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The Tale of Esther Galilee - The Vanishing of Will Byers

Chapter Warnings: Substance abuse, implied/referenced child abuse, period/canon-typical attitudes, canon character death, Hopper being depressed, minor kinkshaming? idk you just gotta remember this bitch says plenty of stuff I don't agree with.

This chapter has mostly been proofread by my lovely (bitch) professional-writer sister. But there were certain parts I hadn't quite finished yet and some others I changed at her suggestion. She hasn't proofread the edited version yet, so I might update this in a day or two. But for the most part it should be good. We're off to a bit of a slow start, but things will pick up soon enough.

Also, just a warning. Maybe don't get attached to the name "Emily." I might change it. I was thinking "Olivia" but idk I hate naming characters. I'm open to suggestions.

Also series name subject to change.

Series Masterlist

Prologue

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Emily stood over Jim Hopper with a sigh.

He was shirtless, passed out on the couch, as she often found him in the mornings. The house was a train wreck, though it was already like that when she went to bed the night before. It was always like that. Hopper didn’t have much in him for cleaning and Emily didn’t have it in her to care either.

She knelt down beside the coffee table and pulled a hollowed-out makeup compact from her pocket. She slipped six of Hopper’s Tuinal off the table from where they were all spilled over. Hopper wouldn’t notice.

He never did.

After placing the compact securely in the front pocket of her too-large sweater vest, she gave Hopper a couple of light smacks on the forehead with the back of her hand.

“Hop.” More smacks followed when he didn’t respond right away. “Hop, come on. You passed out on the couch, it’s time to get up. I’m leaving for school.”

Hopper stirred with a sniff and a groan. “Wha-” He trailed off sleepily before turning from his stomach onto his back. He grumbled a bit as he sat up. “Mm, sorry. I’m up, I’m up. Go to school. Have a good day.” He said all this as he was rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

Emily rolled her own. Not that she could really judge the man, or that she wanted to. He took her in when she had nowhere else to go, when even he didn’t want to do it. Sara had died less than six months before Emily came waltzing into Jim Hopper’s life, clamping her arms around his leg and refusing to let go, both in the metaphorical and once in the literal sense. She knew it had been hard for him. She knew he felt like he had replaced Sara. So he kept Emily at a distance.

She didn’t mind. Not really, anyway. She wouldn’t have known how to accept an actual father. Plus, helping Hopper keep his head above water gave her the feeling she was in some way repaying him. Maybe she couldn’t pull him out of the sea, maybe he couldn’t pull her out either. But they kept each other from drowning. She figured that was enough.

Hopper was already putting a cigarette in his mouth as Emily grabbed her backpack from its spot by the front door. “Don’t take your pills with beer this morning. And smoke that outside! We’re not animals,” she said, even though they both smoked inside the house all the time.

Hopper hummed. “Drive safe.” He called out to Emily’s already fleeting form.

“Don’t drive under the influence!” Emily yelled as the screen door shut behind her.

She made her way to her Volkswagen Rabbit outside, lighting her own cigarette from her coat pocket on the way. The car was a beater. Not because of age, it was only eight-years-old, but because of use. Prior to Hopper purchasing it for her over the summer, the car had belonged to a traveling salesman who got a lot of use out of it. Never seemed to care about maintaining a paint job or keeping the car out of the elements either. She didn’t mind, she loved the rabbit. Plus, it was way better than the alternative. Riding around in Hopper’s squad car was a real drag.

She kept the windows down in the car as she drove. She didn’t really care about the cigarette smell lingering in the vehicle, not that rolling down the windows helped with that much anyway, but she didn’t like the smoke stains that stuck to the ceiling. She finished her cigarette just as she approached the school parking lot and shot the butt out the window. It landed forgotten on the pavement.

Emily sighed. Arriving at Hawkins High always felt just a bit like a bell jar falling over her. She was grateful to be there, she really was. But Hawkins had its small-mindedness to it. Nonetheless, she knew there were worse places to be. Hawkins was fine, for now, anyway.

