-----

"Dad, is there a rest stop anywhere around here?" Sam Winchester asked, a slight whine in his tone. As if to call attention to the fact that he was uncomfortable, he shifted position and leaned forward, resting his chin on the top of the front seat of the Impala and allowing the tiniest hint of a pout to show on his face.

John sighed and glanced over his shoulder at his younger son. "We're running out of daylight. Do you really need me to stop?"

Sam slumped back in his seat with a soft whimper. "No, not really. I just kind of need to walk around."

After consulting the road map that was lying open in his lap and some quick mental calculation, Dean informed his brother that they were only about thirty minutes outside of their destination: Cranston, Rhode Island. "Think you can wait that long?"

"Yeah, I guess," Sam said with a small shrug. After heaving a sigh, he turned his head to stare out the window.

Sam should have been accustomed to sitting in the car as his father drove up and down the interstates, but they had been heading north on I-95 for what seemed to him like days and he was way beyond bored. As the evergreens on the side of the road whizzed past the window, he blurred his vision, turning the individual trees into one fast-moving pine green blob. He alternated between that and focusing on one tree in particular to watch it speed from left to right. Even though he was now nine and, he felt, entirely too old to be playing games in the car, boredom still caused him to watch the trees or look for out-of-state license plates on the other cars on the road.

After a few minutes, even watching the trees became tedious. Sighing again, he leaned his head back against the seat and shut his eyes. For far too long, he'd been sitting in the same position, watching the same things. It didn't matter which direction they were traveling in; all the highways looked the same.

Sam fidgeted in his seat, trying to find a semi-comfortable position. His legs were cramped, he felt closed in, and his lower back was beginning to hurt. "Now how long is it until we get to Cranston?" he asked, opening his eyes. He cringed; the question had come out whinier than he had intended.

"About five minutes less than the last time you asked," Dean teased with a slight roll of his eyes. He twisted in his seat to face his little brother. "What's the matter?"

Sam just shrugged, sulking. "I really want to get out of the car."

"Feeling claustrophobic?"

With a shake of his head, Sam squirmed in the seat again. "I'm uncomfortable. And my back hurts."

"We're almost there, Sammy," John spoke up, taking his eyes off the road just long enough to glance up in the rearview mirror at his younger son.

Dean held his gaze on Sam for a moment longer before turning around and staring out the windshield. Rolling his eyes, Sam turned sideways and stretched his legs out across the seat. After a minute of staring blankly at the scenery outside the window, he leaned his head back against the window and closed his eyes.

For the next twenty minutes, he hovered on the edge between asleep and awake. He could hear the conversation his father and brother were having, but he wasn't paying attention to what they were saying. Instead, he was allowing their voices to lull him.

The Impala slowed to a stop and Sam's eyelids slowly fluttered open. Out the window, he saw the brown brick of a small motel. Finally! He excitedly packed up the few toys he had taken out during the trip, pushed the car door open, and climbed out, stretching his legs and arms as he did so. The kinks in his back would work themselves out in a few minutes; he had learned that a long time ago.

Just as he was getting ready to shrug on his backpack, he felt someone wrap an arm around his shoulders from behind. He gasped, startled, but when he felt knuckles dig into the top of his head, he knew exactly who had grabbed him. "Quit it!" he hollered at his brother as he pushed Dean's hand away and struggled against his grip.

"No chance, squirt." Dean tightened his hold on Sam and gave him one final noogie before releasing him.

All John had to do was give Dean an exasperated look. The older Winchester looked down at the ground and inched away from Sam, an indication that he would leave his brother alone. At least for the time being. "You boys stay here with the car," John said as he closed the driver's side door. "I'll be right back."

Once his father was out of earshot, Sam smacked Dean’s arm. "I hate noogies." The teasing grin on Dean's face gave away the fact that he knew quite well of his brother's dislike for noogies.

The two brothers stood in silence for a minute before Sam turned to Dean, squinting against the bright August sunlight. "Why are we in Cranston? What's here that Dad has to go after?"

Dean shrugged. "He didn't tell me much, just that there was a house where people were getting hurt."

"Do you think he's going to make us go with him?" Sam asked as he leaned back against the Impala.

John had allowed them to tag along on hunts before, but the past few he'd had he deemed too dangerous for the children to come along, so the boys had been stuck in the motel room for days. At this point, Sam wasn't quite sure which one was worse: going on the hunt or being cooped up in the room. Dean was old enough that the hunt was a lot more exciting for him, but truth be told, Sam would rather have been doing the research part of the job. Sitting in a musty old library was infinitely better than being in the line of danger.

"Probably depends on how dangerous the job is," Dean answered, leaning back against the car with his brother. "Sounds simple enough, though, so I have a funny feeling we're working this one."

A soft whimper escaped Sam's lips as he shifted his backpack on his shoulder. The sun beating down on the top of his head was hot and small beads of sweat were already beginning to form on his upper lip. As he allowed his gaze to wander, he spotted a small inground pool behind a tall chain-link fence. All he wanted to do was jump into the cool, clear water, clothes and all. "Dean, look, there's a pool!" he exclaimed, pointing somewhat unnecessarily.

Dean followed his brother's gaze and gave his shoulder a small shove. "Now I know where you're going to be spending your afternoons if we don't get to go with Dad."

Sam just raised his eyebrows and grinned. The promise of being able to play in the pool was all of a sudden making him hope against hope that he and Dean would be sitting out this hunt.

-----

The three-story Victorian manor was impressive from the outside, to say the least. As Dean stepped out of the Impala, he regarded the building with his mouth slightly open in awe. Fresh paint colored the clapboard a lemon yellow and the woodworking was done in bright white. A huge wraparound veranda, complete with a porch swing with a full, thick cushion lined the front of the house. Six stairs led from the veranda to the front walk. The most remarkable feature was a tall turret sticking up into the sky on the right side of the building. "Oh my God, there's a tower!" he heard Sam whisper excitedly as he climbed out of the car.

Smirking at Sam's brand of dorky enthusiasm, Dean could not pass up the opportunity to correct his little brother. "It's called a turret.”

"I don't care what it's called. It looks like a tower!"

He opened his mouth to argue, but after a moment of consideration he supposed that a nine-year-old wouldn’t appreciate the difference between a turret and a tower. His gaze shifted upward to the roof of the building and he frowned when he noticed a white railing, the purpose for which he couldn't even hazard a guess to, encircling the chimney. “Dad? What’s that?”

Once out of the car, John followed his son's gaze to the roof of the house. "What, the railing? It's a widow's walk," he answered. He circled the Impala and opened the trunk, packing various weapons and supplies into a duffel bag. "A lot of old houses have them, though they're usually found on seafront homes. The sailors' wives would go up there to watch for their husbands' ships to come in."

"But why is it called a widow's walk?" Sam asked as he leaned against the car and pocketed the box of silver bullets that his father handed him. "Shouldn't it be called a wives' walk or something?"

