Hello, gentlefolk! My name is Munchkin-Knight. I've recently just finished reading Seanan McGuire's Sparrow Hill Road. It's a wonderful story. You don't need to have read her book but I would greatly recommend it. Criticism is welcomed, flames are not. Thank you.
Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural or Sparrow Hill Road. I am just playing in their sand box
Dean could swear he'd seen her before, this young, oh so familiar sixteen year old hitchhiker.
They had spotted her on the road to Michigan, on a way to a hunt. From the newspapers, it was probably a werewolf. The timeline fit and the bodies looked to be ravaged by a wild animal. Nothing was missing except the heart. It would be a standard hunt, but there was nothing standard about this girl.
She introduced herself as Rose Marshall and she was traveling back to Michigan to meet an acquaintance. Or so she said. Dean couldn't help but think she wasn't telling the whole truth. Sam, the bleeding heart he was, had given her a coat.
He watched her through the mirror. She looked up and flashed him a sad smile.
"Sixty-seven Chevrolet Impala, right?" Rose asked.
Dean nodded, though she wouldn't be able to see it. "Yeah. It belonged to our dad." At that, Dean smirked. "You know your way around cars." It wasn't a statement.
Rose let out a laugh. She looked younger when she laughed, he noted. Her eyes twinkled and the tension in her shoulders bled away. "I used to tinker with cars a lot, back home."
Sam seized the little nugget of information. "Used to? What do you do nowadays then?"
As soon as the question left Sam's mouth, Rose tensed up again. She looked out the window, a bitter smile tugging at her lips. "Oh, I travel. Hitch rides, go from place to place." She met Dean's eyes through the mirror and tilted her head, almost playfully. "Share stories, too, and listen to them."
"Stories, huh? What kind of stories?" Sam said.
Rose leaned into the the leather seat and jutted her chin out. There was a challenging glint in her eyes. "The oldest kind of stories there are."
Dean kept his eyes on the road, though he wished he could meet Rose's stare. "Man, are you going to tell us or not? Don't keep us waiting."
She grinned a grin of all teeth and no mirth. "Ghost stories, though I only know the one."
Sam snorted in disbelief and Dean let out a humourless chuckle. "Ghost stories. Really, lady? Aren't you a little old for those?"
Rose's smile widened and she said, "Well, you're never too young to die so you can never be too old to hear a ghost story. Morbid but true."
Sam coughed and his shoulders heaved. "She's got you there, Dean."
Dean scowled and said, "Oh, hardy har har. Laugh it up, bitch."
"Jerk."
Dean glowered at Sam openly and if he went a little fast at the turn… Sam deserved it. He directed his attention back at Rose. "So, you going to tell us a ghost story or you gonna keep us waiting?"
"No," Rose said. "Rules of the road. You or your brother have to tell a story first, then I'll tell one."
"Fine," Dean snapped. Sam looked at him warningly but Dean already had a strange hunt in mind. "We saw a ghost ship once."
Rose blinked. "A ghost ship? An honest to God ghost ship? Well, go on. There's got to be more to it than 'We saw a ghost ship once.'"
"Hold your horses, I'm going to tell it," Dean said gruffly. "There've been ghost ship sightings all over the world. Generally, there a death omen. You see it, bam, you die the next day. Now, there was this one particular ship, the EspĂrito Santo. You saw that ship, you drowned the next day." Dean glanced at Sam, and Sam dipped his slightly.
Sam continued telling the story. "It was a smuggling vessel. In 1859, a sailor was accused of treason by the captain and hanged. He was thirty-seven years old. What makes it even worse was that his brother was the captain."
"Very Cain and Abel," Dean remarked.
"His body was cremated, but not before they'd cut off his hand and created a Hand of Glory."
Rose frowned. "I've heard of those before. It's a powerful occult item. Nasty bit of work to make too."
"Don't interrupt," Dean said. Rose raised an eyebrow at him.
Sam rolled his eyes and continued. "Every thirty-seven years since then, there have been sightings of a ghost ship around the eastern area of a New York port. As Dean so gently put it," - Dean reached over and smacked Sam upside the head - " Ow! Stop that. Anyway, people who saw the ghost drowned, even if they were nowhere near water when they died. Everyone who'd died had, some way or another, spilt the blood of their family."
"Really?" Rose questioned, almost curiously.
"Yeah," Dean nodded. "The first gal who died had been in car accident with her cousin. She survived but her cousin didn't. The second and third guy were brothers; turns out they conspired to kill their father for his money."
"Why did the ghost stop killing?"
