Chapter Thirty-Three: Reunions Made And Secrets Shared

(The Bathtub, Pt. 4)

***

Rowan's knee bounced up and down as she fiddled with her shirt hem, eyes periodically looking at the window and then looking away, as if she would see Hopper's car drive up every time she looked back, only to be proven wrong every time. In an armchair, her aunt was similarly looking at the windows, fingers drumming on the armrest. Beside her, Rowan could feel Nancy's worry about her brother, heightening her own worry and what-ifs, while on the other side sat Jonathan and Joyce, with Rowan squashed in the middle.

It had been hours since Hopper had left, afternoon slipping into night, and that had Rowan's joy of Alistair being safe shift into panic and worry again, that somehow Hopper hadn't gotten to them in time and now her little brother was gone, captured, used as an experiment, being tortured right now and she was unable to keep him safe. The light bulbs and coffee table were the only things deterring her from standing up and pacing around like a maniac, so instead her knee bounced and she looked at the window every five seconds as her mind spiralled into more and more horrifying scenarios of what Alistair was suffering under right now in the Place, thoughts screaming, What if, what if, what if—

But then, as Rowan looked away and lowered her head, hands now clasped together, she heard the crunch of tyres on gravel.

Her head jerked up, and she saw the beam of lights. Saw the familiar car with HAWKINS PD along the side.

Saw the small silhouettes in the back, behind the chief.

Heart in her throat, she leaped up and bolted for the door, second only to Nancy who had similarly leaped up and sprinted for the door, opening it and hesitating on the porch as the car stopped and doors opened, Rowan looking behind, almost collapsing to her knees at seeing Alistair walk out, almost teleporting right to him.

"Mike," Nancy breathed when she caught sight of her little brother. "Oh my God, Mike!"

And then she was running, and now Rowan was running, sprinting to Alistair, engulfing him into a tight hug. Alistair gave a squeak and gasped out, "Rowan, y-you're choking me!"

"Don't care. Told you I was gonna give you a hug," Rowan said, her voice thick with tears as she held her little brother tighter. Her little brother, who was in her arms right now, warm and solid and safe.

She felt his arms wrap around her, reciprocating the hug.

She pulled away, looking at him. "Are you okay?"

Alistair nodded. "I'm fine. You?"

Rowan smiled. "Absolutely."

Alistair frowned, before leaning in and whispering, "He saw me."

Rowan felt her blood freeze, but still asked in an equally low voice, "Who?"

"The Man. He... he came after El. But he saw me. He recognised me. He knows I'm here."

The rest was unspoken, that if he knew Alistair was still here... then he'd know about Rowan soon.

But that didn't matter. What mattered was her brother was safe right now. They could figure out the panic and shit of the Man now knowing she and Alistair were still in Hawkins later.

Especially with Will and Barb still missing, still being in that rotting world with the monster.

Rowan shivered, and Alistair picked up on it, frowning and opened his mouth to ask.

But then he was engulfed by another hug, this time from their aunt.

"Next time you disappear on me, kid, I'm tying you to your bed," Aunt Aco threatened, but her face was full of relief. She looked at Rowan, adding, "You too. You're both not having me worry to death all over again like you did today."

Rowan gave a wry grin. "Aunt Aco, you know that would be impossible for me."

"I would figure out a way. I'm a con artist and your aunt and guardian. I can damn well find a way to tie you to your bed without you jumping out."

Rowan just gave another wry grin before finding herself pulled into a hug, the Graveswoods sharing a family hug, reunited after nearly twenty-four hours apart, for a moment forgetting about everything else.

However, they were soon reminded about all that when a cleared throat came and Rowan and Alistair looked up to see Alistair's friends, Nancy, the chief, Mrs. Byers and Jonathan, and another girl staring at them.

Rowan felt her whole body lock up when she saw the girl, instantly recognising her shaved head, her face.

She was the girl from her dreams, the girl she saw doing telekinetic experiments, the girl who got hurt or locked away if she didn't comply. The girl who had been in her first dream of the monster. The girl Rowan had suspected was El.

The girl who was standing before her, was real, was definitely El.

Rowan gulped, trying to ignore the shiver of how yet again her dreams seemed to be real, ignoring the frown her aunt and Alistair were giving her, as Nancy spoke.

