When the Cradle Falls
Chapter Forty-Nine: Sugar Crash
Noah woke up that morning, not remembering having fallen asleep the night before. It certainly felt like he'd never slept. The world felt fuzzy and bleary, like he head was wrapped in cloth.
Rubbing at the eyes, Noah sat up, noticing his father passed out next to him, one arm hanging off the bed, the other bent awkwardly, like it had been cradling something. Pushing back the sheet that was barely covering him, the young boy stood up, and wobbled, grabbing onto the side table to regain his balance.
Eyes sweeping the room, Noah's gaze stopped on the queen size bed on the other side of the room. It was empty, the covers made sloppily. It was a strange sight. Cara was never one to wake up early. And even more than that, never one to make a bed. Moving further back into the room, Noah looked through the open door that connected the other hotel room. That room was empty, indicating Sam and Cara were both gone.
There was something in his brain that didn't feel right. Something was definitely wrong but there wasn't even a vague notion of what it could be.
He didn't do well to banish the feeling as he went about his morning. After taking a shower, Noah brushed his teeth, dried his hair with a towel, and spiked it the best he could.
The unsettling edge didn't go away when he emerged from the bathroom, dropping his dirty clothes near his backpack.
His father was now awake, sitting at the table, with a steaming to-go cup of coffee in front of him. Near the empty seat across from the table was a brown paper bag with grease stains on the bottom.
Upon seeing his son, Dean sat up a little straighter. "Breakfast." He slid the bag closer to the empty seat, an invitation for Noah to sit down.
A bit confused, Noah waved and took a seat opposite of his father. "Where's everyone?"
Dean shrugged, like it wasn't a big deal. "They went out to get breakfast."
Noah eyed the bag and frowned.
"Sam wanted some yogurt parfait crap. Cara wanted a smoothie. They went somewhere 'healthy.'" The last word was spat out like it was a personal attack on Dean's character. There was a pause and Noah didn't miss the meaningful stare from his father. "Anyways, we don't have to eat something from a tree. We've got donuts." Opening the bag, Dean fished out a chocolate, glazed donut and plopped it on a napkin in front of his son. "Yum. Like cake for breakfast."
Noah glanced down at the brown donut, sugar droplets cascading down the side, like iced raindrops. It was a sight that normally would've made Noah salivate, but today it left him with a wave of nausea.
"I don't feel good," Noah commented, pushing the donut towards the center of the table.
Dean's jaw clenched as he glanced towards the window which was curtained with ugly, velvet drapes.
He didn't remember.
Noah didn't remember having woken up, in the middle of the night, hysterical. He was screaming for his dad, yelling about dogs and clocks chiming. Sam had stood nearby, keeping an arm wrapped around a tearful Cara as Dean consoled an incoherent Noah back to sleep, the boy spending the rest of the night restless and sniffling.
Dean briefly thought that this was his chance to pussy out and not address the gaping wound in the room-that he was going to Hell in less than a year. Noah didn't seem to remember the exact details of the night, only a vague notion of something ominous. Dean was sure he could lie and swindle a kid for a year.
But he knew it wouldn't be fair.
Swallowing the lie before it could leave his lips, Dean swiveled and turned, so Noah was more centered in his field of vision.
Dean clenched his hands under the table, fighting with himself. This was it. This was his last chance to save any remaining crumbs of hope and innocence that Noah might have had.
He took a sip of his coffee, wishing it was something a little stronger than water.
"You had a bad dream last night. A vision." Just saying the words made Dean feel sick. Noah yelling about a looming doomsday that was too close had chilled him to his core in a way he didn't know was possible.
Noah looked troubled. "I did? I don't remember."
Dean was grateful for that. "Yeah. You woke up in the middle of the night. You were pretty upset." Maybe he didn't need to know he had screamed so loud a hotel staff member had banged on the door, asking if everything was okay.
"Why don't I remember?" Noah asked himself, frustrated.
"I don't know," Dean replied, unable to come up with any calming platitude.
The boy felt helpless. He had never forgotten one before-as far as he knew. "What did I say? Do you know what it was about?"
Last chance to deny. This was the moment Dean could have left Alice and his kids.. Just leave them behind, letting them think he had been a collective figure of their imagination.
He could do it. Logistically, he could wipe it all from his mindset. He could leave, pretend like he had never had these two kids and this woman. He could go on like when he left Broken Bow and let the world think that the last time he saw Alice was watching her walk away in a bright blue dress and wild, winded hair.
Those few seconds of a fever dream punched him in the gut. It was a primal urge that collapsed, revealing Dean's actual reality. Dean immediately flagellated himself, hating that was the crux of his being: wanting to leave his children and Alice behind.
Feeling disgusted, Dean pushed through with the truth.
Dean nodded. "Yeah. I know what it was about."
"What?"
"You remember when Yellow Eyes took you and Uncle Sam?"
Noah tensed. "Yeah?" He couldn't forget it. How could he? Every death was like a tack in the board, but especially the ones like him. Bryce-dead. Silvia-missing and most likely dead.
"When Jake hurt Uncle Sam," Dean clarified, narrowing Noah's memory back to a specific moment. Dean recoiled at how quickly his mind ricocheted back into that moment. He remembered well enough.
Noah nodded. "I remember." Jake had been...not kind, but not horrible to him either. But then the man-who had been like Sam and Noah had turned around and attacked his uncle.
"Sammy-when he got stabbed...he died."
Noah remembered mourning a seemingly deceased Sam.
"What? But you said-"
"I lied."
"But you said a shaman gave you a spell."
"I lied." That was something he knew his father would never willingly admit.
"Why?"
"Because I didn't want you to know what really happened."
After everything that had happened in Yellow Eyes' battle royale, Noah couldn't think of what would be worth keeping a secret at this point. The worst had happened and nothing could top it, Noah was convinced.
That was until his father started explaining. It started when Jake stabbed Sam. Cara and Noah had gone with Bobby, and Dean had been left alone with a mortally wounded Sam. Noah knew that much. It was after his departure from the dilapidated cabin that his perception of events began to diverge from the truth.
