SPN: The Brothers Grimm - Chapter 4
Title:The Brothers Grimm
Beta: skylar_matthews
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: PG-13
Genre: AU, Brothers Grimm verse, Fusion, adventure, horror
Pairings: Dean/Cas, mentions of Dean/Cassie, suggested Dean/Lisa
Spoilers: Some for The Brothers Grimm
Warnings: some sexual situations, violence, abuse of the French language, lots of UST
Word Count: 26 000 (in total)
Summary: Under the new French occupation, Dean and Sam Grimm have made a living conning people into believing that fairytales and monsters are real. But when they stumble upon the village of Marbaden, everything that they thought they knew gets turned upside down and instead of creating fairytales, they find themselves living in one.
A/N: Written as part of the dc-everafter Challenge. This is loosely based on the film The Brothers Grimm starring Matt Damon and Heath Ledger. Some significant changes have been made compared to the film but there will still be plot spoilers for those who have yet to watch The Brothers Grimm.
Special thanks to my lovely beta reader, skylar_matthews, and to talli_approved for creating the challenge. This was an awesome excuse to fuse the SPN universe with one of my favorite films and I had a great time writing this! Lastly, I want to thank h4ppy-fun-b4ll for creating beautiful artwork to accompany my fic. It was fun working with you, darling! <3
Prologue | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | Epilogue | Art Masterpost
“Sam!”
Dean burst through the trees and into the gulley behind his brother, crying out in surprise as he lost his footing. A firm grip on his shoulder steadied him and he turned back to stare into Castiel’s blown, blue eyes, his gratitude trapped on the tip of his tongue. Castiel’s face was only inches from his and up this close, he could see every detail on the hunter’s face: from the way his eyes widened, the pupils collapsing in the open sunlight and exposing more of that heated blue, the stubble that dotted his chin surrounding those rough, plush lips…
Dean swallowed, his throat suddenly dry.
“You should be more careful,” was all that Castiel said, releasing his hold on Dean. He stepped around Dean and descended down the small dip that led into the glade.
With the sun now shining above them, indicating it was already after noon, Dean was finally able to see clearly for what felt like the first time in hours. The forest had opened up into a medium-sized glade, a tall, old stone tower rising up in the middle. Brush and vines wrapped around its base, stretching up along the weathered stone but barely reaching midway up the tower. For the most part, it remained intact and loomed over the surrounding forest at what must have been at least 12 meters.
Dean made his way down after Castiel, half walking and half sliding, until his feet hit the level, forest floor. Sam was already walking around the base of the tower while Castiel stood to the side, quietly observing.
“Hey, there’s a stream,” Dean said. The water from the well in Marbaden had a funny aftertaste and this spring looked crystal clear and refreshing.
“I would not drink from there,” Castiel advised, not even bothering to look at Dean. “Even the animals will not venture out here to drink it.”
Dean was going to ignore Castiel anyway. But as he bent down to dip his hands in the clear running water, a crow flapped onto a branch over hanging the stream and cawed loudly.
The noise startled Dean and he tripped into the stream.
“Jesus fucking-”
“You okay, Dean?”
Sam rushed over and helped Dean up. All the while, the crow continued to observe the two brothers and it was giving Dean the creeps.
“Even the animals are dicks in this place,” Dean complained. The satchel he had found earlier was now soaked. Grabbing the remaining, dripping wet loaf, he tossed it at the crow and watched with satisfaction as it hobbled off the branch and took off into the air.
His triumphant smirk was met with an annoyed look from Sam. “Seriously, Dean?”
“Deserved it.”
Sam sighed. “I’ve walked all around the tower but I couldn’t find a way to get in. Doesn’t look like there’s a door.”
“That’s because there isn’t one. The way to get in is up there,” Castiel said. Sam and Dean walked over to the other side of the tower, Dean cringing every time his feet squished against the grass. They looked up and saw a large, single window at the top of the tower.
“…guess they didn’t come this way,” Dean said. The satchel was dripping wet at his side so he tossed it on to the ground.
“I’m not so sure about that.” Sam bent down and picked up an abandoned lantern, tucked away behind a shrub. The glass had cracked and it was smeared in dirt. However, it wasn’t old or rusted. “I think this was used recently.”
“…so where’d they go?” Dean asked.
Castiel was walking around, observing any disturbances in the earth. “…I cannot be sure.”
Sam was still staring at the window high above them. “Hey, Castiel…does everyone in your village know about this place?”
“Yes. Though few have ventured out this far.”
“What’s this got to do with two missing kids?” Dean demanded.
Sam ignored him. “Why’s that?”
“The villagers tell many myths about this place, some that even the oldest claim are true,” Castiel responded. “Most of them are more terrified of this place than the forest.”
“What sort of things do they say?”
It took a moment for Castiel to reply, brows furrowed in concentration. “…many years ago, some say centuries, they believe that an old witch inhabited this forest.”
As Sam turned back to the tower, recognition shone in his eyes. “Wait! I think I’ve heard of this one. This old witch-she used to abduct children from the village, right?”
“Yes, that is what they say.”
“And she had found the key to living forever. But her spell for eternal life didn’t account for eternal youth so she had to drink the blood of children in order to steal their youth. The villagers eventually found her and chased her out of the forest.” This time, Castiel simply nodded his affirmation. “But with her youth restored, the witch later tricked a young king into marrying her. But as they aged, she didn’t. The king thought his wife was just blessed with beauty.”
