Title: Troubled Waters
Summary: In northwestern Washington, Sam and Dean run into a cult, missing people, plagues, some really humid weather, and possessed trees.
Disclaimer: As usual, I don't own anything. The geography in this story is fairly accurate; everything else is fiction. Oh, and apologies to William Butler Yeats.
Author's Note: Much thanks to BigPink, who listened to me whine about the troublesome nature of writing a story with an actual plot, and who did a fantastic beta-ing job.
Thank you, everybody, who has taken the time to review!
Part Ten: Monday, July 10, early morning
For all at last returns to the sea—to Oceanus, the ocean river, like the everflowing stream of time, the beginning and the end.
—Rachel Carson
xxxxx
Of course Dean couldn't drive into the campground, because they'd reported a forest fire and so the road was closed miles from the turnoff. They nodded at the deputy stationed at the roadblock, listened dutifully to his directions to the two ferries off the island, "Although you probably won't get to the terminal before the last sailing", and turned around in a squeal of tires, Dean swearing under his breath. He parked around a corner, on the side of the road, and the Winchesters zipped up their coats and pulled on their hoods and grabbed their bag and began hiking through the woods.
They followed the road, but stayed on the edge of the forest because they never knew when they would run into somebody fighting the fire. Or, rather, looking for the fire.
It was far beyond midnight before they got to the driveway to the Kelman house, and they decided they'd cut through the property to get to the octopus tree. Shorter than circling around Cranberry Lake.
The forest was unnaturally quiet. No hooting of owls, no fluttering of bats, no scampering of raccoons. Just the steady drumbeat of the rain, and the waves smashing on the shore. Sam supposed it would be attributed to the fire, although the lack of a fire would be hard to explain. Sometimes he wondered how people persisted in refusing to believe in the supernatural.
They were soaked through, with rain and sweat, by the time they came to the tree. It appeared entirely benign, but Dean shone his flashlight on the broken branch—four inches in diameter—that had knocked him out. Sam set his jaw and didn't comment.
They started by delineating the tree's perimeter with dribbles of holy water. Otherwise, they hadn't developed a clearly defined strategy, but they'd prepared their dad's journal; it was opened to the right page and sealed in a plastic bag, and tucked underneath a hefty stone so when the wind inevitably came, it wouldn't be blown away. They figured they'd start carving into the fir, see what transpired.
Sam took stock of a thick branch at chest level, and determinedly cut a cross into the thick and ripply bark. Nothing happened, and he shrugged at Dean, who had apparently aimed for the tree's trunk and become perplexed, because the tree didn't have a trunk as such. The thick base barely protruded from the ground before splitting into several huge branches which grew in all directions, none of which was up.
Sam cut into another branch, and still the tree was quiet. He and Dean steadily worked for a few minutes, cutting crosses and pentagrams and other simple shapes into the bark. Finally Dean stood back and surveyed the tree.
"Why don't you try the ritual," he suggested.
Sam picked up the journal and began to recite. A third of the way through, the wind picked up and temperature dropped. He stopped reading, glanced up.
"Got way farther along than me," said Dean, and returned to gouging symbols into the tree. Flashlight in one hand, blade in the other.
Sam's cry was sharp. "Dean!"
Dean whirled in time to see a branch flying towards him of its own accord, and he ducked and the branch slammed into a limb behind him. There were splintering sounds, and the broken bough slid to the ground. "I knew there was a reason I kept you around."
Sam cleared his throat and returned to reading, one eye darting about for wayward limbs. There was a loud cracking sound, and both Winchesters froze, glancing about furiously for the source of the noise. "Timber!" Sam heard Dean hiss, and he hurried out of the way as a nearby cedar fell with incredible speed, more than that precipitated by gravitational acceleration, towards the spot where he had lately been standing.
They regrouped outside the hallowed circle, and decided to mark sigils on a few neighboring trees before returning to the octopus tree.
Sam began reading again, and was thumped in the ribs by a large branch with enough force to knock him to the ground, the journal and flashlight both flying out of his grasp. The scene was lit by lightning, and in the flashes, Sam saw the journal land several yards away. Dimly, he heard Dean call his name as he spit sand from his mouth and crawled towards the plastic-wrapped book. A limb bent unnaturally and swept the book farther away, and Sam chased it, on all fours, across the desert.
