Dark Shadows - Metaphysical Gravity - Ch. 14 - Campfire Tales
Previous Chapter Here
Dean rings the doorbell and swings his keys around his finger, catching them in the palm of his hand. He figures he and Ben have time to stop for slushees on the way out of town and still make it to the campsite before dark to set up the tent. Although he feels bad that he Cas can’t come, and feels worse for completely forgetting for that moment about his sun allergy, he’s looking forward to spending the weekend with Ben. Time with Ben is supremely uncomplicated. Not that Dean’s life is difficult, but when he’s with Ben, they talk about video games and movies, then Ben will try to convince Dean that he needs more candy and Dean will say no at first, and eventually give in.
When they go camping, there’s marshmallows and hot cocoa before bedtime and when they catch fish, they make a royal, disgusting mess out of gutting it, with Ben gleefully explaining that every girl he knows, including his step-mom would be horrified by what they’re doing.
It’s fun and simple. And Dean made sure he has more than enough marshmallows for several rounds of s’mores.
“Dean Winchester.”
He looks up at Pamela saying his name. How she always manages to make his name sound suggestive, he will never know.
“Hey Pam, is Ben ready yet?”
She smiles. “Almost. I tried to help but I was very clearly told that it was guy stuff and he didn’t need me poking around in his things.” She steps back out of the doorway and Dean follows her into the house.
He’s been in the house a few of times, usually just long enough to pick up Ben or drop him off so he’s seen the painting of Castiel Collins before but it’s his first time seeing it since he started dating Cas.
Pamela seems to expect that he’ll want to look at it and pauses quietly while he stares at it.
Jesus, it’s amazing. It’s exactly like him.
“Remarkable, isn’t it?” Pamela drawls.
“Yeah,” he nods. “I, uh… yeah.”
The blue of his eyes is perfectly the same, the cut of the jaw, the focus of his gaze. If he hadn’t already seen the painting, he would think that Cas had just posed for it.
“Anna is going to ask Castiel if he’ll pose for her so she can paint a contemporary one as well,” adds Pamela.
Dean nods absently while still staring at the picture. It’s the kind of painting where the eyes seem to follow the viewer as they move through the room.
Pamela tugs on his sleeve playfully and Dean shakes himself slightly as he trails after her into the drawing room.
She sits on the couch with cat-like grace. “I hear you’ve been spending all your spare time up at the old house. With Castiel.”
One of her eyebrows is delicately arched over her almond eyes and although he’s no spring-chicken, he feels a flush start to creep up his neck.
“Uh, yes.”
“I also hear hearts are breaking all over town at the news that Dean Winchester is firmly off the market.”
Dean chuckles. “I wouldn’t know about that.”
“About the gossip or about the fact that you’re off the market?”
“Er, well, the gossip.” Damn, that woman has x-ray eyes and she’s raking him over with them.
“Mm-hmm,” replies Pam. “I’d like to have you and Castiel over for dinner sometime. You let me know when you have a night off at the pub.”
“You bet. Uh, if we’ve got a few minutes, I was hoping I could talk to you about something? About Ben?”
“Of course.”
“Do you know about this friend he has?” He uses his fingers to put air-quotes around the words.
At his expression, Pamela nods. “Oh, you mean Sarah?”
Dean’s surprised. “Yeah, he’s told you about her?”
Pamela shrugs. “Not really, but I’ve seen her around.”
“You’ve seen her?”
“Yes.”
“Ben said she’s dead,” he blurts.
“She is.”
“Okay, what?”
“She’s dead. She’s a ghost.” Pam’s talking to him like it’s the most common topic of conversation in the world and all Dean can do is stare back.
“Dean, I’ve told you before. I’m psychic,” she says plainly, gently, as though he’s a child.
“Yeah, but-”
“But you didn’t believe me. I know. Doesn’t mean it’s not true.”
Cracked. She’s totally cracked. “So you’re telling me that this friend of Ben’s, this Sarah is…”
“A ghost. Yes.”
“And you’ve seen her.” Incredulity coats his words. He can’t believe they’re standing here essentially arguing about ghosts. Even if he ever thought he would argue about them, he certainly never thought he’d have to convince someone that they don’t just hang around.
“Here and there. She used to spend a lot of time here but now I think she spends more time up at the old house. She probably used to live there.”
She says it all casually with a shrug. Like she and Dean have similar discussions every day.
