Hawkins had a way of swallowing people without leaving a mark. Streets went quiet early. Houses shut in on themselves. When Joyce Byers picked up the phone, her hand shook hard enough to rattle the receiver, and she listened to it ring anyway, as if the sound alone could keep her youngest safe. The line finally clicked. She said their name once, sharp and breathless, then again softer, like saying it twice might make it real.

They sounded older than Jonathan, steadier on the line, which somehow made this worse. Joyce talked too fast, words tumbling over each other. Will hadn’t come home. His bike was gone. She’d called the school, the Wheelers, the police. She said disappeared like it was a diagnosis, like something a doctor would confirm. On the other end, there was silence long enough that Joyce filled it with panic, with reasons, with apologies she hadn’t earned yet.

Jonathan stood in the kitchen, hands jammed into his jacket pockets, watching their mother pace. He knew that face, the one he shared with both siblings. Same eyes, same worry lines already cutting in too deep. But the oldest had Lonnie written in their bones, in the set of their jaw, in the way they listened before believing anything. Jonathan could already feel the questions coming. He braced for them.

They came home because Joyce asked them to, even if she heard the reluctance before the agreement. She tried to hold herself together long enough to explain it again, slower this time, like pace would fix it. Will was supposed to be there. He wasn’t. Joyce said it like the house itself had betrayed her. Jonathan watched as doubt settled in, heavy and familiar, aimed not at the dark outside but right back at their mother.

They didn’t say Joyce was lying. They didn’t have to. The way they looked at Jonathan made it clear enough. If Will hadn’t vanished into thin air, then something else had happened. Something inside these walls. Jonathan shook his head, sharp and angry, defending Joyce because no one else ever did. Joyce heard pieces of it anyway, caught in the air between them, and it made her spiral faster.

Joyce talked to the walls, to the phone, to anyone who would stay in the room. She said she could feel Will. She said he was scared. She said mothers knew things. Jonathan watched his brother’s absence stretch and fill every corner. The oldest watched Joyce unravel, and Jonathan couldn’t tell which scared him more.

Night pressed in. The house hummed with electricity and unspoken blame. Joyce stopped pacing long enough to look at both of them, eyes red, voice rough, the words landing without decoration. “He didn’t just leave,” she said. “My son didn’t just leave.”