evening grey & morning red
"Have you lost your mind?"
"You tell me. You seem t'be the expert an' all." She's brushing through dense undergrowth, and he's following her, preaching at her. They're all the same, she thinks, all these ridiculous boys. Always babying, always telling her to take a step back. Well, this is her Hades, this is her tragedy. She'll do this her way, or no way at all.
"Lise— dammit! Would you stop for a minute and think what you're doing?"
But she doesn't stop, and neither does he. Sam is relentless in his pursuit of her. He follows her around the country, as though she can lead him to some greater light, as though she knows some priceless secret. She doesn't, of course, and they both know that; they must know that. There is nothing to Lise but the hunt.
If it had been up to Dean, she'd be mercifully alone, but Sam's in the picture too. God only knows what he wants from her, but he won't leave her be. It's been six months, now, since Arizona; since they dragged her off the road, took her home. Six whole months, and even Dean keeps an eye on her now; springs out from behind the trees, unexpectedly. She is trapped, and frustrated, and she's had damn near enough of this child's play.
She can feel an atmosphere of dissension swirling in the storm clouds above her. Rain, she thinks, moving faster. She uses the growth to propel her forwards, faster, further away from Sam. She dare not look back, for fear of seeing him pursuing her. Best to ignore these things; the goal is reaching the lake. That's where her focus is, that's where she keeps her mind. Any distraction, any deviation from attention, and she'll lose whatever it was that she's locked onto.
The air is alive, or maybe it's filled with the dead. Lise doesn't necessarily understand what it is she can feel, only that its presence is strong. In her mind, she calculates how far she has come, and how far she has yet to go. There is urgency underscoring her pace; the need to escape, and the need to advance, before time is up, before whatever it is that is out there disappears. And there is a time limit, of this she is certain. Lise believes in absolutes; she has no patience for grey areas.
"Stop!"
She is pulled up short, suddenly, by Sam's arm on hers, but she struggles forward out of instinct. She hasn't bargained on his grip, though, and she's moving on the spot, trying to get a grip on the land in front of her. Rain, she thinks, and, lake. These are constants, occupying her thoughts, blocking the message that she's stopped, that she's no longer advancing.
By this time, Sam has her by the shoulders, and is turning her, making her look at him. She meets his eyes, and she snaps out of the delirium instantaneously. The force of disconnection pushes her back violently, and she stumbles, with only Sam Winchester holding her up as she scrabbles for her footing.
"Let go!"
"Not until you tell me what you think you're doing. No—" He shakes her, forcing her to stop squirming, "Where are you going?"
She feels anger, burning in the pit of her stomach, caustic as ever. It's a feeling she's come to associate with the younger of the Winchesters, mostly because he drives her past irritation, even on his good days. She doesn't answer him, maintaining eye contact as a default position. He pouts, his eyebrows arch and it becomes a battle of wills; who will look away first?
She thinks she probably unnerves him, can sense him wavering under the potency of her glare. But then she remembers why she was running in the first place. She involuntarily searches for the source of her unease and reconnects, as fast as she broke away, crying out with the burden of sensory overload. She's barely aware of Sam's numbing grip on her upper arms; she doesn't feel her legs give way. The last thing she registers before blacking out is—
Rain.
When Dean wakes, the campsite is empty. To make matters worse, it's raining. Not a little April shower – oh no. This is a full-blown storm.
"Oh, for cryin' out loud," he mutters, jumping off the mud-wretched ground. Grabbing what he can, he tries to figure out where the other two have disappeared to. He knows what's happened; it'll be the same as always. Lise will have wandered off, and Sam will have followed. God knows where the two of them are now; the downpour has washed away any sign of them.
He works quickly, dumping Sam's jacket under one of the trees, stowing it away with the bags of food and supplies the three of them had packed for the trek into the valley. Well, he says the three of them; it was more just him and his brother. Lise had stood by the car, leaning against the passenger side door, turning her face up to meet the cool autumn sun. She'd been quieter than usual, ever since they found her trying to crawl back to Arizona. She was still the same bitch she'd ever been, not a thought in the world for anyone but herself, but there was something to her, something changed, more unnatural. It was as if she was somehow more still, less frantic.
Dean doesn't care. As far as he can tell, Lise is just a messed up voodoo chick with nothing left but the hunt. Sometimes he wonders if that's all that's left of Dad, but he pushes the idea aside, not really ready to face up to the consequences of what that would mean.
It's been ten minutes since the rain woke him, and still there's no sign of Sam, or Lise. If he knows Lise – and really, they've been towing the girl around for months now; he's pretty used to her habits – she'll use the storm as leverage, sprint off in the distant haze. Not like that will stop Sam, though. Standing with his back against one of the trees in the clearing, Dean looks around, and weighs up his options. He's faintly conscious that the air is heavy, and warm, seeping through his clothes like sweat; he ignores the sensation, puts it down to the damp air beneath the trees. He thinks he should probably go and find his brother before he gets into trouble, but which direction should he take?
