Story [Wednesday TV Show] Diary of an Over-Friendly Werewolf (Enid Sinclair DDC 2024)

Title: Diary of an Over-Friendly Werewolf

Author: devilinthedetails

Fandom: Netflix's Wednesday TV Show.

Characters: Enid Sinclair; Wednesday Addams; assorted others.

Genre: General; Humor; Friendship; Action/Adventure; Mystery.

Summary: Enid Sinclair's diary of the events that occurred throughout the first season of Wednesday.

Author's Note: Written for the Half Marathon Dear Diary Challenge 2024.

---

Dear Diary,

I was sitting at my desk in my attic dorm room of the extremely Victorian Gothic Ophelia Hall, staring at my open laptop screen as I mulled over topics for future blog posts that would be sure to appeal to my hundreds of followers (mostly fellow attendees of Nevermore Academy) when Principal Weems strode in. Heels clacking. A red lipsticked smile on her face.

A girl with two waist-long black braids dressed all in black from head to toe followed. A man and woman–also garbed as if they were chief mourners at a funeral rather than dropping their daughter off at boarding school–completed the parade. The man and woman were presumably the parents of the new roommate I had been told that I would be receiving today.

I had been brimming with excitement to meet my new roommate. To give them a grand tour of the campus. To serve all the steaming gossip and tea. To become besties. To swap Instagram handles.

“It’s so…vivid,” the man said. Sounding less than impressed with my taste in decor. But I couldn’t expect a man of his age to appreciate the latest style among teenage girls. I had to make allowances for his out-of-touchness as I would with my own dad.

My dad who had ordered steak and eggs (hold the eggs, meat extra rare) at the Jericho diner before he dropped me off at Nevermore this year.

I, of course, had ordered the chocolate chip pancakes with sliced strawberries for my meal. Snapped a picture with my cellphone. Posted it to Insta and received a barrage of likes within the hour. Even though my dad could not understand why I bothered to take photos of my food. For him, it was to be gobbled up with as little ceremony as possible. In true werewolf fashion. Werewolves, after all, were not known for their table manners. Anyone who has ever eaten with my younger brothers will be aware of that to their chagrin.

I could imagine my new roommate and I bonding over how hilariously behind-the-times our parents were as I half-skipped and half-jogged across the wooden floorboards. A broad, bright beam on my face.

“Howdy, roomie!” I exclaimed.

“Wednesday.” Principal Weems cut in with the formal introductions. “This is Enid Sinclair.”

“Are you feeling okay?” I asked. Concerned for I had noticed that Wednesday’s face was white as fresh Vermont snow, and she was staring at me with blank eyes. Perhaps she was just nervous. Or tired from her journey. “You look a little pale.”

“Wednesday always looks half-dead,” her father responded after a moment’s silence. Offering information that wasn’t exactly comforting.

“Oh.” I floundered. Sought to recover. To get the conversation back on the fast track to making my new best friend.

I held out my arms, preparing for an enthusiastic embrace. “Welcome to Ophelia Hall!”

Wednesday glared at me. Retreated a step.

I remembered that not everyone was as touchy-feely and bubbly as me. That I must respect their boundaries.

I kept my distance while still smiling radiantly. Trying to be welcoming but not overpowering. To show I was picking up on the signals she was sending loud and clear. “Not a hugger. Got it.”

“Please excuse Wednesday.” Wednesday’s mother spoke up for the first time. “She’s allergic to color.”

I thought of the rainbow hues of my curtains and bedsheets. The vibrantly colored carpets I had placed on my side of the room. For softness and warmth on cold New England days. Even the pastel pink and purple flowers that adorn your cover and gilded pages, dear diary.

“Oh, wow.” My eyes widened with worry. “What happens to you?”

“I break out into hives.” Wednesday’s tone and expression were deadpan. It was impossible to tell if she and her mother were lying. I had never heard of anyone being allergic to color–to certain fabrics and dyes perhaps–but Nevermore was built to accommodate us students with special needs. The monsters and outcasts. The feared and the freaks. No one and no condition was too strange to be found at Nevermore. “And then the flesh peels off my bones.”

I was horrified and nauseated by the graphic picture this painted in my head. Even if I still didn’t know whether she was lying or telling the truth.

“Luckily, we’ve ordered you a special uniform,” Principal Weems pronounced smoothly. She, at least, had taken Wednesday and her parents at their words evidently. Was probably obligated to do so by the law and the academy’s board. A board that would want to avoid getting sued at all costs.

