Sam and Samuel's journey in spititland Chapter 3 (3/5)
Chapter 3
After Jo had gone back to work, Sam made his bed and sat on it. For the first time since he had got out the car, he felt like he could breathe. He concentrated on that, inhaling, exhaling, his eyes shut and his fists slowly unclenching on his jeans. When he opened his eyes, he stayed silent a moment but couldn’t stop the nervous laughter that shook him a few seconds before sadness washed over him. Sitting straight, he fought back the tears. He wasn’t a cry baby and he would be mocked endlessly if Dean… Sam inhaled a shaky breathe at the thought of his brother and took a moment to calm his mind. He was going to save them, just they wait and see. Sam stood then and quickly undressed. He fell asleep the moment his head touched his pillow.
He was back in Lawrence, in Missouri’s garden. He could hear her telling Dean off for whatever mischief he had done. The summer heat soaked his body as he lay under a tree, book and toys forgotten by his side. He didn’t jump when someone put a hand on his shoulder, just smiled. He felt safe, protected. “Join me by the bridge. I’ll take you to see your father and brother.” Sam frowned and opened his eyes to see the underside of the bunk bed above his own. He sighed and lay immobile. His dream, that had been their last summer in Lawrence. He had been motherless by November and they had moved out by February. But the voice in his dream, that had been Cas’ voice.
Sam jumped out of bed and searched for his clothes but instead found the same blue coveralls Jo and her - their - coworker wore. It took him 15 minutes to get to the bridge, silently leaving the dormitory, finding his way back to the boiler room, passing a sleeping Bobby and climbing the dreadful staircase. But Cas wasn’t there. Sam leaned on the guardrail, looking as a bus passed underneath it. When he looked up, Cas was at his side, smiling at him and Sam forgot the cold attitude his friend had given him the night before.
Cas guided Sam into the town, taking him to what looked like a small zoo. Most of the animals were farm animals - pigs, rabbits, ducks - but in the back there were some tigers, alligators but Sam only had eyes for the last pen where a bunch of bears were sleeping. Sam ran toward it, gripping the bars of the pen they were in. “Dean? Dad?” he called.
“They are there,” answered Cas, pointing at two bears in the back. One was rolled in a loose ball, the second sprawled by its side and Sam trotted closer to them.
“Dean, Dad, it’s me, Sam! Come on you guys, wake up now.” But the two bears didn’t move and Sam leaned his head against the bars.
“They are sleeping. They ate too much and forget they were even humans,” said Cas who had caught up with the teen. Sam turned fearful eyes to his friend and then back at his family.
“What is going to happen to them?”
“They will be either trained to entertain clients or sold to the mines in the north.” Sam crouched down and stuck an arm between the pen’s bars, stretching it toward his brother. The position was uncomfortable but he could brush his fingertips against Dean’s furry leg.
“Dean, I hope you can teach dad how to be funny because I don’t want you to go in the mine,” murmured Sam. “And you’re in for a big I told you so when you’re back to normal.” The bears didn’t stir and Sam slowly stood up and left the strange menagerie.
He stopped in a kitchen garden and crouched down nest to a small hedge, flinching slightly when he felt Cas crouch beside him. “I got these back for you, but you(d better kept them hidden.” Sam looked up at his friend and then at his clothes the older boy was giving him. Sam didn’t know where Cas had kept them until then but he took his clothes anyway, hugging them, frowning when he heard the sound of paper being crumpled. Searching through his clothes, he withdrew a card from his jean’s pocket and read it aloud.
“To Samuel Winchester, may this journey accompany you on yours, Bill Wyatt. It’s… Samuel Winchester… it’s me. It’s my name. I forgot it. How could I…” Sam turned toward Cas who looked at him gently.
“Crowley steals names to keep us under his power.” Sam remembered what had happened after he had written his name on the contract the night before. “But you must not say your real name to anyone. You have to keep it secret. You will need it to go back where you came from,” added Cas, face now stern. Sam nodded and looked at his friend with concern.
“What about you, Cas?”
“I forgot it, like most of us here, but I could still remember you, I don’t know why…” The two boys stayed silence a moment. Cas finally turned around and picked some raspberries from the hedge behind them, giving some to Sam.
