Jack was curled into a ball at the base of a tree near his pond. He occasionally shuddered or gasped and as fresh wave of frost and cold air wracked his bare shoulders. He wasn't sure at what point in his the past week his hoodie had gone missing. He had lost track of time between periods of stillness, like the one he was currently in, and periods of complete loss of control. Last night it had happened again. The grief had welled up and he'd suddenly had another violent fit. He was thrashed around by winds even he never would have been able to conjure before, and blasts of ice and snow that hurled him into trees and rocks. He felt like his power was shredding him from the inside out. He had no control over anything. All he could do was hide. The tree he huddled under had long since died, frozen through and beginning to shatter in places, but at least he couldn't hurt anyone here.

###

Sam made his way through what was now two feet of snow. Even the town's residents were getting nervous. This would have been a big storm even in January, but as early as November it was pretty uncommon. He hoped Dean wasn't struggling too much on his end of town. Sam had convinced Dean to scan the town for EMF, especially where the victims had been iced. As for himself, he made his way towards the local library, where official town document were stored. He quietly muttered a spell under his breath that activated a small hex bag in his pocket. It would supposedly mute any magic that could potentially freeze him, just in case.

###

Jack felt a tug in his power. Initially he curled in onto himself even more tightly, worried his power was about to surge again, but then he realized it felt different. Almost like his magic was being subdued. Cautiously, he raised his head. He felt better already, less like he was struggling to hold himself together at the seams. The excessive power was still there. That hadn't gone back to normal since it suddenly increased tenfold about a month ago, but he felt like he could actually hold it in a little better, if still only just. He felt the tug again and realized it was external. Someone or something was messing with his magic.

Jack pulled his staff out of the bushed were it had been flung last night. He had to find whoever was altering his powers, either to get help from them (maybe they will know what to do) or get rid of them if they were the cause of his sudden increase in ability, which he hadn't been prepared to hold. People had gotten hurt. It was with hesitant optimism that he carefully took off towards the town, following the tugging sensation in his gut.

###

Sam groaned and scrubbed his hands through his now disheveled hair. Even with four sets of town records it was impossible to pinpoint exactly when the winters of Burgess had gone awol. The narrowest time frame he could come up with was about 10 years. He had been hoping to find a violent death from around that time. He'd remembered the temperature drop sometimes caused by pissed off ghosts and thought maybe one had learned how to focus that power, but he was running into a problem. The weather seemed to have started getting odd in the early 1700's, but violent and traumatic deaths from that era were so frequent, he couldn't sift through all the possible sources of the maybe-ghost.

"Mauled by bear," he muttered as he read yet another list of names of people who died in Burgess 300 years ago, "hunting accident, drowned while skating, house fire, child birth, fever, hacked to bits with hatched, flogged to death..."

There was something behind him.

Sam whipped around in his seat and reached for his gun only to be faced with nothing but air. He could have sworn he'd heard a breath.

###

Jack peered at the man and held his breath. Had he heard him breathing? He nearly asked out loud, even though it was impossible, until he saw the man's hand resting on a gun at his hip. Not friendly then. Jack had been shot before a few times, mostly accidentally. It didn't kill him, but it hurt to be shredded like that and then pulled back together. He noticed a small leather bag tied next to the gun. That was it. That's what was dampening with his power.

There was a frightening moment of stillness as neither figure moved, Sam's eyes locked onto space, Jack's on the bag. Just as Sam moved to shrug and sit back down, Jack's hand flicked out, snatched the bag, and fled. He wasn't sure why. He hadn't thought about it, but he knew it was important, and he wasn't ready to risk talking to anyone would could potentially alter his power (not to mention shoot him).

###

Sam decided he'd been mistaken, but the moment he began to turn to sit back down something yanked the cold-protection hex bag off his belt and it disappeared in a cold rush of air. It left patches of beautifully curling, fernlike frost etched across the hem of his shirt and jacket.