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Chapter Text

Today is supposed to be the happiest day of my life, Chrissy thought as she looked at herself in the full-length mirror of the bridal suite. Every girl grows up dreaming of her wedding day, right? Flowers, white dresses, cakes, being treated like a princess—what's not to love? Marrying the love of your life is just the sweet, sweet cherry on top. And, in Chrissy's case, the cherry was extra sweet because she was marrying Jason Carver, the Jason Carver, the world's hottest leading man, America's heartthrob, star of the upcoming superhero franchise Mega Man, and the two-time, back-to-back winner of Sexiest Man Alive. It was definitely something a lot of girls dreamed of—at least nine thousand eight hundred out of ten thousand, according to a poll. So why am I feeling so miserable?

Was it because the wedding gown still didn't fit right, despite countless alterations and adjustments? Chrissy had lost some weight between fittings, and now the strapless neckline of the gown hung with a sad gape below her collarbone. Was it because her stomach was in knots, not only from the recent upchuck of her breakfast, but also from the complete and utter conviction that something was going to go wrong with the wedding? Or was it because she'd made the mistake of posting a photo of her veil on Instagram the day before—or, more accurately, let her mom post a photo of her veil on Instagram—and now her phone was blowing up with thousands of comments and messages? She'd turned off notifications, but she knew the messages were there, waiting for her, like a scab at the back of her mind, begging to be scratched. Half of them would be death threats and curses, and the other half full of heart emojis and wishing her and Jason all the happiness in the world, which were almost as bad as the death threats.

Their romance was a weird one, she had to admit that. Not because they were mismatched. From the outside, nothing could look more natural—they definitely would have dated had they met in high school ten years earlier, as Jason had been the captain of his school's basketball team, and she the captain of the cheerleading squad. Only Chrissy knew how extraordinary it was for Jason, who was so fiercely protective of his privacy and wary of any form of social media, to be in a relationship with her, whose entire career was built on social media. But Jason had never resented her for it. In fact, he'd always supported her. It was one of the reasons she'd fallen in love with him. When they first met backstage at one of her shows, she had been equally intimidated and fascinated, never expecting a movie star like him to be interested in her kind of music at all, but he had seemed just as fascinated with her, and by the time they parted, it was hard to tell which of them was more smitten.

It was true that in the three years they had been together, her presence on social media had brought them some trouble, like the time people deduced that Jason would come to one of her shows because he was shooting a movie nearby, and his fans had clogged the venue, or the time she posted a picture of a single glass of wine while they were on a date, thinking it would be safe enough, but Internet sleuths still figured out which restaurant they were at and they'd had to leave through the kitchen. Each time, it had resulted in Jason having a meltdown, and each time, Chrissy had brought up the possibility of her being less active on social media, but neither of their teams would listen.

"Are you kidding?" Steve, Jason's manager, said. "Jason had no social media presence before he met you. His Instagram was a wasteland! Now he's got more followers than the White House, and it's all thanks to you. It's great for his career. Better for you to post it than those garbage gossip sites. Keep it up. You know what they say, 'the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about,' or something like that." Steve turned thoughtful. "Who said that anyway? Do you know?" he asked.

"Wilde," Chrissy replied glumly.

"Olivia?" Steve shook his head at that, making his hair flop all over the place—he had a magnificent head of hair and always liked to draw attention to it. "No, I don't think so," he said. "Sounds more like something Madonna would say."

Chrissy had to fight the urge to roll her eyes. Steve was not a bad person, but all he cared about—and rightly so—was Jason's career. He'd gotten the first initial right at least.

Her mom, Laura, had said pretty much the same thing—about social media, not Wilde, either Olivia or Oscar, with whom her mom had no concern.

"Don't be stupid, honey. Our followers have doubled since you two have been together, you know." Oh yes, Chrissy knew. Each milestone in her relationship with Jason had been celebrated not in gifts or memories, but in the number of her followers. "And Fool's Gold is very interested in releasing your next album. It's great for your career."

Even Jason wouldn't hear of it. "I can't ask you to make such a sacrifice," he said, appalled.

"Sacrifice?" Chrissy snorted. "I post a sentence broken into three paragraphs on Instagram and call it lyrics. It's hardly a sacrifice."

"Don't say that! It's so important for your career. You are going to be a Grammy winner one day, you'll see." And he looked so proud that Chrissy didn't have the heart to tell him otherwise.

Their stupid careers. That was always the most important thing. The thing that decided every aspect of their relationship, right down to their wedding. Steve had suggested that they should get married now, because, according to him, "Jason's going to be tied up in the next three, four years doing Mega Man. You guys get married now, go on your honeymoon, and by the time you get back, he'll be all refreshed and ready to start shooting. The timing's perfect."

Chrissy had to admit, he had a point, only she hated having to plan her life according to the schedule of a freaking movie franchise. Plus, she didn't really want to get married. Not yet.

Perhaps that was it. The reason she was feeling so miserable was simply because she didn't want to be here. But when Jason Carver proposes to you, you don't say no, so here she was.

Laura chose that moment to pop into the suite.

"Chrissy, let's go!" she said. "We're going to be late!" She glanced at Chrissy, gave an irritated click of her tongue, and prodded at Chrissy's back, like she used to do before a cheer meet. "Stand up straight," she commanded, and Chrissy, out of habit, straightened her back, which made the neckline of her gown gape even more. Her mom tugged at it, trying to fix it. "You should've let me do the alterations," she grumbled. "I've let out so many of your clothes when you were in high school, I know your measurements..."

"Mom!" Chrissy snapped, cutting her off. If Chrissy didn't stop her, her mom would go into her familiar tirade of how Chrissy hadn't watched her weight during high school and how much time she'd spent altering Chrissy's clothes because of it. "Didn't you say we were late?"

"Oh God, I completely forgot! Yes! Let's go! The limo's waiting!" Distracted, Laura led Chrissy out of the bridal suite and downstairs. Chrissy barely had time to grab her bouquet.

Outside the hotel was a clutch of paparazzi—not many as Chrissy had dreaded, and certainly not many as her mom would've liked. The majority of the press and fans would be at the church, where Jason was waiting. This was probably the only wedding where there were more eyes on the groom than the bride.

"You should've listened to me and sold your wedding photos," Laura complained as they ducked into the limo. "That way, we could control the narrative."

"There is no narrative to control, Mom," said Chrissy, as the car began to make its way down Fifth Avenue. On cue, the paparazzi mounted their scooters and followed, cameras flashing and clicking nonstop, forming a rather strange wedding procession. "It's our day, Jason's and mine. We don't want to share it with the rest of the world, simple as that."

"But think of the money, and the exposure—"

"We don't need more money! And Jason's been exposed enough as it is!"

Laura turned away, her mouth pressed into a thin, disapproving line. "Well, I'm only thinking of what's best for both of you," she said.

Chrissy dug her nails into her palm, while guilt bubbled up inside her. Her mom always did this when she didn't get her way, claiming she only did it out of love and care and making Chrissy out to be the bad guy. Chrissy should have been used to it by now, but damn if it didn't work on her. After all, everything she had, everything she was now, was thanks to her mom—her music, her fame, even Jason. She wouldn't have had any of it if it hadn't been for her mom.

Thankfully, at that moment, the limo pulled up at the small church tucked away in a quiet corner of Greenwich Village—or as quiet as it could get in Manhattan. The paparazzi were definitely more numerous here, as were the fans, and they swelled into a veritable horde around the car, shouting at Chrissy to look their way, asking her what it felt like to be marrying Jason Carver, shoving their cameras into her face. The driver had to elbow a few of them out of the way as he ushered Chrissy and Laura inside.

After all the flashes and the din outside, it took a moment for Chrissy's eyes and ears to adjust. And that was when she realized the church was quiet. Too quiet. And deserted.

She turned to her mother, bewildered. Outside the door, the paparazzi were still clamoring to get in.

"Where is everybody?" Chrissy asked.

Before Laura could answer, someone—or something—stirred near the altar. Chrissy squinted into the dimness penetrated by shafts of pale sunlight coming in through the Gothic windows, trying to make out the figure walking toward her. Was it Jason? What the hell was he planning?

The figure drew closer, and the shadows resolved themselves into the familiar features of Dustin, Steve's long-suffering assistant—the wiry hair sticking out from under his ever-present baseball cap and his grin—usually cheeky, now nervous—that showed his braces.

"Dustin?" exclaimed Chrissy. "What's going on? Where is everybody?"

"This way," Dustin whispered, grabbing Chrissy's arm and pulling her toward a side door. Laura followed at her heels.

"Where on Earth—" Chrissy began, too baffled to fight back.

"The wedding's not here," Dustin said, leading Chrissy and Laura through a dark passage. "Steve just sent out a rumor that it was. He's booked another venue."

"Did Jason know?" Chrissy asked.

"Yes." The duh was implied by Dustin's tone. "I came up with the idea"—he actually sounded proud, damn him—"and me and Steve, we ran it by Jason." Of course. Jason wouldn't even go to a drive-through if he didn't have a detailed map of the area and all possible exits; no way could Steve and Dustin pull this off without consulting him.

Shock and indignation made Chrissy forget her anxiety for a moment. "And he didn't tell me? It's our wedding!"

For the first time, Dustin looked embarrassed. "He wanted it to be a surprise," he explained lamely.

Chrissy spun around to face her mom. "Did you know?" she asked, accusation in her tone.

Laura, for her part, did not appear embarrassed in the slightest. "Is now really the time?" she said with an exasperated sigh. "We're late—"

"Mom!"

"Jason did talk to me about it, yes."

"What about Dad and Ryan? And my bridesmaids?"

"They're at the venue already."

So everybody knew except for her. Of course. She was the one with the Instagram account. She was the one who couldn't be trusted to keep her mouth shut or her phone off. They were all acting as if she were some sort of social media addict, when it couldn't be further from the truth. It was so unfair that Chrissy's throat closed up with anger and resentment.

"Anyway, you'll love the venue," Dustin said, clearing his throat. "It's very nice. We're taking you there now."

"Who's we?"

The passage opened into the back of the church, and Chrissy got her answer—an unremarkable sedan was parked by the door, and standing next to it was a bored-looking redheaded girl wearing driving gloves.

"Chrissy, Mrs. Cunningham, meet Max," said Dustin. "She was Jason's stunt driver on Chasing the Horizon." The redhead raised a hand at Chrissy in a brief salute.

Chrissy looked at Dustin like he'd completely lost his mind. "A stunt driver?"

"Yeah," Dustin said, as if it were the most normal thing in the world to have a stunt driver drive you to your wedding. "She's great. Let's go! We have a wedding to attend!" He all but shoved Chrissy and Laura into the car, before climbing into the passenger seat.

"Where are we going?" Chrissy asked, but the engine roared to life, drowning out her question.

Max seemed relaxed, with her gloved hand draping casually over the wheel, but from the back, Chrissy could see the tension in the set of the girl's neck and shoulders, so she held her tongue while the car rolled down Seventh Avenue and turned right into the Holland Tunnel. She opened her mouth again to ask if they were going to Jersey, when she was cut off by another roar of engine—this time from behind them. Dustin turned around, and his eyes widened.

"Max, they're on to us!" he shouted. 

Chrissy twisted her head around to look, and what she saw made her anxiety, half-forgotten in the confusion of the changing venues, shoot up to the sky. The paparazzi had found them and were now following them to the dark mouth of the tunnel.

Max glanced back nonchalantly. "On it," she said, tightened her gloves, and bent over the wheel in a posture that showed she meant business.

What followed was something Chrissy could only describe as a scene out of the Fast and Furious franchise. Max wove in and out of traffic, trying to increase the distance from the paparazzi. Some of them fell behind, while others kept doggedly on. The car shot out of the other end of the tunnel like a cannonball—it was a wonder they weren't pulled over for speeding—and continued its zigzag course through the streets of Jersey City. It was all a blur to Chrissy, literally, since her veil had fallen over her eyes. She was wedged in the backseat, between the door and her mom, who was voicing her disapproval in a series of incoherent shouts that Dustin and Max both chose to ignore. Chrissy's bouquet ended up somewhere on the floor, but she no longer cared. She could only hold on for dear life and pray it would be over soon.

And then suddenly it was. The car had stopped. Chrissy picked herself up from the floor, yanked the veil out of her mouth, and looked back. They had come up a tree-lined drive of some estate, and as the ornate double gates closed behind them, the paparazzi were nowhere to be seen.

Max sure knew how to drive.

As Chrissy stumbled out of the car, a CD was thrust at her. It was her own album, The Ghost of the Mountain, along with a pen.

"Would you mind signing this for my mom?" said Max. "She's a big fan."

Dazed, Chrissy automatically scribbled her autograph on the cover. Max nodded her thanks and melted away with the car.

Chrissy looked around. Dustin had told the truth; the venue was nice. A beautiful garden stretched from a Tudor-style mansion down to the waterfront, surrounded by woodlands, giving the place a peaceful, secluded feel—she hadn't even realized there could be a place so quiet so close to the city. On the lawn in the distance, a gazebo and rows of chairs had been set up for the ceremony, all fluttering with bright ribbons and flowers. People were coming down the lawn to meet them—her dad and bridesmaids, followed by Steve.

"See, what did I tell you?" Dustin spread his arms at the assembled wedding party, like a magician who had just pulled off an impossible trick.

Steve waved a dismissive hand. "Yeah, yeah, you're a genius." He took a look at Chrissy, made a face, and signaled to Andie and Pat, the two beauticians always trailing after him, to start fixing her up. "It worked, then?" he asked Dustin. "You got rid of the paps?"

"Max did."

"Even Byers?"

Chrissy gave a start. Jonathan Byers was one of the most notorious paparazzi in the city, with an uncanny knack for always catching celebrities in their worst moments. Everyone was scared of him. Some even took to bribing him to ensure only flattering photos of them were published. Jason had always refused to stoop so low, which was probably why Byers seemed to be on a personal crusade against Jason.

"Byers wasn't there," replied Dustin. "Our intelligence says he's gone golfing."

Steve raised an eyebrow. "Golfing? I didn't know he could golf." He shrugged. "Then we're good. Come on." He beckoned to Chrissy and the wedding party. In vain, Chrissy tried to fix her sadly crushed bouquet. This was not how she imagined walking down the aisle, but at least she'd gotten here in one piece.

