Chapter 18

Maggie stands beside Jonathan, arms crossed, eyebrows raised in amusement as he lines up his shot and misses yet again.

“Y’know, Byers,” she says, voice teasing, “if I had to guess… you don’t really know how to shoot a gun.”

Jonathan lowers the pistol with a groan, “Oh, and you do?”

She gives a lazy shrug, “I don’t really remember, but hey, worth a shot.”

He snorts and hands her the pistol, “Be my guest, Annie Oakley.”

Maggie takes it and steps up to the line. The moment her fingers wrap around the grip, something in her posture shifts. Her eyes narrow, feet plant firmly, and she lifts the gun with a practiced fluidity that makes both Jonathan and Nancy, who’s approaching from behind, pause. It’s like muscle memory takes over.

She fires once and a can flies off the log. Then again and two more fall, one after another.

There’s a silence after the last shot. Maggie lowers the weapon slowly, staring at it like it just told her a secret.

“Jesus, Mags,” Nancy says, stepping up beside her, “How the hell did you learn to do that?”

Maggie lets out a breathy laugh, but there’s a flicker of unease in her smile. 

“I have no idea,” she admits, “I don’t remember.”

Jonathan looks between her and the toppled cans, clearly trying to piece together the math in his head, “You don’t remember?”

She tilts her head, watching the sun glint off the edge of the barrel, “Have I ever told you guys how I actually got here?”

Nancy’s brow furrows, “No…”

Jonathan mirrors her expression, “Actually, you haven’t. I guess I never really questioned it.”

“Well,” Maggie says, cocking her head toward Nancy with a mischievous grin, “seeing as we’re monster hunters now, this won’t seem super far out.”

Nancy crosses her arms, “Try me.”

“I fell through your ceiling,” Maggie says plainly.

There’s a beat of stunned silence.

“You what?” Nancy blurts.

“I, uh… I fell through the ceiling in your basement,” Maggie continues, rubbing the back of her neck, “Through some kind of portal. The kids were playing D&D, and the next thing they knew, bam, there I was. Confused. Probably concussed. No memory.”

Jonathan just stares at her, eyes wide, “What the fuck?”

Nancy looks like she’s about to sit down just to process that, “You’re serious?”

Maggie nods, “Dead serious. I don’t remember anything before that moment. Just flashes. Screaming. A dark sky. Sometimes I dream about who I think might have been my family. Some guy named Tony who I think was my dad,” She stops, blinking it away, “Anyway, Mike and the others took me in. I stayed with the Byers after that. Guess I kind of just… became part of things.”

“And you’re sure… sure you don’t remember anything from before?” Nancy asks gently.

Maggie shakes her head. 

“Just instincts. Like how to use that,” she says, nodding at the gun, “Or how to hide. How to fight.”

Jonathan shivers slightly at that.

Nancy touches Maggie’s arm, “Hey. That thing we saw in the picture, maybe it’s connected to why you’re here.

Maggie shakes her head, “I don’t think so. I don’t know it’s weird, but I think I’m from, like, another world. Like an alternate universe or something. I just…don’t know how to get back. And now I’m not sure if I want to.”

Jonathan nods slowly,  “Maybe we figure out who you were before all this.”

Maggie lets out a breath, “Or maybe I figure out who I’m supposed to be now.”

The three of them stand in silence for a beat longer, the fallen cans at their feet and the dense woods surrounding them. Then Maggie cocks the pistol again and smirks.

“So… you guys want a turn, or am I officially the muscle of the group now?”

Nancy snorts, “Let me have a try.”

She takes the gun as Jonathan tells her to point and shoot. Maggie rolls her eyes at the terrible advice. She takes a shot and knocks a can off.

Maggie claps her on the back, “Nice one, Wheeler. Careful now, can’t take my place as the sharp shooter.”

The three teenagers trudge through the woods, leaves crunching underfoot. Maggie walks slightly ahead, the pistol resting in her steady grip. Jonathan and Nancy each clutch a bat, their shoulders tense and eyes flicking between the shadows.

