gwendolyngrace (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
gwendolyngrace) wrote2008-03-31 11:35 pm
gwendolyngrace) wrote2008-03-31 11:35 pm
Entry tags:
Fic Post: Trost Und Freude (15/17)
Title: Trost und Freude (Comfort and Joy) (Chapter 15/17)
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
gwendolyngrace
Recipient:celtic_cookie
Request terms: Sam and Dean of course, and I love John: Lots of John! A Pre-series Christmas Story! Familial bonding, maybe a holiday-themed hunt?
Summary: Saginaw, Michigan, 1990: Going holiday shopping may hold more hazards than just the insane crowds and parents hell-bent on the buying the latest toy. John goes undercover to look into a series of accidents at the local mall. Meanwhile, Dean and Sam respond to Christmas-season festivities at school with unexpected results.
Rating: PG
Genre: Gen
Wordcount (this chapter): about 3,645
Spoilers: All three seasons through 3x08, may or may not be Origins-compliant
Disclaimer: No copyright infringement intended, not mine, just my fantasy.
Author’s Notes: So, if there were any doubt about this week’s “Monday Meta” over at wee_chesters, I hope that this chapter settles it: April Fool’s, gang. Not about this chapter—about that meta. No, I don’t really hate John. I try to portray him in a fair and balanced way. He’s far from perfect, but he did love Dean and Sam and he tried to bring them up the best way he could think to do. Which included some decidedly weird decisions. ;^D Also, I’ll be representing the anti-John side of the debate at EyeCon this weekend, so I have been needing to let my “John Hate” come out a little more than usual. But no, I really do generally like John, I just want to smack him occasionally. Luckily, I’m not alone, as Ellen and Bobby will prove during this chapter. Oh, and by the way? If the previous chapter was sparse before the beta got it? This one? Was almost pure dialogue. Yay for the beta, because she reminds me that in fictional narrative, stage directions and line readings are Good Things ™. Thanks,etakyma!
From the Top
Then
Now:
John turned the corner, out of sight of the apartment door, and slammed the heel of his hand against the steering wheel. “God dammit, Dean!” he shouted at the empty backseat. Once he’d said it aloud, he laughed at himself. At them. Impudent little bastards—and what did he expect? He’d taught Dean—by example if nothing else—to forge a slipshod relationship with honesty. He couldn’t wait to hear the whole progression: what had started the lie and how it had evidently spun out of control. And he’d devise an appropriate punishment for them both. Only first things first.
There was a library ten blocks from the apartment building and it was open until 10 PM on Saturdays. John went around the block to double back onto Elm.
He parked and went in, heading for the Folklore section. Three tedious hours of research later, he was starving, but he’d found three distinct possibilities: a bysen, a huldra, or an askefrue. The good news was that salting and burning the tree ought to take care of any of them. The bad news was that trying to burn the tree in the mall would just result in angering the spirit again, and another shower courtesy of the sprinkler system. He needed to figure out how to remove the tree. Or he needed a second opinion.
But more than either, he needed dinner.
Food made everything easier to handle. It improved his mood, helped him put his thoughts in order. The diner had been crowded when he’d arrived, but business was thinning out by the time he finished his meal. The place also had an old-style phone booth, with a folding door that could keep a conversation private. He dug out his wallet, dropped a few bills on the table, and pulled his calling card out from its slot before tucking the leather sheath back in his pocket. He slid off the bench seat and closed himself into the phone booth.
Was it a good thing to realize he had the number half-memorized, or a bad thing?
“Harvelle’s Roadhouse.”
“Hey, Ellen.”
“John Winchester, as I live and breathe,” Ellen said, affecting a “Scarlet O’Hara” lilt in her usual drawl. “So, you pull your head out of your ass yet and decided to come for Christmas?”
John’s eyebrow twitched upward. “Got a follow-up question, from our conversation.”
“Uh-huh. Well, dinner’s at three and I have a 12-pound turkey. Ought to be enough for you and two growing boys.”
“Not that conversation.”
“Hmph.” There was a world of indictment in that sound. It was a sound that meant Ellen thought John’s priorities were all bass-ackwards. John ignored the insinuation. Any other hunter would be heading the right way to a smacked jaw for interfering…but this was Ellen. She’d been right about the boys lying to him but he didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of being better able to read two boys she’d never met than their own father. Getting riled would just tip her off.
“So,” she continued when he didn’t rise to the bait. “You pull your head out of your ass and figure out what’s going on?”
John snarled wordlessly. “Last piece of the puzzle finally fell into place. Only it was the first piece.” He explained in a highly edited version. Once he’d laid it down, he asked, “So, you ever hear of this…huldra? Or an askefrue?”
“Some sort of dryad, you say?”
“Yeah, that’s my bet. This huldra, in particular, it’s Swedish. Another name for it is a Tallemaja, which translates to ‘pine tree Mary.’ The askefrue or eschenfrau is the German equivalent, supposed to be similar to the Greek Dryads.”
“You didn’t look at the tree before?”
“Swear to God, Ellen, I was sure it was as fake as everything else in there. Hell, they had so much crap on the thing you could barely tell it was a tree.” John stopped before he sounded too defensive. “But this askefrue thing, has all the right symptoms. Problem is, I can’t burn the tree while it's in the mall.”
“I should say not,” Ellen commented. “What gets me is why you’d burn it at all.”
