Jen wasn't sure when it had started.
Well, of course it had started after Thea had died, that went without saying.
Thea had emerged from the horror-teen stage, and had suddenly begun being human again, even started talking to her again. They had gone to the movies, gotten mani-pedis together, Thea had even shyly opened up about a guy she had met online. Jen had done her best to be open, not to do the automatic mom thing of worrying if this guy was actually a fifty-year-old pervert trolling for barely pubescent girls. Or a sixteen-year-old who just wanted nudie pics. They started trying a new restaurant each week; Thea printed out all the names they thought were interesting, dumped them in a Mason jar, and they would reach in and pick one out each Friday night.
And then the accident.
Her phone had rung, with an unfamiliar number showing, and when she answered it, her world came crumbling down around her.
Her beautiful daughter. Another mom taking her and her friends out to the ice rink. A car having a blow-out on the expressway. The officer was very kind, picked her up, took her to the hospital. She spent days there in a haze, eating bad hospital food, calling relatives, stopping in the hospital chapel to offer heartfelt but unpracticed prayers to a god she barely believed in.
None of which were answered.
She returned home to an empty townhouse, went to sit on Thea's bed, and sobbed into the "chix rule" baby blanket that Marie and Ben had given them when Thea was six months old.
There was the usual parade of friends and family, sitting with her in the bleak days that followed. Cards. Flowers. Casseroles. Memories. Her boss called from the office, telling her she could take all the time she needed, that her coworkers had donated sick leave and vacation time, that they all loved her and were thinking of her. Her oldest friend Bree held her up at the funeral, and went hiking with her on Mount Diablo to scatter Thea's ashes.
She went through the motions. It helped her get through the daytimes and early evenings. But then everyone would leave, and her cherished home, that she had worked so hard for, that was her retreat and solace, became a place of echoing emptiness, ringing silence.
No horrible pop music blaring from Thea's room. No chattering on FaceTime. No whirlwind of legs and arms racing down the stairway complaining about the Internet being down or raging against another example of bigotry or stupidity in the world. No-one sitting at the kitchen island while she made dinner, giving her the latest scoop on pop culture figures or asking for help with homework, and flipping a coin to determine which of their favorite shows they would watch that night.
But every once in a while, she'd think she heard something, a hint of the latest hit song drifting from Thea's room.
Shade, their aging Labrador retriever, would occasionally lift his head alertly, then pad away from her side to head upstairs. She'd find him later, leaning his head against Thea's bed, tongue hanging out and a stupid grin on his face, his tail thumping, almost as if she were there, hanging over the edge of the bed and giving his muzzle a rough massage, the way he had loved.
She would wake up in the middle of the night, thinking Thea had called her. Sometimes she was alert enough to notice that those times it was significantly chilly, but she would just pull up the blankets, snuggle down into her pillow and water it with tears, then drift back to sleep.
A few mornings a week, she'd wake up and discover the "chix rule" blanket had migrated to the sofa or ottoman in the living room, or her bed; once it was even out on the patio on one of the lounge chairs. The living room, her bed, she could write those off as Shade having dragged it there, but the patio? Nonetheless, she'd fold it up and return it to its proper place at the foot of Thea's bed.
The times she woke up to the television blaring from the living room she wrote off as having forgotten to turn it off. The paper and pens moved from where she had left them in the evening-well. She was still mired in grief, it was no surprise she would forget that kind of thing, too.
It was when the notes started appearing that she realized she had a problem. Obviously Thea's death was sending her off the deep end. Why else would she write herself notes saying, "Mom, I love u xoxo"; "Mom, I miss u :-("; "Mom, please help me xoxo"; "Mom, I'm stuck and can't get loose, plz HELP!"? When the last one appeared, she started researching grief counselors, and made an appointment.
And she called Bree. Just talking to Bree helped. She murmured "mm-hmm"s in all the right places, said a few "Oh, honey"s, and offered to come over with a bottle of wine and Thai food, an offer Jen gladly accepted.
Bree arrived just in time. A new note had appeared. This one was somewhat angry: "Mom-u aren't helping me. y aren't u helping me? Is this one of ur 'mean mom' things, cuz it's NOT FUCKING FUNNY!" Jen's hands were trembling when she opened the door to Bree. She handed the note to her, grabbed the mail, and said, "Bree. I'm really, really losing it and I need help."
Bree pulled her into a fierce hug, and said, "Girl. You're having a hard time. Of course you need help. That's why I'm here." She swept into the kitchen, put down the bag of takeout, and rummaged in the anything drawer for a corkscrew. Then she glanced down at the note and read it while opening the wine. She stopped for a moment, her face shocked, then finished popping the cork. "Jen, just what the hell is this, anyway?"
