Jenny sat on the hard wood floor of her new livingroom unpacking one of the many card-board boxes that surrounded her. It was hard moving, but everything seemed hard nowadays. She pulled out a framed photo of her and her late husband on their wedding day. It almost bring's a tear to her eye but there are no more to be shed.
"Mommy?" she hears suddenly and her eyes shoot up to look at her little girl. She looks just her father. She has milk chocolate-like hair, freckles and big eye. They too big for her face but Jenny supposed she would grow into them like her father had.
"Hey, sweetie," she greets her daughter in a soothing tone. "Why aren't you in bed?"
"There's something in my closet," the girl murmured.
She took a deep breath. Her husband used to be the one that tucked her in. Maybe Sairie was just having trouble. Her father was gone, they had moved from their home town Wichita and most of her things were still packed in cubed of brown cardboard. That was hard for an adult to go through; there was no way this wasn't going to happen.
So when she got upstairs and into her daughter's room, Jenny opened the doors of the closet without fear. Monster weren't real. The boogeyman wasn't going to jump out and eat her eyeballs. They were safe, but Jenny had to indulge her daughter. That was what parents were supposed to do. In fact she remembers her father having to do it for her when she was younger.
She walked into the closet a couple steps, looking around obviously at the empty shelves and racks for cloths. All that was in there was a tower of boxes but the only thing that could do is fall on Sairie. Not very scary.
Jenny turned around with an assuring smile on her face. "See?" she asked her daughter who sat on her bed. "Nothing in there."
"You sure?" the young girl asked.
Jenny nodded. "I'm sure." Then she closed the doors to the closet. "Now come on. Time for bed."
Once Sairie was under the covers, she looked at her mother with a seriousness that a girl her age shouldn't possess. "I don't like this house," she said.
"You're just not used to it yet," Jenny replied easily, giving her daughter another comforting smile. "But you, your brother and me are going to be very happy here. I promise."
One kiss on the forehead later, she told Sairie, "I love you", and she got up to switch off the light.
Jenny was almost out the door when her daughter suddenly blurted out, "The chair."
Jenny sighed. "Okay." Pushing the chair over to the closet, she positioned in underneath the doorknobs of the walk-in closet so that the monsters wouldn't get in. Kicking it to make sure it was in place properly, she looked back at Sairie. "In place to protect," she told her daughter.
Her daughter didn't say anything as she pulled the cover over herself. Jenny nodded half to herself before shutting the door behind her as she left. She sighed. Sigh should be an emotion, she thought as she walked back downstairs. Or at least an adjective. I could describe lots of things as 'sigh'- dishes, dusting, unpacking, bills... She could go on forever in her head but she had to focus on the task at hand.
She began unpacking dishes, unwrapping the old newspaper that protected each glass pot lid from getting damaged. Suddenly a rattling or scuttling noise sounded. She stopped what she was doing, listening for the source before a terrifying thought came to mind.
"Please don't be rats," she begged heaven above.
*
Walking down creaky steps to the basement, a flashlight shone the way in front of her. She saw a light switch on the wall at the bottom of the stairs. When she finally reached it, she flicked the switch up. Nope. Down and up again. Nope.
"You've got to be kidding me," she murmured to herself. Of course the light bulb down there wouldn't work. Basements just weren't creepy enough with the light on.
Venturing into the empty basement, she shown her flashlight around as to not run into a wall or something. She saw a light bulb and string a couple feet away then. Walking to it, she pulled the string. Then pulled the string a few more times. "Terrific," she blurted out, throwing her arms in the air.
She hated basements so much. She hated rat more though so she had to know if the house she's just moved into was infested with them.
*
The moved. And she knew it had moved because she heard it. She should've looked, but she had to.
Sairie's upper had sprung up from the bed so her eyes were staring straight at the wooden chair that was supposed to protect her from the monsters. The last line of defense. The knight guarding the castle.
It moved further away from the doors, sliding across the floor noisily. The sound of scraping wood against wood echoed throughout the room making her whole body rack with fear. The only thing louder was the sound of her heartbeat in her ears.
She moved back in the bed, clutching her covers for dear life as the chair stopped moving. The monsters were going to get her.
*
Staring down at the ground she didn't realize until it was too late. She ran into a broken lamp. Grumbling at she slacked the lamp curtain, she sighed then continued her inspection.
Than she saw something that wasn't hers. A chest. It was left by the previous owner, she suspected. She didn't even try to fight the tug of curiosity as she crouched down to open it.
The first thing she saw were photos. A single picture of a middle aged woman with dark hair and a sarcastic sort of smile, then her with a blonde man, then one of the woman and her family- a baby, toddler and husband at her side. It made Jenny smile. How sweet.
Flipping it over to look on the back, she saw a caption. The Winchesters: John, Mary, Deanna and little Sammy.
*
The doors were opening slowly, creaking loudly and forcing little Sairie to cringe against the sound. Pulling the covers closer, she held on tighter. She could hear her own breathing now and it was sounding more like the pant of a dog than a human.
Than something that had never happened before came to be; the monster showed itself.
It was a body of fire. It made Sairie think it was angry, being to bright and hot.
So Sairie screamed. She screamed for her mom and she screamed for help.
*
It was a woman. She was screaming for help, banging on the window as hard as she could. There was no sound, though. Everything was quiet. Everything was-
Sam sucked in a breath as she opened her eyes. The sound of train going by had woken her and she had sprung up into a sitting position. She tried to blink away the image of the woman, tried to wake up. It was still dark and Deanna was still sleep.
It was just a dream, Sam tried to tell herself. She felt it in her heart that it was more than that, though.
