Disclaimer: I used some Harry Potter lines. They belong to J.K.-bless her heart-not me.
A/N: In "Sam and Dean Who?" I mentioned Riley's best friend Libby. I also mentioned that Libby thought her house was haunted *heh heh heh* Here's a little fic that's been kicking around my brain for a while. :)
It all changed when my best friend Libby—in all her wacky unluckiness—woke up a ghost, and it started haunting her house.
The funny thing was, Libby had been swearing for years now that her house was haunted. I'd just never paid much attention to her rantings, because with Libby, it was always something.
Except, now...now I knew better. After my biological father-turned vampire-turned psychotic killer-turned kidnapper had tried to spirit me away from the great town of Eagle Point, Oregon, I most definitely knew better. I knew that the things only existing inside myths and horror stories were actually real and not to be messed with.
Sadly, Libby did not.
Last week, her parents had started renovating their ancient house, doing little things to keep the structure and integrity intact. And each day afterwards, she had excitedly updated me on every single weird thing was starting to happen. Creaking, whispers, dancing shadows.
The vampires trying to kidnap and turn me had been a wake-up call, and I had fervently tried to convince Libby that a ghost was bad news. She had blown me off in her typical Libby optimism. A ghost couldn't be bad. That was simply inconceivable.
Then, two nights ago, Libby had accidentally broken part of the wall or smashed a giant hole in it with some of the heavy equipment her parents were using to remodel the house. Or something like that. Her story kept changing every time. Either way, her parents had decided to just take the entire wall out, stating they'd wanted to do it for years. Of course, as soon as they started, the haunting had really kicked into gear, and Libby had finally started to believe me.
The marks helped, too. The morning after the construction started on the wall, Libby had woken up to find strange bruises on her arms. The day after that, she had sworn the antique picture frame on the wall moved. Next, it had been flickering lights and cold spots.
The fervent excitement while regaling me with daily reports had faded, turning slowly but surely to fear.
So, when Libby's dad took a nasty spill down the staircase and was staying overnight in the hospital with Libby's mom, Libby had called an emergency best friend sleepover, and I had complied.
Before heading over to Libby's, I had Googled all her reported occurrences, settling with the general consensus that it was definitely a haunting by a ghost or spirit or whatever they were called. Only, nothing I'd found would tell me how to get rid of it.
That still didn't stop me from going over, though. I'd already had my first encounter with the supernatural, and I had been alone at the time—without my family or anyone to rely on. It had been terrifying and dangerous, and there was no way I was going to abandon Libby to the same fate.
So I had come over, and I was now staring up at the front of Libby's house. Before this ghost stuff, it had always been "quaint" and "eccentric" in my mind. Now it was just "Libby's creepy-ass house."
I sighed as I walked morosely up the steps, because I really had been trying to put all this monster stuff behind me. I really had been trying to have a normal Senior year of high school.
But at the same time, something was churning in the pit of my stomach. It wasn't fear or revulsion, not like it had been during my first week of vampires. No, the feeling starting to grow in my stomach was worse. So much worse.
It was excitement.
Because really, there's nothing like a nice haunting to liven up your Friday nights.
The door opened before I could even knock, and Libby appeared. "Oh my gosh, I'm so glad you're here. This house is freaking me out. I can't be here alone," she gushed rapid-fire, grabbing my arm and pulling me inside.
I smiled halfheartedly. "What are best friends for if not to verify haunted houses and face down ghosts together?"
Libby gave me a curious look. "You know, you're awfully calm about all this. Usually you're all like 'No, Libby, there's no such thing as ghosts' and 'Libby, you've been coloring with Sharpies for too long.'"
I shrugged, pushing my hands into my pockets in what I hoped was a sheepish looking move. "Well, what can I say? Maybe ghosts are real…" Then I gave her a stern look. "Or maybe your stupid house is leaking natural gas and you've been inhaling the fumes. Because, girl, I've taken all your Sharpies away, and you're still acting crazy. Either way, tonight…the truth comes out."
I said the last part with just the right amount of faux mysticism, and Libby let out a nervous laugh, but I could see how much she relaxed. Apparently me calling her crazy made her feel better, which was the whole point. She needed someone to be rational. Even if being rational meant lying my face off to my best friend. It was horrible, and my pants should have been in flames, but the alternative was probably worse.
I could just imagine it: Yeah, Lib, you're definitely being haunted. Ghosts and monsters are real, by the way. They are clearly after you and your family. Alrighty, too-doo-loo. Try and live a normal life now that you know the truth.
