As a kid, my hands were red
When you asked me, I denied it
I've told lies that never came true
And I have stolen, so have you
If we can make it through another day
With you believing in my innocence
And we can make it through another year
'Cause we both need it to forget this fear
I don't want you to forget
Just pretend that it never happened
And it's just a little white lie
And it's just a little white lie
If it's all the same to you
Then it's just a little white lie
Then it's all the same to me
And it's just a little white lie
If I was to blame would you?
Would you still believe?
The Lumineers — White Lie
"I don't know; I think that was a record," I sighed, checking my watch.
"You think?" Dean asked excitedly.
"Yeah, anybody else would've done the speed limit," I laughed, scooting forward in the backseat gingerly so as not to jostle the car too much in hopes I wouldn't wake Sam. He'd fallen asleep about an hour ago, and for once, he looked peaceful. I didn't want to bother him. "Maybe we can sneak out. Let him sleep."
"Yeah." Dean carefully pulled the keys from the ignition and opened his door. Before we even got close to leaving the vehicle, Sam started whimpering. His peaceful expression contorted in distress. I patted his shoulder, and he woke up with a gasp, only relaxing when he realized where he was.
"I take it I was having a nightmare?" He asked, wiping the sweat beading on his brow.
"Yeah, another one," Dean said, throwing an arm over the back of the seat.
"Hey, at least I got some sleep," Sam shrugged, rubbing his eyes. For someone who'd been so dreary lately, it was odd to hear him looking on the bright side of… well, anything.
"You know, sooner or later, we're gonna have to talk about this."
Sam glanced out the window, pretending he didn't hear what Dean had said. "Are we here?" he deflected, picking up the folded newspaper on the floorboard. In it, we'd read about a man, Steven Shoemaker, who died suddenly in his home. They said the cause was a heart attack but also that he was perfectly healthy. To top it all off, his daughter said, his eyes were bleeding. So, here we are.
"Yup." Dean rolled his eyes at his brother's unwillingness to talk. "Welcome to Toledo, Ohio."
"So what do you think really happened to this guy?"
"That's what we're gonna find out," Dean said, getting out of the car. "Let's go."
The morgue's office was unsurprisingly dreary; practically no lights were on, leaving the only source coming from the overcast day. Two desks lined the right wall, nameplates situated in their centers. One read Morgue Technician, and the other Dr. D. Feikowicz. The latter was vacant, papers scattered around with no one to read them. The technician sat behind his desk, absentmindedly sorting through a file. He popped his head up as we entered, brows lowering in suspicion.
"Hey," he mumbled.
Dean strode to the front of the desk. "Hey."
"Can I help you?"
"Yeah. We're the med students."
"Sorry?"
"Oh, Doctor–" Dean paused, again glancing at the nameplate on the desk to his right. "Figlavitch didn't tell you?" I sighed internally. The tech stared at him blankly, not believing a single word he said. It couldn't be because he butchered the doctor's name. I wouldn't know how the hell to say it either; the only difference is I wouldn't try.
"We talked to him on the phone. He, uh– we're from Ohio State," Dean lied easily. "He's supposed to show us the Shoemaker corpse. It's for our paper."
"Well, I'm sorry," he droned unapologetically. "He's at lunch."
"Oh well, he said–" Dean glanced at me in faux disappointment. "You know, it doesn't matter," he waved a hand dismissively. "You don't mind just showing us the body, do you?"
"Sorry, I can't. Doc will be back in an hour. You can wait for him if you want."
"An hour?" Dean pulled a sharp intake of breath through his teeth. "We gotta be heading back to Columbus by then," he said, looking to Sam and me for confirmation. I nodded while Sam mumbled something that sounded like an agreement. Dean returned his gaze to the uninterested man behind the desk. "Look, man, this paper's like half our grade, so if you don't mind helping us out–"
"Uh, look, man," he repeated childishly. "No."
Dean's beaming smile turned into one of fastly diminishing restraint. "I'm gonna hit him in his face, I swear," he mumbled under his breath, turning around.
"Okay." I patted Dean's backside as I moved around him, snaking his wallet. I almost couldn't believe he didn't notice. Finally, in front of the desk, I leaned down on it with a smile. The Tech's eyes dragged up my chest, landing on my face last. I fought the urge to roll my eyes and opened the wallet, tossing five twenty-dollar bills down on the desk. I could practically feel Dean breathing down my neck, but I hoped his intensity wouldn't influence the man in the wrong direction.
The Tech's eyes fluttered from the money to me and back again. "Follow me," he finally said, snatching the bills. Sam peered back at me with a grin as he followed him out of the office. I turned on my heel, holding out the wallet for Dean. He snatched it back so fast that if I blinked, I would've missed it.
"How did you even–?" he trailed off, stuffing it into his jacket pocket.
"It's not my fault you didn't realize." I smiled innocently, folding my arms. He huffed.
"I earned that money."
I rolled my eyes. "In a poker game."
"Poker is hard."
"And you're good at it. So, you can do it again, no problem," I encouraged. Dean's shoulders dropped further in annoyance. "Come on. It got us in." I nodded in the direction Sam and the tech had gone.
Before we had to bribe the Tech with any more cash, Dean and I caught up with him and Sam. He brought us a room over to the morgue. The smell was something you'd never get used to; a sickeningly sweet chemical sting assaulted your senses the moment you stepped foot into these places. The lack of color in the bland, off-white room made the already cold space even more chilling. I suppose they didn't worry about livening it up, considering who resided inside.
"The newspaper said his daughter found him," Sam said as the tech slipped on a pair of white latex gloves. "She said his eyes were bleeding."
"More than that," the Tech muttered, pulling back the sheet covering a dark-haired man with pale skin that almost appeared translucent—veins like vines seen clearing through his thin flesh. Dried blood ran down his cheeks, coming from his empty eye sockets.
"Any sign of a struggle?" Dean wondered. "Maybe somebody did it to him?"
"Nope. Besides the daughter, he was all alone."
"Do you have an official cause of death?" I asked, seemingly unable to look away from his eyes… or where they used to be, at least.
