This is set some time in the first season, pre-Provenance and post-Bloody Mary.
Learning to Let Go
Chapter 1
Tallie Ovington trailed after her father up the wide extravagant staircase of their enormous home. His long, thin back was bent, and he was crying. All through the ceremony, he had cried, and he refused to look at or speak to her. She didn't understand why he was so unhappy. Everybody had been unhappy, all day, for some reason, and they kept trying to comfort Tallie as though they thought that she, too, should be miserable. She had told them that she was fine, and they had smiled at her tearfully and nodded. 'Good for you, kid… she's taking this very well, considering,' they would add, turning to their neighbours, 'brave child.'
In fact, Tallie was more contented than she could remember being in a very long time.
The house was too big for two people – cold and echoing. In the daytime, of course, there were others. Mr Roberts, who answered the door and spent the rest of the time polishing things with a sour look on his face, and Mrs King, who did the cooking, and always had a cupcake for Tallie when she strayed into the kitchen. Various nameless Hispanic girls who did the cleaning. Tallie didn't know where they went at night; it had never occurred to her that they must sleep somewhere.
In the vague years which Tallie could barely remember, while her mother had been alive, the house had seemed smaller – strangely, as Tallie herself had been a lot smaller back then. But in those days, the house hadn't been cold and empty, but warm and cosy, bubbling with laughter and music.
Since then it had been quite a frightening place on some occasions, but it had never ceased to be home, and tonight, the house, for all its far-off corners and ringing silence, was not remotely threatening or uncomfortable. It was truly her own home tonight, and she no longer had anything to fear from it.
Daddy turned into his room without speaking to her, but it didn't really bother Tallie as it would have done on another night. She wasn't afraid any more: she had an overwhelming feeling that, now, everything would be alright.
She slipped into her own room and pulled off the dress she and Mrs King had bought for today. She liked the dress, but she wished she had been allowed to buy the blue one, instead of the black. Black was boring.
Curled up under the covers, warm and secure, Tallie drew her blanket up to her chin, basking in her comfortable bed and safe, beautiful home. The sound of her father sobbing down the hall was welcome in comparison to the usual sound of him chatting softly with his wife. Tallie didn't want Daddy to be unhappy, not really, but it was better that he was alone and unhappy than happy and with her.
The quiet house was disturbed by a rattling sound. Tallie frowned around the room in search of the sound's source, but it wasn't obvious, so she slumped happily back into her pillows. It wasn't such a bad noise, really. She could ignore it.
The noise grew more insistent, louder. She sat up again, irritated, and very slightly anxious. She could go get Daddy. But something told her that he didn't want to be disturbed tonight. She got up uncertainly and tip toed across the carpet. Her dressing table was shaking with increasing violence, trembling so hard that her possessions were jigging up and down on its surface. The rattling produced had become still louder, and now it filled the room. The mirror, propped against the wall at the back of the table, tossed itself forwards, so that Tallie saw her own image somersault towards her before the mirror shattered at her feet. She leapt back with a loud yelp.
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Mrs Lucinda King woke up. She sat for several minutes, wondering what had startled her out of her slumber. Somewhere in the great house, something broke. It was amazing, she reflected, how sound carried through these high-ceilinged hallways. Sighing, she rolled out of bed, cursing her protesting joints. I'm too old to be woken at this hour.
She wandered through the modest rooms of her pretty little suite on the ground floor, at the back of the house. The servants' quarters, naturally. The house had been built in the style of the extravagant homes of the aristocracy in ancient England. Mrs King wasn't worried by the idea of a class divide implied by living in the back rooms of her employer's house. Here, there was no class divide, only wealth, and the life of a housekeeper suited her well. She was a widow, and the company of polite, reclusive George Ovington and his lively little princess Tallie kept Mrs King from a lonely existence.
Upstairs, a crash and a yelp. Definitely upstairs this time. Tallie. Mrs King hurried out into the cavernous hallway, her footsteps loud on the polished floor, echoing off the walls, which were decorated with an impressive collection of swords, shields and armour, imported at great expense by Ovington. He was proud of his roots, which he could apparently trace back to the romantic swashbuckling age of medieval England.
The stairs were one of the house's most striking features. Twin staircases curved gracefully round from a single elegant balcony. Tallie loved the stairs; they reminded her of the ones in Disney's Beauty and the Beast. They made her feel every inch the princess.
Mrs King hastened up the right hand staircase towards the source of the disturbance, limping slightly as an old injury to her hip began to ache. The aching was always worse in the evenings, especially when it was cold. It was particularly cold tonight, she noticed suddenly, rubbing at goose bumps on her arms.
