Believe it or not...(Part 3)
Title: Believe it or not...
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Pushing Daisies and Supernatural belongs to their creators, respective owners, and companies. This story stands simply as freelance fan fiction and was written without permission but with great respect to the aformentioned people.
Author's notes: Ha ha! Remember me and this story? So, yeah...not dead yet. XD
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Part III: More questions then answers
***
“Do you really think she’s a witch?” Chuck asked, hugging Hildegard to her chest and sounding ridiculously excited at the prospect.
Emerson, Chuck, Hildegard, and Ned were clustered on Amelia Abernathy’s porch outside her front door. On either side of the doorframe was a bundle of fresh Hyssop in hanging pots, making Ned’s nose itch. There was a brown mat at the bottom of the door proclaiming WELCOME.
Her house was a pleasant Victorian two-story sky blue house with weathered brown shingles and white trim. The lawn had been freshly cut, the scent of grass lingering heavily in the air, an orange tree standing bright and proud in the middle of the lawn, a cobblestone path that cut upward through the lawn to the porch steps. A picket fence bordered the edge of the property with citrus smelling white daisies growing along side it, the large forest nestled up to the side of the property to the west.
Ned couldn’t stop fidgeting. He stuffed his hands into his pockets awkwardly, hunching up his shoulders but he felt intensely uncomfortable, as though there were ants crawling under his skin. Ever since he had gotten out of the car the gentle aroma of the freshly maintained landscape had assaulted his senses, compounding into a dull headache. He really wanted to go back to the car and lie down but a guilty sense of obligation kept him standing there.
Emerson rolled his eyes. “Not you too! There ain’t no such thing as witches.”
“How do you know that?” Chuck countered.
“Because I am an adult and I operate on the earth based plane known as reality.” Emerson reached for the doorbell.
“With everything you have seen how can you be so closed minded?” Chuck asked. She turned and gestured to Ned. “What Ned can do isn’t based upon any known factor of reality. In fact I think bringing dead people back to life for a minute is far more improbable then witchcraft, yet here he stands as proof that a concept of magic does exist.”
“Magic?” Emerson pulled away from the bell and stared at Chuck.
She smiled and looked at Ned.
“What would you call it?”
Ned’s eyes were screwed tightly shut and he was rubbing at his temple trying to sooth away his headache. After a long moment of silence it registered that the tide of the conversation had turned to him and he opened an eye and looked over at Emerson and Chuck.
“What?”
“Chuck thinks you’re magical.” Emerson smirked.
“Aw! Thank you.” Ned preened and Emerson rolled his eyes.
“She’s referring to- ” He poked the back of Chuck’s head with his index finger. “Dumbass.”
“Oh.” Ned blinked, at a loss as to how to respond to that.
* * *
In truth, the Pie Maker had never given much thought to the definition of his unusual ability. When he was younger he had been more concerned with the mechanics of it. How to control it, how to use it, and how to live with it (a concept he was still working on). In the back of his mind he supposed that he always knew that there was an aspect of the mystical involved in his power but the mere hint of those implications terrified him and as such, he preferred to think of it as a freakish unintentional reflex of unknown origin.
Like sneezing.
Except people would occasionally die.
Or live, depending on the situation.
* * *
Chuck noticed Ned’s discomfort. She must have thought that Ned was disappointed that her definition of magical didn’t directly relate to his personality because she walked in front of him and considered that, as he was wearing short sleeves and thus, was unable to hug him, she lifted Hildegard up to his face to serve as a proxy. Ned crossed his eyes to look at him but before he could do anything she pressed the dog’s nose against Ned’s in an Eskimo kiss.
“No. I think you’re more special then magic.” She promised.
Ned slowly smiled shyly, his entire face lighting up and he seemed to unfold, straightening up.
“Oh please.” Emerson made a face like he was violently restraining the impulse to vomit and stabbed the doorbell.
They could hear the chimes through the door.
