Chapter 25
Wednesday, May 1st, 2002
The heater was at last blowing warm air, but anything against Dean's rain-slick skin felt like ice. His hands shook while he gripped the rubber of the steering wheel, taking himself up and down each street he crossed with an unsafe speed, and he'd seen nothing, nobody, not even a fucking dog. Sweetwater had been dipped in a coating of sludge. Gray clouds, gray roads, gray buildings. The plots of grass in front of the few homes he crossed even looked washed out, under-saturated. There wasn't a car on the road with him. And Sam wasn't to be found.
Dean's instinct had of course been to try this Cantaloupe Festival. But only if he could find the fucking thing. He'd passed banners at every intersection, 'Bring the family to the fair grounds to celebrate the Cantaloupe Festival!', almost mocking him with its cheeriness, each one white and like a whip in the wind, but they must have been playing off the common sense of the locals. Forget asking directions.
He flexed his shaking hands and felt the flame of his anger blaze with each corner he turned, feeling more and more lost, like he were getting farther from the fairgrounds rather than closer. It reached a flash in his throat and he punched the steering wheel. The horn released a staccato into the rain. It was a lonely sound.
Okay, okay. He forced a stiff hand off the wheel and swiped at the drops of water on his face from the soaked ends of his hair. Deep into his chest, Dean felt his breath stretch his lungs and pop his back, letting it out slowly. This is good, the town being deserted is good. It stood to reason, in the moment, that if there wasn't a sea of people for Sam to hide in, that he couldn't hide. Dean should be able to pick Sam out amongst this gray backdrop the world had taken on. The spot of light in this storm. He just had to find the fucking fair grounds. With renewed focus, Dean studied the world through the windshield.
He had just adjusted the speed of the windshield wipers to their highest setting when he was thrown backwards against the seat, the back of his head meeting the corner of the rest sharply. The wrenching sound of metal catching against metal for a moment outperformed the noise of storm. Instinctively Dean's grip was locked against the wheel, bracing himself. After the intense moment passed and the car settled, Dean looked about himself. He hadn't noticed the headlights approaching from behind but there they were, almost on top of his back bumper. Dean took in a hiss of breath passed a new pain in his neck, coming back to the world, while the intense headlights of the other car backed up - and rushed towards him again. The collision tossed Dean a second time, but this time, he only got mad.
Before they had a third chance Dean pressed the gas and took himself through a stoplight, his mind no longer giving any heed to speed limits or the weather. A glance in the mirror proved that neither did this new friend. The rain on the road sprayed behind his tires, coating the chaser. Dean took a corner; the car followed. Another turn, and still, there was the other driver, both of their wheels screaming against the asphalt. A spare train of thought announced that Dean had been on this road already in the search for Sam and grew angry at being made to spin circles around this town. But it was this same place of his attention that latched onto a shape in the corner of his vision - there, walking the sidewalk of Sweetwater's main drag that seemed suspiciously human shaped. His head snapped towards it, forgetting for a split second the danger behind him. "Sam?"
The other driver met Dean's bumper for a third time - hard, at this new speed - and Dean fishtailed, as though he had driven over a bed of ice. But soon enough he had no thought for which way he was facing or even for the attacker. His front tires slammed into the curb, and when the car settled Dean found himself halfway on the sidewalk.
A moment stretched on towards endlessness. The whirl of the heater lay atop a new ringing that had come to Dean's ear, while this tinnitus washed out any noise of the outside world. He had lost track of his hands, felt as though he really might be floating, or had died, perhaps, but that couldn't be right - a fresh ache pulsed in his temple, pulling his leash to reality like a dog who had gone too far, and Dean was back in the world. He gasped, let it out as a hiss, putting a shaking finger to his head. It came away clean, though that wasn't his last worry. He fumbled to press the release on his seatbelt.
A new explosion of noise from his left, a fresh, petrifying wave of iced wind, and before he could react Dean was being pulled from the car. The rain fell fast into his eyes but he didn't blink it away, pounding at the hands on his shirt but finding no purchase. He was pulled to his unsteady feet. The hands gripping his shirt shoved, and suddenly Dean was pinned to the side of his own car.
This shadow in front of him was that of a man. Similar in height to Dean but much more slender, and definitely one Dean had never seen before in his life. Even through the rain, this much Dean could tell: the man was strong, the man was angry, and he had the upper hand.
