(no subject)
Title: Hex
Characters: Dean, Sam, John
Rating: PG
Summary: What you find by the side of the road, and what you can never get back.
Spoilers: None. Set pre-series, circa fall 1989.
Word Count: 4,767
Disclaimer: It’s all made up.
Beta: Many thanks to zelda-zee.
Written for 50states-spn: focusing on the local folklore of Pennsylvania.
Also at AO3.
You remember when Sam used to derive seemingly, impressively limitless hours of delight from counting the cows by the side of the road. Then the horsies. Sometimes goats. And, a few times, buffalo - although they were so scarce, Sam fell asleep before he got to eight. Which was fine, as he'd only learned to count to ten anyway. And he couldn't say buffalo either, just buffo. You'd tried teaching him the word bison instead, but he kept saying: "Buffo! Three buffoes, Dean!"
And you'd say, "Mwahaha!" Then you'd pull up your collar to cover your mouth and nose, and you'd lean over Sam, leering like the Count. Sam would shriek and clap his hands.
You remember that time with the buffaloes especially, because you caught Dad smiling in the rearview mirror.
At six years old, Sam has already outgrown his fascination with the tallying of roadside animals. Well, sort of.
Today, he has counted four dead possums, two groundhogs, one raccoon, and one deer. It's only 10:30 in the morning and you know the number will likely double before you reach your destination.
You're in central Pennsylvania, heading toward a farm. You see nothing but farms, and keep wondering: Is this the one? This? But you don't dare ask. You know better. Dad only suffers so many questions. Sam has asked to stop to go to the bathroom twice now since breakfast - when he didn't have to go - and the set of Dad's shoulders is telling you that even questions regarding the hunt will not be tolerated.
So you wait to see what Dad wants to let you know.
The scenery consists of browned-yellow cornstalks, cut close to the ground: reaped field after field broken only by the random house/barn/silo combo. Occasionally, you see a tractor, sitting empty by the road or moving slowly near the distant treeline, green and yellow and rusted metal chugging away with a rumble that rivals the engine of Dad's car.
You've seen this so many times: in Iowa and Nebraska and Ohio and Vermont. You've seen more of this than you've seen cities. The America you know is lonely and flat, or lonely and rolling. It changes its colors, from green to red to gold to white to black when the sun goes down and the moon's too new. But it's pretty much the same. Same land, same people out there. Same car, with the same company of Sam and Dad inside.
Lately though, you've felt different. You get a little twitchy looking at cornfields.
Last week, Dad drank his dinner in celebration of another successful job with no thanks for it but a set of bruised fingernails and pair of ruined jeans, torn by the wet hand that gripped at him until you burned the bones like you were taught to and the ghost disappeared. So, while Dad slept off his stupor, and Sam slept off his two servings of canned ravioli, you couldn't sleep at all. You stayed up watching some movie about a retarded (no, handicapped, you're supposed to say handicapped) guy who gets killed and comes back as a vengeful scarecrow. It was pretty cool at the time. But now you see fields and think of that scarecrow: tromping through the unharvested stalks, peering out from the holes in its burlap sack of a head.
You know it's silly, but you feel like you're being watched.
Checking on Sam, you know it's not him, because he's craning his neck to check out a barn you've passed on the left. Dad's eyes, as usual, are locked on the road.
In under a minute, you pass another barn. It's weather-beaten red, more like a dull-dark pink, and looks to be in disrepair. But the proximity makes you think that maybe you're finally reaching civilization.
On this barn, like the last, you see weird symbols: circular signs with flowers on them and birds spouting plumage of red and green like some kind of wilted peacocks. Without asking, Dad tells you about them. He calls them hex signs. And that sounds bad to you, or naughty - so much like sex. And you forget about the eyeless scarecrow and think of other movies you've seen on TV: that swell of music and slow fade out that always means the man and woman are doing it, though they never show you exactly how "it" goes.
But hex signs, Dad says, are good. They ward off evil. Like salt, but painted and more permanent. He starts talking about the Pennsylvania Dutch, how they weren't really Dutch but German, which sounds confusing. Why call it something it isn't? People keep making things so complicated when they're really so simple, you think.
Dad says, "Deutsch" - that Dutch is a corruption of that word. And that word, Deutsch, means German. In German, no less.
It's a funny sounding word, and you bite your lip. But Sam doesn't hold back. He says, "Deutsch," screws up his nose, and starts giggling for five whole minutes. You resist for two of those minutes, until his escalating laughter carries you along on an invisible leash, following after Sammy, always.
You cross your eyes at him and repeat the word, over-emphasizing the doy sound. His cheeks go bright red as he loses breath to laughter and the effort it takes to mimic you, both of you volleying the word back and forth, until Dad turns up the radio and you know it's time to settle down and be quiet. Sam's still getting the hang of that, so you pull him in, stuffing his nose into your armpit, pretending to give him a noogie. Really, you're only trying to stifle his giggling until he tires himself out, and before Dad gets pissed off.
The last time you pissed Dad off, he stopped the car and made you and Sammy do laps around an empty parking lot where a Hardee's used to be. The time before that, he tailgated the car in front of you so close you got scared, put your arm over Sam's chest in case Dad slammed on the brakes and you both went flying, so that at least it would be you first and not Sam. When Dad had finally backed off, you let Sam go. He'd been quiet, hadn't squirmed at all - like he knew how scared you were and that scared him into submission too. You never wanted him to be scared like that. The pain in your foot where you'd pressed it so hard into the curve of the footwell, like a phantom brake pedal, was your punishment for sharing your fear with your brother. If you limped a little on your way to the motel room that night, you figured you deserved it.
There's a third barn - or thousandth, really, depending on how you're counting - up the road, and Dad slows as you approach it. Three hex signs form a trio of bright color within the triangle just below the peak of the roof on the side nearest the road. They look like pinwheels of blue and yellow and red, swirling stars and symmetrical flowers with petals that give the illusion of movement. The center one contains a fat, squat heart in a ring of black, kept apart from the other symbols. Kept safe, you think, but really kept separate.
When Dad parks in the gravel of the shoulder, you expect him to tell you to stay in the car and watch over Sam. But he says, "Come on."
