"I swear, if I'm dying tonight because of you, I'm gonna haunt your ass so hard, Harrington!"
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah! I'm gonna go full Poltergeist and shit!"
"Then bring it, Graveswood."
"Challenge accepted."
***
In which after years of suppressing their...
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Chapter Eighty: Family Reunion
(The Gate, Pt. 7)
***
"Come now, Aconite, put that thing down. Is that any way to greet your mother?" the woman chided, before she turned to Rowan and Alistair and smiled. "My, look how big you've both gotten. You both look so grown up, and so much like your parents..."
"Mom, what are you doing here? How did you get in here? No, scratch that, how are you even here in Hawkins?" Aunt Aco interrogated, still standing protectively in front of Rowan and Alistair who were still staring at the woman that could only be their grandmother, the matriarch of the Graveswood family—Vervain Yvette Graveswood.
Vervain looked away from Rowan and Alistair and to their aunt.
"All business, it seems. I've never seen you so serious before, Aconite," their grandmother said, a silver brow arched.
"When it comes to protecting Bella and Ben's kids, I get very serious," Aunt Aco bit out. "Now talk, Mom."
Before their grandmother could answer, more voices came and two more people appeared. One was a girl the same age as Alistair, curly hair tied up in a ponytail and looking at Rowan, Alistair and Aunt Aco curiously, while the other, an older woman around the same age as Aunt Aco stood frozen, staring at them like she'd seen ghosts instead.
Aunt Aco's face twisted, like she wanted to cry and embrace the woman Rowan realised with a jolt must be her mother's and Aunt Aco's sister, Hazel Genevieve Graveswood, the same realisation dawning on Alistair's face, but their aunt's features hardened and she said lowly, "I won't ask again, Mom. What are you, Hazel and this kid doing here in Hawkins? And why now?"
"Aco, please, let us explain," Hazel pleaded, their other aunt beseeching Aunt Aco, hands clasped together.
Aunt Aco glowered at Hazel before she sighed and lowered the shotgun.
"Fine. Explain," Aunt Aco said tersely as she stepped inside, ushering Rowan and Alistair inside. They did and as Aunt Aco turned the lights on, muttering, "You could have turned all the damn lights on, Mom," a sharp gasp came from their other aunt as the light now flooding their home illuminated the blood and scrapes and tiredness on Rowan and Alistair's faces.
"Aco, what happened to Bella and Ben's kids?" Hazel breathed, eyes wide. Their grandmother's lips were pursed, looking at them with a look Rowan, raised by a con artist, couldn't read.
The girl, however, said bluntly, "You both look like shit."
"Amarantha!" Hazel scolded, whacking the girl, Amarantha. "Be nice to your cousins!"
