Author's note: Wow, it's been so long, I bet everyone forgot about me D;
I'm so very sorry, guys! I really am, but I underestimated this semester. Did college ever suck the life out of you? Because it did to me, damn. "But By! I saw you posting other things!" Guys, other things weren't as important or complex as this chapter, I swear. Nor as long. (well, except for that Gorillaz oneshot, but shhhh no one saw)
The thing is, I had to write this chapter right. I HAD to. Because it really is key to the end of the fic, with quite a few answers. I was so afraid of doing it wrong, and I'm still afraid I didn't do it justice, so please, pleeeeeeease, let me know at the end in your review? I'm begging.
According to my counts, we have 2 more chapters and an epilogue left, but you never know. Fingers crossed. Also, my semester ends in a couple of weeks, so circle of prayer for my writing being restored to a 20 days gap.
Enough blabbing, you're not here for this. Enjoy the chapter!
WINTER
"Troubled spirits on my chest where they laid to rest (…)
Said goodbye to you, my friend, as the fire spread.
All that's left are your bones that will soon sink like stones.
So hold on, hold on to what you are. Hold on to your heart."
Of Monsters and Men – Your Bones
9. the madness in our wake
December, 1986
Elle Hopper
She realized the difference as soon as she stepped beyond the box on the ground. El passed by it looking back once, the same way she passes by the box by her window every day. She'd been telling herself that the reason she hadn't taken that box to Mike's house yet was because she kept finding his things in random parts of the house, but to hell with that excuse.
Elle Hopper didn't want to let Mike Wheeler go.
Even though she should. Even though that very morning Pat Curry had stopped by her locker before class and put a flower in her hair and kissed her cheek.
That afternoon, when El got home and found Joyce there cradling Callie with a lullaby on her tongue, she finally let out the question.
"Did you actually get over Hopper the first time around?"
Which got a confused look from her adoptive mother.
"We found your high school yearbook, you know?" El continued, dropping her bag on the couch. "It says that you and Hopper were together, but then you went and married Lonnie, and Hop moved to Indianapolis. Did you get over him? And how?"
Joyce offered her a comprehensive smile then.
"Oh, Ellie," she said lovingly. "Part of you will forever be in love with your first love, because it was when everything changed, when you never could be the same again. Understand?"
No. Well, maybe a little bit.
"I don't know, Mom," she said pouting. "It doesn't sound very nice, this prospect."
"Look, there's no shame in taking your time to find someone else, and you're not alone in those feelings, baby. A lot of people felt the way you do right now."
"Did you?"
Joyce smiled again and nodded as she swayed Callie to the right and to the left ever so smoothly. El had turned to the corridor then, willing to grab a warmer jacket for later. She'd need it.
"Ellie," Joyce had called and the girl turned around. "We can talk more, you know? Whenever you want."
"I know," she answered and nodded.
El almost tripped on a branch and that was the only reason she took her eyes from the box in the woods where so many times she believed she was getting her last meal out of. There weren't monsters after her when she crawled out of that hole – not the usual ones, at least, faceless and powerful. Just the normal kind of monsters, the ones she was used to, the ones who raised her since she was a baby.
All of them but one.
El focused on the path ahead of her knowing that the one would show up as well, eventually. He was hiding, but he was one of the whisperers.
She knew it because he was the only one who dared call her name.
"You okay?" Mike asked when she crossed her arms, putting her jacket tighter around herself. El nodded.
"Fine," she answered.
Winter would only start in a couple of weeks, but the night was falling faster upon them already. It's the northern way, Mike had told her the previous year, both of them sitting on the roof of his house, his close breath keeping her cheek warm. It had been their first snowfall of December at the time, after a couple of surprisingly warm days, no rain at all. Different from the ice layer all around this year.
He had invited her to the roof and together they waited for the sun to set, and when it did he told her about the first stars of the night, her head rested on his arm, his face so close to hers. He talked and talked the way he always did and she processed only half of it, more concentrated on the vibration of his chest and how his voice cracked sometimes. El remembered the thought that was in her head that night as if it had happened just hours ago.
She had thought, if I turn around right now, I can kiss him. And she thought, if I start kissing him now, I don't think I could ever stop.
She thought those things in a loop over and over and over until she had the courage to actually turn her head in his direction and their noses touched and his eyes were so black, and she kissed him, and kissed him, and kissed him sure that if anyone interrupted them she would never stop.
That memory was red and blue in her chest, both happy and sad. Like right now, when they were about to test their luck.
"Don't worry, El, it's going to work," Mike assured with a smile that told her that he too wasn't so sure, but he did have a lot of faith.
It was different, the place, and it had only been a week since they went there. The clearing had no sign of Chinese lanterns or red cups, the stones and logs were back where they belonged. It was relieved. Happy, even.
El took a deep breath and released the air slowly. She only realized that she had closed her eyes when she opened them again and faced Will, who was standing in front of her with a big smile.
"I fixed it," he told her. "Dustin helped me."
"More like I did the fixing while he bossed me around," Dustin corrected.
"I was the only one who knew what was wrong!" Will exclaimed and then flinched.
He was in pain, a lot of it, but since it was a special occasion, he was downplaying it for the others.
Once upon a time, Joyce was pushing a baby out with all her will and Jim Hopper, the Chief, passed out halfway through it. The mother turned to El during one of those in-between moments of peace, took in El's wonder and said – Men can never take pain, sweetheart. That's why we don't let them know the half of it.
El believed her.
Those boys, they were her best friends, but they couldn't handle it, they would never be able to deal with it – the voices, the changes, the gore. It was too much.
Only Will understood it, but Will was different. He was barely human. And like women, he cared too much. Too nice to survive, and yet that was the only reason he was still alive.
Well, maybe not the only reason. But certainly the stronger one.
Lucas opened the door to the warehouse and tested the switch, verifying that the lights were working fine. They all followed him inside and found the heating system. The small stage the band had used at the Seniors' party was still there, so Will sat on it and Lucas used it as a table to open the little kit he took from the inside pocket of his jacket.