Sam chooses that moment to crash back into the campsite.
"You find her?" Dean yells, looking up at the tree, trying to see if there's any way to decrease the effect of the torrent.
"That's one way of putting it."
That's when Dean notices Lise, his brother struggling a little under her weight. He curses under his breath when he sees her; she looks pale and harmless in this state. That's enough to indicate to him that something is very wrong; even in sleep, she normally looks like she could be the devil's daughter.
"Where the hell d'you find her?"
"She was headed out towards the lake," Sam answers, lowering the girl to the ground.
Crouching down for greater cover from the weather, Dean notices his brother's vacant expression. Looking towards Lise, he notes the scratches scoring her arms and legs; her palms, especially, are red and raw, deep half-moon dents cutting into her flesh. He turns her face towards him to get a better look at her skin, before looking towards Sam. "She was running."
It's a statement, not a question. His brother scowls somewhat, but Dean chooses to ignore him. He doesn't give a damn about the girl; first time they met, she'd jacked his ride, and she wasn't one to hang around in a crisis. But they had a lot in common – dead mothers and demons, for one – and Sam seemed to think she'd be the key to finding Dad. This is his only goal anymore; trying to find his dad, trying to get the family back in one place.
He spends a few minutes checking her pulse, testing her forehead with the back of his hand. No fever – that's a good sign. The last thing he wants to do right now is turn the car around and head back south. She must have fainted. But in that case, why hadn't the rain woken her up? He checks again for a pulse. Still there, steady, strong. Dean stands, frowning. Something is wrong.
The three of them had driven through Salt Lake City a night ago, before stopping off in a small town, five miles due north of the city. It was Sam who'd read the newspapers, highlighted the pattern of deaths with a bright red marker he kept in his pocket. The ink stained his fingers; the cap left indentations on his palm. Dean had wondered whether or not it was healthy that his brother had developed a need for comfort objects, but then he'd thought of his car, his Glock, his dad's journal, and figured they all needed something. He took the newspaper, looked at his brother and made the decision to hunt out the cause, just like that. The decision to sleep out of doors was less a decision than a necessity. Dean had stopped the car, and Lise had walked off, just like that. Sam had followed. Dean thinks he's beginning to see one hell of a pattern.
"We need to get back to the car," he yells, trying to catch his brother's attention. Sam is scrutinising Lise with that usual look of tenderness and guilt. He was still dreaming about Jess, still waking in a cold sweat, jerking to consciousness in the middle of the night.
"No," Sam turns, looking to the direction in which he'd just come, "She was heading towards the lake. Why would she do that?"
"Because it's not the obvious direction. Look," he steps forward, drops a hand on his brother's shoulder, "maybe it's time we just let her go. She doesn't know anything, not about Mom, not about Jess. She barely knows anything about her own folks." He shrugs. "She doesn't want to be here, and she's in the way. We need to find Dad."
But Sam's shaking his head, getting riled. "No. No, we're looking for something, and she was heading for the lake; that's the same direction we're going anyway—"
"So let's get to the car. What you gonna do, swim to the other side?" Dean throws a bag at Sam; he catches it, hands help up defensively in front of his chest. The bag lands with a smack, and he sways backwards a little, still scowling. Dean ignores him, lifts Lise, and begins to trek back towards the road.
Dean's almost out of his line of sight when Sam sighs, flicks his eyes up to the furious skies, and makes a move to follow.
When she wakes, she's in the back seat of Dean's years-old Impala. She tries to sit up, and look out of the window, but her head is pounding dangerously, and she falls back with a groan.
Sam notices her stirring, and turns in his seat to look at her, saying nothing. "What?" she snaps, then winces as her head gives protest.
She struggles to sit up, tired suddenly. Sam is watching her in the rear view mirror; Dean has one eye on the road, the other on his brother. Lise scowls, frustrated. Who knows where the hell they're leading her now. She tries to think how she got in the car, but all she can remember is waking in the campsite; waking, and needing, so desperately, to put space between her and the boys; feeling, suddenly, that something was wrong, something was imbalanced in the world.
"There's somethin' up at the lake," she says, sitting bolt upright. Ignoring the thumping in her head, she reaches out to shake Dean. "We need to go back."
Sam mutters something that sounds suspiciously like I told you, but Lise couldn't care less. She makes eye contact with Dean in the mirror and tries to force his hand. "Whatever it is you're lookin' for, that's where it is."
He doesn't say anything for a moment, his eyes flicking back to the road to check for traffic, and then he looks at her again. "How d'you know?"
"I know."
"Not good enough."
"You're such an assho—"
"It's not good enough!" Dean snaps. "You know you've been out for over half an hour? The rain didn't even wake you. Now you're trying to give me directions?"
Lise thinks about the time. "It rained? I thought so."
"Look, Lise," Sam starts, "If you could just tell us what you know…"
She hisses; he jumps a little, surprised. "I don't know nothin'. Where're we goin'?"
