SPN FIC - Legend (Part Seven: Dean and Pamela)
I'd heard whispered bits of the story since I was a kid. Just after Halloween, back in '83, the demon Azazel had crept into the nursery of a baby boy, intending to drip blood into the child's mouth and turn him into demon spawn. But Mary Campbell was waiting for him. She had a gun a stranger had brought to her family ten years before: a gun that could kill anything. She used it to kill Azazel that night. Saved her child. Then she disappeared.
Legends are told in bits and pieces, spread by word of mouth over the years. This is the story of Mary Campbell's family: the husband to whom she told the truth of who she was. The son who grieved the loss of her so deeply that he spent half his life on the road alone, searching for her. And the son who found success, and love, and peace ... until things went a little bit sideways.
Part One: Dean and Jo
Part Two: Dean, Sam, and Jessica
Part Three: John and Deacon
Part Four: Missouri and Pamela
Part Five: Sam and Dean
Part Six: John, Mary, Dean and Sam
CHARACTERS: Dean, Pamela Barnes
GENRE: Gen (AU)
RATING: PG
SPOILERS: None
LENGTH: 2940 words
LEGEND
By Carol Davis
Part Six: Dean and Pamela
He came home to this house when he was two days old. He cut his first tooth here, took his first steps here, suffered the chicken pox and innumerable colds and nightmares here. He thought of girls and rock bands and sci-fi movies here.
He cried here. Over a lot of things, but mostly, over one thing.
After he crossed the threshold and had taken a couple of steps into the foyer, Missouri Mosely wrapped her arms around him. He hadn't asked her to, either out loud or in the place in his mind only Missouri could get at, but there she was, crushing him up against her and patting the middle of his back, this fluffy (her choice of term, not his) black woman with the high, musical voice and the easily ruffled sense of what ought to be happening.
It was remarkable to him - and always had been - that this woman was his father's friend.
And his.
"I know," she said when she stepped back. "You came a long way. You come on in, now. Get yourself warm."
For a moment, she seemed unaware that his father was there, or Sam. She kept her eyes on him. She was poking around in his head, he understood, something he would have objected to if he thought there'd be any point to it.
"I don't know why I'm here," he told her.
"Yes you do."
"I was going to Ohio. That crabby old son of a bitch in Vermont told me to go to Defiance, Ohio. That's where I was going."
"No need."
She went to his father then, and to Sam. Gave each of them a quick embrace and made a show of remarking how tall Sam was, something she'd done regularly since Sam was about twelve years old, before his first growth spurt, when people still thought he was a shrimp and probably would always be one. There were more short people than exceptionally tall ones in their family, so the odds were Sam would be a little below average.
That wasn't true, no matter which way you wanted to look at it.
"He said Defiance, Ohio," Dean insisted. "That's a long ways from here."
"But your heart told you to come here."
"Like it's some kind of cheesy holiday movie. Come home for Thanksgiving. Drink eggnog and swap stories."
"Eggnog's for Christmas," Sam said distractedly.
She came out of the kitchen then: this other woman, dark-haired, lean, with a little smirk on her face.
Just kill me, Dean thought. Not another one.
"So these are the boys," she said.
Missouri Mosely wasn't the only psychic Dean had ever met, not by a long shot. He'd talked to dozens of them over the years, had suffered through palm and tarot and tea leaf and crystal ball readings with people of every possible description. Male, female, tall, short, old, young, anywhere from mildly loopy to completely batshit crazy. Most of them were charlatans. A handful had been on the level, but could tell him nothing new. Or at least, nothing very useful. Yes, yes, he knew his brother had had an argument with his girlfriend. (He hadn't known, but didn't especially care; it was fodder for a long phone conversation with Sam, nothing more.) He was going to run into his father on the road, each of them headed in a different direction?
Swell.
One of the "gifted" folk said, "You're one of many," to which he replied, "One of many what?"
"The abandoned. The lonely."
He didn't need that kind of crap. Not when he was forking over a stupid amount of cash for it. "Yeah," he said. "I know that. Tell me something I can use."
One of them said, "You're in her heart."
He could have gotten that from calling the 900 number from a late-night TV commercial.
