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Naomi decides on the farm rental because the price is reasonable and the area is isolated. The boys need to break away from the city and go back to clean pure roots. And unfortunately, until the divorce is finalized properly the wealth is tied up. Chuck had been a weak man without direction. When Naomi realized he would never use his talents properly she packed up the kids and left. Custody would be sorted for Samandriel but the rest of their children were of age and could make their own choices.
The farmhouse is worn but in good shape. The price for renting it is oddly low but when Naomi inquired the realtor admitted there was some sort of superstition about the forest on the north side of the lot.
It was ten acres and the woods covered about five of them. It spread into other farm lots and was carefully maintained. For whatever reason it was never clear cut. Naomi had no intentions of staying long term so she didn’t bother with the issue.
The lease was signed for the next six months and the boys packed up a rental truck with what they would need. Chuck had always been a distant man and because of that his sons chose to leave with their mother.
Naomi tried not be too smug about it.
The house was large and clean but it was old. It came with the bare furnishings, a couch and coffee table for the living room, a kitchen table, and chairs, stove, and fridge in the kitchen. Each bedroom had a single bed and a dresser. Basic but enough for a summer. Naomi ran a finger over the kitchen table and frowned at the dust. Samandriel saw her and looked over to Esper who nodded his head to the box of cleaning supplies. Samandriel obediently stopped helping move boxes and began cleaning.
“This is depressing,” Esper grumbled, staring at the faded walls and worn out floors.
“It’s only for the summer,” Naomi replied crisply, walking around the house and inspecting each room so she could assign one to each of her sons.
Bartholomew would be back to university in a few months. Esper and Ion would head out as well, a disappointing college rather than university like Bartholomew. Castiel was only recently eighteen and would finish his final year of high school before going to university himself. Samandriel was only sixteen and so it would be a few years before he left for his schooling. Regardless, the farmhouse had enough rooms for each of her sons and so she picked their rooms for them. The boys obediently take them and fill the dressers with their belongings. Naomi will do an inspection later on.
For now she helps her youngest son clean the kitchen up and after while he moves onto other rooms she begins dinner. Once the boys have the boxes in each room they help finish the cleaning and then unpack. Come evening Naomi has dinner finished and the table set. The boys take quick showers, the water is limited.
Bartholomew, Esper, and Ion go one after another, and the warm water runs out so Castiel and Samandriel must wait.
“How does the shed look?” Esper asks during dinner.
Naomi has not gone out back to inspect it but she imagines it will be filthy, possibly with some rodents living within it.
“Castiel,” her son looks up from his plate. “Please go check the shed after dinner, we can deal with it tomorrow but I want to know what the state of it is like.”
He frowns a touch but nods his head. Castiel has always been the rebellious one and of late he has been acting out more. Naomi intends to spend the summer working that out of him.
After they all eat the boys clean up the table and wash the dishes.
Castiel goes out with a flashlight and returns later with dusty knees and hands. “It's empty but dirty. There was something in the woods nearby though, a dog I think. A big dog.”
Samandriel looks interested immediately and Naomi frowns. “Absolutely not. Stay away from it. If it doesn’t move on I’ll call animal control.”
The boys nod, Samandriel looks disappointed and Castiel annoyed. The older sons pay no mind.
They clean up the yard the next day and once the house is functioning Naomi begins tutoring all of her sons. Eight hours a day they spend on their studies. An hour is spent cleaning and preparing dinner and an hour is granted for leisure time.
Bartholomew uses it to study and is makes Naomi proud to see him so diligent. Esper and Ion sit on their laptops, Samadriel reads and Castiel goes walking. He’s taken to mapping out the area and coming back with rocks and bark, bits of garbage he insists on keeping.
“Really, you could by that same thing in craft stores,” she frowns as he lines up round stones on the windowsill of his bedroom.
“They are free,” he points out.
“But they’re not clean. At least bleach them.”
“It would ruin them,” he rebuffs stubbornly and Naomi leaves him alone. If he brings home any more nonsense she’ll put a stop to it. For now, it is not worth the fight to make him sanitize what he already has.
They settle in and the days drift into weeks. Naomi finds the local church and they attend every Sunday. The group is a tight little community but after it becomes clear they attend every Sunday the group welcomes them.
Naomi receives questions about the house and mentions of local myths. She makes sure to explain the house is perfectly normal and that the woods around them as well. In return she learns that wolves are in the forest area and have been there for as long as people have. No one has managed to kill them off so far.
“The community holds a festival twice a year, one in the spring and one in the fall, hunters come to try and hunt them down. We make baked goods and stew for them. It’s a little thing but it brings good money into the community,” one of the older women explains.