"Ah, Doc's not sure." The corners of his lips tilted in an amused line. "He's thinking massive stroke, maybe an aneurysm? Something burst up in there, that's for sure."
Sam's scrunched reaction to the corpse didn't change, not even when he looked up at the Tech. "What do you mean?"
"Intense cerebral bleeding. This guy had more blood in his skull than anyone I've ever seen."
"The eyes, what would cause something like that?"
"Capillaries can burst. See a lot of bloodshot eyes with stroke victims."
"Yeah? You ever see exploding eyeballs?" Dean asked, peering up from the dead man's face.
"That's a first for me. But hey, I'm not the doctor," he smiled wider this time. The giddy way he acted about it started becoming more disturbing than death itself. I suppose it took a special kind of person to be around the dead so much… one that most likely wouldn't get along easily with the living.
"Maybe we could see the police report?" I asked. "For our paper."
"I'm not really supposed to show you that…" he trailed off, raising an eyebrow. This time, Sam pulled out his wallet, handing over a few more bills to the tech. He was eager to show us the police report after that. In it, nothing was out of the ordinary. Mr. Shoemaker's youngest daughter, Lily, was having a sleepover. His eldest, Donna, came home from dinner with friends and found her father in the upstairs bathroom, lying in a puddle of his own blood; eyes missing and sockets bleeding. It wasn't anything we didn't already know, save for the girls' names.
Finally free from the clutches of that extortionist morgue technician, we ventured down the four flights of stairs that led us to empty half of our savings. "Might not be one of ours," Sam suggested, lagging a step or two behind Dean and me.
"Well, if it's not, we just wasted one-hundred-and-seventy-five dollars on a freak aneurysm," I commented, dragging a hand down the banister.
"How many times in Dad's long and varied career has it actually been a freak medical thing and not some sign of an awful supernatural death?" Dean wondered. I tilted my head in agreement. I'd been around for half of that long and varied career, and I couldn't remember one insane medical trauma that didn't turn out to be something up our alley.
"Uh, almost never," Sam replied.
"Exactly. So."
"Are you saying I didn't waste your poker money?" I smiled slyly.
Dean licked his lips, looking hesitant to answer. God forbid he was wrong. "We'll see," he said, overtaking me to stride down the rest of the steps.
Like nearly every other job we worked, it happened in the last place you'd expect—a beautiful two-story suburban home with a manicured lawn and privacy fence. Cars filled the driveway, extending out onto the side of the road. The front door was left open, so grieving friends and family could come and go as they pleased, paying their respects to a clearly well-liked individual. We were intruding on something sacred, and I felt horrible about it.
Dean leaned down to whisper in my ear. "Feels like we're underdressed."
"Maybe we should come back," I suggested just as quietly. "Do this another time."
"When? Not like we can creep around her high school."
Whether I liked it or not, he was right. This was our only chance; we had to take it. Unable to find Donna Shoemaker on our own, Sam went over to one of the attendees, telling him we were family friends and asking where Mr. Shoemakers' daughters were so we could give them our condolences. He pointed through a set of French doors leading to the backyard at a group of four girls sitting outside on lawn furniture. A girl with dirty blonde hair sat beside two brunettes on a bench, one of them her age and the other a few years younger. The fourth girl, a platinum blonde, sat in her own chair. She seemed indifferent to her friends' grieving, to begin with—filing her manicured nails—but when she saw the boys, any sense of empathy blew in the wind.
"You must be Donna, right?" Dean asked no one in particular as we approached.
"Yeah," the girl with chin-length, whispy dark hair answered suspiciously.
"Hi," Sam smiled politely. "We're really sorry."
"Thank you."
"I'm Sam, this is Dean, and that's Tori," he introduced. I gave the girls a small wave. "We worked with your Dad."
Donna glanced at the dark blonde-haired girl next to her, then back up at us. "You did?" She asked. There was an underlayer of disbelief in her tone, but she didn't seem to dwell on it long.
"Yeah." Dean nodded. "This whole thing. I mean, a stroke."
"I don't think she really wants to talk about this right now," the friend closest to her said protectively.
"Charlie, it's okay," Donna reassured. "I'm okay."
"Were there any symptoms?" Dean asked. "Dizziness? Migraines?"
"No."
The younger brunette beside her turned around. "That's because it wasn't a stroke," she said adamantly.
"Lily, don't say that."
"What does she mean?" I asked gently.
"I'm sorry, she's just upset," Donna apologized for her sister's behavior. But, little did she know, that was exactly what we wanted to hear.
"No," Lily insisted. "It happened because of me."
Donna's brown eyes flickered up to us before settling on her sister. "Sweetie, it didn't."
"Lily," Sam bent down in front of the troubled girl. "Why would you say something like that?"
"Right before he died, I said it," she explained.
"You said what?"
"Bloody Mary, three times in the bathroom mirror," Lily admitted, guilt clouding her deep irises. "She took his eyes; that's what she does."
"That's not why Dad died," Donna asserted. Although she was compassionate about it, you could hear the slight exasperation. I couldn't imagine how many times she'd gone over this since their father's death. "This isn't your fault."
"I think your sister's right, Lily," Dean chimed in. "There's no way it could have been Bloody Mary. Your Dad didn't say it, did he?"
Lily thought for a minute, then shook her head. "No, I don't think so."
"Then it couldn't have been you," I told her. I hated seeing how she beat herself up over something out of her control. She was too young to live with that guilt for the rest of her life. Even if she did say those words, it wasn't her fault—not directly.
"Are you sure?" She asked, desiring reassurance from someone other than her sister. I'm sure she felt Donna would say anything to ease her fears.
"I'm sure," I insisted.
Sam stood up, pushing his hands into his pocket. "We just wanted to stop by. Your Dad was a great man."
"Thank you." Donna smiled a bit more genuinely this time. She took Lily's hand and held it gently. Even after we walked away, I felt eyes boring into us and peered over my shoulder, finding Charlie still watching. It was one thing to be cautious, I commend her for it, but I don't think we were being suspicious enough to warrant such a dirty look. Back inside, we managed to sneak upstairs without attracting any unwanted attention.
