◖𓈈﹗﹙chapter thirty-two﹚
❛▬▬ and i've hurt myself . . . ❜
A year had passed since Dean Winchester made a deal with a demon, exchanging his soul for his brother's life. It had already been a whole year that felt like just a few months to the young witch, passing by like a movie. Time was relative when she felt the pressure of a dark fate, the foreboding that things would never be the same again, and only fighting for a glimpse of what once was kept her from collapsing. Lilith had experienced it during the months her mother was missing, and even though her year turned out much better compared to the hunter's, she still lived with constant fear of tragedy.
Lilith wanted to be with the boys on that day, the last day, but distances kept them apart once again, and Dean had begged and pleaded for her not to come, his eyes shining with tears as he tried to convince her not to accompany him when the hellhounds appeared. However, her stubbornness and sincere words made him accept her way:
"Look, Lilith, I don't want to drag you into this shit. I don't want you to witness my death, and there's no way you're getting close to Lilith the demon. Not while I'm alive. I know you're strong, you're a witch with damn powers, I know you can defend yourself just fine, God knows I know it, but if anything were to happen to you and you died... Even if I were to escape from Hell, I could never forgive myself. I don't want you to come, please. I'll be fine, you have to take care of yourself and your mother. I'll be fine, ready to accept your plan."
In the past two months devoted to refining the plan, the difficulties of making it work safely kept arising, up until today, showcasing the most fervent helplessness she had ever experienced in her life. Those problems prevented Dean from going to Hell with a clear conscience of returning. Nevertheless, what they had achieved so far was enough to make it a real option. The spell was the problem; it failed to complete the soul transformation with sufficient power, or - as the witch saw it - the guinea pig wasn't the right one. The experiment they conducted and, consequently, the terminology of the spell, was designed for a demon who possessed a soulless body, waiting to be awakened. The demon they used wasn't perfect because there were two entities in the body: the human and the demon. By the sixth round of blood, the demon weakened so much that the true person (if they were alive - in his case, he was) regained the power over their own body, engaging in a struggle that confused the hunters and the witch. However, even with this setback, when attempting the spell, the dark essence of the demon resurrected in small glimpses of the soul that once was and wanted to find rest in Heaven or wherever good souls went. Indeed, their plan was not confirmed one hundred percent, but it was the only option with a viability of more than fifty percent.
"Do you promise me you'll try to come back as a demon? Even as a last resort, no matter what you have to do, we'll help you. Promise me you'll try?" Lilith clung to the Impala's seat, knowing it would be the last time she would hear his voice for a long time. The fear that it would be for the rest of her life churned her stomach and seized her chest, squeezing her heart. "I want you to promise me."
"I'll try, but I can't promise it."
She lunged towards his body and hugged him tightly. She felt his scent penetrate her nose, his rough hands wrapping around her waist and pressing her against his chest, hearing the rapid beat of his withering heart. He said goodbye with a kiss on her cheek and left her at the door of her house.
That morning, things seemed incredibly monotonous to Lilith - except for the significance of the final day. So monotonous that she felt out of place. Mrs. Maud's parrots chirped in the sunlight, saying "Dog! Dog! Dog!" as the Smiths' Golden Terriers walked through the neighborhood wagging their tails and sniffing at the birds. Lilith had come downstairs, her blond hair tied up in a messy ponytail, and her cat weaving between her legs until they reached the kitchen, where it stood in front of its food dish, meowing for food.
"Good morning, Mom," she greeted, raising her voice above Johnny Cash's "You are my sunshine" playing on the neglected speaker, mere background noise.
"Good day, dear. How are you?" Her mother set aside some documents and, after drinking hot coffee with a dollop of whipped cream, invited Lilith to sit beside her. She had prepared everything for her.
"I think I'm going to vomit," Lilith admitted. "Dean... today..."
"I know, I'm not feeling well either." Her mother had dark circles under her eyes, puffy bags, and her skin was tight and dry. "Poor boy."
"I don't want this day to end."