*
Deann slipped her coffee not looking away from the laptop as she spoke. "Alright so I've been cruising some websites. I think I've found a few candidates for our new gig," she told Sam, who didn't seem to be paying a whole lot of attention to her. She was drawing in a complimentary notepad she had found on the dresser of their motel room. Deanna continued still though. "A fishing trawler off the coast of Cali? It's crew just vanished. Then there's these cattle mutilations in West Texas... Hey!"
Sam finally looked up from her notepad. Deanna knew Sam wasn't wanting to make a career out of hunting or anything but she could at least look like she's interested in what Deanna's saying. "Am I boring you with this hunting evil stuff?" she asked, arching golden eyebrows at her younger sister.
Sam didn't respond with much more than a "No, I'm listening. Keep going." before returning to her notepad.
Deanna rolled her eyes, tapping her pen as she continued to list off possible cases. "Sacramento man shot himself in the head..." Deanna turned in her chair, holding up a few fingers as she added, "Three times. She waved, trying to get her sister's attention. "Any of these sound even remotely interesting to you, Mary Cassatt?"
Sam didn't bother asking Deanna how she knew who Mary Cassatt was when she noticed something about her drawings. "Waist I've seen this before."
"Seen what?" Deanna asked with a sigh.
Sam suddenly jumped up, going to rummage through her duffle on the dresser. Deanna just sipped her coffee as she watched her sister. When Sam pulled out their father's journal, Deanna finally asked what she was doing.
Sam pulled out a family picture of her, Deanna and their parents in front of their old house in Kansas. Holding her drawing of the tree she had repeatedly doodled for the past few hours next to the other picture, she stopped short. Looking at Deanna, she said dramatically, "Deanna I know where we need to go next."
"Where?" Deanna asked, bored with the charade.
"Back home," Sam answered. "Back to Kansas."
"Okay, that was random," Deanna replied, though it was obvious that something had changed in her eyes. She didn't seem to watch to go back. "Where'd that come from?"
Sam realized then that this would probably take a little explaining and convincing on her part. "Alright, um, this was taken in front of our old house, right?" Sam asked, moving to show Deanna the family photo. "And that was where mom died?"
"Yeah," Deanna answered, her eyes flicking between the photo and Sam.
"It didn't burn not completely, right? They rebuilt it," Sam continued.
"I guess so, yeah," Deanna replied. "What the Hell are trying to get at?"
"Okay, look, this is gonna sound crazy," Sam started, sitting across from her sister. "But the people in out old house... I think they might be in danger."
"Why would you think that?" Deanna questioned, looking at her sister with something similar to confusion written across her face.
She stuttered as she spoke, unsure how to say it. Deanna wouldn't believe that she was Psychic. Sam wasn't even sure that was what it was. "Look, uh- You just- Um, you just gotta trust me on this, okay?"
Deanna stared at her as the younger girl jumped up again. She was jittery and couldn't concentrate. She couldn't sit, couldn't stay still. She wasn't to go. Now.
"So just trust you?" Deanna asked, standing up to face her sister. "Come on. That argument's a bit weak. You gotta give me a little more than that."
"I can't really explain is all," Sam admitted.
"Well tough," Deanna responded. She was going to hold her ground on this one. "I'm not going anywhere until you do."
Sam sighed, turning to Deanna with an Are you kidding me? face that she didn't really expect to work. As Deanna raised a single blonde eyebrow, her arms crossed underneath her breasts, the expectation was confirmed. Sam sighed again before saying simple, "I have nightmares."
"I've noticed," Deanna replied.
"And sometimes they come true," Sam continued.
Deanna scoffed, almost laughing at the statement before realizing that her sister was serious. "Wait, come again?" she asked, squinting at her sister.
"Look, Deanna," Sam replied. "I dreampt about Jesse's death days before it happened."
"People have weird dreamed all the time," Deanna rationalized, sitting down on her bed. "I'm sure it's just a coincidence."
"No, I dreampt about the blood dripping, her on the ceiling, the fire, everything- and I didn't do anything because I didn't believe it. And now I'm dreaming about that tree, about our house, and about some woman inside screaming for help. I mean that's where it all started, maybe this means something. I mean, it has to, right?"
Deanna looked down at her hands. Sam was saying things that couldn't be. Deanna didn't know what to tell her. Did she believe her sister? Did she not believe her sister? All she could say was, "I don't know."
"You don't-? What do you mean you don't know, Deanna?" Sam asked, sitting across from the other Winchester. "This woman might be in danger. I mean this might even be the thing that killed mom and Jess-"
"Alright!" Deanna exclaim, jumping up from her seat. "Just slow down, would you?"
Deanna rounded her bed until she was on the other side, staring at her sister once more. She let out a huff of a laugh, barely that. "I mean, first you tell me that you've got the shining... And then you tell me that I've got to go back home, especially when..."
Deanna wouldn't- couldn't- say the words allowed. She couldn't break down. Not in front of Sammy. Not in front of her sister. She wasn't supposed to do that. She was supposed to be stronger than that.
"When what, Deanna?" Sam egged on.
"When I swore to myself that I would never go back there," Deanna choked out. She turned around, breaking eye contact with her sister. She wouldn't cry, she wouldn't cry, she wouldn't, she wouldn't...
Sam shook her head without realizing it. Deanna was obviously scared to go back but... "Deanna, we have to check this out. Just to make sure."
Then Deanna herself shook her head and Sam was scared the protests would continue. Deanna stared at Sam with a serious gaze, though, one that meant business. "I know we do."
