Will Byers' funeral was a subdued affair. For someone who was so often picked on, there was quite the turn out. Hawkins Middle School had adjusted their schedule to a half-day to give students and teachers time to pay their respects. Mr. Clarke was in attendance, along with about half the students in his class. Half of them weren't even dragged by their parents.

The high school hadn't closed, of course. But that didn't stop most from skipping, swearing that they needed time to grieve. Somehow they must've gotten lost on their way to the cemetery. The only teenagers standing around Will's grave were Jonathan, Nancy and Christine.

Christine was doing her best to keep her distance from Nancy, but it was difficult with Dustin and Mike standing next to each other. The only thing separating her from her friend was Claudia Henderson, who'd been kind enough to stand on Christine's right and was oblivious to the tension passing over her head. Christine and Nancy only made eye contact once. Christine was thankful for their silent understanding. Nothing they had to say to each other would be said here. It wasn't the time or place for the petty arguments they were clinging onto.

As soon as the service was over, Nancy walked off with her parents. She didn't give Christine a second glance.

Christine knew that she had a limited time window, but her conversation with the boys the day before was still nagging at her. She jumped on the line that was feeding past Mr. and Mrs. Byers. It seemed like Mr. Byers was doing most of the talking, shaking hands and accepting condolences. Mrs. Byers had her arms wrapped around her torso, just staring out into space. Everyone was giving her a wide berth, either out of respect or their own reservations. What did you even say to a woman who had lost her son?

She'd been so caught up wondering that she didn't prepare anything to say. Before she knew it, she was shaking hands with Will's dad, then standing in front of Mrs. Byers. She hadn't even noticed that Jonathan was there too. She wasn't sure which one of them was more surprised.

"Hi," Christine said lamely. "Uh…"

There were so many questions she wanted to ask. There were so many assurances she wanted to give. But what if she was wrong? What if Will hadn't been talking to his mom? Or he had, but it had been a mom from a different dimension? What if after everything, all her proof, they couldn't get Will back anyhow? What if she failed, and Will was lost all over again? What good was reassurance then?

Jonathan and his mother were both staring at her.

"Um…I just wanted to say that I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry for your loss."

"Thank you," Mrs. Byers managed, nodding weakly.

"Will…he's a really…he was a really smart kid. And I know how much his friends love him, and how much they want him back. So if you need anything…um…I guess just—just let me know."

She was realizing rapidly that this was a terrible idea. She couldn't even look Will's mother in the eye, not with everything she knew. She should have gone straight home to Eleven. That was the best thing she could have done for Will.

Mrs. Byers was squinting at her thoughtfully.

"Sorry, you're…You babysit Dustin, right? Chelsea…?"

"Christine," she and Jonathan corrected at the same time. Mrs. Byers mumbled an apology, which Christine waved off. "And Dustin and I are just friends. He uh…he hates it when I say babysitter."

Mrs. Byers smiled as warmly as she could have, nodding fervently. "No, I know. I know. Will used to be the same way with Jonathan. He always said he was too old for a babysitter, that…that he didn't n-need anyone to watch him…"

Christine panicked as the woman's voice broke. Thankfully, Jonathan stepped in.

"Hey, Christine, thanks. For the flowers."

He nodded to one of the wreaths near Will's pristine new headstone. Hers stuck out amongst the roses and the white lilies, a rainbow of assorted flowers from yellow daisies to blue hydrangeas to purple pansies. Christine smiled.

"Oh, yeah. My dad ordered them from Atlanta, but I helped him pick them out. We thought the service might need some…I don't know. Color."

She felt awkward saying it. The thought sounded so bad out loud. But Mrs. Byers smiled again.

"He would like those," she said confidently. "The colors. Just—Just like his crayons. Thank you, Christine. Really. Thank you."

She patted Christine on the arm. It was a brief motion, and she quickly wrapped her arms around her torso again. Like if she let go for too long her whole chest might fall apart. Jonathan stepped up to her side, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. He nodded to Christine too, half gratitude and half dismissal.

Mortified but also relieved, Christine broke off from the crowd. She made for her bike, parked by the road next to the Hendersons' car. Claudia rolled down her window to speak.

"Are you sure you don't want to come to the reception, Christine?" she asked. "You can ride with us if you'd like."