“Killing people, Ellen,” John said, amazed the justification was necessary.
“She’s protecting what little life she has left,” she replied impatiently. “This ain’t a case of a spirit causing wanton destruction—her existence was peaceful until people came along and kidnapped her. She’s already dying, John.”
John snorted. “We could say practically the same thing about half the things out there.”
“No, it’s different. I mean it. Imagine if forces beyond your control came, hacked you off at the roots, transported you away from your home, your lifesource, and then left you to languish in a land where you can’t eat or breathe. Then imagine people keep showing up with the one thing that can hurry your death along.”
“Fire.” John pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Well, yeah.” He could hear the aspersion that she didn’t add.
“Ellen….” He trailed off. The story, told that way, sounded more familiar than he cared to admit.
“What, John?”
Growling, John tapped the side of his fist on the glass door. “Trust you to make it personal.”
“It is personal. To her.” Trust Ellen to take the feminist point of view, too, rather than listen to reason. Her version made the damn thing sound more like an aggrieved housewife than a murderous, wild elemental.
“Well, cry me a river, Ellen. Don’t change the fact that she’s got to go.” John fell onto the bench seat, adjusting the receiver against his ear.
“She’s got to leave the mall, yeah.”
John raked his free hand through his hair. “Can’t just pick up a 20-foot tree and replant it.” For some reason the conversation reminded him of arguing with Sammy in one of Sammy’s full-on Truth, Justice, and the American Way modes. Luckily, Ellen was a little more rational than Sam.
“No, I’ll give you that,” she told him. “Hang on.” He heard the handset rest on the table. Heard Ellen call someone “honey” and set up some drinks. She moved away. A few seconds passed, during which John skimmed over the graffiti in the booth. Nothing really all that interesting caught his eye. Then someone picked up Ellen’s handset.
“Hewo?” a high-pitched voice said. “Hawvewwe’s Woadhowse.”
“Is that Jo?” John asked gently. Elmer Fudd’s speech pattern and the juvenile voice pretty much guaranteed it had to be Ellen and Bill’s daughter. “Sweetie, it’s John.”
“Unca John?”
“Yeah.” He smiled. “What’re you doing in the bar, sweetheart?”
“Papa’s ’way. Towed Momma din’t want no baby sittuh.”
“So she put you to work?” John teased.
“Nah. M’colowing.”
“What’re you coloring?”
“Twees. Teachuh says s’bad to kiw twees. ’Cause we gotta wecycwe.”
John scrubbed his face. Kiw me now, he thought. He half-listened, flipping through his notes while Jo treated him to a few more choice phrases about trees and paper and what he finally translated as “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.” Then she held out the phone; her voice called, “Hey, Momma!”
“Jo, honey, what’re you doing, baby?” Ellen’s voice.
“Talkin’a Unca John.” Jo brought the receiver back to her mouth. “Unca John? You comin’ fuh Cwistmas?”
“No, darlin’,” he sighed. “But I’ll see you sometime soon, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Put your mom back on, honey.”
“Okay.” There was a bit of static and the bar noise as she held out the phone again.
“John?”
John snapped his journal shut. “You did that on purpose.”
“Never occurred to me. So help me,” Ellen said, dry as dust.
“Right. Don’t kill trees? Tell me that was a coincidence.”
“Hey, kindergarten’s all about conservation these days,” she told him brightly. “And when do you think I had time between putting down the phone, watering your average high-strung crazy hunters, and solving your case for you to coach Jo in the art of old-fashioned guilt trip?” The words were testy, but the voice was affectionate.
“Hmph. Solving my case, huh?”
“Darn right. Got a pen?”
John dug for one and opened up his journal again. “Shoot,” he said when he was ready.
“Okay,” she said, and the flirtatious air vanished, replaced by a voice that was all business. “One of the crazy hunters in here tonight happens to be an expert on antiquity—Greek and Roman myth. He says that as long as some part of the tree can survive, so can the dryad. Should work for your huldra.”
“Hm. Part of the tree—does he mean like a graft?”
“Yeah.”
“Huh. Sort of a USS Constitution deal: As long as there’s a single plank of the original wood, they can call it the original ship.”
She chuckled. “Sammy tell you that, or is that one part of your own trivia collection?”
“No, my old man’s actually. Came in handy when Dean had to do a report on it, though.” He rested the back of his head on the wall. “Anyway. So, a graft. Anything special?”
“Well, you’ll have to make sure the spirit’s inhabiting the graft, or she’ll stay with her tree.”
“Great. How do I manage that?” he asked, leaning forward with his elbows on his thighs.
“If she’s corporeal, John, I’d suggest you talk to her.” Once again, John could tell she was suppressing the urge to add some kind of insult.
John grimaced. This job was never dull, at least. Weird? Every damn day. But dull? Never.
“Okay, but anything particular? Rituals?”
“Not for a dryad. Course, my guy ain’t familiar with Germanic legends.”
“Huh. Well, any solution’s better than none. Got it. Thanks, Ellen. And hey,” he added impulsively.
“Yes?” she asked when he held off continuing.
John cleared his throat. “Jo said Bill’s away. Working a job?”
Ellen’s voice tightened. “Caleb wanted a wingman for a weapons run. He promised he’d have Bill home by Christmas.”
“Ah. Well, when he gets back, tell him I’ll swing through sometime next month.”