Principal Weems turned her focus to me. “Enid, please take Wednesday to the registrar’s office to pick it up alone with a copy of her schedule, and give her a tour along the way.”

Jubilant at the prospect of being able to live my dream as a tour guide and expert on all things Nevermore, I did a happy dance shimmy in place.

Wednesday spun on her heel. Looking the frigid polar opposite of excited and jubilant. She would, I thought, have to radically improve her attitude if she wanted to make friends and become popular at Nevermore. To seamlessly fit in with our social scene. Smooth out some of her rough edges and hostile peculiarities. Accept some overtures of friendliness and welcome.

I skipped out of the room behind Wednesday toward the wrought-iron spiral staircase even though I was supposed to be the one leading her on this tour and to the registrar’s where we would collect her special uniform and schedule.

More later!

Warmest hugs and kisses,

Enid

 

Dear Diary,

“Ophelia,” I informed Wednesday, reciting a fact Miss Thornhill had taught me as we descended the wrought-iron, spiral staircase of our dormitory named in Ophelia’s honor, “was an expert at identifying different types of flowers and understanding their meaning. A true lover of horticulture.”

“She also was driven mad by her boyfriend and her family,” scoffed Wednesday. “And drowned herself in a river. You clearly aren’t up-to-date on all your Shakespeare trivia.”

I led Wednesday out of Ophelia Hall, which I had never before realized had the grisly distinction of being named after a suicide, to the registrar’s office in the rotunda of the main building. We entered. Wednesday wearing a cold stare. Me, my friendly, winning smile.

“How can I help you?” The secretary on duty at the registrar’s office glanced up from her rapid typing. Focusing her attention on me rather than Wednesday. I, no doubt, seemed the safer person to address given that Wednesday was doing her deadpan best to project an aura of icy intimidation.

“We are here to collect Wednesday’s schedule and uniform.” It was a struggle to maintain my sunny beam when Wednesday glared daggers at me. Clearly taking umbrage at the noun “we.” Determined to demonstrate that we weren’t buddies or allies. But I was sure I could break through her tough shell with enough time and smiles. Time and smiles could erode even the stoniest heart, after all. My charm offensive would be effective eventually. I just had to be patient and upbeat.

“Ah, yes, of course.” The secretary dug through her filing cabinet. Withdrew a printed schedule and a neatly folded uniform she deposited into the arms of a Wednesday who was now radiating toxic levels of resentment and passive resistance. “Welcome to Nevermore, Wednesday.”

“I’d rather be welcomed to my own execution.” Wednesday scowled at the secretary. Apparently hostile to all pleasantries.

The secretary ignored this burst of what she no doubt regarded as typical teenage attitude. Went on smoothly, gesturing down the narrow hallway of the registrar’s office, “There is a bathroom down that corridor where you can change into your uniform.”

Wednesday swept like a black storm cloud down the indicated hallway to the bathroom. Disappeared inside it. Possibly to change into the uniform as directed or to flush herself down the toilet. I put no act–no matter how grim, deranged, or disgusting–past her even after our brief acquaintance.

I tried to make polite chit-chat with the secretary about the beautiful potted plants arrayed on her desk, but she only offered non-committal “mmm” noises as her fingers flew across her clacking keyboard. Obviously I was less interesting than whatever document she was composing there. At least in her opinion.

A glowering Wednesday emerged from the bathroom. Strode back down the corridor wearing a look that could murder and a variation of our uniform in stark shades of bone white, tombstone gray, and midnight black.

It occurred to me as she approached that black–or was it white?--was supposed to be the sum of all the colors. And that she was wearing it now. Even though she was allegedly so allergic to color that she broke out into hives and her skin peeled off. Had she and her parents faked an allergy just so Wednesday didn’t have to wear the same black-and-blue uniform as the rest of us students at Nevermore?

As these thoughts whirled around in my head, I said only, “Your uniform looks very dark on you.”

“Dark and devoid of all color is my style,” Wednesday replied waspishly as we stepped out of the registrar’s office.

I assumed my tour guide mode as we headed down the rotunda stairs. “Nevermore was founded in 1791 to educate people like us. Outcasts. Monsters. Fill in your favorite marginalized group here.”