There were times when he'd felt like some desperate old lady - and he'd been surrounded by a good many of them, sitting in the waiting room of the next psychic on his list. He'd discounted no one before he talked to them; after all, Missouri made her living by reassuring old ladies and suspicious spouses. Most of them probably believed, deep down, that Missouri Mosely was a no more legitimate source of information than their hairdresser or their mailman, but were willing to connect the word "psychic" with some deep truth, something that turned the few words she offered them into a soothing, healing potion. At least, into something that would allow them to move on from pain and loss.
"I tell them what they need to hear," was her explanation.
No one told Dean what he needed to hear. They told him what they thought he needed to hear, which was an entirely different thing.
This woman, this stranger in his - Missouri's - house, smirked at him.
He didn't need any psychic ability to tell what she was thinking. Any other time, it would have made him smirk back. Right now, it just made him tired.
"I'm Pamela Barnes," she said.
He blinked at that. Then nodded at Missouri and asked the Barnes woman, "You know her?"
"Not before yesterday."
The address in Defiance, Ohio had cost him three hours of arguing with a sour old recluse and a two-hundred-dollar bottle of whisky. Rufus Turner came highly recommended as a source of intel, though the recommendations came with the warning that getting the intel out of him was tougher than blasting coal out of the ground, and no less likely to result in the loss of a couple of fingers, or a limb, or maybe a concussion. Dean had gone there hoping that Rufus Turner had seen his mother somewhere, sometime, or at least, knew someone who had. Instead, the miserable old son of a bitch had written down the address of yet another freaking psychic.
Legit, Turner said.
"'Legit' lives in my house," Dean told him. "What do I need this for?"
"Fine," Turner said. "Then get your ungrateful ass out of my kitchen. And thank you for the gift."
"He's a pussycat when you get to know him," Pamela Barnes said.
"Pass," Dean replied.
He shucked his coat and tossed it at the bench Missouri kept near the front door, for people who lost their sea legs before they could make it into the living room. He went on into the living room then, frowning at the few changes Missouri had made - not because she'd made them, but because she hadn't made more. It was still his house, still the place he'd spent his childhood, and he hadn't wanted to see that, not right now, not after yet another year of chasing a goal that kept retreating like a mirage: something that was visible on the horizon but impossible to reach, no matter how fast you traveled or what frame of mind you were in.
"Sit down, baby," Missouri told him. "I'll get you some cocoa."
He didn't want cocoa. He wanted a good, stiff belt, or six. Something with enough punch to make him forget that he'd wasted another year. If a screaming round of dry heaves and a day-after of feeling like he'd been nuked came with that, so be it.
"That what you're calling it? A waste?"
He tried ignoring Pamela Barnes in favor of sitting down in the well-used easy chair that faced the TV.
He was vaguely aware of his father and Sam chatting with Missouri, following her on out into the kitchen as they tugged off their own coats, both of them sounding at least passably glad to be home, to see her again; at least, glad to be out of the vehicle they'd traveled so many miles in, with the prospect of a good meal and a good night's sleep ahead of them.
"There's no turkey," Missouri said.
"We'll make do," John Winchester told her. "Right now, a can of soup and some crackers would look good."
Pamela Barnes sat down on the couch, in a spot from which she'd have a good view of the TV, if it happened to be turned on. It was enough to give her a good view of the side of Dean's head, although she didn't need to look at him full-on to know he wasn't in the mood to chat. Of course, her being a psychic, she wouldn't need to see him at all to know that.
"You'd be more open to this if I'd stayed in Defiance?" she asked.
Dean slouched back into the chair and closed his eyes. There was a dull throb behind them, something he could easily explain as coming from hunger and dehydration, if he'd wanted to find a cause for it other than…
"You thought you'd find an answer in a place called Defiance?" Pamela asked.
"Get out of my head."
"It's what I do."
"Yeah, well, don't do it with me."
Missouri would have crooned at him. Would have called him a string of little pet names. She'd been doing that since he was five, and he didn't entirely object to it. She was nothing like his mother (nothing at all like his mother), but there were times that a little motherly affection, a hug or two, or the offer of cocoa, could smooth over the rough patches and make him feel a little less like roadkill.