“I’ll do that.”
John paused. Ellen clearly meant to shut down the topic, but John felt compelled to reassure her, for some reason. “He’ll be back, Ellen.”
“He better be.”
“Tell him…tell him if he doesn’t take care of you and that little girl, I’ll personally show him how it’s done.”
“Get in line, John.” She was still laughing when John hung up.
When he stood up, the waitress attracted his attention and hoisted the coffee pot in an unspoken question. John shook his head, waving her away. She shrugged and went back to her rounds. He punched in his card number again and followed it with Gina’s.
“Hello?” she answered, sounding tired.
“Gina, it’s John.”
“John.” Her voice grew alert. “Sheriff Dade was looking for you—”
“Yeah. He can read my report when this is over,” John said dismissively. “Listen, I am going to need to get in, after all. Tonight.”
“Tonight?”
John nodded, expecting her surprise. “After everyone’s out of the mall. It’s very important. Could you call the guards?”
“I’ll meet you,” she offered.
“No—”John shook his head—“It could be dangerous.”
“They won’t—shouldn’t—let you in with authorization just by phone.”
“Let me worry about that,” he insisted.
“No. I want to see this through.” Gina took a quick breath, but her next statement was tentative. “Whatever that was this afternoon, it wasn’t human. Was it?”
“…No,” John said sadly. He scraped his bottom lip with his front teeth. This was his second-least favorite part of the job. It never got easier.
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to stop it, Gina. That’s all you need to know.”
“Sheriff Dade said he checked with the Michigan State Police. They’ve got no record of you applying for an investigator’s license.” Her voice was quiet, more a recitation of facts than a list of accusations. “You’re not a PI. And you’re not FBI, either, are you?”
John tapped the receiver against his forehead before bringing it back to respond: “Does it matter?”
She sighed. “No. I guess it doesn’t.” He heard her shift around, possibly standing up. “The mall closed early tonight because of the fire. There’s a cleanup crew there. I’ve already asked Wade and Jerry to call me when they’re done.”
“All right,” John conceded. Gina wasn’t going to be shaken off, and besides, he owed her. She could have turned him in to Sheriff Dade if she’d wanted. “You’ve got my number?”
“Yes.”
“Call me when they call you and I’ll meet you there,” he said by way of a battle-plan.
“Okay. And John?” he heard her call, though he was halfway to the cradle.
“Yes?” he asked, pulling the phone back to his ear.
“Thank you. For doing this.”
John blinked. He was sure everyone in the diner could see him blushing, but he glanced out and saw only the waitress bringing plates out to a table. “You’re…you’re welcome.”
He hung up. That part never got easier, either.
He stood up again to check the diner. Business was picking up again, but no one seemed to care about the phone booth. He made one more phone call before leaving.
“Singer Salvage.”
“Bobby. John Winchester.”
“John. What’ve you done?”
John barked a short laugh. “Nothing much. Finishing up a job—should be done tonight.”
“And it’s under control.”
“You sound skeptical. Yeah. Should be fine. Thought I’d get a second opinion on Ellen’s proposed resolution.”
“So not a salt-and-burn?” Bobby growled.
“No, apparently not.” He checked to make sure no one was nearby, then outlined the creature and the graft idea.
“Ought to work,” Bobby mused when John was through. “Think I’d use a little mistletoe to get her to come out, if it was me.”
“Mistletoe, right. Easy enough. Can’t really say I look forward to kissing her,” John teased.
“It’s for summoning, you idjit,” Singer groused.
John chuckled. “I know, I know.”
“So why did you really call?”
“Couple reasons,” John admitted, sobering. He sat back on the bench and crossed one ankle over the other knee. “First off, this job’s about done. Wondered if you’d heard about anything else in the vicinity.”
“Starting a new hunt this close to Christmas?” Bobby asked. John could see the hunter’s confused squint three states away. “Didn’t you say you wanted to spend a quiet Christmas with the boys?”
“Yeah,” John said, half-grumble, half-sigh. “Well, Frank and Jesse may not get a Christmas, this rate.”
“Oh, Christ,” Bobby said in exasperation that John already felt. “What’ve they done now?”
“Fuck if I know the whole of it, but what I got so far is boneheaded, even for our own Mr. Wizard.” John shook his head, bewildered.
Bobby grunted. “John, you can’t watch them every second.” He was trying to be helpful, but it was anything but a consolation.
“No, but…it’s just been a rough week,” John sighed. He leaned forward again. “Dean’s had the flu, and just when I thought we were getting back on track, I find out he helped Sam lie to his teachers to get out of some damn concert at school.”
“How’d he manage that?”
“Told her we’re Jehovah’s Witnesses.” John exhaled a sharp huff, halfway between a laugh and a short sigh. “Didn’t even know the boy knew enough to fake it. So all Sam’s teachers think I’m some crazy-ass Fundamentalist whack job won’t let his kids celebrate Christmas.” He stood up because his butt was falling asleep on the bench. “As if that’s not enough, Sam’s doing his best to raise their interest level by drawing pictures of him and his brother pissing their names in the snow.”
He actually read all the graffiti in the phone booth while Bobby finished laughing. “You’re fucking kidding me,” Bobby said after he could breathe again.
