benevolence

You go in, breathing as deep as you can stand, to get the smell into your lungs where it will soften, go easy.\n\nThe carpet has a tread worn into it, and it makes you smile--picturing the stooped old woman from the newspaper obituary shuffling in, shuffling out, to her broken-in armchair and back, peering carefully into the paperbacks stacked on the side table, biographies of long-dead historians and professors and aviators and kings.\n\nIt strikes you that nothing in this [[house|Inside]] is wet.\n\n

You try to stifle the sigh of frustration that's begging to come off your mouth. He looks out the window at the ragged rain-slick road and you know he's thinking of the fastest way to Florida and sharp steel.\n\n"This thing's gonna get noticed," you say, desperate. "Kids are gonna start wandering in. It's gonna hit local legend status soon and then who knows? I mean--"\n\nDean looks back at you, but you know he's not really listening.\n\n"--do we really want a big glaring neon sign like that sitting in the middle of suburbia?"\n\nHe keeps chewing, looking confused.\n\n"Hey, Everybody! Weird Shit Exists!"\n\n"We've left worse alone, Sam."\n\nThis time the sigh does come out. Dean sucks ketchup off his finger.\n\n"Someday some kid's gonna fall through the rotting floor and break his neck." Last-ditch. "That'll be on you."\n\n"It'll be on the dumbass kid. Come on," Dean says, fishing for his wallet. "Florida's nice this time of year."\n\nYes, you think. But [[he's|Split3]] not.

You're halfway out the door with him and you're trying to say something--anything--without giving away what you're actually afraid of.\n\nEvery time his arm swings back in walking movement you see it.\n\n"Dean."\n\n"Sam," he says, "we're hitting Tallahassee."\n\nYou stop in the parking lot. Rain begins to patter on your shoes. \n\n"I'm going," you say, setting your stubborn chin, hoping that if you tug enough he'll eventually give in. \n\nHe stops at the Impala's door, rounds on you with a condescending look.\n\n"Yeah?"\n\n"Yeah." You puff up, or you think you do. Size, and all that. \n\n"How you gonna get there?" Dean says. "'Cause I'm goin' to Tallahassee."\n\n"I'll get there."\n\nHe braces his forearm on the car, sighs, drops his head down against the crook of his elbow. You think of that hot scar and have to look up at the corona of the blank sky, rain spitting down on your face.\n\nYou can't imagine what it's like to look up in the rain and see your own ceiling. You were hoping Dean would be curious enough about that to come with.\n\n"Call me when you get there," Dean says, eventually. "If it's something I'll turn around and meet you. Otherwise--"\n\nHe tosses you the keys to the trunk.\n\n"--[[See you in Florida|Separate]]."

In the far corner of the room is a shrine.\n\nYou recognise it for what it is, though it's simple.\n\nFramed characters you cannot read. Odds and ends scattered on the surface of the table it rests upon: dried stalks of wheat. A ceramic dish full of rainwater. Overflowing. Amulets tied along its edges like a beaded curtain.\n\nYou know without knowing that this is what brings the [[rain|Backtostairs]].

You can [[stick him out|Morewait]].

At five AM you hear the dear rumble and the headlights swing through the falling drops. For an instant they are illuminated, suspended as in a strobe light.\n\nYou go to meet him in the doorway. Give him a smile of bewilderment through the strange still outdoor nighttime that pushes against your face.\n\nHe cocks his eyebrows at you.\n\nYou say, "[[Come and see|Come]]."

Down on the landing you feel like calling out. It's only polite.\n\n"Hello?"\n\nThere's no answer. But maybe it's shy. In your admittedly limited experience with nature spirits, they usually are.\n\n"I'm not here to hurt you," you say. The rain feels blissful on your skin. It's been falling so steadily and so gently that you've almost forgotten it--it's just a soft sensation, now. \n\nSoothing. You almost feel like thanking it.\n\n"I just wanted to [[see|See]] what you do."\n\n

It's so rare that things work in exactly the way they are supposed to.\n\n[[>>|Begin]]

Sun will come up at 6 AM.\n\nYou know this.\n\nFor now you stand with your brother in the rain beneath the roof. Beat it into memory. Swallow it down. \n\nSafe, for when it all goes wrong, as it will, out there, where things are not so good, and righted, and kind.\n\nFor now you're with him and you stand.

There's no answer. Not that you expected one. \n\nInside the shades are drawn; it's darkness and wet carpet. You fumble for a light switch but there isn't one. The barest sliver of blue night is coming through the curtains and you make your way there by blind touch.\n\nHere--here is different; here you can almost feel something Else. \n\nBut when you pull open the curtains the [[room|Toproom2]] is empty, save for you.\n\nThe rain is still falling, from the rafters, from the wide ceiling.

"Has anyone died there?"\n\nYou sink back in your seat a little. He's going to fight you on this. He's gonna take the turn to Tallahassee once you're back on the highway whether you like it or not.\n\n"No one but the owner."\n\n"And?"\n\n"Florence Hirayama," you mumble. "Ninety-three. Old age."\n\n"Exactly."\n\n"It's been raining inside that house," you say, "for thirteen years. Every night. Look."\n\n"And she stayed?"\n\n"She stayed."\n\n"You know what that house needs?" Dean says, dragging his last french fry through his ketchup.\n\n"What?"\n\n"A plumber," he says. "[[Not a hunter|Split2]]."

