Post by gray on Mar 7, 2016 7:29:44 GMT
Ian:
Every family has at least one. The stories of greatness or mystery. You know how they go...
"Your grandfather was a hero who fought at the Battle of [blah-blah]"
"My father's greatgrandfather once stared down THE Blackbeard"
"Your great-great-uncle on my mother's side sailed every sea there is, and when he got bored there he started trucking so he could see everywhere else"
...and so on.
Not quite the same for my family. No, ours were things like, "Can you believe cousin Archie ran out in front of that dump truck?" Or, "Did I ever tell you about how my mother's grandfather died from a freak icicle dropping through the top of his head?" Or how about, "Did I ever tell you that your greatgrandmother swears she heard this hair-raising scream when your greatgrandfather had his aneurism?"
Things like that. It all added up to one thing that most my family knew and dreaded: the members of my family didn't usually make it past forty, and typically for very strange reasons. Sure, there were occasional exceptions, like my dad (a limber forty-eight) and a couple of his cousins, but for the most part...well, as my father often said, the family motto is "Make Your Life Count", and my parents tried to raise us to be smart and thoughtful and attentive to our surroundings. Maybe it had something to do with that intent of constantly looking over our shoulders, but my dad tended to keep us moving a lot. Sure, the family had a "home" where we returned and where we kept out souvenirs and trophies and such, but after turning eight, I saw it maybe only twice a year. Mom homeschooled me through some big school's satellite program, so I had full acreditation for my work, and when the time came, I took my SATs and my college entrance exams. At the age of eighteen, for the first time in years, I put down roots somewhere for more than a month. It felt wonderful...
Dad and mom called me often, just to talk. My father was something of a historian, looking for old bits of familial lore for other folks as well as for ourselves, and he was a pretty clever little detective. Mom was a freelance editor who received assignments by email and used her laptop on those long trips abroad to keep up on her chosen profession, sending back the materials to the clients with her revisions and marks. My brother was off being a properly married man (or making a poor attempt at it), so he was no longer stuck with the wandering lifestyle, either, which was good since his wife would not have let their child be dragged around the country like they had been. She was nice enough, but she seemed to think that we were seriously stunted by our parents' choice to keep us out of public schools.
We were nearing spring break when I got an odd call from dad, saying he had found something interesting, something "unbelievable", and needed to show me and my bro. I felt nostalgic, so I suggested we all have a proper Easter meal back at the family home in Delaware, and though there was a small bit of heistation, he agreed to it, saying it would make my mother happy.
I had no clue that my suggestion would lead to disaster.....
Jodi:
Jody had been at the cabin when she got the call, the hunter explained that there were some strange occurrences in Delaware and they needed her to talk down some kid before he went batshit. That was her speciality: taking care of batshit crazy kids. So, without a second thought, she double checked the location, left a message with the boys and Castiel, talked with Donna – after giving her a thousand lists and reminders – then she left the Academy grounds in Donna’s hands.
She prayed that the place would be in one piece and there’d be no drunken Angel-human parties.
Instead of driving all the way to Delaware, she chose to fly. She wasn’t a wanted criminal like the Boys and she could claim police business there – which wasn’t wholly a lie. Jody had explained to her boss that there was a missing kid that had been found out there from one of the cases they worked on… and boom, she got a ticket out later that night.
When she got there, she rented a car with a GPS and put in an address. “Here goes nothing,” she had never been in Delaware before, so this should be interesting.
Ian:
One week before Easter, classes were out, and I was on my motorcycle back to the house, enjoying the freedom of the open road between State College, PA to Wyoming, DE. The only real ugliness in traffic came in the mass of badly planned roads around Baltimore and having to skirt D.C. to get to US-50 and the Chesapeake Bay Bridge over into Delaware. Even though that particular route was a toll bridge, it was worth it for the views, in my opinion. The whole trip took about five hours, but I was so high on the idea of seeing the old house, being back where I learned to ride a bike and swim and grill hot dogs, that I barely felt the effects of not standing for that long. Of course, I did not beat my folks back to the house, since they just flew into Dover and headed the short hop home, but I did beat Rodney there. Being the little brother, I rubbed it in, too, which earned me a headlock and noogie from my big bro. I asked if Sandra or the baby would be joining us, but he said she wanted to spend Easter with her family, and that it was time for the baby to be "properly baptised into the Faith", since she and her family were proper Catholics. When I gave Rod "that look", he simply shrugged and said that married life was all about picking your battles and knowing when there was no way in hell you could win one. I jokingly said he lost the war when he got married, but he just shrugged and said "Maybe so", which was, I will be honest, kind of depressing.
Mom met us at the door, all hugs and fussing, telling Rodney that he was too thin and saying she needed to teach him and Sandra (she hated being called 'Sandy') how to really cook to fix that. Then she rounded on me and pushed my belly, saying that my arms might be bigger with muscles but my gut was getting soft from all the pasta and ramen and telling me that I know how to cook and should do better. My father saved us by telling mom that we were grown boys and were not going to die, just yet, and hurried us all inside, saying he had SO MUCH to share with us. Mom looked a little worried about dad's behavior, but she closed the door behind us. My dad had one of those frenzied looks on his face as he dragged us into the back study, and mom shouted that dinner would be done in about forty-five minutes. I found a comfy seat and flopped down, putting my travel bag on the floor next to me, while Rodney and Dad talked briefly before dad brought out these stacks of books, most of which were photo albums.