"Everything okay, Ro?"

"Y-yeah, everything's peachy. Just having a family reunion," Rowan said, giving a strained smile.

Nancy's brows pinched, but the chief cut in.

"Well, take it inside. The kid here said he has something to say."

He gestured to Mike, who nodded. Alistair also began nodding, getting up as he said, "Yeah, yeah, we do. A lot to talk about."

"About what, Al?" Aunt Aco asked, looking at him pointedly, and Rowan knew she'd seen El, was obviously wanting those answers now.

Before Alistair could speak, Mike spoke.

"About how to save Will."

***

"Okay, so, in this example, we're the acrobat. Will and Barbara, and that monster, they're this flea. And this is the Upside Down, where Will is hiding."

They were all inside, looking at Mike, Alistair, Lucas, Dustin and El, as they had explained how they'd found El, then found Will, and the Upside Down, using an example the boys' science teacher had given them. In turn, Rowan, Jonathan and Nancy talked about Barb missing, how they'd learned about a monster in the place that El called the Upside Down, that the boys had christened the Demogorgan, after the monster from their fantasy game. And according to the boys, the Upside Down was exactly like Hawkins, but empty, dark and cold—which was fitting, Rowan thought grimly.

Now, Mike was finishing up on how they would get there, using a pencil to stab a hole into the piece of paper to represent a gate tearing between their two worlds.

"Mr. Clarke said the only way to get there is through a rip of time and space," Mike finished up, Dustin interjecting,  "A gate."

"That we tracked to Hawkins Lab."

"With our compasses."

At seeing the blank looks, Dustin got a look that Rowan could only described as "tired of non-nerds not understanding science" and explained, "Okay, so the gate has a really strong electromagnetic field, and that can change the direction of a compass needle."

"Okay, that made less sense than it did before," Rowan muttered, crossing her arms as she leaned back, trying to ignore how the Place now had a name—Hawkins Lab.

"Is this gate underground?" Hopper asked, and all eyes turned to him.

"Yes," El confirmed.

"Near a large water tank?"

"Yes."

"How... do you know all that?" Dustin questioned, confused, Lucas and Alistair sharing his confusion, but Mike had a look of realisation on his face and said, "He's seen it."

Rowan's eyes widened and she looked at the chief with a newfound respect; breaking into a lab, especially the parts of a lab where the high-ups wouldn't want anyone to see took balls. She could see her aunt eyeing the chief with her own respect and a smirk, obviously pleased even the chief of police would break into a highly secure government building.

"Is there any way that you could... that you could reach Will?" Mrs. Byers asked, turning all attention back to her as the woman looked at El. "That you could talk to him in this...?"

"The Upside Down," El said, and Mrs. Byers nodded. 

"Down. Yeah."

"And my friend, Barbara?" Nancy asked, voice quiet. "Can you find her too?"

El nodded.

Rowan blew out a shaky breath, unable to keep a tiny smile off her face at that, at being one step closer to bringing Will and Barb home—a look at her brother told her Alistair thought the same, but mostly of Will. Not that she blamed him, if her suspicions were correct.

Which was how they found themselves at the Byers' dining table, El sitting in a chair while the radio played static and the photo of Barb sitting at Harrington's pool in front of her, her eyes closed, blood trickling from her nose as she tried to find Will and Barb. Rowan stood by her aunt and Alistair, a hand on his shoulder, just to reassure herself that he was here, that he was safe.

After another minute, where the lights had suddenly flickered before steadying, El opened her eyes, visibly upset and whispered, "I'm sorry."

"What?" Mrs. Byers whispered. "What's wrong? What happened?"

But Rowan had a feeling, a feeling that was confirmed when she saw the tears in El's eyes and she said in a shaky voice, "I can't find them."

At that, the hope crashed and burned, Rowan watching as Mrs. Byers visibly wilted, her heart clinching in sympathy for the woman who's been through hell this past week. Alistair left her side to comfort El, as did Mike, though that didn't erase Rowan's suspicions regarding her brother's feelings; she knew what was platonic comfort, and what was romantic. And her brother and Mike were each displaying both. She fought a smirk at seeing Mike fuss over El, obviously having a crush on her to everyone but him and El. Just like Al and Will.