Past the barn, up a deceptively steep slope of grass, over its crest and down onto a flatter span of land you come to an old whitewashed house. Dad doesn't walk up to the front door, but keeps going, around the side and around the back, rustling through the browning grass, until stopping several yards where there seems to be nothing.
You stick close to Sam, so it takes a minute for you to catch up to Dad and see that he hasn't chosen some random stopping point. Instead, there's a water pump - its cylindrical base a peeling red, its metal handle kept bare and cold-looking. You imagine the well water it would bring up, just as cold. You check Sam's jacket to make sure it's zipped up. When you see that it isn't, you do it for him, ignoring the way he whines your name. The weather isn't that chilly yet - even for fall, even for PA - but he needs to learn. Besides, Dad can't afford for him to get sick, and he still hasn't gotten the hang of blowing his nose by himself. You sniffle involuntarily, and scold yourself for it. You can't get sick either. You won't, you think, resolutely.
Before you do, Sam notices what Dad's looking at: not the water pump, but what's beneath it. There's a slab of dirty marble, half-sunk in the ground.
"It's supposed to be a splash pad," Dad says. "But-"
Crouching down, Dad digs his nails under one edge and heaves the slab out of the ground. He grunts and lets it drop over onto its other side with a heavy thump. One worm wriggles off the marble and into the grass. Others squirm around in the rectangle of black earth, their brown-pink bodies flopping this way and that. Little gray bugs curl in on themselves. Sam leans over, fingers outstretched toward the exposed bugs. You stop him just before he picks up one of the worms, remembering the last time he did and freaked out when it peed on him. Of course, he was five then. A whole year has gone by, so maybe he's forgotten.
You've forgotten about the slab for a second. But Dad reminds you as he suddenly returns it to its original spot, nudging it into place with the heel of his boot, covering the worms and the bugs. You hope they haven't been squished, feel your hopes dashed as Dad stomps the marble further down until it's level with the ground, further still until it's just below the surface, the outline of surrounding dirt and grass collapsing over the edges.
Sam taps you on the shoulder. But when you turn around, he's not there. You spot him on the other side of Dad, staring at the marble with wide eyes. You realize Sam isn't tall enough to touch you on the top of your shoulder. But you get distracted from that thought when he says:
"Was that a grave?"
Sam looks up at Dad, but you stare at your brother, looking for answers Dad can't provide.
Dad says nothing before Sam speaks up again. "There was writing on it."
"Did you read what it said?" Dad asks.
"It said die," Sam tells him. "I saw die."
You watch Dad's fingers scratch at the back of his head, knead at his neck. "Yeah, Sammy," he says. "It had the word die on it."
"It was a grave." Sam's cheeks and nose are pink from the fall air, but the rest of his face has gone white. "Dad, you shouldn't be standing on it. You're not supposed to stand on graves."
Sam doesn't know how many graves Dad has already stood on, or in. And he won't know, as long as you can help it. You reach out to tug at Dad's jacket, risking his ire. But Dad backs away on his own.
Sam looks relieved. "Sorry," he says, to the ground, not to Dad or you, and you shiver though you're plenty warm enough in the flannel jacket that used to belong to Dad and hangs down over your hands and thighs.
Dad reaches a hand out toward Sam, tucks a lock of hair behind his ear. You don't have to see Dad's face to know the expression on it. You've seen it before paired with that same gesture a few times when Dad stood over Sam's side of the bed, while he slept and you pretended, Dad saying goodnight with a crack in his voice that made your chest hurt like your ribs were breaking. Except you had a broken rib once and it wasn't quite the same. But both hurts made it hard for you to breathe.
What you didn't notice before, you can see in front of you now: your breath in the air, and Dad's and Sam's. So you're relieved when Dad leads you back to the car.
Passing the house, you see a face in the window on the second floor. You think you should be glad to get out of there before the owner calls the police on you. But you're not glad. There's something about that face in the window that doesn't feel like a threat. You just feel sad. Sad enough to cry.
But you'll be eleven in a few months, and you're too old to cry. So it must be the fall air, too dry and stinging your eyes.
Back in the car, Sam sits closer to you than he has to and Dad keeps the music down low. It's the one about Jeremiah the bullfrog - the one Sam made a story about, said Jeremiah was a friend of Kermit's from back in the swamp. You turn to Sam, wanting to ask Sam to tell you again about Jeremiah and Kermit playing dueling banjoes, but Sam stretches toward you and whispers into your ear, "Are we going to die?"
You don't know how to answer that. You know the answer, but can't tell him. You can't even tell him, That's so far off, Sammy. You don't know that. And, while sometimes you can lie to him, right now you can't.
Pointing out the window, you say, "Look, Sam, moo cows."
Sam looks, but says, "They're just cows."
He's growing up so fast; you'd do anything to hear him say moo cows or buffo again.
He shuffles around in the seat, looks out the other window where there are no cows or horses or barns. Only trees, the fields gone and replaced by forest. Sam's reflection is as distant and sad as that face in the window at that old house.
After several miles of trees, you come upon fields again, more farms, and a stand selling pumpkins and apples. Dad stops the car and buys you and Sam candied apples, called mojhy apples according to the old guy in overalls selling them. The apples are covered in a shiny red glaze that cracks when you bite into them. It's a satisfying sound, and the sweetness takes your mind off things you don't want to think about. Better still, Sam's gets the sticky coating all over his mouth and tries to lick it off with his tongue, screwing up his face in concentration. While he's focused on that, you steal a bite from his apple.
"Hey!" he yells. And you're off, chasing each other around the car and the stand, laughing and running and trying to eat your apples all at the same time.
Dad lets you go, lets you wear yourselves out. It feels like a peace offering, a consolation for whatever happened back at the farm with the water pump and the overturned gravestone. But you push that back and focus on the crispness of the apple and the sharp sound of Sam's laughter, the smile too wide for him to hide it behind a disappearing apple on a tiny little stick.
That night, you find sleep easily, drained from all the fresh air, the running around, the emotions dragging you about like a rag doll. Of course, you wait until Sam falls asleep first, eyelids heavy enough that, were you a cartoon, you'd prop them up with toothpicks.
