SPN fic: "Hickory Hill" 2/8+epilogue
Headers in Chapter 1.
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Walter Kravitz and his wife Nora looked pretty much the same as Dean had remembered them: thin and tidy-looking and prone to wearing matching cardigans and tortoiseshell glasses. Walter's hairline had receded a couple of inches over the past three years, and Nora's frizzy brown hair had gotten frizzier and acquired some gray streaks, but those were the only changes. Stacey, on the other hand, looked nothing like gawky twelve-year-old Dean had met on his last visit. She'd lost the braces and the pigtails and grown at least four inches. Her hair, which Dean clearly recalled as brown and curly, was now sleek and honey-blonde. Even with the sling on her right arm and the scabbed-over scrape on the bottom of the chin, she managed to look both pretty and perky.
"Stacey, you remember Dean Winchester?" Walter said. "And this is his brother Sam."
"Hi, Dean." Stacey nodded at him, then looked up at Sam, went bright pink and twirled a strand of hair around one finger. "Hi, Sam."
Dean smirked while Sam cleared his throat and attempted -- with zero success, in Dean's opinion -- to look manly and grown-up and not at all like a ginormous jail-bait magnet.
The Kravitzes had evacuated from Hickory Hill to a motel room in Junction. Two matching navy blue suitcases and a purple duffle with sparkly pink hearts on it were laid out against one wall, clothes spilling haphazardly from half-open zippers. Stacey's schoolbooks were piled on the desk by the window. Walter, Nora and Stacey all sat on one of the chintz-covered double beds, while Sam and Dean sat on the other.
"I just don't understand," Walter said. "Over twenty years I've been living in that house, and this is the first time..." He shuddered and ran one hand nervously through his hair. "It could've killed Stacey or one of the other children."
"Da-ad!" Stacey rolled her eyes. "I'm almost sixteen!"
"I know, honey." Walter patted her hand, but didn't look away from Dean. "Why is it doing this? Why now?"
"It's doing this because it can," Dean said. "That's kind of the definition of poltergeist. As for why now..." He turned toward Stacey. "We need you to tell us everything that happened, okay? Everything you did and said and saw before it attacked."
Stacey had been staring at Sam the entire time, but now she hunched her shoulders and stared down at her feet with equal intensity.
"It was me and Tricia and Sue and Gillian," she muttered in a barely audible voice. "We went up to the attic. We weren't supposed to, but it's like Dad said -- nothing's ever happened before. And everyone thought it was so cool that I lived in a haunted house. They just wanted to see for themselves, you know?"
"We know," Sam said softly, while Dean kept his mouth shut and only rolled his eyes a little bit. He wanted to feel sorry for the kid, he really did, but honestly, there was no excuse. Most people who got into trouble in haunted houses at least had the excuse of not really believing they were haunted. Stacey had known better. "Go on. What happened next?"
"It got cold all of a sudden." Stacey hugged herself with her good arm and shivered. "There was this gust of wind, like a draft, except that the windows are both painted shut. And then we heard voices. Screaming."
"Voices?" Dean said quickly. "As in, more than one?"
Stacey nodded. "They sounded really scared. Or in hurt, maybe. And everything started rattling -- the doors, the windows, all those rusty old chains on the walls... so we ran. Out the attic door and back down the stairs. I was maybe half-way down when something pushed me. It felt like this huge hand, right in the middle of my back. It was cold. I mean, I had a sweatshirt on, and it still felt like ice right against my skin. It pushed me, and I fell." She shivered again and sniffled loudly until Nora handed her a handful of tissues from the dispenser on the bedside table. "The others ran down after me, and that's when it threw the chair at Tricia. If she hadn't ducked... oh, God, it could've killed her..."
"It's all right, honey." Nora patted her daughter's shoulder awkwardly. "You all got out safely, that's all that's important now."
"Actually," Dean said, "what's important now is figuring out what set this thing off. Are you sure this was all that happened, Stacey? You guys came upstairs and the poltergeist just attacked?"