As El went into a bathroom to clean off the blood, Mike began talking, explaining, "Look, it's not that El can't find them, it's that El is probably too exhausted to find them. Whenever she uses her powers, she gets weak."

"The more energy she uses, the more tired she gets," Dustin patched on

"Like, she flipped the van earlier," Lucas said, as an example.

"Which was awesome," Dustin chimed in, Alistair affirming with a smile and nod, as Mike added, "But she's drained."

"Like a bad battery,"  Dustin added.

"Like you do when you use your powers too much," Alistair muttered to her, too low for anyone but Rowan to hear, Rowan briskly nodding. She'd gathered that when she saw for herself El's nose bleeding, just like hers did after she unleashed a surge or used her powers a lot like she'd been doing these past two days.

"Well, how... how do we make her better?" Mrs. Byers questioned. Rowan couldn't fault the woman her urgency, her desperation to find her son, but the teen had a feeling that it wasn't such a simple thing.

"We don't," Mike said, confirming what Rowan had thought. "We just have to wait and try again."

"Well, how long?" Nancy demanded, a similar urgency in her voice. Again, Rowan couldn't fault her. She would be just as urgent if Eddie, Chrissy or Robin had been the ones taken.

"I don't know," Mike admitted.

Before anyone could speak, a soft voice cut in.

"The bath."

Everyone turned to see El standing there, a solemn look on her face that didn't disguise the hope flickering in her eyes. Rowan frowned, not getting what she was saying.

"What?" Mrs. Byers asked.

"I can find them. In the bath," El elaborated, which only confused Rowan further. Why would a bath help her find Will and Barb?

"Does anyone get what she's trying to say?" Aunt Aco muttered, the other two teens giving Rowan's aunt visible confused looks, but Dustin seemed to understand.

"Chief," he said, looking at Hopper. "You said there was a water tank, near the gate?"

Hopper nodded. "Yeah."

Dustin then looked at his friends and said, "Does anyone not understand what El's trying to say?"

At seeing visible shakes, he sighed and said, "El's not talking about a bath. She's talking about a sensory deprivation tank. And why would she need one?"

This time, Alistair got what Dustin was saying. "To help focus her powers."

"Bingo!"

"Okay, that's all fair and good, but do you nerds know how to build one of those things? Because I don't," Rowan asked.

"No. But someone in Hawkins must," Dustin admitted.

"Mr. Clarke would know. He's probably the only other person who would know," Mike said, and Rowan could visibly see the gears turning in Dustin's mind, as he looked at the phone on the wall.

But before he could move, the chief spoke again.

"Before you do anything, kid, I think there's something else to be talked about."

Rowan frowned, noticing the chief was looking at her, at her brother. They looked at her aunt, who was confused and wary about what the hell Hopper was talking about.

Everyone else seemed to be, too, except for Mrs. Byers as she murmured, "I don't think this is really the time, Hop..."

But Hopper was undeterred, ploughing on.

"When I saw the gate, I noticed these on a desk," he said, and pulled out a stack of manila folders and put them on the table, and Rowan's whole body froze when she read the name in bold on the top—GRAVESWOOD, ROWAN LEONORA. "I have no idea why they were there, or why they let me keep them, or why they even exist. But it was something to do with your family, Aconite. Your niece and nephew."

He gave Rowan, Alistair and Aunt Aco a look, not opening the files, as Rowan stared at her file in mute shock, because she had no idea they had had files on them, she had no idea.

No one opened the files, instead looking at them in confusion, while El was looking them in a strange, intense way, as if she could sense their abilities.

"I have't read them, but Aconite, I think we all need to know why the hell Hawkins Lab has files on you and your family," Hopper said, looking at the family pointedly.

Aco stared at him, then snorted.

"Probably some government conspiracy shit about my family. There's always been rumours about us, but no proof," she said, as Rowan reached for her file while Alistair reached for his, opening it with trembling fingers, sucking in a breath at what she saw in her file.

