Strange Brew 3/10

[safiyabat]

Title: Strange Brew
Author: safiyabat
Artist: Stormbrite
Rating: PG-13
Genre/pairing: Gen
Characters: Sam Winchester, John Winchester, Dean Winchester
Word count: 51,698 (fic) / 5,693 (chapter)
Summary: Sam goes visiting and finds Paradise.
Spoilers: None
Warnings: Nothing major for this chapter
Disclaimer: I own nothing. No, really.

The next day they trained, and they trained hard. Apparently witches were a big deal, because he pulled both boys aside to stand in the rising sun before their morning run. “Now I want to make something very clear to both of you,” he lectured as they stood to attention. “Witches are nothing to mess around with. They can do things that can’t be explained, turn your own body against you. Turn the very Earth against you, if they want to, and there’s no way of knowing who or what any individual witch might really serve.”

Sam thought about the Jedi, about Darth Vader. Who did they serve? Would Dad really hunt Luke Skywalker?


“The bad news is that they can protect themselves from almost anything - turn you into a willing slave, make the gun so hot in your hand that it melts to your flesh,” John continued. “You have to be on your guard at all times. The good news is that their bodies are human, even if their minds and souls are monstrous. That means that if you can get the drop on ‘em before they can get to you, that you can kill ‘em just like any other red-blooded son of a bitch.”

Sam wondered when killing people became good news. He didn’t say anything about it, though. He could see the look in his father’s eye well enough. Instead he fell in for the morning run.

The run had to be longer than usual, ten miles instead of five, because “We have to be ready, boys. Can’t get complacent.” After that came the sparring, starting with hand-to-hand. “It’s good to get the blood pumping,” John told them. “I’m not going to go easy on you, though. Can’t let you get sloppy.” He found all the flaws in Sam’s fighting style within seconds, particularly a glaring weakness in his ability to defend his head against taller opponents. “Learn to block, you stupid idiot!” the father roared, knocking the boy to the ground for the tenth time in a row.

After sparring came improvised weapons training. Sam fared better here, making up for his lack of size and strength with his ability to think quickly and use whatever came to hand. John didn’t make them keep at this exercise very long. Sam tried not to be bitter about that; his father only wanted to do things if he could watch him fail. Still, he had the satisfaction of having knocked Dean on his butt ten times and put John on his knees twice, so he’d take it.

Escape practice came next, followed by the always-joyful knife practice. They even got a bonus round of shooting practice before John decided that they could eat. Breakfast time was long past over, but they could just do a slightly larger lunch; it would be fine. All three Winchesters washed perfunctorily in the hose before heading indoors.

Dean fixed some French toast and coffee while Sam watched their father carefully dissect the hex bag. He tried not to be obtrusive about it, but John saw. Dark eyes bored into Sam’s for just a moment as a large, scarred hand hovered over the little pouch. “You touch nothing, do you hear me?” the patriarch finally declared after what seemed like an hour.
Sam nodded slowly, not trusting himself to speak and risk ruining this rare moment of privilege. He didn’t even smile in case that raised his father’s suspicions. John stared at him for another few seconds and then got to work. “I’ve never seen a witch who hasn’t used hex bags to do her work,” he began.

“Are they always girls?” Sam asked, staring at the bag. It seemed like a tiny little trinket to cause so much damage.

John paused. “No. Lore usually talks about witches as female, but that’s because the lore until recently was written down by the Church and the Church had some ideas about women and sex that they thought were important to spread around. I think that a lot of hunters get caught up in looking for female witches and that gets a lot of them killed. That was… that was a pretty good question, Sammy.”

Sam would have been happier about the rare praise if his father didn’t look like he’d bitten into a lemon when he said it. “Thanks, sir. So. Hex bags?”

“Right. Hex bags. The witch makes a bag and puts the components of the spell into the bag. Sometimes she’ll make the bag out of something that belonged to the victim, like something that the victim wore. Sometimes it will just be a little leather pouch.”