Dean tosses the newspaper back, and she ducks to avoid it smacking her in the face. Pouting, she picks it up and opens it to the page of circled articles. One, two…five. She runs her hand across the ink-smudged page, following the red marker lines with her little finger. She reads the details carefully, assimilates the information, storing it away for a later date. There seems to be no discernible correlation between the deaths but even she can sense that there must be. She looks up from the paper to see Sam watching her again.
"Why'd you choose these ones?"
He shrugs. "That many deaths in two months? Different causes? That's not a coincidence."
"Could be clusterin'," she suggests, "mathematical 'nomaly, spate of bad luck..."
Sam's eyebrows disappear under his hair. "You're kidding, right?"
Lise doesn't reply, just looks back down at the paper. "Y'all missed one." She points at the picture of a young girl on the page opposite the last reported death. Sam takes the paper from her, reads the article, and frowns. He stops, reads it again, shakes his head.
"She's not dead."
"She fits a pattern."
"What pattern?" This is Dean, peering over Sam's shoulder. "She's not dead. She's not connected to any of the victims. She's not even located in the same town as the rest of them."
Lise sighs, frustrated. "Whatever, ok? You missed one." She snatches the newspaper back. "Y'all been doing this how long? And you're still lookin' at newspapers to tell you when shit's goin' down." Shaking her head, she opens the paper, leafs through the rest of it. She thinks about the cases Sam circled, thinks about the people in the photographs that match the articles. She thinks about their faces, the way life etched itself into the space around their eyes. She thinks about the girl, with her blonde hair and red ribbons; the innocence and happiness; the gleam in her eyes, as though she knows something that everyone else is missing—
The comparison to Lilith is instinctive, and she has to resist the urge to flinch. Looking at the girl again, Lise is thrown into her memories. She finds she has to fight the drag of her mind, has to snap out of the near comatose state, and force herself to think of something else. She is conscious of the balance in the car, and she takes comfort from the rings of vision – Dean watching Sam watching her. Normally it's something she'd rebuke but she welcomes the distraction. She's far too susceptible to diversion at the moment; she feels as though she's being blindsided by herself. Mostly, she's annoyed at her dependence on these two boys; she's annoyed that even if they were to let her go, she couldn't make it far by herself. She wishes for some way to communicate with them that doesn't involve frustration, or irritation, or even pure disdain on her part. But it's been so long since she has had company that she's unused to the conventions of conversation, and she finds herself battling to ignore the boys' attentions, unable to articulate the thoughts that occupy her mind, day in, day out, until she's exhausted by the burden of it all.
Dean is talking, and she has to force herself to pay attention. Oh, wait, not talking; complaining. About her, to her.
"…whatever the hell you're playing at 'cos it's not even close to being funny. What were you doing out there? And would you quit running off, already. Damn girl. You need a leash."
"Yeah," she drawls idly, "I guess that'd be your kinda thing. All that dominance, submission shit."
Sam snickers, and Lise fixes her glare on him. "Although, I guess that'd make you his bitch, right?"
"Screw you, Lise."
"You don't have what it takes to screw me, Sam."
"Look, whatever!" Dean interjects, slamming his hands on the wheel. "You need to quit yanking our chains, ok? If you know something about what's going on in these parts, say something."
The incredulity that Lise feels is practically monstrous. "Say somethin'? Say somethin'? What exactly is it that I'm doin' here? I just told you, y'all need to turn the car 'round and head on back to the lake."
"We need specifics," Sam intones, drawing out the words as though speaking to a child. Lise develops a need to spit at him, but thinks Dean may do her physical harm if she touches the car in any way. Instead she sits back, looks out the window. The terrain is evening out now, less urban density, more empty highway.
"I don't got specifics. But," and she looks up now, looks for Dean's eyes, wants to make an impression there, wants to show him that she's being serious and that this isn't idle flippancy, "there's something going down out there. You can feel it risin' in the air if you try hard 'nough." She nods towards the paper in Sam's lap, "Those deaths ain't no accident, honey. Look at t'way they're spread over the page. Two spaces 'bove, two below, three either side."
Opening the newspaper so that it falls across his lap, Sam counts the spaces between the articles, then looks up at Dean, eyebrows raised. Dean sighs cynically, rolls his eyes maybe. Lise ignores him. Carries on.
"Look at the girl. Look where the photo is. Look how she falls in the space between." Lise shakes her head, "That ain't no coincidence; that's patterning. Divine intervention."
"The hell?" Dean mutters.
Lise has to bite her lip to keep from insulting him. She decides that the best course of action is to try and rationalise the words that are confounding her. It's difficult, more than she thought it would be.
"There are signs everywhere. Y'all gotta know where to look."
"Tell us." Sam is willing to hear her out, and this annoys her, too. She wonders why the baton fell the way it did; why it was Dean who is sceptical of her when it's he who's seen what she's seen; when it's he who's got the most in common with her. She shakes her head, unsure as to what it is she's protesting, but tries to explain anyway.
"There's somethin' there, at the lake. Damn near dragged me outta sleep."