"This," he said, "is some of the history of our family, immediate and extended and ancestral, even. I want to show you boys something I found. I need someone else to see these so that I know I'm not going insane."
Then he started with an old photo, all sepia and gray, fading but still clear. He pointed to this woman in black, a veil on her head but not hiding her face, as she looked at the coffin of a long-dead relative. Then came another funeral pic, this one a bit better preserved, showing a different gathering of folks, but in it was that woman again. I just figured it was the same timeframe and that it was a female relation, and said as much. Dad just shushed me and told us to pay attention. Another picture, only this time it was of a great-uncle who died one week after the image was taken, and in the background was that same woman, same outfit, openly weeping while looking at the one who would perish soon. The next picture was a color one, and that was when things got a little odd... The woman was in this one, too, but there were portions of her that seemed...transluscent, maybe? Like she was being pulled apart by the light and wind. It was clear now that only SOME of her garb was black, some of it was blood red, and this time as she gazed as the coffin, she was crying but looked angry. I was told that this picture was one of my greatgrandfather's funeral. Then came the pictures from Archie's funeral five years past. That woman was in four of the twenty-odd pics we had from then, though noone that dad had talked to could remember seeing her there, at all.
"I saw all these, and I had a weird idea, so I made some calls and reached out to some of our Scottish family, asking them about any old legends or whatnot regarding our family and death. Most of them seemed to think it was strange enough that we die so early that they didn't look into it too deeply. But one of our 'aunts' told me that about four hundred years ago, the first wife of one of our direct ancestors, was killed, poisoned by a man who had been denied her hand when her family had married her off into our line. She was three or four months pregnant when it happened, and woman and child both died because of it. It created a blood feud, but it took years and years for our side to get to the man and kill him, and in that time he had married and had three children. Of course, our forebear had married and spawned, as well. In the years after, it was said that the sound of a weeping woman could be heard in the clan keep, and the sobbing could be heard clearest before that ancestor died. Apparently the legend persisted, saying the woman's weeping could be heard shortly before the deaths of nearly every one of that man's direct descendants.
"Well, I asked if that lot were dying inordinately early, and our old 'auntie' said that it was quite to the contrary, that they lived longer than the norm, as though something were trying to keep them from harm, giving little hints to danger and the like. It wasn't until my great-great-greatgrandfather that things changed. For some reason, the weeping ceased, and was replaced by a sorrowful and angry wail or scream. He was the last to live past fifty, but he died strangely, a chandelier falling on him and impaling him in a number of places. Since then... well, you've heard the stories. So, for close to two hundred years, our family had a sort of 'guardian angel' watching their backs, and then someone pissed her off and now we get back everything those ancestors managed to miss, with interest. Our 'aunt' thinks that the family is cursed, that we..."
And then mother huffed and burst into the room, finishing dad's big reveal.
"The crazy old bat thinks that the family is haunted by a banshee. WhoooOOOoooOOOooo! PHAW! Silliness and superstition! Comes from taking care of the old family castle, I say. Place like that, it's bound to make someone paranoid. Now, I think you've all been at this for long enough. Let's go eat."
Then Mariah Somerlin was herding the lot of us to the table, which was already set with pot roast and mashers and glazed carrots and peas, with a pitcher of ice water. We sat. We prayed. We ate with some gusto. The main meal was done, and Rodney was asking if he could clear the table for mom, since she had slaved to make the meal. Smart woman, she did not put up any argument about it. As he went about taking up the dirty dishes, we noticed the lights flicker a few times. Dad simply said that the house had sat too long without real occupency, and was just being twitchy. Then...mom shivered and rubbed her arms, asking dad to check the thermostat. As dad stood and went around the corner to study the old-style dial, we all jumped at the sound of crashing plates.
"Da... Da!" Rodney sounded scared shitless, but I could not see past him to see what was in the doorway to the kitchen that had him so spooked. "Da! She's here!"
Rod turned to run, and it was then that I saw the woman...only this time her eyes seemed to glow in sunken sockets, and her hair blew in a wind that was not in the house. Oh...and she was floating about eight inches off the ground. That might have been an important clue that mom's theory about it all being hogwash was wrong. Granted, most all thought was gone when the thing opened her mouth and screamed.
From then, things got a little....blurry....
Jodi:
Jody managed to follow the GPS pretty well, only getting lost a couple times, which made no sense since she was following the machine. A couple curses and some phrases that were Singer-trademarked, she managed to find the damn place. There was a car parked in front of it with a lanky man leaning against the hood. Jody pulled in behind him and turned off the engine, she exhaled slowly, “here goes nothing.”
When she got out, the guy smiled at her, “Hey Copper lady,” he spread his arms wide, “long time no see.”