"A lot of those wives ended up widows," Dean replied, glancing at his father for confirmation that he was right. At John's nod, he continued. "Sailing was really dangerous back then. Still is."

"Oh," Sam frowned. He squinted against the sunlight as he stared at the widow's walk for a long moment. "That's kind of morbid."

John snorted in amusement. "The Victorians were kind of morbid."

Dean accepted the small bag of supplies that his father was holding out for him before hurrying across the street and up the front steps. On the top step, he stopped short. Construction equipment and tools littered the porch. He only wondered for a moment why he hadn't seen the tools from the street before realizing that the latticework on the porch railings had hidden them from view. Carefully stepping around a table saw and a couple of hammers, he expertly picked the lock, pushed the door open, and stepped into the foyer.

Rather, he stepped into what would have been a foyer were the inside of the building not completely gutted. There were no walls, merely studs every foot and a half or so. Work lights were placed here and there, hanging from beams in the ceiling that were, from what Dean could tell, the original wood beams of the house. Loose red and yellow plastic wire connectors were scattered all over the floor, and overturned boxes of nails were in every corner.

Quickly realizing that he was in the way, he gingerly stepped further into the foyer and took a lay of the land. The only structure on the first floor was the tall staircase with an ornate, dark cherry banister straight ahead of him. Curiously, he wondered if the upstairs was in just as much of a disarray as the downstairs.

"Whoa!" Sam exclaimed upon seeing the mess for the first time. "What the heck?"

"The company that bought the place gutted it to remodel it into a bed and breakfast," John explained, closing the front door after he stepped over the threshold. "Once they got the outside work done, they started on the inside. And that's when everything started happening."

Back at the motel, John had filled the boys in on the occurrences and events at the house. As the walls were coming down, the occurrences had been harmless: tools and other essentials disappeared only to reappear days later in spots that had been checked many times, lights flickered, and doors opened and closed of their own accord.

Of course, the holding company explained everything away; it was a busy work site and the missing tools were said to be simply in use at the time, the wiring was old, and a few strong wind gusts had blown the doors open and closed. However, when one of the men was electrocuted while working on an electrical outlet that was supposed to have been dead, the work site was officially closed. The remodel was now in a kind of limbo, on hold until some experts could be brought in for a thorough inspection of the structure and wiring.

"Was this place always a house?" Dean asked, looking up at the ceiling beams. He squinted at some scratches in the beam directly above his head. He hurried to the staircase and climbed the first two stairs to get a closer look at the beam. "Hey, look at this!" he exclaimed, shining his flashlight on the etching.

"Look at what?" Sam asked, leaping up the steps.

"There are initials on the beam," Dean replied, nodding towards the letters. "It says, 'AM+SM, 1892.'"

"That's the year this house was built," John said as he sidled up behind his sons on the staircase. "Built by Andrew McCarley for his wife Sandra. And in answer to your question, Dean, no, this place wasn't always a house. It was used as a funeral home for about twenty-five years."

"Nice," Dean muttered. "Twenty-five years' worth of potential spirits. That's got to be, what, a few thousand people?"

"At least," John replied with a rueful nod. He stepped back down the stairs, set his duffel bag on the floor, and began unpacking supplies.

Sam brushed past Dean as he walked two stairs higher, craning his neck to catch a glimpse of the second floor. "Dad? Can I go search upstairs?"

Oh, that’s smooth, Dean thought, smirking. There was no way in hell Sam actually wanted to search the second floor; he just wanted to examine the turret from the inside. At the uncertain look on his father's face, Dean straightened and climbed the stairs so he was standing next to his brother. "I'll keep my eye on him, Dad."

After another moment's hesitation, John relented, handing Sam a flashlight. "Be careful, boys. Watch where you step and don't get too far away from each other."

"We won't!" Sam said excitedly as he took the rest of the stairs two at a time. Dean rolled his eyes and followed his brother. He had a funny feeling that he was in for a very long day.

-----

Sam supposed that if he couldn't stay at the motel and go swimming, playing in a tower was the next best thing. He should have been helping Dean search for clues, but with the upstairs gutted, it wasn't as if there were a lot of nooks and crannies to explore. So while Dean was creeping his way through the rest of the second floor, Sam had slipped away and had settled himself in front of the rounded picture window in the turret. Though he wished he could have seen the room before the walls had been torn down, the tower was one of the coolest things he'd ever seen.

He rested his palms on what was left of the windowsill and leaned forward, looking down at the street below. Even though he was only on the second story of the building, everything on the ground below seemed impossibly small. It didn’t take much imagination for him to believe that he was locked away in a tall, far-off tower, a prisoner of some medieval war.

"You're a huge geek, you know that?" came a voice from directly behind him.

Sam stood up straight and turned around, startled by the sudden sound. When he realized that the voice belonged to Dean, he gave his brother's shoulder a slight shove. "That's not funny!"

"I thought it was," Dean replied with a mischievous snicker. "Anyway, the only weird thing on this floor right now is you, so we have to go check the attic."

Disappointment immediately registered on Sam's face. First, he hadn't been able to go swimming, and now Dean was telling him that he couldn't play in the tower? How was that fair? He took a couple steps away from the window, his shoulders drooping.

He looked so sad and pathetic that Dean felt his stomach lurch with actual sympathy pains. Sighing, he rolled his eyes and held his hand out to his little brother, stopping him from walking any further from the window. "All right, have it your way. You can stay down here if you promise me that you will not leave the window. If anything happens to you, Dad'll have my ass."

"I promise, I promise!" Sam exclaimed, jumping and down excitedly. "Thank you!"

"Yeah, yeah, sure," Dean said, once again rolling his eyes. "I'm serious, though, Sam. If you get us caught, I'll kill you."

"I won't get us caught, I promise. If I hear Dad coming, I'll book it up to the attic."

Dean, convinced that Sam was going to be true to his word, nodded and headed across the corridor. Sam grinned and hurried back to the window, swiping abandoned nails that were scattered across the floor out of his way and kneeling down at the sill. He rested his arms on the wood and leaned forward, watching a couple of cars pass by on the street below. The daydream came easily to him, that he was hiding from pillagers who were storming the castle, and the cars below were their carriages, waiting to carry him off as a prisoner.

Just as the imaginary pillagers were about to break into the tower room, the sound of footsteps startled Sam out of his reverie. "Dean?" he called, pushing himself to his feet. "Is that you?"

The footsteps were moving away from him. He followed the sound a couple of paces, confusion knotting his brow. "Dean, you're not funny!"

When he didn't receive a response, he frowned. If it really had been Dean, he would have busted out laughing by now and probably would be making fun of him for falling for it. Sam stopped in his tracks and held his breath, listening intently for the sound. He turned back and grabbed his flashlight from where he had left it on the floor, switched it on, and trained the beam of light directly ahead of him. A chill settled over the entire upstairs; Sam shivered, suddenly freezing in his shorts and T-shirt.