Almost before she knew it, she was leaning on her dad's arm and being led down the lawn to the sound of Here Comes the Bride. And there he was, the love of her life, looking handsome as always in his suit, with the sunlight on his blonde hair and brilliant blue eyes, the dazzling smile that sent so many women into a swoon now reserved only for her. Chrissy did her best to ignore the curious and judging eyes of the guests, as well as the bodyguards dotted around the lawn like a murder of crows, their dark suits an incongruous note amongst the bright colors of the wedding party. Keeping her eyes fixed on Jason, she tried to conjure up some of the butterflies she had felt the first time they met, or even the half-excited, half-terrified feeling she'd had when he proposed, but there was nothing, except for a worry that the sweat circles under her arms might be visible. Her pulse buzzed loudly in her ears.

No, it wasn't her pulse. Chrissy realized it as she watched Jason's smile turn into a confused frown. He looked up at the sky. The guests and even the officiant followed his gaze. The buzz was coming from somewhere overhead.

Chrissy looked as well, but the sun was in her eyes, making them water, so it was a while before she spied a dark shape hovering above the trees, getting bigger and bigger as it descended. A bird? A plane? Superman?

On no. It was a drone.

Jason turned pale and looked wildly around like he was searching for an escape, his bride forgotten.

Steve had seen the drone too. Out of the corner of her eye, Chrissy saw him striding toward the house and talking to a woman who looked to be the venue's manager. It was so quiet, except for the buzzing of the drone, that their conversation carried all the way to the lawn.

"I thought you said this was a no-fly zone?" Steve was saying.

"It is!" the manager said, flustered. "I have no idea how it manages to bypass our restrictions..."

All the while, Jason was still ducking behind the trees, getting further and further away from the altar. The officiant gave Chrissy a questioning look, but she could only shrug helplessly. The guests' confused and pitying gazes were like ants crawling all over her.

"Figure out how to get rid of it, now," Steve said to the manager, "before—JASON!!!"

Steve's scream had everybody turn toward Jason. He had run to one of the bodyguards, managed to take the man's gun somehow, and was now aiming it at the drone.

"Jason!" Steve yelled again. "Put the gun down!"

In response, Jason pulled the trigger. Bang! The weathervane on top of the gazebo came down. A guest, a woman, screamed. The other bodyguards, those who were still armed, stood with their hands hovering uncertainly over their holsters, staring wide-eyed at Jason. There was a threat here, but their training hadn't prepared them for the situation when the client was the threat. The drone was getting closer. Jason let off another shot, which grazed the top of a tree and sent some birds squawking angrily to the sky.

Steve approached Jason with his hands raised, like a hostage negotiator. "Jason," he said quietly. "Would you mind putting the gun down, please?"

Bang! Steve ducked just in time as another shot whizzed past his head and slammed into the drone, bringing it down with a resounding crash.

Slowly, cautiously, people converged around the wreck of the drone. On its side, clearly visible, were the initials "J.B."

"Byers!" roared Jason. "I'll kill you!"

He let out a volley of shots into the already destroyed drone, before whirling around to face the guests. They fell back as one.

"Which one of you was it?" Jason screamed. "Which one of you leaked the location to that—that abscess?!" They all stared at him in mute horror. "I swear to God," he continued, "when I do get married, none of you will get an invitation. You won't even know which continent I'm on!"

At that moment, Chrissy could only feel grateful to Steve for having the foresight to strictly forbid phones at the wedding. The shooting was bad enough, but this? The amazing Jason Carver, shouting and waving a gun around like a madman, with spit foaming at the corner of his mouth? This could ruin his career. Then she realized she was thinking just like Steve or her mom and grimaced in annoyance at herself. And what the hell did Jason mean by saying "when I do get married"? Weren't they getting married now? She handed her bouquet to one of her bridesmaids and stepped forward.

"Jason, honey," she said in the voice of a person approaching a particularly skittish and particularly dangerous wild animal. "Please put the gun down. You've already destroyed the drone and ruined the pictures for Byers." She had no idea if this was true or not; for all she knew, Byers might have had the photos sent directly to his phone or laptop. "So everything is fine now, right?" She repeated, a touch desperately now, "Right?"

Still breathing hard, Jason turned to her. He raised the hand holding the gun. Was he trying to give it to her, or was he—?

Chrissy never found out, for a shout came from behind her.

"Watch out!"

It was the disarmed bodyguard. He barreled past Chrissy, body-slammed Jason into the lawn, and gave him a squirt of pepper spray for good measure.

Jason's scream sent the rest of the birds into the sky.

Chrissy dropped her bouquet and watched her fiancé writhe on the ground in agony. So much for the happiest day of her life.

That put a damper on the wedding, obviously.

Not only was Jason not in any physical state to get married—he'd been taken inside the house by Steve and Dustin and the rest of the entourage, amidst a flood of verbal abuse from Steve toward the security firm, threatening to sue them for everything they were worth—but his mental state was not fit either. When Chrissy came into the kitchen where he was being tended to, he spun around to face her so fast that he spilled the glass of water he was holding in a death grip. His eyes were bloodshot and wild, like he expected her to be Byers creeping up on him. Only when he realized it was just Chrissy did Jason relax slightly.

Gingerly, Chrissy sat down next to him.

"How are you?" she asked, brushing his hair out of his forehead.

Jason jerked away. "I will not be defeated by that disease of a man," he said through gritted teeth. "We're going to have to disappear completely."

Chrissy's heart sank. She'd been hoping to use this whole debacle as a way to rethink their wedding plan, or perhaps even postpone it indefinitely, but she should have known that when Jason set his heart on something, he was determined to see it through. And now he was determined to get married.

"We can get married in outer space," she said, half-joking. "Or the lost underwater kingdom of Atlantis."

Jason didn't laugh. Behind them, Chrissy heard Steve whisper to Dustin, "Outer space? I don't think you can yet..."

Dustin didn't reply, but Chrissy could imagine his withering look all too well.

Jason heaved out a sigh and buried his face in his hands. "We're going to have to go somewhere crazy remote," he said to no one in particular.

Over his dejected head, Chrissy, Steve, and Dustin glanced at one another. In Steve and Dustin's half-gloomy, half-exasperated eyes, Chrissy saw her own apprehension reflected back at her.

Somewhere crazy remote? In this day and age, when everything could be found at their fingertips, did such a place even exist?

Chapter Text

"Next stop, Roane!" the Greyhound driver announced.

Eddie stretched, yawned, and checked that his guitar case was still secure under his seat. As he sat up, his eyes fell on a gossip magazine someone had left on the seat next to him. WEDDING OF THE CENTURY CANCELLED, screamed the headline, accompanied by several blurry photos of a blonde Hollywood type aiming a gun at the camera, his face caught mid-shout.

Out of boredom rather than interest, Eddie picked up the magazine and idly scanned the article.

The highly anticipated wedding of Hollywood A-lister Jason Carver and indie pop star Chrissy Cunningham was interrupted last Sunday in a bizarre fashion when Carver discovered a drone flying over the venue and shot it down with a gun taken from his bodyguard, the article began. Carver, 28, who first shot to fame at the age of 15 for his role as the overachieving eldest son in the ABC sitcom "Keeping Up with the Joneses", has always been fiercely protective of his privacy and is notorious for his erratic outbursts when the press is concerned. Just last year, on the set of his action film Chasing the Horizon, Carver had refused to leave his trailer for three days when he saw what he thought was a hidden camera near the set. This caused a significant delay in filming. The camera was later revealed to be a bird feeder.

For someone so private, it was a surprise when Carver began a relationship with...

The rest of the article became a blur as Eddie's eyes glazed over. He couldn't believe someone was paid to write this bullshit, let alone print it on glossy paper and sell it for $7.99. Those who bought and read such crap must have had all their brain cells fried by TV and the Internet.

He was about to toss the magazine away when he caught, further down the page, a mention of his hometown. Curiosity got the better of him, and he read on:

... Cunningham went viral a few years ago with her song "The Ghost of the Mountain", thanks to the inspiring story behind its creation. Already a well-known social media presence with her cheerleading content, Cunningham had to put her sport career on hold due to a debilitating injury. It was during her recovery that Cunningham visited Hawkins, a small Appalachian town, and wrote the song there to express her struggle with physical and mental health, set against the stark beauty of the Appalachian Mountains. Though it has been critically panned as derivative and cloyingly twee for its combination of traditional Appalachian folk music and frothy girly pop, the song gained further attention when Cunningham started dating Carver, and she went on to release a full album of the same name... 

Eddie rolled his eyes so hard he could almost see the back of his skull. This time, he tossed the magazine away for real, before he could catch a glimpse of the happy couple. The fucking Ghost of the fucking Mountain. That was all people ever talked about when they talked about Hawkins, if they talked about it at all. That damned album. To be fair, it was the only thing ever written about the town, so it was understandable that the people of Hawkins were proud of it—though saying it was "about" Hawkins was being generous. What was there in Hawkins to write songs about anyway? The blistering heat in the summer, the flash floods, and the scouring wind in the winter? How you had to drive an hour to get anywhere? Or its only points of attraction, the ruins of a Prohibition-era bootleg distillery and a 1970s abandoned mansion? Or the fact that its two main sources of economy were making moonshine and growing weed?

When Eddie listened to the album—or tried to, anyway—he couldn't make past the first couple of songs. Each song was supposedly based on a place in Hawkins, but the lyrics were all so vague in that annoyingly faux-deep way that they could be about anything. If he was honest with himself, Eddie would admit that some of his disdain—OK, a lot of his disdain—for the album and the artist was due to jealousy. Here he was, having played the guitar pretty much non-stop since middle school, and the best he could do was a job in a record store, while all it took for this girl to get a record deal was a pretty face and a sob story. Eddie was pretty sure she had never actually been to Hawkins. If she had, it would've been the talk of the town, and he would've known about it, even though he had been living in Knoxville at the time. Hawkins was that small. 

And she didn't even have the grace to be grateful to Hawkins. True, in the five years since the album came out, it had enticed a few tourists—mostly wide-eyed women wearing too many bangles and necklaces, clutching guitars and notebooks, hoping to become the next Joni Mitchell or Joan Baez or whoever—away from Gatlinburg and Knoxville to check out Hawkins. They would stay long enough to have a meal at Benny's Burgers or Enzo's Restaurant if they were feeling fancy, have a poke around at Meldvald's General Store, and may even stay the night at Starcourt Inn if their rental car broke down (not that the townspeople had anything to do with that, at least nothing you could prove) or if Earl, who drove the only taxi in Hawkins, couldn't be found in time to take them down the mountain  (and he could never be found during such times). Eventually, though, they would all leave when they discovered Hawkins was nowhere near as romantic as The Ghost of the Mountain made it out to be.

Everybody left Hawkins eventually. And those who came back... well, they often didn't have a choice.

The Greyhound bus pulled into the gas station in Roane. Here was another reason people hesitated to visit Hawkins—it was so small it didn't even have its own bus stop. If you didn't have a car, you were shit out of luck. Your only choice was to pay an exorbitant rate for a cab from Roane or to make the hours-long trek uphill, through winding mountain trails. And if you had to move home with nothing but the clothes on your back, you definitely didn't have money to spare for a cab. Eddie hefted his bags and the guitar case onto his shoulders and made his way toward the start of the trail just behind the gas station. He didn't mind walking. He'd made the trek many times as a kid. Besides, the exercise would keep him occupied and stop him from dwelling too much on what a failure his life had turned out to be.

In theory, anyway. In practice, for the first hour or so of the walk, all he could think about was Paige's parting words to him. It had all come crashing down when he lost his job at the record store. She'd started with the same "It's not you, it's me" bullshit, of course. She wanted more. She wanted different things. She wanted him to have more drive and more ambition in life, to be someone she could settle down and start a family with. And when he'd argued that there was nothing wrong with being content, the ugly truth had come out. "You're not content," she'd said contemptuously. "You're stuck, and you can't admit it. You're lost, but you don't want to be found."

It had stung. It had stung even worse when she kicked him out of their shared apartment, giving him no choice but to sell his ancient van—it certainly would not survive the drive from Knoxville to Hawkins—and heartbreakingly, pawn his record collection along with his beloved B.C. Rich Warlock, and make his way home.

At least Paige had been considerate enough to give him back the engagement ring. Eddie fiddled with it, comforted by the familiar feel around his little finger. It was the one thing that he couldn't bring himself to part with, no matter how desperate he got. Not because it wasn't worth selling—it was only silver and obsidian, no precious stone at all—but because it was the only thing he had left of his mom. He was glad that Paige had returned it. She didn't deserve his mom's ring. And Eddie was beginning to believe that no woman deserved that ring. Maybe he should just stop looking and accept his fate.

Thinking back now, he realized it had been a mistake proposing to Paige. He'd never been big on that whole marriage, white picket fence, two-point-five kids thing anyway. His thoughts on marriage had always been decidedly unconventional, in that he never wanted to get married at all. He'd witnessed firsthand how his parents' marriage had failed and how it had destroyed his mom, and that had put him off marriage altogether. He'd only proposed because he thought that was what Paige wanted. Clearly, it wasn't enough.

The trail got steeper the closer he got to the summit, and Eddie paused briefly to take a breather. He should get out more. Just two years away, and he was already wheezing and sweating like some city slicker. Beneath his feet, the twisting road led down to a valley that curved along a lazy river like a cat sunning itself by the riverbank. Hawkins was somewhere in that valley, well hidden by the mountain ridges and the woods. In front of him, the dense trees drew apart like a curtain, showing rolling green hills stretching away as far as the eye can see, until they were consumed by the famous blue haze that gave the Smokies its name. When Eddie was a kid, those hills had seemed to him like the Black Gate, the Towers of the Teeth, and the Mountains of Shadow all rolled into one, with Hawkins as Mordor at the heart of them. He'd broken free as soon as he graduated high school. He'd been back to visit, of course, but he never thought he would come back to stay. As he looked at those hills now, the old sensation of being trapped rose again within him, tightening his chest, and his heavy breathing became faster in a way that had nothing to do with his fatigue.

Maybe Paige was right. The fact that he was coming back to Hawkins, the one place he had vowed never to return, meant that he really was stuck.

No. He couldn't think like that. Thinking like that would only prove to everyone that he was really living up to the Munson name, as another fuckup in a long line of fuckups. He was not a fuckup. He would show them that he could walk through the Black Gate of Mordor and walk out again, unscathed, better even, and all without the help of the Great Eagles. He would show them all—

As if it didn't want him to get ahead of himself, rain chose that moment to pour down, not the torrential rain that became a flash flood, but a warm drizzle, humid, sticky, and annoying. Pulling his leather jacket close, Eddie bent his head under the rain and walked on.

