Coincidence was a thing of fools. It was a truth that Martha had seen proven over and over in her nineteen years. She wished she'd been wrong about their collective intuition the night before. The morning news brought another herald of doom upon their coven like a war hammer. The mysterious death of a Hawkins High student occurred that very same night, and Martha knew without a doubt that this was what she'd felt.

The town of Hawkins, Indiana, was in an uproar. Fear spread like a plague amongst its citizens, infecting everything it touched. It was happening again. Ever since Will Byers went missing three years ago, a string of misfortune befell them. There was no such thing as coincidence in a world of witchcraft. This student, whomever they may be, was not killed by natural circumstances. If the coven felt a shift of that magnitude, there was no doubt a supernatural cause.

The trailer park was crawling with uniformed officers, medical examiners, reporters, and curious citizens. The entrance was cordoned off and monitored for anyone looking to sneak a peak at the mysterious dead student. A wall of people and flashing lights pressed flush against the neon police tape as every neck craned to the point of near dislocation. While almost all resources were dispatched to bottleneck the entrance, the woods bordering the park had been left unmanned. There was no one to notice the two young women crouched in the bushes.

Martha and Abigail clutched tight to the disillusionment charms they'd prepared. Their journey began that morning with a set of dowsing rods and a bag of supplies. The practice of dowsing was proven the most effective way to find the cursed gateways that popped up around Hawkins like holes in Swiss cheese. So they entered the woods intending to locate the site of the supernatural event. As Martha expected, the strongest energy just so happened to overlap with the crime scene of a gruesome teen murder.

Martha watched the door to the trailer in question, counting every officer that came and went. The body was wheeled out in a bag not half an hour before, without a hint as to the victim's identity. She had half a mind to follow them to the morgue, but it wasn't the body they were interested in. A dog's shrill bark cut through the muted conversation and a rusted weathervane creaked as the wind twisted it west. It was the kind of wind that lingered long after winter departed. The sort of wind that sent a chill up Martha's spine as it stirred the cracked dead leaves around her feet.

Two officers were standing just outside the crime scene as photos were taken and evidence cataloged with what Martha doubted was a fine-toothed comb. A few private citizens were milling about. A middle-aged woman hung her laundry on the line, trying to hide the perk of her ears as she snooped on the deputy's conversation. An older man, hair and beard greying, hunched at the picnic table with a smoking cigarette pinched between trembling fingers. A young woman sat beside him, a notepad in hand, her head ducked as she spoke in hushed earnest tones. She was very pretty, though not very stylish as Abigail had pointed out. Her hair was done in a poofy perm with a barrette that failed to tack down its frizz.

Lastly, there was the boy with a set of oversized wire frame glasses and a sweater vest that told everyone his mother dressed him that morning. He looked impatient, uneasy as he glanced between the young woman at the table and the treeline beside him. The little dog increased the fervency of its bark. Martha couldn't decide if it wanted attention or for the boy to leave its property.

Disillusionment charms were not the invisibility spell of witches. It was more of a deterrent, camouflage on a soldier. Martha and Abigail were still visible, just unremarkable to the average mortal eye. Mortals were notoriously oblivious, their minds so set on the status quo that anything else simply didn't process. So as they crept across the sun-burnt patchy lawn, not a single officer or citizen stepped in their way. Watchful eyes skipped over their forms like they were just another folding chair or beat-up clothesline. Thankfully, their steps made little noise against the grass, and they slipped by the two chatting officers without a single glance from either.

The trailer was cluttered but cozy, lived in to the fullest extent. It was like someone tried to combine five different styles into one. There was a small kitchen littered with microwavable meal trays and burger wrappers. An electric guitar stood propped against the wall with twenty stickers plastered across its varnish, from Metallica to Iron Maiden. Trucker hats hung like fine art over the lumpy stained couch. In the middle of it was a spot of dark red blood. Despite being the site of a reportedly grisly murder, there wasn't much awry. It was messy and cluttered, sure, but everything seemed undamaged. The lamps were upright, a fraying blanket was in a ball on the couch, and the curtains were intact.

"I feel like a gate would be way more obvious in a place like this." Abigail grimaced at a pair of visibly dirty boxers thrown over the kitchen chair. They were in agreement there, but the dowsing rods were reliable, and they pointed directly to that trailer. Martha knew what it felt like to be in the presence of a gate to the other side. Her pulse quickened like a rabbit within the jaws of its prey. It was like the atmosphere grew gelatinous, pressing in on her like it wished to strangle the air from her lungs. Such a singular feeling, indescribable in how it seemed to reach down inside her and strip her bare. It was how she knew that somewhere in that trailer, there was a crack in reality.

Martha knelt beside the pooled blood, marked number three by a folded yellow tab. There was remarkably little. Not enough for the victim to have died of blood loss, nor any severe laceration or head trauma. The dried stain was only about the width from her thumb to her pinky, just enough to tell that something horrible had happened.