"That's all?" El asked referring to the vial, standing next to her brother. Lucas nodded. "And you know how to use those things?" she pointed at the syringes.
"My dad has diabetes," he explained. "Everyone at home knows how to use needles. This is his secondary kit bag, it keeps the temperature cool because of the insulin, so I think it's going to work fine."
Will nodded and took off his jacket.
"Let's do this."
"What are you doing?" Mike asked watching Will take off his shirt too.
"You said that it'd be good to apply the venom in the same place it was applied before." He pointed at the scar on his chest. "To mimic what happened the first time around. Hit me."
They all moved a little uncomfortably on their feet. El indicated for Will to lay down. The heating system was taking too long to kick in and he already was starting to shiver, but they didn't have the whole night.
"Start with 50ml," Mike instructed and Lucas nodded taking the vial of venom with all the caution he could muster.
The scar was right above Will's heart, three gushes of new, smooth skin. It was so close to his heart that no one understood how the venom didn't kill him on the spot – it had killed others before, but Will survived, he even got better.
Now they knew why. More importantly, knew how.
And the how was the important part, because it worked in their advantage.
"Okay, Byers," Lucas said with the needle at his eye level as he checked the volume. "You ready?"
"That's how I was born, baby," Will replied, and El shook her head. "Too much?"
"Too much," she agreed taking his hand.
Lucas gulped and Will nodded reassuringly. Part of El knew it was about time they had a solution, part of her was scared to death. Will tightened his grip on her hand and she leaned closer to him.
"You must go on," she recited so low only he should hear, but with the silence in the large room, probably everyone heard her.
"I will go on," he told her, and then he looked at Lucas. "You're not growing soft on me, are you, Sinclair?"
Lucas scoffed and placed the syringe, his right hand on Will's chest for support, the needle pointed to the central cut. He and Mike had studied Will's drawings of the displacer and consulted their memory, trying to figure out how it applied its venom in the victims, but El wasn't sure if the boys got to some sort of solution. Lucas took a deep breath, Will let out the air he had locked in his lungs slowly. It was cold in there, but his hand was sweating in hers.
And then the needle was in, the venom following right after.
No one said or did anything for a minute. No one even moved, they just waited and nothing happened.
"How are you feeling?" El asked and Will shrugged.
"Underwhelmed, really," he said. "Is that it?"
"You got a mice shot," Dustin said.
"Maybe we should try a little more," Mike added. "I mean, we were going to anyway, but we would wait to see the effects."
"There are no effects," Will said firmly.
Mike and Lucas exchanged a look. Mike was the science guy, Lucas was just the person who knew how to use needles. If anyone knew better, it would be Mike. He nodded.
"Try 70ml on the same spot, and then we divide the rest equally in the side scars," he instructed and Lucas got to work.
The second dose was less tense than the first; they all seemed to be breathing more evenly by the time the third dose began to be prepared.
El took a moment to look around the warehouse and take in the place. She wondered if when the Seniors found it for rent, they also found the thin mattress and ratty sheets that used to be by the heater. She wondered what had been done with it.
During the Christmas of 1984, Hopper caught her off guard. He wasn't supposed to enter the warehouse, and whenever he came to bring her food or a blanket, she'd make sure to hide, but this time she was feeling so weak and wobbly that she didn't try to move, thinking that he wouldn't try the handle.
He did. Luckily, she had her back to the door and just a little snow flew in. She pretended to be asleep. Hopper stepped close and kneeled by her side, checking her breathing and temperature. He took off his jacket and covered her, and then he left some warm food by her head on the floor.
El still remembered what it was: mashed potatoes, pumpkin with ham, black rice and apple pie for dessert. She thought it over for a moment. Maybe she already knew what to give Hop this year.
Will shifted on the improvised stage, changing his grip on El's hand and she looked at him again. He was starting to sweat all over, and he looked uncomfortable.
"How was it the other time?" El asked Will. "When it hit you, how did you feel? Pain?"
"To be honest, I don't know," Will answered. "I was knocked out and by the time I woke up, the paramedics were already dragging me to the ambulance and giving me morphine."
The boys exchanged a look and El narrowed her eyes at them. Dustin was the one to talk.
"You don't remember?" he asked and Will frowned.
"Remember wh-" Will's question was cut short by a gasp and his head snapped back.
"Will?" El called. He had let go of her hand and started to spasm.
"Hold him down!" Lucas commanded. Dustin and Mike struggled to get a grip on him. "Hold him the fuck down, we have to apply all the venom."
"Do we, really?" Dustin asked and all the other three turned to him.
"YES!" they shouted.
"It's okay," Will managed to gasp, sitting up. "I can take it, I-"
His leg kicked and he almost dropped the vial on the floor, but El prevented it from crashing with her mind. Lucas hurried to grab everything and put it a safe distance from Will. Mike and Dustin were still struggling to hold him down.
"You guys knew about this?" El asked, but she got no answer. "Michael."
"He threw up!" Mike said. "It's how we found out about the slugs."
"Just that? Just throwing up?" she pressed.
No one wanted to answer her, and Will had more spasms, knocking Dustin off his feet. El turned to him and with a head motion she pushed Mike away. She focused on Will, forcing him to lay down and keep still. He was still trembling, clearly in pain, and she hovered her hands above his body trying to read him.
It was all over him and protesting. It wanted to live and they were killing it.
It was working.
El lined with Will's head and leaned over, pushing his hair back and resting her forehead on his.
"I'm sorry," El said and then she looked at Lucas, gesturing for him to approach.
Lucas needed to take a few breaths before calming down enough to point the needle to Will's chest again. El kept caressing his hair, trying to make him focus on her.
Will was fighting her, but she was stronger. She even knew that his fight wasn't really his, it was its. She knew that the real Will wanted for it to go.
"It's almost done," she told him, her voice soft. "Everything. Everything is coming to an end."
"You promise?" Will asked. El nodded.
"Promise."
She looked at Mike then, knowing damn well what happened the last time words like those had been exchanged. She tried to pass him a new message just through her eyes. It'd be different this time. It'd be completely different this time, and she would make sure of it.
