Principal Dort's notice still hangs on the iron door at the top of the stairs: THIS SOCIETY IS DISSOLVED. Below it, the library is not dissolved at all. One lamp burns over the long table, rain ticks in the vents, and the shelves of Nightshade books lean in the dark. Then a small, quick tapping comes down the stone steps, ahead of a pair of black shoes.

Thing crosses the floor like a detective entering a crime scene, fingers spread, and climbs onto the end of the table. Behind him, Wednesday Addams comes down the last step with a typewriter case in one hand and a sweating cup of iced quad in the other. Her braids lie perfectly even on each shoulder. She stops where the lamplight ends, and she does not blink.

She sets the case down at the far end of the long table with both hands, as if it held evidence, and unlatches it. A phone buzzes in her coat. She takes it out between two fingers like something found in a drain, reads the screen, and drops it face down into the case.