The next bit was difficult for both. Dean stumbled over his words and Noah felt his heart squeezing tighter and tighter as the man explained how he found a crossroads and summoned a demon. As the story crescendoed to the reveal of Dean significantly shortened lifespan, Noah was left with a heart tightened onto the head of a pin.
"What are you saying?" Noah finally managed, after Dean admitted he had made a deal.
Dean gave a deep sigh. He'd already had to do this too many times, and knew this wouldn't be the last.
"I made a deal to save Uncle Sam."
Noah frowned, his mind whirring. A deal. "Like with a demon?"
Dean nodded. "Yeah."
Noah felt himself nodding. He knew the nature of deals. Ten years. In that time he'd be an adult. They had forever until then.
Noah nodded, seeming to accept it. "We can fix it."
Dean felt himself rippling, knowing he didn't want to say the words he was about to. "The deal I made? I have a year since I go."
"Go where? A year? What does that mean?" Noah finally responded, still thinking in terms of the decade.
Dean waited a few seconds. "I have a year left to live before I die."
Noah knew heart was smaller than a pinhead. Assuredly soon it would become a grain of sand washed away in a churning ocean of grief.
"So you saved your dead brother so you can live for a year. And then you're going to Hell," Noah surmised. It didn't really feel real.
Sitting back in his chair, Dean grabbed the coffee and took a sip. It was nearly gone. He sat up and nodded. "Yeah. A year. It was the only way the demon would agree to bring Sammy back." Dean had many difficult conversations with his children, but he never got over the frankness that was embedded into these talks. There was no sugar coating it or softening the blow. He'd tried that and it ended up backfiring. The only way was laying out the brutal truth that would become their futures.
A few seconds passed, the information swirling around in Noah's whirring brain.
The words hit and Noah felt all the senses. He felt the clothes on his back, the way the fake wood was rough under his fingers. The taste of bile at the back of his throat. The sight of his father apprehensively sitting across the table from him. His nose registered the acrid, mildewy scent that was standard for cheap motel rooms, and the sugary sweet cyanide stench of the donut.
The last sense-hearing-was quiet. Sure, he heard the sound of the wheezy air conditioner and his own shallow breathing, but Noah didn't hear anything...anything that alluded to the future that apparently he had seen last night.
Frowning, his gaze shifted to the table. "I don't remember anything. I don't remember anything!" Suddenly, Noah banged his open palms onto the edge of the table, frustrated that he couldn't recall last night, which had obviously left a mark on the rest of his family.
"Remember?" Dean asked.
"What I heard last night! I don't even remember and now you're gonna die!"
Feeling his heart clenching, Dean took a deep breath before responding. "Sometimes we don't live the things we dream." Which sounded like a lie-as Noah's dreams were premonitions of the future.
"But I'm still cursed?" Noah demanded.
"No. You're not cursed. There's nothing wrong with you, Noah," Dean insisted, leaning forward and speaking to him with a stern voice.
Not responding, Noah didn't feel like arguing with his father about the semantics of being normal but also having psychic abilities. All he could think about was how this time in a year, his dad would be gone. Forever.
"Is there anything we can do to get you out of the deal?" Noah asked, coming to problem-solve, which was the Mercer way.
Dean shrugged. "I don't know bud."
"We have to find something. We can't just let this happen." Noah sniffled. He wiped his eyes.
Sighing deeply, Dean moved so he was sitting next to Noah. He wrapped an arm around his son. "You're gonna be okay, Noah." That was the only promise Dean could make that he could keep. Misty eyed, Dean stared at the top of Noah's head. He wouldn't get to see Noah grow into a better man than he would ever be.
But looking back, what a gift it had been that Dean got to be a part of his kid's lives. He got to watch them grow from curious babies into clever kids.
It broke his heart to know he would have to leave them, but Dean knew Noah would be strong. He would have his sister and mother and Sam and all of them would ride out the storm together.
Dean knew they would be okay.
They had to be.
Sam and Cara had returned to the motel room when Dean sounded the all clear. No time was wasted with Sam setting up their school things on the table. He handed Noah a stack of biology worksheets and gave Cara a history book on Medieval Europe. Dean had gone out to do whatever a young man living on borrowed time did.
As he presented the items, Cara glumly took it and Noah didn't even seem to register when the items were placed in front of him on the table. He stared straight ahead, a blank expression, as he continued to process the revelation that had been made about his dad's soul.
"Noah?" Sam asked, waving a hand in front of his face.
Snapping back to reality, Noah glanced at his uncle. "Huh?"
"New worksheets. It's about the classification system for living organisms."
Noah stared at this uncle, focusing intently on him. Jake had killed him. "So you were actually dead?" Noah asked, as if needing confirmation from the others that he hadn't just hallucinated that conversation. It had felt so real but couldn't possibly be true.
He held Noah's gaze for a moment before sighing. "Yes. I did die."
"And my dad saved you. He has a year left to live because of you." It wasn't an accusation, just a statement of fact.
Feeling a barb of guilt-likely what Dean had felt when John made a deal for him, Sam looked away from Noah's baleful eyes. "Looks like it."
"Noah, it's not his fault," Cara said quietly.
"I didn't say it was. All I'm saying is that we have Dad for a year and then he's gone. And who knows when we'll get Mom back."
"Can we not talk about Mom?" Cara asked. She still didn't know if she had forgiven their mother for what she had done to them.
Noah frowned at this sister. "You don't want to talk about Mom?"
She shrugged and pretended to pursue the table of contents. "Not really."
"Why not?"
"I just don't okay?"
"But I don't get why. She's our mom."
"Because I'm still mad at her, that's why!" Cara spat back.
Disgusted, Noah couldn't believe her. "How can you say that? After everything?"
Cara shrugged. "She really scared me."
He couldn't believe those words were really coming out of her mouth. How could their own mother scare her, when she had literally been possessed by a demon?
He couldn't believe the words that he was about to say to her, either. "I wish you were the one that made the deal so that you'd be the one gone in a year."
"Noah!" Sam chastised. He had tried to let the siblings try to work out their feelings, but Noah had taken it too far.
