It had always closed before. Nancy found herself in this stretch of forgotten forest more and more often in the months since Barb had died. At first it hadn't been a conscious decision at all, she'd been driving around with Jonathan, stopping occasionally to take pictures of anything he found particularly bleak or interesting. He really was a lovely photographer, and he had a good eye, so she'd let him do most of the calling out stopping points. But she'd seen a flash of something in the forest and slammed her hand on the dashboard without thinking about it at all. Jonathan had squeezed the breaks and pulled to the side, but Nancy was out of the car and pelting towards the thick row of trees before the engine cut out. He'd chased her as she knew he would, and she knew in a vague, frightened part of her mind that this was something akin to climbing into the jaws of a lion for no apparent reason, but she ran onward anyway, her feet flying over strewn logs and half hidden roots that should have turned her ankle every three or four steps.

"Nancy! Wait up, Nancy, Nancy!" There was panic in Jonathan's voice, and maybe anger, too. But she'd seen something. Something that felt like a memory… that was when she'd seen the rotted, bloated base of a tree just off the path. It was surrounded by a thick growth of something scummy and putrid looking, and there was a faint trail of delicate-looking tendrils leaking from the jagged gash in its front. She'd seen something like this before, and knew it was an entry-point for the monster. Had she seen the monster, that flash of something pale and alien but so familiar, through the trees?

No.

That monster was dead. Mike had said so, and he had been so sure. He said Eleven had saved them all and killed it, and there had to be truth in that, too. The girl had been powerful and strange in ways Nancy didn't understand, but she was gone now and her little brother's grief and pain had been a tangible presence ever since. And Jonathan's little brother had come back, along with the Sherriff and Joyce Byers, and that meant something too, didn't it? Barb hadn't come back, and that loss, that guilt had probably driven Nancy into the forest that day with Jonathan in pursuit and on many days since, alone. She was not precisely sure whether she was conducting any kind of study of these bloated, diseased passages, but she did have a vague map in her mind of where each was, and she was fairly confident that she knew when they opened and when they closed again.

There were rules to them; never more than three open at once, and the three that were open were not all the same. Nancy had unofficially named them 'In' 'Out' and 'Shadow'. She was sure In and Out went to the same place, the Upside Down like Mike called it, but Shadow was a smoky question-mark. She'd not dared to go in to any of them, she wasn't suicidal, but she had crouched before a Shadow hole and flattened herself to the damp earth with her cheek against the ground, and looked. It had been grey and thick in there, the air, if you could call it that, was cloying and toxic to look at. And had there been a light, somewhere deep inside that pulsed in a garish orange beat like a diseased heart? Nancy couldn't be sure, because looking into that hole was like looking into madness, and it had been all she could do to roll limply onto her back and stare at the sky, the real and present sky, until the urge to scream had subsided and the persistent, tugging pull of her sanity trying to tear free from her brain had subsided.

On that morning as she crossed the deserted forest in the milky light of a rising sun hidden by intense cloud cover, she'd stumbled, quite literally, against an upturned root in front of a hole that should not have been there. They had always closed before. Always opened in threes and closed in threes, over a span of three days. This was a rule and rules (all living things must abide all living things) were not broken. Nancy was afraid, but mostly she was outraged at this injustice.

She didn't know, couldn't have known, that across town her little brother and his friends were rolling their bikes slowly home, none of them talking, their faces blank and vacant and something uncomfortable in their eyes. They had spent the night in the Hawkins Library, learning from and teaching a small group of haunted strangers who had come to slay a monster. Nancy couldn't have known this, and so she didn't connect this strange new hole with the arrival of the strangers. She did know, however, that three children had died in the past week, in gruesome and inhuman ways, and she was bright enough to put these things together.