“And this is all okay with you? This is all perfectly normal and doesn’t worry you?”
“Should it?”
“She’s dead! And Ben… well, he… talks to her! And they roam around and do… stuff.”
“Yes, stuff like looking for rocks and building forts in the woods. I believe they’re also reading Swiss Family Robinson. Hardly the stuff of nightmares. It’s harmless. At least I know where he is. He could be out getting into drugs or god only knows what else kids get into these days, but instead, he prefers to spend his time poking around the estate, searching for buried treasure.”
“With a dead girl.”
She waves her hand like this is unimportant. “Dean, I’m sure this is all very… surreal for you, but I’ve dealt with this my whole life. One of the reasons I married Ben’s father is because he was gifted as well and understood me. Clearly he passed that gift on to Ben. Ben seems happy. He’s doing well in school, he has friends other than Sarah, and it’s not as though he’s cut off from the world. And he has you. Now, if he suddenly turned down a weekend of camping with you so he could hang around here with Sarah, or if he asked me to buy him a half dozen hamsters for a ritual sacrifice…” she shrugs. “Then I might start to be concerned. But to him, she’s just another friend.”
“Even though she’s dead.”
“Even though.”
Dean’s still not sure he believes Pam. Maybe she’s the one that’s crazy and she’s feeding this stuff to Ben, and he’s young, impressionable and falls for it. Or maybe both her and Ben are hallucinating, or sick. It could happen. Happens all the time on those bizarre medical dramas. Shared hallucinations brought on by toxic mold, this is an old house, after all
“We don’t have toxic mold, Dean Winchester.”
He jumps back a bit. Pamela’s always been good at reading him but she’s never been that good.
“Well, I figured you needed a little demonstration but, I don’t make a habit of rooting around in your brain, I’ve got better things to do, trust me. Unless you want to start sharing about how much time you’ve been spending up at the old Estate with Castiel?”
Dean gulps. Work, think of work, think of Sam, think of the Impala. Yes! The Impala with its deep engine, low purr that’s just like Cas’… No! Car, car, think of the car.
Pamela laughs, throaty and happy, waving him off with a hand. “Go. Go get Ben and go do your manly man things out in the woods.”
He wouldn’t say he exactly scampers out of the drawing room, but it’s pretty damn close.
***
It’s just starting to cool off, the damp air taking on a chill by the time Dean has the tent set up and a fire going in the pit. Ben’s flipping through comic books catching Dean up on the latest happenings in the Pokemon world.
Dean tries to focus, he really does, but it’s all mumbo jumbo to him. Ben rolls his eyes several times at the questions Dean asks. Dean clearly doesn’t get it. They roast hot dogs for dinner and Dean tosses one into the fire so they can watch it swell up and explode in boyish delight. Ben’s a non-stop chatter box about school, video games, comic books, his friends, and April, who is still apparently his girlfriend and now they even stand next to each other in line after recess, so things have progressed. It’s quite the serious step from the way Ben tells it.
After dinner, Dean toasts marshmallows and stuffs them between graham crackers with bits of chocolate. Ben proclaims he’s old enough to assemble his own, but the first time Dean lets him try, he attempts to put the s’more together while the marshmallow is still on fire.
Dean is master chef of all s’mores after that.
Dean eats far too many and at one point seriously thinks he might be sick. He manages to keep it together and even makes them both a cup of hot cocoa before bedtime.
Tucked into their sleeping bags, Dean’s got his flashlight shining up under his chin while Ben’s is laying flat in his lap.
“… and that’s when they hear the sound… scrape, scrape, scrape. Then one of the guys in the back seat says he remembers reading that morning that a serial killer had escaped from the insane asylum…”
“How?” Ben interrupted.
“What? I don’t know how, he just got out. Anyway, the serial killer only had one hand, on the other was. A. HOOK!”
Ben is totally not impressed and doesn’t even flinch at Dean’s shout.
“Why did they let him keep the hook if he was in jail?” Ben asked.
Dean paused again. “I don’t know. He found it. When he escaped. He found a locker of all his stuff and he found his rusty hook.”
“Why was it rusty?”
“Because it had been sitting in a locker for all those years,” Dean answers, exasperated.
“But why’d they keep it at all? It should have been locked up for evidence. That’s what they do on CSI.”
“This is before CSI,” Dean argues. This was a lot easier with Sam when he was little.
