Chapter Text
Wednesday rushes through the halls into the conservatory, her braids swinging with each swift step. She stops just beside her mother, looking up at her occupied face.
“Mommy, I’m going to go play with Enid outside at the park.”
“Have fun, darling.” Morticia replies, giving a brief glance towards her daughter before she continues busying herself by taking care of her hemlock.
Wednesday moves away from the conservatory, going back into the living room. She walks up towards the main door, Lurch opening the entrance for her.
Morticia stops trimming the leaves of a flower, turning her head back to watch Wednesday leave. She gives a small sigh, turning on her heel to leave for the living room.
“Lurch, look after her, will you?”
Lurch gives her a nod. He heads to leave the house as well, closing the door behind him.
Wednesday trots away into the neighborhood, the gothic nature of her family’s mansion fading from her view as bright flowers, grass and trees fill the girl’s vision.
The saturatedness of the world around her wasn’t much to her taste as she preferred the hues and macabre aesthetic her family had, although she didn’t mind the outside world’s vibrancy every once in a while either. It grabbed her attention, satisfying the youthful part of her brain.
Walking into the park, she scans the area looking for a certain blonde from her school. Wednesday spots her sitting down in a sandbox, playing with horse-like toys, although it’s difficult to tell from a distance.
Wednesday moves over towards the girl, standing a few feet away from her.
“Hello.”
Enid looks up from her game, blue eyes drinking in the familiar monotone presence.
“Hi, Wednesday!” Enid beams, shifting her legs slightly as her lips slowly curve upwards in a wide smile.
Wednesday gracefully lowers herself to the sandbox, some of the sand staining her long black skirt. Her big brown eyes never waver from the other girl’s face, face still neutral.
“I wanted to play with you today.”
“I always like playing with you, Wednesday.”
Wednesday doesn’t respond to her comment, eyes looking away for a moment into the sand before falling back onto her.
“What are you playing?”
“I’m playing ponies,” Enid answers, picking up a plastic pastel-colored unicorn. “My favorite color is yellow, like this one here. What about you, Wednesday?”
Yellow.
Wednesday had never thought much about yellow before, but now that Enid had mentioned it as her favorite color, it seemed like it held all the brightness and kindness in the world; like sunshine and daffodils and gold.
Wednesday had never considered her favorite color before.
She liked hues—shades of the darkest blacks and pearliest whites—not colors like other children. She thinks about the question, deciding on one that she likes a bit more than the rest.
“Hm, my favorite color is red.”
“Why red?”
“It reminds me of blood and mommy’s belladonnas.”
“Blood?” Enid scrunches her face together. “That’s gross! I’ve never heard of a belladonna before.”
“It’s a poisonous flower, from the nightshade family Solanaceae.”
“Wow, how do you know that?” Enid shifts her legs over to be in a criss-cross position, momentarily halting her game. “Do you read a lot?”
“Mommy has a garden, and she tells me all about her flowers.”
“Wow, really? Can I visit your house someday, Wednesday?”
“You say my name a lot.”
Enid gives a few small but insistent nods while still smiling in acknowledgement. “It’s a nice name. Kind of weird, though. I mean, who names their child a day of the week?”
“My mother. She says it’s based off her favorite nursery rhyme line, ‘Wednesday's child is full of woe.’”
“Do you know the nursery rhyme?” Enid asks, looks into the pallor of the other girl’s face excitedly, shifting in place again with impatience. Wednesday never understood the girl’s inability to be still.
“...I do. My parents tell me it sometimes before bed.” Wednesday clears her throat, feeling a small surge of pride at the thought of being able to recite things from memory. Her voice is slow and monotone as it always is, however now paced with the same rhythm her mother recites poems to her. “'Monday’s child is fair of face, Tuesday’s child is full of grace, Wednesday’s child is full of woe—'”
“That’s you, oh my God!” Enid exclaims enthusiastically, her smile widening enough to reveal teeth and one missing tooth in the upper corner.
Wednesday blinks.
“Yes…it’s me.” She pauses as her eyes dart around the sandbox as she thinks, looking back at Enid as she continues her reciting. “'Thursday’s child has far to go, Friday’s child is loving and giving, Saturday’s child works hard for a living. But the child that is born on Sabbath day, is bonny and blithe; good and gay.'”
“What’s a Sabbath day?”
“I…don’t know. I’ll ask my mother later.”
Enid moves her pony toys around the sandbox again, picking up one and handing her a black-and-white alicorn. “This pony reminds me of you.”
Wednesday takes the toy, inspecting it, turning it around in various angles. “This is not a pony, this is an alicorn, and most of your ponies are unicorns.”
“They’re basically the same thing.” Enid proclaims, tilting her head to the side. “Why don’t we play?”
