Werther Box

Name	Werther Box
Manufacturer	Cuthbert Sinclair
Powers	Powerful enchantment which causes suicide.
Location/Owners	St. Louis, Missouri
Episodes	10.19 The Werther Project

History

The Werther Box was an enchanted vault created by the former member of the Men of Letters, Cuthbert Sinclair. It was created to contain a special codex stolen from the Grand Coven and ensure that it never falls into the Coven's hands again.

Sinclair created a protective spell on the Werther Box, so that anyone who attempts to open it, without doing the proper ritual to disenchant it, will fall prey to a spell that ultimately leads to the person killing themselves. The warding spell was so potent that it reached a theoretical rate of 98% lethality.

Cursive script carved around the Aquarian Star on the door details instructions in Latin on how to diffuse the Werther Box: "To silence the box slake its thirst with the blood of our own." It requires blood from a Man of Letters to open it, however the amount required is more than enough to take the life of a member/legacy. Sinclair would only reveal that Martinez, the Man of Letters who was found next to the Werther Box with slit wrists, was on the right track to silencing the Werther for good, but the rest of the Men of Letters don't have the guts to continue what Martinez started. The Werther Box was then interred at the Men of Letters chapter house in St. Louis and was to be guarded where it stood, in perpetuity. However, their plans to guard the box were stalled indefinitely when Abaddon wiped out the entire American Chapter in 1958.

Episodes

10.19 The Werther Project

Werther is released by Suzie in 1973.

1973

In 1973, the Men of Letters' St. Louis chapter house was purchased by an unsuspecting family after the house spent 15 years caught in an ownership muddle. A young girl by the name of Suzie is sent to the basement to do the laundry by her mother. Suzie takes a sledgehammer to the wall out of annoyance, and finds the Werther Box hidden away. When Suzie attempts to open it she is knocked down by a force expelled from the box, which released a wisp of green smoke that travels past Suzie's unconscious body upstairs. When Suzie awakens, she is disoriented and heads upstairs, looking for her family; she finds her father dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, followed by witnessing her brother hang himself in the entryway of the house. Shocked by what is going on, Suzie eventually finds her mother in the kitchen repeating the line, "Everything is going to be okay." before slicing her throat open with a butcher knife.

1980

After Suzie's family died, her aunt Pauline took care of her and raised her until 1980. Suzie warned her not to go in the basement, but her aunt found the box while Suzie wasn't there and fell prey to the enchantment, causing her to kill herself. Since then, Suzie lived in the house by herself.

2015

When Sam learns that Rowena will need a special codex to translate the Book of the Damned, she explains that the Men of Letters confiscated the codex when they killed the witch who created it. Sam begins working his way through the Men of Letters archives, and his research uncovers an audio reel from May 16, 1956 detailing the expulsion of Cuthbert Sinclair from the Men of Letters. They met to discuss his part in creating the Werther Box to protect the codex from the Grand Coven until they ultimately decide to guard the Werther Box in perpetuity. This information eventually leads him to Suzie's home, which was the Men of Letters' St. Louis chapter house. When Sam tries to enter the home by picking the lock, he is forced away at gun point by Suzie, however Dean's sudden arrival allows Sam the opportunity to sneak into the basement while Dean distracts Suzie upstairs. When Sam finds the box, he goes about performing the Cabirian invocation to disenchant the box. The spell does not work, and Sam ends up releasing the security measure, which affects himself, Suzie, and Dean.

Sam and Rowena investigate the Werther Box.

Suzie is beset by visions of her deceased family members, blaming her for what happened and urging her to join them. Suzie holds out for as long as she can before ultimately turning her gun on herself. When Sam gets to her body, he is confronted by a vision of the recently dead Suzie, who blames him for getting her killed, and attempts to guilt him into committing suicide, but Sam is unfazed by her taunts when suddenly Rowena appears and gets rid of the Suzie manifestation. The two then head to the Werther Box to break the enchantment. Sam is able to translate the Latin script found on the vault which reads, "To silence the box slake its thirst with the blood of our own" and realizes it requires the blood of a Man of Letters or a legacy to shut the enchantment down, and proceeds to bleed himself into the box's reservoir.

While Sam is attempting to shut down Werther, Dean has become immersed in his hallucination, being transported to Purgatory, where he is met by Benny, who tells Dean the best thing for him to do is to kill himself before he either kills Sam and Castiel or they kill him. However, due to the Mark of Cain wanting Dean to live, Dean is able to break free of the Werther's hold on him. Once out of his trance, Dean finds Sam at the Werther Box, in a weakened state from massive blood loss. Sam tells Dean that he can't stop because the box needs enough legacy blood to take a life, prompting Dean to slice his own wrist and bleed into the reservoir, stating that the box doesn't require blood from just one legacy. Having gotten enough legacy blood, the Werther's enchantment is broken, revealing that Rowena had been a manifestation of Werther as well, attempting to get Sam to kill himself under the guise of saving Dean. With the codex acquired, Dean proceeds to destroy the Werther Box with a sledgehammer as a precaution.