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Chapter Six
According to the news, the storm's set to hit landfall the next day at the latest, though many have already started preparations in case the power goes out when it hits. Not quite a hurricane or tropical storm, but people are treating it like the end of the world. High winds, hail possible, though how that can be with this humidity brings the validity of the report into question. Being on dry land in a storm is one thing, and the brothers quickly discover life on an island is something different.
Isolated. Which is not a choice feeling of Dean's.
He's starting to reconsider staying on the island a few days longer than expected; they should have left when the seas were calm and everyone wasn't running around like the sky was falling. The ferry's still running, and if he takes a right instead of a left, they can hightail it out of there and say good riddance to this whole thing.
But now he's curious as to what's going on, which is dangerous.
So he takes the left, heads past the library, and stops when Sam tells him to in front of a nondescript brownstone nestled between high-end boutiques they'd never be able to shop in even on their best days.
Sam jumps out. He leans in through the open window. "Sure you don't want to come with?"
"Dude. White gloves? Not for me."
"Okay. Uh, give me a call if you find anything out," he says in one breath.
"Ditto."
Sam taps the top of the car and gives a tight smile before running up to the building and disappearing through the door into the building. Dean lingers for a moment -- how many times has he sat through this scenario? -- sure Sam's safely inside before pulling off.
They've got a plan. Sam goes to the historical society to find out what happened in 1858 -- that's when this all started, so that's where they'll start -- and Dean heads off to the Whaling Museum to speak with the assistant curator, the local holder of all things nautical-related. He doesn't like taking the word of the inn's daytime clerk, but there's really no one else to ask. That he wants to ask.
Lock that in a box and put it in the back of his head for another time.
Going to a museum isn't that much better than visiting the historical society's records, but he figures a museum about whaling should have some killer tools on display -- knives, bone saws, things like that. Things that interest him to some degree, and wandering around giving them a look-over makes the trip a little more interesting.
He parks in the lot between two rented cars bearing large stickers on their bumpers advertising the rental companies and a local restaurant. There's a space on either side, which is how he prefers to park, where he doesn't have to worry about overzealous soccer moms denting his car when swinging doors open a little too wide.
The museum's small. A large central room houses the main speaking area with rows of wooden chairs topped by a hanging whale skeleton. Behind it, a table holds an array of tools -- just what he was looking for -- encased in glass. Dean frowns; he wanted to be able to touch some of them. He settles for gawking.
"Interesting, aren't they?"
A normal person would be surprised, but Dean wasn't normal. He caught the reflection of the older man in the glass holding the weapons, and already has what he considers his most charming and innocent smile.
"Yeah. Those whalers, what kooks." At the man's falter, Dean quickly adds, "Creative, though. Innovative, really."
"Some of the tools pulled from old ships were actually made from the whales themselves. A bit cannibalistic if you think about it, but those sailors used what was available to them." The man looks over the tools softly, like someone would admire a piece of art or a child. "Martin Luewis."
"Just the man I wanted to see," Dean replies, taking Martin's hand. "I heard you're the go to guy when it comes to island history."
"You must have heard that from the locals," Martin says. If he's put-off by Dean withholding his name, he isn't letting onto it. "I think there's something romantic about having some sort of historian they can call their own. In reality, you could probably find everything on the internet these days."
"Well, I prefer to find things the old fashioned way."
Martin nods. "In that case, what can I help you with?"
There's a certain amount of finesse that comes with speaking to locals about the darker aspects of their hometowns. You can't come out straight with the questions you really want to ask like they do in the movies; answers aren't scripted. No one's accepting of a stranger wandering around no matter how nice they look.
This would be the perfect time for his nerdy brother to show up. "I, uh, I'm a huge fan of light houses and was, uh, thrilled to find the island had a few."
"Ah, yes." Martin motions towards one of the museum's side rooms that snake around the larger one like a cavern. "Did you know the light in the harbor was the second ever built in the United States?"
"Really?" Dean tries to sound interested. "Listen, I was kinda interested in Sconset Light. You know, its history and stuff."
Martin gives him a side-glance, but keeps walking through a room outlining the island's early years though today in a broad, long timeline that probably interested the more casual guests. They reach the end of the timeline and round the corner to end up in the entrance lobby, just behind the room with the giant whale skeleton.