Finally, she reached the balcony, and paused for a minute, leaning against the ornate rail to get her breath back. She shivered: it really was cold. In fact, she could see her breath as pearly mist in the air every time she exhaled. Breathing hard after the exertion of climbing the stairs – I really am getting old – she built up quite a haze of white droplets in the space in front of her.
When the fog fell away, Mrs King noticed with a shock that she was not alone on the balcony. A figure stood watching her with cold eyes. Mrs King leapt backwards with a shaky cry. This was impossible. Ridiculous.
I must be going senile, she thought, her heart hammering painfully against the inside of her ribcage.
'Is he sorry?' the figure demanded fiercely.
'I… what?' Mrs King asked weakly, backing away until the backs of her thighs met the rail of the balcony.
'Is he sorry?' it repeated.
'I… I…'
Mrs King was at a loss for words. It suddenly occurred to her that she must be dreaming. Of course. She relaxed, and felt herself tip backwards, giving in easily to the slight pressure of the figure's hand against her shoulder. Like many dreams, it ended with a sensation of falling through empty space. Except, on impact, she didn't wake.
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Dean Winchester rolled over and opened his eyes reluctantly, squinting against the glaring sunlight from the window, far too bright for so early in the morning. He rubbed a hand across his face, and eventually sat up, stretching, his eyes still only half open.
'Sam? You awake?' he asked, the words almost lost in a huge yawn.
'Yup,' replied a bright voice from the table.
Yes, of course you're awake. What is it, just after 5am? Late, for you…
Dean's eyes woke up enough for him to regard his brother critically. He didn't look tired; he looked irritatingly alert and competent. But Dean knew that waking up that early in the morning couldn't be healthy, whether the cause was a nightmare or just a screwed up internal clock.
'Hope I didn't wake you,' Sam mumbled, with only a hint of apology in his voice.
Dean shrugged. 'Nah, don't think so…' He stood up sleepily and headed into the bathroom.
About half an hour later, dressed and comparatively attentive, Dean sat down opposite his brother.
'You found anything?' he asked. They had been inactive for almost a week, and Dean was getting bored and impatient. Nothing had happened, anywhere, which seemed strange enough for them to justify checking it out. It wasn't for lack of trying, though: they had trawled through every newspaper and website available: nothing. At this point, Dean was about ready to fly to Scotland and investigate the Lock Ness monster. Well, maybe not to fly there…
'I don't know… There's a guy convinced his wall talks to him at night… somebody else says her barn is haunted by the ghost of her dead horse… some old lady fell down some stairs in New York,' Sam offered lamely, shrugging his shoulders.
Dean scowled in disappointment, unimpressed by these events. 'An old lady fell down the stairs? When did that become breaking news?'
Sam pulled up the article. 'Well, technically, she fell off a balcony next to some stairs'. He had only scanned the article, not really expecting it to describe supernatural events when the headline was so mundane: 'Local woman dies after slipping on stairs.' Couldn't the journalist think of anything more…inspiring? Sam wondered.
Dean leaned forward to read. Stair demon? It'll do… nearer than Nessie…After a few moments, he was examining the text more thoroughly. It might just be his boredom, but he was beginning to think that it might be worth checking out after all, despite the unremarkable headline.
'Hey Sam? Did you notice she's the second person to die falling off that balcony in a week and a half?'
Sam hadn't noticed, but he was familiar with Dean's restless mood, and he wasn't keen on the idea of driving halfway across the country to investigate somebody's slippery floor and insubstantial railing. 'So these people need to be more careful when climbing the stairs. Dean, we're not going to New York because some old lady fell down the stairs. It's a waste of gas.'
'Two people, Sam. In the exact same place… and, look,' he added, indicating a photograph inset in the text of the article. 'It's a creepy-ass old house. It must have a spook of some kind.'
Sam screwed up his forehead, frowning hard as he tried to puzzle some sense out of his brother's illogical logic.
'And, this woman died the night the first victim was buried... that's the start of a pattern…'
'And you're not just bored, and clutching at straws?' Sam asked critically.
'Of course not, why'd you think that?' Dean asked, with a wide, innocent smile. Sam scowled. 'Alright, look, we'll just head in that direction… if you can find something better before we arrive, we'll change direction. But it can't hurt to look.'
Sam rolled his eyes. Fine. Stair demon it is.