"Uh, I think I found it." Martha looked to where Abigail was standing in the center of the living room, her finger pointed upward. A grimace contorted her face. She hurried to Abigail's side and peered up at the ceiling where a long crack spider-webbed through chipping plaster. To mortals, it would've looked like a leaking roof, a trailer barely scraping by. Martha and Abigail knew better, especially when it felt like they were being examined right back.

"Shit," Martha sighed. If there was a gate, it must be closed, and to close it, would take a sacrifice. A spell so powerful it could mend the fabric of the universe.

"Yeah, double shit and fuck." Abigail ran a hand through her hair. "We need to tell the coven."

"If this is a gate, then whoever was killed probably ran into one of our friendly neighborhood monsters."

"I hate it when you're right. You're always right." Abigail whined, tossing up her hands in a show of defeat. Martha narrowed her eyes and gave a low, thoughtful hum. She looked around the trailer with an assessing gaze, pinching her bottom lip between her teeth.

"I'm not convinced I am." She crouched beside the blood again, and Abigail peeked curiously over her shoulder, her dark hair tickling Martha's neck. "When the monsters kill, they rip and tear like a wild animal. And most times, they take them back to the other side first. Does it look like there was a wild animal in this trailer?" Abigail glanced around the room with a scrunched nose.

"Well, whoever lives here is a slob, but other than that, no." Martha nodded in agreement.

"And there's still a body. Something feels off about this. I just can't figure out what it is." A chorus of muffled voices sounded from just outside the trailer. They shared a brief panicked look, and Abigail peeked around the door frame. A third officer had joined the one standing guard. This one was not in a deputy's uniform. This one had the badge of a sheriff.

"Hurry up, we need to get out of here." Abigail waved her hand to signal to wrap it up.

"Just watch the door for a sec." Martha hurried back to the blood spatter, rifling around in her bag for something. A glass chemistry vial glimmered in the hazy sunlight filtering between partially drawn curtains. But as Martha reached to uncork the top, her hand stilled. The blood drained from her face, and a chill skittered up her spine like a rat across the pavement.

"Do you feel that?" Martha didn't need to ask. She could tell by the way Abigail's skin had turned ashen that she was not the only one. Then, as if she'd read her mind, Abigail's gaze flicked to the parted curtains and locked on the tree line. It was a push and pull at her core, like being shoved under by an ocean current that yanked her in ten directions at once. Something dark and terrible resided within. Martha hastily muttered her incantation and a small sampling of the blood collected from the floor into the little glass vial in her hand. "Let's go," she stood and shoved it into her bag.

Just as they opened the door, the sheriff glanced towards the trailer. They froze with Abigail's hand pressed down on the door handle. His eyes stared straight at them and for just a moment too long. Martha held her breath until she felt she might burst. Then, the sheriff nodded to something his deputy said and turned away.

"Jesus," Abigail let out a breath. She gently pressed the door open, slipped out, and set it back into place without a squeak. Martha thanked Diana that the screened door was quiet. They took off towards the woods and headed straight towards where her gut told her not to go. The little dog from before pounced excitedly against its fence, renewing its yapping as it saw two new humans passing its property. Animals were always far more observant than humans. Disillusionment charms were as effective against them as throwing a blanket over one's head. It whined pitifully as they passed it by without a second glance, too on edge to take a moment to scratch its little head.

The ground crunched beneath their feet as they dove into the thicket. Underbrush snagged at their ankles as if to try to pull them back from the darkness they pursued. It felt like wading through the shallows of a lake. The air fought back with every trudging footstep. They'd just made it far enough that the trailer park was swallowed by foliage when they saw him.

The boy with the oversized glasses and sweater vest. The one who'd been standing by the little dog earlier. He stood at the center of a clearing, his scrawny body like a tree sprouting up from the forest floor. He didn't acknowledge their presence, even though they'd put away their disillusionment charms when they left the park. As still as a statue he appeared rooted to the spot.

"Hey, kid. You good?" Abigail stepped forward, revealing herself completely to him. There was something incredibly off-putting about the scenario. He didn't even twitch in response. Abigail shared an uneasy look with Martha, who stayed half a step behind her. They took a few steps forward, close enough to see the whites of his eyes -- and that's all there was. His pupils had rolled to the back of his head. "Kid, hello." Abigail waved a hand half an inch from his face, then slammed her palms together with a sharp clap. The boy didn't flinch. His eyes dragged up into the back of his head, his lips parted. "Wake up! This is a creepy ass joke, man."

"It's like he's in some sort of trance." Martha leaned in further, despite the urge to leave the scene entirely.

"This is fucked, I don't like it." They scanned the clearing for anyone else, but they were alone with a boy who looked almost like he was having a seizure. Martha furrowed her brows and set her jaw with determination.

"We have to do something." She began digging around her bag as Abigail winced. Martha produced a little leather-bound book and began thumbing furiously through the pages.

"Do we, though?" she whined, practically begging to get out of that god's forsaken forest. If she had to choose between the two, she'd much rather be stuck at the murder site than in this little clearing where the energy was as menacing as it was thick.