"The Bloody Mary legend, did Dad ever find any evidence that it was a real thing?" Sam wondered as we made our way down the sizeable hallway.
"Not that I know of," Dean said, suddenly stopping his stride. "Look." He nodded to a halfway-opened bathroom door. In the entryway, dried streaks of blood blemished the otherwise perfect marble tile floor. I cringed at the loudness of the door hinges creaking as Sam pushed it open the rest of the way.
Dean walked inside, careful to step over the blood. I remained in the hallway while Sam bent down, touching the dried copper. "I mean, everywhere else, all over the country, kids will play Bloody Mary, and as far as we know, nobody dies from it."
"As far as we know." I folded my arms, leaning against the door jamb. "But anything is possible."
"Yeah, maybe everywhere it's just a story, but here it's actually happening," Dean agreed.
"So it's where the legend began?" I asked. Dean shrugged in response and opened the medicine cabinet, rooting around their belongings. He took out a bottle of pills, inspecting the label. Sam stood and walked into the bathroom.
"But according to the legend. The person who says B–" he paused, eyes flickering at his reflection nervously in the mirror on the medicine cabinet. He shut it and finished, "The person who says you know what gets it. But here?"
"Shoemaker gets it instead, yeah," Dean said. The bottle of pills ratted in his hand as he spoke. "Never heard anything like that before. Still, the guy did die right in front of the mirror, and the daughter's right. The way the legend goes, you know who scratches your eyes out."
I strode into the bathroom to take the bottle and put it back where it belonged. "It checks out," I said. "Worth looking into."
Faint heels clicked the hardwood floor. I debated shutting the bathroom door until whoever it was left, but Sam and Dean had other ideas and exited into the hall. With no other choice, I followed, finding Donna's skeptical friend, Charlie. "What are you doing up here?" She asked, voice full of barbed wire.
"We–" Dean stuttered, glancing back at me. "We had to go to the bathroom."
"Yeah, we travel in a pack." I didn't realize the words drenched in sarcasm actually left my lips until Dean bumped his shoulder into mine. Whoops.
Charlie narrowed her eyes. "Who are you?"
"Like we said downstairs, we worked with Donna's Dad," Dean told her.
"He was a day trader or something. He worked by himself." Well, shit.
Dean smiled, hoping to charm his way out of it. "No, I know. I meant–"
She didn't fall for it. "And all those weird questions downstairs, what was that?" Charlie folded her arms and shifted her weight to the left. "So you tell me what's going on, or I start screaming."
I raised an eyebrow. "That's a little harsh, don't you think?" She pulled in a deep breath, opening her mouth to follow through on her threat until I raised a hand and hurriedly said, "Okay, okay. We think something happened to Donna's dad."
"Yeah," she said pointedly. "A stroke."
"That's not a sign of a typical stroke," Sam interjected. "We think it might be something else."
She looked him up and down disbelievingly. "Like what?"
"Honestly? We don't know yet. But we don't want it to happen to anyone else. And that's the truth."
"Who are you, cops?"
Dean shrugged his mouth. "Something like that."
"I'll tell you what," Sam pulled a piece of paper and pen from his pocket, jotting down his cell number and handing it to her. "Here. If you think of anything, you or your friends notice anything strange, out of the ordinary… just give us a call."
After we left, the weather turned overcast and rainy, deterring most people from venturing to the library, where we'd most likely be spending the rest of the day. It was way less stressful to research the supernatural without worrying about someone breathing down your neck, that's for sure.
"All right, say Bloody Mary really is haunting this town," Dean began, holding the door open for me to enter the building first. "There's gonna be some sort of proof—like a local woman who died nasty."
"Yeah, but Bloody Mary is never that cut and dry," I said. "There are over fifty versions, and everyone is different. In one, she's a witch; in another, she's a murdered bride."
"All right, so what the hell are we supposed to be looking for?"
"Every version's got a few things in common," Sam said. "It's always a woman named Mary, and she always dies right in front of a mirror. So, we've gotta search local newspapers—public records as far back as they go. See if we can find a Mary who fits the bill."
Dean blew out an exasperated breath, already tired from the very idea of all the work we had in front of us. "Well, that sounds annoying," he complained.
"No, it won't be so bad, as long as we–" Sam stopped short, looking over at the row of computers, which all had Out of Order signs taped on them. He chuckled dryly. "I take it back. This will be very annoying."
"I'll be right back," I mumbled, heading for the front desk to request as many historical records as they could give.
Hauling five boxes of papers sounded easy in retrospect, but boy, was I wrong. Sorting through them was even worse. Log books, manilla folders, and loose pages were scattered around the motel room, all over the table, the beds, and the dresser. Even a couple had fluttered to the floor. We'd barely gotten any sleep, drinking coffee and energy drinks to stay up and get it done. Surprisingly, after downing three cups of coffee, Sam had still passed out halfway through the night. This was the longest he'd slept in some time. If he didn't exhibit any nightmares, neither of us was about to wake him.
My vision doubled, forcing the words on the page to overlap and lose their meaning. "If I read another paragraph," I put down the paper and rubbed my temples. "I might actually go insane."
"I'm not seeing anything," Dean complained quietly.
"Maybe it was just a fluke."
"No, something is going on here," he gently drummed his knuckles on the table, lips pursed in thought. "You know, I've been meaning to ask—how have you been?"
I furrowed my brow in confusion at his unexpected question. "What do you mean?"
"Just… after everything," he shrugged. I wasn't sure if he was talking about the demon or the pregnancy scare, but either way…
"I'm fine."
"You're fine?"
"Yes, Dean. I am." I reached across the table to take his hand. It hadn't crossed my mind again, but it seemed to be the only thing on his. "I'm not sad; I'm not upset. We want the same things. You gotta stop worrying about it." I smiled softly, running my thumb over his knuckles.
Dean chewed the inside of his cheek, nodding. "All right."