“Is this an old serial killer?”
Dean sighs and drops his flashlight to his lap. “Dude, this is the best story I have.”
Ben shrugs. “Sorry, but it’s kinda lame.”
Dean rolls his eyes. “Fine. Tell me more about Pokemon.” He makes a ‘come on’ gesture with his hand. Part of the fun of camping is staying up late and Dean figures he can take about an hour more of Pokemon before he calls lights out.
“Um, I kind of know a story,” Ben hedges.
“Is this a Pokemon story?”
“No.”
“Super Mario Brothers?”
“No.”
“Is this gonna be like that time you told me all of Star Wars and tried to convince me you wrote it?”
“That was you!”
Dean laughs. “So it was. Okay, I’m listening.” Especially if it’s not Pokemon.
Ben tips his own flashlight up so it’s shining under his chin, just like Dean had before. “Um, like a long time ago, there was a witch that lived in Collinsport. And her name was Ruby.”
Dean shivers slightly and he looks over his shoulder, checking for a draft or crack in the tent seam but there isn’t one. He turns back to Ben.
“And Ruby was really mean. She would kick dogs when she saw them on the street and she never took her gloves off when she went in someone's house and that was really rude. Her hair was always down and she never tied it up properly and her dresses were…” Ben pauses like he’s trying to recall a certain word. “… improper.”
Dean frowns. That’s an unusual word choice for Ben, but Dean doesn’t say anything.
“And Ruby didn’t ever go to church. ‘cause she was a witch and God would strike her down if she set foot inside a holy building. She rode a big brown horse and it was scrawny and never fed enough and Ruby would whip it when she rode it because the horse wouldn’t go fast enough for her. Most people in town thought she was just mean, but she was a witch.”
“Where did you hear this story, Ben?” Dean asks, concerned at Ben’s odd words.
“Sarah told me,” Ben says easily.
Dean nods absently. “I see. Go on.”
“Anyway, the only two things in the world that Ruby wanted more than to be a witch was to marry the man she loved and live forever. She was a strong witch, but she couldn’t make herself importal.”
“Immortal,” Dean corrects automatically.
“That’s what I said. But she could make someone else immortal and then they could change her.”
Dean starts to feel a little dizzy. He leans over to make sure the flaps are open on the tent and they are getting fresh air.
“Are you sick? Did you eat too much?” Ben asks.
“I’m fine. Keep going.”
“The person Ruby was in love with was kind of like a prince. He had a lot of money and he was really good looking and everyone liked him. But he was already in love with someone else. And Ruby had to get rid of person the prince loved first. She went through all her old books until she found a spell to make a doll of a person, a hoo-doo doll.”
“Voodoo.”
“Yeah. And one day, she dressed up like a boy, and hid her hair under a hat, and she wore pants. Pants out in public.” Ben says this as though it were scandalous and Dean has no doubt that Ben is repeating the story exactly as it was told to him. And if Dean admits to that, which he has to because it’s just that obvious, he has to admit he believes in ghosts, to believe in Sarah.
“She walked up behind the person the prince loved and she cut a piece of hair from their neck and all they thought was that a spider had landed on them and they brushed it off. Then Ruby waited for them to stop and say hello to someone and when they did, she bumped into them and sliced a button from their coat. And that was all she needed.”
A cold sweat breaks across Dean’s upper lip and he swipes at it. It would be ridiculous of him to be scared, but he feels a strange sort of vertigo. Maybe too many hotdogs or too much sugar, or possibly the hot chocolate was old. He feels like Ben’s voice is very far away, like if he reached out for Ben, his fingers wouldn’t find him and would only clutch at empty air.
“She made her doll with the hair and the button and when it was ready, she put it on a shelf. And she waited.”
“What was she waiting for?” Dean can’t help but ask.
“She liked waiting. She liked knowing what she was gonna do and that nobody was gonna stop her. But one day, she couldn’t wait anymore and she took the doll and she smashed it on her table. Crack!”
Dean flinches. He barely has time to realize he’s done it before Ben continues.
“And she smashed it again, crack! Crack! And the person the prince loved broke. They broke really bad and there was nothing the doctor could do.” Ben shakes his head sadly.
Dean’s leaning forward toward Ben. “And then?”
