The parlor had not changed much. It was dim, lit only by the hollow-eyed windows swallowing gray light and the flickering of two candles, those were new, yes. A new layer of dust had settled like an old sigh. But the bones of the house remained the same: dark, solid, listening.
The music stand still bore scratches in the wood - marks made by long fingers in the moments of irritation, or calculation. No one ever dared sand them down.
A cello and a piano faced each other in the center of the room -- like adversaries, or accomplices. The wood floor creaked under the slow shifting of weight. Nothing else moved.
Orion sat at the piano, adjusted his cuffs; black shirt, sleeves rolled. His fingers hovered over the piano keys -- not hesitant, just respectful.
Beatrix adjusted the cello between her knees, settling it, tilted into her lap, like an old secret she'd carried too long to fear. Her hair coiled at the base of her neck like a noose waiting to tighten. She met her brother's gaze only once.
Then they began. Fratres sang out in near silence. It filled the room. Not as Wednesday had once played it -- stern, precise, surgical, a ritual of control -- but looser. Warmer. Still restrained, but with something soft at its edge.
Orion's fingers moved with the precision of memory -- notes aligned, the keys snapping like bones into place. His style was restrained, soft, like he was constantly apologizing for something he never said aloud.
Beatrix's bow moved in slow arcs like a mourning that had learned how to breathe. She played differently than Wednesday had those years before, more emotive. But she kept the same posture as if Wednesday echoed like a shadow under her skin: spine straight, chin lifted, like the music itself was being summoned as a witness.
The rhythm unspooled slowly, like a heartbeat caught in memory as the melody unfurled: layered repetition, aching restraint. Notes not simply played, but offered.
A third chair sat empty in the corner, draped in dark velvet. A spider brooch pinned to the armrest. An envelope -- unopened, sealed with a wax spider -- lay on the small dark side table next to the empty chair with quiet intensity, almost humming.
No one looked at it.
They had made a ritual of this. Once a year, no more, no less.
To play the piece in her parlor. To remember the woman who never tucked them in, but taught them how to haunt properly. The woman who brewed chamomile with clove because "comfort should always carry teeth." Who kept every secret they gave her and returned none of her own.
The woman who never called herself "mother." But stayed when no one else did.
Wednesday Addams.
At the peak of the piece, the place where the melody strained against its own restraint, the room swelled -- not with volume, but with presence. As if the silence itself was thick with someone leaning in.
Beatrix's bow faltered, just slightly. Orion adjusted instantly, matching her shift without looking.
Outside, the sky was pale and uncertain. It could have been morning. Or dusk. Or something between.
The song swelled, and by the final passage, the music was no longer performance -- it was prayer. To no one. Or maybe just her.
They let the last note fade without cutting it. No one moved. After a long silence, Beatrix exhaled. Just once.
"I hate endings." She whispered. "She did, too." Orion replied softly. Beatrix touched the cello's fingerboard with a reverence that bordered on superstition.
"She never said goodbye."
"No," Orion said, rising from the piano, "but she taught us how to stay."
They didn't blow out the candles. They just left the room as it was -- warm, waiting, as if lit by a flame she'd left behind. The room was silent again. But not empty, never empty. Somewhere, beneath the floorboards or within the walls, the house listened. And remembered.