Dean shouted curses in Latin, dumped a bottle of holy water over the branches in the tree's centre, resulting in a satisfactory hisssss and cloud of steam, and saw that he'd distracted the spirit enough that Sam had been able to collect the journal.
Sam sat on his knees, hunched over the book in the sand, watched in awe as the tree flung itself to and fro. Watched the branches twist and flex in a deadly dance, watched Dean firmly tuck a thick bough under one arm as he wielded his knife in the other. His flashlight had long been abandoned. It was a scene out of Harry Potter, thought Sam, the Whomping Willow, except that Harry and Ron had had the protection of the Weasleys' car. He and Dean were at the mercy of the elements. That was in The Chamber of—
Not now, he counselled himself, and returned to his reading, the lightning strikes frequent enough that he left his flashlight where it had fallen. He finished the passage, and hesitantly approached the tree.
There was a constant stiff breeze now, but it didn't rise or fall. The tree boughs shook, but with less intensity than before. Shrugging, Dean began an intricate sigil, and apparently the crosses and Latin had sufficiently diminished the spirit's power that it caused nothing worse than the flickering of the flashlights lying on the ground. With trepidation, Sam climbed high into the tree, added a few carvings to the uppermost branches, where they were less likely to be noticed or to be worn off by people's shoes as they clambered up into the tree.
Eventually, they stood shoulder to shoulder in the sand, in the flashes of lightning that broke the darkness, in the torrential downpour but in the calm. "Are we done?" asked Sam, tone disbelieving.
"Only time will tell."
xxxxx
Since they were in the area, they supposed they had better do something about the cultic fire pit. "This is getting old," complained Dean as he carved sigils into the trees surrounding the clearing and listened to Sam's Latin.
"Never thought I'd hear you say that," said Sam, interrupting himself.
"The first time or two in a day it's fine. But after that? It's the middle of the night. I'm cold, I'm wet, I'm tired, and I'm hungry. We should get paid time and half for this."
"Dean," said Sam cautiously. "We don't get paid at all."
"That isn't the point," said Dean dismissively.
Sam tried to figure out how to respond. His brother's reasoning sometimes defied him. "We need better benefits, too," he said finally. "The health plan is for crap and the mileage they pay? Is criminal."
Dean nodded approvingly. "That's right. We'll have to bring this up at the next union meeting." And then his poker face broke and he grinned widely. "What are you standing there for, Sammy? Keep on readin'."
Chuckling to himself—his brother was a piece of work—Sam found his place and finished the Latin.
xxxxx
For good measure, they'd buried more of Missouri's pouches in the flowerbeds of the house, and then begun the long hike back to the car.
"To the motel it is," declared Dean. It was a quarter past four in the morning.
"What about Celia?"
Dean paused. "What about Celia?"
"We have to go get her and take her home to Vancouver," said Sam, as if it were obvious.
"No, we don't. We should check that she's okay, that she wants to be there—"
"She doesn't want to be there!"
The depth of feeling in Sam's voice made Dean turn from the wet ribbon of highway and study his profile. Dean pursed his lips. "How do you know? Didja get past the six armed men and visit her when I wasn't looking?"
"Who would want to be there? They call down plagues on the island, do creepy things around a campfire, and aren't allowed to interact with the outside world!"
"She should get the choice," said Dean, staring straight ahead and driving on auto-pilot. "If she wants to be there, she should stay." And he wasn't talking about Celia any more.
"There's a change of heart," muttered Sam under his breath, gaze flickering out the side window.
"Oh yeah? I let you go! I didn't stop you and make you stay!"
Sam clamped his mouth shut on an angry retort and settled for glaring out at the dark night instead. The rainstorm had cleared the air outside, got rid of the perpetual close feeling, but inside the Impala, the tension was thick enough to slice with a knife.
It was an old issue, a thorny one, one that had never been dealt with, not really. One that should have been lost to the sands of time, thought Sam, but somehow never was. When he was sure he could speak without shouting, he said, "Are you glad about that? Proud you didn't stand in my way?"