“Then Ruby waited some more. She waited for the prince to come see her. The prince knew Ruby knew bad stuff. The prince asked Ruby to save the person he loved. But Ruby… I can’t remember the right word. She told him something and it was a lie.”
“Betrayed? Ruby betrayed him?”
“Yeah, she betrayed him,” Ben says with the knowing nod of nine year olds. “She did some magic and it made the prince a monster, and then she told the prince to go make the person he loved a monster so they will both live forever. But she told him wrong. She did it by purpose.”
“On purpose,” Dean murmurs.
“Yeah. On purpose and when the prince did what she said, the person died.”
Ben stops there and Dean leans forward a millimeter more. “Well?” he prods. “Then what?”
“Well, the prince killed Ruby,” Ben finishes, as though it were obvious.
“And?”
Ben puts his flashlight down. “And nothing. That’s it. That’s the end of the story.”
“There’s got to be more than that,” Dean blurts. He feels tense and anxious and strangely… prickly as though parts of his body have been asleep and are only now waking up.
Ben shrugs. “That’s all Sarah told me.”
He knows that it’s completely irrational but he wants to leave all their stuff, drive back to Collinsport, march up to Pamela’s house, and demand that Ben find Sarah and make her tell him more.
“But… what… that’s a horrible ending.”
Again Ben shrugs. “I thought it was really cool. You should hear Sarah tell it. She tells stories great. She cried when she told me that one.” Ben yawns. “Can I play with my DS for a bit?”
“If you turn the sound off,” Dean replies automatically. Ben scurries over to his backpack and pulls out his Nintendo DS, flicking the sound off and eagerly starting his game. It’s a regular part of their camp-outs, evenings always ending with Ben playing his DS quietly in his sleeping bag while Dean ignores how late he’s staying up.
Dean makes sure Ben is all the way in his sleeping bag before sliding into his own, the tiny DS screen illuminating the tent. He’s stuck on Ben’s story, looping it around in his head. It’s a strange story for a nine year old, and stranger still is Dean’s reaction to it. He feels unsettled and, if he’s honest with himself, a little scared.
He stares up at the fabric ceiling of the tent long after Ben’s screen goes dark and the quiet sounds of Ben snoring fill the tent.
Next Chapter - 15 - Sam Winchester Learns 2 +2 = Vampire in Collinsport
Dean rings the doorbell and swings his keys around his finger, catching them in the palm of his hand. He figures he and Ben have time to stop for slushees on the way out of town and still make it to the campsite before dark to set up the tent. Although he feels bad that he Cas can’t come, and feels worse for completely forgetting for that moment about his sun allergy, he’s looking forward to spending the weekend with Ben. Time with Ben is supremely uncomplicated. Not that Dean’s life is difficult, but when he’s with Ben, they talk about video games and movies, then Ben will try to convince Dean that he needs more candy and Dean will say no at first, and eventually give in.
When they go camping, there’s marshmallows and hot cocoa before bedtime and when they catch fish, they make a royal, disgusting mess out of gutting it, with Ben gleefully explaining that every girl he knows, including his step-mom would be horrified by what they’re doing.
It’s fun and simple. And Dean made sure he has more than enough marshmallows for several rounds of s’mores.
“Dean Winchester.”
He looks up at Pamela saying his name. How she always manages to make his name sound suggestive, he will never know.
“Hey Pam, is Ben ready yet?”
She smiles. “Almost. I tried to help but I was very clearly told that it was guy stuff and he didn’t need me poking around in his things.” She steps back out of the doorway and Dean follows her into the house.
He’s been in the house a few of times, usually just long enough to pick up Ben or drop him off so he’s seen the painting of Castiel Collins before but it’s his first time seeing it since he started dating Cas.
Pamela seems to expect that he’ll want to look at it and pauses quietly while he stares at it.
Jesus, it’s amazing. It’s exactly like him.
“Remarkable, isn’t it?” Pamela drawls.
“Yeah,” he nods. “I, uh… yeah.”
The blue of his eyes is perfectly the same, the cut of the jaw, the focus of his gaze. If he hadn’t already seen the painting, he would think that Cas had just posed for it.
“Anna is going to ask Castiel if he’ll pose for her so she can paint a contemporary one as well,” adds Pamela.
Dean nods absently while still staring at the picture. It’s the kind of painting where the eyes seem to follow the viewer as they move through the room.
Pamela tugs on his sleeve playfully and Dean shakes himself slightly as he trails after her into the drawing room.
