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The Supernatural characters belong to Kripke Enterprises and the CW, not me. No money is being made from this story. It is for entertainment only.
Hope is the Thing with Feathers
Chapter 1
A Coastal Hotel
A young man approached the Hotel desk. He was tall and fair skinned with soft chestnut hair falling in waves in his face like curtains, concealing his eyes. As he reached for the register and spun it around he flipped the hair back out of his face. Now I could clearly see his slanted, fox-tail shaped, hazel colored eyes. They were delicate, intelligent and very, very tired.
"Good evening, sir, Welcome to the Gladstone Hotel. My name is David." I said mimicking a well-trained front desk clerk. "How can I help you tonight?"
"I'm going to need a room for all nights of the auction," he answered, hiding a yawn behind a polite hand, "actually, through Monday night also if you have the space."
"Very good, sir. We have a block of rooms set aside for the auction attendees. Are you pre-registered?"
He looked surprised. Now that he had pushed the hair back I could see his face clearly. It was a sculptured, handsome face. A competent hair-dresser could do a lot with this guy.
"I didn't realize it was necessary." he answered. "Is it going to be a problem?"
"No, no, of course not," I said. "Just sign in and I'll find you a room in just a minute. Do you have any preferences?"
He thought for a moment then answered as he signed the register. "I would like a room at the end of a hallway, next to the staircase, if possible. I think facing the ocean would be nice and I noticed you have rooms with small balconies. Can I get one of those? No higher than the second floor, please."
"Very well," I spun the register and looked at his name. "Mr. Addison. Just give me a moment."
"David," he said "I am here at the request of your Manager, Mr. Gardner. Is he available?"
I buzzed Mr. Gardner in his office and told him there was a Mr. Addison waiting to talk to him. I was surprised when Mr. Gardner said "David, good, I've been waiting for him. Give him what he wants and the hotel is picking up his tab. Make sure to give him a dining room pass."
I have to admit I was interested. Mr. Gardner wasn't a scrooge but he did account for every penny. Free rooms, let alone free food, just didn't happen very day. Now my curiosity was stung into full alert.
"Mr. Addison, " I cleared my throat, "our Mr. Gardner will be out in a moment. Please take a seat."
I watched the guy walk away and he looked as good going away as he did coming forward. We had this large group coming over the weekend to attend an Auction of Rare and Occult Items, whatever that meant, and for just a moment I wondered if he might just be a hooker supplied by the Hotel for special guests.
Hey, it had happened before. Usually though the hookers were woman and were part of a weekend getaway for very special clients. We weren't running a brothel here. The concierge was the one who set those packages up however, not our so respectable Mr. Gardner. But the Hotel business is pretty cut throat and a male hooker would be a new twist. I thought there might be maybe a thirty percent chance I could catch sight of Mr. Addison at work.
Mr. Gardner appeared at the door to the office and looked around. I helpfully pointed to the back of Mr. Addison's head and Mr. Gardner swept over. He pulled the young man further into the lounge area. No chance of eavesdropping there for poor David but I kept a sharp eye on the pair. I set up a room as requested and if it happened to be located on the same stairway as my third floor room, well, there were only so many staircases in the hotel.
He sure was a pretty faced, wide shouldered young man. His multi colored eyes were entrancing. For a moment I indulged myself in imagining what he might look like stripped down and on his back in one of the Hotel's king sized beds. I also wondered if I could afford him. That reminded me and I quickly checked that his room had a king sized bed. What can I say? A guy can dream, can't he?
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Sam Addison unlocked his room and flipped on the lights. The Gladstone Hotel had been around for a long time. It was situated on the North Carolina coast and the hotel's private balconies offered views of the Atlantic Ocean. The weather was a touch nippy here in early November and so getting this auction was a feather in the Manager's cap.
A summer hotel often had a hard time filling its rooms in the winter. The Auction of Rare and Occult Items was using the Hotel for its annual event for the first time and Mr. Gardner had hired Sam at the first hint of trouble to make sure that the auction would consider returning to the Gladstone as an annual event.
