Orphans, for stardustdean (1/2)
Embrace your weekend with our first two-parter! :)
Title: Orphans
Recipient: stardustdean
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 18,000
Warnings: child abuse, violence
Author's Notes: I mixed and matched aspects of a few of your prompts--there was just so much good stuff to choose from.
Summary: After John dies, a young Dean and Sam are kidnapped by hunters and taken to a crumbling stone abbey that sits on a cliff above the sea. They're separated. Dean's situation is bad ... but what the hell are they doing to Sam?
After Dad died when Dean was nine, Dean and Sam lived with Bobby for a couple of years. Then Bobby went on a long hunt and left them with a hunter, who went on a hunt herself and left them with another hunter named Bill. Shortly after they arrived at Bill’s, two hunters named Dennis and Barbara called him up and told him Bobby said he should bring Sam and Dean to them until he got back, and that was how they came to be winding down an almost undetectable dirt road through thick forest at night, Bill cursing and consulting the letter Dennis had sent him containing the directions, muttering about how far it was from the nearest town and how glad he was that Dennis had urged him to bring along an extra can of gas.
Dean got a bad feeling as the place finally came into view, black against the sky, on a cliff above crashing ocean waves, made of stone and half crumbled. Bill said it was the abbey Dennis and Barbara, a priest and a nun, tended. It looked like an evil castle out of an old cartoon.
Dennis and Barbara greeted Bill cordially. When Bill complained that the place was impossible to find, Dennis bashfully read over the letter again to check that he’d gotten the directions right. They had dinner. Barbara asked Sam sweetly whether he’d like to see his room and led him away by the hand. Dennis showed Bill to another room. Dean heard thick wood doors close all around the stone building, leaving him alone there in the cavernous dining room.
That was the last time he saw Sam.
He woke on the dusty burlap bags he’d piled together to sleep on in a hallway near the kitchen. Bill must have left first thing in the morning, his truck gone by the time Dean awoke in the late morning after staying up half the night looking for Sam.
There was no food anywhere, no bed, no soap, nothing. When he finally saw Dennis late that afternoon, he demanded to see Sam. What the hell was this place, and who the hell were these people?
“Sam’s fine,” Dennis said absently.
“I want to see him,” Dean said flatly.
“No.”
Dean looked askance. ‘No’? He hadn’t said anything about starving all day or sleeping in a hallway, but this was unacceptable. “Um, yeah, I’m gonna see him, so take me to him.”
“No,” Dennis said sharply. “And why are the plates from dinner still on the table? Are you so spoiled and incompetent that it never occurred to you to clean them up?”
Dean looked around. Everything about this was bad. This was bad.
Dad had prepared them for all kinds of situations. Dean could hunt and cheat and charm and steal, but nothing had ever prepared him for anything like this. Do the dinner dishes?? Doing the dinner dishes with Dad pretty much involved throwing away the can or the bag, and living with Bobby wasn’t much different. He didn’t know what to say, but if doing the dinner dishes was what it would take, he would do them. “And get tonight’s dinner started. We can’t live on cold cuts.”
Dean had hunted around the kitchen for something edible that morning, and found nothing but bags of grain. He’d finally snarfed a couple of ripe tomatoes he’d found in a courtyard garden while casing the place. “With what?” Dean snarked.
Narrowing his eyes, Dennis led Dean to the garden, then to the kitchen, where he pointed out those bags of grain. “You can slaughter a chicken, too. They’re down by the pasture. Also, the cherries are ripe.”
Dean was getting pretty freaked out. Forcing Dean to serve them just so he might get to see Sam sometime ... this was nuts. And maybe impossible. “Um ... I don’t know how to cook.”
With an annoyed sigh, Dennis took down three of the books that stood on a dusty shelf and slammed them on the counter in front of Dean. Cookbooks probably, from the faded pictures of vegetables, fruits, and cuts of meat on the front of one, but ancient, Dean would guess from the 1920s or before. Dean was so out of his depth ... but would work with whatever he got.
“And then you’ll let me see Sam.”
“How many times do I have to tell you no? Are you slow?”
“Listen, buddy, you’re taking me to Sam, period. Now.”
Dennis slapped him, hard, across the face.
After feeling at his cheek in disbelief, Dean immediately turned and threw a punch at Dennis, only to get elbowed in the face and then tripped onto the floor. Dennis’s movements were quick and efficient. For a priest, he sure knew how to fight.
Now that he was on the floor anyway, Dean went for his legs, trying to kick them out from under him, but Dennis saw his intention instantly and instead kicked Dean three times in his middle in quick succession, so hard it knocked the wind out of him. As Dean gasped futilely for breath, Dennis grabbed him by the hair and yanked him upright. “Listen here, you little shit. I voted to kill you as soon as Bill was gone, but Barbara said we could put you to work. So guess what, if we can’t get any work out of you, the only thing you’re good for is compost for the garden.”
Dean’s ability to breathe had partly come back as Dennis spoke. “What are you doing to Sam?” he managed to choke out.
“Unlike you, Sam has value. We would never hurt Sam. So as hard as it’ll be for someone like you not to be nothing but trouble to everyone around you, I suggest you find it in you to try.” Dennis let him go and stalked out of the room, leaving Dean there holding his chest, his cheek, and ... well, lots of parts of him hurt after being knocked onto the stone floor--knees, elbows, just ... everything. He crawled over to lean against a cabinet as he got his breath back while he thought over what he’d heard.
He knew this place was bad news the second he laid eyes on it. It was worse than he ever could have imagined, though, and it wasn’t even full of monsters, but regular humans, who were crafty and fast and brutal and better at fighting than Dean, which was not something he often encountered. And they wanted to kill him.
And maybe Sam, too, despite Dennis’s reassurances, yet ... Dean had some reason to believe he was telling the truth. The solicitous way Barbara had spoken to Sam as she led him away made it seem as if she was very enchanted with him indeed, and Dennis was nice to Sam, too, acting like he was eager to meet him, while come to think of it, Dennis hadn’t greeted Dean upon his arrival, and Barbara hadn’t even looked at him once all through dinner. Anyway, Dennis had told Dean what he did with bodies, and there were no fresh mounds in the garden that morning.
Still, he had to see Sam to know for sure. His first thought was resistance--if he couldn’t beat Dennis in a fight, he could at least resist--but the unfeeling chill in his voice when he told Dean he’d sooner kill him if he couldn’t get him to work made clear he would do it--tonight, even. Like he’d be glad to prove to Barbara Dean wasn’t worth keeping around.
It rankled every part of him to do it, as he finally got himself to his feet, feeling for broken ribs, but he opened one of those cookbooks.
So now all was explained about leaving him to fend for himself for a place to sleep. At least in this enormous edifice that must have been built forever ago to house many monks or nuns, he had some options. Clearly no one had lived here for decades, as many of the stone walls had crumbled. Maybe it even once held services for the public; Dean figured the big room he could see from the outside with stained-glass windows that reached up two stories or more must be the chapel.
Yet as he explored every corner, Dean discovered only the kitchen, dining room, and connected hallways were open to him. Every time Dennis went back into the abbey’s interior, Dean could hear the heavy wood bar clank into place to keep Dean out, the only kind of lock this place had. Dean found a private corner at the end of that same caved-in hallway where he spent his first night here, and added whatever was the closest thing to something warm and soft he could find to the pile of burlap he’d made then. No one ever seemed to go there.
Also, Dean finally found some soap in the back of a cupboard, which appeared to be homemade, only there was no running water here, just a hand-crank well in the garden. Dennis was always making him bring him pails full of water, getting more and more irritated that there weren’t more, until Dean finally just brought in a couple every time he went outside, and left them in the hallway Dennis went down--the same hallway where Dean left the meals he prepared them--and finally Dennis seemed more or less satisfied. Still, now that he had some soap, Dean managed to at least get a little cleaner every now and then before he had to go garden or clean or cook or slaughter an animal or some other kind of dirty work.
He wondered about Sam. Did they give him access to soap? Sam was kind of a fastidious kid. What sort of slavery were they making him engage in? And what was so “valuable” about him to them? Sometimes, Dean was almost glad for the work, because it kept his mind from spiralling down very dark paths about what they could be doing to Sam right now. He had to see him. He just had to.
He got to sooner than he expected. Dean was preparing lunch to the best of his ability when Dennis came into the kitchen. Dean jumped back when Dennis reached for the knife in his hand, but Dennis just said, “I’ll take over. Go get clean. Totally clean. Haven’t you ever considered washing your clothes?” He rolled his eyes, but went on chopping the tomato Dean was going to put on the chicken sandwiches. “Put on some clean ones.”
Dean went and got a change of clothes out of his bag, then went out to the garden and washed up thoroughly, glad for the opportunity. He’d wondered if he might get in trouble for using the soap or spending time doing something other than work, so it was nice to be told straight out he could.
When he got back inside, Dennis was putting the sandwiches on the table in the huge dining room, with a bowl full of cherries Dean had picked--basically the same thing they’d had every meal every day since Dean started cooking for them. Dean saw that Dennis had put down four plates. He just had time to register what this meant when he heard the door into the area where they kept Sam open, and he heard Sam’s voice. Dean ran toward it, shouting his name.
“Dean!” Sam ran to him and hugged him.
Dean hugged him tight, feeling that he was all right--he really seemed to be all right--whole, not limping or in pain. Only after he’d absorbed this did he start to notice everything else. They’d shaved Sam’s head. Dean pressed his hand against the short fuzz. Sam had preferred his hair longish since he was four. “They shaved your head?” he asked wonderingly. Sam now had thin golden earrings--well, really, just a long thread--that connected on each side to another thread that went around his neck. Dean touched his earlobes. “They pierced your ears?” he asked, bewildered. Sam wore long, white silk robes with royal blue edging and gold details. “What--?”
“See? All your worry was for naught, both of you,” Dennis said pleasantly, pulling out a chair. “Sit, Sam.”
Sam clutched Dean’s hands, staring up into his face anxiously--hands which also had thin golden chains jingling on them--but after only a few moments, obeyed Dennis’s command. Dean still had bruises and sore spots to remind him to obey Dennis. What had they done to Sam to convince him of the same thing?
They all sat down around the table. Dean kept looking over Sam, looking for bruises or scratches, any sign of abuse, and couldn’t see anything, but since almost his whole body was hidden from Dean’s view under those robes, there really was no telling. The chains ran along the backs of his hands to a bracelet from a golden ring around his middle finger. Another chain disappeared up his sleeve from the bracelet. Sam didn’t seem fearful, though, which was in the end the only thing that could really reassure Dean.
