"You have reached the voicemail of Dr. Valerie Kinbott. I'm unable to take your call right now, but your mental health is important to me. Please leave a message after the tone, and I'll return your call within twenty-four hours. If this is an emergency, please contact—"
I stabbed the button on the phone to stop the recording, then immediately wished I hadn't because now the apartment was silent again and I could hear my own breathing, too shallow, breathing that precedes a full-blown panic attack. I knew this clinically. I could diagnose myself in real time: acute stress reaction, dissociative symptoms, possible psychotic break. The irony wasn't lost on me that I was having a mental health crisis while inhabiting the body of a therapist.
The phone was white. Cream-colored, actually, with a subtle marble pattern on the case. I turned it over in my hands, noting the weight of it, the way my thumb—not my thumb, her thumb, Valerie Kinbott's thumb—fit perfectly over the smooth glass. The lock screen showed a tasteful photograph of autumn leaves. Exactly what you'd expect from a woman who kept her patients at arm's length while secretly dying inside from loneliness.
I knew that about her. I knew everything about her, and that was the problem.
The apartment around me was exactly as I remembered it from the show; warm beige walls, minimal decoration, a place that looked like it had been staged by someone who read too many articles about Scandinavian hygge but didn't actually understand comfort. There was a couch in a muted gray. A single piece of abstract art on the wall that could have meant anything or nothing. A kitchen visible through an open doorway, all stainless steel and unused countertops. Everything was clean. Everything was in its place. Everything tells "I am a professional woman who has her life together," which was hilarious considering that in approximately two weeks, give or take a few days, a teenage boy was going to transform into a Hyde and tear this professional woman apart in her own office.
Except the teenage boy hadn't done it yet. And the professional woman was me now.
I sat down heavily on the gray couch, still holding the phone, and tried to organize my thoughts into something resembling rationality. This was impossible. This didn't happen. People didn't wake up in the bodies of fictional characters from Netflix shows they'd binged at two in the morning while eating leftover Thai food and questioning their life choices. That wasn't how reality worked. There had to be another explanation; a brain tumor, maybe, or a psychotic episode, or I'd been drugged and this was all an elaborate hallucination while my actual body was drooling in a hospital somewhere.
But I'd been awake for three hours now, and the world remained stubbornly consistent. The coffee I'd made tasted real, actually, because apparently Dr. Valerie Kinbott bought the expensive kind and I could taste the difference. The shower had been real, the hot water running over skin that looked like mine but wasn't, over a body that moved when I told it to but felt foreign in ways I couldn't articulate. I'd stood in front of the bathroom mirror for twenty minutes, watching a stranger's face make my expressions, watching Valerie Kinbott's green eyes widen with my horror.
I knew that face. I'd seen it on screen, composed and professional, asking Wednesday Addams about her feelings. I'd seen it contorted in terror in the brief moment before the camera cut away from her death. Now it was looking back at me from every reflective surface in this aggressively beige apartment, and I couldn't pretend this was anything other than what it was.
I was Dr. Valerie Kinbott. I was in Jericho, Vermont. And I was going to die in approximately two weeks unless I did something about it.
The thought hit me like a physical blow, and I bent forward, pressing my forehead against my knees, forcing myself to breathe slowly. In for four counts. Hold for four. Out for four. It was a technique I'd learned in a therapy session years ago, or had Valerie learned it in graduate school? The memories were tangled now, my past life bleeding into hers, creating a nauseating overlap of experiences that made me want to scream.
I could remember getting my bachelor's degree in psychology. I could also remember getting my doctorate, defending a dissertation I'd never written on attachment theory and trauma response. I could remember the names of professors I'd never met. I could remember Valerie's first patient, a woman with agoraphobia who'd cried in the waiting room before even entering the office. I could remember my mother's phone number from my real life, and also Valerie's mother, who called once a month like clockwork and made passive-aggressive comments about Valerie's single status.