“Coming!” A muffled voice that sounded like creaking branches called out.
“Be normal!” Emerson commanded then faced the door and smoothed out his jacket to look presentable.
Everyone smiled as the door opened up.
* * *
Meanwhile…
* * *
“It’s called the Parker Brother’s Hotel.” Sam was saying, his face buried in a town map as he examined the streets, occasionally flickering his gaze out the window to consult street signs to see if they corresponded with the ones on the map. “It’s on Marvin Street. It should be on the right side.”
Sam had, in the total defiance of the Winchester road law of spontaneity, made a reservation prior to leaving Coeur d’ Coeurs. According to the paper Whitney worked there as a front desk clerk so it seemed convenient to set up their base there, should this ultimately develop into a case.
Sam still had serious doubts about that. Now, Sam was willing to admit that chasing a hysterically screaming man through the daisies at night with shotguns packed full of rock salt hadn’t been their finest hour as hunters but he was pragmatic enough to know that sometimes some hunts just wound up being an utter crap waste of time. It was inevitable when you had to base your investigations on hearsay, innuendo, rumor, superstition, urban legend, the internet and…people frankly. So he was perfectly willing to put the incident away in the denial file and ignore it until time fermented it into a hilarious memory that, should they live that long, they could laugh about years later over beer.
But Dean didn’t agree.
And it was, in point of fact, not denial, it was just disagreeing with the current set of circumstances thank you ever so. He disagreed very loudly and very unreasonably and so they were going to find something in this stupid town to kill.
“The Parker Brother’s Hotel?” Dean said dubiously. “Like in Monopoly?”
“Parker Brother’s is a game company.” Sam said, to busy watching the scrolling view outside his side window. “They make the games, including Monopoly, but their not an actual game or game pieces.”
“Some days I really can’t believe we’re related.” Dean muttered.
“I’m gonna call the coroner when we get settled in,” Sam said. “Get a look at the autopsy report before we start asking questions. I don’t want to pop up as feds unless we’re sure that this’ll actually be something worth investiga-”
Had Sam been looking out the windshield (as Dean had) he might have noticed the approaching building at the intersection that was slowly growing in size as they neared it. He also probably could have prepared a bit better for, when Dean realized what he was looking at, his brother slamming his foot down on the brake as hard as humanly possible, the Impala’s tires instantly locking with a screech. Sam wasn’t wearing a seatbelt so he was violently thrown forward. He instinctively threw out his arms but his entire body slid off of the leather seat and he crashed into the dash board with such force that he felt it radiate into bone. Gravity wrapped it’s fingers around his stomach and yanked him back into the seat when the Impala jerked to a full stop.
They sat there for a moment, listening to the Impala ping and rumble.
Sam let out a whoosh of air, his heart pounding from the unexpected violent event.
“Okay…okay…what the hell!?!” He roared; whipping his head to the side to stare at Dean outraged.
His brother’s attention was glued to the outside of the windshield, eyes wide and distant. Sam felt his anger dissipate into worry and he straightened up.
“Dean? Are you okay?”
“Dude…” Dean breathed out in a voice soaked with the kind of awed reverence usually reserved for encounters with angels or burning bushes. Sam’s eyebrows shot up to his forehead and he slowly followed Dean’s gaze forward, almost afraid…
“Are you kidding me!?” He demanded shrilly and he wasn’t entirely sure who he was addressing at this point, his idiot brother or fate in general.
He rubbed his eyes and looked again but no. It wasn’t going away.
It was a gigantic pie.
No really. It was a gigantic freaking pie on the street corner.
Once the initial shock wore off Sam could see that it was actually a round green building with massive round windows like portholes, revealing the interior of a restaurant. The large roof was designed to look exactly like a pie crust with the words The Pie Hole cursively emblazoned in neon red lights atop it.
“This is the best town ever!” Dean exclaimed; a huge dorky smile spread across his face.