“Sam absolutely insisted we all always eat together,” Dennis said, shaking his head but smiling fondly at Sam. Sam said nothing, but his expression was steely.
“What do they have you doing in there?” Dean had to ask.
Sam’s answer was guarded, but he didn’t seem to be trying to say anything to Dean in code. “Just ... religious rituals, I guess.”
Nothing that had happened since they’d arrived in this place had made any sense, but somehow, this was the one thing Dean really couldn’t get his mind around. “Wh-- what??”
“Sam’s special,” Barbara said, beaming creepily at Sam.
“He has special abilities,” Dennis went on proudly.
“We’re helping him hone them,” Barbara said.
Dean looked quickly at Sam, quickly enough to see his expression darken when Barbara said this. He didn’t seem scared, but whatever it was they were making him do, Sam didn’t like it.
Lunch passed with Dennis and Barbara doing most of the talking. Sometimes, Dean or Sam tried to talk to each other, to ask or communicate something they weren’t sure Dennis and Barbara would allow, and sure enough, if they didn’t like the direction the question was going, they loudly talked over them. Barbara especially was good at peppering Sam with questions and observations until he lost track of what he’d been trying to say.
At the end of lunch, after letting them hug one last time (Dean’s attempt to exchange some real information at a whisper was lost in Dennis’s seemingly deliberate loud blather), Barbara led Sam back into the forbidden area, Dennis smiling until they were gone, whereupon Dennis grabbed Dean by the shirt and dragged him into the kitchen. “Why are there no eggs?? Where’s all the milk? I didn’t find a thing in the root cellar! Chicken-and-tomato sandwiches and a bowl of cherries every single meal?? What the fuck is wrong with you?!”
“It’s all that was there! It’s what you told me to make!” Dean cried.
Dennis slapped him, then not seeming satisfied, slapped him again, harder. “It never occurred to you to collect the eggs?? Have you really just let them sit there all this time? And the milk?? Have you milked a single sheep??”
“I’ve never done anything like that! I’m sorry! I don’t know how!”
Dean cringed, cringed harder when Dennis let him go, expecting a vicious beating, but instead Dennis, with a great sigh, said, “Then I’ll show you.”
He led him to the animal pens whence Dean had retrieved the chickens for the sandwiches. He showed him how to milk the sheep. He warned him not to slaughter the sow, and told him which pigs he could slaughter and when. “Remember, animals generally taste best when they’re young. And males are useless; you only need to keep one around to fertilize the females.” Dean couldn’t help wondering if he was talking about Dean and Sam when he talked about males being ‘useless.’ Were they just fattening up Sam and Dean to eat later? Maybe they really were monsters.
“You need to scythe hay for the animals to eat during the winter. I’ll help you do that. And we need to harvest the wheat soon. I’ll help you with that, too, and show you how to thresh it.”
Dennis took him to the garden and told him what each kind of plant was and how to harvest it.
The more Dennis had to explain to Dean, the more irritated he got, especially as Dean had to ask a lot of questions. Better to ask now, when Dennis was in a relatively good mood. “Did your father teach you nothing about how to live?” Dennis finally asked condescendingly.
“Yes!” Dean snapped. “He taught us all about how to live in this century!”
“Oh ... all that credit-card thievery he was always engaging in,” Dennis sniffed.
“You knew my dad??” Dean asked, stunned. Dad spent time with this freak??
“Sure, sure. We were hunting buddies for a bit, with Pastor Jim. Do you know Pastor Jim?”
“Yes.” Pastor Jim knew this creep, too?? “Were you hunting with Dad the day he died?” Dean could not help but ask bluntly.
Dennis sneered at him. “Oh, you think I killed your father? I didn’t. We had a falling out a couple of years before that. I hadn’t seen him since.”
“What did you fall out over?” It didn’t surprise Dean at all that Dad had ultimately decided this bastard wasn’t the sort of person he ought to be acquainted with.
“We had a big fight. Your father was a moral absolutist. He couldn’t see the forest for the trees. That’s all your dad ever did, was chop down trees. But you’ll see, when you start chopping trees for firewood--you’ll need to do that, too--that even if you tried to chop down every tree in this forest, by the time you got done, a whole new forest would have grown in its place. That’s what monsters are like. You kill one here or there, a dozen more sprout up while you’re at it. We needed a bigger weapon, and I’d discovered that your father had one in his possession--an amazing weapon, if it could just be honed and developed properly ... but he refused. Your father was ill-tempered, stubborn, unpleasant--well, you know this, because you’re exactly like him. But he was also a fool. I always knew that in the end the only thing that could kill John Winchester was his own folly. So we moved back here, to wait until opportunity finally knocked. And here you are.” He gestured pleasantly at Dean, and in the direction of the chapel.
“‘Back’ here?”
“Yes. We grew up here, Barbara and I. It used to be an orphanage, run by nuns and one extremely cruel priest. We had to attend services in that chapel every day, and pray for our souls.” He pointed to the part of the abbey that had tall, ornate windows that looked down onto the courtyard.
“This place fell down since, I guess.”
“Yes. I looked into having it restored, but the cost was excessive. Most of it is still standing and as functional as ever. The stained-glass windows--somehow, they’re still in perfect condition, can you believe that? East-facing, even, bearing the brunt of the wind. The chapel’s still in great shape. It’s enough to make even a heathen like you a believer, though fools always manage to find some way to deny His existence. Honestly, I’m kind of glad the parts that caved in did. Too many memories.”
As Dennis spent the rest of the afternoon showing Dean the countless chores he was supposed to be tending to, Dean contemplated all he’d learned. Dad knew this guy?? Dad had some powerful weapon Dennis wanted to get his hands on to kill monsters with? Somehow, Dean and Sam’s arrival was the opportunity he’d been waiting for? Well, Sam’s ... Sam’s arrival? Dean looked up at the windows, looming above the garden courtyard. Just what the hell were they doing to him in there?
“The peaches are ripe,” Dennis told him one morning as Dean scrubbed the morning dishes in a basin. “You need to go out and harvest them, then preserve them.”
“... How?”
“Preserves, jam. Use the honey or the maple syrup for sweetener. There’s all the canning jars here you could ever need.” He opened the door to a pantry Dean had only glanced in once, the first day, and seeing it contained no food, never looked again. It was indeed full of an incredible number of jars. “I think you can handle making preserves yourself, but I’m going to supervise it when you start canning vegetables, or I’m sure you’ll manage to kill us all. Any flawed fruit, give to me to make wine and vinegar from. I’ll be handling that duty--I know too much about your genetic predispositions to let you anywhere near alcohol.” Dennis rolled his eyes. “Anyway, you need to get on harvesting today, or wild animals will get it all. Oh--pies are good, also.”
“Wait--pies??” Was this a trick?
“Yes, but they don’t keep more than a few days, so only make one when you plan to serve it. But you can also preserve the filling in jars so we can have pie all winter.”
“Yes, sir!”
Dennis frowned, seeming to wonder what was this new attitude and assuming it was some kind of sarcasm, but as soon as Dennis was gone, Dean dropped what he was doing, grabbed some buckets, and ran out to the orchard. Finally, one good thing had happened. Well, two: he and Sam were still alive.
As he said he would, Dennis supervised as Dean learned how to can the vegetables from the garden. “Even if your father never taught you anything else useful, I assume he taught you how to hunt?”
Dean glowered. “You can’t ever say one good word about my dad?” he finally muttered.
“He was a ruthless and effective hunter. How’s that?”
Dean said nothing, trying to hide his fury behind an expressionless mask.
“I asked you a question, Dean: Can you hunt?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t mean for monsters, I mean for animals in the forest.”
“I know that’s what you meant.”
“I figured you must, since you knew how to process the animal carcasses. Great, then stop slaughtering our animals and start hunting in the forest from now on. Especially once autumn hits, hunt as many animals as you can; it’ll preserve our own flocks so they can reproduce in spring, and the winter cold will keep the carcasses fresh ’til spring. Just don’t waste anything; don’t ever let anything rot.”
“Okay.”
“Also, you need to start cutting down trees so we have wood for the winter. Cut down any tree you want, as long as it’s fully grown, more or less. Just don’t cut down any tree that has something carved in it, or I will kill you. I mean it.”
Dean flinched and looked at his face to see if he was joking. He wasn’t. What the hell??
“That’s really not the way to motivate a guy.”
“What, you can’t tell when something’s been carved into a tree?” he asked, ridiculing.
“You know Bobby’s gonna come looking for us,” said Dean.
“No, he won’t,” Dennis said casually.
“Yes, he will!” Dean insisted. Of course Bobby would. He knew he would.
“He’ll probably try. But there are about sixty turns off the highway to get here, many of them unmarked. It’s not on any maps. He’d never find it.”
“But Bill’s been here! He could lead him back.”
Dennis laughed. “Bill could hardly find his way here. Besides, I kept the letter with the directions. I told him my directions were flawed, that I couldn’t quite remember exactly how to get here or back, and to just keep heading west and he’d find his way out. Either he succeeded, or ....” He shrugged.
Dean tried to hide his dismay.
“No one will ever find you here,” Dennis went on pleasantly, “so you may as well embrace your situation. It’s not going to improve. Get to work on that firewood, or we’ll all freeze to death when the weather turns.”
“I tied a rope around every tree you’re not allowed to cut,” Dennis said one day as he returned from the forest for lunch. “That way, there’ll be no mistakes.”
It was easier for Dennis to spend an entire morning doing that than to kill Dean? That seemed like progress. Or maybe he’d finally figured out Dean wasn’t about to risk cutting a single tree if it might just lead to his death.
“In fact, let’s go out there this afternoon and cut down some trees. There’s different methods that work better for different kinds of trees. I’ll show you.”
Dean dutifully followed him out there. There was a definite chill in the air. Dennis noticed it, too. “You feel that? That’s why we need firewood. The abbey is chilly even in summer; icicles hang from the rafters in winter.”
Dean watched and learned, mostly about how much damn work this was going to be, but as Dennis hacked away at tree limbs, Dean couldn’t help looking around at the trees with ropes tied around them, which were concentrated in this area--in fact, Dennis seemed to want to clear away every evergreen in this whole part of the forest, to let the deciduous trees with things carved in them have plenty of room to flourish.