"I'm not going to hug you," Pamela said.
"Fine by me."
"Rufus is on the level, you know. He's tougher than granite, but if he trusts you, he won't let you down."
"So you figure he trusted me."
"I think he trusts me."
"You're already not doing what you were supposed to do."
"So that invalidates anything I might have to offer you? And" - she gestured to silence him - "if there's a 'Look, lady' on its way out of your mouth, save it. I traveled a long way, too, when I would rather have -" She smiled again, this time a little wistfully. "There are some people at home who were looking forward to enjoying my company. It's a holiday. We had plans. But instead, I came here. I drove seven hundred miles in the snow to be here for you."
"I'm touched," Dean said.
She tipped her head a little, listening to the quiet conversation in the kitchen the way an animal would listen, more interested in the sound itself and what it might imply than in the words being spoken. "I'm sorry," she said when she returned her attention to Dean. "I'm sure my opinion doesn't mean a good goddamn to you, but I know what it's like to need an answer that no one can give you. But believe me: I came here for you. And your father and your brother, but mostly for you. And no, I'm not expecting to make a profit from this."
"Then what do you expect?"
"I'm not sure."
"Why not?"
"Because all the pieces haven't come together yet."
"That gonna happen any time soon? Because if all I'm gonna get around here is another long round of cryptic bullshit - seriously, lady, I can get that somewhere else, and a happy ending to go along with it."
Pamela looked him in the eye for a moment.
Then she burst out laughing.
He started out annoyed enough to walk out of this house, to leave Sam and his father and Missouri all in the lurch, get back into his car and drive, with no attention paid to where he was headed or when he might get there. They'd be fine, he figured; they all had food and a warm place to stay, and enough vehicles to leave in when they were ready to do that. They didn't need him. They particularly didn't need him if the result of his having come all this way was a bunch of non-answers to go along with his Thanksgiving non-turkey.
But the more Pamela laughed, the more hearty and unrestrained her laughter became, the harder it was to hold onto his annoyance. He hadn't heard laughter like that for a long time. By the time she eased up enough to take a breath and wipe the tears from her eyes, he was smiling a little.
"You did, didn't you?" she sputtered. "You went to someone advertised as a…psychic masseuse?"
"She was guaranteed," he said.
"Oh my God," she said, and burst out laughing again. "Oh my God."
By the time she'd finally fallen silent, he'd drifted back toward being annoyed. It wasn't that funny, for crying out loud.
"I came," Pamela said quietly, "because something told me to come here. I tried to ignore it, so I could stick with my plans, but it was there in my head, starting a couple of days ago. Very loud. Very clear. And very determined. Like nothing I'd ever experienced before. It told me to come here, and wait. That everything would come together here."
"It's freaking Thanksgiving. There are people coming together all over the place."
"Not like this."
There was a seriousness in her eyes that was completely unlike the phony solemnity of all the charlatans he'd visited.
That, and a little bit of what looked like fear.
"You don't know what it is that's coming," he said.
"No."
"And you don't like not knowing."
The corner of her mouth quirked. "Who's the psychic now?"
"What do you know?"
"That this house was built for someone who loved it. I can see workmen being supervised by a woman in a long dress. Back in the Twenties, I think, judging by the clothing. She picked up a hammer a time or two. She was very determined to contribute, and it amused all the men. She raised her family here, after all the work was done. There was…a lot of love, then. Children playing. A dog. Several dogs," she amended. "She loved this house a great deal - every floorboard and cupboard and creaky door hinge of it. She died here, but it was a good death. Quiet, and peaceful. There were…I think two families after hers. And then your grandparents, and your mother."
"You could have gotten most of that from the county clerk's office."
"But I didn't."
"Can you feel it?" Dean asked. "That thing that came here looking for my brother?"
Pamela grimaced. "I could feel it half a mile away. It was in this house before that, too. The night your grandparents were killed."
"And you know what my mom did."
"Yes."
"All of it?"
She turned the question around. Asked him soberly, "Do you?"
"You said all the pieces weren't in place yet. You mean people? There are more people coming? Who are they?"