Sam considered. “Because the things that belonged to the victim might still have DNA on them or something? Like when kids at school won’t touch someone else’s jacket because they say it has cooties?”

John nodded slowly. “Right again, Sammy. They call that the Law of Contagion. What was once a part of you is always a part of you. It’s also how a shifter can steal your face just by getting your toenail clippings.”

“Which is why we always burn them,” Sam added, leaning closer. “Okay. That makes sense.”

“So their magic is stronger if they use that piece of their victim. The contents will be different depending on how they learned their magic and who the caster is. Let’s see what’s inside this bad boy.” He pulled out a knife and cut the hex bag open.

Sam peered inside. “I see a dead bee.” He swallowed. “Because the guy got swarmed by bees.”

“Not a fun way to go,” John grimaced. “We’re dealing with a very nasty witch. Evil, through and through. I see some ashes and what looks like dried herbs over here. What do we use dried herbs for?”

“Well, we use herbs for protection, right?” Sam recalled. “And for purification. When we go to clean out a place from an evil spirit we use sage.”

“You are listening sometimes. Who knew?” One corner of John’s mouth quirked up. Sam glowered - he was the one who carried the stuff, who usually got stuck waving the bundle of burning sage around the house while Dad and Dean ran around firing their consecrated iron rounds at whatever - but he didn’t say anything. “Anyway, different herbs have different uses. Apparently they can be used for summoning, or for harming. It’s best not to speculate or to look too far into it; the temptation to look into using those kinds of spells for something that seems like a good idea at the time is strong.”

Sam bit his lip. He could see where a person could be tempted. “So what’s that over there?” he asked, pointing while keeping his hand safely far from the bag.

“This?” John used a pencil to indicate a dark stain on the fabric. “No idea. It’s too dark for blood. Ink, maybe. And over here we have some seeds - a nightshade, maybe.”

Sam sat back and scratched his head. “Okay,” he said. “So what I don’t understand is, this took a lot of work, right?”

John eyed him. “Spell work can be kind of involved, I suppose. Why?”

“Not just that,” Sam told him, waving an impatient hand. “It’s… it’s the planning. The witch went through an awful lot of trouble. They had to go and get something that belonged to the dead guy, they had to get the components and let me tell you I don’t want to be the one going and poking around at bees. They had to go and stick the hex bag in his car or on him or whatever.” John went still. “Why not just shoot him? Or stab him? Or poison him? Or blow up his car? Or cut his brake lines? Or stick a plastic bag over -“

“That’s enough, Sam.” John closed his eyes and held up a hand. “You come up with way too many quicker ways of killing people, you know that?”

“Long car rides,” the boy told his father flatly. “But seriously. Why go to all that trouble to kill someone that way when there are so many faster, easier ways of doing it?”

Dean walked over. “Lunch’s ready,” he told them both. “Is that the hex bag?”

“It is. Look, you’ve got -“ Sam began, sitting up straighter and trying to grab his brother’s wrist to show him the bee.

Dean pulled away. “Dude! Gross! Witches and their… just, no. Gross, man. That’s just not sanitary. Get that off the table and both of you go wash up before you go anywhere near the food, you understand me?” He glanced at John and added, “Sir,” with a stiffening of his back.

John and Sam exchanged a look and a shrug. John cleaned up the discarded evidence; there was no more reason to keep it, after all, so he put it in a pile of things to be burned later. Then father and son enjoyed a rare moment of quiet non-hostility as they made their way out to the hose and washed their hands again.

After lunch, John decided that he would go out and do some more research. This was a solo job, he insisted, because if he got found out he wanted to minimize the likelihood that the enemy would use his sons against him. “If I had time to bring you back to Minnesota and drop you with Pastor Jim, I would,” he sighed. “I don’t like the idea of you boys being exposed to this at all. But she’s already dropping bodies - six of them, and two within the past two weeks. I can’t afford to let more people die, either.”

“It’s okay, Dad,” Dean grinned. “We’ll be able to handle ourselves. I’ll keep Sammy here out of trouble, I promise.”