“That’s MISS Copper Lady to you, Rod,” she laughed as she wandered into his arms for a hug. “So tell me about this kid.”
“He just came back to, he’s a little…” Rod tilted his head, giving her a look that said more than words could. “So we’re trying to be gentle and all, but he keeps babbling, and…” Rod gave a gesture towards the house, then to her. “It’s your kid now.”
Ian:
I remembered things in burps of coherence... I saw Rodney go down to his knees, clutching at his ears and the sides of his head. I think I saw my mother flailing at the air as her ears bled. I know I saw my father screaming and yelling and dashing at the floating woman...and going through her. When that happened, the screaming meanie turned up the volume, and I felt something in me break and burst. The sides of my face felt wet...and so did my pants, I'll be honest. I was crying. I was bleeding. There was this hurt deep in me that I could not explain. As I struggled up, things only got worse...
Rodney was kneeling and clawing at his eyes and ears and scalp, bloody furrows gouged along his skin, blood foaming at the edges of his mouth as he screamed soundlessly from a throat that had gone beyond raw. Eventually he went down, twitching, but I knew...I knew deep down that he was not going to get back up. Dad was swinging at the ghostly creature with a butcher knife, but it was touching nothing...except him, when he would swing too hard and the blade would knick his sides and hips. Mom was crying and jibbering and rocking, trying hard to blot out the noise infiltrating our heads.
I blacked out briefly, I think. When I looked up again, my father was no longer trying to cut the banshee (which I now accept is what attacked us). No, he was standing at the wall of the dining room, beating his head into it...through it...after a blur of moments, he was still, limp, hanging from his neck with his head buried into a hole in the wood and plaster. My mother had stopped muttering and murmuring, had stopped flailing. She merely wept quiet tears, lying on her side, eyes staring sightlessly and empty. Suddenly it was quiet, and I couldn't understand why. Wobbling, I looked up and saw the female phantom had vanished. I tried to get up, but I was so weak that I fumbled and fell a few times. I ended up on my back, crying at my loss, thanking Heaven that I was still alive.
Thirty seconds later, I was cursing Heaven as the banshee reappeared floating directly over me, eyes locked to mine, a cruel smile on her face as she opened her mouth to scream at my head at point-blank range. The sound hit me like a sledgehammer. I remember vomitting and it exploding out my mouth and down my cheeks. Then I felt a few thumps on the floor, and then the scream changed pitch and seemed to...thin...as the bitch seemed to flash and go between solid and smoke as a golden knife stuck through her neck, held by the hand of a rangy-looking man. That man said something to me, but I have no idea what. My ears were useless, now. My brain felt like mush. I felt cold and numb. The student in me evaluated everything and brought to mind what was happening to me: I was going into shock, and I did not care.
Some time later, I was sitting in a chair, muttering quietly to myself, though I can't say what I was saying then. I know the man...I think he said his name was Rod, because I remember telling him that Rod was dead...he had asked me some questions, but I never heard them properly, so I babbled as close to answers as I could. Granted, my brain felt so strange and disconnected that I'm fairly sure that what I said might have been as intelligible as "Blue shrimp cheese tacos" or some such. My rescuer sighed and left after awhile, and I was allowed to try to absorb everything that had happened. When the police woman found me, I was resting my head in my hands, and at that moment I know I was moaning that "old auntie" was right and that I was cursed...
Jody:
“He says I’m dead,” Rod chuckled at Jody, “he’s completely lost it, I’ve managed to keep everyone away so far. But you know the police are gonna want in on this. What do we tell them? That he ran away from the local place and you’re here to pick him up?” Rod paused, “well, he’d have to have run away from your state for you to be here, so…” He trailed off, looking at Jody.
Jody gave him an amused little look, patting his shoulder, “you need to get with the boys to come up with more original stories, Rod.” She slipped past him toward the house, waving over her shoulder at Rod as she heard him grumble. “I can’t hear dead people,” she called out as she slipped into the house. “Hey kid?” She called out as she walked slowly through the house, trying to make sure she didn’t quite look at the bodies just yet.
She’d end up being all interested and forget about the kid that needed to be paid attention to first. She could see out of the corner of her eye that Rod had been nice enough to cover the bodies at least.
“Old auntie,” Jody spoke softly as she found the kid rocking in his seat. Her hand slowly reached out to touch him on his shoulder, she was ready to spring back if he went into attack mode, her hand on her gun at her hip. “I’m Jody,” she spoke softly, “I’m here to help you. Do you need help?” She waited, her hand still outstretched, just in case.
Ian:
I looked up at the touch. The man had not touched me more than to get me out of the dining room and into this chair. I had not fought any, at all. I did not have any fight in me, right now. If a doctor were to really look at me, inspect me inside and out, they would probably say something along the lines of me lacking a will to live. That was not totally true. My mom had lost the will to live. I am not 100% certain she is dead. At least, not sure her body is dead. I had seen her eyes, so I knew noone was home anymore, but I had not seen her stop breathing. Dad was gone. I accepted that. Rodney was gone, and that was hard for him to stomach. Rodney had been my best friend, my only friend for years. I had no idea what I would tell his wife, what things would eventually be said to his little girl about our family. I did not know how I was going to go on without my little world being there. That was it, really, the thing that was leaving me so numb: I felt like I no longer had a foundation under me. Having my ears deprived of most hearing did not help things...