* * *
Before Sam Winchester could use his well developed sense of reason and point out that yes, the pie restaurant was indeed kind of cool looking and they could go there later because really, they had to check into the Parker Brother’s Hotel by three o’clock as per the check-in time and do some basic groundwork if they were going to hunt, Dean Winchester’s love of pie proved to be faster.
* * *
Dean pulled his foot off the break and pounded it onto the gas peddle, roaring towards the building and Sam was thrown back into the seat again.
“Dean!”
* * *
Olive Snook was in the process of reciting that day’s wonderful Pie Hole specials (which consisted of a slice of apple and one scoop of ice cream at half ala’mode price or two pie-cups of any of their delicious flavors for the price of one) to Mr. Roe when a loud incongruous guttural roar of a engine broke her sentence. She stuttered to a stop and blinked. Even Mr. Roe turned to look outside the large round window next to his booth and both watched as a large sleek 1967 Chevrolet Impala rounded the intersection.
It was a gorgeous car. The kind that took up the whole street and demanded attention. All glossy black, like a varnished piano, and shimmering chrome; the engine a proud roar of old-fashioned hardboiled engineering.
It turned and passed by The Pie Hole, disappearing out of sight down the street to the rear parking lot of the restaurant.
“Damn.” Mr. Roe said.
“What an impressive automotive specimen.” Olive said pleasantly. She did so appreciate it when people took the time to maintain their cars with such clear devotion. In her mind she briefly made a comparison to the proper loving attention one devoted to a racehorse and a car to keep them vital and running at peak performance but quickly discarded it as she became aware of the weight of the writing pad in her hands.
Olive was about to start over on today’s specials when a blurry streak flew past the window with such speed that it startled her. She looked up just in time to see a tall man with shaggy hair, loaded down with a satchel, laptop, and books, following the blur at a considerably slower pace, face pinched.
The front door was thrown open with such force that the bells attached to them let out a defeated and ungracious clatter as the doors bounced against the wall. A man, who she assumed had been the blur, shorter then his companion that followed behind him, walked into the restaurant and beamed. He stopped in the middle of the restaurant and slowly spun around, absorbing the atmosphere like a dehydrated man in a rainfall. The doors began to swing shut and his companion approached just in time to get hit with them and he fell back slightly, cursing as he tried to hold onto all of his accessories.
“Dean!”
‘Dean’ wound to a stop and he noticed Olive looking at him.
“We have come for pie!” Dean announced proudly.
“You have come to the right place!” Olive declared.
“Is it awesome pie?”
“It’s the most awesome pie in the whole wide world!” Olive could hardly contain herself in the face of the man’s enthusiasm, pleased to see such a blatant a pie aficionado who would appreciate Ned’s pies properly. She even bounced slightly. “Well…the whole world may be a bit of an exaggeration because I’m not familiar with the pastry cuisine of other countries…in fact I’ve never really even been out of state…but our pies are pretty darn good. In fact I can say without any overstatement that they’re the best pies in the whole county.”
“Awesome.” Dean said with a smile then tilted his head and gave Olive an once-over that had her feeling simultaneously offended, flattered and most definitely had her blushing. “Extremely awesome.”
His companion managed to wrestle the door away from him and he paused for a moment, half sagged against the doorframe to sigh, resigning himself to the fact that their base of operations was now probably going to be a permanent booth in The Pie Hole.
* * *
Apparently “potpourri” was French for “vomit inducing aroma”.
At least this was Ned’s conclusion as all of his senses were violently assaulted by the thick scent of sage emanating like a toxic fog from the antique glass dish of potpourri sitting on the mahogany coffee table. It was ridiculous how much this house reeked. However a quick glance at a composed Emerson told him that he was seemingly unaffected as Ned felt and that perhaps he was being a little melodramatic. This almost made him guilty for his fairly uncharitable thoughts about Mrs. Abernathy’s home. A dispassionate assessment would find that it was actually a quaint, antiquated but well maintained interior with hardwood floors and flora wallpaper, various religious paraphernalia pepped about and a big open picture window that revealed the front yard. All and all it was a very cozy atmosphere.