"Do you know your grandparents are here?"
"Their spirits? Not possible," Dean said. "My mom had somebody take the bodies away. They were salted and burned."
"So you assume."
"She was a hunter. She would have had that done."
"So you assume," Pamela said again.
The stubborn set of her expression made him frown. That was all he'd let himself do, frown, even though she could certainly tell what he was thinking. "If they've been here all this time, why didn't Missouri say anything? She started coming here when I was a little kid. All those years and she never said anything to us about them being here?"
"They may not have been here before. They're here now."
To Dean, his grandparents' having spent almost forty years in the spirit realm meant one thing: that both of his grandparents were pretty pissed off. They had good reason to be; his grandmother had only been in her forties when she died, his grandfather a little older, and they should have had another good couple of decades to look forward to.
If they'd been normal people, they might be alive even now.
"How mad are they?" he asked, looking down at the carpet Missouri still hadn't replaced. There was a big, dark stain in it, the result of a wrestling match between him and Sam and a spilled can of Coke that had taken place when Sam was about fourteen; a small arc of it was visible beyond the edge of the flowered throw rug she'd covered it with. "All these years - that's enough to work up a pretty serious grudge."
Pamela didn't answer him.
"Well?" he prodded.
"I think they were brought here," she said.
"Because it's Thanksgiving," he replied with a soft snort. "Somebody get a camera. We'll take a family picture. Missouri can hang it over the fireplace."
"I don't think we're going to like the explanation."
"Hell," Dean said. "I don't like most things. Want me to tell you what I do like? It's a shorter list."
He almost got up from his chair. He would have gotten up, because his head was filled by one very loud thought (GODDAMN CRYPTIC BULLSHIT), the very thing that had sent him away from every last one of the legitimate psychics he'd encountered in the past sixteen years. Yeah, it could be that none of them knew more than what they were saying; they didn't know him and therefore had no reason to protect his feelings the way Missouri did. And maybe it was some language they were all taught at Psychic School: Go heavy on the mumbo-jumbo, because it's what the clients expect you to do. Sound mysterious. Sound weird and hinky.
But he'd gone way past being tired of all this. Sixteen years, God knew how many miles. He was ready for this to be over.
"It will be," Pamela said.
All Dean could think to do was groan.
* * * * *
Legends are told in bits and pieces, spread by word of mouth over the years. This is the story of Mary Campbell's family: the husband to whom she told the truth of who she was. The son who grieved the loss of her so deeply that he spent half his life on the road alone, searching for her. And the son who found success, and love, and peace ... until things went a little bit sideways.
Part One: Dean and Jo
Part Two: Dean, Sam, and Jessica
Part Three: John and Deacon
Part Four: Missouri and Pamela
Part Five: Sam and Dean
Part Six: John, Mary, Dean and Sam
CHARACTERS: Dean, Pamela Barnes
GENRE: Gen (AU)
RATING: PG
SPOILERS: None
LENGTH: 2940 words
LEGEND
By Carol Davis
Part Six: Dean and Pamela
He came home to this house when he was two days old. He cut his first tooth here, took his first steps here, suffered the chicken pox and innumerable colds and nightmares here. He thought of girls and rock bands and sci-fi movies here.
He cried here. Over a lot of things, but mostly, over one thing.
After he crossed the threshold and had taken a couple of steps into the foyer, Missouri Mosely wrapped her arms around him. He hadn't asked her to, either out loud or in the place in his mind only Missouri could get at, but there she was, crushing him up against her and patting the middle of his back, this fluffy (her choice of term, not his) black woman with the high, musical voice and the easily ruffled sense of what ought to be happening.
It was remarkable to him - and always had been - that this woman was his father's friend.
And his.
"I know," she said when she stepped back. "You came a long way. You come on in, now. Get yourself warm."
For a moment, she seemed unaware that his father was there, or Sam. She kept her eyes on him. She was poking around in his head, he understood, something he would have objected to if he thought there'd be any point to it.
"I don't know why I'm here," he told her.
"Yes you do."
"I was going to Ohio. That crabby old son of a bitch in Vermont told me to go to Defiance, Ohio. That's where I was going."