Getting out of the car, Emily noticed Lucas Sinclair and his friends riding through the parking lot toward the middle school, Lucas riding a bit ahead of his friends Mike and Dustin, making him look like their leader, which Emily always thought of him as. Lucas denied this. According to him, their ‘party’ was a democracy. He didn’t like it when Emily pointed out that democracies still had a president.

Emily called out Lucas’s name and waved to him. His head snapped in her direction, and he waved back to her with a smile as his group passed by her toward the middle school. Mike and Dustin followed Lucas’s gaze, also giving her quick smiles of acknowledgment before she was out of their view.

They were good kids, Emily always liked them. Of course, she knew Lucas best, which was probably why she thought of him as their leader. He was really the only one she actually knew at all.

She had been babysitting for the Sinclairs for a few years, though she suspected her time as babysitter was winding down. Lucas was getting older, and they were calling her less. Of course, Erica had only just turned nine. But Lucas would be able to watch her soon enough.

The other boys she’d only met a handful of times, since they usually went to Mike’s house to hangout. They only came over a couple of times, when they wanted her to show them how to shoot off a bottle rocket or blow up a pumpkin. Or that one time when Mike’s walkie was broken and Dustin couldn’t figure out how to fix it. Not that she ended up being much help. The kid was already way better than she was at that sort of thing.

Anyway, her interest in things that go boom got her a lot of brownie points in the babysitting department. She was pretty sure the boys liked her too.

Once they were past, Emily started toward the school. She vaguely noted that Will wasn’t with them. But Will’s house was a bit further away from the others, so that wasn’t unusual.

She had math first thing in the morning, which made her groan. Mr. Mundy was, to put it kindly, a sad old drone. The only saving grace was that she had math with Vickie, who was probably her one friend at Hawkins. She was friendly with plenty of people, sure. Emily certainly wasn’t a loner by any means. But she was never someone that needed to be constantly surrounded by people to survive. She did just fine on her own.

It wasn't until later that morning, that things got interesting. She was called out of Mrs. O’Donnell’s history class just a few minutes before the lunch bell.

Mrs. O’Donnell gave Emily a dirty look as Principal Higgins said her name over the loudspeaker. In Mrs. O’Donnell’s defense, there was a legitimate chance she had blown up a toilet or something. Emily didn’t often get in trouble, but when she did, she really made it count.

The class “oohed” as she grabbed her books and left. Emily had absolutely no idea what this was about, but it couldn’t be good. She chewed on her lip as she walked to the principals office and racked her brain for what she possibly could have been caught for.

Her fears were put to rest as she entered the front office and saw Hopper standing there by the secretary’s desk. He seemed perfectly fine, so whatever it was, she wasn’t too worried about it.

“Hop?” She squinted her eyebrows as she looked between him and the school secretary, Mrs. Applebottom.

“Hey kid. Can we talk for a minute?” Hopper gave her a placating smile, drumming his fingers against the desk in front of him.

“What’s going on?” She asked. Hopper gently grabbed her upper arm and guided her to the other side of the office, by the chairs designated for kids and parents waiting to speak to the principal.

Neither of them sat, instead Hopper planted his feet and turned to face her directly. Which didn’t make her feel good about the conversation.

“Look, I just wanted to let you know it might be a late night for me. I want you to go home after school and stay there, okay?” Hopper was speaking in a low voice. He didn’t seem worried, which eased her somewhat. But he obviously didn’t want anyone hearing their conversation.

“Okay…” Emily responded in a questioning tone. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, it’s fine. Everything’s fine. I’m pretty sure it’s nothing but I don’t want you taking any chances, okay?” Hopper clapped Emily on the back. He looked tired, exasperated almost. “So… straight home, alright?”

