Careful What You Wish For: Season 1.5

The Road Less Traveled

Chapter Four

Which Witch?

Two days ago

While Sam and Dead planned and prepared, Jessie cleaned. She swept up broken glass, and dishes in the kitchen. She tried to ignore what the brothers were talking about. But she couldn't help but hear snippets of it. Luring her parents in, trapping them, attempting an exorcism. None of it sounded fool-proof. They had what they wanted in the form of the blood diamond. The fatal flaw in the plan was believing they'd come back to the house for any reason. Jessie was carrying an armload of splintered wood, a bookcase that had been ransacked and then smashed against the floor, when she noticed the figure standing at the end of the driveway.

Her sister.

Jessie stopped at the window, and watched her. Her beloved elder sister didn't look like her sister, even from the distance. Her normally loose, chaotic hair was tamed back into a tight ponytail. Even the smile Becky always wore was absent. Jessie's chest ached knowing that wasn't really her sister standing there. Dean joined her by the window, making note of the fact the house was now under watch. Behind them, in the foyer, Sam was rolling up the wide throw rug that covered the old hardwood floor.

"They won't come back to the house," Jessie said breaking the quiet, never taking her eyes off her sister. "They have what they want, they don't need anything in here anymore."

"The fact that she's out there makes me think you're wrong. There's still something in here they're looking for." Dean countered. "Any idea what it might be? What we could use as bait?"

Sighing, she shook her head. "I have no idea. They've got the stone, what else could they want?"

"A way to use it," Sam offered helpfully from the floor. The scrape of the knife against the hardwood that followed in the wake of his statement was jarring, and cased Jessie to startle. She opened her mouth to protest, but Sam cut her off gently. "It's harder for them to mar a line and escape if it's carved."

"Sammy's gotta point though," Dean wanted to try to keep her on track, keep her busy. "If the stone has a user's manual, or.. or even some way to break whatever's in it out."

Jessie opened the front door, tossing the broken wood into the front yard. When she closed it behind her, she made sure to flip the lock and the deadbolt. Dean stopped himself from telling her that wouldn't stop a demon. She seemed to be thinking, and he didn't want to interrupt her train of thought before it got to where it was going.

"There was nothing in Gram's grimoire about the thing. Not even a mention of Mammon. And... she really didn't keep notes." Gesturing for Dean to follow, Jessie started up the stairs to the second floor. The elder Winchester only stopped long enough to make sure his brother had the Devil's Trap well in hand. "But she did keep books for Becky and I, especially while we were learning."

"How'd she die? Your grandmother?" Dean wasn't sure if it was the right thing to ask.

"Alzheimer's. It was... fast. We thought we were managing it pretty well, but... the doctor's said it could be unpredictable like that. She just took a turn she never recovered from." Jessie stopped in the hallway, at a closed door. Dead figured it lead to the master bedroom probably. He expected things to be as ransacked as the rest of the house.

But Jessie didn't reach for the knob. She reached up and traced the carving of a crescent moon adorning the center of it. "In her last couple of days, Gram asked about my aunt and uncle, my mom's siblings. I had to remind her that they'd died when I was about ten. She got excited about seeing them again, after that. I... didn't have the heart to tell her that I don't think vampires get an afterlife."

Dean barely masked his shock. She knew that two of her family had been turned? She had to have figured out by now that his dad and Bobby had been the ones to kill them. She wasn't baiting him with that statement though. There was no expectant look, no pointed moment where she was examining his every reaction. She remained focused on the door.

Dean was mentally scrambling to put the pieces together. All he could come up with was that her throw-away comment about her family practicing witchcraft for generations hadn't been all that throw-away after all. She wasn't freaking out about all of the happenings because she'd grown up knowing about the real world that existed beneath the surface. Dean decided that he'd call Bobby tonight and find out if Bobby even knew.

Laying her hand against the crescent mark on the door, Jessie closed her eyes, and made sure her fingers were aligned in the proper places, using the texture of the wood as her guide. Once she has the proper places connected, she unleashed the word, to unravel the locking spell on the door.

"Ouvrez." The door shimmered as the protective barrier to the familial sacred space coiled up and tucked away into the lines of the crescent carving. The tiniest push of her fingers against the door caused it to swing open.

