VEILED MYSTERIES ↝ S. HARRINGTON [1]

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They say you can turn a house into a home, but nobody talks about the time when the home reverts back into just a house.

Riley Hopper slowly ascended the staircase, her fingertips gliding across the familiar grooves in the wooden handrail as the soles of her sneakers scuffed against the steps. An entire life of pulling herself up one stair at a time, to walking and eventually running up the same staircase in the hustle and bustle of the Hopper household, her mother's stereo filling the house with music as she painted the days away in her studio, or the clanking tools of her father working on his cars in their garage. Now the house stood empty, an eerie quiet settling over where Riley paused at the top of the stairs, her mother's paintings long packed up in boxes in a storage shed downtown and her father's cars having been sold to the highest bidders.

The floorboards creaked with each step she took through the hallway, echoing through the eerie silence of the old Hopper house. She paused outside her old bedroom, which only a week ago had still been her safe haven but now stood entirely empty, her belongings packed up in a trailer outside waiting to go.

"Hey kid," a voice sounded from behind her, and Riley turned to see the man now standing at the top of the stairs, her uncle Jim Hopper looking back at her. "You ready to go? Long drive back to Hawkins, we should get a move on before the sun sets."

Riley turned back to take one final glance at the empty room. "Yeah," she said, shaking her head softly before quickly reaching for the doorknob and pulling it shut, obscuring the room from her view. "Yeah, let's go."

Riley followed her uncle back down the stairs the way she'd come, walking past the other open doors of her parents' room and her mother's old art studio but not allowing herself to look inside, knowing she'd never be able to force herself out of the house if she spared another glance.

The laughter that had echoed through the house during a family game night, the endless breakfast for dinner nights that had taken place at the kitchen table, a young Riley's scraped knees from falling off her bike being patched up in the bathroom under the medicine cabinet, all gone in the blink of an eye.

Riley's home was gone, replaced by a house full of old memories.

Her uncle's tan truck waited outside the house, engine already running and connected to the trailer full of Riley's belongings. Riley approached the passenger door, Hawkins Police Department emblazoned on the side, and pulled it open, settling inside while she waited for her uncle to climb into the passenger seat. She only allowed herself to look up once the truck was shifted into drive, and one last glance of the house was stolen as the drove down the street, the building growing further and further away in the distance.

"I think you're going to like Hawkins." her uncle spoke up from the seat next to her, in an attempt to start a conversation with the quiet teenager. "Sure, it's not the city you're used to, but there's a lot of charm there."

She nodded politely as he spoke, though her eyes remained trained out the window, as the streets of Bridgeport, Connecticut began to pass her by. Riley had only ever been to Hawkins a few times growing up for family Christmases, but she didn't know what to expect, other than a sleepy little town in the middle of Indiana.

Riley reached into the front pocket of her backpack, laying on the floor in front of her seat, and felt for the familiar pages of the paperback she'd packed on top. She pulled it out from her bag, curling her legs up beneath her on the seat and opening the book up to where she'd marked her last spot, beginning to read.

She knew it was a long drive, and that they'd be traveling through the night, so she at least wanted to get a head start in her reading before nightfall.