“Save the sanitized sales pitch.” Wednesday was as dismissive and scornful as she had been since we met. Defiance entered her tone as well as she continued, “I don’t plan on staying here long.”

“Why not?” I inquired. Wondering how I could make her feel more at home at Nevermore. More welcomed and willing to stay.

“This was my parents’ idea.” Wednesday’s gaze flicked to a glass trophy cabinet loaded with trophies and photos of smiling, successful students past. “Oh, look, there’s my mother smirking at me. They’ve been looking for any excuse to send me here. It’s all a part of their nefarious and completely obvious plan.”

“What plan?” I asked. Grinning at her. Deciding to play along with her paranoia.

“To turn me into a version of themselves.” Wednesday’s answer was flat. Expressionless.

My grin dropped from my face as I decided to pry into a particularly nasty piece of gossip that had me nervous about sharing a room with her given her overall demeanor as presented so far. “Well, in that case, perhaps you can clear something up. Rumor’s been swirling around that you killed a kid at your old school, and your parents pulled strings to get you off.”

“I believe it was two kids, but who’s counting?” Wednesday’s breezy, indifferent words as she brushed past me made it impossible to determine whether she was joking or serious. She was so hard to read with that blank expression and her constant cold, cruel words.

I stared after her, baffled.

I have more tea to spill about the next stages of our tour, dear diary, but I can’t overwhelm you by writing everything at once.

X’s and O’s,

Enid

 

Dear Diary,

I led Wednesday into the quad. The teeming hub of our social life here at Nevermore. The spiraling spoke around which all our gossiping spun.

Announcing perkily with a grand, open gesture of my arms, “Welcome to the quad.”

I paused. Glancing over my shoulder. Awaiting her doubtlessly dour reaction.

She did not disappoint. Observing with flat geometrical accuracy, “It’s a pentagon.”

I shot her a withering look. Finally offered her the advice that had been hovering on the tip of my tongue ever since we had met. Ever since I had been sentenced to share a room with this thundering storm cloud of doom and gloom. “The whole snarky goth girl thing may have worked in normie school, but here things are different.”

I let my face soften into a smile. Continued to serve her all the steaming tea I would have been eager to drink up if it were my first day at a new boarding school. “Let me give you a wiki on Nevermore’s social scene.”

“I’m not interested in participating in tribal adolescent cliches.” Wednesday scornfully stomped and spat on the olive branch I had extended her as we continued to walk along the colonnade.

“Then use it to fuel your obviously bottomless pit of disdain,” I retorted. Starting to grasp her psychology. How her peculiar mind worked. She who was evidently determined to be an outcast among outcast rather than painfully eager to belong like me.

I went on with my wiki on Nevermore’s social scene despite her expressed distaste for the topic. “There are many flavors of outcast, but the four main cliques are–” I reeled them off on my fingers for her benefit– “fangs, furs, stoners, and skins.”

I pointed at a table full of students sipping on red beverages–the origins of which I refused to contemplate in any depth or at any length–through white straws. As if to provide the starkest, most disgusting contrast possible. “Those are the fangs a.k.a. vampires.”

I leaned closer to her ear to whisper in wide-eyed, scandalized tones, “Some of them have literally been here for decades.”

“That bunch of knuckleheads are furs a.k.a werewolves like me.” With exasperated affection, I indicated a more mischievous knot of students rough-housing and howling as they chased each other in another area of the quad.

“Full moons get pretty loud around here,” I added helpfully. Explaining my kind to her. Or what would be my kind if I could ever successfully wolf out. Something that became more and more unlikely as time passed. Much to my parents’ often belabored disappointment. “That’s when furs like wolf out. I suggest you pick up some noise-canceling headphones.”

“I’m assuming scales are sirens,” she remarked. Deadpan as she stared at the cluster of sirens around the fountain that served as the quad’s centerpiece.

“You catch on quick,” I replied. Then shared another vital piece of trivia as I pointed to the queen bee of the sirens. Of the school. “And that girl, Bianca Barclay is the closest thing Nevermore has to royalty although her crown’s been slipping lately. She used to date our resident tortured artist, Xavier Thorpe, but they broke up at the beginning of the semester. Reason unknown.”

I concluded in a hushed, breathless manner that drew forth a “Fascinating” from Wednesday.

“I know right!” I pounced on the first hint of positive engagement from her. “My blog is like the number one source for Nevermore gossip!”

