steves sister | a stranger things story

Chapter 20

"This is more of the same." Joyce sighed retuning with more drawings. She took some of her pile and handed them to Marley before giving the rest to Hopper. Hopper inspected each drawing.

"Its nothing its just scribbles."

"Wait." Joyce said stopping him as he looked through the pile, she pointed at a black line at the top of the paper. "These black lines." She grabbed a paper from the pile next to her and put it on top of Hopper paper, the lines seemed to connect with each other. "Look they connect." Joyce looked at the both of them, Hopper sat there examining the paper. "They connect." Joyce repeated.

"Holy mother of god they do." Marley mumbled.

Hopper stood up and pushed the coffee table back to the wall, Marley and Joyce spread out all the papers across the floor and they began sorting them as if they were a puzzle. Joyce went back and forth collecting more papers from Will, she ended up giving him some baking paper since they were running out of normal paper. Marley had to grab some tape from the kitchen to stick park of the puzzle onto the sofa so it could continue.

It took them all a while, but they managed to use each and every piece. The pile in Will's room was getting bigger but they had finished what they had so far. It lead all around the dining room and up a few tables and lamps, Marlow, Hopper and Joyce stared in amazement at the puzzle wondering what it was.

"Does this mean anything to you both?" Hopper questioned.

"No." Marlow and Joyce sighed.

"I mean is it some sort of maze or road?" Joyce suggested. "I mean its sort of forking and branching like... like lighting."

"You think its that storm?" Hopper asked referring to Will's drawing of the shadow monster.

"No the storm he drew was completely different." Joyce started.

"He used red." Marley finished.

"And this is all blue and some weird dirt colour. I mean maybe its roots. Cause remember he was saying it was spreading an-" Joyce started.

"Killing." Hopper finished, he seemed to know something they didn't. "He said the were killing." Hopper grabbed his hat and ran out of the house and drove off.

"Do you know what he meant?" Marley asked.

"No..." Joyce mumbled.

It had been a few hours and Hopper still didn't return. Marlow and Joyce continued putting the papers together, it leaded up the walls and around the rooms. Marley stuck the last paper from her pile on the wall with tape and stood back trying to put what it meant together.

"Sweetie you done in the kitchen?" Joyce called from the dining room.

Marley blinked a few times to get back in reality. "Yeah I'm done. Do you need any help?"

"Just maybe sticking some more up in here please." She replied.

Marley entered the dining room, Joyce was standing on her tippy toes on a chair holding up a piece of baking paper to the wall. "Can you just get some tape please?"

"Yeah sure." Marlow rushed over to the table and brought a chair over and stuck the paper up.

"Thanks Marley. Thanks for coming to help today." Joyce said getting down from the chair.

"No problem I like helping." Marlow replied.
Suddenly there was a knock on the door.

"Hello?!" Marley heard Mike's voice call. "Will?! Marlow?!"

"I'll just tell him its not the best time." Joyce said walking off to the door. Joyce opened the door slightly so Mike couldn't see inside the house.

"Hey Mike."