Naomi notices Castiel frowning, he’s taken to animal rights lately. She talks before he can.
“That is a smart business solution, having the exterminators pay to do their job,” she compliments and the old woman smiles.
“Have you seen wolves?” Naomi questions Castiel as the family walks away, he shrugs.
“I’ve seen you walking with something, I thought it was a dog,” Ion comments to his brother and Castiel shoots him an annoyed look.
“No animals. If there’s some mangy dog out there and you’re feeding it…” Naomi trails off warningly.
Castiel glares at the ground silently.
Guiltily.
After dinner is done and the boys have their leisure hour Naomi watches Castiel head to the back door.
“Not tonight,” she commands him, pointing towards his bedroom and he frowns at her before finally turning and storming off. A firm hand is needed with him. Naomi will see him fall in line.
The next morning Samandriel is in a ruckus before breakfast is even being prepared.
“What’s going on?” Esper grumbles, standing in his bedroom doorway as Naomi pulls on a house coat and follows Samandriel’s panicked voice. Bartholomew was reassuring him, pulling him away from the front door that sat ajar. Naomi walked passed them to close it and paused when she saw the bloody mess on the porch step. It was a rabbit, pulled apart with its intestines hanging out.
Naomi frowned and closed the door.
“Go get a shovel and clean the mess up at the front door,” she told Esper who huffed but went to get dressed.
Castiel was still sleeping but he woke when Naomi came into his room.
“Your mutt is killing animals and upsetting Samandriel. I hope you're happy,” she scolded him, watching her son frown but drop his eyes when he heard Samandriel in the kitchen.
“You should come see this,” Esper called to her when she walked down the hall. Frowning she followed him, pulling on shoes and winding her housecoat tight to ward off the morning cold.
Esper led her around the house where Ion waited with a worried look. On the side of the faded house was a bloody mess. Long smears of blood up the wall, taller than her even. Claws had left deep gouges as well. Looking up, she made note that the window on the second floor, and directly under the mess, was Castiels.
“Don’t,” Esper warned her when she moved to get a closer look. Naomi stepped back when she realized there was another butchered animal on the ground. This one was torn to shreds, blood and gore everywhere.
Naomi twisted her face at the mess and stepped back again.
“Clean that up,” she commanded and headed inside.
“It’s nature you see, animals hunt others. God made them that way,” Castiel was explaining to a calm Samandriel who nodded his head.
“I get it. But it’s one thing to see it on TV and another to have it in front of you. It really smelt.”
Naomi glared at Castiel and went to her laptop, looking up numbers and calling the local animal control to come out immediately. Castiel’s shoulders hunched but he didn’t comment.
Two men came out the next afternoon. The examined the side of the house and proclaimed it a large dog, possibly a wolf mix. Naomi stood with them in the front yard, over looking the fields and where the forest started.
“We can put out a few traps to try and catch it but I doubt it’ll do much good,” the one man offered, looking over to the forest wearily. The other crossed himself and Naomi had to hold in a scoff at their ridiculous superstition.
“Wild things come around these parts. Those woods are thick and old, filled with rabbit and deer so predators come around.”
“And you can’t do anything?”
The man shrugged. “We can try but they don’t fall for our traps often."
“Put them out anyway,” Bartholomew called, walking towards them from the fields. “I walked around and there are more dead rabbits torn up,” he explained and both the men crossed themselves then.
“Do you really think it's some sort of monster,” Naomi couldn’t help but scold, they were grown men.
“Normal animals don’t do such things. They eat the animal. But to tear them up and leave them. It’s something marking the area, warning you to be careful.”
“The ever-deadly Dean?” Ion asked with a chuckle, coming from the house to join them.
“Dean?” Naomi scowled.
“Yeah. Locals believe there’s a wolf monster in the forest, protecting the land. They call it Dean. Not much taste for naming, something like Lobo or White fang would have been more intimidating.” Ion explained with a shrug.
“You should be careful what you say,” one of the control officers mumbled and Naomi struggled not to roll her eyes.
“Dean is only what the locals call it,” Castiel came up beside Ion. “I don’t think it has an actual name. I don’t think things like that are named.” He sounded musing and the way he looked to the forest unnerved both the men. They made their excuses and left quickly.
“What utter drivel,” Naomi sighed, leading the boys back into the house. “Demon dogs and monster wolves, where is the common sense?”
“People in small quiet towns get bored,” Bartholomew pointed out. “This gives them a thrill and they build income off it even.”