“Until an old villager came upon the lord’s court, seeking aid for his family,” Castiel said. “He identified the queen as the old witch and in his anger, the king had her locked away in the dungeons. He then built this tower, here in the forest, where she was to remain for the rest of her days.”
“…so it’s not just the tales about the trees that scare the children from coming out here,” Sam said, “because the legend also says that she lures children to her tower by singing to them.”
“Singing?” Dean asked, looking skeptically at Sam. “Don’t know how that’ll help. There’s no door here.”
“She doesn’t need a door, Dean. She sings and its put them under some kind of spell. Then she lets her hair fall and they use it like a ladder to get up to her window,” Sam finished.
“…you are just one encyclopedia of weird…”
Dean ignored Sam’s bitch face.
“Why didn’t any of the villagers mention her?” Sam asked.
“Whether they believe or not, many of them are afraid. They also say that if you speak her name, you may invoke her…though, I suspect this later myth was created to help the villagers forget the pain she brought upon the village.”
“You don’t actually believe any of this, do you?” Dean asked Castiel. The disbelief in his voice caused Castiel to stare oddly at Dean.
“…you have seen witches before though,” Castiel responded. “You said you have hunted them.”
Dean smiled uneasily. “Right. Witch hunting. Hate the things. They’re freaken gross with their ‘eye of newts’ and stuff. Ain’t that right, Sammy?”
But Sam had stopped paying attention to them and was walking around the tower again. “…did you guys see there are 10 stone tombs here?”
Castiel was still staring at Dean and it was starting to make him uncomfortable. Didn’t anyone ever teach the guy it was rude to stare? “Huh, 10 of them? Well that’s…interesting…”
“…if you do not believe this, then what do you believe?” Castiel asked quietly. The way his voice faded into a husky, gravelly whisper made Dean shiver and heat to pool down in places he really didn’t want to think about. Not only was the strange disappearances crossing a boundary of his rational thinking that shouldn’t have been in question but the way Castiel looked at him, with an intensity that tore at his walls and exposed all of his insecurities, also had him wanting to cross that line that he had never crossed in his many brief flings.
Put simply, Dean was scared shitless. Because if Castiel kept looking at him like that, Dean didn’t know what he was going to do.
“…we should return back to the village,” Castiel said, tearing his eyes away from Dean’s.
Dean released the breath he hadn’t known he was holding, his heart pounding wildly in his chest.
And just when Dean had thought he had had his fill of ‘weird’ for the day, Castiel crouched down and picked up a large toad that had hopped onto his trekking boot.
“She will show us the way,” Castiel said, with deadpan seriousness. “Grandmother toad, lead us through the woods, and I will give you a kiss.”
Then Castiel lifted the toad to his mouth and licked its back.
“Dude, I don’t think that’s gonna-”
The toad croaked and hopped out of Castiel’s hand, jumping up onto the path. Exchanging a look with Sam, who merely shrugged, Dean grabbed the satchel and followed their guide out of the glade.
*
“So now we’ve got moving trees, a wolf, and a crazy, old witch haunting the forest…great, what do we ‘kill’ first?” Dean rifled through the bags they had brought with them, tossing numerous tools, props, and costume pieces onto the bed. “Shit; I think those dickwads have our witch gear.”
Sam was sitting on his bed and flipping through a book on folklore. He pushed his bangs back when they fell over his eyes, so engrossed that he wasn’t listening to Dean. “It says we might have to reverse the spell to stop the witch by destroying any objects that are the source of her power.”
“…really? Harry and Ed still have that wand we used back in Frankfurt?”
“-but we’ll have to try and find a way up to the tower, if that’s where she is-”
“A ladder! I know they’ve got a ladder on them!” Dean said excitedly, picking up a quill and scribbling down his list in his messy, unpracticed hand. “So we’ve got ‘wand, ladder, witch’s cloak, wig’…one of us should go to Hamburg and get them.”
“-and we’ll have to block out the sound of her voice somehow,” Sam continued.
“Candle wax’ll do it!”
“…and we’ll need Cas to help us fight the witch since the path keeps shifting-”
“Wait, what?”
Sam looked up from his book as if only just noticing Dean was in the room. “Oh, I was just saying we’ll need Cas to show us how to get back there.”
“…or we could just follow the path…”
“Not as easy as it sounds, Dean. You saw how we almost got lost today. Without Cas, we wouldn’t have gotten out of there.”
“Guy licks a toad and he’s suddenly Cas: Master Navigator? We’ll make it through the forest without him. Unless you want him to be a witness to our ‘witch slaying’. Personally, I was thinking someone the villagers don’t think is screwed in the head. Like maybe that Lisa chick-”
“We are talking about killing the witch, right?”
“Same thing we always do.” But when Sam looked at Dean in surprise, Dean realized they were talking about two different things. “Really, Sam? You think there’s some old hag eating kids out there?”
“Not eating them. But using them to stay young,” Sam replied. “If you take a look at this, I think I can figure out a way to stop-”
“We really gonna have this conversation, Sam?” Dean demanded, tossing down his journal angrily. “’Cuz I shouldn’t have to tell you that monsters aren’t real. I mean, come on! They teach you nothing in Marburg?”
“Dean, something weird’s going on here. Like really, genuinely weird! We can’t go on pretending you didn’t see what we saw today. And since when do you want to have this conversation?”
