Chapter 12: PACKING BOXES
Susan had the house half-dismantled by the time I finished breakfast.
I came downstairs to find the living room transformed into a maze of cardboard—boxes stacked against walls, furniture pushed to strange angles, years of accumulated life being sorted into categories. Keep. Donate. Trash. The taxonomy of a family in transition.
"Billy." Susan looked up from the box she was filling with dishes. "Good morning. There's coffee if you want some."
"Thanks." I poured a cup, watched her work. She moved with careful efficiency, wrapping each plate in newspaper, placing it precisely in the box. No wasted motion. No hesitation. This was Susan in her element—domestic tasks she could control, problems she could solve with organization and effort.
"Need help?" I asked.
She paused. Something flickered across her face—surprise, maybe. Gratitude. The memory of a Billy who never would have offered.
"The boxes in the garage," she said. "They need to go in the truck. If you don't mind."
"I don't mind."
The garage was sweltering. August in San Diego, metal roof, no ventilation. The boxes were heavier than they looked—books, mostly, along with some tools Neil probably hadn't touched in years. I carried them to the rental truck parked in the driveway, making trip after trip, letting the physical work occupy my body while my mind wandered.
Six weeks since transmigration. That first morning felt like a lifetime ago—the wrong ceiling, the panic, the flame that had erupted without permission and scorched Billy's bedsheets. I'd come a long way since then. Learned control. Built relationships. Established myself as something other than what Billy had been.
But I hadn't forgotten what was coming.
Hawkins, Indiana. Late 1984. In a few months, Will Byers would start having episodes—visions of the Upside Down, the Mind Flayer reaching through whatever connection had been established during his disappearance the year before. The tunnels would spread beneath the town like cancer. Bob Newby would die in a hallway full of Demodogs. And eventually, the Gate would close, sealing the threat away until the next summer.
Unless I changed things. Unless the fire I'd been building could make a difference.
I dropped another box in the truck and paused to wipe sweat from my forehead. My shirt was soaked, clinging to Billy's muscular frame in ways that would have been uncomfortable if I weren't heat-resistant. Small blessing of the power—I could work in temperatures that would have floored me in my old body.
"You're making good progress." Susan appeared at the garage door, dish towel over her shoulder. "I wasn't expecting so much help."
"Happy to do it."
She hesitated. Opened her mouth, closed it. Tried again. "Billy, I want you to know—"
"You don't have to."
"I do." She stepped into the garage, lowered her voice even though no one else was nearby. "What you did. With Neil. I know it wasn't... traditional. I know it scared everyone. But I haven't felt safe in this house in years. And now I do."
The weight of her words settled over me. Not just gratitude—relief. The specific relief of someone who'd been holding their breath for so long they'd forgotten what breathing felt like.
"He won't touch you again," I said. "Or Max. That's not going to change."
"I know." She almost smiled. "That's what I'm thanking you for."
She turned and went back into the house before I could respond. Left me standing in the sweltering garage, feeling something unfamiliar in my chest. Not the fire—something warmer. Something almost like belonging.
I grabbed another box and carried it to the truck.
Neil made an appearance around noon, shuffling through the house with his eyes down and his shoulders hunched. He was technically helping—moving furniture, loading boxes—but he worked on the opposite end of the house from wherever I happened to be. When I walked into a room, he walked out. When I passed him in the hallway, he pressed himself against the wall like I might spontaneously combust.
Maybe I would. He didn't know I wouldn't.
Max noticed. She was hauling boxes from her room to the truck, making faces every time she passed me about the heat, and she caught Neil's latest avoidance maneuver with a look of grim satisfaction.
"He's like a ghost," she muttered, dropping a box labeled 'RECORDS - FRAGILE' into the truck bed. "Haunting his own house."
"Let him haunt," I said. "Better than the alternative."
"No argument here." She stretched, winced. "My shoulders are going to hate me tomorrow. You could be helping more, you know. Supernatural fire powers should come with supernatural strength."
"Doesn't work that way."
"Seems like a design flaw."
I laughed despite myself. Max had been doing that more lately—making jokes, engaging like I was someone worth talking to instead of a threat to be managed. The shift was gradual but real. Whatever trust I was building with her, it was holding.
"Come help with my room," she said. "I've got some boxes I can't lift."
Max's room was a time capsule of California girlhood—skateboard posters, band t-shirts, cassette tapes scattered across every surface. The boxes she'd packed were labeled in her sharp handwriting: 'CLOTHES,' 'BOARDS,' 'STUFF MOM DOESN'T NEED TO SEE.'
"What's in that one?" I asked, pointing at the mysterious third category.
"None of your business." But she smiled when she said it.
We worked in comfortable silence for a while, carrying boxes to the truck, navigating around each other in the narrow hallway. The afternoon heat was brutal, even with all the windows open, but neither of us complained. There was something almost meditative about the physical work—the simple clarity of lifting, carrying, stacking.
"You'll find new skate spots," I said as we headed back for another load. "Indiana's flat, but that's not all bad. Smooth roads. No hills to surprise you."
"You already used that one. Try again."
"Fine. Indiana has... corn. Lots of corn. Very scenic."
Max threw a wadded-up t-shirt at my head. I caught it and tossed it back.
"There's an arcade," I offered. More carefully this time, because this I actually knew. "In Hawkins. Called the Palace. Supposed to have decent machines."
"How do you know that?"
Because I watched your friends play Dragon's Lair there. Because that's where you'll meet Lucas Sinclair and everything will change.
"Research," I said. "Looked up the town after I heard Neil mention it. Figured I should know what we're walking into."
She looked at me sideways, that familiar suspicion flickering. But she let it go. "An arcade. That's something, I guess."
"Better than nothing."
"Barely."
We finished clearing her room and headed back downstairs. Susan had made sandwiches—ham and cheese, nothing fancy, but more food than she usually prepared. She seemed lighter today, moving through the chaos with something approaching ease. Even the set of her shoulders was different. Relaxed.
I ate three sandwiches and drank a quart of lemonade. The training was hungry work, but so was hauling boxes in the California heat. My appetite had become a running joke in the family—Max called it "the black hole in Billy's stomach." Susan just made sure there was always extra food.
Neil ate alone in the kitchen, silent and small.
The afternoon faded into evening. By the time the sky started darkening, the house was a shell of itself—bare walls, empty rooms, everything important packed and loaded. We'd finish the final details tomorrow morning, then head east.
I sat on my bare mattress after dinner, surrounded by boxes labeled with my name. Billy's things, now mine by possession if not by right. Clothes that fit someone else's history. Music that had belonged to a boy who didn't exist anymore.
Through the wall, I could hear Susan humming. Actually humming. The sound was so unexpected that I stopped what I was doing just to listen.
Tomorrow, new state. New school. New everything.
I pulled out my wallet and counted the cash. Three hundred and eighty dollars, more than enough for emergencies. Martinez's final pay, earned honestly, saved carefully. Proof that I could build something from nothing if I tried.
My hand warmed without me meaning it to. The pilot light that never went out, reminding me what I carried inside.
Hawkins was waiting. Will Byers was waiting. The Mind Flayer was waiting.
And I was ready.
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