By the time he arrived at the familiar trailer park on the edge of town, the rain had gotten heavier, and Eddie was soaked through. He splashed through the puddles and made his way to a trailer on the left, by memory rather than sight. The little he could see showed him that the porch roof was sagging, and the beat-up truck parked out front looked like it hadn't been driven in a while. Poor Wayne. Ever since his accident, he hadn't been able to get out much. No wonder the place looked neglected.

Eddie dragged his bags and himself into the trailer, letting its homey smells of smoke and pine-scented detergent wash over him while taking in the familiar sights—the scuff on the wall where he once punched it during a particular heated D&D session back in high school, the stupid mugs and caps he and Wayne kept buying for each other lined up on the shelves around the living room, the old TV that only worked after you gave it a good thumping. He fully expected to see his uncle sprawled on the couch in front of that TV and was hoping he could use Wayne's frailty as an excuse to explain his homecoming. Instead, he found Wayne all dressed up—or as dressed up as anyone in Hawkins could be—and in the middle of maneuvering his wheelchair to the door.

"Hi, Wayne!" Eddie said, a tad too brightly.

At the forced cheerfulness in Eddie's voice, Wayne's face took on an expression Eddie knew very well—part concerned, part suspicious, and part exasperated. As a kid, Eddie had seen that expression so many times, whenever he brought back a less-than-stellar report card, which was often, or whenever he was given a ride home in the back of Chief Hopper's car and sent in with a stern warning, which was even more often. Now Wayne fixed him with that same look and said, "Oh no. What's wrong?"

"Nothing!" said Eddie. "Why does anything have to be wrong? Can't I just come home for a visit? You look like you could use a hand." He nodded at Wayne's wheelchair.

Wayne said nothing.

"I'm fine!" Eddie insisted.

Wayne continued to say nothing. At that, Eddie's cheerful veneer cracked. He dropped onto the couch and put his head in his hands. "Really, I am fine," he said, though his voice wobbled.

Wayne scooted his wheelchair closer. "That's good, as long as you're fine," he said, patting Eddie's shoulder.

Eddie lifted his tired eyes to his uncle's softening face, and the sight warmed his heart. Good old Wayne. He wrapped his arms around the old man, remembering another hug a long time ago, the night his mom passed away. It was Wayne who had been there for him that night, not his dad. Always Wayne. This, then, was why Eddie had come home. Not because he didn't have anywhere else to go, not because his life was stuck, but because he could always find comfort here.

"Are you going somewhere?" Eddie asked a moment later, noting how Wayne's shirt was buttoned all the way up and his boots were shiny.

Wayne chuckled. "I don't suppose you're in the mood for a wedding?" he said.

Eddie wasn't in the mood for a wedding. He was never in the mood for a wedding. But Wayne needed someone to drive him, so Eddie went. As he tried to coax Wayne's bad-tempered truck across the uneven road, Eddie gave Wayne a brief account of what had happened with Paige, trying to downplay how much she'd hurt him. He was almost ashamed, as he told the story, of how mundane it was. No great betrayal, no dramatic heartbreak. Just a tired disappointment. Kind of like how his life has turned out, to be honest. But Wayne saw through him, as always.

"There's somebody out there for you, Eddie," he said. "A sweet and kind girl, someone to take care of you and have fun with you. But you'd never meet her hiding on these hills."

"Maybe I don't need taking care of."

"Yes, you do. We all do."

"You're doing fine."

"I have you," said Wayne with an affectionate smile.

A sense of eternal gratitude for his uncle made Eddie choke up for a moment. Then he said, "That's exactly what I mean. We have each other. We don't need anyone. I'm going to be a confirmed bachelor, just like you."

"You don't want to model your life after an old fart like me, boy," Wayne said. He was trying to make a joke, but his smile was sad, and not for the first time, Eddie found himself wondering how different their lives would have been if his mom hadn't died so early and his dad hadn't bailed.

Hawkins' clapboard church stood hunched under the rain, looking gray and worn as the rest of the town. It wasn't exactly wheelchair-friendly, so Eddie had to park the truck close to it and help Wayne through the side door with one hand while holding Wayne's crutches in the other. The little porch was crowded with the good ole boys of Hawkins, who were finishing up their wad of chewing tobacco or getting one last sip of whiskey, as if they weren't going to drink up every last bottle at the reception later. They parted to let Wayne and Eddie through.

"Are we late?" Eddie asked.

"Too late to marry her!" one of the good ole boys quipped. The others roared with laughter and slapped the comedian on his back. Eddie grinned awkwardly and pushed the side door open with Wayne's crutches.

Inside, the church was packed. Amidst grumbles, curses—Hawkins was a God-fearing town, but its people were not above cursing in churches—and apologies, Eddie tried to get Wayne through the front so they could reach an empty pew. As they crossed the altar, one of Wayne's crutches snagged on one of the groomsmen's legs. One by one, the groomsmen pitched forward like a row of dominoes, until they crashed into the groom himself, sending the hapless guy sprawling.

"Jesus, sorry!" yelped Eddie. Perhaps that was taking the Lord's name in vain, but he didn't give a shit. He ran over, trying to help the groom up, only the groomsmen were doing the same, and they ended up in a confusion of limbs on the ground. Eddie just managed to untangle himself from it and get to his feet when the organ started playing Here Comes the Bride.

To his surprise, he recognized the bride. It was Nicole Summers. She had been his girlfriend in high school—or so he'd thought. It turned out she had been just like all the other girls he'd hooked up with, who had only done it for a dare so they could laugh about it with their friends afterward. Nicole had stuck with him a little longer than the others, out of pity or perhaps due to a shortage of boys in their town, Eddie didn't know, but when he'd suggested they run away to Knoxville together, she'd balked and broken up with him.

Looking at Nicole now, Eddie suspected she was regretting her choice. She certainly looked like she hadn't done very well since their breakup—her hair was all fizzy from the rain, there was a permanent line between her eyes from frowning, and her wedding gown was, at least in Eddie's inexpert eyes, about ten years out of date.

He gave himself a mental kick up the ass for being unkind. Who was he to judge her, when he himself had not done much better since their breakup either?

Nicole's eyes widened at the sight of him. "Eddie?" she said.

"Hi, Nic," he said with a little wave, before remembering that she hated that nickname.

Behind Eddie, the groom had got to his feet. Eddie recognized him too—Tommy Hagan, the class clown, one of the bullies who had made Eddie's life hell. Tommy looked like he was well on his way to turning into his dad, who owned the lumberyard in town, bald patch and everything.

"You're too late, Munson," Tommy hissed into Eddie's ear. "She's mine now!"

Eddie became aware, uncomfortably so, that he was standing in the groom's spot.

"And you're welcome to her!" he said, stepping aside. Nicole gasped, and Eddie quickly added, "I didn't mean it like that! I mean, you two deserve each other." Now the entire church gasped, and Tommy's groomsmen looked like they were going to murder Eddie in the parking lot later. "I mean—I'm sure you will be very happy together," he finished lamely, and meekly took his seat next to Wayne in the back.

Later, at the reception at Enzo's, Eddie went to get a drink and found himself face to face with Bev. She owned The Hideout, the only bar in town, but had left her lair for the evening to lend a hand to the wedding.

"Well, well, well, the prodigal son returns," she said as she poured Eddie a shot. "That was quite the entrance, Junior."

She still looked as Eddie remembered, with her steel-gray hair cropped short like a drill sergeant and her huge arms covered in tattoos. Eddie and his friends had all been terrified of her, least of all because they could never sneak past her with a fake ID and had had to resort to buying their beer from the convenience store in Roane instead. Even now, though he had been of legal drinking age for eight years, Eddie still quaked a little at the thought of drinking in front of Bev.

"You know me, Bev," he said, trying to sound flippant. "I got a humiliation kink. Speaking of which"—he nodded at the array of bottles behind her—"do you need a hand?"

Bev wasn't fooled. "Hankering for your old job back, are you?" she snorted. Eddie had worked as the barback at The Hideout after he graduated high school until he saved up enough to move to Knoxville. "What happened to your fancy big city job at the record store?"

Eddie sighed. In such a small town, it was impossible to keep anything private. Everybody knew everybody's business. It was one of the reasons he'd wanted to get out of Hawkins as soon as he could.

"They went digital," he said flatly. It was the truth. Nobody wanted actual records anymore. It was all Spotify and playlists these days.

"You're in luck," Bev said. "With the tourist season about to start, I'm going to need an extra hand. As long as you don't bring in that terrible band of yours, Rotten Grave or whatever it is that y'all call yourselves, for the Tuesday jam session."

"Corroded Coffin," Eddie corrected her. "And don't worry, that ship's long sailed," he added, unable to keep the bitterness out of his voice. He had had big dreams for Corroded Coffin, but his bandmates had all moved away, and Hawkins—and the rest of the world too—no longer listened to heavy metal, so Eddie didn't see a point in keeping the band going.

"Good. Welcome back. You can start now." Bev handed Eddie the bottle of whiskey, downed the drink she'd just poured for him, and walked away.

Nicole chose that moment to come up to the bar.

"Isn't it a bit early to get wasted?" she said, nodding at the bottle.

"I wasn't—I'm not—" Eddie fumbled to hide the bottle on the shelf behind him. "Your husband doesn't think so," he said, pointing to a corner table, where Tommy was being cheered on by the good ole boys to down shot after shot.

Nicole rolled her eyes. "So... how long are you back for?" she asked.

"Not sure yet," said Eddie in the same nonchalant tone he'd used with Bev. It would not do to let Nicole know how he'd come home with his tail tucked between his legs.

"Never thought I'd see you back here again. Didn't you say nothing ever happened here?"

Eddie shrugged. "Maybe I'll make something happen."

Nicole shook her head. "You haven't changed one bit, Eddie," she said. "Always with the big talk. Tommy may not say much, but at least he keeps his word."

Eddie's face flamed. It was Paige all over again. He hadn't come home to be insulted by people who had never even seen the other side of these mountains. But he refused to stoop to their level. With a tight smile, he said, "Look, Nicole, I truly hope you'll be..."

He didn't get to finish. Nicole had walked away.

Eddie looked down at the bottle in his hand and let out a long sigh.

So much for a triumphant homecoming.

Chapter Text

Eddie had been back to Hawkins for three weeks when Reefer Rick came into The Hideout with an offer.

Rick's real name was Rick Lipton, but everybody called him Reefer Rick, and for good reasons. He owned five acres of prime marijuana farmland spread out amongst the remote and lofty hollows that dotted here and there between the mountains—nobody knew where, and Rick preferred to keep it that way. Even Eddie, while dealing for Rick back in high school, had no idea where the weed he'd been selling came from.

And now Rick was offering Eddie his old job back.

"Lost my runner," Rick said, throwing his lanky frame down on the barstool and his John Deere hat on the counter. "Kid's going to college, can you believe it?" He ran an exasperated hand through his long blond hair, pulled into a greasy ponytail at the back of his head.

"Good for him," Eddie said flatly.

"So, are you in?" asked Rick.

"Rick, you know I haven't sold in like, five years. I wouldn't even know where to begin."

"You don't have to sell. Just delivery."

Eddie chewed on his lip. "I don't know—" He just wanted to keep out of trouble. He was pretty sure Wayne had known about his weed dealing in high school but had turned a blind eye to it. He didn't want Wayne to worry about it now. Wayne had enough to deal with already.

"Come on, Ed. Help me out for old times' sake, man. Just until this conference thing is done."

That made Eddie's ears perk up. "What conference?"

"Haven't you heard?" Rick sat up, eager to deliver some exciting news. "A marketing conference by some hotshot company from Nashville."

"A marketing conference?" Eddie repeated doubtfully. "Here?"

"Yeah. They're renting Creel House for a week. The whole town's buzzing, man."

"What's that got to do with you?"

"You know how those businessmen are, can't go a day without relying on drugs to forget their crushing reality. And that's where I come in." Rick snapped his fingers. "Easy money."

Eddie laughed. Rick did better than most of the town, running a steady trade that never depended on the tourist season, yet even he, like the rest of Hawkins, couldn't pass up a chance to scam some unsuspecting out-of-towners.

"I'll pay you twenty percent for each delivery," Rick said. He leaned closer, dropping his voice confidentially. "You could use the money, right? I'm sure old Bev doesn't pay you a living wage—"

"Hey!" shouted Bev from her corner of the bar. "What'd you say about me, you little rat?"

"Just how generous you are to take our Eddie back with welcoming arms, Bev," said Rick. Turning back to Eddie, he continued, "Or I can pay you in product. You know my stuff's purer than that blended shit you get in the big city."

Seeing Eddie waver, Rick delivered the ace up his sleeve. "If you do this," he said. "I'll give you back that collateral you left with me when you moved to Knoxville."

Eddie widened his eyes. "You still have it?" he asked.

"Wait right here." With a wink, Rick jumped off the stool and went out to his truck, parked at the entrance of The Hideout. He came back a moment later with an acoustic guitar, which he handed across the bar to Eddie. Eddie took it with both hands like it was the most precious thing in the world—and to him, it was. His mom's guitar. The other thing she'd left him, besides her ring. When he moved away, he'd had to borrow some money from Rick, so he'd given Rick the guitar as a pledge to pay off the loan and a promise to make his mom proud. He'd failed both, but at least he'd gotten the guitar back.

"I can't believe you still keep it," he said, running his fingers reverently, lovingly over the words carved on the guitar's body. THIS MACHINE SLAYS DRAGONS. His mom had carved them herself, sitting in her hospital bed, before giving the guitar to him. Play it whenever you're scared or missing me, sweetheart, she'd said, and I'll be there.

Rick's smile was almost fond. "Of course."

"But I never paid you back that loan."

"Pfft." Rick waved his hand. "It was what, a couple hundred bucks? If it bothers you that much, you can pay me back now," he said with a grin, knowing he'd won the bargain. "You're going to play it at the Tuesday jam session?" He nodded at the guitar.

Eddie shook his head. "I don't have a band anymore."

"You don't need a band to play."

Eddie only shrugged. And yet, for some reason he didn't even know himself, he put the guitar in the storeroom of the bar instead of taking it home, so it would be ready for the jam session if he changed his mind.    

Rick was true to his words. The deliveries were simple, and even though he'd said Eddie could work off the debt, he insisted on paying Eddie the agreed-upon twenty percent plus an ounce or a half ounce here and there. Eddie took it gladly. Not for himself—he barely smoked these days—but for Wayne, whose legs were still troubling him.