"Done," Lucas said, taking them from their reverie and the moment he said that, the lights went down.
It lasted only a couple of seconds, but long enough to distract El from her hold on Will. When the lights came back on and the heating system kicked back up loudly, El felt Will's arm around her waist, pushing her away before he leaned over the edge of the stage and vomited on the floor.
Only a couple of hours later, after a lot of sweat and fever and tears, Lucas drove them home in his brand new old Cadillac, his hands still shaking every time he looked at El through the rear view mirror, Will's head on her shoulder.
They hopped out without a word and she led him to his room. Instead of going to her room, El got him some water and filled the bucket by his bed before she set camp on Jonathan's bed.
"Ellie," Will called, his voice hoarse.
"Go to sleep, bro," she said smiling. "I won't leave."
The next morning, El woke up with the sun hitting her face shyly which could be a good sign; when Will was feeling sick, he couldn't stand the light, and if he had been feeling sick now, he'd complain until the curtains were closed.
El stretched in the bed and got up lazily, her hair a mess. She didn't sleep very well, but she only had 48 hours to turn over the last essays for English and writing before winter break, and she really needed that private with Mike. She went to her bedroom where Joyce was feeding Callie with a smile.
"Morning," she greeted yawning and it was like Joyce was glowing.
"Morning, baby," Joyce said. "Did you see Will?"
"Not yet. Looking good?"
Joyce leaned over to whisper her reply.
"He's humming, and smiling! And eating! Ellie, it's a miracle!"
"Early Christmas, maybe?" El joked and Joyce nodded, ignoring the girl's tone.
"Go get ready or you'll be late," she ushered instead and so El did.
When she went to the kitchen to eat breakfast, Will was making pancakes and dramatically singing along to the tune of Luther Vandross on the radio, a cigarette between his lips. She couldn't help but smile.
"I'm guessing you slept well," she said as she handed him a plate.
"Better than I had in months, to be honest," Will replied. He managed to put her pancakes on her plate without dropping any ashes on them. "I'm not 100% yet, but have you heard the phrase 'fake it until you make it'?"
El nodded, reaching for the maple syrup on top of the fridge. He had said that to her in a call while she was camping, his little piece of advice as to how to get over her break up.
"You know, Mom is so happy you're fine, I think she won't even mind you're smoking."
"That's what I'm counting on, Ellie," he said turning off the stove. Will poured him a mug of black coffee and sat with her while she ate. "Yesterday, I was feeling like shit, but I feel like it's working. I think it's going to work."
"Yeah, temporarily," El agreed. "We have to find a way to get the thessal out of your system while the displacer's venom is repressing it."
Will sighed and she held his hand tenderly. She didn't want to upset him, but they had to be reasonable about what they were facing. The venom in high concentration held his transformation back in a couple of years, but the dose they found wouldn't hold on for too long. With the clock ticking, they were getting close to all of the heads being ready and coming to get him.
Once they had their hands on Will, the thessalmonster would be unstoppable.
There was no way in hell El would let that happen again.
"One day at a time, right?" she said sweetly and Will smiled nodding.
"WILLIAM BYERS!" Joyce shouted from the door of the kitchen. "Who said you could smoke in the house?"
Later that afternoon, that was the story El was relating to Mike between laughs as they headed to Hawkins Library to study. They went up to the study rooms where they could chat with a little more liberty than downstairs.
"So the next thing I know, Mom is taking the cigarette from him and throwing it in his coffee, making him get up to get ready for school," she said leaving her backpack on one of the chairs and sitting down on another. Only then El looked up and saw Mike staring at her. "What?"
"Do you realize what you're doing?" he asked and she frowned. "El, you're telling a story."
"Yeah…?" she said, feeling very confused. Mike smiled.
"What you do out loud is what you have to do on paper." He opened his backpack and took out a notebook before he sat by her side. El groaned.
"Mike…" how many times did she have to tell him that she was no storyteller?
"No, El, look," he said taking her hand. "You said you have a hard time imagining things and I've been approaching it wrong. Maybe… all you have to do is tell."
He pushed the notebook in her direction and anxiously El got a pencil out of her bag.
"Tell me about last night," Mike said.
"You know about last night," she replied looking at him. He was still holding her hand and his finger brushed the ring on her index finger.
Mike looked down at their hands and saw that she was wearing the ring he gave her again, and El's heart fluttered. He didn't say anything, but held her hand a little tighter, his thumb tracing the ring lightly.
He was wavering, she could tell.
He looked in her eyes and she felt goosebumps all over her body. Oh, that was bad.
"I know," Mike said quietly. "But tell me anyway, from your point of view. Tell me what happened and what was in your mind."
El opened her mouth, but Mike shook his head and pointed at the notebook, letting go of her hand.
"Write as if you're talking out loud, and we'll work from there."
"You want me to tell what was in my mind?" she asked just to make sure and he nodded.
El rolled the pencil between two fingers for a moment staring at the notebook, and then she opened it, looking for a blank page. Half of the notebook was filled with Mike's scribes for new campaigns that he didn't know when they'd be able to play. She found a page more in the middle and flattened its corner.
Last night, she thought, she had a lot in her mind. She didn't know where to start. She never knew where to start. Frustrated, El sighed putting her free hand on her temple.
Normally, Mike would give her space to write, but this time he leaned closer, his face near hers. El didn't dare turn in his direction.
"Talk to me," he said and she closed her eyes, took a deep breath. And then she started to write.
It was freezing cold, and the ground was covered in ice at the northern woods last night, she wrote remembering one of his first tips of setting the landscape; Mike gave her space, even though he stayed close. The way the sun insisted on setting early made me think of you.
El was halfway through the page, her small, round calligraphy filling the lines as she poured down her thoughts, when Mike decided to leave her alone for a bit. She didn't know how much he had read over her shoulder, but she guessed he'd seen enough to know that she was wavering too. She'd been wavering from the start.