Which memories were real? Which ones mattered? I pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes until I saw stars, trying to literally push the thoughts out of my skull.
It didn't work.
When I finally looked up again, the morning light had shifted in the apartment, painting rectangles of brightness across the hardwood floor. I checked the phone—not my phone, Valerie's phone, I had to remember that—and saw it was already nine-thirty. I'd spent half the morning spiraling, and I had accomplished exactly nothing except confirming that yes, this was real, and yes, I was well and truly fucked.
I opened the phone's calendar app with trembling fingers. The password had come to me instinctively: 0-8-1-7, Valerie's birthday, which I somehow knew despite never having consciously memorized it. The calendar bloomed open, showing a grid of appointments and color-coded blocks. I scrolled forward, looking for the date I needed, the date I dreaded.
There. Two weeks from now, give or take. The semester start at Nevermore Academy. No specific appointment marked for my death, obviously; Valerie hadn't known it was coming. But I knew the timeline. I'd watched the show twice. Wednesday would arrive at Nevermore, and the murders would begin. The Hyde would be activated. And Dr. Valerie Kinbott would become a victim because she'd been too trusting, too professional, too utterly clueless about the monster sitting on her couch describing his feelings about his dead mother.
Tyler Galpin. The name alone made my stomach turn. He wasn't on my calendar yet; that would come later, after Laurel Gates, disguised as Marilyn Thornhill, so helpfully referred him to therapy. But he would be soon. The normie kid with the traumatic past and the secret monster inside. The boy who smiled and served coffee and then transformed into something with claws and teeth and an insatiable hunger for violence.
I was going to have to sit in a room with him. Alone. And pretend I didn't know what he was.
The panic was rising again, and this time I couldn't breathe through it. I stood up too quickly and the apartment tilted around me. I grabbed the back of the couch for support, feeling my heart hammering against my ribs like it was trying to escape my chest cavity. Maybe it had the right idea. Maybe I should listen to my cardiovascular system and run, just run, get in whatever car Valerie owned and drive until I hit Canada or the ocean or anywhere that wasn't Jericho, Vermont.
I made it to the kitchen before the rational part of my brain caught up with the flight response. I'd already tried to leave. That had been my second action after confirming I wasn't hallucinating; I'd thrown on clothes, grabbed keys from the bowl by the door, and made it exactly three steps outside the apartment building before a woman in a pantsuit had appeared from nowhere, smiling with too many teeth.
"Dr. Kinbott! Perfect timing. I'm Karen Bloom, the Mayor's assistant. We had an appointment this morning to go over your contract details? The Mayor wanted to personally ensure you're settled in before the Nevermore students arrive."
I'd stared at her, keys clutched in my fist, escape route blocked by bureaucracy and a calendar appointment I didn't remember making. The woman had ushered me back inside with the inexorable force of someone who dealt with reluctant professionals for a living, and for the next forty-five minutes I'd sat in my own living room while she'd outlined the terms of an employment contract I apparently couldn't break without penalty.
"The town council is very invested in supporting Nevermore Academy," she'd said, sliding papers across my coffee table. "Your services as the school's consulting therapist are considered essential. Breaking the contract early would incur significant financial penalties, and of course, we'd have to report the breach to the state licensing board."
Essential. That was a funny word for expendable. But I'd nodded and smiled and pretended I'd known all of this already, because what else could I do? Tell her I was actually someone else trapped in Dr. Kinbott's body? Explain that I needed to leave immediately because I had foreknowledge of my own murder? She'd have me committed, and being institutionalized seemed like an even faster route to death than staying put.
After she'd left, I'd tried to get in the car anyway. The engine wouldn't start. I'd tried calling a taxi. None were available. I'd looked up bus schedules; the next one didn't leave until tomorrow, and even then, I'd need to cancel the apartment lease, which according to the paperwork I'd found in Valerie's impeccably organized filing cabinet, would cost me three months' rent as a penalty.