"What's that gotta do with the girl?" Dean asks.
Lise shrugs. "No clue." Liar, liar. "Maybe she's from 'round these parts." Liar, liar.
Dean's eyes rest on hers for a full minute before sliding back to the road. "Why do you care so much this time around?"
Worrying her lip, she looks up at him in the mirror from beneath her eyelashes. She wonders if maybe she can force the images into his mind, burn them onto his retina so that they rouse him the way they rouse her. She stares, forces her position, is aware of nothing else but the space between them in the car.
Then she turns away.
"I don't care. But if we do this, might as well do it right."
They draw up to Canterville by midday. Dean stops the car to take another look at the newspaper and decide a course of action. Lise reaches for the door handle, but finds she can't get out. She snaps the handle a couple of time before turning to look at the boys. Both of them are watching her.
"What the hell are you doin'?" She shakes her head incredulously. "A lock? Y'all got me pinned down by a lock? The hell's the matter with you?"
"Now who's the bitch?" Dean says, turning his attention back to the paper. "Alright, from what I can see, all the victims died alone, in their homes…different causes…"
Sam shakes his head, "They've got to have something in common. There's no witnesses?"
"No, but check this out, the third victim?"
There's a slow perusal of the facts before Sam smiles. "Nice." He catches Lise's eye in the mirror, reads out from the newspaper. "'Ashley Thompson, 35, was found dead in her home this morning… neighbours reported hearing a high pitched squealing at 2 am in the morning, the reported time of her death—'"
"'One woman has stated that the sound was 'low and mournful, like a banshee'," Lise quotes, "'Police are treatin' the death as suspicious.' I know, I read the damn thing." She stretches put across the backseat of the car, rolling her shoulders to loosen the muscles. "That could mean anythin'."
"It's as good a place to start as any," Dean proffers, "Unless you've got a better idea."
"The old man," Lise answers without hesitation, "the first one to die. Start at the source, work your way out."
"Harold Sachs? What's special about him?" Sam asks, checking, again, the facts in the paper. His memory's feeble compared to Lise's; he doesn't have the faculties needed to assimilate information. She finds it ironic in someone who wanted to study law, but she keeps the thought to herself. Now's not the time for banalities.
"He was first," she repeats, using the tone he usually reserves for her when he's trying to be patient. "If no case is better than the other, you start from the beginnin' and work your way out."
Turning in the seat, Dean crouches to look at Lise squarely in the eye. "Why?"
"Because that's logi—"
"No, why him? Why not the woman and 'mourning banshee' or whatever the hell it was?" He spits the words out, angry now, or at least irritated. Lise withstands the instinct to hiss at him, feeling that she's finally being given the chance to reason with him. But he sees something in her face and sighs, sitting back properly in the driver's seat before she has the chance to make use of the eye-contact. Setting her voice to be firm, if not a little cool, she tries to reiterate her impressions.
"Look, for one thing, the neighbour didn't hear nothin': if that was a banshee, you'd better believe it ain't gonna be 'low' an' mournful'. Them things shriek to high noon. For 'nother, there's no reason to think that whatever the woman heard has anythin' to do with the deaths. Thirdly, it started with him." And now she sits forward, her dark hair falling across her face dramatically; she's careful to enunciate her words, to be clear and precise. This is too important to get wrong. "Why, huh? Why'd it choose him? Why'd it start there? Convenience? Random spottin'? Is that likely? What kinda poltergeist hits whatever comes its way? Why so errant?"
Sam is watching her, keeping an eye on her face as she speaks; she pushes the image of his face aside and concentrates on Dean. "If you're gonna find somethin', you'll find it where it begins. If you wanna know what's killin' these people, you gotta go and see what started the chain of events. Forget that woman, that's mortal play hidden in plain sight. The cops are involved; ain't got a thing to do with what we're lookin' at."
"OK," Dean nods, "OK. You and Sam check out the old man, I'll go look for this neighbour. How's that sound?"
Lise scowls.
"Excellent." He flashes a grin, the one that reminds her that he's just another man under all that solemnity. She's forever reminding herself that he's got enough virility to outpace the average alpha male. Flicking her hair out of her face, she gives a half-shrug.
"Whatever. Let's get a move on before this thing hits somethin' else."
Lise is doing what she does best; making herself invisible in a crowd. It's no easy feat, what with her oversized clothes, and her long-starved appearance, but she does it with flair. Keeping her head down, she stuffs her hands into her pockets and walks quickly but with short strides, making sure to keep out of the way of anyone heading towards them. Mercifully, she stays close to Sam. He carries the fear that she's going to make a break for it balled up in his fists. Dean had warned Lise about trying anything before the three of them had separated, had even suggested handcuffs. Lise just produced a slow, lascivious smile, making Sam blush all the way up to the tips of his ears; the sight had only made her laugh at him more.
