Here's the next chapter!
Dean's sitting on his bed, cleaning his guns while Sam sits at the table looking through old newspaper articles on his computer to find anything on what could be causing these deaths. They were thinking it was maybe a pissed off ghost. Gracilynn is sitting on the other side of her dad's bed, leaning up against the headboard, legs stretched out in front of her. She's looking at death records for the last two years to help out her uncle.
"Find anything yet?" Sam asks her from his seat at the table.
"Huh?" Gracilynn says, not looking up from her papers. Sam looks over at her.
"You find anything?" he asks again. Gracilynn looks up at him.
"Uh, no, not yet," Gracilynn replies. Dean glances up at her and smirks.
"Can't really find anything after only looking for twenty minutes, can you?" he asks her. Sam furrows his eyebrows in confusion. Gracilynn looks over at her dad surprised at the question.
"What? I don't know what you're talking about. I been looking for an hour," Gracilynn says.
"You have?" Dean asks, looking at her pointedly.
"Y…yeah," she replies. Dean reaches over and grabs a "stack" of paper at the top of the pile. Sam watches and notices the stack of papers aren't actually a stack of papers, but instead a magazine. Dean holds it up to her.
"Right, because unless Muscle Car Magazine has recently started listing obituaries, I'm pretty sure you haven't been looking for the past forty minutes," Dean says, calling her out, giving her a cocky smirk.
"How did you know?" Gracilynn asks, sulking.
"Because I know everything," Dean says, tossing the magazine on the bed and picking up his gun again.
Gracilynn huffs but starts to look through the papers anyways. Sam smirks to himself and glances at his brother and then his niece, shaking his head. They were so much alike it was crazy. God help us all Sam thinks to himself.
"I think I've found something," Gracilynn says, sitting up in the bed. Sam looks up from his spot in front of his computer. Dean had gone to get food about ten minutes ago. "Miriam Garagher."
"Why her?" Sam asks typing the name into his computer.
"She was the only one who died in a reasonable amount of time with the deaths besides a two year old," Gracilynn says. Sam looks at his computer and clicks on a few buttons and begins reading what he has found.
"Okay, looks like she died when she was…"
"Seventy four," Gracilynn finishes. Sam nods his head.
"Her and her husband were two of the leaders of the Amish community around here. Her husband died a few years before her," Sam says, scanning the article, "They and the other elders had say over who got shunned and so forth. But it seems like Miriam had a stiffer hand than the other elders. Had voted five people to be shunned but none of them were."
"So, let's say she died, and now dear old Miriam doesn't like how the community is being run. She decides to take things into her own hands," Gracilynn says, leaning forward on the bed, the pile of papers forgotten beside her. "And now she's killing everyone that she believes should be shunned."
"Yeah but, besides Isabella, all the other victims "sins" were minute. I mean one guy would have a beer every Friday night and one of the women would put on pants to help her son out around the barn because her husband died the year before," Sam says in disbelief.
"Wow," Gracilynn says, "Well, you did say she had a stiffer hand than the others."
"Yeah," Sam says, then looks over at his niece. Gracilynn gives him a look.
"What?" she asks.
"You seem kind of bothered by this whole case," Sam states. Gracilynn shrugs.
"It's fine," she says.
"Yeah? You sure?"
"I'm fine. It's…nothing," Gracilynn says, "Besides, I think dad's the only one who's having trouble with this whole cut your family out of your life thing."
"Is that was this is all about?" Sam asks, picking up on the fact that the family thing was the only part of the case she mentioned. Gracilynn quickly looks up at him.
"What? No," Gracilynn says a little too quickly. Now it's Sam's turn to give her a look.
"Is that what you think? That you cut your grandparents out of your life by getting Cas to help you come back?" Sam asks. Gracilynn bites her lip, but looks away, not being able to look him in the eye. She shrugs her shoulder. Sam looks to the door and then gets up and sits next to his niece on the bed and looks at her. "You didn't cut them out of your life Smalls. You just made it so they…so they wouldn't take you away. You can call and talk to them anytime you want."