And Sam had gut-punched him without laying a finger on him. Head swirling, Dean gripped the steering wheel tightly and tried to think coherent thoughts. The Impala was full of loud silence.
Sam didn't know if he'd won or lost, but the Impala turned at the gate into the naval station, and Dean wheedled his way back into the temporary camp that had been established for the evacuees of the alleged fire.
There were cots and blankets set up all over the floor of a large gymnasium. Struck suddenly by sheer exhaustion, he was unable to do anything more but stand and listen as Dean found out where the people from the Kelman property were gathered. He gazed unseeing at the scores of people lying down, some snoring, some whispering, some soothing crying children. Most of the lights were out, but a few fluorescent tubes were lit above the tables that were set up for the soldiers who were keeping watch. There were several coffee urns, thermoses of tea, and ravaged platters of cookies and sandwiches. Garbage cans waiting for more paper plates and plastic cutlery and Styrofoam cups.
"There she is," murmured Dean, and Sam discovered he'd been led down an aisle to one corner of the gym, and they were standing a few feet from Celia. She was lying on her side on the floor in a sleeping bag, eyes shut, her long hair spread over the white pillowcase.
"Celia?" said Sam quietly.
The girl blinked and lifted her head. There were huge, dark circles underneath her eyes, as if this were the first she'd slept in a week. "Yeah?" She didn't recognize them from the day before when they'd accosted her while hanging laundry.
Sam introduced themselves, said that they'd been contacted by her family to find her. "Your mom's very worried," he said. "Um, could we go someplace and talk maybe, so we don't disturb everybody else?" He gestured roundly, encompassing the roomful of humanity.
She hadn't said anything yet, besides the initial yeah?, but she stood up—she was wearing a t-shirt and shorts, street clothes—and padded after them, in bare feet, to the hallway that led to the restrooms, where there was slightly more privacy than in the gym.
She seemed disinclined to speak, which made Sam somehow anxious to fill in the holes in the conversation, of which there were many. He stuttered through an explanation of how Mrs Edwards had got a hold of them—"I believe it was your aunt that our dad helped out once"—and through the visits they'd paid to the families of the other missing women. "Do you know a Gabrielle Whitefeather?" A shake of the head. "Karen Sawatsky? Sadie Washington? Virginia Lawson?" Sam stopped, losing steam. He glanced over at Dean. "All those women, then, are really missing. Because of the legend." It was a question he'd phrased as a statement.
"Must be," agreed Dean.
"Where are they now?" Sam continued.
"What?" asked Celia, and her voice was so unexpected, both brothers stared at her. Remembered she was part of the conversation.
Dean took up the story, explaining that they'd discovered that there were two separate issues. The Indian legend, and the cult. "Your Jasper Kelman caused the lice, the locusts, the frogs. The power outages. On the other hand, the Indian girl caused—"
"What about the blood-dimmed tide?" interrupted Celia. The expression on her face was a combination of indoctrinated arrogance and self-doubting fear.
"Blood-dimmed tide?" repeated Dean, utterly confused.
"That's from the poem," said Sam, pointing a finger in recognition.
"Jasper made that happen," explained Celia.
The Winchesters exchanged baffled looks. "The ocean never turned to blood," said Sam slowly, unsure of what Celia was saying.
"The red tide," said Celia in disgust, rolling her eyes. "Jasper said it was the spirit encouraging us that we were doing the right thing. It was going to be the next plague, but it happened even before we asked."
"Red tide is a natural phenomenon," said Sam. "I think. Right?" He made the mistake of glancing at his brother for confirmation, because Dean only shrugged elaborately. "Yes," he said decisively. "It's algae."
Silence.
"But he said… he said…"
"A useful natural phenomenon, no doubt," said Dean wryly.
There was a longer silence.
"Ah, well," said Dean, and forged ahead with the story. He finished, "So the Indian girl caused the lack of wind and kidnapped the women, and the fishing boat."
"We think that the actions of the cult must have stirred up the girl's spirit," said Sam, "but we're not sure."
Ever so quietly, staring at her bare feet on the grey linoleum floor, Celia said, "In the beginning, when Jasper first got started at the domain, we did the ceremonies at the park, in the sand there, by that tree. Jasper said it was special. It was only when there were more of us, after a few months, that we moved over to the fire pit in that clearing."