She sits on the couch with cat-like grace. “I hear you’ve been spending all your spare time up at the old house. With Castiel.”
One of her eyebrows is delicately arched over her almond eyes and although he’s no spring-chicken, he feels a flush start to creep up his neck.
“Uh, yes.”
“I also hear hearts are breaking all over town at the news that Dean Winchester is firmly off the market.”
Dean chuckles. “I wouldn’t know about that.”
“About the gossip or about the fact that you’re off the market?”
“Er, well, the gossip.” Damn, that woman has x-ray eyes and she’s raking him over with them.
“Mm-hmm,” replies Pam. “I’d like to have you and Castiel over for dinner sometime. You let me know when you have a night off at the pub.”
“You bet. Uh, if we’ve got a few minutes, I was hoping I could talk to you about something? About Ben?”
“Of course.”
“Do you know about this friend he has?” He uses his fingers to put air-quotes around the words.
At his expression, Pamela nods. “Oh, you mean Sarah?”
Dean’s surprised. “Yeah, he’s told you about her?”
Pamela shrugs. “Not really, but I’ve seen her around.”
“You’ve seen her?”
“Yes.”
“Ben said she’s dead,” he blurts.
“She is.”
“Okay, what?”
“She’s dead. She’s a ghost.” Pam’s talking to him like it’s the most common topic of conversation in the world and all Dean can do is stare back.
“Dean, I’ve told you before. I’m psychic,” she says plainly, gently, as though he’s a child.
“Yeah, but-”
“But you didn’t believe me. I know. Doesn’t mean it’s not true.”
Cracked. She’s totally cracked. “So you’re telling me that this friend of Ben’s, this Sarah is…”
“A ghost. Yes.”
“And you’ve seen her.” Incredulity coats his words. He can’t believe they’re standing here essentially arguing about ghosts. Even if he ever thought he would argue about them, he certainly never thought he’d have to convince someone that they don’t just hang around.
“Here and there. She used to spend a lot of time here but now I think she spends more time up at the old house. She probably used to live there.”
She says it all casually with a shrug. Like she and Dean have similar discussions every day.
“And this is all okay with you? This is all perfectly normal and doesn’t worry you?”
“Should it?”
“She’s dead! And Ben… well, he… talks to her! And they roam around and do… stuff.”
“Yes, stuff like looking for rocks and building forts in the woods. I believe they’re also reading Swiss Family Robinson. Hardly the stuff of nightmares. It’s harmless. At least I know where he is. He could be out getting into drugs or god only knows what else kids get into these days, but instead, he prefers to spend his time poking around the estate, searching for buried treasure.”
“With a dead girl.”
She waves her hand like this is unimportant. “Dean, I’m sure this is all very… surreal for you, but I’ve dealt with this my whole life. One of the reasons I married Ben’s father is because he was gifted as well and understood me. Clearly he passed that gift on to Ben. Ben seems happy. He’s doing well in school, he has friends other than Sarah, and it’s not as though he’s cut off from the world. And he has you. Now, if he suddenly turned down a weekend of camping with you so he could hang around here with Sarah, or if he asked me to buy him a half dozen hamsters for a ritual sacrifice…” she shrugs. “Then I might start to be concerned. But to him, she’s just another friend.”
“Even though she’s dead.”
“Even though.”
Dean’s still not sure he believes Pam. Maybe she’s the one that’s crazy and she’s feeding this stuff to Ben, and he’s young, impressionable and falls for it. Or maybe both her and Ben are hallucinating, or sick. It could happen. Happens all the time on those bizarre medical dramas. Shared hallucinations brought on by toxic mold, this is an old house, after all
“We don’t have toxic mold, Dean Winchester.”
He jumps back a bit. Pamela’s always been good at reading him but she’s never been that good.
“Well, I figured you needed a little demonstration but, I don’t make a habit of rooting around in your brain, I’ve got better things to do, trust me. Unless you want to start sharing about how much time you’ve been spending up at the old Estate with Castiel?”
Dean gulps. Work, think of work, think of Sam, think of the Impala. Yes! The Impala with its deep engine, low purr that’s just like Cas’… No! Car, car, think of the car.
Pamela laughs, throaty and happy, waving him off with a hand. “Go. Go get Ben and go do your manly man things out in the woods.”