Later, Cas walked Sam back to the bridge. “I have some errands to run, but I trust you will find your way back without trouble.” Sam smiled. “I know trouble and how to deal with it, I’m a Winchester after all.” Cas didn’t seem to understand and tilted his head on the side a moment. Sam smiled grew bigger. “See you then.” The young man nodded. “See you, Sam.” Sam turned around and walked back to the building. He stopped at the other side of the bridge to wave Cas goodbye but his friend wasn’t there anymore. Something caught his eyes then and Sam looked up at the sky where something that looked like a big white bird was flying away.
Sam went down the stairs and into the boiler room. Bobby was still asleep but a few ghosts were aimlessly floating around. They approached him as soon as they saw him, swaying slightly in front of him. “Hu… Hi? I suppose you don’t know where I could hide my clothes?” whispered Sam. For a few seconds, the ghosts kept swaying but one suddenly zapped to the left, the other following him. Careful not to make a sound, Sam went after them, finding them by an old unused wood-stove at the back of the room. “Are you sure?” The ghosts seemed to nod and Sam put his clothes on top of the stove then opened the stove’s door. It shrieked and Sam was afraid Bobby would wake up but no thunderous voice yelled at him. The teen then placed his clothes inside the stove and closed the door. The ghosts walked him back and Sam waved them goodbye before going back to his room and back to sleep.
* * *
Jo woke him again around noon and, after a brief breakfast and a rapid shower, they all went upstairs to start working. Their job mostly consisted of cleaning the place: dusting, sweeping the floor and the windows, rearranging rooms and furniture, cleaning pools and refurnishing the massage rooms. Sam was familiar with most of the chores but even the biggest house his family had ever stayed at wasn’t bigger than a thousandth of this building. Sam smiled when people from the kitchen brought them food, signaling a break but was horrified when he and Jo saw the state the sauna they had to wash was in.
The room was littered with skin colored jell-o, goo and what looked like vomit? There were lengths of fur and splatters of blood covering the wall. And the stench and the… was that a… “Is that an ear?” shrieked Sam. Jo nodded and made a sound of disgust.
“Last people in there must have been shapeshifters. They… change shapes, leaving old skin and stuff behind.” Sam looked back at what he thought was jell-o and felt sick. ‘They will try their best to make you leave.’ Echoed Cas voice in Sam’s head. Tightening his grip on his broom, Sam took a deep breath and went to work.
It took them hours to clean the room, filling buckets with skin, hair and other things they would rather not think of while trying not to add more work by barfing, scrubbing the wall to get rid of the blood. They even had to ask for a ladder when they saw some blood had landed on the ceiling and had finished by the time the doors opened for the first clients.
* * *
Jo and Sam were downstairs, putting plates of food in dumbwaiter, salivating at the smell and the sight of the dishes when something happened. At first, it was some whispers, rumors relayed by employees, hearsays that were so twisted by the grape-vine they didn’t make any senses. Then, the temperature dropped a few degrees and the usual low hubbub of patrons they could usually hear ceased. As the temperature kept dropping slowly, every employee progressively stopped working, looking at each other in confusion.
Everybody yelped and jumped when Crowley appeared out of nowhere and Sam gulped when the man turned toward him, a sardonic smile on his lips. “Sam, my boy, I was searching for you.” Sam looked at his boss warily as he put an arm around his shoulders. “We have a… how to say that? Ha, a particular patron, coming our way and you…” Crowley patted Sam shoulder “Are the man I need.” Crowley smiled again. “How does it sound for you Sam? Great isn’t it? Nice, meet in the entry hall then, and don’t make me wait.” Crowley disappeared and all eyes shifted to Sam who squared his shoulders and walked toward the stairs.
When Sam reached the entry hall, the doors where wide open, letting a cold wind in. Stopping a step behind Crowley, Sam noticed the bellhop hiding behind potted plants and the silence. Only the hiss of the wind was piercing it. The lights of the town below had been turned off and he could only see as far as the middle of the bridge. As the temperature turned cold, Sam saw a few snowflakes twirling in the air and then a tall and dark figure walked out of the darkness. “Listen to me now, boy. This is an old soul and it’s always better to let them in even if… You’ll take him to the farthest sauna and treat him with respect. Understood?” Crowley was standing still but tense, his voice barely a whisper. Sam nodded and clenched his chattering teeth.