"No, I'm okay." Christine clambered onto her bicycle. Her black dress was making it harder than usual. "I think I just…I want to call my dad. Talk to him for a while."

Claudia laid a hand on her chest. "Oh! Alright, sweetheart. Take your time. But check in with me later, won't you? I worry about you over there."

"I will, Claudia. Thanks."

Mr. Henderson started the car, and Christine caught Dustin's eye in the back seat. He gave her a thumbs up, looking much too chipper to be leaving a funeral. Christine suppressed an eye roll, and gave him a salute. Plan in motion.

It wasn't much of a plan, she reflected as she biked back to her house. As far as she knew, the boys hadn't figured out what they were going to say to Mr. Clarke, or how they were going to covertly get information about navigating different dimensions. The plan started with "attend the reception" and ended with "talk to Mr. Clarke."

At least Christine's part of the plan was easy. All she had to do was go home and hang out with Eleven.

Christine parked her bike behind the house, then jogged up the back stairs. She knocked twice on the back door, then three times in quick succession. It swung open almost immediately. Eleven had clearly been waiting in the hallway for her.

Despite all of Christine's coaxing, El hadn't wanted to change since her makeover. She was still wearing the dated pink dress, and had grown protective over her blonde wig. Christine hadn't even been able to get her to swap her green and yellow striped tube socks.

"Late," Eleven scolded as Christine locked the door behind her.

"Sorry. I stopped for snacks. Or do you not want these?"

She reached into the grocery bag hanging from her arm, and unearthed the box of Eggos she'd gotten from the store. Eleven's glare vanished, though she was still pouting grumpily. Without words, it clearly read: "Fine. You're off the hook. For now."

Christine grinned, and nodded down the hall. "Come on. You put on the music, and I'll put on your waffles."

The Stranger was playing again when she brought the plates into the living room. Eleven had resumed her place in front of the radio, watching the wheels of the cassette go round with fascinated attention. She swayed back and forth, and Christine smiled.

"You know, you don't have to put this on just cause I like it. There are like a hundred cassettes there. My favorite doesn't have to be yours."

El turned to give her a curious look, which was instantly swept away by the waffles. She scrambled over to the couch, taking a seat at the table Christine had set up for her. Her brown eyes sparkled as they landed on the plate with four waffles, twice as high as Christine's. She snatched the top off the stack. It was already half gone when Christine returned from the kitchen.

"Okay, I know you probably just want to scarf them down plain. But just in case you change your mind, I've brought you some additional options."

Christine laid out the syrup, powdered sugar and whipped cream on her table. It was incredibly amusing to watch Eleven stare each of them down. She counted the toppings, then counted the waffles on her plate. Three toppings. Three and a half waffles. Her nose was already scrunched in distaste, but she surprised Christine with a tentative nod.

"Wow. Alright, let's try a little adventure."

Christine held up the syrup. She popped the cap and squeezed a small pool onto her own plate. Then she held up her waffle and dipped it into the liquid. Warily, Eleven copied her motions. The syrup she poured onto her plate could barely qualify as a drizzle, but she managed to get some onto the waffle. She took the tiniest nibble. Her nose wrinkled again, and she shook her head wildly.

"No."

"Really? Why not?"

"Sweet. Too sweet."

"It's too sweet? You're a kid. You're supposed to love sweet things and rot your teeth out."

Eleven pointedly wiped the rest of the syrup off her plate with a napkin, and Christine sighed.

"Okay. Your loss."

Next they tried the powdered sugar. Christine tapped the shaker over her waffle. Eleven liked the way the sugar fell, and analyzed the patterns inside the little square divots, but she was reluctant to try it on her own. Shaking it over the top meant sacrificing an entire waffle to the experiment.

"Come on," Christine coaxed. "Just try it."

She took a bite out of her own, so overzealous that the waffle tipped and hit her in the nose. The powdered sugar promptly covered her face, and Eleven burst in to giggles. Christine did her best to wipe it off, shooting Eleven a mischievous smirk.

"Yeah, yeah. Laugh it up."

