Brother’s sharing, mother’s caring
Nightime falling victim to the dawn, shadows small
Days are crawling, time is calling
To the earth that not that life has gone, love line drawn

Next morning, after breakfast, Tom was ringing the kitchen towel in apprehension. “Dean? Bob heard you were back and wants you to change the brake pads on the Jeep, and then Jack said you would help him install the speakers.”

“Sure,” Dean shrugged his shoulders, readily acquiescing to the requests. “Are you making sloppy joes?”

Tom paused, recalling the day of the week. “It’s Friday.”

Sam stayed behind and began to clean up. It was only three dishes and glasses but he tried to take his time so that he could gather information on Dean’s last stay in Liston. “How long was he here for?”

“About six weeks,” Tom answered, putting the orange juice away. “Till that man came for him-glad to know it had nothing to do with the law.”

“Yeah, umm, no, it had nothing to do with the law,” Sam scraped the eggs off the pan. It had only sat in the sink for a moment, but during that time the remaining breakfast had congealed “So, Dean made a lot of friends here?”

“Sure, I guess so—your brother is a funny guy.” Tom took some ground meat out of the freezer and placed it on the kitchen table.

“He thinks he is.” Sam placed a plate in the dish drainer.

“No, I mean—he’s a good person, but you look at him too long and you see there’s a lot of sadness there.” Tom said, and then stopped as he thought about the words he had said. “Well, I’m just glad he has you.”

“What do you know about the Pastor?” Sam folded the towel and put it on top of the plates that were drying.

“He’s a good man. Always a kind word.” Tom counted on his fingers. “Been in this town for almost ten years.”

“Ten years?” Sam asked, looking around to make sure there was nothing left to clean.

"He took some time off last year to do some missionary work in South America, was down there for a couple of months. I'm thinkin' I should try that, he came back like he had no problems in the world. Was sure-fire positive about everything. He said preachin' the word to those people and living with 'em made him feel like he found God all over again."

Tom looked out the window towards the church. "Tell you one thing- that man is always giving, course its nice to see that he's receiving too. . ."

"What do you mean?" Sam prompted the mechanic to explain.

"About four weeks back he bought himself a new car - a Mercedes." Tom sounded impressed. "I kept his car going, but suddenly he says he needs something better." He grinned. "Maybe having a personal assistant went to his head."

"Personal assistant?"

"Oh, I'm just making a joke. He bought that car a little after Michael started helping out and doing chores over there. I even asked once if he was gonna start combing his hair all ugly-like, the way Donald Trump does." Tom's face grew pensive for a moment, but he quickly dismissed sharing any lingering thoughts.

Sam thought they needed to pay a visit to the church. “You mind if I borrow Dean for a minute? I promise he’ll be back to finish the repairs.”

“Sure, I know Dean will finish what he starts.” Tom replied, hollering for Dean.

The two brothers walked to the church. Dean with his hands in his pockets didn’t want to talk-determined to investigate the church and focus. Sam, though, had other ideas. “I know that Dad found you and took you back.”

Dean picked up the pace for a few steps, then stopped walking and turned to his brother. “He didn’t take me back-he just explained things.”

“Maybe we can make this our home base or something,”

“No,” Dean started walking again.

“Dean, they’re nice people.” Sam jogged to reach his brother. “You could have something more here.”

“Yep,” Dean replied, agreeing with him to end the conversation.

“What’s the problem?”

Dean sighed. “You have the Shining - you should know this isn’t for me.”

“Sure that’s not Dad talking for you?” Sam asked, looking at his brother with skepticism.

Dean didn’t reply. “What did you find out?”

Sam knew change was difficult for his brother. “Nothing, seems like the Reverend is a great guy.” Sam replied, focusing again on the reason they were in Liston. “So, I figure we’re missing something.”

At the side door of the church, Dean softly knocked, then entered. There at the desk was an elderly woman. “How can I help you boys?”

“Tom said we should come over and introduce ourselves. We’re new to town, and looking at belonging to a church,” Sam said, with a smile, because a smile made a lie easier to swallow. “Would you mind if we looked around?”

“We’d like to make sure it is holy enough-ambience wise,” Dean said, with fake piety.

“Well, okay, the Pastor isn’t in. . .” The elderly receptionist replied, still a little unsure.

“We’ll arrange to meet him later.” Sam replied to reassure the elderly woman.

Out of sight from the receptionist Dean removed the EMF detector from his jacket pocket. They scanned the interior of the church, and then found the stairs that led to the basement. The scanner began lighting up. “Come out; come out, wherever you are. . .”

The basement was being used for storage. The EMF detector continued to light up. Dean went through some of the boxes, picking each up.

“Ohh, you know-cursed Christmas decorations. There is just something wrong about tinsel.”

Sam grinned. “Hey, I think I found something.” In a corner, sitting by itself was an ornate carved box. Sam picked it up and placed it on a card table in the middle of the room.

“It’s been opened.” Dean pointed to the cracked wax seal. Dean studied the seal. “Looks like a cat.”

Sam let his fingers run over the top. “I don’t recognize this language.”

Dean shook his head. “It doesn’t say peligro or cuidado piso mojado.”

“What?” Sam didn’t understand what his brother was saying.

Dean looked strangely at his brother. “Don’t you read signs? Wet floor in Spanish.”

“I don’t read signs that carefully.”

Dean shrugged his shoulders. “You should. You can learn a whole other language.”

Sam took out his phone and took a picture of the box. “I’ll do some research, while you finish up working on those cars.”

Three hours later, Dean came up the stairs to wash up. Sam had plugged the laptop into the phone jack and used dial-up to get internet access.

“This was so slow,” Sam commented, having no one to complain to while he researched.

“Did you find anything?” Dean stepped into the kitchen and began to scrub his hands.

“Yeah, I did.” Sam pulled up an image on the laptop, and waited for Dean to come over, still drying his hands on some paper towels. “Meet the Huaorani of Ecuador-I think these are the people that Pastor was with when he was involved in his missionary work.”

Dean read over what his brother had discovered. “Says here they worship the jaguar.”

“Yep, when not being converted to Christianity.”

“So what does the box say?” Dean threw away the paper towels in the nearby waste basket. “And please don’t say anything about Pandora.”

“No, not exactly.” Sam looked at some notes he had made. “You ever hear about fruits of the spirit?”

“Yeah, Galatians refers to the virtues of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” Dean gave a summary of the Bible verse. “I always check off the box that says none of the above.”

Sam smirked. "Well, this box, according to the markings, contains the spoiled fruit-pride, lack of love and irresponsible behavior. It's a ritual that the Huaorani do. If someone is having trouble in their life, you make this box for them, and ask the spirits to route whatever is giving them trouble into the box."

Dean raised an eyebrow. "And let me guess - everything is kept locked in nice and tight with a wax seal."

"You got it."

The older Winchester sat down; dealing with spiritual matters was more difficult than the supernatural. "And he brought this home with him?"

Sam nodded, and rubbed his chin. “What if you think it's a quaint handicraft box and bring it home and store it in your basement? All those evil behaviors are just banging around in there.” Sam paused, then went ahead and voiced his theory. “Maybe waiting for some poor college kid doing chores to open it out of curiosity."

Dean remained in silent contemplation. “So we need to get good Pastor back and get rid of his evil twin.” He looked at his father’s journal. “Is there an exorcism for that?”

“No, but I have some ideas.” Sam replied, showing Dean more of his research.