Summary: He'd heard the music in his dreams, and now it's brought him to an empty house with a ghastly secret. He hasn't been afraid of ghosts since he was ten, so why is this time so different?

Disclaimer: The words are mine, the Winchesters are not.

Rated "T" for some language and brief sexual content.

Choose your favorite brother. Your hero. This story is about him.

And the Music Goes 'Round and Around

It's the music that brings him back to consciousness, stealing its way into his aching head the way it's been stealing into his dreams for the past three nights, and it's just loud enough that he comes to with a start, gasping for air, eyes wide with something close to panic. Adrenaline sings through his veins.

He's heard the music before—or something similar, anyway. It had played every time Aunt Kate lifted the lid on the little porcelain box where she kept her favorite earrings, tiny dangling diamonds, holding them up to catch the light so he could watch their sparkles dance across the bedroom walls, sending him chasing after the rainbow arcs they made until he and his aunt were both giddy with laughter.

Later, it had played every time Laureen Miller spread her legs for him, the computer chip in the little ceramic box on her nightstand tinkling endlessly in hopes that her pesky kid sister wouldn't hear the noises he and Laureen were making on her bed, him thrusting away into Laureen's own hot little box while she gnawed on his mouth and his throat and his shoulder, hissing fuck fuck fuck moist and steamy into his ear while he did just that.

And now, it's been playing every night in his dreams, ever since Bobby first mentioned the job, talked about the nanny who'd killed all those people, starting with her lover and ending with the three children she'd cared for their entire lives. Sliced and diced them all with a kitchen cleaver, then counted coup by chopping off a pinky toe from each, stashing her trophies like precious jewels in a carved cedar box. When the sheriff learned her secret and came for her, she'd thrown the box at him, its grisly contents spilling at his feet, and he'd shot her dead on the spot. This little piggy cried….

With his head pounding, he can't tell if they're real or imagined, these plinky dulcimer notes of some waltz or mazurka, and what the hell's a mazurka, he wonders muzzily, raising his head to try to tell where the music is coming from. Back up the stairs, he thinks, but he can't be sure because everything's spinning like he's stayed too long on a merry-go-round. And no, it's nothing like that kind of music, not at all.

He's lying sprawled at the bottom of the staircase, left arm twisted awkwardly beneath him, a goose-egg already pulsing on the back of his head where he must have hit it on one of the risers. He'd taken a long, scary tumble down the whole flight, ass over high-speed teakettle when that bitch had tossed him across the landing like he was so much dirty laundry, but he doesn't think he'd blacked out for long. He's pretty sure he'd be dead if he had.

Where is she?

Something warm's trickling down his forehead and into his right eyebrow, and he knows that feeling well, has grown so accustomed to the sight and taste and smell of his own blood that it doesn't even faze him any more. He gathers himself mentally, works his arm out from under his body and plants his hand against the wall, places the other hand against the floor and levers himself up, standing fast before he can think better of it. The world pitches beneath him and he almost goes down again, he's so dizzy, but he closes his eyes and beats time with a foot (onetwothree, onetwothree) until the spell passes and equilibrium returns.

He leans heavily against the wall, sure now that the music is coming from the nursery, or what he imagines was the nursery. Up the stairs, anyway, from a room too big to be a servant's quarters, even if the nanny'd been like one of the family since the oldest girl was born. He waits until his head stops swimming, or at least slows to a dog-paddle, then begins to climb the risers, hugging the inside so the old wood won't creak, knowing it's impossible to sneak up on a ghost but trying it anyway. Not fooling her, just himself, and he doesn't know what possessed him to come here in the first place.

That's so not funny. Nothing about this is. She knows he's coming and she's playing his song. Oddly enough, it seems to be a mazurka….

He stifles his disjointed thoughts with a silent groan.

Two steps up, he finally thinks to reach into his jacket for the shotgun, but it's gone, of course. He stops short, surprised, trying to remember what happened to it. He knows he had it with him when he came, loaded with rock-salt, expecting to meet her. Bobby'd warned against bringing any blades—people seemed to end up nicked or cut or stabbed in this house, when they had no reason to be, except for her malicious streak. It's why the place has stood vacant so often, so long. But he'd brought the shotgun, he knows he had, and he could probably remember where it is if his head would just quit throbbing.

The last owners had left the house months ago, before the judge's newly married boy and his blushing bride had bought the place, despite the realtor's honest disclosure: "This property is haunted." The history was all there, in police reports and hospital records and death certificates. Daddy'd done his son's homework a little too late to stop the deal from closing, but the man had known enough to contact Bobby, to get things set right, and their old friend had known who to call, too.