Sam looks at her, his eyes widening a little and the lone tear trailing down her face. He is slightly confused by this reaction and slightly confused as to why she would feel this way. He wraps his arm around her and pulls her into him. Gracilynn rests her head on his shoulder.
"I just don't want dad or you to hate me," Gracilynn whispers so quietly Sam almost didn't hear it. His furrows his eyebrows, completely confused by this statement.
"Why would we hate you?" Sam asks, looking down at her. He nudges her. "Hey, we could never hate you, you hear me?"
Gracilynn looks up at him and Sam looks her dead in the eye. He kneels down in front of her and looks at her, putting his hands on her shoulders.
"No matter what you did, do, or will do. Nothing you do could ever make us even so much as dislike you, let alone hate you," Sam says, trying to get her to understand. Gracilynn nods her head slightly. Both of them jump at the motel door banging open.
"Dude, the place had apple pie so I got us…" Dean says, fading off when he sees the scene before him, "What happened? She alright?"
"I'm fine," Gracilynn says, annoyed at the fact her dad caught her in this state, "I'm gonna go take a shower before I eat."
Gracilynn gets up from the bed and quickly escapes to the bathroom after grabbing a change of clothes. Dean watches her disappear into the bathroom, looking at Sam with a questioning look after the door shuts behind Gracilynn.
"I think we need to talk," Sam says, standing up. Dean groans inwardly, but sets the food down on the table and takes a seat, knowing Sam found something out about his daughter.
Dean looks at his daughter in the rearview mirror. He knew something was going on with her and he had an idea that it had to do with her grandparents and everything that happened. Listening to what Sam told him about their conversation and her unexplained question from before, he knows now more than ever that there is way more to his daughter's secret than just what she told Sam. Or didn't tell Sam, because she really didn't say much, it was more Sam sending out feelers and making deductions based off her reactions. Dean looks back at the road. As soon as they were done salting and burning this Bitch he was definitely going to have a long talk with Gracilynn.
The cemetery comes into view on their left and Dean pulls off the road and puts it into park. The three of them get out and look across the street. The cemetery was small; it was the Amish cemetery so no one but them were buried here. Hopefully, no one spotted them. Small cemeteries were nice because it meant less searching but you had nowhere to hide. Dean looks down the road both ways and then leads his brother and daughter across the street, Sam carrying the duffle. Dean nods to his right and Sam heads that way and then Dean and Gracilynn head to their left, searching for the grave of Miriam Garagher.
"Dean!" Sam yells, "Over here!"
Dean's head turns to look where his brother is and he and Gracilynn make their way towards him. They stand next to him and look down at the grave in front of them. Sure enough, engraved on it is Miriam Garagher. Sam drops the bag on to the ground and unzips it, pulling out shovels, handing one to his brother. Dean hands off his flashlight to Gracilynn as well as Sam.
"Really? What am I going to do with three flashlights?" she says, raising her eyebrows.
"Just keep watch all right?" Dean says, jamming the shovel in to the ground.
"Anyone else think this hunt is going way too easily?" Gracilynn asks aloud, sticking a flashlight in the duffle.
"Which is why you're keeping watch," Dean says, looking up pointedly at her. Gracilynn takes note and keeping one flashlight on the ground in front of Dean and Sam, uses another flashlight to check around the cemetery.
They had been digging for a while now; Gracilynn wasn't exactly sure how long, but her dad and uncle had hit the coffin and were now trying to pry it open. Gracilynn felt the air grow colder and she looks up and shines the flashlight around the cemetery. There to her right was Miriam Garagher in all her Amish clothes and hair pulled back into a low bun.
"Dad?" Gracilynn calls. Dean looks up at hearing the hesitancy in his daughters' voice. He looks over to where she's shining the flashlight and sees the ghost staring at her.
"Sam," Dean says, jumping out of the hole.
"Got it," Sam says, finally prying the coffin open to reveal the remains. Dean picks up his gun and shoots the ghost. Miriam disappears and Gracilynn looks around trying to find her again. She feels a breeze behind her and turns to look. Before she can see anything, Gracilynn is thrown backwards into a nearby tree. She hears a gunshot and looks up to see her dad being thrown into another tree. Sam sees the same thing and then notices Miriam is headed straight for him. He drops the can he is holding and picks up his gun, but when he stands up, she's already in front of him and tosses him into a headstone, effectively knocking him out. Gracilynn gets up as the ghost of Miriam appears in front of her father and grabs him by the neck, raising him up the tree.
