Careful What You Wish For: Season 1.5
The Road Less Traveled
Chapter Two
A Shattered Mirror
Four days ago
The drawer had opened with a secret knurl in the decorative wood on the back corner of the hope chest. It contained perhaps the most precious gift her grandmother could have given her: her Book of Shadows. It was no Malleus Malificarium, but it possessed family spells that Jessie had never seen enacted. But sadly, nothing on the fist-sized blood diamond. It also had contained one other fascinating bit of information: a small business card with a number and a name hand-written on it. It had been marking one of the last pages of the grimoire, upon which was simply noted: call in case of emergency.
Sitting on her bed, in her tiny studio apartment, Jessie wondered if this situation constituted an emergency. The last few days had been absolute chaos after all. Her parents suddenly told her she couldn't stay in the big house anymore. Her sister changed the locks on the shop's doors, barring her entry and telling her point blank to stay away. Jessie had barely managed to spirit away the grimoire and the blood diamond before she was suddenly estranged from a family that had been so close.
It wasn't until an angry phone call, filled with hateful words left her sobbing so hard that her ribs ache, that Jessie firmly believed this constituted an emergency. Snow had started to fall while she numbly dialed the number and waited for an answer.
"Agent Morse, FBI." The answering voice was gruff and rough, and shocked Jessie into silence. "Hello? Hello?"
"Oh crap, uhm, hi. I'm looking for... John? Yeah, my name's Jessie Fernald and I found this number in my-"
"Wait, did you say Fernald? What's your relationship to Agatha?" The voice, Agent Morse, cut her off.
Bewildered that her grandmother would know an FBI agent, Jessie faltered. "She's my grandmother. Was. Was my grandmother. She left this number for me to find, in case of an emergency. And I... nothing is making sense right now."
"Take a breath, Jessie, start from the top. I'm not John, but he was a friend of mine. Tell me everything okay?" She heard a thud, and the sound of papers rustling in the background. He was going to take notes. So Jessie told him everything she could. About her grandmother's death, about how close the family was, and how that all changed overnight after the will-reading. She choked up talking about the recent venomous phonecall, where her parents had demanded she return the contents of the hope chest to the house. The entire time Agent Morse presented a sympathetic ear on the other end of the line. She wished she could tell him everything else, about the gem, and how it whispered, about the true family business, and how positive she was with every passing second that the blood diamond was cursed.
"I need you to sit tight, and hold down the fort for a couple of days, okay? Help will be there soon."
Agreeing, Jessie hung up her phone. She'd just.. lay low for a couple of days, right? Not answer her phone, act like she wasn't home if her family came calling. That was the solution.
Two Days Later
"Do you remember how chintzy this place is?" Dean laughed as they waited at a stop light, peering out the window at the snow-covered edifice of one of the many Salem Witch museums that lined Brown Street. "The bad acting, the horrific animatronics?"
"Believe me, I'm trying to forget." Sam shook his head. "Do you remember why Dad brought us here?"
"A hunt, obviously. A big one cause it was Dad and Bobby." Rolling his eyes, Dean edged the Impala forward carefully through the slush and salt that marred the street. January in New England was not an ideal time or place to subject his baby to. "Probably witches, I mean, who wouldn't want to hide in plain sight?"
"Take a left over right there." Sam kept them on direction, but Dean had stopped again, to let a handful of eccentrically dressed New Englander's cross in front of him. One of them even had fake horns. "Bobby said something about vampires, actually. He and Dad got called in to bust up a nest. This Agatha person's kids were turned."
"Ouch. Damn. And now we've got Granddaughter Fernald saying her family's taken a heel turn, and what? Gone crazy?" Turning into a freshly-cleared driveway, Dean was grateful that there was off-street parking. He still winced at how salty his car was, when he climbed out. Giving himself a shake in the cold, he sized up the house, and started for a door.
Sam caught his arm, and pointed to the side, at a set of stairs half hidden by a pile of snow. "Thirty-two and a half."
At the top of the stairs, Dean raised a closed fist in the universal stop motion. Hitching up the back of his jacket, he pulled his pistol, causing Sam to do the same. They didn't need to exchange words, around Dean's arm, Sam could see the door had been forced open, wood splintered around the knob from the force of the entry. Carefully, he edged the door further open.
The apartment was tiny. Barely bigger than a motel room with a kitchenette. He could see a straight shot from the door to the bedroom in the back. The place was ransacked, dishes thrown out of cupboards and shattered over the floor. The one easy chair was upended, cushions torn and shredded. Dean hoped those were knife marks. Venturing further in, he was confident with Sam watching his back.
The live-in kitchen was clear. A cursory glace into the bathroom revealed it was barely big enough for a shower stall, sink and toilet. There was no where for anyone to hide in there. The bedroom was equally as small, with everything shoved against the walls to maximize the space in the middle. The closet had sliding doors; the mirror hung on them was shattered. Because slumped against the splintered surface was a girl.
