Morning Council
Derry, Maine – January 16, 1985 – 6:22 a.m.
The fairy lights still glowed faintly above the guest-room bed when Beverly eased herself out from under the quilt. Stella did not stir. The small face remained turned toward the pillow Bev had just vacated, dark hair fanned across the cotton, one hand half-curled where it had been clutching the hem of Bev’s sweater. Her breathing stayed deep and even, the soft whistle of a child who had finally, truly, slept without fear.
Bev stood for a long moment simply watching her. Then she bent, brushed the lightest kiss against the exposed temple, and slipped barefoot out of the room, pulling the door almost closed behind her.
Downstairs the farmhouse kitchen smelled of yesterday’s coffee and the ghost of pancakes. The first gray light of dawn had begun to leak through the frost-rimed windows. Mike was already there, standing at the counter with both hands wrapped around a steaming mug, staring out at the snow-covered yard as though answers might be written in the drifts. Richie sat slumped at the big oak table in yesterday’s hoodie, hair a disaster, nursing what looked like his third cup of black. Eddie paced near the sink, inhaler clicking absently between his fingers. Bill, Ben, and Stan were scattered around the room in various states of early-morning alertness—Bill leaning against the doorframe, Ben quietly rinsing last night’s bowls, Stan sitting very straight with a legal pad and pen already in front of him.
They all looked up when Bev entered.
She didn’t speak right away. She went to the coffee pot, poured herself a mug, added nothing, and came to the table. When she sat, the chair creaked like it was relieved someone had finally decided to begin.
“She’s asleep,” Bev said quietly. “Still upstairs. I didn’t want to wake her.”
Richie exhaled through his nose. “So… the kid who isn’t really a kid is taking a nap. Great. That’s normal.”
Bev met his eyes. “Her name is Stella now.”
A beat of silence.
“Stella,” Bill repeated softly, tasting it. “Like… star.”
Bev nodded once. “Stella Marsh.”
Eddie stopped pacing. “You gave her your last name.”
“I did.”
No one spoke for several seconds. The radiator hissed. Outside, a cardinal landed on the snow-dusted feeder, a single bright red note against all the white.
Mike finally set his mug down. “What did she tell you, Bev? Up there. After the rest of us went to bed.”
Bev wrapped both hands around her coffee. The heat felt grounding.
“She asked me who I thought she really was.” Bev’s voice stayed level. “I told her I didn’t, but I know what I’ve seen these last few days. I know what it felt like to hold her. I know she chose laughter instead of screams. Pancakes instead of teeth. She asked me to name her because she… doesn’t know anymore. She said she’s lost track of the ‘real’ her.”
She looked around the circle.
“I told her that was okay. That tonight she could just be the girl who ate blueberry monsters and fell asleep in my arms. And that tomorrow we’d figure out the next piece. Together.”
Richie rubbed both hands over his face. “Jesus Christ, Bev. You’re talking like she’s your kid.”
“She feels like mine,” Bev answered simply. “Everything inside me says she’s family now. I trust her. Completely.”
Stan’s pen tapped once against the legal pad. “Trust is a dangerous word in Derry.”
“I know,” Bev said. “But I’m not blind. I’ve seen the orange in her eyes. I’ve felt the moment when the air bends around her smile. I know she’s not human. Not all the way. But I also know she’s the reason no child has gone missing since the night she first showed up at the mill. The red balloons are still out there, but the bodies… have stopped.”
Mike nodded slowly. “She’s right. I’ve been checking the police scanner, the hospital logs, even the morgue calls. Nothing. Not since January eleventh. The night she slammed him into the concrete behind the old textile mill and hopped away with Maya Torres.”
Eddie’s voice came out thin. “So what are we saying? That we just… let her keep babysitting the town? Let her keep force-feeding It salad and cartoons and guilt until It gives up?”
Ben spoke quietly from the sink. “Maybe she already is destroying it. Just… slower. Kinder. From the inside.”
Bill’s stutter was almost gone this morning. “Or maybe she’s keeping it weak. Keeping it distracted. While we decide what to do.”
Stan looked up. “The Ritual of Chüd is still an option. We know the words. We know the shape of it. We’ve done it before.”
Richie barked a short, humorless laugh. “Yeah. And we almost died. And we forgot everything afterward anyway. Real winning strategy.”
Mike’s gaze moved from face to face. “There’s another possibility we haven’t said out loud yet.”
They waited.
He spoke carefully. “Maybe we don’t have to do anything at all. Not right now. Not this winter.”
Eddie’s head snapped toward him. “You’re suggesting we just… leave It alone? Let the blue clown keep throwing vegetables at it until the end of time?”
“I’m suggesting we observe,” Mike said. “The pattern has changed. The feeding has stopped. Children are sleeping through the night again. Parents aren’t finding empty beds. If Stella—whatever she truly is—can maintain this stalemate… maybe we let her. For a while. See what happens when spring comes. See if the old hunger wakes up again, or if something new grows in its place.”