Sam started to mumble and fidget, just like he always did when he was having a nightmare. I was about to wake him when his eyes snapped open, and he again gasped for air. His eyes darted back and forth between his brother and me, finally landing on Dean. "Why'd you let me fall asleep?"
"'Cause I'm an awesome brother," Dean mumbled, leaning back in his chair. "So, what did you dream about?"
"Dean," I scolded under my breath. This whole force it out of him tactic wasn't the way to go, and he should know that.
"Lollipops and candy canes." Sam's voice dripped with sarcasm. I pressed my lips into an apologetic smile.
Dean threw me an exasperated glance before returning to the book in front of him. "Yeah, sure," he grumbled.
"Did you find anything?"
"Oh, besides a whole new level of frustration?" Dean asked sarcastically, closing and pushing away from him. "No."
"A couple women have committed suicide in front of a mirror, but their names were Laura and Catherine," I said, propping an elbow on the table and resting my chin in my hand.
"And a giant mirror fell on a guy named Dave," Dean added.
"Yeah, poor Dave," I mumbled, waiting a beat to add, "But no Mary."
"We've also been searching for strange deaths in the area; you know… eyeball bleeding, that sort of thing," Dean explained, lifting a few stray pages to punctuate his frustration. "There's nothing."
Sam collapsed back onto the mattress. "Maybe we just haven't found it yet," he suggested.
"Maybe." I stood and picked up an untouched pile of papers from the dresser. "But my eyeballs are gonna start bleeding if I have to sort through any more of this." I dropped it on the bed. "You mind?"
"No," he sighed, rolling onto his side to face the pages. I was tidying up the paperwork that littered the room when Sam's phone started to ring on the mattress beside him. He stared at it for a moment, obviously not expecting a call.
"Should you answer that?" I gestured to the cell with my stack of collected papers.
Sam nodded and flipped it open. "Hello?" A look of concern crossed his features. "We'll be right there."
"Who was it?" Dean asked.
Sam sat up abruptly and reached for his shoes. "Charlie."
Dean raised an eyebrow at his brother's rush. "I think she's a little too young for you, Sammy," he teased. I chuckled despite Sam's seriousness.
"It's Sam," he huffed, pulling on his boots. "And she was crying, Dean. Something happened."
All the amusement fell from my face. "Did she say what?"
"No. But it sounded bad."
Underneath a large oak tree was a single bench shielded from the bright midday sun. On it sat Charlie. She was not the same confident person from last night—not by a long shot. Charlie tucked her hands between her knees, eyes fastened to the grass below her sneakers. When Sam offered her to call us, I never expected it actually to go anywhere. Certainly not here.
"Jill was just joking around." She sniffled, speaking of the platinum blonde at the reception. "Or she– she thought she was…." Charlie's resolve slowly broke, shattering into pieces as a sob wracked her body. "And they found her on the bathroom floor. And her– her eyes, they were gone."
"I'm sorry," I said, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder.
"And she said it. I heard her say it," Charlie mumbled, still in shock. It was no coincidence the same thing—whatever it was—that killed Stevenn killed Jill, too. The problem is that we were no closer to figuring out what the hell it was, which was a recipe for disaster, especially when people kept saying it. "But it couldn't be because of that. I'm insane, right?" She asked, eyes darting desperately between us.
"No, you're not insane," Dean said softly.
"Oh, God." She swallowed hard. "That makes me feel so much worse."
"We think something's happening here," Sam told her tentatively. "Something that can't be explained."
"And we're gonna stop it, but we could use your help," Dean added. Neither of us wanted to put any more weight on her shoulders than necessary, but she was our only way into that room. And since we missed out on Shoemaker's crime scene, we had to get a jump on this one.
After a painstakingly long conversation with Jill's Mom that I nodded my way through, Charlie led me up the staircase and into a light purple-painted bedroom. Polaroid pictures of Jill and her friends were taped to one of the walls, a queen-sized bed was positioned between two windows and a vanity near a walk-in closet. Charlie went straight to the window, opening it for the boys. Sam came inside first, catching the duffel bag Dean threw to him before climbing in himself.
"What did you tell Jill's mom?" Sam asked, putting the bag down on the bed and sifting through it.
"That Tori was a new friend of ours from school, and we just needed some time with Jill's pictures and things," Charlie sniffled, getting misty-eyed. It was nice to know I could still pass for a high-schooler… bad way to find out, though. "I hate lying to her."
"Trust us; this is for the greater good," Dean said, closing the curtains. He peered over his shoulder at me. "Hit the lights?" I flicked off the light switch, sending us into near darkness.
"What are you guys looking for?" Charlie asked as I rejoined the group by the bed.
"We'll let you know when we find it."
"Here." Sam handed me a camcorder. I opened the screen and turned it on, toggling the night vision switch so I could see. Dean appeared in the small display, and noticing the camera was facing him, he turned to peer over his shoulder coyly.
"Do I look like Paris Hilton?" He asked.
"You look beautiful, Princess," I joked and looked around the device. "Maybe too many layers."
"And that's enough," Sam said, plucking the camera from my fingers.
"Oh, come on," I huffed, dropping my shoulders.
Sam ignored me and started recording on his way to the closet. "So I don't get it." He opened the door and scanned the long mirror with the camera. "I mean… the first victim didn't summon Mary, and the second victim did. How's she choosing them?"
"Beats me," Dean shrugged, pulling an EMF meter from the bag. A real one, not the one he made. It didn't make a blip.
"There's got to be a connection somehow," I said, folding my arms. I wracked my brain but couldn't find anything a seventeen-year-old girl would have in common with a thirty-eight-year-old man.
"I want to know why Jill said it in the first place," Dean said, looking to Charlie for answers. Instead, she wrapped her arms tighter around herself; face scrunched apprehensively.
"It's just a joke," she replied.
"Some joke," I commented, sharing a look with Dean. It was one thing to think the supernatural was bullshit, but to play with it like that? You had to have guts, I guess.
"And somebody's gonna say it again," Dean added, tossing the meter back into the bag. "It's just a matter of time."