When Dennis told him to get behind him so he could fell a tall tree, Dean did as instructed, looking up hauntedly at the carving in the smooth white bark of another tree, only to realize that, though on most trees the scar had grown and warped until it obscured what was written, this one’s carving was fresh, and it was a name: Evelyn. “Who’s Evelyn?” said Dean as the evergreen crashed to the ground.
At the dark look Dennis gave him, Dean took a couple of steps back, but Dennis just gazed at the writing. “My sister,” he said at last, and turned back to hack off more of the evergreen’s limbs.
“I didn’t know you had a sister.”
“I had dozens. Brothers, too. All the children in the orphanage were my brothers and sisters.”
“Oh.” There was a heaviness to the way Dennis was working now.
“We weren’t allowed to make graves or even gravestones for them when they died. They were to be composted or fed to the pigs. Any memorial discovered anywhere on the grounds was destroyed, everyone punished. But the trees ... the trees remain.” He pointed at one of the most obscured names. “That was one of the first ones we carved. It was already a full-grown tree then, but that was forty years ago, and this tree hasn’t even reached middle age.”
Dean looked around, getting freaked out as he saw more and more trees with ropes around them. “Looks like ... a lot of them died,” he said, his voice faltering.
“Dozens so far, though none of us has reached old age yet. Some were killed here, when they were children. Many. Others committed suicide after we escaped, or got involved in some sort of self-destructive lifestyle. More than half are gone already, that I know of; it could be more. I carve their name on another tree whenever I find out about a new one. It’s very difficult to survive a childhood like ours. That is, even if you make it to adulthood ... it’s hard to live with the scars, the memories. Terribly hard.”
He tossed down the axe and picked up the saw again. “That’s why Barbara and I are so glad we found Sam. Sam has the power to eradicate a tremendous amount of evil in the world single-handedly. Not the kind of evil Barbara and I endured--though we explored the possibility the priest was some kind of monster or demon, in the end we concluded he was human--but enough evil to make this world a much brighter place. I’m not sure Barbara and I could have survived if we hadn’t believed such a thing could one day come to pass. Okay, you try.”
Dean took over with the saw, doing as Dennis had taught him.
“Good,” said Dennis as he watched. “Now you just have to do this with about forty trees, then saw them into logs, and finally chop them into firewood, and we’ll have enough for the winter.” Dennis tossed the gloves to Dean and headed back to the abbey.
Forty trees?? It took him an hour to saw through a smallish tree to cut it down, a good half hour to cut a single thick log .... Chopping the firewood wasn’t too bad after that, but this was exhausting, tedious work. He tried to cut at least a couple of logs a day, but his arm was too tired to do more after that. Anyway, if he turned forty damn trees into firewood, he wouldn’t have time for anything else. Dennis was asking the impossible. Where was a chainsaw when you needed one? He could have it done in a day if he had one of those.
Dean was even more incensed when Dennis then took him out to a pile of rotted plants in the courtyard and informed him he was going to teach him how to make rope from the stuff. “We’re low on rope now, since I used so much on the trees, and you never want to run out of rope.”
Dean couldn’t suppress the fervent wish that Dennis needed more so he could hang himself. He settled down to watch ... and immediately scoffed. “You have got to be kidding me.”
Dennis stood up with barely suppressed irritation from where he’d bent, rubbing the stems over a piece of wood to soften them and then combing them through a thing that was like a hairbrush made of nails pounded through another piece of wood. After all that work, he’d gotten what looked like could be made into about a foot of rope. “What about this is amusing, Dean?”
“You expect me to chop forty trees into firewood, in addition to feeding and milking and slaughtering the animals, doing all the cooking, and now this, too??”
“All those things will constitute only a fraction of all your duties, Dean. I just haven’t had time to show you everything yet.”
“Fuck this.” Dean started out of the courtyard, stopped by a blow to the side of his head--from Dennis’s booted foot. Dean whirled around in disbelief, furiously sweeping dirt and mud off his face. “You son of a bitch,” he hissed, and lunged for him.
He really thought he was going to get to him first this time, and he might have, except Dennis didn’t hold back at all, never for a second. Where Dean might have pulled a punch to make sure he didn’t seriously hurt a guy, Dennis was not so generous. The board full of nails was right behind Dennis, and though Dean really wished Dennis would just die, he didn’t have it in him to kill a man in a fit of rage.
Dennis had no such qualms. Taking advantage of Dean’s momentary hesitation, he kneed Dean in the ribs, then got him in a chokehold. Dean fought it as hard as he could, elbowing at Dennis, but he was fast losing consciousness, the blood pounding in his ears.
Just as he was about to pass out, Dennis finally let him go, where Dean lay gagging and gasping for breath on the dirt. “I hate you so much,” Dean choked out, struggling to roll over onto his side.
“That’s nice. There’s a cliff edge right over there. How many times I’ve wanted to throw you over. It’d be easy, with you in this condition.”
“Fuck you. A thousand times, fuck you.” Dean groaned, managing to get to a sitting position, breathing hard. “Sam would never forgive you.”
“I’m not sure that matters that much. A broken Sam might be useful, too.”
Dennis must have seen the despair that came over Dean at those words, as then Dennis relaxed his aggressive stance. Dennis really ... for all his shows of respect toward Sam as compared to Dean, he felt no more warmth for an innocent seven-year-old at his mercy?
“All right, now, are you willing to learn how to be useful around here, or is it the cliff for you?”
Dean couldn’t help glancing up at the chapel windows as he silently obeyed. Had Sam seen his utter defeat? His head tingled from where Dennis had kicked it, he felt sick to his stomach, his heart was still pounding in his ears from almost losing consciousness, but the thing that stung intolerably was the humiliation at the thought that his little brother had witnessed it.
Once Dean had finally figured out what he was doing well enough to get done with his daily duties early in the afternoon, he went to the clifftop. He’d already cased the whole place and gotten a good idea of the layout. The chapel took up most of the east wall and part of the south. The entire north wall was rubble, except for a tower that rose out of some part of the building that was still standing, at the highest point, overlooking the ocean.
In his explorations, Dean had noticed the rope strung down the cliffside along steps cut into the rock, but he’d put off going down to the beach since he knew it wouldn’t lead to Sam. Today, though, he had the time. One day, maybe they could make a break for it at mealtime and escape via the ocean.
It was a good thing the rope was there, he discovered as he descended, as a couple of the steps had crumbled. Looking back up at them once he reached the bottom, he realized they must have been there for decades--centuries, even, although the rope was relatively new. At the foot of the steps was a cove ... and a small boat made of wood, that would fit two people at most. Under a rock outcropping, Dean found a box that contained fishing line, hooks, netting, crab traps ... all kinds of things. Was he allowed ...? Of course he was--nay, he was expected to; Dennis had already mentioned one night that fish or crab would be nice for a change.
Another thing that would be nice for a change would be to escape this Alcatraz, however temporarily, and spend some time relaxing in the afternoon sun, fishing. It was Bobby who really liked to fish. He’d taken Dean and Sam out several times. Dean never really saw the appeal, except that it was fun just hanging out doing nothing, spending a little time in nature with the people he loved. Sam liked to drag his hand through the water and try to peer deep enough into the murky depths to identify some sea creatures. It sounded like heaven right now, so far away from this place and his life here, it was hard to believe it ever happened. Dean put some tackle in the boat and pushed off into the cove, paddling out into the middle of it.
He’d found an old straw hat lying around and started using it to keep the sun off, since he was outside so much. After fishing a while, he leaned back, put his hat over his face, and just drifted, for one afternoon forgetting everything that had terrified and tormented him since the dreadful day they arrived here: beatings, constant threats on his life, unnamed threats to Sam, and most of all, endless work. What the hell had happened? More importantly, how were they going to escape?
“Dad,” he murmured, “if you can see us ... sure could use a little help here.”
Thank God at least Dennis was willing to help him harvest the hay. Dean had fully assumed Dennis was just screwing with him, setting him up for failure with all his impossible demands, but Dennis seemed undaunted by the magnitude of the task before them as he started at one corner of the enormous field, methodically scything while Dean stacked it in the wagon and took it up to the barn when it was full. From all Dean had heard and seen about how they grew up, it was likely that this was how he and his brothers and sisters spent their time. Dennis certainly seemed practiced at it.
Dean had healed almost completely from his last beating, and now that he’d figured out more about where to find food and how to prepare it, he was pretty sure he was more valuable to Dennis alive than dead. It was time to lobby for changes, or at least the most important change.
Dean said, “Sam is only seven! He needs time to play.”
“You just want to spend time together so you can plot your escape.”
Dean tried to deny it, blustering with, “Obviously it’s impossible to escape from here.”
“You’re right about that. Absolutely right. So what’s the point?”
“Be--because--Sam’s ... fading.” Sam was pretty chipper every morning, but by lunchtime he was already flagging. At dinner, he just sat and stared, shoveling the food mechanically into his mouth. “Haven’t you ever heard ‘all work and no play’?? I don’t know what you’re doing to him, but if you’re so happy that he’s so smart ... soon he ain’t gonna have much going on in his head without getting to screw around some and do what he wants. It’s what kids do.”
It was an hour before Dennis spoke again. “Tell you what, Dean: you make some progress on the wood pile and ... I’ll seriously consider allowing Sam a little playtime--by himself. Deal?”
Dean knew it was the best he was going to get. He filled the wagon with a last stack of hay with a grunt. “Deal.”
Dean worked hard on the woodpile, and was rewarded to look out the window one afternoon to see Sam outside, playing on the grass. Dean stopped working and just stared for a long few minutes, at the wonderful sight of Sam getting to be a kid for once ... except that Barbara was nearby, picking weeds, and whenever Sam got up and tried to head somewhere else, she stopped him. Soon he just sat there listlessly picking at his robes.
When Dennis took Dean out to the wheat field to harvest it, Dean said, “Sitting still on the grass for a couple of hours, not allowed to get up and do anything, is not playing.”
“I assume what you’re saying is you want to play together, since you’re still a kid, too.”
Dean felt like the farthest thing from a kid these days--he had for years, particularly after arriving here--but he’d use whatever advantage he had. “Well ... yeah!”
Dennis set the scythe business-end down and leaned on the handle, looking out over the fields toward the forest. Eventually, with a sigh, he got back to work. “Sam’s been lobbying for that, too. He’s pretty much useless by mid-afternoon, anyway. There are several problems with the idea, though.”
“Like what?? You already know it’s impossible for us to escape, no matter how much we want to.”
