object to grave robbing, I have their permission,” Lydia insisted, gesturing at the open graves. “It’s really more like grave… borrowing.”
“If you wish to borrow a grave I can certainly arrange that. I am confident that any one of these relatives would be happy to share. Or if you would prefer to be alone, I hear six feet under is highly meditative, I am sure whoever I dig up for my purposes would be delighted to lend you their grave. You can keep it warm for them.”
“I don’t plan on being buried alive or dead,” Lydia said, holding her hands up as if she could ward Wednesday off with a mere gesture. Perhaps she could, Wednesday didn’t have that much practical experience with necromancers and she felt her pulse quicken at the prospect of testing her mettle against Lydia’s. “Really, I’m just here to borrow Vague’s floating ribs. Initially I didn’t think I’d need them, but in retrospect the corset would look much better with a full anatomical set.”
“Do you genuinely intend to return the bones or is this more of a permanent loan? A lifetime loan if you will.”
“I’m definitely returning them,” Lydia insisted. “The fashion show is in two weeks and once that’s done I’m not going to need them. It’d be real shitty to keep their bones after all the help your relatives have given me. Originally I was planning to do something with animal bones, but it’s such a pain to get them ethically sourced. They really got my project off the ground when they literally threw me several dozen bones.”
“I see,” Wednesday said, though in truth she did not entirely. High fashion was not her forte, but she could not imagine anyone not clamoring for a human ribcage corset. Whalebone was so last century. She could only imagine what the rest of the pieces looked like with Addams bone. She was not a social creature, but Wednesday felt an urge to attend and see for herself. Perhaps she could convince Lydia to give her a private showing before the bones were returned.
“Are you going to fight me over the bones?”
“Not today. Unless you haven’t left a single relative intact?”
“There are loads I never even got close to,” Lydia chuckled, relaxing. “You know you’ve got a ton of dead relatives here, right Wednesday? There are over a hundred people.”
“One hundred three as according to our last census,” Wednesday clarified, pleased at how close Lydia’s guess was. “Of course there are more Addamses in the old country, but we are very fond of our little plot here.”
“I can tell.”
“One thing still confounds me.”
“Oh?”
“How did you remove the bones without disturbing the gravesite? As you can see, my own efforts have greatly disturbed the ground.”
“That’s the easy part, though it might be harder to show with an open grave,” Lydia said. She crouched down where she stood, still a couple dozen feet away from Vague’s resting place, and began whispering in a cajoling manner. Wednesday couldn’t make out the words, but it reminded her of the way Pugsley used to call for his hyena before it mauled him and ran away.
Glancing down into the grave Wednesday was stunned to see the floating ribs were now actually floating several inches above the bed of the casket. She felt her eyes widen before regaining control of her features. Apparently Lydia was an actual necromancer.
After the bones cleared the casket they drifted to the sidewall closest to Lydia. The first bumped against the dirt then sunk in as smoothly as a trowel into swamp sludge. The other bones met no resistance. When the last bone disappeared from sight Wednesday expected some sort of rippling effect on the grave dirt the way one would see tossing a stone into water, but the dirt remained as still and as staunchly solid as it had been when Wednesday first shoveled through it.
She turned her attention back to Lydia, who remained crouched and smiling, though her attention was clearly on something below. Eventually bones emerged as smoothly from the soil as they had disappeared and gently wafted into Lydia’s hands. Once all four bones safely landed Lydia nodded and gracefully rose. The bones were soon squirreled away in her bag.
“It’s just like that. Any necro worth her salt can get the bones out without disturbing the earth. Same mechanic zombies use to emerge, though I usually manage to avoid the dirt under my fingernails,” Lydia explained. She walked over to Vague’s tombstone and gently patted it. “Thanks again.”
“I haven’t spent enough time around necromancers,” Wednesday said.
“Clearly.”
“Will you assist me in recovering a relative’s remains?” Wednesday asked, offering Lydia the crook of her arm. She didn’t know why she did that, but it felt like the right thing to do. It would certainly be faster if Lydia remembered which graves had bones on loan.
“Of course,” Lydia agreed, linking their arms together. She beamed at Wednesday, though the sentiment was not returned. “I can even march the bones out for you, though you’ll still have to backfill all the open graves yourself.”