She reached over and wiped the powder on El's nose. The girl recoiled, but was still smiling as she wiped it away. It looked more like she was worried about getting her dress dirty than getting the sugar on her face. She was more careful than Christine when she bit into her waffle, making sure to lean out over her plate. She successfully avoided hitting herself in the face, but didn't seem to care much for the taste. Her response amounted to a halfhearted shrug as she licked the sugar off her fingers.

"Fine," Christine sighed dramatically. "One more, and I will let you eat your plain, boring waffles in peace."

If she'd thought El was fascinated by the powdered sugar, it was nothing compared to her reaction to whipped cream. Her eyes nearly bugged from her head as she watched the cream blossom from the can. Christine proudly scooped it up onto her waffle, taking a victorious bite. It didn't really matter. Eleven was still staring transfixed at the plate.

"Pretty cool, huh? Here. Gimme your finger."

Eleven was hesitant, but held up one finger at her request. Christine gently maneuvered her wrist, flipping it so her fingertip was out, then squirted some whipped cream into her hand. El jumped at the cold contact.

"And then we eat it," said Christine, spraying some onto her own hand. "See?"

She stuck her finger in her mouth, licking off the cream and motioning for Eleven to do the same. Her eyes stayed wide as she considered the flavor and, a moment later, she held out her finger for more.

"Ha ha," Christine chuckled triumphantly. "Gotcha."

She gave Eleven some more whipped cream, then handed her the whole canister. She had to talk her through how to operate the nozzle, which kept taking her by surprise every time she used it. Christine thought it was a mistake the first two times she ended up with whipped cream on the entire waffle. By third, she realized Eleven must've been doing it on purpose. It was an alarming amount of sugar, but Christine made no move to stop her. She was a deprived kid, after all. She had every right to rot her teeth out. She just hoped it wouldn't result in some crazy, superpower-driven sugar high that would take her house down.

"What is favorite?" Eleven asked, after she had devoured every crumb of the waffles.

"Hm. I guess it just means like you like something, more than you like anything else. Like the waffle toppings." Christine pointed to the bottles on the table in turn. "You didn't like the syrup. You thought the sugar was okay. You really liked the whipped cream. So that one's your favorite. But my favorite is this one."

She grabbed the syrup, and poured it over what was left of her waffles.

El was still watching her curiously. "So favorite…is for food?"

"It can be for anything. You've worn a lot of different clothes now, right? Mike's sweatshirt, my T-shirt. But if I had to guess, I'd say this dress is your favorite. Or music. I listen to a lot of different music, but this album's my favorite. And after you listen to a lot of music, you'll find your favorite too."

"I understand," said Eleven, nodding to herself.

Christine stacked up their plates, and did her best to contain a smirk.

"You know, sometimes we have favorite people too. The people we like best, who are the most important to us. Do you have a favorite person, Eleven?"

Eleven's eyes went as wide as they had when she saw the whipped cream. In a panic, she shook her head. She had to grab at the wig as it almost slid out of place. Christine probably should have worked harder to contain her giggles.

"Woah! Hey, it's okay. I'm just teasing you, see?" She stuck out her tongue, and Eleven relaxed slightly. Still, Christine smirked. "It's fine. Anyway, I know it's Mike."

El blushed, and quickly hid her face behind her blonde hair.

"You don't have to be embarrassed. I think you're probably Mike's favorite person too. In fact, I know you are."

"Who is yours?"

Christine was taken aback. But El was looking up at her, sporting a very small smirk of her own. It didn't even waver as Christine laughed in disbelief.

"Alright, you wanna see my favorite person? Hold on."

She patted the couch, and quickly got up to go to her room. When she returned, it was with her yearbook in hand. She plopped down next to Eleven, motioning for her to scoot closer. Then she opened the book and began thumbing through the pages.

"E, F, G, and…there he is."

Steve Harrington was the center of everything he was a part of. His grade, the basketball team, even his own yearbook page. He smiled out at them with a perfect smile, his hair fluffy and gorgeous and his eyes shining. Christine noticed with a jolt that he was wearing the same green sweater he had at the party. It was criminal how good it looked on him.

Eleven ran her fingers over the page, scrutinizing his photo. "Pretty?"

"Uh, yeah. I guess. Pretty hot."

"…hot?"

Christine winced, unable to meet Eleven's inquisitive gaze. "Yeah, it just means uh…it's like pretty, but usually when a guy…I think…yeah, I'll just…explain that some other time."