“I assume you’ve been down to the cove and seen how rough the ocean is. The reason you’ve never seen a ship come anywhere near the shore here is because it’s rocky and treacherous for any boat, large or small. Believe me, several of my brothers and sisters attempted escape that way. We always found their bodies later. It’s like that all up and down our shore, for miles and miles.”
Dean was dismayed, because it was plain Dennis was telling the truth. He tried to keep focused on his current goal. As long as he and Sam could talk freely, maybe between the two of them, they could come up with something. He nodded reluctantly.
“There’s danger and no help or food in every direction for many more miles than all the food and water you could carry would last you. I hope your journey here convinced you of that.” Dennis looked at him, pleased at the defeated stillness that had overtaken Dean. He smiled. “But ... Sam’s jewelry must remain whole and unbroken, and I know how young boys like to roughhouse.”
“Sam’s not much for that. I mean, we’ve had our moments ... but he’s a nerd at heart.”
“We can only produce wool and leather here, certainly not silk or cotton. Sam’s robes are priceless and must remain pristine. For you even to get close to him would probably get him covered with filth.”
Dean rolled his eyes. “I’ll clean up first, like before, when you finally let us see each other.”
“Really?” Dennis pressed heavily. “I could trust you to?”
“Of course! You think I like going around covered in sheep shit all the time??”
Dennis contemplated. He showed Dean how to swing the scythe, urging him to practice by himself on the hay in another field they were also going to have to cut later on, when the grass had grown taller. “Dean, I simply can’t allow his robes to be destroyed, and I know they would be.”
“So let him wear something else! Can’t he wear something else, just for a few hours a day?”
Dennis thought. “It would have to be white and pure.”
“The sheep are white!”
Dennis actually brightened. Dean was sure it wasn’t because he wanted to fulfill Dean’s wish, but maybe he really did want to fulfill Sam’s. “True. Well, then ... would you be willing to make him some sort of white robe he could wear while you played?”
“Yes! Yes, of course! Only ... I don’t know how.”
“I can teach you. You’ll need warmer clothes than that for yourself if you’re to keep working outside this winter, anyway.”
Dennis showed Dean the spinning wheel, the loom, the knitting machine, the treadle sewing machine. Thank God there was already some knit cloth that Dennis said he could use to make Sam’s new robes ... only the second Dean made the first cut, Dennis was so dissatisfied with his “carelessness” and “overconfidence” that he just did it himself, making Dean watch. “You don’t have time to do this kind of thing right now, I know,” Dennis said as he sewed, concentrating. “But come winter, when the garden is finished, you will. Make as much fabric as you can.”
Dean watched what Dennis was doing closely. His jeans were getting shorter and shorter as he grew. Anyway, they were wearing out from all the rough work he’d been doing. Dennis could not have made anything clearer than that if Dean wanted something, he was going to have to provide it for himself. He’d already learned how to make and preserve food of all kinds. It was time to learn how to make things out of cloth, too--a bed, for one. He’d seen a description in one of the old books he used for reference about making a tick to sleep on out of cloth stuffed with straw or some other kind of material with some loft. That sure would be a step up from sleeping on a stack of burlap sacks that barely protected him from the chill of the floor, much less how hard it was. But for now, all that mattered was getting Sam a robe to play in.
“Nice dress,” Dean teased as Sam emerged in mid-afternoon in the thing Dennis had made him.
“It’s a tunic,” Dennis snapped. “A respectable garment for men for millenia. Don’t let your ignorant brother take away from the pleasure of getting new clothes, Sam,” Dennis urged him as he carefully put hand-knit wool socks over Sam’s ... he had jewelry on his feet, too?? Just like his hands, there was a ring around his longest toe, that was connected to an anklet by a gold chain. Forget breaking the chain; if it didn’t snap quickly enough, if he caught it on something, it could break Sam’s foot. They really were going to have to be careful.
“It’s okay,” Sam chirped.
“I suppose you’re used to it,” Dennis said sardonically, putting Sam’s shoes on him over the socks. “All right. Come on, I want to show you boys something,” Dennis said.
He led them through the door that had heretofore remained barred to Dean. He looked around in wonder, but all that was visible from here was another long, wide hallway caved in on one end. Dennis led them to a winding stone staircase. As Dean looked out one of the holes in the stone wall that served as windows, he realized where they must be--the tower!
They must have already gone up more than two stories when Sam told Dean excitedly, “That’s my room!” He pointed into a room they passed, that was protected in the center of the tower, the staircase circling it. Dean caught a glimpse of a large round room with stone walls and ... thick decorative rugs? And a large bed covered with what appeared to be silk bedding?? Like he would imagine belonged to a prince.
He was about to ask Sam more about it when Dennis impatiently told them to hurry it up, and they followed him to the top of the tower.
“A bell tower!” Sam said excitedly when they emerged into the open air at the top. “But where’s the bell?”
“Long gone, I’m afraid,” Dennis said. “Probably taken by thieves. The fools probably just melted it down, but I’m sure it’d have been worth a fortune whole. Anyway, this is the highest point for a hundred miles.” He gestured out at the amazing view. “What do you see?”
“The ocean!” Sam replied eagerly, but Dean now knew why they were there, and exactly what Dennis wanted Dean to see. Whatever excitement Dean had to get to come up here and see this undeniably remarkable sight vanished.
“Yes,” Dennis said approvingly. “It looks pretty rough, doesn’t it? Do you see the way it’s crashing against the rocks and cliffs right there? Many boats have been turned into tinder, trying to traverse these waters. There’s a little cove down there where the water is calm, and a fishing boat, in case you’d like to fish, but if you took it out of the cove into the open ocean, you would surely die.”
Dean stared straight ahead, resigned. Of course. Dennis glanced at Dean’s face and seemed satisfied with what he saw. Dennis took them to the other side of the bell tower. “And what do you see out here?”
“Nothing,” Dean said, interrupting whatever Sam was about to say. May as well cut to the chase. “There’s nothing, no towns, no roads.”
“Yes, only overgrown dirt paths for miles and miles leading to this place. And no neighbors. Once upon a time, when I was a child, there were a few neighbors, but they’ve all gone away to greener pastures, it seems. We raided their houses for anything we might be able to salvage and utilize, every neighbor we remembered being here from our youth, and to a one, every house was long abandoned.” Dennis pointed to a hilly ridge, the last bit of land visible to the west. “Do you see that mountain range there?”
Dean scoffed. “Those aren’t mountains. Those are barely hills. If you’ve seen the Rockies, then you know what mountains actually look like.” He might get a beating for his insolence later, but Dennis obviously wasn’t going to do anything in front of Sam.
Dennis hid his irritation well. “Hills, then. I can tell you, they feel like mountains when you’re climbing them! Do you know what’s beyond them?”
Dean just looked at him coolly, expectantly.
“A long stretch of land, and then another range of--hills. And after that, another, and another. Sam, can you guess how many long stretches of land divided by tall ridges there are before you come to the nearest town?”
“Um ... ten?”
“Eighteen, if you can believe it. Many, many, many miles.”
Dean rolled his eyes. Dennis even saw it, and yet still seemed satisfied that Dean had absorbed his intention.
“Oh, and I want you boys to be careful when you’re out playing. There are bears in the woods, along with cougars. Try to stay in the open areas near the abbey. They prefer to keep to the forest; they’re not ocean creatures.”
“Except that bears can swim,” Sam told Dennis, proud to know this.
“Is that so?” Dennis said, acting charmed. “But I bet they swim rivers, huh, rather than oceans?”
“Probably,” Sam admitted.
“Very good. All right, then, boys, have fun. Be careful. And Sam, keep your tunic clean.”
Dean almost volunteered that it was all right, he didn’t mind washing it, when Dennis’s look stilled him. Sam ... Sam must not know Dean did the washing too, along with everything else.
Hardly one to just believe Dennis when he said there were no people and no towns around, Dean ventured very far into the forest while ‘hunting,’ systematically exploring each quadrant ... only to find everything Dennis said was true. There were the remains of various houses and outbuildings a few miles from the abbey, all obviously abandoned, and looted by Dennis and Barbara, unless someone else got to them first. Briefly, Dean considered using one as some kind of escape base for him and Sam, but clearly, these were the first places Dennis and Barbara would look if Dean and Sam disappeared.
Dennis came upon Dean when Dean was about to slaughter a pig. “Wait a minute--you just let all the blood go into the ground??” Dennis demanded. Dean froze. What the hell else was he supposed to do? “What a waste,” Dennis hissed.
“Well, what--is it good for?”
“What isn’t it good for?? Blood soup is delicious! And so nutritious. Blood pudding, blood stew ... it’s just a great thickener for sauces. You can feed it to the pigs.”
“But this is ... pigs’ blood.”
“They’ll love it.” Dean turned his face away to hide his disgust. Of course Dennis was all for cannibalism. “At the very least, pour it on the garden! It’s good for that, too. Anything except letting it run into the ground to attract bears. We use every part of the animal, Dean. Every part. Here.” He got out a trough for Dean to let the blood drain into. “I better not see you letting any other food go to waste. Everything can be used. Even if it’s rotten, compost it. But pigs will eat anything. And make a country ham out of one of those legs. I haven’t had country ham in ages.”
“What’s that?”
“Pig leg, preserved with salt and sugar and spices.”
“Oh yeah, by the way, you need to buy more salt. We’re running low.”
“‘Buy’?” Dennis repeated merrily.
“Um, yeah. All that canning really cut into the supply.”
“My God, every time I think there might be a brain in there, you pop out with something like this.”
“What! It’s not like you can make it!”
“Ever hear of the ocean, Dean?” Dennis sneered. “Turns out it’s full of salt!”
“But--how--”
“In all your time lazing about in the fishing boat, you never noticed the cauldron over the firepit?”
“I figured it was for cooking fish stew!”
“No. It’s only for making salt. Start a fire, fill it with ocean water, and let it boil down until there’s nothing left but salt.”
“But that’ll take hours!”
“Yes, so it’d be best if you got the fire started first thing in the morning and just went back down there to add wood throughout the day while you tend to your other duties. Try not to scorch it.” Dean stared as Dennis stalked back to the abbey.
Dean set the trough where it would catch most of the blood, trying to get back in the frame of mind to kill this squealing pig, now that he also had to listen to its blood hitting the metal for however long it took to drain out of it. Make salt? And a country ham too?? What the hell was that? He’d be poring over those old cookbooks all afternoon again.
