chapter eight
spit swears

        The thing about Alex is that all of her cages are mental. She has potential, but it's buried underneath the layers and layers of rage that have built up over the years.  It's just wasted now.  Her parents label her as a lost cause by the time she turns seven.  She's a supposed prodigy—or at least that's what they used to say she was, back when she was younger before she burned out and before that spark of potential was fanned into a flame of anger (because gifted kids become angry teens). She supposes this is why she likes theories so much, why she likes to collect facts like one would collect playing cards, and why she plays with the thought of the ever-expanding multiverse theory so often. 

And so, the facts run through her head once more.  Kids do not wander the woods alone in the pouring rain, kids are not named after numbers, and kids don't move things with their minds.  There is no explanation for Eleven, a girl, who not until recently, was discovered to carry the entire world in the palms of her hands.  There is no evidence that suggests that Eleven was the one who slammed the door shut.  No evidence except for the trail of blood that leaks from her nose and even that can be chalked up to a mere coincidence.  But Alex knows that she's just lying to herself so she doesn't have to face the harsh reality before them. 

Alex used to think that her anger gave her all the power in the world.  People cower at the twitch of her nose.  The world crumbled under the weight of her clenched fists.  She parted crowds, was it too far-fetched to think that she could part oceans too?  But this girl, Eleven, could probably move mountains if she really tried.  She holds the entire world in the palms of her hands and all they can do is sit and watch to see what she does.  Alex's anger is an ant compared to the calamity of the girl's power.

Her father referred to her as a sleeping tiger once.  He had said, when he thought that Alex wasn't listening (but she always was), you don't want to wake the tiger.  It had felt more like a taunt back then, but now it feels more like a threat.  But Alex thinks that Eleven is something bigger than just a tiger.  Whatever she is, Alex doesn't want to wake her. 

The dining room table is uncharacteristically silent.  But at least it's still warm.  Not that the warmth helps Alex today.  She stares down at the surface of the table, stained and marred with notches in the finished wood—so much unlike their own dining room table.  Steve and Alex never use theirs.  Forks clink against the pristine plates occasionally, but the only one who seems to be eating is Alex because she doesn't know the next time she'll be able to enjoy a homecooked meal that isn't eggs and toast and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

"Something wrong with the meatloaf?" Karen finally prods, breaking the silence that washes over them.

Dustin, who has been twirling his fork startles.  "Oh, no, I had two bologna sandwiches for lunch...I don't know why."

Lucas lets out a chuckle.  "Me too."

Nancy lets a sweet, saccharine smile spread across her face and cocks her head at Karen.  "It's delicious, Mommy."

"Thank you, sweetie," says Karen with a soft smile.

Nancy prods at her food for a few moments before the saccharine smile fades away.  Mike glares at her from across the table, but Nancy doesn't pay any mind.  She's got Karen right where she wants her now.  "So, there's this...special assembly thing tonight...for Will at the school field.  Barb's driving."

Karen frowns.  "Why am I just hearing about this?"

Because there isn't one.  Alex thinks.  She would know.  Steve would have told her if there was one tonight because Steve would be there.  The thing is, outwardly, Steve cares for very little in life—her, his grades, and Freddie Mercury—because the less he is shown to care, the fewer people can hurt him, the less their dad can hurt him.  Inwardly, he cares for a lot more than the mascarade on the surface suggests, and even if he regards the assembly with nonchalance to his friends, she knows that he'd still care.  (Right?)

Nancy pauses, only for a brief second, easy to miss if you're not looking.  "I thought you knew."

"I told you, I don't want you out after dark until Will is found," Karen asserts. 

"I know, I know," Nancy replies.  Still calm.  Still soft.  Still docile.  Alex thinks that her parents would have wanted her to turn out like Nancy.  "But it'd be super weird if I'm not there.  I mean, everyone's going."