On the stairs all you can do is sit, and watch the drops fall one by one from the edge of one step to the next.\n\nA shadow moves down below but you don't react to it. There's no need. That's in your gut, too.\n\nThis is what she wanted, old Mrs Hirayama, you think. She wanted a house full of rain, and you don't know why. But she lived here thirteen years, and maybe her garden grew; maybe her houseplants never wilted; maybe she was blessed with children; maybe the sound of it lulled her to sleep.\n\nIt's not a case. It's a simpler thing.\n\n[[It's so rare that things work in exactly the way they are supposed to|Next]].

You can [[sit|Sit]].

You want to say something wild. Let's stay. Because something here is benevolent, and all else outside of this is surely not; and outside you'll lose track of him again, slowly, surely, to the thing on his arm.\n\n[[Impossible|End]], of course.\n\nInevitable.

I [[love|Miss]] you.

Dean doesn't think it's enough of anything.\n\n"It's an empty old house," he says, dropping your newspaper back across the remnants of the breakfast on your plate. "It's not a case."\n\nHe wants to go south. There's something big and nasty in Tallahassee. He's been itching for something to sink a blade into for weeks. \n\n(And you've been cautious. You've been picking cases that seem incorporeal, too aware of that scar on his arm. Too afraid of a knife in his hand.)\n\n"It rains," you say, in case he missed it, by chance, in the antlike scattering of text. "It rains inside the house."\n\n"And?"\n\n"And doesn't that sound like a case to you?"\n\nA solid case, with lots of empty rooms, and lots of bones to burn, you hope, you pray.\n\nDean's not [[convinced|Split]].

If this can be good, [[you|Say5]] can be good.

I worry. I worry. I worry about that mark. Just [[sit with me|Say4]] and feel this. It's incredible.

[[Stop|Say3]] moving. Breathe. See. It's okay. It was nothing. Be okay.

West Virginia doesn't love a hitchhiker. \n\nWhen someone finally picks you up, you're soaked to the bone and irritated, and [[not much for talking|Road]].\n\n

It's not a case. But [[sit|Say2]] with me a while.

Despite yourself, you go tense--waiting for the last colours to dissipate from the sky; waiting for the leaves on the trees outside to dip from green to black.\n\nThen, it [[starts|Rain2]].

[[Night goes|Moremorenight]]. Rain falls. You're soaked to the bone. You feel very quietly alive.

[[Night goes|Evenmorenight]]. You wish he'd come, so he could feel it too.

You wait, and you wait, and it rains, and you [[think|Benevolence]].

Maybe the rain will make him calm. Take the blood edge off of him. Soothe the burn in the crook of his arm. [[Maybe|Maybe]].

You can [[hope|Hope]].

benevolence

Dean walks in beside you and is immediately awed. Holds his hand up to catch stray droplets. In the Impala's headlights you can see the dew on his eyelashes.\n\nThe scar doesn't seem so red and raw in all this blue glow.\n\n"Dude," he says.\n\n"Yeah."\n\nHe turns to you.\n\n"There's nothing here?"\n\nYou smile. "Nothing to kill, if that's what you mean."\n\nHe takes another step in. Already soaking wet. On what seems like an instinct you'd already suspected he holds out his afflicted arm and watches the rain land and scatter around the Mark and you watch him breathe out through his nose, eyes drifting closed, as if in relief, as if a fever has broken.\n\n"She wanted rain," you say, "I guess," never taking your eyes off of him. "And she got it, and that's all."\n\n"Just like that?"\n\n"Just like that."\n\n"It's good."\n\n"[[It's good|Good]]."\n\n

In the kitchen there is one place set at the miniscule table and you wonder how it happened--where she finally died. If it was unexpected. If it felt like something well-earned.\n\nYou run your finger over the pots in the sink. All clean, all gleaming, all dry.\n\nThere's a houseplant on the windowsill--small, with drooping leaves--but it's thriving, you can tell--the dirt is damp beneath your fingertip.\n\nThe floors in this [[house|Inside]] creak under your feet as if they know you.

You can hear the rumble of the road beneath him, wherever he is.\n\nHe sighs, a crackle in the phone. "You want me to meet you there?"\n\n"Yeah," you say. You lick your lips, hesitate. \n\nFuck it.\n\n"I don't like you on your own right now, Dean."\n\n"Sam."\n\n"Look, maybe it's not a case. But if it is, at least it's something--simple. It's not--bloody, it's not--"\n\n"Sam."\n\n"I worry. You know that. I worry."\n\n"I'll come."\n\n"Sorry."\n\n"Don't be sorry. I'll come."\n\nBelow you the front [[door|Down]] drifts a little in the four-o'clock breeze.\n\nHis voice is hard but it knows what you are saying.