She wasn't sure Eleven even noticed her reluctance. She was too interested in the yearbook. With curious hands, she pulled the book closer. She flipped through the pages on her own, running her fingers over the pages each time. Cheerleaders, football games, science fairs, faculty. All of it she took in with the same captivation. Christine wasn't even sure she was looking for anything until she stopped.

"Chrissy."

Eleven tapped on the old picture of Christine. She'd tried to blow her hair out into big banana curls, which had already fallen out by the time they'd gone to the gymnasium for their photos. She was grinning painfully, one of her dad's flannels draped over her T-shirt.

"Ugh," Christine winced with a dry laugh. "That is not a good picture of me. Forgot how much I hated that one."

"Pretty," Eleven assured her, almost sounding concerned.

"Well, thank you. But 'pretty' is probably just Nancy. See?" Christine pointed the next row down at Nancy's perfect headshot. "Her mom always does her hair on picture day, and she's a lot better with makeup than I am. She…always looks great."

"Pretty too," Eleven agreed. She rubbed the image of Nancy's pink cardigan longingly, then looked up to Christine again. "Barb?"

"Sure, uh…here."

They flipped back a few pages until Christine could locate Barb's picture. She knew Barb hated it as much as she disliked her own. But she didn't harp on it like Christine did. She'd just shrugged and thrown the pictures into her bag.

"Ugh, remind me not to wear red next year. That's another one for the books."

And that had been the end of it.

"Pretty?" Eleven asked from Christine's side.

"Yeah. Maybe not to most, but…Barb was pretty. Inside and out."

"Pretty…inside?"

"Yeah. She was a good person. She was funny, caring, loyal to a fault. Barb was…is one of my best friends."

Eleven frowned, her fingers stilling over the picture. "Sorry."

"You don't have to be," Christine assured her. "Wherever she is, it's not your fault."

"Really sorry."

Together they stared down at Barb's picture, the freckles and pink cheeks behind her big glasses. Christine hated this. She hated not knowing where Barb was. She hated that she'd been so wrapped up in the rest of the drama that she hadn't even noticed she was missing. She hated that people were already feeling sorry for her. That she was already beginning to think of Barb in the past tense. But Barb had to be out there. If Will could be alive, so could she. Barb was the smartest, most grounded person she knew. If anyone was practical enough to survive the jump to another dimension, it was her.

Christine sniffled away the tears that had welled in her eyes.

"You know, it's kinda messed up that your dad taught you what the word 'pretty' meant, but not how to tell time. How about we work on that, huh?"

They passed the next hour or so looking at clocks, Christine pointing out the minute and hour hands while Eleven practiced counting by fives. It wasn't long before the boys arrived. There were no neatly parked bikes, or secret knocks. Just three blurs of dress shirts and ties flying past her windows and then pounding on the back door. Christine wrenched it open before Mike could manage a dent.

"Does the word 'incognito' mean anything to you?"

"We talked to Mr. Clarke!"

It was all the answer she got before the boys pushed past her, darting into the living room. She suppressed a groan as she shut the back door and locked it once more. By the time she'd followed them into the house, Mike was already pacing, Lucas slinging his tie across the back of the armchair, and Dustin spraying whipped cream into his mouth.

"Just make yourself at home," Christine grumbled. She kicked Dustin out of his seat and reclaimed her place on the couch.

"So we talked to Mr. Clarke," Mike repeated excitedly. "And we asked him about the Upside Down."

"Were you at least subtle?" asked Christine.

"Totally," Lucas assured her with a wink. "We told him it was all hypothetical."

Christine didn't bother pointing out that everything was hypothetical when discussing theoretical physics. Mike was already rushing on.

"So at first, he was talking about all the different parallel universes—like you were talking about with the magazine, Chrissy. And he thought we were asking because we wanted closure or whatever. To know that Will was okay in another universe. So then we had to tell him that wasn't what we were talking about, and that we meant a shadow world like the Upside Down."

"Did you know that Mr. Clarke plays D&D?" Dustin interjected. "I asked him if he knew what the Vale of Shadows was, and he just started spitting textbook definitions at me. It was awesome."

"Anyway," Mike continued firmly, "then we asked him how we would travel there, and he said that we couldn't because we were a tightrope walker, and if we wanted to travel between dimensions, we needed to be the flea."