"Just...be back by ten," Karen answers, finally caving before glancing up at the kids gathered at the foot of the table.  "Why don't you take the kids, too?"

Alex's head shoots up, mid-chew as the four exclaim in unison, "No!"

Karen raises her eyebrows.  "Don't you think you should be there?  For Will?"

Before any of them can answer, Mike takes a sip of his milk, only to choke and spew it out on his shirt and across the table.  Alex groans.  "Aw, Wheeler, that's disgusting."

Then she sees what he's staring at, just behind Karen, and blanches.  Eleven traipses down the stairs, almost more of a ghost than a girl, oblivious to the nuclear family scene that is displayed only a few feet before her.  In the heat of the moment, with wide eyes of desperation, Dustin pounds both of his fists against the surface of the table, snapping everybody's attention to him before the ghost girl can be spotted in the hallway.  The dishes let out a clatter and Holly lets out a whine, but it's enough to send a message for the girl to hide.

"Sorry.  Spasm," Dustin apologizes, sheepishly shrinking into the back of his chair.

Holly lets out another whimper, shrinking away from the table.  All that's visible of the girl above the tray of her high chair are her wide eyes.  Karen lets out a sigh and turns to her.  "Oh, it's okay, Holly.  It's just a loud noise."

Alex lets out a breath. 

That was close.

. . .

Eleven is tinkering with Mike's walkie-talkie when the four gather before her in the basement.  She sits criss-cross inside the fort and only looks up once when they traipse down the stairs.  Gone is the cold stare, gone is the trail of blood, gone is the subtle rage that had filled her eyes.  The only thing left is the innocent girl that they had found in the woods.  Mike carries a tray of food in his arms for Eleven.  It takes all of Alex's willpower to suppress the urge to smack the tray out of his hands (he already detests her presence enough, she doesn't think she can afford to annoy him).  Alex skips the last step, something she always does.  Dustin does too.  Perhaps they aren't so different after all.

"No adults," Mike assures Eleven as he sets the tray on the ground in front of her.  "Just us and some meatloaf." 

Eleven doesn't answer.  Instead, her eyes trail up to where Alex, Dustin, and Lucas stand in line.  The girl is like a matchstick—come too close and you might just end up being burned.  Mike glances back at them and seems to understand what the girl's stare implies.  He only shakes his head.

"Don't worry," he assures her, "they won't tell anyone about you.  They promise.  Right?"

Dustin grins and his face lights up as he tells Eleven, "We never would have upset you if we knew you had superpowers."

Mike turns around and hits Dustin in the leg.  Alex snorts as Dustin cries out and stumbles backward, clutching his leg.  He throws up his arms in exasperation and Alex can only shake her head with a small laugh.  Mike turns back to Eleven and explains, "What Dustin is trying to say is that they were just scared...earlier.  That's all."

"We just wanted to find our friend," Lucas tells her.

"'Friend'?" Eleven repeats.  She says it experimentally, letting the word roll off of her tongue. 

"Yeah, friend," Lucas prompts, "Will?"

"What...is friend?" Eleven wonders.

And Alex wonders this too, but she's glad that somebody else has asked it.  What defines a friend?  At what point do you cross the line between allies and friends?  Is Will a friend, or is he just an ally?  She thinks he cares about her, and she thinks that she cares about him.  But thinking is always subjective.  Alex has been toeing the line between allies and friends with him for so long because she doesn't want to take the step forward, because what if she lets him in through the front door and he leaves through the window when she's not looking just like everybody else has?  Before she didn't think that she could take that hurt again, but now Will's gone and she's left wondering what could have been if she had just let him in. 

"Is she serious?" Lucas questions skeptically.  He glances at Dustin and Alex who both merely shrug.  "Um..." he begins, "a friend—"

"Is someone that you'd do anything for," Mike finishes. 

"You lend them your cool stuff," Dustin supplies, "like comic books and trading cards."

"And they never break a promise."

Lucas nods.  "Especially if there's spit involved."

