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Title: Unsigned
Recipient: [profile] troll_la_la

Part One



vi.

Dean was losing it.

It got more obvious every day. Sam had tried his damnedest to believe in his brother, to be strong about the whole thing, but it was getting harder. There was Dean, and there was the Mark of Cain; and there was a little less of Dean every day. Sam couldn’t just do nothing and trust that Dean would be able to fight it. Not anymore.

He sighed and rubbed his eyes as another car whizzed past on the highway. He was maybe an hour out from the brewery where he’d left Rowena with the Book of the Damned, pulled over at the side of the road in the hope he could clear his head before he got back to the bunker.

So far, it wasn’t working.

Maybe telling somebody would’ve helped. But he didn’t want to put all of this on Cas. Sam wasn’t sure he’d be able to keep holding it together if Cas confessed he had doubts; so he wasn’t about to inflict his own worries on Cas in turn. Rowena would laugh in his face if he said anything halfway earnest to her. And… well, he couldn’t exactly share this stuff with Dean.

Sam sighed and stretched his arms above his head, working the kinks out of his shoulders as best he could. Then the notebook sitting on the backseat caught his eye.

It wasn’t his; must’ve belonged to whoever owned this old junker before Sam had ‘borrowed’ it. (Hopefully the insurance money would let them pick up something a little less imminently falling-apart.) He’d reached for it before he really had time to think about what he was doing.

There was a pen stuffed down the spine. Almost like somebody had left it there on purpose, for him.

Sam shut the thought down with a soft, involuntary snort. If he’d learned anything in his whole life, it was that the universe having plans for you wasn’t usually a good thing.

Still, he flipped the notebook open. The blank page sat there, clean and inviting, and it was a relief to pull out the pen and start writing.

 

----

 



I can’t let him go.

That’s what it all comes down to. All the maybe-consequences, all the trusting people I shouldn’t—it all seems so small, next to my brother being… gone. I can’t do this without him, so all the things I should do just aren’t options.

Will crumpled the paper in his hand. It was like this guy, whoever he was, had plucked his words right out of Will’s head. Okay, so he was talking about his brother, not his girlfriend or boyfriend, and that was kind of weird—but otherwise, it rang true.

Rose was gone, and Will couldn’t live without her. He’d do whatever he had to, to get her back. Screw what either of their families thought. Screw the new guy she was seeing. The two of them belonged together, and somehow he’d make her see it.

Her birthday party was tonight. Time to get ready.

 

----

 



Will arrived early, just after most of the guests had been welcomed inside. He’d have plenty of time to get everything set up. From his spot behind the bushes, he saw the door open to a couple of stragglers, a sliver of Rose’s figure visible through the gap. She was wearing her yellow dress, red hair loose over her shoulders, and she laughed out loud at something one of the new arrivals said as she ushered them in.

From where he was hiding, Will couldn’t hear her laugh—but he remembered the sound of it, bright and surprised and musical. Making Rose laugh had always felt like winning a prize.

The door closed, the guests disappearing into the house, and Will got to work. It took him a while, the music and laughter inside the house tugging at him sadly, but he let the anonymous letter-writer’s words keep ringing through his head. I can’t do this without him. That’s what it comes down to. He couldn’t do this without her. That was what it came down to.

By the time the party guests started to spill out into the garden, he was ready. A couple people gave the arrangement of candles on the lawn weird looks, but didn’t say anything; and a moment later, Rose emerged, still flushed and laughing, hand-in-hand with her new boyfriend.

Temporary boyfriend, Will tried to reassure himself.

He took a deep breath and switched on the boombox. (Will had had to beg to borrow it from his uncle; Rose had loved that old movie where the guy stands outside his girlfriend’s window with one, and Will’s phone plus a couple of speakers just didn’t seem the same.) Rose blinked as the music kicked in—then went still, her eyes widening as they took in the candles.

