AN: More exposition! (Pretend to be excited, okay?) It's so fun to write just the guys together, and at these ages. They seem to innocent without all of the stuff they endure later in life!

We're back to Sam's POV.

I don't own Supernatural or its characters.

Janice, as usual, is my beta and partner in crime.

* * *

It was not nothing. Sam had known it, Dean had definitely suspected it. There was a giddiness in the discovery, a childish I figured it out before anybody else – even Dad in fact. There was also the familiar and unwelcome worry about an imminent hunt. That was what this had to be. There was just too much evidence for it to be otherwise.

The burr of thrill and fear faded a little when Sam considered what would happen next. He still didn't have a solid sense of what this could be. Would Dad send them away from the school and the AP classes? Sam couldn't let that happen. He chewed his lip and tried to look out the window. Dean had braved the icy temperatures and needle-like rain that froze as soon as it hit the road or the side of a building. He'd been gone for a couple hours now, but Sam wasn't worried. Dean was likely stopping a few places and taking a look around, talking to people and getting caught up on the town gossip. His boss had called earlier and told him that it was too nasty out to drive and to just stay home until Monday, but that wouldn't deter a Winchester. Sam did hope he'd come back with something hot to eat though. They had ramen, peanut butter, bread, milk, and cold cereal, but not much else.

On cue, the door swung open and Dean bustled in, using his heel to slam it behind him. "Tell me you found us a hunt in Florida," he groaned, shaking ice and water out of his hair. "Cuz I'm completely done with Massachusetts. I thought, hey, it's not like we'll be in Minnesota or Maine or anything. Maybe all states that start with m have crappy weather." He set down a handful of bags on the table and toed off his boots. Sam winced in sympathy at the bluish-white color of Dean's hands but didn't bother to point out that he should have worn his gloves. Nobody took advice from a 15-year-old, especially not his older brother, and even more especially not when that brother was Dean Winchester.

Sam took Dean's coat and hung it near the heater in the corner, carefully stepping around any of the little puddles left from Dean's entry. He hated wet feet.

He intended to tell Dean what he'd found out but was highly distracted by the smell coming from a couple of the bags. "You found Mexican food?" he asked delightedly. It didn't bother either of them that it was technically still breakfast or brunch time. They just ate what they liked whenever they got hungry. Sam put on a pot of coffee. He figured Dean could use the warmth.

"Taco Bell. Dude, gorditas!"

Sam groaned in appreciation. "That makes you my favorite brother."

Dean snorted as he crouched in front of the heater and held his hands out to catch its heat. "I'm eatin' in here. Grab it, wouldja?"

He was shivering, so Sam didn't even complain about the order. He took a second to peek in the grocery bags, relieved to see things like mac 'n' cheese, chicken strips, eggs, and apples. He hadn't been sure how much money was left after Dean had bought him clothes the day before.

They ate their food and drank their coffee in companionable silence in the dinky living room. It had a lot of windows, which normally made Sam feel kind of exposed, but now they were all layered in enough ice that the room was dim even in late morning.

Sam had finished eating and was starting to nose through the groceries when Dean held up the slim, age-darkened book that held all of Sam's new discoveries. "What's this? I didn't see you get this one from the library."

Sam bit his lip and knew he was blushing. "Uh, yeah. That's from the rare book room. Closet, really. Ms. Cordona showed it to me when I asked for anything she had on local history. And, uh, you aren't really allowed to touch anything in there, but…"

"But you stole it?" Dean smirked.

"I didn't steal it!" Sam was aghast. The book was a valuable piece of North Adams. "I'm going to return it when I'm done."

Dean laughed and took the eggs out of his hand to slide into the avocado green fridge. "So, what? You waited until her back was turned and picked the lock?"

"Stole her keys and got it out when she went to use the bathroom," Sam corrected tonelessly, blushing harder. "And put the keys on the desk so she'd think she just set 'em down." He leaned forward earnestly as he handed over a block of government cheese. "But, Dean, this book, I have to tell you what I found out!"

