The Road So Far…
"Our dad's gone out on a hunting trip and he hasn't called in a few days."
"I know it seems hard to believe. I really understand that. But you've seen the proof that the supernatural exists now. I'm sorry you've been shoved into it. But yes, that was the murderous ghost of a woman long dead."
"Something's wrong, someone else is in the house, they were waiting for Sam to get home."
"This book – this is Dad's single most valuable possession. Everything he knows about every evil thing is in here, and he's passed it on to us."
"I think he wants us to pick up where he left off. You know – saving people, hunting things. The family business."
"When I was a kid, I lost people I loved. When I was around your age, I lost my mom. I remember being really scared."
"Dean was four… I was just a baby. I don't remember it, but our Dad, he woke up to our Mom screaming in the nursery. According to him, Mom was on the ceiling. Dad told Dean to take me out of the house. There was a fire."
Winchester Family 1983
The paper yellowed around the edges. She turned it over. A man, a woman, and two children. One was a baby.
Switch to her. She smiles down at someone. Her blonde hair swings over her shoulders. Leans down to pick up someone.
A little boy stands with his short arms over the edge of a playpen. He drops a toddler's sippy cup onto the ground outside the pen.
A little girl sits upright in her bed, clutching her blankets to her chest. Hair tied behind her neck. Stares at the closet in terror. A tree is visible through her window.
A fire burns in the shape of a human. The figure moves to the foot of her bed and watches her. Just watches.
The woman turns around and beats on the glass. It should break under her fists. It doesn't. Her mouth opens as she screams. Glass blocks off the noise. She's screaming for help. A black shadow looms over up. Over her shoulder.
Panning out, she's shouting down to someone in the front yard. A long black Impala is parked by a tree. Branches are baring and long.
I've seen it before.
The same nightmare has been plaguing me for a little over two weeks, growing more and more elaborate every night. It used to cut off when the fire monster stopped at the girl's bed. Now it continues past that, and I can remember more of it when I wake up. I can think it through more logically, and unlike most dreams do, this one doesn't seem to fade when I'm wide awake.
I keep thinking about it, especially the beginning and end. Winchester Family 1983. That picture had looked suspiciously like John, and the two children… one was a baby, so it was hard to tell, but the other could have been Dean when he was a kid. The Impala that I had begun to see towards the ending always had the windows rolled up. I could never see inside, but it was definitely Dean's car.
It never fails to send a shiver coursing down my back, especially once I realized that there was something about it that was wrong. A few days ago, I remembered an odd fact I'd read somewhere – the human subconscious can pull memories for dreams, but it's impossible to dream up someone you've never seen in a memory. Not everyone consciously remembers all of their memories, but the absolute lack of recognition I felt for the dream-woman or her dream-children, coupled with how strange the dreams were otherwise made me think I should be wary.
At first I was really concerned and I started watching myself for other abnormal signs – twitches, tremors, flinches. I asked Serenity to tell me if I did anything out of character, because I probably wouldn't notice. Weird dreams could be a sign of psychological damage, and if I'm hunting with a damaged noggin, well… that could end extremely badly.
Now I'm just dully accepting that I may not be able to do anything about it, but I'm also not slowly becoming a lunatic, either. Then again, I've spent the last hour drawing a tree on a hotel paper pad, so maybe I'm a bit biased when I say that.
Something about that house bothered me, but I could never see enough of it or its surroundings to place it. My theory was that I could Google search it if I figured out where it was supposed to be – if it wasn't defying logic and being in a non-real place, that is – but so far, the only distinguishing thing I can find is that big tree out in the front yard.
Dean and Sam joined Serenity and I in our room about three hours before it was officially time to pay for another night or check out, Dean toting Sam's laptop like he owned it. Sam was watching him with a careful glare for his property's sake. I sat up and propped pillows under my back so that I could comfortably lean against the headboard, pulling my knees up and grabbing the paper pad and associated pencil from the night stand between Serenity's and my bed.
So far I had a pretty detailed outline. If I closed my eyes, I could remember it with more clarity, but I've never been a very skilled artist, so translating it to paper was a battle worthy of the wendigo fight in Colorado. I tipped my head to the side, holding the paper against my knees at a slant, and scraped my teeth along my lower lip as I worked.
"I've been cruisin' some websites." Dean threw himself down on the edge of my bed, leaving his legs over the side and setting Sam's computer on the thighs of his jeans while he listed what he'd found. "I think I found a few candidates for our next gig. A fishing trawler found off the coast of Cali – its crew vanished. And, oh, we've got some cattle mutilations in Western Texas. Hey!" The shout, accompanied by a quick jab in my leg, made me jump and look up. I glared at Dean. "Am I boring you with this hunting evil stuff?"
"I'm listening," I growled, far more irritated than his action had justified. I was in a pretty bad mood already, given my nightmares. "Just keep going."
Dean shrugged off my tone and turned back to the computer. "And here, a Sacramento man shot himself in the head."
"Unfortunate, but pretty normal," Serenity objected, sitting with her legs thrown over the side of her bed, playing with her phone for a moment.
"-Three times," Dean finished.
"And that's not-so-normal," Sam concluded, waving a TV guide slip before letting it fall back onto the brown wooden table the TV was on.
"Hey," Dean whined again, leaning back to wave his hand at me and invade my personal space. "Any of these things blowin' up your skirt, Holls?"
I wiggled closer to the edge of the bed and set down my pencil and paper on the comforter in front of me, getting away from Dean's reach. "I'm not stupid enough to wear a skirt around you," I retorted sharply.
Sam looked over the bed to what I'd been drawing and he frowned, a surprising and a little bit offensive reaction. Hey, I know I'm not good, but I'm not that bad! "Wait." Sam didn't actually wait before he picked it up, sans the pencil, and held it up to scrutinize. "I've seen this."