*
The drive wasn't as bad as Deanna thought, but it was still a long and dreadful journey. She had never not wanted to go on a hunt, never not wanted to save people. When they finally arrived at the house, she parked the Impala across the street. With a sigh, she turned off the engine.
"You gonna be alright?" Sam asked from the seat next to her.
Deanna stared at the house in front of her. The house she had lived in until she was four years old. The house her sister had lived in until... It was the house her mom had died in. The one that changed her life. "Let me get back to you on that."
Without another word, Sam got out of the car. Deanna was close behind her. Walking up to the door, Deanna racked her knuckles against the white painted door. It had been white when she lived there too. She didn't skip a beat when a woman answered the door though. "Sorry to bother you, ma'am," she apologized first before continuing, "but we're with the f-"
"I'm Sam Winchester, and this is my sister, Deanna," Sam interrupted, earning a wide-eyed stare from her sister. "Um..." She swallowed. "We used to live here."
Before the woman could reply, Sam continued talking. "We- we were just driving by, and we were wondering if we could see the old place."
"Winchester," she remarked. "That is so funny. You know I think I found some of your photos the other night."
"You did?" Deanna couldn't help but ask.
Hesitating a moment, the woman looked between the girls. Sam smiled shyly and Deanna looked dumbstruck. These girls were harmless, she thought to herself before stepping back, opening the door wide for them to enter. "Come on in. I'm Jenny by the way."
Sam stepped through the door before Deanna, the elder girl lingering slowly down the hall. Her eyes dragged over the wall. They were white and clean. He saw the floor. It was carpeted. It hadn't been carpeted before. Or maybe she just didn't remember it being carpeted...
They walked into the kitchen behind Jenny. A toddler was jumping up and down in his playpen, chanting "Juice! Juice! Juice! Juice!" over and over again. There was also a young girl sitting at the table with a pencil and paper.
"That Richie," Jenny said, pointing to the boy before unlocking the child block on the frig to open it. "He's kind of a juice junkie. But hey, at least he won't get scurvy."
Giving the sippy-cup to her son and patting his head, she turned to her daughter. "Sairie, this is Sam and Deanna." She had pointed at each of the girls while introducing them. "They used to live here.'
"Hi," Sairie greeted shyly.
"Hey, Sairie," Sam replied as Deanna the waved.
"So you just moved in?" the older Winchester asked Jenny.
"Uh, yeah, from Wichita," she answered.
Deanna nodded. "You got family here or...?"
Jenny whole body seemed to pause. "No, um, I just..." She took a breath composing herself. "We need a fresh start. That all. So new town, new job- I mean, as soon as I find one- new house."
Jenny gave an awkward smile that Deanna returned before Sam asked, "So how you liking it so far?"
"Well, uh, all due respect to your childhood home- I'm sure you have plenty of happy memories here- but this place has it's issues."
Deanna was still stuck at happy memories when Sam asked "What do you mean?"
"Well it's just getting old," she answered before explaining. "Like wiring, you know? We've got flickering lights almost hourly."
"Ah that's too bad," Deanna replied. "What else?"
"Um, sink's backed up. There's rats in the basement." Deanna nodded, knowing full and well what this meant. Jenny took it differently though. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to complain."
"No," Deanna replied quickly. "Have you seen the rats or just heard scratching?"
"Just the scratching actually," Jenny realized when she thought about it.
"Mom?" Sairie said, looking up at her mother. Jenny bent down to be eye and eye with Sairie. "Ask them if it was here when they lived here."
"What, Sairie?" Sam asked after sharing a look with Deanna.
"The thing in my closet."
Jenny tugged the young girls hair behind her ear. "Oh, no, baby," she said. "There was nothing in their closets." She looked up at the girls. "Right?"
"Right no," Sam assured the girl, Deanna repressing a scoff. "No, of course not."
Jenny looked back at her daughter. "She had a nightmare the other night."
"I wasn't dreaming," Sairie argued. "It came into my bedroom and it was on fire."
Both Sam and Deanna got cold.
*
As soon as they were out of the house, Sam started at Deanna. "You hear that? A figure on fire!"
"And that woman Jenny? She was the woman from your dreams?" Deanna asked.
"Yeah, and you hear what she was talking about- scratching, flickering lights? They're both signs of a malevolent spirit."
"Yeah well, I'm just freaked out that your weirdo visions are coming true."
"Forget about that! The thing in the house- do you think it's the thing that killed mom and Jesse?"
"I don't know!" Deanna snapped at her.
"Well, has it come back or has it been there the whole time?" Sam asked as she reached the Impala.
Deanna stopped in front of her sister. "Maybe it's something else entirely. We don't know yet."
"Those people in there are in danger, Deanna. We have to get them out."
"We will."
"No, I mean now."
"And how you gonna do that? You got a story she'll believe?"
"Then what are we supposed to do?"
*
A few minutes later they were at a gas-station to regroup. Deanna was filling up her car with gas and Sam leaned against the shotgun door of it. "You just gotta chill out," Deanna was saying. "If this was any other job, what would we do?"
Sam let out a deep breath. Deanna was right; they both knew that.
"We would try to figure out what we're dealing with," Sam answered. "We would dig into the history of the house."
"Exactly, expect this time we already know what happened," Deanna replied.
"Yeah, but how much do we know?" Sam asked. "How much do you actually remember?"
"About that night, you mean?" Deanna asked.
"Yeah."
"Not much," she answered, shaking her head. "I remember the fire, the heat. Then I carried you out the front door."
"You did?" Sam asked. Deanna was standing next to her now, leaning against the Impala as well.
