The Heroes' Paradox

22. Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things

"What else would it be about?"

"You know, just forget it."

Dean eyed Sam. "You believe what you want, Sam, but I let you drag my ass, and the girls, out here, the least we could do is check this out."

"Yeah. Fine."

Madelyn frowned at Dean before saying, "Girl's dad works in town, he's a professor at the school."

---

They made their way to the school and knocked on the door of Dr. Mason's office.

"Dr. Mason?" Dean called.

"Yes?" Dr. Mason questioned.

Sam spoke. "I'm Sam, this is Dean, this is Daisy, that's Madelyn and this is Reagan. We were friends of Angela's, we... we wanted to offer our condolences."

"Please, come in."

They entered and he closed the door behind them. He and Reagan sat and showed them a photo album. Dean was in the corner looking through an old book.

"She was beautiful," Sam complimented.

"Yes, she was," Dr. Mason replied.

"This is an unusual book." Dean showed the cover of the book he had been paging through; it had carvings of Greek letters and a triangular symbol.

"It's Ancient Greek; I teach a course."

"So a car accident, that's, that's horrible," Dean said.

"Angie was only a mile away from home when uh-"

"It's gotta be hard. Losing someone like that," Daisy said. "Sometimes it's like they're still around."

"Almost like you can sense their presence," Dean added and Sam, Reagan and Madelyn looked at their brother and friend, concerned. "You ever feel anything like that?"

"I do, as a matter of fact," Dr. Mason replied.

Sam was still looking at his brother. "That's perfectly normal, Dr. Mason. Especially with what you're going through."

"You know, I still phone her. And the phone's ringing before I remember that, uh... Family's everything, you know? Angie was the most important thing in my life. And now I, I'm just lost without her."

"We're very sorry," Sam and Madelyn said sympathetically.

---

They made their way to the motel room that evening.

"I'm telling you, there's something going on here, we just haven't found it yet," Dean said.

Sam frowned. "Dean, so far you've got a patch of dead grass and nothing."

"Well, something turned that grave into unholy ground," Dean commented.

"There's no reason for it to be unholy ground. Angela Mason was a nice girl who died in a car crash, that's not exactly vengeful spirit material. You heard her father."

"Yeah, well, maybe daddy doesn't know everything there is to know about his little girl," Dean guessed.

Madelyn frowned. "You know what? We never should have bothered that poor man. We shouldn't even be here anymore."

"So what, Sam, Madelyn? We just bail? Without even figuring out what's going on?"

"I think I know what's going on here. It's the only reason I went along with you this far," Sam said.

"What are you talking about?"

"This is about Mom's grave."

Dean scoffed. "That's nothing to do with it."