In a Cottage in the Woods There Lived a Witch

Something in the Cellar

Everyone was still asleep, as per usual. Steve, though not a morning person, was almost always one of the first people awake in the morning. Under normal circumstances, Nancy would be awake before him, but she'd rolled back in with Robin somewhere around three in the morning, so Steve was on his own as he rolled out of bed at nine in the morning. The motion, it would seem, was too much for Steve, who's head throbbed so badly that he pitched forward. This, is turn, caused his stomach to roll and twist. He only barely made it to the bathroom in time to purge his stomach of the remaining sangria and doritos he'd gorged himself with that previous night.

Once steady -- or at least steadier -- Steve made his way to the kitchen to begin breakfast for his guests. Even if food was the last thing on his still-slightly-fuzzy mind. Maybe he'd just have toast and coffee...

Everyone else would be getting the works, no matter how much the idea of egg-smell turned Steve's stomach again. Being hungover was no excuse to be a poor host, after all, and Steve also knew himself well enough to know that after a glass of orange juice and a cup of coffee, he'd be functioning at least 85%.

Mug in hand, he rummaged around his kitchen, pulled eggs, bacon, and cheese out of the fridge and then made his way to the pantry for bread and potatoes. Robin would have his head if he didn't provide breakfast fries.

Except, he remembered with chagrin, he'd used the last of the potatoes he had in the pantry yesterday for Coven breakfast. Which would mean he'd have to go to his root cellar to fetch more. It wasn't exactly a perilous journey... but it wasn't accessible from inside, which meant that he'd have to go outside for that and it was only barely spring. The earth still froze more nights than not, and even this morning frost edged Steve's windows.

"Robin had better appreciate this," he grumbled, pulling the blanket Joyce had made him around his shoulders with one hand, the other still gripping his coffee much close to his chest.

Mid morning had brought with it a measure of warmth, but it was still chilly enough in early March that Steve pulled the blanket tighter around his shoulders to keep out the lingering teeth of winter. The golden threads glittered with magick and sunlight, drawing in the warmth of the sun, however paltry, and amplified it to ease the shivering in Steve's bones. The grass crunched underfoot, glistening with a thin sheen of frost, just on the right side of cold to make Steve wished he'd put on some shoes, but not enough to make him turn back. He'd get into some thick wool socks when he got back inside to compensate.

Rounding the corner of his house, Steve paused. The cellar door was low to the ground, angled slightly up against the foundation of the house, with heavy metal doors that Steve kept unlocked for ease of access. Hawkins was a small community, everyone knew everyone else, and typically the wards surrounding Steve's home were enough to keep anyone unsavory out. Steve didn't think it was bragging to say that his warding was top notch, crediting to his parents genetics and magickal process. The only thing he ever thanked them for was passing that down to him.

The fact of the matter was that in Steve's 25 years on this earth, he'd never had so much as a scare or slight shock on the grounds of home invasion.

Which was way the sight of his cellar doors wide open made him stop, both in body and mind, to process what he was seeing. At first, he thought the hangover was getting the better fo him. Dehydration from over doing it making him see things. But then he got closer and his brain caught up with him. The doors were open. The metal doors, which were too heavy for the wind of even that terrible storm last night to have blow open...

Fear ran cold through Steve's veins and his whole body went taut. The mug in his hands slipped from his grip, falling without a sound onto the grass below him.