Emily searched Hopper’s eyes for a lie. There wasn’t one there, but based on the way he was searching hers for suspicion, she knew there was something he wasn’t saying. “You came all the way here to tell me that?”

“I was already over at the middle school.”

At the middle school?

“Hop, whats going on? What aren’t you telling me?” Emily asked frantically. Generally, she trusted Hopper. But she didn’t like the way he was being evasive about a situation he claimed was no big deal. It wasn’t like him to keep things from her, even police matters. He trusted her not to go spreading gossip and she never did. It wasn’t like any of it was ever interesting anyway.

Hopper sighed heavily. “Joyce Byers thinks Will is missing.”

“Will Byers is missing?” Emily’s voice pitched up the octave, thankfully she had the wherewithal to keep her voice somewhat quiet. Hopper shushed her anyway.

Will was one of Lucas’s friends. He was the quietest among them, so she didn’t know much about him, and a lot of what she did know came from town gossip. But he was a sweet kid, eager to help people. Plus Jonathan was in her class and while she didn’t get the impression the feeling was mutual, she liked Jonathan. He stonewalled people, like he was above it all; above the kids that gave him shit, and Emily liked that. She found it interesting, and interesting was about the best thing you could be in her book.

Plus, Joyce had been immensely helpful when Emily was floundering in Melvad’s after getting her first period and refusing to talk to Hopper about it. She didn’t know Joyce any better than she knew Will or Jonathan, but she liked Joyce and was always happy to chit chat with her in the checkout lane.

In her book, the Byers were alright people. Emily knew they were in Hopper’s too. Multiple stories from his high school years included Joyce, even if they didn’t talk much these days.

“Look, I’m sure the kid is gonna turn up. I just talked to his friends, they saw him going home last night. He probably just got lost in the woods or hitched a ride to his dad’s. He’s gonna be fine.”

Lost in the woods.

Emily didn’t like that.

“I’m sure it’s nothing. I just want you home, okay?” Hopper gave her a leading nod, and she followed suit.

For a second, at least.

“But what if he isn’t? What if he’s already dead out there?” Emily lamented, a sour expression on her face.

Hopper placed both hands on her shoulders, summoning all the fatherly energy he could to reassure her. “Hey, I told you, he’s gonna be fine. I’m gonna go check his route home right now. I’m gonna find him there. When have I ever lied to you?”

Emily elected not to point out that he had totally lied to her before.

“Just because you believe something doesn’t mean it’s true… How is Joyce holding up?” Emily adjusted the books in her arms awkwardly as she braced herself for an answer she was sure to be rough. Really, how could Joyce be doing right now other than terribly?

“She’s holding up.” Was the only response Hopper gave her.

The lunch bell went off then. Excellent timing as it seemed their conversation had run its course.

“I’ll see you tonight. Straight home.” He reminded her one last time.

“Yeah, straight home, you got it.” Emily nodded.

She let her feet take her the familiar path to her locker, exchanging her books for her brown-bag lunch. She tried to push the thought of Will Byers alone in the woods all night out of her mind. It brought back rough memories for her. Memories of before Hopper, before she ever knew a sense of safety in the world.

“Nice sweater-vest, Annie. Did you get that off an estate sale?”

Emily closed her locker and turned to find Carol Perkins standing there with Tommy Hagan and Steve Harrington close behind her. Tommy stepped forward and put his arm around Carol’s shoulders.

Oh joy. Carol Perkins. How she loved Carol Perkins.

Get it? Annie? Because she’s an orphan? Very creative on Carol’s part.

She looked down at her outfit, black corduroy pants, a white long-sleeve shirt, and a purple, over-sized, button-down sweater vest. Then she looked to Carol’s outfit, one of her many turtleneck sweaters (seriously, was that girl ever not covered in hickeys?) tucked into jeans. That day’s edition was red knit.

Emily hummed. “Well, I was in the market for a nice turtleneck but the lady running the sale told me some whore with a bad blowout bought them all up.”