"Really?" I asked hopefully, brightening noticeably and sitting up straight to look up at him. "Please share."
"Seen what?" Dean asked in confusion, standing up and leaving Sam's laptop open by the foot of the bed. Sam didn't answer, instead going to his duffel bag thrown on top of the chair. "What are you doing?" Sam didn't reply, unzipping the bag and going through the contents to find something at the bottom.
I threw the blankets off of my legs and jumped out of bed, both excited and nervous to have a lead. Sam got out John Winchester's field journal, tossed it lightly on the TV table, and flipped open the front cover. Miscellaneous small loose articles were shoved haphazardly in the flaps, but Sam pulled out a small picture. He held both the photo and my drawing close together, looking between the two.
"What's so interesting about a tree?" I asked, now a bit irked at being left out. It was, after all, my drawing. I ran to Sam's side and threw a hand up on his shoulder to keep my balance while I stood on my toes to see the pictures he was holding close to his chest.
The photograph was of John Winchester, a woman, a baby, and a small boy. They all stood next to a virtual copy of the tree in the yard of my dream house. I felt a chill run down my limbs and, in shock, my hand slid off of Sam as I rocked back on my feet. It wasn't current-time John, the only picture of him I'd seen – it was a picture of him from roughly twenty years ago, before Sam and Dean's mother had been killed. The woman was a beautiful blonde and held her baby close, while John had his hand on the boy – Dean's – shoulder. What stunned me was that they were exactly the same as they were in the photo of my dream, meaning that my dream had known things I hadn't.
"Dean, I know where we have to go next," Sam said quietly, looking just as surprised as I felt, looking up to his brother.
"Where?" Dean asked with one eyebrow arched impatiently.
"Back home," Sam breathed. It wasn't an answer I had expected – as far as I knew, they didn't have a home any more permanent than the Impala and each other. "Back to Kansas." I knew they'd lived on the road after Mary Winchester had been murdered, but I hadn't realized that their house had been salvaged from the fire that took her life.
"Okay. Random." Dean complained. Even as he didn't seem all that bothered, his posture changed and his eyes flashed, becoming guarded to shield away hurt. "Where'd that come from?"
"What's so important about Holly's drawing, anyway?" Serenity demanded, tired of being left out of the loop. "It's a tree. How is that not the end of the story?"
Sam turned the family photograph around and held it so first Serenity could see it, then pushed it towards Dean. "Um, this photo was taken in front of our old house, right? The house where Mom died?"
Dean took the picture away from Sam to look at it closely, though he must have recognized it the moment that he saw it. "Yeah."
"And it didn't burn down, right?" Sam continued, in too much haste to pause and see how Dean's composure was now being forced. It made me stop and I slid past Sam to sit on the mattress next to Dean, and I looked to Serenity, on the other mattress, hoping that at least she was understanding some of this. "I mean, not completely. They rebuilt it, right?"
"I guess so, yeah." Dean shrugged almost violently. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"Holly." Sam took a deep breath and then turned to look down at me from his imposing height. "Where did you see this before?"
"I – I've been dreaming about it," I said unsurely. I can't control what I dream about, so I don't think anyone can get mad at me for having freaking psychic nightmares or something, but emotions and reactions aren't always rational. I was nervous I'd be on the receiving end of unpleasant emotions as a result of opened wounds from Dean's side. "Well, not so much about it, but it's in my dreams. Well, they're more like nightmares, really…" I trailed off when I realized that I wasn't being very articulate.
Sam sat down on the other side of me and put his hand on my knee encouragingly, trying to keep me talking, but now I just felt caged between the two brothers. The way he was approaching the situation made me think there was a lot more significance to it than I had originally thought, and it scared me because I didn't understand why. "What happens in your nightmares, Holly?"
"This is ridiculous," Serenity burst out in annoyance with both of the brothers. Maybe she was done with being out of the loop or maybe she didn't like how uncomfortable I was, but either way, she was done listening without question. "Holly has nightmares. So what? Sam, you have nightmares. Dean does, otherwise he wouldn't sleep with a gun and a knife under his pillow."
"Serenity." Sam leaned forward to my sister and I leaned to the side, closer to Dean. "This could be important. Holly has never seen this picture before, but she knows a single tree that happens to be in front of the place our mom died. I need to know how."
"Ser…" I mumbled. "It's okay." I looked down and then looked back up. "Sam needs to know. Once he's calm, he can share with the class." I glanced up to the taller Winchester to make sure he knew I was serious before I took a deep breath and bit my lip. "Um, since we were in Oklahoma, I've been having these dreams of a family living in that – in your house.
"It always starts out with the mother finding this box of pictures in the attic. They're old family photos of Sam, Dean, John, and some have Mary, too." I ducked my head, suddenly ashamed for not bringing it up for so long. "I always thought it was just a subconscious approximation, but they're almost identical to that picture there." I pointed at the one Dean was still holding with an unconsciously tight grip. "The mother has two kids, and something's watching the son. The girl keeps getting woken up by this sort of ghost or something on fire in her room.
"And lately it's been going further, and I keep dreaming that the mother is trapped in her room and screaming for help. There's something behind her, trying to – hurt her, kill her – but I can never see more than a shadow. The Impala is in the yard and there's also that tree. I just assumed it was a crazy dream." I finished uncomfortably, shifting and trying to maintain an equal distance from both of the brothers.
"Okay, look." Sam put his hand on my shoulder and looked around me to Dean pleadingly, giving him the desperate puppy dog eyes for a chance to speak and be heard. "This is gonna sound crazy, but… the people who live in our old house – I think they might be in danger."
"Why would you think that?" Dean scoffed roughly, something in his voice breaking. "Because Holly had a nightmare? Suddenly she has ESP-vision or something when she sleeps?"
I ducked my head lower. Serenity tried to catch my eyes, but I just wanted out of the rapidly spiraling discussion.