John looked at them then, an expression Sam couldn’t quite define on his face. “Yeah,” he grimaced. “You do that.” And then he left the trailer.

“Pull up a chair, squirt,” Dean ordered. “It’s time you learned to play poker.”

Sam sighed. Dean had already showed him poker. He’d rather play chess. Of course, they didn’t have a chess set, but they could use found objects as pieces. Different types of bullets or something. “Okay.” He got the cards out of Dean’s duffel. “Play for bullets?”

Dean shrugged. “The hell else are we going to play for?” He dealt the cards.

Sam let Dean deal the cards. “So. You and Dad, huh?” the older boy grinned when the cards had been dealt.

Sam looked at his hand. “What about me and Dad?” He had nothing. Absolutely nothing. The best he had was two cards of the same suit. He discarded the other three and got three more, adding to the pot.

“What are you doing there, Sammy? If you’re getting rid of your entire hand what the hell are you doing making a massive bet like that?” Dean shook his head and tossed his own increase into the middle of the table.

“It’s not like it matters, Dean. We’re just doing this to kill time.” He checked his cards. Huh. Two pair.

Dean moved his cards around, tossed one and replaced it. Sam watched carefully. “You and Dad actually had a conversation without arguing. He seemed pretty impressed by your questions and everything.”

“He’ll get over it,” Sam commented. “And put that one in the discards pile and take a fresh one. From the top of the deck this time, jerk.”

Dean chuckled and shook his head. “Good eyes, bitch!” He obeyed, Sam’s eyes on him the whole time. “I’m going to have to get better at that. See, that’s the time to ask questions. When he’s in the mood to teach, when he’s able to slow it down and let you learn. Not when we’re out in the field and you need to just shut up and do what you’re told, kid.”

“Dean, I’m not just going to shut up and do what I’m told if shutting up and doing what I’m told is going to get us killed.” He made a face. “Why exactly would you need to get better at cheating at poker?”

“Don’t think of it as cheating, Sammy. Think of it as giving us an advantage.”

“It’s hardly an advantage, Dean. It’s a game.”

Dean scoffed. “How do you think we keep afloat, Sammy? The Impala doesn’t gas itself up. We’ve got to hustle. Our lives depend on our ability to play this game and get as much money as we can get away with out of it. Why do you think I’m sitting here making you learn to play it? Pretty soon you’re going to have to learn to deal from the bottom of the deck too, count cards.” He put his cards down. “Alright. I got a pair of aces. Let’s see what you’ve got.”

Sam made a show of sighing. “I’ve got a pair of twos.”

Dean moved to sweep up his “winnings.” “Ah ha ha, Sammy, see? I’m the master -“

“And a pair of fours,” Sam added, putting his cards down with the faces up. “Didn’t even have to cheat to do it.” He grabbed his winnings quickly, before Dean could snatch them despite his loss. “So wait - not everyone can cheat, right?”

“Well, I guess not, Sammy. I guess they could, if they practiced, and if someone taught them.” Dean scratched his head.

“I don’t think they could. I mean, most people would get twitchy about it. They’d get nervous and give themselves away, or they’d drop the cards or something.” Sam wrinkled his nose.

“You’d totally drop the cards,” his brother teased. “You’d try to deal from the bottom of the deck and wind up playing 52-pickup!”

“That’s not the point. Cheating is something you’re doing, that not everyone can do, that gives you an unfair advantage. But it doesn’t come from the devil or an evil influence, right?”

“No, man. Caleb taught me.” Dean rolled his eyes. “What’re you getting at here, Sammy?”

“I’m just trying to figure some stuff out.” Sam looked out the window. The Church had certainly had a lot to say on the subject of witches, way back when.

“It’s not like that,” Dean insisted, putting a hand on his arm. “It’s not like witches, okay? This is all natural.”