He crept forward, advancing down the hall one step at a time. The flashlight beam illuminated nothing out of the ordinary, just construction debris, tools, and nails. When he was a few feet away from the end of the corridor, he heard a loud thud come from behind him.

Startled, he whirled around on his heels and in the beam of light, he saw a hammer lying on the floor near the turret window, a hammer that he was a hundred percent sure hadn't been there before. Where had it come from? As he began creeping back towards the turret, a utility knife dropped to the ground in front of him, seemingly out of thin air. Sam confusedly looked up at the ceiling before bending down to pick up the knife. The metal grip was cold against his hand, and he was startled to see the blade was sticking out at least an inch. Had he been a step closer, the knife would have landed blade-side down on the top of his head.

Shakily, he retracted the blade and stuck the utility knife is his pocket, intending to show his father later. Taking a deep breath to calm his increasingly frayed nerves, he turned around and headed back down the corridor. For a moment everything was still. Then a raspy, menacing voice that seemed to be coming from both nowhere and everywhere hissed, "Run, run, as fast as you can."

Sam didn't need to be told twice. He immediately fled down the corridor, found his way to the door to the attic, and ran up the stairs two at a time. "Dean! Dean!"

Dean sighed heavily when he heard his brother's voice. "Not falling for it, Sammy. Scaring someone works better if you sneak up on them."

Sam shook his head, panting from both exertion and panic. "Dean, downstairs--"

Turning around to face his brother, Dean frowned when he realized that Sam wasn't joking. Sam, being younger, was more skittish on hunts than Dean was, but he hadn't seen his brother so worked up in a long time. "What happened?"

Sam took a moment to catch his breath before blurting out what he had experienced on the second floor, from the footsteps and voice to the airborne utility knife. "So when he told me to run? I ran. Dean, I've never ... I mean ... what the hell was that?"

"Some pissed-off spirit." Dean shrugged, attempting for Sam's sake to downplay the severity of the attack. He didn't like the idea of a spirit telekinetically dropping open utility knives anywhere, never mind inches from his brother's head. "Come on," he said as he put his hand on the small of Sam's back and began guiding him down the stairs. "We have to tell Dad."

At the bottom of the staircase, Dean stepped without a second thought through the doorjamb, but Sam hung back, hesitant to set foot again on the second floor. What if the spirit was still there, ready to throw something else at him, something more dangerous than a utility knife?

Once Dean realized that his brother was no longer following him, he stopped short and looked over his shoulder. When he found Sam still in the doorway, he wordlessly made his way back to him and grasped one of his hands, tugging him out onto the floor.

The first thing Sam noticed was that the chill had gone away; the house was once again filled with muggy, sticky August air. He pulled his hand from Dean's, calmer now that the spirit seemed to be gone.

As the two brothers passed the turret, Sam stepped away from Dean for just a moment to snatch the hammer from the floor. "If this is what happened to the people working here, I can see why they didn't want to come back," he muttered as he sidled up next to his brother.

Dean didn't say anything in reply; he just slung his arm around Sam's shoulders for a quick moment of comfort. Once the boys reached the landing on the first floor, Sam glanced over his shoulder up the stairs one final time. It was completely quiet, almost as if it was taunting him, daring him to tell someone else what had happened. An involuntary shudder ran down Sam's spine as he hurried away from the staircase.

-----

Sam was still thoroughly freaked out, and Dean blamed himself. After all, if he had forced his little brother to go upstairs with him, Sam wouldn't have been anywhere near the events on the second floor. The next time, there would be no compromises, no falling for Sam's subtle guilt trips, no letting Sam do what he wanted. The next time, Dean was going to watch out for his little brother like he was supposed to. Like he had promised.

Dean had been ready to fess up to leaving Sam alone, but upon being asked if Dean had experienced any of the same things that Sam had, Sam quickly jumped in and said that Dean was on the other side of the house. Once John accepted that answer, Dean had shot his brother a confused but grateful look, and Sam just shrugged slightly in response. He definitely appreciated the fact that Sam had kept him from getting into major trouble, but didn't he understand that any punishment Dean would have been given would be deserved?

All Sam wanted to do was go back to the motel and pretend he had never set foot in the McCarley house. Unfortunately, the construction was only on a temporary hold and John had too much work to do to take the boys to the back to motel and return to the house alone.

Instead, the three of them were on the back porch, John standing and the two boys sitting on the floor, as they attempted to figure out what was happening. The cold spots and the footsteps along with the events the construction crew experienced were classic signs of a haunting, but electricity coursing through dead wires and tools falling from the sky were steps beyond a simple haunting or even poltergeist activity. Something was in that house, something that felt threatened and did not like its space being invaded.

"And you're sure it was a man's voice?" John asked as he paced back and forth along the length of the porch.

Shuddering, Sam closed his eyes and focused on the sound of the voice. "Yeah. He kind of whispered to me, but I could tell it was a man."

A hush fell over the porch. Dean stole a glance at his brother, who was sitting beside him, staring at his shoes. He looked so small, so vulnerable, so much like the little kid he still was. Dean knew that the trauma Sam was feeling and the failure and guilt he was feeling would lessen once they all got a little distance from the event, but at the moment the only things running through Dean's mind were the what ifs.

"You boys stay out here," John said, breaking the silence. The boys jumped slightly, startled. "I'm going back inside to see if I can get the bastard to come out and play."

"No, Dad!" Sam cried, jumping to his feet. "He doesn’t want anyone in the house! You’ll only make him angry if you go up there."

"I’ll be careful."

"But--"

"Sammy." The tone in John’s voice left no room for further argument.

As John disappeared back inside the house, Sam’s shoulders slumped in defeat. He kicked the wall in frustration before leaning back against it, dropping to the floor, and pulling his knees to his chest. All Dean could do was inch closer to his brother and attempt to calm his fears. "Sammy, Dad’ll be fine. He’s careful and besides, I bet this doesn’t even make the Top Ten list of dangerous jobs he’s had."

Sam just shook his head and raised his eyes to meet his brother’s. "You don’t understand, Dean. He was really, really mad that I was there. The hammer and the knife, they were just warnings."

Dean held Sam’s gaze for a long moment before Sam grew uncomfortable and broke eye contact. Although Sam had every reason to be scared, Dean was beginning to become concerned with how much Sam was letting the spirit get under his skin. "Look, Sam, I’m sure it was awful, but you’re scared right now, and fear always makes things seem worse than they really are."

Sam raised his head sharply and fixed an angry glare on Dean before pushing himself to his feet and stomping out of the porch. Dean got up and took off after his brother, who had run all the way to the back of the yard and had settled himself on the top rail of the white split rail fence. When Dean arrived at the fence, Sam refused to look at him and instead trained his eyes on the second floor windows, searching for his father. "I didn’t mean to upset you," Dean said in an effort to apologize.