Using the newspaper as a starting point, she's leading the way through town, trying to find the house where the old man's family now lives. After talking to the local store owner and the mailman, they've managed to track down the right street. As they get closer to the house, fewer people take the same roads, and it becomes more difficult to hide the fact that they're strangers to the area. Lise doesn't say anything, just takes half a step closer to Sam, and shakes the hair back from her face with an unnatural air of confidence. She looks like someone out for a stroll; she looks, bizarrely, as though she belongs here.
"How d'you wanna do this?" she asks, quietly. "Knock on the door? Hi, I'd like to talk to y'all 'bout your dead granddaddy. May we come in?"
Sam shrugs. "Why not?" He waits for her response, expecting a harsh glare or a roll of her eyes, but neither is forthcoming.
"After you."
They make their way to the house furthest from the main street, Lise curling into herself whilst Sam ignores her. As they approach the door, Lise ties her hair up, away from her face, and straightens her shoulders. He tries not to watch, but the movements are fluid and hypnotic, and he can't help but follow them. The house is small and out of place in comparison to the rest of its detached neighbours. Whilst most of the street looks as though it's come straight out of a brochure for property development, the last one seems decrepit and cold. The shingling is loose, and the paint work is cracked. The gate swings off its hinge as Sam tries to open it, clanging with a screech as it falls back onto the rotten wood of the grey picket fence.
The door seems to be faring little better. An aged brass knocker adorns the one-time green door; here the paint is not only peeling, but fading to a diseased grey colour. The number should read 67, but the screw is loose on the first digit so it swings down, reading 97. Lise considers it for a moment, reaching out to push it back to its original position. When she releases it, the grimy metal swings back down with a low whistle, scratching the wood as it goes. She pulls her fingers away and rubs them together, wondering at the filth. Sam, meanwhile, does nothing, keeping a close eye on her quiet, precise movements.
Foregoing the knocker, Sam raps his fist against the door. More paint peels away, floating deliberately onto the breeze. They hear a shuffling inside the house before the door swings open to reveal a dishevelled young woman, barely in her thirties. She appears tired; her blonde hair is rolled into a knot, and held back with a red handkerchief. Her face is smeared with what Sam presumes is oil; her hands are black, too.
"Can I help you?"
"Uh, we're journalists? I'm Sam, this is Lise Jacobs," Sam proffers. "We wanted to talk to you about your grandfather, Mr. Harold Sachs? He is your grandfather, right?"
The woman throws her eyes over Sam, and then nods, slowly. "Yeah. What's it to you?"
"We'd just like to ask you a few questions about him," Sam tells her, adding, "If we may?"
His good manners pay dividends, and the woman steps back from the door to let the two of them in. Lise says nothing, flicking her eyes over the walls, and the counter tops. The woman leads them through to the living room. There is a soot-ridden fireplace embellishing the far wall, and spread across the floor are sheets of newspaper; the two couches are covered in blue plastic sheeting. A fine layer of dust has settled over everything in the room. Hanging from the grate is a metal wired brush, and there is a strong smell of polish lining the air.
The woman looks mildly apologetic, wiping her hands on her jeans as Lise and Sam survey the room. "I'm afraid I can't help the mess. Damn thing needed sorting out sooner or later. I'm Caroline Sachs." She holds out a hand, and Sam takes it. Oddly, she makes no move to welcome Lise, or even to acknowledge her presence, asking, instead, if Sam would like anything to drink. When he declines, she indicates that he should sit. Lise does not follow suit, choosing, instead, to stand close by the vacant fireplace.
"So what do you want to know?"
Lise rolls her eyes in tedium. Sceptical of Sam's tactics, and unsurprised by Caroline's inattention, she lets her mind wander the house with an easy rein. The house is old, older than the others that line the street. Generations of families have been born and married here, had their children and left their mark in the little brick structure. There had been a family inhabiting the space even before the bricks were laid, their daily trivialities seeping into the ground and settling. Lise barely stretches her mind before being embraced by the history of the house, by the legacy of Harold Sachs' ancestry. She feels cautious, if not a little nervous, at the presence of the dead in the foundations; they haunt the air, clamouring the space, adding to the sense of claustrophobia throughout the house.
Caroline is sat on the edge of the plastic-covered couch, her knees together, hands clasped tightly. For one reason or another, she seems not to notice Lise, which suits her just fine. It gives her space to look at her surroundings.
"When was the last time you saw your grandfather?"
What a ridiculous question. There had been no witnesses to the death; of this, Lise was almost certain. It had been a sudden but solemn undertaking. The man had died of a heart attack, his granddaughter tells Sam; he'd gone to sleep one night, and his heart stopped beating. Sam nods. Lise restrains the urge to sigh. She can feel the nervous energy floating around the house. The spirits are uneasy; he definitely didn't die in his sleep.
"Did your grandfather have any unusual hobbies, Caroline? Perhaps an interest in ghosts, or demons?"
Interesting. A good question, too. The woman frowns, taken aback by the enquiry. "Well, no," she answers, now uncertain, "Not that I know of. He might have, I mean he has all these books- they're all upstairs, ready to be packed…"
"You think I can take a look?" Lise interjects.
