Chapter 27

Wednesday, May 1st, 2002

Miriam sat, staring at the velvet charm, deep in thought. Ten minutes may have passed, or it may have been twenty - without a clock or a view of the sky Sam was feeling mysteriously timeless. Despite his apprehensiveness to pull out the charm, and more so to even talk of it, somewhere inside the rage he felt towards the entire institution there was a small voice that said to trust her judgment. He'd explained all he knew and that she shouldn't touch it, that it might run if she did, to which she gave a discerning frown but nodded, using instead some talent of intuition as she ran her hands through the air around it. "It smells like the storm," she'd said at one point, as if that meant anything. Now, while he sat in Miriam's studiousness and watched this aged woman taste the air with her hands, he wondered if that small voice in his head had been hers, if she'd done something similar to how she'd learned his name, or if he was slipping into the same crazy as the rest of them.

"You said this would run," Miriam said finally. "What exactly did you mean by that?"

"I told you that already, remember?"

"Humor an old lady."

Sam sat up and cleared his throat, which was sore from his anger and not talking for a time. "It apparently has some way of knowing when it's - " It was such an absurdity to Sam that he almost didn't want to say the words. He let out a derisive laugh, went on anyway, "It knows when it's in danger. I don't really get it, but…I've seen it happen. I would show you, but I can't guarantee where it will go." He recalled his brother's outburst at the Chevron, and then the fact that he had left him there without a second word. He pushed the memory away before he thought too deeply about it. Dean deserved it anyway, the abandonment. Not like Sam was going to be gone forever, anyway.

Miriam nodded to herself, still staring at the charm. She'd dropped her hands a moment and Sam relaxed his shoulders a measure. Some part of him believed that if a witch's hands weren't waving around they weren't a danger. Another part didn't know whether or not that was actually a fact.

"Where did you come about this?" she asked.

Sam swiped at his nose. "It's actually, uh, my dumb brother's." For the next moment he took her through all he knew, but he did leave out Dean's trickery, choosing instead the facts as they were important to the charm, and not the betrayal he felt anew like the return of the tide. How it had come from his guidance-councilor-who-was-also-a-witch in Mississippi; it was supposed to be some sort of protection charm; it wasn't working for shit; no, he didn't know anything about Ms. Gonzalez; no, neither did he about what was inside the charm.

"My guess," Miriam said, "is that there's some piece of your brother inside this charm. Working as an anchor, of sorts. Do you know if that's true?"

Sam shook his head. "But how does it know to…go home? Go back to my brother?"

"How do any of us know when we're in danger? Magic is as alive as you or me. You can't cut it like you can the flesh but there's still a heart, in the center of all things."

"So there's a way to kill it, then."

Miriam considered, and shrugged. "In a way, boy, yes. But you don't throw a sword at a bird - you use a bow, and an arrow."

"Okay…" Sam stayed quiet for her to go on, but after a moment it was clear she wouldn't. "So we need a bow?"

Miriam opened her mouth but hesitated. She closed it in a smile and patted Sam's hand where it sat on the table. "No, Sam. You have a lot of opinions over this thing, magic, for knowing so little of it. Hunters typically have done their beloved research, I've found."

Sam sat straighter at that. "I know enough. And I said, I'm not a hunter."

"We're all hunters, Sam, but that's not all we are. Your father, perhaps? Grandfather?" She stared at Sam, expecting a hint towards an answer. "No matter, either way. The life of a hunter is in their blood, burning its life inside. And yours is…rife. Rich, I mean to say, as if it runs very deeply."

Sam's mouth had thinned despite himself. Somewhere inside of him the his anger was winning out against his smarts, subdued just enough though to know any outburst was a wrong idea, would be losing.

"I wouldn't know anything about that," Sam said, practically vibrating.

Miriam ignored him. She said over her shoulder, "Ivan, dear, could you get the room ready? I left the urn on the altar."

"We can't burn it," Sam spoke up, watching Ivan after he nodded and slipped away from the room. "Dean already tried that, or so he says."