"Yeah," Stacey said, but Dean didn't miss the way her gaze darted from side to side for a second before fixing on her toes again.
Dean nudged Sam's ankle with his boot toe, but Sam was already on it, leaning forward toward Stacey, radiating sympathy and sincerity and quiet reassurance.
"Stacey," he said gently, "we know you've had a scare, and you probably don't want to sit here and talk with us about it. But it's really important that we know everything that happened, or we won't be able to help. So if there's anything else, anything else at all, you can tell us. We won't be mad."
This is what he'd be like as a lawyer, Dean thought. He could imagine hostile witnesses collapsing on the stand, spilling out the incriminating truth rather than lie to that face.
"I--" Stacey looked as if she was going to protest, then stopped. She let out a slow, shaky breath, and all the resistance seemed to drain out of her at once. She darted a nervous look at her parents, then at Dean. "Promise you won't yell."
"We won't," Sam promised.
Stacey took another few seconds to work up her nerve, shifting in her seat and fidgeting her hands in her lap.
"It was Tricia's idea," she finally muttered. "She's the one who brought the board."
"The board?" Dean got a sudden sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. Oh, fuck, tell me they didn't. "What board?"
"The Ouija board." Stacey gave him a small, sheepish smile. "She got it for her Halloween party last year, but we couldn't get it to work at her house. So she said, maybe if we tried it in a real haunted house, we could... you know, maybe talk to the thing in the attic."
Okay, so they totally did. Dean took a deep breath and counted backwards from ten. In Latin. "You tried to hold a seance in a house that you knew had a poltergeist in it?" He thought he was doing a pretty good job of not sounding pissed off, but apparently not. Stacey winced a little and slid closer to her mother, who patted her knee and gave Dean an accusing look, as if this whole mess was something he'd made instead of something he drove in from freaking New Jersey to fix.
"Okay," Sam said, giving Dean a glare that clearly said shut up, moron, "so let's start again, then. Tell us exactly what you did."
Under Sam's kindly cross-examination, Stacey finally coughed up the whole story. She and her friends had gone up to the attic, laid the board out on the floor and attempted to ask it questions. The planchette had started moving almost immediately, sliding rapidly all over the board even when no one was touching it. According to Stacey, it had spelled out no actual words, just random combinations of letters. Then the poltergeist -- or something else -- had attacked, and the girls had all run out, leaving the still-active board behind.
"I swear, those things should come with warning labels," Dean grumbled when he and Sam were alone in their own motel room, down the hall from the Kravitzes. "I can't believe they still sell them in goddamn toy stores."
"Right," Sam said, "you can start your letter campaign to the FTC after we finish this job. In the meantime, we need to figure out what's hanging out in that attic. Poltergeists don't speak with human voices. I'm thinking the board must've called up a few ghosts."
"Yeah. Really frightened and pissed-off ghosts, if Stacey's telling it right." Dean dug a canister of salt from his bag and set it on the bed next to the gallon jug of holy water. "Some of the slaves who'd died in the house, maybe?"
"Sounds likely." Sam sat down cross-legged on the other bed, and dropped a thick pile of photocopied manuscript pages onto the bedspread in front of him. The pages were from Walter's unpublished book about the history of Hickory Hill. "But if that's true, then we're kinda screwed. Nobody really knows how many slaves were killed in that house, or who they were, or what happened to the bodies. According to what Walter's written here, Crenshaw was kidnapping free blacks from the northern states and shipping them south to be sold. So even if we could find records for the slaves he'd shipped in legally -- which I doubt -- there were also all the illegal ones who came through. I'm thinking salt-and-burn is not an option here."
"Great," Dean sighed. This job was getting better and better by the minute. "I don't suppose it could be Crenshaw's ghost, could it? I wouldn't mind salting and burning that fucker just on principle."
Sam shook his head. "According to this, Crenshaw died of natural causes and is buried next to his wife in the local cemetery. Not exactly prime haunting material."
"So much for karma, huh?" Dean dug the car keys from his pocket. "All right then, let's go take a look at the place."