"I don't know," Jen said miserably. "I think I'm writing these notes to myself in-in some kind of trance or something. I don't remember doing it. And Thea's baby blanket-it keeps ending up somewhere else in the house. And I keep thinking I hear her."
She looked down at the mail in her hand, distracted, frowned at the top piece, opened it. It was from Dublin High, reminding her to pre-register for Thea's junior year. She caught her breath in a sob. Bree moved to hug her again, but she pushed her away and suddenly started screaming, started throwing things.
"It's not FUCKING FAIR! Why did she have to DIE?! Why are Lanie and Mercedes still alive, still going to go back to school, and MY BABY GIRL IS FUCKING DEAD, and I'm losing my FUCKING mind, and-"
She was sweeping things off the counter, kicking the cabinets, tears running down her face. Bree grabbed her, held her close, brought her down to the floor, rocking her, murmuring, "Hush, sweetie, hush love, hey there, girl, I know, I know, it's so not fucking fair, shhhh, shhhh, shhhhh..." She burrowed into Bree's shoulder, sobbing.
And then she realized, and Bree realized, that things were still being tossed around: glasses rose into the air and smashed against the kitchen wall, papers whirled off the dining table as if in a tiny whirlwind, and there was a particularly large crash when a lamp went flying into the TV in the living room. Shade was barking frantically from the top of the stairway.
Then everything went silent.
Jen turned a terrified look toward the living room. Bree looked that way, too, her arms still curled protectively around Jen's shoulders, her eyes wide. They crouched on the kitchen floor for a few more minutes, shocked into immobility.
Nothing else happened.
Jen drew in a shuddering breath. Her fingers bit into Bree's shoulders. "Bree," she said, in a small voice, "Bree, that wasn't me."
Bree laughed shakily. "No shit. Wasn't me, either."
They sat like that for a period that seemed to go on forever, still staring into the living room. Then Bree drew a deep breath and stood up, holding a hand out to her friend. "Well. Looks like nothing more is happening. Right? So let's get up, clean things up, and...uh...and...uh, I think maybe you need to spend the night with me and Joe. At our house," she added, to be very clear.
Jen grabbed the hand and stood up, too, still looking into the living room. "Do you think..." She stopped, then rubbed her hands over her face. "Bree, do you think that was...was...Thea?"
Bree grabbed the broom and dustpan and began determinedly sweeping, her long, curly black hair swinging with each pass of the broom. "What I think, honey, is you have a problem." She stopped sweeping for a moment, and leaned on the broom handle. She grinned at Jen and winked, trying to act normal. "And I don't mean the kind of problem you were talking about when I got here! It isn't you." She started sweeping again, then paused. "I might know of someone who can help, a couple guys who helped another friend of mine a few years ago...I'll call Diane, see if she's still got their number."
Jen paced back and forth before her townhouse's front door, wringing her hands nervously. She hadn't been back home since that night; Bree had made her stay at her house until things got straightened away.
"Straightened away". Like this was some sort of small mess, the kind you could clean up with Windex and paper towels. Even though it was a typical inland summer day, blazingly hot, with the sun beating down, she shivered and hugged her shoulders. It was only because Bree had been there, had seen and heard the same things she had, that she was keeping a tight hold of her sanity.
Also, the fact that she hadn't heard or seen anything at Bree's house, nor had she gotten any new notes...it had actually been a relief. Shade had spent the days bouncing around Bree's backyard, chasing and being chased by Bree's youngest. She had visited the grief counselor, too. She hadn't told him about the more outrageous stuff, of course, but the story was hard enough in its bare bones, and he had been kind and comforting, given her a workbook on grief to work on, and a prescription for Xanax.
Bree leaned against the wall beside the door, dark skin contrasting sharply with the stuccoed wall, keeping an eye out. The guys she had recommended, the ones who had taken care of Diane's mysterious "problem", should be arriving any time now.
Bree leaned forward, peering down the street, then stepped away from the wall. "That's them, I think," she said, pointing.
A classic old black car, muscle car, came pulling in to the curb in front of the townhouse. The driver turned it off, and the loud sound of its motor faded away. The doors opened, and two youngish men clambered out, a tall, gangly, brownish-red haired guy from the driver's side, a blondish-brown-haired male model type, shorter, from the passenger side. The tall one went around to the trunk, opened it, grabbed a duffle bag, and closed it with a thud, while the other stood waiting and watching Jen and Bree.