Sam gave his brother a polite smile. He didn’t agree - it was the same, and he knew it - but he wasn’t sure how to articulate it in a way that Dean would understand that wouldn’t also get him either punched or subjected to a whole lot of shouting. It wasn’t so much that he thought that cheating at cards came from deals with demonic forces - it might, for all he knew, but it probably just came from plain old greed. He just couldn’t make himself accept the idea that any kind of unusual ability had to come from evil. Fred Jones had been a telekinetic, and he hadn’t been evil. He’d given Sam his first beer. “Can we go play outside or something?” he asked instead. “It’s hot in here, and I bet we’d find plenty to do if we went out in the woods back there.”

Dean rolled his eyes. “You need to learn this stuff, Sammy. It’s part of being a hunter.”

“Tree climbing counts as strength training,” Sam countered as soon as the words were out of his brother’s mouth.

Dad didn’t come home until very late that night, yet again. He didn’t stumble, but he still reeked of booze. Sam thought about what Dean had said, about needing to hustle to make money, and he wondered if that was where his father had been going. Did he spill on himself to make himself seem drunker than he was, so people would let him get away with more? So they would think they were taking advantage of him instead of the other way around?

The next day was a library day. Excitement bubbled up in Sam like a fountain. Sure, his brother and his father were going off to do Very Important Hunter Things without him, but what did he care? He didn’t want to go off and hunt anyway, especially not if it meant going after people who might not be doing anything wrong in the first place.

Well, except that they were killing people. That was a problem. Couldn’t they just find a way to stop the witch, take away their powers or something?

He didn’t want to think about it, because he knew what his father’s response to that would be and he didn’t feel like doing knuckle pushups right now. Instead, he dove right into his book about local connections to the Underground Railroad. Star came and talked to him about it at lunch, when he dove into another crisp and delicious salad. “You look like you can’t put that book down!” she marveled.

“He’s gonna marry it,” Susan teased, tickling behind his ear with the end of one of her long red braids.

He swatted her hair away. “Quit it!” he objected. “Jeez, you act like there’s something wrong with enjoying the book!” He laughed, shaking his head. “You should meet my brother, you’d get along great.”

Susan made a face. “You’re okay for a boy. I think I’ll draw the line there, though. Lightning doesn’t strike twice.”

Star laughed at her. “Oh, come on. He’s Sam’s brother, maybe he’s like Sam!”

“Naw, Dean’s much better than I am,” Sam admitted, blushing. “But don’t tell him I said that. He’s a jerk. Anyway, I’ve lived all over the country, right? And people everywhere else see New York as this big… place, like this big concrete slab that’s all Manhattan. That’s it, just one giant Manhattan. And I mean, I’m here and I can see that’s not so, but I guess I just never realized how different the cultures were.” He thumped a hand on the book. “I’m learning all about this tension between the people up here, who mostly settled in from New England and were abolitionists, versus the people down there, who had these deep ties to the South in terms of money and stuff.” He squirmed. “And there’s like, religious stuff mixed in there, and everything. It’s interesting. That’s all before you can even talk about slavery itself or how people physically helped people escape to freedom.”

Both sisters stared openly at him. “You actually care about that,” Susan marveled.

“Well, yeah,” he said, trying to make himself smaller. He didn’t have far to go. “Don’t you?”

Star shrugged. “I never thought much about it. We don’t think much about the City if we can help it. Most of our moms think of New York City as a giant tax-sucking monstrosity with no nature anywhere. Up here we can breathe free, that’s what’s important to us.” She grinned. “Never worried too much about the ‘why’ behind it. Do you always do this much research into the places you stay?”

He blushed. “Well, I mean, sure. I’ve never really had anyplace I was from, you know? So it helps me to feel like I’m part of someplace, even if it’s just for a little while.” Plus it helps to know where the ghosts are going to come from, he added to himself. Oh yeah, and where the bodies will be buried, and the old battlegrounds are… not that I can actually say that.