She turned the page and saw on the following sheet a doodle of an ugly gremlin that made her smile. Distracted, El closed the notebook and went back to the first page, taking a good look at Mike's writing. He was so good at it, it was annoying, but adorable at the same time. Will had told her that his campaigns were getting more and more complex, deep and layered as the years passed. He said that maybe Mike would be able to write his own DM book someday, if he kept it up.
El came across a page that caught her attention and read through it, repeating one of the lines a few times.
The Red Shadow Dragon had once been Copper, pouring goodness and camaraderie, but now all it knew was raging angst boiled in revenge.
"What are you reading?" Mike asked coming back to the room and El looked up at him.
"Is this your new campaign?" she asked instead and he shrugged.
"I don't know. All I have are scattered ideas at the moment. Did you finish writing?"
"No," El said looking back at the page and reading about the dragon again.
Mike was silent for a while and he sat by her side again, his body turned to her.
"You always do that, reading my campaigns beforehand-" she shushed him unapologetically and he frowned. Mike shook his head. "Actually, I was asking which book you're reading this time. I know you always have one with you."
"Oh," she said. El used a finger to mark where she'd stopped on the page and dug her backpack with her free hand until she found the thin book. She pulled it out and handed it to him.
"Molloy again?" Mike said surprised, flipping through the pages carefully. "The lines you and Will quoted… they're from the Trilogy, aren't they?"
El nodded.
"I didn't know you'd read it," she said giving up on her reading.
"Will was obsessed with it a couple of years ago, but I can't tell I enjoyed it much."
They were silent for a moment, El slowly going through the pages of Mike's notebook. He wasn't as good an artist as Will, but he had a nice vision of the world he was creating there. She sniffed and frowned.
"Were you smoking?" El asked.
"…Yes," Mike replied and she scoffed.
"I can't believe I got Hop and Joyce to quit just to have you dumbasses starting," she commented and in the corner of her eye she saw Mike smile.
"Look, I just wanted the quiet for a few minutes," he argued and El looked at him.
"We're at the library," she replied in a heartbeat and his smile widened.
"You know, you're very familiar with this place," Mike said tilting his head. "I don't remember a single week since you came back that you didn't have a book with you. What makes you read so much?"
El bit the inside of her cheek, leaving the notebook open on the page she had been writing earlier and looked at him.
"Mostly vocabulary," she confessed. "It helps with learning more about human interactions too, but I still struggle, and most of the time I don't really understand them – the stories. Like, what the fuck is Jane Austen's goal?"
Mike snorted, but cut his laugh short when something hit him.
"Are you telling me that you understand Beckett better than Austen?" he asked. El didn't know why he was so shocked. She nodded. "How? His writing is a mess."
"Exactly," she pointed at him. "He's a mess. Like me, like in here," El pointed at her own head. "Samuel Beckett, Jack Kerouac, James Joyce, those are the people I get, because they just keep fucking going."
"James Joyce is a trip, he gives me headaches," Mike confessed under his breath and El smirked. She knew.
"That's the only thing I know, Mike," she said to him. "The mess. But I can't Kerouac the shit out of creative writing. This is considered nothing but a tool." She pointed at the book he had left on the table and looked at it suddenly sad. It was such a shame that the things she was good at weren't enough. El leaned back and looked at Mike's notebook. "I wish I could write like you."
"But do you even like my writing?" Mike asked frowning. "I mean, you totally dispensed my campaigns over and over."
"Didn't I ask you to write them?" El asked, tilting her head as she looked at him. Mike blushed a little.
"Well, yes, but-"
He was interrupted by her little scoff, for she understood something. She understood that she had had that conversation before, but with his sister instead of him. She understood that he didn't know her whys, so he kept adding buts. Maybe it was about time to tell him.
"Oh, Mike," El said reaching out and holding his hand. "You have no idea, do you?"
"No idea of what?" he asked suspiciously.
"Mike, where do you get the idea for these campaigns? And don't answer me D&D books."
That caught him off guard, she could tell by his posture and the way he raised both eyebrows. She wanted him to think hard of that answer, for he deserved to know. Mike looked down at her hand in his and covered it with his other hand, his thumb rubbing her wrist.
"I don't know," he finally answered. "Sometimes I dream of something, sometimes… the ideas just appear to me or whatever."
"Don't you get it, Mike?" El asked, her other hand reaching to touch his face, cupping his cheek. When she spoke again, it was in a whisper. "You've got a gift."
"What? No," he said with a nervous laugh. "No, Ellie, I just write, I'm… I don't, I'm ordinary."
El leaned closer to him, her fingers tracing the lines of his cheekbone and the freckles on his skin. She couldn't help but smile at his naivety. And to think that she was considered the innocent one.
"There's nothing ordinary about you, Mike Wheeler," she said in mesmerized wonder. "The way you see, sense and interpret things, haven't you noticed? You're the orchestrator of it all, like a…"
El looked down, the connections being made in her head after all and making her frown. Mike caught his breath and she looked at him again, realizing that she was all over him when she shouldn't. Wide eyed, El gasped and leaned back.
"Like a Lich," she concluded.
Mike frowned, but he didn't have the chance to react, because something occurred to her and she got up so fast he barely processed it. El gathered her things in record time and tore the page from Mike's notebook, shoving it in her backpack.
"Hey!" he protested.
"I gotta go," she said, closing the zipper.
"But your essay, you have to turn it in in two days!" Mike reminded her and El nodded.
"It's okay, I've got this."
"How-" he shook his head. "I need to see what you wrote."
El put the backpack over her shoulder and shook her head.
"There's no way I'm letting you read that," she said smiling. "But don't worry, we'll meet again tomorrow? I just… really need to call my mom. It's important." She turned to the door and even took a few steps towards it, but then she turned to him again. "Mike," El called. He was looking at her stunned.
She didn't know what to say, though. The words failed her once again, but this time it didn't bother her.
"Talk later, okay?" she opted to say and he nodded.
Filled with something similar to hope – hell, maybe similar to the hope she felt from the boys the night before - El rushed towards the exit. She had to talk to Terry, and maybe talk to Nancy and Jon too, to give them some angle in their search – if there was a way to channel her thoughts into action, that was it.