It was like the universe itself was conspiring to keep me here. Narrative gravity, I'd thought wildly, remembering a term from some half-remembered creative writing class. The story needed Dr. Kinbott to be in Jericho, so Jericho wasn't letting her leave. Wasn't letting me leave.
Now, standing in the kitchen with my hands braced against the counter, I forced myself to think past the panic. Okay. Fine. I couldn't leave. That was established. So what were my options?
I could go to the police. Tell them that Tyler Galpin was going to become a monster. Tell them that Marilyn Thornhill was actually Laurel Gates, a psychotic outcast who wanted to resurrect her ancestor and purge all outcasts from the world. Tell them that the Sheriff's own son was going to murder multiple people including, oh yes, his therapist.
Right. And then I'd be involuntarily committed, or at the very least lose my license for breaking patient confidentiality based on a "hunch." Not to mention that Sheriff Galpin was Tyler's father, what were the odds he'd believe a stranger over his own son? Especially when Tyler hadn't actually done anything yet?
I could warn Wednesday. Except Wednesday wasn't here yet, and even if she were, why would she believe me? She was hyper-intelligent and deeply paranoid. If I approached her with perfect foreknowledge of events that hadn't happened, she'd either think I was crazy or suspect I was involved. Either way, I'd end up on her murder board, and that seemed counterproductive.
I could try to take out Laurel Gates preemptively. Break into her apartment, find evidence of her real identity, expose her before she could activate Tyler. But I wasn't a detective, I wasn't a fighter, and I had zero experience with breaking and entering. Plus, if I failed—when I failed, because let's be realistic—Laurel would know someone was onto her, and she'd just kill me earlier. Probably make it look like an accident. Therapist has tragic fall down the stairs, such a shame, she seemed so stable.
No. No, those options were all non-starters. I needed to think like a therapist, because that was the only skill I had access to. That was my only weapon in this situation.
I was going to have to do my job. I was going to have to treat Tyler Galpin. I was going to have to sit across from a monster in the making and try to therapy my way out of being murdered.
The absurdity of it made me laugh, a sharp, slightly hysterical sound that echoed in the quiet kitchen. This was insane. This was literally insane. But what choice did I have?
I pushed away from the counter and walked back to the living room, moving with more purpose now. If I was going to do this—if I was going to stay and play the role of Dr. Kinbott while secretly trying to reprogram a Hyde and point Wednesday toward the truth—then I needed to prepare. I needed to know exactly what I was working with.
I found Valerie's laptop in the bedroom, sitting on a desk that looked like it had been professionally arranged for a magazine photoshoot. The bedroom was as impersonal as the rest of the apartment; a queen bed with gray linens, a single plant on the nightstand, a closet full of professional attire in muted colors. It was depressing, honestly. Had Valerie been happy here? Had she had friends, hobbies, a life outside of work? Or had she been as lonely as this apartment suggested?
I shook off the thought. I couldn't afford to empathize with her right now. I needed to use her resources.
The laptop opened to reveal a desktop as organized as everything else in Valerie's life. I navigated to her patient files; password protected, but again, the password came to me like muscle memory: "attunement23," a reference to some therapy concept I now apparently understood. Inside were detailed notes on dozens of patients, organized by name and date.
Tyler Galpin wasn't there yet. Of course he wasn't. But other Nevermore students were; past patients from previous years. I skimmed through them, looking for patterns, trying to understand how Valerie approached treatment. She was thorough, I'd give her that. Every session meticulously documented. Every intervention carefully considered. She genuinely seemed to care about her patients, even the difficult ones.
Especially the difficult ones.
That was going to be a problem. I couldn't afford to care about Tyler Galpin. I needed to see him as a threat, a puzzle to be solved, a bomb to be defused. But Valerie's instincts were buried somewhere in my muscle memory now, and those instincts said to trust, to empathize, to create a safe space for healing.
Those instincts were going to get me killed.
I closed the laptop and stood up, pacing the length of the bedroom. Think. Think like someone who wants to survive. What did I actually know about Tyler and the Hyde transformation?