On to part 2 ...
Title: Orphans
Recipient: stardustdean
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 18,000
Warnings: child abuse, violence
Author's Notes: I mixed and matched aspects of a few of your prompts--there was just so much good stuff to choose from.
Summary: After John dies, a young Dean and Sam are kidnapped by hunters and taken to a crumbling stone abbey that sits on a cliff above the sea. They're separated. Dean's situation is bad ... but what the hell are they doing to Sam?
After Dad died when Dean was nine, Dean and Sam lived with Bobby for a couple of years. Then Bobby went on a long hunt and left them with a hunter, who went on a hunt herself and left them with another hunter named Bill. Shortly after they arrived at Bill’s, two hunters named Dennis and Barbara called him up and told him Bobby said he should bring Sam and Dean to them until he got back, and that was how they came to be winding down an almost undetectable dirt road through thick forest at night, Bill cursing and consulting the letter Dennis had sent him containing the directions, muttering about how far it was from the nearest town and how glad he was that Dennis had urged him to bring along an extra can of gas.
Dean got a bad feeling as the place finally came into view, black against the sky, on a cliff above crashing ocean waves, made of stone and half crumbled. Bill said it was the abbey Dennis and Barbara, a priest and a nun, tended. It looked like an evil castle out of an old cartoon.
Dennis and Barbara greeted Bill cordially. When Bill complained that the place was impossible to find, Dennis bashfully read over the letter again to check that he’d gotten the directions right. They had dinner. Barbara asked Sam sweetly whether he’d like to see his room and led him away by the hand. Dennis showed Bill to another room. Dean heard thick wood doors close all around the stone building, leaving him alone there in the cavernous dining room.
That was the last time he saw Sam.
He woke on the dusty burlap bags he’d piled together to sleep on in a hallway near the kitchen. Bill must have left first thing in the morning, his truck gone by the time Dean awoke in the late morning after staying up half the night looking for Sam.
There was no food anywhere, no bed, no soap, nothing. When he finally saw Dennis late that afternoon, he demanded to see Sam. What the hell was this place, and who the hell were these people?
“Sam’s fine,” Dennis said absently.
“I want to see him,” Dean said flatly.
“No.”
Dean looked askance. ‘No’? He hadn’t said anything about starving all day or sleeping in a hallway, but this was unacceptable. “Um, yeah, I’m gonna see him, so take me to him.”
“No,” Dennis said sharply. “And why are the plates from dinner still on the table? Are you so spoiled and incompetent that it never occurred to you to clean them up?”
Dean looked around. Everything about this was bad. This was bad.
Dad had prepared them for all kinds of situations. Dean could hunt and cheat and charm and steal, but nothing had ever prepared him for anything like this. Do the dinner dishes?? Doing the dinner dishes with Dad pretty much involved throwing away the can or the bag, and living with Bobby wasn’t much different. He didn’t know what to say, but if doing the dinner dishes was what it would take, he would do them. “And get tonight’s dinner started. We can’t live on cold cuts.”
Dean had hunted around the kitchen for something edible that morning, and found nothing but bags of grain. He’d finally snarfed a couple of ripe tomatoes he’d found in a courtyard garden while casing the place. “With what?” Dean snarked.
Narrowing his eyes, Dennis led Dean to the garden, then to the kitchen, where he pointed out those bags of grain. “You can slaughter a chicken, too. They’re down by the pasture. Also, the cherries are ripe.”
Dean was getting pretty freaked out. Forcing Dean to serve them just so he might get to see Sam sometime ... this was nuts. And maybe impossible. “Um ... I don’t know how to cook.”
With an annoyed sigh, Dennis took down three of the books that stood on a dusty shelf and slammed them on the counter in front of Dean. Cookbooks probably, from the faded pictures of vegetables, fruits, and cuts of meat on the front of one, but ancient, Dean would guess from the 1920s or before. Dean was so out of his depth ... but would work with whatever he got.
“And then you’ll let me see Sam.”
“How many times do I have to tell you no? Are you slow?”
“Listen, buddy, you’re taking me to Sam, period. Now.”
Dennis slapped him, hard, across the face.
After feeling at his cheek in disbelief, Dean immediately turned and threw a punch at Dennis, only to get elbowed in the face and then tripped onto the floor. Dennis’s movements were quick and efficient. For a priest, he sure knew how to fight.
Now that he was on the floor anyway, Dean went for his legs, trying to kick them out from under him, but Dennis saw his intention instantly and instead kicked Dean three times in his middle in quick succession, so hard it knocked the wind out of him. As Dean gasped futilely for breath, Dennis grabbed him by the hair and yanked him upright. “Listen here, you little shit. I voted to kill you as soon as Bill was gone, but Barbara said we could put you to work. So guess what, if we can’t get any work out of you, the only thing you’re good for is compost for the garden.”
Dean’s ability to breathe had partly come back as Dennis spoke. “What are you doing to Sam?” he managed to choke out.
“Unlike you, Sam has value. We would never hurt Sam. So as hard as it’ll be for someone like you not to be nothing but trouble to everyone around you, I suggest you find it in you to try.” Dennis let him go and stalked out of the room, leaving Dean there holding his chest, his cheek, and ... well, lots of parts of him hurt after being knocked onto the stone floor--knees, elbows, just ... everything. He crawled over to lean against a cabinet as he got his breath back while he thought over what he’d heard.
He knew this place was bad news the second he laid eyes on it. It was worse than he ever could have imagined, though, and it wasn’t even full of monsters, but regular humans, who were crafty and fast and brutal and better at fighting than Dean, which was not something he often encountered. And they wanted to kill him.
And maybe Sam, too, despite Dennis’s reassurances, yet ... Dean had some reason to believe he was telling the truth. The solicitous way Barbara had spoken to Sam as she led him away made it seem as if she was very enchanted with him indeed, and Dennis was nice to Sam, too, acting like he was eager to meet him, while come to think of it, Dennis hadn’t greeted Dean upon his arrival, and Barbara hadn’t even looked at him once all through dinner. Anyway, Dennis had told Dean what he did with bodies, and there were no fresh mounds in the garden that morning.
Still, he had to see Sam to know for sure. His first thought was resistance--if he couldn’t beat Dennis in a fight, he could at least resist--but the unfeeling chill in his voice when he told Dean he’d sooner kill him if he couldn’t get him to work made clear he would do it--tonight, even. Like he’d be glad to prove to Barbara Dean wasn’t worth keeping around.
It rankled every part of him to do it, as he finally got himself to his feet, feeling for broken ribs, but he opened one of those cookbooks.
So now all was explained about leaving him to fend for himself for a place to sleep. At least in this enormous edifice that must have been built forever ago to house many monks or nuns, he had some options. Clearly no one had lived here for decades, as many of the stone walls had crumbled. Maybe it even once held services for the public; Dean figured the big room he could see from the outside with stained-glass windows that reached up two stories or more must be the chapel.
Yet as he explored every corner, Dean discovered only the kitchen, dining room, and connected hallways were open to him. Every time Dennis went back into the abbey’s interior, Dean could hear the heavy wood bar clank into place to keep Dean out, the only kind of lock this place had. Dean found a private corner at the end of that same caved-in hallway where he spent his first night here, and added whatever was the closest thing to something warm and soft he could find to the pile of burlap he’d made then. No one ever seemed to go there.
Also, Dean finally found some soap in the back of a cupboard, which appeared to be homemade, only there was no running water here, just a hand-crank well in the garden. Dennis was always making him bring him pails full of water, getting more and more irritated that there weren’t more, until Dean finally just brought in a couple every time he went outside, and left them in the hallway Dennis went down--the same hallway where Dean left the meals he prepared them--and finally Dennis seemed more or less satisfied. Still, now that he had some soap, Dean managed to at least get a little cleaner every now and then before he had to go garden or clean or cook or slaughter an animal or some other kind of dirty work.
He wondered about Sam. Did they give him access to soap? Sam was kind of a fastidious kid. What sort of slavery were they making him engage in? And what was so “valuable” about him to them? Sometimes, Dean was almost glad for the work, because it kept his mind from spiralling down very dark paths about what they could be doing to Sam right now. He had to see him. He just had to.
He got to sooner than he expected. Dean was preparing lunch to the best of his ability when Dennis came into the kitchen. Dean jumped back when Dennis reached for the knife in his hand, but Dennis just said, “I’ll take over. Go get clean. Totally clean. Haven’t you ever considered washing your clothes?” He rolled his eyes, but went on chopping the tomato Dean was going to put on the chicken sandwiches. “Put on some clean ones.”
Dean went and got a change of clothes out of his bag, then went out to the garden and washed up thoroughly, glad for the opportunity. He’d wondered if he might get in trouble for using the soap or spending time doing something other than work, so it was nice to be told straight out he could.
When he got back inside, Dennis was putting the sandwiches on the table in the huge dining room, with a bowl full of cherries Dean had picked--basically the same thing they’d had every meal every day since Dean started cooking for them. Dean saw that Dennis had put down four plates. He just had time to register what this meant when he heard the door into the area where they kept Sam open, and he heard Sam’s voice. Dean ran toward it, shouting his name.
“Dean!” Sam ran to him and hugged him.
Dean hugged him tight, feeling that he was all right--he really seemed to be all right--whole, not limping or in pain. Only after he’d absorbed this did he start to notice everything else. They’d shaved Sam’s head. Dean pressed his hand against the short fuzz. Sam had preferred his hair longish since he was four. “They shaved your head?” he asked wonderingly. Sam now had thin golden earrings--well, really, just a long thread--that connected on each side to another thread that went around his neck. Dean touched his earlobes. “They pierced your ears?” he asked, bewildered. Sam wore long, white silk robes with royal blue edging and gold details. “What--?”
“See? All your worry was for naught, both of you,” Dennis said pleasantly, pulling out a chair. “Sit, Sam.”
Sam clutched Dean’s hands, staring up into his face anxiously--hands which also had thin golden chains jingling on them--but after only a few moments, obeyed Dennis’s command. Dean still had bruises and sore spots to remind him to obey Dennis. What had they done to Sam to convince him of the same thing?
They all sat down around the table. Dean kept looking over Sam, looking for bruises or scratches, any sign of abuse, and couldn’t see anything, but since almost his whole body was hidden from Dean’s view under those robes, there really was no telling. The chains ran along the backs of his hands to a bracelet from a golden ring around his middle finger. Another chain disappeared up his sleeve from the bracelet. Sam didn’t seem fearful, though, which was in the end the only thing that could really reassure Dean.