Yeah, cartoons aren't real. But so many seemingly unreal things are. You already know this. And you wake up in the middle of the night to another thing that other people only think exists in stories.
You don't open your eyes when you wake up, but you listen. The sound of Dad's voice carries through the small motel room, past the partition sectioning off your shared bed and the kitchenette where Dad's talking on the phone. It takes you a few seconds to figure he's talking to Uncle Bobby - the tone of Dad's voice familiar and relaxed in a way you don't hear often when he's talking to others. It reminds you a little of how he used to talk to Mom, though that was different. Because she was Mom. But he lets himself go a little when he talks to Bobby, not masking himself the way he does when he talks to strangers. Real Dad, not Hunter Dad. Yet he's talking about a hunt.
He's talking about the marble slab that turned out to be a grave marker, you realize.
"That's what it said, exactly. I wrote it down while the boys were horsing around just in case, but I remember." You hear the crinkling of paper. "Beware ye who look upon my early grave, for ye too shall die.."
Die, it said. You think of Sam's unanswered question whispered into your ear.
"I doubt it's a curse. Probably just scared whoever saw it last. Person who wrote that epitaph was too clever for their own good." There's a pause, then: "Yeah, you're right, it probably was the parents' grief getting the best of them. I can't imagine-"
Dad's voice cuts off, but you can't tell if it's because he lowered his voice or stopped talking.
"Yeah, I think the girl's still around. There were signs. Saw my breath in the air, but it isn't cold enough here for that. She was definitely there. Whether she's responsible for the Schneider kid's death, I don't know."
Sam snuffles in his sleep and you will him to not wake up. He's seen enough today; he doesn't need to hear this.
"Mmm, same thing," Dad says. "She and her friends had a slumber party the night of the first frost, put out pails of water, just like the tale goes. The next morning, she saw the shape of a coffin etched into hers. Died a month later, just like Amelia Amanda."
You burrow further into the covers when you hear the name. You know it, but you don't know how. The face in the window. The upside down gravestone. The girl who saw her own fate carved in a pail of ice.
"I'm going to talk to the English teacher tomorrow. Apparently she's the one who's been telling kids about these folk traditions. Figures she would think they were harmless. Better find out what else she's been teaching, besides how girls used to try to predict who they would marry."
You think about how you and Sam are supposed to start at a new school come Monday. It's nearby, but probably not the one Dad's talking about, not if he doesn't trust one of the teachers there, likely meaning he wouldn't risk enrolling you there at all. If he did, you could help out; maybe you'd even get the same teacher, could ask her questions. But Dad doesn't think you're ready for that yet, probably. He still only takes you on the easy hunts, though you insist you can handle more. You're a good shot. And, okay, you're small, but you're fast. And you're not stupid. You could be an asset to Dad, you just know it.
But if experience is anything to go by, he'll keep you watching over Sam. Which is fine. Sam needs watching over. But you can do both. You can watch him at night and scope out the school during the day, sneak off during lunch or recess, maybe even during class if the school turns out to be big enough, understaffed enough. But if it's around here, you don't think those chances are high. In fact, you picture an old-fashioned, one room schoolhouse on the edge of one of those endless fields, smell of manure ever-present in the air. The school bus is probably a buggy driven by some Amish dude. At least that would mean horses, you think, and look at Sam. Then you remember. Sam doesn't care about horses anymore. Not the same way he used to. It doesn't light him up.
You shift closer, not caring that it's a girl move, and drape your arm over Sam's middle. You can feel his breath on your chin, warm on your neck. It lulls you back to sleep as Dad's voice fades into the background, a low drone running on like an engine.
When you wake up, there's less warmth and you must have moved your arm because you can't feel Sam beneath it. The mattress feels lighter too, and your eyes snap open.
The bed is empty.
The room is dark, save the harsh light of the television set, still on with Dad slumped and snoring in the chair in front of it.
You look toward the bathroom, but the door is open. Sam never leaves it open.
You don't panic. You can't panic. Dad taught you better. But your heart races to spite you.
Sam isn't under the bed or on the floor or in the tub, and you knew he wouldn't be. He hasn't gone for a drink of water, or to pull an extra blanket from the closet or a toy from your bags. He hasn't slept with a toy since you told him only babies do that. An image of Sam as a baby flashes through your mind, and you run straight out the front door, the phantom sensation of a bundle carried in your arms making you want to cry. But you didn't cry then and you won't now.
Your first instinct is to try the car, but he's not there. You see him before that.
A few doors down from where you're staying, Sam is sitting on the curb of the sidewalk that stretches along the front of the motel, just at the end. His knees are tucked up to his chin and his arms locked tight around his legs. He's wearing nothing but his pajamas: your old Hulk t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants. You're tempted to take off your shirt to cover him up, even though you're wearing nothing but your pajamas too, and they're thin and hole-ridden and no more likely to warm him than his own.
"Sammy," you say. "What are you doing? Get back inside." You try to scoop him up in your arms, as if you could gather his tiny body as easily as a pile of laundry. He resists, stubborn and somehow more solid than usual in his fixed determination.
"Not until it freezes," he says.
You follow his gaze, which hasn't once left the space in front of his bare feet. The collapsible cup from Dad's travel kit is in front of him, filled with water. It's still liquid, but you can just make out the crystallization of ice creeping up around the outer limits.
"You were awake," you say, thinking of Dad's phone call to Uncle Bobby.
Sam nods. "I want to see," he says.
"Don't be so stupid, Sammy." You curl a hand under his upper arm and try to get him up. "That's for girls anyway."
"Shut up," Sam says and hugs his legs impossibly closer to his body, trapping your fingers. "Maybe it works for boys too."
"And maybe it's bullshit," you say. "And don't you dare tell Dad I used that word." You point your finger at him. It feels weird using your left hand to make the gesture, so you yank your hand free from Sam, regretting it the instant your fingers are away from his body heat. You sit down on the cold cement, wincing at the way it goes through you. "Anyway," you say, "We can leave it here and wait until morning to check on it." You try once more to urge him up and back to the room.
"But I want to see how it happens." Sam looks at you, imploring.
"What do you think you'll see?"