Caroline Sachs jumps, startled somewhat by Lise's presence. Quickly recovering, she assents. "They're all on the shelf in his study. Up the stairs, first room on the right."
Lise leaves the room without replying, feeling Sam's eyes follow her. He doesn't make a move to follow her but she can sense his distrust. It irritates her, blocking her perceptions of the others in the building. Her mind becomes so preoccupied with the strength of his possessiveness, and the strength of her response, that it's difficult to emerge from the haze of confusion and follow the restless afterlife of Sachs' house.
She climbs the stairs cautiously, keeping her fists balled and close to her side. On the top landing, she casts an eye over her surroundings, ignores the room with the books and the boxes, opting instead to head for one of the larger bedrooms towards the back of the house. Most of the surfaces are covered by the same blue sheeting that engulfs the living room. Lise runs a finger over one of the dressers, feeling the wood splinters fall immune beneath the cool, smooth palm of the plastic.
This was the old man's room. It's of substantial size and functional: there's a bed, a dresser, a wardrobe. There are empty hooks jutting out from the wall; the wallpaper is patched where pictures have been taken down. Lise can see them piled up in the corner, ready to be packed away and forgotten. Ignoring them, she walks to the window, and peers around the curtains. The back yard is the same as the rest of the house, a complete mess, overrun with weeds and rotting wood. Lise almost feels sad.
Turning, she surveys the rest of the room and bows her head a little. Working out the muscles in her neck, she relaxes her muscles and tries, again, to reach out and make contact with the energy in the house.
The connection is instantaneous.
Lise is suddenly back in the woods, back to racing through the dense undergrowth and closer to the lake. She resists the attraction instinctively, but there is a force pushing at her legs; she is fleeing on winged feet, Cerberus snapping at her heels. She panics, unable to get her grounding, feeling her feet slip away from her, feeling herself being carried away on the rage of— of what exactly? She reaches out involuntarily to see what it is that's consuming her, tries to convince herself that she's still in a cold bedroom, in a slowly dying house, still standing with her back to a window that covers a deathly back yard, but she's unsuccessful.
The energy in the house is burning, sweltering about her forehead. Her palms are clammy; she's stood still, she thinks, she's not moving, even if she feels as though she's hurtling through the air, catapulted out of her consciousness and invaded by something, an other, another presence. It takes her a moment to realise that the nervous energy of the Sachs' family spirits is not what's invading her mental space. It's something else. Something other.
Collecting her wits, Lise propels herself towards the door and back onto the landing, all the time struggling to maintain her self-control. She's conscious that Sam is still downstairs, unaware of the activity in the house. If she can just get to him, just make him see that something's not right, then they can get to Dean, maybe, and he can—
She hits the wall with a resounding gasp. There is a pressure against her back and she feels something cool slip through her spine, into her chest. She is frozen with silence and frenzy, unable to react. She grapples with the wall, trying to force herself away. She can't find purchase there; she must get to Sam.
Her eyes slide around for something to drop, something to break and bring him running. He's normally so vigilant; she can't understand why he hasn't asked himself where she is by now. She's pinned just beyond the reach of the staircase and there is nothing within her grasp. Her throat feels numb; she tries to yell and finds she's lost her voice. Straining against the pressure at her back, she continues to look for leverage. That's when her eyes fall on the window ledge on the far side of the hall. A photograph, just another memory. Just a photo of Sachs, and a little girl with blonde hair and red ribbons.
Shock hits Lise, hard, and she looses her footing; the resistance suddenly ceases, and she accidentally pushes herself off the wall, stumbling onto the stairs, and rolling half-way down. Coming to a stop, she realises that the house is quiet again.
Sam runs in from the living room. "Lise?"
She struggles to stand up, her muscles sore from resisting the activity in the house, and her unexpected fall. Ignoring Sam, she turns to Caroline Sachs. "This place is wired."
"What?" The woman stands dumb in the doorway, alarmed. "What is going on here?"
Tripping lightly over the last few steps, Lise falls against Sam, using him to support her own weight. "This ain't no poltergeist," she manages to breathe. "We gotta find Dean." Turning to Caroline again, she compels herself to stand up straight.
"Miss Sachs, this ain't gonna make any kind of sense, but I need to know – who's the girl in the photograph on the window?"
But the woman is clearly spooked. "No." She shakes her head, "No, what is this? Who are you?"
"I need to know."
"Who are you people?"
"Her name's Molly, right?" Lise asks, searching her memory for the information in the newspaper article. "Molly Stevens? She lives over other side of t'lake, right? Miss Sachs?"
But Caroline Sachs has had enough. "Get out."
Sensing Lise's desperation, Sam tries to persuade her, "We just want to know who—"
"I said get out!"
Lise feels the spirits come together en masse, and surround the last of their living relative. It makes for an odd protectorate, but Lise understands the danger that is hovering just beyond her periphery. Without a look in Sam's direction, she heads for the door. Before leaving, she looks at Caroline again.
"Stay here. Don't leave this house, don't sell out. You're safe as long as you stay here."