The younger Winchester kept quiet for a moment, then spoke up softly. "Don’t make it sound less scary than it was. You weren’t there, you don’t know. He was warning me to get out."

Dean nodded and after another moment of silence, he joined his brother on the rail of the fence. Sam unconsciously inched closer to him, seeking comfort. "What do you think is in there, Dean?"

"I don’t know, Sammy," he said after a brief hesitation. "But whatever it is, I’m sure Dad can take care of it."

Sam nodded, his unwavering stare still on the second floor windows. Dean regarded his brother for a moment longer then followed Sam’s gaze. He could make out the shadow of a man in the furthest window on the right side of the house. The shadow was moving slowly, deliberately; Dean assumed that it was his father working his way from one end of the house to the other.

Suddenly, a flicker of movement in the attic window drew his attention. Another larger shadow paused in the window, which happened to be along the stairwell in the attic, then moved out of sight. After a second, it dawned on Dean that whoever--or whatever--was in the attic was moving down the stairs to the second floor. Out of his peripheral vision, he could see that Sam had seen the exact same thing. The brothers both leaped off the fence at the same time, running towards the house while yelling warnings to their father.

Dean reached the porch a split second before Sam. He pulled the back door open and raced into the house, Sam at his heels. Halfway up the main staircase, Dean realized that Sam was no longer behind him. "Sammy?" he called, turning back down the stairs. Where the hell had his brother gone?

He found Sam a few feet from the steps, sitting on the floor and whimpering in pain with both hands wrapped around his left ankle. "Sammy, what happened?" he asked, rushing to his brother’s side.

"I tripped on that," Sam said tearfully, nodding towards a large power drill. "Dean, it came out of nowhere!"

"Come on," Dean muttered as he crouched down to the floor. He slung his brother’s left arm over his shoulders and allowed Sam to lean on him as he tried to stand. "Don’t put pressure on it right away."

"I think it’s just twisted," Sam said, wincing in pain as he put his foot flat on the floor. "I think it’s okay."

As soon as Sam tried to take a step forward, it became clear that he was not okay. He cried out and quickly took the pressure off his foot, cursing under his breath. "It’s okay," Dean whispered. "You’re going to be okay."

John chose that moment to come down the stairs, perfectly safe and ready to call for his boys. When he saw Sam hopping on one foot and leaning on Dean, he hurried over to them. "What happened?"

"Sam tripped and twisted his ankle," Dean explained. "He can’t walk on it."

"Yes, I can," Sam interrupted, setting his foot on the floor again. "It kills, but I can walk on it now."

John bent down and examined Sam’s hurt ankle, which was already beginning to swell. "We need to get ice on that as soon as possible. You’re sure you’re okay to walk on it?"

Sam nodded, cringing as he stepped forward. "Yeah. It’s just twisted." He met Dean’s eyes, giving him a silent indication that it was okay to let him walk on his own. Dean stood still while Sam stepped away, limping on his hurt foot. As he watched his brother hobble towards the front door, he vowed that he would personally stop whatever was in that house from hurting anyone else.

-----

"Dean, I'm telling you, that drill came out of nowhere," Sam argued as he adjusted the ice pack resting on his ankle. "It's not like I tripped over it because I didn't see it. I tripped over it because it just … appeared right in front of me."

"Sam, there were tools all over the place," Dean insisted. He pushed Sam's hands out of the way and adjusted the ice pack himself. "How can you be sure that you just didn't see the drill?"

"Because I know what I saw," Sam said with a roll of his eyes. "That drill was not there before I fell." After a moment of thought, his eyes widened. "Dean, Dad was fine when he came downstairs. That shadow in the attic, it was just a trick! He wanted us to get back into the house so he could hurt us!"

Dean heaved an exasperated sigh, and Sam could tell instantly that Dean wasn't convinced. Whether he simply didn’t believe him or didn’t want to believe him, Sam wasn’t sure. But it didn't matter what Dean believed; all that mattered was what Sam knew, that the man in the house was a horrible, angry spirit who wanted everyone, including Sam and his family, out of his space.

As Dean turned on the television, the sound of a key clicking into the motel door's lock signaled John's return from an emergency run to the pharmacy and to get some more ice. All the ice they had in the room had gone into the Ziploc bags John had used to fashion the ice packs, and they were going to need more if they were going to prevent Sam's ankle from swelling up like a balloon.

After closing the door, John set the ice bucket down on the chest of drawers, then settled himself on the edge of the bed of Sam's bed. He removed the ice pack to check the injury. An angry, purple bruise was beginning to form around Sam's ankle, but the swelling had gone down a bit. "Does it still hurt?" he asked.

Sam shook his head. "Not really, but it's numb."

John nodded in understanding and gently lifted Sam's leg to remove the bottom ice pack. "I'm going to wrap it now, okay?" he said, pulling an Ace bandage out of the bag from the local CVS. The bandages he'd had with him were the self-stick kind that had unfortunately lost their stickiness since the last time he'd used them. "It’s going to hurt, but I'm going to be as careful as I can."

Sam nodded and squeezed his eyes shut as his father began wrapping his foot and the bottom of his calf tightly in the bandage. The combination of motion and contact was sending pain shooting up Sam's leg, and it was all he could do not to cry out. "I'm sorry, Sammy," John whispered as Sam clenched the bedspread in his fist. He finished off the wrapping by placing the two metal brackets over the exposed end of the bandage. "Is that too tight?"

Sam shook his head no, then let his breath out in relief when John rested his foot back on the pillow. Within a few seconds, the throbbing in his leg subsided to a dull ache, which was infinitely easier for him to deal with. After shifting position on the bed, he leaned back against the headboard, putting his right arm behind his head to cushion it from the hard wood. John ran his thumb across Sam's forehead as a comforting gesture before standing and crossing the room to grab the tape recorder from his duffel bag.

"Did you get anything?" Dean asked, tearing his attention from the television.

"A little, yeah," John replied as he rewound the tape. Once the rewind button clicked back up, he hit play and turned the volume up as high as it would go. A full minute and a half of dead air was followed by a deep, raspy, "Run, run, as fast as you can."

"'You can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man,'" Dean muttered, unconsciously completing the rhyme.

Sam raised a confused eyebrow at his brother. "What does gingerbread have to do with anything?"

Dean blinked his eyes and frowned at Sam. "You don’t know The Gingerbread Man?" Sam shook his head no, the look on his face clearly indicating that he thought his brother was insane.

Dean just gave Sam a matching stare. Like the cow jumping over the moon and the man traveling to St. Ives, Dean assumed that The Gingerbread Man was one of those stories that kids grew up just instinctively knowing. It took him a minute to remember that he had first read The Gingerbread Man with his mother, an opportunity Sam had never had. And it's not as if his father was big on nursery rhymes. "It's a kids' story about an old woman who bakes a gingerbread cookie shaped like a man, and he comes to life because he doesn't want to be eaten. He runs away, saying that rhyme to every creature he meets along the way. He eventually gets eaten by a fox because the fox tricks him."