"You do this job," Bobby had urged, when he'd balked at taking something on again, so soon after all that had happened. "Judge'll pay good money to keep his son's family safe, and it won't hurt to know someone respectable should the time come you need him."

It had taken him two days to finally admit that Bobby was right. Best thing to do was cowboy up--get back in the saddle, get moving again. Plenty of time for resting later, no matter how much exhaustion had set in after the past few days. If sleep meant eerie music haunting his dreams, like it had for the past two nights, then he'd prefer to do without it, thanks for nothing. Bring on the killer nanny and her kitchen cleaver!

The job should have been a simple salt-and-burn, and it almost was. Seventy years was recent enough that her grave was easy to find. It had been an overnight drive to get there from Bobby's, but the cemetery was small and well off the road, out of the eyeshot of anyone just passing, so by early afternoon she lay exposed and soaked in lighter fluid. The match had been in his hand when he'd noticed it, despite the myriad bones that lay scattered in the coffin-bed. You crazy-ass bitch, he'd thought. Wasn't enough to take theirs, but you had to take yours, too. There was no little toe on her left foot, and he'd known in his gut that she'd cut it off herself and that it was hidden somewhere in the old house, binding her there.

The music stops suddenly, and for a moment all he hears is the sound of his own harsh breathing and the blood pulsing in his ears. Then, from behind him, across the empty parlor and the empty front entry hall, there's a noise like a door swinging on its hinges, back and forth, back and forth. The kitchen, he knows. And there's a whisper, soft and sibilant and mocking—no words, really, just sound, but it sends a chill through him, and all at once there's nothing he'd rather do than get the hell out of this place and never look back.

He wishes his heart would stop pounding, thinks it ought to have already done so. He hasn't been afraid of ghosts since he was ten—he'd learned early how to deal with them, and although you had to stay alert, had to be cautious with them, iron and salt and fire would do the trick. But there's something about this one that has the hairs rising on the back of his neck, gooseflesh on his forearms, cold sweat popping on his lip and brow amidst the drying blood, and he wonders what's so different about her. Then he wonders if maybe he's the one that's different, now. After all these years, after all he's seen, all he's lost, maybe he's finally losing his nerve, too.

There's fading sunlight dancing off motes of dust in the entryway as the afternoon passes into early dusk, and oh God he'd never meant to be here this late. Maybe he had passed out for longer than he thought—he hadn't bothered to check his watch, and a quick look at it now…well, that doesn't work, because his eyes won't focus and he can't read the time. Stupid stupid stupid! he curses himself, rubbing his eyes as though that will help and wishing he hadn't come alone.

But he'd had no choice.

It was the music, he decides, stepping softly down the few steps he'd come up, heading toward the kitchen. It had drawn him like a siren's song, tinkly melody in his head as soon as he closed his eyes at night. He's not sure how he knows she'd kept the toes in a music box, but that first morning, he'd asked Bobby about it outright. Nope, his friend had said, shooting him a glance. The old newspaper clippings said carved cedar, probably supposed to be used for jewelry (had she planned to pin them to her frock, maybe wear them as a necklace?), but there was nothing about the box being musical.

Still, he'd just known—God knows how, but he'd known—and that scares him. He hopes it was a lucky guess, a hunter's instinct, but he fears it's more. Wouldn't that be just his fucking bad fortune, after everything else?

Something moves at the edge of his vision as he crosses the parlor, and he freezes, suddenly remembering he has no weapon, but there's nothing there. A shadow, maybe, or a trick of the light. He tells himself to nut up, but keeps wary eyes on that space by the alcove (nothing there, nothing there) while he checks his pockets for anything he can use to keep her at bay until he can remember where the shotgun is. Wishes the pounding knot on the back of his skull would let him think. Dammit, he knows he had the gun with him when he came!

He's got a lighter, four pennies, a gas receipt and a paper clip. Car keys. No cell phone, no shells (and how can that be?). Maybe a pinch of salt grains from that shaker he'd lifted from the diner, and

Oh, God, that was it.

It was like she'd been waiting for him, welcoming him home to the vacant house. Neither his home nor hers, of course, although it appeared she claimed it now. It had been the music, naturally, that had lured him up the stairs and into the long-abandoned nursery, shotgun at the ready. By the time he'd reached the landing, the music had faded, but four doors down the narrow hallway there'd been the scent of lavender and talcum powder, and it didn't take bloodstains soaked into scuffed wooden floors to tell him this was where she'd killed the children.