Outside, Sam has to jog to catch up with Lise's quick stride. Her earlier stealth's been discarded, and she's walking as fast as she can, back in the direction Dean disappeared. As she walks, she tries to explain what she felt in Sachs' house.
"There's a photo, on the landin'? It's that little girl from the newspaper. She's not family, but she knew Sachs in some way…I don't know."
"Wait, so she is connected to this in some way?" Sam asks.
Lise nods, still disorientated by the psychic assault. "Sure. That house, I don't, I don't really get it. There's so much there. It's like none of them ever got peace, like they just haunt the place." She stops walking, suddenly, and looks at Sam. "It's like… it's like all the fam'ly come back to congregate there when they've died. Masses of 'em, generations just stuck in one place. They just mill around. They got angry when we wouldn't leave. Was like, like they was protectin' Caroline." She shakes her head, trying to concentrate her ideas. "There was somethin' else there. It tried…" She trails off, incapable of articulating the experience. For once, Sam seems to understand the need for quiet. He waits patiently for her to continue.
"In the woods, there was somethin' there. It's all connected. It's reachin' out for a hold on the world. It's tryin' to break through. It chose Sachs because he was so close to that bound'ry, that space between bein' alive and bein' lost." She flinches involuntarily. "I can't work it out. I've never seen 'em pack in like that, years an' years of 'em. It's like the world's weak there." She looks up as a new idea forms in her head. "I think it already has. There's somethin' runnin' though this town and I'm tellin' y'all, it ain't no poltergeist."
Dean's hit something of a brick wall. Literally.
Ashley Thompson's house has been locked up, and her neighbours are away so there's no way for Dean to talk to them about whatever it is they heard. If he's honest, he knows Lise is right and that the little old lady didn't hear anything even vaguely useful. He smirks; probably not a good idea to admit that to Lise.
He spends a minute counting his options before slipping under the police tape, vaulting the fence and jumping into the back yard. Using one of the garden ornaments (damn ugly things, why would you want one?), he smashes the window; he winces at the sound of the cracking glass and throws a glance over his shoulder before letting himself in. Taking a quick look around the room, he moves through to the rest of the house. He keeps his hands to himself but sticks his head through a couple of doors. The house is full of the usual rigmarole of suburban living – television, stereo, computer and so on. Not finding anything of interest downstairs, Dean makes his way to the first floor.
Thinking back to the newspaper report, he remembers that Ashley Thompson was found dead in the bathtub. The bathroom, like much of the rest of the house, is papered in floral patterns, and smells ever so faintly of cinnamon. Looking at the bathtub, Dean doesn't see anything out of the ordinary. No scratch marks, no unusual blood smears - no tell-tale runes scratched into the wall. It's typical, he thinks, that he should end up in the one place where there's absolutely nothing going on. Freaking waste of time.
Exiting the bathroom, he makes a cursory sweep of the rest of the upper floor; he's about to go back downstairs when he sees something glinting from the darkness of one of the rooms down the hall. Misplacing prudence for curiosity, he pushes the door open with his toe and takes a look.
A minute later, he's running down the stairs, out the back door and back towards the car.
Sam doesn't know what to think. He's known for sometime that Lise has an almost preternatural sensitivity to spiritual and demonic activity. She thinks she's been touched by God, directed to do his bidding. But that's not what this is; this is something new, even for her. This is fear.
Sam's never known Lise to be afraid. Some part of him knows that logically she must be afraid of something, but he's never seen any proof to confirm that suspicion. It's a surprise, then, to see her scatterbrained over an event that he still doesn't know anything about. He knows that she's trying to tell him, but he also knows that she's finding it difficult. He almost feels sorry for her, but he curbs the instinct, knowing how much it will irritate her. It's not that he prefers her this way, numb and placid, but it's definitely easier to negotiate with her when she isn't on the offensive.
She starts to walk again, still agitated, but less quickly, as though the immediacy of the event has passed by. He wants to ask her about what happened in the house – when he saw her on the stairs he thought maybe she'd passed out again. She was deathly pale, more so than usual, and struggling for breath. He wants to ask her if she knows the girl, if she's somehow personally connected to Molly Stevens, but he dismisses the idea. The padre in Arizona had told him and his brother that Lise had no more family; that everyone she'd ever known was dead. But she's so fixated on the idea of that girl, the sight of her in that newspaper, that Sam can't help but wonder if there's something more to her reaction than simple interest.
He keeps an eye on her on the way back, the same as on the way there, but for once she seems oblivious to his attentions. He tells her that Caroline Sachs knows nothing of importance and she shrugs the mention off with a flick of her shoulders. Of course she doesn't know, is the implied response. She's not the focus.
"So what happened? Lise?"
She shakes herself, yet again, and reaches up to loosen her hair from the knot. She shrugs, preoccupied by her thoughts, but she makes an effort to speak to him. "It's leechin' on me. On anythin' that can touch it. I just reached out a little to see why the damn place was so excitable." She stops, again, shapes a few words with her mouth and then dismisses them. She doesn't say anything else; instead, shoves her hands violently into her pockets and looks down at her feet, once again assuming an air of invisibility.