"It's just… um… look, just trust me on this, okay?" Sam pleaded, standing up from the bed and starting to walk back to his duffel to collect the journal and put it safely away. Whatever his real reason was, he just couldn't seem to get it out for some reason, and it bothered me that he was so hesitant to explain.
Dean rose from the other side of me, following Sam with no small level of aggravation. "Wait, whoa, whoa! Trust you?" He repeated incredulously. If it were anyone else, I'd have thought it meant that he didn't trust Sam. Since I knew that wasn't the problem here, he probably just wanted to have a really good reason.
"Yeah," Sam answered shortly, nodding.
"Come on, man. That's weak!" Dean protested, not at all amiable, and he stood at Sam's side to berate him a bit while Sam hid the journal back away. Sam also took the picture Dean had kept in his clutches, but Dean didn't seem to notice. "You gotta give me a little bit more than that!"
"I – I can't really explain it, is all." Without explanation or reason, Sam still was ready to get up and drive all the way out to Lawrence, Kansas, moving across the room and gathering the motel card keys that lay next to Serenity's hairbrush on the sink.
"Well, tough!" Dean exploded. I was kind of surprised that no one in neighboring rooms had heard the noise from us yet. Dean planted his feet firmly in place in the center of the room. "I'm not goin' anywhere until you do!"
Sam stopped in front of his brother and sighed. Dean crossed his arms pointedly and rolled his shoulders, expectant of an explanation that Serenity and I were too bewildered to demand. At least someone was getting down to the answers.
Sam's shoulders slumped as he deflated a couple of inches. "I… have these… nightmares," he ventured tentatively, cautious as to his reception.
Dean, Serenity and I all nodded vigorously in agreement. Until seeing the spirit of Jessica Moore as we left town after putting Mary Worthington to rest, Sam used to thrash and scream in his sleep. While he had been given some closure by seeing Jessica's image, he still sometimes woke up with a shout or in a cold sweat.
Sam took our collective nods as "yes, we've noticed" messages and took a deep breath to prepare himself to continue. It can't be that bad, can it? "And… sometimes… they come true." Sam braced himself like he was ready for the blow to come down hard, but no one moved for a very long moment after his claim.
When someone did speak, it was Dean. "Come again?"
"Look, Dean… I dreamt about Jessica's death for days before it happened," Sam said quickly, stepping forward, closer to his brother, and wringing his hands anxiously in front of him.
Dean turned his back to Sam, though, and paced back to the window, looking out to the morning atmosphere. "Look, man, people have weird dreams. I'm sure it's just a coincidence." He yanked at the curtains without a real reason, which was pretty out of character for him to do.
"No!" Sam cried in frustration, continuing to follow Dean across the room. "I dreamt about the blood dripping, her on the ceiling, the fire, everything – and I didn't do anything about it 'cause I didn't believe it!" It was an awful scene to see, even for me, and I had never met Jessica before. To dream it and then have it become a reality… no wonder it tore Sam apart so badly for so long.
Sam wasn't done, and he pointed towards me so suddenly that the gesture was sharp and almost violent. "Now, Holly's dreaming about that tree, about our house, and some woman inside screaming for help! I mean, that's where it all started, man, this has to mean something, right?"
"But why would she be having nightmares about it?" Serenity asked roughly, using her mean tone to cover up the nerves that she was certainly feeling. "Holly didn't know your mother or your girlfriend. She's never lived in Lawrence, and no one we know was killed by that monster. She has no connection to it or the house, so how could it be invading her dreams?"
"We're both human!" Sam answered, gesturing from me to himself. "How could I have those dreams about Jess? Maybe it's just because you're both close with us now." He rounded on his brother again, who he'd literally cornered, probably without realizing it. "This is more than coincidence, Dean! Do we really want to take the chance of not doing anything again?"
Maybe Sam was blinded by his emotions, but I was still able to dissect how Dean's body language changed. Overwhelmed, Dean turned from the windows, blinking, his mouth open but struggling to express his words. "I – I don't know," he tried.
But these two have never been all that good at communication, so Sam couldn't read the signs as well as I could, especially not when he was busy freaking out remembering Jessica Moore and the memories of the childhood home he didn't get the chance to know. "What do you mean you don't know, Dean?" Sam demanded, now sounding slighted that Dean was doubting it, given the evidence. "This woman might be in danger. I mean, this might even be the thing that killed Mom and Jessica!"
Dean pushed past Sam to get out of the corner. "Alright, just slow down, would you?" He commanded, his voice cracking at the end and betraying the underlying feelings. Turning back to face Sam, he continued skeptically, "I mean, first you tell me you think you and Holly've got the Shining? And then you tell me that I've gotta go back home? Especially when-" he cut himself off abruptly before he said any more, like he was protecting information that he didn't necessarily want heard by other ears.
Now, Sam understood that something was holding his brother back. "When what?" He pressed quietly.
Dean blinked, but I swore that I could see his eyes glimmering with water. No tears fell from his eyes, although I could feel one rolling down my cheek when I closed my eyes and looked down, overwhelmed between everything that was going on. I want to hunt, but I don't want to be told I'm Allison DuBois. I don't want my best friends fighting back urges to cry because they're reminded of how their family was torn apart.
"When I swore to myself that I would never go back there," Dean finished in a voice so low I wasn't quite certain the he was the one who had spoken.
Sam's eyes and expression softened in compassion, but he couldn't just ignore this or make it go away. "Look, Dean, we have to check this out," he urged. "Just to make sure."
Dean swallowed tensely and gave a miniscule nod, working up the nerve to say it out loud, to confirm it definitively. "I know we do."
Dean and Sam spent four years and six months respectively in their childhood home in Lawrence, Kansas, until their mother was burned on the ceiling by a monster. Their dad, driven by rage and revenge, packed up his children, quit his job, and went on the road, raising Dean and Sam under strict rules and constantly-changing roofs.