He wouldn’t say he exactly scampers out of the drawing room, but it’s pretty damn close.
***
It’s just starting to cool off, the damp air taking on a chill by the time Dean has the tent set up and a fire going in the pit. Ben’s flipping through comic books catching Dean up on the latest happenings in the Pokemon world.
Dean tries to focus, he really does, but it’s all mumbo jumbo to him. Ben rolls his eyes several times at the questions Dean asks. Dean clearly doesn’t get it. They roast hot dogs for dinner and Dean tosses one into the fire so they can watch it swell up and explode in boyish delight. Ben’s a non-stop chatter box about school, video games, comic books, his friends, and April, who is still apparently his girlfriend and now they even stand next to each other in line after recess, so things have progressed. It’s quite the serious step from the way Ben tells it.
After dinner, Dean toasts marshmallows and stuffs them between graham crackers with bits of chocolate. Ben proclaims he’s old enough to assemble his own, but the first time Dean lets him try, he attempts to put the s’more together while the marshmallow is still on fire.
Dean is master chef of all s’mores after that.
Dean eats far too many and at one point seriously thinks he might be sick. He manages to keep it together and even makes them both a cup of hot cocoa before bedtime.
Tucked into their sleeping bags, Dean’s got his flashlight shining up under his chin while Ben’s is laying flat in his lap.
“… and that’s when they hear the sound… scrape, scrape, scrape. Then one of the guys in the back seat says he remembers reading that morning that a serial killer had escaped from the insane asylum…”
“How?” Ben interrupted.
“What? I don’t know how, he just got out. Anyway, the serial killer only had one hand, on the other was. A. HOOK!”
Ben is totally not impressed and doesn’t even flinch at Dean’s shout.
“Why did they let him keep the hook if he was in jail?” Ben asked.
Dean paused again. “I don’t know. He found it. When he escaped. He found a locker of all his stuff and he found his rusty hook.”
“Why was it rusty?”
“Because it had been sitting in a locker for all those years,” Dean answers, exasperated.
“But why’d they keep it at all? It should have been locked up for evidence. That’s what they do on CSI.”
“This is before CSI,” Dean argues. This was a lot easier with Sam when he was little.
“Is this an old serial killer?”
Dean sighs and drops his flashlight to his lap. “Dude, this is the best story I have.”
Ben shrugs. “Sorry, but it’s kinda lame.”
Dean rolls his eyes. “Fine. Tell me more about Pokemon.” He makes a ‘come on’ gesture with his hand. Part of the fun of camping is staying up late and Dean figures he can take about an hour more of Pokemon before he calls lights out.
“Um, I kind of know a story,” Ben hedges.
“Is this a Pokemon story?”
“No.”
“Super Mario Brothers?”
“No.”
“Is this gonna be like that time you told me all of Star Wars and tried to convince me you wrote it?”
“That was you!”
Dean laughs. “So it was. Okay, I’m listening.” Especially if it’s not Pokemon.
Ben tips his own flashlight up so it’s shining under his chin, just like Dean had before. “Um, like a long time ago, there was a witch that lived in Collinsport. And her name was Ruby.”
Dean shivers slightly and he looks over his shoulder, checking for a draft or crack in the tent seam but there isn’t one. He turns back to Ben.
“And Ruby was really mean. She would kick dogs when she saw them on the street and she never took her gloves off when she went in someone's house and that was really rude. Her hair was always down and she never tied it up properly and her dresses were…” Ben pauses like he’s trying to recall a certain word. “… improper.”
Dean frowns. That’s an unusual word choice for Ben, but Dean doesn’t say anything.
“And Ruby didn’t ever go to church. ‘cause she was a witch and God would strike her down if she set foot inside a holy building. She rode a big brown horse and it was scrawny and never fed enough and Ruby would whip it when she rode it because the horse wouldn’t go fast enough for her. Most people in town thought she was just mean, but she was a witch.”
“Where did you hear this story, Ben?” Dean asks, concerned at Ben’s odd words.
“Sarah told me,” Ben says easily.
Dean nods absently. “I see. Go on.”
“Anyway, the only two things in the world that Ruby wanted more than to be a witch was to marry the man she loved and live forever. She was a strong witch, but she couldn’t make herself importal.”
“Immortal,” Dean corrects automatically.
“That’s what I said. But she could make someone else immortal and then they could change her.”