Susan perked up. “Hey, you know what? Our farm was built in, like, 1802 or something like that. I bet you’d find plenty of stuff you’d be interested in out there. It might have even been a stop on the Underground Railroad! Hey, maybe Sam could come out there next week and we can see if we can find any evidence!” The girl turned bright eyes over to her sister, who hummed.

“Susan, I’m sure he’d be very welcome but you know we can’t just bring people over. We need to talk to our moms about it. Can we give you a call, Sam?”

He blushed again. “Um, we don’t really have a phone.” He cleared his throat. “But maybe we can figure it out next Tuesday?” He knew that there would be no possible way that John would allow him to go out to some stranger’s farm, but he’d give it a try. Maybe the witch thing would have him so spooked he’d be glad to have Sam out of his hair.

“You don’t have a phone?” Sarah blurted. “Ow!”

Star smiled the bland smile of a woman who definitely hadn’t just stomped on her little sister’s foot. “That’s fine, Sam,” she told him.

Sam’s stomach turned itself in knots as he walked home, trying to figure out a way to ask permission to go visit the farm. He could get John in an angry mood, and then John would lash out at Sam for being so selfish as to want to go to a friend’s house instead of training when there were witches around killing people. He could get John in a protective mood - of course he couldn’t go out to a friend’s house, there were witches in the area for crying out loud! Or he could get John in a dismissive mood - what’s wrong with you, Sammy, how can you bother me with these trivial things when I’m trying to save lives, go run five miles since you have so much time to waste!

What he did not expect was to find John in an anxious, distracted mood. “Yeah, whatever, Sammy. It’ll get you out of my hair.”

And that was it.

Sam looked at Dean. Dean looked incredulously back and forth from Sam to their father and stalked off, shaking his head. “I don’t like it,” Dean admitted when Sam caught up to him outside, a minimum safe distance from the trailer. “I know you really want to go, Sammy, but it’s not safe. I don’t know those people, there are witches around, and it sure as hell ain’t like he ever let me just wander off with people he didn’t know.”

Ah. So Dean was jealous. “Dude. You always got to wander off with people. You had friends, you got to play baseball and everything. Besides, it’s fine. These people have been in the area forever. You’ve met the older sister - she was the cashier that first day here.”

Dean’s eyebrows rose up into his hairline and a wolfish grin spread out over his face. “Dude, seriously? The hot one?”

Sam almost choked from laughing. “She is so far out of your league, dude. She’s eighteen; she’s going off to college in the fall. You still can’t hit a sustained tenor.”

“Screw you, peanut.”

“Asswipe.”

“Monkey brain.”

“Hairy-palmed skirt-chaser.”

“Bitch.”

“Jerk.”

The next few days were absolute murder on Sam’s nerves. He had to be perfect, absolutely perfect, or else Dad might take away his precious day pass to go visit Susan and Star’s family farm. He bit right through his lip so he wouldn’t respond to any of his father’s baiting. He didn’t complain about the running. He didn’t even complain about shooting, not even when the bowstring snapped and left a huge welt on his chest.

On Tuesday, he made it to the library and managed to tell his friends that he’d gotten permission. Much to his delight, they too had earned permission to have a friend come visit.

Wednesday dawned bright and clear. Star and Susan came to pick him up at the library at nine, although Dean dropped him off early because he wanted to go “look into something” in town. Sam didn’t mind. He didn’t want to be late.

Their car was a pickup truck, a giant red thing covered in mud. He climbed into it and buckled himself in. “So you really live on a farm?”

“Sure do,” Susan told him with a proud grin. “Have you ever been on a farm before, city boy?”

Sam rolled his eyes at her. “I worked on a farm down in Lancaster County,” he told her. “It was winter, though, so I mostly worked with the cows.”

Both girls nodded their heads in respect. “Not bad, not bad. Dairy farming is hard work.”

He shrugged. “I didn’t mind it so much, really. I mean, cows aren’t so bad, and the winter was pretty cold, you know? Once I got past the smell, I mean.”

They couldn’t argue with him on that. He didn’t expect them to. Cowsheds stank.