“Look, I get that you’re into this stuff. You’ve always liked myth and lore and you used to eat up mom’s bedtime stories like they were your own bible to life,” Dean started, jaw tensing. The painful memories of their mother brought with it a familiar, deeply buried ache that Dean tried desperately to push back down. “But these things are. Not. Real. And wanting them to be real doesn’t change that. We gotta be reasonable ‘bout this. If we wanna finish this job, we gotta make ‘em think we’ve killed a witch. So tomorrow morning, I’m going to Hamburg to get Harry and Ed-”
“And what about the children, Dean!” Sam suddenly yelled, tossing his book on the floor. “Something out there’s been taking them!”
“Yeah, a freaken wolf! You heard what Cas said. But if these people want to go on believing that it’s witches or ghouls or moving trees and leprechauns, I say we give ‘em a fucking witch and get the hell out of here!”
“We can’t just trick them like that, Dean!”
“No, but we can’t do anything for them either!” But as much as Dean was seeing red, he could also feel guilt eating away at him and so his anger began to abate. “We really can’t. Not like we can go find this wolf we’ve never hunted before. So all we can do is pretend to stop some witch and give ‘em peace of mind.”
Sam, however, was not about to relent. “Dean, I just think-”
And Dean had had enough. Before he could stop himself, he found himself saying, “yeah, well the last time you ‘just thought’, mom died.”
The pain on Sam’s face was all that Dean got in response before Sam stormed out of the room, slamming the door.
With Sam gone, Dean sighed and pulled out his flask of whiskey.
*
Like a whisper on the wind, she heard the voice calling her, lulling her from dreamless sleep. It was as soothing as it was sorrow filled, as beautiful as it was haunting, and before Jo knew it, she was climbing over her mother and stepping quietly down the ladder, descending onto the floor below.
She reached up with small hands to unlock the door to her home, shivering as the cool, evening air brushed over her exposed arms. The voice was coming from the stable beside her house where the few horses that the villagers owned had been put away for the night.
With the voice singing to her, a lonely tune that twisted at her heart, Jo walked into the stable. The torches were still lit and the horses were shuffling uncomfortably in their stalls, some whinnying and others struggling as if trying to escape. But the noise of the commotion didn’t reach Jo’s ears and her eyes were only set on the horse standing in the middle of the stable.
The song seemed to be coming from its dark muzzle and as strange and foreign as the horse was to Jo, it told her not to be afraid. So Jo believed it.
As Jo stood in front of the horse, the voice stopped whispering. And like being awoken from a trance, Jo suddenly became aware of everything around her.
“…where am I?” she wondered, blinking. She looked up at the horse that towered over her. “…how did you get out of your cage, little pony?”
With her small hand outstretched, she reached up to nuzzle its nose.
…but her hand stopped midway as she looked into its blood red eyes.
Smoke flared from its nostrils.
Jo screamed.
*
Sam rushed out into the center of the village. Beside the well, a large, dark horse loomed over a screaming girl with long, blond hair.
“Jo!” a woman screamed, from somewhere behind him.
A body crashed into Sam, causing him to stumble a few steps forward.
“’wha’s goin’ on?” Dean mumbled, disoriented.
Sam gaped at Dean. “…are you drunk?!”
Dean swayed a little on his feet. “Pfft…no!”
The torchlight glinted off of Dean’s silver flask.
“…you hear a girl screaming and you couldn’t even put that thing down?!”
But another scream told them this wasn’t the time, or the place, to address Dean’s lack of sobriety.
Pulling out his pistol, Sam ran forward while Dean stumbled behind him. One of the villager’s was already moving towards the horse, pitchfork in hand, when the horse bucked and kicked the man over, knocking him unconscious.
As the girl tried to crawl away, the horse opened its mouth impossibly wide, jaw snapping and skin stretching. It dipped its head and gulped the girl down with little effort, its dark belly also becoming impossibly larger. Sam’s jaw fell open and he dropped his pistol.
“…the fuck?!” Dean exclaimed.
The girl’s screams could still be heard, now coming from inside the horse. But all the villagers were too shocked and terrified to move.
An arrow shot through the air and struck the horse in its hind leg. The horse whined and launched forward, galloping as fast as its now fat body would take it towards the forest.
“It’s the cursed one!” somebody shouted.
Dean and Sam saw Castiel quickly move from where he was hidden in the shadows, racing out of the line of torchlight and towards the forest.
And shaking off their shock, the Grimm brothers took off after Castiel, hoping it wasn’t too late.
*
As Dean stumbled and tripped along the path, he was starting to regret finishing off his flask of whiskey. And then refilling it. And then finishing that off and adding more. But in his defense he had forgotten to add ‘kill girl-eating horses’ on his To Do list.
The trees whizzed by in blurs and while Dean liked to think it was because he was moving so fast, he bet it had more to do with the whiskey. As he and Sam entered the dark woods, Castiel, who was a few good meters in front of them, soon disappeared from sight.
“Sh-shit!” Sam panted, slowing down and leaning against a tree for support. He panted heavily. “I-I can’t even see him.”
Dean collapsed onto the ground in the middle of the path. “Jesus Christ!” he gasped, struggling to regain his breath. “Not cut out for this.”
Moonlight trickled in from the treetops above them, illuminating the path in a soft, silver hue. Not much farther up ahead, they knew that the path would get much darker and without a torch, they would be unable to navigate through the forest.
“Let’s keep going,” Sam said.
The determination in his voice was suicide, as far as Dean was concerned.