Unwilling to do that to her, I just smiled and pulled two movies out of my bag. She gasped, her eyes widening in delight. "Harry Potter! Deathly Hallows part one and two!" She grabbed them from my hand and ran to the living room, screeching like a pterodactyl the whole way. I rolled my eyes and followed, glad that my plan to distract her had been a success. Honestly, we were both nerds, so it took very little to distract either one of us. And when Harry Potter was involved, it took almost nothing.
Libby had already thrown a pizza in the oven before I had come over, so we started the first movie, and then a few minutes later, paused it to grab some pizza. She liked cheese, but I was a die-hard Hawaiian fan, which meant we always split the pizza right down the center—just like we'd done since the start of middle school.
Libby loaded up with pizza and retreated back to the living room. After sliding two slices onto my plate, I stuck my head in her fridge. "I'm stealing a can of your mom's Coca-Cola," I yelled over my shoulder.
"Please do, save her from herself. I swear, that woman is a walking Coke ad," she yelled back. I snorted, always finding it hilarious whenever Libby referred to her mom as "that woman."
"I shall," I called pleasantly, grabbing a can and then making a beeline back to the couch. I dropped into the seat beside Libby. "Okay, I'm ready. Roll film." She pressed the play button and then tossed the remote aside, and we both dug into our pizza.
As the evening—and the movie—progressed, I pretended like nothing was wrong, and Libby drew her strength from my calm normality. She was totally into the movie, even tearing up in spots. When the first part ended, we stopped to put away the leftover pizza and to take a quick bathroom break.
"Can't you just buy me a new house?" She murmured, glancing around uneasily, unwilling to even leave the couch. "Now that you're rich?"
I poked her with my toe to get her moving, knowing she had a bladder the size of a pea.
"Am not," I called after her, even though I kind of was. Before the whole vampire-dad shenanigan, I had been just as poor as the next person. But, a few months after my biological father had his run in with Dean—more specifically Dean's machete—a lawyer had shown up to my house bearing James' will, and I had become the newest member of the "trust-fund kids" club.
I was, for all intents and purposes, filthy rich.
However, my parents having raised me right, I did not immediately go out and binge on fancy cars and booze. Almost all the money went straight into my bank account, with a little bit put aside for spending. Unbeknownst to my parents, I had paid off some of the house mortgage and part of Jake's college tuition. For myself, I had bought a new phone and—very lucratively, online—a machete like Dean's. And a year of mixed martial art lessons. That one was public knowledge, though. I couldn't exactly hide my disappearances four days out of the week now that I was no longer working at the clinic.
My parents thought it was great that I was getting so into something other than soccer. They didn't understand that I was only doing it because I never wanted to feel as helpless as I had felt against the vampires ever again. It was working, too. I was definitely slimming down, and I could actually hold my own in a fight. In the dojo anyway. I wasn't sure about the crossover rate between the real world and the supernatural side of things.
Libby came back from the bathroom, and I shook myself out of my thoughts long enough to put the next movie into the DVD player. Libby scrounged up the remote, and it started playing. Five minutes in, she relaxed, lulled into a steady sense of security, but I remained alert. Nothing had happened…yet. Hope for the best, be prepared for the worst. That was my motto.
Which, in hindsight, was a pretty dang good motto when dealing with the supernatural.
Around eleven, the air in the living room seemed to get a little cold. I didn't really notice it at first. Not until Libby and I's favorite set of lines. "How dare you stand where he stood," Libby proclaimed passionately, echoing Harry's accusation to Snape. "Tell them how it happened that night. Tell them how you looked him in the eye…a man who trusted you…and killed him. Tell them!"
I watched as a tiny bit of steam billowed from her mouth with the words, and my stomach turned sharply with apprehension. Then the lights flickered, and the TV went dark. Libby and I looked up, startled, and she clutched my arm.
"See! I told you I'm not crazy," she whispered fearfully.
As if that was what I wanted to hear at the moment. I didn't answer, though, because that was when I saw the ghost.
In the reflection of the dark TV screen, I caught a glimpse of a creepy old lady. Her skin was pale against her tattered, old fashion dress, and her neck was bent at an unnatural angle. She stood in place, somewhere behind the couch, flickering just like the lights.
Libby was busy looking around, so she missed the flickering reflection. Then the lights went out completely at the point, leaving us in darkness. I pulled Libby upright. "We need flashlights. Let's go get them from the bathroom," I said, keeping my voice calm and collected. The lights flickered back on, just for a second, and then back off.