You imagine a creature, coming to etch pictures into ice: an old witch maybe, hunched over, scratching off the crust of frost with a long, gnarled fingernail. But Sam doesn't answer that question.
"I think I'll see a coffin too." He hooks his chin over his knees again, looking mournfully at his little cup as if such a small thing could hold the fate of the world. Or Sam's world. So, the world, you think.
"Might just mean you'll marry an undertaker." You bump shoulders with him.
He doesn't laugh at your joke. You wouldn't either, have to force the one you make as it is.
"I don't want to die, Dean." His voice is so soft, but his words hit hard, send your blood rushing, ringing in your ears.
What can you tell him? People die. Some people come back. But that's never good. But if Sammy died, you'd want him back; you know that as sure as you know anything and can't lie to yourself about it. You envelop him, your goosebumped limbs overlapping his goosebumped limbs.
You try again.
"You're gonna if you stay out here much longer." You bury your nose in his thick mess of hair. It smells a little like he needs to wash it. "Catch your death of cold." A breeze picks up, and you both tremble a little. "Me too."
"No, Dean, you can't." Sam presses his face into you, nose squashed against your breastbone, breath coming fast, a quickfire contrast of cold-hot with each intake and exhale. "You can't," he says, and it catches.
He tries to hide the sob, but you know. You won't call him on it.
When you try to stand up, he goes with you without effort. He clutches at your wrist and pulls you to the door of your motel room as though you were the obstinate one who wouldn't budge because of a cup and a ghost story and an early grave you were too young to see let alone comprehend.
Inside, Dad's still asleep - his hunter's instincts slacking or yours strengthening enough to not tip him off.
You put Sam to bed, pull out an extra pair of socks, sweatpants and sweatshirt, and wriggle under the covers, dressing him in an extra layer, hoping he'll warm up quicker that way.
You warm up with him clinging to you like a second layer of your own skin.
This is how you fall asleep.
In the morning, you wake up before Sam, after Dad.
You brush your teeth while Dad shaves using the same mirror. He rinses off and you reach for the mouthwash.
Right beside it is the cup from his travel kit. It's empty, collapsed into its neat ring of concentric circles. On the bottom is a starburst design you never noticed before.
"Want to tell me how this got all the way outside?" Dad's eyes meet yours in the bathroom mirror.
"Sorry, sir," you say. "Heard you on the phone."
You let him put together the rest, leave Sam out of it.
"Did you...?" You don't know how to come out with it.
"Did I what?" Dad looks like he knows. Dad always does.
"See anything." You nod as if shaking out the words. "Did you see anything?"
Dad sighs. "There was just water in it, Dean. No frost last night." Dad towels off his face and leaves you alone in the bathroom. "Hurry up if you want pancakes," Dad says from the other room.
You stand there, remembering the ice that was already beginning to form along the edges of the cup in the middle of the night.
Sam stumbles in, and you toss him the shampoo and leave him to it, let him shower first, use up as much hot water as he needs.
You have breakfast at the motel restaurant where there are antique model airplanes and something called scrapple on the menu in addition to the regular bacon and sausage and home fries. Sam makes a funny face when he tries some, so you take his helping in exchange for one of your pancakes. Outside, church bells ring.
You count them off with Sam. Nine. "Nine chimes," you say.
He's supposed to say mwahaha. Like the Count.
But Sam's looking at his plate of pancakes, where he's cut away their edges, carved the circles into a jagged rectangle.
You think of Amelia Amanda's gravestone. It said die.
You tap your fork around your plate, your shoulders drawn tight like Dad's when he's angry. But you're not angry. You're just scared.
Not of scarecrows coming out of cornfields or ghosts coming out of their graves. You're not scared of that face in the window or of Dad's temper. You're not even scared of what might have been etched into the ice in that cup. You're scared of what Sam has seen, and that he'll never be able to go back.
You're never going to go back.
Notes:
- This is based on the folk tale of Amelia Amanda’s tombstone, as told in Charles J. Adams’ Ghost Stories Of Berks County - Book Two. It appears to be undocumented online, but this fic does not waver much from the basic story of Amelia Amanda, thought to possibly be Amelia Amanda Schneider, a 19th century resident of Oley, PA. The chapter in Adams’ book tells of a marble slab used as a water pump’s splash pad on the farmland where her family supposedly once lived, revealed to be a gravestone that was turned upside down. The epitaph has been reused here verbatim.
The story also tells of Amelia Amanda following a local tradition of a girl setting out a pail of water to divine the occupation of her future husband, and how Amelia woke to find the clearly defined shape of a coffin in her pail. She is said to have died months later.
Former occupants of the residence, including sculptor Ramon Lago, have sensed presences in the old farmhouse and adjacent barn. The mother of one previous owner indeed claimed to have seen a face in one of the home’s windows.
There’s a scarier story involving a child who lived in the house for a short time and suffered from horrible nightmares that caused her to wake up screaming - “blood-curdling screams,” according to the book. After one nightmare, her parents went to her and, after she stopped screaming, she sat up, looked straight forward, and said, “I am dead!”
While that last bit is a thrilling part of the overall tale of Amelia Amanda, I wanted to keep the overall horror of this fic as quiet-toned as possible. The sadness of growing up to realize what death is, and witnessing that realization in someone you love, seemed more important to me than thrills and scares.
- The Antique Airplane Restaurant was a real restaurant with - wait for it - antique model airplanes on display. It was attached to the Dutch Colony Motor Inn. Both have been torn down and replaced by a strip mall. Because America doesn’t have enough strip malls.
- The Count is, of course, the Muppet from Sesame Street. And Kermit’s swamp days alludes to the beginning of The Muppet Movie.
- The song about Jeremiah the bullfrog is better known as “Joy To The World” by Three Dog Night.
- The scarecrow movie that scares Dean is a 1980s made-for-television movie called Dark Night Of The Scarecrow. It’s basically the origin of my own fear of scarecrows. Seeing that plus Children Of The Corn at a young age made growing up around corn fields a whole slew of fun, let me tell you.
- A brief background on hex signs. The trio of signs Dean sees on the side of the barn was inspired by this photo.
- Hex not only means “a curse or magic spell,” but it also comes from the Greek for six - which just happens to be Sam’s age in this fic.