The family farm stood about twenty minutes outside of Tully, following long country roads that seemed to go up and down more hills than a roller coaster. They finally made it, though, pulling up to what seemed to be a giant, sprawling farmhouse. The original had been a modest building made of brick; people had kind of stuck more bricks on as needed while the decades wound their way by. Sam jumped out and drank in the sights - rolling hills, verdant fields, the bright sun and electric blue sky overhead - and for a moment he couldn’t move.

People lived like this?

Then he got knocked to the ground. “Oof!” His hand went for his knife before his brain finished processing the fact that he’d landed, but before he pulled it from its sheath a warm, foul-smelling tongue started licking his face. A great weight, from another angle, sat on his legs. He reached out automatically and connected with warm, soft, short fur.

“Daisy! Donald!” scolded Star, coming to remove a massive black Lab from Sam’s lap. “Off!”

The black Lab wagged its tail as the chocolate lab continued to “wash” Sam’s face. “It’s okay,” he laughed. “I love dogs! I just wasn’t expecting to get so… loved by them, quite so soon!” He reached out with his other hand to pat the black Lab. “Can you let me stand up now, buddy?”

The dog stood, barking once, and Sam let the chocolate Lab help him balance as he got to his feet. The residents looked at each other. “What?” he asked them.

“Donald never listens,” Susan informed, scratching the recalcitrant dog on his head. “You must be some kind of dog hypnotist or something. Maybe you’re some kind of canine Jedi Knight!”

Sam laughed out loud, glad his father wasn’t around to hear something like that. “Yeah, sure, maybe.” He held out a hand. “These are not the bones you’re looking for.”

Susan giggled. “Come on, let’s introduce you to Moms. Then we can go play!”

The outsider had no problem with that. His palms were already sweating; might as well get the hard part over with right away.

He followed his hostesses into the ramshackle building through the rear door, entering a large and airy kitchen. “Hi, Susan. Hi, Star. This must be Sam.” The woman loomed over the counter, pulling a cloth over a bowl. Sam thought he smelled bread baking. “I’m Kelly, one of the girls’ moms. I’d shake your hand but I’m covered in dough. How are you?”

“I’m okay, ma’am. How are you?” He gave his best non-threatening smile.

“Well now, aren’t you a little charmer? Susan, the other moms are all out in the fields with your sisters. Why don’t you kids run along and play, and you can go ahead and introduce your friend at lunch?”

“Okay, Mom!” Susan said quickly - too quickly, Sam realized. Both of her hands had disappeared behind her back. “Thanks!” She nudged Sam with her shoulder. “C’mon, Sam. Let’s go - I’ve got something I’ll bet you’re dying to see.”

He smiled at the baker again. “Nice meeting you, ma’am.” After that, he followed his friend outside.

Once they’d gotten out the door, Sarah passed him a chocolate chip cookie. It was still a little bit warm from the oven. Sam closed his eye and held it in his hand. If there was a Heaven, not that he’d be going there or anything like that, it was warm, fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies. After several seconds, he took a bite. Oh yeah - this was pure heaven.

“Come on - you’ve got to see this!” Susan told him. “We’ve got a real live graveyard on the farm!”

“Seriously?” Sam trailed along after her, nibbling on his cookie. He wanted it to last as long as possible.

“Oh yeah. Not sure why, we’re not that far out of town, but whatever. Come on, check it out!” She led him to a small-ish, fenced off plot of land where a good number of worn tombstones loomed drunkenly out of the ground. Some kind of a vault-type of tomb had been built sometime around 1848, or maybe it was a mausoleum. Sam scratched his head. “You think they’d have made a hiding place that obvious?”

Susan blinked at him. “What do you mean? Oh - for the Underground Railroad?”

“Well, yeah. I mean, mausoleums like that were usually for super rich people, you know? And this - it looks like it’s been a working farm since it was built.” He nibbled on his cookie again. “It sticks out like a sore thumb though. Anyone looking for escaped people would have to just go right for that, right?”

