Behind the Clouds ✔️

009

Violet dashed inside her house, seeing Ashton's paper and crayons sitting on the living room table. The static to the television was on. She turned off the television and ran upstairs.

"Ashton! Ashton?" He wasn't in his room, nor her room, nor their mother's room. As she checked once more underneath their mother's bed, she began to cry. She lay her head on her mother's bed and just cried.

"He's gone home. He's gone home," she looked up at her mother. She only ever repeated 'My Emmett's coming home', but this was no longer it.

"What do you mean, mom? Who's gone home?" Violet sobbed.

"Goodbye, Emmett. Goodbye, Ashton," she said, loud enough for Violet to hear. Violet's heart beat out of her chest.

"No, no, no, no," she ran down the stairs and out the front door, "Ashton? Ashton?" She was reminded of her best friend, Betty. She had disappeared from her house almost a month ago and was soon deemed a missing person. A missing child. Just like Georgie. She broke down on her front lawn, realizing Ashton was gone. Truly gone.

Violet didn't sleep well that night. Whether it was in terror of what took Ashton would come back for her, or because she could still hear Bowers gang downstairs in the living room, loading up on beer. She almost forgot to get up at eight, so she could be at the library at nine.

The second she walked into the library, Mrs. Sherlock beckoned her toward the archives. For the rest of her time in the library, she was silent and foggy. When it was around noon, Mrs. Sherlock let her go and told her she could come back every weekday at nine and work til two.

When she got back to her house, she had a bag full of missing person papers, ready to be put around town. She put the bag down, grabbed a stapler and one paper, and headed back outside to the streetlight pole right between the Hockstetter and the Hanscom houses.

She placed the paper up and stapled it to the pole, a hole in her heart. She gave a sad smile as she looked at the picture she had found to use for the posters. Ashton had just turned six. Violet gave him a box of crayons and that afternoon, he was found drawing on the wall.

She smiled sadly, and turned back to go inside. The sound of bicycles made her turn back. She wiped the tears from her eyes, as Ben, Beverly, and the Loser's Club rode up to Ben's house.

"Lettie, are you okay?" Ben asked, everyone seeing her frail figure with tears in her eyes. She ran into his arms and sobbed.

"He's gone, Ben. I couldn't find him and now he's gone," she whispered in his ear. He held her tight, realizing what the poster was. Eddie and Richie went to check out the poster and came back with solemn faces.

"I'm so sor..."

"Don't even think about playing that act!" Violet called out to them. Eddie grabbed hold of Richie, as she yelled at them. "I thought the Loser's Club would've been a lot more accepting of other outcasts, but apparently not! None of you even know me by my name!"

Richie, Eddie, and Stanley hung their heads. They knew they were at fault. Bill and Beverly stood there, never having heard Violet that loud before. Ben held Violet's hand in comfort.

"Lettie, calm down," Ben said, "Why don't you come in? Mom's gonna make Mac N Cheese." She sniffled from sobbing, and nodded. Ben led her inside, their hands still connected. The gang watched their exchange, wondering. Bill was the first to follow them inside, curiosity filling him to the brim.

Richie and Eddie were conversing as the gang entered Ben's room. The second all of them had crossed the threshold, they went silent, including Violet. She hadn't been in his room at all since they moved here. Sure, she'd been invited over by Ms. Hanscom, but for dinner and a possible movie with the two of them.

"Whoa," Richie exclaimed, seeing all the posters lining Ben's walls, "Wow!" Agreed.

"Cool, huh?" Ben asked, watching them all look at everything. Stanley and Eddie were shifting their gaze constantly from every newspaper article on the wall, Beverly and Bill kept sharing nervous glances from across the room, Richie was pretending to be interested by picking up a few items and tossing them back down, and Violet was just getting more nervous by the minute. She kept getting reminded of Ashton, and it hurt terribly.

"No," Richie responded, trying to play it off, "Nothing cool. There's nothing cool about this at all." He moved to join the rest of his friends.

"This looks pretty cool," Violet muttered, pointing at the newspaper article about the Bradley Gang. Richie followed her finger and actually looked interested, but to look cool in front of Derry's Princess, he lied.

"Wait, no. It's not cool at all," Violet gave him a hard look, making him recoil, remembering her outburst outside.

"What's that?" Stanley asked aloud, pointing at a paper filled with signatures.

"Oh, that? That's the charter for Derry Township," Ben stated, as the others took a good look at it.

"Nerd alert," Richie said, chuckling. Violet hit his gut with her elbow, while Stanley and Eddie gave him looks.

"No, actually, it's really interesting. Derry started out as a beaver trapping camp," Ben opened his mouth to say more, but again Richie had to open his trap.

"Still is, am I right, boys?" Richie holds up his hand, expecting a high five from one of his friends. All he got was another hit to the gut and more looks.

"Ninety-one people signed the charter that made Derry," Ben continued, as though Richie hadn't spoken, "But later that winter, they all disappeared without a trace."

"The entire camp?" Eddie asked, trying to get some clarification. Violet disregarded the rest of the conversation, gazing at all the newspaper articles and clippings that Ben had rummaged up. Violet had heard of the Ironworks Easter Egg Hunt and the burning of the Black Spot by her only other friend's, father's telling.

She began to feel a lump in her throat at the newspaper articles began to circulate around their own time. Her father's car accident was one of the first, going on and on into the disappearances of Georgie Denbrough and Bettie Ripsom. Her heart began to beat faster, as though the gazes of her family and friends were piercing her soul.

She took one final look at the picture of her father's accident to see a face peeking around the corner of a building in the corner of the picture. It seemed to smile straight at her, taunting her. She began to feel the room close in on her. She was breathing heavy and backing up, still unfocused on the conversation, until she fell backwards onto Ben's bed and yelped.

Everyone stopped what they were doing. Beverly could see the fear evident in her eyes.

"Vi?" She asked, cautiously. Violet's gaze traveled all over Ben's room as though she was seeing something the other's weren't seeing. She covered her ears and started crying. She shook her head, wanting the voices to go away.

"NO!" She screamed and ran out of the house, everyone following. She ran across the lawn and tripped over her feet, yelping again, as she hit the grass in her yard. A rugged pair of clown shoes entered her vision. She looked up to see the full figure of the man she saw in her father's article. He still had that smirk on his face and was giggling.

Violet's lip quivered, before she dashed to her bike and took off. The Loser's Club watched the whole scene, not having seen the clown. Ben knew something was off, since their encounter with Bowers gang. And now, he had to know.