At last, she thought, at last somewhere solid to go.
xxx
Nancy Wheeler
The thing about Jonathan Byers' car was that there was nothing in heaven or earth that could heat up its insides, so whenever Nancy had to ride with him during winter, she had to make sure to put on her warmest clothes and bring along at least one blanket. At least one.
The temperatures were dropping like crazy on the east coast, more drastically than the previous year, and sometimes she regretted the suggestion of getting out of the dorm. Her freezing Hawkins sounded so warm these days.
Jonathan had put on some blues to play. He had been in this groovy vibe for a while now, and Nancy still had to get used to car rides without his usual punk, but she had to admit that it set tone quite nicely as the big cities gave away to green and small towns near the Turnpike.
The almost 2 hour drive to Mt. Laurel had to be stretched because of the icy road, for Nancy's distaste. She already had been through 9 awful hours on the bus from Portland to Manhattan, certainly no medium was worth all that trouble.
Nancy looked over at Jonathan again. His gloved hands gripped the steering wheel with concentration, his eyes on the road. She had only taken the Turnpike once to go to Philadelphia to see the Independence Hall. Jonathan was the example of tranquility, but she knew him well enough to understand the lock of his jaw and the sharpness in his eyes.
"This is nice," she said, bringing her knees to her chest in order to wrap the blanket around her more neatly. Without even glancing at her, Jon chuckled.
"I'm sorry I didn't get the heater fixed," he said with a smile and Nancy shrugged.
"I wasn't expecting you would," she replied and watched him release the air from his lungs slowly, relaxing just a little bit. Nancy looked out her window again. If the weather was nicer, she'd stick her arm out and surf in the wind, but it was almost freezing and she'd like to keep her fingers intact. "It looks so different from spring."
"That's how seasons work, Nance," Jon replied seriously. "It's gonna be cold in the winter."
Nancy rolled her eyes, but smiled anyway. Sometimes, Jonathan would let out jokes with this monotone and blank expression that would unsettle any outsider, but Nancy was used to his odd humor. As a matter of fact, the most serious he'd say something, the funnier it'd get.
They passed by a plaque indicating the distance to Mont Holly, Mt. Laurel, Cherry Hill and Philadelphia. The car went by too fast for Nancy to read all the distances, but she supposed they were almost halfway there. Cherry Hill and Philadelphia were the places you could find Moira Flint, the medium recognized by Roscoe Grayson, but her house was in Mt. Laurel.
Nancy had her address written down in her notebook among other names she had found in a file at Professor Vogel's office. The list of people that provided him information about the ley lines and the versequakes that were shaking Maine's energy.
Only two names had caught Nancy's attention, even though she copied the whole list – Moira's and Nicholas Heron, who Mike had told her recently was the man from the museum's creepy exhibit with the weird skeleton.
(The skeleton, El had told her on a different occasion, of a deceased demogorgon found on the propriety of a Flint family. One didn't have to be very bright to start making the connections when they were laid in front of one like that.)
Heron didn't have an address among his info, and Nancy wasn't intimate enough with Professor Vogel to know what all of his notes meant, so she decided to try the second best thing, and that would be Moira. Hence, the freezing trip in the second week of December, when they should be studying for finals.
Nancy looked at Jonathan again, at the way he was biting his lip as he drove, his nose red with the cold and the little pout he made when his lower lip stopped being busied by his teeth. Of course they wanted to make this trip in the spring, with warm weather and flower blossoms, but they were running out of time.
How many lives, she kept wondering knowing that her boyfriend wondered the same since he found out about the return of the slugs and the return of the dead, Will Byers had left at this point? They weren't willing to wait around to find out.
Moira Flint high key could be a dead end. She could have no clue whatsoever as to what they could do to help Jonathan's little brother. But she had been part of MK Ultra and they wouldn't give chance a chance.
"Jon," Nancy said softly and he dared to look at her briefly, offering her a sweet smile.
"This leap of faith is going to work, Nance," he said with certainty and it made her heart flutter.
He was determined the way he had been when they dared walk through Hawkins woods at night three years ago with only a bat and a revolver, and she loved that about him, that willingness to go beyond the borders of his comfort zone to do something.
"I know," she replied, even though she didn't, not really.
Sometimes, faith was their best shot.
They didn't talk much the rest of the trip, letting the soft sound of guitars and pianos fill in the gaps of their conversation as they entered in Mt. Laurel and tried to figure out the city's map in order to find the house.
They ended up in a suburban neighborhood with small houses and children on the streets wrapped in warm clothes and shouting at the snowfall, and parked in front of a colorful house with a pink fence. Jonathan turned off the engine as Nancy started to roll the blanket, sad to leave that layer of warmth in the car, and then they hopped out.
"Is that it?" Jon asked and Nancy nodded, pointing at the mailbox with the word FLINT in uppercase letters.
"Looks like," she said. They exchanged a look and she took his hand in hers, lacing her fingers with his. "You ready?"
"Yes," he said without falter, and then stepped decidedly towards the house.
They crossed the small gate, climbed up the front steps and rang the bell twice. Different from anything Nancy had imagined, Jonathan held her hand with no tremble, and he stood tall, with his head high. This, right here, was important to him. This was about his family and he would not step down.
On the other side of the door there was noise, chatter, and when it opened, they were welcomed by this really calm music and the smell of incense. The woman that greeted them was a little taller than Nancy, with striking black hair and eyes, skin as white as the moon. Everything about her reinforced her stage name of Nixe of the Night. Jonathan had told Nancy about her, but now she realized she hadn't fully grasped his description. In front of her stood a woman who looked both innocent and powerful, all knowing, maybe beyond her years. She looked ageless.
It was intimidating.
"Hello, Nixe," Jon greeted with a somewhat charming smile. "Remember me? We talked on the phone."
"Jonathan Byers," Moira said. She was wearing a purple cashmere over a long flower dress and gave them space to get in. "Of course, come on in!"