Sunday was Eddie's day off. Bev, for all her rough tongue and tough exterior, was strangely old-fashioned when it came to religion, and she always closed The Hideout on Sunday. Summer was in the air, but early morning was still cool enough, so Eddie took the opportunity to sit with Wayne outside the trailer, smoking one of Rick's payments. Their talk turned to the marketing conference, which was set to start the next day, and Wayne lamented the fact that they had no way of making money off it.

"Carol's turning the mobile library into a tour bus," he grumbled. "Benny and Enzo are changing the prices on their menus, and even Earl's tinkering with his meter to see if he can charge more. Absolutely shameless." Wayne glanced at the trailer park that stretched out untidily around them, like a Lego set thrown down by a careless kid, and said, "Think we can put up a sign that says Authentic Traditional Appalachian Dwellings and charge them a couple bucks for a tour?"

He was half-joking, but it made guilt prick at Eddie's insides. He should have taken better care of Wayne. "Why didn't you tell me things were so bad?" he asked. "I would've tried to stick it out in Knoxville and sent you some money."

"Don't blame yourself, boy," Wayne said, pinching off his joint. "Blame that bastard Hagan for not paying me compensation for my legs. Forty years slaving my ass off at the lumberyard, and the moment I'm hurt, I get fuck all—"

His rant was interrupted by the roar of a car engine. A big car. A Jeep Wrangler, like something you'd see on a safari.

Eddie snorted at the sight of it. Every year, some city slickers would look at the Smokies and think the bigger the car, the safer the drive, so they tried to lug their huge SUV or even, God forbid, their RV up the mountains and inevitably got stuck at one of the many tiny roads and hairpin turns around Hawkins, and Earl would have to come to their rescue. Judging by the size of this Jeep, they were going to need Earl sooner rather than later.

As the Jeep pulled up to their trailer, Wayne said out of the corner of his mouth, "If they ask, my grandfather built this trailer with his own hands, OK?"

Eddie was shaking his head at his uncle's get-rich-quick scheme when the Jeep came to a stop mere inches from their porch. Its back window rolled down, showing two faces—a man about Eddie's age or a couple of years older, hair flopping over his forehead like he was a member of a '90s boyband, half of his face hidden by a pair of obnoxious sunglasses, and next to him, a younger guy in his early twenties, curly hair poking out from under an equally obnoxious baseball cap.

"Welcome to Hawkins," said Wayne with what he clearly thought was a friendly smile. "How can we help you?"

"We're looking for, uh, Creel House," Sunglasses said, checking his phone. "We're marketing people," he added. This earned him an eye roll from Baseball Cap.

"Our GPS has stopped working," said Baseball Cap. No wonder. There was hardly any signal up here.

Wayne nodded. "Right," he said. "You want to go down this road, take the second left after the sycamore tree, then a right at Hess Farm, then down the little path just off to the left—don't forget, that's important, if you take the path right in front of you, it'll take you all the way to Kerley—and then another right..."

Baseball Cap's eyes glazed over, and Eddie thought drool was about to dribble out of the corner of Sunglasses' mouth.

"Did you get any of that?" Sunglasses asked his companion, once Wayne was done. Baseball Cap shook his head helplessly.

"Fine," said Wayne, reaching for his crutches. "I'll take you there... for ten bucks."

"Wayne!" Eddie exclaimed, surprised at his uncle's bold-faced greed. As annoying as these city boys were, he didn't want them to think the people of Hawkins were a bunch of money-grubbing rednecks. Well, they were money-grubbing rednecks, but they were not just that. Turning to the city slickers, Eddie said, "I'll take you."

The two guys glanced at each other. Eddie could read the doubt and fear racing across their features as easily as a comic book. No doubt they were afraid he would lure them into some trap to rob them, and worse.

"Or you can try your luck with our mountain roads," he said cheerfully. "Safe travels!"

Sunglasses huffed and motioned for the driver to open the passenger's door.

"Steve!" Baseball Cap protested in a loud whisper.

"Be quiet, Dustin!" snapped Sunglasses—Steve. "We don't know where we're going, and I have to get there by this afternoon to prepare the house for the—the marketing conference."

Ignoring their bickering, Eddie climbed into the car and gave the driver pretty much the same direction Wayne had, only more slowly, like he was speaking French to someone who didn't know French. Meanwhile, the city slickers, Steve and Dustin, kept glancing back at Wayne, probably to make sure he didn't call someone to waylay them.

Fifteen minutes later, they arrived at Creel House.

As they got out of the car and had a full view of the house, Steve and Dustin's mouths fell open. Steve whipped his sunglasses off, his face scrunched up in disgust.

"Good Lord!" he breathed.

"I don't understand," said Dustin, scratching under his baseball cap. "I thought it was supposed to be a haunted Gothic mansion or something."

"Ha!" Eddie snickered as he joined them. "If anything's haunting Creel House, it's probably Tom Selleck's moustache." Steve cackled at this, but his laugh died in his throat when Dustin shot him a withering look.

Eddie hadn't exaggerated much. True, Creel House was the oldest building in Hawkins, but that didn't mean much when the entire town had been destroyed by floods and rebuilt so many times. Judged by its foundation, Creel House was actually quite new. It had been built only in the 1970s, when zinc was discovered on Creel Farm. Old Victor Creel thought he'd struck gold and built the house on a bluff overlooking Lake Jordan, a monstrosity of a McMansion, complete with a half-stone, half-timber façade, and more chimneys, turrets, and arched windows than you could shake a stick at. Alas, it was not to last. The mine had dried up in just twenty years, the Creels went broke and had to hightail it out of Hawkins due to their debt, leaving their house behind. Some hotshot from Knoxville had then bought it with the intention of turning it into a B&B, only to abandon it soon after when he realized there was absolutely no market for a B&B in Hawkins. A groundskeeper was hired to keep an eye on the land, but the only ones who came into the house these days were horny teenagers looking for a place to hook up, away from their parents' prying eyes. Eddie had been inside once, for the same purpose. It was all orange shag carpets and walls painted in that particular 1970s shade called avocado, but would be more accurately described as vomit green. No wonder the city slickers were disgusted.

"This can't be right," Dustin said, pulling out his phone. "Listen to this. This Old House: the fifth song on the album was inspired by Creel House, one of Hawkins' historical landmarks. A supposedly haunted Gothic mansion surrounded by untouched nature, it provides the perfect moody setting for a song about childhood and innocence lost..."

"We're dead," Steve said, pinching the bridge of his nose. "We're so dead. He's expecting to walk straight into her stupid album—"

Dustin cleared his throat loudly and jerked his head toward Eddie. Steve clamped his mouth shut. But Eddie wasn't interested in their conference or whatever it was that they were planning. The moment "album" was mentioned, he knew what they were talking about, and his interest vanished more quickly than the endangered hellbender salamander of the Smokies. With a sarcastic "Good luck!", which was ignored by the city slickers, he walked away. Behind him, Dustin was shouting at Steve to calm down and saying all they needed to fix this were an office, Internet connection, fifty thousand dollars in cash, the construction crew of Crimson Peak, a cappuccino—no, make that a double espresso. Eddie didn't hear the rest, but they were probably calling for a partridge in a pear tree while they were at it too.

Marketing people. What a bunch of weirdos.

Chrissy blinked into the sunlight shining straight into her eyes. It took her a while to realize where she was—well, she didn't know where she was exactly, only that she was in a car, next to Jason. She unpeeled her cheek from the window, peered out, and saw that they were driving through dense woods up some mountain road.

What was going on? That morning, Jason had told her to pack her bag for a surprise trip, sounding kind of sharp and distracted, and she had complied, knowing not to ask questions when he was in such a mood. Then she remembered getting on his private plane, gulping down a glass of orange juice, and getting hit with a sudden wave of sleepiness, and after that—nothing. Had she slept all the way to—wherever this was? God! Hopefully she hadn't drooled. She must have been more exhausted than she thought, having to deal with the fallout of their botched wedding this past month. At least Jason hadn't brought up the idea of eloping again, and with his movie getting ready to shoot in just a few weeks, she hoped that he'd put it out of his mind. In fact, this trip might be a good sign. Perhaps he wanted them to have some time together, away from all the craziness, before he had to focus on the new project.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

"To our wedding destination!" Jason told her with a triumphant smile.

His answer was like a bucket of ice-cold water on the embers of Chrissy's hope, dousing them so thoroughly that she half-expected steam to come out of her ears. "Our wedding?" she repeated blankly.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you earlier," Jason said. "But I want it to be a surprise." He peered anxiously at her face. "You're not happy?"

"No, I am, of course I am!" Chrissy tried to push aside the lead weight that had settled into her stomach. "Only I wish you'd told me, so I could pack accordingly," she added.

"Don't worry about it, Steve and Dustin took care of everything," Jason said breezily.

Steve and Dustin. Of course. She wouldn't be surprised if they were there on her wedding night, advising her and Jason on the best positions as well.

But she couldn't let Jason know how annoyed she was, not when he looked so excited. She decided she needed to show some enthusiasm too. "Well, I have no idea where we are," she said, looking out the window again, "but it's absolutely perfect." Indeed, there was nothing around them but pristine forest and mountains for miles and miles, and when she checked her phone, she could see the signal bars dropping by the minute. No way the paps could find them here, not even Byers.

"The petrichor smells like childhood longing, like a lost dream," hummed Jason. "Coursing through my veins like a mountain stream."

Chrissy made a face. "Oof, what's that?"

"It's you!" Jason replied. "Petrichor. Track nine of my favorite album, The Ghost of the Mountain. That's what gave me the idea to come here, actually."

The lead weight in Chrissy's stomach gained a couple of pounds. "Come where exactly?"

"Oh, you know where."

"Do I?"

As if to answer her, the car pulled up in front of a mansion. It was of Gothic Revival style, all pointed roofs and cupolas and stained-glass windows. A few windows on the attic were boarded up, giving the whole place a spooky feel straight out of an Edgar Allan Poe story. But there was no denying that it was beautiful too, from the two huge oak trees flanking it and the skeletal vines crawling up its walls, to the vast lake behind it, glimmering under the sun.

"It's just how you described it!" Jason sighed happily.

The lead weight in Chrissy's stomach became a full ship's anchor, as the truth finally dawned on her.

"We're in... Hawkins?" she whispered.

"You don't remember it from your extended retreat?" said Dustin's voice beside her. He and Steve were lounging on a canoe, drifting lazily over a stretch of the lake close to the house. Steve waved and grinned at them over his sunglasses, but the smile Dustin directed at Chrissy was tight and cold. He knows, she thought.

Before Chrissy could answer, Jason turned to her, taking both of her hands in his and squeezing them. "I don't know why we didn't think of this before," he said, his blue eyes dancing. "Look, darling, I'm sorry we can't have our friends and families with us. But this is so special, isn't it? Your music brought us together, so it's perfect to celebrate our wedding here, where it all started."

Like a trapped animal, Chrissy glanced at Dustin. The boy smiled back at her, only that smile never reached his eyes.

"Let's go in!" Jason tugged her toward the front door. "I have to see the front hall with the red rose in its window, the one that haunts your dreams."

God, had she really written so much haunting and dreaming in her lyrics? Chrissy turned to Dustin again. "Should we?" she asked out of the corner of her mouth.

"Yes, you really should," said Dustin. "It's quite something."

Quite something was quite the understatement. Inside, the labyrinthine mansion was positively dripping with Victoriana—massive chandeliers, Queen Anne-style furniture, and large gilded frames surrounding antique portraits of people who looked like they'd just smelled something rather funky. It wasn't all glitz and glamor though. The interior showed signs of wear and tear—a frayed patch on the rug here, a crack in the frame there. But like the boarded attic windows, these were so artfully placed that they only heightened the romantic eeriness of the house. The kitchen and the bathrooms, however, were all modernity and comfort.

Chrissy moved through the house in a daze. It was a weird feeling, seeing a place she'd imagined—or rather, a place her songwriter and producer had imagined—brought to life. She'd never thought—

"How do you like your room?" asked Dustin behind her, making her jump. She was trying to unpack. As usual, she and Jason were put in separate rooms—Jason didn't like sleeping in the same room with another person—and the moment Chrissy entered hers, she had been smacked in the face by her wedding gown hanging from the closet door like an ivory ghost. At the sight of it, the old dread had risen again, momentarily distracting her from the confusion about Creel House and Hawkins.

"It's—fine," she said carefully.

"Fine?!" Dustin hissed. "We had forty master craftsmen working through the night! One of them was eighty!"

Ah, that explained it. She thought some of the wear and tear was a little too artfully done.

"This is your first time in Hawkins, isn't it?" Dustin continued in a furious whisper. "The whole thing about staying here for a year while recovering from your injuries never happened, did it? Were you even actually injured?"

By now, Chrissy had recovered enough from her shock to regain her dignity. "How dare you!" she snapped. "That accident ended my cheerleading career! Do you need me to show you my scar?"

She started to reach for the button of her jeans, and Dustin's eyes went wide with alarm.

"Fine, fine," he said. "But it didn't change the fact that you made up the Hawkins thing for your album!"

Chrissy rolled her eyes. "When Sufjan Stevens announced his Fifty States Project, do you expect him to actually travel to all fifty states to write his songs?" she asked. 

Dustin's face went blank. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"My point is, an artist can take inspiration from anywhere," Chrissy snapped.

"Yeah, but when your whole gimmick is that your songs are written about your real experiences at a real place, and you've never been there, what does that make you?" Dustin fired back.

Chrissy couldn't think of an answer. "I need some air," she announced, pulling out of her bag the proof of The Ghost of the Mountain: The Companion Book, which she needed to correct and send to the publisher by the end of the week. The album was about to turn five, and to celebrate this anniversary, the plan was to release a book of lyrics and stories about the album's creation—most of it gleaned from her Instagram. Chrissy knew her fans would've much preferred new music, but... well, that was not coming any time soon.

Dustin held her back. "There are only seven people in the world who know we're here," he grumbled. "Anybody asks, you're at a marketing conference. Keep your head down, and wear a hat, Taylor Swift." These last two words were spat out with vehemence.

Chrissy glared at him. She snatched his baseball cap off his head, threw it on her own head, and strolled out of the house with the proof of her book under her arm, ignoring his spluttered protests.

"You told me to wear a hat!" she said over her shoulder.

It might have been petty of her, and it might have been a small victory, but it felt good.