Dean starts to feel a little dizzy. He leans over to make sure the flaps are open on the tent and they are getting fresh air.
“Are you sick? Did you eat too much?” Ben asks.
“I’m fine. Keep going.”
“The person Ruby was in love with was kind of like a prince. He had a lot of money and he was really good looking and everyone liked him. But he was already in love with someone else. And Ruby had to get rid of person the prince loved first. She went through all her old books until she found a spell to make a doll of a person, a hoo-doo doll.”
“Voodoo.”
“Yeah. And one day, she dressed up like a boy, and hid her hair under a hat, and she wore pants. Pants out in public.” Ben says this as though it were scandalous and Dean has no doubt that Ben is repeating the story exactly as it was told to him. And if Dean admits to that, which he has to because it’s just that obvious, he has to admit he believes in ghosts, to believe in Sarah.
“She walked up behind the person the prince loved and she cut a piece of hair from their neck and all they thought was that a spider had landed on them and they brushed it off. Then Ruby waited for them to stop and say hello to someone and when they did, she bumped into them and sliced a button from their coat. And that was all she needed.”
A cold sweat breaks across Dean’s upper lip and he swipes at it. It would be ridiculous of him to be scared, but he feels a strange sort of vertigo. Maybe too many hotdogs or too much sugar, or possibly the hot chocolate was old. He feels like Ben’s voice is very far away, like if he reached out for Ben, his fingers wouldn’t find him and would only clutch at empty air.
“She made her doll with the hair and the button and when it was ready, she put it on a shelf. And she waited.”
“What was she waiting for?” Dean can’t help but ask.
“She liked waiting. She liked knowing what she was gonna do and that nobody was gonna stop her. But one day, she couldn’t wait anymore and she took the doll and she smashed it on her table. Crack!”
Dean flinches. He barely has time to realize he’s done it before Ben continues.
“And she smashed it again, crack! Crack! And the person the prince loved broke. They broke really bad and there was nothing the doctor could do.” Ben shakes his head sadly.
Dean’s leaning forward toward Ben. “And then?”
“Then Ruby waited some more. She waited for the prince to come see her. The prince knew Ruby knew bad stuff. The prince asked Ruby to save the person he loved. But Ruby… I can’t remember the right word. She told him something and it was a lie.”
“Betrayed? Ruby betrayed him?”
“Yeah, she betrayed him,” Ben says with the knowing nod of nine year olds. “She did some magic and it made the prince a monster, and then she told the prince to go make the person he loved a monster so they will both live forever. But she told him wrong. She did it by purpose.”
“On purpose,” Dean murmurs.
“Yeah. On purpose and when the prince did what she said, the person died.”
Ben stops there and Dean leans forward a millimeter more. “Well?” he prods. “Then what?”
“Well, the prince killed Ruby,” Ben finishes, as though it were obvious.
“And?”
Ben puts his flashlight down. “And nothing. That’s it. That’s the end of the story.”
“There’s got to be more than that,” Dean blurts. He feels tense and anxious and strangely… prickly as though parts of his body have been asleep and are only now waking up.
Ben shrugs. “That’s all Sarah told me.”
He knows that it’s completely irrational but he wants to leave all their stuff, drive back to Collinsport, march up to Pamela’s house, and demand that Ben find Sarah and make her tell him more.
“But… what… that’s a horrible ending.”
Again Ben shrugs. “I thought it was really cool. You should hear Sarah tell it. She tells stories great. She cried when she told me that one.” Ben yawns. “Can I play with my DS for a bit?”
“If you turn the sound off,” Dean replies automatically. Ben scurries over to his backpack and pulls out his Nintendo DS, flicking the sound off and eagerly starting his game. It’s a regular part of their camp-outs, evenings always ending with Ben playing his DS quietly in his sleeping bag while Dean ignores how late he’s staying up.
Dean makes sure Ben is all the way in his sleeping bag before sliding into his own, the tiny DS screen illuminating the tent. He’s stuck on Ben’s story, looping it around in his head. It’s a strange story for a nine year old, and stranger still is Dean’s reaction to it. He feels unsettled and, if he’s honest with himself, a little scared.
He stares up at the fabric ceiling of the tent long after Ben’s screen goes dark and the quiet sounds of Ben snoring fill the tent.
Next Chapter - 15 - Sam Winchester Learns 2 +2 = Vampire in Collinsport