In St. Paul, Minnesota, a couple is leaving a restaurant in a newly developed part of town. As they walk down the street, they hear a baby crying from the old Chamberlin house. The woman Natalia insists on going on and her husband Dave calls 911. However, when he sees Natalia going in, he goes after her.
Inside the house, Natalia looks for the baby and follows the noise to a crib in an otherwise empty room. She removes the blanket and discovers that there's a rotting baby doll inside. Dave arrives and the door to the room slams shut. The crying continues and Natalia screams.
At the bunker, Mary is going through John's journal when Castiel comes in. She asks him when he started to fit in on Earth after he left Heaven, and Castiel admits that he's still not sure if he does. He assures Mary that she belongs there, and Mary wishes him good night.
In her room, Mary decides to cut her hair short.
The next morning over breakfast, Sam shows Dean an old letter he found from the London Chapterhouse of the Men of Letters. It's heavily redacted and says nothing. Castiel comes in and tells them that he has to go, and walks out. The brothers go after him and Castiel says that he found a police report from Cleveland, Ohio, that suggests that Lucifer is there in a new body. Castiel insists on finding Lucifer because freeing him was his responsible, and says that he'll call the Winchesters if he needs them. He tells them that they're needed there and leaves, and Sam figures that it's about Mary. Dean insists that she's fine, but Sam points out that she's a bit withdrawn.
Mary comes in and Sam comments on her hair. She says that she's going to keep it short if she's going on hunt, and says that she found a case. Both of her sons are surprised that she plans to go hunting, and Mary explains that a couple turned up dead in Minneapolis in a locked room after calling 911 about a crying baby. Sam thought that she didn't want to hunt, but Dean says that things change and says that they should go on a family hunting trip. After a moment, Mary agrees. Once she leaves, Dean insists that they're road ready and figures that if Mary wants to hunt, they hunt.
The Winchesters stop for gas and food, and Mary insists on turning up the radio.
In Cleveland, Castiel interviews Tommy. He insists that the Vince that threw him through the door wasn't his friend. Castiel gives Tommy his card and leaves via the bar, and finds Crowley sitting there.
Mary, Sam, and Dean talk to the coroner and ask why he hasn't filed a cause of death. Dean checks one of the bodies and finds a burn on its arm in the shape of a hand. The coroner says that it's a burn caused by hypothermia, even though the room was 65 degrees.
Outside, Crowley points out that they made an effective team against Amara and both want Lucifer dead. Castiel isn't interested but Crowley says that he checked Vince's room and found postcards from his sister Wendy. He figures that they should check it out.
The Winchesters enter the house and scan for ghost energy. Mary follows the readings to the nursery and sees the crib, and the lightbulb flickers. As the temperature drops, she finds the doll. As Dean calls to her, the door slams shut and locks, and she calls to her sons. As they pry the door open, a small child grabs Mary's arm. The brothers come in and Dean swings an iron crowbar, dissipating the ghost. Mary has a handprint-shaped burn on her arm, and her sons get her out.
Back at their motel room, Sam and Dean are checking the Internet. Mary wants to go out and check things physically, and Dean explains that the Internet has made a lot of that work obsolete. Sam has accessed the police database and determined that kids have been going missing in the area for years. It started with Elizabeth Moriarty, the victim of a hit and run and whose father was Hugo. Sam assures Mary that they'll teach her how to do it.
Castiel and Crowley drive to the address and talk to Wendy. She slams the door in their face and calls Vince's number, and leaves a message asking what happened the day before. Crowley teleports in and lets Castiel in, and Castiel realizes that Wendy was recently healed. There's a wheelchair in the corner, and Crowley threatens to take away her "gift." Castiel stops him and says that the thing that healed her wasn't Vince, and figures that a part of her knows her. The angel insists that they want to help Vince, and Wendy says that when Vince came by, he was cold like it was nothing to him. Then he left with a groupie friend, a red-headed woman. They get the address of the cabin where Vince wrote his greatest songs, and Crowley admits that he and Rowena had an embarrassing run-in with Lucifer. He insists that he doesn't want to save Rowena, but she's the only person who can put Lucifer back in the cage. Crowley figures that either Lucifer will kill or control her, or Rowena will offer her services to him to save her neck.