But Ned was unable to appreciate any of it as he was currently half sitting/half slumped on Mrs. Abernathy’s blue love-seat next to Emerson, trying desperately ignore a burning headache that had doubled in intensity since he had walked into the house, making his thoughts muddled and his disposition less then pleasant.
He shifted, elbowing Emerson in his side once again.
“Stop fidgeting!” Emerson ordered.
“Move over!” Ned demanded irritably.
Emerson looked over at him with a raised eyebrow and pointedly did not move.
“You’re squishing me!”
“I’m bigger beanpole therefore I get more room.”
“You don’t get to claim extra space based on girth!”
“Yes I do. It’s a matter of physics. Bigger wins. See?” Emerson proceed to prove his superiority in this situation by crushing Ned into the armrest of Mrs. Abernathy’s blue love-seat, half lying on the man.
Emerson calmly waited with a perverse sense of satisfaction as Ned made pained wheezing noises underneath him and struggled in vain and only moved to his side of the love-seat when Mrs. Abernathy and Chuck came out of the kitchen.
Chuck was carrying a silver tray loaded down with a teapot and teacups. Mrs. Abernathy carried a tray piled with delicate sugar cookies lightly frosted with powdery sugar.
Mrs. Abernathy was a positively ancient being. She was a tiny, frail, with translucent white skin and a mound of snow white hair pulled back in a ponytail underneath a pink scarf. Her face would wrinkle up like a balled up piece of paper whenever she smiled and her ice blue eyes were magnified to almost frightening proportions by a pair of goggle-thick glasses she wore.
“It’s so nice to have guests.” She said and her aged voice sounded rickety “Although I wish it were under better circumstances. But considering the circumstances of the previous guest perhaps these are the better circumstances. Oh. Is that insensitive?”
“More of a silver lining.” Emerson shamelessly assured her.
With the pressure of Emerson’s bulk off of him Ned tried to quietly (so as not to draw attention to himself) gasp for air. He jumped when Mrs. Abernathy put down a tray of tea on the table and smiled at them all pleasantly.
“Tea dear?” She inquired at Ned as Emerson reached out and helped himself to some of the sugar cookies.
He meekly nodded. While she busied herself pouring Ned a cup of tea he focused his attention to a small ornate crucifix that was hung over the small fireplace, the golden figure of Jesus writhing in agony atop it.
Ned wanted to leave. He could feel the semi-hysterical urge to run tingling in his legs like pins and needles, making him squirm and the feeling became even worse when Mrs. Abernathy looked directly at him.
“Are you alright?” She asked. “You seem…ah…” She tried to think of a reasonably polite description.
“To be acting like a deranged chipmunk?” Emerson supplied.
“Hey!”
“He’s right. You are kind of twitchy.” Chuck agreed. And it wasn’t Ned usual kind of twitchy that always had a faint tinge of social anxiety disorder. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine! And am in no way comparable to psychotic rodent life.” Ned said. “I’m just…I’m just…it…”
* * *
The Pie Maker wasn’t sure of how to explain the crushing sensation of unreasonable paranoid anxiety that had developed from a breathless feeling into something that was on the cusp of a full blown panic attack. Nor did he wish to because he realized that such a response would be perceived as, at best, extremely unusual, at worst, the precursor to a medicated existence in a psychiatric ward. Which was, he worried, becoming increasingly more likely given how unreasonable this reaction was.
So this is what the Pie Maker said instead.
* * *
“Someone died here!” Ned blurted out. Loudly. “Was brutally murdered in the vegetable garden!”
Emerson, who was in the process of biting into a cookie, choked.
Chuck stared at Ned wide-eyed.
“And it’s-it’s distressing.” Ned sputtered, and oh dear god the words wouldn’t stop coming. “What with the dying. And all. I may be feeling some mixed emotions about that. Some…unresolved anxiety.”