I LOVE YOU ROSE. He’d spelled it out in four-foot letters across the lawn, with dozens of white tealights from the dollar store. Their flames flickered in the night breeze, casting a soft light up the garden. The play of shadows at Rose’s feet caught his eye; for a moment, it looked like she was standing on shifting sands.

Then he looked up and saw her face. She was staring at him, open-mouthed. Still clutching that other guy’s hand.

No: not staring. Glaring. She blinked a couple times, then dropped temporary-dude’s hand and stalked toward him.

Will had imagined this a dozen times. Rose leaving that asshat and coming toward him, back to him, as though she couldn’t get there fast enough. Only, in his imagination, she’d looked a whole lot happier to see him.

“What are you doing here?” Rose was scowling now, her hands clenched into fists at her side. When she finally came to a stop in front of him, Will saw that she was trembling a little. His heart skipped a beat, hope rising in his chest. Maybe the anger was just a front; an act she was using to contain herself. She must still have feelings for him, somewhere deep down.

He gestured around him. “I’m here to show you,” he said. “How much you mean to me. How much I want—I need you back, Rosie. We belong together—you know that. I can’t go on without you.” He reached out, hopefully, with one hand.

If anything, Rose’s scowl intensified. “You still don’t get it,” she said. “Will, I didn’t leave you because I didn’t… get how much you care, or whatever. I left because you were suffocating me. Stuff like this—” She turned on the spot, hands spread. “It’s too much. You were taking over my life with it. And I didn’t need—I didn’t want that.” She sighed. “You need to give it up.”

The words felt like grains of sand slipping through his fingers, and desperation clawed at him.

Maybe she was right. Maybe he should just give it up, just leave. But, All the things I should do just aren’t options.

And maybe it was just a test. Maybe she was waiting to see how big he’d go.

“Wait,” he told her, pleading. The possibility of a future without her opened up before him, a big gaping hollow, and he couldn’t bear to look at it. “There’s more.” He stepped over to the side of the lawn, where he’d set up the fireworks, and struck a match.

“Will.” Rose sounded doubtful. “What are you—?”

“Watch,” he said, and lit the fuse.

He’d imagined this as the grand finale, the last scene of the movie, flowers of light blossoming over them as they kissed on the lawn. Maybe there would still be some magic here—maybe she’d finally see—

It didn’t look exactly like he’d expected. One firework, then another, rose into the air with a whine, trailing behind it a thin tail of red-and-white sparks. The third one was a couple seconds behind—and instead of shooting into the sky, it caught in the branches of the old elm tree that overhung the yard.

It twisted there for a moment, sparks flying. Then there was smoke and flame among the branches.

Rose gave him one more horrified glance before she ran for the house. The next thing Will heard was the scream of sirens.

 

----

 



The cop who discharged him told Will he was damn lucky he wasn’t getting charged with anything. Dad didn’t speak to him the whole way home, and when they arrived at the house, he said, “Go to your room” so sternly Will didn’t dare argue.

The old notebook he’d found the letter in was still sitting on his desk, and a sudden surge of anger seized him. Stupid letter-writer.

Stupid Will, for listening to the words of a random stranger. He opened up the notebook, the page falling open at the one where he’d found the letter.

Then he blinked in surprise, realizing there was more, on the back of the page. He hadn’t noticed that part the first time around, too caught up in thinking about Rose. Stomach clenching nervously, he began to read.

I know he’ll be mad, the letter carried on. After everything that happened last year… well, I know I would be. He couldn’t bear to let me go, so he did what he thought he had to, damn what I wanted and damn the consequences. And now I’m about to go do… basically the same thing.

It’s different. But it isn’t. But it is. Sometimes I don’t even know where to start thinking about it.

There just aren’t any good choices here. I get it now, what my brother did to me. I really wish I didn’t.

I just hope he can forgive me.

Will snorted. There was no chance of Rose forgiving him now. One thing was for sure: whatever dumb thing the letter writer had been about to do, there was no way it could have ended worse than this.


i. (redux)

Alice did a double-take as she climbed out of the car. The side-road next to the library was blocked off, two police cruisers parked at the entrance. Shaun and Mei were hovering on the sidewalk, looking uncertainly at the nearest cop, who was talking into his radio.