When the police woman tried to speak softly to me, I shook my head, muttering that I could not hear her, pointing to the bloody trails along my jawline to show that the eardrums were ruptured. I knew my voice was flat and chilly, like I knew my eyes were half-lidded and tired-looking. When she tried again, this time I was staring at her lips. I was not great at reading lips, but I was decent enough. I shrugged and shook my head, saying that I did not know what I needed, right now. Anyone looking at me would see a boy who was utterly and completely lost. I felt there was no hope for me, and I went back to muttering that I was cursed...
Jody:
Jody paused when she saw him pointing at his ears, comprehension lighting up her face as she gave a slow nod. She tapped at her ears, a slow shake to ask if he didn’t understand her, which she was pretty much asking the obvious. She straightened up while putting her hands on her hips, a little frown furrowing her eyebrows as she watched him. He needed help, but how was she supposed to convey that she was here to help him – especially when he couldn’t hear or understand her.
“Oh, duh,” she nearly smacked herself in the forehead. She could write.
She looked at him with a wave of her hand, she mimed writing on her hand, asking if he had a notepad and a paper. What the hell was he talking about, being cursed? This was something she would have to take home to the boys – Sam and Dean would have an idea because, well, she was shit out of them herself.
Ian:
At the time, I thought she looked ridiculous waving her fingers like she had been, but I did eventually get what she was attempting to convey. With a slow nod -sharp head movements were making me dizzy, just now- I asked for some help down the hall, then led the way down to dad's study, a wobbly guide to where this whole debacle had begun. Once there, I shuffled over to the computer desk and flopped into the padded seat, rummaging through the shelves and drawers, coming up with a cube of Post-Its and a mechanical pencil, then turned and handed them over to the woman. Before she could start writing, I waves towards the photos that were displayed on the table and sighed.
"Not me. We're all curse. All of us."
I guess I was slowly coming to my senses, and it helped being away from the dining room, with everyone still there. Covered or not, I knew who was there, what had happened, that I was alone.
Jody:
She helped him up, letting him lean on her – she was stronger than she looked even while petite next to him. She made sure he wouldn’t look toward where all the bodies were, even if they were covered up. At least he deserved that much, she put him down into the chair when they entered what she assumed was the study. “Thanks,” she took the postits and the pencil, lifting her eyebrows as she listened to him.
She wrote a word ~curse?~ Then showed him the post it to get an answer.
Ian:
I shrugged some at the question. I guessed, at the time, that none of it mattered, anyway. So I showed her what my father showed me and Rodney. At each image of the woman, I jabbed a finger at the evil thing and said one word: "Banshee".
Over and over again. Every time I saw her in an image, I said it.
"Banshee."
"Banshee."
"Banshee."
"Banshee. Banshee. Banshee. Banshee."
I sighed some and sank back into the plush chair, letting my eyes go to the ceiling and muttered about us all dying young, dying weird, and now knowing why we did.
"We were cursed. Something someone in my line did, somewhere, pissed this woman off and she'd been killing us off ever since. That's what dad said our 'auntie' in Scotland had told him. She didn't know what, but..." I laughed a little sadly, a little derisively. "When he was telling us all this, I kinda felt like my mom did, that it was all hogwash and bullshit. Guess we got proven wrong, huh?"
Jody:
Jody looked over at the picture, she lifted her eyebrows, all she could see was a faint image of the woman. Okay, so that banshee. “Wonderful,” she muttered to herself, so there was a kid seeing Banshees. This would be… Oh boy, she would need to contact the boys to get ahold of how she could help the kid break the curse.
But that also meant bringing the kid home. She tilted her head at him while studying him in the chair, he was so close to a mental breakdown. Lovely.
Jody raised a hand and wrote on the pad, ~I can take you somewhere safe from the banshee, I know people~ She pulled off the post it and stuck it on the table in front of him. Then wrote again, ~I know people who can help you.~ She gave him that post it as well, lifting her eyebrows at him as to say “well?”
Ian:
I looked down at them and quirked my head to the side. Could I believe this? At the time, it seemed so...strange. But then, I had been attacked by a floating, glowy-eyed death spirit and watched it wipe my family from this life. And I saw...or I think I saw...someone hurt that spirit. That meant it was possible to hurt it, to drive it away, to survive it. And this woman had said she could take me somewhere safe from it, that she knew people with knowledge of these kinds of things.
"If I go, can I learn how to hurt it? That guy...the one who found me...he hurt it, made it run. I want to do that. Even if it's only revenge, it's the only reason I can imagine I'm still alive. I'm here...to learn to stop this. If you can train me, I'll go with you. Otherwise, you might as well leave me for the ugly. If that knife didn't kill her, then she'll be back for me."
That was the deal I struck, then. Looking back, I still do not regret it, though my world got really, REALLY weird from that day on...
