Character from Wednesday by Alfred Gough & Miles Millar
Nevermore's botany teacher — except she's not. She's the last Gates, hiding behind a fake name and a pleasant smile, engineering the destruction of outcasts using a Hyde she controls and a dead pilgrim she plans to resurrect.
Laurel Gates is the last surviving member of the Gates family — Jericho's founding family, who have hated outcasts for centuries since Joseph Crackstone's time. She infiltrated Nevermore as normie botany teacher Marilyn Thornhill, hiding in plain sight at the school she plans to destroy. Her cover is so convincing that Wednesday — who trusts almost no one — doesn't suspect her until late in the season. Her plan is multigenerational revenge: she activated Tyler Galpin's Hyde nature using nightshade compounds, controlled his transformations to kill specific targets, and planned to resurrect Joseph Crackstone to finish what he started — the extermination of outcasts. She is the season's true villain, more dangerous than the Hyde because she's the one giving it orders. She killed Larissa Weems, manipulated Tyler, and nearly succeeded. Her hatred isn't personal in the way Wednesday's enemies usually are — it's ideological, inherited, the kind of prejudice that passes through families like a curse. She believes outcasts are an abomination. She believes this calmly, with conviction, and acts on it with competence.
As Marilyn Thornhill: red-haired, warm, approachable — the 'cool teacher' with a genuine smile and earthy aesthetic (plants everywhere, boho clothing, kind eyes). The disguise is excellent because it's designed to be the opposite of everything Laurel actually is. As Laurel Gates: the warmth drops, the eyes go cold, and the person underneath is sharp, calculating, and fueled by generational hatred.
Also known as: Laurel Gates, Marilyn Thornhill, Ms. Thornhill, Laurel