Sam stepped into Jill's en suite bathroom with the camera still up. A moment later, he popped his head back into the bedroom. "There's a black light in the trunk, right?"
"I think so," I said and looked over at Dean. "I volunteer you."
"Oh, come on…" he pouted. "I don't want to climb back down there."
"Fine." I rolled my eyes and held out a hand. "Give me the keys," I said. Dean smirked, dropping them into my open palm. Thankfully Jill's Mom didn't say anything more than offer me something to drink. I politely declined and hurried back upstairs with the blacklight tucked into my back pocket.
The bathroom mirror was already on the bed, reflective side down. I tossed the light over to Sam, and he peeled off the mirror's brown paper backing, slowly moving the blue light over it. A dripping handprint glowed, sloppy letters written underneath. "Gary Bryman...?" Charlie read, mostly mumbling to herself.
"Do you have any idea who that is?" I asked.
"No."
After some digging, we discovered that Gary Bryman was an eight-year-old boy killed in a hit-and-run two years ago. Nobody saw the plates or the driver, just a brief description of a black Toyota Camry. It seemed like a dead end until Charlie recalled that Jill drove that car. We had to get back into Steven's home, and since Charlie and Donna were friends, it was easy to access the bathroom Mr. Shoemaker died in. On the back of his mirror was a name written in the same drippy print—Linda Shoemaker. Donna confirmed that it was her Mother and that she had died a few years ago from a sleeping pill overdose.
Nobody wanted to believe that Steven had anything to do with his wife's death, but it was glaringly obvious. Especially with Gary's death. Accidentally or not, they both killed somebody. And now, for whatever reason, this ghost was taking revenge. This was quickly getting much heavier than a run-of-the-mill ghost job.
Charlie offered to stay with Donna, who had gotten pretty upset from our questions about her Mom. We left after Charlie ensured neither of them would say those words that had brought two families nothing but grief.
Back at the motel, we attempted to come up with ways to figure out exactly who was behind all this. Dean sat on the bed beside me, bouncing his knee in thought until he stopped suddenly. I could almost see a lightbulb go off above his head. "What are you doing?" I asked as he went over to the laptop.
"Nationwide search," he replied, typing furiously at the keyboard. This caught Sam's attention, and he turned from the wall of useless pinned articles. "The NCIC, the FBI database—at this point, any Mary who died in front of a mirror is good enough for me," Dean added.
Sam crossed the room and sat at the table. "But if she's haunting the town, she should have died in the town."
"I'm telling you, there's nothing local. So unless you got a better idea…."
"Well, the way Mary is choosing her victims—it seems like there's a pattern."
"I know; I was thinking the same thing."
"Mr. Shoemaker and Jill's hit and run; they both had a secret where someone died," I said.
"I mean, there's a lot of folklore about mirrors," Sam said, looking over his shoulder at me. "That they reveal all your lies, all your secrets, that they're a true reflection of your soul, which is why it's bad luck to break them."
"So if you're hiding someone's death—one you caused—Mary punishes you for it?"
"Right, right. So maybe if you've got a secret, I mean like a really nasty one where someone died, then Mary sees it and punishes you for it."
"Even if you're not the one who summoned her," I said. A few minutes later, Dean attached a portable printer to the laptop. I perked up as two ejected from it.
"Take a look at this." Dean handed me one of the two. In it was a woman lying in a pool of blood beside a mirror. "Her name was Mary Worthington. An unsolved murder in Ann Arbor, Michigan," he explained, pushing the other photo across the table for Sam and me to look at. This one was a close-up of the mirror, a bloody, dripping handprint stamped on the lower half of the glass with the letters T-R-E written underneath. Its resemblance to the prints on both victims' mirrors was jarring. Not to jump the gun, but the chances were slim that this wasn't our Mary.
After catching a few hours of sleep, we set off for Ann Arbor. On the short hour-long trip, Sam, posing as a journalist, contacted Detective Williams, a now-retired cop who worked Mary's case back in the day. He invited us into his home, offering coffee from the freshly brewed pot. We politely declined, here for one thing and one thing only; to find out what happened to Mary.
"I was on the job for thirty-five years—detective for most of that," he said, mug in hand. A sad glint entered the detective's dark eyes. After all the things he'd seen in his career, this one stuck the most, still affecting him decades later. "Now everybody packs it in with a few loose ends, but the Mary Worthington murder— that one still gets me."
"What happened exactly?" I asked. "If you don't mind sharing."
"You three said you were reporters?"
"Yes, sir," I nodded, using the information we found online to sell it. "We know Mary was nineteen and that she lived by herself. She won a few local beauty contests, and she dreamt of leaving Michigan one day and pursuing a career as an actress." I smiled fondly at her desires in life. Maybe it was cliche or impossible, but it was what she wanted, and it wasn't fair to have the opportunity ripped away before she had the chance to try. My disgust was evident I continued. "We know that on the night of March twenty-ninth, somebody broke into her apartment and killed her… cut out her eyes with a knife."
Just saying it made me sick. Who could do that? Detective Williams flashed his eyebrows, conceding. "That's right."
"See, sir, when we asked you what happened, we wanted to know what you think happened," Dean said. Detective Williams contemplated his words for a moment before crossing the room to his desk, where he rested the mug on a coaster and opened a closet, bending to take something from the floor.
"Technically, I'm not supposed to have a copy of this," he said, returning to the desk with a box. Inside were a few folders. The Detective went straight for one. I imagined he'd flipped through it often, judging by how quickly he knew which to pick. From it, he took a glossy photo—the same Dean had accessed before of the mirror—and put it down, pushing it toward us. "Now, see that there?" The Detective pointed to the picture. "T-R-E? I think Mary was trying to spell out the name of her killer."
I shared a look with the boys. It was exactly what we suspected. "Do you know who it was?" I inquired, leaning on the desk.
"Not for sure. But–" he took another photo out and placed it down. In the grainy picture was a dark-haired man in a suit. Sunglasses covered his eyes, but the bombastic smirk on his bloated face was enough to give away a less-than-stellar personality. "There was a local man, a surgeon—Trevor Sampson. And I think he cut her up good."