Sam held the disbelieving gaze on his brother for a moment longer before shaking his head. "That sounds like a wonderful story to be telling little kids."

Dean snickered in amusement and lightly smacked his brother’s arm before turning attention to his father. "That phrasing can't be a coincidence, can it? I mean, with all the ways he could have told you and Sam to get out, what are the odds that he'd say that and not mean the gingerbread man rhyme?"

"Most likely not a coincidence," John confirmed, nodding pensively. "Who he is and why he's using the gingerbread rhyme, I have no idea, but we're going to find out. Tomorrow I'm going to drop you boys at the historical society on my way to the house--"

"Dad, you cannot go back to that house!" Sam exclaimed, sitting up straight on the bed. "He could hurt you like he hurt the construction guy! And me!"

"Sammy, I have to make sure that he doesn't hurt anyone else," John explained, his tone even. "The company that bought the house is dead set on turning that place into an inn, even if they have to tear down the building to do it. What if it's not the house he's haunting, but the grounds? I'm not leaving this job unfinished."

"But Dad--"

"No buts, Sam. This is not up for discussion."

Sam slumped back against the headboard with a defeated pout. He knew that this was in no way the most dangerous job his father had ever worked. Hell, it wasn't even the most dangerous one Sam had been allowed to participate in. But whatever was in that house was so angry, so evil; Sam had never felt anything like it before.

Suddenly uncomfortable, Sam fidgeted on the bed and, without thinking, put pressure on his hurt foot. He winced in pain and smacked the mattress with the palm of his hand. "Dammit," he muttered as he let out a heavy breath.

“Sam,” John said sternly, fixing a reprimanding stare on his son, “watch your mouth.”

“Sorry, sir,” Sam said, raising his eyes to meet his father’s.

John nodded, acknowledging and accepting Sam’s apology. “You need more medicine? I can give you the high test stuff now.”

Sam mulled over his options; he didn’t like how sleepy the prescription medicine made him, but his ankle was beginning to throb again and it was too soon to put the ice back on. In the end, his ankle won. “Yes, please.”

John went to the sink, poured a glass of water, and handed it to Sam, along with a white tablet. The pills were left over from when Dean had fractured his wrist after falling from a tree he had been climbing at Pastor Jim’s. Sam put the tablet on the back of his tongue and swallowed a large gulp of water, wrinkling his nose as he felt the pill slide down his throat. After the water was gone, he handed the glass back to his father and once again leaned back against the headboard, watching as Dean flipped channels on the television.

He soon began to feel drowsy but he wanted to watch the movie Dean finally had settled on, something about woods and a girl in a mirror. Why couldn’t Dean have found the movie before Sam opted to take more medicine? In an attempt to stay awake, Sam sat up straighter on the bed.

What seemed to Sam like mere seconds later, he felt his father gently take his arm and lay him down in bed. “Stop fighting it, Sammy,” he whispered, tucking the covers around his son’s shoulders.

“But I want to watch the movie,” Sam mumbled, his words getting lost in his pillow.

“I’ll find out what it is and rent it for you later,” John promised, but Sam didn’t hear him. He had already dropped off to sleep.

-----

Sam had the distinct feeling that Dean was angry with him. It didn’t take a genius to figure it out; Dean was ignoring him. Or at the very least, he wasn't in a talkative mood. Though he had held doors open for Sam and slowed his pace so that his brother wouldn't fall behind while limping on his hurt foot, Sam could count on one hand the number of times Dean had spoken to him.

When Dean, who was sitting next to Sam at a worktable at the Cranston historical society, slammed the book he had been looking through closed, Sam flinched. "Dean? Are you mad at me?"

"No," Dean answered without looking up from the book. The tone in his voice was warning his brother to keep quiet and just continue the research.

Sam averted his eyes and tried to pay attention to the bound volume of newspapers in front of him. However, he couldn't concentrate knowing that something was bothering his brother. "If you're not mad at me, what's the matter?"

Dean gave an exasperated sigh. "Nothing's the matter."

"But Dean--"

"Shut up, Sam."

Sighing himself, Sam turned back to the newspapers. He and Dean had been left at the historical society two and a half hours before with explicit instructions to find out everything they could about the people that had lived in that house. In that time, Sam had scanned through three years of back issues of the Cranston Herald, from 1892 to 1894 after deciding that his first potential spirit was Andrew McCarley, the man who had built the house.

Andrew McCarley had become a prominent businessman in town after opening a shoe factory in 1890. Two years later, at the age of twenty-three, Andrew married Sandra Chase, a local woman he had been in love with since childhood, and built her a sprawling Victorian estate on the edge of town as a wedding present.

The information that Dean had come across was, unfortunately, more tragic. Through the passage of time, the McCarley fortune dwindled to next to nothing, and the property became too expensive for the descendents to keep in their control. The land was sold in one-acre lots and the only remnant of the grand estate was the house that Andrew had built.

It was an interesting and sad story, but Sam didn't see how it was helping them figure out why a spirit would be using a rhyme from a fairy tale to scare away people he saw as intruders. He opened the large bound book containing the newspapers from 1895 and started once again scanning the articles for any mention of the McCarleys.

It was in April that he found something of note. "Hey, Dean, check this out." He pushed the book closer to his brother, pointing to an article.

Dean leaned over and quickly read over the article. Andrew and Sandra had adopted twin six-year-old boys, as Sandra was unable to have children of her own. Dean turned back to his own book, flipped back through the pages quickly, and stopped when what he had been looking for caught his eye. "The McCarleys adopted five kids altogether," he said quietly, running his finger down the 1905 census list. "The twins, then two girls and one more boy."

Sam frowned; again, it was interesting information but was of no real value to the mystery. He wasn't sure what he'd been hoping for when he first found the article about the adoption, but whatever it was, he didn't get it. Slightly discouraged, he slid the heavy volume back in front of him and started paging through it.

When he reached December, he finally found something else worth mentioning. In a human interest article about houses in the area being decorated for the holidays, a picture of the McCarley house was featured front and center. The structure had been decorated to look like a gingerbread house with a wooden gingerbread family consisting of a father, mother, and two sons situated on the front lawn. Each member of the McCarley family was posing behind the wooden figure that was supposed to represent them.

Sam frowned in thought, then pulled the volume of newspapers from 1896 in front of him. This time starting with December, he found another story on the McCarley family's house and decorations. The gingerbread family was once again set up on the front lawn, with the addition of another gingerbread child to represent the little girl the McCarleys had adopted in May of the same year.

A quick scan through the 1897 and 1898 volumes revealed the same thing. Since the McCarley family was the closest thing Cranston had to celebrities at the time, even the mundane things they had done as a family became local news. The gingerbread family on the front lawn had quickly become a town tradition.

Sam smiled as he stared down at the pictures. "Dean, I think the spirit is Andrew McCarley."

"What makes you say that?" Dean asked, frowning doubtfully at his brother.

