12
17th December, 1985
Eleven was crouched in her fort, crying miserably.
She'd done it again.
First time she'd blasted herself, Mike, Dustin and Lucas into Hogwarts, this time she'd managed to bring down an entire tree.
What had happened? Eleven sniffed and blinked, trying to remember the details that led up to the old oak tree ripping out of the dirt.
A woman came up to Eddie- she was big and fat, her hair crimped up with curlers. And she'd grabbed his ear. She'd started to yank him along, screaming about medication and sickness.
And Eddie had started crying. The kind of crying born out of anger and embarrassment as they all watched.
Now Eleven could remember- the blurry mess of details sorted themselves out.
0
`You've been sick, Eddie! You know it! Hanging around with these- kids and- and her!' Mrs Kaspbrak jabbed a shaking, sausage-like finger towards Beverly. Beverly paled, and stepped back limply. Mrs Kaspbrak seemed to take this as a victory, and screeched even louder into his ear. `And now you've left your pills!' The woman jerked him along, letting go of Eddie's ear and instead dragging him by the wrist.
`Let go of him!' Roared Richie, charging forwards and trying to pull Eddie away from his mother. Suddenly Eddie, wheezing through tears, was caught in a tug-of-war.
Eleven felt like she was going to throw up as she watched it all. Eddie had brought her a thermos of soup when she was sick.
`Leave him alone!' Eleven screamed, automatically throwing her hand forward. Mrs Kaspbrak was suddenly eclipsed by the shadow of the oak tree as it tore out of the ground, roots springing out, frozen dirt flying. Her mouth oozed open, comically wide.
Richie grabbed Eddie's shoulders and hurled them both out of the way.
`Mom!' Screamed Eddie. His yell broke through to Mrs Kaspbrak, and she launched herself to the side, landing with a thud at the same time as the oak tree.
It's enormous girth slammed into the tarmac. Deep cracks spread out from the fallen tree, along with shards of black road and a now-decimated bird's nest. Silence.
Eleven's eyes widened with shock as she took in what she'd almost done.
`Y-You-' Stammered Mrs Kaspbrak, shaking like a leaf and pointing at Eleven. And then she rolled onto her front, heaved herself onto all fours, straightened up and ran away. The Loser's horrified eyes turned to Eleven. Eleven took a step back. And another. A drop of blood spread into her chapped lips.
And then Eleven sprinted in the opposite direction, charging into the foliage, sobbing the whole way and feeling her friend's eyes burning into her back.
0
Now she was huddled in her fort, wrapped in a blanket and feeling unbearable remorse. She was sure she'd never feel worse than she did now.
`El?'
Beverly.
`Elliot, I know you're in there,' the other girl called from outside the fort. Eleven buried herself further into her blanket. There was a sigh. `I'm giving you five seconds to come out.'
Five seconds passsed. And Beverly came through the entrance of the fort.
`I'm sorry,' mumbled Eleven, lifting her tearstained face out of the blanket.
`I know you are. They don't. So you are going to go back and face them all, tell Eddie you're sorry for almost killing his mom, and fill us all in on how the hell you can knock over an oak tree.'
Four months ago, in her drawn timeline of events, Eleven had deliberately left out the part about her powers, making it seem like the demogorgon had just happened to find a way back to the Upside Down. Lucas had handled the revelation about her powers beyond badly. Who knew how the new kids would react? So Eleven had broken her own rule, and lied about it.
Beverly stared hard at her, eyebrows raised.
`I'm coming,' Eleven said, wiping away her tears, the nosebleed and shedding her blanket.
`You know, you can't just run if you don't want to face up to what you did,' Beverly told her in the stern, fair voice of a good teacher, as they made their way back to the road. `You're brave. It should be easy for you to own up to your mistakes.'
Eleven nodded, taking it in. She tried the word on for size- brave. Yeah. She liked that a lot.
0
`The hell!' Yelled Eddie the minute Eleven came into view. She flinched, but stood her ground. You're brave. Face up to your mistakes. `You dropped an oak tree on my mom!'
`Don't worry, Eddie. The oak tree would've bounced,' sniggered Richie. Bill didn't bother to Beep him and simply cracked him on the ear.
`I'm sorry about your mom,' Eleven said, forcing herself to look him in the eye. `And I won't lie anymore. Promise.'
Eddie crossed his arms, and looked sideways at her. Beverly glared at him.
`Okay, El. Apology accepted. Now cut the crap. What's going on?'
Eleven took a breath. `I'm not called Elliot. My name's really Eleven.' She pulled up the cloth she kept wrapped around her wrist at all times, showing them the 011 inked into her skin. Somehow she couldn't find the words to describe properly what she could do, so instead showed them. Eleven focused on the oak tree and tried to lift it back to it's original position, but found she couldn't. Not without through-the-roof levels of emotion or terror. With her stubborn determination Eleven carried on trying. But when her nose began bleeding and still nothing was happening, Eleven opted instead to lift a trash can to save face. The metal container floated effortlessly into the air, a couple of tubs of Kentucky Fried Chicken bobbing alongside it. Eleven lowered it back down, and pulled up her cloth bandage again.
`Sh-shit,' stammered Bill.
`Not that impressive,' muttered Stan sullenly. `It's just a trash can.'
`I killed the bad men. And the demogorgon,' Eleven replied, holding Stan's gaze. She couldn't understand his hatred of her, but guessed it was something to do with the trauma surrounding their experience of Pennywise the Dancing Clown.
`Wait- so you could kill us?' Asked Stan, snapping to attention, looking fearful. Eleven shook her head so hard she saw stars.
`I'll never use my powers on any of you. I promise.'