Sam could see more of the client now that he had come closer to the building and its lights. It looked like a man, a tall one but his eyes were cold and old, his smirk malicious, and even though ice covered the ground around him, freezing and melting as he walked, burns covered his face. When he reached the door, Crowley bowed slightly and Sam followed suit. His boss then pushed Sam who, thanks to his ‘little brother training’, didn’t stumble much and Sam held a shaky hand toward the inside of the house and managed a shaky “This way please.”
Never looking up to the man’s face and trying hard not to shiver too much, Sam led the patron to the most secluded sauna. While the old soul was in the adjacent changing room, Sam hopped in place, blowing on his fingers, and then hurried into the sauna when he realized he had to increase the heat. When the man went in a light fog surrounded him instantly and Sam would have been pleased to see that the ice on the ground was now reduced to a smaller perimeter, or surprised of the absence of sweat, but the teen’s eyes were fixed on the burns covering the man’s back.
His dad had had burns like that too when their house had burned down with his mother in it all those years ago. He remembered helping Dean put cream on the blisters, his father’s back so huge and so sad. Before he could think about it, Sam took a step in the sauna, his hair and coveralls immediately stuck to his skin with sweat and, as the patron sat on the bench inside, surprised himself by asking “Would you like something for your burns?” The old soul looked at him with amusement in his eyes and Sam felt a blush covering his face.
“Why not” answered the being. His voice was low and soft but the buzzing in Sam’s ear would stay well into the night.
Stepping back and closing the door, Sam almost jumped when Crowley appeared by his side. Jo and other coworkers crowded at the end of the small corridor, looking curiously at him. Looking up at his boss, Sam brushed his wet bangs out of his eyes and tried to dry his hands on his damp coverall. “I umm I need a lotion against burns?” Crowley frowned but clapped his hands once, a small container appearing between them that he then handed to Sam.
Going back inside the sauna, Sam tensed under the patron’s eyes, feeling like the being could read his soul, but walked and sat by his side. The container opened with a soft pop and the client turned slightly, presenting his back to Sam who sat closer. Taking some lotion in his hands, Sam started massaging the wounded skin. It was a strange sensation, the skin uneven, rough and cold, so cold. Sam felt like he was being squeezed between an iceberg and the sun, his fingers freezing against the man’s back and his own back boiling in the heat of the sauna.
But the more he worked the more right he felt, serenity washing over him as the old soul started to glow softly. Sam kept massaging, not paying attention to the shouts coming from outside as the glow increased, becoming brighter and brighter until Sam had to close his eyes and raise his arms in front of his face. There was a soft sound then, like a bird opening his wings, like something he remembered from his childhood. It was followed by a shrill noise that made all the lamps explode and then, nothing.
Sam waited a bit before opening his eyes. It was dark but some light was coming from inside one of his fist. Lowering his arms, he opened his hand to find a small vial filled with a shining blue liquid. Shaking it gently, the fluid shone brighter and the light get caught on some yellow bead on the bench. The sauna’s door opened then and Crowley came in the room, a flame burning above his palm. Behind him, Jo and another employee were carrying candles. The room started to sparkle, the light of the flames getting caught on a million of golden specks. “Is that…?” started Crowley, bending to retrieve one of the nuggets. He inspected it closely, surprise then greed flashing in his eyes. He spent the next minute yelling around, ordering that the gold had to be gathered and brought to his office and people better not try to steal anything from him if they didn’t want to wind up as dinner. Sam tensed when Crowley stepped closer to him, eyes fixed on the vial. His boss reached out for it but stopped a few inches away before dropping his hands. “Get to work too, will you.”
* * *
Later after work, Sam sat by the window in the dormitory, following the light of the bus as it traveled down below and the moon shone on them. When Jo sat by his side, he smiled at her and nibbled the muffin she gave him. “I didn’t see Cas this evening,” he told her and she shrugged.
“It happens. Crowley sends him on mission sometimes.” Sam nodded and took another bite of his cake. Shifting, he got the vial out if his pocket and shook it, the liquid inside shining softly.
“What do you think it is?” Sam asked, turning to a half-asleep Jo.
“Dunno. Magical flashlight? Glow in the dark lamp for you not to be scared at night?” Sam snorted and kicked her chair. Behind them, their coworkers were getting ready to sleep and Sam finished his muffin in silence. Maybe the liquid was a medicine of some sort. Maybe it would change Dean and his dad back into humans.
Once in bed, Sam lulled himself to sleep with memories of the Impala’s rumble and Beatles’ songs.
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