"Now, why would he do something like that?" Sam asked, peering up from the picture with the same distasteful look I sported.
"Her diary mentioned a man that she was seeing. She called him by his initial, T. Well, her last entry; she was gonna tell T's wife about their affair… and the fact that she was pregnant."
Our conversation was already dark, but the heaviness grew tenfold with that piece of information. I almost wished I didn't know that part. It only served to upset me further. Sure, it was wrong to get involved with a married man in the first place. But she wasn't in the affair alone; this T person was involved as well. However, he was too much of a coward to own up to his mistake. Somehow murder seemed the only option to some people.
Dean straightened. "But how do you know it was Sampson who killed her?"
"It's hard to say, but the way her eyes were cut out… it was almost professional."
"You could never prove it, though," I said.
"No," he shook his head. "No prints, no witnesses. He was meticulous."
"Is he still alive?" Dean asked.
"Nope," The Detective sighed, sitting down. "If you ask me, Mary spent her last living moments trying to expose this guy's secret. But she never could."
"Where's she buried?" Sam asked.
"She wasn't. She was cremated."
"What about that mirror?" Dean asked, nodding to the picture on the desk. "It's not in some evidence lockup somewhere is it?"
Again, Detective Willams shook his head. "It was returned to Mary's family a long time ago."
"Do you have the names of her family?" I asked. He looked hesitant to answer. "Sir, we really want to get Mary's story out there. We want to help her, even if she isn't here anymore."
Only a couple of Mary's relatives were still alive. An aunt and some cousins, but the one we wanted to speak to most was her eldest brother. When she passed, he was put in charge of her estate. Finally, I thought. After all the things thrown our way lately, we'd finally found something with an easy solution. But, admittedly, that was incredibly naive. Not only had her brother moved to Chelsea, Michigan, last week, but he also sold all of Mary's belongings to make his family's relocating easier. Jewelry ended up at a local shop, clothes at GoodWill, and the mirror to a store called Estate Antiques, located precisely where you'd expect—Toledo, Ohio.
"So wherever the mirror goes, that's where Mary goes?" Dean asked, briefly breaking his eyes from the dark, two-lane road to look at his brother.
Sam fidgeted with his phone. "Her spirit's definitely tied up with it somehow."
"Isn't there an old superstition that says mirrors–" Dean glanced back at me, ironically enough, in the rearview mirror. "Can capture spirits?"
I nodded. "In the Victorian Era, when someone would die in a house, people would cover the mirrors so their loved ones' ghosts wouldn't get trapped."
"So, Mary dies in front of a mirror, and it draws in her spirit."
"Yeah, but how could she move through, like, a hundred different mirrors?" Sam asked, confused. For that, I didn't have an answer. It made zero sense how a spirit could travel to places they didn't already have some sort of connection to. Of course, that never happened, not that I knew of, anyhow.
"If the mirror is the source, I say we find it and smash it," Dean said. With no bones to burn, it seemed the most logical way to rid the world of Mary Worthington and give her much-needed rest.
I shrugged in agreement. "Sounds like a plan to me."
"Yeah, I don't know." Sam flicked his phone open and shut with his thumb. Then, before I could ask him what else he thought we should do, his phone started to ring.
In the middle of Sam's bed sat Charlie, her knees tucked to her chest, head hiding between them. I wondered if this was how Dean felt all those years ago, helpless and unsure of what to do to help this emotionally traumatized person. As though we didn't have enough on our plate already, her call came with some of the worst news. Donna had said "Bloody Mary" in the mirror at school to prove her point that the myth was just that… and now, in an unforeseen twist of events—Mary was after Charlie. We picked her up from her school, finding her practically curled into a ball on the ground.
Ensuring all reflective surfaces in the motel room were covered, I sat on the edge of the bed and gently touched Charlie's arm. "It's okay now," I said. She slowly lifted her head, fear-filled eyes staying locked on me. "Everything's gonna be all right."
"How?" She asked.
"You're gonna stay right here on this bed, and you're not gonna look at glass or anything else that has a reflection," Sam said. "And as long as you do that, she can't get you."
"But I can't keep that up forever." She pulled in a trembling breath. "I'm gonna die, aren't I?"
"No. You are not going to die, Charlie," I insisted.
Not wanting her to feel crowded, Dean remained standing between the beds. "All right, Charlie," he began. "We need to know what happened."
"We were in the bathroom," she said, hugging her legs tighter. Her eyes darted to the comforter, to the wall—anywhere but Dean's. She'd certainly never had an issue with eye contact before. If we didn't already know she was lying, that would've been an instant tell. "Donna said it."
"No, no–" he was quick to interrupt. There was no point in letting her continue. "That's not what we're talking about. Something happened, didn't it? In your life—a secret… where someone got hurt." As he spoke, a tear ran down Charlie's cheek, and her expression flattened. I knew that look all too well because I'd worn it quite a few times over the years; she was checking out fast. We couldn't allow that to happen. Maybe Mary would stop coming for her if her secret was no longer a secret. Or, at the very least, it'd buy us more time. So, as bad as I felt for prying into a teenage girl's life, it may be the very thing that assists in saving it.
"Charlie, whatever happened, we're not going to judge you for it."
"I had this boyfriend," she murmured. "I loved him, but he kind of scared me, too, you know?" She asked, peering up at me through her eyelashes. It didn't surprise me that I was the one she looked to, hoping for a mutual connection. Most girls held their fair share of stories of scarily obsessive men. I nodded, telling her I understood and for her to continue. "And one night, at his house, we got in this fight. Then I broke up with him, and he got upset, and he said he needed me, and he loved me, and he said, Charlie if you walk out that door right now, I'm gonna kill myself." Her words hung heavy in the air. We all knew what was coming next.
"And you know what I said?" Tears flowed freely down her cheeks, dripping onto her knees. "I said, Go ahead. And I left. How could I say that? How could I leave him like that? I just… I didn't believe him, you know? I should have." Sobs wracked her small frame. She hugged her legs tightly to alleviate that heaviness she'd never truly rid herself of.