“God’s honest, Bobby,” John swore, leaning on the side of the booth. “Picture’s on my fridge. I mean, I should tell him all the ways that’s FUBAR, but I just laugh every time I look at the damn thing.” He kicked the leg of the bench seat gently with the tip of his shoe, reminding himself of Sammy when he was embarrassed.
“Boys’ll be boys, John.”
“Do they have to be so thoroughly boys all the time?” he groaned.
“Does my number spell Dear Abby?” Bobby crabbed at him. “You think I’m friggin’ Sally Jesse, John? They’re your sons.”
John grunted, but pressed anyway. “You and Jim probably know’em best—hell, you’ve probably spent as much time with’em by now’s I have.”
“Sad commentary, John,” Bobby said, blessedly free of recrimination.
“I know. Trust me. Thing is,” he continued, pacing the single step the booth would allow, then sitting again, “lying to teachers, trying to duck things—first off, that’s Dean’s style, not Sam’s. I expect that kind of thing from him. But Sammy?” He rubbed his eyes. “I don’t know if I can handle two juvenile delinquents. But what really gets to me is…they lied to me.”
“Covering it up?” Bobby asked sharply.
“Right.”
“So let me guess: You’re sitting in a bar somewhere, plucking up the courage to punish them the way you should, procrastinating as usual, because when it comes to your kids, you’re a big wussy.”
John couldn’t find a reply for a second. “I’m in a diner, not a bar, and I discipline my boys plenty, Singer. Just ’cause our old men preferred a strap to extra drills or chores don’t mean I’m soft,” he continued over Bobby’s knowing chuckle.
“Okay,” Bobby placated him. “So what’s the problem?”
“The problem is…it’s Christmas.”
“Ain’t Christmas yet, man. My calendar says December 15th.” Bobby sounded like he was practically daring John to man up.
John chewed on that, stretching his foot against the door, but careful not to push hard enough to open it. “Well, there’s a bigger issue. Have a feeling I’ll need to blow town pretty quickly after this job is wrapped up. The boys have one more week before the break. I can pull them out next weekend and get’em settled again before Christmas Eve if there’s somewhere close to go.”
Bobby said nothing for a moment. Then: “Dammit, John.” The disapproval Bobby’d been holding back came out in the two words all at once.
“Oh, fuck you, Singer,” John shot back testily. “You know well as I do that sometimes it’s better not to be around once the questions start getting asked.”
“Thought you said it was under control.”
“It is. Well, it will be,” he corrected grudgingly. “Went down in a rather public place.”
“Oh, Hell,” Bobby said incredulously after a brief pause, “you’re not at the center of that mall riot in Saginaw?”
John’s face screwed up in his own disbelief. How could Bobby know about the job already? “Jesus, Bobby. Ellen call you or something?”
Bobby made a “pshaw” sound that John bet left spit on his mouthpiece. “Satellite’s the best way to get a TV signal out here, John. That story made the cable feed.”
“Terrific.” He slapped his thigh, rubbed out the sting through his jeans.
“You’re lucky. They only have footage from after,” Bobby told him. “One time a guy I knew wound up on national news cleaning out a coven of demon-worshippers. Last I heard he took up hunting in Canada.”
John couldn’t help himself. He grinned wolfishly. “Canada has socialized health care. And reasonable gun laws.”
“You Marines take lessons in missing the point?” Bobby growled.
“You Navy men all that practiced in the art of driving it home?”
“Right between your sweet-ass cheeks, you bet.”
John fell silent. He didn’t feel like a sniping match with Singer tonight, not when he still had work to do.
“Go home, John,” Bobby told him gently. “If I know Dean, he’s already tearing himself up way worse’n you could ever wish. Stop being a jackass makin’ him twist in the noose.”
“Yeah.” John sighed deeply. “Mistletoe?”
“Mistletoe,” Bobby confirmed. “An’if the graft thing don’t work, you can always claim the tree has Dutch Elm or something and get it out of there.”
“If I get her in the graft, I could just salt and burn that.”
“Maybe,” Bobby said, though it sounded like he didn’t think much of the idea. “If you had to. Not in the mall, though—she might make it back to the tree.”
A guy outside tapped on the glass. John sat up, startled. Muted through the door, John could hear the customer say, “Hey, buddy. Gonna be in there all night?”
“Super,” John told Bobby, waving an open palm at the guy to give him a few more minutes. “Guess I’ll just have to worry about that if it happens.” He shifted around in preparation to sign off the call.
“Guess so. John?”
“Yeah.” John held up his finger at the guy on the other side, turned his back a little for extra privacy.
“Dean’s eleven,” Bobby was reminding him. “God,” he chortled, “the number of times I screwed the pooch at his age….”
“Bobby,” John cut him off angrily. “Not talking about breaking a window with a baseball or even shoplifting a comic book. I don’t even know why they did it.”
“Well, dumbass, go home and find out,” Bobby said. Like Ellen’s, his words were more harsh than his tone. “Longer you stay away, the more all three of you will stew in your juices.”
“Yeah. Dammit.” He let his head fall back on the door frame.
Bobby laughed. “That’s the spirit, boy. I’ll see if there’s anything in the pipeline and let you know.”
“Thanks.”
John wondered if the diner had a phone book. The booth sure didn’t—he checked before he surrendered it to the dude who was waiting. He needed a florist with mistletoe in stock. And if that were the most bizarre shopping trip he’d ever do in this life, he’d count himself lucky.