Richie leaned forward, elbows on the table. “And if she’s playing a long game? If the salads and the bedtime stories and the ‘Daddy’ bit are all just… foreplay? Softening us up so the knife goes in easier later?”
Bev’s voice cut through, calm and certain. “Then I’ll be the first one standing in front of her when the mask finally drops. But I don’t believe that’s what’s happening.”
She looked at each of them in turn.
“I carried her upstairs last night. I felt her breathing slow against my chest. I heard her whisper ‘thank you’ like someone who hadn’t been thanked in centuries. She asked me to name her because she was afraid she’d forgotten how to be anyone at all. That’s not a trap. That’s a wound asking to be bandaged.”
Silence again.
Then Bill, very softly: “We should ask her.”
Everyone looked at him.
“When she wakes up,” Bill continued. “We should ask Stella what she thinks we should do. About It. About the ritual. About… everything.”
Ben nodded slowly. “She’s the one in the ring with him every night. She probably knows better than any of us what’s left of him. What’s still hungry. What’s… changing.”
Eddie exhaled, long and shaky. “I hate this. I hate not knowing. I hate waiting.”
Richie gave a crooked smile. “Welcome to Derry, Kaspbrak. Population: us, one maybe-kid, one definitely-monster, and an entire town holding its breath.”
Stan closed his legal pad with a soft snap. “Then we wait until she wakes. We make breakfast. We act like yesterday—pancakes, bubbles, stupid voices. And when she’s ready, we sit her down and we ask.”
Mike looked toward the stairs. “And we listen. Really listen.”
Bev stood up. She carried her mug to the sink, rinsed it, set it in the drainer. When she turned back, the first real color of sunrise was touching the snow outside, turning everything soft rose-gold.
“I’m going to check on her,” she said. “Make sure she’s still sleeping.”
She paused at the foot of the stairs, hand on the newel post.
“If she wakes up hungry,” Bev added, almost smiling, “we’re making blueberry monsters again. Extra blueberries.”
Richie snorted. “Of course we are.”
Bev climbed the stairs.
Behind her, the kitchen settled into quiet preparation—the soft clink of mixing bowls, the hiss of the coffee maker, the low murmur of six old friends deciding, for once, to let the next move come from someone smaller and stranger than themselves.
Upstairs, beneath the slanted ceiling and the fairy lights, Stella Marsh still slept—small, warm, ordinary-looking—dreaming, perhaps, of pancakes, of stars, of a father who might one day eat his greens.
And Derry, outside the farmhouse windows, lay very still beneath the new snow, waiting to see what kind of morning this one would become.
Derry, Maine – January 16, 1985 – 9:14 a.m.
The living room held the gentle hush of late morning snow-light. Sun slanted through the tall windows, painting long gold rectangles across the rug and catching in the dust that drifted like slow stars. Stella sat wedged between Richie and Eddie on the big couch, knees drawn up, still swimming in Bev’s oversized flannel pajamas. She hugged a throw pillow to her chest, bare feet tapping a small, absent rhythm against the cushion. Her face was bright, expectant, exactly the look of a child waiting for Saturday cartoons.
Richie flicked channels with theatrical boredom, though he’d been stuck on the same blank input for ten minutes. Eddie sat rigid, arms crossed, stealing glances at the girl every few seconds. Mike leaned in the doorway to the kitchen, coffee cooling in his hand, watching the room the way he once watched the old library stacks—patient, cataloguing every shift in the air.
Then every screen in the house woke simultaneously.
The little under-cabinet TV in the kitchen flared to life.
The radio on the counter crackled once, then bloomed with silent color—the dial face glowing with images it had no business displaying.
Even the cracked green display of the ancient radio-clock on the windowsill flickered and steadied, showing images it had no business displaying.
No sound. Just pictures.
The cartoon opened in a dank, windowless cellar.
Wet stone walls wept slow dark tears.
A single bare bulb swung on its cord, throwing jagged shadows that clawed across the floor.
Punywise sat dead-center in the dirt—knees pulled tight to his chest, giant red shoes flopped outward, filthy gloves locked around his shins.
His greasepaint was a ruin: black streaks ran from the corners of his eyes like exhausted tears; the painted smile had been dragged downward into a grotesque, petulant frown; the conical hat sat crooked, crumpled at the brim as though someone had tried to throttle it.
Behind him, a dozen red balloons were knotted cruelly to iron rings in the wall—perfectly still, perfectly round, watching like bloodshot eyes.
Directly in front of him stood a child-sized wooden table.
On it: one gleaming white porcelain plate heaped with an impossibly vibrant salad—crisp romaine leaves curled like green petals, cherry tomatoes split and glistening, carrot ribbons coiled into bright spirals, cucumber moons catching the swinging light, everything slick with golden vinaigrette that seemed to pulse faintly, alive.
Above the table, nailed crookedly to the stone, a dripping purple-crayon sign in big wobbly letters:
NO PLAYTIME UNTIL YOU EAT YOUR GREENS
Punywise stared at the plate with theatrical loathing.
One long finger jabbed the top lettuce leaf; it quivered, then sprang back into place with mocking resilience.