They seemed...dangerous. Edgy. Their clothing was unremarkable-blue jeans and plaid shirts over T-shirts; they could have been any kind of contractors arriving to fix something. But it was the way they held themselves, the watchful wariness, the coiled energy and smoothness of their movements that gave them that appearance.
Not ordinary men, no.
They came up the pathway, and Jen and Bree moved forward to meet them.
The male model type held out a hand, and said, in a deep, rough voice, "Hey, there. I'm Dean Winchester, and this is my brother Sam. I understand you ladies might have a problem that we could help with?"
Bree moved to grasp his hand, brown eyes giving Dean a lingering once-over. "Well, hello, there," she said in a caressing voice. "I'm Bree, and this is Jen. It's her house with the problem." She held his hand a little longer than necessary.
Jen sighed softly. Joe was the love of Bree's life; they had been together for twenty years, since college, had three kids. But she was always on the prowl, quite happy to flirt with good looking guys, and this Dean Winchester definitely fit in that category. His hazel eyes appreciatively returned the once-over, sliding over her trim figure like a gentle hand. A small smile tugged at one corner of his lips. Obviously a guy who liked the ladies as much as Bree liked the men.
Jen reached out her own hand. "Hi. I'm Jen Foster. Come on in." They shook, and she turned and unlocked the door. Her hands were shaking a little bit, she noticed.
The house had that oddly empty feel that houses get after being vacated for a few days, and she absently shook her head at the small amounts of dust she could see sparkling in the rays of sunlight coming down from the clerestory windows. She led them into the living room, and stopped with a gasp.
Bree bumped into her, then just stood looking over her shoulder, blinking.
"Honey...well...Someone's trying to get your attention, that's for sure."
Jen stepped further into the room, and the Winchester brothers followed, moving toward the fireplace. Sam dropped the duffle bag, and there was a long silence as they all scanned the room.
There were post-it notes scattered like confetti. On the coffee table, the sofa, the chairs, the hearth and mantle of the fireplace, even stuck to the glass on the family photos hanging on the wall in the hallway to the guest room.
"I take it this isn't your normal decor," Dean said, semi-humorously, an eyebrow cocking up. He leaned down to pick one of the notes up, looked it over, then handed it to his brother. Sam read it, then looked at Jen.
"Mom, please help. That's what it says."
Bree picked up another. "So does this one," she said.
Jen dropped down on the sofa with a sigh. She started collecting the nearest notes, mindlessly stacking them neatly, pressing them together so the sticky sides held them in place.
The air suddenly filled with the scattered yellow post-its. They flew through the air like a flock of little origami canaries, coalescing into a tidy little pile on the coffee table. A pen poised over the top, blank note and scribbled something. A foil-wrapped Hershey's kiss flew in from the entryway, landing on top of the pile of post-its like a peace offering.
Jen and Bree leaned forward to read the new note.
"U r so obsessively tidy, Mom! xoxo"
Jen said, softly, wonderingly, "Thea...?"
Bree leaned back against the sofa with a snort. "Oh, yeah, that's Thea, all right. Snarking at you because of the tidiness...? Yup."
Jen heard a metallic double clack, and looked up to see Sam tossing a shotgun to his brother and reaching into his duffle for another. Filled with abrupt anger, she ran to the nearest one, and beat at his chest with her fists.
"Guns?! Guns?! You want to hurt her?! My daughter?! Not in my house you aren't, dammit! Leave her alone!"
Dean very slowly, very carefully, put the shotgun down on the ottoman and raised his hands, palms out, defensively before his chest to block her fists. "Whoa, whoa, whoa...," he said calmly, looking down at her with gentle eyes. "Ms. Foster-Jen-". He paused, bit his lip, looked at his brother, and said, "Sam, a little help here...?"
Sam had also laid his shotgun back down on top of the duffle bag. He stepped forward and took Jen's hands in his. He was just huge, she thought absently; towering above her, broad shouldered. But she wasn't frightened, it was just quite noticeable, was all. He led her back to the sofa, sat her down, sat down next to her, her hands still sheltered in his long fingers. His eyes-what color were they? she wondered. In some light they were grey, then they shifted to light blue, then to pale green-were soft and sympathetic.
"Jen, you have to understand. This isn't Thea. Not anymore."
Jen bridled angrily. "You don't know-the notes-they are so Thea-"
He sighed. "Jen, ghosts may start out just like the person you knew, you loved. But...being a ghost...it changes you. Ghosts are stuck." Like the notes said, Jen thought. "And after a while, sometimes a long time, sometimes very quickly, they...they...lose their humanity. They become angry, vengeful. And they usually focus their anger on people they loved. Because they can't get what they want, which is, I guess, getting...unstuck. And when a ghost turns vengeful...well. It's neither nice nor pretty."
