Beyond the Silver Rainbow | 1.
1. Rivers flow || Mike heard Nancy sniffing as he walked to his room after brushing his teeth, so he approached the glow at the crack of her bedroom door.
This story was written, takes place, and diverges from a point shortly after the end of the first season of Stranger Things. Later seasons have no relevance.
At first the witch was tempted to run away from Dorothy, but she happened to look into the child's eyes and saw she had a simple soul. The little girl did not know of the wonderful power of the Silver Shoes. The Wicked Witch laughed to herself and thought, "I can still make her my slave, for she does not know how to use her power."
― L. Frank Baum, The Wizard of Oz
One of the highest pleasures is to be more or less unconscious of one’s own existence, to be absorbed in interesting sights, sounds, places, and people. Conversely, one of the greatest pains is to be self-conscious, to feel unabsorbed and cut off from the community and the surrounding world.
― Alan W. Watts, The Wisdom of Insecurity
I wish to paint in such a manner as if I were photographing dreams.
― Zdzisław Beksiński
In any field, find the strangest thing and then explore it.
― John Archibald Wheeler, theoretical physicist
1. Rivers flow
Mike heard Nancy sniffing as he walked to his room after brushing his teeth, so he approached the glow at the crack of her bedroom door. She sobbed dryly to herself, crying more quietly than he thought normal girls ever did.
"Nancy?" Mike put his eye to the light. His sister lay on her bed, facing the window and curled up in a ball so all he could see was her bony back and stringy hair. "...Nance?"
"Go away."
He wanted to. He was only trying to be nice and she was acting like a jerk. So Steve dumped you already? He could have said it. You didn't make out with him as much as he wanted you to so he found a new girlfriend, right? "Nancy, come on."
"Michael, screw off!"
No wait, I bet it's the dragon breath, that's why he dumped you. I should tell Mom and Dad so they can ground you again for never brushing your teeth. Grounding her hadn't worked so they gave her special flavored toothpaste that smelled like bubblegum and Mike had never been allowed to have any. Sure it was a million years ago but it still sucked.
He took a deep breath. They couldn't fight anymore. Nothing was the same anymore. He held tight to the doorknob and kept his fingers clear of the edge in case Nancy might launch up from the bed and try to slam it in his face, like that time she'd almost busted his nose over a missing (firecrackered) Barbie head. "We're supposed to tell each other everything now, remember?"
"No we're not. We were supposed to when we were still trying to find Will and Barb, but now Will's back and Barb's gone forever so if you would just leave me alone please."
"You don't know Barb's gone forever. She might be --"
Nancy roared her frustration and bounced her bedsprings. Afraid she was coming at him, Mike kicked the door open and held out his hands to defend himself, but through his cringing squint he found she wasn't there. She wasn't even on the bed. She was gone. What if that yell had been -- Oh no. "Uh... Where..."
"I'm down here, stupid. Close the door."
On the floor, Nancy's wiggling feet stuck out from behind the far side of the bed. Her pale pink socks were splattered with dried mud and the soles were brown. Mike closed the door until it clicked.
"You can come in but don't look at me," Nancy said.
Mike leaned on the curly white frame at the foot of the bed and put an elbow over it. "Why, did you grow a third eye or something?"
"I've always had a third eye. It's how I know when you come in here and take my stuff."
"I don't take your stuff!"
"You took my dress for your girlfriend."
Mike decided not to let the word bother him. His heart was still thumping a little too hard from that dumb scare a minute ago and he didn't want to give it anything else to wig out over. "Lucas found your dress in the basement. And you didn't know we took it until you saw her wearing it, so I know you don't have a third eye."
In her hiding place beside the bed, Nancy took a big, shuddering breath. "Jonathan has a third eye, in a way."
"Huh?"
"But now I have it."
"You... What? You're being weird."
"I found it on the side of the road."
"You found Jonathan's third eye on the side of the road?"
"Basically."
"Nancy, are you on drugs?" Mike leaned over to see her laying on her stomach with her head in her arms. "Did Steve give you drugs? Is that what's wrong?"
Mike thought Nancy had started crying again from the way she shook, but then she sat up, wiping her face with fisted sweater sleeves, and despite her red blotches and puffy lizard eyes she was smiling. Maybe almost laughing. "No you booger, Steve didn't give me any drugs." She leaned onto her bed and reached under her pillow, then stopped to aim a harsh look at Mike. "Keep a secret? I'm dead serious."