Deanna looked at Sam then, a comforting smile on her lips. "You never knew that?"
"No..." Sam shook her head, staring at her sister as she continued.
"Well, you know dad's story as well as I do," Deanna said. "Mom was- she was on the ceiling, and whatever put her there was long gone by the time Dad found her."
"And he never had a theory about what did it?"
"If he did, he kept it to himself," Deanna replied. "God knows we asked him enough times."
"Okay," Sam said, reprocessing all the information. "So if we're gonna figure out what's going on now, we've got to figure what happened back then, and see if it's the same thing."
"Yeah, talk to dad's friends, neighbors, people who were there back then."
Sam laughed bitterly under her breath. "What this feel like just another job to you?"
Deanna opened her mouth to reply but shut it when she couldn't answer. Composing herself and forcing a smile, she said, "I'll be right back. I have to pee."
"Want me to do with?" Sam asked.
Deanna shook her head as she stood up straight. "Nah, it's okay. I know how to urinate."
Sam nodded, watching Deanna walk around the side of the gas station to the public restroom that was there. When she was around the corner where Sam couldn't see, she pulled out her phone. She punched in her father's number quickly, knowing her father must check the voice-mails. He was paying the phone bill so people could here the message after all.
"This is John Winchester. I can't be reached. If this is an emergency, call my daughter, Dean. 785-555-0179. She can help."
At the beep, Deanna began, her voice trembling. "Dad... I know I've left you messages before. I guess I don't really know if you get them, but I'm with Sam and we're in Lawrence. There's something in our old house. I don't know if it's the thing that kill Mom or not, but-" Her voice shattered then. "I don't know what to do. So whatever you're doing, if you could get here-" She sucked in a ragged breath. "-please do. I need your help, Dad."
*
"No, sir, nothing weird down there, I promise," Jenny told the plummer that followed her into the kitchen. "The sink just stopped up by itself."
"Well, I'll take a look," the plummer said, the "but no promises" going unsaid.
"Thanks," she acknowledged, before awkwardly taking a step away. "I guess I'll get out of your way then."
She left and he got to work, putting down the tool box and opening the cabinet. Something started to move out of the corner of his eye, making his look up as it started to came noise. It was one of those creepy monkey toys that banged tiny golden cymbals together and laughed. The man curled his lip in disgust at the thing before going back to work, using his wrench to loosen the pipe. Taking the small, arching piece off and looking inside, he was confused. There was nothing as far as he could see. He rubbed his fingers along the inner walls of the thing before pulling them out and looking at them. Nothing.
He unplugged the garbage disposal power cord from the outlet before glaring at the annoying, chattering toy a few feet away. Suddenly it stopped and the plummer felt his eyebrows crinkle together. Shaking it out of his mind, the man stood, looking over the sink.
Flipping the garbage disposal switch on and off a few times before rolling up his sleeves, he was positive that whatever interference the woman living there was getting was stuck, that whatever it was couldn't have been shredded by the garbage disposal. Feeling around for what was lodged in the pipe, half his fore arm was burrowed into the sink. He thought he felt something for a moment but lost it, hearing a small tink beneath him. It hadn't been big enough to stop drainage, though. Pulling his arm out, he rubbed his fingers together. Perhaps a little greasy, but there wasn't any compromising residue on his hand.
So he reached into the sink again.
It wasn't long before the garbage disposal started, though. He arm was being eaten away by the blender-like blades within the pipe. Unable to pull his arm out, he screamed and called out for help. Underneath the sink, his blood was pouring into the bucket meant to catch gunk from the pipe.
Behind him the monkey started to play its instrument again; its laughter rung out like that of a ghost.
*
At Guenther's Auto Repair, a decades old garage, Deanna and Sam had started on their plan to treat this like a normal case. They had to asked John's friends about what happened. The man had been a mechanic, something Deanna had no doubt that John once loved being instad of a hunter. Deanna had always admired her father and was closest to him, but being in the shop that was once owned by him... What could they really tell her about John twenty-two years ago?
"You and John Winchester owned this shop together?" Deanna asked the man she and Sam followed through the maze of beaten and bruised cars.
"Yeah, we used to a long time ago," the man replied before seeming to pause in thought. "John was like a brother to me." He sighed. "It's been about twenty years since he disappeared. Why are the cops so interested now?"
"Oh, we're reopening some of our unsolved cases," Deanna lied easily. "The Winchester disappearance is just one of them."
"Uh, huh," the man said, thinking on it only a moment before continuing. "So what do you want to know about him?"
"Whatever you remember. You know, whatever sticks out in your mind."
"Well, he was as stubborn as any man, maybe worst that's for sure," Guenther reminisced, chuckling slightly like he was thinking of a thousand stories he could tell. "And whatever the game, he hated to loose, you know? I think it was part of him being a marine- he had to have had that attitude to be somebody in the military all those years ago. But he loved Mary like a schoolgirl, and he doted on those babies."
"But that was before the fire," Sam interjected, seeing a slight change in Deanna's demeanor. Well, it was slight to the man in front of them, but she knew Deanna was thinking the same thing she was. The man that was John Winchester before the fire was the same person as their father, but an entirely different person at the same time.
Guenther nodded, the tiny smile gone now. "That's right."
"He ever talk about that night?" Sam asked.
"No, not at first. I think he might have been in shock," Guenther told the girls, shifting in his position.
"Yes, but eventually as I'm gathering..." Sam stared at the man. "Eventually, what did she say."
Deanna was staring at the man closer now too. What did John tell this man that he couldn't have told his children?