Every family has at least one. The stories of greatness or mystery. You know how they go...
"Your grandfather was a hero who fought at the Battle of [blah-blah]"
"My father's greatgrandfather once stared down THE Blackbeard"
"Your great-great-uncle on my mother's side sailed every sea there is, and when he got bored there he started trucking so he could see everywhere else"
...and so on.
Not quite the same for my family. No, ours were things like, "Can you believe cousin Archie ran out in front of that dump truck?" Or, "Did I ever tell you about how my mother's grandfather died from a freak icicle dropping through the top of his head?" Or how about, "Did I ever tell you that your greatgrandmother swears she heard this hair-raising scream when your greatgrandfather had his aneurism?"
Things like that. It all added up to one thing that most my family knew and dreaded: the members of my family didn't usually make it past forty, and typically for very strange reasons. Sure, there were occasional exceptions, like my dad (a limber forty-eight) and a couple of his cousins, but for the most part...well, as my father often said, the family motto is "Make Your Life Count", and my parents tried to raise us to be smart and thoughtful and attentive to our surroundings. Maybe it had something to do with that intent of constantly looking over our shoulders, but my dad tended to keep us moving a lot. Sure, the family had a "home" where we returned and where we kept out souvenirs and trophies and such, but after turning eight, I saw it maybe only twice a year. Mom homeschooled me through some big school's satellite program, so I had full acreditation for my work, and when the time came, I took my SATs and my college entrance exams. At the age of eighteen, for the first time in years, I put down roots somewhere for more than a month. It felt wonderful...
Dad and mom called me often, just to talk. My father was something of a historian, looking for old bits of familial lore for other folks as well as for ourselves, and he was a pretty clever little detective. Mom was a freelance editor who received assignments by email and used her laptop on those long trips abroad to keep up on her chosen profession, sending back the materials to the clients with her revisions and marks. My brother was off being a properly married man (or making a poor attempt at it), so he was no longer stuck with the wandering lifestyle, either, which was good since his wife would not have let their child be dragged around the country like they had been. She was nice enough, but she seemed to think that we were seriously stunted by our parents' choice to keep us out of public schools.
We were nearing spring break when I got an odd call from dad, saying he had found something interesting, something "unbelievable", and needed to show me and my bro. I felt nostalgic, so I suggested we all have a proper Easter meal back at the family home in Delaware, and though there was a small bit of heistation, he agreed to it, saying it would make my mother happy.
I had no clue that my suggestion would lead to disaster.....
Jodi:
Jody had been at the cabin when she got the call, the hunter explained that there were some strange occurrences in Delaware and they needed her to talk down some kid before he went batshit. That was her speciality: taking care of batshit crazy kids. So, without a second thought, she double checked the location, left a message with the boys and Castiel, talked with Donna – after giving her a thousand lists and reminders – then she left the Academy grounds in Donna’s hands.
She prayed that the place would be in one piece and there’d be no drunken Angel-human parties.
Instead of driving all the way to Delaware, she chose to fly. She wasn’t a wanted criminal like the Boys and she could claim police business there – which wasn’t wholly a lie. Jody had explained to her boss that there was a missing kid that had been found out there from one of the cases they worked on… and boom, she got a ticket out later that night.
When she got there, she rented a car with a GPS and put in an address. “Here goes nothing,” she had never been in Delaware before, so this should be interesting.
Ian:
One week before Easter, classes were out, and I was on my motorcycle back to the house, enjoying the freedom of the open road between State College, PA to Wyoming, DE. The only real ugliness in traffic came in the mass of badly planned roads around Baltimore and having to skirt D.C. to get to US-50 and the Chesapeake Bay Bridge over into Delaware. Even though that particular route was a toll bridge, it was worth it for the views, in my opinion. The whole trip took about five hours, but I was so high on the idea of seeing the old house, being back where I learned to ride a bike and swim and grill hot dogs, that I barely felt the effects of not standing for that long. Of course, I did not beat my folks back to the house, since they just flew into Dover and headed the short hop home, but I did beat Rodney there. Being the little brother, I rubbed it in, too, which earned me a headlock and noogie from my big bro. I asked if Sandra or the baby would be joining us, but he said she wanted to spend Easter with her family, and that it was time for the baby to be "properly baptised into the Faith", since she and her family were proper Catholics. When I gave Rod "that look", he simply shrugged and said that married life was all about picking your battles and knowing when there was no way in hell you could win one. I jokingly said he lost the war when he got married, but he just shrugged and said "Maybe so", which was, I will be honest, kind of depressing.
Mom met us at the door, all hugs and fussing, telling Rodney that he was too thin and saying she needed to teach him and Sandra (she hated being called 'Sandy') how to really cook to fix that. Then she rounded on me and pushed my belly, saying that my arms might be bigger with muscles but my gut was getting soft from all the pasta and ramen and telling me that I know how to cook and should do better. My father saved us by telling mom that we were grown boys and were not going to die, just yet, and hurried us all inside, saying he had SO MUCH to share with us. Mom looked a little worried about dad's behavior, but she closed the door behind us. My dad had one of those frenzied looks on his face as he dragged us into the back study, and mom shouted that dinner would be done in about forty-five minutes. I found a comfy seat and flopped down, putting my travel bag on the floor next to me, while Rodney and Dad talked briefly before dad brought out these stacks of books, most of which were photo albums.