“Sam absolutely insisted we all always eat together,” Dennis said, shaking his head but smiling fondly at Sam. Sam said nothing, but his expression was steely.
“What do they have you doing in there?” Dean had to ask.
Sam’s answer was guarded, but he didn’t seem to be trying to say anything to Dean in code. “Just ... religious rituals, I guess.”
Nothing that had happened since they’d arrived in this place had made any sense, but somehow, this was the one thing Dean really couldn’t get his mind around. “Wh-- what??”
“Sam’s special,” Barbara said, beaming creepily at Sam.
“He has special abilities,” Dennis went on proudly.
“We’re helping him hone them,” Barbara said.
Dean looked quickly at Sam, quickly enough to see his expression darken when Barbara said this. He didn’t seem scared, but whatever it was they were making him do, Sam didn’t like it.
Lunch passed with Dennis and Barbara doing most of the talking. Sometimes, Dean or Sam tried to talk to each other, to ask or communicate something they weren’t sure Dennis and Barbara would allow, and sure enough, if they didn’t like the direction the question was going, they loudly talked over them. Barbara especially was good at peppering Sam with questions and observations until he lost track of what he’d been trying to say.
At the end of lunch, after letting them hug one last time (Dean’s attempt to exchange some real information at a whisper was lost in Dennis’s seemingly deliberate loud blather), Barbara led Sam back into the forbidden area, Dennis smiling until they were gone, whereupon Dennis grabbed Dean by the shirt and dragged him into the kitchen. “Why are there no eggs?? Where’s all the milk? I didn’t find a thing in the root cellar! Chicken-and-tomato sandwiches and a bowl of cherries every single meal?? What the fuck is wrong with you?!”
“It’s all that was there! It’s what you told me to make!” Dean cried.
Dennis slapped him, then not seeming satisfied, slapped him again, harder. “It never occurred to you to collect the eggs?? Have you really just let them sit there all this time? And the milk?? Have you milked a single sheep??”
“I’ve never done anything like that! I’m sorry! I don’t know how!”
Dean cringed, cringed harder when Dennis let him go, expecting a vicious beating, but instead Dennis, with a great sigh, said, “Then I’ll show you.”
He led him to the animal pens whence Dean had retrieved the chickens for the sandwiches. He showed him how to milk the sheep. He warned him not to slaughter the sow, and told him which pigs he could slaughter and when. “Remember, animals generally taste best when they’re young. And males are useless; you only need to keep one around to fertilize the females.” Dean couldn’t help wondering if he was talking about Dean and Sam when he talked about males being ‘useless.’ Were they just fattening up Sam and Dean to eat later? Maybe they really were monsters.
“You need to scythe hay for the animals to eat during the winter. I’ll help you do that. And we need to harvest the wheat soon. I’ll help you with that, too, and show you how to thresh it.”
Dennis took him to the garden and told him what each kind of plant was and how to harvest it.
The more Dennis had to explain to Dean, the more irritated he got, especially as Dean had to ask a lot of questions. Better to ask now, when Dennis was in a relatively good mood. “Did your father teach you nothing about how to live?” Dennis finally asked condescendingly.
“Yes!” Dean snapped. “He taught us all about how to live in this century!”
“Oh ... all that credit-card thievery he was always engaging in,” Dennis sniffed.
“You knew my dad??” Dean asked, stunned. Dad spent time with this freak??
“Sure, sure. We were hunting buddies for a bit, with Pastor Jim. Do you know Pastor Jim?”
“Yes.” Pastor Jim knew this creep, too?? “Were you hunting with Dad the day he died?” Dean could not help but ask bluntly.
Dennis sneered at him. “Oh, you think I killed your father? I didn’t. We had a falling out a couple of years before that. I hadn’t seen him since.”
“What did you fall out over?” It didn’t surprise Dean at all that Dad had ultimately decided this bastard wasn’t the sort of person he ought to be acquainted with.
“We had a big fight. Your father was a moral absolutist. He couldn’t see the forest for the trees. That’s all your dad ever did, was chop down trees. But you’ll see, when you start chopping trees for firewood--you’ll need to do that, too--that even if you tried to chop down every tree in this forest, by the time you got done, a whole new forest would have grown in its place. That’s what monsters are like. You kill one here or there, a dozen more sprout up while you’re at it. We needed a bigger weapon, and I’d discovered that your father had one in his possession--an amazing weapon, if it could just be honed and developed properly ... but he refused. Your father was ill-tempered, stubborn, unpleasant--well, you know this, because you’re exactly like him. But he was also a fool. I always knew that in the end the only thing that could kill John Winchester was his own folly. So we moved back here, to wait until opportunity finally knocked. And here you are.” He gestured pleasantly at Dean, and in the direction of the chapel.
“‘Back’ here?”
“Yes. We grew up here, Barbara and I. It used to be an orphanage, run by nuns and one extremely cruel priest. We had to attend services in that chapel every day, and pray for our souls.” He pointed to the part of the abbey that had tall, ornate windows that looked down onto the courtyard.
“This place fell down since, I guess.”
“Yes. I looked into having it restored, but the cost was excessive. Most of it is still standing and as functional as ever. The stained-glass windows--somehow, they’re still in perfect condition, can you believe that? East-facing, even, bearing the brunt of the wind. The chapel’s still in great shape. It’s enough to make even a heathen like you a believer, though fools always manage to find some way to deny His existence. Honestly, I’m kind of glad the parts that caved in did. Too many memories.”
As Dennis spent the rest of the afternoon showing Dean the countless chores he was supposed to be tending to, Dean contemplated all he’d learned. Dad knew this guy?? Dad had some powerful weapon Dennis wanted to get his hands on to kill monsters with? Somehow, Dean and Sam’s arrival was the opportunity he’d been waiting for? Well, Sam’s ... Sam’s arrival? Dean looked up at the windows, looming above the garden courtyard. Just what the hell were they doing to him in there?
“The peaches are ripe,” Dennis told him one morning as Dean scrubbed the morning dishes in a basin. “You need to go out and harvest them, then preserve them.”
“... How?”
“Preserves, jam. Use the honey or the maple syrup for sweetener. There’s all the canning jars here you could ever need.” He opened the door to a pantry Dean had only glanced in once, the first day, and seeing it contained no food, never looked again. It was indeed full of an incredible number of jars. “I think you can handle making preserves yourself, but I’m going to supervise it when you start canning vegetables, or I’m sure you’ll manage to kill us all. Any flawed fruit, give to me to make wine and vinegar from. I’ll be handling that duty--I know too much about your genetic predispositions to let you anywhere near alcohol.” Dennis rolled his eyes. “Anyway, you need to get on harvesting today, or wild animals will get it all. Oh--pies are good, also.”
“Wait--pies??” Was this a trick?
“Yes, but they don’t keep more than a few days, so only make one when you plan to serve it. But you can also preserve the filling in jars so we can have pie all winter.”
“Yes, sir!”
Dennis frowned, seeming to wonder what was this new attitude and assuming it was some kind of sarcasm, but as soon as Dennis was gone, Dean dropped what he was doing, grabbed some buckets, and ran out to the orchard. Finally, one good thing had happened. Well, two: he and Sam were still alive.
As he said he would, Dennis supervised as Dean learned how to can the vegetables from the garden. “Even if your father never taught you anything else useful, I assume he taught you how to hunt?”
Dean glowered. “You can’t ever say one good word about my dad?” he finally muttered.
“He was a ruthless and effective hunter. How’s that?”
Dean said nothing, trying to hide his fury behind an expressionless mask.
“I asked you a question, Dean: Can you hunt?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t mean for monsters, I mean for animals in the forest.”
“I know that’s what you meant.”
“I figured you must, since you knew how to process the animal carcasses. Great, then stop slaughtering our animals and start hunting in the forest from now on. Especially once autumn hits, hunt as many animals as you can; it’ll preserve our own flocks so they can reproduce in spring, and the winter cold will keep the carcasses fresh ’til spring. Just don’t waste anything; don’t ever let anything rot.”
“Okay.”
“Also, you need to start cutting down trees so we have wood for the winter. Cut down any tree you want, as long as it’s fully grown, more or less. Just don’t cut down any tree that has something carved in it, or I will kill you. I mean it.”
Dean flinched and looked at his face to see if he was joking. He wasn’t. What the hell??
“That’s really not the way to motivate a guy.”
“What, you can’t tell when something’s been carved into a tree?” he asked, ridiculing.
“You know Bobby’s gonna come looking for us,” said Dean.
“No, he won’t,” Dennis said casually.
“Yes, he will!” Dean insisted. Of course Bobby would. He knew he would.
“He’ll probably try. But there are about sixty turns off the highway to get here, many of them unmarked. It’s not on any maps. He’d never find it.”
“But Bill’s been here! He could lead him back.”
Dennis laughed. “Bill could hardly find his way here. Besides, I kept the letter with the directions. I told him my directions were flawed, that I couldn’t quite remember exactly how to get here or back, and to just keep heading west and he’d find his way out. Either he succeeded, or ....” He shrugged.
Dean tried to hide his dismay.
“No one will ever find you here,” Dennis went on pleasantly, “so you may as well embrace your situation. It’s not going to improve. Get to work on that firewood, or we’ll all freeze to death when the weather turns.”
“I tied a rope around every tree you’re not allowed to cut,” Dennis said one day as he returned from the forest for lunch. “That way, there’ll be no mistakes.”
It was easier for Dennis to spend an entire morning doing that than to kill Dean? That seemed like progress. Or maybe he’d finally figured out Dean wasn’t about to risk cutting a single tree if it might just lead to his death.
“In fact, let’s go out there this afternoon and cut down some trees. There’s different methods that work better for different kinds of trees. I’ll show you.”
Dean dutifully followed him out there. There was a definite chill in the air. Dennis noticed it, too. “You feel that? That’s why we need firewood. The abbey is chilly even in summer; icicles hang from the rafters in winter.”
Dean watched and learned, mostly about how much damn work this was going to be, but as Dennis hacked away at tree limbs, Dean couldn’t help looking around at the trees with ropes tied around them, which were concentrated in this area--in fact, Dennis seemed to want to clear away every evergreen in this whole part of the forest, to let the deciduous trees with things carved in them have plenty of room to flourish.