“So,” Nancy begins, her voice sharp but a little unsure, “why did you take that picture of me? What was I saying?”

Jonathan stutters, “What?”

“Well, you said you take pictures because people don’t say what they’re really thinking,” she presses, “So… what was I saying?”

Jonathan shifts uncomfortably, gripping the handle of his bat tighter, “I don’t know. My guess? I saw a girl trying to be someone else. But for that moment, it was like you were alone. Or you thought you were. And you could just be yourself.”

Nancy’s face tightens, the wind brushing a strand of hair across her cheek, “That is such bullshit.”

“Nance…” Maggie warns gently, her tone already weary.

“I’m not trying to be someone else,” Nancy snaps, eyes briefly flicking to Maggie, “Just because I’m dating Steve—”

“You know what? Forget it,” Jonathan interrupts, voice clipped, “I thought it was a good picture.”

“Steve is a good guy!” Nancy bites back, “And with the camera… he’s not like that at all. He’s just protective.”

Maggie lets out a scoff, lips curling in distaste, “Yeah, that’s one word for it.”

Nancy turns on her, defensive, “Oh, and what Jonathan did was okay?”

“No one said that,” Maggie shoots back, jaw tightening.

“Steve had a right to be pissed,” Nancy insists, her voice rising.

“Does that mean I have to like him?” Jonathan mutters, exasperated, “Don’t take it personally. I don’t like most people. He’s just in the vast majority.”

Nancy’s face twists with something like betrayal, “You know, I was starting to think you were okay. That Jonathan Byers isn’t the pretentious creep everyone thinks he is.”

Maggie narrows her eyes at her, “Nancy, that’s uncalled for. You don’t have to be an asshole just because you’re uncomfortable.”

But Jonathan isn’t done.

“You know, Nancy,” he says, voice dark and low, “I was starting to think you were okay too. I thought maybe Nancy Wheeler wasn’t just another suburban girl who thinks she’s rebelling by doing what every other suburban girl does. You play house with the golden boy, pretend you’re different, until one day you wake up in a matching two-car garage with a guy who still reminisces about high school while you wonder where the hell your real life went. And all the while, you can’t come to terms with who you really are.”

He glances at Maggie, jaw clenched, then stalks off, pushing through a curtain of branches.

Maggie hesitates. Her face softens slightly as she looks at Nancy, but hardens again. Without another word, she follows Jonathan, arms crossed, jaw tight.

Nancy scoffs, cheeks flushed with shame or fury, and drags her bat after them.

As the sun dips and the air grows cooler, the three move in tense silence, until a soft whimper sounds through the forest.

Jonathan looks over his shoulder at Nancy, “What, are you tired?”

“Shut up,” Nancy says, squinting into the woods, “I heard something.”

They freeze. Another whimper carries on the wind, soft and pitiful.

The three shine their flashlights ahead, moving slowly through the trees. A wounded deer lies sprawled in a bed of broken branches, its chest rising and falling unevenly. One of its legs is clearly shattered.

“It’s been hit by a car,” Nancy whispers, kneeling down slightly. Her face contorts with guilt, “We can’t just leave it.”

Their eyes drift to the pistol now lying in the leaves.

Nancy hesitates, then bends down to pick it up. Her hands shake. She stares at the deer. At the suffering.

“I’ll do it,” Maggie says gently. She lays a hand on Nancy’s forearm, grounding her.

Nancy nods, eyes wide. Maggie steps forward, lifts the gun. Her breath fogs in the cold air. She cocks the weapon and aims, fingers steady.

Before she can shoot, the deer is yanked into the brush. Blood sprays across the leaves. All three gasp, stumbling back in horror.

“What was that?!” Nancy gasps.

“Jesus Christ,” Jonathan breathes, swinging his flashlight.

They follow the fresh blood trail, flashlights darting. But it abruptly ends, no body, no movement.

“Where’d it go?” Maggie asks, kneeling to inspect the leaves. Her voice is unnerved.

“I don’t know,” Jonathan mutters, “You see any more blood?”

Nancy shakes her head, slowly backing up. Her eyes scan the treetops.

