The Harvest Festival was exactly the kind of forced merriment that made me question humanity's survival instincts.
String lights. Hay bales. Apple cider that smelled like diabetes. And hundreds of Nevermore students pretending a school carnival could distract from the fact we were all society's rejects.
"Isn't this amazing?" Eugene bounced beside me, clutching a candied apple like it was treasure. "They have a corn maze! And bobbing for apples! And—"
"Eugene." I watched a group of normie townies give us wide berth. "You realize this is just Jericho's way of keeping an eye on the outcasts, right?"
"Or maybe they just like festivals?" He bit into his apple, immediately regretting it as caramel stuck to his glasses. "Not everything is sinister."
I helped him clean his lenses with my sleeve. The kid had survived at Nevermore this long through sheer optimistic oblivion.
Across the festival grounds, Wednesday Addams stood near the entrance like a shadow someone forgot to attach to a person. She looked physically pained by the cheerfulness surrounding her. Relatable.
Rowan Laslow watched her from behind a booth, that same intense stare from earlier this week. He'd been getting worse. More focused. More unstable. The kind of deterioration that, in my experience, ended badly.
"I'm going to get hot chocolate," Eugene announced. "Want some?"
"I'll pass."
He bounded off toward the concession stand, leaving me to observe the slow-motion disaster building in Rowan's posture. The kid's hands twitched. His breathing was visible even from across the field. Classic signs of someone about to do something spectacularly stupid.
Wednesday moved toward the parking lot, probably escaping the aggressive normalcy. Rowan followed.
My immortal paranoia, refined over centuries, started its familiar warning bells.
I followed at a distance, keeping to the edges of the crowd. Just another student wandering the festival. Nothing suspicious about trailing two classmates into increasingly isolated areas.
This is idiotic, I thought. Following teenagers around like some kind of ancient hall monitor.
But those alarm bells had kept me alive for centuries.
They headed toward the woods. Because of course they did. Nothing good ever happened when teenagers entered forests at night. It was practically a universal law.
Voices ahead. I stayed behind a cluster of trees, close enough to hear.
"—need to talk to you!" Rowan's voice cracked with desperation.
Wednesday turned, facing him with that expression of perpetual disinterest. "If this is about partnering for the group project—"
"This isn't about school!" He pulled something from his pocket. Paper, old and yellowed. "This is about you destroying everything!"
Even from my position, I could see Wednesday's stance shift. Subtle, but she recognized danger.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"My mother showed me this before she died. Her visions. Your destiny." He held up the drawing, hands shaking. "You're going to destroy Nevermore!"
The moonlight caught the image. A girl who looked like Wednesday, but blonde, standing before Nevermore Academy as it burned behind her. The prophecy my memory had been nagging about.
"That's not even me," Wednesday said. "That girl is blonde."
"It's you! I know it's you! The prophecy says—"
The air changed. That electric feeling when psychic abilities activated. Rowan raised his hand, and Wednesday lifted off the ground, slammed back against a tree by invisible force.
Move. Now.
But before I could intervene, Rowan flew backward, hitting an oak with a crack that definitely broke ribs. Wednesday dropped into a crouch, ready to run.
Then something else entered the clearing.
Huge. Gray. Wrong in every fundamental way. Muscles that defied anatomy. Claws designed for rending. Eyes that reflected light like a cave-dwelling predator's.
Hyde. But not the Hydes from historical accounts. This was evolved. Corrupted. Made worse by something.
It grabbed Rowan like he was made of paper. His scream cut off with a wet tearing sound that would join my collection of nightmare audio. Blood painted the trees in arterial spurts.
Wednesday ran. Smart.
The creature dragged what was left of Rowan deeper into the woods, leaving destruction and worse in its wake. I waited until the sounds faded completely before approaching.
The scene was a masterpiece of violence. Blood patterns that would fascinate forensic scientists. Claw marks in solid wood that went impossibly deep. And somehow, untouched by the carnage, the prophetic drawing lying in the leaves.
I picked it up carefully. The blonde Wednesday stared back at me, Nevermore burning behind her. At the bottom, in spidery script: "The end of Nevermore."
No body. The Hyde had taken it. But nobody survived that much blood loss. I'd seen enough death to recognize finality.
Rowan Laslow was dead.
I pocketed the drawing and made my way back to the festival, mind racing. Report it? How? "Excuse me, Sheriff, I was stalking students and witnessed a supernatural murder."
That would go brilliantly.
The next morning arrived with impossible normalcy.
"Did you hear?" Eugene asked at breakfast, practically vibrating with gossip energy. "Rowan got expelled last night! His dad came and everything. Super sudden."
My coffee mug stopped halfway to my mouth. "What?"
"Yeah! Derek saw him leaving with all his stuff. Apparently he had a psychotic break or something."
Across the courtyard, a familiar figure walked toward a waiting car. Rowan Laslow. Alive. Whole. Talking to someone who looked like his father.
Impossible.
I'd seen him die. Seen his blood redecorate the forest. This wasn't healing or resurrection. This was something else entirely.
Rowan turned, scanning the watching students. His eyes passed over me without recognition. Without acknowledgment. Like we'd never met.
Then he found Wednesday. Same blank look. No fear. No anger. Nothing.
She stood frozen, watching him leave with the intensity of someone questioning reality itself. Welcome to the club.
"Adrian?" Eugene waved a hand in front of my face. "You okay? You look weird."
"Fine."
Rowan's car drove away, taking any simple explanation with it. Someone had covered up a murder. Someone with the power to create perfect duplicates or manipulate reality on a disturbing scale.
Principal Weems stood at the entrance, watching the car leave with her practiced look of professional concern. She caught my stare and smiled that smile that never reached her eyes.
She knew.
Wednesday moved first, heading back into the building with determined steps. Of course she was going to investigate. The girl who'd nearly been murdered was going to dig into this.
"I'll catch up," I told Eugene.
I found Wednesday in an empty hallway, glaring at her phone like it had personally offended her.
"That wasn't Rowan," I said.
She looked up, eyes narrowing. "I don't know what you mean."
"Last night. The woods. The thing that killed him." I pulled out the drawing. "You dropped this."
She took it, studying the blonde doppelganger. "You were following us."
"I was following him. He'd been watching you all week like you'd personally insulted his ancestors."
"Why didn't you intervene?"
"You seemed to have it handled. Until the Hyde showed up."
"Hyde?" Her interest sharpened. "You know what that was?"
"I know what Hydes are supposed to be. That was something worse. Modified. Evolved."
She tilted her head, reassessing me. "You're not really seventeen."
"You're not really surprised by any of this."
We stared at each other, two people with secrets that didn't fit in normal conversation.
"I'm going to find out what happened to Rowan," she said.
"That's remarkably dangerous."
"Most interesting things are."
She walked away, leaving me with the uncomfortable realization that my quiet semester had just exploded.
Back in my room that evening, I stared at the ceiling and weighed my options. Stay uninvolved. Maintain my cover. Pretend I hadn't witnessed a murder and its supernatural cover-up.
The smart choice. The safe choice.
Through my window, Wednesday's cello played something violent and determined. Not Bach. Something original that sounded like revenge being composed in real-time.
Rowan was dead. Something was hunting students. The administration was covering it up. And Wednesday Addams was investigating alone.
I grabbed my jacket.
My quiet school life was already over. Might as well make its destruction worthwhile.