let’s mosey

It started six months after they tried to kill Vecna the first time. At the time, Steve attempted to distract himself from the looming threat of that beast (and from the fact that Max was still comatose) by throwing himself into his studies.

He was a first-year student at the local community college now, same as Robin. For English class, they were assigned to read Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. The text was a little more complex than the fare Steve usually gravitated toward—whatever comic Dustin forced him to read—but Steve enjoyed it just fine. A story within a story, his professor had called it a “frame narrative.”

Late one September night, Steve found himself drifting off to sleep while reading about Heathcliff and Cathy’s insanely fucked-up relationship dynamic. He rubbed his eyes and shut the book, figuring he’d finish the chapter at breakfast tomorrow.

He stood from his desk chair, stretched, and crawled into bed. As for the hope of sweet dreams, Steve’s would be anything but.

He dreamed of drowning in choppy oceans, of being shot point-blank by an evil government agent, of being chased by a bloodthirsty demodog. Steve woke with a start just before his dream self was torn limb from limb.

The horror continued when he heard a scratching at his bedroom window, which caused him to flinch. The shadows of tree branches danced behind the thin white curtain, looking like claws reaching for him as they hit the glass.

“It’s the tree,” Steve mumbled to himself, in the hopes to slow his pounding heartbeat. He rubbed his eyes. “Just foliage. You’re afraid of foliage, you big pussy.”   

He started to roll over, but the scratching got louder and louder.

Angry and scared and stressed, Steve huffed and stomped over to the window. Maybe he could use his bat to knock down those pesky branches, and—

He tore open the curtains and gasped, stumbling backward and falling on his back.

There was a woman floating behind the window.

A woman, wearing a long white nightdress, hair blowing in the wind. Her eyes and mouth were open wide, as if she was silently screaming for something. Like a banshee.

Her fingernails clawed at the glass, desperate to get inside.

Paralyzed in fear, Steve could only watch from his spot on the ground as she eased the window open and clamored into his room. She was barefoot, and Steve could now see that her legs and the bottom of her white dress were caked in mud and…was that blood?

She staggered forward a la Frankenstein’s Monster, and something flipped in Steve. He dove for the nail bat resting by his closet door and held it aloft, ready to swing.

But he hesitated, because the woman wasn’t chasing after him. She stood in the middle of the room, arms outstretched, but she was completely still.

Steve’s chest heaved as he panted, unsure of what to do. He adjusted his grip on the bat, opening his mouth to demand her explain herself, when she rasped: “He—he—help.”

“Help?” Steve repeated, lowering the bat. “You…you need help? You’re not here to kill me, or something?”

“Help,” she rasped again, still unmoving—except for a quiver in her lower lip and tears rolling down her cheeks.

When she was outside the window, her ghastly appearance gave the impression that she was much older than she really was. Now, just a few feet from Steve, she looked to be in her early 20s—just like him.

And she looked completely terrified.

Steve’s common sense blew away with the wind. He cautiously put the bat down and inched closer, justifying his possibly idiotic decision by reminding himself that maybe this was another dream. A dream-within-a-dream. His very own frame narrative.

“I can try to help,” he said gently. “Just tell me your name. And, uh, what you’re doing in my house?”

“He’s going to find me,” she whispered. “He’s going to take me back.”

Alarm bells rang out in Steve’s head.

“Who?” he demanded.

“Please, help.”

“Yeah, I know, you need help,” Steve said, frustration seeping into his tone. “But I can’t help you unless you give me some more information.”

The woman shivered from head to toe.

“Let me get you a blanket, or something,” Steve said. Against his better judgment, he turned his back to her to open his closet. He pulled a handmade blanket from the back and turned to give it to her—