"Of course. I promise."
"Dead freaking serious."
"I promise!"
"He gave me this." Carefully, and with suddenly shivering hands, Nancy pulled a black and silver object from underneath her pillow. A dangling strap, a tubular lens. Nancy's expression began to crumple, so Mike thrust his hands out and took the camera from her. She immediately folded her arms on the edge of the bed and hid her face in their nest. "Steve bought it for me to give to Jonathan for Christmas because his last one broke." Her voice grated. "Anyway, I gave it to him, but..."
The camera, heavy in Mike's hands, was streaked with dirt like Nancy's socks. It felt expensive. Will's family was poor. He turned it over, inspecting it. The lens was broken, rattling around inside its casing, and the flash was bent to the side. "You found this on the ground?"
"By his house. I went to ask him if he's working New Years' Eve and there it was in the ditch. I don't even know how I noticed it, it was so dark. I just felt like I should look there, like my head -- Whatever, my head's screwed up, I can't think yet. I just ran home. I'm still trying to calm down."
"Are you sure it's the same camera?"
"I kept the receipt in case it wasn't... I don't know, in case it wasn't right. It's the new one."
"Did it come with a strap too?"
"What? Are you seriously geeking out over this? Who cares?"
Mike rolled his eyes. "If Jonathan put his own strap on it himself that means he was actually using it and didn't just throw it away."
Nancy's head shot up. Her anger was hideous. "He wouldn't just throw it away!"
"I know." Mike held out his hand and gestured downward with it. "I know he wouldn't. I'm just saying. I'm just trying to think, okay?" Nancy put her face back into her arms. "It would be..." He didn't want to say this. Puzzles were a lot easier to take than real life, or at least they were easier than what real life was turning into. "It would be better if he had just thrown it away. You know?"
"Yeah." Nancy sniffed loudly. It was gross. "I know."
Mike inspected the strap, wiping mud flakes away with his thumb, and discovered tiny lettering stamped into the leather: Canon. He checked the camera: above the lens the logo read Pentax. The fear came back again and didn't go away. Instead it spread into his arms and legs, itching and aching, stupidly telling him to run somewhere, anywhere. "The strap is a different brand. He was definitely using the camera."
"In the dark, in the winter?"
"Who knows? It could have been this afternoon. Maybe he had the day off work." Mike tapped all eight fingers on the camera's body in a frantic rhythm. "But he was using it. He was taking pictures." His fingers stilled. "He was taking pictures! Hey, you didn't open the back, did you?"
"I didn't, and it was closed when I found it. But... Mike?" When Nancy lifted her head this time, she looked different, worse than upset: her tearful grimace had relaxed to hopelessness. "We already know what took him. There's another thing out there. Even if he got a picture of it, so what? We know what it looks like. We know what happened."
"No we don't."
"We know what happened to Barb."
"No, we don't. We know what happened to Will."
Nancy smiled a tiny little bit, the sort of smile old people saved for kids they thought were being cute.
Mike glared at her. He was not being cute. "If he didn't just lose the camera by accident, if something... got him, we'll probably have to tell someone so they can go into the upside down and find him, which is dangerous, and if we hand this over for evidence we'll never see it again. And for all we know we might be freaking out a ton of people for no reason. You want to do all that without knowing for ourselves exactly what he saw?" He held up the camera and shook it for emphasis. "Without seeing through his eye?"
Nancy clapped her hands to the top and bottom of the camera. "Then don't wave the thing around, you'll trip the catch and expose the film."
"Okay, so. I have no idea how to develop pictures."
"I have an idea. He showed me once, but... " Nancy crunched her eyes shut, froze for a brain-racking moment and shook her head. "I can't. I don't have all the details. I was too worried about Barbara."
"Do you know anyone who could help?"
Nancy dropped her gaze. "Shit," she murmured.
"No?"
"Yes. She's just not someone I want to talk to."
"Can you go talk to her tonight? Can we go right now?"
"It's after nine!"
"So we'll pretend we're asleep first."
"And it's freezing."
"So bundle up. We'll take my bike and get there fast. I'll double ride you. You're really small for a big sister."