Libby didn't get my calm, collected memo, and she started to race up the stairs for the flashlights. She got about six steps up when the lights flickered back on and she came to a stop with a scream. In the time it had taken for the lights to flicker, the ghost had reappeared on the step above Libby, translucently barring Libby's path. Its palm shot out towards Libby, and I watched as my best friend went flying backwards down the stairs.
"Lib," I shouted, sharp fear making my stomach burn. Libby hit the ground a second later, slamming down hard and coming to a jarring stop. I looked up the stairs for the ghost as I ran to Libby's side, but she was already gone, having flickered back out of sight as I watched Libby's fall.
Libby was utterly still when I reached her, which scared me more than the thought of a ghost coming back to get me. I rolled her onto her back, checking to see if she was breathing. She was, and the horrible fear faded slightly. Breathing, good. No bleeding, good. No apparent broken bones, good. There was a pretty nasty bump on her head, but I wasn't that worried. Libby was a total klutz, and I'd seen her with worse.
I remained crouched at Libby's side, keeping one hand on her shoulder to reassure myself that she was okay. With the other hand, I dug my phone out of my pocket. Punching in the number three on speed-dial, I waited desperately for a connection.
"It's Riley," I said tersely when it went through. "Talk to me about ghosts."
"Riley…" Sam groaned, sounding both exhausted and exasperated. "You're supposed—"
"To be living a normal life, yeah I know. A frigging ghost just threw my friend down the stairs. Now is not the time for a lecture, just tell me how to kill it." I didn't mean to make my words so panicked and harsh, but they came out that way regardless.
"Iron, you can disperse their form with iron or rock salt," Sam told me quickly, all business now.
"I'm not a freaking blacksmith. Where the heck do I find iron?" I half gritted, half yelled into the phone, completely stressed as I pivoted on my heels and frantically searched for any sign of the ghost's return.
"Look for an old fashioned fire poker. They're usually made of iron," Sam sounded completely unfazed, but I had to fight the urge to pull my hair out.
"It's two thousand thirteen, Sam! Do people even use fire pokers anymore?" Even so I looked around. Miraculously, due to the sheer ancient quality of Libby's house, I spotted one next to the gaping fireplace.
"Oh thank God, I found one." I ran to it and had just wrapped my fingers around the handle when the ghost flickered up beside Libby. "Oh, no you don't," I snarled, hurling the poker at her. It flipped handle over head as it flew through air, and as soon as the poker passed through the ghost, she dissipated in a swirl of mist. The poker hit the wall behind where she had been and clattered to the floor.
"It worked," I reported breathlessly, hurrying back to Libby and picking up the poker again.
"Okay, you have maybe a minute or two before it comes back. Find some salt and make a circle around yourself. Spirits can't cross a line of salt, so make sure it's solid and there are no breaks." Sam sounded so calm, which made me wonder how many times he had given these types of instructions or been in this situation.
"Circle of salt, got it." I used my shoulder to press the phone against my cheek and grabbed both of Libby's hands so that I could drag her with me as I moved out of the living room.
I scuttled backwards, pulling her along until I reached the relative safety of the kitchen. Then I went straight to the baking cupboard and pulled out the round container of salt. Pulling the little metal chute outwards, I poured a liberal amount of salt in a large circle around Libby and myself.
"Done," I said breathlessly, hating how alive this was making me feel. I should have been panicking or at the very least, freaking out. But I wasn't. This was a serious situation, and it shouldn't be giving me a rush. Yet it was, which meant there was something seriously wrong with me. Gee, Ri, what else is new? I thought in disgust. "What now?"
Sam cleared his throat. "Okay, there are different kinds of spirits, but it doesn't really matter which type it is unless it's a poltergeist. Nothing came up back when I researched your town, which means it's either newly emerged or somehow something released it."
I processed what he was saying and efficiently worked my way towards the most probable answer. "Their house is ancient, and they just started remodeling. That's when things started happening. Lights, cold spots, bruises on Libby's arms."
"Not a poltergeist, then," he confirmed. "Okay, to put it to rest, you basically need to either salt and burn any physical remains of the spirit, or you need to salt and burn the object holding the spirit there."
"Uh…" I floundered for a bit, coming up with a blank. Libby had once mentioned her house originally being owned by a "Medelia Rose," but I had no sense of history about when or who that was. "Medelia Rose. I don't know anything about her. Oh crap." Even as I said her name, the ghost reappeared.
I gripped my iron poker, ready, in case the salt thing didn't work. Nothing happened, though. Medelia held out a hand, reaching for me, but it stopped short at the salt line. Almost like an invisible barrier was stopping any part of her from crossing over. Sweet.