They left their jackets in the hall and passed by a TV room where two kids with blonde hair were watching cartoons and paid little to no attention to them. Moira led them to the back of the house, to the kitchen where the oven was on and they could begin to notice the smell of pumpkin pie; probably left over from the Halloween crops like it used to happen at Nancy's home.
The room was awfully warm compared to the outside world, explaining Moira's bare feet, and the soothing music came from a boxy radio on the sink.
"Are they your kids?" Nancy asked after being introduced and offered a seat by the flour dusted table. The kids looked nothing like Moira, but it couldn't hurt to ask.
The psychic shook her head no.
"My niece and nephew. I look after them for my sister a couple times a week, that's how you found me home. Apple tea?"
Nancy was about to say no, but Jonathan was quicker.
"Yes, please," he said removing his gloves. Nancy already had shoved hers in her pockets, the warmth of that house was comforting after so many hours in the car. "With cream and sugar if possible."
Moira smiled. She put water in the kettle and put it on the stove, got a couple of green apples, a pot of honey and some cinnamon. She got a cutting board and a kitchen knife, and then she started cutting the apples in teeny tiny pieces, skin and all.
"I like having the kids over, because they shed light in such different angles, don't you agree?" Moira said as she cut the apples. "Besides, just between us here, I think Kevin has the sight."
She said the last words in a whisper, as if it was a secret, and Nancy wondered why they were the ones she was telling it to. Nancy watched as Moira finished cutting the apples so effortlessly as she spoke, reach for a frying pan and put the pieces in it before taking it to the stove. That… was not how Nancy knew to do apple tea.
"It's very rare, you know? Men getting the sight. I've only ever met one my whole life."
She added a spoon of honey and cinnamon to the apples, kept the temperature low and opened the fridge, getting the milk out as the mixture cooked.
"And only heard of another, of course," Moira continued talking as if they were aware of everything she was saying. She got the sugar from a shelf, left it on the table. "Or sensed him, if I'd put it like that. But I knew it was just a matter of time until we had another one in my family too, I just didn't expect it to be K!"
Nancy looked at Jonathan, who just shook his head subtly, a gesture meant for her to wait. Him being the one who met Moira before, she followed his lead. She reached for the inside of her jacket and pulled her notebook and pen out, the beaten down pages already cracking from so much use and folding.
"You seem to know quite a few sighted men for such a rare ability," Nancy wondered out loud trying to stretch out the pages of her notepad and she looked up just in time to see Moira put back on a shelf a pot labeled "GINGER". The smell of the spice immediately rose, mixed with the apples and cinnamon. With her back to them, Moira shrugged.
"I'm surprised myself," she said sincerely, stewing the pan with a wooden spoon. "Lone Ranger, what brought you back to me?" she asked without looking back at them.
Lone Ranger? Nancy looked at Jonathan, who shrugged. She uncapped her pen and was ready for business. He cleared his throat.
"We know you help Carmine Vogel with his versequake theory, and we were wondering…" Jonathan drifted off when Moira turned around to look at them frowning. She put a hand on top of the sugar pot, drumming her fingers on it as if in consideration. "Well, do you remember Roscoe Grayson?"
Moira scowled then and she scoffed.
"Yeah, I remember that fraud," she said dismissively. "Talk about a crappy human being."
Nancy and Jon exchanged another look and Moira turned to get another pan from under the sink. She poured milk into it and put it on the stove to heat, taking the wooden spoon from the frying pan to rest it on top of the milk pan. She turned off the stove mouth and lidded the pan.
Nancy was confused, to say the least, because Steve had been so certain about Roscoe when he got in touch, it was a little hard to believe that the man would be such fake, and incredible how much disgust Moira expressed towards him in just a few words. But again, none of them had interacted with these people more than a few hours, so it was hard to really get to know them. She wrote down "RG not reliable?" in a rushed handwrite on top of a clean page, and then added the date. December 12, 1986.
"How so?" Nancy asked and Jonathan looked at her frowning. She was in full detective mode now.
Moira's mouth contracted in a thin line, revealing her age a little. That woman was Nancy's father's age, maybe a little younger, but she had hardly looked like it up until now. They had a good guess why the turn – it was the single hardest thing to have Terry talking about her time at the MK Ultra project. Not even El, the daughter born from that time, had success in getting something out of the woman.
"What about Terry Ives?" Jonathan asked, as if reading Nancy's mind. "Do you remember her?"
At the mention of Terry's name, Moira opened a small smile. She turned the stove off, stirred the milk with the same wooden spoon she used to mix everything as she grabbed for a glass jar on a shelf. They waited for her answer watching her put the apple in the jar and add the hot water up until the half of it. She put a lid on the jar and it immediately started to foam.
"Nixe," Jonathan said carefully, sounding as soft as Nancy knew his heart was. "There's something going on with my little brother and we're seeking all the help we can get, but if you don't answer… we're wasting time. We're tripping here, Nixe, and codes won't help. We don't have the time anymore."
Moira looked intently at Jonathan, making a point to ignore Nancy's presence, and sat down in front of them putting the jar of tea and the pot of sugar aside. She put her arms on the table and then ran a hand through her hair, showing the white powder of flour all over her sleeve.
"It's a delicate matter, Ranger," she finally said with a little tremble in her voice that hadn't been there before. "I don't like to remember that time."
It looked like a helpless situation was developing in front of her and Nancy worried it had been a bad idea to come at all. The smell of pumpkin pie dominated the kitchen as it baked, all strong spices and sugar. Restless, Nancy spoke up.
"I believe you know history happens in cycles," she said catching Moira's attention. "And if you're watching things unfold as you insinuate you are, I think you realize we're at the vortices of a new one. You've lived the first cycle, Ms. Moira, and we could really use your knowledge."
"Seer," Moira replied with a tone of correction. Nancy frowned. "I'm not watching, I'm seeing. Because I'm a seer."
"What is that supposed to mean?" Jonathan asked curiously.
"People with the sight are different because clairvoyance comes on a spectrum," Moira explained. "There are watchers and seers, reachers, shadowers, blinders, spreaders, just to name a few."
