Point of Know Return

17. Whiter Shade of Pale

[Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things]

The Impala zoomed down a two-lane blacktop. Dean was driving, Sam was passenger, and Natalia was in back.

"Come on, Sam, I'm begging you. This is stupid," Dean said.

"Why?" Sam wondered.

"Going to visit Mom's grave? She doesn't even have a grave, there was no body left after the fire."

"She has a headstone."

"Yeah, put up by her uncle, a man we've never met. So you want to go pay your respects to a slab of granite put up by a stranger?"

"Dean, that's not the point."

"Well then, enlighten me, Sam. Brighten Nat's day."

"It's not about a body, or, or a casket. It's about her memory, okay?"

"Hmmm."

"And after Dad, it just... just feels like the right thing to do."

"It's irrational, is what it is," Natalia deadpanned, pulling out one earbud.

"I agree with her," Dean said.

"Look, man, sis," Sam stated. "No one asked you two to come. Nat, I thought you at least would've wanted you to see Mom's headstone."

Natalia shook her head. "No. She -- she -- No, I don't want to."

"Why don't we swing by the Roadhouse instead?" Dean suggested. "I mean, we haven't heard anything about the demon lately, we should be hunting that son of a bitch down."

"That's a good idea, you and Nat should. Just drop me off, I'll hitch a ride, and I'll meet you two there tomorrow."

"Right. To be... stuck with those people, making awkward small talk until you show up? No thanks."

Sam knelt before a headstone, digging in the ground with a folding knife. He pulled out a set of dogtags from his pocket and sighed. "I think, um, I think Dad would have wanted you to have these." He buried them. "I love you, Mom."

Nearby, Dean and Natalia were standing by another gravestone, marked as "Loving Father". Natalia walked towards a dying tree and frowned. Dean joined her and they noticed a perfect circle of dead grass surrounding a gravestone. They crouched down, fingering dead flowers.

Dean took a card from a man in a suit, then walked over to Sam, followed by Natalia.

"Angela Mason," Dean said. "She was a student at the local college, funeral was three days ago."

"And?" Sam asked.

"And?" Natalia repeated. "You saw her grave. Everything dead around it, in a perfect circle? You don't think that's a little weird?"

"Maybe the groundskeeper went a little agro with the pesticide."

"No, we asked him, we asked him," Dean told him. "No pesticide, no chemicals. Nobody can explain it."

"Okay, so what are you two thinking?"

Natalia shrugged. "Dee and I dunno. Unholy ground, maybe?"

"Un-"

"What? If something evil happened there, it could easily poison the ground. Remember the, the farm outside of Cedar Rapids?"

"Yeah, b-"

Dean cut him off. "Could be the sign of a demonic presence. Or the, the Angela girl's spirit, if it's powerful enough." Sam nodded and turned away. "Well, don't get too excited, you might pull something."