Jen bit her lip, looking down at her hands wrapped in his.
"So we need to stop Thea. Help her. Find out what's keeping her here." He drew a breath, bracing himself. "The first thing it would be is her body. Where is she buried, Jen?"
Jen looked into his eyes helplessly, grieving again. "We...we...cremated her."
Bree rested a comforting hand on her shoulder, and nodded. "Scattered her ashes. Mount Diablo. It was a nice, cloudy day...so very pretty," she added softly, her eyes distant. Her fingers pressed into Jen's shoulder, then softened again.
Dean stepped forward briskly. "Okay, then, not the body. It's something here, then. Something of hers that's holding her here, something that has traces of her DNA, skin flakes, that kind of thing."
Sam spoke again. "Jen. Can we look through her room?"
She appreciated that. Him asking for permission. It was like he was handing control of the situation over to her, acknowledging it was her life that had been torn to shreds once and was being ravaged all over again. She looked up at him trustingly, nodded wordlessly, waved her hands toward the stairway.
"Upstairs. First door on the left."
He nodded back, then looked at Dean, gestured with his head to the stairs. He let go her hands, stood up, rested a hand on her shoulder for a fleeting second, then moved away. They headed up the stairs. Jen sat looking after them for a few moments, then stood up and followed them. Bree was close behind.
As they climbed the stairs, she could hear them talking.
"Dean...God, Dean, this is one of the hard ones..."
She heard rustling, footsteps moving around Thea's room, the sound of a photo frame being replaced on a table.
"Cute kid...Yeah, Sammy, I know. But even Bobby..." He paused, and Jen was startled to realize that his voice, normally matter-of-fact, was filled with emotion. "Even Bobby. He had years of experience, Sam, and even he couldn't stop it, couldn't control it."
Sam sighed. "Yeah. I know. But sometimes I wish we could give people who are hurting like she is...I wish we could give them good news."
Dean barked out a harsh laugh. "Hah. Yeah, right. But, hell, even if we were born-again evangelists, we couldn't give them good news! Angels...demons...God missing...!"
Jen and Bree stopped just inside the doorway. Dean and Sam turned to look at them, then Dean's eye was caught by something on Thea's bed.
"What's that?" he asked, pointing at the "chix rule" blanket. Jen darted forward to snatch it up, held it to her chest, folding her arms over it for protection.
"No!"
Bree frowned at the men. "That's Thea's baby blanket. She took it everywhere. Even after she became an oh-so-mature teenager...she took it to Girl Scout camp; some of the older girls laughed at her because of it. But most of them understood..."
Sam glanced at Dean, an eyebrow lifted in question. Dean nodded. He said, gently, "Jen. That's probably it. That's what's holding Thea here."
Jen dropped onto the bed, a tear slowly trickling down her cheek.
"No..."
"Yes."
She looked down at the blanket in her lap, a finger slowly tracing the outline of a stylized yellow chicken on pink background. Her finger then moved to touch the different-sized yellow stars against lavender, stroked the well-worn fleece, flipped a corner over to the deep purple backing. She started talking slowly, lost in memory.
"Thea was six months old...she had pneumonia. So bad. They hospitalized her...she was so tiny. So sick. I had to hold her down so they could get the IV into her arm. She screamed." She glanced up, looking at Sam, then Dean, who kept silent. Bree sat down on the bed beside her and put an arm around her waist. "She was there for six days. My sister-in-law, Marie, she made this blanket in two days. Ben brought it to me. It was the only colorful thing in that room. Everything else was white, or brown. The crib-it was huge. And metal. Thea looked so lost in it."
Her fingers continued stroking the blanket.
"It was her favorite. Always. Just days before...before she died...we were snuggled on the sofa, watching The Avengers, and she had it wrapped around her. When Shade was just a puppy, he chewed a hole in it-here." She pointed to a spot where the fleece was noticeably brighter. "Thea cried for days, and turned her back on Shade whenever he begged for attention. Marie came to visit us and brought the remnants, so she could fix it."
By now, the tears were streaming down her face, dripping onto the blanket. She twisted her hand into the soft fleece folds, closed her eyes, drew a deep breath.
"No. No. Whatever else you need to do, do it. But not this. No."
Sam stepped forward, said softly, "Jen-"
He stopped abruptly. Bree jerked alert next to her, drew in a hissing breath. Dean muttered something, she couldn't understand it. The temperature plummeted.