The room was decorated in what Sam considered a "Southern Belle" style with polished wood floors, rag rugs and a huge four poster bed. There was lace on the pillow cases and crocheted comforters at the foot. He wondered if it could possibly be a feather mattress although that would be impractical for a hotel. He tossed his suitcase on the bed and headed straight for the balcony.
He stepped out on the little balcony and stood in the wind looking at a grey and heaving Atlantic. The ocean mirrored the storm in his eyes. Here where he didn't need to wear a mask for anyone Sam let the pain and the loss wash over him. He was tired; tired all the way in, all the way to his bones. The fresh wind tossed his hair around and he filled his lungs with air off the waves. It felt like brand new air; air that hadn't ever been breathed before.
He stood and wished the wind could drive his memories away. Perhaps it could drive his sorrows and regrets away like birds tossed around in the stormy sky. They could spread wings and flap away. It was a good image and for a little while he stood there and visualized the black wings arching and fighting their way into the sky.
He was finally cold enough to go back into the room. Closing the baloney doors and latching them he then pulled the curtains closed. The room dimmed; perfect for a nap. He pulled his suitcase off the bed and toed off his shoes. Flopping on the bed fully clothed he wrapped one of the cheerful afghans around his shoulders. In the dim light the cheerful colors were muted; worn down and silenced. He curled up, arms empty and lost. He pulled a pillow into those empty arms, trying to fill an empty heart.
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He awoke to a dark room. It had been only dim before, now it was night. Stretching out a long arm he found the bedside lamp and flipped it on. Glancing at his wristwatch be decided that dinner would be nice. Slipping off the bed he hit the bathroom. Slapping water on his sleep drugged face and then changing his shirt be felt presentable enough for the dining room. He needed to find Gardner to get access to the Auction rooms. He needed access to those Rare and Occult Items to find the source of some of the hotel's latest problems.
The Hotel was, of course, haunted; haunted as much as any other hotel. They were all fertile ground for haunts. In life hotels were way stations for fleeting moments, transitory passions, snippets of lives acted out in unfamiliar rooms. When death struck in the middle of the actors' little plays often the soul was displaced, lost in a strange landscape where nothing familiar offered a resting place.
The Gladstone offered a lady in a white summer dress with a wide brimmed hat who wandering the midnight hall ways searching for something; perhaps her room? She didn't belong here and was obviously lost however her infrequent approaches to the hotel's guests did her no good and only caused a number of middle of the night departures. The staff of the Gladstone was used to that, offering either another room to the braver ones or an immediate refund and directions to another hotel to the weak of heart.
Mr. Gardner had no beef with the Lady in White. She added a dash of panache to the Hotel. Only the very best or, alternately, the very worst, could brag of their own ghost. Their ghost put them in a class with the Hotel Del Coronado or the Roosevelt of Hollywood. He didn't want her disturbed or frightened away. Sam had been brought in to deal with a sudden influx of new and unwelcomed spooks.
There was one that wandered the halls at night with a lit candle, a possible fire hazard although that would be a hard sell to the insurance company. Another was fascinated with the kitchen and, unfortunately, the kitchen pans. The cooks threatened to quit until he had hired a waiter who had the special duty of arriving at 3 AM to put the kitchen pots and pans back to rights again before the chief arrived. The rooms under the attic complained of someone walking about all night long. The complaints were many and frequent.
Mr. Gardner had sent out a call for help to his fellow managers and Sam Addison was the result.
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Sam was seated in a window nook in the dining room. Such special tables were usually reserved for quiet lovers' meetings or celebrities seeking anonymity. Mr. Gardner had left orders that Sam was to be isolated from the other guests and this was the best the maître de could come up with.
Sam waited for his employer to show, fiddling with his napkin, drinking the house wine and watching his fellow guests. When Gardner finally arrived Sam was half way through his dinner. The manger had a copy of the auction catalogue and three keys on a ring.
Sam rose to shake hands with him and Mr. Gardner turned over the catalogue. "Sam, here is a guide to what the auction has brought into the Hotel. I can only assume that these things are what has caused our unusual guests to move in. Of course, you're the expert so I assume you'll make your own decisions about the place."
"I will certainly take a look through the auction rooms first Mr. Gardner." Sam replied as he ruffled through the catalogue.