Christine and Eleven both blinked at him. Mike groaned, picking up the discarded marker from the day before. He flipped through the same magazine until he found an article that was mostly text space, and began to draw.

"So he said that our world is like a tightrope, because there's only certain ways you can move. We've got three dimensions here, and that's it, right? But because a flea is built different than a human, they can go underneath the rope and it's still like walking right side up. So it's like the fourth dimension."

"Okay," Christine said slowly. "So in this situation, El is the flea?"

"We don't know. Just because she can see the other side doesn't mean she's been there."

"Have you been there?" Lucas asked.

Eleven did not answer, only shifted closer to Christine's side.

"It doesn't matter," said Mike, "because we know Will isn't a flea. So if he's in the Upside Down, there's got to be a way for regular humans to get through too. Now Mr. Clarke said that it was almost impossible, but…"

"Theoretically," Lucas added.

"…you could tear through time and space to push the dimensions together."

Mike ripped the page out of the magazine and folded it along the tightrope line. Then he took the end of the marker and stabbed through the paper. It crinkled and ripped, nearly tearing in half. Eleven shrunk closer to Christine, who frowned at the paper.

"Okay. I still don't know how that helps us navigate the infinite space between infinite dimensions."

"It doesn't," admitted Lucas. "But if the door's already been open, we don't have to. Right?"

"If it is still open, I guess…" Christine reached forward, taking the magazine page from Mike and turning it over in her hands. "If you weren't looking to open a door to someplace specific, if the only goal was to reach the fourth dimension, then that's fine. But once the gate closed all the way, I don't know how you'd get it to open to the same place again. So the only chance we'd have is finding exactly where and how Will went through."

"How do we do that?" asked Lucas.

"Triangulate people who've gone missing maybe? All we know for now is that it's somewhere around Mirkwood. Maybe Steve's house, if Barb…"

The sentence went unfinished. Christine had never been more grateful for Mike than when he eased the paper out of her hands. He gave her a very small, but very brave smile, and turned to plead to Eleven.

"It would take a lot of energy to build a gate like this. But that's gotta be what happened. Otherwise, how'd Will get there, right?"

"R-Right," Eleven stammered.

"What we wanna know is," Lucas began, "do you know where the gate is?"

Eleven nervously shook her head.

"Then how do you know about the Upside Down?" he demanded.

"Hey, chill, Lucas," Christine soothed. "It's like Mike said. Maybe she can see the bottom of the rope, but not go there. Like…I don't know. A tightrope walker with a mirror or something."

"A mirror for what?"

"So she can see under the rope."

"Why would a tightrope walker need to look under the rope?"

"I don't know, Lucas! It's a damn metaphor! Work with me here!"

"Dustin?"

Mike's voice interrupted their argument, and everyone turned around. Dustin had abandoned with whipped cream and was standing in the front hall spinning on the spot. He was looking at something in his hand, and every few seconds, he would start spinning the other way.

"What are you doing?" Mike asked. "Dustin?"

"Dustin!" Christine's voice snapped him to attention, and he wobbled on the spot as he looked up. "Care to share with the class?"

"Do you have a compass?"

"…do I have what?"

"A compass! I need all of your compasses, right now!"

"Why would we have…?"

But Mike and Lucas were running to their bags. Mike pulled out two, Lucas three, and they put them on the table that had previously held Christine and Eleven's waffles. Christine had to dive to stop Dustin from swiping the plates onto the floor.

"Dude," she scolded, but he just looked at her expectantly.

"Well? Where's yours?"

"My compass? I don't know, Dustin. I don't think we have one."

"You don't have a compass?" Mike asked, as if he'd been asking about a refrigerator.

"No, Michael, I don't have a compass. When the hell would I use it? If I need to get somewhere, I use a map."

All three of the boys exchanged incredulous looks. Dustin finally held up his hands.

"Okay, we need to have a serious talk about your party survival kit, Christine, but it'll have to wait."

"Why? What are we looking at?"

"The compasses," said Dustin, placing his own among the pile. "They're facing North, right?"

"Yeah, so?" asked Lucas, who seemed supremely disinterested.

"Well, that's not true North."

"What do you mean?" asked Mike.

