"It kinda makes you wonder. Of all the things we've hunted, how many exist just because people believed in them?" - Sam Winchester
Sam was five and full of questions, questions no one would answer for him.
Why do we travel around so much?
How come we don't live in a house?
What is Daddy doing when he goes away?
When Daddy went away Sam had to stay with strangers. Daddy said they were their friends, but Sam didn't like to stay with them.
Pastor Jim was sometimes happy and fed Sam waffles, but sometimes he was sad and slept on the sofa a lot. He would smell like whiskey, and he snored. Sam would sit and watch television like a good boy while the Pastor slept. He was too scared to do anything else. Having Pastor Jim be asleep made Sam feel like he was alone, and being alone in the big empty church scared him.
Caleb was okay. He told jokes and did card tricks. He taught Sam how to be safe when handling a gun, and how to cuss. Sometimes, though, Caleb had other friends over and when he did, he made Sam stay in his room with the door locked. Sam could hear them talking. Sometimes he heard them doing other things that Sam couldn't understand. When Caleb finally came to let Sam out he always looked disheveled and sweaty.
Sam didn't like to stay with Bill and Ellen either. They were nice, but they had their own baby, Jo. Jo was just little and couldn't talk much. She also pulled Sam's hair and smelled funny. Sam got scolded if he didn't play with her, so he did, but she wasn't much fun at all.
When Daddy made him stay with Bobby, Sam would cry. Bobby was grouchy and always seemed to be busy. He did a lot of reading, and when he wasn't reading his big dusty books he was out in his wrecking yard yelling at the men who worked for him. Bobby didn't like little kids much. When Sam was at Bobby's he had to spend most of his time with Patton. Patton was Bobby's big black dog and unlike his master, the dog took his babysitting duties very seriously. Sam wasn't allowed to do so much as blink without Patton's approval. Needless to say he didn't do much blinking, or anything else for that matter. Patton's big teeth scared him.
It would have been nice if Sam could go with his father on his trips. He'd be good, he told Daddy. He'd stay in the hotel and just watch television. He wouldn't open the door or go outside for any reason. It would be safe. He was five, and wasn't Daddy all the time telling him what a big boy he was now?
But Daddy said no, and took him to Joshua's house.
Joshua had a great, big, old house. It had porch that wrapped around three sides and a tower room full of interesting things Sam wasn't allowed to touch. They were magical things, Joshua told him. Sam was never sure what to think of Joshua. He was very tall, with long hair, and glasses with very thick lenses that made his eyes look sort of goofy. His voice was very soft – he hardly ever spoke over a whisper. He taught Sam all sorts of magic, like how to cure warts with a bean, and what signs to draw for protection against bad things.
"What kind of bad things?" Sam asked, because he was five and full of questions.
But Joshua wouldn't tell him. He just gave Sam some chalk, some salt and some shells and things and showed him what marks to make. Joshua said the odd shapes and circles would keep Sam safe while he slept. To Sam, this was not very reassuring, but he obediently made his drawings, sprinkled his salt and herbs, and arranged his shells the way Joshua told him. Afterward he crawled into bed and lay shivering alone beneath the quilts.
Joshua's house was big, and old, and cold in the wintertime. It also made funny noises. Sam lay in bed shivering and he could hear the distant sound of Joshua playing some old music in a room downstairs. He could also hear footsteps up stairs in the attic above him, and creaking floorboards in the hall outside his door. Sam knew the sounds weren't from Joshua. Joshua was singing along with his music – downstairs, on the opposite side of the house.
Sam was too scared to shout, so he just lay in bed waiting for the thing in the hall to come in and eat him. When he heard the door creak he ducked under his covers and squeezed his eyes tightly closed.
"Hey," someone said.
It was a boy someone. Sam found this out when he summoned all of his courage up and peeked over the edge of his quilts.
There was a boy there, slouched in a chair, watching Sam intently. He had on a t-shirt, jeans and a pair of Converse sneakers and appeared to be somewhat older than Sam. As Sam peeked out at him he blew a bubble and popped it before sucking the gum back in and chewing it up again.
"You scared or somethin?"
"No," Sam said, pulling the covers down to show that no, he was not scared. "I'm cold."