Carol’s hair had been a sore spot for her and Emily from the day they met, the day that Emily grabbed her by the ponytail at the park and pulled her clean off her feet to the ground. That had been the day Carol dubbed Emily a “freak” and officially set her sights on her. They’d been going back-and-forth ever since.

“As if I would ever shop at an estate sale.” Carol chewed her gum obnoxiously.

“Hey, Emily, I got a question. When that bear ate your parents, did it eat through their clothes too or was that just, like, a wrapper to it?” Tommy laughed at his own joke and Emily couldn’t help the surprised chortle that fell from her lips as well.

Sometimes she forgot her and Hopper’s cover story for how she ended up with him. As it goes, Emily was out camping in the woods with her parents when they were attacked by a bear, her parents were killed and Emily ran off in a random direction, getting lost in the woods until Hopper found her. At least the last part was kind of true.

Since the story was fake, she wasn’t really bothered by Tommy’s teasing, but she was always just a bit amazed at how sadistic he could be. She decided to double down on it anyway.

“It actually used them like napkins. It was real demure for a bear.”

“Demure?” Tommy laughed, and she was pretty sure it was because he didn’t know what the word “demure” meant, and thought it was funny that she was using it in a sentence.

“Oh, that is sick,” Steve exclaimed. When Emily’s gaze met his face, he looked genuinely uncomfortable with the direction the conversation was taking. Emily just rolled her eyes.

“Freaks are always sick in the head. Least this one has an excuse.” Tommy’s free hand flicked Emily’s forehead as if to punctuate “this one,” and Emily slapped his hand away in response.

“Carol, could you please get control of your dog? He really should be on a leash.” Emily’s face twisted up in disgust as an awful thought occurred to her. “Actually, never mind, he’d probably be into that.”

Carol’s face mimicked Emily’s after that, Tommy, however, remained on his bullshit.

“Hey, that could actually be fun…”

“Shut up, Tommy.” Carol snapped. “That’s disgusting.”

Emily snorted and her eyes once again snapped toward Steve Harrington as the sound of his laughter joined hers. His eyes flicked away from Tommy and Carol to hers like he could feel her watching him, and Emily was surprised to find something like camaraderie in his expression. Like they were all friends laughing together.

Ew. Bleck. Other expletives.

“And what are you laughing at, Harrington? If Tommy is Carol’s dog, that basically makes you a goldfish.”

“A goldfish?” Steve looked unimpressed, still amused, but unimpressed.

“Yeah, you know; Dumb, boring, functionally useless, perpetually stupid look on your face… Need I go on?”

“Yeah, well, at least I don’t blow the heads off baby dolls for fun.” Steve shot back, crossing his arms in front of him.

Ah, yes, the exploding Cabbage Patch Kid prank. That was a good day.

Well, maybe not for Julianne Branson, but she deserved it.

“No, you just bother actual people trying to mind their own business.” Emily huffed out a laugh. “Anyway, I gotta go. Have fun with your dog, Carol.” She took her lunch bag and shoulder checked her way by Steve. Electing to eat lunch in her car, Emily headed out to the parking lot.

She let out a sigh of relief as she reached the rabbit. She thought about the compact in her pocket. Emily debated taking one of the pills, but she’d never done that at school before and she wasn’t sure it was a good time to start. Instead she just got in the car and ate her lunch silently.

She was a bit stuck on Will. Hopper genuinely seemed to believe the whole thing was no big deal. But she wasn’t so sure. Emily had a bad feeling, and she tended to find those trustworthy. Sure, she didn’t know the kid very well, but she cared about Lucas and she didn’t like to think of any child, especially one of his friends, in a bad situation.

If something happened to poor Will, Lucas would be devastated. Like actually, truly, never-the-same-again, devastated.

She went through the rest of the school day in a bit of a daze. She didn’t really feel like dealing with much of anyone or anything. She even avoided Vickie. Which was easy enough because they didn’t have any classes together in the afternoon and while they were friends, Emily wasn’t really a part of Vickie’s true "circle."