"Look," Sam said, pointing to each of the pictures in turn. "He's the gingerbread man."

Though he hadn't been expecting Sam's answer to be quite so literal, a proud smile tugged at the corners of Dean's mouth. It made perfect sense. Andrew McCarley had spent his life building a fortune that died a mere two generations after he did. The rambling estate he had built with his own two hands no longer existed, his property had been divvied up and sold off to strangers, and his house, the one thing he had left of legacy, had just been gutted to be remodeled. "Sammy, I think you might have just solved the mystery. I mean, we'll run it by Dad, but this all makes sense."

Sam grinned, both slightly proud of himself and happy that Dean no longer seemed to be as angry as before. "You really think I'm right?"

"It makes sense, more sense than anything I've been able to come up with." Dean gave a half-hearted, almost self-deprecating shrug. "I hate this research crap."

Suddenly, Sam understood why Dean had been short with him all day. Research was too tame for Dean; he was happier in the center of the action rather than on the sidelines. “It’s not that bad,” Sam said with a shrug that matched his brother’s.

Quickly deciding that they were in need of a change of subject, Dean stood up from his seat and took a couple books in his arms. As he walked past Sam to put the books back on a cart to be re-shelved, he reached out and tousled his brother’s hair.

Sam pushed at his brother's hand and ran his fingers through his hair to smooth it back into place. "I hate it when you do that!"

Dean just grinned mischievously as he collected the rest of the books and deposited them on the cart. After checking the clock on the wall, he nudged his brother’s shoulder. “Come on. Dad’s going to be here to pick us up in about twenty minutes and it's going to take you that long to hobble out to the door."

Sam rolled his eyes at Dean as he stood up from his seat, taking care to put most of his weight on his right leg. "If I didn't think it'd kill me, I'd kick you."

Dean snickered, flicking the back of Sam’s head. "Come on, squirt. Let's go."

-----

Seated on a bench in the public park across from the historical society, John listened as his sons excitedly explained their theory of the mystery at the McCarley house, each boy interrupting the other one when they got to juicy parts of the story. He would have bet good money that the house’s history as a funeral home was to blame for the current situation, but Sam’s theory was extremely plausible. The fact that Andrew McCarley and his family had become well-known for the gingerbread decorations was just icing on the cake.

After the boys were finished, he darted his eyes between the two of them for a moment before giving them a proud nod. "Good work, boys. Did you happen to find out where he was buried?"

"Yeah, and to make things difficult, he wasn’t,” Dean replied somewhat uncomfortably. “His ashes are in an urn at the McCarley family mausoleum at the Pocasset Cemetery.”

"So something else is keeping him here," John said, frowning in thought. "Something in that house."

Sam and Dean exchanged a confused glance. Aside from the building itself, there was nothing of Andrew McCarley’s left in that house.

"We're missing something," John muttered. His plan for the afternoon had been to drop the boys at the motel so that Sam could rest his foot while he went to the cemetery to burn the bones of whomever their prime suspect in the haunting was. With no bones to burn, they were only left with one option.

"We're going back to the house, aren't we?" Dean asked as he followed John back to the Impala.

"Yes."

Sam's jaw dropped in protest as he stopped in his tracks. "But Dad, I don't want to go back to that house! He doesn't want us there!"

"I don’t care what he wants. He doesn't belong here, and he needs to be stopped." He looked over his shoulder at his son and stopped walking when he realized that Sam was still standing in place. "Sam, let's go."

Sam bit his lower lip and looked down at the ground. "Dad--"

"Don't argue with me."

Sam let out a small whimper, but he knew better than to further argue the point. As he watched his son walk up to the Impala, John had to admit that Sam had the “Do I have to?” attitude down to a science. He knew that Sam was afraid of Andrew McCarley, but he needed to learn how to face things that scared him.

The drive to the McCarley house was made in silence. Every so often, John glanced up in the rearview mirror to check on Sam, who was growing visibly more tense and on edge the closer they got to their destination. When John finally pulled the Impala off to the side of the road opposite the house, Sam groaned softly.

To John’s surprise, he didn’t protest further; he simply got out of the car and slammed the door shut behind him. After telling Dean to grab his bag out of the trunk, John walked up behind Sam and put his hand of the small of his back, leading him across the street and up the front porch stairs. Sam's muscles tensed when John opened the door. Although it was muggy and in the eighties outside, the air inside the building was a good thirty degrees colder. It was all Sam could do not to turn around and run back down the stairs to the safety of the Impala. Not that he would have gotten very far with his dad standing behind him.

John ushered Sam over the threshold and, after Dean entered the house as well, closed the front door. As Dean took what they needed from the duffel bag and dropped it in the corner, John faced his boys. "Dean, you take the downstairs; Sam and I will take the upstairs. If even the tiniest thing happens, a nail moves an inch, I want you to come get us, you understand?"

"Yes, sir," Dean answered, nodding slightly.

John then guided Sam up the stairs. A few steps from the landing, Sam paused, his knuckles turning white as his hand gripped the railing. The air upstairs was even colder than downstairs; Sam could see white mist as he exhaled.

"Come on, Sam," John said, gently nudging his son's shoulder.

"He's mad," Sam said in response, his voice barely above a whisper. "He knows us now, Dad, and he doesn't like us."

John sighed, half in exasperation and half in concern. "Sam, I want you to listen to me." Sam hesitated a moment before turning on the stair to face his father. “You need to calm down. I know you’re scared, but you cannot let him have that kind of hold on you. You have to face him, Sam, let him know you’re not afraid of him.”

Sam nodded, inhaling deeply and holding it for a long beat. Of course, his father was right; allowing the spirit to get under his skin that much was letting the spirit win. “But it’s hard not to be scared when he can hurt us.”

“I know, Sam, but you have to be stronger than him.” John could tell that his son was not going to be easily calmed. Sighing and realizing that he needed to move the hunt along a little faster than it was progressing, he decided to go with quick comfort over tough love. “Look, I’m not going to let anything happen to you, but you need to face him.”

Sam faced forward on the stair as he took another deep breath and let it out slowly. After a moment, he climbed the last few steps to the landing. John gave a half-smile and followed his son up the stairs.

Sam didn’t budge from his father’s side as the two of them crept through the second floor. They walked the perimeter, shining their flashlights in every dark corner they came across, which were few considering the state of the upstairs. John frowned and began leading Sam through the wall studs as if they were part of a mirror maze.

“Dad, nothing’s here,” Sam spoke up after a long bit of silence. “There’s nothing of his left.”

John grunted quietly in response. “Stay here,” he muttered before heading towards the attic stairs.

Just as Sam was about to protest being left alone on the second floor, Dean’s voice floated up the stairs. “Dad! Sam! I think I figured it out!”

Suddenly, there was a loud crash from directly below the two Winchesters. The two of them wasted not a moment, dashing down the stairs to find Dean just stirring from a prone position on the floor. After calling his son’s name in concern, John rushed to his side and helped him push himself into a sitting position. “Dean, are you all right? What happened?”