They spread out slightly, trying to keep their nerves in check.

Then Maggie looks up, “Where’s Nancy?”

Jonathan turns, “What?”

“She was right here!” Maggie shouts, spinning in a circle, “Nancy?”

A scream tears through the woods.

“MAGGIE!”

“Nancy!” Maggie bolts in the direction of the scream, crashing through the trees. Jonathan chases after her.

They find Nancy’s bag and bat strewn across the ground, discarded. The air is cold and still.

“Nancy?!” Jonathan calls, panicked now.

Maggie cups her hands, voice trembling, “Nancy, where are you?!”

For several agonizing minutes, there’s no response until…

“Maggie! Jonathan!”

Maggie’s heart leaps, “Nance!”

“I’m right here!” Nancy yells again.

“Follow our voices!” Jonathan shouts, desperately.

They move through the trees, following the sound until they come upon a massive tree with a gaping hole in its trunk. It oozes with black slime, its inside pulsating like a living wound.

“I’m going in there,” Maggie says, already peeling off her jacket.

“What?! Maggie no. We don’t even know what that is!” Jonathan grabs her arm.

“I don’t care,” she says, voice flat with conviction, “She needs help.”

She plunges her arms into the slime, flinching at the freezing sludge. Gritting her teeth, she forces herself through.

With a nauseating shlorp, she lands on her hands and knees on the other side in the place she had been before. The air is thick and cold. The trees are blackened husks. Snow-like particles float silently in the air.

“Nancy!” she yells, scrambling to her feet.

Not far off, Nancy is cowering behind a tree as the creature stalks toward her. It clicks and purrs, its petaled mouth unfolding.

“Nance! I’m here!” Maggie yells, waving her arms.

The creature swivels toward her. Nancy locks eyes with Maggie.

“RUN!” Maggie shouts.

Nancy dashes toward her. The creature follows, shrieking.

Maggie points toward the tree opening, “Go, go through there!”

Nancy dives for the portal. Jonathan grabs her from the other side and yanks her through.

“Maggie!” he yells. “Come on!”

Maggie glances once more at the oncoming monster as it sprints closer, then lunges for the hole. Two sets of hands grab her arms and pull her through just as the gateway collapses shut behind her with a squelch.

They collapse in a heap on the cold ground, gasping, trembling, covered in the slime. For a moment, there is only silence.

Then Nancy throws her arms around Maggie, clinging tightly, both of them sticky and breathless and trembling, but alive.

Maggie lets herself hold the girl back, pressing her forehead to Nancy’s.

“I’ve got you,” she breathes, barely above a whisper, “I’ve got you.”

After the whole debacle, the trio heads back to the Wheeler house under the cover of darkness. The ride back is mostly quiet, Nancy’s hands wringing the hem of her shirt, Maggie staring blankly out the window, and Jonathan driving in a tense silence, eyes darting to the rearview mirror every few seconds.

When they arrive, they don’t bother with the front door. Instead, they scale the side of the house, slipping one by one through Nancy’s bedroom window with practiced stealth. Maggie carefully closes the window behind them, latching it softly.

“How are you feeling, Nance?” she asks gently.

“I’m… not sure,” Nancy replies, her voice soft and brittle, barely above a whisper. She sinks down onto the edge of her bed like her legs might give out, “I mean, that place… I thought I was going to die there.”

Maggie kneels in front of her, her tone low and even, “But you didn’t. You made it back. We both did.”

Nancy looks up slowly, eyes glassy and rimmed red, “You came in after me.”

“Of course I did,” Maggie replies, without hesitation, “You’re not doing this alone. Not anymore.”

Nancy gives a shaky breath, nodding, and Maggie squeezes her hand.

Jonathan lingers near the window, arms crossed over his chest, still visibly shaken. 

“We need to tell someone,” he says finally, “The police, or Hopper… someone has to know what’s out there.”

Nancy looks up at him, “And say what exactly? That there’s a portal in a tree to a hell dimension, and a monster dragging deer into its toothy flower-mouth? They’ll think we’ve lost it.”