"Oh, he wasn't thinking straight. He said, uh... Well, he said something caused that fire and killed Mary."
"He ever say what did it?" spoke up Deanna.
"Nothing did it," Guenther replied. "It was an accident. There was an electrical short in the ceiling or walls or something." He swallowed. "I begged him to get some help, but..."
"But what?" Deanna wondered.
"It just got worst and worst," he admitted.
"How?"
"He started reading these strange old books, went to see this palm reader in town-"
"Palm reader?" Deanna interrupted. "You have a name?"
The man scoffed. "No, John realized soon after he told me that I didn't want to know. He stopped telling me much after that."
*
Deanna leaned against the Impala beside the payphone as Sam looked at the phone book that sat atop it. "So there are a few psychics and palm readers in town," she said after a few minutes of flipping pages. "There's some El Devino. There's the Mysterious Mr. Fortinski," she laughed, looking at Deanna with a light-hearted and joking shrug. "Um, there's the Missouri Moseley, some dude-"
"Wait, wait!" Deanna interrupted. "The Missouri Moseley?"
"Yeah. What?"
"That's a Psychic?" Deanna asked.
Sam looked down at the yellow page. "Uh, yeah. Yeah, I guess so."
Deanna shook her head, walking around her car to the trunk which she opened up as she spoke. "In Dad's journal..." She pulled said journal out before closing the trunk again. Opening it up, she beckoned Sam over to her. "First page, first sentence- read that," she ordered.
"I went to Missouri and I learned the truth," Sam read aloud, glancing up at Deanna afterwards with raised eyebrows.
"I always thought he meant the state," Deanna admitted, smiling.
They were getting somewhere. A thought she never thought would cross her mind ran across her conscience then. I'm glad I came back to Lawrence.
*
Lawrence is worst than I had originally thought, Deanna decided as she slapped the old magazine back onto the table. Sam and Deanna had been waited for quite some time in the lobby of Missouri's place of business/the downstairs of their house.
"All right then, don't you worry about a thing," a sweet voice said as the owner and a middle aged man walked into the lobby form the hall. "You're wife is crazy about you."
The man went out the door and the woman turned to the sisters, Deanna able to get a good look at Missouri now. She was a short woman of about five feet with dark features and a large body type. There was something about the way she held herself that made her seem regal though. Deanna had to respect that.
"Whew!" she sounded. "Poor bastard- his woman's cold-bangin' the gardener."
As she walked back toward the hall, Deanna couldn't help but ask, "Why didn't you tell him?"
"People don't come here for the truth," she answered. "They come here for good news."
She went to go down the hall before realizing they were still sitting. Turning back and facing them, she quirked one dark brow at them. "Well?" she asked. "Sam and Deanna, come on already. I ain't got all day."
She walked down the hall, not waiting any longer for the two girls. They looked at each other before standing simultaneously. Walking back to the woman's office, she was waiting for them. "Well let me look at you," she said, laughing. "Oh, how beautiful you ladies grew up to be." She wagged a finger at Deanna, laughing harder. "And you were one funny-looking girl when you were younger. I was scared you'd never find a man with that face."
Deanna's head quirked, green staring at the woman with both surprise and offense.
"Sam," the woman said then, grabbing the younger sister's hand, taking it between her two. "Oh, honey," she said, staring at the young woman with sad eyes. "I'm sorry about your boyfriend. And you're father... He's missing?"
Sam's mouth opened and closed twice before she looked at Deanna, who could only stare at Missouri. Looking back at the woman, Sam asked the moth obvious question she could. "How did you know all that?"
"Well, you were just thinking it, just now," she replied.
"Where is he?" Deanna asked, inching closer to the psychic. "Is he okay?"
"I don't know," Missouri answered in a seemingly honest and genuine voice.
"Don't know?" Deanna echoed, swallowing. "You're supposed to be a psychic, aren't you?"
"Girl, you see me sawing some bony tramp in half? You think I'm a magician?" She didn't even give Deanna time to reply. "I may be able to read thoughts and sense energies in a room, but I can't just pull a thought outta thin air! Now sit! Please."
Deanna glanced at Sam who bore a smug grin before they sat on the couch. About to lift her right leg up absentmindedly, the woman across from them blurt out, "Girl, you put your feet on my coffee table and Imma whack you with a spoon."
"I didn't even do anything," Deanna tried to argue.
Missouri tilted her head at the blonde. "But you were thinkin' about it."
Deanna was once again speechless as Sam snickered next to her. As the room got quiet, everybody settled into their seats, Sam started. "So," she said. "Our dad. When did you first meet him?"
"He came for a readin' a few days after the fire," she answered openly. "I just told him what was really out there in the dark. I guess you could say... I drew back the curtains for him."
"What about the fire?" Deanna asked, leaning forward. "Do you-" She took a deep breath. "Do you know about what killed our mom?"
"A little," she admitted. "Your daddy took me to ya house. He was hoping I could sense the echoes, the fingerprints of this thing."
"And could you?" Sam wondered.
She shook her head. "I don't..." Her voice was weaker now, like it was hard to remember. Or perhaps hard to forget.
"What was it?" Sam pressed.
"I don't know," she admitted, "but it was evil."
*
"Juice! Juice! Juice!" Richie chanted, bouncing up and down in his pin as his mother talked on the phone.
"Look I feel just awful about the poor man's hand," she was telling whoever was on the other end, "but how can I be help liable? ...Yeah, but I can't afford a lawyer." There was a clattering upstairs and she looked at the ceiling. "Look, you just gotta let be call you back, okay?"
She hung up, looking at her son a moment. "Richie, Mommy's gonna be right back, okay?"