Chapter 3
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Walter Kravitz and his wife Nora looked pretty much the same as Dean had remembered them: thin and tidy-looking and prone to wearing matching cardigans and tortoiseshell glasses. Walter's hairline had receded a couple of inches over the past three years, and Nora's frizzy brown hair had gotten frizzier and acquired some gray streaks, but those were the only changes. Stacey, on the other hand, looked nothing like gawky twelve-year-old Dean had met on his last visit. She'd lost the braces and the pigtails and grown at least four inches. Her hair, which Dean clearly recalled as brown and curly, was now sleek and honey-blonde. Even with the sling on her right arm and the scabbed-over scrape on the bottom of the chin, she managed to look both pretty and perky.
"Stacey, you remember Dean Winchester?" Walter said. "And this is his brother Sam."
"Hi, Dean." Stacey nodded at him, then looked up at Sam, went bright pink and twirled a strand of hair around one finger. "Hi, Sam."
Dean smirked while Sam cleared his throat and attempted -- with zero success, in Dean's opinion -- to look manly and grown-up and not at all like a ginormous jail-bait magnet.
The Kravitzes had evacuated from Hickory Hill to a motel room in Junction. Two matching navy blue suitcases and a purple duffle with sparkly pink hearts on it were laid out against one wall, clothes spilling haphazardly from half-open zippers. Stacey's schoolbooks were piled on the desk by the window. Walter, Nora and Stacey all sat on one of the chintz-covered double beds, while Sam and Dean sat on the other.
"I just don't understand," Walter said. "Over twenty years I've been living in that house, and this is the first time..." He shuddered and ran one hand nervously through his hair. "It could've killed Stacey or one of the other children."
"Da-ad!" Stacey rolled her eyes. "I'm almost sixteen!"
"I know, honey." Walter patted her hand, but didn't look away from Dean. "Why is it doing this? Why now?"
"It's doing this because it can," Dean said. "That's kind of the definition of poltergeist. As for why now..." He turned toward Stacey. "We need you to tell us everything that happened, okay? Everything you did and said and saw before it attacked."
Stacey had been staring at Sam the entire time, but now she hunched her shoulders and stared down at her feet with equal intensity.
"It was me and Tricia and Sue and Gillian," she muttered in a barely audible voice. "We went up to the attic. We weren't supposed to, but it's like Dad said -- nothing's ever happened before. And everyone thought it was so cool that I lived in a haunted house. They just wanted to see for themselves, you know?"
"We know," Sam said softly, while Dean kept his mouth shut and only rolled his eyes a little bit. He wanted to feel sorry for the kid, he really did, but honestly, there was no excuse. Most people who got into trouble in haunted houses at least had the excuse of not really believing they were haunted. Stacey had known better. "Go on. What happened next?"
"It got cold all of a sudden." Stacey hugged herself with her good arm and shivered. "There was this gust of wind, like a draft, except that the windows are both painted shut. And then we heard voices. Screaming."
"Voices?" Dean said quickly. "As in, more than one?"
Stacey nodded. "They sounded really scared. Or in hurt, maybe. And everything started rattling -- the doors, the windows, all those rusty old chains on the walls... so we ran. Out the attic door and back down the stairs. I was maybe half-way down when something pushed me. It felt like this huge hand, right in the middle of my back. It was cold. I mean, I had a sweatshirt on, and it still felt like ice right against my skin. It pushed me, and I fell." She shivered again and sniffled loudly until Nora handed her a handful of tissues from the dispenser on the bedside table. "The others ran down after me, and that's when it threw the chair at Tricia. If she hadn't ducked... oh, God, it could've killed her..."
"It's all right, honey." Nora patted her daughter's shoulder awkwardly. "You all got out safely, that's all that's important now."
"Actually," Dean said, "what's important now is figuring out what set this thing off. Are you sure this was all that happened, Stacey? You guys came upstairs and the poltergeist just attacked?"