Dean snickered. "Good job, squirt. So what's so special about the little book?"

Sam had known that Dean wouldn't have any problem with his theft –borrowing– and more, wouldn't understand why Sam did. He could practically hear Dean's bewildered "it's just a book," so he didn't bother to try to explain that he felt sick and squirmy and off when he broke the law, especially when it involved someone like Ms. Cordona who'd been kind to him.

So Sam just glared back. "Keep up with the squirt and I'll call you shrimp for the rest of your life once I get taller than you." Dean's response involved a single finger. "But, anyway, this book. Remember Albert Houghton? His daughter Florence and her family moved into the house with Albert's wife after the car accident."

Sam could see Dean remembering what they'd learned about the Houghton Mansion and its original owners. Sam took a breath and made himself slow down a little. "Florence wrote a lot of letters. In the 50's, her granddaughter collected all of them she could find, most written to Florence's sister and husband, and published them as a book." Sam picked up the slim volume and waved it as a visual aid. "Somebody immediately offered to pay to have it professionally edited and published and had all of the first editions pulled from the shelves. The new version was the only one circulated. Except the library had kept one of the copies of the original that they'd been given."

Dean closed the fridge, finished. He had his aha face on. "Somebody didn't want all of it out there, huh? Who was that somebody?"

"Nobody seems to know," Sam had to admit. "I thought we should find out what they wanted left out, then maybe we could figure out who did it and why. I've been comparing the old version to the newer one all morning."

"Lay it on me." Dean tossed Sam an apple. As usual, he'd noticed Sam eyeing them. "I'll jot it down for the wall."

"Alright." Sam leaned against the little counter as Dean sat at the wobbly table. "There's a whole letter where Florence explains about the family leaving Vermont. She was about my age at the time. Her dad was really successful and even in the state legislature. But they got a visit from his maternal uncle he didn't even know and suddenly they packed up and moved to what she called 'north nowhere' cuz it was hardly even a town at that point. The description of the uncle is really interesting. She said he was old and consumptive and obviously dying, but had an eerie way about him. She says all of the servants were afraid of him and whispered that he had the 'evil eye' and was a devil-worshiper. Florence herself was more weirded out by the uncle's assistant, James Widders."

Dean paused in his writing. "Widders?"

"Yeah, just like the chauffeur who killed himself after getting in an accident that killed the old man, even though it was determined that he wasn't at fault. That was this dude's, James', grandson. Florence talked about that later, laughing at herself for being afraid of James. Apparently the Widders family had served Albert's mom's family for generations."

Sam paused to take a bite and let Dean decide what, if anything, to write about that.

"Why didn't Flo like James?"

Sam opened the book to get a direct quote. "He was always within arm's reach of the uncle and just sort of silently watched everyone. When she talked about John Widders later, she called him her dad's valet and said he pretty much did the same thing – always stayed at his side. She also said that she never saw him without his 'beautiful, pearl-handled pistol,' even in the house."

"Sounds more like a bodyguard than a chauffeur or valet," said Dean incisively. "Huh. Yeah. Think they just needed bodyguards because they were rich?" Sam wondered.

Dean shook his head. "Maybe. Except it why didn't he have protection for the rest of the family too? Alright, keep going. Tell me what you know about the car accident. If Al needed a bodyguard, maybe the accident wasn't exactly accidental."

Sam's eyes widened. He was once again impressed at his brother's ability to evaluate a situation – and so fast. "Huh." He picked up a different book, a simple biography of Albert. He quickly found what he needed and skimmed it. "Um. The road was under construction. There was a wagon parked on the right, and John Widders went to pass it on the left. The outer edge of the road crumbled away, and the car rolled down an embankment. I guess it was amazing that anybody survived."

Dean tapped the pen against his teeth, then wrote down accident possibly set up.

Sam stood up straighter trying not to wiggle like a puppy. They'd reached the next portion that he'd found so interesting. "So...so…" Dammit, he was stuttering and Dean was smiling at him fondly. "Albert didn't die right after the accident. And Florence wrote to her sister every day to tell her all about what was going on. And all of those letters were taken out of the new book.