Come out, come out, wherever you are, he'd murmured, and in that instant she had complied, manifesting suddenly with a blast of frigid air and a shriek of laughter. The gun had flown from his fingers into the fireplace, where it clattered against the long-cold, broken slate stones of the hearth.

He'd been thrown in the opposite direction, up against the wall between the two windows, hitting shoulder first. It had hurt like hell, the pain dropping him to his knees, but he'd scrabbled frantically toward the shotgun until she blocked his path, cleaver in her hands suddenly, lunacy in her eyes and a leer on her mouth.

There'd been some other strange noise in his ears, then, that he'd finally recognized as his own mewling fright. He'd back-pedaled, fast, as she advanced on him, crowding him back up against the window-wall, stopping when she was almost pressed to him, head cocked curiously as their eyes met. The madness in her features had softened as she looked up into his face, and she'd raised a bone-white finger to draw it in an icy caress down his cheek, almost as though she'd recognized him. Her lips moved soundlessly, and for a terrifying moment he'd thought she intended to kiss him. But there was something she was saying—was it a name? Was it his name?

He'd had to tear his eyes away from hers, away from her mouth and her hand, taking advantage of her distraction to reach into his pocket. He'd managed to unscrew the top off the salt shaker he'd swiped from the diner, tipping its contents into his palm and flinging it up at her, the salt doing its job quickly and efficiently, but not for long. She came right back at him, almost before he could lay hands on the shotgun, and that was when she'd thrown him down the stairs.

He's almost to the kitchen when there's a breath in his ear and a sudden sting on his face. He jumps back, slapping a hand to his cheek, eyes wide, heart racing, but she's already gone. When he looks, there's blood on his fingers from a fresh, shallow cut about two inches long, starting just under his cheekbone. From her, just a love tap, and he's lucky.

"Bitch!" he shouts, and her laugh floats around him, cold and heartless and jolly at once.

He feels something horrible well inside him and he breaks for the stairs, hurtling up them until he spots the shotgun just past the landing and makes a dive for it, grabbing it up in the middle of a tuck-and-roll, raising it to the injured shoulder, daring her to appear. His head is spinning, and almost almost he blacks out again, lights flickering like flashbulbs at the edges of his vision—the thought that it might be her flickering panics him, sends him scrambling to the nearest corner, where he plants himself with back to the wall until he can regain his senses. His breath comes ragged and fast, and he sees it plume out of his mouth in cold mist that speaks of her presence, and he's ready for her—yes, ready, eyes darting everywhere, shotgun pointing everywhere, but she's toying with him, now, and after a few heart-pounding moments he knows she's gone.

And then he feels the burn in his chest, the little sting on his flesh. What the--? He rucks his t-shirt up so he can see, and for a moment stops breathing altogether, eyebrows shooting up, mouth gaping in horror. Long, crisscross scratches have been carved into his skin, beaded red with seed-pearls of blood, forming a name clearly meant for him to see, because as he looks down at his bared chest, the letters appear right-side up.

W i l l i A M.

The ache in his lungs reminds him to breathe again as he hastily pulls his shirt back over the bloody scrawl, acid roiling in his belly as he connects the dots. Her first victim had been William Reynolds, a bookkeeper, a bachelor. A quiet, church-going man; nice enough, but kept to himself a lot. They'd found him virtually flayed, he'd been sliced so many times, his blood soaking the mattress on which he'd lain until it was sodden. Later, after the woman and then the children had died, the bookkeeper's sister had come from Baltimore to claim his body, letting slip that he'd been concerned about an old girlfriend. Hadn't been right since their break-up, he'd said, not since he'd started seeing someone else. He'd been worried she'd do something foolish. Turns out she did. The woman who'd died next had been William's new love.

"I'm not him!" he roars suddenly, spreading his arms wide, the cry ripping from his throat. "You crazy, fucked-up bitch, I'm not William! You killed him already!"

From below, a door slams, and rage spikes his fear. He races across the landing and leaps down the stairs, crossing the parlor in three giant strides that echo through the stillness and jerking open the door to the den. The room is empty, as expected, but there's another door in the far wall, and he yanks it open, too. Maybe a library, once, or a sewing room—it's also long-empty, of course, and he loses the edge of his anger, forces it down, smothers it the way he's failed to smother his apprehension. Makes himself take a deep, calming breath, relax his fingers around the barrel and stock of the shotgun.