And with that, Lilith's eyes turned into a crystalline pool full of anguish. The final verdict had been more painful than she could anticipate, being the main advocate for him going to Hell. Her mother cradled her in her arms, offering her the space to vent and feel accompanied. With her, Lilith could truly feel the support to move forward and the love that reminded her she was cherished. Her mother felt pain, she cried with her, and that small detail made Lilith feel better. She wasn't alone; she had her mom.
The passing hours left Lilith hanging by a thread of anxiety that clouded her behavior and emotions. It was difficult for her to recover from the daydreams in which she saw the hellhounds tearing Dean's body apart, opening his entrails until he died. He was going to die. She tried to calm herself down and remember they had a plan ahead. Yes, the plan... Dean would return.
Lilith
Hey!
Dean
I don't want to talk to you.
What?
You lied to me. Again.
You drank from the blood of that damn yellow-eyed demon, that's how you gained power, right? You're crazy, how could you?
Call rejected.
I don't want to talk to you, and I can't even if I wanted to.
How did he find out? Who told him? And why now? Lilith threw her phone across her room like a paper airplane, watching it crash and disassemble on the floor. She had spent the whole day locked in her room, thinking about him, his last words, and praying for everything to work out, for his death not to be painful... damn it! She sent him a message telling him not to be stupid and to sedate his body, to die peacefully... and one of the worst things happened. He wasn't supposed to leave angry with her. Damn it! She tried to calm down, focusing on her cat's purring on her chest, its little paw wrapped around her, the serenity of an animal. But her twisted mind found the same green in its eyes that made her think of Dean. What did she expect? He gave her the cat as a gift.
If she tried to sleep, maybe tomorrow she could deal with herself better.
But she woke up in the middle of the night to a peculiar noise that perked up Prayer's ears, and her green eyes dilated, just like when she peered out the window to watch Mrs. Maud's parrots, longing to sink her claws into them. That was the sound. The fluttering of heavy, strong wings. Lilith heard it so close to her ears, right there in the room. What the hell did she hear? Did a bird get in? How was that possible? Maybe she dreamt it... but then how would she explain Prayer waking up? Her room was illuminated by the dim, yellowish light of the bedside lamp, like the flames of a warm candle. There was nothing there, everything was in its place.
"I'm going to check if everything is okay, don't go anywhere," she told her cat, who curled back under the blankets. She would have preferred it to keep her company.
Lilith peeked her blonde hair through the dark hallway, hoping to hear the flutter again. Silence, the most dreadful silence. The doors were all closed: the bathroom door, the boys' room door, and her mother's room door. "Outside, at the window!" she thought, awakened by the fear of darkness. Of course! That's why it felt so close. How foolish she was... her paranoia overwhelmed her, making her think of the worst before the most logical explanation. The witch chuckled at the idea of going back to bed, but paranoia led her bare feet to walk towards her mother's room to confirm she was sleeping. Careful not to wake her, she tiptoed and gently pushed the door open. Her mother slept in the darkness, like most people. The darkness prevented her from seeing anything, and even the outside light couldn't enter due to the dark curtains. If she turned on the lights and woke her up because of some fluttering that made her paranoid, she would get scolded for the rest of her life.
"Anyway," she finally accepted the decision and with a click, the room was illuminated.
And her mother wasn't there.
The bed was empty, messy, and warm. Mom had been there just a few minutes... seconds ago.
The room remained untouched.
"Mama?!" she shouted as she stepped into the hallway, thinking her mother must have gone to the bathroom. "Mama?!" she knocked insistently, receiving no response, and opened the door. Her mother wasn't there either. "Mama?!" she shouted louder, making sure her voice echoed throughout the house.
No, not again. They wouldn't do it to her again. She was prepared now, she had become a witch who would fight with magic and spells against whoever tried to take her mother and ruin her life. Lilith wasted no time, as she had the first time her mother disappeared. She wouldn't seek help from the police or her friends anymore; she had new resources to find her, and that's what she would do. She rushed to her room, slamming the door, causing one of her math Olympiad trophies displayed on a nearby shelf to fall. Her cat jumped off the bed and stared at her with wide and fleeting eyes. She had prepared for this moment: she took a special wooden box from under the bed and dragged it to the center, taking out everything she needed to locate her mother.
