You'd wrapped yourself in your thickest blanket, pulled it right over your head like a hood, and decided that 1987 could kiss your ass if this was how it was going to start. No Steve. No stupid, gorgeous, infuriating Steve with his stupid hair and his stupid habit of leaving his jacket on your chair.

The tap-tap comes again. Louder this time. Insistent.

You freeze, the mug halfway to your lips. Your heart does something stupid—lurches, stumbles, picks up pace—before you tell it to shut the hell up. It's probably a branch. Or a bird. Or the house settling. Hawkins is old and creaky and full of noises that mean nothing.

Tap-tap-tap.

Three knocks. Deliberate. Human.

Your window faces the backyard, the oak tree whose branches scrape against the glass on windy nights, and the dark shape of the woods beyond. Snow clings to the pane, blurring the world outside into a soft-focus watercolor.

But there's a shadow there. A figure, hunched against the cold, one hand raised to rap against the glass again.