“They already think we’re weird,” Maggie mutters dryly, standing up and dusting her jeans off, “Might as well double down.”

The room drips into silence. Nancy sits perched on the edge of her bed, her posture tight, like she’s holding herself together by sheer will. Her fingers fidget restlessly in her lap.

Maggie watches her carefully, her own heart pounding, not from fear of the monster anymore. She scoots closer, movements quiet and careful like she’s approaching a wounded animal. When she reaches Nancy’s side, she gently places a hand on her arm.

“Nance,” she murmurs, barely audible. Her palm is warm against the chill of Nancy’s skin.

But what Maggie does next, she doesn’t fully understand herself. She pulls. Maggie reaches into the tangled, buzzing energy that coils around Nancy’s body and begins to draw it inward. Fear. Panic. Dread. All of it floods into Maggie like a sudden downpour, the emotions hitting her like cold ocean water. It nearly knocks the breath out of her.

Her stomach twists violently. Her chest tightens. A sharp headache creeps behind her eyes. But still, she keeps her hand there. Pulling until Nancy breathes in and the panic is gone.

She blinks, visibly confused, like her body has registered the shift before her mind has caught up. Her hand stills. Her shoulders relax slightly. And her brows furrow, slowly turning toward Maggie.

“What…?” Nancy starts to ask, eyes scanning Maggie’s face with quiet curiosity.

But Maggie is already pulling her hand back. Her sleeves are tugged low over her wrists, hiding the faint glow that pulses beneath her skin like a heartbeat. Panic curls inside her. She rises too fast from the bed, wobbly on her feet.

“Hey, uh—do you maybe mind if I use your shower?” she blurts out, her voice a bit too high-pitched, too eager to escape.

Nancy hesitates, surprised, “Yeah. Sure, go ahead.”

Maggie nods, then quickly slips out the bedroom door without looking back. Nancy watches the door long after it clicks shut.

“That was… weird,” she mutters aloud.

“Huh?” Jonathan asks from across the room.

Nancy shakes her head slowly, eyes narrowed, “I don’t know. Maggie touched me and all of a sudden it’s like…all of the fear just disappeared. Not like I calmed down. Like it was gone. Like she took it from me.”

Jonathan gives a small laugh, half teasing, half brushing it off, “Nancy, I think that might be love.”

She gives him a look, “No, seriously.”

Jonathan’s smile fades just a bit as he moves to sit beside her on the bed, “Okay. That… sounds kinda intense.”

Nancy crosses her arms, chewing the inside of her cheek, “It makes no sense. It was like I’d been breathing underwater and then it was like she flipped a switch in me.”

Jonathan tilts his head, clearly filing the thought away, “Maybe you’re just shaken up is all. Still coming down from everything that happened.”

Nancy hums, unconvinced. She glances at the door again, her mind spinning. 

“Maybe…”

But in her gut, something tells her otherwise. Maggie’s touch hadn’t just been comforting. It had been deliberate. Powerful in a way Nancy couldn’t name yet, but she would. Because now, she was watching, and Maggie had just given her the first clue.

Maggie strolls back into the room about five minutes later with a practiced air of nonchalance. She moves as if nothing has happened, lips curved into a faint, casual smile like she didn’t flee the room in a hurry. But her eyes remain locked on everything except Nancy.

Nancy notices but she doesn’t say anything. Her gaze lingers on Maggie’s face, sharp and perceptive. She’s still trying to act fine, but something’s off.

Jonathan is the one who breaks the silence.

“You okay?” he asks, softly.

Nancy nods, perhaps too quickly, “Yeah. Just, uh… I think I’m gonna take a shower too. I feel like there’s still… goo on me.”

“Fair,” Maggie says with a breathy laugh.

“Yeah,” Nancy mumbles, “I won’t be long.”

She disappears into the hallway, leaving the door slightly ajar behind her. The room falls quiet again.

Jonathan sits on the edge of the bed, elbows resting on his knees, fingers loosely laced. Maggie remains by the desk, fiddling absentmindedly with the cord of Nancy’s lamp, winding and unwinding it around her index finger.