That sums up everything that I know. Staring up at the Winchester brothers' former home, though, I couldn't help but feel as though I was about to learn a whole lot more.
Dean drove up and parked in the driveway next to the giant tree, identical to the one from my dream. It was stunning to see things in my sleep and then in my waking conscience in that order, and nearly gave me a heart palpitation when I saw the dark, two-story house and overgrown lawn from the passenger's side of the Impala.
I looked out the window and gingerly touched my fingertips against the glass, over the image of the porch. "It looks just like it did in my dream," I mumbled, unsure how to proceed. I'm coming to grips with the supernatural, but it was still abstract – it was real, but it didn't happen to me. Now I'm having impossible dreams about things I've never seen, and I'm told Sam had the same dreams and they turned out to be prophetic?
I think anyone would have a hard time processing that, but between my sister being skeptical, Dean being on rocks, and Sam being so God damn certain that I was the real-deal Shawn Spencer, I didn't know what I was supposed to think of my own unnatural phenomena.
"You gonna be alright, man?" Sam asked Dean considerately from the back seat with Serenity, who was looking up at the tree curiously before she turned her head to observe the house.
Dean swallowed audibly. The sound of his stress made me frown empathetically and I twisted around to look at him. I'd been so wrapped up in seeing my dream house right in front of me that I'd almost entirely forgotten how hard this must be for him. Sam hadn't been old enough to remember the night their mother died, but Dean probably recalled more than he was willing to let on.
"Let me get back to you on that," he responded lowly.
Sam's the one that knocked on the door, and he stood waiting for it to open expectantly and hopefully, but with the tentative fear deep in his dark eyes like he was just waiting for his hopes to be crushed. It was depressing that such a nice guy always had that inherent fearfulness. Dean stood to the side and a step behind Sam, still on the porch but distanced from the threshold to where his childhood ended on several levels. Once he left this house, he never had a chance to grow up the way a child should have. Even if he was faithful to their Dad's beliefs and priorities, Dean must realize that there were a lot of opportunities he didn't have.
Serenity and I were outsiders. We care for the boys in our own way, but we're not family. I'd die for Sam and Dean but we're not honorary Winchesters. So long as we introduce ourselves as "Serenity and Holly, and our friends/associates/random officers we picked up on the way" instead of "Serenity and Holly and Sam and Dean," we can't count on really being in the middle of everything. Unless we can really feel as though the boys are what makes our location home, we're still tagalongs. As such, we hid behind the boys.
Well, I say hid, but it's more like I was standing behind Dean and marveling at how exact and precise everything looked. Was there really any merit to those freaky nightmares I'd been having? When the door opened, would we be met with a pretty blonde mother? Serenity just happened to be behind Sam. Obviously she sensed the importance of this meeting, but she wasn't astounded by it. For all intents and purposes, this is quite a normal, run-of-the-mill house.
A blonde woman pulled open the door. Although the memories of my dreams were fuzzy – like all dreams are when you're awake – the woman was clearly the same mother I'd been seeing at night for the past half month. When I listened for noise from the house, I could hear happy babbling from a toddler, and the high voice of a little girl said something to her brother.
I looked at the woman with my lips parted, unable to immediately find the words to introduce myself. Her long, light hair was parted to the right, her fringe brushed away from her pretty brown eyes. She was dressed casually, in a dark red blouse and denim pants, and there were boxes in the hallway behind her.
"Yes?" She asked, cocking her head to the side and looking over the four strangers standing on her front porch.
Dean cleared his throat, dropped his voice a note lower, and started with a false introduction to cover. "Sorry to bother you, ma'am, but we're with the Federal-" he started to claim.
Sam interrupted Dean before he could even get the word bureau out of his mouth. "I'm Sam Winchester," he blurted honestly, trustingly, with a glance back at me. I gave him a tiny, miniscule nod – a nonverbal that's her – before Sam continued hopefully. "This is my brother, Dean. We used to live here."
"I'm Serenity," Serenity smiled and she gave me a gentle nudge with her elbow to make me get my act together. "This is my sister Holly. We're friends of theirs; we've been on a road trip and we ended up driving through."
"We were wondering if we could come see the old place," Sam finished hopefully, his tone so bright and upbeat that I was almost afraid for his feelings if the dream woman refused.
The woman looked between Sam and Dean with a soft smile. "Winchester," she repeated slowly, like it was jogging a memory. She let go of the door handle behind her and crossed her arms, nodding in recognition. "Yes, that's so funny! You know, I think I found some of your photos the other night."
I stiffened. Winchester Family 1983. Dean stood straighter and rigidly, but for different reasons. "You did?"
She nodded and stepped aside, gesturing down the open hallway in invitation. "I'm Jenny. Come on in," she beckoned.
The inside of the house seemed bare, hardly personalized, and the cardboard U-Haul boxes explained that pretty well. They must have just recently moved in, otherwise it would seem more homely. I could all too easily imagine a kid – Dean – running down the halls. The plain walls in the kitchen needed a new coat of paint, but I could imagine it blackened and charred from the fire that took away their mother.
There was no fire now, of course. The reparations had been completed over twenty years ago now. There was a little girl, seven or eight, sitting in a chair pushed into the table. She was too small for the furniture, her feet unable to touch the ground and instead swinging. She was coloring on a pad of paper, a dozen crayons (give or take) on the table next to it. She held an orange one in her hand. Her long dark brown hair had some small tangles, like she hadn't pulled her brush all the way through.
It looked like there was meant to be a living room across from the kitchen. There were no doors or anything, but the room was just too long to justify the entirety of it as a kitchen. They must've moved in only a couple of days ago, because there was still no furniture on the tile wooden floor other than a playpen set up, only eighteen to twenty-four inches high. The wide plastic grating was white, and the posts and gate were light neon green, red, and yellows. Inside the playpen, a little boy was playing, sticking his arms out over the edge and holding out a sippy cup.