Cara gasped softly at that. Tears appeared in her eyes like stars, and she was standing up, grabbing her shoes, out the door before Sam could stop her.
Left alone with his uncle, Noah sighed and turned his attention to the worksheet. Hoping that if he did it, he would be spared a lecture. He didn't look up as the chair across from him scraped and creaked as Sam sat down.
"Noah."
"Yeah domain is the biggest one. Then kingdom, phylum-"
"Noah."
"-class, order-" There was an irritated edge in Noah's voice.
"That was over the line, what you said to Cara-"
Standing up suddenly, Noah pushed the chair in, angry. "Just because my dad is gonna be dead in a year doesn't mean that makes you my father. And that doesn't mean you can talk to me like you're him."
"I'm not trying to take the place of your dad I-"
But Noah-who always swore up and down he was nothing like his sister-scoffed, grabbed his own pair of shoes and stormed out of the room, leaving Sam the only remaining occupant while his family fell to shambles around him.
Cara found herself in the back corner of the library, tucked away in a cubicle, used tissues strewn about the desktop in front of her. Sniffling quietly, Cara wiped at her eyes underneath her glasses and pulled up the Internet of the computer. They were currently in Northern Minnesota near Voyageurs National Park, which met up with the Canadian border. Surely in such a large forest, there had to be something supernatural going on in the woods or around them, maybe a Wendigo or werewolf.
Looking for a case was better than thinking about what Noah had said to her.
And after only a bit of looking, Cara found something. There were missing children from the nearby towns. They disappeared in twos and they were always a boy and a girl. They had all gone missing in the woods. None of them had been found.
It was almost too perfect that the missing kids would be a boy and a girl.
Cara stared at the missing posters of the six kids. The pictures were school pictures, not unlike the ones that were taken on the first day of school.
It cost money to print, so Cara wrote down as much information as she could on the tiny scraps of paper that were provided to write down book numbers. When she was done, she logged out of the computer and put the tissues in the garbage.
He sat on a bench at the edge of the woods. There weren't very many other people around. Noah had found an abandoned baseball hidden in the tall grass and was volleying it back and forth between his hands. Having something to fidget with was all he wanted to focus on. Just the worn leather making contact with his left hand, then the right, back to the left, then repeat.
He kept the events of the day at bay, by only focusing on the ball.
That was until something shiny caught his eye at the edge of the forest. Setting the ball down on the bench, Noah stood and approached the tree line towards the shine.
Bending down, he picked up a glimmering white pebble, smooth as a marble, and rounded like it had been at the bottom of a running river. He ran a hand over the smooth surface and stood, then noticing another glistening pebble a few yards into the woods.
She walked with a brisk pace down the sidewalk, going over the notes in her head of the potential case. She was on her way back to the hotel room when something out of the corner of her eye stopped her. Across the street, was the edge of the woods.
Cara stopped in her tracks when she saw her brother bending down. It looked like he had found something. She watched as he stood and stared into the forest.
Her eyes widened when he stepped forward and disappeared into the shadow of the trees.
"Noah!" Cara yelled, dashing across the street, no regard for any cars that might be coming. She continued to yell his name and barrelled after him, following his trail into the woods.
"Noah! Noah!" Cara yelled, entering the woods, but came to a dead stop when she realized how eerily quiet it was.
Turning to look over her shoulder, her stomach dropped. Expecting to see a few trees and then the town beyond that, Cara couldn't see anything but a thick wall of trees, no end in sight.
Spinning in a circle, Cara only heard the sound of her own breathing as she realized something was seriously wrong. She had only taken a few steps into the forest, and now here she was, swallowed up like she had been plopped into the middle of it.
One silver lining was that she was her brother up ahead, bending down to inspect something on the ground.
With a somewhat relieved sigh, she called out her brother's name.
At the sound of his name, Noah looked over his shoulder, giving an aggravated groan when he realized it was Cara. He was sure she had come back to bother him. "Go away."
"Noah!" Cara said again, running up to him. "Are you okay?"
His face twisted up in confusion. What kind of stupid question was that? "I-"
"We need to get out of these woods," Cara insisted. She grabbed his arm and started to pull him along with her.
He yanked his arm out of her grasp. "Will you just leave me alone?"
"We have to go now."
"Why would I wanna go anywhere with you right now?" Noah fired back.
"Because something isn't right. There's a case here. Six kids have gone missing in pairs. Two at a time. A boy and a girl."
He really didn't feel like listening to Cara blabbering right now. What are the chances that there would be a case where a boy and a girl go missing in the woods in this random town? "Just leave me alone," he reiterated.
"Noah, you need to listen to me. Look around."
Rolling his eyes, Noah decided to humor his sister and dramatically placed a hand over his eyes, like he was searching for something. He glanced across the landscape and began to lose some of the attitude and bravado as he noticed that there were unending trees. He couldn't spot the opening of the forest that he'd come through.
"Okay, so I went a little farther than I thought I did."
Cara shook her head. "I don't think so. What are you looking at?"
Noah held out his palm and showed her the shiny white pebbles that had caught his eye. "I found these?"
"Where?"
"There was one at the edge of the woods. And then another one a little further in. And another one even further than that."
"Like a trail leading into the woods?" Cara asked.
Noah shrugged. "Guess so."
Suddenly on guard, Cara glanced around. "Something used these to lure you out here."
"Oh come on-"
"Shh!" Cara held a finger up to her lips. "I think we're being hunted right now."
Noah rolled his eyes and went to retort about how paranoid Cara was being, but as he was about to respond, something came down over his eyes, making the world dark.
It was early evening and Dean had a nice buzz going. After telling Noah the truth about his fate, Sam said he was going to tutor the kids for a little bit, a subtle cue that meant Dean was free to take some time for a little bit.
And of course that meant he had gone to the first bar and grill he'd seen. He'd ordered a double cheeseburger with extra pickles, curly fries, and told the waitress to keep the beers coming.
When Dean contemplated switching to whiskey, he decided it was probably a good time to head home. He figured the kids would be done with their schoolwork and they could unwind for the rest of the night and just hang out.