"Okay," he answered as she ran out of the kitchen.
*
"You think somethin' is back in that house?" Missouri asked the sisters on her couch.
"Definitely," Sam answered, no doubt in her mind.
"I don't understand," the woman replied.
Sam's brow crinkled. "What?"
"I haven't been back in the house, but I've been keepin' an eye on the place and it's been quiet. No sudden deaths, no freak accidents- why is it acting up now?"
"I don't know, but mom going missing and Jesse dying and now this house--all at once--it just feels like something is starting up."
Well, that's a comforting thought," Deanna commented, staring at her sisters beside her. The worst part about that was she full-heartedly believed Sam was right. It scared her.
*
Richie was just playing with his drum set when the wall of his pin suddenly fell down. It wasn't loud like it should have been so it didn't scare the child. Especially when the frig's child lock unbuckled itself, the door of it creaking open.
Walking over, Richie saw a sippy cup of juice sitting on the middle shelf with not much surrounding it. Small enough to fit inside, he crawled into the refrigerator. "Juicy!" he squeaked, piking up his cup.
Then the door shut and locked behind him.
A little later, Jenny came back into the kitchen. "Oh, baby, either we have rats or Mommy's going crazy," she said just as she realized her son's pin was open. "Richie?"
She glanced around the kitchen, her heart beginning to pound in her chest which lifting up and down with her quickening breaths. "Richie?!" She left the kitchen once more, looking throughout the house for her son. "Baby, where are you?!"
When she came back into the kitchen, practically hyperventilating by now, she noticed milk dripping out of the frig, leaking from the bottom of the door. She rushed to unlock it and open the frig. Inside was Richie, sitting on a cup of juice.
"Omigod!" she cursed with a gasp, grabbing her son up. Holding him tightly to her, she almost began to cry. Oh, how she had almost lost him. She just couldn't bare that.
*
Deanna knocked on the door, only a few seconds passing before Jenny opened it, Richie in her arms. "Sam, Deanna, what are you doing here?" she asked before noticing a third person with them. The woman was older than the sisters, perhaps a few years older than jenny herself.
"Hey, Jenny, this is our friend Missouri," Sam introduced.
"And if it's not too much trouble," Deanna added. "We were hoping to show her the house. You know, for old time's sake."
"Sorry, but this isn't a good time," Jenny replied, her voice shaking. "I'm kind of busy right now."
She began to walk away as Deanna spoke. "Listen, Jenny, it's important-" A smack in the head interrupted her, making Deanna instinctively blurt out an offended "Ow!"
"Oh, give the poor woman a break," Missouri said. "Can't you see she's upset?"
Jenny stepped back into the threshold of the door as the woman continued. "Forgive her; she means well. She's just not the brightest bulb in the box if you know what I mean. But hear me out."
Deanna had a look of both surprise and offense on before--a seemingly permanent state for her when around the Psychic--but she turned to Jenny with concentration. She was going to help, and no matter what this woman said, Deanna was good at her job.
"About what?" Jenny asked Missouri.
"About this house," she replied.
"What are you talking about?"
"I think you know exactly what I'm talking about. You think there's something in this house, something that wants to hurt your family. Am I mistaken?"
"Who are you?" Jenny asked, looking at each of the sisters before turning her gaze back to Missouri.
"We're people who can help," the psychic replied. "We're people who can stop this thing, but you're gonna have to trust us just a little."
There wasn't anything for Jenny to say as she stepped back, letting the three women into her home. They went upstairs first. "There's a dark energy in this house," said Missouri as they walked into a baby blue painted room. "This should be the center of it."
"Why?" asked the youngest Winchester.
"It used to be your nursery, Sam," the woman told her. "This is where it all happened."
Deanna looked around the room then to the ceiling. She could practically feel the heat on her face at she stared up at the spot her mother was pinned and murdered. She looked down at the device in her hand, pulling the antenna out and getting ready to scan the room.
"That an EMF?" asked Missouri. Deanna nodded, switching it on. "Amateur," the psychic muttered, earning a glare from Deanna. "I don't know if you girls should be disappointed or relieved, but this ain't the thing that took your dad."
"Wait, are you sure?" Sam asked, not knowing herself which emotion she was feeling at the moment. Missouri nodded. "How do you know?"
"It isn't the same energy I felt the last time I was here," she answered. "It's somethin' different."
"What is it?" Deanna asked as Missouri opened the closet doors.
"Not it," she replied, walking into the closet. "Them. There's more than one spirit in this place."
"What are they doing here?" the eldest sister asked.
"They're here because of what happened to your family," Missouri told them, coming to stand directly in front of Deanna. "You see, all those years ago, real evil came to you. It walked this house. That kind of evil leaves wounds. And sometimes, wounds get infected."
"I don't understand," Sam admitted, the confusion as clear on her face as sadness was on Deanna's.
"This place is a magnet for paranormal energy," the psychic explained. "It's attracted a poltergeist- a nasty one- and it won't rest until Jenny and her babies are dead."
"You said there was more than one spirit," Sam reminded her.
"There is," Missouri confirmed. "I just can't quite make out the second one.
"Well, one thing's for damn sure," Deanna said, a hardness edging her tone like a blade. "Nobody's dying in this house ever again. So whatever is here, how do we stop it?"
*
Sam and Deanna now sat at the dinner table of Missouri's home with different herbs and roots spread across it. "What is all this stuff anyway?" Deanna asked their host. She was putting each ingredient into a cloths as instructed, sealing them with hemp rope dipped in something she couldn't pronounce.
