The signoff
[November 16, 2022]
New Jersey, Princeton
Enid,
Do you think of me as a fool? Is that it, Sinclair? I was content in letting bygones be bygones by returning your challenge succinctly. I would argue it was of equal measure to your offense.
However.
Your idea of a practical joke is a triple stacked card that plays dreadful birthday music, grating my ears far more than any of your poor excuses for music ever had. What’s more, you’ve utilized your knowledge of my violent personality- (you knew exactly that the moment I heard that high-pitched note from the card, I would rip it apart)- and, like forcing open the jaws of a spitting cobra, I was spat blind with a mountainous amount of assorted glitter.
On my face. On my hair. On my dress. On my electric chair. On my desk. On my (ONCE) pristine assortment of sabres. On my carpet.
You may think yourself clever. Oh, you must… from how you’ve managed to bring more than a third of your sparkly self from San Fransisco into my perfectly somber room. But heed this warning, Sinclair. Your treacherous mark on me appears to be growing (Oh Lucifer. Does glitter multiply?) by the minute, and it would be amiss of me not to offer you a sample of what a vindictive Addams can do in return.
Single-handedly yours,
W.A. Addams
[“Although I know you’re safe
At your manor
Cause of your last stunt
I can’t help but answer
WWWD?
That’s as annoying as water seep in
And even harder to undo
Consider us even ;).” ]
(Incidentally, the note from your letter contains stanzas that are lack-luster and childish. No rhythm nor a consistent line. Its rhyming scheme is simple and demeaning. It makes it all the more mocking. It is an exemplary offense. If not for the war you’ve ignited, my props to you would not be tainted with scorn.)
So early in the morning, Enid can’t help but feel disappointed. Confusion knitting her eyebrows, she thinks it feels lacking. Her grip on the letter tightens, figuring she must have missed something.
The longer she holds the paper, the longer her hands get clammy. Rereading the whole letter twice gives no new realizations either apart from…
“That signoff is so random,” she whispers with a soft giggle. Single-handedly yours.
It doesn’t make sense in the context of the letter, in fact the sweet closing is in sharp contrast from the irate tone Wednesday wrote in.
Maybe the girl was all bark? The blonde imagines the Addams girl writing on her big gothic oak desk, seething with Enid’s 9th grade glitter collection stubbornly stuck on her, hunched over her typewriter. Wednesday would glance at the torn glitter-covered birthday card and her eye would catch her impromptu note.
The girl would glare at it, Enid decides. She would glare, roll her sleeves up, and make a carefully-planned prank in the spirit of competitiveness. It makes her laugh.
Now the thing about Enid is that she laughs with her hands. Be it through clenching her fists and waving it around, slapping Yoko silly, or clapping. She uses her hands.
Hands that can’t seem to let go of Wednesday’s letter. Hands that, if Enid isn’t just crazy, actually feel really sticky.
“What the hell is this?!”
Enid shakes both her hands in an attempt to free at least one of her hands, trying to fling the paper away.
She folds the letter with both her hands, mimicking a prayer and tries to slide her hands in opposite directions. It does not work.
She unfolds it and places it on her chair, bringing her legs into the equation by stepping on the letter and prying her fingers away. It does not work.
She tries again with the same results. The werewolf puts her back into it now, pulling and pulling yet both of her hands are still attached to the paper. She's getting desperate, she just needs to free one hand.
After a few moments of staring down at the cursed letter, comes the realization.
Enid groaned, “Single-handedly.”
So that’s what that sweet phrase was for, it was the killer hint all along.
But she isn’t a quitter. The paper may be persistent but so is Enid. She loosens her fingers, yet it still does not work. Wednesday could put any invisible impossible glue on the paper but it will come off, or so Enid hopes.
The loud crashing in her room from practically dragging her fingers away an immovable object does little to wake up the Sinclair household.
However, the shrill “OH MY GOD SOMEBODY FUCKING HELP ME!” does signal that someone’s day has to start.