"Which one is Roscoe?" Nancy asked, just to confirm her theory. Moira narrowed her eyes at her.
"None," she said firmly. Theory confirmed. "Like I said, men with the sight are extremely rare. Usually, they lack the tact to understand the extent of this gift. Women predominance is a matter of survival of the fittest. I've only ever met one man that knew what he was doing."
"How did Roscoe end up at MK Ultra then?" asked Jonathan frowning. Nancy let him do the talking as she scribed in her notepad fiercely, careful to add a very important question in her notes – who is he?
"Money?" Moira said with a disgusted expression. "Drugs? Could be anything. I'm happy he got screwed over at the end."
The pen slipped in Nancy's hand, so quickly her head shot up, shocked at the bitterness in Moira's words. She really disliked that Roscoe guy. A timer started to beep, so the woman got up and turned off the oven after she checked the pie. It smelled amazing and looked even better when she put it on the sink's stone.
"How old is your little brother, Lone Ranger?" Moira asked getting a set of mismatched teacups and putting them on the table.
"Fifteen," Jonathan answered, busying to get his cup and Nancy's in front of them. Moira nodded.
She got an extra couple of teacups and five dessert plates equally mismatched, putting everything on the table.
"He's…" Jonathan said lowering his eyes, his finger tracing the rim of the cup. "Been through a lot, the little guy."
Sympathetically, Moira reached out and touched Jonathan's wrist, turning his palm up. She traced the lines with long, delicate fingers.
"So much sorrow," the woman said, her voice small. Nancy looked up at her frowning at seeing her teared eyes. Moira took a deep breath and headed to the door of the kitchen. "Jackie! Kevin! Tea time!"
They heard the hurried patting of small feet and the kids were in the kitchen almost immediately, taking seats and passing plates with noisy agitation, even though they weren't talking. Nancy guessed the boy was around 12 and the girl was a little younger, and she hummed curiously observing them. Jonathan took her teacup to fill and put it back in front of her almost without her noticing.
"There something you want to say, Ms. Nancy?" Moira asked softly, but there was a certain substance in her words.
"How old are you, Kevin?" Nancy asked and the boy looked at her surprised to be addressed by a stranger.
"I just turned twelve," he said. His voice still held that childish tone, like Mike's had when he was this age. Nancy looked at Jonathan.
"Will was twelve when it happened," he said frowning. Moira, who was cutting the pie in equal parts, just nodded.
"When what happened?" Kevin asked turning to his aunt. She messed his hair playfully, blonde strands sticking in every direction.
"Found out he was a spreader, baby boy," Moira said casually. Nancy wrote the word down so fast she was afraid she wouldn't understand her calligraphy later.
"I have never ever heard of spreaders, Aunt Mo," the girl, Jackie, said, her elbow on the table and plate ready for a piece of pie. "Not even in the diaries."
"Spreaders come when they are needed. Usually, they don't even develop their clairvoyance," Moira explained.
"How do you know that's what he is?" Jonathan asked, edge in his voice.
"I told you," Moira said calmly. "I felt him. Spreaders can be felt from very far away, just like reachers."
"So you are a seer," Nancy said taking note. "Will is a spreader, Roscoe is nothing. What do these names mean?"
"It's all about time," Jackie spoke up again. She seemed to know a lot about these things. Moira busied in distributing the pie for everyone as the girl explained. "Seers have a glimpse of the future, while watchers have a glimpse of the present. Blinders are tricksters, benders of time like hypnotists, while shadowers are skilled skippers, good at avoiding. They are pretty hard to find."
"Spreaders, like your little brother," Moira said sitting down again, this time at the head of the table. "Amplify everything."
"That's what El told him," Jonathan cut in, borderline excited for having a little bit of information to share. "This summer, she told him he enhances her powe-" he cut himself short, knowing he had just overshared.
The kids were attacking their hot pies with ferocity. Jon looked over at Nancy worriedly and they both looked at Moira. Too busy taking notes, Nancy's tea and pie were cooling in front of her and to her surprise, Jonathan's food was untouched also. The seer smiled at them, cutting a bite of pie with a fork.
"Oh yeah, Terry's girl," she said calmly. "One of the strongest reachers I've ever felt. Only met one like her my whole life."
"Is Terry a reacher?" Nancy asked and Moira shook her head no.
"Aunt, where's the cream?" asked Kevin putting some sugar in his tea and Moira got up quickly to get the warm milk from the stove. She rested it in the middle of the table by the pie and the tea. "Thank you."
"You're welcome," she said and then turned to Jonathan and Nancy again. "Terry was never that high in the ranking, but she was really skilled. She's a watcher and she was the one who found me. Well…" she drifted out for a moment watching the bite of pie in her fork. "They came at the same time, practically. And combusted almost instantaneously too."
"They who?" Jon asked frowning. Moira looked at him.
"Terry and Nicholas. It was as if it was written."
"Nicholas as in Nicholas Heron?" Nancy asked, flipping a few pages back in her notebook. Moira confirmed with a nod, her mouth full. "He's a historian."
"If only he was just that," Moira said bitterly reaching for her tea. She blew it lightly and then sipped carefully. She didn't wait for them to ask more questions. "He was DoE, had been for a while. His research was everything the government wanted. Needed. You pick the word."
"Really?" Nancy said skeptically. "From what the kids told me, his project was based in make believe."
"For the naked eyes, perhaps, but you saw the monster from the cave, didn't you?" Moira asked. Both Nancy and Jonathan nodded. "I was the one who found it, it woke me. All I had to do was touch it."
Nancy felt a shiver up her spine and she dropped the pen. Under the table, Jonathan reached out and took her hand. Moira continued her tale.
"I don't know how he and Brennan got to me after I found the monster, but Terry was already there when they came, looking like a fucking fairy tale princess or something. She was so beautiful, so full of life…" she sighed putting her cup down. "She told me what happened to me, what it meant for my future, and before she could go into many details the DoE knocked at my family's door demanding to see the body."