“I...see.” Mrs. Abernathy said. She slowly held out the steaming cup, as if she could placate Ned’s obvious mental illness with tea.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Emerson whispered furiously.
“I don’t know.” Ned whimpered. He accepted the tea and shrank back from the conversation, trying to make himself invisible. Clearly he was not being of any use today although in an extremely awkward way he had directed the conversation to the heart of the matter and that was going to be his defense when Emerson inevitably threatened to “beat his sorry ass” later.
“What my unusually blunt associate is attempting to say,” Emerson said formally. “Is that we have a few questions regarding Whitney Whit….er…something-sons death.”
“Watterson.” Chuck corrected. She settled down on the hardwood floor next to Hildegard (having earlier declined Ned’s offer to take his seat, in favor of devoting her attention to their temporary ward) trying to interest him in a sugar cookie.
“Whatever.”
Once the tea was dispensed to everyone Mrs. Abernathy carefully took a seat across from them in one of the large armchairs, smoothing out some imaginary wrinkle on her pale blue dress
“Whatever makes you think that poor boy was murdered?” Mrs. Abernathy asked, looking directly at Ned with a critical gaze, as though she were certain he was hiding a secret but had no tangible proof.
“What makes you think he wasn’t?” Ned felt compelled to ask, if only because she was staring at him.
“The police said it was an accident. That he tripped and fell down face first, somehow striking his head on the way thus rendering him unconscious and that he suffocated in the soil.” Mrs. Abernathy said. “A tragic but natural accident. Why should I dispute that? Or perhaps I should ask…why do you dispute that?”
“We’ve uncovered facts,” Emerson said. “That make us think that Whitney was murdered.”
“What kind of facts?”
“Facts that contradict a natural accident.” Emerson said through his teeth, smiling so widely that his face was threatening to burst and Ned could tell that his patience was running low.
“I assume all of your facts are nothing more then mere conjecture or else I’d be talking to real policemen.” Mrs. Abernathy said.
Ned wasn’t exactly the leading expert on human behavior but personally he felt that that, despite the sunny delivery, was a tad passive aggressive. He looked over at Emerson to see how he’d react.
Emerson’s right eye twitched slightly, although his smile remained fixed in place.
“Yeah well…” He demurred. “Anyway…I don’t suppose you heard anything unusual that night?”
“Nope!” She beamed at Emerson.
“Ah…did you notice anything unusual?”
“Nope.”
They sat in silence and when it became clear that she had no intention of elaborating, Emerson cleared his throat. “You…can take a few moments to think about it you know. No need to rush.”
“I certainly can take all the time I want but my answer is not fine wine and won’t get better with age.” She said. “My answer is no. In fact I wasn’t even home when the poor boy died.”
“Oh?”
“I was at the cemetery.”
Emerson abruptly stilled.
“Why were you at the cemetery?” He asked.
Mrs. Abernathy tilted her head to the side, as if she found Emerson to be particularly fascinating. “Why do you think someone would go to the cemetery?”
“To be buried. And you old, woman but you’re not quite there yet.” Emerson said
Mrs. Abernathy giggled. “There are other reasons people visit cemeteries Mr. Cod.”
Instead of responding Emerson just stared at the woman suspiciously. If she were uncomfortable with the attention she didn’t show it. Ned felt as though he were missing a substantial piece of information that would have made this entire exchange make sense and he glanced over at Chuck.
She shrugged.
“Honestly,” Mrs. Abernathy said. “All of this fuss. I’m sure that you’re interest was probably piqued by some malingering rumors going about town but I can assure you, tragic though the death was, I nor anyone else had anything to do with it. No…there’s really nothing to this. You know, sometimes people just up and die.”
“That’s very true.” Ned said and took a delicate sip of tea and didn’t acknowledge Emerson’s glare.