"No need."
She went to his father then, and to Sam. Gave each of them a quick embrace and made a show of remarking how tall Sam was, something she'd done regularly since Sam was about twelve years old, before his first growth spurt, when people still thought he was a shrimp and probably would always be one. There were more short people than exceptionally tall ones in their family, so the odds were Sam would be a little below average.
That wasn't true, no matter which way you wanted to look at it.
"He said Defiance, Ohio," Dean insisted. "That's a long ways from here."
"But your heart told you to come here."
"Like it's some kind of cheesy holiday movie. Come home for Thanksgiving. Drink eggnog and swap stories."
"Eggnog's for Christmas," Sam said distractedly.
She came out of the kitchen then: this other woman, dark-haired, lean, with a little smirk on her face.
Just kill me, Dean thought. Not another one.
"So these are the boys," she said.
Missouri Mosely wasn't the only psychic Dean had ever met, not by a long shot. He'd talked to dozens of them over the years, had suffered through palm and tarot and tea leaf and crystal ball readings with people of every possible description. Male, female, tall, short, old, young, anywhere from mildly loopy to completely batshit crazy. Most of them were charlatans. A handful had been on the level, but could tell him nothing new. Or at least, nothing very useful. Yes, yes, he knew his brother had had an argument with his girlfriend. (He hadn't known, but didn't especially care; it was fodder for a long phone conversation with Sam, nothing more.) He was going to run into his father on the road, each of them headed in a different direction?
Swell.
One of the "gifted" folk said, "You're one of many," to which he replied, "One of many what?"
"The abandoned. The lonely."
He didn't need that kind of crap. Not when he was forking over a stupid amount of cash for it. "Yeah," he said. "I know that. Tell me something I can use."
One of them said, "You're in her heart."
He could have gotten that from calling the 900 number from a late-night TV commercial.
There were times when he'd felt like some desperate old lady - and he'd been surrounded by a good many of them, sitting in the waiting room of the next psychic on his list. He'd discounted no one before he talked to them; after all, Missouri made her living by reassuring old ladies and suspicious spouses. Most of them probably believed, deep down, that Missouri Mosely was a no more legitimate source of information than their hairdresser or their mailman, but were willing to connect the word "psychic" with some deep truth, something that turned the few words she offered them into a soothing, healing potion. At least, into something that would allow them to move on from pain and loss.
"I tell them what they need to hear," was her explanation.
No one told Dean what he needed to hear. They told him what they thought he needed to hear, which was an entirely different thing.
This woman, this stranger in his - Missouri's - house, smirked at him.
He didn't need any psychic ability to tell what she was thinking. Any other time, it would have made him smirk back. Right now, it just made him tired.
"I'm Pamela Barnes," she said.
He blinked at that. Then nodded at Missouri and asked the Barnes woman, "You know her?"
"Not before yesterday."
The address in Defiance, Ohio had cost him three hours of arguing with a sour old recluse and a two-hundred-dollar bottle of whisky. Rufus Turner came highly recommended as a source of intel, though the recommendations came with the warning that getting the intel out of him was tougher than blasting coal out of the ground, and no less likely to result in the loss of a couple of fingers, or a limb, or maybe a concussion. Dean had gone there hoping that Rufus Turner had seen his mother somewhere, sometime, or at least, knew someone who had. Instead, the miserable old son of a bitch had written down the address of yet another freaking psychic.
Legit, Turner said.
"'Legit' lives in my house," Dean told him. "What do I need this for?"
"Fine," Turner said. "Then get your ungrateful ass out of my kitchen. And thank you for the gift."
"He's a pussycat when you get to know him," Pamela Barnes said.
"Pass," Dean replied.
He shucked his coat and tossed it at the bench Missouri kept near the front door, for people who lost their sea legs before they could make it into the living room. He went on into the living room then, frowning at the few changes Missouri had made - not because she'd made them, but because she hadn't made more. It was still his house, still the place he'd spent his childhood, and he hadn't wanted to see that, not right now, not after yet another year of chasing a goal that kept retreating like a mirage: something that was visible on the horizon but impossible to reach, no matter how fast you traveled or what frame of mind you were in.