“What should we play?”
“Hmm,” Enid hums to herself as she ponders on the question. “Why don’t we play house? I can be the Mom and you can be the Dad.”
“What plot are we going to enact?”
Enid innocently blinks at her through the thick lashes framing her azure irises.
“What plot?”
“A plot is a series of events in a story. My daddy says it's what a story is about. So what is our game going to be about?”
“Oh,” Enid makes a sound in understanding. “Well, I was thinking the Mom and the Dad have a fight because their child is a disappointment, but then they see that their child is actually super smart and nice and then they make up.”
“Why would they fight over that?”
Enid’s smile melts into a thin line slowly. “What do you mean? Grown-ups fight all the time over stuff like that."
“That’s a weird plot, Enid. It doesn’t make a lot of sense.” She pauses. “But we can play.”
Enid smiles again. “Thanks, Wednesday. This is why you’re my B.F.F.”
Wednesday looks up at her in surprise and confusion, although it doesn’t show anywhere on her face apart from her now-bulging dark eyes.
“A…what?”
“B-F-F,” Enid spells out the word slowly. “It means Best Friends Forever.”
“Forever?” A puzzled look spreads across Wednesday’s face. “But you can’t know if we’ll be friends forever.”
Enid waves her off dismissively.
“I know we will. If you really love someone, you stay with them forever, right? That’s what it says in all the movies and books and stuff. When people stop talking, it’s ‘cause they didn’t work out. So, you love me, right? Cause we play all the time.”
Wednesday supposes she can’t argue with that, despite the fact that the stories she reads primarily contain bad endings. Like the Grimm one where a knight in shining armor slays a poor, innocent dragon.
It makes Wednesday sad just thinking about it. Dragons don’t deserve to be killed. They must have been slayed so much that Wednesday hasn’t even seen one in a zoo, likely an endangered species from over-hunting.
“Okay…” Wednesday murmurs, considering something. “Who will be the child?”
“Hm, well, I’ll also be the child.”
Wednesday places her colorless alicorn on the sand, slightly smoothing out the place where her toy stands. Her slender fingers wrap around the middle of the alicorn, mimicking a trot as the ‘Dad’ enters the ‘house’.
Wednesday deepens her voice to imitate a male’s. “‘Darling, I’m home.’”
Enid bursts out giggling at the other girl’s impression, breaking character. “You’re so funny, Wednesday. What kind of dad talks like that?”
“Mine does,” she replies, steadying her alicorn. “Where is the Mom?”
“Oh, right,” Enid picks up her toy and shifts it to be in front of Wednesday’s. She pitches her voice in a mock-feminine tone. “‘Hi, honey. Why did you work all night?’”
“‘To make money. What were you doing?’”
“‘I was just reading and sewing and cooking. It doesn’t really matter. I’m so tired of our daughter being weird.’”
Wednesday moves her alicorn to be closer towards the pastel unicorn. “‘What’s wrong with being weird?’”
Enid’s unicorn does a mock-backflip as she turns it around in a full circle. She stifles a laugh at her own toy’s ridiculous movement.
“‘Being weird? Why would you want to be weird when you can be like everyone else?’”
Wednesday starts to feel bored with the roleplay. She decides she’ll play a bit longer to satisfy her friend—er, B.F.F now—it’s what good players do.
“‘It’s important to be yourself. I think our daughter is great.’”
Enid injects surprise into her voice for the ‘Mom’.
“‘Wow. I didn’t think of it that way.’”
“‘Yes. Let’s kiss, querida.’”
Enid giggles as they smash their toy’s ‘mouths’ together in a mock-kiss repeatedly.
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know, but my parents say it a lot to each other. I think it’s just like ‘darling’ because of the way they look at each other when they say it.”
“Your family sounds really interes—”
“Enid!” An older feminine voice shouts somewhere from behind Enid’s form. “It’s time to go home! The sun is setting soon.”
Enid whips her head back at the sound of her mother’s voice calling out to her, then back to Wednesday with a dejected expression.
“Aw, sorry Wednesday, but…I have to go. My mom’s calling me.”
“That’s alright. I’ll see you at school.”
“It was fun playing with you.” Enid comments as she picks up her toys, rushing back to the other side of the park where her mother is.
Wednesday watches the girl leave, staring at their departure. She lifts herself off the ground, deciding to head over to Lurch; who is standing near a tree in the shade. He reminds me of her mother’s nightshade plants, because they both like the dark.
“Let’s go home, Lurch.”
Lurch takes her small body in his hands and carries her back to the Addams abode, Wednesday reflecting on her earlier encounter and wondering how the next week of school will be. First grade is harder than grown-ups give it credit for.