“Yo, Enid!” I spun around in horror as Ajax came to me with a piping hot mug of tea about my new roommate that he did not hesitate to spill all over her. Talk about awkward. “You’re not going to believe the dirt I heard about your new roommate. She eats human flesh. Totally chowed down on that kid she murdered. You’d better watch your back.”

He was the one who had better watch his back. If Wednesday was going to kill and devour anyone, it would be him for the words that had just come out of his too-big mouth.

“On the contrary.” Wednesday shot him her coolest glance. “I actually flay the bodies of my victims then feed them to my menagerie of pets.”

“Ajax.” I forced a slight, diplomatic smile as I performed the introductions. “This is my new roommate Wednesday.”

“Wow.” Ajax gawked at Wednesday’s uniform. “You’re in black and white. Like a living Instagram filter.”

“Ignore him,” I interjected. Directing my words to Wednesday. “Gorgons spend way too much time getting stoned.”

As Ajax ambled off, I provided my final, succinct verdict. “He’s cute but clueless. You know, it’s a small school, and there wasn’t much online about you. Oh, you know, you should really get on Insta, Snapchat, and TikTok.”

Wednesday only continued to gaze blankly at me. As if I had suggested contracting the bubonic plague or something. “I find social media to be a soul-sucking void of meaningless affirmation.”

Then she turned on her heel and walked away. Ending our tour with that declaration that made me feel as if the blog that was my passion was worthless. That was soul-sucking and totally Wednesday as I was learning.

That won’t stop me from writing another blog entry tonight. Probably about her, and everything she revealed to me in the course of our abruptly truncated tour.

All the heart eye emojis,

Enid

 

@DarthIshtar I'm so happy to hear that you found Wednesday to be reminiscent of both Ricci and Ortega, and that you enjoyed the menagerie line!

@amidalachick I'm so flattered that you enjoyed reading this despite not having watched the Wednesday TV show yet, and the name Enid is a very sweet one, so I totally understand why you would be a fan of it!

It makes my day to hear that you felt I did a fantastic job giving Enid her own voice and personality in this diary, and I agree that Enid is wonderfully happy, vibrant character that makes writing her a joy for me!

I really did want to capture some of her depths, struggles, and uncertainties as well, so it is awesome to know that you felt I was able to convey that side of her as well.

Thank you so much for the kind words, and I hope you will enjoy this next installment as well

@Jade Kenobi Thank you so much for reading and reviewing! I'm so thrilled that you found this story to be super cute, and I'm so flattered that you felt some of my added scenes and lines were so in character that you felt they could have been part of the show. There can be no higher compliment than that, and I'm so happy that you are loving seeing this from Enid's point of view

---

Dear Diary,

Tonight I entered my dorm room to a truly awful and angering sight. Wednesday was scraping the rainbow paint with which I had covered the window of the room–to make it more cheery and less Gothic horror–off the glass. She had scraped away almost half the paint. My artistry and decor in ruins. This was how the Romans must have felt seeing the barbarians sack their Eternal City.

“What the hell did you do to my room?” I demanded. Glancing around at all the color she had stripped away from my domain. My territory. Feeling an almost werewolf snarl rise within me. My parents would be proud of my rage. My protective possessiveness. That I was finally displaying some werewolf qualities. Hopeful that it might indicate I would at last be able to wolf out soon.

I stormed toward her.

Disappointed when she only turned a flat gaze upon me. Responding coolly, “Dividing our room equally.”

Her side of the room looked black with a dark spiderweb accent on her claimed half of the window. Hideous. Downright depressing to look upon.

She kicked the strip of color she had peeled from her part of the window onto my side of the room with the toe of her boots. Apparently feeling the same disdain toward my decoration sense as I had toward her aesthetics. Remarking contemptuously, “Looks like a rainbow vomited on your side.”

I opened my mouth, fists clenched, to tell her exactly what I thought of her and the devastation she had inflicted on our innocent dorm room.

“Silence would be appreciated,” she rapped out. Back to me. Sliding into her desk before her typewriter. She needed to enter the twenty-first century. “This is my writing time.”

“Your writing time?” I repeated. Trying to find a common ground. A shared interest.

“I devote an hour a day to my novel,” she explained. Fingers hovering over her typewriter as she finished with another one of her biting comments, “Perhaps if you did the same, your blog might be coherent. I read serial killer diaries with better punctuation.”