Unlike the rest of the house, the altar room was undisturbed. Sighing in relief, Jessie crossed the threshold and set about looking at the bookshelves. Dean remained outside. Most of the books were family journals, the diaries of Fernald witches that came before her. There were books on mythology and religion. Jessie had always gravitated to the former and ignored the latter. Jessie touched the knobs of the china cabinet that held the heirloom ritual tools, tucked away and awaiting the next holy day. Beltane seemed so far away.

At the altar, she had an idea. The offering bowl and anthame knife rested in their customary places, but someone had left a coiled silver chain beside both. As if to send her a message. She turned to talk to Dean, but he wasn't were she thought he'd be. Turning fully, she saw him still standing at the doorway, his expression unreadable.

"Were you planning to tell us you're a witch?"

"I told you. It's not my fault you didn't believe me. I didn't believe in demons until today, so.." she shrugged one shoulder. "Are you... gonna refuse to help me now or something? Is that what this is? Am I on my own now?"

Dean had to give her that point; she did tell them. And they had ignored her. But Sam needed to know before they agreed to keep going. If she was playing them...

Dean couldn't trust his paranoia to make the right call on this one. "You keep looking for that Mammon How-To guide. I need to go talk to Sam."

He heard her say his name as he turned away from the door. She had that look. That hopeless, despairing look that someone gets when they knew their only hope was walking away. Dean hated that look. Ben had worn that look. Lisa too. And he hadn't walked away. And it nearly got them killed. Thundering down the stairs, he called out for this brother, and then dragged him into the kitchen for an emergency meeting.

"She's a bona fide spell-slinging witch. I just watched her open a door with a word." Dean pointed through the ceiling upstairs to indicate where. "We are at the proven otherwise stage, Sammy."

Silently, Sam studied his brother. He knew Dean better than Dean knew Dean sometimes. It wasn't the fact that Jessie was a witch that was bothering Dean. It was the fact that Jessie was a witch and Dean liked her. That was Sam's gig. Sam was the one that sympathized with the monsters. Sometimes.

"Dude, Dean. Calm down." Sam grabbed his brother's shoulder and shook him a little to knock him out of the spiral of thoughts. "Let's think this through. Demons are chasing her, possessing her family even, to get to her. She hasn't attacked us, or even been threatening at all. Four hundred years is a long time for a family to be practicing magic and not cross hunters the wrong way... if Dad and Bobby came here to deal with vampires, and not witches, maybe... the witchcraft isn't the issue?"

As he talked, he looked for something to calm his brother down. He had no hopes of finding something as benign as pie in the house, but maybe he could hit the jackpot in the fridge. He didn't even think twice about raiding the contents of a dead woman's fridge. Or rather, a dead witch's fridge. There wasn't much in it either. A jug of milk, some cream cheese, a carton of eggs, and.. lo and behold, a six-pack of beer. Grabbing two, he offered one over to Dean.

Boston lager, something that seemed to be a staple in this neck of the United States. But Dean wouldn't complain. The Impala's keychain had a bottle opener. Dean threw back a long pull before he could even phrase an answer to his brother. "So you're saying,we just.. ignore that fact?"

"Well, no. We keep an eye on her. On how she uses magic. I mean, if she's not hurting anyone."

"Hurting us, you mean?"

"No, I mean, the entire city. Salem is a haven for wannabe's right? You said so yourself, what better place for a real witch to hide in plain sight?" Sam leaned on the island counter, watching his brother struggle with the idea. "Right now, Dean, she needs our help. We can't let this Mammon thing loose. If it's a demon, or if it's a god, I really don't think it matters. It needs to be stopped."

That was a sentiment Dean could get behind. Heading back upstairs, Dean brought with him one of the beer bottles as a peace offering. "Your sister is still outside. A normal person would have froze by now."

"Not my sister. Becky wouldn't be caught dead with a basic-bitch ponytail." Jessie looked up from the book she was reading through to see the beer held out towards her. The look was appraising, as if she were considering the chances that it were poisoned. She shifted the book to one hand, cradling it by the spine, as she accepted the offered beer. "I think I found something though. And, I think I might be able to figure out where they ran off to."

"Wanna have storytime downstairs? It's been a while since Sammy's had a bedtime story read to him." Dean cracked the joke, and Jessie actually smiled. But if felt strained, and awkward. Dean wondered if he could really do what Sam did, and look past the label.