"Please," the manager said "call me Randy."
"Thanks, Randy." Sam replied. "I hope I'll be able to help settle your hotel for you."
"I thought there were going to be two of you. "
Sam looked up. "There were two of us. I lost my partner very recently. This job can have its dangers."
Randy Gardner could get a message as well as anyone else. He asked no further questions just told Sam to ask David at the front desk to point out the auction rooms and left Sam to finish his dinner.
Sam sat in the dining room looking out at the ocean and waiting for night to claim the sky. He knew hunting alone was stupid and dangerous but he could not yet bring himself to replace Daniel. They had been partners and friends. The two things were not necessarily synonymous for Hunters. Sometimes your best partner was the guy who could tell you to pull your head out of your ass and look around.
It had only been a week since Daniel had died in those dark wooded hills; his chest ripped open by the werewolf's claws. Sam remembered it all over again, crushed by guilt. If only he had looked to the left instead of to the right Daniel would still be here. The wolf had killed Daniel and Sam had killed the wolf, leaving him with two bodies to burn under a cold autumn sky.
He flipped though the catalogue for the third time but dog eared the pages that interested him this time through: a deck of Aleister Crowley Tarot cards, a mirror from the dressing table of Catherine de' Medici, a Hand of Glory from a seventeenth century hanging. He would take a closer look tonight after the rest of the Hotel went to sleep.
The auction customers would start arriving in the morning and he hoped to make progress before he had innocents' bodies sprawled in the hallways. Until recently most of his hunts had been victim free but he was worried that the Campbell curse had tracked him down. His happiness with Daniel and hiding his true name had not worked to keep them safe. He should have known better. You can't break a curse you can only get out of its way.
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At the infamous 'witching hour" Sam made his way into the auction showroom. He had scouted it out earlier that evening with David the desk clerk leading the way. That guy made him nervous. There had been too many almost touches. Innuendoes had littered the carpet and he had repeatedly found David peeking at him from the corner of his eye. Sam had finally said he needed to do the supposed 'cataloguing' of the artifacts alone and the desk clerk had left him reluctantly. It was then that Sam finally set down to do some real work.
He had sketched the room and notated the really 'live' objects. There were a number that gave off strong EMF. He had to admit that whoever put this sale together knew what he was doing. The Tarot deck appeared to be real. It gave off a strong stench of Crowley's brand of sexual sadism. The Medici mirror seemed to have traces of Huguenot victims still lingering. Grotesquely enough in a far corner he had located the blade from a French Guillotine, still marked along the edge with un-cleanable stains. Sam could feel these traces unaided. It was one of his major strengths as a Hunter and also a huge secret.
The Campbell line had been cursed with 'the sight' as far back as their history could be traced. It was just another piece of his life he had tried to escape, with disastrous results. He had known that the Hunt was going to go wrong but he hadn't said anything and he hadn't warned Daniel. He didn't want to talk about his death visions gift. Some gift it turned out to be.
While making his list and taking notes he thought seriously about telling Bobby Singer that he was going back to the Sam Campbell name. He was ready to be a Campbell again. It had not helped to keep Daniel safe and was now just a blanket of unnecessary lies to remember.
While admiring a Borgia poison ring he noticed his first ghost. A lady in a long ruffled nightgown appeared in the corner by the Guillotine blade and, carrying a lit oil lamp, wandered toward the exit doors. Sam followed behind fairly certain he was watching a victim of the Revolution looking for a way out. There was no escape for her now. There had been no escape for her two hundred and twenty years ago during the Reign of Terror either when over 40,000 executions had taken place in France. Her name was just one of thousands lost in history.
Sad and lost as she appeared to be Sam could not allow her to wander these halls. While she might be simply looking for escape there was a possibility that she could give an elderly guest a heart attack with her pale face and her little floating flame.
He made his way back to the blade and performed a purification ritual with holy water and Prayers for the Dead. As softly as she arrived he heard her sigh and saw her light go out. Even if she had never found her escape he hoped she at last had gone to her rest. It was the best he could offer.
"Hope" is the thing with feathers by Emily Dickinson
"Hope" is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -
And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -
I've heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet, never, in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of Me.