They looked around in relief when she approached. Alice had gotten the manager’s job after Jeannie retired, and she found that she actually kind of liked taking charge.

The cop put down his radio, and Alice stepped in. “What’s going on here?”

“This is a crime scene,” he told her. “We can’t have anybody getting in the way here. You the manager?” He gestured toward the library.

She nodded. “Are we okay to open up?”

The cop nodded, then leaned in toward her. “Just… don’t spread any gossip. You know how people are. We don’t want a panic on our hands.”

Alice frowned to herself. That wasn’t exactly the most reassuring. Her eyes flicked to the scene in the alley, the police tape and bustle visible over the cop’s shoulder, but it didn’t help her figure out what was going on.

Still, no point worrying about it. Not when there was nothing she could do. She plastered on a smile, and turned to face her employees. “Come on,” she said. “Nothing to see here. Let’s get inside.”

The cops hung around all morning, but the snatches of conversation Alice heard when she poked her head outside didn’t give much away. Not much that made any sense, anyway. Once, a baffled officer in uniform, deep in conversation with his co-worker, said something that sounded like, “Leaves shoved down his throat,” his face a picture of confusion, but then he caught Alice looking and shut up pretty fast.

It was completely nonsensical. A dead guy strangled with leaves? That was the plot of an X-Files episode, not the kind of thing that happened just next door.

Only, it sounded familiar, somehow.

No way it could be. Surely.

Alice kept telling herself that. Hell, maybe it was the plot of an X-Files episode.

But eventually, it came back to her. That kid’s story she’d found tucked into one of the children’s books, not long after she first started working here. It couldn’t have been much after… huh, sometime in the early Nineties, she guessed.

It had been about a kid whose family hunted monsters. And they’d killed—what, a dryad? Something to do with trees, anyway. She vaguely remembered it had mentioned an apple tree.

She’d kept it, for a while. Probably still had it somewhere, in a drawer or a folder. She’d read it over a few times; wondered again what had gotten a kid to come up with something like that, and whether she should have called CPS back when she first found it.

There was an orchard out on the edge of town. It had been there at least since Alice started work at the library, and maybe since she was a kid. She’d wondered at the time if that was where the kid got the apple tree thing from—even driven out of her way after work, just in case there was a burned tree somewhere in among the green.

Of course, she didn’t see anything. But then, it had just been a story.

Now, she couldn’t help wondering. What if there was something strange going on out there?

Alice shook herself. It was a silly idea. Letting a weird crime and a child’s story turn her head. But it wouldn’t leave her alone, and after she’d spent the whole of her coffee break scrolling through pictures of apple trees on her phone, she gave up and let herself into the records room. Mei could manage the counter just fine while she buried herself in anything she could find about the orchard.

Which was… not a whole lot. It had been sold around ten years ago, and the new owners didn’t live in town, preferring to hire people to maintain it and harvest the apples. There wasn’t anything noteworthy before that. Business had always been pretty good, bumper crops even when the weather was bad. The original owner had died of a heart attack, and then his wife had sold up and moved abroad. No drama.

Alice frowned, tapping her pencil on the table.

What about weird deaths? If somebody really had died around the time she’d found that story, then… well, that would mean something. Alice wasn’t sure what, or what she’d do about it if she found anything, but it was a start.

It was lunchtime by the time she got done digging into the newspaper archives. No murders, certainly nothing as weird as a guy with a branch down his throat—but people had gone missing. The last one, twenty-five years ago today. Then twenty-five years before that. And before that—that must have been around the time the orchard was planted, Alice guessed; before the owners she’d known had bought it.

The year the kid had been here, nobody had gone missing. As she scanned the obituaries, though, Alice’s gaze caught on the phrase, inquest ruled death by natural causes. If there had been an inquest at all, then there must have been something suspicious, right?

“Could have been interrupted.”

