CHAPTER EIGHT:
"True North."
VIOLET hated funerals. There was just something about the idea of a bunch of people gathering together in one place to talk about the death of a loved one that rubbed her the wrong way. But even more so now, since the person who was "dead" was very much alive. Only nobody could find him, because he was trapped in some other dimension that she nor the boys or El knew how to get to. And for some reason, she felt like they weren't the only ones who knew of that information.
She thought about it all night after she left Mike's house, and she came to one simple conclusion. Someone knows what happened to Will, and they must be covering it all up with his death. It all made sense. The body they found in the quarry, and now the funeral? They had clear proof that Will was still alive, and if what he was saying on the radio yesterday was getting through to Mrs. Byers like she thought it was, then she knew too.
His death? A cover up. His body? Definitely a fake. She just didn't know who was keeping it all under wraps. But eventually, she'd find out.
One way or another.
"Fear not, for I am with you. Be not dismaye, for I am your God. I will strengthen you. Yes, I will help you. I will uphold you with my righteous right hand." The priest recited from the bible in his hand., "It's time like these that our faith is challenged. How, if He is truly benevolent... could God take from us someone so young, so innocent? It would be easy to turn away from God... but we must remember that nothing, not even tragedy, can separate us from His love."
As the priest went on, Violet's eyes lingered amongst the people who came to the funeral, assessing their every facial expression. Then, she saw a familiar face from school, it was a brunette girl named Jennifer Hayes. Her eyes widened when she noticed something, then she nudged Dustin who was stood beside her. "Dude, I think Jennifer Hayes is crying."
"No way." Dustin chuckled, nudging Lucas. "Wait till we tell Will that Jennifer Hayes was crying at his funeral."
"Shh." Mrs. Wheeler quiets them, where she stood behind the four.
Words are said, the closed casket is lowered into the ground, yellow and white roses are dropped ontop of it and with that, the funeral comes to an end. Everyone begins to leave and Violet and the boys head over to Mrs. Wheeler's car since she brought them there after they biked to Mike's place to meet there before the funeral.
She drives them to the place where the funeral reception is being held, and while Karen and Ted go to speak with the other adults and mingle, Violet and the boys head off on their own. They have a plan in mind, and they need to talk to Mr. Clarke, as soon as possible.
And so, they begin their search around the reception, and eventually, they find him standing at the table getting some refreshments. And since they're there, Violet picks up a plate and uses the tongs to get herself some cheese on stcisk. Dustin has the same idea, and he grabs himself a few Vanilla Wafers to snack on them.
"Mr. Clarke." Mike's voice grabs his attention, and the science teacher turns around to face them.
A sympathetic look washed over his features, "Boys." He tips his head at her, "Violet, How are you guys holding up?"
"We're...in... mourning." Lucas replies awkwardly.
"Yeah," Violet bites the cheese off of two sticks, "I'm emotional eating. I eat alot when I'm sad."
"Man, this aren't real Nilla Wafers." Dustin comments, shaking his head.
"We were wondering if you had time to talk?" Mike asked Mr.Clarke.
"We have some questions." Lucas noted.
"A lot of questions." Mike affirmed.
Mr. Clarke led them to an empty table, and the four of them sat down. "So, what questions do you have for me today?" He asked, his gaze moving between the four of them.
"So, you know how in Cosmos, Carl Sagan talks about other dimensions?" Mike questioned him, "Like, beyond our world?"
"Yeah, sure." Mr. Clarke nods, "Theoretically."
"Right, theoretically." Mike nodded.
"So, theoretically, how do we travel there?" Lucas countered.
"You guys have been thinking about Hugh Everette's Many-Worlds Interpretation haven't you?" Mr. Clarke assumed.
Violet blinked, "Uh, can you explain that, please?"
"Well, basically, there are parallel universes. Just like our world," Mr. Clarke explained, "but just infinite variations of it. Which means there's a world out there where none of this tragic stuff ever happened."
"Yeah, that's not what we're talking about." Lucas shakes his head.
"Oh." Mr. Clarke muttered.
"We were thinking of more of an evil dimension, like the Vale of Shadows." Dustin put across, "You know the Vale of Shadows?"
"An echo of the Material Plane, where necrotic and shadow magic-"
"Yeah, exactly." Mike interrupted Mr. Clarke, "If that did exist, a place like the Vale of Shadows, how would we travel there?"
"Theoretically." Lucas inserted.
"Well..." Mr. Clarke grabs a spare paper plate, then he pulls out a spare pen from his blazer. Violet leans forward with her arms folded on the table as he begins his mini lesson.