As she walked into town, Chrissy tried to reconcile the picture she'd had of Hawkins in the past five years with the reality in front of her. Dustin had been right, of course. She had made it all up. It was true that she had been injured in a car accident, but that injury had been nothing worse than a broken leg. And it hadn't ended her cheerleading career. Her own mind had done that. For months after the accident, even after the doctors had given her the clear, she'd experienced shortness of breath and muscle cramps whenever she tried to get back into practice or make a recovery progress video for her Instagram. It wasn't until her physical therapist suggested that the symptoms might have been psychosomatic that it had clicked for Chrissy. She hated cheerleading. Or, rather, she hated what it had become for her. She had loved it as a kid, not just the gymnastics of cheerleading, but also the positivity and excitement of it, the infectiousness of it that made everybody around her positive and excited as well. But after her mom pushed her into competitive cheerleading, and after she'd won a cheerleading scholarship in college, it had become mere pressure—pressure to stay skinny, to stay perfect.

And so, after the accident, she had dropped out of the squad. Her mom was so angry that she'd convinced Chrissy's dad to stop paying the rest of Chrissy's tuition, and because Chrissy had lost her scholarship when she left the squad, she'd had no choice but to drop out of school altogether.

She hadn't even planned to turn to music at that point. But one day, locking herself in her childhood bedroom while her mom shouted at her from the other side of the door, Chrissy had opened her piano—yet another thing she used to love as a kid and came to hate because of how much pressure her mom had put on her to excel at it—and banged away at the keys. She had done it only to drown out her mom's nagging, but it sounded not half-bad, so she had recorded it and posted it to Instagram, almost as a joke. Her followers had loved it, and Laura, never missing an opportunity, had contacted a music producer, whose wife was in her tennis club. It was this producer who had recommended adding a story to the song. A song written by a girl who got depressed after an accident and dropped out of school? A dime a dozen. But if it had a good story that they could sell...

Hawkins had grown out of that. When Chrissy drew a blank on a story, the producer had suggested using a place as an inspiration for the song—after all, it was only inspiration. A little white lie. No one would care if she'd really been there or not. She'd Googled 'the most remote towns in the US' and stumbled upon Hawkins. Google only mentioned Creel House, the lake, and a Prohibition-era distillery, so the rest she'd made up. She didn't even know why she'd done it. Perhaps because it had been the first time in months, since she dropped out of college, that her mom had looked at her not with disappointment and anger, but with something as close to pride as her mom could get. Perhaps because in performing to her followers, she had rediscovered some of the excitement she'd once had as a cheerleader—a faint echo, perhaps, but it was better than nothing. So Chrissy had gone along with the story about Hawkins. She'd kept going along with it for the rest of the album, even recorded a cover of "Wayfaring Stranger" to add an Appalachian touch to it, until the little white lie had grown so large and so blinding that it wiped out everything else.

Looking at Hawkins now, Chrissy felt shame rising within her, sharp and burning like stinging nettle on bare skin. Whenever fans left comments on her Instagram complaining that the real Hawkins was nothing like her songs, she—or rather, her mom—had always been quick to smooth the ruffled feathers, explaining that the town must have changed or that Chrissy had had to take certain creative liberty.

She couldn't explain the lie away now, not when it was staring her in the face like this.

There wasn't much to the town. Following the main road, Chrissy passed by a few farmhouses. The houses weren't dilapidated, which would have at least looked interesting. No, they were small, utilitarian shoeboxes, nothing quaint or romantic about them at all. Some people were out in their yards or standing around their pickup trucks, and they all stopped and stared when she walked past, none responding to her little cheerful wave and nod. Chrissy tried to tell herself that it was normal for people in a small town to be curious about a stranger, and at least they weren't having their phones in her face, but she couldn't help feeling like every pair of eyes was silently accusing her. Liar! Fraud! Cheat! You used us! Shame-faced, she clutched her book closer to her chest and walked on.

After a while, the trees thinned and the houses got closer together, and she found herself in what could charitably be called downtown Hawkins—a courthouse, a gas station, an Italian restaurant that was little more than a diner with delusions of grandeur, a general store—Chrissy hadn't even realized those still existed!—and, in the distance, the steeple of a small church, where she and Jason were set to get married the next day. At the sight of that church, a funny feeling settled in her stomach, so she turned down a random lane to avoid it.

After walking around downtown Hawkins twice and failing to discover anything remotely noteworthy about it, Chrissy thought about finding a coffee shop, somewhere she could sit down and work on the book for a while. But there was no other eatery in town except for the Italian restaurant and a burger joint, manned by a huge guy with a bald head, which he appeared to make up for by growing a thick beard. He looked so intimidating that Chrissy beat a quick retreat before she even set foot inside.

Well, there was nothing to it but return to Creel House. At least it was air-conditioned.

Chrissy went back the way she'd come, or at least she thought she did, but the longer she walked, the less familiar the streets became. She couldn't be lost, could she? It was ridiculous. The place was tiny. Yet she couldn't seem to find the turn-off to the main road. In the distance, the church remained the same, taunting her. Had she been walking around in a circle?

She came upon a ramshackle building that looked like a bar. "The Hideout", the sign out front said. God, please don't let it be the front for the local gang... The bar wasn't open yet, but more pickup trucks were already parked outside, and a group of oldsters sat on two benches by the door, shooting the breeze. They fell silent as Chrissy approached.

"Hi," she said. "Can you tell me how to get to Creel House, please?"

One of the old guys spat a gob of tobacco juice on the ground, just missing her foot. Chrissy gingerly took a step back. Thinking they hadn't heard her, she said, louder, "Can you tell me—"

"You one of those marketing people?" Tobacco Juice said, interrupting her.

Chrissy immediately nodded. "Yep," she said, relieved. "That's us. We're here for the marketing. Thingy. Conference."

"OK, you want to go down this road, take a left at the old oak, then veer just a little to the right, where you'll find a footpath—don't forget, that's important, if you take the path right in front of you, it'll take you all the way to Roane—then then another left at Wright Farm—" The rest of the direction was totally lost to Chrissy. She was pretty sure her eyes were glazing over. "You got all that?" Tobacco Juice said.

She didn't want to linger a moment longer, for fear that the guy's aim of his tobacco juice may worsen—or improve—next time he spat. "Um, yeah," she said and started to walk away.

"One more thing, missy," another oldster said, stopping Chrissy in her tracks. Thankfully, he wasn't chewing tobacco, but he was smoking a corncob pipe—an honest-to-goodness corncob pipe, which Chrissy had heard of but never seen—and emitted thick, noxious clouds of smoke whenever he opened his mouth. "If you hear a strange cry in the woods, like a woman's scream, that'll be the Wampus Beast."

"The what?"

"The Wampus Beast," another guy replied. "They say its fur is so dark, you'll never see it coming, save for its eyes, which can drive a man insane..."

"Nah, it has no eyes," Corncob Pipe said. "And no fur either. Its skin is mottled, like a toad, that's how it blends into the forest..."

"No, no, you're both wrong." Tobacco Juice spat another gob on the ground. "Nobody knows what it looks like, only what it can do to its victims. Its claws can tear through a car's door. And they say its face can open up like a flower, but each petal has a row of teeth, which can rip your throat apart with just one bite..."

"That's right." Corncob Pipe nodded, picking up his friends' thread. "And the only way to escape the Wampus Beast is to distract it. You take off your clothes, piece by piece, and drop them in its track. The Beast's gonna stop and tear those clothes to shreds, so you'll have time to run away. And you'd better run, missy, as fast as you can. Because if the Wampus Beast gets ya... then you're dead!"

With these last words, he jumped up from the bench and lunged at Chrissy with his hands outstretched like claws. She stumbled back, and the oldsters roared with mirth. Furious, Chrissy spun on her heel and stormed off.

She was so irritated—mostly with herself, for letting those old guys make fun of her like she was some stupid tourist—that she didn't realize she'd missed a turn, until she noticed there was no oak tree or Wright Farm anywhere in sight. She was in a clearing, with a strange structure in its center—a pile of rock, shaped like a low pizza oven, with a funnel-like thing above it, made of copper gone green with age, and a series of complicated pipes connecting it to two barrels.  

Before Chrissy could work out what this structure served or where she was, a deep voice came up behind her, "Don't move! Hands in the air!"  

Chrissy's heart froze for a beat. She must keep calm. No matter what happened, she must keep calm and not make any sudden noise or movement...

She screamed.

Chapter Text

Even before the person screamed, Eddie knew he'd made a terrible mistake. It wasn't Reefer Rick he'd seen, but a woman.

That morning, Rick had sent Eddie to the Distillery to make a delivery. Eddie knew the Distillery well, being the one responsible for turning it into the drug spot of choice for Hawkins' teens. After talking to Rick, he had dutifully made his way there and waited amongst the trees... and waited, and waited, and waited, but Rick's customer never showed. He couldn't call Rick either, because there was no service in the woods. Then he'd heard a crack and quickly dodged behind a tree. Hopper was pretty lenient when it came to weed, but Eddie still didn't want to risk it.

Peeping out from his hiding place, Eddie had glimpsed, between the foliage, a blond ponytail poking out from under a baseball cap, and assumed Rick had come to check on him. And he'd had the brilliant idea of pretending to be a cop and pranking Rick. It would be hilarious. He'd put on his best imitation of Hopper's voice and jumped out from behind the tree. It seemed the prank had worked a little too well, because the other person had screamed and whirled around so quickly that the cap fell off her head.

A woman.

A young woman, and an attractive one at that, Eddie realized, once he'd gotten a good look at her. Eyes as blue as the Smokies themselves stared up at him from under a strawberry blonde fringe, a cute nose, rosy lips half-opened in shock, showing an adorably little crooked front tooth. Just a tiny imperfection that made her all the more charming. She was dressed in too-clean jeans and sneakers, so not a hiker. Probably one of those marketing people again. Hopefully, she wasn't a weirdo like those guys he'd taken to Creel House.

Seeing the look of terror on her face, Eddie threw up his hands in a reassuring gesture. "Sorry," he said with a grin. "Didn't mean to scare you. I thought you were someone else."

The girl continued to stare at him, silently taking in his appearance, before darting her eyes left and right, as if searching for an exit. Eddie ran a self-conscious hand through his curls, aware of the impression his long hair, his ever-present leather jacket despite the June sunshine, and the steel rings on his fingers were giving off. A drug dealer, through and through. True, he was wearing a Lord of the Rings T-shirt under his leather jacket, but who says a drug dealer can't also be a nerd, right?

"You OK?" he asked, still trying to reassure her.

She took a deep breath, trying to gather herself.

"No," she said. "I mean, yes. I'm fine. Sorry I've interrupted—whatever it is that you're doing." She ran her eyes over him once more. Yep, she'd definitely guessed that he was a drug dealer.

"I'm not doing anything," Eddie said quickly. "I was just, um, doing research. Into the history of Hawkins. Did you know that this distillery was used by bootleggers during Prohibition?"

The girl visibly relaxed. "Is that what this is?" she asked, indicating the boiler and barrel behind them. "I've been wondering. I didn't know it looked like this. I was picturing more of an actual building."

"Nope. This way they could just cover it with branches and dead leaves, should cops come sniffing around," Eddie said, happy to impart his knowledge for once. He extended his hand. "Eddie."

The girl took his hand readily enough. Her own hand was small and soft, though her grip was strong. "I'm C—" she began, then suddenly choked, like she'd accidentally swallowed a gnat. "C-Catherine." She cast her eyes wildly about again, before settling on Eddie's torso. "Catherine Aragon," she finished. At least it sounded like "Aragon" to him. It could have been "Argon". Or perhaps even "Aragorn". Either way, she was looking uncomfortable again, so Eddie felt he had to make a joke to put her at ease.

"Like Catherine of Aragon?" he said. "You're not married to a guy named Henry, are you?" She shook her head. Clearly, she had no idea what he was talking about, but Eddie was committed to the bit now. "Did you know that before marrying Henry VIII, she was married to his brother Edward?" he went on. "So maybe we were destined to meet after all."

Even before the sentence left his mouth, he'd cringed at the awkwardness of it. He hurried to add, "I've always wondered how different history would have been if his brother didn't die and Henry never became king."

The girl was still staring blankly at him, and Eddie realized his mistake. "Wait, I got that wrong," he said. "His son was Edward. His brother was Arthur. They both died young, that's why I got them mixed up..."

Now she was no longer looking at him like he was a criminal. Now she was looking at him like he'd just sprouted another head. His voice trailed off until an awkward silence descended over the clearing. Great. Just great. The first attractive girl he'd met in months, who was from out of town and therefore didn't know of his reputation, and he was blowing it on some diatribe about Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon. God, he was rusty. He'd never been much of a ladies' man, but at least he'd been able to talk to a girl without sounding like an idiot. Had the breakup with Paige completely robbed him of his confidence, or was it simply because this girl was particularly attractive?

Somewhere in the distance, a mourning dove let out a desolate cry. Shut up, dove! Can't you see I'm dying of embarrassment over here?!

"Can I help you with anything?" Eddie asked, trying to claw his way back to normalcy.

"Actually, yes. I'm trying to get to Creel House, but I'm quite lost." The girl gestured around helplessly, and he noticed the book she was holding—noticed it, and recognized its cover. The Ghost of the Mountain again. Good Lord, there was a book, too? Hawkins would go crazy.

"No wonder, if you're relying on that for directions," he said, pointing at the book.

Catherine of Aragon turned bright red as she tried to hide the book behind her. "Oh no," she mumbled. "I wasn't—I'm not—it's just a job..."

OK, so she might not be one of those Joni Mitchell wannabes after all. Good.

"Come on, I'll show you the way." He led her out of the clearing. The delivery be damned. Let Rick take care of it.

They walked together in silence, and Eddie was racking his brains for something to say, when Catherine spoke up. "You've listened to it?" she asked, gesturing to her book. "The album, I mean."

"Of course I have. It's the only claim to fame Hawkins has. Everybody who has ears has listened to it. The Hawkins Bluegrass Band even covers some of the songs in their weekly show at The Hideout. Well, I said 'covers'. Improves, more like. At least those guys can sing."

The girl paused in her tracks. "Are you saying she can't sing?"

Eddie shrugged. "Well, she's been auto-tuned to shit, hasn't she?" he said. "There's no soul left in her voice. Not that there's much soul in her music to begin with."

"No soul?!" the girl repeated. If Eddie had been paying attention, he would've noticed that she sounded rather offended, but he was revved up now, as he often was whenever he got started on a subject he was passionate about, and no longer cared about anything else.

"But it's only her debut," he said generously. "Maybe her sophomore album will be better. Is it out yet, do you know?"