"Albert kept raving and they couldn't keep him calm at all. He kept saying 'it' had to be 'moved off the line' and talking about auspicious days and calling for Widders, not knowing he'd blown his brains out in the barn, of course. And –"

"Breathe, Sammy." Dean laughed a little. "What else do we know about the raving?"

Sam flipped open the book yet again, though he really didn't need to. "She said that some of it sounded like a language she'd never heard, and she spoke French and German fluently. Here it is: 'not any language I've heard, harsher than most, perhaps a Slavic language. Simply hearing it makes me feel unsettled and uneasy. I have come to insist that I only tend to Father now to spare Mother from seeing him so. Also, I fear superstitious servants would whisper vom Teufel besessen. When he does speak English, he still insists that 'it' must be moved 'off the line.' Once it seemed he might gain some coherency, so I asked him what 'it' was and where it must go, for it seems unlikely that he will survive his injuries, and it seems the only thing of import to him. He stared at me with wild eyes and, dear Susan, he seemed as a stranger. 'Mausert maybe,' he said, then fell insensible, as he is wont. The word meant nothing to me, but my William says it is a building Father purchased just days ago in Adams. Would that I could reassure Father that we have followed his wishes, but I have still been unable to fathom what 'it' could possibly be.'"

Sam stopped, a little breathless, and followed Dean's line of sight. His brother was staring at the picture in the newspaper of the Houghton House with its broken wall.

"An unknown language, huh? Maybe it was gibberish, but it sounds like Flo was no dummy. And auspicious probably means auspices." Dean sighed deeply and with clear distaste. "It could be something witchy."

"Or he could've actually been possessed," Sam added reluctantly. He'd recognized Florence's German phrase as meaning possessed by a devil. Demons were extremely rare but he was pretty sure they couldn't rule it out entirely. And if they thought that was a real possibility, things had just taken a frightening turn.

Dean shrugged and started adding more things to their wall and Sam joined him. Things like "What did Albert mean by "it"?" and "Off what line?" and "Unknown language or just rambling?" They both stared at the whole mess for a moment, then Sam penned auspices under all of his information about the phases of the moon and Dean moved "red lightning" and "sudden change in weather" and after a second's contemplation put "locals apathetic" and "chauffeur/body guard suicide" next to all of it. It took Sam a second to realize that either of the latter could have been potentially caused by a spell and shivered a little. True, powerful witchcraft was almost as rare as actual demon possession, but it did exist and it was more than a little terrifying to contemplate.

"I'm not sure what to do next," Sam admitted as the silence stretched. "Unless it's going back to the library to see if I can learn more about Albert's family on his mom's side and maybe look into this Mausert thing. And see if there's anything about witchcraft around here or something."

"No. We should check out that weird house and get a better look at the way it was damaged," Dean declared, again decisive in a way that Sam so envied. "Everybody swears that the sleet crap is changing over to snow, so that's at least a little better for going out in. But it should still be shitty enough out to keep most people home. Bet we can get inside no problem." He tapped the newspaper picture. "Looks like I can park around the back where nobody'll be able to see Baby from the road. I bet there's no neighbors that way, either, cuz of the way the hill drops off." He walked over to turn on the TV. "But there's something else you need to hear about. Let's see if it's on the news at noon."

They listened to a whole lot of talk about the weather, a few half-hearted headlines about world and national news, then it switched to a miserable-looking reporter in a very bright yellow jacket huddled under an umbrella. "I'm here at historic Peaceful Grove Cemetery," she chirped in a clearly desperate bid to sound perky instead of soaked, miserable, and frozen. "As you probably know, it's the oldest cemetery in the area. Peaceful Grove is known for the picturesque yews that surround it. However, overnight, some of the venerable old trees became unfortunate casualties of the weather. A dozen of the yews, believed to be between 100 and 150 years old, fell. As the species can live upwards of 500 years, it is unlikely that age is the reason so many fell at once. There seems to be no explanation for why, though the sexton says that it is possible that some kind of disease could have weakened them and that tree surgeons will be brought in to evaluate the health of the remaining 30 trees –"

Dean muted her and Sam wanted to mock him for bringing up trees, except that he knew the significance of seemingly small things. "Yew," Sam mused, brainstorming aloud. "That has a lot of different meanings and uses, right? And, um, the number 12. Twelve gods in the Greek pantheon…"

"Twelve months in a year," Dean contributed.