Dean drunkenly stumbled back onto his feet and decided it must be some divine miracle that he hadn’t thrown up yet. Hell, seeing as horses apparently ate children now, miracles were no longer as far fetched as he’d normally be inclined to think. “You crazy, Sammy? We dunno where’s the up ‘n down in there!”
“…what?”
“I mean,” Dean slurred, swaying a little. “we dunno up ‘n down from lef’ ta right…iz so dark! Lez go back!”
But the sound of groaning cut through the forest and it sent both of their blood running cold. When they turned around, the forest path had disappeared and all that they could see were trees.
“God damnit!” Dean cursed. “Ok, ok, trees friggin’ move! I ge’ it now!” So maybe horses eat children whole, trees move to piss off travelers, and who knows, maybe Dean will even give them that licking toads can guide you through the forest. But the last thing he wanted was to be dealing with a witch in a dark forest or any of her animal minions. “Better be no freaken wolves.”
But then, given Dean’s amazing luck since entering Marbaden, a wolf howled not far from where he and Sam were standing on the now lost path.
“Anything else you wanna ask for, Dean?” Sam said, sarcastically.
“Nah, ‘m good.”
And without a moment’s hesitation, they took off running in the direction they thought they had come from.
They were now off any visible path and branches flew in their faces, scraping up any exposed skin, some snapping off and cracking. Their feet pounded on the uneven ground and in his bleariness, Dean stumbled more than a few times, even tripping and falling down onto his knees.
“We gotta keep moving!” Sam said, helping him up.
Both of them were breathing heavily. But the sound of brush shuffling behind them filled them with new vigor.
When they left the maze of trees, body aching and gasping so desperately for air, they felt their lungs would collapse, Sam wheezed out a frustrated groan.
Sobriety hadn’t quite reached Dean yet but even through the haze, he could make out the dark, open field. There was no village in sight.
“We…must have…went the wrong way…” Sam panted.
The vicious retort in Dean’s head, No shit! remained unvoiced as the sound of low growling caused both of them to freeze. Sam had turned and was facing the forest behind them, brown eyes wide. Dean was still panting but already slowly reaching for the pistol in his belt.
“Where’s it?” he whispered.
“Your 9 o’clock.”
Dean quickly turned and fired the shot.
The sandy colored wolf pounced out of the way, landing just meters from where Dean stood to his left. It wasn’t like any wolf either of the brothers had seen, though admittedly they had seen very few in their life. It was larger than a wolf should be, its coloring a bit off from the wolves that hunted in these parts. It stared at them with almost the kind of intelligence a wild beast shouldn’t possess and that just gave Dean all the more reason to feel threatened.
“Stay back, Sammy!”
He aimed the pistol again at the wolf. Hell, drunk or not, he wasn’t letting that thing anywhere near Sam.
The wolf sniffed the air and, if a wolf could make such an expression, recognition dawned in its large, brown eyes.
“Dean, look out!”
But the moment Dean turned a large, black shape jumped at him and knocked him onto his back. The pistol went flying out his hands but he was unable to reach for it, unable to move, since whatever was on top of him had him pinned. His vision became filled with pitch, black fur and eyes so blue, they shone brilliantly in contrast to its midnight fur. But then Dean’s eyes drifted to its mouth full of pointed, white fangs and he began to struggle to get the thing off of him.
The dog-wolf-whatever had little time to do what it had planned for Dean when a shot rang through the air and it bounced off of Dean, crying out and retreating into the forest.
Dean scrambled onto his feet, stumbling and then promptly falling back down. “What the-fuck!”
“You alright, Dean?”
Dean’s vision was swimming. “I don’t-there’s two of them?!”
“Mine’s only got rock salt pellets,” Sam said, putting the pistol away and helping Dean up. “But I think we scared it off.”
There was something about the dog-wolf’s eyes that was eating away at Dean. Something about those blue, stormy depths he had been staring into only moments before…
“Cas!” Dean suddenly said.
“Cas?”
“He’s still in there!”
Dean grabbed his pistol and ran back into the woods. Whatever it was that he couldn’t put his finger on, it would have to wait until later.
*
It didn’t take too long before they found Castiel. Leaning against a tree for support, he was breathing hard, sweat trickling down his face and soaking the collar of his shirt. In what little moonlight crept through the canopy of trees, Dean could just make out those blue eyes, pupils blown and looking so feral they sent a shiver down his spine.
“Are you okay?” Sam asked.
Castiel nodded numbly, though Dean could see drops of blood speckling his left sleeve.
“Jesus, Cas-”
“It’s just a scratch,” he said, a bit too quickly. His sigh was tinged with regret. “I lost Jo after it went deep into the woods.”
“Should we go after it?” Sam asked, hands already reaching for his pistol.
Dean, who at least was now thinking and seeing a bit more clearly, slapped Sam’s hand away. “Easy there, Ranger Rick. Cas here-”
“Castiel.”
Dean ignored Castiel’s interjection. “-is tired and we were almost mauled by wolves. We should get back, sleep on it, and if we wake up tomorrow and this isn’t some fucked up dream where horses eat people and trees are dicks, then we can go after the thing.”
“But, Dean, Jo might be-”
“If you’re gonna say alive, Sammy, I swear…one word: Eaten. By. Horses.”
“Actually, that was three.”
“Not helping, Cas.”
“Castiel.”
Fuck, Dean was too tired for this.
Exhausted, Sam and Dean followed Castiel’s directions, the three of them eventually making it back to Castiel’s hut. While Dean blanched as the smell of decay assaulted his nostrils at first, his weary body eventually settled in the bed that he was shoved into and he fell into a fitful slumber.