"This," he said, "is some of the history of our family, immediate and extended and ancestral, even. I want to show you boys something I found. I need someone else to see these so that I know I'm not going insane."
Then he started with an old photo, all sepia and gray, fading but still clear. He pointed to this woman in black, a veil on her head but not hiding her face, as she looked at the coffin of a long-dead relative. Then came another funeral pic, this one a bit better preserved, showing a different gathering of folks, but in it was that woman again. I just figured it was the same timeframe and that it was a female relation, and said as much. Dad just shushed me and told us to pay attention. Another picture, only this time it was of a great-uncle who died one week after the image was taken, and in the background was that same woman, same outfit, openly weeping while looking at the one who would perish soon. The next picture was a color one, and that was when things got a little odd... The woman was in this one, too, but there were portions of her that seemed...transluscent, maybe? Like she was being pulled apart by the light and wind. It was clear now that only SOME of her garb was black, some of it was blood red, and this time as she gazed as the coffin, she was crying but looked angry. I was told that this picture was one of my greatgrandfather's funeral. Then came the pictures from Archie's funeral five years past. That woman was in four of the twenty-odd pics we had from then, though noone that dad had talked to could remember seeing her there, at all.
"I saw all these, and I had a weird idea, so I made some calls and reached out to some of our Scottish family, asking them about any old legends or whatnot regarding our family and death. Most of them seemed to think it was strange enough that we die so early that they didn't look into it too deeply. But one of our 'aunts' told me that about four hundred years ago, the first wife of one of our direct ancestors, was killed, poisoned by a man who had been denied her hand when her family had married her off into our line. She was three or four months pregnant when it happened, and woman and child both died because of it. It created a blood feud, but it took years and years for our side to get to the man and kill him, and in that time he had married and had three children. Of course, our forebear had married and spawned, as well. In the years after, it was said that the sound of a weeping woman could be heard in the clan keep, and the sobbing could be heard clearest before that ancestor died. Apparently the legend persisted, saying the woman's weeping could be heard shortly before the deaths of nearly every one of that man's direct descendants.
"Well, I asked if that lot were dying inordinately early, and our old 'auntie' said that it was quite to the contrary, that they lived longer than the norm, as though something were trying to keep them from harm, giving little hints to danger and the like. It wasn't until my great-great-greatgrandfather that things changed. For some reason, the weeping ceased, and was replaced by a sorrowful and angry wail or scream. He was the last to live past fifty, but he died strangely, a chandelier falling on him and impaling him in a number of places. Since then... well, you've heard the stories. So, for close to two hundred years, our family had a sort of 'guardian angel' watching their backs, and then someone pissed her off and now we get back everything those ancestors managed to miss, with interest. Our 'aunt' thinks that the family is cursed, that we..."
And then mother huffed and burst into the room, finishing dad's big reveal.
"The crazy old bat thinks that the family is haunted by a banshee. WhoooOOOoooOOOooo! PHAW! Silliness and superstition! Comes from taking care of the old family castle, I say. Place like that, it's bound to make someone paranoid. Now, I think you've all been at this for long enough. Let's go eat."
Then Mariah Somerlin was herding the lot of us to the table, which was already set with pot roast and mashers and glazed carrots and peas, with a pitcher of ice water. We sat. We prayed. We ate with some gusto. The main meal was done, and Rodney was asking if he could clear the table for mom, since she had slaved to make the meal. Smart woman, she did not put up any argument about it. As he went about taking up the dirty dishes, we noticed the lights flicker a few times. Dad simply said that the house had sat too long without real occupency, and was just being twitchy. Then...mom shivered and rubbed her arms, asking dad to check the thermostat. As dad stood and went around the corner to study the old-style dial, we all jumped at the sound of crashing plates.
"Da... Da!" Rodney sounded scared shitless, but I could not see past him to see what was in the doorway to the kitchen that had him so spooked. "Da! She's here!"
Rod turned to run, and it was then that I saw the woman...only this time her eyes seemed to glow in sunken sockets, and her hair blew in a wind that was not in the house. Oh...and she was floating about eight inches off the ground. That might have been an important clue that mom's theory about it all being hogwash was wrong. Granted, most all thought was gone when the thing opened her mouth and screamed.
From then, things got a little....blurry....
Jodi:
Jody managed to follow the GPS pretty well, only getting lost a couple times, which made no sense since she was following the machine. A couple curses and some phrases that were Singer-trademarked, she managed to find the damn place. There was a car parked in front of it with a lanky man leaning against the hood. Jody pulled in behind him and turned off the engine, she exhaled slowly, “here goes nothing.”
When she got out, the guy smiled at her, “Hey Copper lady,” he spread his arms wide, “long time no see.”