A cold hand rested on hers.
"Mom..."
She froze. She knew that voice, knew it like her own heart.
"Mom, I'm stuck. I can't get loose. It itches, mom. It's like...like...I dunno, drug withdrawal or something."
Her eyes flew open in automatic mom mode. "Dorothea Louise Foster! You'd better not have any idea what withdrawal is like!"
And there she was, crouching in front of her, brown hair brushing across her shoulders, soft brown eyes looking into hers, tank top layered over sports bra, jean shorts, sneakers; she even still had a scrape on her knee from the soccer game a week before her death.
"Mooooom!" Thea rolled her eyes. "Jeez. Of course I don't do drugs, you know it! But I do read, y'know! And we had D.A.R.E., over and over and over again. We had to, like, talk to addicts and stuff, y'know."
Jen glared at her. Opened her lips to snap something out. Then reality struck her. She reached out a trembling hand to cup her daughter's cheek. It was cold. Icy cold.
"Thea...? Baby girl...?"
She smiled. "Hey, ma."
"Oh, Thea..."
A cold hand covered hers.
"Mom. You have to let them do...whatever it is...to the chix blankie. Please. Just...let me go. It hurts."
Thea's ghost was crying, too.
"I miss you, ma, so much. You know that. But I've gotta go. I can't stay. I get...so angry now." The ghost looked down, bit her lip. Her hair fell across her face, and she pushed it back with a frustrated motion. It fell back down. "Mom, I'm so afraid I'm going to hurt someone. Aunt Bree. Shade. You. Please."
Jen pushed Thea's hair back, tucking it behind her ear with a pat.
"There, honey. You have to tuck it back behind the ear. How many times have I told you...?"
Thea pulled her head back, rolled her eyes again. "Mom! I'm being serious here!"
Bree snorted. "Hey, girlie. That didn't work with your mom before, it ain't gonna work now."
Thea grinned at her. "Hey, Aunt Bree! I know, I know. Maybe if you tell her, too...?"
Bree laid her hand on top of the one Jen still had clutched in the blanket. "Jen. Hon. Let the nice guys do it."
She looked up, looked at Sam, looked at Dean. Looked back at Thea's ghost. Her heart was breaking, all over again. She sighed, closed her eyes, held the blanket out towards Sam.
"Here. What do you have to do with it?"
Sam took it from her hands, slowly, reverently. He drew a deep breath, was about to speak, when Dean interrupted.
"We have to burn it, Jen. And soon. She-" he nodded his head towards Thea, whose form suddenly stuttered like bad reception on a TV screen. "She says she's getting angry. It's a bad sign."
"Burn it-?" Jen breathed.
"Yeah, ma. That...sounds right. We can do it downstairs, in the fireplace. Right?" Thea looked over at Sam and Dean questioningly. Dean gave a decisive nod. "Let's just do it now, mom. Get it over with. I can't stand watching you hurt like this. I wanna go. I want you to...to get on with life, stop...stop moping around. I'm gone, and there's nothing we can do about it anymore. So, like, get out there, meet another guy, have..." She stopped, then went on, "Have another kid, ma. You're young enough."
"No!"
"Well, goddamit, do something! Quit...quit...moldering!" Papers on her desk stirred, the glass of her mirror shattered, and a pillow slammed into Jen's head. Thea's form stuttered, vanished, then reappeared.
"Okay, that's it," Dean said crisply. "Downstairs to the fireplace we go. Now." He moved forward, making herding motions with his hands. "Let's move." Jen and Bree stood up, and they all trooped out of Thea's room, down the stairs, and into the living room.
Jen knelt beside the fireplace, turned on the gas, and pushed the ignition switch. The fire lit with a "whooomph!" She stared into the flames, not moving.
Sam knelt beside her and pushed the blanket into her hand. "Here. You do it." She took the blanket from him and started crying again. Thea was kneeling next to her on the other side. She put her hand over her mother's, guiding it toward the fire.
"Just do it, ma. Like Nike says." Jen gave a muffled laugh. They moved their hands together, and dropped the blanket on the grate. Flames licked around it, the edges curled and blackened, then flames appeared in one spot, then another. Jen looked at her daughter, cupped her cheek one last time. Thea smiled, and mouthed, "Love you, mom..."
"I love you, too, baby girl," Jen sobbed.
Then Thea's ghost form was glittering gold and red and blue from the feet, the spirit flames flew up her body, and then all that was left was a small blue-white light sparking towards the ceiling.
Then it, too, vanished.