It's dark this far inside the house, with the day almost gone. Still can't see worth a damn, anyway; mild concussion, maybe. He needs to wrap this up, he knows. Get the hell out, get back….

Something small flies out of the dusk in the room and bounces against his boot, and he jumps to one side with an oath, his heart thudding against his ribs again. So much for calm. He glances down quickly, spots something flat and white lying on the scuffed brown wood of the floor—plaster, fallen from the ceiling, perhaps. Or tossed. It's an old spirit trick, an attempt to get his attention.

He tries on a grin that feels like a joke and works a kink out of his neck.

Here, kitty kitty kitty, he coos, more for his own ears than for hers, but he immediately regrets his choice of words. He's got the gun, sure, but if he could think straight, he wouldn't want her to be the cat, since that would make him the mouse in their little game of hide-and-seek, with the stakes so very, very high.

Another piece of plaster comes his way, and then she blinks into existence, not three feet in front of him, a mocking smile playing on her lips. He jerks the shotgun up and fires, and she's gone in an instant, leaving him panting in surprise, fresh adrenaline racing through him, making his hands shake.

There's a light tug on the back of his jacket and he whirls with a curse, firing again into nothingness. Slaps his pockets for a quick reload and comes up empty. Dammit!

There's nothing for it, then, but to do what he's come to do. Somewhere in this hollow shell of a house, she's hidden one last part of herself, tying her here, and it's his job to--

The music is playing again. Onetwothree, onetwothree. He hears it faintly, and utters a sound that's half-sob, half-laugh, wondering if he's going as mad as she did. Sweat springs from his pores and he wishes to God his brother were here, wishes they were both anywhere except here, but no good comes from wishing, he knows, so he lets the music draw him back up the stairs.

He carries the shotgun like a club, now, by the barrel, ready to swing it at the slightest sign that she's returned. His skin feels clammy as he climbs to the second floor, and his head hasn't stopped throbbing. Please, God, let this be over soon, he thinks, eyes wide and darting everywhere so she can't catch him again by surprise.

The music seems louder, cheery and incongruous in the early-evening gloom. It's still coming from that one room. The nursery, he's certain. He dreads going back in, especially now that he has no real weapon, no protection, no idea where to find her damned toe—her freaking little toe!—so he can destroy her.

He stalls for time, collecting his nerve, wondering about the music box. That's a lie—he knows about the music box, knows in his soul that it was William's gift to her. Had she played it for the children? A tinkling treat when they were good, a late-night lullaby when they were tired? Had it played while she'd killed them? Those are things he doesn't know, and he's grateful for his ignorance.

He mops his brow with a quick swipe of his sleeve, his grip on the shotgun slick and imperfect. When he reaches the nursery door, he stops, leaning back hard against the wall, eyes shut tight while he tries to stanch the fear that's dogged him these past three days. So crazy, this fear out of nowhere, he thinks. But it's really out of everywhere, he knows, out of everything his life has been—this long, horrific journey of a life—and he must face it now, or be forever afraid.

There's only one answer for that.

Only moments of daylight remain as he dives through the doorway, tumbling across the floor to the center of the room and springing upright, frantically seeking her in the gloom of encroaching night. She's nowhere, but something is happening near the hearth—there's a mist, coalescing there. It's different, somehow, and he doesn't think it's her. Then who--?

The tinny noise of the music box strengthens as the spirit appears—a young girl, maybe ten or twelve, sad eyes big and round in her pale face, floating over the hearthstones. Her feet never form, or he'd count her toes. Doesn't matter, though. He knows who she is, just like he's known almost everything else. The oldest daughter, the third to die.

The girl gazes at him intently, willing him to understand some unspoken message he's just not getting. The music becomes louder, more insistent (ONEtwothree, ONEtwothree), so he peers past her, peers through her, confused, head pounding in time to that damn mazurka. Looks into the fireplace. Around the fireplace. At the hearth and its broken slate….

Suddenly he knows what she's been trying to tell him, why she'd tugged his jacket downstairs, and the girl and the music fade quickly away. Dropping the useless shotgun, he leaps for the biggest piece of stone, prying it free with nails quickly ragged and bleeding. Trapped in a hollow beneath it is a small wooden box, made of simple, stained pine, the nanny's initials carved in the top. He unlatches the hasp, flings it open. Silence—the mechanisms have long since broken. But there's a silken drawstring bag within, faded with age, and inside the bag, shriveled and dried after seventy years, the treasure he's been seeking.