"Not for the charm, Sam, but you will see. Now - something to learn of this thing we call witchcraft - we could kill it, as you're so eager for, but we could also make it bloom. Water drowns the man but the fish call's it home. You say we can't cut it open, yet we have to know what is inside, do you understand?"

Sam turned it over in his mind for a second, humoring the old woman. "I guess so, yes."

"Which means that we must find a way to open it," she said carefully, spelling out each detail, "and learn what is inside."

—

Dean's car ate the broken yellow lines of the country road as he sped away from the heart of Sweetwater, wound nearer to the vestiges of the city. One of his axles had began letting out a high pitched whine, though he had neither the time to learn which axle it was nor to fix it. It still drove. That was all he needed, for now, and it got him away from that son of a bitch and out of the town, and he wasn't keen to stop, because he'd started seeing a pattern - these blowing white signs announcing the carnival strung across the streets like bridges, were actually pointing the way all along. There were different variations of the same sign that he hadn't noticed before in his hurry, giving him subtle directions that only a local might understand without having to spare a thought at it. Phrases like, 'Find fun turning right at the tactile building', and another, 'Follow the Primrose Road', in an obvious and infuriating nod to The Wizard of Oz. In the end, Dean didn't need to be a local. He noticed, too, that these banners were appearing at the exact places where his course needed to change, and they had finally led him to the outreaches of the city.

The witch's ice melted off his skin after a few minutes of driving, the heater in the car blowing full blast in Dean's eagerness. A billboard, 'Get stuck in Sweetwater!', flashed by, and Dean scoffed at the glimpse of the smiling family. "I think the fuck not." He found that the pedal still had room to be pressed, and did so.

In the next moment a break in the fence came into view around the bend, another white banner brandished across the top, an angel heralding the gate to heaven, and it couldn't have come at a better moment - he had started worrying; the farther away from town he'd driven the fewer and fewer the banners had become, and still no sign of his brother. But he knew, somehow - Sam had walked this road. Dean knew that with an assuredness that seemed to come from his soul. Sam was in the carnival. And Dean had finally found it.

The lines on the road veered suddenly as the car leapt, running into the other lane. Dean gasped in shock, only to find a noose around his throat, choking off his air. He released the wheel and tore around his throat - and found nothing, scratching instead at his own skin. Panic flared behind his eyes as he tried to breathe, watching the car weave over and over the yellow lines, the steering wheel beginning to spin wildly in front of him. He gripped the rubber with a tight hand to keep himself from crashing. As if trying to catch his breath and control the vehicle weren't enough, a new pressure overcame his body, like something giant had come and fallen on him, crushing every inch of his person and pinning him to the back of his seat. No longer could he do anything other than hold the wheel straight, though straight was directly towards a bank of trees that lined the roadside.

Though, the car began sputtering, and through the burn in his chest Dean felt it begin bucking back and forth, almost as if it were an animal fighting a leash. His front tires left the road and ran over its first few feet of soaked foliage. Dean had enough power to close his eyes, so he did, and tried to brace himself against the impending impact.

But it didn't come. His car offered one final buck, tossing Dean hard against his seatbelt, and came to rest. He threw open his eyes and saw the nose of the car a few measly inches from the dark, soaked trunk of a tree. The engine was dead. Out of the corner of his eye Dean could see the white banner a few yards away, rippling in the wind, and underneath it, the gate into the carnival.

He could also see something else. In his rearview mirror was the approaching dark shape of someone walking down the road towards Dean's vehicle. The rain pockmarking the back window obscured the figure, but the lights and colors Dean could see weren't lying. A bright glow was coming off of what looked to be the figure's hands that became brighter as it came closer, and Dean fought harder than he had ever before to get his breath back, understanding without a moment of doubt who this person was, and that he was back.