They walk on another couple of blocks. Sam's wondering if he should make conversation when out of the blue, Lise's head snaps up, and she throws a hand out to restrain his advance. She turns neatly on her heel and looks back in the direction they came from. The sun chooses that moment to disappear behind a cloud, and Sam feels a chill as the wind snags on the trees. Lise's eyes grow wide as she quickly surveys their surroundings, then she takes a step back, two, before stumbling into him and stopping.
"What is it?"
She doesn't answer. Instead, she grabs his hand and continues to back away from the direction of Sachs' house. After all her hard work, she begins to attract the attention of some of the locals and Sam has to turn around just to stop from looking idiotic. Pulling her tightly to him, he leans close to her ear. "What are you playing at?"
"It's here," Lise replies, almost breathless, "Call your brother. He's chasin' the wrong kind o' phantoms."
Not sure what she means, but certain enough of her volatile temperament, Sam decides to use his bulk to pull her away; Lise continues to stare after Sachs' house. She resists Sam's hold, twisting in his arms to try and look behind them. He holds her fast, forces her back towards the car. Her irritation is sudden and palpable, solid in the air. He feels it rising from her skin, acidic and sore on the palms of his hands; he resists the urge to scratch them, to let her go, but the longer he holds on, the worse the sensation becomes. He's half inclined to think her emotions are manifesting themselves upon his skin, but he put the reaction down to nerves. He has plenty of those when Lise is around.
"Stop fussin' with me and call your brother!"
"We're going back to the car."
"You're wastin' time!"
Abruptly, she stops fighting. Looking down, Sam tries to make eye contact with her, but her hair is floating in front of her face, and he can't see her response. Looking over his shoulder, he sees an angry storm cloud gathering over the horizon. He wonders where it came from, springing upon them so unexpectedly, but then he recognises the chill in the air, and the feeling of dread rising in the atmosphere. It's the same storm they were caught in before, but bigger. Angrier. He's practically carrying Lise now; her eyes are wide, unseeing. He takes two more steps, and she goes limp, collapsing on him, just as she did before.
The streets are suspiciously empty, but Sam doesn't take heed. He can hear the weather rising behind him, and he knows that it's not any ordinary storm. Lifting Lise, he begins to run back to the car.
"Sam!"
He turns, sees Dean sprinting towards him, excited. Sam doesn't have the time to explain, so he just yells, tries to make his anxiety show. That's when his brother notices him carrying Lise, again.
"This is becoming a habit," he jokes, yelling over the mounting gale.
"We need to get to the car."
"What?"
"We need to get to the car!" He nods his head towards the black clouds massing in the south.
Dean scoffs openly. "You scared of a little storm, bro?"
"That's no ordinary storm!" Sam retaliates, making the decision to head back to the car, with or without his brother. Dean sees that he's being serious and starts to jog after him. They make it back to the Impala just as the storm catches up with them, and the skies open with a rush, emptying a wrath of water over them. Lise begins to stir, coughing as though she's choking on the downpour. As his brother fiddles with the lock on the car, Sam watches, getting more nervous as the gusts begin to swoop around them. Lise doesn't wake, just continues to choke and convulse. Sam feels her becoming heavier in his arms; he tries to readjust his hold of her, and makes contact with her hands.
"Damn!"
He nearly drops her; his hands are sore, burnt, almost. Dean finally gets the car open and reaches for Lise, but the convulsions are more severe now. Sam shows him his hand.
"The hell is that?"
"She's burning up." He frowns. "Literally."
They lower her to the ground in an effort to cool her down; the rain has no effect on her. She stops convulsing, becomes dormant. If Sam didn't know any better, he'd think she was dead.
"Second time in one day." Sam points out. "What do you think that means?"
Dean looks up from Lise, and makes a face that jumps voids of meaning and ends up at the hell do I know? Covering his hands with the sleeves if his jacket, he lifts Lise and sets her down in the car. Her head lolls to one side, loose and inanimate; she looks like a woollen doll. Looking at her, Sam can feel the cold shooting through him. All three of them are soaked through to the skin.
"There's something in the storm," Sam yells, trying to make himself heard over the tumult. "We found a connection to the girl in the paper at Sachs' place. Lise said there's a crazy amount of activity up there." He finally gets inside the car.
Dean gets in a second later: "What did you find?"
"A photo," Sam reiterates, turning in the seat to look at Lise, "of the girl from the paper."
"You mean this one?" Dean opens his jacket and pulls out a small clip frame from inside the torn lining. There are three photographs of Ashley Thompson with groups of girl guides. In the third one, holding Ashley's hand, is Molly Stevens.
Sam shakes his head in disbelief. He gives a humourless laugh. Lise was right. Lise was always right. He looks up to see Dean watching him. "What?"
"Don't say it."
"Say what?"
"Don't say she told us so."
End of part 1