"Spit?" Eleven repeats.

"Spit?!" Alex echoes.

"A spit swear means..." Lucas spits on the palm of his hand.  Alex can only watch with a mix of horror and repulsion.  "You never break your word."  He clasps Dustin's hand with his own and gives it a firm shake.  "It's a bond."

Alex retches.  "You guys are disgusting."

Mike ignores her and continues, "That's super important because friends...they tell each other things.  Things that parents don't know."

Would this count?  Alex wonders as she takes a seat on the couch while the boys huddle up—she doesn't try to insert herself this time.  This shared secret between them?  Would this make them friends?  She thinks that it should, but she doesn't know these boys.  Not how she wants to know them.  And would they even allow her to know them in the way that she wants to?  Would they want to make room for her in their tight-knit group?

And then she finds herself thinking some more, mind whirring, thoughts swirling into a cluster.  Her brother is her best friend, but she is not her brother's. The imbalance is easy to ignore sometimes, but other times, the slope is too steep for her to stay upright.  She tells him everything—things that she doesn't tell their parents because they wouldn't understand—and she wonders if this is healthy.  Is having an unbalanced friendship in which one tells you everything, and the other tells you nothing healthy?  Is Alex healthy for Steve?  And then she shakes her head because Kyra the Counselor has finally gotten to her. 

She wants to categorize this thought but she doesn't know where to put it.  Alex doesn't think it's a negative thought.  Rather, she thinks that it's a real thought.  But do real thoughts with negative connotations go with the negative ones?  Or do they have their own category?  Maybe she should talk to Kyra about this.  Wrapped up and imprisoned in her own thoughts, she doesn't initially notice when Eleven traipses over to the rickety card table, still covered with a board and miniature figurines, and takes a seat until she hears Lucas whisper, "What's the weirdo doing?"

Alex pushes herself off of the couch and joins the boys who have crowded behind Eleven.  She studies the girl who places her hands on the surface of the table and closes her eyes in concentration.  And there it is again, the high-pitched ringing that fills her ears.  The same ringing that had filled Mike's bedroom only an hour before.

"El?" Mike asks tentatively, taking a step forward.

Eleven doesn't answer.  Alex watches with bated breath as her eyes flip open and she reaches across the board to pick up a small wizard figurine.  She doesn't say anything for a few long moments, only stares at the small wizard clasped gently between her two fingers.  Alex is about to suggest that maybe she's exploring again when Eleven finally speaks up. 

"Will."

"Superpowers," Dustin murmurs.

Lucas only rolls his eyes.

Mike takes a seat beside her and rests his folded elbows on the surface of the table.  "Did you see him?  On Mirkwood?  Do you know where he is?"

Eleven looks up to meet Mike's eyes and then takes one of her arms and sweeps it across the board, clearing it of the other figurines which clatter softly to the floor.  She leaves two figurines—Will's figurine and another—untouched, isolated on the corner of the table.  Then she reaches across the table and grabs the board by the edges, flipping it upside down so that the empty blackness is facing them.  She stares at the blank side of the board for a few more moments before her attention shifts back to the wizard and she places him, almost forcefully in the center of the board.

"I don't understand," says Mike.

"Hiding," Eleven replies.

"Will is hiding?" Mike repeats. 

Eleven nods. 

"From the bad men?"

Eleven shakes her head.

"Then from who?"

Eleven picks up the other lone figurine on the corner of the table and places it in front of the Will figurine.  It's an almost serpentine creature with two heads branching off at the neck and long tendrils for arms branching off from its torso.  Alex doesn't think that it's a coincidence that Eleven chooses this figurine to represent what will is hiding from.  This notion is confirmed as Dustin lets out a shaky breath and places his hands on his head, eyes wide and fearful.

Alex only shakes her head.  A monster can be many things—a mother, a father, an animal—so what is it that Will is hiding from?  And where did he go?