My blog was written in a stream of conscious style with all the emojis and disregard for the stuffy conventions of grammar common to social media. There was no way she would have recognized or appreciated the style. She probably wrote as if it were still the nineteenth-century. Stiff and pretentious.

“I write in my voice.” I defended myself. My blog. My style of writing and communicating. My lip trembling. “It’s my truth. It’s what my followers love.”

More people, I thought, had read, liked, and commented on my blog post than would ever read her novel. No publisher would ever want to touch whatever twisted nightmare fuel she churned out at that typewriter with a ten foot pole. My audience was far larger than hers would ever be. She was just jealous of me. Of how many people read and reacted to my words. Cared about what I expressed across all my social media channels.

“Your followers are clearly imbeciles.” Wednesday was cutting and insulting as ever. She stood. “They respond to your stories with insipid little pictures.”

I made a scoffing, derisive noise. “You mean emojis?”

The fact that she didn’t even know what emojis were told me that I had been one hundred percent right to disregard her ignorant critique of my social media presence.

“That’s how people express their feelings,” I went on. Offering a condescending explanation as if I were communicating with an emotionally dead alien from Mars. “You know, I realize that’s a foreign concept to you.”

“When I look at you–” Wednesday deadpanned— “the following emojis come to mind. Rope. Shovel. Hole.”

She spun on her heel. Returning to her desk. “By the way, there are two d’s in Addams. If you’re going to gossip about me, at least smell my name correctly.”

I reached down. Swiped on the music on my phone. The bright tunes loud enough to interrupt her precious, pretentious writing time. Dancing pointedly along to them to prove that her sourness couldn’t squelch my joy. Staying on my side of the room as I flitted about like a butterfly. Taunting her with my determinedly bubbly, upbeat nature that even her dourness couldn’t puncture.

“Turn that off,” she snapped.

I answered only with jazz hands and an imitation of an explosion. Boom goes the dynamite in her bitter face.

“This is your final warning,” she gritted. Striding menacingly toward my half of the room.

My perfectly manicured nails instantly swelled into claws as I instinctually assumed a werewolf’s stance. I wasn’t wolfing out, but I was showing I had claws. Claws that allowed me to defend myself from a roommate who violated my boundaries. Made the mistake of misinterpreting my friendliness as weakness. “Don’t mess with me. This kitty’s got claws, and I’m not afraid to use them.”

Never had I wanted to scrape the skin off someone’s face more, in fact.

Wednesday stared at me. Evaluating the degree of threat I posed. Accessing her next move.

At that moment, we were interrupted by the arrival of the chirping Miss Thornhill. “Good evening, girls.”

I quickly hid my claws behind my back. So as not to betray the intensity of the argument that had been waging between myself and Wednesday.

“Oh, sorry about the mud,” Miss Thornhill continued as if only just realizing her red boots were caked with dirt. Shutting the door behind her. “Wanted to make sure that Wednesday was settling in.”

Wednesday and I stood, straight-backed, on our respective sides of the room. Making no reply.

Miss Thornhill shifted from foot to foot. The sound of her boots echoing through the silent dorm room. “Is this a bad time?”

It was, but neither Wednesday nor I had the chance to say so as Miss Thornhill crossed the room. Introducing herself to Wednesday as she walked, “I’m Miss Thornhill. Your dorm mom.Apologies I wasn’t here to greet you when you arrived. I trust Enid has given you the old Nevermore welcome.”

“She’s been smothering me with hospitality.” Wednesday’s words took on an increasingly threatening quality. “I hope to return the favor. In her sleep.”

The fake smile I had plastered on for Miss Thornhill’s benefit slipped from my face as I eyed Wednesday warily. Wondering if I should request to be transferred to another room. One with a less murderous co-inhabitant. But all the other rooms were full. That was how Wednesday had been assigned to mine in the first place. How I had been stuck to her.

“Well.” Miss Thornhill sounded highly wrong-footed. Disconcerted as anyone would be after meeting Wednesday Addams. Recovered by holding out a black plant that would probably suit Wednesday’s dark tastes. “Here’s a little welcome gift from my conservatory. I try to match the right flower to each of my girls, and when I read your personal statement on your application, I immediately thought of this one.”

Miss Thornhill’s choice had been impeccably accurate this time around, I noted. She had found a plant as bleak as Wednesday Addams. Impressive.