She thought about it. “I don’t know. Wouldn’t the police or whoever just not want to have messed with bodies or something?”

They peered inside watery glass window. “Maybe,” Sam told her.

“We could go inside,” she suggested.

He tried the door. “It’s locked.” He’d brought his lockpicks, he never went anywhere without them anymore, but he’d gotten an earful from Dean back in first grade about Things Not To Do In Front Of People. “Besides, we should talk to, I don’t know, someone before we go in there. You don’t know what we might find in there.”

She laughed at him and nudged him with her shoulder again. “What, like a ghost?”

“No,” he lied, “but if they hid escaped people in there, there might be a false bottom on the floor or something. It would be like falling down a well. We’d need a rope or something at least.” They looked back in through the window. “I am curious, though.”

“We’ll see if my moms will let us or if they’ll come down with us after lunch,” she told him decisively, as Daisy and Donald stuck their noses under his hand.

He scratched absently. “Sounds good.” They sat down on the steps to the mausoleum. “So what do you all grow here?”

“Come on! I’ll show you!”

They got back up again, and she showed him around half of the farm before lunch. They found the remains of some old outbuildings, the chicken coop, a massive field of herbs and an orchard that took Sam’s breath away. “Are these all apples?” he inhaled.

“This section is,” she beamed. “Some of the best in the county! We’ve got a section of pears, too. Mama Christine is thinking about putting in some blueberries, but Mama Rachel isn’t too keen on that.”

“Wow. And you all eat that?”

“Sure, why wouldn’t we?”

“I’m pretty sure that my father and brother think that vegetables are the Devil’s messengers.” He rolled his eyes. “They’d probably eat apples or blueberries in pie, but I don’t even know if they’d recognize them in their natural forms.”

She laughed at him and patted Daisy. “Well, we have a field of spinach too, although that’s all been harvested. We’ve got tomatoes in there now; we’ll get kale in there before the winter comes. I can show you the rest later.” A bell started to ring in the distance. “Come on - it’s lunch time!”

Lunch turned out to be a soup, made from beans and kale, and homemade bread. Sam’s mouth watered just from the scent. “This looks amazing,” he confessed. “Did you make this all yourself?”

Kelly preened a little. “It’s nothing fancy, sweetie, but yes, I did make it myself. Have you tried homemade bread before?”

He blushed, but Star spoke up. “Sam told us he worked on a farm down in Lancaster County over the winter. I’d imagine he got to try plenty of homemade bread back then.”

One of the moms, Sam thought she might be Mama Laura, frowned. She’d been the only one who hadn’t seemed at least neutral about meeting him, but now her dark eyebrows drew together with obvious concern. “You’re ten, Sam,” she pointed out, raspy voice uncharacteristically soft. “You shouldn’t have been working a job.”

He should really just paint his cheeks red permanently; it would save time. “Well, you know, sometimes things get tight,” he told her, squirming a little. “The opportunity came up, and I was happy to have a chance to help out a little. I learned a bit of the Pennsylvania Dutch dialect of German and I learned a lot about cows. I hear New York is good dairy country,” he tried, changing the subject.

It worked, and they got through the rest of the meal without much further embarrassment on his part. After lunch they went back outside to see another field of herbs, some more fields with other vegetables, farm equipment and the most important discovery of all - the tire swings.

Finally, at the end of a long and exciting day, Star volunteered to drive Sam back home. His heart sank at the thought of her reaction to seeing the run-down trailer with no running water or electricity as well as the thought of Dad’s reaction to him letting a stranger near the trailer, but he took her up on it anyway. It wasn’t like he could get home any other way, after all.

His fears were unfounded. She let him out at the end of the driveway and told him that she’d see him the next day, waving good-bye with a fond smile. Sam practically skipped up the driveway.

Dad and Dean both looked tired and kind of anxious, but neither of them wanted to talk about it. They ate their dinner in silence, until Dean put his fork down and sniffed the air. “Does it smell like dog in here to you?”

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