Climbing into the Impala, Dean swung out of the parking lot and drove the short distance back to the motel. On the way there he made sure to pick up some dessert for the kids, so he could come back with a peace offering for shattering Noah's whole reality.
"I got brownies!" Dean announced, kicking open the door, brownies in a bag with a case of beer under his arm, trying to retain a semblance of normalcy. They were just on a hunt. That's it. Monster of the week. Nothing more.
Expecting to see his kids watching some stupid TV show and Sam hunched over their school work, Dean was surprised to only see Sam, sitting at the table, sulking-as advertised.
Frowning, Dean set the case of beer down and approached the table. He dropped the brownies on the surface. The kids' schoolwork was spread out.
"Where are the kids?" Dean asked.
Sam looked up. "They're not here." He was careful with how he phrased it.
"Come again?"
Guiltily, Sam stood up. "While you were out, I had them doing their schoolwork and things got a little heated between them. Cara ended up storming out and then I tried to talk to Noah which made him mad. He left too."
"What were they arguing about?"
Sam didn't really want to go into the details. "Mostly it was about your deal and Alice."
Dean nodded. That made sense. Those were two pretty heavy topics right now.
"And you just let them go?" Dean didn't sound angry, just like he was trying to understand Sam's perspective.
"They were really mad. I wanted to give them time to cool down, but I thought they'd be back by now."
Dean frowned and checked his watch. It still wasn't set to get dark for a few hours. "Well, I think they've had their space for long enough. Let's go find them, okay?"
Sam was puzzled at his older brother's reaction. "You're not mad?"
Dean sighed. "Look, there's a lot of heavy shit that they've had to deal with recently. For all of us. I'm just too tired to be angry right now, Sammy."
Taken aback, the guilt and worry returned at the sound of those words. Dean always had a fire lit in his heart, and was known for the motto "I'll sleep when I'm dead." So, by saying he was tired, Sam knew that Dean really was.
Swallowing, Sam nodded. "Let's go find them."
"Ugh," Noah said, hand on the back of his head. It was throbbing and his vision spotted as he sat up. He was confused when the strange spots on his vision didn't go away, but instead morphed into solid, vertical lines. "What?" Noah reached forward, realizing they were tangible, made out of metal arranged in a square.
That's when Noah realized.
He was in a cage.
Rubbing his head, Noah tried to get a view from between the bars. It appeared the cage was set up in the corner of a kitchen. It looked like colored jelly beans had exploded all over the place. The floor was tiled in different colors, the cabinets alternating neon shades, even the ceiling painted in a swirled pattern. There was a brass oven set in the opposite corner of the room.
He continued scanning when his gaze finally landed on Cara. She was propped up against a wall perpendicular to the cage, unconscious. Her head was on her shoulder, and there was a thick, brass chain around one of her ankles.
"Cara! Cara!" Noah hissed quietly. He looked around for something to throw at her. Realizing the pebbles were still in his pocket, he tossed one at her, landing on her arm. He launched the second one, hitting her on the forehead-Noah hadn't been aiming for that, but it did the trick at rousing her and he found it strangely therapeutic.
Blearily, Cara rubbed her eyes and fished for her glasses, which she found by her side. She put them on and froze, her head still as her eyes slowly slithered back and forth across the brightly themed kitchen.
"Cara!"
Her gaze swiveled to her brother, trapped in a cage. "How hard did I hit my head?" She asked, mostly to herself.
"Where are we?" Noah demanded.
"It looks like we're in Mickey Mouse's kitchen."
"You think we're still in the woods?" Noah demanded.
Cara shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe?"
"Well what else did you find out about the missing kids?"
She appeared helpless. "All I know is that they went missing in pairs and none of them have been found."
He was begrudging to say it. "Well, it looks like you're right. I guess there is a case here. Congrats."
Normally it would've felt like a victory for Noah to admit she was right, but she didn't have time to gloat before the backdoor opened and a figure stepped into the kitchen.
It was an old woman, bent over, probably not even taller than Cara or Noah. She had a red scarf on her head, wiry gray hair poking out from underneath it. The woman wore an orange dress with a white ruffle apron over it. She had a long, crooked nose with a wart at the end of it. She had a heavy, brass walking cane in one hand. "So nice to see you youngin' awake. Hungry?" Reaching into her apron pocket, she pulled out a handful of candy and set it down within reach of Noah's cage.
"Who are you?" Noah asked.
The old woman smiled. "Just someone who found a scared, young boy wandering alone in the woods. I'm so glad I found you safe and sound."
"Where are we? Are we still in Voyageurs-" Before Cara could finish her sentence the brass cane came down over her head, knocking the glasses off the girl's head.
"Hey!" Noah yelled.
With a cry, Cara covered her head where the cane made contact. "What the hell?!"
The woman took the end of the cane and used it to raise Cara's chin. "You don't talk out of turn, you understand me?"
Cara swallowed thickly and nodded, without saying anything else.
"Excuse me, where are we?" Noah asked.
"Deep deep in the woods. Tucked away, nice and safe," The old woman crooned, coming closer to Noah's cage. She frowned sadly. "Are you not going to eat your candy?" She asked.
"Maybe later," Noah said, trying to reason with her. She seemed satisfied with that.
She turned and went to the counter of the kitchen and began to fuss around with some things on the other side of the room.
"You okay?" Noah mouthed to his sister.
"Peachy," Cara mouthed back, still rubbing her head.
Turning back around, the woman slid a plate with a whole chocolate cake on it to Noah. "Here. I'm sure that candy won't be enough for you for the night."
The next thing the old woman did was throw a mop and a bucket at Cara, which hit her in the face. "I expect this floor to be spotless by tomorrow morning."
Before Cara could respond, the woman came back to Noah. "Let's see you eat."
He tried to remain polite. "No thank you, I'm not hungry right now."
In response to that, the cane made contact with Cara's ribs, which resulted in the young girl giving a shriek. "You eat. Or she gets hit. You understand?"
Noah picked up a piece of candy, feeling sick.
He stared at the woman. "Eat. All of it."