Sam answered, "A friend of ours found the hand, but a thief-"
"Fuckin' Bela," Dean grumbled.
Sam reached over and smacked Dean upside the head. "Don't interrupt," he mimicked.
Dean scowled and flipped Sam. Rose laughed in the backseat. "I'd like to hear the end of the story, if you two are done acting like children."
Dean opened his mouth to argue but thought better of it. "Fine. Me or you, Sam?"
Sam shrugged. "I'll finish it. So, yeah, our friend got the hand, but a thief, Bela, stole it and sold it. She would've gone on her merry way if she hadn't seen the ghost ship herself that night. She came to our friend for help."
"Man, he should have left her. She was a total pain in the ass," Dean swore, gripping the steering wheel tightly.
Sam shrugged. "What's done is done. He found a ritual to summon the sailor's brother. The sailor ghost nearly killed Bela and him, but when the captain arrived, the ghost sailor attacked him and they disappeared. As far as we can tell, there hasn't been another incident regarding the ghost of hanged sailor again."
Rose fiddled with the coat and said, "Damn. Not many days you hear a story like that. Well, my story isn't as recent as yours. The legend of the Phantom Prom Date has been around for nearly sixty years now."
Dean scoffed. "The Phantom Prom Date? Yeah, everyone knows that story. Not very new, lady."
"No," Rose said darkly. "You think you know the story but you don't. Not the true story, anyway. The story I have to tell you is the original. It's was spawned the legends."
"There was a sixteen year girl. She was from the the wrong side of town, with a poor family, and a fascination with cars. No one liked her. Pretty much everyone at school made fun of her. Except one boy named Gary. He'd always noticed her, never made fun of her. He met her in second grade and he knew her but she didn't know him."
Dean and Sam stayed silent, their suspicions growing.
"It was three days before prom and she didn't have a date. She didn't know that she had three days to live. To her, the most important thing on her mind was the prom. She had worked extra hours and every cent she earned went towards her dress. And what a pretty dress it was, made of green silk, hugging and kissing her body. She had even found green flats to match. Three days before she died, three days before prom, Gary, that sweet, sweet boy, asked her to the dance. She waited, not sure if he was making fun of her. When she realized he wasn't, she smiled radiantly. She said yes.
"On the night of the prom, she was ready, waiting on the front steps of her porch. Gary would be here any moment, she told herself. Time passed and Gary had not come. She went inside, changed out of her clothes, and started up her car. If Gary wouldn't come to her, she would come to him. She drove in the dark, drove up Sparrow Hill Road. There was a car behind her, it's headlights glaring down at her, but she paid it no mind. She just wanted to make it to Gary's house.
"She should have paid attention to that car, though. It revved, and it hit her. She jerked forward and fear she'd never felt before coursed through her veins. 'Is he trying to kill me?' she thought. She didn't know it at the time but that was indeed his goal. She raced down, still on Sparrow Hill Road, but the car caught up and hit her again. This time, she veered off the road. She was dead, but she didn't know it yet. She awoke, without a scratch on her and dressed in her green silk dress and green flats. She walked to Gary's house and he was there, dressed up for prom. His car had broken down and he had been trying to fix it. He wasn't intending to dump her. He asked if she wanted to go to prom. She said no. She wanted to go home and she told him so. Gary acquiesced to her request and gave her his coat. 'I'll pick it up in the morning,' he told her.
"The next day, he went to pick up his coat and learnt that she had died in a suspicious car accident the night before. His coat had been left on her bed.
"For a long while, they suspected Gary of killing her. But he hadn't. Bobby Cross had driven her off the road. He was still hunting for her, too. The one ghost who got away."
Rose took a breath she didn't need and smiled sadly at Sam and Dean. "You know, she's still alive. Well, as alive as a ghost could be. She hitches rides and eats burgers at diners. She listens to stories and she tells them. She does what she can to help the drivers of the road, trying to prevent fatal accidents."
Dean, some time ago, had driven across Michigan's state line. Rose unclipped her seat belt. "I'll get off here." The Impala rolled to a halt.
Dean watched mutely as Rose gracefully got out of the car. She gripped Sam's coat and leaned through the Impala's open window. "Don't take the highway when you leave, you here me? You two have a wonderful car, Sam and Dean Winchester. Listen to her and you'll avoid trouble."
She turned around and Dean suddenly found his voice. He jolted out the car and shouted, "Wait! Will we ever see you again?"
But she had disappeared. The only thing that signaled her existence was Sam's coat, crumpled on the ground.