"Yeah," Stacey said, but Dean didn't miss the way her gaze darted from side to side for a second before fixing on her toes again.
Dean nudged Sam's ankle with his boot toe, but Sam was already on it, leaning forward toward Stacey, radiating sympathy and sincerity and quiet reassurance.
"Stacey," he said gently, "we know you've had a scare, and you probably don't want to sit here and talk with us about it. But it's really important that we know everything that happened, or we won't be able to help. So if there's anything else, anything else at all, you can tell us. We won't be mad."
This is what he'd be like as a lawyer, Dean thought. He could imagine hostile witnesses collapsing on the stand, spilling out the incriminating truth rather than lie to that face.
"I--" Stacey looked as if she was going to protest, then stopped. She let out a slow, shaky breath, and all the resistance seemed to drain out of her at once. She darted a nervous look at her parents, then at Dean. "Promise you won't yell."
"We won't," Sam promised.
Stacey took another few seconds to work up her nerve, shifting in her seat and fidgeting her hands in her lap.
"It was Tricia's idea," she finally muttered. "She's the one who brought the board."
"The board?" Dean got a sudden sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. Oh, fuck, tell me they didn't. "What board?"
"The Ouija board." Stacey gave him a small, sheepish smile. "She got it for her Halloween party last year, but we couldn't get it to work at her house. So she said, maybe if we tried it in a real haunted house, we could... you know, maybe talk to the thing in the attic."
Okay, so they totally did. Dean took a deep breath and counted backwards from ten. In Latin. "You tried to hold a seance in a house that you knew had a poltergeist in it?" He thought he was doing a pretty good job of not sounding pissed off, but apparently not. Stacey winced a little and slid closer to her mother, who patted her knee and gave Dean an accusing look, as if this whole mess was something he'd made instead of something he drove in from freaking New Jersey to fix.
"Okay," Sam said, giving Dean a glare that clearly said shut up, moron, "so let's start again, then. Tell us exactly what you did."
Under Sam's kindly cross-examination, Stacey finally coughed up the whole story. She and her friends had gone up to the attic, laid the board out on the floor and attempted to ask it questions. The planchette had started moving almost immediately, sliding rapidly all over the board even when no one was touching it. According to Stacey, it had spelled out no actual words, just random combinations of letters. Then the poltergeist -- or something else -- had attacked, and the girls had all run out, leaving the still-active board behind.
"I swear, those things should come with warning labels," Dean grumbled when he and Sam were alone in their own motel room, down the hall from the Kravitzes. "I can't believe they still sell them in goddamn toy stores."
"Right," Sam said, "you can start your letter campaign to the FTC after we finish this job. In the meantime, we need to figure out what's hanging out in that attic. Poltergeists don't speak with human voices. I'm thinking the board must've called up a few ghosts."
"Yeah. Really frightened and pissed-off ghosts, if Stacey's telling it right." Dean dug a canister of salt from his bag and set it on the bed next to the gallon jug of holy water. "Some of the slaves who'd died in the house, maybe?"
"Sounds likely." Sam sat down cross-legged on the other bed, and dropped a thick pile of photocopied manuscript pages onto the bedspread in front of him. The pages were from Walter's unpublished book about the history of Hickory Hill. "But if that's true, then we're kinda screwed. Nobody really knows how many slaves were killed in that house, or who they were, or what happened to the bodies. According to what Walter's written here, Crenshaw was kidnapping free blacks from the northern states and shipping them south to be sold. So even if we could find records for the slaves he'd shipped in legally -- which I doubt -- there were also all the illegal ones who came through. I'm thinking salt-and-burn is not an option here."
"Great," Dean sighed. This job was getting better and better by the minute. "I don't suppose it could be Crenshaw's ghost, could it? I wouldn't mind salting and burning that fucker just on principle."
Sam shook his head. "According to this, Crenshaw died of natural causes and is buried next to his wife in the local cemetery. Not exactly prime haunting material."
"So much for karma, huh?" Dean dug the car keys from his pocket. "All right then, let's go take a look at the place."
Chapter 3