The voice startled Alice out of her reverie, and she whipped round to face the door of the records room. Two guys in suits walked in as she blinked at them, deep enough in conversation that they didn’t seem to notice her for a moment.

They were both pretty tall. Both good-looking, in an ‘if I was twenty years younger’ kind of a way. The taller of the two had floppy hair, broad shoulders, dimples that showed at the corners of his mouth, and Alice would be willing to bet they’d be irresistible when he smiled. The other looked like he might’ve been a male model in his younger days, all freckles and big green eyes. But that wasn’t what Alice noticed first.

There was something about the taller one, but Alice couldn’t put her finger on it. She would have said that she recognized him, only she was pretty sure she would’ve remembered that. These weren’t the kinds of faces you forgot.

Freckles shook his head, still frowning. “But the timing ain’t—huh.” He broke off as he noticed Alice watching them, elbowing Dimples in the ribs, and dug a badge out of his pocket. “Agent Jason Newsted, FBI. This is my partner, Agent Hetfield.” He nodded at Dimples.

“Your colleague sent us back here,” Dimples put in. “We need to look at—uh, that, actually.” He blinked in surprise, motioning at the folder of newspaper cuttings Alice had been reading. The dates were marked clearly on the top, and Dimples looked at them, then exchanged a glance and a nod with his partner.

It was Alice’s turn to be surprised. The FBI was here? That seemed unlikely enough. The FBI actually following the weird trail of logic Alice had gotten from a child’s story, more than 27 years ago?

No. That was crazy. They probably had other evidence she didn’t know about, good reasons for wanting to look into the past that didn’t revolve around monsters.

She nodded and stepped aside, telling the two agents, “I’ll be out front if you need anything else.”

But she left the records about the orchard open on the table beside the newspaper cuttings. Just in case.

 

----

 



Honestly, Alice intended to leave the whole thing alone. She left the feds to their own devices in the records room, and she went home, poured herself a glass of wine, watched some gentle comedy on Netflix, and tried to forget about it. It worked, for a couple hours.

But it was hard to sleep that night—and when she finally dozed off, her dreams were fragmented and creepy as hell. Faint, wispy figures with pale green skin swam before her eyes, their thin arms reaching out like they meant to strangle her. She heard the rustling of leaves.

She sat up gasping, her heart thudding in her chest.

It slowed, gradually, but getting back to sleep seemed unlikely. Alice climbed out of bed, felt around in the dark for her slippers, and headed downstairs for a glass of water.

From her kitchen window, you could see the whole way across town. Right to the edge of the orchard. Alice stood there and sipped her water and watched for a moment, the trees moving gently in the night breeze.

But that couldn’t be right. It was a hot, stuffy kind of a night, and she’d opened the kitchen window to let some air in when she came down. It hadn’t helped, because there was no breeze.

 

----

 



It would have been smarter to stay away. It was crazy to even think this whole thing could be anything. But Alice felt herself drawn as if by an invisible thread. She pulled on her clothes and boots, moving like she was in a trance, and before she knew it she was in her car, driving out toward the edge of town.

She kept it slow, not sure there would actually be anything to see. The unfamiliar car parked at the orchard gate pulled her up short.

A hulking old black Chevy, gleaming in the moonlight. Alice hadn’t seen it around town before—and anyway, what would anybody be doing up around here in the middle of the night?

Same as her, she guessed.

She parked up beside the Chevy and climbed out of her car, grateful for the soft grass beneath her feet and how it kept her footsteps quiet. There was still no breeze, and for a moment she stood frozen beside her car.

Up ahead, in the trees, there was movement. Alice held her breath, stifled a small sound of fear.

And then she saw them.

Faint, wispy figures in the gloom—pale and greenish under the moonlight, with long slender arms reaching up gracefully through the branches of the trees. They looked as though they were dancing. As though they meant to caress the stars.

Alice stood on the spot, staring. For a moment, she though—prayed—that they were unaware of her presence.

Then—slowly, slowly—they turned toward her.

Her breath caught in her throat. She told herself to back away, but her feet refused to move.