"Picture... an acrobat," He draws a line on the plate and a stick figure, "standing on a tightrope. Now, the tightrope is our dimension. And our dimension has rules. You can move forwards, or backwards."
He draws arrows on the plate, "But, what if... right next to our acrobat, there is a flea?" He draws a flea next to the stick figure, "Now, the flea can also teavel back and forth, just like the acrobat. Right?"
"Right." The four of them echoed.
"Here's where things get really interesting." Mr. Clarke tells them enthusiastically, "The flea can also travel this way... along the side of the rope. He can even go... he can even go... underneath the rope."
Violet's eyes widen, "Upside Down." The four of their voices say at once.
"Exactly." Mr. Clarke confirmed.
"But we're not the flea, we're the acrobat." Mike informs him.
"In this metaphor, yes, we're the acrobat." Mr. Clarke nodded.
"So we can't go upside down?" Lucas queried.
Mr. Clarke shakes his head, "No."
"Well, is there any way for the acrobat to get to the Upside Down?" Dustin pressed.
"Well... you'd have to create a massive amount of energy." Mr. Clarke stated, "More than humans are currently capable of creating, mind you, to open up some kind of tear in time and space, and then..." He folds the paper plate directly in the middle halfway, then he takes the pen and stabbed a hole through it, making her eyes grow big. "You create a doorway."
"Like a gate?" Dustin asked.
He nods, "Sure. Like a gate. But again, this is all-"
"Theoretical." Violet cuts in.
"But... but what if this gate already existed?" Mike questioned him.
"Well, if it did, I... I think we'd know." Mr. Clarke imparted, "It would disrupt gravity, the magnetic field, our environment. Heck, it might even swallow us up whole. Science is neat. But I'm afraid it's not very forgiving."
Mr. And Mrs. Wheeler didn't stay long at the reception, which meant that Violet and the boys were headed back to Mike's place. When they got back to his house the four of them immediately made a beeline for the stairs to the basement.
When they got down there, Mike grabbed a sheet of paper and sat on the couch as he started to sketch out what Mr. Clarke showed them to El. When he finished, he stabbed a hole into the sheet, El's eyes grew as she jumped back in surprise.
"It would take alot of energy to build a gate like this." Mike explained to her, "But that's got to be what happened. Otherwise, how'd Will get there, right?"
El doesn't look like she understands, but she nods anyway. "Right."
"What we want to know is, do you where the gate is?" Lucas asked her, she shakes her head. "Then how do you know about the Upside Down?"
Eleven falls silent, glancing down at her lap, Violet narrows her eyes in suspicion. The entire time El has been here, she had never doubted what she's told them so far. She trusts her with her life, she's like her sister. But right now, she wasn't so sure about her silence. Something told her that El wasn't telling them the whole truth, she just didn't know why. And she knew that she wouldn't tell the boys, she didn't trust them fully, not like she trusted her, at least.
She had to tell her, she just needed to get her alone so they could talk first.
"Dustin, what are you doing?" Mike called to him, the curly haired boy was across the room pacing the carpet with his compass in his hand, "Dustin? Dustin!"
"Dustin!" Lucas shouts at him.
Dustin turns to them and Violet's brows furrowed in confusion, "Why the hell are you pacing holes into the carpet right now?"
"I... I need to see your compasses." Dustin stated.
"What?" Mike questions him.
"Your compasses." He commands them, "All of your compasses, right now!"
The three of them share a puzzled glance, but nonetheless they all get up and check their backpacks for the compasses they keep on them. They all crowd the table and drop their compasses in the middle, there's about 6 to 8 of them splayed out.
Violet's brows inched upwards, "So... what did you need all of our compasses for?"
"What's exciting about this?" Mike quizzed him.
"Well, they're all facing north, right?" Dustin glanced at them.
"Yeah, so?" Lucas shrugged.
"Well, that's not true north." Dustin put simply.
Violer frowns in confusion, "Not true north?"
"What do you mean?" Mike asked.
"I mean exactly what I just said." Dustin answered, "That's not true north." None of them say a word, everyone but Dustin seems lost. "Are you guys seriously this dense?"
Lucas shrugs, and Violet folds her arms over her chest. "You guys are the super geniuses, not me."
"The sun rises in the east, and it sets in the west. Right? Which means that's true north." Dustin points his finger in the direction of what he know to be north.
"So what you're saying is... the compasses are broken." Mike noted.
Dustin sighs, "Mike, do you even understand how a compass works?" He picks up one of the compasses, "Do you see a battery pack on this?"
"No." Mike uttered.
"No, you don't. Because it doesn't need one." Dustin placed it back down, "The needle's naturally drawn to the Earth's magnetic North Pole."
