The drive to Minnesota was uneventful.
They stopped at a few places along the way so Angela could take pictures with her mother's cell phone camera. This was to be her homework to make up for the school days she was missing, capped off with a presentation for show-and-tell when she got back.
Sam figured it would be the dullest show-and-tell ever. So far most of the pictures were of pieces of pie in roadside dinners and of the swimming pool at the motel where they had stayed the night. But then again, who knew what five year olds would find interesting?
He had gotten Claire Novak's home address off her arrest records. It was a tidy residential neighborhood in St. Paul, with sturdy-looking bungalows on a tree-lined street.
It was morning when they arrived. Neighbors waved at one another as they got into their cars and headed for work. A yellow school bus slowly trundled down the street heading for a stop on the corner.
"Which one it is, Sammy?" Dean asked.
Before Sam could answer Angela spoke up from the backseat. "It's the white one with the red door."
They didn't bother asking how she knew.
Dean cruised to stop just in front of it and shut off the engine.
"OK, let's go," the older Winchester said.
"No, Angela and I are going," Jane corrected him. "You and Dean are staying here in the car."
Sam glanced over his shoulder at her. "Jane, are you sure that's a good idea?"
"I am. I don't know if Claire or her mother remember you two—maybe they don't. But I don't want to risk frightening them any more than we have to," Jane said firmly. "I'll text you and let you know if and when you can come in."
"Assuming you get past the front door," Dean muttered.
Jane ignored him and helped Angela out of the car. The child looked ready to head for school herself in her overalls and yellow sweater.
The Winchesters stayed parked at the curb, close enough to see all the action take place and to intervene if needed.
Jane paused just inside the front gate. But Angela went boldly up the brick walk and knocked on the front door.
It was opened by a sturdy, dark-haired boy of about eight. "Who're you?" He demanded of the child.
But before she could speak he spotted the school bus. "Crap, the bus is here! Davy, c'mon or we're going to miss it!" He hollered.
Another dark-haired boy, younger and smaller, shot past him out the door, his backpack swinging to and fro as he ran for the bus stop.
His brother ran after him, shouting a quick, "There's someone at the door, Mom! Bye!" over his shoulder before his disappeared.
A pretty women Sam recognized as Amelia Novak appeared in the still-open doorway. She was smiling and laughing.
"I'm sorry, sweetheart," she told the child on her doorstep. "My boys were running late this morning. I hope they didn't scare you."
Sam and Dean exchanged a glance.
Boys? Dean mouthed.
Sam shrugged.
"Did you need something, honey?" Amelia asked the child, a puzzled expression growing on her face. "Are you selling cookies?"
"C'mon, Ange, you can do it," Sam said under his breath.
The little girl finally found her tongue. "No, ma'am, I'm not selling anything."
"Then are you lost?" For the first time she saw Jane waiting by the gate. "Is that your mommy?"
"Yes, that's my mommy. And, no, I'm not lost," Angela said in her small, soft voice.
Sam could see her taking a deep breath.
"I need to talk to you about Jimmy," she said calmly.
Even from several yards away Sam could see the blood drain from the woman's face. "About…about…Jimmy?" She stammered.
"Well, Jimmy and Claire," Angela clarified.
The woman now looked genuinely terrified. "How do you know about him? No one…" She stopped speaking abruptly and slumped a bit against the door jam.
Jane quickly moved forward and took her arm. "Mrs. Novak, let's go inside, shall we? We'll explain everything."
Supported by the younger woman Jimmy's former wife allowed herself to be helped inside. Angela trailed after them.
Dean glanced at his brother as the door closed. "Now what?"
"Now we wait," Sam sighed.
The family had eaten waffles for breakfast, Angela decided as she followed her mother and the other lady down a tidy hallway to the kitchen. The air still smelled like butter and syrup.
It was a nice, big house. Their whole cabin could probably fit in the living room. A carpeted flight of stairs was open to the central hallway. She'd bet everyone in this family had their own bedroom, and no one had to sleep on the sofa.
She glanced up at the pictures lining the walls. There were lots of fair-haired Claire—as a baby, as a little girl, in graduation robes. There was also several of a stocky man and the two boys Angela had already met. In a few Amelia was posed with them, smiling happily. Claire was there, too, but she didn't look happy at all.
There wasn't a single picture of Jimmy anywhere.
"You've remarried," Angela observed aloud as her mother helped Jimmy's ex-wife sit down at the kitchen table. She looked around the spacious kitchen. It was a pretty space, with shiny silver appliances and curtains with chickens on them.
Jane found a half-full coffee pot and filled a mug, setting it down in front of the other woman.