She unfolded one of the many maps she had: a detailed world map, one of Massachusetts, and the one she chose, a map of the United States with all the streets named. She followed a black cauldron, a tripod, and a strand of her mother's hair. She would perform the spell to locate her, the same one she used to find Sam. She hurried to pour magnetite stone, four drops of red liquid representing the four cardinal points, and recited the spell from memory. Finally, she cut her forearm to extract a stream of witch's blood and lit a fire to heat the mixture.
"Come on, come on, come on," she impatiently urged, trying to maintain her sanity, waiting for the spell to work.
Questions invaded her thoughts, trying to find a logical explanation for the sudden disappearance, but she completely forgot that Dean Winchester was already dead by then. The witch's concern for her mother overshadowed all her other problems, focusing on what mattered most. Had it been the others? How did they manage to enter and vanish in what felt like a blink... a flutter? Suddenly, she no longer believed that the sound came from outside, from a mundane and harmless source. A monster? She didn't have time to theorize anymore. The cauldron had emitted thick, red smoke, revealing her mother's location: just a few blocks away, precisely on the same block as Father Coleman's church. What the hell was she doing there?
Lilith put on the first pair of shoes she found, grabbed a backpack, and quickly emptied the emergency kit, which consisted of healing potions and bags of curses to kill whoever took her mother. She ran to the garage, took her motorcycle, and with the stars guiding her way, arrived at the street indicated on the map in five minutes.
The autumn night was light, with a full moon and a clear sky. Not a single soul wandered at that hour. The neighborhood was filled with elderly people or those too old to come home smelling of alcohol. The witch, who had belonged to the Christian community of that church and had attended since she was five, felt strange being there in the middle of the night. Her mother was nowhere to be seen. The houses only had their outdoor lights on. The map had led her there. Her mother had to be around here. Anguish returned as the night swallowed her, standing alone in the middle of nowhere, with tense shoulders and a pounding heart. She felt like a lost little girl, unsure of what to do to find her parents again. Her cerulean eyes roamed with the hope of catching a glimpse of her mother crossing her vision at any moment, imagining her coming towards her, embracing her, and whispering that she had been scared.
"Mama?" she called again, her voice echoing overwhelmingly, loud and eerie. "Mommy?"
Then she heard the crackling of flames. She looked up, and the church was on fire.
Her first thought was of her mother. Lilith rushed in, using magic to open the heavy wooden doors of the church. The interior was engulfed in raging flames that had appeared out of thin air in the blink of an eye. The fire consumed everything, reaching every corner and turning angel sculptures into charcoal, with blackened and charred wings, wicked and malevolent faces. The roof lost its Renaissance decorations to the powerful flames, shifting from intense red and amber to shades of purple and fierce blue. The flames licked the air with pieces of crumbling columns, dancing and seeking another companion to devour, but there was little left except for charred seats and curtains in flames. Disappointed, they attempted to escape to the neighboring house and its delightful white wooden fence.
Things were happening too fast. The witch made her way through, manipulating the flames with her pyrokinesis power, keeping them away from her body, walking among them like Moses in the seas. But they still caressed her skin, patiently savoring her, eager to consume her. Her lungs began to crave fresh air. The heat was so intense that it singed the tiny hairs on her arms, turning her once cold cheeks scarlet, no, crimson. Her entire body was embraced by the heat. The heavy smoke clouded her vision, enveloping her in a mantle that smelled acrid, like deforestation, leaving her throat dry, with sticky ashes coating her tongue and the acid scent of plastic. The strong odors burned her nostrils, suffocating her until she could no longer breathe or see clearly through the tears of anguish and pain, the strongest of all, the scent of death. Lilith stopped in front of the large sculpture of the crucified Christ, in the middle of the blazing church, and under His protection was a person with deep, dark, and grave eyes, an immobile face adorned with a brown layer of broad and inflexible features that disappeared before her eyes, just like the flutter she heard in her room. But what Lilith saw of that man was a fleeting glimpse from his eyes, a flash that brought confusion, the kind induced by a hallucinogen, as her focus was shifted to the lifeless body on the stairs leading to the stage before he vanished.