"Yes, Abigail, we do," Martha hissed. "This is a coven issue." She waved an agitated hand at the blatantly supernatural problem before them. She knelt and spread her book flat on the ground. Abigail's eyes widened when she saw what was on the page.

"A telepathy spell? You don't even know him!"

"Something's going on in his head. We need to find out what." Martha scanned the spell in her book of shadows at light speed, drinking in every bit of information.

"You can't just jump in his mind without knowing what's waiting!" Abigail tried to catch Martha's eye, but she was too engrossed in her reading.

"Well, what do you suggest, then?" The question was bitterly rhetorical, but Abigail scoffed anyway.

"Uh, not this!"

"We don't have time for—" Their eyes widened in horror as the boy, who hadn't moved an inch, began to lift. At first, it looked like he'd gone up on his tiptoes. But then his body left the ground behind. They gaped at the open air beneath his feet as he gained altitude. His eyes remained rolled to the back of his head and now his lids fluttered in spasm. The witches craned their necks and squinted towards the sky where the boy hung as if suspended by a string like a marionette. Then his head flung back, his mouth opened in a silent scream of terror and agony. Martha stumbled back and grabbed Abigail's arm in a vice-like grip. The boy's body snapped, twisted, and dislocated.

"Holy shit!" Abigail's cry was more of a hoarse gasp, as the boy's jaw separated as if someone had pulled it from either side like a wishbone. With a wet squish, his white eyeballs exploded in a shower of clumpy crimson against the lenses of his glasses. Martha gagged, her hand held over her mouth to hold back her scream. The sight was something plucked straight from her worst nightmare. The sounds, the sights, were so visceral and disarming she thought she might pass out.

He dropped like a stone. The invisible strings puppeteering his body snipped all at once. He hit the ground with a sickening crunch, like twigs underfoot. The forest fell silent— not a natural silence. The silence that came when there was a predator afoot. Martha knew in her core that they were not alone in that forest. They stood frozen, staring at the mangled heap of a boy that lay lifeless before them. Abigail trembled as Martha's breathing came in shuddering gasps. She didn't know how long they stood, shell-shocked and terrorized before she dared to step forward.

"Fred!" Martha and Abigail's necks snapped towards the trailer park, where a very loud voice shouted into the trees. "Fred! Seriously, this is not the time!" The voice was far too close for comfort and moving in with every passing second.

"Hurry up, we gotta get the hell out of here." Martha nodded, and reached into her bag again, pulling a second clean vial out with trembling hands. Her breath shook as she knelt before the second murder site that day. This time, there was a body, and it hadn't even gone cold. Blood still oozed from the meaty craters that used to be his eyes. She didn't even know what color they used to be. But now she knew the name of the boy she'd just watched be twisted and mangled. Fred. Martha refused to look too closely at his face. She held the vial up to his skin and watched as vibrant blood dripped fresh from the source into her vial.

"Oh, god," A strangled cry sounded through the clearing, and the witches found the young woman from the trailer park staring straight at them. A hand flew to her mouth to stifle a gag.

"We didn't do this." Martha held up her hands in a show of innocence. It only made her look guiltier when the woman's eyes landed on the vial of Fred's blood in her hand. She looked between Martha, the blood, the book of shadows still open on the ground, and stepped back in terror.

"Abigail," Martha shot her a meaningful look and jutted her chin towards the stranger. Abigail rushed her, leaving not a second for her to try to run. Abigail's hand latched around the woman's wrist, magic cutting off the scream climbing up her throat.

A cloud of periwinkle blue dust erupted from the palm of Abigail's hand and enveloped the woman's head. She sputtered and coughed, stumbling away only to have her arm snatched up by Martha's grip around her forearm. The dust dwindled in the wind, leaving a dazed expression on the woman's face. She regarded Abigail with a blank stare, though not in the same way the boy had. This was the look of someone caught up in a dream, swept away into a space between sleep and waking. Forget me not dust had that affect on a person.

"You won't remember anything you saw in these woods. You came looking for your friend but turned back when you didn't find him. You will return to the trailer park and get the police to help you search." Abigail stared earnestly into her eyes, a pretty grey-blue. The color of a sky dappled with wisps of cloud. The woman nodded in understanding, though her gaze remained unfocused.

Abigail softened her grip on her wrist and watched as the woman stumbled back towards the trailer park, none the wiser to the mangled body of her friend laying lifeless on the forest floor. Abigail stood beside Martha, gnawing on the inside of her cheek. It wasn't until they heard the distant cries of, "Fred! Fred!" that their shoulders relaxed. Then, they noticed the familiar spider web crack in the tree trunk just beside where Fred's body had lifted.

NOTE
So much happened in this chapter!!! We had the first character meeting (sort of) with Nancy discovering them. We are so close to Martha and Abigail meeting everyone but you'll have to wait and see how it happens! Please let me know what you think and don't forget to vote and comment!