"Oh, your name isn't Novak anymore?" Jane asked politely. "I'm sorry, we assumed it was."
Amelia looked from the woman to the child as if each had two heads. "No…no…I'm… Mrs. Carter now. I met Bob a year after…after…"
"Drink your coffee, it'll steady your nerves," Jane encouraged.
"And you had two more children. That must be nice for Claire," Angela observed. "I'm an only child. But one of my friends at school just got a baby sister and she's so cute you could eat her all up."
Amelia Carter's hands were shaking so badly she couldn't hold on to her coffee mug. "Oh, God, oh, God, you're both one of them, aren't you?"
"One of whom?" Jane asked. When Amelia didn't answer she looked at her daughter.
"Angels. Or demons. I'm not sure which she means," Angela explained to her mother.
"Oh. No, Mrs. Carter, we aren't angels or demons." Angela's mother was speaking in her softest, most soothing voice, the one she used with patients at the clinic. "We're human, I assure you."
Tears had started to well up in the older woman's eyes.
"You can't be. No other humans know about what happened to Jimmy. Just Claire and me…and those two other men. The ones that angel," here she spat out the word, "went off with."
Angela looked up at her mother triumphantly. "See, she remembers Sam and Dean."
"Not now, baby," her mother told her gently.
Jane sat down next to Mrs. Carter. "I can see we're scaring you. Please know that was not at all our intention in coming here. If you want us to go, we'll go."
"Mom!" Angela protested.
Angela's mother held up one index finger. It was her "shush or else" warning finger, and Angela knew to heed it. She snapped her mouth closed.
Mrs. Carter had been watching the exchange with eyes as wide as saucers. "That's…that's really your daughter?" She finally asked.
"Yes. I'm sorry we didn't introduce ourselves earlier but you looked rather faint. I wanted to get you to a chair. I'm Dr. Jane Winchester. This is my daughter, Angela."
"Hi." Angela gave the woman a small wave.
Mrs. Carter finally managed a gulp of coffee. She was staring straight at Angela. "You're a child. How can you know about Jimmy?"
For a moment Angela chewed at her lip. In her own family she could always be 100% honest. At school and on the playground she always had to be careful not to say too much. Now, in this situation, she wasn't quite sure what to do. She looked expectantly at her mother.
"Tell her, sweetheart. It is the truth, after all," Jane reminded her. "And she has a right to know."
"I'm Cass' daughter. I mean, Castiel's daughter," Angela explained. "The angel that possess-"
Mrs. Carter clapped her hands over her ears after if she couldn't bear to hear what Angela was about to say. After a long moment of silence she shook her head.
"No. No, that isn't possible. I went to Sunday School, to church. I know angels don't have children."
"Not usually, no," Jane admitted. "But sometimes they do. I know it's not in the Bible or anything, but…" She shrugged.
"Jesus is in the Bible," Angela reminded her mother.
Jane nodded. "Well, yes, there's Jesus."
"Jesus was the son of God," Amelia corrected.
"Hmm, yeah, funny about that…" Jane stood. "You don't mind if I pour myself a cup, do you?"
Mrs. Carter waved her ahead weakly.
"They wrote that part down wrong," Angela explained matter-of-factly. "Jesus was the son of an angel, the one that appeared to Mary. Angels are sort of like the sons of God. So if you want to look at it that way God was Jesus' grandpa, not his dad."
Amelia's expression looked as if she didn't know whether to laugh or to cry, and that she might be about to do both.
"We've gotten a bit off track here," Jane reminded her daughter as she sipped her coffee. "Ooh, yum," she complimented her host to distract her. "It this Kona? I love Kona."
Amelia nodded. "My…husband gets the beans from work. He's in…shipping," she said in a reedy voice.
"That must be nice." Jane sat back down again and set her daughter on her knee.
Mrs. Carter had resumed staring at Angela. "You're half angel. And you can talk…to them?"
"Angels, yes. Demons, no. I'm not allowed to talk to demons."
Amelia's whole body shuddered, no doubt remembering her possession by one of those creatures. She looked down at her hands and flexed them.
"A demon shot Jimmy," she said softly. "It used my hands to pull the trigger. And I couldn't stop it…"
"Nobody could have. That's what it means to be possessed. Look, you don't have to believe any of this," Jane said quietly. "I know it's a lot…"
"I still have nightmares about it. Claire does too, although she won't admit it. And we can't even go to therapy because no one would believe us." Amelia laughed shakily.
"We believe you," Angela said encouragingly.
Mrs. Carter raised her head. "Why do they do that?" She demanded. "How could they do that to us?"