Chapter 5
Beta: skylar_matthews
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: PG-13
Genre: AU, Brothers Grimm verse, Fusion, adventure, horror
Pairings: Dean/Cas, mentions of Dean/Cassie, suggested Dean/Lisa
Spoilers: Some for The Brothers Grimm
Warnings: some sexual situations, violence, abuse of the French language, lots of UST
Word Count: 26 000 (in total)
Summary: Under the new French occupation, Dean and Sam Grimm have made a living conning people into believing that fairytales and monsters are real. But when they stumble upon the village of Marbaden, everything that they thought they knew gets turned upside down and instead of creating fairytales, they find themselves living in one.
A/N: Written as part of the dc-everafter Challenge. This is loosely based on the film The Brothers Grimm starring Matt Damon and Heath Ledger. Some significant changes have been made compared to the film but there will still be plot spoilers for those who have yet to watch The Brothers Grimm.
Special thanks to my lovely beta reader, skylar_matthews, and to talli_approved for creating the challenge. This was an awesome excuse to fuse the SPN universe with one of my favorite films and I had a great time writing this! Lastly, I want to thank h4ppy-fun-b4ll for creating beautiful artwork to accompany my fic. It was fun working with you, darling! <3
Prologue | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | Epilogue | Art Masterpost
“Sam!”
Dean burst through the trees and into the gulley behind his brother, crying out in surprise as he lost his footing. A firm grip on his shoulder steadied him and he turned back to stare into Castiel’s blown, blue eyes, his gratitude trapped on the tip of his tongue. Castiel’s face was only inches from his and up this close, he could see every detail on the hunter’s face: from the way his eyes widened, the pupils collapsing in the open sunlight and exposing more of that heated blue, the stubble that dotted his chin surrounding those rough, plush lips…
Dean swallowed, his throat suddenly dry.
“You should be more careful,” was all that Castiel said, releasing his hold on Dean. He stepped around Dean and descended down the small dip that led into the glade.
With the sun now shining above them, indicating it was already after noon, Dean was finally able to see clearly for what felt like the first time in hours. The forest had opened up into a medium-sized glade, a tall, old stone tower rising up in the middle. Brush and vines wrapped around its base, stretching up along the weathered stone but barely reaching midway up the tower. For the most part, it remained intact and loomed over the surrounding forest at what must have been at least 12 meters.
Dean made his way down after Castiel, half walking and half sliding, until his feet hit the level, forest floor. Sam was already walking around the base of the tower while Castiel stood to the side, quietly observing.
“Hey, there’s a stream,” Dean said. The water from the well in Marbaden had a funny aftertaste and this spring looked crystal clear and refreshing.
“I would not drink from there,” Castiel advised, not even bothering to look at Dean. “Even the animals will not venture out here to drink it.”
Dean was going to ignore Castiel anyway. But as he bent down to dip his hands in the clear running water, a crow flapped onto a branch over hanging the stream and cawed loudly.
The noise startled Dean and he tripped into the stream.
“Jesus fucking-”
“You okay, Dean?”
Sam rushed over and helped Dean up. All the while, the crow continued to observe the two brothers and it was giving Dean the creeps.
“Even the animals are dicks in this place,” Dean complained. The satchel he had found earlier was now soaked. Grabbing the remaining, dripping wet loaf, he tossed it at the crow and watched with satisfaction as it hobbled off the branch and took off into the air.
His triumphant smirk was met with an annoyed look from Sam. “Seriously, Dean?”
“Deserved it.”
Sam sighed. “I’ve walked all around the tower but I couldn’t find a way to get in. Doesn’t look like there’s a door.”
“That’s because there isn’t one. The way to get in is up there,” Castiel said. Sam and Dean walked over to the other side of the tower, Dean cringing every time his feet squished against the grass. They looked up and saw a large, single window at the top of the tower.
“…guess they didn’t come this way,” Dean said. The satchel was dripping wet at his side so he tossed it on to the ground.
“I’m not so sure about that.” Sam bent down and picked up an abandoned lantern, tucked away behind a shrub. The glass had cracked and it was smeared in dirt. However, it wasn’t old or rusted. “I think this was used recently.”
“…so where’d they go?” Dean asked.
Castiel was walking around, observing any disturbances in the earth. “…I cannot be sure.”
Sam was still staring at the window high above them. “Hey, Castiel…does everyone in your village know about this place?”
“Yes. Though few have ventured out this far.”
“What’s this got to do with two missing kids?” Dean demanded.
Sam ignored him. “Why’s that?”
“The villagers tell many myths about this place, some that even the oldest claim are true,” Castiel responded. “Most of them are more terrified of this place than the forest.”
“What sort of things do they say?”
It took a moment for Castiel to reply, brows furrowed in concentration. “…many years ago, some say centuries, they believe that an old witch inhabited this forest.”
As Sam turned back to the tower, recognition shone in his eyes. “Wait! I think I’ve heard of this one. This old witch-she used to abduct children from the village, right?”
“Yes, that is what they say.”
“And she had found the key to living forever. But her spell for eternal life didn’t account for eternal youth so she had to drink the blood of children in order to steal their youth. The villagers eventually found her and chased her out of the forest.” This time, Castiel simply nodded his affirmation. “But with her youth restored, the witch later tricked a young king into marrying her. But as they aged, she didn’t. The king thought his wife was just blessed with beauty.”