He couldn't have been more than two years old and he was still learning to speak – he evidently loved juice enough to learn to communicate a desire for it. In his pen, he giggled with a high, childish voice. "Juice! Juice! Juice!" He repeated happily, doing so louder when he saw his mother. "Juice! Juice!"
Jenny went across the kitchen to the fridge and squeezed the fastened latch on either side to release the door, probably to keep her daughter from getting into too much junk food. Sam and Dean had more reservations about wandering too far into their childhood home, but Serenity and I, despite our sensitivity to the brothers, were still curious and walked further in. Serenity stayed by the wall, but I went along the kitchen counter on the inside of the kitchen.
"That's Ritchie," Jenny said with a smile, getting another sippy cup from the fridge and handing it to her son. "He's a bit of a juice junkie." She ruffled his hair and took the empty one and teased in a baby voice, "But, hey, at least he won't get scurvy!" Ritchie waddled away from the gate before plopping down on the ground, happily sipping his juice. "Sari, this is Sam, Dean, Holly, and Serenity," she said to her daughter, patting the girl's shoulder. "Sam and Dean used to live here."
Sari looked up to the brothers but looked down back to her paper (she was coloring in the orange tomcat from The Aristocats) shyly. "Hi," she said quietly.
Dean waved in response and Sam offered her a smile. "Hey, Sari."
Dean shoved his hands in his pockets as a mask of his discomfort. "So, you just moved in?" He asked Jenny, watching the mother move across the room to drop her son's sippy cup in the sink.
Jenny bobbed her head in the affirmative. "Yeah. From Wichita," she confirmed.
"What made you move?" Serenity asked, looking over at the toddler in the playpen. He seemed completely oblivious for the strangers encroaching on his space. She kind of frowned at him for a moment before she got bored and looked elsewhere.
"I just, uh… needed a fresh start, that's all," Jenny said slowly, being careful how much she revealed. No matter how friendly we all were, we were still strangers. She stopped moving behind her daughter and absentmindedly started combing her fingers gently through Sari's dark hair, pulling it behind her shoulders and working the tangles out lovingly. "So – new town, new job – I mean, as soon as I find one. New house."
Sam nodded awkwardly for a moment, accepting the answer but unsure where to go from there. "So… how you liking it so far?"
Jenny sucked in her lower lip, scraping her teeth over her soft skin, looking up to the ceiling subconsciously. My eyes flickered upwards after her, but there was nothing on the ceiling – so something on the second floor or the attic, then.
"Well, uh, all due respect to your childhood home – I mean, I'm sure you had lots of happy memories here." Dean smiled, but it was small, forced, and weak. Yes, pleasant memories… I bet all that he can remember from this place is his mother's death. Sometimes all it takes is one horrible memory to taint a thousand great ones. "But this place has its issues."
Sam frowned, a mix of concerned and melancholy. "What do you mean?"
"Well, it's just getting old," Jenny offered in the house's defense, her hands slowing as they smoothed out her daughter's hair. "Like… the wiring, you know? We've got flickering lights almost hourly."
Dean raised his eyebrows, inclined his chin, too interested in this for it to be just a flaw mentioned in passing. "Oh, that's too bad," he said with a faux sigh. Too quickly, he asked, "What else?"
Jenny sort of frowned at him for the odd reaction, but decided it amounted to nothing of consequence. "Um… sink's backed up," she said after a pause, when she debated whether or not it was okay to continue. "There's rats in the basement." She stopped again and looked between the brothers. I followed her lead – they were looking at each other, Sam unhappily and Dean knowingly. "I'm sorry," she apologized guiltily. "I don't mean to complain."
Dean was far from offended. He just shook his head and waved his hand down low, dismissing it. "No, it's fine. Have you seen the rats, or have you just heard scratching?"
Jenny wasn't the only one giving Dean strange looks – Serenity and I were, too, but Sam was paying attention to Jenny's response. Jenny tentatively answered the question. "It's… just the scratching, actually."
Sari twisted her head to look at her mother. "Mom?" She asked softly. She was a shy, quiet child. Jenny knelt down on one knee, resulting in her being at about eye-level with her daughter, and Sari glanced quickly at Sam before her eyes went back to her mom. "Ask them if it was here when they lived here," she asked lowly, but not quietly enough.
Sam heard and he stepped forward, concerned. "What, Sari?" He asked cautiously.
"The thing in my closet," the little girl answered innocently, completely serious about her inquiry.
I tensed. A fire burns in the shape of a human. The figure moves to the foot of her bed and watches her. Just watches. Jenny cooed, stroking her hand down her daughter's upper back. "Oh, no, baby. There was nothing in their closets." She turned her eyes to Sam and Dean and even though she sounded kind, there was a warning in her expression and the way she looked at them. "Right?"
Sam offered Sari a smile although it took him an extra second longer than maybe it should have. "Right. No, no, of course not," he denied.
"She had a nightmare the other night." Jenny told us apologetically, explaining her girl's seemingly disturbing questions.
A fire burns in the shape of a human. The figure moves to the foot of her bed and watches her. Just watches.
"I wasn't dreaming," Sari argued, her voice rising in distress. She shook her head to dislodge her mother's hand. "It came into my bedroom and it was on fire."
My heart took a detour down to my stomach.
We ran away as fast as we could without making Jenny wary of us, and Dean and Sam walked like they had winged shoes, jumping off of the porch in Sam's case and bounding down the front steps in Dean's. Serenity and I didn't expect them to run away from the house, but that's pretty much what they were doing, and we had to speed walk to keep up with them, to stay involved in their conversation.
"You hear that?" Sam hissed, jerking his thumb over his shoulder towards the house. "A figure on fire."