The rain is cold but you don't feel chill. It's that strange exhilarating feeling of running in the rain, and then ceasing--giving in to being soaked--when the prospect of getting wet gives way to the joy of not caring.\n\nIt follows you up the stairs again. \n\nThe room at the top of the steps is not locked, and the woman of the house has been dead a week; but you [[knock|Toproom]], anyway. You're not sure why.

As quietly and as naturally as if it has been raining in this room since you arrived, it begins to fall from the ceiling. Cool droplets making their way down your face, your wet hair before you can even register them.\n\nYou stand up, startled, and then freeze--hold your hands out palm up--rain patters into them, bounces off in perfect crystal arcs. Already the rug beneath your feet is growing dark and pliant.\n\nYou expect that jolt any moment now. The feeling of wrong that is so common in places like these. The presence of an angry spirit or some creature lurking under the stairs.\n\nBut you stand in the rain in the empty house and all you feel is--[[light, and calm, and cool|Room]].

Inside it smells of wet wood and stale death.\n\nBut it's welcoming, somehow.\n\nNo curtains drawn. Foggy light spilling on the floors like loose change. Furniture in all its proper places.\n\nTo your [[right|Living Room]] a well-worn living room--a picture on the wall, draped in black--an old man in traditional clothes.\n\nKitchen on the [[left|Kitchen]]. Pots and pans in the sink, all clean.\n\n[[Stairs|Upstairs]] ahead.

If this can be good we can be okay.\n\nI think, I [[pray|Say6]].

She built her shrine and here it is, her comfort, still faithful, still falling, still good, still safe.\n\nGod only knows an old woman's needs but if her ghost is here at least her rain is, too.\n\nWhen Dean gets here you will embrace him whether he likes it or not and you will make him [[understand|Benevolence2]].

It's [[good|Moregood]].

You sit back down on the stairs again and your shoulder fits--just right--beneath that banister.\n\nYou don't know what you'll [[say|Say]] when Dean arrives.

Everything you've read--and it's been little--about this house says it definitively: the rain will start when the sun goes down.\n\nFor now, you ease yourself into the old lady's worn-down armchair. Direct line of sight to the window and the sinking sun. \n\nIf you're honest with yourself, no matter what happens come nightfall, you already know in your gut that there's no case here. Dean is driving back because you're scared of what will happen if he doesn't. That's all.\n\nHe'll curse and kick when he gets here. But at least he'll be with you. Safe. Calm.\n\nYou can't put your finger on why this place feels so--good. \n\nIt's been years and years and years since you've had cause to call something supernatural good.\n\n[[The sun is a blank sliver|Rain]].

Where did you [[go|Wait]]?

The woman in the red SUV drops you on the edge of town, if it can be called that. She smiles at you and tells you to take care.\n\nYou think about calling Dean. Imagine him well on his sweltering way to Florida, itching for a kill.\n\nYou should have gone with him.\n\nThe sun is just a haze behind the clouds. [[You start walking|House]].

This place is small--smaller than you'd have thought--at the head of the stairs is one door, gently closed, and nothing else.\n\nYou pause for a moment at their top--turn around, sink down onto the step below you, and pull out your phone.\n\nDean picks up on the third ring.\n\n"So?"\n\n"So?"\n\n"So, is it anything?"\n\nYou look down the stairs at the open door you entered through. \n\n"I don't know," you say, truthfully. "I'm inside."\n\n"Raining yet?"\n\n"Not yet."\n\n"Well?"\n\n"It feels--"\n\nYou always have a feeling. Dean teases you about it, sometimes. Mock-accuses you of showing off. But you know to trust your gut, especially in a place like this. What you're not used to is this feeling.\n\n"It feels--nice. Light."\n\n"Light?"\n\n"Haunted places, you know how they always feel--heavy."\n\n"So it's nothing, is what you're saying."\n\n"That's [[not|Hang up]] what I'm saying."

It's barely afternoon when you find it--just as it was in the tiniest column of this morning's newspaper. Nearly as inky black as the picture.\n\nNo one is around to see you crouch down by the doorknob and pick open the [[lock|Inside]]. The lawn is nothing but weeds as tall as your hips.

You sit on the stairs a while longer. Watch the light change in the doorway until it starts to go rose-gold.\n\nYou're not hungry, thought it's edging on evening. And something about the wall of this stairwell is the perfect place to rest your shoulder, your head.\n\nMaybe it will change, when night falls.\n\nWhen [[night|Night]] falls, you'll go into the room.

There's a creak in the wet floor of the kitchen behind you and you turn, and only just in time to see her for a split second before she vanishes: long, wet black hair, and a tongue licking up the back of her own hand.\n\nA whisper shudders through the house and then is gone, and the rain keeps falling, and somehow you're [[satisfied|Morenight]].\n\n

When you look at him--really look--there is no tension; not right now. No shivering muscles, no aching teeth. His breathing is full. He seems himself. You want to choke out a blessing on the things in this house.\n\n"Never thought I'd live to see it," Dean says, with a humour you've missed so fiercely. "[[Good magic|Say7]]."\n\n

askance

God.\n\nYou don't think you've [[breathed|Know]] so deep in years.

I [[miss|Where]] you.