“Until an old villager came upon the lord’s court, seeking aid for his family,” Castiel said. “He identified the queen as the old witch and in his anger, the king had her locked away in the dungeons. He then built this tower, here in the forest, where she was to remain for the rest of her days.”
“…so it’s not just the tales about the trees that scare the children from coming out here,” Sam said, “because the legend also says that she lures children to her tower by singing to them.”
“Singing?” Dean asked, looking skeptically at Sam. “Don’t know how that’ll help. There’s no door here.”
“She doesn’t need a door, Dean. She sings and its put them under some kind of spell. Then she lets her hair fall and they use it like a ladder to get up to her window,” Sam finished.
“…you are just one encyclopedia of weird…”
Dean ignored Sam’s bitch face.
“Why didn’t any of the villagers mention her?” Sam asked.
“Whether they believe or not, many of them are afraid. They also say that if you speak her name, you may invoke her…though, I suspect this later myth was created to help the villagers forget the pain she brought upon the village.”
“You don’t actually believe any of this, do you?” Dean asked Castiel. The disbelief in his voice caused Castiel to stare oddly at Dean.
“…you have seen witches before though,” Castiel responded. “You said you have hunted them.”
Dean smiled uneasily. “Right. Witch hunting. Hate the things. They’re freaken gross with their ‘eye of newts’ and stuff. Ain’t that right, Sammy?”
But Sam had stopped paying attention to them and was walking around the tower again. “…did you guys see there are 10 stone tombs here?”
Castiel was still staring at Dean and it was starting to make him uncomfortable. Didn’t anyone ever teach the guy it was rude to stare? “Huh, 10 of them? Well that’s…interesting…”
“…if you do not believe this, then what do you believe?” Castiel asked quietly. The way his voice faded into a husky, gravelly whisper made Dean shiver and heat to pool down in places he really didn’t want to think about. Not only was the strange disappearances crossing a boundary of his rational thinking that shouldn’t have been in question but the way Castiel looked at him, with an intensity that tore at his walls and exposed all of his insecurities, also had him wanting to cross that line that he had never crossed in his many brief flings.
Put simply, Dean was scared shitless. Because if Castiel kept looking at him like that, Dean didn’t know what he was going to do.
“…we should return back to the village,” Castiel said, tearing his eyes away from Dean’s.
Dean released the breath he hadn’t known he was holding, his heart pounding wildly in his chest.
And just when Dean had thought he had had his fill of ‘weird’ for the day, Castiel crouched down and picked up a large toad that had hopped onto his trekking boot.
“She will show us the way,” Castiel said, with deadpan seriousness. “Grandmother toad, lead us through the woods, and I will give you a kiss.”
Then Castiel lifted the toad to his mouth and licked its back.
“Dude, I don’t think that’s gonna-”
The toad croaked and hopped out of Castiel’s hand, jumping up onto the path. Exchanging a look with Sam, who merely shrugged, Dean grabbed the satchel and followed their guide out of the glade.
*
“So now we’ve got moving trees, a wolf, and a crazy, old witch haunting the forest…great, what do we ‘kill’ first?” Dean rifled through the bags they had brought with them, tossing numerous tools, props, and costume pieces onto the bed. “Shit; I think those dickwads have our witch gear.”
Sam was sitting on his bed and flipping through a book on folklore. He pushed his bangs back when they fell over his eyes, so engrossed that he wasn’t listening to Dean. “It says we might have to reverse the spell to stop the witch by destroying any objects that are the source of her power.”
“…really? Harry and Ed still have that wand we used back in Frankfurt?”
“-but we’ll have to try and find a way up to the tower, if that’s where she is-”
“A ladder! I know they’ve got a ladder on them!” Dean said excitedly, picking up a quill and scribbling down his list in his messy, unpracticed hand. “So we’ve got ‘wand, ladder, witch’s cloak, wig’…one of us should go to Hamburg and get them.”
“-and we’ll have to block out the sound of her voice somehow,” Sam continued.
“Candle wax’ll do it!”
“…and we’ll need Cas to help us fight the witch since the path keeps shifting-”
“Wait, what?”
Sam looked up from his book as if only just noticing Dean was in the room. “Oh, I was just saying we’ll need Cas to show us how to get back there.”
“…or we could just follow the path…”
“Not as easy as it sounds, Dean. You saw how we almost got lost today. Without Cas, we wouldn’t have gotten out of there.”
“Guy licks a toad and he’s suddenly Cas: Master Navigator? We’ll make it through the forest without him. Unless you want him to be a witness to our ‘witch slaying’. Personally, I was thinking someone the villagers don’t think is screwed in the head. Like maybe that Lisa chick-”
“We are talking about killing the witch, right?”
“Same thing we always do.” But when Sam looked at Dean in surprise, Dean realized they were talking about two different things. “Really, Sam? You think there’s some old hag eating kids out there?”
“Not eating them. But using them to stay young,” Sam replied. “If you take a look at this, I think I can figure out a way to stop-”
“We really gonna have this conversation, Sam?” Dean demanded, tossing down his journal angrily. “’Cuz I shouldn’t have to tell you that monsters aren’t real. I mean, come on! They teach you nothing in Marburg?”
“Dean, something weird’s going on here. Like really, genuinely weird! We can’t go on pretending you didn’t see what we saw today. And since when do you want to have this conversation?”