She'd suspected the monster wasn't dead, anyway. She'd known for certain it wasn't when she'd started finding the holes in the trees, but she'd suspected before. It was a feeling, like the beginnings of a panic attack, and they'd started low in her belly on the night of the showdown with the monster, when it had disappeared (escaped you had it trapped and you let it go) and the feeling was supposed to go away when it was dead, when Mike had told them what happened. It certainly sounded dead. Incinerated, even. But the feeling hadn't gone away, and looking into this new hole, that looked ragged and violent, as though it had been forced open rather than expanded into being in an unnaturally natural way, she was sure it wasn't dead. And that it had made this hole rather than just using an open one. Maybe that was the difference? The silky grey tendrils of stuff were leaking more heavily from this hole than any other previously. A little of it slipped towards the ground and almost touched her sneakered foot, she drew it back and accidentally kneed herself in the chest, but hardly noticed the breathless pain in her fright. She shuffled back on the forest floor a few crawling paces before finally gathering enough courage to turn her back on it and run. She'd get Jonathan, he wouldn't mind being woken up this early, probably, and he'd know what to do. If there was a part of Nancy that was hoping the hole would close before she got back to it, or even better that it had been a product of her tired and overworked imagination, that part would have been severely disappointed.

"One more time." Nancy sighed, exasperated, and rolled her eyes at the sleepy, swaying boy in the doorway.

"I've been finding holes in the trees, like the one I went through when we were hunting the monster." She'd meant to speak more slowly this time, but found it impossible. "But this morning I found one that shouldn't be there, it-"

"None of them should be there."

"No, no I know that, but this one is more wrong than the others. There are patterns to how and where and when they appear, and this one is out of sync, it's just… it's different, I know what I mean, you'll get it when you see it."

"I'm not going into those woods with you, Nance."

"What?" Nancy felt like the wind had been knocked out of her. She took a step back, searching Jonathan's face for any sign he was joking. "You… you have to?"

"Says who? Why should I. Why should you, for that matter. Barb is gone. I'm sorry about that. But we're not. And Will's back. It's not our responsibility anymore."

"Three people are dead, Jonathan."

"I know…" Jonathan scratched the back of his head and sniffed. "And I'm sorry about that, but they weren't my people, you know?"

"They were kids. Little kids." Nancy's voice had dropped to a whisper.

"I know, I'm sorry."

"Little kids like Mike. And like Will."

"It's not the same." Jonathan said sharply, but he wouldn't meet her eyes now. Nancy felt bitter hot tears of anger and disappointment sting and blur her vision.

"It is. It is the same. I'm sorry I came here. I should have asked to see Will instead. He's twice as brave and three times as selfless as you."

Jonathan looked at her for a moment that felt like a very long time. Nancy's clenched fists were shaking, and she hated being scrutinized by his wounded stare.

"Alright then," he said finally. "I'll get him." Without another word, Jonathan turned back into the house and slammed the front door shut on Nancy. I've hurt him she thought, and then… good. The door opened about a minute later, just as Nancy was getting ready to head back into the woods alone, sure Jonathan had gone back to bed. But then there he was, looking breathless and now wearing a coat and a pair of scuffed sneakers.

"Will's not in his room." He looked panicked, and Nancy took a moment to allow herself to revel in this. It made her feel small and mean, but she didn't care. Jonathan was back in the game because he thought Will was in trouble maybe, and Nancy would remember that. She'd remember what kind of person Jonathan was in that moment.

"Are you sure he was last night? He might be sleeping over at one of the others. Not my house I don't think, I'd have heard them keeping half the street awake with their games and ghost stories in the basement if they had."

"I don't know for sure. I got in late last night, I was…" He coughed and looked away.

"We should check at Dustin and Lucas's." Nancy said.

"I'll drive." With Nancy a few paces behind him, Jonathan allowed his panic to subside. He felt stupidly grateful that she hadn't pressed him on that slip-up comment he'd made. He wasn't yet ready to tell anyone about where he went at night, and he didn't think he'd ever be able to tell Nancy. She'd look at him… well probably like she'd looked at him a few minutes ago, only worse. Only more. But if things went right, then she would be safe. Everyone would be. If things only went-

"I thought you were like really worried about your brother." Jonathan snapped round to the sound of Nancy's voice. He was standing on the driver side of the car, but he hadn't made a move to put his keys in the door. She was looking at him with a half-smirk on her face and he felt his own heat up in response. She was beautiful. Careless with her affection, and still hopelessly devoted to Steve, but beautiful all the same.

"Sorry," he managed, mashing the key toward the keyhole in the hopes it would look smooth. It didn't and it took three tries to get it in, and he scratched his own paintwork quite badly. If Nancy noticed, she didn't say anything, and Jonathan was more than glad about that. He'd probably have spontaneously combusted if she'd laughed at him.