From the show: Tyler had been activated as a Hyde through psychological manipulation and trauma. Laurel Gates had found him at his most vulnerable—grieving his mother, alienated from his father, desperate for connection—and she'd conditioned him. Classical conditioning, probably. Pavlovian responses. She'd made him dependent on her, made him see her as the only person who understood him, and then she'd used that bond to control the monster inside.
But here was the thing about conditioning: it could be broken. It could be counter-conditioned. That was basic behavioral psychology.
If I could get to Tyler first, if I could build a therapeutic relationship before Laurel fully weaponized him, maybe I could introduce enough cognitive dissonance to make him question her commands. I couldn't prevent the transformation—I wasn't even sure what triggered that biologically—but maybe I could make the human part of Tyler strong enough to resist the master's control.
It was a long shot. It was probably impossible. But it was something, and something was better than waiting to be murdered.
I returned to the living room and picked up my phone again, this time opening the notes app. I needed to make a list. I needed a plan. If I was going to survive the next two weeks, I needed to think strategically about every single interaction.
Priority One. Stay Alive: Install better locks on office door (won't stop a Hyde, but might slow it down). Research Hydes: any weaknesses? Any way to predict transformations?. Identify safe locations in case of emergency. Create a dead man's switch: evidence that gets sent to someone if I die.
Priority Two. Neutralize the Threat: Build therapeutic relationship with Tyler when he's referred to me. Assess his current psychological state. Identify triggers and vulnerabilities. Introduce counter-conditioning subtly. Monitor for signs of Laurel's influence.
Priority Three. Protect Wednesday: Establish credibility with her when she arrives. Become a resource she'll actually use. Guide her investigation without revealing foreknowledge. Keep her alive (because if she dies, everyone dies).
Priority Four. Handle Laurel Gates: Maintain cover as oblivious therapist. Accept nothing from her (food, drinks, gifts). Document everything (might need evidence later). Look for opportunities to expose her true identity.
I stared at the list, feeling the weight of it settle over me like a shroud. This was my life now. This was what I had to do. Play multiple games of psychological chess simultaneously while trying not to get torn apart by a monster.
The thought made my hands start shaking again, and I had to set the phone down before I dropped it. I couldn't think about the end yet. I couldn't let myself imagine what it would feel like to face the Hyde, to see Tyler's face transform into something inhuman. If I thought about that too much, I'd curl up in a ball and never leave this apartment.
Instead, I focused on the immediate next step. What did I need to do today?
I walked to the window and looked out at Jericho. It was a beautiful morning, the kind of crisp autumn day that made you think about apple cider and cozy sweaters and all the comforting lies people told themselves about small-town life. From here, I could see the main street, the vintage shops and cafes, the people walking their dogs and chatting with neighbors. Normal. Safe. Absolutely nothing suggested that this town was sitting on top of centuries of outcast persecution and murderous vendettas.
But I knew better now. I knew what was coming.
My office. I needed to see my office. That was where it would happen; where the Hyde would corner me, where I'd die if I couldn't find a way to change the script. I needed to study the space, understand the layout, find every possible advantage.
I grabbed my keys—Valerie's keys—and headed for the door. My hands were steadier now, my breathing more controlled. The panic was still there, humming underneath everything like a fluorescent light, but I'd managed to bury it under a layer of cold practicality.
I was going to survive this. I was going to take everything I knew about the story and every skill Valerie Kinbott had spent years developing, and I was going to rewrite my own ending.
Or I was going to die trying.
Either way, I wasn't going down without a fight.
I locked the apartment door behind me and started walking toward my office, trying to look like a professional woman out for a morning stroll and not someone heading to inspect the location of her potential murder.
Two weeks. I had two weeks to figure out how to survive a horror story.
The really terrifying part is I was just the tragic backstory, the dead mentor, the cautionary tale about what happens when you trust the wrong patient.
But maybe—just maybe—this time the backstory could fight back.