Characters: Dean, Sam, John
Rating: PG
Summary: What you find by the side of the road, and what you can never get back.
Spoilers: None. Set pre-series, circa fall 1989.
Word Count: 4,767
Disclaimer: It’s all made up.
Beta: Many thanks to zelda-zee.
Written for 50states-spn: focusing on the local folklore of Pennsylvania.
Also at AO3.
You remember when Sam used to derive seemingly, impressively limitless hours of delight from counting the cows by the side of the road. Then the horsies. Sometimes goats. And, a few times, buffalo - although they were so scarce, Sam fell asleep before he got to eight. Which was fine, as he'd only learned to count to ten anyway. And he couldn't say buffalo either, just buffo. You'd tried teaching him the word bison instead, but he kept saying: "Buffo! Three buffoes, Dean!"
And you'd say, "Mwahaha!" Then you'd pull up your collar to cover your mouth and nose, and you'd lean over Sam, leering like the Count. Sam would shriek and clap his hands.
You remember that time with the buffaloes especially, because you caught Dad smiling in the rearview mirror.
At six years old, Sam has already outgrown his fascination with the tallying of roadside animals. Well, sort of.
Today, he has counted four dead possums, two groundhogs, one raccoon, and one deer. It's only 10:30 in the morning and you know the number will likely double before you reach your destination.
You're in central Pennsylvania, heading toward a farm. You see nothing but farms, and keep wondering: Is this the one? This? But you don't dare ask. You know better. Dad only suffers so many questions. Sam has asked to stop to go to the bathroom twice now since breakfast - when he didn't have to go - and the set of Dad's shoulders is telling you that even questions regarding the hunt will not be tolerated.
So you wait to see what Dad wants to let you know.
The scenery consists of browned-yellow cornstalks, cut close to the ground: reaped field after field broken only by the random house/barn/silo combo. Occasionally, you see a tractor, sitting empty by the road or moving slowly near the distant treeline, green and yellow and rusted metal chugging away with a rumble that rivals the engine of Dad's car.
You've seen this so many times: in Iowa and Nebraska and Ohio and Vermont. You've seen more of this than you've seen cities. The America you know is lonely and flat, or lonely and rolling. It changes its colors, from green to red to gold to white to black when the sun goes down and the moon's too new. But it's pretty much the same. Same land, same people out there. Same car, with the same company of Sam and Dad inside.
Lately though, you've felt different. You get a little twitchy looking at cornfields.
Last week, Dad drank his dinner in celebration of another successful job with no thanks for it but a set of bruised fingernails and pair of ruined jeans, torn by the wet hand that gripped at him until you burned the bones like you were taught to and the ghost disappeared. So, while Dad slept off his stupor, and Sam slept off his two servings of canned ravioli, you couldn't sleep at all. You stayed up watching some movie about a retarded (no, handicapped, you're supposed to say handicapped) guy who gets killed and comes back as a vengeful scarecrow. It was pretty cool at the time. But now you see fields and think of that scarecrow: tromping through the unharvested stalks, peering out from the holes in its burlap sack of a head.
You know it's silly, but you feel like you're being watched.
Checking on Sam, you know it's not him, because he's craning his neck to check out a barn you've passed on the left. Dad's eyes, as usual, are locked on the road.
In under a minute, you pass another barn. It's weather-beaten red, more like a dull-dark pink, and looks to be in disrepair. But the proximity makes you think that maybe you're finally reaching civilization.
On this barn, like the last, you see weird symbols: circular signs with flowers on them and birds spouting plumage of red and green like some kind of wilted peacocks. Without asking, Dad tells you about them. He calls them hex signs. And that sounds bad to you, or naughty - so much like sex. And you forget about the eyeless scarecrow and think of other movies you've seen on TV: that swell of music and slow fade out that always means the man and woman are doing it, though they never show you exactly how "it" goes.
But hex signs, Dad says, are good. They ward off evil. Like salt, but painted and more permanent. He starts talking about the Pennsylvania Dutch, how they weren't really Dutch but German, which sounds confusing. Why call it something it isn't? People keep making things so complicated when they're really so simple, you think.
Dad says, "Deutsch" - that Dutch is a corruption of that word. And that word, Deutsch, means German. In German, no less.
It's a funny sounding word, and you bite your lip. But Sam doesn't hold back. He says, "Deutsch," screws up his nose, and starts giggling for five whole minutes. You resist for two of those minutes, until his escalating laughter carries you along on an invisible leash, following after Sammy, always.
You cross your eyes at him and repeat the word, over-emphasizing the doy sound. His cheeks go bright red as he loses breath to laughter and the effort it takes to mimic you, both of you volleying the word back and forth, until Dad turns up the radio and you know it's time to settle down and be quiet. Sam's still getting the hang of that, so you pull him in, stuffing his nose into your armpit, pretending to give him a noogie. Really, you're only trying to stifle his giggling until he tires himself out, and before Dad gets pissed off.
The last time you pissed Dad off, he stopped the car and made you and Sammy do laps around an empty parking lot where a Hardee's used to be. The time before that, he tailgated the car in front of you so close you got scared, put your arm over Sam's chest in case Dad slammed on the brakes and you both went flying, so that at least it would be you first and not Sam. When Dad had finally backed off, you let Sam go. He'd been quiet, hadn't squirmed at all - like he knew how scared you were and that scared him into submission too. You never wanted him to be scared like that. The pain in your foot where you'd pressed it so hard into the curve of the footwell, like a phantom brake pedal, was your punishment for sharing your fear with your brother. If you limped a little on your way to the motel room that night, you figured you deserved it.
There's a third barn - or thousandth, really, depending on how you're counting - up the road, and Dad slows as you approach it. Three hex signs form a trio of bright color within the triangle just below the peak of the roof on the side nearest the road. They look like pinwheels of blue and yellow and red, swirling stars and symmetrical flowers with petals that give the illusion of movement. The center one contains a fat, squat heart in a ring of black, kept apart from the other symbols. Kept safe, you think, but really kept separate.
When Dad parks in the gravel of the shoulder, you expect him to tell you to stay in the car and watch over Sam. But he says, "Come on."