"Angelica Root, Van Van oil, crossroad dirt, a few other odds and ends," Missouri answered as if all these things should sound familiar.
"Yeah?" Deanna asked, ready for some action already. She had just finished the second bag. "And what are we supposed to do with with all this?"
"We're gonna put these inside the walls in the north, south, east, west corners on each floor of the house," Missouri told the girl.
"We'll be punchin' holes in the dry wall," Deanna scoffed. "Jenny's gonna love that."
"She'll live," Missouri replied, pun intended Deanna was sure.
"And this'll destroy the spirits?" Sam asked, the first time she had spoken since they had gotten back to Missouri's house.
"It should," Missouri told Sam. "It should purify the house completely. We'll each take a floor, but we work fast. Once the spirits realize what we're up to, things are gonna get bad."
*
That night was when they would execute their plan. Missouri was walking jenny and her children outside. Jenny stopped them on the steps, though. "Look, I'm not sure I'm comfortable leaving you guys here alone."
"Just take your kids to the movies or somethin'," the older woman replied. "It'll be over by the time you get back."
Though she was still uncertain, Jenny left with her children. After watching them drive off, Missouri went back inside. Oh, this was going to be one hell of a night. And later one hell of an explanation to Jenny later.
*
Sam walked into the master bedroom with a hammer. Kneeling down by one of the beautifully decorated walls, she began using the end of the hammer to tap against the walls. She was listening for a hollow spot between beams that she could hammer into easily.
Behind her, a lamp plug takes itself out of the outlet. The lamp itself begins to move on its own also, and the plug snakes its way towards Sam.
*
Downstairs in the kitchen, Deanna is tapped the wall with the handle of a small ax before finding a good stop to say the egg so to say. She begins the hack at the wall behind the stove.
Behind her, a drawer begins to open on its own, creaking quietly whereas it would have sounded like marbles rolling across a wooden porch in other circumstances.
*
In the basement, Missouri is looking around for a spot to plant one of her own bags. She brings a bag full of herbs to the wall, before hearing a strange noise behind her. She turned around just in time to see a table coming towards her. She screamed as it pins her against the wall.
*
One floor above the psychic, Deanna faintly hears the sound of silverware being moved. She instinctively ducked just as a knife hurled itself into a cabinet. It would have lodged itself into her neck. She flipped the table over, using it as a barrier when more knives fly toward her. The table only barely stopped the cooking knives from slicing Deanna up at they came halfway through the wooden top.
*
Sam had just started chopping a hole in the wall when she heart the lamp crash to the ground. Turning around to see what the noise was, she was prepared for the cord wrapping itself around her neck. Falling to the ground, she tried to pry the to get the cord off. It was too tight, though and she couldn't get enough oxygen. She was too weak to fight after only a few minutes of straining.
"Sam!" Deanna called worriedly as she rushed into the room. Trying to get the cord off, she realizes that there was only one way to stop her sister's suffocation.
Deanna kicked a hole in the wall, placing the bag of herbs within it in a rush. A blindingly white light cleanses the room, the spirit leaving it.
Deanna sprinted back to Sam's side. She's completely weak as her big sister unravels the cord from around her neck. Pulling Sam into a tight hug that might just suffocate her anyway, Deanna was too relieved that Sam was okay to think about anything else. She had lost her mom to this house; she wouldn't loose her sister too.
*
A few hours later, Sam, Deanna and Missouri stand in the ruined kitchen downstairs. "You sure this is over?" Sam was asking Missouri.
"I'm sure," she answered. "Why? Why do you ask?"
"No, never mind," she replied with a sigh. "It's nothing, I guess."
There's the sound of the front door opening and closing then Jenny's voice. "Hello? We're home!" she called, before walking into the kitchen and seeing its state. "What happened?"
"Hi, sorry. Um, we'll pay for all of this," Sam greets, smiling awkwardly. Deanna's eyebrow knit together in confusion as Missouri speaks.
"Don't you worry. Deanna's gonna clean up this mess," she said, turning to Deanna who had not moved. "Well, what are you waiting for, boy? Get the mop!" She started to walk away, Missouri called after the younger woman. "And don't cuss at me!"
Deanna leaves in search of a mop, muttering under her breath.
*
Later that night, Jenny lies in bed, reading a magazine. Yawning and setting it on the nightstand, she turns off the lights. Sliding under the covers, she slipped into what would hopefully be a goodnight's sleep. Only seconds later, though, her eyes fly open. The bed begins to shake violently. She screamed, jumping out it.
Meanwhile of course, the Winchester sisters sit outside in their car. "All right, so, tell me again," Deanna said. "What are we still doin' here?
"I don't know," Sam replied. "I just... I still have a bad feeling."
"Why? Missouri did her whole Zelda Rubenstein thing," Deanna argued. "The house should be clean, it should be over."
"Yeah, well, probably. But I just wanna make sure, that's all."
"Mm," Deanna hummed, completely done with weird, not the usual creepy, and vague crap that had been going on all day. "Yeah, well, problem is I could be sleeping in a bed right now." She curls up in her seat, leaning against the door and closing her eyes. Sam glaces up at Jenny's bedroom window to see her screaming, just like in her dream.
"Dean!" Sam exclaimed, hitting her sister in the shoulder. "Look, Dean!"
They rush out of the car and run towards the house without wither hesitating. "You grab the kids! I'll get Jenny!" Deanna yelled at she ran into the house.
*
Sairie stared at the closet doors open wide. There was a shadowy figure standing within, staring back at her, staring into her it seemed. Then it wasn't shadows anymore; it was fire.