Continue to Chapter Sixteen
Author:
gwendolyngraceRecipient:
celtic_cookieRequest terms: Sam and Dean of course, and I love John: Lots of John! A Pre-series Christmas Story! Familial bonding, maybe a holiday-themed hunt?
Summary: Saginaw, Michigan, 1990: Going holiday shopping may hold more hazards than just the insane crowds and parents hell-bent on the buying the latest toy. John goes undercover to look into a series of accidents at the local mall. Meanwhile, Dean and Sam respond to Christmas-season festivities at school with unexpected results.
Rating: PG
Genre: Gen
Wordcount (this chapter): about 3,645
Spoilers: All three seasons through 3x08, may or may not be Origins-compliant
Disclaimer: No copyright infringement intended, not mine, just my fantasy.
Author’s Notes: So, if there were any doubt about this week’s “Monday Meta” over at wee_chesters, I hope that this chapter settles it: April Fool’s, gang. Not about this chapter—about that meta. No, I don’t really hate John. I try to portray him in a fair and balanced way. He’s far from perfect, but he did love Dean and Sam and he tried to bring them up the best way he could think to do. Which included some decidedly weird decisions. ;^D Also, I’ll be representing the anti-John side of the debate at EyeCon this weekend, so I have been needing to let my “John Hate” come out a little more than usual. But no, I really do generally like John, I just want to smack him occasionally. Luckily, I’m not alone, as Ellen and Bobby will prove during this chapter. Oh, and by the way? If the previous chapter was sparse before the beta got it? This one? Was almost pure dialogue. Yay for the beta, because she reminds me that in fictional narrative, stage directions and line readings are Good Things ™. Thanks,
etakyma!From the Top
Then
Now:
John turned the corner, out of sight of the apartment door, and slammed the heel of his hand against the steering wheel. “God dammit, Dean!” he shouted at the empty backseat. Once he’d said it aloud, he laughed at himself. At them. Impudent little bastards—and what did he expect? He’d taught Dean—by example if nothing else—to forge a slipshod relationship with honesty. He couldn’t wait to hear the whole progression: what had started the lie and how it had evidently spun out of control. And he’d devise an appropriate punishment for them both. Only first things first.
There was a library ten blocks from the apartment building and it was open until 10 PM on Saturdays. John went around the block to double back onto Elm.
He parked and went in, heading for the Folklore section. Three tedious hours of research later, he was starving, but he’d found three distinct possibilities: a bysen, a huldra, or an askefrue. The good news was that salting and burning the tree ought to take care of any of them. The bad news was that trying to burn the tree in the mall would just result in angering the spirit again, and another shower courtesy of the sprinkler system. He needed to figure out how to remove the tree. Or he needed a second opinion.
But more than either, he needed dinner.
Food made everything easier to handle. It improved his mood, helped him put his thoughts in order. The diner had been crowded when he’d arrived, but business was thinning out by the time he finished his meal. The place also had an old-style phone booth, with a folding door that could keep a conversation private. He dug out his wallet, dropped a few bills on the table, and pulled his calling card out from its slot before tucking the leather sheath back in his pocket. He slid off the bench seat and closed himself into the phone booth.
Was it a good thing to realize he had the number half-memorized, or a bad thing?
“Harvelle’s Roadhouse.”
“Hey, Ellen.”
“John Winchester, as I live and breathe,” Ellen said, affecting a “Scarlet O’Hara” lilt in her usual drawl. “So, you pull your head out of your ass yet and decided to come for Christmas?”
John’s eyebrow twitched upward. “Got a follow-up question, from our conversation.”
“Uh-huh. Well, dinner’s at three and I have a 12-pound turkey. Ought to be enough for you and two growing boys.”
“Not that conversation.”
“Hmph.” There was a world of indictment in that sound. It was a sound that meant Ellen thought John’s priorities were all bass-ackwards. John ignored the insinuation. Any other hunter would be heading the right way to a smacked jaw for interfering…but this was Ellen. She’d been right about the boys lying to him but he didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of being better able to read two boys she’d never met than their own father. Getting riled would just tip her off.
“So,” she continued when he didn’t rise to the bait. “You pull your head out of your ass and figure out what’s going on?”
John snarled wordlessly. “Last piece of the puzzle finally fell into place. Only it was the first piece.” He explained in a highly edited version. Once he’d laid it down, he asked, “So, you ever hear of this…huldra? Or an askefrue?”
“Some sort of dryad, you say?”
“Yeah, that’s my bet. This huldra, in particular, it’s Swedish. Another name for it is a Tallemaja, which translates to ‘pine tree Mary.’ The askefrue or eschenfrau is the German equivalent, supposed to be similar to the Greek Dryads.”
“You didn’t look at the tree before?”
“Swear to God, Ellen, I was sure it was as fake as everything else in there. Hell, they had so much crap on the thing you could barely tell it was a tree.” John stopped before he sounded too defensive. “But this askefrue thing, has all the right symptoms. Problem is, I can’t burn the tree while it's in the mall.”
“I should say not,” Ellen commented. “What gets me is why you’d burn it at all.”
“Killing people, Ellen,” John said, amazed the justification was necessary.
“She’s protecting what little life she has left,” she replied impatiently. “This ain’t a case of a spirit causing wanton destruction—her existence was peaceful until people came along and kidnapped her. She’s already dying, John.”