His appetite was completely gone, but Noah managed to choke down all the pieces of candy and even the cake. Once his plate was cleared, the old woman smiled brightly. "Lovely! I'll see you tomorrow morning and I'll make you a delicious cinnamon strudel! Good night!" She turned to Cara. "Floor spotless by tomorrow or no food. Understand? If you do, say yes."
"Yes," Cara bit back, alternating between clutching her head and her side.
The woman exited the kitchen and the sound of the cane faded as it sounded like she went up the stairs.
"Bitch," Cara hissed, letting out a breath of pain.
"Are you okay?" Noah asked, concerned.
"Ugh I've been better."
"Well, it looks like we found the monster."
"This was too easy," Cara commented, leaning back against the wall, still holding her ribcage.
"Which part?" Noah asked, slumping against the bars of the cage, so he was facing away from Cara, staring at the wall the cage was flush against.
"How this all happened. I found the case and then here we are, right in the middle of it."
Noah shrugged and sighed. After going through Yellow Eyes' little battle arena, this definitely wasn't the worst thing that had happened to him in recent times. "Bad luck runs in our family, I guess."
"Seems like it."
There was silence for a bit. Noah had one of the pebbles still in his hands, that he turned over and over again, feeling the smooth surface. "How long have you known?"
Not wanting to have to answer his question, Cara turned her attention to the steel bucket that was filled with soapy water. A porous sponge sat on the ground beside it. Kneeling before the bucket, she took the sponge and dunked it, hand burning at the boiling temperature. Pulling the chain, Cara tried to see how far she could get, nearly to the door, but not close enough to grab the knob, or some kitchen utensil that she could use to pick a lock or use as a weapon. "You got your lock-pick kit with you?" Cara asked.
"No I don't. How long have you known?"
Next, Cara pulled off her glasses and tried to look for something that she could use. "There have to be some screws or something that can help me get this chain off."
"Cara!"
Sighing, she turned, and could see the vague outline of her brother through the moonlight streaming through the kitchen window. "I heard you."
"Okay, then answer me."
She came to sit next to the cage, still holding the sponge in one hand. "I've known since we were in the graveyard. When the gates of Hell opened, I heard Yellow Eyes talking to dad about making a deal. I asked him about it later."
He still couldn't believe that she had known that long. "Why didn't you tell me?" He asked, feeling betrayed by her.
"It wasn't my secret to tell."
"Since when do you care about keeping secrets?" Noah demanded.
"He told me not to tell!" Cara shot back, voice raising to match Noah's.
"But it's me! We don't keep things like that from each other!" Noah shot back. "You and me, Cara! We are the only ones that understand and you let me believe everything was fine." The preassigned pain of losing his father was still almost too abstract for Noah to grasp. What he could grasp was that Cara had lied to him, or withheld a secret-it didn't matter what she called it; it was all the same. But there was no other person in the world that understood quite like Cara. She had almost drowned. She had been possessed. She had found out monsters were real. Her mother had lost her mind and now their father was going to lose his life.
"I don't think 'fine' is the word you're looking for. Even before everything with Dad, you think our lives were 'fine'?"
He scoffed. "Really? I was just using your favorite word," He drawled, knowing that Cara used 'fine' to describe how she was feeling, how her day went-or whatever else-regardless if things actually were fine.
In the dark, there was suddenly a wet plop that hit Noah through the bars of the cage.
"What the hell!" Noah yelled, thinking maybe they were being attacked. Quickly orienting himself, he realized the projectile had been a sopping, wet sponge. He immediately retaliated and launched it back at Cara's face.
Hitting the target, Cara gave an indignant yell and plopped the weapon back into the bucket. "Enough!" She yelled with finality.
"Okay, another question for you: what if Dad never told me? Huh? What if he didn't tell me for a year and then he just died? Would you have told me then?"
"He would've told you before."
"What if he didn't? I wouldn't have known that the last time I saw Dad would be the last time." Here he was thinking he'd have the rest of his life with his dad, not knowing that each interaction he had with his father was numbered and precious.
She knew that was true. That was why she had been her dad's shadow since she found out about his fate. "It won't be," she said simply. "It wasn't," she quickly corrected. "We have eleven months."
An entire month. Thirty days his father, uncle, and sister lived like their lives hunting monsters was normal. Like Alice's absence was the biggest looming worry of the family. "Keeping secrets is never good," Noah commented. Any secret in this family ended up blowing up in everyone's faces.
In the dark, a mirage appeared, a young boy with purple eyes and a slight accent. The body of a teenager possessed by Murmur. A favor, he had said, in return to save her brother and uncle. Maybe something the demon would collect tomorrow-maybe never.
She shivered at the thought of Murmur, remembering the evil that had been a python coiled up inside of her, which had broken her spiritually and physically.
Secrets decayed away the heart.
"Secrets are bad," Cara agreed. She waited, holding her breath, seeing if Noah would notice that her tone was off.
A few moments dragged on, and it appeared Noah didn't realize. "How are we gonna get out of here?" He asked, finally, changing topics.
She twisted the chain around her ankle, rattling quietly. "Can you fit through the bars?"
"No." He was pretty sure he would've figured that out by now.
"Just throwing out ideas here," Cara lobbed the comment back at him, sensing the sarcasm in his tone.
Noah shook his head. He didn't fit through the bars, and Cara had already investigated that there was nothing they could use to pick the locks and escape into the night. "You have your phone with you?"
Perking up, Cara couldn't believe she had forgotten about her pink flip phone. She felt her pockets but deflated when it wasn't there. "I don't have it. It must have fallen out-or she took it." That old lady better not have swiped her phone.
"Well, either way, then maybe Dad can track it and find us."
That seemed to bring some hope to the siblings.
But for now, they realized they were trapped in the little cottage. Settling into the acceptance of that, they talked about simpler things-what assignments Sam was making them work on, things they missed from home, and what they were going to eat the next time they went to McDonalds. They avoided the heavier subjects, like their psychotic mother and their father who would be in Hell this time next year.
Voiding anything that was actually pressing in their lives, they kept the conversation shallow.
And amazingly, it was only a little while later that both kids drifted off.