There was a picture of Rowan that had been somehow taken without her knowing, information about her—her name, her current age, height and weight, birthday, family, and other general stuff. But underneath that, underneath the title ABILITIES was the damning evidence:

[GRAVESWOOD, ROWAN LEONORA] ABILITIES:

Electrokinesis

Teleportation

Telekinesis

Potential: High

A glance at her brother and his pallid face told her he saw the same things, gave her his file as she looked at what was listed under ABILITIES:

[GRAVESWOOD, ALISTAIR NATHANIAL] ABILITIES:

Mediumship (Seeing and Communicating With the Dead)

Potential: High

They didn't need to open the other files. This was enough to prove the lab had known about them all along, hidden powers or not, attempting to be normal kids or not, they had known this whole fucking time.

They had known.

Rowan couldn't stop looking at the files, at her photo, the information on it, her heart thundering in her ears, pounding, booming like a crash of thunder, her power spiking and jumping in response to her panic, the urge to jump, to teleport far, far away so strong and tempting, doing all she could to restrain it; dimly, she heard her brother's panicked, harsh breathing, his face pallid and eyes huge, trembling with his own panic.

But Rowan couldn't focus on her brother's panic, not when she was embroiled in her own.

"They knew," she croaked out, and all eyes snapped to her, her aunt giving her a cautious look.

"Rowan..."

"They knew this whole time!" she screamed, slamming hers and Alistair's files back on the table, not caring about anyone else in the room, not caring that the lights were flickering or the way Mrs. Byers had looked at the wall, whirling on her aunt, eyes frantic, fists balled. "What was the point of hiding if they freaking knew?! They knew this whole time and could have taken us!"

"Is that any different from before?" her aunt questioned.

"Yes! Because I didn't know he had fucking files on our fucking family and our fucking powers back then!" Rowan screamed, her veins burning, crackling, as lights seared and hissed, flaring bright and white-hot.

"Holy shit!" Dustin screamed as everyone stared wide-eyed at Rowan—her veins glowing blue, her eyes glowing that same electric blue, as blue-white electricity crackled across her body, which in turn was blurring around the edges, as if she was about to teleport right then and there. The files long forgotten.

Aunt Aco and Alistair's eyes widened and Aunt Aco yelled, "Kid, calm down!"

But Rowan couldn't, feeling her heartbeat pound louder and louder, feeling her lungs burn and spasm, the lights going brighter and brighter as the electricity built and built; distantly, thunder rumbled.

"Rowan, you're gonna release a surge! Rowan!"

"ROWAN!" Alistair screamed and grabbed his sister's arm, hissing in pain as the electricity stung him.

Instantly, that snapped Rowan out of her panic, the electricity dying away, her eyes fading into a more natural blue as her veins stopped glowing and the lights flickered back to normal.

"Oh my God," she whispered. "Al, are you okay? Oh my God, squirt, I'm so sorry."

Alistair gave a jerky nod, shaking his hand. "I'm okay, it's okay. It didn't hurt much."

Rowan still looked at him guiltily, her heart twisting. God, if her electricity had been any hotter...

"You okay, kid?" her aunt murmured, a hesitant hand on her shoulder.

Rowan nodded. "I-I'm fine."

She looked back, saw all those eyes staring at her.

She gave her aunt a weak smile. "Guess we can't lie anymore."

Her aunt's mouth twisted. "Guess not."

Rowan sighed, and gave a shaky smile.

"Um, sorry about messing with your wiring, Mrs. Byers."

"Rowan, your... your nose," Nancy said, pointing to her and alerting Rowan to the warm trickle coming from her left nostril.

"Oh," Rowan said, rubbing it away. "That, uh... that happens when I, um, use my powers too much."

"Just like El," Mike murmured, and Rowan nodded. 

"Yeah, just like El."

Awkward silence settled, before Dustin broke it.

"So, you have had cool superpowers this whole time and never said anything?!"

Rowan barked out a laugh and Alistair gave a weak grin, rubbing the back of his head and mumbling, "She's not the only one."

At that, his friends looked at him and Mike asked, "What do you mean?"

Alistair bit his lip, picking at the skin around his nails before he admitted, "I can... see ghosts."

Everyone stared at Alistair, obviously not expecting it, before Lucas said, "Are you serious?"

"Dead serious," Alistair replied and Rowan rolled her eyes.

"You couldn't resist, huh?"