Catherine looked away. "Not yet, no," she said.

"It's been years, hasn't it? I guess she's looking for another obscure town to serve as her 'inspiration'." He chuckled as he made the air quotes around the word "inspiration". Catherine didn't seem to find his witticism funny, so he cleared his throat and said, "To be fair, she had to make it up. There's nothing in Hawkins to write one song about, let alone a whole album—"

"OK, I know where I am now," Catherine said. Eddie stopped, realizing they had arrived at Hess Farm. Damn. He'd been hoping he could walk her all the way to Creel House.

"Look, you're here to work, obviously," he said, not willing to give up yet. "But if you need someone to show you around, I live at the trailer park down there—" Eddie almost bit his tongue off. What fucking possessed him to tell this girl that?! She would think he was a total loser, and rightly so. Any attraction she might have felt for him would have been vaporized by now. "Or, if you want to get a drink, I work at The Hideout," he added quickly. "You know, that bar in town, just off Main Street. Just... I'm around, and I can show you a good time." He heard the innuendo in those last words, and his insides curled up into a ball of red-hot shame.

Catherine went pink again. "Oh, thanks," she said in a small voice. There was a question mark at the end of that sentence, which made it so much worse. "But we have so much, um, marketing to do..." She waved her hands uncertainly. Eddie caught the flash of an engagement ring on her finger, and the ball of shame inside him burst into an eruption that could rival Mount St. Helens. All this time, he'd been hitting on her, and she probably found him too weird or too pathetic to tell him that she was engaged!

"OK," he said, desperately trying to save face. "This wasn't—I wasn't—yeah. Sorry. Bye. Good luck with the conference!" And he made a dash for the woods, not looking back to see the girl's bemused eyes following him.

God, he was such a loser.

"I just made the most unbelievable fool of myself," Eddie announced when he finally arrived home an hour later, having first tracked down Rick's customer—who'd been passed out drunk in his shack—to make the delivery. He might have been a disaster when it came to picking up girls, but when it came to weed, he was a professional.

Wayne, however, didn't pay attention to Eddie's lament. Instead of sitting on his sofa in front of the TV as usual, the old man was by the window, looking thoughtfully at the road outside.

"Got another one asking for directions today," Wayne said.

"Well, the conference's tomorrow. Makes sense that they're arriving now." Eddie opened the fridge and took out some carrots, which he started chopping up. He wasn't much of a cook, but while he was home, at least he could make sure Wayne ate a fresh vegetable now and then, instead of nothing but canned food and TV dinners all the time.

"This one wasn't looking for Creel House." Wayne scratched his beard. "He was looking for the church. And he's dressed as a monk."

Eddie raised an eyebrow. "A monk?"

"Yeah, brown robe and everything."

"But ours is a Baptist church. We don't deal with monks."

"Exactly!" Wayne finally turned around, looking more animated than Eddie had seen him in months. "And he has a camera with him. A big one! He said it's for his hobby, wildlife photography or some crap. I think he's a journalist."

Eddie sighed. He knew where this was going. Ever since his injury and subsequent dispute with the lumberyard, Wayne had been trying to get the local press interested in his story, hoping he could find justice that way. Unfortunately, Hawkins was too small to have a newspaper of its own, and none of the other papers in the area cared. And now he thought he'd spotted a journalist.

"I think something big's going on," Wayne continued.

"Are you off your meds?" Eddie asked.

Usually, a quip like that would earn him a flick on the head and a stern warning to watch his mouth. Eddie might be nearly thirty, but Wayne never ceased treating him like he was still a kid. Only the old man must be really distracted this time, because he only grabbed a hat from the nearby peg and tossed it at Eddie. Eddie easily dodged it with an impish grin that he knew could always placate his uncle. Then he went back to making dinner, his flirting failure temporarily forgotten.

Chrissy had also forgotten her encounter with the long-haired guy—what was his name, Eddie?—at the distillery. She'd been terrified, yes, first thinking he was a robber, and then feeling sure he was some sort of drug dealer—who would dress like that, with that leather jacket and all those biker's rings, and wander around the woods, and was not a drug dealer? But he'd turned out to be harmless after all. A little weird, yes, but harmless. Besides, she hadn't expected someone who looked like that in a town like this to spout facts about bootleggers and Henry VIII, so it had been almost entertaining. True, "Catherine Aragon" had been a very clumsy moniker, but she couldn't think of anything else in the moment, and when she saw Aragorn's face on the guy's T-shirt... At least he hadn't recognized her, which was good. Either way, the whole thing was out of her mind by the time she returned to Creel House. She had other things to worry about.

After a tense dinner, Jason mumbled something about it being bad luck to see the bride the night before the wedding and retreated to his room. Chrissy picked at her dessert for a while until she couldn't take it anymore, and she had no choice but to go back to her room as well, where the wedding gown still hung on the closet door.

At least it was in the style she wanted, in simple white silk, with a fitted bodice and a flowing skirt, a deep V-neck, long sleeves, and a row of pearl buttons in the back as its sole adornment, unlike the confection of lace and tulle her mom had picked last time. It even had pockets! Chrissy had convinced Jason that wearing the same dress again would be a bad omen, considering how their previous attempt at a wedding had turned out, so he'd let her buy a new one. At least she could feel like herself in it. That would be something. That would help to calm her nerves, right? Right?

Nope. The dress kept staring her in the face, reminding her of what was to come. If there was really a ghost at Creel House, this must be it, because it was haunting her

Chrissy jumped up from her bed, grabbed her book, and went downstairs into the music room—because of course Creel House had a music room, and of course the music room had a grand piano in it—hoping to lose herself in work for a while. But as she opened the book, Eddie's words echoed in her mind again. At least they can sing... Auto-tuned to shit... No soul... She couldn't deny it; it hurt, and hurt all the more because it was exactly what she'd been thinking about herself. A fraud.

She tossed the book away with a huff. Really, who did the guy think he was? He probably just looked down on her music because she was a girl. She shouldn't let him get under her skin.

As if to prove him wrong, she opened the piano and tried a new melody. Maybe this trip to Hawkins was what she needed, maybe it would finally inspire her to write that new album. But the music rang hollow and discordant in her ears, and after a few notes, she slammed the piano shut again and pressed her forehead against its smooth lid, frustrated.

Then she sat up again and gave herself a mental shake. What was she doing, sitting here getting worked up over nothing, when her fiancé was right upstairs? Why didn't she go to him, talk to him, find comfort with him? Screw traditions. Screw bad luck. A kiss from Jason would convince her that this wedding was the right thing to do, and she would get that kiss... and more.

Twenty minutes later, Chrissy was back in her room, scattering rose petals—which she'd gathered from the ancient rose bushes outside, praying all the while that there was no poison ivy or bugs in them—over her bed. The candles she'd gathered from the dining room looked like they belonged in the Addams Family's mansion—the art department had taken the "haunted house" prompt a little too seriously—but they would have to do. After lighting them, she changed into the sexy lingerie set she'd had the foresight to pack, knocked on Jason's door, tiptoed back into her room, where she arranged herself on the bed amongst the rose petals, and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Jason didn't arrive. He didn't even open his door.

Perhaps she'd knocked so lightly and quickly that he hadn't heard? She went back out into the corridor and knocked again, louder this time.

"Yes?" came Jason's muffled reply from behind the door.

"It's me."

"What is it? What's wrong?" Was it her imagination, or did he sound annoyed?

"Nothing's wrong." Chrissy dropped her voice to what she hoped was a breathy, sultry whisper. "I'm just hoping that we can spend the night together, that's all."

"No!" Jason shouted. "Are you crazy? I've told you, it's bad luck for us to see each other before the wedding."

"But I'm wearing your birthday present."

There was a pause, like Jason was considering it. Then he said, "I'm not taking any chances this time. Go back to your room!"

"But—"

"Good night!"

Chrissy lingered in the hallway, waiting to see if he'd change his mind, but the door remained inexorably shut. With a sigh, she turned around—

—and almost ran straight into Dustin on his way back from raiding the kitchen, the evidence of which was piled high on a plate in his hands.

They both shrieked.

Crossing her arms over her chest, Chrissy dove into her room with a move that would've made her cheer coach proud, and kicked the door closed with her foot.

"I didn't see anything, I swear!" yelled Dustin. Jesus, was he trying to let the whole house know?!

Chrissy lay on the floor while her heart continued to thunder and her whole body flushed with shame. She wished she could just lie there until she burst into flame and burned Creel House down with her, but that was unlikely—humiliation was rarely the cause of spontaneous human combustion. With a sigh, she changed into the ratty but comfortable old T-shirt and pajama bottoms she usually wore to bed when she didn't have to impress Jason, shook the petals off the covers, blew out the candles, and crawled into bed, trying to forget, in sleep, her disappointment and general sense of dread of what the next day might bring.

Chapter Text

Chrissy woke at dawn to the sound of birds chirping. Such a peaceful sound, yet it made her think she was back at her parents' house in Long Island, and that stressed her out so much it shook the last remnants of sleep from her brain and her body. Then she remembered where she was, and the stress only got worse. With a groan, she pulled the covers over her head, as if by doing so, she could stop the day from coming. But it was no use. From outside her window, she could already hear Jason shout at Dustin to keep up as the boy accompanied him on his usual morning run. Disciplined as always, even on the day of his wedding.

Soon, Chrissy found herself hauled out of bed and seated in front of the vanity while Andie and Pat poked and pulled and prodded at her, even though she tried to tell them that it was going to be a very casual affair and there would be no photo except for an official one outside the church. It wasn't as if there would be any guests to see her anyway. There wouldn't even be a priest—the local reverend had graciously agreed to let them use his church for the ceremony, because Jason wanted to do everything properly this time, but Steve had obtained a certificate so he could act as the officiant, to keep the wedding as small as possible.

Andie was teasing her hair into a bouffant when Chrissy heard the back door slam shut. Jason and Dustin had returned then. Two more hours, and she would become Mrs. Jason Carver, hopefully... Seeing that her hands, resting on the edge of the vanity, were trembling, she balled them into fists.

A shout went up from downstairs. Steve, no doubt ordering Dustin to do this or that. Poor guys. They must be exhausted, having put all this together. For a moment, guilt crept into Chrissy's heart. If she was this nervous, then imagine how stressed Steve and Dustin must be, planning the wedding and fending off the press at the same time. She must remind Jason to give the entire team a nice, long vacation while the two of them were on their honeymoon. Then she heard hurried footsteps fly up the stairs, two at a time, and Dustin poked his head through the door. He was still in his running clothes.

"Team meeting, kitchen," he panted. "Now."

"What, all of us?" Andie asked, comb poised over Chrissy's head.

"Shouldn't I start on Jason?" said Pat.

"Meeting! Now!" Dustin hissed. Baffled, the two beauticians quickly dropped their tools and followed him out, leaving Chrissy on her own.

She sat on her hands, imagining Jason across the hall. Now he would be taking a shower... now he would be changing into his suit... Should she talk to him, even through the door, to get rid of her jitters? But then she remembered how he'd sent her back to the room the night before, like she was a naughty kid, and indignation rose within her again. No, she would not come crawling to him. He wanted a perfect wedding? Then she would be the perfect bride.

But where were Andie and Pat? What was taking them so long? Wrapping her robe more securely around herself, Chrissy made her way downstairs and into the kitchen. The four of them—Steve, Dustin, Andie, and Pat—turned toward her from around the kitchen island where they were standing. Behind them, the chef, hired specifically by Jason's nutritionist, was putting the finishing touch to the wedding feast.

"Is everything all right?" she asked.

They stared back at her, looking like she'd just caught them at something illicit. Then Steve raised his fist in what he clearly thought was an excited, triumphant gesture. "Yay!" he said, though it sounded more like ... yay?

Chrissy narrowed her eyes at them. They were up to something, but she knew, from experience, that they were not going to tell her. So she responded with a half-hearted "Yay!" of her own and turned to the beauticians. "Are you almost done here?" she asked. "We still have to do my makeup..."

"Can you do it yourself?" Dustin said. "I—uh, I mean Jason has something he needs Andie and Pat to do."

"Really?" Chrissy said at the same time that Pat said, "He does?"

"Yes!" Turning back to Chrissy, Dustin gave her his most cherubic smile. "I'm sure you'll do just fine."

Actually, it was perfect. Chrissy was grateful to Andie and Pat for their help, but they always put such heavy makeup on her that she could hardly feel her face. "OK," she said brightly.

"Good luck!" Dustin called after her, as she closed the door.

Back in her room, feeling calmer now that she had something to do, Chrissy brushed back her hair and twisted it into a simple chignon, before putting on some lipstick and mascara. No need for anything else. Now she looked like herself, instead of the Bride of Frankenstein she had been before. The veil she left for last, before they headed to church.

Outside, she heard one of the cars crunch on the gravel driveway. That would be Jason, leaving with Steve.

There was a knock on her door. That must be Dustin, who was to accompany her. "I'm ready!" replied Chrissy. She was glad to notice that her voice was steady and her hand no longer shook as she pinned her veil on.

But it was Steve who came in, not Dustin.

"I thought you were going with Jason?" she asked, confused.

"Uh, Dustin went with him to secure the church," Steve explained.

That word sent the old fear through Chrissy like a shard of ice. "Secure it?" she repeated. "But nobody knows we're here!"

"You can never be too careful," said Steve. "Oh, and, uh, he asked me to ask you to look over my speech." He handed her some printed pages.

Not wanting to give themselves another source of stress on top of everything, she and Jason had elected not to write their own vows, instead choosing to go with the traditional "to have and to hold" ones. Still, it pleased Chrissy that Jason trusted her with this part of the ceremony.

"Marriage," she read. "Marriage is what brings us together today. Marriage, that blessed arrangement, that dream within a dream. And love, true love, will follow you forever, so treasure your love." She looked at Steve. "You're using the speech from The Princess Bride?"

"I couldn't think of anything," Steve said with a sheepish shrug. "It's not bad though, is it?"

With a chuckle, Chrissy returned the pages to him. "As long as you don't do the lisp and Dustin doesn't say 'Skip to the end', it's fine. Are we ready to go?"

Steve hesitated. "I'm waiting for Dustin to give the go-ahead," he said, holding up a walkie-talkie. Phone reception was so bad around here that they had taken to using such ancient methods to communicate. Dustin would probably have to resort to sending smoke signals next.

Steve turned to her. "How are you feeling? Good? Excited? Nervous?"

"A bit nervous," she admitted. "But once the ceremony is done, I'll be OK. Good thing there are no paps around this time, right?"