Past the barn, up a deceptively steep slope of grass, over its crest and down onto a flatter span of land you come to an old whitewashed house. Dad doesn't walk up to the front door, but keeps going, around the side and around the back, rustling through the browning grass, until stopping several yards where there seems to be nothing.
You stick close to Sam, so it takes a minute for you to catch up to Dad and see that he hasn't chosen some random stopping point. Instead, there's a water pump - its cylindrical base a peeling red, its metal handle kept bare and cold-looking. You imagine the well water it would bring up, just as cold. You check Sam's jacket to make sure it's zipped up. When you see that it isn't, you do it for him, ignoring the way he whines your name. The weather isn't that chilly yet - even for fall, even for PA - but he needs to learn. Besides, Dad can't afford for him to get sick, and he still hasn't gotten the hang of blowing his nose by himself. You sniffle involuntarily, and scold yourself for it. You can't get sick either. You won't, you think, resolutely.
Before you do, Sam notices what Dad's looking at: not the water pump, but what's beneath it. There's a slab of dirty marble, half-sunk in the ground.
"It's supposed to be a splash pad," Dad says. "But-"
Crouching down, Dad digs his nails under one edge and heaves the slab out of the ground. He grunts and lets it drop over onto its other side with a heavy thump. One worm wriggles off the marble and into the grass. Others squirm around in the rectangle of black earth, their brown-pink bodies flopping this way and that. Little gray bugs curl in on themselves. Sam leans over, fingers outstretched toward the exposed bugs. You stop him just before he picks up one of the worms, remembering the last time he did and freaked out when it peed on him. Of course, he was five then. A whole year has gone by, so maybe he's forgotten.
You've forgotten about the slab for a second. But Dad reminds you as he suddenly returns it to its original spot, nudging it into place with the heel of his boot, covering the worms and the bugs. You hope they haven't been squished, feel your hopes dashed as Dad stomps the marble further down until it's level with the ground, further still until it's just below the surface, the outline of surrounding dirt and grass collapsing over the edges.
Sam taps you on the shoulder. But when you turn around, he's not there. You spot him on the other side of Dad, staring at the marble with wide eyes. You realize Sam isn't tall enough to touch you on the top of your shoulder. But you get distracted from that thought when he says:
"Was that a grave?"
Sam looks up at Dad, but you stare at your brother, looking for answers Dad can't provide.
Dad says nothing before Sam speaks up again. "There was writing on it."
"Did you read what it said?" Dad asks.
"It said die," Sam tells him. "I saw die."
You watch Dad's fingers scratch at the back of his head, knead at his neck. "Yeah, Sammy," he says. "It had the word die on it."
"It was a grave." Sam's cheeks and nose are pink from the fall air, but the rest of his face has gone white. "Dad, you shouldn't be standing on it. You're not supposed to stand on graves."
Sam doesn't know how many graves Dad has already stood on, or in. And he won't know, as long as you can help it. You reach out to tug at Dad's jacket, risking his ire. But Dad backs away on his own.
Sam looks relieved. "Sorry," he says, to the ground, not to Dad or you, and you shiver though you're plenty warm enough in the flannel jacket that used to belong to Dad and hangs down over your hands and thighs.
Dad reaches a hand out toward Sam, tucks a lock of hair behind his ear. You don't have to see Dad's face to know the expression on it. You've seen it before paired with that same gesture a few times when Dad stood over Sam's side of the bed, while he slept and you pretended, Dad saying goodnight with a crack in his voice that made your chest hurt like your ribs were breaking. Except you had a broken rib once and it wasn't quite the same. But both hurts made it hard for you to breathe.
What you didn't notice before, you can see in front of you now: your breath in the air, and Dad's and Sam's. So you're relieved when Dad leads you back to the car.
Passing the house, you see a face in the window on the second floor. You think you should be glad to get out of there before the owner calls the police on you. But you're not glad. There's something about that face in the window that doesn't feel like a threat. You just feel sad. Sad enough to cry.
But you'll be eleven in a few months, and you're too old to cry. So it must be the fall air, too dry and stinging your eyes.
Back in the car, Sam sits closer to you than he has to and Dad keeps the music down low. It's the one about Jeremiah the bullfrog - the one Sam made a story about, said Jeremiah was a friend of Kermit's from back in the swamp. You turn to Sam, wanting to ask Sam to tell you again about Jeremiah and Kermit playing dueling banjoes, but Sam stretches toward you and whispers into your ear, "Are we going to die?"
You don't know how to answer that. You know the answer, but can't tell him. You can't even tell him, That's so far off, Sammy. You don't know that. And, while sometimes you can lie to him, right now you can't.
Pointing out the window, you say, "Look, Sam, moo cows."
Sam looks, but says, "They're just cows."
He's growing up so fast; you'd do anything to hear him say moo cows or buffo again.
He shuffles around in the seat, looks out the other window where there are no cows or horses or barns. Only trees, the fields gone and replaced by forest. Sam's reflection is as distant and sad as that face in the window at that old house.
After several miles of trees, you come upon fields again, more farms, and a stand selling pumpkins and apples. Dad stops the car and buys you and Sam candied apples, called mojhy apples according to the old guy in overalls selling them. The apples are covered in a shiny red glaze that cracks when you bite into them. It's a satisfying sound, and the sweetness takes your mind off things you don't want to think about. Better still, Sam's gets the sticky coating all over his mouth and tries to lick it off with his tongue, screwing up his face in concentration. While he's focused on that, you steal a bite from his apple.
"Hey!" he yells. And you're off, chasing each other around the car and the stand, laughing and running and trying to eat your apples all at the same time.
Dad lets you go, lets you wear yourselves out. It feels like a peace offering, a consolation for whatever happened back at the farm with the water pump and the overturned gravestone. But you push that back and focus on the crispness of the apple and the sharp sound of Sam's laughter, the smile too wide for him to hide it behind a disappearing apple on a tiny little stick.
That night, you find sleep easily, drained from all the fresh air, the running around, the emotions dragging you about like a rag doll. Of course, you wait until Sam falls asleep first, eyelids heavy enough that, were you a cartoon, you'd prop them up with toothpicks.