There's no time to waste, now, and he scrabbles in his pocket for the lighter, pulls it out quickly. Christ, he needs salt!

He casts a frantic look over his shoulder, wondering what's keeping her. Knows there's salt sprayed across the floor on the opposite side of the room, where he'd thrown it earlier, but it's too far, too spread out. Then something stings in his eyes, and he has his answer. Or hopes he does.

He dumps the desiccated toe out of the bag and into his palm, dashing his other hand across his brow to wipe away the dampness there. Bastes the toe with his own sweat, with the salt of his body, then folds the little cloth bag like a pillow and cushions the toe upon it. The dried flesh won't ignite quickly, but the fabric should act like tinder, and then what's left of her will be gone.

Another look over his shoulder. Kneeling, he places bag and toe on the hearth and flicks open the lighter, has to thumb the flint-wheel twice before it sparks.

Come on, come on!

He's screwed if the bag is made of silk, he knows, because the flame won't hold, and why the hell does he remember that, when he can't think where he put the other shotgun shells? But then the fabric catches, smolders, and he holds his breath with new dread.

Is it enough?

He's just rising to his feet again when she appears, cleaver raised high overhead as she comes at him, eyes glinting, lips curled back in a silent snarl. She is both mad and mad, insane and infuriated, and he barely has time to block the blow as she brings the cleaver down against his crossed wrists. It's a shock, excruciatingly so, but nothing breaks—no bones snap, no skin splits. He reacts quickly and grabs at her, struggling to capture her wrists, to control her flailing arms. For a moment they grapple with the handle of the cleaver, and then he's thrown into the wall again. Stars burst in the near-darkness and he dimly hopes they're sparks. Hopes that the bag's still burning, taking with it her last remains.

But he can't see, and she's on him again, brutal and frenzied, beating him down to the floor and keeping him there with the ferocity of her attack, trapped against the wall. He tries harder to fight her off, but he's terrified and losing. Losing fast.

There's sudden clamor from downstairs, loud enough that he hears it over his own gasps and groans as they battle against one another, his breath forming clouds in the frigid air between them. It's his brother, shouting his name, anger and panic charging his voice.

Oh, God, hurry. Hurry!

The nanny's spirit leans in, still with the enraged leer, still with insanity blazing in her eyes, and how can something that's dead have such weight and strength? The cleaver's an inch from his neck, and she's bearing down hard.

Again her mouth moves, and this time he knows what she's saying, although there's still no sound other than his grunts and harsh breaths, and heavy feet pounding up the stairs. His brother cries his name again, his name, but what she says is "William."

"I'm…not…William!"

With a last-ditch effort he shoves her back, just as his brother comes hauling through the doorway, beam from the flashlight dancing wildly, and just as the flames truly catch hold of the old cloth bag and its tiny cache of flesh and bone.

This time her shriek is audible, a horrific, high-pitched caterwauling that is cut off sharply although it rings in their ears for several moments after she's gone.

He's blinded momentarily by the flashlight, but he feels his brother's eyes fly over him, taking in the blood, the sweat, the terror that must be written all over his face. The light goes away, and his brother comes to him, then, sinking down beside him with back against the wall, so they sit shoulder to shoulder. Without meaning to, he leans in, just a little, just so there's touch.

"What took you so long?" He's still breathless, but there's a ghost of a laugh in his voice, and that's a little funny in and of itself.

His brother shoots him a look—the look—but a smile of relief plays on his mouth, too, and there's no real bite in his voice when he says, "I woke up and you were gone."

He leans his head back against the wall, takes a deep breath through his nose and lets it go before answering.

"Yeah. I couldn't sleep, but you were sacked out, and there was something I thought I had to do." He pauses, eyes landing on the now-empty music box, gives a half-hearted shrug. "It was a bad idea."

His brother accepts the tacit apology with a bump of his shoulder, and they sit for another moment in companionable silence before he climbs to his feet with a groan. There's a bit of a pitch to the floor, and his brother's up in a flash, hand on his arm, grip firm and supportive. He shakes it off gently, balance regained, then crosses to the fireplace and stands over the little pile of smoldering ash and cinder. Nudges the music box with his toe, enjoying the vague irony in that, then starts with an oath when it plays a single, hollow note.

He stomps down hard, smashing the box to splinters as his brother's eyebrows crawl upward, asking the question wordlessly.

He's got so many questions, himself, but he shrugs again, willing his heart to slow. Puts a hand against his chest where the letters she carved still sting, and shakes his head.

"I hate mazurkas."

Thanks for reading! Reviews welcomed.