Naomi couldn’t deny that but it was still beginning to inconveniencing her.
“Stay out of the woods and stop feeding whatever dog is following you. Enough of this,” Naomi ordered Castiel and glared at him until he shrugged and stormed off.
“A dog maybe, a proper one?” Bartholomew offered and Naomi shook her head. They would be gone in a few months and she had no interest in animals. Such messy filthy creatures.
“He can survive a summer without taking in strays.”
That night the howling starts.
A single long cry for a bit and then other’s join in, a chorus that screams into the night. Even with the windows closed Naomi can hear them.
She gets up angrily, intending to call someone, animal control or a hunter, anyone.
It surprises her to find Castiel sitting on the porch, head tilted up with a serene smile as he listens. For a moment her heart softens and she considers leaving him be.
But then she notices it.
An animal sitting on his lap.
Naomi bangs the porch door open and Castiel jerks and wipes his mouth frantically. The strange reaction makes Naomi pause but she presses on, ready to scold her son for keeping vermin around the house.
But then Castiel turns to face her and she realizes the animal in his lap is dead.
It’s a rabbit that’s been gutted.
Naomi opens her mouth and closes it once. There is no grounds to work from, no basis for comparison. Her son is sitting there with a dead animal in his lap, fingers blood soaked. He wipes his mouth. Had he… had he been eating it?
Naomi immediately thinks of a mental ward, somewhere private to hide him away in.
“What is going on?” She manages to keep her voice steady.
Castiel frowns at her, he looks guilty and shamed but not as much as he should. There is something lacking in his gaze.
“Dean brought it for me. I… I was curious,” he admits without actually saying what he did.
“Dean? So there is a stray dog around here?” Naomi can react to that better, she knows how to react to that.
“Get inside and get cleaned up immediately. I’ve had it with this Castiel. You stay away from whatever mutt is lurking around here.” If there was a touch of hysteria to her voice, neither acknowledged it. Castiel obediently put the carcass down and went into the house.
Come morning there were long claw marked under her son’s window again. Higher this time, almost reaching a window on the second floor.
Ion and Esper just stare at them, speculating what could have done something like that.
Naomi gets into the car and drives to the local hardware store.
After that the grocer.
None of her sons speak a work as Naomi stuffs fresh meat with poison. She can feel them watching her, curious and a touch worried.
“Is everything ok?” Bartholomew asks her finally, a careful hand on her shoulder. The meat and poison are all over the kitchen table, her thick rubber gloves are sticky with her own sweat. Naomi realizes how she must look to them. Everyone is worried, looking at her with wide eyes. Only Castiel looks remotely calm.
“I’m just….worried. What could have climbed the wall like that? It almost got it. What if it realizes there are doors?” Naomi keeps her tone light and inquisitive but her hands tremble.
“Then we’ll deal with it. The neighbor said cougars can jump that high easily and there was one seen last week,” Bartholomew explains and Naomi looks at him, stares at her son for a lie.
“Truly?”
Her eldest son nods his head.
“I borrowed a rifle just in case, he showed me how to load and use it. But he said it was rare that it would actually come in. It might just be sharpening its claws.”
It makes sense.
Naomi latches onto the idea because it makes sense. It’s not some myth lurking in the woods. Castiel is mentally ill and there is a cougar lurking around the farm.
“That’s good to know. Please take this and spread it around the farm anyway. I’d much rather it be a dead animal than anything else.”
Ion and Esper obediently gather the mess of meat up and Naomi goes to have a shower after instructing Samandriel and Castiel to clean up and start dinner. The fear in her fades and Naomi scoffs at herself for ever getting rattled.
Everything has an explanation.
She repeats that thought until she believes it.
That evening she feels more like herself, stern and in control. Her sons obey her.
Come morning a deer is laid out on their porch, gutted and bloody. It’s not a small mess but something that covers the entire porch. Flies buzz eagerly as the rank smell fills the air. Samandirel had to leave, a hand to his mouth to stop himself from vomiting.
Bartholomew looks disturbed as well. Ion and Esper want to see if there are any hunters around that will come and kill the cougar.
Castiel is looking at the sky.
Naomi follows his gaze to the fading moon, the sunlight slowly blocking it out.
She frowns at her son and he feels her gaze, glancing at her.
“It’s a full moon tomorrow,” he mentions and Naomi has no idea why that would matter.
“You’re right. Must be why the animals are acting so crazy,” Ion comments and Naomi doesn’t know if that myth is true, if the full moon makes animals wild. She doesn’t truly care.
“Clean this all up, bag it,” she demands and her son frown but know better than to protest.
