FROM: “Full of Woe” (fanfic) Chapter 11/17
Summary:
You cannot tell me that the parents of gorgons, werewolves, vampires, psychics and other assorted dangers did NOT come to town after the events of Wednesday to ‘clean house’. So, here’s how it goes down…
Notes:
Just as a refresher. The Sheriff and much of the department (in this fanfic) are direct descendants of witch-burners allied with Crackstone. Crackstone’s family became the Gates family. Garrett died trying to poison Nevermore. His mother hanged herself. The dad poisoned himself to try and set up Nevermore for ‘killing his son’. And Laurel went to Europe and ‘died’ only to return once to conceive and give birth to Tyler and second to burn down the school… resulting in her death. The mom of the Gates family, though, is not mentioned by name. So I latched on to this discrepancy to consider what life was like married to this hateful bigot and seeing your children get molded into his horrible tradition. I thought the people of the Addamsverse would sense that tragedy too. Only they would do something about it. Something appropriate.
Tik tok goes the clock.
They came from all over.
The October People. The September Eyes. The Winter Clans. The Fall.
There was not a touch of summer among those that arrived.
Earlier, they had trickled in to pick up their children. To ensure that in Nevermore, not a trace or scrap of Laurel Gates or any member of her hated family were left. Laurel ’s remains were spread out over several states for the wild boars to pick at. Garrett’s corpse was retained at a medical school in the Barbados as a test body for the students to study. His father’s skeleton was conveniently lost in the catacombs of Paris.
Crackstone ’s skeleton was given over to a Hell House in Rockland County. To scare normal children into reconsidering their life’s ambitions.
In each case, a lonely body, unclaimed or unwanted, was reburied neatly in the places where the old family once had lain. And while the names on the tombstones or crypt plaques would always be wrong, they were safe and contained and attended to. And proper names never mattered much to the dead.
There was one matter to which the women insisted they alone would attend. A seance of three grandmothers, who spoke to the hanged woman called the matriarch of the Gates family and from her they got her mangled side of the events. For her, her body was posed and set in stone, to join the statues which adorned the local church. And records would be altered so that it would seem she ’d always been there, serene and at peace. Her living relatives, on her side of the family, were contacted to be told the truth about her death and the Gates men who had made her life hell. As a warning, at the very least, for the younger women of the family. Or perhaps as a lesson that different paths were wiser.
That left the living.
Sheriff Galpin was visited by several of the alumni. He later confessed to a number of crimes to state officials. Including “covering up the crimes of Ansel Gates, behind at-the-time Sheriff Walker’s back”. His outrageous accusations at his trial -werewolves, vampires, a Hyde for a wife and child – led to a conviction by reason of insanity. And an assumed permanent residency at the Sable Island Home for the Mentally Challenged.
Several deputies died in an “unfortunate incident” on a bridge, “saving” several of Nevermore’s parents from a weather-related accident. The parents, who all “miraculously lived,” were sure to tell the people of Jericho how brave their deputies were.
Other members of the department got the hint, and when jobs opened up in other places, they quietly left, never to be in law enforcement again.
Dr. Valerie Kinbott got the grand burial she deserved and her partner, Eliora, was compensated for her loss. Taxidermy presents, in Valerie’s memory, were gifted to her for years by anonymous donors.
The melted statue was replaced with a copper-plated bas relief that depicted the town. Joseph Crackstone on one side, Goody Addams on the other. Beautifully sculpted, it was noted that at certain times of the year, if the sun was out and struck it in just a certain way, it appeared like the town came alight in copper flames. But several noted art critics examined the piece.They firmly declared such a thing was simply the product of active imaginations.
More studious members of Jericho recognized that the Gates family were disturbingly among the pilgrims in the paintings. And their presence — especially when it was noted they “caught on fire” as well as the town — was considered to be ample warning.
The bas relief, over time, became the premier roost for a murder of local crows.
Everyone, Nevermore and Jericho alike, decided that this was somehow appropriate.