UNDEAD BECOMES HER, wednesday addams

iii. no longer paying a subscription for life

"Ah, beans," Ollie said, looking down at her outreach card. Francis looked over her shoulder to see what it said, to no avail, as he didn't have eyes.

"What'd you get?" resident tortured artist Xavier Thorpe asked.

She held her card up and showed him. "The Weathervane."

"Damn, me too."

"I wish I got Uriah's Heap like last year. The lady who works there doesn't mind all the plants. I am going to mess up so many coffee orders that I'll probably be banned for life." She reached up and let Francis hold the card in his beak. "At least I'm working with someone I know."

She felt a stray bee from the hives wind its way through her hair. If she wasn't careful, it would bring its friends and start building honeycomb in her lungs. Not like she didn't love honey, but her lungs were already rotting and any extra weight would make them tear.

"Unfortunate," Wednesday said, appearing behind her like a phantom. "I received Uriah's Heap, but I already traded with Enid."

"Oh, what'd she get?" Ollie asked.

Wednesday's expression briefly shifted from its neutral state to undisguised distaste. "Pilgrim World."

"Ech. Might this have something to do with your monster?"

"It's related, yes." Wednesday's eyes flickered over to Xavier, then back to Ollie. "I doubt they'll let you bring your pet."

Ollie frowned and then took Francis's head off. His body toppled forward and she caught it, shoving both into her bag. "I'll take him out during lunch."

"Hmm. If you disconnect the vines, the life energy exits the body?" Wednesday asked. 

"Yep. Now, come on, I think it's time to go."

"You look really pretty with your hair up."

Xavier gave her a strange look. "Thank you?"

"You're welcome. Put your hair up. What if it gets in someone's drink? At least I'm trying to minimize contamination." She held out a hair tie for him and he took it, sighing in annoyance. "Thank you very much. Do you take commissions?"

"What?"

She started working on preparing another round of drip, trying to keep on top of things. "You know, I pay you for a specific kind of drawing. A commission."

"No, I know what a commission is. Depends on what you're asking for." He took a customer's order and she waited for him to be done before talking again.

"Just a drawing of my bird. I'll give you twenty bucks for a business-card sized version of him."

"I'll do it for five and one of his feathers."

"Done." 

Outreach Day was boring as always, and she was relieved to finally let her hair out of a painfully tight bun after several hours of work. She'd even been paid a tight-lipped compliment by the manager, who nearly suffered a hernia after telling her she'd done good work.

The ugly bronze statue of What's-His-Name Crackstone stood in the town square, and Ollie spotted Wednesday striding up the path with her cello case in hand.

"Speech, speech, speech, speech," she muttered under her breath, elbowing Xavier. He stifled a grin as the mayor began a really brief speech. "Disappointing," she said. "Franny, can you believe this- Francis?"

She looked around and spotted her bird pecking at a disembodied human hand holding a match by the bleachers. 

"Francis, stop that," she hissed, and the bird ceased its pecking. The hand gave her a little wave before lighting the match and tossing it towards an almost imperceptible line of gunpowder. "Oh, lord. Francis, let's go. You too, hand. You could get hurt."

She scooped up the hand, setting it neatly on her shoulder, and felt it scuttle behind the curtain of her hair. Slowly, she began to back away, watching the statue with laser focus, and knew for certain that whatever happened next would be Wednesday's doing. 

The burning gunpowder reached the fountain and exploded. Everybody began to scream and run. Wednesday continued to play, a smirk crawling across her face.

"Hell yeah," Ollie said, pulling heart-shaped sunglasses out of her pants pocket and putting them on, walking back to the Nevermore bus. "Screw the colonizers. Did you help with this?"

The hand crawled down her arm and flashed her a thumbs-up. 

"Good for you. Do you know ASL?"

Another thumbs-up.

"I do, too. What's your name?"

The hand signed out T-H-I-N-G.

"That's an excellent name. I'm Ollie. Are you in any way affiliated with Wednesday Addams?"

U-N-D-Y-I-N-G L-O-Y-A-L-T-Y.

"Huh." Whatever dreary tune Wednesday had been playing was suddenly changed to a rendition of 'Winter' by Vivaldi, and frankly, it fit the tone better.

"Hell yeah," Ollie said again, and got on the bus. "I'll bring you to her room when we get back, if you want."

Y-E-S P-L-E-A-S-E.

She leaned back in her seat and grinned, setting Thing down on the armrest. "I changed my mind. Outreach Day is officially my new favorite school event."

After dropping Francis off with Xavier and making the bird promise to behave, Ollie trudged back up to her room, ready for a nap. Social events took a lot out of her.

It had something to do with the fact she was a collection of sentient plants, probably. They used up a lot of energy just growing every day, and on top of that they had to puppeteer her limbs and make sure oxygen was transported everywhere it needed to go. All in all, it added up to a very tired Ollie.

She flopped face down onto her bed and breathed in dirt for a solid thirty seconds before it clogged up her airway and she started choking.

There was a sharp rapping on her door. "It's open," she called.

Wednesday opened the door, with Thing the sentient hand perched on her shoulder. "Thing told me you brought him back to my room for me while I was being unfairly accused by Weems for the case of arson this afternoon," she said brusquely. "Thank you. Now, I believe you said I could take a look at your organs."

The Addams girl dropped a roll of cloth on Ollie's desk and unrolled it, revealing autopsy instruments. 

"You might not need all of that," Ollie said, twisting around so she was lying on her back. 

"Nonsense. I've performed autopsies before. Although most of them were on dead bodies. I suppose that would be vivisections, then. Either way, I'm more than competent at taking you apart and putting you back together."

Ollie shook her head. "No, I meant because of this." She sat up slightly and pulled her shirt off.