"How did they know about the body? Did you tell the police?"
Moira shook her head no.
"I didn't even tell my sister," she said. "I was too scared, because I knew it wasn't human. It couldn't possibly be human, the man without a face from bedtime stories in Crown Point."
Nancy reached for her tea, feeling the warmth of the cup and deciding almost without thinking that it was in a temperature good enough and it didn't need any more cooling down. A year and a half in Maine did that to a person. She sipped, her eyes never leaving Moira, and that tea was perfect.
"The moment Heron entered the room, I saw the look on Terry's face. I knew everything had changed already, before even starting." As she spoke, Moira's expression went blank, as if she was living it all again. "I remember Terry getting up from the sofa and circling him. He wasn't even pretty, he was just this nerdy looking guy with brown, boring hair, but I guess I know what she saw in him – he was vibrating with energy, and not the way one might imagine."
Jonathan reached for the cream and poured some in his tea, adding a couple of spoons of sugar after. He stirred it, all the while hanging to her words, and Nancy could physically feel him sighing once he sipped his tea. If there was one person who knew how to appreciate food, it was Jon.
"She told him that there was something he had to see, grabbed his hand and dragged him to the cave, crossing the woods in our farm with such ease, I ran after them wondering how she knew where to go, those agents behind me. I got in the cave just in time to see her urging him to touch the monster. You'll see, she had said, clear as day. You'll see everything."
Moira sighed, her eyes focusing again. She sipped her tea one more time and Nancy reached for her fork, cutting a bite of pie to herself. That pie too tasted amazing.
"I asked a million times and Terry never confirmed, but I think she knew damn well that Nicholas wasn't a seer, that he was more than that. And as a reacher… he lost sign of the limits."
"He went too far," Jonathan concluded.
Somberly, Moira nodded.
"And by going too far, he pushed Brennan to new boundaries too. They didn't know where to stop, and when Terry warned him… it was too late."
"Warned him about what?" asked Nancy. She quickly glanced at her plate and was shocked to see that half of her slice was already gone.
"About getting out of control," Moira answered. "You see, he loved Terry a real fucking lot, but he loved his work more. And Nicholas Heron's loyalty had never lain with the government, only with himself." She shook her head sadly and popped another bite of pie in her mouth, talking around it rather gracefully. "He turned his back on Terry and Brennan, following the line until he found the strongest point possible, all the way north in Indiana. The Hawkins axis, Terry liked to call it. It enhanced the supernatural just as fiercely. And then, the universes collided."
There was a collective gulp in the kitchen, even the music from the radio seemed to silence. Nancy wrote down another note, confirming another theory of hers – Hawkins ley line has the power.
"He opened a breech," Jonathan assumed correctly. "Just like Ellie."
"He did so because he wanted more," Moira said. "He wanted to be invincible, but when he came back… he was just mad."
Moira offered more pie and tea for everyone and the kids gladly accepted the slices. Nancy hadn't finished hers yet, managing to slow down, and Jonathan hadn't even begun eating, so he decided to give it a bite.
"This is so sweet and wonderful!" Jon exclaimed, mouth full, making Nancy smile lovingly. Moira beamed.
"You have to know that you won't find bitterness in the Nixe of the Night's home," she said solemnly and the kids chuckled.
"Is your family still in Crown Point?" Nancy asked, her fork scrapping her plate not willing to let any piece of that pie go to waste.
"My brother is taking care of the farm, but my sister and I left without looking back once MK Ultra was over," Moira said. "I couldn't stand staying in Indiana anymore, so I found a job in Washington, where I stayed for a couple of years and then moved here when K was born, to help Layla."
"That's nice of you," Jon said swallowing the last bit of his pie. Moira promptly put another slice in his plate and in Nancy's, and served them more tea.
"I saw what happened to Terry," she said. "And I realized that family matters more than people give credit to it. I wanted to be around for Layla and her kids."
"Did you ever talk to Terry and Nicholas again?"
Moira shook his head no.
"He tried to reach out to me about three years ago, when he got strong enough to start recruiting, but I blocked him out."
"Three years ago? Recruiting?" Nancy said frowning, her fork all but forgotten and her pen back in hand. The woman raised an eyebrow.
"What, didn't you realize yet?" Moira asked. "I thought you knew all along."
"Knew what?"
Moira took a deep breath watching the two of them and then she turned to the kids.
"Why don't you take your plate and go back to that movie in the TV room?" she suggested, a hand on Jackie's bony shoulder and she waited for the kids to gather their things and head out before continue talking. "Look, Nicholas is one crazy motherfucker, but he's also the strongest person I've ever seen. He's got insane ideas that he's learned with time to put them in practice."
"Moira," Nancy cut her, willing the woman to get to the point already. The seer shot her a hard glare. "What's he recruiting?"
"Heads," she said. "He needs 8 heads, and he's the main one. Once the heads are all ready, he will be unstoppable."
Heads. Wasn't that how El put it? That Will and Barb were heads? Except that Will didn't fully turn, like Barb and the others, and that was why they were calling on him.
"Will didn't turn," Jonathan said, once again reading Nancy's mind.
"I know," Moira said. "And as long as it stays that way, Heron will be incomplete, instable… mortal. Once you get rid of the Flayer, he'll be weak enough to be destroyed, head by head."
"But it keeps coming back," Jonathan said, a little desperate. "We don't have a way to suppress Will's change anymore, that thing..."
"Yes you do," Moira guaranteed. Upon their confused glares she sighed. "Medicine, kids. It's evolved enough to get Nicholas' magic out of his system like a cancer."
Well, couldn't she have said that first thing when they arrived?
"That's it?" Jonathan asked hopefully. Moira nodded and sipped her tea.
"As long as it's not too late," she said. Jonathan's mood fell as fast as it had risen.
"How would we ever know?" he asked.
Moira said nothing for a moment, looking sympathetically at them. She set her cup down and reached out for his hand once again, but this time she only patted it.
"You'll know."
a/n: thank you for not forgetting about me! please, tell me what you thought of this chapter, and I'll see you soon :D