“That’s MISS Copper Lady to you, Rod,” she laughed as she wandered into his arms for a hug. “So tell me about this kid.”
“He just came back to, he’s a little…” Rod tilted his head, giving her a look that said more than words could. “So we’re trying to be gentle and all, but he keeps babbling, and…” Rod gave a gesture towards the house, then to her. “It’s your kid now.”
Ian:
I remembered things in burps of coherence... I saw Rodney go down to his knees, clutching at his ears and the sides of his head. I think I saw my mother flailing at the air as her ears bled. I know I saw my father screaming and yelling and dashing at the floating woman...and going through her. When that happened, the screaming meanie turned up the volume, and I felt something in me break and burst. The sides of my face felt wet...and so did my pants, I'll be honest. I was crying. I was bleeding. There was this hurt deep in me that I could not explain. As I struggled up, things only got worse...
Rodney was kneeling and clawing at his eyes and ears and scalp, bloody furrows gouged along his skin, blood foaming at the edges of his mouth as he screamed soundlessly from a throat that had gone beyond raw. Eventually he went down, twitching, but I knew...I knew deep down that he was not going to get back up. Dad was swinging at the ghostly creature with a butcher knife, but it was touching nothing...except him, when he would swing too hard and the blade would knick his sides and hips. Mom was crying and jibbering and rocking, trying hard to blot out the noise infiltrating our heads.
I blacked out briefly, I think. When I looked up again, my father was no longer trying to cut the banshee (which I now accept is what attacked us). No, he was standing at the wall of the dining room, beating his head into it...through it...after a blur of moments, he was still, limp, hanging from his neck with his head buried into a hole in the wood and plaster. My mother had stopped muttering and murmuring, had stopped flailing. She merely wept quiet tears, lying on her side, eyes staring sightlessly and empty. Suddenly it was quiet, and I couldn't understand why. Wobbling, I looked up and saw the female phantom had vanished. I tried to get up, but I was so weak that I fumbled and fell a few times. I ended up on my back, crying at my loss, thanking Heaven that I was still alive.
Thirty seconds later, I was cursing Heaven as the banshee reappeared floating directly over me, eyes locked to mine, a cruel smile on her face as she opened her mouth to scream at my head at point-blank range. The sound hit me like a sledgehammer. I remember vomitting and it exploding out my mouth and down my cheeks. Then I felt a few thumps on the floor, and then the scream changed pitch and seemed to...thin...as the bitch seemed to flash and go between solid and smoke as a golden knife stuck through her neck, held by the hand of a rangy-looking man. That man said something to me, but I have no idea what. My ears were useless, now. My brain felt like mush. I felt cold and numb. The student in me evaluated everything and brought to mind what was happening to me: I was going into shock, and I did not care.
Some time later, I was sitting in a chair, muttering quietly to myself, though I can't say what I was saying then. I know the man...I think he said his name was Rod, because I remember telling him that Rod was dead...he had asked me some questions, but I never heard them properly, so I babbled as close to answers as I could. Granted, my brain felt so strange and disconnected that I'm fairly sure that what I said might have been as intelligible as "Blue shrimp cheese tacos" or some such. My rescuer sighed and left after awhile, and I was allowed to try to absorb everything that had happened. When the police woman found me, I was resting my head in my hands, and at that moment I know I was moaning that "old auntie" was right and that I was cursed...
Jody:
“He says I’m dead,” Rod chuckled at Jody, “he’s completely lost it, I’ve managed to keep everyone away so far. But you know the police are gonna want in on this. What do we tell them? That he ran away from the local place and you’re here to pick him up?” Rod paused, “well, he’d have to have run away from your state for you to be here, so…” He trailed off, looking at Jody.
Jody gave him an amused little look, patting his shoulder, “you need to get with the boys to come up with more original stories, Rod.” She slipped past him toward the house, waving over her shoulder at Rod as she heard him grumble. “I can’t hear dead people,” she called out as she slipped into the house. “Hey kid?” She called out as she walked slowly through the house, trying to make sure she didn’t quite look at the bodies just yet.
She’d end up being all interested and forget about the kid that needed to be paid attention to first. She could see out of the corner of her eye that Rod had been nice enough to cover the bodies at least.
“Old auntie,” Jody spoke softly as she found the kid rocking in his seat. Her hand slowly reached out to touch him on his shoulder, she was ready to spring back if he went into attack mode, her hand on her gun at her hip. “I’m Jody,” she spoke softly, “I’m here to help you. Do you need help?” She waited, her hand still outstretched, just in case.
Ian:
I looked up at the touch. The man had not touched me more than to get me out of the dining room and into this chair. I had not fought any, at all. I did not have any fight in me, right now. If a doctor were to really look at me, inspect me inside and out, they would probably say something along the lines of me lacking a will to live. That was not totally true. My mom had lost the will to live. I am not 100% certain she is dead. At least, not sure her body is dead. I had seen her eyes, so I knew noone was home anymore, but I had not seen her stop breathing. Dad was gone. I accepted that. Rodney was gone, and that was hard for him to stomach. Rodney had been my best friend, my only friend for years. I had no idea what I would tell his wife, what things would eventually be said to his little girl about our family. I did not know how I was going to go on without my little world being there. That was it, really, the thing that was leaving me so numb: I felt like I no longer had a foundation under me. Having my ears deprived of most hearing did not help things...