“Alright,” Esper sighs and looks at the carnage laying at his feet. “Old clothing, gloves and shovels.”
Ion grumbles but goes to get the supplies. Bartholomew eyes the mess before turning back into the house. As the eldest and favored he can avoid grunt work at times.
Castiel watches him go and then shrugs, taking a shovel when Ion returns with them. Of them all, he is the most unbothered. Both Ion and Esper were in medical school and the mess doesn’t upset either of them. Castiel doesn’t have that excuse, though. It stands out to Naomi but she leaves it for later.
Naomi calls around to find exterminators or hunters but no one will come out. They all agree until there learn her address. Their inane superstition makes them afraid and they refuse.
“We don’t serve that area, its standard policy.” The woman on the line tells her and Naomi curls her lip in disgust.
“What could even be the reasoning?”
“Our workers are endangered, the wolf attacks in that area are well known. Anyone else will tell you that,” the woman explains, not unkindly.
“I know, I’ve called almost everyone I can find,” Naomi explains curtly, annoyed with superstitions and wild animals.
“Honestly,” the woman begins and then hesitates. “It would be the best thing to leave. Nothing good ever comes from that area. People die there all the time.”
“Yes, I know, demon monsters and all that.”
“Maybe. I don’t know for certain. I do know though… lots of families have lost their children to that forest.”
It’s nonsense for certain but Naomi feels her chest freeze. An image of Castiel watching the forest flashing in her mind. She pushes the fear back though and politely hangs up on the woman.
It’s in the midnight hours when Naomi stirs in her bed. Something has woken her but the house is quiet. With everything that has been happening it would be foolish not to investigate so she gets out of bed and turns her lamp on. Wrapping her housecoat around her and putting on her slippers she pads down the hallways in the dark. The boys are all in bed and Naomi checks on each son. The bedroom doors are left ajar by her rules so she can peek in and see each of them.
It’s almost not a surprise when Castiel is missing. Naomi enters his room and looks around, hoping he might just be up at his desk but the room is empty. Walking by the window, her breath catches at the sight of someone in the field. Peering closer she realizes it’s her missing son.
Naomi is calm and controlled, she had always been. But a new fear holds her in its claws and she doesn’t think to wake her other sons. Instead, she runs down the stairs and out the back door. Castiel is far from the house and her breath strains as she runs after him.
Mud seeps into her slippers and she hates that feeling, the dirty disgustingness of it.
Castiel is barefoot and filthy seemingly fine as he looks towards the forest and walks steadily towards it.
“Castiel, stop this instant,” Naomi manages to call and her son sways oddly, turning his head without looking back. He keeps walking.
Naomi has nearly caught up with her son when he reaches the tree line.
It’s a clear thing, farms having cut it back for years. It’s like a straight line laid down in the curves and turns of nature all around it.
When Castiel steps into the shadows of the trees Naomi finally sees what he was going toward.
A great hulking form, something large and black, bigger than any stray dog. Even a bear would seem small compared to it. It’s down on all fours with its head bent towards Castiel, for some reason it strikes Naomi that it is beckoning her son, calling him.
“Castiel, come here!” She cries with open desperation now. She’s frozen in spot, unwilling to get any closer to that thing. “Castiel, please come here.”
Her son finally turns to her and Naomi feels something in her lurch at the blood on him. On his hands and shirt, his face is smeared with it. It reminds her of the dead animal on his lap, the way he wiped his mouth when she caught him. God, something in her is certain her son has eaten a dead animal raw. The deer reflects in her mind.
Naomi had thought Castiel might be ill, his mind confused. With that had come a swell of pity and responsibility to her son. Of making sure he was taken care of.
Now for the first time, she feels a twist of fear.
Castiel looks so frighteningly calm, blood smeared with a monster behind him and it makes her scared.
“Goodbye,” he tells her softly, a barely there sound. Castiel turns back to the wolf then, following him into the forest that seems to swallow them up. Almost immediately Naomi cannot see them anymore and the sounds of the trees rustling fades.
Wolves begin to howl in the woods.
Mocking and triumphant.
“What’s going on?” Bartholomew asks when Naomi reaches the house. The boys are all up and anxious, standing in the yard worried.
“Where’s Castiel?” Samandriel asks.
“Don’t worry,” Naomi reassures them all, sending them back in the house and following. “There’s nothing to worry about.”
“But where’s Castiel?” Her youngest presses.
“Go to bed now, all of you,” she commands them and her eldest sons share worried looks.
“Come on,” Esper leads Samandriel away, voice soothing.