Dean groggily put his hand to the throbbing wound on the back of his head and felt a sickening, thick wetness on his fingers. For a quick moment, fear and pain took over as he let out a soft whimper. He only indulged those two emotions for a split-second before swiftly regaining control and putting his hand flat on the floor without looking at it. If he saw the blood on his fingers, he’d panic.

"Dean, talk to me," John said insistently, trying to get Dean to focus on him. "Are you okay?"

After another second or two, Dean was finally able to answer his father. "I'm okay." Leaning against his father for support, he pushed himself to his feet. "My head is killing me, but I'm okay."

As John examined Dean's wound to determine the extent of the damage, Sam crouched down and picked up the small combination wrench that was lying by Dean's feet. A telltale blood stain on the open end proved that the wrench had caused Dean’s head injury, and Sam knew who had thrown it. His hands trembled as he showed it to his father. "Andrew hit him with this. I told you, he doesn't want us here. Can we go now, Daddy? Please?"

John looked up sharply at his younger son; Sam only called him Daddy when he was absolutely terrified. Though they couldn’t leave the house in its current condition, he knew he had to get his boys out of there, at least for a few minutes. Sam was clingy, Dean was in pain, and despite Dean’s efforts to hide it, he could tell that both of his sons were petrified. “Come on,” John said as he began herding his boys through the house to the back porch. “We’re going outside for a little bit.”

-----

"Will you quit looking at me like that?" Dean asked, his annoyance with his brother obvious in his tone.

Sam had been stuck to him like glue since John had left on an emergency run to the store to get more aspirin. With one son limping on a sprained ankle and the other nursing a telekinetically caused head wound, he had quickly run through what was left of the bottle he'd brought with him to Cranston. After making the boys promise to stay out on the back porch--it hadn't taken too much convincing for Sam to agree to that plan--he had taken off for the CVS down the street.

The cut on Dean's scalp wasn't deep. The bleeding had stopped after a minute or two, and after taking the last of the aspirin, his headache had dwindled to almost nothing. If he could just get his brother to stop clinging to him, he'd be perfect. "Seriously, Sam, stop staring at me. You want me to kick you?"

A hurt look crossed Sam's face for all of a millisecond, but it was long enough for Dean to feel somewhat guilty for giving his brother attitude when all Sam had done was show concern for him. In apology, Dean scooted over on the patio chair and patted the empty space next to him. Even though the boys were both too big to be sharing one chair, Sam squeezed in next to Dean. After a moment, Dean felt the tension in Sam's muscles release. "Dean?" Sam asked after almost three full minutes of silence. "Are you scared?"

"No, I'm not scared," Dean answered. "I'm pissed. Stupidass spirit threw a wrench at my head."

"He almost dropped an open utility knife on mine, but I’m not mad, I’m scared." He rested his head against the back of the chair and watched as white wispy clouds inched their way across the sky. "Dad doesn't want me to be scared, but Dean, he's so angry. He wants to hurt us. I don't know how not to be afraid of that."

Dean sighed heavily, partly out of frustration but mostly out of concern. The two of them had worked jobs five times as dangerous as their current one, and Sam hadn’t been as skittish and outright afraid during those jobs. “Sammy, look. He throws things at us because that’s all he can do now. It’s like … a little kid throwing a temper tantrum. He can’t do what he wants, so he kicks and screams and throws things.”

Without taking his attention from the clouds, Sam considered what his brother had said. Imagining that Andrew McCarley was an overgrown spoiled brat was vaguely amusing, but he was still afraid. With a soft sigh, Sam stood from his seat on the chair and sat down on the floor, stretching his hurt leg out in front of him. Keeping it level every so often kept it from throbbing.

“Sam?” Dean tentatively asked, it was almost as if he was afraid to broach the subject.

“What?”

“Why are you letting him scare you?”

Sam averted his eyes as he shrugged half-heartedly. “He’s angry, Dean.”

“They all are, Sam. Every single spirit we’ve run across, they’re all angry. They all want to hurt us. Why is he so different?”

Sam gave a slight shake of his head, and after a moment it became clear that he was not going to answer Dean’s question. Frustrated, Dean rolled his eyes and leaned his own head back to look up at the sky. Shaking his head to clear it, he shut his eyes and tried to think of something other what was happening at the moment.

No more than five minutes later, Dean heard the familiar sound of the Impala pulling to a stop and then a car door slam shut. “Bet you that’s Dad,” he mumbled, lifting his head.

“Well, duh,” Sam replied.

It wasn’t worth arguing with Sam about his attitude, so Dean just let the comment go without a response. It was another moment or two before John stepped onto the porch from the back door. “How’re you boys doing?”

“Okay,” they answered in unison. Dean even gave a small, dismissive shrug, as if getting hit in the head with a flying wrench was an everyday occurrence.

John smirked at his boys. “My walking wounded.” He pulled the bottle of aspirin out of the shopping bag from the pharmacy and then pulled out two candy bars: a Milky Way for Sam and a Snickers for Dean.

“Thanks, Dad!” Sam exclaimed, eagerly ripping the wrapper off his candy bar.

John nodded, sitting down in the patio chair across from Dean. “Dean, before all hell broke loose, you said that you thought you had an idea.”

"Oh!" Dean exclaimed. In the chaos, the fact that he had thought of something that could help had completely slipped his mind. "Aside from the outside walls, the only things left that are original to the house are the wood beams, right?"

"Right, but Dean, we can’t destroy the beams without bringing the whole house down."

"We don’t have to destroy the beams," Dean replied, grinning widely. "Back then they used to carve initials into the beams as a kind of christening, right? So if we destroy Andrew and Sandra's initials in that one beam, we'd be taking away what makes it his. He'd have to let go then, wouldn't he?"

"You really think that's going to work?"

Dean considered his plan for a moment and nodded. “Yes, sir, I do.”

John looked his son in the eye a second longer before giving him a curt nod and rising from the chair. “Then that’s the plan. You two stay out here--”

“No!” Dean exclaimed, jumping to his feet. “We have to help you.”

“Dean, don’t argue with me.”

“But we have to go!” Sam interrupted as he scrambled to stand.

John turned around, surprised that Sam, of all people, was begging to be allowed back to the McCarley house. “Sammy, you really want to go back in the house? To Andrew?”

“Well, no, I don’t want to,” Sam said hesitantly, a little uncomfortable under his father’s gaze, “but we have to be there. We started this job with you, and we need to finish it with you.”

John darted his eyes between one son and the other before allowing a proud grin to settle on his face. “Come on, boys. Let’s destroy this son of a bitch.”

-----

Sam stood on the threshold of the back door to the house, shivering involuntarily as cold air blasted his arms and legs. Trying to imagine Andrew McCarley as a tantrum-throwing three-year-old instead of a tool-pitching vengeful spirit was not calming Sam down any.