John snorted. “We could say practically the same thing about half the things out there.”
“No, it’s different. I mean it. Imagine if forces beyond your control came, hacked you off at the roots, transported you away from your home, your lifesource, and then left you to languish in a land where you can’t eat or breathe. Then imagine people keep showing up with the one thing that can hurry your death along.”
“Fire.” John pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Well, yeah.” He could hear the aspersion that she didn’t add.
“Ellen….” He trailed off. The story, told that way, sounded more familiar than he cared to admit.
“What, John?”
Growling, John tapped the side of his fist on the glass door. “Trust you to make it personal.”
“It is personal. To her.” Trust Ellen to take the feminist point of view, too, rather than listen to reason. Her version made the damn thing sound more like an aggrieved housewife than a murderous, wild elemental.
“Well, cry me a river, Ellen. Don’t change the fact that she’s got to go.” John fell onto the bench seat, adjusting the receiver against his ear.
“She’s got to leave the mall, yeah.”
John raked his free hand through his hair. “Can’t just pick up a 20-foot tree and replant it.” For some reason the conversation reminded him of arguing with Sammy in one of Sammy’s full-on Truth, Justice, and the American Way modes. Luckily, Ellen was a little more rational than Sam.
“No, I’ll give you that,” she told him. “Hang on.” He heard the handset rest on the table. Heard Ellen call someone “honey” and set up some drinks. She moved away. A few seconds passed, during which John skimmed over the graffiti in the booth. Nothing really all that interesting caught his eye. Then someone picked up Ellen’s handset.
“Hewo?” a high-pitched voice said. “Hawvewwe’s Woadhowse.”
“Is that Jo?” John asked gently. Elmer Fudd’s speech pattern and the juvenile voice pretty much guaranteed it had to be Ellen and Bill’s daughter. “Sweetie, it’s John.”
“Unca John?”
“Yeah.” He smiled. “What’re you doing in the bar, sweetheart?”
“Papa’s ’way. Towed Momma din’t want no baby sittuh.”
“So she put you to work?” John teased.
“Nah. M’colowing.”
“What’re you coloring?”
“Twees. Teachuh says s’bad to kiw twees. ’Cause we gotta wecycwe.”
John scrubbed his face. Kiw me now, he thought. He half-listened, flipping through his notes while Jo treated him to a few more choice phrases about trees and paper and what he finally translated as “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.” Then she held out the phone; her voice called, “Hey, Momma!”
“Jo, honey, what’re you doing, baby?” Ellen’s voice.
“Talkin’a Unca John.” Jo brought the receiver back to her mouth. “Unca John? You comin’ fuh Cwistmas?”
“No, darlin’,” he sighed. “But I’ll see you sometime soon, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Put your mom back on, honey.”
“Okay.” There was a bit of static and the bar noise as she held out the phone again.
“John?”
John snapped his journal shut. “You did that on purpose.”
“Never occurred to me. So help me,” Ellen said, dry as dust.
“Right. Don’t kill trees? Tell me that was a coincidence.”
“Hey, kindergarten’s all about conservation these days,” she told him brightly. “And when do you think I had time between putting down the phone, watering your average high-strung crazy hunters, and solving your case for you to coach Jo in the art of old-fashioned guilt trip?” The words were testy, but the voice was affectionate.
“Hmph. Solving my case, huh?”
“Darn right. Got a pen?”
John dug for one and opened up his journal again. “Shoot,” he said when he was ready.
“Okay,” she said, and the flirtatious air vanished, replaced by a voice that was all business. “One of the crazy hunters in here tonight happens to be an expert on antiquity—Greek and Roman myth. He says that as long as some part of the tree can survive, so can the dryad. Should work for your huldra.”
“Hm. Part of the tree—does he mean like a graft?”
“Yeah.”
“Huh. Sort of a USS Constitution deal: As long as there’s a single plank of the original wood, they can call it the original ship.”
She chuckled. “Sammy tell you that, or is that one part of your own trivia collection?”
“No, my old man’s actually. Came in handy when Dean had to do a report on it, though.” He rested the back of his head on the wall. “Anyway. So, a graft. Anything special?”
“Well, you’ll have to make sure the spirit’s inhabiting the graft, or she’ll stay with her tree.”
“Great. How do I manage that?” he asked, leaning forward with his elbows on his thighs.
“If she’s corporeal, John, I’d suggest you talk to her.” Once again, John could tell she was suppressing the urge to add some kind of insult.
John grimaced. This job was never dull, at least. Weird? Every damn day. But dull? Never.
“Okay, but anything particular? Rituals?”
“Not for a dryad. Course, my guy ain’t familiar with Germanic legends.”
“Huh. Well, any solution’s better than none. Got it. Thanks, Ellen. And hey,” he added impulsively.
“Yes?” she asked when he held off continuing.
John cleared his throat. “Jo said Bill’s away. Working a job?”
Ellen’s voice tightened. “Caleb wanted a wingman for a weapons run. He promised he’d have Bill home by Christmas.”
“Ah. Well, when he gets back, tell him I’ll swing through sometime next month.”
“I’ll do that.”
John paused. Ellen clearly meant to shut down the topic, but John felt compelled to reassure her, for some reason. “He’ll be back, Ellen.”
“He better be.”
“Tell him…tell him if he doesn’t take care of you and that little girl, I’ll personally show him how it’s done.”