* * *
The Pie Maker couldn’t help but think of his mother, whose brain had ruptured in an aneurism (and whom a young Ned had unintentionally un-deaded and then re-deaded when his power first decided to make itself known) and of the late Charles Charles and Lawrence Shatz, both of whom had died simply by virtue of being the closest when The Pie Maker had overshot the sixty second rule. Sometimes people just dropped dead or people unintentionally helped to drop them with powers of unknown origin but either way mysterious forces were ultimately responsible.
* * *
Inside the car, a much relieved Ned threw the parking break into drive and slowly began to pull into the street. It may have been his imagination but, once off of Amelia Abernathy’s property, the painful throb in his brain had begun to ease and he felt like he could breathe easy. In the rearview mirror he caught sight of Mrs. Abernathy standing on her front porch waving at them, getting smaller in the distance.
“That creepy old bat is lying through her dentures!” Emerson declared from the backseat. His arms were folded over his chest and he was hunched over slightly, stewing at the injustice. “Did you see her? Emerson screwed his face up into a mimic of Mrs. Abernathy’s pleasant smile, eyes scrunched up into slits. “I know noooooothing! Tee hee hee!”
“At not point was there malevolent giggling.” Ned said.
“It was implied!” Emerson said. “You know; subtext? She was mocking us because all we have is conjecture from a dead guy. I hate old people.”
“What could she possibly be hiding?” Chuck asked. She sat on her side of the partitioned glass in the front seat, scratching Hildegard’s ears. “I mean, it’s not like she’d be capable of killing Whitney even if she wanted to. They didn’t even know each other. And Whitney said a bunch of people held him down.”
“A bunch of tiny people.” Ned corrected.
“I don’t give a damn if she’s harboring an underground Munchkin railroad, she is most definitely not telling us something. And I may not know what it is now but I am going to find out.” Emerson leaned back in his seat. “Maybe Larry was right and she sacrificed him to the dark arts or whatever.” He said in disgust.
* * *
As The Pie Maker pulled up to the intersection at 5th Street, he pulled the car to a stop for the red light. While they idled, the conversation around him dimmed to a dull murmur as his attention was drawn to a large black 1967 Chevrolet Impala across the intersection in the turn lane to head down 4th Street. A spark of recognition ignited in his mind. But it quickly diminished before he was able to fully grasp the memory.
* * *
Ned frowned and leaned forward on the steering wheel to get a little closer to the windshield.
“Nah. That’d be much bloodier.” Chuck said.
Emerson raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”
“Ritualistic human sacrifice in the name of the greater glory of Lucifer or other practices meant to gain a greater power in Black Magic.” Chuck said easily. She carefully picked a piece of lint off of Hildegard’s sweater. “Traditionally they’re always rather messy. Blood letting or cutting out the heart and so forth. Blood for power, that sort of thing.”
Emerson stared at her. “Why do you know that?”
“My aunts had some volumes about witchcraft and I read about it. Why do you think ancient fortune tellers used sheep’s entrails to foretell the future?” Chuck considered for a moment. “As far as I know there is absolutely no viable reason, mystically speaking, for a practioner to suffocate someone in dirt.”
“It don’t matter, I was being sarcastic.” Emerson said. “P.S. That is officially the creepiest revelation about you to date.”
Before Ned could point out the Impala the light flipped to green. The engine kicked in and the black car smoothly rounded the corner, disappearing from sight.
“Yo!” Emerson bellowed, startling Ned so much that he jumped and his head collided with the roof of the car. “Do you have anything to add to the conversation? Dazzle me with an insightful observation.”
Emerson made it sound as though Ned didn’t have much of a choice in the matter and that a denial would incur severe consequences, the likes of which were probably best left unspoken.
Ned had to think about that as he rubbed his head. “Um…I don’t know, can I have a rain check?”
“What!? Why!?”
“I have a lot on my mind.” Ned confessed.
Emerson huffed but since he didn’t vault over the seat and strangle him Ned figured that his rain check was granted.
***
TBC
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