“Look, I get that you’re into this stuff. You’ve always liked myth and lore and you used to eat up mom’s bedtime stories like they were your own bible to life,” Dean started, jaw tensing. The painful memories of their mother brought with it a familiar, deeply buried ache that Dean tried desperately to push back down. “But these things are. Not. Real. And wanting them to be real doesn’t change that. We gotta be reasonable ‘bout this. If we wanna finish this job, we gotta make ‘em think we’ve killed a witch. So tomorrow morning, I’m going to Hamburg to get Harry and Ed-”
“And what about the children, Dean!” Sam suddenly yelled, tossing his book on the floor. “Something out there’s been taking them!”
“Yeah, a freaken wolf! You heard what Cas said. But if these people want to go on believing that it’s witches or ghouls or moving trees and leprechauns, I say we give ‘em a fucking witch and get the hell out of here!”
“We can’t just trick them like that, Dean!”
“No, but we can’t do anything for them either!” But as much as Dean was seeing red, he could also feel guilt eating away at him and so his anger began to abate. “We really can’t. Not like we can go find this wolf we’ve never hunted before. So all we can do is pretend to stop some witch and give ‘em peace of mind.”
Sam, however, was not about to relent. “Dean, I just think-”
And Dean had had enough. Before he could stop himself, he found himself saying, “yeah, well the last time you ‘just thought’, mom died.”
The pain on Sam’s face was all that Dean got in response before Sam stormed out of the room, slamming the door.
With Sam gone, Dean sighed and pulled out his flask of whiskey.
*
Like a whisper on the wind, she heard the voice calling her, lulling her from dreamless sleep. It was as soothing as it was sorrow filled, as beautiful as it was haunting, and before Jo knew it, she was climbing over her mother and stepping quietly down the ladder, descending onto the floor below.
She reached up with small hands to unlock the door to her home, shivering as the cool, evening air brushed over her exposed arms. The voice was coming from the stable beside her house where the few horses that the villagers owned had been put away for the night.
With the voice singing to her, a lonely tune that twisted at her heart, Jo walked into the stable. The torches were still lit and the horses were shuffling uncomfortably in their stalls, some whinnying and others struggling as if trying to escape. But the noise of the commotion didn’t reach Jo’s ears and her eyes were only set on the horse standing in the middle of the stable.
The song seemed to be coming from its dark muzzle and as strange and foreign as the horse was to Jo, it told her not to be afraid. So Jo believed it.
As Jo stood in front of the horse, the voice stopped whispering. And like being awoken from a trance, Jo suddenly became aware of everything around her.
“…where am I?” she wondered, blinking. She looked up at the horse that towered over her. “…how did you get out of your cage, little pony?”
With her small hand outstretched, she reached up to nuzzle its nose.
…but her hand stopped midway as she looked into its blood red eyes.
Smoke flared from its nostrils.
Jo screamed.
*
Sam rushed out into the center of the village. Beside the well, a large, dark horse loomed over a screaming girl with long, blond hair.
“Jo!” a woman screamed, from somewhere behind him.
A body crashed into Sam, causing him to stumble a few steps forward.
“’wha’s goin’ on?” Dean mumbled, disoriented.
Sam gaped at Dean. “…are you drunk?!”
Dean swayed a little on his feet. “Pfft…no!”
The torchlight glinted off of Dean’s silver flask.
“…you hear a girl screaming and you couldn’t even put that thing down?!”
But another scream told them this wasn’t the time, or the place, to address Dean’s lack of sobriety.
Pulling out his pistol, Sam ran forward while Dean stumbled behind him. One of the villager’s was already moving towards the horse, pitchfork in hand, when the horse bucked and kicked the man over, knocking him unconscious.
As the girl tried to crawl away, the horse opened its mouth impossibly wide, jaw snapping and skin stretching. It dipped its head and gulped the girl down with little effort, its dark belly also becoming impossibly larger. Sam’s jaw fell open and he dropped his pistol.
“…the fuck?!” Dean exclaimed.
The girl’s screams could still be heard, now coming from inside the horse. But all the villagers were too shocked and terrified to move.
An arrow shot through the air and struck the horse in its hind leg. The horse whined and launched forward, galloping as fast as its now fat body would take it towards the forest.
“It’s the cursed one!” somebody shouted.
Dean and Sam saw Castiel quickly move from where he was hidden in the shadows, racing out of the line of torchlight and towards the forest.
And shaking off their shock, the Grimm brothers took off after Castiel, hoping it wasn’t too late.
*
As Dean stumbled and tripped along the path, he was starting to regret finishing off his flask of whiskey. And then refilling it. And then finishing that off and adding more. But in his defense he had forgotten to add ‘kill girl-eating horses’ on his To Do list.
The trees whizzed by in blurs and while Dean liked to think it was because he was moving so fast, he bet it had more to do with the whiskey. As he and Sam entered the dark woods, Castiel, who was a few good meters in front of them, soon disappeared from sight.
“Sh-shit!” Sam panted, slowing down and leaning against a tree for support. He panted heavily. “I-I can’t even see him.”
Dean collapsed onto the ground in the middle of the path. “Jesus Christ!” he gasped, struggling to regain his breath. “Not cut out for this.”
Moonlight trickled in from the treetops above them, illuminating the path in a soft, silver hue. Not much farther up ahead, they knew that the path would get much darker and without a torch, they would be unable to navigate through the forest.
“Let’s keep going,” Sam said.
The determination in his voice was suicide, as far as Dean was concerned.
Dean drunkenly stumbled back onto his feet and decided it must be some divine miracle that he hadn’t thrown up yet. Hell, seeing as horses apparently ate children now, miracles were no longer as far fetched as he’d normally be inclined to think. “You crazy, Sammy? We dunno where’s the up ‘n down in there!”