His buzz had officially worn off, and now Dean was fueled by a mixture of emotions. The first one was heart-pounding worry that it was now dark outside and both of his kids were still missing. The next was shame, for the fact that instead of staying and dealing with the reeling emotions of his son, he retreated to a bar to get smashed, leaving Sam to handle the fallout. The last was something he couldn't exactly name. It was intertwining flashes of all the horrible situations Cara and Noah could be in, interspersed with images of Alice crying that he hadn't protected their children, mixed with the dead-eyed stare she had when Dean had found the kids after she had her psychotic breakdown.
"Hey!" A voice called.
Dean looked to see his little brother jogging down the sidewalk that was now slicked in rain. The street lights reflected on the concrete, disappearing as Sam's massive shoes thudded towards Dean.
"I got a lead," Sam informed, stopping out of breath, and holding a stack of papers.
"Yeah?" Dean hoped it was something promising.
"So I went to the library and asked around. Cara was definitely there. They saw a brunette girl with glasses matching her description. They said they saw her go in the back near the computers."
"And?"
"I managed to find a search history I think was hers."
"And?" Dean prompted again.
"I think she found a case." Sam had an expectant look on his face.
"What? Here?" Dean asked, incredulous. They hadn't been looking for anything in particular. Just driving. There was no way they had just walked into a case in a random town they were just passing through.
Sam was in full blown geek mode now. He unfolded and leafed through some pages he had printed from the library. "Yeah and get this: in the past year, there have been six kids that went missing in Voyageurs-that's the National Park that's right by here. And guess what else?"
Luckily that question was rhetorical and he wasn't actually waiting for Dean to reply before continuing. "The kids? They went missing in pairs. A boy and a girl." Sam handed over black and white school pictures of the missing children.
Dean's eyebrows dropped, flipping through the photos, stopping on that of a gap-toothed little boy, then moving to a slightly older girl with a wide smile and pigtails. "You're saying Cara and Noah went missing in the forest?"
Sam nodded, almost excitedly. "It fits the pattern."
"And how do you know it's supernatural and not some psycho?" Dean demanded. He didn't believe in coincidences. The timing was too perfect that there would be a case where a boy and girl were taken in the same town they had decided to stay.
"Does it really matter, either way?" Sam asked, engrossed in the news articles and pictures of missing kids he had found.
The older brother was already shaking his head. No. It didn't. It didn't matter if it was some monster or some backwoods hillbilly with a pitchfork.
Either way, they were getting their head blown off for taking his kids.
Cara and Noah were not going to be black and white school pictures of missing kids.
The cottage at night was quiet. Wherever the old woman had gone, there was no sign of her in the moonlight. Ambient sounds filled the kitchen: leaves rubbing together, branches scraping against the roof, some unidentified animal calling in the distance. All things considered-the fact they had been kidnapped by a crazy old woman or an unidentified monster-the place was peaceful. Cocooned in the sounds, both kids managed to sleep steadily, barring the circumstances. Noah had no dreams that he remembered, and Cara wasn't woken up by him screaming in his sleep.
As the night transitioned into morning, the shadows shifted as sunlight peeked through the window above the sink, turning the room a golden hue.
Shifting against the bars, Noah sighed, still in a pretty restful sleep.
That was until he woke up to the sound of yelling.
Electrified by the sudden noise, Noah jerked sideways into the bars, his shoulder hitting it painfully. Through the metal, he could see what had woken him.
The old woman was repeatedly bringing the cane down around Cara's face and shoulders, the girl's arms braced in front of her head, trying to blunt the blows.
"The Floor! The FLOOR!" The old woman screeched. "Dirty! Filthy!" Her shrieks were interspersed with the cane coming down.
"Hey! HEY!" Noah called, hands wrapping around the bars.
But just as he was about to feel helpless, Cara moved her leg and used it to sweep out the woman's feet from underneath her. The woman came crashing down in a pile, Cara snatched the cane and stood, breathing heavily, a cut on her hairline, face looking red. She stepped as far back as the chain would allow her. "Stop!" Cara yelled, a mixture of pain and aggravation. She didn't go through everything she had to be taken down by an old lady. Cara tossed the cane to the far side of the room, as far as it would go.
"Mop your own floors," Cara continued, patience dissipating at the old woman who remained huddled on the floor. She didn't make a move. "Get the key and get me out of this thing," she demanded, shaking a chain-clad ankle at the woman. At that moment, Cara didn't care if she was a supernatural creature. She was gonna sit there and take a beating. She'd had enough.
The shrouded puddle of the woman began to tremble, her back spasming. At first, it looked like she was crying, a strange, rising wheeze emanating from her.
However, it was after several punctuations of the strange sound that the brother and sister realized she was laughing.
Slowly rising, like a waterfall cascading in reverse, the woman straightened, coming to stand upright, without needing assistance from her cane, the entire time cackling. The knobs and kinks that were in her back straightened, as she grew taller and taller in height.
The old woman finally stopped, standing almost as tall as the ceiling, a terrifying marionette with no strings as her limbs flapped in disturbing patterns. "Stupid, stupid girl," she cawed like that raven Poe warned about.
Disturbed, Cara had pressed herself back against the wall, watching the woman with all her attention. Her hands groped blindly behind her for something to use as a weapon, but they found only air. She glanced around, and saw the cane was discarded from where it was tossed, and the bucket had upturned and rolled away in the scuffle. As she grasped at nothing, Cara glanced sideways at her brother, frozen in the cage, hands wrapped around bars like he was a satirical, cartoonish depiction of some wretched politician in a newspaper.
The woman's knobbed hand slowly rose up, palm open, and facing upwards. When it reached about her shoulder, the warped fingers with sharp talons slowly curled inward. As her fist drew tighter and tighter, so did the flow of air that seemed to cease traveling to and from Cara's lungs.
The girl fell back against the wall and slowly slid down it, one hand clutching at her throat as strange, breathless noises came from her. Her eyes were wide and she watched the evil woman's fist grow tighter and tighter.
"Stop it! Stop!" Noah yelled, shaking at the bars that would not budge. "Stop it! Please! She can't breathe!"