Steve nodded, though it took him a moment. "R-right."

"I mean, Byers has to be a freaking wizard to track us here, right?" she joked.

Steve went pale. "What made you say that?" he asked.

"Say what?"

"About Byers being a wizard, why did you say that?"

"It was a joke," she said, confused at Steve's panicked look.

Steve relaxed slightly. "A joke. Right. Right."

Chrissy shook her head. The stress must be getting to him. "Shall we go?" she asked again.

Steve took a look at her veil and made a face. "Is that all you're wearing?"

"Why? What's wrong with it?" Chrissy reached up to touch the delicate length of tulle, confused.

"It's too—thin."

"Too thin?" she echoed, bewildered.

"You know how Jason insists on not seeing you before the wedding?" Steve said. "I think you should wear a thicker veil."

Chrissy frowned. "That's only before the ceremony, surely?"

"No, no." Steve opened the closet and searched through the clothes hanging there. "He said you'd better keep the veil on until after the ceremony. And that way," he added, as if a brilliant thought had just occurred to him, "if there was any pap hiding around, the photos would be useless because they can't see your face!"

"I thought you said there were no paps," Chrissy pointed out.

"There aren't. This is just a precaution."

Chrissy scowled at Steve, confusion and suspicion rising like a storm at the back of her mind. They were definitely planning something.

"What are you guys up to?" she asked, fixing Steve with her sternest look.

Steve squirmed. "Nothing! We just want everything to be perfect, you know?"

Perfect. Right. Hadn't she vowed to be the perfect bride just moments ago? She wanted this to go smoothly as much as they did. More so, in fact, since it was her wedding.

"But I don't have a thicker veil," she said.

Steve looked around the room. His eyes settled on the tulle curtains hanging in impeccable Gothic folds from the four-poster bed. Before Chrissy could stop him, he ripped them down from the rods and started piling them on her head.

"Steve!" she protested, but he ignored her.

Once all of the curtains had been draped over her, Steve asked, "How many fingers am I holding up?"

"I can't see a thing," Chrissy deadpanned.

"Good. Let's go."

After Steve had guided her downstairs and into the car—because she truly couldn't see a thing except for some blurry shapes in front of her, it was like walking in her own personal bubble of fog—Chrissy felt oddly calm. This was how horses must feel when they had their blinkers on. The veil had shut out the rest of the world. All her fears, the weirdness from Steve and Dustin, none of it mattered anymore. She was sure she looked like Miss Havisham, but that didn't matter either. All that mattered was the ceremony ahead. She only had to get through it. As for what it meant to be married to Jason, what their future would be like... well, she'd think about that later.

If Chrissy had been able to look outside, she would've noticed that the car was taking a rather roundabout way toward the church. But she wasn't. And even if she had noticed, she wouldn't have said anything anyway. After getting lost, she no longer trusted her own sense of direction.

"Steve?" Dustin's voice crackled on the walkie-talkie. "We're all set here. Over."

Finally, they arrived at the little white church that Chrissy had tried to avoid the day before. Steve lifted the veil for a moment so she could get out of the car, before letting it fall again. She took a deep breath, tightened her grip on her bouquet of wildflowers, and stepped into the church, where Jason was—

"—missing?" said Eddie, looking from the boy in the baseball cap to the two bemused women laden down with brushes, make-up bags, and other mysterious equipment, all standing on his front porch. "What's that have to do with me? You want the police and the Park Ranger."

Baseball Cap—what was his name, Justin? No, Dustin—rolled his eyes. "We don't want to look for him," he said. "I mean, yes, we are going to look for him, eventually, but for now, we need you to pretend to be him."

Now it was Eddie's turn to look bemused. "Why?"

"Because, like I told you," Dustin said, enunciating like he was talking to a toddler or someone really, really slow, "there's a particularly tenacious paparazzo after Jason. We need to convince the pap that the wedding is taking place, so he'll get his pictures and leave. Then we'll find Jason and do the whole thing again, for real this time. And since none of us can stand in for Jason, that's where you come in."

Eddie was still unconvinced. "Why me?"

"Because you're the only guy in this Godforsaken town who doesn't look like he's about to keel over from alcoholism or have his teeth destroyed by tobacco juice. Or both."

Fair enough. "But I look nothing like Jason Carver," Eddie said.

Dustin nodded at the two women. "Neither does he, until these ladies get their hands on him."

The women gave Eddie tight, condescending smiles. He glanced at their tools. They looked more like torture contraptions than beauty devices.

"You guys are using the church, right?" he asked. "Reverend Owens knows me."

"Steve's officiating" was Dustin's short answer.

"What about the bride?" Eddie asked. "Does she know?"

Dustin started to look impatient. "No, it'd only freak her out. She has to think it's for real."

"But how would that work? The moment she walks into church and sees me, the jig is up."

"We're making sure she doesn't find out."

"How?"

"Just—do your job, and leave that to us!" Dustin snapped.

"You forgot, I haven't accepted yet," Eddie said. He was getting tired of the whole thing. Some likely story it was, Jason Carver coming to Hawkins to get married and ending up disappearing because he'd spotted a paparazzo... No, this was probably a sick PR stunt or something. The townspeople were going to be so disappointed when they learned there was no marketing conference. Eddie felt a surge of annoyance at the entitlement of these celebrities. Hawkins may be a shitty town, but it was his shitty town, not theirs to use for whatever they wanted.  

"Two hundred bucks," said Dustin.

"No, not interested." Eddie shook his head. "I'm sick of weddings anyway." He made to close the door.

Dustin stuck his foot in the gap. "Five hundred. And it's not a real wedding."

"Are they ever?" Eddie pushed harder on the door, but the next thing Dustin said made him stop.

"Five thousand dollars."

Eddie and the two beauticians stared at Dustin, and even Dustin himself seemed shocked at the offer. Either the boy must be desperate, or there was a catch here.

For once, Eddie was glad Wayne wasn't home. That morning, he had asked Eddie to drop him off in town so he could hang out with his drinking buddies. If he'd been here, he would've pushed Eddie to take the five thousand for sure.

"Dude, I'm not a prostitute, OK?" Eddie said. "My uncle will be back in a while and I said I'd make him lunch, so—"

"One hour's improvisation," said Dustin. "No scenes of a sexual nature. Five thousand dollars. You'll have to sign an NDA, of course, but with that money, you can do something really nice for your poor, disabled uncle." He smiled at Eddie, all innocence and goodwill.

Eddie glared at Dustin, but he couldn't deny that the kid was a shrewd negotiator. Five thousand would set Wayne up for several months, and—here Eddie felt a stab of guilt at his own selfishness—there may even be some leftover for him to get his Warlock back from that pawn shop in Knoxville.

"NDA?" he repeated.

"Non-disclosure agreement. Standard procedure." Dustin's smile got wider when he realized he'd won.

Eddie pushed the door open and stepped aside to let them through, wondering if he'd made a mistake.

Over the next half an hour or so, as the two women worked on him, he started to believe that he had definitely made a mistake. They put on his face things that he didn't know could be put on human skin, pulled and poked at things he didn't know needed pulling and poking, and stuffed him into a suit and tie so tight that he felt like he was choking. When it came to his hair though, he put his foot down.

"You are not bleaching my hair, and you're not cutting it either!" he said, holding on to his curls with both hands. "Do you know how long it takes me to grow it out to this length?"

"Don't be a diva," said Dustin.

But Eddie was adamant, and in the end, the beauticians had to make do with a blonde wig.

Once they were finished, Eddie looked at himself in the bathroom mirror in horror. The wig made him look like he was wearing a hairy helmet, and the suit was too small for him, so his wrists and ankles showed awkwardly from under the cuffs and hems. It was senior prom all over again—no, it was worse, because by senior year, he'd found his look with the long hair and the leather jacket, and it was cool, or at least he'd thought so. No, this was middle school graduation, when he'd been a gawky kid with a buzzed head, too tall for the cheap suit Wayne had bought him, feeling like he'd had too many limbs and not knowing what to do with them.

But hey, at least the tightness of the suit meant he was taller than the great Jason Carver. Taking a bit of comfort in that and a lot of comfort in the promise of five thousand dollars, Eddie went out to meet Dustin with all the swagger he could muster up. Jason's shoes didn't fit him either, so they had to let him wear his old boots and hope that the pap wouldn't look that closely. Dustin took one look at him, grimaced, and whipped out a giant pair of aviator sunglasses, which he stuck on Eddie's face.

On the way to church, Dustin tried to give Eddie a crash course on how to be Jason Carver, something about defining confidence and oozing sex appeal—though in Eddie's mind, sex appeal and oozing were two concepts that definitely shouldn't be together—but Eddie hardly heard any of it. Five thousand dollars, he kept telling himself. Five thousand dollars. He'd never had so much money, and for it, he would wear all the tight suits and ridiculous wigs in the world.

Once they arrived, Dustin quickly bundled Eddie inside, holding a large umbrella over his face. The wig got stuck on one of the umbrella's ribs and was pulled off Eddie's head. The two beauticians had been sent off to look for Jason, so Dustin tried to put the wig back on Eddie's head himself, before throwing his hands up in frustration and declaring that it didn't matter, since they were inside anyway, much to Eddie's relief.

Dustin instructed Eddie to wait by the altar, while he went around searching for hidden cameras. Eddie watched, shaking his head. Being a celebrity sure seemed exhausting.

A few minutes later, another car arrived, bringing Sunglasses—Steve—and the bride. Eddie discovered that Dustin's plan to keep the bride in the dark involved putting about four pounds of tulle on her head. She looked like a baked Alaska before it was torched. The poor thing stumbled a few times on the short walk up the aisle, and Eddie, Dustin, and Steve all had to rush to her help. Eddie would've felt sorry for her, if the whole fiasco hadn't been so ridiculous.

And then the two of them were standing at the altar in front of Steve, and the wedding began.

Steve rushed through his speech, which Eddie recognized, to his amusement, as the one from The Princess Bride. At least Steve was wise enough not to imitate the Impressive Clergyman's famous lisp.

Steve cleared his throat, and Eddie realized it was his cue to say "I do". Suddenly, he started sweating. Shit, what if his accent came through? What if it cost him the five thousand? But it was just two words. His accent wouldn't be that noticeable with just two simple words, right?

"I do," he mumbled.

The bride tilted her head toward him briefly, as if she'd heard something strange. Eddie held his breath. Thankfully, Steve was asking her the question, so she turned her attention back to Steve and said, "I do", her voice muffled by the veil.

"Do you have the ring?" Steve asked.

Dustin, who was standing to the side, widened his eyes. Seconds ticked by as the three guys looked at each other in bewilderment, not knowing what to do.

"Excuse me, I'm just going to check something," said Dustin, and he ran down the aisle.

"Honey?" the bride said from under her veil. "Didn't Dustin give you the ring?"

"Uh, yes," said Eddie. Dustin had most definitely not given him the ring, but what else could he say? Suddenly he remembered his mother's ring. He never went anywhere without it. The beauticians had made him take off all of his rings, but his mother's had escaped their notice. "Yes, I have it."

He pulled the ring off his own finger and searched for the bride's hand amongst the tulle. In his big, clumsy palm, her small hand was cold and trembling a little. Now he truly felt sorry for her. It must not be easy, being married to Jason Carver. He squeezed her hand for a brief moment, trying to calm her down, before slipping the ring on her finger. To his surprise, it fitted perfectly.

Before he could let out a breath of relief, the bride had put her hand under the veil to look at the ring more closely. "What's this?" she asked. "This isn't our ring—"

"Let's sign the certificate and officially seal the deal, shall we?" said Steve, ignoring the bride's protest and frantically pulling them to a table next to the altar, where a blank marriage certificate lay waiting. He pressed two pens into their hands. They scrawled their names on the certificate, and Steve concluded with a serene smile, as if everything had gone perfectly, "I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride."

Eddie turned to the bride, panicking. This wasn't part of the deal. What should he do?

He was saved by a loud bang, making them all jump and whirl around. Dustin was standing at the far end of a pew, a shoe in hand, and what looked like a miniature microphone smashed at his feet. "Sorry," he mouthed.

If any of them had been paying attention, they might have heard from outside a rustling of leaves, followed by a dull thud and the cracking of glass, like the sound of a person holding a very big, very expensive camera falling off a tree, because he'd just had his earpiece blown up.

But none of them noticed anything, because their attention was all on the bride, who was lifting her veil and saying to Steve, indignantly, "What the hell is going on?"

Then she saw Eddie out of the corner of her eye and spun to face him. Both their mouths fell open.

"Catherine of Aragon?!" said Eddie.

"Bootlegger guy?!" said the bride.

Chapter Text

It was not a pleasant car ride back to Creel House. Steve had wisely chosen to sit shotgun, leaving Eddie stuck in the back between Dustin and the bride—Chrissy, he remembered now, Chrissy Cunningham, the one behind The Ghost of the Mountain, oh God, no wonder she'd looked so disgusted with him when they met at the Distillery, he'd been trashing her album to her face. Jesus, was there no end to his humiliation? But she didn't seem to remember that, or at least it was not her concern at the moment. Either way, she was ignoring Eddie entirely, while focusing all her attention and anger on the hapless Dustin, who was telling her the story he'd told Eddie earlier, about how that morning, he and Jason had gone on a morning run, how Jason had gotten ahead of him on the trail, apparently caught a glimpse of the notorious paparazzo named Byers, lurking around the church, and disappeared.

"He was dressed as a wizard," said Dustin. "Some kind of brown wizard, and he was in a tree right by the church. I saw Jason's binoculars on the ground, but no Jason." And so Dustin and Steve had come up with the idea of a decoy to throw Byers off the scent. "We had to buy time to look for Jason," Dustin concluded.

"Who's we?" asked Chrissy. "Who's looking for him?"

"The—gang," mumbled Dustin.

Chrissy looked at Steve, who shrugged, then at Eddie, as if she held him personally responsible for this mess, and finally back at Dustin, understanding dawning on her face. "The gang of beauticians?" she exclaimed. "Are you insane? He could've fallen off a cliff!"

Eddie fought the urge to roll his eyes. It was exactly the kind of hysterics he expected from the singer—and he was using the word loosely—of The Ghost of the Mountain.

They arrived at Creel House. Steve and Dustin ushered both of them inside. Eddie followed, thinking of the five thousand dollars, while Chrissy continued to rant and rave at the other two.

"You think Byers is going to believe this hillbilly drug dealer is my husband?" she said.