Dean's arm flew behind him to grab my wrist. It wasn't hard enough to leave a bruise, but it was a firm grasp, and he dragged me forwards to stumble next to him. "That woman – Jenny – that was the woman in your dreams?"
"Yeah," I answered quickly, trying to wrench my arm away. He gave me my limbs back swiftly. "It sounded to me like she's living in the house from a poltergeist movie."
"Scratching in the walls. Lights, turning on and off themselves – backed up sinks, even. That seems like Casper the Unfriendly Ghost's paying them a house call," Serenity muttered, half under her breath.
"Exactly!" Sam agreed wholeheartedly.
"Yeah, well, I'm just freaked out that Holly's weirdo visions are coming true," Dean growled. I knew better than to take it personally, although it still hurt just a little bit.
The level of Sam's agitation just rose and he went from stunned and stubborn to panicky. "Well, forget about that for a minute!" He burst out, stopping about two paces before he would have plowed into the side of the Impala. He threw his hands up on top of the car, smacking his palms on the roof. "The thing in the house – do you think it's the thing that killed Mom and Jessica?"
"I don't know!" Dean snapped, glaring at Sam with eyes like emerald ice, wanting him to shut up and give him a minute to think.
"Well, I mean, has it come back or has it been here the whole time?"
"Or maybe it's something else entirely! Sam, we don't know yet!"
"Well those people are in danger, Dean!" Sam pointed behind him jerkily. If Jenny was looking out the window, she'd probably never let us back inside. "We have to get 'em out of that house!"
Dean nodded in agreement but he didn't share the same desperate urgency as his brother. "And we will."
Sam pulled his arm back to point again with more force behind the motion. "No, I mean now!"
Dean rounded on Sam fiercely, narrowed eyes dangerously. "And how're you gonna do that, huh?" He growled in challenge. "You got a story that she's gonna believe?" He made a gesture back up to the porch in reference to Jenny.
Serenity sighed, rolling her eyes in irritation at their pointless fighting and she turned to me, crossing her arms. She was so focused that I understood she was going to try to help them, just by approaching it a different and more productive way. "Didn't you say that there was a thing on fire in the girl's room in your nightmares?" She asked, thinking back to what I'd said that morning in the hotel. I nodded in confirmation. "That can't be coincidence. I'm not saying you're tuning in to Casper, but something weird's going on here."
"Then what are we supposed to do?"
I looked to the side at Sam as he asked the question. The poor guy was giving us the big sad eyes, confused and frightened and not knowing how to fix the situation. He was asking honestly, really wanting our opinion on this; and while I expected Dean to want to keep the family's issue within the family, he was watching us, too, waiting for an answer to Sam's question.
I ran my fingers through my hair, stressing about the entire situation. On top of my dreams, now there's this whole disaster with the boys' mother's death? What if that thing in Jenny's house really is the same thing that killed Mary and Jessica?
"Uh…" I shrugged my shoulders and shook my head a bit, trying to shake away the anxiety. I know I'm not all-powerful or omniscient; all I can do is help to the best of my ability. Sam asked a question, and I can answer the only way I know how.
"You were both kids when this started. Sam, you were a baby, and Dean, you were four. What you do remember is probably vague, and maybe even distorted without you realizing it." I winced and offered him a look of apology, but it was the truth. A child living through that trauma would most likely not have all the details straight and clear twenty-two years later. "The only real witness we'd have is your Dad, and he's in the wind."
"You should try calling him again," Serenity recommended to Dean, who tended to call their father the most often – at least once a week anymore. "Leave him a voicemail. I know it hasn't worked before, but this is different, to say the least. Look, Holly, this thing…" She scowled at the ground uncertainly. "Coming back again, revisiting the first scene. What would you normally do?"
I looked over at the door longingly. I really wanted to go back inside – look in the attic, check Sari's closet – but I highly doubted Jenny would be amenable to either of those. "If this were a normal case," I said slowly, being very careful to be general about it. "I'd go through documents. Interview witnesses. Post a guard." I turned back around to look at the brothers by their car. "But this isn't like any case I ever had in the FBI. The only witness could be a hundred thousand miles away. There are no documents."
Sam, Dean, and Serenity all looked down, thinking it over. We should probably get in the car and go soon – otherwise Jenny would notice we were hanging out in her yard – but I couldn't bring myself to tell that to the distressed Winchesters.
Sam looked up hesitantly and his eyes flashed over to Dean. "There is… one… document."
Serenity frowned in confusion before she suddenly brightened, her posture changing. She rocked back on the balls of her feet and pointed at Sam with both hands excitedly. "John's journal! Let Holly read it. There might be something in there that neither of you realized was important when you saw it!"
Sam breathily exclaimed, "Great!" and moved towards the trunk, holding up one hand for Dean to throw him the keys. "Where is it?" He asked, although he seemed to have a pretty good idea already.
Dean tossed his head indecisively, tossing the keys to the Impala up and down in his hand for a moment before eyeing Sam speculatively. "It's in the duffel, where it always is." He threw the keys underhandedly to Sam, who caught them overhand.
With both brothers' permission to read the journal, my interest was thoroughly piqued. Ever since we solved the hunt in Wisconsin, I'd been wondering occasionally about their father's personal diary. Though I could have easily gone through it if I had wanted to, I had decided it was far better not to push boundaries. I can't expect Sam and Dean to trust me if I go behind their backs with their father's possessions.
I started wandering over to Sam at the trunk of the car as he popped it open, going straight for his brother's duffel bag, but Dean's hand caught on my shoulder for a moment. Instead of stepping forward, I swung my leg around, shifting to face him.
"Yeah?" I asked him curiously, but when I saw his torn expression I stopped and raised a hand to his shoulder, mirroring his hold on me. "Dean?"