Then there were footsteps, and voices, rushing up behind her. The sound broke her out of her trance, and when she turned around, she found the two Feds from earlier heading toward her, now dressed in jeans and jackets instead of their cheap suits.

“Yeah,” she heard Dimples say. “There’s—wow. There are a lot of them.”

Freckles groaned. “Shoulda known it was too easy last time. It’s a milk run, I said. Just gotta burn down a tree. But no, the one me and Dad took care of was just a seedling, and there’s a whole orchard of ‘em waiting up the road. Awesome.”

“Huh.” Dimples looked thoughtful. “Well, at least the timing makes sense now. You know, if the first one was just growing in somebody’s garden.”

“Yeah. But we still gotta—hey. What are you doing here?”

Freckles came to a halt as his eyes finally landed on Alice, eyeing her with open suspicion. Instinctually, she looked over to Dimples like he might be about to step in and defend her—but he didn’t look any friendlier. He just cocked his head, waiting for an answer.

“The trees,” she got out, at last. “I saw the trees moving. And there’s no wind.” She glanced over her shoulder at the pale figures, still moving so, so very slowly in the dark.

Freckles snorted. “Well, you’re right about that being freaky. Still doesn’t explain what you’re doing out here. Most people see something like that, they run like hell in the opposite direction.”

“I—” Alice broke off, not sure how to answer the question. I read a kid’s story years ago, and now I kind of think this town might be haunted by murderous tree nymphs. That probably wouldn’t go down too well with the Feds.

She was saved by the sound of a ringtone.

Freckles fumbled in his pocket. “If that’s the damn useless Sheriff—” he started to say. Then he looked at his screen and went quiet, his eyes very wide, his scowl fading into confusion.

“Dean?” Dimples was looking at him in puzzlement. “What is it?”

“It’s… it says… it’s Cas.” Freckles held up the cellphone so his partner could see it, shaking his head in disbelief.

Dimples stared. “Wait, you mean he’s… he’s okay?”

A helpless shrug. “I don’t know.”

“Answer it,” Dimples said, and his companion nodded dumbly and turned away, lifting the cell up to his ear.

Alice caught the words, “If you’re not him, then I’m gonna rip your head off,” which weren’t exactly reassuring.

Dimples touched her shoulder, making her start a little. His expression had softened a little. “Look,” he said. “I’m gonna go out on a limb here and trust you.”

Alice eyed him cautiously. “Okay.”

“But if you really are just a concerned citizen, then this is all gonna seem pretty weird to you. So I need you to trust me, too. Can you do that?”

She swallowed. Trusting these guys sounded like the worst idea she’d heard all day, which was saying something. But they were big, and possibly crazy, and she wouldn’t really have been surprised if they were armed, so she nodded. “Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, I can do that.”

“Okay.” Dimples popped open the trunk of the Chevy, casting a brief, worried glance at his companion as he did so.

Alice didn’t follow his gaze for long, distracted by what was inside the trunk. Odd, occult-style designs painted on the inside of the lid. Guns, like she’d kind of expected. Cans of kerosene. And other weird maybe-weapons, too, pointy sticks and something spiky and medieval looking. She started to back away, and Dimples turned to look at her, catching the movement.

“We’re not gonna hurt you,” he said, in what she guessed was his best reassuring tone. “We’re not here to hurt anybody.”

She gave a wary nod.

Dimples looked relieved, and turned back to the trunk. “So,” he said, “here’s what we need to do.”

 

----

 



The plan was pretty simple, apparently. The creatures couldn’t leave the safety of the trees before midnight, which gave them maybe half an hour. They needed to set fire to a couple of specific trees, and the creatures that lived in them should go up in flames at the same time. There wasn’t exactly much logic to it—but then, there wasn’t exactly much logic to a creepy orchard full of tree-people in the first place.

“Here.” With an apologetic smile, Dimples handed her a can of kerosene, then felt in his jacket pocket as though he was looking for something. He frowned when he came up empty, and waved at his companion—still earnestly engrossed in his phone conversation. “Dean! Lighter?”