"Finally got you, fucker. Where is River?" the man growled through clenched teeth.
—
Sam found himself going still, staring at the smiling face of this woman who knew more than was comfortable. First it was his name, and now -
"What charm?"
"The charm that beats like a second heart in your pocket, Sam."
Ivan reappeared in the room with his hands full of things Sam couldn't see in the low light. As he set up though, Sam picked out the shapes and confirmed he was watching Ivan light a stick of incense. Just as the tip caught, hissing slightly, and Ivan blew out of the flame. Drenched back in the glow of the lanterns on the wall, Sam watched the ghostly layers of smoke drift up and away. Ivan disappeared again after Miriam offered him another matronly nod.
"And it stinks up the room. It's a strong one, complicated."
"What?"
"Your charm, there. I could smell it in the air the moment you entered my carnival. And I'm betting to say that it's been causing you problems."
Sam swallowed, darted his eyes around the room. A part of his brain wondered at the torches on the wall again and how they flicked like a tiny flame was trapped in each one. They cast the floating smoke of the incense in a pulsing sort of light, like it were beating, alive. The smell filled Sam's lungs like any kind of cigarette smoke, and he waved a quick hand through the air to clear it away. "Your carnival."
"My carnival. Unofficially, of course."
"So where is everybody, then?"
"Gone," Miriam offered simply, shifting to sit back in her chair. "There's an awful storm out there, after all."
"And you didn't want to…go with them?"
"Go with them? Why? Someone has to protect the carnival. And in this kind of storm there's only one in our little family who can do that."
Sam's eyes narrowed. "And what kind of storm is that," he said, though he believed he knew Miriam's answer before she opened her mouth.
Miriam let go of a soft sigh, turning her gaze inward. "When I was a girl, learning under my own grandmother, she spoke of something like this as, 'hasira ya roho', which in your language comes out as 'the anger of the spirits'. But she herself hadn't seen one, nor her teacher. Yet, here I am, and here you are."
Sam's head fell back against the chair to stare at the ceiling and trailing dregs of the incense smoke disappearing in the darkness. The coals of his frustration churned again; they apparently hadn't burned themselves out, yet. He let out a rueful huff of a laugh. "A ghost storm."
"What's that, boy?"
"You're as deranged as the rest of them." He brought his head back forward, stared at Miriam's darker face in the dark room.
But Miriam only nodded in agreement, her mouth upturned into a frown. "It's true, I overestimated my knowledge. It was all I could do, in the end, to try to protect the festival, but even that isn't certain in this storm. So I asked my family to leave. At least - " Miriam took in a deep breath then sighed, letting her shoulders go along with it. "I can join my ancestors knowing they made it away safely, and tried my hardest to the very end."
She smiled at Sam again. He didn't return it. This was going to be his life, he supposed, in that moment. Running until he met the next crazy person, the next monster. If it wasn't his brother, it was this woman. And if it wasn't her, then it would be people like Jameson. And when there were no more people to run into, he would get caught in storms, like this one, one after the other till his legs fell off. It would be endless: it would be dizzying. What point was there in it anymore?
Where am I going?
"Clear your head, my friend," Miriam said. It was her turn to wave her hand through the air, catching, not the smoke of the incense, but something perhaps that only she was seeing. Sam jerked back on instinct. Her frowning eyes were on his while she pushed aside…whatever it was. "You have so much inside," she said while she waved, her voice full of earnestness and her scarves fluttering at her wrist. "You must be running out of room."
Sam leapt from his seat. The chair caught the floor and clamored to the ground behind him as Miriam stared up at him, eyes wide in surprise. Sam's fingers were shaking, he knew, almost in time with his racing heart. Anyone else might have thought the mysterious inside of the tent was alluring but suddenly Sam felt like he was in a hell, in the middle of a fire, with anywhere other than here to be. He was breathing fast, holding Miriam's stare with his own furious one, till Ivan came out from the corner of some hidden darkness to stand behind Miriam, his arms crossed. When Sam looked he saw a protectiveness in Ivan's eyes.
"I'm not your friend," was all Sam could say.
Miriam let her hand fall. "Not with this attitude you aren't." She spared a glance behind for her grandson and raised a calm hand. Ivan gave a silent, stone-faced nod and backed away, but not into the darkness, choosing instead a place where he knew Sam could still see him. "We don't have to be friends, then, Sam, we'll keep it purely business. Show me this charm that plagues you."