"The twelve battles of King Arthur."

"Twelve hours on the clock."

"Twelfth Night."

"The band?"

Sam rolled his eyes. "No, the Shakespeare play."

"Geek. Twelve inches in a foot."

"Twelve disciples."

"Twelve zodiac signs."

"Twelve people on a jury."

"Twelve days of Christmas."

They both started laughing at the last. Sam went to add the yews to the potential portents or auspices on the wall, but Dean waved at him to stop and listen, as the news had returned to the in-studio anchors, who looked warm, dry, and a little smug.

"...another odd situation caused by the weather," the female reporter was saying. "People who live on the east face of Mount Greylock are reporting that all over the mountain, birds, apparently disoriented by the ice storm, flew into the side of the mountain overnight, some striking homes, vehicles, and trees, and others simply crashing into the ground. Sadly, many birds were killed by these collisions. It seems to have been a singular phenomenon, happening at approximately 3 a.m."

"How odd," answered the male anchor, sounding professionally bored. "Hopefully, it doesn't happen again. Let's go to Andrew to get one more look at the weather."

"Witches' midnight," Dean said, switching off the TV for good. Three a.m. was considered by many an ideal time for performing magic. "Disoriented by the ice? What bull. Birds don't freaking fly at night. And a whole bunch crashing at the same time in the same area?"

Sam added still more to his wall, which was starting to take up an awful lot of space. After some thought, he finished with "birds – augury?" and Dean didn't even make fun of him for remembering the word that indicated birds as omens.

Then Sam just looked at Dean, asking without words for him to make the next decision. It might be getting harder to follow a lot of orders as he got older, but Sam not only trusted Dean beyond measure, there was also the simple fact was he'd never been in a hunt without a CO calling the shots. So, yeah, he was more than willing to follow.

"Let's hit the library if they're open and get whatever we can find on all this shit. Yews and numbers and auspices, all of it. Then I wanna see the cemetery trees, see if there's anything to learn there. We'll stay away from the mountain since I don't really feel like looking at dead birds would do much good." He slid his hand over the top of his head to scratch at the back of his neck. He gave Sam a look that said he wouldn't like what came next. "And then we have to call Caleb."

Sam sighed but nodded. He was fifteen, often impatient to the point of impulsivity, determined to be seen as not a child, and very protective of "his" hunt, but he wasn't stupid. They had a whole wall of something, but neither had any idea of what. He'd have fought if they were sure it was something that could be taken care of simply, like a salt-and-burn or cleansing or something. Because, yeah, he'd imagined sitting beside Dean regaling Dad with the tale of what they'd discovered and ending it all with a nonchalant, "But don't worry – we took care of it." No matter how nice that sounded, how good that might feel, he wasn't willing to risk Dean's life for that dream.

The weatherman hadn't been lying, and the hard-slanting, icy rain had been replaced by heavy snowflakes falling so close together that visibility was all but nil. It didn't bother Dean much, but he'd been right that hardly anyone was out and about. The library was open, though it was manned by a man in his thirties who looked like he sucked lemons for fun. He only allowed Sam to check out books because his boss had allowed it the day before. He did raise a supercilious eyebrow at the number of books they'd chosen but didn't comment. And he didn't notice a thing when Dean slipped the borrowed book of letters into a stack of items waiting to be reshelved.

Getting to the cemetery was a little trickier because they hadn't been there before, and the street signs were obscured and useless. Luckily, Dean had a sixth sense for navigation and, eventually, they arrived.