At the cabin, Lucifer ties Rowena up and asks if she can heal his new host body. She lost the Book of the Damned and can't help him without it, but Lucifer knows better. He figures that she memorized the book contents, and will rip her head off if she doesn't cooperate.
Sam discovers that children's spirits, mylings, use their cries to lure adults to their deaths. There's nothing on the frozen bodies, and Mary figures that the boy that grabbed her didn't want to hurt her and was scared. Sam doesn't believe it and Dean suggests that they salt and burn all the children's bodies to be on the safe side. Mary suddenly wavers and has a vision of the boy asking her to help him. She tells her sons that she's fine but they tell her to stay there and give her a cell phone so that she can call her.
Once they leave, Mary calls the Register of Deeds and asks who owned the house last. She talks to the last owner, Cheryl Kellinger, who says that her son Lucas was frozen to death. Lucas looks like the ghost boy that Mary saw. Cheryl says that no one else talks on the phone anymore and it's been nice to chat with someone.
At the cemetery, Sam and Dean salt and burn Lucas' bones. Sam admits that he's worried about Mary, but Dean says that they should just accept one thing. His son figures that Mary is struggling, and he knows because he's done the same things. When they return to the motel room, they discover that Mary is gone and she took the weapons bag with her.
Mary goes to the house and Lucas' ghost appears. She addresses him by name and then drops her weapons when she sees him reacting to them. Mary says that she talked to Cheryl and she misses her son, and Lucas turns and walks to a cellar door, and then points at it. As Mary pries it open, Lucas disappears.
In the cellar, Lucas appears to Mary again. He begs her to help them, and Mary's cellphone rings. It's Sam and Dean, who explain that they salted and burned the remains. Mary tells them that it didn't work, and they tell her to get out of the house. However, the signal breaks up and she can't hear them, and they head for the house.
Rowena draws a spell on Lucifer's chest, and she warns that there's no known magic that will preserve the host body forever. She insists that it will last, and Lucifer les her continue. Rowena says that she'll be of value beyond the spell, and Lucifer says that they'll see. She casts the spell and backs away, and tells Lucifer that she speeded up the decaying process. As his body rots, Lucifer tries to get to her and Rowena teleports him away.
Lucas points at a section of the wall and says that "he" is keeping him there. The house shakes and Mary runs upstairs and grabs her shotgun. The temperature drops and Hugo appears. Hugo draws Mary to her and puts his hand on her chest, freezing her heart. Sam and Dean arrive and Hugo disappears. Mary hits Dean and turns to Sam, who realizes that she's possessed. She knocks Sam back and grabs Dean, freezing his heart, and Hugo says that it's his house and his children. Dean tells her to fight the possession, and after a moment she yells and drops to her knees. Fighting for control, Mary tells Sam to go to the basement, and then casts Dean back as he tries to grab the iron chains that they brought.
In the basement, Lucas appears to Sam and points at the wall.
Dean grabs the shotgun but realizes that he'll have to kill Mary to shoot the ghost. He begs her not to make him do it. Mary knocks the gun out of his hands, and then senses Sam in the cellar, breaking open the wall to reveal a skeleton. As she starts to go, Dean wraps the iron chains around her. Sam salts and burns the skeleton, and the ghost is destroyed. The ghosts of his victims appear and watch as he burns, and Sam runs in as the child ghosts, released, disappear. Lucas remains and Mary nods at him before he disappears as well.
Crowley and Castiel arrive at the cabin and find Rowena on the patio, sipping tea. She tells them what happened and agrees to help them if they corner Lucifer.
At the bunker, Dean apologizes for sidelining her. He says that it was her case and she kicked ass, and Mary explains that when Moriarty possessed her, she felt what he went through. When he lost his child, he went mad, walled himself in the cellar, and starved to death. When new families with children moved in, he coveted the children and took them, binding their spirits to him. Dean says that she's all right now that she's home, but Mary says that she's not all right. She misses John and she misses her boys as she knew them. They were with her in Heaven, and every moment she spends with Sam and Dean reminds her of what she lost. Mary says that she has to go and needs a little time. Dean backs away from her, and she picks up John's journal and hugs Sam, and says that she loves them both before leaving.
Written by Gadfly on Oct 28, 2016