“A black dahlia.” Wednesday surprisingly revealed herself to be a horticultural expert.

“Oh, you know it!” exclaimed Miss Thornhill. Delighted.

“Of course.” Wednesday spoke without inflection in her trademark fashion. “It’s named after my favorite unsolved murder.”

Naturally Wednesday’s fascination would entirely be with a macabre, unsolved murder and not at all with the plant. What could be more predictable?

When Miss Thornhill and I looked at her as if she had three heads, Wednesday added, as if finally attuned to the sheer awkwardness of the situation, “Thank you.”

“Okie-dokie.” Miss Thornhill scrambled to regain some sense of normalcy. “Well, before I leave, I want to go over a few house rules. Lights off at ten. No loud music. And no boys ever.”

“What’s the story about going into the local town?” Wednesday asked. Probably plotting to push the rules already.

“Passes to Jericho are a privilege, not a right,” Miss Thornhill recited Nevermore’s official policy. “It’s a brisk twenty-five minute walk or there’s a shuttle on the weekends. Locals are a tad bit wary about Nevermore, so please don’t go making any waves or perpetuating any outcast stereotypes.”

That would be an impossible level of difficulty for Wednesday Addams, I thought as Miss Thornhill went on, “That means keep your claws to yourself, and no smothering people in their sleep. Are we clear?”

I felt appropriately chastised by the references to no loud music and keeping one’s claws to oneself, but I doubted Wednesday would be so easily cowed.

Miss Thornhill glanced between us. Then giggled. “Great talk.”

She flounced out of the room with a wave of her fingers. Leaving Wednesday and me in silence.

I’ll continue to express my voice and speak my truth no matter what Wednesday Addams says about my punctuation or lack thereof. Rest assured of that, dear diary.

Good night, and here’s to hoping I don’t get smothered in my sleep by Wednesday Addams!

Enid

 

Dear Diary,

On the night of the full moon (werewolves always know what state the moon is in–it’s in our blood), I came back to my dorm room to find Wednesday on our balcony. Her black clothes might have made her difficult to see against the night, but her music gave her away. She was sawing fiercely at what appeared to be a gigantic violin like a one girl orchestra.

She remained an irritating oddity to have as a roommate, I thought. Stepping outside to confront her eternally mysterious and brooding self, I demanded, “How the hell did you get that oversized violin out the window?”

“I had an extra hand,” she replied with what seemed to be dry wit.

I was confused until I noticed with a sickening twist in my stomach a disembodied hand–stitched like a prop from a horror movie I would have hated—on the top of Wednesday’s music stand.

The hand gave me a waggle of fingers that seemed to constitute a strange little wave.

“Wow.” Disgust continued to rise inside me as I gazed upon the monstrous hand. “Where’s the rest of him?”

I had defaulted, in the absence of any other evidence, to assuming the hand was male. Perhaps that would be sufficient grounds to have him kicked out of our dormitory before he gave me too many nightmares.

“It’s one of the great Addams family mysteries.” Wednesday was all stony indifference.

The hand, to my revulsion, leaped down from the music stand. Scuttled like a spider past me. Back into the dorm room.

I gazed around me, hearing the howling of werewolves. Wondering desolately if I would ever wolf out like them. If I even wanted to wolf out like them or if it was only something my parents wanted for me. Wondering if I would be forever alone. Forever an outcast.

“Why aren’t you wolfing out?” Wednesday’s pointed inquiry made it feel as if she could read my mind. My deepest insecurity.

“Because I can’t,” I admitted. Unsure why I was confessing my worst shame to Wednesday of all people. She probably wouldn’t have even learned the truth through the ruthless gossip mill at school since she avoided associating with our classmates as much as possible.

I flashed my painted claws at her. The gesture sad. Not intimidating as it had been her first night here when she had torn the color from her side of the room. A grave insult to my fabulous taste in decor. “That’s all I got.”

I retracted my claws. Wandered forlornly to the edge of our balcony. Resting my elbows on the railing as I gazed gloomy down on the night-shrouded school grounds. “My mom says some werewolves are late bloomers, but I’ve been to the best lyconologists. I had to fly to Milwalkee. Would you believe it?”

That had been an embarrassing experience. Flying with my family always was. Then to have the added mortification of being told by another specialist that there was nothing that they could do for me.