Jane was quiet. "It's very difficult to explain…"
"Try me," the other woman said. Her expression was grim. "I've waited ten years for answers. The least you can do is give them to me."
"I'm certainly not an expert on the supernatural, Mrs. Carter. But I'll try and explain as best I can," Jane offered.
"Demons do not have bodies of their own. In order to act in the human world they have to steal one. So they possess people. You were very lucky. A lot of times the victim doesn't survive a demon possession."
"And the angels?" Amelia asked with a quick glance at the child across the table from her. She still said the word "angels" as if it left a bad taste in her mouth.
"Angels have bodies, but they're much, much bigger than us," Angela explained, holding her arms over her head to illustrate. "They're huge, and full of light and energy-it's almost like they hum with life…" the child enthused.
"What my daughter is trying to say," her mother interrupted, "is that humans cannot look on an angel in his natural form. It can be fatal. So angels need vessels, too. The difference is angels aren't allowed to seize one. They always have to get permission."
"But you can see them the way they really are." Amelia looked directly at the little girl.
"I can," she admitted. "And Mom can. But most people can't, so they need the vessels. I can hear them, too."
"Jimmy could do that," Amelia whispered. "That's how it started. You know, I haven't been back to church since it…since Jimmy…I can't...
"You're still angry." Jane nodded. "I don't blame you. They play by a whole different set of rules, don't they?"
"I love my husband and my boys. But I loved Jimmy, too." Amelia's eyes filled with tears.
"And you love Claire," Angela reminded her.
Mrs. Carter sniffed. "Of course I do. You know about Claire? The trouble she's been in?"
"I came here to see her," the child explained.
"Why?"
Angela pulled on one of her braids in frustration. "Everyone keeps asking me that and it's soooo hard to explain."
"Sometimes Angela knows things nobody else knows." Jane shook her head. "We just sort of go with it."
"Claire needs me, Mrs. Carter. I don't really know how, or why, but I'm here to help her."
Amelia sniffed again, and dabbed her eyes on a napkin. "That's a really strange thing to say. But very sweet."
She leaned back in her chair. "Poor Claire. She's tried so hard for so long…but what she went through, what she saw…The world thinks Jimmy walked out on us. Sometimes I think that's what Claire believes, too."
A key scraped in the back door lock, and Mrs. Carter jumped to her feet.
"Hey, Mom, I need some cash. My rent's late and I…" The young woman skidded to a stop as she came through the door. "Oh, I didn't know you had company."
"Claire, honey, we were just talking about you."
"Huh," Jimmy's daughter said indifferently.
Angela took a long look at Claire. She didn't look anything like she did in those pictures in the hallway.
She was of medium height, but too thin. Her skin was pale and drawn, as if it hadn't seen sunlight in a long time. Her pretty blond hair had been dyed pink, and one half of her head was shaved. There were rings in her ears, eyebrow, and nose. Boots that looked like they had been swiped out of Frankenstein's closet added weight to her thin legs. She looked, Angela thought, like the teenagers who hung out in the parks in Whitefish after dark, smoking and playing loud music.
"You look cool," Angela said honestly. "Pink's my favorite color."
"Uh, that's nice. Look, I'll be in my room looking for some music I burned, Mom." Claire brushed past the child and clomped up the stairs.
"But Claire I want you to meet…" her mother began helplessly, only to be interrupted by a slamming door upstairs.
"I'm sorry," Mrs. Carter said. "Claire's been having a hard time this semester. She lost her place in the college dorms and had to move into an apartment with some friends. It's really started to affect her grades. We wanted to have her move back in here with us, but…" She trailed off, clearly not knowing what else to say.
"Mrs. Carter, may I go upstairs and talk to her?" Angela asked. "I came all this way."
Amelia sat back down heavily. "You can try, honey. But don't be hurt if she won't open her door for you. She doesn't for me."
Angela started back down the hallway. As she did so she heard Mrs. Carter speaking in a low voice to Angela's mother.
"I have to ask. If the child really belongs to that angel, and Jimmy is the angel's vessel, then what are she and Claire to each other? Are they related? Are they half-sisters?"
"It would take bunch of genetic tests and a PhD in Religious Studies to try and untangle that," Angela heard her mom reply. "So I can't give you an answer."
Mrs. Carter sighed again. "How can you process all this?" She demanded of Jane. "My head feels like it's going to explode. Doesn't yours?"
"It did, for the first year or two," Angela's mother admitted. "But believe it or not you do get used to it."
Angela had to smile at that comment as she padded up the stairs.
It wasn't hard to guess which door was Claire's. There were band stickers and logos all over it.