“I expect nothing less.”
The rest of Wednesday’s task went swiftly. Lydia led them to Ulysses Addams, a man who apparently had not allowed Lydia use of his remains, but still had all his bones. That was according to Lydia, but family records also backed her latter statement. She paused by the tombstone to have a heated conversation, Wednesday assumed it was with Ulysses, but she had never been spiritually inclined. By the time she stopped talking Lydia looked pleased, so Wednesday figured she won the argument. Lydia tapped a rapid staccato against the tombstone and out of the grave marched a skeleton before coming to stand at attention. Wednesday ended up tossing her body bag over Ulysses and then sweeping him off his feet before Lydia’s magic let go and he was just bones again.
“I guess this is where we part ways,” Lydia said. “Good luck with all the holes.”
“Thank you.” She meant it more for the assistance than the luck, but didn’t specify.
“This really is a loan,” Lydia repeated, patting her bag. “I expect to start bringing them back in about three weeks after I’ve fully disassembled some of the pieces.”
“Noted.”
Lydia briefly smiled again then left. Wednesday refilled the graves before carrying the bones home. She spent the rest of the time before the reunion hiding Ulysses’s bones across the primary estate and immediate surrounding grounds. This would be the first time they had hosted a reunion since Pubert was old enough to participate in the games and she wanted to ensure there was fair play. Otherwise she assisted her parents and Lurch with the eight million little tasks that needed to be completed before they had Company.
Wednesday’s first time running hide and bone seek was a smashing success. If for no other reason than that Cousin Lumpy found the skull, which usually netted the player enough points to win, and then smashed it when Cousin What won by a hair. Normally Wednesday might have found the bout of loser’s rage amusing, but here she was mostly confused. Cousin Lumpy was a handful of years older than her. Why was he still allowed to participate in the games when she had been deemed old enough to run it and tasked with sourcing playing materials? Something didn’t add up. Previously Uncle Fester always ran their games and he wasn’t imprisoned or committed at the moment.
“Wednesday, I have a message for you from beyond the grave,” Granny said, coming to Wednesday’s side as she watched the children bludgeon each other with bones, the time honored post hide and bone seek activity of choice.
“Oh?” Wednesday asked, not paying attention.
“The spirits want you to know about a fashion show!” Granny intoned in a spooky voice. She chuckled and said in her regular voice. “I don’t know why they want you to know about this fashion show, but they were very insistent.”
A suspicion occurred to Wednesday. She turned to give Granny her full attention. “Tell me, Granny, are the spirits involved in any way with choosing who runs hide and bone seek?”
“My goodness, yes child,” Granny said, pressing a hand to her heart. “It’s their bones we use. Of course they get to decide who scatters and collects them again. I’ll say, Fester was quite put out when you received that honor this year. He wouldn’t stop sulking until I zapped him with a cattle prod and now he insists I hit him every day. Such an annoying man.”
Interfering busybodies. They only picked Wednesday because they were trying to set her up with a girl. She should have realized from the start they had ulterior motives for choosing her. The whole graveyard must be quite taken with this Lydia for them to insist on multiple meetings like this. Fine, she’d play their game and see if Lydia was a decent match. If it was a waste of her time Wednesday would make every ghoul in that graveyard rue the day they died. No one got away with making Wednesday unwillingly dance to their tune, not even well-meaning relatives.
She pulled her moleskin notepad and fountain pen out of her inner suit jacket pocket. After flipping it open to the next blank page she uncapped her pen. “Why don’t you give me the spirits’ exact message and I’ll sort it out from there?”
“You really are growing up, Wednesday,” Granny cackled, reaching out a hand to pinch her cheek before Wednesday’s glare arrested its movement. Then she spat out a host of details about the fashion show so quickly Wednesday could barely transcribe the information without smudging the ink. It was everything Wednesday needed to know to attend and far far more.
Once Granny finished Wednesday blew on the page to dry it then snapped the notepad shut and secured it in her jacket pocket. Then Wednesday retired from the reunion silently returning to her room. She’d collect Ulysses’s remains in the morning and rebury him. That could wait until after she started preparing. After all, she had a big night on the town coming up and Wednesday intended to be at peak performance.