The Secret of Henley Winchester || Dean's Daughter (Supernatural)

Chapter 21: Ghost, Revenant or Medium? Take Your Pick.

 The ride to Madison was long, quiet and the air—stuffy. Henley sat in the back of the Impala with Jack, trying to focus her attention on the book in her lap, but it was futile. The eerie sound of nothing had been getting on her nerves for the past hour.

"Are we going to talk about the elephant in the room, or are we just going to pretend everything is kosher," Henley questioned, eyeing the back of her father's and uncle's heads. Henley could hear her father sigh from the front seat, but no words came out.

Jack's attention focused on Henley, a quizzical look passing over his features. "There is no elephant in the car, Henley."

She couldn't help but let out a slight chuckle at Jack's cluelessness. "Jack, it's not a real elephant. It means an obvious problem or situation that no one wants to talk about."

Jack's mouth formed an 'O' as he looked down at his hands, his brows creasing together, clearly concerned about whether or not he was the problem. Before Henley could console him, Sam spoke up. "Henley we—"

"Listen sweetheart, we're just going to get through this hunt the quickest and least catastrophic way possible. We can talk about our problems later," Dean interrupted, hands tightening around the steering wheel.

"Fine," Henley grunted, pursing her lips and staring out the Impala window. She could play the silent game too. No longer had ten minutes passed, when the Impala came to a halt outside a typical suburban home. Henley teared her eyes away from the outside world, her attention falling on Jack as he looked over Sam and Dean's fake IDs.

"Agent Bonham, Agent Seger, Special Agent Anderson—These are you?" Jack questioned, looking up from the IDs to Sam and Dean.

"Yeah, sometimes," Sam replied, his attention focused on the house in front of them.

"I thought lying was wrong?" Jack frowned, looking between Sam and Dean. Henley let out a sigh, prepared to explain that in their line of business, lies like this are what saved people.

Dean glanced back at the pair of them, as Henley opened her mouth. She quickly shut it, upon seeing her father's annoyed expression. Dean cleared his throat, looking back down at their files."All right, here we go. Victim—Wes Bailey. His wife, Erica, died six months ago. Heart thing out of the blue. Uh, question is, why'd she come back from the dead and knife his ass?"

"People come back?" Jack asked, his voice tinged with a glimmer of hope.

Sam sighed, glancing back at Jack. "When a person dies and their soul can't move on—"

"They're called ghosts," Dean interrupted, "and hanging around makes them go loony tunes. Uh, they go crazy."

"Yeah," Sam responded. "Question is, since when do ghosts kill somebody and walk out the front door?"

"So maybe it's a revenant?" Dean suggested. Henley thought about it, sensing that her father could be onto something.

"Wait. What's a revenant?" Jack asked, his voice conveying his obvious desire to be kept in the know.

"A revenant's more like a-a zombie," Sam explained.

Henley's attention diverted from Sam to the house next to the one they were squatted in front of as the front door slammed shut. She leaned closer to Jack in an attempt to get a better look. She sent the boy an innocent smile, as he looked over at her questioningly.

"Hey, there's our witness," Dean stated, eyes glued to the frumpy, middle aged, redhead in a heinous sky blue sweater.

Sam looked over the back seat, sending Jack and Henley a sincere smile. "Jack, Henley, we're going to go talk to the witness, check out the crime scene." Sam and Dean got out of the car, Sam making a beeline over to the witness.