"I joke to cope," he muttered, and her aunt looked to Rowan, obviously remembering her niece's answer about joking as a coping mechanism, as Lucas and Dustin spoke at the same time.

"But ghosts don't exist."

"That is so cool! You have like Ethereal Sight or something! Wait, is it Ethereal Sight? Also, can you raise an undead army?"

"I don't know, Dustin, and it's less cool and more traumatising," Alistair responded to Dustin's questions, before he looked at Lucas and said, "And yeah, they do."

"Prove it," Lucas demanded, obviously skeptical.

"Why do I need to prove it?"

"Rowan proved hers!"

"Lucas has a point."

"Okay, fine," Alistair grumbled. He looked at Lucas and said, "Lucas, I talked to your grandma. She told me she had a feeling I had 'the sight', like she knew I could see ghosts, and to tell you to not be sad, that she loves you, your sister and your dad, and is watching you all."

"But my gran's dead. She died four years ago. And you never talked to her when she was alive."

"Exactly. I talked to her the day of her funeral... Lukey."

Lucas' eyes widened, the nickname proof because it had been the nickname his gran would always call him while Dustin and Mike looked straight at Lucas, grins on their faces.

"Holy shit," he breathed. "You can... really see ghosts?"

Alistair nodded. "Yeah, I can. It gets annoying when they won't leave you alone."

"So wait, every time you stare into space... that's a ghost?" Mike asked.

"Yep."

"Wait, is that why you don't like the cemetery?" Dustin asked.

Alistair winced, but nodded. "Yes. Lots of ghosts, lots of death. Same with hospitals."

Mrs. Byers looked at him sympathetically as Aunt Aco gave her nephew a comforting shoulder squeeze, but Dustin wasn't done.

"And when you were positive that Will's ghost wasn't haunting us... was because you couldn't see it?"

"Yes. That, and if it was, you guys wouldn't have heard him over the walkie," Alistair admitted.

"Oh. Wait, what else can you do, Rowan?"

Rowan hesitated in speaking, but at all those curious eyes on her, at knowing she was more or less a comic book superhero come to life for Dustin, Mike and Lucas, she relented.

"I can, um... I can control and generate electricity," she said, raising a hand as blue-white sparks crackled to life on her fingers. "But I can also teleport and move things with my mind, like El can."

She jerked her head to El, who was still staring at her, at Alistair. Rowan ran her tongue over her bottom lip, weighing it up, wondering if she should just keep it secret, but all her other powers had been revealed, and sooner or later everyone was going to notice how she'd looked at El, like she had instantly recognised her. And besides, she had to come clean about seeing Will and Barb sooner than later.

"There's one more thing," she said, and Al and her aunt looked at her as well as the others in the room. Shifting her weight, Rowan went on.

"This isn't the first time I've seen El," she admitted. "I saw her, before, in my nightmares."

And like that, the floodgates opened, the words spilling out, flowing like a tidal wave.

"For the past few years, I've had nightmares of a little girl with a shaved head in a hospital gown. A little girl who could crush soda cans and find people with her mind, who when she didn't comply was hurt. I just thought it was my mind conjuring up a scenario where me and Al were taken away, I thought it wasn't real—until Al told me about El, and a part of me knew that was who I was dreaming about, but I wasn't entirely sure, until now. And... and on the night Will disappeared, I had a dream of El, touching the Demogorgan."

Swallowing the knob in her throat, Rowan forced out the words.

"And a few nights ago, I had a nightmare of Barb and Will. Except... except they could see me. El hadn't been able to see or hear me, but they could. Until they somehow didn't, when I had been helping Barb get away from the Demogorgan, and after I promised Will we'd find him, and bring him home."

It was deathly silent as Rowan finished.

"I have no idea why or how I could see El, or Barb and Will, in my dreams, but I could. I just... thought you should all know."

The entire room was quiet before it exploded into noise.

"You... you saw Will?" Mrs. Byers asked as Jonathan stared at her, shock and hurt visible in his eyes. "Was he okay? Was he hurt? Was he safe?"

"That's what your nightmares were?" her aunt whispered. "Kid..."

"Holy shit. That... is awesome!"

"Was Will okay?"

"Yeah, was he okay?"