"Look." He said, but bit his lip and shook his head in frustration. "Holly – it's Dad's." I looked to the side at Serenity, who shrugged, unable to offer help, and then I switched to pay attention to Dean again. "You can't – you can't get everything from a book," he tried lamely.
And then I got it. He understood that a journal written to vent and inform wouldn't tell me everything about John – because of the topic and what was involved in hunting, it might actually tell me the worst, so I shouldn't judge their father based on whatever it was that I read.
"Dean." I squeezed his shoulder lightly. "I know." I leaned forward and ducked my head to meet his downcast gaze. "Look. I promise, I know."
1983
November 16
I went to Missouri, and learned the truth. And from her, I met Fletcher Gable, who gave me this book and said: "Write everything down." That's what Fletcher told me, like this new life is a school and I'll flunk out if I don't have good notes. Only if I flunk out of this school, I'll be dead. And the boys will be orphans. So I'm going back to where this started.
Two weeks ago, my wife was murdered. I watched her die, pinned to the ceiling of Sammy's room, blood dripping onto his cradle until she burst into flames – looking at me as she died. The week before that, we were a normal family… eating dinner, going to Dean's T-ball game, buying toys for baby Sammy. But in an instant, it all changed… when I try to think back, get it straight in my head… I feel like I'm going crazy. Like someone ripped both my arms off, plucked my eyes out… I'm wandering around, alone and lost, and I can't do anything.
John Winchester's writing wasn't print but it was very neat, uniform – the letters were rigid. It could have been because he was trying to take it so seriously and make sure the writing would be legible to someone else, or it could have been because he just taught himself to write that way, either growing up or while serving in the army.
Reading about the events from John's perspective was… enlightening, but also very saddening. I'd come to know Sam and Dean as the adults they grew up to be, but hearing about them as children made me realize just how affected their lives were by the tragedy that struck.
It wasn't like I was just reading a book. Essentially, that's exactly what I'm doing; but I'm too close to Sam and Dean to really feel like I'm just reading some stranger's notebook. I was paying acute attention – I couldn't stop overanalyzing everything, trying to familiarize myself with the syntax and determine the tones of every sentence. Melancholy, angst, horror, devastation. It was clear that though John had his life as he knew it sent through the blender, he still loved Sam and Dean. It seemed like they were a big part of his motivation.
The police quit on the case as soon as they couldn't pin it on me. They don't care that she was on the ceiling, they don't care about the blood on her stomach or about any of the things I've seen since then. They want a tidy answer. Doesn't matter to them whether it's the right one. The last time I talked to them, a week after she died, they asked me the same questions they asked me the night of the fire. Where was I? How was my relationship with Mary in the week prior to the fire? Any problems with the boys? I can tell where they're going.
John hadn't been working with very good police, if they only searched until their theory didn't fit their facts.
I really hope that, once upon a time, I wouldn't have been like the police John talked to.
We stopped at a gas station on the outside of Lawrence to fill up the Impala's tank before searching for a motel to stay at. It was some local gas station – not a chain, but one that didn't seem too dangerous to spend more than two days at. At first I stayed in the car to continue reading a few more entries, but after a couple of minutes passed and none of my friends were getting back in the Impala, I realized something else was going on, closed the journal, and got out of the car.
"We just gotta chill out, that's all," Dean was saying, leaning against the side of the Impala. Serenity was entering the PIN of her debit card to pay for the gas and Sam was putting the gas nozzle back in safely without getting any gasoline on himself or anyone else. "You know, if this was any other kind of job, what would we do?"
Sam sighed and shrugged his shoulders helplessly. "We'd… try to figure out what we were dealin' with," he answered logically, but his voice was flat. "We'd dig into the history of the house."
"Exactly, except this time, we already know what happened." Dean crossed his arms in front of his chest and stared ahead at the gas station. I don't think he was really seeing it.
"But it's like Holly said," Serenity was reminding them, soft and sympathetic. "Sam, you were a baby and Dean, you were just a kid. How much about it do you really remember?"
Dean dropped his head to stare down to the ground, focusing on the asphalt. "Not much," he admitted, voice falling quiet. I pushed the car door shut behind me as quietly as possible. "I remember the fire… the heat." He paused, struggling. "And then I carried you out the front door," he added to Sam, lifting his head to look to his younger brother.
Sam's eyebrows both raised. "You did?" He asked, grateful and surprised.
"Yeah." Dean caught the stunned look on Sam's face and he shrugged it off as no big deal. "What, you never knew?" Sam just shook his head, not able to vocalize his thoughts for the moment. Dean looked up to the sky overhead – thick, fluffy cumulous clouds made the sky look like it was dotted with cotton candy. "And, well, you know Dad's story as well as I do. Mom was…" he swallowed thickly, blinking. "Was on the ceiling. And whatever put her there was long gone by the time Dad found her."
Sam sighed. The two of them just breathed and reminisced for a very long moment. I didn't regret getting out of the car, but I felt awkward that I couldn't participate more in the discussion. It couldn't be helped.
"He never had any theories about what was responsible?" Serenity prompted. "Not even a stab in the dark?"
Dean kind of scoffed and he looked to the side down the road, away from all three of us. "If he did, he kept it to himself. God knows, we asked him enough times."
I lifted my shoulders. I hated how absolutely useless I was beginning to feel. Hunting has become simpler the more cases we do – there are steps to it, a pattern: find a lead, learn what links the victims, do some research, and then go after the culprit, be it a wendigo or a ghost or a shapeshifter. It's surprisingly like FBI cases. This one, though – this is way off the map for weird.
For one, psychic dreams. I mean, what the fuck? It doesn't help that Sam was having them, too, and that his came true down to the last detail. On one hand it's freaky as hell, and on the other hand it means that we have the advantage of knowing something bad's in there. We know Jenny, Ritchie, and Sari are all in danger, but all we have to go off on are some pretty basic warning signs and a ghost on fire.