The figure walked closer, coming into greater focus all the while, drenched in a purple glow. The center of Dean's vision was beginning to cloud, and he knew that even as he tried against the bonds on his body that his racing heart was working against him. He pulled his focus into his head, imagining that it was gathered into a ball, and passed it down into his hand. Gradually his fingers relaxed enough to slip from the wheel. The seconds ticked by, and finally his hand came to rest on the release of the seatbelt. As the fog of his vision began transforming into dots and small explosions he released the buckle and fell from its hold, a tree axed passed its center, across the console and into the passenger seat. He knew what he was looking for, had packed it in secret and kept it that way, glad Sam never found it. Dean was biting into his tongue now, his body aching for breath, while his hands fell onto the cool grip of his handgun, stored under the passenger seat. He found the safety and felt the satisfying click when he switched it off.

The world outside the car was full with the witch's light, so close he had come, though in the moment Dean wasn't sure if this was part of suffocating or a product of whatever spell the witch was working. He split the ball of his focus in two and pushed himself up from the seat. He pointed the barrel of the gun towards the back windshield, the world darkening as he tried with his disappearing balance to aim the bullet. He didn't spare another second. The bullet burst from the gun and pierced the window, but first Dean noticed the sound, then the sudden absence of it when he was left behind in the blaring tinnitus, collapsing in a heap.

It was a second before he realized that he was able to collapse, and at once the air came without burden or resistance. The gun, though, was held tightly, while he gasped for his air back.

Relief was an emotion quickly dissolved as Dean's vision was crisping back into focus, the air in his lungs catching like the piston of an engine, propelling him out of the vehicle and into the rain. He ignored the freezing wind as he looked about. This son of a bitch had intervened in finding Sam twice now, threatened his life as many times, had put him in a vice like he were a prisoner. It was time to be done with him, and, when Dean came upon him kneeling in the road, heard him shouting over the wind in pain while holding a glowing hand in front of his face, he cocked the handgun again.

The witch looked up as Dean approached and tried to rise, but Dean fired again less discriminately, feeling the kickback, and the assuredness of his once-again steady hand in the face of a monster. The bullet struck the witch in the shoulder this time, throwing him backward. The glow of his hands disappeared.

Dean cocked the gun for a third time. Stepping up to the witch's side, he aimed the barrel down at his head. The witch didn't move, only stared while the rain streamed down the sides of his head, dripped off the tip of the gun. Dean paused. The witch's gaze never wavered while he tried to catch his breath.

Dean understood in the moment the power that he held, to end the witch's life with not so much as the pull of his finger, but it didn't empower him, instead gripped him at the heart. The idea of robbing the man his existence wasn't right. It was easier to see the man behind the manic with his magic fading, bleeding out in the rain. They were both just trying to find something in the storm.

Instead, Dean lowered the gun and kicked the man in the ribs. The witch convulsed and rolled away, coughing into the road while he held his side.

Dean swiped at the torrent of rain falling down his brow. "Don't follow me. I won't hesitate next time."

He turned and took a step away.

"No!" the witch called out. Dean stopped, turned to look behind him.

"Do it now!" the witch screamed over the wind. "Kill me like you killed my friends!"

Dean rolled his eyes and picked up his path towards the gate, and then, he knew, to Sam.

"No!" The witch's scream became a howl while Dean walked on. He didn't spare another glance over his shoulder, leaving the witch in the road for a second time. That was, though, until the scream grew, and the ground began shaking underfoot without the aid of any thunder overhead. Dean spun, and his eyes flashed in bewilderment.

The witch was on his knees, screaming towards the sky, his shoulders back. The rumbling increased till it matched the growl of the witch's voice in pitch, the already failing world around them darkening. At the center of the man's clawed hands a white light bloomed and flashed, like a light bulb letting out a final burst before dying, and swam around the man's body like a spinning fire. His scream grew louder than even the wind. The white light around his body grew each time his volume did, a nimbus of white in the blackness around them.

Dean loosed his gun and shot at the man, sparring not a second of thought. The bullet passed through the witch's body without a hint of reaction, only adding a porthole that more white light escaped. Dean felt a shudder climb his legs. He turned and ran towards the gate while the man screamed behind him.

If Dean had a second more for thought, or was in a marginally less tense situation, he would have given consideration towards the black clouds above them, and how they had collected into something that was shaped like a skull, and that the mouth looked as though it too were screaming.