"It wasn't your fault, Charlie," I said despite knowing that I could preach up and down how it wasn't her fault, how she shouldn't feel guilt or shame, and none of that would matter. She would always blame herself, at least a little bit. Guilt was a rope tied tightly around your heart. Most could loosen it over time; some were lucky enough to slip it off completely. For others, it remained, and you simply learned to live with the knot in your chest.
With the promise that we would take care of everything, we left for the estate shop. Of course, Dean agreed that it wasn't Charlie's fault her boyfriend killed himself, but Sam quickly reminded us that spirits don't see shades of gray and that a secret in which someone died was good enough for Mary, no matter the circumstances. After that, he turned eerily quiet. Not that he talked a lot, anyhow. It was how he carried himself; his shoulders slumped, his feet planted firmly on the floor of the Impala. Something was eating away at him.
I moved to the edge of the seat to see him better in the dark car. "What's going on, Sam?"
"I've been thinking," he sighed. You could see on his face the wheels turning in his head. "It might not be enough just to smash that mirror." It was obvious that wasn't all of it. However, it was clear that's all he was willing to divulge.
"Why?" Dean asked. "What do you mean?"
"Well, Mary's hard to pin down, right? I mean, she moves around from mirror to mirror, so who's to say that she's not just gonna keep hiding in them forever? So, maybe we should try to pin her down, you know, summon her to her mirror and then smash it."
"Well, how do you know that's going to work?"
"I don't, not for sure."
"That'd be a great idea if any of us could summon her," I said, folding my arms and leaning back. "It won't work."
"Unless we go back and get Charlie," Dean suggested.
"We're not using her as bait."
"No, we don't need to do that," Sam uttered. Even though I was behind him, I could see the rigidity in his jaw. I could tell he was fighting to keep his expression neutral, but grief and regret clung to him. It wasn't difficult now to get to the bottom of his detachment.
"Well, who's gonna summon her?" Dean wondered knowingly, no doubt thinking the same thing I was.
"I will. She'll come after me."
"You know what, that's it." Dean jerked the car over to the side of the road, wheels screeching from a sudden stop on wet pavement. He turned his upper half to face his brother. "This is about Jessica, isn't it? You think that's your dirty little secret that you killed her somehow?"
Sam didn't reply with words, but the look on his face said yes. "Sam, you had nothing to with it!" I asserted. "You weren't even there."
"Exactly! That's–" Sam stopped himself from looking at me and stared straight ahead.
"Listen to me." Dean's stern tone softened slightly. "It wasn't your fault. If you wanna blame something, then blame the thing that killed her. Or hell, why don't you take a swing at me? I mean, I'm the one that dragged you away from her in the first place."
"I don't blame you," he said adamantly.
"Well, you shouldn't blame yourself because there's nothing you could've done."
Sam breathed heavily through his nose. "I could've warned her."
"How could you possibly have done that? You had no idea, Sam," I argued. As though it wasn't bad enough, he had to grieve her death, and now he was putting all this unnecessary weight on his shoulders. It was too much. "Sam, you can't keep this up. It's going to kill you." Trust me, I know. I nearly added but stopped myself.
"And besides, all of this isn't a secret," Dean said. "I mean, we know all about it. It's not gonna work with Mary anyway."
Sam shook his head. "No, you don't."
"We don't what?"
"You don't know all about it. I haven't told you everything," he declared. I shared a look of bewilderment with Dean. What else could there possibly be? He wasn't there. He couldn't have known unless someone had explicitly told him what would happen.
"What don't we know?" Dean asked.
"Well, it wouldn't really be a secret if I told you, would it?"
Dean's teeth clenched audibly. "No," he demanded, righting himself in his seat. "I don't like it. It's not gonna happen. You can fucking forget it."
"Dean, that girl back there is going to die unless we do something about it. And who knows how many more people are gonna die after that? Now we're doing this." He said, determined. "You've got to let me do this."
"No."
Sam looked to me. "Tell him to let me do this."
"What are you, crazy?" I snapped. There's no way I'd go along with it. "No!"
"Charlie is going to die."
"You could die, Sam."
"We'll break the mirror before she gets me."
"You said it wouldn't work."
"No, I said it might not work," he corrected like that mattered at all. "I'm doing it. You guys can either back me up or not. But I'm doing it."
An uncomfortable silence filled the rest of the drive to our destination. Dean didn't even bother to put the music back on. We could return to the motel and try to find another way to get Charlie out of this. However, Sam would undoubtedly sneak out to go through with his insane and dangerous idea. Alone. Whether we liked it or not, this way, we could be with him and stop it from going too far. At least, that's what I was telling myself.
Successfully picking the lock on the large double doors, Sam led the way inside with his flashlight. Walking into an estate shop, I expected old furniture, paintings, and a few creepy porcelain dolls whose little beady eyes followed you. What I did not anticipate was the number of mirrors. They hung from the walls and were displayed on tables. Quite a few were propped up on the floor, reflecting the horrible black and white checkered linoleum a million times over. It was like stepping into the world's ugliest mirror maze. My head spun from the sheer amount of reflective surfaces.
"Fuck me," Dean breathed, looking around in stilted shock.
"We're gonna be here forever," I complained. "Can I see the mirror?" Dean nodded and reached into his pocket, pulling out the photo he had printed of the crime scene. Tucking my crowbar under my arm, I stepped closer as he unfolded the picture and held it out. Mary's mirror was adorned with intricate embellishments on its frame, but that wasn't unlike at least two right next to me. I huffed, placing a hand on my hip. "I guess we're splitting up."
"Seems like."
Taking my flashlight from my back pocket, I flicked it on and headed toward the back of the shop, leaving the front and middle for the boys. Whenever I thought I stumbled across Mary's mirror, I was disappointed. I just wanted to get it done and go. Headlights shone through the barred windows. I hurried to turn off my light and stepped into a particularly dark stretch of the hall. Through a section of the unfrosted window, I could see a cop car.
"Shit," I whispered. Ensuring I stayed in the shadows, I set off to find the boys.