Smiling devilishly, the old woman turned her head to look at Noah, hand still raised and clenched into a fist. "There's a way to make it stop."
"What? What is it?" He demanded desperately, watching Cara's reddened face from the blows of the cane turn a bluish tint. "I'll mop the floors. I'll do whatever you want."
"You listen to me," the old woman counseled. "You eat everything I give you. And you." She turned her attention back to Cara, who was now a huddled mass on the ground. "You mop the floors. Got it?"
"Yes yes we got it!" Noah responded.
"Of course sweetheart, I know you do. Now what about you? Huh?" She asked Cara directly. "You'll do what I say?"
It was an agonizing few seconds for Noah as he watched Cara's head slowly move up and down, indicating her consent.
Even after that, the woman still held her hand, as if considering Cara's response. Finally satisfied, the woman dropped her hand and Cara loudly gulped in a stream of air, face returning to a more natural color.
The witch brushed off the front of her dress and smiled. "I'll be away for a while. You know what to do."
The old woman waved her hand. There was suddenly a note on the bars of the cage that read "Clean the upstairs walls." A newly filled bucket and sponge reanimated next to Cara.
On the floor near where the tile and floor met there was a note that said "Please eat the cherry pie in front of you." Same as the bucket, a fresh piece of cherry pie materialized before Noah's eyes.
Slumped against the wall, Cara sat with her eyes closed. There was still a hand wrapped around her neck, rubbing up and down. Her breath was ragged and wheezy. She hadn't yet spotted the new, seemingly impossible instructions. Her life in those few seconds were measured in the pained breaths she took.
"Cara?" Noah asked, loudly but in a soft, concerned tone. She didn't seem like she was aware of anything going on around her right then.
It took him calling her name a few more times before she finally let go of her neck and opened her eyes. The sight of a new bucket and sponge sank her heart. "I'm here," she responded to her brother.
"Are you alright?"
"Yeah." If she was strictly talking about almost being suffocated by the Wicked Witch of the West, then she was just dandy. Standing slowly, she grabbed the note and read it, frowning at the instructions. "I don't know how I'm supposed to do this," she muttered, letting it flutter to the ground. It seemed like some of the fight had left her.
"So she's a witch?" Noah asked.
"Sure looks like it. Ugh." Cara stared at the bucket and felt a flash of anger. With a scream, she kicked it as far as it would go. She knew that the witch was setting her up to fail with the instructions she had given her. "This evil bitch is gonna starve me and beat me while she fattens you up like a Thanksgiving turkey!"
The words hung in the air and something on the other side of the room caught Noah's attention.
Through the bars of his confinement, Noah was transfixed on the oven. It was a gleaming brass, sparkling like sunlight reflecting on water. That wasn't the most marked part about it. He hadn't really paid much attention to it before, but now looking at it, it was assuredly big enough to fit a whole turkey.
Or a whole child.
"Cara!" Noah exclaimed, feeling a revelation.
"What?" She turned, not sure if he was yelling her name in annoyance or shock.
"You've read Hansel and Gretel?"
She was halfway through an eye roll when, like moments before for her brother, she let out a small gasp, realizing what he was getting at. "Oh my God!" Standing up, Cara rushed to the cage and gripped her hands around the bars. "God you're right! The shiny pebbles…they're the bread crumbs. A boy and girl missing in pairs. Everything that's colorful…it looks like candy! Feeding you desserts…the oven!"
"We figured it out!" Noah whispered back in excitement, from his side of the bars, feeling the first bit of hope he'd had all day. He even forgot for a moment that if they couldn't get out of it, his fate would be to be cooked up in the oven.
They shared an excited gaze for a few seconds, until Noah finally took a step back. "Okay…so how do we beat her?"
Cara mentally flipped through the fairytale, coming to the end. "We trick her. Push her in the oven right before she tries to push one of us in."
In theory, that would be easy enough. The old woman wasn't physically that strong-Cara had beaten her pretty easily. The trick part was going to be her supernatural powers.
Noah nodded. "Okay. Okay. So we just have to wait for her to get back and get hungry."
It was determined that the only thing they could do was play their roles and wait for the witch. There wasn't much else they could do until she returned. So, Noah ate the cherry pie that was in front of him, feeling like he wanted to upchuck the amount of sickly sweet food he'd eaten. While he sat in the cage and fought off a stomach ache, Cara went to the sink and refilled the bucket. She scrubbed the floors and made it as far up the stairs as the chain would allow.
The two didn't talk much, other than the logistics of different scenarios that could happen once the witch returned. They were focused on the task at hand. It was useful in distracting Noah from the pain which had swallowed his most recent sleeping and waking hours. He could focus on what would happen once the witch came back, pushing back worries about his mother and father into the deepest recesses of his mind.
Although being held captive in a Grimm's Brother fairy tale wasn't ideal, it was a welcome reprieve from the horror that the future held.
The witch returned when the sun was setting, bathing the kitchen in a warm, orange light. She walked in, with a basket full of herbs and berries, which she set down on the counter. She looked very different from when she had attacked Cara, looking once again like a frail old woman with no magical powers. Her feet shuffled slowly across the floor, back hunched over, breathing wheezy. The siblings watched in silence and she tripped over to the oven and turned the dial.
Turning back to the siblings, the witch came and stopped at Noah's cage, picking up the empty plate. "What a good boy…eating all your food." She then glanced around the kitchen, noticing the floors were gleaming. "And you…here." The witch reached into her pocket and tossed some acorns at Cara's feet.
As it had been close to a day since she'd eaten, Cara greedily ate up the nuts, not caring if she looked like a starving animal. It was a balance between reality and the act.
About fifteen or so minutes passed and the old woman busied herself with rummaging around the kitchen, moving around pots and pans, putting plates and cups in different cabinets. She cut up and arranged the berries and herbs that had been in the basket, laying them out like the ingredients for a meal. When she had finished with that, she wiped her hands on her apron and turned back to Cara, who was sitting against the wall, watching carefully.