The downed trees lay where they'd fallen. It seemed very random which ones had fallen and which had stayed upright. All of the casualties were angled more or less the same direction.

"Dean, the wind has been from the north this whole time, but the trees fell to the west," Sam noted, shivering despite his new cold-weather gear. If this was what Massachusetts weather was like, Harvard was rapidly losing some of its shine.

"Not only that, look at what shape they make," Dean answered, always spatially aware. Sam squinted through the flakes clinging to his eyelashes and tried to picture what it would look like from above.

"An arrow," Sam realized. "Pointing at…?" They reflexively looked to the west but all they could see was a wall of white.

There didn't seem to be more to learn at the cemetery, so they climbed gratefully back in the car. They had just warmed up when they pulled up to the sprawling Houghton Mansion. Sam knew very few supposedly haunted houses actually were, but there was still an instinctive cocktail of fear/excitement/fight-or-flight when you were standing in front of a place like this knowing what they knew. He double-checked his iron knife, saw Dean do the same, then they grinned at each other, full of nerves and let's-go and the hubris of the young.

Since nobody could possibly see them, they raced to the door and Sam blessed the old-fashioned and well-oiled lock that yielded to his picks in seconds.

They went from giddy to watchful in the span of a breath once they stepped inside. There was a feeling of...something, a prickle that 99% of the population would have ignored but they'd been trained to notice.

"Sammy, look," Dean breathed, flicking on his flashlight. All around the door there were painted symbols, so faded that they couldn't make out some of them at all.

"Protection?" Sam asked dubiously. He trailed the tip of a finger over the only one he was sure he recognized, a Hebrew khaf which was used in some kind of consecration ritual Sam couldn't remember just now. Dean hissed at him and slapped his hand away, but Sam ignored him. If this was some kind of spell, it wouldn't work with so much of it gone. Besides, somebody certainly must have touched it before now.

"Let's take a look at the damage to the back," Dean said, not really whispering. Nothing in the house felt watchful or malevolent, per se. It just gave the overall feeling of being a place that had seen much and was...aware of much. Sam couldn't have explained it but knew Dean felt the same things he did.

It was dusty but uncluttered in the behemoth of a house, and nothing moved except the brothers.

A simple tarp covered the opening. It was pinned well in place but snapped loudly every time the wind caught its loose corners outside of the house. It covered a rough, broken oval about 4 feet high and 3 feet wide.

"Holy shit!" Dean didn't relax his vigilant stance, but he did raise his voice in surprise. "Not one person mentioned this."

"This" was the fact that there were two walls busted – an inner, false wall, and the outer wall that actually touched the outside. The space revealed was a good two feet deep and there were no joists for maybe four feet to the sides.

"Or that." Sam pointed to a lump almost out reach to the left just in the edge of the flashlight's beam. He'd caught a glimpse of a book spine when the light had briefly touched it. "There's a book. It's got bits of the wall on top of it, so I bet it was hidden inside here."

Dean whistled low and swung the light around the inside of the space. Everywhere there was structure, there was evidence of more of the faded and fading symbols. "I think this was supposed to keep something in – wait!"

The last was directed to Sam as he reached in and picked up the book. "It's fine," Sam said, though his heart was pounding in response to Dean's shout. In retrospect, maybe he should have checked for traps around the book before picking it up. A little more sheepishly he added, "Nothing happened."

"If you don't act smarter than that, you are off this case. You know better," Dean growled, and Sam nodded, knowing his brother was right. He put his apology in his eyes and saw the moment that Dean relaxed minutely, signaling his forgiveness. Sam felt especially guilty knowing that with Dean in charge, he'd feel even more responsible than usual if something happened.

"It's called Commentarius in something. Futurum, maybe? Uh, journal something?"

"That's helpful." Dean still wasn't happy. "Let's get out of here. I don't think there's anything else to see here."

Sam really wanted to start looking at the book right away in the car, but it looked so fragile that he didn't quite dare. He was really excited to open something that hadn't been seen in who knew how long. It might have been in there since Albert Houghton died in 1914. It could be anything.