“Ion is just going to take a quick look for Castiel,” Bartholomew tries to offer and Naomi cuts him off.
“I said go to bed!” She half screams and her sons startle. Ion heads upstairs after his elder brother motions him to go but Bartholomew remains facing off with her. He reaches out and rests his hands on her shoulders.
“Mother,” he implores her, voice low and worries as he searches her face. “Where is Castiel?”
“…A wolf,” she finally admits and her son’s hands squeeze her shoulders suddenly, his face going shocked and scared.
“I’m going to call the police, and the neighbor as well,” he tells her and Naomi nods her head.
The situation is out of control but it can be brought back around.
Naomi won't let anything overtake her. She will fix this.
While her son is on the phone she heads up to his room. In the closet is the rifle the neighbor lent him. Naomi takes it and the bullets.
Without a sound, she slips out the back door to go find her wayward son.
Castiel is her child.
No matter what twisted path he has fallen on she will bring back, even if it must be him with kicking and screaming. Children must obey their parents.
The moonlight is bright and it lights the forest up. It's cold and she can feel eyes on her watching her as she shivers and pickers her way through the bushes.
Once she passed the tree line and actually entered the forest it was easy to find a pathway winding deeper. An animal as large as what she saw would need a path to move around.
The forest is active even in the night, things moving around all around her. Naomi had always thought animals would hide from humans. But they run out in the open without fear of her, crying and scrambling about. Rabbits, deer, foxes, wild dogs, and wolves.
She’s managed to get a bullet into the gun and is reasonably sure it’s loaded and ready to fire.
A wolf trots around trees not ten feet from her and she shakily points the gun but doesn’t try to fire. This is not the one she wants. The lead beast needs to be put down. Her mind is like a hive, buzzing with too many thoughts of fear and anger, sense has no place. It makes her brash and brave, she passes the wolf by and it lets her go, watching.
More wolves come and go, all of them small.
Naomi’s hands clutch the rifle hard enough to ache but she presses on. The forest twists and turns endlessly like a maze. When Naomi looks back the path is less clear, it seems to split into various directions. But she is moving forward so it doesn’t matter.
The wolves grow in number, pacing and panting, some of them whining. Ten at least follow her openly, trailing after her.
A soft human sound echoes through the woods. Another one, a whimper that’s drawn out. Naomi follows the sounds, pained sobs that she is sure is Castiel.
The trees come to a clearing, an opening surrounded by tall looming trees. Pale grass blows in the meadow with little blue flowers among them. In the middle is a great stone, massive in size and flat on the top, slanted slightly on the one side. Naomi examines the surroundings critically to put off the truth, even if for only a moment.
Because Castiel is laid out on the stone.
He’s under the massive dark creature looming over him. He’s naked and shivering, crying out softly. But not from any sort of pain. Naomi’s stomach twists as she watches her son… fornicate with the monster.
Castiel’s legs are up and curled over the monster's fur, pulling him in as he cries out at each lunge. The wolf is misshapen, human almost but not, twisted with fur and teeth, vicious and inhuman. It licks Castiel’s face lustfully, taking pleasure from her poor son. Castiel arches his back and reaches out for the monster, hands curling into his fur lovingly. He kisses it, mouth open as the long tongue slides passed his lips, defiling him as it shoves into him.
The sight twists her stomach and the rifle is heavy in her hands.
Naomi fumbles to lift the gun and points it at them. The wolf creature is the obvious target.
But her son is no prisoner.
Naomi can see how he is enjoying this horrid thing. Not only with a monster but with another male. She had always wondered about Castiel, so lacking in his interest in women. This seems like a confirmation. Her son so willingly lying with a beast, twisted in his mind too far to be saved. Born wrong from the beginning.
Even if Naomi kills the monster her son will find another to crawl under.
The gun is solid and sure in her hands and she lowers the end, pointing just under the monster.
It is a mercy really.
Lest Castiel fall even more from grace.
The trigger of the gun won’t go. Naomi pulls it back with all her strength but it won’t move. Something is wrong she realizes slowly, she hasn’t loaded it properly.
Fumbling she tries to make it work, jerking the loading slot with angry fingers.
A twig snaps and she realizes the wolves are watching her. There are more than she can count and they are all peering at her silently, fixated on her, surrounding her.
Naomi looks towards the clearing and her heart jumps to see the monster and Castiel looking at her as well. The monster looks smug, triumphant as it peers at her, still rutting into Castiel lazily.
Her son is sweat soaked and panting heavily, staring at her silently with too blue eyes. They seem to reflect the moonlight, glowing eerily.
“Goodbye.” He tells her calmly.