"There are only two types of people interested in that lighthouse," Martin intones, sweeping past the lobby into a small hallway that looks more utilitarian than part of a museum. "True lighthouse hobbyists," -- he gives Dean a look that shatters the cover story -- "which you, my friend, aren't. And what I like to call conspiracy theorists."
They stop at the foot of a spiral staircase leading to the museum's more interesting second floor. It twists up into infinity around a large glass lens no longer used, thick, beveled glass surface almost smiling in the sunlight pouring in through windows behind it.
The conical tapering near the top reminds Dean of an ice cream cone.
"When keepers used lights like these," -- Martin motions to the lens -- "sure, lights could go out. They used oil lamps in those days, a bit more unpredictable than the electric spotlights used now."
How something like an oil lamp could project bright light almost equivalent to the electric lights could only be explained by the rings cut out around the center; the sunlight streaming in was magnified, giving the impression of a sunny day instead of the eve before a storm.
A giant eye watching their every move.
Dean turns his back to the lens -- honestly, it's starting to freak him out as much as Martin's side-glances -- and tries to give the impression that he's really listening.
"There's nothing wrong with that lighthouse," Martin says a bit strongly, like Dean's insulted his favorite food or preferences on cars. "The light runs off electricity now, not a lamp. Has its own generator if the power goes out. Believing the light went out was Ruth Chillins' mistake, not the lighthouses'."
While Dean may sometimes attribute problems with his car to the actual car and not poor maintenance and constant driving, he never spoke of it with such fever; Martin's eyes sparkled when he gave the lighthouse the ability to make or not make mistakes, as if the lighthouse itself could control the light it cast. If Martin made a move to pet the lens, Dean was out of there -- there was only so much crazy he could tolerate in one afternoon.
"What about her husband?" he asks quickly.
"Sometimes," Martin smiled widely, "a lighthouse doesn't need a keeper."
--
The historical society's archives were on the second floor, past a few small offices. For something so celebrated by the association, Sam found it small, yellow, and musty; research libraries back at Stanford were grand affairs, with high, artistic ceilings and room to spread out.
Here he feels cramped, constricted, and wonders why everything's compared to those years of normality instead of all those spent in libraries before.
Maybe because normal people come here to research normal things -- no thoughts of haunted buildings and the ghost of a little boy haunting their dreams. No. To them, their research is a hobby, a quest, and at the end of the day, they close the book, put down the pen, and go to sleep. Sometimes, they may dream of their subject. Most of the time, they don't.
His entrance perks the attention of the solitary research librarian working the day shift when everyone else is at home getting ready to face the storm. She stands behind her only sign of authority, a pale beige counter, and smiles warmly at him.
"Can I help you?" she asks.
Sam smiles back in kind, and lays his hands flat on the counter. "I'm looking for records on Sconset Light between 1850 and 1860." He's done this so many times before, the words come like second nature before he even has a chance to charm her as Dean would.
But she doesn't need charming. Instead of revolting against the lack of pleasantries from his end, she nods and sits back down behind the counter and enters something into an unseen computer. It takes a moment; Sam lets his eyes wander over the book stacks he can see, filled with journals and manuscripts so old the pages have yellowed against the library's every precaution.
"Sure. It'll just take a moment. If you could..." She holds out those white gloves he's used to -- anti-static, clean, disinfected -- that keep skin oils off the pages. He's worn them only once before, when doing some side-research on a practice case for a senior-level class. When instinct took over and he found himself reading between the lines instead of on them, seeing dark deeds where others only saw guilt.
He found inconsistencies he'd seen before from the windows of a speeding car, through the eyes of an unhappy child. Things he'd vowed to forget, to get away from, to disconnect himself from.
When he re-found them, the dreams began again.
Lost in his thoughts, Sam doesn't hear the librarian approach with an armful of ledgers. Only when she puts them down on the desk and waves a piece of paper in front of his face does his snap back, and chides himself for letting down his guard for a moment.
"Just tell me when you're finished." The librarian walks off, rounds the edge of the counter, and disappears behind it.
Alone, Sam sits at the table and looks over the reference paper she handed him. It lists the different documents and excerpts that match the information he's looking for. Page numbers lead him through the stack of thin journals and records; he tosses a few aside after a quick skim, spends more time with others.
It's interesting work, at least to him, and he sucks up all the information he can as he goes from one book to another. A few are ledgers filled with articles from the paper at the time or official records. He picks through two personal journals -- Sam spends as little time with them as possible, uneasy with being a voyeur into the thoughts of the dead -- and ends up looking over an official report from the Coast Guard.