“Get in line, John.” She was still laughing when John hung up.
When he stood up, the waitress attracted his attention and hoisted the coffee pot in an unspoken question. John shook his head, waving her away. She shrugged and went back to her rounds. He punched in his card number again and followed it with Gina’s.
“Hello?” she answered, sounding tired.
“Gina, it’s John.”
“John.” Her voice grew alert. “Sheriff Dade was looking for you—”
“Yeah. He can read my report when this is over,” John said dismissively. “Listen, I am going to need to get in, after all. Tonight.”
“Tonight?”
John nodded, expecting her surprise. “After everyone’s out of the mall. It’s very important. Could you call the guards?”
“I’ll meet you,” she offered.
“No—”John shook his head—“It could be dangerous.”
“They won’t—shouldn’t—let you in with authorization just by phone.”
“Let me worry about that,” he insisted.
“No. I want to see this through.” Gina took a quick breath, but her next statement was tentative. “Whatever that was this afternoon, it wasn’t human. Was it?”
“…No,” John said sadly. He scraped his bottom lip with his front teeth. This was his second-least favorite part of the job. It never got easier.
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to stop it, Gina. That’s all you need to know.”
“Sheriff Dade said he checked with the Michigan State Police. They’ve got no record of you applying for an investigator’s license.” Her voice was quiet, more a recitation of facts than a list of accusations. “You’re not a PI. And you’re not FBI, either, are you?”
John tapped the receiver against his forehead before bringing it back to respond: “Does it matter?”
She sighed. “No. I guess it doesn’t.” He heard her shift around, possibly standing up. “The mall closed early tonight because of the fire. There’s a cleanup crew there. I’ve already asked Wade and Jerry to call me when they’re done.”
“All right,” John conceded. Gina wasn’t going to be shaken off, and besides, he owed her. She could have turned him in to Sheriff Dade if she’d wanted. “You’ve got my number?”
“Yes.”
“Call me when they call you and I’ll meet you there,” he said by way of a battle-plan.
“Okay. And John?” he heard her call, though he was halfway to the cradle.
“Yes?” he asked, pulling the phone back to his ear.
“Thank you. For doing this.”
John blinked. He was sure everyone in the diner could see him blushing, but he glanced out and saw only the waitress bringing plates out to a table. “You’re…you’re welcome.”
He hung up. That part never got easier, either.
He stood up again to check the diner. Business was picking up again, but no one seemed to care about the phone booth. He made one more phone call before leaving.
“Singer Salvage.”
“Bobby. John Winchester.”
“John. What’ve you done?”
John barked a short laugh. “Nothing much. Finishing up a job—should be done tonight.”
“And it’s under control.”
“You sound skeptical. Yeah. Should be fine. Thought I’d get a second opinion on Ellen’s proposed resolution.”
“So not a salt-and-burn?” Bobby growled.
“No, apparently not.” He checked to make sure no one was nearby, then outlined the creature and the graft idea.
“Ought to work,” Bobby mused when John was through. “Think I’d use a little mistletoe to get her to come out, if it was me.”
“Mistletoe, right. Easy enough. Can’t really say I look forward to kissing her,” John teased.
“It’s for summoning, you idjit,” Singer groused.
John chuckled. “I know, I know.”
“So why did you really call?”
“Couple reasons,” John admitted, sobering. He sat back on the bench and crossed one ankle over the other knee. “First off, this job’s about done. Wondered if you’d heard about anything else in the vicinity.”
“Starting a new hunt this close to Christmas?” Bobby asked. John could see the hunter’s confused squint three states away. “Didn’t you say you wanted to spend a quiet Christmas with the boys?”
“Yeah,” John said, half-grumble, half-sigh. “Well, Frank and Jesse may not get a Christmas, this rate.”
“Oh, Christ,” Bobby said in exasperation that John already felt. “What’ve they done now?”
“Fuck if I know the whole of it, but what I got so far is boneheaded, even for our own Mr. Wizard.” John shook his head, bewildered.
Bobby grunted. “John, you can’t watch them every second.” He was trying to be helpful, but it was anything but a consolation.
“No, but…it’s just been a rough week,” John sighed. He leaned forward again. “Dean’s had the flu, and just when I thought we were getting back on track, I find out he helped Sam lie to his teachers to get out of some damn concert at school.”
“How’d he manage that?”
“Told her we’re Jehovah’s Witnesses.” John exhaled a sharp huff, halfway between a laugh and a short sigh. “Didn’t even know the boy knew enough to fake it. So all Sam’s teachers think I’m some crazy-ass Fundamentalist whack job won’t let his kids celebrate Christmas.” He stood up because his butt was falling asleep on the bench. “As if that’s not enough, Sam’s doing his best to raise their interest level by drawing pictures of him and his brother pissing their names in the snow.”
He actually read all the graffiti in the phone booth while Bobby finished laughing. “You’re fucking kidding me,” Bobby said after he could breathe again.
“God’s honest, Bobby,” John swore, leaning on the side of the booth. “Picture’s on my fridge. I mean, I should tell him all the ways that’s FUBAR, but I just laugh every time I look at the damn thing.” He kicked the leg of the bench seat gently with the tip of his shoe, reminding himself of Sammy when he was embarrassed.
“Boys’ll be boys, John.”
“Do they have to be so thoroughly boys all the time?” he groaned.
