My Wolf, My Crow

A hand in disagreement

Once he has finished breakfast with his parents, Wednesday returns to his room accompanied by the very faithful severed hand.

Wednesday's room is not what everyone would expect, or at least some of it is. A dark and oppressive room, but not scary and filled with instruments of torture as one would have expected.

The temperature and humidity are perfectly kept under control for the perfect preservation of the many antique and valuable books on the countless shelves lining the walls of the room.

Little illumination comes from the dome on the roof, which is covered in a purplish patina that allows light to filter through just enough to give an eerie dimness.

The entire room is one of the towers of the Addams family castle, so it has a perfectly octagonal shape.

The wall where the front door resides is the one directly opposite the wall on which Wednesday's beautiful and Victorian four-poster bed rested, which for such a petite girl is definitely huge.

On the side to the right of the entrance, on the central wall, is a huge desk with a typewriter on it that is much more articulated and complex than the portable typewriter that Wednesday Nevermore used.

All the other walls are covered with immense bookcases up to the ceiling that being a tower are almost 10 m high. In fact, each bookcase had an attached ladder that would allow the girl to reach any book she wanted.

The only other two pieces of furniture in the room were the desk chair and a lone chair placed in the center of the left side of the room, next to a lamp and a bedside table. Obviously, the model of the chairs was the same one Thomas Edison used for the first electric chair, so somewhat uncomfortable but certainly perfect for Wednesday's reading.

On the nightstand beside the chair rests a book that has a bookmark, the last book Wednesday had read in her room and which she had not felt compelled to bring to Nevermore as she was sure she would soon retrieve it once she escaped from school.

Wednesday's entrance into her room is almost thunderous. His determined step, followed by Hand's ticking, definitely rattles the bookshelves and the books on the various shelves.

"Very good Hand. Now we must devise a plan to suppress this troublesome love without my losing my life."

Hand remains stunned. He was convinced that the girl had accepted her destiny as Addams and accepted her love for the werewolf.

"As a first thing we have to try to figure out if Enid is aware of it, being a wolf, she should feel the bond, but at our farewell at Nevermore she didn't particularly give any indication of it, so I would say that maybe she feels it, but she's probably not aware of who is sharing it with her."

A pause for a long sigh.

"And I'm pretty sure that I don't want to share it with me, so she will be quite willing to find a solution not to suffer, as Wolves also suffer if the bond is not satiated, but without going too far, we will probably in time be able to live our lives more than separately, without necessarily having to satisfy the bond."

Hand is quite contrite to say the least, he knows that what he wants to do on Wednesday is absolutely impractical, if not to say impossible, and he immediately begins to beat frantically.

I'm sorry Wednesday, but I more than happily agree that you and Enid become a couple; you are the sun and moon in the purest and most literary of representations.

Wednesday's reaction is not long in coming, almost betraying her composedly stiff posture and neutral expression.

"You miserable Addams, don't you dare contradict what I say, Enid and I will never be anything. The Addams' love will not scratch me, nor take root in my heart. And now come on, let's look for information on how to reduce this stupid bond to the bone, if not actually break it."

As Wednesday heads toward one of her bookshelves, the one with the most information about the Werewolves. Hand ticks away to another, where instead are enclosed the Addams diaries in which they discuss the curse.

But it ticks softly one last sentence that Wednesday barely hears but prefers not to give reply to.

A seed cannot take root within itself.

This is to emphasize how the love that Wednesday does not accept and stifles is not an external feeling that tries to creep into her black heart, but something that arises from it.

By now it is late afternoon and both Wednesday and Hand have found nothing but death or a vegetative state as a consequence of breaking or reducing the bond from both the werewolf and Addams perspectives.

What distracted Wednesday from his quest was the unbearable trilling of that contraption Xavier had given him.

And once he retrieves his cell phone he notices a simple message from an anonymous number.

Wednesday Have you perhaps forgotten about me? Perhaps having been separated so abruptly from your beloved wolfette has left you too distraught to search assiduously and obsessively for your new stalker?

Wednesday shivers with joy, the fire inside her flares up, the love for Enid can be put aside for the moment there is a stalker to find. The first thing she does is to call Lurch and ask him to move the heavy typewriter present on his desk. Reluctantly, she will have to give way to a computer as her new stalker seems very tech-savvy and she too will have to learn how to use it if she is to track him down.

Wednesday then goes to the living room where his mother and father were disgustingly showing their affection for each other on the sofa.

"Mother father, I would like to borrow Lurch for the afternoon to go to town where I will make a fairly urgent purchase."

"Of course my little poisonous snake, we don't need him today anyway, but satisfy my curiosity, what do you need to buy so urgently?"

Of course, Wednesday's response of a computer leaves parents stunned.

"Or don't worry, it's not the influence of a particular rather annoying and colorful subject. I have a stalker."

Wednesday always speaks with his neutral expression but with a somewhat enthusiastic tone, provoking a smile in return from his parents.

"He seems very accustomed to using technology, and to scout him out I will have to reluctantly learn how to use it."

"Of course my dear, anything you want. Lurch will take you into town in an hour. Now why don't you finish unpacking your bags? I know Lurch took them to your room, but I bet you didn't pay any attention at all. And I wish, as helpful as Lurch is, that she would avoid sorting out your clothes, because this is way beyond her chores and don't delegate to that poor hand, she is already far too busy to be a mere appendage."

Her mother's tone is gentle, but leaves no room for repartee.

Wednesday finds himself compelled to return to his room, where he actually notices suitcases that had hitherto been invisible, opens them, and begins to sort through them until something hideous and colorful ends up in his hands.

"Mano! You have no idea how this obnoxious thing got in the middle of my clothes, do you?"

The little hand of course denies it, but there is something in his unconscious movements that make Wednesday hint that he is the one who snuck that into the suitcase. Perhaps to force the raven girl to contact her roommate for the return of said item.

"How dare you filthy hand? To think of such a shady plan, to kidnap Enid's favorite stuffed animal knowing full well how she can't sleep without it and surely this will force her to contact me to get it back. It's a devious and evil plan, you'd be proud of yourself if it weren't for the consequences this holds for me."

Hand trembles and proceeds slowly backward until he finds himself cornered and Wednesday looms over him like the shadow of death looms over its victims.

When Lurch's car leaves with Wednesday on board bound for town, Hand is locked in Wednesday's desk drawer with the promise that until he returns from his day of shopping he must stay there to suffer..... and no one says the girl will keep her word to let him out when she returns.

The little severed hand knows that it could stay there even for days before Wednesday gets tired of hearing the sound of its scratches on the drawer walls and decides to let it loose.