Rowan looked at them and said, "Yes, he was... more or less okay. Scared and alone, but okay. And yeah, that's... that's my 'nightmares'. I like that you think my not-nightmares are so cool, Dustin. Really alleviates how terrifying they are."

"But, how come you can do that?" Mike asked, before Dustin could, the other boy giving Mike a dirty look.

Rowan shrugged. "I don't really know."

"I do," her aunt said, and all eyes looked to her. "There've been... accounts of Graveswoods in the past who could traverse people's memories and minds through their dreams. I haven't heard of them being able to go into another dimension, or be visible to the people they watched through their dreams, but then again I didn't know there was another dimension until recently, so it could be possible."

"So, it's just been another power?" Rowan asked, and her aunt nodded.

"Yeah, but it's a cool power!" Dustin said, grinning.

Rowan returned it with a thin smile. "Thanks."

The boys opened their mouths to ask more questions of her and Alistair, bodies thrumming with the urge to know more, but Nancy cut in.

"Why didn't you guys tell anyone?"

Why didn't you tell me and Jonathan, was the unspoken question, directed right at Rowan.

Rowan looked at Alistair, and said, "It has everything to do with the government creeps who also experimented on El."

She pointed to her parents' files and continued, "My family... we all have powers, and we get them when we're kids. I got mine when I was six. There was this man, he must have had some bugs or something because he figured out the blackout I caused in my kindergarten class was not faulty wiring and came to our house, to take me away. Long story short, we escaped, went on the run for two years until our parents dropped me and Al off at our aunt's when Al got his powers and sacrificed themselves to keep us safe. We've hidden our powers since then, pretended to be normal kids, so that we're not taken away and used as weapons. We... we haven't even talked to the rest of our family, because it's too risky. But I guess all those precautions were just bullshit anyway, since he knew about us this whole time."

She gestured to the files as evidence. Everyone was staring at her, not expecting that answer.

"Some don't get powers, though," her aunt added on. "I don't have any abilities. It's... it's why my sister and her husband thought their kids would be safer here. I thought they'd be safe here, too."

She gripped Rowan and Alistair tight, glaring at the files like she wanted them to burn.

"And I also didn't tell anyone about my nightmares, not even my aunt or Al, because I thought they were just nightmares, not me dream-walking into El's memories or into the Upside Down," Rowan said, holding herself.

She hadn't mentioned the nightmares of that massacre, of those twisted, bloody-teared children and white walls painted scarlet. Because she had no idea whose memories those were, if they were memories, or true nightmares. She didn't know which option was worse to be true.

Another silence settled, before El was the one to speak, looking at the Graveswood siblings.

"You... are like me, Al? You and Rowan?"

Alistair looked at El, and nodded. "Yeah, we are. Kind of. Sorry for lying. Friends don't lie, but..."

"I told him to keep it a secret," Rowan interjected. "I... wanted to be careful."

El nodded, like she understood. Maybe she did.

"Look, as... interesting as this has been, we have other things to focus on, remember?" Rowan said, and Dustin nodded.

"Yeah, yeah we do," Dustin said as he walked over to the phone, and began dialling the number for his science teacher.

They all watched, waiting for it to pick up, the Graveswood secret unearthed pushed aside as the more pressing matter became more viable—having El contact Will and Barb.

And somehow get a middle school science teacher tell them how to build a sensory deprivation tank to do so.

***

*laughs evilly* EVERYTHING IS FINALLY REVEALED!!! MWUAAHAHAHA

I loved writing the Graveswood family reunion. Like I said, they're all really close and Rowan's just really relieved that her little brother is safe and her aunt is relieved that her niece and nephew are all safe now 🥺

And not only does the group now know what each party has been doing, but now the Graveswood family secret is revealed!! I've been planning that for a while now, and I loved writing every second of it

And yeah, even though they've been careful, Brenner still has files. When I say the man is obsessed with people who've had powers in their family for generations, I mean he is OBSESSED

And yes, you now know what I've been hinting at for a while: Rowan can dream-walk!!! Those are what her "nightmares" are and always have been

(Also, who's gonna tell her the massacre is real and that it's also another memory of El's? >:))

And now, the group's moments away from learning Barb and Will's fates! And it's... it's gonna be a lot

Next chapter will be out soon! Please read, comment and vote!

GhostWriterGirl out!