"Maybe they've already sold it," Dean's voice echoed.
"I don't think so," Sam replied.
"Hey," I called quietly, tip-toeing into their section of the building. "We've got company."
"What?" Dean asked. "Who?"
I rolled my eyes. "Cops, Dean!"
"We didn't trip any alarms!"
"Someone had to see."
"This is it." Sam gestured to the mirror before him with his flashlight. It was as though nothing I'd just said registered.
"You sure about this?" Dean asked. Hope Sam would change his mind was written on his face.
Sam pulled in a deep breath and readied his crowbar as he spoke. "Bloody Mary. Bloody Mary." He looked at Dean, then me, and back to his reflection. "Bloody Mary.
From the corner of my eye, I saw another set of headlights illuminate the dark shop's entrance. "I'll check that out," Dean said. On his way past me, he stopped. Although his voice was low, I could hear the desperation clear as day. "Stay with him."
"Trust me, I'm not going anywhere," I said. I watched Dean until he disappeared and walked up behind Sam. He jerked to the left, holding his crowbar up. "What is it?" I looked in the same direction he was, lifting my crowbar. "Where?"
"I don't know," he replied, voice constricted with nervousness.
"Maybe she left," I suggested hopefully. Sam shot me a look from the corner of his eye. I shrunk away sheepishly, muttering, "Sorry." Without warning, he swung at a mirror to the left, shattering the glass, and not even a second later, he smashed another. "Sam! You gotta tell me where she is!"
"Gone now," he huffed and weighed the crowbar in his hands in preparation, looking into Mary's mirror. "Come on. Come into this one." Moments passed, and nothing happened. I was starting to suspect she enjoyed toying with her victims. When I let my guard down, Sam looked intently at his reflection. It appeared normal until blood began trickling from his eyes. In the blink of an eye, he collapsed to his knees, clutching his chest. Wasting no time, I reared back and smashed the glass. In hopes that it was the end, I released the crowbar and dropped beside him.
"Sam?" I held his face up and pushed his hair out of his face. "Sam, are you okay?"
"Yeah," he replied, struggling to pry open his eyes. When he finally did, they were swimming in blood and tattered with emotion.
Heavy footsteps echoed down the hall. I prepared myself for a cop with his gun trained on us, but the figure's shadow fanned into the room long before they came into view, and I instantly relaxed, knowing who it was. However, Dean's demeanor rocketed in the other direction when he saw the blood on his brother's face and rushed over. "Oh God, Sammy."
"It's Sam," he grumbled, swatting Dean's hands away.
"He's okay," I assured Dean so he'd stop worrying. "Come on, help me get him up." Though my and Sam's height difference made it a little more difficult, I still carried a good portion of his weight after Dean, and I got him to his feet. We were nearly out of the room when glass crunched behind us. I didn't want to look; I wish I hadn't. I'm not sure it would've made much of a difference anyway. Mary crawled out of the frame, lurching through the shards of glass. Her long, dark hair was drenched, matted, and hanging around her pale face.
A striking pain pierced my eyes; warmth dripped from my tear ducts. I patted it and found bright red blood on my fingertips. It panicked me more than I'd care to admit. More blood fell from Sam's eyes. And now Dean's, too. Despite this, he thought fast and grabbed the nearest mirror, turning it on Mary. Her advances halted as she became enthralled with her reflection. A breathy, pained shriek got caught in her throat. She gurgled, choking on the blood spilling from her mouth. Her flesh melted, and her body collapsed into a puddle of red liquid. The pain left with her; the blood stopped flowing. Dean directed all of his anger into smashing the mirror on the ground, sending shards of glass flying.
"This has got to be like… what? Six-hundred years of bad luck?" Dean joked, attempting to lighten the mood. I laughed, wiping the streaks of blood off my face.
On our way out, I froze at the sight of two unconscious cops on the ground. "Dean, what did you do?"
"What I had to," he replied simply. I shot him a look of disapproval, and he rolled his eyes. "Don't worry about it. They'll be fine. Come on. We gotta go before get wake up." Dean tugged on my arm, and I let him lead me to the Impala. With all the busted mirrors and the knocked-out cops, it looked like some sort of weirdly botched robbery. For once, we didn't have to worry as much about covering our tracks. I just hoped they wouldn't remember what Dean looked like.
Charlie was beyond relieved when we returned, even more so to hear that it was over. We piled into the Impala and brought her home. She hesitated to get out, finally reaching across the backseat to hug me. She pulled back, a smile on her face. "Thank you," she breathed in relief, gently touching the top of the seat between the boys. They both nodded.
"I'm glad we could help," I said. Charlie picked up her bag and got out. Halfway up her driveway, Sam called out to her. She turned around expectantly.
"Your boyfriend's death… you really should try to forgive yourself. No matter what you did, you probably couldn't have stopped it. Sometimes bad things just happen," he said. Charlie smiled faintly. I hoped she would be receptive to his words; lord knows he won't.
Dean tapped Sam's arm with the back of his hand to get his attention. "That's good advice," he said. Sam smiled, but it came across as more of a grimace. True to himself, he was preaching things he wouldn't practice. We'd almost reached the town's limits when Dean lowered the music. "Hey, Sam?"
"Yeah?"
"Now that this is all over," Dean lightly drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, "I want you to tell us what that secret is."
Sam let out a sharp breath and looked out of the window. "Look… I love you guys. I'd die for you. But there are some things I need to keep to myself," he said, eyes trailing to a passing street corner. I followed his gaze and saw nothing. Well, nothing that warranted the intensity he held. Perhaps he'd gotten lost in his thoughts, cycling over this secret he had to keep.
My curiosity was set ablaze by his vagueness. What could be so bad that he didn't want us to know? Of course, my mind drifted to what I kept from him. I took some comfort in convincing myself there was no way it was anywhere close to that. I wanted to pry; I wanted to know. But, at the end of the day, I'd be a hypocrite. There'd been plenty of times Sam could've done that to me. Relentless questions could've spiraled out of control, but he'd always given me space. So, as difficult as it was, I had to repay the favor.
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