꧁༺• 𝓒𝓱𝓲𝓵𝓭 𝓸𝓯 𝓦𝓸𝓮 •༻꧂ | 𝒲𝑒𝓃𝒸𝓁𝒶𝒾𝓇

Uriah's heap

Wednesday stood on the porch of the busy street in Jericho in front of the weird antique shop called Uriah's heap which had become her new workplace for the time being. 

She was actually glad that she had the chance to work in this store and not anywhere else, the shop really matched her vibe. After all, this was the place where Thing stole her Rave'N dress from... How ironic. 

She walked inside, an old golden bell ringing when she opened the door announcing that she had arrived. 

"Ah, you must be the newby", a girl she had never seen in the shop before called to her grinning, "Sup, I'm Amelia, your co-worker, but most people just call me Ams." 

Amelia was maximum 3 years older than Wednesday, she had thick painted-red hair with dark brown roots, round glasses, and was dressed leaning more into the gothic side. 

Nonchalantly she leaned further over the counter and looked at her chipped black nails: "Vanessa, aka our boss, won't be here until midday. Something about picking up rare fossils I think, I don't know. So she left me the honor to show you around."

"How delightful", Wednesday said as she looked around the store, taking in the carcasses of the dead animals placed in the weirdest positions imaginable. There were ferrets and mice marrying, rats and cats getting drunk together at a bar, 3 mice performing a circus act, and many entertaining faunas. 

"I see you're interested in the boss' wide display of animals. Most people find them disturbing but I find them cool! It's like giving the animals a second chance at life. Beware though, they might appear in your nightmares sometimes", she joked, confidently signing Wednesday to follow her behind the counter. 

Wednesday followed her and eventually, they ended up in a workshop behind the store. If Enid would've entered this place she would have complained about feeling sick and probably even faint, but Wednesday found it fascinating. On the side counter, many taxidermic animals were drying with needles. 

Wednesday remembered being interested in this when she was a kid and spending numerous evenings researching how it worked and if it was possible for humans. 

It was actually quite simple, first, you had to peel off the skin of the animals, then wash it and cover it with fluid against insects, rewash it, dry it as much as you can, put it in a machine to make its fur look real again in case it had fur, and place it on a personalized mannequin. Simple. 

On her 11th birthday, her uncle Fester had even given her a black cat carcass to set up. It had been a lot of fun. 

The needled animals were simply standing there for about 2 weeks until the skin was completely dried and it was ready for display. 

"So, Wednesday was it? Nice name. Anyways, the girl that contacted us mentioned that you had absolutely no problems with death, so your job will be to peel off the taxidermic animal's skin. Even though we sell a lot of antiques here, we also make our living with the taxidermy of people's pets. Here, I'll show you how it's done-", Wednesday interrupted her by letting her know that she already knew all that. Amelia gave her a surprised but content expression. 

"Ok cool! Just make sure you don't forget to keep the amounts of flesh so we can know the size of the mannequin when we ship it in" Amelia informed, already heading off back to the store, "I heard the bell ring so I just got to make sure nobody is trying to steal anything, or hope they are so I can have some fun and show off my skills. Bye newby."

"You don't make your own mannequins?", Wednesday simply scoffed and Amelia just laughed and flicked her hand: "Funny, I asked Vanessa the exact same question when I first arrived. I like you Wednesday, you've got sass."