"It is cold in here," the other boy said, and popped his gum again. He had freckles, Sam noted, and very large eyes. "I thought you were scared of the noise in the hall."
"Why should I be scared of a noise?" Sam said bravely, not wanting to be labeled a wussy baby by someone he just met.
The boy leaned forward in his chair and made his eyes go real big. "Are you scared of ghosts?"
"Like Casper?"
This was apparently hysterically funny. Sam frowned as he was laughed at for a full half minute.
"No," the boy said, giggling. "Not like Casper. Like a real ghost."
Sam considered. "I don't know," he said truthfully. "I've never seen one."
"Hang around here long enough and you will. They're all over the place."
It was Sam's turn to make his eyes go all big. "This is a haunted house?"
"Oh, yeah. There's a poltergeist here too, and a little black demon that'll scratch you if you're not careful." Sam's visitor nodded toward the chalk marks and other things on the floor around Sam's bed. "But they can't get you with that there."
"That's good." Sam said, and added. "What is a poltergoose?"
"Poltergiiiist," the boy said carefully. "It's a kind of ghost. It likes to throw things and make rocks fall out of the ceiling."
"Why would it want to make rocks fall out of the ceiling?"
"I don't know. 'cause that's just what it does I guess."
"Oh."
Together they sat listening to the footsteps upstairs. Sam thought he heard something like a marble falling onto a wooden floor. He heard it roll down the hall, and eerily, bounce down the staircase.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
"Poltergeist," the boy whispered, and then popped his gum with a crack that made Sam jump.
Sam studied him carefully for a while after that. "My name is Sam," he said finally.
The kid grinned. "I'm Dean."
"Do you live here?" Sam asked Dean.
"Kinda. You?"
"I don't really live anywhere."
"What do you mean?"
"We travel a lot, me and my Dad. I don't have a Mom," Sam added quickly.
"I don't either."
"Really?"
"Really," Dean said. He pulled his gum out of his mouth and stuck it behind his left ear as he leaned back in his chair with his legs stretched out before him. He laced his hands over his stomach. "What's your Dad like?"
"Oh, he's cool..."
They talked for a long time. They talked until Sam couldn't hold his eyes open any more. He didn't remember falling asleep, but he did. When he woke up it was morning and his new friend was gone, presumably off to bed himself. Sam got up and went downstairs for breakfast. Daddy was there, but he didn't have good news. There was something urgent he needed to take care of for his job. It could take a long time, maybe a week or two. Sam would have to stay with Joshua.
Sam was unhappy about that, but was glad he would be staying with Joshua and not someone else. He had decided he liked Joshua. Joshua was weird but nice and sometimes very funny. He also liked sugar coated cereal and got Sam addicted to Lucky Charms.
It was over a bowl of Lucky Charms that Sam told Joshua about Dean, who Sam had rediscovered while exploring the overgrown expanse of Joshua's neglected atrium rose garden. They had dashed around among the tangled vines playing cops and robbers, yelping whenever a stray thorn prickled them. A yelp at just the wrong time helped Sheriff Sam discover just where the cat burglar (Dean) was hiding. A few minutes later a call from Joshua sent Sam running in to get lunch.
Testing his luck, when Joshua asked him what he wanted for lunch, Sam told him Lucky Charms. To Sam's surprise and delight, that's what he got.
"What have you been doing?" Joshua asked, eying Sam's scratches.
"Playing in the garden with Dean," Sam said, and scooped a large scoop of cereal into his mouth, anxious to get back to the game.
Joshua gave him a funny look, but then he smiled. "Ah. So you've met Dean have you?"
"Uh-huh."
"Hmm," Joshua said, and that was all.
That night the poltergeist was particularly noisy, and a little black ball of shadows paced back and forth outside Sam's drawings growling a wicked little growl. Sam wasn't scared though. He and Dean had made a tent out of Sam's bed covers and were "camping out" with a can of Pringles potato chips and a stack of old comic books. The comic books came from Joshua's eclectic library of books, magazines, periodicals and newspapers stuffed into almost every free space there was in the house. Under the tent, with a big flashlight illuminating their space and Batman comics to read, it was easy to ignore the scary noises.