"Sit down, baby," Missouri told him. "I'll get you some cocoa."
He didn't want cocoa. He wanted a good, stiff belt, or six. Something with enough punch to make him forget that he'd wasted another year. If a screaming round of dry heaves and a day-after of feeling like he'd been nuked came with that, so be it.
"That what you're calling it? A waste?"
He tried ignoring Pamela Barnes in favor of sitting down in the well-used easy chair that faced the TV.
He was vaguely aware of his father and Sam chatting with Missouri, following her on out into the kitchen as they tugged off their own coats, both of them sounding at least passably glad to be home, to see her again; at least, glad to be out of the vehicle they'd traveled so many miles in, with the prospect of a good meal and a good night's sleep ahead of them.
"There's no turkey," Missouri said.
"We'll make do," John Winchester told her. "Right now, a can of soup and some crackers would look good."
Pamela Barnes sat down on the couch, in a spot from which she'd have a good view of the TV, if it happened to be turned on. It was enough to give her a good view of the side of Dean's head, although she didn't need to look at him full-on to know he wasn't in the mood to chat. Of course, her being a psychic, she wouldn't need to see him at all to know that.
"You'd be more open to this if I'd stayed in Defiance?" she asked.
Dean slouched back into the chair and closed his eyes. There was a dull throb behind them, something he could easily explain as coming from hunger and dehydration, if he'd wanted to find a cause for it other than…
"You thought you'd find an answer in a place called Defiance?" Pamela asked.
"Get out of my head."
"It's what I do."
"Yeah, well, don't do it with me."
Missouri would have crooned at him. Would have called him a string of little pet names. She'd been doing that since he was five, and he didn't entirely object to it. She was nothing like his mother (nothing at all like his mother), but there were times that a little motherly affection, a hug or two, or the offer of cocoa, could smooth over the rough patches and make him feel a little less like roadkill.
"I'm not going to hug you," Pamela said.
"Fine by me."
"Rufus is on the level, you know. He's tougher than granite, but if he trusts you, he won't let you down."
"So you figure he trusted me."
"I think he trusts me."
"You're already not doing what you were supposed to do."
"So that invalidates anything I might have to offer you? And" - she gestured to silence him - "if there's a 'Look, lady' on its way out of your mouth, save it. I traveled a long way, too, when I would rather have -" She smiled again, this time a little wistfully. "There are some people at home who were looking forward to enjoying my company. It's a holiday. We had plans. But instead, I came here. I drove seven hundred miles in the snow to be here for you."
"I'm touched," Dean said.
She tipped her head a little, listening to the quiet conversation in the kitchen the way an animal would listen, more interested in the sound itself and what it might imply than in the words being spoken. "I'm sorry," she said when she returned her attention to Dean. "I'm sure my opinion doesn't mean a good goddamn to you, but I know what it's like to need an answer that no one can give you. But believe me: I came here for you. And your father and your brother, but mostly for you. And no, I'm not expecting to make a profit from this."
"Then what do you expect?"
"I'm not sure."
"Why not?"
"Because all the pieces haven't come together yet."
"That gonna happen any time soon? Because if all I'm gonna get around here is another long round of cryptic bullshit - seriously, lady, I can get that somewhere else, and a happy ending to go along with it."
Pamela looked him in the eye for a moment.
Then she burst out laughing.
He started out annoyed enough to walk out of this house, to leave Sam and his father and Missouri all in the lurch, get back into his car and drive, with no attention paid to where he was headed or when he might get there. They'd be fine, he figured; they all had food and a warm place to stay, and enough vehicles to leave in when they were ready to do that. They didn't need him. They particularly didn't need him if the result of his having come all this way was a bunch of non-answers to go along with his Thanksgiving non-turkey.
But the more Pamela laughed, the more hearty and unrestrained her laughter became, the harder it was to hold onto his annoyance. He hadn't heard laughter like that for a long time. By the time she eased up enough to take a breath and wipe the tears from her eyes, he was smiling a little.
"You did, didn't you?" she sputtered. "You went to someone advertised as a…psychic masseuse?"