Sam heard the we, knew it couldn't possibly include Celia, as she'd been there only a week. Long after they'd removed themselves from the octopus tree's territory.
"What was special about it?" he asked.
"The maiden's boyfriend hanged himself there."
Sam's brow furrowed. "But they lived happily ever after under the sea."
Celia shook her head impatiently. "Not her husband. This boy was before. She was going to marry him, but when she met the man from the sea, she forgot her betrothed. He was devastated, so he killed himself."
Sam and Dean gaped at each other. Were there two spirits, the maiden and the boyfriend? "Must have awoken the maiden when Jasper began summoning the guy," said Dean, and stopped. With a curious look on his face, he asked, "Why was there no resistance at the arbutus when I exorcised it, but there was a hell of a fight at the octopus tree last night?"
"No resistance at the fire pit, either," pointed out Sam. There was a long silence before he said, "I bet Jasper wasn't summoning the boyfriend. Bet it was the girl instead. Unknowingly."
"But—" protested Celia.
"But nothing," said Dean. "It's the only thing that makes sense. Exorcisms? Are powerful things. Violent, destructive acts."
Sam nodded in agreement. "Did you conduct rites any place besides at the fire pit and the arbutus tree?"
"Which arbutus?"
"Which…" began Dean. "There's more than one?"
"There are four."
"Well," said Sam, "We gotta do something about that. And if there's no reaction there, either, to the exorcisms, we'll know it was a pointless exercise, that those arbutuses—arbuti?—were never endowed with any special powers at all. That it was all in Jasper Kelman's head."
"When it's light out," decided Dean, "you have to take us to the other trees. We need to get rid of that girl's spirit."
Bug-eyed, Celia glanced back and forth between the brothers as if she were watching a tennis match. "What…"
"I'll explain," said Sam. "But first, maybe we should go get ourselves a cup of coffee. I think we could all use it."
And half an hour later, they had explained that Jasper Kelman was crazy, that he was out of his league—that probably seven people had died already, because of his negligence—that going home had to be better than this. "Why did you run away in the first place?" asked Sam eventually.
"I didn't run away," defended Celia. "I went traveling."
"You didn't get very far," pointed out Dean. "We're, what, sixty miles from Canada?"
"They were nice to me," said Celia. "I was hitchhiking and they picked me up and gave me supper and everything. And they understood that sometimes you don't know what you want to do with your life, unlike my mother."
Sam recalled Mrs Edwards' lengthy diatribe on her daughter's wandering path. "Maybe they're nice, Celia, but they're also… crazy. You know? They kidnap cows and kill them by the fire. That's not normal behavior."
"The blood connects us to the spirit world, where the maiden's lover is," Celia explained, her empty gaze returning, and she said the words as if by rote.
Sam paused. "But, Celia, remember it wasn't the lover you guys were summoning. That was all in Jasper's head. And his delusions have caused the disappearances of seven people. Five girls like you, and two men. Isn't that scary? Wouldn't you feel safer at home? Even if your mom doesn't understand you?" He felt Dean's gaze rest heavily on him, but refused to look over at his brother.
Celia shrugged ambiguously.
Dean cleared his throat. "Since we exorcised the octopus tree, Jasper's not going to be able to make any more of his little plagues. His power's gone, Celia. And it wasn't his to begin with. He was just awakening the Indian maiden, reviving her. He's nothing on his own, Celia, and—"
She interjected, "Can I go back to bed?"
Thrown, Sam stuttered, "Don't you want to call your mother, at least? Let her know you're okay?" Celia seemed more than unwilling, seemed almost afraid of the idea. "She's not mad," Sam added hastily. "Just really worried."
Celia shook her head. "Jasper doesn't let us use the telephone."
Dean could feel Sam's gaze boring into the side of his head at the definitive proof that there was something screwy with Jasper Kelman and his little band. "You promised," he reminded her, ignoring Sam. "You promised to call every day."
"I'll call after I sleep for a bit," bargained Celia, showing more emotion and original thought than she had the entire conversation.
Sam nodded reluctantly, and they watched her weave her way through the rectangles of sleeping people back to her blankets.
We're almost done, folks; all that's left is the epilogue.