A small notebook dug out of his pocket collects notes in a hasty scrawl before he closes the book, takes off the gloves, and gives them back to the librarian.
"Thanks. I really appreciate it."
He's halfway out the door before the librarian reminds him of the usage fee for non-association members. He digs the cash out of his pocket, a messy crushed blob that would have never done six months or so ago, and gives a tight smile in apology.
The hallway outside gives him a moderate level of privacy, and that's the best he can do with the excitement bubbling inside him.
He dials his brother and doesn't even wait for Dean to say a word before launching into the conversation. "I found an old report from the Coast Guard. They investigated one of the first keepers on charges of neglect. Get this -- a ship crashed on the break waves the night of a huge storm because the light went out."
"Whoah, slow down," Dean's voice comes through like they're talking with cans and string instead of cell phones. "Give me a sec. Yeah, thanks." -- he shouts to someone else -- "Geeze, crazy comes in all sizes. Okay, Sam, keep going."
Sam takes a moment to ponder Dean's muttering, but keeps going. "They ended up removing him as keeper and had a new one appointed."
"For what? Skippin' out?"
"The ship crashed, half the men died, the other half were victims of red tide," he says as explanation. "According to his story, the keeper was in the fog bell house ringing the bell, hoping that would help the ship. There's no way he could see the light from in there. The investigator didn't believe him, though, which is why he was fired."
"So we have two cases of the keeper skipping out on the job and claming the light went out when they couldn't see it." There's a rumble from Dean's end; he's in the car and just started the engine.
"I think it did," Sam says. There's no reason for it, just a feeling, and the hallway's chilly for a moment. He pulls his sweatshirt tighter around his shoulders. "There's reference to a missing woman around the same time, but there's no evidence."
"Since when do we need evidence?" Dean replies. "I'm coming to get you. We should get a look out there before the storm hits."
"Why?"
"Orientation. Don't want to accidentally fall off that cliff, now do we?"
He should tell Dean this is all a crazy idea, that going out in a huge storm on a hunch no one else believes isn't the best way to go. But then he remembers this was all his idea, and that if they hadn't stopped, if he had just closed his eyes after leaving Angela's, they'd be back in the Midwest by now.
Sam sighs. Sometimes, it's hard to tell his brother they're going about this without enough information. Other times, he's settled in to let Dean make his own mistakes.
--
"Has anyone ever told you what a pick-me-up you are?" Dean smirks. "Seriously, Sam, you think too much." He grabs a shotgun and a flashlight, tosses a flashlight to Sam, and slams the trunk closed.
"Yeah," Sam comments, following his brother up the slight hill to the door of the lighthouse, "and sometimes you don't think enough."
Angela Browning launches up in her chair, not remembering falling asleep in the golden-pink sun of dusk. The chair rocks forward a bit, and she throws a hand to her chest, heart beating fast under her palm. A light breeze tosses what hair has escaped her pony-tail; she focuses on the trees across from her house and notes a chill. Alex has gone inside, leaving her alone on the front porch.
Alone to dream and sleep and wake up in a cold sweat.
She hasn't seen something this vivid for awhile, but attributes that to their close connection; they're still on the island, were just here, and she can feel there will be trouble. Part of her wishes to go back to sleep to see more, to learn what she can, but Angela's wide awake now.
Alex peeks out the screen door, all smiles as he checks to see if she's still asleep, then frowns when he catches sight of his wife.
"Angela?" he says, stepping out onto the porch.
She takes a deep breath and turns to meet Alex's eyes. "Oh, Alex. The boys are in trouble."
"Did they call?" Alex asks. His concern's a bit forced -- Angela can tell these things from years of marriage -- but there's something there. Hope, perhaps, that they could all just get along.
Angela shakes her head slowly enough for Alex to grasp what she means.
"No. No, that isn't true -- "
"How can you deny it?" Angela roars. "Robert wouldn't be alive if it wasn't true."
"That was just a lucky coincidence, and you know it."
"No, you believe that. But I remember what happened. There is such thing as psychic abilities -- "
"Angela!" Alex interrupts.
But Angela isn't going to take it this time. Isn't going to let him talk her out of believing what she dreams and sees and feels. The boys were only there for a few days, but she feels such a connection, such understanding there, she can't help but be worried.