“…what?”
“I mean,” Dean slurred, swaying a little. “we dunno up ‘n down from lef’ ta right…iz so dark! Lez go back!”
But the sound of groaning cut through the forest and it sent both of their blood running cold. When they turned around, the forest path had disappeared and all that they could see were trees.
“God damnit!” Dean cursed. “Ok, ok, trees friggin’ move! I ge’ it now!” So maybe horses eat children whole, trees move to piss off travelers, and who knows, maybe Dean will even give them that licking toads can guide you through the forest. But the last thing he wanted was to be dealing with a witch in a dark forest or any of her animal minions. “Better be no freaken wolves.”
But then, given Dean’s amazing luck since entering Marbaden, a wolf howled not far from where he and Sam were standing on the now lost path.
“Anything else you wanna ask for, Dean?” Sam said, sarcastically.
“Nah, ‘m good.”
And without a moment’s hesitation, they took off running in the direction they thought they had come from.
They were now off any visible path and branches flew in their faces, scraping up any exposed skin, some snapping off and cracking. Their feet pounded on the uneven ground and in his bleariness, Dean stumbled more than a few times, even tripping and falling down onto his knees.
“We gotta keep moving!” Sam said, helping him up.
Both of them were breathing heavily. But the sound of brush shuffling behind them filled them with new vigor.
When they left the maze of trees, body aching and gasping so desperately for air, they felt their lungs would collapse, Sam wheezed out a frustrated groan.
Sobriety hadn’t quite reached Dean yet but even through the haze, he could make out the dark, open field. There was no village in sight.
“We…must have…went the wrong way…” Sam panted.
The vicious retort in Dean’s head, No shit! remained unvoiced as the sound of low growling caused both of them to freeze. Sam had turned and was facing the forest behind them, brown eyes wide. Dean was still panting but already slowly reaching for the pistol in his belt.
“Where’s it?” he whispered.
“Your 9 o’clock.”
Dean quickly turned and fired the shot.
The sandy colored wolf pounced out of the way, landing just meters from where Dean stood to his left. It wasn’t like any wolf either of the brothers had seen, though admittedly they had seen very few in their life. It was larger than a wolf should be, its coloring a bit off from the wolves that hunted in these parts. It stared at them with almost the kind of intelligence a wild beast shouldn’t possess and that just gave Dean all the more reason to feel threatened.
“Stay back, Sammy!”
He aimed the pistol again at the wolf. Hell, drunk or not, he wasn’t letting that thing anywhere near Sam.
The wolf sniffed the air and, if a wolf could make such an expression, recognition dawned in its large, brown eyes.
“Dean, look out!”
But the moment Dean turned a large, black shape jumped at him and knocked him onto his back. The pistol went flying out his hands but he was unable to reach for it, unable to move, since whatever was on top of him had him pinned. His vision became filled with pitch, black fur and eyes so blue, they shone brilliantly in contrast to its midnight fur. But then Dean’s eyes drifted to its mouth full of pointed, white fangs and he began to struggle to get the thing off of him.
The dog-wolf-whatever had little time to do what it had planned for Dean when a shot rang through the air and it bounced off of Dean, crying out and retreating into the forest.
Dean scrambled onto his feet, stumbling and then promptly falling back down. “What the-fuck!”
“You alright, Dean?”
Dean’s vision was swimming. “I don’t-there’s two of them?!”
“Mine’s only got rock salt pellets,” Sam said, putting the pistol away and helping Dean up. “But I think we scared it off.”
There was something about the dog-wolf’s eyes that was eating away at Dean. Something about those blue, stormy depths he had been staring into only moments before…
“Cas!” Dean suddenly said.
“Cas?”
“He’s still in there!”
Dean grabbed his pistol and ran back into the woods. Whatever it was that he couldn’t put his finger on, it would have to wait until later.
*
It didn’t take too long before they found Castiel. Leaning against a tree for support, he was breathing hard, sweat trickling down his face and soaking the collar of his shirt. In what little moonlight crept through the canopy of trees, Dean could just make out those blue eyes, pupils blown and looking so feral they sent a shiver down his spine.
“Are you okay?” Sam asked.
Castiel nodded numbly, though Dean could see drops of blood speckling his left sleeve.
“Jesus, Cas-”
“It’s just a scratch,” he said, a bit too quickly. His sigh was tinged with regret. “I lost Jo after it went deep into the woods.”
“Should we go after it?” Sam asked, hands already reaching for his pistol.
Dean, who at least was now thinking and seeing a bit more clearly, slapped Sam’s hand away. “Easy there, Ranger Rick. Cas here-”
“Castiel.”
Dean ignored Castiel’s interjection. “-is tired and we were almost mauled by wolves. We should get back, sleep on it, and if we wake up tomorrow and this isn’t some fucked up dream where horses eat people and trees are dicks, then we can go after the thing.”
“But, Dean, Jo might be-”
“If you’re gonna say alive, Sammy, I swear…one word: Eaten. By. Horses.”
“Actually, that was three.”
“Not helping, Cas.”
“Castiel.”
Fuck, Dean was too tired for this.
Exhausted, Sam and Dean followed Castiel’s directions, the three of them eventually making it back to Castiel’s hut. While Dean blanched as the smell of decay assaulted his nostrils at first, his weary body eventually settled in the bed that he was shoved into and he fell into a fitful slumber.
Chapter 5