Yeah, cartoons aren't real. But so many seemingly unreal things are. You already know this. And you wake up in the middle of the night to another thing that other people only think exists in stories.
You don't open your eyes when you wake up, but you listen. The sound of Dad's voice carries through the small motel room, past the partition sectioning off your shared bed and the kitchenette where Dad's talking on the phone. It takes you a few seconds to figure he's talking to Uncle Bobby - the tone of Dad's voice familiar and relaxed in a way you don't hear often when he's talking to others. It reminds you a little of how he used to talk to Mom, though that was different. Because she was Mom. But he lets himself go a little when he talks to Bobby, not masking himself the way he does when he talks to strangers. Real Dad, not Hunter Dad. Yet he's talking about a hunt.
He's talking about the marble slab that turned out to be a grave marker, you realize.
"That's what it said, exactly. I wrote it down while the boys were horsing around just in case, but I remember." You hear the crinkling of paper. "Beware ye who look upon my early grave, for ye too shall die.."
Die, it said. You think of Sam's unanswered question whispered into your ear.
"I doubt it's a curse. Probably just scared whoever saw it last. Person who wrote that epitaph was too clever for their own good." There's a pause, then: "Yeah, you're right, it probably was the parents' grief getting the best of them. I can't imagine-"
Dad's voice cuts off, but you can't tell if it's because he lowered his voice or stopped talking.
"Yeah, I think the girl's still around. There were signs. Saw my breath in the air, but it isn't cold enough here for that. She was definitely there. Whether she's responsible for the Schneider kid's death, I don't know."
Sam snuffles in his sleep and you will him to not wake up. He's seen enough today; he doesn't need to hear this.
"Mmm, same thing," Dad says. "She and her friends had a slumber party the night of the first frost, put out pails of water, just like the tale goes. The next morning, she saw the shape of a coffin etched into hers. Died a month later, just like Amelia Amanda."
You burrow further into the covers when you hear the name. You know it, but you don't know how. The face in the window. The upside down gravestone. The girl who saw her own fate carved in a pail of ice.
"I'm going to talk to the English teacher tomorrow. Apparently she's the one who's been telling kids about these folk traditions. Figures she would think they were harmless. Better find out what else she's been teaching, besides how girls used to try to predict who they would marry."
You think about how you and Sam are supposed to start at a new school come Monday. It's nearby, but probably not the one Dad's talking about, not if he doesn't trust one of the teachers there, likely meaning he wouldn't risk enrolling you there at all. If he did, you could help out; maybe you'd even get the same teacher, could ask her questions. But Dad doesn't think you're ready for that yet, probably. He still only takes you on the easy hunts, though you insist you can handle more. You're a good shot. And, okay, you're small, but you're fast. And you're not stupid. You could be an asset to Dad, you just know it.
But if experience is anything to go by, he'll keep you watching over Sam. Which is fine. Sam needs watching over. But you can do both. You can watch him at night and scope out the school during the day, sneak off during lunch or recess, maybe even during class if the school turns out to be big enough, understaffed enough. But if it's around here, you don't think those chances are high. In fact, you picture an old-fashioned, one room schoolhouse on the edge of one of those endless fields, smell of manure ever-present in the air. The school bus is probably a buggy driven by some Amish dude. At least that would mean horses, you think, and look at Sam. Then you remember. Sam doesn't care about horses anymore. Not the same way he used to. It doesn't light him up.
You shift closer, not caring that it's a girl move, and drape your arm over Sam's middle. You can feel his breath on your chin, warm on your neck. It lulls you back to sleep as Dad's voice fades into the background, a low drone running on like an engine.
When you wake up, there's less warmth and you must have moved your arm because you can't feel Sam beneath it. The mattress feels lighter too, and your eyes snap open.
The bed is empty.
The room is dark, save the harsh light of the television set, still on with Dad slumped and snoring in the chair in front of it.
You look toward the bathroom, but the door is open. Sam never leaves it open.
You don't panic. You can't panic. Dad taught you better. But your heart races to spite you.
Sam isn't under the bed or on the floor or in the tub, and you knew he wouldn't be. He hasn't gone for a drink of water, or to pull an extra blanket from the closet or a toy from your bags. He hasn't slept with a toy since you told him only babies do that. An image of Sam as a baby flashes through your mind, and you run straight out the front door, the phantom sensation of a bundle carried in your arms making you want to cry. But you didn't cry then and you won't now.
Your first instinct is to try the car, but he's not there. You see him before that.
A few doors down from where you're staying, Sam is sitting on the curb of the sidewalk that stretches along the front of the motel, just at the end. His knees are tucked up to his chin and his arms locked tight around his legs. He's wearing nothing but his pajamas: your old Hulk t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants. You're tempted to take off your shirt to cover him up, even though you're wearing nothing but your pajamas too, and they're thin and hole-ridden and no more likely to warm him than his own.
"Sammy," you say. "What are you doing? Get back inside." You try to scoop him up in your arms, as if you could gather his tiny body as easily as a pile of laundry. He resists, stubborn and somehow more solid than usual in his fixed determination.
"Not until it freezes," he says.
You follow his gaze, which hasn't once left the space in front of his bare feet. The collapsible cup from Dad's travel kit is in front of him, filled with water. It's still liquid, but you can just make out the crystallization of ice creeping up around the outer limits.
"You were awake," you say, thinking of Dad's phone call to Uncle Bobby.
Sam nods. "I want to see," he says.
"Don't be so stupid, Sammy." You curl a hand under his upper arm and try to get him up. "That's for girls anyway."
"Shut up," Sam says and hugs his legs impossibly closer to his body, trapping your fingers. "Maybe it works for boys too."
"And maybe it's bullshit," you say. "And don't you dare tell Dad I used that word." You point your finger at him. It feels weird using your left hand to make the gesture, so you yank your hand free from Sam, regretting it the instant your fingers are away from his body heat. You sit down on the cold cement, wincing at the way it goes through you. "Anyway," you say, "We can leave it here and wait until morning to check on it." You try once more to urge him up and back to the room.
"But I want to see how it happens." Sam looks at you, imploring.
"What do you think you'll see?"