"They're staying at Angelo's," she says from a far distance. "Please, please find them."
"This is insane."
Angela stands. "Humor me. No more talk about all this if they're there and safe."
"Fine." Alex knows a good deal when he hears one, and steps inside the screen door to fetch his keys. "But they're going to be there. Just you wait."
Angela nods, but knows they aren't Knows they're off somewhere else in the face of danger, and there's nothing she can do about it.
Yet.
--
Dean has the door unlocked by the time Sam catches up to him, and Dean has to wait for a second for his brother to catch up. The base of the tower's dark and grey with smudges of red where brick shows through age. A generator sits under the staircase as it spirals up, up, up 85 feet where it disappears in a steady wash of white.
"Great," he mutters, eyes twisting with the staircase.
"Don't tell me you're scared of heights, too," Sam quips from behind him. His beam intersects with Dean's to make a cross on the wall.
"I'm not scared of anything," Dean ascertains, but his eyes are wide and still looking up the staircase.
"What was that plane thing all about?"
"Healthy avoidance." Sam's all but pushing him towards the stairs, and he takes one last look up before focusing solely on his feet.
"And you're the one who wanted to come here not only tonight, but in the storm."
Don't concede. Just take each step one at a time, one foot in front of another, flashlight held in front of you. There's no railing -- the staircase is as old as the tower -- and he resists the urge to look over the side. Falling from heights of any kind, wither in a plane or off the side of a spiral staircase is something you can't shoot with a gun or avoid with a charm. He can't defeat it with something solid from the trunk of his car.
But if he were scared, Sammy would have been scared. Of the dark, of monsters, of guns or weapons. Fear, John Winchester said, clouds the emotions and causes mistakes.
So Dean doesn't show any fear, just tightens his grip on the flashlight with slick fingers and keeps climbing.
"Shit, this is a lot of steps," he huffs after five more minutes. Neither of them is out of shape, just impatient. The top should be closer, more accessible.
The ground is a dizzyingly far distance below; just leaning the small distance to check is a little too far, and Dean falls back against the wall. Closes his eyes and takes a deep breath.
"Are you seriously scared?" Sam asks from behind him. There's laughter in his voice Dean doesn't appreciate; he pushes off and continues up the stairs without a word. "I can go up myself; you can -- "
"I'm not a baby," Dean bites out.
"I'll catch you if you fall." Behind him, Sam holds out his hand like a gymnast's spotter, a grin plastered on his face. Dean throws him a growl and continues to climb; Sam's the one who needs a safety net, not Dean, and while he appreciates the gesture, it doesn't feel right.
He quickens his steps, striving to reach that brightness crowning them faster. For a moment, he thinks of all the ghosts and spirits he's encountered, all the books he's read on the topic, and feels reality slip away under his feet. The stairs are ferrying them towards the white light. Dean pushes the connotations from his mind, putting it back on the task at hand and not the symbolic meaning to their climb.
--
Sam knew there was something wrong with their plan, something off about going to a lighthouse and climbing to the top. When they reach it, and they do quickly, he's blinded for a second like he was in the graveyard a few days earlier, fumbling around it that giant whiteness that wraps around him like a warm blanket.
Something stumbles into him, knocking him into the glass housing the electric light. It's cold and unforgiving as it pushes him back; he fumbles for a moment before a hand grabs onto his arm pulling him back.
"Geeze, Sammy, close your eyes." Dean's voice is low and harsh in his ear, almost a growl, but he does as his brother says and closes his eyes. The hand pulls at him, up, out, around, until he can feel the cool breeze off the ocean play across his features.
Gingerly, he takes a peek.
They're standing on the platform running around the glass house facing out towards the roll of the hill as it makes its way down into the small village that once thrived but now sits as a pale imitation of itself. Cottages sit empty and lifeless, dots of black where lights should be among those who still live there, on those narrow streets, keeping immaculate gardens like beauty itself will bright people back. The ocean roars to his left, but he doesn't turn to see it. Just looks out and waits for his vision to return in blotches here and there.
"For a college graduate," Dean remarks from his side, "you sure are stupid. It's a lighthouse, Sam. There's a big light at the top that goes round and round?"
"And let me guess," still-half-blind Sam replies, looking vaguely in the direction he thinks Dean's standing. "You came prepared?"
Dean must be giving him a look that speaks volumes, but he just sees a blurry shape to his right.