The drive was silent as they approached Dustin's house. He lived in a pretty cul-de-sac reasonably close to Will's, and the two of them spent the most time together out of the four boys so it was a logical first step.

"Well go on then." Jonathan glanced at Nancy, who gestured towards the house.

"What?"

"Go on and knock. See if he's there."

"It… it's six AM. I knock now and whether he's there or he's not I'm likely to get shot by Dustin's father." Nancy laughed.

"Alright. Alright, it's early. Go round back and see if Will's bike is on the back porch."

"A better idea." Jonathan hauled himself out of the car and crept around the back of the house. Will's bike was not there, but neither was Dustin's. Jonathan tried to swallow down the fresh wave of panic this brought. They could still check at Lucas's, and Mike's too, because Nancy couldn't tell for sure they weren't there. Maybe they'd all been playing late and fallen asleep. Probably Mike's mom even phoned Joyce and she'd just forgotten to tell him. That was probably it. Probably.

As he approached the car, Nancy gave him a thumbs up, and he was just starting to shake his head when he heard the sputtering clacks like slowed-down machine gun fire. He knew the sound because he'd spent a full hour the previous summer showing the kids how to attach the bicycle playing cards to the spokes of their wheels with clothes pegs. When the bike really picked up speed, the cards would rattle off like artillery fire and make the rider believe they were speeding along on the world's fastest and most powerful motorcycle. He held up a finger to Nancy and scanned the crest of the hill leading down to Dustin's.

And there they came, four boys in a line, with four bikes clattering off a disjointed symphony of playing cards. In the silence of the early morning the sound was hopelessly loud, and Nancy got out the passenger seat.

"Well that's half a mystery solved."

"Half?" Jonathan asked without taking his eyes off the boys. He'd picked Will out of the lineup and was watching his progress intently.

"There they are. The other half is where they've been."

"Right." Jonathan agreed vacantly. Then he thought it over. "Right. Damn right. Where in the hell the kids have been. That's the other half." Abruptly the sounds sputtered out and stopped, and Jonathan raised an eyebrow. The boys had caught sight of them and stopped at the top of the hill. Nancy came up beside Jonathan and crossed her arms.

"What are we going to do with them?"

"Something horrible and creative. But first we should find out where they've been."

"Agreed." Nancy waved to the boys, who had not yet resumed their course. It was an unbalanced stand-off, but Mike had called out to stop and so they had. They wouldn't go again until he said so.

"It's Nancy and Jonathan down there."

"In front of my house. Oh shit, shit you guys what if my parents are down there too?" Dustin's voice had taken on a high and, in any other circumstances, hilarious pitch.

"I think there'd be some yelling for proper if they were."

"Jonathan wouldn't have knocked for them. He's just looking for me." Will looked smaller than usual, and his mouth was set in a grim line.

"I should have called him from the Library. After what happened, he's always worrying about me."

"Nancy, too,' Mike added, and guilt began to fill him up as well.

"Well we better put ourselves out of our own misery," Lucas said grimly, and began to push his bike again.

"I s'pose." Mike agreed. "Though it's worth pointing out that you have nothing to lose in this." Lucas scoffed at this, but said nothing. There was no one waiting to skin him at the bottom of the hill, but there sure would be at home when Jonathan dropped him off and let his parents know. Which he would do, because Jonathan was kind of a dick, although Lucas would never tell Will that. The kid worshipped his older brother.

"Hey look Nance, take a look at that?"

"Jonathan, hey, I'm really so-"

"I hope he's not gunna say he's sorry, cuz that would be a real baby move, wouldn't it Nance?"

"Oh yeah." She grinned, and winked at Mike. "Oh yeah, no need to say sorry. You're all grown men now, that's why you think it's okay to be out all night, right?"

"We-"

"I sure hope he's not gunna make an excuse, cuz that would be a real baby move, wouldn't it Jonathan?"

"Oh yeah. I think about the only thing they can really do now is tell us exactly where they've been all night. And it better be good." The boys shifted uncomfortably.

"Well, uh." Mike started forward a little, making a split-second decision; he would tell. "We met some people in the Library."