You imagine a creature, coming to etch pictures into ice: an old witch maybe, hunched over, scratching off the crust of frost with a long, gnarled fingernail. But Sam doesn't answer that question.
"I think I'll see a coffin too." He hooks his chin over his knees again, looking mournfully at his little cup as if such a small thing could hold the fate of the world. Or Sam's world. So, the world, you think.
"Might just mean you'll marry an undertaker." You bump shoulders with him.
He doesn't laugh at your joke. You wouldn't either, have to force the one you make as it is.
"I don't want to die, Dean." His voice is so soft, but his words hit hard, send your blood rushing, ringing in your ears.
What can you tell him? People die. Some people come back. But that's never good. But if Sammy died, you'd want him back; you know that as sure as you know anything and can't lie to yourself about it. You envelop him, your goosebumped limbs overlapping his goosebumped limbs.
You try again.
"You're gonna if you stay out here much longer." You bury your nose in his thick mess of hair. It smells a little like he needs to wash it. "Catch your death of cold." A breeze picks up, and you both tremble a little. "Me too."
"No, Dean, you can't." Sam presses his face into you, nose squashed against your breastbone, breath coming fast, a quickfire contrast of cold-hot with each intake and exhale. "You can't," he says, and it catches.
He tries to hide the sob, but you know. You won't call him on it.
When you try to stand up, he goes with you without effort. He clutches at your wrist and pulls you to the door of your motel room as though you were the obstinate one who wouldn't budge because of a cup and a ghost story and an early grave you were too young to see let alone comprehend.
Inside, Dad's still asleep - his hunter's instincts slacking or yours strengthening enough to not tip him off.
You put Sam to bed, pull out an extra pair of socks, sweatpants and sweatshirt, and wriggle under the covers, dressing him in an extra layer, hoping he'll warm up quicker that way.
You warm up with him clinging to you like a second layer of your own skin.
This is how you fall asleep.
In the morning, you wake up before Sam, after Dad.
You brush your teeth while Dad shaves using the same mirror. He rinses off and you reach for the mouthwash.
Right beside it is the cup from his travel kit. It's empty, collapsed into its neat ring of concentric circles. On the bottom is a starburst design you never noticed before.
"Want to tell me how this got all the way outside?" Dad's eyes meet yours in the bathroom mirror.
"Sorry, sir," you say. "Heard you on the phone."
You let him put together the rest, leave Sam out of it.
"Did you...?" You don't know how to come out with it.
"Did I what?" Dad looks like he knows. Dad always does.
"See anything." You nod as if shaking out the words. "Did you see anything?"
Dad sighs. "There was just water in it, Dean. No frost last night." Dad towels off his face and leaves you alone in the bathroom. "Hurry up if you want pancakes," Dad says from the other room.
You stand there, remembering the ice that was already beginning to form along the edges of the cup in the middle of the night.
Sam stumbles in, and you toss him the shampoo and leave him to it, let him shower first, use up as much hot water as he needs.
You have breakfast at the motel restaurant where there are antique model airplanes and something called scrapple on the menu in addition to the regular bacon and sausage and home fries. Sam makes a funny face when he tries some, so you take his helping in exchange for one of your pancakes. Outside, church bells ring.
You count them off with Sam. Nine. "Nine chimes," you say.
He's supposed to say mwahaha. Like the Count.
But Sam's looking at his plate of pancakes, where he's cut away their edges, carved the circles into a jagged rectangle.
You think of Amelia Amanda's gravestone. It said die.
You tap your fork around your plate, your shoulders drawn tight like Dad's when he's angry. But you're not angry. You're just scared.
Not of scarecrows coming out of cornfields or ghosts coming out of their graves. You're not scared of that face in the window or of Dad's temper. You're not even scared of what might have been etched into the ice in that cup. You're scared of what Sam has seen, and that he'll never be able to go back.
You're never going to go back.
Notes:
- This is based on the folk tale of Amelia Amanda’s tombstone, as told in Charles J. Adams’ Ghost Stories Of Berks County - Book Two. It appears to be undocumented online, but this fic does not waver much from the basic story of Amelia Amanda, thought to possibly be Amelia Amanda Schneider, a 19th century resident of Oley, PA. The chapter in Adams’ book tells of a marble slab used as a water pump’s splash pad on the farmland where her family supposedly once lived, revealed to be a gravestone that was turned upside down. The epitaph has been reused here verbatim.
The story also tells of Amelia Amanda following a local tradition of a girl setting out a pail of water to divine the occupation of her future husband, and how Amelia woke to find the clearly defined shape of a coffin in her pail. She is said to have died months later.
Former occupants of the residence, including sculptor Ramon Lago, have sensed presences in the old farmhouse and adjacent barn. The mother of one previous owner indeed claimed to have seen a face in one of the home’s windows.
There’s a scarier story involving a child who lived in the house for a short time and suffered from horrible nightmares that caused her to wake up screaming - “blood-curdling screams,” according to the book. After one nightmare, her parents went to her and, after she stopped screaming, she sat up, looked straight forward, and said, “I am dead!”
While that last bit is a thrilling part of the overall tale of Amelia Amanda, I wanted to keep the overall horror of this fic as quiet-toned as possible. The sadness of growing up to realize what death is, and witnessing that realization in someone you love, seemed more important to me than thrills and scares.
- The Antique Airplane Restaurant was a real restaurant with - wait for it - antique model airplanes on display. It was attached to the Dutch Colony Motor Inn. Both have been torn down and replaced by a strip mall. Because America doesn’t have enough strip malls.
- The Count is, of course, the Muppet from Sesame Street. And Kermit’s swamp days alludes to the beginning of The Muppet Movie.
- The song about Jeremiah the bullfrog is better known as “Joy To The World” by Three Dog Night.
- The scarecrow movie that scares Dean is a 1980s made-for-television movie called Dark Night Of The Scarecrow. It’s basically the origin of my own fear of scarecrows. Seeing that plus Children Of The Corn at a young age made growing up around corn fields a whole slew of fun, let me tell you.
- A brief background on hex signs. The trio of signs Dean sees on the side of the barn was inspired by this photo.
- Hex not only means “a curse or magic spell,” but it also comes from the Greek for six - which just happens to be Sam’s age in this fic.