He huffed—a cartoon cloud of gray frustration puffed from his nostrils.
Arms crossed tighter. Shoulders hunched to his ears.
He muttered something low and venomous; the words were replaced by a rapid-fire series of trombone wah-wah-wah stings.
Montage, fast and merciless:
He tried to tiptoe past an invisible wall—boing—rebounded in slow-motion, shoes squeaking, hat flying.
He seized the plate and upended it over a rusty floor drain—the salad simply slid upward, defying gravity, reassembling itself on the table with smug precision.
He thrust the plate toward a passing cartoon rat; the rat froze, sniffed once, then shrieked and bolted, leaving scorch marks on the stone.
Final frame: Punywise slumped, defeated.
He lifted the fork like it weighed a hundred pounds.
Stabbed a single cherry tomato.
Raised it to his mouth with trembling reluctance.
The tomato vanished between his teeth with a bright, cheerful pop!
His entire face contorted—eyes bulging, cheeks puffing, greasepaint cracking in disgust.
A single fat cartoon tear rolled down one white cheek, leaving a clean streak through the black.
Soft green text faded up:
Good boys finish their veggies.
Even grumpy ones.
All screens died at once.
Matching comic pages materialized throughout the house—tucked under doors, stuck to the fridge with a blueberry magnet, one even laid neatly beside the syrup bottle on the kitchen table. Same crayon violence. Same brutal tenderness. Final panel: close-up of Punywise’s face mid-chew, tomato juice dribbling down his chin like blood, tears streaming, speech bubble trembling:
“I hate you, greens…”
Stella burst into delighted laughter.
It rang bright and clear, pure childish glee. She clapped both hands to her cheeks, eyes sparkling, shoulders shaking so hard the oversized pajama sleeves flapped.
“That’s the funniest thing ever!” she crowed. “He looks like he’s gonna explode! The tomato went pop!” She made the exact sound effect—high, perfect, delighted—then collapsed sideways against Richie’s arm in a fit of giggles. “Silly Punywise”
Richie stared down at her.
Eddie stared at her.
Mike, in the doorway, tilted his head a fraction, eyes narrowing.
The three men traded quick, wordless looks—confusion, unease, the faint prickle of something not quite right.
Richie cleared his throat. “Kid… you do realize—”
Mike stepped forward before the question could finish. He set his mug down on the side table with careful slowness.
“Stella,” he said, voice low, steady, the tone he used when reading from the oldest library ledgers. “We need to talk about him. About what comes next. We’ve fought him before. We know rituals. We know ways to try to end this for good. But things are different now. Because of you.”
Stella’s laughter trailed away like music running out of notes.
She sat up very straight.
The bright childish shine in her eyes did not fade entirely, but something vast and ancient moved behind it, like deep water shifting under thin ice.
Mike went on, gentle but unyielding. “We’re trying to decide what to do. About the Ritual of Chüd. About whether we should act at all. We’re asking because….”
Before he could finish Stella spoke.
The bubbly little-girl voice was gone.
What replaced it was quiet. Low. Worn smooth by centuries.
The words landed in the room like stones dropped into still water—ripples spreading outward, cold and deliberate.
“I’ve told you already.”
“You shouldn’t play with him anymore.”
“For a while.”
No threat in the tone.
No anger.
Only certainty—old, patient, immovable.
The kind of certainty that had watched seasons turn to dust.
The air in the room thickened.
Eddie’s fingers tightened on his inhaler until the plastic creaked.
Richie’s easy slouch vanished; he sat up rigid.
Mike did not blink.
Stella’s gaze moved slowly across the three men, unhurried, almost kind.
Then—nothing more.
She simply waited.
The moment stretched, brittle and heavy.
And then the kitchen door swung open.
Beverly stepped through carrying a wide tray: apple slices cut into little stars, a bowl of plump blueberries, thick slices of warm banana bread still steaming, a small pitcher of maple syrup on the side.
“Who’s ready for snacks?” she asked, voice deliberately light, deliberately normal.
The spell shattered.
Stella’s face ignited.
The ancient weight vanished as though it had never existed.
She scrambled off the couch with a delighted squeal, pajama legs tripping over themselves, and flung herself toward Bev.
“Me! Me! Me! Blueberries! And stars! And banana bread! You’re the best, Bev!”
She wrapped both arms around Bev’s legs in a fierce hug, then immediately began bouncing on her toes, peering at the tray like it held buried treasure.
Bev met the eyes of the three men over Stella’s head.
Her expression was calm.
Certain.
She said nothing about what had just passed in the room.
She didn’t need to.
She set the tray on the coffee table, sat down, and patted the cushion beside her.
“C’mere, little star,” she murmured. “Let’s eat.”
Stella climbed up at once, wedging herself tight against Bev’s side, already reaching for the biggest blueberry with both hands.
The room exhaled.
Outside, snow continued to fall—soft, relentless, burying Derry under another quiet layer.
Inside, for the moment, there were snacks, and small sticky fingers, and the sound of one child laughing as though the world had never been anything but safe.
The heavy moment was gone.
Instantly.
As though it had never been there at all.