"She was guaranteed," he said.
"Oh my God," she said, and burst out laughing again. "Oh my God."
By the time she'd finally fallen silent, he'd drifted back toward being annoyed. It wasn't that funny, for crying out loud.
"I came," Pamela said quietly, "because something told me to come here. I tried to ignore it, so I could stick with my plans, but it was there in my head, starting a couple of days ago. Very loud. Very clear. And very determined. Like nothing I'd ever experienced before. It told me to come here, and wait. That everything would come together here."
"It's freaking Thanksgiving. There are people coming together all over the place."
"Not like this."
There was a seriousness in her eyes that was completely unlike the phony solemnity of all the charlatans he'd visited.
That, and a little bit of what looked like fear.
"You don't know what it is that's coming," he said.
"No."
"And you don't like not knowing."
The corner of her mouth quirked. "Who's the psychic now?"
"What do you know?"
"That this house was built for someone who loved it. I can see workmen being supervised by a woman in a long dress. Back in the Twenties, I think, judging by the clothing. She picked up a hammer a time or two. She was very determined to contribute, and it amused all the men. She raised her family here, after all the work was done. There was…a lot of love, then. Children playing. A dog. Several dogs," she amended. "She loved this house a great deal - every floorboard and cupboard and creaky door hinge of it. She died here, but it was a good death. Quiet, and peaceful. There were…I think two families after hers. And then your grandparents, and your mother."
"You could have gotten most of that from the county clerk's office."
"But I didn't."
"Can you feel it?" Dean asked. "That thing that came here looking for my brother?"
Pamela grimaced. "I could feel it half a mile away. It was in this house before that, too. The night your grandparents were killed."
"And you know what my mom did."
"Yes."
"All of it?"
She turned the question around. Asked him soberly, "Do you?"
"You said all the pieces weren't in place yet. You mean people? There are more people coming? Who are they?"
"Do you know your grandparents are here?"
"Their spirits? Not possible," Dean said. "My mom had somebody take the bodies away. They were salted and burned."
"So you assume."
"She was a hunter. She would have had that done."
"So you assume," Pamela said again.
The stubborn set of her expression made him frown. That was all he'd let himself do, frown, even though she could certainly tell what he was thinking. "If they've been here all this time, why didn't Missouri say anything? She started coming here when I was a little kid. All those years and she never said anything to us about them being here?"
"They may not have been here before. They're here now."
To Dean, his grandparents' having spent almost forty years in the spirit realm meant one thing: that both of his grandparents were pretty pissed off. They had good reason to be; his grandmother had only been in her forties when she died, his grandfather a little older, and they should have had another good couple of decades to look forward to.
If they'd been normal people, they might be alive even now.
"How mad are they?" he asked, looking down at the carpet Missouri still hadn't replaced. There was a big, dark stain in it, the result of a wrestling match between him and Sam and a spilled can of Coke that had taken place when Sam was about fourteen; a small arc of it was visible beyond the edge of the flowered throw rug she'd covered it with. "All these years - that's enough to work up a pretty serious grudge."
Pamela didn't answer him.
"Well?" he prodded.
"I think they were brought here," she said.
"Because it's Thanksgiving," he replied with a soft snort. "Somebody get a camera. We'll take a family picture. Missouri can hang it over the fireplace."
"I don't think we're going to like the explanation."
"Hell," Dean said. "I don't like most things. Want me to tell you what I do like? It's a shorter list."
He almost got up from his chair. He would have gotten up, because his head was filled by one very loud thought (GODDAMN CRYPTIC BULLSHIT), the very thing that had sent him away from every last one of the legitimate psychics he'd encountered in the past sixteen years. Yeah, it could be that none of them knew more than what they were saying; they didn't know him and therefore had no reason to protect his feelings the way Missouri did. And maybe it was some language they were all taught at Psychic School: Go heavy on the mumbo-jumbo, because it's what the clients expect you to do. Sound mysterious. Sound weird and hinky.
But he'd gone way past being tired of all this. Sixteen years, God knew how many miles. He was ready for this to be over.
"It will be," Pamela said.
All Dean could think to do was groan.
* * * * *