Each time the light revolves, Sam feels the heat against his back, then the cooling effect of the ocean wind. He times it as his vision comes back, seven seconds, and after a minute he can see again.
When he can, he finds Dean sitting on the edge of the platform, feet sticking out through the bottom rung of the railing. He leans a bit, measures the room between the platform floor and the first rung with his arms, then crouches and does the same with the next two rungs.
He stands. "An average woman's, what, 5'3?" Dean leans over the edge, hands gripping the railing.
"Yeah, maybe taller."
"This is a four foot railing," Dean points out.
"That's too high for someone that short to lose their balance."
"Yeah."
If he scoots around the railing right, he can face the ocean, then look down on that solitary swing set and the remnants of a merry-go-round. Something catches at the edge of his vision, and as soon as he turns his head to see what it is, that's when things go fuzzy.
They clear again, but the railing's not as tall, and the light doesn't feel hot against his back anymore. Just a tingling of warmth creeping up the back of his legs every so often.
Then again, that's not what he's worried about.
He's facing the same direction, but that little village he felt sorry for before is large and thriving, a bright blimp on the map of the countryside he's looking at. The cliff, which should extend from his left doesn't. Instead, the hill reaches out towards the sea and slopes down into the beach that snakes past the houses and disappears behind them.
Light shoots out behind him, pale yellow and less intense like sunlight on an early spring afternoon. He silently prays in his head, please no, let this all be a dream, but he turns around and shields his eyes and there it is.
Eight oil lamps sit inside a massive Fresnel lens imported from France. Encased inside a room of glass sodered together with thick beads of lead, the glass lens constructed from numerous pieces rotates around the lamps inside, casting a beam of light fourteen miles far -- almost ten less than the modern light he'd expected to see.
Sharp slivers round each side of the lens, making it a huge rotating eye with several sides. The light-casting side comes towards him again, and Sam turns quickly to avoid being blinded again. A thick, powerful gust of wind comes in from the ocean, almost knocking him to his feet. Sam grabs the railing for support and waits for the light.
And waits.
The absence of the light clears his mind a bit, and he can feel the sting of ice cold rain on his face. It burns as it touches his skin, little pin pricks in his cheeks. In the distance, a fog horn blasts.
A shiver runs down his spine in response to the cold. "It went out," he mutters, able to look at the now dark and dormant light, a black hole sucking in all the ambient light it can find. Lost without illumination, Sam finds the darkness is wrapping itself around him. It's lonely and cold and nothing like the white blanket he's been pulling around him for the last week or so; it suffocates as it wraps his lanky frame, drowning him like the ocean, except here there's no water.
Just the haunting darkness.
--
Sam's back was to him, looking at something near the swing set, so Dean sets his eyes on the ground below, marveling at how small his car looks from so high up. A black ant shining in the moonlight -- though ant isn't the most romantic comparison he can make, but it'll do. He smirks; that high-gloss shine looks damn fine from here, and that light it catches just validates all his hard work.
He turns to make a comment to Sam, but he's so far off in the Psychic Friends Network that Dean growls and decides to wait until he's sure he has his brother's complete attention to say something.
When he looks back to admire his car again, it's gone.
"Shit!" he swears. Creatures of the night have messed with his car way too many times, and Dean tears off down the stairs hoping to get there before anything can scratch his beloved paint job -- not to forget cut them off from any way to get back to town. The village isn't far -- maybe an hour or two walking, but there's not much there and any accommodations would surely take up the rest of their money.
The stairs feel endless. Dean tempts fate and takes a look over the edge to see how far he has to go, and the tower elongates, grows upwards, and he runs faster down the steps. The focal length shifts, it grows longer, he runs faster, and suddenly it's not about finding his car, just getting to the bottom.
Dean glances up, breath coming out in short, quick gasps. The top's just as far as the bottom; he has half a mind to run back up and retrieve Sam, but fears he'll never get there.
So he strives for the bottom.
His heart's beating fast now, the sound of blood pumping the only sound in his ears. It rushes like a drowning wind, white noise blocking out even the sounds of his feet pounding down on the ancient brick steps.
Running, running, just trying to get out.
Dean hates being out of control, hates not being able to see what he's up against, hates not knowing what can take it out, make it go away, leave him in peace. Flailing in the dark is something he's not particularly glad about, but he doesn't have long to get angry.
Then he's falling, falling in the dark, headlong into God know's what.