When Dennis told him to get behind him so he could fell a tall tree, Dean did as instructed, looking up hauntedly at the carving in the smooth white bark of another tree, only to realize that, though on most trees the scar had grown and warped until it obscured what was written, this one’s carving was fresh, and it was a name: Evelyn. “Who’s Evelyn?” said Dean as the evergreen crashed to the ground.
At the dark look Dennis gave him, Dean took a couple of steps back, but Dennis just gazed at the writing. “My sister,” he said at last, and turned back to hack off more of the evergreen’s limbs.
“I didn’t know you had a sister.”
“I had dozens. Brothers, too. All the children in the orphanage were my brothers and sisters.”
“Oh.” There was a heaviness to the way Dennis was working now.
“We weren’t allowed to make graves or even gravestones for them when they died. They were to be composted or fed to the pigs. Any memorial discovered anywhere on the grounds was destroyed, everyone punished. But the trees ... the trees remain.” He pointed at one of the most obscured names. “That was one of the first ones we carved. It was already a full-grown tree then, but that was forty years ago, and this tree hasn’t even reached middle age.”
Dean looked around, getting freaked out as he saw more and more trees with ropes around them. “Looks like ... a lot of them died,” he said, his voice faltering.
“Dozens so far, though none of us has reached old age yet. Some were killed here, when they were children. Many. Others committed suicide after we escaped, or got involved in some sort of self-destructive lifestyle. More than half are gone already, that I know of; it could be more. I carve their name on another tree whenever I find out about a new one. It’s very difficult to survive a childhood like ours. That is, even if you make it to adulthood ... it’s hard to live with the scars, the memories. Terribly hard.”
He tossed down the axe and picked up the saw again. “That’s why Barbara and I are so glad we found Sam. Sam has the power to eradicate a tremendous amount of evil in the world single-handedly. Not the kind of evil Barbara and I endured--though we explored the possibility the priest was some kind of monster or demon, in the end we concluded he was human--but enough evil to make this world a much brighter place. I’m not sure Barbara and I could have survived if we hadn’t believed such a thing could one day come to pass. Okay, you try.”
Dean took over with the saw, doing as Dennis had taught him.
“Good,” said Dennis as he watched. “Now you just have to do this with about forty trees, then saw them into logs, and finally chop them into firewood, and we’ll have enough for the winter.” Dennis tossed the gloves to Dean and headed back to the abbey.
Forty trees?? It took him an hour to saw through a smallish tree to cut it down, a good half hour to cut a single thick log .... Chopping the firewood wasn’t too bad after that, but this was exhausting, tedious work. He tried to cut at least a couple of logs a day, but his arm was too tired to do more after that. Anyway, if he turned forty damn trees into firewood, he wouldn’t have time for anything else. Dennis was asking the impossible. Where was a chainsaw when you needed one? He could have it done in a day if he had one of those.
Dean was even more incensed when Dennis then took him out to a pile of rotted plants in the courtyard and informed him he was going to teach him how to make rope from the stuff. “We’re low on rope now, since I used so much on the trees, and you never want to run out of rope.”
Dean couldn’t suppress the fervent wish that Dennis needed more so he could hang himself. He settled down to watch ... and immediately scoffed. “You have got to be kidding me.”
Dennis stood up with barely suppressed irritation from where he’d bent, rubbing the stems over a piece of wood to soften them and then combing them through a thing that was like a hairbrush made of nails pounded through another piece of wood. After all that work, he’d gotten what looked like could be made into about a foot of rope. “What about this is amusing, Dean?”
“You expect me to chop forty trees into firewood, in addition to feeding and milking and slaughtering the animals, doing all the cooking, and now this, too??”
“All those things will constitute only a fraction of all your duties, Dean. I just haven’t had time to show you everything yet.”
“Fuck this.” Dean started out of the courtyard, stopped by a blow to the side of his head--from Dennis’s booted foot. Dean whirled around in disbelief, furiously sweeping dirt and mud off his face. “You son of a bitch,” he hissed, and lunged for him.
He really thought he was going to get to him first this time, and he might have, except Dennis didn’t hold back at all, never for a second. Where Dean might have pulled a punch to make sure he didn’t seriously hurt a guy, Dennis was not so generous. The board full of nails was right behind Dennis, and though Dean really wished Dennis would just die, he didn’t have it in him to kill a man in a fit of rage.
Dennis had no such qualms. Taking advantage of Dean’s momentary hesitation, he kneed Dean in the ribs, then got him in a chokehold. Dean fought it as hard as he could, elbowing at Dennis, but he was fast losing consciousness, the blood pounding in his ears.
Just as he was about to pass out, Dennis finally let him go, where Dean lay gagging and gasping for breath on the dirt. “I hate you so much,” Dean choked out, struggling to roll over onto his side.
“That’s nice. There’s a cliff edge right over there. How many times I’ve wanted to throw you over. It’d be easy, with you in this condition.”
“Fuck you. A thousand times, fuck you.” Dean groaned, managing to get to a sitting position, breathing hard. “Sam would never forgive you.”
“I’m not sure that matters that much. A broken Sam might be useful, too.”
Dennis must have seen the despair that came over Dean at those words, as then Dennis relaxed his aggressive stance. Dennis really ... for all his shows of respect toward Sam as compared to Dean, he felt no more warmth for an innocent seven-year-old at his mercy?
“All right, now, are you willing to learn how to be useful around here, or is it the cliff for you?”
Dean couldn’t help glancing up at the chapel windows as he silently obeyed. Had Sam seen his utter defeat? His head tingled from where Dennis had kicked it, he felt sick to his stomach, his heart was still pounding in his ears from almost losing consciousness, but the thing that stung intolerably was the humiliation at the thought that his little brother had witnessed it.
Once Dean had finally figured out what he was doing well enough to get done with his daily duties early in the afternoon, he went to the clifftop. He’d already cased the whole place and gotten a good idea of the layout. The chapel took up most of the east wall and part of the south. The entire north wall was rubble, except for a tower that rose out of some part of the building that was still standing, at the highest point, overlooking the ocean.
In his explorations, Dean had noticed the rope strung down the cliffside along steps cut into the rock, but he’d put off going down to the beach since he knew it wouldn’t lead to Sam. Today, though, he had the time. One day, maybe they could make a break for it at mealtime and escape via the ocean.
It was a good thing the rope was there, he discovered as he descended, as a couple of the steps had crumbled. Looking back up at them once he reached the bottom, he realized they must have been there for decades--centuries, even, although the rope was relatively new. At the foot of the steps was a cove ... and a small boat made of wood, that would fit two people at most. Under a rock outcropping, Dean found a box that contained fishing line, hooks, netting, crab traps ... all kinds of things. Was he allowed ...? Of course he was--nay, he was expected to; Dennis had already mentioned one night that fish or crab would be nice for a change.
Another thing that would be nice for a change would be to escape this Alcatraz, however temporarily, and spend some time relaxing in the afternoon sun, fishing. It was Bobby who really liked to fish. He’d taken Dean and Sam out several times. Dean never really saw the appeal, except that it was fun just hanging out doing nothing, spending a little time in nature with the people he loved. Sam liked to drag his hand through the water and try to peer deep enough into the murky depths to identify some sea creatures. It sounded like heaven right now, so far away from this place and his life here, it was hard to believe it ever happened. Dean put some tackle in the boat and pushed off into the cove, paddling out into the middle of it.
He’d found an old straw hat lying around and started using it to keep the sun off, since he was outside so much. After fishing a while, he leaned back, put his hat over his face, and just drifted, for one afternoon forgetting everything that had terrified and tormented him since the dreadful day they arrived here: beatings, constant threats on his life, unnamed threats to Sam, and most of all, endless work. What the hell had happened? More importantly, how were they going to escape?
“Dad,” he murmured, “if you can see us ... sure could use a little help here.”
Thank God at least Dennis was willing to help him harvest the hay. Dean had fully assumed Dennis was just screwing with him, setting him up for failure with all his impossible demands, but Dennis seemed undaunted by the magnitude of the task before them as he started at one corner of the enormous field, methodically scything while Dean stacked it in the wagon and took it up to the barn when it was full. From all Dean had heard and seen about how they grew up, it was likely that this was how he and his brothers and sisters spent their time. Dennis certainly seemed practiced at it.
Dean had healed almost completely from his last beating, and now that he’d figured out more about where to find food and how to prepare it, he was pretty sure he was more valuable to Dennis alive than dead. It was time to lobby for changes, or at least the most important change.
Dean said, “Sam is only seven! He needs time to play.”
“You just want to spend time together so you can plot your escape.”
Dean tried to deny it, blustering with, “Obviously it’s impossible to escape from here.”
“You’re right about that. Absolutely right. So what’s the point?”
“Be--because--Sam’s ... fading.” Sam was pretty chipper every morning, but by lunchtime he was already flagging. At dinner, he just sat and stared, shoveling the food mechanically into his mouth. “Haven’t you ever heard ‘all work and no play’?? I don’t know what you’re doing to him, but if you’re so happy that he’s so smart ... soon he ain’t gonna have much going on in his head without getting to screw around some and do what he wants. It’s what kids do.”
It was an hour before Dennis spoke again. “Tell you what, Dean: you make some progress on the wood pile and ... I’ll seriously consider allowing Sam a little playtime--by himself. Deal?”
Dean knew it was the best he was going to get. He filled the wagon with a last stack of hay with a grunt. “Deal.”
Dean worked hard on the woodpile, and was rewarded to look out the window one afternoon to see Sam outside, playing on the grass. Dean stopped working and just stared for a long few minutes, at the wonderful sight of Sam getting to be a kid for once ... except that Barbara was nearby, picking weeds, and whenever Sam got up and tried to head somewhere else, she stopped him. Soon he just sat there listlessly picking at his robes.
When Dennis took Dean out to the wheat field to harvest it, Dean said, “Sitting still on the grass for a couple of hours, not allowed to get up and do anything, is not playing.”
“I assume what you’re saying is you want to play together, since you’re still a kid, too.”
Dean felt like the farthest thing from a kid these days--he had for years, particularly after arriving here--but he’d use whatever advantage he had. “Well ... yeah!”
Dennis set the scythe business-end down and leaned on the handle, looking out over the fields toward the forest. Eventually, with a sigh, he got back to work. “Sam’s been lobbying for that, too. He’s pretty much useless by mid-afternoon, anyway. There are several problems with the idea, though.”
“Like what?? You already know it’s impossible for us to escape, no matter how much we want to.”