When the police woman tried to speak softly to me, I shook my head, muttering that I could not hear her, pointing to the bloody trails along my jawline to show that the eardrums were ruptured. I knew my voice was flat and chilly, like I knew my eyes were half-lidded and tired-looking. When she tried again, this time I was staring at her lips. I was not great at reading lips, but I was decent enough. I shrugged and shook my head, saying that I did not know what I needed, right now. Anyone looking at me would see a boy who was utterly and completely lost. I felt there was no hope for me, and I went back to muttering that I was cursed...
Jody:
Jody paused when she saw him pointing at his ears, comprehension lighting up her face as she gave a slow nod. She tapped at her ears, a slow shake to ask if he didn’t understand her, which she was pretty much asking the obvious. She straightened up while putting her hands on her hips, a little frown furrowing her eyebrows as she watched him. He needed help, but how was she supposed to convey that she was here to help him – especially when he couldn’t hear or understand her.
“Oh, duh,” she nearly smacked herself in the forehead. She could write.
She looked at him with a wave of her hand, she mimed writing on her hand, asking if he had a notepad and a paper. What the hell was he talking about, being cursed? This was something she would have to take home to the boys – Sam and Dean would have an idea because, well, she was shit out of them herself.
Ian:
At the time, I thought she looked ridiculous waving her fingers like she had been, but I did eventually get what she was attempting to convey. With a slow nod -sharp head movements were making me dizzy, just now- I asked for some help down the hall, then led the way down to dad's study, a wobbly guide to where this whole debacle had begun. Once there, I shuffled over to the computer desk and flopped into the padded seat, rummaging through the shelves and drawers, coming up with a cube of Post-Its and a mechanical pencil, then turned and handed them over to the woman. Before she could start writing, I waves towards the photos that were displayed on the table and sighed.
"Not me. We're all curse. All of us."
I guess I was slowly coming to my senses, and it helped being away from the dining room, with everyone still there. Covered or not, I knew who was there, what had happened, that I was alone.
Jody:
She helped him up, letting him lean on her – she was stronger than she looked even while petite next to him. She made sure he wouldn’t look toward where all the bodies were, even if they were covered up. At least he deserved that much, she put him down into the chair when they entered what she assumed was the study. “Thanks,” she took the postits and the pencil, lifting her eyebrows as she listened to him.
She wrote a word ~curse?~ Then showed him the post it to get an answer.
Ian:
I shrugged some at the question. I guessed, at the time, that none of it mattered, anyway. So I showed her what my father showed me and Rodney. At each image of the woman, I jabbed a finger at the evil thing and said one word: "Banshee".
Over and over again. Every time I saw her in an image, I said it.
"Banshee."
"Banshee."
"Banshee."
"Banshee. Banshee. Banshee. Banshee."
I sighed some and sank back into the plush chair, letting my eyes go to the ceiling and muttered about us all dying young, dying weird, and now knowing why we did.
"We were cursed. Something someone in my line did, somewhere, pissed this woman off and she'd been killing us off ever since. That's what dad said our 'auntie' in Scotland had told him. She didn't know what, but..." I laughed a little sadly, a little derisively. "When he was telling us all this, I kinda felt like my mom did, that it was all hogwash and bullshit. Guess we got proven wrong, huh?"
Jody:
Jody looked over at the picture, she lifted her eyebrows, all she could see was a faint image of the woman. Okay, so that banshee. “Wonderful,” she muttered to herself, so there was a kid seeing Banshees. This would be… Oh boy, she would need to contact the boys to get ahold of how she could help the kid break the curse.
But that also meant bringing the kid home. She tilted her head at him while studying him in the chair, he was so close to a mental breakdown. Lovely.
Jody raised a hand and wrote on the pad, ~I can take you somewhere safe from the banshee, I know people~ She pulled off the post it and stuck it on the table in front of him. Then wrote again, ~I know people who can help you.~ She gave him that post it as well, lifting her eyebrows at him as to say “well?”
Ian:
I looked down at them and quirked my head to the side. Could I believe this? At the time, it seemed so...strange. But then, I had been attacked by a floating, glowy-eyed death spirit and watched it wipe my family from this life. And I saw...or I think I saw...someone hurt that spirit. That meant it was possible to hurt it, to drive it away, to survive it. And this woman had said she could take me somewhere safe from it, that she knew people with knowledge of these kinds of things.
"If I go, can I learn how to hurt it? That guy...the one who found me...he hurt it, made it run. I want to do that. Even if it's only revenge, it's the only reason I can imagine I'm still alive. I'm here...to learn to stop this. If you can train me, I'll go with you. Otherwise, you might as well leave me for the ugly. If that knife didn't kill her, then she'll be back for me."
That was the deal I struck, then. Looking back, I still do not regret it, though my world got really, REALLY weird from that day on...