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The Impala rolled to a stop on the road outside the house. Sam squinted out through the blurry veil of rain to see the imposing grey building, with its wide steps up to a massive front door. Dean had a point: it did look like a haunted house, with its pointed arches over the windows and old, dark stone walls. It was the kind of house which was barely complete without a ghost, and for all its splendour, Sam wondered why anyone would want to live in such a creepy building. He turned, sighing, to Dean.
'Well, we're here now, might as well check it out,' he said, in a long-suffering tone which implied clearly that he still thought it was a waste of time, and was kindly indulging his brother's childish whim. Dean picked up on this, and scowled.
'You won't be so pleased with yourself when it turns out I'm right,' he replied, grinning.
Sam rolled his eyes. 'Let's go.'
The downpour outside was so powerful that the brothers were soaked to their skin by the time they had reached the doorway. Dean knocked loudly, and they waited, getting wetter by the second. After a short while, they knocked again.
'Maybe they're out,' Sam yelled over the roar of ten thousand raindrops splashing onto the gravel.
'Maybe it takes a while to get to the door in a house that size,' Dean countered, raising his fist to pound on the black-painted wood one last time, then narrowly missing somebody's nose as the door finally swung inwards.
'Good morning,' the thin man greeted them stiffly. 'I don't think Mr Ovington wants to see anyone today, but if you leave your name, he will get back to you,' he added, with an air of authority which irritated Dean.
'I'm sorry, but it's important that we talk to him immediately,' he said smoothly, producing a state police ID. He brushed the raindrops off his eyelashes in order to see the look on the man's face.
'What interest does the state police have here?' asked the butler, raising a critical eyebrow, still holding the door half closed, leaving the brothers no option but to stand in the rain until he was satisfied.
'There have been a series of accidents in this house, we just want to make sure it doesn't happen again,' Dean replied, his voice harsher now with impatience. 'Excuse me, sir,' he added, finally running out of tolerance and pushing past the butler into the dimly lit hallway. Sam followed obediently. 'Now, if you could find Mr Ovington for us, we can get this sorted out,' Dean addressed the butler, staring him down as though daring him to argue any further. The butler gave him a sour look, but eventually turned, and climbed the impressive staircase with slow, deliberate steps.
Rainwater ran in streams off the brothers' clothes, pooling on the shiny stone floor around their feet. They conversed in whispers as they waited, but their voices still sounded loud in the cavernous hall.
'I don't believe we came all this way because two women fell down the stairs,' Sam grumbled; apparently his mood hadn't been improved by standing in the rain.
'Maybe it's not supernatural at all, maybe he pushed them,' Dean suggested, waving a hand at the retreating back of the offending butler.
'Maybe he'll push you next,' Sam muttered back.
'Well, you're in a charming mood today, Sammy,' Dean replied, raising his eyebrows.
'You're all wet,' a helpful voice pointed out from behind them.
Dean spun round. A girl had crept up on them, and was regarding them seriously from the doorway. She was as tall as his waist, maybe about seven or eight years old, with fine hair of a dark, muddy brown colour, and huge, bright eyes. He looked down at himself in mock surprise.
'Oh, you're right,' he grinned. 'How did that happen?'
She giggled, tiptoeing closer. 'It's raining, silly. Who are you?'
Dean told her. 'We're policemen, we're here about things that have been happening in this house.'
'Like Mrs King? I wish she wasn't dead,' the girl mumbled, frowning, looking down at the floor.
Dean crouched down in front of her so that their eyes were on the same level. 'I'm very sorry. We want to make sure it doesn't happen to anyone else.'
'I didn't want it to happen to anyone else,' she told him earnestly, her wide eyes staring into his with panic.
'Hey, it's ok. What do you mean?'
'She fell. Last week, I remember. But I didn't want it to happen to Mrs King. She was nice.' The girl's face crumpled, and a silvery tear slipped out of her eye. Dean put a hand on her shoulder gently.
'It's ok.' Curious, but unwilling to push it any further, Dean changed the subject. 'What's your name?' he asked. 'Do you live here?'
'Yes,' she replied, brightening. 'I'm Tallie.'
'Dean Winchester. My brother, Sam,' he told her, waving an arm to indicate his brother, who was standing behind him, frowning thoughtfully.
'Dean…' she repeated, trying out the sound of the name. 'Will you make sure no one else falls? I don't want anyone else to fall.'
'Yes, I will,' he promised.
'Mr Ovington will see you now,' called a stiff voice from the balcony between the two staircases. Dean squeezed Tallie's shoulder and turned away to follow Sam up the stairs.
TBC...
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Reviews will be much appreciated. And they'll help me put up the second chapter quicker!