"Mommy!" Lilith howled, recognizing her. She scared away the flames that reached her mother's feet and those that were setting her blonde hair on fire. Lilith ran, sliding on her knees through the remnants of ashes. "Mommy?"
Her heart shattered into pieces, and part of her soul died in that instant. The trembling fingers that continued to ward off the flames traced what remained of her mother's face. It was burned, half of it. Brutally burned. Not by the flames, the flames couldn't have done that. It would have taken hours for them to do this, not even the stage reduced to ashes. The charred skin revealed blood, brains, and bones. Part of her brain stood out amidst the burn, releasing the last bit of air left in the little woman. One side of her mother's face was intact, the other was a hellish sight. She was dead, they burned her, like a filthy witch.
Lilith's tears mingled with the thick smoke, her screams drowned out by the sound of fire truck sirens a few blocks away. She failed. She couldn't keep her mother safe. She had failed. The year-long effort she had put in amounted to nothing. The powers she gained and tattooed onto her body, the protective spells, the endless hours of study and sleepless nights. The blood of the yellow-eyed demon couldn't help her now, nor could the darkest and oldest witchcraft because her mother wouldn't allow it. Lilith was stuck, with her mother in her arms, clinging to the love she was losing, unwilling to let go even as the flames caressed her skin with fascination, ready to incinerate every trace of her existence. Lilith was going to embrace them, only fighting against her own flood of tears. She lost her battle and no longer wanted to go on. She couldn't. She didn't know how.
"Burn me alive!" she hysterically screamed at the flames that brushed against her knees. "I want to die. Burn me!"
She cried desolately. She remembered the breakfast music, "You Are My Sunshine," and could taste the toast with coffee and milk. She saw herself clumsily descending the stairs, still afraid of falling, she was just a six-year-old girl, but she wanted to get up and have breakfast with her mom before going to school. She saw herself descending the stairs when she was malnourished, the day after Bella's death, and told her mother that she needed help with her anorexia. She saw herself descending the stairs on the day she disappeared and the day after they found her. And that morning, when she needed a hug, her mom knew it immediately. She wanted to die, to die alongside her. She had had enough, her body couldn't bear the pain, and she didn't want to think about anything other than death. She accepted it, she was ready to die. Lilith wanted to leave.
Lilith didn't think of anyone: she forgot about her boyfriend, her cat, her best friend who had just lost his brother. She didn't think of Dean and Hell, she didn't think of Bobby, or Pandora and Rowena, she didn't think of Mandy and Galilea, and she didn't think of her father. She only thought of herself and her mother, the house, and the grandparents. Her small family resting elsewhere, perhaps in heaven, perhaps in nothingness, Lilith truly didn't care where they ended up. She didn't know. She just wanted to leave this world. There was a sculpture of an angel to her left, with scorched eyes and broken wings, the harp it played with its gentle hands remained intact, one of the few things that didn't burn. The music, how beautiful the music was.
The flames finally consumed her body, but the pain they caused was no greater than the pain of having her mother dead. She watched her skin turn red, a solar crimson color, embracing her skin, ecstatic as if they knew she was a witch. They eagerly awaited her. But Lilith felt a presence, there in the midst of the flames. It was a slender woman, with silver-blonde hair, so blond it looked like snow, and large round eyes of a celestial blue, just like hers. Smooth, milky skin. A truly beautiful woman. She approached, making the flames bow before her, leaving a path of ashes for her bare feet. She took Lilith by the shoulder. She had come for her; her soul would rest alongside her family's.
Finally, Lilith closed her eyes.
⛧.