She almost looked, but Annabelle couldn't looked. It was like that rhyme...
Yesterday, upon the stair, I met a man who wasn't there. He wasn't there again today, I wish, I wish he'd go away...
Sam was seeing him. Sam could see Lasher. She felt her blood run cold in her veins and heard Lasher's words again, such simple words, but so, so cutting. Laughter. You can't help him, and he thinks I'm here to kill him. Perhaps I am.
Annabelle didn't really believe Lasher had that kind of power, but she'd heard stories. She'd heard that he'd killed certain Mayfairs, like Gifford. She'd heard things that had nothing to do with him trying to bring himself into the world, or trying to make other creatures like him. Lasher was a terrible creature, and he could hurt Sam.
He could hurt Sam over her dead body.
She shook her head, over and over. Why wasn't even Merrick here, Merrick who could at least buy him time with a voodoo charm or spell or offering, Merrick whose spells worked just about every time? Why wasn't someone useful here, someone who could help him?
Annabelle refused to address Lasher directly, though she was thinking that if he laid a hand on Sam, if he so much as moved the blanket Sam laid under, she would find a way to make him suffer.
"No. No you're not," Annabelle said instead. Her heart was racing, now. She could help, even just a little bit, but she had to know what was wrong before she could do much. Her healing.... it was so, so tiny and silly compared to what her mother could---
There it was, the idea. She'd done it before. She'd thought about her mother, and she'd appeared. Annabelle had made Rowan appear before, she could do it again! But she'd have to make her more than appear, wouldn't she? Rowan would have to stay, and Rowan would have to be able to communicate something, anything to Annabelle about how to help him, what was wrong with him.
Her eyes darted from Sam's face to his body, and then she focused on his face, a look of serious concentration taking over hers. "Sam you're not going to die."
Because Sam believed in her, and almost nobody else did. And because if Sam died, people were going to hurt. Dean was going to hurt, a lot, and not just Dean. Other people here, too. Annabelle couldn't have that. They had enough problems.
She shut her eyes and thought about her mother, what she knew of her, what she had looked like the last time Annabelle had successfully conjured her, the sound of her voice on the videos of her with Annabelle's dad and in medical lectures, the sweaters of hers that her father still couldn't part with, the photos of her in the house, with her blonde hair and her piercing blue eyes....
And she focused on the need. She focused on Sam, on there being a patient here worth Rowan's time, worth her abilities, worth saving. The second part was mostly a plea. She needed more of Rowan this time. She needed more than just the figure that stood there and smiled sadly, then took over the room with her commanding presence.
It didn't take long for Rowan to appear. She stood there, at the foot of the bed, her head tilted down toward Sam, a look of intense concentration on her face.