She'd been thrown against it. Knocked out. Dean was on his knees heedless of the shards of mirror around him, while he checked for a pulse. His relief escaped in a heavy sigh as it was there, present beneath his fingers. When Sam joined him, the question he couldn't ask was forestalled by a nod. She's alive. Trading places with his brother, Sam tried to make sure she was seriously injured, while Dean surveyed the state of the room.
Just like the rest of the tiny apartment, it had been turned inside out. Her dresser emptied, and all of her sundries where strewn over the floor and bed. The mattress was on end, against the wall, the same slices through the cushioning made as if someone was frantically searching for something. Despite the gravity of the situation, Dean couldn't help but casually check out the bras and panties dumped on the floor.
"Dean?" Sam's questioning tone brought his attention back around to his little brother. Sam was holding something out, in a request to look at it. Accepting the thing, Dean felt his brow furrow even as he recognized the sigil. It was nearly identical to their anti-possession tattoos: a five pointed star surrounded by flames, except hers had a few other embellishments, symbols etched between the flames that Dean didn't recognize.
While he was examining it, she began to stir. Sam launched into damage-control mode. Stepping back a little, Dean let himself enjoy watching his little brother work. Keeping busy was keeping them both sane.
"Easy, easy... Jessie, right? I'm Sam, that's my brother, Dean. Bobby sent us." Crouched as he was, Sam kept both his hands out, never quite touching her, but prepared to steady her if she faltered.
It took a minute for her eyes to focus. Signs of a concussion, probably from hitting the closet door so hard. She adjusted how she was sitting, almost putting her hand down into shards of mirror, but stopping herself at the last second.
"I'm.. okay, I think. How... what.." Looking around, the horror of reality began to sink in. "Shit... oh, shit. Where is it?"
Automatically, Dean held out the talisman, but she ignored him. Pulling her legs up, she fought to get them under her without touching broken mirror. Sam eventually grabbed her hands, and let her use him as ballast to stand. She swayed on her feet, while he straightened to his.
"The stone. I can't hear it anymore... they took it. Shit, shit." Jessie pushed past them both, and started throwing around clothing, tossing aside items that had already been ransacked. "This isn't good. They're not my parents... there was this weird ass black smoke, and they were talking about Mammon, and-" She stopped suddenly, and looked at both brothers. "I'm not making any sense and you probably think I lost my marbles..."
Putting on an exaggerated mock-frown, Dean shock his head slowly. "We do not think you're crazy at all. But, you did take a hellova hit, and you probably should sit down before you fall down. This is yours... the black smoke isn't weird. It sounds like your parents are possessed by demons."
Taking the amulet back, Jessie tucked it back into her pocket. She took a deep breath, steadying herself.
Sam tried to soften the blow. "Sounds like they tried to possess you, but couldn't because of that. If they took this whispering stone, then obviously it's important to them. Mammon.. sounds familiar. Dean?"
Dean shrugged. "You're the brains, Brain."
"Mammon is a god of avarice, and greed. Wealth and covetousness." Jessie answered for them. "Christians turned him into a demon, but.. they turn everything into demons if it doesn't fit their ideology. I mean, just look at this town and what happened to it." Rubbing her face, Jessie looked around at the mess of her apartment, and for a moment, just looked defeated. "We have to get it back. The blood diamond. We have to go to my Gram's house and take it back. There's a reason she left it to me and not to them."
"Okay, dial it back there a notch, Jessie James." Dean stepped in front of path before she could leave the bedroom. "You just got robbed, found your parents are possessed by demons, and you're not even the slightest bit freaked out?"
Sam didn't disagree with that estimation. Even Kayla was freaking out after she learned everything. Wincing, Sam regretted thinking about the nephil. It had been months, and they'd heard nothing from either her, or Castiel. They'd made some unspoken pact to not talk about it, but it bothered them both. Neither wanted to admit that they could possibly be dead.
Jessie barely came up to Dean's chin, but that didn't stop her from squaring right up to him. "I'm a Fernald. My family has been actively practicing witchcraft in Salem for the last four hundred years. Until recently, I was in possession of a gemstone that whispered to me at night, telling me about all the power it could grant me if I just bled on the damned thing. Am I freaking out that my family is possessed? Yes. But you damned well better believe we're gonna un-possess the fuck out of them."
Dean paused for a second, trying to figure out how he felt about that. He was either going to laugh in her face, or admire her for her attitude. Sidling aside, he chose the latter. Girl had a steel backbone for sure. Dean watched as she ventured to her kitchenette and began looking for a glass that wasn't broken. Sam flanked the door opposite him.
"So, how seriously do we want to take that witchcraft comment?" Sam asked what he felt was the most pressing matter.
"Like she's crystals and New Age hoo-hah, until otherwise proven." Dean shrugged. He'd seen no red flags, other than her relative acceptance of the existence of the supernatural world. There were just as many true believers in the world as there were skeptics; the alien convention taught him that. "C'mon Sammy, lets go make a demonic house call."