Present Day

"Is it still talking to you?" Dean had kept up a running monologue through the woods, cracking jokes and trying to keep them alert and moving. But Jessie's reactions and answers had gotten slower to come, and fewer in frequency. Dean could see houses through the trees. They were almost back to the Fernald place. It'd be over soon.

Jessie shook her head, looking miserable huddled in her jacket. "It got real quiet about ten minutes ago." She confessed. At the time, she'd thought nothing of it, just thankful for the reprieve from the incessant goading and whispering. Now that Dean had brought it up, she realized she should be more concerned about it than she is. "You think that means Sam exorcised my family?"

Dean hoped to God that was the case, and not that they were about to walk into a trap. Dean helped her up and over a snowbank and onto the road. This was a risk. He remembered what had happened last time. But the road was far more forgiving on his aching knees and back than the calf-deep snow was in the forest. Jessie seemed grateful too for the break.

Dean made sure he was between the cars on the road, and Jessie. Walking closer to the snowbanks was a little more difficult, given the slush and run-off from sun-melt, but he felt like he could protect her better if someone tried to run them off the road again. He owed her that much. By the time they reached the house, he'd wrapped his arm around her shoulder, rubbing her far arm through the jacket in an attempt to help keep her warm.

Sam sitting on the front step was not what Dean expected to see. And when his little brother's beaten-puppy expression picked up, Dean felt his heart drop to his stomach. Jessie caught on quick.

"No..." She broke from Dean's grip, finding the energy to run down the driveway. Sam intercepted her before she got to the stairs, grabbing her by her shoulders.

"I'm so sorry, Jessie... Your parents.. they attacked, I had.. I couldn't.." Sam didn't even hesitate; he just pulled Jessie to his chest in a hug. She'd managed to not cry up to that point, but the gesture of kindness just shattered that control. She was sobbing even before Dean joined them.

Dean scrubbed Sam's hair in an attempt to make him feel better. Looking down at Jessie, he tried to add some comfort by rubbing her shoulders. "The sister?" Dean kept his question quiet, and reverent.

"Inside. The demon smoked out right after..." A wince indicated the event that Sam meant. Right after the other two demons had been killed, the third one jumped ship. So it was still a threat. "She's confused, and.. upset."

Which was understandable. In two weeks, the two girls had lost their grandmother and both parents. That much loss, that fast, was never easy. "Jessie, c'mon, your sister's inside. Let's get you warm, and.." Dean was cut off as Jessie released his brother and turned to bury herself into his chest, her arms thrown around his waist. Bowing his head over hers, Dean realized that this shit never, ever got any easier.

When he finally managed to coax her inside, he expected the scenario to play out all over again. He expected the two sisters to run to each other and bawl over their parents. Their bodies were draped under white sheets, sparing any of the grisly sight. Becky, her dark hair unbound, and curling wildly around her shoulders, didn't run to her little sister. She looked cold.

"What did you do?" Becky asked suddenly. "Why..why would you call those things?"

Jessie cringed. "I didn't... I swear! I didn't call anything!"

"It told me that you called them. It made me watch you." Becky's fists clenched at her sides.

Sam glanced at Dean, but Dean shook his head slightly. He wasn't about to get involved in a witch-sibling argument. That was a sure-fire way to be turned into a toad. Or newt.

"Jessica, our parents are dead because of you." Becky's accusatory tone caused her sister to choke back a sob. "You have it with you right now, don't you? Give it to me. Gram never should have left it to you."

Jessie didn't touch the zippered front pocket of her parka. She didn't give away the location of the blood diamond. But Becky still looked towards that spot. The diamond was still silent, but only because it wasn't whispering to her anymore. It was whispering to Becky.

Jessie reached a hand behind her, groping for some support. Dean stepped up, twining his fingers into hers. "I'm right here," he murmured in her ear. Just as he was about to ask her what she needed, something hit the front of the house with a thunk.

Becky jumped. Sam ran to the window, peeking out the curtain from an angle he couldn't be seen from. The front yard was filling with people. One or two bent down to scoop snow up from the yard, balling it before launching it at the house. A few people in the back had flaming torches.

"Torches? Really?" Sam wanted to smack the universe for the cliché. But then again, this city was run on nothing but one giant cliché, so why not torches? "We have an entire town of angry people walking up the yard..."