Dean made a lot of things easier. He taught Sam how to tie his shoes, and whistle through a blade of grass stretched taut between his thumbs. They played cops and robbers or cowboys and Indians for hours, and when that grew boring they ran off to the seven seas and became pirates. Sam had a hard time with his "arugh." He would screw up his face and close one eye and Dean would fall over laughing at him.
Having Dean around made Sam brave, and definitely made him feel safe. One night he made a mistake with his chalk circles and the little black demon jumped up on his bed. It had claws Sam couldn't see and had drawn blood before he could yell for Joshua. Dean came instead, and chased the demon around with a baseball bat until it left the room and Sam could fix his drawing. The next day Sam told Joshua all about it.
"He's very handy to have around," Joshua agreed.
Joshua was drinking tea and wearing a Chinese robe made of blue silk embroidered with dragons. His long hair was piled up on top of his head and held there with a pair of chopsticks, making him look like a strange, gawky sort of Geisha. Joshua liked to dress up for "lessons" and that day he'd been showing Sam some new magic, magic from China and Japan. It included writing characters on paper and burning them over a tiny brass brazier heated by a single lump of charcoal. Sam got more ink on himself than on the paper.
"Sam," Joshua said, after he'd finished his tea. "Your dad will be coming for you tonight."
Sam was surprised. It had been two weeks that Daddy had been gone, but they had flown by very quickly. He found himself feeling disappointed. "Oh," he said.
"Sammy," said Joshua, who liked to call Sam, Sammy. (It had become a joke after Sam said it sounded like something someone would call a sandwich.) "I have something to tell you."
"What?"
"You may have noticed, but we're not alone in this house."
Sam laughed, because he knew his friend lived there too.
"Not just Dean," Joshua continued. "But there are other...people...and other things here."
"Like the poltergoose and the scratchy demon?"
"Yes, like them, but there are more you see. This house is sort of a – doorway – for them." Joshua made a sweeping gesture with one long-fingered hand. "This house is my job. I live here to keep an eye on it. I make sure the bad things can't escape into the outside world and cause trouble for people like your Dad. And sometimes I give a home to the good things who are just lost and lonely."
With their tea, Sam and Joshua were eating toast. Sam's toast had jam on it. He licked a glob of the jam off his fingers and chewed a bite of toast very thoughtfully.
"Things like ghosts?"
"That's one name for them."
Suddenly Sam understood what Joshua was trying to tell him. He might have only been five years old, but he was smart. He put down his toast with a sad little sigh and looked up at Joshua with tears in his eyes.
"Dean isn't real, is he?"
Joshua looked sad too. "No, Sammy. He's not."
Sam poked his toast with a finger, turning it around on his plate. "I wish he was," he said, wiping his nose on the back of his sleeve. "He could be my big brother."
Daddy didn't know it, but Sam knew about his real big brother, the one who died in the fire with Mommy when Sam was just a little baby. Sam's real brother had been called Dean too. Sam had overheard Daddy and Pastor Jim talking about him one night. Daddy had been drinking whiskey too that day. He'd been very sad. Sam thought he had been crying.
"I just couldn't reach him. He was crying for me, begging me to help him. But the fire...I just couldn't get to him. I couldn't...oh, God..."
"My real brother got burnt all up with Mommy," Sam whispered.
"I know," Joshua said softly. "I'm sorry, Sam."
Sam nodded, and he didn't say anything for a long time. Joshua got up and cleared away their dirty dishes. He came back and sat down again after he'd washed them. He had removed the chopsticks from of his hair and taken off the robe. He was no longer a powerful Asian wizard, just a tall, bespectacled man in jeans and a black AC/DC t-shirt.
"You gonna be okay, kiddo?" he asked.
"Yeah," Sam said, but he was five, and he had another question. "Joshua?"
"Yeah?"
"You believe in magic?"
Joshua shrugged. "Yes and no," he said. "Magic is very complicated, Sammy. Sometimes you can put together different things to make what seems like magic happen - but I'm not sure if you can really call it magic or not."
"Oh."
"Why? Why do you ask?"
Sam looked up at him with bright, pleading eyes. "Do you know a magic that would make what's not real, real?"