"Dad," Gracilynn says fearfully. The ghost looks over at her and smiles, noticing the gun in her hand.
"You are worried about family being cut from your life?" she says mockingly as her dad tries to break free, but his hands can't make contact. "You weren't all that worried when it was your grandparents."
The breath hitches in Gracilynn's throat and her gun begins to shake slightly. Her dad looks over at her and gives her a look she can't quite read. Miriam takes the time to yank the gun from Gracilynn's hand and tosses it into the grass; then Gracilynn feels herself being pushed backwards, her back hitting the far edge of the grave and she finds herself falling into the hole. She lands in the coffin on her stomach and looks down making a disgusted face.
"I really need to get out of this habit of landing in gross things," she mutters to herself. She shoves herself up and climbs out of the grave. She looks over at her dad and sees Miriam still has him in a choke. She quickly grabs the gas can and pours the contents onto the remains below, looking over at her uncle coming to and slowly raising himself up. She drops the empty can next to her and grabs the can of salt and pours it on, looking behind her to make sure she hasn't been spotted. Satisfied, Gracilynn sets the salt can down next to her and grabs the box of matches. She looks over at Miriam and strikes a match, the action echoing in the dark, quiet cemetery. Miriam turns her head to look at her, dropping Dean when she sees what Gracilynn is holding.
"No!" she screams as Gracilynn sends her a smirk of her own and drops the match into the hole. Miriam charges at her just as her remains go up in flames. She dissipates by the time she gets to Gracilynn so all Gracilynn feels is a rush of wind blow into her. She looks over at her father pushing himself up on to his feet, rubbing his neck. She hears a noise slightly behind her and she looks over to see her uncle walking up to her on slightly wobbly legs; he's bleeding from his head.
"You two all right?" Dean asks, his voice scratchy still from being choked, as he walks over to them.
"Yeah," Sam and Gracilynn says. Dean looks at them both, not believing a word of it.
"Let's get back to the motel room so I can patch you two up," Dean says, eyeing Sam's blood-trailed face before he packs the duffle back up and hikes it over his shoulder.
"What about the grave?" Gracilynn asks. Dean curses under his breath looking back at the open grave.
"You two head back to the Impala, I'll be there shortly," Dean grumbles.
"Okay," Gracilynn says, "I can help though."
"No, I need you to clean up Sam," Dean says, effectively dismissing them as he begins to fill in the hole again.
Gracilynn nods her head and helps her uncle back to the car. Once there, Gracilynn opens the front passenger door and Sam sits down onto the seat slowly, his legs outside, feet on the ground. Gracilynn grabs the first aid kit from the trunk and returns, opening it up and grabbing a bunch of moist towels. She begins cleaning off the area around Sam's cut and Sam watches her, hissing when she gets too close.
"What did she mean?" Sam asks suddenly. Gracilynn opens another towel and begins cleaning again.
"What did who mean about what?" Gracilynn asks.
"Miriam," Sam says, "About you not worrying about cut family out of your life when it came to your grandparents."
"I don't know," Gracilynn says, throwing the dirtied towels into a bag.
"Really? Because it seems like there's more to this Gracilynn. Why would she say something like that? All you did was make sure they didn't remember Zach or the CPS people and stuff," Sam continues.
"What's done is done Uncle Sam," Gracilynn says, "I did what I had to do."
Sam looks at her, trying to read her face. He knows there's more to this but she isn't budging. Gracilynn stares back at him, finally sighing.
"Your cuts not too deep, I don't think it needs stitches. I'm just gonna use butterfly stitches to hold it together," Gracilynn says, changing the subject and grabbing some butterfly stitches to do just that. Sam sighs himself; he knows she's hiding something. She does the same thing that dean does; she changes the subject and she gets angry. The question is, 'How much is she hiding?'
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