Violet frowned, "So if they're not broken..."
"Then what's wrong with them?" Lucas asked him.
"Well, that's what I couldn't figure out." Dustin tells him, "but then I remembered. You can change the direction of a compass with a magnet. If there's the presence of a more powerful magnetic field, the needle deflects to that power. And then I remembered what Mr. Clarke said. The gate would have so much power-"
"To disrupt the electromagnetic field." Mike came out with, his eyes wide as he put the pieces together.
"Exactly." Dustin answered.
"Meaning, if we follow the compasses north..." Lucas trailed off.
"They should lead us to the gate." Dustin nodded.
A smile grows on Violet's lips, "And then, we can find Will."
THE plan was set, they were headed into the woods to find the gate that would lead them to Will. After they gathered supplies, the weapons that Lucas had before they he had kept in Mike's basement, and they raided the Wheeler's cabinets for snacks, they all took turns in the basement bathroom changing out of their funeral clothes and putting on whatever they brought in their backpacks to wear later.
Thankfully, Violet didn't bring a skirt to wear today, instead she brought jeans with one of her marvel T-shirts. And she already had her signature purple jacket, she wore that with her plain black dress at the funeral. She also already had her Chucks, leave it to Violet to wear her sneakers with her dress.
They all hopped on their bikes that they had left on the ground this morning, and they made their way towards the the woods where the compass had been leading them to. Eventually, they left their bikes somewhere they would remember so they could come back and get them later, and they started their trek down the trail of old train tracks.
As they go she's walking alongside El, she noticed that she's being quiet, and by that she means quieter than she usually is. Her minds wanders back to what she had been previously thinking before, that El might have been withholding information from she and the boys. And now that she was back here walking with her, the boys a few feet ahead of them, it was the perfect time to ask her.
She needed to know what she knew.
"El." Violet whispered, grabbing her attention. "I know you know more than what you're saying." She looks her in the eye, grabbing her hand and lacing their fingers, "You can tell me. I won't tell them."
"Promise?" El asked, brown doe eyes wide imploringly.
Violet nods, "I promise. Now, tell me. What do you know about the gate and the Upside Down?"
El's eyes lowered as the walked, "It's... not safe."
Violet frowned in puzzlement, "What's not safe, El?"
"The gate." El whispers, "The lab."
Violet's eyes grew wide, "The gate to the Upside Down is at the lab?" El nods her head.
"And how do you know that it's there?" She raised her brows, "Did you see it?"
El nods slowly, "I opened it." Tears began to well up in her eyes, "Didn't mean to."
Violet pursed her lips as she realized what she was trying to explain, "It was Papa." She spat out, cringing internally at the disgusting name he made them call him. "He made you do it. Made you open it."
And suddenly, it all makes sense.
It's like Violet had every piece of the puzzle, but she was missing just one to tie all of her theories together. And now that El had given her that piece, the puzzle was solved. The fake body, the fake death, the funeral, it was all connected to the lab.
Of course that vile son of a bitch did it, he was a scientist after all, and they never know when they've taken their discovery way too far. Not until they've royally fucked up, and that is exactly what happened with Will. The gate opened, something undesirable came out of it, and it took her best friend away from her.
Martin Brenner had already fucked up her life once, she was not gonna let him do it again. She was going back to that lab, and she gonna get to that gate, and she was is going to get her best friend Will Byers back.
No matter the cost.
"You're right, El. It is too dangerous." She nods at her, "So, I need you work with on something, okay?" She gives the boys a short glance, "We can't let them follow that compass. We have to steer them a different way." She looks down at the compass in her hand, and she focused her power to turn the needle away from north. "Like, that." She wipes the crimson away from her nose, "But to all of their compasses. It'll drain us, but we can't let them get to the lab, okay?"
El nods, "Okay."
"I know we're lying to them, but they can't go there. Papa will take them, and they'll never be able to come home. And he'll take us, too. And we can't let that happen, right?"
"Right." El nodded, "Have to protect."
"That's right." Violet nods, "We're the only ones who can. Now, focus."
The walk through the woods grows longer as both Violet and El's powers send the boys unknowingly in one big circle, and it's only when they arrive at an old junkyard during their trek that they realize that this was not where the compasses were supposed to be leading them to. Violet feels horrible for stalling them like this, but she couldn't risk putting them in danger, too.
She simply refused.
"Oh, no." Dustin muttered.
"Oh, no"? What's "oh, no"? Lucas demanded.
Dustin turns around to face them, "We're headed back home."
"What?" Mike questioned.
"Are you sure?" Lucas asked.
"Yeah, I'm sure." Dustin replied, "Setting sun, right there. We looped right back around."