Angela tapped on it gently.
Nothing.
She tried again, harder this time.
Still nothing.
She knocked a third time, and this time called out, "Claire? I want to come in."
After a beat a muffled voice called back, "Who is that?"
"Angela. May I come in?"
"Who is…" The door swung open. Claire looked down at her, a bunch of CD jewel cases in her hand. "Oh. You're Angela?"
"Uh huh." Not certain if Claire would close the door again in her face the child slipped past her into the room.
It was clear that someone—Mrs. Carter, probably—had once taken great care in decorating the room. There was rosebud wallpaper, and a nice big bed with a fluffy cover, and a pretty little dressing table where Claire could sit and do her makeup.
But much of the wallpaper was now obliterated by posters, there were what looked like cigarette burns on the rug, and dirty clothes covered every other flat surface. The air was stale and musty, scented with cheap incense.
"What are you, some kind of relative or something?" The young woman asked.
"In a manner of speaking."
"'In a manner of'…you're weird, kid."
"Thank you." Angela gazed up at the biggest band poster, the one over the bed.
Claire followed her gaze and smiled proudly, tossing the CDs back on the bed. "Cannibal Flesh. I've seen 'em play the Twin Cities three times. Ever heard of them?"
"Yes."
"They rock, huh?"
"Not really. My uncles say they're posers and they've ripped all their guitar solos off Tony Iommi."
"Who's Tony Iommi?"
"Black Sabbath's guitar player."
Claire laughed and flopped down on her bed. "How do you know who Black Sabbath is? And you couldn't be more wrong. What are you, four?"
"Five and a half," Angela said proudly.
"See? You're too young to know what good music is," the girl snorted. "Or how bad-ass that band is. They're way into the forces of darkness."
Maybe she didn't know much about music, but the forces of darkness was a subject Angela did feel qualified to discuss. She pointed at the poster.
"I'm old enough to know they drew the sigil on that poster backwards. Somebody must have copied it out of a book because it looked cool. But it makes no sense the way it is. You couldn't summon anything with it. Except maybe a pizza guy."
Claire sat up sharply. "What do you know about summoning things and sigils?"
"I know better than to try them," Angela said bluntly. "People who mess with things they don't understand get their butts burned. That's what my Uncle Dean says. And by the way that's not a ram's skull they drew under their band logo. Looks more like a cow skull. Totally different spell."
Claire stared at her, wide-eyed. Then she shook her head.
"You're crazy, kid."
Angela shrugged. She stepped over the window and glanced down. The familiar black Impala was still there. Sam was leaning against the car door reading his cell phone. No doubt her mother had texted him about what was happening.
"Geez, just when I thought you might be the tinniest bit interesting it turns out you're just nuts." Claire made an exaggerated show of yawning.
She then flung herself off the bed and went to the window. "What are you looking at?"
She glanced down.
"Hey, cool car. And who's the hottie standing next to it?"
"That's just my Uncle Sam."
"'Uncle Sam', huh? Well, he can draft me any time!" Claire laughed.
"I don't know what that means," Angela said with a frown. "Claire, would you sit down for a moment so we can talk?"
The young woman stared down at her. "Man, you're a solemn little bugger, aren't you?" She threw up her hands. "Fine."
She dumped a pile of clothes off her desk chair and sat down again.
"Talk."
Angela cautiously perched on the edge of the bed. "You asked before if we were related. And we sort of are."
Claire was making a great show of examining her black fingernail polish.
"I know about what happened when you were twelve. I know about the angel and Jimmy."
As quickly as a snake Claire was out of her seat again. "Don't you dare say that name! Don't you dare!"
"But he's your dad…"
"No, he isn't!" Claire interrupted her. "He doesn't deserve the word! Fathers don't walk out on their families!"
"He didn't walk out on you," Angela said quietly. "You know that."
"Yes, he did! He abandoned me and my mom!"
Claire leaned down and grabbed the front of Angela's overalls.
Angela had never been hit before. But for a split second she was pretty certain Claire was about to hit her.
"Jimmy was called by Heaven," the child tried to explain. "That's different."
"No. It. Isn't," Claire hissed. She let go of Angela abruptly. "Now get away from me, you sick little freak!"
With tears welling in her eyes Claire charged past the child and down the stairs.
Angela ran after her, reaching the kitchen just in time to see the back door slam. Barely registering that Sam and Dean were now in the Carter's kitchen she looked out onto the alley behind the Carter home.
Claire had jumped into a beat up old car, revved the engine, and was already peeling away from the house.
Still seated at the table Mrs. Carter put her head in her hands.
"It didn't go so well," Angela admitted.