Emily tuned out her teachers during her classes and hoped she wasn’t missing anything too important. She almost skipped study hall, since it was her last class of the day anyway, but she didn’t feel like being alone in her house either.

She still didn’t feel like being alone in her house by the time school ended, so she loitered around for awhile, smoked a cigarette, and considered what she could do after that.

Hopper had told her to go home. She knew she should, but she would be bored there. Emily’s workshop was out in the woods in the shed by Hopper’s cabin, so she couldn’t work on any of her current projects. Which left homework, of which she had very little; watching TV; or reading her English book assignment, which sucked. It was Catcher In The Rye and Emily had barely made it a third of the way through the book before deciding that Holden Caulfield was a whiny little shit. She wasn’t reading anything else either, at the moment. She could stop by the school library before leaving, but the selection there mostly sucked too, and she didn’t feel like it anyway.

Hopper told her to go home, no qualifiers. Home. Straight home… But she didn’t think he’d be too mad if she went to Benny’s Burgers. Benny’s was safe, and supervised by Benny himself, who was Hopper’s friend. Plus, she needed to grab something for dinner anyway. So straight to Benny’s, then straight home.

When she got there, the parking lot was empty except for Benny’s truck, which was odd. It wasn’t even five o’clock yet. The diner should have been open. Mondays were slow, sure, but Benny had his regulars.

Emily got out of the rabbit and squinted her eyes up at the diner. She really needed glasses but she did not feel like dealing with that, thank you very much. Carol would never let her hear the end of it.

As she walked toward the front door, Emily saw Benny across from a little boy through the window. A little boy who, upon seeing Emily, looked more like he had seen a ghost.

Benny’s gaze followed the boy’s to her, and then turned back. Emily could see him put up a soothing hand gesture as he said something to him.

As Benny got up and walked toward her, Emily eyed the boy through the glass. He had a buzz cut and looked dirty, and it looked like he was being swallowed whole by one of Benny’s T-shirts.

Okay, what the hell?

Benny looked a bit sheepish as he opened the door for her. “Hey, kiddo, it’s good to see you but now’s not really a good time.”

Emily cocked an eyebrow at him. “Uh, now seems like a great time. Benny, did you kidnap a little boy?”

Of course, she didn’t actually think he kidnapped a kid, but the situation was weird as hell and no way was she walking away. Between this and Will Byers it was too much weird to be ignored for one day.

“Actually, I’m pretty sure she’s a girl. She says her names Eleven--” Benny cut himself off as he looked back at the girl and then to Emily. “--actually, maybe you could get a bit more out of her. You know, talk to her. Girl-to-girl.”

Emily looked at the girl, who was watching her with big brown eyes that seemed to stare into her soul. She directed her question at “Eleven” as she was apparently called instead of Benny. “Is it okay if I come in?”

Eleven looked to Benny for confirmation, then nodded.

Benny let Emily in. She walked toward Eleven carefully, so as not to spook her, and greeted her. “My name is Emily. Benny said yours was Eleven?”

Eleven nodded. Emily took note of the almost empty basket of fries in front of her, from the grease stains it looked like a burger had been there at one point too. Good, Benny fed the poor kid.

“Well, that’s kind of a funny name. How’d you get that one?” Emily sat down across from her, in the spot Benny had previously been.

Eleven just shrugged.

Emily turned back toward Benny, who also shrugged. “She don’t talk much. I gotta make a quick phone call, I’ll be right back girls.” Benny went back into the kitchen and Emily figured she could guess who he was going to call.

She turned to Eleven. She took in the shaved head, her skinny frame, how dirty she was. She had certainly spent some amount of time running through the woods before she got to Benny. What had she been wearing before Benny gave her the T-shirt?