"I mean exactly what I just said," said Dustin emphatically. "That's not true North."

"Oh my God…" Christine gaped down at the table, checking the compass needles. "Dustin…Dustin, you're a genius!"

"Why is he a genius?" Lucas complained. "What do you see?"

"Are you both seriously this dense?" Dustin complained. He jabbed a finger out the window. "The sun rises in the East, and it sets in the West, right? Which means that's true North."

"So what you're saying is the compasses are broken," Mike finished.

Christine and Dustin rolled their eyes in unison.

"What? All six of them?" she asked.

"Come on, dude," Dustin added. "Do you even understand how a compass works? Do you see a battery pack on this?"

"No…"

"No, because it doesn't need one!"

"Then why is it broken?" Lucas insisted.

"It's not broken," said Christine. "It's being influenced."

She held up a finger, running through the kitchen to get to the garage.

Most garages were full of toolkits and auto parts, and boxes upon boxes of heirlooms and junk. In the Walcott's garage, there wasn't much to see. They'd moved too much when she was young to accumulate unnecessary stuff. There was a neat row of boxes against one wall, and a light stain on the floor where her dad's car was sometimes parked. On the opposite wall was a pristine work station of screwdrivers and handsaws. Her father had only used it a handful of times since they moved it, but he said it made him feel more secure. More often, Christine was using it to run science experiments for the school fair, or tinker with her radio to get a wider array of channels.

She grabbed a meter stick off the back wall and a magnet from one of the drawers, then darted back inside.

"Dustin, compass," she ordered, slamming her supplies onto the dining room table.

All four of the kids hurried into the room. Dustin slid his compass across the table, which Christine caught and placed in the middle of the meter stick.

"So compasses function based on the natural magnetic field of the Earth. When they're built, the needle is manufactured with a charge that allows one side to be attracted to the magnetic North."

"True North," Dustin added gleefully.

"But a compass can be affected if additional magnetic fields are introduced to the environment. Get big enough, strong enough, or close enough, and the measurement will have an increasing margin of error."

She tapped the compass face, then slowly began to slide the magnet along the meter stick. As they watched, the red point of the needle tremored and swiveled toward her approaching hand. The closer she got, the more it turned, until it had completed an even ninety degree turn.

"See?" Dustin exclaimed. "In the presence of a more powerful magnetic field, the needle deflects to that power!"

"How did you even learn this?" Lucas asked.

"Physics lab," Christine said with a shrug.

"Library book," Dustin answered, "but that's not important. Remember what Mr. Clarke said? If there was a gate, it would have so much power…"

"It could disrupt the electromagnetic field," Mike finished breathlessly. "That's genius."

"Wait," said Lucas. "You mean that if we follow the compasses' North…?"

"They should lead us to the gate," Dustin affirmed.

Christine sank into one of the chairs, staring down at the compass. She couldn't help the expression of grave horror that snuck up on her face.

"What is it?" Mike asked nervously. "This is good, right? Now we can find Will."

"Yeah, we can," she agreed. "I'm just…I guess it's starting to sink in how…colossally in over our heads we are. I mean…a magnet that can affect compasses like this…I mean, that's a hundred and seventy-degree error…that's a massive field…"

"One big magnet," Dustin agreed darkly.

"Well—Well obviously, right? So what?" Mike's voice shook despite his words of optimism. "It's a tear in time and space, of course it's gonna be big. But we still need to find Will. We have to get him back to the gate."

"We need to bring him home," said Lucas assuredly.

Dustin still looked hesitant. "So…what do we do?"

There were several seconds of silence. It took a few more before Christine realized everyone was looking at her. She'd expected Mike to slam his hands on the table and start handing out orders, or Lucas to argue with Dustin that there were no questions while Will was in danger. But all four kids were looking to her now, each as apprehensive as the next.

Christine didn't want to march them into a tear in time and space. But they couldn't talk to any adults, and they couldn't talk to the cops. Even if they weren't hunting Eleven, who would believe them? They were five kids rambling about alternate dimensions, and time was of the essence.

They were in over their heads. But as Christine remembered Mrs. Byers' broken voice from that morning, her only option became clear.

"Well first you're all going home to change. I'm not taking you on a hike to find an interdimensional portal while you're in dress pants and ties."