“Does my number spell Dear Abby?” Bobby crabbed at him. “You think I’m friggin’ Sally Jesse, John? They’re your sons.”
John grunted, but pressed anyway. “You and Jim probably know’em best—hell, you’ve probably spent as much time with’em by now’s I have.”
“Sad commentary, John,” Bobby said, blessedly free of recrimination.
“I know. Trust me. Thing is,” he continued, pacing the single step the booth would allow, then sitting again, “lying to teachers, trying to duck things—first off, that’s Dean’s style, not Sam’s. I expect that kind of thing from him. But Sammy?” He rubbed his eyes. “I don’t know if I can handle two juvenile delinquents. But what really gets to me is…they lied to me.”
“Covering it up?” Bobby asked sharply.
“Right.”
“So let me guess: You’re sitting in a bar somewhere, plucking up the courage to punish them the way you should, procrastinating as usual, because when it comes to your kids, you’re a big wussy.”
John couldn’t find a reply for a second. “I’m in a diner, not a bar, and I discipline my boys plenty, Singer. Just ’cause our old men preferred a strap to extra drills or chores don’t mean I’m soft,” he continued over Bobby’s knowing chuckle.
“Okay,” Bobby placated him. “So what’s the problem?”
“The problem is…it’s Christmas.”
“Ain’t Christmas yet, man. My calendar says December 15th.” Bobby sounded like he was practically daring John to man up.
John chewed on that, stretching his foot against the door, but careful not to push hard enough to open it. “Well, there’s a bigger issue. Have a feeling I’ll need to blow town pretty quickly after this job is wrapped up. The boys have one more week before the break. I can pull them out next weekend and get’em settled again before Christmas Eve if there’s somewhere close to go.”
Bobby said nothing for a moment. Then: “Dammit, John.” The disapproval Bobby’d been holding back came out in the two words all at once.
“Oh, fuck you, Singer,” John shot back testily. “You know well as I do that sometimes it’s better not to be around once the questions start getting asked.”
“Thought you said it was under control.”
“It is. Well, it will be,” he corrected grudgingly. “Went down in a rather public place.”
“Oh, Hell,” Bobby said incredulously after a brief pause, “you’re not at the center of that mall riot in Saginaw?”
John’s face screwed up in his own disbelief. How could Bobby know about the job already? “Jesus, Bobby. Ellen call you or something?”
Bobby made a “pshaw” sound that John bet left spit on his mouthpiece. “Satellite’s the best way to get a TV signal out here, John. That story made the cable feed.”
“Terrific.” He slapped his thigh, rubbed out the sting through his jeans.
“You’re lucky. They only have footage from after,” Bobby told him. “One time a guy I knew wound up on national news cleaning out a coven of demon-worshippers. Last I heard he took up hunting in Canada.”
John couldn’t help himself. He grinned wolfishly. “Canada has socialized health care. And reasonable gun laws.”
“You Marines take lessons in missing the point?” Bobby growled.
“You Navy men all that practiced in the art of driving it home?”
“Right between your sweet-ass cheeks, you bet.”
John fell silent. He didn’t feel like a sniping match with Singer tonight, not when he still had work to do.
“Go home, John,” Bobby told him gently. “If I know Dean, he’s already tearing himself up way worse’n you could ever wish. Stop being a jackass makin’ him twist in the noose.”
“Yeah.” John sighed deeply. “Mistletoe?”
“Mistletoe,” Bobby confirmed. “An’if the graft thing don’t work, you can always claim the tree has Dutch Elm or something and get it out of there.”
“If I get her in the graft, I could just salt and burn that.”
“Maybe,” Bobby said, though it sounded like he didn’t think much of the idea. “If you had to. Not in the mall, though—she might make it back to the tree.”
A guy outside tapped on the glass. John sat up, startled. Muted through the door, John could hear the customer say, “Hey, buddy. Gonna be in there all night?”
“Super,” John told Bobby, waving an open palm at the guy to give him a few more minutes. “Guess I’ll just have to worry about that if it happens.” He shifted around in preparation to sign off the call.
“Guess so. John?”
“Yeah.” John held up his finger at the guy on the other side, turned his back a little for extra privacy.
“Dean’s eleven,” Bobby was reminding him. “God,” he chortled, “the number of times I screwed the pooch at his age….”
“Bobby,” John cut him off angrily. “Not talking about breaking a window with a baseball or even shoplifting a comic book. I don’t even know why they did it.”
“Well, dumbass, go home and find out,” Bobby said. Like Ellen’s, his words were more harsh than his tone. “Longer you stay away, the more all three of you will stew in your juices.”
“Yeah. Dammit.” He let his head fall back on the door frame.
Bobby laughed. “That’s the spirit, boy. I’ll see if there’s anything in the pipeline and let you know.”
“Thanks.”
John wondered if the diner had a phone book. The booth sure didn’t—he checked before he surrendered it to the dude who was waiting. He needed a florist with mistletoe in stock. And if that were the most bizarre shopping trip he’d ever do in this life, he’d count himself lucky.
Continue to Chapter Sixteen
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I had to put Jo in there, I just had to. I liked playing with how different John's interactions with her are to how he is with the boys. First off, she's a girl-child, but second, because she's not his, I think it's an opportunity to sort of see how he would have been if Mary hadn't died.
Whoops, that was almost meta. Sorry!