“Yeah, she says,” I finished my tale of woe, “that there’s a chance I might never, you know–”

I could remember like a stab to the chest my family’s disappointment and despair on hearing the specialist’s verdict. Their determinedly brave attempts to assure me that she was wrong. That they would find a way to make me wolf out. That they wouldn’t give up on me. That I wouldn’t become a lone wolf. Eternally without a pack. The greatest fear of my kind.

“What happens then?” Wednesday asked. Neither sympathetically nor unsympathetically.

“I become a lone wolf.” My soul sank as I described the bleak fate I feared would be my future. A future it became less likely I would escape with every full moon that passed without me wolfing out.

Wednesday came to stand beside me. If I had hoped for any comfort from her after my moment of vulnerability, she proved what a callous sociopath she was by remarking cool as the night breeze, “Sounds perfect.”

“Are you kidding me?” I scoffed. Voice thick with suppressed tears. “My life would be officially over. I’d be kicked out of my family pack, from the prospect of finding a mate–”

“I’m failing to see the problem here,” Wednesday interrupted. Deadpan as ever.

“I could die alone.” I could feel myself spiraling. Panic swirling inside me like a tornado. Overwhelming me.

Wednesday stared at me. Eyes as black as midnight. As black as doom and death. “We all die alone, Enid.”

I gaped at her in disbelief. Her freak levels were off the charts. As were her misanthropic tendencies. “You really suck at this.”

She was even worse at comforting me than my parents were. At least my parents tried, in their clumsy ways, to console me. To assure me that I wouldn’t die alone. That I would find a mate. Wednesday didn’t even try.

I couldn’t keep the tears out of my voice now. “Cheering people up.”

Crying, I looked down at my hands. Feeling alone already.

I buried my head against my wrists. Against the railing. Anxiety and despair swallowing me.

“Why are you crying?” Wednesday demanded. Flat. Unable to understand basic human emotions.

“Because I’m upset,” I snapped. I fought for some semblance of composure. Shot her a wet attempt at a withering look. “Haven’t you ever cried or are you above that too?”

Wednesday’s gaze dropped from mine. “It was the week after Halloween,” she answered after a moment, and the full moon overhead seemed oddly appropriate and atmospheric for the horrible story of trauma she was no doubt about to tell. “I was six years old. I took my pet scorpion Nero out for his afternoon stroll in the rain when we were ambushed. They wondered what kind of freak would have a scorpion for a pet. Two of them held me down and made me watch while the others ran Nero over until– It was snowing when I buried what was left of him. I cried my little black heart out, but tears don’t fix anything. So I vowed to never do it again.”

I could picture her heartbreak. Her tears over her beloved pet’s grave. How she had hardened her heart afterward. Become determined not to cry even if it meant being cold and deadpan all the time.

Now she had shared her secret–her pain and her vulnerability–with me. She had trusted me in a weird way.

I would honor that.

“Your secret’s safe with me,” I said into the quiet that followed her story. Lightening the tone, I added honesty, “I still think you’re weird as ****, though.”

“The feeling is incredibly mutual,” she riposted.

The banter cast a strange spell over us. Made us feel almost like friends for a moment.

She broke the enchantment with her next words. “How would you like your single room back?”

I looked at her with some speculation and interest as she went on, “You just need to show me how to use your computer.”

I was astonished that anyone our age could not know how to use a computer. Then I recalled I had only ever seen her clacking away at her typewriter. It put her appalling ignorance of social media platforms in perspective.

I would teach her how to use a computer. Help her enter the modern world in some small way. Even if it meant losing her as a roommate just when I was starting to not hate her guts. To see her as a hurt human like me.

I, therefore, showed her how to use FaceTime to plot her escape with some boy in town. The sheriff’s son who worked at the Weathervane. Someone who intended to bribe into giving her a ride to the train station after she ran away from the harvest festival in town where attendance was mandatory for all of us students.

I always enjoyed the rides, the games, and the fried food guaranteed to raise my cholesterol and clog my young arteries, but to Wednesday I imagined all the happy people and laughter would only have value as a cover for her escape.

I wondered if I would be able to persuade her to take just one turn around the ferris wheel with me. If we could share just one moment of joy together at the top of the wheel before we lost contact with each other forever. Roommates for only the briefest of intervals. Destined to totally forget one another. Especially since Wednesday wouldn’t even stick around long enough to be part of any yearbook photos.

Good night from a werewolf who can’t wolf out and might die alone,

Enid