In the background, I could hear Sam typing rapidly. Thank goodness I had caught him at his laptop. I could tell he was reading, so I tried my best to be patient. "Okay, here's something," he conceded finally. "Medelia Rose, born in nineteen-oh-three, died in nineteen-fifty-four. So get this, she was murdered. In her house. She was, uh, thrown down the stairs, and it broke her neck. And…oh." He dropped off, sounding troubled.
"What? Oh? No, no. No, oh's," I said quickly, staring at Medelia and having a hard time stomaching the fact that her head was at a disgusting angle and that she was leering at me. The fact that I was face-to-face with a ghost was hard to wrap my head around, too.
She flickered out of sight, which made everything ten times worse. Seeing her was better. I couldn't even begin to imagine what she was doing when invisible.
I spun a quick circle, not seeing Medelia anywhere. Crap, where was she and what was she trying to do? "Sam? You got to give me something here," I pleaded.
"She was cremated," Sam said finally, voice tight.
"I take it that's bad?" I had no idea, but that sounded bad.
"That means something is holding her back, but it's not her remains. It could be something like a lock of hair in a locket, or it could be a personal item. Is there anything in the house that's an antique from her time living there?" Well, at least he hadn't said I needed to find her remains. I wasn't sure if I could handle with tracking down someone's remains and torching them. Personal items, I could work with, though.
I looked around, my hopes sinking lower and lower with every additional antique I saw. "Libby's parents are historical nuts. I'm literally surrounded by old things."
Sam said a bad word, and I had to agree. "How opposed do you think Libby's family would be if I salted and burned the entire house?" I asked jokingly.
"That probably wouldn't work," Sam said seriously. "You have to make sure whatever is holding her back is completely destroyed. Burning the house down isn't a guarantee. Especially if it's something small."
My eyes got big. "Wow, uh, I was kidding, but good to know. Arson is a negatory, got it."
Sam sighed, and I could imagine him pinching the bridge of his nose tiredly. "Okay, uh, tell me more about the remodel. If that's what released the spirit, then maybe that will help you narrow things down."
I walked to the edge of the salt, peeking through the doorway of the kitchen towards the halfway torn down wall. Libby had said that weird things had started happening after construction on that particular wall, so I figured it was kind of like Ground Zero. Except I couldn't see a thing, and although I'd passed by the wall a hundred times, I couldn't remember much about it. Which meant I needed to get closer and take a look. Awesome.
"Hey Sam," I ventured, "what's going to happen if I leave this circle of salt?"
There was a scraping sound of a chair and sharp intake of breath, like he'd just sat upright really fast. "Riley do not, I repeat, do not leave the salt. If the spirit's able to manifest and throw people around, then it's powerful. If you leave the salt, it will kill you."
I chewed on my lip for a second, deliberating.
Behind me, the window exploded inwards, and I yelped, immediately ducking, not that it did me any good. Glass pelted my back painfully through my thin T-shirt, and a breeze rippled through the kitchen, causing the curtains to billow a little.
I watched in horror as the granules of salt wavered, moved a little by the breeze. It wasn't enough to break the line, but any stray gust of wind stronger than a breeze would do the trick. I said a naughty word, dropping the phone and scrambling for the container of salt. Then I fed the entire container into the circle, making the line as thick as I could.
I could hear Sam yelling into the phone, and after I tossed the empty container away, I scooted across the floor on my butt to pick my phone up again. Pressing it to my ear with a shaking hand, I laid out the bare facts. "Sam, she's trying to break the line. If I stay in here, she's going to kill me anyway. And then she'll kill Libby. Is there anything else I need to know?"
He said a whole bunch of stuff that I didn't really pay attention to. All I really focused on were his repeated instructions to salt and burn. Medelia appeared again, standing listlessly outside the circle, and I glanced over at Libby's prone form, realizing that I was all that stood between her and what was mostly likely a horrible death. Not too long ago, I had been the helpless one, and it had been Sam and Dean standing in my place.
And they hadn't backed down. No, they had firmly planted themselves between me and the danger without even hesitating. Now it was my turn to do the same for my friend.
I stood up slowly, readjusting my grip on the iron poker. "I'm gonna have to call you back, Sam," I stated as an eerie calm came over me. Then I hung up on him, despite his continuing protests.
In front of me, Medelia continued to flicker and jump from spot to spot. I waited until she settled in one place, hoping she could understand me. "Alright, ghost lady," I informed her, "you and I have some business to settle."