That stung Eddie's pride. "I'm not a hillbilly!" he protested, but the others, lost in their own drama, didn't reply.

"He's been hounded by the press since he was fifteen," continued Chrissy. "That makes him a bit nervous around them. You guys know that! And what have you done? You've lost him in this Godforsaken place with the one paparazzo he hates the most!"

"It's our job," said Steve, "to protect his career."

"Screw his career!" Chrissy snapped. "What about him as a person? His safety?"

Eddie had stopped listening. He stared, open-mouthed, at Creel House that no longer looked like Creel House. Gone was the orange carpet, the vomit-green walls, and the horrible brown everything else. Now it looked imposing, elegant, and romantic. These movie types really knew what they were doing.

He was brought out of his reverie when Dustin, looking through the front door, gave a shout. "Steve!"

"What?"

"Is that the press?"

That word, like a magic spell, brought Steve and Chrissy to the door, next to Dustin. Following their gaze, Eddie saw a crowd of people, armed with cameras and microphones, coming up the bluff and pouring onto the front lawn of Creel House like a swarm of giant insects.

"Oh, God," Steve breathed. "How the hell did this happen?"

Eddie cleared his throat. "Hey, since I'm clearly not needed here, can I have my money now?" he said. "Oh, and if you can pay me in cash, that would be great..."

No one answered him. They didn't even look at him. It was as if he'd turned invisible.

"I'm going to find him," said Chrissy, whipping the veil off her head.

Steve reached out a hand, stopping her. "No, no, the last thing we need is you charging around, attracting unwanted attention."

"Jason is missing! There might be wolves out there!"

("Wolves," Eddie snorted, to no one in particular.)

Chrissy was still fighting to get away from Steve's restraining hand. Dustin stepped in. "She's right, Steve."

"She is?" said Steve.

"I am?" said Chrissy. She quickly corrected herself, "I mean, of course I am!"

"We weren't thinking straight," said Dustin. "Look, if anybody can find Jason, it's her." Beckoning to Eddie and Chrissy, he continued, "This way, both of you."

Relieved that the farce was finally coming to a close, Eddie followed the boy up the stairs and down the hall to an open door. Chrissy, who also seemed happy that they were finally listening to her, walked eagerly next to him.

"This way. This is the back way out." Dustin stepped back to let Eddie and Chrissy through. They found themselves in a large room, decked out like a bridal suite—and most importantly, without an exit.

Eddie spun around just in time to see the door closing behind them, and he heard the key turn with a final-sounding click. He ran to the door, but it was too late. They were locked in.

"An hour, you said!" he screamed. "You're so full of shit, man!" And then he added, though he wasn't sure if Dustin could hear him or not, "I hope your colonic takes weeks!"

They tried the door three times to make sure it was really and truly locked, and walked around the room twice to make sure there was no other way out except for a skylight they could not reach—or, rather, Chrissy did. She also checked her phone before tossing it aside in frustration at the lack of signal. Eddie had long since accepted his fate and was now lounging on the bed.

"I'm not a hillbilly," he said to Chrissy, as her phone closely missed his head. "I'm not a drug dealer either." His honesty chided him for this lie, so he added, "I mean, I am, but not all the time. And I did tell you my name."

"Great!" she said, dragging some chairs under the skylight in a vain attempt to reach it. "If only I could remember your name, then we could find a way out of here."

"Oh, right, I forgot," Eddie retorted, doing his best to pour sarcasm into every syllable. "It's cruel to give names to the help, isn't it? Don't want to get attached to them."

"Amazing." She finally turned to face him. "Introduce your hair to a brush and give you a suit, and suddenly everything's about you. How much are you getting paid for this by the way, in hillbilly money?"

"Not nearly enough," he said grimly. Should've gotten paid first, Munson, a voice, sounding rather like Reefer Rick's, piped up somewhere in the back of his mind.

"Yeah, well, it still doesn't make this your big day, Eddie." She had finished stacking the chairs on top of each other and was now trying to climb on them.

So she did remember his name. God, had he really found her attractive? A more irritating, spoiled little princess he'd never met.

"No, no, it's yours, clearly." He looked around the bridal suite. It was decorated with everything Hawkins—but it was the Hawkins in The Ghost of the Mountain, beautiful, dreamy, with just the right amount of ruins and wilderness, not the real Hawkins out there, dirty and overgrown and squalid. It looked rather like an Appalachian Trail gift shop had exploded all over the room. "You're having a Ghost of the Mountain themed wedding," he said, smirking.

Chrissy pushed a fake tree branch out of her way, trying to appear nonchalant. "So?"

"It takes a special kind of narcissism to get married inside your own album."

"I'm not a bridezilla!" she screeched. "This is all Jason's idea!" Then, realizing what she'd said, she quickly added, "And my idea, too, of a great wedding." She looked down at him from her perch and scoffed, "If I were marrying you, where would we be? In some dive bar, covered in cigarette butts and stale beer, drinking moonshine and watching your cousins have sex in the parking lot, no doubt."

Eddie jumped up. "You're such a snob!"

"So are you!"

At that moment, the tower of chairs toppled. Chrissy came crashing down with it. Instinctively, Eddie reached out, catching her in his arms. There was a breathless moment as they held on to each other, and then he dropped her—threw her, more like—on the bed, as if she were hot coal.

In the silence that followed, they could hear Steve's loud, clear voice on the lawn, announcing to the press that Jason Carver and Chrissy Cunningham were "finally married in a small, tasteful private ceremony"—here Eddie snorted again, which earned him a glare from Chrissy—and that they would be spending their wedding night at Creel House before leaving for their secret honeymoon destination. Then came a cacophony of questions from the journalists, which Steve ignored.

"Why did he say that?" mused Eddie. "Why didn't he just say that you guys have left already? That would get rid of the press."

"Because we need to stay until Jason is found, and the paps would get suspicious if Steve remains here," explained Chrissy. "As long as they think Jason is in here, they'll camp out there and won't go looking for him."

"But that also means we can't leave."

"That's right."

The fall from the chairs seemed to have sapped Chrissy of her energy, and she slumped over on the bed. Everything went quiet again. Then—

"Beers! Ciders! Peach moonshine!" came Bev's unmistakable baritone. "Get your drinks here!"

This was accompanied by more cries, like those of vendors at a Fourth of July celebration. "Burgers! Fries! Hot dogs!" That was Benny. Enzo followed closely behind with, "Pizza! Calzone! Meatballs! That's right. Didn't think you could get Italian food up here, did you?"

Chrissy sat up. "What the hell is that?"

Eddie grinned. The people of Hawkins had found a way to make money after all, even though the marketing conference had turned out to be a dud. And business was good too, from the excited buzz of the journalists.

"Lunch," he said simply.

The smell of freshly grilled burgers wafted into the room, making Eddie's stomach gurgle. Looking around, he caught sight of the wedding cake, tastefully decorated with sugar flowers, in the corner of the room.

"Can I eat that?" he asked, pointing to it.

Chrissy shrugged. "Might as well," she said. "I don't think it's getting any use today."

Picking up the ribbon-wrapped knife next to the cake, Eddie cut a slice out of the top tier and took a big bite. The filling was some weird flavor he couldn't identify, but he didn't care. It was sweet and rich and creamy, and that was all he wanted. He turned to Chrissy. "Want a piece?"

"No, thanks," she said.

"Suit yourself." He cut another slice.

Chrissy swallowed. "Maybe just a bit of frosting," she said, wiping a dollop of cream onto her finger and licking it off. Her eyes fell shut in ecstasy. "Oh God," she whispered, eyes still closed. "I haven't tasted sugar in like, four months."

Eddie realized he was staring at her, or, rather, at her mouth. Turning away, he bit into his slice of cake to hide his fluster.

"Why deny yourself now?" he said. "It's your wedding cake."

Chrissy seemed to come to a decision. "You're right. Why shouldn't I eat my own wedding cake?"

She picked up the knife with a determined air. Before Eddie knew it, they were sitting side by side, dipping their feet into a foot bath strewn with rose petals, gorging themselves on cake and champagne.

"None of this would've happened if you hadn't chosen Hawkins as the inspiration for your album," Eddie said. "Why did you do it?"

He'd intended to make small talk, but clearly, it was a sore subject for Chrissy.

"I didn't realize you were a music historian as well as critic," she said sullenly. "What do you know about inspiration anyway?"

"I'm a musician too, you know," Eddie said, stung.

"Really? And what do you play? Dueling banjos with townies?"

"I'm in a heavy metal band," he said, deliberately using the present tense. "We got a regular gig at the local bar every Tuesday." No need to tell her that his band broke up ten years ago and he hadn't played seriously since.

Chrissy rolled her eyes. "To a crowd of five drunks, I'm sure."

And here he thought they were becoming more civil with each other. "At least we didn't have to date a crazy actor to get people to pay attention to us," he retorted. "I hope he made you sign a prenup."

Chrissy didn't answer. "How did they manage to get that rat's nest under control?" she said, yanking at his curls. Eddie pushed his hand away. Did she think they were in elementary school?

"He has made you sign a prenup!" he crowed. "How does that work exactly? When you get divorced, does he get half of your unfinished albums?"

Chrissy scowled at him. "I'm not a gold digger!" she said. "I didn't even live with Jason until recently. He converted his spare room into a recording studio so I can work on my music."

Eddie looked around the room, dripping with Ghost of the Mountain merch. Suddenly, it all made sense. "He thinks you're a musical genius, doesn't he?" he asked. "And you're trying to be one, so you're good enough to be with Jason Carver. But it's left you totally blocked. That is, if you had any talent to begin with." He shook his head. "Pathetic."

"Living in a trailer park, pretending to be a movie star, being a part-time drug dealer?" Chrissy shot back. "That's pathetic."

The moment those words left her mouth, Chrissy seemed to realize she'd gone too far, but it was too late to take them back. Eddie stared at her, feeling the blood drain from his face. Those words hit harder than he'd expected. It was like Paige all over again, except this was even worse, because this girl had known him for what, less than two hours? And she'd already clocked him.

He crunched down extra hard on a sugar flower, shattering it into cloyingly sweet dust between his teeth. When this failed to quench his anger, he did what he usually did in such a situation: he pulled out a pack of cigarettes, which he'd thrown into the suit pocket without thinking, popped one into his mouth, and lit it.

"Gross!" said Chrissy, snatching the cigarette from between his lips and throwing it away.

Eddie spluttered with indignation. "Why'd you do that?"

"You can't smoke in here."

"I'll smoke where I damn well please!"

"This room doesn't even have a window. You'd kill us! And it's a filthy habit anyway."

"Don't tell me what to do! Who do you think you are, my wife?"

Chrissy opened her mouth for a comeback, only to pause and look around, sniffing and frowning, as if she'd just smelled something bad. Eddie sniffed, too, and caught a whiff of something acrid, like burning plastic. A crackling sound and a puff of smoke drew them to the source of the smell—Eddie's lit cigarette had caught on a drape, and now the wall was going up in flames.

"Would it be terrible if I said I told you so?" Chrissy whispered.

In response, Eddie leaped up from the foot bath, ran to the fire, and tried to stamp it out, before remembering that he was barefoot. As he hopped away, cursing over his burns, a crash made him turn around. Chrissy had grabbed a rug from the floor, upending a table full of presents in the process. After dipping one end of the rug into the foot bath, she started beating the fire with it, but as soon as she put out one little flame, another sprang up behind it, bigger and climbing higher up the wall, taunting her.

"Out of the way!" Eddie shouted. He picked up the foot bath and splashed its entire content at the flaming wall. A cloud of smoke and steam went up.

"OK, that was my fault for throwing the cigarette," Chrissy said, panting and coughing. "But you still shouldn't have lit it."

But Eddie wasn't listening. Something about the scorched wall made him bend down and inspect it. He was pretty sure brick and plaster shouldn't burn like that...

He picked at it with his fingernail. Then he picked at it with the knife, just to be sure.

"Look," he said.

Chrissy looked, and her eyes popped. The wall was coming off in flakes, because it was nothing more than painted Styrofoam.

Eddie put his boots back on. A few well-aimed kicks, and the entire wall came down, revealing that the bridal suite had been constructed in the moldy master bedroom at the back of the house, which had a rickety balcony overhanging the lake. Old Victor Creel had had the brilliant idea of building his house directly over the lake, perhaps hoping that it would keep the house cool in the summer. In reality, it had only made the house damp. It was at least a ten-foot drop from the balcony to the lake, where a canoe was bobbing on the surface. There was nothing on this side of the house but the lake and the woods, so it was clear of journalists and photographers.

Chrissy picked up a length of rope the workers had left behind and tied it to the balcony's railing.

"What are you doing?" Eddie asked.

"I'm just running some errands. Don't wait up." She hitched up her skirt, made sure her phone was secure in her pocket, and started climbing down the balcony.

"Who do you think you are, Lara Croft?"

"Jason's got a climbing wall," Chrissy said, by way of explaining. Of course.

"You already got lost once," Eddie reminded her.

"I don't care! I have to find him. There might be wolves out there."

Eddie threw his arms up in exasperation. "There are no wolves here! This isn't Yellowstone. He might run into a bear if he was lucky, but that should be no problem for Mr. Action Man, right?"

Chrissy didn't reply. She carefully lowered herself into the canoe and started rowing toward the shore.

Eddie groaned. On the one hand, he hated to leave without his five thousand dollars. And the idea of chasing after Chrissy while she trampled about the woods looking for her boyfriend was not appealing in the least. On the other hand, he couldn't in good conscience let her go on her own. Besides, Wayne might be home already and was probably wondering where Eddie had gone.

"Right," he said, throwing off the too-small suit jacket and climbing over the balcony himself. "I'm coming with you."

"Get back inside!" shouted Chrissy. She was almost halfway across.

"You'll get yourself killed—wait for me—"

There was a crack. Eddie looked up and saw the railing crumble and the rope slip, just as he landed in the water with a splash. Although it was only a few feet, the impact was enough for the water to smack his head, making him dizzy. Throwing out his arms, he tried to rise to the surface, only to get pulled under. His leg was caught on something. He kicked at it again and again, but whatever it was—a bit of old rope, some netting, or perhaps a fishing line someone had dropped—had wrapped itself well and good around his ankle and refused to let go. He thrashed and writhed to no avail. His chest felt tight. His arms and legs were sore. He opened his mouth, trying to draw in a breath of non-existent air, and only got water, not the cool, inviting water of the lake on a hot summer day, but an acid-like liquid, burning his nose and throat and lungs as it poured into him—

And then everything went black.