“You sure you’re alright?” Jonathan asks gently, watching her from the corner of his eye.

Maggie exhales through her nose, “Me? Yeah. I mean…as alright as a person can be after chasing a faceless flower monster through a slimy tree dimension.”

Jonathan huffs out a small laugh, “That’s a new sentence.”

“Figured I’d try it out,” she replies, finally glancing over at him.

He studies her quietly for a moment, noting the slightly flushed color still clinging to her cheeks, “You don’t have to pretend with me, you know. That you’re okay.”

Maggie hesitates, then shrugs, “Maybe I’m not pretending. Maybe I’m just compartmentalizing like a pro.”

Jonathan smirks, “Right. You’ve got that part down.”

“Thanks for going in after her,” he says after a moment, his voice lower, more serious.

Maggie finally looks up, “Of course I did. It’s Nancy.”

“I know. It’s just…” He runs a hand through his hair, “Not everyone would’ve done that. I—I froze. I didn’t know what to do.”

“You were trying to find her. You didn’t freeze,” she corrects, “You called for her. You didn’t give up. That counts.”

Jonathan lets out a slow breath, and something in his shoulders ease. Maggie leans back against the desk, folding her arms across her chest. 

“Besides,” she adds with a smirk, “between the three of us, I’m obviously the most badass.”

Jonathan chuckles under his breath, “Obviously.”

Nancy enters back into the bedroom a few minutes later, her damp hair clinging to her neck and collarbones. She looks cleaner and calmer…but the wide-eyed daze hasn’t fully left her face.

Maggie, sitting on the edge of Nancy’s bed, looks up at her with gentle concern. 

“Hey,” she says softly, “Feeling any better?”

Nancy nods wordlessly, hugging her arms around herself as she walks further in. Maggie stands.

“Listen,” Maggie sighs, brushing her fingers through her slightly tangled hair, “I’m gonna head home. I want to make sure Joyce is okay. I don’t like the thought of her being by herself tonight.”

Nancy hesitates, her expression faltering.

“Yeah,” she says, “Yeah, of course.”

“I can stay,” Jonathan offers, glancing between them. He scratches the back of his neck. “You know, so none of us have to be alone tonight. Unless… you don’t want me to.”

Nancy blinks, then shakes her head quickly, “No. Yeah. That’s okay. You can stay.”

Maggie’s lips quirk at the corners. 

“Alright, beautiful,” she says, turning to Nancy with a warm smile, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She turns to Jonathan, finger pointing at him, “And you, Mope-athon, don’t do anything I would do.”

Jonathan scoffs with a crooked grin, “No promises.”

Before either of them can say anything else, Maggie leans in and plants a quick, playful kiss on Nancy’s cheek. The other girl’s breath catches just slightly at the gesture, but she doesn’t pull away.

Maggie waves at both of them with a little salute before slipping through the window and into the cool night air. Her sneakers land lightly on the grass below, and with a quick breath, she jogs over to her bike.

By the time she gets back to the Byers’ house, the porch light is on, but the rest of the place is quiet.

“Joyce?” Maggie calls as she steps inside. The door creaks behind her. “Joyce, are you here?”

No response.

She checks the living room and the kitchen, but they’re empty. There’s no sign of her.

Maggie stands in the hallway for a moment, heart thudding just a bit louder now. She tries not to panic. Joyce wouldn’t have just vanished. Not without a reason.

“She probably went out. Maybe to talk to Hopper. Maybe to breathe,” she mumbles to herself, “She’s not stupid. She wouldn’t do anything reckless.”

Still, Maggie locks the door behind her just in case. She shuffles down the hallway. Her room is dark except for the glow of a small nightlight on her dresser.

She drops her coat to the floor, kicks off her shoes, and climbs into bed without even changing. Her limbs feel too tired, her brain too wired. She lies on her side, knees pulled in slightly, eyes staring at the ceiling.

Her thoughts spin. The creature. The pulsing tree. The warmth of Nancy’s cheek against her lips.

Maggie closes her eyes, exhaling shakily through her nose. Sleep doesn’t come easy as the faceless monster still haunts her dreams.