"No, Mike. No. I'm not bringing my little brother to... I don't... ugh." Nancy hung her head. "I hardly know her. I don't even know where she lives."
"Who do you know that knows where she lives? We'll go see them first and they'll tell us where to go!"
"Mike! Would you please back off?" Nancy was wasting time cowering and making faces when she should have been planning. "You're like some kind of... frog... jumping around in my face, slimy little toad... thing..."
"Toads aren't slimy. They're an entirely differen--"
"Shut UP Mike!" Nancy yanked the camera out of his hands and bundled it to her chest. The hideous burning anger had returned to her face. "You're so -- You're just --"
Mike backed away until he bumped into the new TV on Nancy's desk. This was not the reaction he had expected. He didn't know what he had expected. This was exactly what he should have expected. "Sorry," he said. "I get really focused sometimes."
Nancy stood slowly. "You mean obsessed."
"I mean I want to do something about Will's brother before their mom gets any clue anything is wrong! What do you want to do, sit around crying all night like a little girl?"
"I thought you said you were sorry."
"I am sorry. But I still want to do something."
"Sexist twerp," Nancy grumbled, hugging the camera close as if it was her baby and Mike was trying to eat it.
"No. I am not that. You shut up. Elle is way younger than you and she's more grown up than anyone I've ever met, guys included. Whether you're being a little girl or not is in here." Mike tapped his temple. "Come with me. Let's get this done."
"No, you shut up," Nancy hissed, clearly wishing she could shout at him. "I am not going to just stand here while my dumb kid brother lectures me about growing up. You have no idea what I've done or what I can do. Don't you dare talk to me like that again. Let's go."
Mike blinked. "What?"
"I said let's go. You go to bed, I go to bed, then Mom and Dad go to bed. Then you get our coats and shoes in perfect slience without waking Holly and come back up here. We'll go out my window and take your bike to Steve's because he knows where Nicole lives. Okay?"
"Uh. Yeah. Yeah, okay. Sounds great." Mike put his hand on the doorknob, then stopped himself. "Wait. Dad sleeps in his chair in the back room. My stuff's at the back door. I can't get past him. He'll be watching TV 'til who knows how late."
Nancy smiled slyly, squinting her already squinty eyes. "Not since the whole incident when those bigwigs tossed the house," she said. "They've been back in their bedroom for weeks now. Remember Christmas?"
Of course Mike remembered Christmas, it was four days ago. He remembered dragging Nancy out of bed and not letting go of her wrist no matter how many times she swatted him. He remembered pouncing onto the foot of his parents' bed and jumping around as if he was ten again, overwhelmed with a joy that seemed to erupt from nowhere. His parents -- both of them -- hugged him in turn, while Nancy apologized for failing to rein him in. "Duh."
"One more thing," Nancy said, kneeling beside her bed. She flipped up her pastel bedspread and slid her arm under the mattress. "I'm going to have this on me just in case, and I want you to be prepared if you see it. Don't touch it and don't tell Steve. Don't tell anyone."
Nancy had a gun.
"What the fuck!?" Mike said, then covered his mouth right after. "Is it loaded?"
"Not right now, but it will be. Or it might be." Hanging from Nancy's hand the gun looked as dark and heavy as a black hole. She pointed it at the floor and fiddled with it, opening the bullet chamber and closing it again. "It always might be loaded, even when it isn't. Remember that, okay? And don't ever touch it." She stared at Mike, her lip trembling in emphasis. "Never, ever."
"I could handle it if I had to."
"Have you ever even held one before?"
"No."
"Then don't touch it."
"Well how am I ever supposed to le...?" But Nancy's evil eye cut him off. He tried another avenue: "Where did you get it?"
"Jonathan gave it to me. It wasn't really his to give away but he wanted me to have it just in case, so... Here it is. Merry Christmas." A shyness came over Nancy in that moment, a ducking of the head, a twinkling guilt as though she had been caught doing something wrong but didn't know whether to feel bad about it.
It must have been Will's mom's gun. Nancy probably knew she wasn't supposed to have it, but this was not the time to bug her to give it back.
"You and Jonathan are pretty good friends now, huh?"
"Yeah." Nancy was calm. She slid the gun beneath her pillow where the camera had been. "We're good friends."