"Dear," the old woman beckoned. "Come check the oven and tell me if it's hot yet." It was the nicest she had ever spoken to Cara.
Slowly rising, Cara stood and threw a glance to her brother. He nodded minutely, breath hitching.
They both knew how the rest of the tale went. Either they were going to be Hansel and Gretel and escape or be the countless other children eaten by a witch.
This was it. It was time.
"Of course," Cara agreed. She slowly moved across the floor, feeling the weight of the chain dragging her down like a comet pulling her to the Earth's core. Once she stood in front of the oven, Cara carefully opened the door, aware of the witch's position, hovering slightly behind her and to the side.
With one hand, Cara leaned in a little bit, feeling the roiling heat.
Retracting, she turned and nodded. "It's hot. It's ready."
Time slowed, and Cara looked over her shoulder at her little brother. He was at the edge of the cage, hands tight against the bars, as if he was hoping if he willed it enough, he could bend the metal apart and push his way through.
It was up to her.
In a swift motion, Cara turned her body and grabbed the witch's sides, with all her might, she launched the witch as hard as she could into the oven. The heat intensified as she got closer and closer, pushing harder and harder, orange burning in her eyes.
Then the heat went away, and the orange was replaced by the world spinning. Realizing she was hurtling through the air, no longer having a hold on the witch, Cara hit the wall up high near the ceiling, and splatted back down to the ground, head pounding with a ringing in her ears. She pushed herself up on her elbows and tried to orient herself, as her vestibular system continued to reel.
"That one is not worth the trouble," the witch grunted, ignoring the huddled mass that was the girl she just tried to eat. With a magical wave of her hand, the cage Noah was in snapped open, and she grabbed him by the wrist and dragged him across the room, his heels dragging into the grounds as he pulled against her magical strength, leading him towards the oven.
"Cara. Cara!" Noah yelled for help as he continued to fight against the witch. He couldn't see if his sister was still down for the count, but that moment would've been the perfect time for her to come and offer aid.
"Get in there," the witch said, pushing Noah even further to the oven. He grabbed the handle of the open oven door, gripping for anything that wasn't hot. While he did that, Noah donkey kicked the witch several times in the face, sending her stumbling back a few steps, stunned. She hunched over, wiping her nose that was now spotting with blood.
Knowing this was the crescendo of a hunt he hadn't been prepared for, Noah quickly gathered his wits, taking a deep breath, and looked around the colorful kitchen. He was near the oven; Cara was near the wall, trying to deepen her breath; the witch was hunched over, her white hair covering her face.
The one thing that stood out to Noah was how close the witch was standing to the cage.
Throwing out a hand, he waved it at Cara, trying to get her attention. Noticing it, she first frowned, seeing him flailing his arm at her. But after a few seconds, she recognized the pattern of him pointing at the two of them, and then him pushing his hands together, making a forceful, forward motion.
She needed more breath but she was out of time. Cara understood what Noah meant. She took a step, the chain quietly slackening as she moved closer to the cage her brother had been imprisoned in.
The two siblings moved quietly. Standing, Cara joined her brother to push against the witch into the cage Noah had been in.
They pushed. And pushed.
And then, there was a click.
The cage locked.
And the witch screeched. She thrashed against the magic bars, screaming curses.
She was trapped.
As lucky as they were, as the lock to the cage clicked shut, the chain around Cara's ankle magically snapped off, clattering to the ground, harmlessly.
Cara and Noah breathed heavily, hearing her screams. They stared at each other, knowing they weren't safe yet.
Realizing she was free, Cara noticed a seemingly innocuous item sitting on the counter.
She grabbed it and held it up for Noah to see.
As if they were meant to be there, a box of matches was sitting on the counter near the cracked open oven.
"Light it up?" Cara asked, nodding at Noah and then the oven.
He nodded, waiting. Cara went to turn the gas on all the burners.
The witch screeched in the background.
Cara carefully lit a match and threw it into the oven. She subsequently lit another and dropped it near the gas-burning stove.
"Let's go!" Noah yelled, dashing for the door, his sister rushing after him, leaving the box of matches near the threshold.
They escaped through the door and were immediately sucked back into the endless forest.
It was night as the two stumbled forwards, trying to put distance between them and the screeching witch.
But it seemed like when they had ran miles, they could still hear her screams. And if they looked back, the windows of the cottage were burning orange.
As Cara and Noah were about to stop and comment, there was a low rumbling as the cottage exploded outwards, orange flames nuking out towards the enemy.
Noah woke up in a forest. He felt the grass underneath himself. There was a time where he stood up and there was a deep breath.
Sitting up quickly, he looked around and saw a familiar figure near him.
Scrambling up, Noah had almost reached the figure when she sat up on her own.
Swiping her hair back, Cara wished she could sleep more but found it weird there was a weird, scratchy texture underneath her. "The hell?"
"The witch?" Noah asked, appearing at her side with no warning.
"Jesus!" Cara jumped, scooting back, not realizing her brother had been there right next to her.
Noah gave a weak smile and waved. "Witch?"
"We killed her?" Cara asked, remembering what happened.
The brother looked around. He saw a thick forest on one end, hearing cars, and seeing passing lights on the other end. "I think we did."
"I don't say this a lot but she was a fucking bitch," Cara spat out, standing up straight, realizing all her wounds were healed.
Noah let out a laugh.
"But like what a cliche," Cara replied, marionetting the dead witch as they inexplicably made their way to the edge of the forest, to the road.
"Hey! I see the road!" Noah exclaimed.
The two siblings saw a park bench opening to a world of cars, streets, and stores.
"Come on!" Noah yelled to Cara, a few yards behind. The young girl sprinted the few yards, stopping parallel with her brother.
She gasped.
"I see…"
"Dad," Noah finished.
The siblings stood side to side, the forest creating a background as thick as their memory. They had escaped from the thick of of and now stood, staring ahead, to their father: Dean Winchester.
Hello. I would like to recognize it's been more than a year. Sure, I have COVID, me getting my Masters' degree, plus actually starting my job.
I got nothing to say other than "sorry" am "fuck it all" and "it be like that sometimes"
I appreciate anything haha