At first Sam thought Joshua would laugh at him, or worse, scold him, but he didn't. Instead he got up from his chair again and went over to where he had put their writing instruments from the Asian symbol lesson. He took up a brush and dipped it into a pot of ink. With the brush he drew a symbol Sam knew they had not talked about before on a piece of parchment paper. Fluttering the paper around to dry the ink, Joshua brought it back to Sam.
"We can give it a try," he said, handing the paper to Sam. "Look at this every night before you go to bed, and make your wish. I'm not saying it will work, so don't be too disappointed if it doesn't, but everything is worth a try."
Sam got down from his chair and gave Joshua a hug around his neck. He took the paper with him into the garden where Dean was hanging upside down from a tree branch. The bubble he was blowing popped and he grinned at Sam.
"Where have you been?" he asked.
"Doing magic, see." Sam showed him the paper.
Dean squinted at it. "What is it?"
"A wish maker."
"A wish maker?" Dean laughed. "There's no such thing."
"Yes there is," Sam insisted. "You'll see." He hesitated. Did ghosts know they're ghosts? Sam didn't want to do something bad like maybe make Dean cry by telling him he wasn't a real person. "I have to go away," he said, avoiding the real vs. not-real issue entirely. "But that's okay 'cause I've got this now."
Pulling himself up, Dean grabbed the branch he was hanging from and flipped over out of the tree, sticking a two point landing. Dust swirled out from under his sneakers. It looked pretty gosh darn real to Sam.
"You're going away?"
"Yeah," Sam said. "But you're going to come with me."
Dean frowned. He scuffed a toe in the dirt, a sheepish expression on his freckled face. "Sammy," he said (having overheard Joshua) "I don't think I can go with you."
"Yes you can." Waving the paper, Sam set his face in a stubborn expression. "You'll see." Tears welled up in his eyes. "You hafta, 'cause there won't be nobody to save me from black puffy demons and poltergooses if you don't."
"Aw, Sam. You'll be okay..."
Distantly Sam heard a voice calling his name. It was Daddy, back from his job. He gave one last sniffle and took one last look at his friend, trying desperately to commit Dean's appearance to memory. "I got to go now," he said. "That's my Dad. You'll like him, Dean."
"Sam..."
"You hafta come!" Sam called, and ran from the garden.
Joshua hadn't said how long it would take, and he had only said to make the wishing at bedtime, but Sam made his wishing at bedtime and he made his wishing first thing when he woke up in the morning. It was kinda like brushing his teeth, he thought, only he didn't screw up his face in an intense look of concentration when he brushed his teeth. You didn't need much concentration for tooth brushing. Wishing, however, was something entirely different.
One morning Sam woke up and reached for the wish maker only to discover it was no longer where he had put it under his pillow. After a brief but frantic search he started to feel a little bit dizzy so he laid back down again for a minute until stuff stopped spinning. When he sat up again he resumed his search, but oddly, had forgotten what exactly he was looking for.
"Dean?" he yelled. "Have you seen my..."
His what?
"Did you take the..."
The what? What was it?
A tousled head appeared above the covers on the opposite side of the large king-sized bed. Dean looked sleepy, and cranky, and in no mood for little brothers who could not keep track of their things.
"What?" he grumbled. "Whatchu lost, Sammy?"
Sam frowned. "Uh. I dunno," he said, confused. What had he lost? He felt like it had been something he really needed too, something he would definitely be sad about not having.
"You don't know?" Dean rolled his eyes, and with a grunt, dropped his head back into his pillows. "Go back to sleep, Sam. You were probably just dreamin'."
"Nuh-uh. I wasn't. It wasn't a dream. I lost...I lost somethin'."
"What?"
"I don't know what. But somethin' important."
He fell backward onto the bed as Dean nailed him in the face with a pillow.
"Dork. You ain't lost nothin' but your marbles."
And that brought an end to that.
Many years later Sam Winchester would turn to his father's friend Joshua for help, desperate to find a way to save his brother from dying. Joshua listened to Sam's story, and then said something very cryptic...
"Oh. Well we can't have Dean die on us now can we, Sammy? Especially not after you worked so hard to get him."
Sam paused, staring at the phone with a perplexed look on his face. "What?"
"Ah, nevermind," Joshua replied hastily. "But don't worry. I'll come up with something."