Down the hall, Deanna rushed to Jenny's door. Hanging on it, the mother on the other side was doing the same. "Jenny!" Deanna called out to her.
"Deanna! I can't open the door!" the other woman screamed.
"Stand back!" Deanna ordered, stepping back. Kicking down the door, she grabbed Jenny by the hand, pulling her downstairs.
"No, my kids!" Jenny cried.
Deanna shook her head, not stopping a moment. "Sam's got your kids, come on."
While carrying Richie in her arms, Sam ran to Sairies' room, where the little girl was screaming for help. Grabbing the small child up, Sam struggled to hold them both in her arms but was managing well enough.
"Don't look. Don't look!" Sam ordered Sairie, though she herself stared at the inferno before her. They ran out of the bedroom, Sam setting the siblings down in the hall. "All right, Sari," she said. "Take your brother outside as fast as you can, and don't look back."
Suddenly, an invisible force made Sam fall to the floor. Sliding backward into another room, she crashed into a table. Sairie screamed, running outside, her brother in her arms to Deanna and her mother. Deanna bent down when she saw them so that she was eye level with the little girl.
"Sari, where's Sam?" she asked.
She's inside," the girl answered, crying as she clung to her brother in her arms. "Something's got her. It's the monster from my closet."
As Deanna stood, looking at the door, it slammed shut on its own.
Deanna ran to the Impala, opening her trunk and grabbing both a rifle and an ax. Rushing to the front door, she began to chop it away. Nothing was going to stop her getting to her sister. Nothing.
*
Sam was flung into the cabinets then pinned against the wall by the poltergeist tormenting her. She couldn't move at all, not even wiggle a toe which she tried to do. Then a figure of fire- the same one that had been watching Sairie- came to view in front of Sam.
*
Deanna continued to chop at the door until she was eventually able to get though it. Running through the house, she found her sister being held captive in the kitchen. "Sam!" she exclaimed before seeing the fire figure before them.
"No, don't!" Sam screamed as Deanna raised her gun. "Don't!"
"What, why?" Deanna asked.
"Because I know who it is," she explained vaguely. "I can see her now."
Then the fire that engulfed the figure disappeared. In front of them stood Mary Winchester in the pajamas she wore to her death. The hard expression Deanna had been wearing softened. She lowered her gun, staring at her mother.
"Mom?" she asked, the tears that threatened to fall evident in her strained voice.
Mary stepped toward her eldest daughter, smiling softly. "Deanna," she greeted, watching as a single tear fell from her daughter eyes. She looked away, unable to watch her daughter in such a state. She turned to the daughter that she never got to raise. "Sammy," she said the old nickname with pride in her heart. Oh, how her baby girls had grown up. They were no longer little princesses. They were queens, and she couldn't be more proud of them.
But then her smile faded away. "I'm sorry," she apologized for everything. Those two little words would never be able to make up for anything, though.
"For what?" Sam asked still. She looked at her youngest daughter, but stayed silent.
Going to stand at the center of the room, she looked up at the ceiling. "You get out of my house, and you let go of my girl," she ordered, her voice loud without her shouting. She sounded authoritative, like that of a general ordering the deaths of thousands of lives without mercy. But it wasn't so hard; this was a cause far more noble than any other.
She burst into flames, her body disappearing within bright oranges and yellows. The fire sprang to the ceiling and disappeared, and the force holding Sam to the wall released her.
"Mom?" Deanna called under her breath, though she knew her mother wouldn't answer. Sam walked over to her, the two staring at one another with stunned expressions.
"Now it's over," was all Sam could say.
*
The next morning, Deanna stood beside her Impala with Jenny, looking through the old photos the woman had found in the basement days prior. "Thanks for these," she said, looking up at the mother.
"Don't thank me, they're yours," she said, watching as Deanna put the trunk of photos in the back of her car.
Sam was watched them silently from the steps as Missouri joined her. "Well, there are no spirits in there anymore, this time for sure," she told the girl.
"Not even my mom?" Sam asked, swallowing back tears. She had never met her mother before and just as she had a glimpse at the sort of woman she had been, she was gone.
"No," Missouri answered grimly.
"What happened?"
"Your mom's spirit and the poltergeist's energy- they cancelled each other out. She destroyed herself goin' after the thing."
Sam stared at Missouri. "Why would she do something like that?"
"Well, to protect her girls, of course," she answered. Sam nodded, tears in her eyes at she turned her gaze to the ground. Missouri went to put her hand on the girl's shoulder, but she stopped herself. "Sam, I'm sorry."
"For what?"
"You sensed it was here, didn't you? Even when I couldn't."
Sam looked back at Missouri. "What's happening to me?"
"I know I should have all the answers, but I don't know."
"Sam, you ready?" Deanna called from the car, earning a nod.
Jenny thanked them both before it was Missouri's turn to say goodbye. "Don't you two be strangers now," she said.
"We won't," Deanna said though she knew for a fact she never wanted to come back to that godforsaken town again.
"See you around," Missouri called as Jenny waved. They smile, get in the car, and drive away.
*
Missouri walked into her house, setting her purse on the table. She knew there was somebody there. She knew who it was too. "That girl... she has such powerful abilities. But why she couldn't sense her own father, I have no idea."
John was sitting on Missouri's couch, hands folding in his lap as he spoke. "Mary's spirit- do you really think she saved the girls?"
"I do," Missouri answered, watching as John sadly twists his wedding ring. "John Winchester, I could just slap you. Why won't you go talk to your children?"
John sniffled tears. "I want to. You have no idea how much I wanna see 'em. But I can't. Not yet. Not until I know the truth."