“I assume you’ve been down to the cove and seen how rough the ocean is. The reason you’ve never seen a ship come anywhere near the shore here is because it’s rocky and treacherous for any boat, large or small. Believe me, several of my brothers and sisters attempted escape that way. We always found their bodies later. It’s like that all up and down our shore, for miles and miles.”
Dean was dismayed, because it was plain Dennis was telling the truth. He tried to keep focused on his current goal. As long as he and Sam could talk freely, maybe between the two of them, they could come up with something. He nodded reluctantly.
“There’s danger and no help or food in every direction for many more miles than all the food and water you could carry would last you. I hope your journey here convinced you of that.” Dennis looked at him, pleased at the defeated stillness that had overtaken Dean. He smiled. “But ... Sam’s jewelry must remain whole and unbroken, and I know how young boys like to roughhouse.”
“Sam’s not much for that. I mean, we’ve had our moments ... but he’s a nerd at heart.”
“We can only produce wool and leather here, certainly not silk or cotton. Sam’s robes are priceless and must remain pristine. For you even to get close to him would probably get him covered with filth.”
Dean rolled his eyes. “I’ll clean up first, like before, when you finally let us see each other.”
“Really?” Dennis pressed heavily. “I could trust you to?”
“Of course! You think I like going around covered in sheep shit all the time??”
Dennis contemplated. He showed Dean how to swing the scythe, urging him to practice by himself on the hay in another field they were also going to have to cut later on, when the grass had grown taller. “Dean, I simply can’t allow his robes to be destroyed, and I know they would be.”
“So let him wear something else! Can’t he wear something else, just for a few hours a day?”
Dennis thought. “It would have to be white and pure.”
“The sheep are white!”
Dennis actually brightened. Dean was sure it wasn’t because he wanted to fulfill Dean’s wish, but maybe he really did want to fulfill Sam’s. “True. Well, then ... would you be willing to make him some sort of white robe he could wear while you played?”
“Yes! Yes, of course! Only ... I don’t know how.”
“I can teach you. You’ll need warmer clothes than that for yourself if you’re to keep working outside this winter, anyway.”
Dennis showed Dean the spinning wheel, the loom, the knitting machine, the treadle sewing machine. Thank God there was already some knit cloth that Dennis said he could use to make Sam’s new robes ... only the second Dean made the first cut, Dennis was so dissatisfied with his “carelessness” and “overconfidence” that he just did it himself, making Dean watch. “You don’t have time to do this kind of thing right now, I know,” Dennis said as he sewed, concentrating. “But come winter, when the garden is finished, you will. Make as much fabric as you can.”
Dean watched what Dennis was doing closely. His jeans were getting shorter and shorter as he grew. Anyway, they were wearing out from all the rough work he’d been doing. Dennis could not have made anything clearer than that if Dean wanted something, he was going to have to provide it for himself. He’d already learned how to make and preserve food of all kinds. It was time to learn how to make things out of cloth, too--a bed, for one. He’d seen a description in one of the old books he used for reference about making a tick to sleep on out of cloth stuffed with straw or some other kind of material with some loft. That sure would be a step up from sleeping on a stack of burlap sacks that barely protected him from the chill of the floor, much less how hard it was. But for now, all that mattered was getting Sam a robe to play in.
“Nice dress,” Dean teased as Sam emerged in mid-afternoon in the thing Dennis had made him.
“It’s a tunic,” Dennis snapped. “A respectable garment for men for millenia. Don’t let your ignorant brother take away from the pleasure of getting new clothes, Sam,” Dennis urged him as he carefully put hand-knit wool socks over Sam’s ... he had jewelry on his feet, too?? Just like his hands, there was a ring around his longest toe, that was connected to an anklet by a gold chain. Forget breaking the chain; if it didn’t snap quickly enough, if he caught it on something, it could break Sam’s foot. They really were going to have to be careful.
“It’s okay,” Sam chirped.
“I suppose you’re used to it,” Dennis said sardonically, putting Sam’s shoes on him over the socks. “All right. Come on, I want to show you boys something,” Dennis said.
He led them through the door that had heretofore remained barred to Dean. He looked around in wonder, but all that was visible from here was another long, wide hallway caved in on one end. Dennis led them to a winding stone staircase. As Dean looked out one of the holes in the stone wall that served as windows, he realized where they must be--the tower!
They must have already gone up more than two stories when Sam told Dean excitedly, “That’s my room!” He pointed into a room they passed, that was protected in the center of the tower, the staircase circling it. Dean caught a glimpse of a large round room with stone walls and ... thick decorative rugs? And a large bed covered with what appeared to be silk bedding?? Like he would imagine belonged to a prince.
He was about to ask Sam more about it when Dennis impatiently told them to hurry it up, and they followed him to the top of the tower.
“A bell tower!” Sam said excitedly when they emerged into the open air at the top. “But where’s the bell?”
“Long gone, I’m afraid,” Dennis said. “Probably taken by thieves. The fools probably just melted it down, but I’m sure it’d have been worth a fortune whole. Anyway, this is the highest point for a hundred miles.” He gestured out at the amazing view. “What do you see?”
“The ocean!” Sam replied eagerly, but Dean now knew why they were there, and exactly what Dennis wanted Dean to see. Whatever excitement Dean had to get to come up here and see this undeniably remarkable sight vanished.
“Yes,” Dennis said approvingly. “It looks pretty rough, doesn’t it? Do you see the way it’s crashing against the rocks and cliffs right there? Many boats have been turned into tinder, trying to traverse these waters. There’s a little cove down there where the water is calm, and a fishing boat, in case you’d like to fish, but if you took it out of the cove into the open ocean, you would surely die.”
Dean stared straight ahead, resigned. Of course. Dennis glanced at Dean’s face and seemed satisfied with what he saw. Dennis took them to the other side of the bell tower. “And what do you see out here?”
“Nothing,” Dean said, interrupting whatever Sam was about to say. May as well cut to the chase. “There’s nothing, no towns, no roads.”
“Yes, only overgrown dirt paths for miles and miles leading to this place. And no neighbors. Once upon a time, when I was a child, there were a few neighbors, but they’ve all gone away to greener pastures, it seems. We raided their houses for anything we might be able to salvage and utilize, every neighbor we remembered being here from our youth, and to a one, every house was long abandoned.” Dennis pointed to a hilly ridge, the last bit of land visible to the west. “Do you see that mountain range there?”
Dean scoffed. “Those aren’t mountains. Those are barely hills. If you’ve seen the Rockies, then you know what mountains actually look like.” He might get a beating for his insolence later, but Dennis obviously wasn’t going to do anything in front of Sam.
Dennis hid his irritation well. “Hills, then. I can tell you, they feel like mountains when you’re climbing them! Do you know what’s beyond them?”
Dean just looked at him coolly, expectantly.
“A long stretch of land, and then another range of--hills. And after that, another, and another. Sam, can you guess how many long stretches of land divided by tall ridges there are before you come to the nearest town?”
“Um ... ten?”
“Eighteen, if you can believe it. Many, many, many miles.”
Dean rolled his eyes. Dennis even saw it, and yet still seemed satisfied that Dean had absorbed his intention.
“Oh, and I want you boys to be careful when you’re out playing. There are bears in the woods, along with cougars. Try to stay in the open areas near the abbey. They prefer to keep to the forest; they’re not ocean creatures.”
“Except that bears can swim,” Sam told Dennis, proud to know this.
“Is that so?” Dennis said, acting charmed. “But I bet they swim rivers, huh, rather than oceans?”
“Probably,” Sam admitted.
“Very good. All right, then, boys, have fun. Be careful. And Sam, keep your tunic clean.”
Dean almost volunteered that it was all right, he didn’t mind washing it, when Dennis’s look stilled him. Sam ... Sam must not know Dean did the washing too, along with everything else.
Hardly one to just believe Dennis when he said there were no people and no towns around, Dean ventured very far into the forest while ‘hunting,’ systematically exploring each quadrant ... only to find everything Dennis said was true. There were the remains of various houses and outbuildings a few miles from the abbey, all obviously abandoned, and looted by Dennis and Barbara, unless someone else got to them first. Briefly, Dean considered using one as some kind of escape base for him and Sam, but clearly, these were the first places Dennis and Barbara would look if Dean and Sam disappeared.
Dennis came upon Dean when Dean was about to slaughter a pig. “Wait a minute--you just let all the blood go into the ground??” Dennis demanded. Dean froze. What the hell else was he supposed to do? “What a waste,” Dennis hissed.
“Well, what--is it good for?”
“What isn’t it good for?? Blood soup is delicious! And so nutritious. Blood pudding, blood stew ... it’s just a great thickener for sauces. You can feed it to the pigs.”
“But this is ... pigs’ blood.”
“They’ll love it.” Dean turned his face away to hide his disgust. Of course Dennis was all for cannibalism. “At the very least, pour it on the garden! It’s good for that, too. Anything except letting it run into the ground to attract bears. We use every part of the animal, Dean. Every part. Here.” He got out a trough for Dean to let the blood drain into. “I better not see you letting any other food go to waste. Everything can be used. Even if it’s rotten, compost it. But pigs will eat anything. And make a country ham out of one of those legs. I haven’t had country ham in ages.”
“What’s that?”
“Pig leg, preserved with salt and sugar and spices.”
“Oh yeah, by the way, you need to buy more salt. We’re running low.”
“‘Buy’?” Dennis repeated merrily.
“Um, yeah. All that canning really cut into the supply.”
“My God, every time I think there might be a brain in there, you pop out with something like this.”
“What! It’s not like you can make it!”
“Ever hear of the ocean, Dean?” Dennis sneered. “Turns out it’s full of salt!”
“But--how--”
“In all your time lazing about in the fishing boat, you never noticed the cauldron over the firepit?”
“I figured it was for cooking fish stew!”
“No. It’s only for making salt. Start a fire, fill it with ocean water, and let it boil down until there’s nothing left but salt.”
“But that’ll take hours!”
“Yes, so it’d be best if you got the fire started first thing in the morning and just went back down there to add wood throughout the day while you tend to your other duties. Try not to scorch it.” Dean stared as Dennis stalked back to the abbey.
Dean set the trough where it would catch most of the blood, trying to get back in the frame of mind to kill this squealing pig, now that he also had to listen to its blood hitting the metal for however long it took to drain out of it. Make salt? And a country ham too?? What the hell was that? He’d be poring over those old cookbooks all afternoon again.
On to part 2 ...