For two, there's the origins of the case. Something's telling me this isn't straightforward, but it's just intuition. I have no proof to back it up. Sam and Dean's past is coming to light, even though Sam ran all the way to Stanford to get away from it. How do we investigate their mother's death when they're with us every day? It's not that I don't think they can handle it – because I know they can – but I'm worried they won't be able to compartmentalize enough to stay rational.
"I'll tell you what," I said dryly, swallowing. "If your mother's murderer is behind this, then we can't just charge in there. Whatever did it is powerful and we don't know what it is for sure. We have to go back to eighty-three and figure out for sure what happened. Maybe it's the same thing, maybe it's not, but it's better to be prepared for danger."
"Yeah." Serenity agreed, putting a hand on Sam's shoulder and giving him a friendly nudge. "I mean, John lived here for a long time. He had friends and neighbors and he must have known people who are still in the community. We can talk to them, figure out what he thought and what seemingly happened."
"Seems pretty routine." Sam acknowledged my sister. His heart didn't seem very into it and Serenity gave up, dropping her arm back down to her side. I'm with her in the issue that I'm not sure what we can do to comfort the boys, even though they desperately need it. "Does this feel like just another job to you?" He asked Dean sadly.
Dean didn't respond to Sam's question. I suppose the answer was really obvious. The older brother didn't stick around long enough for Sam to persist, instead muttering that he'll be back and leaving the car, walking up to the gas station. Wordlessly we watched to see where he was going. Dean stepped up onto the sidewalk, went past the doors, and around the side of the building.
I sighed. "I guess we all need a break." I patted my front pockets to make sure I still had my wallet with me. "I'm going inside. Want anything, Serenity?" I offered habitually. Our default defense against emotional turmoil is to eat sugar, so it's not actually surprising that she nodded.
"Mountain Dew and candy. Nothing with peanut butter," she warned, giving me a glare and likely remembering the time I'd mistakenly bought Reese's peanut butter cups. She really doesn't like peanut butter. "Sam?"
"Nothing for me, thanks," Sam mumbled, opening his car door.
I watched him climb in guiltily. Empirically I knew there was nothing I should feel guilty for, but that didn't change that I wanted so badly to help but just didn't know how. All I could do was be there if he needed me, and if he didn't… I'd have to respect his space.
There were only a couple of other cars in the gas station parking lot. One was a small Dodge pulled up at another gas tank to refill, and there was a family-sized minivan parked in a parking space directly in front of the doors to the station. Through the glass I could see a kid bouncing around and hanging off of her father's arm, pointing excitedly at the candy aisle. Instead of going inside, I veered off to the right to both avoid the family and to just see if Dean wanted anything to relax.
Dean had his back to me and his phone up to his ear. I stopped walking when I realized he had left us for a reason and instead I kept my hand on the corner of the building, leaning against the side, torn between sticking around and making sure he was okay and just going inside and getting him some soda.
"Dad?" Dean asked quietly into the phone. His shoulders were hunched and his head was down to look at the asphalt. I was stunned to hear the way that his voice was shaking treacherously. He's more hurt than I thought. What kind of agent doesn't see when someone's about to cry?
"I know I've left you messages before. I… don't even know if you'll get 'em." So John wasn't answering his phone this time, either. I shouldn't have been surprised – why would the pattern change? – but I guess that if there was ever a time for him to stop ignoring his sons, it would be now. Dean coughed, trying to steady himself before he gave too much emotion away. "But I'm with Sam, and Holls and Serenity. And… we're in Lawrence. And there's somethin' in our old house. I don't know if it's the thing that killed Mom or not, but-" his voice broke. My vision blurred as my eyes filled with tears. I dabbed at my eyes with my sleeve to avoid tear tracks on my face. It just hurt to hear him sounding so brokenhearted.
Most of my mind was yelling at me to go give him a hug, but the part that actually thinks things through reasoned that I should really let Dean get through this, and if I offer comfort I should let him come to me rather than vice versa.
"… I-I don't know what to do," he choked, hanging his head lower, his breath catching. "So, whatever you're doing, if you could get here… please. I need your help, Dad."
He kept the phone by his ear for a few seconds, deciding whether or not to end the message or what to say next. He didn't seem to think that he could keep himself together if he made the voicemail any longer, though, and he closed his cell phone with a soft snap.
"Dean," I called quietly. No matter how tactless I am sometimes, I do know when it's best to exercise care. The hunter turned around quickly in surprise and he rubbed at his cheeks. "I just… I mean…" I stopped stumbling over words and sighed. We were maybe ten feet apart, but it felt like a lot more than that. "I wanted to know if you wanted anything to drink."
Dean stared at me, surveying my sincerity. There were tears in his eyes. I offered him a pathetic half-smile that didn't really mean much, because at the moment there was nothing I had to smile about.
"How much did you hear?"
"Enough to know you feel alone." I answered carefully, before dropping my hand from the wall and holding out my arms towards him, inviting him for a hug. Apparently I was deemed genuine in the sentiment – which is good, because I was. Dean walked across the distance and right into my arms, wrapping his tightly around me.
I was a bit surprised by how tight his hold was, but I didn't object. Sometimes when you need a hug, you also need to be hugging someone else. Feeling another person, warm and tactile, is just as calming as anything else warm or sweet. For all he's done for me and my sister, if he needs me to be a life-sized plushie, then I can do that. As I closed my arms around him, splaying my hands across his back, he dropped his head to hide his face in my shoulder.
A/N: Ooh, what's going on? Why was Holly having the dream? I guess you'll just have to keep reading to find out!
The journal entries in this chapter are straight out of the "Supernatural"-inspired book, "John Winchester's Journal," which can be found online at Barnes and Noble. If you don't shop there, I'm sure you can also buy it at other various online websites.