"And you're just realizing this now?" Lucas grilled him in disbelief.
Dustin frowned, "Why is this all on me?"
"Because you're the compass genius!" Lucas fired at him hotly.
"What do yours say?" Dustin requested of them.
"North." Mike and Lucas echoed.
Dustin shakes his head, "Makes no damn sense."
Violet glanced at El, whispering so the other boys don't hear. "They're gonna figure it out, just prepare to be yelled at, okay?" El nods, "Especially by Lucas, he's gonna blow for sure."
"Maybe the gate moved." Mike suggested.
"No, I don't think it's the gate." Dustin informed them, "I think it's something else screwing with the compasses."
"Maybe it's something here." Mike puts forth.
"No, it has to be like a super magnet." Dustin tells him.
Violet inhaled deeply as Lucas looks over at she and El, she knew it was coming, it was only a matter of time.
"It's not magnet." Lucas points to both she and El, "They've been acting weirder than normal. I saw them talking behind us awhile ago, they know something. If they can slam and lock doors with their minds, they can definitely screw up a compass."
"Why would they do that?" Mike raised the question.
"Because they're working together to try and sabotage our mission." Lucas responded, "Because they're traitors!"
Lucas makes their way towards them, and Violet pulls El behind her and holds her hand out, "Stay back, Lucas."
"Lucas, what are you doing?" Mike demands, but he ignores him.
"It was you, wasn't it? Both of you." Lucas presumed quietly, betrayal swimming in his eyes that sends hot prickles of guilt through her. "You don't want us to reach the gate. You don't want us to find Will."
Violet's eyes sting from the tears building, "That's not true, and you know it."
"Lucas, come on, seriously." Mike attempts to reason with him, "Just leave them alone!"
"Admit it." Lucas pressed, his eyes narrowed into slits.
"Lucas-"
"Admit it!" He shouts, making her jump as he snatches up her wrist. "Fresh blood." She yanks her wrist back, "I knew it."
"Lucas, come on!" Mike complained.
"I saw Violet wiping her nose on the tracks!" Lucas flung back at him, "She was using her powers, I bet both of them were!"
"Bull! That's old blood. Right, Vi?" Mike shoots her an expectant look.
Violet let out a shaky exhale, then she bit the bullet and told him the truth. "No, Mike. It's not old blood."
Mike's face fell, then he looks over her shoulder at Eleven. "El?"
"It's... not..." El cries softly behind her, Violet looks back at her and takes her hand. "It's not safe."
"What did I tell you?" Lucas yelled at Mike, "She's been playing us from the beginning, and Violet helped her!"
"That's not true. Violet wants to find Will as much as we do, and El helped us find him!" Mike yells back at him.
"Find Will?" Lucas questioned in exasperation, "Find Will? Where is he, then? Huh?" He throws his hands up, walking off dramatically. "I don't see him."
"Yeah, you know what I mean." Mike rolled his eyes.
"No, actually I don't." Lucas walked back over to him, "Just think about it, Mike. She could've just told us where the Upside Down was right away, but she didn't. And I bet Violet knows, too. They both just made us run around like headless chickens."
"All right, calm down!" Dustin jumped in, trying to meditate after minutes of observing.
"No!" Lucas shoves him away, "They used us, all of us!"
"That's not true, Lucas!" Violet cried, with tears streaming down her face.
"Yes, it is!" Lucas went on angrily, "Violet made us bring her back from the woods, and she helped El take advantage of us and get what she wanted. Food and a bed. She's like a stray dog, they both are. We only became friends with Violet because Will brought her to us and nobody else would take her."
Violet felt like she had been slapped in the face by Lucas himself, and the tears in her eyes become sobs that fell from her lips as she dropped to her knees on the grass.
Was it true? Were they only friends with her because she was the weird new girl? The one who couldn't say more than two or three words, who was wearing a wig her mother made her wear to cover the tufts of hair on her head that she was stil growing ourt from her buzzcut, the one who every one of her classmates excluded from everything?
Did her best friends in the whole world only like her because they pitied her?
"Screw you, Lucas!" Mike snapped angrily at him.
"No! Screw you, Mike." Lucas spits out bitterly, getting all in his face. "You're blind... blind because you like that a girl's not grossed out by you. And for not seeing that Violet is a traitor who would choose sides of another weirdo who's just like her! But wake up, man! Wake the hell up!" He looks back at Violet and El, "They both know where Will is, and now they're just letting him die in the Upside Down."
"Shut up!" Mike lashed out at him.
"For all we know, it's their fault." Lucas continued, not stopping his heated rampage.
"Shut up!" Mike shouts again.