The whole situation made Emily sick. The look on Eleven’s face reminded her all too well of one she used to wear. It was a look of fear, of mistrust. Something that only befell a child who had been completely, wholly failed. Emily had no clue what had happened to Eleven. If anything, an awful terrible part of her told her it was likely much worse than she could even imagine.

At least when Hopper found Emily, she was capable of speaking in a full sentence. She had been sheltered, sure. But her parents allowed some amount of socialization, and she had her siblings.

Eleven… Eleven seemed like she hardly knew how to speak at all.

Speaking of her siblings, as she narrowed her eyes in on Eleven, she realized she was likely around Rachel’s age. Rachel would have been eleven herself, and this Eleven couldn’t have been much older.

That made Emily’s heart ache even worse, thinking of the little girl she left behind. The little girl she never went back for.

She shook those thoughts out of her head, as she often had to. Especially now, because there was a more pressing matter at hand. A little girl Rachel’s age, with eyes that spoke horrors Emily feared she might not even be able to understand. Maybe she couldn’t help the siblings she left behind, but she could try to help the little girl that was sitting in front of her.

“I used to have a funny name too, yanno...” Emily started, drumming her fingers on the table as Eleven ate. The information she was about to give was not something she often offered up. Even Hopper didn’t know her real name. But these were special circumstances. “Esther.” She scrunched up her nose. “Isn’t that nasty? Should have been my first hint that my parents did not like me very much. Anyway, I got away from those losers. Benny’s friend Hopper helped me out. I live with him now. Hopper sounds like a funny name, but it’s his last name. Mine now too. His first name is Jim, short for James, very normal. Boring even.” Emily sighed before continuing. “Do you need to get away from your parents?”

“Papa.” Eleven responded, and after a moment Emily realized Eleven was correcting her.

“Okay. Do you need to get away from Papa?”

Another nod. “Bad.”

“My papa’s a bad man too.” Emily’s voice was small. She focused on the table in front of her, not being able to look at the familiar fear on poor Eleven’s face. “He used to hit me sometimes. Or he would lock me in rooms, or make me do bad things. He told me all kinds of terrible stuff too. Does your papa do stuff like that to you?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.” Emily nodded, taking in a deep breath and letting it out heavily. “Okay, so that’s settled. You’re never going back to Papa ever again. We’re agreed, hm?”

Emily let Eleven finish off the rest of her fries in silence. She wasn’t completely certain Eleven fully comprehended her babbling anyway.

When she was done with the fries, Benny set Eleven and Emily up on one of the counters in the kitchen with a tub of strawberry ice cream and passed a spoon to each of the girls. Emily let Eleven go ahead and dig in, laughing as the girl did so with gusto. She sure knew how to eat.

“Careful, you’ll give yourself a brain freeze.”

“Brain freeze?” The words sounded foreign on Eleven’s tongue.

“Yeah, you know, like when you eat something cold too fast and you get a headache for a second?”

Eleven just looked at her blankly as she licked the spoon again.

Emily forced a smile, changing course. “Alright, lemme in there, you’re hogging all the good stuff.” She poised her spoon above the tub and Eleven held it out a bit for her. She took a big spoonful.

Benny laughed from over by the sink. “You like that ice cream, huh?”

Eleven smiled.

“Smile looks good on you.”

Another blank look.

“You know, a smile.” Benny flashed an honestly pathetic attempt at a fake smile at Eleven. No way was he winning a Tony anytime soon.

Or maybe it was on purpose, because he chuckled a bit at himself as he turned away.

Just as a knock came to the front door of the diner.

Three heads turned.

Eleven’s quickly snapped back to Benny, her breathing picked up.

“Alright. Just sit tight. Whoever it is, I’ll tell ‘em to go away real quick, alright?” Benny threw the towel draped over his shoulder into the sink before walking off to the door.

There was an exchange between Benny and a woman with short gray hair at the door before he let the woman in. Emily and Eleven watched as the two talked.

And then the woman shot him.

She shot Benny.

In the head.

Benny’s dead.

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