Sam didn't realize that he was tracing the barely-there words on the cover until Dean snorted. "Geez, don't fondle the poor thing," he teased.

Sam blushed and decided the teasing meant Dean wasn't angry at him for impulsively grabbing the book anymore. "I bet this gives us clues about what was in that wall," he gloated.

Dean gave the book a dark look, apparently not as over Sam's actions as he'd thought. "That's what I'm afraid of."

* * *

AN: I'm a little leery about this chapter, because the Houghtons (Albert, Florence, Susan) were real, as was chauffeur John Widders, and the tragedies that befell them. I do not mean any disrespect in using their story to help tell this entirely fictional tale. Obviously, I made up any supernatural stuff about their lives, and I also made up Flo's letters.

Yes, the crack about states that begin with an "m" is a shot at my own (normally) beloved Michigan, where it was a balmy -2 wind chill yesterday. *barf*

My German comes from vague memories of my grandpa swearing (since he didn't swear in English in front of the grandkids) and mostly from Google translate. (I remember Opa yelling der Teufel or "the devil" at misbehaving vehicles and cattle! LOL)

My numerology is weak at best and cobbled together from probably shoddy internet research. Sorry. I chose 42 for the original number of yew trees because I love Douglas Adams' book The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, in which the answer to "life, the universe, and everything" is 42. I personally believe that this is the reason that the door to Heaven in supernatural season 10, episode 17, Inside Man is number 42, but that could be just a fabulous coincidence.

Yew trees are traditionally planted at cemeteries. There is a lot of speculation that this came about because they are symbols of protection or help keep the dead at rest. (The tradition may have started because yew seeds are poisonous, so planting them in cemeteries helped keep people from grazing their cattle there! This has nothing to do with anything except that it made me laugh.) However, yew is also sacred to Hecate, who is the goddess of death and witchcraft.

Janice: Ah, thank you! I like the "serial killer wall" thing. I love to show the boys being a team, too, as you and I have discussed. There's something so wholesome about seeing the germination of that partnership when they were still young but Sam was old enough to truly contribute. You were so right when you said that chapter 2 outs me as a parent of teen boys! They really do eat like that, especially during a growth spurt. It's always kind of thrilling when you say anything is uncommon in fics, like I accomplished something. LOL

Timelady66: Crazy I sure get. Awesome job catching that egg! I had no idea what a unicursal hexagram was before I looked it up. I love that young Mary had one on her charm bracelet...those kinds of details are so cool.

BruisedBloodyBroken: Ooh! I never knew that. I love love love learning about myths and legends and the like – whenever I learn about a new one, it's kind of like getting a present. What a fascinating and intriguing concept. The wheels are turning…

scootersmom: How lovely to see your name! I'm so glad you said you like the preseries stuff. I was actually worried that people would be sick of it. (Janice disabused me of that notion.) I think my brain is so "fertile" because it's so full of...manure. Heh!

Christine: Oh, I love to hear that! I worry a tad when I write about real places that I've never been. You made me smile with your 'of course something is going on, because these are the Winchesters.' You are so so so right. And you know I adore Bobby and his relationship with the boys. I feel that it is VERY fatherly.

stedan: Thank you! You always say the nicest things. It's fun to write the (relatively) innocent boys.

Colby's girl: Nicely done! You are awesome! So happy you liked the library scene. It's nice to hear what works in a story from discerning readers. I make check marks to show what I've already read too – I have since at least college. I laughed so hard at your explanation of why we just accepted the KoolAid man being that were so high on sugar. I never got over my addiction to sugar. I took my dad to a doc's apt today and he got me a latte as a thanks – one with caramel andbutterscotch in it. He had one of the same and we giggled like little kids over our indulgence.

muffinroo: Yeah, I put things together that you might never expect! Hehe. I've had people tell me that my entire life. Thank you for the lovely compliments. You are just too sweet and I appreciate every single word. And I love how much you love the Winchesters.