"We're looking for some stupid monster..." Lucas shoved at Mike's shoulder, pushing him back. "but did you ever stop to think," He glanced over at Violet and El, pointing at the both of them, "that maybe they're the monsters?"
"I said shut up!" Mike roared in fury, throwing himself at Lucas in a form of tackling him.
Violet looked up through her blurry vision, her velvet brown eyes grew big as she watched the two boys wrestle each other on the ground. "No! Mike, Lucas! Don't fight!"
"Stop!" El screams at them.
"Knock it off, you idiots!" Dustin yelled at them.
"Guys, come on!" Violet cried out on the ground. "Don't do this!"
"Stop it!" El repeated, yelling louder.
"Mike, get off!" Dustin demanded.
"Lucas, let him go!"
"Stop it!" El screams again.
Neither of them listen, and El reaches her limit. She screams so loud that it pierces the ears of anyone nearby. Violet's eyes widen as she watched Lucas' frame be tossed into the air and thrown a couple feet away.
His body slides along the grass before stopping at some wreckage in the junkyard. His arms go limp as he lays there, and everyone is silent. The only sound being the ringing in her ears leftover from El's psionic scream.
"Jesus!" Dustin exclaimed, running over to Lucas with Mike on his heels.
"Lucas! Lucas!" Mike called, kneeling down to him. "Lucas, are you all right?"
Violet gets up to her feet from her knees, and she runs over to the boys. "Lucas?" She asked him, dropping down to her knees. "Lucas, come on. Wake up!" She shakes him along with Dustin, "I know you hate me, but you have to wake up!"
"Lucas, come on!" Dustin shakes him.
"Lucas, wake up! Lucas!" Mike yelled, helping Dustin and Violet shake him.
"Come on, Lucas!" Dustin cried out desperately.
"Lucas, please!" She sobs brokenly, "Wake up!"
Mike turns back to El, "Why would you do that? What is wrong with you?"
"Lucas, you have to wake up." She begged him, "Pl-Please! Wake up!"
"Come on. Wake up, man." Dustin tells him, "Come on."
"Lucas... Lucas, come on!" Mike yelled at him.
Lucas' eyelashes flutter, and he stars to stir as he wakes up. A heavy sigh of relief leaves Violet's lips, but then she realizes the last person he would want to be near is her. She quickly gets up from the ground, and shuffles back with her arms wrapped protectively around herself as she watched him sit up as he came to.
"Lucas, you okay?" Mike asked him.
"Lucas... Lucas how many fingers am I holding up?" Dustin holds up three fingers to him, "Lucas, how many fingers?"
"Let me see your head." Mike offered to help him.
"Get off me!" Lucas slaps their hands away, making them back up.
"Just... Lucas." Mike begs him, "Lucas, let me see."
Lucas pushed him again, "Get off of me!" He gets up from the ground and goes to leave, but not before shooting Violet a glare. "I wish I had never even met you."
When he slams his shoulder into hers as he walked past, she feels as if her heart was just ripped out of her chest. Leaving nothing but a hole in it's place. She thought the day at the lab when all the kids were killed was the worst day of her life, but no.
This was the worst day of her life.
Without a second thought, she spun on her heel and started running back towards the woods where ahe left her bike. She left Dustin and Mike behind her as they screamed for her, but she didn't stop. Not for a second.
She kept running as fast as her legs could carry her, as her tears rushed down her face, and her heart broke piece by piece with every step.
—micaela speaks
Yo.
So uhm, I feel like I made Lucas WAYY too mean in this chapter!
I love him so much, I do. And I love Violet, too. But I wanted her to really feel his betrayal and how hurt he truly was by her.
Like, with El he barely knows her, you know? So yeah, he's betrayed but it's nothing compared to a betrayal coming from Violet, you know?
Like, he thought that they were in this together, that they were gonna get to the gate and find Will, only to find out that she's been screwing with the compass and keeping things from all of them.
Like... fuck... I'd be so hurt.
And no, he doesn't mean what he said about only being her friend because he pitied her. He and the boys befriended her because they just wanted to be her friend.
They saw she was reading one of their favorite comics and boom.
No pity or anything like that. They just thought it was cool that she liked superheroes like they did and they wanted another friend. So, they took her in and she didn't judge them for being nerdy and they didn't judge her for being a little different.
So yeah, there's that.
And Violet obviously doesn't want them to get hurt, that was the reason she kept her powers a secret in the first place, to keep them all safe. So no, she's not gonna let them go to the lab to find Will. It's too dangerous.
But anyway, my fingers hurt and I'm gonna stop typing for the night.
I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter, and I will see you all in the next one!