“Hold up,” Freckles—Dean—said into his cell. “Sam’s talking to me.”

Dimples mimed flicking a lighter, and Dean reached into his pocket and tossed over a Bic. Dimples plucked it out of midair with ease, like this was something they did all the time.

No: not Dimples. Sam. His name was Sam. Alice turned it over in her mind as they walked toward the orchard gates, trying and then failing to dismiss it.

“So,” she said, carefully. “These things. They’re, what, tree nymphs, or something?”

Sam nodded. “Well,” he said, “technically they’re epimeliads, but they’re just a variety of tree nymph. Not all of them like to play murder, but these guys are pretty dangerous.” Epimeliads. He said the word like he was spelling it out inside his head, like a kid showing off the new big word he’d learned at school.

And then it came back to her.

“Sam,” Alice said, almost involuntarily, as they walked toward the orchard gate.

He stopped in his tracks and turned to look at her. “Yeah?”

“Sam Winchester.”

“What did you say?” His voice was soft, half danger, half uncertainty.

Alice swallowed hard. “Sam Winchester. That’s you, isn’t it?”

“How do you know that?” His hand had gone to his belt, like he was reaching for a gun, and Alice held up her free hand.

“I’m not—stalking you, or anything,” she said. “I work in the library. You probably don’t remember me, but you remember the place, right? You used to come in when you were a kid, and you lived here for a couple weeks.”

Sam nodded, still blinking at her in puzzlement.

“I found your note,” she went on. “Well, at the time I thought it was a story. A school project or something. You left it inside a library book in the kids’ section—what, around twenty years ago? Maybe a little more.”

He still looked uncertain, but Alice could see him remembering. He had to know she was telling the truth.

“It was a book of Greek myths,” she said. “Beautiful illustrations. It was one of my favorites, too.”

Sam’s face did something complicated—and then he nodded. “I—yeah,” he said, finally. “That was the first one I wrote. Never actually expected anyone to read it.”

So there were more of those stories, hidden in library books in other towns? Alice raised an eyebrow.

But actually, it made a certain kind of sense. If your family hunted monsters, and your job was—well, this—then who would you talk to about it? Maybe writing it out like it was just a story was the best you could do.

“Do me a favor,” Sam said, then. “Just—don’t tell Dean about that, okay? He—well, he probably wouldn’t get it.”

Alice gave him a small smile. “Kind of a strange hobby, I guess.” Emboldened, she reached out and patted his arm. “Don’t worry. Your secret’s safe with me.”

“Thanks.” He looked genuinely relieved, and Alice figured she probably didn’t want to pry any further. Then he looked at his watch. “And, uh, we’re kind of on a schedule here. Ready to light things up?”

Alice drew in a breath, casting another glance at the field of swaying figures in front of her. “Okay,” she said, steadying herself as best she could. “Okay, let’s go.”

 

----

 



It felt weird, going back into work the next day like nothing had happened. Or almost like nothing had happened, anyway, because the whole town was still buzzing with speculation about the dead guy—and about who had torched the orchard on the edge of town.

It was dumb, because nobody had any reason to suspect her, but Alice still felt like her face was going to give it away. In the end, she manufactured a headache and left Mei and Shaun in charge out front, heading out into the cool dark of the records room to compose herself.

She frowned at the realization the window was open. She didn’t remember leaving it like that yesterday—but then maybe she’d been too preoccupied with the whole crazy story to notice. With a mental shrug, she crossed the room and closed it.

The displacement of air ruffled the papers on the desk. The folder of newspaper clippings was still out, and Alice moved mechanically to gather them up. As she opened the folder to replace them, she realized there was something sticking out the top.

She pulled it out, frowning.

It was a note, written on lined notebook paper and folded in half twice.

Alice opened it up. The handwriting was what she noticed first. Familiar, though it was a little more grown up now, a little less neat and careful than it had been the first time she saw it.

It said, Thank you.
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