Chapter 4

It is now twilight. In the little town she lived in, the streets start emptying out at this time. Parents rushing home to their children, aroma of home cooking in the air, sounds of people at home, watching TV, talking, laughing… family home together.

When the lights faded altogether, she realized that now they were the only people left in the silent park. Shadows lingering around them, tree branches rustling in the wind, softly sighing… swings swaying gently, like someone was still sitting on them.

Ten years of nightmare, trapped almost like in a prison of her mind. Ten years all came to pass in this one single moment when Sam told her what had happened to Dean. And she finally knew, now, that he is never coming back.

Something in her head kept screaming to her that the only way out of this is to end everything as it should. Or the nightmare would just continue… ceaselessly…

She realized that Sam was still talking, "Kathy… I am so sorry… the letter… I only found it the other day… that's how I knew… that you… you were waiting for him… all these years"

"It wasn't your fault. It was mine, I told him to go away and not come back. I have regretted that moment ever since he walked away."

She sighed. "The nightmares started after that. I knew, probably knew in all these times that he is never coming back to me. What I saw was what you saw? And that voice I heard that was you wasn't it?"

"But, Kathy, I don't understand… how could you have seen it? You are not…"Sam hesitated…"you are not psychic are you?"

She smiled bitterly. "No, I think that was just you. I think that was my punishment… for sending him away. That day, when he came to me… perhaps he was going to tell me the truth. But I got scared…"

She was quiet for a moment.

"Sam, the truth is I did something I shouldn't have."

"What, sending him away?"

"No, something worse than that."

"That letter?"

"It wasn't about the letter… it was because of that letter I did what I did"

He felt cold, at her words.

She looked into the distance, calm and composed as she related her story.

"You know my family owned all those artifacts, passed down from generation… I mean that's how we met in the first place… when you were looking for one of those artifacts for a hunt.

Some of them were powerful stuff… I never touched them more than I could. But after he left, I remembered a story from one of my cousins. He told me that one of the artifacts, a moonstone…he called it the memory stone, could open windows, vista of what you wished to see… if you are willing to pay a price for it…

He never told me what the price was… He said he wasn't sure, but it seem like anyone who used the stone would either lost part of their memories or worse, had their worst memories repeated to them over and over again, until they would want their memories wipe off."

She paused.

"I left that letter with him, in his coat. I had hoped that he would see it before he left. But he didn't. I waited for as long as I could… and then I couldn't bear it anymore. I was desperate to know that he is okay.

There was this sinking feeling in my heart ever since he left, I couldn't get him on his phone, not you either.... and I was so afraid…so I used the memory stone to see if I can find out where he is."

"What? You would live your worst nightmares all the time, just to find out where he is?' Sam looked at her incredulously.

She lifted soft calm eyes to meet his "Wouldn't you have done the same?" She asked, in a matter of fact way. "If it is about him, anything is worth it."

"But there was a punishment for using tainted objects like this… always a price. I was taught that as a child…but… I couldn't help it… and the worse of it wasn't the nightmare… it was the fact that I had used it.

And the punishment was worst than I could imagined. It meant not moving on, it meant not being to shed a single tears, it meant no redemption because when you hurt like that all the time, it meant you are separated forever from the grace of God"

She looked at him with dark, somber eyes. Sam almost flinch, there was something about her look, like she was reading him, looking into his most inner thoughts.

"You understand that don't you… what it was like to want to hold on to your anger, because it is the only thing that gives you a reason to go on everyday, and the need to punish yourself, because of the guilt…"

"It was like that for me, for the past ten years. I couldn't move on… couldn't forget… didn't want to forget, still holding on… so that the memories, even if they are nightmares… would stayed… because these are the only things I have left of him."

"I heard him, you know. Sometimes I could feel that he is somewhere around me."

They both heard the soft rustling of the branches around them. The wind was getting stronger, and the branches almost seemed like they were whispering.

Sam was back in the motel.

He was thinking about Kathy. What she told him… there was a point that puzzled him.

Those memories Kathy saw in her nightmares, part of it was his. She shouldn't have been able to do that, even with the memory stone.

He thought of that look she gave him, like she could look into him… He felt his senses sharpening, like when he was on hunt… something was wrong with Kathy.

Kathy took up the picture on her dresser. Dean. Finally it is over. No more waiting, no more wondering if he is still alive. Her room was in darkness, she had not switched on the lights, but she had no trouble finding what she was looking for in her dresser drawer: a small cardboard box.

The moonstone, she took the marble sized gem in her fingers, and caressed the smooth surface of the stone almost absently.

Tainted objects…her inheritance, her bloodline…her family… She finally understood that there was no running away from it, like her mother said.

The question is: what is she going to do about it?

AN: Next chapter should round up the story (hopefully). Thanks for sticking with the story… I had too many plot bunnies running around in my head, trying to put the thoughts down in as clearly as I could… hope it isn't too messy…