Dean glanced over his shoulder when he realized that his brother was not following him. “You’re giving him too much power, Sammy,” he whispered, waving Sam into the house. “You need to calm down.”

“Yes, Dad,” Sam muttered quietly. His eyes darted around what he could see of the first floor. Once he was convinced that no projectiles were on a collision course with him, he stepped into the building and closed the back door behind himself.

The air temperature dropped another ten degrees as he made his way through what used to be the kitchen. The loud clanging of the water pipes told him all he needed to know: Andrew knew why they were there, and he was not happy in the slightest.

As he was working on mustering the courage to continue further into the house, a sense of dread began churning in his stomach. Something was going to happen, something really, really bad. His fear pushed aside by the sudden urgency, he rushed towards the front staircase, where he knew his father and brother would be. “Dad!”

“What is it, Sam?” John asked, turning away from the five-gallon bucket he had positioned upside down under the proper wooden beam. As Sam arrived in the foyer, a hacksaw blade dropped from the ceiling above the makeshift stepstool and lodged itself into the plastic by its teeth. Before John could process the fact that he would have been standing on the bucket had Sam not cried out, the bucket skittered across the floor, sending loose nails and screws flying out of its path. “Goddamnit!”

Dean hurried down from his perch at the top of the stairs and ran after the bucket. Out of the corner of his eye, John spotted blue sparks flying out of exposed wires right where the bucket had come to rest. “Dean, freeze!”

Luckily, Dean had seen the sparks as well and pulled his hand back just in time. As he was backing away, an empty metal toolbox slid under his foot. By the time John realized what had happened, it was too late to call out to warn Dean. He stumbled backwards over the metal and landed hard on the floor. His right hand landed on a wayward nail, which dug into his palm, cutting the skin. He cried out, pulled his hand off the ground, and cradled it in his left.

John rushed to his son’s side and attempted to pry Dean’s hurt hand out of his good one to examine the wound. “Dean, you have to let me see it.”

A cold blast of air blew right through Sam’s light T-shirt and shorts, causing a chill to run down the boy’s spine. His father was preoccupied with his brother and Andrew was getting angrier by the second. Sam quickly scanned the room and rushed forward to pick up an abandoned chisel. He hurried up the first few stairs before turning around to judge the distance to the carving. He climbed up one more stair then swung his knee onto the banister and hoisted himself up onto the thick wood. Once he was balanced, kneeling on the railing, he held the chisel in his fist and in one quick motion jammed it into the wood, splitting the initials in half down the middle.

A low roar echoed through the house, followed by a raspy and menacing, “Run, run, as fast as you can.”

Sam pulled the chisel down and then lodged it into the wood again, this time bisecting the year. A sudden, frigid gust of wind blew down the staircase, knocking Sam off-balance. The chisel fell from his hand as he reached down and gripped the railing on either side of him in an attempt to steady himself.

Just as he began to fall, a strong arm wrapped around his stomach and pulled him off the banister. “Sammy, you okay?” John asked, holding his son close to him.

Sam nodded and shut his eyes in relief, breathing heavily. “I’m fine. Just finish it.” He heard the sound of the chisel being forced into the wood again. He opened his eyes to see his brother standing on the bucket, chipping away at the wooden beam. With one final push, Dean thrust the chisel into the beam and pulled down, finally destroying the last traces of the carving.

Almost at once, the wind died down and the temperature in the building began climbing to a more weather-appropriate level. As John released his grip on Sam, the youngest Winchester let out a breath of relief. “He’s gone now, Dad. I don’t feel him anymore.”

Before John could even think about the implications of Sam’s statement, Sam hurried over to Dean to give him a high-five on his good hand. “We did it!”

“Yes, we did.“ Dean ruffled his brother’s hair and, like always, snickered when Sam pulled away and smoothed his hair back into place. Then he slung his arm around his brother’s shoulders and turned to his father. “Can we get out of here now, Dad? I think my fascination with this house is over.”

-----

After spending a long overnight at the McCarley house, John Winchester was convinced that the spirit had been eradicated. The tools that had become McCarley’s weapons all remained where they rested, the temperature stayed at a level on par with the air outside, there were no moans, no voices, no sounds.

The three Winchesters had checked out of the motel and were now heading back towards the interstate, ready and willing to put Andrew McCarley and Cranston, Rhode Island behind them for good.

In order to get back to the highway, John had to drive past the house one final time. As they took the familiar turn, Sam craned his neck so he could see the house through the windshield. The dread that had begun churning his stomach every other time he'd come anywhere near the structure remained quiet. Remembering the wonder he'd felt the first day when they pulled up to the house and he had seen the tower--or turret, or whatever it was called--he allowed a small smile to show on his face.

He turned in the seat and watched the house disappear around the corner as his father turned onto Route 2. He then faced front, dug through his backpack for a video game, and settled back in the seat, preparing himself for another long drive. From Rhode Island they were going to be heading to Millinocket, Maine to look into a couple of fiery deaths at a factory.

They had been on the road for a couple of hours when Dean informed his father that he needed to stop. John pulled over at the next rest area and the three Winchesters exited the Impala. Dean hurried to the restroom but when John asked Sam if he needed to go as well, Sam answered in the negative. “Good,” John said, “because I want to talk to you.”

Whenever John said something like that in that tone of voice, the conversations were never good. “About what?” Sam asked, somewhat uncomfortable under his father’s intense gaze.

“What was going on with you at the McCarley house?”

Sam averted his eyes, looking down at his sneakers instead. “What do you mean?”

“You said you couldn’t feel him anymore.”

“H-he was making it cold. When the cold went away, I knew he was gone.” He shrugged dismissively.

John nodded, unsure whether he really wanted to accept that answer. It certainly didn’t sound at the time like Sam was merely feeling the temperature change. “There were things that you just knew, Sam, things you couldn’t have known. The hacksaw blade for instance. If you hadn’t called for me, that blade would have sliced and diced me instead of the bucket.”

Sam just shrugged again, stuttering slightly as he attempted to explain. “I-I don’t know. I just had a feeling that something bad was going to happen. I didn’t know what it was or anything. Just that something was going to happen.”

John narrowed his eyes in concern. “Does this happen a lot?”

“No,” Sam replied, this time looking his father in the eye. “It was just this one time.”

John could tell that his son was telling him the truth. “Okay,” he said, resting his hand on Sam's shoulder to calm him a little.

The two fell into a comfortable silence as they waited for Dean to return. After a moment, Sam spoke up again, “Dad?”

“What, son?”

“Are you worried?”

“What, about you?” John asked. Sam nodded after a moment’s pause. Truthfully, he was a little worried. He didn’t like the idea that Sam had just “known” things that happened to come true. But Sam didn’t need to be bothered with that. “Nah.”

“So … everything’s okay, right? Normal?”

John could only hope that his doubt didn’t show in his eyes as he nodded in confirmation. “Absolutely.”